Bombshell

Chapter Eleven Mad Tea Party

Washed in the ivory glow of a full moon on this clear starry night, the homely portly man and the lovely young woman — looking a bit like father and daughter, or perhaps uncle and niece — sat in a large teacup.

The pair had the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party attraction to themselves, that whirling ride of colorful Volkswagen-sized cups-on-saucers, which was motionless at the moment, and… like everything else in the vast amusement park around them… shrouded in darkness but for the occasional security light. Across the way, its garishly painted movie-flat-style façade muted in the wee hours, stood Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, free of laughter and screams, draped in an eerie stillness, while the turrets of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle loomed starkly over all, its fairy-tale majesty turned ominous and medieval by night.

In her jeans and knotted-at-the-navel plaid blouse, Marilyn Monroe — sitting close to Nikita Khrushchev — shivered, and not merely from the cool night breeze. Beyond them, a gentle wind sang in a ghostly voice as it swirled the dust of the hard-dirt floor of the midway, carrying off candy wrappers like captives. A crushed Mouseketeer cap, one of its ears ripped askew, lay discarded on the ground.

Evidence that people had once been there.

It was as if the bomb had dropped, Marilyn thought, and she and Khrushchev were the only ones left alive in a city whose buildings still stood, but where life had been snuffed out by radiation. It was as if, beyond the vast orange groves, Los Angeles had vanished, destroyed in one horrific second, leveled in a white flash, leaving only piles of ashes on bare bones…

“You’ll think me silly,” she whispered to her gnome-like companion, “but I’m… frightened.”

With a smile of surprising warmth, Khrushchev took her hand; his hand was warm too, and firm, giving her comfort.

“I also am frightened,” he admitted, without shame, his voice as strong as his face was placid. He might have been a suitor, holding his sweetheart’s hand, under a moonlit sky.

They had been mostly silent during the twenty-five-minute drive from Beverly Hills, taking the all-but-deserted Santa Monica Freeway south, to the Disneyland exit. Khrushchev did not question her idea to hide him at the amusement park, but she’d explained her thinking, nonetheless.

“We need to get you out of the city,” she said, “and then in the morning, when there are crowds at the park… do you know our expression, ‘safety in numbers’?”

“No,” he said, “but it is good one.”

“It is,” she nodded. “In the morning, we’ll contact the authorities… and the press… and you’ll be safe, from whoever it is that’s after you.”

Khrushchev did not share his thinking with the actress, but he agreed with her strategy — right now he could not know who was involved in this conspiracy. Was it a coup? Or had his “loyal” KGB men been bribed by an enemy, the Nationalist Chinese perhaps? By morning his own troops would rally, and that agent Harrigan — about the only American he trusted right now — would have sorted much of it out, the surface at least, though the twisting undercurrent of a conspiracy might remain concealed. Certainly the premier was not about to go to the local police, who were the minions of Mayor Poulson, who himself could have put the assassination attempt in motion, out of some misguided sense of patriotism.

“Will your family be all right?” the actress asked with touching concern, looking over at him as she drove.

“I believe so. They are not targets. Only I… Will we hide among the people at Disneyland?”

“Oh, there’s no one there now — it’s closed.”

“And how will we get in?”

She smiled a little. “We’ll sneak in.”

“Won’t there be guards?”

“No. Not even a night watchman. The local police keep an eye on it, but there’s no security staff or anything.”

“Los Angeles police?”

“No — Anaheim.”

“Anna who?”

“Anaheim… it’s a city. Not a city really — a little town. That’s where Disneyland is close to.”

Marilyn had been a guest at the amusement park — built on one hundred and sixty acres surrounded by orange groves — when it had opened just four years ago near tiny Anaheim. She’d been given an after-hours tour by Walt Disney himself — Mr. Disney had great affection for her, ever since she’d posed gratis for his artists who were designing Tinker Bell for his movie Peter Pan — and had left the park when things were closing up and the security people were leaving. Mr. Disney had mentioned to her that the Anaheim police kept an eye on Disneyland for him, after dark.

She hoped things hadn’t changed since then.

As she had exited the freeway and onto an asphalt road that led to the park, Khrushchev leaned forward, peering through the windshield, straining to get a first glimpse of the extraordinary American landmark.

Marilyn had been going over and over the assassination attempt in her mind, and assumed her companion had been doing the same. But right now — as they approached the train-station front entry to the park, the immense empty asphalt parking lot at left — the premier seemed unconcerned with the threat on his life, and more like just another impatient kid, anxious to get to Disneyland.

“Is locked,” he had said disappointedly, as they passed by the dark entrance, its front gate shut tight for the night.

“Don’t worry,” she replied, waving this off, “that’s not our way in, anyway.” Remembering her own visit, and how she’d been smuggled inside from the back, she was heading around behind the sprawling acreage.

Following the Disneyland railroad line, the lane curved around the property, which was protected by a chain link fence (“I do not think that this we can climb,” Khrushchev opined). Marilyn drove slowly — with only the moonlight to guide her — and it seemed to take forever, with no view of the park at all, merely a vague sense of trees and foliage.

Finally the chain link fence ended, giving way to a carefully planted border of bushes and trees. At the back of the park was a dirt access road — a service and employee entrance — which branched off at left to some Quonset hut equipment sheds, and curved to the right where soon a waist-high metal gate barred the way.

“That,” Nikita said, “we can climb.”

And they did, after parking the Buick back behind some tall bushes, the premier graciously lifting the actress up by her small waist, so that she could hop over the barrier; and then he climbed over himself, surprisingly nimble.

Marilyn took the lead as the unlikely couple strolled in the moonlight, first across the railroad tracks, and then across landscaped grass to the midway, where a pole offered signs pointing in various directions.

Marilyn, a veteran of Disneyland, explained their options. To the left was Tomorrowland, with a spaceship ride and exhibits by major American industries. To the right lay Adventureland, where riverboats churned along a tropical river (when the park was open, that is); and Frontierland, with stagecoaches and paddle-wheel steamers. Straight ahead was Fantasyland, the home of Sleeping Beauty and Never Never Land.

“Let us rest,” Nikita suggested.

On the midway, next to a carousel, was the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party attraction, which had caught Khrushchev’s attention — he smiled as he surveyed the surrealistically oversize cups, decorated with modern-art squiggles. And it was there they now rested, sitting in a teacup, whose center was a circular wheel for children to hold onto, when the party was going strong.

Finally, Marilyn broached the subject they had both avoided, the elephant in the living room no one was mentioning (a Dumbo attraction nearby may have sparked this comparison in her mind). And they began to openly discuss… to confront… the assassination attempt that had brought them to the slumbering Magic Kingdom.

“It just couldn’t have been America that did this terrible thing to you,” Marilyn said.

“No?” Nikita grunted a humorless laugh. “America hates me.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true — some people fear you, maybe… but that’s how you want it, isn’t it?”

That made him smile a little; he shrugged a partial admission of guilt.

“Anyway,” she continued, “it’s not our way — assassinations just don’t happen here.”

“Oh? Tell that to your President Lincoln.”

“That was a long time ago, Premier Khrushchev.”

He touched her hand. “Not so formal, please. Call me Nikita. We are friends.”

She placed her other hand over his. “Then you must call me Marilyn.”

“Marilyn. Is lovely name.”

“Nikita has a certain… poetry, too.”

He chuckled. “That is first time I have heard such.”

Somewhere crickets chirped… real ones, not Jiminy.

Tentatively, Marilyn said, “Those men tonight… they weren’t Americans. They were your people…”

“Working perhaps for you.”

Her forehead tensed. “I… I wish you wouldn’t say it that way. It sounds like you think I sent them, personally.”

The sublimely ugly face melted into an apologetic smile. “Sweet child, I did not mean this.”

“I know… I know.” Marilyn shook her head. “And you’re right — someone must have hired those two… the ones I heard talking. But someone else double-crossed them.”

He frowned in confusion; his eyes almost disappeared into his face. “What is this… ‘double-crossed’?”

Marilyn looked up at the sky, and the moon and a million stars stared back; she felt very small, but surprisingly — considering their situation — safe. Their discussion of death and double-dealing seemed oddly abstract.

She told him, “Double-cross is when someone you trust puts a knife in your back.”

Nikita let go of her hand and turned his massive body away from her. Muttering to himself, though still speaking English, he said, “Who could this someone be?”

“In your case?”

He looked at her, mildly surprised she had responded to his rhetorical question as if he’d posed it to her. The premier of Russia normally did not, after all, turn to actresses for political insights.

“Well, let me think for a second…” She placed one platinum-painted fingertip to her lips, and furrowed her brow, a child in class racking her brain for just the right answer.

He patted her hand. “Dear friend, I only meant—”

“My best guess would be Red China.”

The eyes of the fat man sitting in the oversize teacup were large as saucers. Then he threw back his bucket head, and laughed heartily.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“This answer — I am… impressed you would offer your… opinion. But this is not good opinion. Meaning no offense.”

“Not a good opinion, huh?”

“Surely you know that the Chinese, they are fellow communists, our comrades.”

“And here I thought you got it when I explained what a double-cross was.”

The premier’s smile faded, and his eyes narrowed again. “What do you mean by this?” he asked, something sharp in the previously friendly voice.

Marilyn shrugged, folding her arms over her bosom. “It’s just that I’ve found in my life that it’s the people I trust most who end up hurting me.”

Nikita grunted and folded his own arms and lapsed into a brooding silence. Was he displeased with her remark? She decided to change the subject.

“You know,” she said, “I read the speech you gave in Moscow to the Twentieth Congress… after you took over from Stalin?”

He frowned, skeptically. “This is not possible.”

“Oh but it is possible. I read every word of it.”

His mouth dropped open. “Even I,” he said, astonishment widening his eyes, “do not have a complete transcript of this speech. I did not write — I speak for six hours, from my mind.” He tapped his skull with a thick finger. Then he leaned close to her, the eyes in his face like ball bearings. “Where did you get this?”

Another shrug. “From the State Department.”

Nikita just stared at her.

“If you want a copy,” she said, “I could probably get you one.”

His smile was wry but his eyes were admiring, and not just of her beauty. He spoke in hushed tones. “We are first in space, yes. But in spying…” He shook his head. “…you Americans always win.”

Matter-of-factly, Marilyn explained: “I told Agent Harrigan that I just had to read that speech, before I’d agree to meet you… I just had to know.”

He squinted at her, curiously. “Know? Know what?”

She touched his chest, the silk of the pajama top smooth as a baby’s bottom. “What was in your heart, silly.” To this day she wished she’d insisted on such research on the President of Indonesia.

Nikita said nothing, his face empty… and yet filled, for the first time, with a humanity that revealed the man behind the world-leader façade.

Marilyn reached out and took his hand and squeezed it. “Your anguish… it was genuine.” Her voice was hushed, reverent. “I’m not embarrassed to say it made me cry.”

Nikita turned his face away from her. And when he looked back his eyes seemed moist, or was that only the reflection of moonlight?

For several long moments, neither said a word.

Finally, Nikita Khrushchev spoke.

“When I was younger, Stalin was like a father to me.” Another humorless laugh rumbled his chest. “But at end, he was sick… sick in his head. You could only trust him like… like you could trust ice in late spring.” Nikita heaved a world-weary sigh.

She said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

He did. “Lenin warned Central Committee. On his deathbed he say, do not pick Stalin as my successor! Because he knew this man was ruthless and would abuse power. But old fools do not listen. Imagine this! To not listen to father of our country! If George Washington said, ‘This is man you should not trust,’…

you would not trust that man, am I right?… But they thought they knew better than Lenin.” He smirked disgustedly, adding, “As my people say, long whiskers cannot take place of brains.”

Again Marilyn said nothing, sensing his need to talk.

“So many, many Russians died in purges,” Nikita said, shaking his head, sorrow in his eyes. “Best we had — doctors, teachers, engineers… all killed as ‘Enemies of People.’ You see, Stalin — he was afraid of intelligentsia. They might question his directives.”

He smacked a fist into a palm, making her jump a little.

“And military!” he said, eyes flaring. “He executed most of Old Guard in Red Army — honest men, good men — men I have serve with, who go to their deaths not knowing why. I tell you, dear friend, it is wonder we defeated Germany.”

She was shaking her head in dread. “But… but how could he be so… vicious…?”

“How could Hitler murder so many? When madness starts, it is hard to stop.” Nikita lowered his head. “I should have seen it, what was happening. My lids were open, but my eyes… my eyes, they were closed.”

Marilyn rested a hand on his shoulder. “You mustn’t blame yourself for what somebody else did.”

“Once,” Nikita continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, “I go to see Stalin. I say, ‘Comrade, I have reports that the people in Ukraine are starving, we must do something.’ Well, Stalin did not want to hear that collective farms were not working. ‘Nonsense,’ was all he said. So I got on train and go down there.”

She listened intently, fascinated by the frankness of this man, this powerful man.

“When I arrive,” he was saying, “I start to… poke around. I go to this rundown shack outside village. There I find woman standing behind wood table with butcher knife in hand. On table is slab of cut-up meat and she poke knife at me, afraid I will take her meal. I say, ‘Dear lady, I do not want your meat. I want to know how you are and if you have food.’ She looked up at me with crazy eyes and she say, ‘Already I have eaten Little Maria. Now I will salt down Little Ivan. This will keep me for some time.’ ”

Marilyn gasped.

Nikita nodded at her unspoken question. “It is as you imagine: this woman had gone crazy with hunger and butchered her own children.”

“But… but I can’t imagine,” Marilyn said, horrified, covering her mouth with splayed fingers.

Nikita sat, frozen with the terrible memory.

After a moment, Marilyn managed to ask, “What… what did you do then?”

“What would any man do? I ran outside and emptied stomach in snow.” He let out a breath, swallowed. “Then I go back to Moscow to see Stalin. But my plea for more food to Ukraine, it falls on deaf ears. He was rude and most insulting and called me dubious character.” Nikita looked down at the hands in his lap. “Millions of people died of starvation that winter… and many of dead became only food the living could get.”

“Oh, dear God,” Marilyn gasped.

“God?” He raised an eyebrow. “We have proverb — ‘Pray to God if you must… but take care of your garden.’ ”

Marilyn, horror-struck, said nothing.

“Afterward,” Nikita went on, “Stalin began to look at me as troublemaker. I find out later Secret Police going to take me away, and have me eliminated… but I come down with pneumonia, very ill, in bed for six months. By time I get well, Stalin has change of mind — that happened with him, many times — he even reassigned me back to Ukraine.”

Marilyn felt numb; she hugged herself, shivering. “Someone should have killed him.”

Nikita laughed hollowly. “Ah, this coming from citizen of country where there is no assassination?… Forgive me… I hurt your feelings… I am sure some tried to kill Stalin. But Stalin, he was very clever in his madness. He rarely left his dacha — which had more and more locks on it each time I came. Whenever I would return to Moscow, he would have me over for dinner. I would dread these affairs, because he would say, ‘Oh, look, Nikita Sergeyevich, here is your favorite dish — herring.’ That meant I was to taste it to see if it was poisoned. If I stayed upright in my chair, then he would have some, too.”

Wide-eyed, Marilyn asked, “Did you always taste it?”

“How could I not?” Nikita said with a fatalistic shrug. “These dinners, they were frightful. They go on for hours, because Stalin, he was terribly lonely. Usually American movie afterward, brought by Minister of Cinematography, fellow named Bolshakov. He was supposed to interpret, but didn’t know English, so instead he would say, ‘Now the man’s leaving room… now he’s walking across street,’ and Stalin would yell, ‘I can see that, you idiot! But what does he say?’ So I was ordered to translate.”

She smiled a little, the first time in a while. “Did you ever show any of my films?”

Nikita shook his head, made a face in the negative. “Stalin had huge library of films, but mostly he watch cowboy pictures. He would curse at them, but always order another — cowboys, only cowboys.”

“Do you screen anything besides ‘cowboy pictures’?”

“I never show cowboy pictures!… Except John Wayne. John Wayne, I like… This summer I saw your Some Like It Hot.” He gave her a shy, sideways look. “If I may say… you were prih-krashs-nuh!”

Marilyn beamed; the word wasn’t included in her limited Russian vocabulary, but she would take it as a compliment. And his opinion meant the world to her. “That’s very kind of you to say,” she said, almost as shyly.

Nikita grasped her hand again, giving it a firm pat. “Why don’t you come to Moscow?” he said, and he gestured to the sleeping park around them. “You could be much bigger star in Russia! You could make your own movies. Produce, direct, choose only script you approve… I see how they treat you here… It is disgrace.”

Marilyn’s smile turned wistful. “I wonder…” What would her life be like in Russia? She gazed up at the stars, musing, “Dostoevsky said Mother Russia was a freak of nature — maybe that’s why I identify with her… because that’s what people say about me.”

Nikita blustered: “Such stupid people are wrong! Why, Miss Monroe… Marilyn… you are the most beautiful, talented woman in any country!”

The compliment stunned her.

“But I,” he said, his voice nearly inaudible now, all the bravado gone, “must be ‘freak’ to one so beautiful.”

Marilyn squeezed his hand, shaking her head slowly. “You know, that’s one thing men never seem to understand about me,” she said. “What’s on the outside doesn’t attract me — it’s what’s on the inside.”

She moved closer to him and whispered in a devil-like ear. “I think I know how to make the cold war a little warmer…”

He turned his homely face to her, not sure of her meaning.

So she explained by kissing him on the lips. Softly. Sweetly.

When their lips parted, she could see, even in the pale moonlight, that his cheeks were flushed. The effect she had on men never failed to amaze her. Or amuse her.

After an awkward silence, a flustered Nikita asked with forced gruffness, “And what is so great about teacup?”

Marilyn eyed him curiously. “What do you mean?”

Nikita gestured around him dismissively, as if it hadn’t been his own childish interest that had brought them to this attraction. “What is so wonderful about sitting in teacup that would make people pay money?”

“Well, you don’t just sit… you spin.”

He frowned in confusion. “Spin?”

She twirled one finger in the air. “You know, in a circle? But the ride has to be turned on. Needs power.”

He gave her half a smile. “Power is my specialty.”

She laughed. “Maybe not this kind.”

“You mean, electricity?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I know electricity,” he exclaimed, puffing himself up, “is like brother, like sister.”

“Really?”

“Who do you think built Moscow subway?”

Nikita scooted on the seat around the circular wheel, and stepped out of the little opening of the cup onto the wooden platform.

Tugging down her knotted shirt, Marilyn did the same.

“You’d have to get the cover off of that,” she said, standing on the edge of the platform, pointing to a metal box on a short pole next to the ride. “And it looks locked.”

“What if I have key?”

“Key?”

Nikita stepped down off the ride and again Marilyn followed. The Russian removed one of his heavy brown shoes and gave the box a tremendous whack!

And the cover fell off its hinges.

Marilyn gasped a laugh, then said, “But that’s private property!”

“I have… how is it called? Diplomatic immunity!”

Inside the box were two buttons, one red, the other green. Marilyn, at Nikita’s side, said, “In our country, red means ‘stop’ and green ‘go.’ ”

“In our country,” Nikita said, eyes twinkling like a mischievous elf, “ ‘red’ has other meaning. But, please — instruct me.”

“Okay,” she said, and pushed the green button. Behind them the ride began to creak and groan.

“Oh, it’s starting!” Marilyn said excitedly.

Nikita was frowning, though. “Do we attract attention?”

“No — we’re a million miles away from the real world. Come on… don’t be a ’fraidy cat.”

She grasped his hand, and they hopped up onto the moving platform, which was increasing in speed, and jumped into the first twirling cup that came by.

At first Nikita’s eyes were huge and he seemed terrified. But then Marilyn giggled at him and grabbed onto the steering wheel and gave it a twist, making the cup whirl.

Soon a grinning Nikita Khrushchev was gleefully crying, “Wheeeeeee!”

And the sight of the premier of Russia, behaving like a kid, made Marilyn Monroe break out in gales of uncontrollable laughter.

“This,” he yelled, “is special teacup!”

“Oh yes!” she shouted back. “But how are we going to stop it? I’m getting… getting dizzy!”

After another minute or so, sensing Marilyn was on the verge of seasickness, Nikita said in her ear, “For you I will stop this special cup!”

Struggling out of the spinning thing, Nikita made his way across the wooden platform floor, weaving like a Cossack who couldn’t hold his vodka, then hopped off the edge of the ride, and disappeared.

After a moment Marilyn felt the teacups begin to slow, finally coming to a stop.

A breathless Marilyn staggered over to join Nikita on the ground beside the now-still teacup ride.

“That was what I call fun,” she exclaimed, pushing her tousled blonde hair back in place.

“Yes, is what we call fun, also,” Nikita admitted. “What box can we break now?”

Marilyn laughed, but shook her head. “We really shouldn’t, you know…”

Nikita gave her a surprised look. “Why not? I was promised Disneyland. Is only fair.”

“Well…” She eyed him as if he were a precocious child. No one was around for miles — they were alone in the huge park… what was the harm? “All right,” she said. “But just to preserve world peace.”

“Is noble goal.” Nikita thrust a thick finger, pointing across the midway to where colorful flags flapped in the gentle breeze over a faux-brick front. “What is this ride?”

She laughed. “Mr. Toad’s Ride… his Wild Ride, to be exact.”

He seemed skeptical. “And who is this Mr. Toad?”

“Well… a toad is sort of a frog. You know what that is, don’t you?”

He made a face. “Bah — frogs and mice… Why is everything in Disney’s land small forest creatures?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re cute.”

Nikita grunted. “Frogs are to be eaten and mice killed.”

“Come along,” Marilyn said, looping her arm in his, “and I’ll tell you about Mr. Toad. It’s a good story.”

“I doubt this. Most good stories are by Russians.”

Mrs. Arthur Miller ignored this, and, as they walked toward the ride, she began, “Mr. Toad was very rich, but he was an irresponsible fellow…”

“I have known such a man,” Nikita interrupted. “But he was snake named Stalin. He would not want to take Wild Ride, believe me. He would hide under table.”

She kept walking him along. “…and one day Mr. Toad got his hands on an automobile. Only Froggy didn’t know how to drive, at least not very well.”

Marilyn continued the fable as she and Nikita approached the ride’s dark entrance, unaware that someone else had already slipped inside.

Someone who, like them, was an uninvited guest at the Magic Kingdom.