Dark Light

23

There were two photos on the piano, black-and-white glossies, and I looked from one to the other as Chestra played softly. She’d changed into a lime satin robe and heeled slippers. I stood barefoot on a towel; another wrapped around my neck.

Coincidentally, she was playing the melody I’d heard while eavesdropping from the beach—a song I recognized but had yet to ask its name.

One photo was of the boat that had sunk on the night of 19 October 1944. It was a beauty—a thirty-eight-foot Matthews, according to information on the back. From the data that was noted, I would’ve known a man had written it even if I hadn’t seen the precise masculine hand.

Built 1939, Port Clinton, Ohio. Oak keel, double oak frame, Philippine mahogany planking. Master cabin and crew quarters bunks six. Twin gas engines, Chrysler straight-8s. Top speed, 25 knots, range 400 miles.

Yes, a beauty. A vessel that had been much loved, judging from the number of times it was a backdrop for family photos. But this was the first full shot of it I’d seen—taken from the beach, probably, because the aspect was from the vessel’s port side, forward of the bow.

The photo showed the boat under way, a white wake breaking beneath bow stringers, yacht pennants flying from the wooden radio mast and bow pulpit, all indicators of speed. It was a classic design from that era: low, roomy wheelhouse, three portholes forward, a stern deck that was open. Lashed to the stern was a wooden dinghy; an American flag on the transom above it, catching the wind.

The boat’s hull and wheelhouse roof were painted black or midnight blue. The decking and cabin frame were amber-stained mahogany; the wheelhouse roof was painted white.

The vessel’s name was Dark Light. It’s rare when a boat is christened with a name that fits. Most suffer cutesy double entendres, or names that are saccharine sweet attempts at poetry. I’ve never named a boat for the simple reason that I lack the imagination. Dark Light was perfect for this vessel. It celebrated her hull color, and also her quickness—twenty-five knots was lightning fast in those times. Even now, it’s fast for a boat her size. The name was subtle and esoteric, like her understated design.

It had been a tragedy to lose a craft so articulately made to a storm. But Dark Light hadn’t fallen to just any storm. Arlis had seeded the date in my memory: 19 October 1944. A hurricane had flooded Sanibel on that date. It was a storm that had killed several hundred people. Among the dead were Cuban fishermen who were buried on the same beach where the body of another victim was found: Marlissa Dorn.

I’d just visited the woman’s grave. Now I picked up her photo and looked at it closely for the first time.

I expected to be disappointed by this “extraordinary beauty,” as she was described by Chestra.

I wasn’t.

The photograph was a black-and-white glossy, eight-by-ten, framed and glassed. It was a Hollywood-style glamour shot that I associate with film stars from the 1930s and ’40s. Full length, professional lighting.

Marlissa Dorn wore a black gown that accentuated how she would look if a man were lucky enough to see her naked: long legs, sensual symmetry of hips, breasts full and firm enough to resume their natural curvature once free of the garment’s constraints.

The gown was black but glittered with sequins. She stood with hip canted to one side, her opposite hand held at eye level, a cigarette between her fingers. The woman was leaning against a black grand piano as if taking a break from performing.

I glanced at Chestra and studied her face for a moment as she sat at the piano and continued to play. I returned my attention to the photo.

Marlissa’s cigarette was freshly lit. The smoke formed a lucent arc with the same curvilinear contour as her hips and breasts. She was staring through cigarette smoke at the camera, her hair combed full and glossy to her shoulder, head tilted in a way that emphasized the intensity of her gaze and the dimensions of her perfect face.

Her eyes were shadowed, I noticed. It added an exotic, smoldering effect.

The photo had been lighted and composed by a superb craftsman. The photographer also had an extraordinary subject to work with.

There were photographs in this house of several women who resembled Marlissa Dorn—the delicacy of chin, the swollen weight of lips, her body, her eyes. But the genetic pool had found a separate and elevated balance in this woman.

“Isn’t she the most exquisite thing you’ve ever seen?” Chestra spoke without looking up from the keys.

A few faces came into my mind—film stars from the same era. Rita Hayworth. Lauren Bacall. Veronica Lake. Women who were signature beauties of their generation. I prefer women whose beauty requires time to assemble. The appeal is more private. But there was no denying that Marlissa Dorn was among the rarest of the rare.

“Yes. She’s very pretty.” Once again, my eyes moved from the photograph to Chestra. There were startling family similarities. I noted the shape of Marlissa’s chin, the wide full lips, the eye spacing…

“Please don’t flatter me by saying I look like Marlissa. Tommy did the same thing. I’m all too aware that she was in an entirely different league.”

I paused a moment to inspect her intonation. There was subtext of some kind. Drama. Or was it jealousy? I find beautiful women intimidating. Most men do—the cliché of the prettiest girl in school who can’t get a date is experientially based. Women are intimidated as well. Beauty is supposed to be only skin-deep but it’s not. Beauty is power. Its facial components can be described mathematically, but emotionally it is nature’s prime currency. We attempt to trivialize beauty’s power because it makes us uneasy, even as we covet it.

I shrugged. The woman was commenting on a family legend, so I let it go. “Your godmother was gorgeous, no question. This looks like a PR shot. I’m surprised movie producers didn’t mob her.”

The woman stopped playing, but the piano’s sustain pedal let the melody echo. “Oh, but they did. Not mob her—that came later. By the time Marlissa was fifteen, she’d been offered several modeling and film contracts. At sixteen, she starred in her first film. Her talent was considered quite remarkable.”

I asked, “Hollywood let her keep her real name?” It was the most tactful way of saying I’d never heard of Marlissa or her films.

Chestra resumed playing, but more softly. “Hollywood wasn’t the only place in the world where films were being made. My godmother was wooed by Europe’s greatest directors of the period—Max Ophuls, René Clair…even Alfred Hitchcock before he came to the States.

“Her first film was a critical success. Her second film would still be considered a classic today if the war hadn’t come along”—Chestra was playing the melody’s moody refrain, her fingers lingering on the notes—“or so I’ve been told. The only existing prints were destroyed during the fire-bombing of Berlin.”

It was after Marlissa’s second film, Chestra told me, that Hollywood producers took notice.

“They offered her a huge contract for those times. Money, furs, first-class accommodations if she would come to Hollywood. I still have copies of those contracts, if you’re ever interested. I inherited them along with her journals and a few other things. I was her only heir.”

I said, “You told me that she made the transatlantic crossing in 1938 aboard the Normandie. She came because of Hollywood.”

“Yes, and also the fact that she had family here. But two things happened while she was aboard the Normandie that changed my godmother’s life forever. One of them ruined her career as an actress, the other caused her death.”

If Marlissa and Frederick Roth hadn’t fallen in love, Chestra said, neither of them would have been aboard Dark Light the night that the thirty-eight-foot Matthews went down.

The woman’s film career had already ended by that time.

“Marlissa’s dreams of being a film star were destroyed years earlier. That makes her death less sad somehow, don’t you think? To go on living after your dream has died? I don’t see the point.”

It was while she was aboard the Normandie that a newsreel featuring the chancellor of Germany was released. It had been shot months earlier and showed him sitting next to an actress he’d already acknowledged as his favorite—a Russian named Olga Chekhova. He was a film addict, and in 1936 he’d honored her as Germany’s Schauspielrern, or “Actress of the State.”

“There are a couple of books that mention Chekhova,” Chestra said. “She was a habitual liar, they say…and also a spy. In one of the books, there’s a photo that was taken of their little group the night the newsreel was made. I’ll show it to you someday, if you like.”

Also seated at the table, flanked by Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, was a young woman of extraordinary gifts. Her table mates had just enjoyed the premiere of her newest film—her last before leaving the Reich, as only she knew.

Chestra told me, “With the newsreel cameras rolling, Adolf Hitler leaned and put his hand on Marlissa’s shoulder. Then he looked into the lens and announced to a million moviegoers that she was his Aryan ideal and the most beautiful woman on earth.”

He was wearing a prissy white dinner jacket, she added.

“The expression on his face was disgusting, and the way his fingers moved on her shoulder—like a spider’s legs.”

It was a death sentence in Hollywood, Chestra said. The most evil man on earth had put his mark on Marlissa. It was a curse.

“As my godmother disembarked in New York, she couldn’t understand why there were so many paparazzi. Dozens of them—that’s when she was mobbed. They nearly crushed her. She was hospitalized.”

Marlissa Dorn never allowed another photograph of herself to be taken.

I said, “That song you’re playing. What is it? I’ve heard it before but the title won’t come to me.”

Chestra’s reaction was unexpected—dubious but interested. She said, “You know this melody?”, and played the last few notes of the refrain.

“Sure. It’s one of those classics from…”—I looked at Marlissa Dorn’s photo as I placed it on the piano—“…from your godmother’s era.”

“What should have been her era, you mean. She never got her chance.”

I was about to say, “It’s a tragic story,” but she cut me off by transitioning to a different melody, playing louder. “There are some wonderful classics from that period. Written by people who lived. People who knew about love, and about pain. Not that terrible, computer-generated junk they hammer us with in hotels and malls. Those aren’t songs. They’re video games for the ears.”

She said, “‘In the Still of the Night,’” and played a few bars before smiling. “Cole Porter.”

It wasn’t the doo-wop song that I associated with the title. It was dark, distinctive. Nor was it the song that I’d first heard while eavesdropping from the beach.

She said, “‘Isn’t It Romantic,’” and played a little of that classic before melding into “Night and Day,” then “For Sentimental Reasons,” then “As Time Goes By.”

None were the melody that I recognized but couldn’t name.

Chestra stood, done playing. She closed the keyboard and touched her fingers to the instrument’s curvature, letting it guide her to where I stood, photos on the piano. Because her hair was still damp, she had wrapped it in a blue scarf.

“My godmother played. In fact, this was her piano. A Mason and Hamlin, handmade in New York. She preferred it to a Steinway.”

I said, “Oh.” I was done with Marlissa Dorn and now concentrating on the photo of the Matthews motor yacht. If Jeth had found Dark Light’s remains, I wanted a blowup of this picture. Better yet, a schematic of the design. And I’d need all the data I could gather about the hurricane of 19 October 1944. If we found the vessel’s engine and drivetrain, lighter objects would have been spread by directional currents.

The woman and I had come to a general agreement about the money she would invest and what she expected in return. Contingent on their approval, Chestra said she would pay Jeth’s and Javier’s standard daily charter fee for a week, guaranteed, and up to ten days if there was evidence that we’d found Dark Light’s remains. At that point, we would renegotiate.

When I asked if she thought that we might also find the remains of Frederick Roth, she said yes, it was possible, his body was never recovered. Chestra then explained why he’d been at the vessel’s helm the night she went down.

“People who lived in the area were naturally suspicious of Frederick—there was no disguising his German accent. The war was on, news was often censored, so the local rumor mills ran nonstop. In Marlissa’s journals, she wrote about some of the rumors—she was hurt by them.”

Chestra wasn’t certain whose idea it was, but Frederick signed up as a civil defense volunteer to demonstrate that a German could also be pro-American. On the Gulf coast of Florida, the work consisted of running Coast Watch patrols—looking for unauthorized aircraft, foreign vessels, or suspicious activity.

Arlis had mentioned the Coast Watch organization, but I let the woman talk.

Marlissa didn’t need to volunteer the family boat, Chestra said, because it had already been conscripted by the military for Civil Defense duty. Dark Light was the fastest cruiser in the meager fleet.

“The last entry in Marlissa’s journal was dated the afternoon of October 19, 1944. She wrote that the weather was bad and she was worried about Frederick because he was taking the boat offshore, alone for some reason. She even knew the course heading: 240 degrees.”

Chestra removed the towel from my shoulders and began to fold it, her expression thoughtful. “Until Tommy told me about the Nazi medals you found, I assumed that Marlissa’s trust in her lover was deserved. Now, though…I’m more open-minded. You can understand why I’m eager to find out the truth.”

I remembered Arlis mentioning that on the night of the storm, suspicious lights were reported off Lighthouse Point. Maybe a U-boat, but Arlis thought it was more likely Cuban fishermen who were later found dead, bloated, on the beach. The Coast Watch lost a boat that night, he’d told us. He didn’t mention the boat’s name.

Dark Light? I would ask him.

I also remembered Arlis describing a woman he’d seen earlier on the beach—did he refer to her as an actress? A woman who was so beautiful that he could still picture her face. In the small, small town this area had once been, trivial details might remain etched deep in an old man’s memory.

I shared none of this with Chestra.

“Do you have any idea why Frederick Roth was taking the boat offshore in bad weather?”

“No. I guess it was his duty. I can’t imagine another reason.” I watched her flick the towel as I’d once seen her use a scarf for effect.

“You assume that your godmother went with him because she was worried about him going alone. Did anyone see her get aboard?”

“I think someone did see her. I’m certain of it—that’s part of the family story, anyway. Their names, though, are long gone.”

“Would you mind if I looked through your godmother’s journal? I’ve spent a lifetime around boats. Maybe I’ll see something you missed.”

It surprised her and she took a moment to think. “It’s very private, of course, a diary. When does a person give up rights to their secrets? I don’t see anything wrong with it, I suppose…but a lot of the writing’s in her own peculiar code. I mentioned that to you. I don’t think you’d make much sense of it…or have patience for all her girlish babble.”

I didn’t say it but was thinking, Right.

The woman was lying.

B efore I left, Chestra asked me to look at Marlissa Dorn’s photograph one more time.

“Do you see what she’s holding in her left hand?”

I used the damp towel to clean my glasses, and, for the first time, noticed a silver cigarette case. The case was partially hidden beneath Marlissa’s hand, which was on her hip. I tilted my glasses and held the picture closer. Was that an engraved initial on the cigarette case near her finger? I needed my magnifying glass.

“That’s the sort of memento I’m talking about. Something she held and carried, that was part of her life. Personal—I don’t care about the value. Find this for me, or something similar, and I’ll consider every penny well spent.”

I lowered the photo. “Do you know if your godmother had a matching silver lighter? A silver cigarette case and a lighter. They’d go together.” I paid close attention to her reaction.

Chestra was puzzled, nothing more. “I suppose it’s possible. In those days, everyone carried cigarettes, although I know she rarely smoked. A lighter, yes—it’s likely she had one.”

It was evident that Tomlinson hadn’t told her about the cigarette lighter Jeth had found. I was pleased. There had to be a reason Chestra Engle was withholding information from me. Until I found out why, I would reserve a few secrets of my own.

As I was going out the door, the woman placed her hand on my shoulder, then pulled it away. The gesture was spontaneous, her expression pained—she wanted to tell me more but couldn’t. That was my impression. It was the most subtle of apologies.

“Doc?”

I waited.

“The story I told you about my godmother. And the newsreel. Do you scientific types believe that there’s such things as good and evil? That there are people in the world who are truly evil? Or do you think it’s all a bunch of silly hobgoblin nonsense?”

This was not one of her mock profundities. She was referring to the tyrant who she believed had put his mark, and a curse, on Marlissa Dorn.

I said, “I’ve met my share of men capable of evil deeds.”

“So have I, Doc. So have I.” Chestra touched a finger to her lips, then touched it to my cheek. “But I’m talking about something very different.”

When I didn’t respond, she said, “Let me know how the dive goes tomorrow,” then stood watching from the doorway as I walked down the steps toward my pickup truck, lightning still flickering to the northeast.