Tell All

ACT II, SCENE THREE

We cut to the interior of a lavish Broadwaytheater. The opening mise-en-scène includes the proscenium arch, thestage curtain rising within the arch, below that the combed heads andbrass instruments of musicians within the orchestra pit. The conductor, Woody Herman, raises his baton, and the air fillswith a rousing overture by Oscar Levant,arrangements by André Previn. Additionalmusical numbers by Sigmund Romberg and Victor Herbert. On the piano, VladimirHorowitz. As the curtain rises, we see a chorus line whichincludes Ruth Donnelly, Barbara Merrill, Alma Rubens,Zachary Scott and Kent Smith doing fankicks aboard the deck of the battleship USSArizona, designedby Romain de Tirtoff and moored center stage.The Japanese admirals Isoroku Yamamoto and Hara Tadaichi are danced by KinuyoTanaka and Tora Teje, respectively. Andy Clyde does a furious buck-and-wing as Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, the official first Japaneseprisoner of war. Anna May Wong tap-dances asolo in the part of Captain Mitsuo Fuchida,and Tex Ritter fills in for General Douglas MacArthur. With EmikoYakumo and Tia Xeo as LieutenantCommander Shigekazu Shimazaki and Captain Minoru Genda, the principal dancers among theJapanese junior officers.

Choreography by moo,cluck, bark … Léonide Massine. Staging by tweet, bray,meow … W. MacQueen Pope.

As the orchestra pounds away, the USSOklahoma explodesnear the waterline and begins to sink stage right. Burning fuel oilraces stage left, moving upstage to ignite the USSWest Virginia.Downstage, a Japanese Nakajima torpedo lancesinto the hull of the USSCalifornia.

Japanese Zerosstrafe the production number, riddling the chorus line with bullets. Aichi dive bombers plunge into PearlWhite and Tony Curtis, prompting anexplosion of red corn syrup, while the cruising periscopes of Japanesemidget submarines cut back and forth behind the footlights.

As the Arizona begins to keel over, we see Katherine Kenton clamber to the position ofport-side gun, wrestling the body of a dead gunner’s mate away from theseat. Embroidered across one side of her chest, the olive-drab fabricreads: PFC H ELLMAN. My Miss Kathie dragsthe dead hero aside, laying both her palms open against his chest. Asgrenades explode shrapnel around her, Miss Kathie’s lips mutter a silentprayer. The eyelids of the dead sailor, played by JackieCoogan, the eyelashes flutter. The young man opens his eyes,blinking; cradled now in Miss Kathie’s arms, he looks up into her famousviolet eyes and says, “Am I in heaven?” He says, “Are you … God?”

The Zeros screaming past, the Arizona sinking beneaththem into the oily, fiery water of Pearl Harbor,Miss Kathie laughs. Kissing the boy on his lips, she says, “Close butno cigar … I’m Lillian Hellman.”

Before another note from the orchestra, MissKathie leaps to slam an artillery round into the massive deck gun.Wheeling the enormous barrel, she tracks a diving Aichi bomber, aligningthe crosshairs of her gun sight. Her sailor whites artfully stained andshredded by Adrian Adolph Greenberg, herbleeding wounds suggested by sparkling patches of crimson sequins andrhinestones sewn around each bullet hole. Singing the opening bars ofher big song, Miss Kathie fires the shell, blasting the enemy aircraftinto a blinding burst of papier-mâché.

From offscreen a voice shouts, “Stop!” Afemale voice shouts, cutting through the violins and French horns, therockets and machine-gun fire, shouting, “For fuck’s sake, stop!” A womancomes stomping down the center aisle of the theater, one arm lifted,wielding a script rolled as tight as a police officer’s billy club.

The orchestra grinds to silence. The singersstop, their voices trailing off. The dancers slow to a standstill, andthe fighter jets hang, stalled, limp in midair, from invisible wires.

From the stage apron, in the reverse angle,we see this shouting woman is Lillian Hellmanherself as she says, “You’re ruining history! For the love of Anna Q. Nilsson, I happen to be right-handed!”

In this same reverse angle, we see that thetheater is almost empty. King Vidor and Victor Fleming sit in the fifth row with their headshuddled together, whispering. Farther back, I sit in the emptyauditorium next to Terrence Terry, both of usbalancing infants on our respective laps.

Clustered on the floor aroundour chairs, other foundlings squirm and drool in wicker baskets. Chubbypink hands shake various rattles, these kinderoccupying most of the surrounding seats.

“You’d better hope this show flops,” says Terrence Terry, bouncing a gurgling orphan on hisknee. “By the way, where is our lethal Lothario?”

I tell him that Webb would have to truly hateMiss Kathie after what happened yesterday. Onstage, Lilly Hellman shouts, “Everybody,listen! Let’s start over.” Hellman shouts, “Let’s take it from the partwhere the kamikaze fighters of the Japanese Imperial Army swoop low over Honolulu in order to rain their deadly fiery cargoof searing death on Constance Talmadge.”

The Webster specimen is currently undergoingtreatment at Doctors Hospital. Just to escapethe town house, Miss Kathie’s going into rehearsal, and Webster Carlton Westward III is recovering fromminor lacerations to his arms and torso.

Terry says, “Fingernail scratches?”

At the house, I say, the nurses keeparriving. The nuns and social workers. The fresh castoff infantscontinue to be delivered, and Miss Kathie declines to choose. In thepast few days, each baby seems less like a blessing and more like anadorable time bomb. No matter how much you love and cuddle one, it stillmight grow up to become Mercedes McCambridge.Regardless of all the affection you shower on a child, it still mightbreak your heart by becoming Sidney Skolsky.All of your nurturing and worry and careful attention might turn outanother Noel Coward. Or saddle humanity with anew Alain Resnais. You need only look at Webband see how no amount of Miss Kathie’s love will redeem him.

Wrapped around one wrist, the foundling Ihold wears a beaded bracelet reading, UNCLAIMEDBOY INFANT NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR.

It’s ludicrous, the idea of me raising achild, not while I still have my Miss Kathie to parent. A baby is such ablank slate, like training the understudy for a role you’re planning toleave. You truly hope your replacement will do the play justice, but insecret you want future critics to say you played the character better.

“Don’t look at me,” Terry says, juggling anorphan. “I’m busy trying to raise myself.” Despite repeatedly sidestepping possibledeath by bus accident and dinner at the Cub Room with Lilly Hellman,Miss Katie has invited Webb to share her town house—so that we mightbetter monitor future drafts of his book-in-progress. She confessed,knowing now how Webster was actually a psychotic killer, a ruthlessscheming slayer, now their sex life was more passionate than ever.

It was Webb who brought this stage project toMiss Kathie, gave her the script to read and told her she’d be ideal asthe brash, ballsy Hellman seduced by Sammy Davis Jr.and parachuted onto Waikiki Beach withnothing but a bottle of sunblock and orders to stem the Imperial Army’sadvance. Along the way she falls in love with JoiLansing. According to Webb, this starring role had Tony Award written all over it.

According to TerrenceTerry, the Webster specimen was merely grooming my Miss Kathie.These past few years, she’d fallen into obscurity. First, refusing stageand film projects. Second, neglecting her gray hair and weight. Ageneration of young people were growing up never hearing the name Katherine Kenton, oblivious to Miss Kathie’s body ofwork. No, it wouldn’t do for her to die at this point in time, notbefore she’d made a successful comeback. Therefore, WebsterCarlton Westward III coaxed her to slim down; in all likelihoodhe’d bully her into a surgeon’s office, where she’d submit to having anynew wrinkles or sags erased from her face.

If this new show was a hit, if it put my MissKathie back on top, introducing her to a new legion of fans, that wouldbe the ideal time to complete his final chapter. His “lie-ography”would hit stores the same day her newspaper obituary hit the street. Thesame week her new Broadway show opened to rave reviews.

But not this week, I tell Terry.

Daubing with the hem of my starched maid’sapron, I wipe at the face of the infant I hold. I lean near the floorand pick out a thin sheaf of papers tucked beneath the diaper of anearby baby. Offering the printed pages to Terry, I ask if he wants toread the second draft of LoveSlave. Just the closing chapter; here’s the blueprint forMiss Kathie’s most recent brush with death.

“How is it our homicidal hunk has landedhimself in the hospital?” Terry says. And I toss the newest, revised final chapterat his feet.

Onstage, Lilly demonstrates to Miss Kathiethe correct way to tour en l’air whileslitting the throat of an enemy sentry.

Terry collects the pages. Still holding theorphan on his knee, he says, “Once upon a time …” He props the baby inthe crook of one arm, leaning into its tiny face as if it were a radiomicrophone or a camera lens, any recording device in which to store hislife. Speaking into this particular foundling, filling its hollow mind,filling its eyes and ears with the sound of his voice, Terry reads, “‘Perhaps it’s ironic, but no film critic, not JackGrant nor Pauline Kael nor David Ogden Stewart, would ever tear Katherine tobloody shreds the way savage grizzly bears eventually would.…’ ”