Lace (79 page)

“Why are you finding this part such a problem?” Zimmer sounded puzzled, although he knew the answer perfectly well. “You’ve got one of the best female roles ever
written.” He twisted around to look at Lili’s profile, the little jutting chin, the slightly predatory nose. “Think of the women who have already played Sadie—Gloria
Swanson, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth—it’s a classic. But for the first time since I’ve worked with you, Lili—you’re overacting. You’re hamming it up.
What’s the matter?”

Lili snorted and drove a little faster.

“What you need is a man,” said Zimmer, with irritating conviction, knowing it was a remark that always annoys a woman, especially when it’s true. He wanted to get a reaction
from her.

“It may be the answer for you, but it isn’t for me. So stop pushing Schenk at me!”

“You’re not very sophisticated in your business moves, Lili,” Zimmer said, with a shrug. “After all, Schenk is putting up forty percent of the money for
Rain.
Why
did you have to turn down such a powerful man so publicly?”

“Because he
asked
me so publicly! And he made it clear what I had to gain. Look where that sort of filth got me before I met Jo. I never want to go back to doing anything I’m
ashamed of. Those pictures in
Paris Match
were bad enough!” The little red car screamed around a corner and Zimmer grabbed the dashboard.

“Oh, my dear, it’s exasperatingly self-indulgent of you to ignore Schenk. You’re like a self-willed little girl who’s just been told not to step on a banana skin, but
insists that she’s got the right to break her own leg.”

“Oh, God! Does the whole world revolve around sex and money?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have to obey Schenk. It’s not a royal command. What can he do, anyway? Ruin my career?” She snorted again.

“My dear, don’t think he can’t.” The light from the dashboard glowed green over Zimmer’s tense face. “Nobody gets a big role by screwing, but anybody can lose
one by not screwing. Of course, it wouldn’t be attributed directly to that, you’d be described as ‘uncooperative’ or ‘neurotic.’” Briefly Zimmer mentioned
the name of a Hollywood studio chief and a once-famous star whose career had suddenly seemed to dissolve.

“I’ve heard your story dozens of times,” Lili said, “and each time about a different actress. It’s amazing how people will believe anything if it’s nasty
enough. Look at the rumours that fly around about me, although I haven’t slept with a man for months.”

Zimmer said nothing. The humiliating episode at the Chateau de Chazalle had had the effect of making Lili retreat further into the shell of privacy that she had carefully constructed after the
death of Stiarkoz. Now her reputation as a serious actress was suffering because those magazine pictures reminded everyone of the way in which she had originally become notorious. She slammed her
foot on the accelerator and burst out, “Oh, what’s the point of working so hard when my every move is misinterpreted to fit their filthy image of me so that they can feel better about
themselves! You
know
how hard I try, Zimmer.”

Zimmer nodded. He knew the tough, self-imposed routine she followed when not working. Exercise and dance classes, drama and voice lessons, early to bed and a careful diet.

At one point Zimmer had feared that he was in danger of becoming her substitute for Stiarkoz, but he realised quickly that Lili didn’t want to lean on anybody, she wanted to stand on her
own feet. She was determined to succeed, to carve her way like Jo.

Lili didn’t like to think too much about Jo, for the sharp sting of her loss was still too painful. Instead, she found—just before she fell asleep—that her thoughts were
turning childishly again to her unknown real mother. Increasingly, Lili saw that shadowy maternal figure as her invisible guardian angel. Yearning for such warmth, Lili had started to daydream
again, to wonder who her real mother was, whether she was still alive.

The scarlet Jaguar swerved dangerously as Lili remembered that Sunday afternoon when Serge had telephoned her—speaking in his old masterful voice as if he’d last seen her only the
day before. “Lili, darling, it’s like trying to get the fucking President’s telephone number. I’ve missed you, you naughty little girl, and I wondered if you felt like
having dinner tonight, for old time’s sake . . . ?”

Carefully, gently, Lili had placed the receiver on the table and walked away, leaving Serge talking to the air. At the memory, Lili felt so agitated that she braked too late and the Jaguar
nearly hit a Renault in front of it. Impatiently, Lili waited for the light to change.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Lili,” Zimmer urged again. “Before you fucking kill us both.” She was silent, so he thought he’d better tell
her.
“When an
actor works on a part that’s so close to him, he often can’t see it objectively, so he feels frustrated and angry because he feels he has no control over his part. What such an actor
finds difficult to realise is that what he has to do is—nothing.” The Jaguar passed dangerously close to a truck, which blasted its horn. Zimmer continued gently, “You know what
humiliation feels like, Lili, you know what it’s like to feel worthless,
you
understand exactly how Sadie feels, so what you should do with this part is—just let it
happen.”

“Shut up, Zimmer!”
There was an explosion of wrath from Lili as the little scarlet car skidded again, swerved around 180 degrees and slid sideways into an ornate lamppost.
Lili and Zimmer were flung forward, than yanked backward by their safety belts as the car stopped abruptly—the right front fender crumpled like a discarded tomato can.

“Now, look what you’ve made me do!” cried Lili. “If you’re going to analyze my acting and my character, you should have picked a better time!”

A small crowd started to gather around the sports car. Lili took no notice of them as she said angrily, “
Of course
I understand Sadie. She’s basically a nice, cheerful tart
who likes a good time because it makes her forget that her real life is such a mess and she hasn’t enough imagination to see that things could be different. But that sanctimonious missionary
rams home the fact that she ’s worthless until Sadie actually
believes
it.
Then
he promises her he can provide salvation, so Sadie starts to hope. . . . But
then
the
dirty bastard rapes her and that . . . destroys her hope, rapes her soul.”

A blue-cloaked gendarme was hurrying toward the car but still Lili took no notice. “That’s not going to happen to me, Zimmer. I’m
not
Sadie—and no man is going to
do that to me! I’m an actress and my imagination is what makes me an actress. I
had
to develop it to survive those dreadful years. It’s all I have to show for them. That’s
why I can think myself into someone else’s head so easily.”

The gendarme had nearly reached the car. “Oh, I know I’m calm and efficient on the set. That’s because I know exactly what has to be done and how to do it. But off the set I
have to be
me
and I don’t know how to do that, I don’t know my lines, I don’t understand the plot and I don’t know who I
can
trust.”

Zimmer nodded.

“On the set I’m a star, off the set I feel that everyone’s sneering at me . . . and it’s such a damn lonely feeling.” She hid her face in her hands and burst into
tears.

Zimmer opened the car door to the gendarme. “Officer, might I have a word with you? . . .”

As soon as Lili’s name was mentioned, the officer’s face lit up and the crowd doubled as if by magic. Within minutes six passersby had tugged and lifted the crumpled car away from
the lamppost and Lili, now smiling like an angel, had scribbled autographs for all of them. She then drove off slowly as snow began to fall, having given the policeman an extra autograph for his
mother.

“Bloody lucky that cop recognised you or we’d still be at the police station,” Zimmer grumbled.

“I can live without such fame!” Lili said sourly.

The little red car limped through a pair of huge green doors and into the courtyard beyond. Zimmer and Lili dashed through the snow-flakes to the door of the apartment building as lace curtains
twitched at the concierge ’s window.

As they waited for the old-fashioned elevator cage, Lili shook the snowflakes from her silver fox cloak and Zimmer said, “Maybe you think you don’t like fame but you’d miss it
if it disappeared. Those people weren’t threatening, they only wanted to know what you’re like, Lili.”

“I want to know what I’m like, Zimmer.” Lili shrugged off her fur cape and threw it on a chair. “I want to know who I
really
am. I want to meet the real
me!”

She kicked off a maroon-leather boot, hopping on one foot as she struggled with the other boot.

Zimmer chuckled. “I had to conceal the real me for years or I’d have been arrested. We all have to come to terms with what we are, as opposed to what we
wish
we were. In the
end, we all have to settle for what we’ve got—and you’ve got so much, Lili!”

“Yes, except what everyone else has—a family. I
really
don’t know who I am.”

“So what! Who
does
know who they are? Don’t you think that perhaps you use your lack of a family as a convenient excuse for whatever’s going wrong in your
life?”

Lili didn’t hear Zimmer’s last remark as she padded on stockinged feet into the dining room, poured neat whiskey into a cut-glass tumbler and brought it out to him. Zimmer, who was
throwing more logs on the blazing fire, straightened up, took his drink, turned toward the mantelpiece and blinked in astonishment. “What’s
this?
”

He picked up a large white envelope covered with exotic stamps that had been propped against the gilt carriage clock. Turning it over, he peered at the ornate crest and started to laugh.
“Oh, my dear,
now
how do you feel about your fame?”

He handed her the envelope. Quickly, Lili tore it open, pulled out a large gilt-edged card and read, “’I am commanded by His Majesty, King Abdullah . . .’ Why, it’s an
invitation to Sydon, to celebrate the anniversary of his reign. But I don’t
know
the man!”

“Ah, but he knows
you! That’s
fame!” cried Zimmer, already planning what to tell his publicity department. “It will be wonderful publicity for you!
Now
you
can’t say you don’t care about fame!”

Lili turned around to face him. “Do you know how much this means to me?” She waved the invitation in his face. “Nothing! One minute Serge is telling me to shake my tits to
camera, the next minute some king is inviting me halfway around the world. Who the hell do they think I am? I really would like to know. There’s a part of me that’s missing and I
don’t even know what part it is. I just know that I feel the emptiness inside me, and high-powered invitations aren’t important compared to that feeling.”

“High-powered invitations are always important, Lili. Especially when you stop receiving them!” Zimmer put his drink on the mantelpiece and looked amused, which further enraged
Lili.

“Do you know how much this means to me?” Lili waved the card at him again, then threw it into the burning logs.

“Oh, Lili,” exclaimed Zimmer, “don’t you know how much you mean to me?”

He thrust his bare hand into the flames and plucked out the invitation.

A
THRILL OF TRUMPETS
rang out as the double doors at the far end of the Grand Hall were thrown open. Men bowed and women
curtsied as His Majesty King Abdullah III slowly strode over the crimson carpet toward the golden throne of state, pausing en route to greet his guests. Lili thought the King looked more alive than
in his official photographs, which always showed him in combat clothes or ceremonial uniforms.

Tonight, knowing that many women would be wearing formal white dresses and diamond tiaras, Lili had picked a halter-neck, backless, sea-silver-green chiffon dress embroidered with art nouveau
lilies. As Abdullah reached her, Lili bent her head—a permed, gypsy-like cloud of dark curls—and sank into a curtsy. She lifted her eyes and gazed up into his, and Abdullah’s
sensual, heavy-lidded stare met another of equal power. He forgot his formal few words of greeting and stopped as they both stood and stared at each other in silence, both feeling an electric
tension between them.

During the three years since his family had been killed, Abdullah had rarely appeared in public. Racked with grief and guilt, he had been unable to discuss his feelings with anyone. For weeks
after the helicopter crash, Abdullah had spoken to no one and nobody dared speak to him. Occasionally he rode alone into the desert, where the silence of the sand soothed his grief but could not
eradicate his memories. In his heart, Abdullah knew he would have other sons, but no other child would ever replace Mustapha—the only person Abdullah had ever loved.

As his royal master grew increasingly irritable and morose, Suliman racked his brains for schemes to divert Abdullah and had his head bitten off for his trouble. Abdullah seemed unable to
concentrate on his hitherto cherished irrigation schemes or the desert reclamation and reforestation projects that had been his main interest before the fatal crash. A scheme to drill for
underground water lay on his desk for weeks. He was listless, unable to work, without his former concentration and energy. Abruptly he cancelled all plans for the 1973 festivities to celebrate the
twentieth year of his reign. Instead of rising at dawn, he got up late, slumped through the day and spent his evenings watching old movies before retiring early and alone.

Then, one evening, he suddenly sat up, watched the movie with alert concentration and immediately commanded the projectionist to run it again. “I feel I already know that woman,” he
puzzled, “although I’m sure we haven’t met and I’ve never seen this film. Q—strange!” He leaned toward Suliman. “Get her for me.”

“Oh, Sire, this actress is well-known in Europe. For what reason should I invite her to our country? And for how long, Sire?”