Outside the front door, she took a deep breath and admired the
beauty of the day. We walked on either
side of her toward the open gates. The
cab still waited. Below lay the city,
stretching endlessly away; we saw it as from a plane coming in to land. She stopped, laying a hand on each of our
arms.
“My, how
it’s grown. When I first lived up here,
it was like the beginning of the world.
I woke up one morning, went on to my balcony and saw a deer drinking
from my pool.” Then she laughed.
“How
sentimental that sounds. One should
never resent change. It’s a shock at
first, of course. But then you realize
it’s only a trick.”
The driver held the cab
door open. She seemed not to notice
this, nor Keelie’s desolation at the prospect of losing her. “When I was just starting to be an actress,”
she said, still gazing at the city below, “I went to a teacher, a remarkable
man who died years ago. He explained
something that became the key for whatever I was able to do.” A quick glance at Keelie. “All words are lies, and anyone who speaks
can’t help being a liar. That’s because
when we find words to describe something, we turn it into something else. Speech wasn’t invented in order to
communicate.” She shook her head, amused
by the absurdity of the idea. “The
intensity of the world was just too great to face in silence.”
“How could you use this idea,” I asked, “as an actress?”
“By not speaking. The only times I really liked myself on the
screen was when I had a close-up but didn’t speak. What they call a reaction shot. I think I was rather good then. Nobody could be sure exactly what I meant, or
what I was thinking. I was just
myself.” She turned to Keelie.
“Whenever
you saw me, I never spoke, did I?”
Keelie
shook her head.
“But now
I’ve been talking quite a lot. You’re
probably seeing someone quite different.”
“No,”
Keelie said quietly. “You’re the same.”
Thoughtful,
Lora’s eyes rested on her a moment.
“And
you’re almost . . .”
Gavin
Lambert, “Lora Chase” (from “The Goodbye People”), New York, Simon and
Schuster, 1971
