Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

Time after time Gregory Peck's been asked about his personal life, and about his feelings for his fellow man, and he remains tight-lipped and taciturn. Still, a man's character can't help but be revealed to the friends he makes. And when Greg was filming Carl Foreman's The Guns of Navarone on the poverty stricken island of Rhodes, off the mainland of Greece in the Aegean Sea, he made some firm friends. Every lunch hour, it seems, Greg would disappear. News reporters would search for him in vain for interviews. But Greg was not to be found. Promptly at twelve o'clock noon he mysteriously vanished. Where? To a rundown orphanage for homeless Greek boys on a hilltop near the location. Greg went there every day to share a peasant's lunch of goat cheese, bread and olives with the boys at their bare wooden tables. And, after lunch, Greg played touch football with them. When he chose to disclose his noontime rendezvous, it was only to enlist the film company's help before they departed from Rhodes for London. Greg passed the hat for donations for the destitute orphanage, and by the end of the afternoon Greg had collected close to a thousand dollars for his football buddies, the poor orphan boys of Rhodes. 60 She stopped again, in a dismal silence. She brought her glass up to her lips and drank down what was left of the drink. "It's a funny thing about me," she said, half-smiling, "but I just can't seem to keep anything. I mean keep. Three husbands, one dog, a head of blonde hair, two minutes of excitement with a bull. . . . Nothing. . . . I just can't keep things." She put out her cigarette and then she reached for a bottle which sat alongside the chaise and she poured herself another drink. "Sometimes — " her friend started to say, as she did. "Sometimes what?" Ava asked. "Sometimes," her friend said, "to keep something, you have to want it very much." "I've wanted," Ava said. "Don't kid yourself about that." "But I mean, Ava," said her friend, " — what do you want now, out of life . . . very, very much?" "Things I should have bad by now," said Ava, without pausing to think twice about it. "An education, for one thing. If I could be born all over again and I could have my pickin's from the beginning I'd say, 'Mr. Stork-man, that's one thing you've got to guarantee me. High school, good high school, and college and all that there stuff. So's people don't think they're all the time smarter than me. So that nobody can ever pull anything over on me — or think they're doing that.' " "And what else, besides an education?" asked her friend. "A baby, of course," said Ava, simply. "That, I can tell you, would be first choice on my list." "You can still have a baby," said the friend. "Yeah?" Ava asked. "How?" "You get married again someday," her friend started to say, "and — " "No, huh-uh," Ava said, interrupting. "Three flop marriages are enough for me. If I got married again and something went wrong, I think — I think I'd kill myself right there on the spot." "You could adopt a baby, then," said her friend. "Me?" Ava asked. "At my age — thirtyseven — start taking care of a baby? Alone? . . . And give up my wild and wonderful life?" "You could adopt one, you know," said the friend. Heart's desire Ava threw back her head and began to laugh. But the laughter did not last long. Because soon, suddenly, seriously, she was saying: "I'd pick a girl, a little girl. And no matter what her name was I'd change it and I'd call her Lisa. That's the name I used to think I'd call my own little girl when I thought I would have one. Those nights I used to lie in bed after I was married, the first time, the second time, the third time, and think about the day I'd find out I was pregnant, the day I'd give birth, the moment I'd hold my baby in my arms that first time and look at her and say to her, 'Honey child, your name, in case you don't know it, is — ' " She stopped and looked over at her friend again. "Could you see me as a mother?" she asked, half-smiling again. "Yes," said the friend. "This whirlpool, this life," Ava asked, the smile beginning to fade, "do you think I still have time to get out of it?" "Yes," said the friend. Ava looked down into her glass, at what was left of her drink. She was silent for a while. And then, she said, "I'd insist on that, though, if I ever went to adopt a child, even thought of adopting one. Not that I would think of it. . . . It would have to be a little girl, I'd say. . . ." "Yes," the tall old nun said to Ava that morning, a few days later, "in a few minutes you will see her, the child we have selected for your consideration. But before you do see her, before you decide definitely, you must know this, my dear lady. The rearing of a child is a tremendous responsibility. Especially with these children, here at our orphanage, who from the beginnings of their young lives have only known the sadness of things, the heartbreak, the aloneness. So that those who adopt them must pledge to God and to their own hearts that they will offer care, and love, and time, and attention. Only these — the good, the clean, the loving, my dear lady, to make up for all the bad, the dirty bad things, these children of ours have known. . . ." A baby for Ava Ava thought they would never end. those long long minutes she sat waiting for the nun to return with the child. She breathed hard when finally, she heard the door open, when she turned and saw the little girl standing there. The girl, she saw, immediately, was a beautiful child, a tiny child, no more than three years old, brown-haired, fairskinned, with great big eyes, a little nose, a little mouth, the mouth half-covered by a little yellow flower she was holding. The girl, Ava saw too, looked confused, and frightened, from the moment she'd stepped into the room, to this moment, now, as the nun who'd brought her bent and whispered something about la etichetta, the politeness, and then stepped back outside the door and disappeared. Alone with the child, Ava rose. She walked towards her. "Isn't that a pretty flower," she said, in broken Italian. "Is that for me, maybe?' The little girl nodded and handed Ava the flower. "How beautiful," Ava said, " — and how sweet it smells." She got down on her knees. "Now," she said, smiling, "I've go1 something for you." She opened her purse and took out s small package. "This is for you," she said giving it to the girl. The girl took the package and stared down at it. "Aren't you going to open it?" Ava: asked, after a moment. "It's a present." The girl looked up at Ava. "Don't you know what a present is?' Ava asked. The little girl shook her head. "A present," Ava said, " — it's wher people like each other, they give each other something to show their friendship That's a present. Like this flower you gave to me. Like this package I give tc you." The little girl didn't seem to understand "You know," Ava said, changing the subject, "this is very interesting — but you do you know that you look just like I die when I was a little girl? Really. At home I have some pictures. Snapshots. Fron way way back. From a place in Americs called North Carolina. And when we ge home someday, I'll show them to you. Anc you'll see." Again she smiled. "Of course, she said, "you'll see, too, that I wasn't a pretty as you are, but — " She began to reach for the little girl' hand. The girl clenched her fist. " — But," Ava went on, pretending no to notice, bringing her own hand back b i her side, "I've got to say, from what I hea from my family, that I was a lot mon talkative than you are, when I was you age. . . . Oh, how I used to like to talk they say. Even worse than a toy duck