Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

Silver Screen for October i 9 4 o 97 around her eyes and her too heavy makeup. And I saw Charlie looking at her and seeing the changes too and his eyes were as cynical as the smile playing about his lips. Then he turned to the boy. "Come on, son," he said. "Let's go in and have some lunch." After that Charlie tried to make up for Gerda's attitude towards the boy. But he couldn't. It was plain the child adored her. He reminded me of a lost kitten trying to ingratiate himself into a home. You know how beguiling a stray can be, how imploring and heartbreaking their eyes can look. Little Charlie was that way, too. He'd hover around Gerda when he was with her and he would always be anticipating her wishes, bringing down her mules when her feet fidgeted in the way they always did when they were tired, bringing her a cigarette and lighting it before she could as much as reach out for the box on the table beside her, doing all the other, thoughtful little things that showed how he was thinking of her all the time and loving her. And sometimes I'd see Gerda looking at the boy when she thought no one was noticing her and the old lost tenderness would be there in her eyes. Then quickly she would be on guard again and she'd laugh. "Darling, you're sweet," she'd say to the boy then. "But run along and play, won't you? I have a million things to do." Afterwards, she'd buy something for him and give it to him in a shy, almost shamefaced way. But, of course, that wasn't what the boy wanted. Gerda, generous to a fault in other things, refused to give that. Then one day she drove over to see me and all the old excitement was in her eyes. "What do you think," she cried before she'd even got out of her car. "I've been called for a test, tomorrow morning. It's the second lead, too. Isn't that exciting?" But when she came into the living room I saw the fear in her eyes. The first thing she did was to go over to the mirror over the console table. "I'm young," she said and there was something in her voice that told me she was trying to convince herself, that she had to convince herself. "I really don't look a day over twenty. Oh, it'll be fun being in a studio again. I hope there's dancing in the picture. Remember there was almost always dancing in my pictures?" And she went into one of her old intricate steps and it was amazing to see how young her feet still were and how they hadn't kept pace with her eyes or her mouth at all. The telephone rang then and Charlie's voice answered mine when I took down the receiver. "Charlie's been hurt," he said. "The I grocery truck ran him down in the driveway. I'm with him at the Good Samaritan Hospital. You can tell Gerda if you think she may be interested." It was his fear that made the resentment flare in his voice, I knew that. But my heart was heavy as I turned to Gerda. I didn't know how dangerous the boy's condition might be or if she would lose him or not. But I knew she had lost Charlie. Of course, I didn't tell her what he had said, but I doubt if it would have made any difference if I had. Gerda stood there a woman turned to stone, a woman who couldn't feel or think. It was worse than if she had cried or become hysterical or said anything. Just standing there, numb, the way people will when their world has crashed. I couldn't let her go like that and so I took her arm and led her to my own car. Charlie met us at the door of the boy's room and I think he would have said a lot of things in his bitterness if the nurse hadn't motioned him to silence. Then as I stood outside the closed door I heard the boy's eager cry. "Gerda." That was all he said, all he needed to say to show how he had wanted her, had waited for her. Then I heard Gerda's voice. Only it didn't sound like hers at all, the way hers had been lately, I mean. It was tender and low and sweet, the way it used to be years ago. "Darling, mother's here," she whispered. The door opened and Charlie came out and behind his broad back I got that glimpse of Gerda on her knees beside the bed, her arms cradling the boy against her breast and I thought of that other time I had seen her hold him like that in the little hospital at Monterey. All that night I waited with Charlie and Gerda and you know how long the waiting time can be in a hospital and how you see things you've never seen before, the different shades of a night sky and how the first morning light seems even more desolate than the blackness when you're afraid of the news it might bring and you're scared to face the brightness of the sun. And Charlie pacing the floor and Gerda sitting there without moving and somehow looking the more desolate of the two and me tip-toeing out of the room when Charlie turned to her at last and kneeling before her held her close in his arms and sobbed as he buried his face in her dress. Then the doctor came into the room and our fear became a living thing at the sight of him for during the night it was the nurses who had brought us the fragmentary messages from the sick room. "Maybe. . . . if we operate," he said. We waited until they had taken the boy into the operating room. Then Charlie suddenly turned to Gerda. 'You can't wait here," he said. "I want you to go to the studio and take that test." "Oh, no. I couldn't." Gerda whispered and her hands went out pushing him away from her. But Charlie stood his ground. "Listen," he said. "I know you, you're a trouper. And if you have any grit at all you'll do your job and be back here when the lad needs you. And he will need you. You know that." It was his way of giving her hope and courage and all the things she needed and so Gerda gave them to him, too, by doing what he had asked as if she believed him and knew the boy would be waiting for her when she returned. "You'll come with me, won't you?" she said when we got out to the car and that It's waiting for you — the very first time you use HAMPDEN POWD'^-BASE 1 This wonderful beauty foundation-. . . • gives your skin a soft, smooth, more youthful appearance • keeps your make-up fresh and lovely for hours • helps conceal lines and blemishes • prevents nose-shine. 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