The Golden Age Read Free Page A

Caroline in her ill-fated
Mary Queen of Scots
. After first making a success of the nearly defunct Washington
Tribune
, she had followed her mentor William Randolph Hearst to Southern California, where each had made silent films, she as an unexpectedly popular actress, he as producer of the serial
The Perils of Pauline
. In due course, she had gone into partnership with the ambitious Timothy X. Farrell. Their
Hometown
series was still much admired. Then she had gone home to France and the freelance Farrell had turned to documentaries.
    Timothy now relit Blaise’s library so that Washington statesmen would resemble the gods on Olympus, which was how they saw themselves and pretty much looked to be until they started to talk and onesadly realized that Jupiter, king of the gods, was just another saloon barfly, eager to buzz the new camera in town.
    Timothy pulled a red leather wing chair into place beside the fire, noting contentedly that whoever sat in the chair would look agreeably diabolic if the key light were to be raised.
    Blaise tapped on the door; then entered his now transformed study. “Looks like that movie you were doing when Frederika and I came out and stayed at the Ambassador.”
    Timothy now realized that the first interview would have to be with his host. “All right, Blaise. Sit there, by the fire.…”
    “But …” But Blaise had already seated himself in his throne: king of the gods. “Now, Tim,” he began.
    But Timothy was already rearranging Blaise in the chair. Did he dare light each grandee in exactly the same way? Would that make the wrong point? After all, Senator Borah was pro-German. The newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann was pro-British. John Foster was exuberantly British. Senator Vandenberg was …
    The Senator was standing in the doorway, drawn to camera as proverbial moth to flame. “Blaise.” He was portentous. “Is there …?”
    “No. No.” Blaise turned to Tim. “Let Senator Vandenberg go first.”
    But the gentleman from Michigan was firm. “Let me watch. I haven’t done a
March of Time
in months now. Not that this is the same thing, Mr …?”
    Timothy shook the professionally outstretched hand. “Farrell. No, sir. This is a special ‘Peace or War’ documentary. Just a number of different points of view on whether we should help Britain or not.”
    Timothy was aware of a tall fair handsome woman just back of the Senator. “So if you don’t mind the hot lights, why don’t you and Mrs. Vandenberg sit …”
    “Mrs. Sims.” The Senator was smooth. “A dear friend of Mrs. Vandenberg’s. Her husband’s counselor at the Canadian Embassy.…”
    As the couple made themselves comfortable on a sofa, Blaise gave Timothy a rapid wink. This then was the Senator from Michigan’s celebrated mistress, Mitzi, duly named in the notes that had been prepared for Tim by a dedicated researcher. One could never know too muchabout the players in a film, particularly a real-life one, involving—how
un
real it suddenly seemed—the lives of millions of people. But, again, Timothy reminded himself to remain neutral. Between Hitler and the British, even a South Boston Irishman was inclined to the lesser of two evils. But then—the question he must never cease to pose—why should the United States be involved at all in yet another European war, twenty-two years after the depressing conclusion of their first Great War, in which over fifty thousand American soldiers had been killed while bringing the nation no reward other than the prohibition of alcohol for a dozen years, thus increasing crime as well as its punishment, and giving birth to a new and lawless land? No, he warned himself. Don’t impose. Be like the eye of God. Don’t judge. Don’t miss a thing.
    Then, lights adjusted, he cued Blaise to speak to camera, which he did with almost the same professional ease as his sister Caroline, aka Emma Traxler, the exotic Alsatian star of the silent film
Huns from Hell
. Timothy fed