‘Hey, Juliana, how soon can you meet me at the studio?’
‘What’s up?’ I ask, surprised. Why not meet him at the film company where he works?
‘I have more info about the blonde in the photo.’
‘Can’t you tell me over the phone?’
‘No.’
I flinch. That was direct. ‘Can’t you give me a hint?’
‘No.’
I swallow hard. I have a feeling he’s trying to protect me from something about to blow up in my face.
‘This can’t wait, Juliana. You need to see this.’
I’ve never known Ridge to be so insistent. He’s used to facing a high level of danger and doing stunts in one take without rehearsal. Now he sounds downright panicked.
I let out a cleansing breath and try to remain calm, but inside I’m exploding with a hot fever I haven’t felt since the night Maman passed.
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
6
Sylvie
Ooh, la la! The girl goes to Paree
Delacroix Studios, Paris
1928
I struggle with the thick rope, sweat streaming down my face from the hot lights, my hands tied to the back of a chair, and kick out my legs. My angel-white hair flies around my face while I fight off the mad doctor.
Why is the damn rope so tight around my wrists? The script doesn’t call for my hands to go numb.
‘You’ll never make me talk.’ I narrow my brows. ‘I’ll never tell you where I hid the orphans. They’re safe from your evil deeds.’ I lift my chin, flutter my long, fake lashes.
‘You’ll talk, Ninette, or I’ll cut your throat,’ sputters the mad doctor in his perfect, deep baritone pitch, hovering over me. Pierre Limone comes from the stage and is a seasoned character actor. He’s a master of makeup and disguises and insists on delivering his lines with fervor. He’s taught me what it means to ‘become’ the character you’re playing on the screen. ‘No one is coming to save you.’
‘Save me? From you, Doctor Heidelberg?’ I throw my head back and laugh. ‘You can’t fool me… Lucifer.’
‘Your angel magic is not powerful enough to escape me. Now you shall die…’
He raises his knife, bringing it down toward my throat, cackling and laughing, his eyes bugging out… oh, God, he’s overacting, milking the part… Why not? I’m still struggling with the damn rope knots. This is the part where I pull myself free and overpower the devil disguised as an evil scientist and save the two orphans.
I can’t budge.
The shooting pain in my arms from the tight ropes around my wrists is making me helpless. I keep struggling and kick out my laced-up boots. I nearly get Pierre in the crotch.
He jumps back.
‘Now you shall die…’ he repeats, coming close to nicking the skin on my bare neck. The insane look in his eyes and that smirk tells me it’s no coincidence I can’t get loose.
He paid off the prop man to make the rope too tight. Giving him more screen time on his big scene. I can’t blame him. His lines were cut so Emil can get the film out in the theaters two weeks earlier than planned while the public is still hot for my films.
Word around Paris is, talkies are in… silent two-reeler serials on their way out. Les Orphelins Perdus (Lost Orphans) is my final Ninette film. A serial about a seamstress, an angel sent to earth to do good deeds while the devil in various disguises tries to undo those deeds and get rid of her. We’ve made ten two-reelers and two features (four reels) in the past two years.
‘I am going to die if someone doesn’t loosen these rope knots, Emil,’ I say, trying to find my director. Pierre is getting too close for comfort. Another minute and my career is over. I have to smile, reflect on this crazy life I’ve chosen while the prop man races to my side and works on loosening the rope knots around my wrists, never looking me in the eye when I offer to pay him twice what Pierre did if he puts ground pepper in my co-star’s phony beard. It’s part of the game in the world of cinema. With Pierre and me, it’s innocent pranks. With others, it’s survival if you want to make that next picture.
Always watch your back because no one else will.
Advice I got from Sister Vincent (she used more pious language) when I sneaked over to the convent when we were shooting on location nearby.
I strain my eyes, but I can’t see through the blaze of lights or the eyelashes. Where is Emil? He’s never far from my side. Not since that day I ran away from the convent.
I had no idea then what I was getting myself into.
Was it two years ago I was that dumb kid who would do anything to be an actress?
I often think about how simple getting into pictures seemed to me then. Go to Paris… do what Emil says… become a movie star.
It didn’t work that way. I had a lot of bumps in the road and my endearing dream of finding a father figure in Emil… well, let’s say it wasn’t what I hoped.
Things moved quickly when we arrived in Paris with Emil getting me a place to live in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, a working-class district in the suburbs of the city. I was in heaven. First floor apartment. Ivy-covered walls. My own bedroom with a sink and tub. Tall, beautifully carved wood garderobe I thought I’d never fill. Soft bed with a daisy quilt. Even an icebox in the tiny kitchen where I found ice slivers for my swollen eye and split lip. He wasn’t pleased when he saw my bruised face, surmising a zealous nun struck me to prevent me from leaving. I didn’t deny it and we never discussed it again. I healed up as good as new in a few days and the incident was forgotten.
Still, I wondered if I’d ever let go of the fear I have of not being loved, of not being good enough for someone to love me. This is why I defy the odds and abandon myself to the heat of the moment because it’s then I do feel loved. I don’t have an answer, but it’s that recklessness that got me here, so I have no complaints. It’s something that comes to the surface at times, though, and I wonder if it will be the end of me. I know Sister Vincent is praying for me and a warm, holy rush of faith fills me. I don’t understand why the Mother Superior harbors such hatred toward me, but I left that life behind. Something Emil makes perfectly clear to me.
For the next two years he rules my life from the minute I wake up till I drop my head on the pillow late at night. Since I’m underage when the studio signs me to a seven-year contract, they insist he procure a ‘guardian’ for me. I should mention Emil also acts as my manager which gives him final say in everything, including hiring Miss Brimwell, an acting and dialogue coach who still looks after me today though I’ve turned eighteen. Emil keeps her on to work with me, telling me it’s important I find the theatrical tone of my voice because he’s working on a ‘big secret’ that will catapult my career into a new realm. He loves to keep things from me, so I have to depend on him. It’s no secret this is the last year of making silent films.
Which brings me back to Miss Brimwell and her voice coaching lessons.
She can, at times, be a major nuisance, making me walk around with a book on my head to straighten my posture while rounding my ‘vowels’ and speaking through my ‘mask’ – my nose, not my throat. I’m not