The Love Machine (50 page)

ROBIN:
I am in bed, but Mother is in the other room with George. He’S been here every night. He says he will get us passports and he gives Mother money every night.

DR. GOLD:
Who is George?

ROBIN:
One of them… .

DR. GOLD:
Conrad, it is two weeks after Thanksgiving, at night. Is your mother with George?

ROBIN:
No …
He
was there.

DR. GOLD:
Who is he?

ROBIN:
Another man.

DR. GOLD:
Who was the other man?

ROBIN:
I don’t know. I woke up and felt the bed empty and knew Mother was in the next room. I was hungry and wanted the coconut cookies she kept in the icebox. I had to go through the living room to get to the kitchen. So I tiptoed in because I remember when Charlie slapped me … and Mother gets mad if I don’t stay in bed… .

DR. GOLD:
Who was with your mother?

ROBIN:
I never saw him before. He was on his knees on the couch … bending over Mother.

DR. GOLD:
What was he doing?

ROBIN:
His hands were on her neck. I stood very quiet and watched. Then he got up and left. He didn’t even say goodbye to Mama. I walked over to the couch and she was asleep … only she wasn’t really asleep, her eyes were open and she pretended to be asleep. And when I shook her she rolled off the couch and she was lying on the floor with her tongue hanging funny and falling to the side and her hair all dark and messed up. I loved to sleep against her breasts … they were so soft and warm under her nightgown. I didn’t know what they looked like before, and they look so ugly now without the nightgown. I hate them! And her hair is black and looks too black against her face, and her eyes look funny, they look right at me as if they don’t see me. I’m scared.
“Mutter
. Mother …
Mother!” (Silence on the tape)

DR. GOLD:
It is the next day. Where are you?

ROBIN:
In a big room … everyone is asking me questions. I keep asking for Mama. They want to know what the man looked like. I want Mama. I want my mother. Then a big lady in white comes and takes me into a room where there are a lot of children. And she tells me this is where I will live. And that all the other little boys in the room are like me … they have no mothers. I ask did my mother go to Hamburg and she says no. And one boy says, “Your mother is dead.” And I ask, “Did Mother go to the angels?” And the big lady in the white dress laughs and says, “Not your mother, sonny. Bad people don’t go with the angels, and she deserves what she got, bringing a kid like you into this world with the life she led!” And I … I hit her … I hit her… . (the voice screams. Then after a pause the voice continues.) Everything is going dark … but people are coming around me. But I’m not crying … Mama said I was a man and men don’t cry. I won’t cry … I won’t say anything … I won’t eat … I won’t listen to them. Then they’ll
have to bring me back to my mother. This is what she meant… . They found we had no father … they’ve taken me to this big home … away from her. But I won’t think about it … I won’t listen to them… .
(There is silence on the tape)

DR. GOLD:
Conrad, it is Christmas. Where are you?

ROBIN:
(
in a faint voice
) It is dark … I’m asleep … dark … dark… . There is a tube like a little straw in my arm … but it doesn’t hurt … nothing hurts … I sleep … sleep… . Ever since that bad dark lady left me to go to Hamburg … she never loved me … I will sleep and not think of her … she was bad… .

DR. GOLD:
It is two weeks later. Conrad. Where are you?

ROBIN:
I am sitting up in a big bed with sides around it. Two ladies in white are with me and one is very glad that I am sitting up. She asks me my name. I have no name. I don’t know where I am. A man in a white coat comes and looks in my eyes with a light. He is nice … they bring me ice cream… .

DR. GOLD:
It is your fifth birthday, Conrad. Where are you?

ROBIN:
Why do you call me Conrad? My name is Robin Stone, and I’m having a birthday party. And Mommy and Daddy and all my friends are watching me blow out the candles.

DR. GOLD:
Do you like Mommy?

ROBIN:
Of course. I was sick, did you know that? When Mommy and Daddy came and took me from the hospital I didn’t even know them. But I do now.

DR. GOLD:
What does Mommy look like?

ROBIN:
She’s pretty and nice and has yellow hair and her name is Kitty.

Dr. Gold clicked off the set. “The rest goes exactly as you stated—Lisa being born, all the rest of it.”

Robin sat back. His shirt was drenched, his face was drained of color. He looked at Dr. Gold. “What does it mean?”

Dr. Gold’s gaze was direct. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

Robin stood up. “It’s a pack of lies!”

The doctor’s expression was sympathetic. “I knew how you’d feel. At nine o’clock this morning, I phoned the Providence
Journal
. They went through the back issues for Thanksgiving 1928. They finally found this item: “Police broke into an apartment, after receiving an anonymous phone call. A woman was found strangled and her four-year-old child was sleeping on her breast. The woman had been dead seven hours. She had been charged with prostitution several times, but never convicted. Police believe it was the killer who called, but there are no clues, as the child is the only one who saw the murderer and cannot describe the killer.”

“And that’s it?” Robin asked.

“One more item. Three days later.” Archie continued: “Police tried to show pictures of various sex offenders to the child, but he seems to be in a comatose state. He is at the Good Shelter Home in Providence, Rhode Island.”

Robin walked to the window. “So I’m not me. I’m a little bastard named Conrad.” He turned and stared at Archie. “Why did you do this to me? Why? Wasn’t I better off not knowing?”

“Better off picking up strange prostitutes and almost killing them? Better off not being able to have a decent relationship with a woman?”

“I could have stayed away from whores. I was happy as I was.”

“Were you? I also doubt if you could have stayed away from whores. Maggie’s rejection of you caused something to stir which set off a chain reaction. And when you saw the prostitute, you unconsciously felt the old anger at your mother for leaving you—for being a ‘bad woman.’ There was, as you put it, an explosion in your brain. You acted out a dream fantasy, of hate and love.”

“Why would I hate? That kid on the tape loved his mother!”

“Of course he loved her. Too much. There was no one else in his life but her. Yet young as he was, his subconscious knew he had to hate to survive. But even hate can be painful, so he chose to forget—with self-induced amnesia. When you saw the prostitute, something from your subconscious came through—hate. When you met Maggie, the subconscious also stirred—love. The love you felt for your mother. You also saw Maggie as a beautiful girl
you
desired. But the subconscious rebelled. That’s why you
had to get drunk to be able to have sex with her. Sober, your subconscious ties her up with Mama.”

“And now because you tell me this I’ll walk out of here and be able to lay Maggie?”

“It’s not that simple. Eventually yes. After you’ve learned to understand your drives, your desires, and what motivates them. When that happens, you won’t need a clean antiseptic-looking girl to rouse you and a girl like Maggie to love from a distance. You will be able to give love and accept love in a total fulfillment.”

“Archie, I’m going to be forty-one. It’s a little late for a personality change. I think I’d rather have gone on grabbing a nice blond dish when I felt the urge.” He sank into a chair. “Jesus, I’m not me—Kitty’s not my mother. I don’t know who my father was. I don’t even know who my mother was.” His laugh was forced. “And I pitied Amanda! Me! The lowest kind of bastard there is. I’m Conrad who?”

“You
are
Robin Stone. A name does not make a man. But you’ve been living with some of Conrad’s scarred emotions. Get them out, air them. Keep the good ones, discard the wrong ones.”

“What would be the wrong ones?”

“The hate for his real mother.”

“Oh, she was a charmer,” Robin said. “At least Amanda’s mother did it with one guy. Mine was a bum.”

“She was a poor little German girl alone in a strange country. Obviously the man she married worked for a bootlegger. When he was killed the boss probably set her up as a prostitute. And don’t forget, when you were born she could have gotten rid of you. Dumped you into an orphanage in the very beginning. But she loved you—tried to give you a home, tried to save money to take you back to the only world she knew. She loved you, Robin.”

He clenched his fists. “Why in hell didn’t Kitty tell me? Why did she raise me to believe I was her own child?”

“It’s obvious you went into shock. When you came out of it, you had complete loss of memory. To tell you that you were adopted might have reactivated the bad memories, which—young as you were—you wanted to blot out. She probably was advised
not
to tell you.” He saw a hard gleam come into Robin’s eyes.

“Look here, Robin, I don’t want you to feel one second of self-pity. You’re a very lucky man. You had a mother who loved you. And Kitty who loved you enough to adopt you and keep the secret from you. A man who has been given that much love has no right to skim through life giving nothing of himself.”

Robin stood up. “As I see it, I’ve no right to skim through life
making
nothing of myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lisa knows the truth—something she said makes me realize that. And of course Kitty knows. She probably is worried about me—that I might revert to type or collapse. She feels I need protection. That I’m weak. They think I need a wife and children as an anchor. God, I’ve gone through the last thirty-five years on a pass. Kitty and Lisa secretly pity me. Well, I don’t need pity. And I don’t need a wife. I don’t need a child—I don’t need anyone. Including you! Get it! I don’t need
anyone!
And from here on in, no one gives me one goddam thing—I’m going to get it for myself.” He grabbed his jacket and tore out of the office.

TWENTY-FIVE

M
AGGIE
stretched out in the large bed. She smiled as she heard Adam’s loud baritone reverberating from the bathroom. She wanted to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was Sunday and Adam had promised to work with her on the new script. Just thinking about it brought on the fear. The fear she had been living with ever since Karl Heinz Brandt had selected her to star in his new picture. It was all very well for Adam to tell her not to be frightened about working with Karl Heinz but she was terrified. Karl Heinz was known for his sadistic attitude toward actors. He would humiliate the biggest stars to get a performance from them. She pushed the thought from her mind and picked up a copy of weekly
Variety
. Somehow there never seemed time to read anything other than the daily trades. You read them while they were doing your hair or makeup. How long had it been since she had read a newspaper? The gossip columnists attacked her for living openly with Adam Bergman at his beach house. They unearthed the fact that she had once been Mrs. Hudson Stewart. They condemned a “nice” girl for flagrantly ignoring matrimony. Oddly enough, the publicity enhanced her value. She was becoming a “personality.” And when Karl Heinz selected her to star in his new picture, the new avalanche of publicity turned her into a “hot” property.

One national magazine called her the “Lady of the Dunes,” and ran a photograph of her, walking barefoot with Adam in the moonlight along the beach in Malibu. Her constant refusal of invitations to all the “right” parties had also caused her to become a bit of a legend. Actually, she didn’t go because she was
scared to death. She enjoyed living with Adam, she enjoyed working with him, she enjoyed him in bed. And neither of them ever thought about marriage. The subject was never even discussed.

She thought about this as she leafed through
Variety
. When she came to the television section, she lit a cigarette and scanned every item carefully. She checked the ratings. Christie Lane was number one! Robin’s Happening show was in the top twenty.

She had heard from him last February—he was planning a Happening on the world of fashion. The communication was merely a typed letter offering her expenses, first-class accommodations at the Plaza and a fee of five thousand dollars if she wanted to guest-star as the commentator. She had typed a letter on a piece of Century’s stationery, explaining that Miss Stewart’s television fee was twenty-five thousand, but unfortunately her picture commitments would prevent any negotiations for a television appearance. Then she had signed it “Jane Biando, secretary to Miss Stewart.”

Adam came out of the shower with a towel around his waist. She watched him as he combed his hair. She told herself she was very lucky. She adored Adam. Then why did she always subconsciously think of Robin? Did she still want him? Yes, dammit, she did! Maybe Alfie Knight had explained it best. He was in love with Gavin Moore, the designer, yet he had gone wildly on the make for her during the picture. And when it was over he continued to call her. One day he said, “Luv, you may
just
have to have an affair with me and get me back to being a happy well-adjusted homosexual.”