Silver Nitrate(28)
“He doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Ever heard anything about Beyond the Yellow Door?”
“No, but he had a spate of films that fell through in the sixties. Not that he was the only one; cinema took a dive around that time,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Urueta didn’t help himself by being difficult. I heard he spent more time at the racetrack than reading a script back in the day. I heard he got involved with gangsters and almost had his legs broken. Didn’t he die last year?” the woman wondered.
“He’s still around,” Montserrat said, handing her a bill.
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m not even sure,” she said, and it was the truth.
There was a guy she knew, Fernando Melgar, who sold movie memorabilia and who once told her he had a script from The Curse of the Hanged Man, Abel Urueta’s last horror flick, annotated by Romeo Donderis. Nando’s prices were steep, which is why she didn’t bid on that, but he had mentioned that he could get Donderis himself to authenticate the script. At the time, she had thought it was a ploy to try to impress her—Nando was a horny creep—but maybe she ought to call him and ask if he knew anything about Beyond the Yellow Door. She was even tempted to drop by his apartment uninvited, see if he’d chat with her. Then she thought better of it. Nando would see it as a come-on, and she’d be stuck fending him off. Besides, was a random idiot who sold autographed pictures of Lilia Prado in tight leopard-print dresses really going to know anything about Wilhelm Ewers? Nando might have heard a story or two about Beyond the Yellow Door, but it would be the same rumors about financing gone sour she’d heard, or the stories that Abel had a gambling problem.
When Montserrat returned home she phoned Tristán and complained about her futile attempt to build a story. Wilhelm Ewers remained faceless, only a smudge in her mind, like the discolored bottom of a film can.
“All the stuff at the Cineteca is useless. If I was doing a piece about Abel’s career it might fly, but I’m looking for this one movie and this one fucked-up German who wrote it and I’m not having any luck.”
“Don’t panic yet. Urueta is going to give you the interview you need sooner or later.”
“He doesn’t like us.”
“He got a little tense, but Urueta loves talking. He wouldn’t shut up about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and how he had cocktails with them several times when Burton was shooting The Night of the Iguana. He’s an old soldier sharing war stories. He wants to be heard.”
“Not by me anymore. Not if Enigma is involved. This is bullshit.”
Editing was changing. The Moviola and the Steenbeck machines were yielding space to video monitors, tapes, and computers. Beyond the Yellow Door was an item from another era; it enchanted her with its antiquated film stock and post-synchronized sound: it was like meeting a gentleman in a tweed suit and a monocle these days. She wanted the story about its troubled production. She wanted to discover its secrets, and there was nothing to be known. In her mind, the picture she had assembled of the film was vanishing, like decomposing celluloid.
“What isn’t! Listen, hang in there. I’ll soften the old man. Be ready to come over on Saturday.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered without enthusiasm.
Friday instead of going to the Cineteca she headed to the archives at Lecumberri. She found more of the same: stubs, film capsules, a few reviews. An old issue of Cinema Reporter dated 1960 provided her with the only significant piece of material she was able to dig up: a black-and-white photo showing Ewers.
The picture in fact showed four people. Two of them she identified easily. Abel Urueta had his trademark scarf, and Alma Montero, although older, was recognizable from the publicity photos from her silent era years. A pretty, young woman in a strapless dress was new to Montserrat. She had the air and smile of a socialite if not an actress. The fourth person was a man in a dark suit. They sat with Alma at the forefront, the lens more interested in her, then Abel, the girl, and finally the man at the farthest end of the table almost an afterthought. The occasion must have been a birthday celebration or a big event, for there was confetti in Alma’s hair.
The caption read: “Film star Alma Montero, director Abel Urueta and his fiancée Miss Clarimonde Bauer, and Mr. Wilhelm Ewers enjoy an evening at El Retiro.” The story that accompanied the picture was a stub and useless filler, like everything else she’d found, but at least the image made a ghost tangible. Because until that moment she had begun to believe there was no Ewers. He had evaded her, but at least she was able to contemplate the reality of the man.
Yet stubbornly, as if he had known he was being sought, the man in the picture appeared almost out of frame, his head inclined, so that you couldn’t get a good glimpse of his face no matter how much Montserrat squinted and tried to make out more details. She could see the balloons decorating the background, but not Ewers.
“Slippery motherfucker,” she whispered, but at least she now could pinpoint a man going by that name who had made it into the local film publications on at least one occasion. If she kept looking, perhaps she would find more mentions of him somewhere.
That same afternoon Tristán called and said Urueta wanted to have them over the next day. Montserrat, with her usual punctuality, arrived notepad and pen in hand at the arranged time. Tristán told her to stuff the notebook in her purse. It might scare Urueta off.