Marilyn - David King's short quest

Marilyn.

David King’s Short Quest

‘Hallo uncle Peter,’ David called out stepping off the old 1970s coach in Nice, capital of French riviera.

It was the start of Summer 1998 and young David King, fresh after graduation met his long-lost uncle. It was almost a decade ago when Peter decided to ‘travel the West’. This was the official version but from his parents’ quiet conversations, David knew that there was something more to his disappearance than this. So, when they heard that Peter is finally back in Europe, David almost forced his parents to contact him and organize this trip. There was only one condition – great results on his final exams at the University. For David this was not a problem, so for last few months he was readying himself for this moment, meeting with his favorite uncle Peter. He did not know what to expect – it was eight or nine years since they talked for the last time, so he was nicely surprised to see tall athletic looking man with an honest smile and a strong handshake.

‘Great to see you David,’ he pulled his nephew closer, embraced him and manly patted David’s back, ‘You are so tall now!’ Peter looked at him from toes to his head and smiled, ‘You grew up to a nice man David. I must admit, I am nicely surprised.’

‘Thanks uncle, you don’t look bad yourself either,’ David smiled and went to pick up his backpack. The driver has left few bags and one backpack on the pavement, closed the luggage compartment and was walking back to the bus. Small chubby man with short muscular hands and black bushy hair did not waste his time and has already been closing the doors and igniting the engine. He had a long way in front of him through Marseille and Montpellier to Barcelona in Spain. Two other passengers were chatting to his friends who had come to pick them up.

‘Let us go to my place,’ offered Peter taking smaller backpack and walking towards Renault Clio parked just on the edge of big parking space designated for coaches. ‘It is evening so there are not so many buses here, but I still don’t want to overstay here.’

David put his massive backpack into the boot of the small car and found out that there was not enough space left for his smaller backpack where he kept his passport, brand new mobile phone bought few weeks ago just for this trip, book he was reading  and few other essentials. They chucked smaller backpack at the back seat of a Clio and after a moment they were vacating the space. Just in time, the man in a uniform has just left a small cubicle on the other side of an enormous parking and was slowly walking towards them. From the grimace on his face they could say that he was not too happy about their presence at the space designated only for the buses.

‘We were lucky,’ smiled Peter passing the uniformed man with an oval belly and a very formal hat.

Clio’s engine was working perfectly, and the roads were in surprisingly good condition, David noticed. He wanted to talk to his uncle so much that he was almost physically burning from the inside.

There were so many questions he wanted to ask.

So many strange tales he overheard…

David wanted to know what really happened.

During this journey he caught himself from time to time that he was staring at his uncle’s profile until Peter looked at him and smiled. It was his mother’s smile. If you put both next to each other you would see the same muscles moving under the skin to produce wide, honest smile. The only difference was that his mother skin was so white in comparison to Peters…

Finally, he burst, surprised to hear his own voice:

‘Where have you been?’

Peter looked at him for a second. Smile on his face, eyes focused.

‘Here and there…’ he said, turning his head towards dark tarmac road, vanishing quickly under the front wheels of the navy-blue Clio. From his tone of voice, David understood, that Peter does not want to talk about it. At least not now.

After the drive that took them about twenty minutes, they arrived at the house on the outskirts on Nice, in one of the valleys carved millennia ago when forming Alps pushed through the ground shaping the natural barrier between current Italy and Germany.

‘You did not say how was your travel.’ This was more of a statement than a question.

‘It was all right,’ answered David.

‘I travelled a lot in the buses and trains when I was your age. Me and your mum visited every interesting place in Poland,’ David took his belongings from the boot, Peter grabbed smaller backpack and closed the doors, ‘We have got so many stories to tell. Did she tell you about our hike to get to the Carpathian’s highest peak Tarnica. This was when she got the mountain’s bug. We went back there several times,’ Peter was now approaching the door to a small house, keys in his hand. After a moment of struggle with the lock, he managed to turn the key and pushed the door leading to a small hallway. ‘This is what I miss the most, I think,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘the time when we disappeared with her for days in Bieszczady, hiking all the trails. God, the colour of Autumn in there is just like from fairy tale. If you have not been there, you will not believe even if I would try my best to describe the dark green, golden yellow, brown or red leaves carpeting the hills until the far horizon. And the smell of nature on every step was almost tangible.’

Peter closed the door and turned to David, evidently coming back from a long-time travel:

‘I have got a room for you upstairs. Drop your stuff there, first on the left. I will prepare something to eat.’

David climbed the stairs and when he came back, he was wearing more comfortable joggers and a T-shirt. Peter was waiting for him in a living room with few snacks and a hot tea. After late supper accompanied by a quiet classical music they relaxed on the sofas.

‘Anna, your mum, said that you wanted to come and talk to me?’ Peter asked.

‘I always wanted to know why you left?’ Said David evidently encouraged by Peter’s friendliness.

‘What did she actually tell you?’   

‘That you went to pursue your dream. She never shared any specific details.’

‘Yes, your mum can keep her word,’ Peter smiled taking a sip of red wine, he brought from a small kitchen next door. Chilled and half empty bottle was now standing on the table, where he left it after filling their glasses. 

‘So, what was it? I heard they wanted you to stay at the University. Why did you leave?’

‘It was in 1986 or 1987, I don’t remember now, when I bought a book which changed my life for ever. I remember I was writing my lecture about the JFK when I started reading Baker’s “Marilyn Monroe: Alive in 1984”. This was the beginning of almost a decade of research.’

‘Are you saying that you left Poland only because you read a book?’

It took Peter a long time to answer this question but after a minute of silence he eventually said:

‘Yes. I think you might bring all of that to this one event,’ he took another sip of wine, but his eyes were fixed on the time long gone.

‘Are you still researching the ideas? How long can it take? Come on, everyone knows she died in 1962. Overdose, if I am not mistaken?’ David could not believe that his uncle has spent almost ten years pursuing a silly idea about a dead actress who is claimed to be alive. It was like was believing in ghosts.

‘You would be right, like almost everyone I know,’ said Peter with a sad smile on his forty something smoothly shaved face. ‘Your mum knows very well what it takes to follow somebody’s dream. Very often other people might call you stupid, they might say that you are chasing shadows…’ He made a long pause. ‘It wasn’t just a book, you know,’ he sprang suddenly to life again. ‘After I read a book, I researched it in Poland. Everything was perfect, but then I saw a picture, one of thousands I looked through, and I saw her. I saw her face on the picture from JFK’s funeral. I swear it was her. If you saw her once, you would not forget it. And then, then I was properly hooked.’

‘Wait the second,’ now it was David, who was shocked, ‘you say, that Marilyn who died in 1962, was present during Kennedy’s funeral about a year later in 1963?’ 

‘Yes. This is what I said.’

‘How? You must be mistaken Peter!’ David was properly astonished.

‘Maybe. We will see tomorrow.’

‘Why?’ David’s suspicions rose one more level.

‘As you said a decade of my research will be put to a test tomorrow. It will tell me if I lost a decade or maybe I actually was onto something big.’

Now David could not sit still.

‘Talk to me Peter. I will not be able to sleep tonight if you don’t tell me what you know.’

Peter smiled. He knew how magnetic Marilyn Monroe was when she was alive, but the power she has got after she had disappeared is not so small either. He took his guest to his study. Marilyn’s posters have been hanging on each wall, notes and various comments Peter has been making during his work were lying scattered on a desk. Commodore 64 with a monitor was taking most of a cramped space desk, green monochrome screen was filling the room with a mysterious atmosphere.

For next three hours Peter was guiding his nephew through his research, showing him notes from his interviews with Baker himself, who was 99% sure he gave Marilyn a lift in his taxi in 1984. His uncle managed even to get to Bernard Spindel, who had Monroe’s house bugged and knew everything what was going on at this time on the premises, not to mention Darwin Porter, Marilyn’s biographer who is strongly convinced that there was a big cover up operation to cover her death and few retired FBI agents who were involved in the investigation to this sad and suspicious suicide.  

‘I can see, you were quite busy in the States …’ whispered David looking at the years’ worth of research unwrapping in front of him. Peter sat up, looked at young man and smiled again, nodding silently thinking about all libraries he visited and people he talked to during his backbreaking research.

‘So why did you come back? Why here?’ Asked David.

Peter took a deep breath and bravely said:

‘She lives here.’

‘You are joking!?’ David’s eyes almost jumped of their orbits and his hand with a glass stopped mid-air. ‘Can you say it one more time?’

‘She lives here. Marilyn lives in Nice.’

‘How….’ David stopped. ‘Yhm…’ he coughed to clear his throat. ‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t. That is why I said: “We will find out tomorrow”.’

‘Why tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow is first of June.’

‘And?’

‘It is her birthday. I am going to pass her my wishes.’

‘How old is she now?’

‘Find out 1998 take away 1926. Just over 70.’

‘Nice age,’ said David, and quickly added ‘If it is her.’

‘Must be.’

‘Why?’

‘I spent ten years looking for her and I don’t like to be wrong.’

They stayed in the study talking about David’s studies and his plans for the future listening to vinyl record with the compilation of Marilyn’s best songs. When they eventually went to sleep it was well after midnight.

It was about 9AM when David heard some noises coming from the kitchen downstairs. Peter served them a nice fresh breakfast and they left house about an hour later. They jumped into the Clio, Peter looked at David and switched the ignition on. The car woke up and few moments later they were on the road.

This journey was even quitter than the one they had last night.

David could feel almost physical burden Peter had on his shoulders. He saw how his uncle tried various techniques to relieve the stress, but it looked like nothing worked. He was relaxing his hands on the driving wheel, taking deep breaths and exhausting slowly, but his jaws were constantly tensed. He could not relax. Peter was like a time bomb and with every kilometre of the road the stress seemed to be bigger and heavier. It was radiating from him like heat rays from a radiator. Even David sensed it and felt the pressure weighting him down, despite diving into the case just yesterday evening. Peter was like Atlas, trying to hold up the whole world from collapse but it seemed a futile effort.

He slowed down, turned off the road and stopped in front of a nice villa, with a beautiful view of Nice below and azure see on the horizon.

‘Nice house…’ noticed David when he got out of the car and quickly looked around.

‘Yhm,’ was the only thing Peter was able to utter, looking intensely at the front of the two-storey house.

They walked to the doors. Peter nervously and too quickly tried to sort out his shirt and trousers, then he patted his hair, evidently wanted to make sure they look perfect. They did not, but David, walking just behind him, kept it to himself. He could see how tens his uncle’s body still was.

Peter stopped in front of nicely finished wooden door, looked at his nephew cast a short and nervous smile and, gathering his last strengths, he knocked at the door.

After a long wait they opened.

‘Yes? How may I help you?’ asked an old woman in perfect French. Her simple dress underlined all the essential curves of her body. Her best days were evidently gone but the contour of her face, lips and eyes were as vibrant as they used to be in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” or “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “How to Marry a Millionaire.”

Peter was silent. Could not articulate a single world.

David was stunned as well. So far Peter’s story was just a fairy tell story. Nice, but just a story. Now, those few words were enough for him to recognize the voice he was listening to for few hours just yesterday in the studio.

Eventually David poked Peter at the back and his uncle cough out: ‘Happy Birthday Norma,’ and stretched his hand with a small card he had prepared for this very moment ages ago.

‘You must be mistaken, gentlemen. I don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said but, that very second David would swear that this meticulously organized eyebrows, seductive eyes with the smile that lit up gracefully aging face really belonged to Marilyn.

She looked at them and corrected curl of her hair with the move that was Marilyn signature. David did not know Peter’s emotions, but standing there, like a pair of nervous teenagers in front of his life’s first and innocent love, he knew that this was Marilyn. And she was alive on French riviera! As both men were stunned and quiet, she took the reins of the situation and said in her soft voice:

‘Forgive me, I am having guests today and don’t have the time. Please do see yourself out.’ She switched to English, but the accent was most definitely American. She closed the door in front of them, leaving two men speechless in front of her door.

‘Why haven’t you said anything?’ David burst after a moment.

‘It is her…’ Said Peter turning. He was pale white, but his eyes were on fire. Suddenly, like he discovered a new star, his face was lit by widest smile David has ever seen and he repeated: ‘It really is Marilyn…’

‘She said, she does not know what we are talking about. Be realistic Peter. It is not her!’ David played Devil’s advocate role now, but he was doing it against his own intuition.

‘I know what I saw, and I know what I heard. I don’t know why she said it, but I know it was her.’ He looked at David and added: ‘And I am sure, so do you.’ David did not want to comment it.

They got in the Clio, Peter turned the key and reversed the car. He stopped for a moment before he joined the traffic on the road.

By then the woman was standing in her bedroom on the first floor, looking at the navy-blue Clio leaving her premises. Her left hand was thoughtfully touching a golden medallion on her long neck. Only when she saw them gone, she looked into the room and sighted. Sad smile flashed through her face as she walked across the room and looked on the pictures displayed on the wall. John Fitzgerald Kennedy smiled at her from a small photo given to her decades ago, in the corner a neat writing: ‘To my love Marilyn’ with a signature JFK. Posters of “Niagara”, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “River of No Return” among others reminded old women of the time in her life when she had a world at her feet.

She walked across the room and quietly closed the door behind her with a gentle smile on her ruby perfectly shaped lips.

‘This is for the better,’ she whispered walking to her friends who were quietly chatting in the garden.