Melanie found those discussions depressing, useless, and of little importance to her daily existence. Life in Omaha went on week to week as if there was no threat lurking in the shadows. Moscow was a world away, as was its malevolent reach. And for heaven’s sake, the terrible war in Europe and the Pacific was over. Couldn’t people just enjoy peacetime when they’d worked so hard for it? What bothered sixteen-year-old Melanie that November day more than the threat of a Soviet takeover was that she’d been promised Alex’s bedroom when he went away to college. Her brother had been at the Cleveland Institute of Music three months already—on a full scholarship that her parents were outrageously proud of—and yet Melanie was still in the little room at the top of the stairs instead of in the big one.
And yet, even so, she was missing her brother terribly. Alex was no fan of table talk about world affairs, either, but he did love a good debate. Melanie had long admired Alex’s pluck—and his insights. Her older brother was also wildly gifted on the violin—aninstrument he’d once told Melanie he actually didn’t care for and that it was hard to be so good at something you didn’t like—but she knew Alex had a clever mind in addition to musical ability. And he wasn’t afraid to tell it like it is, so the saying went. Or to play the devil’s advocate just for the fun of it. On an evening just before Alex had left for Ohio, when the dinner conversation had again wound its way to the monstrous enemy across the globe, Alex had reminded Herb and Wynona that the U.S. and Russia had been allies in the last war. Herb replied that the wartime alliance had been entirely strategic. The two vastly different countries merely had a common goal at the time: to defeat Germany.
“We were temporarily united against a common foe,” Herb had said, in his flannel-soft voice. “We weren’t allies; we were allied.”
Alex had said that was the same thing. Herb said it wasn’t. They went happily back and forth with neither one conceding until Wynona finally ended the contest of wills with offers of seconds on cabbage rolls.
It actually wasn’t until after Melanie had arrived in Los Angeles to try to make it as an actress after one year of college—a decision Herb and Wynona hadn’t been happy about—that she recalled her father having told her several years earlier that there were communists in Hollywood.
She’d been in a crowded hallway, waiting to be called in for her first real audition, when she remembered. Another young woman in that collection of hopefuls mentioned the blacklist—by then in its fourth year—and Melanie heard her mother’s voice in her head, asking Herb if he was sure about there being communists in Hollywood. That didn’t make any sense. What did actors and actresses know about politics? What did they care about politics?
“It makes perfect sense,” Herb had replied back then. “And we’re not talking here about just actors and actresses but the writers anddirectors, the very people who are creating what people watch. It’s a perfect way to influence the American mindset and way of life. Through the arts, you see.”
He’d tapped the day’s newspaper folded at his elbow on the table and then shared that ten writers and directors had been subpoenaed to testify and they’d refused. The Hollywood Ten, as they were being called, had been found in contempt, fined, and now faced jail terms. And shockingly, a number of movie stars had flown to Washington the month before to protest the hearings before which their colleagues had refused to testify: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, and John Huston, to name a few.
“And that’s not all,” Herb had said. “The studios—all the big ones, mind you—have responded to this unpatriotic audacity with a blacklist. All ten names are on it.”
Wynona had nodded as she plopped a dollop of mashed potatoes on her plate. “Serves them right.”
“I quite agree. Bogart and Bacall and the rest should count their lucky stars their names aren’t on that list, too,” Herb had replied, and Melanie asked what a blacklist was.
Melanie’s father had been pleased with her interest. “It’s an informal register of people who aren’t to be trusted, supported, or employed. A blacklist means these men won’t be able to find work anywhere in Hollywood. Actions like theirs must have consequences, you see. You can’t blatantly disrespect and disregard all that America stands for and expect to carry on as usual. Anyone who hires these people will find themselves on the blacklist, too.”
“But…but what did they do?”
“I told you, sweetheart. They were summoned to testify before Congress and they refused.”
“No, I heard that. I mean why were they asked to do that? What did they do?”
“They’d been identified as having communist ties and proclivities and they were summoned to address those allegations.”
“So…they hadn’t actually done anything?”
“What they did was refuse a summons. The accusations against them are quite serious, Melanie.”
She’d wished Alex had been at the table that night because the conversation moved on to another topic, and Melanie felt like there was more to be said but she didn’t know what questions to ask. Alex would have known. And Alex would have asked them.
Clever, unafraid Alex…
It was Alex whom she really wanted to talk to now, there in the dark of a Malibu house that wasn’t even hers.
Not Carson.
Not poor, damaged Elwood Blankenship.
Alex would know what she should do the next time the Washington witch-hunters came calling.
Alex would know.
Too bad she had no idea where her brother was.
Six years had passed since Alex Kolander had dropped out of college and run off with the girlfriend known to Melanie and their parents only as BJ. She’d heard from her brother only a handful of times since. There had been a postcard from Alex from London not long after he first disappeared telling Melanie all was well and to tell their parents not to worry.
The police had used that postcard to try to convince Wynona and Herb that their son hadn’t been kidnapped or sold into servitude or been hit on the head to wander the streets forever as an amnesiac.
Melanie could guess and perhaps even understand why Alex didn’t want their devastated parents to know initially where he was. He had walked away from a full scholarship. A full scholarship!Alex probably hadn’t wanted to bear the weight of their parents’ immense disappointment. But Alex had abandoned Melanie, too, when he ran off with BJ. And to maintain that distance from all of them for six years? That part she couldn’t understand.
When Melanie’s movie had come out—was it really only eleven months ago that her name was up in lights?—she was sure Alex would see that she had indeed finally made it and would want to reunite. There had been only a few scattered moments of connection up to that point. A phone call or two. A couple letters.
