She went on, her tone darkening, Jerry said nothing. “All that I’ve done for you, and you’re ready to creep away, ready to leave me alone. That’s all you men ever do, isn’t it? You creep away.”
“Not Todd,” Tammy said. “Todd wanted to trust you.”
“Shut up. You couldn’t possibly understand what was between us.” She pointed the bloody knife at Jerry. “But you. You understood. You knew how I’d been deserted in the past.”
This was the big scene, Tammy thought; no doubt about that. And she was playing it for all she was worth, as though she could finally be absolved of all she’d done, in the name of deserted womanhood.
“You’re pathetic!” Tammy cried. “Why don’t you do something useful with that knife and slit your fucking wrists!”
“Oh no. This isn’t the end for me,” Katya replied calmly. “This is the end for him. And for you — ” She poked the knife in Tammy’s general direction, “Your miserable lives are certainly over. But not me. I was always a chameleon. Wasn’t I, Jerry? From picture to picture, didn’t I change?” He didn’t reply to her, but she pressed the point, as though she simply sought verification of the truth. “Well didn’t I?” she said. “Grant me that much.”
“Yes … ” he said, as though to silence her.
“So I’ll change again. I’ll go out into the world and I’ll be somebody new. There’s a whole new life, still waiting to be lived.”
“Not a hope in Hell,” Tammy said.
“What?”
“Let it go, Tammy,” Jerry said.
“Why? She may look like a million dollars but she’s just a slice of the same stale ham that she ever was. You know what? I love movies. Even the silent ones. Like Broken Blossoms. I love Broken Blossoms. It still makes me cry. There’s some heart in it. Something real. But your … flicks?” She laughed, shaking her head. “They’re dead. You see, that’s the paradox. Mary Pickford’s gone, and Fairbanks and Barrymore. They’re all gone. But they live on because they made people laugh and cry. Whereas you? You’re alive, and the shit you made isn’t worth a damn.”
“That’s not true,” Katya said. “Jerry, tell her.”
“Yes, Jerry,” Tammy said, quietly. “Tell her.”
“The truth is that you’re not remembered quite as well as I may have — ”
“Let’s not tell any more lies,” Tammy said grimly. She looked at Katya. “Nobody knows who the fuck you are.”
Katya looked at Tammy for a moment, and then back to Jerry, who shook his head.
“If they knew,” Tammy said, “don’t you think somebody would have recognized you, when you came to get Todd?”
Katya looked down at the cracked floor. She was absolutely still, except for her right hand, which was idly judging the heft of the knife. When she looked up again, her face carrying a radiant smile.
“All right. Enough recriminations. We’ve said our hard words. Now we must begin to forgive.”
Tammy looked at her with incredulity. How many faces did this woman have? “There’s going to be no forgiving here,” she said.
“Will you shut up,” Katya snapped, passing her hand over her brow. The smile dropped away for a moment, and there was a terrible vacuity in its place. As though the masks, however many there were, concealed nothing at all.
But she put the smile on again, a little more tentatively, and looked at Jerry.
“I’m in need of your help,” she said. “Your help and your forgiveness. Please.” She opened her arms. “Jerry. For old times’ sake. I gave you a life. Didn’t I? Being up here with me, wasn’t it something to live for?”
Jerry took a long time to answer. Then he said: “You smell of death, Katya.”
“Please. Jerry. Don’t be cruel. Yes, I’ve hurt a lot of people. I realize that. Nobody regrets that necessity more than I do. But right from the beginning, I was trapped. What could I do? Zeffer was the one who brought the Hunt into this house, not me. I knew nothing about it. How can I be blamed for that?”
“I think they blame you,” Jerry said, nodding past Katya at the now-stilled fog; or rather, at what it concealed.