The Seventh Veil of Salome: A GMA Book Club Pick

The Seventh Veil of Salome

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Cast

Herod Antipas, the Lord Tetrarch, ruler of Galilee and Perea

Herodias, wife of Herod

Salome, daughter of Herodias and Archelaus

Marcus Julius Agrippa, cousin to Salome

Josephus, advisor to Herod

Lucius Vitellius, Roman proconsul

Sextus Marcellus, Roman soldier

Jokanaan, the prophet

Title card: The palace of Herod Antipas

Salome

How still

and stifling the day was, with no breeze to stir Salome’s flowing dark locks of hair, dark like supple plums or purple grapes from Alurus. The sea looked as if it had been painted with a dainty brush, and the fishermen’s boats lay motionless upon this expanse of azure. Sitting under a yellow awning that protected the balcony from the sun’s rays, Salome was bored by this stillness, by the heat of the day, and by her mother’s incessant prattling.

Herodias spoke of the proconsul’s imminent visit, of King Aretas, whose skirmishes had drained the energy of the tetrarch’s forces, of their cousin Marcus Julius Agrippa, who perhaps plotted against them or perhaps not, and of prefect Pontius Pilate, who perpetually antagonized her family.

And my Lord does nothing to quench the vicious mutterings of that madman, Herodias added, referring to the preacher called Jokanaan. The man stirred dissent throughout the streets and of late troubled her mind.

What might Herod do to him? Salome asked.

Two servants fanned the women. The one standing next to Herodias carried an ostentatious flabellum made with the feathers of an ostrich, while the one closest to Salome held a smaller peacock fan with an ivory handle.

Toss the wretch in a dungeon. Cut off his tongue…some action must ensue, her mother said, wringing her hands. The Lord Tetrarch…perhaps you might speak to him.

Herod Antipas, the Lord Tetrarch, was not only her mother’s husband but also Salome’s half-uncle: Salome’s father and her uncle had been born of different mothers.

Salome’s father, Archelaus, had married Herodias when she’d been but eighteen and a great beauty. Ten years later, Herod Antipas had paid a goodwill visit to his little brother. Herod Antipas had known Herodias since they were children, for she was also a member of the Herodian family and a distant cousin of his from one of their minor branches. The tangled knots of Salome’s kin had become even more tangled when Herodias had repudiated her husband and married Herod Antipas.

That Herod Antipas already had a wife, daughter of King Aretas of Nabatea, did not matter. That Herodias was a married woman and her husband would have much to say about this development was also of little importance to the tetrarch, who had been seized with a boundless passion.

Salome had never understood this; she could not fathom how such madness could take root in a person’s heart, driving them to strife, battle, and doom, all in pursuit of the flimsy, gossamer-thin sentiment people called love. Salome had not loved yet, and such passions struck her as frivolous.

Why would he listen to me, of all people? Salome asked. You would be better addressing Josephus about this matter.

The Lord Tetrarch listens intently to you, her mother said, her gaze hard as she stared at the sea.

Salome had noticed her uncle’s eyes on her for the past few months, as well as the acid tone that had crept into her mother’s voice. She’d noticed this and disliked it, thus she shrugged and arranged her fringed yellow shawl upon her shoulders.

A servant went to her mother’s side and whispered in her ear, and her mother smiled. Tell him he may come in. Herodias turned to Salome and said, Marcellus pays us a visit.

Mother, not today, Salome muttered tiredly.

Come now, you must be polite, Herodias replied, and the goodwill the woman held toward the young soldier made Salome conclude her mother had indeed noticed how Herod’s eyes lingered on his stepdaughter and perhaps sought to rid herself of the girl.

Marcellus was a strong young man with a crooked nose he’d earned after falling from a wild horse in his childhood, and an easy smile that charmed many a lady. He was an ambitious eques who had been sent to man a garrison and to subdue the bandits that roamed the roads and disturbed the peace. For a month or two he’d enjoyed Salome’s favor. That had passed, which was not unusual.

Salome was witty and learned. She knew how to play the harp, how to sing with a clear, fresh voice, and how to dance with exquisite ease. But she could also comb and spin wool, like a virtuous maiden ought to. She knew the works of Horace, Hyginus, and Ovid, but also Hipparchus. She was beautiful and relished this beauty. Men were a pastime to her; she collected them like other women collected strings of pearls. Marcellus, honest and a tad dull, could not have held her attention for long.

After greeting Herodias and Salome, Marcellus asked the ladies if they might accompany him to the textile market. A shipment of rare silk and fine linens from Berytos had arrived and he intended to purchase gifts for his sisters back in Rome, but did not know what to pick.

I am dizzy with the preparations for the tetrarch’s birthday celebration, her mother said, but Salome has a fine eye for silks.

It’s too hot to go anywhere. But at least it might rid me of this silly talk of Jokanaan and the tetrarch, Salome replied, waspish.

Her mother looked irritated, but Salome took Marcellus by the arm, and they exited the chamber.

It was indeed hot outside despite the awning on their handsome litter, and Salome found the space too narrow: Marcellus’s arm was but an inch from her own. Only a year before she had kissed him under the shadow of a palm tree and such closeness would not have concerned her, but her fickle mind had turned from him.

Still, she looked at the strong profile of the young man at her side and wondered if he might not make a decent marriage prospect. He was of a good family and ambitious enough that he was sure to rise through the ranks of the equites. Yet he was a Roman.

Salome was an Idumean. Her people had clashed with the Jews, and although the Jews had made them their vassals, later her grandfather Herod the Great had gained the friendship of Rome and crowned himself King of the Jews, ruling over the whole region. A fine revenge. But his children had not fared as well as he had, and now the land was divided into a tetrarchy, and Pontius Pilate governed over Samaria, Judaea, and Idumea, which had been the rightful lands of Salome’s father before her uncle Herod helped depose him and stole his wife.

Josephus, Herod’s most trusted advisor, had indicated that Salome ought to take a Nabatean husband and in this way heal the wounds of a conflict that had raged between King Aretas and Herod for more than a decade. There had also been suggestions that her cousin Agrippa, who had been raised at the imperial court in Rome, might make a good husband. But Agrippa’s fortunes had turned as of late, and he was said to be in debt to many parties. There was also talk, though muted, that a prominent Jew from Jerusalem might be the best choice, for the Jews still bristled at Herod and his Roman friends, and here, too, alliances might be strengthened with a good marriage. A Greek nobleman from Smyrna was a more unlikely but not implausible candidate.

Each of these choices made Salome wince. Her cousin Agrippa was dangerously cunning. The Nabateans had hated her family for too long to be trusted, she thought the Jews from Jerusalem quarrelsome and silly, the Greeks from Smyrna were haughty and vain, and she loathed the Roman soldiers for their coarse strength. They gave themselves the airs of noble lords even if they had been born barbarians and peasants, and Marcellus, despite his pleasant smile, was too uneducated and simple for her.

And yet he might take her to Rome, which sometimes thrilled Salome with thoughts of its poets and scribes, its enormous temples and wide roads, and all the excitement that might be found at the imperial court. Nevertheless, she also despised Rome. Bloated, greedy Rome, which had made her grandfather king but had purloined her father’s territory, condemning him to exile and suicide.

Even while Salome thought of all these options and discarded them, she remembered her uncle’s eyes upon her and rubbed her arms, making the golden bracelets around her wrists tinkle.

The party. He’d want her to dance at his birthday party.

The street of the luxurious textile sellers where they were headed was too narrow for even a litter, and Marcellus helped her descend from her cushioned seat so that they might walk together.

You are quiet today, Marcellus said.

It is the heat that numbs my tongue. It is not my fault. We should not have gone out, Salome said.

There is a tavern where we might have refreshments nearby, although I fear at this time of day Jokanaan might be preaching there. It is his haunt.

That old man preaches at a tavern?

He is not old, and he preaches in the square in front of it, warning drunkards and dice players of their sins.

You’ve met him, then?

I’ve seen him in passing.

They say he’s called my mother a whore. Salome smiled at Marcellus’s shocked face.

Your mother’s marriage to the tetrarch offends him, Marcellus said politely.

It offended Salome, too. She thought of her cool, composed uncle and recalled her rambunctious father. Archelaus had been a jovial man who laughed often and carried his daughter upon his shoulders. But Herodias had laughed little. She’d called him a dunce, a drunkard, a shame.

We should listen to him preach, Salome said, adjusting her orange veil, which covered the lower half of her face and identified her as a noblewoman, though the gold on her ears and fingers would have served as a badge all the same. It might be amusing. They say his hair is tangled and filthy with mire and dust, and he dresses in sackcloth. Come, let’s hear him speak.

I’m not convinced we should. The rabble tends to follow the preacher.

You can protect me, Salome said, clinging to his arm and looking up at Marcellus with her kohl-lined eyes.

Marcellus, blushing like a virginal youth, acquiesced and guided the girl to the spot where the preacher was usually to be found. This was a small square with a fountain surrounded by various and sundry businesses, from the tavern that sold wine brought from Samothrace and Sicily to the men peddling onions and dried fish.

A crowd had already gathered around the preacher, and there were so many people assembled that Salome could not get a look at the man, although she could hear him talking.

You burst with too much pride and adorn yourself with gold, yet remember: there is no other king than the Eternal God! the preacher said, and there were mutterings and whispers among the crowd.

They say he eats only locusts and honey, Salome whispered, but he yells with the strength of a man who swallowed a whole ox for breakfast.

Salome saw a small overturned cart and urged Marcellus to help her climb upon it so she could have a look at the preacher. She giggled as she balanced herself on her tiptoes like a dancer and gazed at Jokanaan.

The preacher wore a garment of coarse cloth and a leather girdle, and his long hair flew past his shoulders. But he was not the wizened madman Salome had pictured, and the mirth dried upon her lips.

He was young, Jokanaan. His face had no wrinkles, his eyes were bright. His body was slim and straight like the stem of a lily, and his hair was luxuriant and carefully combed. It was not dark like a cluster of grapes, like Salome’s hair, but a dark reddish-brown like the trunk of a cedar. He had a perfect mouth, kissable and sweet, and an aristocratic face that ought to have been crowned with silver and gemstones. He wore shabby sandals and cheap clothes that chafed his soft skin.

He was the most beautiful man Salome had ever seen.

By chance perhaps, or perhaps stirred by the intensity of the girl’s gaze, the young man lifted his head and looked in her direction. Their eyes were locked together for a moment.

It was a knife, his gaze; it rent her. Her chest was cut from chin to navel and her heart was plucked from her body with that look. It was a flaming arrow, his gaze. It made the blood in her veins boil, and she feared it would evaporate. It was a mace that struck her head, his gaze. It made her stumble and feel faint.

Jokanaan glanced away. She continued looking at him, looked until the crowd dispersed and Marcellus helped her down from her perch—she did not notice that his fingers lingered perhaps a tad too long around her waist. She did not comprehend the words he said about the stall with silks that they ought to visit. Her eyes were fixed upon Jokanaan, who was walking out of the square and away from her.

She followed Marcellus like a somnambulist, deaf and blind to the sights and smells of the businesses down the streets, ignorant of the people she bumped into, thinking only of the man she had just seen.

Salome, who had loved no one, not the young Syrian who had gifted her a black mare, nor the Moabite merchant who had placed a superlative emerald around her neck, nor the laughing Babylonian twins who’d come to court and charmed her with their songs, not even the Roman soldier who now took her by the hand…Salome, the haughty and capricious girl who was twice a princess and might be expected to one day wed an equally exalted prince…Salome was pierced by the sword of love that day and gave her heart to a beggar preacher.

Cathy Shaughnessy

Nancy Hartley

and I met because we were both living at the Decateur, which was an apartment building near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, filled with mostly movie types. Extras, script girls, the occasional negative cutter, that sort of crowd. Nancy had tried to get into the Hollywood Studio Club but didn’t make the cut. That was a women’s-only hotel that provided room and board. Kim Novak and Rita Moreno stayed there. Real actresses, you know? Girls who were going places. Not bit players, like us. Well, the Decateur wasn’t quite as nice, and Nancy wasn’t quite in the movies.

Not for lack of trying, though. She was pretty, and she’d had good training. Her old man was in vaudeville when that was still a thing. After bookings became slim, he moved to Hollywood to get his girl into pictures. I guess he was trying to raise himself a child star, like Shirley Temple. They lurked around town for a while, meeting producers and casting directors, but nothing came of it even though Nancy was a wonderful dancer.

That’s one of the things people don’t get when they talk about her. That she had talent.

I guess Nancy got tired, maybe she wanted a normal childhood, and when she was about thirteen or so she moved back with her mother. Then when she was, I dunno, I guess twenty-odd years old, she decided to give Hollywood another try.

By the time The Seventh Veil of Salome started shooting in ’55 she was twenty-six and she’d worked various jobs, mostly as a model or a restaurant hostess. I know what people say about her, but there’s no truth to that story that she was a prostitute and Jay Rutland was one of her customers. Or that Benny was her pimp. At worst, she accepted pickups, but what girl didn’t? In LA if you were a good-looking woman, you walked two blocks and a guy would try to pick you up, and it was a free meal or a ticket to a show you couldn’t afford.

People make all kinds of things up. She was a nice girl, determined and capable. She was perfect for the role of Salome. What happened to Nancy was thievery, an outrage. There was no girl in Los Angeles who could have outdanced Nancy.

Nancy

Pierce lit

a cigarette the second they were done fucking. He took his chain-smoking seriously and claimed the only person who smoked more than he did was Tallulah Bankhead, whose brand was English Gold Flakes. He also claimed he’d fucked Tallulah once, although Nancy didn’t think that was a great accomplishment: dishwashers and cab drivers could assert that same honor, if you trusted the rumors bubbling around town. But right then a different rumor was bothering her.

Is it true Lili St. Cyr tested for Salome? she asked.

Her? Pierce said with a chuckle, watching Nancy as she strutted around the room and tried to find her underwear. She’s not a real actress.

Hughes thinks she could be one, she said.

Baloney. If you read her name anywhere, it’s because Hughes’s publicity people are cooking up a stunt for her, but she has no chance of anything more than walk-on roles.

Nancy regarded Pierce skeptically. Word was that Howard Hughes was an odd duck, controlling and paranoid, but he had enough money to promote his many lovers and would-be girlfriends. If he wanted, Nancy was convinced he could make Lili St. Cyr into a star.

Besides, she’s a blonde. They’re not looking for a blonde, he added.

What about redheads? Nancy asked as she lifted her arms and fiddled with her bra. You said you’d get me an audition and it’s been weeks, and all I hear is this and that girl tested for the part.

At only thirty-three Pierce Pratt was already going bald, and his gut was growing bigger, courtesy of too many martinis and not enough exercise. His main attraction for her lay in his connections.

Pierce let the ash from his cigarette fall into a small copper ashtray. I am getting you an audition. I talked to Stuart Holden, and it’s practically a done deal.

When?

Next week. Or the week after that.

Pierce, she said, irritated.

I swear. The problem is that Isadora Christie is on vacation somewhere in Mexico, and when she’s not around the director seems unable to take calls. That assistant they have helping out in her place is an idiot. In any case, I got Holden to promise me he’d meet with you.

She sat on the bed and scooted close to him. Really?

Tessa had read the cards for her earlier in the week. Nancy had picked the Wheel of Fortune, which meant a great change was upon her. A dual transformation, Tessa said. Fateful meetings. Maybe this was the portent she’d read.

You have amazing legs, honey, and you’d look terrific in a harem outfit.

It would be wonderful, she said, but when he attempted to pull her in for a kiss Nancy stood up and gave him a playful smile. I’ll be late.

She didn’t have anywhere to be, but Nancy didn’t want Pierce thinking he could monopolize her day. If he procured her that audition, then she might be more generous with her time, but for now an hour was all he could expect. She finished getting ready and headed back to her place.

Nancy’s apartment, rented by the week, came cheaply furnished. It consisted of a Murphy bed, a table and two chairs, a hot plate instead of a kitchen, and a rickety fan. The one window was hard to pry open and the décor was limited to a bad reproduction of Botticelli’s Venus.

She’d lived here for a year. The building had been cool and sophisticated when it opened in the twenties, with its Jazz Age geometric mosaic patterns inlaid into the facade, but it was now in a state of neglect, and most of the mosaic decoration had crumbled away. She’d had better lodgings once on account of a married man who had put her up in an apartment with a large aquarium filled with tropical fish. Then his wife discovered this arrangement, and Nancy had been ordered to decamp. Nancy had smashed the man’s aquarium with a hammer, letting the water soak the plush carpet beneath. When the fish stopped gasping for breath she wrapped them in old pages from a newspaper, placed that in a box, and mailed it to the man’s home as a parting gift.

No matter. Nancy was used to moving around, used to the little ups and downs of life. Things were finally looking up lately. At one point she had been reduced to posing for Wallace’s disgusting nudie pics, but she’d picked up real modeling work, and there was her budding friendship with Pierce Pratt, who worked at Pacific Pictures’ casting office. There was the possibility of landing the part of Salome.

Nancy knew it was a long shot. Many actresses were vying for Salome, and she was an unknown, but Marilyn Monroe had started the same as her, working for the Blue Book Modeling Agency. Granted, Nancy was not with the Blue Book Modeling Agency but with a smaller agency that barely phoned her for any decent gigs. But she had paid for makeup, beauty, fashion, and charm lessons. She could dance, courtesy of her father. She took a good picture. She knew she could nail this role and nab a contract. Not a six-month option, which is what she’d managed to obtain before, a few months after she’d moved back to Los Angeles. Back then she hadn’t known what was what; she hadn’t realized the girls the studio executives wanted to fuck only got six-month options and were discarded. You had to aim for five, seven years. That meant they were serious.

Back when she’d gotten that six-month option she’d been over the moon. She even invited her old man out for dinner, told him she was going to be in films as he stared at her with a raised eyebrow. But she didn’t secure a single role, and the option lapsed. Sometimes she had to borrow money from her father, and it stung, but she hadn’t seen him lately. He was a fuck-up who worked as a bookie. He’d been a tap dancer, once. He’d had a face, once.

Nancy was unbuttoning her dress when the phone rang. The one good piece of furniture she’d bought for the apartment was a vanity with a large mirror where she piled her perfumes, lipstick, costume jewelry. The phone sat between two pictures of her: one modeling shot in a bikini, the other a picture of her as a kid when she’d danced as Little Nan Hartley. She was one year younger than Shirley Temple, although she often put down her birthday as 1932. It was a habit, from when her father tried to make her appear younger than she really was. Everyone loved a prodigy.

She let the phone ring thrice before picking up and looked in the mirror, checking her lipstick. Hello.

Hiya, baby doll.

Hi, Benny, Nancy said, suppressing a sigh.

Benny Alden was both fun and annoying. He was too pushy, too needy, always wanting to know what she was up to or who she was going out with. He resented his position of not-quite-a-boyfriend in her life, but she couldn’t see herself becoming serious with him.

First of all, there was the problem of Benny’s employment. She’d never been able to pinpoint exactly what Benny did. Odd goods filtered through his apartment. The first time she’d gone over to his place he’d had ten toasters sitting on the bed, which was good for a laugh. She knew he dealt dope, and he was proud of the fact that he sold heroin to musicians, who were the type that gravitated toward that stuff. All the jazz greats were dopeheads, that’s what he said—Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Dexter Gordon. He boasted that he even provided several actors with heroin. Bela Lugosi, who’d once been a big horror film star, was a customer. And Carlo Fiore, a failed actor who’d turned to screenwriting, was apparently a close friend.

At first Nancy had been impressed with Benny’s credentials, with the knowledge that he rubbed elbows with music and artsy types, but she quickly realized that the fact that Benny might have once sold heroin in both New York and LA wasn’t a badge of honor, nor did it offer any useful connections.

Second of all, Benny’s shady, amorphous, and variable line of employment meant he was surrounded by a disreputable crowd. He was good friends with a sleazy doctor who made croakers, counted several fast-living pimps among his drinking buddies, and had introduced her to people like Wallace Olrof, purveyor of pornographic reels and pictures. Nancy’s crowd was as dubious as Benny’s, but she was trying to push her way up, and she couldn’t see how Benny and his buddies could fit into her world if she obtained that part in Salome. The studio would balk at such associates.

No, Benny was not boyfriend material, yet she was also unwilling to cut him loose. He was sweet on her. Sometimes he’d lend her rent money, and he’d bought her a snappy suit and the silver bracelet with charms that she liked to wear on her left wrist. He was also an okay fuck and, if you didn’t focus on the gap in his teeth, he wasn’t bad looking. Maybe he drank too much, and maybe she tried to match him in his inebriation too often, and this wasn’t a recipe to happiness, but she was not the type to bake cookies and stay at home practicing needlepoint.

Sometimes Benny scratched an itch, and so what? But she wasn’t sure she wanted him that weekend. She felt exhausted after having to grin and make nice with Pierce.

I hope you’re not busy tonight. I’ve got plans for the evening, he said.

Nancy sat down on the bench in front of the vanity and took off a shoe, rubbing her foot. I’ve had a long day. I don’t want to go out.

Oh, but you do. Listen, Kent Shaw has a friend who recently rolled into town, and the friend wants to head out for drinks and maybe dancing. So Kent asks me, ‘Do you know any good-looking girls who might want to go on a date with us guys?’ and I say, ‘My sweetheart Nancy has many pretty friends.’ So, what do you say? It would be a triple date.

Nancy remembered Kent Shaw vaguely. He played the trumpet and hung out with Benny from time to time, usually when Benny had female friends around. Benny wasn’t a pimp, no, but he liked to call in favors, and sometimes this included phoning a girl or two so she would liven up a party.

I dunno, she said, examining the nail polish on her toes. I don’t like those joints the music types like Kent visit. They’re dirty.

We’d be going to Romanoff’s, doll face. I thought you’d like to eat there, that’s why I called. Kent’s friend is picking up the tab. Jay something-or-other is his name. Princeton man, momma’s boy, and owner of a fat bank account.

Nancy perked up at that, twisting the telephone cord around a finger. She’d always fancied dining at Romanoff’s, but she didn’t want to be pawed by a desperate, ugly Princeton man. Benny said no worries, she’d sit next to Benny, and they could have one of the other girls keep the man company. After agreeing on a time to meet, Nancy said goodbye and began pondering who she could ask to join them on this date.

Benny said he wanted two pretty girls. Cathy Shaughnessy was pretty enough and lived only two floors down, but Nancy was hard-pressed to think of someone else on a Friday night. She phoned half a dozen friends and got nowhere. She was desperate enough that she even thought to knock on Tessa’s door.

But Nancy discarded the idea. God knew Tessa could be counted upon to make her laugh, and she read the cards for the girls, but she was too cheap to join anyone having dinner at Romanoff’s. After all, the girl turned tricks to make ends meet. Tessa was material for a hot pillow joint, not a decent restaurant.

Finally, Nancy was able to chat with Karen Perkins, a fellow model who jumped at the chance of a free meal, and all was settled.

Nancy, never one to look dowdy, took special care with her appearance that night. She wanted to impress Benny and outshine the other girls. She didn’t much care what the Princeton man thought of her. She pictured him as a slightly shabbier version of Pierce Pratt, balding at the temples and with a gut that was contained by a girdle. But he’d get what he asked for: three pretty girls at his table, and she would be the prettiest one.

Nancy was not a natural redhead, but she thought she wore the color well. She liked to dress in blue to bring out her eyes, and her hourglass figure was best served by tight outfits. Her clothes were of a nice quality. They had to be. Making connections, scoring modeling gigs, obtaining the odd bit part required her to look good. When people asked her what she did she said, Actress, and aimed to resemble a starlet. That Nancy was a professional party girl more than she was an actress didn’t matter.

By the time Benny rolled around in his car and they jumped in, joking and laughing, Nancy thought she looked flawless, and she could see by his expression that her on-again-off-again lover agreed with her opinion. Kent and his friend were already waiting for them at Romanoff’s, so Nancy and Benny and the others asked to be taken to their table.

Nancy had been thinking about the stars she might see or the food she might eat at the restaurant, and hadn’t much considered the company she’d keep. The restaurant was famous for its chocolate soufflé and strawberries Romanoff, and that was what she was most interested in as she walked through the large ballroom wallpapered in orange, green, and yellow, trying to spy one of the regulars. They said Bogart was a fixture there, normally sitting at one of the seven reserved booths that were meant for stars and bigwigs.

She was so distracted by the contemplation of her surroundings, by the sight of silk and diamonds and the clinking of glasses, that she did not immediately greet their host for the evening, even as he introduced himself.

I’m Jay Rutland, he said as he stood up