Walls of Death and Time: part 1

If walls could talk, would anyone really listen? If my experience is anything to go by, the answer is no.

The Lilah Thorne Theater hasn’t changed much in the past century. The technology has been updated to keep up with the times, but the design looks the same as it did 100 years ago. Same gold wallpaper, same plush red carpet, same crystal chandelier hanging overhead. The only notable change is the name. In my day, the theater was called the Hyperion. A change in name came with a change in ownership in the 60s. It became the Bellarosa then, a name which the theater kept for over 50 years. Just last year, it was renamed again, this time the Lilah Thorne after a young actress who died mysteriously in 1921. They said the name was meant to right a wrong committed long ago. Little do they know that their misguided gesture only added to the wrongs.

Putting her name on the theater I love is like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, a vandalization of a priceless work of art. The name Lilah Thorne blinks in blinding light on the marquee outside, but in my heart the theater will forever be known as the Hyperion. Please excuse me if I use that name from now on. I can’t bring myself to defile this place any further by calling it the name of the woman who betrayed me!

That’s right, Lilah Thorne was not the sweet angel she appeared. Not that that matters to anyone. People are as easily fooled by a pretty face today as they were 100 years ago. I, of all people, should know. That pretty face was my undoing.

Thousands of people pass through the gilded halls of the former Hyperion every year; thousands more pass through the crowded street outside. While most are oblivious to the building’s sordid history, some are drawn by morbid curiosity in a story they think they know. After a century of watching, the faces and voices tend to run together in an indistinguishable blur. “If walls could talk,” they all say.

I can talk. They just never bothered to listen. If they did, they would hear a tale of deception and extortion that would blow the lid off a century-old murder mystery!

****************************

“If only these walls could talk.” It’s the same line I’ve heard innumerable times over the years, but this time, this girl is different. There’s no hushed, wishful tone to her words. It’s almost as if she senses my presence, but I dare not set my hopes too high.

The girl strides across the lobby with a confident air, despite being the only person in the room not accompanied by an entourage. She stands apart from the crowd drinking and laughing, a notepad in one hand and a glowing object - a smartphone, as modern society calls it - in the other. Tucking a pen behind her left ear, she peruses the photographs on the opposite wall, photographs that tell an incomplete history of the building’s namer. There’s several of Lilah Thorne in all her former glory, the window card from the night she took her final bow, the police photos of her lying dead beside a broken glass sculpture in her costar’s home, the newspaper clippings of said costar’s trial in a kangaroo court…

This girl isn’t the type who would’ve caught my eye in my own time - too tall, too wide, and too blonde! Still there’s a certain intelligence in her eyes that draws me to her, almost as if she sees through the lies. She stands stone-faced before the photographs, unmoved by the graphic imagery until she comes to the last set. This set reveals the fate of Lilah Thorne’s hapless costar… the advertisement for his triumphant return to the theater after three years wrongfully imprisoned and the lurid photograph that graced the front page of the next morning’s newspaper, a man shot outside the Hyperion stage door by one of Lilah Thorne’s admirers.

There’s none of the usual disgust or satisfaction in the girl’s eyes, only compassion for the condemned man. “Totally barbaric,” she mutters under her breath, tapping at her phone. It flashes and clicks several times, and she pockets it, trading it for her pen and notebook.

“No one deserves that!” She turns away, furiously writing. As she nears, I peek over her shoulder at the following line:

A meanness in Thorne’s eyes undermines her angelic persona…

“You’re so right!” I can’t help but laugh, doubtful that the blonde will hear me. Few ever have, and those who do never listen.

She startles, stops writing, and looks around, staring right at the wall where I dwell. Unable to see me, she goes back to writing. At least she hears me; that’s the most important thing.

“You’re a good writer.”

“Thanks! I’m not a very successful one, though. I’m just an entertainment blogger…” If her looks and demeanor hadn't already set her apart, that accent would've been a dead giveaway! Her voice trails off as she glances behind her to find no one there. “Wait, who said that?”

“I did.”

Her expression changes. I know that panic-stricken look in her eyes all too well. It’s the last look I see on every would-be acquaintance’s face before they flee in fear, the look of someone who doubts their own sanity.

“Don’t be afraid. You’re not hearing things.” Not hearing things that aren’t real, I mean.

Several passers-by begin to stare, thinking they’ve overheard her talking to herself. The idiots are too loud and probably too drunk to have heard me! The girl hesitates. That’s it, I know I’ve lost her now…

I watch, half-expecting her to turn away, but she picks up her notepad instead. Oh, smart girl!

Who are you? She writes.

“My name is Edward Mallory. In life, I was an actor in this very theater.”

Understanding dawns in her blue eyes. She jerks her pen at the photograph of the man gunned down and writes, That Edward Mallory?

“Yes.”

How are you still around? Are you a ghost?

“In a manner of speaking. When I died, the universe took pity on me and gave me a second chance to clear my name. Until that happens, my spirit is bound to the walls of the Hyperion.”

I see the confusion in her eyes. Before she can write the question I know is coming, I answer, “Don’t ask me to call it by her name.”

How will she react to that? WIth every scratch of her pen against the paper, my unbeating heart sinks. I prepare for a barrage of accusations like those that haunted the final years of my life as I look at the page.

What did she do to you? I have to re-read it several times to be sure I’ve seen it correctly. Usually the question is reversed: What did you do to her?

Before I can answer, a voice blares over the PA system. “Tonight’s performance will begin in five minutes!”

There’s too many people around and too little time to talk now! “Not here. Meet me by the elevator at intermission.”

****************************

When I said the Hyperion hasn’t changed much, I wasn’t lying. Somehow in more than a century of operation and several renovations, nobody thought to replace the old elevator with an automatic one. Thank goodness for that! No one ever uses it anymore. They seat disabled people on the ground level, and everyone else thinks the stairs are less trouble… too long a wait for the elevator operator and too prone to malfunctions. Malfunctions which I may or may not have caused. I have to get the patrons’ attention somehow. Most of them are not as perceptive as the little blonde blogger.

Speaking of whom, where is she? What if she doesn’t come? What are the odds that I’ll find someone else willing to hear my story? From within the elevator walls, I watch the audience’s mass exodus. The crowd splits in half with one group beelining for the bar and the other group for the restrooms, but there’s no sign of her. I’ve waited nearly a hundred years for this. A few more minutes should be nothing, yet the time creeps by at an agonizing pace.

Finally she emerges from the crowd, a notepad in hand and a message written at the top of a fresh page, Mr. Mallory?

“Yes, Miss…” My voice trails off as I remember I don’t yet know her name.

Ronnie. Ronnie Baird.

The name seems old-fashioned compared to some of the oddball modern names I’ve heard echoed through these walls, yet somehow too masculine for her. “Short for Veronica, I’d imagine.” She nods. “I’ll make you a deal, Miss Baird. You may call me Edward if you let me call you Veronica.”

She nods again; this time I see the faint glimmer of a smile. Wasting no time, she writes her first question: How did you know Lilah Thorne?

It’s a tame question compared to what I thought it would be, but the memory still stings. “My greatest joy in life was mentoring those less fortunate. She came to me one night after a show, asking for acting advice. I got her a job at the Hyperion, and she eventually worked her way up to lead actress. She was my protege… so full of promise and talent, like yourself.”

Veronica shakes her head, writing. I’m not. Writing isn’t a real talent; everyone back home says so. They think I need to give it up and get a real job.

She’ll never see how much reading those words breaks my heart. That was the exact response I got when I decided to pursue acting. “Then everyone is wrong.”

It just now occurs to me that Veronica reminds me of Lilah. They’re two different women living in two different eras on two different career paths with two different motivations, but I see the same drive and ambition in her. If only Lilah had used that drive and ambition for good… well, we both would’ve lived a lot longer.

Veronica stares bewildered as she writes a new question: What changed?

“We did. Sometime over the years, I fell in love with her. We courted; I nearly married her, for goodness’s sake! I thought she loved me too, but there was only one thing Lilah Thorne loved: money.” A century later, and the pain of her betrayal still cuts like a knife!

“God, I was such a fool! It turns out Miss Thorne was quite the gambler. She racked up thousands in debt and expected me to pay it off with a sum of money I inherited from my father, money I planned to use to buy and revitalize the Hyperion. I refused, and we argued. The last thing she said before she left that night was, ‘you’ll be sorry!’”

There’s that sad look in Veronica’s eyes again, the one she had when she saw the picture of my corpse. She rests a hand against the wall. I do the same on the other side, separated by the literal walls trapping me and the figurative walls of death and time.

“You didn’t kill her…” There’s no questioning tone this time.

“No.”

“Then how did she die?”

The damn intercom blasts again, “The performance will resume in one minute!”

I’m out of time. The place will be overrun with people when the show lets out, and it’ll look too suspicious if she stays here throughout the second act! Knowing the idiots running this theater, the ushers would probably think she’s gone mad and throw her out. I can’t let that happen! “Go. Come back tomorrow night, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story. Same time, same place.”