Free Imaginary Friends by Nora Ephron

truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
    The spotlight hits
MURIEL GARDINER
in the witness stand
.
    MURIEL GARDINER : I do.
    MARY’S LAWYER : State your name, please.
    MURIEL GARDINER : Muriel Morris Gardiner. Dr. Muriel Morris Gardiner—
    MARY’S LAWYER : You are a doctor of—
    MURIEL GARDINER : I’m a psychoanalyst.
    MARY’S LAWYER : Could you tell us a little about yourself?
    MURIEL GARDINER : I was born in Chicago in 1901. I was the heiress to the Armour meatpacking fortune. I was graduated from Wellesley College and studied at Oxford. I then went to Vienna to study psychiatry at the Freud Institute. This was in 1934. My first marriage had just ended, and my daughter came with me to Austria.
    MARY’S LAWYER : Can you tell us what happened to you as war approached?
    MURIEL GARDINER : I was a socialist, and I became increasingly concerned as the Nazis came to power. And I was in a unique position—I had both American and British passports, and considerable wealth. So I joined the anti-fascist underground, and I was able to help a number of people escape from Austria. I fell in love with a man who was a leader of the resistance, and we were married and returned to America just before World War II.
    MARY : Have you ever met Lillian Hellman?
    MURIEL GARDINER : No.
    MARY’S LAWYER : When did you first hear of her?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Soon after I came back to America. She was a well-known playwright. And for a while we had the same lawyer.
    MARY’S LAWYER : In 1941 Lillian Hellman wrote a play called
Watch on the Rhine
. Did you see it?
    MURIEL GARDINER : No, I didn’t.
    MARY’S LAWYER : Did you know that the main characters in it were an Austrian resistance leader and his American heiress wife?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Really? I didn’t know that.
    MARY’S LAWYER : When did you hear about Lillian Hellman again?
    MURIEL GARDINER : It must have been about 1972 or 1973. A friend called me on the telephone and said had I read a book by Lillian Hellman called
Pentimento?
I said I hadn’t. And she said did I know Lillian Hellman? I said we’d never met. And the friend said, “You must read this book, Muriel. She has stolen your life.” It was all very dramatic. So I went out and bought a copy of the book, and I read the chapter in it that was the one she was apparently referring to—
    MARY’S LAWYER : The chapter called “Julia”?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Yes.
    MARY’S LAWYER : Could you tell us about that chapter, in your own words?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Well, it’s about a woman Lillian Hellman was friends with, a woman named Julia—
    MARY : Was Julia her real name?
    MURIEL GARDINER : No, according to the book, Lillian Hellman changed her name. Julia was a rich young American woman who’d gone to live in Austria to study with Freud—
    MARY : At the exact same time you did—
    MURIEL GARDINER : Yes. She began working in the anti-fascist underground—
    MARY : At the exact same time you did—
    MURIEL GARDINER : Yes—
    MARY : And she, too, had a daughter—
    MURIEL GARDINER : Yes, she did, a daughter named Lilly—
    MARY : After Lillian Hellman. Presumably the daughter’s name was not changed.
    MARY’S LAWYER : Please continue—
    MURIEL GARDINER : At a certain point in the story, Julia asks Lillian Hellman to bring some money into Germany that’s to be used to smuggle people out of the country. Which she does. In a fur hat. And she meets Julia at a restaurant, and they have some caviar, and Lillian gets back on the train and goes on to Moscow, I believe.
    MARY’S LAWYER : According to the story, what happened to Julia?
    MURIEL GARDINER : She was killed by the Nazis.
    MARY’S LAWYER : And what happened to Julia’s daughter, Lilly?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Killed by the Nazis.
    MARY’S LAWYER : After you read “Julia,” what did you do?
    MURIEL GARDINER : Well, first I thought, “Who knows? Perhaps …” So, on my next trip to Austria, I asked my friends if by any chance they knew of any