Arlene Machiavelli is the false name Beatrix Kiddo uses during her attempt to start another life in El Paso. In that period she works in a second-hand record shop and prepares to marry Tommy Plympton, the business owner. The name belongs to an everyday project very different from the work she did for Bill.
The identity has a specific function within Kill Bill. It allows Beatrix to relate to people who do not know her past and keep the group of killers she comes from at a distance. The film links that decision to her pregnancy and to the future she wants for her daughter, without explaining a detailed process of document forgery.
The two volumes provide different information about Arlene. The investigation into the attack identifies the name as false; the earlier conversation between Beatrix and Bill reveals the life behind it. Between those two moments appears a woman who wants to change occupation and surroundings, even if she has not managed to stop being recognisable to the person looking for her.
Arlene Machiavelli and Beatrix Kiddo are the same person. The alias refers to the El Paso period, before the attack at the chapel. It should be distinguished from Black Mamba, her name within the squad, and from The Bride, the designation the film associates with the circumstances in which she was found.
A false name uncovered by the investigation
The transcription of the first volume preserved by Springfield keeps the precision of the police dialogue: Arlene Machiavelli appears in the marriage document and the investigators know that name is false. The observation explains why they do not have a reliable identification. The dress, by contrast, offers an immediate description with which to refer to the survivor.
That detail limits what can be said about the forgery. The story presents the result of a hidden identity, but does not develop who prepared the documents or what procedures made it possible to obtain them. The interest lies in the distance between the information available to the investigators and the story of the woman they are trying to identify.
For Beatrix Kiddo, changing her name makes relationships easier that do not begin with recognition of her work as an assassin. Each new person can know her through what she is doing at that moment. The possibility is fragile because the alias also depends on her past remaining outside those relationships.
The job with Tommy and the life Beatrix wants to keep
In the second volume, Bill asks about Tommy's occupation and Beatrix's. She explains that he owns a second-hand record shop in El Paso and that she works there. Her answer includes her enjoyment of listening to music during the working day. The information introduces a concrete satisfaction and a job that does not require carrying out violent orders.
The shop gives substance to an aspiration that might otherwise remain an abstract declaration about starting over. There is a workplace shared with her fiancé and an activity to devote time to. The security she seeks is not expressed through wealth or status, but through the continuity of an ordinary occupation.
Tommy knows the woman he is going to marry as Arlene. The relationship requires Beatrix to sustain a version of herself in which decisive aspects are concealed. That unevenness of information creates a problem of its own: the new life may be a sincere wish on her part and, at the same time, rest on secrets that affect the person with whom she intends to share it.
Bill's arrival puts that balance to the test before the chapel massacre. He knows what the name is meant to keep offstage. Beatrix has to speak to a man from her past within the space where she is preparing her future. The tension comes from that coincidence, without the alias being able to prevent it.
The encounter with Tommy adds a small performance within the scene. Beatrix asks Bill to call her Arlene and presents him as her father. Bill momentarily accepts that role, so the two of them work together to sustain a false explanation in front of the fiancé. The politeness of the exchange depends on information Tommy does not share.
The situation makes it possible to perceive how an identity is maintained in conversation. The name needs to match the family relationship being declared and what the other person already believes they know. An ordinary question can force an improvised new answer. Beatrix is not simply using another word to name herself: she is trying to get several people to understand in the same way who she is and where she comes from.
Bill has an advantage in that game. He can continue the performance or break it, while Tommy receives his presence as an unexpected family visit. The alias continues to be spoken normally just as Beatrix's ability to control the situation begins to diminish.