Stardust

by Kanon, Joseph

  “Oh, good, Iris is here. I asked her to come in an extra day.” A maid with a car. In Germany, bicycles were traded for food.

  The house inside was light and open, filled with books and contemporary furniture, a piano covered with framed photographs in the corner. Iris, a wiry, pale woman in a dress, not a uniform, was in the dining room polishing silver.

  “I put the messages by the phone. You better call the caterer again. I told him no ham but he wants to talk to you.”

  Ben looked at Liesl, surprised.

  “I thought I’d better start arranging things,” she said, flushing, “just in case. So we won’t have to at the last minute. Iris, this is Mr. Kohler’s brother, Benjamin.”

  “Reuben. Anyway, Ben,” he said, distracted, noticing her feet in pink bedroom slippers.

  Iris nodded. “I’m sorry about Mr. Kohler,” she said, formal but genuine, then cocked her head to one side, appraising him. “You don’t look alike.”

  “No, he took after my father.”

  Liesl started toward the hall. “You’re down this way. You’ll have your own bath, so it’s private.”

  Through an open door on their left he could see a big desk and more shelves. Danny’s real workroom, not rented by the month. A club chair in the corner and, next to it, a day bed made up as a couch.

  “I’m here. Daniel’s dressing room opens from the hall, too, so you won’t be bothering me. If you use it. That door.” She pointed, still moving.

  “You better call the caterer,” Iris shouted from the dining room.

  “All right. I don’t see what’s so difficult. I said poached salmon.”

  “Well, he heard ham.”

  She opened a door at the end of the hall. “You’re in here. I’d better phone or she’ll nag me about it. If you’d like a swim, just use those stairs—the pool’s out back. I won’t be long.”

  A swim. Something he hadn’t had in four years. He gestured toward his bag. “I didn’t bring—” Who had bathing suits?

  “Use one of Daniel’s. He’s got a drawer full of them. Just root around and pick what you like.”

  He threw his bag on the bed and went over to the window. The pool was below, blue and rippling, catching the light in quick flashes. It had been set off from the rest of the hill by a private wall of trees, with the far end left open, so that the land seemed suspended in air before falling away to the distant grid of streets. Around the edge were large pots of geraniums, a few lemon trees, and a row of trimmed oleanders, high enough to flower but not block the view. Ben stared at the pool, unsettled, as if a wrong note of music had been hit, jarring the whole piece. He’d thought of Danny as somehow desperate, not lying on a chaise in the sun, picking fruit off trees. How did they fit? An acre of paradise and a room at the Cherokee Arms.

  He went to the dressing room, curious. More money. Rows of sport jackets on hangers, shoes laid out. A drawer full of bathing suits: tropical flowers, chevron stripes, finally a pair of navy blue trunks that could be anybody’s. He looked through the other drawers quietly, feeling like a burglar. Socks rolled up, a stack of handkerchiefs, pressed and folded. But Danny’s drawer at home had been neat, too. Under the handkerchiefs there were old passports, kept for some reason, filled with the stamps of their childhood, crossing into Germany, crossing out of Germany, Dover and Calais, Berlin-Tempelhof, the last with an eagle on a swastika, just before the pages ran out. He looked at the photo. In his next passport he’d be grown up, but here he was still young, the hair brushed to one side.

  Where would the other pictures be? His study, probably. He crossed the hall, carrying the trunks, and surprised Iris, who was putting papers away in drawers.

  “I’m just cleaning up in here. You get people in and out, you know they’re going to come snooping. They go looking for the bathroom and next thing they’re at the desk, just happening to read what’s on it. I’ve seen it. Something I can help you with?”

  “No, I’m just snooping myself,” Ben said. “Trying to find some pictures. You know, we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  She went over to the shelves where a few small frames rested against the books.

  “This is pretty recent,” she said, handing him one.

  Ben looked down. A group on the beach, Danny with his lopsided grin, making a face at the camera. The whole row smiling, enjoying the day. Liesl wore a two-piece suit with polka dots, like Chili Williams, her hair blowing behind her.

  “You planning to stay long?”

  Ben raised his head.

  “I only ask because of the food. So I can plan.”

  “I don’t want to make things worse for her,” Ben said, a question.

  Iris shook her head. “Far as that’s concerned, she could use the company. You know what it’s like in an empty house. She’s already taking it hard. It’s the suddenness of it. And the way—” She stopped and went back to the desk. “Don’t mind me.”

  Ben put the picture back, then glanced down at the day bed. “He spend a lot of time in here?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant. I suppose you’ve been hearing things? People like to talk. When it’s none of their business. I’ll tell you, I never saw it. But people have different ways. You take Mr. Baker—that’s my ex. That man was a hound. I threw him out. I said, ‘I know you can’t help it, you got to chase anything runs in front of you, but I don’t want any part of it.’ Now Mr. Kohler, I never saw that. Two years I’ve been working here. Since they got the house. So you live and learn.” She closed the drawer and looked up at him. “He seemed the same to me. Like always. Well.” She moved to the door. “You want to help, people have to eat. She hasn’t touched a thing in days. Melon. What’s melon? Water is all. Get her to eat something.”

  When she’d gone, Ben looked at the other pictures, more wrong notes, as jarring as the pool. Danny and Liesl on a picnic blanket. With another couple around a nightclub table covered with glasses. Hans Ostermann, unintentionally comic in his somber European suit, surrounded by Danny and a few other young men in tennis whites. A croquet game. A pool party. Danny smiling in all of them. A happy life. But everybody smiled for the camera.

  He went over to the desk, intending to start on the drawers, but Liesl came in, carrying flowers. “Oh good, you found one,” she said, nodding to the bathing suit. “I’ll be right down. As soon as I deal with these. I have to put them where she’ll see them. She’ll ask otherwise. Now what?” she said, as the phone rang. “Why does everybody want to talk?” But she picked it up anyway, not waiting for Iris, and immediately switched into German. She had the rich, fluid German he remembered from before the war, before all the coarse shouting, and her voice sounded relaxed, at home in it.

  “Salka wants to drop off a cake,” she said wryly, hanging up. “But she wants to know if Alma’s here. They’re not speaking to each other.”

  “Alma who sent the flowers to Danny?”

  Liesl nodded. “Mahler. Well, Werfel now, but if you leave out the Mahler she puts it back in.”

  “And Salka?”

  “Viertel. Berthold’s wife. Well, when he’s around. Everyone goes to her on Sundays—like a real salon. So of course it makes Alma crazy. Two queen bees in one hive. I suppose they’ll have to see each other, if there’s a funeral. For five minutes anyway. They’ll all come. It’s like a village. They’ll come to see who doesn’t come. So, you’ll be all right?” she said, gesturing again to the trunks, then glanced at the desk. “Were you looking for something?” She met his eyes, her face suddenly soft. “He didn’t leave a note. You can look, but he didn’t.”

  The drawer was a mess of papers: letters, odd pages of scripts with margin notes, bank statements with canceled checks, more private than clothes. An envelope with a doctor’s return address. He pulled out the letter. An annual physical, boxes checked in columns, blood pressure, heart rate—everything had been fine in January, perfect in fact, ex
cept for the lazy eye that had got him a 4-F. He put the form down, suddenly embarrassed. What exactly was he looking for? An explanation? An apology? He looked at Danny’s handwriting again— swooping caps and then tight, closed letters. Which meant what? Would he even have given it a thought a few days ago? This was like looking at tea leaves or chicken entrails. He shoved the paper back and closed the drawer.

  Downstairs, sliding glass doors led out to the pool. There was a wet bar, some bright patio furniture, and a galley kitchen with a serving window that opened to the terrace. Ben imagined parties with platters of food, umbrella tables by day, the million lights by night. To the side was a closed door. The garage? No, a screening room with red plush seats and musty velvet drapes, so dated it must have come with the house. He turned up the lights. Except for the sound speakers, it was the kind of room Lasner might have used to run Two Husbands. Maybe even for Chaplin, a lifetime before Paulette. Did Danny still use it?

  The projection room, at any rate, was functional, the equipment newer than some he’d used in the Signal Corps. A few cans of film lay next to the projector, waiting to be put back on the metal shelf lined with hexagonal storage boxes. Ben went over to look, expecting a row of Republic serials, but they were Ufa films, titles on the boxes inked in German. Drei Mädchen, Ein Tag in Berlin, Sag Mir Adieu—all the silly comedies and shopgirl dramas their father had made out in Babelsberg, a kind of shrine to Otto Kohler. All here, even the ones from the thirties, when Otto still thought he’d be safe. Ben ran his fingers across the boxes. Films he hadn’t seen, then never asked to see later, all faithfully collected. The father’s son. Even Two Husbands, probably moldering away now in its canister.

  He moved from the shelf, his eye caught by a wall of framed photographs. Another Kohler homage. Otto on the set with Marika Rökk. A group picture with Jannings, Lorre, and Conrad Veidt. Dietrich showing him her leg, a gag shot. A formal premiere, probably at the Zoo Palast, in gowns and white ties with—yes, Goebbels at the end of the row. Otto on a crane. Otto blocking a scene. A wall of Otto. And finally, at the end, a picture of the family, all four of them in Lützowplatz, his mother smiling broadly, her hand on Ben’s shoulder. Danny making a face.

  He took the picture from the wall and stared at it, suddenly moved. His life, too. How old had he been? Eight? He remembered the day it had been taken, Frau Weber telling Danny to stand still and then not finding the shutter button so he’d laughed at her again, making another face, the whole afternoon still so real that Ben felt he could touch it, right through the glass frame. His face flushed, a warm surge of recognition. Not someone else.

  “There you are. I saw the light. I’ve been looking—” Liesl stopped, seeing his face. “What?”

  “Why would he do it,” Ben said flatly.

  She had put a terrycloth wrap over her bathing suit and now pulled at one of the lapels, a nervous drawing away.

  “I’ve been acting for days as if he’s someone I don’t know.” He held out the picture. “But I do know him. It’s not something he would do.”

  “Don’t,” she said softly. “It makes it worse. I know. I did it, too.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  “You want it to make sense?”

  “It does to them, somehow. He wasn’t sick—I saw his physical. He wasn’t depressed, either. Iris said he was the same as always.”

  “Oh, Iris.”

  “You did, too. You said you didn’t know he was unhappy. But why should he be?” He waved his arm to take in the house, Danny’s life.

  “We don’t know what was in his mind. We don’t.”

  She turned and headed out toward the pool. He glanced down at the picture again, then followed.

  “But to do this—”

  “What, then? Do you think his girlfriend pushed him out? Like some cartoon?”

  “Somebody could have.”

  Liesl shook her head. “No one else was there. The police talked to the night clerk. No one went up. No one. The door was locked.”

  “There has to be a reason.”

  “So what could it be? Maybe his marriage. Is that what you think? The others do. You can hear it in their voices. How could he do such a terrible thing? And then they look at me.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Ouf,” she said, cutting him off, then tossing the robe on the chair. “Enough.”

  “Liesl—”

  But she turned away, stepping over to the edge of the pool, and dove in, a perfect arc, slicing into the water, then streaming under the surface, out of hearing. When she came up she swam the rest of the length in fast, efficient strokes, a quick, sideways turn for air. Someone who swam every day. He watched her as she turned for the second lap, hair flowing, the long, golden legs scissoring effortlessly, at home in it. The kind of girl everyone noticed, pretending not to, but imagining the smooth body without the suit, beads of water running off the tan skin, all anyone could want. But not enough for Danny. The father’s son in every way. That same careless urge for the next thing, not expecting any damage, until families were broken up and what should have been held close had been let down.

  He turned his head away, flustered. Not just some girl in a pool. There were cigarettes on a side table, and he lit one, looking away toward the hazy city. Behind him he could hear the regular splashes of her strokes, then a pause and a noisy gathering of water as she lifted herself up the pool stairs. She came over to where he was standing, toweling her hair.

  “Marta says I should wear a cap. The chlorine burns the hair. My hairdresser,” she said, the change of subject a kind of apology, moving on. She glanced at him, waiting, then lit one of the cigarettes, joining him. “Would you like to know about me and Daniel?”

  “It’s none of my—”

  “Yes. Otherwise you’ll wonder. That’s how it is now.” She looked at him. “We need to be friends. To get through this. Sit,” she said, indicating the next chaise. She sat back on hers, lifting her face to the sun. “He got me out. That’s why he married me. My father, there was a visa for him. You know, for the culture. They could get artists out on special visas, especially if they were known here. But not me. I wasn’t an artist. I wasn’t anything. You know, after we left Germany we were officially stateless. Not even resident permits, always temporary papers. So, no visa. But of course my father wouldn’t leave me, and it was dangerous for him. So Daniel married me, made me an American. But I think he was fond of me, too.” She turned to him, her eyes direct. “It wasn’t a mariage blanc. Don’t think that,” she said, then looked away again.

  “This was where?” he said after a minute. “Germany?”

  “No. Germany? We would have been dead. My father was one of the first to leave. His name was already on a list, because of the articles. And, you know, my mother was Jewish so it was for her, too. First Vienna, to keep the language. Then Paris—she died there. I think her heart gave out from the worry. Then, after the Nazis came, we went south, like everyone. You don’t know this? That’s where I met Daniel. In Marseilles. He was helping people get out. You wouldn’t think such a place—it was like here, the good weather—but it was a death trap. Who could trust Vichy? So Daniel helped people get to Spain. Sometimes over the mountains, on foot. He walked them out. They never forgot it.” She paused, taking in some smoke. “Neither did I. He was my hero,” she said, staring at her burning cigarette. She looked up, self-conscious, her wistful tone now shaded with irony, almost bitter. “So it wasn’t for love. But we made a life. He never asked to leave, afterwards, when it was safe for me. We were—comfortable together.” She sat up, rubbing out the cigarette.

  “And the others? You seemed surprised.”

  She made a half smile. “Maybe I’m like Germany. I didn’t want to know. So I didn’t. And now everyone will know—” She stopped. “But how can I be angry? He didn’t owe me that.” She covered her eyes with her hand, a pretend sunshade. For a moment neither of them said anything, the air so quiet he could hear the
drain flaps in the pool. “You know before, when I said I didn’t know he was unhappy? I should have known, because I see it now.”

  “Everybody says that after. They should have seen—”

  “No, it’s true. Not unhappy—troubled. Maybe this woman. I don’t know.” She looked at him. “I still don’t want to know, do you understand that?”

  He walked toward the pool, thinking.

  “How long? I mean, when did you notice?”

  She got up, gathering her robe, the movement like a reluctant sigh. “Not long. The summer, the end of the summer. So now you can find the girl and ask her, what happened this summer, all right? Then maybe you’ll be satisfied.” She belted the robe. “But it wasn’t us. We were all right. We were just the way we were.”

  THE HOSPITAL seemed busier at night—trays being collected, nurses changing shifts. Danny was alone in the room, oblivious.

  “He wouldn’t just leave,” Liesl said, looking for her father, then spied him at the end of the corridor in the smoking lounge with another man, not as tall, looking around hesitantly, like someone trying to make small talk. “My uncle Dieter,” she said. “Look how they stand. See how stiff?”

  “His brother?”

  “My mother’s. The truth is they don’t like each other. When my mother was alive, it was different. Now he only comes when you have to, for appearances. My father’s birthday, things like that.”

  “Or like this.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking down. “But not only for that. He liked Daniel. Everybody did.” Already in the past.

  “He lives here, too?”

  “Pasadena. Come, before they quarrel.”

  But when they joined the men, the mood seemed polite, not at all contentious, Danny’s situation overriding whatever irritation there might have been. Introductions were made, doctors’ visits discussed— and then they were all back on watch, drifting between Danny’s room and the hall, fidgeting, looking for something to do. Only Ben stayed fixed, holding Danny’s hand again, convinced against all sense that Danny could feel it, use it to climb back. When the two men got up to go to dinner Liesl went out with them to the hall, a family huddle, leaving Ben alone. Talk to me, he thought, tell me why before you go. At least that. The battered face had lost its power to upset him, used to it now, but the waiting itself had become oppressive, making him logy, his mind dense with still air. When the first sound came, he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard anything, just his own wish, but the second was real. He lifted his head sharply, as if someone had snapped fingers in his face.