Stardust

by Kanon, Joseph

  “Quarrels about what?”

  “Germany. Dieter says my father blames the people. You know the article he wrote. The German character. And how can you blame the people? It was Hitler. So back and forth. They’re all like that,” she said, looking around. “Their house burned down and they argue about why it happened.”

  “But it’s important. To know why it happened.”

  “You think so? I don’t know. It doesn’t change anything. It’s gone. They all want to go back. But to the old days. Heimat.”

  “Do you?”

  “Me? I almost died there once. You don’t get rescued twice, I think. Who would marry me next time?” She tried to smile, then looked away, restive again. “Well. There’s Salka waving so Mann must be leaving. He’ll expect—oh god, not Polly.”

  She was looking toward the pool again, where Polly Marks had wedged herself between the brothers-in-law.

  “Who’s the guy in the gray suit? Do you know? I saw him at the funeral.”

  “He came with her—I suppose he works for her.”

  Ben smiled to himself. “I thought he was a cop.”

  “A police? Why police?” she said, her head jerking around.

  “But he wasn’t. Just a legman.”

  “Why would you think that?” she said.

  He looked at her, but this wasn’t the time, not with people around them, not with nothing more to offer than a feeling and the wrong bottle.

  “I’ll go play referee,” he said, heading toward the pool.

  The group at the end, like actors in a silent, were telling the story with their bodies—Ostermann leaning away from Polly, who was cornering him with attention, her back to his brother-in-law, the legman off to the side, smoking and watching them with the same quiet sweep he’d used at the funeral.

  “Hello again,” Ben said to Polly, interrupting them.

  She turned in mid-sentence, caught slightly off guard, trying to place him.

  “Ben,” Ostermann said, cueing her.

  But Polly had already found him in her mental file and only gave him a quick nod before she went back to Ostermann. “They sure sound like a front to me. You think it’s all innocent—I’m for world peace, too, who isn’t?—and the next thing you know they’re using you. Your reputation.” The same rushed voice, quivering.

  “Do you think I’m so famous?” he said gently, making light conversation. “No.”

  “You’re not just anybody, you know that. Your name speaks—”

  “I tell him he has to be careful,” Dieter said.

  Polly didn’t even turn, brushing this off with a blink. A relative from Pasadena.

  “You listen to Polly,” she said. “Warners doesn’t buy just anybody. If you have any doubts, people asking to use your name, call me. I’ve been here a long time. Turning over rocks.”

  “That’s very kind,” Ostermann said flatly. “To take so much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I love this country.”

  “As we do,” he said, a courtly half bow. “Who took us in?”

  “Terrible about all this, isn’t it?” she said, looking back at the house. “I don’t know how Liesl does it. So strong.” She shook her head. “Of course he was no angel, but I’m not one to speak ill of the dead.”

  “No.”

  She took his hand and patted it, oddly flirtatious. “Glad we could talk. We’ll have lunch soon.” She looked at Ben. “You never mentioned you were going to Continental,” she said, a black mark, holding out, all that needed to be said.

  Without being signaled, the man in the gray suit slipped away from the oleander and followed her.

  “So it begins,” Ostermann said slowly. “Enemies everywhere. I wondered what would happen when they won. Now look. Like Germany last time, when we lost. ‘I love my country.’ That’s what they said in Berlin, remember?” This to Dieter, who looked at Ben.

  “Hans is writing about that time, so it’s all he thinks about.” Then, to Ostermann, “Don’t pack your bags yet. It’s not the same.”

  “It starts the same. I remember it.”

  “When you’ve been here as long as I have—”

  “When did you come?” Ben said.

  “ ’Thirty-seven. With Trude. I wanted Hans to bring Anna, too. It was still possible then. Perhaps if they hadn’t waited, things would have turned out differently.”

  Ostermann went stiff, annoyed, evidently a sore point between them, the sister who died.

  “But we’re all here now,” Dieter said, making peace.

  “You don’t want to go back?” Ben said, testing Liesl’s theory.

  “Now? My work is here. All my colleagues. Hitler was a catastrophe for German science, but a gift to America.”

  “You’re a scientist?” Ben said, surprised. Not in pictures, not even connected. Another California.

  “No, no,” he said, diffident. “A teacher. Mathematics.”

  “A teacher,” Ostermann said playfully. “Very distinguished. In Germany, a doctor doctor.”

  “But not at Cal Tech,” Dieter said pleasantly. “One doctor only.”

  “Thank you for being there,” Ben said. “At the hospital.”

  Dieter nodded. “You know what he liked? The observatory. On Mount Wilson. Not the science of it. He was like Hans here—everything a mystery, even the simplest numbers. But he liked to see the stars. It’s a good lens, you know, a hundred inches, the largest. Would you like to go sometime? It was hard during the war, but now we can take visitors again. You have to stay over. The road is too dangerous at night.”

  “You mean camp there?”

  “No, we have places to stay. Dormitories for the staff. A few rooms for guests. It used to be very popular, with the other stars,” he said, smiling. “Hubble liked to take them up. Fairbanks, Pickford, all of them. You can see the pictures. So if you like, I’ll arrange it. A family excursion. But now—” He looked around, ready to go. “A sad occasion. It’s a pity you did not get a chance—”

  “No, only at the hospital. For a minute.”

  “He spoke?”

  Ben shook his head, not wanting to go back.

  “No last words. I’m sorry,” Dieter said, taking Ben’s hand. “So we’ll make a trip. Hans,” he said, now reaching for Ostermann’s hand, “be well. You should listen to her, you know. That woman. No petitions. No letters in the paper. It draws attention to all of us.”

  Ostermann watched him leave, a politer version of Alma’s exit, then sighed and busied himself relighting his cigar.

  “More American than the Americans. Except for the accent. He thinks no one hears it.” He nodded toward the city below, spread across the flat basin. “Look at that. You know, every building you see, it’s the first. There was nothing on this land before. Imagine. In Europe we live on layers. Here it’s only the first. So what will it become? It’s interesting. But do any of us care? We don’t really live here. I’m still in Berlin. My study even, it’s like before. Writing 1919. You like the title? Just the year. No one here will be interested, it’s for me. What happened to us. Mann’s writing Bible stories. Bible stories after all this. The conscience of his country.”

  “I thought that was you.”

  He smiled a little. “The bad conscience maybe. I’m sorry. Such gloomy talk. Your brother used to call it the exile mentality. Always half-empty. But it was different for him. He never had to worry about leaving. Being asked to leave. He was born here. Sometimes I think we got out with our skins but our lives—they’re somewhere in-between. Still waiting for the knock.”

  “Not here.”

  “We’re still watched.” He caught Ben’s skeptical look and nodded. “We’re German, we have a sixth sense for this now. The phone I think sometimes, the mail I know.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s a group, more exiles, in Mexico—it was easier to get a visa there. So they write to me sometimes and I think the letters are being read. You know, opened and resealed. So, a test. I tell
them to write in English and you know what? The letters arrive three days earlier—the censor doesn’t have to translate. So I know.”

  “But why? Did they think you were a Nazi? You?”

  Ostermann smiled weakly. “Anybody foreign. There’s no logic to this. It’s like Polly. You start turning over rocks, you have to find something, or why did you start? So you keep doing it. I’m used to it. In Germany it was the same—well, worse. But you have to be careful. You say things and it might go against you with Immigration. It’s better since the war, but Brecht says they’re still watching him. Even now.” He shook his head. “Such a dangerous person. In Santa Monica.” He moved away from the potted geraniums, taking a chair and leaning back in it, his eyes still on the view. “It’s an irony, yes? What we came to escape. Like poor Connie Veidt, playing Nazis. They wanted to kill him there, and then here it was all he can do, be a Nazi. It was the voice. Like Liesl.”

  “Like Liesl?” Ben said, confused.

  “The accent. You know she was an actress. Small theaters only, but good, I think. Of course the father says that. But Salka says she had talent. And then we left and she lost her voice.”

  “Couldn’t Danny get her work?”

  “Here? Even Lorre, an actor like that, couldn’t play American.” He smiled. “Mr. Moto. A Japanese. A girl with a German accent? Not so many parts for her. And you know, I think Daniel liked her at home. So she gave it up. Became the Hausfrau.”

  “And your translator.”

  “Yes,” Ostermann said, looking up. “A help to me, too, I admit. And now? It’s a worry. When someone dies this way, you think, I never knew him. You turn it over and over in your mind, trying to make sense of it.”

  “Yes,” Ben said, an almost involuntary response.

  “Everything becomes a lie. Your own life. I don’t want that for her.”

  “But everything wasn’t.”

  “No, not everything. But which?” He drew on the cigar. “How little we know about each other,” he said, brooding. “Even when we think we know.”

  GOWER GULCH

  AT THE POLICE station he was directed to a basement room that resembled a post office will-call window, with rows of files behind.

  “Accident report? Kohler?”

  “You’re with the insurance?”

  “His brother.”

  “Companies usually get it direct. Not through the family.”

  “But I could see it?”

  “You could ask,” the clerk said, then got tired of himself and went to get the folder.

  In fact, there was little Ben didn’t already know. A more precise time. No eyewitnesses to the fall itself. Neighbors alerted by the sounds of garbage cans knocked over when the body hit, an unexpected detail. No scream. At least none reported. Police response time. Alcohol in the room (dizzy spells not even necessary here—already unsteady). Taken to Hollywood Presbyterian with head injuries and multiple lacerations. Several boxes with numbers and acronyms for internal use. Everything consistent.

  “I was told there were pictures.”

  “Told how?”

  “They took pictures.”

  The clerk stared at him, annoyed, then checked the report again, glancing at one of the numbered boxes.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, going back to the file room, a martyr’s walk.

  He returned opening a manila envelope. “We don’t usually show these to family.”

  “What do I need? A court order?”

  The clerk passed them over. “Just a good stomach.”

  Danny in the hospital had been hard to look at, but still a patient, sanitized, wrapped in bandages, the lacerations stitched closed. Here his face was torn open and the gashes poured blood, his head lying in a pool of it. Ben flipped through the pictures—the body from several angles, limp, legs twisted, a shot of the balcony (for a trajectory?), the alley crowded with onlookers and ambulance workers. Crime scene photographs.

  “Why weren’t these in the file?”

  “You’re lucky they’re here at all. Should’ve been tossed. No reason to keep them in an accident file.”

  “Can I have them?”

  “Police property.”

  “Which you were going to toss.”

  “Still police property. What do you want them for?” Genuinely puzzled, looking at Ben more carefully now. A morbid souvenir.

  “How about some paper then? I need to take some notes. For the insurance.”

  The clerk reached below and brought up some paper.

  “Next time bring your own. That’s taxpayer money.”

  “I’m a taxpayer.”

  “Don’t start.” He went over to his desk and lit a cigarette.

  Ben held up one photo, then jotted down a note, waiting for the clerk to get bored and turn away. The one thing you learned in the Army: The answer was always no, unless you could get away with it. All bureaucracies were alike. The clerk, still smoking, looked up at the clock. Ben drew out the rest of the photos, negatives clipped to the last. He copied another note, then began feeding paper into the envelope. When the clerk answered the phone, he slid the pictures under his newspaper, added some more paper to the envelope and closed it, pushing it back along the counter.

  “Thanks for your help,” he said, turning away with the newspaper.

  The cop waved back.

  The day clerk at the Cherokee could have been the policeman’s cousin, the same wary indifference.

  “You here with the key?”

  “I thought it was paid through the month.”

  “You’re going to use it?” the man said, oddly squeamish.

  “I might. I mean, it’s paid for.”

  The clerk gave a your-choice shrug.

  “Anybody else have keys?”

  “They’re not supposed to. Just the tenant. Otherwise we have to change the locks. Why?”

  “Just wondering if you ever saw anybody else. Use the apartment.”

  “Anybody else who?”

  “A lady, maybe.”

  “I’m on days. It’s quiet days.”

  “You were on that night. I saw you in the police pictures.”

  The clerk looked up, a new scent in the air. Just the word police.

  “That’s right. I was filling in. What’s this all about?”

  “I’m his brother. I just want to know what happened.”

  “He fell—I guess. Whatever it was, it was a mess.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone go up that night?”

  “The police asked me this. I told them, I’ll tell you—no one. I didn’t even see him.”

  “He used the back door.”

  “I guess. All I know is, I didn’t see anybody.”

  “So she could have done that, too. Without being seen.”

  “If she had a key. Which she’s not supposed to have.”

  “She’s not supposed to do a lot of things.”

  “That I don’t know. I just run the board and collect the rent. We’ve never had any trouble here, you know. Never. I got a lot of people upset about this. Maybe moving out.”

  “Many stay long?”

  “More and more. Used to be, people didn’t want the extra service expense. But the war’s been great for us. Hard to find anything, and we already had the phone lines. You couldn’t get a phone during the war, so we did all right.”

  “He make any calls that night?”

  “I’d remember that.”

  “You might.”

  “No.”

  “Sure?” Ben raised his eyes, the cliché promise of a tip.

  The clerk frowned. “I’m not looking for anything here. I don’t remember. I don’t keep tabs. Half the people I don’t even know. I’m on days, right? The only reason I knew him is I rented him the room.”

  “So you wouldn’t necessarily have recognized everybody.”

  “Not unless they’re here during the day. You’re asking more questions than the police did. What’s this about?”

 
“I’m trying to find out who else came here. He didn’t take the room to be alone. The family need to know. There might be money in it for her.”

  Bait that bobbed back, not even a nibble.

  “Then I hope you find her. Now how about I get back to work? Are you going to keep the room, or what? Hey, Al.” This to the mailman coming in with his bag.

  “Joel. How’s life?”

  “Overrated.”

  “Hah,” the mailman said, opening the front panel of the boxes with the post office key and beginning to fill them. Catalogues from Bullock’s, a girl in a sundress, ordinary life.

  “Let me know if you want to extend,” Joel said. “The lease. It’s month to month. And he was leaving at the end, so I need to know.”

  “You mean he gave you notice?” Ben said, surprised. Because the affair was over?

  Joel nodded. “End of the month.” Involuntarily his eyes shifted toward the alley. “I guess he had other plans.”

  Ben went over to the elevator, then turned. “When he came in to rent—how did he know? There was an ad?”

  “No, we just use the window,” Joel said, jerking his thumb toward it. “Put out a sign. Somebody always sees it. Like I say, it’s been busy since the war. What with the phone.”

  The apartment was exactly as he’d left it, tidy, with the empty stillness of unoccupied rooms. The brandy bottle was on the counter, untouched, not even moved for dusting. He opened the French window, looking down from the balcony just as he had before, but imagining it differently. You wouldn’t need a lot of leverage with the low rail—even a woman could have done it. But wouldn’t Danny have reacted, reached out, grabbed something? No marks on the rail.

  He went out to the hall, looking down the back stairs, the door that led to the roof. Someone could have gone up there, waited it out, then slipped away after the excitement died down. But why would she have to? A transient building—not even the clerk knew all the tenants by sight. She’d be just another face in the crowd. Why bother with the roof? Walk down Cherokee to Hollywood Boulevard and hop a red car. Unless she’d been driving, parked around the corner. Then no one would see her at all.

  Ben went back inside and sat in the quiet. The empty bathroom, the empty desk. Whatever prints there’d been would have been wiped away by the maid. The fact was there would never be any physical evidence. The how was unknowable. The only way in was the why.