“What did the doctor say?”
“Rosen? What does he ever say? Retire. And do what? Watch birds? Anyway, he wasn’t there, only later when Sol’s better. You were. You know how I know? How he is with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Close. You almost die, there’s a closeness.”
“I think you’re imagin—”
But she was shaking her head. “He watches you at the studio, how you’re doing.”
“He watches everybody,” Ben said.
“But he tells me about you. How you are with Hal. Other things. He thinks you have a feel for the business. A family thing.”
“Only my father. My mother hated it.”
“Why? Oh, the girls? He got distracted?”
Ben smiled at the word. “Over and over.”
“People say I should worry about Sol, and you know I never do. I figure, if it happens, who’d want to know?”
“She did.”
Fay smiled. “So maybe I’m not telling the truth, either. I’d kill him. Bare hands. But I’ll tell you something, he doesn’t even look. I know. I was on the lot, for years. I know what to look for. The thing about Sol, nobody gets this, he’s a gentleman. They see the rough spots, not here.” She tapped her heart. “Here he’s not so tough.” She looked down, flustered. “I don’t mean the real one. A figure of speech.”
“I know.”
“But that’s right, too, isn’t it? The real one’s not so tough, either. Then what? You know what he thinks about, all the time? What happens to the studio. Me, I guess he figures I can take care of myself. But what happens to the studio. Who could do it? You know we never had children. He said it didn’t matter to him, but now I think it does. You build something, you want to pass it on, not just hand it over to the banks. I said to him once, maybe it’s better, look at the Laemmles, Junior almost took it down with him, and I could tell he’s not even listening. So that’s part of it, I think. Why he watches people.”
“What about Bunny?”
“Bunny’s not a son.”
“I’m not, either.”
“But he likes you. So maybe it was the train, I don’t know. All the sudden you feel you’re running out of time. Maybe this is it. Did you ever wonder how much time you have left? I’ve been thinking about that, because of Sol. But I guess that’s one thing nobody can know.” She paused. “Unless it’s like with her. You decide,” she said, her face softer. “You were nice to come. It’s good somebody came.” She lifted her head, a visual pulling up. “It’s funny, she’s the one contacted the Red Cross. She wanted to come over. You wonder. But you know what I think? It came to me this morning. Does this make sense to you? I think she was already gone. She just didn’t want to die over there—give those bastards the satisfaction.”
THERE WAS still a police marker by the broken fence, so Ben stopped short, pulling the car over to the lookout shoulder where couples parked. The drive up Feuchtwanger’s corniche had been no easier in daylight, an ordeal even for anybody familiar with the road. Ben imagined it dark, headlights shining on the wet surface. He got out, not even sure what he was looking for. Something left carelessly behind? But the place seemed undisturbed, even the smashed car removed now, any tire marks or shoe prints washed away. He walked to the fence, looking over into the canyon. A steep drop. All you’d have to do was put the car in gear and let it go. Gravity and a soft skull would do the rest.
Ben went down the slope. There were ruts gouged out of the ground, probably made by the tow truck or whatever kind of winch they’d used to haul the wreck up. The tree that had stopped it had some bark scraped away, but was still standing. Given the angle of descent, the impact must have been violent, a thudding crash, enough to throw a body into the windshield. So why hadn’t there been more blood? He tried to remember the body, his brief look when the sheet was pulled back. Lacerations, the matted wound on the head, but not drenched in blood. But it wouldn’t have been if she’d died instantly. A dead body doesn’t pump blood. Still, the blow on the head had caused a bloody welling. Ben looked up to the broken fence. Unless she’d been hit before the crash, maybe already dead when the car began plunging.
He hiked back to the road and walked along the shoulder to the turnoff. Big enough for two cars, even more, somewhere to meet, marked by the curve. Ben turned back again to the fence, searching the ground. He’d wanted to come back to the site, show himself how it was possible, but he’d known outside Chasen’s that she hadn’t been alone. A phone call, a hasty meeting, dead or almost dead before she went over. The ground falling into Topanga told him nothing. He thought of her at the Lasner party, unafraid to tell him things he shouldn’t know. No more whispers and shadows, not after everything. A German voice on the phone. Who else was at the party, what other ghost? Who recognized her.
He drove back to Feuchtwanger’s house, parking near the other cars along the steep patch of road, one of them, he noticed, Ostermann’s.
“Come in, come in,” Feuchtwanger said, bubbling, his rimless glasses catching the afternoon light.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No. Brecht is starting to make speeches. Please interrupt. What, were you just passing by? Nobody passes by up here.”
He led Ben into a large living room with a spectacular view of the Pacific through the picture window. Couches were arranged to face it, but the group sat instead at the end of the room, away from the light, clustered around a coffee table littered with half-finished cups and hazy with smoke, as intimate as a Ku’damm café. Everyone was speaking German.
“So, you can decide,” Feuchtwanger said. “I’m thinking about a play and of course Brecht doesn’t want me to write a play, so he doesn’t like anything about it.”
“Write the play,” Brecht said, deadpan, drawing on his cigar.
“Do you like The Devil in Boston? For a title?”
“The title tells you what’s wrong,” Brecht said. “All right, so witch trials. Yes, everyone sees, a metaphor for what is happening here, what is going to happen, but it’s not exact. It was then about belief, the devil in Boston, a religious phenomenon, not political persecution.”
“It felt the same to the witches,” Feuchtwanger said.
Brecht waved this aside. “It confuses the issue.”
“But the process is exactly the same, the psychology.”
“Oh, psychology,” Brecht said, dismissive.
“Why do you think it’s going to happen,” Ben said, back at Chasen’s, Minot’s hand on his shoulder.
“Because I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Precisely,” Feuchtwanger said. “The process is the same, always. Make the fear, then the fear feeds on itself. That’s the devil. Hitler made the Jew the devil, but it was the fear.”
“The motivations are different,” Brecht said. “Hitler wanted to go to war, that’s what he always wanted. From the first. Not religious hysteria.”
“And the rallies?” Feuchtwanger said. “What do you call that?”
Brecht drew on his cigar with a little smile. “Show business,” he said in English.
“Ach,” Feuchtwanger said, a mock exasperation, but enjoying the joke. “And here?”
“Politics,” Brecht said. “Not even serious politics. Foolishness. It’s a country of children.” He turned to Ben. “You know what his inspiration is? For a play about witches? They refused his application. To be a citizen. Of this place. Why he wants such a thing—”
“Why not gratitude?” Ostermann said. “They took us in. They took you in, too.”
“Yes, and they’ll spit me out. Watch.” He took a drink from a small glass. “We have no place now. Only here,” he said, touching his temple.
“Hah. I’m not such a poet,” Feuchtwanger said. “I live here.” He pointed his finger to the floor.
“But not as an American.”
“Why? What did they say?” Ben asked Feuchtwanger.
“I can appeal. The time isn’t right maybe. With what�
�s going on.”
“The reason? ‘Premature antifascism,’ ” Brecht said, rolling out the phrase slowly, savoring it. “What can it mean? There must have been a time when it was good to be a fascist. Then not. It’s a trick, finding the right moment. You can be against the fascists, but not too soon. Then you’re—well, what exactly?”
Feuchtwanger shrugged, nodding with him. “A socialist. A pacifist. Before, when you wrote against the Nazis, where could you do it? The places they suspect now. Too left, too this, too that. So it’s not the best time here.”
“Thomas Mann had no problem,” Brecht said, puckish.
“Oh, Saint Thomas.”
They laughed softly, a café murmur. Ben looked at them, slumped against cushions, holding cigars, easy with each other. Was this the sort of meeting Danny had described, Riordan scribbling notes? The author of Josephus is preparing a play about the Salem witch trials, drawing analogies to contemporary events. The author of Galileo made remarks critical of the U.S. Hans Ostermann, my father-in-law, said— All typed up for the files, smoky, idle talk, a harmless report. But no betrayal was harmless.
“What brings you here?” Ostermann said suddenly.
What did?
“Just a quick hello. Lasner wanted me to check on the car, whether they’d towed it.”
“Yes, the accident,” Feuchtwanger said. “I told you about it,” he said to Ostermann. “Terrible.”
“But on this road not a surprise,” Ostermann said. “Someone you knew?”
“A relative of Lasner’s.” Ben turned to Feuchtwanger. “Are there any Germans living here, up on the hill? Besides you?”
“Oh no. We’re famous, Marta and me—the foreigners. Of course Mann is also in the Palisades. Vicki Baum. But not here, nearer the village.”
“Why do you ask?” Ostermann said.
Ben looked up, at a loss. “Maybe this, hearing German. It would be so nice for you if there were someone else nearby.”
“Only Lion has the courage,” Brecht said. “These roads. In Santa Monica it’s safe, all flat. Even Salka, in the canyon, it’s not so bad.”
“But the views,” Feuchtwanger said, extending his hand toward the window and the fading afternoon, copper glints on the water and lights beginning to come on.
“But we always have to drive you,” Ostermann said. “The courageous Lion.”
Another easy laugh, the road familiar to all of them. You didn’t have to live here to know it. Even Lion’s guests, German speakers.
“So how was it at Alma’s?” Brecht asked Feuchtwanger.
“You know she had Schoenberg and Stravinsky? Both. The same dinner.”
“Another play for you,” Brecht said, mischievous.
“No, it was dull. They wouldn’t talk about music. Out of respect. Anything but music—so nothing, really.”
“And Alma talked about herself.”
Ben drank his coffee, half-listening, talk that could go on for hours. No other Germans on the road. Just a place to meet, then, out of the way. He stood up.
“But you’ve just come,” Feuchtwanger said.
“I know. But I have to get back to the studio.”
“Ah, the studio,” Brecht said airily. “Back to the assembly line.” He moved his arms in a pincer, like Chaplin working the wrenches in Modern Times. “More dreams. More dreams.”
“And me,” Ostermann said, standing, too. “No, no, don’t get up. A nice afternoon, Lion. Like before.”
“Nothing’s like before,” Brecht said. “Even before.”
Outside Ostermann walked Ben to his car.
“I thought when you came, it was for me. That you had news.”
“News?”
“About the screen test.”
Almost forgotten. Liesl playing a daughter.
“No, not yet.”
“I don’t want her to be disappointed. After everything. Although to wish such a life for your child— Still, I can hear it in her voice, how she wants it. I was worried, after the funeral. I remembered how it feels, how lonely. But now look. Screen tests. It was good not being alone in the house, I think. So thank you for that.”
Ben looked away.
“They really refused Lion?” he said.
“He’s a socialist. It’s very well known, even here.”
All you had to do was check a file, information from a well-placed source.
“But that’s not—”
“Not before. Now it’s different. His lawyer said, be patient. Now he gets his publisher to write for him. How distinguished he is. He does very well here, you know. The translations. Not like poor Heinrich.”
Is this how it was done? You didn’t have to ask, just let the conversation run, listening for Riordan, a sponge.
“And now there are difficulties. It’s ironic, yes? They didn’t want Heinrich to leave Europe. Now they don’t want him to leave here. This time, no Daniel to arrange the escape. So he goes to offices and waits. For a piece of paper. Just like his script.”
“Why not leave without it?”
“Cross the Pyrenees again? You forget, he had papers then. That’s what Daniel arranged. It’s not so easy without that, a passport. Brecht doesn’t understand, living in his head,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “Why Lion wants his piece of paper. If he leaves, he can’t come back. He’s not a refugee anymore, but not a citizen, either. Of anywhere. So all he can do is stay here, as he is. Yes, it’s very comfortable for him.” He gestured toward the house. “But now a cage also.”
“But Kaltenbach doesn’t want to come back.”
“So he thinks. I wonder what he will say after. When those doors close.” He sighed. “But first he has to get there.”
With Minot watching. With Ben watching for him.
“What about you? Are you having any trouble?”
“Me? Oh, I’m not such a dangerous person as Lion. I wasn’t premature.” He looked down. “Maybe too late. How we waited, hoping it would go away. Thinking a catastrophe would go away.”
There was traffic on Sunset so that by the time Ben got back to Gower the lot had taken on the after-work quiet of skeleton crews and empty sound stages, only a few cars left in their reserved spaces.
“Screening room with Mr. L,” said one of Bunny’s secretaries, anticipating his question. She was putting folders in drawers, evidently working late to catch up on the filing.
“How’d the test go, do you know? Liesl Kohler.” Or had they changed her name?
“When was this, today? Maybe they’re looking at it now. The only way I know is, he writes a memo.”
“On a screen test?”
“Everything,” she said, with a nod to the wall of filing cabinets. What Tenney’s office must look like. Fourteen thousand files, rumors on paper.
“How about the guest list for Lasner’s party Saturday?”
Her head went up, immediately protective.
“I was there,” he explained, “and I talked to somebody and I can’t remember her name. I thought if I could go through the list, you know, it might come back to me. Does he keep them, the lists?”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be okay with him.”
She said nothing.
“I could go down to the screening room, have him phone up.”
She hesitated, trying to guess what Bunny’s reaction would be to either course.
“No, it’s here,” she said finally, turning to a drawer. “I just filed it, in fact.” She got it out and handed it to him.
“You mind? I’ll bring it back?”
“You want to take it?” she said, suspicious again.
He began to read down the list. Everyone there, with marks next to the Warners people. Seating plans, names on spokes around a circle, everything thought out. Liesl listed as Ben Collier guest. Rex Morgan, who owned 8 percent. But who had talked to Genia, spotted her across the room? A German speaker, so not Ann Sheridan or one of the starlets. Maybe not at the party at a
ll, just someone who knew she was in town. But it would be easy enough to come up with a short list of possibilities, then use Dennis to check them, routine for a Bureau man. Start somewhere. She hadn’t taken a random turn off Sunset. Someone had told her where to go.
He looked up to find the secretary watching him. “He doesn’t like things to leave the office,” she said, expecting trouble.
“It’s a party list,” he said, folding it. “I’ll tell him downstairs.”
They had already started running the dailies, so Ben slipped into the screening room quietly and took a seat at the back. Bunny was in his usual watching posture, chin resting on a pyramid of fingers, while Lasner made running comments to the directors. It was Dick Marshall again, out of the fighter plane, making a sentimental visit to another pilot in the hospital.
“Why a profile,” Lasner said. “They’re paying to see the face.”
“Watch the eyes when he turns,” the director said. “Now you see the tears. He’s been holding them back.”
“Why? He saw the picture?”
“Sol.”
“The buddy dies? Wonderful. Something upbeat.”
“What can I tell you, Sol? It’s a war picture.”
“All right, all right.”
“He looks good, Jamie,” Bunny said to the director, placating. “Think you can wrap this week?”
There was another clip, Lasner quiet, his silence acting like a sigh, then the directors left.
“Jesus Christ, Bunny,” Lasner said.
The room was still dim, Ben invisible in the back shadows.
“I know. It’ll be okay if we can get it out fast. We can book it with Rosemary’s picture, recover the costs.”
“We’re supposed to be making money, not recovering costs.”
“Sol, you’re the one who taught me. Pay the overhead with these, your wins are twice as big.”
“And what about Dick? We got an investment there, too. Another war picture—”
“I had an idea about that. I want you to see this test.” Bunny picked up the phone. “Could you run the test now? The first one.”
This would have been the moment, Ben knew, to cough, declare himself, but he sat still, too interested to move.
It was the same scene they’d used with Julie, the young girl getting up from the piano and saying good-bye to the older man—her father? her teacher?—who was sending her away, better for everyone for some reason. Liesl was wearing a simple white blouse and skirt, her hair brushed straight, the whole effect young, on the brink. When she lifted her face at the piano, it seemed to draw the key light to it, a sudden radiance. Ben knew that it was framing and makeup and well-placed arcs, that it was Liesl playing the piano, but knowing all of it made no difference. Film transformed everything. Even the piano gleamed. She smiled now at the keyboard, slightly wistful, a girl he had never seen before.
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