Stardust

by Kanon, Joseph

  “Dieter’s fond of Liesl,” Ben said, to change the subject.

  “He sees her mother.”

  “Were they alike?”

  “A physical resemblance. Anna was not so strong. It was hard for her, to live like that, new places. Liesl, maybe she was always an actress. German, now Austrian, French—you learn to adapt. But Anna never did. It killed her, I think. Of course Dieter says it was me, waiting too long. He never saw the nerves, the worry. Not like Liesl that way. To escape with Daniel. The danger. Anna could never have done it.”

  Ben saw the solar towers first, poking up through the trees like radio antennas. Beyond them was the dome for the telescope and even farther, on the other side of the complex, another, much larger dome. Scattered between, on side paths, were wooden frame buildings where the staff lived, like a permanent summer camp under the pines. Liesl’s car was turning left to one of these, a long white building with green trim. A man came out to greet Dieter, signaling Ben to park on the side.

  “There’s been a little mix-up about the rooms,” Dieter said when they joined him, annoyed but trying to be pleasant. “Professor Davis brought some graduate students, so we’ll have to double-up. They won’t be in the way—they’re working with the sixty-inch—but it does mean sharing. Ben, how about you and Hans? Then Heinrich with me. John will show you where you are.”

  Professor Davis, full of dates and statistics, showed them the grounds, a visitor talk he’d obviously given before. The first tower in 1904, then the sixty-inch telescope, finally the one-hundred-inch in 1917, still the largest in the world. The dome was on its own promontory, reached by footbridge over a shallow chasm and a reservoir pond. It was getting dark now, flashlights needed on the path.

  “The site is remarkable,” Davis was saying. “It has the best ‘seeing’ in the country.”

  “Seeing?” Kaltenbach said.

  “The best conditions. Very little atmospheric turbulence.”

  “But so close to the city,” Ostermann said. “The lights.”

  “Yes, but even so. It’s the turbulence that matters. You know if you stand in a swimming pool and look down, the water moves, your feet seem to move. Turbulence is like that. We see the stars twinkle but they don’t—it’s just air moving across their light. But up here, with the good seeing, they’re steady. Well, you’ll see later. Shall we have some dinner now?”

  “They don’t twinkle?” Ostermann said. “It’s a little disappointing.”

  Davis looked at him, puzzled.

  “All the poems,” Ostermann added lamely. “Songs.”

  “Well, songs,” Davis said, at a loss.

  Ben hung back as they got near the dining room.

  “Now what?” he said to Liesl. “Am I supposed to sneak out while he’s sleeping?”

  She smiled. “Like a teenager.” She touched his arm. “Maybe it’s enough for now. To know we want to. Don’t look like that. What are you thinking?”

  “Ever hear of Arnold Wallace?” he said, his head still in the letter.

  “No,” she said, an abrupt change of mood.

  He went down the sheet in his mind, one typed name after another. “Raymond Gilbert?”

  “Who are these people?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “More friends of Daniel.”

  “People he might have mentioned.”

  She looked away. “Not to me.”

  The graduate students left as soon as they’d finished eating, but the émigré group lingered, talking with Eric, Professor Davis’s assistant, who had now taken charge of them. Eric was tall and gawky, but eager to please, consumed by astronomy. It seemed to Ben a conversation from another world, beamed in from one of the stars, not nine miles up the slope from Pasadena.

  “The hundred-inch is really the point now. Mt. Wilson began as a solar observatory but after Professor Hubble’s work, there was a shift to nighttime research. Without the hundred-inch, modern cosmology—”

  Ben drifted and he could see the others were having trouble keeping up. Dieter, to whom all this was familiar, seemed to be monitoring their response, glancing at each of them, ready to interrupt if things became hopelessly tangled. Ben felt the envelope in his pocket. Maybe the names were arranged by studios. How many groups had there been? Five majors, maybe a few Poverty Row companies. But none of the names were familiar. Technicians, screenwriters? He hadn’t heard of Schaeffer at Fox until Minot’s files. But not in the phone book. They couldn’t all be unlisted, not technicians.

  “The key was proving that spiral nebulae are distant galaxies. Outside the Milky Way. In other words, the universe is expanding.”

  “Expanding,” Ostermann said thoughtfully. “What does it mean? Oh, I know,” he said, waving off Eric, “there’s an explanation, of course. But how do we imagine such a thing? The universe expanding. How do we even imagine the universe?”

  “You don’t have to imagine it. You can see it,” Eric said, getting up.

  Outside they trailed behind him to the big dome, the sky all lit up.

  “If you look that way,” he said, pointing, “you’ll see the section we’re studying at the moment. There. Keep it in mind when we go inside. You’ll see how much more the telescope picks up.”

  It seemed impossible there could be more, the stars already too numerous to count, much less name. As Davis had predicted, they were steady lights, not twinkling.

  The telescope was more than just the giant shaft that shot out through the dome’s opening. There was the heavy platform with its gears, the series of reflectors and magnifying properties to explain, and Eric grew more excited as he talked, a boy with his wonderful toy. Ben smiled to himself, thinking of the Hal Jaspers at the Moviola, both mechanics at heart. But why would Minot want technicians? Recognizable faces. Nobody cared about the Hal Jaspers. Maybe these weren’t the intended names, just ways to get to them. Sources, like Danny.

  They had made an adjustment to one of the mirrors that brought the sky into sharp focus, a swath of stars leaping out of the black. Ben stared at it for a minute, as silent as the others, dazzled. He felt himself getting smaller, a speck, reduced to nothing by a vast indifference. The universe expanded without us. None of it mattered—not the preview audience’s reaction or whether Julie Sherman could sing or whether Danny had filed reports. They were just frames flying by in a movie we’d made to keep us awake in the dark.

  “You see the dust to the right of the star we’re measuring?” Eric said, pointing again. “We’re not sure yet, it’s early, but the gap there might be another star forming.”

  “When will you know?” Liesl said.

  Eric smiled. “Not for years. The dust has to fuse, a long process. But we can track the movement.”

  “It’s real dust? Not just light?”

  “Real dust. And gas. Particles of elements. But we see it as light. Sometimes it’s what’s in the way. But with this, you see beyond, what’s really there.”

  “I wonder,” Ostermann said, “do we want to see everything so clearly.”

  “Well, you want to see this clearly or you won’t get the measurements right,” Eric said, no poet.

  Ostermann smiled. “Yes, that’s right. A distraction, if we want to know. But beautiful, I think, all the same.”

  “Well, yes,” Eric said, not sure what he meant. “You have to be careful. You see the star there on the right, two o’clock? That was mine, my project. I knew it, all its properties. And then there was movement, some dust, and it confused everything. I began to doubt it, what I already knew. But that was with the sixty-inch. With this it was clear again, the same properties. Which was lucky for me. My whole dissertation was based on it. Years of work.”

  But nothing was clear yet. The names had to mean something, people Minot would be interested in. Focus. Who interested him? Ben turned to Dieter.

  “Is there a phone up here?”

  “In the director’s office. You’re still worried about your friend? Come, I’ll show yo
u.”

  They walked back across the bridge, stars everywhere, a whole sky of them. There were other phone books. Follow the logic. Dieter turned on the light in the office.

  “Thanks. Don’t wait. I can find my way back.”

  Dieter hesitated, but then made a polite nod and backed out, pointing to the light, a reminder.

  It was late but Kelly was still at his desk.

  “See? Something always turns up. You got a body or just a tip?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Last time I looked, you owed me.”

  “Now I’ll owe you two. You’ve got all the studio phone listings, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’d have to. They’d be your favorite bedtime reading. I want you to look up a few names—just tell me which studio.”

  “I should do this why?” Kelly said, playing with him, a wiseguy line.

  “Does your paper know you’re moonlighting for Polly?”

  There was a silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then you’d have a tough time explaining it to them, wouldn’t you? If they ever asked. Come on, Kelly, there’s nothing to this. Just pull the lists out of the drawer, and we’re done in two minutes.”

  “There goes one,” Kelly said.

  “Wallace, first name Arnold. You’ll find it near the bottom of the list.”

  “Ha ha.”

  Ben could hear a shuffling of papers.

  “Nope.”

  “Not at Fox?”

  “Not anywhere.”

  “Try Gilbert, Raymond.”

  Another shuffle.

  “Gilbert, Allen, at Republic. No Raymond. Who are these guys supposed to be?”

  “Friends of my brother. I found them in his book and I’m trying to get in touch.” The lie said easily, a little wave of turbulence over the wire. “Try Friedman, Alfred.”

  But Friedman wasn’t there, either, nor three others. Ben looked at the list, stymied. Minot was going after the industry, but Danny was feeding him someone else.

  “So who could they be?” he said aloud, but really to himself.

  “Bookies. IOUs. Muscle. All guys, right?” Kelly’s world.

  “Okay, thanks. Sorry to bother you.”

  “How about a little payback? Something on Dick Marshall and the sister.”

  “How would I know?”

  “You live there. Give me an item. I could sell anything on them.”

  “I’m not there anymore. I’m at the Cherokee.”

  “What, his room? Talk about sick.”

  “I haven’t run into any ghosts yet.”

  “Maybe he’ll talk to you in the night. Tell you who he was banging.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “About that other thing. Polly. How’d you happen to come up with that?”

  “A shot in the dark. Thanks for the favor.”

  “A shot in the dark.”

  “Now I owe you two.”

  He stared at the list again, then put it back in his pocket, out of ideas. Maybe he’ll talk to you in the night.

  He walked back to the dome smelling the night moisture on the pines, fresh, something to wipe away Kelly. I could sell anything on them. Inside, Eric was demonstrating a spectroscopic binary, the guests following attentively, as if it made sense.

  “He’s all right?” Dieter said.

  “Yes, thanks. What have I missed?”

  Dieter smiled. “Advanced Astronomy 205—his course. Do you think they’ll pass the exam?” he said, nodding to the others.

  They adjusted the mirror again, a new perspective, larger than the last, but Dieter noticed that people had begun to tire.

  “Eric, I promised the guests a nightcap, so I’m going to steal them from you.”

  “Yes, I’ll just finish with this magnification. Now see those very small points there? Outside, they’d be invisible. The eye simply can’t take them in. But they’re out there. We have no idea what we’re going to see when we build the new scope down at Palomar. Two-hundred-inch. Things in there we can’t see now,” he said, pointing to the image, his voice excited.

  What wasn’t he seeing? A San Francisco postmark. Someone who didn’t know Danny had died. And no way of telling him, no return address. But they must have communicated somehow. The letter hadn’t dropped out of the sky. Was some response expected? What if he hadn’t taken it, just let it sit there? He held the thought for a minute, like a breath. But it wouldn’t just sit there. Somebody else would have picked it up.

  Eric finally finished, to a chorus of thank-yous. Outside, the sky seemed less full, limited by the unaided eye to only a sampling of stars, like the ceiling of the Wilshire Temple. Could it only have been this morning? Gazing up while the music tugged at him, back to Otto, an invisible chord. Suddenly he felt tired, light-headed, as if he had climbed up to this thin air on foot. Good seeing. But how could you do it below? You had to wait for a flash, something that broke through all the obscuring dust. Sam Pilcer looking at his son, his heart suddenly visible. Bunny gazing at a bandage, finally without irony. This wasn’t all they were—the other parts were still there—but without the glimpse you couldn’t really see them, take some kind of measure. Maybe the letter, if he could explain it, was a flash, a way to see Danny.

  He stopped, looking up again. But he already knew him. The way Eric had known his star, before all the dust got in the way. The same properties, the same constant light. And if you knew that, you could explain the rest. He hadn’t mentioned Jack MacDonald after he’d seen him, an easy bone to toss. He hadn’t mentioned Rosemary, either. He never stopped writing to Ben, stayed with Otto to the end. Got Liesl out, a dangerous trip. Who he really was.

  Back at the lodge, they spoke German for Heinrich’s sake and Ben, already tired, found himself sitting back, not really listening. They were huddled around the table drinking, and for an instant he saw them as Danny might have, refugees in a mountain hut waiting to be smuggled across. But now they were here, at the end of another continent, and Heinrich was talking about going back.

  “But you don’t consider the rest of us,” Dieter said. “The effect it might have.” He waved his hand in a circle. “A decision like this—it will draw attention to all of us.”

  “But only I would be going.”

  “And then they think, who else? Who’s next? Remember during the war, how they watched us?”

  “The war’s over.”

  “That one, yes. Now a new one. And look where you’d go. The other side. You think it’s so pleasant there now? At least wait a little.”

  “I’m an old man, Dieter. How long should I wait?”

  “You make yourself old.” Dieter poured more brandy in the glasses. “You talk to him,” he said to Ostermann.

  “Maybe we’re a little selfish,” Ostermann said. “We don’t want to see you go.”

  “You want to speak German, go to Switzerland,” Dieter said. “Lion is thinking about that. Zurich.”

  “Lion has money. No one is asking me to come to Zurich.”

  “There’s no rush,” Liesl said to Heinrich. “You can stay with me for a while if you like. The room just sits there.”

  “But what about—” Heinrich looked at Ben.

  “I’m not there anymore.”

  “No. In that apartment,” Dieter said. “You know, where Daniel—” He shook his head. “It seems so strange to me. You don’t feel—”

  “He didn’t die there,” Liesl said into her glass. “He died at the hospital.”

  Ben looked up, jarred, as if he had just heard a skip on a record, a needle scratch. The hospital, those awful last minutes, people racing, Liesl’s face as she stood in the doorway, “Don’t leave me,” the last thing he’d ever say. But Ben had.

  “A technicality,” Dieter said.

  “I still wonder to myself, what was on his mind?” Kaltenbach said, then looked at Liesl. “Forgive me. An intrusion. It’s just—someone with so much courage.�
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  Liesl drew on her cigarette, as if she hadn’t heard, then tamped it on the ashtray, preoccupied.

  “You think it’s an act of weakness,” Ostermann said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the hardest. The rest—you can do anything if you have to.”

  “You? With your good moral character?”

  “Is there such a thing? I used to think so. Very clear. The Nazis are here,” he said, putting his hand at one end of the table. “And we’re here?” Bookending the other. He moved both to the middle. “No, here somewhere. Mixed together. We know that now. We can cross any line. But that last one—”

  “Such talk,” Liesl said, rubbing out the cigarette.

  “Any line?” Ben said. “Not killing someone.”

  “Look how often we do it. It’s only ourselves we can’t.”

  Kaltenbach nodded, settling in for a longer discussion. Ben stood up.

  “I want to get an early start back,” he said, an apology.

  “But the studios are closed Sunday,” Dieter said. “Even Continental. Well, a last one for me. Liesl? Another brandy?”

  “No, no,” she said, picking up her glass and finishing it.

  Another skip on the record, watching her drink. He felt the back of his neck go still, the way it had watching the screen test. Except this time he saw Ruth Harris on the penthouse terrace. Easy enough for a woman to do. He shook his head. More interference, dust.

  “And you come, too,” she said to her father. “You’ll be up all night, the two of you.”

  Outside they all looked up again. Ben tilted his head to where Eric’s star would be—bright and clear, if you knew how to find it. The letter, he thought, was a kind of telescope. The names were out there somewhere, in a bigger file.

  NO ENTRIES turned up at Minot’s office.

  “You got me down here on a Sunday morning?” Riordan said, eyes still a little puffy with sleep. Ben had gone straight to his apartment, waking him with drugstore coffee.

  “I wanted to make sure. They’re new.”

  “So now you’re sure,” Riordan said, waiting.

  “We need to get this to the Bureau,” Ben said, holding out the letter.