by K. W. Jeter
“You fixed up okay?” Wise settled down beside her, sinking back into the soft leather. The battle scene continued unreeling across from them. “How’s the little house?”
“ Es ist so schon…” She found the English words. “It’s lovely.” That had been where the boxes from the shopping expedition had been delivered, to a Spanish-styled bungalow on a winding road in the foothills. The glazed tiles set into the walls and floor were real, not just daubs of paint like those on the lot’s fake Taj Mahal.
“You really like it?” He seemed surprised by how quickly she had answered him.
“Oh, yes. It’s so… so much sun. So bright.” After the driver had brought in her luggage, she had stepped out the house’s back door and been dazzled by the tumble of flowers over the garden wall, big exotic-looking ones – exotic to her; she supposed they might be as common as Ganseblumchen in this wonderland. She didn’t even know what the flowers were called, bursting like soft explosions from their creeping tendrilled vine. She had closed her eyes as she had brought her face close to the flowers, drinking in the warm, vanilla-ish scent. Like a piece of some bright heaven, that she could cup in her hands.
Bright…
Maybe here was that heaven, where the sweet flowers came from, their home. Before she had left Berlin, everything had come to seem so dark there. Even when she had stood beneath the glare of the studio lights, their heat drawing a rivulet of sweat through the makeup slathered upon her skin – even then, when she had barely been able to squint past them to where Ernst sat leaning forward, next to the whirring camera, even then she had known it was night outside the Babelsberg walls, or a grey daylight of scudding clouds and rain-shimmered puddles at every street corner.
“Well…” Herr Wise shrugged, looking away from her, as though to hide a blush of embarrassment. “We want you to be happy here.”
“Oh, but I am sure I will be.” She reached out and touched his arm. “You have been so kind to me.”
He stood regarding her from the corners of his eyes, rubbing his black-stubbled chin with the tips of his long, delicate fingers. A musician’s fingers, the hand of a violinist.
“We’ll have to get down to business soon,” he said at last. “But not right now.” She had seen a decision click into place behind his eyes, like a coin falling through the slot of a vending machine. He nodded toward the screen. “Relax, make yourself comfortable. Why don’t we just watch the movies for a while, okay?” He smiled with perfect white teeth, the smile of one of his actors. “Take a look at this.”
He signaled to the projectionist by pushing one of the buttons on the little console near the sofa. She turned and looked up at the screen, and saw her own face. In black and white; a girl stood on a street in Berlin, her empty, hungry gaze reflected in a shop window.
“That was the first time I saw you.” Wise looked at the screen, studying the girl carefully. And then back to the one beside him, the smile rising on his own face again. “I mean, the first time I saw one of your films.”
Marte closed her eyes as she leaned back into the embrace of the sofa; she could still make out the turning and fall of the shadows and faces on the screen across the room. She heard the soft clink as Wise refilled the glasses on the low table before them. She had been holding her breath, as though she were a quiet, invisible thing, not really in this room at all, or anywhere. While she had waited for that coin to fall, for that decision to be made. The one that she already knew, that she had come to expect when men looked at her. That made her real. That made the woman with her face, up on the screen, even more real, as all the men in the darkened theater gazed up at her in silence.
“Here you go…”
She opened her eyes and saw him holding a glass out to her. As she took it, her fingers touched his for a moment. That didn’t end. He raised his gaze to hers; in the darkness at the center of his eyes, she saw the girl’s face, the woman’s face, her face. On the tiny screen of his vision, the shadows and light from the larger one played across that image. Which one was real? She didn’t know. She didn’t know, even as he leaned forward and kissed her, their fingers still touching.
She didn’t see, but heard the glass strike the floor, the brandy spilling across the rug. But she knew where she was now, inside the annihilating embrace of a man’s arms, her head tilting back as he pressed his face into the taut angle of her throat.
All the other worlds, the bright ones and the dark, vanished as she fell.
***
The radiance from the screen turned her skin to silver, as though she were one of those figures of light and shadow.
Marte drew away from him and sat up at one end of the couch in the little alcove. His skin caught the reflection from the screen as well, brightened by the sheen of sweat across his shoulders, lost in the tangle of dark hair on his chest. David – as he had told her to call him; he didn’t want her to say ‘ Herr Wise’ anymore – hadn’t moved when she had slipped out of his embrace. He was still asleep, or pretending to be.
She looked down at her own arms and breasts, wrists crossed against her knees. The shadows moved across her skin. The projectionist, in his small chamber above her head, had gone on running film, reel after reel, all the time she had been here with David. Perhaps the man behind the flickering beam of light was blind, or deaf, or perhaps it didn’t even matter. They had been as private here as though in a bedroom with the door closed; the soundtracks from the films had swallowed up the things he had whispered to her, his lips brushing her ear.
Perhaps there was no one up there at all. No one changing reels upon the projector – perhaps the films went on and on by themselves because they were true things, the screen a window into another world, brighter vivid than this one. The light from that world had rained gently upon her while she had slept in David’s arms, made her a part of it. For a moment, she thought that she could walk across the room, her bare feet sinking into the thick carpets, and stand against the screen, the beam of light wrapping itself around her body. In the glare of that small sun, streaming through the fingers of her outstretched hand, she might become a true, real thing herself, at home in the world that claimed her.
“Then I would…” She whispered aloud, the words moving inside her head as she gazed at the screen. Dann ich werde. “Then I would know…”
In that other world, a battle still raged. Soldiers swarmed across muddy fields, the terrible long mouths of cannons spat fire and smoke. Marte shrank back, the couch’s leather touching her rounded spine.
Other skin, living, touched her. David’s hand – she looked round at him and saw his half-lidded eyes and dreaming smile. She let him pull her close into the shelter from which she had risen. Falling, as she had let herself fall toward Joseph, and before him, the father of her baby.
She looked up into David’s face and saw that his gaze had strayed from her, even as his arms drew her closer against his bare chest. Reflected in the dark centers of his eyes were the sparks and motions of light.
The light drew her gaze as well. She looked over her shoulder, the side of her face pressed tight against his skin. Across the darkened room, in the dazzling world of the screen, a squadron of planes, cruel and beautiful things, thundered across the skies. In tight formation, wingtips almost touching, their riveted bodies as silver as the reflected light had made her own skin. They flew on, carrying metal and fire to distant parts of that other world.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see that anymore. But she knew that he kept his eyes open, went on watching, even as he held her tighter and more fiercely to himself.
TWELVE
Someone waited for her inside the house. Marte could see the lamp had been switched on, the big squat brass one on the table in the study. The glow filtered through the drawn curtains, spilling a dim radiance across the lawn and the path of flagstones curving to the front door. The lamp was David’s, one that he’d had sent over from the library of his own, much larger house; the room lined with books and da
rk wood could almost have swallowed this little cottage by itself. In the year and more since she had come to America, other bits and pieces of his had made their way here, to remind her constantly of him.
The front door was unlocked and slightly ajar. The studio car had dropped her off and driven away, leaving a silence in which she could hear again the evening crickets beneath the ranks of oleanders. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Hello?” She set her purse down on the entryway table. “Is there someone here?” She smelled a trace of tobacco, but not any of von Behren’s. Besides, she knew he was still holed up in David’s studio office, the two of them trying to salvage something out of a script that their leading man had called garbage and thrown down on the floor of the set in a white flurry of typed pages.
“ Fraulein Helle -” A voice that she recognized, but without a name attached to it, called from the study. A man’s voice, speaking English with an accent close to her own. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come and talk.”
He sat in the study’s big armchair, right next to the table with David’s lamp on it. As Marte stood in the room’s doorway, the man even looked a little like David, legs crossed, cigarette smoke curling from the cut-glass ashtray, a book from the long rows of shelves open on his lap. That was why David had sent the lamp over, so he would have a place to read, not just scripts but real books as well, when he spent the night with her. The lamp, one of a matched pair, made the corner of the study seem like his own home library.
This man smiled and gave a little nod to her, as though he were bowing at a reception without actually being on his feet. That was when she realized who he was, where she had seen him before. He was part of the staff at the German Consulate here in Los Angeles, a functionary high up enough to attend formal events in white tie and a sleekly tailored dinner jacket, with a lower ranking in the diplomatic corps following him around, taking down whispered comments and instructions in a small notebook. She still couldn’t remember his name or official title, but she recalled being introduced to him as she had stood next to David. It had been in the lobby of one of the palace theaters, all gilt and faux marble, that had been premiering the studio’s latest film. She had glanced up at David and seen the way his eyes had narrowed, even as he had grudgingly shaken the other man’s hand and muttered some inconsequential courtesy.
“I hope you’ll excuse this intrusion.” The consulate official tilted his head back, regarding her with half-lidded eyes. “And that in your absence I availed myself of your hospitality.” His gesture took in the room around him.
She remained standing in the doorway. “Did someone let you in here?”
The man shrugged. “There are always keys, and ways of acquiring them. Even in times such as these, we have helpful friends. Please.” He indicated the smaller armchair. “You should be comfortable in your own home, shouldn’t you? And we have much to talk about.”
She sat with her hands poised nervously on her knees. She watched her fingers smoothing out the soft fabric of her skirt’s hem. The man’s presence disturbed her, a combination of apprehension and memory. He gave off a scent – not one she could actually smell, but subtler – of ink and blood, of carelessly scrawled signatures at the bottom of police forms. Rumors whispered that the Consulate was rife with Gestapo keeping an eye on the Reich’s exiles, those who had been smart or lucky or well-connected enough to escape before they could be caught in the sharp gears of interrogation and prison. It wasn’t even a rumor, she knew it was the truth, they all knew it, from those who had landed on their feet and were being paid sweet amounts of Hollywood money as she was, to those living off handouts from their envied friends. A knot of them could be laughing or grumbling among themselves, bewailing fate or sheepishly apologizing for good fortune, and the shadow of this man, or one of the others just like him, would pass between them; they would look over their shoulders, and their voices would sink to whispers or silence.
The Consulate official bent his head down to peer into Marte’s averted face. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, Fraulein Helle?” His solicitousness was an obscene joke; he could barely keep the thin-lipped smile from leaking through again. “I didn’t mean to alarm you in such a way. This unannounced visit. But I thought it best… for you. Some matters should be kept private. Personal matters.”
She raised her gaze to meet his. “I don’t know what you mean…”
“But of course. Why should you?” He took the cigarette from the ashtray, inhaled and delicately returned it. “We are among the eaters of lotuses, are we not? Whatever happened, that one does not wish to remember, can be forgotten here; whatever didn’t happen, can be…” He searched for a word. “Falsified? Made up. All pretend.” A nod. “It is easy to see why everyone is so happy here. Elsewhere… in one’s homeland…” He shrugged. “Not so pleasant, perhaps. When a land is at war, the Volk – your people, Fraulein Helle – they must make harsh sacrifices.”
“This is my home now.” She managed to say it defiantly, while wondering what he’d meant, and exactly what he knew, when he’d said the words your people.
“Ah.” The last trace of the smile faded. “Yes, we had been informed that inquiries had been made, regarding how American citizenship could most easily be obtained for you. Of course, you have my apologies if that is turning out to be more difficult than your patron Herr David Wise had expected. Even with friends as powerful as his, these things take time. Especially if some of the arrangements that had previously been made on your behalf were… shall we say?… somewhat unusual.”
Again fear touched her, a cold fingertip laid against her heart. What did he know? All of them, the faceless ones in the consulate in Los Angeles or the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin – what was in their files, what had they found out about her? Everything she had told von Behren, just a few years ago, after he’d first come across her at the Romanische Cafe, he had told her to keep all that their secret, to never tell anyone else. The things that had happened at the Lebensborn hostel – who could understand that? They wouldn’t, they would despise her or laugh at her so cruelly that her film career would be over; the Americans were addicted to gossip, they loved to tear apart a bleeding fellow creature. And then the precarious safety that she and Ernst had achieved would be over, the money and the so-helpful influence from the studio would all vanish overnight.
She hadn’t even told David any of these things, the true secrets. How could she risk it? If he were to stop loving her, stop wanting to possess her; if he were to turn away from her in disgust… what would she be then? If she couldn’t see herself reflected in the mirror of his eyes, or up on the screen of the films he made…
She didn’t know. Perhaps nothing at all. Like a shadow that vanishes when a harsh light is switched on, leaving a room empty at last.
“ Fraulein Helle?”
The consulate official’s voice brought her back from her dark thoughts. She looked up and saw his simulation of kind concern.
“I think you misjudge my intentions here.” Somehow, he had peered inside her skull; he had to be Gestapo, they knew how to do that. “It would not be my wish – or anyone’s – to do that which would damage your career. Your success, the image on the world’s theater screens of such a beautiful and pure Nordic racial type as yourself -” His thin smile crept out again. “That is a great source of pride to the Reich’s guardians of culture. I have just recently returned from our native land, from Berlin. I had some interesting discussions with Reichsminister Goebbels. Whom I believe you’ve met, and spoken with, before your own departure?” The smile became even more insinuating. “I can assure you that the Reichsminister continues to take a lively interest in your performances. The first film you did for the Wise Studios – what was it? August and September, if I recall correctly. Something like that, nicht wahr?”
“Yes…”
“I did not see it; my apologies. A comedy, was it?”
She shook her head. “A drama. Herr Wise thought I sh
ould start with something like that.”
“ Herr Wise knows his business. I understand the film was a success – or at least successful enough. Both here and then in Europe. In Berlin, even the Reichminister went to the theater and saw it. He likes to go out among the people, now and then. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that he found the film to be… very moving. He was quite caught up in your performance. I sat a few seats away from him, and I saw him lean forward, every time your face was on the screen, as though he wished he could somehow transport himself right into the scene with you.” The consulate official’s smile showed tolerant amusement. “I find it remarkable how powerfully these films affect even the strongest-willed man. But then that is your magic, Fraulein Helle, is it not? That is why it is your face on the screen, and not that of another woman.”
She said nothing. The mention of Joseph’s name, the way the consulate official had spoken it, had trapped her, incapable of moving. She could only wait, to hear what came next.
The official poked at the still-burning stub in the ashtray, watching the thread of smoke rise. “It is, in fact, upon the Reichsminister ’s instructions that I have come here, Fraulein Helle.” He leaned back in the armchair, regarding her through the cage of his fingertips placed together. “In his capacity as overseer of the German film industry, he wishes to extend an invitation to you. I was instructed to be as discreet as possible in this matter, while at the same time conveying to you the utmost seriousness in which the offer is made. That is why I came to see you in this manner. Privately, as it were.”
Marte forced her words past the stone that had lodged in her throat. “What does he… what does the Reichsminister want?”
“He wants you, Fraulein Helle.” The consulate official spoke without smiling this time. “Not for himself, of course – the Reichsminister is a man of honor and duty. But for the German nation, and the Volk whose blood is in your veins. He wishes you to return to Germany – immediately – and resume your film career there. But not as another mere actress, one among the many at the UFA studios. No, you would be the queen of the German cinema. Those are exactly the words the Reichsminister used – die Konigin des deutschen Filmes. This is an extraordinary thing, Fraulein Helle. To no woman before has such an invitation been made. You would be the most highly honored and glorified actress upon the screens of the German theaters – and more than that; in all the theaters of the world.”