The Weather in Berlin

by Ward Just

  Now Andaman frowned and, almost as an afterthought, added that the baby was healthy. A fine seven-pound boy, he said, with a crown of silky blond hair and the lungs of a stevedore. Greenwood smiled wanly. A boy, not a girl, and his father had been fair. Both he and Claire were dark.

  Who does he look like?

  Not you, Andaman said.

  Well, then—

  For Christ’s sake, Dix. The baby’s less than an hour old.

  He said, How serious is it?

  It’s serious.

  When Andaman went away, Dix turned from the window and sat heavily on the high hospital bed. The room was flooded with afternoon light. He wished he were practiced in prayer. He did not want to think of Claire in pain or distress of any kind and hoped that if God existed, he was on her side. Dix was thinking in the abstract. You could not put yourself into the mind or body of another and to think otherwise was sentimental, the sort of thing they did in movies. When he had been so crazy after his accident, Claire listened patiently and at length, but she was on the outside looking in. She was an observer looking at the cracked glass and wondering how the pieces fit together. The inside was his alone, and the same would be true for her now, in seclusion in her bed in the recovery room. Even their sense of time would be at odds, she unconscious of it and he praying that it would be slow-footed, dilatory, sluggish in its retreat. What he could do now was think about her and pull for her, all the while wishing that the clock would stop.

  Yet there was responsibility. The baby was not her idea, she wanted to wait another year, perhaps two. What’s the rush, Dix? If we wait a year, it’ll be the Year of the Owl and she’ll be a genius, so smart and good-natured, a painter maybe, or a musician. Claire had gained thirty pounds during her pregnancy and hated each pound. She waddled about the house like a duck and took to calling Andaman Dr. Quack. She was often dizzy and her back hurt. She missed her evening martini. She could not concentrate enough to read and at night was plagued with sleeplessness. She thought she had lost her youth for keeps and was angry at him for wanting the baby and for his frequent absences, shooting film in Baja where the light was bleached, everyone hot. At least Ada Hart was not on the set. There were the usual rumors concerning the young French actress but Claire chose to ignore them, except when she was sleepless at two in the morning, prowling her house like an overweight cat, self-conscious, surly, always hungry, wondering who had caught her husband’s attention on the set in sunny, sandy, romantic Baja. At that time they were citizens of hostile nations, each with its borders, each with its own language and laws. Hers was a nation of one, his teeming—usually with intrigue, occasionally as sedate as Switzerland, everyone retired by ten, no heavy drinking or all-night poker, no drugs, no sexual turbulence. There was no sense complaining because their nations were stronger than they were, and they loved them equally. She remembered the rough judgment of the Miami gangster in the second Godfather: “This is the business we have chosen.” Strasberg had added a little metallic click to his voice, so it went, “This click is the business we have chosen click.” And then something later to the effect that some sudden execution wasn’t personal, it was business: “I didn’t inquire.” Sometimes that was the way adults got on, not inquiring too closely.

  When she was pregnant they talked for an hour each night on the telephone, Greenwood exhilarated at the end of the day, Claire exhausted and peevish, too, because it seemed to her that everyone she knew was on location and unreachable. She hated being out of touch, ignorant of the news of the day, meaning the latest gossip, who was screwing whom literally and figuratively, and which productions were in trouble and which not. During her early morning prowling she wondered if the business they had chosen was one that would admit children or whether the children were walk-ons, grace-and-favor cameos like the roles Andaman played. Dix always called each evening to ask how her day had gone and she described the garden, the fifteen varieties of roses and the twenty-year-old rhododendron; and just think, when you call me this time next year I’ll be able to tell you about our child, the cute words and phrases, et cetera, et cetera. She had half a dozen scripts to read but so far hadn’t gotten to them. Not in the mood, Dix. When she asked how things were in Baja, he replied with a merry story filled with innuendo; he made her laugh and she thought that was better than the usual you-can’t-believe-how-hot-it-is-on-the-beach. He always said, Don’t worry, meaning it, assuring her that the set was turbulent, as usual, but nothing that would interfere with them. The French actress had all she could handle with Billy Jeidels.

  Interfere? she asked, laughing in a strangled sort of way.

  Interfere, he repeated, laughing also. Interference was general in the movie business, was that not so? Quack quack, she said, wishing him a good night and sweet dreams. She knew she had many hours before sleep came, if it did. She knew, and he knew, that she was dispirited, her voice disappointed. And he always replied, after a moment’s pause, “I love you, Claire,” meaning that, too. By day they lived in the Industry’s make-believe world. They did not have to live in it at night as well.

  The Vietnamese arrived with schnitzel and tall glasses of dark German beer, Frau Munn in his wake, supervising the placement of the food and beer, squaring the flatware next to the plates. She had a word to say about the weather, filthy, and the forecast, encouraging. She left them with the photographs she had neglected to show them the last time, Gestapo headquarters brilliant with flags and eager young officers in uniform gathered in Anhalterstrasse to greet the Führer, Adolf Hitler languid in the rear seat of a giant open Mercedes. The other photograph showed a street full of rubble, children and old people picking through it, date 1945.

  Bon appétit, Frau Munn said, and went away chortling.

  Dix took a long swallow of beer and a forkful of schnitzel, still remembering the hospital. He was restless, pacing Claire’s room, filled with energy thinking about Baja and the shoot in the morning, and foreboding thinking about Claire, recalling his own time in the hospital near Tahoe, how dispirited and unstable he was, and how superb Claire had been. He stared out the window at the parking lot baking in the heat, and then walked into the corridor looking for a drinking fountain but hoping Andaman had returned with news, whatever it was. Two elderly men attached to metal trees were having a walkabout in the corridor. The trees were festooned with bottles, IV spaghetti wires running from the bottles. They were discussing the afternoon races at Santa Anita. The girl in the Porsche was standing with her back to the corridor wall, her bare arms limp at her side. She still held the book, her finger marking the place. Up close she was a different girl, not the Apache who had loped across the asphalt, gaily it seemed, as if she had been summoned from the country club pool for a date with a doctor. She was out of place in her miniskirt and polo shirt and tanned arms, a thin gold chain around her throat, all but the worried expression on her face. The two old men were arguing about a longshot in the sixth race. She noticed Dix, then resumed her contemplation of the floor. She was tracing the bold chevron pattern with the toe of her sandal. She looked up then and smiled nervously.

  She said, My brother.

  My wife, Greenwood answered.

  Is it serious?

  He paused, glancing down the corridor at the nurses’ station. It was empty and there was no sign of Andaman. He said, I’m sure she’ll be fine.

  Motorcycle, she said. My brother and his Harleys.

  They called me at school, she went on. I’m a teacher. The principal walked into my class and said my brother was hurt, they didn’t know how badly, and fifteen minutes later I was here. I think I broke all the speed records. They said he was lucky he was wearing a helmet and leather pads. He’s always been in shape, strong. He’s a horse. Has the brains of one, too. Eddie, she said.

  Greenwood smiled at that.

  She said, Do I know you?

  He said, I don’t think so.

  You’re in the movies, she said.

  Dixon Greenwood, he said. And you?
<
br />   Sharon Hamel, she said. What’s wrong with your leg?

  Accident, he said.

  Like Eddie, she said.

  Not like Eddie, he said. I drove a car off a mountain.

  Ouch, she said. She peered at his bent leg, then broke into a grin. Nice cane, she said. It’s a sort of Astaire cane, the cane he used in Top Hat. Did he give it to you?

  The cane was an ordinary birch cane, curved at the top. It was about as Astaire as a pair of Wellington boots. Dix said, My wife bought it for me.

  It’s very handsome, she said. Then, after a pause, You probably know my father, Shay Hamel. Everyone seems to.

  The critic, he said.

  I don’t like him either, she said.

  I don’t know him, Dix said.

  That’s strange, she said. He’s everywhere, my father. No gathering too large or too small. He likes being seen. He likes the bright lights. He likes meeting people whose work he’s trashed. He thinks it’s cool. He likes to see how they react to him, whether they turn their back or give that Hollywood shit-eating grin. He particularly likes it when they claim to have forgotten his review, or never to have seen it at all. He most particularly likes it when they say they never read reviews, because then he can tell them what he said and how much pleasure it gave him to say it. He offers to send them a copy, so they’ll know what they missed. He hated Summer, 1921. Too much indirection. Too many Germans. He didn’t care for your politics, either. Marxist impressionism, he called it. And the girls couldn’t act. He coined a word for them, pornolitarians. And your last film, too, was a failure in his eyes. And I think I can promise that he’ll hate your next one.

  Poor sap, Dix said.

  That’s what he’s good at, hating.

  When she put her hand to her mouth and grinned, he noticed that her fingernails were ragged, bitten haphazardly. Eddie doesn’t like him either, she added in a confidential tone that indicated approval that Eddie was in the majority, for once.

  Good for Eddie, Dix said.

  I loved Summer, 1921. I loved it to death.

  What did you love about it?

  The boys, she said. I loved the boys, the way they stood up for themselves. The way they didn’t give a shit about anything except their work and the girls. And I loved the girls, too, how they looked out for each other and refused to be taken advantage of. All of them were outsiders, exiles trying to make their way in the world, and the world wasn’t making it easy for them. The movie made me wish I was one of them, lost for a summer in a place I had never been and would probably never get back to. But I wouldn’t think about that. I’d live in the present, as they did. If you had a summer like that one, the future would take care of itself, wouldn’t it?

  I suppose it would sometimes, Dix said. Not always.

  And I wouldn’t have this stupid job, teaching English to jerks. I suppose you’re working on a new one.

  We’re filming in Baja now.

  I can’t wait, she said. Is it like Summer, 1921?

  Not much, he said.

  I’ll like it anyway.

  You can come to the opening. Bring your father.

  He has to retire one of these days, Sharon said. But he’s like Eddie, strong as a horse. He works out every day with weights. She paused, evidently trying to make up her mind about something. You’re his bête noire, she said finally. Lots of directors he hates, but you have a special place in his black book. And one more thing about him. He never forgets. He never gives up because he loves hating, just loves it to death. So you’ve got that to look forward to, Dixon Greenwood.

  She had moved close to him, talking so rapidly her words ran into themselves. Then she wheeled toward the nurses’ station, squeezed his hand, and hurried down the corridor where she was met by a serious-looking intern in a white coat, a clipboard in his hand. They spoke a few moments and at last she laughed, putting her palm on his chest. He continued to talk earnestly but she did not seem to be listening, her head turned away as she pushed at his chest. When he broke away to take a telephone call, Sharon sauntered back to Dix, smiling happily. Eddie would be all right, cuts and bruises and a sprained ankle and something nasty to his knees, maybe surgery later. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Eddie dodged the bullet, she said. Lucky boy. The Harley was totaled. He wants me to call our father and give him the good news but I don’t see why I should do that. Let’s leave old dad in the dark a little longer. He wasn’t around when it counted. She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed Dix full on the lips, her arms around his neck, hanging there. She smelled like peaches.

  I’m in the book, she said. Call anytime.

  My boyfriend wouldn’t mind, she added after a moment.

  Can I come down to see you in Baja? I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll be helpful.

  We can go in there right now if you want. She spoke into his ear, indicating the door behind them. That’s my brother’s room but he won’t be up for at least another hour. You want to, I can tell. I can feel it, Dixon. You want to fool around just like I do. What’s the harm? You’re not going anywhere, and anything I have to do, I can put off. We have the whole day ahead of us and tomorrow, too, if we want. I’ll call in sick. I’ll tell them Eddie’s near death and he needs me. She stepped back and smiled. The day that had begun so routinely in her classroom now showed promise in a hospital. Hospitals were sexy, so long as you were not sick yourself, and everything happened for a reason. She said, We’ve both had lousy days and now we’re owed. Injuries are hard on the survivors, too, because we’re the ones who care. We’re the ones pacing the floor, waiting for the doctor to give us bad news. Saying our prayers. God, it’s a beautiful day. So what do you think?

  Dix said, Go home, Sharon.

  That’s no fun, she said. That’s no fun at all. Fun’s now. You remember what the girl said in Summer, 1921. I’ve remembered it my whole life, it’s what I live by. I fell in love with the writer of that line. They’re at the lake. The girl has taken her clothes off to go swimming. He’s taken up his brush and begins to sketch. His eyes go to her, and then to the canvas. You, he says. Don’t move, ever. You will never be more alive than right now, at this moment, living through my brush on the canvas. She laughs and says she’s living whether she’s on his canvas or not. He’s living on the canvas. She’s living in her own skin. They go back and forth, he’s irritated with her. He tells her she has no imagination. She doesn’t understand that she can be in two places at once, and one of them is on his canvas. Then there’s something else, I’ve forgotten. Sharon impatiently slapped the book against her thigh and he saw it was de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.

  He tells her to stop breathing, Greenwood said.

  And she refuses!

  She does not. She holds her breath, posing. And then she laughs, not pleasantly.

  She goes for a swim, Sharon said.

  And she raises her arms over her head, does a little turn, and sails off the cliff in a perfect swan dive.

  She never holds her breath, never. She would never do that. That would violate her code of conduct.

  Nevertheless, Dix said.

  Sharon turned away with a little irritated shrug.

  And that’s what you live by?

  Being in two places at once, Sharon said.

  What does that give you?

  She smiled and said, Perfect pitch.

  He said, Give my regards to your father.

  The moment was lost, and she knew it. She said, What fun we could’ve had in Baja.

  Baja’s work, he said.

  And that’s the trouble with Baja, she replied.

  Greenwood turned when he heard movement close by.

  If you have a minute, Dix, Andaman said.

  Bye, then, Sharon said. She disengaged herself and strolled off down the corridor, waving at the intern, performing a little above-the-waist shimmy before she turned the corner and disappeared.

  He said, How’s Claire?

  Who was that? Andaman asked.

  A fan,
Dix replied.

  14

  THEY WERE SILENT while they ate, Willa watching him over the rim of her half-glasses. In the outer room, Frau Munn was telling some story, not anything amusing because no one was laughing. The Vietnamese arrived with more beer and then went away. They were at the same table as before, the Kollwitz graphic on the wall behind Willa, a chipped glass ashtray resting in a puddle of beer. He was becoming a regular. A week ago he had never heard of Munn Café. He had not known that Gestapo headquarters was down the street, and now all these places had become familiar. Potsdamer Platz, Anhalterstrasse, and the imaginary beast the length of South America. Dix realized suddenly that he could live in Berlin.

  Nothing wrong with leading a two-way life, dividing your time between America and Germany, the transatlantic life of a rootless cosmopolitan. There were ways to go about it. He could set himself up in an apartment in Savignyplatz or in Mitte or Alexanderplatz or a three-story villa in Wannsee. Buy a Mercedes and a scull, take up golf, get a subscription to the Philharmonie, bet on football, even make a movie—and the city would welcome him. That is, it would remain indifferent—a vast, restless audience seated in the dark with its own desires. What was one more foreigner in a city of nearly four million souls? So you could go about your business, living between the lines, reading the time in your own way, and soon enough joining the audience in the dark. You would never understand the city but you inhabited it all the same, and after a while its ghosts would become yours also. Like the boar in the thornbush, the city would be felt but not seen. You would observe certain features. You would smell it, you would hear its growl, you would feel its grit, but it would remain mysterious, possessed by its history, at once owned and disowned. Living in such a way, you would fashion an alternative personal history.

  Never learn the language, though.

  Allow the Germans their privacy.