Kino

by Jürgen Fauth

  “I finally found out what happened when we were debriefed at Camp Evans, when we entered the US Schwarze Sonne was a program of secret experiments aimed to isolate and optimize the movies' mind-control properties. Spielmann was a sick bastard, a psychiatrist who dabbled in paranormal research. He wanted to make movies that could turn a crowd into a frenzied mob, cause riots, and drive people insane. He wanted to make movies that could make people kill. Artistic talent, lyricism, it all meant nothing at Schwarze Sonne. They wanted to weaponize Kino. They forced prisoners to watch test movies, first at a secret screening room at Castle Wedestein, and, later, in a special section reserved for medical experiments at Sachsenhausen. After the war turned and the Führer became desperate for a Wunderwaffe, they projected films into isolation cells on an endless loop until the prisoner lost his mind. They forced their eyes open, drugged them, beat and tortured them, all the while displaying images designed to elicit responses, some harmless, some violent. They starved them and attempted to see if a movie could keep them from eating. They turned prisoners on each other. No matter what the outcome, everybody was executed afterwards, anyway.”

  “That's terrible,” Mina said, and then she didn't know what else to say. Gloom settled over the room. She wasn't sure what to believe–the Black Sun? It sounded like the paranoid delusions of a bitter old junkie, but then again, she'd heard about Dr. Mengele's experiments, so why not this? She felt more conflicted about Kino than ever.

  But even if everything Penny had told her was true–that Kino had been seduced by Goebbels, that his movies had helped the Germans to forget about their crimes, that his work had been used to torture prisoners–who was to blame? Wasn't Kino as much a victim as anyone? All he'd ever wanted was to make movies, everyone seemed to agree on that. Something else had crept into Mina's feelings about Kino, some new pride tinged with guilt. He was her grandfather and she didn't want him to be culpable.

  “Tell me about 1963,” Mina tried. “Tell me why you had him committed, and about his…” She let her voice trail off.

  “You can say it, girl. His suicide. The fucking Ladung Schrot he shot through his genius brains.”

  Penny leaned over and started to shuffle through the assorted detritus on the table in front of her for another pill. She swallowed a blue football and two aspirin and chased them with a slug of whiskey. She stared off into the distance.

  “With these eyes, I watched our movies burn. And you know what I said? Good riddance! Finally, we would go to America and put everything behind us. I wanted to forget and start over. I wanted a family, a normal life. But not Klaus. He was heartbroken but wouldn't admit it. He acted like the world was still waiting for a new movie by Kino! Hopeless idiot. He threw himself into writing new scripts. He hadn't learned a thing. And look what happened! A few years later, Americans were fleeing their country because they were alleged Communists! Nowhere is any better than anywhere else, I learned that the hard way. The movies would only lead to more trouble. There was nothing but pain that way.”

  She ate one more pill off the table, seemingly at random. Mina wondered if she should stop her. She suddenly wished Chester was still with them.

  “Klaus didn't stand a chance,” Penny went on. “I watched as he broke his back while Hollywood chewed him up and shit him out in chunks. He claimed he was working, and there were always manuscript pages on his desk, but it was nothing more than a convenient way to avoid his family.”

  “And then?” Mina prompted.

  “Always the same,” Penny said. “Even when he sold toothpaste and drove his cab, that pathetic dreamer never quit. He was forever making changes to his beloved pirate screenplay. He scouted locations and acted out scenes by himself between fares. It would have been heartbreaking if my heart hadn't died long ago.”

  She spit again.

  Mina imagined them both in this house, younger versions of Penny and Kino going about their days. She tried to reconcile the things Penny told her with what she'd read in the journal. It seemed like hell to Mina, this life of theirs together. Why had they stayed married? How long had Penny been spitting on the carpet?

  Penny took another drink of whiskey straight from the bottle and gave Mina a look that was almost kind. Her voice was huskier, frailer than before. “Kino's films poisoned everything,” she said, sounding tired and resigned.

  “You had him committed.”

  “And not just once, girl. Because he was nuts. He beat me with his wooden leg! Don't look so surprised. When that shithead Wagner showed up and asked for a meeting, I shielded Klaus from the phone calls and destroyed the letters from the studio.”

  “But he was released, he made the movie, and when it flopped, he killed himself?”

  “Oh, no. The movie you saw was a travesty. That was not Pirates, not the way Klaus intended it. It wasn't even supposed to be called Pirates of Mulberry Island anymore. The studio had promised him full control but when they found the movie he was making unacceptable, they took his precious vision away from him, recut the footage, and released a butchered version.”

  Another swig of whiskey. Penny's voice was barely a whisper now, and Mina had to lean in close to hear a word she was saying. Her grandmother's pupils were pinpoints.

  “It was one defeat too many. After the premiere, he went back into the El Rey theater, made his way behind the linen wall, and stuck a double-barreled shotgun in his mouth. They had to replace the screen because it was splattered with his blood and bits of genius brain. The shot had ripped right through it.”

  Mina absently chewed on her hand.

  “That's all there was to it,” Penny said. “I'd seen it coming, I had tried to protect him from himself, but it was all useless in the end. I wasn't able to save either one of us.”

  Penny's chin came to rest on her chest. Mina had gotten attuned to the rhythm of Penny's little nods, but this time, Penny's head didn't lift again. Mina was just beginning to nod out again herself when Penny suddenly began to shake, her entire body grabbed by some sort of seizure, twitch after violent twitch. Mina took Penny's spasming body by the shoulder, called her name. The tremors didn't stop. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and now her limbs were flailing and foamy spit dripped from her mouth. Her skin felt clammy to Mina's touch.

  On the patio, Mina found Chester in a plastic recliner without a cushion, eyes closed and a baseball cap over his bald head.

  “Chester, quick,” Mina said. “I need your help. Please.”

  Chapter 13

  Hospitals. Mina couldn't seem to get away from them. She was struggling with the espresso machine in the waiting room of the Olympia Medical Center, where Penny had been taken into the ICU. She was in a coma induced by opiate overdose: by law, the police would have to be notified. It was past midnight, and Mina had spent too much time filling out forms she didn't know the answers to. The espresso machine refused to take her crumpled dollar bill.

  Over by the yucca plant, Chester sat shaking his leg and stared at a silent TV. After Mina called for his help, he'd gone back into the house, taken Penny's vitals, called an ambulance, put on socks and shoes, and then methodically hidden all evidence of controlled substances.

  “Fuck,” Mina said.

  She smoothed the bill and tried again. The machine dispensed a blackish liquid into a plastic cup. It tasted awful.

  “Chester,” Mina said. “I know you think this is my fault. I don't know, maybe it is. But I don't know what I could have done differently. There are people after me. Whatever happens to Penny, she did to herself.”

  Chester said nothing.

  “You gave her all those drugs,” Mina said. “You're just as much to blame.” Mina understood that she felt guilty. She was begging Chester for forgiveness.

  But Chester didn't take his eyes off the TV. “If you want to go, that's fine,” he finally said. “I'll stay here with Penny. That batty old white woman is my life, sweetheart. I got nothing without her.”

  Mina stared at him blankly. She had no words o
f comfort.

  “My husband is sick,” she offered.

  “I see you're taking good care of him.”

  “He's got good doctors.”

  “Dokters,” Chester sighed, turning back to the TV. He was done with Mina, and it was just as well. Mina nodded and tossed the disgusting coffee into the trash.

  Chester handed her a key from his key chain. “There's a guest bedroom upstairs. I'll call you if there's any change. Get some rest. You look like hell.”

  The unexpected kindness confused Mina. It had been easier to forget about her grandmother's coma when she could be angry at this guy Chester. She could use some sleep, even though the idea of being alone in the house filled her with dread.

  “I think I will,” Mina said.

  Chester didn't respond. Jay Leno was on TV with a juggling midget. Mina blinked. The image did not change. She left the hospital. The moon was almost full.

  She had just found her way back to Sunset Boulevard when her cell phone rang. Her father had been alerted to his mother's condition by the hospital. He sounded weary and confused–it was three hours later on the East Coast–and as he talked, his anger started to build. “Tomorrow morning you can explain to me what you're doing in California.”

  “Why tomorrow morning?” Mina asked, even as the answer dawned on her. Her father was coming in on the red eye. “I expect you to pick me up,” he said. “On time.”

  “I am always on time,” Mina said, but they both knew it wasn't true.

  After she hung up, Mina realized that she'd missed her turn. She had gotten lost in the L.A. night. If she could find her way to the ocean, she ought to be able to backtrack from there. Was she exhausted or not tired at all? Were the red pills doing anything? She couldn't tell.

  She reached the coast and then drove aimlessly along the beach, just to be driving. When she saw the lights of a boardwalk, she pulled into a parking space. There was a Ferris wheel, a carnival, and a pier that stretched out into the dark. Venice Beach.

  Mina bought a lemonade at a stand and took it to the pier. It was late. Only a few people milled around, lovers dressed in leather kissed, an old man talked to himself, a stray dog sniffed an overflowing trash can. The sounds of the fair echoed over the water. Bugs buzzed around the fluorescent lights. Mina's feet were damp with sweat in her new boots, boots that had been perfect for Berlin. She watched the traffic up and down the coast, the lights of the city reflecting off the sky in the distance. A moment of peace, just by herself with the roar of the ocean. She hadn't felt anything like it since the cans had arrived…what was it now? Only three days ago? It seemed so much longer than that. The lemonade was cold and good.

  Had Kino been a debauched fool, a visionary artist, or a Nazi tool? Was her grandmother a backstabbing saboteur or had she tried to save the man from himself? Could all of these things be true at the same time? What kind of twisted love had kept them together? Could movies really have echoes? Would Sam understand any of this? Would he understand her? He'd been so angry on the phone. Her father was angry, too. And Chester. And Dr. Hanno, dejected and naked in the sauna. Mina had disappointed everyone, and she had nothing to show for it.

  “Why so sad?”

  A man in a light brown dress uniform had come up behind her. He was tall, slender and young, younger than Mina. He wore a white cap. Was that Navy? Was he a sailor? Mina didn't know.

  “I'm not sad,” she said. “Just tired.”

  The sailor, if that's what he was, leaned on the railing next to her. “The night's still young,” he said. “It'd be a shame to spend it alone.”

  Oh man, Mina thought. Horny sailors are the last thing I need right now. She held up her hand to show off the gold wedding band. She didn't particularly care for rings, didn't like wearing them, but she realized that this one was going to be useful.

  Then again, he was handsome, this sailor. Was he on his way to Iraq? Had he just come back? No–something about his eyes told her he hadn't seen war yet.

  “She's married!” the sailor said with fake surprise. He leaned in closer. “What kind of husband would leave his beautiful wife alone on a night like this?” He leaned in for a kiss and Mina didn't stop him. Their lips touched, he put his hands on her shoulder blades, pulled her closer, and there was the tongue. His clean-shaven cheeks were smoother than Sam's, and now he had her in a muscular embrace that felt good, too good, and he was already moving one of his hands under her sweater.

  Mina thought of Dr. Hanno and the kiss he had attempted in the sauna. She had liked Dr. Hanno, even though he could be insufferable when he talked about the movies. She might have led him on. Mina thought of Sam, how different his hands felt from the sailor's, and ah, here was a genuine twinge of guilt. She had been married for less than two weeks, and here she was, letting herself getting felt up by a stranger. Finally, finally, she pushed the sailor away.

  “No, no, no,” she said. She meant it to sound decisive but it came out more like a sigh.

  “Aww.” The sailor gave her a goofy smile. He was not her type but undeniably cute in the moonlight. Mina had never kissed anybody in a uniform before. She gave him a smile and a shrug and turned to walk away. She was grateful when he didn't pursue her.

  Mina backtracked up Pacific Highway, but before she got to Penny's house, she stopped at an all-night media emporium and picked up a cheaply packaged DVD of The Pirates of Mulberry Island. Back at the house, she carried her suitcase into the empty upstairs bedroom, found a bathroom, and took a long hot shower. She explored the house while she dried her hair, wearing a long T-shirt and flip-flops. The master bedroom was as filthy as the rest of the house: an unmade king-sized, both bedside tables stacked with books, DVD cases, glasses, cups, still more pill bottles, empty boxes of Kleenex, and discarded tissues on the floor. There was a small study with a library of German books, a gigantic walk-in closet filled with old-fashioned evening gowns, and a pantry stocked to the ceiling with canned goods.

  Mina knew she needed to sleep. Her father would be there in the morning, angry and full of questions, but she was too wound up. She regretted taking the red pills. She made herself a ham sandwich, poured a glass of her grandmother's Dewar's over crushed ice, and, in the darkened living room, watched The Pirates of Mulberry Island.

  “Love! Revenge! Adventure!” the box proclaimed. “Swashbuckling!”

  The beginning of the film reminded Mina of Tulpendiebe: there were images of a port city on a Caribbean island, and a title card announced: “Santa Lupe, Anno 1835.” The town was in preparations for a wedding, palm fronds and ribbons, and in the first scene, the audience learns that Bonnie, the beautiful bride, is unhappy because she doesn't love the wealthy merchant her father has arranged for her to marry. Bonnie had obviously been cast for her resemblance to the young Penelope Greifenau. Her husband-to-be is overweight and has a mean temper and a black moustache.

  Cut to an imposing pirate ship anchored in a nearby inlet, where Captain Darius Silko and his motley crew of sea dogs are celebrating on the beach, passing rum and grilled meat between them, climbing on trees and roughhousing drunkenly in the turquoise surf.

  Mina didn't recognize the actors, but she drew a sharp breath at the first close-up of dashing Captain Silko: he shared a striking resemblance to the clean-shaven sailor she had just kissed on the pier. There he was, in the movie: as if he were winking at her.

  Mina found herself liking the movie, and she settled back into the couch. She pulled a blanket over herself and poured more whiskey, happy to be just where she was, watching this movie. Sam had liked watching it when it came on late night cable.

  The night before the wedding, under the light of a full moon, the pirates raided St. Lupe. While his men are breaking into the bank, Captain Silko meets Bonnie on a rooftop, where she is contemplating suicide. He knocks her unconscious and orders his men to leave their loot behind and take her instead. “For ransom,” he says–but it is obvious that he has fallen in love.

  Mina woke up with the c
redits rolling.

  “It does get ridiculous,” a familiar voice came out of the dark, heavy with a German accent. “Almost incoherent. They positively butchered the second act.”

  Mina jumped, knocking her drink, which had been balanced precariously on the cushion next to her, onto the floor, where it joined the dried puddles of Penny's spit. The glass bounced unharmed off the thick rug. In the corner armchair where Chester had cooked up Penny's injection, the man with the red leather jacket was eating what was left of Mina's ham sandwich.

  “I am sorry if I startled you. Tobias Schnark. Remember me? Don't get up.”

  “Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Mina said. She was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and pulled up the blanket to cover herself. “You scared the living shit out of me. What the hell are you doing here? How did you get in here? This can't be your jurisdiction.”

  “German cultural heritage doesn't know any borders. Granted, my wing of the BKA does not enjoy the best relations with its American counterparts. My department was established without knowledge of the Allied Oversight Committee and later merged with the Bundesnachrichtendienst–after all, many of the items in question had been removed by the Allies themselves, and we could not act until their retrieval became politically expedient.”

  Mina shook her head. “I don't care. I want you to tell me why you broke into this house. And why I shouldn't call the police right now.”

  “A little more attention to the details might have helped. Especially when it comes to my instructions.”

  He took another bite of Mina's sandwich.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn't I warn you about that film professor? You're a little naïve for your age, no? Haven't seen much of the world yet?”

  “Look here, I've about had it with all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit. Are you actually wearing gloves?”

  “Shhh.” Herr Schnark put his gloved finger to his lips and cocked his head as if to listen. And yes: over the drone of the city in the distance, there was the very distinct noise of tires on gravel. Somebody was coming up the driveway.