The Berlin Connection

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "I became a G.I. in 1943. In 1944 I was in the invasion; 1945 I came to Berhn for the second time. The Ad-lon was a ruin, the villa in Grunewald had disappeared, the UFA did not exist any more, nothing but ruins . . . misery . . . hunger. Seeing Berlin this way assuaged my pain. It made me feel—how can I explain it—it made me feel that I, as a soldier, had made amends to some small deeree for the dreadful deed I had committed there in 1938...

  "I returned to the United States in 1946.

  "Then, in 1947 I met Joan. Her daughter was seven years old—a little redhead who grieved for her dead father and who hated me.

  "When I married Joan, Shirley was nine years old. Her hatred of me diminished during the next few years and when she was thirteen she declared, Taddy sounds so childish.' From then on she caUed me Peter—for six years until her death.

  "A lot happened during those six years. The plump child became a graceful young girl and then a beautiful woman. At first her voice irritated me because it reminded me of something. I could not readily remember. The voice remained child-like and high-pitched even when Shirley became seventeen.

  "At first it was the voice.

  "I had almost succeeded in forgetting the girl in Berlin. Now if I closed my eyes when Shirley spoke I heard Wanda. I was reminded of my offense and guilt.

  "At first Shirley had hated me. Now I hated her. My wife was very unhappy because of it Shirley and I argued, fought, insulted and avoided one another.

  "I played golf, went into town, frequented bars. I drank. I came home drunk. Hollywood had written me off.

  "Shirley's voice was only the beginning. With each new day she resembled Wanda more.

  "Perhaps you are smiling now, Professor.

  "Perhaps you think that my guilt made me imagine things different than they actually were.

  "No!

  "I have photographs of Wanda and Shirley. Wanda's

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  are in a safe in my house in Pacific Palisades. I have instructed my lawyer to open the safe and send me the photographs. When I show them to you you will agree with what I have told you, Professor!

  "Shirley was beautiful now: a young goddess. I saw Wanda's clear, golden complexion, Wanda's narrow nose, Wanda's generous mouth, Wanda's green eyes underneath the dark brows so rare with redheads.

  "Can you imagine how I felt?

  "A beautiful young woman, who many years ago had died because of me, suddenly had come to life, living in the same house with me.

  "Shirley's manner of walking, talking, eating, laughing—it reminded me of Wanda. She didn't merely resemble Wanda when she was seventeen: she was Wanda, risen from the dead to torment me, to persecute me.

  "I already told you that I drank steadily during those years. You explained to me. Professor, that alcohol destroys clear thinking. How it can change unpleasant memory engrams into pleasant ones. This is also what happened with Shirley.

  "I had always thought: each debt will take its toll, one cannot ever escape responsibility or punishment. Now, more and more often as I lay drunk on my bed thinking of Shirley and Wanda, Los Angeles and Berlin, I thought that perhaps it was not quite that way. Perhaps I could make some amends. Perhaps I could atone for what I had done to Wanda by being good to this rejected, resented, deprived child who hated me and whom I hated. A child who had never known a real home, had grown up among strange people in boarding schools and camps.

  "I tried to be friendly to Shirley. I gave her little presents, spent time with her. I asked her opinions. I gave her books. I heard about her problems. I treated her as a friend and as an adult.

  "The effect?

  "Never before had a friend of Joan's paid any attention to Shirley. She had grown up, alone with her thoughts and troubles. Now suddenly there was a man who seemed interested in her and her problems. Was it surprising that Shirley fell in love with this new companion?

  "She was well on her way to becoming a beatnik. She had already slept with boys, had spent many a night away from home. Now all this changed.

  "She returned my friendliness with gratitude and devotion. She was very beautiful when she became eighteen. There was hardly a man who was not attracted to her, and I am a man too; I am only a man too.

  "What happened now happened imperceptibly. When I noticed it, it was already too late. Imperceptibly the transition from the usual to the unusual, from the permitted to the prohibited took place. Imperceptibly the casual nightly *Good night, Peter' kiss changed into a different kind of kiss. Slowly, slowly a handshake became more than just that, an embrace more than casual, a glance not a glance but a challenge, a provocation, a declaration and acceptance of love.

  "One could not escape one's destiny.

  "I believed that. Fate had sent Shirley into my life, had made her the image of Wanda so I could make good my sin. It was meant to be; I had to love Shirley, make her happy. Was it the alcohol which made me believe that? Was it my excuse to myself for all that had happened? Was it the easiest way out?

  "What do you think. Professor?

  "We now had our little secrets. We were already deceiving Joan. Furtively we met in small restaurants along the coast, wrote letters to each other and destroyed them after reading them, had secret signs, our songs, our words, our love.

  "More and more frequently we met. More and more often my Cadillac was parked on lovers' lanes. More and more passionate became our kisses, our caresses. We both

  knew how it would end. We did not care. We were wildly in love, beside ourselves with passion.

  "Shirley—I mentioned it before—held only animosity for her mother. Perhaps she now felt that what was happening was a retribution for Joan's neglect of her as a chnd.

  "What about me?

  "I have no excuse. I felt no pangs of conscience. I only thought of her, her mouth, her eyes, her hands, her body, the body that was Wanda's. I wanted Shirley. And she wanted me.

  "My marriage, was falling apart. Joan still blamed Shirley for that: 'She hates you. She doesn't like you. That's why you are so irritable, because you can't stand to hear me fight with her. That's why you moved into the bungalow. That's why I now have to sleep alone. Oh, how I hate Shirley!'

  "I had moved into the bungalow on the hill near the main house in the beginning of 1958.

  "And this is where it happened for the first time. We had gone to the theater. Joan was in New York for a few days. When we came home the main house was lying in darkness, the servants asleep. We did not speak. Hand in hand we ran up the steep path to the bungalow. We were breathless. Shirley's ankle gave way and she cried softly.

  " *What is it?'

  " 'My foot...'

  'T picked her up. I carried her inside. Moonlight filled the living room. Down below, beyond the garden, the Pacific glistened. I gently placed Shirley on the oversized couch in front of the fireplace. She wore a black decollete dress and black high-heeled shoes. We spoke breathlessly. Our hands moving swiftly, we pulled off her dress, her lingerie, my shirt. Passionately we embraced one another and I heard Shirley's moan.

  " 'Come . ..'

  " 'Yes, Wanda, yes ...'

  "I know that I called her Wanda. She did not hear me. I don't think she heard anything any more for what we did transported us to ecstasy again and again. Only tormenting passion had meaning then. There was nothing but the exquisite present

  "Hours passed. It was dawning. The Pacific was lead-gray, the air humid. Shirley dressed hurriedly to reach the main house before the servants were up.

  "As she put on her shoes she discovered that the heel of one had broken off.

  " *It must have happened last night when I stumbled: Such expensive shoes. Custom made: What did you say?'

  " 'Nothing.'

  "As I kissed her I thought: I wiU make amends. I'll make up through Shirley ...

  11

  "... for what I did to Wanda," I said softly. Then I looked at Natasha. "Now you know the truth."

  It was snowing more heavily now. We had walked around the
Aussenalster for the third time. It was almost two a.m.

  We went toward my hotel, underneath the old trees along the promenade with its bright, snow-capped candelabra.

  "Can you... can you ..." I could not say the words.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Yes, what?"

  "Yes, I can understand you, Peter. I can understand it"

  "ReaUy?"

  "ReaUy!"

  "I did want to make Shirley happy."

  "I know what you wanted."

  "Happy. I wanted to make her happy."

  "That's impossible to do."

  "It is?"

  "Or very rarely. Not many people succeed."

  "But there are many happy people!"

  "How long does their happiness last?"

  "I know some people who are always happy."

  "Then they are happy from within. But for how long can one person make another happy?"

  "Not for long?"

  She shook her head

  "No, not for very long." And quietly she said, "Just think, Peter, if only it were possible—a happy world—a world of truly happy people . . ." We had reached the hotel. '*You must go and sleep now. You have another day of shooting ahead of you."

  "Fll see you home."

  We walked to the next street comer. The street was deserted.

  "HowisMisha?"

  "I took him to another specialist."

  "And?"

  "Don't ask. Please."

  So the specialist told Natasha what Schauberg had already told me: that the sounds the little boy produced were no reason to hope, that there would not be a change in Misha's condition.

  We had reached the door.

  "Good night, Peter."

  "I very much wish I could help you," I said

  "You—^help me, now?'*

  I nodded

  "No one can help anyone. You know what they say: Everybody has to fight his own battles."

  "Natasha," I whispered (why was I whispering?), "when I saw you in your apartment that last time you

  said to me: *Leave now. Quickly, and don't ever come back here.' "

  She did not reply and looked away.

  "May I come again?

  "May I?" I was more urgent now.

  She was still silent as she stepped inside the opened door.

  "Please," I said. "Please Natasha. Not often. Only sometimes. I'll call you. You say yes. Or no. But don't say no now. Leave me that one hope that I can see you again, talk with you again ... go for a walk . . . talk . . . may I hope for that?"

  She nodded quickly and a moment later the door closed behind her. I walked back to the hotel.

  Joan was asleep when I looked in. She was still sleeping when I got up the next morning. Schauberg, who was giving me my injections in the drawing room, told me: "Your condition is not at all good, dear Mr. Jordan. I'll have to try to wash your blood."

  "What's that?"

  "Nothing dangerous. It will make you feel good and help you through those last few days."

  It was a routine studio day. Everybody was friendly and considerate. It hadn't stopped snowing. At night, on my way back to Hamburg, my car was stuck in a drift from which strangers helped drag it. When I entered my suite Joan, in her bedroom, was packing her suitcases. She wore no make-up and seemed old, her face gray. Her excessively blonde hair was dishevelled. She did not return my greeting.

  "What's going on? What are you doing?"

  She continued carrying dresses to the suitcases and did not look at me.

  "Joan, I asked you, what are you doing!"

  Without looking at me she replied, "I'm going home."

  "Home?"

  "Tonight. At midnight."

  **But why? What happened?"

  Now she stopped, very close to me, and she stared. In her usually gentle brown eyes I saw hate, terrible, dreadful, burning hate.

  "You want to know what happened? Really? Do you really want to know?"

  12

  Rome, May twenty-sixth, 1960.

  Today I was hypnotized for the third time.

  Now I fall asleep after only a few minutes. The glowing little globe is not necessary any more. It is sufficient when Professor Pontevivo speaks to me and massages my neck and forehead. After today's session we talked. I told him how remarkably successful he had been in overcoming my initially negative attitude by saying, "It is very important that you keep your eyes open."

  "I wanted to keep them open, Professor! I wanted to keep them open to—**

  "—^to annoy me."

  **Yes. To prove to you that I could not be hypnotized. But you said it was important that I keep them open. Your order confused me. I did not know what I could do to annoy you... and you succeeded."

  "One can always succeed, Mr. Jordan. The exceptions are the insane. Insane persons cannot concentrate. The ability to concentrate is the only prerequisite for hypnosis. One reason why the patient must always be sober at a session. Most people doubt the success of treatment by hypnosis. Knowingly or subconsciously they also intend to resist the treatment, to show how strong-willed they are. As you have experienced, all that is taken into consideration. Your negative attitude helped me; it showed that you did not exclude the possibility of success. Else you

  would not even have assumed a negative attitude! It is most difficult with people who are indifferent."

  "How long does each session last? What I mean is: For how long do you talk to me? I always seem to sleep for hours afterward."

  "It varies, Mr. Jordan. I have to be very careful to prevent your dependence on me. I want you to be healthy. A healthy human being is not dependent on anyone or anything. Since you have told me about Wanda it has become much easier for me. I know your guilt complex."

  "What will you do now?"

  "I shall try to remove it. And what else?"

  "I don't know."

  "I shall try to give you another complex."

  "Another complex?"

  "Certainly, Mr. Jordan." The slight, rosy-cheeked, white-haired man said breezily, "You are actually missing

  one."

  'What kind of complex?"

  *You will see in time," answered the professor.

  13

  "You want to know, what happened?" asked Joan. "Really? Do you really want to know?"

  "What kind of nonsense is this? Of course, I want to know!"

  "Sit down."

  Joan was suddenly a stranger to me. A woman I had never known, whose voice I had never heard. A woman who looked at me as if I were a murderer.

  "This morning I was asked to come to the hotel office," said the woman to whom I had been married for ten years. "They were very polite. They told me that they had

  waited for days now but since we had not returned the key they assumed that we did not know."

  "Know what?"

  "Know about the safe."

  "What safe?"

  "Shirley had rented a deposit box in the hotel safe. The gentlemen wanted the key returned. I looked for the key among Shirley's possessions. It took a long time because she had hidden the key in the lining of a handbag. Yes?"

  "I didn't say anything."

  "When we opened the box I, Shirley's mother, was asked to take its contents. Do you know what the box contained?"

  "No."

  She placed on a small table the valuable ring she had given to Shirley on the eve of their arrival in Hamburg.

  "Your ring..."

  "Yes. It is my ring again. Do you know what else was in the box?"

  "What else?"

  "A package of letters. About fifty. They were all addressed to Shirley. They had all been written by the same man."

  I was sUent.

  Joan's mouth twisted with contempt. She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a letter. Her voice was without expression as she read, "Dearest Heart, I know exactly how you must feel when you read this letter. Let me say right now, before anything else: I love you. I have never loved anyone as much as I
love you ..."

  It was the letter I had sent to Los Angeles on the day of my first attack. I had instructed her to destroy the letter but she had saved it. She had not destroyed any of my letters. Many times I had asked her, "Did you destroy my letter?" "Yes," she answered. "I burned it." "Do you bum an of them?" "Yes. All of them." "Right away?" "Right away." "Always?" "Always."

  Obviously she had Ked.

  "Shirley, my All, you must now be brave and sensible," Joan read, her voice frigid and expressionless. "It is impossible for you to have this child..."

  She continued to read. It was a certainty that she also knew the contents of the other letters. I had always destroyed Shirley's letters. But women apparently find it difficult to part with love letters. They rent safes and hide those letters as if they were treasures and do not consider that they might die, any day, any hour, senselessly and horribly, as, for instance, under the wheels of a bus.

  "... We shall have a child, Shirley—^but not this one. I am also writing to Gregory Bates. You know him ..."

  One could not escape fate. Shirley was dead. I had thought that Joan would never find out the truth. Perhaps I would have left her. Perhaps not. Now, since Shirley was dead, that did not really matter. Perhaps we would have continued Hving together as we had until now. I had been certain that Joan would never have found out about Shirley and our love for each other.

  "... Shirley, dearest Heart, you know I'm making this movie here in Hamburg for both of us ..."

  Joan was still reading. I wanted her to stop but I lacked the strength to tell her to stop. Shirley, dead Shirley, had returned through my letters.

  I remembered the words the priest had spoken at the grave. "I am the Resurrection and the Life . . . Whosoever believeth in Me shall live though he be dead ..."

  Shirley had believed in Him. She was alive, risen from the dead, and present here in this room.

  "... in my thoughts I am always with you—^united with you on the beach, on our boat, in the bungalow and the dunes, everywhere where we were happy together. Soon we will be again. Forever. Peter." Joan dropped the letter. Her eyes burning with hate, "p.s.," she said without looking at the letter, "As always, destroy this letter at once."