The Berlin Connection

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  I remained silent and withstood her look.

  "She didn't destroy it," said Joan. "And she saved all the other letters too. I have read them alL"

  "NaturaUy," I said.

  "I have already sent all the rest to my lawyer."

  'Tsfaturally," I said.

  "I talked to him, I have instructed him to start divorce proceedings."

  "Naturally," I said.

  "I have retracted the declaration which gave you half of all I own. As soon as I am in the States I shall make a formal complaint against you. My lawyer quoted me the paragraph applicable to you from the penal code of California. It says ..."

  "I know what it says,"

  "Then you admit it."

  "I admit everything."

  "Shirley was expecting your child?"

  "Yes." To anticipate her next logical question (strange that just then I should think to protect Schauberg and his student) I said quickly, "I would have spoken to you as soon as the film was finished."

  'What would you have told me then?"

  "That I wanted a divorce since I did not love you any

  more."

  "Nothing else?"

  **Nothmg else."

  "No," she said, "nothing else, of course. Too bad Shirley kept your letters."

  "It is dreadful that she died."

  "That's too bad for you." She put the letter back into the pocket of her robe and began to pack again. "It's better for me this way. It makes everything I intend to do much easier. Do you know what I am going to do?"

  "Everything possible to hurt me."

  "Everything to destroy you."

  "I know."

  "I was not aware of anything until today. I never had one moment of doubt, not one moment when I distrusted you. My God! The wrong I have done to Shirley—all her life! I thought she was destroying our marriage. I was going to send her away ... my child ... and all the time it was you . .. you .. . you seduced her—didn't you—or are you going to deny that?"

  "No," I said, "I'm not denying anything. I seduced her."

  "I swear to you: I'm going to avenge Shirley!"

  I thought: You, of all people, you want to avenge Shirley? You, who always hated her, sent her away, never loved her? No, you don't want to avenge Shirley, you want to revenge yourself! Which, after all, is your right and perfectly understandable.

  "No woman could forgive what you have done. I cannot forgive you. Please go now."

  I rose.

  "I don't ever want to see you again. If you come back here tonight, if you should come to the airport, if you should try to prevent me from leaving tonight, I'll create the biggest scandal Hamburg has ever known."

  "AU right, Joan," I said. "All right. Good-by."

  She held a cocktail dress in her hands and her back was turned to me. She did not turn around again. She spoke into the bathroom. "For as long as I live: You can be sure of my hate and disgust for you."

  I looked at her once more, the slim woman in the elegant robe, the woman with the exaggerated hair, the sloping shoulders which now began to twitch convulsively. This woman, her back turned to me, had begun to cry, sobbing intensely. I left the bedroom and closed the door. I never saw Joan again.

  432

  I

  Schauberg called it '^washing blood." He did it for the first time orl the evening of December seventeenth.

  Now there was only one bedroom adjoining the drawing room. Joan's bedroom had been locked; a cupboard hid the door.

  I was lying on my bed. Schauberg was working in shirtsleeves. He had brought a dialyzing unit, an apparatus to which I was to be connected by means of tubes.

  "Where did you get that?" I asked.

  "In a shop which sells medical equipment"

  "Anybody can buy that?"

  "Anybody. Strange, isn't it? You could go into such a store and they would sell it to you. Everybody wants to make money."

  "But isn't what you are doing here unlawful? It's charlatanism!"

  "Dear Mr. Jordan, if everybody were to apply such rigid ethical standards half the equipment used in modern medicine could not be sold."

  He bound my arm and the very large needle he inserted hurt for only a moment.

  "What's this equipment supposed to do?"

  "It is going to wash your blood, filter out the impurities. It won't take long. A drink and a couple of sleeping pills afterward and you'll be good as new by tomorrow!"

  "If you only knew how indifferent that leaves me."

  "Then why did you ask for this treatment? If you don't care why don't you just simply give up?"

  "I'm thinking of Kostasch. If the movie is not completed he will be ruined."

  "Listen to an old, wicked man. Take my advice," said

  433

  Schauberg. "Don't do it for Kostasch. Do it for yourself. Think of your future."

  "Schauberg! Shirley is dead. Whether or not ni ever get another film offer is really a matter of complete indifference to me.**

  "Good grief, Fm not talking about your future as an artist Just think: a little while ago you told me what had taken place between you and your wife. Today she is already in Los Angeles. Tomorrow she will see her lawyer. On the other hand it is also possible that she does not see her lawyer. Women are peculiar. Perhaps she'U forgive you."

  "Never!"

  "That's exactly what Fm keeping in mind! Most women have simply unbelievably primitive ideas when their daughters are seduced by their stepfathers. Now then! Do you know what the lady will do in her distress?"

  "She'll drag me into court."

  "That is the one thing she will never do!"

  "What do you mean?"

  **But, dear friend, that would simply be the most phenomenal advertising you could ever wish for! No, no, you can't hope for that She will never do that!"

  "I don't understand ..."

  'Well now, look! Suppose the proceedings against you begin after Christmas. Or later. About that time your film will be released. The newspapers will not fail to create a sensation. Peter Jordan's affair with stepdaughter. Stepdaughter expecting his child. Stepdau^ter dies. Wife discovers truth. Jordan, the monster! Jordan, the teenage violator! and Come Back is being shown all over the country. Wouldn't that be marvelous? People will be pouring into the cinemas if only to take a look at that monster Jordan! No, no, that would be too good to be true. We don't dare hope that she will make that com plaint. Her lawyer wiU make her understand that right away. She said she wanted to destroy you, didn't she?"

  434

  "That's right."

  *There you are! Not to make you a success, a millionaire."

  "I could be sentenced to jail."

  "That would depend to a great extent on your lawyer! You might also be acquitted! According to that paragraph you quoted—and I'm sure you quoted it correctly—it is one of those elastic paragraphs which can be interpreted in different ways. What does it mean: guardianship? Did you adopt Shurley?"

  "No."

  "Bravo. Fortunately your subconscious must have been at work there. Was she always in the house?"

  "No. She was very often in boarding schools or camps."

  "Then how can the law talk about entrusted care and education!"

  "But my wife hates me."

  "Of course. And she will do everything possible to destroy you. She could do that easily. Suppose a court decided that you have to repay the hundred fifty thousand dollars—and you have not completed the movie."

  That had not occurred to me.

  "It should be easy for your wife to manage that. And then what? They'll have caught you with your pants down. No, you must think of yourself, not of Mr. Kostasch!" He looked at his watch. "Another few minutes and your treatment will be finished."

  I hoped that the treatment would give me new strength which would help me through the next five days; another four days of shooting.

  "The film is all you have right now, dear Mr. Jordan. You cannot fall back on your wife's wealth. You must re
gain your health. Your movie must be a success—"

  "What if it isn't?"

  "It wiU be—touch wood—a success. Too many wicked people have worked on that film, with too much deceit and trickery. Take just us two! No, no, projects which

  result from any such devious methods always succeed. What's the matter? Why are you crymg?"

  "I don't want to cry ..." I was lying. I did want to cry. I had to cry. I had caught a glimpse of my future. Without Shirley.

  "I understand. You're thinking of Shirley. You'll forget her."

  "Never."

  "Yes, yes, you will. Another two minutes. There will be another woman."

  "No."

  "There is always another woman, another love if one has lost a woman, a love."

  My tears were dripping onto the pillow and I spoke haltingly.

  "I don't want another love. I don't want another woman. I'll never be able to forget Shirley!"

  "You'U be going to a clinic for the next six months. You'll take sleep cures, two or three or four. You have no idea what you will be able to forget then!"

  'TSTo. No."

  "Yes. You will see," he said. **You win forget whatever tortures you—doctors will see to that To regain your health you must be able to forget They will probably ask you to write about your life, or someone you trust will listen to you. In half a year things wiU look dijfferent to you."

  "Maybe for a while."

  "Naturally, for a while. Then youll have a relapse and start boozing again. So? What are clinics for? You'll enter another one. You have the strength. You can control your addiction. You can—^"

  "Schauberg, you've already told me aH that"

  "Two minutes are up." Expertly and quickly he disconnected me from the unit "Well do this every day from now on. And stop feeling so sorry for yourself. Will you promise me that as one scoundrel to another?"

  I nodded.

  "Besides, you're not alone."

  "That's very nice of you but—"

  "I'm not talking about myself."

  "Whom then?"

  "You know who."

  "I cannot draw this woman any closer into my life!"

  "Why not?"

  "I don't want to destroy her life too. She is so decent, so wonderful, she is—"

  "There it is," said Schauberg. "You are already head over heels in love again." He gave me two sleeping pills and cleared away the equipment. "Where is the whisky?"

  "The bag is in the cupboard."

  He fixed two large drinks. I emptied my glass quickly and he refilled it. "You can have more to drink when I've left. But tell them at the studio to advance your close-ups."

  "I've already taken care of that." The rash had climbed above my shirt collar and was visible on the right side of my neck. Aureomycin did not help any more. The pustules on my body had begun to bleed. My pajamas looked awful. Schauberg sat on my bed like an old friend, snuling with feigned confidence.

  I said, "When I was a little boy my mother and I often went hungry. All I wanted then was an enormous steak. I dreamed about it." He smUed and poured two more drinks. "Then I became famous, we had money and I could eat whatever I wanted. Then I wished for only one thing: That my mother not have cancer."

  "And, of course, it was cancer," he said and nodded. "I told you, that's life. Nothing lasts forever. Not the worst and not the best. Small wishes come true, big ones don't and everything is forgotten in time. You've forgotten your pain at the death of your mother, haven't you?"

  "Yes. It does not hurt any more."

  "You see," said Schauberg. "And there will always be

  more pain, and it will also cease to hurt. And sometimes there will be joy, and joy is just as fleeting, and soon joy will not please. You forget the steak, you forget the cancer, that is life."

  "I've had everything, Schauberg. Wealth and debts. Fame and oblivion. Even love." "Then what else do you want?"

  "I've never made another person happy. Somebody said to me: *If each of us could make only one other person happy everybody would be happy.' "

  "I could have said that," said the man with the beret, grinning.

  "Schauberg..."

  I was becoming tired and more and more giddy but I felt well. "Yes?" "Once ... when I was a child ... I said some terrible

  things to my grandmother... my mother's mother "

  "Why?"

  **Because I was mad at her, because she had forbidden me to play on the street. I called her an old witch. You ugly old witch, I said to her, I wish you would die!"

  "What a naughty, naughty little boy you were. Have another drink."

  "My mother came and my grandmother demanded that she beat me. My mother did but without hurting me. After all, I was her spoiled little darling. Then she locked me into a room. I listened and looked through the keyhole. I saw how my mother, in tears, apologized to her mother. In spite of the punishment I had stubbornly refused to apologize. 'Daughter,' said my grandmother, 'this child has no heart.' And my mother, still crying, answered, 'And yet he is so beautiful'."

  "You see," said Schauberg, "your mother was a clever woman!"

  "Clever, why?"

  "Well, you could also have been an ugly child without a heart."

  15

  Now it was snowing every day.

  In Dortmund a gas explosion killed twenty-six people. There was a revolution against the dictator Stroessner in Paraguay. Belgian paratroops were fighting in Ruanda-Urundi. Bombs were planted in the South Tyrol. A German Air Force plane disappeared over Czechoslovakia. In one week in the Congo one hundred seventy whites and one hundred fifty-three Negroes were kiUed. Nothing important was happening in the world just now, Schauberg said. "Before Christmas everything calms down." Christmas!

  The show windows were brightly lit and festively decorated. Many streets were hung with glistening garlands of lights. The shops were overcrowded. On Saturday, December nineteenth, we, Natasha, Misha and I, went to the Hamburger Dom, the traditional Christmas market on the Heiliggeistfeld near the Reeperbahn.

  The Dom has very little in common with the Christmas markets of other cities. It is rather more of a popular amusement in the manner of the Munich October celebration. Stalls line the streets. Everything to do with Christmas can be had there but also pancakes, barbecued chicken and beer. Rifle ranges, carousels, ghost rides and roller coasters. We walked through the long streets with their barkers, colorful placards, lights, Christmas stars. We bought a few small items and Misha, his eyes enormous, admired the Christ child in its creche, the Holy Family made of plaster, the Christmas angels in innumerable quantities. We stood and ate pancakes from a stall

  and drank beer. Misha drank lemonade. When we walked the little boy took Natasha's hand and mine. He laughed soundlessly and when we swung him to and fro, raising him into the air, his little face would blush with excitement and he would make a few happy sounds. This did not excite Natasha any more. She knew now that it was of no significance. Misha would always make only those sounds.

  I had told her about the developments between my wife and me. She had answered, "It must have been terrible."

  "Yes, it was."

  **I don't mean for you. For your wife.**

  Misha wanted to ride the roller coaster but I could not share this kind of amusement because I was afraid and because it always made me feel sick. While Misha and Natasha took the ride together I drank whisky from my pocketflask. At a shooting gallery I won a bear which I gave to Misha. While he was throwing balls at cans Natasha asked, "When will your movie be finished?"

  "Tuesday."

  "Then you will have to go to a clinic right away."

  "Yes."

  "Have you decided on one?"

  '*No."

  "I know an excellent doctor who specializes in cases such as yours. But he is in Rome."

  "That does not make any difference to me. What is his name?"

  "Pontevivo."

  "How do you know of him?"

  "I sent Bruno to him." />
  "Who is Bruno?" It was a stupid question but my brain was functioning much slower lately. Frequently I could not find specific words. Then I would just say, "This what d'you call it?"

  "Bruno Kerst," said Natasha. "Misha's father. He was in Pontevivo's cHnic."

  "He died there?"

  She nodded. -

  Misha was still aiming for the cans. He had won a colorful fan. I paid for a few more games. Misha laughed happily.

  "He went there too late. His heart was too weak to stand the d.t.'s. I flew to Rome to see Bruno once more. That is when I met Pontevivo. He is an excellent doctor. You would be in good hands."

  "Perhaps my heart will give out too."

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Shall I write to Professor Pontevivo?"

  "Please, do."

  "I'll send it off tonight Would you go before Christmas?"

  "As soon as the last scene is shot. Why are you smiling?"

  "I just remembered something beautiful. Did you ever fly across the Alps?"

  "No."

  Street organs played and teenage idols screeched songs through loudspeakers. Blaring noise and busy crowds, which Misha happily ignored while throwing balls at the cans. He won an armful of worthless trinkets, to him a treasure. This was the world of a child.

  "It was breathtaking, Peter. The sun shone on mountain peaks and enormous gorges. The sky was dark blue. The most magnificent scenery I ever saw. A blanket of snow, shimmering in rainbow colors. I sat at a window and—" she stopped.

  "And drank whisky?"

  Natasha smiled. "Cognac. As I looked down upon those unbelievably beautiful mountains I suddenly hoped for a miracle . . . that Bruno might recover . . . and that both of us might fly back together ... above these thrusting peaks. He did not fly back with me and I took the train. But sometimes I relive that flight and . . ."

  "And Bruno sits beside you."

  "I cannot see his face as clearly as I could for the first two years. All I know is that a man sits beside me. And I love him."

  "But you cannot see his face."

  "No."

  I was often dreaming of Shirley and I saw her face very clearly. But Shirley had died only a short time ago and Bruno Kerst had been dead four years. Would I still see Shirley's face in my dreams in four years?

  "One of my most treasured memories is that flight above the Alps. It stirs one's spirit, it is so beautiful. I cannot describe it adequately. You must experience it yourself, Peter."