Two Gentlemen on the Beach

by Köhlmeier, Michael; Martin, Ruth;

  His departure was as swift as his employment had been eighteen years before. Kono arrived and stayed. Kono left and was never seen again.

  A week later, the shock woke Chaplin in the middle of the night.

  He went into the kitchen and sat down on the floor by the range. His neck felt cold. He thought about Kono’s reaction when he had told him about the phone call from “Hannelore”. His face had been expressionless. During the long time they were together, Chaplin had never been able to read Kono’s face the way he could with everyone else’s. The art of reading faces made him superior to other humans. Had he not used his art with Kono? Or had he failed with him? Was it because this man’s inner life meant nothing to him? He had looked into Kono’s face after that phone call, and a thought had flared up in his mind: he knows. The thought was immediately extinguished again. And what if it was true? The resignation was absurd. Paulette wanted to speak to Kono; she was prepared to yield to him on everything. He declined. She thought her household management was just a pretext. And Chaplin thought it too. But what was behind the resignation?

  If Kono had actually known in advance that “Hannelore” was going to call, then he probably also knew about the man and the woman from the bistro. Maybe he had chanced to hear somewhere, or someone had told him, that some kind of stupid prank was going to be played on Chaplin. One didn’t need to consider the prankster’s motive: madmen could knead water and fire into dough, and everyone knew there were plenty of madmen in this part of the world. So Kono hadn’t taken the matter seriously, and hadn’t wanted to trouble him with it, and now he was feeling guilty. So he resigned just because he felt guilty? Without any further explanation? After eighteen years? That was absurd! Or else it was something more than a joke. And Kono knew that, and knew even more. Knew who “Hannelore” was. Maybe the whole business was actually deadly serious. The man in the bistro had informed Chaplin that he would commit suicide before the year was out. There had been nothing of the prankster about him. Chaplin whisked two eggs in a shallow bowl, added a pinch of salt and a small cup of milk, and laid slices of white bread in the mixture. While they were soaking it up, he melted some butter in a pan. He loved French toast. He found the bottle of maple syrup in one of the cupboards. Seven years ago, when he had been in Japan with Sydney and Kono, there had been an incident that he wasn’t really aware of at the time, though he’d been informed about it later – by the Los Angeles Police Department. Apparently a Japanese far-right organisation calling itself the Black Dragon Society had planned to assassinate him. A lieutenant from the Kwantung Army was arrested. Under interrogation he said that they had wanted to kill Charlie Chaplin because he was a famous personality and the darling of the capitalists; they thought his death might lead to a war with America. The LAPD officer had brought him this news, in a sepulchral voice, when he was safely back on American soil, and that evening he and his friends had laughed heartily about it. He had come up with a series of sketches on the theme, from which “the next best comedian would have made a film every year for the rest of his life” – as the producer Joseph Schenk said. Mrs Pryor wrote her fingers raw: the Tramp in Japan, waddling comically round the old temples, flirting with geishas, while bombs go off around him, daggers flash, pistols crack – he thinks the bombs are New Year’s firecrackers, the daggers are a photographer’s flash, and the bullets are annoying flies.

  That had all been six years ago. Kono resigned three days ago. Without any reason he could understand. After all this time in his service.

  35

  The telephone in the lobby rang three times during the night. Paulette didn’t hear it. But then Paulette wouldn’t have heard the moon falling into the swimming pool. She took sleeping tablets and put wax in her ears. Although her bedroom was closer to the telephone than his, and the ringer was very loud – it was designed to be heard even if you were in the garden. Perhaps he’d just imagined it. Dreamed that “Hannelore” was calling him again. The staff wing was too far away, there was no point asking the maid or the cook or Frank Kawa. At the studio, he told Miss Nicolaisen to find out who the caller could have been. If anyone had called at all. “Hannelore’s” voice had been close to tears by the time she had finished speaking, which led him to think she was under pressure, probably being forced to say what she said. Now he even thought he remembered her sounding as if she was reading lines. Someone had given her a script. Was she being used? And why her? Because of her German accent?

  That afternoon, Miss Nicolaisen knocked on the door of the conference room where he was in discussion with Alf Reeves, Sydney, Dan James, the agent Toni G. Williams and the gentleman from the security firm, about the problems presented by the crowd scenes. And the costs. Syd thought he could save himself all this trouble and create a much more powerful effect using a sound collage from the Off. The boss could see the sense in that. Miss Nicolaisen beckoned him over. She whispered. Which she never usually did. She hadn’t managed to find out who had called the previous night. But the phone had rung. Three times. Her friend at the phone company had confirmed it.

  He ended the meeting. He had Frank Kawa drive him out to Pacific Palisades. He missed Kono. They would have walked along the beach together, and their conversation would have helped him work out what he would do next if he were the head of the Nazi commando that was targeting him. What if they’d persuaded Kono to join their side? In their position, that was what he’d do. He had always thought Kono the loyalest of the loyal. But anyone can be blackmailed. Kono had a wife. Our loved ones make hostages of us, in the clutches of the world. The Japanese far-right sympathised with the Nazis. If they really had set their sights on him, they would know everything about him. Know that his very private private secretary knew everything about him.

  He told Kawa to collect all the newsreels, American, English, German, French, that showed Hitler – talking to children, cuddling babies, visiting the sick in the hospitals, inspecting military parades, posing between party comrades, giving speeches on every possible occasion, eating, picking his nose, belching – every photograph he could get his hands on, every recording, the English translation of Mein Kampf, everything. But he should bring them to Chaplin at home, not at the studio. Since Kono had gone, he had started entrusting Kawa with tasks that weren’t actually part of his job, or commensurate with a chauffeur’s salary. If Kawa demanded a rise, he would pass him on to Syd. Syd didn’t care if people saw him as a miser.

  It was a smart move, taking Kono away from him. He needed friends like he needed bread and water. If he were these people, he would slander him. There was no level of gaucherie or brutality he wouldn’t stoop to. He would call him a money-grubbing Jew. A child molester. A talentless gurner. A thief, a liar, a semi-literate man feeding off the brains of others. At first, his friends would stand up for him. But if his attacker kept at it, took nothing back, qualified nothing, proved none of the accusations, made no arguments, just kept on insulting and smearing, disparaging and ridiculing, then his friends would grow quieter. Because they would see what would happen to them if they carried on backing him. Chaplin was the most famous, the most popular of them all. If there was no helping him, then who would help them? – so his friends would think. And they would pull away. And then they would start to think: really, a person can only come in for such crude, brutal treatment if there is something in the allegations. They had already taken Kono from him. Who would be next? They were clever. Clever madmen. If they simply shot him down or blew him up or stabbed him, like the Black Dragons had planned to do, they would create a hero, all-powerful, invincible. “The Nazis kill the most popular man in the world!” the headlines would read, on the front page of every newspaper in the world. No Nazi politician would be able to show his face anywhere – in the farthest reaches of Patagonia, people would point their fingers at him: “You murdered Chaplin!” He thought of the enthusiastic crowds who had greeted him in Berlin. It was hard to know who the Germans loved more: Adolf Hitler or Charlie Chaplin. The murderers
’ own people would turn against them. However, if it emerged that Charlie Chaplin had taken his own life while working on a film that would stir up hatred against the German Reich and its Chancellor, then a skilled propagandist like Mr Goebbels would have no trouble making his own people and the rest of the world believe that the little “fidgeting Jew”, the “ghetto clown” from the depraved neighbourhood of Hollywood, had crossed over into the Promised Land out of guilt and shame.

  Before they reached the Pacific Coast Highway, Chaplin hit on the idea of visiting Douglas Fairbanks in Santa Monica. Friends had told him that Doug was away most of the time, often in Europe: he’d bought a studio in Paris. He had married again. Would Doug be pleased to see his friend? Or by this point, had he already become a “former” friend? It was more than two years since he’d spoken to Mary, who still lived less than a hundred paces up the hill from him, in Pickfair, which now had a different name. Once they had waved to each other, when she was out watering her roses with a garden hose. He felt guilty about both of them. Not wanting to be dragged into the situation, to take Mary’s side or Doug’s, he had pulled away from both of them. He had never been to Doug’s beach house in Santa Monica. He’d ignored the invitation to his housewarming. He hadn’t sent a thank-you note, either. He’d left the card lying on his desk at home until the date of the party, and then torn it up and thrown it in the wastebasket.

  It was just after two in the afternoon, and he found Doug drunk, but cheerful. Happy that his friend had come to visit.

  “What do you know about my new project?”

  The question shredded their laughter.

  “Probably no more than everyone else in Hollywood,” Doug replied, seriously.

  “Do you know why I’m asking?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “And why am I asking?”

  “Don’t come the inquisitor with me, Charlie,” said Doug, laying a hand on his cheek. He did it in the way he always used to, and Chaplin had always loved it. “I’m not one of them. You must know that.”

  “One of whom?”

  “Please, Charlie, say something without one of these question marks that are more like exclamation marks.”

  “They mean to finish me, Doug. I’m sorry if I sounded rude.”

  “It’s their way of defending themselves, Charlie. And their way is not a subtle way. But that’s all. Hitler can’t order Roosevelt to stop you making a film about him.”

  “Do you think they know I’m visiting you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I believe they know about every step I take.”

  “Do you believe that Charlie, or do you know it?”

  “What’s the difference? I’ve started to believe it today. I feel it.

  That’s like knowing it.”

  He told Doug about Kono Toraichi. Doug didn’t seem surprised that he’d resigned. Why not? He had always got on well with Kono, as had Mary – more than once, and not entirely in fun, they had tried to lure him away to work for them. He’d left the decision up to Kono. The two of them would have paid him more. Kono hadn’t even replied. Chaplin didn’t touch the whisky Doug had poured him. He tried one of the chocolate biscuits. Why wasn’t Doug surprised that Kono had gone? “Why are you here on your own?” he asked.

  “Why do you think?”

  “What should I do, Doug?”

  “If you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have said: leave it be!

  Find another story. One that’s better suited to Paulette.”

  “And why aren’t you saying that now?”

  “Because you’re too far into the work. You’ve invested too much money. Too much effort. Too much passion. You can’t stop now, but you don’t want to go on.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  36

  Kawa did a good job. Without having been asked to, he got hold of a copy of Leni Riefensthal’s documentary film about the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. Chaplin had already seen the film once. An agent – he couldn’t remember his name now, one of these smarmy cynics who sold American films to Germany – had invited him to a showing in the screening rooms at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ten or so personalities from the industry were there, among them David Selznick and Irving Thalberg, the latter still fabulous, though already gravely ill. The agent gave a little speech, telling them how much Frau Riefenstahl admired the American film people and their business. One to one he was clearer: Frau Riefenstahl was especially keen for Chaplin to watch her film, and she would be delighted if he were to let her know what he thought. And with a wink, he added: even more delighted with an invitation to Hollywood. Chaplin had found the film laughable. A brilliantly staged, overblown piece of nonsense. (The Spanish director Luis Buñuel was also invited; he said in his memoirs: “Chaplin […] laughed like a madman. And once so hard that he actually fell off his chair.”) He had made a swift exit as the final credits were rolling. When the film was awarded a gold medal at the World Fair in Paris, and when further awards followed in France, Sweden, and even in the United States, he fell out with friends who accused him of not being able to differentiate between politics and art. Of course Triumph of the Will was propaganda for a loathsome ideology, they said, but at the same time it was the pinnacle of cinematic art, a better political film had never been made. The very essence of politics was that somebody was in favour of something while others were against it, but as an artist you had to rise above that, and judge a thing by purely aesthetic criteria. He had asked whether any of them would eat shit with this level of enthusiasm, if it had first been shaped and painted to look like a steak with Belgian fries and broccoli.

  Now he was watching the film again, with Dan James. And enthusing about it. Frau Riefensthal was a great artist – and a captivatingly cunning comedian. She had provided him with the perfect reference material for Adenoid Hynkel. There were lengthy shots of Hitler. Every ridiculous detail of the dictator’s gestures and speech patterns was captured on celluloid. He opened his mouth wide, barking the most banal nonsense out into the universe, and the camera was right there, probing this lipless scream-hole all the way to his tonsils, exploring his nostrils, exposing every bogey.

  “If I were Hitler,” he said to Dan James, “I’d wring Ms Riefenstahl’s neck.”

  Dan didn’t find that funny.

  “Order someone else to wring her neck.”

  Dan didn’t find that funny either. Why not?

  “As for me, I’d sue her,” he said with feigned resignation.

  But Dan didn’t find that funny either.

  Fine, Mr James could laugh at whatever he wanted to laugh at. It was a free country. And the screenplay was finished. He didn’t need Mr James for the fine details. In any case, he was only going to write the big speech at the end – which he would give himself! – once the first edits were done. He still didn’t know what he was going to say. There was still just a note in the treatment:

  Charlie steps forward. He begins slowly – he is petrified. But his words give him strength. During the speech the clown is transformed into a prophet.

  His idea was to give the speech from off screen. In shot: soldiers breaking out of their goose-step and into a waltz, or a firing squad laying down their guns, or troops starting to dance for joy during the speech. Or Paulette – Hannah’s face, Hannah’s eyes, sun beams breaking through clouds, cornfields and so on. Music: either something of his own or, in for a penny, Richard Wagner, in for a pound, the overture to Lohengrin. He didn’t want the camera watching him as he spoke, at least, not if he was giving a longer speech, something with grammatical, syntactical and topical meaning – gibberish, on the other hand, was like pantomime: universally understood, a silent film with words. Nobody could help him with the closing speech. He announced there would be no further discussion about the crowd scenes. After Riefenstahl it was clear to him: he would show the crowds! He had to! No question about costs! The camera is positioned at Hynkel’s back. We see the people he’s speaking to – thousands of the
m. He told Syd to pay off Dan James and let him go.

  Months after the fact, Chaplin heard on the grapevine that people in England were plotting against his film. How was it that the whole world knew what kind of film he was working on! After the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, had signed the Munich Agreement in September of the previous year, the British political establishment was on edge, and embarrassingly anxious not to provoke Hitler, even if their concessions had only one purpose: feeding the beast in order to play for time. A member of parliament had written a letter to an undersecretary in the foreign office, expressing his “concerns” and calling on him to do everything in his power to make sure the film “in which Charles Chaplin intends to give a satirical portrayal of Mr Hitler” was banned in England. What was this man afraid of? That Hitler would bomb England because a film was shown there? In any case, the British film censors sent a telegram to the US censorship board asking for an explanation and the documents relating the project. They in turn contacted Chaplin’s company, and received the response that none of these existed: there was no screenplay, no production schedule, no finance plan. Chaplin couldn’t discover who had given this response. On the one hand, he thought it was a pretty original answer; on the other, he was appalled that no one had informed him. He spent a whole morning yelling at everyone who crossed his path in the studio. In the afternoon he read an article in the Hollywood Reporter, which said Charlie Chaplin had realised it would “kick up a stink” if he attacked the elected head of a state that had good relations with the US government, and had therefore decided to give up on the project. The following day the papers were full of it, and the radio stations led with the story – ahead of the latest news on the war between China and Japan. The telephones rang off the hook, at home and in the studio. Once again, reporters gathered on Summit Drive. Reeves and Syd planted themselves in front of the boss, their legs forming a large M, and demanded an explanation – above all, an explanation of why he had spoken to one of these hacks before speaking to them. He hadn’t, he shouted at them, he hadn’t done anything of the sort. It was all lies! Invented by these very hacks! What had got into them, that they thought him capable of such a breach of trust! How was he supposed to work with people who saw him as some kind of underhand villain!