He needed a clean exit, a way to keep the scuppers from filling, and Bride was his last ace. So he flogged the horses, making enemies of all who worked on the picture. We didn’t have long to wait for the opening. Post-preview word on the street was the sequel was better than the original. Theater chains prebooked the picture for a year. The premiere would be a strictly spat-and-spangled affair. Standing room only. Whale had already worked out a sweetheart deal to leave the genre and remake Show Boat. Each person seemed to be getting what he deserved. Everyone but Mutter. All that was missing was an invite, and for that, I’m sorry to say, I enrolled Billy. I had not been much of a muse, had been skulky and silent most of the time. But Billy was still obliging when I asked to be invited to the premiere. He even had a tiny black satin shift made for me for the occasion. There was guilt. And then there was justice. And none ever took the higher ground in me.
I parked around the corner from the theater the night of the premiere. I didn’t want the cameras to spot my shambling truck. I told Mutter to wait by the fire exit while I dodged the press and snuck into the theater, stealing down the empty aisles to backstage, where I opened the fire door and told Mutter to wait for my signal. It was tart perfume and cigarettes, gowns and gamy furs that reeked of mothballs as bodies hauled themselves over a red carpet. The flashbulbs in those days were like small explosions, and a feeling of siege, of pending war, was very ripe in the theater.
The crowd outside, the average public, was dressed in rags, smelling of dirty soup and long days, but still found energy to work up a passable frenzy for more make-believe. Junior made a speech no one would remember. Whale stood up and waved like the queen from her carriage. The houselights dimmed like they had thousands of times before.
When it ended, the applause broke heavy and I freed myself from my seat. That was my cue. I scurried up the aisle. Unnoticed. That is until I spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began as throats cleared. “What we have enjoyed here is a treat rare in motion pictures. But where do these nightmares come from? From what corners of the day-shunned consciousness do these specters rise? From front offices and memos? From typewriters and red pencils? From makeup chairs so like the labs of the mad doctors they portray? Or from the mind, one fixed, fertile blond-tressed brain whose vision rivals that of Shelley herself?” There was a smattering of applause here. Whale even began to stand. “No, ladies and gentlemen,” I said forbiddingly. “All those guesses would be right. But, upon closer inspection, adamantly wrong. Great images require great inspiration. And so the real question is not who is responsible for these enticing artifices but who or what inspired them. That inspiration is not a figment. He is real. He exists. And in the parlance of the good doctor himself, he is alive!”
And Mutter wobbled onto the stage. I could find only a moth-eaten suit jacket in the end, the backlot night watchman’s Sunday best I lifted from a hook in his sour little shack. Mutter wore this over his patched and stained overalls, so the image I had hoped for, the hard, obvious, protean impression of the real creature fell woefully short of its mark. I had shown Muter how to shamble, how to stiffen his knees in imitation of Billy’s definitive gait. He lumbered to center stage and stood there painfully exposed, his eyes shifting to the wings, looking exactly like what he was: a poor hulking schmuck, pitifully down on his luck, who had gotten lost on his way to the men’s room. With no spotlight, even the flatness of his head was lost.
Laughter. They all laughed.
“What the hell is this?”
“Some kind of gag!”
“Show’s over, kid.”
It was more confusion than outrage. More irritation than a clear case for credit. Mutter scuttled off the stage, shirking from that awful hail of derision. It was Hollywood, and everyone assumed Mutter was just another costumed imitation. My shouts of, “There is your Frankenstein monster! He’s real! Stop! Touch him! He’s real!” only made things more perverse, desperate, and worst of all, poorly produced. What stopped me were the tears in Billy’s eyes. He had predicted this outcome ages ago. Even the crust of all my actual years could not protect me from yet another of my fervent childish impulses.
From the stage I saw Junior’s eyes go cold, his jaw tense. Whale smirked and took David’s arm, but I could see he was rattled. The success of the monster franchise had landed him squarely at the top of the A-list. Nothing could be allowed to contest his right to history. My attempt to better Mutter’s lot might have fallen flat but lesser rumors had eventually gained footing. It would not be enough to merely chuck him in a janitor’s shed this time.
I should have gone to the press. I should have sat with one journalist, one photographer, and spelled it out in plain English. But my taste for an audience was too strong. I had inherited all of my father’s brash showmanship but none of his cunning.
Junior had Mutter served with his extradition papers the next morning. An undocumented immigrant. He must have awakened some poor INS official the night before to get the order, some groggy bureaucrat with a yen for horror who went along with it, no questions asked. Mutter had twenty-four hours to leave the country. Sitting in the slatted light of Mutter’s shack I did my best to explain the situation to him. But the giant’s ears refused to fill. I finally defaulted to bedtime German to soften my explanation, murmuring simple words like must and leave and home. Home caught. Home sparked recognition. So why had his huge face fallen? Why were his tired eyes filling? I did not understand until he reached toward the wall and gently tore the photograph of his family from its nail.
I had forgotten. Stupidly. Selfishly. Real living leaves roots. Leaves branches.
“Come?” he whispered. “They come home too?”
There was no word in any language that could dampen the blow of my response.
I drove with Mutter to my bank and liquidated what was left of my account in crisp hundred-dollar bills. I waited in my truck while Mutter shambled to the stoop of a cold-water flat near Olvera Street, his hand filled with the only thing I had left to give. How long would my money last them? Five years? Ten? What did it matter when I had cost them everything?
I had no welcoming shadows to retreat to, no filthy theater box in which to burrow until the nightmare passed. I was exposed to the unflinching indelibility of my hideous mistake like a worm in the Los Angeles sun. There was only one decision left to make. And I had made that the moment I saw Mutter kiss his wife and child good-bye.
I had come to America in a trunk. I could go home the same way.
CHAPTER 43
We had been scheduled to dock at Hamburg, but congestion on the Elbe had us redirected to Bremen, a smaller port still under local authority. We shuffled down the gangway amid lives that spanned several trunks and those that rattled inside biscuit tins. Stale wool and cold sausage, mostly German nationals, but a few Americans were among us, businessmen defined by their two-toned shoes and shaved chins and neatly folded top coats that draped over the crooks of their free arms like steakhouse maître d’s. Europeans are born knowing how to form lines. Americans are taught how to avoid them. As we funneled into the tables set by the immigration officials, it was the Americans who flashed their blue passports and were waved through with a curt nod while the rest of us slowed to a bovine stop. The officials were young men, some just sprouting the mustaches that would delineate them as civil servants. Brushed wool caps and bright brass buttons, they smiled and clicked as papers and photographs scattered over the tabletops. When it finally came to our turn, we were asked for our tickets.
“We have only the one I’m afraid,” I said, handing over Mutter’s. “I lost mine.” Lying was less complex than pretending to breathe. “I was sick, you see, and it fell out of my pocket while I was indisposed.”
“You are feeling better now, I trust, fräulein?” said one with real concern. This young man had sisters. “Might I trouble you for your papers?” We had no papers, no documentation of any kind, I from my obstinacy of remaining essentially nameless, Mutte
r as a casualty of his life.
“Lost as well, I’m afraid.”
“During your malady or previous?”
He had blond fuzz on his upper lip that reminded me of stubborn milk and did much to trivialize his officiousness.
“Previous.”
“Ah. And where was your port of departure?”
“Los Angeles, America.”
“I see. Your papers were lost in Los Angeles?”
“Just so.”
“How is it you were allowed to board without proper documentation?”
“An oversight, I suppose.”
“Why did you not report this?”
“They seemed anxious for our departure.”
“I’m afraid you will have to register with the local constabulary. Wait over here, please.”
Comfortable chairs, open air. We could have been on holiday. Mutter closed his eyes in the sun. Had he forgotten his family already? Or was that another selfish figment of mine? Too cowardly to open his buried wounds, my attention drifted to the longer line of those leaving the country. The officials at the departure tables were not young. They did not wear the quaint brass and bonnets of the locals. Their uniforms were gray and they wore the faces of stern fathers. I recognized their armbands from my memory of Weimar street corners. They opened suitcases, removed candlesticks and silver soup tureens, spoke harshly to the well-dressed women before them who only lowered their heads. Men, husbands, brothers reached into breast pockets and sometimes hands were slapped away, other times the offered money was accepted. Many were detained. None left with all their belongings. This was not the Germany I remembered, where police and postmen were always officiously polite.
We were finally collected by a fat little official who licked his fingers before opening the door to his car. He wiggled into the driver’s seat like a roosting hen, nodding into his rearview mirror before accelerating slowly. The police station was quiet. A drunk slept on the sergeant’s desk. It felt like a setup for a Buster Keaton. We were shown into the captain’s office, and he rose as we entered. He was a nervous man with a receding hairline who wiped his hand on a starched handkerchief before bowing to us.
“Please sit, you must be famished,” he said.
We sat and took the shortbread that was offered. The captain had only cleared his throat when Mutter devoured the entire plate. Behind him was a framed picture of a humorless man who bore a marked resemblance to Chaplin, had Chaplin had a dour brother who wasn’t so skilled at jokes.
“So begin,” said the captain, rattling some papers on his desk, freeing one and smoothing it with the damp flat of his hand. “I understand your papers are lost?”
“My ticket was lost,” I began. “Our papers were stolen.”
“Stolen? And you have come to report this?”
“Our papers were stolen in America, sir,” I lied.
“And what were you doing in America?”
“Working for the Hollywood motion picture industry, sir.”
“In what capacity?”
“I wrote and edited and consulted on several pictures while my brother (it somehow felt safer to maintain a blood relation) was employed as a stunt man and janitor.”
“Are all American film industry stunt men janitors as well?”
“No, sir. His was a special case.”
“And your work papers?”
“Stolen, sadly.”
“I see. Is it safe to assume that your papers were stolen by your Jewish bosses?”
I like to imagine that he asked this last question with some distaste.
“No, sir. Respectfully, I do not think it would be safe to assume that. I do not know if the man who stole them was Jewish,” I embellished, offended. “I only know he was hungry.” If I was going to make up our story I thought I might as well feel righteous about it.
“I’m curious,” the captain said, his demeanor relaxing as he allowed himself a yellow smile. “Is it the practice of the Hollywood film industry to hire its personnel without proper identification?”
“From my experience, sir, there is no consistent practice in Hollywood.”
“Just so. I’ll have to inform the consulate. Well, names, places of birth, that kind of thing to start. We’ll begin with you,” he said, pointing to Mutter with the nib of his pen.
Mutter looked stricken.
“Is there a problem?”
“Can’t I speak for him?”
“Can’t he speak for himself?”
“That depends.”
“Upon what?”
“The nature of the questions.” The captain’s eyes had not left Mutter since he became the subject of conversation. He scribbled something, blinked, and set his eyes upon us again.
“Name?”
“Wilhelm Ulm,” I said. Was I thinking of Billy?
“Would you characterize your brother as mentally deficient?”
“No, sir. I would characterize him as wounded in the service of the fatherland.”
“I see. Will you have him remove his cap please?”
I looked to the captain, mute.
“Please?” he asked again.
I reached my hand to the lip of Mutter’s cap; he started at the gesture and then relaxed when he met my eyes.
The captain’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the damage. “Where did you get that, my boy?”
“Verdun, I believe,” I answered.
“He must have received the Iron Cross for that.”
“Quite possibly,” I whispered.
“But, sadly, without papers I cannot be sure he is German. Let alone a veteran.”
And I had given a false name for Mutter. Now there would be no record of his service.
“I’m afraid,” the captain continued, “your case is too delicate for these clumsy fingers. I have no choice but to refer you to a more sensitive review.”
There was nothing sinister in his tone, nothing that could be construed as silky compliance with some dark directive. I would have cast him as a petty bureaucrat overwhelmed by political contingencies far outside his control, a dress extra in Casablanca, perhaps. But not a villain. Not a devil. They came later.
We were removed after several hours and loaded into a large gray van. Our driver was very handsome. A boy from a northern farm, I guessed, from his broad shoulders and full lips. His clear, pale skin was beautifully enhanced by the black of his uniform. He wore no pips on his collar tabs, designating him as a basic trooper, but there was ambition in him, clear in the ways he kept our papers crisp on the seat beside him. His grip on the wheel was at precisely ten and two. Our seats in the back had been equipped with restraining devices, leather belts unsubtle in their purpose. Small rings for the wrists, longer, loose belts at the height of the chest, small rings again where ankles would naturally rest. He made no request that we should employ these devices and so we sat stiffly. It was clear just from our short walk that we had crossed some political frontier. What nervousness that quivered in me was assuaged by the fact of us. We were German. Even the most cursory investigation would reveal that. He started the van and I watched him as his attention drifted to our paperwork on the passenger seat. He picked up the top sheet, studying it, then gave a look, almost helpless, to the closed door of the police office, swallowed, turned off the van, and then turned toward Mutter.
“Stand, please,” he said, and I realized from his accent that I was right about his northern heritage. Mutter seemed fascinated by the holes in the restraints.
“Mutter,” I said. I waited for the young man to repeat his request.
“Stand please and lower your trousers.”
My silence was enough for him to clear his throat and explain.
“The police have neglected to answer the ethnic question. I must perform the Jewish test. Lower your pants, please, and your undergarment.”
The young man lowered himself stiffly to his knees. Mutter stood and undid his belt. He lowered his pants to the ankles and his billowy shorts to the th
igh-curve of his ass. The young man removed a pen from his inside pocket. This he would use as a probe. Mutter’s attention seemed drawn out the van’s windows, but the sudden temperature change had an awakening effect on his bladder and a thick yellow arc glistened near the young man’s face. He veered in disgust, rocking back to his feet.
“He will desist immediately.”
Mutter smiled. Relief? Retort?
“He will desist,” the young man said, but his only response was the hard liquid report that seemed to last an eternity.
“You will clean this up,” he shouted.
“With what?” I asked.
“You will clean this up!”
I used the flat of my shoe to break the surface tension of the puddle and watched it flow into the hard rubber grooves of the van floor. The young man bent again to his task but as soon as he made contact with his pen, the independent organ, now voided and carefree, rose into the air like a snake to the charmer.
“He will desist!”
“I’m afraid he has no control over that, either,” I said.
“He is homosexual?”
“I would think from the evidence it would be safer to assume he had an unnatural affection for writing implements.”
“I cannot tell if his foreskin is intact.”
“Then I suppose you’ll just have to wait.”
“You will divert him.”
“Please?”
“You will slap him, hard. On the buttocks.”
“That could have the opposite effect,” I said.
“You would rather I do it?” His eyes flashed.
“No.”
“You will count to three and slap. Hard, mind you.”
I counted and my hand cracked on the firm flesh. The organ bucked but did not deflate. The tip bobbed slightly like a snout testing an unusual scent and, finding it to its liking, swelled all the harder.
Only the Dead Know Burbank Page 24