The Extra

by Kathryn Lasky

  And yet she did not fall asleep. She began thinking about Django. Her feelings were changing subtly, she could tell. She had known this ever since her first conversation with Unku about Franz, when she had wondered if she might ever want the kind of intimacy Unku had described. The problem was not really dying a virgin at all. The problem was one of space. Did she have enough room in her heart to love someone beyond her parents during this horrible war? She must look after herself and her mother. To love someone else was a luxury she could not afford. It was dangerous.

  It was in the small hours of the night when deep in her sleep Lilo heard a tiny crash. A shattering of glass. In her dream, she looked down. All around her on the concrete floor, pieces of a watch were scattered. There was the escapement wheel with its notches. All sorts of little screws — the bridge screw, an anchor screw, ratchet-wheel screw, wheels, winding pinions strewn about. Lilo knew that she had to assemble all these parts or else her father would die.

  “I don’t know how. I keep telling you I don’t know how, Tante Leni.”

  “What good are you, darling? First you tell me that your mama knows horses, but look what happened, and now you tell me your father is a watch expert, buys and sells antique watches, repairs them. But this is a lie, too? You lie! You lie!” She turns to walk away. Lilo gasps. Leni is naked. There is no back to her dress. Her bare buttocks seem to twitch. Lilo is seized with a fit of giggles — giggles and fear. I cannot laugh. She will kill me. She slams her hand to her mouth.

  Suddenly she was awake, awake and biting her own hand! And not laughing. Still, in this moment, she was fearful not for her mother, nor for her father, nor herself, but for Unku. She looked over. Unku’s cot was empty.

  Lilo inhaled sharply. Never had an empty cot seemed more alarming. She went to the toilets. Unku was not there. How could she dare to sneak out after what had been going on? Had she listened to nothing Lilo had said? It was four in the morning. She must be coming soon, Lilo thought. There was nothing she could do, so she returned to her own cot. But sleep was impossible. She decided to go back to the toilets and wait for Unku to come through that door marked with the high-voltage warning.

  She finally fell asleep with her head against the base of the toilet. She slept deeply, and then hearing the door creak, she jerked awake, hitting her head.

  Wrong door! She cursed silently. It was the woman from Mauthausen who had told Bluma about the staircase of death. She looked at Lilo oddly and then shrugged as if to say, So what else is new? She sleeps with a toilet for a pillow. But it was in that moment that Lilo knew deep in her gut that Unku was gone. Gone for good.

  “She’s gone,” Lilo said in a low voice when she arrived on the set an hour later. Django looked up from the guitar he was tuning. Confusion swept across his face, and then his eyes, already dark, became absolutely black.

  “Unku?”

  She nodded.

  Django did not say “Are you sure?” or “How do you know?” Instead he turned his head toward Franz, who sat in a chair, looking straight down toward the floor. It was a posture of total defeat.

  “Do you think he knows where she has gone?” Lilo asked.

  “Don’t you dare ask him. Don’t go near him.” Django grabbed her elbow and dug in his fingers. “If she”— he nodded toward Leni’s dressing room, where she was speaking to the wardrobe mistress —“in any way connects you with Unku or him, you’re finished. Don’t say a word — promise me.” He then concluded with an old Romani proverb: “Makh ci hurjal ande muj phanglo.” A fly won’t fly into a mouth that is shut. “In other words, keep it shut!”

  He almost spat the words out. Lilo rolled her eyes, and Django reached out and touched her shoulder lightly. “Try not to worry too much. So ci del o bers, del caso.” It was another old saying: What a year may not bring an hour might. Tears sprang to her eyes. He put his arm around her and crunched her to his chest. “It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “I mean, I know it’s not all right, but I can’t stand to see you so sad. I think it could be all right. It might not be so bad as you think.”

  Django was trying to give her hope. Hope! She was so confused at this moment. Her feelings for Django welled up within her. Would he speak of hope to everyone as he did to her in this moment? If he had room in his heart to hope for her . . . She could not complete the thought. But was there really any reason she should hope for anything and last of all love? Should any of these film slaves hope? They were all abandoned, and yet it was virtually impossible to kill hope. Did she not look around twenty times every hour hoping to see Unku?

  She waited for Tante Leni to appear. But so far she had not come. They were told that they would be reshooting some scenes from the previous week. While Lilo was in makeup having her feet made to look dirtier, a new extra was brought over. She could see immediately that the girl was tall. Tall like Unku. Tall and quite ugly and wearing the same rags Unku had worn. That put the seal on Unku’s fate. Lilo knew that there was a term for such prisoners who simply vanished. Nacht und Neblen. Night and Fog. It was into this night and fog that prisoners simply dissolved — untraceable, never to be seen or heard from again. Their deaths never confirmed, these people were condemned to wander forever through this netherworld, this purgatory of nonexistence that was neither death nor life.

  A chair toppled over backward, and out of the corner of her eye, Lilo saw Franz jump up and storm off the set. But people barely took notice. Bella, who was now smearing the sludge in Lilo’s hair to make it look dirty and tangled, made only a tsking sound. “Stupid boy,” she muttered. “He wants to go to the front, I believe. He should think of his poor mama.”

  So they all know! Lilo thought.

  “Mama, try not to worry. Hardly anyone is being taken to Sarentino.”

  “Miteinander, miteinander,” Bluma whimpered.

  By the second week in May, shooting had completed in the Babelsberg studios. It was announced that they would all be returning to Krün and some, a very few, would continue on to Sarentino, a village in the Dolomites of Italy, for further shooting.

  Lilo and Django were included but not the water-jug ladies or Rosa and Blanca. Bluma’s reputation with the horses had never recovered from the disaster on the set that day. For the first time, she would be separated from her daughter. Miteinander — the word rang in both Lilo’s and her mother’s heads, tolling ominously like mourning chimes from a bell tower.

  There were several men, however, who would be employed for the backbreaking labor of digging the lake for the Italian scenes. Django was being brought not to dig but to pluck the strings as a hand double for the guitar that Franz was supposed to be able to play.

  “It will be okay, Frau Friwald,” Django said with conviction. “I don’t think we’ll be gone that long.” He and Lilo spent the entire bus trip back to Krün trying to console her.

  “Look, Mama! Look who’s here to greet you,” Lilo whispered as they got off the bus at the farm. Liesel was there, waiting in front of the barn. Her face brightened as she caught sight of Bluma. “Mama, for her sake put on a smile.”

  Bluma looked at Lilo, a sad irony in her eyes as if to say “for her sake.” In that moment, Lilo knew that her mother was entertaining the same thought she had had weeks before when she had wondered if she had enough room in her heart to care for anyone beyond her parents. Caring was a luxury ill afforded.

  They had hoped to find Unku back at Krün. But there was not a trace of her. The extras who had been left there over the winter and not gone to Babelsberg had not seen her. Somehow these extras had survived the winter, mostly due to the kindness of Johan, the good guard. The other guard had been replaced, and the new one seemed to be under Johan’s command. For that reason alone, Lilo supposed that she should not worry too much about her mother staying there.

  They spent only one night in the barn in Krün, Lilo and Bluma tightly wrapped in each other’s arms until Lilo would leave, at dawn. Lilo did not sleep one wink during the entire night. She watc
hed the dawn break slowly through the old crack in the boards of the barn walls, a soft rose mist hovering on the horizon. Her mother was sleeping soundly. They had agreed the night before that Bluma would stay in the barn when the bus came. Lilo stole out early, not even kissing her mother for fear of waking her. Not even a kiss, she thought. She peered again into the sky. The rosy mist had dissolved into featureless gray. The moon and stars were gone, the sun not up yet. There was only a vast nothingness, as though God were yawning, a huge, abyssal yawn.

  When she got to the bus, Django was already there. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, then led her onto the bus. He said nothing. She blessed him for his silence. He seemed to know that she needed to be alone and sat across the aisle from her. Her hand still felt warm from Django’s lips.

  There was one good thing about Sarentino and that was the tents that had been pitched for the extras. Every film slave had his or her own small tent. Lilo’s was the tiniest, but it was all hers. Although Lilo missed the warmth of her mother sleeping next to her, she did enjoy sleeping away from the other film slaves. She did not have to hear anybody snoring. The nights were still chilly, but they had good blankets. There were, of course, guards, who patrolled the encampment all night. With the full moon, their shadows stretched across the canvas sides of her tent as they walked by. They all carried two guns, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a pistol in their belt.

  There had been pistol- and rifle-carrying guards before. Certainly at Krün, both Johan and Gunther carried firearms, but as Django explained it, the film slaves were now honored with elite guards. These men were no mere local policemen from the Salzburg-Krün region but genuine SS with SS weapons! Django knew a lot about guns from working in a Mauser factory. And being Django, he liked to show off his knowledge. “They say that the Luger, a recoil semiautomatic, had been a seven-millimeter but was redesigned for war. So now it’s a nine-millimeter. Most balanced pistol in the world. It is said that the feel of it when it is aimed is as if it is aligning itself with the target. Like it’s got a little brain inside it.”

  “That’s awful! Stop talking about it. Why would they ever need a gun with a brain here on this movie set?” Lilo said with contempt.

  “Ha!” Django laughed. “Maybe it’s because we’re the smartest people on the set.”

  What he said was funny, but Lilo hated this talk about pistols and rifles.

  The crew and film slaves had been brought to this location to shoot two scenes. The first and opening scene would show Pedro killing the wolf that threatened his sheep. The second, which occurred midway through the film, was what Leni called the “romantic mountain idyll.” She has run away from Don Sebastian and is found, exhausted, by Pedro. They fall passionately in love and live in perfect harmony in the romantic little shepherd’s hut high in the pure mountain air, far from the greed and treachery of the lowlands.

  It was rather obvious that the wolf was supposed to represent the wicked and inescapable Don Sebastian. Lilo doubted that anyone had made the connection of the wolf to Adolf Hitler, whom they had heard had recently gone to his military headquarters on the eastern front, the Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair.

  Since they had arrived in Sarentino, the crew seemed more unguarded in their remarks about the war than before. And talk about the eastern front was rampant. Django had overheard a cameraman saying that troops were very close to the border and action was to begin within not weeks but days.

  Django said the Germans were idiots to start action in the east. Fighting a war on two fronts could easily spell doom for them. One could only hope.

  But right now the only “front” Leni and her director and cameramen were concerned with was here in the mountains, where the wolf scene was to be shot. They had tried to film this scene two years before and failed. The first time, the animal died. That was when Fanck had stormed off the set and Harald Reinl entered the picture as assistant director. But apparently Herr Reinl had now fallen into at least temporary disfavor, as there was a new assistant director, Mathias Wieman. In addition to Wieman, the other new face was that of a zoologist who specialized in wolves. He had been brought from Berlin. The creature that sat in a cage under the shade of an awning was pathetic. Lilo had seen her share of mangy dogs in the streets of Vienna that looked better than this wolf.

  “Now you see, Liebling.” Leni was addressing Bernhard Grzimek, the zoologist. “This is really art. Yes, it is a violent scene, but there is beauty at the very heart of it. We must find the harmony.” Grzimek looked completely bored but was pretending to be interested. Lilo could tell that Leni wanted art. Grzimek wanted nobody bitten. For Leni the mountains represented all that was good and pure. And in this film they symbolized the opposite of Tiefland — the lowlands. Since their arrival, she had blabbed endlessly about the unsullied splendor of the mountains. This was what Lilo and Django had begun here in Sarentino to refer to as Tante Leni’s lecture number four.

  Again and again she recounted her early movie career, starring in the “mountain films,” in which she scaled peaks barefoot. She told all of this with unmatched rapture. And then she would go on to explain how Hitler became obsessed with her when he saw these films. “Ach, the Führer. I think now I have gone with Hitler to his country place, the Berghof, in Bavaria, at least twenty times. He always insists that we watch The Holy Mountain together.” She glanced over at the cage with the pathetic wolf. “So, Liebling”— she took a step closer to the zoologist —“we must find the harmony in this scene. I am fascinated by the beautiful, the strong . . . the healthy.”

  The flea-bitten wolf swayed on his feet, his tail drooping languidly. Lilo wondered if he had been drugged. Undoubtedly.

  “She calls that thing healthy?” Lilo muttered to Django.

  “Shush, Lilo. You’re going to get us all into trouble. Look what happened to Unku.”

  “We don’t know what happened to Unku. That’s the problem.”

  The conversation with the zoologist was over, and Leni walked away. But then she stopped and scanned the twenty or thirty people, the crew and the extras.

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “What girl?” Wieman said.

  “The Gypsy horse girl.”

  Lilo felt Django give her a poke. She stood up quickly.

  “Come here!” Leni motioned to her with her index finger.

  “Yes?” Lilo asked as she approached. Franz was standing next to her.

  “Let’s discuss this riding scene, Liebling. You see, if the wolf scene goes well, we shall have time to rehearse the riding scene later today, then to shoot tomorrow.” She leaned over and gave Franz a hug and a little peck on the cheek. Rumor had it that Tante Leni had made some headway in her romantic endeavors with Franz. It turned Lilo’s stomach to see this display. She understood that he did not want to ski to Russia, but wasn’t there something in between skiing to Russia and making love to Leni? It all began to boil up inside of her. She felt like a cauldron of hurt and anger that was perilously close to boiling over. “Any questions?” Leni asked. Franz had his arms draped affectionately around Leni from behind. He was resting his chin on her shoulder.

  “Just one,” she replied.

  “Not about your mama again.” Leni laughed softly.

  “No, not about Mama,” Lilo said, and looked Franz directly in those dazzling blue eyes. “About Unku. Where is Unku?” Lilo could hardly believe she was saying this. It was as if the words came from someone else’s mouth. But they were her words, her thoughts, her mouth.

  Franz’s eyes turned to blue ice. Leni’s lips curled back. Lilo noticed again how pointy her teeth were. But Leni said nothing and strode off. Franz, however, was left gape-mouthed, staring at Lilo.

  “Why did you ask such a question?” he whispered.

  “Because it’s not make-believe. It’s real, Franz. Unlike your love for Leni, or has that become real?”

  “I had no choice.”

  “No, you’re wrong. We have no choice. Unku, myself, al
l of us here.” She tipped her head toward the film slaves. “But you had a choice.” She turned and walked back toward Django.

  “What did you do?” Django asked.

  “Never mind.”

  “You did something. She’s furious. Look at her.” Leni was gesticulating madly as she spoke to Wieman and Grzimek.

  “No, they’re just talking about the scene.” Lilo laughed. “Maybe she’s going to turn the wolf on me instead of the sheep.”

  “Not a funny joke, Lilo.”

  “I’m just so sick of it, Django,” she moaned.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and began to shake her. “You can’t afford to be sick of it, Lilo.” He was absolutely seething. She had never seen him like this. “Do you realize how many others would give anything to be in our place? We have better food than we have ever had since our arrests. For me that is a long time. For you not yet a year. We can hope that when the war is over —”

  She shook his hands off her shoulders. “When the war’s over, we’ll be dead.”

  The color drained from Django’s face. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s true, Django.”

  Over his shoulder, she could see Franz motioning her to come. Leni had retreated to her trailer. The zoologist, Grzimek, was talking with his four assistants, who would help him with the wolf. The sheep were being herded to a steep slope.

  “Look, Franz wants a word with you, Lilo. Better go.”

  “What the hell does he want?”

  “Just go!” Django gave her a small push.

  Franz was looking down at his feet when she walked up.

  “Scared the wolf’s going to tear you apart?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the thought has crossed my mind, but they gave him a sedative.” God he’s dumb, she thought as she watched him scuff the toe of his boot in the dirt. Should she embarrass him further and tell him that she was not thinking of that wolf?