Delayed Rays of a Star

by Amanda Lee Koe

  * * *

  —

  IT WASN’T HARD to find out more about the man with the moustache.

  His anti-big-business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist speeches were growing very popular with frustrated workers struggling to earn their keep and afford basic necessities. Everyone agreed he was a brilliant speaker, even his opponents. He had been to prison for attempting a putsch and was now the leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the far-right NSDAP. This man was on the rise, Leni mused. It would be great to get to know him personally, and surely there was no harm in reaching out for a chat. The worst that could happen was not hearing back. The elections were a mess and things could swing any which way, but you never knew, and if he did get to the top, it would be too late by then. Now was a good time to put in that bid, even if she wasn’t sure yet how they might work together. No loss for her if the NSDAP fared badly at the polls: there were always other men for an ambitious woman to telegram about a cup of coffee.

  Time was a little tight. She was scheduled to travel to Greenland in a week for S.O.S. Iceberg, but all the better, she would work that into her letter: It is very silly of me to send you this letter, especially as we are about to go shoot our newest Bergfilm in the Arctic, with forty tents, two tons of equipment, and polar bears borrowed from the Hamburg zoo. See if that wouldn’t intrigue him—soon she would be many miles away, making art in an inhospitable place.

  A day before her trip to Greenland, a phone call: Would Miss Riefenstahl be able to come to Wilhelmshaven for an afternoon tomorrow? The leader of the NSDAP would like to meet with her. If she left Berlin early, she could arrive by four in the afternoon. The Party would reimburse her fare. They would pick her up at the train station and drive her to Horumersiel, where he was at the present moment. Would you promise me, Leni said breathlessly, that this is not a joke?

  That morning the perennial problem that so ails nouveau-bourgeois women: the wardrobe, the bureau so full of clothing, but what to wear? Her life, she thought, with a meticulously measured dash of exaggeration, depended on it. She chose a white rayon-crepe afternoon dress and bobbed her hair.

  At four she was on the platform at Wilhelmshaven.

  A tall man in plain clothes escorted her into a red Mercedes. The conspicuous brand and color took Leni by surprise. In the car she tried to keep up conversation. Why had she been honored with so swift a response? She had not even expected her letter to be read. No, really!

  We were walking along the beach before a rally, the adjutant said, talking about films. Our leader has begun to think of whom he would like to work with for media coverage of the Party’s image. I suggested a few names, but he did not seem impressed. He looked out at the water and asked me if I had seen the lead actress’s dance on the sea in The Holy Mountain. He said that the lead actress was also beginning to direct some very fine movies of her own. Leni Riefenstahl. You should take a look at her work, he told me, we might use her. A woman? I asked—you will excuse me, I hadn’t known there were women directors. And he said: Why not? When I got back to the hotel later, your note arrived, forwarded alongside mail collected from the Brown House. I told him, You mentioned Leni Riefenstahl at teatime.

  He said: Yes?

  She has written you.

  He took the note from me.

  Everything happens for a reason, he said to me as he read your note. Try to reach her.

  The Mercedes slowed to a stop, and the door was held open for her. Leni stepped out and there he stood, against the sea. He was wearing a dark-blue suit with a white shirt and a plain navy necktie. He did not wear a hat. His shoes were polished, and he had a pair of binoculars around his neck. They exchanged formal greetings, and he asked if she might accompany him for a stroll along the shore. The air, he said, was unseasonably warm. She wanted to say something that would impress him; she felt as if she did not know how to conduct herself around him.

  She repeated brightly: Unseasonably!

  Looking out through his binoculars, he began telling her about all the different types of boats at sea. That’s a large cutter, he explained, the one with the sails of different sizes. This, an open gaffer. Here’s a skiff. And that big one there? Probably a herring drifter. He switched conversational topics seemingly at random: one moment it was Wagner (I love Wagner! she managed to squeeze in), then King Ludwig of Bavaria. Finally he came to the motion picture. When they had exhausted broad remarks, he cleared his throat and saw fit to say, almost shyly: I have seen all your movies. Once we come to power, he added, I hope you will make all our Party films. Right then Leni realized she had the upper hand: he was the one who wanted something from her. She knew to prolong the chase. Oh, she said, I know nothing about politics!

  All the better, he answered right away. What I want is an artistic document of our times.

  He was most taken by The Blue Light, he said. Need he mention how much of an impression it made on him that she, whom he had thought of as the actress—the star—was also its writer, editor, and director?

  Leni did not want him to think she was an overcontrolling person who would be difficult to collaborate with, and so tried to deflect this by explaining that the only reason why she would cast and direct herself was because budgets were tight and she was trying to save money by keeping the production small. In truth she despised acting for an inferior director or directing an inferior actress and was certain she would be able to do a better job both ways if left to her own devices, but surely to admit this mode of operation made her sound monomaniacal.

  He frowned.

  I’m surprised to hear that, he said. Perhaps I am mistaken?

  I’m sorry? she said, frazzled.

  Her conception of Junta was pure, he pronounced. He’d assumed that that purity was manifestly apparent because she had knowingly taken control of every element of her movie to ensure it would not be contaminated in any way. It was precisely what he sought for Germany, too. It is easy to find followers, he added. It is not so easy to find contemporaries.

  Yes, she changed tacks at once, you are right. But I am just starting to strike out on my own, and I am a woman. It would not do for me to speak so boldly, not when Fanck and Pabst and Lang—

  He held his hand up.

  Do not compare yourself with others, he said. His voice was taking on the edge it had in the stadium. You insult yourself, he went on, and you insult me: I am familiar with their work. But I have asked expressly to meet with you because I saw in The Blue Light that you know what it is to burn.

  To burn?

  If you want to shine like the sun, he said, first you have to burn like it.

  She could barely breathe.

  If she started off with bread-and-butter work for the Party, she thought, and he liked what he saw, he might even go on to finance her fiction films one day. Fanck had been supportive, but they’d drifted apart ever since Leni struck out on her own. Her solo efforts were receiving considerable attention, and some people had mistakenly assumed that Fanck had directed them. That irked her, and she wanted to distance herself from him. Far better to rely on an entity, a Party with whom you could have a professional relationship, than to bank on the goodwill of an aging mentor, the whims of one well-to-do scion, the commercial prospects of a production house’s box-office receipts. And there was something special about H. True, he was far more shy in person than Leni had expected, he was not much of a looker (for starters, she thought he would look better without that moustache), and she had imagined him to be taller, but the longer you spent in his presence, the less you wanted to leave. Was it the quiet confidence? The NSDAP had not even won their seats yet, and here he was talking about what sorts of films he wanted to commission after the elections. Or maybe it was the poetic seriousness with which he spoke? In her films, he was saying, she sought a unity and stability lacking in their current environs. A mythic vision from the past, abou
t the future. He shared the very same. They had to find the language for that.

  Behind him a blood-orange sunset slipped off the horizon.

  Stay for dinner, he said.

  She should like nothing better than that, she said, but alas she had to catch the first train back, in order to board the Arctic-bound crew ship from Hamburg the next day.

  Stay the night, he said, and we will arrange a private plane for you in the morning.

  A private plane? she said. You must be pulling my leg?

  I tend to follow through on what I say, he said. You will join us?

  * * *

  —

  AT DINNER, LENI noticed immediately, even before she was seated, that she was the only woman at the table. She sat poised in her chair, back straight, letting the shape of her breasts show against the white rayon, forearms touching the edge of the table as lightly as possible. Before the entrée, he told the assembly that they were blessed to be dining with her: Miss Riefenstahl is about to shoot a new movie. She smiled as modestly as she could and told the table it was her pleasure to be here with them. They wanted to know what the movie was about. I play a female pilot searching for her missing husband, she said. He’s a scientist lost on the ice. We set off for the Arctic tomorrow.

  Everyone was suitably impressed, and in the moment Leni could not help but feel like a gracious wife helping to enliven a dull dinner party, as she took it upon herself to keep the conversation flowing. She made amiable eye contact with all the men present, but her eyes kept returning to H. He nodded and smiled at her from across the dinner table. She observed that he ate only the vegetable side dishes, skipping the main ones, and drank only mineral water, not even apple juice or a digestif. After the meal, he did not take coffee but tea, and Leni counted the seven teaspoons he heaped from the sugar bowl into his teacup.

  We should have Miss Riefenstahl over for dinner all the time, one of his associates said.

  Yes, H said, as she met his eye. She will soon be making our films.

  Leni wanted to say that she had not yet agreed, but it would have been rude to contradict him in front of his associates. They were drinking now, to a momentous election and a marvelous collaboration!

  Lying in bed in a large guest room, covers pulled up to her nose, it took Leni a long time to fall asleep that night as she replayed the day’s events, H’s voice in her ear: A herring drifter—Had she played it too innocent? What did he like?—a skiff.

  She was excited to see him again the next morning, but at breakfast he did not meet Leni’s eye or make conversation with anyone else at the table. Everyone followed his cue, eating quickly and quietly. The mood was completely different from the night before. Even though this made her jumpy, she found it striking that he had such a pervasive effect on those around him. As she was leaving, Leni was disappointed that he had not come to say good-bye. Just before she stepped into the red Mercedes that would take her to the plane he’d chartered for her to Hamburg, he appeared.

  Wordlessly he took her hand and led her into the car.

  Enjoy Greenland, he said with a tiny twinkle in his eye. Be careful of the polar bears.

  Leni wished she had keener wits, for she knew even as she responded that it spoiled the wonderful lightness of his remark: Be careful of assassination attempts.

  His face darkened, but he laughed as he saw her off. What a strange woman you are, he said. You are prone to saying the wrong thing, but at the right time, and that is refreshing. I have no doubt we shall be seeing each other again.

  VII

  The day’s reshoot went well enough, other than that Miss Riefenstahl asked for an eye light when she was riding into the village. The gaffer went to prepare it. Hans Haas assisted him, though it made no sense for Miss Riefenstahl to have an eye light, not when the sun was behind her, and the shot was so wide.

  They were given the rest of the day off as the cinematographer shot some cutaways, since the extras were back in costume and the sun was still out. Hans Haas watered the dappled gray, then led it back to the makeshift stables for a brush down. Franz, still kitted out in his breeches, wearing foundation and blush, was telling him that the horse had belonged to Queen Wilhelmina of Holland. When we took the Netherlands, Franz explained, the horse fell into the custody of the NSDAP, so it was loaned out to the production. Hans Haas was studying Franz’s face. Are you wearing blush? Hans Haas asked as the dappled gray twitched under the dandy brush. Franz put a hand to his cheek as he asked: Is it really so obvious?

  Bursting into the makeshift stable with the animal handler, the line producer said: Sort this out.

  Is something wrong? Franz asked.

  One of you had better find it, the line producer said. I am not going to lose my job because of some low-level dimwits!

  Have you told her? the animal handler asked tearfully.

  Of course I did, the line producer said, I can’t keep something like that from her!

  Haas, the animal handler said unsteadily, you brought the wolf back to his cage this morning, didn’t you?

  Yes, Hans Haas said, I did.

  And later, the animal handler said, Did you forget to lock up?

  The wolf is gone, the line producer said. When Riefenstahl heard, she had to be sedated.

  Sedated? Hans Haas said.

  We had to carry her back to her cabin, the line producer said.

  Didn’t you go to warm the wolf down after I locked him up? Hans Haas said to the animal handler. I met you on your way up.

  I was supposed to, yes, the animal handler said, but at the last moment I went to the field instead to set up the sheep—

  I don’t give a hoot whose fault it is, the line producer said. Yours or yours, it’s the same difference. Find the wolf, or I can’t guarantee you’ll be allowed to remain on set.

  * * *

  —

  THE MIST WAS low and thick as it snaked through the lowlands of the valley. Hans Haas turned east, the animal trainer west. They had not discussed just how they would apprehend the wolf if they encountered it, but each man brought with him some items from the shed: guns, rope, sturdy nets. The film crew had depleted the tranquilizer gun when shooting the first wolf scene. New darts had not yet arrived. Good luck, Hans Haas wanted to say as they parted, but the animal handler had already left. If they were fired, they would be reconscripted as able-bodied men and sent to one of the fronts.

  After a few hours, Hans Haas could not be sure if he was coming around the ravine a second time. He began whistling in time with his step. When he realized it was jazz, he stopped himself. He backtracked and went down the stony path that led toward the cliff face. The drop of the cliff was sudden. Looking out at the landscape, he was surprised to see the wolf at a distance. It lay in the shade of an acacia tree on a lower point of the knoll. Hans Haas got off the path of the cliff face, net in one hand, gun in the other, treading lightly, careful not to step on even a dry leaf. When he was about fifty yards apace, the wolf woke. It looked directly at Hans Haas. He lifted his gun. Looking through the sights, he saw that the wolf had yellow irises.

  The wolf looked at Hans Haas in a neutral way for a long time.

  Neither of them moved. Then the wolf turned away, yawning with a shake of its head. It stretched its hind legs fully, first the left, then the right, finishing up with an involuntary tremble before it moved away. Lowering his gun, Hans Haas watched as the wolf trotted away at a comfortable pace without looking back.

  By the time Hans Haas got back to camp, the crew was finishing up their dinner, and he saw that Miss Riefenstahl stopped eating at once. She came over to him: Well?

  Hans Haas shook his head.

  The animal trainer, who had returned earlier, empty-handed, offered to resume the search at first light, but Miss Riefenstahl said that wouldn’t be necessary, she’d rented a hunting dog from one of the Italian f
armers in the Sarntal Valley. The farmer thought the dog might be able to track the wolf if it sniffed out the wolf’s pen. If there were no results—

  Miss Riefenstahl, the animal trainer said, standing up. I believe I would be more useful to you here. My expertise is more specific compared with the Afrika Korps boy, I am trained to wrangle animals, and there are many in your script. Hans Haas saw the dirty look Miss Riefenstahl gave the animal trainer as she walked away from the food tent. The rest of the crew resumed their dinner.

  I’m sorry, the animal trainer said to Hans Haas, I didn’t mean—

  Of course you did, Franz cut in, as he offered Hans Haas the dinner plate he’d saved up with his portion of food. We all heard you loud and clear.

  * * *

  —

  THE SMELL OF hot, freshly ground coffee the next morning made Hans Haas feel lucky to be alive. He downed it and filled a second mug. Who knew how much longer he had up here? He was surprised that he did not regret letting the wolf go. If he was going to be sent back to the front, so be it. For now there were still duties to be performed and the tiniest of pleasures to be taken. On set, the mountain water the coffee was brewed in was crystal clear, and he could taste the roast of the bean. In Sirte, they had overestimated their water requirement, and so were oversupplied at the start. The hapless Italians had not provided them with any useful ground information. With allies like these, Schmitz liked to say, who needs enemies? They faced a water shortage in the later part of their campaign, but in the beginning, with the surplus, they had a platoon commander who ordered coffee brewed at almost every layoff, even short halts. By the time it got around to the privates, it was little more than sandy dregs, but they made what they could of it with tinned milk and sugar. Hans Haas handed the mug back to the cook’s daughter and went down to the valley, where he would match the equipment to the cinematographer’s shot list.