by Chris Petit
‘He must have been working on a casting call,’ she said. Schlegel looked at the folded pages – dark-haired actors of middle age and somehow familiar. Their resemblance was obvious in a general way but seemed not to have been spotted by Frau Busl, or perhaps she was too afraid to point it out. Her brother had died immediately after the bomb plot. Again, coincidence?
Frau Busl said, ‘My brother’s telephone pad was blank but what he wrote on the top page was traced on the one below.’
She had shaded it with a soft pencil, like a brass rubbing. Schlegel read: ‘Thursday, 20, 8am Babelsberg. Room 175’.
‘Babelsberg film studios,’ said Frau Busl, the shake of her head becoming more pronounced. ‘Room 175 is one of the meeting rooms used for casting.’
18
Film studios are factories like anywhere. Several productions were being shot during Schlegel’s visit to Babelsberg the following morning, a Saturday. His badge got him past a guard on the main gate who noted his name. Inside, men and women in wigs and period costume strolled and smoked as they paraded down neatly verged lanes.
An air of privileged boredom hung over the waiting sound stages, with their huge arc lamps and much banging of last-minute carpentry as sets were readied. Schlegel felt a little starstruck at the thought of seeing someone famous.
Through the windows of a building marked ‘Canteen’ he saw more people sitting around in costume and wigs, and spilling outside onto the lawn to sun themselves.
The boring parts were further back, in single-storey, pebbledash barracks – accountancy, administration, editing suites and all the rest.
The place struck Schlegel as a benign version of the slaughterhouse at Zentral-Viehoff and the concentration camp in the Occupied Eastern Zone, which shared some of the same architectural detailing and presentation of an ordered existence. A factory was a factory after all, whether killing animals and people on an industrial scale or manufacturing dreams: same process, different outcomes.
He was seduced by the unreality of the place. People were friendly when he asked what films were being made. Working there must be one of the nicest jobs of the war and the canteen was good when he tried it. He walked down a street of facades, supported at the back by a complicated network of scaffolding. The contrast between this perfect illusion and the bombed streets in the city made him rather question the point of everything.
He finally addressed himself to a building slightly grander than the rest, which housed a central reception, with a directions board pointing out where everything was. Screening theatres. Writers’ offices. Production rooms. Guest suites and dressing rooms. Casting. Room 175 was on the first floor.
Its door was open and people were sitting waiting for a meeting. Schlegel glanced in. The room looked identical to the empty ones along the corridor: table and upright chairs, a couple of armchairs for comfort with chintz fabric.
Downstairs reception held the appointments book for the meeting rooms. It was casually handed over without question, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The woman who gave it to him even said, ‘There you go,’ with a cheerful smile.
The three desk women were all young and beautiful, bright and chatty. Schlegel wondered if they were out-of-work actresses, hired to present the right image, making it all as much of an illusion as the fake street outside.
When Schlegel pointed out the page for 20 July was missing, the young woman – she really was startlingly beautiful – said, ‘Yes, ink got poured over it by mistake. The page was totally ruined.’ She gave him a dazzling smile.
It must have been a remarkably neat spill with none of the other pages showing any sign of splatter. He asked if anyone remembered the agent Busl being in on the morning of the twentieth. ‘Early appointment. First thing.’
The three women did perfect impressions of not remembering and Schlegel wondered if they were as emptyheaded as they looked.
He returned to the canteen and fell into conversation with an old electrician who was already drunk. He had been on a night shoot, he said, and raised his glass. The man’s advanced network of broken veins told of a long career of studio drinking. For the price of several beers he entertained Schlegel with stories from the old days. The silents then the first sound pictures. He remembered Busl. They had worked together for the director Lang on Spione.
‘I knew Busl quite well, actually,’ he said, slurring his words.
‘He was here last Thursday,’ Schlegel said.
‘Was he?’ asked the sparks. ‘Maybe.’
The old boy clearly knew nothing of Busl’s death, which went unmentioned.
‘Lang was a cunt,’ the electrician volunteered in the middle of a roundabout conversation involving Schlegel trying to explain about the missing page in the appointments book, and whether he could find out what Busl had been doing and who he had been seeing.
The old sparks duly performed his sole useful task of the session by reminding Schlegel of what he already knew: the studio front gate kept its own record of all admissions and departures.
Schlegel bought the man a last beer and left him to it. He was drunk and at the gate he tried not to breathe over the guard, whom he suspected was as drunk as he was.
The record of visitors’ ins and outs was kept in what looked like a child’s exercise book. The pages were filled in by a variety of hands, most barely legible. At the end of each day, a line was drawn across the page. Schlegel flipped back to the twentieth.
First in for the day at 7.45: Dr Goebbels; second in at 8.00, the agent Busl; 9.10 Dr Goebbels out, followed immediately by Busl.
Process of elimination, Schlegel thought; who didn’t want anyone to know? With Busl dead, it could only be Dr Goebbels.
Back in the main building he asked if there was any kind of section for casting and was directed up to the second floor where an older woman of the same sort of indeterminate age as Frau Busl, with hair of equally suspect colour, presided over the studio’s photographic and reference library.
Like the drunk electrician, here was another who was a walking history. She too remembered Busl and concurred with the electrician that Lang was ‘not a nice man’. All of this was done with an easy familiarity, with the woman calling him ‘dear’ from the start. Schlegel knew she knew he was drunk. Like everyone else, she showed no curiosity about why he might be there, as if to say everything comes and goes. She did, however, display a glimmer of interest when Schlegel produced the names of the actors singled out in Busl’s casting directory. They went through her copy of the directory together.
‘Can you tell me anything about them?’ he asked.
‘Jobbers, dear. Nothing special.’
She appeared amused.
‘A certain resemblance between them, wouldn’t you say?’ ventured Schlegel.
‘If you are looking for a type,’ she agreed.
Her books were often used in actual casting sessions, she said, seemingly apropos of nothing. The covers had a stamp of ownership and said ‘Please return’.
‘Look how this one came back,’ the woman said.
‘Honestly! No respect for others’ property.’
She found the page showing an actor like the others in age and looks. But over his picture someone using green ink had doodled a forelock and toothbrush moustache. Next to the altered face were several exclamation marks, also in green.
Schlegel said, ‘Dr Goebbels uses green ink.’
The woman snorted. ‘He should know better. Not a classy colour.’ She studied the photograph and said with a mixture of amusement and irritation, ‘You have to admit, there is a resemblance.’
‘But what was it for?’ asked Schlegel.
She said the gossip was Busl and Goebbels were secretly auditioning actors to play the Führer in a forthcoming feature film. ‘Not that anyone has heard a squeak about it since that bomb went off.’
‘I hear Busl has since passed on.’
‘No surprise there, dear. He’d been on his last legs for
years. I hear he took his own life but they’re trying to say it was illness.’
‘Why?’
‘So his wife can squeeze some money out of his insurance policy.’
‘Wife?’
The woman laughed. ‘Not so you’d notice.’
After several misunderstandings Schlegel gathered that the Frau Busl he’d met claiming to be the man’s sister was in fact his wife.
The woman gave a bark of laughter at this turn of events. ‘Fed up with all that chasing after boys, I don’t suppose. Well, mind how you go, dear.’
Schlegel left Babelsberg thinking: what on earth was Dr Goebbels doing casting Hitler actors on the morning of the bomb plot?
*
The dealer Rösti lived in a tall, narrow house near a canal and a long way from transport. It took Schlegel ages to find. Even before he stepped inside, the place smelt of cat. The Mein Kampf was in his brief case.
Rösti was an unshaven greasy man, elderly and almost as tall as Schlegel. His collarless shirt appeared never to have been washed. Despite the heat of the day he had on a long woollen overgarment that struggled to make up its mind whether it was a coat or a dressing gown. A habit of licking his lips before he spoke gave a suggestive moistness to any utterance. Most extraordinary was the wig, which could have been one of the cats sitting on his head.
While Rösti’s appearance was questionable and his surroundings a tip, the voice and manners were impeccable. He ushered Schlegel to an upstairs living area with two facing armchairs, surrounded by junk that reached almost to the ceiling. Tea was offered and ser ved in dainty cups and saucers. Perhaps sensing Schlegel’s inebriation, Rösti pressed an Obstler on him. Schlegel sat down gingerly. His armchair was covered with a fine blanket of shed cat fur. At least the window shutters were more closed than open, making it harder to discern the full foulness of the room. He saw mouse droppings and smelt cat shit.
Rösti said, ‘I spoke with your friend, Christoph. I am sorry he is unable to come in person. I fear he considers me rather beneath him, but there you are. Still, you are here recommended.’
A suggestive look implied that Schlegel was some sort of boyfriend.
‘I’ve just come back from Budapest, as a matter of fact,’ Schlegel observed inconsequentially, with what he hoped was cheery insouciance.
‘A fabulous city, I have heard.’ More Obstler was poured.
‘Let’s get companionably drunk now you are here.’
Schlegel couldn’t decide whether the man was harmless as they continued to make small talk. Rösti had disconcerting a habit of throwing Jewish words and phrases into his speech.
‘You’re worried I am Jewish,’ he said at one point.
The remark was clearly offered as a test.
Schlegel ignored him and asked if the name Anton Schlegel meant anything. Even if it did, he suspected Rösti wouldn’t say because it went against his instinct as a hoarder of information.
‘Is he a relative?’
‘A distant one,’ said Schlegel not wanting to commit himself. ‘Something of a black sheep, I believe.’
Rösti winked at Schlegel. The tower of books behind him looked like it was about to topple and bury them both.
‘Christoph is interested in the gun,’ Schlegel said.
Rösti nodded. ‘The one used to shoot Röhm. They shot him up the arse. Do you suppose your friend Christoph would still be interested?’
Schlegel stared at the glass in his hand and felt mildly entranced as Rösti turned the cuff on his sleeve and went on. ‘Röhm was a homo, which was why he went, along with the rest of the old Party rebels and queers – 1934, the Night of the Long Knives; not strictly accurate as no knives were used as far as I know.’
He laughed loudly as he stood and searched through his junk.
After taking a long time to find what he was looking for, Rösti crouched next to Schegel’s chair and lovingly turned the album’s cellophane pages, which displayed photographs of items for sale, until there was one of the pistol used for Röhm’s execution.
‘Why is Christoph interested in this item?’ Rösti asked.
‘Because Dr Goebbels wants it.’
‘Of course the doctor would. He was a witness to Röhm’s arrest.’
‘Christoph is also interested in Fredi Huber.’
Rösti chuckled knowingly. ‘What kind of game is our friend playing?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Huber meant nothing last week – a forgotten man – and means nothing now unless our friend is aware of a particular item being talked about as perhaps available for sale, in which case Christoph might suddenly be very interested.’
‘What sort of item?’
‘Ah-ha! I nearly gave it away. Let’s say some sort of record.’
‘A phonograph?’ Schlegel asked, trying to sound stupid.
‘Ah-ha again! Let’s just say a written record.’
‘Do you have anything by Huber?’
‘Whether I show you or not depends.’
‘On what?’
‘How can I vouch for you, other than on your friend’s say so? These are difficult times. Showing you seditious material, written against the Führer, is not something to be contemplated unless both parties are straight with each other. I think there needs to be a price.’
Schegel supposed that was how it worked. He was getting sucked in.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I have something that may be of interest to you.’
He produced Anton Schlegel’s copy of Mein Kampf and watched Rösti’s eyes grow round.
‘Can I touch it?’ Rösti asked.
Schlegel made to hand the volumes over.
‘Wait,’ said Rösti, who made a show of putting on white cotton gloves before inspecting both books with reverence. He produced a magnifying glass from a pocket and peered at the dedication. ‘It’s genuine. You can’t be too careful these days. Anton Schlegel must have been a very special person to have earned one of these. Are you thinking of selling?
‘It depends. I am not sure. How much is it worth?’
‘Do you have a figure in mind?’
Schlegel named an outrageous sum, as Christoph had told him to.
Rösti gave him a sharp look. ‘Rather out of my league, but I am nonetheless tempted. It is unique. I have never heard of another copy of this edition being offered for sale. What does your friend Christoph say?’
‘Books aren’t really his thing.’
Rösti gave him another look as if to say that the price just offered by Schlegel was more likely to be Christoph’s estimate. ‘But it is a collector’s holy grail. And still in its slipcase.’
‘The whole thing looks like it has barely been touched.’ Schlegel stopped short of saying ‘unread’.
Rösti gurgled with unrestrained delight. ‘Perhaps you would let me ask around on your behalf. My commission is twenty percent.’
‘Maybe in the meantime you can show me some samples of Huber,’ Schlegel suggested.
Rösti pondered and said, ‘Follow me.’
He led the way into a back room where everything was even more topsy-turvy, with more leaning book towers, held up by stacked paintings and bric-à-brac. There was barely a path to the table under the window, which contained bound editions of old newspapers. ‘Not filed in any particular order,’ said Rösti.
For lack of space, Schlegel had to stand much closer to the man than he wanted. Rösti continued flicking through the pages, paused and asked meaningfully, ‘What do you know of the Führer’s niece?’
Schlegel said he didn’t recall any family.
‘I expect you are too young to remember. It was in 1931. On the morning of Saturday, 19 September, the man’s niece, Geli Raubal, was found dead after shooting herself, according to reports, on the floor of her room in the apartment she shared with her uncle. She even used his pistol, a Walther 6.35 – and what a choice item, if that were ever to come to sale. He was away on the road at the time.’
‘Why did she do it?’
‘In the end, the mystery remains. Perhaps she was a hysterical girl who could not reciprocate the love of a man almost twice her age.’
It sounded like bad opera, Schlegel thought. Hitler in love! The man’s image insisted he was above all that. He asked what it had to do with Huber.
‘Huber cried foul play. A big scandal, however you looked at it, but Huber really went for it, claiming the Führer was in the apartment at the time and not away as was being said. Huber reported that the girl’s nose was broken and the body had extensive bruising.’
Schlegel knew the Party had a habit of getting rid of those it didn’t like, but the man’s niece? Or was Huber saying Hitler had done it himself? Warmonger or not, a domestic murder sounded altogether too far-fetched, and in the current climate of control both unimaginable and irretrievable.
Schlegel thought of the torn photograph of the Führer and his young female companion and asked Rösti, ‘Do you have a picture of her?’
Rösti eventually unearthed a pile of society magazines, some of which had articles on her ‘fairy-tale rise’, reporting how she had been plucked from obscurity as a sixteen-year-old by the Führer taking her ‘under his wing’. More or less the same material was repeated each time, like it had been written up from a press release. At the time of her death the girl was about to embark on a distinguished musical career thanks to voice training undertaken at the Führer’s expense so she could reward him by performing on the public stage.
Several magazines featured photographs of the girl, formal portraits all attributed to Heinrich Hoffman. There was no question. It was the same girl as in his photo. A bit bovine but bright and cheerful looking.
Rösti pondered. ‘Look at this,’ he said.
He turned back to the newspaper collection.
‘Ah, yes. Here we are. The Führer, who was reported to be devastated by the death of the girl, was forced to issue a public denial, refuting the claims, in the very newspaper in which Huber was accusing him. Here’s what it says: Not true that he was forever fighting with his niece Raubal or that they had a big fight on the Friday or anytime before. Not true that he was against her going to Vienna or her planned trip there. Not true that she was going to get engaged in Vienna or that he was against any engagement. However, it is true that she was tormented with worry over a forthcoming public appearance and wanted to go to Vienna to have her voice checked by a voice teacher. Not true that he left his apartment on 18 September after a fierce row, and he concludes by stating, “There was no row, no excitement, when I left my apartment on that day.” ’