The Silver Blonde

by Elizabeth Ross

  Chapter Nine

  Home

  BY THE TIME CLARA crept into her parents’ house, it was after midnight. She hung up her jacket and silently slipped off her shoes. Her stealth was unnecessary. As she tiptoed past the sitting room, a light snapped on and her mother leapt off the couch like a coiled spring. “Where have you been?” Her distraught face loomed toward Clara in the dim light.

  “I should have called,” Clara said. “I didn’t mean for you to wait up.” Without warning her mother embraced her right there in the hall, with a force that took Clara by surprise. “Klara,” she whispered. When she finally let go, her eyes were moist with tears. Clara knew instantly: they had found out about the murder. She had been so caught up with Barbara Bannon and the party with the crew that she had totally forgotten about her parents.

  “Mutti, I’m all right.” She tried a reassuring smile. Clara hated seeing her mother cry. It was like watching a treasured vase or ornament slip from your grasp and smash to pieces.

  “Come and talk to us.” Her mother led her to the living room, where her father was dozing in his armchair, a book open on his lap. The floorboards creaked, and he stirred.

  “Klara,” he said in a croaky voice, coming to. “There you are. We’ve been worried about you.” He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He gestured to the newspaper on the coffee table. “We read about what happened at the studio.”

  “It’s horrendous,” said her mother.

  Clara reluctantly took a seat next to her on the couch. She recognized her mother’s familiar “wartime” expression. It brought back memories of all the evenings they’d spent huddled around the radio, listening to endless BBC World Service reports of bad news: the fall of Holland and France; troops stranded at Dunkirk; the shock of Pearl Harbor.

  “A young woman was really murdered?” her mother asked.

  Clara nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have told you myself….” She trailed off.

  “Max gave us the details.” Her father looked grave. “He says you found her?”

  “That’s right,” Clara whispered.

  “Why didn’t you say something last night?” her mother added in a rush, her face a mixture of exasperation and concern.

  “Your celebration,” said Clara. “I couldn’t ruin it.”

  Her mother’s hands were tightly clasped. “Of course you should have come to us—celebration or not. And what about this morning? When we were sitting at breakfast?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “But no—you dashed out of the house and went back there,” she hissed, “to that studio.” She shook her head. “I blame Max, getting you the job in the first place.”

  “Inge,” her father pleaded. “That’s not helpful right now.” He turned to Clara. “Tell us what happened. She was an actress—is that right?”

  Her mother gave a theatrical shudder. The more excitable she got, the calmer Clara tried to appear. “She wasn’t an actress; she was the stand-in.”

  “Stand-in?” Her mother looked to Clara’s father. “Was ist ein ‘stand-in’?”

  In spite of feeling guilty for not telling her parents about the murder, she felt irritated by her mother, who could be willfully obtuse when it came to the English language. It brought back scenes of deep embarrassment: with shop assistants and bank clerks, even passersby on the street—someone innocently asking directions—and her mother’s ensuing panic. Clara always had to translate. She was the buffer between her mother and the American public, blushing, apologizing for her mother’s halting English and cringing at her German consonants.

  “Similar to an understudy in the theater?” her father said.

  “No,” said Clara, losing her patience. “She can’t replace the movie star. She never appears on film. She stands in for the actress when they’re setting up—lighting, blocking. You know, so the actress doesn’t have to wait around for ages on set. Never mind—it’s not important.”

  “Where were you tonight?” asked her father gently.

  “We were worried sick when you didn’t come home,” said her mother. “We called Max. He said you must be with your boyfriend.”

  Clara cringed.

  “ ‘Klara has no boyfriend,’ I assured him. Joke’s on me, apparently.” She pressed her lips together in indignation.

  “Inge.” Her father tried to signal his wife that she was getting off topic, that she wasn’t helping.

  But her mother couldn’t resist. “Max says he’s older than you and drives a convertible.”

  “We’re just friends,” Clara snapped, then instantly wished she hadn’t. Her parents and Max were worried about her, that’s all. “I was out with the crew,” she said in a softer tone. “They wanted to take a moment to remember Connie.”

  “Is that the poor young woman?” her father asked. Clara nodded. “We’re glad you’re home safe.”

  His kindness made Clara feel worse. She plucked at a thread on the couch cushion. “I’m sorry. You should have heard about the murder from me—not from Max or the newspaper. I suppose I thought you’d had enough bad news.”

  “Have they arrested anyone? Do they have any idea who would do such a thing?” he asked.

  Clara shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “To think it could have been you, Klara.” Her mother shook her head, her lips trembling. “What if it was minutes later and you crossed paths with this murderer?”

  “She’s home now.” Her father tried to soothe her mother’s agitation. “Klara, I’m sure your employer will understand, given the circumstances, if you hand in your notice now. You’ll be leaving in a month anyway. What’s a few weeks earlier? Surely they can’t expect you to return to work after what happened. Obviously it’s not a safe place.”

  Clara stiffened. Her parents had firm expectations that she would finally enroll at university—a proper European institution. Probably the same one her father was going to be teaching at. For them, life in America had been a hiatus, and now it was time to go home. Home was Germany. How could Clara tell them she was already home, that she felt more American than German? How could they understand her absolute dread of being, once again, considered an outsider, her fear that Germans would surely detect something “off” in her accent, and in her limited eleven-year-old’s vocabulary? Clara had come to recognize her mother’s sharp look of betrayal when Clara spoke in English—perfect American English. It conjured her Italian teacher, tapping on the blackboard and saying, “Traduttore, tradittore. ‘Translator, traitor.’ ”

  There was no “good time” to come clean. She had to stop keeping secrets. Clara sat forward on the couch; her mouth felt dry. “About the studio, that’s the thing, Papa.” She swallowed and forced herself to keep going. “You weren’t the only one who was offered a new job. I’ve been promoted to apprentice editor. It’s a union position and the pay is better. If I work hard, I can become an assistant editor and it’s possible—one day—a film editor.”

  Her mother regarded her with a baffled expression, as though she were speaking a foreign language. “Klara, what are you saying?”

  “I want to become a film editor.” Clara’s gaze darted between her parents—they both looked bewildered.

  “What?” said her mother, peering at her.

  “I don’t want to go back to Europe,” she blurted out. “I want to stay here in Los Angeles.” The admission was a jolt of electricity that had finally completed a circuit—the words felt charged and dangerous.

  “How can you—you don’t mean that, Klara, surely?” said her father, puzzled.

  “Stay here by yourself? Nonsense!” said her mother. “You’re too young. You belong with your family, not alone in Los Angeles. And as for that studio—a woman was murdered. No one should be working there until they find the culprit.”

  Clara’s shoulders sank. Their reaction was j
ust as she had expected—they still thought of her as a child. And the murder only made it worse. They all sat for a while saying nothing, just the chill of Clara’s admission between them. She surveyed the room, all the books, their spines as familiar as wallpaper, the clock on the mantel, the piano. Soon the set dressing of their time in Los Angeles would be dismantled, a film set struck. A part of their lives over and done with. She should have felt relief at having finally told her parents the truth, but she felt unsure. What if the job didn’t pan out? Bannon was alive, but production hadn’t yet resumed. What if Clara messed up at work and Sam fired her? What if she couldn’t afford to live on her own? What if she was lonely? After the murder, LA felt more dangerous. These doubts began to churn, but it was too late to take it back. The thing had been said.

  Her mother got up. “I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.” She plumped the sofa cushions vigorously, fighting tears. Clara felt responsible, and she couldn’t think of a reassuring thing to say. Everything had changed.

  Her father got to his feet and put his book on the coffee table. “Yes, it’s late.” He patted Clara’s hand. “We can talk more tomorrow,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

  * * *

  —

  That night Clara dreamed she was back in the vaults, returning the Argentan reels. In the dream she knew what to expect—she was braced for the discovery—but when she checked the floor, there was no sign of blond hair poking out from under the door. Heart racing, she opened vault five, and to her astonishment there was no body—just neat racks of film canisters. A huge wave of relief washed over her; she almost laughed with the lightness of that feeling in her dream. But as she turned, a shadow lunged for her. Before she could react, there was a cord snug around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter. She woke up in a sweat, fighting her tangle of sheets.

  After her heart had stopped hammering and her familiar bedroom had replaced the feeling of being in the vaults, Clara lay awake thinking about Connie. What happened to her? Who had she been meeting that night, looking like a movie star?

  Clara couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay awake thinking of all the secrets she had been hoarding: her promotion, her editing ambitions, her plan to stay on in Los Angeles. And then there was Gil and his past with Barbara Bannon. Out of nowhere a memory surfaced. Over lunch in the commissary, Gil had been complaining about Roger Brackett’s long-winded phone calls catching up with theater friends, and trading gossip. Gil had been bemoaning the thinness of the office walls—he had had to plug his ears with cotton to drown Roger out. That meant he must have heard the phone ring the night of the murder. Had he been avoiding her call? Had he been blowing her off? Maybe Gil had lied to the cops and he wasn’t in his office that night. Or Mr. Brackett’s. But then, where was he?

  She heard Detective Ireland’s voice addressing the crew: Most murders are committed by someone the victim knows—often, in the case of a female victim, by someone she was romantically involved with.

  No, that was absurd. She wrestled with the stew of uneasy thoughts until she finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  —

  “Sort through those magazines, Klara,” her mother called out from the next room. “I expect you’ll need to get rid of most of them.” It was Sunday, and their small house was turned upside down. Her mother was a whirling dervish of spring cleaning and organization: cupboards and drawers were emptied and cleaned. Items were sorted into three piles—one to keep, one to sell, and a third for donation. A further collection—to give to friends—accumulated on the sideboard. It was the first step in the dismantling of their American lives. In response to Clara’s confession that she wanted to stay in Los Angeles, her mother simply pretended it hadn’t happened. She’d cheerfully gone about her work on Saturday and into Sunday as if nothing had changed. Clara understood her tactic; she had been wounded, and her knee-jerk response was denial. Her parents probably assumed that her desire to stay on and work at the studio wasn’t serious, that she would inevitably cave. It was an uneasy truce.

  Clara lay sprawled on her bed, poring over the classifieds, circling apartments for rent. Her approach was to not rock the boat. She agreed to go through her bedroom closet (which, if she moved to an apartment in Hollywood, she reasoned, she’d have to sort through anyway). Clara could hear her mother in the hallway talking to her father. “You’re just as bad, Heinrich. You can’t keep every newspaper since coming to America.”

  It was true, her father had piles of newspapers from their first weeks in America, and after that he had continued to archive the momentous war headlines: german army invades poland; allied landings begun in france; full victory in europe. His tiny study was still home to yellowed piles of newsprint and drafts of his academic papers strewn about the floor. His typewriter and its familiar tapping, a soundtrack to her childhood. A sharp pang when she remembered all of that familiarity would be gone with her parents. If only she could keep some things under glass like a snow globe.

  Clara rubbed her eyes. They smarted from staring at the small print in the paper. She noticed the box of keepsakes poking out from under her bed. She picked it up and emptied the contents onto the bed. From among the papers, ticket stubs, and receipts, she retrieved the fragile daisy chain and placed it carefully on her head. She got up, went to the mirror, and stared at herself, imagining her childhood friend Freya behind her, a blond twin, the same plaits and rosy cheeks. Deutsche Mädels. It was Matthias’s voice in her head—“German maidens.”

  The end of summer, 1938. Matthias was Freya’s elder brother. How could a fourteen-year-old boy have seemed worldly to her? But Klara had been only eleven at the time. He had returned from a camping trip full of stories of adventure. They had pitched the tent on the lawn. She could still conjure the smell of canvas and grass clippings; the taste of Frau Thome’s Baumkuchen. They had sung camp songs in the dying light. A wave of longing swept over her.

  “Klara, come now. You’re playing dress-up?” Clara’s mother entered the room without knocking. She marched across the rug, still buzzing with energy from all the activity in the house. “Did you sort your clothes?”

  “Yes,” said Clara, removing the flower crown, shedding dried petals onto the floor.

  Her mother prodded the pile on the bed. “These for donation?” She flipped through them, a quick inventory. She retrieved a raspberry-colored skirt from the pile. “Oh, I remember this color on you.”

  Clara laid the daisy chain on the bed and once more caught sight of the mysterious handkerchief.

  “It really doesn’t fit anymore?” Her mother held up the skirt next to Clara. “That’s a pity.”

  “Mutti, have you seen this before?” Clara unfolded the handkerchief. “Do you recognize it?”

  Her mother took it and examined the embroidered initials. LR. Her forehead wrinkled. “Who is LR?” she asked.

  “That’s it—I don’t know. Did someone give it to me before we left Berlin? A friend or neighbor?”

  “No idea.” Her mother shrugged and returned it. “But it looks expensive; that lace is hand-stitched.”

  Her mother’s gaze landed on the newspaper classifieds. There was an awkward silence. Clara could see her mother steel herself. Then she abruptly scooped up the pile of clothes for donation, and bustled away.

  Chapter Ten

  The Silver Blonde

  WHEN CLARA WALKED INTO the accounting department on Monday morning, the chatter stopped. Doris, who usually didn’t look up from her typewriter, sprang to her feet. “Clara.”

  “Hi,” said Clara cautiously. She was about to put her paperwork in the correct cubby when Doris rushed over, hand outstretched, coral nails flashing. “I’ll take that,” she said with an eager smile.

  Normally Clara would have deposited whatever paperwork she had—time cards, purchase orders, petty cash envelopes—then leave without saying a word. A little bemused,
she handed her papers to Doris across the wooden counter. “It’s the start papers for my new position.”

  “Congratulations. What’s the job?” asked Doris, her eyes wide, corkscrew curls trembling. Clara noticed that the other accounting clerks, Rita and Marianne, were watching in pin-drop silence.

  “Apprentice editor. I’m working with Sam.”

  Doris nodded sympathetically. “I guess they didn’t want you going back to the vaults again.” A knowing look. “You must be so relieved.”

  Clara wasn’t about to explain that her apprentice job had nothing to do with the murder, that it wasn’t some consolation prize handed out because the studio felt bad—that, in actual fact, she had earned the new job.

  She forced a smile through her irritation. “Sure, I’m glad of the promotion.” But was she? It was her first day as apprentice editor—she’d gotten what she wanted—but it felt anticlimactic. The filming of Argentan wouldn’t resume until tomorrow, and editorial wouldn’t have new footage until Wednesday. Sam hadn’t even shown up to work yet. Clara had spent the first hour of her morning trying out different combinations of the telephone number on Connie’s script. SP 3191, which was short for the telephone exchange Spring 3191, or perhaps Spruce 3191. Unless the nine was a seven—and had that three originally been an eight? She’d gotten nowhere—a beauty salon, a grumpy old man, an accounting firm, and a couple of hang-ups. She had spent the next twenty minutes spinning her wheels, before deciding that a trip to accounting would give her something to do.

  Marianne, the quiet one with the pale blue eyes and lashes so fair they were invisible, rolled her chair closer. “Are you okay, you know, after what you saw?”