The Silver Blonde

by Elizabeth Ross

  Klara fidgeted with the handkerchief on her lap. Retreat felt like the safest option. But how? She felt paralyzed in the face of grown-up civility. She was a well-brought-up girl. Wouldn’t it be rude to suddenly get up and leave the table?

  Ernst topped up his cup and smiled at her. Klara’s stomach churned. He offered her another slice of cake, which she accepted but had no appetite for. She tried to silence the thoughts in her head, frantic that she was transparent.

  Finally she set down her fork deliberately, wiped her mouth, and stood up abruptly as though she had been called on in class. “My parents will be wondering where I am. Thank you, Fräulein Richter.” Keeping her eyes averted from the Reichsadler, she nodded to Herr Klingeberg and smiled mechanically at Ernst, who half rose, his napkin falling from his lap.

  His face was not unkind. “Everything all right, Klara?”

  She felt faint, the cake sitting like a paving stone in her gut.

  “The child looks ill,” said Herr Klingeberg.

  “Perhaps a touch of seasickness,” said Ernst helpfully.

  “Ernst, take her to her parents’ cabin,” said Fräulein Richter.

  Klara shook her head vehemently. “Just some air—I’ll be fine. Lovely to meet you. Thank you again.”

  “It is I who thank you, Klara,” Ernst called after her. She concentrated on walking as steadily as possible to the door.

  “Poor lamb,” she heard Ernst say. “Sick on a boat—it’s the worst.”

  “Too much cake,” quipped Herr Klingeberg.

  Her hosts’ conversation faded into the general babble of well-to-do Germans at Kaffe und Kuchen. Klara reached the door and clutched the handle like her life depended on it. She flung the door open and made her escape. She tore off down the promenade deck, ducked into a door at the far end, and ran down a flight of steps and back to the rabbit warren of lower decks. Two levels down, she was forced to stop and catch her breath. She panted, her throat dry, her belly full and lurching. Her hip throbbed where she’d caught it on the metal railing of the stairwell. She looked down at her hand. Balled up in her fist was the woman’s handkerchief.

  Chapter Twenty

  Nazi Pin-Up Girl

  BY THE TIME CLARA got home, it was nearly dinnertime. She poked her head into the living room and noticed that the piano was gone. Her parents must be in the kitchen. She could smell beef Stroganoff and hear the wireless and her mother’s laugh.

  As she passed the hall table she saw an envelope addressed to Klara Berg. She picked it up. There was a German postmark, and the sender’s stamp said University of Bonn. A familiar feeling of dread resurfaced. This would be the acceptance letter. Her father had said that the offer of a place to study Modern Languages was all but guaranteed. She tossed the letter back onto the table, unopened.

  The moment she stepped into the kitchen, her mother raised an eyebrow at the Saturday Evening Post under her arm. “You’re buying more magazines, Klara?” Her mother shook her head. “Honestly, we’re trying to prune things down.” But she was smiling and her cheeks were pink. There was a glass of wine next to the stove. Her father was peeling potatoes at the sink. Clara felt suddenly bathed in the warm light and the familiar routine of a home-cooked meal.

  She tossed the magazine onto the table and opened the fridge, looking for something to eat.

  “There’s a letter for you,” her father said. “Did you open it?”

  “Not yet.” She could imagine them exchanging an exasperated look behind her back.

  “Don’t snack before dinner,” said her mother. “It will be ready in a half hour, if my sous-chef finishes peeling potatoes.”

  Clara closed the fridge and noticed the stack of newspapers at the back door, probably to be tossed in the incinerator. An idea popped into her head. “Papa, do you still have the first newspaper you bought in New York? After we got off the ship, remember. You haven’t thrown it out, have you?”

  “That one I’m keeping,” he said, pointing the potato peeler at her mother. “This woman can’t throw everything out from under us.” Her parents exchanged a smile; they were happy. He returned to peeling potatoes. “It’s in my study. There’s a box of newspapers behind the door. What are you looking for?”

  Clara scooped up Connie’s magazine. “Just curious about something,” she said, already out of the room.

  Her father’s office was a small room at the front of the house. He had hung on to several of the newspapers he’d bought in New York and Los Angeles during their first weeks in America. She rifled through the box and found the copy of the New York Times from November 5, 1938. Clara flipped through it, scanning every page until she found what she was looking for:

  HERE WITH REICH FILM

  Leni Riefenstahl here on visit only

  Leni Riefenstahl, German film star and director, who is said to be one of the few close friends of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, arrived yesterday on the North German Lloyd liner Europa.

  There it was in black and white. The air around Clara shifted. How curious. All these years, and she had never known who it was until today. Why hadn’t she recognized the famous director?

  Clara sat down at her father’s desk and opened the Saturday Evening Post once more. Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s No. 1 movie actress, explains away—with a theatrical smile—her former status in Nazi Germany, said the lede.

  She wasn’t just an actress. She was a film director—Hitler’s film director—whose propaganda film Triumph of the Will was infamous the world over. The article dubbed the film a kind of cinematic bogeyman to frighten little nations. Before making propaganda documentaries for Hitler, the article described Riefenstahl as a German pin-up girl of the early thirties, famous all over Europe for her adventures in the Alps, in Iceland, and in various boudoirs, and for her ability to combine these interests in the successful productions of such films as The White Hell of Pitz Palu, S.O.S. Iceberg, and The Blue Light.

  After Hitler came to power, she embraced his philosophies and agreed to make films exclusively for him (and it was rumored that she became his mistress). Leni slid down from her profitable glaciers, wrapped her trim figure in the swastika flag, and energetically went to work on a series of films dedicated to a man with a lock of hair over his forehead and a cloud of hate over his mind.

  Klara had never been permitted to watch Triumph of the Will in its entirety—only snippets on newsreels. It had been shown once in her elementary school at the end of term. She must have been eight or nine. Her mother called the school that day and said her daughter had come down with the flu. Ruth Hoffman—her Jewish friend—was also kept home. Klara overheard her mother on the phone talking to Ruth’s mother. The women weren’t close, but Klara gleaned that this film screening had broken through some barrier of polite acquaintance.

  But the following month Klara managed to sneak away to a matinee screening. She was desperate to see what the fuss was about. The ban on Riefenstahl in the Berg household extended to her next film of the ’36 Olympics. Klara took issue with this because Olympia wasn’t political. It was about sports, and hadn’t the Bergs watched a fencing match at the Olympics? So why couldn’t they see a film of the other sports? This was her child’s logic, at any rate. Miss Riefenstahl won a prize for Olympia, Klara heard it on the radio, presented by Dr. Goebbels. The film was nonetheless forbidden.

  Perhaps that was why Klara hadn’t recognized the woman on the Europa—Leni Riefenstahl had been a name and an idea, not a distinctive face. Besides, the woman she had met had been introduced by quite a different name: Fräulein Richter. And why would Klara question the word of well-dressed grown-ups in first class? They had no reason to lie.

  Now, all these years later, Clara stared at the face in the magazine. It wasn’t obvious in the photograph, but her hair, from memory, was light auburn. She had tanned skin, and in the picture she was smiling, relaxed, leaning on a deck
chair in a white shirt and leather jacket. She was older in this picture than Clara remembered, but it was definitely her.

  A car engine revved on the street outside. At the same time her mother called from the kitchen. “Klara, set the table!”

  Clara ignored her, still lost in thought. It had been a strange afternoon. From visiting the Milligans’ depressing apartment—snooping in Connie’s room—to revisiting the past and her conflicted feelings about coming to America. And of course the irony was that now she didn’t want to leave.

  As Clara stood up she glanced out the window. It was getting dark, but under the streetlamp she could see a pale convertible idling in front of their house—Gil. Her pulse quickened. He cut the engine, the headlights went dark, and she watched as he opened the driver’s-side door and got out.

  Clara darted to the hallway and lunged for the front door to intercept him. She stood on the front step and pulled the door closed behind her. Gil strode up the path. He gave her a casual nod, as if it were the most normal thing, his showing up at her house unannounced around dinnertime.

  “What are you doing here?” Clara said, realizing she sounded out of breath.

  He paused to light a smoke. “Wanted to check you were okay. I saw you drive off with the detectives this afternoon.”

  After grabbing her purse and shouting a garbled excuse to her parents about having plans, Clara slammed the front door and hopped into Gil’s car. Her mother would be furious—she’d have to deal with that later.

  They drove to the Brown Derby around the corner. There was an energy to Los Feliz Boulevard; Clara always felt that the city came alive at night.

  Neon light splashed over the car as they pulled into a drive-in spot.

  “You went to her apartment?” Gil cranked the hand brake roughly. “But why? You didn’t even know her.” On the short drive over she had told Gil of her errand to return Connie’s belongings.

  “Like I said, I was helping the detectives.” Clara shifted in her seat. “They asked me to go.” She couldn’t meet his eye.

  “Does her mother know you found the body?” He sounded appalled.

  Clara’s head whipped round. “No, of course not.”

  Gil raised his eyebrows. “I dunno, Clara. Talking to a hairdresser is one thing, but bothering her mother—barging in on that family’s grief. It’s not a game. You should be careful.”

  “I wasn’t bothering her. Mrs. Milligan was glad of the company.” Another fib. She pressed her lips together.

  “Was it worth it?” He gave a little jerk of his head. “What did you find out?”

  Clara fidgeted with the strap of her purse. “Nothing important, nothing useful.” Gil had hit a raw nerve. What had she achieved other than upsetting Mrs. Milligan and delaying Mae’s dinner? “The cops think that the Connie angle is a washout. They’re only interested in who had a motive to kill Babe Bannon.” Her eyes snagged on Gil. “All they can see is the movie star.”

  Bannon’s real name was lodged in the back of her throat—Ruby Kaminsky. She desperately wanted to blurt it out, to ask him everything about her. Her heart beat faster as she anticipated how it would feel to bring up the past.

  The waitress came to the driver’s side and handed them a menu. Clara would have preferred to go inside the restaurant; she could see couples seated at tables through the window, their heads bent toward one another—intimate.

  Gil ordered a coffee—nothing to eat—and Clara did the same, even though her stomach twisted with hunger at the smell of fries from the next car. A couple entered the restaurant holding hands. She watched the hostess greet them warmly and show them to a table.

  Clara couldn’t hold back any longer. “You know, you should be careful, Gil.” The roar of a motorcycle nearly drowned her out as it tore down Hillhurst.

  “Wait—what?” His eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”

  “You and Ruby—your history.” Her words felt like weapons, a grenade tossed carelessly into conversation. But he didn’t flinch—he barely reacted.

  Gil blinked slowly. “Years ago, when we were kids. Ancient history.”

  The confirmation—from his lips—felt like a gut punch. Suddenly all of Clara’s feelings about Gil and Babe Bannon lay exposed under the neons—her burning curiosity, her sense of inferiority compared to the movie star, her fascination with their love affair. Clara wanted him to confide in her, as he had done on the battle set. She wanted him to tell her everything.

  “Well, why do you keep it a secret?” she asked. “Are you on bad terms or something?” The words came tumbling out, thin and petty.

  Gil adjusted the rearview mirror. “It’s not a secret, it’s just not that interesting.” He didn’t answer her second question.

  The waitress brought their coffees. Gil appeared relieved at the interruption. He carefully handed Clara a piping hot Dixie cup, then gave the waitress a few coins.

  Clara wasn’t ready to let the subject drop. “Why do you avoid Bannon?” she asked. “You’re never on set.”

  “I don’t avoid her. It’s the same reason I’d rather sit in the car than go inside the Brown Derby—I don’t do well in crowds anymore.” A flash of reproach. “If I have to be somewhere—like the other night at the Formosa—I go when it’s quiet, and I sit with my back to the wall and my eye on the door.” The cold light cast shadows like bruises under his eyes. It had been a year since the war ended, but Gil was still fighting.

  Clara held her coffee cup lightly, her fingertips prickling with the heat. “The cops are looking for motives, any connections to Bannon. They would pounce on something like this.” His face betrayed nothing. “You don’t have an alibi, Gil. It doesn’t look good.”

  He sipped his coffee, then winced like it had burned his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Clara, what are you trying to say? You think I had something to do with Connie’s death?” He glowered at her like a junkyard dog

  “Of course not. But I’m worried. Shouldn’t you try and get ahead of this?” she said. “Think how it would look to the cops if they find out.”

  The night air felt charged with danger. The glare from the neon was unrelenting. Gil’s face had changed; his stubble was darker, aging him.

  “I have nothing to hide.” He spoke slowly, deliberately. He barely moved, as though he was welded to the seat. Taciturn: how Brackett had described his partner. He would tease Gil about never smiling.

  Clara felt reprimanded by his silence. She took a sip of the scalding coffee, a nauseous pit in her stomach. What was she trying to achieve by confronting him? Was she truly concerned about what the police might think—or was she just satisfying her own curiosity by churning up his past? Or was there a third possibility? Did she have her own doubts about Gil?

  They sat drinking their coffee, listening to the traffic. Maybe there was a show at the Greek. Vermont would be snarled going into the park.

  Gil slugged back his coffee. “I have to be someplace,” he said, out of nowhere.

  Clara went to toss the cups of coffee in the trash. When she returned to the car, she retrieved her purse from the front seat and rested a hand on the open door. “I think I’ll walk home, I could do with the air.”

  Gil went to turn on the ignition. “Come on, I can drive you.” There was an edge to his voice. He didn’t look at her.

  “No, I’d prefer to walk. It’s not even ten minutes.” Clara slammed the passenger door shut. “See you at work.” She walked down the line of cars at the drive-in spots, past the brightly lit restaurant, and onto the street to join the restless city at night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mismatch

  “DID YOU CATCH IT?” said Sam.

  Clara looked at him quizzically. “Catch what?”

  Sam rewound the scene. “Watch again.”

  Friday morning, and Sam wa
s playing a scene of cut footage on the Moviola. It was one of the film’s opening scenes, when the sergeant gives Babe Bannon’s widow character the letter from her dead husband. Clara’s mind was somewhere else—replaying the visit to Mrs. Milligan’s and then pivoting back to her argument with Gil.

  “Ready?” said Sam. “Now pay close attention.”

  Clara watched the scene play again: the widow takes the envelope, turns her back to the sergeant, and reads the letter. Nothing unusual jumped out at Clara. She shook her head. “I don’t notice anything, Sam. It plays.”

  The editor wore a knowing smile. “Watch the sergeant’s hat.” He rewound the scene once more, and paused on the tight shot where the sergeant handed over the envelope. Sam stepped through it in slow motion to the next shot. Clara finally noticed the discrepancy. Randall held his hat in his left hand, but it jumped to his right hand in the wider shot. In plain sight but completely invisible.

  “I see it,” said Clara. “The continuity doesn’t match, but your eye is on Bannon’s face reading the letter. You don’t notice the hat.” She gazed at Sam like he’d performed a magic trick. “Play it again.” They watched the scene once more at regular speed. “I keep missing it. I’m with Bannon and the letter.”

  “Exactly.” Sam smiled. “It’s one of my tricks—cutting with a mismatch. I can get away with it because I know the audience is looking at another part of the frame—they’re distracted.”

  Clara rolled her chair back to her desk where she was organizing the camera and sound reports. One of his “tricks.” Distract from a mismatch, fudge an eye line, steal a line from another take, cheat dialogue on a character’s back, lose a scene, kill a character—the very language of film editing was criminal. A film editor was really a con artist trying to sell a story with sleight of hand. Sound effects sold a punch that never landed; swelling strings cued the heartache or the romance that the actors failed to convey. The edit was the lie.