by George Baxt
“Isn’t she lovely,” commented Alma with her usual generosity.
“Who’s the pretty blonde at the corner table?” asked Hitchcock.
“Hitch has a passion for blondes,” explained Alma.
“How does that explain you?” asked von Harbou.
“She needs no explanation,” said Hitchcock, “only a good dinner and more wine.” He signaled the steward for refills.
“The pretty blonde at the corner table,” said Fritz Lang, grabbing his oppoitunity to identify her with a display of exaggerated patience, “is named Anny Ondra. She’s not a bad actress.”
“She’s not a good one, either,” interjected von Harbou.
“She’ll improve,” said Lang. “You see the brunette sitting across from Ondra and her escort? I read her for a part in my next film. Her name is Marlene Dietrich.”
“She needs to lose weight,” said Hitchcock, unmindful of his own increasing obesity.
Lang smiled. “She’s deliciously zaftig. She’s all wrong for my movie, but I think there’s a place for her in films. Ah! Here are the appetizers!”
“At last,” said Hitchcock with a purr of contentment. He smiled at Alma, but her attention was diverted elsewhere. “Alma? The food’s here.”
“So’s Anna Grieban.” Her voice was so low, Hitchcock had to bend his head to hear her.
“Where?”
“Over there. The secluded corner next to the violinists.”
“She’s with him” said Hitchcock. The Langs were intrigued.
“O mein Gott!” exclaimed von Harbou, “that terrible face! It should not be permitted in public!”
“Thea, for God’s sake,” growled Lang,” the poor man must have suffered something awful in the war.”
“I think it’s a wonderful face,” said Hitchcock, “don’t you agree, Fritz? Wouldn’t he make a marvelous red herring in a…” he smiled at Thea, “… political thriller. I’m so glad he’s a friend of Anna Grieban’s. Now I can meet him.”
“And who is this Anna Grieban?” inquired von Harbou as she dissected a herring.
“She’s our script girl,” said Alma.
“That is all she is? A script girl? And she comes to this restaurant?”
Alma felt her face flush with anger, and she clenched her hands together under the table. What political repercussions would there be between England and Germany, she wondered, if she grabbed Thea von Harbou by the shoulders and tried to shake some sense into the arrogant, bigoted bitch.
“Ach!” exclaimed Lang. “They are arguing!”
Anna Grieban and the man were undoubtedly arguing, their pantomime exquisitely eloquent to the table where Hitchcock’s group sat. The man threw his napkin on the table, as Anna Grieban pushed her chair back, grabbed her handbag, and went hurrying out of the restaurant.
“Now you shall not meet him,” said Lang with mocking sadness.
“There’s always tomorrow,” said Hitchcock.
The man put a pile of marks on the table and then hurried out of the restaurant.
“You see what I mean?” von Harbou asked Alma. “Underpeople like this script girl of yours are always making scenes.”
“But this one,” said Hitchcock, “wasn’t terribly well directed.”
Outside the restaurant, the man emerged just as Anna Grieban entered a taxi and it drove away. He cursed and then hailed a taxi for himself.
Back in the restaurant, as the main course was being served, Lang exclaimed, “But that is wunderbar, Hitchcock! I’m delighted you’re going to make another film here.”
“I’m not,” said Hitchcock as he examined his plate of Schweinshaxe and Knodel (pork shank and potato dumplings) and then attacked it with unrestrained relish.
“Ah so?” asked von Harbou. “You do not like our working conditions here?”
“My dear Thea,” explained Hitchcock, beginning to understand why Alma disliked the woman, “working conditions here are perfectly adequate, but these films I’m being assigned, though I am most grateful for the opportunity they present for me to learn my craft, are little more than mediocre potboilers. I wish to get on to better things.”
“You must not be so impatient,” admonished von Harbou. “You should stay here in Germany. Your talent could replace that of the swine who are defecting to Hollywood, whores seduced by Jewish millions. A word in the right ear, and I could help you set up as a director right here in Germany. I’ve heard good things about you!” Alma loathed people who spoke while they chewed food. Chalk up another demerit against Thea von Harbou. “What you call a potboiler my friends at the studio tell me you are directing with great flair and imagination. Is that not so, Fritz?” Fritz nodded as he ate, and Alma wondered if Fritz wasn’t secretly praying for an opportunity to be seduced by Hollywood’s Jewish millions. “What do you say, Alfred?” Thea’s voice was growing anxious and shrill, like a recruiting officer who’d heard the enemy had arrived at the outskirts of the city.
“I want to go home,” said Alfred with the simplicity of a small boy, and Alma wanted to lean over and kiss him.
“Ach!” Thea dropped her knife and fork with disgust.
“What displeases you, dear?” inquired Lang, “Hitchcock or the food?”
“They are both indigestible,” snapped von Harbou. She turned to Alma. “Tell me, Alma, what do you plan this weekend?”
“I plan to rest.” Is there no escape? she thought; is there no escape from this awful woman? She and Hitchcock exchanged glances.
Hitchcock asked swiftly, “What about your next picture, Fritz? Is it set after Metropolis?”
“I have been offered a thriller located somewhere in India. I don’t think I wish to travel to India.”
“Oh, I would!” said Alma. “I’d love to travel the world.”
“Well, not me,” said Lang, “this location is so obscurely placed geographically, the Russians don’t have spies there.”
“And what is this tune you are humming?” Thea asked Alma.
“Oh, dear, forgive me.”
“But why? It is so charming. I’ve never heard it before.” Alma explained its origin. “Ah so? This Rudolf Wagner is a piano player, and he composes such a charming melody? Isn’t it charming, Fritz?”
“Very nice.”
“Perhaps we should meet this Wagner. He might be a discovery, a real find. He might be the person to compose the score for Metropolis.” She explained to Hitchcock and Alma. “We are most anxious to provide the cinemas with our own suggested scoring for Metropolis. It needs the right atmospheric music, doesn’t it, Fritz?”
“It does, but it won’t get it. Ach, Hitchcock. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the motion picture could talk and sing and then we could control everything?”
Anna Grieban climbed the stairs to her apartment in the attic of a building located on the street along which the Isar River flowed. She could smell boiled cabbage and boiled turnips and stale urine from the communal bathrooms on each floor. She was tired and troubled and hungry and cursed herself for the fool she was for not having eaten before arguing with the Man. That Man. That face. It had once been so handsome, so beautiful. She paused on the landing outside her door and listened. Was someone coming up the stairs behind her? She looked over the handrailing into the void below, but there was nobody. She strained her ears, but she heard nothing, only the drip-drip-drip of the leaky shower stall that adjoined the door to her apartment. She found the key to her door in her handbag and let herself into her untidy bed-sitter. She shut the door, tossed her handbag and her hat on the bed, and then realized the lamp next to her bed was glowing. Had she left it on all day? God, the elec-
trie bill! She must have. Because the room was dimly aglow when she entered, she hadn’t reached for the light switch. Oh, the hell with it. She crossed to a chair while removing her jacket. She sat and removed her shoes and stockings. She stood up and removed her blouse and skirt, making an untidy pile on the floor. She wiggled out of her girdle and, with a contented sigh
, let her stomach sag. She scratched herself gently and then yawned and stretched. From a hook on the door she removed a gaudy silk bathrobe festooned with a design of oversized flowers, a gift from an old admirer, her mother. From another hook she grabbed a towel and a bath cap. In a drawer she found soap and a washcloth. Had she really left the contents of the drawer this disorganized? She opened another drawer and then another.
Someone had been in her room. Someone who had switched on the lamp and left it on when he fled from the room upon hearing her come up the stairs. She crossed to the closet and on tiptoe reached for the shoe box on the shelf. She placed it on the dresser table, removed the top, and then examined the contents carefully. Nothing was missing. Nothing was touched, not even the pearl earrings Herbert had given her before going off to war. The intruder had had no time to invade the privacy of her closet and the shoe box. She replaced it in the closet, shut the door, and smiled. Whoever the damn fool was, he was an amateur. What did he expect to find in such mean and impoverished surroundings? Who steals from the poor? She was humming to herself as she found a jar of cold cream and sloppily removed her makeup.
The poor. Poor me. Poor Herbert. Poor pearl earrings that Herbert must have scraped for months to afford to buy for me. Poor Germany. This damned tune of Wagner s, but still, it was important.
La-la-la-la… la-la-la…
* * *
“A perfectly awful woman!” Alma and Hitchcock were in a taxi returning to the guest house. Hitchcock was stifling a yawn. “You do realize, don’t you, Hitch, that she’s a fascist sympathizer?”
“You don’t say.”
“Oh, yon.”
“But still, she’s written all his hits.”
“He doesn’t like her. I could tell. Don’t you agree?”
“I think Fritz is biding his time, waiting for the right moment.”
“To do what?”
“Decamp.”
“To Hollywood? And…” Alma mimicked von Harbou brutally: “… ‘all der filthy Jewish millions.’ How can he let her talk that way?”
“I don’t know. Especially since I’ve been told he’s Jewish.”
“Oh, no!”
“Fancy seeing Grieban at the restaurant, and with my MacGuffin, of all people. Do you suppose that’s why he was hanging around the studio yesterday?”
“Well, if that was his reason, why did Freddy Regner tell us he’d given him directions to Stage Three? We’re on Stage One.”
“That’s so, isn’t it? Well, m’dear”—he patted her hand—”and there we have another MacGuffin!”
Anna Grieban covered her hair with the cap and tried once again to shut the door of the shower stall. Damned fool, whoever it was, that broke the lock. There was a wooden stool in the stall, which she propped against the door. At least she would hear if one of the other tenants attempted to enter while she was showering, not that many of them took advantage of the shower facility, she supposed, if she could trust her nose. She stepped into the stall and drew the curtain, then, steeling herself for the first blast of cold water, turned the knobs. The water hit her, and she suppressed a shriek; no need to frighten the neighbors. Then the warm water began to flow, and she soaped herself vigorously. She began lada-la’ing Wagner’s melody at the top of her lungs. Poor little Wagner. Poor downtrodden little man with that awful daughter Rosie. Why had she let that actor, Hans Meyer, talk her into hiring Rosie? Meyer was another misbegotten soul. Oh well. Maybe he was screwing her. But who in God’s name would screw anything as unappetizing as Rosie Wagner?
She hadn’t heard the door being pushed open quietly, a hand reaching in and carefully, gently moving the stool to one side so as not to give the intruder away. Anna stood with her face into the gushing stream of water and could hear nothing. She didn’t even feel the first time the knife blade entered her body. Or perhaps not even the second. And by the third thrust of the blade, she was paralyzed by shock.
Blood began to flow from her wounds, and soon she was beginning to crumple to the stall floor in a sea of water and red. Would the knife never stop? Again and again and again the blade plunged into her, until she lay on the floor, her eyes open in death, her hands open in supplication, and of no avail.
Three
The next morning the streets of Munich were curtained with a bone-chilling drizzle. It reminded the British contingent of London, and they were smiling as they arrived at Sound Stage One for the day’s filming. Hitchcock was at the refreshment cart ordering a coffee and a sweet roll when a handsome young man with a head of thick black curly hair and a pencil-thin mustache approached him.
“This is Herr Hitchcock?” asked the young man in a voice coated with butterscotch.
Hitchcock was busy examining the tray of sweet rolls and pastries. German bakers and chefs were his downfall, and he was falling with a smile of content. Abstractedly, Hitchcock replied, “This is.”
The young man clicked his heels and bowed from the waist. Hitchcock winced. German formalities unnerved him. “Please, I may introduce myself?”
“Oh, by all means do. “ Hitchcock wondered if a pastry that appealed to him had a fruit filling.
“My name is Hans Meyer. I am an actor.”
Hitchcock’s eyes rolled up. “Oh please. Not before breakfast.”
“I hear your next film is to be in the mountains, yes?” Hitchcock selected a pastry and bit into it. “Damn. It’s cheese.”
“In the mountains, yes?”
Hitchcock showed him the contents of the pastry. “It’s cheese.”
“You do not like cheese?”
“I also loathe mountains.”
“I am very good with mountains. “ A trace of perspiration appeared on the nervous young man’s brow. “I have climbed many times.”
“I do not need mountain climbers. I need actors.”
“I am an actor who only sometime climbs. You understand?”
Hitchcock caught the eye of the middle-aged woman in charge of the refreshment cart who he’d described as being built like an avenging Carpathian peasant. “This cheese is off,” announced Hitchcock in a sad stentorian voice.
“Where off?” asked the woman, whose English was as inadequate as her pastries.
“It’s rancid.” Hans Meyer translated into German and the woman stood back in horror and clutching her breast. To Hitchcock she looked like an inflated Lillian Gish. The woman remonstrated, but Hitchcock persisted. “Take this pastry back to the baker and demand a refund.” He dropped the pastry back on the tray, and the woman scooped it up and bit into it. Hitchcock watched her ruminating with distaste.
“Is good!” said the woman. “Is good, you I tell!”
Hitchcock snorted and said to Hans Meyer, “The woman suffers from an inferior palate.” To her he said, “Is bloody awful and I shall select something else.” Which he did with a gesture befitting royalty, paid the woman, and then slowly walked to his director’s chair, with the young actor trailing in his wake. He saw Fredrick Regner, the scriptwriter, approaching him carrying a script.
“Good morning, Herr Hitchcock,” said Regner, his smile displaying what appeared to be a perfect set of teeth.
“Good morning. In fact, I’m glad you’re here. That strange-looking man—”
“Which one? There are so many here.”
Hitchcock settled into his director’s chair while Regner and Meyer stood staring down at him.
“The one you said you directed to Stage Three yesterday. Surely you remember him. Nobody could forget that face once they’ve seen it, the poor bugger.”
“Oh, him. Of course. What about him?”
“Well, if you directed him to Stage Three, what was he doing slinking around ours?”
“I have no idea.”
“Alma Reville saw him peeping from behind a piece of scenery. Skulking, I suppose, is more like it. Do you know if he’s an actor?”
“I don’t know him at all. I’ve never seen him before yesterday, and I haven’t seen him since.”
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“Most peculiar.” He turned to Meyer. “Do you know as much about actors as you do about mountains? What did you say your name was? This is Freddy Regner.…”
“We’ve met before,” said Regner.
Hitchcock bit into his pastry and munched with a preoccupied expression. He swallowed and asked Meyer, “Have you run into a person with a magnificently disfigured face?”
“I do not recall, no.”
“No,” echoed Hitchcock.
“Herr Hitchcock,” said Regner anxiously, “this script…” Hitchcock looked at it suspiciously, as though the script might be wired to explode. “I wonder if you could find the time to read it.”
Hitchcock sighed. Rudolf Wagner and the violinists were halfheartedly playing “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” and Hitchcock wished he dwelt among them too. “I could find the time to read it,” said Hitchcock, “but if I like it, I don’t know when I’ll find the time to direct it. You see, I’m set to do this blasted mountain picture.…”
“Very majestic, mountains.” Which won Hans Meyer a look of distaste from Hitchcock and one of irritation from Regner.
“I would be content just to have your opinion,” persisted Regner.
“Aren’t you under contract here?” asked Hitchcock.
“Oh, no. Not at all. I am a freelance.”
“But I always see you about on the lot, dancing attendance on no one in particular.” Hitchcock was bored with his pastry and flung it into a convenient wastebasket.
“Please, but they are filming a scenario of mine on Stage Two. It is a spy thriller.”
Hitchcock’s face lit up. “A spy thriller! I’d love to do a spy film, one with lots of MacGuffins!”
“Please?” asked the perplexed writer.
“Oh, yes, I’d be pleased.” He took the script from Regner and flipped through it. “Is this a spy thriller?”
“It is a thriller, yes. You will read it?”
“I will read it. Now go away and take this mountain actor with you. I have work to do.” He was looking around for Alma and Anna Grieban.
