by Ward Just
This girl was sharp-featured, more athletic than graceful, and you felt she was not the led but the leader. Her dark hair and tawny skin were shocking against the boy’s bulky blondness, and her self-possession seemed to put him at a disadvantage. Yet this was also true: she would not know what was happening to her until it was too late. Now she threw back her head and closed her eyes. She gave a little cry of despair or frustration as the boy with the straw-colored hair struggled with the buttons on her bodice, his thick fingers unable to work the eyelets. He was an oaf, a plumber with wrenches for hands. She gave him no help or encouragement, her eyes staring at a distant point as she continued to turn, her palms rigid on her thighs. Finally the boy tore violently at the cloth, the sound terrible in the closeness of the room. The others stopped dancing and were looking at them both in silent anticipation. There was no sound except for the violins. When her rose-colored breasts were free, he kissed one and then the other, and when at last the girl looked at him, her expression one of surprise and discontent, it was as if she had just then awakened from a troubled sleep. The music ended abruptly, the only sound now the boy’s excited breathing. She stepped back, allowing the camera access. She stared expressionless into the lens, and after a long moment the director announced, Cut.
The boy fell back, exhausted.
The girl buttoned up and lit a cigarette.
Good, the director said. The girl raised her eyebrows but did not comment otherwise. Perhaps the smoke ring she blew was a comment.
The boy appeared to have torn a fingernail. Blood was on his hands and now he put his finger in his mouth, sucking on it as if it were a Popsicle. Someone laughed, and then conversation was general.
The girl shook her head and said something rough in German, glaring at her partner, then moving off to join the others, pointing at the ripped cloth of her bodice, shrugging as if to say, What can you do with an oaf? She worked a safety pin to close the tear, then removed her wig and lofted it underhand at the suit of armor in the corner. It caught on the helmet’s visor and hung there. Her hair was damp from the wig. She shook her head but still her hair clung to her neck and forehead, tiny curls plastered to her skin. She looked exhausted, watching the smoke from the cigarette in her fingers as if it were a genie about to assume some fantastic shape. In repose, her face lost its edge and acquired instead a youthful tenderness; but she was no longer on camera. Meanwhile, the boy stood stricken, worried about his finger, still leaking blood. A few drops fell to the carpet. He called for a bandage but no one heard him; at any event, no one responded.
So that is how we do soap operas in Berlin, the director said, her voice strident in the chilly silence of the room. We do not have the luxury of do-overs. Do-overs we cannot afford. So I demand excellence the first time. I will now give them ten minutes to collect themselves and we will complete the scene. And in an hour we will have this episode in the can, as you would say.
Greenwood was suddenly lightheaded, sweating under the hot lights, weary and dispirited as if he were climbing at altitude with a distance yet to go. Struggling at cross-purposes, the dancers had used up the oxygen. Everyone had gone slack from the moment the director said, Cut. Now they were sprawled in chairs or on the floor, smoking and drinking mineral water. One of the violinists ran a forlorn phrase, and the pianist struck a single chord on the Bechstein. They were gathering themselves for the last take.
It’s been some time since you’ve been on a set, Herr Greenwood.
A few years, Dix admitted.
And you enjoyed yourself?
The girl did very well, he said.
She’s new, she’ll learn. Karen has talent.
She has a presence, Dix said. She knows how to use the camera. She knows where it is. She knows how much to take from it and how much to give it. That’s something that can’t be taught, usually.
She’s a natural, that’s true.
Her partner isn’t a natural, Dix said.
It’s difficult for her, Willa replied. She had lowered her voice but her tone was still hard-edged. Karen hates Karl. She thinks he’s stupid and clumsy, and he is. She won’t get it through her head that he’s supposed to be stupid and clumsy, that’s what the part calls for. That’s why he has the part, he was born to it. How fortunate for him that he’s a dancer because otherwise he’s the bull in the china shop. In another week she’ll dump Karl for a poet. The poet will die of consumption, but not before they have a glorious romance in his house by the sea. Karl will come looking for them intending to challenge the poet to a duel. He has ancestral dueling pistols and longs to use them, especially against someone who has never handled a firearm. Ach! Willa laughed. She said, These bourgeoisie, they’re the ones who introduce we Germans into such trouble. Like clockwork every two generations they decide to have a war or a coup d’état or a reformation in the name of the Reich. They wish to purify the nation. They are the cause of our distress, these careless bourgeoisie. The hereditary ones are the worst. We thought we had gotten rid of them but they’re back, like vampires. They will haunt us forever. Isn’t she beautiful, our Karen?
Yes, very pretty.
Karen Hupp. She refuses to change her name. Her parents are working people from the former East. Her mother is a seamstress. Her father was a functionary in the government. They are proud of her.
Dix nodded. He would not call Karen Hupp beautiful. She was provocative. She was alluring and moved in interesting ways. She knew how to be still. She behaved as if she knew she was being watched, but that was the case generally with capable actors. He observed her now as she leaned on the Bechstein, talking quietly to the pianist. She drooped, her chin in her hand, a flower deprived of the sun. The cigarette in her fingers looked to be as heavy as a crowbar. He did not know if she had a sense of humor and guessed that she did not. Yet the wig on the helmet’s visor was droll.
Karl is old Prussia, the director said dismissively. His family had estates but they were lost after the war, so now Karl’s father works at the stock market in Frankfurt. And Karl is satisfied to remain where he is, working on Wannsee 1899 and whatever else comes along, so that he doesn’t have to leave Germany.
I’d say he’s made a wise decision, Dix said.
The director muttered something Dix did not catch. Then she said, They all want to go to Hollywood, all our best ones. That is the only way to become an international star, to be known in China and Brazil as well as Europe, and to amass a fortune. But there are no German actors in Hollywood. No one except for character actors and the Austrian Arnold Schwarzenegger and he, too, is a character actor and married to one of the Kennedy girls so he doesn’t count. Do you think there is an anti-German bias in Hollywood? Will none of us be accepted unless we can lift Volkswagens and marry a Kennedy girl? No one will speak of this but I know what it is, this bias against us. It’s because of the Jews in Hollywood, isn’t that so? Willa Baz fluttered her hands and avoided Dix’s eyes. Perhaps she had made a mistake. Americans were so touchy. Greenwood. Grunewald? What sort of name was that? A name you could not take a chance on, so Willa smiled warmly and said, Not that you could blame them. Everyone has a bias according to their own history of humiliation and insult. The French don’t like the English. The Japanese hate the Koreans. It is in the nature of people to hate. It’s the reptile in our brains, this is well known. Yet talent is talent regardless of nationality, isn’t that so? Still, the French made their way to Hollywood, the women particularly.
And the English and the Italians, she added.
Dix was watching her as she spoke, her voice rising and falling in frustration and deep anger.
The Nazis ruined everything, Willa said with sudden vehemence. We Germans only wish to be normal again, to live in a normal manner with our neighbors, even the French. What’s past is past except with us it’s never past, so Germans will continue to be excluded from Hollywood except for the war movies, and when they needed someone to play Mengele they chose Gregory Peck. Is this normal?
&n
bsp; In Hollywood it is, Dix said.
Karl is the only one not tempted. He believes his future is here. He believes in a German renaissance, Berlin once again as it was after the Great War, the center of the avant-garde. He thinks that Berlin will be the capital of the twenty-first century as Paris was the capital of the nineteenth and New York the capital of the twentieth. Berlin is the crossroads of Europe. Our continent is sliding east as your continent is sliding west, and for the same reason. That is where the conflict is, where the consequences of the modern world will be worked out, and it is our artists and writers and filmmakers who will set the terms. Tell the stories. Explain to people what is in front of their own eyes. The nations of central Europe were the ones who invented totalitarianism, the ones who saw the contradictions. But it is time Germans created their own future. Dream our own dreams, as Karl says.
Karl has more to him than I thought, Dix said.
Do you think so, Dixon? Do you mind if I call you Dixon? In any case, Karl is supported by his father. Karl has an apartment in Mitte, and downstairs a heated garage for his Audi, and he’s still an oaf but an interesting oaf. Did you have a rich father, Dixon?
Dix said, Yes, he owned boats. He owned the Normandie once upon a time.
Willa Baz gave a low whistle. Was he Greek?
He didn’t say, Dix said.
Surely, Willa began and then stopped, her color rising. She supposed that was Greenwood’s answer to her question about Jews and Germans in Hollywood.
One other thing, Dix said. In the heat of the moment, your Karen Hupp seems to have lost her crucifix. He pointed to a spot on the floor near the window, the crucifix glittering, its chain spread in a golden fan. Willa regarded it bleakly, then bent to rearrange the chain in a figure eight, adding a little kink where it met the cross. She called for the lights, then motioned for the cameraman, who began to film, starting at a bare part of the parquet and tracking the crucifix, ending in a mute, static close-up. At the last minute, Willa stepped into the light so that her heavy shadow fell across the crucifix. Three beats, and the camera stopped filming.
Thank you, Willa said.
A scene-ender? Dix asked.
Perhaps, Willa said. Perhaps not.
They’ll like it in the cheap seats, Dix said.
Not only the cheap seats, Willa replied, and moved off to have a word with Karen Hupp, who seemed agitated, talking earnestly to Anya Ryan. She looked to be explaining something, glancing now and then at Karl, who continued to nurse his wounded finger. After a final word with Willa, Karen wandered off to see about Karl, and in a moment they could hear her low voice, crooning as she bent to inspect the finger. Dix watched them from a distance.
He’s a baby, Willa said.
Yes, Anya said. He wants sympathy.
How did the weekend with your father go?
Anya shrugged. The usual.
All men are babies, Willa said.
Can’t stand a man who can’t stand the sight of blood, is that it? Dix said.
Dixon, Willa said brightly. Do you notice the similarity?
He said, What similarity?
Wannsee 1899. Summer, 1921.
I hadn’t thought about it.
The creator of the series admired your film so much he used a similar title. I spoke with him the other day, and he said to tell you, with his compliments.
7
ANYA INVITED HIM to her apartment for a nightcap, but he declined and went along to his own apartment, a few doors from hers. His leg hurt. He was wide awake and ill at ease, feeling like an amnesiac who had fetched up in an anonymous hotel in an unfamiliar city with no idea what he was supposed to do there. He watched CNN for a while, then knocked at a pornography channel, robust Scandinavian girls in a desert tent with a sheik who looked like Rudolph Valentino. He moved along to a western, arriving in the middle but knowing at once that he was watching John Ford’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Ford himself had told him that the movie took only thirty-one days to shoot, the cinematographer drove everyone crazy, insisting that the company stand around in the hot western sun until the light was exactly right, and only then could everyone take their places and filming begin.
Dix waited for the scene he wanted, when the troops of the Seventh Cavalry presented their retiring captain with a pocket watch. He slowly opens the box and hefts the watch, gruffly thanking his men. And after an awkward moment Wayne is gone, though from the manner of his departure it’s obvious he’ll return. The scene lacks finality, and the audience knows the Indians are not defeated. You had to admire Wayne’s great economy of speech and gesture; Gielgud could not have done it better. The trick was to keep your hands still.
Dix switched off the television set and sat in the dark, thinking about Wannsee 1899 and wondering how similar material would translate for an American audience and calculating that it would translate very well if the actors were appealing. You could set it in Savannah or Washington Square, or even Chicago, the ups and downs of class in America. Even the preposterous dance scene would play. Of course no one would watch it. Such a drama would never find an audience, because Americans were interested in class only as it applied to the British. He thought a moment more, then went to his desk and wrote a few lines to Claire, describing Willa Baz and his evening on the set, and returning to Mommsen House and the network news, Scandinavian pornography, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. The Indian chief looked like a Nazi.
Have you ever thought that you were on the threshold of amnesia? Not quite here and not quite there? I’m sure it will pass. I miss you. I hope things are good on your set. Tell Howard hello from me. I had a very strange dream the other afternoon. I’ll tell you about it when we talk.
He poured himself a cognac and went upstairs to his bedroom. When he saw the winking red light on the answering machine, he knew before he touched the button that it was a message from Claire, her first in many days.
The time was noon and she was eating a sandwich in her trailer, keyed up because she had no way of knowing what they were on to with this movie or if they were on to anything. Probably Howard knew, but if he did he wasn’t saying. Everything very close to the vest with Howard. You were that way, too, Dix. But I always knew when things were going to hell because you’d snarl at me. I knew when the film wasn’t fixable, that there was nothing in God’s earth that could turn the turkey into a duckling, because you’d snarl at the children as well as me. But I don’t know Howard as well as I know you, so I can’t say how this movie will play out, but I’m not encouraged.
But the weather’s very fine, cool in Los Angeles, sixty degrees with a bright sun and no smog. That’s what I like about L.A. in the winter.
She said, Everyone asks about you.
What’s he doing in Germany? Is he working on a project?
Who would want to be in Germany in the winter? Working with Germans.
I tell them I’m not sure what you’re doing. Dixon’s in his close-mouthed mode. I explain about the fellowship. And then I say that everyone needs a change of scene from time to time. Still, I’d like it if you were here with me. How pleasant can Germany be? Right now you could get on a plane, be in Los Angeles in eleven hours. I’d meet you at LAX. We’d drive up the coast for a long weekend together.
She paused then and he could hear her breathing.
So if you’re as fed up with Berlin as I am with Los Angeles, maybe you’d think about a visit. Things are tangled up here and you could help me get them straight. You were always good at that. That was one of your strengths. You know the problem, too many egos competing for the same small space, with the usual confusion, hurt feelings, and aggression. And I think Howard’s lost a step and doesn’t know it.
Can I tell you what I think the problem is here? I think the plot of this film is in actual fact an excuse to get a fifty-year-old man in bed with a seventeen-year-old girl without it seeming exploitative and sleazy. No question about it, the girl’s adorable and the man’s adorable, too, and when you see them in bed
in their underpants it’s doubly adorable, the girl especially, and the grisly death at the end makes it a film of trenchant social commentary of which the Industry can be justly proud. And it goes without saying that the action takes place in a suburb somewhere, and everyone knows what soul-destroying joyless places they are. So they’re very earnest and committed over at the studio.
But I forgot. You read the script, didn’t you?
But you didn’t say what you really thought.
Howard’s thinking Academy Award, maybe more than one. I’m in line, he says.
So it’s junk, she said after a little pause.
And one other thing. I hate the part, the prissy missus, naïve, deceived. She wasn’t always that way but they’ve been rewriting. Some new kid fresh in from Princeton or NYU, supposed to be a wizard with women, better than Oscar Wilde. So now half my scenes are shot in the kitchen, making a pie or browning the roast. Fetching a beer for my fifty-year-old and saying—this is today’s contribution from the wizard—“Cold enough for you, honey-bunch?” And it won’t escape anyone’s notice that he looks younger than his age and I look exactly what I am, fifty-five. So he and the babycakes look terrific together and I don’t look so terrific except in the last reel, at the wheel of my sporty new convertible, hair flying, tape deck rising in song, heading for glorious Bainbridge Island and a new life. Or that’s what the script promises. Maybe Howard will have another idea by then, and the wizard can work it up.
Dix began to laugh.
Maybe I’ll die, she said. Maybe he’ll have me die of a broken heart.
