The Weather in Berlin

by Ward Just

Dix said, Come again?

  You heard me, Harry said.

  That’s very helpful, Dix said. I can take that to the bank, can I?

  Harry laughed again and replied, Trust your swing, Dix. That’s what John meant. Trust your swing.

  Behind him he heard a dog bark and then quiet, except for women’s voices. Someone coughed. They were waiting for him but he did not turn around or make any sign that he was paying attention or that they had a schedule to meet. He slowly took off his wristwatch and put it in his pocket. He stood watching the hawks wheel in the open sky, hearing Mahler’s adagio as he remembered early days on the set of Summer, 1921. The second day was as confused as the first but each day things improved until by the end of the week the set was alive with nervous energy, so febrile that Dix worried he would be unable to contain it. Then he understood that it didn’t have to be contained. The film was not scored until the last minute, a long, slow, blues piano, a recording of Jimmy Yancey and a sideman on traps, and only in the final frames. By then they knew they had something fine, and the Yancey fell into place as easily as a period at the end of a successful sentence. The girls were difficult but brilliant and he took care not to treat them like farm animals.

  When someone touched his shoulder, he turned around.

  We are ready now, Herr Greenwood.

  Then let’s go, Greenwood said.

  Frau Jana would like a word with you, the cameraman said.

  Dix found her in the second-floor bedroom, still standing at the window. The hawks had gone. She said she was nervous, more nervous than she had been the first time. Probably that was because back then she didn’t know enough to be nervous. Dix reminded her to speak slowly, and not as if she were exchanging confidences with another. She was to speak as she would speak to herself, in the absolute privacy of her own mind. Take all the time you need but I want to make this sequence one long shot, you understand? She said she was worried that she did not look like a baroness. You’re every inch a baroness-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks, he said, and explained what he meant. You have grown into it, he said. In spite of yourself, you have grown into it and now you must live with it. This is your home, and you must live with that, too. You have made a great struggle and it has brought a kind of peace. Think of yourself at the Brücke, the Berliner Ensemble on Saturday night, your apartment in Kreuzberg, your cat.

  Yes, my cat.

  The men you’ve known.

  Those, too, she said.

  So you are standing at your window reviewing your life, knowing that this is the last time you will review it in quite this way. Because in a few hours your life will change completely. Later in the day your husband will die. You have an intimation of this. You have always had second sight. Remember your geomancy?

  She looked at him strangely. Geomancy was in the other movie. Summer, 1921.

  Was it? he said. He had gotten lost inside his own words.

  Yes, it was. Geomancy has no place here.

  I suppose not, he said. But you know that something will happen this day.

  All right, she said.

  Remember, very still.

  Like a mime, she said.

  Less than a mime. Much less. An aerialist.

  I understand. And you have confidence?

  Completely, he said.

  They filmed Jana simultaneously from inside and outside the bedroom. She talked to herself, her lips barely moving. Her face and body would carry the scene, the look in her eyes and the tilt of her head, the minimal grace of her gestures. When she moved a lock of hair from her forehead and turned to the interior of the room, the gesture acted as punctuation to her thoughts about her father and her relations with the gamekeeper Smit. She seemed to lose herself inside her memory, more real to her than what was occurring in front of her eyes, so that the hunting party on the lawn below was faded and static, a still photograph. When she recalled her conversation with the doctor she smiled slyly and raised her eyebrows, and when she unlaced her corset her motion was so swift as to be almost sleight of hand. At the end she raised her arms in a luxurious stretch and let them fall, like an orchestra conductor at the end of a movement. The hunting party began to stir, and that was the moment Mahler’s adagio commenced.

  They shot the hunt in three long days under a cooperative sun, everything successful. Then the weather turned, a cold, heavy downpour from a gravy-colored sky that washed away all color. A three-day blow, Gunther predicted. Dix returned to Mommsen House, planning to shoot Jana’s final scene on Monday, when fair weather was predicted to return. He arrived at Wannsee at nine, ate a quick dinner at Charlotte’s, and walked into his apartment at ten, dead tired but happy to be on time for the network news. He felt he had been out of touch for too long, the world’s disasters unobserved.

  He poured a drink and watched a report on Russia, Yeltsin drunk again, Muslims on the march from Chechnya to Dagestan, rumors of a plague of locusts in central Russia, mysterious illnesses farther east, more trouble at Chernobyl, a fresh prime minister in the wings. Dix had the sense of a wounded animal, insulted and unpredictable because goaded beyond endurance, one way of life collapsed and its replacement not yet in sight, a nation alternately an object of scorn and of pity. One more reason for the Germans to feel apprehensive, threatened once again by the irresponsible barbarians to the east.

  The rest of the broadcast went by routinely. Dix began to listen again when the news turned to Los Angeles, the Academy Awards. He realized then that the ceremony was on Sunday, two days hence, and he remembered how eagerly he had awaited the event in years past. This year he hadn’t even mailed his ballot because he had walked out of two best-picture nominees and had not seen two others. Oscar time was always feverish in Los Angeles, and he could feel that now in the mile-a-minute commentary of the entertainment reporter, her account spiced with the usual self-serving gossip from Industry insiders. He turned away for a moment, and when he turned back he saw his own face, a tanned and rugged thirtyish Dixon Greenwood in black tie, standing at a microphone with an Oscar in his fist. He was so startled he missed the first part of the report, hearing only:

  . . . said to be in Germany working on a soap opera for German television in German with the star of his first film, the cult classic Summer, 1921, the young actress called Jana who has been missing for thirty years, and believed dead. The reclusive Greenwood hasn’t made a film in many years, and sources were at a loss to explain what he was doing in Germany and why a soap opera. And where did he find Jana? The story was first disclosed by the critic Shay Hamel, who dismissed the project as Greenwood kitsch, and probably pornographic. But all Hollywood is abuzz . . .

  Dix groaned when he saw his own photograph followed by a still of Jana with Tommy Gwilt and one of Hamel. That bastard, Dix said aloud, but by then the entertainment reporter had vanished, replaced by the weather woman, the one with the long legs and leisurely diction, the one he watched nearly every night.

  Dix threw away the dregs of his vodka and mounted the stairs to his bedroom, glowering at the mirrors and wondering what effect the publicity would have on Jana, or if it would have any effect. He hoped she did not prize her anonymity too highly, for she was about to lose it. He had been a fool not to anticipate this, the result of being away from the game for so long. You forgot the world’s rhythms, how things worked, and Germany seemed so remote, governed by a different code of conduct. No sense worrying how the bastard Hamel got hold of the story. It was in the nature of stories to leak, and the better the story, the more scandalous its elements, the faster it spread. And before you knew it, whole populations were feeding off it. This one had everything an inquiring reporter could hope for, including a movie star rising from the dead. Thank God filming was almost complete, only the one last scene on the lake.

  He had been ignoring the insistent wink of the answering machine, but now as he looked at it, he decided another nightcap would help things along, so he went down to the kitchen, fixed the drink, and returned to his bedroom.r />
  The first calls were from newspaper and magazine reporters and one of the German networks, requesting interviews and photography sessions. His agent called, asking hesitantly if Hamel’s story was true. A soap opera? On German television? Jana starring? Dix, I think you should call me back so we can talk this through. Have you signed anything? Then Lou Kniffe called from Sri Lanka to say that Claire and Howard Goodman and the others had returned commercial because he had urgent business in Colombo with the khedive or whatever the hell he called himself, and was it true about a pornographic film in German? Have you lost your mind? Call me at once. Next was Billy Jeidels, drunk from the sound of him, asking about Jana. Had he actually seen Jana? Why haven’t you called me? You’re a prick, Greenwood. You know what Jana meant to me. I’ve loved that girl from the moment I saw her, mos’ lovely lovely girl . . . And then Dix heard a scuffle and Gretchen’s infuriated shriek, and the telephone went dead. Claire followed, disappointed to be getting the answering machine. Disappointed generally, her voice powdery and indistinct. You didn’t say anything to me about a soap opera in German, Dix. Pornography, is it? That’s what the louse Hamel says it is, and I don’t want to believe him, so I’ve decided not to. And also in his column he says that Jana’s the star and he’ll have more to say about her in his next column, so everyone’s talking about Jana and you, together again. Tommy Gwilt called here and asked for your number but I wasn’t in. He wants me to call him. What do you want me to do, Dix? I wonder sometimes if you’re living on the same planet I am. On my planet we try to keep each other au courant, on the theory that we’re married and have been married for years and years and that’s what married people do most of the time, so they’re not in the dark.

  When it’s convenient.

  So I suppose it’s not convenient for you.

  Or you think it’s not convenient for me.

  Gosh, Dix. I suppose it’s Germany that’s not convenient.

  We’re away to Bainbridge tomorrow for the last shoot of this ghastly film. Howard’s office will know where we are, telephone numbers and so forth, if you want to call with news. Such as when you’re returning to L.A., if you are returning to L.A.

  Claire rang off without another word. Dix listened to one message after another. Howard Goodman with a bad joke and Bainbridge telephone numbers, two more reporters, and Willa Baz asking that he call her at once, she had a television crew on the doorstep demanding a press conference.

  The last call on the machine was the one he dreaded, but he knew would come. He listened to it, then listened again:

  Greenwood, this is Shay Hamel in Los Angeles. I need your explanation—or denial, if you’re stupid enough to give one—that your actress Jana was just fifteen when Summer, 1921 was made. Fifteen years old, my source says, a semiliterate farm girl from someplace no one ever heard of. Naked as the day she was born and having it on with Tommy Gwilt. And that you knew her age, approved it, and did nothing about it. So we need to have words, wouldn’t you say? Your version of events. Close of business today, please.

  22

  SLEEPLESS, the House quiet around him, Dix took comfort from a remark of Eric Rohmer’s, to the effect that his life was colorless. Rohmer said, We didn’t have happy years or happy times. Real life was the movies, making them, discussing them, writing about them.

  That was another way of affirming that mere existence yielded before product—love affairs, scandals, quarrels, births, deaths, all incidental and without consequence. Life was present to give context to the films you made. You involved life as you invented a film, and lies were part of it. Lies were fundamental. Attention was paid to the work in progress, and when there was no work in progress, attention lapsed and you looked up one day to discover you were ten years older—and where had the decade gone? The answer was: thinking about the previous decade. He believed he had Germany to thank for that insight. He rolled over, his leg throbbing; and then he was back on the mountainside at Tahoe, occupied with his severed head.

  The next morning he was up early. He didn’t bother to return Shay Hamel’s call. He telephoned Willa Baz and advised her to slip quietly from her house and stay with friends or in a hotel. She should decline to answer questions, no matter how harmless they might seem. Refer everyone to him. If she could get Jana under wraps, that would be a good idea, too, unless Jana didn’t want to be under wraps, in which case she would tell her story, any story she wanted. The important thing was to let nothing interfere with the shoot Monday morning, the final scene. Principals only, he added—Jana, Karl, cameraman, soundman, me, you, if you want to be there.

  She said, Is it true, Dixon? Jana was fifteen?

  Dix said, She says she was.

  And you didn’t know?

  No, he said. I didn’t.

  But you should have.

  Yes, I should have.

  It’s going to be bad, she said.

  It won’t matter after Monday.

  It will matter, Dixon. The police—

  It was almost thirty years ago, he said.

  There’ll be an inquiry.

  There was an inquiry then. Presumed death by misadventure.

  The publicity will be terrible. They’ll have a circus.

  I suppose they will, he said.

  It’s an irresistible story. And not only in Germany but all over the Continent and America also.

  Debauching the young, Dix said. So the commissars turned out to be correct.

  It’s not funny, she said. Who was responsible for the story?

  Who leaked it? I have no idea. I thought it might be you.

  Me? Willa’s voice was filled with offense. I would never do such a thing.

  You’re going to have the most watched program in the history of German television.

  It is already the most watched program in the history of German television, she said stiffly. Then she paused, reconsidering. Do you think so? she asked.

  I’m sure of it, he said.

  It was not me, she said. I would never do that.

  Okay, he said.

  I had no idea she was fifteen.

  It was probably someone in Los Angeles.

  Perhaps it will work out, Willa said without conviction.

  No, it won’t, Dix said. Things tend to work out in the movies. Things tend not to work out in life.

  When he hung up, Dix stood for a moment pondering his next move. Then he realized he didn’t have a next move. His only move was to stay away from the press and make certain that Jana was on board for the Monday shoot. He did not have her telephone number or her address. He had no idea where she was. Then he wondered if Henry Belknap was free for the weekend. They could take a train to Leipzig or Dresden, perhaps historic Weimar for a day, Goethe’s house in the morning and Buchenwald in the afternoon, German opera in the evening. When the phone rang he hesitated before answering but finally picked up.

  I’ve been trying to call you, Anya Ryan said. Have you watched television this morning? Your friend Jana was just on, an interview with one of the German networks.

  I don’t have time for this, Dix said.

  You should, though. You should have heard it. She gave quite a show.

  So what did Jana say?

  Anya began to laugh and then she said, Jana denied the story. She said it was stupid, the work of someone who wanted to destroy her and you, too. She said she was twenty years old when she made Summer, 1921 and that everyone connected with the film had been perfect gentlemen, generous in every way. Especially you. She might as well have been in a convent, Jana said, and any suggestion otherwise was slander. She feels she has been discriminated against, as was usually the case with Germans in their relations with Sorbs. First you try to exterminate us, then to Christianize us. Now you slander us, girls simply trying to earn a living. But what could you expect from the nation where Nazism was invented? She went on in that vein for some time. It was a kind of monologue, Dix. She said the slander was unacceptable. They should be ashamed of themselves. />
  She said that? Dix said.

  There was more. I can’t remember all of it.

  And did she speculate where the story came from?

  Your enemies, she said. And her enemies, too.

  Unspecified enemies?

  She did not name them exactly, Anya said. But she knew they were German.

  And what did the interviewer say?

  He apologized, Anya said.

  For himself alone or for the German nation.

  The nation, I think. Collective guilt. But he seemed to want an amnesty.

  I’ll bet he did, Dix said.

  Jana demanded that the network look into the historic mistreatment of the Sorb people and then they’d think about the amnesty.

  It sounds like quite a performance, Dix said.

  Oscar quality, I’d say, Anya replied.

  In early morning the mist had yet to burn off. It hung in folds, rising and drifting over the skin of the lake. The sun was absent but loitering somewhere in the vicinity. They set up on a bluff that rose over the water, one camera there and another in the launch that would follow Jana’s skiff. Everyone had congratulated Jana on the interview, so brave and forceful, the television idiot looking as if he had been kicked in the groin and at the end was babbling nonsense; and he was so big, he looked like a giant next to Jana. Who knew how such terrible stories began and circulated, when there was no truth to them at all. Being an entertainer meant you were surrounded by lies and half-lies, living inside a cartoon. Jana accepted the compliments with a forced smile while Dix looked on. Now she sat shivering in a canvas chair, her hands wrapped in a crimson scarf, while Karl, as Rolf, stood a few feet away, skipping stones on the water and mumbling his lines. Dix had gone over the scene with Jana, but he needn’t have bothered. She appeared well prepared, and understood that the camera would be on her most of the time. It was her scene. Her voice held it together no less than La Gioconda’s smile. Karl’s assignment was to react, until the end when he had words of his own.

  You’re going to tell him the story of your life, Dix said.