by Anna Winger
“The Cinderella story comes from Germany, as I do,” he told the casting director afterward. “I was trying to bring some authenticity to the role.”
“I thought Cinderella was French.”
“French?”
“The whole royalty thing seems French to me.”
“Actually, all the fairy tales are German,” said Walter. “This one is called ‘Aschenputtel’ in the original.”
“‘Aschenputtel,’” Sharon repeated softly.
“In the original version, one of the stepsisters cuts off her heel and the other one cuts off her toes, trying to fit their big feet into Cinderella’s little shoe.”
“That’s gross.”
“When the prince sees the blood everywhere, he knows they’re lying.”
“I don’t think the blood would work for our audiences.” The casting director tapped her clipboard thoughtfully with a pen. “But what you say is interesting, because we do have a lot of German customers at Disneyland. A little European authenticity might give our production a special edge.”
When Walter signed his contract, the human resources department representative from Disneyland went over the routine with him in full. Four scheduled performances a shift, each one followed by a fifteen-minute meet-and-greet session with the audience, followed by a stroll around the grounds to socialize with the other customers. When spoken to, he was always to respond in character. If asked personal questions, he was to smile and move on. If asked for an autograph, he should sign only the name Prince Charming in a fully legible script. Any violation of these rules would result in the immediate cancellation of his contract. On stage before the curtain went up, Sharon gave him the lowdown.
“Mostly they just want to take pictures of you with their kids. Just put your arm around them and smile and move on as quickly as you can.”
“No problem,” said Walter. “I’m an expert at Knuddelbilder. ”
“What?”
“Cuddle pictures with fans. I do twenty of those a day in Germany when I go out in public.”
“You’re famous in Germany?”
“I’m pretty huge there.”
“That sounds like a joke.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“No, I mean like when people say that so-and-so is ‘huge in Europe,’ it’s like they really mean he’s a total flop here, you know?”
Sharon was cute, thought Walter, but not that cute.
“Seriously. I’m famous in Germany.”
“For what?”
“What do you think we’re doing here?”
“I’m just putting myself through school. I’m in dental hygiene at Long Beach.”
“You’re not an actress?”
Walter was pouring sweat under the velvet and the lights weren’t even on. Sharon giggled.
“If you’re so famous in Germany, what are you doing here?”
Walter brushed his hair to one side with his hand and shrugged. He pulled the yellow collar away from his neck to let some air into his costume.
“Hollywood, you know.”
“In Orange County? No offense, but we’re a long way from all that down here. Bartending in L.A. is probably a better way to get into the business than working at Disneyland.”
“If you must know, I have family down here.”
The phrase sounded strange coming off his tongue. Although it was true, he felt nervous saying it aloud, as if someone might contradict him. But Sharon was a complete stranger; she knew nothing of his life, so new details would not surprise her.
“My grandparents live in Irvine—” he started.
Before he could continue Sharon held one hand to her mouth. On the other she counted off the seconds with her fingers until the lights came on and the curtain went up.
12
First thing in the morning, Walter arrived at the studio and turned on the lights, illuminating the wide expanse of purple carpet at his feet. He walked into the middle of it, stretched out his arms and rolled his head side to side then bent forward so that his fingers just barely touched the ground. He was teetering precariously over the carpet when Orson came in.
“Guten Morgen.”
Walter stood up, shook out his limbs like a rag doll. “Try it,” he said. “It feels good.”
Orson raised one eyebrow over the cup of tea he was carrying.
“Who is she?”
“I just want to get in shape. I’m doing a cleanse too.”
“A cleanse?”
“Boiled potatoes for a few days. At night I drink a shot of schnapps.”
“Where did you get that?”
“That’s what they prescribe at the cures in Bavaria.”
Orson laughed.
“Only in Bavaria do potatoes and schnapps constitute diet food. You might as well just lick the pavement.”
“What?”
“You’ve never been to India? When you’re traveling there everyone tells you the story of the fat guy from England who went to India to lose weight. He traveled for eight months but he never got sick. People wasting away from dysentery all around him and this guy with the stomach of steel, eating curry and gaining more weight. He was so frustrated that the last day he was there, on his way back to England, he licked the pavement outside the New Delhi airport.”
“What happened?”
“He was wrecked. I wouldn’t recommend it. Lost tons of weight. But he . . .”
Walter wrinkled his nose in an attempt at a grimace but his lips collapsed into a smile that revealed all his teeth. Orson walked up the spiral staircase at the back.
“Nice shit-eating grin,” he said.
“You’re just too young to understand the revitalizing effects of exercise.”
Orson shook his head.
“I ride my bike everywhere, man. Even in the winter. There’s a woman. I can tell.”
On screen, a romance bloomed. Walter grinned up at Tom Cruise like they were sharing a secret, pleased to see their lives setting a parallel course. Soon they would be drinking champagne on a terrace overlooking the Pacific. Less than a month left until the premiere and he was spending almost every evening with Hope, since her husband was almost always away. How could he just leave her alone so often? She was clearly traumatized by what had happened to her in New York. If, before they met, the war had hovered in the background of Walter’s consciousness like bad interference on the radio, now it roared to the forefront. She had drawn a direct line between his daily life and the telegenic doom on the other side of the Atlantic. He hadn’t felt so patriotic since he watched O. J. Simpson run the Olympic torch up the Pacific Coast Highway in the summer of 1984. He was almost ready to pin a yellow ribbon to his winter coat. My people are at war, he thought, looking up at Tom Cruise. Our people. Hope avoided the news, so Walter determined to know it all for her. How better to watch over her? He reviewed the newspaper at work and kept the significant facts in his pocket at the ready: how to differentiate anthrax from aspirin or baby powder; where to procure an emergency prescription for Cipro; how to work a short-wave radio. Although he was careful not to concern her with any of the details, he liked knowing that he could come to her rescue if necessary, that he could keep her safe.
At lunchtime he walked with Orson to a small restaurant on the corner. They bent into the wind, their shirt collars pulled up around their faces. The sun was low in the sky. It inched its way around the earth’s belly two continents farther south, casting long shadows through the trees. Walter ordered a large plate of potatoes and doused them with salt.
“Did you know that there are two Kansas Cities? One in Missouri, the other in Kansas. They’re right next to each other, like East and West Berlin.”
“There are a lot of double cities in the United States. Minneapolis and St. Paul, in Minnesota. Dallas and Fort Worth, in Texas.”
“Dallas and Fort Worth aren’t technically the same city. They just share an airport. But that’s pretty good. Would you be able to name all the states that touc
h Missouri? Or, say, Kentucky? Do you know which city is further west, Chicago or Detroit?”
“What is this?”
“It’s a geography test for American students. Most of them don’t know the answers, apparently. I did pretty well.”
“Cool. You pass fourth grade.”
Walter smiled.
“How about history? If you had to name the five most important moments in history what would you say?”
“What—ever?”
Walter nodded.
“What is going on with you?”
“The Emancipation Proclamation tops most people’s lists.”
“If it isn’t a woman,” said Orson, “what is it?”
“I’m just brushing up on my American. You know, I’m going to Los Angeles in December.”
“You have a job there?”
“It’s in the works.”
Orson stopped chewing and put down his fork.
“Is that why you turned down my film?”
“Sorry?”
“We might as well discuss it.”
“What film?”
“The one I’m about to make! Your agent told me that it was the right vehicle you’d been waiting for, then she canceled with no explanation.”
The student film Klara had offered him was Orson’s. Walter studied his potatoes.
“I’ve made a decision to focus on Hollywood right now.”
“You picked a great moment to go back.”
“It’s not Manhattan or Washington, D.C.”
“Actually, I hear Disneyland is number six on the target list.”
Walter swallowed his bite of potatoes with some difficulty.
“I will avoid Disneyland,” he said. “For sure.”
Orson ate without looking at his food.
“There’s something funky about the whole thing. The recent attacks in America, the anthrax. You did Mission: Impossible II, didn’t you? Do you remember the plot?”
“Of course.”
“So you remember who was spreading the virus?”
“The guys who produced the cure.”
“Exactly. When everyone caught the virus, they were going to make billions, right? Well, look at the lines of people stocking up on Cipro in the United States.”
“Life imitates art.”
“Where’s Ethan Hunt when we need him?”
Walter tried to stifle a laugh. “Bayer is sending out envelopes of anthrax to boost the sales of Cipro?”
“I’m saying it’s possible. They don’t know where it’s coming from, do they? It has been an amazing public relations campaign for the company.”
“You are really cynical.”
Orson shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
Although it had been ten years since the reunification, Walter reflected, Orson was one of the only people he knew from the former GDR. When the Wall was up, he had only occasionally visited the other side, and although he knew it had since been rehabilitated, he still thought of it as the dark doppelgänger of the West, the slowly disintegrating buildings and flickering black light of the streetlamps. He still thought of East Berlin as another country.
“How old were you when the Wall came down, anyway?”
“Fifteen,” Orson replied. “But that has nothing to do with this. I’m just saying that there’s always someone out there ready to make money off other people’s fear.”
They returned to their meal in silence. Orson pointed at Walter’s potatoes with his fork and spoke with his mouth full.
“You better watch out for that superficial Hollywood bullshit over there. When Franka Potente went into American films after Run Lola Run, everyone there said her ass was too big. Now she only eats meat and cheese.”
“No potatoes?”
“Not in America.”
They both laughed.
“For the record,” said Orson, “you wouldn’t have had to lose weight for my film.”
If he were ever to sink so low as to act in a German student film, thought Walter, it would definitely be Orson’s. He pushed his plate back and watched him open a small leather case of cigarillos.
“It takes place in Berlin in the early nineties,” Orson began. “The main character is named Fritz. He was groomed to be an important Stasi operative in East Germany, one of the directors of the secret police. But all his methods involve illegalinvasions of privacy, so after reunification his skills are obsolete. When the film opens, he’s just been forced into early retirement. He moves from East Berlin into a new apartment in Charlottenburg for a fresh start and ends up getting involved with the strange old couple that lives next door. When the wife is killed, he uses all his illegal Stasi techniques to solve the crime. It’s a mystery, but the kind that takes place in the daytime, like Rosemary’s Baby or Rear Window.”
“When do you shoot?”
“I only have the crew during the university vacation, over Christmas. We’ll shoot the whole film in order from beginning to end, like a play. If I can do it in eighteen days I get the equipment from my film school for free. With the money from this gig I’ll just be able to cover the catering and the tape.”
“The tape?”
“I’m shooting on video.”
“Really?”
“Film is dead.”
Walter handed his empty plate to the waitress. Poor Orson, he thought. Most actors already had Christmas plans they wouldn’t sacrifice for an unknown director making a no-budget digital film. Walter watched Orson smoke. With the leather outfit and the long ponytail, the rose-tinted sunglasses fixed onto his pale, hairless face, he looked like a high school student hoping to get into a heavy metal concert in the countryside, but maybe he was the next big thing. Walter allowed himself a rare glimpse down the road less taken: his name on a cinema marquee at Potsdamer Platz, red-carpet interviews at the Berlinale, his Academy Award acceptance speech. A surge of generosity warmed his chest. My country is at war, he told himself. The very phrase made him feel reckless and optimistic. He would hate to spend Christmas in Berlin, he would hate to postpone the trip with Hope, but he could change his plans to help out a friend here, couldn’t he? He could push back California for a week or two.
“I was really disappointed when you turned me down,” said Orson. “But I got a copy of the script to Til Schweiger.”
At the sound of this name, Walter woke up abruptly, as if in the middle of a dream. Til Schweiger was the most famous German actor of Walter’s generation; the actor/producer of some of Germany’s only homegrown hits; the nice guy with model good looks. Say it. The German Tom Cruise.
“He loved Fritz,” Orson continued. “He was willing to defer his salary for points on the production. He’s almost too handsome so I’ll have to change the character to accommodate that. But he agreed to work without makeup and gain some weight.”
Walter felt dizzy. The potatoes he’d eaten congealed into a monstrous ball in his stomach; he was seeing stars, cheap Christmas lights twinkling at the corner of his vision, making the room spin. Only a month earlier he’d read that Til Schweiger was making a film in Hollywood with Sylvester Stallone, now he was coming to Berlin to play Fritz. A flood of regret quickly extinguished the fantasies Walter had allowed to blaze up on the horizon. He watched Orson crunch out the stub of his cigarillo and motion for the check.
That evening Walter left work as soon as they finished the last take. He didn’t stick around to make small talk in the hallway with the actors doing Ocean’s Eleven next door. He did not speak to Orson again. He double-parked in front of Butter Lindner to buy a marzipan stollen, a bag of sweets and three bottles of good Rioja. Normally, he went by Hope’s place after dinner, taking pains to act like visiting her were an idea that had come to him spontaneously during a digestive stroll through the building. But tonight he arrived early, rang the bell and waited a few inches from the door, making a mental list of things to take care of as soon as possible: plane tickets to Los Angeles, reservations at the Beverly Hilton, a rent
al car. You probably had to book a car early to get a convertible, he thought, juggling his weight impatiently on the balls of his feet. Usually he had someone conveniently positioned to blame for his unhappiness: Heike, Klara, his parents, the weatherman. But it wasn’t anyone else’s fault that he had refused to read Orson’s script. He could blame only himself for passing on the opportunity to be in a film so brilliant that Til Schweiger was willing to look bad in it for free. Walter rang the doorbell again. If before his lunch with Orson he had been looking forward to meeting Tom Cruise at the premiere, if he had been excited about going to California with Hope, now his future was pitched toward the trip like a palm tree leaning into the winter sun. Three weeks, he told himself. It was long enough. It had to be.
Hope opened the door wearing a pink sweater that made her appear flushed.
“Today is the day of Sankt Nikolaus,” he said. “I come bearing gifts. Christmas cake with marzipan.”
“Please make yourself at home.”
He loved that. Make yourself at home. Her apartment was a replica of his own, cleared entirely of his personal archaeology. Each time he entered it, he remembered that before Heike his own walls had also been white. His five rooms had once been empty. Fifteen years earlier he’d moved in with one small suitcase and a few boxes. He had camped out on a mattress for months. Now his place was full of furniture and dust, videotapes he was never going to watch again, receipts collected for yearly tax returns and laid out in little piles after the audit last spring. When he allowed himself to think about the fact that he was still living with the ticket stub from almost every movie he’d ever seen, it made his palms sweat; going downstairs to Hope’s apartment was a new lease on life. He liked to circle the dining room while she did her homework, idly sniffing at the corners. Since her boxes from New York were still held up in customs, there were few personal effects lying around; no wedding snapshots on the mantel, no photo albums; a large pile of Holocaust books were telling objects, but as they were always in the exact same position, he assumed they belonged to her husband. Walter walked into the kitchen to unpack the cake from its wrapper and sliced it onto a paper napkin because she didn’t have any plates. Since lunch he had been counting the three weeks until the premiere, wishing that his life were a film—say, Cocktail—and a montage of images could flash forth on screen to speed things up. The two of them riding horses bareback on the beach, wrestling in the sand, drinking from coconuts, frolicking in a tropical waterfall, feeding each other shrimp. But since it was Berlin and nearly winter and dark most of the time, the ninety-second montage would show only two people talking together night after night in one of two nearly identical apartments.
