The Berlin Connection

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  Thirty people began to talk and move around the entrance haU of a house which had been built in studio two of the Alhambra Studios outside Hamburg. I got up. Henry Wallace, who played the American producer, carefully placed the lamp with the bronze base of foam rubber on a table. The stained gray carpet was replaced. A large funnel was refilled with "panchromatic blood," a mixture of mineral oils and vegetable coloring. A thin rubber hose connected to the funnel led underneath the carpet to where my head was supposed to fall.

  The first day of shooting. We had shot the scene three times and only the third time had Thornton Seaton been satisfied. To be able to choose the best take he wanted me to be murdered for a fourth time.

  I have just passed over four days in my report, Professor Pontevivo. In those four days, most important events had taken place. I had passed my physical. Our movie was insured. I had telephoned my wife. She and Shirley were to arrive on November third.

  The insurance fraud had been easy. Dr. Erasmus Dutz's office was in an old house on Hallerstrasse. From there one could see the dead grass of the ballfields of the Hamburg Sports Club. Street musicians, surrounded by a crowd of watching people, were at the entrance gates. Girls, holding boxes with white envelopes, were walking about. The martial music could be heard in the doctor's office.

  At this early hour I was the first patient. A pale, cross-eyed nurse was assisting Dr. Dutz. She was very blonde and friendly, and it occurred to me that, most probably, she had chosen this profession devoted to

  Christian charity because of her eyes. One could be cross-eyed or look like Marilyn Monroe—it would not matter if one were helping sick people.

  Dr. Dutz said my pulse and my blood pressure were normal; mv heart seemed to be all risht.

  "Your heart is not the way it ought to be," said Dr. Dutz. "We'll take a look at a cardiogram." The nurse took the cardiogram. "Now we'll do ten little knee bends, Mr. Jordan."

  So I did ten little knee bends and became quite dizzy. After all my blood pressure had been reduced artificially.

  "Now we'll lie down again, Mr. Jordan."

  Dr. Dutz studied the cardiogram and I calmed down slowly.

  "It's not good, but not nearly as bad as I thought," said the slim Dr. Dutz. "You have some heart there, Mr. Jordan." And some injection too, I thought. "But what are you doing?"

  "What do you mean. Doctor?"

  "You're so wound up."

  Schauberg had warned me of this and had also supplied me with an answer. "It's been rather hectic since I arrived in Hamburg."

  "Women?"

  The nurse blushed.

  "Women. Whisky. Not much sleep. Two weeks of parties."

  "If I were you I would stop that. It's the best way to get a heart attack. Does that hurt?" He had applied pressure to my liver, and, although I had been prepared, the pain caused me to dig my nails into my palms.

  "No."

  "Your liver is very swollen, Mr. Jordan."

  "I just told you I've been living rather . . ."

  "Yes. Surely." His reply was automatic. "We'll have to make some blood tests."

  Just as Schauberg had, they filled test tubes with blood.

  The nurse left the laboratory door opened. I watched what she was doing with the test tubes.

  "We're doing the blood tests here. Professor Ihrt will take care of all the other tests." An insurance company is very cautious.

  "But you just said my heart was not too bad . . ."

  "I'm not worried about your heart. I'm worried about your liver."

  "Now look. Doctor. I'm perfectly fine! I've never been sick a day in my life!" Schauberg had told me to become annoyed after the blood test. "That is simply ridiculous! You are going to insure me, aren't you?"

  "If your hver is all right, naturally."

  "Every time I drink too much my liver swells!" Another part of Schauberg's counsel. "A little congestion, that's aU!"

  "Very probably it is, Mr. Jordan. A congestion, hm, hm. Just to make certain we'd better take a look at your urine." Jovially he patted my shoulder. "It is probably all right. When did you see a doctor last?"

  "It's been so long I can't even remember."

  The test tubes of blood, now labeled, had been placed in a holder.

  The telephone rang.

  "Excuse me. Good luck with your movie. I'm happy to have met you." Smiling he shook my hand. "Nurse, will you show Mr. Jordan to the bathroom?"

  Then I stood in the laboratory and, through the closed door, heard the doctor talk on the telephone. The nurse gave me a vial and showed me to the bathroom. I locked myself in and filled the vial with the urine Schaubere had given me. I stepped on the toilet seat and unhooked the float in the water compartment. Schauberg's instructions again. Once disconnected, there was no control of the water. It ran over the edge of the bowl.

  I hurried to the adjoining laboratory.

  "I'm afraid something's happened .,."

  The nurse ran into the bathroom and threw up her hands. "Oh dear, something sot loose. Put the vial on the table here. I'll take care of this."

  "If I can help—"

  "No, no! I'll have it done in a moment."

  She balanced on the toilet seat as the water began to run into the waiting room. I went quickly to the lab, placed the vial on a table, poured the contents of the test tubes down the sink drain, refilled them with the blood Schauberg had given me.

  The nurse was mumbling in the bathroom. The doctor was still on the telephone. Schauberg had not only told me about the toilet float, but had made other suggestions which would distract attention from me.

  The flushing stopped. The nurse returned for a pail and mop.

  "I'm so sorry . . ."

  "But it wasn't your fault! No, no, that's quite unnecessary!" But she took the ten marks and we parted amiably.

  My car was parked at the Harvestehuder Weg. Just after leaving the doctor's office I turned down another street. Schauberg stepped from a doorway. In the harsh light of the morning his shabby clothes looked even more disreputable. Yet his bearing was almost regal.

  "I thought we were not supposed to be seen together."

  "An artist's interest in his work," Schauberg said. He fell into step with me. "It was stronger than I. Everything okay?" I nodded. "How nice. Then I get two thousand marks from you."

  We were walking toward the Hamburg Sports Club and heard the music and saw the pretty girls carrying the boxes with white envelopes. A black-haired girl in a duf-flecoat said to us, "We're playing music for you too, gentlemen, and we ask for your contribution. Won't you buy a lottery ticket?"

  "We don't pay for martial music," said Schauberg

  gruffly. Behind the musicians was a large board with the name of the charitable organization.

  "Our organization is well-known for the good it does," said the girl shaking the envelopes in her box. "Today we are collecting for the poor in Africa."

  Schauberg sneered, "You don't say? Interesting. For a hundred years, in the name of Christian love, our moral Occident world exploited Africans, enslaved them, deported them, let them die by the millions in the colonies and now, just because the nasty Russians are at our door, our unhappy brothers suddenly have need to get steak, steel from Krupp, and foreign aid!"

  I could not comprehend the meaning of his words. I had been perfectly calm when I exchanged the blood, but now came the reaction. My legs were shaking, I felt dizzy, and with great longing I thought of the black bag in my car.

  "There are many winners." The girl insisted. "You receive your money right away. Perhaps you pull a winning ticket." They were playing the Hohenfriedberger March. The screaming of the three jets over the Aussenalster drowned out the music.

  There was a menace in this suddenly aggressive Schauberg. The cynic, always seemingly controlled, should have remembered how inadvisable it was to attract attention to himself, was in a rage. His jaundiced face had become purplish. He yelled, "Is it starting again, this swindling of the people?"

&nbs
p; I took hold of his arm. "Stop it!"

  He pulled away and threw one hand up to the sky lit by a pale sun. "There! There they fly, the poor of Africa!"

  "Don't talk such nonsense," I said. If only he would come along! Bystanders began to notice us. Schauberg did not care; he cried, "You people were not here! But we were! We've been through all this once before! Lottery tickets and collection boxes, stamps and badges! At first,

  only once a month! Then, every damn weekend. Win-terhilfswerk. For the poor. The same deceit!"

  "Give the communist one on his kisser!" called a man.

  "No, he is right!" cried a woman.

  "I sure am right! I was in Russia!" yelled Schauberg and his hand went to his beret. This stupid fool was capable of showing his scar. I turned with the intention of leaving him. Schauberg's hand dropped but he continued, "And what did your money buy? Goering got his Luftwaffe, Hitler his German Wehrmacht—and German women got widow's weeds!"

  The girl became indignant. "We are a nonpoUtical, independent organization!"

  "We are a nation of idiots!" yelled Schauberg. Now a crowd had ringed around him. A few were of his opinion, the majority protested. The girl said to me, "I swear it is for the poor in Africa. This man only knows hate. But God wants us to love one another. Grant His wish. Maybe then one of your wishes will come true."

  It was a point, I thought.

  "How much is a ticket?"

  "Fifty pfennigs."

  "rU take ten."

  "Bravo!" called Schauberg and applauded. "A piece of a rocket is already yours."

  "Ah, just be quiet," I said and, pulling the girl with me, left him.

  "Maybe one of your wishes will come true ..."

  One of my wishes.

  I had an important one.

  11

  Our insurance contract was dated October thirty-first and cost over four million marks. It was an impressive

  document with five pages of "General Conditions" in small print. They enumerated everything I had to abide by and everything I was prohibited from doing. For instance, I was not allowed to take planes, boats, climb mountains, join expeditions or safaris, compete in races, parachute jumps and many other things, or become pregnant!

  The premium was paid on October thirty-first by Jorkos Productions. Our film was safe, a financial difficulty averted even if I were invalided or died.

  To reduce this unpleasant possibility to a minimum it was necessary for me to pay fifty thousand marks to Schauberg of which he had already received five thousand in payment for the insurance fraud.

  In fact, to be precise, it was fifty thousand and five marks I had to invest in my comeback. The ten tickets of the charitable organization had cost five marks.

  To be even more precise, the total was less. For one of my tickets had been a winning one. I had promptly received six hundred and fifty marks which must be deducted from the fifty thousand and five marks!

  Schauberg had compared the lottery to the collection tricks of the Third Reich. I could rest easy; I had not helped to finance a German jet bomber. And if the young girl had spoken the truth not one hungry child had received a piece of bread by my five marks donation.

  "God wants us to love one another. Grant His wish. Maybe then one of your wishes will come true."

  Well, despite the rockets, the jet bombers, the poverty of black humanity, my wish had come true. It would be interesting how Shirley's Father Horace would have explained this. Or any other priest. Or anyone else who believed in God.

  I called my wife without waiting for the evening of October thirty-first and with the certainty of knowing my fraud had been successful. Joan and Shirley had to come to Hamburg irrespective of whether or not Come Back would be made. Every day counted. Any day the police

  could arrive at Joan's. So I called her the evening of the twenty-ninth. I had spent the afternoon with Schauberg. He gave me injections and intravenous infusions, and lamented his bad manners in the morning. "I behaved like a bloody idiot. You were perfectly right in leaving me, dear Mr. Jordan."

  "Whatever got into you?"

  "Without morphine for too long! Right away one's intelligence fades."

  I said, "It takes expertise to live with addiction." Apparently he had not recovered sufficiently because he took my remark seriously.

  "Quite right. Praise be I came to my senses at last and told the people I was conducting a test for the Ministry of the Interior. Survey: How does the man in the street react to communistic agitation?"

  "And they believed that?"

  "Every word after I casually waved an old MD identification and yelled at two of those who had agreed with me earlier. I bought a few tickets and praised their unexampled, their wonderful organization. But, I said, if contributions were made to underdeveloped nations it was also very necessary to do more for the Bundeswehr. Bravo! After all they had formed their Volksarmee first! Right! And we had to defend ourselves. Applause and general shaking of hands. I went into the nearest house and gave myself an injection. I am always prepared. Nothing like

  155

  this is going to happen to me again!" He was now wearing a new, almost black suit, black shoes, a shirt, an unobtrusive tie.

  The injections gave me enormous self-confidence and callousness. Schauberg's treatment seemed to have frozen my heart but had set my mind vibrating. Friendliness, charm, words of love, the longing quality in my voice when I spoke to Joan came from my mind precise, inexorable, and obviously effective.

  "Joan, darling, this is Peter. I guess you are surprised that I'm calling..."

  No answer.

  Next to the telephone stood a drink. Just to see it there gave me assurance.

  "Joan! Can't you hear me?"

  "Yes, I can."

  Nothing else.

  "Did I wake you?"

  "No, it's already ten o'clock."

  I took a drink. Perhaps the police had been to see her. Perhaps she already knew everything.

  "Is Shirley up?"

  "No."

  "Aren't you glad to hear from me?"

  "Yes. Naturally. It was just so unexpected. Are you ill?"

  "No."

  "Is something wrong? With the movie??

  Another drink.

  I'm calling because I want you to come over here, to

  me."

  "You want. . . me . . ." her voice trembled.

  "You and Shirley. Right away."

  "But..."

  "I thought about our last conversation. What you said about Shirley; that she was destroying our marriage; that yoii wanted her out of the house." Joan was silent but I

  could hear her quick breathing. "Darling, we were all nervous and irritable. After all, we have lived together those last ten years. I like Shirley. She is your daughter. I wouldn't want us to do something which we might regret ...»

  "Oh, Peter! It's wonderful to hear you say that. You have no idea how that had distressed me."

  "I think I know. We'll just have to give ourselves another chance. In new surroundings. We're three adults. I'm sure with some effort we can solve the problem. You've never been in Germany. Neither has Shirley. She can work at her job here. I've already spoken to Kostasch." One more lie. What did it matter? Besides, Kostasch probably would hire her.

  "Peter! You don't know what that means to me! After all, I love Shirley . . ."

  "I know, darling."

  "Sometimes I hoped you would ask me to come alone. But that you want both of us to come is so wonderful! Oh, Peter..."

  Again I sipped at my drink. Then I said sternly, "Tell Shirley this is the last attempt to settle everything."

  It really was. Comes the time when I have to tell Joan the truth I can say: "Here in Europe I had tried to end my affair with Shirley and return to my wife. I had not been successful." Unfortunately.

  Joan interrupted my thoughts. "I feel as if I were young again, as if we had only just met."

  "Yes, Joan."

  "I feel it. We'll make a new st
art. I know. Europe will be good for us, for the three of us!"

  "Let me know when you'll arrive here."

  "I love you. I love you. Oh, God, how happy Shirley will be. I'm sure this is the greatest surprise of her life."

  "Yes," I said. "I'm sure it is."

  Later in the evening the effect of the injections wore off but I felt better after I had emptied half a bottle of

  whisky. It occurred to me that the same thing had happened to me that had happened to Schauberg when he had not had his usual dose of morphine. We both had become too sober, too much ourselves. That is why I now had a sense of shame over my trickery to Joan, why Schauberg had raged over rearmament and its implication of war.

  Or rather was it not the other way around?

  Morphine and alcohol and drugs showed us how we truly -were: he, unscrupulous and cynical; I, egotistical and deceitful.

  Yes. Surely. That was it.

  13

  Joan's telegram read,

  ARRIVING NTNE-FTFTEEN PM

  NOVEMBER THIRD LOVE JOAN.

  14

  November 2, 1959 Dear Peter!

  Le jour de gloire est arrive. Today is our first day in the studios. You know that it was my idea to make our movie Come Back, your comeback. You know why I brought you to Europe, why I want you to make this movie: because I believe in you.

  Many difficulties lie ahead. Still I dare say that with a little luck Come Back will be an unusual, exceptional movie. But even if everything should go wrong, even then I shall say what I say now, on this our first day: It has been a pleasure and a great honor to have met you, to

  have worked with you and to have had only the best intentions. Very sincerely yours,

  Herbert Kostasch.

  15

  The waiter brought this letter while I was eating breakfast on this our first day of shooting. The letter was nice. It partly reassured me.

  I took my coat and the black bag, which I had replenished last evening, and physically uneasy left the hotel. The lights were on, cleaning women still busy. I handed my car keys to the doorman. He smiled at me; he knew where I was going. Frequently movie people stayed at the hotel and if they were up this early they were shooting.

  "Your car will be here in a moment. Good luck, Mr. Jordan."

  I stepped out on the street. It was still dark and very cold. I recalled the mornings my mother and I had waited on such deserted streets for a studio car to pick us up.