The City of Fading Light

by Jon Cleary

“Tell the Reichsminister I should like to be picked up at my apartment at 8.45.”

  The chauffeur saluted and disappeared as swiftly as he had come. Then Braun came back, still fanning himself with his handkerchief. He was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, swept up at the side in the same way as Goering wore his hats; he often imitated his idols, but so far had not grown a Hitler moustache; there were limits to flattery. Besides, a toothbrush moustache was lost in a washbowl face. He flopped into the chair beside her, almost breaking it beneath him.

  “The Reichsminister’s personal chauffeur?” He knew everyone and everyone’s servants. Cathleen revised her opinion of him: he would not have been working at Republic or Monogram but would have been working for Louella Parsons. He searched among his chins for one to prop on his plump hand. “We’re his latest favourite, are we? He’s taken a long time to get round to you, darling.”

  “Don’t be jealous, Karl. I’ll put in a good word for you. Now, can we go back to work?”

  “Of course, darling. And this time be a little more of a bitch—that is what Lola is at this point in her career.”

  She smiled sweetly. “It’ll come naturally. But Willy would be better in the part.”

  “Is my name being taken in vain?” Willy Heffer had come back with the crew.

  “Who would ever be vain about your name, honey?” said Cathleen, then retreated behind the make-up girl’s powder puff.

  They got through the rest of the day without too many extra takes, but when Cathleen at last left the lot she was exhausted. She sat in the back of the car on the drive back to Berlin and wondered if she should call up Dr. Goebbels and postpone their supper date. She would be in no condition for dealing with him if he became amorous; if she had been fresh and on her mettle she was confident she could have handled him; isolated from their office, all men trying to get their trousers off were the same. Unless they were bent on rape and she was sure that Dr. Goebbels was too proud of his record to attempt that.

  But when she had bathed and had had a martini she changed her mind about postponing the date. He might not ask her again and the opportunity, faint though it was, would be lost. She had no idea how she would approach him about her search for her mother (“a friend’s aunt”) and she would have to play it by ear as the evening progressed. She dressed, not provocatively but still with some allure, and looked at herself in the mirror. The green silk dress contrasted with her deep red hair and showed off her smooth alabaster shoulders and arms (thank God, she had no freckles there): she had put on a little weight around the bosom since coming to Germany, but that was no handicap in this country of stout-bosomed women. She had heard that the Doctor was a man for legs, so she had put on a pair of dark-green silk stockings and a pair of fragile court shoes that showed off her instep. She nodded with satisfaction at her reflection, put a pair of small scissors in her evening bag, just in case extraordinary defence was needed, and was ready when the car called.

  Herr Stumpf opened the front door for her, bowed her out with a deferential smile and one big eye on the limousine parked at the kerb. He knew a top official’s car when he saw one: he wondered whose it was.

  “Have a pleasant evening, Fräulein O’Dea.”

  If only you knew . . . At least the drive through the summer evening was pleasant; Berlin had more charm, though it might be a bit heavy, than Los Angeles. The car took her to the Reichsminister’s official residence on Hermann Goeringstrasse; she did not know that he hated the thought of living on a street named after one of his most detested co-ministers. But that was where the former Palace of the Marshals of the Prussian Court was, standing in its own grounds bordering on the Chancellery park, and Goebbels, who appreciated irony, occasionally smiled sourly at the joke, though never in front of others.

  The car pulled up before the front door, where a butler was waiting for Cathleen. He took her into the big house, through an interior that reminded her of a museum (she did not know that it was furnished with pieces “borrowed” from museums) and up to the first floor. She was shown into a large room that looked out on to the garden. Her host for the evening was silhouetted against the light coming through deep windows: he looked taller, bigger, against the light. Nature plays no favourites, it flatters the evil as well as the good.

  He stepped down off the window step, instantly diminishing himself. He came towards her smiling, both hands held out as if greeting an old friend (or lover). He had no gloves this time; it was the first time she had seen him without them. He was impeccably dressed, as usual; no man clad as immaculately as this was going to commit rape; by the time he had taken his clothes off, careful not to crease them, any swift-legged girl would be gone. She gave him her hand, then turned, an actress’ practised movement, while he took the wrap from her shoulders. She waited for him to kiss the back of her neck, but he was too short to do that without effort: he was not going to make a fool of himself.

  The apartment was furnished and decorated in the same style as downstairs and she dismissed it with a quick glance around. Music was coming from a large cabinet gramophone, large enough to be a museum piece, in one corner and Goebbels must have thought she had moved her body to it.

  “You like Mozart?”

  “I prefer Gershwin.” Her knowledge of classical music was almost nil. You couldn’t tap dance to it and you never heard it in George White’s Scandals, Then she saw the look on Goebbels’ thin bony face. “What’s the matter?”

  “Have you come here to defend the Jews?”

  “The Jews?” Then she laughed, but nervously; she had certainly got off on the wrong foot. She almost said that, then remembered his club foot. “Honestly, Herr Doctor, the thought never crossed my mind. I’d forgotten George Gershwin was Jewish. Okay, no more talk about Jews.”

  His face remained stern and dark for a moment, then it broke into a pleasant smile. He took her hand in his long-fingered one and led her to the small table set for supper. The anger went out of his voice, deep for such a small man, and it became almost sensual. She began to understand why some women might have found him attractive. Not all the 38 UFA actresses had gone to bed with him solely out of career ambition or Party loyalty. She refused to believe there were that many whores out at Neubabelsberg.

  “The Fuehrer has a passion for Wagner, but I don’t think Wagner is the proper background for a tête-à-tête.”

  “I once had a tête-à-tête with a background of a 90-piece brass band. We were making a circus picture and the producer thought he’d teach me a few tricks.”

  He laughed, sat down opposite her. “And did he?”

  “Herr Doctor, I learned every trick there was while I was in the chorus on Broadway. And every counter-trick.”

  The butler brought in smoked salmon, thin slices of pumpernickel and toast. He poured wine into the cut glass goblets, then retired. Cathleen wondered how many other servants were here in the big house, all privy to their master’s little tête-à-têtes. She wondered, too, where his wife and six kids were, but a girl never asked a question like that. That was one of the tricks she had learned.

  “You’re not hungry?” She noticed he had hardly glanced at the food on his plate.

  “Food and wine don’t interest me. I eat enough to keep up my energy, that’s all.”

  “Are you a vegetarian? I believe the Fuehrer is.”

  “He is always trying to convert me—” He suddenly looked bored at the small talk. Food was not food for thought nor conversation; especially what the Fuehrer ate. Hitler would be beside himself with rage if he could see this intimate little supper, and not at what was on the table. Fortunately he was down in Berchtesgaden and no one in this house ever carried gossip as far as that. It was a boon to a philanderer to have trustworthy servants. “How is the film going?”

  She sipped her wine, took a chance: “Do you want me to be frank or polite?”

  “Be frank. Women usually are.” Magda always was, and what a pain she could be. Yet in the first years of their marriag
e, that was what had been so appealing about her.

  “It’s not going very well. I think we’ve missed out.”

  “What is wrong with it?” He showed no concern.

  “Well, I’m probably saying the wrong thing . . . The propaganda is getting in the way of the story. Every time I open my mouth to say a line of dialogue, I feel I should be up on one of those big posters you have all over the country.”

  “You don’t like our propaganda?”

  “I don’t care one way or the other—” Which wasn’t true; but one could be too frank, dangerously so. “Sam Goldwyn once said something—‘lf I want to send a message, I’ll call Western Union.’ Have you heard of Sam Goldwyn?”

  “Of course.” He was not smiling and his face seemed to have turned to stone.

  “What I’m saying is that if you want to sell this to American audiences, then you’ve got the wrong script. Americans don’t buy tickets to listen to messages. They get enough of those free from President Roosevelt.”

  Then he did smile. Any joke against the Jew-lover Roosevelt was a good joke. “Why didn’t you say all this before? We have almost finished the film.”

  “Who would have listened to me, some Hollywood dame trying to tell Germans how to make pictures? I better shut up. I’ve said too much already.”

  “I don’t think you are a Hollywood dame, Fräulein O’Dea. You have too much of what I believe Americans call class.”

  His flattery was smooth; done, she thought, with class. But she had to hold him at bay: “How many Hollywood dames have you met?”

  He smiled again. “None, I believe. But I am an expert on American films, I recognize the various types. You have always had class—I shall show you later what I mean. I don’t understand why M-G-M never made you a star.”

  “You don’t understand the system, Herr Doctor. Contract players like me were the alternatives, the threats to the stars. If they refused a role, they were told they’d be suspended and one of us would get it. It almost never happened, but it kept us and the stars in our places.”

  The butler brought in the second course, pork chops baked in cream: just the dish for a half-Jewish girl trying to keep her figure. She thanked her stars that her mother had not run a kosher home, and tucked into the dish. Goebbels watched her indulgently while he just picked at his own plate.

  “You enjoy your food, don’t you?”

  “It’s no good for the figure.”

  She was glad when he didn’t make the obvious compliment. Despite herself she was finding his company—well, not enjoyable: she would feel guilty if that were so. No, interesting: yes, that was it. It excused her coming. Which, she added ruefully and with her usual self-candour, only added hers to the excuses of the 38 other actresses of UFA.

  The conversation was a mixture of oblique banter and probing for information on both sides; she found he had a sense of humour but sensed he would and could not laugh at himself. Mozart was replaced on the gramophone by Strauss: a selection from Der Rosenkavalier.

  “I’m a romantic,” said Goebbels.

  “Who is not?” she said, who had stood within two feet of Jeanette MacDonald singing something like this and had her ears blasted.

  Dessert was a Sachertorte with whipped cream. She drooled at the sight of it and looked across the table at him. “How did you know this was my favourite?”

  “You’d be surprised how much I know about you, Cathleen.” He had been calling her by her first name for the past twenty minutes, but hadn’t yet invited her to call him anything but Herr Doctor. Still, that was a little less formal than Herr Reichsminister. There are limits to the status gap at a tête-à-tête.

  His reply unnerved her. How much did he know? Suddenly the evening became dangerous; she realized how foolish she had been in thinking she might use him to help find her mother. She dug into the Torte, but it tasted like sawdust from the Vienna Woods; the cream turned sour in her mouth. She was glad of the coffee when it was poured.

  “Beautiful coffee,” she said, feeling she had been suspiciously quiet for too long.

  “There are still some stocks of the best coffee available.” But only for the select few, though he did not add that. The masses were having to put up with coffee bastardized with chicory and other substitutes. “I shall send you some. I understand Americans don’t know how to make coffee.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I have my sources in America.” He smiled, and again she felt uneasy. Was she imagining it or was there no smile in those dark eyes?

  “Let’s go downstairs,” he said, rising abruptly. “I have something to show you.”

  He took her arm and led her downstairs into a room that she saw at once was a combination drawing room and small theatre. A screen had been let down against one wall; in the opposite wall she could see the apertures for a projector. She and Goebbels sank into deep, silk-covered chairs. Without thinking she crossed her ankles in that sinuous way that some women, those with slim legs, have of showing off the curve of their instep; she caught his appreciative glance and wished she had been more modest. The lights went out and the familiar trade mark of Leo the Lion came up on the screen. Then the titles came up and she gasped with surprise. It was her first picture.

  “How on earth did you get a print of that?”

  “I told you—I have my sources.”

  She shrank down in her seat, embarrassed at herself up there moving so awkwardly through Cedric Gibbons’ sets, playing a little rich girl and looking like someone who had come straight in from a relief line. She was Norma Shearer’s sister, always running into scenes like a heifer into a china shop; the only good performance was given by her legs and then only when she was standing still. The film lasted 84 minutes and she was on screen for about a quarter of that time, every second mortifying agony. Occasionally she glanced at Goebbels, but he seemed to be fascinated by the film. She had expected him, once the lights went down, to take her hand or go even further: picture theatres all over the world were dens of seduction. But he was a model of correct behaviour, a gentleman in the dark.

  Only when the lights went up did he take her hand. He patted it in congratulation. “Even then you had something.”

  “Sure. A talent for tripping over myself. I remember Norma telling me not to come within a yard of her for fear I knocked her out of shot.”

  He shook his head. “It was to be expected in your first film. No, you had promise. But you looked so innocent then.”

  “And I don’t now?” He was still holding her hand.

  The smile changed, looked sensual: here it comes, she thought. “I don’t place much value on innocence.”

  Her tongue once again got away from her: “What about your children’s?”

  He dropped her hand as if it had suddenly become leprous. “That’s damned impertinent!”

  She was torn between being abjectly apologetic and fiercely independent. But she had never been able to crawl: “It wasn’t meant to be. I’d have thought you’d be concerned for your children.”

  “I am!” He stood up in a rage; she was shocked and frightened to see that he was actually trembling. “You had better go. Goodnight!”

  He went swiftly out of the room, hobbling in his haste, leaving her alone in the big room. She looked towards the wall behind which the projection booth was hidden; the apertures stared at her like square unseeing eyes. But she knew that there were eyes behind those eyes that had seen what had gone on; the projectionist may not have heard what had been said, but he knew she had been dismissed like a cheap whore. Then the butler appeared in the doorway carrying her wrap.

  “This way, Fräulein.” There was no mistaking the contempt in his voice; he sounded like a German version of Eric Blore in the Astaire-Rogers pictures. She remembered something an English actor, who specialized in such roles, had once told her: the two biggest snobs in the world are butlers and floorwalkers. They see so much of the error of other people’s ways, while wishing for the same o
pportunities.

  She went home, disappointed and afraid.

  II

  Extracts from the diaries of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels:

  13 August 1939:

  Reports from Obersalzberg. Ciano is now there with the Fuehrer after two days at Fuschl with Ribbentrop. What a meeting of minds that would have been—it is difficult to believe that the future of Europe could lie in the hands of those two. No wonder some of our enemies do not take us seriously. But Ciano is now with the Fuehrer, who has told him that Germany will go to war if our demands over Danzig are not met. Ciano, I understand, protested that war over Danzig would spread into a general war throughout Europe, something Mussolini is evidently afraid of. I fear the same, but cannot say so. The Fuehrer will listen to me only when I agree with him. The others are taking over . . .

  Out to Schwanenwerder again this afternoon. Took the children out for a boat ride on the Havel. How fortunate they are! I often want to compare their childhood with mine, but resist the temptation. Let them keep their innocence . . .

  A subject that came up tonight when I entertained Fräulein O’Dea. I lost my temper, something I should not do, especially in front of a foreigner. But the children must be protected . . . Still, I wish the evening had ended on a better note. I am becoming bewitched by her. Perhaps those legs of hers remind me too much of Lida . . .

  But she did tell me some disquieting news about Lola und Ludwig. The script, she says, is full of clumsy propaganda. Clumsy? There is no one better than we at propaganda. I shall have some heads out at Neubabelsberg . . .

  To bed, alone, at 2 a.m. A mountain of work; but I don’t mind. This study is like a womb. All red: the chairs, the carpet, the curtains . . .

  III

  “How many concentration camps are there, Oliver?” said Carmody.

  They were sitting on the terrace of the Kranzler Café on the Kurfürstendamm having tea. Strong, with milk and plenty of sugar for Carmody, a real shearer’s brew; weak, with lemon for Burberry, an Oxford aesthete’s choice. Carmody was hoeing into a thick slice of apple cake and Burberry was munching delicately on English biscuits.