The City of Fading Light

by Jon Cleary

  It was Romy who protested, not his father. The General put out a hand, clutched his son’s shoulder. “Helmut, we’ll fight him together—”

  “Yes, Father,” said Helmut, though that had not been his intention. “But don’t ask me to pull any trigger.”

  II

  “Fräulein O’Dea?” said the orange-haired man in the but-toned-up shirt.

  “Yes.” Cathleen had finished shooting for the day, was in her dressing-room removing her makeup. Her dresser had taken away her gown to Wardrobe for repairs and she was alone, peering into her mirror, when there was a knock on the open door and the two men appeared. “What is it? How did you get in here?”

  “I am Inspector Lutze and this is Sergeant Decker. We are from the State Police.” He didn’t explain how he and his colleague had managed to get past the studio security guards and in here unannounced. The inference was that the Gestapo could go anywhere it wished.

  Cathleen was in her underwear, a state of undress that wouldn’t have worried her if some studio personnel had knocked on her door. But these men from the Gestapo were a different kettle of pop-eyed fish. She reached for a robe and slipped it on before Decker’s eyes fell out of his face.

  “We understand you are a companion of the Australian journalist, Herr Carmody?” said Lutze.

  “Companion? What do you mean by that?” She was fluttering inside and her mind was trying to fly off in all directions; but her voice was under control, had a hard edge to it.

  She had not asked Lutze and Decker to sit down; they still stood in the doorway, pressed awkwardly against each other. It struck her that she might have an advantage, that they looked a little unsure of themselves. Behind her on the dressing-table lay the note that had just arrived from Goebbels, but they couldn’t have seen that nor known about it. But perhaps they knew of the visit to his apartment the other evening. Hating the thought of where her advantage might lie, she decided she would use it if she had to.

  “Friend, then,” said Lutze.

  “In the movie business, it pays to be friends with journalists. We need the publicity.”

  “Of course. But it also pays to be careful of one’s company. Has he spoken to you about a Frau Hoolahan, an American woman?”

  It is difficult not to respond to one’s own name; it is like a dog responding to its master’s whistle. It seemed to her that her ears pricked; she was thankful that Lola Montez’s hair style hid them. She made a pretence of looking amused.

  “Hoolahan? That’s a joke name, surely.”

  “We are not joking,” said Decker, opening his mouth for the first time.

  But Lutze smiled. “It is an Irish name, no? The Irish are all jokers, so I am told.”

  “I’m Irish—or anyway, Irish-American. We never joke about ourselves—we leave that to other people.”

  The phone rang on the dressing-table and she picked it up. It was Sean, but she had enough control of her tongue not to say his name. “No, I can’t tonight. I have a date.”

  “I’ve got something to tell you—”

  “Not now.”

  “Who’s your date with.”

  She wanted to say, Don’t be like that. He sounded like all her other lovers: you went to bed with them and they hung their label on you. She lied to him, something she hated to do: “Someone from the studio. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “Have you got him there with you? You sound sort of—tight.”

  She was facing the mirror, could see Lutze and Decker behind her taking in every word she was saying, doing their best to guess what was being said to her. “No. It’s just been another bad day on the set. Call me tomorrow.”

  She said goodbye, knowing she sounded abrupt and discouraging, and hung up. She turned round and Lutze said, “Was that your friend Herr Carmody?”

  “No. I don’t think you have any right to ask that question.”

  “We have the right to ask any questions we wish,” said Decker.

  “Perhaps Fräulein O’Dea is correct.” Lutze looked pained at his partner’s blunt approach; the big stick was evidently not the inspector’s favourite weapon. “After all, she is an American citizen.”

  “And I’d like you not to forget it,” said Cathleen, sensing she had the advantage again, if only for the moment.

  There were footsteps in the corridor outside and Melissa said from behind the barricade of Gestapo meat in the doorway, “Cathleen? Is there some trouble?”

  Lutze and Decker stood apart and Melissa squeezed in between them. She looked worried and Cathleen was touched by her concern. “No, there’s no trouble. The gentlemen are just leaving.”

  It was a ploy she doubted that few Germans would attempt, to show the Gestapo the door; in her case it worked. Sometimes it pays to be a foreigner, though it is best to come from a foreign country that, besides being neutral, is also powerful. Foreigners from San Marino or Andorra have rarely had their own way.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Fräulein O’Dea,” said Lutze. “This young lady is Fräulein Hayes?”

  They probably have a file on everyone in the picture, Cathleen thought. “Yes. Totally innocent. Like me.”

  “Of course.” Lutze smiled, gave a little bow of his head and went out of the dressing-room. Decker was less polite: he looked both women up and down as if to suggest they had their price, then he jammed his hat on his head and followed Lutze.

  “Who were they?” Melissa looked relieved, as if glad her arrival had despatched the two intruders so easily; a supporting player, she was not accustomed to playing heroines. “Fritz Till asked me to come in. He said he didn’t want to come in himself . . . Were they Gestapo?”

  Cathleen nodded, did not blame Fritz Till for sending in Melissa. The file on him was probably larger than anyone else’s. “I suppose we’re lucky they haven’t been to see us before.”

  “I don’t know about you, but why should they want to see me?” She had an innocence about her that, for other people, is harder to bear than guilt.

  “They don’t need any reasons, honey.” Cathleen took off her robe, went into the bathroom and began to run a bath. Melissa stood in the doorway, watched her as she stripped and slid down into the bath. “I don’t know why they wanted to see me. Unless it was because of my date this evening.”

  “Sean Carmody?”

  “No, Joe Goebbels.”

  Melissa didn’t look surprised, just disgusted. “I heard about that—you going to supper with him the other evening. Fat Karl told everyone. How can you do it?”

  Cathleen suddenly wished she had the other girl’s respect; but only the truth, which she couldn’t afford, would bring her that. “Melissa honey, I spent six years in Hollywood going out with monsters, guys who wanted no more out of me than the Doctor does. They didn’t get it and neither will he. I’m going out with him for your sake and Fat Karl’s and Willy’s as much as for my own. His is the hand that feeds us and I’m not going to bite it.” She felt virtuous and self-sacrificing as she said it, Joan of Arc in a foam bath.

  “Nuts,” said Melissa, who was losing some of her innocence, though it was not evident yet. “You can bite his head off, for all I care. Where is he taking you?”

  “Out on his boat on the Havel.”

  “Watch out he doesn’t run out of petrol, Or is it a sail-boat?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. It will probably have a crew of twenty and half the German Navy as escort.”

  “Well, don’t suck up to him for me.”

  The end of the picture was in sight and it had come to her in the past couple of days, as a sudden jolt, that, for her at least, everything else in Germany was coming to an end. UFA had made no offer to renew her contract and Helmut, it seemed, would also kiss her goodbye when the picture was ended. Her dreams were down around her feet, she was already beginning to contemplate the awful prospect of going back to repertory in England, eight shows a week in some dreary town in the provinces, a pay cheque of four pounds a week if she was lu
cky and, worst of all, no Helmut. She was a dreamer but not an optimist, a contradiction she didn’t herself understand.

  She left, to go home to a lonely night in her flat in Neubabelsberg, and Cathleen lay in the bath a few minutes longer, wondering if she would be doing the sensible thing by accepting Goebbels’ second invitation. She knew from gossip on the set that he had an estate at Schwanenwerder overlooking the broad expanse of the Havel River. His wife and their six children stayed there during the summer and she wondered if she was going to be introduced to Magda Goebbels. It seemed likely and she did not relish the prospect.

  She dried herself, put on clean underwear and, an afterthought, added a piece of defensive equipment. The invitation note had arrived only two hours ago. There was no time for her to go back to Berlin to change, so she would have to wear what she had worn to the studio this morning. It would suffice for a boat ride: a cream silk shirt and cream slacks and a cashmere cardigan; Mr. Mayer had been adamant that none of his contract players dressed like bums and she was glad now that she had fallen into the habit of being presentably dressed. She took extra care with her hair and make-up; the Reichsminister’s wife would have a sharper eye than he. She looked at herself in the mirror, wished herself luck and went out to the car that had been sent for her.

  As she came out into the warmth of the early evening Fritz Till was waiting for her. “Did our Gestapo friends make trouble for you, Fräulein?”

  “No, Fritz. But thank you for sending in the cavalry.”

  For a moment he looked puzzled, then he laughed, his chins shaking like ferrets trying to get out of the big bag of his face. “Oh, Fräulein Hayes? I couldn’t come in myself. They know me.”

  “Have you ever been in trouble with them?”

  He nodded, no longer laughing. “In the early days. But I’m too old now to be a hero. Besides,” he patted his stomach, “I don’t have the figure for it.”

  As she walked on he called after her, “Be careful!”

  She stopped and looked back at him. But he just nodded at the waiting car and she knew he had guessed whose it was: he, too, had heard the gossip. She made a reassuring gesture, went on to the car and got in. The chauffeur was the same man who had driven her the other night: he looked at her as at an old friend. Or at least he looked friendly.

  Goebbels was waiting impatiently for her when the car deposited her at the dock. “You’re late.”

  “I was held up. I’ll explain on board.” Three sailors were on the dock ready to cast off the ropes and she was not going to let them know she had been visited by the Gestapo.

  Goebbels said nothing, just nodded irritably. He was dressed all in white, with a white peaked cap; he looked like the admiral of a fleet of ice cream vans. The boat, a motor cruiser, was large enough to require a crew of two; they remained at the stern while Goebbels and Cathleen sat in the forward well, he at the wheel. He had all the studied nonchalance of a weekend sailor who knew he had two experienced men right behind him.

  “Our family boat is larger than this,” he said. “But I thought you would enjoy this more.”

  “I thought I might be meeting your family.” She hadn’t had an opportunity to see the house on the estate; she had just caught glimpses of it through the trees as the car had skirted it. “I was looking forward to it.”

  They were playing a game; he smiled, his irritableness suddenly gone. “You shall meet them, but not this evening. They have gone to our other place on the Bogensee.”

  He spoke with the pride of a man still not accustomed to owning more than one home. Cathleen had heard of the Schloss Lanke, which had been given to its Gauleiter by the city of Berlin, though Fritz Till had told her that the citizens of the city had had little or no say in the gifting. It had been furnished by the film industry “in recognition of his services to the industry,” though here again, Till had said, he had never been asked to vote for the recognition. But then, he had further said, if the true recognition of leaders were left to the general populace, who would keep the scroll-makers in work?

  “You should not wear trousers. They hide your beautiful legs.”

  “They are common dress in Hollywood. Marlene Dietrich made them popular and she has better legs than I have.” It was a small shot but dangerous. She was determined not to make the evening a gift for him. He had performed no services for her, not yet.

  But he dodged the shot; or it had been a dud. He took the boat past a yacht tacking against the evening breeze, waved a gloved graceful hand in response to the polite waving of the people on the yacht. They were out on the broad expanse of the Wannsee now; Cathleen could see people on the public beaches, staying till the very last of the sun; small sail-boats, with the pouter-pigeon breasts of their spinnakers ballooning before them, were engaging in an impromptu race. Backing it all was the Grunewald, bright green in the low sun. The water itself caught the slanting light, slicing it into silver bars that came and went like fool’s currency. It was hard to believe what Sean had told her was the truth: guns were being drawn up behind the façade of these peaceful days.

  “Will there be war?” she said out of the blue of a sudden mood.

  He looked at her sharply. “Don’t let us spoil our evening. I have champagne back at the house. It will have gone flat if it has heard you.”

  She smiled, throwing off her mood, though it was like tossing an anchor overboard. “Who writes your dialogue?”

  He laughed, stroked her hand with his gloved one. The glove was doe-skin: it was like having a chihuahua rub itself against her. “You have a delicious sense of humour, you Americans. So dry. I am a great admirer of Mark Twain.”

  She hadn’t read Twain since she had left school. “Me, too. Did you ever work on the riverboats on the Rhine?”

  He had turned the motor-boat round; two sail-boats scooted out of his way, recognizing him and who really had the right of way. “No, I was at university when I was a young man. My only interests were philosophy and politics.”

  “No girls?”

  “Ah, yes, there were girls.” He spoke with a certain wistfulness, like a man who remembered one or two girls in particular. Then he said, “We must go back. It is getting cool.”

  The evening had lost none of its warmth, but she didn’t argue with him. Perhaps the memory of the girls of his youth had cooled the evening for him. He turned the boat over to the two crewmen and when they had docked it, he led her, not up to the main house, but to a small villa, little more than a lodge, hidden amongst the trees. She recognized it for what it was, one of his “forts,” the houses he had on his estates where he entertained women he did not want his family to meet. Cathleen had been told about them and suddenly, as they reached the front door of the small villa, she felt dirty, a whore being sneaked in the back door. The evening did feel cool, even cold.

  He led the way into a small sitting room where a table had been set up for supper; silver serving-dishes stood on a side table and a bottle of champagne lolled in a silver ice-bucket. There was no sign of any servants. She was about to play Lola again, but her suitor this time was no Ludwig.

  He put a record on the gramophone in one corner: Mozart again. The menu was the same as she had had in the residence in Berlin; he wasted no intellect on trying to win her heart through her stomach. Though, she told herself, he was not really interested in her heart: he had his eye, like most men, on something lower down and more basic.

  As he poured her a second glass of champagne, he put his hand on hers; he had taken off his gloves, which was an improvement. “Why were you late? Are you having trouble with someone at the studio? I can fix that.”

  She sipped her champagne, taking her time, letting him still hold her hand. “Can you fix the Gestapo?”

  He let go her hand, sat back. “They came to see you? What did they want? Did they ask you about me?”

  “Relax, Herr Doctor.” She felt safe, at least for the moment; she was surprised he should think the Gestapo had been enquiring after him. “Th
ey said it was just routine.”

  “They have no right to question you without my permission!” He put down his glass so heavily that the champagne spilled over; he licked his hand like a schoolboy, recovered, picked up his napkin and did a more decorous job. “What was this routine questioning?”

  She put down her own glass, carefully. “They asked me about an American woman named Frau Hoolahan.”

  “Hoolahan? Who is she?”

  Would he go as far as having the two Gestapo men brought before him to be questioned, when the true nature of their questioning of her would be brought out? She had to take a risk: “She is the aunt of a girl I knew in Los Angeles. She came to Germany earlier this year and she has disappeared.”

  “Is that all?” He appeared uninterested; women disappeared all the time. “Did they say what she had done? Was she a communist?”

  “Not as far as I know.” Mady’s only crime was being Jewish. “Maybe you could find out what happened to her.” There, it was done: more casually than she had expected.

  “My dear woman—” He shook his head in mock wonder. “I am a senior Reichsminister. Why should I bother about some missing American woman who has got herself lost?”

  “In America one goes to a politician for help.”

  “So I understand.” He did not consider himself a politician, not any longer; there would be no need from now on for politicking, for campaigning. That was for those who believed in democracy, a mishmash that had proven it could not work because it was based on hypocrisy and myths. “But they demand payment, don’t they? They never help those who vote for the opposition.”

  “Are you asking me to vote for you?” She had stopped calling him Doctor, but had not yet got round to calling him Joseph.

  “I don’t need votes, not any more.” But he smiled, feeling the evening was going well. “I’ll have someone look into the woman, if you really want me to. What’s her name?”

  “Hoolahan. Frau Mady Hoolahan.” She could feel an excitement trembling in her, but she managed to remain looking calm and relaxed.