The Notorious Pagan Jones

by Nina Berry

  “Before the war,” Thomas said, “my father worked in the resistance against the Nazis until he was forced to flee to Russia. He used to say that if you scratched the mud and sweat off of them, every single person, every house, every inch of Germany would be covered in blood.”

  Pagan had never heard him talk this way before. It frightened her, but at least it was real. “Secrets kill,” she said. “It’s better to know.”

  Some emotion she could not name spasmed across his face, and it came to her that he had a secret.

  Whatever it was, it was too painful to share. She put a hand on his arm. “What I mean is, we must not keep secrets from ourselves.”

  He blinked and put his hand over hers. “Then we will ask Frau Nagel whatever you like.”

  They walked up to Frau Nagel’s apartment side by side, and he knocked on the door.

  “Hallo?” came a creaky voice Pagan could barely decipher. “Who is it?” The door stayed closed.

  “Hallo, Frau Nagel,” Thomas said, also speaking German. “My name is Thomas Kruger. So sorry to bother you, but your neighbor told us you might be able to answer some questions about the history of this building.”

  The door edged open, and a watery blue eye crowned by a high wrinkled forehead and wispy silver hair peered out. She spoke, saying something like: “Are you from the government?”

  Or that’s what it sounded like. Pagan had a hard time understanding her. The words were similar to the German she knew, but different.

  Poor woman, she looked afraid.

  “Nein,” Thomas said with a reassuring smile. And added quickly how Pagan’s grandmother might have once lived in the building, which kept the woman from closing her door. Pagan understood every word he said. She probably could have asked the questions herself.

  “What was your grandmother’s name?” Thomas asked Pagan.

  “Ursula,” Pagan said. “Ursula Murnau. She was married to Emil Murnau.”

  Frau Nagel’s attention sharpened when she heard Ursula’s name. She listened closely as Thomas asked, very clearly, whether she remembered a young woman named Ursula Murnau living in the building, or perhaps somewhere nearby, back in the 1920s.

  “Ja.” Frau Nagel was nodding, and then she rattled off a series of words that meant nothing to Pagan.

  Thomas, too, was frowning, head to one side. He asked the question again, and the woman got agitated and spurted out more strange sounds.

  “What is she speaking?” Pagan asked. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. The woman had recognized her grandmother’s name, she was sure of it.

  “It’s some dialect of German, an old one. Some of her words are in more modern German, but I fear she isn’t quite, well, what she used to be, and I’m having trouble…” He broke off speaking English and tried again in German.

  Frau Nagel shook her head vehemently and said something else unintelligible, though Pagan would’ve sworn the name Emil Murnau was in there somewhere.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said to Pagan. “I can’t get it. Perhaps, if you don’t mind, I could see if my mother understands her. She traveled quite a bit around Germany before the war and knows more of the different tongues than I do.”

  Horrible hope. “Yes! That would be wonderful.”

  “Okay. Stay here.” He told Frau Nagel he was going to get someone who could help him understand. She gave a curt nod of assent, and he turned and half ran back out the front door of the building.

  “I beg your pardon,” Pagan said in German. “Thank you for your patience.”

  Frau Nagel harrumphed, her seamed eyes running up and down Pagan’s pretty gold dress, her wide-brimmed hat. Her face relaxed a little, and she put out two fingers and flicked the brim of Pagan’s hat, smiling, and said something that seemed to be about a hat she’d once had.

  Thomas re-entered, towing his mother and Karin after, telling Karin to wait there by the door for a few minutes.

  Pagan removed her hat and offered it to Frau Nagel. The old woman frowned, and rattled off something Pagan couldn’t understand. Frau Kruger walked up, listening intently, and to Pagan’s enormous relief, she began, haltingly, to respond.

  Frau Nagel’s face brightened. She spoke again, pointing to Pagan and the hat.

  “She says your young skin needs shelter from the sun more than her wrinkles do,” said Frau Kruger.

  “Please tell her I have another hat, and I would be honored if she’d take this one.” Pagan smiled as Frau Kruger translated, slowly.

  Frau Nagel frowned again, but this time as if considering her words. Sensing an opening, Pagan reached up and placed the hat on Frau Nagel’s head and held up the pin. “May I?” she asked in German.

  Frau Nagel’s drooping face split with the strength of her smile. She bowed her head and said something like “Danke” as she took the pin from Pagan and, shaking slightly, used it to pin the hat on her head. Then she spoke again.

  “She says you are too kind, and she will treasure it, especially during her long walks to the store in the sun,” Frau Kruger translated. “Very nice, my dear. Now I will ask her about your grandmother.”

  The two women spoke in spurts and fits with each other. Frau Kruger had to carefully reach for each word while Frau Nagel emitted her sentences in gruff eruptions. Pagan clearly heard the names Ursula and Emil Murnau mentioned, and once possibly her mother’s first name, Eva.

  Frau Kruger’s tone sharpened, became more demanding. Frau Nagel shook her head and replied in the negative.

  Finally, Frau Kruger nodded and thanked Frau Nagel. The old woman made a small sound like “harrumph,” threw a smile at Pagan, and shut her door.

  Pagan took two involuntary steps toward Frau Kruger, angling herself to get in front of the woman, who was frowning, her eyes on the floor, deep in thought. Pagan cast a helpless glance at Thomas, who looked equally frustrated. “Mutter!” he exclaimed. “What did she say?”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon.” Frau Kruger lifted her gaze, eyebrows still drawn together. “She says Ursula Murnau only lived here for about a year before she left for America with her daughter, Eva. Eva wasn’t born here. They came from somewhere else. She couldn’t remember where.”

  Frau Kruger started to move toward the door out of the building. “It’s time we got Karin back to do her homework.”

  They trailed behind her through the entryway, confused. “But it’s Friday,” Karin said. “My homework isn’t due till Monday.”

  “Did she know why Grandmama moved?” Pagan asked. She looked back at the door to Frau Nagel’s apartment, wishing Frau Kruger hadn’t ended the conversation so definitely. “Did my grandfather live here, too, before he died?”

  Frau Kruger sniffed and blinked, pushing open the door. “She said Ursula kept mostly to herself while she was here. She lived alone and worked in an office somewhere while a neighbor looked after her baby. Then she moved to America with little Eva.”

  “But why move? Did Frau Nagel ever meet my grandfather?”

  Frau Kruger walked down the stairs, her back to Pagan. “No,” she said as if a little irritated by the question. “Emil Murnau died before your Grandmother moved into the building. Frau Nagel seemed to think Ursula always wanted to move to America, so she moved here, got a job, saved her money, and she left.”

  “She got a job as a secretary in New York for a German-American lawyer who worked in the film business,” Pagan said. They were all hustling after Frau Kruger along the sidewalk now. She seemed to suddenly be on a mission to walk home as fast as possible. “When he moved to Los Angeles, so did Grandmama, with my mother.”

  “Did she ever remarry?” Thomas asked. He, too, appeared a little bewildered at his mother’s change of mood.

  “No,” Pagan said. “She died when I was ten, so I didn’t have much of a chance to ask her about he
r life before I was born.”

  “Your grandmother was a very young mother, without a husband,” Frau Kruger said. “Life here must have been difficult for her. After the First World War, Germany was troubled, with terrible inflation, trying to pay war reparations, and filled with so much shame. Many young people moved then to America. Most of those who remained succumbed to the disgusting policies of Adolf Hitler in order to erase their shame.” She shook her head. “A terrible time.”

  “Like my father, Mother was also active in the Communist resistance in the thirties,” Thomas said. “She and Father had to move to Russia before the War, or they would have been killed.”

  “The Communists were allies once with the United States,” Frau Kruger said. “It is not fashionable to say so, but Comrade Stalin ruined all that with his policies, and I’m afraid the Party has not yet recovered.”

  “Mutter!” Thomas looked shocked, glancing around them to make sure no one was on the street nearby to overhear.

  “There is no one here to object to me,” Frau Kruger said. “My country is empty.”

  Thomas caught up with his mother. Pagan heard him ask her “Are you all right?” in an undertone.

  Frau Kruger shook her head, her forehead creased, and said something back to him in German that Pagan couldn’t quite hear except for “no place for women,” and “what they did to your father.” Thomas’s face sagged a little as she said it, and he nodded.

  She turned partway round to Pagan as they continued to walk along. “I’m sorry, Pagan,” she said, pronouncing it the German way as Pah-gahn. “But I have been reminded of how far my country has to go.”

  Pagan didn’t quite understand the link between a conversation about her grandmother and Germany’s problems, but Frau Kruger’s distress was palpable, and it would have been rude to question her emotions. Whatever else was going on, it seemed as if Frau Kruger and Thomas also suspected that Thomas’s father’s death wasn’t an accident. And they were helpless to do anything about it.

  Pagan glanced back at the griffin building as they rounded the corner, heading back to the Kruger apartment. She promised herself that she would go back, perhaps even find someone else there to talk to. Where had Grandmama gotten the money to move to America? Where was she living before, when her husband, Emil Murnau, died? There was still so much to learn.

  As they turned onto the Krugers’ street, Pagan spotted the big black limousine, parked in the same spot, with a lean dark-suited figure leaning casually against the hood. Devin had returned, looking like he’d been born into his Savile Row suit and sunglasses.

  Thomas moved up rapidly to meet Devin first, apologizing for keeping her out so long. Devin, however, appeared unperturbed, and told him not to worry about it. He added something in a lower voice she couldn’t hear that made Thomas turn faintly red, straighten up, and nod.

  Karin was tugging on her arm. “Can you wait for one more moment? I want to get something to write with so that I can get your autograph.”

  “Of course,” Pagan said, and the girl took off running and vanished behind the main door to her apartment building.

  “Did you find the griffin?” Devin asked Pagan as she got closer.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid we didn’t learn much,” Pagan said. “Frau Kruger was kind enough to translate for a woman who lived in the building when my grandmother was there, but she didn’t remember very much.”

  “That’s a shame.” Devin didn’t appear particularly disappointed. She couldn’t help scanning the line of his suit as he moved, but it wasn’t marred by a shoulder holster bump. If he’d brought his gun, he must have stashed it in the car, along with the rest of his disguise. And maybe some loot.

  “How was your outing?” Pagan asked.

  “Nothing to write home about,” he said, and turned to open the car door. As he did it, his elbow hit Thomas in the arm.

  The bump looked accidental, but Thomas started, his tan face reddening again, and turned to her. “Pagan, before you go, I wanted to ask—would you have dinner with me this evening? On Fridays your hotel has dancing and dining on the roof, with a wonderful view of the city. I think you’d enjoy it. And since tomorrow is Saturday, we don’t have to be up early for the shoot until Monday.”

  “I…” Confused, Pagan looked back and forth between Thomas and Devin. Devin’s accidental bump into Thomas looked an awful lot like a prompt to get Thomas to ask her out to dinner.

  Disappointment and anger made her flush. How dare Devin arrange her personal life? Damn him, for pawning her off on another man, even one as smart and fun as Thomas.

  “It sounds great,” she said.

  It would be great. She hadn’t had a night out since before the car accident, let alone a fancy dinner and dancing. There’d be alcohol around, sure. But so far she’d been able to resist temptation. Thomas would be good company, and a far less complicated date than Devin, or her ex, Nicky.

  “Oh, good!” Thomas took her hand in his. His smile was genuine but oddly nervous. His hands were slightly damp with perspiration, which only increased her anger at Devin. “I was hoping you hadn’t gotten sick of me yet.”

  “Not sick of you, no,” she said with a pointed look at Devin. “Thank you so much for all your help today, Thomas. I can’t tell you what your kindness, your real understanding of my feelings, means to me.”

  “I think we have more in common than just acting,” Thomas said, and, heels together, he bowed at the waist to kiss her hand lightly. “Meet me at the rooftop restaurant. I’ll make a reservation for eight.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at him. “I’ll see you there.”

  She turned and shook Frau Kruger’s hand, thanking her. The woman’s smile was tinged with sadness, and her eyes flicked away from Pagan’s too quickly. It had something to do with that strange conversation with Frau Nagel, although Pagan still didn’t understand what.

  But then Karin cannoned into her, wrapping her skinny arms around Pagan’s waist, head back to stare up at her. “I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.”

  Pagan laughed and smoothed the soft blond hair back from Karin’s forehead, then leaned down and gave the girl a proper hug. The slender, lithe child’s body, the smooth, damp satin skin…for a moment it was as if she was holding Ava again.

  She said softly into Karin’s ear, “You’re a wonderful girl. I’m so lucky I got to meet you.”

  “I’m the lucky one!” Karin said, pulling back. “Look!” She thrust out a German tabloid. A photo of Pagan was on the cover. It showed her, head down, sunglasses on with the black Mercedes in the background as she headed into her hotel. From what she was wearing, Pagan could tell the photo had been taken the night before. Devin had been nearby, but again there was no sign of him in the shot.

  The headline translated to Infamous Teen Star Pagan Jones Tries for a Comeback in a Film Shooting in Berlin.

  “Will you sign this, please?” Karin asked, holding out a pen.

  Pagan couldn’t help a rueful smile. Would she be infamous for the rest of her life? She took the pen from Karin. “Anything for you.” And she signed To Karin with so much love. Pagan Jones.

  As she finished with a flourish, her eye traveled to a smaller headline, shoved in the corner, and her hand arrested in midair. It read Nicky Raven Heads to Europe for Honeymoon with His New Bride! See Page 2.

  Pagan’s throat closed up. She was turning to page two before the full sense of the headline had sunk in. The spread featured a large photo of Nicky and his wife, Donna, waving goodbye to well-wishers as they headed through a doorway onto an airport tarmac. Donna was wearing a lovely Chanel suit, her blond hair neatly curled under a pillbox hat, her kitten heels the twins of a pair in Pagan’s closet. Nicky Raven and His Pagan Jones Look-Alike Bride Head to Paris for Honeymoon Bliss, the interior headline read.

  The subhead sen
t her stomach plummeting. Next Stop, Berlin!

  Her eyes searched the body of the article, mostly fluff and speculation, for the date of their departure. They’d gotten married nearly a week ago now, which meant they’d gone to Paris probably on Monday. This was Friday.

  They could be in Berlin even now. It made her sick.

  Her eyes lingered on a grainy newsprint photo, on Nicky’s and Donna’s smiling faces, their joined hands. Donna’s hair was a little shorter than Pagan’s now, her smile a bit wider, her waist a little longer. But staring at them was like a glimpse into the alternate version of Pagan’s own life. The version where she hadn’t ruined everything.

  “Pagan?” Devin was at her side, a hand on her arm.

  She blinked, lifting her head. She must have been staring at Nicky and Donna’s photo for a while. “I’m sorry,” she said blankly.

  Devin’s hand tightened on her arm as he glanced down at the paper. He took it from her and handed it back to Karin. “I’m sorry, too, but we really must be going.”

  Then he was guiding her toward the open door of their car, shaking Thomas’s hand, propelling Pagan forward, for which she was grateful. She managed a smile back in the direction of the Krugers.

  “Come back soon,” Karin said, flapping her hand in an enthusiastic wave.

  Pagan waved back and ducked into the limo, finding refuge in a deep pocket of the backseat.

  She wished then, more than anything, not for a second chance at life, not for one last glimpse of her sister, not for forgiveness and peace of mind. No. What she wanted most in that moment was a full cocktail shaker and an ice-cold martini glass.

  “He’s in Berlin,” she said as she and Devin drove through the half-deserted streets of East Berlin. “Nicky and his stupid wife are here!” She laughed, not caring that it sounded hysterical. “What else can the gods of idiotic teenage girls fling at me right now? Nothing, right? Because that’s it. That’s everything!”