“Never.” I stared at him over my shoulder. “I will never vouchsafe for a Nazi.”
He motioned to my vacant chair. “Major, if you please. A minute or two of your time is all I require. Frau Wills has already been told you are here. She’s on her way as we speak.”
I inched to the chair but didn’t sit. Squashing my cigarette in his overflowing ashtray, I waited with him in silence until I heard footsteps coming down the hallway.
Bracing myself, I turned to the door.
When she walked in, the sight of her knocked the air from my lungs.
She wore a straw hat, which she pushed back hastily, revealing her wan face. She wasn’t emaciated. Not even too thin. While more slender than the last time I’d seen her, what now seemed a lifetime ago, she was still Liesel, still my sister, in her faded coat and rumpled wool stockings, her gasp of recognition followed by a fervent embrace that froze me where I stood.
“Lena.” She clutched me. “I knew you’d come. Oh, it’s been awful. Dreadful. These nice people”—she drew back to cast a strained smile at Horwell—“they seem to think we’re somehow responsible for all this. But we’re not. Tell them, Lena. Tell them who I am.”
As she spoke, she looked fretfully to the doorway, as if she expected someone else to enter. Horwell said, “Your husband, Herr Wills, will not be joining us. This is a private meeting. I didn’t want Major Dietrich to be overwhelmed. She’s been very worried for your safety and seeing as you were recently ill—”
“Major!” Liesel returned her surprised gaze to me. She had been ill, I could see it now. She still had a low-grade fever, a slight heat coming off her. But it wasn’t typhus or starvation, I found myself thinking. Not anything like what those around her had suffered. “You’re a major now?” She pouted. “No one told me.”
“Yes. It seems no one told either one of us a great many things.” I let my implication sink in, her eyes narrowing as I added, “I hear you have a son.”
She nodded. “Oh, Lena, he’s so afraid. My Hans doesn’t understand why we’re being held like this. Like hostages. They separated us from Georg and he misses his father so. It’s all a terrible mistake. Can’t you just tell this lovely gentleman who we are, so we can go home?”
“Home? I thought that’s where you were. This is—or was—your home.”
“You sound angry.” She made a distasteful moue. “Honestly, Lena, if you’ve come all this way to reproach us for—”
“Cigarette, Frau Wills?” Horwell interrupted, proffering his case.
She simpered and took one, but when he made to light it, she shook her head. “Thank you but I don’t smoke.”
“Then why did you take it?” I snarled.
She gave me an astonished look. “Because one does not refuse a cigarette from a British officer. It would be impolite.”
Impolite? She was citing propriety to me, after what she had done? I clenched my hands at my sides, overcome by the urge to smack that genteel, chiding smile from her face. Through my teeth, I managed to say, “Where is Mutti?”
“In Berlin.” She tucked the cigarette into her pocket. “She was fine the last time we saw her. There were shortages of course, and no work, but Uncle Willi was looking after her. We tried to telephone his store. The call didn’t go through,” she said, with a shrug. “Something to do with the lines, I suppose. There had been a lot of power outages and—”
“Berlin has been destroyed.” Rage ran molten in my veins. I had to step back, had to put some distance between us lest I wrapped my hands around her throat. “The entire city has fallen to the Allies. Hitler is dead. The Reich is dead. And so are all the people they sent to this camp, where you and Georg . . . where you—” A furious sob cut off my voice.
She cocked her head, the veneer slipping, betraying her awareness of not only her circumstances but of those around her. She was feigning ignorance, terrified for herself, for her husband and their son. They had participated. They’d screened films for the Nazis and gone home to their private accommodations, their hot water and ample rations, while just beyond the fences, thousands perished. While I had worried and struggled to find my conscience, keeping my mouth shut for too long, out of fear of endangering our family.
Horwell cleared his throat. “Major Dietrich. For the record, please, is this woman known as Elisabeth Felsing Wills your sister?”
She was looking anxiously at me in a silent plea.
“No.” I turned to him. “She is not.”
“Lena! How can you say that? I am. I am her sister. I’m—”
“No.” I whirled to her. The fury in my voice drained the sparse hue from her cheeks, so that her rouge stood out like ghastly spots. “I have no sister. I don’t know who this woman is.”
“She’s lying.” Clasping her hands, Liesel directed herself to Horwell. “I am Elisabeth Felsing Wills, daughter of Wilhelmina Josephine Felsing and Lieutenant Louis Otto Dietrich. My husband is Georg Wills. We showed you our identification papers.” Her words tumbled out, in an earnest rehearsed rush. “We are not to blame. We were given this assignment but we didn’t hurt anyone. Georg saved a Jewish actor named Karel Stepanek. He hid him in the Berlin theater he was managing before they closed it and helped him escape to London. Herr Stepanek is in your country. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
“I certainly will.” Horwell made an annotation in the dossier.
With a satisfied lift of her chin, Liesel went on, “And she is my sister. She is Marlene Dietrich, the Hollywood star. If you harm me or my husband in any way, the world will know.”
Horwell gave her a contemplative look. “I’ll keep that under advisement, as well. Major Dietrich, will that be all?”
I nodded, my gaze on Liesel as he instructed the corporal outside to escort her out.
“The world will know,” she said again, this time flinging her words at me. “We did nothing wrong. We obeyed orders. We had no choice. None of us had a choice. We’re not you. We’re not all famous and rich enough to thumb our noses at our country and get away with it.”
I didn’t say a word. The moment the door closed behind her, the air in the office thickened, as if the monstrosities outside seeped through the walls to invade this sterile space.
Horwell gave me a few moments to gather myself before he said, “She’s right, you know. You do realize that? They didn’t hurt anyone.”
“No,” I replied. “They just showed movies while everyone died.”
He lit another cigarette, exhaled smoke pensively. “I understand how difficult this must be, but my job here is difficult enough. The military governor wants every camp survivor identified to the best of my abilities and repatriated to their countries of origin. Besides Dutch citizens, we have Austrians, Hungarians, French, Czechs, Russians, and Poles. It’s the same dilemma everywhere we turn; we’ve documented over two hundred of these camps to date. We have countless dead, but also survivors, whom no one knows what to do with. Do you see my dilemma?”
When I gave uncertain assent, he said, “They’re from the very countries whose regimes, either by force or voluntarily, allowed them to be deported. There’s nothing left in Europe for them, and at this time, no Allied nation is willing to accept them. I’m working to have the repatriation orders revoked so these people can have a say in where they go, seeing as they were given none when they were taken. What Frau Wills and her husband did or did not do means little to me. They’ll not be prosecuted. They were indeed only obeying orders, like so many others. Their punishment will not atone for the loss of life or help those who are left.”
“But she—she saw this,” I whispered. “She knew. She knew and she did nothing.”
“Perhaps there was nothing she could do. You might consider that Frau Wills was correct in her assertion: Not everyone is you. I don’t agree with her morally, but she’s neither unique nor remarkable. She is everyone who did what they felt they had to do to get through this war.”
“Are you suggesting I forgive her?�
� I said in disbelief.
“That is not my place. I am suggesting, however, that being who you are, you should take into account the consequences should her husband’s role here become public knowledge. There will be press. Unpleasant questions. Do you want to deal with that?”
“Unpleasant questions do not scare me. Not after what has happened.”
“I admire your courage.” He slid his cigarette case to me, watched me retrieve one with a trembling hand. “But I still think you should consider it. Like I said, it is unlikely charges will be filed against them. Our tribunals are overwhelmed. We have high-ranking officers and other prominent members of the Reich to locate. They’re scurrying for cover, and apprehending them is our top priority. The architects of this machine, the engineers and planners, the actual hands who set it in motion—those are the ones we want, not the menials who greased the wheels. Were it otherwise, I’m afraid we’d have to arrest practically every soul in Germany.”
“You should.” I couldn’t light the cigarette. I couldn’t even smoke. Placing it on the desk with a lipstick smear on it, I said, “What do you want me to do, Captain?”
“Acknowledge her identity and allow me to proceed. Herr Wills will be questioned again, but he’s already told us everything he knows. He gave us the names of his superiors. I suspect he and Frau Wills will eventually be released and sent home to Berlin with their son.”
I held his gaze for a moment before I nodded. “Very well. She is my sister.”
“Thank you, Major.”
I murmured, “You are an exceptionally kind man.”
“For a Jew,” he quipped, and as I winced, he softened his tone. “As I said, I’m not in the business of revenge. But believe me, plenty of others are. They will see those responsible brought to justice. The world will indeed know what has been done.”
I extended my hand. He held it. “If you would allow me one more request?” he asked.
“Of course. Anything.” I waited as he looked at our twined hands. “I feel rather foolish asking, after the day you’ve just had. But,” he said, “might you give me an autograph for my wife? She adores your work. She’s seen all your films. She’d be so delighted.”
A quavering laugh escaped me. “Do you have anything I can sign?”
He withdrew a leather-bound notebook from his inside pocket, along with a silver fountain pen. As I scrawled my name, I thought he carried the accessories of civilization even here in this desolate place, like talismans, perhaps, to remind him that beyond Bergen-Belsen, beyond the darkness, a more congenial world still existed.
On impulse, beside my autograph, I wrote a message and left a lipstick kiss. He took the notebook and read aloud, “‘Dear Mrs. Horwell, I’ve met many brave men in this war, but none as gallant as your husband.’” He inclined his head, murmuring, “You do me too much honor. I’m a soldier, like you, trying to find purpose in the incomprehensible. I’m no better than anyone else.”
“You may be a soldier,” I said quietly. “But you are not like anyone else.”
He saw me back to the airfield, where General Bradley’s plane waited. He made it so that I didn’t witness any other barbarity, taking me out another way to the jeep and chatting about inconsequential things until we said good-bye and I boarded the aircraft.
It wasn’t until I was on my way back to Munich that I realized not once had Captain Horwell used the term “Nazi.” It was the ultimate irony—a consummate German gentleman, survivor of the very people they’d tried to exterminate, now in charge of cleaning up their mess.
As for Liesel, I would never forgive. I could never forget. During the two-hour plane ride, I was visited by memories of our childhood, of her wheezing bronchial tubes and other unspecified ailments, of the procession of governesses and Mutti clucking over her; and of that evening in Schöneberg when our mother and I had played music while she reclined on the sofa, a pale vision of dutiful obedience.
She had always done her duty. Mutti trained her to it. Duty, above all else.
But I meant what I said.
As far as I was concerned, I no longer had a sister.
IX
The Soviet forces had invaded Berlin, or what was left of it, fighting with the Americans like curs over a pile of scorched bones. I had no word about my mother or Uncle Willi; I now had to accept the likelihood that they probably were dead, like so many others. I grieved and avoided the wrecked city to resume my tour, traveling to liberated parts of the country to entertain troops.
From Munich to Frankfurt, Dresden, and Cologne, I sang beside ditches and in bombed-out movie palaces, on decrepit stages in rubble-strewn halls. I played my musical saw, that oddity I’d learned in Vienna, sitting on a stool with the blade between my legs and coaxing Roma refrains from it, old beer-garden tunes, and other relics from our imploded past. I always finished my performances with “Lili Marleen,” rousing the boys to sing along with me, to lend them strength as they navigated a decimated land where sudden death by a buried mine or toppling building, by a lone sniper clinging to his Nazi armband, were now as much a reality as our lost millions, vanished without a gravestone to mark their passage.
Finally, my strength gave out. The infection in my jaw, never fully cured, surged anew. In blinding pain, I submitted to hasty medical intervention in Paris before taking flight to New York. I’d outstayed my USO engagement by three months. I had left as a star, eager to show my patriotism, but also eager for the attention it brought. I returned as someone different—forged in fire, in the blood of the battlefield, and by the specter of a ravaged nation I’d resolved to disown.
Photographers and reporters thronged my arrival; this time, I gave no interviews. Customs confiscated my revolvers, despite my protest that they were a gift from General Patton. Looking grayer and more stooped, Rudi collected me in a car and rushed me to the hospital, where I remained for two weeks while my jaw was hollowed out, treated, and repaired.
I convalesced in his apartment. Maria wasn’t there; she’d followed my example and departed on her own USO tour, though she stayed out of Germany at Rudi’s request. Our daughter was too obvious a target, even with the Reich destroyed.
When I felt human again, the swelling in my jaw having eased enough that I could talk, I called my agent. I had no intention of staying in my husband’s home any longer than necessary. I needed money for a hotel suite and, if possible, a job. Sooner rather than later. The Ritz in Paris had footed my tab, waving aside my assurance of future payment, but I owed them. I also had an enormous hospital bill and didn’t like leaving debts in my wake.
Eddie did not mince words. “You left on a soldier’s salary, which isn’t much. The rent on Rudi’s flat, Maria’s tuition, storage for your belongings from the bungalow, not to mention installments on your back taxes—it’s eaten up whatever savings you had. I’m still owed my commission on your last two pictures. And I’m sorry to say this, but the studios have gotten used to you being away. I’ll make the rounds, but I can’t guarantee anyone will take my calls.”
“But MGM held the option on my contract,” I said, dismayed. “When I was last there, you told me I looked terrific. You were sure they’d line up another picture for me.”
“That option expired. And you did look terrific. Do you still look terrific now? Because you sound awful.”
I glanced into the bedroom mirror, the phone crooked at my ear. I looked . . . old. Exhausted. Thin and unkempt, my jaw bruised and still misshapen. I looked like what I was—a forty-three-year-old former movie star who’d trudged through hell. I could get it all back, I had no doubt. But I needed time. And the bills wouldn’t wait.
“I left some jewelry in a deposit box in Switzerland,” I said. “My emeralds and diamonds. I can have it appraised and sell whatever I need to.”
“Sure, but hold off on the emeralds, okay? I’ll do my best to get your name out there. It’s changing here, you know. Since the war, there are new opportunities, independent producers and directors. Stars are
beginning to challenge the system, and you’re getting a ton of fan mail. I’ve a pile of cards and letters from wives and sweethearts of GIs who saw you at the front, all thanking you for helping their men. America loves you, Marlene. I just need to prove it to the studios.”
I didn’t like the idea of him wielding fan mail as my entrée back into the very world I’d deserted. Unlike other stars, who’d done what they must to support the effort but never at the risk of their bankability on-screen, I’d walked away to plunge into the only cause that mattered to me. And although I’d not seen much since my return, I did not find America changed. That was the most disconcerting part; to my eyes, not much had changed at all. The war seemed distant here, among the skyscrapers and bustle, its tragedies reduced to newspaper headlines. Soldiers were being shipped home in body bags or clinging to life without limbs, blinded by tear gas and deaf from the bombings. No one seemed to care. The bars and restaurants were overflowing. Plays were still being staged on Broadway. Movies were still being made, even as Europe moaned under the wreckage and Japan cowered in the atomic fallout of Hiroshima.
On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered. The Second World War came to its crushing finale. New York exploded with streamers, champagne, and jubilation in the streets. From Rudi’s apartment terrace, I stood in my bathrobe and thought it looked like a scene from one of my pictures with von Sternberg—a celebratory rampage, careening into an all-week-long debauchery, without anyone having the faintest idea of the toll this war had taken.
I realized then that my own personal battle had just begun.
As I’d felt that day in Paris when Rudi confronted me, I didn’t know who I was.
“You should go back for a visit,” Rudi advised. I’d been finagling my way into beauty parlors, plying my name in lieu of cash. Eddie had not exaggerated my appeal. I found a host of experts more than willing to tone and groom me back into Dietrich. I’d gained a few pounds, which I needed, submitted to rigorous tonic cleansings and countless facials. I was starting to look like myself again, despite the crow’s-feet at my eyes and the new lines on my forehead. Makeup could disguise that. A face-lift could eliminate it. A cosmetic surgeon in New York, referred by my jaw doctor, had offered to perform the lift for free, asking in return that I provide his name to other Hollywood women. At the moment, I was undecided, having seen enough of surgical knives and hospitals for the time being.
Marlene: A Novel Page 37
