Stardust

by Joseph Kanon

  “Who?”

  “Guy I met. He’d know.”

  She dropped her head to his chest. “When is it going to be over? The phone rings-your husband’s in-when was that? And it’s still not over. What did he do? Go with Rosemary? And he’s dead for that? It’s crazy. And now you. What am I doing? His brother.” She raised her head. “Maybe that’s crazy, too. My lover.”

  “Say that again,” he said, brushing her hair.

  She looked away. “Oh, that doesn’t make it any better.”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense. It happens. We wanted it to.” He paused. “We seduced each other.”

  “So nothing makes sense.”

  “What happened to him. We have to make sense of that.” He touched her hair again. “Just that.”

  Liesl’s father’s birthday went exactly as predicted. Dieter read a long prepared toast, then Ostermann stood up for his own prepared thank-you. The others were more spontaneous, but none of them brief. “The Conscience of Germany,” a glib phrase from Time, had now become a kind of honorary title, his own von. The toasts ran to form: the books, the humanitarian concerns, the early courage in speaking out, all noted before and repeated now, familiar as myth.

  The dinner itself followed a prescribed pattern. It had been called for late afternoon, a throwback to the curfew days when aliens had to be home by eight, and the food, according to Liesl, was unvarying- steaming bowls of chicken soup with liver dumplings, boiled beef with horseradish, potatoes, and red cabbage, followed finally by Salka’s chocolate cake, a menu that seemed designed to weigh people down in their chairs for the toasts. Later, after the brandies, there would be coffee and mohn cookies, more winter food as the California sun poured through the window.

  Salka’s house, on a steep wooded road dropping down into Santa Monica Canyon, was modest, a doll’s house compared to Lasner’s. The guests were many of the same people who’d come to Danny’s funeral, and they greeted Ben like an old friend with the fast hospitality of exiles. Brecht was there again and spent most of the time arguing with someone in a corner. Lion Feuchtwanger, interrupting, playing peacemaker; Fritz Lang, with a monocle. Thomas Mann had not come this time, a social deference, not wanting to eclipse the birthday honoree. Kaltenbach wore a suit that needed cleaning.

  Ben noticed scarcely any of it, preoccupied, the German toasts droning in the background, Liesl down the table, her face half-hidden by one of Salka’s flower arrangements. Did she look different? Did he? Could anyone tell? If he looked down at the lace tablecloth, blotting out the rest, he could see her last night, riding him, her breasts bobbing, and he smiled to himself because no one else knew, their secret. Maybe this was the excitement spies felt, sitting down with the enemy, knowing something, holding it to themselves, while no one else had the faintest idea. What was more secretive than sex? Kaltenbach stood up to make his toast. Ben glanced down again at Liesl, this time meeting her eyes, amused, talking to him in code, just the two of them.

  When he went out to the kitchen to open more wine she followed, standing behind as he pulled the corkscrew, putting her hand on his waist. He turned, their faces close.

  “Somebody’ll see,” he said quietly, glancing toward the dining room, the angle of the table.

  She pulled at his shirt, moving them away from the sink, the open door.

  “No, they won’t,” she said, urgent, her eyes darting with excitement. “Not here.” Kissing him then, her lips warm, unexpected, alive with risk. From the dining room there was the tinkle of glass, and they kissed harder, racing ahead of it.

  He pulled away, breathless. “They’ll see,” he said, already hard, his face red with it, unmistakable.

  “I don’t care,” she said, eyes shiny, still moving, then leaned forward again. “I don’t care.”

  Not really meaning it, playing, but the words flooding into him like sex itself, rushing, wonderful. Then there was the scrape of a chair and he turned back to the counter, grasping the wine bottle, and she slipped over to the refrigerator, opening it with a faint suppressed giggle, kids stealing cookies, waiting to be found out. He took a breath to calm himself and started in with the wine. But when he saw that the chair belonged to Ostermann, standing to respond to a toast, he glanced back at Liesl, a complicit smile, something they’d got away with after all.

  After dinner Salka led the party down Mabery Road to the beach to watch the sunset. Ben had volunteered to drive Feuchtwanger home, a cliffside house on a twisting Palisades road that would be treacherous in the dark, so he was late joining the others on the broad beach. People who’d come earlier for the day were still in bathing suits or sweatshirts and stared openly at Salka’s group in suits and ties. Liesl took her shoes off, but the men didn’t bother, formal even in the sand. The light on the water had already begun to turn the deep gold just before orange.

  “You know I was twelve before I saw the ocean?” Ostermann said to Ben. They were walking with Dieter, the others straggling behind. “Fifty years ago. More now. The Nordsee. Absolutely gray. Freezing. Rocks for beaches. But my father had paid for the week, so we had to stay.” He made a mock shudder at the memory.

  “So, something else good here,” Dieter said, indicating the white sand.

  “Yes, but shallow. You have to walk far before you can swim. That’s why they build the piers.” He nodded to the amusement pier farther down the beach. “Me, I prefer lakes. Of course, it’s what I knew. The Wannsee. Anyway, Liesl’s the swimmer, not me. From a child, always in the water.”

  “Yes. She loves the pool,” Ben said, seeing her gliding underwater, parting her legs. Everyone thinks it would be easy in the water, but it’s not. Preferring a chaise.

  He looked over at Ostermann, suddenly embarrassed. Change the subject.

  “She told me about Die Verfuhrung, ” he said. “I’ve never read it. Is it in a collection?”

  “No, alone. Quieros did it in Holland. A small edition. It was not so popular, you know. Not even the emigres liked it. Anti-German. Me, anti-German.”

  “It’s a German failing,” Dieter said. “Thin skin.”

  Kanon, Joseph

  Stardust

  “And thick boots,” Ostermann said. “A wonderful combination. Anyway, no one read it. I thought they might buy it for the title,” he said, teasing. “They would think it’s something else. But no one did.”

  “You always write about Germany,” Dieter said. “Everybody knows that. And this time-be fair-a fatal flaw in the blood, an insult.”

  “No, not in the blood. That’s what the Nazis believed, things in the blood. Destiny. It wasn’t like that. A whole country seduced. Led into a dream. You have to make that happen.” He raised his finger, a classroom gesture. “But they have to want the dream. The master race. Imagine-to believe that. If it’s German, it’s better. Well, the French, too. Maybe everyone. Look at them here. ‘The Greatest Country in the World.’ What does that mean? Great how? But they believe it.”

  “It’s not the same,” Dieter said. “What happened there was unique.”

  “You think so? Well, let’s hope. It’s not so hard, you know. Give them something to be afraid of. Someone else. The process is the same.”

  “Did Danny ever talk to you about this?” Ben said. “Liesl said he liked to talk to you.”

  “About this?” Ostermann said, confused. “The story? He said it was different here.” He nodded to Dieter, a point. “He said they were already seduced. By the movies.”

  “Ha,” Dieter said. “He was serious?”

  Ostermann shrugged. “Well, an idea. To make talk. That was his world, not politics.”

  “He never talked to you about politics?” Ben said.

  “Maybe I talked enough for both of us,” Ostermann said wryly. “Of course you know he worked against the Nazis. To get people out of France. But I think that was for the adventure. He had that spirit. But here-”

  “But someone told me last night he was a Communist. You’d think-”


  “People are always saying such things now,” Dieter said. “Every day in the papers. How many could there be? Just for signing a petition.” A glance to Ostermann.

  “No, the woman knew him. In Berlin. She said he worked for them.”

  “In Berlin?” Ostermann said. “But he must have been a boy.”

  “Old enough. He helped my father.”

  “What woman?”

  “Fay Lasner’s cousin. Genia. She was in the camps.”

  “To survive that,” Dieter said, impressed. “Genia. A Polish name?”

  “Originally. But she knew him in Berlin.”

  “But saying such things at dinner. To accuse-”

  “She wasn’t accusing him of anything. She was one, too.”

  “And he never said anything to you?” Dieter said. “His brother? It’s her imagination, I think.”

  “What did you think when you were eighteen?” Ostermann said gently, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Do you remember? I was for the Kaiser. A young man’s ideas. Things change. Maybe he changed, too. A flirtation and then you want to put it behind you.”

  “Especially now,” Dieter said. “The way things are. Even at the school. Checking on everybody. So strict. What do they think we write on the blackboards?” He nodded toward Ostermann. “Maybe you can help me persuade The Conscience of Germany to keep his conscience to himself a little. It’s not a good time to show these opinions.”

  “When was the good time, ’thirty-three?”

  Dieter gave Ben a see-what-I-mean? look, then turned to the water. “Look, it’s setting. At the end, so fast.”

  “Do you know why?” Liesl said, coming up to them, slipping her arm through Dieter’s.

  “Of course,” he said, affectionate. “When the horizon line-”

  She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m teasing. Of course you know everything. When are you going to show us the stars? I thought you were going to take us up the mountain.”

  “You’re serious, you’re interested to go?” he said, including Ben. “Whenever you like. You have to stay overnight, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, turning to Ben, her eyes meeting his in code again. “I’ll pack something warm.” Smiling now, handing him a room key. He smiled back, then toward the sunset before anyone could notice, feeling the color in his face.

  “You know, I don’t think it can be true,” Ostermann said quietly to Ben, reassuring again. “The ones I knew-they talked about it. They liked to tell you. For them it was-the truth. It explained everything. Children. Daniel wasn’t like that. More-elastic. Anyway, does it matter so much now, what he thought?”

  “You’ve got a hell of a nerve. How would I know?”

  Howard Stein pushed back from his desk, as if he’d been touched by a cattle prod.

  “I thought you were in the Party. That’s what I heard.”

  “What are you, working for that fuck Tenney? Or did the studio send you? Lasner doesn’t like the pickets? He wants to nail us this way?”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “Get a subpoena, you might get an answer. That’s how it works now.” He looked across the desk. “You have any idea what you’re getting into with this?”

  “I just want to know about Danny. Somebody told me he was. So, was he? It’s not a crime, last time I heard.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a free country.”

  “He was a friend of yours.”

  “That doesn’t make him anything.” He looked up. “It doesn’t make me anything, either.” He kept looking at Ben, hesitating, then stood up, taking his hat off the stand, his manner deliberately lighter. “But I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, you want some stories for your scrapbook.” He jerked his head toward the door, more than a suggestion. “He could be a funny guy.”

  Before Ben could say anything more, they were heading down the stairs and into the glare of the street. Stein’s office was over a car showroom on Wilshire, not far from the Tar Pits, and the closest diner was empty at this hour, still waiting for school groups.

  “You think I’m crazy, maybe you’re right, but I think they got the office wired. You talk about stuff like this, the board starts lighting up. Don’t bother,” he said, catching Ben’s look. “I know. Paranoid. I even know how to spell it. But I’m still walking around. It never hurt anybody, be a little careful. You, either.” He nodded to the waitress to bring the coffee pot. “First of all, I’m not in the Party. I left the Party. That’s for you, all right? Not the water cooler. Just something you heard around.”

  “So was he?”

  “You want him to be? Everybody else is running away from this and you want to hand him a card?”

  “I just want to know.”

  Stein waited until the waitress had poured their cups.

  “The god’s truth? No. Not that I ever heard of. Or saw. Not one meeting. I’d swear to it. At least him I won’t have to. He’s dead. It’s the others they’ll want to get. Fuck ’em. It’s a funny thing about age-the memory goes. Not a goddam thing you can do about it.”

  “Even under oath?”

  “What, with Tenney? Up in Sacramento? What’s he going to do, put me away? I’ve been there, I’m not afraid of it.”

  “You were in prison?”

  “You didn’t know? I’m a tough guy. Fucking George Raft.” He stirred some sugar in his coffee. “Aggravated assault. That was hitting back when they broke up a picket line. Teach me a lesson. Which it did, but not the one they thought.” He looked up. “No, he wasn’t. Like I said, he was a friend to the union, that’s all. And then not even that. Five years ago, there were lots of shades of red here. Like a fucking lipstick counter. Now, there’s one. And it’s too bright for most people.”

  “Then why would she say he was-the woman who knew him.”

  “Make trouble, maybe. This is someone in the Hollywood group?”

  “No, from before. In Germany.”

  “Germany? That’s years ago. He was a member or just-?”

  “He was a courier for them. Would they have trusted an outsider? Then?”

  Stein thought for a minute. “All right. But that’s still years ago.”

  “It doesn’t expire, does it? It’s not like a library card.”

  “Maybe he quit.”

  “I thought you couldn’t.”

  “No, that’s what they think. The Tenneys, the Minots. You’re never clean. Unless you confess. Help them throw a few other people on the fire. You can quit. I did.”

  “Why did you?” Ben asked, suddenly curious. He sipped his coffee.

  “No one thing. Maybe I got tired of taking orders. Party discipline. All the goddam meetings. It wears you out. And this place. You got a bunch of people sitting around, beating themselves up, part of the dialectic, and they’re bringing home five hundred a week, more. I didn’t sign on for that. And you know what? I got more done outside than in. My little time away kept me out of the service so I went to work for the union, the last thing they expected when they put on the cuffs.”

  “When was this?”

  Stein glanced up. “Late, if that’s what you mean. It’s a funny thing. After the Hitler pact, ’thirty-nine, everyone here’s bailing, and I stick. Maybe stubborn. But I figure maybe there’s something I don’t know. Then it all turns around and I see there wasn’t. Just what’s good for Russia. It takes a while, you know, to see where it’s going. Then we get in the war, and now everybody’s friends again-some people here came back in, you believe it? — but it has the opposite effect on me. I don’t care anymore. The Party line, keep the movement alive. Help Russia. What about this country? What are we doing for us?” He shrugged. “Maybe it was all the patriotic movies, what the hell. Me, waving flags. I know what it’s like here.” He touched the top of his head. “I got the bruises. But I figure if we can get rid of the fucking golfers we still have a shot at something here.”

  Ben smiled. “But the golfers have the money.”

  “Yeah,
they do,” Stein said, smiling a little. “Right on top, where they like to be. Now, anyway. You ever go across the street, see the Pits? It’s interesting. You see these bones, the dinosaurs, and you think, there they were, walking around, fucking owned the place, top of the world. And then the next thing-they’re gone. Just bones in a pit. It’s something to think about. You drive out to the Valley, past Warners, you see those big sound stages, sitting there like the whole thing’s theirs, and for all they know a tar pit’s going to open up on them.”

  “Then your pickets go, too.”

  Stein grinned. “Jack would like that. He’d throw them in first-buy a little time.” He looked down. “You want pie or something with that?” he said, a signal to wrap things up.

  Ben shook his head.

  “This is so important to you? Whether he was a Red?”

  “Did he ever talk about my father?”

  “Some big-time director over there, right? The Nazis killed him. He didn’t get out in time or something.”

  “Or something.”

  Stein waited.

  “That’s who Danny was working for.”

  “He used his own kid?”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “That’s a trick question?” he said, flustered. “Listen, I knew your brother. The family, that’s something else. He didn’t talk about that- just your father once in a while. Not the mother. He never mentioned you, for instance.”

  “No,” Ben said, feeling it anyway, a sharp point going in.

  “So I don’t know. What does it tell me? He must have thought it was important. To do that.”

  “It was. To them. They helped smuggle people out. Then, after they got my father, Danny kept doing it. Getting people out of France. Probably using the same network, wouldn’t you say? It’s not the kind of thing you can do freelance. You need some-comrades in place. So he still must have been a Red. And then he gets on a boat to come home and throws his card over the side. Does that seem like Danny to you?”