by Joseph Kanon
Ben went down the slope. There were ruts gouged out of the ground, probably made by the tow truck or whatever kind of winch they’d used to haul the wreck up. The tree that had stopped it had some bark scraped away, but was still standing. Given the angle of descent, the impact must have been violent, a thudding crash, enough to throw a body into the windshield. So why hadn’t there been more blood? He tried to remember the body, his brief look when the sheet was pulled back. Lacerations, the matted wound on the head, but not drenched in blood. But it wouldn’t have been if she’d died instantly. A dead body doesn’t pump blood. Still, the blow on the head had caused a bloody welling. Ben looked up to the broken fence. Unless she’d been hit before the crash, maybe already dead when the car began plunging.
He hiked back to the road and walked along the shoulder to the turnoff. Big enough for two cars, even more, somewhere to meet, marked by the curve. Ben turned back again to the fence, searching the ground. He’d wanted to come back to the site, show himself how it was possible, but he’d known outside Chasen’s that she hadn’t been alone. A phone call, a hasty meeting, dead or almost dead before she went over. The ground falling into Topanga told him nothing. He thought of her at the Lasner party, unafraid to tell him things he shouldn’t know. No more whispers and shadows, not after everything. A German voice on the phone. Who else was at the party, what other ghost? Who recognized her.
He drove back to Feuchtwanger’s house, parking near the other cars along the steep patch of road, one of them, he noticed, Ostermann’s.
“Come in, come in,” Feuchtwanger said, bubbling, his rimless glasses catching the afternoon light.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No. Brecht is starting to make speeches. Please interrupt. What, were you just passing by? Nobody passes by up here.”
He led Ben into a large living room with a spectacular view of the Pacific through the picture window. Couches were arranged to face it, but the group sat instead at the end of the room, away from the light, clustered around a coffee table littered with half-finished cups and hazy with smoke, as intimate as a Ku’damm cafe. Everyone was speaking German.
“So, you can decide,” Feuchtwanger said. “I’m thinking about a play and of course Brecht doesn’t want me to write a play, so he doesn’t like anything about it.”
“Write the play,” Brecht said, deadpan, drawing on his cigar.
“Do you like The Devil in Boston? For a title?”
“The title tells you what’s wrong,” Brecht said. “All right, so witch trials. Yes, everyone sees, a metaphor for what is happening here, what is going to happen, but it’s not exact. It was then about belief, the devil in Boston, a religious phenomenon, not political persecution.”
“It felt the same to the witches,” Feuchtwanger said.
Brecht waved this aside. “It confuses the issue.”
“But the process is exactly the same, the psychology.”
“Oh, psychology,” Brecht said, dismissive.
“Why do you think it’s going to happen,” Ben said, back at Chasen’s, Minot’s hand on his shoulder.
“Because I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Precisely,” Feuchtwanger said. “The process is the same, always. Make the fear, then the fear feeds on itself. That’s the devil. Hitler made the Jew the devil, but it was the fear.”
“The motivations are different,” Brecht said. “Hitler wanted to go to war, that’s what he always wanted. From the first. Not religious hysteria.”
“And the rallies?” Feuchtwanger said. “What do you call that?”
Brecht drew on his cigar with a little smile. “Show business,” he said in English.
“Ach,” Feuchtwanger said, a mock exasperation, but enjoying the joke. “And here?”
“Politics,” Brecht said. “Not even serious politics. Foolishness. It’s a country of children.” He turned to Ben. “You know what his inspiration is? For a play about witches? They refused his application. To be a citizen. Of this place. Why he wants such a thing-”
“Why not gratitude?” Ostermann said. “They took us in. They took you in, too.”
“Yes, and they’ll spit me out. Watch.” He took a drink from a small glass. “We have no place now. Only here,” he said, touching his temple.
“Hah. I’m not such a poet,” Feuchtwanger said. “I live here.” He pointed his finger to the floor.
“But not as an American.”
“Why? What did they say?” Ben asked Feuchtwanger.
“I can appeal. The time isn’t right maybe. With what’s going on.”
“The reason? ‘Premature antifascism,’ ” Brecht said, rolling out the phrase slowly, savoring it. “What can it mean? There must have been a time when it was good to be a fascist. Then not. It’s a trick, finding the right moment. You can be against the fascists, but not too soon. Then you’re-well, what exactly?”
Feuchtwanger shrugged, nodding with him. “A socialist. A pacifist. Before, when you wrote against the Nazis, where could you do it? The places they suspect now. Too left, too this, too that. So it’s not the best time here.”
“Thomas Mann had no problem,” Brecht said, puckish.
“Oh, Saint Thomas.”
They laughed softly, a cafe murmur. Ben looked at them, slumped against cushions, holding cigars, easy with each other. Was this the sort of meeting Danny had described, Riordan scribbling notes? The author of Josephus is preparing a play about the Salem witch trials, drawing analogies to contemporary events. The author of Galileo made remarks critical of the U.S. Hans Ostermann, my father-in-law, saidAll typed up for the files, smoky, idle talk, a harmless report. But no betrayal was harmless.
“What brings you here?” Ostermann said suddenly.
What did?
“Just a quick hello. Lasner wanted me to check on the car, whether they’d towed it.”
“Yes, the accident,” Feuchtwanger said. “I told you about it,” he said to Ostermann. “Terrible.”
“But on this road not a surprise,” Ostermann said. “Someone you knew?”
“A relative of Lasner’s.” Ben turned to Feuchtwanger. “Are there any Germans living here, up on the hill? Besides you?”
“Oh no. We’re famous, Marta and me-the foreigners. Of course Mann is also in the Palisades. Vicki Baum. But not here, nearer the village.”
“Why do you ask?” Ostermann said.
Ben looked up, at a loss. “Maybe this, hearing German. It would be so nice for you if there were someone else nearby.”
“Only Lion has the courage,” Brecht said. “These roads. In Santa Monica it’s safe, all flat. Even Salka, in the canyon, it’s not so bad.”
“But the views,” Feuchtwanger said, extending his hand toward the window and the fading afternoon, copper glints on the water and lights beginning to come on.
“But we always have to drive you,” Ostermann said. “The courageous Lion.”
Another easy laugh, the road familiar to all of them. You didn’t have to live here to know it. Even Lion’s guests, German speakers.
“So how was it at Alma’s?” Brecht asked Feuchtwanger.
“You know she had Schoenberg and Stravinsky? Both. The same dinner.”
“Another play for you,” Brecht said, mischievous.
“No, it was dull. They wouldn’t talk about music. Out of respect. Anything but music-so nothing, really.”
“And Alma talked about herself.”
Ben drank his coffee, half-listening, talk that could go on for hours. No other Germans on the road. Just a place to meet, then, out of the way. He stood up.
“But you’ve just come,” Feuchtwanger said.
“I know. But I have to get back to the studio.”
“Ah, the studio,” Brecht said airily. “Back to the assembly line.” He moved his arms in a pincer, like Chaplin working the wrenches in Modern Times. “More dreams. More dreams.”
“And me,” Ostermann said, standing, too. “No, no, don’t
get up. A nice afternoon, Lion. Like before.”
“Nothing’s like before,” Brecht said. “Even before.”
Outside Ostermann walked Ben to his car.
“I thought when you came, it was for me. That you had news.”
“News?”
“About the screen test.”
Almost forgotten. Liesl playing a daughter.
“No, not yet.”
“I don’t want her to be disappointed. After everything. Although to wish such a life for your child- Still, I can hear it in her voice, how she wants it. I was worried, after the funeral. I remembered how it feels, how lonely. But now look. Screen tests. It was good not being alone in the house, I think. So thank you for that.”
Ben looked away.
“They really refused Lion?” he said.
“He’s a socialist. It’s very well known, even here.”
All you had to do was check a file, information from a well-placed source.
“But that’s not-”
“Not before. Now it’s different. His lawyer said, be patient. Now he gets his publisher to write for him. How distinguished he is. He does very well here, you know. The translations. Not like poor Heinrich.”
Is this how it was done? You didn’t have to ask, just let the conversation run, listening for Riordan, a sponge.
“And now there are difficulties. It’s ironic, yes? They didn’t want Heinrich to leave Europe. Now they don’t want him to leave here. This time, no Daniel to arrange the escape. So he goes to offices and waits. For a piece of paper. Just like his script.”
“Why not leave without it?”
“Cross the Pyrenees again? You forget, he had papers then. That’s what Daniel arranged. It’s not so easy without that, a passport. Brecht doesn’t understand, living in his head,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “Why Lion wants his piece of paper. If he leaves, he can’t come back. He’s not a refugee anymore, but not a citizen, either. Of anywhere. So all he can do is stay here, as he is. Yes, it’s very comfortable for him.” He gestured toward the house. “But now a cage also.”
“But Kaltenbach doesn’t want to come back.”
“So he thinks. I wonder what he will say after. When those doors close.” He sighed. “But first he has to get there.”
With Minot watching. With Ben watching for him.
“What about you? Are you having any trouble?”
“Me? Oh, I’m not such a dangerous person as Lion. I wasn’t premature.” He looked down. “Maybe too late. How we waited, hoping it would go away. Thinking a catastrophe would go away.”
There was traffic on Sunset so that by the time Ben got back to Gower the lot had taken on the after-work quiet of skeleton crews and empty sound stages, only a few cars left in their reserved spaces.
“Screening room with Mr. L,” said one of Bunny’s secretaries, anticipating his question. She was putting folders in drawers, evidently working late to catch up on the filing.
“How’d the test go, do you know? Liesl Kohler.” Or had they changed her name?
“When was this, today? Maybe they’re looking at it now. The only way I know is, he writes a memo.”
“On a screen test?”
“Everything,” she said, with a nod to the wall of filing cabinets. What Tenney’s office must look like. Fourteen thousand files, rumors on paper.
“How about the guest list for Lasner’s party Saturday?”
Her head went up, immediately protective.
“I was there,” he explained, “and I talked to somebody and I can’t remember her name. I thought if I could go through the list, you know, it might come back to me. Does he keep them, the lists?”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be okay with him.”
She said nothing.
“I could go down to the screening room, have him phone up.”
She hesitated, trying to guess what Bunny’s reaction would be to either course.
“No, it’s here,” she said finally, turning to a drawer. “I just filed it, in fact.” She got it out and handed it to him.
“You mind? I’ll bring it back?”
“You want to take it?” she said, suspicious again.
He began to read down the list. Everyone there, with marks next to the Warners people. Seating plans, names on spokes around a circle, everything thought out. Liesl listed as Ben Collier guest. Rex Morgan, who owned 8 percent. But who had talked to Genia, spotted her across the room? A German speaker, so not Ann Sheridan or one of the starlets. Maybe not at the party at all, just someone who knew she was in town. But it would be easy enough to come up with a short list of possibilities, then use Dennis to check them, routine for a Bureau man. Start somewhere. She hadn’t taken a random turn off Sunset. Someone had told her where to go.
He looked up to find the secretary watching him. “He doesn’t like things to leave the office,” she said, expecting trouble.
“It’s a party list,” he said, folding it. “I’ll tell him downstairs.”
They had already started running the dailies, so Ben slipped into the screening room quietly and took a seat at the back. Bunny was in his usual watching posture, chin resting on a pyramid of fingers, while Lasner made running comments to the directors. It was Dick Marshall again, out of the fighter plane, making a sentimental visit to another pilot in the hospital.
“Why a profile,” Lasner said. “They’re paying to see the face.”
“Watch the eyes when he turns,” the director said. “Now you see the tears. He’s been holding them back.”
“Why? He saw the picture?”
“Sol.”
“The buddy dies? Wonderful. Something upbeat.”
“What can I tell you, Sol? It’s a war picture.”
“All right, all right.”
“He looks good, Jamie,” Bunny said to the director, placating. “Think you can wrap this week?”
There was another clip, Lasner quiet, his silence acting like a sigh, then the directors left.
“Jesus Christ, Bunny,” Lasner said.
The room was still dim, Ben invisible in the back shadows.
“I know. It’ll be okay if we can get it out fast. We can book it with Rosemary’s picture, recover the costs.”
“We’re supposed to be making money, not recovering costs.”
“Sol, you’re the one who taught me. Pay the overhead with these, your wins are twice as big.”
“And what about Dick? We got an investment there, too. Another war picture-”
“I had an idea about that. I want you to see this test.” Bunny picked up the phone. “Could you run the test now? The first one.”
This would have been the moment, Ben knew, to cough, declare himself, but he sat still, too interested to move.
It was the same scene they’d used with Julie, the young girl getting up from the piano and saying good-bye to the older man-her father? her teacher? — who was sending her away, better for everyone for some reason. Liesl was wearing a simple white blouse and skirt, her hair brushed straight, the whole effect young, on the brink. When she lifted her face at the piano, it seemed to draw the key light to it, a sudden radiance. Ben knew that it was framing and makeup and well-placed arcs, that it was Liesl playing the piano, but knowing all of it made no difference. Film transformed everything. Even the piano gleamed. She smiled now at the keyboard, slightly wistful, a girl he had never seen before.
“Watch this?” Bunny said.
“What am I watching?” Lasner said.
“The way she moves. It’s the first thing I noticed. Like a dancer. Watch how she gets up. You know who does that? Cary Grant.”
“He was an acrobat,” Lasner said, “not a dancer.”
“Same thing,” Bunny said, still fixed on the screen. “Now the hands. Watch her with his arm, she just grazes it.”
The way she might have touched Ostermann, a gesture Ben had seen her make, protective.
“Listen,” Bunny sai
d.
“I’m hearing?”
“Someone who went to school.”
The clip ended.
“With an accent,” Lasner said.
“Never mind. That’s part of it. Stay with me. Watch it again.”
He asked the projectionist to rerun it. This time neither of them spoke, paying attention. Lasner was quiet afterward.
“A nice girl,” he said finally.
Bunny nodded. “Exactly. She looks like she could actually play the piano.”
“So? What was with the piano, by the way?”
“You don’t miss much, do you? Vegetable oil. You spray it on and the lights pick it up.”
Lasner shook his head, delighted, another magic trick.
“They don’t line up for nice.”
“This is something else, Sol. Maybe another Bergman.”
“You’re serious about this?”
Bunny picked up the phone. “Run the other one.”
“You made two tests?”
“Nice with something behind it. Watch.”
Liesl was on a terrace now, outside a pair of French windows, about to kiss Dick Marshall. It was a night scene, their faces lit by moonlight, her white skin glowing in a low-cut dress.
“You used Dick in a test?”
“Watch.”
Marshall kissed her and she responded, then began kissing his face all over, devouring it, an eruption of kisses that seemed to well up out of her control. When Dick pulled back, breathless, the camera went to her, leaning forward, still eager, her eyes darting all over his face, as if she were kissing him now with her eyes.
“Somebody’ll see,” Marshall whispered.
“I don’t care,” she said, her breath a gasp, moving up to kiss him again.
Ben’s own breathing stopped for a minute, hair bristling on the back of his neck. Not just the same words, the same face.
“Turner does that with her eyes,” Lasner was saying.
No, Ben thought, Liesl does that, a look printed in the back of his head, just for him. When her lips reached Dick Marshall, he knew how they would open, the same soft yielding. He felt his hand tighten on the armrest. An actress borrowed from life. The look in her eyes now was real, as real as it had been with him. But what if it hadn’t been? Maybe it was just the way she played the scene, with him, with Dick, acting both times. How had she played it with Danny? Something he hadn’t allowed himself to think about before. The same expression, the same eyes all over his face? Or had it been different with him, a different acting, or not acting at all. The way they felt about each other.
