by Paula Byrne
‘Mutti, what happened? I was very anxious for you. They refused to let me come in.’
‘Papi, how can an intelligent man like Ribbentrop believe in Hitler? I had to hide Boni in the bathroom. Did you see that uniform? The fit of the shoulders. They have the best tailors. Probably Jewish.’
Boni enters, with a cold white fury.
‘Joan, if you ever do that to me again …’
‘But darling, they burned your books. They will kill you if they find you. They keep telling me that I should return to be the Great Star of the Third Reich. Nebbish. Hitler saw me in my first film in that garter belt and wants to get into my lace panties.’
Boni roars. He so rarely laughs, but she can always get him to loosen up. He is prone to melancholy, fits of despair.
Madou makes a joke of her encounter with Ribbentrop (‘that used-up ex-champagne seller’), but she is more worried than she allows. She knows that she must renew her German passport. Her husband insists on accompanying her to the embassy. They have one of their rare disagreements, in her bedroom.
‘Mutti, I am coming with you.’
‘If you step one foot across the door of the German embassy, you will be on German territory. They would not dare to detain me, but you are another matter.’
‘Mutti, do you think I’m afraid?’
‘You ought to be. Now, don’t worry. You stay here with the Child and let me go alone. I will be as formal and proper as the occasion demands. They won’t try anything.’
She makes a final adjustment to her hat. It’s important for her to look her very best. I know that she is more afraid than she looks. Her clothes are her armour. She wears a severe, but beautifully cut skirt suit, with extended shoulder pads and a nipped-in waist. The skirt sits just below the knee, enough to show her glorious legs encased in the finest silk stockings.
When she returns, several hours later, she is calm and quiet. She removes her hat. Her face is pale as parchment. The room darkens, and Papi switches on the lamps. Outside, soft rain falls. He pours a strong drink.
‘Where is the Child?’
‘With Sofi. Mutti, tell me everything. Every detail. From the beginning.’
‘When I arrived at the embassy, I was taken down a long corridor, and into a large room, which was decorated with a huge Nazi flag. The ambassador, Ernst vom Rath, a handsome man, he looks like a child, was sitting behind an oversized walnut desk. He was flanked by two guards, who stood rigidly as he spoke. He told me that he was authorised to make an offer to me, by the highest authority in Germany, which would assist my movie career. Papi, he was studying my face, and I knew that if I said the wrong thing, the situation could change in a flash.’
‘Please, Mutti, tell me more.’
‘He said that the German film industry is expanding its productions of films and if I return, they could guarantee lead parts of my own choosing, and the budget would be no problem.’
‘And how did you respond to this pack of lies?’
‘I asked Herr Rath if I could have choice of director? There was a pregnant silence, and he asked who I had in mind. Papi, I told him Moses von Goldberg. You can imagine his face. He said to me, “Miss Madou, he is a Jew. You will be working in Germany, with your own kind.”’
She takes a sip of brandy, and continues.
‘I rose to leave, and said to him, “I’m sure it can all be arranged. I shall await to hear from you.” His last words were, “Miss Madou. Your passport has been renewed. Please collect it from reception when you leave. I will pass on your request to Berlin.”’
‘Papi, I almost fainted. You must never go back to Germany while that madman is in control. These people will stop at nothing. I know it. I felt it in there.’
‘Darling, you have been so brave.’
‘He was just a boy in a Nazi uniform. And there’s something else. He’s homosexual. I am sure of that. He never once looked at the legs. Not once, even when I crossed them and hitched up the skirt.’
The husband embraces his wife, and leaves to attend his mistress. Once again, she is alone. She undresses, slowly, unpeeling the silk stockings, which she rinses in the bathroom basin, and then hangs over the towel rail. She has her German passport for now, but as she glances at it, the black eagle, with the swastika at its centre, she knows what she must do. And what she must do will put her family in the greatest danger, her beloved mother and her sister, Birgitte.
I Am a Camera
Who was it who said that the past is a different country? The museum in Berlin, who have asked to buy my mother’s chattels, has no idea of what an inveterate hoarder she was; she saved everything. It is my task to sort through her possessions; clothes, shoes, papers, jewels (most of it paste; the real stuff lost long ago), books, records, and thousands of photographs. In one drawer, I find her American passport. In the same drawer, I find yellowed newspaper cuttings, denouncing her as a Jew-lover and a traitor to Germany.
My mother renounced the country that she loved at the very time that Hollywood had turned its back on her. She could have returned to Germany in a blaze of glory, but she despised Hitler, and she knew, long before others were willing to believe it, that he was evil. She never underestimated him, or the damage he could cause. The Nazi Party were used to getting their own way by intimidation, and did not know what to do when someone stood up to them, like my mother did. It was a lesson that Europe was very slow to learn.
Nobody knew, except maybe Boni, what it meant to her to give up the country of her birth. Despite the fact that Hollywood and the fickle public had let her down, she felt that America would be a safe haven, and would embrace her as an American citizen. She would always be grateful to the country she had once despised.
Now that the studio had cancelled her contract, the money ran out quickly, but Mother knew the importance of keeping up appearances. She began a lifelong habit of hocking her jewellery in times of need. When the money returned, she bought more jewels. She refused to buy property, or paintings. The jewels could be worn, and sold quickly when needed. I prayed that she wouldn’t sell my emerald sisters. She agreed to my supplications. Goldberg’s sapphires were the first to go.
That summer, in Europe, was the last time I saw my grandmother. I had spoken with her on the telephone many times, but my memories are hazy. Her voice was harsh, and she told me that I must always be obedient to my mother.
Papi arranged for us to meet Grandmother and Birgitte in Austria. For once, Sofi was left behind. Mutti did not intend for her mother to discover anything about her unconventional lifestyle. We took the train to Salzburg, via Switzerland. Just as when we had last visited Salzburg, Mother insisted that we all dressed for the part. I wore a patterned blue dirndl with a huge apron that disguised my girth, hiding everything that Mother thought needed hiding. She plopped a straw hat on my head, which had a large feather that bobbed about when I walked. Papi wore leather shorts and Tyrolean knee socks. Mother looked like a divine milkmaid in a pink dress, with a rose-coloured apron, and a loden cape.
She had insisted that Papi should find her an Austrian farmhouse, with green shutters and red geraniums in window boxes. She squealed with delight and clapped her hands when she saw what he had done. It was exactly as she had imagined, down to the cut-out hearts in the wooden chairs, and working cuckoo clocks.
In the mornings, we sat around the old farmhouse table, devouring warm, soft bread rolls, and drinking fresh milk from the cow in the barn. Mother was in cooking mode, and ordered vast amounts of butter and sugar from Salzburg. She insisted that I ate breakfast potatoes fried in liberal amounts of butter, and ordered in fresh cream slices, with delicate, layered pastry as light as air.
My weight ballooned, and I split the bodice of my costume. Mother was alarmed, as Grandmother was on her way for her much-anticipated stay, and she could not tolerate criticism from her mother.
‘Papi, the Child is so fat that she lo
oks ugly.’
‘Papi, I know they say that a well-fed child is a loved child, but really this is too much to bear.’
I was relieved when Grandmother and Aunt Birgitte arrived, and my mother had something else to do other than fuss about my eating habits. I loved my gentle, shy Aunt Birgitte. She was an ugly duckling like me. We picked field flowers together and made them into little bouquets. My grandmother scarcely noticed me. She shook my hand and wished me good-day.
Grandmother’s first words to her daughter were severe. She admonished her for extravagance in sending a driver to meet them at the station, complained about the smell of the old barn, the size of her bedroom (too large), and the lack of good lamps for her to read her book. Her biggest complaint was the abundance of mirrors in the house. I was on Grandmother’s side. Mother had insisted on ordering mirrors from Vienna and having them delivered to the farmhouse. Her favourite was a large Biedermeier wall mirror with a thick walnut veneer.
Grandmother scolded her daughter for her vanity. Mother apologised, over and over again. For the first time in my life, I realised that Mutti was afraid of another person: not Ribbentrop, not Rath, not even Hitler, but her own mother.
Cowardy Custard
So the old trout doesn’t approve of mirrors? It’s hardly surprising when she looks like a cross between a washerwoman and a toad. How on earth she could have given birth to the world’s most beautiful woman is anyone’s guess. The mirror in her bedroom has been turned against the wall. No matter, I make my presence felt elsewhere.
She constantly complains to her daughter, criticises Birgitte, ignores the Child (well, I can’t complain about that one), and only shows respect to Papi, probably because he is a man. No thanks are ever expressed to Madou for everything she does for the family, the money she sends, the time she gives. You ought to remember, my dear, sugar catches more flies than vinegar.
On her final evening, there’s a beastly quarrel. My poor Joan is distraught, beside herself. It is almost unendurable to witness this row, but I am always here for her, will never let her down. They argue about Germany.
‘Mother, you must leave Berlin and come to America, where it is safe. If the Nazis are willing to bomb Spain, there will have to be a war. The French will never allow such behaviour, the English can never make up their mind, and Americans simply don’t realise that any country exists outside of their own.’
‘No, Maria, Franco is a great friend to Germany. All this talk of a small Basque village being bombed is propaganda. It never happened.’
‘It did happen, Mother, terrible, terrible things happened. It’s not anti-German propaganda. Nobody is stopping them …’
Birgitte, wringing her hands, looks shocked at her own audacity. Her mother interrupts, her face white with fury.
‘Birgitte, you are speaking out of turn. You are not intelligent enough to give an informed opinion. You are an embarrassment to this house and I will not have you making a fool of yourself. Now go and pick flowers with Kater.’
Birgitte slinks away, cowed and afraid, probably thinking that even the flowers in the fields are Gestapo informers.
When they leave, it is a blessed relief. But Madou is shedding silent tears as she watches the Packard wend its way down the valley of St Galgen. She is afraid for her mother, for her sister. What they might have to endure on her behalf. Now that she has been unable to convince her mother to leave Berlin, she has nothing left to do here. We shall depart for Paris and before too long, Hitler will add Austria to his list of shotless triumphs. Madou doesn’t know it, poor darling, but she will never see her sister again.
In Paris, she invites Boni to her suite in The Ritz. She asks, why can’t some Jew kill the little man and get it over with? She tells him that she will take matters into her own hands. Perhaps, she alone can stop this German madness.
‘Boni, I have heard that Hitler admires me. Despite everything, they still want me to return to Germany. You know, to be Queen of UFA.’
‘What is UFA?’
‘Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft. Their studio. They want me. I shall agree on the condition I’m left alone with Hitler.’
‘But, darling, there will be guards to search you.’
‘Then I will go naked.’
‘But what will the murder weapon be?’
‘That’s where you come in, with your connections. I was thinking of maybe a poisonous hairpin.’
‘But darling, they will kill you.’
‘Everyone has to die some time. Life is wonderful, but to kill Hitler would also be wonderful.’
Boni prevents himself from smiling at the thought of Hitler’s death by hairpin. She is looking particularly lovely this evening. She paces up and down in front of the mirror, and he watches her walk towards him with long, lithe strides. His golden puma. Her face is bright and open. Her shoulders shine out of her black evening dress.
‘Has anyone you loved ever left you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘One always leaves the other.’
‘You do love me, Joan?’
‘My head is full of silver when I think of us.’
‘Your happiness is too easy. You didn’t know me a month ago.’
‘Why do you always talk of leaving and being left?’
He looks at her with tenderness. Those eyes … as if behind them lightning were flashing.
‘Joan, I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a wave who loved a rock in the sea. The wave foamed and swirled around the rock, she kissed him day and night, she embraced him in her white arms, she sighed and wept and besought him to come to her. She loved him and stormed about, and in that way slowly undermined him, and one day he yielded, and sank into her arms.’
‘And?’
‘And suddenly he was no longer a rock to be played with, to be loved, to be dreamed of. He was only a block of stone at the bottom of the sea, drowned in her. The wave felt disappointed and deceived and looked for another rock.’
‘What has this all to do with us? Should he have remained a rock?’
‘Things that move are stronger than immovable things. Water is stronger than rocks.’
‘Boni, are you making fun of me? You will be the one to leave. I’m sure of that.’
‘That will be your last statement when you go. You’ll explain to me that I’ve left you.’
He looks at the bright face, with blue eyes and high brows, the bold sweep of the hair. The cool bright face that doesn’t ask for anything, which simply exists, waiting – it is an empty face, he thinks; a face that could change with any wind of expression. One could dream it into anything. It is like a beautiful empty house waiting for carpets and pictures. It has all the possibilities – it could become a palace or a brothel.
‘When the time comes, Joan, you must remember not to say goodbye. Farewell is better than goodbye.’
Around the World in 80 Days
Mother is in her room in the Paris Ritz for days on end, with only Boni for company. Sofi, whom everyone thinks is my governess, takes care of me. I take care of Heidi, and the emerald sisters, and all is well with me and my little family. Sometimes I think that maybe I am too old for dolls, but I can see from Sofi how it is possible for adults to take pleasure from toys, especially those as beautiful as mine.
When I’m finally permitted to see Mother, she crushes me to her body and kisses my eyelids. She wants to know what I have been doing, and I tell her all about the Paris Exposition; the German skyscraper with the twenty-foot eagle crushing a swastika to its claws, the Siam golden temple with jade buddhas, the Spanish displays of bright toreador suits under glass, the Eiffel Tower, which had been illuminated for the occasion, and, best of all, a huge, terrifying mural called Guernica, by an artist called Pablo Picasso.
Mother sniffed.
‘I don’t like that Picasso. Why does he paint such ugly faces? He’s a
madman. I don’t know why Papa Hem likes him so much. Though everything associated with that civil war is sacred to him. Now, sweetheart, stop all this gabbling and let’s plan our evening. I want to eat the fish in dill sauce in the Danish pavilion, and Papi wants to sample the Turkish baklava and those little wild blueberries in sour cream. You and Sofi can go and eat those disgusting red cakes that you like so much.’
Mother was in good spirits. She had heard that the studio was thinking of renewing her contract in light of all the good publicity about her defection from Germany. My mother was so beautiful that winter.
When she left for America, leaving me behind with Sofi and Papi, she cried, kissed me, and promised that she would write to us, and telephone with all her news. She had to prove to Hollywood that she was still a star, and not a ‘has-been’. She didn’t want to take me, just in case the new contract didn’t come through and it would all be a wasted journey. On the way to California, she shopped in New York for hats, and fell in love with a woman called Beth. I wondered if Boni knew about her new love affair.
Mother wrote to say that she had arrived safely, that Tauber sang German songs outside her door on the train to Pasadena, and that she had written to Beth to tell her that the affair was over. She wrote that she was ‘Lost without the Child’, but was in negotiation for another film that would restore her to her movie star status. She told Papi that she was spending money like crazy to appear glamorous and not have ‘out-of-work’ written all over her face.
I felt stabs of remorse for not missing my mother. What kind of a daughter would feel only relief at the absence of a devoted parent? The last thing my grandmother said to me in Austria was to remember that the only things that mattered in life were loyalty and duty. So how was it that I felt more loyalty to my father’s mistress than my own mother?
My happiness, however guilt-ridden, was short-lived. My parents sent Sofi away to another sanatorium, to ‘pull herself together’. Maybe my mother could really see into my mind and heart and find only her absence.
