Daniel Kohler, director and head writer of the Partners in Crime series, was rushed to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital after an accidental fall at the Cherokee Arms Hotel in Hollywood. Kohler, who was alone at the time of the accident, had a long history of dizzy spells, according to his wife. Kohler used the hotel room as a writing office. Neighbors in the building summoned police after hearing sounds of the fall in the adjacent alley. Kohler, son of the late silent film director Otto Kohler, had been a Second Unit director at Metro before originating the detective series at Republic Pictures. Herbert Yates, President of Republic, said the studio intended to continue production while Kohler recovers. Partners in Crime features Larry Burke and Bruce Hudson.
Ben looked up at the metal sides of the Chief, shining like coins. Not even about him, really. An industry item. Was anyone fooled? Not the reporter, his skepticism poking out between the lines. Why rent a hotel room to write? Didn’t he have an office on the lot? Not really about him at all.
He got back on the train just as it was leaving, his mood seesawing back down to where it had been when the first telegram had arrived, a quiet panic. But Lasner was too busy dressing to see it, his attention focused on the mirror.
“Don’t start,” he said, nodding down to the clothes. “Two nights and they notice. Get the paper?”
“Take the pills with you. Just in case,” Ben said, putting the paper on the bed. “You know Partners in Crime? The series?”
“Over at Republic? If Herb had any brains, he’d fold it. I heard the last one did so-so. Oh,” he said, stopping, embarrassed. “That’s your-?”
“I mean, what’s it like?”
“ Boston Blackie, except two brothers. One chases girls, gets into trouble, you know. The other one solves the crime. The good one’s Bruce Hudson.”
No, it’s me, Ben thought, suddenly light-headed. The way they’d been as boys.
“You never saw it?”
Ben shook his head. “They never sent it overseas.” He tucked the other paper under his arm and turned to leave. “Don’t forget the pills.”
Lasner looked at Ben in the mirror. “I don’t forget things.” A kind of thank-you.
Back in his roomette, relieved to be alone, Ben opened the paper again. A piece with everything between the lines. Except why. Because a B series was failing?
Outside, they were heading up through cactus and sage into the wild high desert. At this time of day even the rocks glowed, golden with trapped heat, the shadows around them streaked with violet and terra cotta, as if the Chief had planned it all for dramatic effect, a show before dinner. He imagined Lasner on that other train forty years ago, the dry goods store behind him. No air-cooled compartment then, just hot gritty air and something new at the end. Maybe that’s what all of them had wanted, not just sunlight for film, a new place. What Danny wanted, too, and didn’t find.
Ben looked down at the paper, disturbed. Everything about it was wrong, not just between the lines, but in the lines themselves. He thought of the high railing along the Embankment, Danny perched on it like on a balance beam, arms outstretched and fearless, a boy who had never been dizzy in his life.
Ben saw Lasner once more before they arrived, this time by accident. He’d been up since dawn, watching the last of the desert slip by, the brick sand turning white in the Mojave. They passed Barstow, houses without shade, then over the ridge to San Bernardino and the miles of orange groves, planted straight to the San Gabriels, at this hour still smelling of the night perfume the guidebooks promised. Ben had lowered the window, leaning out in the morning air. In Europe there had been no oranges at all, not for years. Here the land was bursting with them, an almost supernatural abundance. Royal palms began to appear in front yards, rows of peeling eucalyptus along the tracks.
On the rest of the train, he knew, suitcases were being snapped shut, lipstick dabbed on for the last half hour to Union Station, but the morning held him at the window, head stuck out like a child’s. It was still there as they pulled into Pasadena, sliding by tubs of bright flowers, so Lasner saw him when he stepped onto the platform. He came over to the window, his face troubled, oddly hesitant.
“That was your brother that fell? You didn’t say anything? All this time.”
Ben looked for a response, feeling caught, but said, “How did you hear?”
“Katz said it was in the trades.”
Ben imagined the news spreading through presses, across wires, all the way to tables on the Chief, Katz bending forward to gossip, a montage of rumor. But at least Danny hadn’t been ignored, forgotten. News for five minutes.
“It wasn’t your trouble,” he said finally. “I figured you had enough of your own.”
“A shame,” Lasner said, shaking his head. “I never heard he was a drinker. They must have had some party. Him and the skirt. It’s a hell of a thing. He gonna be all right?”
So now he drank, the rumor swelling, branching. A drunken party, something Lasner could understand. Where did the woman come from? His own invention, an inside tip from Katz? But before Ben could say anything else, Paulette Goddard got off the train with a group of porters and a cartload of suitcases. Her hair was brushed out, shiny, every inch of her in place.
“She doesn’t trust me to find my own car,” he said as she came up, putting her hand on his arm.
“I’m just cadging a lift,” she said.
The lift, or at least its colored driver, was moving toward them on the platform, behind a blonde in a wide-shouldered dress and spectator pumps, still trim but thickening a little now.
“Paulette,” she said with a quick hug, then turned to Lasner and put her arms around his neck and held him, not caring who saw. “Dr. Rosen’s in the car,” she said, nodding toward a black Chrysler waiting at the curb.
“I feel fine.”
“Big shot,” she said fondly. “Just get in the car. Stanley’s sniffing around somewhere. Florabel Muir’s old leg man-he’s working for Polly now. You want to talk to him or to Rosen?”
“That’s the choice?”
“Oh god,” Paulette said, “not Stanley. He’s been after me since Charlie. Fay-”
“I know, I know. Henry, get her to the car, will you?” She turned to Lasner. “You send a telegram from Kansas City and now you don’t even want to see him?”
“He sent it,” Lasner said, pointing at Ben.
Fay looked up, puzzled, then went back to Lasner. “I was worried sick.”
“I just hired him. We met in Germany.”
This seemed to make even less sense, but she smiled up blankly, polite, the boss’s wife.
Lasner held his eye for a minute, what Ben took as a last silent exchange about the train, then moved on.
“Call Bunny Jenkins at the studio,” he said to Ben. “He’ll fix everything for you. And order the stock now-they say tomorrow, it’s always next month. Check the list at Roach, see if they’ve still got a cutter, Hal Jasper.”
“The VD guy?”
Lasner smiled. “Yeah. Tell him I bet they were his crabs.”
“Sol, I mean it, no more business. I’ll walk right out of here. I’ve been worried sick. This is the second time-”
“Tell the world.”
She bit her lip, then sighed and fixed him with an or-else stare. “This isn’t a house call. I had to get him out of bed to come here. Now are you coming or what?”
He shrugged, beginning to move off, then paused and looked back to Ben. “If you need a few days, that’s okay. You know, to visit at the hospital.”
At first, scanning the crowd, all he saw were the dark glasses and thick blond hair, pinned up in a pile on her head. Then she came toward him, a smooth stride, and he recognized the woman in her photograph, the same long face as her father, the high forehead. What it hadn’t shown was the skin, a tawny cream that held the sun in it. She was in a white short-sleeved blouse, slacks, and canvas shoes, as if she’d just stepped off a tennis court.
“Liesl?” he said, peering at her.
“Yes,” she said, extending her hand. Then, “Excuse me,” taking off her sunglasses, “so rude. Sometimes I forget. So we meet.”
“How is he?”
“The same.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“He’s not responding. It’s a long time now. We’re just waiting. You understand, there’s no recovery. I don’t want you to expect-”
Her eyes, uncovered now, darted sharply, flecked with light. She seemed to be wearing no makeup at all, lips bare, not even a hint of Paulette Goddard’s glossy red, just the flush of anger or worry that made her movements jerky-handshake to questioning glance, all quick, angular. Only the voice was smooth, held a second too long in her throat, still with a trace of accent. When she said, “This is all?” nodding to his bag, he heard the rhythm of German, not quite forgotten yet.
“That’s it. I’m sorry to get you down here so early.”
“No, I was glad to get a break,” she said, colloquial, fully American now. “It’s been-” She let the phrase finish itself.
“You’re sure it’s all right? To stay? If it’s not convenient-”
“No, no,” she said, dismissing this. “We were expecting you.” Another awkward pause. “Of course later, not so soon. He was excited you were coming.”
“He was?” Ben said, unexpectedly pleased. “Then-”
He stopped before “why,” catching himself. Danny wouldn’t have thought about him, about anyone. They didn’t. Something that happened only to you.
“Yes,” she was saying. “So many years.”
“Liesl? Is that you?”
A tiny woman, teetering in high heels, was hurrying toward them from the barrier. She was wearing a suit with a matching hat, the veil thrown back, as if she didn’t want to miss anything. Behind her, trying to keep up, was a man holding a camera.
“Polly,” Liesl said, taking a step backward.
“My dear, I can’t tell you-”
“Thank you,” said Liesl, anticipating her. “This is Daniel’s brother, Ben.”
“You must be shell — shocked,” Polly said, ignoring him. “I know Herb Yates is. I talked to him.”
She spoke in a rush that was a kind of suppressed giggle and the rest of her moved with it, head turning to keep the passengers in sight, so alert that her body actually seemed to be vibrating. The effect, Ben noticed, was to make Liesl recede, wary as prey.
“Did you see the column, dear? The item about Dan? I didn’t mention the bottle. I thought, Herb has enough on his plate without-and, you know, it just gives the industry a black eye. I was never one for that.”
“No,” Liesl said, noncommittal.
“And how is that other man?” Polly said, almost winking, some sort of joke between them. “Such a shame about Central Station. Sometimes, a book like that, you wonder if it’s too rich. But he must have been disappointed.”
“Oh, I think he was grateful for the money,” Liesl said, evading.
“What is he working on now?” She stopped swiveling to look straight at Liesl, a reporter with an invisible pad.
“You know he never says.”
“But you’re his translator, dear.”
“Only at the end. When he’s finished.”
But Polly, not really interested, was looking around again. “Oh, there’s Carole Landis.”
Ben followed her look to the end of the platform where Landis, Julie Sherman, and the other girls were getting off the train. They were all back in their bond-drive dresses, as next-door as the Andrews Sisters.
“You’re meeting her?” Liesl said, eager to be off.
Polly shook her head. “Paulette Goddard’s on the train.”
“No, she got off in Pasadena,” Ben said.
Polly whirled around, surprised, glaring at him.
“We met on the train,” he said, explaining himself.
“The studio said Union Station. Stanley’s in Pasadena. He doesn’t do interviews. Now the best I can do for her is an item. Is that what she wants?” Still fuming at Ben, somehow holding him responsible.
“I don’t think she knew.”
“Maybe she thinks she doesn’t need it anymore, a good word here and there. I’d be more careful. Given where she’s been.”
For a second Ben thought she meant the chorus days, less innocent than Sol imagined, but Polly had gone elsewhere, almost spitting now with irritation.
“You know, you lie down with a Red, a little pink always comes off. If I’d been married to Mr. Chaplin I’d be a little more careful before I threw away a friendly interview.” She looked over her shoulder to see Landis getting nearer. “Well, I guess it’s Carole’s lucky day. Won’t she be pleased.”
“We’d better let you get on with it,” Liesl said, beginning to move away.
“Believe me, dear, she’ll wait. Nice running into you.” She patted Liesl’s arm. “You’ll be all right. You tell that other man I’d like to have a chat sometime. As a friend. You know, he’s been signing things and you have to be careful what you sign. Carole!”
She stuck out her arm, waving, and without saying good-bye hurried over to the surprised Landis, the photographer trailing behind. Liesl stared at her for a minute, face flushed.
“My god. ‘You have to be careful what you sign,’“ she said, her voice bitter.
“Who was that?”
“Polly Marks.” She caught Ben’s blank look. “She writes for the newspapers. One hundred and twenty-three of them.”
“Exactly one hundred and twenty-three?”
She smiled a little, a slight softening. “My father told me. He’s always exact.”
“Who’s the other man? Him?”
She nodded. “You know my father is Hans Ostermann. So Thomas Mann is also here. And she imagines they have a rivalry-well, maybe it’s true a little-and so he’s the Other Mann. The names, you see. Warners bought one of his books, so now he exists for her. Otherwise-” She turned her head, annoyed with herself. “I’m sorry. She does that to me. I’m sorry for such a greeting. So, welcome to paradise,” she said with an indifferent wave toward the station.
She started through the barrier, leaving Ben to follow on his own, moving sideways with the bag through the crowd to keep up. The main hall, streamlined Spanish colonial, was noisy with leave-taking, voices rising over the loudspeaker announcements, so Ben had to speak up.
“What did she mean about the bottle?”
“They found one in the room,” she said, slowing a little but not stopping. “They think-you know, for courage. I don’t know who told her. One of her little mice. Maybe the maid. She pays them. Or the night clerk.”
Or porters on trains, Ben thought. They were passing through a waiting hall with deep chairs and mission-style chandeliers.
“I don’t understand about the hotel.”
“It’s an apartment hotel. People live there. But there’s a switchboard and a maid to change the sheets. A service, considering. You rent by the month.”
“And he used it as an office?”
“What do you think?” she said, looking at him.
They reached the high arched entrance, where Ben had to stop, blinded by the sudden glare. She had moved aside to put on her sunglasses and now was rummaging through her bag for cigarettes.
“I suppose it takes the guesswork out of getting a room. They asked me if I was going to use up the month. Since it was already paid for. They want to move someone else in. Collect twice.” She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking a little, then looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry to involve you in this. Such a welcome. But you’ll hear it anyway. So it was like that.”
He looked over at her, not sure what to say. A marriage he knew nothing about.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said finally. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “Isn’t that the point? Cinq a sept. Like the French. Just get home in time for dinner.” She drew on the cigarette, her expression lost behind the glasses. “Or maybe he didn’t want to come home. So that’s that.” She lifted her head. “I wonder what she felt when she saw it in the papers. Maybe she left him. Maybe it was that. Well,” she said, the word like a thud, so final that for a moment neither of them spoke. Then she stepped away from the wall. “So come. With any luck we’ll have the house to ourselves. These last few days- Why do people bring food? Salka brought noodle pudding. Noodle pudding in this climate.” She turned to him, still hidden behind the glasses. “Please. Don’t listen to me. All this-business, it’s not your problem. It’s good you’re here.” She dropped the cigarette, grinding it out, and started for the parking lot, lined with spindly palms, then stopped again, staring at the rows of cars, gleaming with reflected sun. “You know what’s the worst? I didn’t know he was unhappy. Isn’t that terrible, not to know that about someone? Maybe the woman was part of all that, I don’t know. So maybe it’s my fault, too.”
“No. It’s nobody’s fault.”
“I didn’t even notice,” she said, not hearing him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. One day, one thing, the next-” She put a hand up to her forehead, covering her glasses. “I’m sorry. I must sound like a crazy woman. Talking like this. You’re here five minutes-”
“It’s all right. I don’t know how to feel, either.”
She turned, dropping her hand. “Yes. I forget. It’s not just me, is it?”
He followed her to a convertible with the canvas roof down, shining with chrome, the metal handle already hot to the touch. She opened the door, then stood still for a second, looking at him.
“What?”
“Just then, with the bag, you were like him. Not the looks. You don’t look alike. But the gesture.”
He got in, flustered, and watched her start the car.
“I know it’s hard, but-tell me what happened. I want to know. The papers. I mean, dizzy spells.”
“That was their idea. I said, why not a stroke? Anybody can have a stroke. Even young. But they said a doctor could tell, if he looked. A fall, it doesn’t matter.”
“Who said?”
“The studio. They’re superstitious. Bad things. Maybe they stick. They’re not supposed to happen.” She glanced up at the bright sky. “Just sunshine.”
“But how? Through a window?” he said, still trying to picture it.
“There was a balcony. Just enough to step on. You know the kind?”
“A Juliet,” he said automatically.
“Yes? Like the play? So if you got dizzy, you could fall.”
“If you got dizzy.”
She looked at him, then up at the rearview mirror, backing out, physically moving away.
“Look,” she said, nodding toward the station doors as Polly came out with Carole Landis, arms linked. She waved and moved the car forward in the line to the exit. “Did you really meet Paulette Goddard on the train?” Not wanting to talk about it. “What was she like?”
“Nice,” he said, forced to go along.
“Maybe you are.”
“No, she was.”
“She won’t be after Polly’s through with her.”
“What was that about? With Chaplin?”
“Polly hates Chaplin. So he must be a Communist. Everyone she hates is a Communist. She hated Daniel, too, when he was in the union. She thinks they’re all Communists in the union.”
“Then why is she doing him a favor? Covering.”
“It’s for Yates. Daniel was important to him. Partners made money. So he was giving him a big picture to do. You know at Metro you have to wait years for that. That’s why he left there. You know what he’s like. Everything today. A skating picture, but still. A good budget.”
Not failing, on his way up.
“Skating. Like Sonja Henie?”
“Vera Hruba Ralston,” she said, drawing out the name. “You know her? Yates is in love with her. So it was a good job for Daniel. They paid him while they fixed the script.”
“Hruba?”
“‘She skated out of Czechoslovakia and into the hearts of America.’“
Ben did a double take, then smiled. “Really?”
She nodded. “On the posters,” she said, lighting another cigarette at the stop sign.
“Who’s Mr. Ralston?”
“She got it off a cereal box.”
“You’re making it up.”
“You don’t have to, not here.” She looked up at the sky again. “The fog’s burning off early. Sometimes it takes all morning. Shall we go to the hospital first?”
She pulled out of the lot, looking straight ahead. Smoke curled up from the cigarette between her fingers on the steering wheel, then flew back in the breeze as they sped up, mixing with loose wisps of hair. What California was supposed to be like-a girl in a convertible. But not the way he expected.
Across the street, they drove past a sleepy plaza of tile roofs and Mexican rug stalls, a village for tourists. Behind it, just a block away, the American city began: office buildings, coffee shops, anywhere. Harold Lloyd had dangled from a clock here and the Kops had chased each other through Pershing Square and dodged streetcars (red, it turned out), but all that had happened in some city of the mind. The real streets, used so often as somewhere else, looked like nowhere in particular.
They drove out on Wilshire, the buildings getting lower, drive-ins and car lots with strings of plastic pennants.
“The first time, you think how can it be like this,” she said, noticing his expression. “The signs. And then you get used to it. Even my father. He likes it now.”
“Well, the climate-”
“Not so much that. He’s hardly ever outside. For him it’s a haven,” she said, her voice so throaty that it came out “heaven.” “All those years, moving. One place. Another place. Then here, finally safe, and other Germans are here, so it’s good. The sun, I don’t think it matters for him. He lives in his study. In his books.”
“What was Central Station? I never-”
“ Anhalter before. They changed it. So it wouldn’t sound German. You know it?”
“ Anhalter Bahnhof. Of course.”
“Tell him. He’ll be pleased.”
She made a right on Vermont, pointing them now toward the hills.
“Do we pass Continental on the way?” Ben said.
“We can, if you like.”
“But if it’s out of our way-”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not conscious, you know. We just sit there. Maybe it’s better for him. There’s so much damage, the brain-if he were awake, what would that be like for him? Sometimes I think it would be better if-and then I think, how can you think that?” She bit her lower lip. “But he did. I don’t know why. But that’s what he wanted. Not this.”
He looked away, across the miles of bungalows.
“Did he leave a note?” he said finally.
“No.”
The crucial prop, the writing of it sometimes a scene in itself, looking up from the paper into a mirror, eyes moist. In the movies. In real life you just did it.
“Just his ‘effects.’ I had to sign. You know that word? I didn’t know it. Effects.” She looked at him. “They would have said. If they’d found anything.” She turned on Melrose. “That’s Paramount down there, where the water tower is.”
After a few blocks he could see the roofs of the sound stages, humped like airplane hangars. She slowed near a gate of swirling wrought iron so that he could get a glimpse behind-a tidy factory yard with people in shirt sleeves gliding past, the tall water tower rising above everything, just like its mountaintop logo, ringed with stars. In front of the gate, a thin line of pickets walked back and forth carrying signs.
“There’s a strike?” Ben said. A prewar image.
“Daniel said it was jurisdictional,” she said, careful with the word. “One union against the other.” She looked away, no longer interested. “He always wanted to work here. More than any of them. Maybe if- well. That’s RKO, at the end.”
They turned onto Gower under the model of a radio tower on a globe.
“Continental’s up there,” she said, pointing. “Across from Columbia.”
This gate was modern, no more than a break in the walls with streamlined trim. Beyond it, unseen, Lasner’s empire, built from nickels, a private world made invisible by sentries and passes. Outside, the street was empty-no pickets, just a small cluster of people near the gate.
“Who’s that?” Ben said.
“They wait here, to see who drives through.”
“For autographs?”
“No, just to see them. For a minute.”
Hans Ostermann was waiting for them in Danny’s room, reading in the corner next to the window. The shades were half-drawn so that even the light seemed hushed, a hospital quiet broken only by the nurses outside and the clank of a meal cart being wheeled down the hall. Ostermann stood when they came in, taking Ben’s hand. He was wearing a suit and tie, as natural to him as his perfect posture and formal nod. Ben wondered, a darting moment, if he wrote dressed this way, erect at his desk in a white collar, keeping German alive.
Ben approached the bed, his stomach tightening with shock. Not just sick. Danny’s face was beaten in, bruised, one eye swollen shut, jagged laceration marks crossing the rest. What happens when you hit. Ben stared at him for a minute, trying to see something familiar, but all he could see was the fall itself, the smash at the end. Why this way? Danny primping at the mirror for a date, deliberately doing this to himself. Why not sleeping pills, an easier Hollywood exit? Why would he want to look this way?
Ben stepped closer, taking in the IV drip, the monitor, all the hospital tools to keep him alive, bring him back. But you only had to look at the broken face to see the truth. The teases, the grins, were gone. They were just waiting for the rest of him to go. Ben took his hand, half expecting some response, but nothing moved.
“Danny,” he said, keeping his voice low, waking someone who’s just dozed off. He turned to the others. “Can he hear anything?”
“No,” Liesl said.
“We don’t know that,” Ostermann said. “There’s no way of knowing. Talk if you like.”
“Nonsense,” Liesl said, moving over to a vase of flowers.
“No, the doctor said, head injuries-we don’t know. What really happens.” He looked over at Ben, his voice reassuring. “The first two days were the critical ones. So perhaps-”
“But he’s no better,” Liesl said, bluntly pragmatic, facing it. “Why do people send flowers when he can’t see them.”
The room, Ben noticed now, was full of them, covering side tables and window sills.
“It’s a sign of concern,” Ostermann said. “A gesture.”
“For you,” Liesl said. “They send them for you.”
“You’re tired,” Ostermann said, as close, Ben saw, as he would come to a reprimand.
Liesl was reading one of the cards attached to a vase. “From Alma,” she said. “So she’s forgiven you.”
“For now,” Ostermann said, a weak smile.
Ben looked at the bruised face. When you’re unconscious, where does the mind go? Functioning somewhere beyond pain, or simply floating in white? Now that he was here, what was there to do? The usual business of a hospital visit seemed beside the point-fetching nurses, chatting idly to keep up spirits, plumping pillows.
Instead they waited, Ostermann returning to his book, Ben sitting at the bedside gazing at Danny’s damaged face, Liesl pacing, making lists of the flower cards for thank-you notes, glancing over at the bed as if she were still deciding how to feel, wearing herself out with it.
By lunch, in the cafeteria, she was visibly exhausted.
“Go home and rest,” Ostermann said. “You were here all night.”
“How can I leave? What if I’m not here if- What would people say?”
“That the family was here. Get Ben settled in. I’ll stay.”
“How can I sleep?” she said, putting things on her tray, standing up.
Ostermann looked at her fondly. “Then have a swim.” He turned to Ben as she left the table. “It’s no good, being here day and night. Look at her, all nerves. Take her home. He’ll be here later, you know.”
“What if he isn’t?”
“I know how you feel. When Anna was dying, in Paris, I never left. Nuns. I didn’t want to leave her with nuns. Leave her alone. But it was for me, not her. When she died, I was there and it didn’t matter. She was alone. I didn’t know it until then. We die alone.” He looked up. “I’ll call if there’s a change.”
They drove up into the hills, the narrow road twisting upward in a series of blind curves past tall bushes and steep, hidden driveways. With each turn the houses seemed to get bigger, villas and a few white boxes that once must have been daring and modernist, softened now by middle-aged gardens. The trees were bigger, too, mature oaks and tall needle pines, as if the cooler air above the flats made it easier for them to grow. The new cars parked along the side of the road were buffed and shiny, like children after a bath.
“Here we are.”
The house, just visible through the driveway shrubs, was Mediterranean, fronted with a row of French windows. They pulled up next to a Dodge coupe.
“Oh, good, Iris is here. I asked her to come in an extra day.” A maid with a car. In Germany, bicycles were traded for food.
The house inside was light and open, filled with books and contemporary furniture, a piano covered with framed photographs in the corner. Iris, a wiry, pale woman in a dress, not a uniform, was in the dining room polishing silver.
“I put the messages by the phone. You better call the caterer again. I told him no ham but he wants to talk to you.”
Ben looked at Liesl, surprised.
“I thought I’d better start arranging things,” she said, flushing, “just in case. So we won’t have to at the last minute. Iris, this is Mr. Kohler’s brother, Benjamin.”
“Reuben. Anyway, Ben,” he said, distracted, noticing her feet in pink bedroom slippers.
Iris nodded. “I’m sorry about Mr. Kohler,” she said, formal but genuine, then cocked her head to one side, appraising him. “You don’t look alike.”
“No, he took after my father.”
Liesl started toward the hall. “You’re down this way. You’ll have your own bath, so it’s private.”
Through an open door on their left he could see a big desk and more shelves. Danny’s real workroom, not rented by the month. A club chair in the corner and, next to it, a day bed made up as a couch.
“I’m here. Daniel’s dressing room opens from the hall, too, so you won’t be bothering me. If you use it. That door.” She pointed, still moving.
“You better call the caterer,” Iris shouted from the dining room.
“All right. I don’t see what’s so difficult. I said poached salmon.”
“Well, he heard ham.”
She opened a door at the end of the hall. “You’re in here. I’d better phone or she’ll nag me about it. If you’d like a swim, just use those stairs-the pool’s out back. I won’t be long.”
A swim. Something he hadn’t had in four years. He gestured toward his bag. “I didn’t bring-” Who had bathing suits?
“Use one of Daniel’s. He’s got a drawer full of them. Just root around and pick what you like.”
He threw his bag on the bed and went over to the window. The pool was below, blue and rippling, catching the light in quick flashes. It had been set off from the rest of the hill by a private wall of trees, with the far end left open, so that the land seemed suspended in air before falling away to the distant grid of streets. Around the edge were large pots of geraniums, a few lemon trees, and a row of trimmed oleanders, high enough to flower but not block the view. Ben stared at the pool, unsettled, as if a wrong note of music had been hit, jarring the whole piece. He’d thought of Danny as somehow desperate, not lying on a chaise in the sun, picking fruit off trees. How did they fit? An acre of paradise and a room at the Cherokee Arms.
He went to the dressing room, curious. More money. Rows of sport jackets on hangers, shoes laid out. A drawer full of bathing suits: tropical flowers, chevron stripes, finally a pair of navy blue trunks that could be anybody’s. He looked through the other drawers quietly, feeling like a burglar. Socks rolled up, a stack of handkerchiefs, pressed and folded. But Danny’s drawer at home had been neat, too. Under the handkerchiefs there were old passports, kept for some reason, filled with the stamps of their childhood, crossing into Germany, crossing out of Germany, Dover and Calais, Berlin-Tempelhof, the last with an eagle on a swastika, just before the pages ran out. He looked at the photo. In his next passport he’d be grown up, but here he was still young, the hair brushed to one side.
Where would the other pictures be? His study, probably. He crossed the hall, carrying the trunks, and surprised Iris, who was putting papers away in drawers.
“I’m just cleaning up in here. You get people in and out, you know they’re going to come snooping. They go looking for the bathroom and next thing they’re at the desk, just happening to read what’s on it. I’ve seen it. Something I can help you with?”
“No, I’m just snooping myself,” Ben said. “Trying to find some pictures. You know, we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
She went over to the shelves where a few small frames rested against the books.
“This is pretty recent,” she said, handing him one.
Ben looked down. A group on the beach, Danny with his lopsided grin, making a face at the camera. The whole row smiling, enjoying the day. Liesl wore a two-piece suit with polka dots, like Chili Williams, her hair blowing behind her.
“You planning to stay long?”
Ben raised his head.
“I only ask because of the food. So I can plan.”
“I don’t want to make things worse for her,” Ben said, a question.
Iris shook her head. “Far as that’s concerned, she could use the company. You know what it’s like in an empty house. She’s already taking it hard. It’s the suddenness of it. And the way-” She stopped and went back to the desk. “Don’t mind me.”
Ben put the picture back, then glanced down at the day bed. “He spend a lot of time in here?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I just meant-”
“I know what you meant. I suppose you’ve been hearing things? People like to talk. When it’s none of their business. I’ll tell you, I never saw it. But people have different ways. You take Mr. Baker-that’s my ex. That man was a hound. I threw him out. I said, ‘I know you can’t help it, you got to chase anything runs in front of you, but I don’t want any part of it.’ Now Mr. Kohler, I never saw that. Two years I’ve been working here. Since they got the house. So you live and learn.” She closed the drawer and looked up at him. “He seemed the same to me. Like always. Well.” She moved to the door. “You want to help, people have to eat. She hasn’t touched a thing in days. Melon. What’s melon? Water is all. Get her to eat something.”
When she’d gone, Ben looked at the other pictures, more wrong notes, as jarring as the pool. Danny and Liesl on a picnic blanket. With another couple around a nightclub table covered with glasses. Hans Ostermann, unintentionally comic in his somber European suit, surrounded by Danny and a few other young men in tennis whites. A croquet game. A pool party. Danny smiling in all of them. A happy life. But everybody smiled for the camera.
He went over to the desk, intending to start on the drawers, but Liesl came in, carrying flowers. “Oh good, you found one,” she said, nodding to the bathing suit. “I’ll be right down. As soon as I deal with these. I have to put them where she’ll see them. She’ll ask otherwise. Now what?” she said, as the phone rang. “Why does everybody want to talk?” But she picked it up anyway, not waiting for Iris, and immediately switched into German. She had the rich, fluid German he remembered from before the war, before all the coarse shouting, and her voice sounded relaxed, at home in it.
“Salka wants to drop off a cake,” she said wryly, hanging up. “But she wants to know if Alma’s here. They’re not speaking to each other.”
“Alma who sent the flowers to Danny?”
Liesl nodded. “Mahler. Well, Werfel now, but if you leave out the Mahler she puts it back in.”
“And Salka?”
“Viertel. Berthold’s wife. Well, when he’s around. Everyone goes to her on Sundays-like a real salon. So of course it makes Alma crazy. Two queen bees in one hive. I suppose they’ll have to see each other, if there’s a funeral. For five minutes anyway. They’ll all come. It’s like a village. They’ll come to see who doesn’t come. So, you’ll be all right?” she said, gesturing again to the trunks, then glanced at the desk. “Were you looking for something?” She met his eyes, her face suddenly soft. “He didn’t leave a note. You can look, but he didn’t.”
The drawer was a mess of papers: letters, odd pages of scripts with margin notes, bank statements with canceled checks, more private than clothes. An envelope with a doctor’s return address. He pulled out the letter. An annual physical, boxes checked in columns, blood pressure, heart rate-everything had been fine in January, perfect in fact, except for the lazy eye that had got him a 4-F. He put the form down, suddenly embarrassed. What exactly was he looking for? An explanation? An apology? He looked at Danny’s handwriting againswooping caps and then tight, closed letters. Which meant what? Would he even have given it a thought a few days ago? This was like looking at tea leaves or chicken entrails. He shoved the paper back and closed the drawer.
Downstairs, sliding glass doors led out to the pool. There was a wet bar, some bright patio furniture, and a galley kitchen with a serving window that opened to the terrace. Ben imagined parties with platters of food, umbrella tables by day, the million lights by night. To the side was a closed door. The garage? No, a screening room with red plush seats and musty velvet drapes, so dated it must have come with the house. He turned up the lights. Except for the sound speakers, it was the kind of room Lasner might have used to run Two Husbands. Maybe even for Chaplin, a lifetime before Paulette. Did Danny still use it?
The projection room, at any rate, was functional, the equipment newer than some he’d used in the Signal Corps. A few cans of film lay next to the projector, waiting to be put back on the metal shelf lined with hexagonal storage boxes. Ben went over to look, expecting a row of Republic serials, but they were Ufa films, titles on the boxes inked in German. Drei Madchen, Ein Tag in Berlin, Sag Mir Adieu — all the silly comedies and shopgirl dramas their father had made out in Babelsberg, a kind of shrine to Otto Kohler. All here, even the ones from the thirties, when Otto still thought he’d be safe. Ben ran his fingers across the boxes. Films he hadn’t seen, then never asked to see later, all faithfully collected. The father’s son. Even Two Husbands, probably moldering away now in its canister.
He moved from the shelf, his eye caught by a wall of framed photographs. Another Kohler homage. Otto on the set with Marika Rokk. A group picture with Jannings, Lorre, and Conrad Veidt. Dietrich showing him her leg, a gag shot. A formal premiere, probably at the Zoo Palast, in gowns and white ties with-yes, Goebbels at the end of the row. Otto on a crane. Otto blocking a scene. A wall of Otto. And finally, at the end, a picture of the family, all four of them in Lutzowplatz, his mother smiling broadly, her hand on Ben’s shoulder. Danny making a face.
He took the picture from the wall and stared at it, suddenly moved. His life, too. How old had he been? Eight? He remembered the day it had been taken, Frau Weber telling Danny to stand still and then not finding the shutter button so he’d laughed at her again, making another face, the whole afternoon still so real that Ben felt he could touch it, right through the glass frame. His face flushed, a warm surge of recognition. Not someone else.
“There you are. I saw the light. I’ve been looking-” Liesl stopped, seeing his face. “What?”
“Why would he do it,” Ben said flatly.
She had put a terrycloth wrap over her bathing suit and now pulled at one of the lapels, a nervous drawing away.
“I’ve been acting for days as if he’s someone I don’t know.” He held out the picture. “But I do know him. It’s not something he would do.”
“Don’t,” she said softly. “It makes it worse. I know. I did it, too.”
“But it doesn’t make sense.”
“You want it to make sense?”
“It does to them, somehow. He wasn’t sick-I saw his physical. He wasn’t depressed, either. Iris said he was the same as always.”
“Oh, Iris.”
“You did, too. You said you didn’t know he was unhappy. But why should he be?” He waved his arm to take in the house, Danny’s life.
“We don’t know what was in his mind. We don’t.”
She turned and headed out toward the pool. He glanced down at the picture again, then followed.
“But to do this-”
“What, then? Do you think his girlfriend pushed him out? Like some cartoon?”
“Somebody could have.”
Liesl shook her head. “No one else was there. The police talked to the night clerk. No one went up. No one. The door was locked.”
“There has to be a reason.”
“So what could it be? Maybe his marriage. Is that what you think? The others do. You can hear it in their voices. How could he do such a terrible thing? And then they look at me.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Ouf,” she said, cutting him off, then tossing the robe on the chair. “Enough.”
“Liesl-”
But she turned away, stepping over to the edge of the pool, and dove in, a perfect arc, slicing into the water, then streaming under the surface, out of hearing. When she came up she swam the rest of the length in fast, efficient strokes, a quick, sideways turn for air. Someone who swam every day. He watched her as she turned for the second lap, hair flowing, the long, golden legs scissoring effortlessly, at home in it. The kind of girl everyone noticed, pretending not to, but imagining the smooth body without the suit, beads of water running off the tan skin, all anyone could want. But not enough for Danny. The father’s son in every way. That same careless urge for the next thing, not expecting any damage, until families were broken up and what should have been held close had been let down.
He turned his head away, flustered. Not just some girl in a pool. There were cigarettes on a side table, and he lit one, looking away toward the hazy city. Behind him he could hear the regular splashes of her strokes, then a pause and a noisy gathering of water as she lifted herself up the pool stairs. She came over to where he was standing, toweling her hair.
“Marta says I should wear a cap. The chlorine burns the hair. My hairdresser,” she said, the change of subject a kind of apology, moving on. She glanced at him, waiting, then lit one of the cigarettes, joining him. “Would you like to know about me and Daniel?”
“It’s none of my-”
“Yes. Otherwise you’ll wonder. That’s how it is now.” She looked at him. “We need to be friends. To get through this. Sit,” she said, indicating the next chaise. She sat back on hers, lifting her face to the sun. “He got me out. That’s why he married me. My father, there was a visa for him. You know, for the culture. They could get artists out on special visas, especially if they were known here. But not me. I wasn’t an artist. I wasn’t anything. You know, after we left Germany we were officially stateless. Not even resident permits, always temporary papers. So, no visa. But of course my father wouldn’t leave me, and it was dangerous for him. So Daniel married me, made me an American. But I think he was fond of me, too.” She turned to him, her eyes direct. “It wasn’t a mariage blanc. Don’t think that,” she said, then looked away again.
“This was where?” he said after a minute. “Germany?”
“No. Germany? We would have been dead. My father was one of the first to leave. His name was already on a list, because of the articles. And, you know, my mother was Jewish so it was for her, too. First Vienna, to keep the language. Then Paris-she died there. I think her heart gave out from the worry. Then, after the Nazis came, we went south, like everyone. You don’t know this? That’s where I met Daniel. In Marseilles. He was helping people get out. You wouldn’t think such a place-it was like here, the good weather-but it was a death trap. Who could trust Vichy? So Daniel helped people get to Spain. Sometimes over the mountains, on foot. He walked them out. They never forgot it.” She paused, taking in some smoke. “Neither did I. He was my hero,” she said, staring at her burning cigarette. She looked up, self-conscious, her wistful tone now shaded with irony, almost bitter. “So it wasn’t for love. But we made a life. He never asked to leave, afterwards, when it was safe for me. We were-comfortable together.” She sat up, rubbing out the cigarette.
“And the others? You seemed surprised.”
She made a half smile. “Maybe I’m like Germany. I didn’t want to know. So I didn’t. And now everyone will know-” She stopped. “But how can I be angry? He didn’t owe me that.” She covered her eyes with her hand, a pretend sunshade. For a moment neither of them said anything, the air so quiet he could hear the drain flaps in the pool. “You know before, when I said I didn’t know he was unhappy? I should have known, because I see it now.”
“Everybody says that after. They should have seen-”
“No, it’s true. Not unhappy-troubled. Maybe this woman. I don’t know.” She looked at him. “I still don’t want to know, do you understand that?”
He walked toward the pool, thinking.
“How long? I mean, when did you notice?”
She got up, gathering her robe, the movement like a reluctant sigh. “Not long. The summer, the end of the summer. So now you can find the girl and ask her, what happened this summer, all right? Then maybe you’ll be satisfied.” She belted the robe. “But it wasn’t us. We were all right. We were just the way we were.”
The hospital seemed busier at night-trays being collected, nurses changing shifts. Danny was alone in the room, oblivious.
“He wouldn’t just leave,” Liesl said, looking for her father, then spied him at the end of the corridor in the smoking lounge with another man, not as tall, looking around hesitantly, like someone trying to make small talk. “My uncle Dieter,” she said. “Look how they stand. See how stiff?”
“His brother?”
“My mother’s. The truth is they don’t like each other. When my mother was alive, it was different. Now he only comes when you have to, for appearances. My father’s birthday, things like that.”
“Or like this.”
“Yes,” she said, looking down. “But not only for that. He liked Daniel. Everybody did.” Already in the past.
“He lives here, too?”
“Pasadena. Come, before they quarrel.”
But when they joined the men, the mood seemed polite, not at all contentious, Danny’s situation overriding whatever irritation there might have been. Introductions were made, doctors’ visits discussedand then they were all back on watch, drifting between Danny’s room and the hall, fidgeting, looking for something to do. Only Ben stayed fixed, holding Danny’s hand again, convinced against all sense that Danny could feel it, use it to climb back. When the two men got up to go to dinner Liesl went out with them to the hall, a family huddle, leaving Ben alone. Talk to me, he thought, tell me why before you go. At least that. The battered face had lost its power to upset him, used to it now, but the waiting itself had become oppressive, making him logy, his mind dense with still air. When the first sound came, he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard anything, just his own wish, but the second was real. He lifted his head sharply, as if someone had snapped fingers in his face.
“Ben.” Still faint, a little croaky, but there. He grasped Danny’s hand, waiting for his eyes to flutter open.
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Ben,” the voice said again, the tone slightly puzzled, working things out.
“Danny, my god.”
The eyes open now but blinking against the light.
“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember anything?”
The blinking stopped, his eyes steadier, wetting his lips, focusing.
“Danny.”
Then his eyes closed, a kind of resignation.
“Danny, let me get the others. They’re just outside. EveryoneLiesl, her father, Dieter. We didn’t know if you’d make it-”
He got up, ready to bolt across the room, but Danny made a hiss, an attention-getter, his mouth so dry it was difficult now to speak. Ben leaned close to his face.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice raspy, urgent.
Ben lifted his head, disconcerted. Did Danny know it was him? All these years, and now suddenly clinging. Maybe what happened at the end, any life raft.
“Don’t,” he said again.
“No, I won’t. It’s going to be all right now.” Elated by the unexpectedness of it. “I’ll just get Liesl,” Ben said, excited, racing across the room and flinging open the door. “He’s awake!”
They all looked at him, stunned. Liesl got to the bed first.
“Daniel?” she said, then, when there was no response, turned to Ben. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Daniel? But he looks the same.”
“He was awake. I’ll get the doctor,” Ben said, still excited, heading for the door.
“I’ll go,” Ostermann said.
But Ben was already on his way, racing down the hall to the nursing station, everything around him a blur. The nurse, alone on duty, looked up in alarm, Ben’s hands now pounding on the desk, an emergency signal. Dr. Walters was on another floor. She picked up the phone to call the station upstairs.
“Never mind,” Ben said, not waiting for the elevator, leaping up the stairs, his eyes looking for the recognizable white coat. Down the hall, jotting notes on a clipboard.
“He woke up,” Ben said, a little breathless.
Dr. Walters, startled, put the clipboard down without a word and followed him to the stairs. Ben could hear their feet clumping, an echo effect between floors. Ostermann and Dieter were at the nursing station now, then Liesl, everyone running, the corridor filling with people, the same blur as they raced back. Dr. Walters dodged past an aide, not stopping till he pushed the door and ran across the empty room to the bed, taking up Danny’s hand.
“You said if he came to-” Ben started, watching the doctor lower his head to Danny’s face, then take his wrist. “What’s the matter?”
The doctor took out a stethoscope and bent lower again, a repeat check.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s gone.”
Ben looked at Danny, winded, his own body suddenly cool. Could you tell just by looking? The body still, mouth slightly open, no movement at all.
“But he can’t. He was just here,” Ben said.
The doctor looked at him. “Maybe he was saying good-bye. A last effort. Nurse.”
She hurried over, turning off the monitor, and drew up the sheet. The doctor glanced at his watch, already mentally filling out a certificate.
“It may be for the best,” he said calmly, an attempt to comfort. “This kind of injury. A full recovery isn’t possible. It’s unusual, to last this long. If we do a complete examination, maybe we’ll know more next time. Mrs. Kohler, I’ll need you to sign some forms.”
Liesl didn’t answer, staring at the bed, dazed.
“We can wait till tomorrow, if you like.”
“You mean an autopsy,” Ben said, imagining the knives.
“It can wait,” the doctor said.
Liesl turned from the bed. “No, I’ll come,” she said, her voice a monotone. “He wanted to be cremated.” Danny in a box.
“That’s not a hospital-”
“No, I just meant, it won’t matter, the examination.” She touched Ben’s arm. “That’s right, isn’t it? You don’t object?”
Ben shook his head. “He knew me. He was conscious.”
And then he wasn’t. When? What everyone always said, it happened so fast, a part of a second.
“Mrs. Kohler,” the doctor said again and then he was leading her out, Ostermann following, everybody, even the duty nurse, until Ben was alone in the room.
In a minute orderlies would come and wheel the bed away. Ben went over and pulled back the sheet, a last look, shaken. On the train, he’d thought of Danny as already dead, but that was an idea. This was worse, a flash of contact, then gone, actually cold now to the touch. Another body. When he was a child, death was something remote, an event for old people. Then, in the war, it happened to everybody. But you only got used to it when they were already dead. Dying itself was new each time, something you could feel. Ed bleeding away. Now Danny. Don’t leave me, he’d said. But he was the one who’d left, just the way he always did, when it suited him, leaving Ben behind.
He was still standing by the bed when he heard the door open. He turned, expecting the orderlies, but it was Liesl. She glanced toward the white sheet, then away.
“Do you want more time?” she said.
“You’re finished?”
“A few papers only.” She walked over to the bed, staring at the body for a minute, eyes soft. “So it’s over.” She looked up. “What should we do with the flowers?” she said, her voice shaky, snatching the phrase out of the air, something to say. “What happens to them?”
“I never thought about it. Maybe they give them to other people.”
“It’s true? He was awake?”
Ben nodded.
She looked down, then folded her arms across her chest, as if she had caught a chill. “We should go. All the arrangements. There’ll be so much to do. For the widow.” Another glance to the bed, her voice catching again. “So now this. I’ve never been a widow before.”
The phone started ringing early and continued for most of the morning, through the deliveries and the extra help and Iris directing the table setups, the whole house in motion. The mechanics of mourning had taken over. No one sat and brooded, or even mentioned Danny.
“You’re about the same size,” Liesl said, handing him some of Danny’s suits. “They should fit.”
He smiled to himself. Still wearing his hand-me-downs.
“You’ll need something,” she said, misinterpreting his look. “But if you feel funny-”
He shook his head, cutting her off. “It’s fine.”
“I thought you might like his watch.”
Ben took it, his finger grazing the crystal. Not Danny’s, their father’s. Another piece of the Otto shrine. When did Danny get it? On one of those last trips to Germany, probably, a sentimental gift to the loyal son who stayed close.
“Thank you,” he said, touched. “There must be something I can do. Except be in the way.”
“No, really-” She stopped. “That place. Where he was,” she said, hesitant. “Somebody has to go there. If he left things. I don’t know, nobody said. But I could send Iris.”
He shook his head again. “I’ll go.”
“Take his car. You’ll need one out here anyway. Two now. And so hard to get. But now you-”
“You have the key?”
“The key?” she said, a new idea. “I don’t know, maybe here.” She went over to the desk and pulled out a ring with several keys. “They were in his pants. So it must be one of these. So many keys,” she said, looking at them, other parts of his life.
He missed a turn and had to backtrack west on Hollywood Boulevard, past the Pantages, a name out of radio broadcasts, then right on Cherokee. The Cherokee Arms was a five-story pastel building with an alley along the side connected to a parking space behind, not grand, but not seedy, either. A place you used on the way up or the way down, but not at either end. Ben parked across the street and looked at it for a minute, fingering Danny’s keys. If the fall could kill him, he must have been on the top floor. He got out and walked across. An apartment building with a lawn in front, quiet in the bright light, no shadows. He passed through the alley. There were a few cars parked in back, garbage cans. He looked up to the top balcony. The railing wasn’t high, if you staggered against it. The back door was locked. But it would be, wouldn’t it? A convenience for residents on their way in from the parking lot. No need to go through the front, where the desk clerk would see you go up. If you had a key.
The third one worked. From here you could either go directly up the back stairs or down a hall on the right that led past mailboxes and what looked like an elevator door. From this angle Ben couldn’t see the front desk switchboard where the clerk must be. He went up the stairs, walking quietly, expecting to be stopped. Instead he found the landings empty, the building still except for the sound of the elevator going down. On the top floor he went to what he assumed was Danny’s door, using a key that resembled the one that had worked downstairs.
The room, a studio, was neat-bed made, no dishes in the sink, a hotel room just after maid service. Nothing in the bathroom; nothing in the closet, either. He started opening cupboards. Glasses and dishes that came with the place. On the counter there was an ice bucket and a bottle of brandy, opened. Nothing on the desk but a message pad and pen. No personal presence at all. Ben went over to the French windows and opened them, looking at the balcony, trying to imagine it. He stepped out, placing his leg against the railing. If he’d been wobbly- possible. But so was the other, the leap off. He went back in. What was the point? He took one last look around, then opened the door to leave.
“Moving in?”
The man was leaning against the opposite wall, clearly waiting for him to come out. Young, without a hat.
“You the desk clerk?”
The man-the kid-shook his head and flipped open a press pass.
“I saw you go in. I was out back. So I figured maybe they’d been giving me the brush. About the room. I mean, you have a key. Mind if I look around?”
“What for?”
“They didn’t tell you? Scene of the crime,” he said, starting in. “Last guy had the room went out the window. Mind?” All the way in now. “What are they charging, you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t know. I’m not moving in.”
“No? Where’d you get the key?” he asked, but almost off handedly, moving over to the counter, looking at everything.
“I’m his brother-the guy before.”
The kid stopped. “Sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“What do you want to see? There’s nothing here.”
“Honest maids,” the kid said, picking up the brandy bottle. “Usually the liquor’s the first to go.” He went into the bathroom, checking the medicine chest, behind the door. “You come here to pick up his stuff?” He went over to the balcony, retracing Ben’s steps, even putting his leg against the railing.
“There’s nothing to pick up.”
“I noticed. Funny, isn’t it? Somebody must have been here already.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think he used the room for? We said writing office, but what the hell, be nice to the wife. What would he use it for? You ever meet a woman yet who didn’t take over half the bathroom? Cream here, powder there. Douche bag on the door. And what’s here? Nothing. She must have cleaned it out. I don’t know when, though. I’ve been watching the building.”
“What for?”
The kid looked at him. “To see who else had a key.”
“You think someone was with him?”
“Not then. She’d have been spotted. Every window’s got a head sticking out. You know, taking an interest. Cops had to use a passkey to get in. There’s no one in there with him. It had to be later.”
“Unless she’d already moved out. Maybe that’s why he-”
“I get it. You think he jumped. The breakup, huh?”
“You don’t?” Ben said, interested.
“At first. We get the police call, nobody else is interested, but my position, you need the inches, even the blotter stuff. The cops are already here and the night clerk’s going ‘oh-my-god, he must have fallen’-you know, don’t make the place look bad-and the cops are going along with it but I can see they’re looking at it as a jump. You know, taking pictures and everything. And it’s Hollywood, where you get this. Not Hancock Park or someplace-people have been known to jump here. But I’m thinking, it’s a funny kind of jump.”
“Why?”
“You know anything about jumpers? I covered a few. They like it a little higher. To make sure. Maybe for the show of it. Why not just go to the Roosevelt and jump off the roof? Four, five stories? You can — I mean, he did, he’s dead. But you could also just wake up in a cast somewhere. That’s one thing. Then the angle of the fall. All the jumpers I’ve seen, they don’t back out. Face forward. So I figure the LAPD are looking for a little excitement, pick up a slow night. I wouldn’t let this get to you. You believe what you want, but my guess? He was plastered and tripped.” He nodded toward the brandy bottle on the counter.
“Then why are you watching the building? If that’s all it was?”
“Look, why have a separate place anyway? Under a different name. They got him as Collins downstairs. All right, he’s seeing somebody on the side. Not a one-night stand, a longer-term thing. Still, why not a hotel? Unless they don’t want to be seen in public, take that chance. Maybe she’d be recognized. So who is she? I’m wondering about this and then something funny happens. I know the cops wrote it up as a jump, I was here, but when I’m doing the story the next morning they got it as an accident. How come the change? That’s when I get interested, because that kind of change, the only people in this town get favors like that are the studios. So I figure there’s a story.”
“Why would a studio do that for Danny?”
“Him? They wouldn’t. Anyway, he was a goner. They look to the living. And now what do we find?” He looked around at the clean apartment. “Nobody was ever here. But she must have been. And she must have been more than a fuck.”
Ben looked at him, sorting it out. “You don’t know any of this,” he said finally.
“You’d rather have him as a jumper?”
Ben said nothing.
“Maybe we could help each other out.”
“How?”
“You’re family. Go through his stuff. If he’s seeing somebody, he has to call her. There must be a number somewhere.”
“So you can find her and put her in the paper,” Ben said, thinking of Liesl reading it.
“If she’s in pictures, it’s a story. Don’t you want to know?”
“Seen enough?” Ben said, ducking it, starting to leave.
“I’ll do the legwork. That’s what I do,” the kid said, a half grin on his face, playing reporter, the kind he’d seen in the movies. “I just need a number.” He took a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it to Ben. “Day or night.”
Ben looked at it. Tim Kelly, a name you’d forget without a card.
“What if she isn’t in pictures?” he said. “Just a secretary or something?”
“A secretary-and he gets a place like this?” Kelly said, breezy, still in character. “Then I’d like to fuck her myself.”
Ben stood beside Liesl and Hans Ostermann at the funeral, the immediate family. Around and behind them, all in black, the emigre community sweltered in old high collars, hats with veils, mourning clothes that belonged in the drizzle and cloudy skies of Middle Europe. Thomas Mann had come, a courtesy to Liesl’s father, and Ben recognized a few others-Lion Feuchtwanger, slicked-back hair and eager eyes behind rimless glasses; Brecht, rumpled and smelling of cheap cigars. They were standing in front of the plain marble wall where Danny’s box of ashes would be placed. The rest of the cemetery was more elaborate, carved headstones and obelisks and flamboyant tombs from the 1920s. Valentino was somewhere over to the left. Beyond the cypresses and the high wall, Ben could see the water tower of the Paramount back lot, as close as Danny would ever get now.
There were Americans, too-people from the studio, glancing at their watches, expected back-and while they all waited, Ben wondered what made it so easy to tell them apart. Not just the clothes or the haircuts, maybe something in the way they held themselves, an attitude. Or maybe, like Tim Kelly, everyone here slipped naturally into a part, hitting marks under the giant arc lamp. Wasn’t he? The grieving brother. Liesl, the stoic widow, dry-eyed behind her dark glasses, leaning on Ostermann, all formal Weimar dignity, as publicly correct as the other Mann. Ben saw that Polly Marks had come, keeping close to a man in a double-breasted suit whom Ben assumed was Herb Yates. Who were all the others? Ben looked at the faces, bored or genuinely sad, and realized again that he knew nothing about Danny’s life.
He was still scanning the crowd when he caught someone doing the same thing-a man in a gray suit standing near the edge, looking at faces methodically, as if he were counting. When he met Ben’s eyes he didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed, just looked, then moved on. Ben stayed on him, watching him fix on Ostermann, then on the others, each in turn. What part was he playing? Not from the studio, certainly not an emigre. Holding a hat in his hand, like a policeman.
He heard a crunch of tires and turned to see a black Packard pulling up. The others had had to park near the gates. A driver hopped out to open the doors. First a little man Ben didn’t know, then Alma Mahler, making her entrance. She was dressed for a Viennese funeral the emperor himself might have attended, long black silk with a sizable hat, and without hesitation made her way to the front of the crowd. Ben watched her approach, fascinated. Everybody’s mistress, now broadened and grown outward, a kind of pouter pigeon effect, but still turning heads. She put her hand on Liesl’s arm as she took her place near the family, then nodded to Ben, her eyes interested, someone new.
Her arrival seemed to give permission to start: a man went to the wall and turned to face them, opening his hands. Ben had been told there would be a rabbi, but his dark suit was like all the others and the service was so secular, no religion specified, that Ben wondered if the cemetery had rules about who could be buried there. Judenrein. He looked at the flowers, bouquets, and wreaths with long name ribbons in the German style, then at the open square where they would put the box. After which everyone could move on. He felt Liesl next to him, holding herself erect, getting through it. What would Kelly find, a tabloid love triangle, with pictures of the Cherokee nest? Bury him. Why not a tipsy fall? What difference did it make?
“Heinrich Kaltenbach will say a few words.”
The little man who’d come with Alma opened a piece of paper, then closed it, visibly upset, his round face drawn.
“Only a few, not a speech,” he said, his accent thick, uncomfortable. “I speak also for Alma and Franz, for many of us here. There is for us a great debt. We owe this man our lives. He came with us. On foot. Only a little farther, he would say. To the border. You remember, Alma?” he said, looking at her, waiting for her nod, a little drama. “And you know what she’s carrying, in the suitcase? The manuscript. Bruckner’s Fourth. So not just lives, culture, he’s saving culture. For this everybody owes him. Please, if you don’t mind,” he said, then switched into German, his speech picking up pace, fluent now.
The Americans stood respectfully, trying not to look blank, but for the Germans it was a release, something real after the generic service, with the heft of language. Ben looked at them. Just the sound could take them back-the lucky ones, the ones who’d left. But what choice had there been? If they had stayed, they’d be dead. Like Otto. Ashes, too.
His mind wandered, the sound of German fading into the background, overheard but not distinct, as if it were coming up the stairs from one of his father’s parties. Danny would be down in the kitchen, sneaking drinks from the indulgent staff.
He froze. He looked at the marble wall, seeing Danny as a teenager, his head over a toilet bowl, retching, swearing he’d never touch brandy again. And never did. An almost allergic reaction, not his drink at all. But there was the bottle sitting on the counter at the Cherokee, suggestive. A prop. Which meant someone had put it there.
Ben felt a prickling on his neck. Someone else in the room. The door had been locked-the police had needed a passkey. But there could have been another, a duplicate to lock the door behind you. Without thinking, he turned, looking back at the crowd for the man in the gray suit. Near the edge, still watching, like someone on duty. But why come to the funeral if you’d already filed it as an accident? Case closed. Unless it wasn’t. His mind darted to the stairs, the alley, trying to work out the logistics, as if somehow that would make it all plausible. But how could it be? Could someone really have killed him? Why? Why were people murdered? Jealousy. Revenge. Because they were in the way. In stories, not in real life. Then he thought of the film clips waiting to be assembled at Continental. Why. Millions and millions for no reason at all.
Kaltenbach finished, the sudden quiet like a touch to Ben’s shoulder. His eyes went to the rabbi, placing the box in the square, then handing Liesl a flower to put with it. She stood still for a second, then took Ben’s hand, drawing him with her to the wall. He was given another flower and then, as if it had been rehearsed, they put them in together, one on each side of the box. When she finished she gave Ben a weak smile, her eyes confused, still not sure how to feel. He looked at the box, suddenly overwhelmed, feeling a loneliness he’d resisted before. Danny was gone, for good. Not just gone, taken away. By what right? And it wasn’t just Danny. A death spread out in shock waves, touching other people, changing them, taking pieces of them, too. Demanding some kind of justice. You owed the dead that much. How could he want it for millions and not this one?
Only a few Americans came back to the house afterward, so the lunch turned into a German gathering, the language floating warm and familiar around the buffet table like the wisps of steam from the chafing dishes. The caterer had come through with the salmon and what looked like a dozen other dishes, but people had brought things, too, brisket and cakes, an unexpected homey touch. All of it was being eaten, heaping plates and seconds. Liesl, who might have sat in a corner, receiving, instead was everywhere, seeing to people, playing hostess. Ben watched her, waiting for signs of strain, but he saw that the nervous activity, with its chin-high assurance, was also a kind of protective screen, like sunglasses. There were no whispered concerns, no side glances to see how she was holding up. She was right in front of them, busy, in control.
Instead, to his surprise, he found that he had become the center of attention, new ears for old complaints. The curfew during the war. The five-mile restriction for aliens. Gas coupons. All that over, thank god. And then, in lower tones, what was it really like now in Germany? You hear such stories. And the newsreels. You can’t recognize things anymore. That madman. Ben heard half of it, distracted, back at the Cherokee, his head noisy with questions. A bottle that shouldn’t be there. Someone else. An idea, once there, you couldn’t leave behind, not for polite conversation. So he nodded, answering with only part of his mind, and they backed away, respecting what they took for grief, not wanting to trouble him further. But keeping an eye on him, intrigued.
“It’s like any colony,” Liesl said when they got a moment. “They like to be with each other, not the natives, but they get a little bored, too. So you’re something to talk about. Here comes Heinrich. Be nice. I don’t know how he lives.” She leaned forward to kiss Kaltenbach’s cheek. “Heinrich, thank you. It was lovely.”
“From here,” he said in German, tapping his chest, then turned to Ben, the rituals of introduction.
“I didn’t know,” Ben said, “about his time in France. Getting people out.”
“Yes, many,” Kaltenbach said, still in German. “Some by boat, but that was difficult. So, Spain.”
“Over the Pyrenees?”
“Yes. The mountain crossings were easier than the trains. Not so strict. One guard, maybe two. Sometimes you could walk in. If you got up there. Imagine, Franz and Alma, at their age. Not hikers, you know, not young men like your brother. It’s a very dramatic story.”
“Excuse me,” Liesl said. “There’s Salka.”
“Very dramatic. A film,” Kaltenbach said. “I think so. Think of it, everybody waiting to get out. The noose tightening. You know what we called the house? Villa Espere Visa. But your brother acted. It would be a tribute to him. His story. I have a treatment of this, I’ll show it to you. Exit Visa. See what you think. They could do it at Continental. That’s where you are, yes? Your brother’s story. It would be a gift to his memory.”
Ben looked at him, feeling ambushed.
“I’m not really at Continental. Just putting something together there for the Army.”
And how had he heard about Continental anyway? Ben marveled again at the speed of news here, Lasner in touch even on a train.
“But you’ll read it. You’ll see,” Kaltenbach said. “An exciting film. And you know I can work with another writer. For the English. But who knows the story better? Who lived it?”
“Ben,” Liesl said, coming up to them, a short, plump woman in tow, “you have to meet Salka. She’s everyone’s mother.”
“Everyone’s cook,” the woman said, taking Ben’s hand. “They come for the chocolate cake, not for me.”
“No, your good heart,” Kaltenbach said.
“Daniel liked it,” she said, waving this off. “So maybe you’ll like it, too. Come Sunday. Any Sunday you like.”
“Thank you. I’ll look forward.”
“Even Garbo comes sometimes,” Kaltenbach said.
“So Lasner, now he’s letting people go to funerals? On his time?” she said, raising a finger. “Make sure he pays you for the day.”
“He doesn’t pay me for anything. I’m still in the Army.”
“You’re at Continental for free?” she said, amused.
“How did you know? About Continental. I mean, how does everybody hear these things?”
Salka looked at him, puzzled. “It’s in Polly. You didn’t know? You should keep up,” she said, a gentle tease. “Of course,” she said, catching herself, “on such a day. Who has time for papers.” She nodded to the room. “It’s too soon for this. A young man. But we don’t pick our time, do we?”
“No.” Somebody else had.
“I knew your father, too. Tell me something. I’ve always wondered. Why did he stay in Germany?”
The question mark of his life.
“I don’t know. I suppose he thought he’d be safe.”
“No one was safe,” she said, a settled matter. “Even then.”
“I don’t think he thought about politics. Just movies.”
“Otto? Children never know their parents. When he was young, he and Berthold could argue for hours. Hours. All the problems of the world. No, he knew.” She shook her head. “To make those comedies. To stay for that.”
He found the paper in the den, already opened to Polly’s column.
Off the Chief: Ben Kohler, new at Continental, here early to attend funeral of brother Dan after last week’s tragic accident. The surprise death suspended production on the upcoming Vera Ralston picture, which Dan was slotted to helm. Word on the lot: the picture’s set to be a breakthrough for Republic’s new star. Polly’s prediction: a new director and Vera skates over this rough patch of ice to big box office.
The funeral just a plug for Herb Yates.
“Spell your name right?”
Ben looked up. A burly man in a suit a little too tight for him stuck out his hand.
“Howard Stein. I just wanted to pay my respects. I can’t stay.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. “Actually, they got it wrong.”
Stein noticed the column logo. “Polly? She can’t even spell her own. Used to be Marx, like Groucho. But also like Karl. Somebody points this out to her-one of the Hitler Youth she pals around withso the next day it’s Marks, k-s.”
“You’re not a fan.”
“That bitch?”
Ben smiled. “Not a fan.”
“I’m with the CSU. You know her with the unions. Like another goon with a club.” He looked up at Ben. “Sorry for the language. I don’t think she’s a joke.”
“Is that how you knew Danny-the union?”
Stein nodded. “He was a good friend to us. When he first got here. You don’t forget that.”
“But not lately?” Ben said.
“No, not lately.” He shrugged. “It happens. People fall away. It’s a hard place to hold on to something. You want-” He looked around at the house. “You want a lot of things. So you make some trades. But he was a good man. I’m sorry about this. You just get in?” he said, his voice gruffer, moving away from anything soft.
“Few days. Those pickets I saw in front of Paramount-that was you?”
Stein nodded. “Studios want the union they already got, not us. Why not-they’ve been paying them off for years. After Willie Bioff got sent up, they tell everybody they’re cleaning house, but nothing changes. That’s four years now.”
“Sent up for what?” Ben said, not really paying attention, a local dispute.
“Racketeering. So you’ve got the head of the union behind bars, it’s time for a change, right? Your brother thought so-we all did. And look. Four years later and we’re out there walking with signs and the studios are still paying off. Cheaper than paying the employees. In a year like this, when they’re making so much money it’s like sitting on a fucking oil well. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get started. This isn’t the place.” He looked again at the newspaper. “And now we’ve got her making it worse. Now we’re all Reds.”
“There weren’t any pickets at Continental.”
“No, you start with the majors-the big five. Then everybody else comes in. Who’s going to follow Lasner?” He looked at Ben. “Not that he’s any different. Dump the cash on some hotel bed and get yourself a new contract. They like doing business that way. It’s an outlaw town, they still have that mentality. You know, one day they’re at a meeting, the studio heads, and I see them walking out of the commissary and I say to myself, Jesus fucking Christ, it’s the boys from Chicago. Same look. Well. This isn’t the place.” He looked at Ben, hesitant. “I liked him,” he said, shaking Ben’s hand, then glanced around the room. “It’s some place he’s got here.” He turned back to Ben. “I don’t understand it.”
He followed Stein back into the busy main room, half-hoping he could pass unnoticed out onto the terrace, but Liesl caught his eye, flagging him down. Somehow the funeral had made them a temporary couple, alert to each other’s signals. She took his arm lightly, lowering her voice as she steered him toward Alma Mahler, eating pastry near the table.
“She thinks you’re ignoring her,” she whispered. Then to Alma, “Found.”
But once they were past the introductions, the sympathies, there was little to say. She was a woman of such regal self-absorption that Ben suspected she had no conversation outside herself, so he fell back on the usual, how she liked California.
“For us it was very pleasant. Before Franz died. Now I never go out. But before-you know Stravinsky is here? Schoenberg? Like Europe, with sunshine.” Her eyes twinkled a little, waiting for him to respond, evidently a phrase that had worked before. “Of course, we were fortunate. Franz’s success.” She let the rest of the thought hover there, leaving Ben to imagine the riches. “You know it was a promise he made. He said if we survived, he would write about Lourdes, and look. So Bernadette blessed us, too. Who would have imagined it then? Such a success.”
“And the film.”
She nodded, accepting tribute.
“Of course, not serious art, like Mahler. Gropius.” Listing former lovers like credits. “But it’s important here, to have a success. It’s what they respect. And of course it’s nice, too, to be comfortable. Look at poor Heinrich. In Germany such an important name. I remember passing a bookstore, a whole window, all Kaltenbach, no one else. And here? No one knows who he is.”
“The books aren’t translated?”
“No. Franz, Lion, Hans of course,” she said, tipping her head toward Liesl. “But Heinrich, it’s too European maybe. So it’s hard for him. We all help a little. Not charity, we tell him, a loan until better times, but of course he’s proud. Once in all the windows. Liesl said you were just in Germany?”
“Yes,” Ben said, surprised at the veering off.
“It’s bad there, everyone says. Heinrich wants to go back. ‘I want to be a writer again,’“ she said, quoting, but shaking her head. “Well, you know what it’s like. I had a letter. My friend Beate. She says people are like zombies. Numb.”
“They’re hungry,” Ben said.
“Yes, hungry,” Alma said, not even glancing at her own plate. “But not reading. Not reading Heinrich.”
“They will again. Someday. Let’s hope so anyway.”
She looked up quickly, as if she had been corrected.
“But not here, I think. He doesn’t have the popular touch, Heinrich. Like your brother. He had the popular touch. Detectives,” she said airily, sliding it in as easily as a pinprick. “Heinrich is an artist.”
They were rescued by Kaltenbach, slightly hunched, like a courtier, who came to say their car had arrived.
“You’ll excuse us? These cars, they don’t like to wait. Such delicious food,” he said to Liesl. “But you must be tired. All these people. You should rest.”
“Yes,” Alma said. “It must be terrible for you.” She paused, another prick. “So unexpected.”
She patted Liesl’s arm, then nodded at Ben and handed him her plate, leading Kaltenbach across the room, tipping her head to people as she went. Just a hand on his elbow, enough to move him along. Ben stared at it. To push a man over you’d need a tighter grip. Had Danny screamed? He must have. At least a startled grunt. Only suicides made no noise, grim with purpose, not taken by surprise. Nobody had said. But it might be in the police report.
“Is something wrong?” Liesl said, peering at him.
“Sorry,” he said, snapping back. “Is she always like that?”
“You don’t like her?” Liesl said, a mock innocence, then laughed, the first time Ben had seen her really smile. She covered her mouth with her hand, a girl’s gesture.
The police report. Tomorrow.
They went out on the terrace, picking up wine glasses off a passing tray.
“Daniel didn’t like her, either.”
“What did they see in her?” Stay on Alma. “Kokoschka. Mahler. She had half the men in Vienna.”
“She used to be a great beauty they say.”
“Who says?”
She laughed again. “She does, mostly.”
He looked at her, caught by the laugh. It seemed to come from some private part of her, something you only saw in glimpses, like her ease in the water.
“I shouldn’t,” she said, putting the drink down. “They’ve only started coffee.”
“It’s going by itself now,” he said. “You can sit one out.”
She glanced up, working out the idiom, then took a sip of wine.
“Did you notice? They don’t talk about him. Anything else. They’re embarrassed.”
“How are you doing?” he said, a private question.
“Well, Alma’s gone, so that’s one thing,” she said, evading it. “Now there’s only my father to worry about.” She nodded toward the end of the pool where two men were smoking cigars. “He always quarrels with my uncle. Well, not always. Then it’s like this, polite.”
“Quarrels about what?”
“Germany. Dieter says my father blames the people. You know the article he wrote. The German character. And how can you blame the people? It was Hitler. So back and forth. They’re all like that,” she said, looking around. “Their house burned down and they argue about why it happened.”
“But it’s important. To know why it happened.”
“You think so? I don’t know. It doesn’t change anything. It’s gone. They all want to go back. But to the old days. Heimat.”
“Do you?”
“Me? I almost died there once. You don’t get rescued twice, I think. Who would marry me next time?” She tried to smile, then looked away, restive again. “Well. There’s Salka waving so Mann must be leaving. He’ll expect-oh god, not Polly.”
She was looking toward the pool again, where Polly Marks had wedged herself between the brothers-in-law.
“Who’s the guy in the gray suit? Do you know? I saw him at the funeral.”
“He came with her-I suppose he works for her.”
Ben smiled to himself. “I thought he was a cop.”
“A police? Why police?” she said, her head jerking around.
“But he wasn’t. Just a legman.”
“Why would you think that?” she said.
He looked at her, but this wasn’t the time, not with people around them, not with nothing more to offer than a feeling and the wrong bottle.
“I’ll go play referee,” he said, heading toward the pool.
The group at the end, like actors in a silent, were telling the story with their bodies-Ostermann leaning away from Polly, who was cornering him with attention, her back to his brother-in-law, the legman off to the side, smoking and watching them with the same quiet sweep he’d used at the funeral.
“Hello again,” Ben said to Polly, interrupting them.
She turned in mid-sentence, caught slightly off guard, trying to place him.
“Ben,” Ostermann said, cueing her.
But Polly had already found him in her mental file and only gave him a quick nod before she went back to Ostermann. “They sure sound like a front to me. You think it’s all innocent-I’m for world peace, too, who isn’t? — and the next thing you know they’re using you. Your reputation.” The same rushed voice, quivering.
“Do you think I’m so famous?” he said gently, making light conversation. “No.”
“You’re not just anybody, you know that. Your name speaks-”
“I tell him he has to be careful,” Dieter said.
Polly didn’t even turn, brushing this off with a blink. A relative from Pasadena.
“You listen to Polly,” she said. “Warners doesn’t buy just anybody. If you have any doubts, people asking to use your name, call me. I’ve been here a long time. Turning over rocks.”
“That’s very kind,” Ostermann said flatly. “To take so much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble. I love this country.”
“As we do,” he said, a courtly half bow. “Who took us in?”
“Terrible about all this, isn’t it?” she said, looking back at the house. “I don’t know how Liesl does it. So strong.” She shook her head. “Of course he was no angel, but I’m not one to speak ill of the dead.”
“No.”
She took his hand and patted it, oddly flirtatious. “Glad we could talk. We’ll have lunch soon.” She looked at Ben. “You never mentioned you were going to Continental,” she said, a black mark, holding out, all that needed to be said.
Without being signaled, the man in the gray suit slipped away from the oleander and followed her.
“So it begins,” Ostermann said slowly. “Enemies everywhere. I wondered what would happen when they won. Now look. Like Germany last time, when we lost. ‘I love my country.’ That’s what they said in Berlin, remember?” This to Dieter, who looked at Ben.
“Hans is writing about that time, so it’s all he thinks about.” Then, to Ostermann, “Don’t pack your bags yet. It’s not the same.”
“It starts the same. I remember it.”
“When you’ve been here as long as I have-”
“When did you come?” Ben said.
“ ’Thirty-seven. With Trude. I wanted Hans to bring Anna, too. It was still possible then. Perhaps if they hadn’t waited, things would have turned out differently.”
Ostermann went stiff, annoyed, evidently a sore point between them, the sister who died.
“But we’re all here now,” Dieter said, making peace.
“You don’t want to go back?” Ben said, testing Liesl’s theory.
“Now? My work is here. All my colleagues. Hitler was a catastrophe for German science, but a gift to America.”
“You’re a scientist?” Ben said, surprised. Not in pictures, not even connected. Another California.
“No, no,” he said, diffident. “A teacher. Mathematics.”
“A teacher,” Ostermann said playfully. “Very distinguished. In Germany, a doctor doctor.”
“But not at Cal Tech,” Dieter said pleasantly. “One doctor only.”
“Thank you for being there,” Ben said. “At the hospital.”
Dieter nodded. “You know what he liked? The observatory. On Mount Wilson. Not the science of it. He was like Hans here-everything a mystery, even the simplest numbers. But he liked to see the stars. It’s a good lens, you know, a hundred inches, the largest. Would you like to go sometime? It was hard during the war, but now we can take visitors again. You have to stay over. The road is too dangerous at night.”
“You mean camp there?”
“No, we have places to stay. Dormitories for the staff. A few rooms for guests. It used to be very popular, with the other stars,” he said, smiling. “Hubble liked to take them up. Fairbanks, Pickford, all of them. You can see the pictures. So if you like, I’ll arrange it. A family excursion. But now-” He looked around, ready to go. “A sad occasion. It’s a pity you did not get a chance-”
“No, only at the hospital. For a minute.”
“He spoke?”
Ben shook his head, not wanting to go back.
“No last words. I’m sorry,” Dieter said, taking Ben’s hand. “So we’ll make a trip. Hans,” he said, now reaching for Ostermann’s hand, “be well. You should listen to her, you know. That woman. No petitions. No letters in the paper. It draws attention to all of us.”
Ostermann watched him leave, a politer version of Alma’s exit, then sighed and busied himself relighting his cigar.
“More American than the Americans. Except for the accent. He thinks no one hears it.” He nodded toward the city below, spread across the flat basin. “Look at that. You know, every building you see, it’s the first. There was nothing on this land before. Imagine. In Europe we live on layers. Here it’s only the first. So what will it become? It’s interesting. But do any of us care? We don’t really live here. I’m still in Berlin. My study even, it’s like before. Writing 1919. You like the title? Just the year. No one here will be interested, it’s for me. What happened to us. Mann’s writing Bible stories. Bible stories after all this. The conscience of his country.”
“I thought that was you.”
He smiled a little. “The bad conscience maybe. I’m sorry. Such gloomy talk. Your brother used to call it the exile mentality. Always half-empty. But it was different for him. He never had to worry about leaving. Being asked to leave. He was born here. Sometimes I think we got out with our skins but our lives-they’re somewhere in-between. Still waiting for the knock.”
“Not here.”
“We’re still watched.” He caught Ben’s skeptical look and nodded. “We’re German, we have a sixth sense for this now. The phone I think sometimes, the mail I know.”
“Really?”
“There’s a group, more exiles, in Mexico-it was easier to get a visa there. So they write to me sometimes and I think the letters are being read. You know, opened and resealed. So, a test. I tell them to write in English and you know what? The letters arrive three days earlier-the censor doesn’t have to translate. So I know.”
“But why? Did they think you were a Nazi? You?”
Ostermann smiled weakly. “Anybody foreign. There’s no logic to this. It’s like Polly. You start turning over rocks, you have to find something, or why did you start? So you keep doing it. I’m used to it. In Germany it was the same-well, worse. But you have to be careful. You say things and it might go against you with Immigration. It’s better since the war, but Brecht says they’re still watching him. Even now.” He shook his head. “Such a dangerous person. In Santa Monica.” He moved away from the potted geraniums, taking a chair and leaning back in it, his eyes still on the view. “It’s an irony, yes? What we came to escape. Like poor Connie Veidt, playing Nazis. They wanted to kill him there, and then here it was all he can do, be a Nazi. It was the voice. Like Liesl.”
“Like Liesl?” Ben said, confused.
“The accent. You know she was an actress. Small theaters only, but good, I think. Of course the father says that. But Salka says she had talent. And then we left and she lost her voice.”
“Couldn’t Danny get her work?”
“Here? Even Lorre, an actor like that, couldn’t play American.” He smiled. “Mr. Moto. A Japanese. A girl with a German accent? Not so many parts for her. And you know, I think Daniel liked her at home. So she gave it up. Became the Hausfrau.”
“And your translator.”
“Yes,” Ostermann said, looking up. “A help to me, too, I admit. And now? It’s a worry. When someone dies this way, you think, I never knew him. You turn it over and over in your mind, trying to make sense of it.”
“Yes,” Ben said, an almost involuntary response.
“Everything becomes a lie. Your own life. I don’t want that for her.”
“But everything wasn’t.”
“No, not everything. But which?” He drew on the cigar. “How little we know about each other,” he said, brooding. “Even when we think we know.”