Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“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.”