Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“His first term?” Ben said.

“War hero. Took out a Jap machine gun emplacement. Then caught shrapnel in the leg, enough to get him out. Just in time to start passing out flyers in Van Nuys. Well-oh god, the wife. Marie, I think. Marie?”

“Time to go to work.”

“You think you’re kidding. Sorry about the cousin, but I did give you Paulette. I just wish you’d told me- By the way, I talked to the boys in Publicity. And Security. Nobody made any calls about your brother. Nobody knew him, in fact. So I’d check your sources. They might have got mixed up. Another studio. That happens. Sometimes on purpose. A little game they play.”

Taking the time to close the door on it. Ben started to say something, then let it go. Bunny was already moving away, on to more important things.

He made another circuit of the room, another glassful, then noticed Liesl listening to some man, her expression polite but a little pained, trapped. There had been a shift in the crowd, the people near her moving away, leaving her standing in a circle of space, like a fawn in a clearing, and he felt a sudden urge to wrap a coat around her shoulders. When he went over she smiled, a flicker of relief in her eyes. Marion had been replaced by a director who’d known Danny at Metro and was now offering his condolences. He took Ben as a convenient excuse to escape.

“Having fun?”

“I would be if I didn’t have to talk. Be like her,” she said, nodding toward a middle-aged woman staring out the picture window, smoking. “Just watch everybody.”

“She’s looking the other way.”

“They all want to know what picture I’m working on. When I’m not, they walk away.”

Ben’s eye wandered back to the woman at the window, now moving to a coffee table to put out a cigarette and light another. She looked up, taking in the room, but blankly, as if she couldn’t really see anything. A skeletal thinness, gray hair in short bangs, a velvet dress that seemed too big for her, borrowed. She turned back to the window, staring down at Los Angeles.

“I have a feeling that’s my dinner partner,” Ben said.

“No, it isn’t,” Paulette Goddard said, suddenly at his side. “I am. Hello again.”

He introduced her to Liesl.

“Bunny told me,” she said to Ben. “I don’t suppose you brought any cards.” Her smile and eyes bright, still carrying their own key light. Ben thought of her cross-legged on the Pullman bed, letting Sol win. A good sport.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said.

“Mind? I usually get Rex. He likes me or something. I don’t know why. He starts on his horses and I just nod off. Do you ride?” she said to Liesl, drawing her in.

“No.”

“I can’t imagine. The only ranch I’ve ever been to was the divorce ranch in The Women. At Metro.” She glanced around. “Fay certainly knows how to go all out,” she said, half-laughing. “I remember when it was soup and crackers.” She reached for a canape on a tray, showing a green flash of emerald bracelet.

“You’re friends?” Liesl said, polite.

“Mm, from the good old days, and thank God they’re over. Are you in pictures or-?”

“I translate books. From German,” she said, with a sly glance to Ben, waiting for Paulette to bolt.

But Paulette was impressed. “Do you really? I wish I could. Anything like that. They say you’re not supposed to regret anything, but when you don’t have school- I started work so early, I don’t know anything. You never catch up, really.”

“Well, translation, it’s not so brainy,” Liesl said easily. “Just work. And they’re my father’s books, so I can always ask him what he meant. Then find the words.”

“Your father?”

“Hans Ostermann. He’s not so well known here-”

“ Central Station, ” Paulette said immediately. “I read it. Warners made it. God, what a mess. Mary Astor. He must have hated it. But I read it in English, so that was you? I’d love to meet him sometime. Just coffee or something, if he sees people. Oh, there’s Rosemary. Have you met? Rosemary,” she said, drawing her to them, “come meet some people. Liesl Kohler,” she said, remembering it, something they didn’t teach in school. “My old friend Ben-we were on the Chief together.”

Rosemary hesitated, staring at Liesl, that first appraisal women make at parties, seeing everything, then shook hands with them both.

“Are your ears burning?” Paulette said. “Everybody’s talking about you.”

“The picture isn’t even finished yet,” Rosemary said, glancing again at Liesl, then facing Paulette, a subtle ranking.

“That’s the best time. When everybody still thinks it’s wonderful. But I hear you are.”

“Well, you know, everybody likes dailies and then it comes out and-”

“Just hit your marks and cross your fingers-that’s all any of us can do.”

Rosemary flushed, clearly pleased to be included in “us.” In person, without the glow of backlighting, her features seemed sharper, everything less soft. She looked around, slightly nervous, perhaps still self-conscious about being the center of attention.

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful house,” she said, apparently meaning it.

“Well, it’s not my taste,” Paulette said. “I can’t even pronounce it. Louis Quinze?” she said to Liesl, saying it perfectly. “Liesl’s a translator, so she can be mine tonight. Quinze,” she said again, at Liesl’s nod. “I always think about dusting it. But Fay loves it. She always had a good eye. I can’t tell one vase from another. But Bunny says the Sevres is museum quality.” Again pronouncing it correctly. “So you see, she knows.” She turned, seeing Bunny coming over to them. “Isn’t that right?”

“Darling, I have to borrow you,” Bunny said, ignoring the question. “Come meet the congressman. He loved Standing Room Only.”

“God. And he got elected?”

“Nicey, nicey. Come on. You can talk to Ben at dinner. Rosemary, you know Irving Rapper’s here. I’m sure he’d love to meet you.” A firm do-yourself-some-good nudge, Liesl and Ben just table fillers.

“Now’s your chance,” Ben said to Liesl, nodding toward the woman at the window. “To join the wallflowers.”

“Who is she? She hasn’t talked to anyone.”

“Fay’s cousin. Has to be. I don’t think she has any English.”

“Then go rescue her. I’m going to the ladies’, find out what people are really saying.”

Fay’s cousin didn’t turn when he came up, her gaze still fixed out the window.

“Entschuldigung. Pani Markowitz?”

“Pani? So you speak Polish?” she said in German, finally turning. Ben smiled. “No. A courtesy only. I was told you were Polish. I’m Ben Collier.”

“I was born there, yes,” she said, her voice flat.

It was then that he took in her eyes, the same faraway emptiness he’d seen in some of the others’, a blind person’s eyes, no longer needed, nothing more to see. Her collarbones stuck out, barely covered by the thin layer of skin.

“I thought I would die there, too, but no.” She half turned to the window. “And now look. So many lights.”

“You lived in Berlin?” Ben said, to say something. “I was there as a boy. A few years.”

“Yes, Berlin.”

“And you’re Fay’s cousin.”

“Her father and my mother-but he came here. A long time ago, before the first war.”

“Your mother stayed.”

“My father-he did very well. There was no reason for us to leave. It was a different time then. My mother always said Max left for the adventure. They thought he was a no-good. To leave your family, your country. So who was right?” She turned fully to the room, the rich end of Max’s gamble. “A daughter living like this. To think all this still exists.”