Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“You were in a camp.”

She raised her eyes, still not really looking. “We all were. My husband, my sister. Everyone.”

“Are they-?”

She shook her head. “Now only me.”

“I’m sorry.”

She wrinkled her forehead, as if the words were not just inadequate but puzzling, irrelevant.

“I don’t know why. I was not so strong. Leon was stronger, for the work. But they took him. To the gas. I don’t know why. No reason. You survive, no reason. Or you don’t.”

“I knew you’d find each other,” Lasner said in English, genial, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“You speak English?” Ben asked her.

“A few words only.”

“But now that you’re here, you have to try. I tell her, if she gets every other word, she’s at least halfway there, right? You tell her about the picture?”

“Not yet.” Ben switched to German. “We’re making a documentary for the Army, about the camps.”

“You want to put this in a film?”

“So people will know. A record. Eisenhower ordered them to film it when we got there. He said no one would believe it otherwise. A kind of proof.”

“A proof.”

“That it happened.” He looked at her. “We don’t have to talk about this, if you’d rather not.”

“Put her in the picture. You can tell your story,” Lasner said.

“What would I say? I don’t know the reason for any of it.” She reached down to the coffee table for another cigarette.

“You ought to go easy on those things.”

“I’m sorry. For me it’s a luxury. A whole cigarette.”

“I didn’t mean- I just meant for your health. Your life is a gift now.”

She stared at him, saying nothing until, slightly flustered, he changed the subject.

“You know who this is?” He nodded at Ben. “Otto Kohler’s kid.”

Now her eyes did move, suddenly alert, as if she’d heard another voice.

“Otto’s? But-”

“You knew my father?”

“Otto,” she said, the flat tone now a little agitated. “There was a boy, yes. But I don’t understand. You’re not-”

“My brother. I was in England.”

“Your brother. Taller,” she said, measuring. “What happened to him?”

“He’s dead.”

She drew on the cigarette and looked down. “Yes. Of course he would be dead.” Her voice flat again. When she looked back up at him her eyes had retreated behind their blank wall. “So now this,” she said aloud, but to herself. “Otto’s son.”

“I knew you two would have lots to talk about,” Lasner said in English.

She turned to him, hesitating, translating in her head, then looked back at Ben, an almost wry expression on her lips.

“Yes, much to talk about,” she said and then, suddenly skittish, “Excuse me.”

She left before either of them could say anything. Lasner raised his eyebrows.

“So I was wrong?”

“She’s grateful to you, you know,” Ben said, an instinctive peacemaker. “It’s just maybe too much for her.” He opened his hand to the party. “So soon.”

“You know what I think? Honest to God? I think Hitler won that one. I don’t think she’s here anymore.”

“How did she know my father?”

“She was in pictures over there. They all knew each other. By that time, there’s only one studio.” He paused, taking a puff on his cigar. “She was a looker when she was young. What the hell, Fay’s cousin.” He looked down at the cigar. “Not now. To do that to someone-” He broke off, looking up at Ben. “Well, see if you can get her to talk a little. So she doesn’t just sit there at dinner. Picking. Ask her about Otto.”

“You think they were-”

“Christ, I don’t know. I never thought. Otto? I wouldn’t be surprised. You think that’s what spooked her with you? Like seeing the kid walk in on you when you’re- Oh, there goes Jack. Watch, he’s going to take on Congress.”

Ben followed him, intending to split off and not intrude, but the loose group around Minot seemed open to anyone passing by. Both Minot and Warner were used to audiences-even talking to each other, they were playing to the cluster around them, a public conversation. Ben noticed that they were already “Ken” and “Jack.”

“I’ll tell you what I see,” Jack said. “I see the goddam unions at my throat and now this thing hanging over my head. Ready to chop. Consent decree. Whatever the hell that actually means. Except trouble. I look around, I see trouble. Here we are, knocking our brains out trying to make pictures and everybody wants a piece.”

“Jack,” Minot said smiling, “you’re on top of the world. Top of the world.” A soap box voice, resonant, his chest swelling. “The industry and this city grew up together.” He gestured toward the lights outside the picture window. “Thirty years ago, that was bean fields. Now look at it. With lots more to come. This year the industry’s revenues are going to hit one billion dollars. One billion.”

“Revenues, not profits.”

“Profits, estimate sixty-three million.” He nodded again to the window. “It’s not lima beans anymore.”

“You just happen to have those numbers in your pocket.”

“You like to come prepared,” Minot said, almost winking. “Industry estimates, Jack, not some office in Washington doesn’t know what it’s talking about. Industry estimates. You’re on top of the world.”

“With a sword over my head.”

“Jack’s a worrier,” Lasner said.

“Of course I can’t predict what the Justice Department is going to do,” Minot said. “With them you need a crystal ball. But I can tell you there’re a lot of people in Washington grateful for all the fine work this industry did during the war.”

“While they were earning those profits,” someone said, a left jab.

“I don’t begrudge profits. I’m not a socialist.” He laughed, a stage chuckle. “Not even close. People buy your product, you ought to make a profit. And keep it. Not have the government reaching into your pocket every five minutes. But I’m not here to talk politics. All I’m saying,” he said, looking directly at Jack, “is you treat your friends right and they’ll treat you right. That’s the way it works in Washington.”

“That’s the way it works here, too. Trick is knowing who your friends are.”

“My job is to protect your interests. You do well, the district does well.” Minot smiled. “And you know what I think? I think you’re just getting started. The industry. Look what’s ahead. No more war restrictions. No more price controls. Everybody wants what you make. You’re just going to grow and grow. With this district, with California. You know why? Because it’s our time. Right now. America’s time. All through the war I kept thinking, win this thing and there’s no stopping us. And we did win it. It’s our time.”

Lifted directly from a campaign speech, Ben thought, the rhetoric building, even Jack Warner listening now with full attention.

“Of course you’ve got somebody over there doesn’t like that at all, and we all know who that is. No profits there,” he said, nodding to Warner. “No God, either. A country with no God. I think that says it all. You think the other guys were bad, the Japs, the Nazis, wait’ll you see this one. But at least this time we’re ready. The Commies want to fight, let them come. And all their helpers over here. Trying to bring this great country down. They don’t like to fight in the open. Like to hide. But we’ll find them, too. You know what a great job Jack Tenney’s been doing up in Sacramento.”

“I knew him when he wrote Mexicali Rose.”

“Well, he’s doing something a lot more important now. That state committee-they could use it as a model when they go national with this. And they will. A house has termites, you’ve got to get rid of them before the rot sets in. That’s just common sense. Unless you want to see it fall down. Jack’s been working this for years now. You know what he told me? How many files he’s got? Reds and their pals and people too dumb to know any better? Over fourteen thousand. Just waiting for when we need them.”