Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“Fourteen thousand subversives or fourteen thousand people he doesn’t like?” The same man who’d made the crack about profits.

“Well, let’s just say people he’s not sure of,” Minot said, deflecting this easily. “You’d want to be sure, something like this. When you’re under attack. Not with guns-not yet anyway. But ideas, too, the wrong ideas. Slip them in every chance you get until people are confused. That’s where you come in.” He nodded to Warner. “Make sure it doesn’t happen in pictures. There’s nothing more powerful if you want to reach people. Not even radio. Hitler understood that. The power of film. These people, too.”

“That’s why we have the Breen Office,” Jack said. “Try getting an idea past them.” He laughed, a signal to the others, who joined in. After a second of hesitation, Minot did, too, playing a man who appreciates a good wisecrack.

“Now, Jack, I said wrong ideas,” he said, still laughing.

“Congressman, you don’t have to worry about that,” Jack said seriously. “I’ve been in this business all my life and I don’t think you could find a more patriotic group of people. We love this country.”

“It gave us everything,” Lasner said.

Jack waited, a twinkle in his eye. “And we’re going to love it even more if you get this decree taken care of.” More smiles all around.

“Jack, they told me you were a kidder,” Minot said pleasantly. “They didn’t tell me you were a politician. Next thing you know, you’ll be running for my seat.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m already running everything I want in Burbank. Sol, you going to give us something to eat tonight?” Cutting the scene before it ran too long, his point now made.

Minot’s instincts weren’t as sure-he missed Warner’s cue and kept talking about the future, now of the Valley, but since none of his listeners actually lived there they became less attentive, darting glances around the room. He was saved by a waiter at his elbow quietly announcing dinner. Not a gong after all, servants discreetly guiding people into the dining room, a piece of social choreography.

Some attempt had been made to place the few German speakers at Genia’s table, but, as her dinner partner, most of the caretaking still fell to Ben. Paul Henreid, no doubt another Warners draftee, was on her right but after a few pleasantries turned his attention, in English, to Rosemary. Liesl, an unexpected German speaker, was across the round table from them, too far for conversation. Paulette’s other partner was Mike Curtiz, who might have helped but, head close, monopolized Paulette instead with studio gossip. Genia didn’t seem to mind. She sat quietly, her own island, while the table talked around her. Since no one on either side was listening, when Ben spoke German to her it became oddly private, as if they were in another room, in no danger of being overheard. As Lasner predicted, she scarcely touched her food, moving pieces of the tournedos with her fork but not eating them.

“I can’t, you know,” she said, noticing his glance to her plate. “It’s too rich for me.”

Ben remembered the rescued inmates vomiting their first meal, their bodies no longer used to digesting anything but watery soup. He looked down at the deep burgundy glaze with its sliver of truffle.

“Such vegetables. This time of year.”

“California,” Ben said. “They grow all year round. Have you been able to get out? See anything?”

“The ocean. Fay took me for a drive. The rest, it’s all houses, no- buildings. Not like Berlin.”

“Liesl’s father says it’s still the first layer here. Before the Schinkels.”

He smiled but she seemed not to understand this, at a loss. She looked over at Liesl.

“She’s your wife?”

“No,” he said, looking across with her, so that Liesl smiled back.

“Maybe one day. See how she looks at you.”

“No,” Ben said, flustered. “She’s my brother’s wife. Was.”

“I don’t understand. The same brother? He wasn’t killed? Years ago.”

“No, just this month. Why did you think-”

“Why? It was so dangerous. Back and forth. The courier. I never thought it was right-for your father to use a boy like that. Well, not a boy. Still, young. To risk his life. When you said he was dead, I thought, yes, it must be. Of course they killed him.”

“Who?” Ben said, suddenly feeling light-headed.

“The Nazis,” she said simply. “It was always a risk.”

“For an American?”

“A Communist,” she said, her voice steady, matter-of-fact.

“What?”

“You didn’t know this?”

Involuntarily, Ben glanced toward Minot’s table, apprehensive, the word itself now like a pointing finger. But no one in the room was paying attention, hearing anything more than a murmuring of German. Only Ben felt the words shouting in his ears. He shook his head slowly, barely moving.

“And he never told you? Well, that’s right. We had to be secret to survive. The first enemy. Even before they started killing Jews. No one was safe from them. I said to Otto, how can you use your own? But of course it was important to him. And he was like you-an American passport would protect him, they wouldn’t suspect. His mother’s in England. Of course he travels. So, a courier.”

“For the Communists,” Ben said numbly, as if repeating the words would give a sense to them, steady the room.

“Yes, for your father. Anything for your father. For him it was like a religion, so maybe for the boy, too. I don’t know.”

“Like a religion,” Ben said, still catching echoes.

“Yes. And he died for it.”

“For being a Communist? That’s why he stayed in Germany?” Not another woman, a career he couldn’t leave behind, a misguided sense of safety.

“They didn’t suspect him. He could do things the others couldn’t. Goebbels liked him. All of them-they liked to watch those comedies. They thought he was like that. So he was useful to the Party. So close and they didn’t suspect.”

“They didn’t protect him, either. He was still a Jew.”

“That’s what you think? All these years. That he was foolish? That he trusted them?” She shook her head. “They didn’t kill him as a Jew. They killed him as a Communist.” She paused. “He was betrayed,” she said, her voice suddenly low, looking away, across the table.

Ben said nothing. He heard forks, people laughing, sound track noises from another movie. In this one, everything was still. He looked at Genia’s hands, the bony fingers resting now on the table, pale, webbed with veins, the hands of an old woman.

“How do you know that?” he said finally.

For a minute she kept looking across the table, then turned to him. “Because it was me. I betrayed him,” she said, her voice still detached, a confession without emotion or self-pity, something willed. He felt it like a hand on his arm, a restraint, making him look directly at her. “Why? Why else? To save myself.” Staring back, the rest unsaid. Then she looked away, breaking the connection. “But I didn’t. Not in the end.” She picked up the small bag at her side. “Excuse me. I must have a cigarette. Apologies.”

She stood up, catching Liesl’s attention, who looked at Ben, first with casual curiosity, then, taking him in, with real alarm. Paulette was already putting her hand on his.

“I’m not ignoring you, really. Mike was just telling me about Selz-nick. You know, he’s still in therapy. He believes in it. Since Spellbound. I said he could save a bundle and just give up the pills — Are you all right? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

He tried to smile, shaking this off.

“Seriously. You’re all white.”