Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“Here they come. They’re going to watch a film.” She stood, drawing him up with her. “Make some excuse for me, yes? Headache, whatever you like, it doesn’t matter.” She smiled to herself, a weak grimace. “That, either.”

She slipped out behind the stream of people heading for the bathrooms before the movie started. It seemed a disorganized moment, an aimless milling, like the scattering pieces in his head.

“What’s wrong? What was all that?” Liesl said.

He stared for a second, adjusting to the switch back to English, his mind elsewhere.

“Nothing. She’s- I’ll tell you later,” he said, looking at her closely now. Had she known? How could she not? Unless Danny had kept this secret, too. “Can we cut out before the movie? What’s the form?”

“We can’t. It would be considered an insult,” she said. “Listen, I have to talk to you. I think I know-”

“Later,” he said, touching her arm. “Here’s Bunny.”

“Everything fine?” Bunny said, looking at Liesl. “Did you enjoy Dick?”

Her dinner partner had been Dick Marshall, out of his pilot uniform, a smile replacing the oxygen mask. More window dressing for the party.

“Yes, he was very funny.”

“I’ll bet,” Bunny said, but relieved, as if he’d expected a different report. He turned to Ben. “And you. I thought it’d be pulling teeth, but there you were, nattering away.”

Ben felt fuzzy, a diver decompressing too fast. Why were they talking about any of this? Floating on froth, like the meringues.

“Mr. L can’t get two words out of her. Well, we’d better start the picture before the natives get restless. Glad you enjoyed yourself,” he said to Liesl. “You’ve got a treat in store-Jack sent over something special.”

“Ben,” she said, when Bunny left, “at dinner-”

“She knew Otto,” he said. “She knew Danny.”

“Daniel?”

“In Berlin. When he was with my father. She thought the Nazis had killed him. He was getting people out. The way he helped you, later. It started then. Why didn’t you tell me he was a Communist?”

“What are you talking about?” she said, nervous, unprepared for this.

“She told me. She was there. You must have known.”

“Known what,” she said, a quick dismissal. She looked toward the room, measuring their distance from the others, then back at him. “He never said. Everyone was a bit then. They were against the Nazis. Organized. There wouldn’t have been a resistance if they hadn’t-”

“You never asked?”

“I didn’t care about that. Politics. When someone throws you a lifesaver, you take it.”

“And marry him.”

Her eyes flashed. “It wasn’t important.” She looked down, biting her lip. “I thought he was-sympathetic, that’s all. So maybe he worked with them, everyone did. It was never official-you know, a Party member. Meetings. I would have known about that. It was a way of looking at things then, because of the Nazis. Years ago. Anyway, that was there. It was different after we came here.”

“It’s not something you stop, just like that.”

“Things change. People change.”

“Do they?”

“You think that? That’s what you’re looking for in his desk? A card? A letter from Stalin? I would have known.” She looked away, hearing herself, yesterday’s certainty. “He made movies here, that’s all. Silly movies.”

“So did my father. And he ran a cell. According to her.”

“If you want to know, ask them. The Party.”

“I don’t think they’re handing out membership lists these days.”

“Ask Howard Stein. It’s always in the papers about him. That he must be one. Polly says he is. Ask him. Why is it so important anyway?”

“Because we have to know everything about him. What he was doing. Why anyone would-”

“No. You have to know. I don’t know why. Look, they’re going in. No more about this. The way people talk. Who knows what’s true. My father’s applying for citizenship. How would it look? A Communist son.”

“A dead one.”

“Well, my father’s alive. Talk like this-”

“We have to know. It might be important.” He took her elbow. “Don’t run away from this. Help me. We owe it to him.”

“Owe it to him.” She smiled to herself, then looked up. “I was trying to help. Before you started with all this. Politics. They don’t kill you for that yet. Maybe not love, either. You want to know the girlfriend? Rosemary.” She nodded. “Maybe not the only one, I don’t know. So does that help? Does she look like-”

“How do you know?”

“I know. I knew at the table. The way she was with me. She wouldn’t look at me. Not once. I could see her do it, not looking. And then she heard who you were and she was upset. She wasn’t ready for that. The wife, that’s one thing. But you-”

“That’s it, the proof?”

“You can prove it any way you like. I already know. It’s her,” she said, turning away so that before he could say anything else she had already joined the people moving toward the screening room.

He followed, his mind darting again, his feet moving on their own, in another place. Around him people were talking about the movie, overheard but echoing, like voices in a train station.

Warner’s treat turned out to be Saratoga Trunk, a Bergman not yet released.

“I’ve been sitting on this since over a year,” Jack said.

“You’re worried?” Sol said.

“Not worried. Sam Wood, you’re always going to get an A product. Getting the time right. They put her in dark hair, in period, and I’m thinking, they want Casablanca again, not this. A totally different type. So I wait, we hold the picture. Then what? The Bells of St. Mary’s for Christmas. Talk about timing. I figure after that they’ll like her in anything. Put it out right after, you can’t miss. Same season. You can’t get into the Crosby, see the other.”

“Well, the Crosby,” Sol said. “They’re already counting the money.”

“Hundred bucks it grosses more than anything this year. The Catholics alone. You know how they come out for nuns.”

“Jack.”

“A hundred bucks.”

There were no assigned seats in the theater, so Ben and Liesl sat together toward the back. Minot and his wife, still being charmed, were in the front row with the Lasners and the Warners. Bunny walked up the aisle like someone counting the house, making sure everything was in place. The lights dimmed, followed by a blast of music. When the Warner logo came on, people applauded, a jokey tribute to Jack.

Within minutes Ben saw why Warner had waited. Ingrid Bergman was in a bustle, pretending to be Creole. There was a dwarf and Flora Robeson in blackface as a maid who knew voodoo. Gary Cooper was Gary Cooper, a Texan. His name seemed to be Clint Maroon. None of it made sense, and Ben drifted, not really paying attention. Somewhere upstairs Fay’s cousin was lying on a bed smoking, seeing a splotch of blood on a wall. He thought of her bony hand on his. How can you use your own? But Otto had. Like a religion to him. Abraham ready to sacrifice Isaac-by whose orders? The priests of the International? Wherever orders came from. Your own son. Who wanted to do it. Fearless. He went through the dinner again, trying to piece the parts of Danny’s life together, looking for some clear thread that ran from Berlin to the Cherokee. But what? It seemed as patchy and unlikely as the movie, even without the dwarf.

Liesl wasn’t watching, either. He could feel her beside him, restless in her seat, maybe looking for Rosemary. Knowing it was her, a feeling. The girl most likely. Someone Bunny would make a call for. Dating Ty Power while they built her up, not a B director on a B lot. But when Liesl leaned toward him to whisper, her mind was somewhere else.