Joseph Kanon - Stardust

“Lasner won’t like using Russian footage.”

“Cut away from the soldiers. It doesn’t matter who’s holding the camera. We just want to see the place. Look, the guards are still there. This must be just after they went in.”

On the small screen, men in uniforms were being led away, hands up, their collars open, disheveled.

“What do they look like to you?” Ben said, watching them.

“Anybody.”

Ben nodded. “Anybody. You wonder what went through their heads. The ovens going night and day. The smell.”

There were people in bunks, too weak to move, hollow-eyed, and Ben realized, going down the line with the film, that he was looking for Genia. An outside shot now, prisoners standing around, disoriented, waiting for another roll call. The wire fence, the ovens again, bodies everywhere. What she must have seen every day, unable to turn away like the guards. He thought of her in the big Louis XV room, her dead eyes still seeing what was in the film. After a while, it would be the only thing you knew. And then you were here, in the sunshine with people drinking milkshakes, and you saw that it must have been going on at the same time, while the doctors made selections on the platform, and there was no reason at all why you were in one place or the other, reality itself become something random, inexplicable.

“This is pretty rough,” Hal was saying. “Worse than the other stuff. We’re going to have to be careful. You don’t want to chase the audience away.”

“We want them to see it. That’s the point.”

“Look at the Russians.” Soldiers carrying inmates to carts. “They’ve all got their heads turned. You don’t want the audience doing that.” He glanced up at Ben. “Let me work on it. You want anything back, we’ll put it back.”

“But keep the guards. The way they look.”

They watched the rest of the film, then another, absorbed, not even making notes, letting it run. A pan shot across bodies, the genitals just smudges, as if they had retreated inside, the women oddly neutered, without sex. Open mouths.

“Bastards,” Hal said, almost a whisper, and then neither of them said anything.

When it was over, they went outside for a cigarette, wanting distance, even a few feet. Hal leaned back against the wall, looking toward the Admin building on Gower.

“How’d you get him to do it?” he said. “Lasner.”

“He saw it-one of the camps. I didn’t have to do anything.”

“Well, whatever you did. I never thought I’d get to do something like this. At Continental. Piece of history. Fort Roach. Enemies to Friends. How to bow to a Jap. What not to say to the women. Put in your time, go home at night. That’s all I’ve done. Nothing like this.” He cocked his head, taking in Ben from a new angle. “What are you going to do after?”

“What, the Army?” Ben shrugged. “Maybe go back overseas. There’s a newsreel job if I want it.”

“Most people, they get on the lot, they never want to leave.”

“I just want to get this one done.”

“You saw it for real. That’s why?”

Ben dropped his cigarette and rubbed it out with his foot.

“I’m still trying to figure it out. The guards. How do you get to that point? When you can do that. What makes it all right? Do you know? I don’t.”

“You’re never going to know that. A wife shoots her husband, that you can know. This-”

“There has to be something. What makes them think it’s the right thing to do? There’s no money in it, nothing-personal. Like the wife. Some other reason.”

For ending up in a mound of ashes. Or in an alley with your blood running out. At least he could know the reason for that. As blameless as the ash heaps? The question that was always there. What had he done?

Riordan’s telephone voice was all business, as if he were sitting behind a desk.

“What kind of technical advice? For a picture?”

“No. Someone broke into the house last night.”

“So call the cops.”

“Nothing’s missing. I can’t prove anyone was there.”

“Then why do you think-”

“Some things were rearranged.”

“Rearranged.”

“Look, the point is it made Liesl nervous. I don’t want it to happen again. I figured you’d have some ideas. The Bureau must-”

“What? Train us in breaking and entering? I’ll tell you this much, somebody wants to get in, he’ll get in. Get better locks. Alarms will run you money, and anybody who knows what he’s doing can get in anyway. Get dead bolts. That’s for free.”

“I was thinking about surveillance.”

There was a pause as Riordan took this in.

“You’re asking me to babysit?”

“I figured you’d know somebody.”

“What makes you think they’re coming back.”

“They didn’t take anything. Even stuff just lying around. So they must have been after something in particular. If they didn’t find it, maybe they’ll try again. Look, I’m just asking you to recommend somebody.”

Another pause. “All right, I’ll have a look around. Anybody home today?”

“Iris, the housekeeper. Liesl probably. Tell whoever’s there I sent you, to check the locks. Got a pencil?”

“I know where it is.”

“That’s right. The funeral.”

“What was rearranged? So you knew somebody had been there.”

“A file. In the desk.”

“That was careless. What’s in the desk?”

“Nothing. Papers. Desk stuff.”

“No idea what they were looking for?”

“That’s why I called the Bureau.”

“Yeah. All right. I’ll take care of it. Where are you, the studio? That’s Gower. You know Lucey’s on Melrose? By Paramount. Six? But I’m telling you now, it’s locks.”

The red light was on so Ben waited, leaning against the sound stage wall, his head still full of the Artkino footage. In the street, two Japanese pilots were sharing a smoke, probably on their way to dive-bomb Dick Marshall. The casually surreal world Hal thought everyone wanted. “What, have you got a girl back over there or something?” he’d said, not able to let it go. No, here. Ben smiled to himself. A mermaid. Waiting at home. Danny’s home.

The red light flicked off and he heard the buzzer inside, unlocking the doors. What would Rosemary say? Why would she say anything? A girl on her way up, dancing with Ty Power at the Mocambo. She’d want to shed Danny, any B-list affair, like molted skin.

Ben stepped in, facing the backs of some painted flats, then walked around to the interior of the set, still drenched in hot light. A nightclub with an orchestra stage and a bar at the side, now being set up for a tracking shot. Gaffers were making adjustments in the overheads, angling away from the mirror behind the bar. The extras, in suits and evening dresses, were still sitting at the club tables, waiting to be told to start talking again. Rosemary, in a tight dress, was leaning back against a slant board to keep the skirt from creasing, while a makeup girl ran a comb over her hair, patting it gently into place. Rosemary didn’t move. When the girl stepped aside, leaving her alone against the board, she seemed for a minute like an oil painting propped on an easel.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, coming up to her. “We didn’t get a chance to talk at dinner.”

“No,” she said, wary, but not surprised to see him.

“Ready in two, darling,” the assistant director said, passing them.

“We’re in the middle of a scene,” she said to Ben.

“You all right with the gun?” the AD said.

She nodded, glancing at the gun on the table beside her. Make a leap, before she can react.

“Danny told me a lot about you.”

Eyes cornered now, but meeting his, not backing away.