K Jeter - The Kingdom of Shadows

“Ah. But something happened, I take it? To break this… partnership?”

“Yeah.” Wise nodded. “I went the distance with a guy who stood a head taller, outweighed me by, I don’t know, maybe twenty pounds or so. The only reason I won the fight was that I was still standing at the end. When I got my eyes open again, I found that my partner had run off with the money, figuring I wasn’t going to make it to the other side. Took me two days to track the sonuvabitch down.”

“And did you get your money, Herr Wise? Your winnings?”

“Pretty much. But not without another fight.”

“Ah.” The Reichsminister regarded him with renewed appreciation. “You are indeed a man of more than das Wort. Tell me, was this early partner of yours also a Jew, such as yourself?”

“No.” A shake of the head. “I told you. He was Polish.”

“Ah, yes.” Joseph smiled again. “They are beasts. We have our own problems with them -”

“Your crowd seem to have problems with a lot of different kinds of people.”

Marte watched Joseph’s smile tighten. “The things that one hears in America, Herr Wise, should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. But you have my apologies; I have let our conversation stray from the more pleasing matters of art. One of which we are fortunate to have here with us. May I present to you Fraulein Marte Helle?” Joseph tilted his head toward her. “A great future lies before her. She has appeared in but one film – starred, as I believe you Americans would say – but the praise her talents have received has been most gratifying to me.”

“It’s a pleasure, Miss Helle.” The American smiled and nodded at her, then turned his gaze back toward Joseph. “And you’re right, of course. When I saw her in Die Prinzessin – that’s the movie you’re talking about? – I could see that she was a real find. A natural.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Herr Wise.” Joseph frowned. “How could you have seen Prinzessin? The studio has not even yet released it to the theatres here in Germany. Nobody has watched it other than myself and a few other officials at the Propaganda Ministry.”

“Huh. That’s strange.” Herr Wise shook his head. “When I received the print of the film back in Hollywood, I figured that it was one of your staff who had sent it to me. I watched it in the screening room at my office, figuring maybe you were shopping it around for a distribution deal. Partners, like you were talking about before.”

“As you say – strange.” The angles of Joseph’s face had turned hard and sharp. “This is something… I shall have to look into.”

One of the squadron of functionaries stepped from behind. “ Herr Reichsminister -” He leaned close, whispering into Joseph’s ear.

“We must talk again, Herr Wise.” Joseph gave a quick tilt of his head. “I’m sure there’s much we could learn from each other.” He turned away, his retinue closing around him. Marte watched him leave the reception, walking with a careful, measured pace; she knew well by now his particular vanity, that of a man who took care to conceal his club foot, the disfigurement that marked him.

“Quite a priest he would make, eh?”

“Pardon me?” Herr Wise turned toward the bearded figure who had come up beside him.

“Shame on you,” scolded Marte. “You have been eavesdropping.”

“As does everyone in Berlin these days. If only for self-preservation.”

“ Herr Wise -” Marte turned back toward the American. “May I present to you Ernst von Behrens? He directed me in Die Prinzessin. ”

“And discovered you, my dear. Right here in Berlin, in that shabby coffee house.”

“You have an eye for talent, Mr. von Behrens.”

“It has served me well. The Reichminister ’s estimation of my worth has risen considerably of late.” Von Behrens used the empty glass to point across the crowded banquet hall. By the great gilded doors, one of the functionaries was helping Joseph into his fur-collared overcoat. “The priesthood lost quite a candidate in him, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, I bet,” said Wise. “Probably would’ve been a real Savonarola type. I hear he likes to burn things.”

“Ah, yes, the unfortunate books. I did not see the bonfire that night, but I did pick up a scorched Heine collection in the gutter the next morning; it was still quite readable.” Von Behren nodded, watching the distant figure bid farewell to a fawning circle. “I believe the good doctor now regrets that incident. I’ve heard him talk about it – not in public, of course – and about how he hadn’t known at that time just how powerful such images are, how they’re seen by outsiders. With that lean, fanatical face of his, and the fiery – yes? – the fiery speeches he gives, incidents such as the burning of books give people the wrong impression of him. Or so he believes.”

“Must be hell, all right, being so misunderstood.”

The director shrugged. “Perhaps. Though in this case, it is useful to him to be thought of as something of an ascetic. As you say, a Savonarola. A great discipline is being demanded of the German people, great sacrifices to achieve great ends. And they might feel less than kindly toward Reichsminister Goebbels – they might feel they were being abused, or tricked – if they were to have their noses rubbed into his taste for luxuries.”

Wise snorted. “As if they didn’t know.”

“Oh, of course they know. They make jokes about such things, especially here in Berlin, where the people are so cynical to begin with, and they see so much more of his comings and goings. They know; they just want a modicum of discretion on his part. That’s all. Bad enough when Goebbels allowed pictures of his children’s horses to appear in a magazine. So now, no matter how proud he is, say, of having in his house at Schwanenwerder a bar that rises up from the floor when he pushes a button, he makes sure no mention is made of it in the press.”

“It comes up from the floor?” Wise had to laugh. “Jesus – the only other person I know of with something like that is Jack Warner, back home.” He wasn’t sure if this person knew to whom he was referring. “That’s the head of one of the big studios back in Hollywood, Warner Brothers Pictures -”

“Yes, of course.” A smile appeared in the middle of the dark beard. “I know who Herr Warner is. And so does Goebbels. That’s where he got the notion for his wondrous bar; he read about it and decided he must have one just like it. The UFA set builders came out and put it in for him. All free of charge, a donation, a token of their respect. By all reports, he is quite happy with it. Because it shows that now he is a genuine… what is the word?… mogul. Yes? Just as in Hollywood.”

“Good for him.” The American glanced at Marte before speaking again. “Does the Reichsminister have any other indulgences?”

“You must mean the women.” Von Behren raised a hand, his gesture sweeping across the hall. “Surely you saw that for yourself.”

Marte could see that the American knew what the director had spoken of. Now that Joseph had left, the reception hall was different, diminished somehow, as though its animating spirit had departed as well. But before that, it must have been obvious, in silent, unspoken ways, the bright chatter that filled the room failing to mask the other forms of communication. The glances, the touch of a woman’s hand to her own bared throat, the tinge of blood growing suddenly warmer beneath the fair skin, the laughter too bright and hard and nervous; the smells of desire and excitement, a mingled odor of perfume and sweat that slid between bodies like a dancing, invisible ghost. All those currents swirled around the slight, seemingly unheroic form of the Reichsminister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, his bright, hungry face above the hobbled body, like iron filings drawn into patterned rings by a magnet. Even the women who were with other men, young actresses holding onto a uniformed arm or laughing prettily at a UFA producer’s joke – without even turning to look, they knew where Joseph was in the hall. And the men – they knew as well. They could see the shadow passing between themselves and the women they escorted, the momentary shift in attention, falter of voice, quick look from the corner of the eye. If the men’s guts screwed tighter in anger or jealousy, they said nothing – not here, not in public – they said nothing because they were afraid, or they were ambitious, or in some other way, they simply acknowledged the power the little clubfooted man held. Not just inside himself, but through him, a door to all the corridors and whispered rooms of the Reich itself.