Stardust

  Stardust

  Joseph Kanon

  Joseph Kanon

  Stardust

  A MAN RIDES INTO TOWN

  As it happened, Sol Lasner was also on the train. Ben spied him first on the red carpet at Grand Central posing for photographers, like one of his stars. Shorter than Ben remembered, his barrel chest wobbling on thin legs, storklike, but with the same tailored look, natty. He gave a quick, obligatory smile to the flashbulbs, then herded a group of men in suits onto the train, back to business. At Croton, where they switched over to the steam engine, most of the suits got off for the ride back to the city, but two stayed on through dinner, so Ben didn’t have a chance to talk to him until they were past Albany, when the landscape had already turned dark and there was nothing to observe from the observation car but blurs of street lamps and platform lights streaking past.

  He’d been sitting near the rounded back of the car, smoking and staring out at nothing, when Lasner came in, holding a cigar. He nodded to Ben, not recognizing him, and for a moment Ben was tempted to let it wait, talk later on the Army’s time. The next few days were supposed to be his, little shrouds of time to wrap himself up in, prepare for the funeral, stare out windows, get used to it.

  The long-distance call to Danny’s wife has taken hours to put through, her voice scratchy with bad connections, or grief. What kind of accident? “A fall. It’s in the papers as an accident. You know, anyone can fall. So they put it in that way.” But it wasn’t? Ben had asked, disconcerted, feeling his way, listening to the precious seconds tick by. “Look,” she’d said finally, “you should know. You’re his only family,” but then went quiet again. You mean he tried to take his life? “Take his life?” she’d said, confusing him until he realized that it was a translation problem, an idiom she hadn’t picked up. Hans Ostermann’s daughter. Tried to kill himself, he said. “Yes,” she said reluctantly, then drew a breath, moving past it. “But they didn’t want to say. You know what it’s like here. Everything for the good name. Nothing bad ever happens. It’s better if it’s an accident, in the papers. So I said it, too.” There was a snort of air, like a shrug over the phone. “But his brother- you have a right.”

  Rambling on, making no sense to him now, or maybe he had just stopped listening, his head dizzy with it. Not a crash, a virus, some act of fate, but something willed, a scream of unhappiness. “I’m sorry for this news,” she’d said before he could ask more. “Is it possible for you to come now? He’s in a coma. So still alive. I don’t know how long. They don’t expect-so if you could come.” And then the reserved time was running out, and instead of questions there were logistics and plans. But what answers could anyone have? Something that only made sense to Danny, the most private act there was.

  To his surprise, there had been no problem having the Army move up the trip. The problem was getting there, with the trains the way they were. Then something last minute opened up on the Chief, if he was willing to sleep sitting up on the Century to meet it, so he’d packed a duffel, sent the wire, and now found himself riding with Sol Lasner. Who could wait-the Army’s assignment-while he took his personal leave, brooding. Days to think about it, all the way to California. Meanwhile, Lasner was lighting the cigar, looking out the window and then at his watch, checking some invisible schedule.

  “Any idea where we are?”

  “Just past Schenectady.”

  Lasner drew on the cigar, looking out again. “Upstate,” he said. “Goldwyn’s from here. Gloversville. They made gloves. That’s what he was, a glove man. Well, why not?”

  Just talking to himself, not really expecting a reply, but suddenly Ben took the opening anyway. The meeting had fallen into his lap, personal leave or not.

  “Mr. Lasner?”

  Lasner turned, peering at him.

  “Sorry. You probably don’t remember. We met last month overseas, on the Army trip. Ben Collier.” He held out his hand. “I was one of the liaison officers. Translator.”

  Lasner took his hand, looking closely, still trying to place him. “The guy with the rooms, right? The one got Eddie Mannix the Ritz in Paris.”

  Ben smiled. “And Zanuck. And Balaban. Colonel Mitchell arranged it. He figured they’d want the Ritz. Kind of people used to it.”

  “I got news for you,” Lasner said, pointing with the cigar. “You think Harry Cohn’s used to the Ritz? Some hot-sheet place down on Flower-that’s what he’s used to.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know what that trip was. A stunt. Army puts a bunch of us in uniform, takes us around. What did they get out of it?”

  What did they? Harry Cohn played poker in his suite, ignoring Paris. Everywhere the jockeying for the best hotel rooms, the special transports. Ben remembered the winding road up to Berchtesgaden, lined with jeeps, a new tourist attraction, GIs hunting for souvenirs while the executives stood at Hitler’s vast picture window, little tyrants finally humbled. A ride on Hitler’s yacht. Hamburg, where people had melted into the pavement during the firebombing. The camps, even worse. A few survivors still there, too emaciated and stunned to be moved. In town, packs of children, foraging. How much had they seen from their requisitioned rooms?

  “It was Ike’s idea. Thinks people should see it. What happened. So the State Department sends groups over. That was the studio tour. There was another for the newsreel editors. See what it’s like.”

  “At the Ritz.”

  “And Dachau.”

  For a moment there was no sound but the click of wheels beneath them.

  “I was there,” Ben said quietly. Watching Lasner stagger against a building, his face in his hands, sobbing. “I know it made an impression on you.”

  Lasner rounded his cigar in the stand-up tray, smoothing off the ash.

  “We’re making a picture about it.”

  “Who’s making?”

  “I’m in the Signal Corps. We shot film there. What the newsreels didn’t.”

  “You personally?”

  “No, I collect the film. See it’s put together for briefings, whether we can do something more. Information length, maybe features. If not, V shorts. Depending on the footage. What you do, in a way. Produce.”

  Lasner waved his hand. “And now you’re out of a job.”

  “Not yet. The Battle of San Pietro got a lot of play. And the Tokyo film did okay on general release, so the exhibitors are still interested. And there’s Ike’s film coming.”

  “Who’s releasing?” Lasner said quickly.

  “Columbia.”

  Lasner grunted.

  “You know how it works. War Activities Committee-Freeman, at Paramount-assigns the pictures on a rotating basis. All the majors. It was Columbia’s turn.”

  “The majors. What am I? They still think Continental’s a Poverty Row shop? Next year, we’ll outgross RKO, but me they give the training films. You know what it costs me? We get four to five thousand a reel. But we throw in the production, the overhead, the salaries for chrissake. Add it up, it’s more like seven thousand a reel and we just eat the difference.” He tapped the cigar again, calmer. “Not that I mind. You know, for the war. But you don’t hear Freeman calling me with a feature, either.”

  “He will be.”

  Lasner glanced up at him. “What’s this, a pitch?”

  Ben leaned forward. “We’re sitting on a ton of footage. They’re setting up trials. This is what they’re all about. People need to see this. We want to work with a studio to put it together.”

  Lasner shook his head. “Let Columbia do it. You think people want to see this? Nobody wants to see this.”

  “They should.”

  “Should. You know, Freeman asks, it doesn’t mean we have to do it. These war films-it’s all strictly voluntary. And now, after the war? Nobody’s going to make this
picture.”

  “I thought you’d want to.”

  Lasner looked at him for a long minute, then sighed.

  “Let me tell you something. Nobody needs a picture about killing Jews. What else have they been doing? Since forever.”

  “Not like this,” Ben said quietly, so that Lasner busied himself putting the cigar out, avoiding him.

  “Wonderful,” he said finally. “Cohn gets Eisenhower and I getI’ll think about it. Let Freeman call. We’ll see.” A dodge.

  “I’ll be at the Signal Corps base in Culver City. A local call.”

  “Fort Roach.” He caught Ben’s look. “Hal Roach’s old studio. The Army took it over. They’ve got some of my people down there. Drafted. My best cutter. Splicing film on VD. How does your prick look with crabs. Talk about a waste of a good technician.” He glanced up. “You want to make the picture there? Fort Roach?”

  “No, I want to make it at Continental. With you.”

  “Because we were such good pals in Germany. Looking at things.”

  “Freeman said you were the first call to make. You were there for the Relief Fund. You hired refugees in ’forty. You-”

  “So back to the well.”

  “He said the others think they’re Republicans.”

  Lasner snorted. “Since when did Frank get funny? If I heard two cracks from him my whole life it’s a lot.” He shook his head, then snorted again. “Mayer keeps a picture of Hoover in his office. Hoover. And now with the horses. A Jew with horses. So he’s fooling everybody.” He paused. “Don’t push me on this. We’ll talk. In an office. We make a picture if it makes sense to make a picture. Not just someone tells me it’s good for the Jews. Anyway, what kind of name is Collier?”

  Ben smiled. “From Kohler. My father. It means the same thing.”

  “So why change it? Who changes names? Actors.”

  “My mother. After the divorce, we went to England. She wanted us to have English names. My father stayed in Germany.”

  “Stayed?”

  “He was a Mischling. Half.”

  “And that saved him?”

  “He thought it would.”

  Lasner looked away. “I’m sorry. So it’s personal with you? That’s no good, you know, in pictures. You get things mixed up.”

  “Not personal that way. I just want to get this done and get out of the Army. Same as everybody.”

  Lasner picked up the cigar again and lit it, settling in.

  “Why’d you pick the Signal Corps?”

  “They picked me. My father was in the business. Maybe they thought it got passed down, like flat feet. Anyway, I got listed with an MOS for the Signal Corps.”

  “What’s MOS?”

  “Military Occupational Specialty. Civilian skill the military can use. Which I didn’t have, but the Army doesn’t have to make sense. They probably wanted guys with German but everybody did, so they grabbed me with an MOS. And once you’re assigned-”

  “Well, at least it kept you out of combat.”

  “Until last winter. Then they needed German speakers with the field units.”

  “So you saw some action?” The standard welcome-back question.

  “Some. The camera crews got the worst of it. They had to work the front lines. We lost a lot of them.”

  Sometimes just yards away. Ed Singer, so glued to his lens that he never saw the shell that ripped his arm off, just turned and looked down, amazed to see blood gushing out. Ben scooting over. To do what? Dam the blood with a wad of shirt? A stump, spraying blood as it moved, even the camera covered with it. Ed looking at him, frantic, knowing, until his eyes got calmer as shock set in, then closed, no longer there to watch his life run out.

  “I was lucky,” Ben said. “The closest I came was in a plane. When nothing was supposed to happen. You see Target Berlin? Some of the night footage in that. They told us the AAs had been wiped out, but they forgot to tell the Germans. Our gunner was hit. We get back, the plane is full of holes.”

  He stopped, embarrassed, then took out a cigarette.

  “Sorry. What am I doing now, telling war stories?” He inhaled, then blew smoke up toward the round observation roof, in this light oddly like the glass bubble of the Lancaster. “The thing was, I used to live there. Berlin. So it was the enemy, but also someplace you knew. It’s a funny feeling, bombing someplace you know. You think what it must be like on the ground.”

  Lasner stared at him for a minute, saying nothing. “And thenwhat? You’re showing Zanuck around Europe. In uniform. He had it made, you know that? A tailor.” Almost a wink, a joke between them. “And for that they needed-what’s it again? — an MOS. Because your father was in pictures. Where, Germany?”

  “Uh huh,” Ben said casually, sorry now that he had brought it up. “He came here for a while. Years ago. I was born here, in fact. California. But he went back.”

  “Collier,” Lasner said, thumbing a mental file.

  “Kohler then. Otto Kohler. He was a director.” The old hesitancy, as if the name, once his own, would somehow brand him.

  “Otto? My god, why didn’t you say so? Wait a minute. I thought his kid was already over here-at Republic or some place. We were going to do something with him once, but then it didn’t work out. I forget why.” He stopped, confused. “Same name, though, as Otto. Kohler.”

  “My brother,” Ben said, about to say more, and then the moment was gone. Why not tell him? But why would Lasner care? Something still private, and somehow not real. “He changed it back. Kids pick sides in a divorce. He was closer to my father.” Moving away from it. “You knew him? Otto?”

  “Of course I knew him. He worked for me. You didn’t know that?” He glanced at Ben, a slight suspicion. “We made Two Husbands. You must have seen that.”

  Ben spread his hands. “I was only-”

  “That picture was a classic. He didn’t keep a print? Never mind. I’ll run it for you. You should see it. The talent that man had.” Lasner was off now, waving his cigar to draw Ben along with him. “He was the one that got away. The Ufa directors who came over. The great ones.” He raised three fingers. “Murnau-well, he got away, too, that car crash. Lang we’ve still got. And Otto. His trouble? Expensive. Sets. He thought we were making Intolerance.” He looked again at Ben. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Now I know who you are,” he said, leaning back and opening his jacket, visibly relaxing.

  Ben smiled to himself. An industry, but still a family business.

  “He was ahead of his time with those sets, you know,” Lasner was saying. “But they were all like that, the Ufa people. Even the ones who came later. You know why? No Westerns. They never learned to shoot outside. It was all controlled light with them. Of course, they had the facilities. In those days, what they had in Berlin-I’m still knocking my brains out in Gower Gulch trying to borrow arc lamps, and over there they’re making cities. Otto,” he said, shaking his head. “I can see the resemblance now, around the eyes. I knew your mother, too. A looker. So what happened? They split, you said.”

  “Another woman, I guess. That’s what I heard. My mother never talked about it.”

  “Well, he was like that. He always had an eye. So that’s why he stayed there? Some skirt?”

  “I don’t know. He probably thought he’d get through it-that’s what people thought then. He was making pictures with Monika Hoppe. Goebbels liked her. Maybe he thought that would protect him, they’d look the other way. Anyway, they didn’t. He was arrested in ’thirty-eight. They sent a notice to my mother. This was when they still thought they had to explain it.”

  “So,” Lasner said, looking away. “Some story.”

  With everything Ben remembered left out. The good days in the big house on Lutzowplatz. The parties, sometimes with just a piano, but sometimes with a whole band, the air full of perfume and smoke, Ben looking down through the banister. Faces even a child recognized. Hertzberg, the comedian with the surprised round eyes; Jannings, jowly and grave even with a glass in his h
and. And afterward, sometimes, the quarrels-were there women even then?

  Sunday mornings, the room still smelling of stale ashtrays, his father got them ready for their walk. Scarves in winter. Umbrellas if it rained. But the walk without fail, because that’s what you did on Sundays in Berlin. Down Budapesterstrasse to the zoo, afterward a cake at Kranzler’s, his father desperate by now for a drink. Later, when they were too old for the zoo, they would head straight for the cafes, where his father met friends and Danny tried to sneak cigarettes. Then, a few years after that, they were on a train for Bremen, an American woman with her two boys, their father back on the platform at Lehrter Bahnhof.

  They were meant to go home, but stayed in London. Did his mother think Otto would follow, that it was somehow important to be near him, at least on a map? When it didn’t matter anymore, after the official letter, she lacked the will to leave, and they stayed longer. By the time Ben finally did get back to America, to the Army training camp, he was grown up. The accent they teased him about now was English so he lost that one, too. And then, full circle, the Army wanted the old language of his boyhood. They polished off the rust, and it came back, as fluent as memory, bringing everything else with it, even the smell of the cakes, until finally the war took him to Berlin and he saw that it was gone for good-Kranzler’s, the zoo, all of it just rubble and dust, as insubstantial now as his father, all ghosts.

  “Then what?” Lasner said, an old hand at story conferences. “She remarried? A woman like that-”

  “No, she died. During the war.” He caught Lasner’s expectant look and shook his head. “She got sick.” No drama, a daily wearing away, medicines to keep the retching down, then a final exhaustion.

  “So now it’s just the brother?” Lasner said, suddenly sentimental. “Let me tell you something. Stay close. What else have we got? Family. You trust blood. Don’t be like-” He took a puff on the cigar, moving farther away, drifting into anecdote again. “Look at Harry Warner. Jack makes him crazy. Screaming. Shouting. Sometimes, they’re in the same room, you don’t even want to watch. Don’t be like that.”