They had set up bleachers for fans down one side of the long temple entrance to the Egyptian and put the cameras and reporters behind a rope down the other, the red carpet between. The line of studio cars seemed to stretch all the way back to Highland, the spillover crowd craning necks to look into back windows, hoping for glimpses. There were searchlights and live radio feeds and an a party scheduled at the Grove, signs that the premiere itself marked a shift at Continental, the old modest openings something now out of the Gower Gulch era.
Ben looked at the giant posters behind the floodlit palms-Liesl with her head tilted up, her eyes fixed on the GI who was taking her home. The real Liesl was in a soft off-white gown and a fox cape, and her appearance had drawn oohs from the kids on the sidewalk. He watched her on the red carpet, surrounded by studio people, first greeting the audience, waving, then turning to tell the reporters how thrilling it all was. And wasn’t it? The air was bright with flashing lights, something new, the rhythm built up, car after car, gown after gown, heady just to be part of it. Her escorts were in uniform to represent all the forces-everyone’s dream war bride. Dick would follow later, another squealing entrance and another interview.
“The soldiers were a nice touch,” Bunny said as they watched from the side. “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s going to happen. Look at them.”
He nodded to the reporters, surging around her but keeping a distance, some invisible royal line, not pushing microphones in her face. Even Polly, speaking to her now on the radio, seemed respectful, paying court. Ben thought of Rosemary at Lasner’s party, surrounded, everyone smiling. Her moment.
“What’s it costing you?” Ben said.
“Don’t keep books. How much is air time worth? Mr. L never understood that, either. These people haven’t even seen the picture and look at them,” he said, still fixed on the reception. “It just comes to her. They all have it, that instinct.”
“Did you?”
Bunny didn’t answer.
“You don’t know her. She could walk away from it tomorrow.”
“No one ever does,” Bunny said, turning. “No one.” He took out a cigarette. “You’ve been scarce. I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Come have a smoke.” He drew them away from the temple courtyard into the lobby, waving away some ushers who darted over. “I wanted you to hear it from me. We’re not picking up Rosemary’s option.”
“Why?”
“The picture’s doing nothing.”
“You dumped it.”
“Now you’re an expert on distribution, too. We didn’t dump it. It’s last year.”
“So put her in something this year.”
Bunny took a drag on his cigarette. “Look, I don’t know what she is to you. But you’re a big boy now. That’s the way it is.”
“You know what this is all about. You’re going to let him tell you who to hire? He’s finished.”
“He’s embarrassed. He’s calling off the hearings. For now. He may even be in a little trouble next election. But he’s still in office. He’ll regroup. When this starts up again, Continental’s going to be absolutely clean. No associations, not even relatives.”
“Or close friends. If they’re alive.”
Bunny said nothing at first, squinting through the smoke, reluctant to cross a line. “That’s right. If they’re alive.”
They looked at each other for a minute with the weary familiarity of an old couple, stuck together by everything that had happened, too tired to untangle it.
“Hal tells me the picture’s finished.”
“Some dubbing.”
“You’ll be thinking, what next? They were wondering at Fort Roach.”
“They called you all by themselves.”
Bunny stuck the cigarette into the sand of the standing ashtray. “They’re winding down. The exhibitors don’t want any more information films. The training films-”
Ben shrugged. “My separation papers’ll come through any day.”
But Bunny was going somewhere else. “They’ve agreed to a limited distribution. The Nuremberg picture didn’t do what they hoped. This would be the last anyway.”
“How limited,” Ben said, alert, listening to code.
“Limited. Strictly speaking, we don’t have to distribute at all. There’s no agreement.”
“Sol agreed.”
“Well, Mr. L-”
“Is still head of the studio.”
Bunny looked up. “Keep your socks on.”
“You can’t do this,” Ben said, his throat suddenly tight. “Dump it. Not this one.”
He saw the pan shot of the guards’ faces, the slow walk into the camp, evidence.
“I’m not dumping it. And you’re leading with your chin. Anybody ever tell you not to do that here?”
Lasner on the train, clutching himself, never weak.
“Show them what you really want?” Bunny finished.
“I really want this,” Ben said, his voice steady. “It’s important.”
To whom? The dead, the survivors? It occurred to Ben that he had become a believer in images, their power to change things, even though of course they didn’t. Show the faces. Maybe that’s all it was, a record too late, but at least it was there. The dead are never avenged. All we can do is leave markers.
“I said limited. Major cities. After Christmas. Don’t worry, you’ll get your credit.”
“It’s not about that.”
Bunny raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Sol wants this picture.”
“So you keep saying. And I wouldn’t want to disappoint him. He knows what the exhibitors are like, but if we can sell it as-”
“What do you want?”
“Want?” Bunny said, raising both eyebrows now. “I’m not a pawnshop. It’s a picture, not a watch. I said I’d do what I could.” He paused. “What I’d like, though, is a little favor from you.”
Ben waited.
“I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time at Cedars. Little chats.”
“He likes to tell stories,” Ben said carefully, wondering where this was going. “The old days. My father.”
“Funny how that happens. He never used to dwell on the past.” He looked up at Ben. “I know Mr. L pretty well. He gets-enthusiastic. He’s likely to think things can happen that can’t happen. That people can do things-and they can’t, really. They don’t know enough. They’d be in over their heads.”
“They could learn.”
“Not on this job.”
“You’re ahead of yourself. Sol hasn’t offered me anything.”
“Then it’s a good time to move along, before it comes up. Fort Roach. Wherever. You don’t want to disappoint Mr. L, either.”
“How would I do that?”
“By having to say no. The job’s filled.”
Ben gave a quick half smile. “You really want this,” he said, an echo.
Bunny looked up at him. “I already have it. Now take yourself out of it.”
“That’s not up to me. Or you. Sol’s still head of the studio.”
Bunny shook his head. “Not anymore. But that’s something we’ll keep to ourselves, shall we? Feelings being what they are. Acting Head is fine with me. Mr. L can live with that. As long as he does. Let’s make it easier on everybody.”
“And what’s the favor? Go away? Why?”
“For Fay.”
“Fay?” Ben said, surprised.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about running a studio. The first thing-I’ll bet it’s never even occurred to you-is who owns it.”
“Sol owns it,” Ben said, suddenly not sure.
“Not all of it. Not enough. You know that Rex still has his original eight percent. He’s very excited about the television deal. Sam owns a piece, too, did you know? And I’m happy to say he feels very confident about the direction we’re taking. So does New York. Very panicky they get when there’s a health problem. They like a certain stability. That leaves Sol. Or, rather, Fay. I have enough voting stock to do it without her-I’m already running the studio, which seems to escape you. But it would be much nicer with. One happy family, not taking sides, squabbling over something that isn’t going to happen anyway.” Another direct look at Ben. “Some deathbed whim. Fay’s been lovely to me. I’d like it to be her idea, too. Sol’s idea. Not something that was forced on them in a proxy fight. And it wouldn’t be, if you weren’t here.”
“You really want this,” Ben said quietly.
“It’s not a lot to ask, considering, do you think? Think of all the favors I’ll have to do for Polly now, because of you.”
“Don’t do me-”
“Well, it’s not just you, is it? Polly’s a girl who hates being stood up. Vindictive, really. She still thinks you’re holding out on her. But we don’t want her going after you, opening things up. Looking into accidents. I’ve got seventeen writers and I’d still rather just let things lie as they are. Think of all the people involved. Luckily, Polly likes access to studio heads. She’s not one to hold a grudge when there’s so much else she might be doing. And of course, if you’re not here, to put her in a temper-out of sight, out of mind.”
“She won’t be out of Minot’s mind.”
“Oh, they’ll make up. Well, at least go back to their corners. They need each other, when all’s said and done, always a point. A little go-between work and before you know it, it’s lunch at Chasen’s and off we go. It’s you they won’t forgive. There’s nothing you can do for them.”
“Only for you.”
“For Fay, really. No point in having any unpleasantness. Especially when it’s done.”
“You’re sure. Maybe you underestimate me.”
“No. I did. Not anymore. Why do you think we’re having this chat at all? This time, we need to understand each other. Lou,” he said, voice raised, eyes over Ben’s shoulders. “Good to see you. You know Lou Katz, from Abe Lastfogel’s office?”
“Nice to meet you. Jesus, this is some night.”
“Wait’ll you see it.”
“I hear, I hear. Listen, we should talk sometime about Julie. Who does a musical for two hundred dollars a week? I mean, it’s wonderful what you’re doing, a production like that at Continental? But she’s wonderful, too.”
Bunny nodded. “So let’s keep her happy. Monday, okay? We keep the steps, but we can do something on the front end. Just don’t plead poverty. Not the Morris office.”
“What, it’s for her. She’s still in some crappy efficiency on La Brea.”
“Not after this.”
“Zanuck never saw it.”
“Well, Sam Pilcer. He’s got an eye. You know Ben Collier? He’s producing a documentary for us. The end of the war. Footage you won’t believe.” He looked at Ben. “We think it’s an important picture. San Pietro, in that class. Awards, even.”
“Jesus, at Continental. How’s Sol? I hear so-so. That was something, though, wasn’t it? What he pulled with that fuck Minot?”
“Like something out of the movies,” Bunny said flatly.
The others were moving in now, filling the lobby. Liesl was posing with the servicemen, two on each side. Her father, looking slightly lost, had arrived with Salka. She was beaming, reminded perhaps of the old opening nights at the Ufa Palast, but no one in the bleachers paid any attention. Only Polly recognized them, nodding to Ostermann, her neighbor at the hearing, now someone she mentioned in her columns. The Conscience of Germany. There was talk of a Nobel, she’d heard. Behind her, Kelly was holding her mike, doing a remote check. When he looked up he caught Ben’s eye for a minute, an odd questioning, the sound stage accident mixed up with the Cherokee somehow, a scent nobody was following, Ben an inexplicable connection. But Kelly had moved on to another beat, no longer doing Cagney, and Dick Marshall was getting out of his car, the story he’d come for.
Ben went in, sitting in one of the back Continental rows, watching the rest of the audience kissing and waving across aisles, a party. Bunny hurried down front with Rex and Sam and some men from the front office, talking as he went, Lasner on the carpet at Grand Central. Little Brian Jenkins, quick as a bunny. Then Liesl came in between the Army and the Navy and the lights started to dim.
It was the kind of company audience that applauded the credits, little salutes to their friends. Imre Tabor, ten years out of Budapest, had directed, and Epstein had done the music and Simco the photography, all Europeans, but whatever edge they may once have brought had been smoothed out, maybe forgotten. It was a studio picture, bright, every eyebrow in place. Ben wondered for a second what might have happened to Kaltenbach if he’d stayed, got lucky with Exit Visa, shepherding Danny’s story through rewrites. A vehicle for Dick. Stranger things had happened.
On the screen a process shot of ruins dissolved to a studio interior, the family waiting for the Allied liberation. Then Liesl’s first appearance, riding a bicycle, hair blowing. Applause. Her face in close-up, young, fearless, the one Danny must have known. In a second a retreating German soldier would grab the bicycle, force her into the doorway, struggle with her until she got his gun, shot him. The scene that would come in handy in real life, holding the gun steady in the nightclub set, standing over Dieter on the floor. Ben standing there, too. Are you finished now? Bunny had said. Danny finally avenged. But how could you ever be finished with murder? An endless accounting. There was always more. Reasons. And once you did know, what did you do? Not all deaths are alike.
Liesl was heaving, distraught, racing to safety. Now the advancing GI who would discover her, deliver her, and then come to call. The war as Continental saw it. Not the rest of it, not what Ben had seen. He glanced down toward Bunny. There were a hundred ways he could interfere, keep the faces off the screen. Would it matter? What was it worth to them, already gone? Had it mattered to Danny, Dieter finally lying in a pool of his own blood? But it had to, somehow. To us. What if we never saw the faces, stayed in the dark?
He felt the hand on his shoulder just as the screen Liesl shot the gun, making him jump. An apologetic publicist, drawing him quietly out to the lobby, a waiting phone.
“He’s asking for you,” Fay said. “I know you’re in the middle-”
“Is he-?”
“I don’t know. He keeps coming back. An ox.”
“But you called.”
“I have a feeling, that’s all,” she said, her voice small, afraid.
“I’ll be right there.”
The same hospital smell as he walked in, sharp disinfectant cutting through air thick with blood and waste, the same as Danny’s hospital, all of them. The linoleum in the corridor, just mopped, glared in the overhead light.
Fay was sitting in the room with Paulette Goddard, waiting together, maybe as they’d once waited in casting offices to show their beautiful legs. Now they both looked drawn, sober, their usual sparkle muted. The way his mother might have waited for Otto, if she had been there, if any of them had. They squeezed his hand, a silent hello.
Sol was lying half propped up, eyes closed, his skin gray, thin hair pasted down with sweat. A plastic tube hissed oxygen in his nose, and a bottle hung next to him, dripping fluid through an IV. His face looked slack, old, the corners of his mouth white with dried saliva.
“How’s her picture?” he said, opening his eyes a little.
“The audience likes it.”
Sol grunted. “They’re on the payroll.”
“How are you?” Ben said, coming over to the bed, resting his hand.
“I’m signing up with Arthur Murray.”
“I’ll teach you for free,” Fay said.
Sol smiled. “Let me talk to Ben for a minute. Why don’t you and Paulette get something to eat? Like birds. A celery stick, they call it a meal.”
Paulette came over and tapped his nose. “You want me to get fat?” she said fondly.
“Fat.” He smiled at her. “Another pound wouldn’t hurt.”
“We’ll be outside,” Fay said to Ben. She nodded silently to a buzzer on the nightstand. “If you need me-”
“Go eat,” Sol said. He waited until they left. “They’re good girls. You know they go way back?”
Ben nodded. “How are you feeling?” His hand still on the sheet, seeing Otto’s bed again. But there hadn’t been one, no hospital room, a bullet somewhere, no one waiting outside.
“I feel like shit,” Lasner said. “Don’t bother with the pills next time.” He closed his eyes, drifting a little. “You know on the train? The way you were? It reminded me. My first trip out here. Looking at everything. I didn’t know what to expect. A desert. For asthma. Now-” He opened his eyes fully, lifting his head. “I want to talk to you.”
“Minot called off the hearings,” Ben said, heading him away.
“Yeah?” he said, pleased, then sank back against the pillows. “And then who? All these years. We made something great here. From nothing.” He looked out, as if there might be marquee lights, not just dull hospital windows. “It’s all going to fall apart now, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s going to change.”
“At my age, same thing. That union business,” he said, another thought. “On Gower Street, for chrissake. To see something like that on Gower. Clubs.” He was quiet for a minute, thinking. “We had the audience. Now, I don’t know. You know what I think it was? The war. Everything made money. You didn’t have to think about the audience, maybe they want something else. Whatever you gave them. You think they don’t change. But how do you go through something like that and not change? How’s your picture?”
“Done. We’ll put it out after Christmas.”
A weak smile. “First Crosby and the nuns. Then the dead Jews.” He looked at Ben. “So we did that. I want to talk to you,” he said again. “I have to make some decisions.”
“You just have to rest.”
Lasner waved his hand. “I still get tired. I’m tired all the time now. You notice they don’t send me home? I couldn’t have nurses there? So what do they know I don’t know?” He paused. “Nothing,” he said, answering himself. “So maybe the only way I’m getting out of here is in a box.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“You don’t have kids, you have to think about things. Who’s going to take over? Keep things going. You remember on the train? Even then I had an idea. Somebody moves like that. Keeps his mouth shut. You don’t always say what’s up here.” He pointed to his head. “That’s like me. And Otto’s kid. Christ. In the blood.”
“Sol-”
“They even give you a-what’s it? MOS? Even the government, for chrissake. You know what I’m saying to you? What I’m thinking?”
“I can’t, Sol,” Ben said simply.
Lasner waved his hand again. “Fay helps. You’d be surprised what she knows. And maybe I’m not out of here so fast, either, who knows? You pick things up. Me and Fay want it, New York goes along. Believe me, that’s how it works.”
Ben looked away, embarrassed, and reached for the water glass on the table. The way it used to work.
“Here,” he said. “Drink a little.”
Lasner took a sip. “There’s no surprise here,” he said. “Don’t tell me that. I see you watching everything, figuring it out. You know what I’m saying.”
Ben looked at him, feeling suddenly winded, caught. Be my son. Something no one had ever asked him before. Otto and Danny, one life passing to the other. He felt as if he were actually being touched, a stroking along his skin. Chosen. For something already decided, no longer in Sol’s hands. And for a second he wondered if it were possible, Bunny’s hold fragile enough to loosen. Would New York really say no to Fay, would Sam? A dying man’s wishes? A fight he might be able to win, if he really wanted to. But even as he imagined it happening, shuffling people in his head, he knew that things had already been arranged in a new order, any attempt to upset them as futile as Lasner’s grandstanding in the hearing room. Sol had already lost the studio. The point now was to salvage the rest.
“We’ve always been straight with each other, haven’t we?” he said.
“Somebody says that, they’re going to start pulling something,” Sol said.
Ben shook his head. “You want to do the right thing for the studio? Call Bunny. He’ll be good at it.”
“He’s a pansy.”
“No,” Ben said, not flinching. “He’s you. He got everything from you. He can do it.”
“And you can’t?”
“Not like him. It’s all he cares about, pictures. Like you. He’s got the instinct.”
“For pictures, maybe. But look with Minot. Just roll over. So who’s going to fight the next one, him? There’s always somebody coming after the studio. You want somebody’s going to fight. You would. I saw you do it for Hal.”
Ben shook his head again. “I don’t even know who the bad guys are anymore.”
Lasner made a face, impatient. “It’s just this business with your brother. Whatever the hell he was up to. It’s not like that. You don’t know what’s right, something like that happens with family.”
“That’s just it. I think everybody’s like him now. Maybe that was the war, too. I think we’re all in-between. Somewhere gray. Pictures were never good at in-between.”
“What, gray? I’m offering you the studio,” Lasner said, his voice rising, a gift so priceless any hesitation seemed crazy.
“Offer it to Bunny, Sol. He can fight. He’s tougher than I am.”
“You’re tough enough to say no. To this. You don’t want this? What do you want?”
He looked around the hospital room. What did he want? He thought of watching Liesl in the pool, of wearing Danny’s clothes, a life that didn’t belong to him.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Not this.”
“Just like that,” Lasner said, opening his fingers. “The whole goddam world.”
Meaning it, Ben realized, the rest just something vague, east of Gower.
“I want the picture to come out. I want that.”
“There’s some problem with that?” Lasner said, suddenly alert.
“No, no. Bunny wants to give it a big release.” He paused. “Talk to him. He’d appreciate it, I think, coming from you. Personal.”
“Like you did.”
“You know what it means to me? That you asked?” He looked down. “I’ll probably regret it.”
Lasner leaned his head back into the pillow. “That’s what he said, too. Otto. When he took a powder. For Germany, yet. Christ, what a family. If he had stayed here, think where he’d be today.”
At Cedars, Ben thought, the odd transference happening again, listening to the oxygen. Thinking about his credits. Wondering.
Sol closed his eyes.
“I’d better go.”
“Stay a little,” Lasner said, reaching his hand out to anchor Ben’s. Don’t leave me.
Ben felt the hand, still warm but light, as if it were disappearing.
“Think about it,” Lasner said. “You don’t want to decide too quick. Something like this.”
“Okay,” Ben said. Both of them saving face.
He glanced out the window, feeling claustrophobic. Another hospital room. His mother had held on to him, too. Danny. Now SolOtto-whoever he was. One more loss. How many people could you lose before there was no one left?
He stayed like that for a while, watching Sol’s face, almost expecting the shallow breathing to stop, both of them at an end. You could hear the footsteps outside, rubber-soled, nurses answering calls. Just like the ones outside Danny’s room, Dieter waiting in the hall. Picturing it over and over in his head, making the final cut. Not all deaths are alike. Then even the footsteps stopped, the hospital asleep. How long should he stay? Fay would want to be here. He slid his hand out from under, a silent good-bye. Sol opened his eyes again.
“What do you want?” he said, still puzzled, a real question.
Ben stood there for a second, then patted Sol’s hand. “I want you to get some rest,” he said, because it was better not to say anything else.
War Bride would be over now so he headed straight to the Grove. The afterparty was even more lavish than the premiere, fake palm trees this time but an orchestra and passing trays of champagne glasses. Liesl was being photographed yet again, hundreds of pictures tonight alone. Primitive peoples thought one could rob the soul.
“I wonder what her mother would have said,” Ostermann said, making conversation, but stiff. “All this. Your own child. You’re well? I haven’t seen you since Dieter’s funeral.”
An endless afternoon in Pasadena, all the emigres, long tributes from faculty members, flowers from Continental. Henderson deep in the back, just to see who came.
“She’s a success,” Ben said, nodding toward the photographers.
“Maybe it takes her mind off things. It’s a difficult time for her. She was his favorite. Always spoiling her.”
Ben thought of her looking down, the gun still in her hand. Another thing that had never happened. The camera bolt loose in the rigging, nobody’s fault.
“I wish I’d known him better,” Ben said, a polite phrase, now surreal.
“I’ve been wondering-you don’t mind? When you asked me about the hospital. Daniel. Why did you want to know?”
Ben shrugged. “Loose ends. I was remembering that day, and then I couldn’t. Like a crossword you can’t finish. It bothered me, that’s all.”
“Ah,” Ostermann said, looking at him blankly, a translation he didn’t quite get.
“Don’t mention it to Liesl. I think it still upsets her, thinking about it.”
“Yes, but you know one has to be sensible. It was a mercy. So much brain damage. All the doctors said. He would have been-what? Who knows? But not himself.”
“Still. Her husband.”
“And your brother,” Ostermann said slowly, wanting to say something, then deciding to hold back instead. “Ah, Liesl.”
“Salka’s looking for you,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.
Ben could smell her perfume, something new. Her hair was shiny, lit up, and he thought of Paulette on the train, the same glow. Movie stars. She turned to face him, suddenly awkward.
“How have you been?”
“Congratulations,” he said, taking in the party.
“You moved from that place,” she said, ignoring this.
“I’m bunking in with Hal. Until the picture’s out. Then I’m going back,” he said, a decision just made, but clear, as if someone had turned on a light. “Work for the newsreel.”
“Back? To Germany?”
“Wherever they send me,” he said, suddenly filling up with it, the whole world east of Gower, where it wouldn’t matter what Polly thought, whether Minot held a grudge, if you knew things you shouldn’t know. Where everyone else lived.
“You’re leaving here?” Liesl said.
“The picture’s finished. There’s no reason to stay.”
“Maybe it’s better,” Ostermann said, then, self-conscious, began to back away. “Well, I’ll find Salka.”
“What did he mean?” Ben said, watching him go.
“He doesn’t understand. The newspaper, what you said about Daniel. How you could do it. I can’t explain. You know it’s one of those things we can’t talk about.”
“Danny was spying on him.”
“But to tell a newspaper-it’s confusing to him.”
“People always made excuses for Danny.”
“Maybe we all need that. Someone to make excuses.” She bit her lower lip. “Why are you leaving?”
“Too many people to avoid. It’s easier to get out of the way.”
She said nothing for a minute, taking this in. “You can’t even look at me anymore. I always thought, a secret, it makes people closer, but it’s the opposite. That’s all we’re going to see now, when we look at each other. What happened.”
“Let’s not talk about it. It didn’t happen, remember?”
“That’s why you never come to the house anymore?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me. After everything. The things I said in the office.” He looked over to her. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t count for much, does it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. To think that. You must have-” He stopped, meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. Not about anything.”
He was still for a second then looked away, uncomfortable. “I have to go.”
“Not like this. Come with me a minute.” She began pulling him away from the club floor.
“The party’s for you.”
“For them. No one will notice. Come.”
They went down the side hall to the parking lot entrance. Outside, the same scent of orange trees, the row of palms outlined beyond the cars.
“We’ve been here before,” he said, the memory of it tangible.
“Yes. And then up with Dieter. And all the time he-” She broke off and reached up, putting her hand behind his neck.
“What are you doing?” he said, feeling her breath.
“We can’t leave it like this. I know you. Why you said those things. You know what I remember? You said, ‘Was any of it real?’ So bitter. You already knew the answer. But it’s wrong. It was real. I never lied to you.”
“You just pretended I was someone else. Maybe I did, too.”
She looked down. “Always the same. Always putting him there. He wasn’t.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“What a boy you are,” she said, moving her hand across the back of his head, smoothing his hair. “You think it’s like War Bride. Love forever. But how can it be like that? Nothing is like that. You know, when we first left home, left Germany, I thought it’s all finished for me, everything. But then Vienna. France. All right, it’s somewhere new. Not the same, but I can live here. I think it’s like that. Not the same. Another place. But you can live there for a while. And you don’t forget it, it’s something special to you, somewhere you lived.”
He looked at her, silent, his skin alive with her again. “As long as it lasts.”
She smiled weakly, her hand moving to the side of his face. “It’s not enough for you? A place you can live? There was no one else there. Nobody was like you, the way it felt. It was different. When I was next to you, the way we used to lie there, it wasn’t somebody else. How could it be? It was you.”
“And now it isn’t.”
“No,” she said softly. “Not anymore.” She leaned into him, putting her head down.
“Liesl-”
“Just stay for a minute like this, like before.”
He felt her against him, as natural as his own skin, and for a second he was weightless, not holding on to anything, falling. All he would have to do was lift her head. Another second passed, suspended, then he leaned down, kissed her hair, and stepped back.
“It can’t be like before. Not now.”
She looked away, then nodded. “I know. I just don’t want to forget. The way it is now, that’s not how it always was. Maybe I want you to remember, too. Someday-I don’t know, we’ll be in a room somewhere.” Setting a scene, her voice caught up in it. “Years from now, an accident. And you see me. I want you to think, I used to live there once. It was nice.”
He stood for a minute, unable to move, in the scene with her. “I’ll remember,” he said finally.
She opened her mouth to speak and then stopped, out of lines. Instead she nodded, then kissed him lightly on the cheek, a good-bye. “Let’s not say any more, then,” she said.
“No,” he said, watching her turn and move to the door.
Secrets didn’t bring you closer. He thought of all the things he’d never say now, things only he would know. How he went over that day in the hospital in his mind, working out its choreography, who was where, until finally he thought he knew, and then asked Ostermann to make sure, that Dieter had always been with him, never alone. That only she had been in the room. That all deaths were not alike, that some secrets had to be kept. That she was the only place he’d ever lived.
He heard the band music through the door. No one would miss him. He drove to the Egyptian to catch the late showing. The picture had already started, so he slipped into a back row. A scene he’d already been in, Liesl looking up at him, luminous, catching all the light. “I don’t care,” she said, eyes darting, her face soft with love. She leaned forward to kiss the GI and the audience seemed to lean forward with her. No sound, not even a gum wrapper. “I don’t care.” Everyone in the scene now, wanting her. Thinking she was wonderful.