The Kingdom of Shadows

TWELVE

Someone waited for her inside the house. Marte could see the lamp had been switched on, the big squat brass one on the table in the study. The glow filtered through the drawn curtains, spilling a dim radiance across the lawn and the path of flagstones curving to the front door. The lamp was David’s, one that he’d had sent over from the library of his own, much larger house; the room lined with books and dark wood could almost have swallowed this little cottage by itself. In the year and more since she had come to America, other bits and pieces of his had made their way here, to remind her constantly of him.

The front door was unlocked and slightly ajar. The studio car had dropped her off and driven away, leaving a silence in which she could hear again the evening crickets beneath the ranks of oleanders. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Hello?” She set her purse down on the entryway table. “Is there someone here?” She smelled a trace of tobacco, but not any of von Behren’s. Besides, she knew he was still holed up in David’s studio office, the two of them trying to salvage something out of a script that their leading man had called garbage and thrown down on the floor of the set in a white flurry of typed pages.

“ Fraulein Helle -” A voice that she recognized, but without a name attached to it, called from the study. A man’s voice, speaking English with an accent close to her own. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come and talk.”

He sat in the study’s big armchair, right next to the table with David’s lamp on it. As Marte stood in the room’s doorway, the man even looked a little like David, legs crossed, cigarette smoke curling from the cut-glass ashtray, a book from the long rows of shelves open on his lap. That was why David had sent the lamp over, so he would have a place to read, not just scripts but real books as well, when he spent the night with her. The lamp, one of a matched pair, made the corner of the study seem like his own home library.

This man smiled and gave a little nod to her, as though he were bowing at a reception without actually being on his feet. That was when she realized who he was, where she had seen him before. He was part of the staff at the German Consulate here in Los Angeles, a functionary high up enough to attend formal events in white tie and a sleekly tailored dinner jacket, with a lower ranking in the diplomatic corps following him around, taking down whispered comments and instructions in a small notebook. She still couldn’t remember his name or official title, but she recalled being introduced to him as she had stood next to David. It had been in the lobby of one of the palace theaters, all gilt and faux marble, that had been premiering the studio’s latest film. She had glanced up at David and seen the way his eyes had narrowed, even as he had grudgingly shaken the other man’s hand and muttered some inconsequential courtesy.

“I hope you’ll excuse this intrusion.” The consulate official tilted his head back, regarding her with half-lidded eyes. “And that in your absence I availed myself of your hospitality.” His gesture took in the room around him.

She remained standing in the doorway. “Did someone let you in here?”

The man shrugged. “There are always keys, and ways of acquiring them. Even in times such as these, we have helpful friends. Please.” He indicated the smaller armchair. “You should be comfortable in your own home, shouldn’t you? And we have much to talk about.”

She sat with her hands poised nervously on her knees. She watched her fingers smoothing out the soft fabric of her skirt’s hem. The man’s presence disturbed her, a combination of apprehension and memory. He gave off a scent – not one she could actually smell, but subtler – of ink and blood, of carelessly scrawled signatures at the bottom of police forms. Rumors whispered that the Consulate was rife with Gestapo keeping an eye on the Reich’s exiles, those who had been smart or lucky or well-connected enough to escape before they could be caught in the sharp gears of interrogation and prison. It wasn’t even a rumor, she knew it was the truth, they all knew it, from those who had landed on their feet and were being paid sweet amounts of Hollywood money as she was, to those living off handouts from their envied friends. A knot of them could be laughing or grumbling among themselves, bewailing fate or sheepishly apologizing for good fortune, and the shadow of this man, or one of the others just like him, would pass between them; they would look over their shoulders, and their voices would sink to whispers or silence.

The Consulate official bent his head down to peer into Marte’s averted face. “You’re not afraid of me, are you, Fraulein Helle?” His solicitousness was an obscene joke; he could barely keep the thin-lipped smile from leaking through again. “I didn’t mean to alarm you in such a way. This unannounced visit. But I thought it best… for you. Some matters should be kept private. Personal matters.”

She raised her gaze to meet his. “I don’t know what you mean…”

“But of course. Why should you?” He took the cigarette from the ashtray, inhaled and delicately returned it. “We are among the eaters of lotuses, are we not? Whatever happened, that one does not wish to remember, can be forgotten here; whatever didn’t happen, can be…” He searched for a word. “Falsified? Made up. All pretend.” A nod. “It is easy to see why everyone is so happy here. Elsewhere… in one’s homeland…” He shrugged. “Not so pleasant, perhaps. When a land is at war, the Volk – your people, Fraulein Helle – they must make harsh sacrifices.”

“This is my home now.” She managed to say it defiantly, while wondering what he’d meant, and exactly what he knew, when he’d said the words your people.

“Ah.” The last trace of the smile faded. “Yes, we had been informed that inquiries had been made, regarding how American citizenship could most easily be obtained for you. Of course, you have my apologies if that is turning out to be more difficult than your patron Herr David Wise had expected. Even with friends as powerful as his, these things take time. Especially if some of the arrangements that had previously been made on your behalf were… shall we say?… somewhat unusual.”

Again fear touched her, a cold fingertip laid against her heart. What did he know? All of them, the faceless ones in the consulate in Los Angeles or the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin – what was in their files, what had they found out about her? Everything she had told von Behren, just a few years ago, after he’d first come across her at the Romanische Cafe, he had told her to keep all that their secret, to never tell anyone else. The things that had happened at the Lebensborn hostel – who could understand that? They wouldn’t, they would despise her or laugh at her so cruelly that her film career would be over; the Americans were addicted to gossip, they loved to tear apart a bleeding fellow creature. And then the precarious safety that she and Ernst had achieved would be over, the money and the so-helpful influence from the studio would all vanish overnight.

She hadn’t even told David any of these things, the true secrets. How could she risk it? If he were to stop loving her, stop wanting to possess her; if he were to turn away from her in disgust… what would she be then? If she couldn’t see herself reflected in the mirror of his eyes, or up on the screen of the films he made…

She didn’t know. Perhaps nothing at all. Like a shadow that vanishes when a harsh light is switched on, leaving a room empty at last.

“ Fraulein Helle?”

The consulate official’s voice brought her back from her dark thoughts. She looked up and saw his simulation of kind concern.

“I think you misjudge my intentions here.” Somehow, he had peered inside her skull; he had to be Gestapo, they knew how to do that. “It would not be my wish – or anyone’s – to do that which would damage your career. Your success, the image on the world’s theater screens of such a beautiful and pure Nordic racial type as yourself -” His thin smile crept out again. “That is a great source of pride to the Reich’s guardians of culture. I have just recently returned from our native land, from Berlin. I had some interesting discussions with Reichsminister Goebbels. Whom I believe you’ve met, and spoken with, before your own departure?” The smile became even more insinuating. “I can assure you that the Reichsminister continues to take a lively interest in your performances. The first film you did for the Wise Studios – what was it? August and September, if I recall correctly. Something like that, nicht wahr?”

“Yes…”

“I did not see it; my apologies. A comedy, was it?”

She shook her head. “A drama. Herr Wise thought I should start with something like that.”

“ Herr Wise knows his business. I understand the film was a success – or at least successful enough. Both here and then in Europe. In Berlin, even the Reichminister went to the theater and saw it. He likes to go out among the people, now and then. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that he found the film to be… very moving. He was quite caught up in your performance. I sat a few seats away from him, and I saw him lean forward, every time your face was on the screen, as though he wished he could somehow transport himself right into the scene with you.” The consulate official’s smile showed tolerant amusement. “I find it remarkable how powerfully these films affect even the strongest-willed man. But then that is your magic, Fraulein Helle, is it not? That is why it is your face on the screen, and not that of another woman.”

She said nothing. The mention of Joseph’s name, the way the consulate official had spoken it, had trapped her, incapable of moving. She could only wait, to hear what came next.

The official poked at the still-burning stub in the ashtray, watching the thread of smoke rise. “It is, in fact, upon the Reichsminister ’s instructions that I have come here, Fraulein Helle.” He leaned back in the armchair, regarding her through the cage of his fingertips placed together. “In his capacity as overseer of the German film industry, he wishes to extend an invitation to you. I was instructed to be as discreet as possible in this matter, while at the same time conveying to you the utmost seriousness in which the offer is made. That is why I came to see you in this manner. Privately, as it were.”

Marte forced her words past the stone that had lodged in her throat. “What does he… what does the Reichsminister want?”

“He wants you, Fraulein Helle.” The consulate official spoke without smiling this time. “Not for himself, of course – the Reichsminister is a man of honor and duty. But for the German nation, and the Volk whose blood is in your veins. He wishes you to return to Germany – immediately – and resume your film career there. But not as another mere actress, one among the many at the UFA studios. No, you would be the queen of the German cinema. Those are exactly the words the Reichsminister used – die Konigin des deutschen Filmes. This is an extraordinary thing, Fraulein Helle. To no woman before has such an invitation been made. You would be the most highly honored and glorified actress upon the screens of the German theaters – and more than that; in all the theaters of the world.”

The man’s words had pressed her back into her chair, as though he had placed his outspread fingertips against her breast and pinned her there. “I don’t… I don’t know if I want that…”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “To be seen by all men, to be admired, desired by them? What actress – what woman – doesn’t want that? Perhaps it is something else.” His narrow gaze pierced her. “Perhaps it is that you do not wish to leave your comfortable home, your coddled life here in America. Though I can assure you that the sacrifice of returning to Germany would be in your case a very small one. The Reichsminister would see to that a heroine such as yourself would suffer no… privations, as it were.” The word had twisted in his mouth, as though it were a sour taste on his tongue that he wanted to spit out.

“I don’t want to leave…” There were no secrets that she could conceal from him. “I’m… I’m safe here…”

“Yes, of course you are. To go from this land of peace and return to a homeland that is now at war… a war pressed upon Germany by the conspiracy of its enemies… you find that prospect frightening; I understand that.” The consulate official’s voice turned softer, feigning kindness. “But do you really think, Fraulein Helle, that this refuge you have found here will last forever? This is a war not just between nations, or even between ideologies, but a war between one blood – the pure Aryan blood of heroes – and that of the mongrel races who would destroy it. Do you think America can avoid being drawn into that final conflict?”

“David… Herr Wise told me… he said that America wouldn’t go to war…”

“ Herr Wise is a clever man, isn’t he? A very clever… Jew.” The consulate official’s voice darkened with a withering contempt. “And of course, for Jews there never are wars; they find others to fight them, and to die in them. Herr Wise and his breed stay safe in their counting houses until all is quiet again, and then they go out onto the battlefield to pluck the bits of gold from the dead and dying. Germany and France and England have gone to war, and all the other nations of Europe, and yet it is always der ewige Jude who has won.” The official’s face grew heavy with brooding. “Your clever Herr Wise may have a surprise in store for him this time, however. This time, the war will come to the Jews, and they won’t escape.”

He wasn’t Gestapo, she knew that now. A note of fervor had entered his voice, a shrill pitch like a wire tightened to the breaking point. He was SS, disguised in a well-cut double-breasted suit of nubbly brown wool instead of a black uniform shiny with polished leather and steel death’s-heads, but Schutzstaffel nonetheless. One of the true believers, not a simple follower of orders such as the soldier who’d fathered her child, but a disciple of that new dark faith, his visage honed to a knife’s edge by the rendering heat of all that he carried in his heart.

“ Fraulein Helle.” The consulate official watched and judged her. “Do you not think you owe a duty to your own country, the one in which you were born? If there were even a little true German blood in your veins -” He knew, he had to know; everything, all of her secrets. “If there were even a red drop of that blood, you might find it within you to listen to its wisdom. Let the blood decide what you should do.”

She imagined this was how she would be spoken to by a priest, severe and black-clad, a raven with burning eyes. “I… I can’t…” Marte shook her head slowly. “I don’t know…”

“We are well aware of other factors that might influence your decision. To stay here or to return to Germany.” The consulate official’s voice turned harsher and colder. “It is common knowledge that your relationship with Herr David Wise is more than a professional one. It is a tribute to the influence he wields in the motion picture industry, that mention of your affair with him has been kept out of the gossip columns. It is a tribute to the understanding and forbearance of Reichsminister Goebbels, that he is prepared to forgive your involvement with this man. In an industry so unfortunately dominated by Jews, the pressure would be overwhelming for an attractive Nordic woman to allow herself to be pawed and fondled by such a creature, and then paraded through restaurants and night clubs as an ornament to his swaggering pride.” The venom of the consulate official’s loathing, that he had kept hidden at the premiere when he had shaken David’s hand, now tinged his voice. “It is precisely from such disgusting racial predations that the Reichsminister wishes to protect you. From the Jew’s lust for all that is fair and pure, everything that he and his degenerate race can never be. Though of course -” The consulate official’s mirthless smile returned. “I will not pretend to you that Goebbels’ interest in your affairs is purely ideological in nature. This is a matter of some personal importance between you and him, is it not? A resumption of that role you previously played in his life, before the wiles of the American Jew took you away from him.” The smile widened. “Of course, that is why you may be assured of not only your safety upon your return home, but also the exalted position you will be given – the choice of roles, the lavish production budgets, the luxuries befitting your stature. I doubt that you will miss at all the comforts and splendor of your life here.”

“But… I don’t understand,” said Marte. “He sent me away before. He told me I had to leave…”

“A man may change his mind, yes? Especially when the circumstances change. Germany is at war now; it is besieged by both international Jewry and Bolshevism. The Fuhrer has weightier matters with which to concern himself, Fraulein Helle. The movement of armies, a military strategy that takes in half the globe – these are the things that receive his attention. And if I may say so, the Reichsminister has learned something of the art of discretion. He and his wife Magda, the mother of his children – they both have taken it upon themselves to foster the morale of the nation by preserving the appearance of their marriage. So many good, trusting Germans look up to them; it would be cruel to shatter their illusions. And those who tried to, those envious, whispering voices who carried scandal to not only the ear of the Fuhrer, but to the professional gossip-mongers as well…” The consulate official shrugged. “The Reichsminister has succeeded in dealing with such as those. Silence can be purchased, with coin of one kind or another. If the Reichsminister now finds that he has a personal debt to certain forces, certain people… that doesn’t matter. It’s a small price to pay. And he has paid it on your behalf, Fraulein Helle. That is what you must remember.”

She felt herself growing dizzy as she listened to the man, as though the ground itself were being drawn from beneath her feet. The night filled the windows of the house, the darkness wrapping tightly around the brass lamp’s glow. The things the consulate official spoke of, the ways of the land from which she had come so far… just hearing of them made her feel both nauseous and frightened. She seemed once more to be walking down a hallway of apartment doors, walking slowly as she did in dreams and memory, toward the one door that stood open, with the broken, overturned furniture and papers scattered across the floor on the other side, her mother and father gone…

Silence could be bought. With a small red coin, shiny enough for her to look down and see her face reflected in it, in the string of red coins that trailed into the corridor, the last of them soaking dark into the fibers of the worn carpet runner.

Even speaking of Joseph made her feel strange, insubstantial. To know that was still there in that dark world, waiting, thinking of her… She could feel his hands grasping her arms, drawing her close to him, his thin body against her breast. And the fierceness of his hungry gaze, searching her eyes as though the reflection of his own face there could speak and tell him what he wanted to know.

Marte bit her lip, clenching her fists in her lap until they were two trembling white stones. “No -” She looked up from her hands, into the consulate official’s amused regard. “I won’t go. I won’t leave this place.”

“Your hasty decision is not completely unanticipated.” The cigarette had died in the ashtray, leaving the smell of the cold cinder hanging in the air. The consulate official tilted his head back against the armchair’s leather, his eyes hooded. “An involvement with someone so powerful as Herr David Wise is not easy to abandon. This is how the Jew maintains his control over his victims. Nevertheless -” He reached over the side of the armchair. “I have come prepared with further arguments to be made.” He straightened, laying in his lap the thin leather portfolio he had picked up. His manicured hands undid the clasp. “I’m sure that you will find these of interest. And that you will take them into consideration before giving me your final answer.”

She took the group of large glossy photo prints that he handed to her. The top one showed a woman her own age, smiling and pointing the camera out to the little boy whose hand she held. The child scowled suspiciously into the lens.

“Who are they?” Marte looked up from the photograph.

“Ah. It would have been too much to expect, that you recognize the boy. You have never seen him – at least not like this. But the woman? You don’t remember her?”

Marte bent over the photograph, examining it more closely, trying to read its silent depth. Something about the woman troubled her, a memory barely discernible, a shape gliding beneath the dark surface of a night ocean.

“Look at the next picture, Fraulein Helle.” The consulate official’s voice came from far away. “Perhaps that will help.”

She drew out the one beneath and held it up. The photo had been taken outside – beyond a stand of trees could be seen a flat expanse of water, a river with hills mounting from the far bank. The picture had been taken in the springtime, with the shadows of leaves dappling the woman’s bright hair. And it was home, her old home of Germany – she could recognize the countryside even though it was someplace she’d never been to, far from Berlin.

The woman in the photo held the little boy in her arms, leaning backward to balance him against her breast and shoulder. The shutter had snapped as she had smiled and said something to the boy, his gaze still dubious as he looked into the lens and sucked a fingertip of one chubby hand.

“Do you see, Fraulein Helle?” The consulate official spoke softly. “Look carefully. The eyes – look at the eyes.”

Not the eyes of the woman in the photograph. The little boy; Marte brought the photograph closer to her own face, searching it.

And finding…

“Now you see. Don’t you?” The official whispered to her.

She nodded. “Yes…” The photo held her, so that she could barely speak. But she saw. There in the little boy’s face, gazing silently back at her.

One eye light in shade. That was the blue one, blue as her eyes. And the other, the little boy’s left eye – that was darker, almost black in the photograph. That was the golden-brown one.

How old was the child? He looked to be about three years old, with a serious, unsmiling expression. That would be the right age. Three years – so much had happened in that time, but so little as well. Nothing had happened at all, she was still exactly the same, still the girl in the bed with her swaddled newborn in her arms, listening to the step of the hostel’s director coming down the hallway outside the door, coming toward her and the infant with eyes of mismatched color, one blue, one brown…

Marte turned back to the first photograph, where the woman’s face could be seen more clearly. “I remember her.” Not the girl’s name, but the way she had laughed and spoken. “She was there… she was at the Lebensborn hostel…”

“That’s right.” The consulate official nodded. “She bore a child for the Fuhrer. And she was given another child to raise with hers. Your child, Fraulein Helle.”

The top photographs slid off the stack and dropped to the floor at her feet. A close-up of the child’s face was revealed, showing the bicolored eyes even more clearly. Marte touched the glossy surface of the photo, as though she could reach through and stroke the child’s soft cheek. She could see behind the child’s face, to an even younger one, an infant, its pink cheek pressed against her own skin…

“You’re lying.” She snapped her head erect, trembling as she glared at the man sitting across from her. “This is some kind of a trick. This could be anyone’s child. You retouched the photos, you found another one. You did… you did something…”

“ Fraulein Helle – please calm yourself.” Again, the consulate official touched his fingertips together. “I assure you that the Schutzstaffel keeps excellent track of its own. The ties of blood are important to us.” He had dropped all pretense of being other than SS himself. “This child is the son of an officer in the Leibstandarte SS , now serving at the Eastern Front. A child conceived in further service to Germany, a child to whom you gave birth, with no shame. The shame, the Rassenschande, was in your concealing of your racial background. But that’s of little concern to us now. What is important now is that your child is alive, and in good health, I might add – the foster mother has taken excellent care of him. Though none of us expected that the child’s true mother would become a film star of note one day, and even more importantly, the object of a Reichsminister ’s desire. That made it easy for us to render this valued service to him. To come to him and tell him that here is the way to bring the woman he loves back to Germany. For surely this means more than even being die Konigen des deutschen Filmes, does it not? To be close to your child once again, whom you had thought was lost forever to you – I don’t believe Herr David Wise can offer any enticement to match that.”

The rest of the photos had slipped from her grasp, scattering across the floor. She watched helplessly as the consulate official bent down and picked one photo up, then held it out to her.

“You know it’s true, don’t you?”

She tried to turn her face away from the photo, the face of the little boy, but couldn’t.

The consulate official’s voice whispered at her ear. “You must think with your blood, Marte. Then you’ll know this is your child.”

Her sudden tears blurred the photograph. The child’s somber, unsmiling face turned to nothing but muddled shades of black and white, then vanished as she broke away her gaze. A sob rose in her throat as she turned her own face against the chair, as though she could hide in its depths, falling into the darkness that would welcome and forgive her.