behind the limousine, swoop across the field, block the airplane from traveling any farther. The pilot might already be cutting the engines, obeying a last-minute command from the airfield’s tower . . .
It could all happen, in a moment, in the blink of an eye . . .
Nothing happened.
None of the other passengers had noticed the black Mercedes at the edge of the field. The face at the limousine’s window grew smaller with distance, until it was lost behind them. The American folded his newspaper to another page and went on reading.
When the airplane was safely aloft, banking against the clouds, von Behren let go of her hand.
“Everything will be all right now.” He patted her forearm. “You’ll see. Everything will be fine . . .”
She turned away, gazing out the small window beside her. The earth fell far below them.
It didn’t matter. If everything would be all right or not. Things would happen, the gears of the world’s machinery, seen and unseen, would turn regardless. What would happen only mattered to the other ones, the ones who existed, who were real.
Not her.
She leaned her brow against the cold window, falling from one dream to another, endlessly . . .
LOS ANGELES
1940
Perhaps really he was a dead king, from the region of terrors. And he was still cold and remote in the region of death, with perfumes coming from his transparent body as if from some strange flower.
– D. H. Lawrence,
The Man Who Died (1928)
ELEVEN
“I believe Mr. Wise expects me.”
The secretary glanced up at Marte. “I’ll see if he’s free right now.” The look from the woman continued for a moment longer, before she swivelled her chair around toward the intercom box.
She knew what the secretary’s appraisal meant. There were two secretaries here in the lobby of David Wise’s office, both young and good-looking enough; perhaps they could have gone for bit parts out on the production lot rather than sitting here all day behind their typewriters and stacks of mail. But they both had in their eyes that little smoldering spark, a seed of both contempt and envy, that the merely pretty always directed toward the beautiful. The same here in Hollywood as it had been in Berlin – the unspoken accusation that the beauty wasn’t enough, that it had to be what she had done with it, in private, that accounted for the way men, including the estimable Herr Wise, looked at her.
There was nothing she could do about it. She had long ago stopped feeling anything when it happened.
The secretary turned back to her. “It’ll just be a couple of minutes.” Efficient.
Marte sat and waited, flipping through the pages of an American magazine. The printed words were still opaque to her; she had to translate them from English into German inside her heard, to know what they meant. Speaking it was easier, it was just like reciting lines in front of a camera. That was the pay-off from all the coaching she had gotten from Mr. Wise, with dialogue from movies he had produced. Hours of practice, on the long stage-by-stage journey – Berlin to Paris, then to Liverpool and the ocean liner. And the long train ride, cities and then the empty desert spaces, that had looked to her like the place where the world ended. It had made sense that Hollywood lay on the other side of all that, a place where everything could be made from nothing, a blank piece of paper for men like Wise to write upon.
She looked up, through the window next to her. In the distance, at the edge of the Wise Studios lot, stood the Taj Mahal. Not the real thing, a replica, a false front made of wood and plaster, the paint that had imitated the jewel-like tiles flaking from the heat of the California sun. It had been built for some historical epic
It could all happen, in a moment, in the blink of an eye . . .
Nothing happened.
None of the other passengers had noticed the black Mercedes at the edge of the field. The face at the limousine’s window grew smaller with distance, until it was lost behind them. The American folded his newspaper to another page and went on reading.
When the airplane was safely aloft, banking against the clouds, von Behren let go of her hand.
“Everything will be all right now.” He patted her forearm. “You’ll see. Everything will be fine . . .”
She turned away, gazing out the small window beside her. The earth fell far below them.
It didn’t matter. If everything would be all right or not. Things would happen, the gears of the world’s machinery, seen and unseen, would turn regardless. What would happen only mattered to the other ones, the ones who existed, who were real.
Not her.
She leaned her brow against the cold window, falling from one dream to another, endlessly . . .
LOS ANGELES
1940
Perhaps really he was a dead king, from the region of terrors. And he was still cold and remote in the region of death, with perfumes coming from his transparent body as if from some strange flower.
– D. H. Lawrence,
The Man Who Died (1928)
ELEVEN
“I believe Mr. Wise expects me.”
The secretary glanced up at Marte. “I’ll see if he’s free right now.” The look from the woman continued for a moment longer, before she swivelled her chair around toward the intercom box.
She knew what the secretary’s appraisal meant. There were two secretaries here in the lobby of David Wise’s office, both young and good-looking enough; perhaps they could have gone for bit parts out on the production lot rather than sitting here all day behind their typewriters and stacks of mail. But they both had in their eyes that little smoldering spark, a seed of both contempt and envy, that the merely pretty always directed toward the beautiful. The same here in Hollywood as it had been in Berlin – the unspoken accusation that the beauty wasn’t enough, that it had to be what she had done with it, in private, that accounted for the way men, including the estimable Herr Wise, looked at her.
There was nothing she could do about it. She had long ago stopped feeling anything when it happened.
The secretary turned back to her. “It’ll just be a couple of minutes.” Efficient.
Marte sat and waited, flipping through the pages of an American magazine. The printed words were still opaque to her; she had to translate them from English into German inside her heard, to know what they meant. Speaking it was easier, it was just like reciting lines in front of a camera. That was the pay-off from all the coaching she had gotten from Mr. Wise, with dialogue from movies he had produced. Hours of practice, on the long stage-by-stage journey – Berlin to Paris, then to Liverpool and the ocean liner. And the long train ride, cities and then the empty desert spaces, that had looked to her like the place where the world ended. It had made sense that Hollywood lay on the other side of all that, a place where everything could be made from nothing, a blank piece of paper for men like Wise to write upon.
She looked up, through the window next to her. In the distance, at the edge of the Wise Studios lot, stood the Taj Mahal. Not the real thing, a replica, a false front made of wood and plaster, the paint that had imitated the jewel-like tiles flaking from the heat of the California sun. It had been built for some historical epic
Similar Books
Knights Of Dark Renown
David Gemmell
This Trust of Mine
Amanda Bennett
The Lovely Shadow
Cory Hiles
Haladras
Michael M. Farnsworth
The Assigned
A. D. Smith, Iii
The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov
Paul Russell
The Scoundrel and I: A Novella
Katharine Ashe
Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series #1)
Shalini Boland