“I can appeal. The time isn’t right maybe. With what’s going on.”
“The reason? ‘Premature antifascism,’ ” Brecht said, rolling out the phrase slowly, savoring it. “What can it mean? There must have been a time when it was good to be a fascist. Then not. It’s a trick, finding the right moment. You can be against the fascists, but not too soon. Then you’re-well, what exactly?”
Feuchtwanger shrugged, nodding with him. “A socialist. A pacifist. Before, when you wrote against the Nazis, where could you do it? The places they suspect now. Too left, too this, too that. So it’s not the best time here.”
“Thomas Mann had no problem,” Brecht said, puckish.
“Oh, Saint Thomas.”
They laughed softly, a cafe murmur. Ben looked at them, slumped against cushions, holding cigars, easy with each other. Was this the sort of meeting Danny had described, Riordan scribbling notes? The author of Josephus is preparing a play about the Salem witch trials, drawing analogies to contemporary events. The author of Galileo made remarks critical of the U.S. Hans Ostermann, my father-in-law, saidAll typed up for the files, smoky, idle talk, a harmless report. But no betrayal was harmless.
“What brings you here?” Ostermann said suddenly.
What did?
“Just a quick hello. Lasner wanted me to check on the car, whether they’d towed it.”
“Yes, the accident,” Feuchtwanger said. “I told you about it,” he said to Ostermann. “Terrible.”
“But on this road not a surprise,” Ostermann said. “Someone you knew?”
“A relative of Lasner’s.” Ben turned to Feuchtwanger. “Are there any Germans living here, up on the hill? Besides you?”
“Oh no. We’re famous, Marta and me-the foreigners. Of course Mann is also in the Palisades. Vicki Baum. But not here, nearer the village.”
“Why do you ask?” Ostermann said.
Ben looked up, at a loss. “Maybe this, hearing German. It would be so nice for you if there were someone else nearby.”
“Only Lion has the courage,” Brecht said. “These roads. In Santa Monica it’s safe, all flat. Even Salka, in the canyon, it’s not so bad.”
“But the views,” Feuchtwanger said, extending his hand toward the window and the fading afternoon, copper glints on the water and lights beginning to come on.
“But we always have to drive you,” Ostermann said. “The courageous Lion.”
Another easy laugh, the road familiar to all of them. You didn’t have to live here to know it. Even Lion’s guests, German speakers.
“So how was it at Alma’s?” Brecht asked Feuchtwanger.
“You know she had Schoenberg and Stravinsky? Both. The same dinner.”
“Another play for you,” Brecht said, mischievous.
“No, it was dull. They wouldn’t talk about music. Out of respect. Anything but music-so nothing, really.”
“And Alma talked about herself.”
Ben drank his coffee, half-listening, talk that could go on for hours. No other Germans on the road. Just a place to meet, then, out of the way. He stood up.
“But you’ve just come,” Feuchtwanger said.
“I know. But I have to get back to the studio.”
“Ah, the studio,” Brecht said airily. “Back to the assembly line.” He moved his arms in a pincer, like Chaplin working the wrenches in Modern Times. “More dreams. More dreams.”
“And me,” Ostermann said, standing, too. “No, no, don’t get up. A nice afternoon, Lion. Like before.”
“Nothing’s like before,” Brecht said. “Even before.”
Outside Ostermann walked Ben to his car.
“I thought when you came, it was for me. That you had news.”
“News?”
“About the screen test.”
Almost forgotten. Liesl playing a daughter.
“No, not yet.”
“I don’t want her to be disappointed. After everything. Although to wish such a life for your child- Still, I can hear it in her voice, how she wants it. I was worried, after the funeral. I remembered how it feels, how lonely. But now look. Screen tests. It was good not being alone in the house, I think. So thank you for that.”
Ben looked away.
“They really refused Lion?” he said.
“He’s a socialist. It’s very well known, even here.”
All you had to do was check a file, information from a well-placed source.
“But that’s not-”
“Not before. Now it’s different. His lawyer said, be patient. Now he gets his publisher to write for him. How distinguished he is. He does very well here, you know. The translations. Not like poor Heinrich.”
Is this how it was done? You didn’t have to ask, just let the conversation run, listening for Riordan, a sponge.
“And now there are difficulties. It’s ironic, yes? They didn’t want Heinrich to leave Europe. Now they don’t want him to leave here. This time, no Daniel to arrange the escape. So he goes to offices and waits. For a piece of paper. Just like his script.”
“Why not leave without it?”
“Cross the Pyrenees again? You forget, he had papers then. That’s what Daniel arranged. It’s not so easy without that, a passport. Brecht doesn’t understand, living in his head,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “Why Lion wants his piece of paper. If he leaves, he can’t come back. He’s not a refugee anymore, but not a citizen, either. Of anywhere. So all he can do is stay here, as he is. Yes, it’s very comfortable for him.” He gestured toward the house. “But now a cage also.”
“But Kaltenbach doesn’t want to come back.”
“So he thinks. I wonder what he will say after. When those doors close.” He sighed. “But first he has to get there.”
With Minot watching. With Ben watching for him.
“What about you? Are you having any trouble?”
“Me? Oh, I’m not such a dangerous person as Lion. I wasn’t premature.” He looked down. “Maybe too late. How we waited, hoping it would go away. Thinking a catastrophe would go away.”
There was traffic on Sunset so that by the time Ben got back to Gower the lot had taken on the after-work quiet of skeleton crews and empty sound stages, only a few cars left in their reserved spaces.
“Screening room with Mr. L,” said one of Bunny’s secretaries, anticipating his question. She was putting folders in drawers, evidently working late to catch up on the filing.
“How’d the test go, do you know? Liesl Kohler.” Or had they changed her name?
“When was this, today? Maybe they’re looking at it now. The only way I know is, he writes a memo.”
“On a screen test?”
“Everything,” she said, with a nod to the wall of filing cabinets. What Tenney’s office must look like. Fourteen thousand files, rumors on paper.
“How about the guest list for Lasner’s party Saturday?”
Her head went up, immediately protective.
“I was there,” he explained, “and I talked to somebody and I can’t remember her name. I thought if I could go through the list, you know, it might come back to me. Does he keep them, the lists?”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll be okay with him.”
She said nothing.
“I could go down to the screening room, have him phone up.”
She hesitated, trying to guess what Bunny’s reaction would be to either course.
“No, it’s here,” she said finally, turning to a drawer. “I just filed it, in fact.” She got it out and handed it to him.
“You mind? I’ll bring it back?”
“You want to take it?” she said, suspicious again.
He began to read down the list. Everyone there, with marks next to the Warners people. Seating plans, names on spokes around a circle, everything thought out. Liesl listed as Ben Collier guest. Rex Morgan, who owned 8 percent. But who had talked to Genia, spotted her across the room? A German speaker, so not Ann Sheridan or one of the starlets. Maybe not at the party at all, just someone who knew she was in town. But it would be easy enough to come up with a short list of possibilities, then use Dennis to check them, routine for a Bureau man. Start somewhere. She hadn’t taken a random turn off Sunset. Someone had told her where to go.