“Are you well?” Von Behren peered with concern at the American. “You’ve gone very pale.”
Wise took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “I’m all right.”
“Some things are not good to think upon, Herr Wise.”
Marte saw a spark of anger flash in the American’s eyes.
“How do you know what I’m thinking about?”
Von Behren smiled. “Oh, I know a great deal about you, Herr Wise. About how you came to be here. And what you came looking for. Or perhaps more properly, who.”
“Really?” It was obvious the American didn’t like people knowing such things. “And why’s that?”
“ Aber naturlich – you have come to speak with a certain young woman.” The director gestured toward Marte beside him. “And so you have.”
Wise turned and studied the smaller man. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “What’s the deal?”
Von Behren smoothed the point of his beard with his hand. “Let us speak frankly, Herr Wise, as professionals in the business of making films. You hire screenwriters to put down the words for the actors to speak, and I try to get those words, and the images that accompany them, into the camera, to make a little world inside there. But we needn’t flatter ourselves. We know, don’t we, that the face, the one up on the screen, so much bigger than all the little ones watching in the darkness – that’s the only thing that’s real, is it not? And a beautiful woman’s face…” He shrugged. “What is more real than that? What has more power?”
“You did it.” The realization broke upon Wise. “You’re the one who sent the print of your film to me.”
“No, not directly. Some things need to be done more subtly than that. One cannot catch certain hares so easily. Let us just say… I arranged to have it sent.”
“Why?” Wise regarded the other man. “What do you think you’re going to get out of all this?”
“I never thought; I only hoped. That when you saw my Marte…” Von Behren glanced toward her, then brought his gaze back. “You are someone who makes things possible, are you not? Many things… for all sorts of people…”
That was when she knew. Why the director – the one who had discovered her, made her his protegee – had sent a print of her film so far away. To America, and to Herr David Wise. He had confided in her that such was his intent, but that she was to remain quiet about it, and not let Joseph know. He had bound her to silence, and now she knew why.
She had known as soon as the American had turned his gaze again toward her. This time, their eyes had met, and she had not looked away. For what she saw there was the same as that burning spark she saw in Joseph’s eyes. Desire, that would not rest until it had grasped all that for which it longed.
“ Herr Wise…” Marte spoke softly. She tilted her head, so that she looked at him through her lashes. There was no need for a script, for her to know the lines to speak now. “You have traveled so much. You must be tired…”
TEN
She listened to him, to the words of his voice, one after another. Coming from a great distance, as though she were listening to him on the radio, as though she weren’t with him in the great high-ceilinged room at all. A dream… that was what it felt like, as she closed her eyes and let his voice flow past, wrapping itself around her, a familiar embrace.
But different, as well. That was how she knew it wasn’t the radio, it wasn’t the sharp whip of the Reich’s Propaganda Minister lacerating the enemies of the German Volk, or describing the present and coming glories that the Fuhrer would bestow upon the faithful, upon all the uplifted, eager faces. Joseph’s other voice, the private one, almost a whisper. Meant for only one other person; meant for her. The voice she had heard when she had lain in his arms, his bare chest against her breasts, crushing her to him, as though one body could devour another. His mouth close to her ear, so his voice could tell of his worship, his love for the golden thing he’d won, the angel that had descended to the heavy earth and the gaze of men, his gaze.
Marte… The last word he would speak, before he would close his eyes, the lashes brushing her face, letting his other senses drink in the scent and presence of her. Her name, an incantation, a simple faith…
“There have been things said. Things about us.” Now Joseph didn’t look at her as he spoke; he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the long delicate fingers squeezed bloodless in his anguish. He gazed across the Wilhelmplatz at the dark shape of the Reich Chancellery, and the night sky beyond it. “The lies… the whispering… all of it, again and again.”
How silly of him – she could almost smile to herself as she listened. They weren’t lies, they were the truth. The things that people said, the whispers that circled about her like the dark shadows of birds. Women on the street pointing her out to each other as she passed by, the actors and crews on the film sets watching her and then turning away with shrugs and single raised eyebrows, sharing their cynical knowledge of how things worked in this world. Everybody knew the truth about them, about her and Joseph. Had he spoken so many lies himself, that he could no longer tell the difference?
“They have the ear of the Fuhrer. They’ve poisoned his mind… against you.” He lowered his head, his narrow shoulders slumping forward. “Marte…” Her name, that invocation again, but spoken this time in a voice that could barely emerge from his throat, as though it were his last breath. “We must not see each other again. Ever…”
She wondered whether she should go to him, wrap her arms around him, rock him against the cradle of her breast. “But that’s what you’ve said before.”
“This time… this time, it must be. Forever.” Joseph looked over his shoulder at her, his face drawn taut, cheeks hollowed, the outline of his skull visible beneath. “That is the Fuhrer ’s decree.”
Forever… She closed her eyes, drifting away. That was funny as well, the way men said such things. As though forever meant anything at all. Joseph was as sworn to the service of Harte as any SS officer, as the father of her lost child was; they were all soldiers of this new world, cold and perfect. But that was just armor over the soft, sentimental part inside them. Forever… Women lost things forever, never seen again, but they went on. They learned how to.
She felt his hand against the side of her face, the fingers tangling through her hair and brushing the curve of her jaw. She opened her eyes and saw him gazing down at her.
“I made an offer.” This close, Joseph kept his voice a whisper, soft as though they were in bed together. “To him.” She knew he meant the Fuhrer. “I offered to resign from the Ministry… and as Gauleiter of Berlin… all my posts. He could appoint me as Ambassador to Japan. I would leave Germany… we would leave. We could live together, in Tokyo. There would be no scandal then; we’d be far away, and people would forget about us.” Joseph’s hand moved down her neck, across the curve of her shoulder. “Magda and the children – they would be provided for. And even they would forget, eventually. Everyone would forget about us. And we would be together.”
“But he doesn’t want you to leave.” She leaned her head against his arm. “He needs you.” That was the truth, even though he had said it himself. The Fuhrer needed his Propaganda Minister, had always needed him, even before he had become the Fuhrer, when he had been nothing but the head of a tiny political group – brawling war veterans and professional anti-Semites – breaking heads at Bierstube meetings and squabbling in the red mud of the dying Weimar republic. Joseph had created the Fuhrer – even that one word, his title, that had been another of his propaganda genius’s masterstrokes. “He needs you even more than I do.”