“ Herr von Behren – are you listening to me?”
He stood up, laying the script, with its notations on camera angles and lighting in the margins, on the chair behind him. “I heard you. God knows I should be deaf by now, with all this racket, but I’m not.” He pushed his way past and strode out to the middle of the studio space. He clapped his hands once for attention, though he knew he didn’t need to. All eyes turned toward him, those of the crew behind the lights and cameras, the carpenters and painters repairing the damage to the scenery flats that had been knocked over by the shockwaves, and the actors, already in costume and ready to take their marks. The shooting schedule, after so many delays, had last come round to the script’s grand banquet scene. Heavy, medieval-looking tables were laden with the clever imitations of food that the propmakers had cobbled together from colored plaster and modeling clay. “Please, everyone – I have an announcement to make.”
The actors appeared surreal against the machinery of filming, a confusion of time and place; the men in their doublets and hose, chains of faux gold brightened with glycerine around their necks, dangling barbaric emblems of rank, the women’s long gowns heavy with intricate embroidery, their hair upswept and laced with the beads that would photograph as strands of pearls. Outside the studio, the twentieth century collapsed in flame and ruin, while this little bubble of the middle ages shivered with each blow.
“I have been advised -” He glanced sidelong at the assistant director for a moment. “That the world is coming to an end.” No one smiled; he was merely stating the obvious. “I can assure you that it makes little difference to me. But I am willing to concede that there may be those among you would feel more comfortable, or perhaps even safer, in one of the underground shelters our thoughtful Reich has provided for the citizens of Berlin. If so, I would suggest that you leave now and make your way there, while there is still light to see by. Your doing so will, I am sure, greatly oblige the Russian army that presently knocks upon our gates; you will have conveniently buried yourselves and thus saved them the trouble.” Von Behren clasped his hands together and looked across the faces watching him. With exquisite dramatic timing, a distant volley of artillery fire sounded, followed by a rapid sequence of explosions, the last of which shook dust down from the studio’s overhead beams. The little actress – he felt so sorry for her – bit her lip to hold back her frightened tears, averting her face so none of the others would see. “Well? Those of you who do wish to leave should do so as a group; I would imagine your chances would be better that way.”
The actors and crew glanced around at each other. After a few moments of silence, the chief grip stepped forward. “ Herr von Behren -” The man hadn’t shaved or washed in the last several days; his overalls were stained with black grease. “We have enough petrol to keep the generators going for eight, possibly up to ten hours. If we take down the canvas from the skylights, we might be able to shoot by daylight for an additional four to six hours – if we get started right away.” He looked at the others for support, then back to the director. “We’re wasting time, Herr von Behren.”
“Very well. You’re right, of course.” The show of loyalty touched his heart, though he knew at the same time it would have been easier if they had all leapt up and rushed outside, hurrying to the nearest shelters. Now he would be forced to show as much courage as they had, to carry them all upon his shoulders. He turned to the assistant director. “You’re free to go, of course. I would understand.”
The assistant director, arms folded across his chest, looked sullen. “There’s someone else whose decision you should ask. We won’t be able to accomplish much if she decides to leave.”
Von Behren knew that accomplishing anything at all was not the issue. Under these circumstances, if they produced even a few minutes of usable film, that would be a miracle. Der Rote Jager was a long way from being completed; there were weeks, if not months, of primary shooting to be done on it. Who knew if there would be one brick sitting on top of another in Berlin, this time tomorrow? The Fuhrer and his remaining staff, those too blindly faithful or stupid to have flown to refuges in the west, had already been sequestered for months deep inside the earth, in the fortified bunker beneath the Chancellery yard. Even the Gauleiter of Berlin, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, was there with his wife Magda and their blond children, awaiting the end. Goebbels had long ago ordered all the theatres closed, part of his dedicating the Reich to total war. Even if they were to complete the film of Der Rote Jager, there would be no place to show it, other than a private screening for the Reichsminister himself, the images flickering against the concrete wall of his cramped, stale-smelling burrow. Perhaps that was what Goebbels wanted; the equipment and the supplies, more valuable than money, had kept on arriving at the studio, so von Behren and his crew could continue with the filming. Or else they had been forgotten about, and the Reich’s machinery had carried on with the orders it already had been given, a captainless train bound to iron tracks, hurtling toward its fiery destination.
Now it was too late for any of them to jump off. They might as well stay to the end of the line. Von Behren looked past the crew and actors to where Marte sat on a spindly wooden chair in the shadowed area beyond the lights. She was in costume, a gown of white that turned her skin even paler. The bodice and high neck had been loosened, to make it easier for her to breathe; the wardrobe assistant would have to stitch it tight again before Marte could go before the camera. Her profile was turned toward von Behren, her eyes closed, lips slightly parted; she looked as if she were dying, and was more beautiful than ever before.
Von Behren supposed he had the Reichsminister to thank for that as well. It served the purposes of the script, the lady of the castle wasting away beneath the curse that had befallen the land, the sins of Jagdfrevel punished by the hunter cloaked in red. Just as in the book of old Marchen, every branch would wither, the crops blacken in the fields, the women mourn their children…
Marte had had one last meeting with her precious Joseph; she had told von Behren everything that had been said. The lies, and then the truth. That was when the silence had folded around her. She could speak the lines he wrote for her to say, and move from mark to mark on the stage, all in a dreaming, otherworldly quiet. The empty sadness behind her eyes, which had always reached out and laid a hand upon the hearts of those who saw her, now engulfed the onlookers, drawing them in and leaving them broken in a lightless room, the burial place of their own dreams. He had seen the other actors turn away, unable to bear such annihilating grace; even the cameraman had been forced to take his eye away from the viewfinder, to brush away a blurring tear. Von Behren knew that if he could capture that on film – and he had; the first reels he’d had printed and screened in private had caught her face perfectly, her silent, judging gaze like a knife to be embraced – it would be his masterwork. That by which he would be remembered, if any of it survived the last days of the war. To his own shame, he had rearranged the shooting schedule, to get as much footage of Marte as possible, before she died. In this, he knew he was as other men, even the Reichsminister he so despised. He wanted something, perhaps the same thing they all did, though the taking of it might destroy her. And as with the others, in this he was helpless. There was nothing else he could do.
“Marte?”
She opened her eyed, turned and looked at him, then nodded slowly to indicate that she had heard every word that had been spoken in the studio. “Yes…” Her voice came from that hollow space inside her. “I’ll stay. It’s all right.” Her gaze shifted away. “There’s no place else for me to go…”