The Berlin Connection (4 page)

Today, here in Rome, after the catastrophe, I am able to describe Natasha, to confide in the silently moving tapes: I have never seen a more beautiful or compassionate face than Natasha's. On that morning in October I was blind to beauty, deaf to goodness.

"You cannot examine me against my will, can you?"

"No, but—"

"Then, go away!"

She looked at me silently. She was at most thirty-five years old.

"I am a guest in this hotel. Are you leaving now or do I have to have you thrown out?"

"Your behavior shows clearly how much you are in need of a doctor's help. I will call the manager." She reached for the telephone. I caught her hand. "Why?"

"I need a witness. You will kindly repeat to him that you refuse to be examined."

"Why?"

"I am responsible in case something should happen to you. I don't know what you might do when I leave." I saw her look at the whisky bottle, the empty bottles, the black bag and the empty thermos bottle. The manager and the floor waiter had seen that too: my dirty, well-kept secret. Now she wanted to call a witness. If I did not submit to an examination more people would come. Soon the entire hotel staff would know. Who would be the one to call the newspaper? The chatty columnists had their informants everjrwhere and they paid well for such news.

PETER JORDAN COLLAPSES: WHISKEY! PETER JORDAN

THROWN OUT OF HOTEL. I could scc the headlines. Sweat trickled from my forehead and hands. I noticed I still had the little cross in my hands. Wrong. Wrong. Oh, Shirley, everything I did was wrong!

"Let me make the call, Mr. Jordan."

"No."

"Your behavior is childish. Then I'll just have to go downstairs."

She was so cool, so matter-of-fact, so very prudent. And yet, I remember distinctly, even at our first meeting I had the impression that this woman had had to exert all her strength to control herself so perfectly. We very rarely are aware that the people we meet have behavior patterns that influence their conduct. We expect them to react as we would were we in their place; we cannot, in most cases, understand or comprehend them. Today I know. Natasha was carrying a heavy burden. Suffering and misfortune had taught her to think always of others; had taught her to be calm and direct.

"Wait. . . wait..." I stammered^

"Yes, Mr. Jordan?"

"I... I have to explain ... I am an actor. . . ." T could not continue. The fist hit my solar plexus. The fear re-

turned. The storm raged. Somewhere m the hotel a window slammed. I heard glass break and hit the ground. Finished. Finished. Everything was finished.

"Paddy, I'm going to have a child . .."

In retrospect this seems symptomatic of those hours: My emotions were ranging between rebellion and self-sacrifice, courage and hopelessness. "No one ... must ... know . . . I. . . am . . . ill. . ."

Natasha took her hand from the receiver. Her voice was friendly and calm, "No one will hear anything from me. A doctor is pledged to silence."

I had not thought of that.

Yes. Oh, certainly. Naturally.

Pledged to silence.

My spirits rose. I wanted to smile, say something. It turned out a grimace, a babble. She took the bottle and filled the glass once more as if it were perfectly normal to drink at nine in the morning. She held the glass to my lips and said, "Here, Mr. Jordan."

9

"If each person in the world would make only one other person happy, the whole world would be happy."

At this point in my report I remember this sentence. She said it to me after the worst had happened, when she understood what I had done. The look on her face told me that she did not condemn me, there was nothing she could not understand. The same look was on her face on this October morning, her voice was the same calm voice when she said, "Here, Mr. Jordan."

I held the glass with both hands and emptied it in one draught. She filled the glass again. I felt the whisky give new strength to my body. Suddenly I could see clearly, hear clearly. I did not feel the fist any more. Here I was,

sitting before Natasha in my crumpled pajamas, very much relieved. Very quietly I said, "Thank you."

She went to the door and switched on the light. The chandelier sparkled.

"And now you are going to allow me to examine you?" I nodded. That she had given me the whisky seemed to me the most important thing anyone had ever done for me. "When I was a httle girl I saw all your movies, Mr. Jordan." A moment ago I had hated her. Now I thought her wonderful. I felt even better now. I took another little drink. "You are scheduled to make another movie here in Germany. You are afraid that the news of your collapse will become known. This is perfectly understandable."

How clever she was, and how likable!

"Are you Russian?"

"My parents were Russian. I was born in Germany. And you, Mr. Jordan? How is it you speak German so well?"

"My mother came from Berlin."

"Tell me what happened before you passed out."

"I had an attack."

"Can you describe it?"

I described it, drinking the whisky while talking. "The worst was the fear," I heard myself say; the whisky quickly went to my head. "Terrible fear. Horrible fear. I thought it was a coronary."

"Did you hear voices?"

"No." I had completely forgotten Shirley's voice.

"Did you see anything? Animals?"

"Do you think that I have the d.t.'s?"

"Please, answer me."

"No. Or rather, yes, I saw a dead seagull. But it is real. You can see it too."

"Where?"

"On the balcony." She went to the drawing room, switched on the light there and T could not see her. I called out, "Pretty, awful sight, isn't it?"

"I see no gull," her voice replied. I jumped out of bed and ran to her. The hght from the room shone into the darkness and the pouring rain outside. The flooded balcony was bare, the bird gone.

"But..." I was very shaken. I smiled crookedly. "Delirium tremens, after all?"

She looked at me without speaking. The fist. For seconds I felt it again.

"I swear to you, the gull was there. The rain must have washed it away."

"Probably."

My hands closed tightly around Shirley's cross. The little cross suddenly seemed to be all the protection and support I had left in the world.

10

Dr. Petrovna's finger described a circle in front of my eyes and she told me to follow it. I sat on my bed again. "Watch the tip of my finger, please, Mr. Jordan."

Her finger had moved sideways and I was hard put to see it. My pupils felt as if they were impaled on rough little sticks. My spirits rose again after having a few more gulps of whisky. Natasha permitted me to drink. The rain flooded the windowpanes, the storm rattled them. I was happy to be examined by such an understanding human being.

"Do you take stimulants, Mr. Jordan?"

"No."

"Drugs?"

"No."

"Never?"

"No. Only whisky." The finger circled.

"Watch the tip of-my finger, Mr. Jordan."

"That has something to do with my head, hasn't it? Am I crazy?"

The finger circled.

"Doctor!"

"Yes, Mr. Jordan."

"I asked you something."

"Your nerves seem to be on edge. I'm sure you are very excited about your movie." This woman was terrific! How she cakned me down! How she questioned me to distract me!

"When was the last time you stood in front of a camera?"

"Twenty years ago. Nineteen thirty-nine. Can you imagine? I had to wait twenty years. And now .. ."

She took a httle flashlight and shone it in my eyes. Her face was very close. Natasha's breath was as pure and clean as fresh milk.

"You drink a lot, don't you?"

"No one has ever seen me drink."

"That is something else again. How long have you been drinking?"

"For quite a long time."

"How long?"

"Well..."

"You must tell me the truth if I am to make a diagnosis."

"For twenty years."

"And how much daily?"

"That depends. Just lately ..."

"More than one bottle?"

"No."

"Much less than one bottle?"

"Not . . . much less." Rather more would have been true. I said proudly: "But I never had any problems. I could work and sleep and I could always eat."

"Do you drink in the morning too?"

"You know..."

"I'm asking you as your doctor."

"Yes. I guess all day, a little. But secretly, no one has any idea."

"You must have a drink, mustn't you?"

"Yes. Well, you see if I don't I am very nervous. Jumpy. Unsure. I'm always afraid—"

"What are you afraid of?"

"Well, it probably sounds ridiculous ... but I am talking to a doctor. Anyway, I just can't seem to take care of my business unless I have had a drink. It just gets too much for me; do you understand me? And just lately I have had more worries and excitement. Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you beheve me?"

"I believe every word. But perhaps it is the other way around."

"The other way around?"

"You say you can't take care of your business unless you have a drink. Today you are nervous and agitated without whisky."

"Yes."

"Perhaps that is not the result of years of drinking but the cause. Perhaps you were always an overly sensitive and nervous man and that is why you began to drink twenty years ago. It happens. Especially among artists. Possibly you would never have become an actor without this instability." This impressed me very much and I looked at her admiringly. Natasha pushed her glasses into place. "When were you bom?"

"January eleventh, 1922." She was so sympathetic. I respected her knowledge. A sudden urge for communication overcame me. Naturally, it was also the whisky. "My parents were actors, you know. They traveled all over the country. They played everything. Shakespeare and slapstick comedy. Operettas and schmaltz and Abie's Irish Rose ..."

"Please lie back. Relax." She felt my glands, looked at my throat, my arms, and I babbled on.

"Apropos acting . . . they never gave me a chance to show what I could do! This last movie I played in 1939 stank to high heaven! Stupid Western. Actually my career was finished three years before that. You know when?"

"Turn over, please. When?"

"When I was five feet four. When I was only five feet three I was still Prince Charming, America's Little Sunshine Boy. Even another half-inch. After that, finished. All over."

"Hold out your hands, please."

"Do you understand? I was too tall for a child star. The studio canceled the contract." Natasha placed a sheet of paper on my stretched-out hands. It wobbled and fell off. She wound the blood-pressure cuff around my arm and inflated it. "I remember even now the studio doctor adjusting the little piece of wood on the height scale and shaking his head. Five feet four inches. That was that. That was the twentieth of December, 1935. My poor mother had a nervous breakdown. I was not even fourteen years old. I had various businesses and oil wells and stocks and bonds. But I was five feet four and finished. Isn't that comical? Now I have to be quiet, right?"

"Yes. Breathe deeply, please." She hooked the stethoscope into her ears and listened to my heart. "Don't breathe. Breathe." The flat disc of the instrument slid across my naked chest. T heard the rain outside. "Sit up, please." She examined my back. "How tanned you are!"

"Two weeks ago I was still lying in the sun in California. Tell me that you would never have thought I was drinking!"

"Breathe deeply."

After a little while I started again. "T am reallv in eood condition. There is not an ounce of fat on my bodv. You can't imagine how I prepared myself for my work! Riding. Boxing. Tennis. Could I have another drink?"

This time she only poured a little into the elass.

"I hope you'll forgive me for behaving the way I did. I

simply lost my head. There is so much at stake. My first film in twenty years! Isn't that crazy? Isn*t that alone sufficient to drive a man to drink? At six years old. still a baby, I made my first film, then fourteen more films, one after the other, and then no more. Ouch!" She had dug her fingers into my right side below my ribs and piercing pain went through me.

"Did that hurt very much?"

"Well, yes."

"Your liver." Now she took a little patella hammer and tapped my knee for reflex action.

"Are your parents still alive?"

"No."

"What did they die of?"

"My father of uremia. My mother of cancer of the larynx." I became sentimental. "She had a hard life. . . . My father left us when I was two years old. He just went off with someone on the chorus line."

Natasha tapped my right knee; my leg jerked up. "Good reflexes, right? T tell you, organically I'm perfectly healthy . . . Yes, he just left us . . . without a penny. . . . Mother then developed a facial paralysis. It was too much for her, you understand. And she could not act any more. . . . Now I was.her only hope. We moved to Los Angeles. . . . Mother worked as a cleaning woman, as an usherette in movie theaters, and deliverine newspapers. For a time she washed corpses for a funeral parlor."

"You loved your mother very much, didn't you?"

"Yes. She did everything for me. I learned to dance and sing, tap dance and ride. Many times there was nothing to eat—but she always scraped the money together for instructions. She took in washing, sewed at night and even begged."

"Begged?"

"Outside of nightclubs. I caueht her twice doine it. When I was four years old there was not a studio in Hollywood where I was not known. Three years she dragged

me from studio to studio. ... If there were three hundred children waiting for one to be chosen for a two-day part ... I was among them. . . . My compulsive talking is pathological, isn't it? Do you know that I have not talked about all this in years?"

"I am very interested, Mr. Jordan. After I saw your film The Little Lord I ran a temperature of 104°. And I wanted to marry you. Does that hurt?" I was sitting up now and with the edge of her hand she had examined the area around my kidneys. "No . . . not at all. . . . The Little Lord! I was eleven then and already famous. . . . But the awful time before that! Every morning the same hope when we took the bus to the studios . . . every night the same despair. . . . My mother often cried when we returned home, tired and dusty, to our dirty street. . . . Exhausted, she would puU me along, tears staining the cheap powder on her harried face always hidden behind a black veil... I will never be able to forget that..."