The Berlin Connection (43 page)

"Go away," I said. "Please, go away!"

"Are you drunk?"

I shook my head.

"Hm." He gave Hintze-Schon a searching look, shrugged his shoulders and returned to the bar.

Slowly I pushed the key to my suite across the table.

"Well, at last," said Hintze-Schon.

He took the key and handed it to one of the men at the next table who had been so jolly. Both of them got up. Hintze-Schon said, "I'll take care of the bill here."

Both men left.

Hintze-Schon turned to me. "You'll go for a walk now. In fifteen minutes you can pick up your key at the desk." He grasped my unwilling hand. "I knew you would be sensible. It is best this way, believe me. Confidentially, you've just saved the girl's life. I'll see you tomorrow morning at the studios in Babelsberg. And please, don't forget. I am your friend."

I left the bar, crossed the foyer and went out into the street. The sky was still red in many places but the chanting had stopped and there were no more trucks with storm-troopers going by. I passed through the Brandenburg Gate and went into the park. The Tiergarten was dark and deserted. I tried not to think but my thoughts returned to what had taken place.

I was a despicable, weak, selfish bastard.

An hour later I returned to the Adlon. The desk clerk avoided my eyes when he handed me my key. All the lights were burning in my suite. Everything in its place. If there had been a fight it was not obvious now. Wanda's perfume still lingered in the air. Then I found the black silken shoe with its broken heel. I rang for room service and ordered whisky. "Bring me a bottle of Scotch."

up to now I had never drunk whisky, only beer, sometimes wine and had not cared much for either.

I sat in the drawing room, soda and ice before me and drank. I emptied half a bottle. The glass was in one hand and the silken shoe from Breitsprecher, its heel missing, in the other. At first the aroma of the whisky nauseated me but then I became drunk and thought that it didn't really taste that bad. Hintze-Schon had probably been correct when he said that I was just seventeen and had no idea of anythmg as yet.

Then I became sick.

After I returned from the bathroom I continued to drink and finally fell asleep on the couch. When I awoke it was day. My head ached and I felt sick. I saw the black shoe lying on the floor.

I grabbed the bottle and began to drink and again I became sick.

I went to bed and stayed there. I was too weak to get up. At midday two men of the Gestapo arrived. They told me that I was to leave Germany within twenty-four hours and showed me orders and letters to that effect. I protested. I demanded to speak to my ambassador. They permitted me to telephone.

The ambassador was already informed. He was very cool. In view of the tense political situation I had behaved in a very imprudent manner, he said, and that he was unable to do anything for me. It had been inexcusable for me to interfere in a purely German affair and to resist the arrest of this Fraulein Norden.

"But I didn't resist it! On the contrary, I—"

"Mr. Jordan, I have here on my desk the sworn statements of two Gestapo oflScials and a certain Mr. Hintze-Schon. According to them you secretly hid Fraulein Norden in your suite and resisted her arrest leaving the oflScials no other choice but to use force."

"That's not true! That's a lie!"

"Do you have any witnesses?"

"Yes, Mr. Hintze-Schon! He would not dare— ^

"According to the UFA Mr. Hintze-Schon has left on an extended trip. Mr. Jordan, in your own interest and to avoid further incidents I urge you to comply with the request of the Reichs government and to leave Germany. Good day."

I called the UFA studios. Herr Hintze-Schon had left on a trip. No, he didn't leave any message for me. No, his superiors had no instructions. They regretted what had happened.

How did they know what had taken place?

"It's in the newspapers."

It was indeed. One of the two Gestapo men, who had been with me while I was telephoning, showed me the newspaper.

American Ex-Child Star Misuses German Hospitality. Revealed to Be Agent of World Jewry.

I packed my bags.

At eight-thirty that evening I left for Paris. The two Gestapo men, who had not left me for a second all day, accompanied me...

9

... as far as the French border. They were very polite," I told Natasha. It was snowing steadily. We had once more crossed the Alte Lombardsbrucke and were walking alongside the Aussenalster. Church clocks chimed.

It was one o'clock in the morning.

Natasha suddenly gripped my hand. "Did you ever hear of Wanda or her father again?"

"Yes. Two years later in 1940. At that tune many emigrants arrived in Hollywood: writers, actors, directors. One of them had been a friend of the Nordens. He did

not know that I had known them. Unsuspecting, he told what had happened. The father did return from Switzerland in an effort to save his daughter. Wanda's mother had just died of a heart attack in Zurich. Wanda and her father were sent to a concentration camp. The Nazis did not need Professor Norden any more. They had merely wanted to prevent him from making his scientific knowledge available to an enemy foreign nation. The secret project he had been engaged on had been completed without him."

"Concentration camp," said Natasha. She let go of my hand.

'The actor who told me this in Hollywood also knew that Wanda and her father had died within a short time of each other in the spring of 1940." I stopped underneath a streetlamp and pulled out my pocketflask. "Excuse me."

Natasha pushed at her glasses and said nothing.

I raised the flask and took a long drink.

Then we walked on.

"I knew what I had done in Berlin. But no ofie else did. No one reproached me. Only when I thought about it. . ."

"You drank.^

"Yes. When I was drunk I didn't think about it. Or dream about it. I drank heavily. And I rarely thought of .. . of . . . Besides, it is said that all things are forgotten in the end. I was hoping I would forget too.

"I became a G.I. in 1943. In 1944 I was in the invasion; 1945 I came to Berhn for the second time. The Ad-lon was a ruin, the villa in Grunewald had disappeared, the UFA did not exist any more, nothing but ruins . . . misery . . . hunger. Seeing Berlin this way assuaged my pain. It made me feel—how can I explain it—it made me feel that I, as a soldier, had made amends to some small deeree for the dreadful deed I had committed there in 1938...

"I returned to the United States in 1946.

"Then, in 1947 I met Joan. Her daughter was seven years old—a little redhead who grieved for her dead father and who hated me.

"When I married Joan, Shirley was nine years old. Her hatred of me diminished during the next few years and when she was thirteen she declared, Taddy sounds so childish.' From then on she caUed me Peter—for six years until her death.

"A lot happened during those six years. The plump child became a graceful young girl and then a beautiful woman. At first her voice irritated me because it reminded me of something. I could not readily remember. The voice remained child-like and high-pitched even when Shirley became seventeen.

"At first it was the voice.

"I had almost succeeded in forgetting the girl in Berlin. Now if I closed my eyes when Shirley spoke I heard Wanda. I was reminded of my offense and guilt.

"At first Shirley had hated me. Now I hated her. My wife was very unhappy because of it Shirley and I argued, fought, insulted and avoided one another.

"I played golf, went into town, frequented bars. I drank. I came home drunk. Hollywood had written me off.

"Shirley's voice was only the beginning. With each new day she resembled Wanda more.

"Perhaps you are smiling now, Professor.

"Perhaps you think that my guilt made me imagine things different than they actually were.

"No!

"I have photographs of Wanda and Shirley. Wanda's

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are in a safe in my house in Pacific Palisades. I have instructed my lawyer to open the safe and send me the photographs. When I show them to you you will agree with what I have told you, Professor!

"Shirley was beautiful now: a young goddess. I saw Wanda's clear, golden complexion, Wanda's narrow nose, Wanda's generous mouth, Wanda's green eyes underneath the dark brows so rare with redheads.

"Can you imagine how I felt?

"A beautiful young woman, who many years ago had died because of me, suddenly had come to life, living in the same house with me.

"Shirley's manner of walking, talking, eating, laughing—it reminded me of Wanda. She didn't merely resemble Wanda when she was seventeen: she was Wanda, risen from the dead to torment me, to persecute me.

"I already told you that I drank steadily during those years. You explained to me. Professor, that alcohol destroys clear thinking. How it can change unpleasant memory engrams into pleasant ones. This is also what happened with Shirley.

"I had always thought: each debt will take its toll, one cannot ever escape responsibility or punishment. Now, more and more often as I lay drunk on my bed thinking of Shirley and Wanda, Los Angeles and Berlin, I thought that perhaps it was not quite that way. Perhaps I could make some amends. Perhaps I could atone for what I had done to Wanda by being good to this rejected, resented, deprived child who hated me and whom I hated. A child who had never known a real home, had grown up among strange people in boarding schools and camps.

"I tried to be friendly to Shirley. I gave her little presents, spent time with her. I asked her opinions. I gave her books. I heard about her problems. I treated her as a friend and as an adult.

"The effect?

"Never before had a friend of Joan's paid any attention to Shirley. She had grown up, alone with her thoughts and troubles. Now suddenly there was a man who seemed interested in her and her problems. Was it surprising that Shirley fell in love with this new companion?

"She was well on her way to becoming a beatnik. She had already slept with boys, had spent many a night away from home. Now all this changed.

"She returned my friendliness with gratitude and devotion. She was very beautiful when she became eighteen. There was hardly a man who was not attracted to her, and I am a man too; I am only a man too.

"What happened now happened imperceptibly. When I noticed it, it was already too late. Imperceptibly the transition from the usual to the unusual, from the permitted to the prohibited took place. Imperceptibly the casual nightly *Good night, Peter' kiss changed into a different kind of kiss. Slowly, slowly a handshake became more than just that, an embrace more than casual, a glance not a glance but a challenge, a provocation, a declaration and acceptance of love.

"One could not escape one's destiny.

"I believed that. Fate had sent Shirley into my life, had made her the image of Wanda so I could make good my sin. It was meant to be; I had to love Shirley, make her happy. Was it the alcohol which made me believe that? Was it my excuse to myself for all that had happened? Was it the easiest way out?

"What do you think. Professor?

"We now had our little secrets. We were already deceiving Joan. Furtively we met in small restaurants along the coast, wrote letters to each other and destroyed them after reading them, had secret signs, our songs, our words, our love.

"More and more frequently we met. More and more often my Cadillac was parked on lovers' lanes. More and more passionate became our kisses, our caresses. We both

knew how it would end. We did not care. We were wildly in love, beside ourselves with passion.

"Shirley—I mentioned it before—held only animosity for her mother. Perhaps she now felt that what was happening was a retribution for Joan's neglect of her as a chnd.

"What about me?

"I have no excuse. I felt no pangs of conscience. I only thought of her, her mouth, her eyes, her hands, her body, the body that was Wanda's. I wanted Shirley. And she wanted me.

"My marriage, was falling apart. Joan still blamed Shirley for that: 'She hates you. She doesn't like you. That's why you are so irritable, because you can't stand to hear me fight with her. That's why you moved into the bungalow. That's why I now have to sleep alone. Oh, how I hate Shirley!'

"I had moved into the bungalow on the hill near the main house in the beginning of 1958.

"And this is where it happened for the first time. We had gone to the theater. Joan was in New York for a few days. When we came home the main house was lying in darkness, the servants asleep. We did not speak. Hand in hand we ran up the steep path to the bungalow. We were breathless. Shirley's ankle gave way and she cried softly.

" *What is it?'

" 'My foot...'

'T picked her up. I carried her inside. Moonlight filled the living room. Down below, beyond the garden, the Pacific glistened. I gently placed Shirley on the oversized couch in front of the fireplace. She wore a black decollete dress and black high-heeled shoes. We spoke breathlessly. Our hands moving swiftly, we pulled off her dress, her lingerie, my shirt. Passionately we embraced one another and I heard Shirley's moan.

" 'Come . ..'

" 'Yes, Wanda, yes ...'

"I know that I called her Wanda. She did not hear me. I don't think she heard anything any more for what we did transported us to ecstasy again and again. Only tormenting passion had meaning then. There was nothing but the exquisite present

"Hours passed. It was dawning. The Pacific was lead-gray, the air humid. Shirley dressed hurriedly to reach the main house before the servants were up.

"As she put on her shoes she discovered that the heel of one had broken off.

" *It must have happened last night when I stumbled: Such expensive shoes. Custom made: What did you say?'

" 'Nothing.'

"As I kissed her I thought: I wiU make amends. I'll make up through Shirley ...

11

"... for what I did to Wanda," I said softly. Then I looked at Natasha. "Now you know the truth."

It was snowing more heavily now. We had walked around the Aussenalster for the third time. It was almost two a.m.