The Berlin Connection (7 page)

Then it was over.

She was in my arms, crjang soundlessly. She often cried afterwards. I felt her tears on my chest, I looked down to the terrace, the arguing men, my wife by the pool, lying perfectly still, seemingly dead.

The telephone rang. I sat up. Twelve o'clock exactly. I heard the bells ring from Santa Monica. I was very calm and very relaxed.

Now, God, let me hear Your judgment.

"I have a call for you from Frankfurt, Germany."

"Hello ..." I held the receiver with one hand, with the other I was caressing Shirley's body, her thighs, hips. arms, her breasts.

"Hello..."

"This is Cosmos-Distributors . . ."

A divine judgment. Now let me know Your will, God. Let Horwein say "No," if You won't forgive us.

". . . one moment, I'll connect you with Mr. Horwein ..."

"Hello . . . hello ... is that you, Kostasch?"

"This is Jordan."

"Oh, Mr. Jordan, how are you? I... I..."

"I speak German, Mr. Horwein."

Shirley sat up hurriedly. She clung to me, shaking again. I caressed her body. I was calmer now than I had been in months.

"That's nice, Mr. Jordan. Well . . . now ... I have talked it over with my people ... it is three o'clock in the morning here . . . you should see the cigar smoke ..." I heard Horwein laugh. "Still, a lot of money remains a lot of money, right, even for us children of the wonder economy. . ,"

I have blasphemed You, God, I have provoked You. Now, take Your revenge if You exist—or leave us in peace from now on.

".. . but at last we were agreed. We'll guarantee the 1.2 milhon. I'll tell you quite honestly, the fact that the Wilson Brothers are willing to invest their money has had a lot to do with it."

Herbert Kostasch. Money sticks to him. So he had been lying in Frankfurt, too. Eh, Jordan, didn't you know how a movie is financed?

"What is it. . . what happened?" Shirley whispered.

"Everything okay."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, nothing, Mr. Horwein." Shirley began to cry again, she was completely beside herself.

"We have sent you a telegram to that effect. Letters and contracts will be sent tomorrow."

Now You have judged us, God. Then You are not angry with us. Or You don't exist. Now nothing and no one can change my plan.

"I'm looking forward to working with you, Mr. Jordan. My regards to Kostasch and the Wilson Brothers. I'll be seeing you soon in Germany. We wish you good luck. You can make your movie."

13

"You cannot make your movie, Mr. Jordan," said Natasha Petrovna. The rain was beating furiously against the windows of my hotel suite. Slowly I sat down on the side of my bed.

"You are very ill. You cannot make your movie, Mr. Jordan." I was staring at her and she pushed her glasses into place. "You have suffered a serious collapse. Your body and your nervous system have been damaged."

"By alcohol?"

"By alcohol. I can imagine how you must feel..."

"ReaUy?"

"... but as your doctor I must warn you emphatically. Your heart has suffered. Your liver is damaged."

"Then what ought I to do. Doctor?"

"You must stop drinking. Immediately. That is the most important thing."

"Idon'tthmklcan."

"You will with some help."

"You mean ... in an institution?'*

"In a clinic."

"No. I won't go."

"If you don't stop drinking the alcohol will kill you or—"

"Or?"

"—or destroy your brain," she said.

I thought of the dead seagull which had disappeared, of the terrible fear I had experienced. I was silent.

"Naturally you need specialists now. You have to get x-rays, cardiograms, blood and liver tests and so on." She touched her glasses, I could see she felt sorry for me. "One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty based on my own examination: If you are not going to change your life right away you will have only a short time to live. And during that time you will be utterly miserable."

The telephone rang. The desk told me a Mrs. Gottesdie-ner was waiting to see me.

"I don't know anyone by that name.**

"The lady says she has an appointment."

"Oh, yes." Now I remembered. A lady of that name had sent me letters since I had arrived in Hamburg. She insisted she had something to tell me, to show me. I had not answered the letters at first. Then I had referred her to Jorkos Productions. But she did not give up. Last night, the worse for drink, I had told her when she telephoned again I would see her after breakfast.

"Please tell her I'm sorry but I am too busy to see her. Refer her to Jorkos Productions. They will help her there."

I replaced the receiver and looked at Natasha. The whisky I had drunk had slowed down my reactions. Slowly I realized the position I was in.

"But that's impossible. I have never had the slightest problems."

"Of all poisons alcohol is the most insidious. Your body has withstood it for twenty years. Now it has deteriorated."

"But I feel fine again."

"You have been drinking, too. You are very ill and in acute danger, please believe me."

"But I must make this movie!" I cried.

"Mr. Jordan, did you have any exceptional excitement last night or this morning?"

I stared at her and nodded.

"Well, it caused this attack. If you are going to make this movie there will be excitement without letup. You told me you were very frightened of a heart attack. This was no heart attack. Not yet. But the next attack will be a heart attack. Most probably you will recover. Most people survive the first infarction. Not many survive the second."

"And . .. and if I go to a clinic ... how long will it be before I am healthy again?"

"You want to hear the truth?"

"Naturally."

"Nine months."

'^ou could be wrong."

"Unfortunately, no. Any third-year medical student would make the same diagnosis."

The telephone rang.

"This is the desk again, Mr. Jordan. Mrs. Gottesdiener asks if you could not see her for even ten minutes. She says everything depends on her talking with you."

"Tell her to go away! Do you understand me? Tell her to leave me alone. And don't call me again!"

14

Any third-year medical student.

That was the death sentence. Only Natasha Petrovna did not know that. She had examined me today. Tomorrow I was to be examined by the doctor employed by the movie insurance company. If every medical student could see what was wrong with me he would see it too. And would advise his insurance company not to insure me. My life was ruined.

Staring at Natasha Petrovna my thoughts were running rampant. Today was the twenty-seventh of October. The appointment for the examination was for the twenty-ninth at nine o'clock. The insurance would then have been in effect—according to Kostasch's planning—for me, for the American actress Belinda King, for Henry Wallace and our director Thornton Seaton from midnight, the first of November. The fourth was to be the first day of shooting. We would have been covered by insurance against illness or death of one of the main actors or our director. We would have been.

I suddenly seemed to hear little Jerome Wilson's voice, "Paragraph fourteen should read, Tn the event the movie Come Back cannot be produced within the specified limits all obligations of the Wilson Brothers will automatically cease. All payments, compensations or indemnities will be to the debit of Jorkos Productions ...' "

It was one week before we were to start shooting. We had rented a studio, equipment, hired actors and actresses, musicians and studio and technical staff. We had to compensate ...

I reached for my glass and emptied it. Jorkos Productions belonged to Kostasch and me. Even if we could make advantageous arrangements, the uninsured film would cost us a million German marks. I did not know if Kostasch had five hundred thousand marks cash. I did not. And there was only one person in the world who had and who was probably willing to give it to me, my wife Joan. My wife Joan, whom I wanted to leave in order finally, completely to possess her daughter. "Mr. Jordan ..."

I jumped. Natasha had spoken. "Excuse me?" "I said, is it not possible to postpone this film?" "We'd lose the people who are financing the movie." "And if—I'm sorry—and if someone else were to play your part?"

"That's not possible either. The movie is the story of

my life. A forty-year-old American, once a famous child star, making a movie in Germany, is given the chance of a comeback. Naturally, the contract is in my name ..." I looked at her quiet, composed face. My words came hurriedly. "My position is desperate ... if I cannot make the movie we'll have to compensate all concerned ... as soon as anything becomes known of my illness people will make outrageous demands ..."

"No one will hear anything from me."

"That is important . . . that is very important. I shall have to talk to my partner now..."

"Is he here in Hamburg?"

"No, unfortunately not. He won't be back until tonight from Diisseldorf—^he is looking for movie locations—that is if he does get back tonight ... he intended to stay until tomorrow . . ." Herbert Kostasch! Desperately I was wishing him back, my imagination credited him with marvelous abilities. Cunning, wisdom, craftiness. He would find a way out with one single great idea. Oh! Herbert Kostasch!

"I won't have to go to a clinic today or tomorrow, will I?'*

"No, but—"

"What I mean is, there is no immediate danger, is there?"

"Not if you rest. Your heart has to rest. You must sleep. You must not drink any more."

"All right. Well, no. You can still look after me for a day or two?"

"Only until tomorrow night. I'm just filling in for a colleague. Saturday I am leaving for the Congo."

"You are going to Africa?"

"Yes. I've signed a contract for five years with the city hospital in LeopoldvUle," she said and behind the thick lenses of her glasses her eyes were shining with contentment and happiness. I thought, it is true then, there are people, not only like me, with dirty secrets and desperate

passions. No, there are others with true purity of soul. People, who set out to help their brothers, black, sick, poor, despised ...

"You must sleep."

"But I have to reach my partner ... I have to telephone ..."

"Not now. If your partner is expected back tonisht you have until five o'clock." She took a box of ampoules from her Uttle bag. "I'm giving you just enough medication so you will be awake then. You cannot have any sedative containing barbiturates. It would put too much strain on your liver. I'll leave word you are not to be disturbed." She filled the ampoule. "I'll come by at eight tonisht to give you an injection for the nieht. I'm doins this providing you are going to stay in bed. Will you promise me that?"

"Yes."

"You give me your word?"

I did.

Suddenly I felt tears running down mv face. T wiped them away. I did not want to cry but the tears kept coming. Natasha was sitting next to me while she filled a syringe with the contents of the ampoule.

"I know how desperate you must feel now. You know there is a proverb in the Congo: The sun sets and rises, but our misery remains."

"Nice proverb. Thanks a lot."

"A false proverb, Mr. Jordan. Those people are not miserable any more. They have freed themselves. Soon they will be independent." Natasha reached for a tissue and dried my eyes. Indeed the tears stopped after the gentle, no, strangely tender touch. "Your miserv will disappear when 3'ou free yourself of your need to drink."

I looked at her.

"You think you cannot manage your life. That is why you drink. But if you change your way of livine you will be able to live normally. Then you will make movies

again, have confidence and be happy. And remember what I said. Please, turn over on your side ..."

She gave me the injection, shook my hand, smiled reassuringly and left. I felt myself growing tired. The storm continued to howl, the rain to beat down. And shp-ping into this chemically induced sleep I had only one thought.

And if I have to commit a crime to get that insurance coverage, and if they have to take me to the studio every morning on a stretcher, and if I die before the cameras—^I am going to make this movie. I, no one else. Now and not later. Addicted to alcohol, yes, and ill, yes—^now, not when I may be cured—yes, I'm going to make this movie. My movie. Now.

You, Professor Pontevivo, can probably easily imagine what a man, his existence threatened by destruction, is capable of. Your beautiful young assistant could probably understand the worst deed a woman would do if another one took her love. But neither of you, dear Professor Pontevivo, can imagine (not in the least and not in your wildest dreams!) what an actor, whose last chance of acting, after waiting half a lifetime for it, is likely to do.

Actors are not ordinary people. Their profession alone (surely that of writers too) is a continual provocation to any psychiatrist. Does an ordinary person take on a thousand different faces, does a normal person feel a thousand curious pains and desires, impulses and thoughts, speak convincingly the words another wrote, is a thousand different people in one but never himself?

The actor's profession demands that he be schizoid. And what of him who is prevented from acting?

I have seen, in Hollywood and elsewhere, what happens when those players, those actors are kept away from the studio, from the stage. I am my best example. I began to drink. Others became criminal, addicted to drugs, insane. Some killed themselves. A beautiful woman— celebrated star of the Roaring Twenties, finished with the

advent of sound movies—undressed at large parties and gave herself to anyone who reached out for her, and everybody had to watch, evervbndv. She was not given any part to play. She then created her own role. Appear in public! To have an audience! Being seen! The most shameless whore does not possess one thousandth the urge of exhibition which even the most insignificant actor has.

I was an actor. And mv existence was nullified if I did not make this movie. And mv love was destroyed. Did I make myself quite clear. Professor Pontevivo? Can you measure the decree of detprmination to make this movie, even if it would mean mv death, or if I had to commit a crime to secure insurance roverpge for our DT^oduction? I was determined. All I did not know was: Determined to do whpt'' "^welve hours b^*"^ T v^ew—t^hanks to a white-haired old lady by the name of Gottesdiener.