Berlin: A Novel (6 page)

On a restaurant terrace looking over the Wannsee, he ordered the local dish of eel with potatoes and chopped parsley, and a green sauce. They drank Mosel with it. 'Tastes delicious,' she said with her mouth full.

How young she is, he thought.

'What's it like acting in a movie?' she asked.

'Oh, a real test of patience. You sit around for hours in the studio until your moment comes. Then you say a few words to your opposite number - who often isn't even there - and the director makes you repeat it a dozen times until he's satisfied.'

'How do you mean, your opposite number isn't there? You mean away sick?'

He explained. 'You stand there speaking direct to the camera, as if it were your partner. And he or she does the same, answering the camera. Except that by then you're far away in the hairdresser's or somewhere. The director cuts the two takes together.'

'You mean apart,' she corrected him.

'No, together - the cinema has its own language.'

She got the idea. 'You see one actor speaking on screen and another actor answering because the director has stuck the two takes together.'

'Of course there are some takes where you see the whole scene with all the actors. Or the camera pans from side to side, from the top of the frame to the bottom, from a close-up to a long-distance shot, or vice versa. It depends on the screenplay. Do you understand?'

She thought about it. Finally she asked: 'Can I have some more eel?' She consumed her second helping with obvious relish. 'So the separate takes aren't particularly long?'

'When we're in full swing we may shoot for a few minutes on end.'

And if you make a mistake you can just do it again. So nothing can go wrong.'

'You've seen through the trick of it. Would you like an ice for dessert?'

She would. It was extraordinarily erotic to watch the pink tip of her tongue licking the very last of the ice off her spoon. She ate it with rapt attention. 'Where are we going now?' she asked. ready for anything.

'To my place if you like. Or I can take you home if you'd rather.'

'To your place,' she said. Not for the world would she have parted from him now.

Erik de Winter lived in Lietzenburger Strasse, not far from the KurfUrstendamm. Karin marvelled at the bright, elegant rooms, with their Bauhaus furniture and objets d'art. She pointed at an oil painting of a woman. 'She looks rather odd, doesn't she?'

'That's a Pechstein,' he explained. 'Degenerate art, they call it these days. The Minister thinks I should hang the lady somewhere less conspicuous. He checks up on me now and then.'

'You know a minister?'

'Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister for Information and Propaganda. An interesting man who enjoys the company of movie people. He looks in here sometimes when things are getting him down at work. Come on, I'll show you the rest of the apartment.'

The large tiled tub sunk into the marble floor of the bathroom drew cries of delight. 'Oh, may I?' she asked.

He turned the taps on and poured fragrant bath essence into the water before leaving her alone. Karin undressed and climbed into the tub. Deliciously scented foam enveloped her. In high spirits, she squeezed the gigantic bath sponge over her head. 'Come on in, Erik!' she called.

He reappeared in a white dressing gown, carrying a tray with champagne and glasses. He put the tray down beside the tub and let the dressing gown fall to the floor. Not at all embarrassed, she looked up at him, scruti nized his powerful figure. and put her arms out to him. He joined her in the water and took her in his arms, caressing her breasts as he kissed her. She put her hand out to him, becoming bolder. He was aroused. 'Oh, how big you are!' she said naively.

He filled their glasses. She emptied hers in a single gulp, while he sipped. Then he took her by the waist and lifted her up on the edge of the tub. She cried out with pleasure as chilled champagne moistened her mount of Venus. Gently, he parted her thighs and buried his face in her sex. A heavenly feeling announced itself, grew stronger, hardly bearable until she reached orgasm.

He knelt down in front of her. 'Look,' he told her. '1 want you to see everything.' Carefully, he penetrated her, and the sight was so new and so exciting that she didn't even notice the pain.

Only when he had carried her from the bathroom to his bed, dripping wet, and had discreetly put on a condom did he let himself come too. He found an apt and willing pupil that sultry August afternoon in Berlin.

Twilight was falling. The scent of roses wafted in through the open window from the Olivaer Platz. A late blackbird sang. From far away came the first faint rumbling of a thunderstorm. Exhausted and happy, they lay side by side. Karin rolled over, propped her chin on his chest. 'Erik?'

'Yes, darling?'

'Erik -- I want to be in the movies too.'

'Ladies, ladies. This is not a scene in Bedlam were acting, this is a Prussian girls' boarding school. A little calm and discipline, please,' called Conrad Jung, the director. Jung was an energetic, grey-haired man of medium height in his forties. He clapped his hands. The young actresses sitting on the benches fell silent.

The man with the clapperboard stepped in front of the camera and trumpeted: 'Love and Duty. scene eighty-six, take twenty, third shot!' He let the clapperboard sink. Slowly, the camera moved towards the school benches. Karin was sitting half concealed in the second row, wearing an apron and wrapover dress in the style of 1914 and bending over her exercise book like the other girls. She slid to the left to get into the picture.

'Stop!' cried Jung in annoyance. 'You there in the second row!'

'My name is Karin Rembach, not "you there",' Karin answered.

'Stay where you are and keep looking at your exercise book, please, Fraulein Rembach. We're shooting for a full half minute, in case you hadn't noticed.'

Karin rose to her feet. 'He didn't strike the clapperboard together, so I thought the camera wasn't rolling.'

'Sit down. Take, please.' Karin remained on her feet. 'What is it now?'

'Wouldn't it be a good idea for the schoolmistress to call me up in front of the class, and then as I stand up I point out of the window in surprise, because Captain von Stechow is riding up?'

'Well, well, did you all hear that? Fraulein Rembach has taken over as director.' Everyone laughed. 'Erik, you landed me with this natural talent, what do you think?'

Erik de Winter was standing to one side. He wasn't on camera for another two takes. He wore the uniform of a cavalry captain in the Yellow Lancers. 'Well, it's a fact, Kalle didn't strike the clapperboard. And I don't think Fraulein Rembach's suggestion is at all bad. You should try it, Conrad.'

'Very well, then let's do the thing properly. La Rembach doesn't just stand up, she tells us what she sees outside, so that we less gifted mortals will know what's going on. Perhaps our star will be good enough to compose her own speech?' He laid the sarcasm on as thick as sour cream.

Karin sat down, looked at her exercise book and then raised her head to look at the schoolmistress, who wasn't in the shot. 'Yes, Fraulein von Ilmen?' She rose to her feet, glanced at the window, looked to the front, realized in surprise who it was she had just seen, and turned her head to the window again. 'Fritz,' she said quietly, a trace of yearning in her voice, and corrected herself at once. 'Captain von Stechow.'

'Not bad,' Jung conceded. 'So why does this schoolgirl call the cavalry captain by his first name?'

'So the audience will guess that Ulrike's in love with him.'

'We'll shoot it again,' Conrad Jung decided.

'He called me "La Rembach",' said the delighted Karin at midday in the canteen.

'You impressed him, although he'll never admit it. You impressed me too. You were really good, no doubt about it.'

'If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be here in Babelsberg.' She raised Erik's hand to her lips. Her moist tongue licked his palm, sending a thrill right through him.

'Conrad owed me a little favour.'

She dropped his hand. 'Is he a good director?'

'He learned his trade as assistant to Fritz Lang, and after Lang had left the country he made a name for himself making some battle movies at the UfA studios. Crowd scenes are his strong point, so he's highly thought of these days. His next project is a big historical film about Queen Louise.'

Karin took a hearty bite of her bockwurst. 'Who's playing the Queen?'

'They're thinking of La Hielscher, but she probably isn't Aryan enough for the Minister.'

'What's he like in private life?'

'Jung? A family man. Five children. Malicious tongues say he and Goebbels are in competition in that department.'

'Would you like to have children?'

'You need to be married for that.'

'Yes?'

'Listen, darling.' He avoided her question. 'I'm shooting with Will Forst at the Rosenhdgel. You and I won't see each other for a couple of months.'

'What, a whole couple of months? Then I don't mind if you find a girl among the extras in Vienna,' she joked, covering up her disappointment.

As they were passing the cutting room on the way back to the hall, they heard marching music blaring from the loudspeakers, which were usually kept silent so that sound recordings could go ahead. The German Army was on its way to Poland.

'Erik, do I look Aryan enough?' she asked.

He knew what she was getting at. 'You're as blonde as they come, tall and slim too - and very beautiful. But don't cherish false hopes. Conrad Jung doesn't cast beginners. You've a long way to go yet. Shall we meet this evening?'

He had found Karin a small apartment on the Hohenzollerndamm, on the corner of Mansfelder Strasse, where he visited her as often as he could. She cooked with enthusiasm, and he often stayed the night. But best of all were their love-feasts in his marble bathroom.

'No time,' she told him. She lay awake until long after midnight, thinking. Nadja Horn echoed Erik in different words. 'Well, yes, you've tricked your way into this little speaking part. And I'll hand it to you, you did it very cleverly. But it doesn't make you an actress just like that. Finish drama school, learn the classic roles, and if you're good success will come of itself. So long as those brown goblins don't wreck everything first.' Nadja made no secret of her opinion of the National Socialists. She poured more tea. Are you happy with him, child?'

'He's the best man in the world. Nadja - what did Queen Louise look like?'

'Since when have you been so interested in history?'

'Since Conrad Jung started planning a movie about her.'

'Oh, don't start on about that again. Put it out of your mind.'

'Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of Frederick William III of Prussia. Born 1776. Mother of Frederick William IV and William I. Napoleon was greatly impressed by her noble bearing after his victory over Prussia.' Karin had been reading her up in the big Brockhaus encyclopaedia. 'She must have been very beautiful,' she said dreamily. 'She died when she was only thirtysix. I look older than I am, don't I?'

'What are you planning?'

Karin had thought it all out. 'Jung will be shooting Love and Duty for three more weeks. Then he'll be cutting the film. During that time he'll go home to his family on the Scharmiitzelsee only on Saturdays and Sundays. He'll be staying in town during the week. He has an apartment on Lehniner Platz, right behind the Comedians' Cabaret. I'm going to pay him a surprise visit there in the character of Louise. Will you help me, Nadja?'

'You're out of your mind.'

'But what could happen? He can only throw me out!'

Nadja Horn never drank sweet tea, but now she put sugar cube after sugar cube in her cup. After the sixth cube she burst into a peal of laughter. 'That's the craziest story of the year,' she gasped. 'Let's rope in Manon Arens,' she added, quietening down.

Marion Arens was a hunchbacked, elderly spinster who had been costume designer at the Schauspielhaus since time immemorial. An Empire line dress, pale blue trimmed with grey,' she decided, and found her visitors just the thing among the stock costumes, with all its accessories. 'Good luck, little one,' she chuckled, looking up at Karin, who towered above her.

Roland-Roland, star hairdresser at the Komische Oper, did the historic hairstyle and diadem. He paid a special visit to Nadja's apartment. He had not been let in on the secret. Have fun at your fancy dress party,' he said to Karin.

Nadja looked Karin over. You make an enchanting young queen,' she pronounced, as if sizing up a racehorse. She put a long black evening cloak around her protegee's shoulders. 'Karin Rembach doesn't suit you. You need a new name.'

'Verena van Bergen,' Karin suggested. 'Remember?'

'Of course I remember. Right, why not Verena van Bergen? It sounds Aryan and aristocratic. Just what those brown goblins like. Break a leg, my dear.'