Unity (13 page)

Given that he’s on holiday, you would have thought that he’d want to take a break from politics, but this interminable
kidnapping
seems to have given him carte blanche to spout all kinds of hackneyed slogans about Western decadence and capitalist
corruption
(oops, sorry! I forgot that they’re the same thing). Fliss hangs on his every word or, at any rate, pretends to. I even overheard her telling him how she narrowly escaped being sent down for throwing a bucket of paint at Eysenck
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when he came to deliver his Senate House lecture. When I pointed out that this was a lie – the heroine of the hour was Susie Philbeach
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– she was unrepentant. ‘I’m an actress,’ she said. ‘That’s what actresses do. They appropriate bits from other people in order to build up a character.’ ‘But that’s when they’re playing a role,’ I said, ‘not when they’re being themselves.’

Ahmet, needless to say, was smitten. He must be the sexual equivalent of a champagne socialist. Or does he rationalise his affairs as penetration behind enemy lines? I make no excuses for the pun. I make no excuses for anything. I’m not the one with anything to excuse. I can picture you reading this and thinking ‘Poor Luke, he’s paranoid.’ I don’t blame you. I’d probably feel the same if our positions were reversed. But, by my definition – and I don’t have a dictionary to hand – paranoia is an excessive,
unjustified
fear. Whereas anyone who saw Fliss and Ahmet together – constantly sharing jokes and whispering secrets – would confirm that my fears were fully justified. And, while I admit that
Geraldine
usually makes up a third, you of all people should know that Fliss has always preferred to conduct her romances in company.

The person who seems to be happiest about what has happened is Wolfram. I’ll return to him later, but then you’re so quick, I expect that you’ve already guessed what’s coming. Given his
relationship
to Ahmet, it’s as if he’s able to keep everything in the family: that extended – no, convoluted – family that he has built up around himself. He has long wanted to separate Fliss and me: to make us singly and jointly dependent on him. Now, through his boyfriend’s brother, he has. What’s more, he and Fliss will be collaborating more closely than ever since he has taken over as Hitler: a role to which, according to some of the company (no names, no leaks to the press), he is ideally suited. Having burdened you with all my domestic woes – almost as one-sided as sending you a Wedding List – I’m somewhat reluctant to add an account of the on-set battles, but I’m afraid that disasters don’t arrive neatly spaced out, one per letter, with a cheery piece of trivia at the close, like the nine o’clock news.

The big bust-up actually took place about ten days ago – although precise dates have been obscured by the intervening drama. Wolfram and Ralf had a tremendous row about the
treatment
of Hitler. You have to understand that Ralf is an intensely serious actor who has devoted his career to the kind of socially aware stage work that Geraldine would tackle if her commitment were sincere. He’d become increasingly miserable about the way that Wolfram was asking him to play the part. The problem was more than one of interpretation: it was one of ownership. Everyone has his personal take on Hitler. He’s one of those figures, like Christ or Hamlet, who can be shoehorned into any number of theories. My own reading, for what it’s worth, is that he was the archetypal outsider, who never felt at home anywhere, in his family or class or country (look at how hard he tried to
reinvent
himself as a German). The only place that he was able to achieve any sense of belonging was in the army during the Great
War – and that had ended in humiliation. So, convinced of his own uniqueness and yet desperate for acceptance, he set about moulding an entire nation to his will.

Ralf, however, disagreed. People might have their own Hamlet, but their own Hitler was a luxury they could not afford. He insisted that his characterisation was based on strict historical analysis. He saw Hitler as the supreme opportunist, who had an uncanny ability to ride the waves of what was happening in Germany in the Twenties: the disillusion of defeat; the curse of unemployment; the misery of inflation; while, as a former corporal, he was perfectly placed to appeal to the bands of
disaffected
ex-soldiers who were roaming the streets. In Ralf’s view, the emphasis that Wolfram wished to lay on Hitler’s pathology was both titillating and distracting. A focus on psychology as fate could only lead to fatalism. ‘So Hitler’s father used to beat him … so Hitler endured the horrors of war … so Hitler had shameful sexual desires: so what can any of us do?’

I’d have thought that we could start by making sure that fathers don’t beat their children … that men aren’t sent to war … that people are taught not to be ashamed of their desires. But the
question
wasn’t addressed to me.

It was addressed directly to Wolfram, who ignored it. He is unwavering in his conviction that the key to Hitler lies in his sexuality. He sees the same rejection of the Judaeo-Christian code in his private as in his public life. According to Wolfram, sex is where Hitler, like the rest of us, played out his innermost conflicts. In his case, these centred on the deep sense of
uncleanness
that sprang from his fear that he had Jewish blood. Whether or not it was warranted is not the issue. The merest suspicion was enough to defile him. His only relief lay in being shat on. This both confirmed his sense of uncleanness (by giving it a definite object) and purged it. The one person with whom he could satisfy
his craving was his niece, Geli, who was of his blood and therefore implicated, and of his circle and therefore discreet.
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But when she died – either by her own hand or another’s – that outlet was removed. He had no way to deal with his sense of uncleanness except to deflect it – and on a massive scale. To put it crudely, he shat on an entire race.

Whatever the merits of this as a psychological profile – and, to my mind, it says as much about Wolfram as about Hitler, it has considerable drawbacks as the basis of a film. For a start, Geli was long dead by the time that Unity arrived in Munich (and, with all due respect to Fliss,
Blithe Spirit
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it ain’t). Moreover, while it’s perfectly easy to write ‘Geli shits on Hitler’ (I’ve done so myself, albeit under protest), it’s far harder to shoot it and to shoot it in such a way that the audience is alive to the meaning and not just to the disgust. Wolfram’s solution is to show Hitler alone in his flat, unlocking the room that he has kept, Queen Victoria-like, as a shrine to his dead love. He picks up his sketchbook and leafs through the drawings of Geli squatting over his face. At which point, the screen dissolves into a re-enactment.

Ralf refused point-blank to play the scene. Wolfram retorted that he had thereby broken his contract. Neither of them backed down. The end result is that Ralf has been fired and Wolfram has taken over the role. This, according to several of his friends, is
precisely the outcome that he had always intended. Why else, they ask – I merely record – did he cast an outsider? Why else, after three weeks of filming in Munich, has he shot so few of Ralf’s scenes, and most of them in close-up? (Werner calculates that the entire reshoot will take no more than four or five days). And yet even I wouldn’t accuse him of going to such lengths in order to indulge his love of intrigue. The truth is that, in spite of his considerable experience as an actor, it would have been far harder to finance the project if he had proposed to appear on both sides of the camera. This way he has left the backers no choice. They either go ahead with him or lose an already substantial
investment
. So he has had his way with the minimum of pain to all concerned – except Ralf.

The shit stays. And I fear that it may grow worse. The other day, he expressed a fascination with the treatment of the 20th July conspirators. In the course of being hanged – strung up, in Hitler’s own phrase, ‘like carcasses of meat’ – their trousers were pulled down to expose their erections. ‘I can’t shake that image from my head,’ he confessed. I reminded him that the executions didn’t take place until the last year of the War and that, besides, there was no proof that Hitler himself had ever watched the film that was made. ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I’d have liked to have incorporated it in the script.’

Assuming a worldly-wise air, he assured me that no one would ever understand life – let alone Hitler – who failed to understand the universal human need to inflict pain. I wondered (aloud) whether it were universal and not uniquely German, considering that even their folk-dances require them to deal each other hearty slaps.
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Dieter, who makes no secret of his inclinations, claimed that, if there were any national influence, it was religious rather than racial. ‘Sado-masochism,’ he declared, ‘is the supreme
Protestant ethic, embodying the belief that pleasure can only be achieved through pain.’

I suspected that their outlook might have more to do with their sexuality: that gay men (yes, I know: I except you and Socrates and Michelangelo) live without rules, free to explore their dark sides like mercenaries at a massacre. I remembered your saying that the reason so many of them were attracted to
sadomasochism
was that they had no children on whom to vent their aggression.
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So I told Wolfram that it was he, in fact, who failed to understand the universal human need for tenderness. But, when I added that my own preferences could be summed up in the phrase ‘making love’, he replied with scorn ‘And I expect you only eat the breast-meat of chicken.’

There’s more. I intend to tell you everything because you’re an integral part of it, in spite of not being here … although, if you were, I’m sure that none of this mess would have happened. What you must bear in mind is how low I was feeling after the break-up with Fliss. She’d gone to stay at the Four Seasons and I was alone in the flat. I’d been on set for fourteen hours. I could hardly keep my eyes open and yet the last thing that I wanted was to go to bed. I said ‘no’ to dinner with Dora since I couldn’t bear to face anyone, least of all myself. Then the door-bell rang and my mind was made up for me. Wolfram and Dieter announced that they had come to take me to a club. Even though the only dance that I felt up to was the limbo, I agreed to go.

Wolfram promised me that the club catered for both men and women. What he neglected to say was that the women were
exclusively
lesbians. Still, if nothing else, it appealed to my self-disgust.
There were two brightly lit podia. On one, a lip-synching drag queen was proving that imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it’s the most bogus form of art. On the other, a
waiflike
boy was gyrating, as though under hypnosis, dressed in nothing but his underpants and a coil of barbed wire.

After a few minutes, even disgust failed to sustain me and I wanted to leave. At which point Wolfram handed me some LSD. You see, it’s not just on screen that he replays Faust … No, that’s too easy. I’m a free agent; there’s no one to blame but myself. ‘This will take you into a whole new dimension,’ he swore. (If you scratch off the Tipp-Ex, you’ll find
dementia
. I should have let it stand.) ‘It peels off the layers of consciousness. With one leap, you’ll attain a level of transcendence that would take the most devout Buddhist years.’ Fired by his words and the belief that a single tab couldn’t harm me when he must already have
swallowed
a fistful, I gulped it down. I felt nothing apart from a smarting beneath my eyelids. Then I suddenly turned to catch sight of Neptune, ten foot tall and crowned with seaweed, acknowledging the obeisance of the crowd. What was strange was that he didn’t frighten or even inhibit me but, rather, encouraged me to dance on … to dance faster … to do nothing but dance.

My skin grew slick with sweat so, at Wolfram’s suggestion, I tore off my shirt. My strip was greeted by a chorus of wolf-
whistles
. I had no idea whether they were genuine or ironic. Nor did I care.

All at once the room darkened, and I was gripped by a sensation of burning coldness, as if I were buried in snow. I found myself facing a bearded biker, his jacket open to the waist. I watched in horror as a golden eagle swooped down from the rafters and pecked at his chest. But, instead of writhing in agony, he stood grinning widely and raised his mug to salute me. I realised that he was high on drugs – and not just him but the entire club. I alone had sufficient self-possession to see. I tried to shout a warning but
I couldn’t formulate the words, so I ran towards him waving my arms. When the bird failed to take flight, I made a grab for it. My main concern was to prevent it reaching his heart.

The next thing I knew was that the smarting in my eyes had grown worse and my face was dripping with beer. All around me were shouts and scuffles as people rushed to part us, but the only sound that I registered was the malignant wheeze of Wolfram’s laugh. I fell back as Neptune raised his trident over my head. Then he disappeared and I disintegrated. Wolfram laughed louder, while the room spun into a blank.

The following day, I was plunged into the most searing despair when Wolfram explained to me that the eagle had been tattooed on the man’s chest. I should have listened to Sir Hallam when he maintained that the most important lesson he’d learnt in nearly fifty years in the business was never to trust a director who sniffed.

Your sadder but wiser (a lot sadder and a little wiser) pal,

Luke.

8 München 40,

Giselastrasse 23,

West Germany

14th Oct 1977

Dear Michael,

At the risk of sounding like Sir Hallam, there was a legendary production of
Dr Faustus
where, in the scene where Faustus conjures up devils, an extra one appeared unbidden on stage. Now you may argue that the actor was a little the worse for sack or that one of the company was playing a trick on him, but what if it actually happened?
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Given the common belief that we can invoke the forces of good (I’m choosing my abstractions carefully) when we pray, why shouldn’t we do the same with the forces of evil? Suppose that Wolfram is right about the energy preserved in
buildings
and that, by restoring the Nazi leaders to their original settings, we are somehow unleashing their spirits?