Unity (14 page)

And no, Mr Liberal Humanist, I haven’t flipped – nor have I taken any more of Wolfram’s acid. If drugs, in the words of my would-be pusher, are art for the people (‘now everyone can compose symphonies in their heads; now everyone can fly around the Sistine chapel’), then I am an unabashed elitist. I’m merely trying to account for the sense of total enervation that permeates the set, as though we were stranded at Gatwick Airport. Faces are tense and tempers frayed. Even Sir Hallam, hitherto the soul of courtesy, berated one of the assistants because his tea was cold. Meanwhile, it’s paranoia city, as rumour and gossip run rife and no one is spared. For my own part, I’m convinced that Wolfram is
shunning me. Perverse as it sounds, I’m beginning to hanker for the days of gropes and innuendoes. It’s as though he lost interest in me the moment he found that I could be seduced (by the drugs, I mean).

To make matters worse, there appears to be no end to this kidnapping crisis. The whole country is in a state of siege. I’ve tried to black it from my mind (my personal version of
Callaghan
’s cancelled trip
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), but it has even intruded on set. Wolfram’s radical sympathies are well-known (or, at any rate, they’re taken for granted), nevertheless it came as a shock when last week, in the middle of shooting a scene at the Munich
fasching
, he was hauled off for questioning by the police. It seems that
Bild
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has accused him of supplying money to various terrorist groups and he is now some sort of suspect. Of course, he could reveal nothing about Schleyer’s whereabouts, but the
investigation
has left him vulnerable. Having received death threats, he is now demanding protection from the very police force he was recently reviling. Meanwhile, he has hired two bodyguards whom – you have to hand it to him – he has kitted out as SS officers and roped in as extras.

He has the luck of the Devil. Despite all the upheaval, Ralf’s departure turns out to have been a blessing. In contrast to Wolfram and the other cheque-book socialists, Ralf has been harbouring a suspected terrorist in his house – although, given the current hysteria, the term could refer to any girl who danced with Baader at a disco ten years ago. I must confess to feeling torn. On the one hand, an actor’s job is to give life to people, not to blow them up. On the other, Ralf is at least prepared to stand by his
beliefs, however misguided – in contrast not just to Wolfram, but to a certain Geraldine Mortimer, who felt that her wearing a white headband
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to a Hollywood premiere was a scorching protest against the American presence in Vietnam. The moment they heard the news of Ralf’s arrest, both Geraldine and Felicity tried to mobilise the cast in an attempt to put pressure on the
government
. Oh yes, I thought, and perhaps they should march on Bonn in their uniforms to make a point.

Still, who would have thought it of Ralf? It just goes to show that you can never be sure of anyone, not even your best friend.

Meanwhile, the authorities are clearly determined to make Wolfram squirm. Yesterday, after two more visits to the set, they returned to search his house. Although they must have found enough drugs to warrant several charges, their sole concern was the gun that was hidden in Ahmet’s room. Conclusions were reached – not to say jumped to (remember, we’re talking
Palestinian
here) – only to be refuted by Felicity, who admitted, first, to sharing the room (so much for the Four Seasons!) and, then, to having pinched the gun from the set. While her story was easily verified – it was precisely the type of 1930s pistol that had been issued to various Nazis – her logic took longer to explain. And, no, it wasn’t to protect herself from Ahmet’s unwelcome advances (the last remaining straw slipped from my grasp), but rather to spice up their sex life. Freud would have a field day! I only have it at second-hand but, when the officers pressed her to elucidate, she reputedly declared that there was ‘nothing so thrilling as to force a man to make love to you at gunpoint.’

That’s news to me. She never suggested anything of the sort during the four years we were together. Which is just as well, because she knows what I would have replied! It’s sick. And, what’s more, it isn’t Fliss. She can’t have changed that much in a
single week. Am I the only person who still wants to make love normally, that is, as Nature intended, with nothing between us but skin?

Ever since the search, Felicity has been looking insufferably smug, as if she has yet again demonstrated her superiority over ‘the little people’. I want to warn her that the German police aren’t as easily fooled as the Girton porters. I don’t trust Ahmet. I’m afraid that he may be playing a very dangerous game and the one who really has a gun to her head is Fliss. But I can’t say anything. I have no basis for my suspicions other than his being a Palestinian – a word with such negative associations that it is almost taboo. So how should I proceed? Have a quiet word in the ear of a German inspector? ‘On what do you base your
accusations
, Mr Dent?’ ‘Only stereotypes, I’m afraid.’ ‘Stereotypes, splendid. Pull up a chair. Have a glass of schnapps. You’re a man after my own heart.’

Whatever else may be blinding Felicity to Ahmet’s intentions, it isn’t love. She admitted to me, ‘now that we can talk to one another openly and freely’ (at least she had the grace to refrain from ‘rationally’), that it’s Wolfram on whom she has set her heart. Yes, you did read that correctly. Despite every provocation, my hand is steady on the keys. She professes to have been smitten with him from the first evening in Edinburgh but to have told herself that it was hero-worship, born of her deep admiration for his films (Who is she trying to kid? Doesn’t she remember ‘like Thomas Mann but without the jokes’?). She quickly realised, however, that her feelings were genuine. It was only because (wait for it) she had never known such passion that she had been
suspicious
of it. At first, she had felt doubly miserable, seeing Wolfram living with Mahmoud and pining for me but, as time went by, her perspective changed. She came to realise that she was privileged just to be near him, to work alongside him, to know that there was a man like that in the … in her world.

Besides, she hasn’t given up hope of their becoming lovers. ‘But Wolfram’s queer!’ I exclaimed. I’m sorry, but there are times when you can’t mince words – perhaps the Germans put it best with their
warmer Bruder
. ‘Bisexual,’ she replied, flooding me with the full force of her contempt. She seizes on his occasional lapses like a schoolboy wading through
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
for the glimpse of a
fuck
. ‘Look at Renate!’ she said. Whereupon I’m afraid that I laughed. I was amazed that she could take heart from a woman who is known to have ruined herself paying for his
male
prostitutes. She added that she considered Wolfram’s gayness to be a pose (so, at least, she has some insight into his character), on a par with his workman’s clothes and irregular washing (‘refusing to uphold society’s hypocritical standards of hygiene’ was her precise phrase). It was his ultimate ‘fuck you’ to the world. ‘Only he’s not,’ I said. ‘Not what?’ she asked. ‘Fucking you.’

She claimed to have Unity to thank for teaching her that a woman can be blissfully happy even when there is no possibility of consummating her love. And, the moment she said that, I understood her relationship with Ahmet. Just as Unity slept with his adjutants in order to consolidate her position with Hitler, so Fliss is doing the same.
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While it may seem perverse to sleep with the brother of her gay friend’s boyfriend (I’m not even sure if I’ve got the relationships right), it’s clear that, when it comes to logic, there’s good sense, there’s nonsense, and then there’s Felicity. You were wise to that from the start. I remember when, after our first lunch at the Eros (you’ve no idea how I long for moussaka and chips for three), you told me how much you liked her but
cautioned me against becoming too involved. She said that … well let’s just say that she cast aspersions on your motives. Now I know which one of you had my best interests at heart.

Enough reminiscences! I’m neglecting my duties as location correspondent which, on the evidence of your letters, is my forte. I’m not the only one to have been swept up in an off-set drama. So, if you’re tired of my
nouvelle vague
weepie (although, to do it full justice, the Anglo-German dialogue would need to be dubbed into French), I can offer you several alternatives: Sir Hallam Bamforth and Gerald Mortimer in a black comedy; Geraldine Mortimer in a political thriller; Henry Faber in a historical epic.

I don’t suppose that I’ve said much – if anything – about Henry. He’s the quintessential character actor: efficient on set;
unassuming
off it. All of which made his outburst the other day doubly disturbing. We were shooting a scene between Göring and Unity in which he expresses his allegiance to the Nazi cause, using what must be the most chilling words in the entire script (an authentic phrase for which I can claim no credit): ‘I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolf Hitler.’ To Wolfram’s mounting impatience, the usually word-perfect Henry was floundering. Tension was heightened by their use of the interpreter, a blatant absurdity given that Henry’s pretence to understand no German is as transparent as Wolfram’s to speak no English. Finally, Wolfram strode on to the set, grabbed Henry by the shoulder and hissed the line in his ear. Henry flung him aside and, white with fury, told him never again to address him like that – not when he was wearing those clothes. Wolfram looked at himself. We all looked at Wolfram. Suddenly, the problem was clear. Ever since he took over from Ralf, Wolfram has been directing the film in full Führer costume and make-up. What, for the rest of us, has been a curious anomaly (especially when he trails on his hands and knees in the wake of the camera) has, for Henry, been an agonising reminder.

What followed revealed Wolfram at his best, as he tore off his moustache and hair-piece and hugged Henry. He asked him if he wanted to take a break. ‘Not at all,’ Henry replied, as though ashamed of having surrendered to his emotions. Then, in a silence that was unusually intense, he gave a faultless rendition of the scene. Meanwhile, my attention was gripped by Thomas (the backer), who sat in the shadows, watching Henry’s outburst as though it had been scripted. He has a singular detachment which makes him seem an outsider, not just from the film-crew, but from humanity itself. Showing none of Henry’s misgivings, he is happy to lunch with a fully made-up Wolfram as if they were in the Osteria Bavaria rather than the
Bavaria
canteen. Do you suppose the difference may be that, having survived Auschwitz, Thomas has been purged of the horror whereas, for Henry, it remains unresolved?

In case you think I am being fanciful, there are grounds for such speculation. After the take, we went back to the communal trailer (which, for all Geraldine’s grumbles, does generate intimacy). I learnt more about Henry in the next hour than I had in the preceding three weeks. What I hadn’t realised was that this was his first visit to Germany since he left in 1935. He had been an up-and-coming actor in Berlin when the rise of the Nazis prevented him from obtaining work. ‘But I wasn’t surprised. If Bruno Walter was forbidden to give concerts: if Otto Klemperer was forced to retire, what hope could there be for me?’
Nevertheless
, like so many of his coreligionists, he’d been prepared to sweat it out until, one day, he woke up to the fact that his
position
had become untenable. ‘A law was passed banning Jewish doctors not just from treating any but Jewish patients, but from dissecting any but Jewish corpses. When I discovered that we could even corrupt the dead, I knew that there was no longer any place here for me.

‘The truth wasn’t that the Germans – not only those that I knew as friends but the ones that I saw around me – actually believed that the Jews were responsible for all the ills that afflicted the country, but that they elected to believe it. It offered them an escape clause. Sometimes, it’s easier to forgive Hitler than the ordinary Germans in the street. He was, at least, convinced by the filth that he spouted. They chose cynically to endorse it.’

He tried, without success, to persuade the rest of his family to accompany him. Like so many others, they had been lulled into a state of false confidence. Some Jews thought that they were safe because they had been assimilated into a wider society – the Germans had, after all, granted them greater liberty than any other European nation. Some thought that they were safe because either they or their fathers had fought in the Great War, alongside a certain Austrian corporal who had been awarded the military cross. His father, however, thought that he was safe because of God. ‘He believed that the Lord would watch over us in spite of his not very encouraging record.’ I was surprised to see Dora cross herself and wondered whether it were childhood or faith.

Henry was the sole survivor, not just of his immediate or even of his extended family, but of his whole community. ‘The only Bible story that I ever read to my daughters was Noah’s Ark.’ He came to England where he was free, at least until the outbreak of war when he was arrested as an enemy alien and interned. To all practical purposes, the camp was controlled by militant Nazis who treated the Jews with the same savagery as their comrades had on the Continent. The authorities showed little concern for the domestic quarrels of a group of Germans. It was only by considerable subterfuge that he was able to smuggle out a message to a writer with whom he had worked at the BBC. He, in turn, put pressure on the Home Office to secure Henry’s release. For the rest of the War, he enjoyed a schizophrenic existence, broadcasting
anti-Nazi propaganda on the radio and playing German officers in films.

The latter have been the staple of his subsequent career. He is acutely aware of the irony in his having derived a substantial income from playing the very people who slaughtered his family. He has had a particularly close association with Göring, to whom he bears a startling resemblance. If nothing else, this similarity (which proved to be near-fatal on one occasion during the Blitz), holds the lie to Nazi theories of physiognomy. The reason that he accepted the part in
Unity
was not for the challenge of playing his fifth Göring but because, after more than forty years, he felt that it was time for him to return to Germany. But the moment that he stepped off the plane, he realised that it was too soon. The hardest thing for him to accept was the sound of the language all around him. ‘Speaking in English – and thinking in English – was what helped me to forget. I want to thank you for your language. For forty years, German was simply the coin in which I was paid.’