Unity (5 page)

To make matters worse, she was having her period. Count
yourself
lucky that all you have to worry about is a stubbly cheek. Now I know why my mother’s ‘headaches’ were so violent. Fliss’s are even worse. After three years, I’m an expert. The pattern’s always the same. The first day, she grows listless and lumpish as if there were a great weight bearing down on her. She withdraws further and further into herself. Then, when the bleeding starts, she becomes wildly exhilarated, as if she’d defeated Nature for another month – and so successfully that she needs no one else. Suffice it to say, sex is not on the cards. When I told her that I wasn’t squeamish, she looked at me as though I’d stepped out of the Stone Age. Perhaps you’re doing the same now. Stupid, isn’t it, to let your happiness be so dependent on another person? If that’s not one of Nature’s design faults, I don’t know what is. At Cambridge, Fliss and I used to feel sorry for you, forever the odd one out – don’t take offence, it was compassion not pity. Now, I think that it ought to be the other way round. You’re the lucky one. Your life isn’t at the mercy of someone else’s nervous system. But then there are compensations. Did you know that, when she’s aroused, her labia form a perfect heart?

‘Back to
Unity
, please!’ I hear you implore. I wonder if that’s the first time the word ‘labia’ has penetrated your sacred halls. Or is it also the Latin for tongue? Are generations of boys desperately trying to commit it to memory with no idea of the pleasures that lie in store? ‘
Unity
!
Unity
!’ Very well. Everything is proceeding according to plan. I’ve handed in the outline and the producers have been formulating budgets. You’ll be pleased to hear that the hunt has been called off. The cost of thirty stunt extras would have been prohibitive. I thought that Wolfram would hit the roof, but he remained unusually calm. Having inserted a scene where Unity goes to a dance with her pet snake draped around her neck (I haven’t dared break the news to Fliss), he has decided to begin with one where she traps mice and feeds them to it live.

I’m currently working on a rough draft, which has to be in by
Christmas. Then, after more script-conferences (i.e. more rewrites), I’ve a deadline of the first of April for the master draft which we take to Cannes, where (great excitement)
The Magic
Mountain
has been chosen for the main competition. There, we hawk the script to actors as well as trying to raise any extra finance and land foreign distribution deals. And yes, you did read that right. It is ‘we’. Yours truly is no humble hack chained to his desk but a fully accredited member of the production team. Then it’s back to Munich for a final fine-tuning (at least in theory), leaving us with a shooting script by June. All things being equal, the cameras should be ready to roll at the end of July.

The plan is for a ten to twelve week shoot, including a fortnight or so in England, although most of the English interiors will be recreated here in the studio, where labour costs are cheaper (I sound like my mother). For the rest, Wolfram aims to use as many of the actual locations as possible. This is partly to ensure
authenticity
but also to test a rather Gothic belief that every building retains a unique energy (I’d have thought that there were some which it would be wiser not to tap into, but never mind). In Munich, this is easier than you might have supposed. While much of the city centre was destroyed during the War, it was rebuilt along its original lines. Besides, as luck would have it, many of the principal Unity sites remain intact. Almost every day, I walk down the Ludwigstrasse, which is where she had her pension and Diana her flat. Having escaped both the bombers and the developers, its blandly symmetrical architecture stretches for miles without a trace of individuality or caprice. Even the four ancient philosophers guarding the library, known for reasons I have yet to fathom as the Three Wise Men, appear to have railway-timetable minds.

The Osteria Bavaria has survived, thinly disguised as the Osteria Italiana. Last week, Wolfram took me there for dinner. I felt a strange mixture of excitement and unease to think that I
was standing in the room in which Unity first met Hitler. It was here that their story – and, in a sense therefore, ours – began. My discomfort increased as he pointed to the corner where Hitler had his permanent table. There, he would sit among his fawning followers and painstakingly study the menu before ordering the inevitable ravioli, accompanied by some equally predictable
by-play
with the waitresses about his expanding girth. I remember how, at Cambridge, you insisted that, unless we made Hitler human, we would absolve the audience of responsibility. But, surely, this was a trait too far? It begins with pasta and ends with the Hitler Cookbook. I no longer felt comfortable about eating there … and, fortunately, I didn’t have to, since as soon as the owner learnt of Wolfram’s presence, he stormed out of the kitchen and ordered us to leave. It seems that one of the early films,
Stadtguerillas
(it was never released in England), featured the restaurant in a less than favourable light. Despite Wolfram’s show of outrage, I think he was secretly flattered. Energy or not, that is one set that will have to be built.

Authentic Third Reich architecture poses a different problem, namely, that there is so little of it left. Knowing your aversion to schlock, I don’t suppose that you’ve seen
The Eagle Has Landed
.
22
Wolfram and Heike are scathing about the opening scene set in a Berlin building with very English sash windows. That grates on German sensibilities the way that Hollywood’s treatment of British history (‘Crusades, crusades, crusades, that’s all you ever think about, Dickie Plantagenet!’
23
) does on ours. The illusion should be easier to sustain given Wolfram’s decision to film in
black and white (‘my two favourite colours’). His aim is both to establish a Thirties style and to prevent the audience from
identifying
too closely with the characters. ‘This is the story of Germany and England not a romantic melodrama.’

All is not lost – or bombed or demolished. In Munich, there are two existing buildings which are perfect for our purposes: the
Haus der Kunst
, now the Museum of Modern Art (I was about to say too modern until I remembered that that was also Hitler’s attitude) and the
Führerbau
, the administrative headquarters where he signed Chamberlain’s ‘piece of paper’ and which is now a music and drama school. In Berlin, the Nazi sites are less
accessible
. If only the Wall had been erected a mile or so to the right (I’m sure it’s a deliberate Commie plot to thwart us!), we could have used the Propaganda Ministry and Göring’s Air Ministry. As it is, we must pin our hopes on a couple of embassies (I think they’re the Spanish and Italian). Meanwhile, there’s the Olympic Stadium, complete with Speer’s original street-lamps, which is run-down but serviceable. Incidentally, the nearby toilets are very popular with men of your persuasion. See, I may be hundreds of miles away, but I still have your interests at heart.
24

I had the chance to explore Berlin for myself when we drove up last week for the premiere of
The Judge
. When I envisaged a future of bright lights and glamorous galas, this was not quite what I had in mind. Let’s just say that it caused a bit of a stink (literally!). I don’t know whether the furore made the English papers, but it was front-page news here. It contained the perfect ingredients: politics and sex; a mixture as inflammatory to the Germans as religion and sex is to us. The film tells the story of a Judge (the title, at least, is straightforward) who is spearheading the fight against
terrorism. While ostensibly leading an exemplary private life, he is locked in a seedy sado-masochistic relationship with his valet. One evening, when his wife and cook are out (the ease with which Wolfram clears the house made me look more kindly on my own contrivances), he summons the valet for a session which hinges on an exchange of identities. When the doorbell rings, the valet, whose new role is only robe-deep, hurries to answer it. He is shot by two terrorists avenging their imprisoned comrades. As the Judge tries frantically to reclaim his clothes, his neighbours, drawn by the gunfire, discover him. In the ensuing scandal, he is forced to resign. His wife leaves him and his children disown him. Meanwhile, the terrorists are split between those who view the valet as a capitalist lackey fully deserving his fate and those who mourn him as an innocent dupe of the ruling class.

The film similarly polarises its audience. For weeks, journalists have been fabricating a controversy. They weren’t to be
disappointed
. In spite of a heavy police presence, a group of protestors infiltrated the hall. One found her way to the projection-box and, overpowering the projectionist, disrupted the film with a series of slides which denounced both it and its director as, by turn, trivial, corrupt, reactionary and bourgeois (remind you of anyone?). Meanwhile, her friends had let off a string of stink-bombs (a choice of weapon which betrays their cast of mind). Fearing that this was a dummy run for something lethal, the audience fled. I tried to commiserate with Wolfram, only to find him looking
jubilant
(which I initially attributed to drugs). ‘The film is strong,’ he explained, ‘and, now, it will reach many more people.’ Which does, indeed, seem to be the case. Last week, the cinema owners, in between wrangling with the distributors over the bill for
additional
security, ordered thirty new prints. When it opened yesterday in Munich there were queues stretching right around the block.

We missed a trick when we were publicising
Unity
. We should have hired protest groups to accuse us of whitewashing Hitler. I say ‘trick’ because it has become increasingly difficult to dismiss Renate’s claim that Wolfram engineered the whole brouhaha himself. I wouldn’t put it past him. Besides which, connections between the actors and the Red Army Faction go back a long way, to the communes and anti-war movement of the Sixties. Wolfram may have loudly – though not persuasively – dissociated himself from the terrorists, but it wouldn’t be hard for him to mobilise their support.

I find it strange to be among people of such strong convictions. Most of my Cambridge friends thought politics were for our parents. Most of my Munich ones think that politics are about their parents. No wonder Wolfram said that the English liked their governments as tepid as their tea. Maybe I’m doing you an
injustice
and you’ve been a closet activist for years … The nearest I came was when I canvassed for Wilson at the ’74 election. I still cringe at the memory of visiting one council estate. The
archetypal
little old lady opened the door and I went into my spiel about the need to vote Labour. ‘I’d like to, my dear,’ she said, ‘but, you know, I’m doing so much better under Mr Heath.’ (I think he’d put a few pence on the pension.) ‘That’s all very well,’ I said, ‘but what about the country as a whole?’ I can’t recall her reply, but I’m ashamed to think that it was polite.

Do you ever feel so full of self-disgust that you want to slash yourself? Of course not. You lead such a worthwhile life. I can picture you now, shepherding a group of well-scrubbed boys on a nature walk or a trip to the county museum: opening their minds; moulding their characters; forging the citizens of tomorrow. And perhaps I shall achieve something similar through my writing. Do you remember Brewer, lecturing on Lawrence, pounding his fist like a latter-day John Knox? ‘People who do not read are people
unable to base their moral judgements on imaginative
engagement
with others.’ Maybe the same holds true of people who don’t watch films.

Or is that the ultimate writer’s fantasy: the fantasist’s final delusion? Which question, oh keeper of the conscience, I pass to you.

         Ever your devoted pal,

                     Luke.

Hotel Majestic,

14 blvd de la Croisette,

06400 Cannes,

Côte d’Azur,

France

20th May 1977

Mon cher Professeur,

Look carefully at the notepaper (Ouch! Nancy, that hurts!). No, I didn’t steal it. Nor am I Fliss bribing a footman to sneak a stack out of Kensington Palace. It’s provided for the use of guests. Yes, the boy from Khartoum is in Room 212, rubbing shoulders with the great and the good at the Festival. Shall I tell you about candlelit dinners with Jane Fonda? Well, no, because she isn’t here. But I did stand three fans away from Robert Altman. I was congratulated on my performance in two movies I’d never heard of – one of which I couldn’t pronounce! I’ve even glimpsed a starlet in her natural habitat: topless on the Croisette – no, that isn’t something that the French eat with butter and jam, but the mile or so of prime real estate that we big shots stroll up and down (it’s not who you see but who you’re seen with). To be honest, my view was obscured by the stampede of photographers. I don’t know why they make such a big deal. This is Breast City. If the women were any more décolleté, they’d be appearing at the
Windmill
Theatre.
25

What’s more, as well as the legitimate actors, there’s a large contingent of porn stars. Just writing that sentence makes me realise how easily language can be debased: the traditional
distinction
was between the legitimate stage and Variety. It beats me why the authorities allow them to gather here – at any rate during May. They cheapen what the rest of us do. That said, I know better than to voice my opinion in certain quarters. The moment you suggest that something – anything – should be banned, Wolfram leaps in with charges of ‘Nazi tendencies’. How did we arrive at a position where anyone who dissents from a laissez-faire, let-
it-all
-hang-out ethos can be routinely branded a fascist? I keep reminding myself that provocation is his stock in trade.
Nevertheless
, I find it hard to respect anyone – let alone, an artist – who dismisses fiction and extols pornography.