The music might have meant anything, but in the stillness of the room he saw that it now meant everyone who had gone. It was important to have a sense, Esther had thought. He noticed that Lasner had lowered his head, a tear running down his cheek, overwhelmed by some loss of his own. Or perhaps a sign of age, easily moved. Ben remembered him at the camp, actually sobbing. The first thing Ben had liked about him. Who was it now? The same vast number, a lost father? How long before a blood tie finally dissolved? Never. He was still Otto’s son, after everything. Danny even more so. Ben sat up. Even more so. Otto wasn’t someone he would ever deny, no matter how much his politics had changed. Otto had died for his. You didn’t honor the memory of that by feeding gossip to a Minot. He wouldn’t have done it. But there were the files.
Hal leaned toward his ear. “This is it,” he said softly. “The music. For the pan shot.”
For a moment Ben was confused, still lost in his own thoughts. He needed to think it through, about Otto, and Danny. But the music was moving on and he began to move with it, like a wind, out of the desert, across the steppes to a stretch of cold, flat land. He knew the shot Hal meant. Taken high, from on top of the cab of an Army truck, panning slowly, left to right, over the endless reach of the camp. And as he listened, he saw the finished film, the plain mournful sound passing over the miles of barracks, a perfect match, as if the writer of the song, from its first clear note, had known all along it would end this way.
When the cantor finished there was a stillness. Fay put her hand over Sol’s, bringing him back, the tear discreetly brushed away. Then another piece of music began, the ark was opened, and everything went on.
“You know what it’s called?” Hal whispered.
Ben shook his head and Hal made a note to himself, jotting something on the program.
“You think we could get him?” He nodded to the cantor.
Ben didn’t bother to answer. Did anyone ever say no? But the mood was broken, the haunting music of the dead now just sound to be scored, used. But isn’t that why they were making the film, for them?
“Make it the last shot,” he said. “Use it at the end.”
Jonathan read well, his young boy’s voice surprisingly clear and precise, pitched to his family in the first row. Esther looked side to side, pleased, but Sam kept his eyes on the bema, his face soft with unguarded affection. Around them people were nodding, one of them patting Sam on the arm. A few rows behind, Liesl was following with polite attention, her blond hair hanging back, grazing her shoulders. Another Mischling. Was the hair from Hans, the mother another dark Sara? She turned, meeting his gaze, then looked down, a smile forming at the corners of her mouth, and Ben realized she had misinterpreted. When she looked back again, just a moment between them, she was answering something else, not what had been in his mind at all, and he felt his face answer her, another layer. It could go on this way, he thought, one response building on the next, all begun with a mistake. Maybe that’s how we all talked, not knowing each other, a verbal house of cards.
They were seated at lunch with studio people, away from the family table down front. The Cocoanut Grove was usually lit softly to suggest evening, and the bright daylights now made the prop palms look slightly tawdry, like an island beach that unexpectedly turns out to be littered. The band had already been playing when they arrived and the floor beyond the Moorish arches had been kept clear for dancing, just a few extra tables laid along the side. Waiters had held out trays of drinks as they arrived.
“A little early in the day, don’t you think?” Dick Marshall said, taking one.
“Not for champagne,” Liesl said.
They were playing a couple, moving through the room together. Only a few people were actually sitting down. After they found their place cards, they circled the room, seeing everybody.
“How long is this going to last?” Rosemary said to Ben.
“You have to stay for the speeches. After that-”
“All day, then.”
They had reached the buffet table of canapes, elaborately laid out, with ice sculpture centerpieces.
“They sneaked the picture,” she said suddenly. “You were there.”
“The cards were good.”
“So why is Al so nervous. Level with me.”
“They liked it. They didn’t love it.”
She flinched a little, a jab to the stomach.
“They liked you. It wasn’t you.”
“And that’ll make a difference.”
“Nobody’s saying-”
“Nobody’s saying anything. That’s the trouble. You think I don’t know how to read the tea leaves?”
“You’re overreacting.”
“You think so?” She touched her forehead. “You know what that is, what they call it in the theater? Flop sweat. In a refrigerator like this. Do they always keep it so cold? It’s like a banana boat.”
“Coconuts,” he said, smiling, looking up at the trees, then back at her. “Don’t worry. It’s one sneak. Kids in Glendale.”
“You haven’t been here very long, have you? Don’t worry. How? You stop worrying, you’re dead.”
“I just meant-”
“I know what you meant. My option gets picked up in January. So we have to talk now, and all they’re thinking about is the kids in Glendale.”
“You’re the biggest star on the lot.”
“After Dick. And nobody’s hiring Ben Hecht to do rewrites for me.” She looked across the room to where Liesl was standing with Marshall.
“One week.”
“So, one week. They just shot ours. Every lousy line. For her, Hecht.” She stopped, lowering her head. “They’re rushing her picture. She’s all they’re thinking about now. Funny, isn’t it? That it’s her. After everything.”
The early cocktail hour went on, but the waiters had begun to put out the fruit cups so people slowly gravitated to the tables. It was then that the bandleader announced a special treat and introduced Julie Sherman. She was dressed modestly, a blue jersey with a big pin, but the dress was formfitting, clinging and folding, showing her off. Ben thought of her on the train, drawing eyes. But she’d done the voice-over in a day, professional, and the surprise now was that she was good, one of those performers who comes alive with music, warm and easy, comfortable with herself. They were doing “Let Me Off Uptown,” and while she wasn’t as throaty as Anita O’Day she had the same swinging assurance, fronting the band, too distinctive to be background. A few people turned to look as they made their way to the tables. Bunny, not expecting this, was watching her carefully, evaluating. The up tempo seemed designed to move people to their seats and the band kept it up with “Riding High,” the bright Porter lyrics an even better showcase for her voice.
“Do you believe this?” Lasner said, annoyed. He’d been coming back from the men’s room and stopped midway, next to Ben. “He has her at his kid’s Bar Mitzvah? A piece he’s banging? What the hell is he thinking? What’s Esther supposed to think?”
But Esther, oblivious, seemed happy, the entertainment just another benefit of being a studio wife.
“She knows?”
“It’s the idea of it. Where’s the sense? Anyway, who has a Bar Mitzvah in a nightclub?” He flung his arm to take in the room. “Downstairs in the temple. Some cakes, coffee, maybe lunch somewhere after. No, that’s not enough, he has to have a floor show. With her yet. It’s a question of respect. A nightclub.” He looked around the oasis room. “You know where they got the palms? The Sheik. Off the set. It was Valentino’s idea. Well, that was a while ago. Maybe they’re not the same ones anymore, who knows? Here he brings his kid. You know we go back. Sam, he was an extra, in the Gulch. Waiting around. I pick him one day and he tells me the picture’s a piece of shit. Oh yeah, so what would you do? And he tells me and you know what? He’s right. So I give him a shot. Fix it and we’ll do some business. That’s twenty-five, thirty years now. He never lost me a nickel, not once. Still, all this- You want to chase something, all right, but you don’t bring it home.”