“Mr. Todd?”
I said yes. I had to look up, just a little — a queer sensation.
“I’m Doon Bogan.”
We shook hands. My suddenly moist palm. Her dry fingers, the knuckly pressure of a big ring, just for an instant.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t … I thought you had dark—” I cleared my throat, suddenly clotted with phlegm. “Dark hair.”
“I do. But Julie’s blond, isn’t she?”
Aram Lodokian arrived at that moment; Alex Mavrocordato, her “adviser,” minutes later.
It took only the space of the subsequent luncheon for me to fall heedlessly, helplessly in love with her. The physical appeal glowed strongly, incandescent, but my emotional commitment followed fast. I think it was her laugh. She laughed easily in a low voice, a crescendo. In some people that facility is merely inane. But with Doon I felt it betokened a true generosity of spirit. Her laughter was a gift to others; you felt good when you heard it — or so I reasoned in my new fantastic state.
We drank. We lunched. I was a husk. I felt weightless on the chair. I picked at my food, but I drank so much Aram had to order two more bottles of wine.
Later, when they had gone, Aram and I sat over coffee and cigars in the Metropol’s smoking room. I had a stinging dehydrated throat and a yammering headache.
“My God, you drank like a fish,” Aram said.
“She’s Julie,” I said huskily. My cigar tasted of vomit.
“We can’t pay twenty-five. It’s crazy. Twenty, maybe. Just.”
“I can’t do it with anybody else.”
Aram looked at me quizzically. He wore a blue suit with a metallic aquamarine shimmer to it. He had expensive bad taste in clothes.
“Take five thousand of my fee,” I said. “Pay me it back as a bonus if we finish on time.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“It’s not such a bad idea.” He smiled. “It’ll be a good incentive for you.”
Aram liked me, but he was no fool. He saved five thousand and got Doon Bogan. He told me he was impressed by my artistic integrity. I accepted the compliment.
Do you know that feeling? When you meet someone and you know? The sudden hollowing out of your torso, as if your lungs, heart, viscera have gone and the ribs seem to creak like barrel staves under too much pressure? Glimmerings, intimations of the way I felt now had occurred before with Faye Hobhouse, Dagmar — even Huguette. It is, I think, to do with fear: a fear of impotence — not sexual, but of lacking the power of ability to capture the object of your vital passion. A haunting dread that you will never have the chance again, that the moment has passed you by forever.
I sat on with Aram, emptied out, made void by that fear.
“Relax,” Aram said, and patted my knee. “Oh yes, I forgot. This arrived for you at the studio.”
It was a telegram from Sonia: she and the children would be arriving in four days’ time.…
I felt a sudden nausea. A weariness of spirit, an almost complete despair.
I saw Doon again before Sonia arrived. In the Realismus offices, where we met to sign the contracts. Karl-Heinz was there, and Mavrocordato also, to my annoyance. Mavrocordato had prematurely gray hair and was a handsome, large, jowly man with big shoulders and a big soft chest. Apparently Doon still lived with him off and on, and used him as a kind of unofficial manager. Aram wheeled his father out from his office. Champagne was opened and we toasted the success of Julie. That day I had chronic indigestion and the champagne’s acid bubbles seethed the length of my esophagus. It was as if some physical dolor had to attend my encounters with Doon. I suffered from a broth of confused sensations and emotions: heartburn, real and metaphorical; a sour hatred for the ursine Mavrocordato; fleeting elations and pride over Julie. And a dour worry about the impending arrival of my wife and children.
Among the chatter and the toasts, Duric Lodokian beckoned me over to his wheelchair and shook my hand. Then he pulled me down, my ear to his smoky mouth.
“Fantastical girl,” he coughed. “My God, I like to have her once before I die.”
“Me too,” I said, punching my fiery chest. “Me too.”
“I love Doon Bogan, I love Doon Bogan” was the ill-timed refrain pulsating through my head as I watched Sonia, Mrs. Shorrold and my two children advance along the platform towards me. I had not counted on my mother-in-law, but it was reasonable to suppose that Sonia could not have coped with the journey alone. I tried to expunge the image of Doon from my mind as I kissed my wife. Sonia looked as smart as ever, if a little tired, wearing a neat oyster-gray suit. Vincent shied away from me, terrified, as if I were a threatening stranger. Mrs. Shorrold held Hereford. He looked fat and jolly and shook his fist vigorously at me, in welcome, I hoped. He must have been three months old.
I supervised the luggage and organized two taxis to transport it and us to Rudolfplatz. It was a sunny day and I pointed out this and that feature as we drove through the city center. Sonia, I could see, was excited and impressed. Berlin looked fresh and cosmopolitan. However, Sonia’s expression fell rather as we recrossed the Spree and drove down Stralauer Allee towards the apartment. Fine buildings gave way to drab residential streets. From time to time we got glimpses of the river to our right, with its untidy clusters of barges, docks piled high with bricks and sand, sacks and boxes of vegetables.
“Why are we living here?” Sonia asked plaintively as we disembarked at Rudolfplatz.
“It’s very cheap,” I said.
“But I thought you said we were well off.”
“We are.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. “We’ll move, don’t worry. We’ll move tomorrow.”
“No need for sarcasm, Johnny.”
I could appreciate that seen through her eyes the apartment left something to be desired. I was no interior decorator, but at least I had asked Frau Mittenklott to look in twice a week to do some cleaning and cooking whenever her duties at Georg Pfau’s permitted. The unsatisfactory nature of our reunion was compounded by my inability to make love to Sonia that night. Guilt about Doon made me detumescent.
“What’s wrong?” Sonia asked kindly. She was always thoughtful.
“I don’t know.… I think I must be tired. Too much work, the film—” I babbled on, seeking refuge in a monologue, and soon enough Sonia fell asleep.
And soon enough a routine and ostensible family life was established at Rudolfplatz, facilitated and made tolerable — at least for Sonia — by there being some money in the bank. A nurse was employed to look after the boys and Sonia and her mother shopped strenuously for curtains, carpets, furniture and all the odds and ends of a proper home that I had been unable to provide. At weekends we went to the beach at Wannsee, for a picnic in the Grunewald, or we took a steamer down to Potsdam. There was a sizable British film presence in Berlin in those days, owing to the considerable number of Anglo-German co-productions, and Sonia discovered that she knew some of the girls working in the studios. Even Vincent Shorrold came over for a month’s holiday. Suddenly, my life acquired its old context, something that — after the months of bachelorhood and freedom — I found unsettling. I concentrated on my film.
July and August went by as we waited for Karl-Heinz to finish Diary of a Prostitute (A. E. Groth was notoriously pedantic — no one could rush him). In the meantime all the innumerable logistical problems of film making presented themselves and were laboriously overcome. We found our perfect château near Arneburg overlooking the Elbe, and then lost it when the owner asked for double his fee. We found another. A large model of the Parisian skyline was constructed (the view from Saint-Preux’s garret) and was destroyed in a medium-sized fire at the Grunewald studios. Monika Alt (Claire) had an abortion, followed swiftly by a nervous breakdown, and was replaced by Lola Templin-Tavel. And so on.