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This Time Tomorrow

Tonight, back home, they quarrel fiercely. He stalks over to her desk, where he finds a love letter. She sits, with her stillness, looking at her reflection, while he rages behind her, waving the letter, with a theatrical flourish worthy of a Drury Lane actor. I have heard this all before. It is a well-rehearsed narrative. I am the only witness, the sole audience member, forced to endure this man’s appalling arrogance.

MO: It was I who found you on the filthy streets of Berlin and brought you to Hollywood. My mistake was to fall in love. I ought to have known that you were unfaithful to the core.

MADOU: You knew about my history before you met me.

MO: Yes, I saw you posing for photographs with violets and lavender at your groin. I know all about Gerda. And that other woman who sang that song, Margo. Margo Lion.

Yes, he knew all about them. That stupid song they would sing at the cabaret. What was the song?

MADOU: ‘My Best Girlfriend.’

MO: Yes, that absurd song. Drawing attention to yourself in that revolting manner.

MADOU: Why don’t you stop bouncing up and down like a rubber ball.

MO: So it was Berlin. I know you were curious, and wanted to try everything, but don’t forget it was my idea to introduce you to Hollywood with that Sapphic kiss. Full on the mouth. Dressed in men’s evening clothes, and top hat. My idea. Not Yours. I changed your name from Maria to Joan.

As he continues his ranting monologue, her face turns very still. Only her eyes move. I know she is thinking over the Berlin scenes she has talked of so often when we are alone. Her mind is drifting back to the bare-breasted whores who chatted with clients at the Café Nationale. The rent boys, on every corner, flicking their whips, dressed in leather and feathers. The White Mouse, on the Behrenstrasse, where Anita Berber danced her naked dances of Horror, Lust and Ecstasy, wearing her drugs in a silver locket around her neck. The little hotels in the Augsburger Strasse, where you could rent a room for an hour. God, how she missed that life. So much colour, so much excitement.

Mo was a fool. She alone had taken her inspiration for Lola Lola from the cross-dressed boys from the cabaret. One of the blonde transvestites she especially admired wore ruffled panties, a feather boa, and a white silk top hat. The boys treated her like a sister, and they went dancing; she in her men’s tails and top hat. She liked to wear her dead father’s monocle. It made her feel close to him.

Of course she preferred women, but they were impossible to live with. Mo knew about her past. Why did he insist on being so bourgeois? She lights a cigarette and turns around.

‘You know, Mo, in America, sex is an obsession, in the rest of the world it’s a fact.’

He suddenly bursts into laughter. She can always make him laugh, even when he’s angry with her. He bends down to kiss the nape of her neck. He is sorry. He should not have read the letter, which she left open for him to see.

Mo was obsessed by her from the first time he saw her in that beastly revue, Two Neckties. He had almost given up hope of finding his Lola Lola, when, by accident, he saw her in the play. The first time he laid eyes on her, she was standing offstage, leaning by a pillar, and she looked aloof and bored. She spoke only one line. She was wearing a conventional dress, but when she twirled around, she showed her underwear.

But it was her face – that face, so exquisite, but with the promise of devilry. What he loved was her nonchalance, and her cold disdain in the face of the knowledge that a famous Hollywood director was in the audience. She was equally indifferent when he invited her to his office for a screen test. She looked bored, and made no effort to be charming, and that was what interested him, poor little fool.

He asked her to sit on top of a piano and sing a ditty. She complied, but was sullen and dragged on a cigarette, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth. She was asked to sing a song in English. The pianist, though able, was unfamiliar with the tune, although tried his best to accompany her rather mediocre singing, it must be admitted. Madou knew her limits.

Every time he made a mistake, she berated him, ‘It’s music, remember. Call that piano playing? How can I sing to that rubbish? You’re not playing a washboard, jerk!’ And again: ‘What do you have for brains?’

Pale with anger, she climbed down from the piano, and she slapped him, hard, across the head: ‘And I have to sing this crap – just don’t screw up again, or I’ll kick you.’

She knew that the studio executives, brought over from Hollywood, were horrified by her open contempt for a fellow artist, but Goldberg was delighted. This crass, uncouth, trampy woman was exactly what he had been searching for. He had found his Lola Lola; seducer of men, corrupter of morals, careless, contemptuous and carnal.

Mo knew that she could love no one, only herself. But that skin; white as milk, Parian marble, semi-translucent; pure white and entirely flawless.

He saw that she was so utterly beautiful, even before she was beautiful. He knew what he had to do; he would dominate her with his light to create perfection. That way she would never leave him.

The Lady is Willing

The review scene was the last time that my mother and Mo were really happy. All of a sudden, she had important issues to discuss with her leading man – the man she used to loathe, with fingers like sausages. For days, I was barred from her dressing room. Goulash no longer bubbled on the stove. Nellie kept guard and gave me dollars to spend in the commissary. There was a new chocolate malted that she wanted me to try. On the way, I saw Mr Goldberg. He looked sad.

Was I starving! I ordered hot dogs with onions, mustard, and ketchup; potato chips; corn on the cob, oozing warm butter. I crammed it into my mouth, relishing each morsel, away from Mother’s prying eyes.

‘You want apple pie, honey? Whipped cream and ice cream?’

I nodded. The lady was so nice.

‘It’s good that you enjoy your food, honey. I like to see a young girl who appreciates her food. You want more?’

My empty plate was my answer. I pushed it over the counter before she changed her mind.

People liked to feed me, I guess it’s because they felt sorry for me. The more I ate, the thinner my mother became. I remember when I first began to eat alone. It was that day at the commissary, when the nice lady had pity in her brown, knowing eyes. I felt ashamed. That afternoon, I ate and ate. I took cookies and a huge tub of ice cream, and found a secret corner to eat. I ate quickly, not savouring the taste but stuffing my mouth as though my life depended on it. It felt so good to eat alone. All I could think about afterwards, was when I could eat again. And how I could get the food, without my mother knowing.

And here’s the thing, I got to be good at it. Really good at it. The secrecy was thrilling. I had my favourites: Kraft macaroni and cheese, Wonder Classic white bread, Charleston Chews, Bumble Bee tuna, Lay’s sour cream and onion chips, Wheat Thins, Yodels, Ring Dings, Cheese Nips.

When I had obtained my stash (often via my kindly bodyguard) I would ask permission to go to my bedroom, and then I would turn on the electric fan to disguise the rustle of paper. One night, I ate half a chocolate cake. I especially loved candy, and when I’d finished, I folded the wrappers into tiny squares so that they could be hidden away. No one would know my little secret.

And how could it be bad when it made me feel so good, so warm inside? Here’s the thing: food was my friend. It didn’t insult me, or ignore me, or judge me. It was the gift that kept on giving. The discomfort was a small price to pay, the tightness of the waistband of my dress, which chafed my skin, the back ache, the stretch marks.

Compulsive eating: it creeps up on you, and before you know it, it feels like a thousand lead weights bearing down on you. But by then it’s too late to stop. I ate when I was sad, when I was bored, when I was feeling bad about myself (most of the time), and when I was lonely. Can you imagine how it feels to be a child who is heavier than her mother? Here’s another funny thing about compulsive eating. I truly believed that the more I ate, the more invisible I would become.

One day, I stole a cookie from my mother’s dressing table. I tried not to look in the mirror, but I swear I heard it say, ‘Go ahead and eat it, porker.’

Mo no longer appeared at the breakfast table for Mother’s scrambled eggs. Never mind, more for me. She glared at me when I had extra helpings, and smoked her cigarette, puffing furiously.

‘A bigger dress size. How can that be?’

Mother is ashamed, but nothing that anyone else says can hurt as much as the things that I say to myself. When I pulled on my bathing suit, over my hips and belly, I tried not to notice the soft rolls of fat. In the blue rectangular pool, I felt light as air. I spent hours floating until the skin on my fingers wrinkled.

I was sure that Mo would be replaced before too long, and I was right. The next morning a dozen long-stemmed red roses appeared in their long, white coffins. American Beauty. Whoops. I waited for the storm.

‘Why can’t the shop girls cut the thorns from the roses? But if they were not stupid, they wouldn’t be working in a florist’s shop.’

The sender of the red roses appeared in her dressing room. She cooked him a perfect omelette in her crinoline and wig, and somehow managed to never get a drop of oil on her dress. The next evening, he appeared at the house of mirrors for her famous pot au feu. Mother looked divine in a Hausfrau apron with a bandana tied around her hair. She removed his shoes, and massaged his feet. I poured the champagne into crystal-cut glasses that sparkled and gleamed. I loved to hear the hiss of the bubbles as they danced around the rim of the coupe. The breasts of Marie Antoinette, Mother said, with a smile.

At dinner, she smiled and tapped her finger on the side of his head: ‘You see, there’s nothing there. Quite empty. Nothing inside that pretty head. Not a single idea, and that’s what I like.’

Nevertheless, there was talk over dinner about the New Deal. I liked the nice new president who seemed to be trying to help people who couldn’t afford food. The thought of being hungry made me feel ill. Mother had her own views on why the bad times didn’t seem to affect the motion-picture industry: ‘Nobody wants to pay for reality during a depression – that’s there for nothing.’

She glanced at the LA Times on the sideboard.

‘All those millionaires jumping out of skyscrapers just because they lost some of their precious money. All they had to stop doing was being so dramatic and get a job.’

I had eaten so much at supper that my new pink organza dress split its stitches. I heard it tear as I stretched for the salt cellar. My cheeks burned hot, and I could feel the sweat under my waist and my arms. Mother was too absorbed in her new friend to notice. I asked permission to leave the table, and scarpered. On the way to my bedroom, I played my daily game of dodging all the mirrors.

Back on the hot set, Mo was displeased with his star. He barked out his criticisms, called her ‘a fat cow’ in German.

‘Drop your voice an octave and don’t lisp.’

‘Look at that lamp as if you could no longer live without it.’

‘You are the Empress of Russia, not a German milkmaid.’

He made her descend a staircase forty-five times, over and over again, until she got it right. She did it without demur. Her velvet crinoline, so magnificent, was heavy, and the intense heat of the lamps burned onto her face, but she didn’t perspire, and never once complained of fatigue. She was so courageous. Didn’t flinch, despite the insults, and the pain etched on her lovely face. Over and over and over again. Up and down. Down and up. Such a soldier, such a queen. She had 10,000 men. He marched her up to the top of the hill, and he marched her down again.

But I was furious. Why was Mo being so cruel to my mother? What had she done that was so bad?

Bonne Nuit, Merci

That gorgeous tart-face and her garter belt launched a legend. But, more than this, Madou knew how to sustain a legend.

The reflection is of a movie star, but as I know all too well, she is also a woman who reads. Knut Hamsun, Selma Lagerlöf, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Friedrich Hölderlin. She worships Rilke; she knows, by heart, the writings of Erich Kästner. Very fancy, very modern.

According to her myopic critics, her acting talent isn’t supreme, her singing voice at best mediocre; she can’t dance for toffee. None of that matters a jot. She isn’t a celebrity; she is a Movie Star.

Here’s what I think about Moses von Goldberg. He saw her as someone who could take his direction, someone pliant, and ready to be moulded. Poppycock! I once heard him say, ‘I can turn you off and on like a spigot.’ Their first film together set the tone for their professional relationship: the clever, gentle, sophisticated, older gentleman dominated and humiliated by a crass showgirl. He would return to this theme over and over again.

Lola Lola had to be able to inspire obsession in an intelligent man, and that was exactly the quality he was looking for. Madou had it naturally. It couldn’t be faked. Eventually, inevitably, the girl destroys him. He should have known. But how could he have known that Professor Unrat’s descent into a grinning cuckolded stage clown would mirror his own doomed relationship?

As I say, he wasn’t counting on her intelligence. She was no statue, or puppet. When he deserted her, to save himself, she found her own way. He left Hollywood to make another picture, telling her that she’d be better off without him, that she would develop as an actress. But she was terrified of losing his light. Then she had an idea. She would steal his light.

For days, she watched Herr Direktor’s films in the projection room, over and over again. The others thought she was vain, but she was mastering his art. Light and shadow. Shadow and light. Another director was found, and on the first day of shooting she asked for her mirror.

She looks at him scornfully when he brings her a hand mirror. She points her finger, and I am wheeled in front of her: an eight-foot mirror on castors, dotted with light bulbs. She looks around the set at the crew, who are half mesmerised, half shocked. She is terrified, but, always the warrior, she sets about her job. She instructs the electricians to plug in the lights, and the grips to position me, so that she can see herself exactly as the camera will see her.

Then she makes her next move.

‘With your permission, gentlemen,’ she issues instructions to the electricians high up.

‘You on the right, come down, but slowly, there stop, set it.’

Then it is the turn of the small wattage lights, and then the all-important key lights. The spotlight near her face, but high, high above it, and a little to the right. She raises her finger, until she feels the exact amount of heat.

All the time, she stares at me, the mirror, and, like a miracle, shadows begin to appear. She is moulding, shading, highlighting. Then the face appears, in all its luminous beauty. A small butterfly shape flutters under the nose. She is ready for the camera to roll.

The crew, hardened and tough, begin a slow, appreciative, clap. She smiles: ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’

She has taken control of Joan Madou, the Movie Star.

Mo was vanquished, and he knew it. Vanquished by a mirror.

The Little Napoleon

A bad day at the studio.

The crew was pale. Nobody said a word.

‘Do it again.’

‘Why are you so incapable of doing anything correctly?’

‘Clear the set.’

This was the third time Mo had cleared the set. I waited outside in the blazing Californian heat while he screamed and shouted at her. Mother stayed silent.

This was the final scene. Madou was to ring the great cathedral bell, proclaiming herself the Empress of Russia. A huge steel crucifix had been attached to the end of the rope, which was weighted with sandbags, rigged onto a pulley. Every time she pulled the rope, using the full force of her body, the crucifix whacked against her inner thigh. She was required to ring the bell eight times.

‘Cut! Miss Madou, what on earth are you doing. You are not ringing for the butler at an elegant dinner in Paris, you are ringing the bells of the Kremlin. Do it again!’

On the fourteenth take, he cried: ‘Miss Madou. Try for a little expression on that beautiful face of yours. You are seizing a throne, not calling in the cows like an Austrian milkmaid.’

On the twenty-fifth take, her hands trembled and she began to perspire. The crew looked on in shocked silence. The tension in the air was unbearable. At that moment everyone on-set despised Mr von Goldberg.

On the fiftieth take, she could take no more. Her pale, lovely face was contorted, like the agonised screams of those gargoyles. She was not the Empress of Russia, triumphant, victorious, ringing the bells of her success. She was a hollow shell. And that’s the one he chose.

‘Cut! Print! Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.’

And with those words he left the set.

Nellie and I rushed to my mother. The metal edges of the crucifix had lacerated her inner thighs, blood seeped through her white long tights. Nellie begged her to see the studio doctor. Mother finally spoke: ‘No. Do not let anyone know about this. Not a soul. Bring me a bowl, towels and alcohol. Take me to my dressing room and lock the door.’

I could hardly bear to look as she poured the stinging liquid onto her cuts, but she didn’t flinch. Nellie and I bandaged her legs, and then we drove home in silence.

Back in the House of Mirrors, Mother prepared her goulash, opened the wine, and waited for Mo. He didn’t appear. At nine, she cracked and telephoned him.

When he arrived, she served him his food in the mirrored dining room. She was limping.

‘Is it good? Would you like more flat noodles?’

He looked at her in sorrow and shame. But he said nothing.

‘It’s fine, Mo. You were right. You are always right. I was terrible in that scene. I am sorry for being so much trouble to you.’

I felt so hungry that my belly ached, but I excused myself and left the table. She would be angry with me for my appalling manners, and I knew I would pay for it, but at that moment I hated the little man. The Red Queen had made her final move. I didn’t know why or how my mother had won. I just knew that she had.

The Party’s Going with a Swing

As a rule, Madou dislikes Hollywood parties, mainly because of the low level of intelligence among her fellow actors. We have one of our infrequent ‘discussions’ about her profession. It is my belief that intelligent actors are seldom as good as unintelligent ones. That’s part of her problem. She’s too damn smart for this tawdry business.

‘My dear Joan, acting is an instinct. A gift that is often given to people who are very silly.’

‘Actors don’t ever grow up. I have no real desire to be an actress. To always play someone else, to be always beautiful, with someone constantly straightening out every eyelash. It’s a bother to me. I do it for the money.’

‘They’re made of papier mâché, creatures of tinsel and sawdust. You’re not an actress, my dear, you’re a personality. A star.’

‘How do I look?’

‘Charming. You’re a permanent pleasure to the eye.’

She puts down her hairbrush and clips on her diamond earrings. It’s time for the wrap party. One thing that can be said for Hollywood is that it really knows how to do a wrap party.

Madou adores her crew, and they adore her back. She admires their discipline, and their professionalism. She is generous to a fault. One time, a grip fell from a lighting rig, and damaged his back. Madou paid for all of his hospital bills, and sent packages of food to his family. If someone so much as sniffs around her, she fetches her thermos flasks of broth and advises on the best medications. Her wrap parties are legendary.

She is still angry with Mo, so she wants this party to be one to be remembered, insisting that it is hosted on the set of the Russian Imperial Palace. She is dressed to kill, in a Molyneux silk sheath and a white fur stole. Diamonds glitter at her earlobes and throat. She adds a ruby and diamond ring; a present from her latest conquest, knowing that Mo will notice and be furious.

One final glance, and she is off to the sound set. Once there, she asks one of the crew to wheel over her mirror. She wants me to see it all. What an enchanting spectacle! Mo’s huge banqueting table, which formerly held rotting fruit and platters of painted food, is now home to piles and piles of presents exquisitely wrapped in gold and silver, gleaming in the spotlights.

Trays of champagne flutes hiss and sparkle with amber bubbles. Party food lines the table; egg sandwiches, platters of sliced ham, and bowls of Russian potato salad. The showpiece is a magnificent cake depicting scenes from The Red Queen. There’s a snow scene of the entry into St Petersburg, complete with a gingerbread carriage frosted with ebony icing. Sugar-frosted pine trees glisten, and shimmery white chocolate snowflakes rest softly on the gingerbread window panes of the Winter Palace.

For the indoor scenes, marzipan gargoyles grin and leer, and sugar-crafted pillars are entwined with delicate garlands of pale edible flowers. In the middle of the creation is a sugar paste figure of the empress in the Imperial Palace wearing her white and gold wedding dress, and sitting on a white and silver-leaf throne. Naturally, this confectionary delight of a cake is too beautiful to eat. It exists merely to be worshipped, just like Madou herself.

The Child, I’m happy to say, doesn’t see me, but stares greedily at the platters of food on the never-ending table. It is time for the present-giving ceremony. Twenty-dollar gold pieces are sliced open to reveal paper-thin gold Patek Philippe wristwatches, with personal messages signed inside. These are given to the men, along with cufflinks, leather wallets, gold cigarette cases.

For the women, diamond clips from Cartier, some with rubies, sapphires, then patterned gold. Others are given handbags, scarves, and perfume. Lower down the line, waitresses are given signed photographs. Madou bestows every present with a handshake and a beatific smile.

Finally, she calls for Mr von Goldberg. He doesn’t want to be there. He is shifty, uncomfortable, so déclassé. He is despised by the crew. Madou kneels at his feet, and she kisses his hand reverently: ‘Without my master, my Lord of Light, I am nothing.’

He presents her with a sapphire and diamond cuff. But it’s me that she turns towards, twirling and twisting her slender wrist so the bracelet dances and gleams in the light. The Child, I see, looks on enviously. She is singularly unattractive. How did Madou give birth to such an unappealing child? No one will ever present her with fine jewels, fit for a queen.

I dare her to come closer, but she backs away and returns to the table. I regret to say that when she thinks no one is looking, she crams forkfuls of cake into her fat little mouth. Then she takes the sugar figure of the empress and bites off its head. She carefully places the decapitated figure back in its place on the marzipan throne.