Chapter Thirty-Four

THE CAMERAMAN OPENS the door to his hotel room, removes his jacket, and flings it onto the bed. He doesn’t even turn around when I enter the room behind him and shut the door. I feel sick. Why did I come here?

He tosses his key onto the nightstand, next to an open pack of Camels, and heads into the bathroom. I listen to the infuriatingly slow, even flow of his piss, the flush, the leisurely hand wash. He returns holding an itchy-looking, yellowish two-star-motel robe.

“Put it on,” he orders, tossing it onto the bed. “I’ll get the camera.”

Camera? What is this? I glance down at the cheap robe. I’m not putting that ratty thing on. Startled by his confusing behavior and uncertain of my next move, I hold my ground. “What do you want from me?” I demand, cross-armed.

He cups his chin, rolls his eyes upward at the cracked beige stucco ceiling with an exaggerated philosophical ponder. “Hmm, what do I want? The one thing that you don’t give anyone.”

Tears. Is that what this is about?

I glare at him. Everyone knows I don’t cry in my films. Articles have been written about it. This is not about the goddamn tears. Something bigger, darker, deeper is going on. I feel it, smell it, know it. My feet dig into the threadbare carpet, and I remain frozen. Goose bumps rise along my body. I know better than to stay here. And yet, the fiercest part of me doesn’t want to run away. I need to play this out, to see exactly what I’m up against.

Ignoring my question, the cameraman leans forward, touches my shoulder, and signals me to sit on the bed. His astringent soapy scent eclipses the air around me, and I suck in my breath as I sit. This is not about sex either. Unlike every man who gets me alone in a hotel room, Michael Mills is clearly not interested in Lena Browning bragging rights.

He turns on his portable camera and the glare beams heat over my face. I stare at his one closed eye, his steady hand, the half of his mouth not covered by his equipment. I observe his wiry body, the way it curls behind the camera. My heart pounds. I close my own eyes and wait for it, whatever this is. But nothing happens. He is dead silent.

“What now?” I whisper finally, when I can no longer take the punishing stillness.

“What nothing. Let it out,” he says tersely. “I want the tears. The goddamn tears that Stan Moss can’t have.”

Liar. Enough with this charade. I stand. “This is not about tears. What the hell do you really want?”

He doesn’t answer, seemingly more interested in adjusting his camera. The air between us is stifling, but I wait. I’m not leaving this room until I get answers.

One eye remains fastened on me as he takes his time turning off the camera. The clickety-click sound of the shutter closing is exaggerated, echoing in the small room like a ticking time bomb. He gently places the camera on the nightstand, walks over to me, standing too close. His coffee breath tickles my face. “You’re right. It’s not about the tears. It’s about truth.” His tone calcifies as his reddish-brown brows narrow in, the tips practically touching. “Bina.”

And there it is.That name—long dead—resurfacing like a deep-sea diver coming up for air. I freeze and melt simultaneously; my body temperature goes haywire within seconds of hearing it.

I push past him. “Who the fuck are you?” I demand, as I grab my purse and head toward the door. I whip around, feeling feverish.

Smiling a sickly smirk, he remains infuriatingly silent. He reaches for a cigarette, lights it up, and lazily draws in smoke.

“Who am I, Bina? I’m his brother...” The cameraman’s face begins to lose symmetry, rerouting into a collage of contours and shadows. “Brothers. Seems to be your specialty.”

“Whose brother, goddamn it?” I demand, feeling my knees buckle, but I dig my toes into the carpet for balance. My mind begins to whir, itemizing facts like a grocery store register. No one knows Bina Blonski unless, of course, he was there in the ghetto. Was he a guard? He’s younger than I am, which would have made him a teenager back then. Michael Mills. A typical American name. And then it hits me. Mills... close enough to Müller.

Lukas Müller. His brother. Why didn’t I see it immediately? The slitty silver-gray eyes. One of Lukas’s mismatched eyes was a similar color. Why didn’t I detect the faint accent in his voice? I repeat his brother’s name ten more times in my head. Lukas Müller. Driver. Infiltrator. The man who murdered Stach, Jakub, and most likely Zelda.

My enemy’s brother is my enemy. And now he’s come for me once again.

I take a few small faltering steps backward toward the door, but I hesitate to leave without knowing exactly what he wants. Seemingly unconcerned that I will take off, the cameraman reaches under the bed and draws out a large dark gray duffel bag and places it on top of the bed. He unzips it and slowly removes a photograph from a file folder, then sends it across the top of the low-rise dresser toward me like a hockey puck. Almost hypnotically, I walk toward the photo, glance down at it, and gasp aloud. My heart plunges, and I press both hands to my chest to stop it from bottoming out. But there is no end to the falling now. It’s all there in blown-up black and white.

Three men and a woman. That day in the ghetto. Trapped inside Lukas Müller’s arms, I am being held against my will. His hands are knotted like bolts around my fingers, forcibly around his gun aimed at Jakub and Aleksander. The photo captures the second worst moment of my life. The worst is what came after that. It should have been you, Bina.

I swipe the photo to the floor and its white matte border grazes my foot. I yearn to stomp on it, rip it apart. But that’s exactly what the cameraman wants me to do. I will myself not to collapse in front of him. Do not give him the satisfaction. Give him nothing.

“Your accent,” I say listlessly instead, trying to buy myself time to pull it together.

“The accent comes out only when I let down my guard, which I don’t. Not ever. Just like you,” he says, taking another leisurely drag followed by a large smoke ring blown directly at me. He is enjoying this. Making a game of it. How the Nazis love their games—the mocking, the degradation, the demeaning sport of abuse. “I’m going to make this simple,” he adds with an amused shake of his head. “Rolf Wagner was found dead in the lake, a bullet to his head... twenty minutes from here.” He lets this piece of front-page news sit between us, get warm and sour like a bottle of milk left out on the counter.

“Coincidence? I don’t think so,” he continues. “I came on this movie set solely to observe you closely. From this moment onward, wherever you go, Bina, I go. I’m about to become another clause in your contract. Nonnegotiable. We have much to discuss. The things you have done, the things you will need to do for us, for the movement, which is still very much alive, and the movie you will make... But we’ll get to all that.” He picks up the photo from the floor, holds it to the light, and points to the image. “I took this. I was there that day, in that room, documenting our activities.”

I can barely breathe. “It was you behind the camera... the close-ups. Another monster in the room.”

“It’s all perspective.”

His brother.

“Is he alive?” I must know.

The warring pools of the cameraman’s leaden eyes transform into twin stalactites, penetrating and glacial. Just like his older brother, who stole everything from me and made me into this—a shell, a woman who has made a big life out of playing pretend and can never come back from it. I hug my body, but it doesn’t protect me from me. Bina Blonski’s tears ran out that day in the ghetto, and this man captured the moment.