Chapter Thirty-Five

IT HAS BEEN two hours, maybe more, stuck in this dingy, mothball-infused hotel room, facing off with Michael Müller as he lays out his terms. I envision Müller not as he is but as he once was: wearing the olive-green uniform adorned with slabs of colorful medals for random acts of genocide, the silver-plated skull-and-crossbones emblem on his visor slung low over his young brow, the gleaming ebony revolver poking out from his hip. I visualize the man before me with a combination of hate and excitement, imagining all the different ways I will crush him. Right now, it’s about listening, playing the role he needs me to play: the submissive.

Freed from his cameraman guise, Müller stands over me, bragging a litany of Nazi propaganda. “And Josef Goebbels... pure genius. He understood how to reach the hearts and minds of the people and alter public opinion—not just in Germany but throughout Europe. He was the grandmaster of optics. He had balls and imagination. But between us”—Müller leans in conspiratorially, as though privy to a secret that I am dying to hear—“my allegiance will always belong to the brilliant filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a true artist and Hitler’s favorite.” He presses his hand to his heart, and it takes everything inside me not to heave. Keep talking, Nazi.

“Leni embodies the best of us—artist, actress, photographer, and dancer. An exceptional swimmer too. Such powerful strokes. There is nothing that woman couldn’t do. Have you seen Triumph des Willens or Olympia?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “Masterpieces.”

He keeps going. “Did you know that Leni was blacklisted by most of the studio heads here in Hollywood, although Walt Disney took a half-day meeting with her when she visited Los Angeles in 1938, when she was promoting Olympia. Disney was a friend, and there were other famous friends who embraced our views. Henry Ford. Charles Lindbergh. Coco Chanel, Hugo Boss, Joe Kennedy... the list of support is wide and endless. Our Leni was clever. Smarter than all of them. Lived her life like a movie. Simply the greatest filmmaker of our time.” He points to himself. “Everything I learned was from her and my brother.”

“Is your brother still making movies?” I press again.

Müller’s face shutters. His eyes betray nothing. “His work is alive. That’s what matters.”

As the night rolls mercilessly into morning, Müller’s euphoric prattle is exhausting. “Leni’s very last film in Warsaw was of Hitler’s victory campaign in 1939, and then she left Poland. My brother and I took over from there, continuing the important work she started. That stint in the ghetto—your scene—was all my initiative, my contribution to the Reich’s National Archives. I earned my name at that uprising. So you could say I owe that to you.” Müller’s eyes shine, as though recounting all the medals that had been added to his uniform after the ghetto siege. “I admit, we suffered losses that day, and I filmed those, too, but they didn’t make the final cut.” He gives me a baleful stare, points to the scar lining his face. “I did receive this little memento on the last day of fighting. My badge of honor.” He laughs. “You should have seen the other guy.”

I squeeze my eyes briefly, not wanting to think about what happened to him.

“But Leni... such an impeccable eye for detail, unlike the inferior director Stan Moss.”

I wait it out. I let Müller verbally masturbate to Leni Riefenstahl. The more I learn about his past, his plans, the more data I can collect about his brother, Lukas, the ringleader. Is he still alive?

Müller begins to pace. “The Allies may have won the battle, but the war is not over for us. Our movement is extremely organized, and we have regrouped. The FBI and its Jewish supporters tried to shut us down once before in the United States, stalking us, exposing the Bund, the National Copperheads, the KKK, the Silver Shirts, First Americans. But we are stronger than ever, Bina.” He spits out my name with the full force of his teeth. “We have divided into strategic cells all over the country. My goal is to expand our cinematic presence in America. Instead of importing films from Germany and distributing them here, I want to create original content on American soil. Homegrown propaganda. So much more effective. Americans are such simpletons, so easily convinced.” He pauses to light up another cigarette. This time he offers me one. I take it. Keep talking, you sick fuck. Brag and spill.

“What does any of this have to do with me?” I ask. Enough. It’s time to hear his end game.

“Everything,” he responds with a Nazi-style shark circle, then points to the duffel bag. Smiling, he reaches inside the bag of tricks, pulls out a thick, bound script, and dumps it on my lap. I read the cover page: THE GODDESS OF WARSAW in bold red letters. Today’s date, July 25, 1956, is scribbled beneath it. Is this what he was working on inside the diner?

“What is this?”

He takes a beat, still beaming. “Your next movie. You will push aside all other projects and focus only on this.” He taps the script. “It is the Leni Riefenstahl story, written by one of our screenwriters, approved by me.”

Standing back, Müller gauges my reaction. I force my face to remain blank, but my heart is ticking so fast that I fear he will hear it explode. “It is an ode to the greatest filmmaker of our time. You”—he points his burning cigarette between my eyes—“will play Leni.”

I let this nightmare sink in for a few distilled seconds. He’s going to use me to build his propaganda base, to hit the ground running with an American starlet to do his dirty work. That’s when I begin to laugh. “Me, a Jew, playing Hitler’s favorite filmmaker? Now, there’s a plot twist.”

Müller’s nostrils flare. “Yes, you, a Jew, forced to play her. It’s pure poetry, don’t you see? A famous Jew who has fooled everyone into believing that she is the most beautiful, mesmerizing WASP actress in the world portraying a beloved Nazi heroine. Punishment for you, mass publicity for us. We intend to utilize your star power to spread our ideology from coast to coast. Basically, you will be working for me now.”

Using his cigarette as a prop, he points it again between my eyes, and I focus on the orange-black tinge. “Picture it.” His hands form a makeshift movie-screen frame, and he peers through it. “A major hit from America’s favorite actress portraying one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. Fucking brilliant. It’s going to be my award-winning debut, with many more films to come. And the best part is that we are building our own mega studio lot here in Los Angeles. I intend to become a major power broker in Hollywood, and I have unlimited resources at my disposal to do this.”

The burning starts in my toes and wends its way inside my head. My thoughts begin to twist and tangle. Should I hang him, shoot him, strangle him, drown him, or smash him to death with his camera? The options are endless.

“And if I say no?”

He shrugs. “You won’t.”

I raise my brow, turn my face slightly with a chin dip to my chest, highly aware that this is my notorious you’ve-messed-with-the-wrong-girl look, photographed in countless magazines and seen in all my pictures. My voice waxes deep and slow. “And how can you be so damn sure?”

He laughs, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a statement. “The Third Reich playbook. One must always have insurance before you make your move.”

Müller’s hidden German accent breaks out, dominates the room, and sends shivers down my spine. He glances at his watch. “Tell me, Bina, do you think that this little plan was hatched this morning?” He shakes his head. “Not the way we do things.” He reaches back inside the bottomless duffel bag of horrors, and this time produces a file with a large pink triangle on its cover. “Have a look.”

I take the file, open it, and slowly scan the images. My heart feels like it’s being mutilated. Stan Moss, the man who made me a star, has been secretly photographed in myriad sexual poses with a bevy of naked young men. One compromising position after the next; each shot kinkier than the previous one. If these images get out, Stan’s career will be decimated, his marriage shattered. He will be booted out of Hollywood, and perhaps arrested for indecent acts.

Stan’s secret lifestyle isn’t a surprise to me. But this? He is more than just a director; he is family to me. And yet, we have never openly discussed his closeted sexuality, and I have never revealed anything to him about my wartime past. He knows what everyone else knows: that I grew up in the Bronx and worked as a catalog model for Bergdorf’s in New York before coming to Hollywood. He knows nothing about Bina Blonski or Petra Schneider. No one does. A few months after I got off the boat in Ellis Island, I found a discreet forger on the Lower East Side, another survivor, who, for a hefty sum, courtesy of Heinrich the Nazi, provided me with all the paperwork I needed to wipe away any trace of my past.

While I was busy crafting Lena Browning’s new life in New York, Stan was a rising, successful screenwriter for Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles, wanting to break out and make “real” movies his way. Passionate thrillers. Like Hitchcock, but sexier, darker, edgier. MGM tried to hire him. So did the other studio bigwigs, but he decided to go with Flagstone, a fledgling studio with strong investors and an artsy mindset. They offered Stan total artistic control, and he decided Flagstone was where he could grow and build his name. But first, he needed a muse. Every great director has his muse, and Stan was determined to find his.

At that point, I had just moved to Hollywood and was staying at the Hollywood Studio Club, a “chaperoned dormitory.” Your basic brothel for young actress wannabes and scouts on the prowl for the Next Big Thing.

The Studio Club was Stan’s first stop on his search for a new face for his debut thriller. He wrote the script himself. He knew exactly what he was looking for. He perused the hotel lounge and patio, searching for a tall, willowy blonde. A strong, smart, calculating leading lady whose career he could nurture and who would carry the film not as an armpiece but as the main attraction. While a bevy of actresses flashed their curves at Stan, I saw the competition that day and decided I couldn’t be bothered with such idiocy. I stayed in the corner of the large patio on a lounge chair with my legs crossed and my nose in a book. Stan says he spotted me over the sea of boobs and bouffants and knew instantly that I was the one.

That day we sealed the deal over Cobb salads at the Brown Derby, and I knew I had chanced upon the right man at exactly the right time. A man who made it clear from the beginning that he didn’t want to sleep with me but intended to mentor me. A first. Someone who saw in me what I immediately recognized in him: secrets and unbridled ambition. Married with two young kids, Stan, I would later discover on a film set, preferred the company of men, and I tucked his secret safely away. With Stan’s guidance and directorial brilliance, we soared together in the business, our studio backing us at every blockbuster turn. We owe our careers to each other. But I never felt that I owed Stan my life—or the memories of those I loved and lost. That’s why I never shared my past or felt guilt over using our studio locations as alibis for my side hustle.

But now... my stomach twists as I absorb Müller’s incriminating photos. Our secrets have finally caught up to both of us.

I look up from the file, meet Müller’s piercing gaze. He tilts his head, smiles at the sordid photos. He most likely hired the young men himself to entrap Stan. “Like I said, insurance. You see, I need everyone on board. The Goddess of Warsaw is going to be a Stan Moss film starring his muse, Lena Browning. My hunch is that you don’t want your highly disturbing past to rise to the surface either. All those Jewish girls you murdered in the synagogue basement. And then killing your own husband while saving your lover, his very own brother? Cinematic, I assure you, but it certainly will not expand your audience.”

He clucks his tongue with amplified disgust, reminding me of his brother. “I’ve got all the footage, the proof. The way I see it, you are going to convince Stan Moss to make this film, to push aside all his other projects for mine. Goddess has big-picture potential. You will star in it, and I will handpick the rest of the cast and crew and guide the production. I will be behind the scenes acting as both director and producer. Everything must pass through me. Everything.” He pauses, scratches his head. “I understand you and Stan are contracted through Flagstone studio. Tricky, but it will be his problem to figure out. The beauty of this film is that it’s already fully funded. I have investors clamoring to be part of this venture. Money is no option. Our movement is extremely lucrative. As always, we can count on our banker friends in Switzerland. Magicians with money and art.” He pauses again for another cigarette.

“And if I don’t agree to this?” I interrupt him. “If I blow your cover, expose your blackmail, your Nazi propaganda, and go public with my friends in high places... the White House, the Pentagon?”

He glances at his fingernails, bored. “You won’t.”

“So sure?” I move toward this twisted, evil man. I point my finger between his eyes this time. “This could also be your greatest mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes.” He grins creepily. “Nazis don’t make mistakes. It’s those around us who are weak and falter.”

“No mistakes, huh?” I meet his smirk with one of my own. “Need I remind you of the ‘perfect Aryan child’ campaign—the quintessential Gerber Baby of the Reich that your friends in Berlin used in their propaganda? Need we revisit that colossal slipup? We all laughed ourselves silly in the ghetto when we heard that the Nazi baby’s photograph was splashed everywhere: postcards, posters, newspaper ads, magazine covers.” I smile even broader, as Müller’s face goes red. And I’m loving it, savoring the moment. “Yes, yes!” I exclaim with a loud, exaggerated hand whack to my chest. “As it turns out, the Reich’s ‘über Baby’ was a Jew!” I shrug. “Oops.”

This rattles him, and Müller begins to stomp around the room. “I see how this is going to go. Unfortunately, you’re forcing my hand here a little earlier than I intended. I don’t like problems. I like things to move on time, run smoothly, and be executed exactly the way I want them done.” He stands in front of the bag of horrors once again. “Here’s a little something extra that should give you all the incentive you need to make this movie. I was saving this for later but...”

I hold my breath, anticipating this psychopath’s next play. Like a magician who knows his audience, Müller rolls up his sleeves, pulls out another picture, and voila, flings it at me. It falls to the ground.

“Insurance.”

I pick it up. Another white-bordered image. A boy and a girl, twin redheads around ten years old.

“Do they look familiar?” he asks.

“Cute kids, but they mean nothing to me.” I fling the photo back at him.

“Look again, Bina.” He holds the image up to my face. “Those children belong to a couple named Ariel and Tamar Barak. See, I think those cute kids mean everything to you. They are Zionists.” He spits out the word like it is spoiled fish. “They live in Israel. Their parents used to live in your old neighborhood. Their former names are Aleksander Blonski and Tosia Selmowitz. Familiar?”

Smile, grin, beam, sneer, leer—whatever movement Müller is doing with his mouth right now I no longer see. I feel a thousand deaths at once. That’s when I fall backward onto the bed, a total collapse.

I can no longer hide nor fake confidence. My acting slips away and the shell I’ve called home cracks into a million unfixable pieces. He’s alive. Aleksander married Tosia. They have children. They have made love countless times in the last decade. Not just once—a memory recycled over and over to feel something, anything. They live freely as Jews in the Holy Land with Hebraized names. They created those beautiful children together, a life beyond the ghetto wall, while I am stuck here behind another iron wall—visible to the whole world, and yet, no one knows the real me. Except for this megalomaniac. I am being blackmailed by my executioner’s brother, while Aleksander and Tosia are farming, laughing, galivanting together in the Land of Milk and Honey.

I stare into my blackmailer’s eyes at the bottomless hate, and instead of breaking me, his dark energy begins to embolden me. The jealousy that was choking me just seconds earlier stops cold, the maelstrom of emotion twisting within me starts to disentangle, and my deflated heart expands and elates.

Aleksander is alive.

After everything that they did to destroy us, they couldn’t kill him either.

“Water or cyanide?” Müller inquires with a wink, relishing every second of what he thinks is his upper hand. “As you can see, we know a lot, Bina, Irina, Lena. Always have, and that’s our edge. Here’s the final plan. You will make my goddamn movie. You will tell no one about our agreement. Or else Ariel and Tamar’s happy little life and legacy will be shattered, and Stan will be evicted from Hollywood. Your choice. We intend to finish the job we started in Warsaw unless you fully cooperate.”

Our eyes lock, as mine once did with his brother. I take the despicable script, turn, and exit the hotel room. Müller wins. This round.