Chapter Thirty-Six

STAN MOSS CAN usually be found in one of three places: his sprawling executive suite at Flagstone Studio in Culver City; his private “starter” office on Brighton Way just above a coffee shop, where he sorts his mail and “thinks”; or at his permanently reserved corner booth at Chasen’s. I chose the Brighton Way location to meet him. No secretary, no parade of assistants, no interruptions. Old school. Just us.

The stairs creak beneath my high heels as I climb up the three flights to Stan’s office, carrying my large Hermès bag. This place is on its last legs, but I like it here. I like that Stan keeps this office exactly as is, for nostalgic purposes. No renovation, no hoopla, just discreet and private. It’s built for a Someone who wants to hide out and be a Nobody for a few hours.

The door is left open for me. Not surprised. Stan knows that I am always on time, and he probably heard the staircase orchestra as I clacked my way up. I enter and see him sitting at his desk, head bent, surrounded by mounds of papers. Scripts, most likely.

He looks up and smiles when he sees me, holds up a finger to indicate that he is in deep thought, jotting down a few last-minute notes. I inhale the intoxicating cinnamon aroma emanating from the lone candle flickering on the coffee table in the corner of the office. It smells like a bakery. This place is so homey, chock-full of Stan’s personal mementos and knickknacks. The opposite of his sprawling show-off digs with the magnificent view at Flagstone Studio headquarters. When I’m here, I meet the real Stan Moss. Exhaling deeply, I wish I could turn around and save us both the pain.

Stan puts down the pen, seemingly satisfied with whatever he was writing, gets up, observes my sheer mulberry chiffon wrap and matching form-fitting dress with an approving nod. He gestures me over to the couch. I swallow hard, envisioning the compromising photographs in Müller’s pink triangle folder tucked inside my bag. Did he bring those men here? I feel sick for what I’m about to do.

“You look nice, Lena,” he says. “You should wear that color more often. It’s bold.”

“My stylist calls it my ‘statement dress.’” I slipped it on today, purposely needing the extra confidence.

“What kind of statement are you planning to make?” he jokes nervously. I hear the slight tremor in his voice. He could tell by the tone of my voice on the phone earlier that whatever this meeting is about, it’s serious.

You have no idea.

“My guess is that this conversation calls for drinks,” he says, walking over to the bar on the other side of the room. Stan pours us both a vodka on the rocks with two lime wedges in mine. He knows my drink, of course. He hands me the glass and we both clink quietly. He sinks into the armchair across from me and waits for it.

“Any word on the dailies?” I ask, buying time before I drop the bomb.

He smiles broadly. “I was just going to tell you. I heard that MGM and Warner are squirming. Word on the street is that we are going to smash them at the box office come Christmas. And Billy called and said Howard—that anal-retentive prick—is very happy, which means...”

“Everybody at the studio is happy,” we say simultaneously and laugh. Howard Mehlman, our crotchety pain-in-the-ass studio head, is never happy, perpetually driving Stan and everybody else nuts with his endless demands and critiques.

When Stan laughs like that, he reveals beautiful teeth. I love his laugh; it always fills the room but doesn’t occur often enough. He is never relaxed; only when he is here. I sip my drink and study him. Ten years older than me, Stan is bookishly handsome at forty-six, his thick, freshly cut, wavy black hair is laced with gray. The elegant way he carries himself reminds me of Jakub—too sophisticated and creative for a city bursting with narcissistic assholes. Stan’s eyes are an entrancing powder blue behind large aviator glasses. I picture him in another life as an English professor, the dreamy kind that students would fall in love with. Slim, slightly shorter than me, he is stylish no matter the occasion. Today he has on a tan cashmere V-necked sweater, loose pleated trousers with cuffs, and buttery brown loafers, no socks. A Sunday outfit on a Tuesday.

“Now that we are done shooting, are you heading to your usual South of France getaway?” he asks, slowly sipping his drink, totally unaware that this conversation will force him to drink most of the bottle later.

I smile wanly and shake my head. No St.-Tropez. No getting away anywhere, anytime soon. Jack Lyons flew back to London a few nights ago, so that’s over. Since Michael Müller appeared in my life, I am trapped, too afraid to leave Hollywood. I’ve been busy taking precautionary measures. I met with my banker to hide a large sum of my money in a Swiss bank account, in case I need to run. I have been plotting and strategizing next moves and potential outcomes, and in between I have been reading and reliving the nightmare called The Goddess of Warsaw. I need to know what I’m up against. I glance hard at Stan. What we are up against.

“I’m in town for a while, longer than planned,” I respond vaguely, gathering up my nerve. “How ’bout you?”

A heavy, drawn-out sigh. “I’m taking Joanna and the kids to Vermont for a few weeks, spend some quality family time together. I owe her that, apparently.” He shrugs helplessly, and I get it. For a workaholic, two weeks is prison time. For a homosexual married man this means the extra burden of playing it straight. If things were normal, we would have shared a good laugh about secretly making our next movie on a nearby ski slope so he could sneak out. But not today. There are no ski slopes or sandy beaches in the cards.

I guzzle my vodka as Stan quietly observes me. He and I have been living shoulder-to-shoulder lies that are about to be exposed like a silent film turned talkie. Life as we both know it is officially over.

“Something has come up.” I place the finished drink on a kitschy coaster of a Malibu sunrise surfer scene, lean forward, elbows to knees. “We’ve been friends a long time. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Stan gives me an out-with-it gesture. His eyes go cold and hard. “Stop beating around the bush.”

I blow the air out of my cheeks. “We are being blackmailed.”

“Blackmailed?” His face turns instantly flush. A man who lives a clandestine life lives in fear of this exact moment. It’s a matter of when, not if. “Go on,” he says in a measured tone.

“I was not born Lena Browning.”

His shoulders go slack, visibly relieved, mistakenly thinking that my nom de plume is the issue at hand. He closes his eyes briefly then dismisses me with a flick of the wrist. “You think Rita Hayworth was born Rita Hayworth? No one gives a shit.”

This is going to be bad. “What I meant is that I was not born here in America. I’ve lied about my past—lied about everything—for good reason. I was born in Warsaw and my entire family, including my husband, were murdered by the Nazis. I spent most of the war years trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. A lot of bad things happened there. I’m Jewish.”

Stan’s mouth drops open. This, he wasn’t expecting. Just wait until I tell him the rest of it. He is Jewish, too, nonpracticing, and surely no stranger to the horrors of the Holocaust. We’ve never discussed it before for good reason. “I had no idea. Jewish? I mean, look at you—”

A Jew who looks like an Aryan. “I needed to put everything behind me to survive, to go on. I spent a full year getting rid of my accent before I came to Hollywood and built a new life story for myself. You know how it is here.”

He nods. Everybody knows. Rampant anti-Semitism in Hollywood—even among Jews. The dirty little secret is that you shouldn’t be too Jewish in Hollywood. You can be a Jew, but a Christmas tree Jew. Secular. An assimilator. Ironically, so many of the big machers here—particularly the founding producers, the pioneers of Hollywood—are Jewish. Having been snubbed from practically every other industry in America, they gravitated to show biz. Hollywood itself was formed less out of the love of film and more out of pure survival, a collective of ostracized Jewish men clinging to driftwood, creating what would become the American dream—that is, if you don’t flaunt your Jewishness. And I don’t need to tell this to Stan, but too Jewish and too homosexual is the most lethal combo of all. Total banishment.

I remove a cigarette from an open pack of Lucky Strikes on the coffee table in front of me, the first smoke of what most likely will be many more this afternoon. Stan has packs stashed in every corner of the office, like a child with strategically placed pacifiers. “I came to this country with nothing but my looks, talent, and a will to live,” I explain. “I was an aspiring actress there, too, before the Nazis invaded Poland. Even during the war, I acted.” I pause, breathe. The secrets glued inside me begin to pry open and I cling to them with all my might. “Unspeakable things happened there. Worse than anything you’ve heard or could possibly imagine. I did what I had to do to survive.”

Stan is silent and pensive as I slowly begin to reveal myself. A man privy to every emotion on my face in the close-up frames of a camera, who understands the way my body moves like no one else, now realizes that he knows nothing true about me other than that I take two limes in my vodka and that I tend to sleep with my costars. I lean forward. “Nazis have invaded this country with rock-solid cover stories. Many were high up in the Nazi Party, particularly scientists, engineers, and doctors. War criminals whose despicable histories have been whitewashed by our government. How did America go from fighting Nazis to lauding Nazis?”

Stan’s eyes pop open, as though meeting me for the first time. “I’ll tell you.” I answer my own question. “This elite brand of Nazi offered up superior expertise—lots of practice with gas, ballistic missiles, and rocketry. The Americans recruited these elite Nazi scientists to help us beat the Russians and to escalate our space program and other technology. We sold our souls. I heard about a clandestine U.S. program called Operation Paperclip from someone high up in the Pentagon.” I take a hard breath. “But it’s not just scientists, Stan. Nazis are here among us, in our business, hell-bent on perpetuating their ideology. Nazi filmmakers... on our very own set.”

Stan removes his glasses, rubs his eyes, a gesture he makes repeatedly, especially when he is tired or frustrated. “Who, goddamn it?”

“For starters, that backup cameraman. Michael Mills. Real name Müller.”

Stan waves his glasses at me. “I knew there was something fishy about that guy. The way he dressed like an accountant, and how he stared at me like a fucking zombie. You saw it too, right?”

I stand, begin to pace. “Müller and his cronies have targeted us—you and me—specifically.”

Stan waves it off. “Targeted? Please. He’s a nobody, a nothing, Lena. One call and I’ll have that mamzer blackballed from every studio.”

I feel my stomach lurch. “He’s got us by the balls. Me... and you,” I emphasize again, as I return to the couch, reach inside my bag, and pull out the folder with the pink triangle on its cover. I gently place it on the glass coffee table in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”

You could hear a pin drop as Stan stares at the triangle, slowly traces its charcoal outline with his forefinger. His face changes colors as he opens the file. I can’t watch this. I just can’t. I turn, move across the room, away from this unfolding humiliation, my back facing Stan, giving him space. I walk to the bar, pour myself another vodka, straight up this time, no limes—who can think of fucking limes?—as he reviews the contents of that repulsive folder.

The room is silent, except for the flipping sound of each photograph. I hear Stan’s breath turn heavy and then staccato. He knows that I have already seen the pictures, and I can feel his hot shame radiate from across the room. It’s heartbreaking. I take my drink and walk behind his desk, scoping out the myriad promotional posters and stills from all his films mounted on the wall—many taken from movies we did together. I peer at his memorabilia shelf, crowded with tennis trophies, film awards, and family photos: his wedding picture under a floral chuppah, another on a beach with his lovely wife and their two young children—a handsome strapping blond boy who looks just like her and a lovely dark-haired girl, all Stan. A perfect mix of both parents. I hear the folder snap shut behind me.

“What was your name?” he calls out, his voice looming at my back.

I turn slowly toward him. “My name?”

I see Stan as I have never seen him before. Frozen featured, deadly calm, the color drained from his face. His secret life fills the room like a carbon monoxide leak. All his fears have come to fruition inside one incriminating folder.

“Bina Blonski,” I whisper.

He nods painfully. “What does Mills have over you?”

“Like I said, his real name is Müller. He is the younger brother of a brutal Nazi I once knew, the man who killed my husband.” I blink at Stan. “More than he has on you,” I add without divulging the details.

Stan’s shoulders crumple before my eyes, the shock of the revelatory photos sinking in. I place my drink on his desk, walk to the armchair to stand over him, then pull him toward me, pressing his head to my stomach like a mother consoling a child. I stroke his thick, perfectly cropped hair and feel his clean-shaven cheeks slicked with tears. We remain like this for a few minutes, maybe more, until he finally disengages.

Looking up at me with bloodshot eyes, he says, “This is why you don’t cry.”

“Yes,” I say. “I have no tears left.”

“How long have you known?” His gaze is downcast. Tiny droplets are trapped in his lashes. He can’t look me in the eye.

I cup his chin and lift it upward. “Since the beginning,” I say. “It was during filming Moon Over Monaco. You didn’t see me. That young actor, the French one, Bernard—”

He briefly squeezes his eyes shut, as if that image were being projected on the wall behind us. “You never brought it up, outed me, gossiped, told anyone. Never betrayed me.” He stands, faces me. “Why?”

Over his shoulder, against the wall, I see another passionate embrace, the distant, obscured faces of Stach and Mateusz fervently kissing inside the theater storage room, a forbidden love that they paid for with their lives. “Because it doesn’t matter to me.” I take his hand. “You took a chance on me when I was holding on to life by a thread. I care about you, Stan, not who you sleep with. But this will ruin you. Joanna, the kids, your career, everything you’ve built...”

He nods. We both know the rules. “What does Müller want from us?”

“This.” I release his hand and reach into my bag once again, then hand him the despicable script. “He wants a movie.”

“A fucking movie?” he shouts.

I shake my head. “Not just any fucking movie. A Nazi propaganda film about the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. He wants me to portray her, you to direct, and he will have total creative control on set. Apparently, lots of Jew haters are fighting to be aboard this project. Müller plans to use us to spread Nazi ideology here. That’s what he wants in exchange for keeping our secrets. Our souls.”

“Do you trust him to keep up his end of the deal?”

“Not even a little.”

I feel faint and fall helplessly into Stan’s armchair. He stands in front of me, fists balled at his sides. “This is impossible, you know that, right? There’s no way in hell that Flagstone is going to make a Nazi tribute film. That’s studio suicide.” He begins to pace in front of me, then stops midstride. “What happens if we tell this prick no go?”

“He will put all his threats into motion, destroy us, and enjoy every minute of it.” I think of my exquisitely decorated mansion in Beverly Hills and Stan’s sprawling estate in Bel-Air. “You have a lot more to lose. Joanna, the kids.”

“What if we destroy him first?” Stan asks, just as someone like him might. A rewrite of a bad script.

I’m one step ahead of you. “That’s the plan—my plan. I will stop him for good.”

“For good? How?” Stan raises a brow. I see the doubt clouding his eyes. “You’re just an actress,” he says. “You portray assassins in your films. Don’t get confused here, Lena. That’s not real, in case you haven’t heard.” His eyes challenge mine, and I don’t look away. Instead, I stand and move in closer so that mere inches separate us. I want Stan to really see my face, to understand that the roles I play are not acting.

As the midday sun lances through the window, casting stripy shadows across me, Stan is entranced. Can he see the half woman, half predator? The real femme fatale living inside my eyes? I spread my arms wide. This is me, Stan, Lena Browning playing Lena Browning. He takes a step back, and by his wide, unblinking gaze, I can see that I terrify him.

“Lena,” Stan whispers, his eyes smarting. “Who the fuck are you?”