Chapter Thirty-Nine

STAN, YOU LOOK terrible,” I tell him as he joins me in my trailer during a break on set. His hair is longer than his usual neat trim, his skin looks sallow, and his eyes are baggy behind his glasses.

“I can’t take another day of this shit,” he says, plopping onto my small couch. “I don’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’m lying to everyone. The studio heads, my wife, and that dictator...”

I roll my eyes. “Müller is insane. Hold on a little longer. Trust me, okay? This is all going to go away very soon.” I sit down next to him costumed as Leni Riefenstahl in beige wide-leg trousers and a practical white button-down short-sleeved linen blouse. “But I do need something from you.” I lower my voice to a whisper. One never knows who is listening outside the trailer. “How can I get my hands on some real props?”

Stan lifts his glasses, rubs his eyes. “Real props? What kind of real props?”

I sit back, drape my arm over the back of the couch. “The kind that do real damage.”

His eyes sharpen. “Jesus, Lena. What do you want? A cannon? How about a tank while you’re at it?” He slaps his forehead, leaves his hand there. “I know you think you alone can defeat the battalion of Nazis on set, but you can’t. Honestly, that Monika/Mika character terrifies the crap out of me. She’s got a prison warden vibe. Every time she looks at me, I want to run and hide.”

I spit out a burst of laughter at the tragic absurdity of our situation. Stan laughs, too, then his face turns serious. “It’s time, Lena. Let me in on your plan. Maybe I can help. How do you intend to get rid of these monsters, shut down this goddamn production, and send those assholes back to Germany?” He gets up, pours us both a vodka on the rocks, two limes each. I accept the drink eagerly.

“See, that’s the thing,” I say, weighing my words. They are not going back.

His glass touches his lips, but he stops midsip. “What’s the thing?”

Don’t trust anyone until they’ve earned it. Zelda’s first rule. I trust Stan, but he has never experienced the horrors of war, never had to fight for his life. Film rights, yes, but not his life. Until now.

He folds his arms and crosses his legs, waits for an answer.

I hesitate. “I saw the Nazis’ LA headquarters. I spent all of Thanksgiving tailing our cast and crew from a biergarten to this mega compound, which is bigger than any studio backlot I have ever seen. The amount of land, Stan... Armed guards at the entrance. My plan is to destroy it, and I need real ‘props’ to do it.”

“Do you actually know how to use explosives?” I can see that despite his misgivings, Stan is visibly impressed.

I think of the Nazi nightclub that I had a hand in blowing up, Kapitan, Dabrowski, the baron, and the others, here, on American soil. “I have some skills,” I say simply.

“Basically, you became a household name as a femme fatale, and you actually are one?” His eyes amplify like a little boy seeing his first horror film.

“Yes, Stan, basically. How do you think I survived the war? By flashing a smile, showing some cleavage? No one survived unless there were extraordinary measures involved.”

“How did you get out?” he asks.

“I don’t talk about it.”

“Only because I never knew to ask you about it. But now I want to know.”

I finish the vodka. “I had some help. I escaped the Warsaw Ghetto through a sewer.” Stan’s face scrunches up. “Yes, me in a sewer. Many times. From there, I paid off a smuggler, pretended to be a high-class Polish call girl to entertain Nazis in the house where I grew up—a home that was a mansion twice the size of yours that my father built and that the Nazis seized. We were the token neighborhood Jews. Twenty-five rooms, three sprawling gardens. I knew every nook and cranny. Once I got into the house, I was able to escape through the basement into the surrounding forest. From there, I joined the Polish resistance. I thought I was safe. Except the price for my safety—no surprise—was sleeping with men. That’s how girls who looked like me survived. I was tired, Stan, so goddamn tired.” I emit a pained breath. “I killed both men—members of the resistance—who pinned me down in the woods, and then I lied when their comrades came to our rescue, claiming that we were attacked by traitors, and that I was raped, left for dead.” I shrug. “Yes, Stan, even then I gave a stellar performance. To their credit, those men cared and brought me from the forest to a sympathetic Polish couple, farmers, who helped me because I have this face. A beautiful Polish girl who was raped was worth protecting, not a Jewish one. I stayed hidden in their barn until the end of the war. They gave me food, clothes, and shelter.” I pause, look away. “But there, too, I paid a heavy price. I had to sleep with the farmer to stay alive, and there was no way out. I couldn’t kill him because it would alert their neighbors that I was there, and I had nowhere else to go. Nearly two years hiding in that barn and enduring that fat fuck. The wife was lovely and caring. Men are animals, Stan. But some men are monsters.”

“And then what happened?” he asked, squeezing my hand, knowing the story is far from over.

I purse my lips tightly. “The same night that we learned that the Nazis surrendered, let’s just say the farmer didn’t make it home to his wife. I was ready for him. I slit his throat.” With Zelda’s pocketknife. I show Stan my faint scars, the ones along my inner arm that I always cover with makeup, and then I lift my shirt to reveal the long pink scar at my hip—all self-inflicted. I lied to the farmer’s wife and told her that her husband died a hero, trying to protect me from looters who were everywhere, and we were both stabbed. She saw blood all over me and believed me, of course. In her deep grief, she nursed my wounds and let me stay there with her in her home until I healed. We hugged and cried when we said our goodbyes. One of my finer performances. Through twists and turns, I ended up in a displaced persons camp in Germany and then found my way to America.”

“Jesus, Lena.” Stan’s mouth is agape.

I then shared the conversation I’d overheard between Agnes and Mika in the bathroom, the Christmas reenactment, Das Haus, and my big plan: the Day of Reckoning.

“Connie is with them,” I say finally.

His jaw goes slack. “Connie Simmons? Your Connie?”

“She is their Connie now. And she is sleeping with Paul, Müller’s actor playing Stroop.”

Stan’s face reddens. I’m sure he wishes that he was sleeping with Paul the actor. I move in closer. Is he?

“Stan? You and Paul?”

He covers his mouth, shakes his head. “No, I’m not. But I won’t lie. I’ve thought about it. I mean, look at him. Like a Viking warrior. He’s not sleeping with her.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know. I’ve spent my life with actors. I guarantee Paul’s not shtupping Connie, but perhaps making her believe that he will. Poor girl. He’s clearly in love with Mika—anyone can see that.” Stan’s hard gaze conveys that he is done with Connie and on to bigger issues facing us. “Let’s get back to the real problem at hand and possible solutions. First, your plan is not going to work. There are too many holes. This bombing... how the hell do you intend to do a full-scale operation at this so-called Das Haus: strap explosives to your chest and parachute in?”

My eyes expand. Not a bad idea.

“The details don’t matter. I need dynamite. Lots of it,” I say. “I remember you telling me once that you consulted with veterans for that war movie you did.” I snap my fingers, searching for the name. “The War File. Remember, you told me that you stockpiled enough ammo at the studio to blow up—”

Stan holds up his hands. “The War File was a shit movie. I was brought in to save the studio from total disaster when the director was drinking so much that he developed alcohol poisoning. It tanked at the box office. So this is your grand plan? Christ, Lena. It’s not going to work for a lot of reasons.”

“Name one.”

“Mostly, because you are not in control. You are on their turf.”

My eyes bore into his. I see where Stan is going with this. “What I think you’re saying is that I need home-front advantage.”

“No, Lena. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”