The Novelist from Berlin

by V.S. Alexander

Genres: World War II; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Based on the remarkable true story of a mysterious German writer, V. S. Alexander's new novel spans the decades from the Nazis' ascent to power to the building of the Berlin Wall, as one woman fights for her life, her art, and her daughter.



1920s Germany: Though the world has changed in the wake of the Great War, it is still ruled by men. Even a woman as resourceful and intelligent as Niki Rittenhaus needs alliances in order to survive. Her marriage to Rickard Länger, a movie producer for Berlin's Passport Pictures, seems convenient for them both. When Rickard succumbs to increasing pressure from the Nazis to make propaganda movies, a horrified Niki turns away from her own film aspirations and instead, begins to write.



Niki's first novel, The Berlin Woman, is published under a pseudonym to great success. But Niki knows she cannot stay anonymous for long. The Nazis are cementing their power over Germany—and over her husband. Though she succeeds in escaping Rickard, he directs Hitler's Brownshirts to do the unthinkable: kidnap their daughter. With her books blacklisted, her life in danger, and Europe descending into war, Niki travels to Amsterdam, joins the Dutch Resistance, and then returns to war-torn Berlin determined to claim freedom for herself and her child, and to write her own story at last.

Release date: September 26, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

The Nazis were scum, der Abschaum as my friends and I used to call them. Those outside the National Socialist political sphere knew that, but few stood up to them, and by 1929 Germany was in deep trouble with much worse yet to come. The National Socialist movement didn’t burst forth like a spring tulip. The Nazis took their time: bending the truth, propagating their lies, using their strong-arm tactics. The warnings were in front of us, but we didn’t pay attention. Who, after all, was this power-hungry, former kriminell named Adolf Hitler? In the beginning, many laughed at him and dismissed his threats as the ravings of a madman.

At eighteen years of age, I was a “New German Woman.” I stayed away from the Sturmabteilung, the SA Brownshirts, as much as possible because the concepts of freedom and liberty had deserted their boggled minds, even though they espoused such ideals in their fascist propaganda. The world was very 1984 in those days. A few years later, you couldn’t walk down the street without passing a parade of them, haughty and smug in their invincibility. They were the living evidence that our freedoms and our lives would never be the same and, in many cases, would be taken away.

During the Weimar years, I smoked Manoli cigarettes and drank cherry brandy, especially when a good-looking man was buying at the Leopard Club. It was a grand establishment, close to the Alexanderplatz, housed in the first floor and basement of a large stone apartment building. God knows what the tenants thought of the ruckus below them until all hours of the morning, but my fellow club devotees and I didn’t care. We were having a good time living, loving, and, most of all, surviving.

Sometimes a piece of schweinefleisch appeared on a white china plate in front of me as I chatted up a man at the bar, or vice versa. The plate would turn blue, red, green, or yellow in the club’s lights depending on the mood of the delicious bartender, Rudi.

He was a man who liked tight pants and even tighter shirts, who had the kind of muscled body that drove women mad—visible but not excessive. He spent many hours in the gymnasium. Rudi, with his wavy black hair, sparkling eyes, and smoky voice, flattered me, but that was the way he operated. I thought he was sexy. We never acted upon our tenuous mutual attraction except for a few arresting kisses in a corner booth of the basement cabaret. I found out later that he had a thing not only for girls but boys as well. Gender didn’t matter to Rudi as long as the sex was good.

My girlfriend Lotti often accompanied me in the evening after she escaped her office job as a typist. She was lucky to have it, always aware that work like hers, although common, had little turnover and much competition. A million other girls were always there to take your place if you stepped out of line, or asked for too much time off, or worst of all, demanded a raise. Typing interested me only when I was writing. I decided that I had no use for menial labor. I wanted to be a star like the glamorous women whose photos graced movie magazines. I knew that before I even thought about writing. My mother, despite her Lutheran background, read the publications that I would peruse in secret after she went to bed. There was a deeply buried side to my mother that longed to break free from the drudgery of everyday life. Many women in Berlin had the same fantasy that was unfulfilled in the Weimar years.

One late night at the club, after many brandies, Lotti dubbed me Niki. “It has to have one ‘k,’ even if it looks Russian,” she said. “It’s frightfully exotic and suits someone with a face like yours.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I took it as a compliment. I lit a Manoli cigarette.

“Who’s that man over there?” she asked, tilting her head to the left. “He keeps looking this way.”

I was charmed that Lotti had created a new name for me rather than use the dull one I’d grown up with—Marie Rittenhaus—so I’d barely noticed the slick-looking man at the end of the bar who smiled at us and then slipped away. He wore an expensive black suit and shiny leather shoes, and carried a pack of gold-filtered cigarettes.

Rudi picked up the man’s glass from the bar.

“What was he drinking?” I asked, as Rudi drifted over.

He leaned toward me and popped open a button on his shirt, exposing a swath of dark chest hair. “You like him? I’ll introduce you.”

Lotti sighed. “Why is it always you? I spot them and you get them.”

“Courvoisier,” Rudi said, answering my question.

“Oh, nice. He’s handsome and seems cultured, not the usual type who hangs out here. What’s his name?”

“Ah, enough of the insults . . . Rickard Länger.” Rudi wiped the onyx bar with a damp cloth. “He’s a leading movie producer in Berlin.”

“Hmm . . . Länger,” Lotti said, wriggling her nose. “I wonder if the name holds true?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Rudi said with a touch of boredom, and went on about his bartending.

“Movies . . . movies.”

“The Great Niki,” Lotti gushed. “That’ll be your screen name . . . or The Sexy Niki.”

“The Silly Niki,” I said, looking at my watch. “I have to go. Coming or staying?”

“The gentleman left . . . nothing for me here,” Lotti said. “Two girls on our own.”

“I have an audition tomorrow,” I said, referring to a small part in a cabaret show that I’d found listed in a newspaper.

We grabbed our coats, intent on braving a brisk mid-October night. I whistled for Rudi and he came bounding over.

“You’re leaving? C’est dommage.”

“The next time Rickard Länger settles in for the evening, call my building. I’d like to meet him—in a professional capacity. Is he married?”

“I don’t think so . . . I’ll give you a call . . . Niki.”

Word of my new name had traveled fast. I gave him a respectful kiss on his lips, not as slow as he liked them, but sufficient enough.

Lotti and I walked through the square and then toward my apartment near the Berliner Dom. It was almost midnight, but Konigstrasse was packed with people out for a late-night stroll. The air was filled with mist, the droplets catching on our coats and covering our faces like sweat on a humid summer day. The night lights shimmered on the wet street. Our breaths rolled out in steamy puffs in front of our faces. The cool air felt good on my skin after the stale atmosphere of the Leopard Club. As we walked, Lotti talked about her miserable existence as a typist and encouraged me to pursue my creative careers.

“What if this audition doesn’t work out?” I asked. “It’s only a small part and doesn’t pay much. My stage experience is in school plays—not exactly the kind of work that directors are looking for. This ‘profession’ got into my head from looking at my mother’s movie magazines. I’m running out of money. The temporary typing jobs seem to be drying up. Soon, I’ll find myself living with her again. No woman my age wants to live with her mother.”

“Then do something else. Write a book. You’ve told me a hundred times you’d like to write a novel . . . how the pictures go through your head. I wish I could write a book . . . or star in a movie.”

“It’s hard to earn money these days—a woman has to rely on her wits as well.”

“Or whatever she can,” Lotti added.

We arrived at my apartment. With no space to entertain, I rarely asked anyone to come inside my two-room flat. For the privilege of living here I paid eight marks a week, furnished. Lotti had been inside many times, but she was one of the few. If I was with a gentleman, I went to his place—to make sure he wasn’t married. I didn’t have sex with married men, even those who, as a ruse, took off the ring. Some girls would sleep with a married man for a coat, or jewelry, but I couldn’t. It was a rule I wouldn’t break. Perhaps the Lutheran upbringing that my mother had jammed into my head had warped me, despite her minor obsession with glamour. After all, photoplay girls weren’t necessarily harlots. I hadn’t been to church since I left home. My refusal to go to bed with a man claimed by matrimony was rooted in the horrible knowledge that I’d betrayed his wife—a living, breathing woman who had feelings like mine. I didn’t want that done to me.

I kissed Lotti on the cheek and walked up the stairs, passing the communal telephone that served the building. I hoped that Rudi would give me a call about Rickard. When the phone rang it never went unanswered. Two or three tenants on the lower floors fought over it.

I opened the door, and a scene appeared from a novel I’d been thinking about, The Last Man. I was the heroine.

There it was—in my mind. How I, and many other women, survived the world we were born into. I closed the door, threw my coat on the comforter, and shut the window I’d left open. My eyes fluttered as I crawled into bed, and I wondered how long it would be before I got a message from Rudi about Rickard Länger.

I didn’t get the part, but a call came about 8:00 p.m. a week later from the smoky-voiced bartender. “He’s here for another hour. Maybe longer, if you can convince him to stay.”

I grabbed my coat, rushed out the door, and even sprang for a taxi, which was a luxury considering my financial state. I’d worked a few typing jobs, but was stretched thin. When I arrived at the Leopard Club, the doorman, who knew me, ushered me in. The chill bite from the wind disappeared as I stepped into the stuffy hallway. Once again, smoke and mirrors filled my senses. A warm blue light spread over the bar and across the tables. It was like stepping into a shimmering pool of water in summer. The cigarette smoke softened the light even more, rendering it fuzzy and semitransparent. The voice of a female singer in the cabaret below flowed up the stairs.

Rickard sat to the right of the bar, tucked into one of the small booths that lined the wall apart from the dining tables. He was a vision in blue and black, the color settling in muted veils on his dark suit, the straight line of a shadow cutting across his face.

The usual denizens of the club sat nearby—girls who dressed like boys, boys who dressed like girls, a few stiff businessmen waiting for the liquor to loosen them up, a sour-faced war veteran from 1918 who looked out of place among the younger crowd, as if he had wandered in from the street.

I waved to Rudi, who pointed in the direction of Rickard’s booth. He needn’t have, for the man had already spotted me and risen from his seat like a gentleman. My nerves tightened and I smoothed my coat in an effort to calm myself. What had stoked my anxiety? I wasn’t sure. I’d been with a few men, nothing serious, most of them allowing me to live on-and-off with them for a month or so until one of us grew tired of the other, providing a few laughs and, most important, some good food and wine. Perhaps my skin tingled because I found this man filled with possibilities, unlike most of the others. He was handsome enough to make my heart flutter; however, I didn’t know if he was married. Even Lotti was unclear on that account.

Rickard took my hand and guided me into the booth opposite him. His fingers were somewhat cold despite the heat in the room. I assumed his luminous eyes were blue, but it was hard to tell in the light of the same color. His hair was parted on the left and slicked back in a current style that swept past the crown of his head. The black suit may have been the same as the one he wore when I first saw him, but the shirt was different. It was black as well, the only spot of color being the muted burst of a diamond stickpin through his tie. I judged he was in his early to midthirties. The age difference wasn’t a problem for me. I liked a man who was settled.

A large bottle of cognac and two glasses sat on the table, his half-full. He poured me a drink and leaned back in the booth, studying my face and figure as I took off my coat.

“I’m happy you could come,” he said, in High German, and, after a pause, “Niki.”

I was so unused to the formality and the nickname that I stuttered a greeting in return.

“Sorry, I’m used to dealing with business partners,” he said, slipping into a less formal mode of speech.

I sipped the cognac and it slid down my throat in a smooth, pleasant way. I put the glass down and looked at the crowd filling the tables. “Herr Länger, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I assume Rudi told you the nickname my girlfriend gave me.”

“Yes, I like it. I was interested in meeting you.” He tore open the foil pack of the gold-filtered cigarettes and struck its corner against his fist. A smoke popped out and he lit it. “Call me Rickard. We might do business together.” He offered me one—I declined—they weren’t my brand.

“Are you married?” I asked.

His brows lifted for a moment and then settled as he smiled. “You don’t waste time—a debatable personality trait.” The raucous laughs from a table of drunken businessmen diverted his attention.

“I like to know what I’m getting into—no matter the proposition,” I said, when he returned his gaze to me.

“For the moment, business,” he said, answering my question. “I like your look. Rudi may have told you that I produce movies.”

I nodded.

“I’m making one now—about vampires.”

I laughed. “Hasn’t that been done? Nosferatu?”

He inhaled luxuriously and let the smoke drift out of his nose. “That kind of filmmaking is dead. Angles and shortened perspectives are out. Realism is what I strive for. Murnau’s film doesn’t go far enough. So many stories have been based on Stoker’s Dracula, but I want to tell the tale of his brides, his many loves. It’s a speaking role—only a few lines—you look the part.”

“Should I be flattered or insulted?” I took another drink.

“Definitely a compliment. Turn your head to the side.”

I did.

“Yes, a splendid profile—a true beauty.”

I wondered if this was his way of making an advance. I’d looked in the mirror on my way out the door and hadn’t been fond of the view. My hair was too long for the current fashion. I had purple blotches under my eyes from worries about money. I thought my nose was too big, my bust too small. “You overestimate, I’m sure.”

“No, when I see it, I know it.” He leaned forward, studying me in the blue light. “You have a classic profile. Don’t cut your hair because the style at the turn of the last century was longer—we have wigs to add to the length—and whatever you do, don’t erase that birthmark on your left cheek. It adds to your personality . . . and beauty.”

I thought of it as an unsightly spot, and many times I’d considered having it removed, but decided the cost wasn’t worth it.

“You’re tall for a woman.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray. “But you’re not gangly—you exude a certain style and grace. We start shooting the wives’ scenes tomorrow morning. Can you be there?”

“How much does it pay?”

“How much is your rent?”

“Eight marks a week.”

“I’ll give you ten a week as long as you’re shooting . . . but don’t tell the other girls.”

I extended my hand, like the businesswoman I’d become. “Agreed.”

“Your call is at eight . . . don’t be late, or I’ll have to get another girl.” He reached into his suit pocket. “Here’s my card, in case you need to get in touch.”

“I’ll be there.”

He rose from the booth, cupped my head in his hands, and turned it gently to each side. “Wonderful.” He tilted his head toward the cognac. “Keep the bottle.”

After Rickard left, Rudi floated over to my booth, pretending he wasn’t interested in what had transpired. He wore a pair of tight slacks that turned the heads of every sex when he walked through the room. Tonight, he’d topped off his outfit with a white shirt and vest that turned blue or gray depending on where he stood in the light.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked, eyeing the two-thirds full bottle of cognac. “Sauerbraten? Cheese?”

“No, not really. I have a call tomorrow morning.” I looked up and smiled at his pleasing face.

“I knew it,” he said, smiling back. “I’m thrilled—Lotti will be, too.”

“I’m playing one of Dracula’s wives.”

“A vampire. Perfect casting.”

“Oh, be still. Care to join me in a toast?”

Rudi was about to reply when a commotion broke out near the club door. Everyone looked toward the entrance. Rickard, breath pulsing from his lungs, rushed through the maze of tables and slumped into the booth. He pulled Rudi toward him. “The thugs slugged me in the stomach, and your doorman took a punch to the eye. I don’t think the bastards will come inside.”

“Walter’s been hurt?” Rudi asked.

“He’s okay—he yelled for the police. They’re out there now.”

Rudi strode toward the door.

I leaned across the table, trying to get a better picture of what Rickard had been through. His hair was ruffled, and it appeared that one of his lapels had been torn; his eyes were wide, his lips pressed firmly together.

I slid next to him and poured a drink. He drained it in one gulp.

“What happened?”

“They know who I am.” The glass slipped a bit in his hand. “I’m important to them because I have money—they think I have much more than I do.” His mouth turned down derisively. “They want payments for protection, for me and the studio, and they’ll stop at nothing to get them. For years, I’ve been able to avoid them like the annoying insects they are, but now they’re following me. They jumped me just as I was about to get into a taxi.”

I found it hard to believe what Rickard was saying, but the proof was in front of my eyes. The SA had been around for years. I’d heard a few stories about what they’d done, sometimes roughing up a person, calling them names, but I’d never witnessed anything like this. It was hard to tell sometimes whether the tale you heard was true or an exaggeration. Germany was changing and I, like many people, had ignored what was happening because it hadn’t affected me.

“Are you all right? Do you need to see a doctor?”

“I’m fine—I fought back—surprised myself. But I do need another drink.”

The cognac was down to about half now.

Rudi, his face as immobile as a Greek statue, returned to the booth. “Walter has a small cut under his eye, but he’s fine otherwise. Now, I’ve got to warn the owner to be on the lookout for the Brownshirts. Brownshits is more like it.”

“Give Volker my best,” Rickard said.

Rudi stormed off to find the man.

“Well, I’ll make my exit again,” Rickard said. “Certainly, they’re gone now.”

“We’ll take a taxi together,” I said, gathering up my coat and the cognac. If nothing else, I could use the bottle as a weapon to stave off another attack.

We reached the door, having walked past the inquisitive eyes that gazed at us from the tables, and stepped outside. The weather had turned colder, and I braced myself against the wind while looking for the SA. None were to be seen. Walter, sporting a bandage under his left eye, asked Rickard if he was injured. My new employer once again declared his good health and tipped the doorman ten marks for joining in the fracas.

We got into the car and I gave the driver my address.

“You live near the Dom,” Rickard said.

“Yes, in a very small two-room apartment, with little space for company.”

“That’s too bad,” Rickard said.

A few minutes later, the taxi stopped at my street. “Tomorrow, be prepared to suck blood,” Rickard said as a joke. The driver shot us a disgusted look in the rearview mirror.

Rickard held on to my arm as I tried to exit. He pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek.

My face flushed as I said good night. The cab sputtered away. As I walked up the stairs to my apartment, I looked over my shoulder, the first time I’d ever done so. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the SA might come rushing after me. I quickly put the key into the lock and hurried into my room.

I arrived at the studio about 7:30 after a quick breakfast and a smoke. I had no idea what to do with my hair or makeup before I left the apartment, so I left them alone. The studio was about a half hour away, but the crush of workers on the trolley threw me behind schedule. I was jostled about like a juggler’s pin. When I stepped onto the lot, I brushed my hair and pinched my cheeks for a little color.

Passport Pictures sat in a field by the airport. Several major roads ran nearby and a railroad spur snaked onto the back of the property. The rusty tracks, harboring a healthy growth of weeds between them, looked as if they hadn’t been used for years. Behind the arched entrance, trees bedecked with yellow and brown leaves formed a semicircle around a low brick building. That structure was joined on each side by two massive vertical rectangles of steel and stone that rose like cathedrals from the ground. Those, I assumed, because of their blacked-out windows, were the studios.

A guard met me at the entrance and asked my business. I told him I was here to see Herr Länger about my role in a vampire picture. He instantly knew what I was talking about and directed me to Studio One, which was to the left of the low building.

Because the clock was ticking, I hurried to the location: impressed, excited, and somewhat overwhelmed by the size of the business in front of me. I hadn’t had time to call Lotti to tell her about the role, but I was certain she would share my enthusiasm and anxiety. My mind raced as I reached a small entrance next to a larger opening covered by a hangar door.

I pictured my face on the cover of movie magazines, stylish, made up to look much older than I really was, outfitted in a dress dripping in silver spangles that accented my cleavage and the white softness of my skin. As I pulled on the handle, I also considered that it had been more than a year since I’d done any work onstage, and that in a school play. The image of me, as a star, burst like a bubble in the wind.

I entered another world. The air inside smelled like a crisp winter day. The lights were dim. I felt my way along a wall of black-cotton muslin. High, and in front of me, a yellow beam pierced the dark. I followed its direction through the twists and turns of the hall.

When I turned the final corner, a panorama opened before me, as if I had been transported to the wilds of Romania at the end of the last century. A castle of gray stone sat high upon a thorny crag. On the painted backdrop, a blood-red moon rose above the vampire’s lair, a mood trick for the actors because the black-and-white cameras would show only a dark tone and not the color.

A man clad in a dusky sheath, his face powdered to a soft white, bent over the form of a woman whose filmy dress clung to her like snakeskin. As the two actors worked, a large camera moved into position toward them, advancing as stealthily as a prowling panther.

“Cut,” a man yelled from a canvas director’s chair. “That’s what I want in the frame.” The actors rose languidly from their positions, still absorbed in their roles. “Thirty minutes before the next shot,” the man yelled through a megaphone. The male vampire broke his pose and ran down a series of wooden steps painted to look like stone, stopping briefly at his chair to grab a cigarette. He lit it, taking care to keep the flame and its burning end from his powdered face.

A hand on my shoulder caught me off guard. “Niki,” the soft voice said. A man kissed my cheek, his fingers twining in my hair a moment before they brushed against my neck. I liked the feel of his fingers. I turned to see Rickard, looking recovered from the previous night’s altercation, dressed in dark pants and a checked sweater that covered an open-collared shirt.

“Sorry I’m so late,” I said. “The trolley was a catastrophe.”

“Next time take a car. I’ll pay for it.” He took my hand. “Let me introduce you to Anders Pechstein, one of our best directors.”

The name sounded familiar, and Rickard took the time to explain. “He’s directed more than twenty films for us and he just turned thirty. His father is German, his mother a Swedish Jew. He’s worried. The family has connections and money. We’re all walking on eggshells with these Nazis about. And, the irony is we’re only trying to make entertainment—nothing else.”

Anders was bent over a script as we approached. Rickard tapped him on the shoulder and the director looked up. His body was long and lean, his hair dusty blond, his face as pale as his vampires except for a ruddy spot on each cheek. The knee-length pants and the vertically striped sweater that matched his socks accentuated his thin torso.

“This is Niki,” Rickard said, as if he hated to disturb the director, “the woman I was telling you about . . . a perfect wife for our vampire king.”

Anders turned, looked up, studied me for a few seconds, and grunted. “She’ll do. Take her to makeup.”

We didn’t dally. Rickard guided me around the set, behind the false front of the castle, to a dingy dressing room tucked into a makeshift corner. “He’s in a bad humor,” I said.

“No, that’s Anders. Always business and nothing more. That’s what makes him great. We’re all used to it.”

A vinegary woman, whose smudged hands displayed a rainbow of color, sat in front of a mirror ablaze with lights.

“This is Inga,” Rickard said. “She does it all—dresser, makeup, runs lines . . . by the way, you need the script.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get you a copy.”

“Don’t bother,” Inga said flatly. “I’ve got one here. Who is she?”

“Vampire Queen Three,” Rickard said.

“I’ve read this miserable trash at least twelve times,” Inga said, tossing me the script. “You’ve got three lines in a silent movie. Shouldn’t take long to memorize.” She got up from her post in front of the mirror. “Sit. We’ve got fifteen minutes to make you ugly—if it takes that long.”

Inga sniggered and I rolled my eyes at her insult. Rickard disappeared. As I opened the dog-eared pages and glanced at the script, the only thing that kept me in the chair was the ten marks I was earning.

In fifteen minutes, Inga had pasted a greasy, ashen pancake on my face, produced false teeth, and dressed me in a slinky gown much like the vampire dress I’d already seen. I was shocked at my transformation, from my everyday appearance to the dark-eyed, pasty-faced, fanged vamp who looked back at me from the mirror.

If I’d read the lines for Vampire Queen Three correctly, Inga was right: I won’t be discarded, How beautiful is the moon tonight, and Feed me your blood. Where and when those lines would be said still wasn’t clear to me.

A young man stuck his head around the curtain that separated the dressing room from the set. “Niki?”

I nodded, ready to leave Inga to herself.

“You’re wanted on set.”

The Vampire King was waiting when I climbed the terrace steps, the castle towering over our heads. The camera had been positioned at a forty-five-degree angle, its lens looking upward, capturing not only our bodies but the rough texture of the fake stone and the painted moon. The other two Vampire Queens, fangs and claws extended, were positioned across from me, ready to attack as I pleaded to be saved by the King, who reeked of schnapps and cigarettes.

Anders called for quiet and action. The camera whirred.

The King, as if wearing skates underneath his costume, glided toward me. “Why should I make you my queen?” he hissed.

I faced him, transferring all my acting ability into my eyes, along with the words to come forth. “I won’t be discarded!”

Somewhere a door slammed and Anders yelled, “Cut.”

The lights flickered for a moment and then returned to their intensity for the shot.

“Enough,” a man called out. The King and I dropped our poses and, putting a hand over our eyes, looked beyond the director. In the murk, I saw Rickard stride toward Anders.

A Brownshirt in his kepi hat walked briskly toward the two men. A thin, weasel of a man, he reminded me of Joseph Goebbels. “Who’s directing this picture?” Two similarly attired men, missing the oak leaves on their insignia, followed. They presented a formidable group in their uniforms, complete with pants flared at the hip, leather straps, cinched waists, Nazi armbands, and, most disturbing of all, pistols strapped to their sides.

Anders got up from his chair and turned to face them. “I am. What do you want?”

“Is this a respectable German picture?” the leader asked.

“Who are you?” Rickard asked in return.

“I am Oberführer Spiegel,” the man replied, “and you will address me as ‘Oberführer.’”

“Yes, Oberführer,” Anders said. “This is a good German picture filmed on good German soil.” He started to turn away as if Spiegel didn’t matter.

“What is it about?” Spiegel prodded.

Anders hesitated; instead, Rickard spoke up. “The wives of the Vampire King.”

“Vampires?” The man sneered, his mustache curling on his lip. “You call that good? We’ve already seen the decadent filth of Nosferatu and want no more of it. You should be extolling the virtues of the Fatherland, the good German men and women who will someday rule the world. The joys of hard work—productivity and motherhood—that’s what you should be filming—not this degenerate smut.”

Anders rose from his chair and stepped toward S