Kino (28 page)

“You're kidding me,” Mina said. “We're going to see Katz? At Paramount? That's the guy who ruined Opa's movie.”

“His nephew, actually.”

“We just found the answer print of
Twenty-Twelve
, and we're taking it to Paramount?”

“We're just having a little chat to see what they can offer.”

“‘What they can offer?'“

Mina's father lowered his voice, a register he reserved for real anger. “You think I want this junk? I'm his son, this is my property, and we're selling it. Now drive.” He flipped on the radio and scanned through the static until he found Frank Sinatra, doing “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer.” Mina got on the freeway. Next exit, Hollywood.

Mina felt dizzy. “No,” she said. “No, no, no. This is what you came for? To pick this up and hock it? You didn't come for me or your mother, you came just to get rid of this movie? You're here to make a deal?” She spit the last word like a curse.

He shrugged. “I am a man who makes deals, yes.”

“Don't you even want to see the movie?”

“Why would I want to do that? There was a mention of low six figures. That's a lot of money for doing nothing.”

“It's not for nothing. It's for a lifetime of work and you're hocking it like so much crap.”

“It
is
crap, crap that will pay for the new kitchen your mother has been wanting for a long time now. What do you know about the value of anything? You never learned anything useful in your life. If you play your cards right, you'll get a share of the money. You can pay off your loans and keep playing Bohemian without driving your husband into bankruptcy. How would you like that?”

A truck honked when Mina tried to change lanes. She had the sinking feeling that events were getting away from her for good. Schnark had been right about the film, but he had underestimated her father's brutal efficiency. There wouldn't be time to exchange the cans; the studio couldn't be far now. Mina would have to save
Twenty-Twelve
from the vaults. Without it, she'd never know if any of the things they were saying about Kino were true. Without it, Sam would never understand why she had to go to Berlin, to California.

Mina didn't expect
Twenty-Twelve
to change the world, but maybe it could save her marriage. Sam had left the hospital, defying doctor's orders. Why the hell would he leave the hospital? Was this how it all ended? Had her grandfather's work blipped back into brief existence on her doorstep and some random attic just to be swallowed up again by an entertainment conglomerate, or worse, some secret government program run by Dick Cheney? Where was Dr. Hanno now? Where was Inspector Schnark?

“We need gas,” Mina said, tapping at the gauge. There was still a quarter tank left, but she knew her father never let it get to the red. Anything to gain a little time.

They got off the freeway and stopped at a gas station. While her father filled the tank, Mina tried to call Schnark one more time, but it just kept ringing. They drove on. Detlef was done talking, and Mina had nothing left to say. She felt defeated. She went down Melrose Avenue much slower than she needed to, and then her father told her to turn right on a street that led up to the Paramount gate. Mina had seen it before, in the movies. It looked taller to her than the Brandenburg Gate. A uniformed guard was waiting by the booth. Her father had led her straight to the people who had been chasing her all week.

This was it. Mina had run out of time, run out of options. She knew that without the film, the world would seem diminished. If she delivered
Twenty-Twelve
to Katz, one avenue of possibility, some unnamed potential, would be gone forever. She drove past the turnoff.

“Hey!” Detlef snapped. “Damn it, Mina. How could you miss that?”

“We're not going.”

“What do you mean, we're not going? Turn around.”

“No,” she said and pulled the car over onto the shoulder. She had no idea what she was doing. She hoped something would come to her, anything to save
Twenty-Twelve.
An SUV sped by, leaning on the horn. The California sun was burning down on them in full force now. Mina felt a wet spot on her back where she had sweated through Marty's shirt. Her throat was dry. She turned off the car.

“Mina,” her father commanded. “Stop playing around. We're late for Katz. Take us to the studio. This is not the time to throw a childish fit.” He got out of the car, opened Mina's door, and told her to get out. He pulled on her arm. “For god's sake, Mina, get a grip on yourself. It's only a movie!”

“That's where you're wrong, Dad.”

Mina leaned over and opened the glove compartment. Next to the rental car papers and some chewing gum a previous customer must have left was Inspector Schnark's stub-nosed revolver. Its weight felt good in Mina's hand. Had Schnark fired five or six shots? She couldn't be sure that there were any bullets left, but that didn't matter now.

She leveled the gun at her father.

“It's more than just a movie,” she said.

Chapter 16

From: [email protected]

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2003

To: [email protected]

Subject: I Feel Like a Huge Asshole

Sam, where the fuck are you? Why aren't you answering your phone? Maybe you'll check your email at least. You always check your email.

Listen, baby. I feel wretched about everything. I don't even understand what happened, and I don't understand where you could have gone. They told me you checked out of the hospital. Why would you do that? You're still sick, and they said it could lead to permanent brain damage. Are you ok? For all I know, you're lying on the street somewhere in your hospital gown, without identification, hallucinating. Please call me. Why haven't you called?

I know this whole thing has been a fucking joke, but I had to do it–try and find out about my grandfather's movies. If you'd just call me, I could explain it to you, and then you can forgive me and we can have our life back, ok? Why won't you call? I know you were angry at me for going to Germany, for coming to California, but I needed to do this. We're married, Sam. You can't just run away like that and disappear.

I don't think I've ever felt like such a failure. I've had my hands on two of Kino's movies, I watched one of them, and now they're both gone. My grandmother is in a coma, that guy Schnark disappeared, and I pulled a gun on my father. He was about to sell Kino's last movie to Paramount, and I tried to stop him.

But I couldn't shoot my father. He knew it and I knew it. He took the gun out of my hand, slapped me across the face, and carried the film through the studio gate on foot, by himself, while I waited in the sun, holding my cheek and weeping. Dad sold everything. Not just the stuff he'd gotten from Botha's daughter, but all of grandfather's work in perpetuity, along with all related materials, storyboards, screenplay drafts, costume sketches, all filmed stock, negatives, and prints of previous rough cuts. All of Kino's ideas, everything he'd ever made, he signed over to them, and then he gave them
Twenty-Twelve.
Before anyone could watch it. Gone, deep into some fucking studio vault. We buried him twice, Sam.

Oh, and get this: the German police busted Dr. Hanno with
Tulpendiebe
. They found him and that weasely projectionist at the film museum in the middle of the night, digitizing the film and burning DVDs. It was Dr. Hanno who robbed me after all. That lying sniveling German piece of shit! Now that print, wherever it came from, is being sent back to Paramount, too. I almost wish he hadn't been caught. I still don't know who left the movie in our apartment in the first place. Or why.

If I could take it all back, I would. We were supposed to be on our honeymoon, still. It's not my fault you got the dengue fever. I love you. It might not seem that way to you, but I do. I know what I'm supposed to do now. I'm supposed to come home and be your good wife and wait until you reappear.

But Sam, here's the thing... the thought of our apartment kills me. All those unopened wedding gifts, all of your things. Our bed. I don't think I can take it, being there by myself. As long as Oma Penny's in a coma, until I know you're back and I know that you forgive me, I'm going to stay here in California. Please call me already, baby. I'm worried sick about you.

M.

Chapter 17

Mina visited her grandmother every day, alternating shifts with Chester. She sat in the chair by the door and watched Penny's chest rise and fall, listening to the ping of the life support machines and the soothing chatter of the nurses in the hall. Penny looked surprisingly peaceful. In a coma, she was much easier to like, to love, even.

For the first week or two, Mina found it comforting to write long emails to Sam. She detailed every little thing that she had done–what she ate for dinner, what Penny's doctor said, the new clothes she had bought–hoping that he might be checking his email, wherever he was.

She also wrote to Sam's parents, but their response was cryptic and to the point: “We are sure Sam will get in touch with you in due time.” Did that mean they knew where he was? Did it mean they weren't worried? Clearly, they were angry with her. Mina tried calling, but they wouldn't pick up and didn't return her calls. She called Eclectic Arts and found out that Sam had gone on indefinite leave, “to travel.” She asked where he'd gone and when they expected him back, but they didn't have an answer for her.

“He's just fucking with me,” Mina told her unconscious grandmother, to see if she could believe the words if she heard them spoken out loud. “He's hiding somewhere, trying to show me what it feels like. He'll be back.” Sam adored her. He had
courted
her.

He'd also sounded so disappointed with her the last time they talked. He'd said, “I just don't know anymore.” That's what he'd said. Had that been an ultimatum? She'd rushed right past it, so eager to see Penny. Didn't she deserve another chance?

She saw him in her dreams, in strange places she didn't recognize, sometimes happy, sometimes furious, spitting anger so harsh that it woke her up and left her wondering for minutes where she was. She had dreams about
Twenty-Twelve
, about the tulip notary, about the sauna and the train station, Penny and her drug dealer, the murky pool, water rushing up her nostrils. In the mornings, she tried to remember every detail, hoping, perhaps, for a hint of where Sam might have gone.

Her father had presented her with an exhaustive, self-righteous list of failures: she was a disappointment as daughter, student, and wife. He'd made Mina feel awful, but he also didn't seem to mind that she was staying in Oma's house. It made it easier for him to leave if Mina kept an eye on his mother's condition. It was a relief for Mina when he flew back to New York and she hadn't spoken to him since.

She arranged to get her grandmother's pool cleaned, and she grew comfortable around Chester. “You can stay here as long as you like,” he'd told her. He cooked meals for them, huge pots of gumbo and red beans and rice, food from New Orleans, where he was born. “Your Oma,” he said, “she doesn't like to eat. Just pills and alcohol. I tried to feed her but you saw how she could be.” Mina knew she was supposed to make conversation with Chester, take interest in his life, but she didn't. She ate his food and let him clean up after her as if she were a child.

She spent a lot of time walking on the beach by herself, swimming laps in the pool and watching movies on the big TV. She often stopped by the DVD store and picked up anything that remotely reminded her of Kino. She couldn't help thinking about what had gone into making these movies, whose ideas had been stolen, whose dreams were being altered, and whose lives had been ruined in the process. Why had
Tulpendiebe
appeared on her doorstep? Why had Schnark vanished when she'd had
Twenty-Twelve
in her back seat? Mina didn't ever expect to make sense of it. Dr. Hanno had stolen one movie from her, her father had taken the other, and her husband was gone. Mina was recuperating, as if from a bad illness.

In her grandfather's study, Mina found old photos and newspaper clippings, including Fritz Lang's obituary, a fawning profile of Billy Wilder, logs of Kino's cab fares, and an old Leica camera. On a whim, she took the camera to the hospital and took portraits of her comatose grandmother. The old woman was so pale, blue veins showed through the translucent skin of her face. Her mouth hung open a little too wide, revealing yellowed teeth; there were tubes stuck into her nostrils. But something about the angle and the shape of her cheekbones and the light on her forehead reminded Mina of images of another Penny, in another sick bed, taken almost seventy years earlier. Mina still couldn't make sense of how Lilly with the porcelain skin and the saucer eyes had become this acerbic junkie widow who'd be lucky if she ever woke up again.

Mina hated that word, widow, but she couldn't deny that she had become something of a widow herself. There was no telling what kind of harm a man with lasting brain damage could do to himself in New York City. There were a million ways to die: passing out on a subway platform and falling under the train, stepping in front of a speeding taxi, plummeting into the East River. Mina did not want to be a widow. She had barely been a wife.

She kept hoping for Sam to call, for Oma to recover, for someone or something to show up and make sense of what had happened. She got a tan without trying.