massaged his feet, and encased them in soft Turkish slippers. I poured him a glass of ice-cold champagne. Mother stirred the goulash. I always wondered how she managed never, ever to get a single drop on her clothes.
‘Oh Mo, those long dresses mean that for once they can’t see the famous Madou legs. Serve those damn furriers right. What a joke.’
Mother chuckled. She had also taken a hearty dislike to her handsome co-star, which made her director very happy.
‘Peter … that … useless abortion. Do you know he orders ice-cream for dessert? A grown man! Only Americans eat like children. You know he has Kotex stuffed down there. That mennuble.’
Mo puffed on his pipe and listened. Then he took a deep breath.
‘Sweetheart, have you thought about Kater’s schooling? She needs to be around friends her own age. She shouldn’t be in a soundstage all her young life. It’s not healthy. There will be no kidnapping. She is well protected.’
‘But Mo, she speaks only German. It’s impossible. I will engage a tutor. Maybe you’re right. You are always right.’
I froze. I wanted to learn more English, and I wanted to go to American school, but I couldn’t bear not to be with Mother in the studio.
‘Mutti, who would fetch your hand mirror? And sort the flower cards, and thin your fake eyelashes?’
I need not have worried. Mother had not the slightest intention of sending me to school. She was terrified of me becoming ‘American’, and I was never allowed friends of my own. I worried that I would not be allowed on-set the next morning, as Mother was filming the ‘Examination’ scene. It was my favourite costume, and I longed to see her under Mo’s lights.
When dinner was over, I excused myself from the table and prepared for bed. First, I took my bath. The water turned a rosy pink. My tummy hurt. I called aloud for Mutti who screamed when she saw me: ‘No, this cannot be. She’s only ten.’
(Oh, I thought, so I am ten, not eight or nine.)
‘It must be the Californian weather. Look at the Italians, and the Mexicans are even worse. I should have kept her in Berlin, where it’s cold.’
She was striding around the bathroom.
‘Kater, you must not go near a man. Do you understand me? Stay away from men. Why have you done this to me?’
She towelled me down and gave me a pink silk sanitary belt and a napkin, told me this would happen every month, and sent me to bed. I had no idea why I should stay away from men. Did that mean all men, like Mo, and the pool man? And what about my bodyguard, who helped me to feed the hummingbirds? Life with Mother was so confusing.
I knew she was angry with me. Later, she phoned her mother in Berlin to share her disappointment. I heard snatches of conversation: just a child, Californian heat, never stops eating this terrible food, enormous, diet, tennis lessons, so dreadful for me, how can anyone bear to be a mother of girls … and then I drifted into sleep.
Long after the Child is fast asleep in bed, Madou cleanses her face with witch hazel and puts on a dusky silk nightdress. She has sent Mo home. She wants to be alone. She sits at her dressing table, staring at me, without really seeing. I tell her, over and over again, that she is even more radiant, even more luminous than ever before. She searches her face for fine lines, but there are none on Nefertiti.
It’s that wretched child that has caused her to feel so bad. So selfish. So she’s growing up. No longer a child. Puff-sleeved dresses will return with a vengeance. But Madou has nothing to fear. In this new picture, she will be at her loveliest. Goldberg will make sure of that. It will be his parting present. He will leave her, again, but he will give her his light.
There are times when I have to administer a finger-wagging to those I love. Madou knows the growl of the Black Dog. Her friends see the relentless energy, the commitment, the long hours, the discipline. I see the days spent in bed, with the drawn blinds and the refusal to eat. I shall have to be firm. This business with the Child is a blow; a set-back. I need to impart some ‘Mother-knows-best’ wisdom.
‘Well,’ she says, wearily. ‘And what do you have to say?’
‘You know perfectly well what I’m going to say.’
‘That everybody worships me. I’m tired of being worshipped. It’s nauseating.’
‘There’s hell to pay if they don’t.’
She smiles.
‘So you think I’m an egomaniac? I work hard to keep everyone fed and clothed. My life is not my own – I belong to my work.’
‘You know what I always say, dearest: work is more fun than fun.’
‘What will my fate be, mirror? I suppose it is written in the stars?’
‘I don’t believe in astrology; the only stars that I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.’
She laughs. I can always make her laugh. She looks across to the window, and the inky-black night. It’s nights like these that make her feel far from home. A necklace of bright stars arcs around the sky.
She lights a cigarette and blows blue smoke into my face. She smokes slowly and methodically, no matter how much nervous strain she feels. I leave her to her thoughts. She stubs out her cigarette, sets the alarm to 4.30, turns out the lamp, and slips into bed.
In the morning, Mother called for me, and I breathed not a single word for fear she would remember Mo’s admonitions, and send me to school. It was freezing cold as we climbed into the studio car; a reminder of the desert that Hollywood was built upon. I had learned to dress with several layers, shedding each skin as the sun rose and became scorching hot. I looked like a roly-poly caterpillar; a look not enhanced by Mother plonking a beige knitted woolly hat on my head.
It was pitch dark on the lot, except for the street lamps, which lined Dressing Room Row. Back in her dressing room, the lovely aroma of greasepaint, coffee and Danish pastries filled the air. Nowadays, people ask me if I hated my life then, but, no, I loved it. Sure, I was sometimes lonely, but never, ever bored. Besides, back then, I knew no other life. Even now, the smell of greasepaint mixed with coffee takes me right back to those days, and the memories are warm and comforting. Bodies betray us.
We sprang into action; we knew our duties. That day, Mo was shooting an important scene; the Red Queen’s inspection of her Russian army. Mother would look her most beautiful, but there was much work to be done.
I placed her ashtray on a side table and brought a fine-boned china cup and saucer for her coffee. Mother undressed and was wrapped in a white cotton robe. Hair first. Always hair first. Nellie brushed her hair away from her face, twisting and plaiting with expert hands. Then Dot began her work. Nobody spoke. All was quiet concentration. I thinned out the eyelashes and handed them to Dot with the special glue. Mother scrutinised her face in the mirror. She took a hairpin, dipped it in white
