“What puzzles you?” asked Hitchcock with his perennially benign expression.
“Your lack of political commitment.” Alma groaned inwardly. Lang heard it and smiled as he struck the match to ignite his wife’s cigarette.
“Oh, but I am politically committed.”
“Ah so?” With her head cocked, von Harbou looked more like an inquisitive sparrow rather than a menacing vulture.
“Oh, yes. In England, I always vote for the monarchy.” The wine steward arrived and held the bottle under Hitchcock’s face for his approval. Hitchcock studied the label while von Harbou blew a smoke ring and composed herself. Hitchcock approved the wine, which the steward proceeded to uncork and decant.
“You are pulling my leg,” announced von Harbou in a voice that belonged at the Munich Station announcing train departures.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, certainly not in your husband’s presence.”
“My wife,” said Lang, “is an incredibly good scriptwriter, but somehow I believe she has missed her true calling.” His wife was staring with narrowed eyes at her husband. “She belongs astride a white horse bearing a huge shield and a dangerous spear, the true Wagnerian heroine, bellowing her Yo-ho-te-os across the countryside to awaken it to a future of…
“Enough!” Von Harbou’s hand banged the table, and Hitchcock’s wine slopped over the edge of the glass. Alma didn’t miss his pained expression and contemplated fainting, but thought better of it when her rumbling stomach reminded her she was hungry.
“Why enough?” asked Lang as he placed a monocle in his right eye. “We are gathered here tonight as fellow artists, not as pamphleteers for a presumptuous little popinjay who thinks Germany would once again prosper if it was rid of its Jews.”
“What a lovely wine,” trilled Alma. “So dry and so natural!”
“I did not know you are a connoisseur,” commented Lang.
“She isn’t,” said Hitchcock with a wicked glint in his eye, “but she’s a past master at diverting troublesome conversations.”
Von Harbou held her hands up like a traffic policeman. “All right! All right! No politics! So tell me, my dears, what shall I give Fritz for his birthday?”
“His freedom,” suggested Hitchcock. Lang exploded with laughter. Von Harbou glared at Hitchcock, and Alma waited for a devastating reply, but none was forthcoming. Instead, von Harbou turned to Alma, putting her hand on Alma’s hand.
“So tell me my dear, how do you like Munich?”
“Oh, it’s quite lovely.”
“Have you seen the sights? Have you visited our wonderful gardens and St. Peter’s Church?”
“Well,” said Alma weakly, “we’ve been so busy with the film.”
“Were on a very tight budget,” said Hitchcock. “There’s not a moment to spare.”
“That’s one thing we film directors can understand,” said Lang, as he lit a small, narrow black cigar, “tight budgets. But now, on my latest film, Metropolis, I can be very expansive…”
“And very expensive/’ interjected his wife.
“That’s how you wrote it, my darling.” He explained to the others. “Metropolis is about the future, a very dark, very grim, very foreboding future where machines and robots rule the world and men and women are enslaved in underground warrens.…”
“Good God!” exclaimed Alma. “Are there any laughs?”
“Oh, no! Not in Thea’s future! There is no laughter in Thea’s future!” And Lang roared with laughter while Alma thought, and no laughs in Thea’s present either.
“I’m terrible hungry,” Hitchcock announced, “and I would like to see a menu. Isn’t anybody else hungry?”
Lang signaled the waiter for menus, and five minutes later, choices had been designated and the waiter bowed himself away to the kitchen. Lang was waving at a familiar face across the room.
“Isn’t that Conrad Veidt?” asked Hitchcock. “He’s such a good actor.”
“Connie is quite wonderful,” agreed Lang. “He’s leaving us for Hollywood.”
“Doesn’t everybody,” grumbled von Harbou.
Lang ignored her. “He’s been captured by Papa Laemmle at Universal Pictures. He takes with him his new wife, Lily.”
“She’s very pretty,” said Alma.
“She’s a Jew,” said von Harbou.
“She’s a very clever woman,” said Lang, glaring at his wife. “Connie found her in a tearoom where she was the hostess.”
“I find her terribly manipulative,” said von Harbou in a voice studded with nettles. “She has taken over Connie’s life completely. “
“For the better, I should say,” added Lang. “At least he no longer puts on lipstick and rouge and frequents decadent homosexual bars. Lily has changed all that.”
Hitchcock stirred. “I assume she accomplished that with her Lily Veidt hands.” Alma nudged him gently under the table with her leg.
“My, my, my,” said Lang with mock amusement, “just about everybody seems to be here tonight and it’s only Thursday. There’s Hans Albers with Lil Dagover. Perhaps you remember her from The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.”
“Isn’t she lovely,” commented Alma with her usual generosity.
“Who’s the pretty blonde at the corner table?” asked Hitchcock.
“Hitch has a passion for blondes,” explained Alma.
“How does that explain you?” asked von Harbou.
“She needs no explanation,” said Hitchcock, “only a good dinner and more wine.” He signaled the steward for refills.
“The pretty blonde at the corner table,” said Fritz Lang, grabbing his oppoitunity to identify her with a display of exaggerated patience, “is named Anny Ondra. She’s not a bad actress.”
“She’s not a good one, either,” interjected von Harbou.
“She’ll improve,” said Lang. “You see the brunette sitting across from Ondra and her escort? I read her for a part in my next film. Her name is Marlene Dietrich.”
“She needs to lose weight,” said Hitchcock, unmindful of his own increasing obesity.
Lang smiled. “She’s deliciously zaftig. She’s all wrong for my movie, but I think there’s a place for her in films. Ah! Here are the appetizers!”
“At last,” said Hitchcock with a purr of contentment. He smiled at Alma, but her attention was diverted elsewhere. “Alma? The food’s here.”
“So’s Anna Grieban.” Her voice was so low, Hitchcock had to bend his head to hear her.
“Where?”
“Over there. The secluded corner next to the violinists.”
“She’s with him” said Hitchcock. The Langs were intrigued.
“O mein Gott!” exclaimed von Harbou, “that terrible face! It should not be permitted in public!”
“Thea, for God’s sake,” growled Lang,”
