Tom Gabbay - The Lisbon Crossing

The Wehrmacht marched into Paris on June 14, 1940.

As England steeled herself for the inevitable invasion,

I sat by the pool and read the Hollywood Reporter.

Just another war to end all wars, I thought.

Nothing to do with me.

Looking back across the stern from my solitary post on

The coffee was as thick as black crude, but it

Whens low tide? I asked Alberto as we pulled onto

I never told Lili that I was born in Berlin.

Its only money, Lili shrugged as a small fortune in

My eyes shot open, but I didnt move. I lay

Dont be ridiculous, darling. Eva wouldnt hurt a fly. She

The best thing about the duke joining the party was

The phone rang.

I didnt notice that the car wasnt heading toward Santos

The crowdmostly Britshad grown in number as word spread through

Senhor Baptista wasnt expecting company. The front door was locked

Once I got my heart out of my mouth, I

I found Eva lying in the tall grass on the

It had cooled off considerably and looked like an afternoon

Wallis Simpsons letter fit right in with what I knew

Why in Gods name would you want to go to

It was too dark to see my watch. I flipped

The dawns silky light seeped into the night sky, lifting

The persistent clackety-clack of the wheels bouncing along the track,

Welcome to the war, Eva said as I threw the

I checked my watch as the dukes Bentley pulled into

I slammed my hand down hard on the steering wheel.

The CRASH! BANG! THUMP! coming from downstairs mustve had the

Id love to stand on the platform, waving a handkerchief

Eva stirred and opened her eyes as the train rolled

There was a trace of a smile on Engels face

All was certainly not right in Paris. The City of

The measured clip-clop, clip-clop of the horses unhurried steps was

Lglise Saint-Julien le Pauvre had stood on the same ground,

Youve been a long time, Christien said, recognizing our footsteps

I came to in a sitting position, hands bound together

Another fallen hero of France, Popov moaned. I hope there

RUN, ABRIELLE! RUN!

The sound of the shot was gut-wrenching. I flinched, and

Eva helped me into to the back bedroom, where she

Eva and I never said good-bye. She was gone the

Looking back across the stern from my solitary post on the promenade deck, I lit a Lucky, leaned into the clean, white railing, and watched the last splash of crimson spill across the western horizon. 9:17 P.M. , mid-Atlantic time. Back in Hollywood theyd be polishing off their three-martini lunches and slipping behind dark glasses as they stepped out into the blinding afternoon heat. I felt a twinge of regret. Tinseltown wasnt all it was cracked up to be, not by a long shot, but it had given me a good run for my money, and leaving hadnt been in my plans. I told myself it was just a tactical retreat, but deep down I guess I knew the party was over.

It was my own damn fault, of course. Falling in with Mrs. Charlie Wexler wasnt the smartest move I ever made, but then one look at her and common sense went straight out the window. She was what you call drop-dead gorgeous, and if Id stuck around L.A. much longer I wouldve been the one doing the dropping. Oh, Id been in hot water with jealous husbands before, but Charlie Wexler wasnt your average outraged mister. To begin with, he was a bona fide psychotic. Anywhere else in the world he wouldve been doing a life term in the loony bin, but this was Hollywood, so he was head of production at Metro, making him one of the most powerful lunatics in the business. The kind of powerful that could walk into any restaurant or nightclub in town, empty a .38 into my back, then stop at the bar for a whiskey sour, secure in the knowledge that every so-called witness in the place would suffer from sudden, catastrophic loss of memory. No one in Hollywood was dumb enough to fuck with Charlie Wexler. Except for me, of course.

I flicked the remnant of my Lucky, watched it float out across the cool night air like a lost firefly until it ran out of steam and arched downward, swallowed up by the darkness as it headed for burial at sea. I straightened up and buttoned my dinner jacket against the chill. Lili would still be holding court at the captains table and wouldnt miss me if I disappeared into a bottle of scotch.

The cabin-class smoking lounge was a strange mix of Surrealist paintings, brightly colored armchairs, Oriental carpets, and odd Gothic touches like the two gargoyles that grinned down from above the cast-iron fireplace. Scattered around the room were small groups of well-heeled travelers, all men, sitting under dense clouds of cigar fumes, arguing the business of politics and war in the whispered tones of a half-dozen languages. I headed for an empty spot at the back where the barman set me up with a bottle of Highland malt and a crystal tumbler. He poured a double dose, neat, and left the bottle on a silver tray. I rolled the glass around in my hands for a minute, savoring the anticipation, then tossed it back. It was a relief, after all that frosty dinner champagne, to feel the smoky liquor melt into the back of my throat and infiltrate my brain. Slumping into the soft leather, I lit another smoke and went to work on getting thoroughly stewed.

I woke up feeling surprisingly fresh in spite of the empty bottle lurking by the side of my bedthe difference between a good single malt and the two-dollar blend Id gotten too used to soaking up. I stretched out under the cool white linen and surveyed my surroundings. First class. Its the way to travel, all right. Id been up and down enough times in my twenty-five years to know the difference, but I also knew it was a mistake to get too comfortable in the lap of luxury. You start thinking you deserve the good life and one day you wake up to find yourself staring at the inside of a boxcar. That was my experience anyway.

I felt like staying put for a while and there was no reason not to. It wasnt even eight yet and Lili never appeared before ten-thirty, sometimes not until noon.

Hollywood didnt make them any bigger than Lili Sterne, although her star didnt shine quite as brightly as it had five years earlier. Theyd called her Germanys secret weapon then; now they whispered box-office poison. Lili pretended not to care, but as much scorn as she poured on Hollywood, the truth was that she needed it more than it needed her, and she could feel it slipping away. It wasnt fair, of courseLili was still stunningly beautiful and she was pure magic on the screenbut nobody cared about fairness. Leading ladies just dont turn forty.

Id met her the previous year on the set of Ride the Wild Wind, a misguided attempt by Warners to match her up with Errol Flynn in a western. I didnt see how a Tasmanian Don Juan and a former showgirl from Berlin teaming up to save Dodge City would add up to box-office gold, and the great American public agreedthey stayed away in droves. It didnt help that Lili and Flynn hated each others guts, to the point where they wouldnt even stand in the same room together. The director ended up having to shoot each star delivering his or her lines to an off-camera extra, then put it all together in the cutting room. The result didnt work out too well, especially for Lili, who was pretty much reduced to a cameo.

In fact, I probably had more screen time on that picture than either one of them. Id been stunting for Flynn (who couldnt so much as look at a horse without breaking a bone) since Robin Hood a couple of years earlier. The money was better than daily work, and when youre doubling a star some of the perks rub off, so I smiled and put up with the fact that he was a miserable bastard. The kind of guy who gets a kick out of pushing people around, especially the ones who cant push back. When Lili saw that I didnt take any shit from him, she decided to induct me into her camp, which was a hell of a lot more fun than his camp. At first she just wanted ammunition against her costar, which I happily supplied, but we hit it off and over the course of the film we got to be friends. The fact that it never got romantic was probably why we stayed that way.