People think, once a ghostwriter is hired, you sit down and ask the celebrity everything. God, no. It isn’t like being a journalist. You’re their employee. Meanwhile, your editor expects you to serve the book, which you’re working hard to do, hoping it will lead to future projects with that publisher. But mainly, you’re trying to keep your job. These two goals don’t always align, especially when your client has their own agenda, to which you aren’t always privy. Somehow, you must be everything to everyone, and also manage to get the writing done.
On her second morning in the desert, Mari again overslept and had to forgo exercise or personal time in order to shower, dress, and skim her notes. She was mad at herself, but she had needed the rest, having stayed up until nearly two in the morning. She had paid $200 for the cheapest copy of Syd’s book she could find online, feeling the free fall of spending money after having none for so long. And then she had read a Kindle version of a book about the Ramblers, written by one of their roadies. There was nothing, here at least, that hinted at the possibility that Ody was Mal’s son, or that Anke and Dante had been sneaking around while Mal was still alive. Still, Mari had tried to absorb enough of the myth to be able to deconstruct it, via the questions she would put to Anke. Then she had transcribed the day’s interviews, until her eyes grew gritty.
Mari managed to appear at Anke’s door at eleven a.m., their scheduled meeting time. Mari knocked. But nothing. Was Anke still miffed at her for pushing too hard yesterday? No, they had ended on a good note. A fine note, at least. Feeling exposed, Mari texted Ody:
“Good morning! Did I miss a change of plans? I’m at Anke’s room and getting no response. Happy to do whatever is best for her. Thank you!”
As soon as she hit send, a reply appeared. Damn, Ody was fast.
“1 p.m.”
Irritation flared up, but this was the job.
“Great, thanks!” She changed “Thanks” to “Thank you,” then back. Hit send.
His terse answer burned her phone screen. Mari couldn’t help but go over her standoff with Anke again. It would have been better if it had gone differently, but she suspected Anke wasn’t scared by conflict. Even if Mari had fucked up, she was trapped until Monday evening. And she still needed more about Mal and his death. So, there was nothing to do but do her job well. Normally, she would have felt confident by day two, but she sensed Anke pulling back, as if she felt she had revealed too much. Mari must somehow dig deeper without showing she was.
When Mari resurfaced at Anke’s door at one minute past one—be punctual but never exactly on time—she found Anke waiting for her, unsmiling. As usual, Rimbaud was at her side, and Ody was seated at Anke’s desk. They all looked at Mari.
“We have so little time, it is important for us to begin promptly,” Anke said, not experiencing any irony that she had delayed their meeting by two hours, Mari by one minute.
“Of course,” Mari said.
Mari dove in, trying to impress Anke with her insights into the early, happy days of Anke’s life. With the painful sacrifice of her first love, Fritz, Anke had left Berlin to tour the world with Mal, silencing her fears of her bourgeois mediocrity, proving she was a true bohemian, an original thinker, an artist whose medium was her life.
Careful to address the creative Anke, rather than the groupie Anke, Mari danced through sensitive topics with empathy and sanguine inevitability—as was the case with Anke, all artists must leave some detritus behind. But even with Mari at her most attentive and astute, Anke was distracted and flat. While appearing unmoved to answer a question Mari had put to her about what it was like to visit America for the first time, Anke wrapped her translucent pink shawl around her and stood. “You will excuse me,” she said.
Mari’s stomach lurched with anxiety. She should be getting closer, not further away.
“Of course,” Mari said. “Whatever you need.”
Assuming Anke had gone to the bathroom or slipped outside to enjoy a smoke in peace, Mari reviewed her notes. But given their already stilted conversation, each question seemed too personal, too grasping, especially anything to do with Anke’s secret pregnancy and Mal’s violence toward her, which was what Mari really needed them to discuss.
Mari couldn’t bear the silence. Now was the time. Hiding the journal under her arm, she stood, observed the weather: another perfect Palm Springs day. She paused by the white flowers from their first night. Acting casual, she sniffed them and saw a florist’s card: “Congratulations, You Future #1 New York Times Bestselling Author! Yours Forever and a Day, Dante.” Mari wondered what Dante was like, and if he had ever doubted he was Ody’s father, given Anke had been married to Mal until his death. It was all here in the room with her—the real story, the truth. Who else had gotten this close? It was still a secret, so no one, obviously. Mari could not lose this opportunity. Besides, there was nothing else waiting for her beyond it.
With a fluttering in her chest as pronounced as when she listened to a voicemail from a collection agency, Mari circled back to the table where Anke had tucked away her journal. Ody did not look up. Her muscles tensed, her breath clenched, she turned her back to him, blocking his view, silently opened a space in the stack of books, into which she might slide the journal.
“Can I help you?” Ody asked.
Panic clawing up her throat, Mari exhaled loudly. She made herself face Ody.
“Anke is very private,” Ody said. “You are her guest, but that doesn’t give you free rein.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Mari said, her voice shaking. “I’m sorry.”
Mari extended the journal, but when he grabbed it, she didn’t let go, seeking an ally.
“I didn’t read it. I couldn’t bring myself to betray Anke.”
He snorted, clearly not impressed. She flushed, but this was too important not to try.
“Your mother’s memoir will be read very closely, and I’m not sure she understands how good the public is at sniffing out a lie, or even just an avoidance of the truth.”
He stared at her silently, choosing not to validate her observations about his mother. She sensed he would want to assist her if he understood how much was at stake for Anke. But she couldn’t think how to enlist his help without betraying the secret—his secret, really—and as much as she wanted her bestseller, she wouldn’t hurt Anke—or him—to get it. Plus, more practically, being indiscreet about Ody’s paternity would probably cost her the job anyhow. She released her hand so that he now held the journal. She wanted to cry but, of course, wouldn’t.
“Good choice. I was surprised when Anke invited you here, but she said you were special. Could be trusted. I hope she wasn’t mistaken. Anke doesn’t like to be wrong.”
“No one likes to be wrong,” Mari said. “And Anke wasn’t.”
“Because it looked to me like you were stealing—”
“Anke wasn’t wrong,” Mari said again, pitching her voice to sound more confident.
Ody nodded at her, putting the journal back in the stack. Mari held his gaze, aware she had to appear strong so she would seem like she knew what she was doing. If she fell apart, she would never get what she needed from Anke. Then she would fail.
Anke made her careful way back into the room, seeming perplexed to find them both standing. Ody shot Mari a dirty look, clearly not wanting to disgruntle Anke. Mari attempted to smile with her usual warmth and ease while steeling herself for Ody to rat her out.
“What are we discussing?” Anke asked.
“Your favorite flowers,” Mari said. Her eyes darted to Ody’s face, which was hard to read.
“Pale pink antique roses, of course,” Anke said.
Ody looked away from Mari, staring at his phone with conviction.
“A classic—let’s see, we were talking about your modeling career,” Mari said.
Mari used the cover of resettling themselves onto the couch to calm her nerves. Just because Ody hadn’t told Anke what she had done didn’t mean he wouldn’t. Mari was scared, not just that she had been caught, but that she had felt so out of her depth, she had overstepped in the first place. She needed to behave impeccably, so if Anke confronted her, she could claim a momentary lapse of reason, caused by exhaustion after several late nights in a row. Even more importantly, she needed to prove she truly was Anke’s writer. She willed herself to stay calm.
But it didn’t matter how smart Mari’s questions were or how delicately she delivered them, intent on reassuring Anke and drawing her out. Anke kept losing her train of thought, and then deciding her stories weren’t interesting, even though Mari reminded her on a continuous loop: “You’ve had a one-in-a-million, exceptional life. Everything is interesting.”
As much as Mari needed to make progress, fast, she wasn’t going to risk embarking on a sensitive topic or implying Anke wasn’t doing her part. Instead, Mari opted to salvage the day, using a strategy she had devised on her most recent project, in response to her client’s ADHD and the difficulty she’d had concentrating on a single subject. A certain amount of biographical housekeeping must be done—dates, details, descriptions of people and places. It could be tedious, even for those who held their past in rapturous regard, which Anke did not. Mari decided to drive forward on this front, since Anke was already short with her. Anke pushed back at times, relented at others, but she pulled further into herself and her fortress of pillows.
Ody burst from his seat. For a few beats, they both looked at Mari. Rimbaud, too. Mari realized Anke had flagged him, perhaps with a surreptitious text. Their workday was over. Mari hadn’t dared to mention the journal again—she was tempted to confess, but her instinct was that Anke would not forgive her, and it was better to risk everything on Ody’s silence.
“Ody will take you to review my archives, which will fill in a great deal of this biography.”
Mari nodded, even though she wanted to yell: When the fuck is that or anything of real value going to happen?! I only have one more day before I go back to LA to start writing. She reassured herself with a reminder of how many books had been written with even less material.
Having gathered her tools, Mari bowed good night to Anke, who had opened her laptop.
“Goddamn,” Anke said. She glowered into its depths.
Mari stopped short, still cautious after her earlier missteps.
“The publisher keeps emailing me, asking for answers I do not have.”
“Oh, you should have told me,” Mari said, too drained by her frayed nerves to avoid the hint of censure some might hear in her response.
Anke looked up, her expression haughty. Anke was never told she should do anything.
“All I meant is that’s why I’m here. I speak book world, so I can translate and deliver what your publisher needs, especially closer to deadline.”
Mari smiled as benignly as possible.
“Fine, you do it.” Anke handed Mari her laptop.
“If you forward the email, I can write to our editor, introducing myself and offering my services,” Mari said, trying to hand back Anke’s device. “I’ll cc you, of course.”
“I need you to answer the email,” Anke said. “Now.”
“As you?”
“No, as Lucifer.” Anke threw down her reading glasses, lit a cigarette. She tried to limit herself to a handful a day and never smoked inside. This did not bode well.
“Of course,” Mari said. “I’d be happy to.”
Sitting, she pulled Anke’s computer into her lap. Anke leaned against the open slider, back slumped, as she hissed smoke into the yard. It was easy to buy Anke’s air of superior indifference, but even without knowing what Anke might or might not have to reveal about Mal’s death, or Ody’s paternity, Mari knew she was anxious about this book. In Mari’s experience, such anxiety made her clients act their worst—not that they could be called on it.
Mari skimmed the email, which contained a perky note from their editor’s assistant, Stacy. She seemed young. And eager. Uh-oh. Anke obviously had no patience for fools. But. Having this woman on their side would help. Stacy had forwarded the sample flap copy for the hardcover edition of Anke’s book. It began: “International rock groupie Anke Berben…”
“Well, you’re not a groupie, for starters,” Mari said.
“If this is how they treat their authors, I hate to see what they say about their whores.”
Mari narrated as she typed: “‘Dear Stacy, you will understand why I must object to the word “groupie,” which will color the perceptions of every reader who acquaints themselves with my life. I have also edited the text to be more concise, and to lead with the most vital details of my existence today. Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to our collaboration.’”
“Ciao,” Anke offered up.
“‘Ciao, Anke,’” Mari said as she typed. “Good? Would you like to go over my edits?”
“Your edits are fine. Danke.”
Mari flushed. She approached Anke to return her laptop. Anke took it from her without looking. Mari meant to get out, fast, to decompress in her room before tackling the day’s transcription. But she was overpowered by the beauty of the desert sky, as gorgeous and plaintive as the perfect song played at just the right moment, and the softness of the evening air, musky sweet with sagebrush. Mari paused next to Anke, feeling the quiet wild do its work on her. She glimpsed a fleeting motion. A tiny bunny with alert ears nibbled a blade of grass.
“They always feed at twilight,” Anke said. “Look, the yard is full of them.”
Mari refocused her vision, making out their white tails in the succulent-ringed yard.
“Den Hasen,” Anke said. “When I look at them, I hear the German. It has happened in the recent days. I am seeing the world in my native tongue once again.”
“When was your last visit?” Mari said, back to her careful word choice. It wasn’t her place to presume Anke’s wants, even though she was here to speak—and think—for her, at least on the page. “I’m sure your book will have a German edition, and you’ll be in demand there.”
“Perhaps you are right. Or not. I do not think I will see Germany again.”
Mari turned to Anke, curious about the ambivalence in her voice. It was a strange, prophetic thing to say, even for Anke. In the natural light, her beautiful face was an antique teacup, webbed with fine lines. Her blond hair tucked behind her ears allowed Mari to trace the vertical artifact of her face-lift scar. And yet Mari could see the little girl she’d been in her bright, clear eyes. During the day, Anke was good at hiding the cost of it all. But as with the day before, it was now written on her face, which looked skeletal. Mari shivered, wondering what really had happened to Mal, and if Anke had been involved.
“Do you miss Germany?” Mari spoke to break the silence and force herself back on task.
“Nein. When you choose the artist’s life—or it chooses you—everywhere and nowhere is your home. If I am ever at peace, it is out here. Dante always said the desert is a poultice for any sickness. Of your soul, I mean. He gave me the desert. A great gift.”
“Well, you gave him a son, so you both had gifts to give.”
Mari and Anke openly studied each other. Finally, Anke nodded in agreement.
“Yes, you see everything, quick, quick,” Anke said. “I notice this at our lunch.”
Mari took a deep breath, feeling more like her former, confident self.
“I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
“Thank you, Magdalena,” Anke said. “There is no time to be wasted.”
Anke’s compliment was an unexpected but welcome resolution to a trying day. Indicating Mari should follow her back into her suite of rooms, Anke tucked her laptop away.
“Join me on my walk,” Anke said. “I have kept you too much in the house.”
“Yeah? Great!” Mari said. She dared a look at Ody, but he gave nothing away.
Mari knew better than to make too much of Anke’s sudden show of confidence in her, or the implied intimacy of her new nickname, but she wanted to weep with relief.
They met at the front door. Mari was surprised to see Anke approach in her giant sunglasses and an unglamorous straw hat, like gardeners wore. Holding her cane in one hand, she clipped on Rimbaud’s leash as they exited the estate through a hidden door in the gate.
“Rimbaud grows bored of the yard smells,” Anke said. “I feel I am safe to use my cane here. No one judges or betrays my privacy.”
Mari nodded and crossed her arms over her chest so she could hold her recorder toward Anke without being obvious. The early-evening air was cool and fresh. The houses in Anke’s neighborhood were stately modernist gems and elaborate Spanish and Mediterranean villas with lawns as lush as the swimming pools around back. Mari allowed herself the pleasure of feeling like she belonged to this magical place, in her own way, at least for the weekend.
“Now, where were we?” Anke said.
Mari hadn’t been thinking of a particular question, but she always had one ready.
“Many people have observed 1969 was a transitory time, from the peace and love of the late ’60s to the darkness of the ’70s,” she said. “The Manson murders. Altamont. Mal’s drowning. Could you feel the shift, or is this the interpretation of distance and perspective?”
Anke opened with the usual stories, Laurel Canyon, the Troubadour, and the Sunset Strip. Mari was poised to coax her to go deeper. But after Mari had proven herself inside, earning a new camaraderie, Anke apparently felt more candid. “From these pop culture artifacts, you will see a fairylav9 was difficult. Often, I thought I would return to Germany, to my first love, Fritz. Mal was mean. Unwell. It was clear an ending of one kind or another was drawing near. But I had left one man. I felt I need to try, to stay. Then I was—let us say there were other considerations. And we were married. And he was—he was Mal.”
If Mari had only trusted herself and been patient, Anke would have revealed more of the story eventually. She supposed this pointed to Anke’s agenda, which Mari hadn’t discerned yet—a definite concern. But that was the least of her worries now, if Ody told on her.
“Mal’s genius was legendary, but so was his drug use,” Mari offered.
“Drugs were the symptom. He was soul-sick. Like the black death. Every day with the band was an enchantment. That was, maybe, more the real reason I stay. But I was hurting, and I had nobody I can talk to. Anyone not with the band was on the outside. And this summer, even before Nancy, Mal is already going away from me—with drugs, with Syd. So, I send for my best friend. Sigrid, she took to the life, and she came to work for the band, and for Mal, for a time.”
“It must have been a relief to have an ally, someone you had history with, who cared about you, and who wasn’t swayed by the band’s fame, as so many were.”
“No one was immune to the band. Not even me. Definitely not Siggi. She had come from East Germany. She was very green, as you say. And they were Shangri-la.”
“But she was your friend, first and foremost.”
“Yes, when we were young, we could live by that idea: friends first. It is a nice code. When we were older, in America, neither of us native, life had more complications. But, still, I did all I could for her. Then I had to go. I had to.”
Mari considered the loaded word “complications,” but she understood readers cared more about the men in Anke’s life than her female friendships, especially with a mere band assistant.
“This was later, in the mid-70s,” Mari said. “After you had been with Jack for five years, and you did leave him, Sigrid, and the band. You went back to Germany, to the life you had fled. Finally, you were able to quit heroin, after trying several times.”
“Ja, that is the paint-by-numbers version. But not untrue. When I left, I gave up all my power in that world. I could not do anything more for Sigrid, in terms of keeping her job or her place with the band. I got her to America, and now she had to look out for herself. Maybe it was disloyal of me, but I had to make a choice, and I chose Fritz. Women betray each other for men all the time. Men offer safety. You wouldn’t understand. You have a skill. A career. To live off men, you play by their rules. Sometimes it is messy, other people get hurt.”
Mari felt like Anke had broken her story into shards. She could circle back to other topics, but for now, she would follow the theme of love, seek truths about Mal, the Ramblers.
“Is that how you feel—you lived off men? But you’ve been a model. Published a book of photographs from your travels. You make jewelry.”
“It is nice of you to say, but these are children’s games, not business—not even the business of art—not the stuff by which money is made, houses kept, children raised.”
“So, you found partners. They loved you. You made a family with them. They were very rich—they chose to ‘keep’ you, if you want to call it that, as a sign of their status, power.”
“Ja, a certain kind of man, when he gets money, he acquires a watch, a car, an estate, a woman. It is a necessary expense. I see your point. But I have not had a man in my life for a long time. I prefer it as such. I was lucky to get some money when Mal died. He would have been surprised to be the one in my story who helps me, but it was so.”
Again, the word “motive” bubbled up. This was good stuff. Rich material that touched on Mal’s death. And how it had played out in Anke’s life. But Mari knew to be careful. It was one thing for Anke to be blunt about the less-than-savory aspects of her financial realities, her marriage; anyone else who trod too heavily would be resisted. Anke was, above all else, proud.
“My son, his father takes care of him, but I never ask for more. After I no longer model, I have no income of my own. My jewelry, everyone always wants for free. This book, it is my first real work in many decades. It takes its toll, always creating the illusion of wealth out of less.”
If Anke wasn’t wealthy, who was? The other Ramblers. But that would have been the case with or without Mal. And they were already one of the most successful bands of all time, even as early as the summer of ’69. Why would they risk getting rid of him? Anke had stopped to let Rimbaud snuffle his way along a patch of grass, and she watched Mari.
Scrambling to fill the silence, Mari lost the thread of their deeper conversation about Anke’s sexual currency and its rewards. “What kind of work did Sigrid do for the band?”
“Everyone had an assistant, to run the errands. Reserve the table for dinner. Talk to management. Buy and carry the drugs.”
“Your friend did this for the band?”
“Yes, for the band, and then for Mal until he is done with me and so with her—and then for Jack. It was like a—how do you say—a promotion?”
“Do you still talk to her?”
“Nein. Our paths have crossed. But when they do, there is no talking.”
“Was she mad at you, then, for returning to Germany?”
“Furious. But we both make choices, and we had to see them through.”
“You chose Fritz,” Mari said. “She chose…” Mari let her voice trail off, waiting for Anke to fill in the blank, but Anke shrugged in a bored way.
Her openness was gone, and they were approaching Anke’s house. Anke paused to unlock the door, remove her hat, and light a cigarette. The magic hour had lingered, and the desert light was as soft as peach fuzz. Bathed in its smolder, Anke’s white silk dress, looped with strands of rosewood prayer beads, shimmered as if she were a radiant shaft of light. Mari was filled with hunger. Not to be seduced, but to make real contact, to unearth secrets, to not fail. To climb the ladder—inside Anke, inside her life—and to never be hungry again.
Mari tried to power on her transcription, but she was restless after her walk with Anke and couldn’t focus. She found herself online, watching clip after clip of Mal—official band videos and shaky concert footage with psychedelic patterns projected onto him, his eyes sparking in the colored lights. When she started to feel like he was watching her back, she opened her slider for some fresh air. The temperature had dropped. She paused, but the crisp night felt good.
She crept around the house, to the pool, aware she was overstepping. Mari had never snooped—until the episode with the journal. Before now, she hadn’t even been tempted. When her celebrities hadn’t invited her somewhere in their house, or hadn’t shared a letter or picture with her, it was off-limits. If caught, she would need to beg for forgiveness, and she was unsure if she would receive it. She knew she hadn’t yet seen Anke at her full powers. But the possibility she might already be on her way out made her desperate to use her time here well.
Mari’s nerves pulsed. All her focus was pulled to the ground before her. She had been expecting the usual spa-like oasis, with a jacuzzi and elaborate plantings. Instead, she found the kind of simple concrete rectangle popular in the desert in the ’20s. Still, it had a dated luxury. She tapped the surface with her toes: It was heated. Stripping down, she escaped the chill by submerging herself. Without any underwater lights, it was spooky, Mal’s ghost in her head. So much had been written about his death, she could picture him, floating in the pool, lungs full of water, blood full of drugs. It was even sadder if Anke’s journal entry meant he was Ody’s father.
Mari considered what she knew of that night. The band had dined at a trendy health food spot near their rental house. Not long into the meal, Mal had made a scene—maybe tripping, maybe ruined from the constant drugs. Anke had tried to calm him, but he’d turned away from her. Mal had been taken home, where Nancy was resting. Refusing to ride with Mal, and too upset to remain at dinner, Anke had walked down Sunset Boulevard with Dante. Syd had ferried the rest of the band to practice for the next day’s Hollywood Bowl show, returning for Dante. At one a.m., Nancy had awoken to discover Mal gone. Feeling uneasy, she trailed through the house until she found him, drowned. She called an ambulance, management, but he’d been dead for at least an hour. Whatever Mal had been to her, to Anke, to the band, to the public—it was all over now.
Mari pictured Mal’s limp body in the dim pool. Darts of fear almost drove her back into the house. But it was so good—silky and warm, easing the knots out of her muscles. After Anke’s transcendent stories, she couldn’t help but want a little magic for herself. Alone with the vast desert sky, she belonged to the story, and also to the world—beyond all books.
Mari stretched out in the water, opening herself up to the therapeutic power of the desert, which Anke had praised. She wanted more of everything, but instead, she felt like there was never enough of anything. Not enough money, or security, or love. Theoretically, life should have expanded in all of these areas after her mom kicked her dad out when she was nine and V was five. He’d been so erratic and incapacitated by his gambling that their existence had stabilized without him, thanks to after-school programs, her mom’s hard work, and then her stepdad, who was a good guy. But in her years with her dad, her personality had been forged in the fires of their codependency. No one explained why he had been banished, or why his absence was for her own good. And so, she spun, rootless, until she latched onto academic excellence, vaulting into college, a journalism degree that drew on her listening skills, a job at a city paper. Becoming a music critic had led to the ghostwriting, where she had stumbled into the purpose she had lacked. But still, she never wanted to listen to anyone like she wanted to listen to her dad, and sort of like Anke and heroin, she’d had to swear him off completely. She stuck to what she could control, her books, and what she was good at, getting people to confide in her, and stayed afloat. She didn’t crave what her celebrities had, because they possessed talents and charisma she lacked, but Anke made her life exceptional by living it. Such simplicity stirred something in Mari. She felt full, not just of deadline purpose but of life. She knew she hadn’t earned this job with her writing résumé. It gave her confidence; she had impressed Anke on a more animalistic level, the plane where Anke thrived. Mari also knew she would never be an Anke herself. But serving as her proxy was heady enough—the pleasure and glow of this life was working on Mari in ways she’d never felt before, pushing her to risk more than ever. It hit her: I will do whatever it takes to finish this book.