SARAH: I vaguely remember. In my workshop —
CRUZZI: Moustache? I can’t quite place —
JIMROY: Question mark? We can always go back …
Director’s Note: The voices become indistinguishable, but the scene continues a few seconds longer. The late hour and the curious impromptu nature of this mini-symposium demand a surreal treatment. MUSIC overrides the voices, almost drowning them out. A burst of laughter comes through, indicating the charged air. Jimroy is seen, stroking off names, his mouth curved into a smile. Rose, cross-legged on her bed, is slicing the air and expressing reservation. Sarah gestures, makes a point, laughs. Cruzzi, his legs elegantly crossed, shrugs, speaks, smiles ruefully, signals to Jimroy to continue. VOICES grow increasingly indistinct, then fade completely. Dissolve.
Fade to: Interior of Sarah’s room. Early morning.
A few bars of light enter the bedroom. Sarah is seen sleeping on her side. Rose is sprawled on her back, asleep, her mouth wide open. Cruzzi sleeps in the armchair, his collar unbuttoned, his tie loose, one foot on the end of a bed. Jimroy is curled on the floor with Rose’s dressing-gown pulled over him. The registration list, covered with pencil markings, is spread on the floor beside him. SOUND: a telephone ringing.
SARAH (jerking awake, she gropes blindly for the telephone and croaks into the receiver): Hello. Hello. Yes this is … Stephen! … Yes … No … Fine, honestly … Yes. (She slides languorously down under the covers with the phone cradled next to her face.) Of course! … No, she’s fine, just fine. (She pats her stomach, smiling.) Not complaining one bit. She loves travelling. No … no … yes, it’s … lonely here, too. I know. (She looks around the room, takes in Cruzzi, Rose, Jimroy.) No, really … Yes … Me too, you know I do. (She laughs.)… What can I say? I know … me too … I promise, yes … Bye. (She replaces the phone. Across the room Cruzzi is seen smiling with his eyes closed; Rose is attentive, at attention, but pretending to sleep; Jimroy shuts his eyes grimly.)
CRUZZI (rising from his chair, almost crippled with stiffness, and stepping across Jimroy on his way to the bathroom): Good morning, comrades.
ROSE (singing out): Good morning.
JIMROY: It’s morning. (He regards the sun coming through the window with pleasure.)
SARAH: Anyone for breakfast? (She reaches for the phone.)
ROSE: I could eat a horse.
SARAH (into phone): Three full breakfasts. The Bay Street Specials, orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, coffee. One wheat cereal with double milk, also double orange juice. (She sits up and stretches.)
Cut to: Interior of Sarah’s room. Breakfast time.
Sarah and Rose sit on the edge of the bed with the breakfast table in front of them. Across from them, seated on the other bed, are Jimroy and Cruzzi. Jimroy, with a smudge of egg adhering to his chin, is rechecking his list.
* * *
JIMROY (businesslike): A quick rundown then. With single question marks we’ve got Anders, Carrington, Gorham, Loftus, Norchuk, Oldfield, Skelton, and Tolliver.
ROSE: Urbanski? What happened to Urbanski?
JIMROY: Who?
SARAH: The one from Los Angeles. With the short socks. I think we decided he was okay.
CRUZZI: I must have drifted off at that point.
JIMROY: And—with double question marks we have—Crozier, Hall, and Webborn.
SARAH: And?
JIMROY: Triple question mark—Lang.
CRUZZI: Willard Lang. I did drift off.
JIMROY: I’ve never trusted the man. One of us—today—should ask him if he still has his copy of Swann’s Songs.
SARAH: I’ll volunteer.
ROSE: Wouldn’t it be funny if—
SARAH: If what, Rose?
ROSE: Well, if here we were, all sixty-seven of us. All of us here to talk about Mary Swann’s poems, and what if—what if not a single one of us has a copy of her book?
SARAH: That would be strange all right.
JIMROY: Statistically speaking …
CRUZZI: It’s possible, I suppose.
JIMROY (bitterly): Of course some of us came here with a copy and —
CRUZZI: Well, my four copies are certainly gone. All four.
ROSE: And mine. I don’t know how I could have —
SARAH (spooning up cereal): Luckily I’ve got mine.
CRUZZI (delighted): You do! I hadn’t realized that you —
SARAH: Well, not with me. I didn’t bring it, as a matter of fact. I’ve lent it to a friend, and he hasn’t returned it yet.
Director’s Note: Sarah’s face—and her voice—must convey the warmth of affection. She stretches, smiles, bites her lower lip on the word friend.
CRUZZI: You’re sure he will return it—your friend?
SARAH: Oh, Brownie would never lose a book. He’s in the business, rare books. Books—(she stops to think)—books to Brownie are holy. Other things he’s careless about, but books, well, with book’s he’s —
JIMROY: Where is it? The copy he borrowed? (He asks this in an abrupt, almost rude tone.)
SARAH: Where?
JIMROY: What I mean is, can you get your hands on it? Today?
SARAH (doubtfully): He works out of Chicago, my friend. Well, more than just a friend, actually …
JIMROY: I wonder if you should warn him. Make sure it’s safe with him. It may be the last copy we have.
CRUZZI: A good idea.
SARAH: I suppose I could phone him. (She smiles at the thought.) Just to make sure. I could phone him at work. (She looks at her watch.) He’s always there by eight o’clock, a real workaholic, that was part of the … he was always working.
ROSE (handing Sarah the phone): Here.
SARAH (looking around at the others): Maybe … maybe I should … make it a private call. He’s sort: of …
ROSE: I’m going back to my room anyway to get dressed. It’s getting late.
CRUZZI (tactfully): I should be going too. (He rubs his chin.) A shave, perhaps, is in order.
JIMROY (gathering up papers): I’m going to have to duck my way back. (He gestures at his pyjamas.)
ROSE: Me too. (She laughs. Jimroy flinches, then follows her out.)
The instant they are gone Sarah takes up the telephone. She makes an effort to compose herself, strokes back her hair, breathes deeply, then dials with almost childish deliberation.
SARAH: Hello. Hello, it’s Sarah Maloney. May I speak to Brownie please. Mr. Brown. Yes … Oh … (Disappointed): Well, what time will he be in? … Are you sure? … Well, do you know when he’s expected back? I was anxious to get hold of him today. Something’s come up, business … No, I don’t think so, I have to speak to him confidentially, because … You don’t happen to know where he is at the moment? … No, I’ll be happy to hold on … (She hums while she waits, taps her fingers on the table, smiles.) Yes. But someone there must know where he is. I mean, hasn’t he left some kind of … I see. Yes. But he must have something written on his appointment calendar … Yes, I’ll hold … (She rubs nervously at her hair, twirling a strand around a finger.) Yes. Is that all? … Just that one word … I see. Symposium. (She puts down the phone and for a minute sits on the edge of the bed, unable to move.) Symposium.
Fade to: Interior of the meeting room. Morning.
Members of the symposium are taking their seats. The mood is congenial and relaxed, with a distinct sense of anticipation.
BUTTER MOUTH: … running a bit late this morning —
MERRY EYES: … not like Lang to be —
TOP KNOT: What a night! I’m so goddamn hungover —
SILVER CUFFLINKS: This is what I’ve really been waiting for —
CLIPBOARD: … and this is why I came, if you want to know the truth —
CRUZZI (to Jimroy who is sitting next to him): Well, do you think it’s really going to happen?
JIMROY (deeply skeptical): He’s promised to talk about the love poems, but as far as actually giving up the poems themselves —
ROSE (sitting beside
them): There’s Sarah now. (Calls): Over here. I’ve saved you a seat.
SARAH (dazed): It’s a quarter to ten. I thought I’d be late.
ROSE (conspiratorially): Did you get through? To your … friend?
SARAH: No. (Her face is stiff with incomprehension, and she speaks as though in a trance.) He’s … out of town.
ROSE: You can always try later.
SARAH: No. (She pauses, gives a violent shake of her head.) I don’t think so.
SILVER CUFFLINKS (loudly): Hey, what’s up? I thought Willard was supposed to start at 9:30.
CRINKLED FOREHEAD (at lectern): Ladies and gentlemen, fellow scholars. Professor Lang appears to have been delayed. If you’ll just be patient, I’m sure he’ll be along in a minute or two.
WATTLED GENT: … bugger slept in —
GINGER PONYTAIL : … not Lang, he’s always right on the button —
GREEN TWEED SUIT: Personally, I can’t sit too long in these chairs —
WISTFUL DEMEANOUR: What’s a love poem to one ear is just a—
WIMPY GRIN : … bird calls and mating dances —
CLIPBOARD: … a tad elitist, but he’s managed to trash those elements most cherished —
GREEN TWEED SUIT: Almost time for the coffee break —
CRINKLED FOREHEAD (stepping up to lectern again): We’ve just telephoned up to Professor Lang’s room, and since there’s no answer, we assume he’s on his way. Please bear with us for a few minutes longer.
As though a signal has been given, the meeting room falls silent. All eyes are fixed on the empty lectern and on the clock behind it. The only sounds are throat clearing, coughing, sighing, and shuffling of feet. It is now 10:00 A.M. There is some rustling of papers, an air of expectancy. The clock does not actually tick, but there is a distinct sense of a clock ticking. The seconds pass, then the minutes. It is now 10:02. Crinkled Forehead once again approaches the lectern.
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: I’m sure any minute now —
WOMAN WITH TURBAN: Has anyone looked in the coffee shop?
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: He’s not there. We checked.
SARAH (rising): Perhaps one of us should go to see if—
JIMROY (on his feet): I’ll gladly volunteer. I think we’ve been sitting quite long enough. (He heads for the doorway.)
ROSE: I’ll go along with you. Mr. Jimroy. Keep you company.
SARAH: Maybe I will too. Might as well.
CRUZZI: I’ll just —
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: Well, I’ll just tag along too, perhaps.
WOMAN WITH TURBAN: Might as well join in —
BLUE-SPOTTED TIE: Why don’t I come along —?
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: He may be ill.
A group of ten or twelve rapidly assembles and walks along in lock step toward the bank of elevators. MUSIC: a skirling tune, strings mainly, with some bagpipes. The small, silent swarm squeezes through the corridor. An elevator arrives, and the group, acting almost as a single being, pours itself inside. CAMERA then picks up the group inside the elevator, where there is total silence except for:
JIMROY (in vice-admiral’s voice): Twenty-fourth floor, I believe. Right down the hall from my room.
CRUZZI: Right. (He presses the button, and the elevator swiftly rises.)
ROSE (gasping): We’re here.
The group exits, with Sarah in the lead. Long CAMERA shot of the silent march down the corridor.
SARAH (stopping before the door): This is it. (She knocks. There is no response.)
WOMAN WITH TURBAN: Try again.
SARAH (knocking again): Nothing. (She puts her ear against the door, listening and knocking again. She motions to Cruzzi to listen too.)
Cruzzi presses his ear to the door, listens, and nods, then steps aside for Crinkled Forehead who repeats the procedure.
ROSE (pushing forward, placing her ear to the door): I hear something. (She holds up a finger for silence.)
Director’s Note: From the distance comes the strangled sound of Lang beating on the wall and calling out. His cries gradually grow louder and more wild, but they are also faintly theatrical and subtly exaggerated.
LANG: Help! Help!
ROSE (to others): Did you hear that? Someone said help. (She tries the door.)
LANG: Help! Get me out of here!
ROSE: It’s Professor Lang.
Cut to: Interior of Lang’s hotel room. Same time as above.
CAMERA close-up of the bathroom door, which is tied with a curtain cord, the doorknob looped and secured to the knob of the clothes closet next to it.
LANG (from inside the bathroom): Get me out of here!
Director’s Note: Because the employment of the curtain cord, a staple in crime films, is intended here to be an ironic, self-referential nod in the direction of the genre, the CAMERA lingers on the subject for several seconds before moving into the room and focusing on the intruder in his maintenance uniform. He is a short man, agile, with curly hair, busily stuffing papers into a pillowcase, the same man Rose Hindmarch encountered on the stairway the evening before.
Cut to: The corridor. Same time as above.
ROSE: I think we should force the door.
CRUZZI (in reasonable tones): I’m sure we can get a key from the desk —
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: Someone telephone down. I’ll just —
WOMAN WITH TURBAN: What’s he saying in there?
JIMROY (Always a man to honour questions): He’s still saying “Help,” I believe.
ROSE: The only thing to do is break the door down.
SARAH: Rose has a point —
BLUE-SPOTTED TIE: If we all leaned together —
JIMROY (vice-admirally): One, two, three, push. (Though they all push at once, it is a poorly executed move, almost comically clumsy, and the door fails to give way.)
LANG (muffled): Help! Help!
ROSE: One more try. One and a two and a three —
Crinkled Forehead returns with three bellhops, one of them carrying a key. MUSIC: a loud orchestral crash, the sort of music that, in western films, traditionally accompanies the arrival of the posse.
Cut to: Interior of Lang’s room. Same time as above.
CAMERA close-up of intruder who hurries with papers, hearing the commotion in the corridor. He looks to left and right, goes to the window and wedges it open. For an instant he regards the street twenty-four storeys below. He pushes the bag through the window and reluctantly lets it drop just as Jimroy, Cruzzi, Sarah, and the others crowd into the room. The intruder ducks neatly behind the curtain, the same curtain from which the cord has been taken.
LANG: Help! I’m in the bathroom!
ROSE: He’s in the bathroom. Look, a curtain cord!
LANG: Get me out of here.
Director’s Note: The excitement as the members of the symposium cluster around the bathroom door is intense, and not one of them notices the faintly stagy sound of Lang’s voice. Everyone is talking at once, and Jimroy is tugging at the curtain cord.
Cut to: Exterior of building. The CAMERA picks up the pillow case as it falls through the air; some of its contents fly out as it descends, mixing with the snow and carried by the wind into the street.
Cut to: Interior of Lang’s room. Same time as above.
LANG (staggering from bathroom; he is wearing undershorts and a towel and appears agitated): I was just having a bath and …
CRUZZI (looking around): Looks like a burglary.
ROSE: Check the closets. Under the bed —
LANG (growing hysterical). For God’s sake, never mind that! My papers …
SARAH: What exactly’s been taken?
LANG (wildly histrionic): My papers! My years of work!
JIMROY: … got everything I suppose.
ROSE: The pillow case … a pillow case is missing!
CRUZZI: … made the most of his moment —
LANG: The love poems. Don’t tell me the love poems—(He is waving his arms extravagantly and wailing, but his face is watchful.) I had the love poem
s over there, on the dresser. The originals!
GINGER PONYTAIL : Take it easy, fellow, take it easy.
BLUE-SPOTTED TIE: Give the man breathing room.
MAN WITH OUTSIZE AFRO: Jesus, he’s in shock, we’d better get a medic up here.
ROSE: And the hotel detective.
CRINKLED FOREHEAD: Water! Get him some water.
WOMAN WITH TURBAN (to Lang): Here. Take my raincoat. I insist.
Director’s Note: It is important that the confusion in this scene (which lasts less than a minute) be palpable; it must obscure and animate at the same time, filling the room like a blizzard and numbing the perceptions of those who are acting and reacting. The Swannians have gathered around Lang, and they are all talking at once. Not one of them observes the intruder as he slips from behind the curtain and walks nonchalantly past them, into the corridor, glancing back over his shoulder just before he disappears. Only Willard Lang, struggling into the raincoat and babbling incoherently catches, and holds, the intruder’s gaze for the briefest of moments. The look between them is shrewd and culpable—and ambiguous enough to puzzle the sort of reflective movie-goers who like to dissect the variables of a story over a cup of coffee on their way home from their local cinemas.
Cut to: Corridor. Same time. Long shot of intruder running toward exit stairs. CAMERA close-up on Sarah, stepping into corridor, regarding running figure.
SARAH: Brownie? (She whispers his name, and then repeats it more loudly, even recklessly.) Brownie.
Director’s Note: The intruder—it is uncertain whether or not he hears his name—dives through the exit door, leaving CAMERA on Sarah’s face. She looks first puzzled, then wistful, then knowing. Her mouth opens a final time, mouthing the word “Brownie,” then closes abruptly. She closes her eyes, sways slightly, then opens her eyes widely. One hand goes to her mouth, rests there.
Fade to: Interior of meeting room. Later in the day.
A meeting is in session, but there is no one at the lectern and no one, seemingly, in charge. People are seated in a sort of circle, speaking out, offering up remembered lines of poetry, laboriously reassembling one of Mary Swann’s poems. Sarah is writing, a clipboard on her knee.