The Good Inn Read online

  because he saw it through a hole,

  in a different time and place.

  Léar has been dining far across the room, studying Soldier Boy,

  while catching up with his special dinner guest.

  Bernard Natan has come far from his Romanian days;

  just that very week he purchased Pathé and now owns the largest film

  production company outside of the USA.

  As Léar smiles and nods at all his old partner’s newest exploits,

  he is wondering if he will ever rid his mouth of this most bitter taste.

  Why is he not in his old business partner’s shoes,

  walking on air, after paying his dues?

  A little film he believed would bring him fortune and fame,

  shot his lead actor to stardom and made Natan his name.

  But no one wants to remember

  the film that is to blame.

  What a reunion, this couldn’t be a coincidence;

  Léar has a few words to say to George, who has forgotten the man

  who gave him his chance.

  And now that actor is standing in front of his face,

  wearing a costume for a film he was in,

  about an inn, from a plot that Léar did spin,

  although even he would admit, it was thin.

  Has Natan planned this little twist?

  Suddenly Léar’s worst returns, and he is sure that the joke was

  planned,

  at his own expense.

  And then he speaks . . .

  SOLDIER BOY: Costume? These are my clothes. I’ve worn them since I left my post. Do we know each other? I’m afraid tonight has taken half my wits!

  And then Léar laughs and speaks again.

  And then Soldier Boy pulls back his arm,

  stepping away, both offended and alarmed;

  who is this man speaking to him so unkindly,

  what has he done to him, in this or in some other life?

  Léar then stands up prepared for a fight;

  Natan grabs his arm, holding on tight.

  Only too schooled in this man’s brutal force,

  he doesn’t want talk of a scene,

  especially with all that he has to lose.

  Soldier Boy backs away and returns to his crew,

  while Léar watches them pay the bill and head for the street.

  Léar turns to Natan with apologies

  and sits back down in his seat.

  Natan clears his throat and speaks.

  Léar smiles at Natan and then pats his mouth with his napkin and places it gently on the table before he quietly responds.

  “I am just a grain of red sand, my old friend.

  I travel on the sirocco wind,

  blown all the way from Africa,

  where I meet with La Tramontane.

  From there I travel through the Rhône Valley,

  where I find these lost souls—my creations;

  they travel through light, which is itself quite a feat,

  but unlike light, the wind can go where light cannot,

  to that place where the truth always hides:

  into the dark.”

  CUT TO:

  EXTERIOR/STREET/NIGHT

  The group is thinning.

  The ladies have said their good nights,

  but the evening is not yet over.

  There is still one more stop to make.

  Leading the way is Fénéon, walking at a brisk pace;

  Buñuel can barely keep up,

  with his cigarette hanging off his face.

  Up the boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle

  to passage de l’Opéra

  and through a little alley into a courtyard

  where, once upon a time, a magician named Méliès

  had a cinema in the open air.

  Across a connecting courtyard

  past a building that once was

  a little cinema founded by none other than Monsieur Léar and

  Monsieur Pirou.

  Past the famous Grand Café, in whose salon the Lumières

  projected their proudest day.

  Finally, they turn a corner onto the boulevard des Capucines,

  in the Ninth Arrondissement,

  to the number twenty-three.

  Above them, lighting up the night,

  is the name of another once-famous site:

  Here, Fénéon explains, is where the founder of the Moulin Rouge

  built a movie theater, the biggest at the time,

  with a small basement theater below,

  also owned by Monsieur Léar and Monsieur Pirou.

  Once the grandest show palace,

  where everyone performed,

  even Nickie Willy, before her light went out.

  But now the place has seen better days,

  the entrance to it has been razed,

  all that’s left is its grand old sign,

  which the city pays to keep lit up,

  in place of lighting other stuff.

  Around its corner, the gang goes

  into an alley that Soldier Boy knows.

  From some frightful dream where he was pursued

  while searching for his other half, and for his second Nicole.

  A shabby marquee flickers and buzzes,

  the entrance to Léar’s old theater below the Olympia has suffered many abuses,

  behind the new Paris that, like ivy, has covered up and overgrown,

  this little lost house of strange cinematic uses.

  Just next door, the red salon sits,

  a place some call, a house of sin,

  a row of small rooms are reserved,

  a few women for so many men.

  And above the house where these women work,

  an old man from the Orient assembles fireworks of every sort.

  Two for three francs, or four for seven.

  Business has been slow, so the room is very cramped,

  a leak in the pipes has made the fuses all damp,

  walls of his creations on all four sides,

  an explosive combination, that up until now he has been able to

  hide.

  In the old theater below, conveniently placed,

  a movie is on the marquee to play at the top of each hour,

  to give the men a push in the right direction,

  to pay for a room and a woman’s hourly affection.

  Soldier Boy looks up to read the marquee,

  the film on the bill is about to begin, it’s a silent two-reeler called

  CHAPTER 7

  La Maison Rouge du Film Bleu

  (The Red House of the Blue Movie)

  INTERIOR/MOVIE THEATER LOBBY/NIGHT

  Soldier Boy watches as his evening companions walk ahead laughing and stumbling through the swinging doors to the single theater.

  Pierre stops and turns to Soldier Boy, who has stopped in the lobby, staring at the doors to the theater.

  PIERRE: What is it, my friend? What is wrong?

  SOLDIER BOY: I’m afraid.

  PIERRE: What do you fear, George, our brave Soldier Boy?

  SOLDIER BOY: I’m afraid . . . that this is the end.

  PIERRE: Come on, let us finish off this wild and wonderful night we have had. There is ALWAYS tomorrow, although we will be under a new day’s light.

  Pierre motions at Soldier Boy to join him and then enters the theater.

  Soldier Boy looks to the concession counter, where the Old Projectionist stands, staring straight ahead into nothing, as if in a trance.

  A fly lands on the tip of the old man’s nose and he jumps to life as he smacks his face with his hand. His nose is bright red from this ritual.

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: Your friend is right. After all, time really is just light in different places. There is nothing to fear. Popcorn?

  SOLDIER BOY: What?

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: Popcorn? Candy? We have a few treats to offer you to enjoy during the featu
re.

  SOLDIER BOY: No, thank you.

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: My protégé has just fed the reel in the projection booth. You better hurry, Soldier Boy, or you’ll miss her.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/THEATER/NIGHT

  Soldier Boy walks in through the swinging doors. It is very dark except for the flicker of an image on the screen and the beam of light shooting out from the little window above and behind him.

  Illuminated by the flickering light, Soldier Boy sees Pierre, Fénéon, Buñuel, Chagall, Breton, and Tati sitting inside. They have joined a larger group, whom Soldier Boy cannot make out, but they appear to be wearing uniforms much like his own.

  Looking up, Soldier Boy can see a young man in the booth watching the film on the screen. It is a newsreel that is coming to an end.

  On the screen, a report shows a protest in Germany in front of a movie theater with the marquee reading, “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Nazi protesters push against German police who are lined up to protect the theater and its patrons. The next report shows a chaotic city street in New York, lines for food, and a report on the early effects of the stock market crash.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/AUDIENCE/SAME

  Fénéon watches the reel in disgust and turns to Pierre, speaking out without warning.

  FÉNÉON: You see this? It’s all coming down. You can’t hunt down one man for the world’s ills. One man can only do as much harm to the world as the world allows him. The great threat is never the one man they hunt down and put on display in a theater of redemption. It is the rest of us who created a world where this all can happen. It is all of us who should be tried and shot. And they put me on trial and call me the terrorist? I should be the judge and jury!

  PIERRE: Wonderful, Fénéon. I don’t know how you could see things so darkly. Our city is the greatest city in the world and we are the children of the greatest city, whose hearts beat in time with the artistic avant-garde. We are quickly becoming the world capital for freethinking intellectuals, and you think that such an accomplishment could be undone? We do not have the problems these other places do. We are a truly illuminated society.

  Fénéon laughs, which is unusual. Everyone notices.

  BUÑUEL (with a cigarette dangling from his lips): Did Fénéon just laugh?

  PIERRE: You’re surprisingly upbeat tonight.

  FÉNÉON: Tonight I’ve designed what might be my greatest piece of living social commentary yet. A theater of the absurd with a twist. A REAL LIFE spectacle de curiosité! It could be most explosive.

  Fénéon turns around in his seat to see Soldier Boy standing in the back, watching the screen; the theater doors swing open and standing behind Soldier Boy is Léar.

  Léar does not see Soldier Boy standing with his back to him in the darkness. He scans the dark theater for a face he knows must be there.

  LÉAR: Now, what will we observe today? A two-headed snake confronting its other head for the first time perhaps.

  His eyes stop on a man sitting in a dark corner in the far back, completely out of sight.

  Sitting with his face obscured by his overcoat is George.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/PROJECTION BOOTH/SAME

  The Old Projectionist’s assistant watches as the end of the film reel pushes through the sprockets and stops on the last frame, where it sticks.

  Standing behind him is the Old Projectionist. He is ready to jump in.

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: Ah, yes, see.

  The young man opens the projector’s gate and pulls the last frame out where the light shoots through it.

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: It just takes that one frame to stick and for the light to heat it to the right degree, and then . . . BOOM! It all goes up in flames. Very good. Again you have saved us from certain death, until next time.

  The Old Projectionist laughs a tired laugh and waddles away out of the booth.

  The young man quickly loads the next reel, whose side reads, La bonne auberge.

  He delicately weaves the film into the projector’s track and releases it. As it begins to roll through, the young projectionist turns and walks out of the projection room, closing the door behind him.

  The title of the film illuminates the screen.

  The Good Inn

  And then . . .

  The reel stops. The single frame in the window of the lense begins to burn and then ignites. The light BLASTS through the first frame as the reel goes up in flames.

  CUT TO:

  EXTERIOR/IÉNA/DAY (in color)

  Soldier Boy stands beside Roussou on the bow of the ship; the morning sun is just about to cut through the horizon. The sky is a brilliant panoply of colors. They stare out at the spectacle of light painting the sky.

  On the shore, the silhouette of a woman. For a split second he is sure that it is Nickie, but then Roussou breaks the silence.

  Just then the sun cuts through the horizon’s line in the sea and for an instant the woman on the shore is illuminated; her peasant clothes give her away. It is not Nickie Willy, “the Queen of the Cancan,” but an innkeeper’s daughter named Nicole who has finally decided it is her turn to go to Paris.

  A BLAST of LIGHT and energy EXPLODES, cutting through Soldier Boy and Roussou, bending their images and then shredding them, carrying their particles away in the light.

  CUT TO:

  INTERIOR/THEATER/SAME

  The explosive light from the screen pushes into Soldier Boy in the back of the theater as he turns away from the blast of energy that rips through the building.

  When he looks again at the screen, he finds himself watching his life montaged.

  This montage spans from his birth under the Eiffel Tower to the moment he comes upon the Good Inn. It flickers and pops, skipping back and forth in a dizzying, orgasmic spectacle of light through time. And then, Nicole appears on the screen. He watches himself watching her through the window of the inn in the film.

  She stops and looks out. It seems that she is looking directly at him.

  Soldier Boy is overwhelmed by the experience. He is both transfixed and emotionally overcome. He smiles for the first time.

  And then, finally, he speaks . . .

  SOLDIER BOY: What a beautiful life I have had.

  Soldier Boy stumbles forward down the row of seats, as if in a trance, walking right past his new friends, who sit in the audience watching the picture. Up to the screen he marches, staring into the giant image playing before him.

  On the screen now, he watches as he slides up over Nicole and their sexual exploration plays across the screen, all the BEST PARTS seeming to be perfectly edited together.

  Behind Soldier Boy in the far dark corner, George stands up. He strains to see who this man is who is standing in front of the screen. Terrified that he will be noticed in the dark, he carefully creeps up behind Soldier Boy and reaches out, almost afraid to touch the shoulder of the man in front of him.

  On-screen, Soldier Boy sits in the warm sitting room across from the inn’s only other guest, who now clearly resembles Léar.

  As George’s hand comes down on Soldier Boy’s shoulder, a black title card comes onto the screen above.

  INTERIOR/BACK OF THEATER/SAME

  The young projectionist stands watching the film, lost in the strange image that now takes over the screen of the soldier looking into a small hole. The rest of the screen is black and it almost seems like he is looking directly at the young projectionist and the audience below—just before he climbs through and the hole swallows everything in darkness.

  The theater doors swing open and the frantic Old Projectionist rushes in.

  OLD PROJECTIONIST:

  What have you done?

  What have you done?

  He grabs his protégé, shaking him as he looks up to the projection booth, which is in flames.

  INTERIOR/FRONT OF THEATER/SAME

  George’s hand comes down on Soldier Boy’s shoulder and he turns to find himself staring into his
own face.

  SOLDIER BOY: It’s me.

  GEORGE: It’s you!

  SOLDIER BOY: You’re me.

  GEORGE: I’m you?

  On the screen, Nicole now stares into the hole, out at the world that is watching her.

  INTERIOR/BACK OF THEATER/SAME

  Entering through the same swinging doors, Nickie stands in the back, hidden by the dark of the theater. Looking up onto the screen, she sees herself, and then looks down to what her younger image on the screen is looking at. There she sees both George and Soldier Boy. There seems to be a struggle happening between the two men. Without thinking, she runs forward down the aisle toward them as Nicole’s arm penetrates the hole on the screen, reaching into the darkness beyond.

  INTERIOR/FRONT OF THEATER/SAME

  George has wrapped his hands around Soldier Boy’s throat and is choking him to death. Soldier Boy claws at George’s hands, but it is no use; George is surprisingly much stronger than he is.

  Just as Soldier Boy is about to fade into unconsciousness, a hand reaches out to him, covering him and George in a brilliant light.

  It is Nickie’s hand. George looks down at his body and is terrified to discover that it is breaking apart into particles of light. He looks into the mirror image of himself, at Soldier Boy, who is also glowing and sparkling into particles of light.

  A pinhole beam flickers through the movie screen above, as if they are being projected out of it. Then, as light does when a projector is shut off, it disappears: George, Nickie, and Soldier Boy are gone.

  A lone clapping is heard in the theater.

  Standing in the glowing smoke-filled theater in the back of the audience, Léar claps as the fire above spreads out over the ceiling. Soldier Boy’s late-night party rushes out.

  The Old Projectionist grabs his apprentice’s arm and begins to drag him frantically up the aisle. As they rush past Léar, he screams out . . .

  OLD PROJECTIONIST: Are you mad? The theater is on fire! RUN, RUN LIKE HELL!