Robert Stone - Children of Light

“I honestly don’t think so,” Hueffer said.

Drogue studied his assistant for a long moment. “Hey,” he said to all present, “how about this guy?”

Hueffer blushed.

“Well,” Toby Blakely said, “obviously we can’t intercut with the trolley footage if it rains.”

“We’ll keep shooting if it rains,” young Drogue told them. “If it stops we’ll make rain to match.”

“Yessir,” Blakely said. “That’d be the thing to do. These chubascos can last an hour or they can last for three days.”

“The next scene is all that concerns me,” Drogue said. “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to shoot the last scene of the picture in rain. If it rains for a week we’ll wait for a week.”

Hueffer and Blakely nodded soberly.

Young Drogue charged toward the setup in his loping stride. Hueffer and Blakely accompanied him. His father ambled along behind.

“So we’re home free, right? Rain or not.”

“Unless it rains tomorrow and not today,” Blakely said delicately. “And we still have the last scene to shoot.”

“Go away, Toby,” young Drogue said.

Hueffer and Blakely went back to the camera setup. Drogue had caught sight of the producer, Charlie Freitag, who was standing with his production manager in the eucalyptus grove beside the trolley tracks.

“He has to show up now,” young Drogue said bitterly. “Freak weather, there’s no cover set — Charlie arrives. You can show him four hours of magnificent dailies and he’ll give you five hours of handwringing because an extra stepped on a nail.”

“Well,” old Drogue said, “that’s his function.”

Lu Anne, sitting outside on her folding chair for Ricutti’s last ministrations, became aware of young Drogue’s spidery approach. She looked up at him and he offered his arm, parodying antique chivalry. When she rose to take it, she saw that the writer named Lowndes had not moved from the spot where they had left him. Charlie Freitag was speaking to him but he was watching her.

“Is that guy bothering you?” Walter Drogue asked. “That Lowndes?”

She told him that it was all right. But although it was her business to be watched, the concentrated scrutiny oppressed her. There were too many eyes.

“My ride?” she asked.

Drogue nodded. “I think you’re right about her sitting. It looks good. Would you like a rehearsal? I was thinking we might steal a jump on time if we shot it. If you were ready.”

“Yes,” she said, “let’s do it.”

Drogue looked her up and down. “Can you walk in the skirt? Are the shoes O.K. on this ground?”

“Costume’s fine. If you like the colors.”

Vera Ricutti hurried up and bent to Lu Anne’s hem, judging its evenness.

“The hatband to match the parasol,” she told Drogue. “That’s how they did it.”

“It’s pale green,” Drogue said. “Is pale green the color of death?”

“ Bien sûr ,” Lu Anne said.

“No rehearsal?”

“Just let me prep, Walter.”

“All right. Take care of it for me, kid.” As she was walking off, he called after her. “The old nothingness-and-grief routine.”

She gave him a smile. Under the huge gum trees she paced up and down. “If I must choose between nothingness and grief,” she recited, “I will choose grief.” The words were only sounds. Voices on the wind that stirred the trees took them up. Wild palms. Nothingness. Grief.

Joe Ricutti was weighting the elements of his portable makeup table against the breeze. Drogue stood beside him watching Lu Anne.

“How is she?” he asked the makeup man.

“Fine, Mr. Drogue. She talks normal. Pretty much.”

Drogue turned to Vera, who nodded silent assent.

Hueffer came up to them earnest and sweating.

“I had a thought, Walter.”

Drogue said nothing.

“What would happen if we used a sixteen-millimeter lens on her ride. Maybe even a fourteen?”

“Nothing would happen,” Drogue told him. “It would look like shit, that’s all.”

Hueffer pressed him. “Seriously?”

“If you like,” Drogue said pleasantly, “we’ll talk about it later. Let’s get everyone standing by.”

Hueffer went back to the setup.

“Standing by in two minutes,” he shouted. “Everybody out of the set.”

“He’s an asshole,” Drogue told the Ricuttis. “A gold-plated shit-head.”

The Ricuttis made no reply. Joe Ricutti shrugged.

“If I must choose between nothingness and grief,” Lu Anne recited as she paced the dry ground, “I’ll have the biscuits and gravy. I’ll have the jambalaya and the oyster stew.”

It was Edna choosing. Lu Anne’s path took her toward the trolley and she saw them all watching her. Lowndes. Bly. Walker was coming down. But Edna was the one in trouble here. The pretty woman in the mirror.

“Hush,” said Lu Anne. Edna would be at home among the Long Friends.

Edna was independent and courageous. Whereas, Lu Anne thought, I’m just chickenshit and crazy. Edna would die for her children but never let them possess her. Lu Anne was a lousy mother, certified and certifiable. Who the hell did she think she was, Edna? Too good for her own kids? But then she thought: It comes to the same thing, her way and mine. You want more, you want to be Queen, you want to be Rosalind.

Edna walking into death was conscious only of the sun’s warmth. So it was written. Walker’s notes had her dying for life more abundant. All suicides died for life more abundant, Walker’s notes said.

She walked on through the light and shadow of the huge trees. It was, she thought, such a disturbing light. She could see it when she closed her eyes.

The woods were filled with phantoms and she was looking for Edna. Only her children came to mind, as though they were lost and she was looking for them. As though she were lost.

In such a light, she had knocked on the door of their first house in town. It was the first time, so far as she could remember, that she had ever knocked on a door in the manner of grown-ups. For a long time — she remembered it as a long time — the door stood closed above and before her. Then, as she remembered, it had opened and her father loomed enormous in the doorway, his blank gaze fixed at the far and beyond.

So she had said: I’m down here, Daddy.

His swollen drunk face turned down to hers after a while. His eyes were red and lifeless.

I thought it was somebody real, he had said. Someone had laughed. Maybe he had laughed.

I’m real, Daddy.

Life more abundant, Lu Anne thought, that’s the ticket. That’s what we need.

Then they were ready and Ricutti was wiping her down.

“You been crying,” he said. He started to daub under her eyes. “Your eyes are all red.” When she stared at him he lowered the cloth.

I’m real, she thought.

“Let’s go with it.”

“I don’t know,” Joe Ricutti said. “Maybe he don’t want that, Lee.”

“Leave it,” she said. “Just get the damn sweat off me.”

When they were ready to roll she sat in her marks on the trolley bench. Drogue called for action, the trolley bore her along, and she saw that the field around her was filled with fake camomile. In that moment she found Edna. Edna knew what living was worth to her and the terms on which she would accept it. She knew the difference between living and not living and what happiness was.

It occurred to Lu Anne that she knew none of these things. Too bad, she thought, because I’m the one that’s real, not her. It’s me out here.

When they had pulled the trolley around for another take, she saw Walter looking at her through the viewfinder. Who does he think he’s looking at? she wondered. Or is he just seeing movies? Across the reflectors, she saw Bly and Lowndes and Charlie Freitag, all looking. She began to cry again.