Yelena Moskovich - The Natashas

The last time his agent called him was a month ago. César had grabbed the phone eagerly, ready to run to an audition. But Marcel was just calling to check that the height listed on his CV was still good-to-go . The time before that, he needed César to come by and re-sign some papers on which he had accidentally spilled coffee. Once he even called César on New Year’s Eve. César had been handing a glass of cheap champagne to a new friend he had made at a party, José, when his phone rang. He pounced, dropping the glass, ready for some ground-breaking news regarding his acting career. If his agent was calling on such a day and at such an hour, it had to be important. But it turned out that all Marcel wanted to know was whether César still had all his teeth. When César confirmed that he did, the agent was disappointed. “Oh, just got word of a spot, they need a young Hispanic with missing teeth.”

“Can’t they just use a make-up artist for that?”

“Nah, they said they’d rather just get a kid with a couple of his teeth missing than pay one of those expensive make-up people hourly.”

“Oh.”

“That’s how it goes. Anyways, keep me posted.”

“Posted for what?”

“I mean if you happen to lose any teeth. Needa get back to them by Tuesday.”

César spent that whole night paranoid he was going to crack a tooth on something. On the one hand, it would qualify him for this gig — whatever it was. On the other hand, teeth were expensive to get fixed, and the money he’d get from this job would most likely not cover repairing his teeth. Unless, of course, it was a well-produced feature film. And his character, a Hispanic with missing teeth, was a lead or at least a supporting character. Then again, what were the chances that there was a feature film being made about a young Hispanic man with missing teeth? Unless it was a sort of biopic story of some revolutionary Hispanic political figure. (Those were really taking off nowadays.) César scanned his historical knowledge for any Hispanic politicians he could remember that had missing teeth in their young adult life.

The more he tried to think of historical toothless Hispanics, the more his heart began to race. This was big , he thought. You idiot! He had to get a hold of his agent. César locked himself in the bathroom and called his agent repeatedly, but the phone kept ringing and ringing into the void. By the time everyone in the main room was yelling Happy New Year at each other and chugging their cheap champagne, César sat on his toilet seat, convinced he had ruined his life.

A couple of days later, he’d finally got hold of his agent only to find out that what had grown into a Spielberg biopic of Che Guevara in his head was actually just a walk-on role in a drug-bust scene in a web series.

So this time, as his cell phone rang, César tried to contain his excitement.

“Hello. Hello, César. You hear me? It’s Marcel.”

“Yes, yes—”

“César, it’s Marcel, your agent. You hear me okay over there. Where are you?”

“Yes, yes I hear you. I’m on the street, do you hear me?”

“Yes I hear you. César, listen, I’ve got some pretty good news.”

Steady, gecko, César told himself. But “good news” bounced around his chest like a racquetball.

“Yes?”

“Yes, oh yes, César! Some good news. You hear me over there?”

“Yes, I hear you. You don’t hear me?”

“No, I hear you. Listen, César. Hope you are ready for this. This is the type of thing that could change a lot for you.”

“Yeah?”

“You better believe it! What I’m telling you, César, is this: you gotta be a fisherman in this industry.”

“Okay.”

“You gotta get up early and dip your bait in that sea of opportunities and wait.”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re a good fisherman, César, if you’ve got the patience, something’ll bite. Now when it bites, then you can’t be lazy-eyed with one foot asleep. You hear me over there, César?”

“Yeah, yes I do.”

“You gotta flex and you gotta pull, César. You gotta reel that fish in. Big or small, sardine or shark, REEL IT IN.”

César wondered if Marcel had ever really gone fishing.

“You ready to reel, César?”

“Yeah—Yes, I’m ready.”

“Good, good, cause that’s exactly what you’re gonna have to do right now . Hope your foot’s not asleep, because, César, you got a big fish on your line.”

“…Really?”

“I’m talking thirteen consecutive episodes on one of the most watched TV series in France. You feel that fish, César?”

“Thirteen episodes?”

“Feel that fish pulling on your line?”

“Yeah—s, I guess, but—”

“And let me tell you, thirteen episodes in this season, and the character doesn’t die in the thirteenth, so in all logic, he’s back in the next season. And maybe the next. And let me tell you something else: one of the producers just happens to be a good friend, so let’s just say he values my eye when it comes to casting. You feel that fish now, César?”

“Yeah—Yes, I mean—”

“Tell me you feel that fish, César.”

“I… feel that fish.”

“Can’t hear you, not sure where you are, but shake out that foot, César, and tell Marcel you feel that FISH on your line.”

“I… feel that fish on my line!” César yelped into the phone, wiggling the toes of his right foot.

“Good! Now, can you come by the office?”

The office is what Marcel called a room in his apartment with a chair on either side of a desk.

“Sure. Yes! Now?”

“Now, yes, of course, now. REEL IT IN.” Then Marcel hung up.

César looked around. He didn’t know where he was. A couple of parked motorcycles, two crooked trees. Rosa. Violeta. No one. Just the stone wall of a dead end.

From the dead end wall, a stone basin protruded, tiled with small bricks. This was the bottom of the small fountain — once. Now it was filled with half-wilted greenery, growing out from the loose pile of dirt at the bottom.

César remembered a girl he had met when he first moved to Paris. She was in the same international acting school as him. She spoke even less French than him at the time, so they communicated in their broken English. She had deeply set eyes that held on to a shadow of sleep, and cheekbones that made him think of Yugoslavia. She was not from Yugoslavia, as it no longer existed, but she did have a heavy accent from elsewhere, Balkan maybe.

He liked listening to her speak. She drew out her syllables like a careful ballpoint pen. She gestured throughout her speech as if continually tying and untying a scarf. One day she mentioned her grandfather. He had died. She had to leave for the funeral. He had to be buried in the Jewish tradition.

“And what’s that like?” César had asked.

“How I no? Zay get like a rabbi and he say like a Jewiss prayur maybe.”

When César met her eyes, he saw there were a couple of thin red veins threading towards the pupil. He would have liked to reach out and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Zay call us Jewess like vi no what is dis, but no one no what is Jewes. Vi put togehzer what-is-means- Jewiss like internet-blog-forum and vi pretend to be Jewes togezur.”

She explained that her grandfather’s name was Mendel, and his mother’s name was Golda, and even if they had never celebrated a Shabbat in their lives, such names must be buried by a rabbi.

As she continued to speak, César could feel a tightness in her words, as if what she was trying to express was balling up progressively and tangling into an inseparable knot. His hand grew heavier, unable to rise and comfort the girl.