In the morning, before freshening up, the screenwriter decides to keep working on the screenplay. He can’t wait for the girl to arrive later that night to tell another story, because he needs another injection of inspiration. The hours go by agonizingly slow, although writing helps him while away the time. Enduring the passage of a long day, he says to himself, is like crossing a desert. But he’d rather keep moving than sit on the sand and wait to die. In his story, the Little Sinfonietta is still rehearsing the program they’re going to perform in the church. He clearly remembers it — located right in front of the writers’ café—, although there are dozens of cafés in the capital that bear such a name, places where hundreds of writers of every era, both famous and obscure, once sat. Meanwhile, the rehearsal takes place onstage in a small theater, where the young conductor directs the Little Sinfonietta to repeat, over and over, each movement of the composition. Most importantly, it’s the stage where the girl is singing, or speaking almost, a confusing and disturbing series of verses that give the impression they were inspired by a strange vision or hallucination, or the effects of a psychotropic pill. The screenwriter then moves to another scene, where the girl is drinking in the lounge of a fashionable bar. The brilliant composer asks her if she knows the guy on the other side of the room who seems unable to take his eyes off her. She waits until he looks away to examine his features carefully. His face seems familiar, but she can’t quite place him. Bad taste, says the brilliant composer laughing. If that guy’s your type, then you’ve got seriously bad taste, he repeats. You don’t often see guys that old in a place like this, he adds, but I suppose it really doesn’t matter. You see strange things everywhere these days. The brilliant composer apprehends all things in terms of twelve-tone music, and adheres to his conviction that every note should be made available to the composer and be used without prejudice, that every relationship between them should be conceived on a basis of equality and not of subordination. So, by extension, the guy could approach the girl and ask her to go out on a date this very night. They could even sleep together. We might do an opera about it, says the young conductor as he joins them at the bar. He can already see the music-video version: a sleazy and sordid setting, with a song and lyrics that tell the story of a guy who accidentally winds up in a trendy bar and wants a nice young girl to rescue him from his insecurity, to take him somewhere else, a place where they can dance the bolero together, or something like that.
The screenwriter takes a look out the window. An ambiguous dawn: it has yet to define itself against the horizon. He places his glasses on the table and stands up. He needs to take a break. He lights a cigarette, takes a sip of water, and prepares the coffee. Perhaps he’s found what he’s looking for: a scene that will grab an audience’s attention. He considers the new character he’s added: someone who could end up being central, or peripheral; who could feature throughout the story, or vanish at any moment — he doesn’t know yet; with a face not unfamiliar to the girl, although she can’t quite place it. He takes another look out the window. Still, it’s only a subplot. It’s early, and his neighbors haven’t gotten out of bed yet. He showers and goes down to the canteen for breakfast. He doesn’t read the newspaper afterward in the lobby, as is customary, but decides to go back to his room and continue working. The girl sleeps badly and rises late. She jots a few notes in a notebook, scribbles the outlines of conversations, and drafts some possible beginnings to impossible chapters. Then she answers a phone call. McGregor speaking, says the voice on the other end, which then asks for the girl’s father.
He’s not staying in this hotel, she says. A while later, after ordering breakfast to her room, she practices the 5 Pieces for piano and then some parts of the No World Symphony, the brilliant young composer’s first opus, which she transcribed for piano and will be performing in her home city in a few days’ time. That afternoon she goes to rehearsals. She uses the hotel’s chauffeur service, and amuses herself on the journey to the theater by trying to guess which pedestrians are aliens. First, she thinks, she must determine what features distinguish them from normal human beings. The chin perhaps, or the eyes, the ears, or maybe a special aura about them. . While the driver parks the car, the girl notices, in the crowd, the guy she saw the night before in the trendy bar in town, the one who couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’s tall and dark, around her father’s age, has a receding hairline, and is wearing a black suit. He’s looking at the façade of the theater where the Little Sinfonietta rehearses, as if deciding whether or not to go inside. Then he turns and heads up the sidewalk, disappearing into the crowd. It seems he decided not. The screenwriter sketches some ideas about the possible relationship between this character and the girl. He can almost see him, like a ghost that’s yet to finish manifesting itself. During the rehearsal, the girl finds it difficult to concentrate, still intrigued by the man she saw outside, whose face she can’t quite place. The screenwriter feels comfortable leaving the story at this point. He fixes his hair in the bathroom mirror and picks out a jacket from the wardrobe — he’d feel naked without it, in spite of the heat — and, before long, he’s cantering on the sidewalk, with his conscience clear and a spring in his limp, for having started the day so well. He decides to digress from his usual route and discovers a classical music store. The young woman who attends to him is kind and good-natured. She asks if he’s looking for anything in particular. The screenwriter tells her he’s writing a script about the father of twelve-tone composition, and asks if any of his works are available. The saleswoman turns out to be an expert on dodecaphony and she persuades the screenwriter to buy four compact discs — his most representative works, she says — and her attractiveness convinces him they’re going to be a great help. He likes the way the way she pronounces “dodecaphonic” and, in a strange attempt to impress her, also buys one of the books she recommends. At the cash register, he smiles at her and she responds in kind. With his new purchases in hand, he decides to browse in the jazz section because he has a feeling the girl’s father is a fan of the genre. The screenwriter is well enough acquainted with jazz to be able to cite a number of musicians off the top of his head, so instead of buying anything, he simply takes note of some works he’s half-forgotten, and repeats them to himself as he heads for the exit. On reaching the door, however, he changes his mind and goes limping back to the saleswoman. From a distance, she looks pretty, he thinks, and has a decent body. He imagines her in a tuxedo jacket. The store uniform certainly puts a damper on her style. Maybe she’s like the girl and prefers dressing completely in white. She may be a few years older than the girl, and quite a few pounds heavier, but the screenwriter’s not going to give up on a potential hook-up over the matter of a few pounds. He asks her when she gets off work: he’d like her to tell him more about “dodecaphonic” music. After examining him top to toe, she says there’s more than enough to learn from the merchandise he bought. I bet you’d do anything for a part in my movie, he mutters as he leaves, you just don’t know it yet.