The screenwriter stops typing and turns toward the building across the street. He’s not looking at anything in particular, for his thoughts are elsewhere. He wonders if he’ll ever see through the onion layers of his screenplay, and if his idea of superposing different stories together in one script — one of them real, the rest fictitious, but keeping the viewer guessing which is which — could make for a decent movie, and if there’s someone out there who could even bring such a concept to the big screen. He doubts such a person exists today, a professional reminiscent of one of the greats from a bygone era. By his reckoning, the greatest difficulty is in preventing one narrative predominating over the rest. But his thinking has lately become disjointed and diffuse. It’s been days since he thought about McGregor, the strange voice that one day asked to speak to the girl’s father, a voice which could be that of her guardian angel from the planet Ka, an angel like the one in the movie who can hear other people’s voices, perhaps those of everyone on Earth. He thinks it’s amazing because it’s such a recent movie too, not belonging to the golden age, when movies of true quality were de rigueur — before they lost their soul, as he’d say. The girl would say the voices are responsible for his seeing the movie in this way, he thinks. And that they’ve influenced many other things besides. It’s time for a change, to find a turning point. The screenwriter fetches his index cards and searches through the headings for “McGregor.” It’s not good for a character to disappear from a story for so long.
The Little Sinfonietta has extended its run of performances by a week, which will include a tour of the provinces. It’s also emerged that a record company has expressed an interest in signing them. The girl listens to the news indifferently. She already has a contract with another label, and the provincial cities don’t matter very much to her. In fact, neither do the capital cities of the world. The Little Sinfonietta has some important decisions to make in the coming hours. The girl won’t be involved. She doesn’t care what they decide. Her future is writing. This is no longer a game, but a serious business, she hears her mother say, admonishing the younger musicians. A game: It’s as if she’s tapped into the girl’s private thoughts on the matter, and also those of the young conductor and brilliant composer. The game was a secret. Until now, only the three of them were privy to it. The girl’s eyes flit to the young conductor. She stares fixedly at him, waiting for a reaction to what her mother said, but he acts as if nothing’s changed. It’s all a game. Only one step further, that’s all it’s going to take, just one step. But the girl’s mother isn’t going to hold their hands anymore. It’s not her job. They should elect a representative, a manager, to handle their affairs. Later, during a tumultuous business dinner, they discuss contracts, albums, and the subject of fame, the responsibilities involved — about which they interrogate the girl, for she’s experienced it, asking about her travels, how many celebrities she knows. She doesn’t answer. To break an awkward silence, someone inquires whether one becomes more famous after death. There are cemeteries that are only famous for the people buried in them, opines one of the more recent additions to their group. In any major city, it’s easy to find a cemetery teeming with illustrious dead, but this is especially true in the neighboring country’s capital, where the cemeteries have become major tourist attractions, providing maps to the tombs of their famous occupants, the more notable graves bearing a plaque with a brief biography. The girl considers visiting one of these cemeteries. She asks if there’s one near the hotel. No one answers. It seems they didn’t hear the question, or perhaps they’re giving her reticence tit for tat. Nonetheless, the new arrival starts listing the names of some famous writers buried in a particular cemetery. It’s decided. She’ll go. In one of the nightclubs where the group often stays until the early hours of the morning, the young conductor of the orchestra is chatting away, beleaguered by a bunch of admirers. The girl spends the whole night sitting beside her mother. Maybe she ought to visit one of those graveyards, and sit beside the graves writing elegies under the moonlight. What’s preoccupying you? asks her mother. The girl shrugs her shoulders. Nothing, nothing at all. But she immediately changes her attitude and suggests a visit to the cemetery. To pay tribute to those great authors who, in their work, still manage to address our present age. Stop talking nonsense! her mother scold her. Do you know the time? the girl asks, watching the young conductor dancing in a corner with his latest conquest. She then searches for the rest of the group, to recruit some volunteers to accompany her on an impromptu visit to the graveyard. Each will write a poem about a dead novelist, and a novel about a dead poet, excepting the young conductor and his conquest, who can dance on top of the tombs. Perhaps they’ll even dance over their own graves, she thinks, smiling. She looks everywhere for them, but it seems the pair have now disappeared. I’m leaving, whispers the girl to her mother, under the watchful eyes of some other members of the group who are getting ready to exclude themselves from an incursion on the cemetery, with some moving stealthily off, fearing they may be dragged there against their will. Her mother gives her a hug and asks her to speak openly with her. She is her mother, after all. The girl rises from the sofa, her eyes on the dance floor, lost in a haze of dry ice. You should consider yourself lucky, her mother rebukes her. You should consider yourself an idiot, mutters the girl.
It’s a pity neither the dramatist of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries nor the writer who revolutionized twentieth-century literature are buried in the neighboring country’s capital. What an opportunity it would be to sit beside their tombs, only feet away from where their bodies lay, and read their works aloud. The girl is wandering the streets in search of a taxi to take her back to the hotel. She doesn’t find one, so she continues on foot along a wide avenue where, from a distance, she spots the young conductor and his latest conquest entering a nightclub. So she decides to enter as well, if for no other reason than to spoil their party. She sits at the bar, drinking lugubriously, at first mixing the contents of a cough-syrup bottle into a soft drink and then just drinking straight from the bottle. Although the bill won’t reflect it, she’s already drunk far too much alcohol, even for her. Nevertheless, she still thinks she can bring her plan to fruition. A black guy is dancing alone in the middle of the dance floor, so she moves into range in order to be able to make eye contact with him. Half distracted, the young conductor watches the proceedings with a sideways glance, trying to conceal a slight grin. The girl starts chatting with the black guy. He has doubts, suspects an ulterior motive. She takes his hand and leads him away from the dance floor. Do you have any condoms? she asks him. The black guy nods affirmatively, patting his side pocket. They lock themselves in one of the booths. She drops a pill, offers one to him, and then tells him to unbutton his pants. She wants to see if it’s true what they say about black men. She then jerks him off with both hands before telling him to take her from behind, which he does, fondling her breasts under her white dress, thrusting slowly at first, and then picking up speed. He asks for her name. She doesn’t understand why he wants to know her name. He says he just wants to know. She hesitates; then says her name is Ka. Ka? he exclaims. She tells him to stop talking. She wants to fuck, not have a conversation. The young conductor is still smiling when he sees her emerging from the back of the nightclub, offering the black guy her hand, flat, as if wanting him to read her future — this guy who just left a condom inside her — a future that should promise nothing but success. Then she walks past the young conductor, hand in hand with the black guy. Is this how you intend to improve your performance? she hears him ask behind her back.