Not only don’t they help you with your luggage, you have share a table in the canteen with strangers. One of the guests forgets his room key and a map of the city at the table where the screenwriter is sitting. A tourist, no doubt. Good day, he says before scuttling off to the buffet. The screenwriter nods with propriety, but without looking, as he bites down on a piece of bread. Lost in thought. The tourist returns with a plate of croissants, a selection of jams, and a glass of orange juice, placing them on the plastic tablecloth as he takes a seat. At the adjacent table, a couple of middle-aged women are chattering about their husbands. The screenwriter imagines the husbands are still in bed: they were all probably out late exploring the city. Or perhaps they don’t exist. They could be deceased, or perhaps they were invented so these women would have something to talk about at breakfast. Even if they do exist, the screenwriter’s sure these women would exaggerate their husbands’ attributes and achievements. They could even be describing completely different people from the ones they left snoring upstairs. A good idea for another script, he thinks, smiling with self-congratulation: two women traveling around the world together, telling each other fables about their nonexistent husbands. What might the ramifications be if their children found out, or their real husbands? They might assume they’re living double lives. Tourists: they’re a breed of their own. Where would they go, what places would they visit? he thinks. Then he murmurs: Everywhere. Before long, he starts losing interest in the two women. Once he looks away from their table, the idea for a new script seems to float away. He listens to the voices coming from the other tables. There’s always a crowd in the canteen when he comes down late to breakfast. It’s not his fault, he thinks. The screenplay determines his circadian rhythm. Are you a writer? comes a voice from the other side of the table. The screenwriter lifts his eyes. It dawns on him that he’s passed this man frequently in the corridor. He delays in responding. The tourist explains his presumption by confessing that he’s often heard the sound of a typewriter coming from his room — not that he minds; in fact, he’s glad to know there’s a writer hard at work in the room next door. It’s a romantic image, he says, that of the writer clacking away at his opus, with a cigarette perched on his bottom lip. You have to have something quite special about you to be a writer, he says. He admits he couldn’t write to save his life. He doesn’t know why, he just couldn’t. I’m a screenwriter, the screenwriter finally replies.
While the screenwriter is spending some time in the lobby going over the day’s newspapers, the receptionist signals to him from the counter, waving an envelope. It’s a similar envelope to the ones the girl sent him before. He asks who delivered it. A young girl, says the receptionist. Damn it! he grumbles. She must have come when he was having breakfast. The receptionist could have alerted him. She points to the exit. I’m afraid it’s like my own mailbox at home, she says. Any correspondence is left in a box outside. The screenwriter strikes his cane against the foot of the counter, turns, and flounces out onto the street. He looks everywhere, but there’s no sign of her. She’s gone. He goes back inside, dragging his feet and cane behind him, not noticing the receptionist’s quizzical expression following his melancholy gait, not giving a damn now for the newspapers he’d intended to finish reading. Now only the envelope matters, which he grasps tightly while he waits for the elevator to arrive. Once in his room, he goes to his desk and opens the envelope. There’s only a single page, and not much written on it. She talks about her father’s room at the hotel in front of the Grand Central Station, describing it as his center of operations. No one told her this, she writes, but it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out: the evidence is everywhere — on his laptop, his cell phone, his fax machine, and even in the paper tray of the printer. Her father and an associate have rented a couple of rooms that gives them a good view of the Grand Central Station. She still hasn’t figured out why they keep going there, but she doesn’t spend too much time thinking about it, since it would distract her from her writing. Who cares what her father and his associate are up to? thinks the screenwriter. Most of what he reads on the page he already knows about. But then he thinks again. Of course she cares about what her father gets up to. Maybe she doesn’t quite know how to say it — why she cares, that is — but if she thinks hard enough, searches diligently enough in her memory banks, the answer will come, and the words she needs will surely follow suit.
The screenwriter continues making progress, at times seeming more industrious than the girl. He’s now working on a scene he planned before breakfast. The girl is sitting down to a sandwich and refreshment at a downtown café. She takes her notebook from her pocket and goes over some of her notes. I’m starting a new life, she writes: the life of a writer. Unable to contain her jubilation, she looks around her timidly, in case someone might see her stupid grin. Then she thinks of her mother. Perhaps she went too far with her. She should be more accommodating, let her mother get used to the idea of the girl as a writer. After all, she takes it for granted her daughter will pursue a career she doesn’t want, that she has a certain control over the girl’s future, and is determined to tie her to the piano stool for life. Of course, this all has to change. So why does she feel so guilty? All she did was defend her own convictions. She always feels exactly the same after fighting with the young conductor. She leaves the café and heads for the cathedral. Cathedrals and large churches are perfect places for channeling extraterrestrial energy. The nearest cathedral is next to the island. It’s basically a tourist trap. All the same, a structure like that could only have been erected for one reason and that’s as a place for making contact. The inhabitants of Earth spent centuries constructing these heaps as supreme manifestations of beauty, order, and sanctity, wholly suited as places for people to gather together to exchange ideas, to worship, and to pray. They still do so, hoping to make contact. With whom? Or what? They don’t exactly know, but it doesn’t matter, they gather anyway, as if driven by some primal instinct. On the other hand, if cathedrals and churches actually encourage a relaxation of this same instinct, they’d complicate the process by which beings from other galaxies choose with whom to make contact. The girl’s concerned about knowing beforehand what building she should go to. What’s the difference between them? she wonders. How does she go about making a choice?