The screenwriter remembers he hasn’t eaten, so he makes a couple of sandwiches and eats them at his desk while rereading some passages and taking notes. Once finished, he rests a while before freshening up and going out. He’s still thinking about the girl’s interview. Fucking spoiled brats, he thinks, annoyed at the kinds of kids who are given everything on a silver platter, who hardly do any work and still succeed, who achieve their dreams without breaking a sweat. He’s well acquainted with the type. They were once his students. He grants that they’re special, uncommonly talented, but talent isn’t enough. There’s no merit, no accomplishment, if it comes too easily, he thinks. He leans on his cane and starts limping toward the fountain in the center of the plaza. He prefers people like the girl’s father, guys who had to struggle to achieve their goals, who had to kick down doors, not have them opened for them; the kinds of people who would lie, cheat, and steal, if necessary, to succeed. But then they have children, mollycoddled brats who are given the freedom to do whatever they wish, to cast aspersions on the world while playing musical games like dodecaphony, or whatever, who invent silly terms like “No World,” who have parents that allow them to sulk through a very important interview, who didn’t have to shed a drop of their own blood for the fortune they’ll eventually inherit. Who’ve never experienced suffering, he concludes. What would he have written about if he didn’t have this script about musical prodigies? The screenwriter contemplates the café terrace on the other side of the plaza. The barmaid notices him watching, but continues cleaning the table before hurrying back inside. What would he have written about if he was free to choose? He doesn’t know. Maybe screenwriters were treated differently back in the golden age, had more freedom. The golden age, he repeats aloud, addressing the fountain. Might there be any truth to such myths? He likes to think so. At least it’s something to believe in, periods in history far better than the present one, which the world won’t see the like of again, something to look back on when there’s nothing to look forward to. He wonders if, sometime in the future, there will be a golden age he’ll be too old to appreciate, too set in his ways to understand, or too blind to even recognize. Where are the myths about today, for example? He smiles to himself. There can’t be a golden age happening now. If a golden age stuck its head over the parapet, the marketplace would shoot it off. Maybe he’s deceiving himself, maybe he’s living in the middle of a golden age, and he’s the only screenwriter everyone’s ignoring, because he’s considered unfashionable, unmarketable, by those who think he’s only an old retiree who supplements his pension by teaching a bunch of brats, some of whom are not only gifted but rich — twice blessed, in other words — as if having one or the other isn’t enough. Maybe he truly despises these kids, resents them. He doesn’t want to think about it. He turns his attention to modern cinema, which he feels he knows less and less about every day. Perhaps it’s because he hasn’t been paying attention, or hasn’t been keeping up, or whatever — he can’t think of the right phrase. Perhaps his preoccupation with the past has caused him to fall behind, made him antiquated, and he hasn’t the strength or desire to catch up. Besides, it would be an uncomfortable transition, to suddenly return to the present. He can’t cope with sudden changes. Unlike the girl’s father: an old agent asleep in bed who is suddenly awakened by a phone call, a knock on the door, or a gunshot, or something, and finds he has to immediately adapt to this alarming situation. It’s an old movie cliché that’s been used again and again, to good effect, over the years. The screenwriter doesn’t want to think of himself as an old cliché that still has its uses. An out-of-shape soccer player, rather, that’s lost his passion, his instinct for the game, and is consequently at the point of retiring. He’d liked to have written about two old detectives who come out of retirement to solve a cold case that’s been obsessing them for years: men who live in the past, in their memories. It’s an old idea, about which he couldn’t even manage a first draft. Why? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know why he began thinking about those old detectives just now. If he hates these gifted kids so much, what is it he finds so enchanting about the girl? Not only is she rich, and a paragon among child prodigies, she’s also famous: thrice blessed. He should hate her more than all the rest, but he doesn’t, he isn’t able. Is there only so much hatred one can harbor for a person before it somehow short-circuits? All he knows is it’s a contradiction. He circumambulates the plaza. When he passes the café, he notices there aren’t many customers, and he can’t see the waitress, so he decides to pass it by. He needs to do some thinking anyway, and he prefers to walk while doing so, and he won’t stop until he resolves the contradictions in his story, and he assumes they can all be resolved during a single stroll. Two retired detectives remembering the old days. An idea no one today would touch with a barge pole. But what about the guy who agreed to produce the screenplay he’s writing now? Contradictions, he murmurs while walking to the hotel.
The screenwriter goes over the scene in which the girl discovers the guy in the classically-cut suit is in fact a seriously ill scientist. The girl reads about him in the newspaper as she waits for her mother to collect her for the interview. It seems a little different compared to the article she saved in her diary, so she goes to a kiosk to check what the other newspapers have to say. Her mind races as she riffles through the pages, wondering what this guy was doing with her father just before he fell ill. She doesn’t expect the newspapers will tell her. Each newspaper sketches its own portrait of the man, although they all agree in one respect, that he’s an old eccentric who, in recent years, had withdrawn almost completely from public life. The girl doesn’t remember her article saying this. In fact, she thinks it said quite the reverse. The screenwriter senses the girl’s fascination with the man: a fascination they share, although their thoughts hardly converge in any other way. The scene then blurs into three or four parts he can’t quite distinguish. He looks at his watch. It’s late, and he’s sleepy. What’s the girl doing right now? Perhaps sitting beside her mother in a taxi; or beside the young conductor in that small theater, wondering what would’ve become of them had twelve-tone music never been invented; or beside the brilliant composer, who repeats the same answer he already gave to the question, whatever it was. She could even be helping to train the new conquest, demonstrating for her on the piano in exchange for answers to personal questions. But whatever it is she happens to be doing, her thoughts are the same, for she’s only thinking about those newspaper articles, and the strange feeling that’s suddenly come over her. She used to unload her agitation on the young conductor and brilliant composer, but now that those relationships have ended, she feels alone, and has no one else in the world to confide in. She imagines being strong, capable of creating layers of protection against the unknown entities lurking in the shadows, entities she senses could leap out at any moment. She feels uncomfortable, has lost her focus. The church is full, as usual, but she doesn’t see anyone she knows. It’s a magnificent church, with a high belfry for communicating with other civilizations, although it looks far less imposing compared with the large cathedral towers. For an instant during her recital, she thinks she sees her cousin Dedalus flashing by, like lightning that was absorbed into the crowd, and she wonders whether she just imagined it, although she does remember inviting him on the day they met. She searches for her mother’s face in the audience, who might be able to corroborate what she saw, but she can’t find her in any of the tiers. Her thoughts turn again to the gravely ill scientist. The articles stress his condition has worsened, which means he must have already been sick when she met him. She’d have liked to talk to him about the cathedrals transmitting and receiving messages to and from space. One of the articles speculated on why he retired from public life and abandoned his cutting-edge research to become a recluse. Something prevents her from talking to her father about it — a gut feeling, or something like it, tells her not to do so. Others obtain an advantage over you if they know too much about what goes on in your life. She’ll admit to any foibles he might deem typical of a teenager, and update him on the musical career he shows little interest in, but nothing more. There are no such things as coincidences, she says to herself, not knowing why she’s said it again: a proposition that’s become a platitude.