A large man with shiny black hair and a thin mustache rose to meet them. He wore designer jeans and a pink cowboy shirt with pearl buttons, and he looked not so much Indian as Eurasian.
“Fabulous,” he said, shaking Wesley’s hand. “It is a great honor. I know all your films frame by frame.”
“How unsettling, “ Wesley said.
“Not at all. A great satisfaction. But I’m sounding like Sydney Greenstreet. Please, sit down, Mr. Hardin, and your charming wife. Yes? Evelyn, I believe.”
They all sat on a couch and Toulouse pushed a button in an intercom and told the captain to cast off. At the same time a steward presented them with champagne and plates of caviar and smoked salmon, serving as well a party of five Asiatic men and women who occupied a corner on the far side of the room.
“One of my teams,” explained Toulouse. “For reasons of health and temperament, I have been at sea for the past several years and I arrange for my advisers and experts to fly in and visit me at regular intervals. That way I don’t become stale. Perhaps you do the same with your team? I have spent a good deal of time with them these past few days, and I must say I have found them to be candid and illuminating.
“But now I want to speak to you directly about the script, if that is possible? Good. I assume I may call you Wesley in the casual manner of the film community? Wonderful. First, Wesley, let me say again, from the bottom of my heart and soul, that I adore your films. I have an entire collection in my personal archives, as well as a record of everything you’ve said or written in public. So you see I am an aficionado. I love your passion and your fearless appreciation of the banal and ordinary, even your occasional violence, and I would be fascinated to see what your particular vision would do with a subject as vast and different as India. Such a film would be an important cultural and historical bridge. But on reading the script as it now stands, several reservations come to mind. Even though I am obviously an amateur, I can foresee how difficult and taxing such a film would be to make, and I’m not sure that it would be wise to undertake such an expedition, especially given the present state of your health, which your staff has kindly filled me in on. But more to the point, perhaps, is the script itself. Frankly, I find the two central characters dull and uninspiring, and I am unable to relate at all to the girl they are looking for. Clementine, I believe her name is. Also sex and religion are rather complicated subjects in India, and the script is highly offensive in both areas. There would most certainly have to be radical revisions to gain official approval. Your team has suggested adding another girl, to create a sort of theatrical triangle as a way of reducing the emphasis on a spiritual search, and also introducing some much-needed humor. I approve wholeheartedly.”
“I’m always open to discussing change,” Wesley said.
“Your team has assured me of that, and I find it immensely gratifying to find someone that I am in such awe of to be so available and communicative. We would, of course, bring in another writer. I have in mind a chap from Bombay. Very fine on local dialects and Indian customs. Very amusing fellow. Understands the subtleties of East and West. Also in terms of my money situation, having him would be most agreeable. My next point is really my main point. I am committed to pursuing the Indian project without a doubt, that is, of course, if everything can be worked out to our mutual satisfaction. But I am absolutely excited and overwhelmed by your current film, the one you are now shooting. Your team has shown me excerpts and I think it is very fine, very precious stuff.”
“What film?” Wesley asked.
“The one that you’re now shooting. This one. Here and now. You and your wife and son and the final breakup with the studio. Wonderful, wonderful footage. Shocking, really, the way you allow your whole life to be on the line, or not to be on the line. We shall find out which. But it’s wildly amusing as well. We must not abandon that project.”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“With that in mind, we have prepared a little soupçon for you of various moments in various places.”
Toulouse pushed a button that turned off the lights and another one that started a projector, a screen unrolling from the ceiling as they watched. .
. . a close-up of Wesley standing outside the saloon in Durango, a small spill of light from the window highlighting his chest but leaving his face in shadows. Members of the crew pass, some shaking his hand, others ignoring him. . The Prop Man, dangerously stoned and looking for trouble, embraces Wesley with both arms. “Say the word, boss, and I’ll sabotage the trucks and get the studio man busted at the border.”. .“None of them matter that much,” Wesley says. “I was losing it anyway. Could you tell?”. .“Well sure. I could tell for some time. This isn’t an old man’s game. Will the girl stay?”. .“Evelyn? For a while. Until I fuck up.”. .“Which you will,” the Prop Man says. “But there are others to take up the slack. What about that old broad in Mexico City?”. .“No more replays,” Wesley says. . The Prop Man embraces him again and moves on. . Finally Evelyn appears. “Where the hell have you been?” Wesley asks angrily. “I’ve had to stand here like I’m saying good-bye at my own funeral.”. .“I lost my purse.”. .“Oh, Christ, that’s all we need.”. .“Are you the only one that’s allowed to lose anything?”. .“At this moment, yes.”. . The camera focuses on him as he walks alone down the empty street, past the jail and the bank and the telegraph office. . Evelyn and Wesley sit at the airport bar, surrounded by the Production Manager, Assistant Director, Leading Man, and Art Director. “What will you do after Mazatlán?” the Production Manager asks Wesley. . “I don’t know. Write my memoirs. Look for my daughter. God knows where she is but she couldn’t be any more lost than me.”. .“Hell, you’re not lost, Wes,” the Leading Man says, desperately hung over and confused. “You went down with your guns blazing.”. . They drink silently, not knowing what to say. From behind the camera Sidney asks: “Where do you think your daughter is?”. .“My daughter? I don’t know. My son says India, but my son has been known to say one thing and mean another. Maybe we’ll both go over there and take a look. She’s a strange girl. Independent and willful. Like me, I guess. I don’t know about either of my kids, to tell the truth. I suppose they’ll come back to haunt me now.”. .Wesley walks on the beach at Mazatlán, holding a black umbrella to protect him from the sun. . Sitting in a bar, he looks straight into the camera: “I’m not going to sum up my goddamn life. Absolutely not. And fuck you for asking me.”. . On the beach at night, Evelyn and the Frenchman from Mexico City sit around a fire. They have been swimming and are wrapped in large beach towels. .“Do I love Wesley?” Evelyn asks. “You can’t just stick the camera in my face and ask questions like that.”. .“Why not?” Sidney asks. . “It is an invasion,” says the Frenchman. “How would you like it if I asked you questions?”. .“I wouldn’t mind.”. . The camera changes hands. . “What you do is obscene and childish,” the Frenchman says. “How can you defend yourself?. .”
Unable to watch any more, Evelyn rose from the couch and walked out of the salon, Wesley following her.
They stood on the stern deck, the yacht moving slowly down the river toward Battery Park and the open harbor.
Wesley was the first to speak. “If everything I do causes you such pain perhaps we should think about separating.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s not what I necessarily want but it seems to be what’s happening.”
A.D. came on deck and stood off by himself, smoking a cigarette and staring down at the ship’s wake.
Wesley spoke again: “Does your silence mean you have decided not to communicate on any level?”