The piercing fidelity of the landscape must have meant that I was watching from the gates of death. What I saw was as comprehensive as a memory, poor and wretched as a memory, as quiet, as fluorescent. I was putting it together in the way you would before you die, a last attempt to connect the life flashing before you with an acute vision of the future. I let the neon wash over me, knowing this was something I could never see again. I was no longer on a set, but in an undeniable reality, a layer within the strata of my memory.
In my short career in film, I’d never felt anything like this. Not once had I been able to completely forget that a cityscape was hollow◦— all façades and make-believe.
I stroked the knife in my jacket, left the dress shop, and stepped out into the town. The camera followed, soundless down the wooden rail. It was nothing short of a miracle that I’d stepped into this textured landscape, a living version of memory. It may sound contradictory, but it felt like I had stepped into a painting on the wall and was standing, dumbfounded, inside its panorama.
As I walked along, it became impossible to deny that these empty streets would eventually open onto sprawling tracks where trains came rushing in and out of town, extending naturally to a grand city, and a harbor, and beyond the sea to other countries with their own cities and harbors.
When this strange suggestion of reality bumped up against unquestionable proof, I couldn’t believe my eyes: the black door of the nearest bar swung open, and before me stood a beautiful young woman in a periwinkle cocktail dress.
In the flow of unreal time, I expect things to proceed as planned. The future is fixed; I know its every detail and can see the route ahead of me, like a car negotiating a winding slope. This girl was not part of the plan.
She stood in the shadow of the doorway, smiling brightly. Her skin looked awfully pale. It could have been her makeup, or the neon washing over us. Her nose and eyebrows were obscured; only her sad eyes and tiny lips were clearly defined. All I could see of her petite and slender body was where her cleavage met her dress. Her black hair blended with the darkness of the eaves. I completely forgot about acting and fell head over heels in love with this mysterious beauty.
Her arrival made the town’s sense of reality complete. I was convinced that I had slipped into another dimension, an actual place◦— all of it was real! The neon, the lanterns, the signboards, the willows, the telephone poles, and the glass door of the realtor. I’d been imagining they were all artificial, but now I was awake. I was positive that in about ten hours the sun would sweep the landscape, a newborn sun rising between the hunkered roofs.
She came toward me, arms outstretched, and in a strident, forlorn voice called out my name.
“Richie! Richie Mizuno!”
My real name. Not the name of my role. Her arms slapped my sides and closed around me in a bear hug.
A grenade of vitriol went off behind us.
“Cut!” screamed Takahama.
Everyone looked furious. Soon the entire cast was visible, peeking from the scenery. One guy threw open the glass door of the realtor. Another jumped out of a low window. The faces of the lighting crew poked out from the catwalks in the ceiling.
Kayo rushed over to my side.
The assistant director started screaming.
“What’s going on here◦— who the hell are you? Thanks to you, everybody’s gone nuts.” He grabbed at the bosom of the girl’s cocktail dress. She shrieked but couldn’t speak.
The grumblings of the veteran actors helped clarify the situation. This girl was a “new face” who had joined the studio a year ago. In her impatience to land a decent role, she ran herself ragged and wound up with some kind of an infection that led to a nervous breakdown. Desperate, she concluded that the only way to make it was to pull some bizarre stunt, anything to appear alongside none other than yours truly◦— and she was ready to resort to measures no sane actor would chance.
But this incident didn’t follow the usual course of events, with her removal from the set. What happened next was comical, all too typical of the film industry, and it sickens me just thinking about it. Takahama’s anger didn’t last. As he looked into the new girl’s eyes, he felt a gust of inspiration.
He wrote her into the scene as a crazy girl who jumps inexplicably in front of me, embraces me, and refuses to let go. Meanwhile, Neriko, who has been watching from the dress shop, is spurred by jealousy and rushes up to pull me away.
“Doesn’t that turn it into a comedy?” the assistant director asked.
Takahama responded with a glare. That settled things.
“What’s your name?” the director finally asked.
“Yuri Asano.”
Yuri had landed an unbelievable role, and the stable of actors◦— who despite waiting all day had not even been cast as extras◦— observed this injustice with icy stares. They dispersed, muttering nonsense about how unfair it was.
We jumped headfirst into the test run.
Yuri was petrified and tightened up. Her arms and legs were stiff, as if caught in plaster. I absorbed the icy glares they cast upon this actress who had overstepped her bounds. Yuri’s body would not regain the fluid liberty of that moment. That sense of living realness, felt only once, was gone for good. The sentiment had shriveled up. Her body was clammy, quaking from her center, her feet unsteady, unable to move even a few steps.
We kept trying, but anyone could see that it was over. Takahama heaved a sigh and announced that Yuri was no longer needed. We were returning to the original plan. When the casting director, whose job it was to pick our roles, heard Takahama make this announcement he rushed onto the set after the producer.
During Yuri’s impromptu audition, the casting director’s reaction had been so palpable I could almost hold it in my hands. His face was saying, “Here we go. If she pulls this off it’s gonna be a disaster.”
But to his relief, Yuri couldn’t pull it off, and like a pair of detectives, he and the producer escorted her off set. It drained the last of the blood from her face. She looked back, as if to say goodbye, but I didn’t even bother to return her glance.
The producer resolved to cut her on the spot. Nevertheless, she lingered in the greenroom, refusing to go home.
Shooting ended around ten. I went out back and found the other actors in a state of panic. Yuri had snuck into one of the starlet’s dressing rooms and overdosed.
Still wearing my costume and makeup, I charged over to her. Kayo, who loves this sort of chaos, had beat me there.
Yuri was doped up on Valamin. A group of actors laid her out on a bench and waited for the doctor to arrive.
Her eyes were closed, but the thickness of her makeup kept her from looking like she was really on the verge of death. The men gathered around her pliant body, and even those who’d spent the day fighting each other now seemed congenial in the presence of this dying girl, as if her body were exuding sensuality.
When the doctor arrived with a nurse, the producer asked him the most obvious question:
“Is she going to make it?”
The young doctor pulled back one of her eyelids and checked her pulse.
“She’ll make it,” he stated.
We gave the doctor space, assuming he was going to have to pump her stomach.
“I’m going to give her an injection. I’ll need you gentlemen to hold her down. She’s not going to like this.”
The men exchanged obscene glances and giggles. A group of them went over and held Yuri by the wrists and ankles.
The doctor drove a shot of saline into her left arm. Soon she began to writhe, like a snake working its skin free. We watched the twitches grow more violent. An anguished voice escaped her throat.