“I have a phoner I can’t get out of. I’m producing a film in Sofia, and our director is going over budget, it’s a disaster. But you should go. That’s why you’re in Berlin. There’s a ticket for you at will call. Why don’t you take Zack?”
Maddy found the news of will call slightly disappointing and then was shocked at herself for being so shallow. Steven’s trip to London was good, not bad. It proved that Dan had been wrong about him. If they had truly invited her to Berlin to act like she was dating Steven Weller, he wouldn’t very well take off when the festival had just begun.
She dialed Zack but didn’t get him and decided to see the heist movie alone. She wore her sheath dress and a dingy gray coat and walked to the theater. As she was approaching, a short bearded man darted in out of nowhere, snapped her photo, and disappeared. She was shocked. She had never felt watched before, used in this way. It was violating.
She took the civilian entrance to the Palast, a long walkway under a temporary roof that ran parallel to the red carpet. From the glassed doors inside the theater, she could see the director and two of his actresses posing on the red carpet, just as Maddy had the night before. It was as though she had hallucinated the Widower premiere, even the cover of Bundt. Except for that one strange photographer, it was as though the night before had never happened at all.
The next afternoon Bridget took Maddy to the European Film Market to meet international distributors and talk up the film. The distributors were exceedingly polite and couldn’t wait to see I Used to Know Her. A few of them wanted to know how long she had been dating Steven, and she kept having to correct them, tell them about Dan.
In the car back to the hotel, Bridget took a call. When she clicked off, she said, “There’s been a change in plans. Walter can’t make it here after all. Steven is bringing back the script with him tomorrow. We’ll all fly to Venice on Tuesday, and you’ll read for Walter there.”
“Where would I stay?”
“Palazzo Mastrototaro, of course. Oh, honey, did you think we would just drop you at a pensione?”
They were inviting her to his palazzo. This was turning into a European tour. She had already taken a week off La Cloche.
She had a bad feeling about Husbandry. So many delays, so many “issues,” and now, a new city. She wanted to talk to Dan but was worried he would say, “I told you so.” He would say Juhasz was Godot and wouldn’t come to Venice. And if Juhasz was Godot, she would have to fire Bridget, because no actress in her right mind would employ a manager who had no intention of getting her cast.
Dan was having trouble reaching Maddy, and he was nervous. She had texted him her new number, and he had tried her a couple times, but it went to voice mail. Once, when she called him back, he had been on the subway and missed it. He had a vision of her holed up in a suite with Steven Weller, fucking him around the clock. He had been certain Weller was gay, but maybe he had it all wrong.
On Sunday he finally caught her. He was on his way to his attorney’s office above Barneys on Madison Avenue. “What have you been doing the last couple days?” he asked.
“I went to the Film Market with Bridget. Visited a couple museums, walked around. And I’ve seen a couple screenings.”
“With Steven?”
“No. Alone. Steven’s in London.”
“Gone?”
“London. To meet with Walter Juhasz. He’s coming back today, and on Tuesday we’re going to go to Venice. I’ll audition for Juhasz there.”
As soon as he heard her say Venice, he felt a chill. She would be staying in Weller’s palazzo. In the most romantic city in the world. Dan had a premonition, however irrational, that if she made it to Italy, he would never see her again. “So it’s happening,” he said.
“I wish I had more time with the script. Not just to prepare, but what if I hate it? If I hate it, I’m not going to read.”
“It’s Walter Juhasz. It’s all in the execution, anyway.” He was quiet a second and then added, “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. I wish you were here. I went to the Brecht House. You would have liked it.” As she started to tell him about the rooms, he had an idea. There was no reason he had to stay in Brooklyn just to go back and forth on deal points with Apollo Classics. Though he hadn’t yet told Maddy, he had quit his bartending job, in anticipation of the on-signing money he had coming to him.
What if he surprised Maddy in Venice? If they were together, he could stop worrying about Weller. They would work on The Nest in the palazzo. She knew how to motivate him. She was the lead in The Nest. She was his muse. He imagined the words popping up on his laptop as if he were a stenographer, which was what had happened when he started I Used to Know Her. The atmosphere would help him, the atmosphere and the sex, and being in the company of Maddy. All Americans wrote better in Europe. They crossed the ocean, and every word they wrote was brilliant.
“There’s someone at my door,” Maddy was saying. “I have to go.”
When she opened the door, she found a bellboy holding a brown envelope. Inside was Husbandry with a Post-it note: “At long last. Call when you’ve read.—SW.” She wanted to dig right in, but she walked to a café a few blocks away. Old ladies with violet hair sat and ate cakes. She ordered a hot cocoa and opened the script, which was in blue-and-white binding that said OSTROW PRODUCTIONS on the front.
Ellie is a young housewife in an unnamed American suburb. Her husband, Louis, is an estate lawyer who makes love to her regularly and without passion. One day Louis’s younger brother, Paul, who has just gotten out of jail, comes to visit. Paul and Ellie, who have never met, are instantly and wildly attracted. That night on the porch, after Louis goes to bed, Ellie tells Paul about her loneliness. They kiss.
Paul moves in temporarily. During the day, when Louis is at work, Paul and Ellie make love in her bed. Something is awakened in her, but Paul has problems. He owes money to bad guys. One night he gets in a bar brawl and is hauled off to jail. After bailing him out, Louis demands that Paul move out. Paul finds a motel in town. Louis goes away on business. The affair continues, in the bed, in the motel. When Louis returns, the lovers can’t tell if he suspects.
As she keeps her affair secret, her paranoia grows. She gets confused and fearful. She tries to break it off, but Paul stalks her, unable to admit that it’s over. Confused, she confesses everything to Louis. He calls her a whore and puts his fist through a wall. Convinced that she must end the affair, she goes to the cops and gets a restraining order against Paul. She cries as she fills out the paperwork. The couple returns to their sad life, Paul now living in a trailer on the other side of the tracks.
Louis guilts her every day about the affair. She becomes numb. He speaks to her coldly, like a robot. She discovers she is pregnant. She knows it is Paul’s. She sneaks out to see Paul and tells him. He begs her to leave Louis. She resumes the affair. One day Louis follows her to Paul’s trailer and comes through the door with a gun. A struggle ensues and the gun falls. Ellie grabs the gun and Louis jumps her. Trying to shoot Louis, she kills Paul.
After she has the baby, Louis and Ellie throw a party. The night of the party, they make love, Ellie unable to look at Louis. The baby wails in the night. When she goes to hold the baby, a boy, she realizes he cannot be consoled.
Maddy closed the script, deeply moved. Everyone around her was speaking German, which allowed her to think without distraction. The film reminded her of great French films from the 1960s in the way it dealt with female sexuality, and it contained the best of what Juhasz brought to the cinema: the dread and alienation of being human.