He heard Porrick’s voice. ‘At night we switch on the lights and the whole thing lights up like a beacon for kinema-goers.’
Waechter kept his eye closed, imagining rather than contemplating the countless electric bulbs that ran around the edge of the entrance. He always preferred his vision of a subject to the reality of it. ‘Und this is vere you intend to hold der Waechterfest?’
‘It’s actually the largest capacity of my theatres. Seats eight hundred. I am sure we will be able to fill it, given the … well, given the circumstances.’
‘If the authorities allow you to go ahead.’ Waechter recognized the voice of Kirkwood, Porrick’s accountant. Kirkwood had come along to handle the financial side of the negotiations for Porrick. For his own part, he had brought Hartmann. It had been Hartmann’s idea to have Eloise and Berenger there too. He knew how to impress a potential investor. The one other member of the party was Diaz, Waechter’s trusted cameraman. In many ways, Diaz was Waechter’s eyes, as well as his technical brain. Wherever he went, Waechter was always mulling over potential scenes and locations for future motion pictures. He liked to have Diaz there to advise.
‘They’ll allow it,’ asserted Porrick. ‘And we’ll fill the place. Several times over. And even Mr Kirkwood will be happy.’
‘I like it.’ Waechter opened his eye and nodded decisively to his producer. ‘We can make picture here.’
He gestured for Porrick to lead them inside. The kinema owner produced a large bunch of keys to unlock the several locks and padlocks securing the high ornate double doors.
The doors opened with a creak of protest on to a chill interior darkness. The kinema was evidently not open yet. But surely, Waechter thought, the matinee should have been underway by now? Their footsteps echoed cavernously as they progressed inside. The pungent whiff of charred air assailed his nostrils, mingled with the fresher smells of construction: sawn timbers, cement and plaster. There was the smell of something else too. Something organic. Not quite the smell of rotting. But possibly the smell of death. Certainly the smell of wet fur and piss. As if an animal had crawled in there to die. He expected to hear its whimpering. No doubt the workmen had put down poison for vermin. He imagined a doomed rodent twitching out its last in some dark forgotten corner of the building.
A thin silvering of feeble light seeped in from somewhere high up to leaven the gloom. It tinged the black figures moving through the treacly darkness.
‘Can we have the lights on, Kirkwood?’ demanded Porrick.
‘Ah, well, no, Mr Porrick … actually we cannot. Not until we settle the outstanding account with the electrical company.’
‘But that’s absurd! Why hasn’t it been paid? Pay it immediately!’
‘We don’t—’
But Porrick cut his accountant off. ‘I don’t want to hear any of your excuses. I know I authorized the payment. I consider it very remiss on your part not to have made it.’
Waechter heard his producer’s voice in the darkness. ‘Is it that the kinema is not in use at the moment, Porrick?’
‘We have only just finished the refurbishments.’
‘Haven’t finished them, actually,’ put in Kirkwood. ‘In fact, we didn’t get any further than restoring the entrance before we ran out of funds.’
Hartmann was not impressed. ‘This does not bode well, Porrick. How can you expect to hold a festival here?’
‘There are only one or two small jobs outstanding. I feel that if we are to go into partnership, Porrick’s Palaces and Visionary Productions, perhaps the funds could be found from your side of the business?’
‘But this is absurd! You have wasted our time. We came here to talk to you about your investing in Visionary Productions, in order to secure an exclusive distribution deal. You cannot expect us to put money into your failing business. Come, Waechter, we have seen enough here.’
‘Vait!’ Waechter knew how to command, even with a single word. ‘It is better for my film that it is not … perfect. We can dress it, ja? I have an idea. I vill turn your kinema into a vision of Hell. Ja? You like?’
‘I … I’m not … That sounds rather …’
‘A young Fräulein …’
‘Eloise?’ wondered Porrick.
‘Off courssse!’ Waechter bowed steeply towards the silhouette of his leading lady. ‘Your character, she loves the kinema. It is a drug to her. She comes every night. Spends all of her money. She must prostitute herself to pay for her habit.’
Eloise pretended to be scandalized. ‘But what will my grandmother say when she sees it!’
‘Der golden entrance to your kinema, Herr Porrick, is a shining bright entrance to Hell. Inside, it is a dark palace. We have torches, burning torches, on the walls, ja? Mephistopheles is in the box office. Beautiful demon girls light the way for her to her seat. She sits and watches film. Der screen is filled with flames. Der flames come out of the screen and burn down the kinema. Everyone dies … Und goes to Hell. The manager of the kinema is der Teufel. Ja? The deffil. Berenger will play him.’
The darkness swirled exuberantly as Berenger doffed his bowler hat and executed a swooping bow in a gesture of gratitude.
Porrick was less appreciative. ‘I … hmmm … I think we need to work on the scenario somewhat. Can it not be a little more cheerful? I’m not sure I like the idea of a fire in one of my Palaces.’
‘It vill not be real fire. We create illusion, ja? Diaz, it can be done?’
The Chilean’s response was obscure. Perhaps he nodded. Perhaps he shrugged. It seemed he sighed.
‘There is problem?’
‘No, Señor Waechter. Whatever you ask, I do. You know that.’
Waechter nodded tersely. That was all he needed to know. All he cared about. Any hint of pain or grief that he might have detected in the little man’s hesitancy was no concern of his.
‘But … uhm …’ Porrick spoke in a whisper out of the corner of his mouth. ‘You do know that there was a fire here, in which a man died? That’s why we have been refurbishing the place.’
‘I cannot help that.’
‘I do not believe that the English motion picture viewing public will pay good money to see such a depressing subject enacted. Hartmann, what do you think?’
‘Waechter is Waechter. His vision is his genius. If you want to make films with Waechter, you must surrender to his vision.’
‘Look here, what if she is inspired by the films she sees to become a motion picture actress? She falls in love with her leading man … uhm … and is a great success. And they … they …’
‘They all live happily ever after?’ said Kirkwood sarcastically.
‘Yes!’
‘This is not a Waechter film,’ pronounced Waechter. ‘In a Waechter film she becomes prostitute and goes to Hell.’
‘I don’t see why it has to be like that.’
‘If you do not wish to make Waechter film, you do not go into eine Partnerschaft mit Waechter!’
‘Amen to that!’ said Kirkwood.
‘You vont Waechter films to save you from ruin?’
Porrick’s voice receded as he turned away from Waechter and led the way further inside. ‘You haven’t seen the auditorium.’
There was a metallic clatter. In his haste, and anger, Porrick had walked into something: a metal pail or a tin box, by the sound of it. He gave a pained yelp of surprise as he sprawled headlong to the ground. ‘What the devil!’
Waechter closed his eye and sniffed. He prided himself on his keen senses of taste and smell. The organic odour he had identified earlier had suddenly intensified, as if it had been released by Porrick’s accident.