M. Gustave scoffs, irritated.
INT. GARRET. NIGHT
Agatha’s room. Her few possessions are laid out neatly on the mattress: two changes of clothes, a short stack of cookbooks, her volume of romantic poetry, some tangled ribbons, and a hairbrush.
Agatha reaches up to the top of a skinny, pine wardrobe and pulls down an old, wicker suitcase. It has been repaired extensively with wire and string. She transfers everything she owns into it swiftly. She buckles it shut, slides it under the bed – then bolts upright. She looks up at the ceiling.
There is a thump.
Silence. Agatha slips off her shoes (wooden clogs). She slowly steps up onto the bed. She stands on her tiptoes.
EXT. ROOF. NIGHT
There is no moon, and the night is pitch-black. Agatha’s hands grip the edges of the skylight’s frame. Her eyes come up into view. She looks cautiously around in every direction. She listens.
Agatha sinks back down, pulls away the pencil holding the skylight window open, and quickly latches it shut.
The camera holds on the empty rooftop: a quiet wind whistles over the sleeping village.
Insert:
The front page of the Trans-Alpine Yodel. Headline:
YOUNG GIRL’S HEAD FOUND IN LAUNDRY BASKET
INT. COMMAND HEADQUARTERS. DAY
The next morning. An office decorated with flags, shields, and swords. There is a large map on a broad table with game pieces (chess, checkers, jacks, dice, and dominoes) marking troops and munitions. Henckels sits in a leather armchair drinking a cup of coffee while he stares at the front page of the newspaper.
A First Lieutenant stands over him holding a notebook and an envelope labeled WIRE MESSAGE. He explains:
LIEUTENANT
A radio telegram was delivered and signed for by the girl at four a.m. The envelope was found near the body, but its contents were missing – however: the telegraph office always keeps a carbon of the ticker-tape for twenty-four hours. I copied it down. It reads as follows: ‘Pack your things stop be ready to leave at moment’s notice stop hide-out is vicinity of Gabelmeister’s Peak stop destroy this message all my love full stop.’
HENCKELS
(pause)
Where’s the basket?
The Lieutenant points across the room. Henckels sighs. He stands up and walks over to a laundry basket on top of a desk against the wall. Pause. He reaches into it and lifts out, by the hair:
Serge’s sister’s severed head.
Title:
PART 5: ‘GABELMEISTER’S PEAK’
Insert:
The radio telegram – which has been torn to shreds, then carefully taped back together. It is speckled with blood.
EXT. GAS STATION. DAY
A lone fuel-pump in front of a service shack at the foot of a hill on a snowy country road. A fourteen-year-old Pump Attendant in a greasy jumpsuit fills the tank of Jopling’s motorcycle. A sled-runner has been fitted over the front wheel.
Jopling leans against the wall, silent, looking down at the radio telegram in his hands. The Pump Attendant chirps:
PUMP ATTENDANT
Where you headed, mister?
Pause. Jopling’s eyeballs turn to the attendant.
PUMP ATTENDANT
Skiing? Sledding? Mountain climbing?
Jopling looks away again.
The Pump Attendant grows slightly uneasy. Jopling reaches into his leather coat – half revealing, holstered, inside: a stiletto icepick, a blackjack bludgeon, a Luger pistol, and a ball-peen hammer. He withdraws a glass flask with a silver stopper and takes a pull. His brass knuckles clack against it.
The Pump Attendant clears his throat, pulls the nozzle out of the tank, and says – polite but quick:
PUMP ATTENDANT
Three Klubecks, please.
EXT. TRAIN STATION. DAY
The Zubrowkian Alps. A high-altitude depot nestled in a pass between two craggy ridges. There is fresh powder on the ground. Scattered flakes flicker in the air. A sign along the tracks reads: ‘Gabelmeister’s Peak’.
Twenty-five soldiers armed with carbine rifles stand spaced apart down the length of the platform, waiting.
The train rolls in. Doors open, and passengers with skis, snow-shoes, and suitcases step down and hurry into the building and around its sides. The soldiers study them, attentive, and peer inside the compartment windows. The passengers continue until they have all cleared away, and the platform is quiet again. A train conductor, leaning out from the end of a car, watches the soldiers. The soldiers look to each other tentatively.
A Sergeant jerks open a door and steps onto the train. He looks around. He raises his chin, lifts his nose – and sniffs the air. He looks irritated.
EXT. OBSERVATORY. DAY
The peak of an icy butte. A narrow, domed building sticks up into the sky at the top. A steel balcony winds around it with a platform that extends out over a plunging drop into the white mist. A group of scientists bundled in fur coats listens to a professor. A man on a bench pours cocoa from a Thermos. An eagle circles overhead.
M. Gustave and Zero shiver at the end of the railing.
M. GUSTAVE
It’s a hell of a view. I give them that, for what it’s worth.
ZERO
I agree.
Pause. M. Gustave checks his watch. He says with a slightly bitter edge to his voice:
M. GUSTAVE
When one says ‘midday’ – what does that mean to you?
ZERO
High noon.
M. GUSTAVE
Exactly. In other words, twelve p.m. At least, that’s always been my interpretation.
Silence. M. Gustave withdraws the small bottle of cologne from his pocket, spritzes himself twice, hands it to Zero who does the same automatically, then tucks it back away again. He holds out his palm under the flittering snow. He begins to recite:
M. GUSTAVE
‘’Tis oft-remarked: no single, falling flake does any other in its pure and perfect form –’
ZERO
(tensely)
Somebody’s coming.
A Monk in a grey cloak and a thick scarf clanks up a metal staircase. His face is old and wrinkled. He walks directly out to M. Gustave and Zero and stops. He studies them for a moment, frowning. He whispers:
MONK 1
Are you M. Gustave of the Grand Budapest Hotel in Nebelsbad?
M. GUSTAVE
(hesitates)
Uh-huh.
MONK 1
Get on the next cable car.
The Monk points.
A cable car is just arriving down the sloping line from an adjacent peak. M. Gustave hesitates. The Monk urges him on with a brusque motion. M. Gustave and Zero sprint across the balcony, scramble down a flight of steps, and race out onto the boarding platform. A family of six waits in skiing costumes. They stare at M. Gustave and Zero as they arrive, breathless. A tramway operator holds open the door. Everyone boards, squeezing.
INT. AERIAL TRAM. DAY
The cable car sets off up and across the wide ravine. M. Gustave and Zero sit side by side with the curious, silent family. The father sniffs the air. He looks irritated.