6



After being shown the state-of-the-art film studio where Albert Bosch could do all of his work at no cost, he and Gina George were taken on a week-long tour of their host region, accompanied by various members of the culture commissioner’s staff, and sometimes by the commissioner himself.

They were shown Catalonia’s natural beauties, her pristine – except when they were overwhelmed by tourist development – beaches and wooded – except when they were denuded by forest fires – mountains. All the damage was attributed to the dictatorship, now mercifully gone.

They were shown intact medieval villages as well as the historic centers of ancient cities, unchanged for centuries except for the nondescript blocks of apartments that surrounded them.

They were serenaded by bands and singers performing folk music, entertained by dancers in colorful costumes (one such costume was made specially for Gina to wear and to be photographed in), plied with local wines and food delicacies, and taken shopping for handicrafts at country fairs.

Back in Barcelona, they were introduced to the head of the regional government (he was referred to as “our president” and he addressed Albert as “Monsieur Bosk”), to the architecture of Gaudí, and to Catalonia’s high culture: the national museums – of art, of ethnography, of archeology – and the national theater. It was there that they attended a performance of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, featuring the region’s leading actors, Mario Farga and Sofia Marés. It had of course been Sofia Marés who, behind the scenes, had helped set up the deal, but she had been too busy to meet with them before this evening. She and Mario Farga were to have major parts in Albert and Gina’s project.

Since the performance was in Catalan, the guests were provided with texts of the English original, and in the box in which they were seated the chairs had small lights attached to their arms, to help with the reading. Albert Bosch had studied English literature at the university and had a passing acquaintance with the play, so that he followed the action on stage with the eyes of a director. Gina George, on the other hand, read the text intently, trying to hear it inwardly while following the character indications on the page, and only occasionally looked up at the stage. The process was difficult for her, since her familiarity with Shakespearean English was scant. While she had taken acting classes with Barry Bergman’s encouragement, Classical Theater was one she had skipped. And so when Iachimo was removing the bracelet from the arm of the sleeping Imogen – played by Sofia Marés, who was very beautiful in a dark, Mediterranean sort of way – what Gina George in her mind’s ear heard him saying was sin-kew-spotted for cinque-spotted and eye thee bottom of a cow’s lip for I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip. Feeling thoroughly lost in the language, she laid down the book, took Albert’s hand and began to watch the action. The next scene had some pretty music and a song, and some funny mugging by the actor playing Cloten. And in the following scene Posthumus, played by Mario Farga, reappeared on stage. What a hunk! thought Gina George. It should be fun working with him. She wondered if he and Sofia were an item.

After the show Albert, Gina, Mario, Sofia, the play’s director – who was called Nacho and was to be Albert’s assistant on the project – and the culture commissioner had drinks in a bar across the street from the theater. From their demeanor – private jokes, glances, pats on the cheek – Gina deduced that Mario and Sofia had once been lovers, but now were just friends. It should be a nice project, she thought. She’d be working with Shakespearean actors! Frank Bond and Melissa Milton didn’t count; they had given it up when they joined her world. Now she was on the other side!

Mario, Sofia and Nacho spoke English much better than the commissioner, and one of them would always make a point of translating any remark or joke that would be made in Catalan. Their humor was earthier and franker than what might have passed in supposedly polite society back home, and some of the jokes were really funny; they might be good for comic relief in the movie. If she didn’t remember them, Albert would, for sure.

Nacho also explained why the president had pronounced Albert Bosch’s surname the way he did: Bosch, pronounced Bosk, was actually a common Catalan family name.

The next morning, while Albert and Gina were drinking café con leche at a sidewalk café, a somber-looking Margaret was putting plastic sheets over unfinished canvasses in her studio. A Mozart mass was playing on the tape player. Her suitcase had been packed the night before, shortly after receiving the call from her stepfather; the suitcase was now standing in the studio’s doorway, ready to be picked up. Margaret turned off the music, picked up the suitcase, went out the door and locked it behind her. She then checked the door of the house to make sure that it was locked, entered her car, and drove off in the direction of the main highway that would take her to the Geneva airport.

“They’re very nice,” Albert was saying.

“Fabulous,” she said.

“But not enough money,” he said. “We need some other source.”

“Do you know anyone in England?” she asked.

“Uh...” he answered with a laugh, “Margaret’s stepfather.”

“I mean in the business,” she said, meaning business.

“Well, there’s my distributor, Julian Burroughs,” he said hesitantly, “but I am not too hot in England.”

“Well, I’m very hot in England,” she said with a self-satisfied smile. “Let’s go make some phone calls.”

By noon they were on their way to London.

In the narrow-bodied plane, Margaret was sitting in an aisle seat while a plump woman was in the window seat, and the seat between them was empty. Shortly after takeoff, the woman turned toward Margaret and spoke up with no preliminaries.

“You look upset, dear,” she said with a distinctly American accent.

“Yes, I am. My mother’s very ill.”

“I’m sorry,” the plump woman said. Her tone was genuinely comforting.

“I’m sorry, too,” said Margaret. “I’ve never been terribly close to her. I left England when I was twenty-two, shortly after my father died, and I’ve seen her very little since.”

“You were close to him, weren’t you?” The insight surprised Margaret.

“Yes, I was,” she said.

“And now,” the woman went on, “you want to reconnect with your mother to find your inner child.”

“Do I?” asked Margaret, puzzled.

“We all do, dear. It’s what keeps us going.”

The dialogue went on in this vein longer than Margaret could endure.

“Do you charge for this?” she asked, in a sharp tone but with a mitigating smile.

“I suppose I could,” said the woman as she pulled a card out her purse and handed it to Margaret, “but I don’t think I’m licensed to practice on a plane,” she added with a laugh. “I’m just coming back from a conference in this fabulous castle...”

“Oh yes, I heard about it,” Margaret interrupted her. “I live near there.”

“I was the keynote speaker,” the woman said. Margaret was afraid that the woman would recite her keynote speech right then and there, if only in summary form, and she felt the need to change the subject.

“Going to England, are you?” she asked.

“No, just changing flights to go home. I’m from Seattle, just like this airplane,” she said with a very loud laugh. “Forgive me, I get a lot of mileage out of that line.” And she laughed again.

“Uh,” said Margaret, “this is an Airbus.”

“What?” asked the woman, perplexed.

“This plane,” said Margaret. “It isn’t from Seattle.”

“Oh,” said the woman, trying unsuccessfully to hide her embarrassment by looking at her lap.

“Forgive me,” said Margaret. “It’s my inner grownup.”

For the rest of the flight the two women sat in silence, reading.

As Albert Bosch and Gina George were heading for the exit from Heathrow Terminal One, carrying lightweight flight bags, Margaret was being met at another gate by a portly man in his sixties.

“Hello, Margaret,” he said.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Where’s Albert?” the man asked.

“Oh, he’s in California, or somewhere.”

“You’re no longer together?” Peter asked as they began to walk to the baggage claim.

“No.”

“Is there anyone else?”

“No, it’s just me and my work.”

“You do take after your father, Margaret. I remember running into him shortly after he and your mother separated, before he got ill, and asking him that question, and that’s just what he answered, ‘It’s just me and my work.’”

“I know, Peter,” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “You’ve told me that before, and I was just repeating it back to you.”

In the taxi, Gina suddenly shouted, “Look!” as she pointed at a cinema marquee they were passing. The marquee read GINA GEORGE IN YOUNG WIFE’S TAIL.

“They changed the spelling a little,” said Albert, laughing.

“The English are subtle like that,” she said, laughing as well, “aren’t they?”

In the car driven by Peter, Margaret asked,

“Tell me honestly. How long has she got?”

“I’m not her doctor, you know,” he answered, “just her husband.”

“But you are a doctor. Is it a month? Two? Three?”

“Something like that.”

“More?”

“Not bloody likely, perhaps even less. But I’m only a cardiologist.”

“I shan’t leave before she goes,” Margaret said firmly, “and I need to arrange my life a bit.”

“Would you like some studio space?” Peter asked.

“No. I can’t work here. You know that.”

“By the way, I saw your show. Look, we’re just passing the gallery.” She looked up to see the sign: MARGARET BLACKWOOD / RECENT OILS.

“Did you like it?” she asked, turning toward Peter. Had she instead continued to look outward, she would have seen a taxi depositing Albert Bosch and a striking blonde at a hotel.

“You do take after your father, you know,” Peter said with a smile.

Albert Bosch and Gina George’s trip had been arranged in great haste, but very efficiently – Albert, like any independent filmmaker, was a most efficient arranger – and their respective British distributors were waiting for them in the hotel bar. Gina and her distributor – who was actually Barry Bergman’s distributor, Geoff Scrivener – greeted each other with effusive hugs and kisses, while Albert and his distributor shook hands formally. They were both struck by the contrast, and they smiled at each other.

Once again it was Albert who dominated the conversation, and Gina could barely keep up. Money talk had never been her thing – she could always trust Barry.

It seemed to her, however, that the conclusion was successful.

“This is a splendid opportunity to foster the art of cinema,” Geoff was saying.

“Yes, but we have to think of the market,” said Julian, Albert’s distributor.

Were they kidding? she wondered.

During this time, in the backyard of a house in the Hollywood Hills, another hastily arranged meeting of four people in the movie industry was taking place, but these people were splashing about in the pool, naked in the California morning sun. This meeting had been arranged by Barry Bergman to introduce Jenni Jarman and Lesli Lyman to their co-star, Frank Bond. The night with Lesli had gone quite well; the girl definitely had potential, as did the evident chemistry between Jenni and Frank. Barry Bergman found that, for the first time, he had to fight against his feelings. Not to worry, he said to himself, he would win.

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