He trained his eyes on the sign that said CHERNOMORSK FILM STUDIO NO. 1; stroked the stairwell lion on its warm mane; muttered,
“Golconda”; and hurried back to the hostel.
He spent the whole night sitting at the window sill and writing by the light of a kerosene lamp.
The breeze that came through the window shuffled through the finished pages.
The view wasn’t particularly attractive.
The tactful moon lit a set that was far from palatial.
The hostel was breathing, shifting, and wheezing in its sleep.
Horses, invisible in the dark corners, communicated with one another by tapping.
Small-time hustlers slept in horse carts, on top of their paltry wares.
A horse that had gotten loose wandered around the courtyard, carefully stepping over shafts, dragging its halter behind it, and sticking its head into the carts in search of barley.
It came up to Ostap’s window as well, put its head on the window sill, and looked at the writer forlornly.
“Off you go, horse,” said the grand strategist, “this is really none of your concern.”
Just before dawn, when the hostel started waking up, and a young boy with a bucket of water was already walking among the carts, calling out in a high-pitched voice,
“Water for your horses!,” Ostap finished his opus, took a blank sheet out of Koreiko’s file, and wrote down the title:
THE NECK
A full-length film
Screenplay by O.
Bender
The Chernomorsk Film Studio No. 1 was in that rare state of chaos that only exists at horse markets, and only when the whole market is trying to catch a thief.
There was a guard sitting inside the doorway.
He demanded passes from everyone who walked in, but if somebody didn’t have a pass, he waved them through anyway.
People wearing dark-blue berets bumped into people wearing workman’s overalls, flew up the numerous stairs, and then immediately rushed down the very same stairs.
They traced a circle in the hallway, stopped for a second, looked ahead, dumbfounded, and then raced back up as fast as if somebody was lashing them from behind with a wet rope.
Whizzing by were assistants, consultants, experts, administrators, directors with their lieutenants, lighting people, film editors, middle-aged screenwriters, managers of commas, and keepers of the great cast-iron seal.
At first, Ostap moved about the studio at his usual pace, but he soon realized that he was failing to become part of the world that whirled around him.
Nobody would answer his queries; nobody would even stop for him.
“One must adapt to the ways of the adversary,” said Ostap.
He started running slowly and immediately discovered that it worked.
He even exchanged a few words with somebody’s lieutenant.
Then the grand strategist began running as fast as he could and soon noticed that he had managed to join the crowd at last.
He was running neck in neck with the chief script advisor.
“A script!” shouted Ostap.
“What kind?” asked the script advisor, maintaining his racing trot.
“A good one!” replied Ostap, overtaking him by a half-length.
“I’m asking you, what kind?
Silent or sound?”
“Silent.”
Gracefully raising his legs, which were clad in long thick socks, the script advisor overtook Ostap on the curve and shouted:
“Not interested!”
“What do you mean—not interested?” asked the grand strategist, losing the beat and starting to gallop.
“We’re not!
Silent pictures are over.
Talk to the sound people.”
They stopped for a brief moment, gave each other a startled look, and ran in opposite directions.
Five minutes later, Bender was again racing in the right company, waving his manuscript, this time between two trotting consultants.
“A script!” offered Ostap, breathing heavily.
The consultants, trotting in unison, turned to Ostap:
“What kind of script?”
“With sound.”
“Not interested,” replied the consultants, speeding up.