Radiance (3 page)

Now look there, children—Maud Locksley and her dashing companion, Wadsworth Shevchenko, fresh from the set of his sure-to-enthral historical epic,
Cross of Stone
. Maud ravishes as always in a sleek strapless number that rustles silver in the popping lights. When she turns, flashes of the palest pink feathers flutter beneath the hem. A slim triangle of dyed crocodile scales soars up to a daring rosette of amethyst and devilish croc teeth at the point of the gown's plunging, bare back. How she smirks over her rounded shoulder! The smirk that cost a thousand contracts, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Wadsworth's charcoal arm never leaves her waist, his trim, severe Eichendorff suit revealing its own surprise as the power couple pose: The tails of his tuxedo descend into a weave of raven feathers, stiffly, glossily pointing earthward. Our coal-tressed leading man finishes it all off with an onyx lapel pin in the shape of a lunar peony. I'm certain we can all envy Maud Locksley her journey home—save that a little bird informs your humble Father Christmas that Master Shevchenko's burning gaze strays ever so occasionally from her charms to those of his co-star, Dante de Vere. But we know better than to listen to little birds, don't we?

We suppose she is dead, though none of us can be sure. She is not
here
, though she is not
there
, either, so far as anyone can tell. What transpired that awful autumn on those far Venusian shores? What happened to her? Did she share the horrid fate of the ruined village, the very one she sought to uncover and explain? We cannot know. We know only that we will see her no more, and that, my loyal readers, must break every heart in two.

     We all came together Saturday last to pretend we know what happened and can feel certain about burying her. The seven ex-Unckwives and erstwhile stepmothers of the young Severin stood at his side, their beautiful faces drawn in the refined sort of grief only those who have trained since birth to live upon the screen can produce, reflecting our feeling back to us like lunar emotions, softer and more silver, colder and more delicate.

     And would I shock anyone if I nodded my head toward an eighth statuesque figure who had been standing a fair way off, a black veil shielding her face from any eyes like mine that might guess at some maternal similarity to the vanished documentarian in the angle of her nose or the heft of her hair? To that very filmmaker whose fairy-tale coffin, all empty crystal and plush red pillow (with no head pressing the velvet, no feet beneath the shroud), decorated with ivory sparrow wings and onyx myrtle boughs, lay before us, prayed over by all the radiant men Severin ever loved.

     I do believe she would have loathed that coffin.

But tear your eyes from the twin comets of Locksley and Shevchenko and look upon the real stars of the evening! Percival Unck and his
devastatingly
adorable daughter, Severin. Not quite five years old, she runs boldly onto the carpet, laughing, her black curls bouncing, the tiny bustle of her red velvet Barbauld dress stitched with rough garnet chips that do not
glitter
so much as
burn
against her childish waist. She'll be a beauty one day if her father has a thing to do with it. She reaches back and beckons for him. He is, as always, shy and bemused, wearing a positively
scrumptious
red suit to match his girl. Notice the ivory-plated Venusian myrtle flower tucked into his lapel—perhaps hinting to us as to the setting of his next masterpiece! Unck adjusts his scarlet-tinted glasses and follows his daughter, the long tails of his own late-season Eichendorff fluttering with sparrow feathers dyed a spectacular orange. (I, for one, am positively enchanted with the new avian direction in men's fashion this season. I expect I'll be putting in for my own double-breasted parrot suit soon enough!) Little Severin dances up the aisle, reaching into her silk purse to throw real Venusian tamarind blossoms before her, a little goddess managing handily her own worship. Her giggles and her smile track into a dozen microphones and cameras, certain to be pored over by yours truly
and
yours truly's competition for evidence of the child's mysterious mother—which starlet, which studio head's wife, which socialite's untoward Saturday night gave us this disarmingly impish companion to Tinseltown's greatest director?

Severin's long-time lover, the cinematographer Erasmo St. John, was present and accounted for, shockingly thinned down from his once-prizefighter physique. His winnowed hand clutched the fingers of that boy we have all begged to interview, even for a minute or two—that child brought back from Adonis in Severin's place, the creature we here in Tinseltown must face instead of our old friend. As of the writing of this column the child has not yet shown any ability to speak whatever. What frustration for our little community, for whom speaking is a necessity of life. We could sooner stop breathing than stop telling our life stories—and yet he says nothing, and St. John will not compel him.

     Having reported a lifetime ago upon the premiere of
The Red Beast of Saturn
, when old Percy first appeared with a little bundle wrapped in graphite-coloured silk swaddling designed by Foscolo, I hold the decidedly odd position of having documented most of the famous documenter's life. But I am afraid that this old woman must draw her account of that wretched soul to a close early, being overcome by the whole business. Would that it had unfolded in some other way, some way which did not conclude in a rainy Saturday and a hollow glass box.

     I adjourn. Though it is my custom to close by inviting you all to share the empty seat in my box, that seat must be reserved for the dead tonight. Look up at that persistent little limelight in the evening sky: Venus, who alone knows the secrets we poor chattering monkeys covet so.

     
Halfrid H

     
Editor-in-chief

I have my own thoughts on the provenance of Severin Unck, my darlings, but I'll never tell. Any Father Christmas worth his holly holds something back for next year.

It's five minutes to curtain, the lights are low, and I must find my seat. I remain slavishly yours,

Algernon B

Editor-in-chief

 

PART ONE

THE WHITE PAGES

My soul burns to speak of strange bodies transformed!

O gods in heaven, you ardent lovers of mutation,

become the breath inside me

and draw up my song, untroubled, unbroken,

from the first beginnings of the world

to this very moment and this very day.

—Ovid,
Metamorphoses

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.

—Ethel Barrymore

 

The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew

(Oxblood Films, dir. Severin Unck, 1946)

SC1 EXT. RED SQUARE, MOSCOW—DAY 1 LATE AFTERNOON [12 JUNE, 1944]

[Open on the pristine streets of sunny Moscow, lined with popsicle-carts, jugglers, dazzled tourists. The streetlamps are garlanded with lime-blossoms, sunflowers, carnations. The joyful throng crowds in fierce and thick; the camera follows as they burst into Red Square. The splendid ice-cream towers of the Kremlin beam down benignly. The elderly TSAR NICHOLAS II, his still-lovely wife, and their five children, hale in their glittering sashes, wave down at the cannoneers standing at attention on the firing pad at the 1944 Worlds' Fair. The launch site is festooned with crepe and swinging summer lanterns, framed by banners wishing luck and safe travel in English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and Arabic.]

SEVERIN UNCK and her CREW wave jerkily as confetti sticks to their sleek skullcaps and glistening breathing apparatuses. Her smile is immaculate, practiced, the smile of the honest young woman of the hopeful future. Her copper-finned helmet gleams at her feet. SEVERIN wears feminine clothing with visible discomfort and only for this shot, which she intends, in the final edit, to be ironic and wry: She is performing herself, not performing herself in order to tell a story about something else entirely. The curl of her lip betrays, to anyone who knows her, her utter disdain of the bizarre, flare-skirted swimming-cum-trapeze-artist costume that so titillates the crowd. The wind flutters the black silk around her hips. She tucks a mahogany case—which surely must contain George, her favourite camera—smartly under one arm. All of her crewmen strap canisters of film, a few steamer trunks of food, oxygen tanks, and other minor accoutrements to their broad backs. The real meat of the expedition, supplies and matériel meticulously planned, acquired, logged, and collected, was loaded into the cargo bays overnight. What Severin and her crew carry, they carry for the camera, for the film being shot of this film being shot.

The cannon practically throbs with light: a late-model Wernyhora design, filigreed, etched with forest motifs that curl and leaf like spring ice breaking. The brilliant, massive nose of the Venusian capsule
Clamshell
rests snugly in the cannon's silvery mouth. The metal beast towers over Saint Basil's, casting a monstrous shadow. Most of its size is devoted to propulsion. The living space within is surprisingly small. That etched silver forest will be jettisoned halfway to Venus, destined to drift alone into the endless black. But for now, the
Clamshell
dwarfs any earthly palace built for the glory of man or god.

They are a small circus: the strongmen, the clowns, the lion tamer, the magician, and the trapeze artist poised on her platform, arm crooked in an evocative half-moon, toes pointed into the void.

CUT TO: INT.
Clamshell
cantina, NIGHT 21:00 ERASMO ST. JOHN and MAXIMO VARELA pour vodka for the CREW and laugh uproariously:::
FILM DAMAGED, FOOTAGE UNAVAILABLE SKIP DAMAGED AREA SKIPPING SKIPPING ERROR SEE ARCHIVIST FOR ASSISTANCE
]

 

From the Personal Reels of Percival Alfred Unck

[A camera is on. The screen is black, for the camera is skewed toward the wall, a clandestine attempt to capture the child without her knowing she is being recorded. Occasionally, flickers of silver interrupt the darkness—echoes from a screen showing more lively activity somewhere behind the device that picks up the following quiet conversation.]

PERCIVAL UNCK

Now, in any film it is important that you know who is telling the story, and to whom they are telling it. Even if no one on-screen talks about it, the director must know, and the writer, too. Now, who is telling this story?

SEVERIN UNCK

Daddy is telling the story!

PERCIVAL

[laughing] Well, Daddy made the movie, but Daddy is not telling the story. Look at the characters and how they speak to each other. Look at how the film begins, how the very first scenes shape everything else. Now, who is telling the story?

[There is a long silence.]

SEVERIN

The camera is telling the story. It's watching everything, and you can't lie to it, or it will know.

PERCIVAL

My girl is so clever! No, the camera witnesses the story and records it, but it is outside the story. Like a very tiny god with one big, dark eye. Baby girl, look at the lovers, and the villain, and the doting father, and the soldiers, and the ghosts. Which one of them is the authority? Who controls how the story is told? And who is the audience, for whom all these wonderful things are meant?

[Another long silence follows. There is a rustling, as of a little girl twisting her lace skirts while she tries to work out an answer.]

SEVERIN

They are all telling the story to me.

 

Preproduction Meeting,
The Deep Blue Devil
[working title]