Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (495 page)

Bobby
: It isn’t the first time. (
he takes another bottle from the cupboard and looks at it
) You drank Herr Koster’s best — and left the stuff we give to customers.

Matilda
(
grinning
): I know what’s good. But you won’t tell, will you, Herr Lohkamp? — and me a poor widow?

Bobby
: Not this time.

Jupp bursts into the office.

Jupp
: Herr Lohkamp! The customer — the customer!

He is closely followed by Lenz and Koster.

Lenz
(
to Bobby
): We’ve got to sell that Cadillac.

(
his eyes, shining with an idea, rove around the office
)

CUT TO:

34 THE GATE —
 — through which Blumenthal has just entered, looking about with the canny eye of a successful middle-aged business man. He has a dead-pan but not without humor.

35 THE OFFICE

Koster brushing his hair. Bobby looking out the window into the court.

Bobby
: Look at that expression. Suspicious already.

Lenz
(
out of sight
): Remember the prices. Ask seven thousand. If he’s a low cur, take forty-five hundred; if he’s a maniac, forty-four hundred. But at that price, a curse goes with it. Go down fighting with your fist on his wallet.

Koster
: Right.

(
he goes out
)

Lenz
(
still out of sight
): I’m going to put on an act.

Bobby follows Koster out.

CUT TO:

36 KOSTER —
 — coming out of the office into the courtyard and meeting Blumenthal.

Koster
(
cordially
): My name’s Koster.

Blumenthal
(
offering his hand
): Blumenthal.

Koster
: You’ve come about the Cadillac? (
Blumenthal nods
) She’s over here.

Blumenthal
(
dryly
): So I see.

Koster gives him an appraising glance. They have walked across the courtyard. Bobby has started the engine of the car.

Koster
(
taking a long breath
): Good motor, good tires, good paint, dandy running condition. And for a big body, that hood is remarkably light. (
he turns off the engine and raises the hood
) See, you can work it with one hand. (
but he and Bobby struggle with four hands to close it. Then Koster bangs the doors and rattles the handles
) Nothing worn. Tight as a glove. Try them. (
he takes his hand away. The handle comes with it. He hastily replaces it. Bobby turns on the engine again. Blumenthal nods in a bored way
) Windows stay put at any height. Unbreakable glass — and that’s something — (
he points at the battered Ford
) — Why only today on the road —

Blumenthal
(
uninterested
): All cars have unbreakable glass.

Koster
(
a little nervously
): Horn — (
Bobby sounds it
) — pockets, seats, switchboard, lighter — Have a cigarette?

Blumenthal
: I don’t smoke.

CUT TO:

37 THE GATE

 — which Lenz is banging shut as if he had just come in. He has removed his unionalls and is amazingly spruced up — coat, tie, hat, cane and pigskin gloves. He compares the office number with a newspaper in his hand and walks up to Koster.

Lenz
: Is there a Cadillac for sale here? (
Koster nods, speechless
) Can I see it?

Bobby
(
playing up
): Here it is. But perhaps you won’t mind waiting a minute. Have a seat in the office.

Lenz listens to the engine which is still humming. His face is critical, then appreciative. He nods and goes toward the office.

Blumenthal
(
practically
): What’s the car cost?

Koster
: Seven thousand marks — (
more sternly
) Seven thousand marks net.

Blumenthal
(
snorting
): Too much.

Koster
: If you drove it, you’d feel differently. How about a trial run?

Blumenthal
: Trial runs don’t prove anything. After you buy it you find out what’s the matter. (
Bobby and Koster look dismayed
) No, I’ll call you up. Good morning.

To their distress he suddenly turns away and strides very quickly out of the courtyard.

Koster
(
starting after him too late
): Now, Mr. Blumenthal —

Mr. Blumenthal passes through the gate.

CUT TO:

38 THE OFFICE DOOR

Lenz coming out. He is hatless and coatless and is getting back into his work suit. The cane still dangles from his arm.

Lenz
(
proud of himself
): Well? How did I do? I saw you were up against it, and I thought I’d lend a hand.

Koster
(
glum at missing the sale
): I recognized my new suit.

Bobby
: Where did you get the hot gloves?

Lenz
: The Tax Collector left them. The cane too —

(
he brandishes it; then breaks off suddenly and stares toward the gate
)

Bobby
(
oblivious to this
): You ought to go into vaudeville.

He sees the look in Lenz’s eye and turns; Blumenthal has come back in and is striding briskly across the court.

Koster
(
nervously
): Oh — hello, Mr. Blumenthal.

Blumenthal
(
glancing at Lenz with amusement
): I see — you make your customers work for you. All joking aside, what do you want for that bus?

Bobby
(
sternly
): Seven thousand marks.

Koster
(
less sternly
): Six thousand marks.

Blumenthal
: I’ll give you five thousand.

The Comrades groan.

Koster
(
pleadingly
): Five thousand eight hundred.

Blumenthal
: Five thousand five hundred — and you’re tickled to death. I could easily knock you down another thousand. (
a pause — the Comrades look at each other. They agree in silence
) It’s a go! I want it in three days — license, new plates and all.

Koster
(
really pleased
): Sold! And we’ll throw in these cut-glass ash trays.

(
he takes one from a shelf and holds it up
)

DISSOLVE TO:

39 A GLASS OF FOAMING BEER —
 — held aloft by Koster. The Comrades and Jupp, with Matilda in the background, are gathered around the outdoor table.

Koster
: — So I am proud to say that on the occasion of his thirtieth birthday, Bobby Lohkamp becomes a full-fledged member of the firm of Koster and Company.

(
cheers
)

Lenz
(
indicating bottles on the table
): This stuff is as old as he is — and too good for this lousy hole. I move we go and have supper in the country — finish up a big day in the great outdoors. If we each take two bottles and put them in Heinrich, the road-spook —

General approval, as we

DISSOLVE TO:

40 “HEINRICH,” THE AUTOMOBILE —
 — rolling leisurely along a country road at twilight. The Comrades are in street clothes. Koster is driving; Lenz is looking at a newspaper and singing with Bobby.

Lenz and Bobby
(
in chorus
): Hail to thee

 — O’er the sea,

 — Fatherland.[“Ubers Meer Gruss Ich Dich Heimatland,” a popular German song of the period.]

Koster
(
interrupting
): You’re in the fatherland. That song is for when you’re away.

(
a pause.
)

Lenz
(
brooding
): We
are
away. Is this the fatherland — torn with poverty and despair, without future, without hope?

Koster
(
soberly
): We didn’t talk like that in 1918 when things were worse.

Lenz
: We still believed. And now, we’ve stopped believing. (
pause
) There’s only work to make you forget that there’s nothing to work for. (
pause
) Work and an occasional bottle.

Koster
: What do you think of that gloomy talk, young Bobby? (
Bobby, absorbed, doesn’t answer
) Answer your superior officer!

Bobby
(
recollecting himself
): Excuse me. I must have a touch of Spring Fever.

CUT TO:

41 A HUGE BUICK TOWN CAR —
 — drawing up and overtaking them. As it comes abreast, a hand appears momentarily in the window and discards a half-smoked cigarette, which lands with a shower of sparks in “Heinrich.”

CUT TO:

42 INTERIOR OF “HEINRICH”

The cigarette falls in Bobby’s lap; he starts and gropes for it.

Koster
(
muttering fiercely
): So you think you can pass our old Heinrich, do you?

Lenz
: Little he knows that Heinrich has the great heart of a racer. Take him, Otto.

“Heinrich” has fallen a little behind the Buick — now he steps on it and draws abreast again. We see:

43 FOUR LIGHTS IN A ROW —
 — the two crazy, patched eyes of “Heinrich,” and the big bright eyes of the Buick as they appear at a distance in the twilight and RACE TOWARD THE CAMERA.

Three times we see this, each time at a faster pace. Once, two other cars approach from the two sides of a crossroad, their lights stopping abruptly and making a great blurr, through which plunge the two racers.

CUT TO:

44 GLIMPSE OF THE COMRADES

Lenz’s newspaper blown against his face.

CUT TO:

45 THE BUICK DRIVER’S FACE —
 — set and annoyed as he pats the arm of an invisible feminine companion at his side.

CUT TO:

46 “HEINRICH’S” LIGHTS —
 — enlarging, drawing ahead and racing directly toward us in victory.

DISSOLVE TO:

47 EXTERIOR A WAYSIDE INN —
 — idyllic and vine-covered, built from an old water mill. A stream still turns the wheel with a gentle, splashing sound. Within the restaurant a mechanical piano is playing “Goodbye My Dearest Guards Officer.”

“Heinrich” snorts up, and the Comrades get out.

Koster
(
sniffing
): Liver and onions.

Lenz
(
gently laying his hand on the steaming radiator
): I think it’s the gear-box.

Koster
: Don’t forget the drinks.

As they take out the bottles, the Buick they passed pulls up and stops, and the man at the wheel steps out.

Erich Breuer is about forty, a parvenu and a profiteer. He has modeled himself on the aristocrat, but the veneer is thin and the butcher boy is often in evidence, especially when he is angry or at a disadvantage. He wears a camel’s hair coat, a monocle and yellow gloves which he pulls off as he looks angrily at the car that defeated him.

Lenz and Bobby wear superior expressions.

Koster
(
in a low, warning voice
): Great Snakes! We don’t want two fights today.

Breuer
(
addressing them
): What kind of a junk is that?

Lenz
(
coolly, after a moment’s pause
): Did you say something?

Breuer
(
testily
): I asked what make it was.

Lenz
(
insolently
): Well, the grandpa was a sewing machine, the grandma was an old radio, and the pappa was a machine gun — (
he breaks off
) From the other side of the Buick there has appeared a lovely girl. Patricia Hollmann is in her middle twenties, stylish and beautiful — and something more. She seems to carry light and music with her — one should almost hear the music of the “Doll Dance” whenever she comes into the scene — and she moves through the chaos of the time with charm and brightness, even when there are only sad things to say.

Seeing her, the Comrades suddenly change their attitude. She smiles and they smile back at her.

Breuer
(
not knowing what to say
): My name’s Breuer.

Lenz
(
introducing
): Lenz — Koster — Lohkamp. Why don’t you show Mr. Breuer the car, Otto?