Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (502 page)

Pat
: You took the words out of my mouth.

Koster
: But I want to resign in favor of Bobby.

Lenz
: How about me? Bobby has that South American wife.

Bobby
: Shut up, you grease spot.

Koster
(
pointing to the car
): Heinrich is all for it. He’s rich now, and he offers to stake them to a week on the coast.

Pat suddenly buries her head in Bobby’s chest.

Pat
: Darling, let me hide my blushes. You don’t want a wife, do you?

Bobby
(
a little annoyed with Koster
): Will you let go my apron strings. Don’t you think I can speak for myself?

Pat
: Of course you can, darling — (
she raises her head
) — and let’s hear you.

Bobby
: Ladies and gentlemen — (
he pauses, embarrassed, holding Pat in his arms
) — who is this woman?

Pat
: Darling — (
she looks up at him
) — it’s just me.

Bobby
: Oh.

Pat
(
looking into his eyes and imitating his tone.
): Oh. (
he draws her closer. She speaks a little louder and very lovingly
) Oh! (
then a little muffled as he holds her very closely
) Ohh.

Koster and Lenz look at each other and raise their eyebrows reprovingly.

Koster and Lenz
(
as one would say “Aha”
): O-oh!

DISSOLVE TO:

112 THE CORRIDOR OF A MUNICIPAL BUILDING

A row of offices with information desks at intervals. Lenz, frowning, goes along the corridor, and stops at one, speaking to a clerk.

Lenz
: My name is Lenz. Who is responsible for renewing business licenses?

Clerk
: The License Bureau.

Lenz
: There seems to be something funny about it. Our fees are paid, but I can’t get the chief clerk’s signature, and it’s been three days.

Clerk
: Not countersigned, perhaps.

Lenz
: What’s that?

Clerk
: Something new. (
lowers his voice
) Everything now has to be O.K ‘d by — (
he breaks off suddenly
) The Civil Service is down to the left.

Lenz
: I didn’t ask you —

At the sound of footsteps, he catches the clerk’s warning eye. Breuer’s Lieutenant passes them, going down the corridor.

Lenz
: Oh, politics, eh? Something higher than the law. I wish I knew some of those boys.

His glance falls across the corridor to the door from which the man has issued. THE CAMERA MOVES ALONG WITH HIS EYES to a glass door, on which is lettered: “ERICH BREUER Private Dept. of Appropriations”

Lenz’s Voice
(
excitedly
): By heaven! I’ve met that gentleman.

Clerk
: If you know Herr Breuer, it should be easy to arrange. He is not exactly
in
the administration, but — (
he pauses significantly
) Lenz has started for the office. He reconsiders and dashes for the pay telephone booth in the corridor.

Lenz
: Western two seven nine six.

CUT TO:

113 CORRIDOR. BREUER’S LIEUTENANT

 — coming back carrying papers. He pauses at the desk.

Lieutenant
: That man who was here — had he just been to the License Bureau?

Clerk
: Yes. He’s —

Lieutenant
(
interrupting
): Was his name Lenz?

Clerk
Yes.

(
he points to the phone booth
)

The lieutenant nods, smiles and goes on into Breuer’s office.

CUT TO:

114 LENZ AT PHONE

Lenz
: — but what luck! I remembered that he’s a friend of yours. A word from you ought to fix it for us.

CUT TO:

115 PAT AT THE PHONE IN HER ROOM

She has on her hat and is dressed to go out. She frowns a little.

Pat
: I’ll see him this morning. Goodbye, Gottfried.

She hangs up, puts her face in a bowl of flowers with a card, “Bobby,” beside it, picks up her bag and goes out.

DISSOLVE TO:

116 BREUER’S OFFICE.

Breuer behind his desk. Pat sitting upon it, smoking a cigarette.

Pat
: — So you be a good fellow. Just tell all the little boys to let my friends alone.

Breuer
(
frowning
): It’s not so simple as all that.

Pat
(
surprised
): What? You’ve told me often that you were on the inside.

Breuer
: Who are these friends of yours?

Pat
: You’ve met them.

Breuer
(
contemptuously
): Garage mechanics. This Bobby Lohkamp is no friend for you. And that Lenz — he’s a mischief-maker, a firebrand.

Pat
: Gottfried is?

Breuer
(
savagely
): Yes. He’s headed for trouble. But the man I’m interested in, or rather
you’re
interested in is Herr Bobby. (
his thin veneer of manners cracks
) And so I should go to a lot of trouble to help him.

Pat
(
coolly
): Certainly not, Erich. (
she gets up
) I forgot a lot of things about you for a minute. And thought of you only as a friend. Awfully silly of me.

Breuer
: Look here — are you crazy about this fellow?

Pat
: Crazy? That’s a big word.

Breuer
: Have you taken up with him?

Pat
: Taken up what? Chess?

(
she moves toward the door
)

Breuer
: You know I’d marry you tomorrow.

Pat
: Not if I was married already.

Breuer
: My God! Are you?

Pat
: If those men were hounded out of their shop I think I’d be married that day.

Breuer
(
wiping his forehead in relief
): But not yet?

Pat
: Not — yet.

(
she opens the door and goes out
)

Breuer
(
starting after her
): Pat!

Angrily ringing a bell, he picks up a small bust of Napoleon from his desk and flings it from him. It just misses the head of his lieutenant coming in.

Lieutenant
: You rang, Herr Breuer?

Breuer
: I want a close watch kept on these people — a special investigation — day and night — Miss Patricia Hollmann, Otto Koster, Bobby Lohkamp —

DISSOLVE TO:

117 AN AUCTIONEER’S YARD

 — full of old junk, furniture, books, etc. In the foreground, under the “AUCTION” sign, a battered old taxi. Its owner, a Jew of about forty, thin and miserable, stands beside the auctioneer. In front of the bidders Pat and Koster sit on old chairs. Bobby and Lenz stand behind them.

Koster
(
addressing Pat and indicating the taxi
): That — if we get it — is going to carry you away on your honeymoon. That’s its first job.

Pat
: But we’re not getting married.

Lenz
: I still don’t see why they want me along. (
he looks at Bobby
)

Bobby
: Don’t look at me — I’m merely the fiancee.

THE CAMERA PANS SIDEWAYS to include a
Secretive
Little Man with his eyes on our friends. He is Breuer’s investigator. Hold it to show that he is straining to hear what they say.

A Voice
(
from the crowd
): Three hundred marks for the taxi.

CUT BACK TO:

118 THE BIDDERS

Koster
: Four hundred.

Auctioneer
: Come, come. The taxi has its pride.

A bidder
: Five hundred.

Koster
: Seven-fifty.

Lenz
(
warning him
): Hey, Otto — that’s our capital.

Koster
: It’s a great investment. And look at the poor devil who owns it! It would bring a thousand in better times.

Auctioneer
: Seven-fifty — seven-fifty. Sold! This magnificent property to this gentleman.

Koster and the others move forward. The spy melts away into the crowd.

Koster
(
introducing Pat to the taxi
): Your magic carpet.

Pat
: Close up the repair shop, Otto, and we’ll all go to the beach.

Koster
: Impossible. One of us must stay. (
CAMERA PANS to include taxi-driver, tears running from his eyes, as he gives his darling a last polish with a piece of waste
) Never mind, old fellow. We’ll take good care of it.

Taxi Man
: It’s a fine car. Three years and never a breakdown. But I’ve been ill — (
he straightens his shoulders
) I should not complain but thank God for my blessings. (
almost with exaltation
) Here is one country where a Jew is not homeless — where the Fatherland belongs to him as well as to the others. For that I am proud and happy.

HOLD THE CAMERA on him for a moment to impress the false prophecy of these words then —

FADE OUT.

119 FADE IN ON:

THE OLD TAXI

 — chugging along a country road. Bobby at the wheel. Pat beside him; Lenz asleep in the back seat on their piled suitcases.

Bobby
(
eyes on the road
): What does the meter read?

Pat
(
leaning forward
): Nine hundred and eighty marks.

Bobby
: I hope you have the money, lady, or I’ll have run you straight to the police station.

Pat
: Sir, I can’t give you anything but love.

Bobby
: It won’t buy gasoline.

Pat
(
wickedly
): Oh yes it will. They tell me it’ll buy trips to the shore — look!

(
she points forward eagerly
)

SHOOTING FROM THE CAR, we see the road come to a hill-top, dip — and suddenly we are looking down at a wide panorama of beach and sea.

Bobby and Pat
(
turning excitedly
): Gottfried! Gottfried! The sea — the sea!

Lenz
(
awakening with a start
): See what?

DISSOLVE TO:

120 THE BEACH — LATE AFTERNOON

A circular bay, with a distant shore-line. On a hillock, about fifty yards back from the water, stands the Blue-White Inn, a simple little chalet. The beach is quiet; two little tents are pitched near the hull of a wrecked freighter, rotting on the sand.

121 CLOSEUP OF A TRAIL OF FOOTPRINTS

Two pairs parallel in the sand. The sound of a man whistling, and we PULL BACK to show Lenz in an old-fashioned, knee-length, short-sleeved bathing suit, such as were still worn in Germany in 1928. He follows the footprints toward the sea, where they disappear around the corner of the freighter.

Still whistling, he changes his course and walks toward a little bathing tent where two children are playing.

CUT TO:

122 OTHER SIDE OF THE BOAT, LOOKING SHOREWARD

Disclosed are Pat and Bobby leaning against the hull. Pat, wearing a chic bathing suit, is rubbing oil on Bobby’s shoulders. A handful of wild anemones are scattered in her lap. Bobby, like Lenz, wears a patched old-fashioned costume.

Bobby
: Do you think that was Gottfried whistling?

Pat
: I don’t think. I don’t think about anything — except about us and the sun and the holiday and the sea.

(
she tickles his nose with an anemone
)

Bobby
: Take away your rose, woman.

Pat
: It isn’t a rose.

Bobby
: Violet, then.

Pat
: Isn’t a violet.

Bobby
: Then a lily — it better be — those are the only names I know.

Pat
: Not really?

Bobby
: I’ve always got by with those three. More oil.