Radiance Read Free Page B

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?
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    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.
    Â Â Â Â Â 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.
    Â Â Â Â Â 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.
    Â Â Â Â Â  Halfrid H
    Â Â Â Â Â  Editor-in-chief
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    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
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    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.
    â€”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.
    â€”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