«Crazy, awful, mad! It couldn't happen!»
«Nobody was ever going to clog the Suez Canal. Nobody was ever going to land on the Moon. Nobody.»
«What do we do? This waiting is horrible. Think of something. Marc, think, think!»
«I'm thinking.»
«And ―»
This time a hundred-watt bulb flashed on in the director's face. He sucked air and let out a great braying laugh.
«I'm going to help them organize and speak up. Arch! I'm a genius. Shake my hand!»
He seized the old man's hand and pumped it, crying with hilarity, tears running down his cheeks.
«You, Marc, on their side, helping form the Fourth Reich!?»
The old man backed away.
«Don't hit me, help me. Think, Arch, think. What was it Darling Adolf said at lunch, and damn the expense! What, what?»
The old man took a breath, held it, exploded it out, with a final light blazing in his face.
«Nuremberg?» he asked.
«Nuremberg! What month is this. Arch?»
«October!»
«October! October, forty years ago, October, the big, big Nuremberg Rally. And this coming Friday, Arch, an Anniversary Rally. We shove an ad in the international edition of Variety. RALLY ATNUREMBERG. TORCHES. BANDS. FLAGS. Christ, he won't be able to stay away. He'd shoot his kidnapers to be there and play the greatest role in his life!»
«Marc, we can't afford ―»
«Five hundred and forty-eight bucks? For the ad plus the torches plus a full military band on a phonograph record? Hell, Arch, hand me that phone.»
The old man pulled a telephone out of the front seat of his limousine.
«Son of a bitch,» he whispered.
«Yeah.» The director grinned, and ticked the phone. «Son of a bitch.»
The sun was going down beyond the rim of Nuremberg Stadium. The sky was bloodied all across the western horizon. In another half-hour it would be completely dark and you wouldn't be able-to see the small platform down in the center of the arena, or the few dark flags with the swastikas put up on temporary poles here or there making a path from one side of the stadium to the other. There was a sound of a crowd gathering, but the place was empty. There was a faint drum of band music but there was no band.
Sitting in the front row on the eastern side ofthestadium, the director waited, his hands on the controls of a sound unit. He had been waiting for two hours and was getting tired and feeling foolish. He could hear the old man saying:
«Let's go home. Idiotic. He won't come.»
And himself saying, «He will. He must,» but not believing it. He had the records waiting on his lap. Now and again he tested one, quietly, on the turntable, and then the crowd noises came from lilyhorns stuck up at both ends of the arena, murmuring, or the band played, not loudly, no, that would be later, but very softly. Then he waited again.
The sun sank lower. Blood ran crimson in the clouds. The director tried not to notice. He hated nature's blatant ironies.
The old man stirred feebly at last and looked around.
«So this was the place. It was really it, back in 1934.»
«This was it. Yeah.»
«I remember the films. Yes, yes. Hitler stood — what? Over there?»
«That was it.»
«And all the kids and men down there and the girls there, and fifty cameras.»
«Fifty, count 'em, fifty. Jesus, I would have liked to have been here with the torches and flags and people and cameras.»
«Marc, Marc, you don't mean it?»
«Yes, Arch, sure! So I could have run up to Darling Adolf and done what I did to that pig-swine half-ass actor. Hit him in the nose, then hit him in the teeth, then hit him in the blinis! You got it, Leni? Action! Swot! Camera! Bam! Here's one for Izzie. Here's one for Ike. Cameras running, Leni? Okay. Zot! Print!»
They stood looking down into the empty stadium where the wind prowled a few newspapers like ghosts on the vast concrete floor.
Then, suddenly, they gasped.
Far up at the very top of the stadium a small figure had appeared.
The director quickened, half rose, then forced himself to sit back down.
The small figure, against the last light of the day, seemed to be having difficulty walking. It leaned to one side, and held one arm up against its side, like a wounded bird.
The figure hesitated, waited.
«Come on,» whispered the director.
The figure turned and was about to flee.
«Adolf, no!» hissed the director.
Instinctively, he snapped one of his hands to the sound-effects tape deck, his other hand to the music.
The military band began to play softly.
The «crowd» began to murmur and stir.
Adolf, far above, froze.
The music played higher. The director touched a control knob. The crowd mumbled louder.