The Technicolor Time Machine

10

Barney had to raise his voice to be heard over the drumming roar of the rain on the trailer roof.

“Are you sure he knew what he was signing?” he asked, Staring dubiously at the shaky X and thumbprint on the bottom of the contract.

“Absolutely,” Jens Lyn said. “I read him both the English original and the Old Norse translation and he agreed with everything, then signed in front of witnesses.”

“I hope he never gets hold of a good lawyer. According to this, he—the male lead—is making less than anyone else in the company, including the guy who takes care of the john-on-wheels.”

“There can be no possible complaint, the terms of salary were his suggestion. One bottle of Jack Daniels a day, and a silver mark every month.”

“But that’s hardly enough silver to fill a tooth.”

“We must not forget the relative economic position of the two different worlds,” Jens said in his best classroom manner, admonitory finger raised. “The economy here is essentially one of barter and trade, with very little payment by coin. The silver mark therefore has a much greater value, which is very hard to compare to our price for mass-produced silver. It is perhaps better to look at its buying power. For a silver mark you can buy a slave. For two marks—”

“I get the point, enough already. What is more important, will he stick around to finish the picture?”

Jens shrugged.

“Oh, that’s a very good answer.” Barney rubbed his thumb against the aching spot in his temple and looked out of the window at the leaden skies and the falling curtains of rain. “It’s been raining like that for two days now—doesn’t it ever stop?”

“It is to be expected. You must not forget that, although the weather here in the tenth century is warmer than the twentieth because of the Little Climactic Optimum, we are still in the North Atlantic at approximately fifty-nine degrees north latitude, and the rainfall is—”

“Save the lecture. I have to be sure that Ottar will cooperate for the entire film—or I don’t dare begin shooting. He may sail away in that new ship of his, or do whatever Vikings do. In fact—what does he do here? He’s not exactly my idea of a jolly farmer.”

“He is in exile for the moment. It appears he did not relish conversion to Christianity as King Olaf Tryggvessøn practices it, so after a losing battle he had to flee from Norway.”

“What does he have against becoming a Christian?”

“Olaf would submit him first to the ordeal of the snake. In this the mouthpiece of a lurhorn, the larger brass war horn, is forced well down the throat of the victim, a poisonous snake is put in the bell of the hom, which is then sealed, and the hom is heated until the snake seeks escape down the pagan’s throat.”

“Very attractive. So what happened when he left Norway?”

“He was on his way to Iceland, but his ship was wrecked in a storm and he and a few of his crewmen made it ashore here. All this happened not too long before our arrival the first time.”

“If he was shipwrecked—whose house is that he’s living in?”

“I am sure I do not know. He and his men killed the former owner and took over.”

“What a way to live—but it’s good news as far as we’re concerned. He’s sure to stick around as long as he is well paid and drunk.”

Amory Blestead came in, with a gust of wind and a splatter of ram, then had to lean against the door to close it again.

“Hang your things on the back of the door to drip,” Barney said. “There’s some coffee on the hot plate. How’s the set coming?”

“Just about finished,” Amory said, stirring sugar into his cup. “We knocked out the back wall of the house to get the cameras and lights in, covered it with plywood panels, raised the ceiling four feet. This was a lot easier than I thought. We just jacked up the beams and lifted the whole lot straight up, then the local labor cut sods and shoved them in to build the walls higher. These guys really know how to work.”

“And cheap too,” Barney said. “So far the budget is the only thing that has gone right with this picture.” He flipped through his copy of the script, marking off scenes with a red pencil. “Can we shoot some interiors now?”

“Any time you say.”

“Let’s go then, into the rubber boots. What did you think of the screen test, Amory?”

“Absolutely first class. This Viking is a natural, a real find.”

“Yeah,” Barney said, chewing on the pencil, then flinging it down. “Let’s hope so. He might be able to do a scene or two—but how will he hold up during an entire production? I wanted to shoot some simple stuff on location first, climbing in and out of boats and looking heroically into the sunset, but the weather has killed that. It’s going to have to be interiors—and keep your fingers crossed.”

Rain blew in around the side curtains of the jeep as they churned slowly over the hill along the mud track worn by the traffic from the camp. A cluster of vehicles was parked in the field behind Ottar’s house, dominated by the thudding bulk of the generator trailer. They pulled in as close to the house as they could, then sloshed up the path. In the lee of the building were hunched most of the housecarls, dripping and unhappy, thrown out into the weather to make room for the film production. The plywood door was blocked partially open to admit the thick electric cables and Barney pushed his way in.

“Let’s get some light in here,” he said, shaking out or his sodden coat. “And clear that crowd away from the end of the room. I want to see this shut-bed thing.”

“Watch out for the stain, it’s still a little wet on the antiqued wood,” Amory said, pointing to the double doors set into the wall.

“Not bad,” Barney said.

Jens Lyn snorted. “Not good! I explained that in a simple house such as this one, the occupants would sleep on the sleeping ledge along the wall, that ledge over there, but they might possibly have a shut-bed, a small, doored chamber built into the wall. Small to retain the body heat, that is the purpose of the shut-bed.” He swung open the five-foot-high doors to disclose a small room floored with a foam mattress and nylon sheets. “But this is an abomination! Nothing about it—”

“Take it easy, Doc,” Barney said, looking at the shut-bed through a viewer. “We’re shooting a picture, remember? You’re not going to get a camera and a couple of people inside the kind of coffin you’re thinking about. All right, drop the back.”

Two carpenters took away the back wall of the cubicle to disclose a camera in a shed on the other side.

“Get in there, Gino,” Barney ordered, “and I’ll run through the action. This is take fifty-four. Just in time, Ottar, you’re about to go on stage.”

The Viking stamped in, swathed in plastic raincoats and followed by the clucking makeup man, who held an umbrella over his head.

“Hello, Barney,” he shouted. “I look good, not?”

He did look good. He had been soaked in a tub—the water had to be changed three times—his hair and beard had been washed, color-rinsed, dried, trimmed and combed, and Rufs Viking outfit let out and recut for his massive frame. He was impressive, and he knew it and reveled in it.

“You’re tremendous,” Barney said. “So great that I want to take some more pictures of you. You’ll like looking at them, won’t you?”

“Good idea. I look good in pictures.”

“Right. Now here’s what I want you to do.” Barney closed the shut-bed doors. “I’ll be inside with the camera. You stand here and open the doors… like this… and when they are wide open you look down at the bed like this and smile slowly. That’s all you have to do.”

“That sounds like stupid idea. Better take a picture of me out here.”

“I appreciate the suggestion, Ottar, but I think we’ll do it my way. After all you are getting a bottle a day and a mark a month and you should do something to earn it.”

“That’s right—every day. Where’s today bottle?”

“When you’re through working, and we haven’t started yet. So stand right here and I’ll get around with the camera.” He threw a raincoat over his head and sloshed out to the shed.

After many shouted instructions and false starts, Ottar seemed to understand what was expected of him and the doors were closed once more and Barney called for the camera and action. The camera pointed into the dark bedspace and whirred as the doors were flung open with great force. One of the handles came off in Ottar’s hand and he threw it down.

“Hell-damn,” he snarled.

Barney took a deep breath. “That’s not exactly the way the scene should be played,” he said. “You have to put yourself into the part, Ottar. You’ve come home unexpectedly, you are tired. You open the doors to retire, then you look down and see Gudrid lying there asleep and you smile at her.”

“Nobody named Gudrid on this island.”

“Gudrid is Slithey’s name in this screenplay. You know who Slithey is?”

“Sure—but she’s not here now. This is pretty stupid I say, Barney.”

Barney had been directing indifferent and bad actors for years, so he took this objection in his stride. “Just wait-one minute and we’ll try it again,” he said.

There were a lot of rustling and grumbled complaints from the other side, but finally the doors swung open again, slower this time, and Ottar looked in. He was scowling fiercely into the camera, then he glanced down at the bed and Ms expression slowly changed. The wrinkled brow smoothed, the comers of his mouth rose into a happy smile and his eyes opened wide. He reached in.

“Cut. That was very good,” Barney said, moving faster than Ottar and grabbing up the bottle of Jack Daniels from the bed. “I’ll save this for you for later. Ow!”

The Viking had him by the wrist, which created a sensation not unlike being caught between the jaws of a hydraulic press, and the bottle fell from his limp fingers. Barney went back into the house rubbing his crashed wrist and wondering if, after all, he hadn’t made a mistake in casting.

Slithey had arrived, and, when the rubber boots, coats and yards of plastic had been removed, she stood and shivered in bare feet and a diaphanous pink nightgown. She wore a flesh-colored body stocking, the garment was low cut and transparent, and the entire effect was devastating.

“Very authentic costuming, very,” Jens Lyn said cuttingly, and left. Ottar sucked happily at the bottle and ignored everyone.

“I’m cold,” Slithey said.

“Rig an electric heater with those lights over the bed,” Barney ordered. “Take forty-three, Slithey, just climb into the sack and close the doors. It’s warm enough in there.”

“I don’t want to catch pea-newmonia.”

“With your insulation, honey, not a chance.”

It was a brief scene, just a few seconds on the screen, but everything takes time when making a film, and before they were finished Ottar had worked halfway down the bottle and was singing happily to himself in one comer.

“Here we go, take fifty-five, you’re on, Ottar, if you wouldn’t mind putting your salary down for a while,” Barney called out.

Much pacified by the whiskey, Ottar tramped over and looked at Slithey sprawled daintily in the oversized bed, covered by a Viking-Navajo blanket.

“She’s tired?” Ottar asked. “Too many lights to sleep.”

“Very keen of you to notice, but we’re still making the film. Here’s what I want you to do.” Barney stood by the side of the bed. “You have just opened the doors, you look down at the girl asleep. Then, slowly, you reach your hand down and touch her hair. She awakes and does a fright take, shrinking away. You laugh and sit on the edge of the bed, and pull her toward you and kiss her. At first she struggles, pushes you away, but then hate turns to love and her arms steal around you and she kisses you too. Your hand slowly goes to her shoulder strap, make sure it’s this one—the other one is glued on—and you slowly slide it over her shoulder. That’s all. We cut there and the rest is left to the public’s imagination and they have good imaginations. So let’s run through it once first.”

It was desperately hard work, since Ottar wasn’t interested in the least and kept looking toward the bottle to make sure no one was touching it, and Barney was sweating as he fought to put the Viking through his wooden paces. The bottle was finally placed in the comer of the bed out of camera range, which at least kept Ottar looking in the right direction most of the time.

Barney took a long drink of chemical-tasting water and one more time stood Ottar on the lines scratched into the dirt floor.

“Here we go,” he said. “We’ll shoot this without sound and I’ll guide you through it. And everyone else shut up, this set sounds like a mah-jongg party. Camera. Here you go, Ottar, you look down, that’s it—not at the damn bottle—you reach out and touch her hair. Slithey wakes up, great, you’re doing fine, sit down now—don’t break the bed! Okay, now you reach out and we have the kiss.”

Ottar’s fingers closed around the bare flesh of Slithey’s arm and his back straightened suddenly and he completely forgot about his bottle. Slithey’s hormone magic worked just as well in the eleventh century as it had in the twentieth. The odor of scented female flesh rose into his nostrils and he did not need Barney’s instructions to pull her close.

“Very good,” Barney called out. “A passionate embrace and a kiss, but you don’t like it, Slithey.”

Slithey was squirming in his grip and beating his massive chest with her clenched fists. She turned her head away and said, “Easy, caveman, take it easy,” then he was kissing her again.

“Great!” Barney shouted. “Writhe all over like that, Slithey, perfect. Force her down to the bed, Ottar. Now the shoulder strap.”

There was the sharp sound of torn fabric.

“Hey—watch what you’re doing!” Slithey called out.

“Forget it,” Barney said. “We can run up a new nighty. This is great. Now you change, Slithey. Hate turns to burning love. Very good…”

“Look what he’s doing!” Amory Blestead said.

“Cut. That’s good. We’ll print that. I said cut… Ottar, take your hand… Slithey—the scene is over!”

“Wow!” one of the grips said enthusiastically.

“Someone stop them!”

“Why—they seem to be enjoying it—and so am I.”

There was a great ripping sound of torn cloth, cut through by Slithey’s happy giggle.

“That’s enough,” Barney said sharply. “Just the shoulder strap, I’m afraid this has gone too far. Ottar—not that!”

“Yippee!” someone said, and after that there was just a long silence broken only by Ottar’s steam-engine breathing.

Barney finally broke the spell of fascinated attention by walking over and slamming shut the doors. From the other side came a high-pitched, happy shriek. He turned and saw Gino bent over the camera. “What are you doing?” be shouted. “Cut!”

“Cut, sure,” Gino said, straightening up slowly from behind the camera.

“Didn’t you hear me say cut last time!”

“Cut? No, I must have been distracted.”

“Do you mean… the camera was running all the time?”

“All the time,” Gino said with a very wide smile. “I think you’ve got something really new here in cinéma vérité, Mr. Hendrickson.”

Barney looked at the closed doors and fumbled out a cigarette. “You might say that. Though I don’t know if we’ll be able to show the uncut version anywhere out of Scandinavia.”

“Dr. Masters could use it.”

“I know a guy in Beverly Hills who rents out stag movies, he’d buy a print,” Amory said.

There was a moment of silence as happy laughter echoed through the closed doors.

“And he even got a bottle of whiskey in there,” one of the carpenters said dismally.