Odell turned on a lamp and approached the screen in order to make sure it would be parallel to the strip of film itself when it moved through the projector gate. While he was doing this, Moll glanced over at Lightborne.

"What was it doing when you arrived?" he said. "Was that rain or sleet? I need new boots. I'd like to find something with some lining this year. This is a bad year, they're saying, looking long range."

He'd been making the same nervous small talk ever since Moll walked in. Twice now Odell had turned on the light to make a last-minute adjustment somewhere. Both times Lightborne had immediately started talking. In the dark he was silent. He chewed his knuckles in the dark.

Once more Odell turned off the lamp. Moll began to feel that special kind of anticipation she'd enjoyed since childhood-a life in the movies. It was an expectation of pleasure like no other. Simple mysteries are the deepest. What did it mean, this wholly secure escape, this credence in her heart? And how was it possible that4 bad, awful, god-awful movies never seemed to betray the elation and trust she felt in the seconds before the screen went bright? The anticipation was apart from what followed. It was permanently renewable, a sense of freedom from all the duties and conditions of the nonmovie world.

She felt it even here, sitting in a hard straight chair in a shabby gallery before a small screen. She felt it despite her knowledge of the various dealings, procedures and techniques that surrounded the acquisition of the film.

A two-dimensional city would materialize out of the darkness, afloat in various kinds of time, all different from the system in which real events occur. Yet we understand it so readily and well. They connect to us, all the city's spatial and temporal codes, as though from a place we knew before.

"I had the phone turned off," Lightborne said. "A temporary measure. To mute out the sound of certain voices."

He started to say something else but his voice drifted off and the only sound that remained was the running noise of motion picture film winding through the transport mechanism of the black projector.

_A bare room/black and white_.

_Plaster is cracked in places. On other parts of the wall it is missing completely. The lights in the room flicker_.

_Three children appear. A girl, perhaps eleven, carries a chair. Two younger children, a boy and a very small girl, drag in a second chair between them_.

_The children set the chairs on the floor and walk out of camera range_.

_There is a disturbance. The picture jumps as though the camera has been farred by some brief violent action_.

_A blank interval_.

_Again the room. The camera setup is the same_.

_A fourth child appears, a girl. She walks across the room and climbs onto one of the chairs, sitting primly, trying to suppress a bashful smile_.

_The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs. A woman appears, very drawn, moving toward the seated child. The lights flicker. Another girl appears; she notices the camera and walks quickly out of range_.

_The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs_.

_The camera is immobile. It does not select. People pass in and out of its viewing field_.

_The woman sits next to the small girl, absently stroking the child's hand. The woman is blond and attractive, clearly not well. She appears weak. It is even possible to say she is emotionally distressed. The oldest girl stands next to her, speaking. The woman slowly nods_.

_The boy carries in another chair. Three more adults appear, a man and two women. They stand about awkwardly, the man trying to work out a seating arrangement. The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs_.

_The once bare room is crowded with chairs and people_.

_The lights flicker overhead_.

"What do you think?" Lightborne said.

"I don't know what to think."

"You know who it could be? Magda Goebbels."

"The first woman?" Moll said.

"Those could be her children. I'm saying 'could be.' I'm trying to supply identities. Make a little sense out of this."

"Do you think it's the bunker?"

"It could be the doctor's former room. Hitler's quack doctor was allowed to leave. Goebbels took over his room."

"The three others," Moll said.

"I don't know. They could be secretaries, the women. The man, almost anything. A chauffeur, a stenographer, a valet, a bodyguard."

"Magda Goebbebs, you think."

"I'm saying 'could be.' This isn't what I expected. I wasn't looking for this at all."

Nothing much had happened thus far but Moll found something compelling about the footage she was watching. It wasn't like a feature film or documentary; it wasn't like TV newsfilm. It was primitive and blunt, yet hypnotic, not without an element of mystery.

Faces and clothing were immediately recognizable as belonging to another era. This effect was heightened by the quality of the film itself, shot with natural lighting. Bleached grays and occasional blurring. Lack of a sound track. Light leaks in the camera, causing flashes across the screen. The footage suggested warier times-dark eyes and fussy mouths, heavy suits, dresses in overlapping fabric, an abruptness and formality of movement.

_Four adults and five children, all seated, fill the screen. They face the camera head-on_.

_Time passes_.

"What's that jump?"

"It could be the shelling," Lightborne said.

"That's the second time."

"The Russians are a quarter of a mile away. Nuisance fire. In an all-out bombardment, they wouldn't be able to film. Aside from the steady concussion, the place would be full of smoke and dust."

_The blond woman slowly rises and walks off camera_.

"She knows what happens."

"What do you mean?" Moll said.

"The children."

"What happens?"

"Goebbels has them poisoned."

_Another room_.

_This one, although small and narrow and with an incomplete look about it, contains a writing desk, sofa and chairs. The walls are paneled. There's a picture in a circular frame over the writing desk_.

_A woman sits in one of the chairs, facing an open door that leads to another room. She turns the pages of a magazine. There's a trace of self-consciousness in the way she does this. Finally she decides to look directly at the camera, smiling pleasantly. This puts her at ease_.

_From her next reaction, it is clear that someone in the adjoining room is speaking to her_.

_She sits with her legs crossed, paying no attention to the magazine pages she continues to turn. A light-haired woman in her early thirties, she wears a dark tailored suit, a bracelet, and what appear to be expensive shoes. She has a small worried mouth (even in her present good humor) and a somewhat shapeless nose. Two distinct shadow lines make her cheeks look puffy_.

_She gestures toward the open door_.

"Where are we?" Moll said.

"Still in the bunker. It's not inconsistent, the two rooms. See that picture over the desk? If we could see it from a better angle, being in a circular frame, that could be his portrait of Frederick the Great, which would make this room his living room."

"Whose living room?"

"It's a possibility. It could be. And through that open door, that's his bedroom. Whoever's shooting this film, it could be he's shooting one room, he's stopping, he's walking over to the next room."

"Editing in the camera," Moll said.

"We're getting everything. What do you think? We're getting the one and only take of each scene."

"It's certainly unprofessional. But I can't say I mind."