by J. J. Murray
Katharina smiled. “Jes’ like a man. He kill it, I cook it.” Katharina looked at the squirrel. Lord, she thought, please don’t let me barf all over myself when I do this! She flipped the squirrel on its back, took her knife, stabbed it just in front of its bushy tail, and sliced the squirrel up to its neck.
“I’m going to be sick …” Walt ran to the bathroom.
Fish clapped. “Now this is good cinema! Look at all the pretty colors! Yes!”
Katharina’s headset gave excruciating close-ups of the gutting and skinning of the squirrel. When Vincenzo finally showed up and started filming, she was chopping off the squirrel’s tail.
Vincenzo felt light-headed.
Katharina sharpened a small branch, located the squirrel’s anus, and rammed it home, placing the skinned, gutted, and now-spitted squirrel on top of her oven.
Vincenzo faltered, swayed, and stumbled back to the log.
“Cut!” Katharina yelled.
Vincenzo doubled over, trying not to faint, as Katharina did a forward roll in front of him and began to make a snow angel.
Chapter 39
Pietro crashed out of the woods growling, pulled Katharina to her feet, kissed her passionately, and stepped back. “You were great!”
“No, you were,” Katharina said. “Where’d you get the squirrel?”
“I found it dead in a snowdrift,” he said, laughing. “You should have seen the look on your face!”
“I did it right, didn’t I?”
Pietro nodded.
They both turned to Vincenzo, grinning and making faces.
“What … what … ?” was all Vincenzo could say.
“Yo, Vinnie,” Katharina said, “how’s it goin’, big guy?”
Vincenzo’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Where’s Bianca, Vinnie?” Katharina left Pietro and waved her bloody knife under Vincenzo’s nose. “I have a few things I want to throw at her, see if they stick.” She turned to Pietro. “Get me my hatchet.”
Pietro nodded rapidly. “Yes, Miss Katharina. I get for you.” He collected the hatchet from near the fire pit and handed it to Katharina. “Is sharp.”
Vincenzo found his voice. “She … knows?”
Pietro nodded.
“And you’re still here, Katharina?” Vincenzo asked.
Katharina giggled. “Where else would I be?” She waved the hatchet, the reflection shooting streaks of light into the forest.
Vincenzo shrunk back. “And you’re not, um, you’re not angry?”
Katharina slammed the hatchet into the log next to Vincenzo. “Hell, no. I’m baaaa-ck. Now, where is that hussy of yours?”
Vincenzo pointed weakly toward his cabin. “Don’t, um, don’t hurt her.”
Katharina ripped the hatchet from the log. “Now why would I ever do that, darling?”
Katharina ran to Vincenzo’s cabin, Pietro close behind her, and pounded on the door. “Open up, in the name of the law!”
Bianca came to the door wearing only a T-shirt and a smile—a smile that turned into a scream when she saw Katharina with the hatchet and the knife. “Holy shit!” Bianca screamed as she slammed the door and locked it.
“Backstabbing whore!” Katharina yelled. She waited for the echo. “That was cool, wasn’t it, Pietro?”
“It was,” Pietro said, keeping his distance from the hatchet and the knife.
Katharina laughed. “I’ve never gotten to say a line like that. That was liberating. Can I say it again?”
Pietro nodded. “It’s your picture.”
“Yeah, it is. Backstabbing whore!” She knocked nicely on the door this time. “Bianca, darling, we have some business to discuss.”
“Katharina, I can explain,” Bianca said, her voice quavering, her body pressed heavily into the door.
Katharina planted her knife into the door. “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll chop your house down! I am the big, bad wolf, Bianca. Oh, wait. You’re the howler.” She laughed. “Open the door, Bianca. I won’t hurt you. Much.”
Bianca opened the door a crack. “Will you put down the hatchet?”
Katharina smiled. “I’d rather bury the hatchet, Bianca.” She turned and threw the hatchet into a tree thirty feet away, narrowly missing a stumbling Vincenzo. She turned back to a shut door. “Bianca, open the door. I am completely unarmed now, and I have no nails to speak of.”
Bianca opened the door, pulling down the bottom of her T-shirt.
“Nice outfit,” Katharina said. “I may want to borrow it sometime. But don’t stretch it so much. It’s much sexier if you don’t.”
Bianca’s teeth chattered. “I c-c-can explain.”
“You don’t need to explain anything,” Katharina said. She stepped in and hugged Bianca, leaving a blood stain on her T-shirt. “Thank you, Bianca. Thank you. You helped me more than you’ll ever know.”
“You’re, um, you’re welcome, Miss Minola. And what’s that smell?”
Katharina stepped back. “Let’s see. Bear jerky, fish guts, squirrel guts, a little of Pietro. Oh, and please call me Katharina from now on.”
Bianca stepped back into the cabin. “So you’re not mad at me?”
Katharina threw her head back. “Oh, I’m still mad, you little hussy. And I’d never rehire you. Backstabbing whore!”
The echo was just as thrilling the third time to Katharina.
Bianca jumped back twice.
Katharina looked from Vincenzo, keeping his distance, to Bianca. “But from the looks of things, Vinnie has given you a new job, anyway, so … Of course, I’m sure you’ve given him a few jobs, too.” She stared at Vincenzo. “Well, get back in there. Bianca looks cold. And fat.”
“I do?” Bianca cried. “Really?”
Katharina shook her head. “I make joke.” She looked more closely at Bianca. “But not much of one. I doubt your clothes that I’m wearing will even fit you anymore, you porker.”
Vincenzo approached his porch. “Katharina, did Pietro explain why we did all this?”
“Yes, he did, and though it was a pretty weak plan, it somehow worked.” Katharina looked around the ceiling of the porch. “Where’s the camera out here?”
“Oh shit!” Fish said, ducking in his seat.
“Why are you ducking?” Walt asked.
“Habit,” Fish said. “They say she used to throw things at the camera back in the bad old days.”
Vincenzo tried to smile. “There isn’t a camera out here. Only your cabin has them.”
Katharina’s eyes popped.
“I mean …” Vincenzo looked for a place to hide. “But you knew that already, right?”
Katharina stormed toward him until he tripped and fell into the snow. “If I didn’t know before, I’d know now. You’re terrible at keeping secrets, Vincenzo.” She stepped over to Pietro and laid her head on his chest. “This man right here is the best-kept secret of all.”
Pietro grinned at Vincenzo. “Miss me, brother?”
Vincenzo stood on shaky legs. “Where have you been?”
Pietro held Katharina close. “Here and there, throwing snowballs at cameras, hiding mules.”
Katharina looked at the ceiling of the porch. “Where is it, Pietro?”
Pietro kissed her forehead. “I’ll bet it’s somewhere inside.”
“Oh shit,” Fish said.
“Oh shit,” Walt said.
“Why are you saying, ‘Oh shit’? If anyone in this room has a right to say, ‘Oh shit,’ it’s me, Walt. I put the camera in there.”
“And I knew about it and said nothing,” Walt said. “I’m your accomplice.”
Katharina swept into Vincenzo’s cabin. “Where’s the bedroom, Bianca?”
Bianca’s eyes looked to the right.
“Thanks, buddy,” Katharina said, and she entered Vincenzo’s bedroom. “Now, where would I put a camera to capture all the action, hmm?” She turned to the far wall facing the bed, took two steps, and pointed. “Is that one in the midd
le of that knot of wood in the paneling?”
Pietro nodded.
Katharina smiled for the camera. “Okay, now, Fish and Walt, listen up.”
Bianca shrieked and locked herself in the bathroom.
“That was a real good shriek, wasn’t it?” Katharina said. “Bianca could do slasher flicks. Anyway, Fish, I’m just now realizing that you have been filming Pietro and me, too. He has little knots of wood all over his walls, and I’ll bet you’ve seen every square inch of me. I don’t think we care as much, I mean, we are, after all, actors who love to perform.”
“We go, you ride,” Pietro said.
“Ooh, you say the nicest things,” Katharina said. “Now, Walter, darling, I know I’ve ‘written’ most of this script, and that fax machine hasn’t worked since day one, anyway, so yesterday and today Pietro and I have given you the start of something. Think you could maybe give us an ending? You know I’ll veto everything you write, anyway, but at least try to earn your keep. Oh, and the sexier the ending, the better. Lots of skin. Lots of bare skin on the bearskin, got it?”
“She is truly not of this earth,” Walt said.
“And I still wish she had a sister,” Fish said.
* * *
“And, Fish? We’ll need another headset rigged up for Pietro.” She raised her eyebrows to Pietro. “I want to see what really goes on down there.” She turned to Vincenzo. “We won’t need Sly anymore. You’ve been wearing that wig backward the whole time, anyway.”
Vincenzo grabbed his head and spun his wig around. “I wondered why it felt so weird.”
“Take it off, please,” Katharina said. “And don’t leave this cabin, okay?”
Vincenzo blinked. “But you’re going to need some wide shots—”
“As if!” Katharina interrupted. “Like you’ve been doing any directing for the last five weeks, Mr. Direttore. We’re going to headset cam this bitch till it drops, okay? And if we need any—how’d you say it? … ‘wide intimate shots’—we’ll pull you off Bianca for a few minutes. No. She seems to be a wild woman. We’ll pull Bianca off you for a few minutes.” She knocked on the bathroom door. “Bianca, darling, are you okay?”
“No!” Bianca cried.
“Why?” Katharina asked.
“They filmed me howling!”
Katharina laughed. “And there are some real wolves in the hills who are real jealous about that.”
Pietro offered his arm, Katharina took it, and the two of them walked out of Vincenzo’s cabin and into the glorious sunlight. Halfway through the clearing, Katharina dropped Pietro’s arm. “Race you.”
“You’re on.”
“Wait a minute,” Katharina said, and she approached the tree cam. “Fish, I want you to shut down every camera in Pietro’s cabin right now. Oh hell, shut it all down. Free day for everybody. But I’m warning you, Fish. If I see any of what we’ve already done or what we’re about to do on the Internet, I will sue you back to using a little Brownie camera to take pictures for the tourists in Tijuana. Got me?”
Fish started hitting off switches. “Shutting down.”
“Yes,” Walt said, still wide-eyed. “Quickly. Rapido.”
“Go write that ending that she’s going to change, anyway.”
“Yes,” Walt said. “Quickly.”
“Rapido,” Fish said.
Katharina and Pietro raced up the snowy hill, crossed the rickety bridge, and reached Pietro’s porch at the same time.
“We tied,” Katharina said, her breath steaming the air. “Ooh,” she cooed, “I haven’t tried that yet. Got any rope, cowboy?”
“Just some bear jerky, ma’am.”
“No,” Katharina said, and she opened the door. “Let’s build a big fire, get naked, and sweat all over each other.”
“Sì.”
The fire blazing, their bodies blazing, Katharina and Pietro paused to drip on each other. “Do you think the cameras are still on?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s kind of a turn-on, isn’t it? Having cameras record your every move, groan, cry, and gyration?”
“Mine? What about yours?”
Pietro smiled. “I was talking about mine.”
Katharina plunged down again, grinding against him. “Tell me nasty things in Italian.”
“How nasty?”
She bit his earlobe. “The nastiest …”
Pietro closed his eyes. “Figa deliziosa! Capezzoli dolce! L’im-mersione bagnata! Un bel culo! Dea di sesso!”
Katharina arched her back. “You had me at figa deliziosa …”
Chapter 40
Vincenzo and Bianca wanted Pietro’s character to be Italian and speak Italian. “He could be an immigrant, right?” they asked. “He’s come over from Italy to start a new life as a homesteader in Canada, and the woman just happens to be trespassing on his land.”
Katharina vetoed that idea. “Yeah, um, an Italian immigrant living in the woods on the Ontario-Quebec border in the mid-nineteenth century … No.”
Walter and Fish wanted Pietro’s character to be an Algonquin warrior shunned by his tribe and shorn of his hair for fraternizing with the white man. “The only way we can lengthen his hair is to use that blond wig or use some of Cur-tis’s hair,” they said. “Pietro has to be an Indian because of all his forest skills.”
Katharina vetoed that idea as well. “Indians, in general now, could not or did not grow facial hair.”
Katharina and Pietro’s idea was to make Pietro’s character mute. “Let the audience decide what he is,” Katharina said. “Just keep him quiet so I can have all the best lines.”
“The only language they really have to understand,” Pietro said, “is the language of love.”
Pietro’s muteness worked on so many different levels. Vincenzo’s close-ups revealed his brother’s many faces, his smiles, his scowls, his squints, the tenderness his eyes portrayed. Pietro’s body language was essentially shy and hesitant around Katharina’s character but bold and adventurous in the woods.
Pietro became “UNIDENTIFIED MUTE MAN” or “UMM” in the script, and Katharina soon added “CURTIS, THE MULE” in a few scenes.
The shelter she and Pietro built was sturdy, stout, and waterproof. They stacked stone three feet high all the way around except for a little gate facing the clearing. They used Curtis to bring down the pile of poles from the bridge. They strung the poles together using plant fibers to form the rest of the walls and the roof. They used daub—a mixture of clay, lime, and dried grass—to fill all the cracks. Except for a hole in the ceiling for the smoke to escape and a small window facing the clearing, the shelter was completely enclosed, warm, and dry in just two days’ work.
Once Pietro had sewn a deerskin-and-squirrel coat for Katharina, her ratty dress became a bag to collect berries and plants. She wore her new coat with the fur inside, where, she said, “fur ought to be.”
Walt “wrote” the script using the raw footage Fish had pieced together so far and found only a few lines of actual dialogue. Katharina rewrote it so much that Walt put Katha-rina’s name on it. In the end, there were only around one hundred total spoken lines in the script, all whispered, prayed, or shouted by Katharina.
Katharina enjoyed getting back at Pietro for fooling her so well with his innocent-Italian-moron act. She wrote a morning bathing scene for him. It was so cold a thin sheen of ice had formed overnight on the edges of the stream. He had to crack through it, immerse himself, “bathe,” and get out, all under the watchful, shy eyes of THE WOMAN.
Katharina decided that the seventh take would do.
Pietro enjoyed the warm-up process very much.
UNIDENTIFIED MUTE MAN taught THE WOMAN how to hunt and trap. Unfortunately, they trapped only a shabby-looking raccoon (extremely happy to be set free) and shot an arrow at only one moose, Katharina’s arrow falling a safe fifty feet short of the huge animal. The moose, all fifteen hundred bull moose pounds of him, snorted and charged.
“More cinema magic!” Fish
shouted. “Run through the forest, run!”
Katharina and Pietro escaped with only minor injuries, making it to the shelter as the moose crashed around the forest after them. Luckily, Vincenzo decoyed the moose away from the shelter before any real damage could be done.
Vincenzo escaped with minor injuries, too.
The moose held up production for a solid hour, sniffing around the clearing and “talking” to Curtis, who barely blinked his blue-green eyes, before the moose drank from the stream, snorted loudly, and ambled off through the snow.
The climax of the movie involved a tasteful love scene under a bearskin. It was, indeed, brutally cold that day, and when Katharina slid under the bearskin and said, “Jes’ to keep warm, Mr. Man, no shenanigans,” she meant it—for about a minute. Pietro and Katharina somehow stayed completely under that bearskin the entire time, Vincenzo’s camera capturing the sheer rapture on their faces. After a final shot of her hand finding his hand outside the bearskin, Katharina donned her headset one last time to look out their little window at the snow drifting down. Vincenzo, directed by Bianca, backed away from the shelter to the log and sat.
Fish “picked up” the scene with two of the lower cameras, handing it off to a camera he had placed high over the clearing. This bird’s-eye view closed the movie—the shelter down below, the smoke rising up through the falling snow flakes to the sun cracking and streaking gloriously through the clouds.
Filming finished early a week before Thanksgiving, which was cause for celebration and long, hot baths and showers at Pietro’s house. While Fish worked swiftly around the clock assembling a raw first cut of all one thousand hours of the “real” movie, Pietro and Katharina took the Suburban to Rouyn-Noranda to get some real food, returning ten hours later with a whole ham, a side of beef, two turkeys, four chickens, and lots of verdure.
Katharina, of course, had sampled Pietro’s “meat” several times on their journey, hence the reason a five-hour round-trip excursion lasted ten hours.