The voice she heard sounded familiar.
“Hello. My name is Franz H. Would you like to work for me? I could see that you were tired and hungry when you crashed our party.”
Indeed, Nina was tired and hungry. She was looking for shelter for the night. It was still quite cold. And the journey to the sea seemed endless.
He was tall and heavy and was wearing a flack jacket and a helmet. His shrill voice resembled the voice of the man who had spoken to Lisa.
Standing by the road with a heavy 16mm camera, he seemed to be waiting for her.
“You just have to write stories, shoot them, edit them and get them ready. I will sell them. And you have to make sure nothing happens to my equipment. And I’ll pay you. Look, here is an advance.” He pulled out a sausage from his pocket.
Oh, how badly Nina wanted that sausage. Besides, she thought, I could fulfill my dream of becoming a filmmaker. Well, one of her many dreams, because there were many things Nina had wanted to do in her life before she became a chef.
Her foolishness could be quite irksome sometimes. What on earth was she thinking? Instead of running fast, as far away as possible, she wanted to make stories? He had mentioned food, and that had been her main worry as she embarked on the journey, so she didn’t hesitate too long.
“Of course I’ll work for you.”
Oh, no, Nina, you have no idea what that means! There are moments when I wish I could give up on Nina entirely. Right now, I am quite annoyed with her. But I am also concerned for those two children. I’d better continue to follow them.
What was going through Nina’s head? Did she think that the huge and heavy camera would protect her from the bullets and give her a different, more distanced, second-hand view of the war? That everything would be small and filtered, blurred by the lens? “I will be a witness, but my eyes will be covered.” Nina didn’t know that Mr. Franz H. needed her because he was afraid of bullets and bombs, but had also discovered that wars create misery for some people and bring lots of money to others.
He had bought a second-hand camera and waited for a war that was not too far from his country. He could earn large amounts of money and build a huge house in his hometown. He would no longer be judged by his limited education and skills; he would be hailed as an intrepid war journalist. He just had to find somebody hungry enough to do the work for him. When he saw Nina at the party she was an obvious choice.
“Would you please show me the basics?” It had been a while since Nina had last used a camera. In fact, the only time she had used a camera was in high school, when she joined a film club. Her end-of-year assignment was to film an exhibit of winning science projects, sponsored by UNICEF. She did intend to film the exhibit but she found it boring. At lunchtime she decided that it was far more interesting to film children stuffing sandwiches into their mouths and pockets, munching loudly, burping, their faces turning red. She wasted the precious film and the UNICEF representatives were not impressed. She was kicked out of the club and that was the end of her film career.
“It’s easy,” Mr. Franz H. said. The man who sold him the camera had showed him how to use the buttons.
“Not the buttons,” said Nina. “That’s obvious. I just need a few tips for getting good shots.”
Mr. Franz H. would not admit that he had no idea. He had just tried to film a boy who brought soup to old people. The boy was hired by the soup kitchen because he was the fastest runner in the city. He would run and the soup would still be warm when he got there. Mr. Franz H. came with his camera to film the running boy.
“There is an old man waiting for me. He is sick and very hungry. I haven’t been able to get to him in a week,” the boy said. “He will think it’s because he doesn’t have money.”
But inexperienced cameraman that he was, Mr. Franz H. could not get the shots in the soup kitchen right. The boy protested but Mr. Franz H. insisted that it was important for the world to see how he delivered food. They shot over and over again until the soup got cold. The kitchen was closing for the day and the boy had to return the soup and come back the next day.
“He’ll be waiting for me,” the boy said sadly to the cook.
Mr. Franz H. thought that he had learned a lot from the unsuccessful shoot and was proud to demonstrate it.
“Of course, let me show you.”
He pulled an orange from his pocket, looked around and spotted a group of children.
“Look, it’s easy.”
He threw the orange among them and the children jumped and started fighting over it. He filmed it. When she looked at the camera screen, Nina was shocked to see her son among those children. He had jumped out of her pocket while she was talking to Mr. Franz H.
“Now, from another angle.”
He turned and threw another orange. The children were tearing each other apart. Nina knew that there was something terribly wrong about this, but she looked at her son standing there, dishevelled and defeated by the bigger boys, staring at the orange claimed by another boy, and didn’t say a word.
“Thank you, that’s a very good lesson you’ve given me.”
Encouraged by her words, which confirmed how easy this war job was, he showed off:
“Now I will demonstrate how to film sad stories about war. We’ll find a poor woman with many children and offer her food in exchange for tears. She will have to cry for the camera.”
In the distance he spotted a woman squatting with many children in front of a pile of garbage, rummaging through it, and shouted:
“Hey, you. Come over here. Hurry up, I have food for you.”
He pulled out a plastic bag with a handful of rice at the bottom.
“I will film you while you open the bag. You must act surprised and then cry.”
There was something wrong with every shot. The woman just couldn’t cry. It was obvious that she was trying. She opened the bag seventeen times and looked at the rice but her expression did not change.
“You have to cry. Or no rice for you.”
To her dismay, Nina discovered that she was capable of being quiet while other people were mistreated.
“My tears have dried up,” said the woman.
Nina took the bag from him and gave it to the woman. “It’s yours. Just let me film you once again, please.” She took the camera quietly, to show him that she’d already learned from him and took the last shot. By now the youngest children were crying over a handful of rice for the camera. The shot was perfect.
“You learn quickly,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Nina. “Don’t I deserve an orange?”
He pulled it from his pocket. “But you have to give me back my camera first. Now, catch!”
He filmed Nina catching the orange before it hit the ground. She almost slipped on the frozen ground.
“Make sure that nothing happens to my camera,” Mr. Franz H. said, handing it back to her. “I’ll be back for the stories soon. I want lots of them. And make them sad!”
Can war stories be anything but sad?
“This is crazy,” thought Nina, “and awfully wrong.” The camera was too heavy. The images of the children fighting, her son’s face, the bag of rice, and the misery of that poor woman were flashing before her eyes. Mr. Franz H. was already marching away. Nina ran after him, weighted down with the camera.
“I am sorry, but I cannot take the job. I’ve just realized that I don’t like sad stories. And besides, I decided that all my stories would have happy endings.”
Mr. Franz H. looked upset.
Nina was afraid that he might ask her to give the orange back. But he seemed to have forgotten about it and didn’t even say goodbye.
Dino had gone back into his little nook. Ada yawned and announced, “I had a really strange dream.”
Nina peeled the orange and gave half to each of her children.
“May we have the rinds, Mom?”
“Of course, the rinds, the memory of the orange.”