The Holland Press

FADE IN:

EXT. SMALL SICILIAN HARBOR - DAY

White houses climb the hill, shutters open, washing strung from balcony to balcony. Fishing boats knock softly against their moorings.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

Earth arrived first. She generally did.

EXT. CAFÉ TERRACE - CONTINUOUS

A table beneath a green-and-white striped awning. It rocks — three feet on paving stones, the fourth hovering over a hollow worn by generations of people who had gone somewhere and come back.

EARTH (60s, broad through the shoulders, gray hair pinned carelessly, dirt beneath one thumbnail) presses the table with two fingers. The glasses tremble. From her coat pocket she takes a flat stone and settles it beneath the short leg.

WAITER

We have cardboard for that, signora.

EARTH

Cardboard can't handle the rain.

WAITER

Would you like water?

EARTH

I am expecting company.

WAITER

Four?

EARTH

Yes.

He starts to remove the fifth chair.

EARTH

Leave that.

A LITTLE BOY on a bicycle passes, bread under one arm, trying without sufficient hands to ring his bell. Earth moves her chair inward so he can pass.

FIRE (60s, red waistcoat under a linen jacket, hair white at the temples and extravagantly black above the forehead) stops at the café entrance to greet a woman coming out — kisses both her cheeks with evident delight.

FIRE

Still holding everything up?

EARTH

Still arriving as though you invented arrival?

FIRE

My dear.

He bends to kiss her. She accepts it, one hand steady on her wineglass.

EARTH

You are thin.

FIRE

You say that every time.

EARTH

You are thin every time.

He sits, stands again, moves his chair into the sunlight, sits.

FIRE

Have you ordered?

EARTH

I waited.

FIRE

What a melancholy occupation.

He summons the waiter with a raised finger.

FIRE

Wine. Something red that has not been frightened into good manners. Bread, olives. Whatever your mother would feed someone she liked.

WAITER

My mother would ask how much he intended to spend.

FIRE

I like her already.

Earth smiles despite herself.

A paper napkin lifts. The awning stirs. AIR is suddenly there behind the empty chair — slim, pale, a jacket too light for the season. No one saw him approach.

AIR

Good afternoon.

Fire half rises.

FIRE

You look exhausted.

AIR

I have been everywhere.

FIRE

That is no excuse.

AIR

It is the only one I have.

Air kisses Earth's forehead. She closes her eyes briefly.

EARTH

You took your time.

AIR

I came by way of the bakery.

EARTH

And?

AIR

An argument about inheritance, six loaves burning, and a girl singing where she thought nobody could hear.

FIRE

What was she singing?

Air hums a little phrase —

CUT TO:

INT. BAKERY - DAY (CUTAWAY)

Flour in the air like weather. TWO BROTHERS shout over a counter, an old will between them. In the oven, SIX LOAVES blacken — smoke curling. Beneath it all, a GIRL (16) kneads dough in the back room, singing softly where she thinks nobody can hear.

BACK TO:

EXT. CAFÉ TERRACE - CONTINUOUS

From the café kitchen, someone answers Air's hummed phrase. Air smiles and sits.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

For a while they spoke about ordinary things.

MONTAGE - THEIR NEWS (CUTAWAYS)

- Earth's PEAR TREES on a hillside, branches thin with a poor crop.

- Fire at a GLASSWORK furnace, molten gather on the blowpipe — YOUNGER CRAFTSMEN impatient beside him.

- A sunlit SQUARE: Air running with a WEDDING VEIL billowing behind him like a sail, pursued by THREE SISTERS, an UNCLE, and a DOG.

BACK TO:

EXT. CAFÉ TERRACE - CONTINUOUS

EARTH

Did you give it back?

AIR

Eventually.

EARTH

You always say eventually.

AIR

It covers so much.

The wine comes in a plain bottle. Dark-crusted bread, black olives, almonds, a little dish of salt.

Fire breaks the bread. Earth catches the crumbs in her palm. Air breathes over his glass before drinking.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

They had almost settled into comfort when Sea appeared at the harbor steps.

SEA (50s, blue dress darkened at the hem though the stones behind her are dry, a bracelet of green sea-glass on one wrist) climbs slowly. She carries no bag.

At the table she stops. All three stand.

SEA

Well. You have begun.

EARTH

Only bread.

SEA

Bread is a beginning.

Fire pulls out her chair. She looks at him a moment before sitting.

FIRE

You look well.

SEA

I look like the surface.

Earth pours her wine. Sea holds the glass against the light, studying the little red world inside it.

SEA

Thank you.

EARTH

And thank you for coming.

SEA

I nearly didn't.

EARTH

We know.

Sea glances at the fifth chair.

SEA

Is someone else expected?

EARTH

No. There was room.

The waiter brings caponata, grilled sardines, roasted peppers, potatoes with rosemary. Fire protests it is not nearly enough; the waiter says there is pasta coming; Fire pronounces him an excellent man.

They eat. Sea takes a sardine with her fingers. Fire insists everyone taste the blackened skin of the peppers.

FIRE

That bitterness. Just there. You need it.

SEA

You would say so.

FIRE

I would. I do.

Her mouth curves. The wine opens. So do their voices.

They remember a shepherd who used to sleep standing up. An emperor who believed a bridge would make him master of a strait — Air recalls the speech almost word for word; Sea recalls what became of the bridge.

Earth asks after a spring beneath a ruined chapel.

SEA

Still running. Smaller.

EARTH

I sheltered it through August.

SEA

I know.

FIRE

Listen to us. Springs and pear trees. We used to speak of making worlds.

EARTH

We used to have more time.

FIRE

We have exactly as much.

SEA

No. We have more to answer for.

The waiter arrives with the pasta and finds nobody speaking. He distributes the plates with the quiet skill of a man who has served families for thirty years.

Fire winds a strand around his fork. It slips off.

FIRE

Well. There it is.

EARTH

There what is?

FIRE

The reason we are here.

EARTH

We are here to eat together.

FIRE

That was the invitation.

SEA

It was also the reason.

Sea sets down her glass.

SEA

Then why have you kept a place for the village?

Earth's hand stops over the bread. Air looks toward the harbor.

EARTH

I did not say that was its place.

SEA

You didn't have to.

FIRE

Must we do this now?

SEA

When would you prefer?

FIRE

When we can finish a plate without putting the dead on it.

Sea pushes her chair back an inch. Earth speaks before she can stand.

EARTH

Stay.

Sea remains where she was.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

The village had stood elsewhere, on another coast, in a year people now refer to by the disaster that had ended it. Its name had been San Giusto.

CUT TO:

EXT. SAN GIUSTO - DAY (MEMORY / CUTAWAY)

A village down a hillside nearly to the water: a school, a chapel, a cannery, houses stacked toward the quay. Children put their feet into the sea from the steps at the bottom of the quay.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

There had been a school, a chapel, a cannery. Earth remembered the foundations. Fire remembered the kitchens. Air remembered the voices traveling between windows. Sea remembered the steps at the bottom of the quay.

The light hardens. A DRY SEASON. Grass yellows. Dead branches accumulate beneath three-hundred-year-old CHESTNUTS, where men have cut a road into the slope and left the slash where it fell.

INTERCUT — TERRACE AND SAN GIUSTO:

EARTH (at the table)

You came up the valley.

Flames move through the chestnuts — fast, crown to crown.

FIRE

Yes.

EARTH

Through the chestnuts.

FIRE

Yes.

EARTH

They were alive.

FIRE

So was I.

EARTH

They had stood there three hundred years.

FIRE

And the grass beneath them had dried. And the dead branches had accumulated. And men had cut a road into the slope and left the slash where it fell.

EARTH

You burned them.

FIRE

Yes. I burned them.

INT. LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE ROAD TURNED - NIGHT (CUTAWAY)

TERESA (40s) presses WET TOWELS into the gap beneath a door, packing them back with the handle of a WOODEN SPOON. On the floor, her BOY (8) lies flat.

TERESA

Stay down. Stay down.

Through the door: the roar. The spoon catches first — a thread of flame along the handle.

BACK TO TERRACE:

Fire touches the edge of his plate. No one moves.

FIRE

There was a woman. In the last house before the road turned. She had put wet towels around a door. She kept pressing them back into the gap with the handle of a wooden spoon.

(beat)

There was a boy on the floor. She told him to stay down. I could hear her through the door.

(beat)

The spoon caught first.

Sea looks away. Air's hands lie open on the table.

EARTH

Her name was Teresa.

FIRE

I know her name.

EARTH

I'm sorry.

He nods once — without accepting or refusing.

SEA (to Air)

And you drove him.

EXT. HILLSIDE ABOVE SAN GIUSTO - NIGHT (CUTAWAY)

Wind moves downhill as the night cools, driving the fire toward the houses — sparks streaming like a river in the air.

BACK TO TERRACE:

Air rubs the stem of his glass between finger and thumb.

AIR

I moved downhill when the night cooled.

SEA

You drove him toward the houses.

AIR

I did.

SEA

You could have turned.

AIR

Could you?

Sea's face changes.

AIR

You came over the wall. You put fishing boats in bedrooms. You took people out of their beds.

EXT. SAN GIUSTO QUAY - NIGHT (CUTAWAY)

RAIN — sudden, violent. The hillside loosens: roots gone, rain through the seams. The slope comes down in a roar of mud and stone.

On the quay, a MAN ties a ROPE around his waist, the other end to a railing. The sea takes the quay — boats lifted, thrown. The rope holds him. That is the trouble.

BACK TO TERRACE:

SEA

After the hillside came down.

EARTH

After the rain.

FIRE

Which he brought. (pointing at Air)

Air gives a small, incredulous laugh.

AIR

You wanted rain.

FIRE

Earlier.

AIR

Everyone wants me somewhere else, earlier.

EARTH

Enough.

AIR

No.

The awning cracks above them.

AIR

I have listened to this for years. When the sails fill, the captain is clever. When the roofs come off, I am cruel. You —

(to Earth)

— give way beneath a school, and they speak of an act of God. I carry a match across a ditch, and suddenly I have intentions.

A spoon falls from the next table. Earth waits until Air looks at it.

EARTH

Lower your voice.

He glances around — a COUPLE has ceased pretending not to listen; inside the café, the singing has stopped. Air retrieves the spoon, places it carefully beside the woman's plate.

AIR

My apologies.

He returns to his chair. Fire drinks. Sea watches him swallow.

SEA

You are very good at that.

FIRE

At what?

SEA

Finding something pleasurable to do.

Fire sets the glass down so hard that wine climbs its sides.

FIRE

Would my misery restore them?

SEA

No.

FIRE

Then what do you want?

SEA

I want you to remember without immediately turning it into something else.

FIRE

I remember.

SEA

Tell us.

He looks at her with naked dislike. For the first time that afternoon, he seems old.

(We have heard Teresa's story. He does not repeat it.)

SEA

When the slope fell, there was a man on the quay with a rope around his waist. He had tied the other end to a railing. He thought it would hold him.

Her thumb moves over the green pieces of her bracelet.

SEA

It did hold him. That was the trouble.

Fire shuts his eyes.

SEA

I brought him back three days later. His brother said thank you.

A motor starts across the harbor, fails, starts again.

Earth bends over her untouched pasta.

EARTH

I felt the slope loosen. Roots gone. Rain through the seams. There was nowhere left for the weight to go.

AIR

You held it a while.

EARTH

A little.

AIR

The school emptied.

EARTH

Most of it.

AIR

You held it long enough for that.

EARTH

I have used those children to comfort myself. I know exactly how many got out. I know which staircase they used. It is possible to count what you saved so loudly that you cannot hear the rest.

AIR

I carried a church bell that night.

EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - NIGHT (CUTAWAY)

A CHURCH BELL swings in darkness — rung by hand, the power failed. Its sound travels inland over the fields. In a farmhouse, a FARMER wakes, pulls on boots, takes a truck down toward the coast.

BACK TO TERRACE:

SEA

I heard it.

AIR

I took the sound inland. A farmer woke. He came down with a truck.

EARTH

I have told that story often.

Nobody answers.

At the neighboring table, the couple asks for their bill.

The four sit amid the remains of lunch. Without conversation the afternoon resumes its ordinary scale: plates to be cleared, bills to be paid, children called home from the water.

Sea's glass is empty. Fire reaches for the bottle. She puts her hand over the rim. He withdraws. After a moment she removes her hand. He pours.

SEA

I did not come to acquit you.

FIRE

I didn't ask.

SEA

You always ask. Usually with a joke.

He studies the bottle's label.

FIRE

Yes.

Earth tears a piece of bread and does not eat it.

EARTH

We cannot agree on what happened by deciding which one of us ought not to have been there.

SEA

Fire might have stayed away.

FIRE

And the forest would have burned another year.

(beat; then, shaking his head)

No. That is another trick. Another year is not that year.

Sea looks at him. He rubs his forehead.

FIRE

I'm trying.

SEA

I see that.

The acknowledgment appears to trouble him more than the accusation.

A YOUNG WOMAN comes out of the café carrying a small clay pot — a drooping BASIL plant. She sets it on the low wall beside them, tips a few drops from a water bottle into the soil. Her LITTLE SON follows with the bread knife.

YOUNG WOMAN

Put that back.

BOY

I'm helping.

YOUNG WOMAN

Help with something else.

BOY

Is it dead?

YOUNG WOMAN

No. It looks dead. It needs a bigger pot.

Earth glances at the plant. The young woman catches her looking.

YOUNG WOMAN

My father gave it to me. I keep forgetting it out here.

EARTH

The roots have filled that pot. It wants room.

FIRE

And less afternoon sun.

The woman shifts it toward the awning.

AIR

A little breeze. But away from that corner.

She looks at him, then at the corner, where a dry leaf spins helplessly against the wall.

YOUNG WOMAN

Thank you.

The boy points at Sea.

BOY

What does she say?

Sea considers the plant.

SEA

Water slowly. Until it comes out underneath.

BOY

My grandfather says don't drown it.

SEA

Your grandfather is right.

The woman smiles, takes her son by the shoulder, and goes inside. A few moments later he returns the knife.

The four look at the basil. Fire begins to laugh — a small laugh, almost unwilling.

SEA

What?

FIRE

Listen to us. Four ancient powers. Consulting on a salad.

Earth eats her bread.

EARTH

It may yet be a very good salad.

Sea smiles. Air leans back. For the first time since the village was named, the awning hangs still.

Earth reaches across the table for the dish of salt and offers it to Sea. Sea takes a pinch, rolls it between her fingers, lets it fall onto a slice of tomato.

EARTH

You remember the spring under the chapel?

SEA

Yes.

EARTH

The children who used to drink from it believed it belonged to the saint.

SEA

Of course.

EARTH

I used to resent that.

FIRE

You?

EARTH

I had held the water in the rock. She had brought it. He had carried the rain. Even you had helped, warming the sea.

FIRE

Even me.

EARTH

And the saint got thanked.

AIR

What changed your mind?

EARTH

Nothing. I still resent it sometimes.

They laugh together — and the laughter does not remove the village. It makes room around it.

MONTAGE - WHAT THEY LIKE (CUTAWAYS, lyrical, quiet)

- WINTER: villagers sit close to a STOVE. Socks steam. Someone brings a pan of something; they eat standing up. One old man holds his hands out to the heat — he has done it since he was a boy.

- A tired FISHERMAN leans his whole weight against a warm wall, expecting it to hold.

- A sickroom window opens. Nobody says anything. They simply breathe differently.

- Old people enter the sea carefully, stopping their fight with their weight for a little while.

BACK TO:

EXT. CAFÉ TERRACE - LATE AFTERNOON

SEA

I have resented harbors. The little walls. The presumption.

EARTH

You spared this one often.

SEA

I sheltered it. Sparing is not quite the same.

She looks across at the boats.

SEA

The men come home tired. They sleep better here.

They are quiet. The waiter comes to clear the plates.

WAITER

Dessert?

EARTH

Yes.

Fire looks at her with gratitude.

WAITER

Lemon granita. Almond cake. Cannoli.

FIRE

All three.

SEA

Four spoons.

The waiter gathers the plates. Beneath Earth's elbow he finds the untouched piece of bread she tore during the quarrel.

WAITER

Finished with this?

She takes it from him.

EARTH

No.

When he has gone, she divides it into four pieces — an absurdly small amount of bread to share after such a meal. Crumbs in her palm again. She gives the first piece to Sea, the next to Air, the third to Fire.

EARTH

I don't know how to make a promise about another village.

AIR

Neither do I.

FIRE

I could promise never to burn. It would sound magnificent.

SEA

And be the end of a great many kitchens.

EARTH

And winters.

Sea holds her fragment of bread.

SEA

I cannot promise never to rise.

EARTH

I cannot promise never to give way.

Air looks toward the hills.

AIR

I could listen sooner.

EARTH

Roots. Water in the seams. The condition of the ground. I could speak of them before I feel myself slipping.

FIRE

I could stop treating every limit as an insult.

Sea looks at him.

SEA

I said could.

FIRE

It is a start.

SEA

And I could remember that when you draw a boundary, you may be sheltering something. You are not always shutting me out.

Air picks a crumb from his sleeve.

AIR

We will quarrel again.

EARTH

Yes.

FIRE

Probably over dessert.

Sea lifts her piece of bread toward him.

SEA

Probably.

They eat.

The sun has moved beneath the awning. Its light finds the wineglasses and sends four red stains across the tablecloth.

Dessert arrives on three plates. Fire wants the cake first. Sea favors the granita. Air says the cannoli ought to be eaten before they softened, which persuades everyone to begin there.

Earth takes a bite and closes her eyes.

FIRE

Well?

She swallows.

EARTH

Very good.

FIRE

The oven.

EARTH

The grain.

AIR

The rain.

Sea raises her spoon.

SEA

The salt.

Fire shakes his head, smiling.

FIRE

The woman in the kitchen.

They look through the open doorway. She is wiping her hands on her apron. Her son stands beside her with the basil plant, now settled into a larger pot — soil spilled down the front of his shirt, proudly unaware of it.

EARTH

Yes. Her.

Air calls out their compliments. The woman lifts a hand, embarrassed and pleased, then turns back to work.

They finish the wine slowly. When the bill comes, Earth reads it. Fire offers to pay. Sea says he always offers after someone else has already opened a purse. Air discovers money in a pocket he did not remember possessing. Between them they make the sum, with something extra for the waiter.

No one proposes leaving.

Earth moves the fifth chair slightly inward, out of the path of people walking along the harbor. Sea notices but says nothing.

Across the water, a FISHERMAN tries to bring his boat alongside — cuts the engine too soon, drifts short of the quay. His companion throws a rope. It falls between the boat and the stone.

Air turns his head. The loose end lifts just enough for a boy on the quay to catch it. The boy hauls. The boat comes in. The fisherman steps ashore, sets a hand briefly on the warm wall, and calls toward the café for coffee.

At the table, Sea passes the last of the almond cake to Fire.

He breaks it carefully so everyone can have a piece.

FADE OUT.