Not long ago updates of the like were a nuisance to Vivian, pesky gnats to shoo away. But those updates had since materialized into something inescapably real. Without warning, they had enveloped her entire world.
A noise boomed.
She jerked and looked over her shoulder. The technician in the projector room, a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth, appeared to have dropped a reel.
Vivian uncoiled herself to face forward, and she gasped. At her side, Isaak sat in the shadows. He had slinked in undetected, like the phantom he had always been.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said near her ear.
Through the tunnels of her mind, one of his old sayings echoed. She stared at the screen and recited dully, “More punctual than a German train. Isn’t that right?”
“I just wanted to be cautious,” he explained.
“Ah, yes. Cautious.” She had been that too once, with her future, her heart. She mourned the day he had convinced her to discard them both.
“Darling, what is it? You seem upset.”
Upset. The concept applied to many a circumstance: wine spilled on upholstery, a favorite goblet dropped in the sink. “No,” she replied honestly. “I am not upset.”
The suggestion was so trivializing it struck her as laughable. Quite literally. In place of rehearsed words, a throng of giggles gathered in her mouth. She did not possess the power to withhold them.
“Vivian?” His voice poured with bewilderment.
For a moment she felt the irrationality of her outburst, but then the reasoning gained clarity. Her body was laughing to keep from screaming or, worse, from shedding another tear over this man she never knew.
Someone in the balcony sent out a shush. The reminder of an audience stifled her momentum. Yet, above all, it was Isaak’s hand on hers that fully stomped her amusement.
She pulled her arm away. “Don’t.”
Suddenly Isaak’s gaze shifted past her. White pinpoints reflected in his eyes.
With a brisk glance, Vivian traced his attention to the silhouette of a man standing in the far aisle. The fellow was combing the rows with a flashlight at his shoulder. A policeman-like hat topped the outline of his head.
Isaak clutched the pocket of his jacket-perhaps a pistol stored inside. He shot Vivian a look that bordered between panic and uncertainty: an ironic question of betrayal. Then he slumped far into his seat, as if the furnishing, with enough pressure, would give way to a secret passage.
All at once it hit her. The mistake she had made coming here, playing this dangerous game. She should have told the police. She should have told Gene. It would have been the sensible step. She just didn’t want to confess until she had confronted Isaak herself. She needed the truth firsthand, for her own personal reasons, possibly to redeem herself for being so easily swindled.
Now, though, the chance for any of that might already be lost.
The man aimed the flashlight toward the balcony’s front row, where a couple shielded their eyes. They groaned in annoyance before the beam moved on. Vivian felt anxiety oozing from Isaak’s pores as he deliberated whether or not to flee. Only then did it occur to her that to evade her own arrest she had no choice but to follow.
Once more she imagined Jean Harlow, and the ways her characters might solve this dilemma. No doubt, kissing the fugitive was standard fare to create a façade. But before Vivian could act, the authority with the flashlight-not a policeman, she realized, but an usher-snatched a lone man by the collar and guided him to the aisle. Based on the reprimand, the viewer was a drunkard who had made a habit of sneaking in for naps.
Vivian fixed her eyes on the screen, catching her breath, and Isaak regained his composure. Jimmy Stewart saluted the camera in his Air Corps uniform, the epitome of chivalry and sacrifice. Women did their bit by working in American factories, like the ones-supposedly-on the Reich’s list to destroy.
The thought directed Vivian back to her purpose. Lingering adrenaline empowered her to charge on.
“Were you scared I had given you up?” she said in a low, quiet tone.
“Don’t be silly, darling. I know you wouldn’t do that.”
She turned toward him, pleased his hand had moved from his pocket to the armrest. “And why is that, Jakob? Because we know each other so well?”
He gazed back, his surprise nearly undetectable. “Yes,” he said.
“How can you say that,” she spat in a whisper, “when you’ve lied to me all along?”
“That’s not true.”
“You told me your name was–”
“I was born Jakob Isaak Hemel. Jakob was also my father’s name. I’ve gone by ‘Isaak’ since I was a kid, only to avoid confusion.” He squared his shoulders to her. “What else would you like to know?” It was more of an invitation than a challenge, but she still treated it as the latter, undeterred by a technicality.