The Godfather of Kathmandu - By John Burdett Page 0,78
uses her left hand, which she likes to leave in her lap except when pressing it to her face in an odd, slightly nervous gesture. She does not drink alcohol, and I’m feeling self-conscious about ordering another beer, but I do so anyway. More as a way of soothing my nerves than out of professional interest, I decide to work on the case a bit.
“So, how was it, working with the great Frank Charles?”
“Great? Is he great in your country? We thought so, because he was very kind and thoughtful and always encouraged us. We said he was a natural Buddhist. Obviously, he had been exposed to Buddhism in some earlier incarnation.”
She has a soft voice which includes in its tone forgiveness and compassion for all living things. I’m thinking she reached the Far Shore some time ago and feel intimidated. I say, “He was famous, anyway. And very rich. A successful man and filmmaker.”
“Yes. He was always very professional.”
“Would you mind telling me what his film was about?”
She expresses suspicion with the simplicity of a child: “Why don’t you know?”
“Because it was never released, and I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy. Do you have one?”
She smiles. “No. Nobody has one.”
“Why not? What’s so secret about it?”
“Nothing. There is nothing secret. It wasn’t released because he never finished it. After we were through with filming on location, he told us he would finish the work in a studio in Los Angeles. That was five or six years ago. At first some of us would write to him, asking when the film would be done. He was always very apologetic. He would say that he’d run out of funding, but there were always ways of getting money sooner or later and we should be patient. He’d made sure we were all paid, you see? He was very careful about treating us honorably. He knew how vulnerable we are, how impossible it would be for us to enforce any contracts.” She looks up and smiles. It is not a seductive smile, nor a mischievous one. It’s a smile from the other side, full of lightness and freedom—a smile that really doesn’t give a damn.
“So, what was the plot?”
A frown crumples her brow for a moment, then she laughs. “I’m not telling you. We said we wouldn’t. We said we would wait for the final version before we talked in public about the plot.”
“But he’s dead. Murdered. Doesn’t that change anything?” She smiles again. “I’m a cop.”
“Are you going to arrest me for not answering questions?”
I blush deeply. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m pushing too hard. No, I don’t have any investigative powers over here. It just strikes me as strange that you don’t want to talk about the plot of a film you spent months working on. Were you the female lead?”
She shakes her head. “There were no leads. It wasn’t that kind of film. It was experimental, artistic. We didn’t use the star system.”
“Can you tell me who else worked on it? Maybe I should speak to someone else?”
“Yes. Perhaps someone else would feel able to talk.”
“Can you put me in touch? Do you have e-mail addresses, phone numbers—is there anyone in Kathmandu at the moment you could introduce me to?”
She takes a long moment to think about it. From her body language I believe she is carefully going through everyone who worked on the film with her, before she shakes her head. “You see, almost everyone was Tibetan apart from some of the technical staff. All the players in the Himalayan scenes were Tibetans like me. But most of them were illegals—that was something Frank Charles insisted on. They were illegal immigrants who knew something about film. Or maybe not.” She giggles. “A few didn’t know anything at all, and of course they couldn’t speak English or any of the Nepali dialects, so I had to translate. I don’t think they really knew what the film was about either, they didn’t understand how movies are made. They just did as they were told; mostly it was inspired improvisation.”
“That must have been difficult, even for an experienced director, to work with people who didn’t speak his language and to try to improvise?”
“Yes. I think for someone else it would have been impossible. But Frank Charles was very gifted. Very passionate. His inspiration was easy to go with.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t sound like a Hollywood director to me.”