Five Business Days

The first half of this story happened. On the evening of the nineteenth of October, in a small restaurant on the slope of Montmartre, a man looked at a woman at the next table, and she looked back, and a telephone that should have rung did not.

The second half had not happened when these pages were written. They were written a few hours later, in a rented apartment in the same city, on a sofa bed, quietly, so as not to wake his parents, by a man whose phone was finally connected and whose request for a list of calls was waiting, unopened, in an inbox on the other side of the ocean.

So this is a film made of two halves: one that was lived and one that was hoped. The reader may decide where the seam runs. It has been left visible on purpose. A good repair always is.

Han’drada

FADE IN:

· · ·

BLACK.

Out of the dark, the hollow purr of a long-distance line. One ring that is not quite a ring. Then a woman's voice, synthetic and impeccably polite, first in English, then in French.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.)

The Freedom Mobile customer you are calling is not available. Please try again later.

Le client de Freedom Mobile que vous tentez de joindre n'est pas disponible. Veuillez réessayer plus tard.

A click. Silence. It holds a beat too long.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES, MONTMARTRE — EVENING

Monday, October 19

The last of the light is gold on the zinc roofs. Paris climbs the hill in crooked streets and hangs its laundry on the evening.

Three Brazilians climb with it.

RODRIGO (32) walks a step ahead, the way the shy walk when they are the only ones who know the way. Dark coat, a face that keeps more than it shows. He holds his phone like a compass.

Behind him, ANTÔNIO (64), his father, broad as a doorway, breathing like a man who has opinions about stairs. Beside Antônio, CLARICE (58), his wife, silver bob, reading glasses pushed into her hair, a woman who has spent thirty years teaching mathematics to people who did not want it.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

Rodrigo. Quanto falta?

Rodrigo. How much further?

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese)

Duzentos metros, pai.

Two hundred meters, Dad.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

Você falou duzentos metros há duzentos metros.

You said two hundred meters two hundred meters ago.

From here, the Portuguese is subtitled.

CLARICE

He's checking the map on that foreign chip. Let him concentrate.

ANTÔNIO

Foreign chip. In my time you had a map made of paper and a mouth to ask people.

CLARICE

In your time you got lost in Lisbon for three hours.

ANTÔNIO

I wasn't lost. I was visiting.

Clarice catches up to Rodrigo, lowers her voice like a conspirator.

CLARICE

Did you turn off your Canadian line? Your father came back from Portugal with a bill of nine hundred reais. I still have nightmares.

RODRIGO

Turned it off at the airport. Everything's on the travel one.

INSERT — RODRIGO'S PHONE

A settings screen, glimpsed for a moment as he scrolls past it to the map.

Freedom Mobile ........ Off

Travel eSIM ........... On

It is the most important image in the film, and nobody looks at it twice.

BACK TO SCENE

Antônio stops dead in front of a café menu taped to a window.

ANTÔNIO

Seven euros. For a coffee. In Minas I buy a cow for seven euros.

RODRIGO

You don't buy cows in Minas, Dad. You were a postman.

ANTÔNIO

I could have bought a cow. The option was there.

Clarice takes his arm and walks him on. Rodrigo smiles at the pavement.

EXT. CHEZ AURÈLE — CONTINUOUS

A narrow restaurant wedged between a bakery and a shuttered antique shop. Green paint, gold letters, steamed glass. Through the window: candles, close tables, the low red heat of a room where strangers sit almost in each other's laps, the way only Paris allows.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — EVENING

Tight. Warm. Mirrors along one wall make the small room twice its size and show everyone everything.

MAURICE (50s), the waiter, a long face built for disappointment, leads them to a two-top that has become a three-top by the addition of a stool. Antônio surveys the stool as if it has insulted his family.

The table is wedged so close to its neighbor that the two might as well be one.

At the next table: three people in the middle of a laugh.

JULIEN (34), French, curly-haired, rolled sleeves, the easy face of a man who has lived in more countries than he can afford. XIMENA (31), Mexican, his girlfriend, gold hoops, laughing with her whole body.

And between them, with her back half to the mirror —

HANNAH (31).

Red hair, loose, the color of something about to catch. Blue eyes. A stillness in her that is not shyness; it is attention. She is listening to Ximena with her chin on her hand, and when she laughs it arrives late and all at once, as if she had to decide first whether the joke deserved it.

Rodrigo, halfway into his chair, stops.

Holds.

Sits down slower than gravity requires.

Clarice notices. Clarice notices everything.

LATER

Bread. Water. Menus the size of newspapers. Antônio holds his at arm's length.

ANTÔNIO

Where are my glasses?

CLARICE

On the nightstand at the apartment. Where you left them so you would know where they were.

Rodrigo is not reading his menu. He is reading the mirror.

In it, at an angle, Hannah turns a wine glass by its stem and listens to Julien tell a story with his hands.

She looks up. Into the mirror.

Their eyes meet in the glass — not directly, but through it, which is somehow worse.

Rodrigo looks down at the menu so fast that he reads the same word four times. Canard. Canard. Canard. Canard.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese, very low)

Pai. Não olha agora.

Dad. Don't look now.

Antônio turns his entire body around in his chair to look.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Pai!

ANTÔNIO

What? You said don't look now. I looked later.

RODRIGO

It was one second later!

ANTÔNIO

A second is later.

CLARICE

(not looking up from her menu)

The redhead.

Rodrigo stares at her.

CLARICE (CONT'D)

Rodrigo, I taught teenagers for thirty years. I can see a boy looking at a girl through a wall.

RODRIGO

I'm not a boy.

CLARICE

You are tonight.

At the next table, Julien reaches for the bread. As he does, the smallest flicker crosses his face — a twitch at the corner of the mouth, gone before it lands. He glances at his phone, under the table. Types something.

We will understand this later. For now it is only a man checking his phone.

LATER

Maurice stands over the table like a magistrate. Antônio points at the wine list without his glasses.

ANTÔNIO

(in his best English)

This one. In the middle.

MAURICE

(in French)

Le Pomerol. Excellent choix, monsieur.

Maurice withdraws. Rodrigo, still watching the mirror, doesn't see where the finger landed.

RODRIGO

Which one did you order?

ANTÔNIO

The middle one. The middle is always fair. Too cheap, they insult you. Too expensive, they rob you. The middle is where honest people drink.

CLARICE

You couldn't see the middle.

ANTÔNIO

I can feel the middle.

LATER — THE MAIN COURSE

Duck for Antônio. Fish for Clarice. Something Rodrigo ordered by pointing and has not tasted.

At the next table, Ximena is telling a story in Spanish-accented English, something about a taxi driver in Oaxaca and a goat. Hannah laughs her late, total laugh. Her eyes come up — and this time they find Rodrigo's directly. No mirror.

One second. Two.

She doesn't look away first.

He does.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese)

Ela é linda.

She's beautiful.

CLARICE

That's the third time.

RODRIGO

It's the first time.

CLARICE

It's the third. The first time was when we sat down. You said it to the bread.

RODRIGO

I didn't say anything to the bread.

ANTÔNIO

You said it to the bread. I heard. I thought you meant the bread. It's good bread.

Rodrigo puts his fork down. Picks it up. Puts it down again with great care, aligning it with the knife, as if precision might help.

RODRIGO

I want to talk to her.

ANTÔNIO

Then talk.

RODRIGO

She's with friends. I can't just go there.

ANTÔNIO

Why not? It's one meter. I walked thirty-five years of mail routes in Belo Horizonte with a bag of eleven kilos. You can walk one meter.

RODRIGO

It's not the meter, Dad.

ANTÔNIO

It's always the meter.

Antônio wipes his mouth, leans in. The seriousness of a general.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Listen to me. You go there. You say: "Excuse me. I'm sorry. But I need to tell you that you are very beautiful." And then you leave. You turn around and you leave.

RODRIGO

I leave?

ANTÔNIO

Mystery. Women love a mystery.

CLARICE

When you met me you didn't leave. You stayed three hours and explained the entire history of Clube Atlético Mineiro.

ANTÔNIO

And you married me.

CLARICE

In spite of the Atlético.

ANTÔNIO

Because of it. Deep down.

Rodrigo isn't listening. In the mirror, Hannah tucks her hair behind her ear, and in doing so looks, once more, toward his table. Not at him. Near him. Close enough to count.

RODRIGO

I can't tell her she's beautiful in front of two strangers. I'd die.

ANTÔNIO

Then tell it to the strangers. They'll pass it along.

RODRIGO

Pai.

ANTÔNIO

What? This is how it worked in my time. You told the cousin, the cousin told the friend, the friend told the girl. It took a week. It was beautiful.

CLARICE

It was gossip.

ANTÔNIO

Gossip with a purpose is called romance.

Rodrigo laughs despite himself. The laugh makes him braver for a moment. He sits up.

RODRIGO

Okay. I need a reason. A question. Something normal.

CLARICE

Ask her the time.

RODRIGO

Everyone has a phone, nobody asks the time anymore.

ANTÔNIO

Ask her where the bathroom is.

RODRIGO

It's right there, Dad, there's a sign.

ANTÔNIO

Ask her why the sign is in French.

Rodrigo ignores this. He's thinking. His eyes go to the window — the dark street rising, and beyond it, unseen, the top of the hill.

RODRIGO

The basilica. Sacré-Cœur. I'll ask if it's worth climbing up to see the view.

CLARICE

You went yesterday.

RODRIGO

She doesn't need to know that.

CLARICE

You sent us forty-one photos. At six in the morning.

RODRIGO

She doesn't need to know that either.

ANTÔNIO

(delighted)

It's a lie. Good. A small lie is the door. The truth can come in after.

At the next table, Julien coughs into his napkin. Ximena pats his back. He waves her off, eyes watering, and types something under the table with the speed of a war correspondent.

Hannah's phone, face-down by her glass, buzzes once.

She turns it over. Reads. Her eyebrows move a millimeter.

She turns it face-down again and drinks her wine, looking at nothing in particular, which is to say at Rodrigo.

LATER

Dessert menus arrive. Rodrigo hasn't moved.

ANTÔNIO

Well?

RODRIGO

I'm waiting for the right moment.

CLARICE

The right moment was during the duck.

RODRIGO

There was no moment during the duck. She was laughing.

CLARICE

That's the moment.

ANTÔNIO

You know what you were like at nine years old? There was a girl in your class. Patrícia. You made her a drawing. Three days of work. Crayons, watercolor, everything. And do you know what you did with it?

RODRIGO

Please don't.

ANTÔNIO

He gave it to her mother.

CLARICE

No.

ANTÔNIO

At the gate. "Please give this to Patrícia." And ran.

RODRIGO

It was a good drawing.

ANTÔNIO

It was an excellent drawing. Her mother put it on the refrigerator. Patrícia never saw it. For all I know it's still on that refrigerator and Patrícia thinks her mother painted a horse.

RODRIGO

It wasn't a horse. It was her.

A silence. Antônio's grin softens into something else.

ANTÔNIO

I know, filho.

At the next table, Julien raises a hand for the check.

Rodrigo sees it. His stomach drops into the floor.

CLARICE

They're asking for the bill.

RODRIGO

I see them.

ANTÔNIO

Then go.

RODRIGO

I need — one minute.

He stands, too fast; his chair scrapes; the stool beside his father wobbles.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

(in Portuguese)

Vou ao banheiro.

I'm going to the bathroom.

ANTÔNIO

Now? The enemy is retreating and you go to the bathroom?

CLARICE

Let him go, Antônio. Everyone needs a bathroom before a war.

Rodrigo squeezes between the tables. Passing Hannah's chair, he has to turn sideways. For a moment his coat brushes the back of it.

She doesn't turn. But she sits very still, the way you sit when you know exactly where someone is.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — WASHROOM — CONTINUOUS

A closet with a sink. Wallpaper of faded birds. A gilt mirror too grand for the room, speckled at the edges like an old photograph.

Rodrigo locks the door. Leans on the sink. Looks at himself.

RODRIGO

(to the mirror, in English)

Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Is it worth it — climbing up — for the view?

He winces.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

(trying again)

Hi. Sorry. Quick question. The basilica. Worth it?

Worse. He tries French, which is worse still.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Bonsoir. Excusez-moi. La colline... est-ce que... elle vaut... la peine?

He hears it. Closes his eyes.

He puts his hands under the tap. The automatic dryer beside him detects them and erupts with the roar of a jet engine. He leaps back. The dryer roars on at nothing, triumphant, then stops.

Silence.

Rodrigo looks at the man in the mirror. Thirty-two years old. A man who cleans other people's numbers for a living, who paints faces at three in the morning and shows them to no one, who left one country to become quiet in another.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

(in Portuguese, softly)

Você tem trinta e dois anos.

You are thirty-two years old.

He breathes out.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Ela é só uma pessoa.

She's just a person.

He looks at himself a moment longer.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Uma pessoa linda.

A beautiful person.

A KNOCK. He jumps.

VOICE (O.S.)

(in French)

C'est occupé?

RODRIGO

Non — sorry — désolé — finished.

He unlocks the door. A small elderly WOMAN with a cane looks up at him.

ELDERLY WOMAN

(in French)

Bonne chance.

RODRIGO

...Pardon?

She just pats his arm and goes in. The door closes. The dryer roars.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — CONTINUOUS

Rodrigo comes back down the narrow aisle. At his table, Antônio gives him a thumbs-up so enormous that Maurice, passing with a tray, glances at it with distaste.

Clarice mouths: Vai. Go.

Hannah's table: Julien is signing the card receipt. Ximena has her coat half on. Hannah is reaching for her scarf.

Now or never. Rodrigo stops beside them. Everything inside him goes white and silent, like the moment after a dropped plate before anyone moves.

RODRIGO

Sorry. Excuse me.

Three faces turn up at him. Ximena's is radiant with an interest she makes no effort to hide. Julien's is perfectly, suspiciously neutral.

Hannah's is simply open. Waiting.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Can I ask you something — a question for — for the table. Is it worth it? The climb up to the Sacré-Cœur? For the view?

A pause.

Ximena makes a small, strangled sound and drinks water to cover it.

HANNAH

(German accent, precise)

Yes. Very worth it.

RODRIGO

Yeah?

HANNAH

Have you never been?

He looks into her blue eyes and lies like a child.

RODRIGO

Never.

Ximena chokes on the water. Julien thumps her on the back without taking his eyes off Rodrigo.

JULIEN

(in fluent Portuguese, with a Minas Gerais lilt)

Vale muito a pena, cara. Principalmente de manhã cedo. Mas você já sabe disso, né?

It's very worth it, man. Especially early in the morning. But you already know that, right?

Rodrigo freezes.

At the next table, Antônio freezes. Clarice closes her eyes like a woman watching a car slide toward a ditch in slow motion.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese)

Você... fala português?

You... speak Portuguese?

JULIEN

(in Portuguese)

Morei três anos em Belo Horizonte. Dava aula na Aliança Francesa.

I lived three years in Belo Horizonte. I taught at the Alliance Française.

A beat of perfect silence. Then, from the next table, unable to stop himself, Antônio:

ANTÔNIO

UAI!

The whole restaurant turns. Two tourists by the window applaud without knowing why.

Julien laughs. Ximena laughs. Hannah presses her lips together, eyes shining, and loses the battle by the smallest margin.

Rodrigo stands in the wreckage of his privacy, every word of the last ninety minutes replaying behind his eyes. She's beautiful. She's beautiful. I'll ask about the hill. She doesn't need to know.

RODRIGO

(in English, carefully)

So you... heard. Some things.

JULIEN

Me? I heard nothing. I was very busy eating.

XIMENA

He heard everything.

JULIEN

I heard some things. Not everything. The acoustics are terrible here.

RODRIGO

How much is some?

JULIEN

(considering)

Don't worry. In Portuguese, everything sounds like a compliment.

Rodrigo turns to Hannah, the last hope.

HANNAH

(innocent)

I don't speak Portuguese.

RODRIGO

Good.

HANNAH

Nothing at all.

She holds his look a moment longer than the sentence needs. He cannot tell — and never will, tonight — what she knows.

He has two choices: retreat in disgrace, or continue as if dignity were still an option.

He continues.

RODRIGO

I'm Rodrigo.

HANNAH

Hannah.

RODRIGO

Hannah. With an H?

HANNAH

Two. One at each end. It's the same in both directions.

RODRIGO

A palindrome.

HANNAH

Yes. It's very practical. I can't be read wrong.

RODRIGO

That's — a lot of confidence for a name.

HANNAH

I'm German. We build things to last.

Ximena, coat now fully on, sits back down in it, settling in for the show. Julien gestures to the stool at his elbow — the one that matches the cursed stool at Antônio's table.

JULIEN

Sit. Please. Your father won't miss you. He's busy watching.

Rodrigo looks back. Antônio and Clarice are watching with the naked attention of people at a football final. They both look away at once and become very interested in the dessert menu.

Rodrigo sits.

XIMENA

Where are you from? Brazil, okay, we know — but where are you from from?

RODRIGO

I'm from Belo Horizonte. But I live in Toronto.

JULIEN

(in Portuguese, grinning)

Mineiro!

A man from Minas!

RODRIGO

Mineiro.

HANNAH

And what does a person from Belo Horizonte do in Toronto?

RODRIGO

Gets cold, mostly.

She laughs — the late laugh, the total one. It goes into him like heat into a cold hand.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

I work with data. At a hospital. Research. I clean the numbers.

HANNAH

You clean numbers.

RODRIGO

People think numbers are honest. They're not. Somebody types a nine instead of a four, somebody forgets a decimal, and suddenly a woman in Mississauga is three hundred years old. I find the ones that are lying.

HANNAH

So you are a detective of mistakes.

RODRIGO

That's a much better title than mine. And you?

HANNAH

I repair paper.

RODRIGO

Paper.

HANNAH

Old paper. Letters, maps, documents. At the State Archive in Hamburg. People tear things, or time tears them, and I put them back. This week I am at the national library here, a workshop. Twelve conservators from eleven countries arguing about glue.

RODRIGO

Is it a good argument?

HANNAH

It's the best argument. The French use one starch, the Japanese use another, the Germans think everyone is wrong.

JULIEN

The Germans always think everyone is wrong.

HANNAH

And usually we are correct.

XIMENA

(to Rodrigo, conspiratorial)

She says that, but she cried at a movie on the plane. A cartoon. About a fish.

HANNAH

It was a very well-made fish.

XIMENA

And you? Only numbers?

Rodrigo hesitates. This is a thing he doesn't say.

RODRIGO

I paint. At night.

HANNAH

What do you paint?

RODRIGO

Faces. People say they're a little — scary.

HANNAH

Are they?

RODRIGO

Only the honest ones.

She looks at him. Not the polite look. A look like she is checking a document for the date.

HANNAH

I would like to see one.

RODRIGO

I don't have Instagram. I don't have anything. I deleted it all.

JULIEN

A Brazilian without Instagram? Is that legal?

RODRIGO

I wanted to only be somewhere when I'm actually there.

HANNAH

(quietly)

And are you? Actually here?

RODRIGO

Right now? Very much.

Ximena kicks Julien under the table. Julien kicks back. Under the table, it is a war.

Ximena leans toward Hannah and murmurs in Spanish:

XIMENA

(in Spanish)

Pídele el número. O dáselo tú. Ya.

Ask for his number. Or give him yours. Now.

HANNAH

I don't speak Spanish either.

XIMENA

You speak it perfectly when I'm talking about men.

Rodrigo takes a breath that goes all the way down. The washroom. The mirror. She's just a person.

RODRIGO

Hannah. Can I — would you give me your number? So that if — if you're ever — or if I'm —

He has run out of sentence.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

— if the hill.

HANNAH

If the hill.

RODRIGO

If the hill.

She considers him for exactly one second — a German second, measured and complete.

Then, instead of reciting her number, she unlocks her phone, opens a new contact, and hands it to him.

HANNAH

Put yours.

He takes it like something that could break. Her phone is warm from her hand. The screen says NEW CONTACT, cursor blinking.

He types RODRIGO. Then, with enormous care, digit by digit, his Canadian number.

+1 (647) 555-0142

He checks it twice. Hands it back.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I'll call you. Then you have mine also.

She presses CALL. Raises the phone to her ear.

She watches him, waiting for his pocket to buzz. He waits too, smiling, a hand already moving toward his coat —

And from the next table, a single word detonates like a dropped tray.

ANTÔNIO (O.S.)

QUANTO?!

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — CONTINUOUS

Every head in the room swivels toward Antônio, who is on his feet holding the bill at arm's length, squinting at it without his glasses as if it were written in a hostile alphabet.

Maurice stands beside him, hands clasped behind his back, serene as a cathedral.

Rodrigo half-rises from the stool.

RODRIGO

Sorry — I'm so sorry — my father —

HANNAH

(phone still at her ear)

Go.

He goes.

AT THE TABLE

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese, to the room)

Cento e quarenta e oito euros! Num vinho! Isso é um assalto!

A hundred and forty-eight euros! For one wine! This is a robbery!

MAURICE

(in French, pleasant as ice)

Le Pomerol, monsieur. C'est écrit sur la carte.

The Pomerol, sir. It is written on the list.

RODRIGO

Pai, calma —

ANTÔNIO

Calm? I pointed at the middle! The middle was forty-eight! Tell him, Rodrigo, tell him in English, tell him in French, tell him I am Brazilian but I am not an idiot!

RODRIGO

I'm not going to say that.

ANTÔNIO

(in his best French)

Je suis brésilien! Mais pas... pas...

He looks to Rodrigo for the word.

RODRIGO

Please sit down.

INTERCUT — HANNAH'S TABLE

Hannah, phone pressed to her ear, watching the scene with one eye. In the phone: the hollow purr. Then the voice we heard in the dark.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.)

(filtered)

The Freedom Mobile customer you are calling is not available. Please try again later. Le

client de Freedom Mobile que vous tentez de joindre n'est pas disponible —

Hannah frowns slightly. Holds on.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

The mailbox of the customer you are calling has not been set up. La boîte vocale du client —

She lowers the phone and looks at the screen as if it might explain itself.

Rodrigo

0:07

XIMENA

(in Spanish)

¿Qué pasó?

What happened?

HANNAH

A robot answered. In two languages.

JULIEN

That's Canada. Everything there happens twice.

Hannah looks at Rodrigo across the narrow gap — standing at his father's elbow, hands up like a man calming a horse — and she does not call again.

BACK TO ANTÔNIO'S TABLE

Clarice has put on her reading glasses — the only pair the family brought — and taken the wine list from Maurice with the polite firmness of a woman confiscating a phone in class.

She lays it on the table. Rodrigo leans in.

INSERT — THE WINE LIST

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, 2016 ............... 48

Pomerol, 2015 .............................. 148

The two lines sit close, one above the other.

BACK TO SCENE

CLARICE

Antônio. Show me where you pointed.

Antônio lowers a thick finger onto the page. It lands, with great confidence, exactly on the hairline space between the two wines.

Clarice takes out her phone and lays its edge against the list like a ruler. Studies it.

CLARICE (CONT'D)

(in Portuguese)

Matematicamente, você pediu os dois.

Mathematically, you ordered both.

ANTÔNIO

Then they should charge me the average.

RODRIGO

(to Maurice, in English)

I'm sorry. He can't read without his glasses. He pointed between them. He thought he was ordering the forty-eight.

MAURICE

(in English, at last, each word a small coin)

Monsieur. Your father pointed. I brought what the finger said.

RODRIGO

The finger was confused.

Maurice looks at the finger. The finger looks back.

The room is silent. Somewhere in it, the two tourists by the window have their phones raised, filming.

Maurice inhales through his nose — the long, aristocratic inhalation of a man who has worked twenty-six years in a room where everyone is always right. He takes the bill from Antônio's hand. Crosses something out. Writes something in.

He places it back on the table.

MAURICE

(in French)

Pour la paix.

For peace.

Antônio picks it up. Squints. Smiles enormously.

MAURICE (CONT'D)

(in English)

But you drank a Pomerol, monsieur. Remember it.

He leaves. It is the best exit line anyone delivers all night, and he knows it.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese, triumphant, to the whole room)

Viu? Trinta e cinco anos nos Correios. Eu sei ler um endereço!

You see? Thirty-five years at the Post Office. I know how to read an address!

CLARICE

You couldn't read the menu.

ANTÔNIO

An address is different.

Rodrigo exhales. Then remembers —

He turns.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — HANNAH'S TABLE — MOMENTS LATER

He slides back onto the cursed stool. Ximena and Julien are pretending to talk to each other. They are not talking to each other.

RODRIGO

I'm so sorry. That was —

HANNAH

Very entertaining.

RODRIGO

My father has a complicated relationship with prices.

HANNAH

He won.

RODRIGO

He always wins. Nobody knows how.

She holds up her phone.

HANNAH

I called you. So now you have my number.

Rodrigo takes out his phone. Wakes it. Looks.

INSERT — RODRIGO'S PHONE

The lock screen: a photograph of the view from Sacré-Cœur at dawn. No notifications. Nothing.

BACK TO SCENE

RODRIGO

I didn't get anything.

HANNAH

No?

RODRIGO

Nothing came.

HANNAH

Your robot answered.

RODRIGO

My robot?

HANNAH

A lady. Very polite. English and then French. She said you are not available and your mailbox is not set up.

RODRIGO

(laughing)

That's just Canada. That's what Canada sounds like.

HANNAH

Maybe I should write it for you —

RODRIGO

It'll come through. Canadian phones are polite. They take their time. They say sorry first.

She smiles. Lets it go.

And this — right here — is the moment.

He could hand her his phone. She could type four seconds of digits. Either of them could send a single text. The whole film could end here, in a warm little room, with a happy ordinary ending.

Instead, he leans his elbows on the table, and she rests her chin on her hand, and they keep talking.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

So. Toronto.

RODRIGO

Toronto.

HANNAH

What is it like?

RODRIGO

Cold. Clean. Polite. Everyone apologizes, even the buses. When I first arrived, I bumped into a man on the subway and he apologized to me for being in the place where I bumped.

HANNAH

And you like it?

RODRIGO

I like it. In Brazil, I was the quiet one. In Canada, everyone is quiet. So I'm normal.

HANNAH

Normal.

RODRIGO

Almost normal.

HANNAH

(considering him)

I don't think you are normal.

RODRIGO

Is that good or bad in German?

HANNAH

In German it's a compliment. We have too much normal.

He laughs. Then, before he can stop it, the brave thing comes out.

RODRIGO

If you ever come to Toronto. You have a guide now.

HANNAH

Do I.

RODRIGO

I'll show you everything. The lake that looks like an ocean. The coffee shop that never has milk. The street where nothing happens, very beautifully.

HANNAH

Very tempting.

RODRIGO

And I want — someday — I want to move to Europe. I've been thinking about it for years. Maybe — if you don't mind — you could be my guide here.

HANNAH

I'm a very strict guide.

RODRIGO

How strict?

HANNAH

I'll tell you exactly where you went wrong. With maps. And documentation.

RODRIGO

That sounds — amazing, actually.

JULIEN

(not looking up)

She's not joking.

XIMENA

She made us a schedule for this week. Laminated.

HANNAH

It's in a plastic sleeve. It's not laminated. There's a difference.

They laugh. For a moment, it is easy. The distances — Hamburg, Toronto, Belo Horizonte — are only things to talk about across a little table in Paris. Small as salt cellars.

From behind Rodrigo:

ANTÔNIO (O.S.)

(in Portuguese)

Rodrigo! Vamos, filho!

Rodrigo! Let's go, son!

Rodrigo turns. His father is in his coat. Clarice holds out Rodrigo's scarf like a flag of surrender.

He turns back. Hannah is already looking at him.

RODRIGO

I have to go.

HANNAH

Yes.

RODRIGO

The hill. You said it's worth it.

HANNAH

It's very worth it.

RODRIGO

Then I'll go.

HANNAH

For the first time.

A flicker. Is that a joke? He can't tell. He stands.

RODRIGO

It was —

HANNAH

(smiling)

It was very lovely meeting you.

RODRIGO

Very lovely. Meeting you.

He goes. At the door he looks back, once. She is watching. She raises one hand from the table — not a wave, just a hand lifted, like someone stopping a clock.

The door closes. The little bell above it rings.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — CONTINUOUS

Hannah turns her glass by its stem.

JULIEN

So.

HANNAH

So.

JULIEN

He said you were beautiful six times.

XIMENA

Seven. You missed the bread.

HANNAH

Thank you, both of you, for your service.

She turns her phone over in her hand. The call log glows.

Rodrigo

0:07

She doesn't press it again.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — NIGHT

The street spills downhill in a long curve, cobbles shining. Antônio walks like a general returning from a war he single-handedly won.

ANTÔNIO

Forty-eight euros! You see? You have to fight. They see a Brazilian, they think, here comes a fool with money. Then they meet Antônio.

CLARICE

They met your finger.

ANTÔNIO

My finger and I are a team.

Clarice slips her arm through Rodrigo's. He's floating half a meter above the cobbles.

CLARICE

And?

RODRIGO

Hannah.

CLARICE

Hannah.

RODRIGO

Two H's. One at each end.

ANTÔNIO

Did you get the number?

RODRIGO

She has mine.

Antônio stops. Turns.

ANTÔNIO

She has yours.

RODRIGO

She called me. So I'd have hers.

ANTÔNIO

Then you have hers.

RODRIGO

Yes.

He takes out his phone to show them. Opens RECENT CALLS.

INSERT — RECENT CALLS

Yesterday. Yesterday. Saturday. Nothing from tonight.

BACK TO SCENE

He scrolls. Scrolls back. Pulls the screen down to refresh, as if a call were something that could load.

RODRIGO

It's — it said it would come through. It must be a delay.

ANTÔNIO

A delay. A phone call with a delay.

RODRIGO

Sometimes —

And then he remembers.

FLASH — EXT. ABBESSES METRO STEPS — THAT AFTERNOON

Daylight. Rodrigo on the green iron stairs of the old metro entrance, typing with his thumb.

To: Priya (work)

Landed fine! Can you resend the access form?

Mine expired. Back on the 23rd.

He sends it. A small red exclamation mark appears.

Not Delivered

He frowns. Shrugs. Puts the phone away. Paris is waiting.

BACK TO RUE LEPIC — NIGHT

Rodrigo stands absolutely still in the middle of the street.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese, barely audible)

Não.

No.

He goes into Settings. His thumb knows the way and is shaking anyway.

INSERT — SETTINGS

Freedom Mobile ........ Off

BACK TO SCENE

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Não, não, não, não —

CLARICE

What?

RODRIGO

My line was off.

ANTÔNIO

What line?

RODRIGO

My Canadian line. My number. The number I gave her. It's been off since the airport. She called a phone that doesn't exist.

Silence on the cobbles. A scooter whines past.

CLARICE

Oh, Rodrigo.

RODRIGO

I had her phone. In my hand. I had it in my hand, Clarice.

He toggles the line ON.

A pause. Then, almost instantly, cheerfully, a notification slides down.

FREEDOM MOBILE

Welcome to France! Roam Beyond rates apply:

$16/day when you use your phone. Enjoy your trip!

ANTÔNIO

(reading over his shoulder)

Sixteen dollars! A day! Turn it off!

CLARICE

Antônio.

ANTÔNIO

Sixteen dollars to be welcomed!

RODRIGO

I don't care, Pai.

He stands in the middle of Rue Lepic holding the phone up slightly, as if a missed call were a radio signal that could still be caught out of the air, if he held it high enough.

Nothing comes.

Calls that were never received are not stored anywhere. They do not wait. They do not come back.

Antônio looks at his son's face, and something in the general goes quiet.

ANTÔNIO

(softly)

Foi o vinho.

It was the wine.

RODRIGO

It wasn't the wine.

ANTÔNIO

It was the wine. If I didn't shout —

RODRIGO

Pai. It wasn't the wine. It was me. I turned it off. I had her phone in my hand and I said "it'll come through."

Clarice takes Antônio's arm on one side and Rodrigo's on the other, and walks them both downhill like two boys after a lost match.

EXT. RUE DURANTIN — APARTMENT BUILDING — NIGHT

A tall old doorway, the paint peeling a little, a brass digicode panel. Antônio taps the code. The heavy door clicks.

INT. STAIRWELL — CONTINUOUS

Four flights of wooden stairs that creak in every language. A timer light that clicks off halfway up. Antônio swears in the dark. Clarice laughs. Rodrigo hits the switch.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — NIGHT

Two small rooms under the roof. Exposed beams, a kitchenette, a window over the courtyard. A sofa bed has been pulled out in the living room for Rodrigo. The bedroom is his parents'.

Antônio locks the apartment door behind them with a single heavy key on a wooden fob that says, in faded marker, DURANTIN 4G.

He puts the key into the breast pocket of his pajamas, already laid out on the chair, and pats it.

ANTÔNIO

The key sleeps with me. Thirty-five years, I never lost one key.

CLARICE

You lost your glasses tonight.

ANTÔNIO

Glasses are not keys.

He looks at Rodrigo, sitting on the edge of the sofa bed in his coat, phone in both hands.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Filho.

Rodrigo doesn't look up.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

She'll call again.

RODRIGO

You don't know that.

ANTÔNIO

No. I don't.

He kisses the top of his son's head, the way he did when Rodrigo was nine and had given a drawing to the wrong person. Then he goes to bed.

Clarice lingers in the doorway.

CLARICE

The Wi-Fi password is on the refrigerator. Under the magnet of the Eiffel Tower. Of course.

The door closes. A sliver of light under it. Then that goes too.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — LIVING ROOM — LATER

Dark, except for the phone. Rodrigo lies on the sofa bed, fully dressed, the screen lighting his face from below like a man telling a ghost story to himself.

He opens an AI assistant. Types.

RODRIGO: my canadian sim was off all night. a girl

called me and i never got it. i turned it on but

nothing came. how do i make sure if she calls again

it reaches me

ASSISTANT: Calls made while your line was off don't

get stored, so they won't arrive late. To be reachable

now without paying roaming: Airplane Mode on, Wi-Fi on,

your Freedom line on, and Wi-Fi Calling enabled. Then

any call to your number reaches you over the apartment's

Wi-Fi.

He follows it, step by step. We see each toggle.

INSERT — THE PHONE

An airplane icon.

Wi-Fi .................... DURANTIN_4G_5GHz

Freedom Mobile ........... On

Wi-Fi Calling ............ On

A small new word appears at the top of the screen, next to the signal bars: Fi.

BACK TO SCENE

He opens Messages. Nothing.

Recent Calls. Nothing.

He taps Voicemail. The phone dials his own mailbox. He puts it to his ear.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.)

(filtered)

The mailbox of the customer you are calling has not been set up. La boîte vocale du client que vous tentez de joindre n'est pas configurée.

He lowers the phone slowly.

This is the voice. This is exactly what she heard, at her table, while his father shouted about a Pomerol. Polite. Empty. In two languages.

He calls his voicemail again, just to hear it again. Listens to the whole thing. English. French.

It is the loneliest sound in the film.

He goes back to the assistant.

RODRIGO: be honest. what are the chances she calls

again. give me a percentage

The dots pulse.

ASSISTANT: If you want a number: maybe 30 to 40

percent. But hold that number loosely. It's a guess

wearing a lab coat. I can't calculate the intentions of

a woman I've never met.

What I can tell you isn't a probability: she called.

She handed you her phone and she called. That part

happened.

He reads it twice. On the second read, at "lab coat," something in his face almost smiles.

RODRIGO: she called

ASSISTANT: She called.

He puts the phone on his chest and looks at the beams.

LATER

2:11 a.m. on the microwave clock. Rodrigo sits up, wide awake, laptop open on his knees. He has logged into his carrier account.

INSERT — LAPTOP SCREEN — USAGE HISTORY

A dull grey table. Dates. Times. Toronto time zone.

Oct 19 15:09 Incoming +1 (647) 555-0178 0:00

BACK TO SCENE

His heart jumps. A number. A real number, at the right time. 15:09 in Toronto is 21:09 in Paris. The exact minute his father discovered the Pomerol.

He grabs his phone and dials it. Holds his breath.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.)

(filtered)

Welcome to Freedom Mobile voicemail. Please enter your —

He hangs up. Sits back.

It is not her. It is the machine she passed through. He has found the corridor, not the person who walked down it.

LATER

The laptop's support chat window, blinking.

KARIM (Freedom Support): Hi Rodrigo! Thanks for

waiting. I see you're roaming in France. How can I

help tonight?

RODRIGO: someone called my number on oct 19 around

3pm toronto time. my line was off. the usage page only

shows the voicemail number. is there any way to see

the original number that called me

KARIM (Freedom Support): I can't see the originating

number from my side, I'm sorry. But you can request

your call detail records from our back office. They

sometimes include the original caller info. I'll send

you the template.

The template arrives. Rodrigo fills it in, slowly, carefully, a man cleaning the most important numbers of his life.

Customer name: Rodrigo [REDACTED]

Account number: ••••••4471

Phone number: +1 (647) 555-0142

Date range: October 19, 2026

Time: approx. 20:00–22:00 Paris / 14:00–16:00 Toronto

Records requested: Incoming voice calls. Original

caller information, if available.

He reads it over. Sends it.

KARIM (Freedom Support): Sent! Processing time is

usually 5 business days.

RODRIGO: i fly home on friday

KARIM (Freedom Support): Ah.

KARIM (Freedom Support): I'll add a note asking them

to prioritize. Can't promise anything.

RODRIGO: thank you

KARIM (Freedom Support): Can I ask? You don't have

to answer.

RODRIGO: it's a girl

KARIM (Freedom Support): I figured. Nobody requests

call records at 2am for a pizza place. Good luck,

man.

Rodrigo closes the laptop.

Five business days.

LATER

He's on his back. The phone glows on his chest. He opens a browser. Types slowly:

hannah paper conservator hamburg

His thumb hovers over SEARCH.

He looks at the words a long time. Then he deletes them, letter by letter, until the box is empty.

She gave him a phone. Not an address. Not a last name. Not a door. She gave him the one thing she decided to give, and he lost it, and that does not make the rest of her his to go looking for.

He puts the phone face-down. Then face-up again. Then down.

THE IFS — A SEQUENCE

Rodrigo stares at the ceiling, and the evening replays itself in small alternatives, each one a branch that grows for a moment and is cut.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — NIGHT — (IMAGINED)

Hannah hands him her phone. Put yours. He types his number — and then, in this version, holds out his own phone. And yours. She types. He saves it. They both smile.

SNAP — back to the ceiling.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — NIGHT — (IMAGINED)

Hannah presses CALL — and in his pocket, the phone buzzes. He takes it out. Her number glows on the screen. He saves it as HANNAH (TWO H'S) and she laughs, and a full second later his father shouts QUANTO, and it doesn't matter anymore.

SNAP — the ceiling.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — NIGHT — (IMAGINED)

Walking downhill, his phone buzzes. A text. Hi it's Hannah from the restaurant. Your robot was very polite.

SNAP.

The ceiling. The beams. The silence.

There is another version, and it whispers too. The one where she was only being polite. Where she never called at all.

He knows that one is false. She told him. She held the phone up. I called you.

Whatever else is unknown, the attempt was real.

He closes his eyes.

INT. JULIEN AND XIMENA'S APARTMENT — RUE LEPIC — SAME NIGHT

Three hundred meters away. Up one street and around one corner.

A bigger apartment, full of plants and books and a guitar no one can play. The guest room is a study with a fold-out bed, a window on the street.

Hannah sits on the deep windowsill in an old T-shirt, knees up, phone on her knees. The street below is empty and wet.

Ximena appears in the doorway in a robe, holding two cups of tea, and hands her one.

XIMENA

Text him.

HANNAH

I called him.

XIMENA

It didn't go through.

HANNAH

He said it would arrive.

XIMENA

(in Spanish)

Los hombres dicen que muchas cosas van a llegar.

Men say a lot of things are going to arrive.

HANNAH

He has my number. Or he will. If he wants to call, he can call.

XIMENA

He doesn't have it. Your robot said so.

HANNAH

It wasn't my robot. It was his robot.

Ximena sits on the end of the fold-out bed.

XIMENA

You liked him.

Hannah looks out the window.

HANNAH

He asked if the hill was worth it.

XIMENA

He climbed it yesterday. Julien told you.

HANNAH

I know.

XIMENA

And?

HANNAH

And he asked anyway. With his whole face. Like it mattered what I answered.

A pause.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

Men who lie well don't lie like that.

Julien appears behind Ximena, in socks, eating cereal out of the box.

JULIEN

Six times. He said it six times.

XIMENA

Seven.

JULIEN

The bread doesn't count.

HANNAH

Goodnight, Julien.

JULIEN

His father is a legend. I want to be adopted.

HANNAH

Goodnight, Julien.

He goes. Ximena squeezes Hannah's foot and follows him.

Hannah looks at the phone. Opens Messages. Types:

Hi, it's Hannah from the restaurant. Your robot was very polite.

She looks at it.

She thinks about her grandmother, maybe, or about a train station, or about nothing; it is impossible to say. Whatever she thinks, she decides.

She deletes it. Letter by letter.

HANNAH

(in German, to the empty street)

Wenn er will, ruft er an.

If he wants to, he'll call.

She puts the phone face-down on the sill.

EXT. MONTMARTRE — NIGHT — HIGH ANGLE

The camera rises from Hannah's window, up over the wet roofs, over the chimneys and the crooked streets, and finds, three hundred meters away, a dark skylight in Rue Durantin where a phone glows faintly through the glass and goes out.

Two windows. One hill. Each phone face-down. Each person certain the next move belongs to the other.

Above them both, white and enormous and indifferent, the basilica floats on its hill in the floodlights.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — MORNING

Tuesday, October 20

Grey light through the skylight. The microwave clock says 7:02.

Rodrigo is sitting on the sofa bed exactly where we left him, only now the phone is plugged into the wall and his eyes look like two thumbprints.

INSERT — THE PHONE

Wi-Fi Calling

No new messages. No missed calls.

BACK TO SCENE

The bedroom door opens. Antônio emerges in his pajamas, the key still in the breast pocket, and looks at his son.

ANTÔNIO

You slept?

RODRIGO

Yes.

ANTÔNIO

Liar. You have your mother's face when you lie. Your whole forehead tells the truth.

He goes to the kitchenette and begins the sacred ritual of making coffee badly in a foreign machine.

LATER

Breakfast on the tiny table under the skylight. Croissants in a paper bag going translucent with butter. Clarice has a paper map of Paris spread out like a general staff.

CLARICE

Orsay this morning. Lunch near the river. Then the Marais, if your father's knees agree.

ANTÔNIO

My knees agree with everything. It's my back that is in the opposition.

Rodrigo stares at his phone.

CLARICE

Rodrigo. If you leave the Canadian line on outside, will it still work?

RODRIGO

It should. Sixteen dollars a day. I don't care.

ANTÔNIO

Sixteen dollars —

CLARICE

(not looking up)

Antônio.

ANTÔNIO

— is a very fair price for love. That's what I was going to say.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES — DAY

The family walks toward the metro. Rodrigo, phone in hand: Freedom line ON, eSIM data ON. Airplane mode OFF.

The top of the screen flickers.

INSERT — THE PHONE

Freedom ........ Searching...

eSIM ........... 4G

Then:

Freedom ........ Searching...

eSIM ........... No Service

BACK TO SCENE

RODRIGO

Come on.

The map on his screen freezes, a blue dot stuck in the middle of a building.

INT. ABBESSES METRO STATION — CONTINUOUS

The deepest station in Paris. A spiral staircase painted with murals winds down and down and down.

Clarice studies the paper map. Antônio studies the stairs.

ANTÔNIO

How many steps?

RODRIGO

I don't know.

ANTÔNIO

The phone doesn't know?

RODRIGO

The phone doesn't know anything right now.

INSERT — THE PHONE

Freedom ........ Searching...

eSIM ........... Searching...

FREEDOM MOBILE

You've been charged $16 for Roam Beyond today.

BACK TO SCENE

RODRIGO

It's charging me and it's not even working. It's fighting itself. Two lines, and it can't decide which one to be.

CLARICE

Like you.

He shoots her a look. She smiles over the map.

INT. METRO PLATFORM — LATER

A train screams in. Doors bang open. People pour out. Antônio, holding Clarice's hand, plunges into the wrong car with total confidence.

CLARICE

Antônio, this is the wrong direction!

ANTÔNIO

There's no wrong direction in Paris! Everything is beautiful!

The doors close. Through the glass, Antônio's face slowly understands.

INT. METRO CAR — MOVING — LATER

Rodrigo, Clarice, and Antônio, three stops in the wrong direction, standing in the swaying car. Rodrigo looks at the phone. Searching. Searching. The battery at 41%.

ANTÔNIO

How do we get back?

RODRIGO

I can't open the map.

CLARICE

The paper map works.

ANTÔNIO

I can't read the paper map.

CLARICE

Because your glasses —

ANTÔNIO

— are on the nightstand, yes, thank you, everyone knows where my glasses are except my face.

Rodrigo looks at the phone. The two lines. One of them is a road home. The other is a road to a woman who might call, or might not.

He knows what he has to do. He hates it.

He opens Settings. His thumb rests on the toggle.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese, quietly)

Só um pouquinho.

Just for a little while.

He switches the Freedom line OFF.

Instantly, the eSIM bars bloom to full. The map unfreezes. The blue dot leaps to their real position under Paris, three stops in the wrong direction.

INSERT — THE PHONE CLOCK

14:52

BACK TO SCENE

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

I'll turn it back on every time there's Wi-

Fi. Every café. Every museum. I'll ask every waiter in Paris for the password.

CLARICE

That's a lot of waiters.

RODRIGO

I'll ask them all.

SERIES OF SHOTS — WI-FI

— A café counter. Rodrigo, breathless:

RODRIGO

Le code wifi, s'il vous plaît?

The BARMAN points at a chalkboard: PAS DE WIFI. PARLEZ-VOUS. (No Wi-Fi. Talk to each other.)

— A bakery. A WOMAN behind the counter laughs at him and hands him a baguette instead.

— A bench outside a tabac. Rodrigo holds his phone toward the window of the building next door, chasing a network called FREEBOX_8A2C, password-

protected.

— Antônio and Clarice, watching him from a bench, sharing a crêpe.

ANTÔNIO

He looks like your cousin when he was trying to get TV signal on the farm.

CLARICE

That was you.

ANTÔNIO

It was a long time ago.

INT. BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE — SITE RICHELIEU — CONSERVATION WORKSHOP — SAME DAY

Silence of a different kind. High windows. Long tables under daylight lamps. Twelve conservators in white coats bent over twelve wounded documents, as quiet as surgeons.

Hannah sits at a lightbox. On it, a letter from 1794, torn almost in half along a fold, its ink the brown of dried tea.

Beside her, MADAME BÉRANGER (60s), French, steel-grey hair in a knot, magnifying visor pushed up on her forehead, watches her work.

Hannah lays a strip of Japanese tissue, thin as breath, across the tear. Brushes wheat-starch paste through it with a brush of three hairs. The tissue darkens, becomes nearly invisible, holds.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in French)

Pas trop. Il faut qu'on la voie encore.

Not too much. We must still be able to see it.

HANNAH

(in French, with a German accent)

Je sais. Une bonne réparation se voit.

I know. A good repair can be seen.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in French)

Et?

And?

HANNAH

(in French)

Et se défait.

And can be undone.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in English, now, for emphasis)

Never hide the tear. And never make a repair that can't be taken back. We are not here to make things look like nothing happened. Something happened. We are here so it can be read.

Hannah's brush hesitates above the paper. A tiny tremor.

MADAME BÉRANGER (CONT'D)

You are somewhere else today, Hannah.

HANNAH

I'm here.

MADAME BÉRANGER

Your hands are here.

Hannah sets the brush down.

HANNAH

Can I take my break now?

EXT. JARDIN DU PALAIS-ROYAL — CONTINUOUS

The long gravel garden behind the library, rows of clipped lime trees turning gold, an old fountain spraying into a stone basin. Office workers on the green iron chairs, faces tilted at a weak October sun.

Hannah walks to a chair at the fountain's edge and sits with her coat over her white workshop jacket.

Her phone buzzes.

XIMENA: ¿Ya le llamaste?

She looks at the message for a long time.

HANNAH: no

XIMENA: Llámale. O me muero.

XIMENA: (Call him. Or I'll die.)

XIMENA: Esto no es una amenaza. Es medicina.

Hannah laughs despite herself. Opens her contacts. Rodrigo.

She looks up at the trees. Takes a breath that is almost a decision and almost not.

She presses call.

INSERT — HANNAH'S PHONE

Calling Rodrigo...

15:07

INT. MUSÉE D'ORSAY — FIFTH FLOOR — THE GREAT CLOCK — SAME MOMENT

A cathedral of iron and glass that was once a railway station. On the top floor, behind an enormous clock face of clear glass, visitors stand in silhouette against the city.

Through the clock's transparent numerals, across the river, across the roofs, far away on its hill: the white domes of the Sacré-Cœur.

Rodrigo stands behind the clock, very close to the glass, a small dark figure inside the face of time. He is looking at the hill.

His phone is in his hand. On its screen, the museum's Wi-Fi login page, a long form demanding his email, his country, his consent.

Please accept the terms and conditions.

He scrolls.

Behind him, through the glass, the great black minute hand of the clock moves forward one notch. Clunk.

INTERCUT — PALAIS-ROYAL / ORSAY

Hannah, phone at her ear. The purr. The voice.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.)

(filtered)

The Freedom Mobile customer you are calling is not available —

Rodrigo, behind the clock, typing his email address letter by letter with a careful thumb.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

— Le client de Freedom Mobile que vous tentez de joindre n'est pas disponible —

Hannah closes her eyes. Doesn't hang up.

Rodrigo, behind the clock, scrolling to the bottom of thirty-one paragraphs of terms.

RECORDED VOICE (V.O.) (CONT'D)

— The mailbox of the customer you are calling has not been set up. La boîte vocale du client —

Hannah listens to the whole thing. English, then French. She listens to it the way you listen to a train announcement when you already know the train has been cancelled.

At the very end: a long electronic tone. Then silence. She lowers the phone.

Rodrigo taps ACCEPT.

INSERT — RODRIGO'S PHONE

Connecting...

BACK TO HANNAH

She looks at the screen.

Rodrigo

0:31

She opens the contact. Taps EDIT. Her thumb moves to the end of his name.

She adds a question mark.

Rodrigo?

She saves it. Puts the phone in her coat pocket.

HANNAH

(in German, quietly)

Na gut.

Well. Fine.

She sits a moment longer by the fountain, watching the water fall into the stone and leave no mark on it. Then she stands and goes back to work.

BACK TO RODRIGO

INSERT — RODRIGO'S PHONE

Connected: ORSAY_VISITEURS

15:09

He opens Settings. Flicks Wi-Fi Calling. Flicks Freedom ON. The little word appears: Wi-Fi.

Nothing comes. Nothing ever comes from the minutes that have already passed.

He doesn't know. He will never know what those two minutes held.

He looks out through the clock face at the far white hill, unaware that someone has just stopped calling, unaware that the one thing he is waiting for has come and gone like a train through a station where he stood on the wrong platform.

Behind him, the minute hand moves again. Clunk.

Antônio appears at his shoulder, out of breath from the stairs, and looks through the clock with him.

ANTÔNIO

Is that your hill?

RODRIGO

That's the hill.

ANTÔNIO

From here it looks small.

RODRIGO

Everything looks small from far away, Dad.

ANTÔNIO

No. Not everything.

They stand together inside the clock.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — NIGHT

The window over the courtyard is open. Rodrigo sits on the sill with his legs inside and his back to the cold. Phone on Wi-Fi. Nothing.

Antônio comes out of the bedroom in his pajamas with two small glasses and a bottle of cachaça he swore he wasn't bringing. He climbs, with great complaint, onto the other end of the sill.

ANTÔNIO

Don't tell Clarice.

RODRIGO

She's watching us from the bed.

CLARICE (O.S.)

I'm asleep.

Antônio pours. They drink. Antônio makes a face like the cachaça has personally betrayed him.

ANTÔNIO

Nothing?

RODRIGO

Nothing.

A long pause. The courtyard below. Someone's television through a wall. A woman laughing in another window.

ANTÔNIO

Did I ever tell you how I met your mother?

RODRIGO

At a party.

ANTÔNIO

That's what we told people. It was a bakery. Padaria São Jorge, on Rua Pernambuco. My first route. Every morning at seven I passed with the bag. And every morning at seven, there she was, buying bread. Two pão francês and a coffee, standing at the counter, reading a book.

RODRIGO

You never told me that.

ANTÔNIO

You never needed it before.

He refills.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

I didn't say anything. Not one word. I was too afraid. So the next day I came back at seven. And the next day. Eleven days. I bought so much bread, my mother thought I had a second family.

Rodrigo laughs.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

On the twelfth day, she closed her book, she turned around, and she said: "Are you going to buy bread, or are you going to say something?"

RODRIGO

What did you say?

ANTÔNIO

I said, "Bread."

Rodrigo laughs harder. Antônio is pleased with this.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

And she laughed, like you, just like this, like an idiot, and that was it. The rest was easy. The first word is the only heavy one.

RODRIGO

You? Shy?

ANTÔNIO

Why do you think I talk so loud? Shy men talk loud. We put the volume up so nobody can hear how scared we are.

Rodrigo looks at his father. Really looks.

RODRIGO

I didn't know that.

ANTÔNIO

Now you know. Your stubbornness came from her. Your shyness came from me. I apologize for that one. It's not a good inheritance. It doesn't even come with land.

He drinks.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Go back.

RODRIGO

Where?

ANTÔNIO

The restaurant. Same hour. Same table. The bakery method. You can't find the girl? Go back where the girl was.

RODRIGO

She won't be there, Pai. It was one dinner. They were celebrating something.

ANTÔNIO

Maybe she won't. Maybe she will. The bakery doesn't care. You go because it's seven o'clock.

Rodrigo turns the little glass in his hand, the way Hannah turned her wine glass by its stem.

RODRIGO

Tomorrow. Eight o'clock.

ANTÔNIO

Good.

CLARICE (O.S.)

And tomorrow is Versailles. All day. Your father will be dead by six.

ANTÔNIO

I will be alive by six. Asleep, but alive.

He pats his pajama pocket. The key.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

And the key sleeps with me.

RODRIGO

Then how do I get back in?

ANTÔNIO

You ring. I wake up. I open. I go back to sleep. I've done it for thirty-two years.

RODRIGO

I'm not going to wake you at midnight on your vacation.

ANTÔNIO

Then make another key.

He says it as a joke. Rodrigo doesn't hear it as one.

INT. CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES — HALL OF MIRRORS — DAY

Wednesday, October 21

Gold. Chandeliers. Three hundred and fifty-seven mirrors. A river of tourists flowing under the painted ceiling, every one of them holding up a phone.

Antônio walks with his hands behind his back like a king inspecting his own palace.

ANTÔNIO

This is what you can do with a lot of wine money.

Rodrigo stands in front of one tall mirror, checking his phone.

In the mirror, he is multiplied — reflection inside reflection, a corridor of Rodrigos receding into gold, a hundred men holding a hundred phones, and every screen empty.

Clarice appears beside him in the glass. A hundred Clarices.

CLARICE

The king built this so he could look at himself forever.

RODRIGO

He must have been very lonely.

CLARICE

Everyone who looks at a mirror too long is lonely. Put the phone away for one room. It's a famous room.

He puts the phone away. For one room.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES — LATE AFTERNOON

The same street as the first scene, the light going gold again, two days later.

Antônio and Clarice, destroyed by Versailles, shuffle toward the apartment. Rodrigo walks beside them, scanning shopfronts.

He stops at a narrow door.

A tiny shop, older than everything around it. A painted sign: CORDONNERIE — CLÉS MINUTE — SERRURERIE. In the window, resoled shoes, a stuffed owl wearing a tiny key on a chain, and a hand-lettered card: On fait les clés depuis 1971. (Making keys since 1971.)

RODRIGO

Pai. The key.

ANTÔNIO

What key?

RODRIGO

The one that sleeps with you.

Antônio understands. A slow grin spreads over his tired face. He fishes the key with the wooden fob out of his coat — DURANTIN 4G — and holds it up between two fingers like evidence.

ANTÔNIO

I was joking.

RODRIGO

I wasn't.

INT. CORDONNERIE — CONTINUOUS

A cave of brass and leather. A single bulb. A wall of blank keys hanging on hooks, hundreds of them, silver and gold, arranged like the pipes of an organ. A radio on a shelf plays an old chanson, crackling.

The three of them barely fit. Antônio has to stand sideways between a shoe-

stretcher and a rack of laces.

Behind the counter, MONSIEUR PELLETIER (78), a small man in a grey work coat, fingertips black with brass dust, half-moon glasses, the face of a man who has been listening to locks for fifty years.

RODRIGO

Bonjour. Une... copie? S'il vous plaît.

He holds up the key. Pelletier takes it. Turns it in the light. Reads its teeth like a palm.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

Une clé d'appartement. Rue Durantin?

An apartment key. Rue Durantin?

RODRIGO

(surprised)

Oui.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

J'ai fait la serrure. En quatre-vingt-dix-

huit.

I made the lock. In ninety-eight.

He selects a blank from the wall without looking, the way a pianist finds a note in the dark. Clamps the original and the blank side by side in an old machine. Switches it on.

The cutting wheel shrieks. Brass sparks fly, small and gold, a tiny fireworks show in the dark shop. Clarice steps back. Antônio leans in, fascinated, a postman's respect for any man who makes things that open doors.

Rodrigo's eye wanders. On a pegboard by the counter hang padlocks — small brass ones, heavy steel ones, a few heart-shaped ones in red that look embarrassed to be there.

Pelletier switches the machine off. Blows the dust from the new key. Files a burr. Tests it in the air with a little twist of the wrist, as if the lock were there.

He lays it on the counter. Bright, sharp, nameless. No fob.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

(in French)

Vingt-quatre euros.

Twenty-four euros.

A beat.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

Quanto?

How much?

RODRIGO

Twenty-four.

Antônio stares at the key. Then at Rodrigo. Then at the key. And then he laughs — not the angry laugh of the Pomerol, but a big, helpless, delighted laugh that fills the tiny shop and makes the stuffed owl in the window seem to blink.

ANTÔNIO

Twenty-four euros! For a key! We leave on Friday! It's a key for two days!

CLARICE

Antônio —

ANTÔNIO

Twelve euros a day to open a door! In Minas, with twenty-four euros, I buy three cows!

RODRIGO

You've never bought a cow in your life.

ANTÔNIO

Three! With the option of a fourth!

Pelletier watches this without understanding a word of it, and smiles anyway, because laughter is the same in every language and he has heard a lot of it in fifty years.

Rodrigo counts out the euros onto the counter. Picks up the new key. It is still warm from the cutting.

RODRIGO

Then it'll be my souvenir.

ANTÔNIO

A souvenir!

RODRIGO

My memory of France. Some people buy a little Eiffel Tower. I bought a key to an apartment I'm leaving on Friday.

ANTÔNIO

(wiping his eyes)

The most expensive souvenir in Paris. After the Pomerol.

Rodrigo slips it into his pocket. He means it as a joke.

He has no idea yet.

Pelletier looks at Rodrigo over his half-moon glasses, and switches to a slow, careful English.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

You come back late, yes? To not wake somebody.

RODRIGO

How do you know?

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

A man copies a key in a holiday apartment for two reasons. He is coming back late. Or he is coming back.

He nods toward Rodrigo's pocket.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

(in French)

Une clé, c'est une promesse de retour.

A key is a promise to return.

Rodrigo's eye drifts again to the padlocks.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

(not looking up, in French)

Pas pour les ponts, hein. La mairie les coupe.

Not for the bridges, eh. The city cuts them off.

RODRIGO

No — no. Just looking.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

Tout le monde regarde.

Everybody looks.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES — CONTINUOUS

The bell over the shop door jingles behind them. Antônio is still laughing, one hand on Clarice's shoulder for support.

ANTÔNIO

Twenty-four euros.

CLARICE

Leave him alone. It's romantic.

ANTÔNIO

It's a key. To our apartment. Where I live. The romance is with me.

Rodrigo walks ahead of them with his hand in his pocket, closed around it.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — NIGHT

20:00. The same green paint, the same candles, the same mirror wall showing everyone everything.

Rodrigo enters alone. The little bell over the door rings.

Maurice, at the bar polishing a glass, looks up. A beat of recognition. His face does not move, but somewhere behind it, a door closes.

MAURICE

(in French)

Ah. Le Brésilien.

Ah. The Brazilian.

RODRIGO

Hello. Bonsoir.

MAURICE

(in English)

The Pomerol.

RODRIGO

The Pomerol. Yes. Sorry about that.

MAURICE

Your father was very —

He searches for the word.

RODRIGO

Loud.

MAURICE

Convinced.

Rodrigo glances at the room. Table seven, beside the mirror, by the stool, is empty. A RESERVED card sits on it.

RODRIGO

Can I sit there? Table six?

Maurice regards him for a long moment. Then he leads him to the little two-top beside the empty table and pulls out the chair — the chair, not the stool — with a gesture that is almost courtesy.

LATER

Rodrigo sits alone. A bowl of soup he hasn't touched. Table seven is still empty. Every time the bell above the door rings, he looks up.

The bell rings. A couple in raincoats.

The bell rings. Three Americans.

The bell rings. A man with a dog.

He looks at the mirror. In it, table seven is empty, and he is alone, and the room is full.

Maurice comes to clear the soup. Hesitates.

MAURICE

(in English)

You are waiting.

RODRIGO

Is it that obvious?

MAURICE

Monsieur, I have been a waiter for twenty-six years. Everybody in this room is eating. You are waiting.

Rodrigo takes a breath. The first word is the heavy one.

RODRIGO

On Monday. The table next to us. Table seven. There was a woman. Red hair. German. With a French man and a Mexican woman.

MAURICE

I know who you mean.

RODRIGO

Did they — do you know their names? Did they reserve? Is there a phone number?

Maurice's face closes like a shutter on a shop.

MAURICE

(in French)

Monsieur. Je ne peux pas.

Sir. I cannot.

RODRIGO

I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'd never — I just thought —

MAURICE

This is a restaurant. Not a post office.

RODRIGO

(a sad laugh)

My father was a postman. Thirty-five years.

Something in Maurice shifts. Barely.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

She gave me her phone and I typed my number and she called me. And my phone was off. My Canadian line. I didn't know. She called, and it went nowhere. And she must think — I don't know what she thinks. That I gave her a fake number. That I'm a liar. And I'm leaving on Friday.

Maurice says nothing.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Could I just — leave a note? If she ever comes back? You don't have to do anything. You don't have to give me anything. Just — if she comes in, you give her the note. That's all.

Maurice looks at the empty table seven for a long time.

MAURICE

Write.

He places a pen beside Rodrigo's plate and leaves.

INSERT — A SHEET FROM A WAITER'S ORDER PAD

Rodrigo's handwriting. Careful. Capital letters, like a man writing to a stranger he is afraid of misreading him.

HANNAH —

(red hair. Hamburg. table 7. Monday.)

My line was off. I never got your call.

I'm so sorry. I didn't lie to you. Not about the number.

RODRIGO +1 (647) 555-0142

(It works now. I promise.)

BACK TO SCENE

He folds it once. Then unfolds it and adds, at the bottom:

P.S. I lied about the hill.

He folds it again.

LATER

Maurice reappears with a glass of red wine. Sets it down.

RODRIGO

I didn't order this.

MAURICE

The Pomerol.

RODRIGO

I can't — that's a hundred and forty-eight euros —

MAURICE

(in French)

Un verre. Ce soir. C'est la bouteille d'hier, elle meurt demain.

One glass. Tonight. It's yesterday's bottle. It dies tomorrow.

RODRIGO

How much?

MAURICE

Do not ask. Your father would shout.

He takes the folded note from the table. Turns it over in his long fingers.

MAURICE (CONT'D)

I will keep it.

He walks to the old brass cash register at the end of the bar. Behind it, taped to the mirror, are the treasures of twenty-six years: a yellowed photograph of a cat, a 1987 hundred-franc note, a postcard from Lisbon, a child's drawing of a waiter with a very long face.

Maurice tapes the note among them. Smooths it flat with his thumb.

Rodrigo watches. Then, finally, he lifts the Pomerol and drinks.

LATER — 23:30

Chairs on tables. The candles out except one. Table seven, empty all night, the RESERVED card gone.

Rodrigo is the last customer. He stands, puts on his coat.

RODRIGO

Thank you. For this.

MAURICE

(in French)

Bonne chance, monsieur.

Good luck, sir.

The bell rings as he goes.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — NIGHT

Rodrigo walks downhill alone, hands in his pockets. In the right pocket, his fingers close around the new key, its teeth still sharp.

INT. JULIEN AND XIMENA'S APARTMENT — SAME NIGHT — EARLIER

Dinner's ruins on the table. Candle stubs. An empty bottle of mezcal that was nearly full at the start.

Ximena has her laptop open.

XIMENA

Rodrigo. Toronto. Brazilian. Painter.

She hits enter. Scrolls.

XIMENA (CONT'D)

A dentist. A soccer player. A man who sells pools in Mississauga.

JULIEN

Try "scary faces."

XIMENA

Rodrigo Toronto scary faces painter.

She scrolls.

XIMENA (CONT'D)

A Halloween store.

JULIEN

He said he deleted everything.

XIMENA

A man without Instagram is either a criminal or a saint.

JULIEN

Or a Brazilian with a bad phone plan.

Hannah sits on the floor with her back against the sofa, holding a glass she hasn't drunk.

HANNAH

Stop.

XIMENA

We're helping.

HANNAH

You're searching for a man who doesn't want to be found.

JULIEN

Or a man who doesn't know he's lost.

HANNAH

I called twice. Twice. The robot. Both times. Nothing.

JULIEN

(gently, teasing)

Maybe he gave you a fake number. In Brazil, it's a national sport. Football, carnival, fake numbers.

XIMENA

Julien.

JULIEN

I'm joking.

HANNAH

He didn't seem like a sportsman.

But it lands. They can see it land.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

It was a fun evening for him. The German in Paris. The father, the wine, the story. It's a good story. He tells it in Toronto. "And then I gave her my number, and she believed it."

XIMENA

You don't believe that.

HANNAH

I don't know what I believe. That's the problem with only having one evening. You can't check it against anything.

She sets the glass down. Stands.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I need air.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — NIGHT — 23:50

Hannah walks uphill alone in her long coat, hair loose. The street is wet and empty. A single scooter, far away.

She passes a dark green restaurant. CHEZ AURÈLE. Chairs on the tables. One candle still burning at the back of the room where Maurice, a silhouette, counts the till.

She does not look in.

But the camera does.

Through the dark glass, past the chairs, past the bar: the old brass cash register, the mirror behind it, the yellowed cat, the hundred-franc note, the postcard from Lisbon — and a folded sheet from an order pad, taped flat, with HANNAH written across the top in capital letters.

Hannah's reflection passes over it in the window. For one moment her own face lies exactly across her own name.

Then she is gone, up the hill.

The candle at the back goes out.

EXT. RUE DURANTIN — APARTMENT BUILDING — SAME MOMENT

Three streets away. Rodrigo taps the digicode. Climbs the four flights in the dark without touching the timer light.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — CONTINUOUS

The new key slides into the lock. It turns — smooth, perfect, Pelletier's work. The door opens without a sound.

Through the bedroom door, Antônio's snoring, deep and steady as a ship's engine.

Rodrigo smiles in the dark. He did not wake him. He sits on the edge of the sofa bed and holds the key in his open palm, looking at it in the light from the courtyard.

A key. A promise to return.

EXT. SACRÉ-CŒUR — THE STEPS — NIGHT — SAME MOMENT

Hannah has climbed all the way. She sits alone on the great stone steps beneath the white basilica, near the top, knees up, coat wrapped around them.

Below her: all of Paris, spread out to the horizon in a sea of small gold lights. The view.

The view he said he'd never seen.

She takes out her phone. Opens the contact.

Rodrigo?

Her thumb rests on the call button. She doesn't press it.

She looks out at the city. Somewhere down there, among ten million lights, one of them is his. She doesn't know which. She doesn't know he is three streets away.

HANNAH

(in German, to the city)

Du hast gesagt, du warst nie hier.

You said you had never been here.

A small sad smile.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

Lügner.

Liar.

She puts the phone away and sits with the view, alone, until she's cold.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — DAWN

Thursday, October 22

Blue light. The skylight is a square of slate. On the floor by the sofa bed, Rodrigo's suitcase lies open, half-packed, a shirt folded over its edge like a flag at half-mast.

Rodrigo is asleep, finally, one arm over his eyes, still in yesterday's shirt. The phone lies on the pillow beside his head, plugged in, on Wi-Fi.

It buzzes once. A short, ordinary buzz. An email.

He doesn't wake.

It buzzes again — a reminder.

His eyes open. He fumbles for it. Squints.

INSERT — THE PHONE

06:12

Freedom Mobile Records

RE: Request for Call Detail Records — Ticket #4471-CDR

BACK TO SCENE

He sits straight up so fast the sofa bed's springs shriek.

He opens it. His hands are not steady.

INSERT — THE EMAIL

Dear Rodrigo,

Please find below the call detail records for your

line, +1 (647) 555-0142, for the requested period.

DATE TIME (ET) TYPE FROM DUR.

Oct 19 15:09 Incoming +49 15• •••• 1873 0:00 (VM fwd)

Oct 20 09:07 Incoming +49 15• •••• 1873 0:00 (VM fwd)

The camera never lets us read the number whole. It is hers, not ours.

BACK TO SCENE

He reads it. Reads it again.

Two lines.

Two calls.

Not one. Two. The second on Tuesday. 09:07 in Toronto. 15:07 in Paris.

He knows exactly where he was at 15:07 on Tuesday. He was standing inside a clock.

He puts his hand over his mouth.

INSERT — THE EMAIL, CONTINUED

Please note this request was processed in 3 business

days rather than the standard 5. One of our support

agents flagged it as time-sensitive.

Regards,

Danielle O.

Records & Compliance, Toronto

P.S. Karim says hi. We all hope she picks up.

BACK TO SCENE

Rodrigo laughs — a short, wet, astonished sound — and then his eyes fill, and he presses the heel of his hand against them, a grown man crying at 6 a.m. over a spreadsheet sent by a stranger in a back office in Toronto.

Two strangers. Karim. Danielle. People he will never meet, in fluorescent rooms on the other side of the ocean, who moved his request to the top of a pile.

He looks at the number.

The bedroom door is closed. His father snores. The clock on the microwave says 6:14.

He stands. Barefoot. Phone in hand. Goes to the door — then remembers his parents — and takes the bright twenty-four-euro key from his jacket so the lock won't clank when he lets himself back in.

He slips out.

INT. STAIRWELL — CONTINUOUS

He sits on the wooden stairs between the third and fourth floors, in the dark. The timer light is off. He doesn't turn it on.

The phone lights his face.

He taps the number. His thumb hovers over CALL.

RODRIGO

(in Portuguese, a whisper)

Ela vai estar dormindo.

She's going to be asleep.

He looks at it.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

(in Portuguese)

Liga, Rodrigo.

Call, Rodrigo.

He presses it.

The phone rings. Not a purr this time. A real ring. A German ring, long and flat.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

INT. JULIEN AND XIMENA'S APARTMENT — GUEST ROOM — CONTINUOUS

Dark. Hannah asleep on the fold-out bed, face in the pillow, red hair everywhere.

On the floor beside her, the phone lights up and buzzes against the wooden boards.

+1 (647) 555-0142

She gropes for it without lifting her head. Holds it against her ear upside down. Rights it.

HANNAH

(in German, thick with sleep)

Ja?

Yes?

INTERCUT — STAIRWELL / GUEST ROOM

RODRIGO

Hannah?

A silence on the line. The kind of silence that has a shape.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

It's Rodrigo. From the restaurant. Monday. The — the hill.

Hannah opens her eyes.

She takes the phone from her ear and looks at the screen — the Canadian number she has called twice into nothing — and puts it back.

HANNAH

(in English, carefully)

Rodrigo.

RODRIGO

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I know it's six in the morning, I'm sorry, I couldn't wait, please let me explain, please just let me —

HANNAH

Rodrigo —

RODRIGO

— my line was off. My Canadian line. The number I gave you. I turned it off at the airport so I wouldn't pay roaming and I forgot, I completely forgot, and I was using another chip, a travel chip, for data, and when you called me at the restaurant it didn't ring because it couldn't ring because the phone didn't exist —

He takes a breath like a swimmer.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

— and then my father shouted about the wine, and then you said you called, and I said it would come through, which was the stupidest sentence I've ever said in my life, and I walked out with my family and then halfway down the street I realized —

Hannah is sitting up now. One hand over her mouth.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

— and I turned it on and Freedom welcomed me to France and charged me sixteen dollars, and nothing came, and I asked an AI for a percentage, and I called my own voicemail and I heard the robot, the same robot you heard, and I found a number in my usage that was just the voicemail, and I talked to a man called Karim at two in the morning, and I sent a form to the back office, and they said five business days, and I leave tomorrow — and then on Tuesday I had to turn the line off again because the phone was fighting with itself and we were lost in the metro, and I swear I turned it back on in every café in Paris but there was no Wi-Fi anywhere, there's a café that says talk to each other —

HANNAH

(muffled, behind her hand)

Rodrigo.

RODRIGO

— and yesterday I went back to the restaurant and sat at the table next to yours all night like an idiot, and the waiter gave me the Pomerol, and then this morning, ten minutes ago, the back office sent me your number. They did it in three days. A woman called Danielle. She wrote a P.S.

A pause.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

And I saw you called twice. On Tuesday too. At 15:07. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Hannah. I didn't lie to you. I would never give you a fake —

And then he hears it.

She's laughing.

Not politely. Not a little. Hannah is laughing the late, total laugh, bent over her own knees on a fold-out bed in the dark, laughing so hard she has to hold the phone away from her face.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

...Hannah?

HANNAH

(laughing, wiping her eyes)

You — called the phone company.

RODRIGO

I requested the records.

HANNAH

You requested the records.

RODRIGO

It was the only —

HANNAH

That is the most German thing a Brazilian has ever done.

He starts laughing too. On the dark stairs. Helplessly. A door on the third floor opens a crack and an old man in a hairnet glares up at him, and Rodrigo waves sorry, sorry, and keeps laughing with his hand over his mouth.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

(catching her breath)

I thought you gave me a fake number.

RODRIGO

I know.

HANNAH

I thought, it was a fun evening for him. The German. The father. A good story for Brazil. "And then I gave her a number and she believed it." Julien said in Brazil it's a sport.

RODRIGO

Julien is a terrible person.

HANNAH

Julien is a terrible person.

RODRIGO

I would never.

HANNAH

I know.

RODRIGO

How do you know?

HANNAH

(a beat)

Because I heard the robot twice. A man who gives a fake number doesn't have a robot. He has a pizza place, or a stranger, or nothing. You had a robot that said your name was not available, in two languages. Only a real person can be that unavailable.

He laughs again.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

And I changed your name.

RODRIGO

To what?

HANNAH

Rodrigo, with a question mark.

RODRIGO

That's fair.

HANNAH

It was very fair.

A silence. A good one now. On the third floor, the man in the hairnet closes his door.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

When do you leave?

RODRIGO

Tomorrow. Early. Seven o'clock flight.

HANNAH

Tomorrow.

RODRIGO

Yes.

HANNAH

So. Today.

RODRIGO

Today.

HANNAH

I have the workshop. Twelve conservators and the glue.

RODRIGO

Of course. I understand. I just wanted you to know —

HANNAH

I've never skipped anything in my life. Not one class. Not one day. When I had pneumonia I took the train to the archive with a fever of thirty-nine and fixed a map of Lübeck.

RODRIGO

...Is that a no?

She looks at the window. Grey light. A pigeon on the sill, offended by something.

HANNAH

Where?

He closes his eyes, smiling, on the dark stairs.

RODRIGO

Well. I heard there's a hill. With a church on top. White. People say the view is worth it. I've never been.

A long pause on the line.

HANNAH

(very dry)

I heard that too.

They both know. They both know the other knows.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

Two o'clock. At the bottom. By the carousel.

RODRIGO

Two o'clock.

HANNAH

I'll be the one who's on time.

RODRIGO

I'll be the one who's already there.

HANNAH

Rodrigo?

RODRIGO

Yes?

HANNAH

Is your line on?

RODRIGO

My line will never be off again for the rest of my life.

HANNAH

Good.

She hangs up. Sits there in the half-dark. Opens his contact.

Rodrigo?

She taps EDIT. Her thumb goes to the question mark.

And stops. Not yet.

She saves it as it is, and falls back onto the pillow, and stares at the ceiling with a face that cannot decide whether it is about to laugh or cry, and settles on both.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

(in German, to the ceiling)

Die Akten. Er hat die Akten angefordert.

The records. He requested the records.

INT. STAIRWELL — CONTINUOUS

Rodrigo sits on the stairs in the dark, phone pressed to his chest.

The timer light clicks on above him.

He looks up. His father and Clarice are standing on the landing above in their pajamas. Antônio has his finger on the light switch. They have clearly been there for some time.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

E aí?

So?

Rodrigo can't speak. He holds up two fingers.

CLARICE

Two o'clock?

He nods.

Antônio punches the air so hard his pajama pocket flaps open and the original key falls out and bounces down the stairs, clank, clank, clank, past Rodrigo, and lands on the landing below.

Nobody picks it up for a while. They're all laughing.

INT. BNF RICHELIEU — CONSERVATION WORKSHOP — MORNING

Madame Béranger answers her phone at the lightbox, magnifying visor down.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in French)

Oui?

INTERCUT — HANNAH, ON THE WINDOWSILL, DRESSED, COAT ON, HAIR WET

HANNAH

(in French)

Madame. C'est Hannah. Je suis... malade.

Madame. It's Hannah. I am... sick.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in French)

Malade de quoi?

Sick with what?

Hannah opens her mouth. Closes it.

A long pause on the line. Béranger slowly pushes up her visor.

MADAME BÉRANGER (CONT'D)

(in French)

Ah. Celle-là.

Ah. That one.

HANNAH

(in French)

Oui.

MADAME BÉRANGER

(in French)

Allez-y. La colle attendra.

Go. The glue will wait.

EXT. SQUARE LOUISE-MICHEL — THE CARROUSEL — DAY

The foot of the hill. Above, tier after tier of lawns and stairways rise toward the white basilica, which sits at the top like a cloud that decided to stay.

At the bottom: an old double-decker carousel, painted horses rising and falling to an organ waltz, lights blinking in the daylight. A few children. A bored attendant.

Rodrigo stands beside it. Clean shirt. The good coat. He has been here a long time. He checks his phone.

13:41

He checks the line.

Freedom Mobile ........ On

He checks it again.

LATER

13:58

He's walked around the carousel four times. The attendant is starting to watch him with professional suspicion.

13:59

Above them, high on the hill, the great bell of the basilica begins to toll the hour. Deep, slow, bronze.

On the first stroke of two —

Hannah comes around the corner of the square.

Long dark coat. Red hair loose in the wind. A scarf the blue of her eyes. She is walking quickly, then sees him, and slows, and he sees her slow, and something in both of them recognizes the other's nervousness and is relieved by it.

The bell strikes two. She stops in front of him.

HANNAH

On time.

RODRIGO

Exactly on time.

HANNAH

You?

RODRIGO

Forty minutes early.

HANNAH

That's very un-Brazilian.

RODRIGO

I've been Canadian for six years. It's spreading.

They stand there. Without the table, without the family, without the friends and the father and the wine, they are suddenly just two people in the open air, and neither knows what to do with their hands.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Hi.

HANNAH

Hi.

A beat. Then she takes out her phone. Turns the screen toward him.

Rodrigo?

He looks at it.

RODRIGO

Ouch.

HANNAH

I told you.

She turns the phone back. Taps EDIT. And in front of him, deliberately, with one finger, she deletes the question mark.

Rodrigo

She saves it. Puts the phone away.

It is a small thing. It is the biggest thing anyone has done for him in a long time.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

So. The hill.

RODRIGO

The hill.

HANNAH

There's a funicular.

She points to it: a little glass cabin sliding up its rail on the side of the slope.

RODRIGO

No. I want to walk. It's my first time. I want the full experience.

HANNAH

(the driest voice in Europe)

Of course. Your first time.

EXT. SACRÉ-CŒUR — THE GREAT STAIRS — CONTINUOUS

Two hundred and twenty steps, give or take. They climb.

Around them: tourists, a man selling bracelets, a busker murdering a guitar, couples taking photos, a schoolgroup in matching orange caps.

HANNAH

Can I tell you something?

RODRIGO

Is it bad?

HANNAH

It's very funny.

RODRIGO

For who?

HANNAH

For me.

She takes out her phone again. Opens WhatsApp. Scrolls up — far up — to Monday night. Hands it to him.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

Julien. Under the table. All night.

He reads. We see it over his shoulder.

INSERT — WHATSAPP — FROM JULIEN TO HANNAH — MONDAY

JULIEN: the guy at the next table thinks you are beautiful

JULIEN: he told his father

JULIEN: he told his father again

JULIEN: his father says go now

JULIEN: the stepmother says he has been saying this for 40 min

JULIEN: she says he said it to the bread

JULIEN: his plan is to ask you if the sacré-coeur is worth it

JULIEN: he climbed it yesterday at 6am and sent them 41 photos

JULIEN: "she doesn't need to know that"

JULIEN: the father says a small lie is the door and the truth comes in after

JULIEN: I love this man

JULIEN: (the father)

JULIEN: the son also ok

JULIEN: he gave a drawing to a girl's MOTHER when he was 9

JULIEN: he is going to the toilet to be brave

JULIEN: !!!! he's coming

BACK TO SCENE

Rodrigo stops climbing. Stands on the stairs with the phone in both hands. People flow around him like water around a stone.

RODRIGO

Oh, no.

HANNAH

Yes.

RODRIGO

Everything?

HANNAH

Everything.

RODRIGO

The bread?

HANNAH

The bread.

RODRIGO

The drawing?

HANNAH

I want to see the drawing. I think about it all the time. The mother on the refrigerator.

RODRIGO

(covering his face)

I'm going to walk down these stairs and go to the airport.

HANNAH

You can't. Your flight is tomorrow.

RODRIGO

I'll wait there.

He hands the phone back. She takes it, delighted.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

So when I came to your table —

HANNAH

I knew you would ask about the hill. I knew you had climbed the hill. I knew you went to the bathroom to be brave.

RODRIGO

And you let me ask anyway.

HANNAH

Yes.

RODRIGO

Why?

They climb a few steps. She considers the question as if it deserves an exact answer, because to her, questions do.

HANNAH

Because I wanted to see if you would really do it. Men say a lot of things to their fathers. Then they finish their dessert and go home. I wanted to see if you would stand up.

RODRIGO

And I stood up.

HANNAH

You stood up. And then you lied to my face, very badly, about a church.

RODRIGO

I lied very badly.

HANNAH

It was the worst lie I have ever seen. Ximena almost died.

RODRIGO

She choked on her water.

HANNAH

Twice.

They climb.

RODRIGO

Can I ask you something now?

HANNAH

It's fair.

RODRIGO

Why did you look back? At dinner. Before Julien told you anything. The first time, in the mirror.

She doesn't answer right away. A few more steps.

HANNAH

Most men, when they look at a woman in a restaurant, look like they're trying to decide if they want to buy something.

RODRIGO

And me?

HANNAH

You looked like you were trying to remember something. Like I was a word you used to know.

He has nothing to say to that. So he doesn't.

EXT. SACRÉ-CŒUR — THE PARVIS — CONTINUOUS

The top. The white stone terrace before the basilica. The wind is stronger here.

They turn.

And there it is.

All of Paris, laid out beneath them in the afternoon light, grey and gold and endless, roofs on roofs on roofs, the river hidden somewhere in the folds, the tower far off to the right like a pin holding the city to the earth. Clouds moving slowly, their shadows sliding across whole neighborhoods.

Rodrigo looks at it.

Hannah looks at Rodrigo looking at it.

HANNAH

Well?

RODRIGO

I've never seen it.

HANNAH

Liar.

RODRIGO

I've never seen it — with you.

A pause.

He hears it. Winces with his entire body.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

That was terrible.

HANNAH

That was very terrible.

RODRIGO

Please forget I said that.

HANNAH

No.

RODRIGO

No?

HANNAH

I'm keeping it. I'm an archivist. It's evidence.

RODRIGO

Of what?

HANNAH

That you're the kind of man who says terrible things when he means them.

She looks out at the city again. The wind moves her hair across her face and she doesn't push it away.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

It's true, though. It's different with someone. I came here alone last night. At midnight.

RODRIGO

You came here?

HANNAH

I needed air. I walked up. I sat there.

She points to a spot on the steps, near the top.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I thought: he said he never saw this. Liar. And I was angry. Not at the lie. At the fact that I liked the lie.

He looks at the spot on the steps. Then at her.

RODRIGO

I was three streets away. Last night. At midnight. I'd just come back from the restaurant.

HANNAH

(slowly)

Three streets.

RODRIGO

Rue Durantin.

HANNAH

Julien lives on Rue Lepic.

They look at each other. Then they look down at the hill, at the crooked streets, at the tiny scale of the distance that has been between them for three days.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

That's —

RODRIGO

Three hundred meters.

HANNAH

That's very stupid.

RODRIGO

That's the most stupid thing that has ever happened.

HANNAH

No. You requested the records. That's still the most stupid.

EXT. PLACE DU TERTRE — DAY

The old village square behind the basilica, crammed with easels and red umbrellas. Painters at work on canvases of Paris rooftops and grinning tourists. The smell of crêpes and turpentine.

They wander through it. A PORTRAIT PAINTER (60s), beret, charcoal-black fingers, steps into Hannah's path with a practiced flourish.

PORTRAIT PAINTER

(in French)

Un portrait, mademoiselle? Vingt euros. Dix minutes. Vous êtes faite pour le fusain.

A portrait, miss? Twenty euros. Ten minutes. You were made for charcoal.

HANNAH

(in French)

Non, merci —

RODRIGO

(in French, terrible)

Monsieur. Je peux... emprunter? Votre... charbon?

Sir. Can I... borrow? Your... coal?

The painter looks at him like he's asked to borrow his wife.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

(in English)

I'll pay you the twenty euros. For the chair, and the paper, and the charcoal. I'll draw her myself.

PORTRAIT PAINTER

(in English, amused)

You are a painter?

RODRIGO

At night.

The painter studies him. Shrugs a great Gallic shrug. Gestures to his stool with a bow. Be my guest.

Hannah stares at Rodrigo.

HANNAH

You're going to draw me.

RODRIGO

If you sit.

HANNAH

In front of all these people.

RODRIGO

You saw the WhatsApp. I have no dignity left. I'm free.

She laughs. And sits.

LATER

A small crowd has gathered. Tourists, two other painters, a little girl with a balloon. The portrait painter stands behind Rodrigo, arms crossed, frowning professionally.

Rodrigo draws. Fast. Intent. The charcoal hisses on the paper. He looks at her, looks down, looks at her. When he draws, the shyness is gone — there is only attention, total and unembarrassed, the way she listens.

HANNAH

Can I talk?

RODRIGO

Yes. Just don't smile.

HANNAH

Why not?

RODRIGO

Because you're going to smile at the end. I want the moment before.

She holds very still. Something in her face changes, becomes what he asked for.

HANNAH

What do you see?

RODRIGO

Someone who doesn't skip things.

HANNAH

I skipped today.

RODRIGO

I know. I can see that too.

The charcoal moves. The crowd is silent. Even the busker has stopped.

LATER

He blows the dust from the paper. Hesitates. Turns it around.

We see it.

It is her — unmistakably her, but more than a likeness. The eyes are very direct. The mouth is about to do something. There is a shadow under the cheekbone like the edge of a tear in old paper. It is beautiful, and a little frightening, the way true things are.

She looks at it a long time.

HANNAH

I look like I'm about to cry.

RODRIGO

You look like someone who's about to leave.

HANNAH

That's the same thing.

RODRIGO

Not always.

The portrait painter leans over his shoulder. Looks. A grunt. He reaches into his pocket, takes out the twenty-euro note Rodrigo gave him, and tucks it back into Rodrigo's coat.

PORTRAIT PAINTER

(in French)

Gardez-le. C'est mieux que les miens.

Keep it. It's better than mine.

He walks away to his next customer, muttering.

Hannah rolls the portrait carefully, the way she would roll a map of Lübeck. She slides it into the inside of her coat.

HANNAH

You said your faces are scary.

RODRIGO

People say that.

HANNAH

It's not scary. It's just honest with the lights off.

He looks at her. She has said, in one sentence, a thing he has been trying to say about his own work for ten years.

EXT. RUE DE L'ABREUVOIR — DAY

A sloping cobbled lane, lined with low houses and gardens. The pink house on the corner. Ivy. A cat on a wall, disapproving of everybody.

They walk downhill, slowly, side by side, close but not touching.

HANNAH

Tell me about Toronto. The real one. Not the guide.

RODRIGO

The real one?

HANNAH

Why did you leave Brazil?

He thinks about it.

RODRIGO

In Brazil, everybody is loud. My father, my uncles, the neighbors, the television, the buses. Everyone talks at the same time and that's how you know they love you. And I was always — the quiet one at the end of the table. Drawing on the napkin. Everyone thought something was wrong with me.

HANNAH

Was it?

RODRIGO

No. I just heard everything. When nobody is listening, you hear everything.

HANNAH

And in Canada?

RODRIGO

In Canada, everybody is the quiet one at the end of the table. It's a whole country of napkins.

She laughs.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

And I work with numbers all day, and at night I paint, and I go to sleep very late, and in the morning I clean the numbers again. It's a good life. It's a small life. It's very — tidy.

HANNAH

You say tidy like it's a disease.

RODRIGO

Sometimes it is.

HANNAH

And the social media? Why delete everything?

RODRIGO

Because I was everywhere and nowhere. I'd be at dinner and also on my phone looking at other people's dinners. I wanted to only be where I am. If I'm in Paris, I'm in Paris. If I'm with you, I'm with you.

HANNAH

And if you leave?

RODRIGO

Then I'm somewhere else.

HANNAH

(gently)

That's the same as being gone, Rodrigo.

He stops walking.

She stops too. They stand in the middle of the sloping lane.

RODRIGO

Is it?

HANNAH

For the person who stays, yes.

A tourist couple squeezes past them, apologizing. Neither notices.

RODRIGO

And you? The real Hamburg.

HANNAH

Rain. Water. Ships. Red bricks. My apartment has a window on a canal and a radiator that sings at night. I work in a building full of letters nobody has read in two hundred years. I like it. It's quiet, like Canada, but wetter.

RODRIGO

Do you live alone?

HANNAH

(a beat, precise)

Since March.

He understands, and doesn't ask.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

That's why I said yes to the phone. Probably. On Monday. Before March, I would never give a number to a man in a restaurant. After March, I thought — why not. What's the worst? He doesn't call.

RODRIGO

And then I didn't call.

HANNAH

And then you didn't call.

RODRIGO

I'm sorry.

HANNAH

You said that already. Forty times on the phone.

RODRIGO

I'll say it forty more.

HANNAH

Please don't.

They start walking again. Downhill. Toward Abbesses.

EXT. SQUARE JEHAN-RICTUS — LE MUR DES JE T'AIME — DAY

A small walled garden off the Place des Abbesses. Benches, a few trees, pigeons.

And along one side, an entire wall of dark blue tiles, forty square meters of them, each covered in white handwriting — the words I love you, written over and over, in hundreds of languages, in hundreds of hands. Scattered across the blue, like spilled paint, are small irregular red shapes: pieces of a broken heart, scattered so that anyone can take one.

Tourists pose in front of it. A girl kisses a boy for a photo; her friend counts three-two-one.

Rodrigo and Hannah stand a little back, looking at it.

HANNAH

Do you know this?

RODRIGO

No.

HANNAH

(a small smile)

Your first time?

RODRIGO

Actually my first time. I promise. Look, my face. My forehead is telling the truth.

She looks at his forehead. Nods, satisfied.

HANNAH

"I love you." In — two hundred and fifty languages, maybe more. And the red pieces. A heart broken into pieces, so that everybody gets a piece.

RODRIGO

That's very sad.

HANNAH

Is it? I think it's practical. A whole heart is too heavy for one person to carry.

They step closer. Their eyes move across the wall, searching. Neither says what for.

He finds it first. Low on the left. In a round, sloping hand.

eu te amo

He doesn't point. He doesn't say anything. He just looks at it.

A moment later, her eyes stop too. Higher up, to the right. In a straight, upright hand.

ich liebe dich

She doesn't point either.

They stand there side by side in front of the wall, each looking at a different square meter of it, each knowing exactly what the other is looking at.

Neither of them says anything for a long time.

The pigeons. The tourists. Three-two-one. A camera clicking.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

(finally)

Do you know what's missing?

RODRIGO

What?

HANNAH

There's no wall for "I'll call you."

RODRIGO

There should be.

HANNAH

It would be much bigger.

RODRIGO

In two hundred and fifty languages.

HANNAH

And in every one of them, half of them are lies.

RODRIGO

Not all of them.

HANNAH

No. Not all of them.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES — DAY — CONTINUOUS

They walk out of the little garden onto the street. And there, a few doors down: the narrow shopfront. CORDONNERIE — CLÉS MINUTE — SERRURERIE. The stuffed owl in the window with its tiny key.

Rodrigo stops. Laughs.

RODRIGO

That's my key man.

HANNAH

Your key man?

RODRIGO

Yesterday. I made a copy of the apartment key there. So I could come back late from the restaurant without waking my father.

He takes it from his pocket: the bright, nameless, twenty-four-euro key. Holds it up in the afternoon light.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

Twenty-four euros. My father laughed so hard the owl nearly fell over. "A key for two days! In Minas I could buy three cows!" I told him it was my souvenir. My memory of France.

Hannah takes the key from his fingers. She looks at it closely, the way she looks at a document — turning it, reading its edge, its teeth.

HANNAH

A key to a door that won't be yours tomorrow.

RODRIGO

That's why it's a souvenir.

HANNAH

(still looking at it)

In the archive we have a box. Keys. Hundreds. From houses that were bombed in 1943. People brought them in after the war. The doors were gone, the houses were gone, the streets were gone. But they kept the keys.

RODRIGO

Why?

HANNAH

Because a key isn't only for a door. It's proof that there was a place you could come back to.

She looks up at the shop. At the padlocks hanging on the pegboard visible through the glass. Small brass ones. Steel ones. A few embarrassed red hearts.

Something passes over her face — a decision being made, the way she makes them, completely.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

Come.

INT. CORDONNERIE — CONTINUOUS

The bell. The single bulb. The radio crackling an old chanson.

Monsieur Pelletier looks up from a boot he's resoling. Sees Rodrigo. Sees Hannah. Looks at Rodrigo again over his half-moon glasses, and the corner of his mouth moves about one millimeter.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

Ah. Il est revenu.

Ah. He came back.

HANNAH

(in fluent, careful French)

Monsieur. Ce cadenas-là. Le petit, en laiton. Est-ce que vous pouvez faire qu'il s'ouvre avec cette clé?

Sir. That padlock there. The small brass one. Can you make it open with this key?

She lays Rodrigo's key on the counter.

Rodrigo stares at her.

Pelletier picks up the key. He doesn't need to look at it — he cut it yesterday — but he looks anyway, a long time, the way you look at a question you like.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

La clé de la rue Durantin. J'ai fait la serrure en quatre-vingt-dix-huit. J'ai encore les goupilles dans un tiroir.

The Rue Durantin key. I made that lock in ninety-eight. I still have the pins in a drawer.

He takes the little brass padlock down from the pegboard. Weighs it in his palm.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

(in French)

Vingt minutes.

Twenty minutes.

He looks at them over his glasses.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

(in French)

Pas pour les ponts.

Not for the bridges.

HANNAH

(in French)

Pas pour les ponts. Quelque part où personne ne le trouvera.

Not for the bridges. Somewhere no one will find it.

Pelletier considers this. Then nods slowly, as if this is the correct answer to a test he's been giving for fifty years and almost no one passes.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

Alors il sera là pour toujours.

Then it will be there forever.

LATER

The shop is very quiet. Pelletier sits at his bench under the bulb with the padlock open in a small vise, its tiny brass pins laid out on a square of green felt like the parts of a watch. Tweezers. A loupe in his eye. The radio playing low.

Rodrigo and Hannah sit side by side on the only bench, between a rack of shoelaces and a shelf of boots waiting for their owners. Their shoulders almost touch.

RODRIGO

(quietly)

You speak French.

HANNAH

Of course I speak French. I've been in Paris all week.

RODRIGO

On Monday you said you only speak German.

HANNAH

On Monday I said I don't speak Portuguese. And Spanish. I never said anything about French.

RODRIGO

You're very precise.

HANNAH

I told you. Two H's. I can't be read wrong.

He watches Pelletier work. The tweezers. The tiny pins, each a different length, dropping one by one into the cylinder.

RODRIGO

Why?

HANNAH

Why what?

RODRIGO

The lock.

She watches the old man's hands for a while before she answers.

HANNAH

You know what people do with the bridges. They put a lock, they throw the key in the river. Forever. Very romantic. Then the city comes with a big cutter and takes them all away. Tons of them. They melt them.

RODRIGO

So it's not forever.

HANNAH

It's never forever when you throw away the key. Throwing away the key is saying: this is finished. Closed. Nobody can change it now.

She turns to him.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I don't want to throw away the key.

He looks at her for a long moment.

RODRIGO

Neither do I.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(without turning around, in French)

Une deuxième clé?

A second key?

They both look at him. He hasn't turned. He's been listening the whole time, the way locksmiths and waiters and fathers always are.

Hannah looks at Rodrigo. Then back at the old man's back.

HANNAH

(in French)

Oui. Une deuxième.

Yes. A second one.

LATER

The cutting wheel shrieks. Gold sparks fly in the dark shop for the second time in two days.

Pelletier lays three things on the felt square on the counter: the little brass padlock, closed. Rodrigo's key. And a second key, identical, new, still warm.

He takes Rodrigo's key. Slides it into the padlock. Turns it.

Click.

The shackle springs open.

He closes it. Takes the second key. Slides it in. Turns.

Click.

He sets them down without ceremony.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in French)

Vingt-quatre euros. La deuxième clé.

Twenty-four euros. The second key.

Hannah is already reaching into her coat.

RODRIGO

No — let me —

HANNAH

A German pays for her own key.

She counts out the euros. Pelletier takes them. Then he picks up a tiny engraving tool from the bench — a steel point with a wooden handle — and holds it out to them without a word.

Hannah takes it. Turns the padlock over. On its smooth brass back, slowly, carefully, in the straight upright letters of an archivist, she scratches:

R · H

She hands the tool to Rodrigo. He takes the lock, and beneath her letters, in his sloping round hand, he scratches:

19.10 — 22.10

Pelletier looks at it through his loupe. Nods once.

He wraps nothing. He gives them no bag. He simply pushes the lock and the second key across the counter toward Hannah, and the first key toward Rodrigo.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER

(in English, slowly)

A key is a promise to return.

He looks at the second key in Hannah's hand.

MONSIEUR PELLETIER (CONT'D)

Two keys is two promises.

He goes back to his boot.

EXT. RUE DES ABBESSES — CONTINUOUS

They come out of the shop into the late light. The bell rings behind them. Hannah holds her new key up in front of her face, in the sun.

HANNAH

So now I have a key to your apartment.

RODRIGO

Until tomorrow at eleven. Then it's somebody else's apartment.

HANNAH

Then I'll have a key to a stranger's apartment in Paris. Forever.

RODRIGO

That sounds illegal.

HANNAH

It's archival.

She puts her key on her own keyring — between a key to an apartment on a canal in Hamburg and a small brass key to a filing cabinet at the State Archive. It hangs there, new and bright among the old ones.

Rodrigo does the same: his key goes on his ring beside the key to a basement apartment in Toronto.

The little padlock goes into the inside pocket of Hannah's coat, next to the rolled portrait.

RODRIGO

So where?

HANNAH

Somewhere nobody will find it.

RODRIGO

In Paris? There are tourists in every centimeter.

HANNAH

Not every centimeter.

RODRIGO

How do you know?

HANNAH

I don't. You're the one who climbed the hill at six in the morning on Sunday.

He looks at her. And then he remembers something — and slowly smiles.

RODRIGO

Later. When it's dark.

HANNAH

You know a place?

RODRIGO

I got lost on Sunday. On the way down. There was a place.

HANNAH

A place.

RODRIGO

I didn't take a photo of it. It was the only thing I didn't photograph.

She looks at him, curious.

HANNAH

Why?

RODRIGO

I don't know. It felt like — it wasn't mine to take.

HANNAH

(after a moment)

Then it's the right place.

INT. ABBESSES METRO — SPIRAL STAIRCASE — DAY

Down and down the painted spiral, the deepest station in Paris, their footsteps echoing. Hannah goes first. Rodrigo follows a step behind, watching the red of her hair turn through the murals like a flame going down a well.

It will be, he will understand later, one of the most beautiful days of his life. He doesn't know it yet. That is the only way such days are ever given.

INT. METRO CAR — MOVING — DAY

Packed. They stand in the swaying aisle, holding the same pole, her hand above his.

HANNAH

Five business days.

RODRIGO

Three.

HANNAH

They told you five.

RODRIGO

They did it in three. Karim flagged it.

HANNAH

Who is Karim?

RODRIGO

A man in a chat window at two in the morning. He said nobody requests call records at 2 a.m. for a pizza place.

HANNAH

He's right.

RODRIGO

He's very wise. For a chat window.

The train lurches. She sways. He steadies the pole, not her. She notices that.

HANNAH

What is a business day?

RODRIGO

A day when people are working.

HANNAH

So what is today?

RODRIGO

Thursday.

HANNAH

No. For you. Are you working today?

RODRIGO

No.

HANNAH

I'm not working. I called in sick for the first time in my life. So for us, today is a non-business day.

RODRIGO

Nobody's working.

HANNAH

Nobody.

RODRIGO

(looking at the dark tunnel rushing past)

Not even the universe.

She looks at him.

HANNAH

The universe always works. That's the problem with the universe. No holidays.

RODRIGO

Then it owes us one.

EXT. ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS — RUE SAINT-LOUIS-EN-L'ÎLE — LATE AFTERNOON

The little island in the middle of the river, its one long street of grey stone and old shopfronts. A queue outside an ice-cream parlor with a famous name.

They stand in the queue.

RODRIGO

I didn't know you could eat ice cream in October.

HANNAH

I'm from Hamburg. We eat ice cream in the rain. If we waited for good weather, we would die without ice cream.

LATER

They walk out with cones. Hers: one precise scoop of something pale. His: two scoops that do not belong together.

HANNAH

What is that?

RODRIGO

Salted caramel and wild strawberry.

HANNAH

That's not a combination. That's an accident.

RODRIGO

All the best combinations are accidents. Brazil is an accident. My father and Clarice are an accident.

HANNAH

Monday was an accident.

RODRIGO

Monday was a sequence of accidents.

She takes his cone out of his hand, bites into the place where the two flavors meet, and gives it back.

HANNAH

(chewing, considering)

...It works. Don't tell anyone.

EXT. QUAI D'ORLÉANS — BENCH — LATE AFTERNOON

A bench on the edge of the island facing the back of Notre-Dame: the flying buttresses like the ribs of an enormous animal, the new spire sharp and pale against the sky.

They sit. The river slides past below them, green-brown, a tourist boat churning upstream with a voice through a loudspeaker announcing history in four languages.

RODRIGO

It burned. I remember. I watched it on my phone in Toronto at eleven in the morning, in the lab, and everybody stopped working.

HANNAH

Five years. Everybody said it would take twenty. Thirty. They said it was impossible to repair. And now look.

RODRIGO

Some things are faster than people say.

HANNAH

Like your back office.

RODRIGO

Like my back office.

She finishes her cone. Folds the napkin into a tiny precise square.

HANNAH

Can I tell you something about my grandmother?

RODRIGO

Please.

HANNAH

Her name was Liesel. She met my grandfather at the Hamburg train station in 1961. She was nineteen. He was a sailor, going to his ship. She was waiting for a train to her aunt's. His train was late. They talked for forty minutes on a bench. Forty minutes.

RODRIGO

And?

HANNAH

He wrote his address on the back of her ticket. His mother's address, in Kiel, because he didn't have one. He was going to sea for two years.

RODRIGO

Two years.

HANNAH

There were no phones on ships. Only letters. They took weeks. Sometimes months. Sometimes they came in the wrong order, so she would read that he was sick before she read that he was well again, or the other way. She kept every one. One hundred and twelve letters.

RODRIGO

And when he came back?

HANNAH

He came to the station. The same bench. She was there.

Rodrigo looks at her.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

They were married fifty-eight years. She died last year. In February.

RODRIGO

I'm sorry.

HANNAH

After, my mother gave me the box. The letters. Because I'm the one who repairs paper. Many of them were torn from being read so many times. The folds were broken. And one — one was torn in half. On purpose.

RODRIGO

On purpose?

HANNAH

They had a fight. By letter. It took six weeks to have one fight. She tore it in half and then she taped it back together the same night. With that yellow tape, you know, that destroys everything. The tape was sixty years old. It had turned brown and eaten into the paper.

RODRIGO

What did you do?

HANNAH

I took the tape off. Very slowly. It took two days. Then I repaired the tear with Japanese tissue. Wheat paste. Very thin.

RODRIGO

And now you can't see it.

HANNAH

No. You can see it. You must always see it. That's the rule. A good repair is visible. And reversible. You don't pretend nothing happened. Something happened. You just make it so it can be read again.

The boat's loudspeaker fades downstream.

RODRIGO

Can I tell you a theory?

HANNAH

Is it a data theory?

RODRIGO

Half. Half data, half — something else.

HANNAH

Those are the dangerous ones.

RODRIGO

I think time is like a web. Not a line. Every choice, every small accident, spins a thread. The past is fixed — it's already woven, you can walk on it. But the future is still being made. And somewhere, there's another thread. Where my phone rang on Monday.

HANNAH

And in that thread?

RODRIGO

In that thread, I saved your number. I texted you that night. "It was lovely meeting you." You texted back. "Likewise." Maybe a smiley. Maybe not, because you're German.

HANNAH

Definitely not.

RODRIGO

And then maybe we met for a coffee on Tuesday. An hour. And it was nice. And I flew home. And we texted a few times. And then less. And then —

HANNAH

And then nothing.

RODRIGO

Maybe.

She looks at the cathedral, at its visible new stone among the old.

HANNAH

So in that thread, the phone worked, and we had less.

RODRIGO

That's what I keep thinking. The broken version gave us more.

HANNAH

The broken version gave us a man requesting records from a back office. Nobody forgets that. In the other thread, I would have forgotten you by Christmas.

RODRIGO

Would you?

She doesn't answer. Which is an answer.

EXT. SQUARE DU VERT-GALANT — SUNSET

The very tip of the Île de la Cité, where the island ends in a little triangular garden at water level, like the prow of a stone ship heading downstream. A great weeping willow trails its branches in the river. The Pont Neuf arches overhead.

The sun is going down straight ahead of them, at the end of the river, turning the water copper and the stone of the bridges pink.

They sit at the very point, on the stone edge, their feet above the water.

Neither speaks for a while. The light changes every second.

HANNAH

Rodrigo.

RODRIGO

Yes.

HANNAH

What is this?

He knows exactly what she means. He takes his time.

RODRIGO

I don't know.

HANNAH

Good. If you said you knew, I would push you in the river.

RODRIGO

It's one day.

HANNAH

It's one day. And one evening on Monday. Fourteen hours, maybe, in total. I counted.

RODRIGO

You counted.

HANNAH

Of course I counted.

RODRIGO

Is that enough?

HANNAH

For what?

RODRIGO

To matter.

She thinks. The sun touches the water.

HANNAH

My grandmother had forty minutes.

RODRIGO

My father bought bread for eleven days.

HANNAH

And you had three days of a robot.

RODRIGO

And one dinner. And one hill.

HANNAH

It's not about the hours.

RODRIGO

No?

HANNAH

It's about whether you would request the records.

He laughs. She doesn't, quite.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I'm not going to pretend, Rodrigo. You live in Toronto. I live in Hamburg. I have a job I love in a building full of letters. You have numbers and paintings and a whole country of napkins. Tomorrow at seven you get on a plane. I'm not going to say we'll be together. I'm not going to say we won't. I don't make promises I can't document.

RODRIGO

Me neither.

HANNAH

Good.

RODRIGO

But I'm not going to pretend either.

HANNAH

Pretend what?

RODRIGO

That this was nothing. That I'll forget by Christmas. I'm a data analyst. I don't forget numbers. And you're — you're the only number I ever had to request from a back office.

She looks at him sideways, in the copper light, and her face does the thing he drew: the moment before.

The sun goes under the water. Gone. The sky goes from copper to rose to a deep clear blue, and the lights along the quays come on, one by one, all along the river, as if someone were walking ahead of them lighting candles.

HANNAH

The sun went down.

RODRIGO

It does that.

HANNAH

I wanted to see if it would wait.

RODRIGO

For what?

HANNAH

For us.

He has no answer to that. There isn't one. The willow moves in the dark water.

EXT. PONT NEUF — DUSK

They walk across the oldest bridge in Paris, slowly, eating a crêpe from a cart between them, passing it back and forth like a secret.

RODRIGO

Can I ask you something stupid?

HANNAH

Everything you ask is stupid. I like it.

RODRIGO

If the back office never sent the email. What would you have done?

HANNAH

Nothing. Gone home on Saturday. Told the story to my colleagues. "There was a Brazilian with a robot." Maybe called once more, from Hamburg, in December, after wine.

RODRIGO

And it would have rung.

HANNAH

Would it?

RODRIGO

In December? I'm in Toronto. My line is on. It would have rung.

She stops on the bridge.

HANNAH

(slowly)

It would have rung.

RODRIGO

And I would have answered.

HANNAH

In December.

RODRIGO

In December. After wine.

She starts walking again. Thinks about this for twenty steps.

HANNAH

And you? If the email never came?

RODRIGO

I would have come back.

HANNAH

To Paris?

RODRIGO

To the restaurant. Next year. Every night at eight. Table six.

HANNAH

That's insane.

RODRIGO

It's the bakery method. My father's. You go back to where the girl was, at the same hour, until the girl comes, or until you're old.

HANNAH

That's completely insane.

RODRIGO

He bought bread for eleven days. My mother finally turned around and said, "Are you going to buy bread, or are you going to say something?"

HANNAH

And what did he say?

RODRIGO

"Bread."

Hannah stops on the bridge and laughs so hard she has to hold the parapet. A man walking a dog crosses to the other side of the bridge.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — NIGHT

Montmartre again, the long curve of the street going up. Later. The cafés closing. Their steps slow now, the slowness of two people who don't want to arrive anywhere.

They pass a dark green restaurant. CHEZ AURÈLE. Chairs on tables. A single light at the back.

Rodrigo walks faster.

HANNAH

Wait.

RODRIGO

It's closed.

HANNAH

That's the place.

She stops at the window. Looks in. The candles out. Maurice at the far end, counting the till, his long face lit from below by the cash drawer.

Then she sees it.

Behind the register, taped to the mirror among the yellowed cat and the hundred-franc note and the postcard from Lisbon: a folded sheet from an order pad.

HANNAH, in capital letters.

She goes very still.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

(not turning)

Is that my name?

Rodrigo closes his eyes.

RODRIGO

I can explain.

HANNAH

Is that my name, Rodrigo?

RODRIGO

...The bakery method.

Inside, Maurice looks up. Sees them through the glass. A long, unreadable look.

Then he walks to the door, unlocks it, and opens it. The little bell rings into the night.

MAURICE

(in French)

Mademoiselle.

He goes back to the register without a word. Peels the note carefully from the mirror. Returns. Holds it out to her, formally, the way a waiter presents a bottle for inspection.

MAURICE (CONT'D)

(in English)

He was here all night. Yesterday. Table six. He ordered the Pomerol.

RODRIGO

You gave me the Pomerol.

MAURICE

(ignoring him)

He waited until I put the chairs up. I have been a waiter twenty-six years, mademoiselle. Nobody waits until the chairs.

Hannah takes the note. Unfolds it. Reads, in the light from the doorway.

INSERT — THE NOTE

HANNAH —

(red hair. Hamburg. table 7. Monday.)

My line was off. I never got your call.

I'm so sorry. I didn't lie to you. Not about the number.

RODRIGO +1 (647) 555-0142

(It works now. I promise.)

P.S. I lied about the hill.

BACK TO SCENE

She reads it twice. Her mouth is pressed tight. Her eyes are shining. She laughs once, a small broken laugh that is mostly something else.

HANNAH

(reading)

"P.S. I lied about the hill."

RODRIGO

I wanted to be honest. In case.

HANNAH

In case of what?

RODRIGO

In case it was the last thing you read from me.

She folds the note very carefully along its original fold. Puts it in her inside pocket, with the portrait and the padlock.

HANNAH

(to Maurice, in French)

Merci, monsieur.

Maurice looks at them both. Then he takes down two chairs from table seven. Sets them on the floor. Disappears behind the bar. Returns with a bottle with two fingers of wine left in it, and two glasses.

MAURICE

(in French)

La bouteille meurt ce soir.

The bottle dies tonight.

He pours. Sets the glasses on table seven.

RODRIGO

Is that —

MAURICE

Do not ask.

He goes into the kitchen. A moment later, from back there, a radio comes on. Low. An old chanson.

INT. CHEZ AURÈLE — TABLE SEVEN — CONTINUOUS

They sit at table seven, in the dark restaurant, chairs upturned on every other table around them like a forest of legs. One candle. The mirror wall shows them back to themselves: two people at a little table, alone in a room built for forty.

HANNAH

This is where it started.

MAURICE (O.S.)

(from the kitchen, in French)

Non. Ça a commencé à la table six.

No. It started at table six.

They both laugh. They clink glasses.

RODRIGO

To the finger.

HANNAH

To the finger?

RODRIGO

My father's finger. It pointed between two wines. If it had pointed at one, there's no fight. No fight, my phone is in my hand when you call. I see the robot. I check. I fix it.

HANNAH

And then?

RODRIGO

And then the other thread.

HANNAH

(raising her glass)

To the finger.

They drink. It is, they both agree in silence, an extraordinary wine.

EXT. THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HILL — NIGHT

Away from the basilica, away from the floodlights and the stairs and the tourists, on the quiet side where Montmartre is still a village.

A narrow stone stairway drops steeply between two old walls. A single iron lamp halfway down, its light yellow and weak. No one. Not a sound but a television somewhere, and their footsteps.

Rodrigo leads. He walks slowly, looking at the left-hand wall.

HANNAH

You're sure?

RODRIGO

Sunday. Six in the morning. I came down the wrong side. I thought I was lost. I stopped here to look at the map.

He stops beside the lamp. The wall here is thick with ivy, dark and glossy and old, falling over the stone like a curtain.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

And I put my hand on the wall.

He reaches into the ivy. Parts it carefully with both hands, the way you'd part a child's hair.

Behind it, set deep into the old stone, black with age and rust: an iron ring. Heavy. Hand-forged. The kind that was once used to tie a horse or a cart, a hundred years ago or more, when this hill was windmills and vineyards. The ivy has grown around it and over it and nearly swallowed it.

Hannah steps closer. Touches it with one finger, the way she'd touch a document.

HANNAH

Nobody has touched this in a hundred years.

RODRIGO

I touched it on Sunday.

HANNAH

Nobody but you.

She takes the little brass padlock from her coat. Holds it in her palm between them. In the lamplight the engraving catches: R · H. 19.10 — 22.10.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

You do it.

RODRIGO

Together.

She opens the shackle. They hold the lock between them, four hands on a thing the size of a matchbox. Together they slide the shackle through the old iron ring.

They look at each other.

They close it.

Click.

It is the smallest sound in the film. It is louder than the bill, louder than the bell, louder than the dryer in the washroom on Monday.

They let go. The lock hangs from the iron ring, small and bright against the black iron.

Hannah lets the ivy fall.

It closes over the ring like water. The lock is gone. There is only a wall with ivy on it, under a weak lamp, on a staircase no one uses.

They stand there.

Rodrigo takes out his phone.

RODRIGO

I should drop a pin. The coordinates. So we can —

HANNAH

Don't you dare.

RODRIGO

I'm a data analyst.

HANNAH

Some things shouldn't have a record.

He looks at her. Then at the phone. He puts it back in his pocket.

RODRIGO

Then how do we find it?

HANNAH

We remember.

RODRIGO

What if we forget?

HANNAH

Then it's still here. That's the point of a lock, Rodrigo. It doesn't need us. It doesn't need anyone to remember it. It will be here when the ivy is twice as thick. It will be here when Monsieur Pelletier is gone, and the shop is a phone store. It will be here when

we're old. It will be here when nobody alive knows what R and H mean.

RODRIGO

And the keys?

She takes out her keyring. The bright new key among the old ones.

HANNAH

The keys are the only part that can come back.

He takes out his. The twenty-four-euro key. His father's joke. His memory of France.

He looks at it now as if he's never seen it before.

RODRIGO

(quietly)

I told my father it was a souvenir.

HANNAH

It is a souvenir.

RODRIGO

I didn't know of what.

They stand on the stairs under the lamp, each holding a key, in front of a wall of ivy that hides nothing at all.

EXT. SACRÉ-CŒUR — THE STEPS — NIGHT

The great steps, almost empty now. A few couples. A man playing a soft trumpet somewhere far below. And all of Paris at their feet — not grey and gold now but black and gold, an ocean of small lights reaching every horizon, the tower blinking white on the hour.

They sit near the top, in the spot where she sat alone last night.

For a while they just look.

HANNAH

Now you've seen it.

RODRIGO

I saw it on Sunday. Forty-one photos.

HANNAH

I know. Julien told me.

RODRIGO

But I didn't see it.

HANNAH

And now?

RODRIGO

Now I see it.

She doesn't call that terrible. She lets it be.

HANNAH

Can I tell you where I was? On Tuesday? When I called the second time?

RODRIGO

The Palais-Royal. On a green chair. By the fountain. At 15:07.

She turns to him, startled.

HANNAH

How do you know that?

RODRIGO

I didn't know the place. I know the time. 15:07. It's in the records.

HANNAH

And where were you?

He looks out at the city. Points far to the south-west, across the dark river, to a long black building with two great lit circles in its roof.

RODRIGO

There. The Musée d'Orsay. The top floor. There's a clock, a giant clock you can see through. At 15:07, I was standing behind the glass, inside the clock. Filling in a form for the Wi-Fi.

A pause.

RODRIGO (CONT'D)

And looking at this hill. Thinking about you.

Hannah stares at him.

HANNAH

You were looking at the hill.

RODRIGO

I was looking at the hill.

HANNAH

While I was calling.

RODRIGO

While you were calling. And the phone was off. And I didn't know.

She looks at the far lit building. At the hill beneath her. At him.

HANNAH

That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

And she laughs — and the laugh breaks open in the middle, and becomes the other thing, and she puts her face in her hands on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur and cries, not loudly, the way she does everything: completely, and briefly, and precisely.

He doesn't say anything. He puts his arm around her. She leans into him.

After a while she sits up. Wipes her eyes with the end of the blue scarf.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

I'm German. We don't cry.

RODRIGO

You cried at a fish.

HANNAH

It was a very well-made fish.

LATER

They sit close. Her head on his shoulder. Two keys on two keyrings in two hands.

HANNAH

Do you know what a tessera is?

RODRIGO

No.

HANNAH

In the archive we have a Roman one. A little piece of bone. The Romans had a custom. When a host and a guest said goodbye, they broke a small token in two. Each one kept a half. The tessera hospitalis.

RODRIGO

Why?

HANNAH

So that one day — years later, maybe after they were both dead — their children, or grandchildren, could meet, and put the two

halves together. And if the edges matched, they knew. You are the family of my family's friend. Come in. Sit. There's a bed for you.

RODRIGO

Two halves.

HANNAH

Two halves.

He looks at the key in his palm.

RODRIGO

We didn't break anything.

HANNAH

No. We made two.

RODRIGO

Two keys and one lock.

HANNAH

That's better. A broken thing only fits one other broken thing. A key fits a lock forever.

RODRIGO

(softly)

Tessera.

She closes her hand over his, over the key.

LATER

The trumpet player below has gone home. The steps are nearly empty. It's very late.

HANNAH

You have no Instagram.

RODRIGO

No.

HANNAH

No Facebook.

RODRIGO

I'm thirty-two, Hannah, not seventy.

HANNAH

No anything.

RODRIGO

Nothing.

HANNAH

So how do I find you?

RODRIGO

You have my number.

HANNAH

I had your number before.

They both laugh. It echoes off the white stone.

RODRIGO

My line will be on. Always. I'm never turning it off again. Freedom can charge me sixteen dollars a day until I die. I'll put it in my will.

HANNAH

That's not a plan. That's a phone bill.

He turns to face her properly.

RODRIGO

Okay. A plan.

HANNAH

A plan.

RODRIGO

I'm going to come back to Europe. I don't know when. I've been saying it for years and I never did it. But I'm going to. And the day I land — wherever I land, Lisbon, Berlin, here — before I leave the airport, before I even get my suitcase, I'll call you.

HANNAH

Before the suitcase.

RODRIGO

Before the suitcase.

HANNAH

And if I come to Canada?

RODRIGO

Then you call me. And I'll answer.

HANNAH

In two languages?

RODRIGO

In every language on that wall.

She studies him. Checking the document for the date.

HANNAH

Don't make me wait two years like my grandmother.

RODRIGO

I'm not a sailor.

HANNAH

No. You're worse. You're a data analyst.

He laughs. And she leans in, and kisses him — once, simply, without hurry, on the steps above the whole lit city, as if it were the most practical thing in the world.

The tower, far off, begins to blink. It's the hour.

She pulls back. Looks at him.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

That was not terrible.

RODRIGO

No?

HANNAH

No. That was —

She searches for the word. In German. In French. In English.

HANNAH (CONT'D)

— very worth it.

EXT. RUE LEPIC — JULIEN AND XIMENA'S DOOR — NIGHT

2:40 a.m.

A heavy green door with a brass knocker in the shape of a hand. One streetlamp. The street climbing away into dark.

They stand at the door. Neither reaches for the code.

HANNAH

Seven o'clock.

RODRIGO

Seven-oh-five.

HANNAH

You'll sleep on the plane.

RODRIGO

I won't sleep.

HANNAH

No.

A long silence. Everything has been said, and nothing has.

RODRIGO

Hannah.

HANNAH

Rodrigo.

RODRIGO

Two H's.

HANNAH

One at each end.

RODRIGO

Same in both directions.

HANNAH

I can't be read wrong.

RODRIGO

I know.

She reaches up and touches his face once — her fingertips on the cheekbone, the place where, in the charcoal portrait, he put a shadow like a tear in old paper.

Then she steps back. Taps the code. The heavy door clicks.

She pushes it open. Stops on the threshold. Turns around.

And says the same words she said on Monday, at a little table, before any of this —

HANNAH

It was very lovely meeting you.

He smiles. It hurts.

RODRIGO

Very lovely.

She almost goes in. Then, as the door is closing:

HANNAH

(through the gap)

Again.

The door closes.

He stands alone in the street.

Above him, a window lights up on the third floor. Two silhouettes press against the glass: Julien holding up his phone, filming; Ximena slapping the phone down out of his hand. The light goes out.

Rodrigo laughs, alone, in the empty street. Then he turns and walks down the hill, three hundred meters, toward Rue Durantin.

EXT. RUE DURANTIN — NIGHT

He taps the digicode. The door clicks.

INT. STAIRWELL — CONTINUOUS

Four flights in the dark. He doesn't turn on the light.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — CONTINUOUS

The twenty-four-euro key slides into the lock. Turns without a sound. Pelletier's work. He opens the door so slowly, so carefully, so as not to wake his parents —

And they're awake.

Both of them. At the tiny table under the skylight, in their pajamas, in the light of a single lamp. Clarice with a cup of chamomile. Antônio with the bottle of cachaça he swore he didn't bring. Two suitcases packed and standing by the door like patient dogs.

They look at him.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

E aí?

So?

Rodrigo opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

He sits down on the edge of the sofa bed. Puts his hands on his knees.

And then something happens to his face that none of them is ready for. He starts to laugh — and in the middle of the laugh, he starts to cry — and he

can't stop either one, and he sits there in his good coat at three in the morning doing both at once, helplessly, like a boy.

Clarice puts her cup down. Watches him with enormous tenderness. Then she turns to her husband.

CLARICE

(in Portuguese)

Olha ele. Caiu da bicicleta.

Look at him. He fell off his bike.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese, softly)

Caiu feio.

He fell hard.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Praça da Liberdade. He was seven. The red bicycle. He fell, and he sat on the ground, and he laughed and cried at the same time, and he didn't know which one he was doing.

CLARICE

You've told me that story a hundred times.

ANTÔNIO

And he still doesn't know.

RODRIGO

(wiping his face, laughing)

I don't know.

Antônio gets up. Crosses the tiny room. Sits down on the sofa bed beside his son, and the springs shriek under them both, and he puts a big arm around Rodrigo's shoulders.

For a while, nobody says anything.

ANTÔNIO

Did she come?

RODRIGO

She came.

ANTÔNIO

On time?

RODRIGO

Exactly on time.

ANTÔNIO

Good woman.

A silence.

RODRIGO

Pai. I don't know if I'll ever see her again.

Antônio nods slowly. He looks at the suitcases by the door. At the skylight. At his son.

ANTÔNIO

Thirty-five years I delivered letters, filho. Rain, sun, dogs. Thirty-five years.

He holds up a thick finger. The finger that pointed between two wines.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Do you know how many arrived late?

Rodrigo shakes his head.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Almost all of them.

He lets that sit.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

And do you know how many arrived?

Rodrigo looks at him.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

Almost all of them.

Rodrigo puts his head on his father's shoulder, like when he was nine, and closes his eyes.

Clarice switches off the lamp.

INT. AIRBNB APARTMENT — DAWN

Friday, October 23

4:30 a.m. The skylight black. The suitcases at the door. Coats on.

On the wall by the door, a small grey lockbox. Antônio opens it. Takes the original key, with its wooden fob — DURANTIN 4G — and drops it in, as the host's instructions require. Closes the box.

He turns. Rodrigo is putting on his coat. On his keyring, beside the key to a basement apartment in Toronto: the bright, nameless twenty-four-euro copy.

Antônio sees it. Opens his mouth to make the joke.

He doesn't make the joke.

ANTÔNIO

You're keeping it.

RODRIGO

It's my souvenir.

Antônio looks at the key for a long moment. Then at his son. He doesn't laugh this time. He puts his big hand on the back of Rodrigo's neck, the way he did when Rodrigo was small and crossing a street.

ANTÔNIO

(in Portuguese)

Vinte e quatro euros.

Twenty-four euros.

A beat.

ANTÔNIO (CONT'D)

(in Portuguese)

Barato.

Cheap.

Rodrigo pulls the door shut behind them. It locks itself with a soft click. For the first time all week, nobody needs a key to get back in.

INT. AIRPLANE — CHARLES DE GAULLE — MORNING

Grey dawn on the tarmac. Rain on the window. The cabin full of yawning people.

Rodrigo has the window seat. Antônio is beside him, already asleep, mouth open. Clarice across the aisle, reading glasses on, doing a sudoku in pen.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT (V.O.)

Ladies and gentlemen, please make sure your devices are switched to airplane mode.

Rodrigo looks at his phone.

INSERT — THE PHONE

Freedom Mobile ........ On

06:58

BACK TO SCENE

His thumb hovers over the little airplane.

For the first time in four days, turning something off doesn't frighten him. He knows exactly what is on, and what is off, and why. He knows that when the wheels touch down in Toronto, the line will wake, and it will be his, and it will ring.

He switches on airplane mode.

He puts the phone in his pocket. His fingers find the key there instead. He closes his hand around it.

The plane turns onto the runway. Engines rise.

Through the wet window, as they climb — far off, for one second, through a break in the cloud — a small white shape on a hill.

Then cloud. Then nothing but white.

EXT. TORONTO — DECEMBER — NIGHT

December

Snow. Lots of it. The city hushed under it, streetcars sliding past with their lights blurred, everybody apologizing to everybody on the slippery sidewalks.

INT. RODRIGO'S BASEMENT APARTMENT — TORONTO — NIGHT

Small. Warm. A window at the level of the street, where boots go by in the snow. Canvases leaning against every wall — faces, dark and strange and honest, the kind people call scary.

At the easel: a new one. A woman with red hair, a blue scarf, eyes very direct, mouth about to do something.

It is not scary.

Rodrigo stands in front of it with paint on his hands. He has been working on it for six weeks.

On the table beside him, his keyring. A key to this apartment. A key to the lab. And a bright brass key to a door in Paris that is no longer his.

His phone lies next to the keys.

INSERT — THE PHONE

Freedom Mobile ........ On

It has not been off since October.

INT. STATE ARCHIVE — CONSERVATION WORKSHOP — HAMBURG — DAY

Rain on high windows. Red brick. The grey light of a northern winter.

Hannah at her lightbox, white coat, a letter from 1802 laid open before her, torn along its fold. Japanese tissue. Wheat paste. A brush with three hairs.

On the shelf above her desk: a sheet of drawing paper, charcoal, framed now in simple pale wood. Her own face, about to leave.

On the edge of the lightbox, her keyring. A key to an apartment on a canal. A brass key to a filing cabinet. And one more key, bright, new, foreign.

A COLLEAGUE (40s) leans over from the next bench, curious.

COLLEAGUE

(in German)

Was ist das für ein Schlüssel?

What is that key?

Hannah doesn't look up from the tear.

HANNAH

(in German)

Für ein Schloss in Paris.

For a lock in Paris.

COLLEAGUE

(in German)

Und wo ist das Schloss?

And where is the lock?

Hannah lays the tissue across the tear. It darkens. Becomes nearly invisible. Holds.

You can still see it.

HANNAH

(in German)

Das weiß niemand.

Nobody knows.

She smiles — the moment after the moment before — and goes back to work.

EXT. THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HILL — PARIS

The narrow stone stairway. The weak iron lamp. The wall of ivy.

Winter. Snow on the steps. Snow resting in the ivy leaves. Nobody passes.

Spring. New leaves, pale green, spilling over the old dark ones. Rain.

Summer. Heat. A cat asleep on the step below the lamp. Nobody passes.

Autumn. The ivy turns, here and there, to red and gold. Leaves on the steps.

Behind the ivy, unseen, the little brass padlock hangs from the iron ring, darkening slowly, the way brass does — the engraving softening, R · H, 19.10 — 22.10, letters that fewer and fewer people alive will ever be able to read.

The ivy grows thicker.

Then —

Footsteps on the stairs.

Slow. Coming down. We don't see who. We stay on the wall.

The footsteps stop at the lamp.

A hand enters the frame. It parts the ivy, carefully, the way you'd part a child's hair.

The iron ring. The brass lock, dark now, still there. Exactly where it was.

The hand holds a key. Bright, worn smooth from years in a pocket.

We do not see whose hand it is.

We do not see whether anyone stands beside it.

The key moves toward the lock —

CUT TO BLACK.

Over black, silence.

Then, very faintly, from somewhere — the sound we heard at the very beginning of the film. The hollow purr of a long-distance line.

But this time no robot answers.

It rings. A real ring.

It rings again.

THE END