He finished this edit early in the morning of September 15, around five o’clock. He was entirely alone at the studio, having mastered the art of splicing film years before, when he realized that no one else was capable of staying up by the light table several nights in a row, and no one else had his eye for telling the difference between a shot that lasted eighteen seconds and one that lasted eighteen seconds and three-sixteenths. Upon finishing, he walked to the swimming pool and stood on the end of the diving board, bouncing in place. The sun was coming up; the morning birds—different kinds of songbirds whose names he didn’t know—towhees? finches?— were flitting in the ficus trees; and he pinched together his thumb and forefinger against the skin of his palm until his nails left a divot.

He had fifty-six minutes of the following: him fouling up some randomly ordered infantry drills that any doughboy would know were inaccurate; him doing business in the trenches (the mail scene seemed to go on forever); taking thirteen Germans prisoner (“I surrounded them”—why had he found that funny?); the tree-disguise faction; romancing Edna while the Kaiser visits her farmhouse (why was he there?); Edna overacting to the point of gnawing her knuckles bloody; some business with Syd and Edna disguised as German staff that was actually rather good; capturing the Kaiser; Charlie wakes up, The End.

He had lost track somewhere. A Dog’s Life had been better—the Little Fellow had changed from the beginning to the end—but in this one, no. Chaplin bounced up and down on his diving board, hands in pockets, looking into the salt waters his career had paid for. The picture was a loss of nerve. He had taken out the hardest parts, and in doing so had removed its tusks, leaving behind a saber-toothed tiger made out of soap. He had scheduled a screening at one-thirty for Doug. If Doug had reservations, he would destroy the print.

He listened for the sound of the new milkman (they took eight quarts on the front doorstep from the Golod Dairy, which had just opened shop with very competitive rates), the rattle of bottles, and he awaited the single shot of a sniper that would pitch him forward into the pool, where blood would ooze like an oil slick upon the water.

He wanted to talk to Syd about the futility of love and about his coming death, but at nine-thirty the Russians arrived.

They had no appointment; the front office was filled with them. Two limousines disgorged approximately fifteen men and women in furs, with attendants and ladies-in-waiting and a silent three-year-old child of indeterminate gender that sucked its right thumb and walked with its left hand lodged in the nanny’s waistband.