“It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? You end a comedy with a marriage, because everyone wants to see a marriage. But how about a tragedy?”

The secretary, Helen, was standing in the doorway again. She had to lean to be seen around the bookcase. “The Russians,” she said, and bit her lip.

“Yes?”

“They had heard from their friend Prince Henry of Greece that sometimes a souvenir—”

“Oh, dear mother of us all.” Chaplin winced.

“—film is made, as a token of—”

“No more princes,” Chaplin said. “Let them meet Doug. Let them meet Pickford. No more tokens, not ever again. Tell them … tell them I’m dead, something, I don’t know what.”

She shimmered away like a mirage. Chaplin faced his brother with both fatigue and stamina; it was odd, the longer he went without sleep the less he seemed to need it. He hadn’t been hungry for hours, and he couldn’t imagine wanting food again.

“You know, you should rest,” Syd said.

“I’ve ended the new film with me waking up. It’s all been a dream.”

Syd couldn’t tell if he was joking. “So it’s a comedy.”

“With a bad ending. It lacks courage.”

“I’m sure it’s good,” Syd said. “When do I see it, then?”

“You’re sure it’s good.” Said with suspicion. There was an uncomfortable moment, for Charlie recognized in Syd the careful gaze, the reassuring pat to the back of the hand. How he always knew to sing harmony on “As the Church Bells Chime” when their mother reached the second verse. Chaplin wanted to clear the air of such things, so he said, “Syd, have you ever felt like you’re on the verge of something larger?” He wanted to say it precisely. “Have you ever felt that if you get past the sound of your own voice, you might somehow become …” He opened his arms and threw back his shoulders and took in a deep draft of warm Hollywood air that had coalesced in his stuffy little office. “Like that day two years ago, when everyone thought they saw me. Like that.”

Syd, lost and a bit frightened, said, “Why don’t you show me the film? I might understand more that way.”

“The film after this will capture it,” his brother said. His voice, while not getting louder, was getting faster. “I sometimes wonder if I might just be a radio receiver for the world’s thoughts, and if I am careful, I might just hear them. I’ll make a film as good as—well, you know?”

Helen was at the door again, before he’d had time to truly build on these ideas, and he was angry at the interruption.

“Yes?”

“It’s one-thirty,” she said. “Mr. Fairbanks and Miss Pickford are in the cinema.”