Sommelier: But if you don’t stop—of course

Barman: I’ll be right there, be right there

Diner 1: We see you

I recognize the scene immediately. It occurs midway through the film, during Scottie-Jeff’s return to Ernie’s Restaurant. Again he takes his place on the barstool, peering hauntedly off-camera. Again the corpses around him mutter among themselves. I skim their captions quickly, three times in succession, looking for any clues. But none of them call out, It’s Jeff! Instead, the sommelier confers with the host. The barman attends to his bespectacled patron. But if you do not stop, says the one; I’ll be right there, says the other. As for Diner 1—who I can only presume is the wolfish man in the black bowtie—he is holding forth at his table, grinning mischievously at the woman seated opposite him. We see you, he tells her. We see you, he says. I shake my head at the transcript. Bereyter could not have written less meaningful white dialogues himself. And yet, I think, rereading the captions for the fourth time, there is something not quite right here. Something in each screen capture—something ineffable—is off: each frame before me bears some uncanny incongruity. Perhaps it is only because my eye has been trained by Hitchcock, conditioned to seek out the one stray detail that unsettles the image—the crop duster dusting a cropless field; the windmill that spins against the breeze—but it strikes me that these cannot possibly be the words that the extras are mouthing. The sommelier, flaunting a wine bottle in his hands, admonishes the host with this enigmatic ultimatum: If you do not stop, he says… But stop what? Meanwhile the barman assures his customer—even as he is walking away from him—I’ll be right there, be right there. Then there is Diner 1: he tells the woman, We see you, when no one at the table is even looking at her. He himself is glancing—grinning—at a point over her shoulder. There must be some mistake. The lip-reader must have misread their lips. The barman could very well be mouthing, Pee right there. I mouth these syllables silently to myself, testing out the alternatives. Fright there, I mouth to myself, and then, Bright air. Bright star, I mouth to myself, and then, Be right air. Be right err, Be rye tare, I mouth to myself, as a chill runs through me. Be reyt er, I mouth to myself, gripping my pen, Bereyter. Right there, I mouth to myself, Bereyter. Right there, Bereyter, I mouth to myself. Pen in hand, I scrawl a line through the italicized caption, forcefully crossing out the second be right there. Beside it I write—as best I can in the darkness, my hand trembling—Bereyter.

I’ll be right there, be right there Bereyter