Director's Cut by Arthur Japin

monologue she’d prepared for her examination. Standing in front of the fireplace, she acted out an excerpt from Lorca, and when she had finished he broke the silence by applauding with wide flapping arms.
    â€œJust look at that,” he said to his wife, “just look at that, you spawned an actress!”
    The next morning, when Gala appeared before the admissions committee, she could still feel the heat of the embers on her back. And while she tried to summon up the stifled rage of the spurned woman, all her passion was extinguished by the thought of the benevolence in her father’s eyes as he did his utmost to be encouraging.
    Although the results wouldn’t be in for two weeks, Gala left the audition room knowing she wouldn’t be admitted. She spent a night with Maxim drinking and swearing, dancing and crying, but when he appeared beside her bed the next morning with warm croissants, freshly squeezed orange juice, and Alka-Seltzer, she had already adjusted her plans. She’d finish her undergraduate degree, she wouldn’t disappoint her father again, but then, she told herself, “our accounts are settled and my life is my own.” She liked that idea. It excited her to postpone things. Suddenly she could visualize her freedom, like a light shining more brightly at the end of a longer tunnel. One day, many years later, she would bathe in it. She eventually graduated with honors, and none of her professors suspected that the only thing that kept her going was the thought of the freedom awaiting her.
    Gala passes through the shadows of Emperor Trajan’s Market. Each of the old shops in the semicircular gallery is lit up by sunlight from the high windows. The wind of time has polished the travertine so that the sunshine reflects and scatters into every gloomy corner. Walking down the marble passage, Gala appears as a specter in the light and a smudge in the shadows. A specter in the light, a smudge in the shadows. The click of her heels echoes through the low stone rooms. What
is
it about that gait, so slow you want to hurry her along, tell her to get moving, even though you’d never dare? But the languor of a woman inspires moreawe than annoyance. She has eternity on her side; haste is all we’ve got. Gala saunters past the deserted stalls. How tempting to mistake this calm for confidence.
    â€œNowhere else I know so evokes the atmosphere of ancient Rome.” The man is standing eyes shut in the middle of Trajan’s Forum. Gala hadn’t noticed any other visitors.
    â€œWith a little effort, you can see them on their way to the baths, mothers coming from the market with their whining kids behind them.”
    Gala smiles and walks on.
    â€œTry it,” the man insists, “close your eyes.”
    â€œDon’t need to. I can imagine it like this.”
    â€œThen you must be an artist.” He opens his eyes and looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Or a magician, of course.”
    Gala ignores him. In the two days since she got to Rome, he’s the eighty-sixth guy who’s tried to pick her up. In her mind, she starts running through the brush-offs which, together with the conjugations of “to be” and “to have,” form the basis of every Italian course back home in Amsterdam. But the man doesn’t try to follow her. He has closed his eyes again, standing there as if he finds the dead more important. Of course, Gala is relieved that she won’t have to give him the brush-off. But for an instant so brief she hardly notices it, her stomach shrinks at the thought that she’s somehow proved inadequate. That she has disappointed him. Soon, on her way out, she is once again fascinated by the floor mosaics. She hasn’t even reached the street when, studying her map, she bumps into someone. It’s the same man. He asks where she’s going and offers her a ride.
    At that moment, Maxim is ringing the bell of the