The City on the Edge of Forever (24 page)

On the contrary. It worked marvelously well. I’m Edith Keeler.

Kirk comes around the newel post, down the stairs to her as CAMERA FOLLOWS holding her in f.g.

KIRK

I’m Jim Kirk. I just moved in. I saw you a couple of times.

EDITH

You have a very pleasant accent. Iowa?

KIRK

Uh, Iowa. Yes, that’s very good, most people don’t catch it.

EDITH

I have a good ear. From singing in church choir. You get to know pitch.

Now they stand beside each other.

KIRK

(at a loss now)

Well…

EDITH

You’re quite handsome.

KIRK

(nonplussed)

Why, uh, thank you. And you’re quite lovely.

EDITH

Now that all that is out of the way, would you like to take a walk with me? I’m going to pick up some stolen merchandise.

Kirk is astonished. His expression tells us so. She notes his consternation.

73 2-SHOT—KIRK & EDITH

EDITH (CONT’D.)

(laughs)

Don’t be bothered. I’m not a thief. Some young boys I know, well, they made a mistake. I talked to Lt. Gleeson at the precinct, and he said if the goods were returned—

KIRK

(pleasured)

You do quite a lot of that sort of good work, don’t you?

EDITH

I try to keep busy.

KIRK

There seems to be enough misery to keep a
platoon
busy.

(beat)

You seem sturdy, but it must wear you down.

EDITH

(confides)

There
is
a Depression on; the secret is not getting “depressed.”

(brightly)

Shall we walk now?

KIRK

Love to.

74 REVERSE ANGLE

ON THEM as they move together toward the vestibule door that will open onto the street. They carry the FOREGOING DIALOGUE with them as they leave the tenement. As they go out the door, CAMERA PANS SWIFTLY RIGHT to a mirror hanging on the wall, which gives us an ANGLED VIEW UP the stairwell. Spock is there, watching, troubled.

CUT TO:

75 LIMBO SHOT—EDITH & KIRK

against darkness, walking, apparently talking to one another, Edith laughing lightly at one point, as LIGHTS FLICKER BEHIND THEM then vanish, as STROBE LINES shoot past, giving us a sense of space and time elapsing. And slowly they reach toward one another without looking, and hold hands, still walking as we

DISSOLVE THRU TO:

76 INT. EDITH’S APARTMENT—KIRK & EDITH—NIGHT

a plain little room. The INTERIOR of WHAT WE SAW EXT. IN Scene 71 across the airshaft. (if feasible, suggest use apartment in Sc. 71, redecorated and shot in reverse to save cost of another set-up.) Feminine touches, but nothing very elegant. She lives in the same simplicity of decency which she preaches. A little square table covered with oilcloth (
not
a tablecloth) is in the center of the room and Edith comes from kitchen to the table set for two, carrying a hot dish of something. We HEAR a KNOCK on the outside door.

EDITH

It’s open, Jim.

Kirk comes in, a little wearily, and assays the room. He is dressed in work clothes. He slumps into a chair, pulls off a shoe.

EDITH

What’s the matter?

KIRK

(rubs foot)

Ah, I bought a cheap pair of shoes. They’re too tight.

She goes into the kitchen and putters there as we HEAR the SOUNDS of her activity. She speaks to him from there, O.S.

EDITH’S VOICE O.S.

How is it going on the job?

KIRK

Drearily. But at least I’m learning how to operate a steam shovel.

(ironic)

Should be of immense help in my chosen profession.

She pops her head out, a dish towel in her hand.

EDITH

There are times when you say things that don’t mean what you said, know what I mean?

Kirk knows. We can see in his face his amazement and possibly his concern. She is watching him. He motions her toward him. She comes, carrying the dish towel, and he pulls her down into his lap as CAMERA CLOSES ON THEM.

KIRK

Why do you say that?

EDITH

Sometimes you seem, well, disoriented, Jim, like a man fresh from the country.

KIRK

Iowa?

EDITH

(dead serious)

Further away than that.

KIRK

“When night proceeds to fall, all men become strangers…”

EDITH

It’s true. Who said it, I don’t recognize it.

KIRK

Wellman 9. An obscure poet. Someday people will call his work the most beautiful ever known in the galaxy.

EDITH

That’s a lot of territory.

KIRK

There’s a lot of territory
out
there.

EDITH

Now you sound like what I tell my people on the street corners.

KIRK

What you say is true.

(beat)

Ouch, it’s my own fault.

EDITH

We could always get them stretched.

Kirk’s face goes through changes. She has said something very important, but we don’t know what. He pulls her close, buries his head in her bosom, and she strokes his hair as we

LAP-DISSOLVE TO:

77 KIRK & SPOCK—LIMBO SHOT

against blackness. Why? Because this conversation is as much inside their natures as out in the world. And played in CLOSE 2-SHOT without recourse to sets or distractions, it will illuminate their characters more cleanly.

SPOCK

You are my Captain. It is not proper that I express such opinions.

KIRK

If I’m wrong I want to know.

SPOCK

That is my opinion.

KIRK

Why? It’s necessary to be near her…we can’t possibly know the precise moment Beckwith will find her.

SPOCK

You argue illogically, Captain. I do not think Beckwith is what keeps you so near this woman.

KIRK

You’re wrong.

SPOCK

I do not think so, Captain.

KIRK

(rather annoyed)

Since when did you become a telepath?

SPOCK

Empathy is not telepathy. I can feel it coming off you in waves…you are getting involved.

KIRK

I just want to find Beckwith.

SPOCK

Captain, fooling me is simple. Just give me the order, I will change my opinion.

KIRK

(a bit sadly)

But…we talk, Mr. Spock. We sit and we talk about…everything.

SPOCK

She is a fine person.

KIRK

Listen: I’ve been on the move since I was old enough to ship on as wiper in one of the old chemical-fuel rockets. It’s been time, Mr. Spock; a lot of time.

SPOCK

(understandingly)

And the women you have known have been casual liaisons, in the port cities and the pleasure planets. It is that way for every spacer, Captain.

(beat)

I am a Vulcan, not a neuter. I understand very well.

KIRK

But this is something else, Spock! Total communication. I’ve never known anything like this with
any
one!
 

(beat)

She
knows
, Spock. She understands— everything!

SPOCK

It can be a foolish thing, Captain. We are only phantoms here, things lost from a future that may not even exist again. We have not even been born yet. Lost things set down on an alien shore, Captain.

KIRK

Why? Why does it have to end here—?

SPOCK

You can not change the past without changing the future…

They are speaking faster now, almost atop one another’s words.

KIRK

Why can’t I bring her back with me? She isn’t important here, the way she feels, the goodness, the things she believes for the world, they aren’t ready for it—

SPOCK

(suddenly)

She is going to die!

There is a shocked moment of silence.

SPOCK (CONT’D.)

(softer)

I was able to repair the tricorder. Not well, but sufficiently to learn she will die.

KIRK

(in shock)

No…

SPOCK

Captain, she
has
to die.

(continues, softer)

The Guardian told us. We had insufficient codification to interpret the metaphors. But I have been resonating the words again in my mind.

KIRK

No.

SPOCK

(recites)

“He will seek that which must die, and give it life. Stop him.”

KIRK

I don’t believe that…they didn’t mean that at all. How could her death alter the course of history?

SPOCK

In a million ways. If she lived, she might give birth to a child who would become a dictator…

KIRK

That’s all extrapolation, none of it real. You’re guessing…

SPOCK

…in a few years this planet will have a war, a great war. What if her philosophy spread, and it kept America out of the war for a mere two years longer…and in that time Germany perfected its atomic weapons? The outcome of the war would be reversed.

KIRK

That’s insanity.

SPOCK

History, Captain. There are spools of records on the
Enterprise
. I have played them all…. What I suggest is just one logical extrapolation.

(beat)

She has to die; history and time demand it.

KIRK

I don’t want to think about it. Leave me alone.

SPOCK

I
will leave you alone, Captain—

(beat)

but time will not.

Their IMAGES BEGIN TO FADE into the blackness, like a light being turned slowly down, dimmer and dimmer, till all we see is the tormented face of Jim Kirk, in the mid-f.g.