The City on the Edge of Forever (23 page)

NOTE: an actress with a VOICE that is warm, mature and truthfully effective is absolutely necessary in this role.

EDITH

(to crowd)

Shadow and reality, my friends. That’s the secret of getting through these bad times. Know what is, and what only seems to be. Hunger is real, and so is cold. But sadness is not.

Sister Edith Keeler is a young woman, possibly middle twenties, but with a voice that is instantly arresting. (It was said of the old-time radio announcer, Graham MacNamee, that anyone passing a room in which there was a radio playing his voice was compelled to stop. Sister Edith’s voice has that wonderful quality.) She is quite lovely. Not beautiful, but fresh and vibrant, truly alive. With no adolescence in her loveliness, but a kindness, a radiance. She wears a simple dress, but over it she wears a blue cape fastened at her throat by a scatter pin in the shape of a sunburst. The color of the cape is an attractive, though not gaudy, blue. And the sunburst is not overly obvious at first.

EDITH

And it is the sadness that will kill you, that will ruin you. We all go to bed a little hungry every night, but it is possible to find peace in sleep knowing you have lived another day, and hurt no one doing it.

Spock is passing them now, and he turns with a nod of agreement in f.g. as she says these words of profound simplicity.

66 XTREME CLOSE ON SPOCK

as his eyes widen and he sees something.

67 REVERSE ANGLE—SPOCK’S POV—WHAT HE SEES

CAMERA ZOOMS IN on Edith’s cape as we HEAR in ECHO OVER or FILTER OVER the words of the Guardian.

VOICE OF GUARDIAN

(echo filter)

Blue it will be. Blue as the sky of Old Earth…

Edith’s VOICE UNDER runs concurrently with this phantom sound.

EDITH

Love is only the absence of hate.

CAMERA MOVES UP to her FACE as she says the preceding line while VOICE of GUARDIAN OVER continues.

VOICE OF GUARDIAN

(echo filter)

…and clear as truth. And the sun will burn on it…
 

as CAMERA MOVES DOWN OVER CAPE to the sunburst scatter pin.

68 CLOSE ON SPOCK

as his eyes widen with recognition of the focus point in this time era. And as we HOLD on Spock, he MOVES TOWARD HER in FRAME and we see revealed a placard that was obscured before, while the VOICE of the GUARDIAN ends its phantom reminder.

VOICE OF GUARDIAN

(echo filter)

…and there is the key.

And we HOLD on the edge of the crowd with SPOCK prominent and the placard whose message is simply:

Hear SISTER EDITH KEELER Speak.

SLOW FADE TO

SOFT-FOCUS IRIS ON WORD “KEELER”
 
and
 
FADE OUT.

END ACT TWO

ACT THREE

FADE IN:

69 EXT. NEW YORK STREET—DAY

MED. SHOT on Sister Edith Keeler, selecting a few meager fruits and vegetables from a pushcart at the curb on the busy street we saw in Scene 65, but shot from a DIFFERENT ANGLE. CAMERA ANGLE WIDENS to INCLUDE Spock and Kirk PROMINENT IN F.G., watching her from the security of an apartment entrance.

KIRK

You’re certain?

SPOCK

The cloak was blue as the sky of Old Earth, fastened by a sunburst pin, and they said “there was the
key
.” Her name is
Kee
-ler.

KIRK

An amazing coincidence.

SPOCK

There are no coincidences in time. The Guardian said Beckwith would be drawn to the focal point. As were we. It was inevitable.

Edith moves away, waving gaily to the push-cart vendor who calls something bright and friendly after her. She moves down the sidewalk as CAMERA MOVES WITH HER even though HOLDING the
Enterprise
men in f.g. as their heads move to follow her passage. She stops to talk to two women, who seem bent under a burden of sorrow. They straighten and smile as she leaves them. She pauses to talk to a child sitting on the curb, playing with a cat. The child laughs. The CONVERSATION BETWEEN Kirk and Spock goes on OVER this.

KIRK

She seems such a pleasant woman.

SPOCK

She is a catalyst. Things will happen to time because of her.

KIRK

I wonder what things…?

SPOCK

Or what things will
not
happen.
That
is not our concern. We have to stay with her. Beckwith will find her, and so, logically,
we
will find Beckwith.

70 EXT. TENEMENT—ANOTHER STREET—DAY

as Edith ENTERS FRAME and climbs the worn and sooty stoop and enters the building. CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Kirk and Spock standing beside a closed-up store with GONE OUT OF BUSINESS soap-written on the front window.

SPOCK

This is where she came last night. She is in cubicle number eighteen.

KIRK

Apartment.

SPOCK

(shrugs)

Nomenclature.

KIRK

I’d probably better get an apartment here, if I can, if there’s a vacancy.

SPOCK

Will I be able to live here? These people seem to have all sorts of irrational categories for who can live where. Ghettos? Is that right?

KIRK

Sometimes.

(1/2 beat)

Yes, you can live here, too, but you’d better keep out of sight as much as possible. Find some place where you can keep an eye on her apartment without being seen, and you can work on the tricorder.

SPOCK

(without amusement)

I am amused at your perception of what I must do to return the tricorder to a functional condition, Captain. “Work” is not the word I would have chosen.

(beat)

Perhaps “reinvent” might suffice.

KIRK

(musing)

We’ve been here—what is it—eight, nine days?

SPOCK

Nine of these 24-hour Earth days.

KIRK

How far ahead of Beckwith’s arrival do you think the Vortex set us down?

SPOCK

I could only conjecture.

KIRK

A couple of weeks? A month? Not a year! You don’t think it could be a year, do you?

SPOCK

I could only conjecture.

KIRK

(exasperated)

Yes, Spock, I
understand
. You can only conjecture. I urge you to
do so
.

SPOCK

He could have already come through.

KIRK

Are you serious? Then why haven’t we seen him, or felt him, or—

SPOCK

We won’t know, if I extrapolate correctly, until he is drawn to the Keeler woman.

KIRK

Will it take him as long to reach her as it took us?

SPOCK

(shrugs)

There is no way of knowing.

KIRK

It’s incredible to think of Beckwith coming through hundreds of years, in a straight line to her, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow…

SPOCK

We traveled the same line…

We SEE the special look Spock is giving his Captain, whose eyes are still on that building; a look that seems perplexed and a shade concerned, as he adds:

SPOCK

(murmurs)

…straight to her.

HOLD on SPOCK and KIRK each locked with secret thoughts as we

DISSOLVE TO:

71 EXT. ROOFTOP—NIGHT—HIGH ANGLE—DESCENDING BOOM SHOT

TO Kirk and Spock, flat-out on their stomachs on the tenement roof, staring across an airshaft to a lit window, apartment eighteen. From time to time, Edith can be seen, moving back and forth. She SINGS a popular song of the period which can be HEARD UNDER. Kirk has just crawled in.

KIRK

Okay, go get some sleep. I’ll spell you.

SPOCK

Is there anything to eat?

KIRK

I bought nine pounds of cabbage and asparagus. The grocer is beginning to look at me.

SPOCK

It is the only Earth food I can keep down. No hydroponics, no synthetics, my system needs
youbash
and
keva
…

KIRK

I can imagine how inconspicuous you’d be with purple
keva
juice running down your Chinese face. Stick with the asparagus.

SPOCK

She is keeping a regular schedule.

KIRK

(musing)

Mmmm. She’s quite lovely, isn’t she, Mr. Spock?

There’s that EXPRESSION of concern again. SPOCK in b.g. of FRAME with KIRK in f.g. watching that lit window.

SPOCK

This is not an easy pursuit to begin with, Captain. Complications could make it impossible.

KIRK

(as if hearing him

for the first time)

What?

SPOCK

I have a theory, Captain, that the easiest world for a spaceman to “go native” on—is his own world.

KIRK

Don’t be ridiculous. The stakes are too high here.

SPOCK

(with meaning)

That was precisely my point.

He crawls away in the dark as Kirk looks after him for SEVERAL MEANINGFUL BEATS and then slowly looks back toward the brightness of the window, and Edith silhouetted, with her SONG on the ascendant. HOLD on Kirk, ambivalent.

DISSOLVE TO:

72 INT. TENEMENT—SHOT UP STAIRWELL—DAY

as Edith comes down TOWARD CAMERA brightly. There is joy in her movement, enthusiasm and spring in her step. A man could delight in this female, so very womanly and yet so self-possessed in her maturity. A VOICE O.S. halts her.

KIRK’S VOICE O.S.

Hello.

She is CLOSE TO CAMERA now and as she pauses with her hand on the banister, she looks back up the way she came and we see Kirk leaning over the railing on the floor above. HOLD Edith CLOSE IN F.G. to Kirk in b.g. above her.

EDITH

Hello.

KIRK

(nervous beat)

I wanted to say hello.

EDITH

(amused)

And you do it very well. Would you like to try it again? Hello.

KIRK

(grins widely)

I guess it was a pretty lame way to get to meet you.

EDITH