The Grand Budapest Hotel (16 page)

The gunfire pauses. Everyone remains poised for the next volley. Henckels hollers:

M. Gustave and Zero remain tucked against the walls on the floor of the service elevator. M. Gustave yells, enraged:

There is a loud creak, then a crashing bang. M. Chuck squints at an open window in a small alcove across from him.

Zero looks to M. Gustave. He says, under his breath:

Zero sprints out of the service elevator and races up the corridor. Dmitri starts shooting again. The entire group opens fire once more. Zero runs, crouched, with his hands over his head, and ducks into the alcove. His head thrusts out the window. He looks down.

Cut to:

Agatha swinging by one hand from a broken trellis off the end of a terrace three flights below. She hangs onto the wrapped painting with her other hand. She notices something on it and frowns.

Insert:

The dangling package. A section of the wrapping paper has torn away, and the corner of a pale-pink envelope is visible pasted to the back of the picture.

Zero stares down at Agatha, horrified. He mutters to himself:

Zero races back through the hail of bullets. He darts past Henckels and down the stairwell. He descends three flights. He crosses the corridor and stops in front of a door labeled
‘310-bis’
. A sign on the knob reads: ‘Do Not Disturb’.

Zero hesitates an instant.

He raps briskly, retreats back across the corridor, lowers his shoulder, and charges with all his strength.

Just as he reaches the door, it swings open to reveal a small, bearded man in a long nightgown. He sidesteps Zero.

Zero stumbles full speed through the sitting room and out the wide-open terrace doors. He slams against the balcony railing and flips over it. Agatha releases the package and grabs Zero’s shirt as he somersaults over her.

Zero’s weight jerks Agatha down with a jolt. They fall together.

Four floors down, Zero and Agatha punch through the canvas roof of the back of the Mendl’s van and disappear inside. Silence.

Zero sits up among the chaotic pile of scattered and upturned pink, cardboard pastry-boxes. He gasps and digs for Agatha. She surfaces.

Zero embraces Agatha. He kisses her passionately. He looks into her eyes. She says, woozy:

Agatha holds a piece of the torn and crumbled wrapping paper. She and Zero both look straight up.

Cut to:

Zero and Agatha’s point-of-view through the hole punched in the roof of the van. Seven floors up, M. Gustave, Henckels, and M. Chuck
lean out the window staring down at them, frozen, while other officers lean out other windows all across the facade. Four floors up, ‘Boy with Apple’, unwrapped, hangs upside-down from a wire below the balcony. It swings gently.

Insert:

The painting, upside-down. A pair of hands flips it over to reveal the pale-pink envelope on the reverse.

Title:

The entire, vast assembly of officers and soldiers stands crowded, murmuring, around a table in the restaurant where M. Gustave, Zero, and Dmitri, all in handcuffs, sit across from Henckels. Agatha stands behind Zero. Marguerite, Laetizia, and Carolina stand behind Dmitri. M. Chuck stands behind Henckels.

Henckels carefully peels the envelope loose from the back of the canvas. He slits it open with a pocket knife and removes a handwritten letter on pale-pink paper. He skims it, then looks to M. Gustave.

M. Gustave on the witness stand. He wears his concierge uniform and is immaculate. The jury listens, enraptured by his testimony. The judge sniffs the air. He looks irritated.

Zero, Agatha, Herr Becker, Mr. Mosher, and Anatole watch, entertained, from the gallery.

Insert:

The front page of the
Trans-Alpine Yodel.
Headline: 
CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES
.
A photograph shows M. Gustave with the entire staff posing in front of the Grand Budapest. A column below the fold reads, ‘Son of Murdered Countess Disappears without Trace.’

Cut to:

Zero behind the concierge desk. He now wears a uniform identical to M. Gustave’s. He rattles off instructions to Mr. Mosher, Herr Becker, Anatole, and M. Chuck.

Across the lobby, M. Gustave sits drinking a cocktail with a beautiful, begemmed, ninety-year-old woman. His hand rests on her thigh.

The facade of the Grand Budapest at sunset. The camera glides along the path through the plot of edelweiss and buttercups.

The camera comes to a stop as it reveals the view from the iron-lattice terrace over the crevasse alongside the cascade.

Zero and Agatha hold hands while M. Gustave reads from a Bible, officiating. The other witnesses are the staff of the hotel and the concierges of the Society of the Crossed Keys.

A first-class state room on the express to Lutz. M. Gustave, Zero, and Agatha each hold a glass of chilled, white wine.

M. Gustave checks the color of the wine in the light. It is excellent. Pause.

Zero looks slightly puzzled. M. Gustave explains, aside, to Agatha:

M. Gustave kisses Agatha’s hand. Zero frowns.

The train has, in fact, again come to a halt in the middle of nowhere – but, this time, outside the window, there are tanks, trucks, and a hundred soldiers in black uniforms with long coats. M. Gustave, Zero, and Agatha stare out at them, uneasy.

Three soldiers appear in the compartment doorway. They are stocky, thick-necked, and armed with carbine rifles. M. Gustave says with his usual air of fancy-meeting-you-here:

M. Gustave and Agatha withdraw their passports and present them to the soldier. The soldier flips through them
.

The soldier ignores this comment. He returns the passports to M. Gustave and Agatha and looks to Zero. Zero nervously hands him his little scrap of paper. The soldier frowns and studies it. M. Gustave smiles. He says lightly: