Stop!Cut!

"Stop! Cut!," loudly and authoritatively commanded the man in a multicolored polo shirt, dark green shorts, with a sparse red beard on his flat, yellow face, and the same rare hairs on his head, gathered at the edges of his skull: behind his ears and at the back of his head in the shape of a horseshoe.

He quickly jumped out of his folding chair, paying no attention to the crowd: the lighting crew, costume designers, and makeup artists. He approached the man lying on the decorated stage floor amidst sharp stones and fake snow, dressed in full military attire.

The clothing he wore was winter gear: warm and thick, white camouflage. Despite being inside a closed movie studio, the man felt uncomfortable and suffocated from the heat.

"David," the man with the rare beard addressed calmly this time, "let's take a break. I think you've overheated."

David, a man with features resembling Christoph Waltz, perhaps only with a sharper chin and lighter eyes, declined and absentmindedly wiped the sweat drops from his broad forehead, getting caught in his thick eyebrows.

The director with the flat face simply smiled good-naturedly at this response, patted him on the shoulder, and instructed him to change his clothes and head downstairs.

"But make sure to take the rifle with you," the director warned, pointing his finger at the carbine with a scope that David tightly held in his hands.

About half an hour later, they met at the cafeteria, a bright rectangular space on the first floor of the movie studio. The place was filled with tables and chairs, and its end featured a display with various desserts, fruits, and salads. Behind the cashier, a black glossy board hung, occasionally marked with pink chalk, words, and numbers, providing information to visitors about the items and prices.

"Are you hungry?" the man with the rare beard, whose name was Jonathan but everyone called him Joe, asked.

"No, thanks, Joe," replied David. "You know I never eat during shoots."

"Well, I'm hungry from your acting," Joe said, raising his voice significantly. "I'd love to have a steak or beef stroganoff right now. But damn, they don't have anything meaty here. Only sweets, salads, and that vegetarian menu. Soon, David, it will come to a point where there's nothing for a normal person to eat."

"I'm a vegetarian, Joe," said the man with the appearance of Christoph Waltz, looking slim and lanky without the warm clothing.

"A vegetarian?" the director repeated and burst out laughing. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. It's just amazing: a vegetarian playing a German sniper during World War II."

He then turned to the cafeteria attendant, a young girl with a cute face and a mole on her lower right eyelid.

"Miriam, please give me a cheesecake," he tapped his nail on the glass surface, squinting and aiming at the dessert covered with light-red jam, resembling blood, and continued, "and also, be kind enough to bring me some tea. Remember the one from last time, I think it was called 'Flamingo Vanilla' from San Francisco."

"Only today, our cheesecake comes with a non-dairy cream substitute," the girl warned, and then noticed the director's puzzled look, so she quickly added, "well, it's when it's not made from milk."

"Milk substitutes, sugar substitutes, meat substitutes," Joe muttered quietly. "I wonder if you've come up with a substitute for life."

The girl didn't lose her composure and replied with a smile, "Well, this is the world of cinema."

They sat at a table near the window. It was a large, panoramic window that started almost at floor level and extended up into the ceiling vaults. Through it, they could see the movie studio's inner courtyard, neatly trimmed grass, and spherical hydrangea flowers, basking in the dark-yellow rays of the setting sun.

"You didn't take the rifle," the flat-faced man said.

"Sorry, Joe," David replied, "I forgot. If it's so important, I can go get it."

"No need," Joe said, cautiously chewing a piece of cheesecake while checking it for glass.

Christoph watched him attentively, resting his elbows on the edge of the table, and slowly smiled, revealing perfectly white and straight teeth.

"Well, and how is it?" Christoph asked.

"Amazing," the flat-faced man said, using "normal" instead of "regular" deliberately. "You can't tell the taste difference at all."

Joe took a significant sip from his black mug with the establishment's logo: a silhouette of a mountain peak and a pine branch in the foreground. Then he turned to Christoph Waltz.

David, you're a great actor," the man began, "and I have no complaints about how you portray a lover, a son, or a father." He paused and took another sip of tea. "Even when you play a German sniper in the snow-covered Carpathian Mountains, I have no doubt that before me stands a cold-blooded killer, a professional, a damned Nazi scum." The director, being Jewish, savored every word he spoke. "But at the same time, I don't like your gaze. You may think I'm nitpicking, that I'm overly demanding."

David wanted to say that it wasn't the case, but Joe interrupted him.

"Wait," he said, scrunching up his face, "I just want us to finish this scene today. I want you to go back to the set right now, lie down on that damn fake snow, take the prop rifle, look ahead at that green screen, catch focus through the crosshairs of the optical sight, and start looking for the woman sniper who, under different circumstances, you might even fall in love with. Under different circumstances, you wouldn't hunt her with a weapon but with a glass of Château Lafite. Under different circumstances, David, you two might have a showdown in bed, and you'd desire her, mixing your sweat with hers like ingredients of a rare cocktail called 'passion of two lovers.' You could even have children together, David. I want you to see all of this through the lifeless optics, you know? Let me savor that gaze like I savor sex, David! Allow me to touch it!"

Joseph Hätzenauer had only seen the woman's face once, but he could no longer forget it. Her chestnut hair peeked out in amusing curls from under a gray hat made of coarse sheepskin, and her dark green eyes resembled magnolia leaves he had admired in childhood while vacationing with his parents in Baden-Baden. Her perfectly chiseled features enchanted the German officer: rosy cheeks, plump lips, a graceful nose, and a mole, like a birthmark on her lower right eyelid.

Their first encounter happened eleven months ago in the Belarusian forests, not far from the city of Brest. The first autumn of the war, the brutal treatment of prisoners of war, and the killing of civilians gave rise to a terrifying phenomenon - the partisans. Lyudmila, a girl who had recently graduated from high school, had never imagined that fate would lead her to the front, taking away her loved ones, home, hopes, and future. She had never planned to shoot people, even very bad ones. And now, every time she had to do it, she did so with great reluctance.

Joseph shrugged. That first meeting with Lyudmila could have cost him his life, but he managed to escape with only a minor injury. Since then, Lyudmila had become a much better shooter. She had 247 dead German soldiers to her name. Joseph searched for her along the entire frontline. Rumors of the Soviet sniper reached him here and there. She was like a ghost, and superstitious soldiers nicknamed her "Banshee." In European folklore, Banshees were foretellers of death. From the stories he heard, not always seeming credible, Joseph still understood that Lyudmila was close by, and that sooner or later, a duel between them was inevitable. Several times, he even thought he had killed her, like that time near the village of Staraya and then at Babi Yar. But afterwards, tragic news from the front made him realize otherwise.

Joseph desperately wanted to look into the girl's eyes, even if it was through a sniper scope, and return to her a piece of lead that the surgeon had extracted from his shoulder in a field hospital.

In the Carpathian Mountains at this time of year, mists were a frequent occurrence. The optics quickly became covered in moisture and froze in the cold. The hideout he had chosen, after scouting it a week ago, was well-equipped. A wide cliff hung over the valley, where the riverbed below shimmered with silver ice. Ahead of him, the mountain ridges stretched, disappearing into the embrace of the horizon, wrapped in a blanket of clouds, glistening and blinding in their thick snow cover.

The last time Banshee was seen here, she appeared suddenly, swiftly dealing with a mountain detachment of stormtroopers who were crossing, and just as quickly as she appeared, she vanished.

Joseph carefully wiped the eyepiece; through the scope's lens, the objects in the valley seemed almost like toys. Everything he looked at appeared surreal: whether it was people or animals, trees or bushes, buildings or military equipment.

The previous night, Joseph had slept in fragments. He had a strange dream, as if everything that was happening to him was staged. In the dream, they called him David, and he was an actor. In the same dream, the flat-faced director was giving him advice on how to play the role of a sniper. He remembered the cashier girl, who turned out to be Lyudmila, and he recalled the Mauser 98 rifle, exactly like the one he was holding in his hands now.

Several hours of futile searching had passed. The empty, desolate valley was drowning in thick mist, rarely illuminated by patches of sunlight breaking through the torn clouds. As the snow sparkled like diamond dust, capturing the lost photons within its tiny crystals, the once green meadows now resembled lifeless deserts, forgotten by all.

Suddenly, Joseph felt an intense gaze upon him, and he continued to breathe slowly, making the vapor from his nostrils nearly imperceptible. Not far from his hideout, an eagle sat, adjusting its wings. The bird was studying the man who had dared to climb so high into its heavenly domain. The predator was at a distance of 14 feet and showed no fear of the man; instead, it looked at him challengingly, as if eager to attack.

"Go away," Joseph whispered and added spitefully, "Did you hear what I said? Go to hell, devil!"

The eagle stretched its neck toward the officer and spread its wings. Its thick feathers caught the icy wind, bringing fine snowflakes with it. Then, unexpectedly, the bird flinched just a second before a thunderous clap resounded through the valley, over the frozen riverbed, and above the mountain peaks. It flinched and swiftly plunged down from the cliff.

The Mauser lay motionless on the freezing ground. Next to it lay Joseph, his gaze fixed on the spot where the bird had been sitting just moments ago. His eyes were glassy, like the eyes that hadn't yet comprehended that they no longer belonged to a living body. There was astonishment, regret, and fading hope in them.

This time, nobody shouted the familiar phrase, "Stop! Cut!" to halt the lifeless stiffening. Joseph was dead, and this time, no one called a halt to the scene.