Read Online Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Spielberg
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the brilliant sunset with Laughlin and two technicians.
The blood-red orange rays of the sun were coming in almost horizontally now. In a little while the great hot ball of flame, filtered and distorted by endless miles of dusty atmosphere, would swell, darken and hide itself from sight behind the low range of hills to the west.
“Let us go,” Lacombe said.
Laughlin gestured to the two technicians, who picked up their microphones, Nagra tape recorder, portable battery-belts, and the lightweight Arriflex 16-mm camera. The four men moved slowly through the crowd of pilgrims.
The people were densely packed, some on small rugs, with baskets of food beside them. There were whole families, even ancient-looking grandparents (who were probably under forty years of age), wizened and emaciated by hunger and disease.
The Westerners moved with prudent speed up the hillside toward the cleared area where the sadhu sat, legs crossed beneath him in the lotus position, eyes shut, palms pressed together, elbows out to the side like some strange, meditative bird of passage.
A sleek young Brahmin in city whites arose at Lacombe’s approach. Laughlin moved in to translate while the technicians began setting up.
“It lacks half an hour of the sun’s death,” the Brahmin told Lacombe.
His accent bothered Laughlin: smooth, Oxonian English. The young man wore well-shined chukka boots, pipestem-thin trousers of white muslin, and a collarless jacket of the same fabric. He looked too urbanized for this place, his smooth flow of talk too glib. But even the holiest of men, Laughlin thought, needed managers.
The sadhu himself moved not a muscle. By not even the flicker of an eyelid did he acknowledge anything around him of this world. Lacombe stood in contemplative silence for a moment, then lowered himself to a lotus seat near, but at a respectful distance from, the sadhu.
The microphones were ready now, each in its parabolic reflector. The Arriflex was to be hand-held. Lacombe had insisted that it not be mounted on a tripod. He wanted the technician to keep it on his shoulder, to have the mobility to photograph . . . whatever there was to photograph.
His eyes closed, the Frenchman seemed to relax, although his back was stiffly erect. Out of the corner of his mouth, in French, he murmured an order to Laughlin, who turned to the audio technician.
“He wants to make sure you shield the Nagra.”
“Why?” the man wanted to know. “We’re nowhere near any electrical interference.”
“He’s had bad luck before with tape recordings. The capstan motor usually conks out and the recording heads lose magnetism.”
“No kidding,” the technician said. “Well, if he says so.” He produced a large, copper-mesh, boxlike affair, a shield that he placed over the small precision Nagra recorder. Then, shoving copper spikes into the earth, he grounded the shield carefully. “Does that suit the mother?”
Laughlin wondered, and not for the first time, what they were doing in this strange place, with all these thousands, waiting . . . waiting for what? The report spoke of an event strictly unbelievable, but Lacombe had shown him how to suspend disbelief, to open himself to the incredible.
Laughlin turned away and watched the bloated disk of the sun as the hills to the west began biting a chunk out of its lower rim. In a moment only half the sun was visible. The sadhu stirred slightly.
What happened next seemed to be in slow motion to Laughlin. He watched the sadhu’s outturned elbows pull in toward his emaciated brown ribcage. The palms of his hands, still pressed together, began a slow separation until only the fingertips still touched.
The sadhu’s eyelids slowly rose, like shutters on temple windows. Open, his eyes were enormous, jet black, ringed all the way around by white, the white then ringed by glossy black lashes.
The sadhu’s body stirred. Slowly, without apparent effort, he began to rise from the lotus to a standing
The blood-red orange rays of the sun were coming in almost horizontally now. In a little while the great hot ball of flame, filtered and distorted by endless miles of dusty atmosphere, would swell, darken and hide itself from sight behind the low range of hills to the west.
“Let us go,” Lacombe said.
Laughlin gestured to the two technicians, who picked up their microphones, Nagra tape recorder, portable battery-belts, and the lightweight Arriflex 16-mm camera. The four men moved slowly through the crowd of pilgrims.
The people were densely packed, some on small rugs, with baskets of food beside them. There were whole families, even ancient-looking grandparents (who were probably under forty years of age), wizened and emaciated by hunger and disease.
The Westerners moved with prudent speed up the hillside toward the cleared area where the sadhu sat, legs crossed beneath him in the lotus position, eyes shut, palms pressed together, elbows out to the side like some strange, meditative bird of passage.
A sleek young Brahmin in city whites arose at Lacombe’s approach. Laughlin moved in to translate while the technicians began setting up.
“It lacks half an hour of the sun’s death,” the Brahmin told Lacombe.
His accent bothered Laughlin: smooth, Oxonian English. The young man wore well-shined chukka boots, pipestem-thin trousers of white muslin, and a collarless jacket of the same fabric. He looked too urbanized for this place, his smooth flow of talk too glib. But even the holiest of men, Laughlin thought, needed managers.
The sadhu himself moved not a muscle. By not even the flicker of an eyelid did he acknowledge anything around him of this world. Lacombe stood in contemplative silence for a moment, then lowered himself to a lotus seat near, but at a respectful distance from, the sadhu.
The microphones were ready now, each in its parabolic reflector. The Arriflex was to be hand-held. Lacombe had insisted that it not be mounted on a tripod. He wanted the technician to keep it on his shoulder, to have the mobility to photograph . . . whatever there was to photograph.
His eyes closed, the Frenchman seemed to relax, although his back was stiffly erect. Out of the corner of his mouth, in French, he murmured an order to Laughlin, who turned to the audio technician.
“He wants to make sure you shield the Nagra.”
“Why?” the man wanted to know. “We’re nowhere near any electrical interference.”
“He’s had bad luck before with tape recordings. The capstan motor usually conks out and the recording heads lose magnetism.”
“No kidding,” the technician said. “Well, if he says so.” He produced a large, copper-mesh, boxlike affair, a shield that he placed over the small precision Nagra recorder. Then, shoving copper spikes into the earth, he grounded the shield carefully. “Does that suit the mother?”
Laughlin wondered, and not for the first time, what they were doing in this strange place, with all these thousands, waiting . . . waiting for what? The report spoke of an event strictly unbelievable, but Lacombe had shown him how to suspend disbelief, to open himself to the incredible.
Laughlin turned away and watched the bloated disk of the sun as the hills to the west began biting a chunk out of its lower rim. In a moment only half the sun was visible. The sadhu stirred slightly.
What happened next seemed to be in slow motion to Laughlin. He watched the sadhu’s outturned elbows pull in toward his emaciated brown ribcage. The palms of his hands, still pressed together, began a slow separation until only the fingertips still touched.
The sadhu’s eyelids slowly rose, like shutters on temple windows. Open, his eyes were enormous, jet black, ringed all the way around by white, the white then ringed by glossy black lashes.
The sadhu’s body stirred. Slowly, without apparent effort, he began to rise from the lotus to a standing
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