Inglourious Romance

A Thousand Paper Cranes

The filming was going smoothly for the movie, and by this time it was winter, so most of the filming was now done indoors at the studio lot or at an indoor on location spot. Amaya sat at a table in a small break room with colorful pieces of perfectly square paper next to her. She had a small book she was looking at as she folded one of the squares of paper, glancing back and forth from the book to her little project. She was trying out some origami while on a mini break. Finally, she had achieved what she had set out to do: make an origami crane.

She sat back, admired her handiwork, and decided to make another one that was even better than the first. As she folded the paper, she thought about Christoph and their little trip to the Eiffel Tower. He had taken her back as he promised a few days later, making sure they had her camera so she could take good pictures. The night lens had worked out perfectly, and she was able to post some gorgeous pictures on her blog. A few months later, they had gone back for some daytime pictures as well as visited the Louvre and some other museums. But she really wanted to see Versailles Palace. They hadn’t gotten to that, yet, but she didn’t expect them to, either. Quentin was in a hurry to have this film done and edited by May in time for the Cannes Film Festival. This meant long hours for all of them, and very few opportunities to see Christoph. But whenever they did see one another on the same set, he would always shoot his trademark charming grin at her before looking away to engage in whatever Quentin had him doing.

Amaya finished the paper crane and admired it. The paper from which it was made was colored red and white, the same colors of the Austrian flag. She smiled a little as a thought crossed her mind. Amaya stood, taking her papers and booklet with her, and made her way for Christoph’s dressing room. She knew he was filming and would be busy for hours with that, so this would be the perfect time to leave it and not say anything. Quietly, she tried his door; it was unlocked just as she had hoped. She pushed the door open and went in. His normal clothes were neatly draped over the back of his chair — a pair of tan khakis, a dark green sweater, and a white collared shirt. She took the small crane and set it on the table in front of his mirror where she knew he would most likely find it. Then she left the room as she had found it and hurried away before anyone, particularly Jeff, could see it.

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Christoph was not suspecting anything special after filming a scene with him at the cinema with the other characters. It was the first time he would have to speak Italian. He didn’t actually know Italian, but given it was only a small scene and he could speak three other languages, learning a bit of Italian for the scene was no problem. In fact, Christoph made it sound entirely natural. He spoke quickly and with a decent accent as he moved his hand about in the air like a stereotypical Italian.

The scene was fun for him to do, but they had done many takes to get the entire scene correct. It had been a long day, and he was relieved to get to his changing room, get into his normal clothes, and go home. He opened the door and entered, undoing the top buttons of his Nazi tunic and reaching for his clothes. As he did, he noticed something small sitting on his table in front of the mirror. At a first glance, it was something red and white. As he leaned over for a closer look, he saw that it was a paper crane. Automatically, he knew who it was that made it. He smiled to himself, turning it over in his hands and looking at how well done it was, and that she even made it the colors of the Austrian flag. Christoph found that absolutely adorable. Instead of changing, he turned out of his room and searched for Amaya back on set.

As he had assumed, Amaya was helping clean up the set a bit and fixing any little details that may have started to wear throughout the filming day. He started to approach her, but then he noticed one of the makeup artists was already speaking to her. Christoph hung back patiently.

“Your hair is wonderful," the makeup artist, Cherise, said casually. “I would love to try out some colors on you. I don’t usually get to work with this color of red hair! Is it natural?"