The Changeling

In America, we rewrite history

by erasing it.

What are you doing? Stop! Crazy fucking bitch!

Okay, you need locking up!

What are you doing?

You need to be fucking locked up!

Let go of me! Please.

There you go, honey.

"This is Apollo. Leave a message."

- - I've been calling you for three days.

I don't know where you are, Apollo. I don't know where you are.

People wash up in New York. Literally.

The Elk Hotel has been in business for over 100 years.

Built to serve immigrants passing through Ellis Island.

I'm here to unmake a deal.

One hundred years is quite the American success story...

...considering this is the shittiest hotel in the world.

...Mozart symphony has been discovered.

The Bavarian State Library, where it was found,

said the complete symphony was put in manuscript form by Mozart's father

to save the cost of a note copier.

The newly discovered symphony will be performed in public May 17th

- at a concert in Bavaria. - He got you good.

External investigators are still trying to verify

the authenticity of the document.

However, a spokesperson for the library...

I remember this.

How long?

All of this.

- How long? - I want Room 205.

- No, no. Look at the rates. -

The whole night.

- All night? - Lester was weary.

For 20 years he'd worked this desk.

His job was to differentiate between gang member and murderer,

- versus whore, drug dealer, john, or pimp. - Mm-hmm.

He'd watched gangs wage war outside this very door.

Teenagers... Nay, babies, senselessly killed on the sidewalk.

- How long? -

At first, he'd gone out there and scrubbed at the cement.

Now it was rust-red.

Seventy-five.

Gang members and murderers were denied a room.

You get your receipt when you check out.

Everyone else was welcome.

Of course, his deciphering skills weren't always up to par.

Like the time a trans woman was strangled,

stuffed under the bed in a gold sequined dress,

and left undiscovered for two weeks.

- How many of you? - Just me.

Oh, you alone, huh?

No one to claim her, buried unnamed.

Alone.

Mm-hmm. There are centuries of names in that book.

Storm coming.

Yes, there is.

- -

- Yo. -

- Come on. Nah. - Get outta here!

Excuse me. You move for a lady.

We cast our dreams as a play.

Who fills each role so we may bring the unconscious to consciousness?

Who plays each role?

And why?

Hey! Don't touch. It's contagious.

Lillian didn't need Apollo's forgiveness.

She needed her own.

And it laid behind this very door.

1981 was a bloody year in New York.

Even Lillian could not escape the violence.

She had seen something that day.

No, Daddy!

Something she could never unsee.

Daddy! No!

And it had changed her once more.

I know what you did, Lillian. I know.

So, you're really just gonna make me wait, huh?

Yeah. You really make me crazy, you know that?

Yeah, sweetie. Yeah.

See you later.

She had been here before. That night. That long ago, terrible night.

This room that held a secret she swore she'd never tell.

But secrets want out, and prices will be paid.

That was your father's box.

Someone left it at the door.

So, tell me something else.

What should I tell you?

Well, you can't know anything until you know everything.

So, everything it is.

It was unimaginable what had become of her.

What now, Lillian?

What now, Lillian? What then?

Tell me your story, and I will tell you who you are.

- -

It wouldn't be the last time she'd hold a dying man.

If you're a stickler for numbers, then this would be the first of three.

It is a tremor leading to the quake.

One person moves away, breaks free,

creates a seismic shift in a family and in the land.

- But what is the cost of freedom? -

Had she been responsible for all that happened after she fled Uganda?

Could she have changed the course

of her family's history had she stayed?

But she had left.

And after, The Butcher had seized power from Obote

- and delivered a massacre to her people. -

- ...they have to die . - All were gone now. All gone.

What god would make people suffer so?

What god would bring her all this way to smite her now?

No god of mine.

- - Arthur.

- -

Lillian had known for a long time

that there were realer things than the King of Kings right here.

She remembered the hope.

The unbridled hope that everything could be different in America.

New York had opened a crack in her, and the light had crept back in.

- She found room to dream. -

Her grandmother had always said she had a lovely voice.

Maybe she could be a lounge singer in a sparkling dress,

belting out torch songs in some dusty saloon.

Maybe she would meet someone, fall in love, have a bunch of kids.

America the Great. The promised land.

Apollo, I loved the place. I believed in it.

I could see what America wanted to be, and I would kill to be American.

But sometimes, most times,

it made me feel a little bit like I had to get smaller.

Watch my words and my smiles. Can't get too big, can't be angry.

Don't you see?

Can't be visible.

- That's not our baby! -

Apollo, have you heard me say "I love you" enough times?

I've made some mistakes in this world. You are not one of them.

But I layered onto you, even at your young age,

my own... dis-ease.

Unease.

Fear.

Don't get big. Don't speak loud.

Don't tell a joke. Don't be too serious either.

Don't draw attention to yourself.

Don't throw a tantrum in the store.

Just don't do that.

Apollo, at four years old you already knew what it felt like to live life afraid.

When I was four, my favorite thing in the whole wide world

was finding my jajja outside, hunched over a big iron pot, turning mandazis.

You never tasted those, hmm? Soft, fluffy doughnut clouds.

Hot and spiced with a little bit of cardamom,

a little bit of cinnamon and a lot of coconut milk.

Can't make a mandazi without getting an oil burn.

To make it taste perfect in the mouth,

you must add the too, too, too important ingredient.

- Love. - Love.

She was an oracle. Had a life lesson for every minute of the day.

Lillian, the important thing in life is what we do for the ones we love.

Lillian, don't let a man make you crazy, 'cause he will try.

Lillian, if you decide to eat a dog, eat a fat one.

If we're lucky, each of us has the memory of a kitchen.

The warmth and aroma of something being cooked with love.

Regardless of who we are, where we're from,

kitchen stove or iron pot, we are all gifted this heirloom.

If we're lucky.

The pot is all that's left.

There you go, honey.

Lillian, ask help from the spirits

when you have used all your strength.

Apollo, I never made you mandazis. Why?

Because I wanted you to like regular American kid food.

I wanted you to fit in with your mac and cheese diet

and your hot dogs and your white bread PBJs.

But I made them with love.

I know what you did...

- - Storm is coming.

- Leak! Bucket! -

It's pissing through the ceiling, Lester. I got a fucking guest, man.

Oh, is that what we're calling them now?

You'll have to wait your turn, Angelica. I'll get there when I get there.

Just like you, Lester. You'll get there when you get there.

Take your snail-ass fucking time.

Si tu savais, cher.

I know what those words mean, asshole.