9. Miss Lund

  

   as she enters the café with Victor Laszlo the script introduces her as his “companion”,

and warns its readers,

the guys who have to turn it into a movie,

that she must thereafter be “known

as Miss Ilsa Lund”,

thus

burying

her current marital status

under three layers,

for both the title

and her maiden name

label her as unmarried,

and by marking her off as Laszlo’s “companion”

one sees Ilsa as a kind of bed-

and-

board

employee

        Laszlo himself, obedient

to the script,

will then “present” her to Captain Renault, and to all of us,

as “Miss Ilsa Lund”

        Rick has called good old Carl

        up,

        from the balcony railing,

        “at the top of the stairs, the fat waiter sees

        Ilsa”,

        standing inside the apartment, Rick says,

        “in a low voice”,

        “I want you to take Miss Lund home”, it is

on purpose

(deliberately)

(willfully)

that he uses that title, with her daddy’s

surname,

clumsily trying to conceal

(to cancel?)

the fact that she is married to Victor Laszlo, the hero

downstairs,

at the bar

        the end (The End) is near,

and Rick “takes the letters of transit out of his pocket”,

“hands them” to Captain Renault, orders him

        then

to “fill in the names”, to “make it

        even more official”,

        and says “quietly”, “and the names are

Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo”,

somehow,

by phrasing it like that, he is giving

away

the bride,

confirming the marriage, saying,

hey,

this is who you will be from now on, what