Читать книгу Raised in Captivity - Nicky Silver - Страница 9

(A cemetery. A pool of light comes up on Sebastian Bliss, seated on a bench, reading a book. He addresses the audience.)

SEBASTIAN: On Tuesday, my mother was taking a shower, when the showerhead, which was obviously loose to begin with, flew away from the wall and, propelled by water pressure, hit her in the head and killed her. Odd, as I knew her to be a person who primarily took baths. I hadn’t seen my mother in several years, although we spoke on the phone, on birthdays and Christmas. I left home when I was sixteen. I turned my back on everything and went off to pursue my education. My mother said, “Good luck,” and my father said nothing, having died under mysterious circumstances before I was born. There were no pictures of him in our home and we never said his name. When asked about him, my mother abruptly changed the subject. Or, occasionally, feigned sudden deafness. In any event, I walked away from servants and swimming pools to live on complimentary peanuts and cashews in cocktail lounges.

(Pause. He looks over his shoulder) My sister is watching me. From behind that tree.

(He continues reading. His spot dims. A light comes up on Bernadette and Kip Dixon in another part of the cemetery. She is overwrought.)

BERNADETTE: I don’t know what to do.

KIP: I don’t think I like it here.

BERNADETTE: What?

KIP: It’s too peaceful.

BERNADETTE: Naturally it’s peaceful. It’s a cemetery. Everyone’s dead. Did you expect picnicking families frolicking between graves?

KIP: That would be nice. We should have a picnic. Let’s go.

BERNADETTE: What are you talking about?

KIP: What’s the name of this place?

BERNADETTE: Pleasant Meadows.

KIP: It’s creepy.

BERNADETTE: Please don’t be disagreeable, Kip. Not today. Not now.

KIP: Sorry.

BERNADETTE: If I’m going to talk to him, it should be now. He should come back to the house. Don’t you think? People will think it’s odd. People expect him. Why should I talk to him? Why doesn’t he come over and talk to me? He saw me. I know he did. Do you think I should go over to him?

KIP: I suppose.

BERNADETTE: You think so?

KIP: He’s your brother.

BERNADETTE: We never speak. I never see him. I haven’t seen him in—He looks older.

KIP: He looks nice.

BERNADETTE: Do I look older?

KIP: Older than what?

BERNADETTE: Older than I did.

KIP: When?

BERNADETTE: Forget it. Why doesn’t he come over here!? I hate this dress. Do I look fat?

KIP: I like that dress.

BERNADETTE: What does that mean?

KIP: You look lovely.

BERNADETTE: Do I look fat!?

KIP: You’re not fat.

BERNADETTE: Do I look fat!?

KIP: No.

BERNADETTE: I feel bloated. I feel all puffed up.

KIP: You’re very thin.

BERNADETTE: I’ve been thinner.

KIP: When?

BERNADETTE: Of course I’ve been fatter too. I wish I’d known. I wish I’d had some warning. I would’ve dieted. I would’ve fasted. I hate seeing people! I hate seeing cousins and uncles and aunts. Cousin Paul was always so dashing. He looks like a helium balloon. God, I’m waterlogged. I feel like crying!

KIP: Please don’t.

BERNADETTE: Why should I be nervous? There’s nothing to be nervous about.

(General lighting comes up, revealing Sebastian as he was. Bernadette and Kip approach him.)

BERNADETTE: Sebastian?

SEBASTIAN: Bernadette?

BERNADETTE: I was afraid you wouldn’t even recognize me. I think I’m heavier than the last time we saw each other. I have no idea when that was. But I think I’m heavier.

SEBASTIAN: You look very well.

BERNADETTE: Thank you. I seem to be eating more than usual lately. I don’t seem to be able to get the food in fast enough. I don’t understand it. Did you see Cousin Paul?

SEBASTIAN: I didn’t.

BERNADETTE: Fat. Fat. Fat!

SEBASTIAN (To Kip): Have we met?

KIP: I’m Kip.

BERNADETTE: This is my husband, Kip.

SEBASTIAN: It’s nice to meet you.

BERNADETTE: You’ve met Kip.

SEBASTIAN: I have?

KIP: I think so.

SEBASTIAN: I’m very sorry.

BERNADETTE: Several times.

KIP: It’s alright.

BERNADETTE: At Thanksgiving.

SEBASTIAN: When was that?

KIP: I don’t know.

BERNADETTE: At the wedding.

SEBASTIAN: What wedding?

BERNADETTE: My wedding.

SEBASTIAN: I was there.

KIP: Thank you for the andirons.

SEBASTIAN: Don’t mention it.

BERNADETTE: Do you remember?

SEBASTIAN (To Kip): Did we speak?

KIP: I don’t recall.

BERNADETTE: You must’ve said something.

SEBASTIAN: I am sorry.

BERNADETTE: He was the groom.

KIP (Sadly): Don’t worry about it.

BERNADETTE: Kip’s a dentist.

SEBASTIAN: Congratulations.

KIP: Thank you.

SEBASTIAN: It’s nice to meet you, again.

KIP: I’m very sorry about your mother.

SEBASTIAN: Don’t mention it.

BERNADETTE: Can you believe it?

SEBASTIAN: Yes.

BERNADETTE: It seems unreal.

KIP (To Sebastian): Do you like this place?

SEBASTIAN: Pardon me?

BERNADETTE: Can I join you? I saw you sitting here, by yourself. I saw you at the funeral home, but—

KIP: The gravestones look like teeth.

BERNADETTE: Do you mind that I came over? If you do, you can say so. You won’t hurt my feelings. I’ll understand. Sometimes people just want to be by themselves. I enjoy being by myself quite a bit. Other times I enjoy being with—Kip. It’s wonderful to see you. I feel like it’s been years. Has it been? May I sit down? You were reading. Maybe you just want to be alone. Reading can be a wonderful escape. My best friends are all characters in books. I wonder what that means? Are you glad that I came over, or would you just rather I went away?

SEBASTIAN: Please sit down, Bern. You’re giving me a headache.

BERNADETTE: I’m sorry.

(Bernadette sits next to Sebastian. Kip sits on the ground.)

KIP: Don’t the headstones look like teeth?

SEBASTIAN: What does that mean?

KIP: Crooked and rotting.

SEBASTIAN: Well, I don’t know—

BERNADETTE: Forget it—

KIP: They look like teeth to me. Teeth in a very old person’s mouth.

BERNADETTE: Please stop talking about teeth, Kip!

KIP: I hate this place.

BERNADETTE: Why are you sitting on the ground?

KIP: Don’t bury me here.

BERNADETTE: Hmmm. So, what are you reading?

SEBASTIAN: Helter Skelter.

BERNADETTE: I never read that.

KIP: I’ve read it.

SEBASTIAN: I’ve read it before.

(Kip looks around, becoming morose.)

BERNADETTE: You look well. Did I say that? Are you doing well? Financially? I read that piece you wrote in Vanity Fair. I liked it, but I’m not sure I understood it. Is your health good?

SEBASTIAN: I have esophageal reflux.

BERNADETTE: I don’t know what that is. What is that?

SEBASTIAN: It’s complicated.

BERNADETTE: I’m not unintelligent.

SEBASTIAN: I never said you were.

BERNADETTE: You implied it.

SEBASTIAN: You inferred it.

BERNADETTE: I didn’t. Kip! Did Sebastian imply that I’m stupid, or didn’t he?

KIP: What?

BERNADETTE: Oh forget it.

SEBASTIAN: It’s like heartburn.

BERNADETTE: What is?

SEBASTIAN (Losing his patience): Esophageal reflux.

BERNADETTE: Oh. In what way?

SEBASTIAN: It feels like heartburn.

BERNADETTE: I See.

SEBASTIAN: I get it almost every night. It comes from sleeping on the wrong side.

BERNADETTE: Of the bed?

SEBASTIAN: Of your body.

BERNADETTE: I meant that!

KIP: When I die, I’d like to be thrown into the ocean.

SEBASTIAN: Pardon?

KIP: There’s a group that does that, throws you into the ocean. I can’t remember their name, but I—

BERNADETTE: Kip please, I’m talking to my brother.

KIP: Sorry.

BERNADETTE: It was a nice service, don’t you think? Not too much “God” and that sort of thing. Just enough. It’s important to find a balance.

SEBASTIAN: I suppose.

BERNADETTE: We were lucky. It looked like rain this morning. That would’ve been terrible. I think the clouds were appropriate.

SEBASTIAN: You cried beautifully.

BERNADETTE: Thank you.

SEBASTIAN: Very loudly.

KIP: She’s very good.

BERNADETTE (Coy): Stop, Kip.

SEBASTIAN: She always was.

KIP (To Sebastian): Do you cry?

SEBASTIAN: I’m afraid not.

KIP (Sadly): Neither do I.

SEBASTIAN (To Bernadette): You sang well too.

BERNADETTE: Thanks.

SEBASTIAN: Very audibly.

KIP: She cries a lot.

SEBASTIAN: What was the song?

BERNADETTE: “This Could Be the Start of Something Big.”

KIP: Did she cry as a child?

SEBASTIAN: I think so.

BERNADETTE: It was her favorite.

SEBASTIAN: Was it?

BERNADETTE: You will come back to the house with us, won’t you?

SEBASTIAN: I have to get back to the city.

BERNADETTE: But—

SEBASTIAN: I have an appointment.

BERNADETTE: It’ll be nice.

SEBASTIAN: Maybe afterwards.

BERNADETTE: People expect you.

SEBASTIAN: I’ll call you. It might be late.

BERNADETTE: Would you like to stay with us for a little while?

SEBASTIAN: No.

BERNADETTE: Kip and I have discussed it. He wouldn’t mind. Would you, Kip?

KIP: No.

SEBASTIAN: No thank you.

BERNADETTE: For just a little while, until the shock wears off. It was so sudden. I still can’t believe it. I may never take another shower.—You can stay for a week, or a month. Whatever you like.

SEBASTIAN: I don’t think so.

BERNADETTE: It’ll be fun! And besides, there are things to do, things to divide. There are heirlooms and furniture and Mother’s jewelry and the estate. We have plenty of room. Tell him, Kip.

KIP: We have plenty of room.

BERNADETTE: It’ll be just like when we were children!

SEBASTIAN: I don’t want to.

BERNADETTE (Sweetly): Do you remember when we were children?

SEBASTIAN: Vaguely.

BERNADETTE (Slightly hostile): Well so do I.

KIP: They should call this place Unpleasant Meadows.

BERNADETTE (Standing): I think I’m going to cry again.

SEBASTIAN: I’d rather you didn’t.

KIP (To Sebastian): Don’t waste your breath.

BERNADETTE: I feel so awful! I’m going to cry.

SEBASTIAN: Please don’t.

BERNADETTE: I can’t help it.

SEBASTIAN: You cry so loudly.

BERNADETTE: I’m sorry.

KIP: You get used to it.

SEBASTIAN: Let’s talk about something else—Kip, do you enjoy being a dentist?

KIP: God no.

BERNADETTE: Here it comes!

SEBASTIAN: Maybe you’re going to sneeze?

BERNADETTE: I’m not.

KIP: Teeth make me sick.

SEBASTIAN (To Bernadette): People will stare.

BERNADETTE: So what? What if they do? And I don’t see why people should stare anyway. My mother has just been buried! I would think some tears are called for under the circumstances!

SEBASTIAN: I don’t want people to stare. I don’t like being gawked at.

(Bernadette turns away and starts to sob.)

BERNADETTE: OH GOD!! I never said goodbye! I never—

SEBASTIAN (To Kip): It makes me uncomfortable.

BERNADETTE: I never told her I loved her!

KIP: Yes you did. I heard you.

BERNADETTE: But I never meant it!! I said what I was supposed to say when I was supposed to say it! Now it’s too late!

SEBASTIAN: Pull yourself together.

BERNADETTE (Turning to Sebastian): Why should I?! To please you? I’m very sorry but I can’t spend my life trying to please you. It’s been too many hideous years already, trying, reaching out to you—only to be spurned! Sebastian, I’ve tried to be a friend to you. You’re my brother and I want you in my life, but I can take no more humiliation! I matter too!

SEBASTIAN: Fine.

BERNADETTE: I’m sorry. I am. Really. I’m just upset and so I say things, ugly things. You can’t blame me. Can you? You know I love you, don’t you? Don’t you? I do. We only have each other now. Well you have me and I have—Kip. We’re so alone! We’re random, drifting orphans!!

SEBASTIAN: We’re too old to be orphans.

BERNADETTE: We’re Annie Warbucks and Oliver Twist!

SEBASTIAN: I have to go.

KIP: It was nice meeting—

BERNADETTE (To Sebastian): You don’t care, do you? You don’t care one bit that she’s dead. You hated her! You’re completely self-absorbed. You always were. You never shared. You stay away for years at a stretch and sever your ties! You think you can erase your past and live without roots.

KIP (To Sebastian): It was nice meeting you—

BERNADETTE (Cutting him off): Well, Sebastian, I wasn’t going to say anything, because I don’t know if this is really the right place, but I think it is patently immoral of you to disappear from our lives and return, show up just in time to claim half of everything. You think you’re entitled. I’m sorry, but I don’t! Why should you be? You didn’t have to deal with her. No! You have your glamorous literary friends. You sit around the Russian Tea Room all day eating blintzes and trading bons mots! You never suffered her venomous glares and the constant insults, the barrage of insults pecking away at my self-confidence. She adored you. You were some perfect abstract figure in the alcoholic haze of her imagination. You have a perfect life, don’t you? I don’t care. I have a perfect life too.—You didn’t endure her epithets and the black stream of complaints about my life and my husband and my wardrobe. She hated this dress! That’s why I wore it!!! So, so, so I think it is just in the worst possible taste for you to come marching up, making demands for things to which, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you’re entitled! I hope I haven’t hurt you. But that’s how I feel.

SEBASTIAN: I don’t want anything. You can keep it all.

(Pause.)

BERNADETTE: Kip and I have discussed it and we would be so happy if you came for a visit. A week, say, or two. A month.

SEBASTIAN: I really have to go.

BERNADETTE (Mumbled): Why do you hate me?

SEBASTIAN: What?

BERNADETTE: Why do you hate me?

SEBASTIAN: I don’t hate you—

BERNADETTE: Oh please.

SEBASTIAN: I just have to be someplace.

BERNADETTE: You look at me and hate shoots out of you, out of your eyes.

SEBASTIAN: It does not.

BERNADETTE: I’m blinded by your loathing. Rays of hate! You burn holes of hate in my flesh!

SEBASTIAN: What do you want from me!!?

(Pause. Bernadette sits to think.)

BERNADETTE: Well, Sebastian, I would like, if I must be honest, I would like... to know...that your life is not perfect.

SEBASTIAN: What?

BERNADETTE: I would like to know that you have problems.

SEBASTIAN: Everyone has problems.

KIP (Offering an example): I hate teeth.

BERNADETTE: I would like to know something—terrible. About you.

SEBASTIAN: Why?

BERNADETTE: It would make me feel better.

SEBASTIAN: You’re insane.

KIP: She hasn’t eaten.

BERNADETTE: You asked me what I wanted and I told you. It would mean a great deal to me. Please. Please, Sebastian, tell me something sad. Tell me something all painful and pitiful and embarrassing. I don’t care what it is. I don’t! Anything. As long as it’s grim and pathetic.

SEBASTIAN (Uncomfortable): I’m late now.

BERNADETTE: I’m begging. Is that what it takes? I’m begging you, tell me something awful about your life. Please.

SEBASTIAN (Stoic): I’m forty-five thousand dollars in debt. I haven’t sold anything since that Vanity Fair piece you disparaged. I live entirely off of credit cards. I charge my rent and my food and I pay the minimum on one card with a cash advance from another. I haven’t had sex in eleven years. I haven’t held or kissed or cared for anyone, in anything but the most superficial way, in so long that I no longer know if I know how.

(There is a long pause.)

BERNADETTE: It was wonderful to see you!

(Bernadette, quite at peace, stands and kisses Sebastian on the cheek. She extends her hand to Kip, who stands and takes it.)

SEBASTIAN (Bewildered): Thank you.

BERNADETTE: Tragedy brings us together. We mustn’t wait so long next time.

KIP: It was nice meeting you. Again.

SEBASTIAN: Likewise.

(Kip and Bernadette exit. Sebastian stands alone.)