Broken Glass (11 page)

 
HYMAN: It's hard to be anything.

 
GELLBURG: No, it's different for them. Being a Jew is a full-time job. Except you don't think about it much, do you. -Like when you're on your horse, or ...

 
HYMAN: It's not an obsession for me ...

 
 
GELLBURG: But how'd you come to marry a shiksa?

 
HYMAN: We were thrown together when I was interning, and we got very close, and... well she was a good partner, she helped me, and still does. And I loved her.

 
GELLSURG:—a Jewish woman couldn't help you?

 
HYMAN: Sure. But it just didn't happen.

 
GELLBURG: It wasn't so you wouldn't seem Jewish.

 
HYMAN,
coldly:
I never pretended I wasn't Jewish.

 
GELLBURG,
almost shaking with some fear:
Look, don't be mad, I'm only trying to figure out ...

 
HYMAN,
sensing the underlying hostility:
What are you driving at, I don't understand this whole conversation.

GELLBURG: Hyman... Help me! I've never been so afraid in my life.

 
HYMAN: If you're alive you're afraid; we're born afraid—a newborn baby is not a picture of confidence; but how you deal with fear, that's what counts. I don't think you dealt with it very well.

 
GELLBURG: Why? How did I deal with it?

 
HYMAN: I think you tried to disappear into the goyim.

 
GELLBURG: ... You believe in God?

 
 
HYMAN: I'm a socialist. I think we're at the end of religion.

 
GELLBURG: You mean everybody working for the government.

 
 
 
HYMAN: It's the only future that makes any rational sense.

 
GELLBURG: God forbid. But how can there be Jews if there's no God?

 
 
HYMAN: Oh, they'll find something to worship. The Christians will too-maybe different brands of ketchup.

 
GELLBURG,
laughs:
Boy, the things you come out with sometimes... !

HYMAN: -Some day we're all going to look like a lot of monkeys running around trying to figure out a coconut.

 
GELLBUKG: She believes in you, Hyman... I want you to tell her—tell her I'm going to change. She has no right to be so frightened. Of me or anything else. They will never destroy us. When the last Jew dies, the light of the world will go out. She has to understand that-those Germans are shooting at the sun!

 
HYMAN: Be quiet.

 
_GELLBURG
: I want my wife back. I want her back before something happens. I feel like there's nothing inside me, I feel empty. I want her back.

 
HYMAN: Phillip, what can I do about that?

 
GELLBURG: Never mind... since you started coming around... in those boots... like some kind of horseback rider... ?

 
 
_HYMAN
: What the hell are you talking about!

 
GELLBURG: Since you came around she looks down at me like a miserable piece of shit!

 
HYMAN: Phillip...

 
GELLBURG: Don't “Phillip” me, just stop it!

HYMAN: Don't scream at me Phillip, you know how to get your wife back! ... don't tell me there's a mystery to that!

 
 
GELLBURG: She actually told you that I ...

 
HYMAN: It came out while we were talking. It was bound to sooner or later, wasn't it?

 
GELLBURG,
gritting his teeth:
I never told this to anyone... but years ago when I used to make love to her, I would almost feel like a small baby on top of her, like she was giving me birth. That's some idea? In bed next to me she was like a ... a marble god. I worshipped her, Hyman, from the day I laid eyes on her.

 
HYMAN: I'm sorry for you Phillip.

 
GELLBURG: How can she be so afraid of me? Tell me the truth.

 
 
HYMAN: I don't know; maybe, for one thing... these remarks you're always making about Jews.

 
GELLBURG: What remarks?

 
HYMAN: Like not wanting to be mistaken for Goldberg.

 
GELLBURG: So I'm a Nazi? Is Gellburg Goldberg? It's not, is it?

HYMAN: No, but continually making the point is kind of...

 
GELLBURG: Kind of what? What is kind of? Why don't you say the truth?

 
_HYMAN
: All right, you want the truth? Do you? Look in the mirror sometime!

 
GELLBURG: ... In the mirror!

 
HYMAN: You hate yourself, that's what's scaring her to death. That's my opinion. How it's possible I don't know, but I think you helped paralyze her with this “Jew, Jew, Jew” coming out of your mouth and the same time she reads it in the paper and it's coming out of the radio day and night? You wanted to know what I think... that's what I think.

 
 
GELLBURG: But there are some days I feel like going and sitting in the
schul
with the old men and pulling the
talles
over my head and be a full-time Jew the rest of my life. With the sidelocks and the black hat, and settle it once and for all. And other times... yes, I could almost kill them. They infuriate me. I am ashamed of them and that I look like them.
Gasping again:
-Why must we be different? Why is it? What is it for?

 
HYMAN: And supposing it turns out that we're
not
different, who are you going to blame then?

 
GELLBURG: What are you talking about?

HYMAN: I'm talking about all this grinding and screaming that's going on inside you—you're wearing yourself out for nothing, Phillip, absolutely nothing!—I'll tell you a secret—I have all kinds coming into my office, and there's not one of them who one way or another is not persecuted. Yes.
Everybody's
persecuted. The poor by the rich, the rich by the poor, the black by the white, the white by the black, the men by the women, the women by the men, the Catholics by the Protestants, the Protestants by the Catholics—and of course all of them by the Jews. Everybody's persecuted-sometimes I wonder, maybe that's what holds this country together! And what's really amazing is that you can't find anybody who's persecuting anybody else.

 
GELLBURG: So you mean there's no Hitler?

 
HYMAN: Hitler? Hitler is the perfect example of the persecuted man! I've heard him—he kvetches like an elephant was standing on his pecker! They've turned that whole beautiful country into one gigantic kvetch!
Takes his bag.
The nurse'll be here soon.

 
 
GELLBURG: So what's the solution?

 
 
HYMAN: I don't see any. Except the mirror. But nobody's going to look at himself and ask what am
I
doing—you might as well tell him to take a seat in the hottest part of hell. Forgive her, Phillip, is all I really know to tell you.
Grins
: But that's the easy part—I speak from experience.

GELLBURG: What's the hard part?

 
HYMAN: To forgive yourself, I guess. And the Jews. And while you're at it, you can throw in the goyim. Best thing for the heart you know.

 
MARGARET: I'll leave you now, Sylvia.

 
SYLVIA: Thanks for sitting with me.

 
GELLBURG,
a little wave of the hand:
Thank you Mrs. Hyman!

 
MARGARET: I think your color's coming back a little.

 
GELLBURG: Well, I've been running around the block.

 
MARGARET,
a burst of laughter and shaking her finger at him:
I always knew there was a sense of humor somewhere inside that black suit!

 
GELLBURG: Yes, well... I finally got the joke.

 
MARGARET,
laughs, and to Sylvia:
I'll try to look in tomorrow. To both: Good-bye!

 
Margaret exits.

 
A silence between them grows self-conscious.

_GELLBURG
: You all right in that room?

 
SYLVIA: It's better this way, we'll both get more rest. You all right?

 
GELLBURG: I want to apologize.

 
SYLVIA: I'm not blaming you, Phillip. The years I wasted I know I threw away myself. I think I always knew I was doing it but I couldn't stop it.

 
GELLBURG: If only you could believe I never meant you harm, it would...

 
SYLVIA: I believe you. But I have to tell you something. When I said not to sleep with me ...

 
GELLBURG: I know...

 
 
SYLVIA,
nervously sharp:
You don't know!—I'm trying to tell you something!
Containing herself:
For some reason I keep thinking of how I used to be; remember my parents' house, how full of love it always was? Nobody was ever afraid of anything. But with us, Phillip, wherever I looked there was something to be suspicious about, somebody who was going to take advantage or God knows what. I've been tip-toeing around my life for thirty years and I'm not going to pretend—I hate it all now. Everything I did is stupid and ridiculous. I can't find myself in my life.

 
Or in this now, this thing that can't even walk. I'm not this thing. And it has me. It has me and will never let me go.

 
She weeps.

 
GELLBURG: Sshh! I understand. I wasn't telling you the truth. I always tried to seem otherwise, but I've been more afraid than I looked.

 
SYLVIA: Afraid of what?

 
 
GELLBURG: Everything. Of Germany. Mr. Case. Of what could happen to us here. I think I was more afraid than you are, a hundred times more! And meantime there are Chinese Jews, for God's sake.

 
SYLVIA: What do you mean?

 
GELLBURG: They're
Chinese!
-and here I spend a lifetime looking in the mirror at my face!—Why we're different I will never understand but to live so afraid, I don't want that anymore. I tell you, if I live I have to try to change myself.—Sylvia, my darling Sylvia, I'm asking you not to blame me anymore. I feel I did this to you! That's the knife in my heart.

 
Gellburg's breathing begins to labor.

SYLVIA,
alarmed:
Phillip!

 
GELLBURG: God almighty, Sylvia forgive me!

 
SYLVIA: Wait! Phillip!

 
There's nothing to blame! There's nothing to blame!

 
Wait, wait ... Phillip, Phillip!

 
Lights fade.

 
THE END.