Everything is Nice (16 page)

"Oh, God of mine!" lamented Inez, when she saw what had happened. "What a sad ending for a walk! Terrible things always happen to Julia. She is a daughter of misfortune. It's a lucky thing that I am just the contrary."

Señor Ramirez was in such a hurry to leave the picnic spot that he did not even want to bother to collect the various baskets and plates he had brought with him. They dressed, and he yelled for them all to get into the car. Julia wrapped a shawl around her bleeding head. Inez went around snatching up all the things, like an enraged person.

"Can I have these things?" she asked her host. He nodded his head impatiently. Julia was by now crying rhythmically like a baby that has almost fallen asleep.

The two women sat huddled together in the back of the car. Inez explained to Julia that she was going to make presents of the plates and baskets to her family. She shed a tear or two herself. When they arrived at the house, Señor Ramirez handed some banknotes to Inez from where he was sitting.

"Adios,"
he said. The two women got out of the car and stood in the street.

"Will you come back again?" Julia asked him tenderly, ceasing to cry for a moment.

"Yes, I'm coming back again," he said.
"Adios."
He pressed his foot on the accelerator and drove off.

The bar was packed with men. Inez led Julia around through the patio to their room. When she had shut the door, she slipped the banknotes into her pocket and put the baskets on the floor.

"Do you want any of these baskets?" she asked.

Julia was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking into space. "No, thank you," she said. Inez looked at her, and saw that she was far away.

"Señor Ramirez gave me four drinking cups made out of plastic," said Inez. "Do you want one of them for yourself?"

Julia did not answer right away. Then she said: "Will he come back?"

"I don't know," Inez said. "I'm going to the movies. I'll come and see you afterwards, before I go into the bar."

"All right," said Julia. But Inez knew that she did not care. She shrugged her shoulders and went out through the door, closing it behind her.

A Quarreling Pair

The two puppets are sisters in their early fifties. The puppet stage should have a rod or string dividing it down the middle to indicate two rooms. One puppet is seated on each side of the dividing line. If it is not possible to seat them they will have to stand. Harriet, the older puppet, is stronger-looking and wears brighter colors.

H
ARRIET
(
The stronger puppet)
I hope you are beginning to think about our milk.

R
HODA
(
After a pause)
Well, I'm not.

H
ARRIET
Now what's the matter with you? You're not going to have a visitation from our dead, are you?

R
HODA
I don't have visitations this winter because I'm too tired to love even our dead. Anyway, I'm disgusted with the world.

H
ARRIET
Just mind your business. I mind mine and I
am
thinking about our milk.

R
HODA
I'm so tired of being sad. I'd like to change.

H
ARRIET
You don't get enough enjoyment out of your room. Why don't you?

R
HODA
Oh, because the world and its sufferers are always on my mind.

H
ARRIET
That's not normal. You're not smart enough to be of any use to the outside, anyway.

R
HODA
If I were young I'd succor the sick. I wouldn't care about culture, even, if I were young.

H
ARRIET
You don't have any knack for making a home. There's blessed satisfaction in that, at any rate.

R
HODA
My heart's too big to make a home.

H
ARRIET
No. It's because you have no self-sufficiency. If I wasn't around, you wouldn't have the leisure to worry. You're a lost soul, when I'm not around. You don't even have the pep to worry about the outside when I'm not around. Not that the outside loses by that!
(She sniffs with scorn)

R
HODA
You're right. But I swear that my heart is big.

H
ARRIET
I've come to believe that what is inside of people is not so very interesting. You can breed considerable discontent around you with a big heart, and considerable harmony with a small one. Compare your living quarters to mine. And my heart is small like Papa's was.

R
HODA
You chill me to the marrow when you tell me that your heart is small. You do love me, though, don't you?

H
ARRIET
You're my sister, aren't you?

R
HODA
Sisterly love is one of the few boons in this life.

H
ARRIET
Now, that's enough exaggerating. I could enumerate other things.

R
HODA
I suppose it's wicked to squeeze love from a small heart. I suppose it's a sin. I suppose God meant for small hearts to be busy with other things.

H
ARRIET
Possibly. Let's have our milk in my room. It's so much more agreeable to sit in here. Partly because I'm a neater woman than you are.

R
HODA
Even though you have a small heart, I wish there were no one but you and me in the world. Then I would never feel that I had to go among the others.

H
ARRIET
Well, I wish I could hand you my gift for contentment in a box. It would be so lovely if you were like me. Then we could have our milk in
either
room. One day in your room and the next day in mine.

R
HODA
I'm sure that's the sort of thing that never happens.

H
ARRIET
It happens in a million homes, seven days a week. I'm the type that's in the majority.

R
HODA
Never, never, never . . .

H
ARRIET
(Very firmly)
It happens in a million homes.

R
HODA
Never, never, never
!

H
ARRIET
(
Rising
)
Are you going to listen to me when I tell you that it happens in a million homes, or must I lose my temper?

R
HODA
You have already lost it. (H
ARRIET
exits rapidly in a rage
. R
HODA
goes to the chimes and sings)

My horse was frozen like a stone

A long, long time ago.

Frozen near the flower bed In the wintry sun.

Or maybe in the night time

Or maybe not at all.

My horse runs across the fields

On many afternoons.

Black as dirt and filled with blood

I glimpse him fleeing toward the woods

And then not at all.

H
ARRIET
(Offstage)
I'm coming with your milk, and I hope the excitement is over for today. (
Enters
,
carrying two small white glasses)
Oh, why do I bring milk to a person who is dead-set on making my life a real hell?

R
HODA
(Clasping her hands with feeling)
Yes, Why? Why? Why? Why? Oh, what a hideous riddle!

H
ARRIET
You love to pretend that everything is a riddle. You think that's the way to be intellectual. There is no riddle. I am simply keeping up my end of the bargain.

R
HODA
Oh, bargains, bargains, bargains!

H
ARRIET
Will you let me finish, you excitable thing? I'm trying to explain that I'm behaving the way I was molded to behave. I happen to be appreciative of the mold I was cast in, and neither heaven, nor earth is going to make me damage it. Your high-strung emotions are not going to affect me. Here's your milk.

(
She enters
R
HODA
'
S
side of the stage and hands her the milk, but
R
HODA
punches the bottom of the glass with her closed fist and sends it flying out of
H
ARRIET
'
S
hand.
H
ARRIET
deals
R
HODA
a terrific blow on the face and scurries back to her own room. There is silence for a moment. Then
H
ARRIET
buries her face in her hands and weeps
. R
HODA
exits and
H
ARRIET
goes to the chimes and sings.)

H
ARRIET
(Singing)

I dreamed I climbed upon a cliff,

My sister's hand in mine.

Then searched the valley for my house

But only sunny fields could see

And the church spire shining.

I searched until my heart was cold

But only sunny fields could see

And the church spire shining.

A girl ran down the mountainside

With bluebells in her hat.

I asked the valley for her name

But only wind and rain could hear

And the church bell tolling.

I asked until my lips were cold

But wakened not yet knowing

If the name she bore was my sister's name

Or if it was my own.

H
ARRIET
Rhoda?

R
HODA
What do you want?

H
ARRIET
Go away if you like.

R
HODA
The moment hasn't come yet, and it won't come today because the day is finished and the evening is here. Thank God!

H
ARRIET
I know I should get some terrible disease and die if I thought I did not live in the right. It would break my heart.

R
HODA
You do live in the right, sweetie, so don't think about it.
(Pause)
I'll go and get your milk.

H
ARRIET
I'll go too. But let's drink it in here because it really
is
much pleasanter in here, isn't it? (
They rise)
Oh, I'm so glad the evening has come! I'm nervously exhausted. (
They exit)

A Stick of Green Candy

The clay pit had been dug in the side of a long hill. By leaning back against the lower part of its wall, Mary could see the curved highway above her and the cars speeding past. On the other side of the highway the hill continued rising, but at a steeper angle. If she tilted her head farther back, she could glimpse the square house on the hill's summit, with its flight of stone steps that led from the front door down to the curb, dividing the steep lawn in two.

She had been playing in the pit for a long time. Like many other children, she fancied herself at the head of a regiment; at the same time, she did not join in any neighborhood games, preferring to play all alone in the pit, which lay about a mile beyond the edge of town. She was a scrupulously clean child with a strong, immobile face and long, well-arranged curls. Sometimes when she went home toward evening there were traces of clay on her dark coat, even though she had worked diligently with the brush she carried along every afternoon. She despised untidiness, and she feared that the clay might betray her headquarters, which she suspected the other children of planning to invade.

One afternoon she stumbled and fell on the clay when it was still slippery and wet from a recent rainfall. She never failed to leave the pit before twilight, but this time she decided to wait until it was dark so that her sullied coat would attract less attention. Wisely she refrained from using her brush on the wet clay.

Having always left the pit at an earlier hour, she felt that an explanation was due to her soldiers; to announce simply that she had fallen down was out of the question. She knew that her men trusted her and would therefore accept in good faith any reason she chose to give them for this abrupt change in her day's routine, but convincing herself was a more difficult task. She never told them anything until she really believed what she was going to say. After concentrating a few minutes, she summoned them with a bugle call.

"Men," she began, once they were lined up at attention, "I'm staying an hour longer today than usual, so I can work on the mountain goat maneuvers. I explained mountain-goat fighting last week, but I'll tell you what it is again. It's a special technique used in the mountains around big cliffs. No machine can do mountain-goat fighting. We're going to specialize." She paused. "Even though I'm staying, I want you to go right ahead and have your recreation hour as usual, like you always do the minute I leave. I have total respect for your recreation, and I know you fight as hard as you play."

She dismissed them and walked up to her own headquarters in the deepest part of the pit. At the end of the day the color of the red pit deepened; then, after the sun had sunk behind the hill, the clay lost its color. She began to feel cold and a little uneasy. She was so accustomed to leaving her men each day at the same hour, just before they thronged into the gymnasium, that now lingering on made her feel like an intruder.

It was almost night when she climbed out of the pit. She glanced up at the hilltop house and then started down toward the deserted lower road. When she reached the outskirts of town she chose the darkest streets so that the coat would be less noticeable. She hated the thick pats of clay that were embedded in its wool; moreover she was suffering from a sense of inner untidiness as a result of the unexpected change in her daily routine. She walked along slowly, scuffing her heels, her face wearing the expression of a person surfeited with food. Far underneath her increasingly lethargic mood lurked a feeling of apprehension; she knew she would be reprimanded for returning home after dark, but she never would admit either the possibility of punishment or the fear of it. At this period she was rapidly perfecting a psychological mechanism which enabled her to forget, for long stretches of time, that her parents existed.

She found her father in the vestibule hanging his coat up on a peg. Her heart sank as he turned around to greet her. Without seeming to, he took in the pats of clay at a glance, but his shifting eyes never alighted candidly on any object.