Requiem for a Nun (13 page)

Governor

Go on.

Stevens

So at least she had ease. Not hope: ease. It was precarious of course, a balance, but she could walk a tightrope too. It was as though she had struck, not a bargain, but an armistice with God if there was one. She had not tried to cheat; she had not tried to evade the promissory note of her past by intervening the blank check of a child's innocence—it was born now, a little boy, a son, her husband's son and heir—between. She had not tried to prevent the child; she had simply never thought about pregnancy in this connection, since it took the physical fact of the pregnancy to reveal to her the existence of that promissory note bearing her post-dated signature. And since God—if there was one—must be aware of that, then she too would bear her side of the bargain by not demanding on Him a second time since He—if there was one—would at least play fair, would be at least a gentleman. And that?

Governor

Go on.

Stevens

So you can take your choice about the second child. Perhaps she was too busy between the three of them to be careful enough: between the three of them: the doom, the fate, the past; the bargain with God; the forgiveness and the gratitude. Like the juggler says, not with three insentient replaceable Indian clubs or balls, but three glass bulbs filled with nitroglycerin and not enough hands for one even: one hand to offer the atonement with and another to receive the forgiveness with and a third needed to offer the gratitude, and still a fourth hand more and more imperative as time passed to sprinkle in steadily and constantly increasing doses a little more and a little more of the sugar and seasoning on the gratitude to keep it palatable to its swallower—that perhaps: she just didn't have time to be careful enough, or perhaps it was desperation, or perhaps this was when her husband first refuted or implied or anyway impugned—whichever it was—his son's paternity. Anyway, she was pregnant again; she had broken her word, destroyed her talisman, and she probably knew fifteen months before the letters that this was the end, and when the man appeared with the old letters she probably was not even surprised: she had merely been wondering for fifteen months what form the doom would take. And accept this too—

The lights flicker and dim further, then steady at that point .

And relief too. Because at last it was over; the roof had fallen, avalanche had roared; even the helplessness and the impotence were finished now, because now even the old fragility of bone and meat was no longer a factor—and, who knows? because of that fragility, a kind of pride, triumph: you have waited for destruction: you endured; it was inevitable, inescapable, you had no hope. Nevertheless, you did not merely cringe, crouching, your head, vision, buried in your arms; you were not watching that poised arrestment all the time, true enough, but that was not because you feared it but because you were too busy putting one foot before the other, never for one instant really flagging, faltering, even though you knew it was in vain—triumph in the very fragility which no longer need concern you now, for the reason that the all, the very worst, which catastrophe can do to you, is crush and obliterate the fragility; you were the better man, you out-faced even catastrophe, outlasted it, compelled it to move first; you did not even defy it, not even contemptuous: with no other tool or implement but that worthless fragility, you held disaster off as with one hand you might support the weightless silken canopy of a bed, for six long years while it, with all its weight and power, could not possibly prolong the obliteration of your fragility over five or six seconds; and even during that five or six seconds you would still be the better man, since all that it—the catastrophe—could deprive you of you yourself had already written off six years ago as being, inherently of and because of its own fragile self, worthless.

Governor

And now, the man.

Stevens

I thought you would see it too. Even the first one stuck out like a sore thumb. Yes, he—

Governor

The first what?

Stevens

(pauses, looks at the Governor)

The first man: Red. Don't you know anything at all about women? I never saw Red or this next one, his brother, either, but all three of them, the other two and her husband, probably all look enough alike or act enough alike—maybe by simply making enough impossible unfulfillable demands on her or by being drawn to her enough to accept, risk, almost incredible conditions—to be at least first cousins. Where have you been all your life?

Governor

All right. The man.

Stevens

At first, all he thought of, planned on, was interested in, intended, was the money—to collect for the letters, and beat it, get the hell out. Of course, even at the end, all he was really after was still the money, not only after he found out that he would have to take her and the child too to get it, but even when it looked like all he was going to get, at least for a while, was just a runaway wife and a six-months-old infant. In fact, Nancy's error, her really fatal action on that fatal and tragic night, was in not giving the money and the jewels both to him when she found where Temple had hidden them, and getting the letters and getting rid of him forever, instead of hiding the money and jewels from Temple in her turn—which was what Temple herself thought too apparently, since she—Temple—told him a lie about how much the money was, telling him it was only two hundred dollars when it was actually almost two thousand. So you would have said that he wanted the money indeed, and just how much, how badly, to have been willing to pay that price for it. Or maybe he was being wise—‘smart,' he would have called it—beyond his years and time, and without having actually planned it that way, was really inventing a new and safe method of kidnapping: that is, pick an adult victim capable of signing her own checks—also with an infant in arms for added persuasion—and not forcing but actually persuading her to come along under her own power and then—still peaceably—extracting the money later at your leisure, using the tender welfare of the infant as a fulcrum for your lever. Or maybe we're both wrong and both should give credit—what little of it—where credit—what little of it—is due, since it was just the money with her too at first, though he was probably still thinking it was just the money at the very time when, having got her own jewelry together and found where her husband kept the key to the strongbox (and I imagine, even opened it one night after her husband was in bed asleep and counted the money in it or at least made sure there was money in it or anyway that the key would actually open it), she found herself still trying to rationalise why she had not paid over the money and got the letters and destroyed them and so rid herself forever of her Damocles' roof. Which was what she did not do. Because Hemingway—his girl—was quite right: all you have got to do is, refuse to accept it. Only, you have got to be told truthfully beforehand what you must refuse; the gods owe you that—at least a clear picture and a clear choice. Not to be fooled by . . . who knows? probably even gentleness, after a fashion, back there on those afternoons or whenever they were in the Memphis . . . all right: honeymoon, even with a witness; in this case certainly anything much better lacked, and indeed, who knows? (I am Red now) even a little of awe, incredulous hope, incredulous amazement, even a little of trembling at this much fortune, this much luck dropping out of the very sky itself, into his embrace; at least (Temple now) no gang: even rape become tender: only one, an individual, still refusable, giving her at least (this time) the similitude of being wooed, of an opportunity to say Yes first, letting her even believe she could say either one of yes or no. I imagine that he (the new one, the blackmailer) even looked like his brother—a younger Red, the Red of a few years even before she knew him, and—if you will permit it—less stained, so that in a way it may have seemed to her that here at last even she might slough away the six years' soilure of struggle and repentance and terror to no avail. And if this is what you meant, then you are right too: a man, at least a man, after six years of that sort of forgiving which debased not only the forgiven but the forgiven's gratitude too—a bad man of course, a criminal by intent regardless of how cramped his opportunities may have been up to this moment; and, capable of blackmail, vicious and not merely competent to, but destined to, bring nothing but evil and disaster and ruin to anyone foolish enough to enter his orbit, cast her lot with his. But—by comparison, that six years of comparison—at least a man—a man so single, so hard and ruthless, so impeccable in amorality, as to have a kind of integrity, purity, who would not only never need nor intend to forgive anyone anything, he would never even realise that anyone expected him to forgive anyone anything; who wouldn't even bother to forgive her if it ever dawned on him that he had the opportunity, but instead would simply black her eyes and knock a few teeth out and fling her into the gutter: so that she could rest secure forever in the knowledge that, until she found herself with a black eye and or spitting teeth in the gutter, he would never even know he had anything to forgive her for.

This time, the lights do not flicker. They begin to dim steadily toward and then into complete darkness as Stevens continues.

Nancy was the confidante, at first, while she—Nancy—still believed probably that the only problem, factor, was how to raise the money the blackmailer demanded, without letting the boss, the master, the husband find out about it; finding, discovering—this is still Nancy— realising probably that she had not really been a confidante for a good while, a long while before she discovered that what she actually was, was a spy: on her employer: not realising until after she had discovered that, although Temple had taken the money and the jewels too from her husband's strongbox, she—Temple—still hadn't paid them over to the blackmailer and got the letters, that the payment of the money and jewels was less than half of Temple's plan.

The lights go completely out. The stage is in complete darkness. Stevens' voice continues.

That was when Nancy in her turn found where Temple had hidden the money and jewels, and—Nancy—took them in her turn and hid them from Temple; this was the night of the day Gowan left for a week's fishing at Aransas Pass, taking the older child, the boy, with him, to leave the child for a week's visit with its grandparents in New Orleans until Gowan would pick him up on his way home from Texas.

(to Temple: in the darkness)

Now tell him.

The stage is in complete darkness.

Interior, Temple's private sitting or dressing room. 9:30 P.M. September thirteenth
ante.

The lights go up, lower right, as in Act One in the transition from the Court room to the Stevens living room, though instead of the living room, the scene is now Temple's private apartment. A door, left, enters from the house proper. A door, right, leads into the nursery where the child is asleep in its crib. At rear, French windows open onto a terrace; this is a private entrance to the house itself from outdoors. At left, a closet door stands open. Garments are scattered over the floor about it, indicating that the closet has been searched, not hurriedly so much as savagely and ruthlessly and thoroughly. At right, is a fireplace of gas logs. A desk against the rear wall is open and shows traces of the same savage and ruthless search. A table, center, bears Temple's hat, gloves and bag, also a bag such as, is associated with infants; two bags, obviously Temple's, are packed and closed and sit on the floor beside the table. The whole room indicates Temple's imminent departure, and that something has been vainly yet savagely and completely, perhaps even frantically, searched for.

When the lights go up, Pete is standing in the open closet door, holding a final garment, a negligee, in his hands. He is about 25. He does not look like a criminal. That is, he is not a standardised recognisable criminal or gangster type, quite. He looks almost like the general conception of a college man, or a successful young automobile or appliance salesman. His clothes are ordinary, neither flashy nor sharp, simply what everybody wears. But there is a definite ‘untamed' air to him. He is handsome, attractive to women, not at all unpredictable because you—or they—know exactly what he will do, you just hope he wont do it this time. He has a hard, ruthless quality, not immoral but unmoral.

He wears a light-weight summer suit, his hat is shoved onto the back of his head so that, engaged as he is at present, he looks exactly like a youthful city detective in a tough moving picture. He is searching the flimsy negligee, quickly and without gentleness, drops it and turns, finds his feet entangled in the other garments on the floor and without pausing, kicks himself free and crosses to the desk and stands looking down at the litter on it which he has already searched thoroughly and savagely once, with a sort of bleak and contemptuous disgust.

Temple enters, left. She wears a dark suit for traveling beneath a lightweight open coat, is hatless, carries the fur coat which we have seen, and a child's robe or blanket over the same arm, and a filled milk bottle in the other hand. She pauses long enough to glance at the littered room. Then she comes on in and approaches the table. Pete turns his head; except for that, he doesn't move.

Pete

Well?

Temple

No. The people where she lives say they haven't seen her since she left to come to work this morning.

Pete

I could have told you that.

(he glances at his wrist watch)

We've still got time. Where does she live?

Temple

(at the table)

And then what? hold a lighted cigarette against the sole of her foot?

Pete

It's fifty dollars, even if you are accustomed yourself to thinking in hundreds. Besides the jewelry. What do you suggest then? call the cops?