Resurrection Blues (2 page)

 

FELIX,
To intercom:
My cousin? Yes, but didn't he say this afternoon? Well, ask him in. . . . Wait.
Tension as he studies the letter again
. All right, but interrupt me in fifteen minutes; he can go on and on. You know these intellectuals.—Anything in the afternoon papers? The radio? And the Miami station? Good. . . . Listen, Isabelle . . . are you alone?—I want you to forget last night, agreed? Exactly, and we will, we'll try again soon. I appreciate your understanding, my dear, you're a fantastic girl . . .

 

You can send in Mr. Schultz.
In conflict he restudies the letter, then . . .
Oh, fuck all intellectuals!
He passionately, defiantly kisses the letter and stashes it in his inside pocket
.

 

 

Henri! Welcome home! Wonderful to see you; and you look so well!

HENRI,
solemn smile:
Felix.

 

FELIX,
both hands smothering Henri's:
—I understood you to say this afternoon.

 

HENRI,
confused:
Did I?
Touching his forehead
. . . Well I suppose I could come back if you're . . .

 

FELIX: Out of the question! Sit! Please!
Shaking his head, amazed—before Henri can sit
. I can't help it.

 

HENRI: What?

 

FELIX: I look at you, cousin, and I see the best years of our lives.

 

HENRI,
embarrassed
: Yes, I suppose.

 

 

FELIX: You don't agree.

 

HENRI: I have too much on my mind to think about it.

 

FELIX,
grinning feigns shooting with pistol at Henri:
. . . You sound like you're bringing me trouble . . . I hope not.

 

HENRI: The contrary, Felix, I'd like to keep you out of trouble . . .

 

FELIX: What does that mean?

 

HENRI: I didn't want to take up your office time, but there was no answer at your house . . . have you moved?

FELIX: No, but . . . I sleep in different places every night.—No guarantee, but I try to make it a little harder for them.

 

HENRI: Then the war is still on? I see hardly anything in the European press . . .

 

FELIX: Well, it's hardly a war anymore; comes and goes now, like a mild diarrhea. What is it, two years?

 

HENRI: More like three, I think.

 

FELIX: No. There was still major fighting three years ago. You came afterward.

 

HENRI: That's right, isn't it.—God, my mind is gone.

 

FELIX: Listen, I lied to you—you're not looking good at all. Wait!—I have some new vitamins!
Presses intercom
. Isabelle! Give my cousin a bottle of my new vitamins when he leaves.
To Henri:
French.

 

HENRI: What?

 

FELIX: My vitamins are French.

 

HENRI: Your vitamins are French?

 

FELIX:—What's the matter?

 

HENRI: I'm . . . very troubled, Felix.

 

FELIX: Jeanine.

HENRI: Partly. . . . It's that . . . at times nothing seems to follow from anything else.

 

FELIX: Oh, well, I wouldn't worry about a thing like that.

 

HENRI: I've always envied how you accept life, Felix.

 

FELIX: Maybe you read too many books—life is complicated, but underneath the principle has never changed since the Romans—fuck them before they can fuck you. How's Jeanine now?

 

HENRI: What can I say?—I'm with her every day and there are signs that she wants to live . . . but who knows? The whole thing is a catastrophe.

 

FELIX: I know her opinion of me, but I still think that girl has a noble heart; she's a Greek tragedy. . . . You remember my son-in-law, the accountant? He calculates that falling from the third floor—
Raises his arm straight up
.—she must have hit the sidewalk at sixty-two miles an hour.
Slaps his hand loudly on desktop
.

 

HENRI,
pained:
Please.

 

FELIX: But at least it brought you together. Sorry. Incidentally, where's your dentist?

 

HENRI: My dentist?

 

FELIX: I am practically commuting to Miami but my teeth keep falling apart. Where do you go?

HENRI: It depends. New York, London, Paris . . . wherever I happen to be. Listen, Felix . . .
Breaks off
. I don't know where to begin . . .

 

FELIX: . . . I hope it's not some kind of problem for me because I'll be frank with you, Henri—I'm not . . . completely myself these days.—I'm all right, you understand, but I'm just . . . not myself.

 

HENRI: . . . I didn't come to antagonize you.

 

FELIX,
in a flare of anger-alarm
: How the hell could you antagonize me! I love you, you bastard. . . . Tell me, you still living in New York?

 

HENRI: Mostly Munich. Lecturing on Tragedy.

 

FELIX: Tragedy is my life, Henri—when I was training in Georgia those Army dentists were the best, but I didn't have a cavity then. Now, when I'm paying the bills I'm full of holes. —How do you lecture on Tragedy?

 

HENRI,
inhales, exhales:
Let me tell you what's on my . . .

 

FELIX,
now a certain anxiety begins to seep out more openly:
Yes! Go ahead, what is it? . . . Isn't that cap too hot?

 

HENRI: It helps my arthritis.

 

FELIX: Oh, right! And how does that work again?—Oh yes!—it's that most of the body heat escapes through the skull . . .

HENRI: Exactly . . .

 

FELIX,
suddenly recalling:
. . . So it keeps your joints warm!—this is why I always loved talking to you, Henri!—you make my mind wander. . . . Wait! My god, I haven't congratulated you; your new wife.

 

HENRI: Thank you.

 

FELIX: I read that she's a concert pianist?

 

HENRI,
a strained smile:
. . . You're going to have to hear this, Felix.

 

FELIX: I'm listening!—But seeing you again always . . . moves me.
Reaches over to touch Henri's knee
. I am moved.
Collects himself
. How long will you be staying this time?

 

HENRI: A month or two; depends on how Jeanine progresses . . .

 

FELIX: Doctor Herman tells me she'll need another operation.

 

HENRI: Two more, possibly three. The whole thing is devastating.

 

FELIX: . . . I have to say, I never thought you were this close . . .

 

HENRI: No one can be close to a drug addict; but she's absolutely finished with that now. I was never much of a father but I'm going to see her back to health if it's the last thing I ever do.

 

FELIX: Bravo, I'm glad to hear that.—How a woman of her caliber could go for drugs is beyond me. What happened, do you know?

 

HENRI,
sudden surge:
What happened!—she lost a revolution, Felix.

 

FELIX: All right, but she has to know all that is finished, revolution is out . . . I'm talking everywhere.

 

HENRI: . . . Listen, don't make me drag it out—I haven't the strength.

 

FELIX: Yes. Please.—But I must tell you, it always amazes me how you gave up everything to just read books and
think
. Frankly, I have never understood it. But go ahead . . .

 

HENRI: Day before yesterday I drove with my wife up toward Santa Felice to show her the country.

 

FELIX: According to this
Vanity Fair
magazine that is one of the finest views in the world, you know.

 

HENRI: As we were passing through the villages . . .

 

FELIX: . . . Also the
National Geographic
.

 

HENRI: When we got up there, Felix . . . it all came back to me . . . remember when we were students and hiked up there together? Remember our shock and disgust that so many of the children had orange hair . . .

 

FELIX,
a happy memory; laughs indulgently:
Ah yes! The blood fluke . . . it's in the water. But it's practically harmless, you know.

 

HENRI: Not for children. It can destroy a child's liver . . .

 

FELIX: Well now, that's a bit . . .

 

HENRI,
sudden sharpness:
It is true, Felix! And the symptom of course is orange hair.

 

FELIX: What's your point?

 

HENRI: What's my point! Felix, blood fluke in the water supply in the twenty-first century is. . . . My god, you are the head of this country, don't you feel a . . . ?

 

FELIX: They won't boil the water, what can I do about it!—What is all this about the fluke suddenly? The British are definitely going to build a gigantic warehouse on the harbor, for god's sake!

 

HENRI,
distressed:
A warehouse! What's that got to do with . . .

 

FELIX: Because this country's starting to move and you're still talking blood fluke! I assure you, Henri, nobody in this country has the slightest interest in blood fluke!—Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?

HENRI: You probably won't remember, but on my last visit I brought home an eighteenth-century painting from Paris, cost me twenty-six thousand dollars. The pollution in our air has since peeled off about a third of the paint.

 

FELIX: That couldn't happen in Paris?

 

HENRI: It's been sitting in Paris for two hundred and fifty years! . . . I had a grand piano shipped from New York for my wife . . .

 

FELIX: The varnish cracked?

 

HENRI: The varnish did not crack but my architect is afraid the floor may collapse because of the underground leakage of water from the aqueduct, which has undermined the foundations of that whole lovely neighborhood. And brought in termites!

 

FELIX: I'm to chase termites?

 

HENRI:—My wife has to practice in the garage, Felix! When she plays for me I have to sit listening in the Mercedes!

 

FELIX: But cousin, a grand piano—you're talking three-quarters of a ton!

 

HENRI: I was getting out of a taxi yesterday on Avenue Fontana, our number-one shopping street . . .

 

FELIX: Did you see the new Dunhill store . . . ?

HENRI: . . . I nearly stepped on a dead baby lying at the curb.

 

 

Shoppers were passing by, saw it, and walked on. As I did.

 

FELIX: What is all this suddenly? None of this has ever been any different!

 

HENRI: I don't know! I suppose I never really
looked
at anything. It may be Jeanine; she was so utterly beautiful, Felix.

 

FELIX: Oh god, yes.

 

HENRI: I think I never really
saw
what I meant to her. Sitting with her day after day now . . . for the first time I understood my part in her suffering. I betrayed her, Felix. It's terrible.

 

FELIX: Why? You always gave her everything . . .

 

HENRI: A faith in the revolution is what I gave her . . . and then walked away from it myself.

 

FELIX: I hope I'm not hearing your old Marxism again . . .

 

HENRI: Oh shit, Felix!—I haven't been a Marxist for twenty-five years!

 

FELIX: Because that is finished, they're almost all in narcotics now, thanks be to god; but the Americans are here now and they'll clean out the whole lot of them by New Years! Your guerillas are done!

HENRI: These are not my guerillas, my guerillas were foolish, idealistic people, but the hope of the world! These people now are cynical and stupid enough to deal narcotics!

 

FELIX: Listen, after thirty-eight years of civil war what did you expect to find here, Sweden? Weren't you in analysis once?

 

HENRI: Yes. I was. Twenty years ago at least. Why?

 

FELIX: I'm seeing a man in Miami.

 

HENRI: Well, that's surprising. I always think of you in control of everything.

 

FELIX: Not the most important thing.

 

HENRI: . . . You don't say. Maybe you have the wrong woman.

 

FELIX: They can't all be wrong. My dog just won't hunt.

 

HENRI: Imagine. And analysis helps?

 

FELIX,
hesitates:
Semi. I'm trying to keep from letting it obsess me. But I have this vision, you know?

 

HENRI: Oh? Someone you've met?

 

FELIX: No, just imaginary—like those women you see in New York. Tall, you know? Fine teeth. Kind of . . . I don't know . . . nasty. Or spirited . . . spirited is the word. Is your wife tall?