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Fiction-Online Volume 4 Number 4
FICTION-ONLINE
An Internet Literary Magazine
Volume 4, Number 4
July-August, 1997
EDITOR'S NOTE:
FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing
electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The
contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels
or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are
members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group
affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine
is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the
public.
To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e-mail
a brief request to
ngwazi@clark.net
To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the
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the message itself, rather than as an attachment.
Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from the
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ftp.etext.org
where issues are filed in the directory /pub/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online.
This same directory may also be located with your browser at the
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William Ramsay, Editor
=================================================
CONTRIBUTORS
WILL HASTINGS is an attorney and a former government official. He
now lives in the Berkshires , where he gardens, investigates aerodynamics,
and writes poetry. His works have been published in leading journals.
OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs,
has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced
in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been
produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folger Library in Washington,
and is being performed with some regularity in theaters in the United
States, Europe, and Australia.
WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World
energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the Northwest
Fiction Group. His play, "Perry's Roots." recently received a reading at
the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba. He
lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he
practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of
cetaceans.
=================================================
CONTENTS
Editor's Note
Contributors
"Kneeling in Front of Plants," a poem
Will Hastings
"XYZ," a short-short
E. James Scott
"Mr. Marcus," an excerpt (chapter 3) from
the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
William Ramsay
"A Cold Night in Pittsburgh," part 1 of the play, "Duet"
Otho Eskin
=================================================
KNEELING IN FRONT OF PLANTS
by Will Hastings
My hands are made for digging,
my knees for leaving marks in front of plants.
They accept me as a guest, drink my breath,
urge me to pick potato beetles and
kill the appetites of cabbage worms
while they and I launch blessings at one another
like swallows diving in crossed loops
to protect the unfledged young.
Knees draw me downward, take root,
as we listen for the broccoli's explosion
from green to lemon-yellow flowers or
for the stubborn rooting of carrots
pushing into June's warm, excited soil.
Here I am met by energies erupting from the earth
intense as the noise of bees
swarming behind a restless queen,
green legacies filling
just enough of ordinary emptiness
to liberate desire for another day --
great illusion come from tiny harmonies.
=============================================
XYZ
by E. James Scott
"Who's gay? Who's not?" Today, at my local market, the red
headlines of the national tabloid screamed scandal over the display of D,
C, and AA batteries at the checkout counter.
I could only laugh -- with sour irony.
No, mine isn't a tale about a poor guy coming out of a closet. Big
deal, I say, to all that. Do you really think that regular gays do the
big-time suffering in this world? For real suffering, you have to seek out
the lonely people. Gays have it tough sometimes, but look at all the company
they have. Sure, gays are a minority, but what a large, vocal, and
politically well-connected minority!
I mean, how about real minorities. For instance, people who can't
even tell whether they're properly gay or not? No, I don't mean lisping,
hairy-chested bisexuals, or pink-wigged hetero-transsexuals, or "I-only-
tried -it -once-at Vassar" young ladies, or those types with sunglasses
down over their cheekbones and leather up over their ears who would say,
"Hey, whatever," if you asked them a question about sexual preference.
I'm talking about really different, what you could call undefined people.
"Undefined," that is, by "normal" standards. What a word:
"Normal"! Normal people are male or female. That's it. All the rest,
like "neuters," hermaphrodites, and "XYZ syndrome" people like me are
treated like circus freaks.
Well, if we are freaks, let's glory in it, I say. I'll drink to that
-- I prefer Hennessy in a large snifter, relaxing in my lounge chair watching
the tube or reading a good book. Nowadays, since my life has stabilized
tad, I live quietly in a townhouse on the edge of the city. Or maybe I
should say that "we" live quietly. We who? That's for the neighbors to
figure out, and I say let them -- if they can. If some extra-clever nosy
parker did raise a fuss and force me to move, so what? I like changes of
scene. Maybe it's in my nature, so to speak.
I've always figured that my closest feeling of brotherhood (or
sisterhood) should be to the hermaphrodites. But I must confess that I
have always felt resentment, mixed with envy, toward hermaphrodites.
Those guys are genetically mixed up, a dysfunction of the X and Y
chromosomes, I believe, but at least they're what they are, they're in a
stable situation.
Not like those of us with the XYZ chromosome syndrome.
My name is Jerry Camberwell. I was born as an apparently
normal girl into a family of wheat farmers in Saskatchewan. My parents
died when I was four and I was raised by my grandfather, a fur trapper, a
great guy with a long beard, a head full of stories, and a golden voice to
tell them with. I had a normal childhood, isolated, but ordinary. I had the
normal kind of accidental education in matters sexual: I used to play
doctor, I remember, in the long grass behind the old sod-roof spring house,
with my friend Joe Platt. Our bodies were different, I was plain and he
was fancy, and that was fun.
The first time I noticed anything odd about my body was when I
was about thirteen years old. One day, sitting on the cold, cracked seat in
the privy, I noticed two strange swellings in my groin. Every day I
watched the swellings grow and other startling changes take place.
Within weeks it became obvious to me that my private parts had turned
into something closely resembling Joe's. Shamed and horrified by what
was going on down below my navel, I told no one. I stopped wearing
tight jeans and adopted some loose khakis, which I wore until the cuffs
and pockets were tatters. I had always been very modest and shy in
undressing when my Grandpa was around, and he never suspected a
thing.. But soon my girl friend Thelma, who lived five miles down the
road, started kidding me about my breaking voice. Perry White, at the
feed store in Minimuk, made a remark about my flat chest. Finally, that
fall, when it was time for me to be sent away in the bus to Yellow Knife to
enroll as a boarding student at the MacKenzie Union High School, the
moment of truth came -- during the physical examination. The doctor
wiggled his thick gray eyebrows and laughed, and picked up the phone to
talk to the principal. In his office, the principal smirked at me as I
sat on the hard wooden chair across from his desk and asked me questions
about my upbringing that made me think he thought Grandpa was a little off
his bean. Anyway, they admitted me into the school and gave me the end bed
in the last row in the male dormitory. My body had completed its
transition into my new lifestyle, and I became just one of the boys at the
school.
Learning to be a boy was challenging, but I I gradually became
adapted. Then, just as I was about to turn sixteen, I noticed that my new
masculine parts were beginning to shrink away. Within weeks, it was
obvious that the whole process was starting over -- I was becoming a girl
again.
Scientifically, I found out later, I was a victim of the rare Z
chromosome, which fiddles with the dominance of the male Y and the
female X chromosomes to produce periodical sex changes in the victim.
It's kind of like what happens with some sea worms, annelids or
something similar. The worms go through sex changes as they age,
producing sperm and then eggs, like an ongoing delicatessen caviar
selection. With us human XYZ's, it's more of 16-to-24-month cycle
continuing throughout the life of the sufferer.
And suffer I did. Fortunately, this last disaster happened toward
the end of summer vacation, and I had saved up enough money running a
bulldozer to run away before I had to face school again. I left Yellow
Knife and went to Saskatoon and then to Missoula, becoming a waitress,
a bookstore clerk, a waiter, a handyman, an exotic dancer. I
experimented with sex -- with men, with women, with men again. But I
felt unfulfilled. I realized later I was longing for someone who really
understood me. Somebody like me.
Then I met Leslie. Exactly like me, he/she was another XYZ.
And when I met him/her, I was in the male part of the cycle and my
member stood as stiff as a mailing tube when I found out that tall woman,
with breasts like melons and a scarlet wide-lipped smile, had just left
his/her girlfriend a month before. She, hearing my history, sighed with
ecstasy and fell into my arms on our first date. We became inseparable.
Oh, there were awkward gaps during the sexual transitional phases -- but
all couples have problems. And so we lived together for almost four
years, cycling in tandem, really enjoying our specialness with each other.
Then one day, while I was in my apron, fixing dinner and
watching tapes of my soaps, Leslie walked in, took a beer out of the
refrigerator, sat down, and slapped his hardhat on the kitchen table, where
it rocked and clattered for an ominous moment. No kiss, no little pat on
my behind. What's wrong? I said. Nothing, he said. There must be, I
said, going over to him and putting my arms around his neck. He flung
off my arms and stood up. I'm leaving, he said. No, I said, it's not
possible. I've fallen in love, he said. I burst into tears. Who? I asked,
finally, and finally he told me. He was leaving me for someone named
George. Leslie had become gay. And I was a confirmed hetero, of
course. I screamed at him until he left, slamming the door. I tossed and
turned on my damp pillow that night. The rest of the week was a
nightmare of Valiums and tears.
But by Sunday, I began to feel better. For one thing, I had to
smile when I thought of Leslie's hitting the feminine part of his cycle --
would he then have to take up with someone named Georgina? Besides, I
noted the familiar swellings beginning in my own body: I was about to
become a man again. Grow up, I told myself, don't let one person,
however special, destroy you. You're far from ordinary yourself, Jerry.
There would be women out there for me now, new women. And in a year
or two, there would be men out there, new men. And then again, women --
and then men...
After all, there is something to being special.
=================================================
MR. MARCUS
by William Ramsay
(Note: this is an excerpt, Chapter 3 of the novel "Ay, Chucho!" )
"Well, I guess that solves your problem," said Amelia, lifting her
squash racquet, her eye shining with sports lust, obviously getting ready
to try to smack one of her zingers into the far corner.
I wouldn't have believed I heard right -- my problem "solved" -- except
that I knew that Amelia had a mind like a steel trap -- logic in, logic out.
At least whenever she was in one of her get-down-to-business modes.
"Solved"! Christ. Her ball hit low down and dribbled away from the wall
like water from a leaky toilet. I didn't have a chance. "I don't, _believe_
you," I said. "I can't just walk into Cuba and say, hey here I am."
"Hmmm. Yes." She looked pensive, and I knew what she was
thinking about. Four years ago, Mama had twisted my arm into
instituting a suit to force the bank in New York to turn over the safety
deposit box to us. We hired a smart lawyer who argued that the owner of
the box was being illegally "sequestered" -- he managed to attribute all
sorts of improper and illegal behavior to the Cuban government. The
Supreme Court of the State of New York had found against us -- but the
Cuban government hadn't forgiven me for trying, and I was definitely
persona non grata in Havana. "There must be some way around that,"
Amelia said. "It's all just logistics."
Logistics. I was so mad that I gave the ball an extra vicious smash low
on the front wall and she ended up waving her racket limply at it. She
wiped her forehead, pulling back a lock of her short brown hair. "The
main point is, if you do get both your father and this patriotic type out,
you're home free. Your serve."
"'Patriotic'!" I whopped the ball and we batted it back and forth for a
minute. She killed it and I lost the serve. I came in a strong sixth in the
Little Havana Kiwanis Tourney last fall -- but I have to stay on my toes
with Amelia. I got the serve back and stopped, leaning against the
plexiglass wall, my breath reaching down into my chest. "So. What am I
supposed to do? Take a one-man sub into Havana harbor, swim to shore,
disguise myself as Raul Castro or somebody, and walk up to Fidel and
ask him to let naughty Dr. Revueltos out - - and oh, by the way, would
you mind throwing in this traitor to the Revolution, Jorge Pillo, please,
Comandante?" I said. I caught my breath and served again.
Amelia smiled. "You'd have to say 'Pretty puleeeze'!" She giggled.
"With butter" -- whap -- "and sugar and honey on it." Amelia was born in
the States, so she has a very firm grasp on the idiom. English is almost
my native language -- but not quite: nursery rhymes, names for types of
kids' marbles, farm implements -- all come to me more easily in Spanish.
But a hearty English "Shit!" came to my mouth just then instead of an
earthy Castilian "_Mierda_!"
The slap of my shot against the back wall sounded like a backfire.
"Cute shot," she said. But she killed it with a flip of her wrist and it was
her set, dammit.
Going back toward the locker rooms, she took my hand. "Don't worry,
Chucho, I've been thinking about it."
"Good, I'm glad you're thinking. Why don't_ you_ go to Cuba, you
handle it, if it's so easy."
"Your father is still a Red, isn't he?"
"And Marx begat Engels and Engels begat Lenin and"
"As his son you deserve to get a little help from the communists."
"Oh, come on!" We sat down in the green leather couch that stretched
cozily between the men's and women's locker rooms. I liked the faint odor
from Amelia -- a sweetish-sour single-set smell.
"Well," she said. "El Salvador's full of communists, and Uncle Paco
knows people on our side that know every one of them." Her voice had
turned low and throaty again, as if she had made some great scientific
discovery.
I stared into her green eyes -- they were nice eyes, I must admit I'm a
sucker for women's eyes -- especially large green ones. "That's _it_?" I
said. "Just 'El Salvador'?"
She smiled and stared at a couple of tall young studs, one of them with
a thick flopping pony tail, who were running, hopping and lunging
athletically in the next court. "Oh, Chucho. Sometimes, I don't know
about you!"
"'Oh, Chucho' what?"
"Don't bother me with details." I remembered Professor McKee's
"Survey of European History" at Miami-Dade and remembered his
lectures about Napoleon, the only thing about that course that interested
me -- I got a B minus in the course. I imagined that the Emperor must
have talked pretty much the same way to Marshal Murat when he was
giving the order for some little military exercise -- like the battle of
Austerlitz
#
So the next thing I knew, I found myself on Continental Airlines flight
292, looking out my window at the top of an emerald green volcano. It
looked too green, as if it were a ghostly kind of day-glo Mayan
monument. Paco had told my mother only that I was going on a business
trip to Central America. "Stay away from Cuba," was all she said.
"Yes, _mamacita_."
"If those Reds get hold of you, they'll cook your goose." "Yes,
_mamacita_."
She made a face like the Wicked Witch of the North. "Sizzle, sizzle,
sizzle!" She laughed. "I know I don't have to worry about you, my
both-feet- on-the-ground hijito_."
'Both feet on the ground'! Didn't I wish.
I must have been dozing on the plane. Suddenly the hostess' voice was
announcing in both my languages that we were approaching the Ilopango
airport. With her faint trace of an accent and a hint of a Latin intonation,
her English made her sound like somebody who could have been in my
class at Miami High. The good old days at Miami High, when life was
sometimes boring -- but at least you were never scared shitless of what the
next moment might bring. The plane lurched slightly, slowing, and the
cloud-dappled green and brown of the fields came closer. My spirits sank
with the aircraft. The truth about my situation suddenly hit me.
I had no faith in Amelia's plan.
I had no faith in Uncle Paco's competence, or in the good faith of his
friends in the Association.
I had no faith that I could pull off the "Abduction from La Cabana"
scenario.
All I had was a kind of perverted faith in the efficiency of the U.S.
government. And not just in the IRS. Getting out of Miami had also,
thank God, put me out of reach of the process server from the Federal
District Court for Southern Florida -- sent around no doubt by Peters
Electronics or ElectroServe, Inc. or one of the other of my suppliers who
were being bad sports about the state of my accounts payable and were
eyeing the appeal of bankruptcy proceedings. Luckily for me, at 8:45 the
preceding Wednesday morning I had spotted this fellow in the dark blue
suit leaning against the display window of the store, his body masking the
top third of the "VCR Closeout Sale" sign. A summons from the feds
would have really closed me out.
The DC-10 shuddered, the wheels squealed and grunted, and I was on
the ground in Central America, jouncing along not so merrily to my fate.
But as we slowed to a quiet roll and began to taxi, the sun glaring off the
wing on my side, my fear eased, and a sort of feeling of freedom started to
ooze into my brain -- in some crazy way I imagined a whiff of liberation
from my worries swelling up like a pure white thunderhead on a summer
afternoon. I was on an impossible mission -- but what the hell -- what had
I got to lose? And maybe what Amelia always said about me was right
too. Maybe there was a Basil Rathbone inside me, impatient with being a
desk officer at the forward Royal Flying Corps base, itching to get in a
Spad and join a raid on the German aerodrome, flying wing to wing with
the rest of the "gallant gentlemen" of the squadron.
But as the van from the Camino Real Hotel thunked its way over the
potholes in the Panamerican Highway on its way into San Salvador, the
bumps seemed to sap my new-found optimism. Life was back to shaking
me up.
On the road, we encountered individual soldiers and small patrols. At
one point we stopped in the middle of a traffic jam where an ancient,
garishly decorated bus had collapsed onto its front axle in the middle of
the road. I opened the van window to smell dust and cow dung and to
meet the gaze of several dark coppery Mayan faces underneath
olive-green trench helmets, arms cradling AK-47's or Uzis. The soldiers
were obviously on the side of law and order and the free market system. I
would be leaving all that behind me when I got to Cuba, and I began to
feel a hazy nostalgia-in-anticipation for capitalism and Our Way of Life.
In my room at the hotel, I sat down on the bed, nursing the cozy feeling on
my ass of the aristocratically firm springs. I grabbed the colored card
listing from the top of the TV set showing the video movies available --
"Die Hard" was showing and I experienced some fellow feeling for Bruce
Willis, fighting to survive against impossible odds. I went to the window
and looked down on the tops of the cars and the palm trees along the
Bulevar de los Heroes -- I could have been in Miami. I remember
thinking with a pang, standing at that window, that a childhood misspent
in Havana was all the foreign travel I had really needed for the rest of my
life. I vowed never to leave Miami again if I ever got back there alive.
Anyway, there I was in San Salvador, wishing for some way to opt out
from reality, reduced to making big life decisions like whether to call up
room service for something to eat or just sack out for a while. Then the
phone rang.
A gringo voice speaking Spanish asked if I was me. I said I was. He
said he was a friend of Paco's and asked me ungrammatically if we could
meet at the lobby bar downstairs. I said sure, and added in English that I
spoke that language. He continued in a flat, nasal Spanish, like I imagine
a Frenchman speaking Italian, instructing me to sit alone at a table where
he would join me. Then he hung up abruptly.
Fifteen minutes later a middle-sized guy with a prominent pot belly
slithered up to the table where I was working on my watered-down scotch.
He wore a pale beige sportcoat over an orange guayabera shirt: he took
the sportcoat off, folding it on the chair behind himself. The tails of the
shirt stuck out, making him look a little like a washed-out Baltimore
Oriole. He introduced himself as "Mr. Marcus."
As we talked, he kept turning his heavy-lidded eyes to peer over my
shoulder. From time to time, he twisted his long neck around, swiveling
his gaze over some of the other patrons: a middle-aged American couple,
a depressed- looking young man in a blue blazer. His eyes kept moving
from me to the room and back, and the back again. Every few moments
he would lower his head and drink greedily from a glass of rum-and-coke.
"Nice mustache," he said. He pointed at my lip. He made the Spanish
word _bigotes_ sound as if it referred to racial prejudice.
"Yes," I said articulately, in my perhaps slightly accented but careful
English. I was proud of my RAF-style mustache -- it flowed in a broad
wave across my lip and out onto my cheeks like a friendly black tide.
"I don't know if it'll be O.K. to keep or not."
"What?" I said.
He only raised his eyebrows at me. He winked. "Wait for
instructions," he said.
"Instructions?" I started to say, but he snapped up his sportcoat, made
a farewell clown face, and he was gone, head hunched into his neck. I
imagined "C.I.A." written clearly in invisible ink on each fold of his
flapping shirt- tail.
The next morning there was a message in my box downstairs:
Be outside hotel tonight at midnight, ready for mission. Pack bags,
leave them in room. (Bring toilet articles with you.)"
Toilet articles? Was this a slumber party?
At about 12:45 A.M., after a swerving, jouncing ride through the dark
streets stretching north of the hotel, and a trip over a pathway of wet
rubber matting through the kitchen of a restaurant, I found myself sitting
on a fold- up chair in what looked like an abandoned meat locker. Facing
me were Mr. Marcus and an officer in the Salvadoran Army wearing a red
name plate: Major P. Beltran. I clutched my heavy plastic Doppkit in one
hand. On the other side of the door, you could hear the clink of glasses
and the clattering of dishes.
The Major and Mr. Marcus each held one side of what looked like a
passport. Mr. Marcus frowned, the Major made faces. Then Marcus
nodded, the Major nodded, and Marcus told me that my mustache had to
come off. I protested.
"You can use the bathroom in the restaurant, there's a mirror," said
Marcus in English. The Major frowned -- Beltran spoke very little
English and tonight Mr. Marcus was insisting on speaking in his own
native tongue. I protested again. The Major took his finger and ran it
over my lip. Then he laughed. My lip felt greasy where he had touched
it.
I was getting the idea. I grabbed at the passport, but Marcus kept hold
of one side of it with his thumb and forefinger. The faded maroon cover
bore the incised words, "Republica de El Salvador." The picture inside
was of a young man with a triangular face and large eyes. The name was
Felipe Elizalde Q., with a looping, florid signature underneath the
typewriting.
"Is this the only way?" I said in Spanish.
The Major nodded.
"The best and only way to accomplish this mission," said Marcus,
again in English.
"What was that he said?" said the Major.
"Suppose they aren't fooled," I said in Spanish.
"We have to think of the mission," said Mr. Marcus in English, a
remark I didn't find very edifying.
The Major looked even more puzzled than I. "_Pero_ _que_ _dijo_?"
he whispered to me.
To hell with it. "O.K.," I said.
I snipped and scraped off my beloved mustache while a drunk rattled
the door to the tiny bathroom, making the latch-lock jiggle in its socket.
Errol Flynn, I remember thinking. What would he have done? When I
finished and went back into the meat locker, Mr. Marcus smiled narrowly
at me. The Major was smoking with intense concentration, the room was
becoming as foggy as the waterfront on a becalmed winter day in Coconut
Beach. Marcus wiped his eyes, patting carefully at the round folds of skin
underneath them, and told me I was already checked in under my new
name at the Hotel San Jorge. I would be contacted.
"But what about the real Felipe Elizalde?" I said In Spanish. I
coughed -- the smoke was terrible.
The Major smiled. "_Terminado_," he said.
"With extreme prejudice," said Mr. Marcus.
I heard myself gasp. In the movies it would have been a joke, but
hearing that spy-novel phrase used in real life, my throat tightened up and
I felt my gorge rise. Marcus stared at my face and then broke up,
giggling. "Don't panic, the Good Lord arranged this one -- brain tumor."
The Major got that one. "_El_ _buen_ _Dios_," he said like a
Hispanic echo. He patted his hands on his rotund belly like an olive-drab
Buddha.
Elizalde had been an FMLN cadre, in the custody of the Salvadoran
National Guard for over seven years. Few of the present FMLN knew
him -- but they all knew about him, his heroism during a car bombing of
the right-wing party ARENA's headquarters in '83, his ideological purity,
his high morals.
"High morals?" I said.
"Don't worry," said Marcus, "people can change in prison."
I asked who was going to contact me. They told me that their people
had planted the information on my "release from custody" with an
informer for the Reds, and that someone, probably a certain Dr.
Sanchez-Schulz, would be in touch with me.
"He's a doctor?" I said.
"She," said Marcus.
"A woman doctor," I said.
"That's O.K., that's even good," said Marcus.
"Why?" I said.
"You're a doctor yourself."
"_Doctor_," chimed in the Major in Spanish, with the accent on the
last syllable.
I looked at the passport again -- where Marcus' thumb had been, I now
saw the "Dr." "Jesus!" I said.
"No," said Marcus, "Not 'Jesus' now, 'Felipe'!" He chortled, then
gasped, choking on the cigarette smoke.
Very funny! It was all very funny, I thought to myself, as an hour later
I tried to prop myself up with pillows on the sagging bed in my new hotel
room, reading Elizalde's "resume" and trying to memorize the facts. The
"Q." was for Quinones, so if I ever ran into any of his mother's side of the
family, I was prepared. As for the Hotel San Jorge on 20 Avenida Norte,
it had turned out to be a definite comedown from the Camino Real. When
I had asked for room 201, the man at the desk lowered his newspaper
slightly. He gave me a wide smile, full of gold teeth.
"Yes, Doctor," he said. "Right up those stairs, Doctor. First room on
the left."
He winked and made a face at me. "Good night, Doctor." I figured he
must be the Major's brother-in-law or cousin.
It was two flights up. The stair carpet was secured by brass runners
but torn and speckled with greasy-looking dark spots. My toilet was
running and didn't seem to want to stop merely because I condescended to
jiggle the handle. Marcus had told me there would be no problem about
money -- the C.I.A. wanted Pillo out rather badly, I gathered. But the
San Jorge sure didn't look like someplace you'd stay on a no-holds-barred
budget.
Admiring "myself" in my new passport, I saw I did indeed look kind of
like Felipe Elizalde. He was thirty-one. I had lost two years of my life --
the "next" two years. Well, God knows the last part of the last two hadn't
been all that uniformly good to me.
One thing Mr. Marcus hadn't told me -- how all this was going to get
me into Cuba in any way that was going to do me any good as far as my
father -- and Jose Pillo -- were concerned. "If a communist can't get into
Cuba anymore, things must be pretty bad!" he said. When I asked for
more exact instructions, he made a face. "See Dr. Sanchez, you'll like
her." He leered. "And have a good mission."
Major Beltran took a piece of tobacco out of his mouth and said,
"_Adios_, _companero_! _Buena_ _suerte_." There isn't any good
translation into Spanish for the English slang "Lots of luck" -- but you can
get the idea across, as the Major did, through intonation and gestures.
My eyes ached slightly and my arms felt trembly, as if I had had five
cups of coffee. I took a Dalmane and floated off to sleep, the noise from
the toilet became a crystalline waterfall, and the faint stink of old
perspiration from the bedding metamorphosed in my drowsiness into fresh
smells of honeysuckle in the spring.
I remember thinking before I fell asleep: at least I've gotten out of
Miami.
Yeah, I thought, remembering the Major's smile, how the hell do you
say "out of the frying pan" in Spanish?
================================================
A COLD NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH
by Otho Eskin
(Note: this is part 1 of the play "Duet")
CHARACTERS
(In order of appearance)
MAN
ELEONORA DUSE
SARAH BERNHARDT
SETTING
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
TIME
April 5, 1924 Evening.
AT RISE: Backstage of an old theater. Flats lean against the walls
among props and clothes racks. To one side is a make-up
table with mirror. Next to it a space-heater stands on the
floor; to another side is a couch. An old, dusty theatrical
poster of Sarah Bernhardt leans against a wall.
The MAN (as Stage Manager) enters and begins
switching on lights. ELEONORA DUSE is revealed
seated at the make-up table wrapped in a heavy shawl
holding a book. She is dressed plainly, in black.
MAN
One hour, Signora Duse. One hour.
(DUSE closes the book.)
ELEONORA
Is it always cold here?
MAN
This isn't one of your fancy European opera houses, Signora. I don't turn
on the heat until just before the audience arrives.
(The MAN goes about the stage getting
things ready for a performance.
ELEONORA pulls she shawl more tightly
around her shoulders and looks at herself
in the mirror.)
ELEONORA
I don't want to die in Pittsburgh.
MAN
The doctors say your condition is not serious, Signora Duse.
ELEONORA
(Angrily)
Doctors are idiots! Fools! Everyone of them! I'm too ill to perform this
evening.
MAN
I insist.
ELEONORA
My lungs are on fire. Cancel the performance.
MAN
The house is sold out. Your appearance is the highlight of the season. All
of the city's society will be here tonight. The Mellons, the... You cannot
disappoint them. You cannot offend them.
ELEONORA
I can offend anyone I like. I am La Duse.
(The MAN removes one of the dresses
from a rack and lays it on the back of a
chair.)
ELEONORA
Was it cold like this in Ancona?
MAN
I couldn't say, Signora.
(DUSE rises, looks at the dress, then
walks about nervously.)
ELEONORA
I should have gone home to Italy after the last New York performance. I
would be warm there. A little warmth and I'd be fine. And a little rest.
(ELEONORA discovers the poster of
Sarah Bernhardt. SHE studies Sarah's
face.)
MAN
And tomorrow you go to Cleveland.
ELEONORA
I hope it's warmer there. God, I hope it's warmer there.
MAN
Then to Boston.
(ELEONORA carefully puts the poster
away, face to the wall, out of sight.)
ELEONORA
There is always someplace else. Is that what my mother thought? That's
what I remember. Moving always from one town to another. And
now, at the end, I am alone in a cold theater in a city I don't know, among
strangers.
MAN
You needn't be among strangers.
(Enter SARAH BERNHARDT dressed in
the style of the 1890's, all in white. Her
entrance is dramatic and theatrical.
SARAH looks around the theater
surprised and rather pleased to find
herself there.)
SARAH
I've been here before. It was 1893.
ELEONORA
Sarah!
SARAH
Or maybe it was 1905.
ELEONORA
What are you doing here!
SARAH
I think it was my second American Farewell Tour. Or was it the third?
ELEONORA
(Highly distraught)
I'm losing my mind. (To SARAH) You're not here!
SARAH
Of course I'm here. Where else should I be?
ELEONORA
This can't be true.
SARAH
It's as true as anything else in your life. Or mine. (SARAH wanders
around examining sets and props.) Of course, I was the most lied about
woman in France. The press said I slept with every crowned head in
Europe including the Pope. That wasn't altogether true. I was far too
busy.
ELEONORA
(Appealing to the Man)
Do you see her too?
MAN
See who, Signora?
SARAH
I had one child. His father was either Alexander Dumas or the Prince of
Wales, I forget which. Or perhaps it was someone else.
ELEONORA
Her! That woman! I'm not myself tonight.
SARAH
I know how you feel, my dear. I'm frequently not myself. Very often I'm
somebody else entirely.
ELEONORA
I refuse to talk to you.
(SARAH instinctively heads for her
poster, pulls it out from where
ELEONORA hid it.)
ELEONORA
Get out! Immediately!
(SARAH dusts off the poster and studies it
admiringly, then places it in a conspicuous
place.)
ELEONORA
Sarah, I insist you leave!
(SARAH picks up the dress the MAN had
laid out for ELEONORA, holds it up and
examines herself in a mirror.)
SARAH
My dear, you should really do something about your wardrobe. You can
afford attractive costumes now.
ELEONORA
Sarah, leave my things alone.
(ELEONORA snatches the dress from
SARAH)
SARAH
We must celebrate our reunion, Eleonora. (To the MAN) Bring us a
bottle of champagne. French, of course.
(The MAN makes no move to leave.)
ELEONORA
Stop this, at once! You can't do this.
SARAH
(To The MAN)
Be quick about it. Signora Duse and I haven't got forever.
ELEONORA
Sarah, you can't come here.
SARAH
Why not?
ELEONORA
For one thing, you're dead.
SARAH
Preposterous! I would have remembered something like that.
ELEONORA
You died a year ago.
SARAH
How sad.
ELEONORA
You don't belong here anymore.
(SARAH sits at the make-up table and
begins to put on makeup as if preparing
for a performance.)
SARAH
I seem to remember now at my home, surrounded by friends. Did they
cover my coffin with lilacs as I instructed? Was I given a grand funeral?
ELEONORA
I didn't go. I had better things to do.
SARAH
Was it grander than Victor Hugo's? I'm certain it must have been.
ELEONORA
Sarah, stop this. I don't want you here.
SARAH
Do they still speak of me, sometimes?
ELEONORA
We had nothing to say to one another when you were alive. Why should
we have anything to say now? Leave me alone.
SARAH
(To MAN)
Where is our champagne? What is keeping you?
MAN
I have duties to perform, Madame Bernhardt. I am far too busy to find
you a bottle of champagne.
SARAH
There was a time when you were happy to do anything I asked.
MAN
Madame is doubtless right.
ELEONORA
Sarah, you can't stay here. This is my theater. This is my play.
(SARAH concentrates on her make up)
SARAH
How ironic. You are now the leading actress of the world. With my death,
you have no rival. No one compares you to the Divine Sarah any more.
ELEONORA
I never had a rival, Sarah. Certainly not you.
SARAH
There was no one who came close to me as an artist of the theater.
ELEONORA
What you did was not acting it was all gesture.
SARAH
But gesture is everything.
ELEONORA
Sarah, you don't imitate life. You upstage it.
SARAH
You imitate life but do not possess it.
(ELEONORA moves toward the make-up
table. SARAH reluctantly moves away
and ELEONORA takes her place.)
ELEONORA
At least I was always honest.
SARAH
At least I was always exciting.
ELEONORA
Your idea of good theater is all artifice.
SARAH
What's the point of going to the theater unless it is to see artifice?
ELEONORA
You always called attention to yourself as an actor.
SARAH
Naturally.
ELEONORA
The true artist makes acting look effortless.
SARAH
Then how would people know I was acting? Don't criticize the dead,
Eleonora. It's not polite. I may never have aspired to your dreams of high
art in the theater but at least I didn't make a hash of my love life the way
you did.
ELEONORA
Nor did I sleep with every man and woman in Europe.
SARAH
Tsk, tsk. Don't be catty. It is not at all attractive.
ELEONORA
I pity you, Sarah. Your life was empty. All those lovers! They could have
meant nothing.
SARAH
They kept me warm at night.
ELEONORA
I had love.
SARAH
I wouldn't trade any of my meaningless affairs for a single one of your
prolonged fits of melancholy and despair you called love. And besides,
you had atrocious taste in men, if I may say so.
(ELEONORA snatches a bottle from her
make-up table)
ELEONORA
How dare you! How dare you say that!
(ELEONORA starts to throw the bottle at
SARAH. The MAN grabs HER hand and
removes it.)
ELEONORA
You of all people dare criticize me for my choice of lovers.
(SARAH and ELEONORA glare at one another for a
long moment.)
ELEONORA
Have you come to apologize?
SARAH
I have nothing to apologize for, Eleonora.
ELEONORA
You behaved abominably in Paris.
SARAH
Is that what this is about?
ELEONORA
You have much to account for.
SARAH
We did not start off well, Eleonora. But it could have been different.
When we met I was tired of never finding understanding. I dreamed of
meeting someone who would accept me unquestioningly. We might have
been friends, you and I. We had much in common.
ELEONORA
We had nothing in common. I searched for truth. You searched for effect.
You could never distinguish between what is true and what is invented.
You play-acted at life.
SARAH
I always loved pretense. I acted every waking moment of the day. When I
drank my cafe in the morning. When I read my mail. When I rode in the
park. It was all an act. I did like to pretend pretend to be beautiful,
pretend to love, pretend to live, pretend to die.
ELEONORA
Get out of here! I have a performance tonight.
SARAH
I can't leave. Not yet. We have unfinished business.
(Angrily ELEONORA turns her back on
SARAH and begins to prepare for her
performance.)
[END OF PART 1 OF "DUET"]
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