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Fiction-Online Volume 4 Number 6
FICTION-ONLINE
An Internet Literary Magazine
Volume 4, Number 6
November-December, 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
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and publishes material from the public.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of
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other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved.
William Ramsay, Editor
=====================================================================
CONTENTS
Editor's Note
Contributors
"Hovering in Winter," a poem
Will Hastings
"Vera's Kiss," a short-short
E. James Scott
"Pierre," an excerpt (chapter 5) from
the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
William Ramsay
"The Girl from Verona," part 3 of the play, "Duet"
Otho Eskin
====================================================================
CONTRIBUTORS
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.
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.
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, "Strength," 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.
===================================================================
HOVERING IN WINTER
by Will Hastings
"There are angels hovering round,"
she sang, slowly unbuttoning her voice
as the eyes in the pews lifted, faces tilted up,
hoping to hear sounds made by wings hovering,
noises of feathers sweeping dust from air,
maybe expecting a soft insistence, a
resonance in their waiting chests,
some whirring and churning inside.
Those in the pews stood, still listening,
and together they found the song,
following along the path made by music
cascading in simple harmonies out of
their white ice-canyon onto
an open field of lemon-yellow lilies
where for minutes they also hovered
perfect in their bodies' laughter.
================================================
VERA'S KISS
by E. James Scott
I'm trying to remember what the lips felt like. I was only my eyes,
peering through the bare winter branches of the spirea. The faces of
the other second-grade kids, teeth, guffaws, giggling -- framed,
chopped by the network of spindly twigs. Vera's beautiful face blank
with determination, the large round puffs of her brown hair. In my
ears, the hollow shrieking from Pete, Ralph, that bully Hank, all of
them. Vera's hand held my arm, twisting the skin, pulling me up to
the lips. No, no! I brandished my small cold-reddened fist. No, you
can't hit a girl! But she grabbed onto the other wrist, not any surer
than I was what we human cubs were or weren't allowed to do. It was
play, it was punishment, it was torture. She pulled me powerfully,
humiliatingly to her breast, her ribs clubbing mine. Her face -- yes, I
can remember the lips, cold, excited with spittle, hard and soft. She
let my feet sink to the ground, then pulled me out from behind the
bush.
Robby kissed Vera behind the bush!
No I didn't!
Robby kissed Vera, Robby kissed Vera!
You liars!
They were liars, I kissed not, my kiss was raped from me. I should
have been masculine, powerful -- instead I was small and weak,
desperate, my body hot and cold. Thank God I did not cry.
Walking, trotting, running home, shoe soles slapping where the
concrete quaked with maple roots, I cursed, proudly grown-up: lousy,
crappy, stinky girl. Lousy. I hate, I hate, I hate her.
In my room, hidden among the quilted covers, I feel alone in the
shrouded half-light from the globe fixture in the upstairs hall. I'll
always be by myself. I can't go to school tomorrow.
Everyone will know.
=================================================
PIERRE
by William Ramsay
(Note: This is an excerpt, Chapter 5, from the novel "Ay, Chucho!")
Parque Cuscatlan is a cool swatch of green fronting on the
Alameda Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and across from it on the other
side of the boulevard stand the ominously white stucco buildings of
the Hospital Rosales. From my bench near the Alameda, I could see
two men running sprinklers -- the cool scent of the water was a nice
change from the dusty atmosphere of the season. I found myself, on
this sultry, buzzing day, doing a little heavy analysis of what was
going on in my sex life. I'd been faithful to Amelia for the whole past
six months -- except for that kind of accidental weekend in New
Orleans where I'd just bumped into Sandy. And that one night with
Maria Delia -- but that was only for old times' sake. Hell, I decided
that I did miss Amelia. But Amelia and I were both single, free to live
our own lives -- we had agreed on that, though Amelia used to put on
a funny distracted look when the subject came up. I thought about
giving Amelia a call -- but how about security?
Suddenly I remembered that I wasn't even me, I wasn't Jesus
Revueltos for the time being, but some different person entirely. Why
not enjoy being that different person? Why not try -- the best I could
under the circumstances -- to have some fun? Be careless, do crazy
things. Why not?
I speculated on whether "Dr. Felipe Elizalde" would dare to cross
the street, pinch a lab coat, and see what mischief he could get up to
inside the Hospital Rosales -- nurses galore, I fantasized. -- when I
heard somebody speak from close by.
"Dr. Elizalde!" came the voice. Oddly, I remember wondering
who else was passing as Dr. Elizalde.
"Dr. Elizalde!" the voice came again. I jerked my head up quickly
and said "Yes?" with what I hoped was a confident intonation. A
large man in his forties, a yellow head of hair punctuated by a small
bald spot in the center, eyes shadowed by tinted wire-rimmed glasses,
smiled benignly down at me.
"I'm not mistaken, am I? Dr. Elizalde?"
My stomach quivered. "Who are you?" I said, trying to get the
ball back in his court.
"Pierre Diaz-Ginsburg, at your orders," he said. I heard a
meowing behind him, and he reached down and picked up a large
snow-white cat and, cradling it in his arms, began to stroke its back as
if it had been a naked odalisque.
I decided to grasp the bull by its balls. "Do I know you? I don't
think so."
He peered at me very carefully and said, "Oh, my!" He sounded
so disappointed. "Oh my, I did think you would remember."
"I'm sorry." God knows I _was_ feeling sorrier and more nervous
by the second.
He stroked the cat very delicately, as if it were made of straw.
An old man with a malacca cane hobbled over and sat down a few feet
from me on the bench. Diaz-Ginsburg stared at him and made a wry
face. "Let's go for a stroll. Do you mind, Doctor? There's a small but
interesting matter I'd like to take up with you."
So I got up, knees a little unsteady, and followed along with him
down the lightly graveled path toward the high walls of the Gimnasio
Nacional. A svelte young boy in shorts jogged past us, and
Diaz-Ginsburg slapped at his own cheek with one hand, repeatedly,
balancing the cat in the other, then tapped his fly with one finger, very
delicately, and snickered. He looked at my face. God knows what he
read there, I felt as if my face had gone numb. He licked his lips,
stared off at the top of the palm trees across the path and said that he
had gotten my name from Dr. Sanchez-Schulz.
"Oh," I said, "are you..."
"Just a casual contact, Doctor, you know. Not..." A policeman
appeared from a side path a few yards ahead of us, and Diaz-Ginsburg
made coughing noises, at the same time whispering: "Not a
you-know-what."
I wondered: if he wasn't an FMLN cadre, then who the hell was
he? Baffled, I asked him straight out. The answer I got was that he
was a journalist, looking for an entree into Cuba to see his family.
For reasons of politics -- he said -- it was difficult for him to enter
by the usual routes. I didn't ask him how he knew I was going to Cuba.
The thought of all San Salvador getting to know what I was up to
made things wobble in my belly. It was getting to the hot part of the
day, and as we walked under the striped shade of the palms along the
walk, I worked at wiping a giant trickle of sweat off the back of my
neck. I told myself that it wasn't anything, he was undoubtedly just
another _gusano_, a right-wing expatriate on Castro's black list who
had somehow gotten hold of my _nom_ _de_ _guerre_. I tell myself
now I should have been more curious, though I don't think better
information would have done me any good at all. Ah, those good old
days, when I only knew about leftists and rightists -- and not the other
side of those extremes, where left meets right in a wildassed
ideological swamp.
"I'm sorry," I said. "My plans weren't made yet, but I don't see
how I could help you in any case."
He smiled and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened
them, large and blue.
"We'll talk again, Doctor. Undoubtedly we will. I'm _sure_ of
it." He snuggled the cat against his neck and then kissed it.
I'm not much for animals -- especially cats.
"Look, there's no point in your seeing me again because I still
won't be able to help you.".
"_Au_ _revoir_, Doctor, _au_ _revoir_." As he left, I hoped that
_au_ _revoir_ in this case really meant "Good-bye." I stopped at a
cafe and broke my rule of abstinence and ordered a beer. I suddenly
wondered why Diaz-Ginsburg had happened upon me in the park.
Then I realized that he must have been tailing me, and I wondered
how many other people were on Felipe Elizalde's -- or Jesus
Revueltos' -- trail. By now I was completely in the shade of the
striped awning, and the lady with the straw hat eating a chocolate
sundae at the next table looked cool enough, but I was beginning to
feel even warmer. The chillness of the rainy season couldn't begin
soon enough for me.
I hadn't become any calmer a few days later when I met Dr. Josefa
Sanchez- Schulz at the lake. So I was relieved when Pepita told me
that arrangements for my trip to Cuba were taking shape, that I would
be off within the week. Not that Havana seemed any safer as a
destination than it had ever been. But waiting in San Salvador was
beginning to feel like death row -- I thought of Wallace Beery in his
cell at "The Big House." Miami now seemed like the Earthly
Paradise -- but only if I could return with the key to my father's
safety deposit box in hand. Otherwise, forget it!
"I'll miss you, Comrade Elizalde," said Pepita that night, t
widdling my earlobe as we lay in her bed. The sloshing of wavelets from
power boats onto the gravelly shore outside cut distinctly through the
hum of the air conditioner. The movements of skin and cartilage
inside my ear added a bass- note noise to the water music. The "s" in
Pepita's "miss" -- the word "_menos_" in the Spanish idiom -- was
slurred from half a bottle of rum. I twiddled back, brushing strands
of red hair up from her neck. She drew a deep breath and let it out
with a hiss. The dim orange light from the bedside lamp seemed to
enclose us in a shining tent, cut off from the lake and the world
outside. Pepita was my love slave, I was thinking, an amazon in
invisible chains. The suddenly: Whop! My head reeled from her
open-handed smack. Who was the slave? Here we go again, I
thought.
And then the following morning. There she was, blue shirt and
blue jeans, pouring orange juice as if she were titrating sulfuric acid,
coolly discussing my possible arrest and imprisonment on landing in
Cuba -- in case the Cuban party cadres weren't satisfied with her
guarantees of my revolutionary bona fides.
"But don't worry," she said, "there's no problem we can't deal
with."
I did worry. I could think of lots of problems I couldn't
deal with. For example: Pierre Diaz-Ginsburg. He materialized
the next day at the Cafe Ayuleche -- I liked the Ayuleche because it
was on the shady side of the street in the afternoons and the service
was good in the old-fashioned stuffy manner. I was sitting at my
favorite table on the far edge of the sidewalk, staring at the sugar
bowl, thinking -- or rather wishing for some constructive thoughts to
pop into my head. Suddenly a white cat appeared, abruptly plunking
itself down on the table, rattling my coffee cup. Then Pierre himself
sat down, or rather berthed himself, his fat arms sliding onto the table
and his behind swamping the chair next to me.
He signaled to the waiter with a loud tongue-clucking. "Rum!" he
yelled. The rum came and he knocked it down in a couple of
swallows, blinking. He clucked again and ordered another one.
"Rum, rum, come, rum. Rum, for God's sake, come," he intoned in
heavily accented English. The second rum went the way of the first.
He pulled his lips together tightly and winced. "Good!" He stared at
me and nodded. "Good." He raised his eyebrows at me, asking a
casual kind of permission as he pulled out the saucer from under my
cup, poured some of the cream from the little china pitcher into it,
and set in down in front of the cat. "Kropotkin," he said. "Crazy
cat."
I asked him how he had been, looking at the empty rum glasses
and wondering whether I was going to have another drunk on my
hands. He put his finger to his cheekbone, tapping it as if trying to
show me I had a smudge on mine. I automatically felt my face.
"Ready for Cuba," he said, clapping me on the shoulder just like
an American would have. I told him hey wait a minute, I hadn't
promised anything. I was sorry he had problems and so on, but
really....
He laughed.
I raised my hand to order another coffee. "Do you want another
rum?"
"More rum? Oh no -- temperance in everything, that's me, good
old Pierre Diaz-Ginsburg is known for that. Two, one to wake up the
left brain, and then one to wake up the right" -- he frowned -- "or
maybe vice versa. But that's my limit, that's as far as I go."
"Mr. Diaz-Ginsburg," I said.
"Call me Pierre," he said. He smiled. "What a nice glow the rum
gives."
"Pierre." I sighed. "Really, I can't help you."
"Don't get too used to the name, though. For various reasons" --
he winked -- "I prefer to enter Cuba on a passport bearing a new
name, a new set of syllables, a new outlook on life, perhaps, who
knows? About ready to have one made up now. What do you think
of Waldemar Perez G., citizen of Mexico?"
"What's the G. for?"
"Don't know yet." He grinned at me. "There's part of the fun."
He giggled. "But 'Waldemar,' it's delicious, what rational person
would make up an alias like that!"
Oh Christ, I thought, how do I get to meet these people, and what
was I going to do with this particular one? Then he asked me whether
I myself had ever traveled under an alias. My skin coloring is a bit
olive, but if it hadn't been, I'm sure he would have seen the blush. No,
I mean yes, I started to say. He laughed again.
"A very jolly fellow, you are, _Felipe_."
I didn't like the emphasis that he put on the name. "I try,
Pierre."
"Waldemar." Giggle, giggle, giggle. His giggle had a Peter Lorre
quality, not funny so much as menacing. He got up, gave me another
wink and an _au_ _revoir_, and padded off down the street, his butt
wagging, Kropotkin's yellow-slitted eyes staring back at me from
under one of his bulging arms.
***
"Pierre Diaz-Ginsburg?" said Pepita. Her small thin lips pressed
together primly. "He's insane."
"But what kind of insane?" I said. I had decided that I had to
find out who this joker was.
"Why do you want to know?" She took off her reading glasses.
We were in her small apartment in San Salvador, on 10th Avenida
Sur, and she was explaining, organization charts in hand, the way she
thought I should try to handle the Cuban bureaucracy.
"Have you talked to him about me?" I asked.
"No. Did he say I did?"
"He apparently knows you. Or about you."
"He seems to know everybody. I've barely met him. A
degenerate." She made a face. "An anarchist, a fanatic, so far left,
he's right."
"Is he Cuban?"
"They say so, but if so he's no friend of the Comandante."
She filled me in. I gathered Pierre wasn't a friend of the types
running El Salvador either, even though he had anti-Castro credentials
from being involved as a boy in the abortive counterrevolutionary
movements of 1961-3 in the Sierra Escambray. The anti-Castro
rebels had raided some police stations, power plants and banks in
Camaguey and Sancti Spiritus, but then Castro had come in hard and
showed them who was boss. Ever since then, Pierre's name had been
popping up in police reports in connection with confidence games,
larceny, and smuggling in Mexico, Central America, and the Antilles.
Police in several countries had taken an interest in him, but he had
always seemed to move on in time to avoid getting caught at
whatever he was doing.
To me it was becoming obvious that Pierre must have friends on
one side or the other who knew something substantial about me and
my plans -- and specifically, about "Felipe Elizalde." I wondered
whether it was good I was leaving El Salvador, where too many
people seemed to know all about me -- or whether it would be worse
in Cuba, where God knows who would know what and how long I
could figure on remaining alive once the authorities got the picture.
"Well," said Pepita, putting her books away and fluffing out her
hair, "enough about him. Let's celebrate getting your trip arranged."
I was now set to take off for Havana the following Monday. Pepita had
set me up as a recruiter traveling to Cuba to seek out physicians to
volunteer to serve in the FMLN. I was to be searching for candidates
among prisoners and other "antisocial but redeemable" elements. She
had made appointments for me in Cuba with someone in the central
Party Office, with the Prosecutor's office in the Ministry of the
Interior, and had contacted someone on Fidel's staff asking for an
interview with the _Comandante_.
She rummaged in the refrigerator freezer compartment for ice
cubes. She picked up a bottle of rum. I loosened my tie and rolled up
my shirt sleeves and got ready for more drinking. The much-feared
trip to Havana would at least be a chance for me to start on a
much-needed round of detox. I took off my shoes. I might as well, I
figured: if things went like usual, in a few minutes Comrade Dr.
Sanchez-Schulz would be taking off the rest of my clothes.
I was right. "Dear Comrade Elizalde," she said as she sat on my
lap. My legs felt like they would collapse. Then she leaned into me,
squashing her breasts against my chest. Oh my. I realized I was
going to miss at least one or two things about El Salvador.
She sighed deeply, then took a deep breath. "Hit me!" she cried.
"Hit me, Felipe, darling!"
***
Errol Flynn kissed Olivia de Havilland, getting ready to leave
India for the Crimea. You knew it was for the last time, that the end
of their story would be found in the bloody, magnificent, insane
charge of the light cavalry against the Russian guns on the heights of
Balaklava. Leading his comrades to their death, gritting his teeth,
then turning to smile to encourage one of the fainthearted, seeking
glory in the clouds of dark smoke that billowed like the fires of hell.
Stupid orders -- but theirs not to reason why.
As the lights went up in the Cine Colon in San Salvador, Errol
Flynn's perils faded -- and my own dangers swelled into my
consciousness again. I wasn't even doing all this for glory -- I was in
this fix because of my own mistakes -- and through some bad luck
with those murderous creeps in the Association -- and no one would
ever write epic poems about my last charge against the Cuban Big
Guns.
I was feeling so down that I almost didn't care when Pierre fell
into step with me as I made my way back along Calle Arce toward the
Hotel San Jorge. "What do you want to go to Cuba so much for?" I
said. And what shit are you planning to get into when and if you do
get there? I thought.
"Ah, Doctor, who can say? Nietzsche -- a philosopher, Doctor,
the greatest German of them all -- said it best: 'The path we tread is
not the path we chose, but the path that has chosen us.'"
"I know who Nietzsche was." I did, sort of.
"Ah, more than he himself knew. He never found himself, I think.
Few of us do." He turned his bright blue eyes, temporarily saddened,
onto my face, examining my eyes, then my jaw, then the part in my
hair.
"Felipe."
"What?"
"Felipe, I hear we are off to Havana early next week."
"Where did you hear that? And what do you mean 'we'?"
He cocked his head and smiled. I wondered where Kropotkin
was. "You know, we have met before. You didn't remember."
"Oh?" Oh indeed.
"Curious. Before...."
"Yes?"
"My friend Felipe Elizalde had such short, stubby fingers, ugly
clubbed fingertips. Now..." He smiled.
I looked down at my long graceful fingers.
"I really appreciate your help, Felipe. It's so awkward for us
journalists in a country like Cuba, and to be able to travel in the
company of someone with such impeccable socialist credentials,
well..."
I nodded, looking down again at the fingers that didn't belong to
Felipe Elizalde. I got it. I nodded again. "O.K., O.K." A Revueltos
knows when he's licked. Maybe my father doesn't. Let's just say
_this_ Revueltos does.
"The Mexicana flight Monday, right?" he said. "_Au_ _revoir_,
_Felipe_."
I consoled myself with the thought that he evidently just wanted
my help to insure getting past passport control in Havana -- after that
I should be rid of him, cat and all.
***
Pepita shook hands with me as I got ready to board the Mexicana
flight to Mexico City, with a connection to Havana. I rose on tiptoes
to kiss her, but she pulled back and shook her finger slowly, warning
me. "Not safe," she whispered.
"All right," I whispered back. "Good-bye, Pepita."
"Comrade. A good journey," she said aloud. She looked away for
a moment. "Who could that be?" she said. She pointed at a pudgy,
mustached middle-aged man in what was obviously a wig. It was not
so obvious that the mustache was a fake, but I was in a position to
know. Waldemar G. Perez had made the flight.
I wondered if Kropotkin, in the animal carrier in Pierre's hand,
had been renamed and disguised too. "Lenin"? "Rockefeller"?
"I don't know," I said.
"He looks like someone out of a bad movie." she said. "Sort of
dazed-looking but sinister too."
"I know," I said, "Peter Lorre."
Suddenly we were surrounded by a large family group. We
moved behind a pillar to get out of the way.
"Who's Peter Lorre?" said Pepita, easing her hand down inside my
trousers and rubbing gently.
"Who's who?" I said, pulling her close to me, looking up into her
blue eyes, and wanting in that moment never to leave El Salvador
again. But, as Amelia had always told me, I'm a big one for
escaping reality. Or at least for trying to escape.
As the call for the Mexicana flight came over the loudspeaker, I
tried not to think of Amelia at all. I had to gear myself up for the big
plunge -- I said to myself: here I come, Fidel, ready or not!
Pepita squeezed hard.
"Ouch!"
"_Salud_, _companero_!" she said.
'_Salud_' indeed! As I flashed my passport and boarding pass at
the security check, I hoped that my cheeks, arms, and prick might get
_healthier_ treatment in Havana than in El Salvador.
====================================================================
THE GIRL FROM VERONA
by Otho Eskin
(Note: This is part 3 of the play "Duet")
CHARACTERS
(In order of appearance)
ELEONORA DUSE
SARAH BERNHARDT
MAN
SETTING
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
TIME
April 5, 1924 Evening.
SCENE
ELEONORA
Unrivaled in your glamour in your personality. Something I never
had.
SARAH
You had something else. I saw it one night in Paris. You had the gift.
Did you always know?
ELEONORA
Not at the beginning. For me, acting was no different from making
shoes or selling flowers just a way to earn enough to eat.
SARAH
When did you first know?
ELEONORA
When I was fourteen our company came to Verona.
SARAH
Tell me, Eleonora. Tell me about Verona.
ELEONORA
We were scheduled to perform Romeo and Juliet. The morning of the
performance the actress who was to play Juliet had an argument with
one of my uncles and left the company. My father told me I would go
on as Juliet instead. They put me in long skirts.
MAN
(As ELEONORA's FATHER)
Go! Go now. Go out there and act!
ELEONORA
We were performing in the old Roman arena. It is a holiday afternoon
hot and the arena steps are filled with men in shirt sleeves and
women with red kerchiefs on their heads. As I wait to make my
entrance, I think of Juliet here in this very town of Verona also
fourteen my own age. Then when I go on something happens
to me. Something even now after all these years I can't explain or
describe.
Come, gentle night; come, loving black-browed night,
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
That afternoon I do not just go through the motions of a fourteen year
old girl who falls in love do not repeat words written hundreds of
years ago. I understand who Juliet is. I am Juliet. Her spirit fills me.
The words before leaving my lips seem to pass through the warmth of
my blood.
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad
O, if I wake shall I not be distraught,
Environd with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers' joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud,
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my despr'ate brains?
After the performance I am applauded wildly or so I was told. I
remember nothing nothing except a feeling of unspeakable
rapture. I experience a kind of Grace. It is as if God is touching my
soul. I am for the first time truly alive filled with a torrent of
love. And my life is changed forever. I understand that acting is more
than reciting words more than going through rehearsed motions
more than an imitation of life. The theater can transform me. I know
absolutely that I will devote the rest of my life to trying to
experience that Grace again.
SARAH
And have you found it?
ELEONORA
Sometimes. It does not come to me easily or often. But when I have
it complete a suffering of love, dark and deep, consumes me.
Sometimes when everything is right when the play is right
when my soul is composed I am consumed by a holy madness. No
one understands when I speak of it. Sometimes my heart is tired of
never finding understanding.
SARAH
I know.
ELEONORA
And have you felt it too?
SARAH
I have felt it but I don't seek it. I distrust ecstasy, Eleonora.
What I searched for was something different. Not the sublime you have
known. I had my own kind of Grace.
ELEONORA
I was transported by acting.
SARAH
I was transported by the love the audience gave me.
ELEONORA
I remember the first time I saw you.
SARAH
Of course you can, my dear. Everyone can. It was the great event in
their lives.
ELEONORA
I was twenty-four and was performing in Turin when you arrived on
one of your European tours. For weeks in advance no one talked of
anything but you. When you arrived at the railway station there was a
great crowd to meet you.
SARAH
Is that when you first saw me, Eleonora?
ELEONORA
No, I did not go to the station. I hate crowds. They frighten me. But I
heard about your arrival from my friends. I insisted they tell me
everything how you looked and dressed, what you said. You
emerged from your railway carriage with your entourage, your
admirers, lovers and pets. Bands played. City officials presented you
with mountains of flowers and made speeches.
SARAH
How I hated the speeches.
ELEONORA
You became faint half way through the mayor's welcoming address
and had to be helped to your carriage. You held a bouquet of roses in
one arm and a lion cub in the other.
SARAH
I called the lion cub Scarpia.
ELEONORA
The students unhitched the horses and drew your carriage through the
streets, singing songs of love.
SARAH
I remember that tour. That was the time King Umberto invited me to
his palace for an intimate, after-theater supper. We had Veuve
Cliquot and oysters. I think he gave me a diamond brooch.
ELEONORA
Your troupe took over the theater where I was performing. You used
my dressing room...
SARAH
Perhaps it was Alfonso XII of Spain who gave me the brooch. I had to
sell it a few years later when I lost all my money.
ELEONORA
The newspapers said you had a python with you.
SARAH
I think that might have been an exaggeration. I had an alligator once.
Had to shoot it, though. When it ate my poodle.
ELEONORA
You opened with La Dame aux camelias. I saw every performance.
My pulse beat feverishly each night before the curtain rose. There
was sense of peril in the air. Watching you was like watching a wild
animal in a cage. I wept when you spoke to Armand at the end of Act
I.
SARAH
(As Marguerite Gautier acting in an extravagant, highly theatrical
manner, but not a parody)
"There are days when I am weary of the life I lead and imagine
another, because in the midst of my turbulent existence, though my
reason, my pride, my senses are alive, my heart is so tired of never
finding understanding. We appear happy and are envied. We have
lovers. Little do they care what we do, so long as they can be seen in
our boxes at the theater or in our carriages. "
ELEONORA
I remember during the first act one of the stage hands tore a hole in
the door used for entrances and exits.
SARAH
The people I had to work with were imbeciles.
ELEONORA
When you made your exit you thrust your hand into the hole and tore
the door apart with a savage gesture.
SARAH
The only thing more important than a grand entrance is a grand exit.
ELEONORA
The theater went wild. You were a tigress. The public loved you.
SARAH
And you, Eleonora? Did you love me?
(Pause)
ELEONORA
I was set free.
SARAH
That is what theater is for -- setting people free if only for an
hour.
ELEONORA
It was then that I first understood -- one woman could do this. One
woman could electrify a city -- a nation. If you could do that then
I could, too. I would do what you did. But I would do it in my own
way. (Assuming the role of Marguerite Gautier.) "There are days
when I am weary of the life I lead and imagine another, because in
the midst of my turbulent existence, though my reason, my pride, my
senses are alive, my heart is so tired of never finding understanding.
We appear happy and are envied. We have lovers. Little do they care
what we do, so long as they can be seen in our boxes at the theater or
in our carriages. And so it is that everything which surrounds us is
ruin, shame, lies -- that is why I dreamed of meeting a man who
would accept me unquestioningly. Then I met you young, ardent,
happy. In one instant, like a mad woman, I built a whole future upon
your love, I dreamed of the country, of peace; I even thought of my
childhood -- I was dreaming of the impossible; you have proved that
to me."
MAN
The theater of Europe is changing. A new name is heard.
ELEONORA
One name.
MAN
One name. One name mentioned.
ELEONORA
Spoken of in the same breath as the Divine Sarah.
MAN
A young Italian actress.
SARAH
There is only one Sarah.
ELEONORA
Of course. And yet.
MAN
And yet.
SARAH
An Italian actress with no conservatory training is being mentioned.
MAN
Eleonora Duse.
SARAH
Never heard of her.
MAN
Eleonora Duse.
SARAH
An uneducated girl from the country. A peasant.
ELEONORA
People begin to compare me with you.
SARAH
There can be only one moon -- and it shines on me.
ELEONORA
I would not dream of challenging Madame Sarah.
SARAH
This woman appears in my plays. She seems to invite comparison.
Nay she demands it.
MAN
The rivalry between Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse dominated
the European theatrical scene.
SARAH
We crisscrossed the theatrical world.
ELEONORA
I performed in Vienna
SARAH
St. Petersburg
ELEONORA
Berlin.
SARAH
The United States.
ELEONORA
Rome.
SARAH
Madrid.
ELEONORA
Stockholm.
SARAH
Rio.
ELEONORA
Prague.
SARAH
Budapest.
ELEONORA
Until at last we appeared at the same time in the same place.
SARAH and ELEONORA
London.
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