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Fiction-Online Volume 5 Number 2
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FICTION-ONLINE
An Internet Literary Magazine
Volume 5, Number 2
March-April, 1998
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
same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part
of the message itself, rather than as an attachment.
Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from
the editor or by anonymous ftp (or gopher) from
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 corresponding website
http://www.etext.org
The FICTION-ONLINE home page, courtesy of the Writer's
Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL:
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of
material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed
to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal
reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish
in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage
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explicitly licensed, are reserved.
William Ramsay, Editor
=================================================
CONTENTS
Editor's Note
Contributors
"Four Poems"
Tan-jen
"Marajo (part 2)," a long story
Charles Maxwell
"Papacito," an excerpt (chapter 7) from
the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
William Ramsay
"The Theater," part 5 of the play, "Duet"
Otho Eskin
=================================================
CONTRIBUTORS
CHARLES MAXWELL, formerly in the retail clothing business in the
Rocky Mountain states, is now a mining engineer in northern
Saskatchewan, where he writes stories and plays chess by e-mail and
file transfer.
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, "Strength," recently received a
reading at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
TAN-JEN is an avid Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) gardener and
student of Chinese literature. Her verses seek to capture in English the
spirit and prosody of the classical Chinese lyric poems -- the ancestors
of the Japanese haiku.
=================================================
FOUR POEMS
by Tan-jen
Butterfly Trail, Tucson
Where mountains dance up to meet the sun
And columbine bends down to hear the stream
A breeze stirs sudden whispers in the pine
And butterflies can stretch and warm their wings
Snow in the desert -Tucson, December l987
Those ancient mountains know the cold
And wear their coat of white with calm
But pansies meant to smile at spring
Turn silvered faces to the ground
Untitled
You slide like quicksilver
Through deja vu and dreams
Were you there? Was it real?
Will time turn back again?
"Onion Skin"
You peel away layer after layer
Finally get to the center of me
But nobody told you and I never knew
The incredible sweetness inside!
==================================================
MARAJO (Part 2)
By Charles Maxwell
I don't remember much about the following days. I would
sleep and toss about and then sleep again and then awake. Sometimes
I had awful dreams, and I would wake up abruptly, sweating. Once it
was the mero, with his bulging eyes and round head, with wings like
an airplane, and gasping for breath. Then things began to spill out of
his mouth, Marta was cleaning them up, but they were little miniature
people and animals, and they squiggled helplessly.
Marta would bring me clear soups, but if I ate them, I would
usually vomit or have diarrhea afterwards. I remember the doctor's
face, Doctor Barroso, with his broad mustache with tight little points,
who smiled at me and called me 'Linda pequeninha.' But then as he
said good-bye he would looked worried and gaze vaguely over my
head where the picture of Sugar Loaf hung on the far wall. Once in a
while my mother read to me, but even then I'd usually fall off to sleep
after a few minutes. One day, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I
was so dizzy that I had to hang onto the wash basin to keep from
falling onto the black-and-white tiled floor. I held myself up, but my
pajamas did fall down -- even in the last button hole the waist had
become too large for me.
Simon told me later that another doctor came, a German. I
only remember his eyes staring at me through goggle-sized gold-rimmed
glasses. I was sleeping practically all the time, and the veins in
my wrist had turned dark blue. Simon asked Daddy what was wrong
with me and my father shrugged his shoulders and told him that
nobody knew. "She'll be all right," he said loudly. But the wrinkles on
his tan-and-blotched forehead stood out, dark and angry, and Simon
remembers picking up a case of the shivers just by looking at him.
By now, Marta had to help me go to the bathroom. My knees
didn't want to stay straight when I stood up. I woke up one day to see
my mother at the foot of my dark mahogany bed, biting her lip, and
telling me that another doctor would be coming. That day she read to
me from the "Wizard of Oz." The Tin Woodman worried me. "How
could you live without a heart, Mommy?"
"Maybe you should ask your father," she said, her face turning
sour. She slapped the book closed and blew her nose loudly.
The Tin Woodman kept going through my brain as I drifted off
to sleep. I had pains in my joints sometimes, and I imagined that I
needed to be oiled from the little spouty oil can that Dorothy used on
the Woodman. The next morning, I couldn't get up and Marta had to
lift me onto the blue-and-white pot. I was embarrassed but I was too
tired to care.
Simon told me later that one night along then, standing outside
Mother's bedroom, he overheard Daddy and Mother arguing about
sending me to the hospital or even back to the States.
"We've got to do something," said Mother.
"We will, we will, but nobody seems to know what the hell she
has. And Dr. Bochner thinks the trip home might kill her.
"Jim. Oh, Jim."
There was silence, and Simon, curious, opened the door into
the bedroom. Daddy had both arms around Mother. She was pressing
her body tightly against him, but when she saw Simon, she drew away
and fluffed her hair up, twisting her long neck about and gazing out
the window. Daddy stared back at Simon, looking blindly through
him.
#
The orange-yellow light from the lamp on my dresser woke me
up. In its glare, I could see the large dead blue eye, muscles trailing
from it like locks of hair, gripped tightly in a piece of tan butcher
paper by a small beige-colored hand. Daddy put his finger to his lips
as the mulata I'd seen at the waterfront gingerly placed the paper on
my stomach. She seemed frightened, but my father looked dignified
and stern.
"It's all right, dear," he said.
The girl, eyes lowered, muttered some words I didn't
understand. I looked at her. She looked old to me, although I
suppose she couldn't have been more than twenty. "E o olho de um
golfinho, o olho esquerdo!" she whispered to me in a sweet, throaty
voice. "De Marajo!" I knew the left eye of a dolphin was powerful
magic, but I had never seen one before. I remember thinking I should
have been disgusted, but I just stared at it, trying to make out if a
single eye, all by itself, had an expression or not.
"E bastante," she said almost immediately, giggling and then
covering her mouth and assuming a solemn expression. My father
crossed himself, kissing his fingertips first, and then leaned over and
kissed me on the cheek with his cold lips. His breath smelled perfumy,
like rum. "Will you read to me, Daddy?" I said.
"Sure, honey, sure. Sometime. But I have to go now. Come
on, Filomena." They left, and he never did read to me while I was
sick. But I knew he was busy. He would have, if he could -- I knew
that.
As I fell asleep, I was wondering if the big mero in Senhor
Peres' stall still had both his eyes.
After I awoke the next day, late in the afternoon, my mother
came in to read to me. But when I asked her to explain why Emily
didn't see that Sergeant Dobbs was a good man who loved her
sincerely, she got mad and told me not to interrupt. She read on, her
face pouting. "Mommy!" I said, crying. She looked at me, kissed me
lightly on the brow, her curls brushing against my cheek, and told me
to go to sleep. "And please try to eat something tonight!"
"I'll try, Mommy."
She looked at me sadly.
"Procurarei" -- I repeated "I'll try" in Portuguese, I don't know
why.
"Speak English, English!" she said, her pale white face turning
pink and her lips pulled back so that you could see her fierce-looking
eyeteeth.
Simon later told me that he was fooling around in the hall that
evening and he heard her shouting in the sala at Daddy about bringing
that "black witch" into the house.
"How could you? A little tart off the street," came her voice
sharp and loud, echoing off the tiles in the hallway.
"Tina's my little girl," Simon heard Father say softly but evenly.
"Tina's both our little girl! Ours. Not hers." said my mother.
Then she caught sight of Simon and told him in a low, hard voice to go
outside. #
Ten days later, I had just finished a peanut butter sandwich, a
bag of banana chips, and a dish of mango ice cream when my parents
walked in, arm in arm.
"How are you feeling, darling?" said my father to me.
"She's fine now, Jim," said my mother, not giving me a chance
to answer for myself -- as usual.
"Like a nightmare," said my father.
"God! How lucky we are," said my mother and laughed.
"Thank God she's all right now -- despite that dose of mumbo-jumbo."
My father looked serious and kissed my mother on the brow
and then put his cheek to hers. She looked sideways at him and
laughed again. "Feeling romantic, Jim?"
He shrugged. "I guess." He touched her other cheek softly
with his finger.
She shivered. "Oh, come on," she said, pushing at his hand and
then ducking away from his cheek. She looked at him open-mouthed
for a moment and then laughed sharply.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he pulled his body
away from her like someone ripping a stamp from an envelope. He
walked over to the sideboard and poured a squat round glass brim-full
from the basket-wrapped bottle of anejo rum.
#
We were eating alone with Mother one night -- Daddy was
working late, as usual.
"What's for dessert, Mommy?" I said, I had regained all my lost
weight and my appetite had returned with a vengeance.
"Flan, but none for you, Tina. Your lessons aren't finished." I
had gotten behind in my studies during my illness, and it was hard to
catch up.
"Hahahahaha!" said Simon in a raspy, 'nyaa-nyaa' voice.
"But Mommy!"
She pinched my cheek, a little too hard. "Cute little Miss
Dunce Cap, you have to work harder."
"But Mommy."
"Senhora," called the new cook from the kitchen.
"No, no dessert!" yelled my mother loudly, as she went out
through the kitchen door.
Simon whispered quickly to me, "He's with her!"
"What? Who's with who?"
"Dad's with her. That's why Mom's in such a lousy mood."
"He's with who?"
Just then Mother opened the kitchen door and started to come
back in.
"Filomena," whispered Simon, "you know, the one with the
dolphin's eye."
"Dolphin's eye?" said my mother.
Simon blushed. "No, I said 'not so high,'" he said.
"Don't tell me fibs!" she said sharply. She slapped at his hand.
"That stupid voodoo nonsense. Finish your dinner, both of you."
Puffs of smoke were dribbling out the half-open kitchen door.
"What's for dessert?" said Simon, in between making a hissing
sound between his teeth. He shook his reddened hand as if to cool it
off, but he still managed to leer mockingly at me.
"Nothing." She looked up at us. "You don't need it, either of
you, especially you, Miss Dunce Cap." Then her face fell and her
voice softened. "Besides, Maria burned the flan again." And my
mother sat down at the table, picked up her napkin, and burst into
tears. She stopped and wiped her eyes and nose with the smooth
white, lace-edged linen. A minute later, she started crying again.
I didn't say anything and Simon looked embarrassed. I might
have said something nice to her except for the "Miss Dunce Cap"
remark. "Leave the table," she said finally, drawing a deep breath.
She still sniffled and I hesitated. I half got up and Simon fidgeted
in his chair. She blew her nose. "Leave the table, immediately,"
she said loudly. "Now!" And we did.
I don't know what time it must have been when my father got
back that night.
We left Belem two months later, and I never did get to go to
Marajo. But once in a while I happen upon a galvanized iron tub, and
I recall the translucent stare of a two-hundred-pound mero, isolated in
lordly exile from the dark ocean beyond the churning waters of the
mouths of the Amazon.
==================================================
PAPACITO
by William Ramsay
(This is an excerpt , Chapter 7, from the novel "Ay, Chucho!")
The window air conditioner in the office of the Head Adjutant to
the Deputy Minister of MININT labored away, its roar punctuated by
random wheezes and clankings. But the heat of Havana was more
powerful than the massive gray- metal machine with Russian markings,
and my shirt stuck to my back inside the jacket of my tan summer suit.
Comrade Menendez wasn't wearing a tie, and I envied him.
"The Comandante wants to extend all possible help to the brave
comrades of the FMLN." Comrade Menendez's small eyes looked at
me as if he suspected I had an automatic weapon inside the
Chinese-made plastic briefcase that I had picked up from a vendor
down the street from the hotel.
"Ah," I said articulately.
"Your first visit to Havana?"
"No." I almost said 'I was born here,' then I remembered. "I
mean yes," I said. Then I remembered that Felipe Elizalde, even
though he was a _salvadoreno_, according to his resume, had visited
Havana. "I mean no, I was here once a few years ago, in '84, for a
meeting -- a piece of Elizalde's resume came back to me --
"Revolutionary Physicians in Defense of World Peace." Menendez
stroked the bald slope of his head, like a reptile grooming itself.
"Progress."
"What?"
"Lots of progress since then -- building the Revolution."
Despite the upbeat words, the flesh of his face began to settle
down into deeper wrinkles, as if he were in mourning for the old
days.
"Yes, yes, of course."
He leered at me. "Doubters have been stilled." He made a face,
pressing his lips together. "Proved wrong, I mean."
"Sounds great," I said.
"But your business here." He smiled. Yes, of course." He
carefully lifted up a pile of file folders and peered at the titles.
"Yes, you want, you want....?"
I explained the need of the Revolution in El Salvador for
physicians. Dr. Sanchez-Schulz had written to the Minister about the
case. Menendez picked up one file folder, took out some papers, and
shuffled quickly through them, the pages whispering and crackling. I
explained the willingness of the FMLN to take on Cuban physicians
who were political prisoners and other "social undesirables" and
continue their "reeducation" in the field, helping the struggle against
the capitalists. I still didn't have any idea about how to secure
Pillo's release -- but one problem at a time.
Menendez shuffled again, quickly, his face clouding. Through the
tattered venetian blinds, jagged motes of sunlight jittered across the
waterstained walls and the high, corniced ceilings. "All right, all
right," he said, as if I had beaten him into submission after a long
argument. I waited. "In fact, it's all been arranged."
The room had become brighter. "Wonderful."
"You will be notified."
"But...."
"You will be notified, Comrade Elizalde."
"And I'll be able to interview the candidates?"
"Yes, yes, the Council of Ministers has approved."
That meant Fidel. I tried to imagine Castro's making this one
little decision, quickly, passionately -- I imagined the
interplay of ideals, prejudice, ego, public image. Somewhere
down inside me a desire to meet him grew, despite my own
cynicism and my personal danger.
"I'd like to start with some particular candidates."
"Yes, yes, it will be arranged."
"In La Cabana. The names are on this list." I handed it to him.
Menendez read. He frowned. He drew his head back and pursed
his lips as if to whistle. "Including Dr. Revueltos?" he said. He
shook his head so violently I was afraid he would wrench his neck.
I asked him what was the matter with Dr. Revueltos. I heard a
tremble in my voice. He told me that Revueltos was a special case.
"Personal betrayal. _Extremely_ personal. You can talk to the
prisoner if you wish, but it's useless, I assure you. The Comandante
feels strongly about a few of these cases, Revueltos, Salgado, Fremont
-- they're all in 'special custody.'"
I asked him whether anything could be done in these cases. He
shook his head again.
"But reeducation?"
He snorted: "'Reeducation'!" He smiled sadly. I felt my stomach
begin to feel hollow with disappointment. I got up to leave. As he
shook hands he said, "Maybe an apology. If you visit Revueltos, you
might suggest it."
"What?"
"Since the Comandante feels personally insulted..." He winked at
me.
The sun seemed to come out again. An apology. Of course.
What could be easier? An apology. Dear Fidel, I sincerely regret...
What could be easier?
Two days later, as our olive-drab MININT Volga stopped in
traffic right in front of the Palacio de Matrimonio, on the way to La
Cabana, I was nervous as hell. I hadn't seen my father in over twenty
years. Even thinking back to my childhood years in Havana, I recalled
him more as a tall presence, a handsome blank face. Always away,
doing mysterious things out at the Hospital General Calixto Garcia --
where the Ministry of Health was temporarily lodged in those early
days of the Castro regime. I knew our family was important, that my
father was on the Council of Ministers, he was not just a Comrade
Doctor -- he was a Comrade Minister. We had steaks and artichokes
from the dollar store and a new Russina car. There was resentment.
Pedro Eutiquio, the husky older leader of our gang, would try to push
me around and call me sissy, and dopes like Oswaldo Smith, fat Ossy,
would call me "_maricon_." But I was good with my fists and I could
make Ossy sorry, if not always Pedro Eutiquio.
A tiny Fiat had stopped in front of the Palace, a groom in his
black suit stood holding open the door of a car, while a bride tried to
pry herself and her bouffant white dress out of the vehicle. Another
couple came down the stairs, both in white, heads downcast as if they
were entering prison. Weddings always make me nervous.
Our Volga moved off down Avenida Simon Bolivar.
And then my father was arrested amd all the artichokes came to
an end.
We circled Martyrs' Park heading into the tunnel under the
entrance to the harbor.
Two months after my father's arrest and imprisonment, my
mother succeeded in sneaking some of our remaining American dollars
and three very fine rubies out to my grandfather, who was living in
Miami already, and we turned up at the airport with our one suitcase
apiece and the officially permitted $5 and emigrated in a perfectly
legal manner, joining the ranks of the _gusanos_ in Miami.
It was two years later that my father, then in the "Reeducation
Camp" near Pinar del Rio, sent us a letter grudgingly forgiving us for
"deserting the Revolution." Can you imagine?
The driver opened the door for Comrade Garza and me in front of
the blank stone walls to the old fortress prison. My first worry was
about keeping my father from giving away my imposture. But then I
thought: would he even know who I was after all these years?
First I had to ditch Comrade Garza -- that was easy. I looked
down my nose at him when he tried to enter the visitors' room with me
and asked him to wait outside. Still no sissy I -- but then Garza was
no Pedro Eutiquio. The guard gave me a lackadaisical frisk and I
entered and sat down at a chair set up against a ceiling-high wire mesh.
I barely recognized the man the guard politely led by the arm and
eased into a seat in the chair opposite me. Father was a man of about
my size, but he looked smaller, as if he had shrunken inside his baggy
cream-colored overalls. His hair had turned very gray, almost white.
One lens of his wire- rimmed glasses had been fixed with scotch tape.
For a moment he looked down, then he stared at me and I remembered
the eagle eyes, still visible behind the dim reflections off the lenses.
He raised his eyebrows. They were still thick and black.
"Comrade Elizalde?"
"Yes," I said, in a very low voice.
He stared at me. "You look, you look..."
Yes," I said.
"Your mother sent a photo. _Jesus_!"
My father said my given name rather loudly, and the guard
standing against the wall turned his head. I faked a sneeze to cover
the _Jesus_. I pressed my fingers tightly against the wire, wishing I
could reach in and stop up his mouth.
"Hey, Father," I whispered, "this is important. You've got to
call me 'Felipe.'" He asked why the alias and I made up a story about
political problems -- which if my being a wanted man in Cuba under
my real name wasn't a political problem, I don't know what was.
He nodded. He dropped his eyes and stared at one sleeve, feeling
it, and then rubbed a torn place on the knee of his overalls. "I'm
ashamed for you to see me like this."
The word _verguenza_, shame, touched me. "It's all right, Dr.
Revueltos," I said in clear tones. Then in a lower voice: "The
important thing is to get you out of here."
"The important thing is that I'm here unjustly. My statements
were all perverted by Raul and some of those other people around
Fidel. Raul! He pretends to be such a purist, but he's precisely a
bourgeois deviationist.
"But Fidel himself is involved in your case, Father. He's
keeping you here."
"Of course he is, poor Fidel -- he trusts the wrong people.
Always was a problem with him."
I took a deep breath and explained about who I was pretending to
be and how I was trying to get him out.
"You know," he said, "it makes me think of Thucydides."
"Who?"
"Thucydides failed as a general, he was ostracized, and then he
retired and became a great historian. This may sound immodest." He
smirked, yes he actually smirked at his self-effacement. "But I, in my
confinement, have made major progress in my political biography of
Friedrich Engels. Three more years, maybe four -- it's hard to get hold
of references in here." He smiled at me as if he were a three-year-old
with a new toy. "I'm only fifty-five."
Christ, here he was in the pokey, and all he could think about
was writing a book! I told him he could write on the outside too, and
that he could probably get himself released by making just a short
apology to Fidel.
"Apology!" He stood up, and the guard started to come toward
us.
"Just something to placate Fidel."
"Placate Fidel, when it's been his fault entirely! How can I
apologize for being right?"
"But..."
"He wouldn't believe an apology anyway, the man's not stupid!"
"But Father."
"I'll be damned if I'll compromise my principles after all this
time. It's Fidel who's wrong, poor misguided soul. I was right about
the unreliability of the Russians -- as everybody must recognize now.
Glasnost! Treason to the Revolution."
"But _papacito_!"
"Why am I here, my son," he said, waving at the wire screen and
the pale blue walls, "if not because I wouldn't say what was right was
wrong? He'll learn. Someday."
"But suppose it isn't as simple as right and wrong?"
My father made a disgusted face. Then he smiled and said,
"Thank you for trying to rescue me. I haven't been much of a father to
you, God knows." He stared upwards, as if the God of Marx and
Engels lived in the sky along with Yahveh, Allah, and the Lord
Krishna. "I have never had the chance."
For a moment, I imagined that he was longing to try to embrace
me through the wires. Then I looked into the faraway gaze in his eyes
and realized that the wire wasn't all that separated us -- there were
twenty-one years of no contact -- plus the eight before that of damned
little attention on his part. I shrugged. "Don't thank me that way yet,
I'm not giving up." The thought of the bearer bonds popped into my
mind. A warm wave of guilt came over me, I toyed with the idea of
somehow getting at the money without actually getting _papacito_ out
of his jail -- especially if he was going to be such a reluctant escapee.
The guilt swelled to a crescendo just as my imagination failed to come
up with any idea at all for successfully pulling a fast one on my father.
He pursed his lips. "I'm happy that you have some family feeling
-- it must be in the genes, despite everything material and
philosophical I didn't give you -- I used to think I owed it to my child
to educate him in Marxist theory. To inoculate you against the money-
loving capitalist virus."
I felt myself blushing. I was especially ashamed when I guessed
that my father's head was so in the clouds that he would never imagine
what some people -- like me -- would do for money.
While I was at it, I asked him if he knew Jose Pillo. Pillo
didn't qualify as a re-educable physician, and I needed an idea for him.
"The usual _gusano_," said my father. There was no hint in his
eyes that he recognized that he was saying this to a _gusano_ -- his
son. "A kind of thug, despite his intelligence. Used to be a stevedore
on the Havana docks in the old days, a corrupted member of the
working class." He gazed off toward the ceiling, speculating on the
inescapable contradictions in the dialectic, I suppose. "Smart -- but
an enemy of the proletariat."
It turned out my father had seen Pillo in the exercise yard and
in the dining hall.
"I need to contact him," I said.
"_Canalla_!" My father looked as if he were going to spit. But
he finally agreed that he would try to find out more about Pillo for me.
"Maybe if you just wrote Fidel a letter, explaining your exact
position," I said.
He shook his head and made a face. "You might as well give up
this masquerade, _hijo_ _mio_." He smiled bravely. "I can wait.
Sooner or later Fidel will recognize that I am one of his truly faithful
supporters, one of those that have been true to his innermost ideals."
He gave a melancholy smile. "Meantime..." He tapped his fingers on
the wooden table that sat against the wire mesh.
"Yes?" I said.
"There's still 'Engels and Marxism: A Dialectic Synthesis.'" He
bit his lip and frowned. "Remember me to your mother, tell her she has
the eternal love of a prisoner of conscience." He raised his left fist.
"Long live a democratic socialist Cuba."
As you can imagine, I was feeling pretty low as I emerged from
the darkness of La Cabana into the sun-dazzled cobblestoned street
that led down along the far side of the harbor to the tunnel.
It looked like the only way I was going to get my father out of
La Cabana was with a bottle of chloroform and a stretcher.
On the way back, there was a large crowd gathered around the
glassed-in Granma memorial in front of Batista's old Presidential
Palace, now the Museum of the Revolution. There he was -- the man
himself! Fidel, surrounded by a platoon of soldiers, was speaking from
the back of a flat-bed truck -- the words "_revolucion_," "_lucha_,"
"_nosotros_," crackled out amidst a roar of static from loudspeakers.
He was delivering one of his usual spur-of-the- moment speeches --
never announced ahead, for security purposes, and the crowd was still
relatively small. As we passed closer, I saw the slight figure of Raul
Castro, with his wispy mustache, look around distractedly. I could
picture his withered-looking smile as he sat arms crossed, waiting for
another chance to applaud his devoted big brother.
I wondered when and if I was ever going to get to see Fidel at
closer range.
We passed by, heading down Zulueta Street, but I could hear the
voice of the Leader abruptly stopped on a high-pitched crescendo.
The crowd had grown over the course of a few minutes. A massive
roar from the audience drowned out a crackling of applause. Perhaps
the sounds would carry across the quiet waters of the harbor that
lapped onto the thick walls of La Cabana prison.
======================================
THE THEATER
by Otho Eskin
(Note: This is part 5 of the play "Duet")
CHARACTERS
(In order of appearance)
MAN
SARAH BERNHARDT
ELEONORA DUSE
SETTING
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
TIME
April 5, 1924 Evening.
SCENE
MAN
What has this to do with me?
SARAH
What has this to do with you? How can you ask? You are the father. I
carry your child next to my heart.
MAN
Perhaps you exaggerate.
SARAH
A woman does not exaggerate about being pregnant.
MAN
This is most interesting, but it is no concern of mine.
SARAH
We have loved one another. We have lain clasped in one another's
arms, held in moist embrace, for countless nights. He looked at the
clock on the mantelpiece. I burst into tears and flung myself onto a
chaise longue.
MAN
Stop! This instant!
SARAH
I wept ever louder. I'm certain I was heard by the guests in the next
room. I certainly hope so.
MAN
Sarah, you'll ruin my evening.
SARAH
You seduced me. You are the father of my child. At that point he
laughed at me.
MAN
My dear girl, if you sit on a pile of thorns, you can never know which
one has pricked you.
SARAH
He looked at the clock.
MAN
Now I must go.
SARAH
He opened his purse and took out some gold coins. He pressed them
into my hand.
MAN
This should be enough. Now, if you will excuse me, I must return to
my guests.
SARAH
What kind of woman do you think I am -- to take money from you?!
MAN
We both know exactly what kind of woman you are.
SARAH
I will never take your money. (SARAH flings the gold coins in the
MAN's face.) I thought the gesture marvelously dramatic and I was
very pleased with the effect. Some day you will crawl back to me. You
will beg me for forgiveness. I flung my cape about my shoulders. I
strode out of the room without looking back.
ELEONORA
And did he return? Did he beg for forgiveness?
SARAH
As a matter of fact, he never did.
ELEONORA
Men are cruel.
SARAH
I learned never to be hurt again.
ELEONORA
But without love, there is nothing.
SARAH
The theater audience is the only truly faithful lover. Theater gave me
everything I needed. I would stand in the wings before the curtain rose
and listen to the audience as they entered the theater, listen to the
rustle of programs, the murmur of voices and my heart would ache. I
sense when the house lights dim. There is a silence, a time of
expectancy -- a time when anything is possible. They're out there
waiting -- waiting for me -- wanting me. I am terrified. I have always
suffered from stage fright. But at the same time I yearn to make my
entrance -- to begin. I grow ill from waiting. Then it is time. I feel
as though electricity flows from my skin. I am on. There is an explosion
of applause. I turn and regard the audience. They are there -- to be
seduced, to be conquered. I want the audience to love me. I demand
their love. There is a bond between us. We need one another. I step
toward the footlights, my head bent to one side, my hands clasped --
then I reach out toward them -- my audience.
ELEONORA
Before you have said a word of dialogue? What about the play? How
could you?
SARAH
They come to see me. It is me they want. For one evening we are
joined as one -- our souls are one. Our passions rise and fall together.
They feel my pain, my joy.
ELEONORA
This is a travesty of art.
SARAH
For one hour -- two hours -- I am someone else -- a storm of passion
and drama. I make people forget their real lives. We are one -- a
moment of sweet, sweet complicity. Then it is over. The curtain falls
and the audience erupts in a torrent of applause -- a torrent of love.
The curtain rises again and I return to the stage. I stop for a moment
-- as if confused by the applause and the cheering. I gather myself and
step forward, uncertainly, as if on the verge of collapse. I have given
my all during the performance. I can barely stand. The audience is
anxious. Will she fall? I put my hands over my heart and look at the
gallery -- slowly. Then the dress circle. The boxes. Taking them all in.
My lover. Then -- as the applause begins to fade -- I hold my arms out
-- toward my people -- to embrace them. And they go wild again. No
bow. Only arms outstretched. Again and again the applause floods
over me -- fills me. Finally I turn and gesture for the others in the
cast. I am modest. I am nothing without them. I smile sweetly at the
ingnue. I squeeze her hand. The audience applauds madly. I smile
fondly at my leading man who steps forward. I stumble; I almost fall. I
have given so much of myself this evening that I almost swoon. My
leading man catches me and I lean my head on his shoulder. Gently,
ever so gently, he leads me off stage. The curtain falls. Nothing equals
that experience. Nothing comes close.
ELEONORA
But, Sarah, this has nothing to do with art.
SARAH
It has everything to do with theater.
MAN
Signora Duse, I must remind you -- you are on in half an hour.
ELEONORA
(To SARAH)
I could never find love in the theater the way you did, Sarah. The
audience never loved me the way they did you.
SARAH
Because you never loved the audience.
ELEONORA
I was oblivious to the audience. When I perform and I stand at the
edge of the stage and look out I don't see the audience. What I see is a
void. On the stage I am alone. Beyond -- there is only darkness. And
yet what attraction is there -- a kind of intoxication -- something I
can't describe. When I appear it is so sweet.
SARAH
Sometimes I think you should never have been an actress. You never
had a feel for the most critical skill an actor must have -- the
ability to create publicity.
ELEONORA
Publicity has nothing to do with art.
SARAH
Really, Eleonora, what nonsense you talk.
MAN
(As The Reporter -- to ELEONORA)
Signora Duse, would you give us your impressions of your first visit to
New York?
ELEONORA
I am an actress -- not a tour guide. I have nothing to say.
MAN
What do you think of America's latest fashions.
ELEONORA
Why do you care what I think of fashions? Or your cities? Why do you
care what I think about anything -- except the theater?
MAN
What is your opinion of the French actress Sarah Bernhardt?
ELEONORA
Go see one of her performances and decide for yourself.
MAN
Is it true that you are the mistress of the Italian poet Gabriele
d'Annunzio?
ELEONORA
You have no right to ask me questions about my private life.
MAN
The public wants to know.
ELEONORA
I don't care what the public wants. If they need to know about me, let
them come to the Theatre. All that I am is there -- on stage.
MAN
The public has the right to...
ELEONORA
(Furious)
The public has no rights. This interview is over.
SARAH
You never talked about your private life. You never talked about your
lover, Gabriele D'Annunzio.
ELEONORA
I would not let them defile my love -- a love that most people cannot
even imagine. I would not let them bring what Gabriele and I felt for
each other down to their level.
MAN
My divine one, do not let the mob disturb you. They envy our sublime
passion.
ELEONORA
At the beginning it was all I hoped it would be.
MAN
We are inseparable, our spirits are as one.
ELEONORA
He was younger than I but it did not matter. The soul knows no age.
But even then I knew.
MAN
What a dangerous thing life is.
SARAH
What a dangerous thing love is.
MAN
Nothing outside us matters.
ELEONORA
Together we dreamed.
MAN
We will make art together, you and I, my sacred love. Together we
will create beauty.
ELEONORA
We made a pact -- together we would create a new form of drama -- a
new theater for a new Europe. He would write great plays and I would
perform them. Together we would change the world.
MAN
From this moment my genius will be in your service -- yours alone. I
am writing a new play for you -- a poetic drama called "La citt
morta" -- "The Dead City." It will be my greatest creation. It is you
who has inspired me.
ELEONORA
I was to produce and perform in the play. It was to be our first great
collaboration.
SARAH
Sometimes life fails us.
ELEONORA
So I learned in Paris.
SARAH
You must have known it was a mistake.
ELEONORA
I knew from the beginning. I knew it was a horrible mistake.
SARAH
Why did you come?
ELEONORA
Gabriele insisted. He said it would be a great success.
MAN
Believe me, my angel, you have nothing to fear.
ELEONORA
How can I perform in Paris? They will scorn me. Impossible!
MAN
You are hailed as one of the great tragediennes of our time in all the
capitals of Europe. All but one. If you are to be recognized as the
preeminent actress of the world you must go to Paris.
ELEONORA
The critics will hate me.
MAN
You will triumph with the critics.
ELEONORA
The public will never accept me.
MAN
The public will adore you. You will conquer Paris. The city of light
will be yours.
Do not tell me that you, who fear nothing, cannot face the Divine
Sarah?
ELEONORA
Ever since I was a young girl I have been in awe of her. Ever since I
saw her perform in Turin I have been under her spell.
MAN
Sarah Bernhardt is getting old. You are young. Sarah Bernhardt
belongs to the past. You are the future.
ELEONORA
Paris is her city -- her domain. How can I challenge her there?
MAN
If you don't go to Paris, you will never be certain about yourself. For
the rest of your life you will be second to Sarah Bernhardt. Everyone
will say you did not dare challenge her directly -- that you
acknowledge she is the superior artist.
ELEONORA
I do not acknowledge that.
MAN
Then go to Paris and prove it.
SARAH
Eleonora Duse perform in Paris!? Outrageous!
(SARAH flings a bottle of make-up onto
the floor)
MAN
All over Europe people speak of La Duse as the new Sarah Bernhardt.
(SARAH flings more objects onto the
floor.)
SARAH
Grotesque! There is only one Sarah.
MAN
Go to Paris. You have nothing to lose.
ELEONORA
I had nothing to lose, my love said.
MAN
All of Paris says that Sarah is afraid of this Italian actress who dares
challenge her.
SARAH
Afraid of this woman? With no education? No conservatory training?
A peasant. Ridiculous! If she wants to come -- why not? It is right
that the people of Paris see her and judge for themselves. Let her
come.
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