The Traveling Companion & Other Plays
Page 25
LOUISE [breathlessly]: I didn’t hear his car but the sound of it may have been lost in the sound of your voice. Excuse me. Go out a window. [She gasps, sweeps back the purple-dark curtain of the doorway, and exits.]
NORA: [Indignantly, to herself.] Did she say “go out a window”? That I’ll not do, not by the balls of Himself, I’ll go out nobody’s window, and me intendin’ t’ draw her into discussion of what’s eating at her heart like a possum at a persimmon, oh, no, I’ll go out a window’s not likely in any whirl of the world! —Even if it whirled backwards.
[A fantastic female creature, Mrs. Eldridge, enters the white room. Her sleeveless gown is Oriental, or pseudo-Oriental. Her arms, hands, face appear to be lacquered, to be covered with a glittering wax. Little silver bells are attached to all her fingers and her jeweled arm-bracelets so that her motions make a musical sound. Sometimes, to emphasize a point, she raises her arms and makes the bells tinkle louder.
Louise, impressed to the point of forgetting her state of depression, enters behind the lady, Mrs. Eldridge.]
LOUISE: Mrs. Eldridge, this is my neighbor, Mrs. —
MRS. ELDRIDGE [giving Louise no time to complete the introduction]: My Phaeton has stopped on the road in front of your house not because of any mechanical difficulties but because the chauffeur had some kind of a seizure. I cracked him over the head with my cane and there was no response so I suspect he—oh! Your house has a fortunate location. Through the right window I can see Tiger Town and the lights of the Bar Apache where I’m expected. But I can’t drive the Phaeton myself.
LOUISE: Oh.
NORA: Ho!
LOUISE: Would you like me to call you a taxi?
MRS. ELDRIDGE: Yes, that, exactly, a taxicab with two drivers, one to drive my Phaeton to Tiger Town and the other to return the taxicab to its—
LOUISE: I’ll make the call. Sit down, please, I’ll— [She exits through the dark door.]
NORA: Far be it from me to criticize or comment on your behavior or your outfit, Emerald Eldridge. [Mrs. Eldridge makes a hissing sound, lifts her arms and sets the little bells ringing.] A black man with a razor is what you’re out for and in for, surely.
[Mrs. Eldridge repeats the hissing sound and the elevation of her arms and ringing of bells. Louise returns through the dark door.]
LOUISE: The taxicab with the two drivers is on its way here.
MRS. ELDRIDGE: Thank you, child. I’ll wait outside in the field of wildflowers, to lift my heart to the sky with expectations that have never once failed me. [She raises her arms once more to make the bells ring, pausing at the threshold of the dark door.]
“I walk in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in my aspect and my eyes.”
[Mrs. Eldridge exits.]
LOUISE: Was she an apparition that came uninvited?
NORA: That she should be but isn’t, she’s a creature still living.
LOUISE: A very strange living creature.
NORA: That she is, to be sure. Sit down, dear, and I’ll tell you about her.
[Louise sits in her chair at the table.]
NORA: Emerald Eldridge she is, and the richest woman in the town she disgraces.
LOUISE: Her face appeared to be—lacquered.
NORA: That it is. Covered with glittering wax. She had it lifted five times. Am I speaking distinctly?
LOUISE: Yes.
NORA: After five times the face can be lifted no more, five times is the limit, so then she resorted to foreign cosmeticians, oh, by the balls of Himself—excuse me! —she had a slew, a crew of ’em, but after a short while of it, she gave up on ’em, shipped ’em back where they came from. Then the wax-works! Now for her nightly appearances in Tiger Town she has herself covered with glittering wax and from her fingers and arms are suspended these silver bells. And they say—
LOUISE: Who are they?
NORA: Everyone that knows of her, they say she sits motionless in a Tiger Town saloon till she spots a black man that attracts her. Then rises, with difficulty, hisses between her teeth like a serpent, raises her arms and sets the silver bells ringing. Out she goes then. The unfortunate young man follows. She whisks him away to her mansion, and he’s never the same after that. His youth is confiscated, his youth is drawn out of him like blood drawn out by leeches or vampire bats, and there I’ve told you her story and I know it, I know her story.
LOUISE: Perhaps the story, Nora, is less than complete.
NORA: How would you complete it, dear?
LOUISE: It might, it could be, that she is waiting for someone to return from Memphis, or—somewhere . . .
[The banjo plays louder as the white room is dimmed out.]
SCENE THREE
Louise is seated at one end of the delicately checkered table. The banjo ragtime is slightly, very slightly, more distinct than in the previous scenes in Louise’s white room. She is holding a glass of iced tea, the pitcher beside her. The moon appears serenely through one of the huge windows. Then—after a few moments—Nora comes bustling through the dark door with a bowl of something.
NORA: Louise.
LOUISE [indifferently, almost with distaste and scarcely turning to look at the habitual visitor—]: Nora. . . .
NORA [taken aback somewhat]: I, uh, I—made some blancmange for supper and I brought a bowl of it over.
LOUISE: Blancmange. Translate. White magic.
NORA: Won’t you eat it right now?
LOUISE: Thank you, Nora, but would you mind putting it in the icebox for me?
[Nora bustles back into the dark doorway. After a few moments she returns, disconcerted.]
NORA: Louise, everything I’ve brought over to you is still in the icebox, untouched.
LOUISE: You shouldn’t bother to bring me anything, Nora. I have no appetite, I have no sense of taste.
NORA: Louise, it’s possible for a person to get in a state of depression where they won’t eat, y’know. [She sits in the chair at the other end of the table.] It’s possible for them even to get in a state of depression where they won’t get out of bed. Of course I know that isn’t true in your case. You get out of bed, and not just that, you dress as if you were going to a party. That white lace dress is lovely. All that I’m saying is—
LOUISE [sharply]: What is all you’re saying?
NORA: —I, uh, shouldn’t presume to—intrude, but . . . [She sits there like a little dog, rejected. After a couple of moments Louise speaks to her, condescendingly.]
LOUISE: Would you like some ice tea?
NORA: I’d love to, dear, thanks, but I don’t dare to. Tea always gives me heartburn. You know, a little bit of gastritis, so I— [She has begun to cry a little, dabbing her nostrils with a little white handkerchief in her apron pocket.]
LOUISE: How are the lepers in the cisterns doing, what are they up to lately?
NORA: I have a feeling that you would rather I didn’t come over, and it—
LOUISE [relenting]: If you didn’t come over, nobody would come over.
NORA: —I, uh, brought a deck of cards with me. Would you like a game of double solitaire?
LOUISE: No, I wouldn’t, no, thank you, the name of the game is depressing.
NORA: Oh. Sorry. —Casino?
LOUISE: I couldn’t play cards tonight.
[The cards spill to the floor. Nora crouches about picking them up. Louise seems not to have noticed.]
NORA [huffing a bit]: I wonder if maybe you shouldn’t take in a new boarder, a, uh, lively young traveling salesman to, uh, be, uh, to, uh—provide some lively company for you.
LOUISE: I am not a promiscuous woman.
NORA: Ow, by the balls of Himself—excuse me! —I meant to suggest nothing of that kind to you, I—
NORA: Please, Louise, you know I meant not a thing of that kind, I—
[There is a slight pause.]
LOUISE: Among the articles on the table, this evening I noticed this.
[She lifts and opens an iridescent fan.]
NORA: Isn’t that—I’m trying to think of the right word for it. —Exquisite! That’s the word for it.
LOUISE: No, that’s not the word for it.
NORA: —Wh-what is the word for it, then?
LOUISE: Savage! —After the nights between us, how could he accept a position to separate us! Oh, I could kill him! The word for the fan is savage! [She rises with a stricken cry and throws the fan to her feet like a challenging gauntlet. A moment later—the sound of a car approaching and stopping. Louise leans back against the table.] —Was that a car stopping?
NORA: Don’t let it stop your heart, dear.
[She has also risen: they both clutch the table. Mr. Merriwether steps through a window with a daisy between his teeth. He is an immoderately handsome man in his unusual size. Louise falls into her chair in a fainting condition.]
NORA: Oh, by the balls of Himself, it looks like she’s had a seizure.
LOUISE: You’ve returned from Memphis?
MR. MERRIWETHER: Don’t you see that I’m here?
LOUISE: For just a visit or for a—longer—time?
MR. MERRIWETHER: I’ve come back to stay. That is, if my old room’s vacant.
LOUISE: All the house was vacant till you returned.
MR. MERRIWETHER: I would have returned from Memphis if I’d had to crawl on my belly over brimstone. I wasn’t cut out for a sales manager at a desk in an office. I was made for the road.
LOUISE: Because of the wild blood in you.
MR. MERRIWETHER: And the wild blood in you.
NORA: I’d better see what she has in her medicine cabinet.
LOUISE [fiercely]: No! Go!
[Mr. Merriwether rushes up to Louise’s chair and crouches by it. She touches his throat, his hair, his face as if she were blind. He draws her up in a rapturous embrace.]
NORA: It’s brandy she needs. I’ll fetch it from my house and hurry back. [She rushes through the dark door.]
LOUISE: And I was about to follow you to Memphis.
MR. MERRIWETHER: Isn’t it better this way? Me returning from Memphis?
LOUISE: Yes, it’s better. It’s a mistake, a useless mistake, for a woman to follow a man. He’s a bird, the shadow of a bird, his home’s in the sky, he rests on you for a moment. Then he’s gone and after that, look for him in the sky. Try to follow him there. In his wings’ hurry, the hurry of his wings, he takes your body but scarcely speaks your name. Oh, did I tell you—?
MR. MERRIWETHER: What?
LOUISE: I found one of your gold collar buttons under the chiffonier.
MR. MERRIWETHER: That’s not what I’ve returned for. My old room’s waiting for me?
LOUISE: My life is waiting for you.
[The Banjo Player springs through one of the enormous windows and strikes up a ragtime piece.]
LOUISE [rising and whirling about]: No more words between us until we’re alone and then just whispers! I want to sing, I want to dance! Let’s do a fantastic cakewalk to celebrate your return from Memphis.
[Invisible suspension wires lift the table. Gloria and the Romantically Handsome Youth enter. The two couples do a fantastic cakewalk about the room. Fantastic it is, and rhapsodic, but there is a barely perceptible touch of sadness in it. They suddenly leap out one of the windows, followed by the Banjo Player. Nora returns to find the room empty and the music distant. She puts the little bottle of brandy in her apron pocket.]
NORA: Maintenant je suis seule. Translate. I am alone, now. —Il faut inviter une apparition. Translate. It is necessary to invite an apparition. [She comes downstage.]
TURN NOT BACK, GO ON, GO ON,
ALL THE WORLD IS YOURS TO ROAM.
IT ISN’T STRANGE AND SINGULAR
TO SEEK BUT FIND NO FINAL HOME.
[Through the dark door enters a male apparition in a stick-candy-striped silk shirt and pale gray trousers of a dandified cut.]
APPARITION OF CORNELIUS WADDLES: Nora? [She gasps—turns about slowly to face the apparition.] I am the apparition of Cornelius Waddles.
NORA: —Of course I—recognized you.
APPARITION OF CORNELIUS WADDLES: You cooked very well, Nora, and you were always cheerful or pretended to be. You showed no sign of knowing what you must have known: that I was not just sometimes unfaithful, but unfaithful all the time.
NORA: Cornelius, your apparition has made it a little cold in the room. I will—get into this sweater. [She removes a sweater from the back of a chair and struggles clumsily into it.] Cornelius, why were you unfaithful to me so much?
[Ignoring her question, the apparition of Cornelius begins to whistle the ragtime tune played by the Banjo Player. Slowly, a rakish smile appears on his face. The banjo is suddenly much louder. The two couples from the top of the play return through a window, followed by the Banjo Player. Delicate rainbow colors flood the white room and the almost-formalized cakewalk continues. Nora and the apparition of her late husband dance behind the others. The scene dims out.]
CURTAIN
THE TRAVELING COMPANION
The Traveling Companion was first performed by the Running Sun Theatre Company on May 3, 1996 at Center Stage in New York City on a double bill with The Chalky White Substance, collectively titled Williams’s Guignol. It was directed by John Uecker; the set design was by Myrna Duarie, the costume design was by Robert Guy, and the lighting design was by Zdenek Kriz. The cast, in order of speaking, was as follows:
VIEUX: Bill Rice
BEAU: Michael Harrigan
HOTEL EMPLOYEES: Jack Wernick
SCENE ONE
Lights come up on a bedroom of a New York hotel facing Central Park. The traveling companion, Beau, is standing at the foot of a double bed, his dingy, frayed canvas roll-pack still on his shoulders. He is a blond youth, about twenty-five, gracefully formed, dressed in a manner characteristic of the new youth with a vagrant lifestyle.
His employer, Vieux, is not so much an old man—the actor should probably be considerably younger than the character performed—as one of chronic infirmities such as defective vision, damaged liver, and somewhat mysterious disorders of the digestive system for which his doctors may have prescribed more medications than necessary. His manner is either nervously apologetic or nervously assertive. For the part to be “camped” would be so disastrous that to warn a professional actor against it seems quite unnecessary. The bedroom walls are transparencies: behind them is a cyclorama that later shows a blue-dark sky which includes a full moon through mist.
VIEUX: Having arrived here so dreadfully unnerved.
[Beau grunts disparagingly without shifting his gaze from the double bed.]
VIEUX: Should order wine, at once, two bottles and go straight to bed. Oh, God, my medicine kit, don’t see the pill-pouch in the carry-on bag. [He opens and roots through it frantically.] Ah, here, under manuscripts, what a fright that gave me! Beau, in the future, leave everything that goes in the carry-on bag to me, please.
BEAU [ominously]: Future?
VIEUX: You pack only the Val-pack. Naturally, I don’t expect you to learn such things so quickly: just remember hereafter that only I take care of the carry-on bag.
BEAU: Hereafter?
VIEUX: This medicine kit would be a disastrous loss, always stuff it into the outside slit to be accessible at any moment— [He gasps for breath] —in the event of a coronary heart attack, first two or three minutes are decisive, and planes do strain a heart that’s already defective—yes. . . . [He touches the left side of his chest.] That flight
was well over five hours. I’m not supposed to fly more than four at a time.
BEAU [still staring at bed as at an armed adversary]: No shit.
VIEUX: Nerves go. Get short of breath. Used always to carry my own oxygen with me on long hops, transatlantic, small tank called Life-O-Gen, practice I’ve discontinued since the supersonic came in—unnecessary encumberance. Travel light with all, but all early drafts, only copies self-typed. Trolley deliberately broken by Tyler. Very funny scene. Oh, Lord, poor Tyler—took limit of double rums, when served no more of them, stormed into lavatory, smoked pot with angel dust, ignored the stewardess’ calls and line of passengers waiting. When he emerged, was mad as ten hatters. Shouted out “This plane is full of Jews.” Of course, this was true, being out of Miami. Shouting, near riot resulted. I quickly moved to other side of plane with carry-on bag, closed my eyes, faking sleep. Personally have no racial prejudice in me, no belief in the individual nor the collective guilt. Appalled by Holocaust, World War Two. But God, do you know when the Holocaust was shown on TV, poor sick Tyler applauded as Jews lined up for death chamber. Have had to send him home to West Virginia, with checks continuing reduced to amount insufficient for self-destruct drugs. He seems to understand this, and I get a letter a week from him now which is like a prose poem. Still love him, but he was as much too much as I am.
BEAU: That’s for sure. You are too much.
VIEUX: Better much too much than insufficient, I’d say.
BEAU: Oh, insufficient, am I?
VIEUX: All references aren’t to you, Beau. You know. That long flight to Dallas had to be made to check on Andrew’s condition before leaving States. Imagine, years younger than me, once my lover, now fallen, so fallen. That Dallas nursing home, appalling beyond belief. His sister abandoned him to it. The odors! —of the incontinent ones unattended, strapped into chairs, comatose but groaning, the nightmare of mumblings, incoherent, of their pain and despair. Well. I did improve matters for Andrew, arranging his transfer to the Catholic home in suburbs with a down-payment. Poor man so touchingly grateful for restoration to life. Experience left me shaken, a person of such sensibility and professional stature, dumped in a place like that by his heartless sister. You never know, you never know . . . whether you’ll live to see your old friends again.