My Sister's Keeper
Page 6
(She laughs)
That’s very good.
(She goes to the mirror and looks at herself)
You don’t look like a monster. You look all right to me. When you woke up this morning I thought you were an ugly monster.
(She hears the door opening and waits. Robert enters carrying groceries)
ROBERT
You all right?
(She doesn’t answer. He goes to deposit groceries)
Anyone call?
(She doesn’t answer)
They think they’ll have a bed for you at Holloway Sanitorium in four or five days. That’s really good news, you know. It’s a beautiful place. Large beautiful gardens, tennis courts, swimming pool – intelligently administered. You don’t get shock treatment there if you don’t want it…It’s the kind of place you should have gone to before. I’m very pleased. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get you in but Williams arranged it. I’m very grateful for that.
SARAH
Were we ever good friends?
ROBERT
Yes. We’re still good friends.
SARAH
Does a good friend do what you’re doing?
ROBERT
I think so.
SARAH
I think you’re a very cruel person.
ROBERT
I don’t think so.
SARAH
I think so.
ROBERT
I don’t agree with you. I’m not a cruel person. I’m a rather kind person actually.
SARAH
You say you’re not cruel, but I’ve seen you cut lemons.
(Takes a moment to let that penetrate)
ROBERT
Don’t you cut lemons?
SARAH
Yes. But when I do I cry.
(She leaves)
ROBERT
That can make slight difference to the lemons. (Calling out) I expected Susan to call.
SARAH
(O.S.) She called.
ROBERT
What did she say? Did she leave a number for me?
SARAH
(Reappearing) I told her we’d slept together.
ROBERT
You did?
SARAH
Shouldn’t I have?
ROBERT
You’re very funny.
(Sarah takes a flower and begins to smell it like Ophelia)
SARAH
Get thee to a nunnery.
ROBERT
You didn’t really tell her that, did you?
SARAH
When I was sixteen. How you drugged me and I woke up and you were inside me and how we were always madly in love with one another.
ROBERT
Did Susan phone?
SARAH
Somebody phoned and said it was Susan.
ROBERT
Is she calling back?
SARAH
I’ll be very surprised.
ROBERT
What did you tell her?
SARAH
That I’m entitled to my brain!
ROBERT
Do you want some tea?
SARAH
I choose not to have tea!
(She stares at him. He returns the stare)
ROBERT
Did Susan phone or didn’t she? I want to know.
SARAH
(Smelling the flower) Come on, let’s give them all an exhibition. I have never seen a guy not want to come in my life.
(She runs out of the room and then makes an appearance leaning against the door and smelling the flower.
Robert laughs)
ROBERT
You’re funny.
SARAH
Don’t send me to any hospitals. I can’t take them anymore. They coerce me there.
ROBERT
Not this one. That’s why I waited so long.
SARAH
Let me stay with you. We could be good for each other. In the last analysis, that’s all that means anything.
ROBERT
You get funnier by the minute. We could be good for each other! Yeah!
SARAH
You’re just frightened. The state of terror they put you in. The state of terror they put me in is escapable. I know the road out!
ROBERT
You know nothing! You know nothing!
SARAH
There is your truth and there is my truth. Or are you staying to find out? You go to Corsica and leave me. You go to Susan and leave me. You go to England and leave me. How can I ever leave you? My home was a jungle. I’m part of your life. You’ve got to help me when I need you.
ROBERT
I am trying to help you.
SARAH
Help me like I tell you to help me! When you see me you go to war! I could be cured this instant! Do you hear that!
ROBERT
How?
SARAH
If you told me…if you told me that you would take care of me, devote yourself to me for three stinking or maybe four stinking weeks of your life. If you said you cared for me enough, loved me enough, wanted to help me enough to do that… I’d be cured! It’s as simple as that. Can’t you see that?
ROBERT
And if you’re not?
SARAH
Then you’ve given up thirty days! And I’ll know and you’ll know and I’ll never ask anything of you again ever. Darling…I know it wasn’t your fault. We were both babies. I was sixteen. You were nineteen. Where was the mother and the father? I know the doctor told you that I had to be hospitalized. I loved you so much. I hated Mother. I was afraid of her and of him. I came to you because you were the only one I could trust. And you gave me those pills that put me to sleep and you said you were taking me to a dance…and I woke up in that hell-hole they called a hospital.
ROBERT
I didn’t know how to get you there…It’s been killing me…you know that…I live with the terrible guilt of that. It’s my constant nightmare.
SARAH
I woke up in that torture chamber…My brother was taking me to a dance…My brother Bobby. My beautiful brother Bobby…and I woke up in a concentration camp where they used strait jackets and they beat me. I know it was not your fault. I know it was not your fault. I know it was not your fault. But my God…(She is crying) I never loved anybody else! And I came to you and I woke up in this place…My God I never loved anybody else.
ROBERT
(He is crying now, too) I never loved anybody else either…I was frantic…I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know what to do!
(They are holding each other now, both crying. Then they look at each other and begin to laugh with the crying. He removes the auburn wig almost without thinking and throws it on a nearby chair)
Well, we’ve done it. Now we’re both crazy.
SARAH
Oh yeah! Isn’t it wonderful? Oh God, if I just knew that you loved me and that I’d be taken care of by you, I’d never be sick again…Never. I know it. My sickness is because you…leave… me…That’s my sickness. And it can be cured so easily!
(He moves away and takes a handkerchief to dry his eyes)
ROBERT
No. I won’t accept that. That’s not why you became ill. Because you love me and I leave you. No. That’s not the reason.
SARAH
What’s the reason?
ROBERT
I don’t know. I don’t know the reasons people become mentally ill. Too much sensitivity – Too much neglect – I don’t know.
SARAH
Say you’re right. But I believe I’m right. And if you made that one gesture, that one small move …I’d be cured.
ROBERT
If I believed that I would do it.
SARAH
How can I make you believe it?
ROBERT
I know you believe it. But it isn’t so.
SARAH
You really believe I’m in such a state as to be dangerous?
ROBERT
I don’t think you’re dangerous. No.
SARAH
Then what am I?
ROBERT
You can’t take care of yourself. You’re unstable. You need to be taken care of – in a hospital, by competent professional people, trained to take care of people like you.
SARAH
Do I sound irrational at this moment?
ROBERT
No. Not at this moment. I’ll give you five minutes.
SARAH
If I start sounding irrational it’s because I get frightened, or get hostile, or panic, or get so sad I can’t bear it. But I come out of it. Don’t I always come out of it?
ROBERT
Then it’s the effect you have on me. It’s not good for me to be with you.
SARAH
So you’re sending me to a hospital because I have a bad effect on you.
ROBERT
If that’s the way we have to put it, yes.
SARAH
But you’d be pleased, wouldn’t you, if I got what you call well, and would be able to take care of myself, and didn’t spill my tea, and didn’t act strangely in front of people?
ROBERT
Of course I’d be pleased.
SARAH
You’d be happy if you felt I never had to go to a hospital, wouldn’t you?
ROBERT
Of course.
SARAH
But every time I go to hospital, it makes it worse for me, can’t you see that? It makes it more and more certain that I’ll spend the rest of my life in a hospital.
ROBERT
That doesn’t follow. You need constant attention. The hospital will give it to you. When you get out of this state…and can remain stable for long periods…you won’t have to stay in the hospital.
SARAH
But if you devoted yourself to me for one lousy month…thirty days…four weeks…just four weeks, if you gave me this attention I obviously need, I’d never get sick again. Why can’t you see that?
ROBERT
It doesn’t make sense.
SARAH
Try it. All you’ll lose is one month of your life. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go to the hospital. If it works…I’ll never have to go to hospital. I’m asking you to give me one month of your life. I have the right to ask you.
(She waits)
I have that right.
ROBERT
No. You don’t. Nobody has. It isn’t a month you’re asking for, it’s a lifetime. I cannot give you my life. Perhaps you need someone to give you a life. But it won’t be me.
(He is quiet and calm now)
Listen to me, Sarah. If I gave you thirty days now, it would not be enough for you. I am waiting to get you into a very good hospital. The first one we sent you to was a hellhole. Hospitals like that one do still exist, but this one is a well-staffed, intelligently run sanitorium. I will get over my guilt. I am sorry for any hurt I did you but I cannot live the rest of my life feeling guilty for mistakes and stupidities of my youth. I have my own life to work out, my work to do, and it is not unimportant, the work I do!
SARAH
How do you manage to sound so pompous? Is it easy for you? Why is it that more women become mentally ill than men? Explain it.
ROBERT
It is obvious that society is tougher on women than on men. I am not responsible for society.
SARAH
You are. You and people like you are society!
ROBERT
I didn’t make this world. It was like this before I got here! I’m doing my best to improve it. And myself as well. But you don’t help me. I’ve been neglecting Susan, doing to her what I always do! I want to work at a relationship now. I want to stop searching out women who are wrong for me to prove that love is impossible. I might have a chance with Susan. I don’t know. I’ve got to give us a chance.
SARAH
Yes, you should. I agree with you.
ROBERT
It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. I will do what I can for you Sarah and no more. I can’t help it if I sound pompous.
SARAH
You can help it, Robert, you just don’t try.
ROBERT
When the hospital is ready you will go there. There is no other way. And your humour is falling flat.
SARAH
Yes. All I asked was thirty days. That’s all I need from you to overcome everything that’s happened. If you could have done it for me I think I would have been well for the rest of my life. But if you can’t, you can’t. I’m not angry now. I too can face things. I’ll try not to get on your nerves any more, and make it as easy as possible, until the hospital’s ready. I’m sorry I’ve been such a nuisance. I don’t know what gets into me. You get pompous and I get wilful. Infantile. I know you’re not responsible for my illness. It’s just that when I get frightened I make you responsible for everything that’s ever happened to me. It isn’t fair what I expect from you. No person can expect that from anyone. I’m sorry.
(She leaves the room.
He takes a deep breath of satisfaction. He has made his point and she seems to have accepted. He goes to his desk and dials a number)
ROBERT
(To phone) Hello…Who’s this?…Oh Joanie… It’s Robert. Where’s Sue?…Oh…I thought her mother was holidaying in France…Don’t be silly. You didn’t say anything you shouldn’t have. If Sue said she went to visit her mother and will be back tomorrow, that’s what she’s done…Leave a note, will you please, that I called…Either at the office or at home…Thank you…
(He replaces the receiver and feels suddenly tired. He takes a drink and then his manuscript. He lies down. He lies awake a while…
Lights fade out.
Lights fade on slowly.
Sarah has appeared, as if out of a wall, holding the scissors in her hand, and stands beside the couch.
She stands there a while staring at him, as if sending messages to him.
He is restless and moans in his sleep)
SARAH
Why shouldn’t I kill you? You killed me.
(She continues to stand motionless, concentrating hard. She whispers it)
You are not my brother. You are an imposter. Where is my brother, Robert? You are not my brother. My brother would not have done what you did to me. Where is my brother? You are not my brother.
(He wakes up with a start)
ROBERT
What the hell are you doing with those scissors?
SARAH
You killed me. I have a right to kill you.
ROBERT
Bloody Loonie! Put those scissors down! You were saying something! What were you saying!
(She moves away, he gets up to follow. She moves slowly in a circle, holding the scissors as if they were a knife. She has a triumphant smile)
Put those scissors down, you loonie!
SARAH
Why shouldn’t I kill you as you killed me?
(Sarah continues to move, smiling the deadly hostile smile. He is frightened…but he continues to follow.
Finally, she throws the scissors away)
ROBERT
You bloody maniac! Stop doing things like that!
SARAH
You stop doing things too. You stop. I’ll stop.
(He suddenly seems to remember)
ROBERT
You were saying something to me while I was asleep. What were you saying?
(She stares, unmoving, but sure of her powers now)
What were you saying?
(She continues her stare, concentrating hard.
He starts to writhe, holding his head in his hands, as if trying to push out the thoughts)
Oh, Christ. All right! Oh no…! All right… all right, all right, all right…You can have the month! It’s a deal! Don’t say that to me again. Ever! I can’t…I can’t take it. That’s the nightmare I can’t take, I can’t get it out of my brain and my nightmares…walking through that ward of women patients, like a
scene out of Bedlam. Some of the women were young, in their teens, some were drooling, rolling their eyes, praying and whispering. One was crying, another was shrieking and they were all dressed in those terrible cotton shifts, and this nurse, she wore glasses, and had hair on her lip, opened the door and you were there, your head showing out of that strange canvas bath tub they had put you in, covered you up to your neck and your face was blue and pimply. Christ. ‘He’s not my brother,’ you said. ‘You told me my brother Robert was here to see me. He’s not my brother Robert. He’s an imposter. I want to see my brother Robert.’ At first I thought you really hadn’t recognized me. And I kept saying ‘I’m Robert. I’m Robert, Sarah. Don’t you recognize me?’ And you kept saying, ‘You’re not my brother Robert. I want to see my brother Robert. My own brother. This man is an imposter. This is not my brother.’ Ohhh…(He moans) You can stay a month but only on condition that you don’t say that to me again …I won’t be able to live through the guilt and the doubts if I don’t give you the month. It is only thirty days. I know it won’t work, but I have to give it to you. I do owe it to you.