MOTHER: Aren’t you afraid of unmixing yourself? Doesn’t it seem easier to go on unhappy than commit yourself to the important things?
FERRIS: I’m afraid, Mother. I’m afraid of the responsibility.
MOTHER: Oh, John. Don’t walk up to life and then walk away from it. [Standing behind him, she clutches his shoulder.] I would so like to meet this French girl. I wish you’d bring her home. Her little boy, too.
FERRIS [distractedly]: Sure. Sure, Mother. Someday. [Changing the topic, speaking more deliberately:] I have to be in New York on Saturday. Maybe I’ll call Elizabeth.
MOTHER: Do you think you should?
FERRIS: Can’t hurt just to say hello.
MOTHER: John, this might be very awkward for Elizabeth.
FERRIS: Elizabeth’s never been awkward.
MOTHER: But what about you?
FERRIS: I’ll make out. [He takes out an address book and pages through it.]
MOTHER: Something seems to be pulling you to see Elizabeth, to see her home. Why? Why, John?
FERRIS: I really don’t know, Mother.
MOTHER: Do you need to see her children, son? Is that what it is? Is that what it is? [He nods yes, his back to the camera.]
*
[Scene opens on the Baileys’ living room; the first shot is of a boy’s toy train beginning to move. We see that it’s operated by BILLY. ELIZABETH and ED are walking around the room in expectation of their visitor. She is tidying up and is at ease; he is clearly nervous.]
BAILEY: You think of the darnedest things, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: Why, it was the most natural thing in the world. Johnny Ferris telephoned and I invited him for drinks.
BAILEY: How am I supposed to act?
ELIZABETH: Just act natural, of course.
BAILEY: What does he like to drink?
ELIZABETH: Oh, relax, darling. [He touches her hair.] Is my hair messy?
BAILEY: Extremely.
ELIZABETH: I’ll go do it.
[The doorbell rings. BILLY answers it.]
BILLY: You’re Mr. Ferris, aren’t you? I’m Billy.
FERRIS: You look like your mother, Billy. Somehow I’m glad.
[BAILEY goes up to FERRIS at the door.]
BAILEY: Hello.
FERRIS: Oh.
BAILEY: I’m Ed Bailey. Nice to see you. [They shake hands. BAILEY takes FERRIS’s hat and coat and puts them on the sideboard by the apartment’s entrance.]
VOICE OF ELIZABETH [from elsewhere in the apartment]: I’ll be there in a minute, Johnny. Ed, make Johnny at home. I’ll bring the drinks.
[FERRIS walks over to the train table and looks at the trains briefly.]
BAILEY: Er . . . Sit down over here. [He gestures to two chairs in a corner of the room.]
FERRIS: Thank you. [They sit down.]
BAILEY: I understand from Elizabeth you’re a foreign newspaper correspondent.
FERRIS: Yes, yes. And I understand you’re a doctor.
BAILEY: Yes. Must be interesting work, traveling and talking to foreign people.
FERRIS [nods toward BILLY, who has returned to his trains]: That’s a fine-looking boy you have there.
BAILEY: Yes, we think so. What would you like to drink? Bourbon? Martini?
FERRIS: Bourbon’d be fine.
BAILEY: I’ll just bring in the tray.
[As BAILEY goes to get the drinks FERRIS goes over to BILLY.]
BILLY [singing]:
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
Oh show me a woman a man can trust!
FERRIS: I know a little boy in Paris about your age.
BILLY [playing with his trains]: What’s his name?
FERRIS: Well, I call him Butch. But you really look like one. You have any idea what you’re going to be when you grow up?
BILLY: I’m going to be an atom-bomb scientist! [He makes a sound like an explosion.]
FERRIS: That’s a fine-looking train with tracks.
BILLY: Yeah, I got it for my birthday. [Sings:]
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
Oh show me a woman a man can trust!
[BAILEY returns with the tray.]
BAILEY: Billy, where in the world do you pick up those awful songs?
FERRIS: I like to hear him sing. I was telling Billy I know a little boy in Paris. He draws pictures but he never sings.
BAILEY [pouring FERRIS his bourbon]: Say when.
FERRIS: You can’t get good bourbon in France, only at chichi bars.
[They sit with their drinks.]
BAILEY: Must be pretty dry upstate?
FERRIS: I beg your pardon?
BAILEY: I understand you’re from, used to live in Centerville, New York.
FERRIS: Dry? Er, no, as a matter of fact it was raining when I left.
BAILEY: I was reading in the papers the farmers were worried.
FERRIS: Yes, I guess they were having a drought. Fine bourbon.
BAILEY [calling out]: Elizabeth, what are you doing?
ELIZABETH [from elsewhere in the apartment]: I’m just putting Suzy to bed. You boys make yourselves at home.
BAILEY: I guess you drink all sorts of wonderful wines over there. Rosé, for instance?
FERRIS: Were you ever in France?
BAILEY: Just once, for the summer, when I was a kid. [A pause.] Does it seem awfully hot in here for you? [He walks over to the radiator.] Darn pipes, the pressure is up too high.
FERRIS: I’d forgotten. My room in Paris is always freezing cold in winter.
BAILEY [returns and sits back down]: They always keep these New York apartments so overheated. Kids keep catching cold.
FERRIS: Yes, I guess they would.
[ELIZABETH enters.]
ELIZABETH: Hello, Johnny. You’ve met everyone. [She shakes his hand and gives him a tender kiss on the cheek.] It’s time you met the family.
BAILEY: So how’s my old Candy?
ELIZABETH: She’s asleep, thank heaven.
FERRIS: You’ve haven’t changed a bit, Elizabeth. And it’s been so long.
ELIZABETH: Eight years. [Taking him by the arm, she leads him across the living room to the sofa.]
FERRIS: Everything seems changed in New York. I couldn’t find anybody, only Ted Parker, and he’s so old.
ELIZABETH: You’re gonna stay abroad forever, Johnny? You’re not going to be an expatriate, are you?
FERRIS: “Expatriate”— I don’t know as I like the word.
ELIZABETH: What’s a better word?
FERRIS: “Sojourner” might do.
ELIZABETH: What brings you back here, Johnny?
FERRIS: I didn’t have time to tell you, Elizabeth. Papa died last week.
ELIZABETH: Papa Ferris!
FERRIS: Yes. He was trimming the rose bushes and it suddenly happened.
ELIZABETH: Oh, I’m so sorry, John. Papa Ferris was always one of my favorite people. I can’t think of him dead.
[BILLY enters the frame.]
BILLY: Who’s dead?
ELIZABETH: Mr. Ferris’s father, Billy. Somebody you didn’t know.
BILLY: Why do you call him Papa Ferris?
BAILEY [drawing BILLY to him]: A long time ago your mother and Mr. Ferris were once married.
FERRIS: Before you were born. A long time ago.
BILLY: Mr. Ferris and Mama?
BAILEY [next lines partly spoken over one another]: It’s somebody’s suppertime.
BILLY: But Daddy! Mama and Mr. Ferris—
BAILEY: Away you go! Quick march! Oh, say good night, son.
BILLY: Good night, Mr. Ferris. Bring fudge next time!
[BAILEY leads BILLY away, leaving FERRIS and ELIZABETH alone.]
FERRIS: Do you still play?
ELIZABETH: Still enjoy it.
FERRIS: Please play, Elizabeth.
[ELIZABETH goes to the piano and begins to play, the music becoming the backdrop for his voice-over.]
FERRIS (VOICE-OVER): The invisible wall. Who spoke of it? Mother. Why did I c
ome here? What have I to do with these Baileys? I feel like an interloper. The invisible wall that separates happy families from outsiders—the dangerous, the unhappy, the alone. In this family room my own life seems so solitary—a single column supporting nothing amidst the wreckage of the years.
[ELIZABETH finishes playing.]
FERRIS: I’m going to get married soon. A French girl—a singer. She . . . I met her in Paris last fall. She has a little boy.
ELIZABETH: Oh, Butch.
FERRIS: Yes, Butch.
ELIZABETH: Oh, now I see. Well, congratulations, John.
FERRIS: He’s six years old.
ELIZABETH: You’re troubled about that boy, aren’t you, John?
FERRIS: Yes. At first I thought he was a nuisance. At first I didn’t like him. But I’ve thought so much about him this last week. He’s a bright kid, he’s the sort of kid that grows on you.
ELIZABETH: Children have a way of doing that.
FERRIS: At first I thought Valentin was affected—even his name sounded prissy. He doesn’t even look like any kid I’ve ever seen. In some ways he’s so—almost sophisticated. In other ways he’s such a baby.
ELIZABETH: You’re settling down, Johnny. You were always so restless.
FERRIS: Restless? It’s a curious thing, Elizabeth, but that boy of Jeannine’s is beginning to reach me.
ELIZABETH: You need a child more than anyone I know, Johnny.
FERRIS: He’s been after me to take him to the park, to the puppet shows, to the . . . sail his boats in the pond. This last week I’ve thought of so many things I’ve wanted to do with Valentin, will do when I . . . if I’m able. It’s as if we were both alike, as if we were both . . . outsiders.
[BAILEY and BILLY enter with a birthday cake topped with a single candle and sing “Happy Birthday,” with ELIZABETH joining in.]
ELIZABETH: Happy birthday, Johnny.
FERRIS: How in the world did you remember?
ELIZABETH: Twentieth of November. I suddenly remembered this afternoon. How old, Johnny? Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?
FERRIS: Forty. Forty, Elizabeth. [Blows out candle on cake.]
*
[Onscreen, an airplane flying.]
FERRIS (VOICE-OVER): Forty years old—one half of a lifetime, or is it two-thirds or three-fourths? Old enough for responsibility. For love that grows. For a child.
*
[JEANNINE’s apartment at night. VALENTIN is seated, drawing, when FERRIS comes in.]
FERRIS: Hello. You ought to be in bed. But I’m glad you’re not.
VALENTIN: I’m waiting for Mama to come home. I’m sad.
FERRIS: What are you sad about?
VALENTIN: Because I ought to be in bed. How is your dead papa in America? Is he okay?
FERRIS: Yes, son, he’s okay.
VALENTIN: Why do you call me “son”?
FERRIS: Because you’re going to be my son. What’s that you’re drawing?
VALENTIN: The Club de Paris. That is the orchestra, and this is Mama singing her numbers.
FERRIS: What’s that scratchy-looking thing?
VALENTIN: The music and the smoke.
FERRIS: Oh sure, sure, the music and smoke. In New York I saw my wife-that-used-to-be. I went to her apartment. She has a little boy. He’s not as old as you are but he’s bigger.
VALENTIN: Is it better to be older or bigger?
FERRIS: My wife-that-used-to-be is beautiful—she’s almost as beautiful as your Mama. In some ways, well . . . she’s beautiful. [Pause.] I met her husband and her son and I felt strange. It was my birthday and they surprised me with a birthday cake, with one candle.
VALENTIN: Tell me about the little son.
FERRIS: Well, he’s . . . His name is Billy, and he has a beautiful train with tracks. But best of all, he has a family. A mother and a father and a little sister, and he’s a family-loved child.
VALENTIN: How many cars did he have in his train?
FERRIS: Well, I can’t remember. But when you’re eight years old you’re going to have a B.B. gun, and when you’re twelve you’re going to have a shotgun, and we can go hunting in the autumn dawn.
VALENTIN: I’d rather have a train with tracks. [He reaches his hand to FERRIS’s forehead.] Why is your heart beating in your forehead where you don’t have much hair?
FERRIS: Too many birthdays, son, I suppose. I told Elizabeth that I was going to marry your mother. How’d you like that? Then you would be my little boy.
VALENTIN: Will I be bigger then?
FERRIS: We’ll both be bigger. You know, I love you. You know I love you.
VALENTIN: Sometimes I know it. Especially now.
FERRIS: We’ll go to America and I’ll get a job in New York and Mama can stay at home with you.
VALENTIN: Why is your heart beating in your forehead?
FERRIS: You’ll have a family, and you’ll be a family-loved child. And there’ll be around us the invisible walls that separate families from all others—the dangerous, the unhappy, the alone. And we’ll no longer be lonely sojourners, and we’ll share that mysterious secret between father and son. [He has been sitting next to VALENTIN, but now he draws the boy across his lap.] I know I’ve been talking grown-up talk to you, but I did want you to know—I saw my dead papa in New York, and he was okay. And I was remembering how it was when I was a little boy. Do you know what it’s like to tiptoe softly down stairs with your father when it’s dark outside, and the rooms are creepy and the dawn is red on the windows and you’re sharing a mysterious secret?
VALENTIN: I don’t walk down stairs. I ride in the lift.
FERRIS: Well, my father and I used to walk down stairs, ever so quietly so as not to disturb my mother. And I was a little boy then and my father loved me, and there was between us a secret that no one could name. Do you know what that secret is?
VALENTIN: What?
FERRIS: It’s the secret of love. And it’s the secret of time, too, because I’ve just now begun to understand that love and a family are the only things that can dominate the pulse of time. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the puppet show.
VALENTIN: Mr. Ferris, it’s too late. The puppet show is now closed.
FERRIS: It is?
VALENTIN: But it comes again next spring.
*
HOST ALISTAIR COOKE: That was “The Sojourner” by Carson McCullers with David Wayne.
CHRONOLOGY
NOTE ON THE TEXTS
NOTES
Chronology
1917
Born Lula Carson Smith on February 19, in Columbus, Georgia, first child of Vera Marguerite (“Bebe”) Waters and Lamar Smith. (Lamar Smith, b. 1889 in Tuskegee, Alabama, of French Huguenot and British descent, was a watch repairman who met Marguerite Waters, b. 1890 in Dublin, Georgia, of Irish descent, in 1915 when both were employed by Schomburg Jewelers of Columbus; they were married in February 1916. After the wedding they moved into the home of Marguerite’s widowed mother, and not long afterward Lamar Smith opened his own jewelry store.)
1919
Brother Lamar Jr. born May 13.
1921
Begins kindergarten in September at Sixteenth Street School in Columbus.
1922
Sister Margarita Gachet born August 2.
1923
Begins first grade in February. Maternal grandmother and namesake, Lula Caroline Carson Waters, dies of pernicious anemia in November.
1925
After completion of viaduct over railyards spurs development east of downtown Columbus, family moves to rented house at 2417 Wynnton Road. Lula Carson transfers to third grade at Wynnton School in September.
1926
Moves with family to new home at 1519 Starke Avenue. Studies piano with Alice Kierce, and shows signs of musical ability; strongly encouraged by mother in artistic pursuits. Baptized at First Baptist Church of Columbus in May (attends church and Sunday school regularly until 1931). Reads voraciously from early age.
1930
Enters eighth grade at Columbus High School in February. Visits uncle, Elam Waters, in Cincinnati during July. Drops Lula from name. Ends music lessons with Alice Kierce, and in October begins four years of piano study with Mary Tucker, wife of army colonel recently transferred to nearby Fort Benning.
1932
Ill for several weeks during winter with rheumatic fever (misdiagnosed and untreated). Tells friend Helen Jackson of her decision to give up plans for career as concert pianist and to become a writer.
1933
Graduates from high school in June. Reads Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gogol; deeply affected by autobiography of Isadora Duncan. Writes story “Sucker,” the first of her imaginative writings she shows to her parents; father responds by buying her a new typewriter. Reads Joyce, Faulkner, and Eugene O’Neill.
1934
Through Mary Tucker, meets Edwin Peacock in spring; he becomes close friend with whom she shares literary and musical interests. Upset when Tucker, to whom she has become strongly attached, informs her that the Tucker family will move to Fort Howard, Maryland, in June. Travels by boat in September from Savannah to New York. Money her family has given her for support and study is lost under circumstances never precisely clarified. Works at odd jobs to support herself. Lives at the Parnassus Club and later the Three Arts Club, residences for young women on the Upper West Side.
1935
Studies fiction writing with Dorothy Scarborough and Helen Rose Hull at Columbia University, February–June. Returns to Columbus by bus in June. Through Edwin Peacock, meets James Reeves McCullers Jr. (b. 1913 in Wetumpka, Alabama), soldier stationed at Fort Benning, who has just signed on for a second three-year enlistment. Carson and Reeves soon form close attachment. (In her unfinished autobiography she later recalls: “I was eighteen years old, and this was my first love. . . . I never recognized the lost quality of Reeves McCullers until it was much too late to save him or myself.”) Works as reporter for Columbus Ledger during August. Returns to New York in September; studies fiction writing for two semesters with Sylvia Chatfield Bates at Washington Square College of New York University.
1936
Visits Columbus in June. Studies fiction writing with Whit Burnett (editor of Story) at Columbia; joined there by Reeves, who has purchased discharge from the army with small inheritance and come to New York to study journalism and anthropology at Columbia. Carson becomes seriously ill in November, and is taken home to Georgia by Reeves. While bedridden, begins story “The Mute” (later The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter). First published story, “Wunderkind,” appears in Story in December.
Carson McCullers Page 61
