by Jesse Ball
* * *
Come, now, incline your chair at this angle, please. I drew my chair over. Your arm, now. He tied the rubber cord around my bicep. He drew the liquid into the needle, and set the needle against my arm. I waited to feel it, waited, but I didn’t feel it go in. We’re done, said the interlocutor. He unbound the rubber cord, and helped me to my feet. Two men, orderlies, came in the room. I was dizzy. He nodded to them, and they helped me along, one on each side. We went out into the hall, ponderously through the doorway. My feet were under me and it felt strange. I felt that I was standing on the sides of my feet. I could feel my weight in my ankles, but nowhere else. I had been sitting so long, and now I was standing, standing outside of the office. The corridor was long. It seemed to go on endlessly, and where it went, the end was invisible. It was completely dark at the end. Back the other way, where I had come from, was there light? Where the building entrance was, there must be light. I couldn’t remember anymore which direction was which. The way we were going, I could make out nothing. The orderlies must know the way, I thought. They walked surely, surefootedly, one on each side, supporting me, their powerful hands gripping me, holding me up as we walked, on down the hallway, on and on, on and on, into the darkness.
the
train
was
traveling
THE TRAIN WAS TRAVELING on a line of track stretched like black thread through the waste. It rattled and rode the line uneasily, its wheels crying out now and then as if goaded. The train was mostly empty.
Examiner 2387 looked in the windows of the compartments as she passed through the train cars one after another. One empty compartment after another. Almost no one here at all. But, her instructions had said…
She carried a neat leather bag, bright yellow, and her hair was wrapped in a scarf. Her hands were covered in thin gloves, the color of sand. Her shoes matched, and her stockings were a pale blue. She was like a blot of color set into monochrome film.
One compartment, another compartment, another. Another car, another compartment, another. A porter stood watching her. He looked her up and down, and smiled slightly. She did not smile, but looked him carefully in the face.
He pointed down the narrow passageway—further on. When she got to the door indicated she glanced back. He nodded. She peered through the glass. She rapped on the door and someone within called out.
THE WORDS TOOK SHAPE as the compartment door swung in:
What was it the older woman was saying? She said,
—Why, Hilda, Hilda. How nice to see you.
Or,
—Why, Hilda, I hope you are well.
The train rattled so, it is hard to say which it was.
The younger woman answered,
—Yes, Emma, yes. I,
Examiner 2387 sat down opposite the older examiner, whose number she did not recall.
—I, they told me you asked for me. I want to thank you for that.
—I will call you Hilda, said the examiner. You may call me Emma Moran, as you did. The names for this next town are different, but we will get to that.
They sat looking at one another, the younger patiently waiting for the older to continue, the older looking curiously at the younger as if to see who it was that sat there, right there, in the seat across from her.
—Hilda, she said. Do me a favor. Please give me the dialogue from outside the house, the night you left.
HILDA CLOSED HER EYES for a moment. She straightened her shoulders, turned her head slightly to one side.
—Martin! I look very different, don’t I? I can see it in your eyes. You thought that the person you were going to meet was just like Hilda, the Hilda you knew. And then here there is this other person standing on the street looking at you. She snuck out of her house at night to come and see you and you don’t know why. Now you don’t even know who this person is, but you can’t stop looking at her.
Hilda shook her head,
—No, no, that was the first time we met alone. Sorry, getting jumbled.
She thought for a second.
Emma watched her, smiling slightly.
—Okay, okay. Here goes.
—They took me away, they took me away, darling. Oh. I waited for you and waited for you, and you never came, and then I went back to the house, and Martin was there, and he was angry—he was so angry…
She shifted her voice.
—And then he said,
She spoke with a slightly deeper register, in a voice rather like the claimant’s.
—Took you away? Who?
—Then, I said,
—I woke up in the back of some kind of closed truck. They were moving the bed that I was in. I was lying there, and we were stopped for some reason. I jumped out the back and hid, and the truck drove on without me.
—Then he asked me how I found my way back, and I said,
—There isn’t anything out there. Just a road. It’s just a road. I went the opposite direction the truck was going. As you approach the town, the waste turns slowly green. There are trees and grass, and then the town begins. I can show you. I don’t know if there’s time.
The older examiner laughed loudly and clapped.
—Just right, just right. Your performance in Case 42395D was indeed marvelous. It was perfect. I was very moved by it, and I can tell you that it was completely convincing. Do you know where I am coming from? I am returning from the board at which I presented the case. The fluency of your Hilda role was, well, as I said, marvelous. There were some there who interpreted this sudden excellence one way. They believe it is the flowering of a talent. You came to us, as you may remember, as a claimant, and one day, became an examiner-elect. Now, on the success of this role, you may continue on. I congratulate you. I did not tell the panel, however, what it is that I really think. Why? Because it is a thing that is for you, for your ears alone.
The train rattled and shook as they crossed pilings that supported the way over a series of small streams. They were entering a sort of marshland. Nothing but quiet in the compartment, and beyond the window, the train’s heaving bustle, and the noise of insects and wind. A bird cried out from the twisted bracken, and its call pierced Hilda. She moved in her seat.
—Emma, what do you mean?
The older examiner spoke as if out of a long sleep.
—We were there together, I was with you, we two examiners, dealing with a man in dire difficulty. It seems to me possible that you acted, that you were an actress, in this case, that the man called then Martin Rueger, was nothing to you. It is possible, of course it is. In fact, just that, that alone was your job. But it is not what I believe.
She ran her finger along the wooden molding of the window.
—Some people forget, do you know—they forget what it is like to be young, to feel things ruthlessly, terribly. If you forget that much of life, well, I don’t know.
She turned toward the younger woman and took her hand. She seemed to be weighing something. A minute passed, then another. The noise of someone in the passage coming closer, then going away, past, away.
—What is it you think?
—I believe, Hilda, you fell into the role so thoroughly because indeed you did love him. I believe that you really wanted to help him escape, despite your position, despite your role as an examiner in his case, despite all. There is something in you, Hilda, that wants to rise up and ruin the world. You are the sort, I think, who, when pouring water into a glass, will let the pitcher overflow the glass, will pour it all out onto the table, if no one has the sense to say, enough, enough, Hilda. If no one says anything, a person like you will just pour the pitcher out. This is my feeling.
They sat quietly a moment.
—I do not mean it as a criticism, she continued. Not at all. Indeed, in some aspects, I also am this way. Yet, it does, if true, present us with an interesting situation. It is for this reason that I asked for you, that I called you back to this case, the case of Martin Rueger. I have just moved him to ano
ther town. He has a new identity, that of Henry Caul. He is settling, finally. Soon, he will finally be settled. I wonder, examiner 2387 who masquerades so well as a Hilda, I wonder—do you want to join him?
The young woman raised an eyebrow.
The examiner coughed.
—I suppose it is in some way disingenuous of me to ask in that way. Of course, you have been given the task. You have your orders. You’re on this train heading to the village. You will do it. But, there are two ways in which it might be done. That is the essence of the offer I make to you. Two ways.
—I can tell you about it. I can tell you what it was like for me, and,
—Please don’t speak, said the old woman. I will know it all by your choice. Be patient. The world isn’t the place we are told to live in. It is another place entirely. We have both more choice, and less, than we are supposed to have. I will tell you a story about a play I once saw. Perhaps it will make things clear.
THE PLAY I ONCE SAW; OR, THE ONION KNIFE
Once, I saw a play in a city that no longer stands. This was the city of my birth. It was entirely demolished in the war. Every last brick of every last building was actually made to vanish by a single bomb. There is a sort of crater there now. I’m not joking. There is a kind of viewing platform, a boardwalk of sorts. You take the train to a little hotel town—a set of hotels that are perched where the boardwalk begins. Then, you go off down this wooden pier, out over the crater. The boardwalk extends all the way to the very center. It is far—maybe six or seven hours’ walk, so most people ride bicycles. At the very center there is a little shop that serves drinks and sandwiches. You can sit and look down into the crater. There isn’t anything to be seen there at all of what was. The city itself is clearly gone. In fact, when I went, I had a feeling similar to when I saw the Grand Canyon. I thought, my, how the world can be. This destruction was so bloodless it has come to feel like one of the great works of man. Of course, thirteen million people died beneath that bomb.
In any case, I lived in that city, and on one of the old streets that ran down by the courthouse, there was a theater, the Chamber Pot. I used to go there to see plays. I was a young woman, quite your age, actually, and I enjoyed seeing plays. I felt that there was in them the power to change the world. In such a mood, I went with a young man to see The Onion Knife, a new play.
The theater was very small. There were three rows of seats—maybe twenty could sit there. Then there was a small stage, about the size of a parlor. The actors took the money through the front door of the theater—there was an aperture, and gave you pieces of paper with a word on it. Each word matched a word on a sheet they had inside—and could be used once, so you couldn’t cheat and just write the word on other sheets to get more people in. Also, you wouldn’t want to. It cost almost nothing.
We had brought some cognac with us in a little metal flask and we got seats on the end of the first row. I had a fur coat then, and I was very proud of it. Often, I wouldn’t take it off. I would wear it under inconceivable conditions, just in order to be seen. I had gotten the coat at a very low price in a store because there was a hole in it where someone had been shot. Apparently this thrift store would get clothing from the police ministry—evidence clothing that was no longer necessary. Yes, someone had been shot in my fur coat, but I wore it anyway. That’s the sort of girl I was.
The lights dim. A man comes out in front of the screen that protects the stage from view. He is wearing a shirt and vest and wool trousers. He holds up a card that says, Cecil. Then he very deliberately moves the screen out of the way, revealing a small kitchen and a kitchen table. At the kitchen table sits a young woman. She is holding a sign that says, Lily. A buzzer goes off and both signs drop to the floor.
CECIL
When your husband returns, I swear I will…
LILY
He is not going to return.
She holds up a letter.
He says he has found a new life in Perugina. He will stay there forever.
Lily and Cecil dance happily all around the room. Someone plays the fiddle offstage.
CECIL
Then I shall make you my wife, and we will live happily forever.
LILY
But…
CECIL
But, what.
LILY
But, there is still the matter of the onion knife.
The two part and stand some feet away from one another.
CECIL
Oh, the damned onion knife. The onion knife. Why do you have to harp on it? Haven’t I given you enough things? Haven’t I done enough for you? And all it is with you is—the onion knife, the onion knife. You’re like a drooling madperson in an asylum, sitting by a freezing windowpane on a March morning, pressing the side of your face to the glass and muttering, onion knife, onion knife, onion knife.
LILY
You lost the onion knife. I told you, never touch the onion knife and then you went and lost it.
CECIL
I brought it to work with me. You gave me a lunch that day: a little piece of cheese, an old piece of bread, and a very small onion. I noticed that there was an onion in my lunch. I brought the onion knife with me.
LILY
And you did not bring it back.
LIGHTS
A Third Person Who Has Not Been Seen, Appears On Stage With A Piece of Paper That Says:
IT IS THE NEXT DAY
Lily comes in the front entrance of the theater. She makes her way over to the screen that again hides the set. She takes out a piece of paper and hammers it into the screen with a long nail. She goes further down and does it again and again. The paper cannot be read by the audience. She goes behind the screen.
Five minutes pass.
The front entrance of the theater opens. Cecil enters. He goes onto the stage and walks along the screen, stops. He peers at the paper in horror. He tears it down. He runs along tearing all the papers down. He turns to the audience. Tears are on his face. He composes himself and carefully removes the screen to reveal the kitchen again. Lily is sitting at the kitchen table, happily reading.
CECIL
Lily? Are you out of your mind?
Cecil runs to her, waving the paper.
LILY
No more than you.
CECIL
(almost weeping, reads from the paper)
Lily Caldwin has lost her onion knife. It has a serif G inset in the handle. It is worn but extremely sharp. Please return it to 3 Welton Rd. for a reward. That reward is: Lily Caldwin will lie down with you.
LILY
I think the onion knife will reappear pretty soon, don’t you?
CECIL
Lily? How could you? You won’t do it, will you?
LILY
Find the knife.
CECIL
I love you, Lily. You can’t do this. I lost the knife, but it shouldn’t be such a…
LILY
Find it.
A Third Person Who Has Not Been Seen, Appears On Stage With A Piece of Paper That Says:
IT IS THE NEXT DAY; CECIL DID NOT WANT TO GO OFF TO WORK BUT HAD TO; LILY IS THERE ALONE
A knock on the front door of the theater, another knock, another knock.
LILY
(from behind the screen)
Can someone get the door?
An audience member rises and gets the door. At the door is an older man, perhaps fifty, slightly fat. He enters, somewhat apologetically, looking at the crowd. He clearly sees the crowd, and bows to them. He is carrying an onion knife, which he holds up as if in explanation. He goes up on stage and knocks at the screen.
LILY
Come in.
The man moves the screen aside to reveal the set of the kitchen. The kitchen table has been pushed to one side, and there is a mattress laid out on the floor. The audience sits immediately before the stage, so the mattress is immediately before their eyes. Lily is lying on the mattress. She stands up.
Do you have the onion knife?<
br />
The man presents her with the onion knife. She leaps with glee. She runs about, back and forth, happily. She throws her arms around the man suddenly and then runs away again to put the onion knife into a wooden block that hangs from one wall. She admires it there.
MAN
There was the matter of…
LILY
Oh, yes.
She comes around to the front of the stage and helps the man off with his coat, which she places on the table. She helps him off with his vest and with his shirt. He sits down on the mattress. She removes his left shoe and right shoe. She removes his socks and his pants. She puts all these things on the table and then she comes to the front of the stage.
