by Susan Sontag
ALICE
What have you got against Emily, Margaret. (To EMILY) You don’t mind if I ask Margaret to say what she means.
EMILY
No.
ALICE
Be blunt.
MARGARET
I always am. But now I wonder—
ALICE
No please.
EMILY
Yes.
MARGARET
(After a pause) You’re not I think giving life a chance.
ALICE
Because I invited Emily.
EMILY
One can’t think about death steadily any more than one can stare at the sun. I think about it slant.
MARGARET
You like that tone don’t you.
ALICE
(To MARGARET) I suppose I do. (To EMILY) I think your interest in death is more interesting than mine.
MARGARET
I thought we were here to talk about life.
EMILY
Death is the lining. The lines.
ALICE
I remember when my mother died—
(MOTHER enters; all in white. White full coat, carries white umbrella, wears white gloves.)
Oh my god. I didn’t invite her. I never invited her.
(MOTHER moves toward table.)
MARGARET
Alice.
EMILY
Alice.
KUNDRY
(Lifts head, eyes closed) Who called.
ALICE
(Air of terror) She’ll stay and then we can’t talk.
MARGARET
You can talk.
(Moves to stand protectively near ALICE.)
EMILY
You are talking.
ALICE
I’m going to pretend that I don’t mind. Then perhaps she’ll go away.
MOTHER
Oh your poor mother.
(Stands behind chair next to KUNDRY, whose head rests on the table.)
ALICE
(Whispering) It’s my mother. She’s dead too.
MARGARET
You didn’t invite her.
ALICE
(Whispering) Certainly not. (Pauses) Mother.
MOTHER
Oh your poor mother.
ALICE
Sit down Mother. (Whispering, to MARGARET and EMILY) I have to invite her now. It would be rude not to.
MOTHER
I can’t say I’m observing it but I’m not ignoring it either.
MARGARET
(Loud whisper) What’s she talking about.
ALICE
Me. I suppose. (To MOTHER) Sit down please. (To MARGARET and EMILY) You see. I don’t mean anything I say. (Pauses) She was always out of range.
(MOTHER attempts to sit. Crowds KUNDRY, who whimpers, flails about; won’t let her sit.)
KUNDRY
What day is it. What year is it. How dare she.
MARGARET
Couldn’t you just turn it upside down. Throw it down a hole. Tip it sideways. And let all those hard griefs slither away like curds turned out of their dish.
MOTHER
I can’t say I’m walking but I’m not limping either.
(She has stopped trying to wrest a chair from KUNDRY Opens umbrella. Looks up.)
KUNDRY
At this table there’s no room.
MOTHER
I never insisted.
(MOTHER exits.)
KUNDRY
(Eyes still shut) I think Kundry has saved you.
(Rocks back and forth.)
MARGARET
A chastening apparition.
ALICE
I remember when my mother died my youngest brother said that we had all been educated by Father to feel that death was the only reality and that life was simply an experimental thing.
MARGARET
An experiment. An experiment. An experiment.
ALICE
Are you making fun of me.
(MARGARET sighs, shakes her head.)
KUNDRY
(Still rocking) It is hard to save anyone. But that is all we desire.
ALICE
He said, my brother said, that we feel we are more near to her now than ever before, simply because she is already at the goal to which we all cheerfully bend our steps.
EMILY
Cheerfully is a lovely, lethal word.
ALICE
He said, my youngest brother said, after our mother died: “The last two weeks have been the happiest I have known.”
(Looks at MARGARET and EMILY, then starts to laugh.)
Yes it is mad isn’t it. But you see how difficult it was for us. Father had high standards. We were not supposed to be, well, like the others.
MARGARET
Lived. Lived. Lived. Yes I lived, and yes I did not find it so difficult. I went out on the deck. Nothing could have made me renounce standing on the deck, feeling the wind on my face, pushing through my clothes.
EMILY
I’ve never been on a boat.
KUNDRY
(Still rocking) My horse. My legs.
MARGARET
(To EMILY, in a kindly tone) I know this can’t mean much to you. But I think—at least I said, I did say —They have not lived who have not seen Rome.
ALICE
Ah travel.
KUNDRY
(Rocking) The Pope. He can bless, but can he save, but can he damn. No.
EMILY
It’s a question of scale. To me it was an adventure to cross the village lane.
(MYRTHA enters. Long white dress, chiffon veil, baby wings, headband with flowers, etc. A kind of dervish twirling step. Music from Giselle.)
ALICE
Did I invite her. Who is it. It’s not—Ah Myrtha. Come and join us.
(MYRTHA stops.)
What’s wrong.
MYRTHA
I’d rather not lie down.
MARGARET
No one will force you.
ALICE
Do you want to stand.
MYRTHA
Actually I’m not supposed to lie down.
(Resumes twirling.)
In the forest. In the glade. I live in the forest. That’s where the graves are. He brings flowers.
(Stops again.)
What beautiful flowers.
MARGARET
We were talking about unhappiness.
(Sits at the table, opposite KUNDRY.)
MYRTHA
(TO ALICE) I think there is a man who has broken your heart.
ALICE
My father perhaps.
MYRTHA
We could kill him. Then you would have to kill yourself. Beautiful flowers.
(Resumes twirling.)
ALICE
I always thought a man would crush me. He would put a pillow over my face. I wanted a man’s weight on my body. But then I couldn’t move.
(EMILY stands, helps ALICE to stand; MARGARET leaves table to help. Together they bring ALICE to her seat at the table.)
MARGARET
I can understand your not wanting it. Of course you feel pinned down. It’s good. And then you get up afterward.
(M I and M II have entered. M I sets a pot of tea on the table.)
MYRTHA
He can’t atone. You shouldn’t forgive him.
(M I and M II gather up and remove most of the mattresses and the hookahs.)
ALICE
I remember a young man, Julian, he was a music student, a friend of my brother, of Harry I mean. He and Harry were always together. But he liked me. I used to imagine that we could go swimming together. I used to imagine his body.
MYRTHA
Flowers. Revenge.
EMILY
It’s a winsome longing.
MARGARET
My idea is this. Want what you are capable of, and what you are capable of wanting, and be completely clear on the matter, and live according to it.
ALICE
Life is not just a
question of courage.
MARGARET
But it is.
EMILY
(To Alice) I think you are quite brave.
MYRTHA
How can you stand to be inside. In a room.
ALICE
You don’t know the fearful things I see when I close my eyes. I have to die so I don’t see the monstrous things.
MARGARET
I see terrible things when I open my eyes.
MYRTHA
In a room. In a tomb.
KUNDRY
(To ALICE, reaching convulsively across the table) Give me your hand.
ALICE
What do you see?
(Extends her hand. KUNDRY takes it, brings it to her forehead, kisses it, then flings it back.)
KUNDRY
Kundry’s visions are the most terrible. Most terrible. I must be punished. My body wants—but I don’t. It wants, it’s so big, I can’t I don’t want, he wants, he makes me, but I want to, I want to first …
(Starting to fall asleep.)
First I’ll want, if they let me, when I don’t feel …
ALICE
Poor soul.
KUNDRY
(Waking again) Why have I been awakened. I want to sleep.
ALICE
Please don’t become, well … crazed. We mean you no harm. We have the most sisterly respect for your suffering.
MARGARET
However retrograde.
EMILY
I trust that my flowers have the good grace to be seared by our shouts.
KUNDRY
Why did you wake me.
ALICE
I told you.
(KUNDRY stares uncomprehendingly.)
MARGARET
She told you. But there may have been a mistake.
ALICE
Please don’t be angry. You needn’t have come if you really didn’t want to.
EMILY
It wasn’t an order, that’s what she’s saying. But it was a wind.
KUNDRY
Oh, oh.
MARGARET
There’s a mattress. Lie down.
ALICE
Do you want anything to drink or eat. We did not offer before because we thought you preferred—
(KUNDRY is very agitated. MARGARET and EMILY help her lie down on a mattress.)
EMILY
Let her sleep.
MARGARET
Here. Some tea.
(KUNDRY groans, refuses the tea.)
ALICE
I was, we are, wrong to have disturbed her.
KUNDRY
Sleep, sleep …
(She sleeps, or seems to.)
MARGARET
She’ll be of no more use now.
EMILY
Shhhh …
MARGARET
Is this sleep different from when she was at the table. I don’t see why we have to whisper. It’s not I think that she sleeps so soundly.
ALICE
Yes she wakes when she wants to.
MYRTHA
I like being aware.
(Picks up sheaf of flowers and dances with them.)
KUNDRY
(Opening her eyes) There’s an answer. Which is …
(Her eyes start to close; she makes an effort.)
There’s a question.
ALICE
We’ve decided to ask you straight out why you sleep.
KUNDRY
Because my body is heavy. The innocent boy came and I tried to corrupt him. To make him desire me. He did desire me, but more as a mother than as a lover. And, still, he resisted me. So I felt ashamed. I fell down a bottomless well of shame. I’m still falling. How tiring. Oblivion.
MYRTHA
Exact your revenge. Men making women into whores and angels, how can you believe that. Have you no self-respect.
MARGARET
My husband was a boy and, unlike me, an exceedingly delicate person. I felt safe with him. And we had a child. I think he would have proved an excellent father, though he could not speculate about it, or indeed about anything.
EMILY
I stayed home and wrote. My brother fornicated. I was in a room with blue trim. I could see an orchard from my window. He came in, he had a goatee. Death. The frogs were singing. They have such pretty lazy times. How nice to be a frog! When the best is gone I know that other things are not of consequence. The heart wants what it wants or else it does not care.
KUNDRY
I’m still falling. And I am not allowed to the end.
EMILY
One would prefer to look behind at a pain than to see it coming.
KUNDRY
Sleep …
ALICE
Is she sleeping.
EMILY
The day begins whenever it can.
MYRTHA
It’s as if she were drugged. We could make her stand.
(Lifts teapot, as if to douse KUNDRY )
ALICE
Oh be careful.
EMILY
We could comb out the knots in her hair.
MARGARET
She isn’t sleeping, she’s hiding.
(MARGARET and EMILY, after pulling the reluctant MYRTHA down with them, to help, kneel around KUNDRY, arranging her arms, straightening her legs.)
MYRTHA
(To ALICE) Doesn’t she make you want to race about. Not even a little bit.
(Stands. Begins doing warm-up exercises, using the table edge as a barre.)
MARGARET
Yes!
MYRTHA
You see Alice, Margaret and I agree. (Pauses) Come.
(Holds out her hand to ALICE.)
ALICE
(Irritably) I fail to see what Kundry’s preference for the lying position has to do with my own.
MYRTHA
We’re talking about helplessness. We’re invoking revolt.
EMILY
An ill heart, like a body, has its more comfortable days as well as its days of pain.
ALICE
Is this your advice. But that’s what everyone says. They tell me to get up. Get up they say. (Pauses) Or they’ve stopped telling me to get up because they still want me to, but they’ve given up thinking I ever will.
MYRTHA
When we say it it’s different.
ALICE
It’s still the same answer. I’m disappointed.
EMILY
Orders fall, questions rise.
MARGARET
Shall we take a vote.
ALICE
You do make me laugh all of you. I know someone is trying to be logical.
