In America (51 page)

Stands again.
] It's late, does this feel like an anticlimax? It is nearly midnight.
What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by,
as King Dick says when the ghosts come after him at Bosworth Field. I don't feel like letting you go, Marina.
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow!…
but an American has never heard them. You must have heard chimes at midnight, Marina, back in Poland. We don't have chimes at midnight in America. I would like to go through one day, one day, when I do not think of a line of Shakespeare! Time for one last, anticlimactic drink. [
Pours out more whiskey.
] It's not true that Shakespeare's lines are always tumbling about in my head. Days go by in which I think of nothing when I'm not speaking, reciting. I drink. I sleep. I pace. I look moody. Give me your hand, Marina. No, I have a better idea. Close your eyes, Marina. Don't be afraid. And presto change-o! abracadabra! and other mountebank cries and gibberings. Open your eyes. Here's the skull! [
Flourishes it.
] My Yorick-skull. This is no ordinary wretch's skull, Marina, dug up from a potter's field and sold to a theatre. This is the skull of a criminal. I even know his name. Philo Perkins. Hanged for stealing a horse. No mercy for him dropping like the gentle rain and so forth. Now when the poor fellow mounted the scaffold and was asked for his last request, what was it? Why, that afterward, his head being likely to be almost wrenched away from his neck, would they please sever it, and peel it nice and clean, and send the skull as a gift, with his compliments, its use would be obvious, to the great tragedian Junius Brutus Booth. Yes, the horse thief was an ardent theatregoer. A particular admirer of Father, whom he went to see perform whenever he could. And so his executioners gallantly fulfilled his request, and this grey woody
thing
was Father's Yorick-skull for many years, and then passed to me. And people say Americans don't really care about serious theatre! Well, well, well … [
Places the skull in the center of the rug. Stands back to gaze at it.
] Am I suffering? I hear people whispering behind my back. Poor Edwin Booth. Poor Edwin Booth. And I don't want to disappoint them. So I do suffer. It's my role. A lifetime of looking moody, tormented, harrowed by grief. I'd be the worst of monsters if I were not suffering. But I wouldn't mind being the worst of monsters. Mary's death. Johnny's … death. Maybe I did not suffer at all. I only became very thin, like a page in a book. If you can say ‘I am suffering,' you are not really suffering, Marina. You are an actor. [
Places a lamp on the rug beside the skull.
] Sometimes I think I am simply becoming my father. That all those processes which are making me more and more like my father are gathering strength, gathering speed, rushing to the edge, like a waterfall, and then they will throw me over into the murk and dark water, and I shall drown in his madness. Except that I shall die first. I'll make sure of that. Even if the Everlasting
has
fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter … I'm acting, Marina. You must have noticed. Naughty Ned. Hardly means a word he says. I shall not kill myself. I'm too afraid. Father was alone when he died, completely alone. I was already nineteen. He had left me in San Francisco. In New Orleans he boarded a Mississippi riverboat bound for Cincinnati; on the fifth day out, he fell over, like this. [
Collapses on the floor.
] No, don't help me up. I have lost the level run of time and events, and am living in a mist. I am told I am better than I ever was. That can't be true. Eh, Philo? [
Stands with difficulty.
] But we were quite good tonight, I think. And you consented to come back to the club with me. I can invite a respectable woman back to my quarters because I live in an actors' club. But it is my house, as you know, and you are in my private apartment. May I touch your face? I will touch your face, whether you like it or not. I see you do like it. You're damned attractive, Marina. [
Hiccups.
] I told you that I am no Romeo. [
More hiccups.
] There is just so much suffering you can endure, and then it is time for the comedy of desire. Or not.
Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?
Sometimes I wish I had given as much time to learning the names of the constellations as I have to committing to memory the Bard's great roles. When you are falling into the dark, Marina, it becomes hard to imagine that, after you are gone, the light will still exist. Yes, once we understand, really understand, that we are going to die, astronomy is the only consolation. Look at the celestial theatre, Marina. [
Throws open the window.
] Let's be cold. It's snowing. You shall want to be back at the Clarendon soon. Look at the stars, Marina. And the trees, and the lights going up the avenue. Are you cold? Do you need someone to warm you? Come into the bedroom, Marina. I shall show you a secret. I keep a framed picture of Johnny beside my bed. You can come into the bed with me. Perhaps I am not too drunk to make love to you. [
Maryna stands.
] Yes, lean on me. No, damn it, I shall lean on you. Wait, wait. How do I know so much about you, you may wonder. Why, I've
acted
with you, woman. I've seen how you pretend. Nothing more revealing than that. You are as naked to me as if you were my bride. And I am your husband in art. Your elderly husband. Your decrepit, demented husband. Your squat, thin-lipped, lank-haired, mad—”

“That's enough, Edwin,” she said. “Dear Edwin.”

“Ah, a woman's mercy. Quite undeserved. Most gratefully accepted. A woman's generous, well-meant, incomprehending call to surcease.”

“Stop, Edwin.”

“I shall. Actually, there's a bit of business that I'd like to go over now, if you wouldn't mind. It's after you enter, and Portia says to me … I mean, it's that moment when Shylock says, to you, to Portia … I mean, Marina, I think we can improve the moment. Maybe, I'm not sure, you
can
touch me. I'm not entirely averse to a new piece of business here. I am not so pledged to tradition. And I have an absolute loathing of empty repetition. But I hate improvisation. An actor can't just
make it up.
Shall we promise each other, here and now, always to tell first when we're going to do something new? We have a long tour ahead of us.”

By Susan Sontag

Fiction

THE BENEFACTOR

DEATH KIT

I, ETCETERA

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

THE VOLCANO LOVER

Essays

AGAINST INTERPRETATION

STYLES OF RADICAL WILL

ON PHOTOGRAPHY

ILLNESS AS METAPHOR

UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN

AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS

Filmscripts

DUET FOR CANNIBALS

BROTHER CARL

Play

ALICE IN BED

 

A SUSAN SONTAG READER

Additional Praise for Susan Sontag's
In America

“Sure-footed and wonderfully daring.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“Like its brilliant essayist author, this ‘novel' defies every convention of storytelling.… Most original and innovative.”

—
The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Cerebral … buoyant, joyful, and funny.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

“Sontag weaves an expansive broad narrative cloth here, keeping us under her spell until the very last word.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“Sontag uses dense, elegant language, inventive dialogue, impassioned monologue, and diary entries to lure the reader more deeply into the fascinating historical journey of a powerful actress.… Sontag triumphs once again with her gift for turning history into riveting fiction.”

—
Library Journal

“A fascinating exploration of what's real in a culture that preaches authenticity but worships artificiality.”

—
Christian Science Monitor

“A powerful story of a woman transcending herself … Mesmerizing.”

—
Palo Alto Daily News
(California)

“[
In America
] showcases Sontag's gift for cultural commentary and her eye for sumptuous detail.”

—
Rocky Mountain News

“Sontag crafts a novel of ideas in which real figures from the past enact their lives against an assiduously researched, almost cinematically vivid background.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

IN AMERICA.
Copyright © 2000 by Susan Sontag. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A signed first edition of this book was privately printed by The Franklin Library.

eISBN 9781429954303

First eBook edition: January 2014