Requiem for a Nun (21 page)

(indicating Stevens) You went to see the Mayor.

Temple

Oh, God, the mayor. No: the Governor, the Big Man himself, in Jackson. Of course; you knew that as soon as you realised that Mr Gavin wouldn't be here last night to help you sing, didn't you? In fact, the only thing you cant know about it is what the Governor told us. You cant know that yet, no matter how clairvoyant you are, because we—the Governor and Mr Gavin and I—were not even talking about you; the reason I—we had to go and see him was not to beg or plead or bind or loose, but because it would be my right, my duty, my privilege—Dont look at me, Nancy.

Nancy

I'm not looking at you. Besides, it's all right. I know what the Governor told you. Maybe I could have told you last night what he would say, and saved you the trip. Maybe I ought to have—sent you the word as soon as I heard you were back home, and knowed what you and him—

(again she indicates Stevens with that barely discernible movement of her head, her hands still folded across her middle as though she still wore the absent apron)

—both would probably be up to. Only, I didn't. But it's all right—

Temple

Why didn't you? Yes, look at me. This is worse, but the other is terrible.

Nancy

What?

Temple

Why didn't you send me the word?

Nancy

Because that would have been hoping: the hardest thing of all to break, get rid of, let go of, the last thing of all poor sinning man will turn aloose. Maybe it's because that's all he's got. Leastways, he holds onto it, hangs onto it. Even with salvation laying right in his hand, and all he's got to do is, choose between it; even with salvation already in his hand and all he needs is just to shut his fingers, old sin is still too strong for him, and sometimes before he even knows it, he has throwed salvation away just grabbling back at hoping. But it's all right—

Stevens

You mean, when you have salvation, you dont have hope?

Nancy

You dont even need it. All you need, all you have to do, is just believe. So maybe—

Stevens

Believe what?

Nancy

Just believe.—So maybe it's just as well that all I did last night, was just to guess where you all went. But I know now, and I know what the Big Man told you. And it's all right. I finished all that a long time back, that same day in the judge's court. No: before that even: in the nursery that night, before I even lifted my hand—

Temple

(convulsively)

Hush. Hush.

Nancy

All right. I've hushed. Because it's all right. I can get low for Jesus too. I can get low for Him too.

Temple

Hush! Hush! At least, dont blaspheme. But who am I to challenge the language you talk about Him in, when He Himself certainly cant challenge it, since that's the only language He arranged for you to learn?

Nancy

What's wrong with what I said? Jesus is a man too. He's got to be. Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women dont. They dont care what he said. They listens because of what he is.

Temple

Then let Him talk to me. I can get low for Him too, if that's all He wants, demands, asks. I'll do anything He wants if He'll just tell me what to do. No: how to do it. I know what to do, what I must do, what I've got to do. But how? We—I thought that all I would have to do would be to come back and go to the Big Man and tell him that it wasn't you who killed my baby, but I did it eight years ago that day when I slipped out the back door of that train, and that would be all. But we were wrong. Then I—we thought that all it would be was, for me just to come back here and tell you you had to die; to come all the way two thousand miles from California, to sit up all night driving to Jackson and talking for an hour or two and then driving back, to tell you you had to die; not just to bring you the news that you had to die, because any messenger could do that, but just so it could be me that would have to sit up all night and talk for the hour or two hours and then bring you the news back. You know: not to save you, that wasn't really concerned in it: but just for me, just for the suffering and the paying: a little more suffering simply because there was a little more time left for a little more of it, and we might as well use it since we were already paying for it; and that would be all; it would be finished then. But we were wrong again. That was all, only for you. You wouldn't be any worse off if I had never come back from California. You wouldn't even be any worse off. And this time tomorrow, you wont be anything at all. But not me. Because there's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. All you've got to do is, just to die. But let Him tell me what to do. No: that's wrong; I know what to do, what I'm going to do; I found that out that same night in the nursery too. But let Him tell me how. How? Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and still tomorrow. How?

Nancy

Trust in Him.

Temple

Trust in Him. Look what He has already done to me. Which is all right; maybe I deserved it; at least I'm not the one to criticise or dictate to Him. But look what He did to you. Yet you can still say that. Why? Why? Is it because there isn't anything else?

Nancy

I dont know. But you got to trust Him. Maybe that's your pay for the suffering.

Stevens

Whose suffering, and whose pay? Just each one's for his own?

Nancy

Everybody's. All suffering. All poor sinning man's.

Stevens

The salvation of the world is in man's suffering. Is that it?

Nancy

Yes, sir.

Stevens

How?

Nancy

I dont know. Maybe when folks are suffering, they will be too busy to get into devilment, wont have time to worry and meddle one another.

Temple

But why must it be suffering? He's omnipotent, or so they tell us. Why couldn't He have invented something else? Or, if it's got to be suffering, why cant it be just your own? why cant you buy back your own sins with your own agony. Why do you and my little baby both have to suffer just because I decided to go to a baseball game eight years ago? Do you have to suffer everybody else's anguish just to believe in God? What kind of God is it that has to blackmail His customers with the whole world's grief and ruin?

Nancy

He dont want you to suffer. He dont like suffering neither. But He cant help Himself. He's like a man that's got too many mules. All of a sudden one morning, he looks around and sees more mules than he can count at one time even, let alone find work for, and all he knows is that they are his, because at least dont nobody else want to claim them, and that the pasture fence was still holding them last night where they cant harm themselves nor nobody else the least possible. And that when Monday morning comes, he can walk in there and hem some of them up and even catch them if he's careful about not never turning his back on the ones he aint hemmed up. And that, once the gear is on them, they will do his work and do it good, only he's still got to be careful about getting too close to them, or forgetting that another one of them is behind him, even when he is feeding them. Even when it's Saturday noon again, and he is turning them back into the pasture, where even a mule can know it's got until Monday morning anyway to run free in mule sin and mule pleasure.

Stevens

You have got to sin, too?

Nancy

You aint
got
to. You cant help it. And He knows that. But you can suffer. And He knows that too. He dont tell you not to sin, He just asks you not to. And He dont tell you to suffer. But He gives you the chance, He gives you the best He can think of, that you are capable of doing. And He will save you.

Stevens

You too? A murderess? In heaven?

Nancy

I can work.

Stevens

The harp, the raiment, the singing, may not be for Nancy Mannigoe—not now. But there's still the work to be done—the washing and sweeping, maybe even the children to be tended and fed and kept from hurt and harm and out from under the grown folks' feet?

(he pauses a moment. Nancy says nothing, immobile, looking at no one)

Maybe even that baby?

(Nancy doesn't move, stir, not looking at anything apparently, her face still, bemused, expressionless)

That one too, Nancy? Because you loved that baby, even at the very moment when you raised your hand against it, knew that there was nothing left but to raise your hand?

(Nancy doesn't answer nor stir)

A heaven where that little child will remember nothing of your hands but gentleness because now this earth will have been nothing but a dream that didn't matter? Is that it?

Temple

Or maybe not that baby, not mine, because, since I destroyed mine myself when I slipped out the back end of that train that day eight years ago, I will need about all the forgiving and forgetting that one six-months-old baby is capable of. But the other one: yours: that you told me about, that you were carrying six months gone, and you went to the picnic or dance or frolic or fight or whatever it was, and the man kicked you in the stomach and you lost it? That one too?

Stevens

(to Nancy)

What? Its father kicked you in the stomach while you were pregnant?

Nancy

I dont know.

Stevens

You dont know who kicked you?

Nancy

I know that. I thought you meant its pa.

Stevens

You mean, the man who kicked you wasn't even its father?

Nancy

I dont know. Any of them might have been.

Stevens

Any of them ? You dont have any idea who its father was?

Nancy

(looks at Stevens impatiently)

If you backed your behind into a buzz saw, could you tell which tooth hit you first?

(to Temple)

What about that one?

Temple

Will that one be there too, that never had a father and never was even born, to forgive you? Is there a heaven for it to go to so it can forgive you? Is there a heaven, Nancy?

Nancy

I dont know. I believes.

Temple

Believe what?

Nancy

I dont know. But I believes.

They all pause at the sound of feet approaching beyond the exit door, all are looking at the door as the key clashes again in the lock and the door swings out and the Jailor enters, drawing the door to behind him.

Jailor

(locking the door)

Thirty minutes, Lawyer. You named it, you know: not me.

Stevens

I'll come back later.

Jailor

(turns and crosses toward them)

Provided you dont put it off too late. What I mean, if you wait until tonight to come back, you might have some company; and if you put it off until tomorrow, you wont have no client.

(to Nancy)

I found that preacher you want. He'll be here about sundown, he said. He sounds like he might even be another good baritone. And you cant have too many, especially as after tonight you wont need none, huh? No hard feelings, Nancy. You committed about as horrible a crime as this county ever seen, but you're fixing to pay the law for it, and if the child's own mother—

(he falters, almost pauses, catches himself and continues briskly, moving again)

There, talking too much again. Come on, if Lawyer's through with you. You can start taking Your time at daylight tomorrow morning, because you might have a long hard trip.

He passes her and goes briskly on toward the alcove at rear. Nancy turns to follow.

Temple

(quickly)

Nancy

(Nancy doesn't pause. Temple continues, rapidly)

What about me? Even if there is one and somebody waiting in it to forgive me, there's still tomorrow and tomorrow. And suppose tomorrow and tomorrow, and then nobody there, nobody waiting to forgive me—

Nancy

(moving on after the Jailor)

Believe.

Temple

Believe what, Nancy? Tell me.

Nancy

Believe.

She exits into the alcove behind the Jailor. The steel door offstage clangs, the key clashes. Then the Jailor reappears, approaches, and crosses toward the exit. He unlocks the door and opens it out again, pauses.

Jailor

Yes, sir. A long hard way. If I was ever fool enough to commit a killing that would get my neck into a noose, the last thing I would want to see would be a preacher. I'd a heap rather believe there wasn't nothing after death than to risk the station where I was probably going to get off.

(he waits, holding the door, looking back at them. Temple stands motionless until Stevens touches her arm slightly. Then she moves, stumbles slightly and infinitesimally, so infinitesimally and so quickly recovered that the Jailor has barely time to react to it, though he does so: with quick concern, with that quality about him almost gentle, almost articulate, turning from the door, even leaving it open as he starts quickly toward her)

Here; you set down on the bench; I'll get you a glass of water.

(to Stevens)

Durn it, Lawyer, why did you have to bring her—

Temple

(recovered)

I'm all right.

She walks steadily toward the door. The Jailor watches her.

Jailor

You sure?

Temple

(walking steadily and rapidly toward him and the door now)

Yes. Sure.

Jailor

(turning back toward the door)

Okay. I sure dont blame you. Durned if I see how even a murdering nigger can stand this smell.

He passes on out the door and exits, invisible though still holding the door and waiting to lock it.