Requiem for a Nun (7 page)

Stevens

There's no such thing.

Gowan

From the past. From my folly. My drunkenness. My cowardice, if you like—

Stevens

There's no such thing as past either.

Gowan

That is a laugh, that one. Only, not so loud, huh? to disturb the ladies—disturb Miss Drake—Miss Temple Drake.—Sure, why not cowardice. Only, for euphony, call it simple over-training. You know? Gowan Stevens, trained at Virginia to drink like a gentleman, gets drunk as ten gentlemen, takes a country college girl, a maiden: who knows? maybe even a virgin, cross country by car to another country college ball game, gets drunker than twenty gentlemen, gets lost, gets still drunker than forty gentlemen, wrecks the car, passes eighty gentlemen now, passes completely out while the maiden the virgin is being kidnapped into a Memphis whorehouse—

(he mumbles an indistinguishable word)

Stevens

What?

Gowan

Sure; cowardice. Call it cowardice; what's a little euphony between old married people?

Stevens

Not the marrying her afterward, at least. What—

Gowan

Sure. Marrying her was purest Old Virginia. That was indeed the hundred and sixty gentlemen.

Stevens

The intent was, by any other standards too. The prisoner in the whorehouse; I didn't quite hear—

Gowan

(quickly: reaching for it)

Where's your glass? Dump that slop—here—

Stevens

(holds glass)

This will do. What was that you said about held prisoner in the whorehouse?

Gowan

(harshly)

That's all. You heard it.

Stevens

You said ‘and loved it.'

(they stare at each other)

Is that what you can never forgive her for?—not for having been the instrument creating that moment in your life which you can never recall nor forget nor explain nor condone nor even stop thinking about, but because she herself didn't even suffer, but on the contrary, even liked it—that month or whatever it was like the episode in the old movie of the white girl held prisoner in the cave by the Bedouin prince?—That you had to lose not only your bachelor freedom, but your man's self-respect in the chastity of his wife and your child too, to pay for something your wife hadn't even lost, didn't even regret, didn't even miss? Is that why this poor lost doomed crazy Negro woman must die?

Gowan

(tensely)

Get out of here. Go on.

Stevens

In a minute.—Or else, blow your own brains out: stop having to remember, stop having to be forever unable to forget: nothing; to plunge into nothing and sink and drown forever and forever, never again to have to remember, never again to wake in the night writhing and sweating because you cannot, can never not, stop remembering? What else happened during that month, that time while that madman held her prisoner there in that Memphis house, that nobody but you and she know about, maybe not even you know about?

Still staring at Stevens, slowly and deliberately Gowan sets the glass of whiskey back on the tray and takes up the bottle and swings it bottom up back over his head. The stopper is out, and at once the whiskey begins to pour out of it, down his arm and sleeve and onto the floor. He does not seem to be aware of it even. His voice is tense, barely articulate.

Gowan

So help me, Christ . . . So help me, Christ.

A moment, then Stevens moves, without haste, sets his own glass back on the tray and turns, taking his hat as he passes the sofa, and goes on to the door and exits. Gowan stands a moment longer with the poised bottle, now empty. Then he draws a long shuddering breath, seems to rouse, wake, sets the empty bottle back on the tray, notices his untasted whiskey glass, takes it up, a moment: then turns and throws the glass crashing into the fireplace, against the burning gas logs, and stands, his back to the audience, and draws another long shuddering breath and then draws both hands hard down his face, then turns, looking at his wet sleeve, takes out his handkerchief and dabs at his sleeve as he comes back to the table, puts the handkerchief back in his pocket and takes the folded napkin from the small tray beside the saltcellar and wipes his sleeve with it, sees he is doing no good, tosses the crumpled napkin back onto the whiskey tray; and now, outwardly quite calm again, as though nothing had happened, he gathers the glasses back onto the big tray, puts the small tray and the napkin onto it too and takes up the tray and walks quietly toward the dining room door as the lights begin to go down.

The lights go completely down. The stage is dark.

The lights go up.

Stevens living room. 10:00 P.M. March eleventh

The room is exactly as it was four months ago, except that the only light burning is the lamp on the table, and the sofa has been moved so that it partly faces the audience, with a small motionless blanket-wrapped object lying on it, and one of the chairs placed between the lamp and the sofa so that the shadow of its back falls across the object on the sofa, making it more or less indistinguishable, and the dining room doors are now closed. The telephone sits on the small stand in the corner right as in Scene Two.

The hall door opens. Temple enters, followed by Stevens. She now wears a long housecoat; her hair is tied back with a ribbon as though prepared for bed. This time Stevens carries the topcoat and the hat too; his suit is different. Apparently she has already warned Stevens to be quiet; his air anyway shows it. She enters, stops, lets him pass her. He pauses, looks about the room, sees the sofa, stands looking at it.

Stevens

This is what they call a plant.

He crosses to the sofa, Temple watching him, and stops, looking down at the shadowed object. He quietly draws aside the shadowing chair and reveals a little boy, about four, wrapped in the blanket, asleep.

Temple

Why not? Dont the philosophers and other gynecologists tell us that women will strike back with any weapon, even their children?

Stevens

(watching the child)

Including the sleeping pill you told me you gave Gowan?

Temple

All right.

(approaches table)

If I would just stop struggling: how much time we could save. I came all the way back from California, but I still cant seem to quit. Do you believe in coincidence?

Stevens

(turns)

Not unless I have to.

Temple

(at table, takes up a folded yellow telegraph form, opens it, reads)

Dated Jefferson, March sixth. ‘You have a week yet until the thirteenth. But where will you go then?' signed Gavin.

She folds the paper back into its old creases, folds it still again. Stevens watches her.

Stevens

Well? This is the eleventh. Is that the coincidence?

Temple

No. This is.

(she drops, tosses the folded paper onto the table, turns)

It was that afternoon—the sixth. We were on the beach, Bucky and I. I was reading, and he was—oh, talking mostly, you know—‘Is California far from Jefferson, mamma?' and I say ‘Yes, darling'—you know: still reading or trying to, and he says, ‘How long will we stay in California, mamma?' and I say, ‘Until we get tired of it' and he says, ‘Will we stay here until they hang Nancy, mamma?' and it's already too late then; I should have seen it coming but it's too late now; I say, ‘Yes, darling' and then he drops it right in my lap, right out of the mouths of—how is it?—babes and sucklings. ‘Where will we go then, mamma?' And then we come back to the hotel, and there you are too. Well?

Stevens

Well what?

Temple

All right. Let's for God's sake stop.

(goes to a chair)

Now that I'm here, no matter whose fault it was, what do you want? A drink? Will you drink? At least, put your coat and hat down.

Stevens

I dont even know yet. That's why you came back—

Temple

(interrupts)

I came back? It wasn't I who—

Stevens

(interrupts)

—who said, let's for God's sake stop.

They stare at each other: a moment.

Temple

All right. Put down your coat and hat.

Stevens lays his hat and coat on a chair. Temple sits down. Stevens takes a chair opposite, so that the sleeping child on the sofa is between them in background.

Temple

So Nancy must be saved. So you send for me, or you and Bucky between you, or anyway here you are and here I am. Because apparently I know something I haven't told yet, or maybe you know something I haven't told yet. What do you think you know?

(quickly; he says nothing)

All right. What do you know?

Stevens

Nothing. I dont want to know it. All I—

Temple

Say that again.

Stevens

Say what again?

Temple

What is it you think you know?

Stevens

Nothing. I—

Temple

All right. Why do you think there is something I haven't told yet?

Stevens

You came back. All the way from California—

Temple

Not enough. Try again.

Stevens

You were there.

(with her face averted, Temple reaches her hand to the table, fumbles until she finds the cigarette box, takes a cigarette and with the same hand fumbles until she finds the lighter, draws them back to her lap)

At the trial. Every day. All day, from the time court opened—

Temple

(still not looking at him, supremely casual, puts the cigarette into her mouth, talking around it, the cigarette bobbing)

The bereaved mother—

Stevens

Yes, the bereaved mother—

Temple

(the cigarette bobbing: still not looking at him)

—herself watching the accomplishment of her revenge; the tigress over the body of her slain cub—

Stevens

—who should have been too immersed in grief to have thought of revenge—to have borne the very sight of her child's murderer . . .

Temple

(not looking at him)

Methinks she doth protest too much?

Stevens doesn't answer. She snaps the lighter on, lights the cigarette, puts the lighter back on the table. Leaning, Stevens pushes the ashtray along the table until she can reach it. Now she looks at him.

Temple

Thanks. Now let grandmamma teach you how to suck an egg. It doesn't matter what I know, what you think I know, what might have happened. Because we wont even need it. All we need is an affidavit. That she is crazy. Has been for years.

Stevens

I thought of that too. Only it's too late. That should have been done about five months ago. The trial is over now. She has been convicted and sentenced. In the eyes of the law, she is already dead. In the eyes of the law, Nancy Mannigoe doesn't even exist. Even if there wasn't a better reason than that. The best reason of all.

Temple

(smoking)

Yes?

Stevens

We haven't got one.

Temple

(smoking)

Yes?

(she sits back in the chair, smoking rapidly, looking at Stevens. Her voice is gentle, patient, only a little too rapid, like the smoking)

That's right. Try to listen. Really try. I am the affidavit; what else are we doing here at ten oclock at night barely a day from her execution? What else did I—as you put it—come all the way back from California for, not to mention a—as you have probably put that too—faked coincidence to save—as I would put it I suppose—my face? All we need now is to decide just how much of what to put in the affidavit. Do try; maybe you had better have a drink after all.

Stevens

Later, maybe. I'm dizzy enough right now with just perjury and contempt of court.

Temple

What perjury?

Stevens

Not venal then, worse: inept. After my client is not only convicted but sentenced, I turn up with the prosecution's chief witness offering evidence to set the whole trial aside—

Temple

Tell them I forgot this. Or tell them I changed my mind. Tell them the district attorney bribed me to keep my mouth shut—

Stevens

(peremptory yet quiet)

Temple.

She puffs rapidly at the cigarette, removes it from her mouth.

Temple

Or better still; wont it be obvious? a woman whose child was smothered in its crib, wanting vengeance, capable of anything to get the vengeance; then when she has it, realising she cant go through with it, cant sacrifice a human life for it, even a nigger whore's?

Stevens

Stop it. One at a time. At least, let's talk about the same thing.

Temple

What else are we talking about except saving a condemned client whose trained lawyer has already admitted that he has failed?

Stevens

Then you really dont want her to die. You did invent the coincidence.

Temple

Didn't I just say so? At least, let's for God's sake stop that, cant we?

Stevens

Done. So Temple Drake will have to save her.

Temple

Mrs Gowan Stevens will.

Stevens

Temple Drake.

She stares at him, smoking, deliberately now. Deliberately she removes the cigarette and, still watching him, reaches and snubs it out in the ashtray.

Stevens

All right. Tell me again. Maybe I'll even understand this time, let alone listen. We produce— turn up with—a sworn affidavit that this murderess was crazy when she committed the crime.