The Anarchist (8 page)

CATHY
: Everyone here would like to go free.

ANN
: Feeling that you have served more than a sufficiency of what you see as a cruel sentence . . .

CATHY
: Do you think that it was cruel?

ANN
: I understand the mentality of the judge who imposed it.

CATHY
: Do you think it was cruel?

ANN
: . . . I would like to think it was imposed in sorrow. I believe your crime frightened him, and that he acted to protect those he had sworn to protect.

CATHY
: Was the sentence cruel?

ANN
: It was cruel to
you
.

CATHY
: And can you act to end the cruelty? Or would that be to rely upon your feelings? In this case “kindness.”

ANN
: It is an awesome power I have. Yes: It “comes from the end of a gun.” As did yours. When you killed those officers. And I assure you, I know I, no less than you, will be held to account.

CATHY
: Do you mean we all shall be held to account in Heaven?
(Pause)
Does not such a view, legally, unfit you to judge me?

ANN
: How would that be?

CATHY
: To invoke a system which . . .

ANN
: “Religion”?

CATHY
: . . . which . . .

ANN
: . . . but
you
invoked religion . . .

CATHY
: . . . a system which, I beg your pardon . . .

ANN
: I judge to the best of my ability. According to the Law. It is not my personal theology, nor bias, nor, indeed “knowledge of Human Nature” which
permit
me to judge, but a dedication to the Law which
obligates
me. To do so.

(Pause.)

CATHY
: And how is Mrs. Fiske.

ANN
: She is unwell.

CATHY
: Is she seriously ill?

ANN
: She has dedicated her life to your punishment. I would assume she is.
(Pause)
You cried. When your friend abandoned you. And wrote to plead with her to “stay with you.” And wrote your parents. With the first terms of affection. Since you were a child. Asking for comfort. As you had been harmed. Now you want to go free. And appeal, as does a child, to those in power. Seeking out power.

CATHY
: What do you say about me?

ANN
: Say about you . . .

CATHY
: Yes, when . . .

ANN
: I don't speak about you.

CATHY
: At a dinner party, to a
friend
. . . if someone asks you. They must ask you.

ANN
: Very little anymore.

CATHY
: Oh.

ANN
: Yes—you were famous once.

CATHY
: All right. At the end of the day. Can you not overcome your animosity? . . .

ANN
: As you have, Cathy?
(Pause)
Officer Shay. Had he lived he would have been what?

CATHY
: Had he lived he would have been eighty-one.

ANN
: Is that an old man?

CATHY
: Is it an old man?

ANN
: You want to live . . .

CATHY
: Yes. I do. I assume all people do.

ANN
: There was a time you didn't care to.

(Pause.)

CATHY
: That's right.

ANN
: Do you remember that?

CATHY
: Yes.

ANN
: You came to us then with a different request.

CATHY
: Well. It's a long life.

ANN
: And the longer we live the more we see things change. And bring us back to the beginning.

CATHY
: And people cannot change?

ANN
: I've yet to see it.

CATHY
: But can you
imagine
it?

ANN
: I think I can.

CATHY
: In what would it consist? In your imagination. How would it be established? By a record such as mine, of service and of study? . . . or else, what are you
doing
here? If you cannot conceive an instance. Where your work could help? What do you want of me?

ANN
: What do you think?

CATHY
: I think you want revenge.

ANN
: You feel subjecting you periodically to my questioning constitutes revenge?

CATHY
: Do you know. What it's like. To
vacillate
. Between the desire to
please
. To, to embellish in order to please; or to be reticent, and fear your reserve will be misinterpreted as
sullenness
? When your freedom is at stake? Your very
freedom
?

ANN
: Well, you broke the law. Didn't you. And you wanted to die. As once you were “thwarted in love.” Poor thing. And counted yourself privileged. By your grievance. As you were imprisoned. And your lover abandoned you. She “left” you, and . . .

CATHY
: . . . all right.

ANN
: You wanted to die. As if she could “be” with you. In prison, what, “in death”? And dramatized yourself. As if no woman ever suffered in love.
(Studies papers)
You wrote. About her face: “Dreaming of her face.” About the power of dreams: “What is the power of dreams? They have the power to release us . . . each morning.” Period. “It's a new vision.” Period. “Of a previously unsuspected depth of sorrow.”
(Pause)
Many were moved.
(Pause)
Some
thought you should have been allowed to die. When you wanted to die. And some prayed for your soul.

(Pause.)

Why did they pray for you?

CATHY
: Because I was in pain.

ANN
: No. They prayed for you as you expressed yourself well.

CATHY
: Can you not control your hatred?

ANN
: . . . as you have done in your book. “The love of Christ washes over me. And the sweet balm of forgiven . . .” You congratulate yourself for Christ's forgiveness. But you forgive no one. Do you? John and Jack? . . .

(Cathy rises.)

CATHY
: Call the guard.

ANN
: Sit down. I said: sit down. I'll see you in punitive detention do you hear me? For how long? Indefinitely. Which means forever. For Nobody Cares. Cathy. Your family has left you, your lover abandoned you, the officers' families live to desire your death, the public no longer remembers your name, and no one cares.

CATHY
: Why do
you
care?

ANN
: Because it's my duty.

CATHY
: I think you are a voyeur.

ANN
: Do you?

CATHY
: I think you are a frustrated old woman, who gains enjoyment from her “charade of Probity.”

ANN
: . . . yes, I read that article.

CATHY
: . . . that you are jealous.

ANN
: Of?

CATHY
: My life. Which you enjoy as a romance.

ANN
: Of your life.

CATHY
: Of loving
women
. . . of . . .

ANN
: Of “violence”?

CATHY
: Yes, of course, of violence.

ANN
: Of sex and violence?

CATHY
: Absolutely.

ANN: Are they related? Or are they only linked in your sickness?

CATHY
: And what sickness is that?

ANN
: You . . .

CATHY
: I have surpassed them.

ANN
: Have you?

CATHY
: Why do you care?

ANN
: Because I represent the State.

CATHY
: The “State.”

ANN
: Yes. Without which who can make consequences equal? Who shall rebuke the evildoer, who comfort the luckless, except the State. Whose existence you decry.

CATHY
: I . . .

ANN
: First in your “Movement,” then in “Christ.” How are the two, then, not equal? Tell me that.
(Pause)
Every society has punished the murderer. If not, what meaning of “society”? But ours, you feel, should not. As you have “suffered enough.” FOR WHOM? For yourself? Indeed, for who would embrace suffering? For the State? No. For the State confines you not to cause your suffering, but to ensure freedom to others.

CATHY
: As I might kill again?

ANN
: So that all will consider their acts and regard their consequence. And control themselves. Why do you plead to be excused? For the same reason you considered yourself free to kill. As you are “better”—you know better. You are entitled to “explore” the higher realms of behavior. To savor this or that thrill. And call it Theater of the Real. Theater of the Street. Violence as Cleansing . . . I read the pamphlets. I read that filth.

CATHY
: They were the Folly of Youth.

ANN
: They were not the Folly of Youth. They were evil, wicked heresy.

CATHY
: What do you want of me?

ANN
: Renounce them.

CATHY
: I have renounced them. In my embrace of Christ.

ANN
: I don't believe you.

CATHY
: How could I make you believe me? Would you like me to beg.

ANN
: You made the policeman beg. And then you shot him.

CATHY
: Would you like me to beg.

ANN
: I would like you to see.

CATHY
: To see
what
?

ANN
: That you,
systematically
, deny . . . that throughout your life . . . your “revelations” . . .
(Pause)
I would like you to accept your responsibility.

CATHY
: Why?

ANN
: Because I represent the State. And that's my duty.

CATHY
: How would you
know
? That I had accepted . . .

ANN
: . . . I . . .

CATHY
: No. What? What would signal my conversion to you if not my acts here?

ANN
: I . . .

CATHY
: Tell me what you want. What you want. Finally.

(Pause.)

ANN
: I want to save you.

CATHY
: Why?

ANN
: Because you have a soul.

CATHY
: How do you know?

ANN
: Because I have a soul.

(Pause.)

CATHY
: Those who have served.
(Pause)
A Life term. Those who have . . .

ANN
: Killed.

CATHY
: I have no problem with the word. And have served, a term, of
thirty-five
years . . .

ANN
: Your sentence is indeterminate.

CATHY
: . . . may be released.

ANN
: Because?

CATHY
: Through lack of opposition. By the State allowing the usual definitions of the Indeterminate Sentence. Through judicial lethargy, or
sloth
, indeed, through chance or mischance . . .

ANN
: But . . .

CATHY
: But
finally
, if that release seems to the State the path least likely to bring upon itself additional work, anxiety, or trauma.

ANN
: Yes. That's right. And my question to you is: How could it be otherwise? Unless you were “the special case”; and why would that be.

CATHY
: I thought . . .

ANN
: Yes?

CATHY
: I thought that this meeting would be different.