Collected Novels and Plays (75 page)

Characters

Julie
Jan,
her lover
Charles,
her husband
Gilbert,
her brother

JAN:

You never told me this before.

JULIE:

I don’t understand what I’ve told you. That may be one reason. Then, too, aren’t we still courting? You can’t expect to hear all my stories in a matter of weeks.

JAN:

Go on. After you got back to the dock what happened? What happened that night?

JULIE:

This particular story clearly needs polishing. I feel I’ve been talking ever since lunch. Now I’m all talked out and I’ve missed my siesta.

JAN:

There you were in that little boat far from shore. Just a ribbon of beach on the horizon, with colorless trees. The ocean calls our deepest fears into play, our deepest selves. In a city, all this might have happened differently, or not at all.

JULIE:

What did happen was that, back in New York, I left him.

JAN:

Left … Charles?

JULIE:

You don’t imagine I’d ever leave Gilbert? Well. It’s hot. I’d rather not go on. We’ve talked enough.

JAN:

But could anyone have held out? I mean, was it Charles giving up when he went overboard—giving
in?
Could someone else have held out? I’m no help, am I?

JULIE:

I don’t see that
you
need to be so solemn, Jan.

JAN:

I’m still young. Things matter to me.

JULIE:

Touché!

JAN:

Julie! Love! I didn’t mean—

JULIE:

You’re right. I’m not young, I’m immature.

JAN:

I adore you.

JULIE:

Look at those pigeons, how can they bear it?—eating out of people’s hands. Yes, you have helped by letting me talk. It is less real now that someone other than myself has failed to understand it.

JAN:

You are not to blame.

JULIE:

Not to blame for leaving my husband?

JAN:

Not to blame for the circumstances.

JULIE:

That kind of remark simply dazzles me. It makes me feel that my total experience is somehow
here
, within easy reach, like so many reels of film on a shelf.

JAN:

All I mean is that the circumstances seem to narrow down to your brother.

JULIE:

Yes. Gilbert is to blame. I am finer than Gilbert.

JAN:

I like Gilbert. He makes me laugh.

JULIE:

Gilbert makes everybody laugh. No, he never made Charles laugh. That may be why they were such good friends.

JAN:

But I laugh more easily with you. When I’m with Gilbert I’m not really laughing.

JULIE:

Neither am I. It must be a power he has over me. Look! There he sits in the pensione and here I go …!

JAN:

At the risk of irritating you, it does seem curious that Gilbert should …

JULIE:

Should?

JAN:

That Gilbert should be so much in the picture? He goes everywhere you go, knows everything you do.

JULIE:

You
are
possessive!

JAN:

Can’t I be?

JULIE:

Of course. It’s rather touching. It brings out the older woman in me. Now what was that about Gilbert?

JAN:

I don’t remember.

JULIE:

He is after all one’s brother.

JAN:

There are limits. You said he all but picked out your husband for you.

JULIE:

Well, he didn’t pick
you
out, darling. I did that.

JAN:

It was Gilbert who came over to my table.

JULIE:

Perhaps. But I’d seen you first.

JAN:

I don’t know. If you’re that close to one another …

JULIE:

But isn’t that the great thing about relatives? They have to love you, you have to love them! After a certain age one meets few enough people of whom that holds true.

JAN:

You don’t honestly think in those terms.

JULIE:

I don’t? It’s a wonder I think at all, I sometimes think.

JAN:

Did Charles like Gilbert? Afterwards, I mean.

JULIE:

Oh God in heaven! Did Charles like Gilbert! Does Gilbert like me! Did I like them! Why, we doted upon one another. We shared an eye and a tooth, and woe to the unwary stranger.

JAN:

Forget I said it.

JULIE:

It’s just that I’m so weary! Charles writes, Gilbert talks—

JAN:

You’ve had another letter from Charles?

JULIE:

You
ask questions! Yes, I’ve had a letter from Charles. I must really stop going to American Express. Nobody else writes to me there.

JAN:

You needn’t go. You needn’t pick up his letters.

JULIE:

Gilbert says it makes me feel modern, to get such letters from my former husband.

JAN:

“Such” letters? Does Gilbert read them?

JULIE:

Do you suppose
I
do? Oh what an unkind thing to say! You must not make me talk about Charles. I’ll say anything that comes into my head.

JAN:

I make you talk? Gilbert makes you laugh? It doesn’t seem to me that you are made to do anything.

JULIE:

Now you’re angry and you don’t love me.

GILBERT:

Oh! Ben trovato! Ah! Flirting at Florian’s!

My sweet little sister is beautifully bad!

Come with me, cara, we’ll go in a gondola!

Gondoliere!

JULIE:

Gilbert, you’re mad!

GILBERT:

I’ve dawdled all day with impossible people.

Jan, will you join us?

JULIE:

Keep up our morale?

JAN:

No, I must really—

GILBERT:

Then be a wet blanket.

I’m for a ride down that crazy canal!

JAN:

What is this passion of Gilbert’s for boating?

JULIE:

See, you are laughing! I knew you would be.

JAN:

Then why are you laughing?

JULIE:

I’m not
really
laughing,

But I’m going with Gilbert.

GILBERT:

We’ll meet you for tea!

JAN:

When Julie and I settle down, it will have to be

back home. I’ll need to work. On my own I could

have held out until next year—not now. My parents

are already up in arms, and sharing expenses with

Julie and Gilbert isn’t the answer. I hope Gilbert

stays on in Europe. He belongs here.

If we return to Venice, let it be winter,

The mirror whitewashed, empty and aloof.

Drifting with this warm glitter, this loose life,

I’m out of my depth—oh, not very far as yet,

And learning, thanks to Julie; being changed;

Loving, loved in return; no end to either

The changing or the loving. And Julie’s changing,

Or says she is, at least—some days it’s more

Like changing back to what she was before.

The self I was, at any rate, that day

Three months ago in Rome, at the café,

When Gilbert asked was I American,

Lies sanded over, deep in sparkling water.

Fifty years from now, what will I be—

A drowned blue-green theater of memory?

A Bridge of Sighs? Well, Venice and reflections …

And that other setting? Even before Julie spoke I could feel the shudder of the engine, the heat and brightness of the day, the blue of the Gulf Stream pitching. There they sat in the white boat, the men with their bait and their tackle. That whole endless afternoon trembles and brightens around her still. Over and over she enters the scene, trying to read it like a compass, sounding its depths, wondering—

JULIE (
sings the Barcarolle from
Les Contes d’Hoffmann):

Nuit plus douce que le jour,

O belle nuit d’amour!

GILBERT:

Is he steering us the right way?

I know we’ve passed that patch of seaweed once before, today.

JULIE:

Le temps fuit et sans retour

Emporte nos tendresses!

GILBERT:

Was that the last beer, Julie?

It seems a pity, don’t you think,

That we have nothing more to drink?

And didn’t I tell you to make more sandwiches?

To be hard of hearing has its advantages.

JULIE:

Desormais je ne parlerais que français.

From now on I shall speak only French.

GILBERT:

And it would serve her right, wouldn’t it, Charles?

It must be by design that nobody talks to me.

Shall we call it a day? Have I done something wrong? You see,

I am reduced to these childish interrogatives.

JULIE:

We know what happens when we talk to you.

Nous savons bien ce qui arrive—oh what’s the use!

Why is Charles frowning?

GILBERT:

He is a naturally thoughtful person.

JULIE:

He knows

That we are looking at him.

GILBERT:

Rubbish.

JULIE:

He knows

How boring we become when he ignores us.

GILBERT:

He also knows how boring
you
become

When I’m not there to keep you from baiting him.

JULIE:

Crumb.

GILBERT:

Fishwife.

JULIE:

Cretin.

GILBERT (
sings
):

Loin de cet heureux séjour

Le temps fuit sans retour!

CHARLES:

Look! Something’s at the line! Wait!

GILBERT:

It’s only your wife’s beer bottle.

CHARLES:

Fish won’t strike a damaged bait.

JULIE:

Oh what a beautiful day! What soft air!

See how the light moves through the water

Like harp strings. And the water

Isn’t blue but purple. Look out there!

Think of them shimmering down, the strings of light,

To where an absolute darkness begins,

How they must sound against a thousand cutting fins

And mouths that would swallow me up in a bite.

CHARLES:

If you’re not careful we’ll p
ut you
on the hook.

GILBERT:

But, back to Charles. I think the world of him. He strives

Overmuch, perhaps, for integrity. Yet one can only admire

Those moments, thrillingly frequent, when like a chestnut from the fire

He attains his object. Look at him now. He’s wholly at ease,

Baiting his line with a fresh mullet. Deep in the purple seas

How shall mere fish, without a fraction of my high-handedness,

Be able to resist such a display of single-mindedness?

How shall I, if it comes to that? You are at one with your bait,

And I have swallowed it, Charles. I’ve got you, it’s too late.

CHARLES:

It would seem in that case that I had
you.

GILBERT:

I suppose it would and I daresay you do.

JULIE:

It would seem you both had
me.

GILBERT:

I hope we always shall. I’m sure Charles will agree.

CHARLES:

Nobody ever has
her
for very long.

JULIE:

What a nasty remark! Gilbert, tell him he’s wrong.

GILBERT:

He’d never believe me.

JULIE:

A brother ought to defend

His sister’s reputation.