The Miracle Worker (11 page)

ANNIE:
Here. Give up, why, I only today saw what has to be done, to begin!

(She glances from
KATE
to
KELLER
,
who stare, waiting; and she makes it as plain and simple as her nervousness permits.)

I—want complete charge of her.

KELLER:
You already have that. It has resulted in—

ANNIE:
No, I mean day and night. She has to be dependent on me.

KATE:
For what?

ANNIE:
Everything. The food she eats, the clothes she wears, fresh—

(She is amused at herself, though very serious.)

—air, yes, the air she breathes, whatever her body needs is a—primer, to teach her out of. It's the only way, the one who lets her have it should be her teacher.

(She considers them in turn; they digest it,
KELLER
frowning,
KATE
perplexed.)

Not anyone who
loves
her, you have so many feelings they fall over each other like feet, you won't use your chances and you won't use your chances and you won't let me.

KATE:
But if she runs from you—
to
us—

ANNIE:
Yes, that's the point. I'll have to live with her somewhere else.

KELLER:
What!

ANNIE:
Till she learns to depend on and listen to me.

KATE
[
NOT WITHOUT ALARM
]: For how long?

ANNIE:
As long as it takes.

(A pause. She takes a breath.)

I packed half my things already.

KELLER:
Miss—Sullivan!

(But when
ANNIE
attends upon him he is speechless, and she is merely earnest.)

ANNIE:
Captain Keller, it meets both your conditions. It's the one way I can get back in touch with Helen, and I don't see how I can be rude to you again if you're not around to interfere with me.

KELLER
[
RED-FACED
]: And what is your intention if I say no? Pack the other half, for home, and abandon your charge to—to—

ANNIE:
The asylum?

(She waits, appraises
KELLER'S
glare and
KATE'S
uncertainty, and decides to use her weapons.)

I grew up in such an asylum. The state almshouse.

(
KATE'S
head comes up on this, and
KELLER
stares hard;
ANNIE'S
tone is cheerful enough, albeit level as gunfire.)

Rats—why my brother Jimmie and I used to play with the rats because we didn't have toys. Maybe you'd like to know what Helen will find there, not on visiting days? One ward was full of the—old women, crippled, blind, most of them dying, but even if what they had was catching there was nowhere else to move
them, and that's where they put us. There were younger ones across the hall, prostitutes mostly, with T.B., and epileptic fits, and a couple of the kind who—keep after other girls, especially young ones, and some insane. Some just had the D.T.'s. The youngest were in another ward to have babies they didn't want, they started at thirteen, fourteen. They'd leave afterwards, but the babies stayed and we played with them, too, though a lot of them had—sores all over from diseases you're not supposed to talk about, but not many of them lived. The first year we had eighty, seventy died. The room Jimmie and I played in was the deadhouse, where they kept the bodies till they could dig—

KATE
[
CLOSES HER EYES
]: Oh, my dear—

ANNIE:
—the graves.

(She is immune to
KATE'S
compassion.)

No, it made me strong. But I don't think you need send Helen there. She's strong enough.

(She waits again; but when neither offers her a word, she simply concludes.)

No, I have no conditions, Captain Keller.

KATE
[
NOT LOOKING UP
]: Miss Annie.

ANNIE:
Yes.

KATE
[
A PAUSE
]: Where would you—take Helen?

ANNIE:
Ohh—

(Brightly)

Italy?

KELLER
[
WHEELING
]: What?

ANNIE:
Can't have everything, how would this garden house do? Furnish it, bring Helen here after a long ride so she won't recognize it, and you can see her every day. If she doesn't know. Well?

KATE
[
A SIGH OF RELIEF
]: Is that all?

ANNIE:
That's all.

KATE:
Captain.

(
KELLER
turns his head; and
KATE'S
request is quiet but firm.)

With your permission?

KELLER
[
TEETH IN CIGAR
]: Why must she depend on you for the food she eats?

ANNIE
[
A PAUSE
]: I want control of it.

KELLER:
Why?

ANNIE:
It's a way to reach her.

KELLER
[
STARES
]: You intend to
starve
her into letting you touch her?

ANNIE:
She won't starve, she'll learn. All's fair in love and war, Captain Keller, you never cut supplies?

KELLER:
This is hardly a war!

ANNIE:
Well, it's not love. A siege is a siege.

KELLER
[
HEAVILY
]: Miss Sullivan. Do you
like
the child?

ANNIE
[
STRAIGHT IN HIS EYES
]: Do you?

(A long pause.)

KATE:
You could have a servant here—

ANNIE
[
AMUSED
]: I'll have enough work without looking after a servant! But that boy Percy could sleep here, run errands—

KATE
[
ALSO AMUSED
]: We can let Percy sleep here, I think, Captain?

ANNIE
[
EAGERLY
]: And some old furniture, all our own—

KATE
[
ALSO EAGER
]: Captain? Do you think that walnut bedstead in the barn would be too—

KELLER:
I have not yet consented to Percy! Or to the house, or to the proposal! Or to Miss Sullivan's—staying on when I—

(But he erupts in an irate surrender.)

Very well, I consent to everything!

(He shakes the cigar at
ANNIE.
)

For two weeks. I'll give you two weeks in this place, and it will be a miracle if you get the child to tolerate you.

KATE:
Two weeks? Miss Annie, can you accomplish anything in two weeks?

KELLER:
Anything or not, two weeks, then the child comes back to us. Make up your mind, Miss Sullivan, yes or no?

ANNIE:
Two weeks. For only one miracle?

(She nods at him, nervously.)

I'll get her to tolerate me.

(
KELLER
marches out, and slams the door.
KATE
on her feet regards
ANNIE
,
who is facing the door.)

KATE
[
THEN
]: You can't think as little of love as you said.

(
ANNIE
glances questioning.)

Or you wouldn't stay.

ANNIE
[
A PAUSE
]: I didn't come here for love. I came for money!

(
KATE
shakes her head to this, with a smile; after a moment she extends her open hand.
ANNIE
looks at it, but when she puts hers out it is not to shake hands, it is to set her fist in
KATE'S
palm.)

KATE
[
PUZZLED
]: Hm?

ANNIE:
A. It's the first of many. Twenty-six!

(
KATE
squeezes her fist, squeezes it hard, and hastens out after
KELLER. ANNIE
stands as the door closes behind her, her manner so
apprehensive that finally she slaps her brow, holds it, sighs, and, with her eyes closed, crosses herself for luck.

The lights dim into a cool silhouette scene around her, the lamp paling out, and now, in formal entrances, persons appear around
ANNIE
with furniture for the room:
PERCY
crosses the stage with a rocking chair and waits;
MARTHA
from another direction bears in a stool,
VINEY
bears in a small table, and the other Negro servant rolls in a bed partway from left; and
ANNIE
,
opening her eyes to put her glasses back on, sees them. She turns around in the room once, and goes into action, pointing out locations for each article; the servants place them and leave, and
ANNIE
then darts around, interchanging them. In the midst of this—while
PERCY
and
MARTHA
reappear with a tray of food and a chair, respectively—
JAMES
comes down from the house with
ANNIE'S
suitcase, and stands viewing the room and her quizzically;
ANNIE
halts abruptly under his eyes, embarrassed, then seizes the suitcase from his hand, explaining herself brightly.)

ANNIE:
I always wanted to live in a doll's house!

(She sets the suitcase out of the way, and continues;
VINEY
at left appears to position a rod with drapes for a doorway, and the other servant at center pushes in a wheelbarrow loaded with a couple of boxes of
HELEN'S
toys and clothes.
ANNIE
helps lift them into the room, and the servant pushes the wheelbarrow off. In none of this is any heed taken of the imaginary walls of the garden house, the furniture is moved in from every side and itself defines the walls.

ANNIE
now drags the box of toys into center, props up the doll conspicuously on top; with the people melted away, except for
JAMES
,
all is again still. The lights turn again without pause, rising warmer.)

JAMES:
You don't let go of things easily, do you? How will you—win her hand now, in this place?

ANNIE
[
CURTLY
]: Do I know? I lost my temper, and here we are!

JAMES
[
LIGHTLY
]: No touching, no teaching. Of course, you
are
bigger—

ANNIE:
I'm not counting on force, I'm counting on her. That little imp is dying to know.

JAMES:
Know what?

ANNIE:
Anything. Any and every crumb in God's creation. I'll have to use that appetite too.

(She gives the room a final survey, straightens the bed, arranges the curtains.)

JAMES
[
A PAUSE
]: Maybe she'll teach you.

ANNIE:
Of course.

JAMES:
That she isn't. That there's such a thing as—dullness of heart. Acceptance. And letting go. Sooner or later we all give up, don't we?

ANNIE:
Maybe you all do. It's my idea of the original sin.

JAMES:
What is?

ANNIE
[
WITHERINGLY
]: Giving up.

JAMES
[
NETTLED
]: You won't open her. Why can't you let her be? Have some—pity on her, for being what she is—

ANNIE:
If I'd ever once thought like that, I'd be dead!

JAMES
[
PLEASANTLY
]: You will be. Why trouble?

(
ANNIE
turns to glare at him; he is mocking.)

Or will you teach me?

(And with a bow, he drifts off.

Now in the distance there comes the clopping of hoofs, drawing near, and nearer, up to the door; and they halt.
ANNIE
wheels to face the door. When it opens this time, the
KELLERS—KATE
in travelling bonnet,
KELLER
also hatted—are standing there with
HELEN
between them; she is in a cloak.
KATE
gently cues her into the room.
HELEN
comes in
groping, baffled, but interested in the new surroundings;
ANNIE
evades her exploring hand, her gaze not leaving the child.)

ANNIE:
Does she know where she is?

KATE
: [
SHAKES HER HEAD
]: We rode her out in the country for two hours.

KELLER:
For all she knows, she could be in another town—

(
HELEN
stumbles over the box on the floor and in it discovers her doll and other battered toys, is pleased, sits to them, then becomes puzzled and suddenly very wary. She scrambles up and back to her mother's thighs, but
ANNIE
steps in, and it is hers that
HELEN
embraces.
HELEN
recoils, gropes, and touches her cheek instantly.)