by David Mamet
CATHY: A man killed and spent his life in anguish. And he asked Christ if He could forgive a man who had killed.
ANN: And Christ said?
CATHY: Christ said, “No. But you are now another man. For now in Me you are reborn.”
ANN: Are you reborn?
CATHY: You find the concept arrogant. It’s quite the opposite. It means acceptance.
ANN: Of?
CATHY: The human condition.
ANN: Are you the people?
CATHY: I am of the people.
ANN: And yet you come from great wealth.
CATHY: I renounced their wealth.
ANN: . . . and.
CATHY: I renounce it now . . .
ANN: And attended prestigious schools . . .
CATHY: And I renounced their teachings. And the wealth I renounce, my father’s wealth, I . . .
ANN: . . . you . . .
CATHY: I understand. You might say, I’m going to work with the Sisters, and, so . . .
ANN: . . . you . . .
CATHY: And so will not require wealth . . .
ANN: . . . with the Sisters. Why?
CATHY: Because they will have me. (Pause) I wanted . . . to be cloistered.
ANN: . . . as you are here?
CATHY: But of my own choice. I fantasized that I could trade Shame for Degradation. And “wash the privies with my hair.” To play the piano for them.
ANN: You said you had forgotten you studied the piano.
CATHY: . . . and equitation, and French. When I was young. When it was thought that it was a presumption. On the part of a Jew. (Pause) Listen: All evil regimes. Pressed their adherents into monstrous acts. As, afterwards, the actors could not face themselves, and so had to collude with the only society which could abide them. To break from those regimes, is, therefore, an act of wrenching. It is a sort of death. (Pause) I do not require wealth, and, so, the act of renunciation, you are correct, is perhaps, insufficient penance. But it is all I have.
(Pause.)
ANN: You do not require wealth.
CATHY: That’s right.
ANN: As?
CATHY: As I’m going to work with the Sisters. I was going to say “in poverty,” but I’m not sure I remember what that word means.
ANN: Why do you want to work with them?
CATHY: I’ve told you. Can I dissect myself and find a self-serving intention? Of course. But would it be more true than an altruistic one?
ANN: Which might be?
CATHY: That people are suffering. Should we not do what we can? To alleviate pain?
ANN: And the families of the Policemen.
CATHY: . . . yes?
ANN: We know that they suffer. Are they Of the People? Can they be? Or are the People specifically, but those whom you specify? All others being allowed to suffer?
CATHY: All people suffer.
ANN: Is that true?
CATHY: You suffer.
ANN: How do you know?
CATHY: Because I’ve watched you.
ANN: How do I suffer?
CATHY: I’ve told you.
ANN: Why do I suffer?
CATHY: The question is not what or why one suffers, but what recourse one may have.
ANN: And the answer is?
CATHY: Submission.
ANN: To?
CATHY: I’ve told you that, too.
ANN: Tell me again.
CATHY: Our Savior.
ANN: And where did you learn that?
CATHY: At the only place at which it may be learned. The Foot of the Cross.
ANN: Yes. But you were born a Jew. (Pause) “Christ was a Jew”?
CATHY: Christ is a Jew. And to mock the possibility of salvation is to mock Him. Whom you profess, by the cross around your neck, to worship. But you cannot worship Him, for to do so is to Renounce the Worship of your sorrows. Which is to say of yourself.
ANN: Is that so?
CATHY: And when you leave here; having, to your mind, wasted your life. On, what you understand as a fool’s errand, you will, to your mind, have nothing. And you know it.
ANN: Was it a fool’s errand?
CATHY: I believe you think it was.
ANN: But was it?
CATHY: You must say. If you are strong enough to say. I don’t think that you are.
ANN: Why would that be?
CATHY: Which is why you toy with me.
ANN: How do I toy with you?
CATHY: You’ve moved my cell.
ANN: All right. Why have I moved your cell?
CATHY: For out-processing.
ANN: Which conclusion you arrive at? As?
CATHY: You’re leaving. And want to conclude here with an Act of Grace. I understand.
(Pause.)
ANN: What did you plan to do on your release?
CATHY: I’ve told you.
ANN: To “Work with the Sisters.” You . . .
CATHY: . . . you have that correspondence.
ANN: To “Work with the Sisters.” Doing “Good.”
CATHY: That’s right.
ANN: And would you like to do Good.
CATHY: With all my heart.
ANN: Where is Althea?
(Pause.)
CATHY: Althea . . .
ANN: Yes.
CATHY: Why Althea? Finally?
ANN: Tell me.
CATHY: Is she the last one left?
ANN: Marty, of course, died in the apartment. Marianne died in the shoot-out . . . John and Jack . . .
CATHY: I know what happened to John and Jack.
ANN: Do they write you?
CATHY: No.
ANN: They don’t?
CATHY: If they did I wouldn’t accept their letters.
ANN: Oh, yes, as they were “traitors”? Were they traitors?
CATHY: If it amuses you, you may say that they were.
ANN: To what?
CATHY: All right.
ANN: To what?
CATHY: To “The Cause.”
ANN: What was The Cause?
CATHY: There was no Cause.
ANN: But you’ve said that they were traitors.
CATHY: That’s right.
ANN: But, to what, if not “The Cause”?
CATHY: . . . and they sinned.
ANN: Against what, if not “The Cause”?
CATHY: We all sin.
ANN: But can they have no forgiveness? You say you have found forgiveness. Can you not forgive them?
CATHY: Which of us is perfect?
ANN: You wrote that Althea was perfect.
CATHY: I wrote that?
ANN: At the beginning.
CATHY: You may read my letters if you like.
ANN: I may read them with or without your permission. They were found in the apartment.
CATHY: Ah, yes.
ANN: And, so, are in Evidence.
CATHY: Of course.
ANN: And, further, you, who believed in the “cleansing force of Violence,” are powerless to stop me. As power comes, as you’ve said, “from the end of a gun.”
CATHY: I have embraced Christ, and have renounced violence.
ANN: But you will not forgive “traitors.”
CATHY: I said I have embraced Christ. Not that I have become Him.
(Pause.)
ANN: You believe. That the time has come. For us to release you. An old woman. Not that she deserves compassion. But that she no longer poses a threat. Is that the gist of your plea?
CATHY: Look at me.
ANN: All right
CATHY: Am I a threat?
ANN: Where is Althea?
CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: If you knew, would you tell me?
CATHY: What can that question mean? . . .
ANN: Who are The Blind?
CATHY: “The Blind . . .”
ANN (Reads): “While the unafflicted may toy with the notion . . .”
CATHY: Yes, I wrote it. The, the . . .
ANN: Who are The Blind?
/> CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: But you wrote it. “The . . .”
CATHY: Yes, I wrote it, but people change. You change.
ANN: Who are “the unafflicted”?
CATHY: I . . .
ANN: Would that be you? What is the affliction you escaped?
CATHY: I . . .
ANN: Which allowed you such freedom? “Hov’ring at the margins of the real . . . We strive to disabuse ourselves . . .”
CATHY: They were the writings of a child. Who had the facility to ape that language. I confess. Now I have nothing more to confess.
ANN: Where is Althea?
CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: I don’t believe you.
CATHY: What if you are wrong?
ANN: Then you must stay in prison.
CATHY: How is this diff . . .
ANN: Or whom . . .
CATHY: . . . how is this different from an inquisition?
ANN: Or whom would you have judge? And on what basis? That people may kill, as they are moved or inspired, and then claim they’ve had a “Vision.” Of repentance? Of . . .
CATHY: Yes, all right.
ANN: Or simply claim “the biddability of childhood.”
CATHY: I would like to go free.
ANN: Then tell me where your partner is.
CATHY: Is that the condition? Of my release?
ANN: John and Jack. Renounced their crime. By indicting their associate.
CATHY: Oh, yes, that’s well put.
ANN: Which differs, you must agree, from, a mere “profession of faith” or of “repentance.”
CATHY: Yes, you are correct. It does.
ANN: It was a quantifiable Act.
CATHY: All right.
ANN: Of which the Court took notice.
CATHY: Fine.
ANN: How else could it judge? By the ability of the claimants to awake “compassion”? Do you live in that sort of a world? Did you? You understand my problem. (Pause) You were lonely. After she left you.
CATHY: Yes. Let’s do that, too.
ANN: You were lonely. When she “broke up with you.”
CATHY: Yes.
ANN: When she “abandoned” you.
Cathy: If you will.
ANN: No, that’s your word. Yes? In the letter you had passed to her?
CATHY: That was so long ago.
ANN: That you, illegally, had passed to her.
CATHY: I thought she had abandoned me.
ANN: You were imprisoned.
CATHY: Did you long for your children when you were apart from them? . . . (Pause) She ceased writing to me. And I pined for her.
ANN: Where is she?
CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: You don’t know, and yet you wrote, last month, to your attorney: “I would like, in Freedom, to . . .”
CATHY: That letter was privileged.
ANN: “Once again . . .”
CATHY: That was a privileged communication.
ANN: “Gaze upon the Morning Star.” And asked him . . .
CATHY: No, your interception . . .
ANN: To see if he could aid you in that.
CATHY: Your interception of that letter to my attorney is a crime.
ANN: Perhaps. If one believed in the State.
CATHY: Irrespective of . . .
ANN: “To gaze,” you wrote, “again upon the Morning Star.” What is the Morning Star?
(Pause.)
CATHY: The Morning Star is Venus.
ANN: In this context.
CATHY: It was the star of Bethlehem and—as the Star of Evening—shone into the cave where Christ was born.
ANN: In this context.
CATHY: That’s what it means.
ANN: Yes. But the phrase also occurs here. In your Concordance Bible, in the Book of Esther. Where, in the margin, we find: “Esther, who is also Astarte and Ishtar. Whence our word star.” And a poem. “Written in sequestration. To Althea. I long . . .”
Cathy: All right . . .
ANN: “To gaze, once again. Upon you: on the Morning Star.” Where is Althea?
CATHY: You, understandably, assume, that that which is . . .
ANN: “Withheld”?
CATHY: You assume. That everything that’s said here, which is, of necessity, opaque . . .
ANN: . . . why would it be “opaque”?
CATHY: Must, of necessity, be criminal, or shameful. That it must be sexual, or . . .
ANN: Is love between two women shameful?
CATHY: It’s private. Do you understand? As sex between any two people is private. The unhealthy may confuse the wish for privacy with shame. Do you want me to tell you my fantasies? To . . .
ANN: Everything said here is said in confidence.
CATHY: Oh, please. You inform the Board . . .
ANN: All I forward to the Board are my conclusions.
CATHY: How are they arrived at? If prurience . . .
ANN: . . . am I prurient? . . .
CATHY: . . . and curiosity are confused? If a desire for privacy is confused with . . .
ANN: I . . .
CATHY: One lies, wait, or, say one withholds . . .
ANN: Everyone who sits there lies, I understand. I would.
CATHY: You would . . .
ANN: To go free, yes, of course.
CATHY: And yet, and yet—knowing that, you indulge, in the name of, what? “Psychology,” your penchant for what, “observation”?
ANN: Is love between women unnatural?
CATHY: Everything in prison is unnatural. Would you like me to set you free?
ANN: How would you set me free?
CATHY: No. Would you like me. To set you free?
ANN: How am I bound?
CATHY: Will you answer me?
ANN: You wrote: “The troubled cannot be freed by psychiatry.” That they do not lack psychiatry.
CATHY: . . . that’s right.
ANN: “. . . they lack love.” (Pause) Do I lack love?
CATHY: Of course you do.
ANN: . . . I lack love . . .
CATHY: That’s why you’re frightened.
ANN: I’m frightened. Why?
CATHY: Because you’re leaving.
ANN: Has my work here given me Love?
CATHY: It’s given you structure. Which is to say, repression . . .
ANN: Sexual repression?
CATHY: Of a deeper desire.
ANN: For?
CATHY: Submission.
ANN: To?
CATHY: To God. (Pause) Which is why you mock the possibility in others. I understand. Believe me.
(Pause.)
ANN: Where is Althea?
CATHY: Put it down. Don’t you see? You are chained to the past. When you can be free. This is the lesson of The Christ. To let the dead bury the dead. That is all that it means, Ann, to be reborn. It is not “mystical” that you need be frightened of it. It is not an “ordeal” it is a gift. The end of regret. It’s faith. It is the holy ghost.
ANN: What is the Holy Ghost?
CATHY: It is that Spirit which unites the Father and the Son. It is a mystery. Which is the essence of Faith. Ann: Neither God nor human worth can be proved. That, finally, there is nothing but Spirit. In time. I could by Reason, Ann, bring you to Faith. I know your heart is heavy.
ANN: Why is my heart heavy?
CATHY: Because it is stone. Which must break to be opened. Will you break open your heart? You can lay your burden down. And He will take it from you.
(The phone rings again.)
I can’t do it for you, Ann. I wish I could. He can.
(The phone rings again.)
But it requires an act of courage.
(Ann picks up the phone and holds it.)
ANN: Where is Althea?
CATHY: Are you sure? Are you sure?
ANN: I . . .
CATHY: If I can help you. I’ll help you. Why would I not? You know I’ve helped others. You know I have.
(Ann picks
up the phone.)
ANN (Into the phone): Thank you. I understand.
CATHY: . . . what do you think that I’ve been doing here? . . . Is it impossible that I was sent here? Or, finding myself here found that I might do good, might that not be called the intercession of God? Whose only worldly influence, Ann, is through the human soul. Which is to say, through sinners. “There was a young girl who killed. And was confined to prison. And a man gave her a book.”
ANN: Where is Althea?
CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: But you wrote to her.
CATHY: I wrote of her.
ANN: Oh yes. (Reading) “I thought she was dead. And searched for her. In other women . . .”
CATHY: . . . all right . . .
ANN (Reading): “Assured that their outward form was but a necessary veil. To keep the mystery from profane eyes. A common reaction, I learned, of the widow.”
CATHY: For all I know, she is dead. For all I know, she is somewhere in Custody.
ANN: And someone has been holding her? All of these years.
CATHY: You say it doesn’t happen? . . .
ANN: Does it?
CATHY: That the State . . .
ANN: Are you an Enemy of the State?
CATHY: I was.
ANN: And now? Are you an Enemy of the State?
CATHY: No.
ANN: But you were.
CATHY: Yes.
ANN: What are the ways in which enemies may be reconciled?
CATHY: . . . all right . . .
ANN (Reads): “These are the ways in which Enemies can be reconciled.”
CATHY: I was young. And I was a fool.
ANN: “Surrender of life, of property, of land, or of Prejudice,” which I understand to mean, of a previously held belief.
CATHY: Have you done nothing, in your youth . . .
ANN: “Or, in plainer English, Enemies may be reconciled if one or both recant, revise or surrender their position.” Which do we find here?
CATHY: I don’t know.
ANN: How can I know unless you tell me?
CATHY: Do you enjoy my discomfort?
ANN: You chose to come here. To see me.
CATHY: That’s right.
ANN: Seeking approval for your request. Which request may only be obtained through my endorsement.
CATHY: Which may only be obtained from you.
ANN: That’s right.
(Pause.)
CATHY: All right, “why?”
ANN: Because I have been delegated that power.
CATHY: And why you?
ANN: As a representative of the State.
CATHY: “With all your imperfections.”