MARJORIE I don’t know. Body language. We projected an easy sexuality. It’s not a conscious thing, Ira. And out of these subliminal erotic thoughts, we created a rampaging golem.
IRA A what?
MARJORIE A golem. In Jewish folklore. It’s sort of a yiddishe Frankenstein monster. It’s sculpted out of mud, and acts out its master’s most secret wishes. Perhaps we created this golem out of our hidden sexual desires. And now the creature is running amuck.
IRA Well, let’s stop the creature before it calls A, T &T.
MARJORIE She’s gotten me all confused. I can’t express it. I never imagined that I could allow another woman to make love to me. Maybe there are other experiences I need to open myself up to.
IRA What experiences? Bestiality? Necrophilia?
MARJORIE Darling, I’m asking you to be a little sensitive here. Really listen to me. Maybe our marriage is something we need to discuss.
IRA I didn’t know our marriage was in trouble.
MARJORIE I’m not saying that. Oh God, I don’t know what I’m saying. I just don’t want us to be complacent or stagnant. I don’t want us to be afraid of self-reflection. A painter like Rembrant revisited the same subject time after time and always with a very different take on it.
IRA I buy that. A nose and throat man examines the same asthmatic patient several times a year. The condition is the same but the bronchial obstruction is ever changeable. However, with careful monitoring, breathing can be restored to normalcy.
MARJORIE Something has happened Ira. For weeks, months really, I lay on this sofa, feeling a kind of blankness. Just this queasy terror of the unknown.
IRA And now it’s different?
MARJORIE Yes, I do feel something. I feel the need to question. What do I want? What do I need? What do I believe in? What do I want to believe in? Which questions are mere vanity?
IRA But you were always asking yourself questions? You’re a questioning individual.
MARJORIE They were the wrong questions. And they weren’t truly questions of the soul. They were intellectual calisthenics.
IRA I know one thing. I want Lee out of here. And soon.
MARJORIE And where’s she going to go at such short notice?
IRA She has to leave some time. Doesn’t she?
MARJORIE I hate kicking her out because we’re so uptight.
IRA Trust me, we’re not so uptight. Last night I was like a man possessed. Going back and forth between the two of you. That wasn’t Dr. V. Ira Taub. That sex-crazed madman was a stranger.
MARJORIE What if she expects a second performance? We both can’t feign a headache.
IRA It probably won’t happen again. Last night for her was more about the conquest. We were forbidden fruit.
MARJORIE You think she just wanted us once and that was it?
IRA You want more?
MARJORIE (With mounting indignation.) No. I just hate being tossed aside like an old cabbage at the Fairway. Really, the more I think about it, we were, in a sense, raped.
IRA (Dubious.) Well—
MARJORIE No, Ira. It was date rape. We said no and she persisted. Frieda enters, followed by Lee.
FRIEDA It was nearly a catastrophe. I fell.
MARJORIE Oh my God.
IRA Are you all right?
LEE She’s fine.
FRIEDA I fell trying to sit on the toilet. Lee came in and picked me off the floor. She’s really something. Do you know she’s friends with Andy Griffith?
IRA Look at the time. We should get going.
MARJORIE Mother, I’ll walk you back.
LEE I’ll take her. You know, darlings, I woke up with a touch of bursitis in my shoulder. Too much fun and games last night. Do you guys really want to go to this thing? I mean, it is five hours long and mostly in Gaelic. Maybe we should stay in, relax, put on some cool jazz, open a bottle of wine and just, you know, party.
Ira and Marjorie know exactly what she means by “party” and they definitely don’t want to stick around for round two.
IRA I gotta confess. I was really set on that Oresteia. I am a major Greek theater buff from way back. (Ira grabs their coats out of the closet.)
MARJORIE And this production is supposed to be revelatory. I understand for the first time they’ve really mined the bitter humor in Aeschylus. You stay home and nurse that shoulder. And go to bed early. That’s an order.
IRA And when we get back we should have a talk. A real talk.
LEE As long as you don’t mind talking in front of Raffi.
IRA Who’s Raffi?
MARJORIE You invited someone over?
LEE He’s a good pal. Teaches movement over at HB Studios in the Village. He’s just a frisky, androgynous free spirit. Ira, I think you’ll get a real kick out of him.
IRA (Freaked.) Marjorie, the golem is out of control.
MARJORIE We’ve really got to go. You get a good night’s sleep. Take an Ambien. Take Two.
Ira pushes her out the door. We can hear them talking in the hall.
IRA Marjorie, ring for the elevator.
Lee and Frieda are left alone.
LEE What’s s a golem?
BLACKOUT
ACT TWO
SCENE 3
The following day. Afternoon. Ira and Mohammed are in deep conversation.
IRA Now this is coming from personal experience? Not just heresay?
MOHAMMED Well, if it is the same group, I believe my cousin was involved with them in Baghdad. Powerful American people help finance this organization. Only they don’t know what it really is.
IRA So you’re telling me the Universal Human Rights Coalition is dangerous?
MOHAMMED I will merely tell you this. If one attempts to break away from them, one is never heard from again. We have not seen my cousin in over a year. Is Mrs. Taub mixed in with them?
IRA A friend of hers.
MOHAMMED Miss Green.
IRA How did you know?
MOHAMMED I have always had strange feelings about the lady. I do not like her.
The front door opens and Marjorie and Frieda enter.
MARJORIE Okay, we’re all gathered here. So what’s the big megillah?
IRA Ladies, sit down.
MARJORIE Why is Mohammed here? Is this another intervention to tell me I’m crazy?
IRA Marjorie, do you know when Lee will be back?
MARJORIE She said late afternoon. She wants to take us to a party tonight. I asked her if it was dressy and the only thing she’d say is that there’d be costumes waiting for us. We may be in over our heads.
IRA Lee really has to go.
MARJORIE On the other hand, perhaps exposure to this decadent netherworld could fuel my craft.
IRA Listen to what you’re saying. You’re swinging back and forth like a pendulum.
MARJORIE You think I don’t know? I am ravaged by ambivalence. Look, my eye is twitching.
IRA Can’t you see you’re drawn to this woman like a moth to a flame?
MARJORIE She has this mesmerizing power over my mind and spirit. She is like a Rasputin.
IRA The spell may be broken after what I have to say.
MARJORIE What’s wrong? What’s happened?
IRA This morning I was paying bills. And, as you know, part of my monthly routine is balancing Frieda’s checkbook. Frieda, two days ago did you write out a check to the Universal Human Rights Coalition?
FRIEDA (Defensively.) I don’t know. I might have. Yeah.
MARJORIE That’s Lee’s group. Mother, that was very generous of you.
IRA It was for five thousand dollars.
MARJORIE (Screams.) Mother, are you crazy?
FRIEDA I don’t have to fucking answer to any of you.
IRA Calm down, both of you. Frieda, do you remember writing this check?
FRIEDA I don’t know. Yes. I suppose I did.
MARJORIE What possessed you?
FRIEDA You both left me to see that goddam piece of crap in Brooklyn, left me in the clutc
hes of that phony. Oh, she was so lovey dovey. My best friend in the world.
MARJORIE She wouldn’t do something like this. Tell us exactly what went on.
FRIEDA She took me back to my place. I was showing her photographs of your father and then I don’t know what happened.
IRA Don’t get upset.
MARJORIE Could you have misunderstood her? (To Ira.) She can barely hear out of her left ear.
FRIEDA Next thing I’m seated at the desk, she’s hovering over me and I’m writing out a check. It was for five thousand dollars? I must have shit for brains.
MARJORIE I’m in such shock.
FRIEDA (Desperately.) You gotta cancel that check, Ira. Is it too late?
IRA It’s been cashed.
MARJORIE Well, we’ve got to get the money back from them.
MOHAMMED No, Mrs. Taub. These are dangerous people.
MARJORIE What?
IRA I asked Mohammed up here because I had a hunch coming from Iraq, he might know something about the Universal Human Rights Coalition. Mohammed, you have the floor.
MOHAMMED Thank you, Dr. Taub. I do not wish to alarm but it is my understanding that this is a group who believes in action at any cost. Some of their ideas are noble in theory but they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They are fanatics.
MARJORIE This is a nightmare. They advocate violence?
MOHAMMED I can only tell you what I’ve heard. My friend’s uncle’s business partner had an associate who was in disagreement with them and they chopped up a tiger’s whiskers into a fine powder and sprinkled it in his hummos. The sharp hairs perforated holes throughout his um . . .
FRIEDA Intestines and lower bowel?
MOHAMMED Yes and he, forgive my vulgarity, he shit himself to death.
FRIEDA Really?
MARJORIE (Noticing her mother’s rapt attention.) Well, you certainly know your audience. This is the limit, Ira. This is the limit. This cannot go on.
IRA You really mean it? You’re not going to waffle?
MARJORIE I feel so utterly betrayed. To raise cash for her crackpot group, she plied money out of the arthritic hands of my aged mother. And it’s not even the money that’s the issue. She kissed my ass and I fell for it. I’m such an idiot.
IRA We have to forge a plan. Tonight we tell her we’ve got family coming for a visit and we need the guestroom.
FRIEDA Who’s coming? Uncle Izzie Hecht from Jacksonville? Why the hell’d you invite him?
MARJORIE Nobody’s coming. It’s a ruse!
They hear the front door unlocking. Lee enters carrying groceries.
LEE Hello, darlings.
MARJORIE I thought you were going to be out all day.
LEE My meeting ended sooner than I expected.
FRIEDA Was it a good meeting? You got something big planned?
LEE A celebrity auction and although I’m dying to tell you all about it, I’m sworn to secrecy. Marjorie, I found us the most divine hair conditioner. I know you’re an Herbal Essence girl from way back but any hair stylist will tell you, you got to switch products now and then. Trust me on this. I’m a licensed beautician. Mohammed, have you come to fix the sink?
IRA Lee, we need to have a little talk. I understand that Frieda wrote you a check for five thousand dollars as a donation to your group.
LEE Yes, she did and everyone was so grateful.
IRA She thought she was writing it out for fifty dollars not five thousand. She’d like to write you out a new check.
FRIEDA No fucking way am I giving fifty dollars to those madmen.
LEE What did you tell them, Mohammed?
MOHAMMED You killed my cousin Achmed.
LEE Look, if we’re going to eat at a decent hour, I’d better hustle. Tonight we’re dining on Persian cuisine. Kashmiri lamb kebabs with an apricot dipping sauce.
FRIEDA Don’t try anything funny. We know all about the tiger whiskers in the hummos trick.
LEE You’ve really lost me. What exactly am I being accused of?
MARJORIE I think you know.
LEE Believe me, I don’t have a clue.
MARJORIE Then I’ll spell it out for you. Acts of international terrorism will not be tolerated in this household.
LEE Let me get this straight. You think I’m some sort of a mishuganuh terrorist? How? Why?
IRA We’ve pieced it together. We know all about your organization. What they stand for and what they’ve done.
MARJORIE And Lil, I have to say, I am horrified beyond words.
LEE Margie, listen to me. Candace Bergen has donated a pair of De La Renta Gaucho pants for our spring auction. She is not by definition a terrorist.
FRIEDA An innocent dupe.
LEE This is patently absurd. This fantasy construct. First you guys think I’m invisible, now you got me blowing up Zabar’s.
MARJORIE Mohammed’s from Iraq. He knows from what he speaks.
LEE I am your friend. You’re gonna listen to him? You’re gonna listen to the doorman?
MARJORIE We trust Mohammed.
LEE And you don’t trust me?
MARJORIE Mohammed didn’t bilk my mother out of five thousand smackers.
LEE She made that donation out of her own free will.
FRIEDA Is she saying I’m gaga? I’ll sue her ass in court.
MARJORIE How could you do this to us? You betrayed our trust.
LEE I was always very upfront. I told you I was fundraising.
MARJORIE From my mother? For all she knows, she could be signing the Camp David Accords. Was everything a lie? Are you really some sort of fanatic?
LEE Your definition of “fanatic” may be very different from mine.
IRA I think you’ve quite tested our friendship and generosity and patience.
LEE Oh, the saint feels used.
MARJORIE Lee!
IRA Let her denigrate me if it gives her satisfaction.
LEE You devote so many hours to your allergy clinic for the homeless. How about attacking the institutional structures that make such a clinic necessary? The environment that’s strangling the breath out of us. But no, that won’t provide the ego fix that the great man requires. It’s not about helping people. It’s just another tribute to the saintly Dr. Taub.
IRA Fuck off! Fuck you!
MARJORIE How dare you talk to my husband that way. Ira grew up as underprivileged as the lowest untouchable in India. My husband, who’s never turned any patient away, who goes into the worst neighborhoods in Harlem on his day off to help the needy. I deeply resent this indictment.
LEE You should defend him. You’re the perfect couple. He loves to see himself as the great man, and you love being the pathetic loser. Poor Marjorie. Poor pitiful Pearl.
MARJORIE I don’t need to hear this. I’m going out.
IRA Where are you going?
MARJORIE To a movie. A museum. Anywhere to get away from her.
LEE Don’t you get tired of spending your whole life in museums and dark screening rooms?
IRA My wife is an intellectual.
LEE That’s great if she gained something from it. You read all these wonderful books but you learn nothing from them. All you get is another chance to brood and bitch that you’ve done nothing with your life. Don’t you see, it’s just cultural masturbation?
MARJORIE That’s disgusting. I brought you into this house when you stranded out in the cold, without a—without a “blechel to your lechel”. (Trans: a penny piece in your ass.) Is that good Yiddish, Mama?
FRIEDA Something like that.
MARJORIE And you’ve done nothing but exploit and swindle us. And now you mask it by pretending to shine the light of truth on our sad, deluded lives. You are a terrorist of the heart, of the soul. You go back to your group and tell them you failed in your mission to blow up this house, Mrs. Saddam Hussein.
LEE Turn me into whatever you need me to be. Identify me with any cause. I really don’t care.
MARJORIE You know, Lil, at the moment, I’m i
dentifying quite strongly with the State of Israel. My borders feel threatened and I’m getting very angry.
LEE Well, the other night the State of Israel didn’t seem to mind its multiple orgasms.
IRA Lee, for God’s sake, not in front of uh Mohammed.
MOHAMMED I’m perfectly fine, Dr. Taub. I know that terrorists will employ any weapon in their arsenal.
LEE Suddenly you’re all so obsessed with terrorism. Are you aware that most terrorism in the world is financed by the United States?
IRA We don’t want to get into a political debate with you.
LEE I can give you a list of U.S. financed Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
FRIEDA Lee, are you a Jew for Jesus?
MARJORIE Mother, please. Lee, are you anti-Israel?
LEE I am not anti-Israel. I believe in the dignity of all peoples.
IRA Cut the bull. Give us a straight answer. What is your involvement with the Universal Human Rights Coalition? The truth.
LEE The real truth is that Marjorie’s upset because of the unexplored feelings I’ve stirred in her.
FRIEDA What feelings?
LEE You don’t give a damn if Golda Meir was a world class terrorist. The truth of the matter is you can’t face your bisexuality, your sterile, joyless marriage to this ego-maniac, your warped children who can’t stand the sight of you and your inability to free yourself from your monster of a mother.
MARJORIE Golda Meir was a terrorist? That wonderful old woman who lived a life of heroism? You are sick. You are a sicko. I bet you’re one of those kooks who go around saying the Holocaust never happened.
LEE That’s not fair. I have never said that. You cannot accuse me of that.
MARJORIE Get out! Out! Out of my house!
LEE Marjorie, don’t be childish.
MARJORIE I want you out of this house this minute.
IRA I’ll get you your coat. (He gets her coat from the closet.)
LEE But my things.
MARJORIE You can pick ‘em up with the doorman. Go!
LEE Marjorie, open your eyes. You’re desperately inventing some excuse to get rid of me.
MARJORIE No, you are the one who must open her eyes. You look at us and only see hand puppets easy to manipulate. But you know what you are really looking at? A family, a unit, a small army and this nine hundred thousand-dollar co-op is a fortress unconquerable.
LEE Marjorie—
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Other Plays Page 26