ESTHER: Maybe it’s that it always used to seem so pretentious to me, and kind of bourgeois. But it does have a certain character. I think some of it’s in style again. It’s surprising.
VICTOR: Well, you want to take anything?
ESTHER, looking about, hesitates: I don’t know if I want it around. It’s all so massive . . . where would we put any of it? That chest is lovely. She goes to it.
VICTOR: That was mine. Indicating one across the room: The one over there was Walter’s. They’re a pair.
ESTHER, comparing: Oh ya! Did you get hold of him?
VICTOR—rather glances away, as though this had been an issue: I called again this morning—he was in consultation.
ESTHER: Was he in the office?
VICTOR: Ya. The nurse went and talked to him for a minute—it doesn’t matter. As long as he’s notified so I can go ahead.
She suppresses comment, picks up a lamp.
That’s probably real porcelain. Maybe it’d go in the bedroom.
ESTHER, putting the lamp down: Why don’t I meet you somewhere? The whole thing depresses me.
VICTOR: Why? It won’t take long. Relax. Come on, sit down; the dealer’ll be here any minute.
ESTHER, sitting on a couch: There’s just something so damned rotten about it. I can’t help it; it always was. The whole thing is infuriating.
VICTOR: Well, don’t get worked up. We’ll sell it and that’ll be the end of it. I picked up the tickets, by the way.
ESTHER: Oh, good. Laying her head back: Boy, I hope it’s a good picture.
VICTOR: Better be. Great, not good. Two-fifty apiece.
ESTHER, with sudden protest: I don’t care! I want to go somewhere. She aborts further response, looking around. God, what’s it all about? When I was coming up the stairs just now, and all the doors hanging open . . . It doesn’t seem possible . . .
VICTOR: They tear down old buildings every day in the week, kid.
ESTHER: I know, but it makes you feel a hundred years old. I hate empty rooms. She muses. What was that screwball’s name?—rented the front parlor, remember?—repaired saxophones?
VICTOR, smiling: Oh—Saltzman. Extending his hand sideways: With the one eye went out that way.
ESTHER: Ya! Every time I came down the stairs, there he was waiting for me with his four red hands! How’d he ever get all those beautiful girls?
VICTOR—laughs: God knows. He must’ve smelled good.
She laughs, and he does.
He’d actually come running up here sometimes; middle of the afternoon—“Victor, come down quick, I got extras!”
ESTHER: And you did, too!
VICTOR: Why not? If it was free, you took it.
ESTHER, blushing: You never told me that.
VICTOR: No, that was before you. Mostly.
ESTHER: You dog.
VICTOR: So what? It was the Depression.
She laughs at the non sequitur.
No, really—I think people were friendlier; lot more daytime screwing in those days. Like the McLoughlin sisters—remember, with the typing service in the front bedroom? He laughs. My father used to say, “In that typing service it’s two dollars a copy.”
She laughs. It subsides.
ESTHER: And they’re probably all dead.
VICTOR: I guess Saltzman would be—he was well along. Although—He shakes his head, laughs softly in surprise. Jeeze, he wasn’t either. I think he was about . . . my age now. Huh!
Caught by the impact of time, they stare for a moment in silence.
ESTHER—gets up, goes to the harp: Well, where’s your dealer?
VICTOR, glancing at his watch: It’s twenty to six. He should be here soon.
She plucks the harp.
That should be worth something.
ESTHER: I think a lot of it is. But you’re going to have to bargain, you know. You can’t just take what they say . . .
VICTOR, with an edge of protest: I can bargain; don’t worry, I’m not giving it away.
ESTHER: Because they expect to bargain.
VICTOR: Don’t get depressed already, will you? We didn’t even start. I intend to bargain, I know the score with these guys.
ESTHER—withholds further argument, goes to the phonograph; firing up some slight gaiety: What’s this record?
VICTOR: It’s a Laughing Record. It was a big thing in the Twenties.
ESTHER, curiously: You remember it?
VICTOR: Very vaguely. I was only five or six. Used to play them at parties. You know—see who could keep a straight face. Or maybe they just sat around laughing; I don’t know.
ESTHER: That’s a wonderful idea!
Their relation is quite balanced, so to speak; he turns to her.
VICTOR: You look good.
She looks at him, an embarrassed smile.
I mean it.—I said I’m going to bargain, why do you . . . ?
ESTHER: I believe you.—This is the suit.
VICTOR: Oh, is that it! And how much? Turn around.
ESTHER, turning: Forty-five, imagine? He said nobody’d buy it, it was too simple.
VICTOR, seizing the agreement: Boy, women are dumb; that is really handsome. See, I don’t mind if you get something for your money, but half the stuff they sell is such crap . . . Going to her: By the way, look at this collar. Isn’t this one of the ones you just bought?
ESTHER, examining it: No, that’s an older one.
VICTOR: Well, even so. Turning up a heel: Ought to write to Consumers Union about these heels. Three weeks—look at them!
ESTHER: Well, you don’t walk straight.—You’re not going in uniform, I hope.
VICTOR: I could’ve murdered that guy! I’d just changed, and McGowan was trying to fingerprint some bum and he didn’t want to be printed; so he swings out his arm just as I’m going by, right into my container.
ESTHER, as though this symbolized: Oh, God . . .
VICTOR: I gave it to that quick cleaner, he’ll try to have it by six.
ESTHER: Was there cream and sugar in the coffee?
VICTOR: Ya.
ESTHER: He’ll never have it by six.
VICTOR, assuagingly: He’s going to try.
ESTHER: Oh, forget it.
Slight pause. Seriously disconsolate, she looks around at random.
VICTOR: Well, it’s only a movie . . .
ESTHER: But we go out so rarely—why must everybody know your salary? I want an evening! I want to sit down in a restaurant without some drunken ex-cop coming over to the table to talk about old times.
VICTOR: It happened twice. After all these years, Esther, it would seem to me . . .
ESTHER: I know it’s unimportant—but like that man in the museum; he really did—he thought you were the sculptor.
VICTOR: So I’m a sculptor.
ESTHER, bridling: Well, it was nice, that’s all! You really do, Vic—you look distinguished in a suit. Why not? Laying her head back on the couch: I should’ve taken down the name of that scotch.
VICTOR: All scotch is chemically the same.
ESTHER: I know; but some is better.
VICTOR, looking at his watch: Look at that, will you? Five-thirty sharp, he tells me. People say anything. He moves with a heightened restlessness, trying to down his irritation with her mood. His eye falls on a partly opened drawer of a chest, and he opens it and takes out an ice skate. Look at that, they’re still good! He tests the edge with his fingernail; she merely glances at him. They’re even sharp. We ought to skate again sometime. He sees her unremitting moodiness. Esther, I said I would bargain!—You see?—you don’t know how to drink; it only depresses you.
ESTHER: Well, it’s the kind of depression I enjoy!
VICTOR: Hot diggity dog.
ESTHER: I have an idea.
VICTOR: What?
ESTHER: Why don’t you leave me? Just send me enough for coffee and cigarettes.
VICTOR: Then you’d never have to get out of bed.
ESTHER: I’d get out. Once in a while.
VICTOR: I got a better idea. Why don’t you go off for a couple of weeks with your doctor? Seriously. It might change your viewpoint.
ESTHER: I wish I could.
VICTOR: Well, do it. He’s got a suit. You could even take the dog—especially the dog. She laughs. It’s not funny. Every time you go out for one of those walks in the rain I hold my breath what’s going to come back with you.
ESTHER, laughing: Oh, go on, you love her.
VICTOR: I love her! You get plastered, you bring home strange animals, and I “love” them! I do not love that goddamned dog!
She laughs with affection, as well as with a certain feminine defiance.
ESTHER: Well, I want her!
VICTOR—pause: It won’t be solved by a dog, Esther. You’re an intelligent, capable woman, and you can’t lay around all day. Even something part-time, it would give you a place to go.
ESTHER: I don’t need a place to go. Slight pause. I’m not quite used to Richard not being there, that’s all.
VICTOR: He’s gone, kid. He’s a grown man; you’ve got to do something with yourself.
ESTHER: I can’t go to the same place day after day. I never could and I never will. Did you ask to speak to your brother?
VICTOR: I asked the nurse. Yes. He couldn’t break away.
ESTHER: That son of a bitch. It’s sickening.
VICTOR: Well, what are you going to do? He never had that kind of feeling.
ESTHER: What feeling? To come to the phone after sixteen years? It’s common decency. With sudden intimate sympathy: You’re furious, aren’t you?
VICTOR: Only at myself. Calling him again and again all week like an idiot . . . To hell with him, I’ll handle it alone. It’s just as well.
ESTHER: What about his share?
He shifts; pressed and annoyed.
I don’t want to be a pest—but I think there could be some money here, Vic.
He is silent.
You’re going to raise that with him, aren’t you?
VICTOR, with a formed decision: I’ve been thinking about it. He’s got a right to his half, why should he give up anything?
ESTHER: I thought you’d decided to put it to him?
VICTOR: I’ve changed my mind. I don’t really feel he owes me anything, I can’t put on an act.
ESTHER: But how many Cadillacs can he drive?
VICTOR: That’s why he’s got Cadillacs. People who love money don’t give it away.
ESTHER: I don’t know why you keep putting it like charity. There’s such a thing as a moral debt. Vic, you made his whole career possible. What law said that only he could study medicine—?
VICTOR: Esther, please—let’s not get back on that, will you?
ESTHER: I’m not back on anything—you were even the better student. That’s a real debt, and he ought to be made to face it. He could never have finished medical school if you hadn’t taken care of Pop. I mean we ought to start talking the way people talk! There could be some real money here.
VICTOR: I doubt that. There are no antiques or—
ESTHER: Just because it’s ours why must it be worthless?
VICTOR: Now what’s that for?
ESTHER: Because that’s the way we think! We do!
VICTOR, sharply: The man won’t even come to the phone, how am I going to—?
ESTHER: Then you write him a letter, bang on his door. This belongs to you!
VICTOR, surprised, seeing how deadly earnest she is: What are you so excited about?
ESTHER: Well, for one thing it might help you make up your mind to take your retirement.
A slight pause.
VICTOR, rather secretively, unwillingly: It’s not the money been stopping me.
ESTHER: Then what is it?
He is silent.
I just thought that with a little cushion you could take a month or two until something occurs to you that you want to do.
VICTOR: It’s all I think about right now, I don’t have to quit to think.
ESTHER: But nothing seems to come of it.
VICTOR: Is it that easy? I’m going to be fifty. You don’t just start a whole new career. I don’t understand why it’s so urgent all of a sudden.
ESTHER—laughs: All of a sudden! It’s all I’ve been talking about since you became eligible—I’ve been saying the same thing for three years!
VICTOR: Well, it’s not three years—
ESTHER: It’ll be three years in March! It’s three years. If you’d gone back to school then you’d almost have your Master’s by now; you might have had a chance to get into something you’d love to do. Isn’t that true? Why can’t you make a move?
VICTOR—pause. He is almost ashamed: I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not sure the whole thing wasn’t a little unreal. I’d be fifty-three, fifty-four by the time I could start doing anything.
ESTHER: But you always knew that.
VICTOR: It’s different when you’re right on top of it. I’m not sure it makes any sense now.
ESTHER, moving away, the despair in her voice: Well . . . this is exactly what I tried to tell you a thousand times. It makes the same sense it ever made. But you might have twenty more years, and that’s still a long time. Could do a lot of interesting things in that time. Slight pause. You’re so young, Vic.
VICTOR: I am?
ESTHER: Sure! I’m not, but you are. God, all the girls goggle at you, what do you want?
VICTOR—laughs emptily: It’s hard to discuss it, Es, because I don’t understand it.
ESTHER: Well, why not talk about what you don’t understand? Why do you expect yourself to be an authority?
VICTOR: Well, one of us is got to stay afloat, kid.
ESTHER: You want me to pretend everything is great? I’m bewildered and I’m going to act bewildered! It flies out as though long suppressed: I’ve asked you fifty times to write a letter to Walter—
VICTOR, like a repeated story: What’s this with Walter again? What’s Walter going to—?
ESTHER: He is an important scientist, and that hospital’s building a whole new research division. I saw it in the paper, it’s his hospital.
VICTOR: Esther, the man hasn’t called me in sixteen years.
ESTHER: But neither have you called him!
He looks at her in surprise.
Well, you haven’t. That’s also a fact.
VICTOR, as though the idea were new and incredible: What would I call him for?
ESTHER: Because, he’s your brother, he’s influential, and he could help—Yes, that’s how people do, Vic! Those articles he wrote had a real idealism, there was a genuine human quality. I mean people do change, you know.
VICTOR, turning away: I’m sorry, I don’t need Walter.
ESTHER: I’m not saying you have to approve of him; he’s a selfish bastard, but he just might be able to put you on the track of something. I don’t see the humiliation.
VICTOR, pressed, irritated: I don’t understand why it’s all such an emergency.
ESTHER: Because I don’t know where in hell I am, Victor! To her own surprise, she has ended nearly screaming. He is silent. She retracts. I’ll do anything if I know why, but all these years we’ve been saying, once we get the pension we’re going to start to live. . . . It’s like pushing against a door for twenty-five years and suddenly it opens . . . and we stand there. Sometimes I wonder, maybe I misunderstood you, maybe you like the department.
VICTOR: I’ve hated every minute of it.
ESTHER: I did everything wrong! I swear, I think if I demanded more it would have helped you mo
re.
VICTOR: That’s not true. You’ve been a terrific wife—
ESTHER: I don’t think so. But the security meant so much to you I tried to fit into that; but I was wrong. God—just before coming here, I looked around at the apartment to see if we could use any of this—and it’s all so ugly. It’s worn and shabby and tasteless. And I have good taste! I know I do! It’s that everything was always temporary with us. It’s like we never were anything, we were always about-to-be. I think back to the war when any idiot was making so much money—that’s when you should have quit, and I knew it, I knew it!
VICTOR: That’s when I wanted to quit.
ESTHER: I only had one drink, Victor, so don’t—
VICTOR: Don’t change the whole story, kid. I wanted to quit, and you got scared.
ESTHER: Because you said there was going to be a Depression after the war.
VICTOR: Well, go to the library, look up the papers around 1945, see what they were saying!
ESTHER: I don’t care! She turns away—from her own irrationality.
VICTOR: I swear, Es, sometimes you make it sound like we’ve had no life at all.
ESTHER: God—my mother was so right! I can never believe what I see. I knew you’d never get out if you didn’t during the war—I saw it happening, and I said nothing. You know what the goddamned trouble is?
VICTOR, glancing at his watch, as he senses the end of her revolt: What’s the goddamned trouble?
ESTHER: We can never keep our minds on money! We worry about it, we talk about it, but we can’t seem to want it. I do, but you don’t. I really do, Vic. I want it. Vic? I want money!
VICTOR: Congratulations.
ESTHER: You go to hell!
VICTOR: I wish you’d stop comparing yourself to other people, Esther! That’s all you’re doing lately.
ESTHER: Well, I can’t help it!
VICTOR: Then you’ve got to be a failure, kid, because there’s always going to be somebody up ahead of you. What happened? I have a certain nature; just as you do—I didn’t change—
ESTHER: But you have changed. You’ve been walking around like a zombie ever since the retirement came up. You’ve gotten so vague—
VICTOR: Well, it’s a decision. And I’d like to feel a little more certain about it. . . . Actually, I’ve even started to fill out the forms a couple of times.
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