ADRIAN: I forgot how gloomy it is in here.
MAYA: It’s a hard room to light. Wherever you put a lamp it makes the rest seem darker. I think there are too many unrelated objects—the eye can’t rest here. She laughs, offers a cup; he takes it.
ADRIAN: Thanks, Maya. He sits. Am I interrupting something?
MAYA: I never do anything. When did you arrive?
ADRIAN: Yesterday morning. I was in Paris.
MAYA: And how long do you stay?
ADRIAN: Maybe tomorrow night—I’ll see.
MAYA: So short!
ADRIAN: I had a sudden yen to come look around again, see some of the fellows. And you.
MAYA: They gave a visa so quickly?
ADRIAN: Took two days.
MAYA: How wonderful to be famous.
ADRIAN: I was surprised I got one at all—I’ve attacked them, you know.
MAYA: In the New York Times.
ADRIAN: Oh, you read it.
MAYA: Last fall, I believe.
ADRIAN: What’d you think of it?
MAYA: It was interesting. I partly don’t remember. I was surprised you did journalism. She sips. He waits; nothing more.
ADRIAN: I wonder if they care what anybody writes about them anymore.
MAYA: Yes, they do—very much, I think. But I really don’t know. . . . How’s your wife?
ADRIAN: Ruth? She’s good.
MAYA: I liked her. She had a warm heart. I don’t like many women.
ADRIAN: You look different.
MAYA: I’m two years older—and three kilos.
ADRIAN: It becomes you.
MAYA: Too fat.
ADRIAN: No . . . zaftig. You look creamy. You changed your hairdo.
MAYA: From Vogue magazine.
ADRIAN, laughs: That so! It’s sporty.
MAYA: What brings you back?
ADRIAN: . . . Your English is a thousand percent better. More colloquial.
MAYA: I recite aloud from Vogue magazine.
ADRIAN: You’re kidding.
MAYA: Seriously. Is all I read anymore.
ADRIAN: Oh, go on with you.
MAYA: Everything in Vogue magazine is true.
ADRIAN: Like the girl in pantyhose leaning on her pink Rolls-Royce.
MAYA: Oh, yes, is marvelous. One time there was a completely naked girl in a mink coat—she extends her foot—and one foot touching the bubble bath. Fantastic imagination. It is the only modern art that really excites me.
Adrian laughs.
And their expressions, these girls. Absolutely nothing. Like the goddesses of the Greeks—beautiful, stupid, everlasting. This magazine is classical.
ADRIAN: You’re not drinking anymore?
MAYA: Only after nine o’clock.
ADRIAN: Good. You seem more organized.
MAYA: Until nine o’clock.
They laugh. Maya sips. Slight pause. Adrian sips.
ADRIAN: What’s Marcus doing in London?
MAYA: His last novel is coming out there just now.
ADRIAN: That’s nice. I hear it was a success here.
MAYA: Very much—you say very much or . . . ?
ADRIAN: Very much so.
MAYA: Very much so—what a language!
ADRIAN: You’re doing great. You must practice a lot.
MAYA: Only when the English come to visit Marcus, or the Americans. . . . I have his number in London if you . . .
ADRIAN: I have nothing special to say to him.
Pause.
MAYA: You came back for one day?
ADRIAN: Well, three, really. I was in a symposium in the Sorbonne—about the contemporary novel—and it got so pompous I got an urge to sit down again with writers who had actual troubles. So I thought I’d stop by before I went home.
MAYA: You’ve seen anyone?
ADRIAN: Yes. Slight pause. He reaches for a pack of cigarettes.
MAYA, turning to him quickly, to forgive his not elaborating: It’s all right . . .
ADRIAN: I had dinner with Otto and Sigmund, and their wives.
MAYA, surprised: Oh! You should have called me.
ADRIAN: I tried three times.
MAYA: But Sigmund knows my number.
ADRIAN: You don’t live here anymore?
MAYA: Only when Marcus is away. She indicates the bedroom doorway. He has that tremendous bathtub . . .
ADRIAN: I remember, yes. When’d you break up?
MAYA: I don’t remember—eight or nine months, I think. We are friends. Sigmund didn’t tell you?
ADRIAN: Nothing. Maybe ’cause his wife was there.
MAYA: Why? I am friends with Elizabeth. . . . So you have a new novel, I suppose.
ADRIAN, laughs: You make it sound like I have one every week.
MAYA: I always think you write so easily.
ADRIAN: I always have. But I just abandoned one that I worked on for two years. I’m still trying to get up off the floor. I forgot how easy you are to talk to.
MAYA: But you seem nervous.
ADRIAN: Just sexual tension.
MAYA: You wanted to make love tonight?
ADRIAN: If it came to it, sure. He takes her hand. In Paris we were in the middle of a discussion of Marxism and surrealism, and I suddenly got this blinding vision of the inside of your thigh . . .
She laughs, immensely pleased.
. . . so I’m here. He leans over and kisses her on the lips. Then he stands. Incidentally . . . Ruth and I never married, you know.
MAYA, surprised: But didn’t you call each other . . .
ADRIAN: We never did, really, but we never bothered to correct people. It just made it easier to travel and live together.
MAYA: And now?
ADRIAN: We’re apart together. I want my own fireplace, but with a valid plane ticket on the mantel.
MAYA: Well, that’s natural, you’re a man.
ADRIAN: In my country I’m a child and a son of a bitch. But I’m toying with the idea of growing up—I may ask her to marry me.
MAYA: Is that necessary?
ADRIAN: You’re a smart girl—that’s exactly the question.
MAYA: Whether it is necessary.
ADRIAN: Not exactly that—few books are necessary; a writer has to write. It’s that it became absurd, suddenly. Here I’m laying out motives, characterizations, secret impulses—the whole psychological chess game—when the truth is I’m not sure anymore that I believe in psychology. That anything we think really determines what we’re going to do. Or even what we feel. This interest you?
MAYA: You mean anyone can do anything.
ADRIAN: Almost. Damn near. But the point is a little different. Ruth—when we came back from here two years ago—she went into a terrible depression. She’d had them before, but this time she seemed suicidal.
MAYA: Oh, my God. Why?
ADRIAN: Who knows? There were so many reasons there was no reason. She went back to psychiatry. Other therapies . . . nothing worked. Finally, they gave her a pill. Slight pause. It was miraculous. Turned her completely around. She’s full of energy, purpose, optimism. Looks five years younger.
MAYA: A chemical.
ADRIAN: Yes. She didn’t have the psychic energy to pull her stockings up. Now they’ve just made her assistant to the managing editor of her magazine. Does fifty laps a day in the swimming pool— It plugged her in to some . . . some power. And she lit up.
MAYA: She is happy?
ADRIAN: I don’t really know—she doesn’t talk about her mind anymore, her soul; she talks about what she does. Which is terrific . . .
MAYA: But boring.
ADRIAN: In a way, maybe—but you can’t knock it; I really think it saved her life. But what bothers me is something else. Slight paus
e. She knows neither more nor less about herself now than when she was trying to die. The interior landscape has not lit up. What has changed is her reaction to power. Before she feared it, now she enjoys it. Before she fled from it, now she seeks it. She got plugged in, and she’s come alive.
MAYA: So you have a problem.
ADRIAN: What problem do you think I have?
MAYA: It is unnecessary to write novels anymore.
ADRIAN: God, you’re smart—yes. It made me think of Hamlet. Here we are tracking that marvelous maze of his mind, but isn’t that slightly ludicrous when one knows that with the right pill his anxiety would dissolve? Christ, he’s got everything to live for, heir to the throne, servants, horses—correctly medicated, he could have made a deal with the king and married Ophelia. Or Socrates—instead of hemlock, a swig of lithium and he’d end up the mayor of Athens and live to a hundred. What is lost? Some wisdom, some knowledge found in suffering. But knowledge is power, that’s why it’s good—so what is wrong with gaining power without having to suffer at all?
MAYA, with the faintest color of embarrassment, it seems: You have some reason to ask me this question?
ADRIAN: Yes.
MAYA: Why?
ADRIAN: You have no pills in this country, but power is very sharply defined here. The government makes it very clear that you must snuggle up to power or you will never be happy. Slight pause. I’m wondering what that does to people, Maya. Does it smooth them all out when they know they must all plug in or their lights go out, regardless of what they think or their personalities?
MAYA: I have never thought of this question. She glances at her watch. I am having a brandy, will you? She stands.
ADRIAN laughs: It’s nine o’clock?
MAYA: In one minute. She goes upstage, pours.
ADRIAN: I’d love one; thanks.
MAYA: But I have another mystery. She carefully pours two glasses. He waits. She brings him one, remains standing. Cheers.
ADRIAN: Cheers. They drink. Wow—that’s good.
MAYA: I prefer whisky, but he locks it up when he is away. She sits apart from him. I have known intimately so many writers; they all write books condemning people who wish to be successful and praised, who desire some power in life. But I have never met one writer who did not wish to be praised and successful . . . she is smiling . . . and even powerful. Why do they condemn others who wish the same for themselves?
ADRIAN: Because they understand them so well.
MAYA: For this reason I love Vogue magazine.
He laughs.
I am serious. In this magazine everyone is successful. No one has ever apologized because she was beautiful and happy. I believe this magazine. She knocks back the remains of her drink, stands, goes toward the liquor upstage. Tell me the truth—why have you come back?
ADRIAN, slight pause: You think I could write a book about this country?
MAYA, brings down the bottle, fills his glass: No, Adrian.
ADRIAN: I’m too American.
MAYA: No, the Russians cannot either. She refills her own glass. A big country cannot understand small possibilities. When it is raining in Moscow, the sun is shining in Tashkent. Terrible snow in New York, but it is a beautiful day in Arizona. In a small country, when it rains it rains everywhere. She sits beside him. Why have you come back?
ADRIAN: I’ve told you.
MAYA: Such a trip—for three days?
ADRIAN: Why not? I’m rich.
MAYA, examines his face: You are writing a book about us.
ADRIAN: I’ve written it, and abandoned it. I want to write it again.
MAYA: About this country.
ADRIAN: About you.
MAYA: But what do you know about me?
ADRIAN: Practically nothing. But something in me knows everything.
MAYA: I am astonished.
ADRIAN: My visa’s good through the week—I’ll stay if we could spend a lot of time together. Could we? It’d mean a lot to me.
An instant. She gets up, goes to a drawer, and takes out a new pack of cigarettes.
I promise nobody’ll recognize you—the character is blonde and very tall and has a flat chest. What do you say?
MAYA: But why?
ADRIAN: I’ve become obsessed with this place, it’s like some Jerusalem for me.
MAYA: But we are of no consequence . . .
ADRIAN: Neither is Jerusalem, but it always has to be saved. Let me stay here with you till Friday. When is Marcus coming back?
MAYA: I never know—not till spring, probably. Is he also in your book?
ADRIAN: In a way. Don’t be mad, I swear you won’t be recognized.
MAYA: You want me to talk about him?
ADRIAN: I’d like to understand him, that’s all.
MAYA: For example?
ADRIAN: Well . . . let’s see. You know, I’ve run into Marcus in three or four countries the past five years; had long talks together, but when I go over them in my mind I realize he’s never said anything at all about himself. I like him, always glad to see him, but he’s a total blank. For instance, how does he manage to get a house like this?
MAYA: But why not?
ADRIAN:: It belongs to the government, doesn’t it?
MAYA: It is the same way he gets everything—his trips abroad, his English suits, his girls . . .
ADRIAN: How?
MAYA: He assumes he deserves them.
ADRIAN: But his money—he seems to have quite a lot.
MAYA, shrugs, underplaying the fact: He sells his father’s books from time to time. He had a medieval collection . . .
ADRIAN: They don’t confiscate such things?
MAYA: Perhaps they haven’t thought of it. You are the only person I know who thinks everything in a Socialist country is rational.
ADRIAN: In other words, Marcus is a bit of an operator.
MAYA: Marcus? Marcus is above all naive.
ADRIAN: Naive! You don’t mean that.
MAYA: No one but a naive man spends six years in prison, Adrian.
ADRIAN: But in that period they were arresting everybody, weren’t they?
MAYA: By no means everybody. Marcus is rather a brave man.
ADRIAN: Huh! I had him all wrong. What do you say, let me bring my bag over.
MAYA: You have your book with you?
Adrian: No, it’s home.
She seems skeptical.
. . . Why would I carry it with me?
She stares at him with the faintest smile.
What’s happening?
MAYA: I don’t know—what do you think?
She gets up, cradling her glass, walks thoughtfully to another seat, and sits. He gets up and comes to her.
ADRIAN: What is it?
She shakes her head. She seems overwhelmed by some wider sadness. His tone now is uncertain.
Maya?
MAYA: You’ve been talking to Allison Wolfe?
ADRIAN: I’ve talked to him, yes.
She stands, moves, comes to a halt.
MAYA: He is still telling that story?
ADRIAN, slight pause: I didn’t believe him, Maya.
MAYA: He’s a vile gossip.
ADRIAN: He’s a writer. All writers are gossips.
MAYA: He is a vile man.
ADRIAN:: I didn’t believe him.
MAYA: What did he say to you?
ADRIAN: Why go into it?
MAYA: I know that. I want to know. Please.
Adrian: It was ridiculous. Allison has a puritan imagination.
MAYA: Tell me what he said.
ADRIAN, slight pause: Well . . . that you and Marcus . . . look, it’s so stupid . . .
MAYA: That we have orgies here?
ADRIAN: . . . Yes.
MAYA: And we bring in young girls?
He is silent.
Adrian?
ADRIAN: That this house is bugged. And you bring in girls to compromise writers with the government.
Pause.
MAYA: You’d better go, I believe.
He is silent for a moment, observing her. She is full.
I’m tired anyway . . . I was just going to bed when you called.
ADRIAN: Maya, if I believed it, would I have talked as I have in here?
MAYA:, smiling: I don’t know, Adrian—would you? Anyway, you have your passport. Why not?
ADRIAN: You know I understand the situation too well to believe Allison. Resistance is impossible anymore. I know the government’s got the intellectuals in its pocket, and the few who aren’t have stomach ulcers. He comes to her, takes her hand. I was nervous when I came in but it was sexual tension—I knew we’d be alone.
Her suspicion remains; she slips her hand out of his.
. . . All right, I did think of it. But that’s inevitable, isn’t it?
MAYA: Yes, of course. She moves away again.
ADRIAN: It’s hard for anyone to know what to believe in this country, you can understand that.
MAYA: Yes. She sits, lonely.
ADRIAN:, sits beside her: Forgive me, will you?
MAYA: It is terrible.
ADRIAN: What do you say we forget it?
She looks at him with uncertainty.
What are you doing now?
Slight pause. She stares front for a moment, then takes a breath as though resolving to carry on. Her tone brightens.
MAYA: I write for the radio.
ADRIAN: No plays anymore?
MAYA: I can’t work that hard anymore.
ADRIAN: They wouldn’t put them on?
MAYA: Oh, they would—I was never political, Adrian.
ADRIAN: You were, my first time . . .
MAYA: Well, everybody was in those days. But it wasn’t really politics.
ADRIAN: What, then?
MAYA: I don’t know—some sort of illusion that we could be Communists without having enemies. It was a childishness, dancing around the Maypole. It could never last, life is not like that.
ADRIAN: What do you write?
MAYA: I broadcast little anecdotes, amusing things I notice on the streets, the trams. I am on once a week; they have me on Saturday mornings for breakfast. What is it you want to know?
ADRIAN: I’m not interviewing you, Maya.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 88