HYMAN: You sure? Maybe you can clear it up with your boss when you go back.
GELLBURG: How can I go back? He made a fool of me. It’s infuriating. I tell you—I never wanted to see it this way but he goes sailing around on the ocean and meanwhile I’m foreclosing Brooklyn for them. That’s what it boils down to. You got some lousy rotten job to do, get Gellburg, send in the Yid. Close down a business, throw somebody out of his home. . . . And now to accuse me . . .
HYMAN: But is all this news to you? That’s the system, isn’t it?
GELLBURG: But to accuse me of double-crossing the company! That is absolutely unfair . . . it was like a hammer between the eyes. I mean to me Brooklyn Guarantee—for God’s sake, Brooklyn Guarantee was like . . . like . . .
HYMAN: You’re getting too excited, Phillip . . . come on now. Changing the subject: —I understand your son is coming back from the Philippines.
GELLBURG, he catches his breath for a moment: . . . She show you his telegram? He’s trying to make it here by Monday. Scared eyes and a grin. Or will I last till Monday?
HYMAN: You’ve got to start thinking about more positive things—seriously, your system needs a rest.
GELLBURG: Who’s that talking?
HYMAN, indicating upstage: I asked Margaret to sit with your wife for a while, they’re in your son’s bedroom.
GELLBURG: Do you always take so much trouble?
HYMAN: I like Sylvia.
GELLBURG, his little grin: I know . . . I didn’t think it was for my sake.
HYMAN: You’re not so bad. I have to get back to my office now.
GELLBURG: Please if you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate it. Almost holding his breath: Tell me—the thing she’s so afraid of . . . is me isn’t it?
HYMAN: Well . . . among other things.
GELLBURG, shock: It’s me?
HYMAN: I think so . . . partly.
Gellburg presses his fingers against his eyes to regain control.
GELLBURG: How could she be frightened of me! I worship her! Quickly controlling: How could everything turn out to be the opposite—I made my son in this bed and now I’m dying in it . . . Breaks off, downing a cry. My thoughts keep flying around—everything from years ago keeps coming back like it was last week. Like the day we bought this bed. Abraham & Straus. It was so sunny and beautiful. I took the whole day off. (God, it’s almost twenty-five years ago!) . . . Then we had a soda at Schrafft’s—of course they don’t hire Jews but the chocolate ice cream is the best. Then we went over to Orchard Street for bargains. Bought our first pots and sheets, blankets, pillowcases. The street was full of pushcarts and men with long beards like a hundred years ago. It’s funny, I felt so at home and happy there that day, a street full of Jews, one Moses after another. But they all turned to watch her go by, those fakers. She was a knockout; sometimes walking down a street I couldn’t believe I was married to her. Listen . . . Breaks off, with some diffidence: You’re an educated man, I only went to high school—I wish we could talk about the Jews.
HYMAN: I never studied the history, if that’s what you . . .
GELLBURG: . . . I don’t know where I am . . .
HYMAN: You mean as a Jew?
GELLBURG: Do you think about it much? I never . . . for instance, a Jew in love with horses is something I never heard of.
HYMAN: My grandfather in Odessa was a horse dealer.
GELLBURG: You don’t say! I wouldn’t know you were Jewish except for your name.
HYMAN: I have cousins up near Syracuse who’re still in the business—they break horses. You know there are Chinese Jews.
GELLBURG: I heard of that! And they look Chinese?
HYMAN: They are Chinese. They’d probably say you don’t look Jewish.
GELLBURG: Ha! That’s funny. His laugh disappears; he stares. Why is it so hard to be a Jew?
HYMAN: It’s hard to be anything.
GELLBURG: No, it’s different for them. Being a Jew is a full-time job. Except you don’t think about it much, do you. —Like when you’re on your horse, or . . .
HYMAN: It’s not an obsession for me . . .
GELLBURG: But how’d you come to marry a shiksa?
HYMAN: We were thrown together when I was interning, and we got very close, and . . . well she was a good partner, she helped me, and still does. And I loved her.
GELLBURG: —a Jewish woman couldn’t help you?
HYMAN: Sure. But it just didn’t happen.
GELLBURG: It wasn’t so you wouldn’t seem Jewish.
HYMAN, coldly: I never pretended I wasn’t Jewish.
GELLBURG, almost shaking with some fear: Look, don’t be mad, I’m only trying to figure out . . .
HYMAN, sensing the underlying hostility: What are you driving at, I don’t understand this whole conversation.
GELLBURG: Hyman . . . Help me! I’ve never been so afraid in my life.
HYMAN: If you’re alive you’re afraid; we’re born afraid—a newborn baby is not a picture of confidence; but how you deal with fear, that’s what counts. I don’t think you dealt with it very well.
GELLBURG: Why? How did I deal with it?
HYMAN: I think you tried to disappear into the goyim.
GELLBURG: . . . You believe in God?
HYMAN: I’m a socialist. I think we’re at the end of religion.
GELLBURG: You mean everybody working for the government.
HYMAN: It’s the only future that makes any rational sense.
GELLBURG: God forbid. But how can there be Jews if there’s no God?
HYMAN: Oh, they’ll find something to worship. The Christians will too—maybe different brands of ketchup.
GELLBURG, laughs: Boy, the things you come out with sometimes . . . !
HYMAN: —Some day we’re all going to look like a lot of monkeys running around trying to figure out a coconut.
GELLBURG: She believes in you, Hyman . . . I want you to tell her—tell her I’m going to change. She has no right to be so frightened. Of me or anything else. They will never destroy us. When the last Jew dies, the light of the world will go out. She has to understand that—those Germans are shooting at the sun!
HYMAN: Be quiet.
GELLBURG: I want my wife back. I want her back before something happens. I feel like there’s nothing inside me, I feel empty. I want her back.
HYMAN: Phillip, what can I do about that?
GELLBURG: Never mind . . . since you started coming around . . . in those boots . . . like some kind of horseback rider . . . ?
HYMAN: What the hell are you talking about!
GELLBURG: Since you came around she looks down at me like a miserable piece of shit!
HYMAN: Phillip . . .
GELLBURG: Don’t “Phillip” me, just stop it!
HYMAN: Don’t scream at me Phillip, you know how to get your wife back! . . . don’t tell me there’s a mystery to that!
GELLBURG: She actually told you that I . . .
HYMAN: It came out while we were talking. It was bound to sooner or later, wasn’t it?
GELLBURG, gritting his teeth: I never told this to anyone . . . but years ago when I used to make love to her, I would almost feel like a small baby on top of her, like she was giving me birth. That’s some idea? In bed next to me she was like a . . . a marble god. I worshipped her, Hyman, from the day I laid eyes on her.
HYMAN: I’m sorry for you Phillip.
GELLBURG: How can she be so afraid of me? Tell me the truth.
HYMAN: I don’t know; maybe, for one thing . . . these remarks you’re always making about Jews.
GELLBURG: What remarks?
HYMAN: Like not wanting to be mistaken for Goldberg.
GELLBURG: So I’m a Nazi? Is Gellburg Goldberg? It’s not, is it?
HYMAN: No, but continually making the point is
kind of . . .
GELLBURG: Kind of what? What is kind of? Why don’t you say the truth?
HYMAN: All right, you want the truth? Do you? Look in the mirror sometime!
GELLBURG: . . . In the mirror!
HYMAN: You hate yourself, that’s what’s scaring her to death. That’s my opinion. How it’s possible I don’t know, but I think you helped paralyze her with this “Jew, Jew, Jew” coming out of your mouth and the same time she reads it in the paper and it’s coming out of the radio day and night? You wanted to know what I think . . . that’s what I think.
GELLBURG: But there are some days I feel like going and sitting in the schul with the old men and pulling the talles over my head and be a full-time Jew the rest of my life. With the sidelocks and the black hat,and settle it once and for all. And other times . . . yes, I could almost kill them. They infuriate me. I am ashamed of them and that I look like them. Gasping again: —Why must we be different? Why is it? What is it for?
HYMAN: And supposing it turns out that we’re not different, who are you going to blame then?
GELLBURG: What are you talking about?
HYMAN: I’m talking about all this grinding and screaming that’s going on inside you—you’re wearing yourself out for nothing, Phillip, absolutely nothing! —I’ll tell you a secret—I have all kinds coming into my office, and there’s not one of them who one way or another is not persecuted. Yes. Everybody’s persecuted. The poor by the rich, the rich by the poor, the black by the white, the white by the black, the men by the women, the women by the men, the Catholics by the Protestants, the Protestants by the Catholics—and of course all of them by the Jews. Everybody’s persecuted—sometimes I wonder, maybe that’s what holds this country together! And what’s really amazing is that you can’t find anybody who’s persecuting anybody else.
GELLBURG: So you mean there’s no Hitler?
HYMAN: Hitler? Hitler is the perfect example of the persecuted man! I’ve heard him—he kvetches like an elephant was standing on his pecker! They’ve turned that whole beautiful country into one gigantic kvetch! Takes his bag. The nurse’ll be here soon.
GELLBURG: So what’s the solution?
HYMAN: I don’t see any. Except the mirror. But nobody’s going to look at himself and ask what am I doing—you might as well tell him to take a seat in the hottest part of hell. Forgive her, Phillip, is all I really know to tell you. Grins: But that’s the easy part—I speak from experience.
GELLBURG: What’s the hard part?
HYMAN: To forgive yourself, I guess. And the Jews. And while you’re at it, you can throw in the goyim. Best thing for the heart you know.
Hyman exits. Gellburg is left alone, staring into space. Sylvia enters, Margaret pushing the chair.
MARGARET: I’ll leave you now, Sylvia.
SYLVIA: Thanks for sitting with me.
GELLBURG, a little wave of the hand: Thank you Mrs. Hyman!
MARGARET: I think your color’s coming back a little.
GELLBURG: Well, I’ve been running around the block.
MARGARET, a burst of laughter and shaking her finger at him: I always knew there was a sense of humor somewhere inside that black suit!
GELLBURG: Yes, well . . . I finally got the joke.
MARGARET, laughs, and to Sylvia: I’ll try to look in tomorrow. To both: Good-bye!
Margaret exits.
A silence between them grows self-conscious.
GELLBURG: You all right in that room?
SYLVIA: It’s better this way, we’ll both get more rest. You all right?
GELLBURG: I want to apologize.
SYLVIA: I’m not blaming you, Phillip. The years I wasted I know I threw away myself. I think I always knew I was doing it but I couldn’t stop it.
GELLBURG: If only you could believe I never meant you harm, it would . . .
SYLVIA: I believe you. But I have to tell you something. When I said not to sleep with me . . .
GELLBURG: I know . . .
SYLVIA, nervously sharp: You don’t know!—I’m trying to tell you something! Containing herself: For some reason I keep thinking of how I used to be; remember my parents’ house, how full of love it always was? Nobody was ever afraid of anything. But with us, Phillip, wherever I looked there was something to be suspicious about, somebody who was going to take advantage or God knows what. I’ve been tip-toeing around my life for thirty years and I’m not going to pretend—I hate it all now. Everything I did is stupid and ridiculous. I can’t find myself in my life.
She hits her legs.
Or in this now, this thing that can’t even walk. I’m not this thing. And it has me. It has me and will never let me go.
She weeps.
GELLBURG: Sshh! I understand. I wasn’t telling you the truth. I always tried to seem otherwise, but I’ve been more afraid than I looked.
SYLVIA: Afraid of what?
GELLBURG: Everything. Of Germany. Mr. Case. Of what could happen to us here. I think I was more afraid than you are, a hundred times more! And meantime there are Chinese Jews, for God’s sake.
SYLVIA: What do you mean?
GELLBURG: They’re Chinese!— and here I spend a lifetime looking in the mirror at my face!—Why we’re different I will never understand but to live so afraid, I don’t want that anymore. I tell you, if I live I have to try to change myself.—Sylvia, my darling Sylvia, I’m asking you not to blame me anymore. I feel I did this to you! That’s the knife in my heart.
Gellburg’s breathing begins to labor.
SYLVIA, alarmed: Phillip!
GELLBURG: God almighty, Sylvia forgive me!
A paroxysm forces Gellburg up to a nearly sitting position, agony on his face.
SYLVIA: Wait! Phillip!
Struggling to break free of the chair’s support, she starts pressing down on the chair arms.
There’s nothing to blame! There’s nothing to blame!
Gellburg falls back, unconscious. She struggles to balance herself on her legs and takes a faltering step toward her husband.
Wait, wait . . . Phillip, Phillip!
Astounded, charged with hope yet with a certain inward seeing, she looks down at her legs, only now aware that she has risen to her feet.
Lights fade.
THE END
MR. PETERS’ CONNECTIONS
1999
Characters
CALVIN, Mr. Peters’ dead brother
HARRY PETERS, Retired airline and military pilot and lecturer
ADELE, A black bag lady
CATHY-MAY, Mr. Peters’ Dead Lover
LARRY, Her husband as Peters imagines him
LEONARD, A guitarist and lover of:
ROSE, Mr. Peters’ daughter
CHARLOTTE, Mr. Peters’ wife
A broken structure indicating an old abandoned nightclub in New York City.
A small, dusty upright piano, some chairs, a couple of tables, a few upended.
Three chairs set close to the piano with instruments propped up on them—a bass, trumpet, saxophone.
Seated on a banquette, Adele, a black bag lady, is ensconced amid her bags; she is reading Vogue magazine, and sipping from a bottle of wine. She occasionally examines her face in a hand mirror.
Calvin enters. Peters enters, looking around. Halts.
CALVIN: Well, here it is. Silence. Peters very slowly looks at everything. Then goes still.
PETERS, undirected to anyone: To be moved. Yes. Even once more to feel that thunder, yes. Just once! Slight pause. Lust aside, what could hit me? Novels? Model airplanes, movies, cooking, the garden? Shakes his head, dry grief. And yet, deep down . . . deep down I always seem on the verge of weeping. God knows why, when I have everything. Slight pause; he peers ahead. What is the subject?
Peters goes to the piano, plays the first five notes of
“September Song,” then walks a few steps. The piano continues playing; both men stare into space; piano subsides into silence. Now Calvin gestures toward the structure.
CALVIN: Needs some work, of course.
PETERS: My wife should be here in a few minutes, I believe.
CALVIN: She’ll like it, most women do.
PETERS: I’m very tired. I’ve been walking. Why women?
CALVIN: Hard to say. The powder room, maybe.
ADELE, not looking away from her mirror: Gorgeous. Neither man seems to hear her.
PETERS: I take it you’re not from here?
CALVIN: You have a good ear. Russia, I guess.
PETERS: You guess!
CALVIN: Who can be sure? In my mother’s bed, I suppose, same as everybody else.
PETERS: Mother’s bed.
CALVIN: Where I’m from. Actually, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
PETERS: Actually. But people from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, do not say “actually,” it’s too . . . I don’t know, high-class. But it doesn’t matter; if you’d told me in the first place I’d have forgotten it by now. My personal situation these days is trying to paddle a canoe with a tennis racket . . . I am thinking, who does he remind me of?
CALVIN: I tend to do that. Some people, all they do in life is remind people of somebody. —Generally I remind people of somebody nice and reliable.
PETERS: Why don’t we leave it right there.
CALVIN: I’m not trying to be facetious . . .
PETERS: Listen. Let’s settle this—conflict is not my game anymore; or suspense; I really don’t like trying to figure out what’s going on. Peace and quiet, avoid the bumps, I’m perfectly content just to raise the shade and greet my morning. Not that I’m depressed; in fact, I feel I am an inch away from the most thrilling glass of water I ever had. On that order.
Cathy-May is lit.
Oh my. Going toward her; sad amazement. My-my-my. The flat broad belly, the spring of thighs, how the fire flares up just before it dies . . . ! He recognizes her, gasps. Good God, Cathy-May! Mystified: Then you’re not . . . you’re not . . . dead? Turns from her. How can we go on seeing them if they . . . ? Or . . . say now, can she not have d . . . ? Breaks off, thinks. But of course she did! Freshly affected. Of course she did! Nearly weeping. Of course she did! It snowed on her funeral . . . Peers for a clue, then glances at her. But where is she, then? Barely smiling, shakes his head, mystified, excited: Why am I so happy? A tinkling of Mozart is heard. Cathy-May comes to him; she is naked, in high heels; a big smile breaks onto his face as she approaches. She is giggling. Ah yes, how proud of your body—like a new party gown. Giggling, with finely honed mock solemnity, she does a formal curtsy with thumbs and forefingers pressed together as though lifting a wide skirt. Laughing softly he bows formally, with one foot thrust forward. They are like two mating birds. Laughing. You can’t do this kind of dancing dressed like that, darling! Still curtsying, she retreats into darkness. Music dies. His laughter sours. Or am I depressed?
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 129