by Yvette Nolan
I don't want to talk about it
BERN
how does that make us different from Laird?
ELENA
I said I don't want to talk about it. (beat) I am tired, Bernadette. I am going to lie down.
ELENA exits. BERN lifts the cup to her lips, finishes SEAMUS's tea.
SNOW CRUST MOON
Time passes, moving from Bear Moon, February, to Snow Crust Moon, March. Again, the passage of time can be indicated by movement and light.
GENEROSITY
BERN is doing chores.
BERN
“I could drink a case of you—oo oo oo darling—and I would still be on my feet—oh I would still be on my feet—”
ELENA
what are you doing?
BERN
I'm cleaning—
ELENA
You're singing
BERN
Oh—was I?
ELENA
(beat) you— (taking a shot) you've been with him
BERN
what?
ELENA
(confirming) you were. With him.
BERN
how did you get to that—from me singing?
ELENA
oh, Bernadette.
BERN
oh, Elena.
ELENA goes silent. BERN busies herself doing things.
what difference does it make if I did. It's just sex, Elena.
ELENA
it is never that simple
BERN
ha.
ELENA looks at her.
well, you're right. It turns out that things are both simpler and more complicated. It turns out that sex is just sex, just as they always maintained, the boys, the men, the husbands and lovers. But the absence of it—that's what makes it a thing. Suddenly its not just sex, it's a self-esteem destroyer, a depressant, a nostalgia…
ELENA just looks at her.
Sometimes, I would go downtown, pick up some young fella, buy him a meal, just to talk to him.
ELENA
you did not!
BERN
okay, I did not
ELENA
you did, didn't you?
BERN
I wasn't ready to be asexual, Elena, I wasn't ready to be invisible
ELENA
young men
BERN
young men. Not so young men. Businessmen. Businessmen in hotels. Airport hotels. Easy pickins.
ELENA
Bernadette
BERN
I understand more about men now… that when you say “fuck me” (as an exclamation, not an invitation) and their ears prick up and they say “fuck you?” They really mean it in that moment, they do. But you can't go getting all jealous about his wife, or the blond intern who is making cow eyes at him. What he means, what they all mean, in that moment is I will fuck you, if you are offering. I will fuck almost anyone who will let me.
ELENA is flustered, starts working at something.
too much?
ELENA
this is not about—that—
BERN
that?
ELENA
about your life before this. You're a different person now.
BERN
am I
ELENA
you're not the grasshopper anymore. You're serious, and smart. Clever. You have made us a life here.
BERN
Survival is not a life.
ELENA
this is a life. We can't know what is going to happen next. We couldn't foresee the unplugging—
BERN
well, I could. I did.
ELENA
maybe you did, but you didn't prepare for it. You certainly didn't foresee
this life
BERN
no. no, I didn't.
ELENA
we are becoming, Bernadette. Becoming who we are.
BERN
Elena. I don't want to be joyless.
ELENA
sex is not joy
BERN smiles.
BERN
it kind of is. not necessarily lasting. not happyeverafter, just a quicksilver moment with which we are gifted a few hundred times in our lives.
ELENA
pretty words. you're—you're—you're avoiding—because this is not about that—about sexual congress
BERN
Sexual congress? What century did you just drop in from?
ELENA
that is not what we are talking about here. You didn't just—have sex—with him. You got intimate with him.
BERN
it's hard to do it otherwise
ELENA
I know about sex, Bernadette. I know how it makes you feel. That it's the last card in the deck, and once you do it, you think you know all about the other. You think you know him.
BERN
that's what I am trying to tell you, Elena, it's not such a big deal. It is, and it isn't. (beat) I'm not going to love you any less, Elena.
ELENA
what are you talking about?
BERN
he's not a threat
ELENA
of course he's a threat, Bernadette. He is a threat to everything we have built here. You are jeopardizing everything we have.
BERN
he's not a threat to you and me
ELENA
how can you—be intimate—with him, when he comes from them. They banished us, Bernadette, they sent us off without so much as a can of food. Now they are starving, we have plenty, and they want what we have.
BERN
all right, you win. Sex is never that simple.
ELENA
he hasn't come back to take us, just to take what we know.
BERN
how can I not teach him? We are surrounded by food.
ELENA
let him starve
ABANDON
In the darkness the sound of lovemaking, ending with orgasm. Lights up on BERN and SEAMUS, post-coital.
SEAMUS
were you always so—
BERN
libidinous?
SEAMUS
I was going to say horny.
BERN
of course you were.
SEAMUS
(trying it on) libidinous. Libidinous. It sounds—slinky. I like it. So?
BERN
no. I was kind of judgmental and inflexible when I was younger. I wish I had known. I would've had a lot more sex and a lot less angst.
SEAMUS
well you're pretty flexible now
BERN
funny
SEAMUS
hey, do you have anything to eat?
BERN
oh sorry, yeah, I brought you meat
She digs in her parka and finds a package, gives it to him. He eats ravenously, trying not to appear starving.
I'm sorry it's not more. Elena is watching the supplies really closely. Now that she knows.
SEAMUS
s'okay. You're not my mom. (beat) Bern? I was thinking, I've gotta move on.
BERN
what? why? No.
SEAMUS
I can't stay like this. I am not pulling my weight. Again.
BERN
listen it's only a matter of time before Elena gets over—
SEAMUS
You're taking care of me. You barely have enough for you two and here I am sharing your food—
BERN
we have lots, Seamus, the moose will get all of us through the winter, there's still some cabins up the road that are su
re to have more canned stuff. Elena is a good hunter, and she's taught me how to preserve (meat)—
She stops suddenly, wondering if she is saying too much.
SEAMUS
what
BERN
nothing
SEAMUS
(He hears her suspicion.) ah. (beat) I'll go tomorrow.
BERN
where will you go?
SEAMUS
I don't know. I honest to god don't have a clue. Can't go back. Everything else is just unknown. But I can't stay here, like a pet, being fed once in a while, stroked once in a while, waiting for the sound of your boots. It's pathetic. I am pathetic.
BERN
it's hard. These are hard times. We are all having to—become—something new. What did you do before this?
SEAMUS
I was a bike courier.
BERN
a bike courier.
SEAMUS
yeah. Crazy now, to think of it. What an absolutely useless job. Not one skill I can use in this brave new world. Never made a single thing that mattered. Never made a thing that would tell the world that I had existed. Moving envelopes from here to there, without a clue what was in them, not caring. Not caring.
BERN
That explains these muscular legs… and your stamina.
SEAMUS
Probably had a lot to do with my survival. The city was nuts—chaos. I got on my bike and pedalled north.
BERN
did you want to be something? Something else?
SEAMUS
(beat) I should make something up, eh? Make myself sound better or smarter or more interesting. But. No. not really. I was a grasshopper too. Ride around all day, drink beer with my friends, flirt with the girls. Never save a penny. Never learn a thing. Never even wonder where my ambition was. It was all fun, it all seemed full, and busy. It seemed like a life. But looking back on it now. Wow.
BERN
I can teach you.
SEAMUS
teach me what?
BERN
how to catch your own food.
SEAMUS
a moose?
BERN
no. I don't know how to do that. I haven't done it yet anyway. But Elena taught me to catch rabbit. So I can teach you to catch rabbit. And I can show you willow, and how to find water, and what is edible even though it's Snow Crust Moon.
SEAMUS
what will Elena say?
BERN
she'll be mad. But I think it's wrong to hoard
PINK MOON
BERN is sitting stoney in the cabin. ELENA bustles in.
ELENA
Bern! Look! Look at this, do you know what this is?
BERN
not a clue.
ELENA
what's wrong with you? Look, this was growing. Growing. Oh my, there is going to be fresh food soon, fresh green things. We can start to plant soon, we'll know soon what wintered over—what is wrong with you?
BERN
Seamus is gone.
ELENA
gone? Gone where?
BERN
I don't know. Just gone.
ELENA
just gone? Like, gone he met a spring bear and lost?
BERN
nice.
ELENA
some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you
BERN
gone on purpose. His stuff is gone.
ELENA
damn.
BERN
what do you care?
ELENA
where do you think he has gone, Bernadette? Now that you have taught him everything you know, everything I taught you. He's gone back, bearing that gift, to that place, that place that spat us out like rotten meat. It is his passport back in.
BERN
So what if he did, Elena. They need to know. Maybe they will let him back in, and if he wants to be there, then good, I am glad I was able to help him get back in. It wasn't ours to keep
ELENA
he wasn't, you mean.
BERN
not him, Elena. He—he was sweet and distracting—but he didn't take anything from me that I didn't want to give. No, I mean the knowledge, the things I taught him, the things you taught me, maybe he will go back and teach your daughter
ELENA sucks her teeth.
and isn't that the way it is supposed to be? Isn't that the thing we were bemoaning just before the lights went out? That no one knew where their food came from, that our men refused to take responsibility for anything?
ELENA
How is this taking responsibility?
BERN
if he has gone back to teach them—
ELENA
teach them? How long before they show up here with weapons to take it by force?
BERN
he wouldn't do that—
ELENA
he stalked us, hunted us and stole from us
BERN
he didn't steal—
ELENA
Really? He left with just the clothes on his back?
BERN suddenly pales, exits in a hurry.
SUCKER MOON
Time passes, moving from Pink Moon, April, to Sucker Moon, May. Again, the passage of time can be indicated by movement and light.
HARVEST
BERN is doing chores.
ELENA calls from outside, distressed.
ELENA
Bern! Bern!
BERN grabs the gun, checking it as she goes to the door.
When she throws it open, ELENA is standing there with a fish.
BERN
Jesus, Elena, you scared the hell out of me. I thought a bear—
ELENA
what is this?
BERN
I'm not so good on fish yet, Elena. A—trout?
ELENA
what is it doing here?
BERN
here?
ELENA
here. On the step.
ELENA enters, putting the fish on the counter. BERN closes the door behind her.
What is a fresh fish doing here on the step?
BERN
the fish was on the step?
ELENA
you didn't do this? As some kind of a joke?
BERN
be a pretty dumb joke. Lucky a bear didn't come sniffing around
ELENA
well it didn't crawl the mile up the hill from the lake, and it didn't fall out of the sky
BERN
maybe the bear brought it
ELENA
Bern. Focus. Someone left it on our doorstep.
BERN
an offering of some kind
ELENA
an offering
BERN
from someone who wants to know us. Or thinks he owes us. Someone who stole from us. Someone who took food from us and slipped away.
She goes to the door, opens it.
Seamus?
ELENA
Seamus?
SEAMUS appears in the doorway.
SEAMUS
Hi.
BERN
Hi?
SEAMUS
Yeah, hi. We used to say it all the time to people when we met them. (beat) Do you think—you could—(He motions to the gun.)—it's not very welcoming—
BERN
maybe I'm not very welcoming
SEAMUS
you got my peace offering. (beat) I caught it myself.
Beat.
ELENA
have you eaten?
She lifts the fish, smells it.
fresh. (beat) Good for you. Do you know how to clean it?
SEAMUS
I have done it. I can do it.
ELENA
that doesn't sound too promising. I'll do it, and then we will have fresh fish for breakfast.
ELENA exits with the fish.
A pause.
SEAMUS
Bern.
He moves towards her, she lifts the gun.
BERN
don't bother
SEAMUS
oh. So you have decided that this is the kind of person you are? the kind of person who can kill someone?
BERN lowers the gun.
BERN
no. I guess not.
BERN puts the gun away.
SEAMUS
I would like to explain.
BERN
you stole from us. I trusted you, I showed you how to survive, and then you stole food, you took snares, and matches, and—
SEAMUS
I'm sorry. I had to go back. I needed supplies. I only took what I needed. I learned that from you, Bern.
BERN
so Elena was right all along. She was wiser than me, she told me, you were only here to take what we knew.
SEAMUS
she was wiser, but you were more generous. And that—changed everything.
ELENA enters with the cleaned fish and greens.
ELENA
it's a beautiful fish, Seamus. I cleaned it at the creek, so its guts can go back to the water. Chi meegwetch.
BERN
What is going on here? He steals from us, he uses it to get back in to that place and you are treating him like the prodigal son. Why are you back here, Seamus? What else can you take from us?
ELENA
He didn't take it, Bern. You gave it. Freely. You told me that.
BERN
so this is just a friendly visit then
SEAMUS
friendly, yes. Just, no. Not just a friendly visit. More of a diplomatic mission, really.
BERN
really.
ELENA
the community wants something from us
SEAMUS nods.
BERN
you were right, Elena, you were right about everything. I'm an idiot, a blind, pathetic idiot—
ELENA
hush.
BERN
hush?
ELENA
what did they send you for this time, Seamus? What do they want?
BERN
'Cause the moose is all gone. Had to finish it before the thaw. There's a couple of jars of the potted stuff left—
ELENA
Bernadette.
BERN
are they out there? Waiting with guns? Waiting for a signal?