The lights reveal Saquiel and Lucila in Bemadette’s apartment. Lucila has filled the apartment with votive candles.
LUCILA: She probably had a mild stroke—nothing that would affect her speech or coordination.
SAQUIEL: I kept calling the house to see how she was doing.
LUCILA: She’ll be fine. Her Coumadin level was low. They have her on a new medication.
SAQUIEL: How is she feeling?
LUCILA: She’s much better.
SAQUIEL: Will she let me see her when she’s back from the hospital?
LUCILA: No. And now much less.
SAQUIEL: Why?
LUCILA: Vanity.
SAQUIEL: I’m not romancing the woman for God’s sake!
LUCILA: It would be ridiculous if you were.
SAQUIEL: Do you have something against it?
LUCILA: Me? I could care less. I once wanted to fall in love with a blind man. I liked the fact that he couldn’t see me but he could imagine me.
(Saquiel touches the walls. His hand glides over her books, her chair and every object on her desk. He sits on Bemadette’s chair.)
SAQUIEL: Is this where she writes?
LUCILA: Don’t touch anything. Leave everything in its place. She’ll be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. She’d fire me if she ever found out that I brought you here.
(He inspects some of the objects on top of her desk.)
SAQUIEL: But everything is so personal, so beautiful.
LUCILA: You wouldn’t find anything beautiful if you had to clean and dust like I do.
(He picks up an ashtray.)
SAQUIEL: Does she smoke?
LUCILA: Not allowed.
SAQUIEL: Did she use to?
LUCILA: Like a chimney.
SAQUIEL: Drink?
LUCILA: Like a desert.
SAQUIEL: Now?
LUCILA: She has wine.
(He sits in another chair.)
SAQUIEL: Does she like to sit in this chair?
LUCILA: Is it only Ms. Kahn that interests you?
SAQUIEL: No, of course not.
(He continues to explore everything in the house.)
LUCILA: I thought we could talk about other things.
SAQUIEL: Like what?
LUCILA: I don’t know. Were you silent when you were a child? Did you live in a big house? What’s it like living in Cuba? Do you cook? Do you like to play Parcheesi, Solitaire?
SAQUIEL: We can talk about that later. Can you show me her writing?
LUCILA: No. I can’t do that.
SAQUIEL: Then why did you bring me here?
LUCILA: I thought you’d like to see the place where she lives.
SAQUIEL: Come on, show me!
LUCILA: Can’t you take no for an answer?
SAQUIEL: She doesn’t have to find out.
LUCILA: I said no! (She moves away from him and goes for her purse) Let’s go now. Let’s leave. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have brought you here. (She looks for her keys in her purse)
SAQUIEL: All right! All right! Forget what I said. That was nothing what happened just now. Can we stay here for a bit longer?
(She walks to another part of the room.)
LUCILA: What would you do if I gave you the keys to this place?
SAQUIEL: I would try to find her writing and read it.
LUCILA: Why?
SAQUIEL: Because what’s written is meant to be read, and books exist to help us understand ourselves.
LUCILA: What if I tell you that I have read some of her new writing? That I pieced together some papers she had thrown in the trash.
SAQUIEL: So you have saved all her mistakes.
LUCILA: Yes, you can say that I have. But I don’t know if I saved them to understand her or myself . . . or even you . . .
SAQUIEL: Did you learn something from reading them?
LUCILA: I think I did.
SAQUIEL: What?
LUCILA: About intimate disaster. Pain.
SAQUIEL: What are you going to do with these papers?
LUCILA: Keep them for now.
SAQUIEL: Have you ever been tempted to sell them?
LUCILA: I think you’re one step ahead of me.
SAQUIEL: What are they, notes?
LUCILA: Abandoned chapters.
SAQUIEL: Manuscripts that have mistakes are worth more than the ones that are polished.
LUCILA: Why is that?
SAQUIEL: Because you see the writer at work.
LUCILA: I wouldn’t sell her writing. I’m not a person that goes for that sort of thing. I’m old-fashioned.
SAQUIEL: If you don’t sell them, what will you do with them?
LUCILA: Probably donate them to a library when she’s gone.
SAQUIEL: Or give them to me?
LUCILA (Smiles with seduction): Do you think you can persuade any woman to do anything?
SAQUIEL: No. But maybe you thought of me when you saved them from the trash.
LUCILA: Yes. I can say that I did.
SAQUIEL: You see. You’re good to me.
(She turns away from him.)
LUCILA: There’s no point in talking like that. I’m not going to give them to you.
SAQUIEL: Is there something I can learn from these papers?
(She turns to him. She looks at him, then with complete sincerity:)
LUCILA: What can you learn from a woman who had an encounter with a Nazi?
SAQUIEL (Confused): You mean an affair?
LUCILA: Well, I wouldn’t call it a romance.
SAQUIEL: Then what?
LUCILA (Taking out a small stack of papers): Here. You can read it.
(He looks at her then he begins to read from the manuscript. Blue lights illuminate the stage. Bemadette enters.)
SAQUIEL: “The Nazi officer is barely nineteen years old. His gray-blue eyes are inclined to squint not only because they are extremely sensitive to the glare of light, but also because he wants to emphasize his manhood, and conceal his frailty.”
(Bemadette continues to narrate the story as he reads in silence.)
BEMADETTE: Despite the military uniform and the gun that hangs from his belt, a strange attraction draws me towards this young soldier, a sensation unknown to me, indescribable, unforeseen—unnamable. The young officer looks at my neck and my bosom, as if he’s never seen a woman before. I’m afraid of the dark feeling that assails me. There’s something not quite right about my emotion, so precarious, so unbound and involuntary.
He is not the man who has killed my lover but he represents the enemy. He is a Nazi soldier and therefore he is the embodiment of the killer. Suddenly, my eyes turn to his gun. I see the unclasped holster. I lunge at him, grasping for his revolver; he instinctively shoves me away; I leap at him yelling, “I want you to kill me—the same way that my lover has been extinguished from life . . . You can do with me as you want.” I catch the soldier unguarded, unprepared. I’m not part of his war. This is not what he’s expected to do as a soldier. For a moment desire had made him forget the hatred, the violence, the purpose he was fighting for. Now he feels pity for a woman who has lost her lover in the war. The soldier wants to know my name. I tell him, “I’m Ariel Strauss, a Jew from Berlin.” This makes his blood boil, the fact that he’s attracted to a woman, a Gentile, who has taken the identity of a Jew? He grabs me by the arms, throws me to the floor and tears up my clothes, with a brutality unknown to him. Then he stops. He stops. He lies unmoving on top of my body, with the weight of the dead, because he doesn’t know what to do with me. He doesn’t know how to kill me. He’s a soldier, but he doesn’t know how to end my life the way I want him to. Slowly he pulls himself off of me and stands up from the floor. “I won’t kill you,” he says. “I can’t kill you.” He tells me he wanted to know me, to hold me, to discover me. He wanted to know who I was, where I was born, and what I love most in life. Then I realize he is also a victim of war, and he wants to retain the right of judgment—to understand my pain and for me to understand him—as a man—and not as a servant of war. He cries. He can’t stop crying. “Go . . . !” he tells me. “Live! Please, live.”
(Bemadette exits. The lights go back to normal. Saquiel and Lucila are stunned.)
LUCILA: Do you understand her better now?
SAQUIEL (As if he were elsewhere): It’s not about understanding her.
LUCILA: Then what?
SAQUIEL: It’s about recognizing her in us.
LUCILA: I can never recognize her in me or myself in her. I feel like a coward.
SAQUIEL: Why a coward?
LUCILA: Because I’m incapable of living to such an extent. After hearing you read, I feel I have no life left. As if she has lived it all for me. And I don’t know . . . I’m suddenly afraid.
SAQUIEL: Afraid of what?
LUCILA: Of Bemadette . . . of you . . . of myself. (With devastating frankness) What’s it like to love a woman without seeing her in person?
SAQUIEL (Unprepared for this question, not knowing how to respond): I don’t know. I . . . I imagine it would be like loving a soul . . .
LUCILA: No one has ever loved me like that. No one has ever taken interest in me without seeing me. I never liked my body or my face. I am uncomfortable with myself. I never thought that I was beautiful or interesting, and much less smart, the way that Ms. Kahn is intelligent. I lack grace. I feel awkward and clumsy, as if my blood is thin, and I have a hand-me-down heart. And yet I have never lost faith in loving and being loved invisibly.
(She turns and walks through the living room, trying to clothe the nakedness of her vulnerability. She begins to talk about Bemadette but she’s actually talking about herself.)
—It will be difficult for Bemadette when you leave. It’s because of you she’s writing again.
SAQUIEL: I think she’s writing the story she always wanted to write.
LUCILA: But that’s what’s kept her going. And the day she writes it all down, it might be all over for her.
SAQUIEL: Then she can write about how she got to write this book.
LUCILA: So the writing will never stop.
SAQUIEL: No. Never. What are you going to do with these papers?
LUCILA: I don’t know.
SAQUIEL: I thought you would give them to me.
LUCILA: I thought so too. But no.
SAQUIEL: Why, because they’re precious to you?
LUCILA: No, because they’re private sorrows. And they will keep me company as I live my life.
SAQUIEL: And if one day you decide you can live without them?
LUCILA: I will give them to you.
SAQUIEL: Then I shall give you my address.
LUCILA: I’d much rather if you come back to get them in person, with the same purpose you came to visit Bemadette. But I’d have what you’re looking for.
(He looks at her. She becomes nervous.)
I better close the windows.
(She goes to close the windows. He stops her.)
SAQUIEL: No, leave them open.
(She looks at him with fear.)
LUCILA: Did you like coming here today?
SAQUIEL: Yes.
LUCILA: Let’s go to the dining room. We can see sundown from there.
SAQUIEL: Let’s spend the night here.
(She doesn’t answer. She starts walking, then she turns to him.)
LUCILA: There’s less light there. And you won’t have to see me.
(He turns to her.)
SAQUIEL: But I want to look at you.
(She lowers her head and walks out. The lights fade to black.
We hear the sound of the computer chime. Lights up on Bemadette, sending an email to Saquiel.)
BEMADETTE: Dear Student, I’m feeling well this morning and I’m writing again. Today I wept like a child knowing you are leaving. Send.
(Lights up on Saquiel.)
SAQUIEL: Dear Writer, if the St. Louis conference is held back here in the States this September, I will be able to return. Send.
BEMADETTE: Dear Student, when you come back from Havana, please carry back with you all of my letters from the St. Louis. Send.
SAQUIEL: Dear Writer, today is such a fine day for us to go on an outing.
BEMADETTE: Dear Student, should I get my purse and have our final rendezvous?
SAQUIEL: As long as you feel young and strong in feeling that’s what matters.
BEMADETTE: You have cured me, my clever young man. What I beg of you, hope for, long for, is for you to trust our invisibility. It is something like faith, devoted to the unseen.
SAQUIEL: I have the photograph you sent me of when you were young.
BEMADETTE (Laughs at herself): Do I look beautiful?
SAQUIEL (Smiles): Very beautiful. Stunning. (Absolute truth) In the evening I met your ghost in the streets.
BEMADETTE: And how did I look?
SAQUIEL (Smiles): You looked sensual, like your photographs.
BEMADETTE (Innocently surprised): I did?
SAQUIEL: Yes. You had a silk dress.
BEMADETTE (Lost in a reverie): And was I young again? I mean, my ghost?
SAQUIEL (In the present): You were.
BEMADETTE (Delicately): You can tell me the truth this time. Another young woman resembling me, you mean?
SAQUIEL (Full of sincerity): Yes. I met her at . . . I met her on the street. She had your eyes.
BEMADETTE (Remembering what her own eyes looked like): My eyes?
SAQUIEL: Yes, your eyes.
BEMADETTE (Remembering desire on her lips, rediscovering it): My lips?
SAQUIEL: Yes, your lips. Your neck.
BEMADETTE: My neck. (Caressing her neck) My hair?
SAQUIEL: Yes, your hair. Your breasts. Your hips. Your legs.
BEMADETTE (Remembering her youth): She was young. And you had her in your arms.
SAQUIEL: Yes.
BEMADETTE (Smiles, lost in memory): My! To be young again . . . ! To be young and naive . . . Oh, la, la! I would have to be more cautious by this candor if I were dealing with an ordinary young man, but you are not ordinary. You are eccentric like me.
SAQUIEL: I’ll never forget you, Bemadette, whatever happens.
BEMADETTE: Oh, your voice, Saquiel.
SAQUIEL: I will call you from the airport to say good-bye.
BEMADETTE (Almost exhausted): No. Do not call me, I prefer a little silence today while I try to get used to your absence.
(The lights fade on Saquiel.
Bemadette presses a button on the answering machine to retrieve a message. We hear the voice of Saquiel. Bemadette listens to Saquiel’s message.)
SAQUIEL (Recorded voice): Bemadette, are you there? It’s me. —I don’t think you will answer the phone. But let me tell you my plans. My grandfather will lend all his documents for the conference in Miami. I plan to create an exhibition with more than two hundred documents and pictures of the St. Louis passengers. I will read two papers: “St. Louis, the ship of indifference” and “Bemadette, or the memory of disquiet.” All documents must be ready by the 4th of September. I hope you send me your pages about Ariel and Nina Strauss.
(The lights reveal Saquiel.)
(Spoken voice) Bemadette? —I know you won’t answer. My plans are to be back to New York after the convention. Even with the pathetic amount I earn for my work at the library and a little money my aunt sends from Miami, I think I’ll be able to save enough to visit you for a month. —Bemadette, are you listening? I promise I’ll come back. I have basically lived out of my backpack for the last two months. The woman who lets me stay at her house told me I could come back and stay with her. I contribute a little by washing her dishes, doing her laundry and cleaning her house. She’s quite lonely so she likes my company and she lets me sleep on her sofa. (With a warm smile) If I can’t stay with her, I can stay with someone else. I’m not worried about that. New York is full of people who rent out their couches, their closets, their kitchens . . . I know an artist who rents a window from a retired librarian. —Can you believe it? It’s a big window with lots of light and a good view of the river, so he goes there and paints in front of the window. There’s another man who rents out his dining table, so you can use the top of the table for writing and the space underneath for sleeping. I’ll keep this in mind as another option. And there’s another man who rents out his bathtub if you want to take a bath or sleep in the bathtub. Sometimes you don’t have to pay these people anything. You can negotiate a deal like walking their dogs or cooking for them. Either way, I’ll find a place for myself in New York.
Bemadette! (Slight pause) All right, I’m going to go now. My flight’s boarding. I’ll call you from la Habana. (In despair) —I know you don’t want to say good-bye, but at least wish me a safe trip.
(He is shattered. Lights fade down on Saquiel. He’s gone. She stays without moving.)
BEMADETTE (In a soft voice, toward the distance): Be well.
(She sits in a chair. The lights fade down and then back up, to illustrate the passage of time.
Bemadette remains sitting in the chair throughout the following sequence. Soft music plays. Lights up on Lucila.)
LUCILA: Late June 2000. Dear Saquiel, I’d have just received your postcard. I feel I want to become something other than a woman who waits for your return. I’d much rather be a wave or an ivy that can travel in your direction. Waiting is unbearable, even when you know why you wait. I eat olives and think of your mouth. I eat chocolate and imagine kissing your eyebrows. I hope I don’t gain too much weight by the time you come back.
BEMADETTE: Early July 2000. Dear Student, my sotto voce, I suppose one shouldn’t be writing letters like this at my age. But I still wonder at my good fortune, how this blind enchantment so late in my life has taken me from the distrustful soul I was to an almost adolescent girl, infatuated with life all over again. It would have been far easier to keep my memories buried. I have finally comprehended what it means to remember. The only thing that worries me is Lucila. What did you do this young woman, Mr. Rafaeli?
(Lights up on Saquiel.)
SAQUIEL: Mid-July 2000. Dear Lucila, I am tirelessly preparing for my trip to the States. Forgive the lightness of my writing, I only have one pen and it is running out of ink. I miss you, my porcupine.
LUCILA: Late July 2000. Dear Saquiel, I’m afraid this is a silly letter. I wish I had literary aspirations and I wasn’t a housemaid who has to continue making beds, washing dishes and sweeping floors. But I’d do anything to serve you and for you to be happy, for nothing has changed in my love for you.
BEMADETTE: Dear Student, my sotto voce, how is it with you? The flat is full of the smell of another lamb stew Lucila is making. By the way, her birthday is on the eighteenth. When September brings you, we will skip autumn and winter, and return to our spring together.
SAQUIEL: Early August 2000. Dear Bemadette, it’s better after all that you and Lucila didn’t receive my past two letters. They were very unhappy in every sense of the word. The government of Cuba is making it impossible for me to travel to the States. And the U.S. government is not allowing me to enter the country since I overextended my stay there.
(Bemadette stops reading the letter; she is quite dismayed. Lucila comes in with a tray. Lights fade down on Saquiel.)
LUCILA: Coffee, Ms. Kahn?
BEMADETTE: Please.
LUCILA: No writing today?
BEMADETTE: No, no writing.
LUCILA: It’s been months now.
BEMADETTE: There are dry periods.
LUCILA: Then let it rain so you can finish!
BEMADETTE: Writing should never be about duty and work. You postpone, until the writing begins to promise pleasure again.
LUCILA: Then how do you finish anything?
BEMADETTE: Sit down and drink coffee with me.
(Lucila serves herself a cup of coffee.)
I just read a letter that Saquiel sent to me. He’s not coming to the States. He’s not coming back.
LUCILA: That can’t be, Ms. Kahn.
BEMADETTE: Yes. The Cuban government is making it difficult for him to come back. And the U.S. government is not allowing him to enter the country because he overextended his stay.
LUCILA: Ay, Ms. Kahn, please don’t tell me that.
BEMADETTE: I just wish there was a way of calling him on the phone.
LUCILA: So what’s going to happen now?
BEMADETTE: I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until he calls from his neighbor’s house.
LUCILA: Maybe you can write the Cuban consulate.
BEMADETTE: I’m not sure that would help.
LUCILA: You can make a case for him, Ms. Kahn. Wasn’t he doing research? Didn’t he come here to interview you?
BEMADETTE: Yes, but . . .
LUCILA: God, you have to do something!
BEMADETTE: And what can I do?!!
LUCILA: Help him get out! Help him come here! It’s because of you he overextended his stay.
BEMADETTE: For God’s sake, don’t make me feel guilty!
LUCILA: It’s the truth! It took him forever to find you. Then when he discovered where you lived you wouldn’t meet with him. You didn’t want to see him. That’s why he had to stay longer.
BEMADETTE: It’s destroying me . . . all of this . . .
LUCILA: It’s reality, Ms. Kahn. I would help him if I could. It might sound silly but I would go to Cuba and marry him to get him out, but I can’t do anything for him. It’s impossible. I can’t go there. I can never leave this country. I’m afraid I won’t be allowed to come back. And as much as I love Colombia, I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to live there. Not the way things are in my country.
BEMADETTE (Full of sadness): I can’t believe how this is happening again. And I was hoping, he and you . . .
LUCILA (Trying to console her): Let’s see what happens, Ms. Kahn.
BEMADETTE: God! How are we going to spend our days now?
LUCILA: The way we did before.
BEMADETTE: No. It won’t be the same. It’s difficult for me in the evenings . . . around sunset . . . I can’t bear the stillness that follows when you close the door behind you. The muteness. The silence changes from the silence at dawn, from the silence at day and the silence at dusk. And it’s not the quiet that might appease or soothe and numb the moment. This quietude has no future because it doesn’t move forward or ahead. (Suddenly an abstract idea) I think I should go . . . I should go to Cuba.
LUCILA: You? I don’t remember the last time you stepped out of this house.
BEMADETTE: I’m going to Havana and that’s all there’s to it.
LUCILA: I can’t go with you.
BEMADETTE: Then I’ll have to go by myself. It was always meant for me to go to Cuba. I was supposed to meet up with Ariel, back in my youth. Now it’s time.
LUCILA: The government will make it difficult for you.
BEMADETTE: Nothing’s going to stop me this time! No one will get in my way! I’ll go and no law is going to stop me!
LUCILA: Finish drinking your coffee. I’m going to read your fortune. We’ll see what your coffee grinds have to say about all this.
BEMADETTE: What are you talking about? What am I supposed to do?
LUCILA: Just finish sipping your coffee in a contemplative manner as you always do. I learned this from a Turkish friend.
(Bemadette sips her coffee.)
BEMADETTE: Now you’re making me feel self-conscious.
LUCILA: Just enjoy your coffee then ask yourself: “What do I need to know about myself?”
BEMADETTE: All right, I’m done.
(Lucila covers the cup of coffee with the saucer and shakes it.)
LUCILA: It is said that the state of mind of the coffee-drinker affects the marks and forms that coffee leaves behind in the cup. And that’s all it takes to read your fortune in your own cup of coffee.
(Lucila turns the cup upside down into the saucer. She takes the cup and starts scrying clockwise until she finishes back at the cup handle.)
The form of a fish left by the foam could signify money; the shape of a camel could mean that you are going to travel; a moon could symbolize romance in your life. The shape of a knife could hold clues that a man is coming your way.
(Bemadette laughs.)
BEMADETTE: I never knew that a cup of coffee could contain a drop of wisdom.
LUCILA: Hum! I see a cat.
BEMADETTE: A cat and not a fish? Is that bad luck?
LUCILA: No. The cat could be you.
BEMADETTE: Goodness! I never saw myself as a cat.
LUCILA: The cat has a sea wave in its mouth.
BEMADETTE: And what could that possibly mean?
LUCILA: The sea wave could be desire.
BEMADETTE: Desire?
LUCILA: If he’s drinking the wave . . .
BEMADETTE: Is he drinking it?
LUCILA: Yes, like milk.
BEMADETTE: Then he’s a naughty cat.
LUCILA: Here’s a camel. That means travel.
BEMADETTE: How glad to know that a camel visits my cup.
LUCILA: Here’s the form of a snake. That means health. You will have to be healthy enough to travel.
BEMADETTE: I will eat everything you cook for me.
LUCILA: Here’s a turtle. Caution. You won’t regret this trip, but you’ll have to remain calm and rest.
BEMADETTE: How happy this trip makes me.
LUCILA: Please tell Saquiel why I won’t go with you to see him.
(Lucila rises to her feet and leaves. Slowly, a seascape is projected on the curtain. Soft music begins to play. Bemadette rises to her feet and looks into the distance.)
BEMADETTE: I am already traveling. By the time I get to the island the sea waves will have advanced across the ocean and they will humble themselves when they reach the shore.
Some birds will think I am a dream. The port will think I am a ghost. A turtle will think I have only come to see and take the island with me. The snail will suspect that I’ve come in search of a home. But I’ll have an existence of my own when I see Ariel Strauss.
(Now, the past, what could have been, merges with an inexplicable present. Saquiel appears dressed as Ariel Strauss. He wears a black raincoat and a fedora hat and is holding a suitcase. He calls out to Bemadette. She steps into this other dimension where anything is possible.)
I see you at the port coming towards me. Ah, to see you once again. Nothing has disturbed the waiting. Oh, you amazing, painfully lost, painfully innocent love!
How your presence endures. Nothing has disturbed the waiting.
END OF PLAY