The Hague, Holland, New Year’s Eve, 1980
A geometric flat in the manner of De Stijl, circa the early 1920s. The building overlooks a frozen pond. It is cavernous and austere. In spite of being built to let in light, it is dark. The furniture is orthodox Modernists—Gerrit Rietveld and others of the same school.
An elderly Dutch gentleman, Gerrit Van Eden, sits in black tie, sipping champagne. Patrice is in a dinner dress set off by a single strand of pearls.
VAN EDEN: I see. So only the one boy lives with you. And the other?
PATRICE: Lives nowhere, you see. He travels as a sort of life choice. He’s something of a journalist.
VAN EDEN: Ah. Yes. I see. A cultural family then.
PATRICE: Allie, actually, has not done all that much of note.
To tell you the truth. He’s sort of a bust. So far. He writes for the sort of publication where the ink comes off on your dress and you can’t get it out: I looked down once and there was an entire interview with Madame Chiang Kai-shek on my frock.
VAN EDEN: Of course, he’s still young enough that he has a shot.
PATRICE (With a kind of manic excitement): Well you know, I think I must disagree. We tell young people that they have several chances in life, but actually, Mr. Van Eden, there clearly are very few. Very few. I—when I met my husband, we were both working for a museum. You’ve probably been to it: The Phillips Collection, American art. In Washington near all the embassies—and I was pursuing a curatorial career. Of course, what, you may ask, does a woman with an interest in American art do when they’ve just stopped making the stuff?
(Beat) But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?
VAN EDEN: Uhm, I can’t say I exactly recall. How we got onto.
(Beat) And the boy who lives with you? . . .
PATRICE: Gil.
VAN EDEN: Yes.
PATRICE: What about him?
VAN EDEN: Has he settled on a . . . future?
(Beat.)
PATRICE: I think what you must be referring to is the scandal of his being caught in flagrante delicto with that seventeen-year-old boy from the other side of the building?
VAN EDEN (After a moment): No.
PATRICE: Very attractive boy who looks rather like that actor you have—that actor with the eyes. Rutger Hauer. In the room where they store the bicycles. One can understand why one might—an attractive boy.
VAN EDEN: I’m not so familiar with that actor.
PATRICE: Then, of course, you were not part of that petition that was sent round to ask us to move out, to vacate?
(Long pause.)
VAN EDEN: No.
PATRICE: Thank God. I didn’t think you, a retired diplomat . . . If you had seen the language they used. The committee. Tenants committee.
(Beat) I thought I saw your name, but perhaps it was a mistake.
VAN EDEN: I believe that my wife, before her illness, was on that body. She had not served for some time.
PATRICE: I can only assume it was a problem with translation. Words like “preying on,” and “predatory perversion.” These words must have other, alternative meanings in Dutch. I was surprised to see how bigoted and small-minded our neighbors were. I thought this was a progressive culture where such things—
VAN EDEN (Cautious but interrupts): I do not follow the various . . . comings and goings. Of the area. People are free to live their lives as they wish.
PATRICE (Touched, surprised): Thank you. Yes. I agree.
(Beat) As for Gil. I don’t care what he does. None of that bothers me. If he were here he could speak to this issue himself. For instance. The idea of service. —That is something young people no longer appreciate.
VAN EDEN: Service?
PATRICE: Well—how can you develop a notion of service when you don’t give a fuck? When you’re entirely indifferent to propriety and the needs of others.
VAN EDEN: Oh yes.
PATRICE: Why should they want to serve anything at all when they have no reason to respect any of the institutions offered to them?
VAN EDEN (Proceeding gingerly): I do disagree, with all respect, having spent my life as a diplomat, just like your husband. When I was the governor of Suriname, the younger generation, even if they were opposed—
PATRICE (Cuts him off): But you lost it. The Dutch lost Suriname, right?
(Pause.)
VAN EDEN: Yes. It had been coming for years. I ran it as best—
PATRICE: Yes, I’m sure you ran it wonderfully. I’m quite certain all the trains ran on time. But did the Dutch—but did you provide the Surinamanians with a good example before they threw you out?
VAN EDEN (Correcting her gently): Surinamese.
PATRICE: The point I’m getting at is that on the one hand there is the notion of service, and on the other protest, fighting—somewhere in between the two is stasis. In other words: Gil. Of course what example are we giving him? You know, you live downstairs, so you hear these horrible parties we have to give. For visiting artists. I mean, if I had to listen to Philip Glass all day, I’d want to give blowjobs in the bike room too.
VAN EDEN (After a moment): Yes.
PATRICE: Have you ever heard, actually heard, Harry’s program on Voice of America?
VAN EDEN: I’ve missed it, I’m afraid.
PATRICE: Culture. American Culture Now. Is the show. Different events each week. If it’s theatre, it’s always some blue-collar thing with a porch and a broken dog. If it’s art, it’s always a sort of primitive thing with a despairing Laotian. And then they all come over here for a sweet-and-sour pupu platter.
VAN EDEN (After a moment): Indeed.
PATRICE: Of course, we’ll all look back on this as the golden age, compared with what’s to come. What with this stiff new broom in Washington it will all be different. It’s all up for grabs now. Of course one prays he’s a better president than he was a movie star but politics are easier, don’t you agree?
(Gil enters. He’s somewhat unsteady on his feet. He’s grinning. Van Eden stands.)
GIL: Hello!
(Beat) Oh. They’re not here yet? Wow. I’d have thought. By now. Hi.
PATRICE (Taking note of his condition): Yes, just think, you could have stayed wherever you were for another hour or so and had so much more fun. Think of all the fantastic fun you missed!
GIL: Oh well. There’s . . . always tomorrow, right?
PATRICE: The airport, the snow, your father called, they’re delayed, he’s waiting. Gil, you haven’t met Meneer Van Eden from downstairs, have you?
GIL: In the lift once, I believe. Hi.
VAN EDEN: Hi. Happy New Year.
GIL: Let me just tell you, it’s very festive out there. The bars. Wow. I actually saw two guys in one of them. Laughing! Can you imagine? Roaring! Of course the bartender shot a disapproving glance, and they went back to their Vermeer silence. But for a moment there . . . (Gil does a mocking little disco step or two) It was Studio 54.
PATRICE: I’m sure it was a ball. We were discussing the problem notion of service. Service to others. Anything outside oneself.
GIL (A moan): Again? Oh. I’m so sorry, Mr. Van Eden.
PATRICE: I’ve become repetitious, Mr. Van Eden, according to Gil.
GIL: Did you get to the part yet where you talk about the “pseudo-suburban-artistic frauds”? Or did I miss that? ’Cause that’s usually good.
PATRICE: Gil is no doubt referring to my position on the types of artists championed by Voice of America.
GIL: And when some—and I quote—“plaintive rural shriek” floats down to your flat—
PATRICE: You can be certain we’re having a recital, and that I can be found quietly sobbing in the loo.
GIL: Yes, usually, that’s pretty much where you can be found.
(Beat.)
VAN EDEN: May I have some more of this lovely champagne?
PATRICE: Like you guys did in Suriname, I lost a certain amount of credibility with Gil after I beat the shit out of our African maid. Didn’t I, darling?
GIL: Yes. But she’s very credible now.
PATRICE (Pours for Van Eden): Well, Gil, maybe you can help from a young person’s perspective.
GIL: I doubt it.
PATRICE: Perhaps you could shed some light?
GIL: Not likely.
PATRICE: Why is it that the young dancers and the choreographers Harry brings around, and the poets, and the writers—the same trotting out of their same six discoveries. “The story of me and my crisis.” Part eight hundred and thirty-seven. The complaining, the lack of courage. The special pleading.
GIL: The young people I know don’t complain much at all.
PATRICE (A short laugh): I’ll bet they don’t. We are aware of that. Everyone in the building is aware of that.
VAN EDEN (Suddenly understanding the parameters of what he may be trapped in): Do you think you might have anything stronger than champagne? (Patrice smiles at him—the perfect hostess)
PATRICE: It was so nice of you to accept our invitation to spend New Year’s Eve with us! Such a special night! I usually like to spend it alone. But since we have Allie and his new girlfriend—there’s a dozen blondes a year, and I don’t know if we’re on Miss January or if it’s still Miss December. —Did you ask for something harder?
VAN EDEN: Vodka, madame, if it’s no bother.
GIL (Eager): Vodka, good idea. I’ll get it. Let me.
PATRICE: Well. Why don’t I bring out the caviar? A gift from a defecting Estonian poet my husband helped. He wrote a poem about a cow. It was thirty-six minutes long.
(In a mock Eastern European accent)
Here are my swollen,
glistening,
shit-encrusted
udders!
Your Motherland!
Your swamp!
(Beat.)
VAN EDEN: . . . Very nice.
PATRICE: Well, I was moved.
(Beat) May I ask you something?
VAN EDEN: Of course.
PATRICE: Your wife. Your beautiful wife. I used to talk to her. When we first moved in. And she was very stunning. Did you love her? Did you love her very much?
VAN EDEN: Yes.
PATRICE: When was it that she died? I didn’t realize she had been so ill! I always wanted to have that look—she had that look-of removal, radiant removal so useful for diplomatic wives and I never could get it. I’m so sorry we never got a chance to get to know one another. We would surely have been friends. —When did you say?
VAN EDEN (After the smallest beat): Six weeks. It’s six weeks ago. She had been ill for quite some time as you know, so—
PATRICE (Excited): Wait! Wait! Let me get the sevruga!—Please, please tell me all about her. I can’t wait.
(She exits. Van Eden and Gil look at each other.)
GIL: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
VAN EDEN: Are you enjoying Holland, young man?
GIL (His eyes closed): I’m sorry. Please, it’s—sometimes she doesn’t know that she’s saying things which are not allowed.
VAN EDEN (Kindly): Not at all. I don’t mind at all. Now. My question was, are you enjoying The Netherlands?
(Beat.)
GIL: A lot. The museums. The art. The paintings.
(Beat) The Dutch landscape. I’ve been working my way through it. It could take a lifetime.
VAN EDEN: Yes. Beautiful. This particular green—nowhere else quite so, in the world.
GIL (Walking to the window): Yeah. But you know, what I like, was . . . the—I’ve been looking at a lot of Mondrian. Because there are so many here.
VAN EDEN: Mondrian. Yes. I must say, I don’t care for him.
GIL: I do. A lot. He started off . . . he started off painting trees. And the green you mention—he knew it, he caught it. And then something happened.
(Beat) A volte-face. An abrupt turn. And he left everything behind, and stripped the world to its essential.
(Beat) By the end of his life, the thought of green simply revolted him. It didn’t fit in. And he was right. Reduce the magnificent Dutch landscapes of the seventeenth century, those architectural views, the pictures of people living life in moving pastoral settings, and then reduce the sentiment, reduce the feeling, and continue. Until you get to Mondrian. (Beat. Looks out)
VAN EDEN (Looks out the window, smiling): Hmm. I can’t see that. I still see what I see. A frozen pond. Green trees. I should look more closely.
GIL (Tentative): If you wanted to see some Mondrians. They have the largest collection in the world. The Gemeente Museum—?
VAN EDEN: An outing would be lovely. Of course. Any time. I haven’t been in that museum in decades.
(There is a moment.)
PATRICE (Returning with caviar): Mr. Van Eden, one gets so seldom to speak to people of a certain wit—please—I want to know if you were expatriates. We have so much in common. Is it all right to ask? How did she die?
VAN EDEN (Takes a deep breath): Yes. Fine. Mrs. Burgess. When we were in Suriname, she contracted malaria.
(Beat) And in the old days, in Suriname, in Parimaribo, we used to have fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Just like those you shall see tonight at midnight. And I would arrange these fireworks displays because she missed home, you see. But in Suriname, the fireworks would go off, and there would be a flash of light on jungle. Not on this glorious Dutch landscape we called home. When I retired, she wanted to come back here. Home. Even though the chill of this lowland was very bad for her.
(Beat) There is no land more wet, more damp, for here, as you know, we are below sea level, under the sea, really.
(Beat) Before she died, Mrs. Burgess, my wife said to me, “Gerrit, there is no more harbor. No more port. We are sailors on the Flying Dutchman, ancient mariners on a boat, always at sea.”
(Sound of elevator is heard offstage.)
PATRICE (Wildly enthusiastic at the sound of the elevator): Listen! He’s here! Your brother’s here! Get the champagne ready.
GIL (Calming): Mom.
PATRICE (Looks at herself; then runs to the door): Oh God! This outfit.
HARRY (Enters): Sorry we’re so late.
(Harry is more gray, more expansive, more prosperous, in a Bond Street cashmere overcoat. He takes in Van Eden, whom he does not appear to know.)
Oh. Hello! Gee. Company.
PATRICE: You’re alone!
GIL: Hey. Where’s Allie?
HARRY: They’re here. They went to the corner. He said he had to go see a canal.
GIL (Exiting): Jesus, a canal?
HARRY (Calling after him): But bring them back, because your mother’s waited long enough.
PATRICE (To Van Eden): This is my son Allie’s modus vivendi. He exquisitely delays the pleasure of seeing me.
HARRY: No. He wants his girl to see—
PATRICE (A dismissive grunt, cuts him off): Uh-huh. Uh-huh. This is Mr. Gerrit Van Eden, the neighbor I mentioned. The retired governor of Suriname.
HARRY: Ah! Yes, of course! Good to meet you. Finally.
PATRICE: Have you heard anything? Any news from . . . Washington on the hostages? Any high-flying telexes?
HARRY: Nothing yet. Nothing on the wire services. Just the same old “any day now” . . . Rumors abound.
PATRICE: Of course, the second Carter is on that helicopter off the White House lawn, the second he’s gone. They’ll be free. Because Reagan made a deal. It’s so clear to me.
HARRY: Any way that gets ’em out, fine with me. So what?
PATRICE: Meneer Van Eden. My husband and I have not fought as much in years as we have over this last election.
HARRY (Laughing): We didn’t fight, Patrice. I was right and you were wrong.
PATRICE (Hands him a gold envelope): And look what came today, Harry.
HARRY (Peering at the envelope): Huh. Well.
PATRICE: Isn’t that exciting?
HARRY (Slightly self-mocking): They approve of me. Very good sign. Very good.
PATRICE: Our invitation to the Inauguration! Mr. Van Eden. Isn’t that wonderful? One only hopes one gets to sit near Bob and Dolores Hope.
HARRY (Jovial): You know, come on, it’s unfair to presume these people are all philistines and country club boors, sweetie. It’s just such a—that’s so old. That’s so un-hip. I’m sure they’re the usual mix of the usual sorts of people. Some worse than others.
PATRICE: Huh! I’ll say.
HARRY: I passed a little farm stand on the way. (Hands her a small bag) Those hothouse tomatoes you like. A fortune. But here. Happy New Year, baby. You’re going to love this one. Scuttlebutt on the Rialto is that Disney’s coming. They want to build a European Disneyland!
PATRICE: Well, It is a small world after all.
HARRY: Well, it’s the ideal cultural export. It makes perfect sense—
PATRICE (Interrupts, upset): How long does it take to look at a frozen canal? This is a deliberate message.
HARRY (Lightly): Then we just don’t take the bait, honey. I’m warning you, Mr. Van Eden, my son can be something of a pugilist. Especially with diplomats.
PATRICE: Oh, no match for Meneer Van Eden, though. You know, his wife was on that committee. You know? The tenants committee? On un-American activities?
HARRY: Oh. Oh. I see. Well.
PATRICE (Cheerful): But she’d not been active on it in some time. Well. I’m going to cut up these very expensive hothouse tomatoes into translucent, artful little slices.
(Patrice exits.)
VAN EDEN (After an awkward moment): I know nothing of the petition your wife mentioned, Mr. Burgess.
HARRY: Thank you. I—thank you. Not a pleasant experience with those people.
VAN EDEN: Are you enjoying this posting, Mr. Burgess? You’ve been here—what is it—a year and a half?
HARRY (Uneasy): Oh yes. It’s lovely. The Hague is lovely. So quiet. Look. I apologize—my wife. Patrice, it’s not easy to—
VAN EDEN: Would you prefer it if I left? I do have several excuses at hand, you know. My dalmatians require attention. My sadness at being with a happy family on New Year’s Eve. One could slip away.
HARRY: It’s a kind offer, but please stay.
VAN EDEN: In . . . your line of work, where men spend so much of the day simply lying, I find the truth rather a tonic. She is not well, is she?
HARRY: Tonight it’s worse. Our older boy arriving. Republicans move into the White House. She feels . . . that in particular agitates her.
VAN EDEN: But not you?
HARRY (Sitting): I have learned, maybe a little late in life, the essential lesson for all diplomats: “Stay out of the way of the politicians.”
VAN EDEN (Laughs): Oh, yes.
HARRY: “Beware the wise men when they come limping into sight.” One of those Chinese proverbs. I duck ’em.
(He laughs) It’s so much cleaner that way. My wife likes to create a little fiction that I’m a closet conservative. But I’m purely a conservator. Whoever’s in charge, they’re still gonna need a little culture.
(Hears elevator noise from off) That’ll be the kids.
(Allie enters, holding the hand of a girl, Carly, who is quite beautiful, quite blonde, and quite strong looking. Gil follows.)
ALLIE (Taking the place in): Amazing house. Pure modernist, huh? Not a decorative lowering of the guard anywhere. What a place. You know. You could live here and you could very very quickly dispense with all the prefatory emotions. And get down to brass tacks.
(Patrice enters.)
Hello, Mother.
(There is a moment between them. She hugs him, and in that moment, her guard drops.)
PATRICE: Hello, sweet one. Look at you. Look at you. My God. The Bohemian life? You could become a diet guru: the Bohemian Diet. And you’re Carly Fletcher.
CARLY: Hi. Yes.
PATRICE: We have champagne glasses. We have champagne!
(Patrice pours the champagne into glasses and passes them around.)
HARRY: This is Meneer Gerrit Van Eden. He has a most distinguished, legendary diplomatic career behind him. Which I’m sure you’ll ask him about, won’t you, Allie?
ALLIE: Good to meet you, sir. We’re privileged—more tribesmen. This town is crawling with diplomats.
(To Carly) Be careful of what you say. God knows where it may end up.
CARLY: Alec. Cool it. Chill out. Relax.
ALLIE: You think I should? What would happen if I did? If I did that, the entire world would crumble like an applebrown betty.
CARLY: Okay, whatever.
PATRICE: Harry. Will you do the honors?
HARRY: Over to you. My toasts have come to sound like public service announcements.
PATRICE (Toasts): Allie. To your safe arrival. To peace breaking out. To a long, long, fruitful life (Looking at Gil pointedly) none of it wasted, none of it misused. To health. To grace . . . (She falters)
HARRY (Stepping in): And to the safe return of the hostages.
PATRICE (A wry laugh): Well, that’s a forgone conclusion at this point, sweetie, but what the hell.
ALLIE (Holding up his glass): To family. To being . . . a family. Cheers.
(They drink.)
CARLY: Wow. French champagne tastes so different in Europe.
HARRY: Yeah. They save the best for themselves.
PATRICE: Why were you so late?
ALLIE: The airports. The sport of blowing up Westerners. It’s a hobby. Very inconvenient. You have to add on an extra hour for every bomb that goes off somewhere.
HARRY: There was actually a little confusion over the flights. They came—
ALLIE: You didn’t tell her?
PATRICE: What?
ALLIE: We changed flights. We didn’t just come from New York. We came from Johannesburg.
HARRY (Smiling in a shrug to Patrice): I forgot to tell you.
PATRICE: From South Africa? You were in—
ALLIE: I had to go back. A story.
GIL: You were just in South Africa?
HARRY: God knows, you’ve got an amazing perspective on the place.
ALLIE: Not amazing. Just a realistic one, actually, Pop.
GIL: I have to tell you, I swear, I have no intention of ever, ever setting foot back in South Africa as long as I live, so help me God.
CARLY (To Patrice): I reminded him to . . . call you from Durban to tell you that we changed it, but of course he forgot, so poor Mr. Burgess was waiting . . . at the wrong terminal for the wrong plane.
HARRY: You’ve been in Durban too?
(Beat) Is it the same?
GIL: Why did you go to Durban?
ALLIE: It was an impulsive decision. I thought, If not now . . . when? I thought I saw the makings of a story. So we left a few days early.
PATRICE: So do you? Have a story?
ALLIE: I don’t know yet. I think so. I think I might.
(He looks at Harry. Harry is relaxed.)
HARRY: Well. Tell us then. Tell us who’s doing what to whom at the moment.
ALLIE: Why don’t you go first, Carly? Tell about the animals and the sights and then I’ll go.
CARLY: We saw many things. Amazing things. Takes your breath away. The natural beauty? Astonishing.
VAN EDEN (Encouraging): Go on, young lady. Tell about the many things.
CARLY (Careful): Well, I didn’t see what Al saw, so I can’t exactly say. But for me it was—I’m more interested in nature than Allie, you know, the natural world and all, the environment, the game parks, so, while he was doing his journalism thing, I like, you know, went on a day trip to the game park and watched the lions.
GIL (Incredulous): The lions? You went sight-seeing?
ALLIE: Don’t underestimate the value of the many lessons to be learned from lions. When they fight for dominance, they don’t just kill their enemy. They kill their offspring as well. And while Carly was learning from the lions, I did my “journalism thing.” Old friends. Old haunts. Contacts. See who’s left. What’s right.
(Beat) Mr. Van Eden. My girlfriend told me she thought it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. And I thought, How can this relationship ever work? She sees beauty. I see bodies.
CARLY: Allie—
VAN EDEN (Getting up, has had enough): Well then. I think I hear my dalmatians crying out for a nice walk around the pond. It’s been lovely. Good night.
(He walks toward the elevator) Mr. Burgess. A pleasure. Mrs. Burgess. If I don’t see you around the mailbox, good-bye.
(To Gil) Our expedition. I look forward to it. Any time. The Mondrians.
(He leaves.)
GIL: How to Clear a Room: A Step-By-Step Manual, by The Burgess Family.
PATRICE: Honey. I’m sure it’s awful. I can’t even look at the words “South Africa” in the paper. I can’t see them. I avert my gaze. I just can’t. You know
ALLIE: Anyway, I can’t go back. They kicked me out, so, it’s fine.
PATRICE: They expelled you?
HARRY: The South African government expelled you?
ALLIE: Yes, for my own safety. I mean, one would think that expulsion would be an impediment to a journalist who had staked out South Africa, and made it his own ostensibly private mandate, but actually, it didn’t much matter. When it comes to South Africa, I’m not much of a journalist. I can never get anyone to talk to me.
PATRICE: I’m sorry, Allie. It takes time. These things.
ALLIE: It has been the most baffling thing. The most inexplicable thing, Mom. Because I’m good. I’ve got Harry’s eye for detail and Patrice’s nose for liars. And I would get asked to write about the uprisings, and all my contacts dried up. No South African I knew in New York would talk to me. Dropped me.
(Beat) It started a few months after my last visit to you there. That terrible time? When we were all crazy? . . .
HARRY: Oh Allie. Please. It’s New Year’s Eve.
PATRICE: No. Go on. I want to hear this.
ALLIE: Okay. So. I thought, Well, why not go down there and find out why all my old friends would no longer talk to me.
CARLY (A laugh): Being that it’s on the way to Holland and all.
ALLIE: My friends, who happened to be black, as you might recall, Patrice, Harry. And I found out exactly why. You met them all. Kalia Nogobene. Julian Mapotani. Hank Singh, Andrew Mofolo, Julie Tlali. Lionel Sepopa. Eight or so. That had been to our house. And we—if you recall—we had talked. Long into the nights, drinking, remember? Talk of the future?
PATRICE: Alec, what are you saying?
ALLIE: That those people are all either dead or in jail.
CARLY (Almost inaudible): You didn’t tell me that.
GIL: They were all taken in? Those exact people?
ALLIE: The one’s who came to our house. And I was the only thing that all those people had in common. They weren’t on lists—
HARRY: Everybody there is on a list.
ALLIE: Not together! Not the same ones! These people, they didn’t know each other, they didn’t turn in the same circles, they were not all part of some cell. Kalia Nogobene’s sixteen-year-old sister that she brought with her?
(Beat. Furious) I was the only thing they had in common.
HARRY: Alec. You can’t blame yourself.
ALLIE (Looking at Harry): I don’t.
GIL: Therefore?
ALLIE: What did I tell you. What was the lesson? Journalism 101.
GIL: A chronology.
HARRY: Which leads to?
ALLIE (Simple, heartbroken): All roads lead to home, Harry. To Dad.
PATRICE: What are you saying, Allie?
HARRY: Wait. Why would that have anything to do with me?
(Beat.)
ALLIE: Pop. Dad. Did you give our government a list?
PATRICE (Astonished): What?
ALLIE: Please. Tell me. Just tell me—was there something . . . said?
HARRY: Son.
ALLIE (More and more sure): There had to have been a list. There had to have been a link between me—and them—and you—
PATRICE (Interrupts): No. No. No. This is not a game to be played in our house ever again. We are not doing this again.
HARRY: Why did you bring people to our home if you thought I was some sort of—why would you—
GIL (Overlapping): He didn’t, Allie. He wouldn’t. Dad. You’re not that sort of man.
ALLIE (Pressing): Tell me I’m wrong. Dad. You encouraged me to invite people into our home.
PATRICE: We are not going to rise to the bait!
HARRY: I worked day and night to try and effect some scant trace of decent human behavior down there! I did everything in my power to run counter to the indifference of our own government. I was the only one who ever even raised his voice! God, what do you think of me? How could my own son think me capable of such—do you hate me that much? Allie?
ALLIE (More convinced): You warned me! You told me it was dangerous. You didn’t tell me you were the dangerous one.
(Beat) In Durban. At the hotel. The Oyster Box, I get death threats. In New York. People would spit at me.
(Beat) There had to have been a list
HARRY: But, Son, whatever you thought, if you’d come to me and asked—
ALLIE: Have you forgotten how to tell the fucking truth?
HARRY (Gaining in fervor, desperate to be persuasive): Whatever it is, whatever happened, you must understand, the levels of complexity—I would never do anything that put anybody at risk. You can’t possibly believe that of me. We’re talking about a treacherous country in the midst of revolution. Any number of polluted sources could have—
PATRICE: Stop it, Harry.
HARRY (Still trying to hold on): Something must have—
PATRICE (Cuts him off. Sharp and vivid): Stop it, right now, stop. Just stop!
(Beat) Is that why you got promoted so suddenly, Harry? Because I have never figured it out. We were not on the fast track, my sweet. You were floundering. We were set for the Third World forever.
GIL: I refuse to believe this. I won’t.
(Beat.)
PATRICE: Is that why they gave you Europe? Because you finally gave them something? Harry. Come on now.
HARRY: Don’t look at me like that! None of you have the right to look at me like that. Have you forgotten what was happening there?
(Beat.)
You benefited from . . . You all . . .
(Pause.)
PATRICE: So you gave them a piece of paper, Harry? Did you type it? . . . Your list?
HARRY (Almost a whisper): There was never a . . . list. There were just conversations.
GIL: Dad.
HARRY (Rage and exhaustion): I had to get us out. (Yelling) I had to get us out, goddamn it!
PATRICE: It’s the end of the world, isn’t it? Harry. Darling.
(Beat.)
We’ve done it.
(Allie stands there, sobbing. Lights fade.)