Requiem for a Nun Read online

  This time, the lights do not flicker. They begin to dim steadily toward and then into complete darkness as Stevens continues.

  Nancy was the confidante, at first, while she—Nancy—still believed probably that the only problem, factor, was how to raise the money the blackmailer demanded, without letting the boss, the master, the husband find out about it; finding, discovering—this is still Nancy— realising probably that she had not really been a confidante for a good while, a long while before she discovered that what she actually was, was a spy: on her employer: not realising until after she had discovered that, although Temple had taken the money and the jewels too from her husband’s strongbox, she—Temple—still hadn’t paid them over to the blackmailer and got the letters, that the payment of the money and jewels was less than half of Temple’s plan.

  The lights go completely out. The stage is in complete darkness. Stevens’ voice continues.

  That was when Nancy in her turn found where Temple had hidden the money and jewels, and—Nancy—took them in her turn and hid them from Temple; this was the night of the day Gowan left for a week’s fishing at Aransas Pass, taking the older child, the boy, with him, to leave the child for a week’s visit with its grandparents in New Orleans until Gowan would pick him up on his way home from Texas.

  (to Temple: in the darkness)

  Now tell him.

  The stage is in complete darkness.

  Scene II

  Interior, Temple’s private sitting or dressing room. 9:30 P.M. September thirteenth ante.

  The lights go up, lower right, as in Act One in the transition from the Court room to the Stevens living room, though instead of the living room, the scene is now Temple’s private apartment. A door, left, enters from the house proper. A door, right, leads into the nursery where the child is asleep in its crib. At rear, French windows open onto a terrace; this is a private entrance to the house itself from outdoors. At left, a closet door stands open. Garments are scattered over the floor about it, indicating that the closet has been searched, not hurriedly so much as savagely and ruthlessly and thoroughly. At right, is a fireplace of gas logs. A desk against the rear wall is open and shows traces of the same savage and ruthless search. A table, center, bears Temple’s hat, gloves and bag, also a bag such as, is associated with infants; two bags, obviously Temple’s, are packed and closed and sit on the floor beside the table. The whole room indicates Temple’s imminent departure, and that something has been vainly yet savagely and completely, perhaps even frantically, searched for.

  When the lights go up, Pete is standing in the open closet door, holding a final garment, a negligee, in his hands. He is about 25. He does not look like a criminal. That is, he is not a standardised recognisable criminal or gangster type, quite. He looks almost like the general conception of a college man, or a successful young automobile or appliance salesman. His clothes are ordinary, neither flashy nor sharp, simply what everybody wears. But there is a definite ‘untamed’ air to him. He is handsome, attractive to women, not at all unpredictable because you—or they—know exactly what he will do, you just hope he wont do it this time. He has a hard, ruthless quality, not immoral but unmoral.

  He wears a light-weight summer suit, his hat is shoved onto the back of his head so that, engaged as he is at present, he looks exactly like a youthful city detective in a tough moving picture. He is searching the flimsy negligee, quickly and without gentleness, drops it and turns, finds his feet entangled in the other garments on the floor and without pausing, kicks himself free and crosses to the desk and stands looking down at the litter on it which he has already searched thoroughly and savagely once, with a sort of bleak and contemptuous disgust.

  Temple enters, left. She wears a dark suit for traveling beneath a lightweight open coat, is hatless, carries the fur coat which we have seen, and a child’s robe or blanket over the same arm, and a filled milk bottle in the other hand. She pauses long enough to glance at the littered room. Then she comes on in and approaches the table. Pete turns his head; except for that, he doesn’t move.

  Pete

  Well?

  Temple

  No. The people where she lives say they haven’t seen her since she left to come to work this morning.

  Pete

  I could have told you that.

  (he glances at his wrist watch)

  We’ve still got time. Where does she live?

  Temple

  (at the table)

  And then what? hold a lighted cigarette against the sole of her foot?

  Pete

  It’s fifty dollars, even if you are accustomed yourself to thinking in hundreds. Besides the jewelry. What do you suggest then? call the cops?

  Temple

  No. You wont have to run. I’m giving you an out.

  Pete

  An out?

  Temple

  No dough, no snatch. Isn’t that how you would say it?

  Pete

  Maybe I dont get you.

  Temple

  You can quit now. Clear out. Leave. Get out from under. Save yourself. Then all you’ll have to do is, wait till my husband gets back, and start over.

  Pete

  Maybe I still dont get you.

  Temple

  You’ve still got the letters, haven’t you?

  Pete

  Oh, the letters.

  He reaches inside his coat, takes out the packet of letters and tosses it onto the table.

  There you are.

  Temple

  I told you two days ago I didn’t want them.

  Pete

  Sure. That was two days ago.

  They watch each other a moment. Then Temple dumps the fur coat and the robe from her arm, onto the table, sets the bottle carefully on the table, takes up the packet of letters and extends her other hand to Pete.

  Temple

  Give me your lighter.

  Pete produces the lighter from his pocket and hands it to her. That is, he extends it, not moving otherwise, so that she has to take a step or two toward him to reach and take it. Then she turns and crosses to the hearth, snaps the lighter on. It misses fire two or three times, then lights. Pete has not moved, watching her. She stands motionless a moment, the packet of letters in one hand, the burning lighter in the other. Then she turns her head and looks back at him. For another moment they watch each other.

  Pete

  Go ahead. Burn them. The other time I gave them to you, you turned them down so you could always change your mind and back out. Burn them.

  They watch each other for another moment. Then she turns her head and stands now, her face averted, the lighter still burning. Pete watches her for another moment.

  Then put that junk down and come here.

  She snaps out the lighter, turns, crosses to the table, putting the packet of letters and the lighter on the table as she passes it, and goes on to where Pete has not moved, At this moment, Nancy appears in the door, left. Neither of them sees her. Pete puts his arms around Temple.

  I offered you an out too.

  (he draws her closer)

  Baby.

  Temple

  Dont call me that.

  Pete

  (tightens his arms, caressing and savage too)

  Red did. I’m as good a man as he was. Aint I?

  They kiss. Nancy moves quietly through the door and stops just inside the room, watching them. She now wears the standardised department store maidservant’s uniform, but without cap and apron, beneath a light-weight open topcoat; on her head is a battered almost shapeless felt hat which must have once belonged to a man. Pete breaks the kiss.

  Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’ve even got moral or something. I dont even want to put my hands on you in his house—

  He sees Nancy across Temple’s shoulder, and reacts. Temple reacts to him, turns quickly and sees Nancy too. Nanc
y comes on into the room.

  Temple

  (to Nancy) What are you doing here?

  Nancy

  I brought my foot. So he can hold that cigarette against it.

  Temple

  So you’re not just a thief: you’re a spy too.

  Pete

  Maybe she’s not a thief either. Maybe she brought it back.

  (they watch Nancy, who doesn’t answer)

  Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe we had better use that cigarette.

  (to Nancy)

  How about it? Is that what you came back for, sure enough?

  Temple

  (to Pete)

  Hush. Take the bags and go on to the car.

  Pete

  (to Temple but watching Nancy)

  I’ll wait for you. There may be a little something I can do here, after all.

  Temple

  Go on, I tell you! Let’s for God’s sake get away from here. Go on.

  Pete watches Nancy for a moment longer, who stands facing them but not looking at anything, motionless, almost bemused, her face sad, brooding and inscrutable. Then Pete turns, goes to the table, picks up the lighter, seems about to pass on, then pauses again and with almost infinitesimal hesitation takes up the packet of letters, puts it back inside his coat, takes up the two packed bags and crosses to the French window, passing Nancy, who is still looking at nothing and no one.

  Pete

  (to Nancy)

  Not that I wouldn’t like to, you know. For less than fifty bucks even. For old lang syne.

  He transfers the bags to one hand, opens the French window, starts to exit, pauses half way out and looks back at Temple.

  I’ll be listening, in case you change your mind about the cigarette.

  He goes on out, draws the door to after him. Just before it closes, Nancy speaks.

  Nancy

  Wait.

  Pete stops, begins to open the door again.

  Temple

  (quickly: to Pete)

  Go on! Go on! For God’s sake go on!

  Pete exits, shuts the door after him. Nancy and Temple face each other.

  Nancy

  Maybe I was wrong to think that just hiding that money and diamonds was going to stop you. Maybe I ought to have give it to him yesterday as soon as I found where you had hid it. Then wouldn’t nobody between here and Chicago or Texas seen anything of him but his dust.

  Temple

  So you did steal it. And you saw what good that did, didn’t you?

  Nancy

  If you can call it stealing, then so can I. Because wasn’t but part of it yours to begin with. Just the diamonds was yours. Not to mention that money is almost two thousand dollars, that you told me was just two hundred and that you told him was even less than that, just fifty. No wonder he wasn’t worried—about just fifty dollars. He wouldn’t even be worried if he knowed it was even the almost two thousand it is, let alone the two hundred you told me it was. He aint even worried about whether or not you’ll have any money at all when you get out to the car. He knows that all he’s got to do is, just wait and keep his hand on you and maybe just mash hard enough with it, and you’ll get another passel of money and diamonds too out of your husband or your pa. Only, this time he’ll have his hand on you and you’ll have a little trouble telling him it’s just fifty dollars instead of almost two thousand—

  Temple steps quickly forward and slaps Nancy across the face. Nancy steps back. As she does so, the packet of money and the jewel box fall to the floor from inside her topcoat. Temple stops, looking down at the money and jewels. Nancy recovers.

  Yes, there it is, that caused all the grief and ruin. If you hadn’t been somebody that would have a box of diamonds and a husband that you could find almost two thousand dollars in his britches pocket while he was asleep, that man wouldn’t have tried to sell you them letters. Maybe if I hadn’t taken and hid it, you would have give it to him before you come to this. Or maybe if I had just give it to him yesterday and got the letters, or maybe if I was to take it out to where he’s waiting in that car right now, and say, Here, man, take your money—

  Temple

  Try it. Pick it up and take it out to him, and see. If you’ll wait until I finish packing, you can even carry the bag.

  Nancy

  I know. It aint even the letters any more. Maybe it never was. It was already there in whoever could write the kind of letters that even eight years afterward could still make grief and ruin. The letters never did matter. You could have got them back at any time; he even tried to give them to you twice—

  Temple

  How much spying have you been doing?

  Nancy

  All of it.—You wouldn’t even needed money and diamonds to get them back. A woman dont need it. All she needs is womanishness to get anything she wants from men. You could have done that right here in the house, without even tricking your husband into going off fishing.

  Temple

  A perfect example of whore morality. But then, if I can say whore, so can you, cant you? Maybe the difference is, I decline to be one in my husband’s house.

  Nancy

  I aint talking about your husband. I aint even talking about you. I’m talking about two little children.

  Temple

  So am I. Why else do you think I sent Bucky on to his grandmother, except to get him out of a house where the man he has been taught to call his father, may at any moment decide to tell him he has none? As clever a spy as you must surely have heard my husband—

  Nancy

  (interrupts)

  I’ve heard him. And I heard you too. You fought back—that time. Not for yourself, but for that little child. But now you have quit.

  Temple

  Quit?

  Nancy

  Yes. You gave up. You gave up the child too. Willing to risk never seeing him again maybe.

  (Temple doesn’t answer)

  That’s right. You dont need to make no excuses to me. Just tell me what you must have already strengthened your mind up to telling all the rest of the folks that are going to ask you that. You are willing to risk it. Is that right?

  (Temple doesn’t answer)

  All right. We’ll say you have answered it. So that settles Bucky. Now answer me this one. Who are you going to leave the other one with?

  Temple

  Leave her with? A six-months-old baby?

  Nancy

  That’s right. Of course you cant leave her. Not with nobody. You cant no more leave a six-months-old baby with nobody while you run away from your husband with another man, than you can take a six-months-old baby with you on that trip. That’s what I’m talking about. So maybe you’ll just leave it in there in that cradle; it’ll cry for a while, but it’s too little to cry very loud and so maybe wont nobody hear it and come meddling, especially with the house shut up and locked until Mr Gowan gets back next week, and probably by that time it will have hushed—

  Temple

  Are you really trying to make me hit you again?

  Nancy

  Or maybe taking her with you will be just as easy, at least until the first time you write Mr Gowan or your pa for money and they dont send it as quick as your new man thinks they ought to, and he throws you and the baby both out. Then you can just drop it into a garbage can and no more trouble to you or anybody, because then you will be rid of both of them—