Requiem for a Nun Read online

  Then suddenly, you realise that that was nowhere near enough, not for that face—bridehood, motherhood, grandmotherhood, then widowhood and at last the grave—the long peaceful connubial progress toward matriarchy in a rocking chair nobody else was allowed to sit in, then a headstone in a country churchyard—not for that passivity, that stasis, that invincible captaincy of soul which didn’t even need to wait but simply to be, breathe tranquilly, and take food—infinite not only in capacity but in scope too: that face, one maiden muse which had drawn a man out of the running pell mell of a cavalry battle, a whole year around the long iron perimeter of duty and oath, from Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, across Tennessee into Virginia and up to the fringe of Pennsylvania before it curved back into its closing fade along the headwaters of the Appomattox river and at last removed from him its iron hand: where, a safe distance at last into the rainy woods from the picket lines and the furled flags and the stacked muskets, a handful of men leading spent horses, the still-warm pistols still loose and quick for the hand in the unstrapped scabbards, gathered in the failing twilight—privates and captains, sergeants and corporals and subalterns—talking a little of one last desperate cast southward where (by last report) Johnston was still intact, knowing that they would not, that they were done not only with vain resistance but with indomitability too; already departed this morning in fact for Texas, the West, New Mexico: a new land even if not yet (spent too—like the horses—from the long harassment and anguish of remaining indomitable and undefeated) a new hope, putting behind them for good and all the loss of both: the young dead bride—drawing him (that face) even back from this too, from no longer having to remain undefeated too: who swapped the charger for the mule and the sabre for the stocking of seed corn: back across the whole ruined land and the whole disastrous year by that virgin inevictable passivity more inescapable than lodestar;

  Not that face; that was nowhere near enough: no symbol there of connubial matriarchy, but fatal instead with all insatiate and deathless sterility; spouseless, barren, and undescended; not even demanding more than that: simply requiring it, requiring all—Lilith’s lost and insatiable face drawing the substance—the will and hope and dream and imagination—of all men (you too: yourself and the host too) into that one bright fragile net and snare; not even to be caught, over-flung, by one single unerring cast of it, but drawn to watch in patient and thronging turn the very weaving of the strangling golden strands—drawing the two of you from almost a hundred years away in your turn—yourself the stranger, the outlander with a B.A. or (perhaps even) M.A. from Harvard or Northwestern or Stanford, passing through Jefferson by chance or accident on the way to somewhere else, and the host who in three generations has never been out of Yoknapatawpha further than a few prolonged Saturday nights in Memphis or New Orleans, who has heard of Jenny Lind, not because he has heard of Mark Twain and Mark Twain spoke well of her, but for the same reason that Mark Twain spoke well of her: not that she sang songs, but that she sang them in the old West in the old days, and the man sanctioned by public affirmation to wear a pistol openly in his belt is an inevictable part of the Missouri and the Yoknapatawpha dream too, but never of Duse or Bernhardt or Maximilian of Mexico, let alone whether the Emperor of Mexico even ever had a wife or not (saying—the host—: ‘You mean, she was one of them? maybe even that emperor’s wife?’ and you: ‘Why not? Wasn’t she a Jefferson girl?’)—to stand, in this hot strange little room furious with frying fat, among the roster and chronicle, the deathless murmur of the sublime and deathless names and the deathless faces, the faces omnivorous and insatiable and forever incontent: demon-nun and angel-witch; empress, siren, Erinys: Mistinguette, too, invincible possessed of a half-century more of years than the mere three score or so she bragged and boasted, for you to choose among, which one she was—not might have been, nor even could have been, but was: so vast, so limitless in capacity is man’s imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream—then gone, you are outside again, in the hot noon sun: late; you have already wasted too much time: to un-fumble among the road signs and filling stations to get back onto a highway you know, back into the United States; not that it matters, since you know again now that there is no time: no space: no distance: a fragile and workless scratching almost depthless in a sheet of old barely transparent glass, and (all you had to do was look at it a while; all you have to do now is remember it) there is the clear undistanced voice as though out of the delicate antenna-skeins of radio, further than empress’s throne, than splendid insatiation, even than matriarch’s peaceful rocking chair, across the vast instantaneous intervention, from the long long time ago: ‘Listen, stranger; this was myself: this was I.’

  Scene I

  Interior, the Jail. 10:30 A.M. March twelfth.

  The common room, or ‘bullpen.’ It is on the second floor. A heavy barred door at left is the entrance to it, to the entire cellblock, which—the cells—are indicated by a row of steel doors, each with its own individual small barred window, lining the right wall. A narrow passage at the far end of the right wall leads to more cells. A single big heavily barred window in the rear wall looks down into the street. It is mid-morning of a sunny day.

  The door, left, opens with a heavy clashing of the steel lock, and swings back and outward. Temple enters, followed by Stevens and the Jailor. Temple has changed her dress, but wears the fur coat and the same hat. Stevens is dressed exactly as he was in Act Two. The Jailor is a typical small-town turnkey, in shirt-sleeves and no necktie, carrying the heavy keys on a big iron ring against his leg as a farmer carries a lantern, say. He is drawing the door to behind him as he enters.

  Temple stops just inside the room. Stevens perforce stops also. The Jailor closes the door and locks it on the inside with another clash and clang of steel, and turns.

  Jailor

  Well, Lawyer, singing school will be over after tonight, huh?

  (to Temple)

  You been away, you see. You dont know about this, you aint up with what’s—

  (he stops himself quickly; he is about to commit what he would call a very bad impoliteness, what in the tenets of his class and kind would be the most grave of gaucherie and bad taste: referring directly to a recent bereavement in the presence of the bereaved, particularly one of this nature, even though by this time tomorrow the State itself will have made restitution with the perpetrator’s life. He tries to rectify it)

  Not that I wouldn’t too, if I’d a been the ma of the very—

  (stopping himself again; this is getting worse than ever; now he not only is looking at Stevens, but actually addressing him)

  Every Sunday night, and every night since last Sunday except last night—come to think of it, Lawyer, where was you last night? We missed you—Lawyer here and Na—the prisoner have been singing hymns in her cell. The first time, he just stood out there on the sidewalk while she stood in that window yonder. Which was all right, not doing no harm, just singing church hymns. Because all of us home folks here in Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County both know Lawyer Stevens, even if some of us might have thought he got a little out of line—

  (again it is getting out of hand; he realises it, but there is nothing he can do now; he is like someone walking a foot-log: all he can do is move as fast as he dares until he can reach solid ground or at least pass another log to leap to)

  defending a nigger murderer, let alone when it was his own niece was mur—

  (and reaches another log and leaps to it without stopping: at least one running at right angles for a little distance into simple generality)

  —maybe suppose some stranger say, some durn Yankee tourist, happened to be passing through in a car, when we get enough durn criticism from Yankees like it is—besides, a white man standing out there in the cold, while a durned nigger murderer is up here all warm and comfortable; so it happened that me and Mrs Tubbs hadn’t went to prayer meeting that night, so we invit
ed him to come in; and to tell the truth, we come to enjoy it too. Because as soon as they found out there wasn’t going to be no objection to it, the other nigger prisoners (I got five more right now, but I taken them out back and locked them up in the coal house so you could have some privacy) joined in too, and by the second or third Sunday night, folks was stopping along the street to listen to them instead of going to regular church. Of course, the other niggers would just be in and out over Saturday and Sunday night for fighting or gambling or vagrance or drunk, so just about the time they would begin to get in tune, the whole choir would be a complete turnover. In fact, I had a idea at one time to have the Marshal comb the nigger dives and joints not for drunks and gamblers, but basses and baritones.

  (he starts to laugh, guffaws once, then catches himself; he looks at Temple with something almost gentle, almost articulate, in his face, taking (as though) by the horns, facing frankly and openly the dilemma of his own inescapable vice)

  Excuse me, Mrs Stevens. I talk too much. All I want to say is, this whole county, not a man or woman, wife or mother either in the whole state of Mississippi, that don’t—dont feel—

  (stopping again, looking at Temple)

  There I am, still at it, still talking too much. Wouldn’t you like for Mrs Tubbs to bring you up a cup of coffee or maybe a Coca-Cola? She’s usually got a bottle or two of sody pop in the icebox.

  Temple

  No, thank you, Mr Tubbs. If we could just see Nancy—

  Jailor

  (turning)

  Sure, sure.

  He crosses toward the rear, right, and disappears into the passage.

  Temple

  The blindfold again. Out of a Coca-Cola bottle this time or a cup of county-owned coffee.

  Stevens takes the same pack of cigarettes from his overcoat pocket, though Temple has declined before he can even offer them.

  No, thanks. My hide’s toughened now. I hardly feel it. People. They’re really innately, inherently gentle and compassionate and kind. That’s what wrings, wrenches . . . something. Your entrails, maybe. The member of the mob who holds up the whole ceremony for seconds or even minutes while he dislodges a family of bugs or lizards from the log he is about to put on the fire—

  (there is the clash of another steel door offstage as the Jailor unlocks Nancy’s cell. Temple pauses, turns and listens, then continues rapidly)

  And now I’ve got to say ‘I forgive you, sister’ to the nigger who murdered my baby. No: it’s worse: I’ve even got to transpose it, turn it around. I’ve got to start off my new life being forgiven again. How can I say that? Tell me. How can I?

  She stops again and turns farther as Nancy enters from the rear alcove, followed by the Jailor, who passes Nancy and comes on, carrying the ring of keys once more like a farmer’s lantern.

  Jailor

  (to Stevens)

  Okay, Lawyer. How much time you want? Thirty minutes? an hour?

  Stevens

  Thirty minutes should be enough.

  Jailor

  (still moving toward the exit, left)

  Okay.

  (to Temple)

  You sure you dont want that coffee or a Coca-Cola? I could bring you up a rocking chair—

  Temple

  Thank you just the same, Mr Tubbs.

  Jailor

  Okay.

  (at the exit door, unlocking it)

  Thirty minutes, then.

  He unlocks the door, opens it, exits, closes and locks it behind him; the lock clashes, his footsteps die away. Nancy has slowed and stopped where the Jailor passed her; she now stands about six feet to the rear of Temple and Stevens. Her face is calm, unchanged. She is dressed exactly as before, except for the apron; she still wears the hat.

  Nancy

  (to Temple)

  You been to California, they tell me. I used to think maybe I would get there too, some day. But I waited too late to get around to it.

  Temple

  So did I. Too late and too long. Too late when I went to California, and too late when I came back. That’s it: too late and too long, not only for you, but for me too; already too late when both of us should have got around to running, like from death itself, from the very air anybody breathed named Drake or Mannigoe.

  Nancy

  Only, we didnt. And you come back, yesterday evening. I heard that too. And I know where you were last night, you and him both.

  (indicating Stevens) You went to see the Mayor.

  Temple

  Oh, God, the mayor. No: the Governor, the Big Man himself, in Jackson. Of course; you knew that as soon as you realised that Mr Gavin wouldn’t be here last night to help you sing, didn’t you? In fact, the only thing you cant know about it is what the Governor told us. You cant know that yet, no matter how clairvoyant you are, because we—the Governor and Mr Gavin and I—were not even talking about you; the reason I—we had to go and see him was not to beg or plead or bind or loose, but because it would be my right, my duty, my privilege—Dont look at me, Nancy.

  Nancy

  I’m not looking at you. Besides, it’s all right. I know what the Governor told you. Maybe I could have told you last night what he would say, and saved you the trip. Maybe I ought to have—sent you the word as soon as I heard you were back home, and knowed what you and him—

  (again she indicates Stevens with that barely discernible movement of her head, her hands still folded across her middle as though she still wore the absent apron)

  —both would probably be up to. Only, I didn’t. But it’s all right—

  Temple

  Why didn’t you? Yes, look at me. This is worse, but the other is terrible.

  Nancy

  What?

  Temple

  Why didn’t you send me the word?

  Nancy

  Because that would have been hoping: the hardest thing of all to break, get rid of, let go of, the last thing of all poor sinning man will turn aloose. Maybe it’s because that’s all he’s got. Leastways, he holds onto it, hangs onto it. Even with salvation laying right in his hand, and all he’s got to do is, choose between it; even with salvation already in his hand and all he needs is just to shut his fingers, old sin is still too strong for him, and sometimes before he even knows it, he has throwed salvation away just grabbling back at hoping. But it’s all right—

  Stevens

  You mean, when you have salvation, you dont have hope?

  Nancy

  You dont even need it. All you need, all you have to do, is just believe. So maybe—

  Stevens

  Believe what?

  Nancy

  Just believe.—So maybe it’s just as well that all I did last night, was just to guess where you all went. But I know now, and I know what the Big Man told you. And it’s all right. I finished all that a long time back, that same day in the judge’s court. No: before that even: in the nursery that night, before I even lifted my hand—

  Temple

  (convulsively)

  Hush. Hush.

  Nancy

  All right. I’ve hushed. Because it’s all right. I can get low for Jesus too. I can get low for Him too.

  Temple

  Hush! Hush! At least, dont blaspheme. But who am I to challenge the language you talk about Him in, when He Himself certainly cant challenge it, since that’s the only language He arranged for you to learn?

  Nancy

  What’s wrong with what I said? Jesus is a man too. He’s got to be. Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women dont. They dont care what he said. They listens because of what he is.

  Temple

  Then let Him talk to me. I can get low for Him too, if that’s all He wants, demands, asks. I’ll do anything He wants if He’ll just tell me what to do. No: how to do it. I know what to do, what I must do, what I’ve got to do. But how? We—I thought that all I would
have to do would be to come back and go to the Big Man and tell him that it wasn’t you who killed my baby, but I did it eight years ago that day when I slipped out the back door of that train, and that would be all. But we were wrong. Then I—we thought that all it would be was, for me just to come back here and tell you you had to die; to come all the way two thousand miles from California, to sit up all night driving to Jackson and talking for an hour or two and then driving back, to tell you you had to die; not just to bring you the news that you had to die, because any messenger could do that, but just so it could be me that would have to sit up all night and talk for the hour or two hours and then bring you the news back. You know: not to save you, that wasn’t really concerned in it: but just for me, just for the suffering and the paying: a little more suffering simply because there was a little more time left for a little more of it, and we might as well use it since we were already paying for it; and that would be all; it would be finished then. But we were wrong again. That was all, only for you. You wouldn’t be any worse off if I had never come back from California. You wouldn’t even be any worse off. And this time tomorrow, you wont be anything at all. But not me. Because there’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. All you’ve got to do is, just to die. But let Him tell me what to do. No: that’s wrong; I know what to do, what I’m going to do; I found that out that same night in the nursery too. But let Him tell me how. How? Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and still tomorrow. How?