Requiem for a Nun Read online

  Nancy

  Trust in Him.

  Temple

  Trust in Him. Look what He has already done to me. Which is all right; maybe I deserved it; at least I’m not the one to criticise or dictate to Him. But look what He did to you. Yet you can still say that. Why? Why? Is it because there isn’t anything else?

  Nancy

  I dont know. But you got to trust Him. Maybe that’s your pay for the suffering.

  Stevens

  Whose suffering, and whose pay? Just each one’s for his own?

  Nancy

  Everybody’s. All suffering. All poor sinning man’s.

  Stevens

  The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering. Is that it?

  Nancy

  Yes, sir.

  Stevens

  How?

  Nancy

  I dont know. Maybe when folks are suffering, they will be too busy to get into devilment, wont have time to worry and meddle one another.

  Temple

  But why must it be suffering? He’s omnipotent, or so they tell us. Why couldn’t He have invented something else? Or, if it’s got to be suffering, why cant it be just your own? why cant you buy back your own sins with your own agony. Why do you and my little baby both have to suffer just because I decided to go to a baseball game eight years ago? Do you have to suffer everybody else’s anguish just to believe in God? What kind of God is it that has to blackmail His customers with the whole world’s grief and ruin?

  Nancy

  He dont want you to suffer. He dont like suffering neither. But He cant help Himself. He’s like a man that’s got too many mules. All of a sudden one morning, he looks around and sees more mules than he can count at one time even, let alone find work for, and all he knows is that they are his, because at least dont nobody else want to claim them, and that the pasture fence was still holding them last night where they cant harm themselves nor nobody else the least possible. And that when Monday morning comes, he can walk in there and hem some of them up and even catch them if he’s careful about not never turning his back on the ones he aint hemmed up. And that, once the gear is on them, they will do his work and do it good, only he’s still got to be careful about getting too close to them, or forgetting that another one of them is behind him, even when he is feeding them. Even when it’s Saturday noon again, and he is turning them back into the pasture, where even a mule can know it’s got until Monday morning anyway to run free in mule sin and mule pleasure.

  Stevens

  You have got to sin, too?

  Nancy

  You aint got to. You cant help it. And He knows that. But you can suffer. And He knows that too. He dont tell you not to sin, He just asks you not to. And He dont tell you to suffer. But He gives you the chance, He gives you the best He can think of, that you are capable of doing. And He will save you.

  Stevens

  You too? A murderess? In heaven?

  Nancy

  I can work.

  Stevens

  The harp, the raiment, the singing, may not be for Nancy Mannigoe—not now. But there’s still the work to be done—the washing and sweeping, maybe even the children to be tended and fed and kept from hurt and harm and out from under the grown folks’ feet?

  (he pauses a moment. Nancy says nothing, immobile, looking at no one)

  Maybe even that baby?

  (Nancy doesn’t move, stir, not looking at anything apparently, her face still, bemused, expressionless)

  That one too, Nancy? Because you loved that baby, even at the very moment when you raised your hand against it, knew that there was nothing left but to raise your hand?

  (Nancy doesn’t answer nor stir)

  A heaven where that little child will remember nothing of your hands but gentleness because now this earth will have been nothing but a dream that didn’t matter? Is that it?

  Temple

  Or maybe not that baby, not mine, because, since I destroyed mine myself when I slipped out the back end of that train that day eight years ago, I will need about all the forgiving and forgetting that one six-months-old baby is capable of. But the other one: yours: that you told me about, that you were carrying six months gone, and you went to the picnic or dance or frolic or fight or whatever it was, and the man kicked you in the stomach and you lost it? That one too?

  Stevens

  (to Nancy)

  What? Its father kicked you in the stomach while you were pregnant?

  Nancy

  I dont know.

  Stevens

  You dont know who kicked you?

  Nancy

  I know that. I thought you meant its pa.

  Stevens

  You mean, the man who kicked you wasn’t even its father?

  Nancy

  I dont know. Any of them might have been.

  Stevens

  Any of them ? You dont have any idea who its father was?

  Nancy

  (looks at Stevens impatiently)

  If you backed your behind into a buzz saw, could you tell which tooth hit you first?

  (to Temple)

  What about that one?

  Temple

  Will that one be there too, that never had a father and never was even born, to forgive you? Is there a heaven for it to go to so it can forgive you? Is there a heaven, Nancy?

  Nancy

  I dont know. I believes.

  Temple

  Believe what?

  Nancy

  I dont know. But I believes.

  They all pause at the sound of feet approaching beyond the exit door, all are looking at the door as the key clashes again in the lock and the door swings out and the Jailor enters, drawing the door to behind him.

  Jailor

  (locking the door)

  Thirty minutes, Lawyer. You named it, you know: not me.

  Stevens

  I’ll come back later.

  Jailor

  (turns and crosses toward them)

  Provided you dont put it off too late. What I mean, if you wait until tonight to come back, you might have some company; and if you put it off until tomorrow, you wont have no client.

  (to Nancy)

  I found that preacher you want. He’ll be here about sundown, he said. He sounds like he might even be another good baritone. And you cant have too many, especially as after tonight you wont need none, huh? No hard feelings, Nancy. You committed about as horrible a crime as this county ever seen, but you’re fixing to pay the law for it, and if the child’s own mother—

  (he falters, almost pauses, catches himself and continues briskly, moving again)

  There, talking too much again. Come on, if Lawyer’s through with you. You can start taking Your time at daylight tomorrow morning, because you might have a long hard trip.

  He passes her and goes briskly on toward the alcove at rear. Nancy turns to follow.

  Temple

  (quickly)

  Nancy

  (Nancy doesn’t pause. Temple continues, rapidly)

  What about me? Even if there is one and somebody waiting in it to forgive me, there’s still tomorrow and tomorrow. And suppose tomorrow and tomorrow, and then nobody there, nobody waiting to forgive me—

  Nancy

  (moving on after the Jailor)

  Believe.

  Temple

  Believe what, Nancy? Tell me.

  Nancy

  Believe.

  She exits into the alcove behind the Jailor. The steel door offstage clangs, the key clashes. Then the Jailor reappears, approaches, and crosses toward the exit. He unlocks the door and opens it out again, pauses.

  Jailor

  Yes, sir. A long hard way. If I was ever fool enough to commit a killing that would get my neck into a noose, the last thing I would want to see would be a preacher. I’d a heap rather believe there wasn’t nothin
g after death than to risk the station where I was probably going to get off.

  (he waits, holding the door, looking back at them. Temple stands motionless until Stevens touches her arm slightly. Then she moves, stumbles slightly and infinitesimally, so infinitesimally and so quickly recovered that the Jailor has barely time to react to it, though he does so: with quick concern, with that quality about him almost gentle, almost articulate, turning from the door, even leaving it open as he starts quickly toward her)

  Here; you set down on the bench; I’ll get you a glass of water.

  (to Stevens)

  Durn it, Lawyer, why did you have to bring her—

  Temple

  (recovered)

  I’m all right.

  She walks steadily toward the door. The Jailor watches her.

  Jailor

  You sure?

  Temple

  (walking steadily and rapidly toward him and the door now)

  Yes. Sure.

  Jailor

  (turning back toward the door)

  Okay. I sure dont blame you. Durned if I see how even a murdering nigger can stand this smell.

  He passes on out the door and exits, invisible though still holding the door and waiting to lock it.

  Temple, followed by Stevens, approaches the door.

  Jailor’s Voice

  (offstage: surprised)

  Howdy. Gowan, here’s your wife now.

  Temple

  (walking)

  Anyone to save it. Anyone who wants it. If there is none, I’m sunk. We all are. Doomed. Damned.

  Stevens

  (walking)

  Of course we are. Hasn’t He been telling us that for going on two thousand years?

  Gowan’s Voice

  (offstage)

  Temple.

  Temple

  Coming.

  They exit. The door closes in, clashes, the clash and clang of the key as the Jailor locks it again; the three pairs of footsteps sound and begin to fade in the outer corridor.

  Curtain

  About the Author

  William Faulkner was an American writer, Nobel Prize laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. A prolific writer, Faulkner is best known for his novels and short stories, including The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, which are set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, and the Snopes trilogy which includes The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion. Along with Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Harper Lee, Faulkner is considered one of the most important writers of Southern literature, and is known for his experimental style including the use of “stream of consciousness.” Faulkner died in 1962.

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  EPub Edition January 2012 ISBN: 9781443421218

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