Requiem for a Nun Read online

  Yes, God. Guilty, God. Thank you, God. If that’s your attitude toward being hung, what else can you expect from a judge and jury except to accommodate you?

  Gowan

  Stop it, Boots. Hush now. Soon as I light the fire, I’ll buy a drink.

  (to Stevens)

  Or maybe Gavin will do the fire while I do the butler.

  Temple

  (takes up lighter)

  I’ll do the fire. You get the drinks. Then Uncle Gavin wont have to stay. After all, all he wants to do is say good-bye and send me a postcard. He can almost do that in two words, if he tries hard. Then he can go home.

  She crosses to the hearth and kneels and turns the gas valve, the lighter ready in her other hand.

  Gowan

  (anxiously)

  Now, Boots.

  Temple

  (snaps lighter, holds flame to the jet)

  Will you for God’s sake please get me a drink?

  Gowan

  Sure, honey.

  (he turns: to Stevens)

  Drop your coat anywhere.

  He exits into the dining room. Stevens does not move, watching Temple as the log takes fire.

  Temple

  (still kneeling, her back to Stevens)

  If you’re going to stay, why don’t you sit down? Or vice versa. Backward. Only, it’s the first one that’s backward: if you’re not sitting down, why don’t you go? Let me be bereaved and vindicated, but at least let me do it in privacy, since God knows if anyone of the excretions should take place in privacy, triumph should be the one—

  Stevens watches her. Then he crosses to her, taking the handkerchief from his breast pocket, stops behind her and extends the handkerchief down where she can see it. She looks at it, then up at him. Her face is quite calm.

  Temple

  What’s that for?

  Stevens

  It’s all right. It’s dry too.

  (still extending the handkerchief)

  For tomorrow, then.

  Temple

  (rises quickly)

  Oh, for cinders. On the train. We’re going by air; hadn’t Gowan told you? We leave from the Memphis airport at midnight; we’re driving up after supper. Then California tomorrow morning; maybe we’ll even go on to Hawaii in the spring. No; wrong season: Canada, maybe. Lake Louise in May and June—

  (she stops, listens a moment toward the dining room doors)

  So why the handkerchief? Not a threat, because you dont have anything to threaten me with, do you? And if you dont have anything to threaten me with, I must not have anything you want, so it cant be a bribe either, can it?

  (they both hear the sound from beyond the dining room doors which indicates that Gowan is approaching. Temple lowers her voice again, rapidly)

  Put it this way then. I dont know what you want, because I dont care. Because whatever it is, you wont get it from me.

  (the sound is near now—footsteps, clink of glass)

  Now he’ll offer you a drink, and then he’ll ask you too what you want, why you followed us home. I’ve already answered you. No. If what you came for is to see me weep, I doubt if you’ll even get that. But you certainly wont get anything else. Not from me. Do you understand that?

  Stevens

  I hear you.

  Temple

  Meaning, you dont believe it. All right, touché then.

  (quicker, tenser)

  I refused to answer your question; now I’ll ask you one: How much do you—

  (as Gowan enters, she changes what she was saying so smoothly in mid-sentence that anyone entering would not even realise that the pitch of her voice had altered)

  —are her lawyer, she must have talked to you; even a dope fiend that murders a little baby must have what she calls some excuse for it, even a nigger dope fiend and a white baby—or maybe even more, a nigger dope fiend and a white baby—

  Gowan

  I said, stop it, Boots.

  He carries a tray containing a pitcher of water, a bowl of ice, three empty tumblers and three whiskey glasses already filled. The bottle itself protrudes from his top-coat pocket. He approaches Temple and offers the tray.

  That’s right. I’m going to have one myself. For a change. After eight years. Why not?

  Temple

  Why not?

  (looks at the tray)

  Not highballs?

  Gowan

  Not this one.

  She takes one of the filled glasses. He offers the tray to Stevens, who takes the second one. Then he sets the tray on the table and takes up the third glass.

  Nary a drink in eight years; count ’em. So maybe this will be a good time to start again. At least, it wont be too soon.

  (to Stevens)

  Drink up. A little water behind it?

  As though not aware that he had done so, he sets his untasted glass back on the tray, splashes water from the pitcher into a tumbler and hands the tumbler to Stevens as Stevens empties his glass and lowers it, taking the tumbler. Temple has not touched hers either.

  Now maybe Defense Attorney Stevens will tell us what he wants here.

  Stevens

  Your wife has already told you. To say good-bye.

  Gowan

  Then say it. One more for the road, and where’s your hat, huh?

  He takes the tumbler from Stevens and turns back to the table.

  Temple

  (sets her untasted glass back on the tray)

  And put ice in it this time, and maybe even a little water. But first, take Uncle Gavin’s coat.

  Gowan

  (takes bottle from his pocket and makes a highball for Stevens in the tumbler)

  That wont be necessary. If he could raise his arm in a white courtroom to defend a murdering nigger, he can certainly bend it in nothing but a wool overcoat—at least to take a drink with the victim’s mother.

  (quickly: to Temple)

  Sorry. Maybe you were right all the time, and I was wrong. Maybe we’ve both got to keep on saying things like that until we can get rid of them, some of them, a little of them—

  Temple

  All right, why not? Here goes then.

  (she is watching, not Gowan but Stevens, who watches her in return, grave and soberly)

  Dont forget the father too, dear.

  Gowan

  (mixing the drink)

  Why should I, dear? How could I, dear? Except that the child’s father is unfortunately just a man. In the eyes of the law, men are not supposed to suffer: they are merely appellants or appellees. The law is tender only of women and children—particularly of women, particularly particular of nigger dope-fiend whores who murder white children.

  (hands the highball to Stevens, who takes it)

  So why should we expect Defense Attorney Stevens to be tender of a man or a woman who just happen to be the parents of the child that got murdered?

  Temple

  (harshly)

  Will you for God’s sake please get through? Then will you for God’s sake please hush?

  Gowan

  (quickly: turns)

  Sorry.

  (he turns toward her, sees her hand empty, then sees her full glass beside his own on the tray)

  No drink?

  Temple

  I dont want it. I want some milk.

  Gowan

  Right. Hot, of course.

  Temple

  Please.

  Gowan

  (turning)

  Right. I thought of that too. I put a pan on to heat while I was getting the drinks.

  (crossing toward dining room exit)

  Dont let Uncle Gavin get away until I get back.

  Lock the door, if you have to. Or maybe just telephone that nigger freedom agent—what’s his name?—

  He exits. They dont move until the slap of the pantry door sounds.

  Temple

 
(rapid and hard)

  How much do you know?

  (rapidly)

  Dont lie to me; dont you see there’s not time?

  Stevens

  Not time for what? Before your plane leaves tonight? She has a little time yet—four months, until March, the thirteenth of March—

  Temple

  You know what I mean—her lawyer—seeing her every day—just a nigger, and you a white man—even if you needed anything to frighten her with—you could just buy it from her with a dose of cocaine or a pint of . . .

  (she stops, stares at him, in a sort of amazement, despair; her voice is almost quiet)

  Oh, God, oh, God, she hasn’t told you anything. It’s me; I’m the one that’s—Dont you see? It’s that I cannot believe—will not believe—impossible—

  Stevens

  Impossible to believe that all human beings really don’t—as you would put it—stink? Even—as you put it—dope-fiend-nigger whores? No, she told me nothing more.

  Temple

  (prompts)

  Even if there was anything more.

  Stevens

  Even if there was.

  Temple

  Then what is it you think you know? Never mind where you got it; just tell me what you think it is.

  Stevens

  There was a man there that night.

  Temple

  (quick, glib, almost before he has finished)

  Gowan.

  Stevens

  That night? When Gowan had left with Bucky at six that morning to drive to New Orleans in a car?

  Temple

  (quick, harsh)

  So I was right. Did you frighten her, or just buy it?

  (interrupts herself)

  I’m trying. I’m really trying. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard if I could just understand why they dont stink—what reason they would have for not stinking . . . .

  (she stops; it is as if she had heard a sound presaging Gowan’s return, or perhaps simply knew by instinct or from knowledge of her own house that he had had time to heat a cup of milk. Then continues, rapid and quiet)

  There was no man there. You see? I told you, warned you, that you would get nothing from me. Oh, I know; you could have put me on the stand at any time, under oath; of course, your jury wouldn’t have liked it—that wanton crucifixion of a bereaved mamma, but what’s that in the balance with justice? I dont know why you didn’t. Or maybe you still intend to—provided you can catch us before we cross the Tennessee line tonight.

  (quick, tense, hard)

  All right. I’m sorry. I know better. So maybe it’s just my own stinking after all that I find impossible to doubt.

  (the pantry door slaps again; they both hear it)

  Because I’m not even going to take Gowan with me when I say good-bye and go upstairs.—And who knows—

  She stops. Gowan enters, carrying a small tray bearing a glass of milk, a salt shaker and a napkin, and comes to the table.

  Gowan

  What are you talking about now?

  Temple

  Nothing. I was telling Uncle Gavin that he had something of Virginia or some sort of gentleman in him too that he must have inherited from you through your grandfather, and that I’m going up to give Bucky his bath and supper.

  (she touches the glass for heat, then takes it up, to Gowan)

  Thank you, dear.

  Gowan

  Right, dear.

  (to Stevens)

  You see? Not just a napkin: the right napkin. That’s how I’m trained.

  (he stops suddenly, noticing Temple, who has done nothing apparently: just standing there holding the milk. But he seems to know what is going on: to her)

  What’s this for?

  Temple

  I dont know.

  He moves; they kiss, not long but not a peck either; definitely a kiss between a man and a woman. Then, carrying the milk, Temple crosses toward the hall door.

  (to Stevens)

  Good-bye then until next June. Bucky will send you and Maggie a postcard.

  (she goes on to the door, pauses and looks back at Stevens)

  I may even be wrong about Temple Drake’s odor too; if you should happen to hear something you haven’t heard yet and it’s true, I may even ratify it. Maybe you can even believe that—if you can believe you are going to hear anything that you haven’t heard yet.

  Stevens

  Do you?

  Temple

  (after a moment)

  Not from me, Uncle Gavin. If someone wants to go to heaven, who am I to stop them? Good night. Good-bye.

  She exits, closes the door. Stevens, very grave, turns back and sets his highball down on the tray.

  Gowan

  Drink up. After all, I’ve got to eat supper and do some packing too. How about it?

  Stevens

  About what? The packing, or the drink? What about you? I thought you were going to have one.

  Gowan

  Oh, sure, sure.

  (takes up the small filled glass)

  Maybe you had better go on and leave us to our revenge.

  Stevens

  I wish it could comfort you.

  Gowan

  I wish to God it could, I wish to God that what I wanted was only revenge. An eye for an eye—were ever words emptier? Only, you have got to have lost the eye to know it.

  Stevens

  Yet she still has to die.

  Gowan

  Why not? Even if she would be any loss—a nigger whore, a drunkard, a dope fiend—

  Stevens

  —a vagabond, a tramp, hopeless until one day Mr and Mrs Gowan Stevens out of simple pity and humanity picked her up out of the gutter to give her one more chance—

  (Gowan stands motionless, his hand tightening slowly about the glass. Stevens watches him)

  And then in return for it—

  Gowan

  Look, Uncle Gavin. Why dont you go for God’s sake home? Or to hell, or anywhere out of here?

  Stevens

  I am, in a minute. Is that why you think—why you would still say she has to die?

  Gowan

  I dont. I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t even the plaintiff. I didn’t even instigate—that’s the word, isn’t it?—the suit. My only connection with it was, I happened by chance to be the father of the child she—Who in hell ever called that a drink?

  He dashes the whiskey, glass and all, into the ice bowl, quickly catches up one of the empty tumblers in one hand and, at the same time, tilts the whiskey bottle over it, pouring. At first he makes no sound, but at once it is obvious that he is laughing: laughter which begins normally enough, but almost immediately it is out of hand, just on hysteria, while he still pours whiskey into the glass, which in a moment now will overflow, except that Stevens reaches his hand and grasps the bottle and stops it.

  Stevens

  Stop it. Stop it, now. Here.

  He takes the bottle from Gowan, sets it down, takes the tumbler and tilts part of its contents into the other empty one, leaving at least a reasonable, a believable, drink, and hands it to Gowan. Gowan takes it, stopping the crazy laughter, gets hold of himself again.

  Gowan

  (holding the glass untasted)

  Eight years. Eight years on the wagon—and this is what I got for it: my child murdered by a dope-fiend-nigger whore that wouldn’t even run so that a cop or somebody could have shot her down like the mad-dog—You see? Eight years without the drink, and so I got whatever it was I was buying by not drinking, and now I’ve got whatever it was I was paying for and it’s paid for and so I can drink again. And now I dont want the drink. You see? Like whatever it was I was buying I not only didn’t want, but what I was paying for it wasn’t worth anything, wasn’t even any loss. So I have a laugh coming. That’s triumph. Because I got a bargain even in what I didn’t want. I got a cut rate.
I had two children. I had to pay only one of them to find out it wasn’t really costing me anything—Half price: a child, and a dope-fiend-nigger whore on a public gallows: that’s all I had to pay for immunity.

  Stevens

  There’s no such thing.

  Gowan

  From the past. From my folly. My drunkenness. My cowardice, if you like—

  Stevens

  There’s no such thing as past either.