Personae (13 page)

LINDA: I say with confidence that what is needed for this type of thing to work is a derogation of sorts and one that I suspect I’m not really capable of.

ADAM: No, not true. It’s an enhancement what we did. A doubling of skills and assets.

LINDA: Tears and tirades.

ADAM: You’re purposely taking a myopic view.

LINDA: No, on this I’m 20/20.

ADAM: So that’s it then?

LINDA: You don’t have to say it like that.

ADAM: How do you want me to say it?

LINDA: (
cheery
) So that’s it then!

ADAM: I think you’re mentally ill.

LINDA: Thought’s crossed my mind. But maybe true insanity resides in thinking that an artificial social construct is going to fill a void that’s not societal in nature.

ADAM: Love is not a construct.

LINDA: Love Adam? At this late a stage?

ADAM: Yes, Love. You have something better?

LINDA: Yes, our daily bread. Because I can see it. It weighs down my hand and fills my stomach.

ADAM: But then the emptiness returns.

LINDA: Which is why I need a constant supply.

ADAM: It can’t fill that void.

LINDA: Maybe not but I’m wise and don’t expect it to so there’s none of that unbearable disappointment.

ADAM: There’s no talking to you.

LINDA: Promise?

ADAM: Don’t talk tough, you’d regret it.

LINDA: Let’s see.

ADAM: Fine.

LINDA: We’re going to see?

(
histrionic
silence
in
response
)

Great, let’s see.

(
Clarissa
and
Nestor
approach
speaking
only
to
each
other.
)

NESTOR: You trust her?

CLARISSA: Does that question presume, Nestor, that I trust you?

NESTOR: Not at all. We’ll get to me, what of her?

CLARISSA: You mean the her we thought was a him?

NESTOR: The very.

CLARISSA: You’re asking if I trust someone who lied about the most fundamental aspect of their humanity?

NESTOR: She explained that.

CLARISSA: That, right.

NESTOR: What?

CLARISSA: You found that explanation persuasive did you?

NESTOR: Why? You didn’t? What part?

CLARISSA: Where to begin? Let me see if I got it all because it’s been a while. She
is
Linda, that is, her name is Linda. But she’s not the Linda Charles filled our ears about. Only she was able to fool Charles a bit because she looks just like that Linda because that Linda is our Linda’s twin sister. That’s right, the Lindas’ parents didn’t just have twins and presumably dress them the same they took it a step further and gave the two girls the same name!

NESTOR: Where’s the problem?

CLARISSA: Only they’re then separated at birth, live semi-full lives on different continents during which they remain aware of each other’s existence but learn to accept the absence of any real relationship until finally our Linda decides she will make contact only the ship she’s on becomes shipwrecked leaving her here where she inexplicably decides to pretend to be Ludwig that she might better investigate certain matters that didn’t really need investigating. And there was something in there about royal blood as well as I recall.

NESTOR: Again, where’s the problem?

CLARISSA: Doesn’t seem farfetched to you?

NESTOR: No. Well, maybe medium-fetched but far? Nah. Far?

(
Linda
and
Adam
approach
.)

CLARISSA: Okay, never mind. Not a word.

NESTOR: Clarissa suspects your backstory Linda.

LINDA: Suspects it of what?

NESTOR: Of not being true I suppose.

LINDA: Really?

CLARISSA: Well…

ADAM: Linda admitted as much to me but swore me to secrecy. She seemed especially concerned that Clarissa not find out.

CLARISSA: Is that right?

LINDA: Adam agreed but argued that the real person to mistrust was Nestor.

NESTOR: I see. Was that before or after you confided in me that you were thinking of ending you and Adam?

ADAM: You confided in
him
?

LINDA: Why not? He is a confidence man after all.

ADAM: After what he did to…

NESTOR: Who?

CLARISSA: Charles.

(
At
mention
of
the
name
all
grow
deathly
quiet.
All
then
languidly
find
a
seat
as
if
the
weight
of
the
recollection
has
bowed
them.
Nestor
places
his
hand
on
the
gun
at
his
waist.
A
light
offstage
drumming
begins
.)

ADAM: Oh man. Why does it have to be so hard to distinguish between a sound increasing in volume but maintaining its distance and a sound becoming more audible because it draws closer?

CLARISSA: Ask me, they’re getting closer.

(
Adam
and
Linda
hold
hands
in
response
.)

NESTOR: Well when they arrive they’ll find a nasty surprise.

ADAM: What they’re really going to find at this rate is a population divided against itself.

LINDA: He’s right.

ADAM: We need to get past the pettiness. What happened to Charles was horrific.

LINDA: Horrible.

CLARISSA: Horrendous.

NESTOR: Hideous.

ADAM: But nobody here did it to him. In fact as I recall, and I recognize it was millennia ago…

CLARISSA: It just happened.

ADAM:  . . . we all tried to stop him.

CLARISSA: Not all.

NESTOR: I feel, Clarissa, you’re somehow holding your tongue.

CLARISSA: You’ve been observing my tongue in between palming your gun?

NESTOR: More an auditory feeling really.

CLARISSA: You don’t say.

NESTOR: Actually it’s what
you
don’t say that concerns me.

CLARISSA: That’s quite a body of concerns. After all I don’t say a lot of things. For example, I don’t say that Charles was our frailest member, the one most open to suggestion. I don’t say that…

(
Clarissa
stops
as
the
sound
of
Drums
returns,
slightly
louder
than
before
.)

ADAM: Okay those are definitely closer. And there’s a decided war-drum quality to them.

NESTOR: I agree.

LINDA: You think they’re definitely closer?

NESTOR: Well I was referring to their warlike quality though I suppose that’s not much of an insight at this point.

LINDA: How so?

NESTOR: Well, could any clear-eyed lucid see anything but war as he looks around? We cry at the savagery we see as we enter this world. If we don’t, medical personnel panic that there’s something wrong and slap us so we might better understand where we are, its characteristic modes and methods.

There’s no need to declare war, we are war.

In the unlikely event peace ever comes we’ll declare
that
because there at long last might be something worth expending breath over. Until then of course assume the drums are war drums as what else could they be, consonant with all we’ve seen of humanity? For ours is a history of ever-evolving warfare and this is as it should be.

CLARISSA: You’re an adolescent.

NESTOR: Me?

CLARISSA: Who else would adopt such an adolescent viewpoint? You feel only war in your heart and so project it onto the world at large. You then credit and celebrate only that which you would expect to find in such a world while the far more prevalent and contradictory sensory input all around you is not allowed to register.

NESTOR: Judge a man or in this case
Man
by his initial or primary act. Be sure that man first raised his hand not to draw on a cave or to point out danger to another. No he raised it while holding the jawbone of an ass and lowered it violently to smite his fellow man that he might acquire a handful of berries. A handful of berries. Do you doubt that happened?

CLARISSA: No. Nor do I doubt that several of us tried to stop him, that the assailant was ostracized afterwards, and that as the victim lay on the dirt with his mortal wound someone, most likely a woman, dropped down next to him to attend to his injuries.

NESTOR: A lot of good that would do.

CLARISSA: I agree, a lot. For lacking the medical savvy to properly heal the body she instead ministered to his soul.

NESTOR: No such thing.

CLARISSA: A ministry that may have consisted entirely of holding his mangled hand as his brief life slowed to a halt.

NESTOR: You can’t be serious. Follow the history of that jawbone as it evolves into a device capable of annihilating an entire city under a fungal cloud. Watch as we enslave each other.

CLARISSA: And others risk their lives to liberate them.

NESTOR: Slaughter each other for patches of dirt.

CLARISSA: Cultivate soil to feed the hungry.

NESTOR: Focus on the woman holding that dead hand if you wish Clarissa but that won’t change the fact that the dead draw no consolation from such a handholding.

CLARISSA: Untrue. And when Charles went we should have been holding his!

NESTOR: No! The end of an opera is more singing, of a higher intensity. How then should a life end? Its atavistic mayhem can only be properly resolved in the kind of apotheostic violence we witnessed.

You would seek to paint me in bad-guy colors. Why? Because I wanted Charles to retain his considerable dignity? Charles was like a son to me.

ADAM: He was maybe twice your age.

NESTOR: Would you have me watch idly as my son disintegrates before my very eyes?

CLARISSA: Give me the gun then.

LINDA: No, as a neutral party I should have the gun.

ADAM: Neutral?

NESTOR: Party?

CLARISSA: Unless everyone’s comfortable with the only gun being in the hands of a self-avowed nihilist.

NESTOR: Did you say realist?

(
The
Drumming
resumes,
slightly
louder
still,
and
in
response
the
four
again
grow briefly silent
.)

ADAM: Hear that? Maybe Clarissa’s right. Maybe the drums are harmless and are coming only to keep time to symphonic delights. But right now we are far less likely to regret adopting Nestor’s view. We need to arm ourselves and expect the worst.

NESTOR: Expecting the worst
is
the armament.