FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 1, Number 2 September-October, 1994 EDITOR'S NOTES: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the internet -- starting with this issue, on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts of plays, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address. Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail or by anonymous ftp from ftp.etext.org where issues are filed in the directory /pub/Zines, or by gopher at gopher.cic.net under "electronic serials." COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or filmings or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved. William Ramsay, Editor ngwazi@clark.net ================================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Notes Contributors "Deux Bagatelles Africaines" Hamid Temembe "Waking Up Is Hard to Do," a short-short story Mike Barker "Paulie," a short story Judith Greenwood "Braver Kerl," an excerpt (chapter 2) from the novel "In Search of Mozart" William Ramsay "Speak, Muse," a ten-minute play Otho Eskin ================================================================= CONTRIBUTORS OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington. His play "Duet" will be produced this fall at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folger Library. "Speak, Muse" was produced at a recent Source Theater Festival. MIKE BARKER is a writer and a computer and network professional. He has recently worked in Japan, where he has been an interested observer of the clash of new technology with societal constraints. JUDITH GREENWOOD writes fiction and is an international interior/garden designer and a West Virginia farmer and herpetophobe. She was the founder of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He recently published a short story, "Heritage," in "Nebo." His ten-minute play, "Susie B.," was produced at the Source Theater Festival in 1992. DR. HAMID TEMEMBE attended lycee in Abidjan and received his medical training in Montpellier and Paris. Before his recent untimely death, he was the director of a psychiatric clinic in West Africa. ================================================================= DEUX BAGATELLES AFRICAINES by Hamid Temembe Stars Etoiles d'Afrique, Donnez-moi la sagesse de ma race. Remplissez-moi de la fortitude des lions, La memoire des elephants, Et la malignite des sorciers -- mes ancetres. [Stars of Africa/ Give me the wisdom of my race/ Fill me with the hardiness of the lions/ The memory of the elephants/ And the cunning of the witchdoctors -- my forefathers] * Ancient Gods Dieux anciens, anciens dieux encore vivants dans nos coeurs, Donnez-nous la puissance qui nous manque, Enlevez-nous nos douleurs ravissantes et insupportables. Enlevez-moi, emmenez-moi aux seins des anges, Des anges blonds et pales, Des etres lointains du coeur obscur de l'Afrique, De la foret surabondante qui m'etouffe dans un tombeau de vert vif! [Ancient gods, former gods still living in our hearts/ Give us the power that we lack/ Lift from us our thrilling, unbearable sorrows/ Lift me, carry me to the breasts of the angels/ Blonde, pale angels/ Beings distant from the hidden heart of Africa /From the burgeoning jungle that strangles me in a tomb of living greenery]* * Translations by the editor ============================================================== WAKING UP IS HARD TO DO by Mike Barker Some mornings you really should turn over, pull the covers up, and go back to sleep. That's what I should have done at the beginning. Instead, when I heard the screech, screech, screech from the closet door, I got up and opened it. Then I went back and flopped on the bed. Too many years with dogs. They might never have been trained well, but I certainly was. So I missed the invasion. It could have happened to anyone. I slept through the whole thing. Since I opened the door, they let me sleep. As they were leaving, I woke up again. Probably the hinges on the closet needed oiling. So I turned over and managed to get one eyelid up in time to see a purple face grinning at me from the darkness while a tastefully green-tinted arm pulled the closet door shut again. Obviously it saw me, for it paused long enough to tell me, gently, "If you have any more problems, we'll be in your closet." I thought about it. Then I listened to the silence outside. Monday morning, the middle of the city, I'd overslept, and it was completely silent outside. So I turned over, pulled the covers up, and went back to sleep. It seemed like the right thing to do. When I wake up, I'm going to nail that door shut. ============================================================= MY COUSIN PAULIE by Judith Greenwood Some people are born lucky. That's what everyone always said about my cousin Paulie and his wife Marie. When I was a kid, everything I wanted to know was something Paulie already knew. So he taught me. He showed me how to track Indians through the cool silent woods where we lived in Maine. I guess Paulie must have broken the twigs and bent the ferns, because that was real, but now I realize the Indians were imaginary. I believed in them totally at the time. He taught me to swim in their pond, and how to dive cleanly off the rock in the middle, not bellyflopping like a dumb kid. We stole my uncle's tractor one time and Paulie taught me to shift gears. Paulie knew everything, I thought, and it seemed like a miracle that he wanted to teach me what he knew. The other boys his age, seven years older than me, didn't even notice little girls, except when they wanted someone to pick on. My clearest memory of Paulie is of the last Fourth of July night that we lived in Maine. He taught me how to light firecrackers that year. I was twelve, and I was secretly terrified by things that burned and exploded -- the grown-ups always told us stories about children whose hands or eyes were blown away in accidents with firecrackers. But Paulie patiently showed me the safe way to light each kind we had. At the end we had only sparklers left, and he pushed a ring of them into the dirt, then stood inside. He had me light them while he lit others that he held between his fingers, in fan shapes, over his head. He looked like a fearsome god to me, tall and cruel, surrounded by a ring of hissing fire and holding fire in his hands. The vision still haunts me. Paulie owned my soul back then. Paulie seemed enormous to me when I was a child! He's still tall, loose-limbed and rangy like a high school track star. His face never aged like other peoples', even grown he had a face that didn't show much, that seemed innocent, and he had a grin that disarmed everyone -- his teachers, his bosses, and then his clients when he opened his own brokerage firm. No one ever called him Paul; it was always Paulie. We moved away from Maine, suddenly, that fall when I was almost thirteen. I came home one day during the second week of school, and my mother was packing. We were moving to Baltimore. My father had a new job with a steel company there. It all came up so fast that we didn't even have time to see our families or collect my school records. The grades and my medical reports came in big brown envelopes to our house in Reisterstown, and my mother took me and my grades to the big new junior high school there, and I began the new life I had to learn on my own, without Paulie to tell me what it meant or to show me how to be cool. It was hard. My parents didn't seem to understand how scary it was to start a new school and learn a new city all at once. My mother caught me crying in my room one afternoon. She tried to comfort me, but I blamed them for the pain and loneliness I felt, and I wouldn't be comforted. "You're being selfish," she said. "You can't imagine the sacrifices your dad has made to take this job. He has enough to worry about without you whining about things that he can't change. In a year you'd have been going to town for high school. This is almost the same thing, only a year early." The only sign that they understood any of it was the nervous attention my mother paid to the few new friends I gradually brought home from school with me toward the last of the year. She hovered a little too much, but it reassured me that she did know that the town and the school were way too big for a New England village girl to handle entirely alone. But as I faced the challenges of finding something, anything, I dreamed of home less and less. Eventually I understood that my whole life depended on that move. Where I came from, no one had ever known a person who made his living from art. The museums and art classes that life in Maryland offered opened roads I'd never known existed. I came to forgive them for the sake of my new life, and when they died I prayed that they knew how grateful I was that they had fearlessly moved on from the country life they had always known and had later willingly supported me through an education that must have seemed strange and frivolous to them. As was typical of our family, this was never spoken, and like love, concern, caring and all other sentiment, it had to be taken as a given. A mother loves her child. A child loves and honors her parents. Each is grateful for what is given, but there are no words. In all that time, we never went back to Maine and no one from Maine ever visited us. I had been so sure that we'd go back to visit in the summer, that when we went to Bethany Beach instead that first year, I asked my mother why, why we weren't going back, at least to say the good byes we'd never said. She was grim-faced. "Don't talk about it. Don't say those things to your father. We live here now. The beach is where people here go in the summer." I decided that there had been some terrible falling out between my father and his family -- some breach between them that none of them cared to mend. This also was never spoken, but I could tell that I made my mother nervous for a long time. I didn't meet Marie until Paulie brought her here several years after they were married. They just showed up one day. It had been almost thirty years since I had seen Paulie, but I knew him at once. I was speechless with surprise and didn't move, but Paulie came in my door and wrapped me entirely in his long arms. My face was pressed against his chest and his smell was familiar, a scent of grass and good dirt overlying something animal and disturbingly uncivilized; just the same in spite of all those years. It took me minutes to overcome the shock of finding it so, but he held me tight until I stopped trembling and my sobs changed to something more sentimental than hysterical. "She always did cry at everything," he said to Marie. "Are you still a sissy?" he asked me. I felt a wordless anger, and that was the same, too. It was Marie I had to learn about. Paulie seemed no different. He had told her about me and how we had grown together from the day my mother brought me home from the hospital until I went away thirteen years later. He said that when they showed him the little package, tightly wrapped in a pink flannel receiving blanket, they told him they had brought him something, a cousin, and that at first he wished they had got him a dog instead. Paulie and Marie had met on the West coast. At that time Paulie was working for a brokerage in Washington. They'd been nearby for a year, but Paulie had only recently learned that I lived there too, and had begun looking for me immediately. They lived in Virginia; I live in a distant suburb in Maryland. The peculiarity of Washington is that you can live "in Washington" and actually live twenty-five miles and three telephone books away. When I finally achieved a steady and decent income as a free-lance illustrator, I gave up my salaried work, took the modest inheritance from my parents, and bought a house near a small town that was several miles off one of the huge interstate highways that plow out through the countryside and create the urban sprawl that allows millions to say they are from Washington. I was not easy to find. But Paulie found me, and without so much as a phone call, he reentered my world. Marie was frail, but ignored it with an endearing toughness; bright, but deferent to Paulie's quick brilliance. She'd had a glamorous but hard youth as the child of a foreign service family. She'd been everywhere, but never had a real home or friends she could keep. Without knowing all the details, I knew she'd suffered a lot before she met Paulie. She had two little girls whom Paulie had adopted, and people used to say how lucky she'd been to find a man who didn't mind the children. The second time they came they brought the girls. They seemed a real family. Paulie had taken a wife who was crazy about him. Marie had a man who gave her the love and security she'd never had before. The two girls had a father who couldn't love them more if they were his own blood. They began to make me a part of their lives from then on. How many people have that kind of luck? I live in an odd house that once was part of a great estate. The manor house burned down in the Forties, leaving only the grounds and this outbuilding. When I found it, it looked shabby and unpromising. The five acres around my house conveyed with this unlikely structure. The rest of the once grand gardens were bulldozed and divided into two acre plots by rail fences and built over with huge colonial style houses. I thought that the five acres were left so that the new houses could be properly buffered from this raffish building and its pool, difficult to bulldoze into submission because of the great rock ribs that surfaced only here and there, but lay under everything and probably extended right through to China. The idea of living in a house no one else wanted appealed to me. I preferred the reference to former glory still perceptible in the stone trimmed pool, the gone to seed and awkwardly aging shrubberies and weathered cedar siding of the former garages and pool cabana. It was isolated from everything and everyone. It was astoundingly right for me. The building was squat and round, like a short, fat silo, or the lighthouses peculiar to the Chesapeake Bay. You could dive from it into the pool below, if you were braver than I. Beyond the pool, the rocks and ledges that had saved the place rose to a small cliff, hiding everything except the road end of the driveway of the last of the new houses. No one wanted it before me. I was satisfied. Paulie and Marie bought the house whose driveway I could see. I was shocked and edgy when they told me. It was only the third resale in the project; I hadn't even known it was for sale. Marie explained, "We thought it would be nice for the girls to be near family." "And you have the best pool for miles," Paulie joked. "Really, Connie, it just made so much sense. We were ready to move up, the house came on the market, and it was next to you! Now that we've found you, we wanted to be near. We love you," Marie said softly, "you belong to us." I found it hard to work at first, after they moved in. I was used to being alone. Suddenly I had drop-in visitors. I was invited to dinner and to parties. I met their friends and the clientele Paulie was building. I had to learn how to accept them into my house and my pool. I had to get used to seeing people in my landscape when I painted. Debby Warner, a neighbor who had not, as others had, given up on the reclusive artist who lived alone in what locals called "the carriage house", called on me, clearly curious about the new people. "I didn't even know you had any relatives here. You never mentioned them," she pried. "I didn't know they were here," I said, "we lost touch years ago." "And they just happened to buy the house next door to you? How strange!" "Not really," I answered, "Paulie and I were close as kids. When they found I was here, they looked for a house near me. Paulie and Marie are very family oriented. It isn't any odder than all the Kennedys having their summer places together." "So you knew they were coming? You seem so determined to keep to yourself, I'm surprised it suited you. Frankly, Connie, I'm the only neighbor who ever gets in here, and that's only because you're too polite to refuse me the door, and I'm too fascinated by you and your work to give up," she babbled on. "Now, suddenly, you're having a social life. I mean, they're like that; they invite everybody. But you aren't like them -- or never have been. And you still don't visit around with any of the rest of us." "Well, I didn't know they were coming," I admitted. I was interested that someone as ordinary as Debby seemed to confirm my uneasy sense of invasion. "I think that's strange, Connie. The Kennedys have always been together; they built that place on purpose. You, on the other hand, have been living like a hermit all this time, and they just show up and move in next door? It's your right, after all, if you choose to be alone. It seems very ... aggressive to me. Worse than me!" I felt a ball of cobwebs form in my throat. I wanted her out, out of my house and out of my face. I was no longer interested in how her feelings jibed with mine. I certainly didn't want to share my feelings or doubts with her. I was suddenly afraid of her curiosity. I would find it hard to retrace the tiny beginnings I had made at acceptance if she wrecked them. "It is different, Debby. They are my family, and the connection goes back over forty years." She swallowed, measured the rejection, and when I looked at my watch and exclaimed that I had a deadline to meet by the end of the day, she apologized for taking my time and left. I had no deadline, so I spent the afternoon working hard at cleaning my studio, the bathroom, the kitchen. I let my mind wander and mend as I worked. By the end of the day I had settled that what I told Debby was right, and I wasn't irritated with Paulie and his family any more. Over the next weeks I thoughtfully accepted the connection and learned to fit the relationships into my once private existence. I even developed a distant interest in all of them. Marie's girls were beautiful teenagers, but loud and busy, too. Sandra was the older. She looked like Marie -- tiny, wren-like, matter-of-fact and confident. She was always ready to go, always had something to say; she moved through life at full tilt. Molly was fifteen. She was tall, with pale blonde hair and gray eyes that were set perfectly straight under blond brows as straight as the eyes. She looked sturdy. She surprised me by becoming giggly in bursts like gun shots out of a quiet, thoughtful character. Where Sandra would brag about her popularity and her accomplishments, Molly said little. When I went for a walk, Sandra would jump up and ask to go. If I asked Molly, she would send me a stunning smile and she would go eagerly, but she never asked. I liked Molly best. She wasn't like anyone. Not like Paulie and not like Marie. Sandra would stand under my window and yell, "Connie! Are you taking company?" If I wasn't busy I would gesture her in. Molly never did that. I had to call out to her and invite her. and then she would come in for tea, hardly talking, but what conversation we had was punctuated with those charming bursts of glee. Sometimes I would see one of the girls walking alone, head down, feet scuffing at my overgrown paths. I noticed that Molly would run to the pool and throw herself in, swimming as if her life depended on it until she could swim no more. At first it seemed like very strenuous exercise, but I soon saw that it was more than that. Afterwards, she would lie exhausted for a long time on the warm stone coping. I painted her there like that. There was something abstract about her prone brown body on the gray stones, my shaggy garden and bright pool large and indistinct around her. No matter how I played with the composition, she was never just a shape in the design. She was always the focus. Paulie kept irregular hours, sometimes up before dawn to catch the European market news, often home in the afternoons. He invited himself to lunch a few times. We drank wine and he tried to make me laugh at the silly little kid who followed her big, hero-cousin around like a faithful pet. I didn't want to laugh at my childish self, but in his fashion, Paulie would become more outrageous and exaggerated until I laughed at his caricature of little me. I felt a twinge of insecurity at the way the past might seem to be reasserting itself, but he never made the connection, and somehow we too never talked about the sudden and complete rupture between our families. The third time he came, he saw one of the paintings of Molly. He looked at it very seriously. I waited for him to say something about her limp exhaustion; the picture reeked of it. Every time I painted her I wondered why she punished herself that way, and why no one else seemed to notice. "That's interesting, what you've done with her," was what he finally said. "She's a beautiful young woman, isn't she?" Then he went on to something else. A few days later, Sandra came to watch me work. Break time came, and we had Cokes and sat in my canvas sling chairs. "By the way," she said, "Mom wanted me to tell you to come to dinner on Saturday. She's gonna drag out another man for you, but don't tell her I told you." I shrugged and grinned. Marie piped in a seemingly endless supply of hot and cold running young men who made me feel old. Molly appeared in the garden below. "Oh! Dad's home." Sandra jumped up. "I better go see if he wants anything. Don't forget Saturday!" Molly started to swim her laps. For a second I wondered why Sandra connected her appearance with Paulie being home, but then I realized that he must have been doing a car pool or something. I pulled out a canvas I'd prepared that was ready for another Molly, swimming this time, I'd decided. Sandra came back the next day to talk about my clothes for Saturday. "It's important, Connie. I found out who it is, and he's a good one. I promise! He's just come back from overseas, so you haven't met him yet." "They're all okay," I said, "they just haven't been for me." She tipped her head and studied me. "This one's different." She pulled things from my closet, strewing them over my bed until it looked like her room. "You need to find a good man," she earnestly told me, "art is all very well, but a woman needs a good man." "You're prejudiced," I laughed, "because your mother has been so happy with Paulie. Marriage isn't like that for everyone." "You haven't even tried it," she snorted. "I think you're afraid about love. But you're right, there aren't any like Dad. But he's taken now." She had by then put together an outfit she seemed to like, a getup that drooped and swayed like an exotic dancer's costume. "Don't you think there should be a little more to this?" I asked her. "Like maybe pants or even a dress under it? I've never worn an outfit consisting entirely of accessories before." "Try it!" she insisted. "It might change your life." She grinned at me. "You can't hide your light under a bushel. Men are more visual than women." "Is that so!" "Trust me, Con, this I know." "And how is that? Is there a man in your life that I don't know about? I thought you couldn't date yet." She sobered. "Mom and Dad don't think it's a good idea for young girls to go out except in groups until college. Well, do what you want." She threw the clothes down on my bed and walked out! I couldn't imagine what I had said to offend her, but all I know about teenagers is that no one seems to understand them. We had dramatic storms that summer, and when they blew I could hear something flapping on the roof. There was a panel in the ceiling that led to a trapdoor in the roof. When I went up I found that a weathervane had come loose on one side so that in a high wind it would jerk back and forth instead of turning smoothly. I went back down for tools and then up again to fix it. The roof barely sloped. It was easy to stand on. When I'd finished, I sat and looked out over the neighborhood. As wide and beautiful as my view was, it was oriented in one direction. The view from my roof was spectacular. I could see everything from here. I could even see over the cliff to Marie and Paulie's house. Paulie's car pulled into the driveway. Marie's car was gone. I waved at him, but he didn't see me and he went into their house. I lay down in the strong sun. It felt good, but the shingles soon poked into my back, so I gave it up and went inside, closing the trap behind me. I worked distractedly at something I suspected wasn't any good. Then Molly came into the garden. Bored with my work, I wandered toward the window and concentrated on seeing her as a painting again. The dry garden looked hard and browny-green. The pool was as still and dark as smoked mirror. Molly was the only soft thing out there. She looked as soft and meltable as a beige sun cream I use, and just as impermanent. I felt a sharp gut-wrench of guilt at my ability to depersonalize her so, to force her into my flat design. It made me think. What was it about Molly? I stared at her while she walked, no, she marched around the garden for long minutes. And then, as unexpected as those bursts of hilarity, she exploded into the pool. She swam, hard and fast. When she pulled herself out, she was even weaker than usual, she was barely able to crawl. For a minute I thought I should go out and rescue her, she seemed so worn, but then I saw Sandra coming to get her. It was dinner time. I started to go to cook mine, but I turned back and watched them -- Sandra supporting Molly and looking into her face with worry and fear. So they knew. They see it too. They know something is wrong with Molly, I thought. I was relieved. The next time Sandra came I made sure one of my Molly paintings was out. She walked toward it and looked for a long time. She asked me quietly, "What happens to girls like Molly?" "Like what?" I asked her. "What about her?" "Girls who have a hard time growing up, becoming women." "Do you think that's what's wrong with Molly?" "What else?" she cried. "We try to help, but she can't get past it." "Why do you think that's her problem, Sandra?" I urged. She jerked her head up at me. "What do you think it is?" I shook my head. "I don't know, Sandra." "Oh...I thought...with the painting," she stumbled a bit with her words. "I thought maybe you knew..." "No, I don't." And I didn't. It was almost the end of that long summer when it finished. I'd been out shopping in the city for food and art supplies. When I drove up the rough track that wound toward my house, I noticed Paulie was just leaving their well-groomed drive. I pulled around to the back and wrestled my heavy bags up the stairs. I put away the groceries and threw the bag of supplies into a corner until I felt more like organizing them. I went to shower away the dirt and sweat of the humid day. When I was done, I dressed in crisp, clean cottons and went down my lovely stairs into my gorgeous room and looked out at my wonderful view. It was one of those rare, smugly triumphant moments. The world was right with me. Then I noticed a scrap of something quite large just showing from behind a huge boulder under the cliff. I couldn't imagine what had blown into my idyllic scene to mar it. Damning my careless neighbor, whose trash it would be, I went out, although I knew I'd lose the cool freshness of my shower. I walked toward it, and when I reached the top of the submerged boulder, I saw that it was Molly. I ran, frightened by her stillness. As I neared, my panic grew to rage that her casual invasion of my property had scared me to such a state. I reached her and touched her arm. She was a fool to think that falling from a thirty foot cliff would kill her, but she was right. I was too late. Maybe it had always been too late for me. She wore the stained and stretched out white tank suit she swam in. She didn't look soft any more; she looked broken. I've told you what I think I knew. I think I have been truthful, and now you must tell me. Should I have known more? If I hadn't spent those hours painting her, again and again, would I have touched her instead? Asked her the right questions? Given her someone to tell? Is that what another woman would have done? Would have another woman have seen the scars in Marie's eyes? Or would anyone, seeing only the fringes of tragedy cross her window, have failed to find the fabric of which it was wrought? You see, I'd forgotten about Paulie. I only remembered in great painful gasps and terrors as Sandra babbled out the story over the next few days to the police and the child protection counselors. What was wrong with Molly was that she couldn't find the ways we lucky ones found to cope. Molly wasn't like any of us. My cousin Paulie, the brilliant, funny, childish friend to all, had systematically introduced his lovely adopted daughters to -- what? He called it love. He called it the same thing when he was eighteen and I was eleven. We had moved to Baltimore right after my first "grown-up" exam by my pediatrician in Maine. And now I remember. I must remember it all for them at his trial. They won't let me do what he deserves from me, but will allow me only to tell what is was like to be eleven and to have a lifetime of love turn to terror and pain, all the worse because it was mixed up with the habit of loving and hero worship. I will tell how I was taught to hide this thing because he was my cousin, and cousins are not allowed to be in love, and then how I knew even I must never remember, because I was so bad that my father had to turn his back on his brother. But I remember, and now I remember things I never saw and will never forget. She creeps out onto the cliff. I know just what it's like for her out there. She walks (or does she crawl?) across the stone, rough and silver like the shingles of my roof. She would seem small from my window. And then she bursts off it, arching through the air, soft, soft and melting with despair, until she breaks on the ground. Any one of my paintings would do as a record of her death. =========================================================== BRAVER KERL by William Ramsay [Note: This is an excerpt, chapter 2 of the novel "In Search of Mozart"] Leopold stared at the runnels of frozen rain on the uneven panes of the window overlooking the Rue Benoit. Wolferl was still crying. Soon it would be New Year's, 1764, his son would be turning eight on January 27. He had been watching Wolferl for the past few weeks and he was worried. Wolferl had been acting listless, it was even beginning to affect his playing. The glamour of their Grand Tour of Europe and the novelty of the "visits" to the palaces of kings and nobles were beginning to wear off. He was trying everything he could think of to distract the children. Excursions, puppet shows, lessons. Wolferl liked languages and he had started giving the children hard candies as prizes for keeping journals in French or English. But Wolferl had just had a vicious quarrel with Nannerl -- his son had thrown himself on the floor, tearing his hair, while Nannerl shouted at him that he was stupid. Wolferl, sobbing, cried out, "I can so speak French!" "Nannerl, go run and help your mother," Leopold had said, and he had pushed her gently toward the door. Now he looked at his son's slight figure, the whites of the eyes pink, the little button nose runny. Leopold was embarrassed. He had told Wolferl last Christmas in Vienna that soon they could go home "for a long time." Now, less than a year later, he had committed them to being away for Lord knows how long. But it wasn't his fault, it had to be done. They just had to seize the day, the children must make the most of their "prodigy" years. He leaned down to give Wolferl a hug -- but Wolferl yelled, "You're crushing Paul!" and grabbed at the thin air, making stroking motions. Him and his "Paul"! Something must be done before Wolferl did something really stupid -- he didn't look forward to a grumpy "Paul" being presented to King Louis at Versailles! *** The coach was drafty, but Wolfgang felt warm under the blue blanket on the road from Paris. Paul sat on the wooden ledge under the little isinglass window in back. They drove right into the courtyard of the palace, where they found a crowd of people. Everybody shoved and pushed, and somebody stepped on his toe -- right on his new blue satin slipper. A very tall man in a great white wig, a servant, shouted to his father to step back. Wolfgang felt his father's hand pushing him forward, his head hit the tall man's leg. The servant raised a long black rod and Wolfgang thought he was going to hit Papa. But then his father said, in French, "Kapellmeister Mozart and his family!" Someone behind the big servant repeated, "Maitre de Chapelle Mozart." Then the noise died down, and other servants pushed people aside, making a path for them, and the tall servant led them, his father first, with Wolfgang pulling Paul by the hand, into a vast mirrored hall with the longest, most shining table he had ever seen. It was New Year's Day, when all the nobles and other important people from all over gathered to stand behind the chairs of the royal family while they ate dinner. What a table! There were fresh flowers in vases of crystal and gold, and candelabra holding eight candles, lots of them, even though it was broad daylight. And on the tablecloth there were layers of colored sand, pink and green and purple, with designs of harps or bouquets of flowers drawn into them. He had thought that the palaces in Vienna were beautiful, but this one was something marvelous. Even Paul was impressed. But it was so strange that people didn't bow down to the King as he went by, and nobody kissed his hand or anything, like in Vienna. Paul was going to bow, but he warned him not to, just in time. It was very crowded and he felt awfully small. But then another tall servant pushed him into a spot right in back of the Queen. Wolfgang was afraid, everybody seemed to be looking at him, and he lost sight of Paul. Then the Queen spoke to him -- in German. She asked him all about what he had been doing, and how he liked Paris. And he told her he liked Paris, but that he liked Versailles even better -- which he knew would please her, and which besides was true. When he heard the German words, Paul sidled up to them. Wolfgang could speak French, he could say "Merci" and "S'il vous plait," and just anything he wanted to, but Paul hated the French and wouldn't learn the language. Down the table sat a fat-faced but pretty lady they called Madame de Ponder [Pompadour], who looked like the Empress in Vienna. Madame de Ponder was very important, even though he couldn't figure out why exactly -- but she had a frown on her face and wouldn't talk to him. She looked like someone who might bawl him out. He backed up into somebody and fell down on his hands and knees. The skin on the palm of his hand got scraped and he thought he would cry. But then Madame the Dolphin -- or whatever her name was, her husband was the King's son -- reached down and lifted him up and gave him the biggest bonbon he'd ever seen. He asked for another one, for Paul. They may not have kissed the King's hand, but there were lots of other kisses. Every one of the Royal Princesses kissed him! And the Queen, too, she put out her hand for him to kiss, and he gave her a lot of kisses, because she had been so nice to him -- and because she was the Queen. She even kissed Paul, although Paul didn't usually like kissing, but after all, it was the Queen. Wolfgang wished he were the Queen's son. He loved Mama, but still! "I'd like to be a prince and sit down at the table, not just stand behind it!" he told his father afterward. His father's face looked pained, and he thought for a minute that his father was going to get angry at him. But then Papa laughed. "You have something better than rank and titles." He looked at his father's stern face. "You have genius," his father said. He meant his music. Wolfgang saw Paul making one of his faces. Why did everybody make such a fuss about his music? And nobody could tell him that "genius" was as good as being a prince. Princes didn't have to practice so many hours a day. Besides, if he were a prince, he could command them to find more friends for him to play with! Even Paul would like that! *** The engraving finally arrived one misty day in November. Leopold had to smile as he showed his wife von Mechel's work. Their son was shown sitting on the bench in front of the keyboard with the stiff tails of his fancy coat sticking up and out like some kind of jaunty rooster. With luck, they would sell thousands of these. What wonderful advertising! "I like the pose," he said. "Look! Wolfgang at the keyboard, me standing behind his chair playing the violin, and Nannerl leaning on the harpsichord with one arm, with the other holding music, as if she were singing." Wolfgang, at the harpsichord practicing, had been listening. "But why is Nannerl pretending she's singing, Papa? She doesn't sing!" "I do so sing, I sing all the time, you've heard me sing, you little idiot!" said Nannerl. Her hands were on her hips and the ribbons in her hair jiggled. "You can't sing a note! It's all a lie." And Wolfgang jumped up from the keyboard. "I can sing, I can do anything in music!" "Sit down! You sit down now or you won't be able to sit down tonight," said Leopold. Wolferl lifted his little chin high, as if he were about to crow. "And better than anyone!" Leopold raised one finger and shook it. "I've warned you about constantly saying things like that!" His son sat down. "That's better. You'll learn, Wolferl, that what we're doing is posing." He added, under his breath, "We do a lot of posing." "Can I do the posing as a singer next time?" asked Wolferl. Nannerl yelled in protest. "Quiet," roared Leopold. "There will be plenty of posing for everyone on this tour, that I promise you." Wolferl stood looking thoughtful for a minute. Then he whispered something to his imaginary friend. "Paul and I like posing," he said earnestly. Leopold chuckled, and his wife laughed until tears glittered on her cheeks. That night in bed, Leopold smiled to himself and then turned to his wife. "That was amusing about the 'posing' today." "Yes," she said, "our son seems ready to take center stage." "Yes, he certainly does." "And he isn't the only one," she said, pushing back a ribbon on her nightcap that had come untied. "You mean me, I suppose?" She nodded. "Well, I guess you're right. I like the 'posing' too." "But will Nannerl get her share of it all, Mozart?" "Her share? Of course she should by rights, she's a talented musician. But I know what you mean, it isn't the same." No, she's just a girl," his wife said bitterly. Leopold moved over and put his arm around her. "She plays superlatively, better than most women -- or men. It's just that she isn't as quick at improvising and she hasn't got his trick of playing pieces from memory after just one hearing. Lord," he said, shaking his head, "he really is remarkable." "What happens to her -- and to him -- when they grow up, Mozart?" Her voice was solemn as a sermon. He thought for a minute, pushing the feather bed down away from his chin. He sighed. "She'll marry, he'll be a great musician -- another Handel. What do you mean, 'What will happen to them'! Sometimes I just don't understand you, Marianne!" *** It was another rainy Parisian day. "Ah, my ace takes your queen at last," said the Countess van Eyck to Marianne Mozart. The Countess' lovely cheeks were flushed with pink blotches. The queen of hearts' one visible eye stared up reproachfully at Frau Mozart. "You lost again, Mama!" said Wolferl. She swatted at him with her fan. He ducked. "You missed!" "I'll 'miss' you," she said, rising from her chair and slapping out at him again. He didn't move quickly enough and her fan caught his face with a loud crack. He stood there a minute, his cheek turning red. Tears started to form, but he bit his lip. "I'm sorry, Wolferl," she said, catching her breath, "I didn't mean that." "It's all right, Mama." She chucked him under the chin. "Remember, son, bear up -- call on the strength of a lion." "I'll remember," he said. "Come on," he said to Paul and walked away slowly out of the room, shuffling his feet as if he were cleaning the carpet. "Marianne," said the Countess, "what's the matter?" "Didn't the concert go well last night?" The Countess coughed. "Oh yes, it went well, they always do." The pale winter light vaguely illumined the card room at the palace from the one tall but narrow window, surrounded by heavy puce silk hangings. "He's such a serious little boy when he starts to play music, not at all like when he's around here," said the Countess. "Yes, sometimes his father has to pick him up and carry him away from the keyboard, he can't bear to stop playing." Marianne picked up a piece of marzipan and ate it. She licked her chubby fingers. "He works hard for a little boy." "Yes, Lotte, but he does love it, you know. And we have to make the most of this opportunity -- Archbishop Sigismund was very kind to give Leopold a leave of absence so that we could do this tour." "Of course." The Countess shook her head slightly. "But I suppose you do worry about Wolferl? The little imaginary friend and all? He's a little old for that kind of thing." "To tell the truth, I worry about Nannerl, and I let Leopold do most of the worrying about Wolferl." She shuffled the cards, let the Countess cut, and started to deal. "Wolferl's so alone here," said the Countess. "No one his own age. I think I'll invite my nephew Rupert over." Marianne smiled. "No wonder Wolferl loves you, Lotte." "I feel the same way about him." Marianne took the Countess' jack with her king. "I only wish that love -- anyone's love -- were enough." *** "Wolferl, why don't you go and see what Rupert is doing?" The Countess was sitting at her needlework stand. The December sunlight poured in, shining off the brass lion ends of the andirons. Wolfgang sat gazing into the fire. He didn't answer. "Wolferl?" He didn't feel like talking. He felt alone, Paul had stayed in his closet today. "Wolferl, come here." He got up slowly and walked over toward her, than suddenly flopped down and started to turn a somersault. "Wolferl, please. Come here." He stood in front of her, his chin on his chest. She lifted his chin up gently. Then she took his head under her arm and hugged him close to her. He put his arms around her. After a minute, she pulled away. She took her handkerchief from her bodice and wiped off his cheeks. He put his fist up to his nose. "Wolferl, go find Rupert," she said. Her eyes were very large and very blue and liquid, like the sea. "I already asked him, he says he's busy and..." He was ashamed to hear his voice breaking. "Rupert! Rupert!" she called. After a pause, she said more loudly, "Rupert!" "Yes, Tante," said Rupert, his blonde hair neatly combed, wiping his reddish snub nose, as he ran in from the next room. "Take Wolferl along with you to play." "But he doesn't know how we play games here in France." "Well, he can learn." "He doesn't know how." "Rupert!" "Anyway, there's nobody else around to make up a game right now." The Countess thought a minute. "Why don't you show Wolferl that wooden figure you're carving with your big knife." "It's not finished yet," he said pouting. "It doesn't matter, I think you've been very clever with it. And I particularly want Wolferl to see." "All right, Tante," and, swinging his arm high and then dropping it very low, he led the way out of the room. Wolferl followed him. He looked back, but she was intent on her needlework. Once they got into the other room, Rupert said, "I've got a hunting knife. With a big, wide blade. Have you got a knife?" "No," said Wolfgang. "Everybody has a knife," said Rupert. "I don't. I don't need one!" "You act like a sissy." "I am not a sissy!" "Always playing the harpsichord -- la-di-da-da," he said, mimicking a keyboard player. "Shut up!" "Make me!" said Rupert. Wolfgang hesitated. Rupert was bigger than he was. He thought about going back to Countess Lotte. But he was afraid if he did, he might break into tears. Then Rupert pushed him, knocking him over. He grabbed at Rupert's leg, yanking hard. Rupert staggered, then he felt Rupert's fists pummeling his head. "Ow, ow, ow!" The pain throbbed in his skull and the room jiggled around him. "What's going on in there?" came the voice of Countess Lotte. Rupert stopped. There was silence a moment. "Nothing, Tante!" he yelled. "We're just playing." "You louse!" said Wolfgang hoarsely. "You dummy!" "You sissy," whispered Rupert, who turned and ran off into the back hall. Wolfgang pulled himself up. The parqueted floor was cold on his hands. He remembered the feel of the plain oaken floors of home. He heard the Countess' step as she entered from the other room. Then he felt himself folded in her arms. He held back the tears that were scalding behind his eyes. Then he felt her handkerchief under his nose. He blew, hard. As he lay awake that night in the big bed in the tiny room under the third-floor stair landing, he could still imagine Countess Lotte's face. Beautiful and sweet, that's what she was. That's what a good fairy should be, someone who could make anything come true. He hoped Paul was still in the closet. "Wolferl! Are you still awake?" His mother's face loomed over his. "Yes, Mama." "What are you doing, lying there staring at the ceiling? Close your eyes and go to sleep. Now!" He closed his eyes, but he still thought about the sweet eyes and the bright red cheeks. A few nights later, they had just returned from a concert at Maitre Clouet's. The soiree had started late, and he was tired. But as he started to climb the stairs, the Countess called "Wolferl" and he ran into the library to see what she wanted. There it lay on the marble tabletop, in front of the Count. A bright shining hunting knife with a blade as wide as his wrist. "Oh!" His throat was so tight he could hardly breathe. "Yes, was that what you wanted?" said the Countess. "Oh, yes. Oh thank you, thank you." "Now be careful, don't cut your fingers, young musician," said the Count. "Oh, he won't, darling. Anyway, even if he did get a little cut, boys have to have knives, didn't you tell me that?" "All right, as long as his father doesn't blame me." And the Count picked up the knife himself to test its balance. Then he offered the knife to him. Wolfgang stared at the intricate incising on the blade. Then he picked it up, holding the enameled handle in his hand for long minutes. It was heavy and had a beautiful shiny black finish. It was the most magnificent thing he had ever owned. He couldn't wait to show Paul. He was going to stay in Paris for ever and ever. He'd never leave. Maybe when the Count died, he could marry her. They would be happy together for ever and ever. Then January came and the weather turned bitterly cold. Some days when he saw her in the library or the salon, the Countess' cheeks would be glowing a fiery red. At night he could hear a racking cough from her room just underneath his. Sometimes he would go and stand outside her door, listening, under the picture of the man in armor with the red plumes on his helmet. He would wait and wait, thinking about everything, imagining himself as a grown man and her husband. Count and Countess Mozart. Then it was the first Wednesday in February, soon after his eighth birthday. He was asleep, and the sound woke him up. It was hooves clattering and the clanking of metal-rimmed wheels on the cobblestoned courtyard. He heard talking in the hall. Next day he saw Dr. Moreau standing outside in the courtyard talking to the Count. He overheard the butler talking to the downstairs maid. "She's very bad this time, I..." Then they noticed Wolfgang and moved off down the hallway. But he could hear the words 'weak' and 'blood.' The next morning, when he came out for breakfast, the hall was full of men in dark coats. He ran into his parents' room. His father put his arm around his shoulder and said, "The Countess has gone to meet Our Lord, son. I'm sorry." He felt nothing, as if he had been stunned. Later he went up to the picture of the man in armor again and waited. It got very cold in the bare corridor. Finally he went downstairs again. He passed his sister on the first landing, by the potted palm. Her face was buried in her handkerchief. As he passed by the salon, he heard a man's voice -- the Count's -- moaning and sobbing. That night at the supper table, the stunned feeling began to go away, now he suddenly felt as if a crushing weight had fallen on him. The world looked dark and lonely. Later, he said good night to Paul. Then, as he lay down to sleep, he came to the mention of her name in his prayers. "And also Countess Lotte and the Couuu..." He felt a sudden gush of hot tears. There would never be anybody like her! Now he was really alone, no one who loved him for himself -- not just because of his music. Finally exhausted after some minutes, he closed his eyes, his head swam, he said good night to Paul over in the corner, and he fell asleep. A few days later, after the funeral, Papa took them all to Fontainebleau, where there was a monkey on the sidewalk that lifted his hat when people said to him, "Vive le Roi." A giant soldier in a tall hat talked to them. The soldier let him try to lift his heavy sword -- he staggered under the weight -- and asked him whether he wanted to be a soldier when he grew up. "No," he said, "I want to be a prince." The soldier opened his mouth in a comical way. His father laughed. Why did he laugh, princes could do everything, couldn't they? Everybody liked princes -- they had to. At the supper table that evening, he realized that he had forgotten about the Countess' death all afternoon. That night, while he was getting ready to say his prayers, he asked his mother, "Is Countess Lotte in heaven now?" "She certainly is, yes, I'm quite sure she is." "I want to go to heaven too, not to purgatory. I'm afraid of purgatory." His mother stroked his head. He looked up at her. "Mama, when are you going to die?" His mother looked flustered. She said, "I hope not for a long time yet." "And me, Mama, when will I die?" "Not for ages, don't fret yourself about it, Wolferl. Go to sleep now. Sweet dreams." But after she left, he did worry about death. He had to make his plans. If he was going to die, he wanted to know when. He had a lot of things to do. Maybe there wouldn't be time enough for him to become a prince. But at least he could do things his father wanted him to do, like being a Kapellmeister. But he couldn't fall in love and get married if he died young. If he died in the night, he'd never see his Bimperl again, jumping up on him in welcome, short tail wagging. All of a sudden he was very afraid, and he pictured the room with its heavy drapes all dark, and his body lying on the bed in his best suit, with flowers around it and his hands crossed. He was afraid to go to sleep, he tossed and turned. He awoke tired in the morning, but the sun was streaming in the windows, and he was alive. Alive! He jumped up and looked out the windows at the trees in the park. He thought he'd never see anything as beautiful in his life as the sunlight and shade speckling the bare branches and the brownish green lawn below. He thought of Countess Lotte in her coffin in the ground, then he looked at a pigeon pecking at the bare stones of the courtyard. It was good to be alive. He took a look in the closet. Paul wasn't there again today. He wrote down in his journal, in English, "Life is good." They were going to England soon, he could hardly wait. He would only speak English at the dinner table from now on. He had to be able to talk English to the little English boys. *** The pale sun of the London spring shown dimly in colored flashes through the gigantic rose window of the Great Chapel. "Like this, Papa?" "Yes, just like that, on Mr. Bach's lap." His father was smiling his concert smile. Wolfgang felt uncomfortable -- and silly, like a baby. He could hear stirrings in the audience. Some coughs. The old church was cold, streams of light from the stained glass windows filtered bleakly into the nave. There were two candles placed above the topmost keyboard to cast light on the score. "And now," said a voice from down below the pulpit, "Mr. Johann Christian Bach and Mr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is eight years old, will play a toccata by Handel." More stirrings in the audience. He could feel Mr. Bach's big belly pressing against his back. "Don't be afraid," he heard, "when I say 'jetzt,' then you take over and play from the start of the following measure, and when I saw 'bitte,' you'll turn it over back to me." Mr. Bach started it out, and it was easy to go back and forth. He had no trouble with the tempo. At one point he improvised a few extra notes. Then Mr. Bach improvised a few more in answer when it was his turn. What fun! After they finished, Mr. Bach held him up on his shoulder while the people applauded. Then Wolfgang jumped down from the bench and ran over to his father. He held onto the altar rail and lifted himself up, swinging his legs back and forth. "We fooled them, didn't we? Nobody knew who was playing when." "You're right. I knew, but that's only because I know you and I also know Herr Bach's style." "That was fun." He looked out at the departing audience. Another little boy, about his age, with hair as blonde as his own, was looking at him. The boy's mouth was open. He stared at Wolfgang. Wolfgang waved to him. The boy remained staring. Wolfgang started to walk over to the railing. The blonde boy looked at him again, then a slightly older, dark-haired boy came up behind the blonde boy and shoved him, knocking him against the pew. Then the older boy ran away, back down the aisle toward the great door. The blonde boy turned and ran after him, yelling, "Jim, Jim, wait for me, Jim!" "Come, Wolfgang, we'll be late for the reception at Hampton Court." He followed his father down the long cold aisle. *** The weather was cooler. Leopold gave thanks to the Lord, from whom all blessings flowed. Finally he was over his fever -- it had been terrible, face burning, sweaty bedclothes glued to his body. Bach sat back in the plush chair, the musical scores in his hand, a big smile on his jowly face. Leopold was glad to have company, and lunch had tasted good for a change. "Well, what do you think?" "They're very well done, quite correct musically. And a good sense of rhythmic interest." "He wrote them while I was sick, the doctor told him not to disturb me by playing the spinet. So he sat down and composed these!" "Impressive." "Of course, I know as symphonies go they're not profound." "One could hardly expect that," said Bach, wrinkling his long nose. "But for his age, they are truly amazing. Often we see performing talent, but this. He has a remarkable career in front of him." "I hope so." Leopold pulled up the woolen jacket he was wearing. "The child himself certainly thinks so." "A little conceit is natural. As long as it doesn't get out of hand." "I'll see that it doesn't, Bach!" Bach pursed his lips. "Mozart, how is the boy doing, I mean, in general?" "In general? Quite well. His health is good. Oh, if you mean his spirits, quite good. Just look at these new compositions." "Does he get out enough? I mean to play with other children?" "As best I can. It's difficult in a foreign country. But I try to keep his life well-rounded, Herr Bach. Please give me some credit." "No, no, you must excuse me, Mozart, it's just that I come from a large musical family. I know some of the problems with having talented children." "I'm sure you do. Your brothers, I know their music, and I understand your father was quite gifted too. " "Yes, he certainly was. More than the rest of us, by far." What a loyal son. Johann Sebastian Bach's music was quite old-fashioned and uninteresting. "I'm certainly glad to have any advice you can give me." "Be sure he has a chance to be a boy." Bach's mouth was twisted and his eyes looked sad. "My father tried his best, but I can't say that we Bach children led a normal life." "'Normal life'! What's so good about that?" "We're all only human, Mozart." "Yes, of course," Leopold answered. But when Bach had left, he realized the other musician didn't understand. The Bach children had been talented -- but not like Wolferl. There was plenty of room in life for music and everything else. There had to be. He had better be sure that Wolferl was still working out the problems in that last violin sonata he had composed. "Wolferl, Wolferl!" he called. "Yes, Papi. Here I am," called his son from the parlor. "Come here, son, let's go over that sonata." "Yes, Papa." A good son, that's what he had, a remarkable son! *** In the dark back room at the Aux Trois Soldats in Lille, Wolfgang sat at the keyboard, waiting while his father got his violin out and tuned it. Suppose he got sick like Papa in London, could they go home then? No, nothing ever stopped them. Next month they had to go to the Hague, then back to Paris. Father said they could go back to Salzburg the following winter. In Vienna, the old Emperor had died. Now that stuck-up Joseph would be Emperor -- he probably still didn't count when he played. But he did at least like music. Papa said it might be worth their while to go to Vienna, once they got home, and see about opportunities at the new Court. Home. Salzburg. He had almost forgotten what it was like at home. His friends, Damian, Willy, Melchior, he wouldn't know them. They wouldn't remember him. Hardly. A whole year more. Why couldn't they go home? Because of music. His 'genius.' Nannerl's 'talent.' Lucky them! He got up, went over to the cupboard, and took out the silver medal King George had given him. The lion on its face roared at him. At him, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- it was a medal struck especially for him. He knew he was not like everybody else. He was a wonder, a marvel -- he had overheard people call him a monster, a freak of nature. How much of him was a marvel or a freak? Just the musical part of his brain? Or the rest of his brain, or his total self? God knows he was like ordinary people too. He felt starved right that minute -- and it was still an hour to supper! If he was a monster or a genius, there were certainly no special privileges for monsters -- or geniuses. So what did the word "genius" mean? What difference did it make that he was or wasn't one? Did "genius" apply to just music or to all of him? What could he do about it all, anyway? Nothing. He had to live his life. Just like everybody else. Even though he wasn't like everybody else. It just wasn't fair. If he had to be a "genius," he was going to make sure that there would be something in it for him! Something besides just music. But what would that something be? If he could only grow up faster! Waiting was awful. But meanwhile, he knew one thing. Nobody could ever take his music away from him. [CHAPTER THREE OF "IN SEARCH OF MOZART" WILL BE EXCERPTED IN VOL.1, NO.3 OF "FICTION-ONLINE] ============================================================= SPEAK, MUSE by Otho E. Eskin CHARACTERS: A Playwright A Muse SCENE: Your typical artist's garret. There is chair and a table on which sits a manual typewriter. TIME: The present. ================================================================= AT RISE: The playwright is slumped over the typewriter. ENTER MUSE. She is dressed in a suitably squirrely outfit and carries a Filofax. The playwright becomes conscious that he is not alone, slowly raises his head. He is unpleasantly surprised to see the Muse. MUSE (Cheerfully) Good evening! PLAYWRIGHT How did you get in here? MUSE I flew upon sweet Zephyr's radiant wings. PLAYWRIGHT You're supposed to call up from the lobby. Would you get out. MUSE I'm here to help you, sir. PLAYWRIGHT I don't need your help. MUSE Oh, yes you do. PLAYWRIGHT If you don't leave right now, I'm calling the police. MUSE Oh, dear, I hope I haven't gotten it wrong again. Aren't you a playwright? PLAYWRIGHT (Suddenly conciliatory) Well, as a matter of fact... MUSE Aren't you the author of "All This And Philadelphia Too"? PLAYWRIGHT How'd you hear of that? It's never been produced. Who are you? MUSE My name is Euterpe and I am your Muse this evening. PLAYWRIGHT You're my what? MUSE I've been sent here to inspire you to create things of noble beauty and immortal grace. PLAYWRIGHT You can't just come barging into people's homes like this. MUSE (Showing the PLAYWRIGHT a plastic, laminated identity card.) It's all right. I'm a licensed nymph. (MUSE walks to the typewriter and looks at the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter.) MUSE Uhmmm. PLAYWRIGHT I've been going through a bad period. Can you really help me? MUSE Of course. How do you suppose those other guys do it? You think all the great artists just pump it out? No way. It takes inspiration. You take Andrew Lloyd Weber or even Anthony Newley. Without inspiration from a muse, they'd be nowhere. PLAYWRIGHT You worked with them? MUSE Not me personally. Now, sit at the table and start writing. (PLAYWRIGHT sits at the table, leans over the keys -- and freezes.) MUSE Go on. PLAYWRIGHT (Desperate) I can't think of anything to say. MUSE (Very firmly, like a school teacher.) You're not even trying. (PLAYWRIGHT struggles at the keyboard, then slumps.) PLAYWRIGHT I can't. MUSE OK, how about this. Shut your eyes and think about beautiful scenes and music -- like in that movie, "Fantasia." (The PLAYWRIGHT closes his eyes intently. There is a long silence.) MUSE Well? PLAYWRIGHT I think I'm falling asleep. MUSE (Impatiently) Oh, for Pete's sake! Try again. This time, put your back into it. PLAYWRIGHT Somehow, I expected inspiration would be different. (The PLAYWRIGHT sits miserably at the typewriter, staring at the blank sheet of paper. The MUSE wanders around the room, humming to herself in an annoying, distracting manner.) MUSE Got any rocky road ice cream? PLAYWRIGHT I don't think you're being any help to me at all. MUSE That's all I hear. Want. Want. Want. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme. Have you tried drinking yourself into a coma several times a week? PLAYWRIGHT I can't tolerate alcohol. MUSE How'd you ever become a playwright in the first place? PLAYWRIGHT I've always loved the theater. Ever since I saw Peter Pan on television. It's in my blood. MUSE Did you ever stop to think there might already be enough plays and playwrights? After all, they've been writing plays in English for over four hundred years. Maybe we've got enough by now. Do we really need another play about a family tortured by guilt? What I think is, what this country needs are people who can do really competent work on transmissions. PLAYWRIGHT You're not making me feel any better. Are you sure you're a Muse? MUSE To be absolutely precise, I'm a Muse trainee. PLAYWRIGHT How many artists have you helped? MUSE You want the actual figure? PLAYWRIGHT Yes. MUSE Including you? PLAYWRIGHT OK. MUSE One. PLAYWRIGHT Oh, my God. MUSE Don't get the wrong idea. I've got lots of experience. PLAYWRIGHT Such as? MUSE I did my internship with a lyric poet. PLAYWRIGHT So what did he achieve? MUSE (Nervously) I don't want to talk about it. PLAYWRIGHT I think I was better off before you came. MUSE You don't like me, do you? PLAYWRIGHT It's just that you're making me feel really depressed. MUSE That's what everybody says. PLAYWRIGHT I don't think you have any idea what you're doing. MUSE Please give me another chance. I need this job. I'm on probation you know. Ever since that incident with the sculptor. PLAYWRIGHT What incident? MUSE I'd prefer not to dwell on it, if you don't mind. (Beat) My mother told me I wouldn't make it. Of course, she always does that to me. Never has any confidence in me. No matter what I do, she finds fault. Never builds up my self esteem. This from the woman who could only cook two things -- meat loaf and tuna casserole. PLAYWRIGHT Miss... MUSE I mean, our entire family lived for years on tuna casserole with fucking corn flakes on top. No wonder my brother likes to wear dresses. PLAYWRIGHT I'm sorry about your brother. MUSE I thought we were talking about my mother. Am I boring you? PLAYWRIGHT Not at all. MUSE Maybe you should write a play about me. PLAYWRIGHT I don't think so, really. Do you want me to call you a cab? MUSE Call me a dreamer. Call me a fool. Just don't call me a cab. PLAYWRIGHT I think it's time you left. MUSE I'm not helping you, am I? PLAYWRIGHT So far, all you've done is suggest I become an alcoholic or a car mechanic. MUSE I'm a failure. (The MUSE begins to cry.) PLAYWRIGHT I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. (The MUSE sits on the floor and weeps.) PLAYWRIGHT Please don't cry. I hate it when you cry. MUSE I never do anything right. PLAYWRIGHT Don't talk like that! It's not that bad. Remember, it's always darkest before the dawn. MUSE It is? PLAYWRIGHT You've just had a run of bad luck. That's all. MUSE You don't know the half of it. Did I tell you about my ex? PLAYWRIGHT When you fall off a horse, you've got to get right back up and do it again. MUSE Do what again? PLAYWRIGHT Keep telling yourself -- I'm good. I'm good. MUSE That helps? (The PLAYWRIGHT takes the MUSE by the hand and pulls her to her feet. He points somewhere grandly off stage.) PLAYWRIGHT There's a brave new world out there waiting for you to conquer. MUSE Really? PLAYWRIGHT You just need someone to believe in you. We'll do it. You and me. Look out world, here we come. (The MUSE straightens up.) PLAYWRIGHT (Singing) When you walk through a storm keep your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark. (MUSE dries her tears and looks out at the world off stage.) MUSE (Singing) I'm going to make it, I'm going to make it after all. MUSE (Taking a deep breath.) OK, where were we? PLAYWRIGHT Nowhere. That's just the problem. MUSE Perhaps we should review your whole play-writing technique. (The MUSE puts on her glasses, opens her Filofax and studies several pages). Uhmmm. Do you have a clear protagonist? PLAYWRIGHT Of course. MUSE A balanced situation? A disturbance? PLAYWRIGHT Naturally. MUSE You develop complications and sub-stories leading smoothly through a crisis to climax and resolution? PLAYWRIGHT Every time. MUSE (The MUSE slams her Filofax shut emphatically.) That's your problem right there! PLAYWRIGHT I don't get it. MUSE Your whole approach is bad. You're writing the wrong plays for the modern theater. I took a workshop in this once. PLAYWRIGHT What can I do? MUSE Do you use plots in your work? PLAYWRIGHT Yes, of course... MUSE Get rid of them. Character development? PLAYWRIGHT I try. MUSE Forget it. Clarity of diction? Beauty of style? Dramatic dialogue? PLAYWRIGHT Well, I... MUSE Trash all that. Do your plays make any sense? PLAYWRIGHT Sure. MUSE Really bad idea. PLAYWRIGHT (Suddenly inspired) Maybe you've got something. (The PLAYWRIGHT rushes to his typewriter and begins to type furiously.) PLAYWRIGHT That's it! That's it! I feel it coming. Mindless symbolism. MUSE Right! PLAYWRIGHT Meaningless dialogue! MUSE Beautiful. PLAYWRIGHT Pretentious rhetoric! MUSE I think you've got it. PLAYWRIGHT Incomprehensible plots! Unbelievable characters! Boring story lines! MUSE You've made a breakthrough. PLAYWRIGHT I can feel it coming. Total absence of motivation. Obscure literary references. Offensive language. MUSE Congratulations! You're a modern playwright! Now there's nothing to stop you. Agents will be begging for you. Critics will eat out of your hand. Starlets will leave indecent messages on your answering machine. Make room on your mantelpiece for your Tony awards. Mr. Playwright, you're a success. PLAYWRIGHT How can I ever thank you? MUSE Just doing my job. ================================================================= .