AFTER DINNER

Dramatis Personae: A Man and a Woman, indeterminate age.

Scene: A living room stage left furnished with sofa, coffee table with vase and photo album, shelves, lamp table, easy chair, piano; a closet door is visible left, next to which is the main entrance; dining room stage right, the man and woman seated across from each other at the dining room table, covered with a cloth, the meal evidently finished.  Lighting is dim, but the scene is not candle lit.  The man and woman stretch back lazily from the table.  They have been there a long time.  He opens a second bottle of wine and pours both glasses.  On the DVD Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons ends.  Taking his glass of wine with him, he gets up to throw something in the player on the set of shelves stage left, and she follows until she comes to the piano against rear wall.  She pauses and tinkles a few keys, then puts her glass of wine on the coffee table and turns the cover of the photo album, then starts flipping through its pages.

_____.  “Is that Rachel!?”

_____.  [He stops sorting through the CDs and looks at her. 

        Then he goes beside her and looks at the album] 

        “Yes.  That photo was taken an hour after she had

        Jubby.”

_____.  “God!”

_____.  “That’s what I said.  That was the day, the hour,

        and the occasion when I said it.  And I added, not

        exactly as an afterthought, my gratitude for being

        a man.”

_____.  [She goes to the piano and hits a bass note.]   

        “Men have always visited untold misery upon women.”

_____.  “Not untold.  There you see it.  See how wrung she

        looks.  It went hard for her.  Hard both times.”

_____.  [She comes beside him and looks again at the

        album.]  “Did she want it for herself?  I know some

        women are like that.  They say they can’t love them

        if they don’t feel the full pain of it.”

_____.  “No.  Rachel wasn’t like that.  [He retrieves his

        glass of wine from the shelves where he had placed

        it.]  We were in the Islands, then.  [Sips.]  The  

        doctor had no choice.  She had to go through it. 

        With our first, she labored sixteen hours, and they

        gave her nothing, nothing right up to the end, but

        then they gave it to her and the baby came.”

_____.  “You still feel connected to her?”

_____.  [Pause.]  “You put it that way.  I suppose it’s

        right.  Connected.  Yes, I do.”

_____.  [Intensely.]  “So few feel that anymore.”

_____.  “Not so.  I think you’re wrong.  I think we all do. 

        At least, those of us who get ‘connected.’”

           [He finishes his glass of wine, she picks up  

           hers and drains the glass.  They go back to the

           dining room and he refills the glasses.]

_____.  “Maybe we mean something different by the word.”

_____.  “What do you mean?”

_____.  [Plaintively.]  “I don’t know, now that I think

        about it.  I guess I just mean whatever people mean

        by it.”

_____.  [Long pause, during which he looks at her; then,

        sympathetically.]  “Marriage is just a formality. 

        A lot of people go through it and never get

        ‘connected.’  And people who maybe never marry

        sometimes know this feeling better than anyone.  I

        think it’s so much a part of our nature to feel it

        that we would somehow be inhuman if we didn’t.”

_____.  “Yet I think a lot of people never know it, never

        feel it.  Can’t you tell?  Look around you

        anymore!”

          [He goes back to the shelves and continues

          sorting through his CDs.]

_____.  [Over his shoulder as he sorts.]  “You’re trying to

        name something that’s missing from our world and

        calling it ‘connection.’  But you don’t really know

        what that is.  We use to call it love.  Why not say

        it?  Is that what you mean?”

_____.  “I’ve thought about it.  I don’t know what love is. 

        I only know no one has ever told me he felt it for

        me.”

_____.  “What about you?  Have you loved someone?”

_____.  [Flopping onto the couch, her arms folded.]  “I’ve

        never been that close to anyone.  My mother

        and father, maybe.  But that’s different.  Rachel

        is gone and you still feel connected.  I can’t

        imagine that.  You’ll have to tell me what it’s

        like to feel connected to someone who’s dead.”

_____.  [Drops a CD.]  “It’s nothing morbid, if that’s what

        you mean.” 

_____.  “I’m not sure I didn’t mean that.  [With false

        cheer.]  I’m making fun.  Can you forgive me?  I’m

        acting now exactly like the kind of person I’ve

        been complaining about.”

_____.  “It’s all right.  Forget about it.  [Picks up CD.] 

        I see where you’re coming from.  I do.”

_____.  “Well, I wasn’t fishing for sympathy.  Don’t think

        that. . . .”

_____.  [Opens the CD case.]  “I don’t!  Don’t trouble

        about it.”

_____.  “Tell me, then.”

_____.  “Tell you what?”

_____.  “What’s it’s like feeling ‘connected’ to someone

        who’s dead.”

_____.  [Holding the disc.]  “I shall take you seriously if

        you go on like that.”

_____.  “Yes, do!  I am being serious.  Oh, I see that

        look!  [Laughs.]  Never mind me.  My habits of life

        have been set.  I’m not going to change.  At this

        age?  Tell me because I want to know, that’s all.”

_____.  [Still holding the disc.]  “It’s either very easy

        or it’s impossible to tell.”

_____.  “See what I mean?  And you want me to explain it,

        who has never known it.”

_____.  “I asked if you, if you could.  That’s all.”

_____.  “You asked me what I meant, as if I had it all

        worked out in my head as a philosophy.”

_____.  “I asked no such thing.”  [Waiving the disc.] 

        “You’re exaggerating.”

_____.  “Tell me!”

_____.  “Well, like I said, it’s either easy or not,

        depending on whether you can see it.”

_____.  “That’s your job in telling it.  Make me know!”

_____.  [He puts the CD on the coffee table next to the

        glass of wine.]  “Well, look at Rachel there.  That

        wrung look.  Those eyes.  I can’t describe what I

        feel when I look at that picture.  I only know that

        what I feel is peculiar to me.  You can’t feel it. 

        No one can.”

_____.  [Snippily.]  “Of course.”  [Reaches for the glass

        of wine.]  “You were her husband.  You had an

        intimacy with her in that moment no one else had. 

        But others have similar moments.”

_____.  [Piqued.]  “True, true.  I don’t pretend that what

        I feel is unique.”

_____.  “Why do you still feel it, though.  Don’t people

        get on with their lives?  I mean, shouldn’t people

        get on with their lives?”

_____.  “And bury the past?”

_____.  “Precisely.”

_____.  “Ah, now we’re coming to it.  What are you after?”

_____.  “YOU.  Ha, ha, ha!”

_____.  “I’m flattered.”

_____.  “There’s more you want to say, about Rachel, isn’t

        there?” 

_____.  “You asked.”

_____.  “Go on, I do want to know.”

_____.  [Standing by the coffee table, he looks again at

        the photograph of Rachel.]  “It’s like this: 

        Imagine an invisible cord, something like an

        umbilical, something through which your life flows

        to the person attached on the other end of it, a

        person whose own life flows back through it to

        you.  When I look at that photo, at her, in that

        state, all worn out and exhausted as she is, I

        still feel all that moment, all that was her in

        that moment, flowing into me.  It’s like

        electricity, you know.  Something can’t flow in

        without something also flowing out, to make a

        circuit.  I don’t know how else to explain what I

        feel.  I know, even though she’s dead, all that I

        feel about that day and hour and occasion flows

        through to her, still.  We exchange everything, as

        always.  Only, there’s a kind of beauty to it all

        now, because it’s complete, there is a shape I

        couldn’t perceive before.  That beauty, the beauty

        of the whole—I don’t know how to explain this—that

        beauty is a fullness that brings...satisfaction? 

        Pleasure?  Fullness?  I think about this often.”

_____.  [She rises, goes to him, puts her hand on his

        arm.]  “I think you’re obsessed.  Maybe it’s not

        healthy, the way you feel.  Maybe you should be

        trying to bury the past.  The way you talk, one

        would think your life was over.  You’re still

        pretty young.  You’ve got a lot of years left.”

_____.  [Steps away, picks up the CD.]  “Maybe you presume

        too much.”

_____.  “There!  I touched a cord, didn’t I?  Not THE cord,

        I hope.  Are you being honest?”

_____.  “You do presume!”

_____.  “I don’t!”

_____.  “I don’t feel the necessity.”

_____.  “And what does that mean?  ‘You don’t feel?’ 

        That’s the point!”

_____.  “I don’t feel the necessity to make changes. 

        That’s what I meant.”

_____.  “I know what you meant.  A man like you.”

_____.  “I see.”  [He puts the CD back in its case.] 

        “There’s more going on here than I perceived at

        first.”

_____.  “Oh, you’re safe.  Safe as far as I’m concerned.” 

        [Laughs.]  “I meant it when I said my ways are

        set.”

_____.  “What, then?  What are you driving at?”

_____.  “Oh, nothing.  I’ve always been the observer of

        other people’s lives.  Even before Rachel went, you

        were something of a curiosity to me.”

_____.  “I see.”  [Laughs.]  “I’m just an item in a set.”

_____.  “And I’m the collector?  Maybe you’re right.  One

        could make a religion out of collecting, you know.”

_____.  “Our conversations do have a way of turning weird. 

        Why is that?”

_____.  “I’m the cynic?”

_____.  “And I’m the naif?  Always exploitable?” 

_____.  “Near at hand, anyway.  Oh, don’t let’s do this. 

        I’m not in that kind of mood.  I see you sometimes

        looking like a sad sack, a lost soul.  We’ve known

        each other for such a long time.  I guess I do have

        feelings, after all.”

_____.  “I’m sorry.”

_____.  “Don’t be.  We’ve reached an understanding.  Next

        time we sit down to a bottle of wine, we can be

        more frank.  Look at the time!  How we’ve idled

        away the evening!”

_____.  “I haven’t been idling.  Somehow, I feel like I’ve

        been roaring along.”

_____.  “I have that affect on people, don’t I?  You know

        what?  That explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

_____.  “I’ve wondered about you.  What it is.  Maybe

        you’re right.  You scare men away.  You want too

        much to plumb the soul.”

_____.  “That’s for the next time.” 

         [She goes to closet in living room, removes coat. 

         He helps her put it on.]

_____.  “Next time?”

_____.  “The next bottle of wine.  Next time, we’ll uncork

        the Chablis and put the soul on ice for a thorough

        inspection.”

_____.  “The soul’s too much for me.”

           [He opens front door.]

_____.  “I don’t believe in such things, anyway.  It should

        make for a great conversation.”  [Exits.]

_____.  “Until the next time.  Watch your step going down,

        and watch for ice on the walk.  Good night,

        Genevieve.”

_____.  [Heard from off-stage].  “Off to sleep with you!”