ALBERT: The boy
LOUIS: They call him Tom Selleck
MAN: The farmer with the tractor-trailer
ANTONIA: The mother
JULIA: The school principal
RICHARD: The owner of the sawmill
ELI: Formerly Pink and, from now on, Blue
Conceived for one actor (or actress),
whose gender is immaterial.
As is the age.
And all physical characteristics.
/ Indicates that the phrase that follows immediately cuts off what is being said.
* Indicates a change in space or time.
The performance should evolve without any cuts to darkness.
ALBERT: Mine is the nicest body that up until today—and probably ever will be—seen around these parts. I’m dressed in a red bathing suit with two side stripes and some very worn sneakers. Maybe they were white. I don’t know. I can’t remember. Why should I remember? In fact, they’re not mine. I’d like to be wearing plastic sandals, the kind you wear to hunt for crabs by the river. I don’t know what they’re called. Right. Well, yes. I do know. Of course. The nicest memory I still have is of the summer when I was six years old, walking on the rocks when we’d go bathing in the stream. My father, my mother, and me. We drove there in the brown Talbot. A lot of people had it confused with a Chrysler 150, but that’s not what it was. It was a Talbot. Mom loved to say it was a high-class car and how much it cost when they bought it. She would do the same thing with a bunch of old things that were no longer worth anything and that she continued to grant a value they no longer had: the Yashika that her father had bought when he was doing his military service and had problems with an old shutter or a Larousse encyclopedia with worn corners and some separated pages. Even now. Huge cars. Only the Arab families drove old, dilapidated cars. Some of the Arabs even had better ones than ours. My mom, who kept repeating that our town was full of Arabs and foreigners, was not ashamed that we looked like some of them. (Pause.) It was a happy day. The last one I remember with my dad. I was playing by the gorge. He was watching me. I don’t know where my mom was. She might have gone to the car to look for something or to pick some herbs and flowers. She was a cheerful woman then. I screamed like crazy that a fish had just slipped between my ankles and tickled me. My father laughed. The sun was blinding, and I could only see his figure as a silhouette. “You’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Let me hug you.” I threw myself into his arms. He, with a threatening and painful kind of strength, hugged me as he hummed a song. “Why are you crying, Dad?” “I’m not crying. I’m happy. I’m so happy that I’d like to freeze this moment so it never ends.” (Pause.) It wasn’t happiness. It’s true, he was crying. I, on the other hand, do remember it as one of the happiest moments of my life. Maybe the happiest. Then my mother had to come and ruin everything. She wasn’t aware of it, but she always ruined everything. I’m sure my dad must have been a happy man until he met her and got her pregnant with me. (Pause.) Now my body is lying in the middle of a hay field. Far away, a tractor is slowly advancing toward me. He’s probably pulling a trailer for them to load the hay. It’s an assumption. I can only hear the tractor’s engine. Also, the scent of cut hay. Next month will be the nicest time of year, and the fields will begin to turn yellow. It will be days of poplar, barley, wheat, and, a little bit later, oats. I hear . . . closer . . . someone approaching. Running. Running a lot. It’s as though two people were approaching, running. But, no. Not two. It’s just one person. I thought I heard panting. (Pause.) Yes, he’s gasping. He’s slowing down. He’s stopping. He’s right here. He must have seen me lying on the ground. I wish I could turn my head. My arm is extended. If I have my other one in the same position, it must look like I’m lying crucified on the ground. The position of my head allows me to see my right arm and hand. On my index finger, my ring. Extravagant, according to my mom. It was a gift. I’ve never told anyone who it was that gave it to me. Inside are four letters: A.R.J.A. The gift was the ring. The inscription was my idea. I went to a jeweler. Not to the one here but over in another town. I went there specifically, by motorcycle, to have the letters inscribed: A.R.J.A. I try to move my fingers. I can’t. He moves closer to my face. His breath stinks of flesh. I’d never seen him so close. It’s Sam. Each of his eyes is a different color. I hadn’t ever noticed that before. Nor had I noticed his fangs. He’s moving away now. He’s coming closer again. He touches me. He smells me. He licks my lower abdomen, the area between my navel and the elastic band of my swimsuit, from which a handful of disheveled hairs protrude, making their way inward. He tries to move my body. He tugs on my swimsuit. The fabric gives way. The elastic snaps. (Pause.) He’s moved away. Maybe he got scared. What’s going on? (Pause.) If he’s here, it must mean that Louis shouldn’t be far off. Maybe he’s calling him. (Pause.) Louis . . . Call him! Go ahead . . . ! Come on! (Pause.) No. I can’t hear him. He’s not calling him. (Pause.) Shoo . . . Go away! Get out! Get lost! This body is too good for you. For all the people in this town, as well. He’s picked something up from the ground. He’s distracted. I don’t know what with. I can’t see him. Now I can: a whistle. It’s Louis. No one in this town can whistle like Louis. I hope it’s him. Let him come over and find me. Let him come with his shirt unbuttoned or without his shirt. Louis has a very hairy chest. I hope he grabs me and takes me to the center of town, to the new town square, and that everyone comes out on their balconies, doorways, and on the street when they see him go by with my body in his arms. My mom, instead of calling him by his name, always referred to him as Tom Selleck. Louis must like it because he smiles and makes that gesture whereby his mustache widens practically to his ears. Then he raises and lowers his eyebrows three or four times in a row and my mom starts laughing. Mom talks and talks: about actors, about celebrities . . . She calls them by name as though she knew them. It’s ridiculous. It’s embarrassing. She says things that make no sense. She talks because she’s afraid of silence. Louis approaches and I hear him growling about Sam. I feel the shadow of his body on mine, his heart pounding and his breath becoming shorter across the field. He’s crying like I never would have imagined that a man like him could cry. He’s sobbing. He seems like he’s about to pass out. “Sam, leave it!” Something falls from his mouth. His teeth are bloody. Son of a bitch . . . Did he bite me? Louis runs his hands over his face as though he wants to erase—so that no one sees it—the fright and the crying, and he begins shouting.
—Help! Help! Help!
You can no longer hear the sound of the tractor.
Someone comes running. I know that voice . . . In town, we all know each other. But now I don’t know who it is. Who are you?
—What’s going on?
—Albert. The Ramis kid.
—What do you mean?
—Sam refused to come. I went over/
—Oh, fuck! Fuck . . . Oh God fucking damn/
—How awful . . .
—Albert, the Ramis kid.
—I told you. It’s him.
—Looks like these people have stepped in shit.
—Sam was here. I called him and he refused to come. That’s why I went over and/
—What the hell did they do to him?
—Poor kid . . .
—Did you touch him?
—Of course not. What? Do you think I’m an idiot?
—Don’t touch him. Let’s not touch him. Are you sure?
—What?
—That you haven’t touched him?
—No . . . Of course not.
—Don’t touch him.
—I haven’t touched him! I don’t plan on touching him, damn it! How do you expect/
—Better.
—Who must have/
—We need to call/
—Who?
—His house. His mother. Antonia.
—Better the police.
—We need to call Antonia.
—His house? No. What fucking shit! No, no . . . What a fucking mess! Call his house, no . . . Not me. His mother . . . I wouldn’t know how/
—Of course.
—Sam, leave him! Get away! God damn it! Leave it . . . Sam! Get lost! Go away and don’t come near here! God damn dog! Antonia, his mother, no. Better the police.
—You got to be a real son of a bitch.
—Poor kid.
—Yeah, poor kid.
—How long since . . . ?
—What?
—His father . . .
—Ten or eleven years.
—What a bunch of hell, these people.
—How old was he?
—Eighteen?
—No, are you kidding . . . !
—No?
—He was still in middle school. Fifteen or sixteen. He must have been fifteen or sixteen. Poor kid. You really have to be a son of a bitch.
Not fifteen, not sixteen. Seventeen. I’m seventeen years old. They said, “How old was he?” In the past tense. “Was.” I’m six months from turning eighteen. Six and a half months. Just six and a half months. Past . . . They used the past tense. I was six months away from turning eighteen.
—What the hell are you doing, Louis?
—I’m calling.
—The police?
—No, Antonia.
—Antonia?
—She’s his mother . . .
—You’re calling her? What are you gonna say to her? But you just/
—God damn it! Before they take him away, cut him open up, pick him to pieces . . . She’s his mother, damn it! (Pause.) Antonia . . . Good . . . Yes, good afternoon . . . (Long pause.) It’s Louis, Selleck. Antonia, I don’t know how to tell you this. I wish I never had to make this call. It’s horrible . . . what happened. I can’t find the words to explain something like this.
*
ANTONIA: After my name and, perhaps, a good afternoon, there was silence . . . No . . . It wasn’t silence. Silence breaks everything, but I continued to hear the dead hush on the other end of the phone. I’d experienced it before, and it was like seeing the repetition of a jolt coming. Finally, “It’s Louis, Selleck.” “Selleck.” But there was no humor like other times. From the tone of his voice, I guessed he was calling me about something that wasn’t at all good. And now, yes, the heaviness of his words was growing: “Antonia, I don’t know how to tell you this. I wish I never had to make this call.” And now, yes, is when you notice your hands are cold and it’s as if you were about to be dizzy and fall to the ground. “It’s horrible . . . what happened.” I already felt a pain that you can’t . . . “I can’t find the words to explain something like this.” He still hadn’t mentioned what happened, and I, with the phone that I’d let drop to the ground, began to cry as hard as I could . . .
(Long pause.)
It may come as a surprise to you that I’ve come all the way here at this hour. I was in bed. I couldn’t sleep. When finally . . . / Yes, I managed to. But . . . One dream after another . . . / It was nighttime, I was by a pool having a cocktail with Marilyn. Can you believe it? Really. She takes a sip and throws it into the water. She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me in with her, trying to take me down to the bottom. I’d never seen such murky water. Each dream more violent than the last. I got up . . . / Four a.m. I got dressed. Now, I look down at my feet and realize I’ve put on my shoes. For a moment I thought maybe I hadn’t and had come here barefoot. I did comb my hair, and I went down to the street. I crossed the whole town: streets, alleys, the main square . . . I stood in front of the church. The rectory. The fig tree. It’s a beautiful tree. Everything was so quiet, it was scary. Right there in front. I ran my hand along the trunk of the fig tree. Don’t look at me like that. I even frightened myself. That’s why I stepped back. I went to the exit, past the roundabout. That’s right, I did. The road out of town. No one. Just me. As if the comings and goings—everyone knows it’s a swarm of traffic at night—had come to a halt. As if the roundabout were also in mourning.
(Long pause.)
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? How are you? What a question. Never mind. Death is an ill-timed visitor. Mine is not an unexpected visit. It shouldn’t surprise you. Don’t ask me why. Here you have me. It’s me. In front of you. It’s you. Here. In front of me. I don’t know why I came or what I can say or . . . / I knew that even though they . . . / What time is it now? I got up at four . . . / Before, I said four, right? Maybe it was three. I got up and went . . . / Now, what time is it? Five, six, six thirty? It doesn’t matter. Never mind. Time no longer exists. For me. It’s not a good time, but I knew you’d open the door for me. You wouldn’t refuse. Do you have a guest? Someone important? I went to the roundabout to see if I could find Eli. I know he’s usually there with other girls. Some like him. It’s full of Arabs and foreigners. I know my son, Albert, would go there often. What do you know about it? They say Eli is gone; where could he have gone? I need to talk to him. It’s also been years since . . . Maybe he won’t want to talk to me. No one knows where he is. No one wants to know anything about it. All these people from far away . . . I don’t know what Albert was doing there. (Pause.) I’m not here to talk about Albert. No. I’m here to talk about my husband. About Ramis.
