Stage Play / The Unfinished Masterpiece (Analysis)

SETTING:
A music room

CHARACTERS:
    LADY, the middle sister
    YOUNG MAN 1, the elder brother
    YOUNG MAN 2, the younger brother

[The LADY sings a slow, sad, wordless song. Her voice flows from note to note in a vaguely Arabian way. It could be the beginning of an aria or the backing vocals to a trip-hop theme. She does nothing else. She concentrates and sings. Time passes. She cannot see the YOUNG MAN entering the room at her back. He stops to listen. About a minute later, her melody ends in slightly darker tones. She seems back to her own self. Then she notices the presence of her listener.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.

LADY.– I didn’t know you were there.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I would not dare to interrupt.

LADY.– It was unimportant.

YOUNG MAN 1.– It was beautiful.

LADY.– Thank you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No, thank you. This is the first beautiful thing that’s happened to me this week. And it’s Friday already.

LADY.– Really?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Indeed.

LADY.– I haven’t seen you in all week, then. Where have you been?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I never left the house. I got lost. Fortunately I found a kitchen. I never knew we had a kitchen in the South wing.

LADY.– We have three.

YOUNG MAN 1.– So many?

LADY.– Three at least, as far as I know.

YOUNG MAN 1.– This is absurd.

LADY.– We should have the works finished.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What for?

LADY.– So we would not get lost.

YOUNG MAN 1.– There’s nothing better to do.

LADY.– Better than what?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Better than getting lost.

LADY.– If we finished the works, we would not have a music room hidden in the middle of nowhere.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I never knew we had a music room either.

LADY.– Neither did I. I found it this morning.

YOUNG MAN 1.– It was your voice that brought me here.

LADY.– Sometimes I sing when I’m feeling sad.

YOUNG MAN 1.– In all these years, I never heard you sing.

LADY.– I sing when I’m feeling lonely.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Don’t worry. Darker secrets have been kept in this house.

LADY.– Music fills the void.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Do you miss her too?

LADY.– I should be leaving.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Wait! Why were you singing?

LADY.– I already told you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No. You never said why you were sad.

LADY.– Didn’t I?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Were you thinking of Rebeca?

LADY.– No. I’m not sad about Rebeca.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I thought you would miss her.

LADY.– I’m not sad about Rebeca. I’m glad for her. Surely she’s happier now.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Strange, those words of yours.

LADY.– Once, long time ago, I had talked Rebeca into going out when suddenly...

YOUNG MAN 1.– ...when suddenly she fell. I know, I remember.

LADY.– She fell down the stairs to the entrance hall.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You told me.

LADY.– I ran after her, in panic. She could have broken her neck. But she got up laughing, she was perfectly alright...

YOUNG MAN 1.– [simultaneously] “...she was perfectly alright”.

LADY.– I said if something ever happened to her, this house would get forever dark like a rainy evening; it would fade, like a candle burning in a moonless night. So I said. But Rebeca, in her soft sweet voice, replied: “It might not be a sad day, for I will be everywhere if the wind steals my ashes. On such day I’ll be walking on the wide blue paths where clouds walk. It will also be the death of disencounters, and I’ll be the one instead, who’ll kiss you goodbye.” Then she caressed my face and went back up to her rooms, laughing.

YOUNG MAN 2.– [enters] That is just like Rebeca.

LADY.– She wasn’t afraid to die.

YOUNG MAN 1.– She didn’t mean to, either.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Stop fooling yourself.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You know it was an accident.

LADY.– There you go again.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What on Earth are you two doing here?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Did you know we had a music room?

YOUNG MAN 2.– A music room? Oh, this. Yes, I’d seen it before.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Why didn’t you mention it?

YOUNG MAN 2.– What does it matter? There must be dozens of rooms we’ve never visited. You need to go touring more often. [laughs]

YOUNG MAN 1.– Oh, shut up. You make my head ache.

LADY.– Are you alright?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I didn’t sleep well last night. I had a nightmare.

LADY.– You don’t look well.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I dreamt Rebeca was alive.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Is that a nightmare?

LADY.– Let him finish.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca was facing me and speaking. The cloudless sky was crystal blue. A fresh mint breeze was blowing, and sun sparks knitted her hair like golden yarn. She walked towards me, her white feet bare on the wet grass. She wore a white dress and spoke to my ear, she said: “I am about to tell you who murdered me”. As she came closer, I could smell the perfume of a little red flower she was carrying on her lapel. I tried to speak, but she stared at me, her sky blue eyes crossed with white clouds flying fast. She then pronounced some words, but I could not hear them, for a strong wind was blowing. The breeze had become a violent gale. She remained imperturbable. I had to throw myself down to the ground to keep from being blown away. Branches flew over my head, even trees uprooted whole, and black clouds covered the sky. But Rebeca didn’t even get a pleat on her dress. The storm ceased and there was only her and me on a barren moor under a leaden sky. Rebeca slowly opened her lips and said: “One day you’ll understand it all”. I woke up then, in terror.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You should not play with your sister’s pills.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You never take things seriously, do you?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Nobody killed Rebeca.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m not so sure now.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Have you lost your mind, brother? Be reasonable. It was not murder. She climbed to the top of a tower under construction. She was willing to die. She jumped. Are you questioning that today because of a stupid, surreal dream? Open your eyes! We all have dreamt some time that we fly, but in the morning we don’t try to raise our feet from the ground, cross the window and float away.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What are you talking about? This is completely unlike that. It was like a message.

YOUNG MAN 2.– No, you want to believe it was a message. You try to find a meaning to Rebeca’s death, but she committed suicide. She’s taken her reasons to the grave, and now we will never know.

LADY.– Please drop it.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Then I swear to God I’ll find out the reason why she did it.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You know it, only you don’t accept it.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You’re wrong, I ignore it. I can’t remember how long I have been wondering.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Rebeca was not happy.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Nonsense.

YOUNG MAN 2.– She wasn’t happy. Why do you think she started off these meaningless, never-ending works? She needed something to fill up her time.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Are you suggesting anything?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Will you stop taking everything personally? I’m not attacking you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m not so sure.

YOUNG MAN 2.– That’s how it was: Rebeca was bored. She wanted to learn to play the piano and now, how many pianos have we got? It was always the same, she had to do everything big time. Then she came up with this refurbishment: so void and so infinite and so out of proportion. And then she also read, she read a lot, she read for hours.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What’s wrong with reading?

YOUNG MAN 2.– She read for evasion.

YOUNG MAN 1.– She read for leisure.

LADY.– She wrote too.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Did she?

LADY.– Yes... but...

YOUNG MAN 1.– I never knew. But what?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Say it.

LADY.– ...but she never finished anything.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Yet another frustration! She had as many as pianos.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You always act the same.

YOUNG MAN 2.– How?

YOUNG MAN 1.– You’re always so negative.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m realistic. And I’m logical. I’ve given you reasons, brother, whether you like them or not. You have to accept them, ‘cause Rebeca killed herself and took her reasons away. She killed them. So stop insisting. Stop trying to find them, ‘cause when you insist and do not find them, you end up dreaming that she was secretly murdered instead. Things would be easier. Her killer would be a living person you could question and blame and punish, someone with a motive you could learn. Only this time all motives have been hid forever: they got buried with Rebeca. The motives for your dream, however, are crystal clear.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You don’t know me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’ve known you since the day I was born.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Drop it! You have no right to judge me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Accept it: everything that has a beginning has an end. That’s the way of the world.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You’re disgusting.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Why?

YOUNG MAN 1.– For speaking like that. For interfering.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What do you mean?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Between Rebeca and me.

LADY.– Shut up! It was Rebeca who interfered.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Pardon?

LADY.– Between us. It’s Rebeca we always quarrel about.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Our sister is right. We can’t stand each other -because of Rebeca.

YOUNG MAN 1.– It’s not Rebeca! It’s not Rebeca! It’s not Rebeca!

YOUNG MAN 2.– No, it’s not Rebeca. It’s this house, this damn house... When our parents lived it was a boarding school, all ties and table manners, and no-one ever cared whether this was a home or not. Then they died, but we were lucky that Rebeca had turned up, warming the house with her laughter resounding from the staircase’s marble to the empty rooms... And for what? Only to awaken envy and suspicion and resentment and to liven up regrets and feelings that are anything but fraternal. Now that Rebeca has died, and it’s no wonder she did in this house that was like a cage to her bird-like soul, all that remain are jealousy and remorse and everything else is gone.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I must admit it is... a good way to word it.

YOUNG MAN 2.– But this is over. I’m leaving too. I postponed this decision for too long but now it’s final, I’m going away, I’m getting a life, a LIFE outside these walls that feel like ribs pressing hard against my lungs, this house where three siblings dwell but no human being lives, nobody could live here, no-one does. I’ll fly away somewhere, I don’t mind running my boat aground anywhere away from here, away so I’ll only remember this wax museum in nightmares, away, away, away.

YOUNG MAN 1.– So what are you waiting for?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I beg your pardon?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Go on, leave.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Wait...

LADY.– Please stop it.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You said you don’t care. Go away!

YOUNG MAN 2.– I plan to do it!

YOUNG MAN 1.– That is your problem: you’ve planned it. You’ve been saying you’re leaving for three, five, ten years, so why are you still here? You never left when our parents died, or when Rebeca died, what are you waiting for? No-one else is going to die here, your brother and sister will eternally dwell in this wood-panelled morgue like ghosts haunting a house where terrible things happened, but you? You’re leaving, go ahead and leave, you’re free, you’ve always been free, not in your actions of course, in this boarding school of rules and uniforms, but free of thought, oh yes, that is your problem, you think...

LADY.– Stop fighting!

YOUNG MAN 1.– ...you judge, you decide what is bad from what is wrong so you can then throw up on us all your enlightened prophet’s transcendental speech-shaped shit, there you are, pondering and planning, always and above all planning your great future that never comes because you can’t stop thinking and step forward, go ahead, set one foot in front of the other, then the next one, and repeat the process without thinking, once and again until you reach through the threshold, out the door and out the house and into the future that awaits you far from here. Go!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Oh, you’re so predictable!

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– You always believed I came to this world to overshadow you. When you were a single child, you were the centre of attention. Then came your sister, but of course you could not possibly hate her. It’s logical! It’s logical you had to hate me.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Forget about logic! God!

YOUNG MAN 2.– You forget about God. You always believed anything they told you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Don’t be blasphemous.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sceptical.

YOUNG MAN 1.– And logical, right?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I find no reason to believe in anything.

YOUNG MAN 1.– By logic, someone had to create all of this.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What? A half-made house?

YOUNG MAN 1.– The world!

YOUNG MAN 2.– And is that a reason to worship him? What is there to admire in the act of creation? All works are full of imperfections, and this world is no exception.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You must be one of those imperfections.

LADY.– Oh, please!

YOUNG MAN 2.– However, no creator took the trouble to erase me.

LADY.– Stop.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Nothing lasts forever.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Nope, and things do change.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Except this house. That’s why you’re leaving.

LADY.– Stop it! How can you talk to each other like that? It’s monstrous! For God’s sake, you are brothers! Rebeca is gone, can’t you just forgive each other and forget?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca has nothing to do with this. The conflict is older. He has always attacked me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Attack you? Please! Why should I bother? You are my elder brother. Your superiority is impregnable.

LADY.– Enough! It’s Rebeca who made you like this. You can stop it now.

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Rebeca who made us like this”?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Don’t worry. It’s always the same old argument.

LADY.– No, it cannot always be the same one, you cannot possibly talk about the same thing all the time, that would not affect you but through weariness –no, you keep improving your weaponry, your words are sharper every time you take them from those sheaths you have for throats; thus we accumulate wounds over scars. On the outside we’re kept perfect like embalmed corpses, but on the inside our seams are throbbing as if doctor Frankenstein himself had forged our souls with lightning and hammer.

YOUNG MAN 2.– It’s the same old argument, always.

LADY.– You cannot have the same conversation over and over again. Not even one unique conversation is always the same, for even a conversation we once heard and now remember is never the same conversation we then heard and actually took place. So don’t tell me it’s always the same one.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You’d know if you just listened to one of your speeches. You could repeat the same sermon every day and we wouldn’t notice the difference.

LADY.– A conversation is even less faithful if you transcribe it and then read it or listen to it. Words are then ropes that tie us up to things we did not say, or did not mean to: not those in particular, not exactly that way. The written word bounds the reader to an incomplete thought, even more when whoever is writing, or transcribing, is mistaken or interpreting or just not literal, or if later the reader skips parts or jumps ahead... [YOUNG MAN 2 exhales a bored sigh and exits.] Or if he’s not paying attention! We already pay little attention to people who talk to us, even less to our reading -its requirement is less demanding, we can always go back. But we never do. Conversations remain shreds of memories like puzzles we can’t rebuild, for they always miss some pieces. They are puzzles even from the moment they are spoken and what’s said is not what is needed or intended, and instead they become whatever is unintentionally said, which sometimes is almost everything. So don’t tell me it is always the same argument, for neither the words nor the moment are ever the same.

YOUNG MAN 1.– The moment. What’s the importance of the moment in this house where time has stopped? Look around you, my sister. Has anything changed in the years you have been living? The same old doors, the same old paintings, the same old wine stain on the corner of the carpet that the sofa cannot hide. While mom and dad lived, nothing ever changed in this world of rules and locks, and nothing ever changed after they died. Rebeca did arrive, yes, just a wisp of cool breeze in the locked room. She came like a revolution with her swarm of workers moving doors and staircases, but she ended up stagnant air herself and vanished. What did she leave behind in this house out of time? An unfinished refurbishment and hardly a memory, and memories don’t know about calendars or clocks. Nobody comes and nobody leaves here because that would set before and after, but physics have forgotten this house lost in the middle of nowhere...

LADY.– Brother.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

LADY.– Do you think...?

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

LADY.– Do you think there is anything left out there?

YOUNG MAN 1.– What do you mean?

LADY.– The world. We have not been out for so long...

YOUNG MAN 1.– Pardon?

LADY.– Will it still exist?

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

LADY.– Everything!

YOUNG MAN 1.– Where else could they all be?

LADY.– Who?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Everyone!

LADY.– I don’t know. But who?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Everyone...

LADY.– Who do you remember?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I don’t know.

LADY.– Who is the last person you remember?

YOUNG MAN 1.– It’s Rebeca.

LADY.– Before her.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I cannot remember anyone else.

LADY.– What are you saying?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I cannot remember anyone else.

LADY.– You must remember our parents.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Oh, yes, our parents. I could hardly remember that I had forgotten them.

LADY.– They got sick...

YOUNG MAN 1.– Where did they go?

LADY.– ...and they died. Do you remember?

YOUNG MAN 1.– No. Yes.

LADY.– There were doctors.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Yes.

LADY.– Can’t you remember anyone else?

YOUNG MAN 1.– There had to be workers.

LADY.– Workers, yes! There were woodcrafters and plumbers.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Glaziers and builders.

LADY.– Architects and painters.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I don’t remember any of them.

LADY.– Neither do I.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Where did they go?

LADY.– They left after Rebeca died.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Yes, they all left.

LADY.– She was the one who hired them.

YOUNG MAN 1.– The one who gave them instructions.

LADY.– The one who knew them by their names.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Which were their names? What were they called?

LADY.– I don’t know. I can’t remember.

YOUNG MAN 1.– “They left after Rebeca died...”

YOUNG MAN 2.– [Enters, visibly upset] Where?

LADY.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– How do you...?

LADY.– Are you alright?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Where is the door?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Which door?

YOUNG MAN 2.– The exit, fuck it!

LADY.– Are you really leaving?

YOUNG MAN 1.– What are you talking about?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I can’t get out of here.

LADY.– You can’t...?

YOUNG MAN 2.– How the hell does one get out of this house?

[Silence]

LADY.– I don’t remember.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What do you mean? What’s going on? You are not making any sense! [Exits]

LADY.– Where are you going?

YOUNG MAN 2.– You won’t get out!

LADY.– What happened?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Sister, think: where’s the main door?

LADY.– “Where is...?”

YOUNG MAN 2.– Think! Where’s the main door?

LADY.– What is wrong with you? I don’t know!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Where’s the door!

LADY.– Let me go, you’re hurting me!

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sorry!

LADY.– You hurt me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sorry.

LADY.– What’s wrong with you?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Nothing! I said I’m sorry.

LADY.– It’s this music room... You already knew it, did you?

YOUNG MAN 2.– This is not a music room.

LADY.– “This is not...” What is it? [She looks around. Finds a framed picture.] That’s Rebeca and... you.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Yes. I want to leave.

LADY.– What is this doing here? What does it mean?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Leave that alone.

LADY.– Oh... Oh. I understand.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I want to get out of here.

LADY.– We do not need to get out at all. We are happy here.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Happy?

LADY.– The pantries are full of preserves.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I want out.

LADY.– Why?

YOUNG MAN 2.– “Why”? Why would I stay?

LADY.– “Why would you stay”?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I have no ties here.

LADY.– You have no ties outside. You’ve always been a free spirit. You have no ties.

YOUNG MAN 2.– The walls of this house do tie me down. I need to find the door!

LADY.– The door. It’s been so long since I’ve been out...

YOUNG MAN 2.– There must be a door somewhere!

LADY.– Of course. Just as in any other house.

YOUNG MAN 2.– This never was a house “like any other house”, sister.

LADY.– The door might be under construction.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Under construction?

LADY.– Yes.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You mean Rebeca locked us in?

LADY.– No, she would not do that.

YOUNG MAN 2.– She would not kill herself and that’s just what she did.

YOUNG MAN 1.– [Entering] She did not.

LADY.– Please don’t start the argument again.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What are you hiding there?

LADY.– Nothing.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Did you find anything?

YOUNG MAN 1.– There are no exits. At least I can’t find them. The house is a maze.

LADY.– The construction workers may have closed the old exit before they built a new one.

YOUNG MAN 1.– The workers left us to our fate.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Don’t be absurd. They had to leave through somewhere.

YOUNG MAN 1.– They locked us from the outside, then.

LADY.– Why would they do such a thing?

YOUNG MAN 1.– They wanted to keep the money without finishing the job. We do not know if Rebeca got to pay them.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Who’s being negative now?

LADY.– She was the one who gave them instructions. When she died, they did not know what to do.

YOUNG MAN 1.– They could have asked us.

YOUNG MAN 2.– They didn’t even know we existed.

LADY.– “We existed”? Why the past tense?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Well, what year is it?

LADY.– What?

YOUNG MAN 1.– “What year”?

YOUNG MAN 2.– How long it’s been?

LADY.– Since when?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Since Rebeca died. At least a year.

LADY.– ¿Two years?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Six years.

LADY.– I don’t know.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Oh no, no way, no...

LADY.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Are we even alive?

LADY.– What?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Stop talking nonsense.

YOUNG MAN 2.– We must be dead. Was it Rebeca who fell from the unfinished tower? Why do I have such a clear picture of the accident? The yellow reflections of the sun on the deep blue pond, the wood planks against the frame of soft green garden, the white security railing and her red dress floating into emptiness as she crossed it... Who put those pictures in my mind?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Son of a bitch! You did it!

YOUNG MAN 2.– What?

YOUNG MAN 1.– You did it!

LADY.– No!

YOUNG MAN 2.– You’ve gone mad.

LADY.– Let him go!

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m going to kill you!

LADY.– Stop it! I...

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m going to kill you!

LADY.– I remember it too!

YOUNG MAN 1.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– You see?

YOUNG MAN 1.– What did you just say?

LADY.– You must remember as well.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No. I...

YOUNG MAN 2.– It was us up there. We remember it the other way round.

LADY.– He’s right.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No. He must be wrong.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Why? It could have happened the other way round. We three were on top of the unfinished tower. We fell...

YOUNG MAN 1.– All three?

LADY.– Rebeca might still be alive.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca is dead. We’re not. Don’t be ridiculous. We never went to the tower.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Are you sure?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Why would we go there?

LADY.– He has a point. We never got involved in the works.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Plus, I get vertigo.

LADY.– We don’t even go outside.

YOUNG MAN 2.– So...

YOUNG MAN 1.– So?

LADY.– So we must be dead from long before that.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What are you saying?

LADY.– Our parents got sick and died. But we forgot them. We can’t remember anyone else. Maybe we got sick too.

YOUNG MAN 2.– We got sick and...

LADY.– Sickness itself must have confused our memories. Since then, we don’t remember anyone else.

YOUNG MAN 2.– So Rebeca?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Will you stop saying we are dead? It’s the silliest idea I’ve ever heard.

LADY.– The house was uninhabited. Someone had to buy it. A girl. A young, eager girl.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Beautiful like spring’s first sunrays.

LADY.– The house was hers, so she could use it as she pleased. So she started a restoration. But we returned. And haunted her. We wanted to go on living here. But we never touched her. We never were really with her.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Of course I was with her. She was my fiancée.

LADY.– You never were with her, brother.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What do you mean?

LADY.– I know that much. I’m sorry.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You can’t be serious.

YOUNG MAN 2.– That explains a lot.

LADY.– Yes. [She looks at the back of the picture frame that she hid from YOUNG MAN 1.] We are learning a lot today.

YOUNG MAN 2.– [Appreciating her intentions.] Shut up.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Yes, shut up. It hurts.

LADY.– Accept it, brother. You were not her fiancé. You were an apparition. A nightmare.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I don’t believe you, I don’t want to believe you.

LADY.– You too. Your visits sure were a torture to Rebeca.

YOUNG MAN 2.– He’s told you to shut up.

LADY.– Until the day came when she couldn’t stand it and she killed herself. That’s why we remember it. Because our spirits travelled there with her. Because it was us who pushed her to the edge of the abyss.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Never.

LADY.– After her death, they must have closed down the house. That’s why we can’t find an exit.

YOUNG MAN 2.– No way, no, you can’t be right.

LADY.– Why not?

YOUNG MAN 2.– ‘Cause there’d be a blocked door somewhere.

LADY.– That does not prove a thing.

YOUNG MAN 2.– So what are we? Ghosts?

LADY.– Ghosts?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Why should we be?

LADY.– I don’t know. Unresolved matters, they say.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I don’t have any unresolved matter. I don’t care about any of this, I don’t care about this house, I don’t care, I feel like someone cut me out with scissors from somewhere else and stuck me in here. I’ve wanted to leave this hell for too long; I never held any wish to stay within these walls. Everything repeats itself in here like there was nothing else outside. We’re the echo of people we once were and stopped being, as if we had forgotten how to follow on. We remember the accident so sharply because we’ve told it to ourselves a thousand times. We talk about nothing else. And even though words go with the wind and are the source of misunderstanding, [ironic for a second] and though the conversation we once heard and now remember is never the one we actually heard and took place, sister, the image remains, the scenes so often described and imagined and probably dreamt get imprinted like fire burns on our memories. We believe we remember things we haven’t seen because of words pronounced too many times. And why am I still talking about it? I must be going crazy.

LADY.– We must be going crazy, yes. I don’t understand what you are talking about, I don’t understand a word at all.

YOUNG MAN 2.– We must get out of here.

YOUNG MAN 1.– We’ll find an exit.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Let’s split.

LADY.– Where are you going? I don’t want to be left alone.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Wait for us here.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’ll come back for you.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Don’t leave this room.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Good luck, brother.

[Both YOUNG MEN leave through opposite sides. The LADY remains still, scared. She looks around; picks up the frame with the portrait of Rebeca and YOUNG MAN 2. She stares at it, deep in thought. Then, determined, she decides to find further secrets. She opens closets and drawers, searches behind screens and desks, below tables and staircases. She finds a small toy: a piece of furniture from a doll house. She examines it, then looks around: it is a scale reproduction of a piece in the music room. She places the toy on top, as if to appreciate the resemblance. Then, she goes on searching. She pulls a drawer firmly but it won’t open: it seems locked. Behind a different door in that cupboard, she finds a typing machine. Below it, in a different drawer, a stack of printed paper. She takes it; blows the dust; reads.]

LADY.– “Everything has a reason and a purpose. Nothing is casual. Every single thing that happens in this world is preceded by hundreds of thousands of millions of events that influence, condition, stimulate, affect and eventually provoke effects that, no matter how unexpected, how excessive or how arbitrary they may seem, would have been perfectly predictable had we known beforehand all of those uncountable factors. We could thus go infinitely back to the day the ball started rolling and this whole inertia was set up once and forever. Free will is the name we give to ignorance, a deep, insurmountable yet often voluntary unawareness of these processes that lead us to do things we will inevitably do whether we want to or not. Call it the butterfly effect, or fate if you will, or domino effect, but it is the first and only universal law: action-reaction. Cause and effect.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– [Enters] Sister? Is that you?

LADY.– You’re back already?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Here again... I’ve been walking in circles!

LADY.– Did you find the exit?

YOUNG MAN 1.– No, I found nothing, I don’t even know how I got back here again. I see you’ve been doing some searching yourself.

LADY.– Yes.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What did you find?

LADY.– One text by Rebeca, a draft, I think. I don’t quite understand what it says. It was next to a typing machine, in that cupboard. One of the drawers is locked.

[YOUNG MAN 1 walks to the drawer and tries to open it, but fails.]

LADY.– I found that toy as well.

[YOUNG MAN 1 comes closer and stares at the miniature, and the piece of furniture that holds it.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– It’s identical.

LADY.– It is. I don’t know what it means.

YOUNG MAN 1.– [Holds the toy on his hand for an instant, then crushes it into splinters in his fist.] God! This is what we are! We’re toys in a doll house! And Rebeca is the spoiled child who’s been playing us. She’s played us for years, making up stories, driving us mad. She made us friends at the table and foes at love, like characters in a paperback novel. Changing the furniture and moving walls in this never-ending construction: her unfinished masterpiece. She changed us too. She shaped us into the characters in her mind, killing our parents, modifying out pasts, until eventually she got sick and put her dollhouse away into a cardboard box.

YOUNG MAN 2.– [Enters] What are you talking about?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Nothing, I’m talking about nothing! [He throws the splinters away.] Nothing makes any sense.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You’re wrong. Everything must make sense, we only have to figure it out. Everything has a reason and a purpose. Nothing is casual. Every single thing that happens in this world is preceded by hundreds of thousands of millions of events that influence, condition, stimulate, affect and eventually provoke effects that, no matter how unexpected, how excessive or how arbitrary they may seem, would have been perfectly predictable had we known beforehand all of those uncountable factors. We could thus go infinitely back to the day the ball started rolling and this whole inertia was set up once and forever. Free will is the name we give to ignorance, a deep, insurmountable yet often voluntary unawareness of these processes that lead us to do things we will inevitably do whether we want to or not. Call it the butterfly effect, or fate if you will, or domino effect, but it is the first and only universal law: action-reaction. Cause and effect. This must make sense. It has to. Everything happens for a reason.

[The LADY has been examining both her brother and the pages she still holds in her hands.]

LADY.– Why did you say that?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Yes, why do you throw that speech at us?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Because we cannot surrender, we have to find a meaning to what is going on.

LADY.– Those words... Had you read them before?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Which words? What are you talking about? Sister, we have to get out of here.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Did you find an exit?

YOUNG MAN 2.– No.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Our sister found something.

LADY.– That’s what I was trying to tell you. This text...

YOUNG MAN 1.– It’s by Rebeca. Rebeca used this room. And one of the drawers is locked.

[YOUNG MAN 2 examines the locked drawer. It won’t open. The LADY is still following their words on her text.]

LADY.– Hush, for God’s sake, it is all here! Everything is here!

[YOUNG MAN 2 takes out a key and opens the drawer.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– Where did you get that key?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Rebeca had it on her when she died. I’ve been keeping it since.

LADY.– Boys, listen to me...

YOUNG MAN 1.– What’s inside?

YOUNG MAN 2.– A gun.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Why did Rebeca keep a gun?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I told you. She intended to kill herself.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Or kill us.

YOUNG MAN 2.–Why would she want to kill us?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Give it to me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Why?

YOUNG MAN 1.– It’s dangerous.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Of course it’s dangerous.

LADY.– No, please, don’t go there.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Give it to me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– It won’t be any safer in your hands.

LADY.– Stop it! Listen!

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m telling you. Give me!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Leave me alone!

LADY.– Stay put!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Don’t touch me, I think it’s loaded.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Here!

[YOUNG MAN 1 gets the gun.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– Who are you shooting with that?

YOUNG MAN 1.– No-one.

YOUNG MAN 2.– So what do you want it for? Drop it.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Never.

YOUNG MAN 2.– So you’re intending to use it. Who are you shooting with that?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I don’t know yet. Why don’t you deduce it? Why don’t you figure it out?

YOUNG MAN 2.– What?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Cause and effect. You know how we got here. You should be able to figure out what comes next.

YOUNG MAN 2.– No, I can’t, I don’t... know... how we got here. Stop talking nonsense. Give me that.

LADY.– [Looking at the text] For God’s sake, don’t go on!

YOUNG MAN 1.– Calm down, I wasn’t intending to use it.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m telling you to give me that.

LADY.– Don’t go on! It’s all in here! You’re going to get hurt!

YOUNG MAN 1.– Why? It’s mine now.

YOUNG MAN 2.– “It’s yours”?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Yes! Mine!

YOUNG MAN 2.– It would not be the first thing I took from you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– But it would be the last one. Bastard!

LADY.– No! Hold it!

[They fight. The LADY tries to pull them apart.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– You’re nuts. I won’t let you around with that.

[In a shove, the LADY’s pages are blown into the air.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– Come take it if you feel that manly.

[A shot bangs; its echoes resound in the sudden silence.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– Damn it.

[YOUNG MAN 1 drops dead.]

LADY.– Did you kill him?

YOUNG MAN 2.– He would not let go.

LADY.– You killed him.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I only wanted to protect you.

LADY.– You killed your own brother!

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sorry!

LADY.– Why? Tell me! Why?

YOUNG MAN 2.– It went off, I wasn’t intending...

LADY.– Why?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I don’t know!

LADY.– Why did he have to die?

YOUNG MAN 2.– It doesn’t have a reason. Is that what you want to hear me say? It happened and it doesn’t have a reason. Now help me get him out of here.

LADY.– No.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What do you mean, “no”? Help me!

LADY.– I won’t!

YOUNG MAN 2.– What’s wrong with you?

LADY.– I don’t want to get out. I’m scared.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Scared of what? Help me, damn it. Help me, he’s dead.

LADY.– I feel safe in here. I don’t want to roam the house. It scares me. Take him away, and don’t tell me where. I don’t want to remember. I won’t know how to find him. [YOUNG MAN 2 drags the body away.] The house is like a vague dream. I remember this house as if someone had mentioned it, as if it had never existed but in words. Words are the source of misunderstanding, but they never come up when you need them. I would like to have words to honour the death of my brother, but I cannot find any. There should be more words, so at least some of them would be suitable to say goodbye. There are none, because they are nothing. The essence is in the things: one piano, one kiss, one bullet. One house. I don’t like the essence of this house. I remember it as if it had been mentioned to me, as if it had never existed but in words. [YOUNG MAN 2 enters] Where did you take him?

YOUNG MAN 2.– You asked me not to tell you.

LADY.– You should not listen to everything I say.

[The LADY compulsively picks up the pages, in complete disarray.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– Why are you being so aggressive to me?

LADY.– “Why”, you ask? Always, you always had to fight, and now look, look where that’s taken us!

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sorry...

LADY.– And I am being aggressive? I am aggressive to you?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Please don’t hate me ...

LADY.– I should kill you! [She picks up the gun, not aiming.] If the world was just I should go mad and put a bullet through that stupid fat head of yours that always, always has to say the last word, always has to have it your way, always has to be right, as if you were above the sad weaknesses of human error.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Sister, please...

LADY.– Well you’re human! You were brought forth by the same woman as me and your brother, that dead brother you’ve taken away and you won’t tell me where!

YOUNG MAN 2.– [Crying] You asked me not to tell you.

LADY.– And when did you ever obey anything you were told? When? Rebel! Dwarf! Retard!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Sister, please... don’t talk to me like that, please... Let’s forget it all. Talk to me like back then, when we were children... Tell me about that future that would always be, remember? Promises of trips and adventures. Talk to me like you still believed things are going to change for the better. Talk to me like we were happy.

[The LADY stares into his eyes. Then she slaps him across the face.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– Sister...!

LADY.– Don’t touch me. [Her words awake YOUNG MAN 2 to reality: it’s not him who’s in need of comfort.] I don’t want you to mark me with your brother’s blood.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Please calm down.

LADY.– Don’t touch me! Don’t talk to me.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Calm down. You are on your nerves.

LADY.– Given the circumstances, I would say I’m perfectly fit.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’ll get you some sedatives. [Exits]

LADY.– I have no need for drugs. I feel like I had never slept and would never need to sleep again. [She scans the page in front of her and reads] “Come take it if you feel that manly. A shot bangs; its echoes resound in the sudden silence. Damn it. Did you kill him?” What else is coming on, what else? [She browses other pages.] I don’t know the order. “Thank you. This is the first beautiful thing that’s happened to me this week. And it’s Friday already.” God, it is all in here! [She finds a new page; reads it to herself, then, sceptical, pronounces carefully] “I did not kill her, no, but how I wish I had. I frequently imagined her demise. The times I threw her down the staircase! Every night Rebeca rolled down the stairs to the entrance hall and broke her neck. I stayed upstairs, at the balustrade, looking at her twisted body, the fractured angle of her spine.” [Scared, she throws the pages back into their drawer and closes it. She cries. She holds herself. Takes a deep breath. She recovers her composure. Trying to gather strength, she starts humming something.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.

LADY.– I didn’t know you where there.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I would not dare to interrupt.

LADY.– [reacting] You’re alive...

YOUNG MAN 1.– It was beautiful.

LADY.– Thank God.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No, thank you. This is the first beautiful thing that’s happened to me this week. And it’s Friday already.

LADY.– But how? I saw you with these eyes...

YOUNG MAN 1.– Indeed.

LADY.– Where have you been?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I never left the house. I got lost. Fortunately I found a kitchen. I never knew we had a kitchen in the South wing.

LADY.– We have three. What? Listen!

YOUNG MAN 1.– So many?

LADY.– You were dead.

YOUNG MAN 1.– This is absurd.

LADY.– You were dead, listen to me!

YOUNG MAN 1.– What for?

LADY.– “What for”? For... God! Stop talking just a second please.

YOUNG MAN 1.– There’s nothing better to do.

[The LADY breaks down and weeps. During her silence, YOUNG MAN 1 remains on hold, waiting for her to feed him lines, but the lines won’t come. The LADY becomes aware of the silence. Drying her tears, she opens the drawer and gets Rebeca’s draft. She browses the pages, finds her line, and reads hopelessly]

LADY.– “Better than what?”

YOUNG MAN 1.– Better than getting lost.

LADY.– “If we finished the works, we would not have a music room lost in the middle of nowhere.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– I never knew we had a music room either.

LADY.– “Neither did I. I found it this morning.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– It was your voice that brought me here.

[Upon reading her next line, the LADY decides to tear the page into pieces. Still, in rage, she utters]

LADY.– “Sometimes I sing when I’m feeling sad.”

[YOUNG MAN 1 seems to come out of his trance, speechless. YOUNG MAN 2 enters, but before he can say his line, the LADY tears out more pages, leaving him out of words. In her rage, she keeps repeating her line.]

LADY.– “Sometimes I sing when I’m feeling sad.” “Sometimes I sing when I’m feeling sad.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– You never sang.

LADY.– What?

YOUNG MAN 2.– You can’t sing. You’ve always wanted to sing. You can’t.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca would have liked you to sing for her.

LADY.– [Remembering.] I never did.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You never sang.

LADY.– She would have liked me to sing.

YOUNG MAN 1.– She might have built this music room for you.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Rebeca would have liked you to sing.

LADY.– She would have imagined me like that.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Imagined?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I don’t understand.

LADY.– That’s it. She would have imagined us like that. A sensible, reliable man as her fiancé. A sweet beautiful girl as her friend.

YOUNG MAN 1.– A handsome rebel young man as her lover.

YOUNG MAN 2.– I’m sorry, brother. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

YOUNG MAN 1.– It was not you.

LADY.– She imagined us like that.

YOUNG MAN 2.– She imagined us?

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca imagined us.

LADY.– She imagined us incomplete. My life is not a life. It’s the loose threads of a life. It is full of unconnected fragments. It is empty. I remember everything since she arrived. Since she began imagining us, writing us. But what do we have before that? Hollows, gaps, spaces... nothing.

YOUNG MAN 2.– But I do remember things before Rebeca, I remember...

LADY.– What.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Our parents...

LADY.– What were their names?

YOUNG MAN 2.– “What were their names”?

LADY.– She never got to write that part. She wrote us a past, but she never went into detail.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Our parents were called...

YOUNG MAN 1.– Neither our parents, nor the doctors, nor the workers... Nameless secondary characters.

LADY.– She wrote this house...

YOUNG MAN 1.– ...but she never went into detail. This damn house...

LADY.– “...is like a vague dream.”

[They remember their own lines. They read some of them from fragments of paper.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– “The same old doors, the same old paintings.”

LADY.– “It’s Rebeca who made you like this.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Nobody comes and nobody leaves.”

LADY.– “She imagined us like that.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “She’s played us for years, making up stories.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “...like someone cut me out with scissors from somewhere else and stuck me in here.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “She made us friends at the table and foes at love...”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “Always the same old argument.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “...like characters in a paperback novel.”

LADY.– “I remember this house as if someone had mentioned it...”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Has anything changed in the years you have been living?”

LADY.– “...as if it had never existed but in words.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “She shaped us into the characters in her mind, killing our parents, modifying out pasts.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “Everything repeats itself in here...”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “I’ve been walking in circles.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “...like there was nothing else outside.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Someone had to create all of this.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “Who put those pictures in my mind?”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Eventually she got sick and put her dollhouse away into a cardboard box.”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “...like someone would have imagined us like that.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “This never-ending construction:”

YOUNG MAN 2.– “These meaningless, never-ending works.”

YOUNG MAN 1.– “Her unfinished masterpiece.”

LADY.– That explains a lot.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Nothing makes any sense.

LADY.– No, it doesn’t indeed, but never mind. Everything that has a beginning has an end. After so many years, it has to end.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Right! Everything has an end.

LADY.– An end, after so many years.

YOUNG MAN 2.– That’s the way of the world.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What world are you talking about? We haven’t even found the door yet.

YOUNG MAN 2.– It doesn’t matter. All this must have had a beginning.

LADY.– ...even if we’re unable to remember.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I do remember. You sang.

YOUNG MAN 2.– She can’t sing. But I mean earlier than that. If I knew how everything started, I’d know how it’s going to end. I could predict the outcome.

YOUNG MAN 1.– The outcome? Don’t be pathetic. Do you really believe life can only end one way? Do you still insist on that? It’s amazing, you’ll never change!

LADY.– No, please, not again.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Right.

YOUNG MAN 1.– No, it’s not right!

YOUNG MAN 2.– Shut up, I’m not talking about that. It’s right, our sister is right. We’re here again.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Where?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Back where we started. Don’t you have that feeling?

LADY.– Which feeling?

YOUNG MAN 2.– The feeling we lived through this before.

LADY.– Of course we lived this before. We’ve been living in circles. But that is over now. The text does not exist anymore. Whatever may come, it must be new. The rest, our former everything, from now on, will only be memories. Impossible memories to erase because we’ve lived them once and a thousand times. But never again. The death of our parents, never again. Rebeca’s accident, never again, the house, the workers, the gun, none of that will ever happen again.

YOUNG MAN 1.– How do you know all that?

LADY.– I don’t know how I know. I speak of things I know and remember like I know and remember the accident... even when I was not even there. Still I do remember, you know? I think I remembered the accident even before it happened.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Sister.

YOUNG MAN 1.– What do you mean?

YOUNG MAN 2.– Did you know it was going to happen?

LADY.– It happened as it had to. I always imagined it like that, her crossing the horizon in a red dress towards the pond. That’s how I always dreamt it. I imagined every detail.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You killed her?

LADY.– I did not kill her, no, but how I wish I had. I frequently imagined her demise. The times I threw her down the staircase! Every night Rebeca rolled down the stairs to the entrance hall and broke her neck. I stayed upstairs, at the balustrade, looking at her twisted body, the crooked angle of her spine. She rolled down the stairs and ended up very still against the checkerboard floor, a different pose every night. It was insufficient. I needed to make sure she would die. Then I started taking her up to the tower top. Every time I closed my eyes I saw an unfinished tower. I didn’t even know if this house had a tower.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Does it?

YOUNG MAN 2.– None that I can recall.

LADY.– Everything seemed clearer from up there. A horizon without Rebeca. She would fall and break her swan-like neck and those infinite legs and that harpy face masked as an angel that mesmerized you both. She would be back no more, the icon, the idol you adored, fallen and shattered would never again enter our home, nor our life, nor our beds, goodbye, goodbye to the manipulative intruder, goodbye to the usurper lover. It happened as it had to, as I always knew it would be. I had imagined it.

YOUNG MAN 2.– You had “imagined it”?

LADY.– I imagined a music room.

YOUNG MAN 1.– You did not imagine that! It actually happened. You sang. It was your voice that brought me here.

LADY.– Sometimes I sing when I’m feeling sad.

YOUNG MAN 1.– In all these years, I never heard you sing.

LADY.– I sing when I’m feeling lonely.

YOUNG MAN 1.– Don’t worry. Darker secrets have been kept in this house.

YOUNG MAN 2.– Damn it! You’re doing it again!

[YOUNG MAN 2 walks to the cupboard and opens one, two, three drawers.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– Oh, shut up. You make my head ache.

LADY.– Are you alright?

YOUNG MAN 1.– I didn’t sleep well last night. I had a nightmare.

LADY.– You don’t look well.

YOUNG MAN 1.– I dreamt Rebeca was alive.

[YOUNG MAN 2 finds a new manuscript.]

YOUNG MAN 2.– Some copies remain. [He destroys it.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– Rebeca was facing me and speaking. The cloudless sky was crystal blue.

LADY.– [Out of her trance.] What are you doing?

YOUNG MAN 2.– I try to find all the drafts.

LADY.– Drafts? How many?

YOUNG MAN 1.– A fresh mint breeze was blowing, and sun sparks knitted her hair like golden yarn. She walked towards me, her white feet bare on the wet grass.

[While YOUNG MAN 1 speaks, YOUNG MAN 2 finds another draft. He destroys it. His effort is useless: YOUNG MAN 1 keeps talking. The LADY stares.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– She wore a white dress and spoke to my ear, she said: “I am about to tell you who murdered me”. As she came closer, I could smell the perfume of a little red flower she was carrying on her lapel.

[YOUNG MAN 2 frantically returns the pieces to the drawer and keeps on searching. The LADY opens the cupboard where she found the miniature. It’s there again. She takes it out carefully, looks at it against the light, and finally places it on the piece of furniture it represents, as she did before.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– I tried to speak, but she stared at me, her sky blue eyes crossed with white clouds flying fast. She then pronounced some words, but I could not hear them, for a strong wind was blowing. The breeze had become a violent gale.

[The LADY opens the drawer where she found the first text. It’s back there again.]

LADY.– The same draft.

YOUNG MAN 2.– [Too busy to pay attention.] What?

LADY.– The same draft. This is the same copy.

YOUNG MAN 1.– She remained imperturbable. I had to throw myself on to the ground to keep from being blown away. Branches flew over my head, even trees uprooted whole, and black clouds covered the sky. But Rebeca didn’t even get a pleat on her dress.

YOUNG MAN 2.– What does that mean?

[Determined, the LADY picks up the gun, points it at YOUNG MAN 2 and shoots.]

YOUNG MAN 1.– The storm ceased and there was only her and me on a barren moor under a leaden sky. Rebeca slowly opened her lips and said: “One day you’ll understand it all”.

[The LADY shoots YOUNG MAN 1. As he falls, his body, like YOUNG MAN 2’s, disappears into the shadows. The LADY puts the gun away, still smoking, into its drawer. Slowly, methodically, she puts away the typing machine, closes the cupboards, destroys the miniature. Everything is left as it looked at the beginning. Once more, the LADY starts to sing a slow, sad, wordless song.]

[Slowly FADES to BLACK.]

[CURTAIN]

Álex Hernández-Puertas
www.alexhernandez.es

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