Goodness Read online

HELENA: Well …

  HELENA AND JOANNA: I just wanted to introduce myself.

  TODD: Yes.

  MICHAEL: Yes.

  JOANNA: Joanna.

  MICHAEL: (Beat.) Michael. (They shake.)

  HELENA: Help you put a face to a name.

  Todd and Young Althea shake hands in the background.

  MICHAEL: If I’d gone home, neither of us would ever have suffered.

  JOANNA: You’d never have loved me, either.

  MICHAEL: You wouldn’t be with Colin.

  JOANNA: (affectionate) I’m not with Colin because you stayed an extra hour at a party, you dope. I’m with him because I love him.

  The party music ends. The women recede.

  TODD: (to Michael) An excess of love.

  MICHAEL: How can there be such a thing?

  We are back in the interrogation – ‘Oh Yasna’ once again heard under the following.

  VOICE (YOUNG ALTHEA): Your daughter is starving.

  JULIA: You should never have been allowed in here.

  STEPHEN: It’s not up to you to set the course of justice. Your people had their turn at the wheel.

  VOICE: A family across the road from you has food.

  JULIA: What’s right is always right. And this is not right.

  STEPHEN: Should we rely on your definition of what is right? What is good? What if what is good for you is bad for me? What if I have to die for your good?

  VOICE: Is it acceptable to cross the road and take that other family’s food.

  TODD: Kill the others.

  Silence.

  STEPHEN: I beg your pardon?

  TODD: Protect your tribe.

  JULIA: He could be thinking of anything, Mr. Part.

  STEPHEN: He knows.

  VOICE: Their child is starving, but you have food.

  JULIA: You just see what you want to see.

  STEPHEN: Listen to him. You claimed you were interested in the truth, so why don’t you listen?

  VOICE: They come over and try to steal your food. You should kill them!

  TODD: (seeing Julia) No …

  STEPHEN: Go on, Mathias, they’re coming into your house.

  TODD: I share my bread with them.

  STEPHEN: (going to the cell) They’re going rape your wife and child.

  JULIA: (to Stephen) You bastard.

  TODD: Go to the edge of town, wait until dark.

  STEPHEN: They’ll take them away from you!

  TODD: I pray for them.

  STEPHEN: They shoot your wife dead because you stuck your dick in one of them.

  TODD: LEAVE US ALONE! I did nothing! Margaret! … Julia!

  JULIA: Dad, I’m right here.

  TODD: (Sees her. Quietly:) I want to go back to Geneva. Take me home!

  STEPHEN: Say that again.

  MICHAEL: What did he say?

  ALTHEA: Listen.

  Young Althea returns.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: You have to stop now, Mr. Part.

  STEPHEN: (of Todd) What did he just say?

  JULIA: Is anyone coming down?

  YOUNG ALTHEA: No.

  STEPHEN: He knows where he is! He shouldn’t know where he is!

  JULIA: He doesn’t know anything.

  STEPHEN: (to Todd) Let’s continue, Mathias, where were we? Helena’s people have come to kill your wife. Right in front of you. They’ve just come from Helena’s house. They’ve learned that you have soiled Helena – you’ve left your seed in her!

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Mr. Part, I have to inform you –

  STEPHEN: And now they come to put you in your place. Yes, you in your place. They stand in your doorway and say to Margaret, ‘Do you know what he has done?’ They put a gun to her head and say to you, ‘Tell her what you’ve done’ –

  JULIA: My mother was murdered, and you will use that –

  STEPHEN: I will use anything –

  JULIA: You are a monster.

  STEPHEN: He is the monster.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Mr. Part, you have to leave the cells now.

  STEPHEN: (considering her) Why?

  YOUNG ALTHEA: They would like to see you upstairs.

  STEPHEN: I will be up when I’m finished down here.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: You are.

  STEPHEN: (Beat.) What have you done. What did you say to them? (of Todd and Julia) These people got to you, didn’t they? With their sob stories! (He grabs Julia’s face in his hand.) Because: how could this face lie?

  MICHAEL: Don’t touch her –

  JULIA: (Shakes him off) Get off me –

  STEPHEN: She got under your skin.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: She has nothing to do with it. Please go.

  STEPHEN: I always knew you’d let us down.

  He gets ready to leave, but returns partway and leans in to Todd.

  STEPHEN: You put a pitchfork through your past and your future, Mathias.

  He leaves. Silence.

  JULIA: My god. Thank you for doing that.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: I didn’t do anything for you.

  JULIA: Well, whatever you –

  YOUNG ALTHEA: It’s over now.

  JULIA: I’m grateful.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: No, it’s over.

  She produces a sheet of paper and hands it to Julia. Julia reads it and covers her mouth. Julia rushes to her father and shows him the letter.

  JULIA: Dad? Look … the prisoner …. is released from the court’s custody by order of the presiding judge … do you know what that means? We can go!

  TODD: (very emotional) Helena?

  JULIA: What?

  TODD: Helena.

  JULIA: (to Althea) Do you see? What all of this confusion has done to him? (to Todd) I’m taking you home, Dad.

  MICHAEL: Did you intercede on her behalf?

  ALTHEA: You’re the expert on offstage events, you tell me.

  MICHAEL: (looking at the scene) I think you did. You came to your senses. You did the right thing.

  ALTHEA: Does that make you feel better? To think of me as a good person?

  Michael doesn’t answer.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: The bailiff will be down with his belongings. You sign a release form, and then you can go.

  JULIA: Things are going to turn out all right for you, Althea. You’ll see.

  ALTHEA: (looking at Julia) She has five minutes to live.

  MICHAEL: I don’t believe you.

  ALTHEA: You don’t want to believe me.

  MICHAEL: If it was true, you’d dread telling it to me. But I understand what you’re doing. You want to teach me a lesson.

  ALTHEA: What makes you think this isn’t the part of the story I like?

  Michael is stopped in his tracks, realizing what she’s saying.

  Now she has four minutes.

  Footsteps.

  JULIA: Come on, Daddy. Here’s the bailiff. Meet your last visitor.

  But it is Stephen. He looks stricken standing before them as Julia brings her father out of the cell. As Michael listens to the following, it is as if the characters are suspended in time – speaking their lines straight out. The belongings Stephen throws at Mathias will be mimed – although we will hear them hitting Mathias.

  STEPHEN: I brought his belongings.

  MICHAEL: Althea …

  ALTHEA: No. This is what happened.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Mr. Part. You shouldn’t be down here now.

  STEPHEN: I am in the employ of the court.

  JULIA: Give me his things.

  STEPHEN: I suppose he’ll live out his days in peace now.

  JULIA: As he should. You have no idea the damage you’ve done.

  STEPHEN: I do. It is not to him I’ve done it, though. (He mimes reaching into a bag. Removes a wallet, which he throws at Todd.) Wallet. With all your identification.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Mr. Part, I’m going to have to get security.

  STEPHEN: Certainly! Go get our brothers.

  JULIA: (to Althea) No – don’t go anywhere.

  STEPHEN: (Takes a set of keys out of the b
ag, throws them at Todd.) Keys. To get into your villa. Lots of keys for a man who can’t remember much. (to Julia) Your father can never be tried now, no matter what. (to Todd) Non compos mentis. But we know that you are competent, papa. Very. (Takes a lighter out of the bag, throws it.) Lighter.

  ALTHEA: I’m a witness to all of this.

  STEPHEN: (rounding on Althea and Michael) A witness? Did I hear you right? A witness? (to Young Althea) I wonder what your parents would make of you now. Or your Domenic. (She can’t or won’t respond. He turns to Julia.) He said he wanted to go home. To Geneva.

  JULIA: So what. We’ve lived there for more than ten years. He knows where he lives.

  STEPHEN: He said to Geneva. He knows he’s not there now.

  TODD: Geneva.

  STEPHEN: Yes, exactly.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: He did say that. (Something begins to change in Young Althea – a growing suspicion.)

  STEPHEN: (Reaches into bag, throws a handful of coins at Todd, which clatter onto the ground.) Pocket change. You didn’t think it through, Mathias. If you had Alzheimer’s, you wouldn’t know you’d ever left Geneva. We could send you over Niagara Falls in a barrel and you’d still think you were in Switzerland. You’d never ask to go back.

  JULIA: That’s your proof?

  STEPHEN: You think I didn’t do my research? I’m GOOD. But I applaud you both – you’ve fulfilled your destiny: you win. Geneva, yes?

  JULIA: Stephen – this is ridiculous.

  TODD: Helena?

  STEPHEN: Whatever. You’re free to go, but I want you to look your daughter in the eye and tell her you’ve lied to her. About everything.

  TODD: I know him.

  STEPHEN: Stop it now. All you have to do is say, ‘Julia, there’s not a thing wrong with me, and, by the way, I might have left out a detail or two about what I was doing during our little genocide.’ Just say it. Then you can go.

  TODD: Where?

  STEPHEN: I said stop it, Mathias. (He holds up his hand, and, as he speaks the next word, it takes on the shape of a pistol.) Pistol.

  Stephen turns the mimed gun on Julia. The scene explodes into a tense naturalism.

  JULIA: He didn’t have a gun!

  STEPHEN: But he still has a mouth.

  JULIA: My god … Althea?

  MICHAEL: A gun?

  ALTHEA: He smuggled it in.

  STEPHEN: Tell her, Mathias. So everyone knows.

  JULIA: No one could act this well, Stephen, and you know it.

  STEPHEN: Aren’t you the least bit curious? Don’t you want to know what he has done?

  JULIA: Go on then, Dad. Tell me everything.

  TODD: What does he want to hear?

  JULIA: That you’re a murderer and a man who hates in his heart.

  TODD: (seeing the gun) What are they doing here?

  STEPHEN: I’m warning you, Mathias. I’ve got nothing to lose now.

  TODD: (turning to Julia) Margaret, go wait for me in the library.

  JULIA: (to Stephen) Are you listening?

  STEPHEN: Say it.

  TODD: He wants me to tell you the truth.

  JULIA: Stephen, you’ve convinced yourself –

  STEPHEN: I’m waiting –

  JULIA: Your people will understand you tried –

  STEPHEN: SHUT UP.

  JULIA: Althea?

  YOUNG ALTHEA: (coldly) Listen to what he’s saying.

  He moves in closer to them.

  STEPHEN: All right, Mathias. We’re all listening now. You tell her everything, or I’ll shoot her. I will pull this trigger.

  TODD: Wait. (A pause. Then, to Julia) I … fell in love.

  STEPHEN: I’m counting to three.

  MICHAEL: What’s wrong with you? You’re just standing there.

  ALTHEA: He began to count.

  STEPHEN: One –

  TODD: There was a woman.

  MICHAEL: You didn’t do anything?

  ALTHEA: I did. I watched.

  STEPHEN: Say the number! Half a million!

  TODD: I know I’ve ruined your happiness. Please forgive me.

  STEPHEN: Two –

  TODD: My wife’s done nothing to you! Please don’t. (He begins to weep.) Don’t hurt her. I love her. Don’t hurt her.

  JULIA: (Certainty dawns.) You’re going to shoot whether he answers you or not.

  Stephen makes a threatening gesture.

  MICHAEL: STOP!

  The scene freezes and is silent but for the sound of Todd weeping.

  JULIA: Stop? Why? (She turns to Michael.) Are you going to rescue me?

  MICHAEL: He’s going to –

  JULIA: What, Michael? What’s he going to do?

  MICHAEL: You know what he’s going to do.

  JULIA: It’s a bit late for things to end differently.

  MICHAEL: Please don’t say that.

  JULIA: This is what happened.

  STEPHEN: SAY IT!

  JULIA: (to Todd) Don’t tell him anything. (to Michael) It’s going to be such a relief to be free of you.

  STEPHEN: Tell her the truth, or so help me –

  MICHAEL: Three.

  Instant blackout, gunshot. Lights up, Michael is stunned speechless. Todd holds the lifeless body of his daughter.

  SONG: ‘Dejgidi’ (Macedonian)

  The song runs quietly under the following scene.

  Dejgidi ludi mladi godini

  Dejgidi ludi mladi godini

  (O you wild years of youth)

  Letnavte kako sivi galabi

  Letnavte kako sivi galabi

  (You flew away like grey doves)

  TODD: Margaret? Margaret …

  STEPHEN: You fucking monster – Say her name! Julia! How can you keep this up? Julia!

  TODD: Julia.

  STEPHEN: Yes! Julia! Your daughter!

  TODD: Where’s Margaret?

  STEPHEN: God. No, no –

  YALTHEA: Please, Stephen! Go! Give me the gun and go.

  Stephen is stunned, frozen. He realizes what he has done. Young Althea mimes taking the gun from him.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Stephen – GO!

  Stephen exits.

  TODD: Julia … ?

  YOUNG ALTHEA: (She goes very close to Mathias.) How does it feel? You remember this, Mathias. You remember this. (She smashes him with the gun and he collapses.) I want you to remember THIS.

  ALTHEA: They caught Stephen.

  MICHAEL: (still in a kind of horrified dream) Stephen?

  ALTHEA: Yes, Stephen.

  MICHAEL: And what did they do with you?

  ALTHEA: They caught Stephen. Before the sun went down.

  MICHAEL: (Beat.) What happened to him?

  ALTHEA: Nothing. They never found the murder weapon. Or a witness to testify.

  Young Althea holds up the pistol. She produces a real cloth and mimes cleaning the gun, then hides it on her person.

  ALTHEA: So they let him go.

  Young Althea looks at Michael.

  ALTHEA: What would you have done?

  MICHAEL: I … I don’t know.

  YOUNG ALTHEA: Now you’ve made some progress.

  They are now back in her drawing room. Julia’s body is between them.

  MICHAEL: (to us) I had a moment then. Something came to me, like the ringing of a bell: a clear, bright sound in my mind. The man in the bar.

  STEPHEN: Oh, I like you. You take it all so personally!

  MICHAEL: He saw right through me.

  STEPHEN: You’d be a fool to turn down your only opportunity to have your question answered. (Michael looks at Stephen, whom he now realizes was the man he met in the bar across the street.) Why do good people rush to do evil … And what do they become?

  MICHAEL: Stephen Part. (Beat.) Jesus, how long has he been sitting there? Waiting for someone to … You still have it.

  ALTHEA: No.

  MICHAEL: You do.

  ALTHEA: (Laughs bitterly.) That gun is proof of his guilt.

  MICHAEL: He knows. Without it he can’t �
� (dawning) He’ll never be –

  ALTHEA: (Laughs.) You know why he picked you? He wanted you to see what you were going to turn into.

  MICHAEL: No.

  ALTHEA: A lonesome fuck-up who can’t live with what he’s done.

  MICHAEL: No. No. No … You have to go see him, Althea. Get up! He must still be there!

  ALTHEA: I’m not going any –

  He reaches for her and she pulls away – this becomes a sort of struggle as he tries to pull her to her feet, and we see for the first time how terrified Althea is of leaving her apartment.

  ALTHEA: LET GO OF ME.

  He does.

  MICHAEL: You can’t sit here forever. You need to …

  ALTHEA: To mend your broken soul, Althea? To get some closure, Althea? Poor Althea! What are you to me? Where were you with your notebook when we needed a witness? Bathing in milk and writing cheques for charity, that’s where you were: one dollar a day – buy a village a goat. Meanwhile they beat their ploughshares back into swords and left our children butchered on the ground. So now I cross the road and you make it all better? Or have you figured out a way I can go back and be born somewhere else?

  MICHAEL: It doesn’t matter. You’d still find a way to lose everything and then lie here in the dark, steeping in your own sick. That’s the life you made for yourself. It’s no one’s fault but yours.

  She stares at him a moment in silent rage and then gets up out of her chair, goes off and retrieves the cloth that Young Althea is still holding.

  ALTHEA: Is this what you want? (She unwraps the cloth and holds up a real gun.) Go on, take it.

  She holds it out and he looks at it.

  ALTHEA: (roaring at him) TAKE IT.

  He does. Stares at it in his hand.

  ALTHEA: How does that feel?

  MICHAEL: You’re no better than they were.

  ALTHEA: You still believe that because a person suffers, they must be good? Because you suffer well, you think God will reward you with justice? I settled for less, and Stephen Part settled for less, and you’re going to settle for less when your time comes. Because your wailing won’t bring back your dead, and you’ll have to do something.

  MICHAEL: (Hands the gun out to her.) Take this to him. It’s not me he wants. Go back to the world of human beings.

  ALTHEA: Where you come from? No thank you.

  MICHAEL: It must have taken him years to find you. Doesn’t that count for something?