BAUDELAIRE
So, I achieve what I deserve. The petals part to reveal the flower of evil. It’s what I was after all along, of course,
a cause to vent my premature spleen.
O, Death, old captain, shall I waste
my breath before our time to meet arrives? What better to do but spit beauty at despair?
END
THE NOBODY
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Emily Dickinson, fifty-one years old, an unpublished poet
Lavinia, her sister
SETTING
The parlor of the Dickinson family, Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1882. The two sisters are seated at a table, drinking tea.
LAVINIA
Perhaps we’ll be able now to become closer.
EMILY
What do you mean by “now”?
LAVINIA
Now that Mother is gone and we’re living together.
EMILY
The one has nothing to do with the other.
LAVINIA
After all, we are sisters.
EMILY
Please, Lavinia. Why this sudden desire?
LAVINIA
But I love you, Emily.
EMILY
The test of love, Lavinia, is death.
LAVINIA
Why be rude? I’m trying . . .
EMILY
Don’t try.
LAVINIA
You were nice to me once, before you visited Father in Washington, when he was in Congress. After that, after your . . . interlude in Philadelphia, you were different.
EMILY
I was twenty-three.
LAVINIA
Thirty years ago.
EMILY
Twenty-eight.
LAVINIA
Can’t you tell me about him now, Emily? What really did happen? He was a poet, too, wasn’t he? I know he was a preacher, and married.
EMILY
From whom do you get this information?
LAVINIA
About him, from Susan. About you, my own experience.
EMILY
Our sister-in-law was earlier capable of keeping a confidence. No longer does her heart control her mind. Her mind controls her heart.
LAVINIA
She and Austin both care about your welfare.
EMILY
Why? I’m nobody. Who are you? Aren’t you nobody, too?
LAVINIA
You’re afraid to think about it, aren’t you? The moment that changed your life.
EMILY
Do you suppose I could be she? This person you imagine me to be?
LAVINIA
I am waiting for her to reveal herself.
EMILY
All things come to she who waits. Alas, come they not ’til past the pearly gates.
LAVINIA
You remain inscrutable.
EMILY
What would please you most, Lavinia? To know if at the age of twenty-three I allowed an older, married man—a minister—to deflower me?
LAVINIA
You do write often of flowers.
EMILY
And since a score and eight I’ve had no bread upon my plate.
EMILY stands, begins to walk, then collapses to the floor. LAVINIA rushes to her and kneels at EMILY’s side.
LAVINIA
Forgive me, sister. I’ll not mention this again.
EMILY
Oh, Lavinia, it does not matter. Nothing happened to me, that’s what happened.
EMILY rises to her feet. LAVINIA stands next to her.
LAVINIA
Nor to me. We are fortunate, Emily, aren’t we? To have avoided everything?
EMILY
There is nothing less, Lavinia, and as we know it to be true, nothing less will do.
They embrace.
END
AFTER WORDS
Jorge Luis Borges, during his lifetime (1899–1986) an Argentinian writer, now a ghost
Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean writer living in Spain, forty-nine years old
SETTING
Bolaño is walking along the beach near his residence in Blanes, Spain, in 2001. He is smoking a cigarette. He stops when he hears a voice behind him.
BORGES
I’ve been given to understand that you are, in a literary way, impersonating me.
BOLAÑO turns around and sees the ghost of JORGE LUIS BORGES.
BOLAÑO
This can’t be. You’re dead.
BORGES
So will you be. Quite soon, as the doctors have informed you. That’s why I’ve chosen this moment to confront you, while you still have time to admit it.
BOLAÑO
You could have waited, couldn’t you? When both of us were ghosts.
BORGES
You don’t know how difficult it can be to locate a fellow shade. I’ve been searching for Melville for years without success. But tell me, is this compulsion of yours an homage or are you feeding off my corpus?
BOLAÑO
Clever of you to make the distinction between corpus and corpse. Your body of work as opposed to your body.
BORGES
Hardly. I was never lazy when it came to knowing the correct words. They were the missiles in my arsenal.
BOLAÑO
I assume you’re referring to my story, “The Insufferable Gaucho.” If not for “The South,” which you singled out as your favorite among your own stories, there would be no modern Latin American literature.
BORGES
I immodestly concur.
(He bows slightly.)
BOLAÑO
I honor you each time I pick up a pen. I like the idea of your looking over my shoulder. In fact, I wouldn’t mind your admonishing me whenever you see where I’m going wrong.
BORGES
I’m blind, Bolaño. I can’t tell what you’re writing. It’s only well after the fact, when a friendly familiar reads to me from a book or newspaper, that I’m able to make a judgment. My methods affect your essays as well as your stories.
BOLAÑO
Señor Borges, my intentions are honorable, I assure you. I’ve written badly at times, of course. Not so badly at others. I’m sloppy sometimes, repetitious, self-indulgent, ignorant, even mean-spirited. After all, I have to make a living. I have a wife and two children to support.
BORGES
I like what you’ve written about Turgenev. I encountered him not long after my death. He told me he was especially fond of my story, “Funes, the Memorius,” and invited me to join the Russian and French writers in their nightly game of pinochle. Of course I declined, but I did compose a story in my mind involving an unrequited love affair between the queen of spades and the knave of diamonds, which ended badly. Pinochle is interesting in principle if only for the exclusive use of cards above the number eight, which is the sign for infinity set vertically.
BOLAÑO
Did you return Turgenev’s compliment?
BORGES
I said I thought he’d missed the mark with Rudin.
BOLAÑO
I agree, but he was young when he wrote it, he didn’t know enough of life yet. I’ve always thought it could have been made into a good movie. It still could, though Hollywood would have the woman he spurned witness his death on the barricades.
BORGES
Due to my condition, I’ve no use for the cinema.
BOLAÑO
It was good of Hemingway to list The Sportsman’s Notebook as one of his foundation texts. Also Fathers and Sons. He took that title for one of his own short stories.
BORGES
I’ve forgotten ev
erything of Hemingway’s except for “The Undefeated,” the one about Manuel Garcia, a forlorn and doomed old matador. When finally the sword found its way, Manuel Garcia buried four fingers and his thumb into the bull. Badly gored, he needed to mix his own blood with that of his adversary’s. Hemingway was only in his twenties when he wrote that story, yet it’s very wise.
BOLAÑO
It’s fashionable these days to bash Hemingway. I admire him for giving credit to his most significant influences. Camus took his style from Hemingway and James M. Cain.
BORGES
You’re cheeky, but serious, Bolaño, a mildly entertaining and very bad critic. Come find me after your death. We’ll have plenty of time to talk.
BOLAÑO
How do I find you? You haven’t yet come across Melville though you’ve been dead for years.
BORGES
It will happen eventually. There’s a great deal of traffic in these corridors. Perhaps he doesn’t want to talk. I’ve heard he’s still bitter about not having been able to publish his masterpiece, Billy Budd, during his lifetime. You and I are bound to collide sooner or later. When we do, I’ll tell you what’s missing in your work.
BOLAÑO
What’s missing? Why not tell me now, while I’m still writing?
BORGES
Go again to “The South.” Therein lies the key.
JORGE LUIS BORGES disappears. ROBERTO Bolaño looks in every direction but the ghost is gone.
BOLAÑO
Damn, I hate mysteries! This is a story I could have written, one without an answer. Only Borges could have written it better.
END
MUSIC
CAST OF CHARACTERS
James Joyce, Irish writer, author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake
Samuel Beckett, Irish writer, author of the plays Waiting for Godot and Krapp’s Last Tape, among many others. At this time he is Joyce’s secretary.
SETTING
The study in the Joyce family apartment, Paris, France, 1921. Joyce and Beckett are seated across the room from one another in armchairs. Joyce is reading a book; Beckett sits with a notebook and pen, waiting.
THE PLAY
For ten minutes the only sound is that of JOYCE murmuring occasionally and turning the pages of his book. Finally, JOYCE speaks.
JOYCE
Music!
BECKETT writes the word in his notebook, after which both men are silent for an indeterminate time, until
END
About Barry Gifford
Barry Gifford’s fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in twenty-eight languages. His novel Night People was awarded the Premio Brancati, established by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alberto Moravia, in Italy, and he has been the recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America, and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His books Sailor’s Holiday and The Phantom Father were each named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, and his book Wyoming was named a Novel of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. He has written librettos for operas by the composers Toru Takemitsu, Ichiro Nodaira, and Olga Neuwirth. Gifford’s work has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, Punch, Esquire, La Nouvelle Revue Française, El País, La Repubblica, Rolling Stone, Brick, Film Comment, El Universal, Projections, and the New York Times. His film credits include Wild at Heart, Perdita Durango, Lost Highway, City of Ghosts, Ball Lightning, American Falls, and The Phantom Father. Barry Gifford’s most recent books are Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels, Sad Stories of the Death of Kings, Imagining Paradise: New & Selected Poems, The Roy Stories, and The Up-Down. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information visit www.BarryGifford.com.