Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“This is not so easy, you know. This is damned hard. The stones are slippery.” Julia tightened her grip around his neck and kissed him quickly all over his face.

“If I let you go,” he said, “the current would carry you along like a leaf over the falls, and then one of those big rocks would make a hole in your head. That would be the end, of course.” Julia’s eyes widened with horror, and she yelled with the suddenness of an animal just wounded.

“But why do you scream like that, Julia? I love you, sweetheart.” He had had enough of struggling through the water, and so he turned around and started back.

“Are we going away from the waterfall?”

“Yes. It was wonderful, wasn’t it?”

“Very nice,” she said.

He grew increasingly careless as the current slackened, with the result that he miscalculated and his foot slipped between two stones. This threw him off his balance and he fell. He was unhurt, but the back of Julia’s head had hit a stone. It started to bleed profusely. He struggled to his feet and carried her to the riverbank. She was not sure that she was not dying, and hugged him all the more closely. Pulling her along, he walked quickly up the hill and back through the woods to where Inez and Alfredo were still sitting.

“It will be all right, won’t it?” she asked him a bit weakly.

“Those damn rocks were slippery,” he growled. He was sulky, and eager to be on his way home.

“Oh, God of mine!” lamented Inez, when she saw what had happened. “What a sad ending for a walk! Terrible things always happen to Julia. She is a daughter of misfortune. It’s a lucky thing that I am just the contrary.”

Señor Ramirez was in such a hurry to leave the picnic spot that he did not even want to bother to collect the various baskets and plates he had brought with him. They dressed, and he yelled for them all to get into the car. Julia wrapped a shawl around her bleeding head. Inez went around snatching up all the things, like an enraged person.

“Can I have these things?” she asked her host. He nodded his head impatiently. Julia was by now crying rhythmically like a baby that has almost fallen asleep.

The two women sat huddled together in the back of the car. Inez explained to Julia that she was going to make presents of the plates and baskets to her family. She shed a tear or two herself. When they arrived at the house, Señor Ramirez handed some banknotes to Inez from where he was sitting.

“Adios,” he said. The two women got out of the car and stood in the street.

“Will you come back again?” Julia asked him tenderly, ceasing to cry for a moment.

“Yes, I’m coming back again,” he said. “Adios.” He pressed his foot on the accelerator and drove off.

The bar was packed with men. Inez led Julia around through the patio to their room. When she had shut the door, she slipped the banknotes into her pocket and put the baskets on the floor.

“Do you want any of these baskets?” she asked.

Julia was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking into space. “No, thank you,” she said. Inez looked at her, and saw that she was far away.

“Señor Ramirez gave me four drinking cups made out of plastic,” said Inez. “Do you want one of them for yourself?”

Julia did not answer right away. Then she said: “Will he come back?”

“I don’t know,” Inez said. “I’m going to the movies. I’ll come and see you afterwards, before I go into the bar.”

“All right,” said Julia. But Inez knew that she did not care. She shrugged her shoulders and went out through the door, closing it behind her.

The two puppets are sisters in their early fifties. The puppet stage should have a rod or string dividing it down the middle to indicate two rooms. One puppet is seated on each side of the dividing line. If it is not possible to seat them they will have to stand. Harriet, the older puppet, is stronger-looking and wears brighter colors.

HARRIET ( The stronger puppet ) I hope you are beginning to think about our milk.

RHODA ( After a pause ) Well, I’m not.

HARRIET Now what’s the matter with you? You’re not going to have a visitation from our dead, are you?

RHODA I don’t have visitations this winter because I’m too tired to love even our dead. Anyway, I’m disgusted with the world.

HARRIET Just mind your business. I mind mine and I am thinking about our milk.

RHODA I’m so tired of being sad. I’d like to change.

HARRIET You don’t get enough enjoyment out of your room. Why don’t you?

RHODA Oh, because the world and its sufferers are always on my mind.

HARRIET That’s not normal. You’re not smart enough to be of any use to the outside, anyway.

RHODA If I were young I’d succor the sick. I wouldn’t care about culture, even, if I were young.

HARRIET You don’t have any knack for making a home. There’s blessed satisfaction in that, at any rate.

RHODA My heart’s too big to make a home.

HARRIET No. It’s because you have no self-sufficiency. If I wasn’t around, you wouldn’t have the leisure to worry. You’re a lost soul, when I’m not around. You don’t even have the pep to worry about the outside when I’m not around. Not that the outside loses by that! ( She sniffs with scorn. )

RHODA You’re right. But I swear that my heart is big.

HARRIET I’ve come to believe that what is inside of people is not so very interesting. You can breed considerable discontent around you with a big heart, and considerable harmony with a small one. Compare your living quarters to mine. And my heart is small like Papa’s was.

RHODA You chill me to the marrow when you tell me that your heart is small. You do love me, though, don’t you?

HARRIET You’re my sister, aren’t you?

RHODA Sisterly love is one of the few boons in this life.

HARRIET Now, that’s enough exaggerating. I could enumerate other things.

RHODA I suppose it’s wicked to squeeze love from a small heart. I suppose it’s a sin. I suppose God meant for small hearts to be busy with other things.

HARRIET Possibly. Let’s have our milk in my room. It’s so much more agreeable to sit in here. Partly because I’m a neater woman than you are.

RHODA Even though you have a small heart, I wish there were no one but you and me in the world. Then I would never feel that I had to go among the others.

HARRIET Well, I wish I could hand you my gift for contentment in a box. It would be so lovely if you were like me. Then we could have our milk in either room. One day in your room and the next day in mine.

RHODA I’m sure that’s the sort of thing that never happens.

HARRIET It happens in a million homes, seven days a week. I’m the type that’s in the majority.

RHODA Never, never, never …

HARRIET ( Very firmly ) It happens in a million homes.

RHODA Never, never, never!

HARRIET ( Rising ) Are you going to listen to me when I tell you that it happens in a million homes, or must I lose my temper?

RHODA You have already lost it. (HARRIET exits rapidly in a rage. RHODA goes to the chimes and sings )

My horse was frozen like a stone

A long, long time ago.

Frozen near the flower bed

In the wintry sun.

Or maybe in the night time

Or maybe not at all.

My horse runs across the fields

On many afternoons.

Black as dirt and filled with blood

I glimpse him fleeing toward the woods

And then not at all.

HARRIET ( Offstage ) I’m coming with your milk, and I hope the excitement is over for today. ( Enters, carrying two small white glasses ) Oh, why do I bring milk to a person who is dead-set on making my life a real hell?