Richard Weiner - The Game for Real

. . so too did I now feel bad for thinking, Poor, poor Giggles, she’s standing there like a community theater actress playing Niobe, if only she had a real wall behind her instead of a screen ; for being unable to rid myself of these slanderous thoughts, for being her admittedly woeful, yet powerless, yet tense viewer, so too did I now. .

No, so too nothing. There’s no point. This time the foul thought of mine did not arise, it did not arise with the squeamish gesture like unto the disgraced, that I not dare; and this time Giggles did not. .

“But Giggles, no,” I shout at the stage, “what’s gotten into you, have you forgotten your part? That’s not how it went. What are you pointing your finger at me for? And why out of the blue? And the velvet darkness all around you, where’s that from? And the way you’re looking at me? Stay there by the wall, don’t come any closer, drop the raised hand, Giggles, I don’t want. .”

“What’s your problem?” I hear right in front of me, “can’t you see past your nose? Wouldn’t you perhaps be afraid?”

The Giggles from Rue Lamarck was menacing the Giggles on the stage.

“I was scared, Giggles!”

“What about them?” and she pointed back with a bubbly cackle. “You have to forgive her, she’s forgotten her part. Anyway, I’ve just put her on notice. Now she knows.

“Now she knows,” she repeated, and she held out her arms as if closing a curtain, and again it was just the two of us (we were perhaps fewer than two), “now she knows that you double-crossed and deceived her then, like you killed her, and killed her horribly.

“That’s not allowed,” she threatened, and she coaxed me into the seat that stood right beside hers. “No cheating. No hope, either. That wasn’t nice, luring her to hope when you knew there was none. You’re older than she is, more experienced. You must have known there isn’t hope for everything. We unfortunates, sinners, we damned, you know, we’re so gullible, all it takes is for you to smile at us and we already believe someone’s shown us mercy. Providing us hope, that’s a trick, and there will be no trickery.

“Really, none,” she repeated with mock pleading. “Or perhaps you would deny having seen what I was all about when I came in — just now, back behind the curtain (she explained, pointing with her chin)? You didn’t?. . But you’ve been telling yourself in your head the whole time! ‘She looks so sinful you’d sit somewhere else. She looks like an outcast. She’s an outcast.’ But then how could it be any other way, I ask you; after all, didn’t I deify a human being — Mutig?

“Oh, for one person to deify another. .” she sighed comically. “For that matter, you’ve been watching me for a long time already, don’t you see? Oh yes, you’ve been watching! I know everything. . now. For a long time you’ve been eyeing me, to see when I’d fall into my own crime. A dovish crime. But crime is crime. No such thing as a free ride. I was overgrown with such sworn misfortune that you said to yourself, ‘Give her one of those small lady’s revolvers with mother-of-pearl, and at the same time squeeze her hand with silver-tongued warmth: adieu! And that’s it; it’d be a Samaritan act inédit .’ Yes, that’s what you told yourself. . as I was leaning against the wall. . as I was leaning against the wall like Niobe from the community theater . .”

“Giggles!”

“My God. . we’re still having. . a calm discussion. All that is in the past. And I know everything. . now.

“And you were right,” she patted my knee with god-motherly emphasis, “you were dead right. Just be a dear and tell me,” she threw in inquisitorially, “why were you deluding me with hope? That’s not right, you see, that’s not right; it’s not nice. Instead of hastening me out the door, out that door, you were saying. . too bad, after all, we could have just played it out, it would have been more lively. . you were saying: ‘Giggles, it’s not for love, all that suffers is your pride. If you were suffering for love, you wouldn’t be opening up to me. I know you. Isn’t it perhaps out of willfulness that you’ve capitulated to Mutig?’ Pride! Like people would tear their hair out and bang their head against the wall for pride. And as if it were a matter of forsaken love — oh! forsaken love — and not at all of my devastation!

“I’m asking you. . me! A little creature being vivisected. My fear was only waiting for him to say his piece. How could you have missed such an opportunity, you, who are ever so curious?

“Curious, curious, curious,” she started saying stubbornly, “it’s only out of that damned curiosity of yours that you consoled me; out of curiosity over what would come of it . What would come of the furious hope of a little creature being vivisected, what sort of vileness might she be talked into. . yes,” she said, suddenly curt, “without you, sir, I could have passed away in beauty.

“So now we know, without you I could have passed away in beauty. So I am the way I am. . I happened to find myself a god. Now that’s something. That, sir, is worth dying for! A god is a god. A god is according to what we deserve, and not according to his own perfection. But it’s a god every time. I found him, you see. I’m the one who deserved to depart for those pastures. You thwarted me just as things were going good. ‘There are other ways to god,’” she started aping me, “‘than vanishing within him. For example, there’s the dignity of life, and besides: Mutig is not a god.’

“Dignity of life! Mutig is not a god! I deified him, I think that’s enough, huh? Dignity of life. . is that what you traded me to Fuld for? Or was it to find out ‘what would come of it,’ Fuld and me, me and Fuld? We were supposed to shed some light for you, one on the other. We interested you, that’s what. You wanted to test out what kinds of disgusting poses the dead would consent to if they were bought off with hope. O hope, hope,” she caricatured, drawing out the o , “who, then, I ask you, will be taken in by it more than the one for whom there isn’t any left? Why didn’t you send me out to. . to those pastures. ., as befits the dead?”

“Giggles,” I said, “I had it all thought out. I swear to you that in spite of everything I had it all thought out.”

“What are you defending yourself for?” she responded jovially. “I’m not holding anything against you, I’m just telling it like it was. You’re not to blame. I know you had it all thought out. It’s not your fault you think better than you act . It’s not your fault that you, too, are the dead among the living; that you, too, think that enduring is everything. You, like Fuld — you’re no longer a weakling either, nor a coward — you’re nobody, too. Between the abyss and the fire even a weakling will somehow make a decision, but you wouldn’t get killed one way or the other, neither leaping, nor burning — you’d go for some wry ‘I don’t know up from down.’ It’s a good thing you looked into the mirror; wherever you’d find yourselves faces, you and Fuld.

“But I didn’t beg you, you see, and I’m not knowledgeable about what the dead are capable of. — The dignity of life! What could be simpler than loving cads, what could be more pure! They were bad, but cluelessly. Mutig took my glory upon himself, and Mutig took my murder upon himself. With him it was easy to be dignified: to live when there was a reason, and to die when the living was done. You brought me down. To life? Where! To enduring. What for? Maybe so I’d prove something that way? What? I’m asking you. What would it prove?”

“That the one who wins is the one who doesn’t run away.”