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  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  Emily Dickinson, fifty-one years old, an unpublished poet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

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  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.