The Anarchist Read online

  ANN: Did you assume: your request, might be effected without, at the least some discomfort? I will not say anger, shame or hatred on your part? Did you assume I would not probe you.

  CATHY: Delegating power . . .

  ANN: Oh, yes. As we find, in your book . . . May be understood as cowardice, both on the part . . .

  CATHY: . . . delegating power . . .

  ANN: . . . in your letters. No. I beg your pardon. In your talks. In your pamphlet . . . in . . .

  CATHY: And they’re hardly “talks,” and, “delegating power,” yes, must imply superior, superior . . .

  ANN: . . . but wasn’t that the essence of your Movement? Teaching the ignorant that “they have the power.”

  CATHY: The power wasn’t ours to give. It was theirs.

  ANN: And you were simply “reminding” them.

  CATHY: We . . .

  ANN: Is that what you were doing?

  CATHY: We thought we were “awakening” them.

  ANN: How had you been awakened?

  CATHY: I hadn’t been awakened. Now I . . .

  ANN: Yes. But I’m asking you now. What did you think then? How could you wake them, if you, if . . .

  CATHY: My political views of that time . . .

  ANN: By what superiority on your part? Do you see?

  CATHY: . . . ah-hah . . .

  ANN: . . . had you been granted that revelation?

  CATHY: My political views, of that time.

  (Pause.)

  ANN: Go on . . .

  CATHY: Having been convicted, and those views offered in . . .

  ANN: “Illegally”?

  CATHY: . . . whether illegally or not, in support of my guilt, they, after my conviction, must become moot.

  ANN: Yes?

  CATHY: According to the Law.

  ANN: All right.

  CATHY: And you debarred from interrogating me concerning them.

  ANN: All right.

  CATHY: No, it’s not all right. Or am I meant to be perpetually persecuted . . .

  ANN: But . . .

  CATHY: No. No. What does it mean? That someone has “said” this or that? Or “mouthed a doctrine”? It’s words. It’s sounds. It changes nothing.

  ANN: It’s mere words.

  CATHY: That’s right.

  ANN: But you acted upon them.

  CATHY: That’s not what I was tried for. Unless it was a political crime. Was it a political crime?

  ANN: . . . I.

  CATHY: No, if my “views” could not be adduced in mitigation of my crime they cannot be adduced now to extend my . . .

  ANN: I . . .

  CATHY: . . . to extend my punishment. Separate the speech, which you declare was mere foolishness.

  ANN: . . . except . . .

  CATHY: . . . and I agree with you.

  ANN: . . . except . . .

  CATHY: No. There is the pamphlet. And there is the crime. If they are linked, then I am being persecuted. If I am only being punished for the crime with which I was charged. I have served my term. I beg your pardon. You were speaking.

  (Pause.)

  ANN: When you taught. In Algeria, all right . . .

  CATHY: No. It’s not all right. Who, God knows, has paid for her actions.

  ANN: When you, at the Farm, at the Apartment, “strove to awaken” the Masses . . .

  CATHY: They lived, as many do, contentedly, in ignorance of their state. As many do today. As you do. In their relationship to the Divine. We live in ignorance.

  ANN: But you did not live in ignorance.

  CATHY: We felt that we did not.

  ANN: Then how had you been elevated? Do you see? As, you say, again, you have been?

  CATHY: I have been raised by Christ.

  ANN: Yes. But they . . . If they lived in contentment. Then . . .

  CATHY: If they “lived in contentment”? They were oppressed.

  ANN: But what raised you? To that understanding? A Book? A Man? (She reads) “A moment of enlightenment, the religious would say the experience of Grace.”

  CATHY: I was not writing about the Man.

  ANN: No, you were writing about Christ. But: the language you used, in your “talks,” it’s the same language . . . “Hov’ring at the margins of the real . . .”

  CATHY: You don’t have to demean them, by calling them “talks.”

  ANN: What are they, “Speeches”?

  CATHY: But they’re hardly “talks.”

  ANN: What are they?

  CATHY: Interactions. Or, “Thoughts,” perhaps, “Meditations” . . .

  ANN: Well, yes, but you see, the inability to call things by their names, may lead, in you and in your, what did you say? “Revolution”? No less than in the State, to imprecision. And, in our case, certainty has led to error. Or, did you act in Error? Did you act in Error?

  CATHY: When?

  (Pause.)

  ANN: What is “murder”?

  CATHY: It is the unlawful taking of a human life.

  ANN: Indeed it is. Did you commit murder?

  CATHY: I was adjudged guilty of murder.

  ANN: Did you commit murder?

  CATHY: I have worked. For thirty-five years, to discharge. My “debt to society.”

  ANN: Which Society still sticks upon the one point. What is that point? And why should I believe that you might be a “member of society,” if you are incapable even of a half-hour’s courteous interaction with me in this room? A person from whom you desire a great service—and yet you are incapable of stilling your rage.

  CATHY: That’s not true . . .

  ANN: . . . that you should be reduced . . .

  CATHY: . . . it’s simply not true.

  ANN: To comply with a requirement of the State. That you divulge the whereabouts of your accomplice. Who killed alongside you. Which legitimate, which is to say “lawful” demand, you characterize as an “inquisition” . . .

  CATHY: . . . my father is dying. Should . . .

  ANN: . . . I’m sorry.

  CATHY: . . . should a person. Not be left. A sense . . . finally . . .

  ANN: . . . go on.

  (Pause.)

  CATHY: A sense of dignity.

  (Pause.)

  ANN: I have no doubt that you consider yourself, I will not insult you by using the term “rehabilitated” . . .

  CATHY: I don’t know that I know the meaning of the word.

  ANN: It means “re-clothed”—its implication being “restored.”

  CATHY: No doubt. But how may one be restored who is, in the eyes of the State, bound or free, always a criminal?

  ANN: “How can the criminal not see that the same sense of entitlement which led him to crime leads him to demand a societal amnesia regarding his conviction.” Who wrote that?

  CATHY: You surprise me.

  ANN: Who wrote it?

  CATHY: Lombroso.

  ANN: And at what conclusion did he arrive, after a lifetime of his studies?

  CATHY: You impress me.

  ANN: At what conclusion did he arrive?

  CATHY: That there is no solution to the problem of Crime.

  ANN: Except?

  CATHY: Deterrence, punishment, and incarceration.

  ANN: And what did he say about “Rehabilitation”?

  CATHY: You impress me, Ann.

  ANN: Yes, you said. “That Criminology . . .”

  CATHY: “Criminology, as any study claiming the imprimatur of science, must rest upon observation, but that all observation in prison is corrupt.”

  ANN: Go on.

  CATHY: “For there all function under unnatural restraint, and one can no more usefully reason from measurements made there than from that of wild animals caged in a zoo.”

  ANN: What is September 25th?

  CATHY: It is the anniversary of the Robbery.

  ANN: How might others understand it?

  CATHY: Who?

  ANN: We have very little time.

  CATHY: It is the anniversary of the death of th
e two officers.

  ANN: And who might understand it as such?

  CATHY: Their families.

  ANN: Their families. Have . . .

  CATHY: I know . . .

  ANN: For thirty-five years.

  CATHY: I know they have.

  ANN: Sat. On these occasions . . . In that anteroom . . .

  CATHY: What do you want?

  ANN: While I, and while my predecessor . . .

  CATHY: Yes. The “Families . . .”

  ANN: And Mrs. Fiske, who is . . .

  CATHY: I know who she is.

  ANN: Who is she?

  CATHY: Officer Shay’s . . .

  ANN: Yes. Do you see? Officer Shay’s daughter. Which became the definition of her life. She could not attend. Her son could not attend, as he is caring for his mother, who is ill. And they write to say what? What is their request?

  CATHY: Call the guard.

  ANN: To ask . . . what?

  CATHY: Call the guard.

  ANN: To plead, in the name of justice. That you be left to die in Prison. (Pause) My task. Is to overcome my feelings. And attempt to rule, if I can, impartially, upon the case. I understand your feelings . . .

  CATHY: Is that so?

  ANN: . . . and in spite of them, and mine, attempt to employ, yes, I think I . . .

  CATHY: What are they?

  ANN: My feelings?

  CATHY: Yes, what are . . .?

  ANN: Is it beyond you that one might succeed in keeping them in check? And that it’s laudable? Is there a name for this?

  CATHY: All right.

  ANN: Is it called “reserve”? Or “circumspection,” or . . .

  CATHY: . . . all right.

  ANN: Might it be called restraint? (Pause) You would like to go free.

  CATHY: Everyone here would like to go free.

  ANN: Feeling that you have served more than a sufficiency of what you see as a cruel sentence . . .

  CATHY: Do you think that it was cruel?

  ANN: I understand the mentality of the judge who imposed it.

  CATHY: Do you think it was cruel?

  ANN: . . . I would like to think it was imposed in sorrow. I believe your crime frightened him, and that he acted to protect those he had sworn to protect.

  CATHY: Was the sentence cruel?

  ANN: It was cruel to you.

  CATHY: And can you act to end the cruelty? Or would that be to rely upon your feelings? In this case “kindness.”

  ANN: It is an awesome power I have. Yes: It “comes from the end of a gun.” As did yours. When you killed those officers. And I assure you, I know I, no less than you, will be held to account.

  CATHY: Do you mean we all shall be held to account in Heaven? (Pause) Does not such a view, legally, unfit you to judge me?

  ANN: How would that be?

  CATHY: To invoke a system which . . .

  ANN: “Religion”?

  CATHY: . . . which . . .

  ANN: . . . but you invoked religion . . .

  CATHY: . . . a system which, I beg your pardon . . .

  ANN: I judge to the best of my ability. According to the Law. It is not my personal theology, nor bias, nor, indeed “knowledge of Human Nature” which permit me to judge, but a dedication to the Law which obligates me. To do so.

  (Pause.)

  CATHY: And how is Mrs. Fiske.

  ANN: She is unwell.

  CATHY: Is she seriously ill?

  ANN: She has dedicated her life to your punishment. I would assume she is. (Pause) You cried. When your friend abandoned you. And wrote to plead with her to “stay with you.” And wrote your parents. With the first terms of affection. Since you were a child. Asking for comfort. As you had been harmed. Now you want to go free. And appeal, as does a child, to those in power. Seeking out power.

  CATHY: What do you say about me?

  ANN: Say about you . . .

  CATHY: Yes, when . . .

  ANN: I don’t speak about you.

  CATHY: At a dinner party, to a friend . . . if someone asks you. They must ask you.

  ANN: Very little anymore.

  CATHY: Oh.

  ANN: Yes—you were famous once.

  CATHY: All right. At the end of the day. Can you not overcome your animosity? . . .

  ANN: As you have, Cathy? (Pause) Officer Shay. Had he lived he would have been what?

  CATHY: Had he lived he would have been eighty-one.

  ANN: Is that an old man?

  CATHY: Is it an old man?

  ANN: You want to live . . .

  CATHY: Yes. I do. I assume all people do.

  ANN: There was a time you didn’t care to.

  (Pause.)

  CATHY: That’s right.

  ANN: Do you remember that?

  CATHY: Yes.

  ANN: You came to us then with a different request.

  CATHY: Well. It’s a long life.

  ANN: And the longer we live the more we see things change. And bring us back to the beginning.

  CATHY: And people cannot change?

  ANN: I’ve yet to see it.

  CATHY: But can you imagine it?

  ANN: I think I can.

  CATHY: In what would it consist? In your imagination. How would it be established? By a record such as mine, of service and of study? . . . or else, what are you doing here? If you cannot conceive an instance. Where your work could help? What do you want of me?

  ANN: What do you think?

  CATHY: I think you want revenge.

  ANN: You feel subjecting you periodically to my questioning constitutes revenge?

  CATHY: Do you know. What it’s like. To vacillate. Between the desire to please. To, to embellish in order to please; or to be reticent, and fear your reserve will be misinterpreted as sullenness? When your freedom is at stake? Your very freedom?

  ANN: Well, you broke the law. Didn’t you. And you wanted to die. As once you were “thwarted in love.” Poor thing. And counted yourself privileged. By your grievance. As you were imprisoned. And your lover abandoned you. She “left” you, and . . .

  CATHY: . . . all right.

  ANN: You wanted to die. As if she could “be” with you. In prison, what, “in death”? And dramatized yourself. As if no woman ever suffered in love. (Studies papers) You wrote. About her face: “Dreaming of her face.” About the power of dreams: “What is the power of dreams? They have the power to release us . . . each morning.” Period. “It’s a new vision.” Period. “Of a previously unsuspected depth of sorrow.” (Pause) Many were moved. (Pause) Some thought you should have been allowed to die. When you wanted to die. And some prayed for your soul.

  (Pause.)

  Why did they pray for you?

  CATHY: Because I was in pain.

  ANN: No. They prayed for you as you expressed yourself well.

  CATHY: Can you not control your hatred?

  ANN: . . . as you have done in your book. “The love of Christ washes over me. And the sweet balm of forgiven . . .” You congratulate yourself for Christ’s forgiveness. But you forgive no one. Do you? John and Jack? . . .

  (Cathy rises.)

  CATHY: Call the guard.

  ANN: Sit down. I said: sit down. I’ll see you in punitive detention do you hear me? For how long? Indefinitely. Which means forever. For Nobody Cares. Cathy. Your family has left you, your lover abandoned you, the officers’ families live to desire your death, the public no longer remembers your name, and no one cares.

  CATHY: Why do you care?

  ANN: Because it’s my duty.

  CATHY: I think you are a voyeur.

  ANN: Do you?

  CATHY: I think you are a frustrated old woman, who gains enjoyment from her “charade of Probity.”

  ANN: . . . yes, I read that article.

  CATHY: . . . that you are jealous.

  ANN: Of?

  CATHY: My life. Which you enjoy as a romance.

  ANN: Of your life.

  CATHY: Of loving women . . . of . . .

 
ANN: Of “violence”?

  CATHY: Yes, of course, of violence.

  ANN: Of sex and violence?

  CATHY: Absolutely.

  ANN: Are they related? Or are they only linked in your sickness?

  CATHY: And what sickness is that?

  ANN: You . . .

  CATHY: I have surpassed them.

  ANN: Have you?

  CATHY: Why do you care?

  ANN: Because I represent the State.

  CATHY: The “State.”

  ANN: Yes. Without which who can make consequences equal? Who shall rebuke the evildoer, who comfort the luckless, except the State. Whose existence you decry.

  CATHY: I . . .

  ANN: First in your “Movement,” then in “Christ.” How are the two, then, not equal? Tell me that. (Pause) Every society has punished the murderer. If not, what meaning of “society”? But ours, you feel, should not. As you have “suffered enough.” FOR WHOM? For yourself? Indeed, for who would embrace suffering? For the State? No. For the State confines you not to cause your suffering, but to ensure freedom to others.

  CATHY: As I might kill again?

  ANN: So that all will consider their acts and regard their consequence. And control themselves. Why do you plead to be excused? For the same reason you considered yourself free to kill. As you are “better”—you know better. You are entitled to “explore” the higher realms of behavior. To savor this or that thrill. And call it Theater of the Real. Theater of the Street. Violence as Cleansing . . . I read the pamphlets. I read that filth.

  CATHY: They were the Folly of Youth.

  ANN: They were not the Folly of Youth. They were evil, wicked heresy.

  CATHY: What do you want of me?

  ANN: Renounce them.

  CATHY: I have renounced them. In my embrace of Christ.

  ANN: I don’t believe you.

  CATHY: How could I make you believe me? Would you like me to beg.

  ANN: You made the policeman beg. And then you shot him.

  CATHY: Would you like me to beg.

  ANN: I would like you to see.

  CATHY: To see what?

  ANN: That you, systematically, deny . . . that throughout your life . . . your “revelations” . . . (Pause) I would like you to accept your responsibility.

  CATHY: Why?

  ANN: Because I represent the State. And that’s my duty.

  CATHY: How would you know? That I had accepted . . .

  ANN: . . . I . . .

  CATHY: No. What? What would signal my conversion to you if not my acts here?