SCENE IV – THE LAST SCENE
EVA
I am gnawed by an aching hopeless wish.
Loneliness leads to breakdown,
Becomes dementia. I batter
Around the rooms of this castle,
However brightly-plumaged,
Knocking into furniture,
A tragic bird who’s trapped indoors.
Even dizzy with drink I maintain the frigidity
Of an Edwardian hostess
Intolerant of scenes at meals.
Without you life’s a half-lit room.
EVAN
I’ve become a character in your melodrama
An absurd creature of romantic vice.
Hopeless dilemma.
EVA
What could be more beautiful than our ten days in New York,
Walking among the perverted architecture.
No loss of illusion, rather an increase.
I’m in the midst of a dreary financial crisis,
Having breakdown on my feet.
I hope I don’t sound too shocked and sad.
You are life to me as nothing is.
My fingers still tremble,
Touching you after 17 years.
EVAN
This is the Eva I first met, first knew, first loved.
We waited it out and didn’t lose each other.
I was sane or mad to doubt you & myself.
We are like two people sweating blood
I feel further from you than ever. I dread losing you
But Elayna’s power still holds me.
I fear I may do one of you harm.
EVA
Thanks for the money,
I hope it doesn’t embarrass you too much.
You are a reviver and a balm.
We must be in Paris together before we die.
EVAN
If you want me to be unselfish, let me be unselfish.
You are my greatest friend. I’m
Trying to keep off the drink while you’re here,
Otherwise I know I’ll wreck everything.
Three manhattans makes me crazy.
Your feverish cheer does not seem solid.
Is this the wreckage of our love?
Once frightened of your clinical eye
Now I’m more frightened of my own.
I’ve matriculated in
Your fearful university.
EVA
We sheer away in horror
Scenting fumes of evil
As we lose control.
Defeat and exhaustion, alarm and despondency.
Demoralized and sad.
Slam down the lid on pain and resentment:
I have taken against your family.
Let’s dance. To sit
In silence denigrates our love.
EVAN
My heart aches for you.
We talked for the first time in weeks
About hurt and resentment.
I could manage my life if it weren’t for you
And you could manage yours if it weren’t for me.
You infect me with your despair and I flee to my wife
To release the pressure.
Her quickening influence works my imagination.
EVA
I hate that you are in New York without me.
You pervade that place as God pervades our hearts.
My life is based on my assumption
Of togetherness and my
Secret fear you’re being got at
When we could be snug together.
I obsess that you’re in places where I’m not.
I could not live without seeing you.
I dread our visit may turn sour.
EVAN
Everything except your beautiful self rusts
Or dies or goes away.
My love only seems dead;
it’s alive underneath. If you die
I shall never forgive you
We need ideas that are less about ourselves.
EVAN
I hurt Elayna tonight
But there’s no help for it.
She cares for me and I only care for a life apart.
A clean break, an amputation
Makes me frantic and guilty.
She says we have a happy marriage only because
She willed it. This smell of death and decay
Makes me long for sex.
Could you help me find a girl – any girl you choose –
Or will you call me a sex mad degenerate?
Panic makes my hands shake.
I thought of Elayna and I wept.
EVA
I received your sad, wild letter.
I accept that you can’t free yourself.
Do you accept it?
I feel so very near you.
I accept that you make sex
Desperately with strangers –
Do you accept it?
Can anyone love such a cold-blooded person?
EVAN
How silly I am, I thought
I was reconciled to our ending,
Expected a falling off of tension & illusion.
But it’s a prospect I can’t face.
EVA
Miracles happen but
The gift of love causes guilt & pain.
EVAN
I am utterly becalmed.
What I dread most is silence,
The latest form of impotence.
I need stringing up and tautening.
Revenge on love. Revenge on me.
EVA
I am suffused with love because I am free.
My work becomes our child,
An extension of us. Immortal. Still,
Something vanishes when you’re not there.
EVAN
Elayna broke her hip.
How irreplaceable she is to me.
Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung.
I shrink to leave her even for a day.
EVA
I’m sorry it’s not fatal.
Am I dispensable to you?
You love no one. If you turn against me
I’ll die in a week because
I have no one looking after me.
EVAN
Turn against you! Agonizing!
In spite of the hangover of humiliation
I broke down all reserves so we could be together.
A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.
EVA
Wed & sad.
Past distress is muffled by age & habit.
Today we meet formally as if at a garden party.
A promise unfulfilled.
EVAN
You looked so ill
I was nagged by fear I bored you.
I long for the happiness of old age,
Guilt free, pain free, fear free.
In your silence
I feel your calming hand.
EVA
I invited Elayna to lunch.
EVAN
I am not best pleased.
The day you come to like each other
Our love will die. It will be
Poison to our love.
Elayna rarely admits depression.
I have had not just love but loyalty.
Your ghost will haunt me till I die.
You force ruthlessness.
It is a good thing your throat is sore
Or you would never stop talking.
EVA
Are you sending me your signet ring?
I want something solid to remember you
As I dodge death, fight off this
Paralyzing loneliness.
Our last communion.
(EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)
EVAN
Is the flaw in love a flaw in me?
I never should have married.
My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish.
I am rudderless. Upon your death
My ring comes back,
All your contrivances revealed.
Now you are gone, I find you everywhere.
We will never see each other again;
Never, never, never.
You are gone from me forever.
I walk the streets and weep.
Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair?
I will never cease to feel this pain till
I cease feeling anything.
For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.
Did I anger you, neglect you?
It’s too late to pray –
I await your final book with horror.
I need to know I was your life.
Please
Come back one last time to tell me
Just for an hour.
If you ever thought you loved more than I
You are revenged.
THE END
Alysse Aallyn 
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