The Price Read online

  VICTOR: I doubt that. There are no antiques or—

  ESTHER: Just because it’s ours why must it be worthless?

  VICTOR: Now what’s that for?

  ESTHER: Because that’s the way we think! We do!

  VICTOR, sharply: The man won’t even come to the phone, how am I going to—?

  ESTHER: Then you write him a letter, bang on his door. This belongs to you!

  VICTOR, surprised, seeing how deadly earnest she is: What are you so excited about?

  ESTHER: Well, for one thing it might help you make up your mind to take your retirement.

  A slight pause,

  VICTOR, rather secretively, unwillingly: It’s not the money been stopping me.

  ESTHER: Then what is it?

  He is silent.

  I just thought that with a little cushion you could take a month or two until something occurs to you that you want to do.

  VICTOR: It’s all I think about right now, I don’t have to quit to think.

  ESTHER: But nothing seems to come of it.

  VICTOR: Is it that easy? I’m going to be fifty. You don’t just start a whole new career. I don’t understand why it’s so urgent all of a sudden.

  ESTHER—laughs: All of a sudden! It’s all I’ve been talking about since you became eligible—I’ve been saying the same thing for three years!

  VICTOR: Well, it’s not three years—

  ESTHER: It’ll be three years in March! It’s three years. If you’d gone back to school then you’d almost have your Master’s by now; you might have had a chance to get into something you’d love to do. Isn’t that true? Why can’t you make a move?

  VICTOR—pause. He is almost ashamed: I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not sure the whole thing wasn’t a little unreal. I’d be fifty-three, fifty-four by the time I could start doing anything.

  ESTHER: But you always knew that.

  VICTOR: It’s different when you’re right on top of it. I’m not sure it makes any sense now.

  ESTHER, moving away, the despair in her voice: Well … this is exactly what I tried to tell you a thousand times. It makes the same sense it ever made. But you might have twenty more years, and that’s still a long time. Could do a lot of interesting things in that time. Slight pause. You’re so young, Vic.

  VICTOR: I am?

  ESTHER: Sure! I’m not, but you are. God, all the girls goggle at you, what do you want?

  VICTOR—laughs emptily: It’s hard to discuss it, Es, because I don’t understand it.

  ESTHER: Well, why not talk about what you don’t understand? Why do you expect yourself to be an authority?

  VICTOR: Well, one of us is got to stay afloat, kid.

  ESTHER: You want me to pretend everything is great? I’m bewildered and I’m going to act bewildered! It flies out as though long suppressed: I’ve asked you fifty times to write a letter to Walter—

  VICTOR, like a repeated story: What’s this with Walter again? What’s Walter going to—?

  ESTHER: He is an important scientist, and that hospital’s building a whole new research division. I saw it in the paper, it’s his hospital.

  VICTOR: Esther, the man hasn’t called me in sixteen years.

  ESTHER: But neither have you called him!

  He looks at her in surprise.

  Well, you haven’t. That’s also a fact

  VICTOR, as though the idea were new and incredible: What would I call him for?

  ESTHER: Because, he’s your brother, he’s influential, and he could help—Yes, that’s how people do, Vic! Those articles he wrote had a real idealism, there was a genuine human quality. I mean people do change, you know.

  VICTOR, turning away: I’m sorry, I don’t need Walter.

  ESTHER: I’m not saying you have to approve of him; he’s a selfish bastard, but he just might be able to put you on the track of something. I don’t see the humiliation.

  VICTOR, pressed, irritated: I don’t understand why it’s all such an emergency.

  ESTHER: Because I don’t know where in hell I am, Victor! To her own surprise, she has ended nearly screaming. He is silent. She retracts. I’ll do anything if I know why, but all these years we’ve been saying, once we get the pension we’re going to start to live…. It’s like pushing against a door for twenty-five years and suddenly it opens … and we stand there. Sometimes I wonder, maybe I misunderstood you, maybe you like the department.

  VICTOR: I’ve hated every minute of it.

  ESTHER: I did everything wrong! I swear, I think if I demanded more it would have helped you more.

  VICTOR: That’s not true. You’ve been a terrific wife—

  ESTHER: I don’t think so. But the security meant so much to you I tried to fit into that; but I was wrong. God—just before coming here, I looked around at the apartment to see if we could use any of this—and it’s all so ugly. It’s worn and shabby and tasteless. And I have good taste! I know I do! It’s that everything was always temporary with us. It’s like we never were anything, we were always about-to-be. I think back to the war when any idiot was making so much money—that’s when you should have quit, and I knew it, I knew it!

  VICTOR: That’s when I wanted to quit.

  ESTHER: I only had one drink, Victor, so don’t—

  VICTOR: Don’t change the whole story, kid. I wanted to quit, and you got scared.

  ESTHER: Because you said there was going to be a Depression after the war.

  VICTOR: Well, go to the library, look up the papers around 1945, see what they were saying!

  ESTHER: I don’t care! She turns away—from her own irrationality.

  VICTOR: I swear, Es, sometimes you make it sound like we’ve had no life at all.

  ESTHER: God—my mother was so right! I can never believe what I see. I knew you’d never get out if you didn’t during the war—I saw it happening, and I said nothing. You know what the goddamned trouble is?

  VICTOR, glancing at his watch, as he senses the end of her revolt: What’s the goddamned trouble?

  ESTHER: We can never keep our minds on money! We worry about it, we talk about it, but we can’t seem to want it. I do, but you don’t. I really do, Vic. I want it. Vic? I want money!

  VICTOR: Congratulations.

  ESTHER: You go to hell!

  VICTOR: I wish you’d stop comparing yourself to other people, Esther! That’s all you’re doing lately.

  ESTHER: Well, I can’t help it!

  VICTOR: Then you’ve got to be a failure, kid, because there’s always going to be somebody up ahead of you. What happened? I have a certain nature; just as you do—I didn’t change—

  ESTHER: But you have changed. You’ve been walking around like a zombie ever since the retirement came up. You’ve gotten so vague—

  VICTOR: Well, it’s a decision. And I’d like to feel a little more certain about it.… Actually, I’ve even started to fill out the forms a couple of times.

  ESTHER, alerted: And?

  VICTOR, with difficulty—he cannot understand it himself: I suppose there’s some kind of finality about it that … He breaks off.

  ESTHER: But what else did you expect?

  VICTOR: It’s stupid; I admit it. But you look at that goddamned form and you can’t help it. You sign your name to twenty-eight years and you ask yourself, Is that all? Is that it? And it is, of course. The trouble is, when I think of starting something new, that number comes up—five oh—and the steam goes out. But I’ll do something. I will! With a greater closeness to her now. I don’t know what it is; every-time I think about it all—it’s almost frightening.

  ESTHER: What?

  VICTOR: Well, like when I walked in here before … He looks around. This whole thing—it hit me like some kind of craziness. Piling up all this stuff here like it was made of gold. He half-laughs, almost embarrassed. I brought up every stick; damn near saved the carpet tacks. He turns to the center chair. That whole way I was with him—it’s inconceivable to me now.

  ESTHER, with regret over her s
ympathy: Well … you loved him.

  VICTOR: I know, but it’s all words. What was he? A busted businessman like thousands of others, and I acted like some kind of a mountain crashed. I tell you the truth, every now and then the whole thing is like a story somebody told me. You ever feel that way?

  ESTHER: All day, every day.

  VICTOR: Oh, come on—

  ESTHER: It’s the truth. The first time I walked up those stairs I was nineteen years old. And when you opened that box with your first uniform in it—remember that? When you put it on the first time?—how we laughed? If anything happened you said you’d call a cop! They both laugh. It was like a masquerade. And we were right. That’s when we were right.

  VICTOR, pained by her pain: You know, Esther, every once in a while you try to sound childish and it—

  ESTHER: I mean to be! I’m sick of the— Oh, forget it, I want a drink. She goes for her purse.

  VICTOR, surprised: What’s that, the great adventure? Where are you going all of a sudden?

  ESTHER: I can’t stand it in here, I’m going for a walk.

  VICTOR: Now you cut out this nonsense!

  ESTHER: I am not an alcoholic!

  VICTOR: You’ve had a good life compared to an awful lot of people! You trying to turn into a goddamned teenager or something?

  ESTHER, indicating the furniture: Don’t talk childishness to me, Victor—not in this room! You let it lay here all these years because you can’t have a simple conversation with your own brother, and I’m childish? You’re still eighteen years old with that man! I mean I’m stuck, but I admit it!

  VICTOR, hurt: Okay. Go ahead.

  ESTHER—she can’t quite leave: You got a receipt? I’ll get your suit. He doesn’t move. She makes it rational: I just want to get out of here.

  VICTOR—takes out a receipt and gives it to her. His voice is cold: It’s right off Seventh. The address is on it He moves from her.

  ESTHER: I’m coming back right away.

  VICTOR, freeing her to her irresponsibility: Do as you please, kid. I mean it.

  ESTHER: You were grinding your teeth again last night. Did you know that?

  VICTOR: Oh! No wonder my ear hurts.

  ESTHER: I wish I had a tape recorder. I mean it, it’s gruesome; sounds like a lot of rocks coming down a mountain. I wish you could hear it, you wouldn’t take this self-sufficient attitude.

  He is silent, alarmed, hurt. He moves upstage as though looking at the furniture.

  VICTOR: It’s okay. I think I get the message.

  ESTHER, afraid—she tries to smile and goes back toward him: Like what?

  VICTOR—moves a chair and does a knee bend and draws out the chassis of an immense old radio: What other message is there?

  Slight pause.

  ESTHER, to retrieve the contact: What’s that?

  VICTOR: Oh, one of my old radios that I made. Mama mia, look at those tubes.

  ESTHER, more wondering than she feels about radios: Would that work?

  VICTOR: No, you need a storage battery…. Recalling, he suddenly looks up at the ceiling.

  ESTHER, looking up: What?

  VICTOR: One of my batteries exploded, went right through there someplace. He points. There! See where die plaster is different?

  ESTHER, striving for some spark between them: Is this the one you got Tokyo on?

  VICTOR, not relenting, his voice dead: Ya, this is the monster.

  ESTHER, with a warmth: Why don’t you take it?

  VICTOR: Ah, it’s useless.

  ESTHER: Didn’t you once say you had a lab up here? Or did I dream that?

  VICTOR: Sure, I took it apart when Pop and I moved up here. Walter had that wall, and I had this. We did some great tricks up here.

  She is fastened on him.

  He avoids her eyes and moves waywardly. I’ll be frank with you, kid—I look at my life and the whole thing is incomprehensible to me. I know all the reasons and all the reasons and all the reasons, and it ends up—nothing. He goes to the harp, touches it.

  It’s strange, you know? I forgot all about it—we’d work up here all night sometimes, and it was often full of music. My mother’d play for hours down in the library. Which is peculiar, because a harp is so soft. But it penetrates, I guess.

  ESTHER: You’re dear. You are, Vic. She starts toward him, but he thwarts her by looking at his watch.

  VICTOR: I’ll have to call another man. Come on, let’s get out of here. With a hollow, exhausted attempt at joy: We’ll get my suit and act rich!

  ESTHER: Vic, I didn’t mean that I—

  VICTOR: Forget it. Wait, let me put these away before somebody walks off with them. He takes up the foil and mask.

  ESTHER: Can you still do it?

  VICTOR, his sadness, his distance clinging to him: Oh, no, you gotta be in shape for this. It’s all in the thighs—

  ESTHER: Well, let me see, I never saw you do it!

  VICTOR, giving the inch: All right, but I can’t get down far enough any more. He takes position, feet at right angles, bouncing himself down to a difficult crouch.

  ESTHER: Maybe you could take it up again.

  VICTOR: Oh no, it’s a lot of work, it’s the toughest sport there is. Resuming position: Okay, just stand there.

  ESTHER: Me?

  VICTOR: Don’t be afraid. Snapping the tip: It’s a beautiful foil, see how alive it is? I beat Princeton with this. He laughs tiredly and makes a tramping lunge from yards away; the button touches her stomach.

  ESTHER, springing back: God! Victor!

  VICTOR: What?

  ESTHER: You looked beautiful.

  He laughs, surprised and half-embarrassed—when both of them are turned to the door by a loud, sustained coughing out in the corridor. The coughing increases.

  Enter Gregory Solomon. In brief, a phenomenon; a man nearly ninety but still straight-backed and the air of his massiveness still with him. He has perfected a way of leaning on his cane without appearing weak.

  He wears a worn fur-felt black fedora, its brim turned down on the right side like Jimmy Walker’s—although much dustier—and a shapeless topcoat. His frayed tie has a thick knot, askew under a curled-up cottar tab. His vest is wrinkled, his trousers baggy. A large diamond ring is on his left index finger. Tucked under his arm, a wrung-out leather portfolio. He hasn’t shaved today.

  Still coughing, catching his breath, trying to brush his cigar ashes off his lapel in a hopeless attempt at businesslike decorum, he is nodding at Esther and Victor and has one hand raised in a promise to speak quite soon. Nor has he failed to glance with some suspicion at the foil in Victor’s hand.

  VICTOR: Can I get you a glass of water?

  Solomon gestures an imperious negative, trying to stop coughing.

  ESTHER: Why don’t you sit down?

  Solomon gestures thanks, sits in the center armchair, the cough subsiding.

  You sure you don’t want some water?

  SOLOMON, in a Russian-Yiddish accent: Water I don’t need; a little blood I could use. Thank you. He takes deep breaths, his attention on Victor, who now puts down the foil. Oh boy. That’s some stairs.

  ESTHER: You all right now?

  SOLOMON: Another couple steps you’ll be in heaven. Ah—excuse me, Officer, I am looking for a party. The name is … He fingers in his vest.

  VICTOR: Franz.

  SOLOMON: That’s it, Franz.

  VICTOR: That’s me.

  Solomon looks incredulous.

  Victor Franz.

  SOLOMON: So it’s a policeman!

  VICTOR, grinning: Uh huh.

  SOLOMON: What do you know! Including Esther: You see? There’s only one beauty to this lousy business, you meet all kinda people. But I never dealed with a policeman. Reaching over to shake hands: I’m very happy to meet you. My name is Solomon, Gregory Solomon.

  VICTOR, shaking hands: This is my wife.

  ESTHER: How do you do.

  SOLOMON, nodding appreciatively to Esther: Very nice. To Vict
or: That’s a nice-looking woman. He extends his hands to her. How do you do, darling. Beautiful suit.

  ESTHER—laughs: The fact is, I just bought it!

  SOLOMON: You got good taste. Congratulations, wear it in good health. He lets go her hand.

  ESTHER: I’ go to the cleaner, dear. I’ll be back soon. With a step toward the door—to Solomon: Will you be very long?

  SOLOMON, glancing around at the furniture as at an antagonist: With furniture you never know, can be short, can be long, can be medium.

  ESTHER: Well, you give him a good price now, you hear?

  SOLOMON: Ah ha! Waving her out: Look, you go to the cleaner, and we’ll take care everything one hundred per cent.

  ESTHER: Because there’s some very beautiful stuff here. I know it, but he doesn’t

  SOLOMON: I’m not sixty-two years in the business by taking advantage. Go, enjoy the cleaner.

  She and Victor laugh.

  ESTHER, shaking her finger at him: I hope I’m going to like you!

  SOLOMON: Sweetheart, all the girls like me, what can I do?

  ESTHER, still smiting—to Victor as she goes to the door: You be careful.

  VICTOR, nodding: See you later.

  She goes.

  SOLOMON: I like her, she’s suspicious.

  VICTOR, laughing in surprise: What do you mean by that?

  SOLOMON: Well, a girl who believes everything, how you gonna trust her?

  Victor laughs appreciatively.

  I had a wife … He breaks off with a wave of the hand. Well, what’s the difference? Tell me, if you don’t mind, how did you get my name?

  VICTOR: In the phone book.

  SOLOMON: You don’t say! The phone book.

  VICTOR: Why?

  SOLOMON, cryptically: No-no, that’s fine, that’s fine.

  VICTOR: The ad said you’re a registered appraiser.

  SOLOMON: Oh yes. I am registered, I am licensed, I am even vaccinated.

  Victor laughs.