Growing up in or near Coney Island during World War II and in the two decades after: A play
You also may wish to check out the paperback book that contains this play: Ethno-Playography: How to Create Salable Ethnographic Plays, Monologues, & Skits from Life Stories, Social Issues... by Anne Hart (Jul 27, 2007). At this date the book is listed at the publisher's site and at: Amazon.com.
Growing Up in Coney Island during and the two decades after World War Two: A Stage, Radio, or Internet Play
© Anne Hart 1987
List of Characters in this Play:
Meir Cohen Levi, Father of Hadara and Husband of Tsipke
Hadara Cohen Levi, Baby in first chapter, then 9-year old
girl, first person as narrator.
Benjamin, son of Meir
Tsipke, the mother of Hadara
The Arab Sheik as Hadara's first husband,
*Ahmed (not his real name)
Eric* (not his real name), Hadara's second husband
Mrs. Hesk, an older neighbor with a Yiddish accent
Hadara's two children as five-year olds:
Fawzi,
Samira
Hadara's two children as young adults: (17-20 age group)
Fawzi,
Samira
Shoe Sales clerk
In-laws:
Samintov
Mazeltov
Darlene, college friend of Hadara
Black Man, in Subway
Goldie, Darlene's mother
Classmates, 8th and 9th grade, ages 13 and 14
Neighbors
Paramedic
Friends
___________________________________________________
Act I
Ext. Brooklyn, N.Y., Rainy Day, November 1941
AS CURTAIN RISES, WE SEE THE FRONT OF THE CONEY ISLAND
APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE MEIR in front of his brick, four
family apartment house tries to adjust the lens on his box
camera. He reacts to the invisible wind that slashes his
face, covering his white hair and beard with his hands as his
breath quickens in anger.
Whippet-wiry MEIR (age 47), a janitor, is dressed in patched
janitor's coveralls. From inside the house echoes of Bach
peal through the apartment and can be heard outside. OFFSTAGE
WHERE HEAR THE SOUND EFFECTS OF A SUBWAY elevator line
grinding by, drowning out the phonograph music.
TSIPKE (38), his wife, carries in one arm her blanketed two
week old daughter, HADARA. In her other arm, she tries to
balance a bouquet of American Beauty roses.
The blanket keeps blowing over the baby's face as TSIPKE
fidgets to straighten the blanket. The baby's nerve
shattering cry pierces the wind.
TSIPKE
Hurry and take the picture.
The baby's turning blue from the cold weather.
TSIPKE shouts at MEIR. And the shouts seem to be coming from
a horde of women, SCREAMING together in fury.
We see the open mouth of TSIPKE. Her voice becomes an
indistinguishable roar of needy demand as loud as the wind.
MEIR tries to focus the camera once more. TSIPKE smiles and
tries to pose as he fidgets with the lens.
TSIPKE yells again and again, like a compelling tattoo.
TSIPKE
The baby's freezing, you jerk.
MEIR
Shut up! Damn it.
I'm trying to keep the lens from getting dusty.
TSIPKE
Hurry up, neurotic. She can't
breathe. What are you standing
there for, got your thumb up your
butt?
MEIR'S temper cracks, and he lets fly with a right hook to
her left chest. The baby slides from the blanket into a
puddle of rain on the sidewalk. MEIR can't stop punching his
wife. The deep, red American Beauty roses scatter in the rain
near the baby's head.
Darkened Stage
New Scene
Lights Come on. Spotlight on the Darkened Bedroom.
Int. Nov. 1950, Same Brooklyn Apartment
Night
HADARA lies awake next to her mother in the rutted double bed
in which they both sleep. MEIR, in the next bedroom, sleeps
in twin beds with his 22-year old son, BENJAMIN. It's three
in the morning. Outside the window WE HEAR THE SOUND EFFECTS
OF the grinding subway train as it passes on its way from
Coney Island. There's the sound of squealing metal cars as
the train turns on the elevator line track.
TSIPKE (CONT'D)
Remember when we played suffering?
I'd rub your belly, and your doll would be delivered like a
baby?
TSIPKE laughs and hacks her cigarette cough.
HADARA rolls over, pulling her mass of hair from her eyes.
HADARA
Mom, are you a worrywart?
TSIPKE
No. Do I look that nervous?
TSIPKE pops the muscle up in her biceps to show how strong
her muscles are.
HADARA
I'm tired of hearing about your
lack of romance.
I'm sick of your hands all over me
playing "having a baby." It's
always either how your mom gave you
away when you were two, or, where
daddy is off to by himself.
TSIPKE
Your father gave me gonorrhea.
Where do you think he got it, in
France during World War One?
HADARA
I'm not interested any more in
listening to your complaints about
daddy or your life story and how
you ate out of garbage cans as a
kid, or how dad's job is mopping
toilets in the Navy yard. You just
talk, but you don't change
anything.
TSIPKE
You're nine today. You have to
know.
HADARA
No, I don't. The radiator dried out
the air again. Now my nose and
throat's raw.
MEIR tiptoes out of his bedroom and crawls into bed with his
wife.
MEIR
Move over.
What's the kid doing up so late?
HADARA
What are you doing here?
MEIR ignores her and takes off his pajamas, climbing into bed
to make love to his wife.
HADARA
Get out of here.
TSIPKE
Leave the kid, alone, MEIR.
MEIR
You kicking me out of bed?
MEIR hesitates for a moment. TSIPKE is silent.
HADARA
I want to go back to sleep.
MEIR
Shut up, you tramp.
HADARA
Don't call me a tramp on my
birthday.
MEIR
(Outraged)
Better you should be crippled.
You should have been born a boy.
TSIPKE
She says she got a high IQ
MEIR
I'll smash you one, you piece of
garbage.
MEIR hurries his pajamas back on and storms out of the
bedroom looking for something to smash. He finds a hammer in
the living room and begins to smash all the keys on HADARA's
piano. TSIPKE gets up and follows him into the living room.
TSIPKE
Stop. I saved for months to buy
that old piano. My daughter's a
talented artist.
When MEIR finishes smashing the piano keys, he goes for
HADARA's violin. MEIR puts his foot through the violin.
HADARA cries.
TSIPKE jumps out of bed.
TSIPKE
All the kid's birthday presents!
MEIR
I'll teach you.
MEIR, having smashed the violin, finally storms into the
bathroom where HADARA's new puppy is sleeping in its basket
and holds the puppy's belly against the hot radiator pipe in
the bathroom until it stops whimpering.
The more HADARA CRIES, the more TSIPKE backs away from her.
MEIR comes out of the bathroom with his hammer in hand and
begins to chase HADARA around the living room and into the
kitchen, waving the hammer over his head.
MEIR
If I catch you, I'll cripple you.
Heads will roll before you'll become a tramp and shame me.
HADARA (SOBBING)
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, daddy.
MEIR
Better you should be a cripple then
to be born a girl and make trouble.
TSIPKE follows MEIR into the kitchen and lights a cigarette,
making the motions of heating up water for coffee.
TSIPKE
Leave the kid alone.
MEIR (RAGING)
I should have flushed her out into
the bay with the condom before she
was conceived. Better such a dog
wasn't born.
TSIPKE
If I have to get up for a second
cigarette…
Damn, those cigarettes are choking me.
But you two fighting all the time are driving me to smoke.
MEIR takes a swing at HADARA, but misses. HADARA darts out
the kitchen and dashes through the living room and out the
front door, running down the apartment steps to the basement.
She hurries down the cellar steps with MEIR, chasing behind,
hammer swinging over his head.
In the darkness of the cellar, MEIR chases HADARA. She
squeezes her body into a partially-filled co&1 bin, hiding
behind an old barrel. HADARA covers herself with coal.
MEIR peers around for a moment, wild-eyed. He wipes the sweat
from his upper lip on his pajama sleeve.
MEIR
If I catch you, you die.
HADARA watches him from between the wide slats of the coal
bin as he swings his hammer overhead. MEIR passes a basement
worktable and puts down his hammer only to pick up an ax. He
slaps the ax broadside across his thigh several times. Then
he sighs and puts the ax back on the table. Finally,
exhausted, MEIR plods up the wooden stairs. The apartment
door closes with a bang.
Int. Kitchen Brooklyn Apartment. Same Night
TSIPKE
(staccato voice)
No sooner did I put the baby on
your lap then you told me to take
her off because she gave you an
erection. Your temper is only a bad
habit. Why is it necessary to
transfer your stress to me? Why
isn't it important that you add to
my life span?
MEIR
You keep hounding me just because
your step father came into your
room to have sex with you when you
went upstate to visit your mother.
TSIPKE
He's your richest brother. Besides,
I told him to get out. You didn't
see him grabbing an ax or hammer.
MEIR
Girls only make trouble. You know
how many times I asked the doctor
to check to make sure-maybe he made
a mistake-maybe she was a boy.
TSIPKE
Is that why you never held a
conversation with your own
daughter? You never smiled.
Not once in your whole life did she ever hear you laugh,
except at her.
MEIR
What about you going into your
son's room to massage his feet
every morning and comb his hair?
TSIPKE
I'm a nineteen-fourteen fifth-grade dropout mom.
MEIR
He's twenty-two. You're
overbearing.
TSIPKE
And you're a cold fish. The only
passion I ever see is anger.
If that's the only way you can get power, I'm going back to
bed.
She turns around.
TSIPKE
Where's the kid?
MEIR
In the coal bins again.
Let her rot in hell down there.
MEIR staggers back to bed. TSIPKE sits on her bed with the
light on, smoking cigarettes and reading old newspapers.
Darken Stage or Curtain.
New Scene:
Int. Basement Morning
HADARA peaks out of the basement window and scratches off
some of the frost. She watches MEIR go off to work, walking
toward the subway station. Then she climbs the stairs back to
the apartment and knocks on the door.
TSIPKE opens the door wearing a stained and disheveled robe.
TSIPKE
Benjamin just had a fight with me
over you making too much noise. And
he broke a lamp over my arm. I
dared him to do it.
HADARA
Does daddy know?
TSIPKE
I had to tell him.
So now he smashed your brother's typewriter right before his
term paper is due.
HADARA
I'm too tired to go to school
today.
HADARA slowly walks through the foyer, passing and looking at
her dead canary in its small bird cage.
TSIPKE
It caught a cough.
You'll have to take it down to the garbage cans.
HADARA
Aw, no!
HADARA runs into the bedroom. TSIPKE follows her.
TSIPKE
Listen, you little mouse, want to
go shopping?
HADARA
Don't you have anything better to
do?
TSIPKE goes back into the kitchen and begins to fry eggs.
HADARA comes into the kitchen. TSIPKE puts down a heel of rye
bread for HADARA and some hot cocoa and corn flakes.
Darkened Stage, Curtain
New Scene:
In a department store near a counter with women's costume
jewelry, lingerie, and cheap cologne…
Int. Department Store, Brooklyn Day
TSIPKE and HADARA walk through the department store. TSIPKE
shoplifts baubles and silken wisps of lingerie, cheap
cologne, and boxes of face powder, rhinestone costume jewelry
and lipsticks. When no one is in the ladies room, she taker
in clothing and stuffs the items into her panties.
HADARA sneers.
TSIPKE
So that's why I wear incontinence
panties. Bet you can't pronounce
it.
HADARA
I don't want any of the beads or
perfume. You've cursed them.
You've given them the evil eye. We'll get bad luck.
Why do you take things in tiny sizes, when you're shaped like
an apple?
TSIPKE enters the toilet cubicle.
TSIPKE
(banging on the wall)
Your father gives me three dollars
a day.
How else can I live like a lady instead of a woman?
HADARA
I won't wear that crap.
TSIPKE (HANDING HER CLOTHES UNDER THE
STALL)
Here, stuff this into your panties.
HADARA
No! How come women of grandma's
generation never went to school in
the old country?
And how come you dropped out in the fifth grade?
TSIPKE
I was born at the turn of the
century.
HADARA
So were a lot of famous women
scientists.
TSIPKE drags whining HADARA into the fitting room with some
of the dresses and items tucked inside of three dresses
because the sign says only three garments are allowed in the
dressing room at one time.
In front of the mirror, TSIPKE tries on bras, slips, and
clothing under her own clothes. But all she brings out are
the three dresses she took in with her and hands them to the
clerk. The rest are stashed on her person.
TSIPKE (TO SALES CLERK)
These dresses aren't the right
size.
TSIPKE leads HADARA by the hand into the shoe department to
pick out a pair of school shoes for her. They sit down to
rest in the shoe department. A salesman approaches. HADARA
points to a pair of saddle shoes and the salesman retrieves
the shoes. The SALESMAN tries to lace the saddle shoe on
HADARA'S toot.
SHOE SALESMAN
Well, little girl. Give me that
skinny foot, here.
HADARA
Leave me alone, you!
HADARA whispers in his ear and runs out of the shoe
department.
SHOE SALESMAN
That filthy-mouthed kid.
I wonder where she learned that?
Embarrassed, TSIPKE gets up and leaves to chase after HADARA.
She catches up with her and slaps her so hard she gets a
bloody nose. TSIPKE buys a towel and makes HADARA keep it on
her nose.
TSIPKE
Don't make me hit you.
Because if I do, I'll kill you.
HADARA
He didn't have to call me skinny.
TSIPKE
Horseface! Why did you say that
word to him in this place?
HADARA
He meant I was ugly.
TSIPKE (STARING AT HADARA'S FEET)
You wore those old, dirty socks?
HADARA
It's from the coal bin.
TSIPKE
You're beginning to stink just like
your old man who's never taken a
bath since World War One.
Darkened Stage or Curtain End of Scene.
New Scene:
Back At Home.
Afternoon.
HADARA is reading two comic books, "The Vault of Horror" and
"The Crypt of Terror. Mother and daughter are riding home,
seated on the subway.
HADARA
See my scar? I don't know where you
Stop and I begin anymore.
TSIPKE
So?
HADARA
Your curse and evil eye made me
fall over that fence last summer.
The year before, I got a fish hook in my leg.
TSIPKE
So it was my curse, was it? Does
that explain the eight stitches
they had to take in your chin? Now
that you're a scar face, only the
worse kind of man will want to
marry you.
HADARA
That stuff you took. It brings me
bad luck.
TSIPKE
Then don't touch it.
HADARA
I want to enroll myself in Hebrew
School on Monday. Nobody talks to
me in class in public school. I
don't have any friends. And when I
told the teacher, she gave me an
"F" in personal relationships.
Fadeout to a Darkened Stage
Curtain Descends: End Of Scene.
New Scene
Tsipke's Apartment - 1955 - Day
HADARA
I'm damn tired of your analyzing
me.
TSIPKE
Maybe I should go back to
buying corporate high-yield bonds?
HADARA
(turns TSIPKE to mirror)
Go ahead, look at yourself stuffing
negligees into old ladies
incontinence panties.
TSIPKE
You think I wanted you?
HADARA
You hate kids, don't you?
TSIPKE
No. Damn you. I'm desperately
lonely.
Are you worth the three dollars a day your old man flings at
me?
HADARA
Are you?
You've never gone back to school after the fifth
grade....never had a job, you lazy blimp.
TSIPKE
Why did you have to be born just as
I was about to divorce your father?
HADARA
I hate weak mothers.
TSIPKE
A lady has a husband rich enough to
support her. A woman has to work
because she can't get a good enough
man.
HADARA
Only failures marry.
TSIPKE
Think I wanted you?
I'm only taking care of you because your father made it my
responsibility.
HADARA
What do you get from
stealing...some kind of sexual
excitement?
TSIPKE
What do you mean, sex?
I haven't had any since you were born.
HADARA
Do I have to know that?
TSIPKE
Horse face! Your father hasn't
had a bath since the end of World War One.
HADARA
Is that why you're always saying
he's a disabled veteran?
TSIPKE pauses a beat, looking disgusted. Then she
slaps HADARA across the face. She retracts in
horror.
HADARA
How the hell was I ever conceived?
TSIPKE
My father paid us a visit.
HADARA
What has that got to do with it?
TSIPKE
I was so happy to see him,
I gave him my room and went to sleep in your father's room.
HADARA
Did Benjamin watch the bang?
TSIPKE
(looking down)
He was sleeping, I guess.
HADARA
I wished daddy was proud of me.
TSIPKE
A caring man prefers olive oil
instead of butter.
HADARA
See this scar on my face?
TSIPKE
What about the lightning you carved
on my face?
HADARA
You called me horse face.
TSIPKE
But you are as ugly as your father.
HADARA
I don't look ugly.
I look Semitic.
TSIPKE
Better get yourself an exciting
career because no man worth money
will want you.
HADARA
I got that scar because you cursed
me.
(shaking her mother)
Take it off. Take off the evil eye,
damn it!
TSIPKE
You had no right to throw a
protractor in my face.
HADARA
Your evil eye made me fall over
that fence in the schoolyard and
split my face open.
TSIPKE
You lost your balance because you
were playing with A Syrian girl.
She's a jynx to you because of some
previous life.
HADARA
We were nine years old.
TSIPKE
I told you time and time again that
people who are not the same as us
are bad luck when we try to be
them. When we can't see the
boundaries, we don't know where we
end and where they begin.
HADARA
No, it was your evil-eyed curse.
TSIPKE
She was with you when it happened.
I wasn't anywhere near there.
HADARA
You linked minds with me when I
threw the protractor at you. Or was
it a compass?
TSIPKE
I didn't throw my mother's evil
eye. It was karma.
HADARA
You're all crazy makers. All those
churches you go to, those clubs,
the gypsies you visit in
storefronts to gab.
TSIPKE
I'm lonely. You did something bad
to Syrians in a past life. That's
why they're bad luck to you now.
HADARA
The girl simply asked me to pretend
the janitor was chasing us.
TSIPKE
The little bitch didn't take your
side, did she?
She forced you to climb the fence.
HADARA
I'd do anything for her friendship.
TSIPKE
It was her fantasy, not yours.
Can't you see? It was her karma cursing you.
HADARA
Stop, already.
We shouldn't even bring back her name.
She's a jinx.
Your father's mother's eye, those people from Bialystock, the
musicians who played with the Klezmorim, they will put the
curse of the evil on anyone who commits evil.
TSIPKE
How should I know?
Of course she's a jinx.
Maybe she put a curse on all of us.
Isn't it odd that her brother-in-law turned out
to be the lawyer for the
city and we lost the case?
HADARA
We make our own choices.
TSIPKE
I had to pay all the
lawyer's costs.
HADARA
I've got to change my name.
TSIPKE
Why do you let strangers torture
you?
Isn't it enough you have this family?
HADARA
Why did you tell me the Japanese
were bombing New York
when I was three?
TSIPKE
Such trouble, such complications
from you, horse face.
HADARA
That's my first memory.
You enjoyed making me sweat
and tremble.
TSIPKE
I could feel your father
moving inside my body.
HADARA
But it was me in your arms.
TSIPKE
Now your mind has the strength of
ten men.
HADARA
Dad keeps saying he wished he'd
flushed me into the bay.
TSIPKE
I'd be free,
if only I sent your brother
to the drug store for rubbers.
HADARA
Free to do what--make lopsided
ash trays in your ceramics class?
TSIPKE
You think your soul can be
flushed through your dad's
kidneys?
HADARA
If you knew how much
I hate being female.
TSIPKE
The day I married, I
wrote in my diary
"Today I died."
HADARA
Then stop saying I'm killing you.
TSIPKE
Your old man read it
back to me with
tears in his eyes.
We were on the honeymoon
train to Miami.
HADARA
He opened your secret diary?
TSIPKE
Girls make trouble.
HADARA
Emotions make trouble.
My only need is to
get rid of them.
TSIPKE
Through the storms of hell,
I curse you to be logical.
You'll get your wish...
in your husband.
HADARA
Why are you afraid to be Jewish?
Polish Jewish, I mean?
TSIPKE
Shut up.
They'll getcha.
HADARA
You're a holocaust survivor,
aren't you, mom. Aren't you?
Why don't you ever talk about it?
TSIPKE
The second generation mustn't know.
HADARA
Would it really have made a
difference?
TSIPKE
They said I had the map of
Jerusalem printed on my face.
HADARA
You were beaten by strangers
who didn't even know your name.
TSIPKE
They were biting my tits off.
And I was screaming that my hair is black because I'm from
Babylon.
HADARA
What did you do with the fear, pass
it onto me?
TSIPKE
I bleached my hair, and changed my
name.
HADARA
People change with time.
TSIPKE
You think it's a joke?
HADARA
I'll tell you where
the holocaust is, mom.
It's inside this dump.
TSIPKE
Don't belittle the holocaust.
I take your father's and brother's slaps like a soldier.
HADARA
And all you do is nag and laugh at
him...
and complain. But nothing changes.
I'm growing up to fear all men.
He says you're overbearing.
TSIPKE
Your brother is my life.
You're father is always at his flower shows.
And I'm all alone, except for you.
So would you lighten up?
HADARA
I'll laugh at my own pain
if I want to, walrus-face,
manatee-hips...guilt complex.
TSIPKE
You have a moustache.
HADARA
Thanks for reminding me.
TSIPKE
Hey, what the hell
did you ever do for me?
Curtain or Fade Out
Act II
New Scene:
Jr. High School Classroom Fall 1955 Day
It is the fall of 1955 at a public junior high school in
Brooklyn. HADARA (age 13) sits in a classroom that is made up
of mostly Syrian Jewish students whose parents are recent
immigrants from either Syria or Syria by way of Latin
America.
It is break time in home room, when students are free to
chat. JUSTA, (13) and Seeley (13) are Syrian Pampered
princesses who sit in the surrounding seats near HADARA.
These girls are so wealthy they make uptown Jewish princesses
look like paupers. They all live around Ocean Parkway, the
wealthiest street in Flatbush, in private homes as big as
mansions.
HADARA at 13 is a short, skinny girl with waist-length black
hair in corkscrew curls and pale green eyes hidden behind
coke-bottle thick eyeglasses.
HADARA
Why can't I join your sorority?
The Megaz looks like a lot of fun.
JUSTA
You have to be Syrian to join.
HADARA
Well what if I said I was a Syrian
Jewish Princess who spent all day
shopping and had a big house like
you instead of a two-room
apartment?
JUSTA
You ain't got any Syrian name or
Syrian money.
HADARA
That means nothing.
What if I had a Syrian bio father and a Polish Jewish step
father or somethin'?
JUSTA
I haven't seen you around any
Syrian neighborhoods. You don't
even live near our blocks. I've
never seen you go to the Syrian
synagogue.
HADARA
How do you know what synagogue I go
to?
Besides, my mom is so scared of being Jewish, she drags me to
churches.
She got beat up plenty just for looking like the stereotype.
JUSTA
Your family doesn't hang around
with our crowd at the Nobeh parties
we have on Saturday nights. You're
not even religious. You wear
lipstick. I've never seen you
around before.
HADARA
Well, what if I hang around the
Syrian center?
Suppose I insist I am Syrian and I want to join.
I have a special reason for wanting to join the Megaz.
I want to find a rich husband to cherish me.
What would I have to do to get in?
JUSTA
Pass initiation. You have to take
off all your clothes in Seeley's
closet and let her six-year old
brother feel you up.
HADARA
I couldn't do such a thing.
JUSTA
Did you ever let a boy feel you up?
Justa giggles and starts to chew on her snack.
HADARA
Is that your stupid initiation
rites?
JUSTA
You have to take off your sweater
and bra in Seeley's closet and walk
into her living room and stand
there while Tynie feels you up.
HADARA
What about Seeley's mother?
JUSTA
She's in Florida for a week.
The maid finishes the ironing at two and leaves to go
shopping.
We're nearly fourteen.
We don't need the maid to watch us every minute.
HADARA
If I take off my clothes
are you sure I can join the Megaz?
JUSTA
Do you want to join?
HADARA
You're pretty weird.
Int. Seeley's House
Seeley, Robrana, Wiley, and dusts, the leaders of the Megaz
sorority of Syrian Jewish junior high girls meets at Seeley's
house on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. All the girls are 13 and
go to the same junior high school.
No parent is present in the large, mansion-like private home.
The heavy, black maid is busy ironing clothes and walks out a
few minutes after all the girls arrive and settle down, lady
like and quiet in the spacious, plush living room.
HADARA
I heard all of your parents come
from one city in Syria--Aleppo.
Is it true the Aleppan Jews don't hang around with the Jews
from Damascus?
Is it like the Litvaks and the Galicianas used to be fifty
years ago in Europe?
HADARA looks around the house, pacing the floor nervously.
SEELEY
All I know is that we have two
social centers.
One in Bensonhurst for the Damascenes.
And there's one here for the Haleebees from Aleppo.
Our grandparents were born in Aleppo
My mom is from South America.
Seeley looks at JUSTA wide-eyed. The two girls exchange
glances and nudge one another's elbows, smiling and giggling.
JUSTA
We're all Syrians.
HADARA
Give me something proud to be a
Litvak.
Of what can I be proud?
Of what I do instead of who I am?
Give me something proud to say about being a Litvak?
JUSTA
You can be proud you're in the same
classroom at school with us and
everyone else.
HADARA
Oh, so you do talk to me.
How come you don't marry
Ashkenazi Jews from Europe?
You think Sephardics or Mizrahi are better or older?
Equal, but different, like men and women?
You think we're self-styled Jews from Northern Europe?
Maybe you think we're part Vikings and Asians.
JUSTA
We never saw you around our social
center.
HADARA
I stood outside the Syrian
synagogue on the holidays.
So, I hear Davie Joseph is practicing for his Bar Mitzvah.
He's probably right next door.
JUSTA
Hadara, you know what you have to
do.
It's initiation time.
HADARA
Sure. Whereas your closet?
It's dark in the hallway as HADARA enters Seeley's huge
closet and takes off her sweater end undershirt.
She stays in there a long while, as the girls pass around
plates of Syrian pizza--cheese and spices melted on top of
Pita bread.
SEELEY
What are you doing in there so
long?
HADARA
I'm ready.
After a long moment of torment, HADARA walks out in nude
colored body suit from the waist up, clutching her undershirt
and sweeter to her undeveloped chest. Justa pulls her sweater
and undershirt out of her grip as HADARA crosses her arms
over her chest to hide her flat breasts.
Justa tosses her clothing high in the air to Seeley, then to
Robrana and to Wiley. The clothes continuously are tossed in
the air from girl to girl as if they were & volley ball.
ELLEY
Monkey in the middle.
The Polish girl plays a fiddle.
HADARA
Give me beck my clothes. Please,
girls.
HADARA paces around chasing after the girls, trying to form
same eye contest to get their attention and get her clothing
back. She keeps her hands crossed over her chest.
HADARA
Where's your six-year old brother?
You lied to me. He's not here.
He'd probably tell your parents.
ELLEY
Hey, Seeley. Give her back her
clothes.
Go on give it to her.
JUSTA
Oh, gee. All right. Here's your
sweater.
JUSTA tosses the sweater and HADARA reaches up to catch her
clothing in mid-air. The girls giggle loudly.
SEELEY
Look how small her breasts are.
She's as flat as a pancake.
HADARA's back is toward the camera. The girls stop in their
tracks and all of them stare at HADARA's naked chest as she
struggles to put her torn undershirt on and then her red
sweater.
JUSTA
We have no initiation rights to
join the Megaz We just wanted to
see how crazy you'd act to get into
our sorority.
HADARA
You really went and did it.
JUSTA
Why did you lie and keep insisting
you were Syrian? I know where you
live, in a roachy apartment next to
the subway and not in the Syrian
neighborhood.
HADARA
I'll have to face you in school
tomorrow and for the next three
years.
SEELEY
Crazy HADARA is really nuts enough
to get naked to join our club.
JUSTA
A Crazy HADARA.
You have to be born one of us to join.
JUSTA opens the door and shoves HADARA into the street. She
backs up and the four girls pace toward until HADARA is
standing at the curb. Then the girls toss her into the street
into the path of an oncoming car. The car brakes and comes to
a halt a few inches before hitting HADARA.
HADARA looks up only to see Avy Joseph, the Syrian Jewish
boy' she has a crush on coming out of the Synagogue after
practicing for his Bar Mitzvah.
Their eyes meet, but each turns and quickly walks in two
opposite directions, to offstage. Avy is dressed in a prayer
shawl and skull cap. He had been practicing for his Bar
Mitzvah.
The girls go back into the house, giggling and slam door
shut. HADARA is left standing on the curb in silence as Avy
Joseph approaches as he is on his way home nearby.
HADARA
Hello Avy. How's school?
AVY
Pretty good.
AVY walks away quickly, not paying any attention to HADARA.
Soon a swarm of teenage girls leave the synagogue end catch
up to AVY as HADARA watches from a short distance away,
unnoticed. The girls crowd around AVY as he stands with
crossed legs, leaning on the fence of one of the areas
upscale homes chatting with them. He's popular with the girls
as they smile and admire the dimples in his cheeks.
Darken Stage: Curtain.
End of Scene
New Scene:
Eight Years Later In Time:
Fade In:
August, 1963
Int. - Dance Hall - YMCA - New York City - Night
An uncrowded dance-hall floor is livened by classical
Flamenco guitar music. "El Judio" is playing--a Middle
Eastern-sounding wild, Flamenco dance.
HADARA swirls onto the dance floor, alone. She's wearing
white, with long, fringy ear rings.
Her hands clap in the soft, seductive rhythms of southern
Spain, the
beat builds in a crescendo with the music. Then she
begins to dance by herself.
The music grows louder, the dancing wilder as a crowd
forms around her. HADARA is now twenty-one years of age.
She's a petite, slender woman with long black hair and dark,
compelling eyes.
Hadara finishes her dance. Someone puts on American dance
records of the sixties.
One man, MALEK, 28, a Lebanese exchange student walks toward
HADARA.
MALEK
Thanks for editing my technical
manual.
HADARA
No sweat.
I doubt if I could write a book in Arabic.
MALEK
Hey, introduce me to that blonde
who walked in with you.
MALEK points to HADARA's girlfriend, ANDREA.
She's a tall, buxom blonde.
HADARA
Sure. Oh, Andrea!
Meet an old friend--
Malek Edeen. He's a good,
Druish boy from Beirut.
MALEK
That's a Druze.
My religion is Druze, from Lebanon.
ANDREA
Hi! Has HADARA been writing your
master's thesis?
MALEK
Technical manuals.
Would you like to dance?
ANDREA
No. I'm supposed to meet this
violin-playing Afghan urologist.
MALEK
You look German.
Is that where you're from?
ANDREA
I'm a Polish Jew from West First
Street, near Coney Island
just as Cleopatra was from Alexandria, near Egypt.
HADARA
Malek, Andrea only dates foreign
Jewish doctors from Asia.
ANDREA
The ones born here want wives whose
fathers are rich enough to set them
up in business.
HADARA
She's joking.
MALEK
Say, I have a friend who came from
Syria only five days ago.
HADARA
And you want me to teach him
English.
MALEK
He doesn't speak a word.
HADARA
All I know in Arabic is "ya
habeeby."
MALEK
I'll interpret.
HADARA and MALEK walk out of the dance hall to a quiet area
of the YMCA with lounge chairs and desks.
HADARA
What does he do for a living?
MALEK
He's a year away from his doctorate
in engineering.
HADARA
Hmm...a good provider.
MALEK
The guy speaks German.
He lived in Frankfort for the past six years.
HADARA
A doctor of engineering!
What kind?
MALEK
Mechanical.
Is that a good enough provider?
HADARA
That's not as good as matching me
to a military colonel.
But it's easier than trying to marry a doctor in New York.
MALEK
Who said anything about marrying
the guy?
HADARA
Oh, flesh out.
HADARA
What kind of a visa does he have?
MALEK
A thirty-day one.
HADARA
He's desperate.
MALEK
How come you stopped dating me?
HADARA
You're a mechanic.
I told you I'm looking to marry a professional.
MALEK
What would he see in you?
HADARA
Hey, we all go into marriage
looking for a package deal.
MALEK
It's a trade-off.
HADARA
The most successful guys still have
to settle.
MALEK
And what are you peddling?
HADARA
I'm a college graduate...worked my
way through.
What's the least stressful job? That's what I want.
MALEK
That won't make you rich.
HADARA
Don't I deserve a prince?
MALEK and HADARA meet up with AHMED HADDAD.
They shake hands.
MALEK
Well, here's your sheik.
MALEK speaks in Arabic to AHMED, who nods, smiling.
The conversation is conducted entirely through MALEK, the
interpreter.
HADARA
Are you sure you're an engineer?
MALEK
(in Arabic the translated
in English by Malek)
Tell her what you do.
AHMED
(in Arabic, then
translated in English by
Malek)
I'm a mechanical engineer
babysitting for an Arab family on
Long Island in exchange for a room.
MALEK
Tell her about you getting a
doctorate in engineering.
AHMED
(in Arabic then translated
by Malek in English)
I've got a year to go.
MALEK
What do you say we all go to chat
in an all-night automat?
AHMED
Let's shove off.
They head for the subway.
End of Scene: Curtain.
EXT. SUBWAY ENTRANCE
INT. SUBWAY
INT. AUTOMAT - NEW YORK - NIGHT
MALEK
Ahmed says he's on a thirty-day
visa and has to find a wife, fast.
HADARA
Good luck.
AHMED
(in Arabic)
I want lots of children.
MALEK
He's ready to start a family.
HADARA
Children only make a woman poor.
MALEK
He has no money.
HADARA
I don't want to be dragged to the
level of my husband's job.
MALEK
Careful, Ahmed's an aimed bullet.
HADARA
How ironic New York Jews aren't
invited to work in Lebanon.
MALEK
What brought that out?
HADARA
Imagine being arrested for looking
convexed-nosed in a Phoenician
world where everybody else looks
convexed rather than perplexed.
MALEK
(looking at his watch)
Yallah! Look at the time.
The last bus leaves for Hoboken at three A.M.
I'll walk you to the Times Square subway entrance.
They all rise and leave the eatery, walking to the Forty
Second Street subway entrance. AHMED drapes his arm around
HADARA and she looks into his smiling eyes.
AHMED
(in German)
Do you speak any German?
HADARA
I only speak English.
Say... "I speak some English."
AHMED
I speak some English.
HADARA
There. I'll have you talking with a
Brooklyn accent in three months.
A clock in a store window reads 2:30 A.M. They look up at
the clock.
They reach the subway entrance. MALEK pays HADARA's subway
fare, putting a token in the turnstile.
MALEK
Thanks for the English lesson.
MALEK pauses, looking down, then at his watch. He turns and
walks away. AHMED follows behind.
HADARA
What? Aren't you two gentleman
going to take this lady home?
MALEK
(shouting back)
I'm talking Ahmed home.
There's no way I'm missing the last bus.
MALEK storms off, shoving AHMED to hurry.
HADARA kicks the wall in the subway station.
HADARA
(shouting to Malek)
It's an hour's ride back to Coney
Island.
End of Scene.
New Scene: Inside of Subway Car.
HADARA is wearing a fancy white dress and spike heels.
She takes the D-train to her Brooklyn station, KINGS HIGHWAY.
Opposite her sits a middle-aged black man with a frightening,
badly-scarred face. He's dressed in filthy, torn clothes and
wears a cap.
He smiles sardonically and stares at her during the entire
subway trip. HADARA closes her eyes and pretends to sleep for
most of the trip.
When the train stops at KINGS HIGHWAY, the black man follows
her, ducking behind the KINGS HIGHWAY station sign when she
turns around to see whether
anyone's following her.
He hides. She isn't aware he's following her until she starts
to walk the short distance to her four-family apartment
house.
The black man catches up to her by an open lot, just a few
feet from her house. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she
spins around to look into his frightening face.
BLACK MAN
Hi! baby.
HADARA gives him a look of terror. She bolts and makes a run
for it. We see her spike heels trying to run. Her tight skirt
hobbles her, and he catches up, grabbing her and throwing her
to the ground.
HADARA
My purse. Take it.
There's only a dollar.
BLACK MAN
Shut up.
HADARA thrusts her cloth shoulder bag in his face. He grabs
it and tosses it in the lot. He drags her in the high weeds
and begins to strangle her.
HADARA closes her eyelids a splinter and pretends she's
unconscious. He releases his thumbs from around her throat as
she makes herself limp.
BLACK MAN drags HADARA over the curb, hidden behind a parked
car. He lifts her skirt and shoves his hand into her panties.
He bends over and looks closely at her face to catch a
reaction. HADARA opens her eyes and gives him a fierce look
of disgust.
BLACK MAN
Bitch. Don't say a word.
Think you can fool me?
Tryin' to pass for white?
Bitch. Shut up.
Tryin' to pass for white. Yes.
BLACK MAN spits on the ground next to her. HADARA screams. He
puts his hand over her mouth. She quiets. He tears off her
glasses and stomps them until
they shatter. He loses his cap. He drags HADARA further under
the curb, against the tires of the parked car.
BLACK MAN begins to strangle HADARA more violently. She
closes her eyes. Instantly a window in the apartment house
across the street opens quickly
with a very loud creak. BLACK man is startled as he looks up.
In the window is a very old lady.
MRS. HESK
(in a thick, Yiddish
accent)
You pishikas, get
the hell off my stoop.
Why you Hassids foolin'
around so late?
It's Shabbos. It's Tish B'Av.
BLACK man is startled and runs away.
HADARA rubs her neck and staggers to her feet.
HADARA
Mrs. Hesk, Please, Mrs. Hesk, Call
the police.
I've just been strangled and almost raped.
MRS. HESK
Are you all right?
I wish you pishikas wouldn't make so much noise.
HADARA
I said strangled! Would you call
the police, already?
MRS. HESK
I'm calling. I'm calling for you.
HADARA sits down on her stoop and waits for the police car to
arrive. She rests her head in her hands and sobs. The police
car arrives with two officers.
FIRST OFFICER
So you're the girl whose boyfriend
got fresh and to get revenge,
you're sending us on a wild goose
chase?
HADARA
No. Why don't you believe me?
I was strangled and almost raped by this black guy who
followed me from the subway to my house.
SECOND OFFICER
Were you raped?
HADARA
No. I was almost murdered!
The jerk shoved two fingers into my vagina.
Am I still a virgin?
Could I catch V.D.?
FIRST OFFICER
Look, if your boyfriend got
fresh...
HADARA
If I had a boyfriend to protect me,
this wouldn't have happened.
FIRST OFFICER
Okay. I just want to make sure.
SECOND OFFICER
These are whore's hours. Why were
you on the subway so late alone?
HADARA
(looks annoyed)
I went to a club meeting, met some
people, and talked.
They walked me to the subway.
I can't see without my glasses.
He smashed them.
SECOND OFFICER searches the empty lot.
SECOND OFFICER
There's a cap. It looks like the
kind they usually wear.
HADARA
Can't you see all the broken glass?
FIRST OFFICER
What do you do?
HADARA
I'm a creative writing major at
NYU.
My minor is film and archaeology.
I want to be a visual anthropologist someday.
FIRST OFFICER
Age?
HADARA
Twenty-one.
SECOND OFFICER
Would you like a police ambulance?
HADARA
Of course.
Can't you see my neck?
And I have a sociology exam on Monday.
The police car leaves. HADARA sits on the stoop and waits
for the ambulance, rubbing her bruised neck.
CUT TO:
Ambulance paramedic walks over.
PARAMEDIC
Are you the one?
HADARA
My horoscope saved me.
Hey, can I catch V.D?
That creep poked his cruddy nails into my vagina.
PARAMEDIC
Not unless he scratched you there.
HADARA
Now how am I supposed to know
whether I'm scratched?
I was too busy worrying about getting strangled.
PARAMEDIC
Hop in. You'll be okay.
HADARA
No I won't.
You're going to send me a bill for fifty bucks for this ride.
PARAMEDIC
You should only live so long.
HADARA
(talking to paramedic)
The hospital smacks me for another
hundred.
How come I'm attacked and I get to pay for my exam?
End of Scene. Curtain.
New Scene
CUT TO:
INT. DARLENE LEVINE'S HOUSE - SEPT. 1963 - DAY
DARLENE LEVINE (25) is a judge's single daughter who lives in
a plush private home in Jamaica Estates, a wealthy suburb of
New York (Queens).
She is HADARA's best friend and confident at NYU. But DARLENE
has dropped out of school to travel and husband-hunting, both
without success.
HADARA arrives in the afternoon.
ANGLE ON GOLD DOOR KNOCKER and mahogany door. DARLENE opens
the door, greeting HADARA with a smile.
HADARA walks into the house, lavishly covered and plush with
paintings DARLENE and her mother have created.
DARLENE
What's the big emergency?
HADARA
Don't I have to confide in
somebody?
The two young women take seats opposite each other on the
plush white sofa.
DARLENE
I met the sexiest guy at
Grossingers.
HADARA
But he's bald.
DARLENE
And paunchy at twenty-nine.
HADARA
You let a good provider go?
DARLENE
There's no way he could support me
the way my father does.
HADARA
Is he available?
DARLENE
I'll never leave my parent's home.
HADARA
If I had a good job,
I'd leave today.
DARLENE
Would you trade all this for a
roach-wracked studio in Greenwich
Village?
I guess you're either born lucky or born rich.
Which are you?
HADARA grabs DARLENE by the shoulders and grins at her.
HADARA
You don't work.
I'm wearing myself out to finish college at night, slaving in
a typing pool all day.
Yes, it's better than my granny's sweat shop job from the
triangle building fire days.
What do you do? Live off your daddy's trust fund?
Or are you still living at home at age twenty-five?
DARLENE
Shop. Travel. Brunch.
Design and sew my own clothes and live at home waiting to
inherit.
HADARA
You're an animal.
DARLENE
(sipping tea, eating)
You're weird, but then all creative
writing majors are different than
us secretarial science students.
HADARA
Guess what's news? My mom's just
been arrested for shoplifting.
And my brother's the lawyer who's defending her.
DARLENE
I've got an appointment with my own
therapist today.
Now I have something to tell her.
HADARA
I'm so ashamed of being ashamed.
DARLENE
How'd they nab her?
HADARA
With a sexy nightie draped over her
arm.
DARLENE
Is she crazy?
HADARA
No, but she's not a fair-weather
friend like I just realized you
are.
Mom weighs two hundred-fifty pounds.
But the nightie was a size six. I wear a size fourteen.
DARLENE retrieves some muffins from a plate and
serves them with tea.
DARLENE
My mom just won a prize for her
latest screenplay.
HADARA
And my mom walked out of the store
in a daze from her high blood
pressure pills.
The security guard tackled her to the ground, smashing her
head against the pavement.
DARLENE
Poor old dumpling.
Is she okay?
HADARA
Who knows?
DARLENE
We've been having awful security
problems with our sliding glass
door.
HADARA
I'm getting married on Friday to
that Arab.
DARLENE
Sex can be beautiful, if it's with
someone who knows what he's doing.
HADARA
He asked for a certificate of my
virginity.
DARLENE
I fell in love with an Arab once
when I was seventeen.
His Lebanese parents forbid him to see me.
HADARA
Because you're Jewish?
DARLENE
It wasn't because I'm Greek.
Hey, I look Greek, don't I?
HADARA
Didn't they know Arabs and Jews
shared a common ancestor eight
thousand years ago?
DARLENE
Maybe they realized the genes were
either too close, or my blondeness
comes from Jewish men marrying
German or Slavic women a thousand
years ago when they couldn't find
enough women coming out of the
Middle East to marry in those
Rhineland villages.
HADARA
Am I your best friend?
DARLENE
We're both Litvaks.
HADARA
Maybe it's better to marry outside
our diaspora.
Besides, I'm too American and too intellectual to think of
myself as some word that sounds foreign.
DARLENE
There's cake in the fridge.
I'm going to work on my college term papers.
HADARA
Wait, we have to talk about the how
the present changes our own futures
based on decisions we make right
now.
DARLENE
My advice is not to marry him. Find
a nice Jewish boy.
Such a choice will change your grandchildren's lives for all
the generations.
HADARA
Like your dad?
DARLENE
Go to a Beverly Hills synagogue.
Move there.
Give your babies a chance.
HADARA
With what? My college loan?
Do you want to give me a day job?
DARLENE
All you're going to meet in New
York are Puerto Rican shipping
clerks.
Nice Jewish boys won't marry you.
HADARA
Even with my master's degree in
English?
DARLENE
No, because it's not a terminal
degree.
What are you going to do, read them Shakespeare?
HADARA
Sounds like I'm auditioning for a
soul mate.
DARLENE
They'll ask what your father does
for a living.
They want your dad to set them up in business.
Or pay their medical school tuition.
You don't have big breasts and a small nose.
In fact, your face is scarred horribly.
So you'd better have daddy's big trust fund.
You have to be practical with men.
HADARA
I'd rather run my own business.
I'm marrying to get away from poverty.
Why do men ask what does your father do for a living instead
of what you plan to do with your life?
DARLENE
Women are judged by what their
husbands do.
HADARA
My dad mops toilets in the Navy
Yard.
I'm too phobic to learn to drive.
And I don't feel safe alone with men.
DARLENE
Maybe you'll like being a bag lady.
You'll get to ride the stinky bus all your life.
What if I don't find a husband with a house as big as my
dad's?
HADARA
There's a shortage of princes.
I'm desperate, Darlene, desperate.
DARLENE
My sister's already a producer in
Beverly Hills.
HADARA
She graduated from an Ivy League
drama school. You just started
secretarial college.
DARLENE
Think a man cares what you do for a
living? No one ever asked me what I
do.
HADARA
All they ask me is what does your
father do?
DARLENE
Your knight in armor wouldn't want
you to neglect his babies.
HADARA
Or clean up after his horse.
DARLENE
What's your trade-off?
Without a doctorate, you'll never find a tenured job in
academia.
I know because I work as a secretary for a college.
HADARA
I've already published a novel.
DARLENE
In a woman, that's like being a
cripple.
Like I said, sooner or later, I'll get this big house.
My sister's already got the big script editing job in
Hollywood.
Creative but poor gals like you need to stick with a real job
like mine.
HADARA
Never. I need the Pulitzer Prize.
The road ahead lies in observing this planet.
We're news because we're the media.
DARLENE
And still waiting to be rescued,
like the censored media.
So how do I launch you?
HADARA
I'm gifted, damn it. The media is
an eternal teenager.
DARLENE
Don't think you're somebody special
because you work hard. I work
smart.
HADARA
When's the last time you ever
shoveled snow?
DARLENE
Your brother's a lawyer why didn't
he ever introduce you to his rich
friends?
HADARA
Law is no profession for a poor
boy.
DARLENE
My family would never turn their
back on me.
But your brother hates you.
HADARA
Ignores. Fears. Withdraws.
DARLENE
You mom's retarded.
HADARA
She's a storefront musician, a
psychic and a telepathic
clairvoyant, like me.
DARLENE
She's a kvetch.
HADARA
Quality men freak out when they
meet me.
DARLENE
Because you're bizarre. And I've
heard that line enough from you.
HADARA
Your bust is as flat as mine.
So how come you're rich?
DARLENE
I had a nose job.
End of Scene.
Curtain.
Act III
New Scene: Spot Light/Sound Effects or CUT TO:
Tsipke's Apartment - Sept. 1963 - Night
HADARA is sitting at her desk in her room reading a book on
archaeology. The phone rings. She walks into the living room
to answer it. She's alone at home.
HADARA
Hello? Oh, hi, Darlene.
DARLENE
(on phone)
My two-hundred dollar purse is
missing.
I'm giving you a chance to return it before I phone the
insurance company.
HADARA
You're crazy. I wouldn't touch your
purse and ruin my reputation.
DARLENE
My mom's on the extension.
HADARA
Didn't you just come from your
therapist?
DARLENE
Are you going to return my hundred
and twenty-five dollar purse?
I'm calling the insurance company--now.
HADARA
I didn't see any purse.
But I can see from where you grabbed the idea.
On a separate phone line:
GOLDIE , (DARLENE'S MOTHER)
dials up HADARA's brother, BENJAMIN
who's working
late at his law office.
GOLDIE
Listen to this, you thief.
BENJAMIN
(on phone line)
Law Offices.
Hello? Is anyone on the line?
GOLDIE
Your mother was arrested for
shoplifting.
What kind of a forblundget family are you, anyway?
BENJAMIN
What kind of trash?
Human garbage!
Are you trying to get me fired?
BENJAMIN makes angry gestures and hangs up on her.
HADARA
What I told you about my mom was in
confidence.
DARLENE
Did you hear what my mom said?
HADARA
Who can I trust with my life?
Surely not my best friend.
DARLENE
There wasn't anyone else here.
HADARA
My own family scares me to hell.
GOLDIE
Darlene never lies to me.
HADARA
She's jealous of my Arab fiancé,
because her own Arab boyfriend
rejected your Jewish background.
GOLDIE
If you don't return her purse, I'll
have your brother disbarred.
I'm making a citizen's arrest.
HADARA
Nothing can scare me any more.
DARLENE
Well, the next step is to tell the
insurance company.
HADARA
You've never confided in me the way
I've opened up to you.
DARLENE
You must have actually thought you
were my best friend.
HADARA
I pity your real sister.
DARLENE
Like mother, like daughter.
HADARA
I'm the most honest person you'll
ever meet.
DARLENE
Give him up, for your own sake.
HADARA
I'm marrying that Syrian.
GOLDIE
Don't waste your time.
Your children will be afraid to tell anyone from their
father's country that you're Jewish.
HADARA bangs the receiver with a vengeance.
End of Scene. Curtain.
New Scene.
Curtain Rises:
October 25, 1963
Ext. Tsipke's Apartment House Brooklyn Day
HADARA and AHMED walk up the stairs.
They hold hands.
We see wedding ring on HADARA'S finger.
Couple is smiling. HADARA giggles.
AHMED
You tell your parents first.
HADARA
No, you tell my mom.
HADARA knocks on the door of her parent's apartment.
TSIPKE opens the door and smiles.
End of Scene. Curtain.
New Scene.
INT. TSIPKE'S APARTMENT BROOKLYN 8 DAY
TSIPKE
Come on in.
I was just soaking my bridges.
HADARA and AHMED walk in and sit down on the sofa.
HADARA
Mom, we were married two hours ago
in the County Clerk's office.
TSIPKE
You're kidding?
AHMED
No. We did it.
We had a hard time finding two witnesses to sign the
certificate.
TSIPKE
It's a good thing you didn't ask me
to come down to city hall.
My angina has gotten so painful, that I can't walk out of the
house at all these days.
HADARA
We found this couple who were
waiting to be married.
They acted as our witnesses.
TSIPKE
MEIR, hey, cockroach back, flat
butt, get in here.
MEIR staggers from his bedroom to the living room.
MEIR
Well, hello strangers.
TSIPKE
Those two just got married.
AHMED
(with an Arabic accent)
We're going to spend the night at
the Americana Hotel.
HADARA
Yeah. And I'm paying the sixty
dollars a day from my college loan
money.
AHMED
I'm going to look for work if I can
borrow three dollars from you.
HADARA
Now, he tells me, after we were
married that he's not an engineer.
TSIPKE
How much can you hope to make?
AHMED
I'm a machinist. I'm looking for a
job. I don't have a secondary
school diploma.
TSIPKE
Where's Benjamin.
We need a lawyer.
HADARA
Benjamin doesn't care.
MEIR
What kind of schooling do you have?
AHMED
I left Syria at seventeen to learn
to be a machinist in German
factories.
HADARA
That's all he does, mom.
He's just a factory Joe.
TSIPKE
Do you want to stay married?
HADARA
Yes. He told me he wants to have
his own business.
TSIPKE
Can't Benjamin help you?
HADARA
He kind of slithered away.
MEIR
Benjamin is starving.
He won't work for anybody, and he can't find clients.
HADARA
Benjamin is dying with diabetes.
Don't bother him, I warn you.
TSIPKE
Well, before you go to the hotel, I
want to give you a present.
TSIPKE scurries into the kitchen and grabs a gift-wrapped
package from the cupboard.
AHMED
Is that a gift for me?
TSIPKE
I knew you two were going to be
married soon.
TSIPKE hands the gift-wrapped package to AHMED.
He takes it and smiles, unwrapping it.
AHMED
Thank you, momma.
A dozen packages of condoms fall out of the package.
AHMED is startled.
HADARA breaks out in laughter.
She can't stop laughing.
AHMED examines one condom carefully, reading the package
label.
AHMED
(laughing)
I thought you were giving me a
wedding present, you know, like a
watch.
HADARA
You knew we were going on our
honeymoon tonight.
TSIPKE
My psychic abilities never fail me.
AHMED
Thank you, mommy.
TSIPKE
Don't let him put the rubber on dry
and then ram into you.
That's how your old man tore me apart.
MEIR
Oh, shut your face.
I didn't know about women.
TSIPKE
He ripped me open trying to jam a
dry condom into a young virgin.
MEIR
Is that why you made such an ugly,
cringing face the first time?
I thought it was because I didn't take a bath.
TSIPKE
It was all over before you entered
me.
Ahmed, he's a premature ejaculator. Hope you're not.
HADARA
Ma, don't embarrass him.
AHMED
We really must go.
TSIPKE
Where you eating dinner?
AHMED
Chinese restaurant.
MEIR
Go, already. It's six o'clock.
TSIPKE
(winking)
Gee, you made me feel young again.
I feel like it was me going on my honeymoon with a new man.
MEIR
Tsipke is watching our marriage
die.
TSIPKE
Well, you're not pumping anything
into it.
Our marriage is still just like I wrote on my honeymoon on
that train to Florida.
MEIR
I remember finding your diary and
crying. You wrote "Today I died."
TSIPKE
The real 'me' did. You only see
what my job, my responsibility is.
To take care of all of you, but
it's like an observer from above
looking down on a body going
through the motions of taking care
of you while my 'real' days of fun
and adventure slip away as if I
were invisible. We're all invisible
and so totally alone.
HADARA
I'll be at the Americana for two
days.
TSIPKE
So, long, honey. Hope you can still
walk.
End of Scene.
Curtain.
NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1969
FADE IN:
INT. BALLROOM OF PLUSH HOTEL AT NIGHT
A live band is playing. A Hawaiian buffet is set out.
Couples are dancing. There is a Christmas tree.
Music plays "Auld Lang Syne."
HADARA (28) and AHMED (32) are seated at a table with
untouched plates of food in front of them.
AHMED
You're too crazy to have a lawyer.
HADARA
Why are you sending my babies to
Syria?
AHMED
My mother will raise them just like
I was raised.
HADARA
Answer my question.
AHMED
Just tell my lawyer that your
health is too bad.
HADARA
But you told me if I signed the
house over to you, that the divorce
would be canceled.
Is this supposed to be the perfect marriage? I was always
told that old proverb: that it's better to be lucky than
rich.
AHMED
It costs too much to bring up kids
here. Besides, they'd grow up to be
drug addicts or whores...like
American kids.
HADARA
You can't take them.
Please let me have just one.
AHMED
I'm not separating my kids.
They're my life. You can finally have that career.
Isn't that what you really want?
HADARA
I want a career for the time when
my children will be busy with their
own lives.
Besides, I paid thirty dollars for this romantic dinner.
AHMED
I want to be rid of you.
You're a stone around my neck. I want to be free.
HADARA
You want to be free?
There's no man freer than you.
AHMED
It's midnight.
I've got to get back to my restaurant.
At midnight, the music grows louder, all the couples sitting
and on the dance floor hung and kiss.
HADARA
I can't stand to be alone in that
mice-infested house.
AHMED
You want money?
Then go out and earn it.
Get a job like I had to do.
HADARA
I gave up that option when you
forced me to have children.
AHMED gives HADARA the "barber's itch."
He pinches the hair at the nape of her neck and pulls her
hair upwards to give her a sharp pain.
HADARA screams.
AHMED
Lower your voice, your whore.
Didn't you hear me? I said lower your voice.
I'll beat the sassiness out of you.
HADARA
That belly dancer told me you're
the worst lover she ever had.
AHMED grabs HADARA and shakes her.
He throws her to the floor and kicks her as the dancing
couples watch in horror.
AHMED
Are you coming home?
HADARA
How come your whore is old enough
to be my mother?
AHMED
You're going to get it later
tonight, you bitch.
End of Scene. Lights Out
New Scene at Hadara's Modest Cottage In San Diego:
Ext. Hadara's Modest Cottage.
Ahmed Shoves Hadara Up The Driveway And Into The House.
Int. Living Room Hadara's Home Night
She flops down on the sofa. AHMED paces the living room floor
circling around her like a beast.
HADARA
I'm a total romantic.
AHMED hurries to the desk drawer and retrieves his handgun.
He puts the gun in HADARA'S head.
AHMED
I want custody of the kids or
you'll be dead in twenty-four
hours.
AHMED shoves her back on the sofa as she tries to rise. He
turns around, waving the gun, and thrusts his buttocks in
HADARA'S face.
AHMED
Why do you think I go with a woman
ten years older than you?
See any tail up there, man-hater?
HADARA
(shoves him away)
Get your butt out of my face.
She probably makes you feel important, and I make you feel
responsible.
AHMED
I'm a man, not a beast.
No? No horns? No tail?
AHMED spins around and puts the gun in her head again.
HADARA
Your favorite pick-me-up is putting
me down.
AHMED puts the gun in his belt and lights a cigarette. He
rips off his shirt and lifts his arm, rubbing out the lighted
cigarette in his armpit.
AHMED
See these scars?
What must I do to get rid of the pain?
AHMED rolls up his sleeveless undershirt to reveal shrapnel
scars on his torso.
HADARA
I've seen them before.
AHMED
I'm willing to die...to kill to
preserve the honor of my babies.
HADARA
And you're sending my kids back to
Syria where twice you were tortured
in jail there?
AHMED
The morals of too many Americans
are like pigs.
AHMED spits in HADARA's face.
HADARA
Why'd you bring your two brothers
here to live with us? I'm like a
white slave.
AHMED
I'm running a restaurant, not a
whorehouse.
HADARA
I gave up a Jewish doctor for you,
just to make peace.
AHMED
Peace? You think you're too good
for me?
You think you're some pampered princess.
Don't you know anything about the care of husbands?
Bitch. Why'd you marry me?
HADARA
So I'd have a good subject for a
book or a movie.
I wanted to be a visual anthropologist.
I couldn't afford the tuition.
So I decided to live as the other half lives in the third
world.
I wanted to understand what it feels like to be an Arab.
AHMED
I'm not good enough for you, am I?
HADARA
You destroyed me.
AHMED
Look at you…a lawyer for a brother.
Your father's a janitor…mops toilets at night.
Eight-grade education…
I own my own business.
And I never graduated from secondary school.
HADARA
You need street smarts to compete.
AHMED
I dropped out of school to work as
a machinist.
AHMED shakes her.
HADARA
Didn't I lease that restaurant and
get you started in business?
Did I leave you when I found out you lied?
Doctor of mechanical engineering, bullshine.
AHMED
You're no good as a mother or as a
woman.
HADARA
What kind of a father would dump
his kids on his mother?
In another country, yet?
And then go back to his restaurant?
AHMED
Hamed, get your tail in here.
HADARA
How come you always run out of
words?
Then your fists fly.
I'm a rich girl without money.
Not a poor girl.
AHMED
I want a divorce.
You're a rope around my neck.
I want to be free.
HADARA
Then give others freedom.
I'm housebound with panic disorder.
You're penniless.
What a great time to ask for a divorce.
AHMED
Hamed. Hurry up.
I need you in here.
AHMED calls in his brother, HAMED. He wakes up and treks into
the living room, sleepy. He smiles a broad, weird grin, and
looks at HADARA sadistically.
AHMED presses the sharp edge of the oriental coffee pot on
the living room table against the side of HADARA'S head.
AHMED motions for his brother's help. HAMED walks over the
HADARA. HAMED laughs wildly. The two men exchange words in
Arabic.
HAMED pulls HADARA to her feet by her wrists. AHMED and HAMED
drag HADARA into the bathroom and AHMED dips HADARA'S head
into the toilet bowl and flushes.
AHMED
How many times have I told you to
scrub the bowl?
HAMED
(laughing weirdly)
She never cleans it after somebody
sprays the bowl with diarrhea.
AHMED drags HADARA'S head out of the flushing water by her
hair.
AHMED
Hand me my razor blade.
HAMED fetches the straight razor from the cabinet and holds
it. AHMED holds HADARA by the hair with one hand while she
cries and screams and takes the razor in his other hand from
HAMED.
HAMED
Shut your trap.
The neighbors will hear.
AHMED holds HADARA's wrists together in one hand with his
steely strength while he presses the straight razor against
both her wrists. HADARA trembles and sobs.
AHMED
If you try to fight me for custody
in this divorce,
I'll slash your wrists and then tell the police you committed
suicide.
HADARA
Don't leave me while I'm still
agoraphobic.
I'll give you my parent's apartment house.
AHMED
Go unlock the door, Hamed.
HAMED drags HADARA across the living room floor by the
wrists.
AHMED helps him. HAMED laughs. AHMED spits in HADARA'S face
again.
He pulls her women's liberation emblem from the wall and
kicks it along the carpet.
AHMED holds the razor against her throat and looks her in the
eye for one long, silent moment. Then he throws HADARA out of
the door into the night. It is raining. Spotlight or angle
on AHMED on the telephone.
AHMED
Police? I want to report my wife
has tried to commit suicide again.
Hurry over here. My two kids are sleeping, and I don't want
her back in here to upset them.
Curtain. Lights Out:
End of Scene
New Scene
Curtain Rises:
Ext. Hadara's Home Rainy Night
HADARA bangs on the door. She cries, sobs, screams. But no
one answers. She slithers down the door and sits in a heap on
the doorstep as the rain washes over her.
Ext. Next Door Neighbor's House Night
HADARA sidles over to the next-door neighbor. She rings the
bell. AVA JOHNSON, a young housewife answers.
AVA
Hey, it's three o'clock in the
morning.
HADARA
He threw me out.
Can I come in?
AVA
Look, I don't want to get involved.
HADARA
Please...
Int. Ava Johnson's Living Room Night
AVA
So he tossed you on your ear again.
A woman is nothing without a real man.
HADARA
A woman without a man can go to bed
knowing she'll still be alive in
the morning.
AVA
You killed your own marriage.
Don't think I didn't hear it die.
HADARA
He didn't pump anything into it.
AVA
Woman, you're addicted to romance.
I bet you read all those romance novels.
HADARA
Read them? I write them.
AVA
So what are you here for?
HADARA
My psychiatrist betrayed me.
He played the recorded tapes of our session to my husband.
He's Ahmed's friend.
Ahmed is keeping his rugs for him in his restaurant.
My doctor betrayed me after he promised me what I said would
be confidential.
AVA
What do you expect?
You just said that the doctor is his best friend.
HADARA
I don't have any friends, and no
living relatives.
I feel I'm in the way between your husband and you.
AVA
I'm not your friend.
I'm your neighbor.
HADARA
Ava, help me.
AVA
I can't help you.
You can probably attract men, but you'll never keep them.
HADARA
He expects me to go out and find a
job.
I don't want to work. I want a man to support me so
I can fulfill my career dreams.
AVA
Tough luck, cookie.
Fulfill your dreams after sixty-five like I'll have to do.
HADARA
I'm agoraphobic.
There's no way I can walk out of that house.
AVA
Love junkie! He's already kicked
you to mediocrity.
Girl, do you have a sense of entitlement to cure?
End of Scene
Curtain
New Scene
Curtain Rises:
December 22, 1971
Int. Hadara's Furnished Room Nearly Dawn
There's a knock on the door.
HADARA crawls out of her studio sofa bed to answer it.
AHMED stands before her holding her two children, FAWZI, a
boy of four, and SAMIRA, a girl of five. The children are
dressed lavishly.
HADARA
Is it time for them to go already?
HADARA runs to her desk and brings two gifts for the
children.
AHMED
Why'd you have to go and buy them
such bulky toys to take on the
plane.
FAWZI and SAMIRA squeal and jump for joy, unwrapping their
toys.
HADARA
You're still not going with them?
AHMED
The airline's hostess will get them
to Syria alone.
HADARA
My kids are only four and five
years old.
AHMED
My kids.
HADARA
Really?
Want to see my two episiotomies scars?
AHMED
Fawzi, Samira, kiss your mother
goodbye.
HADARA
I want to get a last look at a
percentage of my genes.
AHMED
Hurry it up.
HADARA
My daughter, promise me that you'll
marry a rich doctor if you can't be
one yourself.
AHMED
Don't make her American.
HADARA
American citizenship was my
greatest gift to you.
AHMED
You're a crazy woman.
HADARA
Is that your excuse for never
offering me a dime of community
property?
You're disappearing with all the money from the sale of your
restaurant.
HADARA looks up at AHMED's face. He spits on her wall
hanging, a women's liberation sign of the new feminist
movment--a female sign--(Venus hieroglyph) with a fist. The
children observe his actions.
AHMED
You still get panic attacks, don't
you?
HADARA
Mr. Hostility, you just created the
new poor.
I'll remember you as the take-away-man.
AHMED
Go ahead. Make yourself rich.
I came to this country with fifty dollars in my wallet.
HADARA
And you're leaving me in a man's
world with two shiny quarters.
AHMED shuffles the two children out the door and slams it
behind him. Dawn comes up through the curtains.
HADARA hops back into bed and turns up her small radio to
"CANON in D" classical music.
The phone rings.
HADARA
Yes?
HODA
(on telephone line)
This is your ex-husband's whore.
HADARA
What the hell do you want from me,
Hoda?
HODA
I think you're the most selfish
bitch that ever walked.
How could you give up your children?
Because you're too lazy to support them?
HADARA
You're being illogical.
There's no way you or anyone else can ever make me feel pain
again.
HODA
I'd kill before I'd turn my kids
over to my ex.
HADARA
No you wouldn't.
Do me a favor. Tell me why I keep marrying toxic people?
HADARA bangs the receiver on the holder and sobs
hysterically. HADARA turns up the music louder as the soft
waves of "CANON in D" bring a calmness to the dawn and the
silent, lonely room.
Curtain.
End of Scene. New Scene.
Christmas Eve, 1971
Ext. Synagogue Night
HADARA walks up the stairs for the Friday night Sabbath
service.
Int. Synagogue Social Hall Night
The service is over and the buffet dessert table is
laden with tea and cakes. HADARA takes a plate with cheese
cake and a cup of tea.
She looks up to see BRONNA GREEN, 36, smile at her.
BRONNA
Balmy night for Christmas Eve and
Hannukah.
HADARA
Hi. I'm Hadara.
Are you alone?
BRONNA
Bronna Green.
Just divorced. You too?
HADARA nods affirmatively.
BRONNA
You look it.
If we're not feeling good about ourselves, we'll marry the
man who'll reflect our low self esteem of the moment.
HADARA
How true.
What did yours do for a living?
BRONNA
I put him through medical school.
HADARA
At least you got to be a doctor's
wife.
I always dreamed of being a doctor's wife.
BRONNA
Yeah, well a lot of 'em don't want
you to have your own career.
And they all want children. You have to kiss their butt. Then
they
Dump you for a younger, healthier woman when you get old and
sick before your time.
HADARA
How your mother felt about herself,
that determines whom you'll marry.
Tell me about yourself.
How on earth did a short, small-breasted woman like you get a
doctor to marry you?
Did you have a rich father?
BRONNA
Yes. He's a well-known builder in
San Francisco. And I'm just
finishing my master's in marriage
counseling.
HADARA
It figures. Were you valuable as a
kid?
BRONNA
My dad dealt with seductiveness by
acting distant.
HADARA
And you found out men are not
available.
BRONNA
Hey, you're a regular therapist.
HADARA
Yeah...kind of...I write fiction.
BRONNA
Are you attracted to cold men?
HADARA
Silver-plated robots! I'm a science
fiction nut, robots, aliens, and
the works.
BRONNA
Ghostly lovers, eh?
HADARA
You make money playing out old
conflicts?
BRONNA
No man will ever live up to my
father. I keep my distance from
men.
HADARA
At least you're out of a toxic
relationship.
BRONNA
And what are you doing to select a
certain type of man?
BRONNA and HADARA move along the buffet line, chatting, while
people bend over to listen to their conversation. They pile
their plates high with sweets.
HADARA
Women who hate me for tooting my
own horn spread the word in public
that I'm a man hater. They love
writing that in the media. I'm not,
though. I'm looking for a daddy to
love me. What do you say we dump
the sweets? Want to come to my
place for a vegetable spread and
talk practical?
BRONNA pauses to consider, then smiles and nods.
The two women head for HADARA'S furnished room.
EXT. BRONNA gets in her car. HADARA enters car.
HADARA
I never learned to drive.
Give me a lift two miles?
BRONNA
Why can't you drive?
HADARA
I inherited the fear gene from my
dad.
BRONNA motions for her to hop in.
BRONNA
Never mind. Hop in. There's only
one way to choose a husband.
Find out how quickly a man gets angry, before you marry.
HADARA offers BRONNA a firm handshake. She accepts it,
smiling.
HADARA
I put a husband-wanted ad in the
daily newspaper.
BRONNA
Any response?
HADARA
Fourteen letters, since yesterday.
Curtain
End of Scene
Act Three
Next Scene
Curtain Rises
July 1985
Ext. Hadara's Low Rent Cottage Dusk
HADARA'S modest stucco cottage stands in a poor, multi-racial
neighborhood where swarms of shouting children play in the
gutter.
INT. HADARA'S HOME DUSK
The entire living room and HADARA's bedroom and den are
covered with photographs and posters of Mr. Spock (of Star
Trek).
Star Trek fan material covers the walls of the den of the
tiny three-bedroom cottage.
In the den, HADARA's desk is strewn with science fiction
paperbacks and magazines. The bookcase is filled with
paperback Star Trek Novels.
A giant poster of Mr. Spock is plastered in the wall of
HADARA's den where she sits keyboarding at her personal
computer.
Manuscripts are piled on her desk. We see her finishing the
typing of the last page of a screenplay. Her tape
recorder/stereo is playing the baroque classical music.
Spotlight or angle on HADARA's face as she looks up at Mr.
Spock's poster/picture above her computer.
HADARA
Don't you know you're the right man
for me because you'll always be
unattainable? So will all my ghost
lovers from previous lives in
different countries. So will the
richest man in ancient Rome and
Greece.
The phone rings. HADARA picks it up. There's loud static at
the other end. Silence. She's about to bang down the receiver
when a voice breaks through from a distance.
HADARA
Hello?
Well, speak up.
FAWZI
Mommy?
HADARA
My son, David Joseph?
Oh that's right.
He changed your name.
What's your name now?
FAWZI
This is Fawzi Mohammed.
My father used to be married to you.
This is your son.
HADARA
Where are you?
FAWZI
Syria.
HADARA
This is the first time I've heard
from you in sixteen years.
FAWZI
I've kept your picture since I was
four years old.
HADARA
Holy Toledo! Oh, for heaven's sake.
My kid. Where's your sister?
FAWZI
At her girl friend's house.
HADARA
When can I see you?
FAWZI
Mommy, help me.
I need five hundred dollars to come to America.
That's the only way I can finish my studies in physics.
HADARA
Yes. I'll help. But I don't have a
cent.
My second husband gives me fifty dollars a week for food.
FAWZI
Can I come to live with you?
HADARA
My house is too small. I don't know
what to do.
FAWZI
I'm coming to see you.
HADARA
Okay. I'll ask my husband to kick
out the tenant from his rental.
FAWZI
What do you look like?
HADARA
White hair, bags under my eyes, and
lots of wrinkles.
FAWZI
I'll call you when I arrive.
The phone clicks off.
HADARA
Hello? Hello?
Is anybody on the line?
HADARA leaps for joy and plants a kiss on the poster
of Mr. Spock. Then HADARA runs to her second husband's
bedroom.
(They have always shared separate rooms.)
HADARA pauses, and then knocks on his door.
ERIC
Better make it quick, I'm real
busy.
In his room, ERIC AUER is busy soldering circuit boards on
the computer he's building. It's his hobby. ERIC'S tape
recorder is playing old time radio comedy. Soft music is
wafting.
HADARA
Hey, most distant man in the
galaxy, it's important.
ERIC
Tune me out, kid.
Don't bug me.
HADARA
I have to talk to you.
Come on and give me a hug.
ERIC
Not this week. I'm beat.
HADARA
My son called from Syria.
ERIC
Oh, give me a break.
HADARA
Not until you give me a connection.
ERIC
Would you stop arguing?
HADARA
This is my normal conversational
voice.
ERIC
I bet you'll be excited to see
them.
When are they coming?
HADARA
Soon.
They need a place to live.
ERIC
You must be excited after sixteen
years of no correspondence.
HADARA
You have to kick the tenant out.
ERIC
Why can't you sleep on the sofa?
You'd better give them your bedroom.
HADARA
Oh, no. You're not going to kick me
out of my room for them.
That's what my brother did when he got married.
He could have rented an apartment.
ERIC
You're not going to let your kids
see this roach-filled dump, are
you?
HADARA
Who cares?
ERIC
I'm too ashamed to let them see
what a lousy housekeeper you are.
What a loser.
Do they know you're a phobic who failed her driver's test
nine times?
HADARA
Why do you always take my choices
away?
ERIC
All you ever wanted was to be taken
care of like Cinderella.
HADARA
There's a shortage of princes, so I
married an angry man.
I married a man who has been impotent only with me for
decades.
Why have I given up love for money that never materializes?
ERIC
You're the new age Cinderella.
HADARA
The only thing I'll inherit is my
own wisdom.
ERIC
Your kids will never tell you their
business.
All you'll hear is their bad news.
HADARA
They're more worried that I won't
keep my mouth shut.
ERIC
I'll have to carry two big
mortgages alone.
Who's going to pay the mortgage on our other house, you?
HADARA
What'll they think when I tell them
I'm Jewish?
ERIC
They're devout Moslems from Syria.
What do you think?
End of Scene. Curtain
Curtain Rises, New Scene:
Summer. The Present
Int. Hadara's Living Room Night
SAMIRA, HADARA'S daughter, 21, walks into HADARA'S living
room.
The two women embrace.
FAWZI, 20, follows behind and gives his mother a big hug.
He resembles her.
HADARA
Sit down. I've laid out a buffet of
fruit and veggies.
SAMIRA
What does your husband do?
HADARA
He's a pool of anger.
Eric repairs equipment, like computers and gadgets.
He's a blue-collar Joe, and I've learned not to cringe when I
say it.
SAMIRA
My father's a very rich man in
Syria.
ERIC
Oh? Then why can't he pay me rent?
HADARA
You look exactly like my mother.
I guess she reincarnated.
SAMIRA
I'm marrying a doctor next month.
He's coming here from Syria.
HADARA
Gee, I always wanted to marry a
doctor since I was ten.
No such luck in New York finding a doctor to marry, though.
How come you married a doctor? You look just like me.
FAWZI
My father told us you are a doctor.
HADARA
Oh, no. I write science fiction
scripts and novels.
But I haven't ever earned a dime.
ERIC
Does your father have a job?
FAWZI
No. He was arrested as a spy, put
in prison in Syria, and was beaten
until he became a mental vegetable.
I need to live with him. I can't
live alone here. You see when he
went back to Syria, the people in
the government said he married an
American Jewess. They took away all
his money.
ERIC
Do you cook?
SAMIRA
No, the servants chased me out of
the kitchen.
FAWZI
She was raised like a princess.
HADARA
Did your father ever visit you?
SAMIRA
Twice. Once for two years.
HADARA
Where's your father now?
FAWZI
He was thrown in jail and tortured.
The doctor said he had schizophrenia.
ERIC
How awful for you.
HADARA
If only you had answered my letters
or acknowledged my gifts, Eric
would have adopted you fifteen
years ago.
SAMIRA
Do you work for money?
HADARA
I'm a housewife. Want to make
something of it?
ERIC
She's as much of a failure as I am.
Only she has a master's degree.
I dropped out of college and have a very short temper.
HADARA
Why don't you two eat something?
FAWZI and SAMIRA stare at the food but don't touch it. They
shake their heads "no."
HADARA
We're vegan vegetarians.
You won't find pork or alcohol here.
ERIC
You're mother is Jewish.
Does that scare you?
FAWZI
Don't tell my Arab friends.
And don't tell my wife and children.
ERIC
And I'm English and German
American.
SAMIRA
Are you Christian?
ERIC
I'm a spiritualist and medium.
Ever play the Ouija board?
You'd be surprised at the entities that come through.
HADARA
His mom brought him up Lutheran.
But we go to psychic séances.
SAMIRA
If you ever tell my husband or
children that you're Jewish, I'll
run away.
You'll never see me again.
HADARA
Take it easy.
May the life force expand to all the trillion universes.
Live long, rich, and healthy.
ERIC
I hate fanatics.
HADARA
You don't have to be human to eat
Levi's rye bread.
Just dip it in Arabic hummos and tabbouli salad.
Why is it so difficult to enjoy my ambiguity or your
diversity?
ERIC
Let's all join the Federation.
Your mom's a Trekkie who likes the Federation of Planets.
HADARA holds up a gold chain from which dangles a gold Star
of David.
HADARA
It's a shame there's no one to pass
my grandmother's Jewish star onto
for the next generation.
ERIC
You made that choice when you
married your children's father.
FAWZI
I'll take it.
FAWZI retrieves the necklace and puts it over his own head.
ERIC
See? He wears it under his shirt.
I bet it'll go into a box, and his Arab wife and kids will
never see it.
SAMIRA
Don't let my children see it.
My husband knows all about you.
HADARA
So how come you got married and
didn't invite me to the wedding?
SAMIRA
It was an Islamic ceremony.
All my Arabic real family and friends are going.
ERIC
You're a robot to them.
You're a stranger to everyone.
HADARA
Hey, kids, you're all the family I
have.
ERIC
You're forgetting me.
Today's our anniversary.
FAWZI
How'd you meet him?
HADARA
He was the last letter to reply to
my husband-wanted ad in the papers
in 1974.
SAMIRA
And how'd he turn out?
HADARA
Look at Eric.
Listen to how he talks to me.
ERIC
Hey, show some respect, or I'll
wash your mouth out with soap.
HADARA
I'm sorry. It's just that he keeps
bellyaching.
ERIC
When are you going to make me rich?
HADARA
When you win the lottery.
The beeping of an automobile horn is heard.
SAMIRA leaps up and looks out the window.
SAMIRA
It's Abdo, my husband.
CURTAIN OR FADE OUT/LIGHTS OUT.
End of Scene.
NEW SCENE.
Int. Hadara's Bedroom, Same Night
ERIC
Well, your kids are grown, married,
and have their own children,
grandma.
HADARA
Are you sorry you had a vasectomy
ten years before we met?
ERIC
No. I wouldn't want to pass on my
genes for depression.
HADARA
A lot of good my high IQ did for
me.
ERIC
You still have a superior mind
drenched in inferior brain
chemicals.
HADARA
If only I had those brains in a
man's body, I could find a good
income.
ERIC
If you're so smart, how come you
don't have the secret of a happy
marriage?
And how come you don't have any real job?
I see you're reading the care and feeding of Labrador
Retrievers.
How about husbands?
HADARA
How about wives?
I'm smart enough to play at the work I love.
ERIC
Isn't it funny?
Nowadays, men want to be heroes and women want money.
Ten years ago men wanted sex, and women wanted love.
HADARA
We're alone and in deep decline at
last in this house.
At last I have a nice backyard to do my Tai Chi Chuan.
ERIC
We're not alone in the universe.
Everybody's watching us.
ERIC looks up at the poster/picture of Mr. Spock on the wall
of HADARA'S bedroom.
HADARA
I feel safe in his presence because
he never gets angry.
ERIC
Safe?
HADARA
I have a right to verbalize my
deepest feelings.
He won't chase me, shove me, or beat me.
Men never call me a man-hater.
Just women do, and only in print.
ERIC
All I can offer you is my
impatience.
HADARA
You'll never admit you hit me.
Don't you remember doing it because I didn't like that old
bookcase?
If you're my husband and friend, then who's my enemy?
ERIC
(grinning)
Only you, my love.
HADARA
You've put me down and hit me all
these years.
It happens only when I state my needs.
If I'm silent all the time and smile, it never happens.
ERIC
If I can't be a hero to you, why
stay for my money?
You will never get any of it.
HADARA
Then why do you want me to live
here?
I don't have any other place to go.
ERIC
I'm not here to hit you.
The always door stays open if you want to leave.
You know we're not compatible and have nothing in common.
HADARA
Yes. I agree we have nothing in
common.
We're not compatible.
But that doesn't mean I can't continue sleeping in my room.
ERIC
You can continue sleeping here in
your room.
HADARA
You've never kissed me on the lips.
Give me a hug.
ERIC
Not now. Ask me in a couple of
weeks.
HADARA
I never felt safe with you.
Someday you will murder me, probably strangle me with a wire.
ERIC
Did you have to tell the kids our
marriage never was consummated?
HADARA
Why not? I want them to know I gave
up everything.
ERIC
I'm so embarrassed. That's like
cutting off my manhood.
HADARA
You know when you'll kill me, Eric?
It will be when I demand respect.
I won't have to wait until I say I'm leaving.
ERIC
The subject is closed.
Eric walks away. She trails after him.
HADARA
You won't remember why you'd
snapped.
Part of it will be to use anger to get power.
You're too much of a miser to hire someone like in the movie,
"Midnight Lace."
ERIC
There's too much clutter on the
kitchen counter.
When are you going to wash the floor?
HADARA
She asked why we have separate
bedrooms and separate bank
accounts.
From where'd you learn your knee-jerk hostility?
ERIC
We made a contract, a deal.
HADARA
It's a fair trade. You pay me food
money to stay.
You won't even let me take care of my houseplants.
My main complaint is that you don't allow talking very often.
ERIC
Why the hell did an orthodox Jewish
woman from Brooklyn marry a Middle
Eastern revolutionary?
HADARA
I thought a drastic change from my
dad's anger was necessary for
happiness.
ERIC
(gruff concern)
Every woman gets the face and the
man she deserves. Was it worth it?
HADARA
Jewish women marry Arab Sheiks when
they want to talk with daddy.
ERIC
Maybe you need some religion. Seems
you not only want a daddy, you want
the Lord.
HADARA
Women usually marry men like their
daddies or what's familiar.
End of Scene.
Curtains.
New Scene Curtain Rises On The Present Day In A Park Or Beach
Setting.
Ext. Beach The Present Day
HADARA and ERIC are walking along the beach, side by side.
HADARA takes ERIC'S hand for a moment, but then he pulls away
and walks faster so that for awhile he's walking ahead of
her.
HADARA
Would you slow down?
I can't keep up with you.
You're always running ahead.
ERIC slows down and they walk side by side.
This time, ERIC takes HADARA's hand.
ERIC
My football coach made a pass at me
when I was fifteen.
You're the only person I can tell this to.
HADARA
I've already accepted you as you
are.
I'd be scared of anyone different.
ERIC
So we're both abused children who
shelved the option for rearing
kids.
HADARA
The biological clock has run out,
and we're alone.
Why didn't I think of adoption years ago?
I couldn't replace my biological children.
Someday I always hoped they'd come back to me, like my
runaway cat.
ERIC
Your kids never call you, not even
on mother's day.
HADARA
What do you expect? They moved
across the country.
They make the pilgrimage to Mecca each year, but California
is too far for them to visit me.
ERIC stops at an ice cream stand on the beach.
HADARA follows and puts her arm around ERIC.
ERIC
Two snow cones, please.
ERIC fumbles in his wallet.
ERIC
Give me a dollar for yours.
HADARA
Here, miser.
You've never pay for me anytime we go out to eat.
But I swore I'd focus on the positive.
ERIC and HADARA walk away, eating their snow cones.
End of Scene Lights Out.
New Scene, Lights On or Brief Curtain.
Curtain Rises or Lights Come On.
Ext. Beach--The Present Summer at Sunset.
A fire is glowing in the beach fire ring.
HADARA and ERIC are toasting kebobs on skewers over the fire.
They are alone, gazing at the sunset on the beach.
ERIC
We've never gone out together to
watch the sunset before.
HADARA
You were always building your
computers in your bedroom with the
door locked.
ERIC
And you?
HADARA
I created a whole world from my
isolation.
People are such a pain in the butt, that solitude is heaven.
ERIC
That's the wages of selling your
isolation to the movies.
Crowds in the media make their living from giving you
recognition.
HADARA
Now that I'm rich, I can look for
Mister Right.
Only he'll be waiting for the bedpan in a nursing home.
ERIC
Will you dump me?
I'm in great shape.
HADARA
No. You've danced away decades ago.
And I'm too comfortable in my little house.
Every time change comes, you find an excuse to hit me.
ERIC
Did I ever ask you what you were
when I met you?
HADARA
No. You never cared what ethnic
group I chose as my core identity.
See, I don't inherit a core identity.
I choose it out of fear.
How come I see you watching all those old Nazi marching films
on TV?
And you like blondes!
You like what you look like.
You're blonde, and I have dark hair. So why is it important
to you?
ERIC
'Cause it's my core identity, and I
did inherit it.
First you married a man who tried to put his fist through
your belly button the day before you gave birth.
Why?
Because you spent six hundred dollars in a month on food.
Boy, what a worthless loser you are.
That's why people don't want to be around you.
HADARA
So you blame the victim.
I married a man with a knee-jerk blame-the-victim
personality.
My next mistake was telling you the details of my first
marriage.
ERIC
How else can I teach you to stop
playing the victim?
That's enough of your arguing.
HADARA
You'll always be a blue collar Joe.
I'll always love the opera.
I want to kosher my kitchen and listen to music.
It will distract me from my real problems--your abuse and my
declining body.
ERIC
Stop using your grandparent's
religion as an excuse. What do you
really want?
HADARA
I'd like a dream house with central
heat and a subscription to
Architectural Digest.
Home and Garden's passed me by.
ERIC
Will you leave me when you make
more money than I do?
HADARA
No. We made a fair trade.
ERIC
Do you still dream of Mister
Right—your soul mate?
HADARA
It has been always your house—never
our house.
How safe could my house be?
ERIC
What you really needed was to put
two empty chairs down.
Then have a long talk with your dad's spirit.
In the next world, the angry are tame.
HADARA
I can't take care of myself.
The man I married can't take care of a wife.
ERIC
You're describing your dad and your
first husband again.
What was it like posing as an Arab housewife for seven years
in the middle of a Brooklyn Jewish ghetto—and knowing you're
really Jewish?
HADARA
It was more exciting than being
nine years old and having my father
chase me through the cellar with an
ax in one hand and a hammer in the
other.
HADARA and ERIC eat the food as they watch the sun set below
the horizon.
ERIC
Was it worth it?
HADARA
The men in my life were all stick
figures, cave drawings.
ERIC
How could you stand to be
discriminated against as an Arab in
New York and beaten for looking
Jewish in New Jersey?
HADARA
I finally found a core identity
that nobody discriminates
against—Early New England settler.
ERIC
That's my family background….here
in America since the sixteen
hundreds.
HADARA
We're married. So what's yours is
now mine.
ERIC
The whole third world discriminates
against my core identity.
HADARA
Well name one core identity that I
can choose that everybody loves.
ERIC
You can't please everyone. Just be
yourself.
HADARA
Why can't everybody love me with my
core identity?
ERIC
Try giving of yourself.
It's time to be happy
HADARA
I am happy.
What's left after happiness?
Escape or an extreme make-over?
ERIC
Why did you marry me? Didn't you
like yourself enough?
HADARA
I put an ad in the papers for a man
slow to anger.
Then I married you.
Oh, boy.
I should have dated you years longer.
ERIC
Well, I played you my astrologer's
tape on our second date.
You saw my horoscope.
She said I was very quick to anger.
HADARA
And I let that statement slip by
me.
ERIC
Why did you agree to marry me?
HADARA
You asked me to move into your
apartment.
I was homeless and knew you only six weeks.
ERIC
Wasn't there chemistry? Were you
that desperate?
HADARA
I was homeless and penniless when
my ex tossed me out the door.
ERIC
You could have worked a few years
after your divorce.
HADARA
I guess I forgot to ask your
mother, relatives, or friends.
There were warning signals.
You didn't visit your mother often.
Your military father put you down.
And you banked your anger into a pool
Then you spent your stress on me.
ERIC
Neither of us have any friends.
That's all we have in common.
HADARA
I'm tired of absorbing your
frustration like a sponge.
ERIC
Everyone liked me at work for all
those years.
HADARA
Your co-worker's only saw your
public mask.
It was the same charm my first husband used on his customers.
ERIC
Really, why did you marry me?
HADARA
I thought Anglo-Saxon husbands
never raised their voices at home.
The phone rings. HADARA rushes to pick it up.
HADARA
Yes. This is she.
Oh, hello.
Well, thank you.
I'm eternally grateful.
Sure. I'll wait for the contract in the mail.
HADARA hangs up lightly. She leaps into the air screaming and
laughing with joy.
ERIC
What happened?
HADARA
I've made you rich, you ingrate.
That producer just bought my movie and novel in a package
deal.
ERIC
Oh, my God. I'm so proud of you.
ERIC rushes over and gives her a hug.
HADARA
I've waited for this moment for
years.
ERIC
I suspected you could do it,
against all odds of age
discrimination.
HADARA
I can buy my dream house now, and
get rid of this Salvation Army
furniture.
ERIC
Maybe I'll take you to eat at the
soup and salad place.
HADARA
You've never allowed me to have
feelings.
Neither did my ex or my dad.
ERIC
You're too much like me.
Go boot up your computer.
And I'll boot up mine.
We'll write to each other from opposite ends of the house.
HADARA
Remember on our wedding night?
You watched the football game on TV all evening.
Then you fell asleep without even a hug. And snored so loud.
ERIC
Well at least on our first three
dates we had fun.
HADARA
That's what happens when you shack
up for a year before the wedding.
Familiarity breeds disinterest.
ERIC
The door's open. You're free to
leave anytime if you don't like it
here.
HADARA
Where would I go? My income is only
as good as my last book or movie.
ERIC
Get a real job like I did.
HADARA
I'll open my own business.
Nobody will ever fire me.
ERIC
Customers don't take old unknowns
seriously.
Work the business side of life like an extrovert works a
room.
HADARA
I never have trouble taking advice
lately.
Why couldn't I listen when I was young?
ERIC
What did you really want to tell
me?
HADARA
I forgive you and everyone else who
needs forgiving, including me.
Now I can move up to take care of myself.
I was always afraid of being like my mom.
She couldn't take care of herself.
So she married a man who couldn't take care of a wife.
ERIC
The door is open.
Are you staying or moving on?
This is my house.
I paid the mortgage.
HADARA
That's why community property laws
are a joke.
ERIC
You were homeless when we met.
I offered you a room and bath with kitchen privileges.
That's when I'm not eating in the kitchen.
HADARA
No job is that secure.
We are legally married.
I'll stay by choice.
FADE OUT/CURTAIN
END OF PLAY
