Scene Nine
When the lights come up, the rear projection tells
us we are on an impoverished street in Guadalajara. There is a broken-down
two-story building and a sign outside which reads: "Word Renowned Fortune-Teller---MADAME
FAINA POLENSKA." TWO MEXICAN GIRLS in their late teens enter, chatting.
FIRST GIRL notices the sign.
FIRST GIRL
Have you ever been to her?
SECOND GIRL
You mean that old fraud?
FIRST GIRL
Yolanda told me she was really remarkable.
SECOND GIRL
Remarkable? You know what she told me? She said someone had put a curse
on me.
FIRST GIRL
Graciela?
SECOND GIRL
That's what I thought. So I brought her a hundred and fifty pesos, and
I thought she would take the curse off, and Antonio would ask me to marry
him. You know what happened? I kept bringing her a hundred and fifty pesos,
and he still married Graciela.
(GIRLS exit to the right, and a set slides on showing a dilapidated
room with tattered curtains upstage center. There is a small table with
a crystal ball, an astrological wheel on the wall and a phrenology poster.
The room reeks of decay. In a moment, the curtains part, and IRENE enters.
She is almost unrecognizable. She has grown very fat, her hair is obviously
dyed, her dressing gown is stained and she has a half-filled bottle of
tequila in one hand and a tumbler in the other. SHE plops herself down
on a worn armchair, fills the tumbler with alcohol, reaches behind her
into a cigar box, grabs a cigar and lights it.)
IRENE
(drunkenly and cynically)
I am captain of my ship
No shackles and no bars---
I'm on my own
And won't condone
My future's in the stars.
(A knock on the door.)
IRENE
Just one minute!
(SHE scurries to pull herself together, hide the tequila bottle
and the tumbler, and extinguish the cigar which she decides to put back
in the box and save for later. A louder knock.)
IRENE
(mumbling to herself)
Just a goddamned minute.
(Now she takes an atomizer of cheap perfume and sprays the room.
Then she waddles to the door and opens it. A YOUNG AMERICAN stands there.
He is husky and quite attractive. She bats her eyes at him in a flirtatious
manner, which no longer suits her.)
AMERICAN
Madame Polenska?
IRENE
Da. Come sit here.
(SHE leads him to the chair across the table and places herself
in the chair in front of the crystal ball.)
I will give you the reading of your life. Wait! What is this I see?
It's coming through verrry gradually. Someone has put a curse on your family.
AMERICAN
Madame Polenska, I didn't come for a reading.
(pulling out a card from his breast pocket)
My name is Stanford Curry. I'm a private investigator. Do you know
how long my company has spent trying to track you down? We've had five
detectives over the last fifteen years.
IRENE
What you want with Madame Polenska?
AMERICAN
Do you remember a woman named Charlotte Braden? It appears she met you
on a ship, the Oceanic, coming to America in 1904.
IRENE
I met so many people in my younger days.
AMERICAN
Mrs. Braden would like you to come to her home in Newport as soon as
is possible. She will pay all expenses.
IRENE
Why? Why this Mrs. Braden, she want to see me?
AMERICAN
That I cannot say. I never met Mrs. Braden. I was simply instructed
to try to find you, and that, if you needed money, I was to advance it
to you.
IRENE
(glancing about the room)
I can use a dollar or two.
(HE pulls out his wallet and leaves bills
on the table.)
AMERICAN
Will this cover what you will need to get to Newport?
IRENE
If I eat very sparingly.
(HE pulls out another bill and adds it to
the others.)
AMERICAN
Enough?
IRENE
Ah, my dear young man, don't you know that in life nothing is ever enough?
(HE smiles wanly and departs. SHE sits for a moment in stunned
silence. She picks up the bills.)
IRENE
Three hundred!
If you're captain of your ship,
You are free of doubt and fear,
My firm belief’s
There are no reefs
If you know how to steer.
(SHE begins to laugh, cannot stop laughing, doubles over with
laughter as the music of Captain of My Ship builds to a crescendo.
)
CURTAIN SLOWLY FALLS
