Scene Ten
The Knopf living
room early afternoon New Year’s day. The decorations and the gifts are
gone, and the Christmas tree is in the process of being denuded. At rise,
NADINE is seated on the edge of the chair downstage right. SHE is clutching
at a shredded handkerchief. DR. KNOPF is in the chair upstage left, staring
toward the door. ROSALIE is on the sofa in the center. She is dressed in
a silk kimono very much like the one Diane wore in the slumber party scene.
SHE is brushing her hair with short, swift Diane-like strokes. Throughout
the scene SHE continues to brush her hair, saying nothing and refusing
to look at either of her parents.
NADINE
It’s two fifteen.
(Surreptitiously, SHE regards her husband, then hurriedly draws her
eyes away and down to the
floor. There is silence.)
She should be here by
now.
(More silence.)
If it’s the money, Albert,
I can go back to teaching history.
(DR. KNOPF does not look at her, but grimaces disdainfully.)
You can never tell. I
might have more discipline in a classroom now.
(Silence.)
I can teach at a cooking
school. There must be one in town. Adults are easier to handle.
(DR. KNOPF finally glances at her.)
I can sell clothes. Other
women my age sell clothes.
(DR. KNOPF sighs with annoyance.)
I can start a chicken
farm.
DR. KNOPF
Nadine…
NADINE
I can. I spent the first
eight years of my life on a farm in Willowgrove before my father was run
over by a tractor. We had lots of chickens and things. I can do many things
if I set my mind to it, Albert. Please. Please don’t tell Mrs. Fell you
have a son named Art.
DR. KNOPF
I’ve explained it to you,
Nadine…
NADINE
But only last week you said
you wanted no part of it.
DR. KNOPF
Last week I didn’t realize
my job depended on it.
NADINE
Tell me again. Just what
did Mr. Peeples say.
DR. KNOPF
He didn’t say anything. He
just got me in the middle of his living room floor, pulled out a football,
went one-two-three hike and started demonstrating a few plays he wants
me to submit to the coach at Oklahoma.
NADINE
But Mr. Peeples is a friend
of yours. Tell him the truth, Albert. He’ll understand.
DR. KNOPF
I told you. The Board of
Education won’t understand. I’m not only supposed to be principal of Ojus
Junior High, I’m also supposed to coach the football team.
NADINE
You can still do that, Albert.
You don’t have to be Art Knopf’s father to coach a football team of 13
year olds. Do you?
DR. KNOPF
Ask my daughter that question.
NADINE
But, Albert, sooner or later
somebody is bound to discover the truth.
DR. KNOPF
When Mrs. Fell gets here,
I’m going to tell her one thing and one thing alone. There must be no publicity
about Art Knopf. We’re not on speaking terms.
NADINE
Albert, Albert! One lie only
leads to another!
DR. KNOPF
You should have thought of
that when you allowed your daughter to begin this whole ludicrous mess.
NADINE
I didn’t…I never realized
what would happen…it was just a game…
DR. KNOPF
Aren’t you getting too old
for games?
NADINE
Don’t, Albert…don’t lose
your integrity…
DR. KNOPF
I am not losing my integrity,
damn it! Art Knopf and I are not on speaking terms because he cheated on
that trig test. No son of mine is going to be caught with the answers to
an exam written in a hundred tiny words in the crease of his elbow!
NADINE
But he’s too famous, Albert…someone
will discover the truth…
DR. KNOPF
All I’m asking for is time…time
to establish myself in a decent school again.
NADINE
But it wasn’t your fault
they had gangs at Rivington. It was the neighborhood. Everyone knows that.
DR. KNOPF
I’m fifty-five years old,
Nadine. I have a job to do, a purpose in life. Those lectures are useless.
I spoke before an audience of 39 in Tallahassee…at a teacher’s college!
NADINE
But we’ve been able to get
along on your pension…
DR. KNOPF
It’s not the pension. How
many times must I tell you? I have to put the Revised Knopf Plan into action.
NADINE
But maybe, Albert, just maybe…there’s
something amiss in the Revised Knopf Plan…I mean, maybe it’s not flexible
enough…
DR. KNOPF
It’s ahead of its time!
NADINE
But it’s been ahead of its
time for…
DR. KNOPF
If I had to depend on your
faith to sustain me…
NADINE
I know all the time you’ve
spent on it, Albert…more time than you spent on the Original Knopf Plan…but
you revised that one…maybe you can revise the revised one…
DR. KNOPF
Will you stop blubbering
about something of which you know nothing!
NADINE
I know a little about it…but
I’m trying to find a way…a way you can go on and not depend on the Ojus
job…you didn’t have this job a month ago…And if Mr. Pelswick hadn’t quit
so suddenly because he refused to be demoted to shop teacher…
DR. KNOPF
You got me into this! You
and this daughter of yours!
(to Rosalie)
Will you stop brushing
your hair, for God’s sake!
(ROSALIE’S hand falters for a moment, then resumes with the same tenacity
as before.)
I’m the one who has to
extricate us from this maelstrom born of her foolish adolescent crush.
NADINE
Albert, she did it for you.
DR. KNOPF
Don’t tell me she did it
for me! She did it for that Jew with those weeds in his mouth!
NADINE
Oh, no! She hasn’t seen him
in ages. She did it to integrate. Look, look how she’s integrated. She
goes to progressive dinners and slumber parties all the time now…and see
that cut on her hand that’s healing…she got that slipping on the poop deck
of a yacht, Albert…Diane Wolfe’s yacht. And the son of the Seashell King
is going to pin her.
DR. KNOPF
To what?
NADINE
The National Chapter of the
Key Club is sending Ham Hudson a new pin as soon as possible. Aren’t they,
Rosalie? He wore his old one on his bathing trunks and he went in swimming
and it corroded.
DR. KNOPF
She did it all for that Jew
with those weeds in his mouth.
NADINE
Why do you keep saying that?
DR. KNOPF
I know her. I know that letter
she sent to Billy Zilkey’s gym teacher. I know that composition paper she
handed into Mrs. Fell. But, most of all, I know you, Nadine.
NADINE
Me?
DR. KNOPF
I can see the whole messy
pattern repeating itself.
NADINE
Albert…
DR. KNOPF
Don’t think I’ve forgotten.
NADINE
Don’t, Albert…
DR. KNOPF
That muttonhead with that
ridiculous redundant name!
NADINE
He was a very brilliant chemistry
teacher.
DR. KNOPF
Angelo Santangelo, indeed!
That humiliating day at Rivington’s faculty meeting when you stood up and
defended that man!
NADINE
You and I weren’t married
then…we weren’t even engaged. I was just another teacher to you. Why was
it so humiliating?
DR. KNOPF
It’s humiliating to watch
anyone make a spectacle of himself. Everyone knew the truth about Santangelo!
But there you were…standing outside his room every day, making goo-goo
eyes at him, bringing him cold spaghetti and heating it up on his Bunsen
burner.
NADINE
Yesterday’s spaghetti was
Angelo’s favorite food.
DR. KNOPF
Of course…he liked anything
that was red!
NADINE
Oh, Albert, please let’s…
DR. KNOPF
Everybody in school knew
he was a Communist except you!
NADINE
What difference did it make?
I mean, he was only a chemistry teacher. He couldn’t make molecules subversive.
DR. KNOPF
He didn’t even try to conceal
it. My God, he used to show his party card around at PTA meetings. And
still you wouldn’t believe it. You got up at that faculty meeting, and
you said, "I have known Mr. Santangelo ever since he came to Rivington,
and I can swear he is not a Communist. He is a Catholic."
NADINE
But he was. He wore a beautiful
wooden cross on a silver chain around his neck. I couldn’t understand how
anyone could be both.
DR. KNOPF
Every teacher at that faculty
meeting burst into laughter. But you insisted on defending him. And what
did you get for it? Did he ever marry you?
NADINE
No. You married me, Albert.
DR. KNOPF
Why, I knew he was a Communist
the second week he was in the school.
NADINE
Then why didn’t you fire
him then?
DR. KNOPF
Because Russia hadn’t marched
on Finland then.
NADINE
But during the Battle of
Stalingrad you hired him back.
DR. KNOPF
Of course I did. It was the
war. Good chemistry teachers were all being drafted.
NADINE
But then during the division
of Poland you fired him again.
DR. KNOPF
Naturally.
NADINE
I don’t understand. I didn’t
understand then, and I don’t now.
DR. KNOPF
Oh, Nadine, stop acting like
a child. Angelo Santangelo was a flesh and blood human being, not a cupcake
with a whipped cream page boy.
NADINE
What difference does it all
make now to bring it up like this? Angelo’s long since married, he has
five children, he’s the president of a container corporation, and he votes
Republican. What happened is past.
DR. KNOPF
It is present as long as
your daughter continues to follow in your shadow.
NADINE
All right, Albert. She made
a mistake, and I made a mistake. But let’s rectify it now. I don’t understand
how you can lie about something like Art Knopf being your son…I just don’t
understand.
(NADINE begins to cry very softly.)
DR. KNOPF
You don’t understand more
than that, Nadine. You don’t understand about living as a mature human
being in a complex and imperfect society.
(There is a knock on the door.)
That’s Mrs. Fell now.
NADINE
Don’t, Albert…please don’t
lie to her!
DR. KNOPF
Dry your eyes, for God’s
sake!
(NADINE reacts obediently.
There is another knock on the door. DR. KNOPF begins to move toward the
front door.)
DR. KNOPF
We’ll be right there.
(to Rosalie)
Will you stop brushing
your hair, goddamnit!
(SHE pays no attention whatever as HE reaches the door.)
LIGHTS DIM
