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Night Music
Atar Hadari

(A small stage space, intimate, defined by the light. A comfortable chair, small table near it cluttered with things- pens, paper, scissors, cards, bills; - perhaps another small piece of furniture on which the grocery bag rests. A tape recorder on the small table. A record player on a little stand.)
(She is a woman in her late sixties.)
(She puts on a Frank Sinatra record. She sings along. "Fly me to the moon", possibly.)

ROCHA
Did I tell you about the new kids I got moving in here? Beautiful. He's a mechanic, she's a conductor on the subway. He and she- like little models on a wedding cake- both Sepharadic, both out of the army in Israel, both not the other side of thirty. She's pregnant. I said "SURE, if the baby comes in the middle of the night you've got a half-price taxi ride right here. I won't even keep the meter running while you deliver. You will be taking me for the ride back, right?" (laughs) What can I tell you- I'm soft. She's nice. Very sweet. A little Sepharadic angel. Belly out to here. He's streetwise, I know, I can tell it in the eyes. Hands like old shoes. Been around. They gave me two months rent up front. I moved the big bed into their room.

(gets up and goes to turn over the record.)

My back mind you, is not what it was. Sleeping on a daybed half the night is one thing when you're fifty- when you're pushing God out of the way at the pension counter 'cause he was a year below you in grade school- you should watch yourself. But. They bring noise into the house, what can I tell you. And he'll help me with the stuff. He said. Where's the cat-food?

(looks around the space at unpacked groceries)

The groceries. The bread. The milk. The bag.

(rummages in brown paper bag)

The Whiska-fish. White chicken of the sea. Mozzelle!
Where are you you small colony of fleas? Mozzie?
Baby, Mommie's feeding you- yes! Yes!!! (Pause) Come when you're hungry.

(She gets out a dish, opens can etc. Puts tuna in dish.)

Hands like a rail-road engineer that boy. This I know. One thing Aaron left- he may have taken the kids, my better porcelaine and memories- but hands I can still tell if they worked or not. Like Aaron's hands. I tell people- my husband- why should I say ex? - is he dead? - did he marry the blond bunny?- do bunnies only eat off quality ceramics?- unlike me, I'll swallow anything. My husband, I say, had hands you could spit on: and the wet wouldn't roll down his thumb, that's how calloused they were. But in that room-

(She points and pauses.)

-gentle as a cat. Why is the door open? They've been here two weeks they leave the door open.

(Goes to edge of stage.)

And window.

(Goes off-stage.)

No heat in the house and I slap my hands to keep warm.

(Sound of window being shut. She returns.)

I don't know about those two. Oh, Mozzie.

(goes to food)

So, I park the cab today, outside the bank, I go inside to cash a cheque, who do I see? I see Eli- the boy- nice coat, I never seen that coat, wearing gloves- like they wouldn't lend him money if they saw his hands. So, I walk up slowly- like I can walk real fast on my elephant's legs here, and this stick- an Olympic sprint it ain't, you know what I'm saying? But I get behind him. I'm unobtrusive. I surprise him. Eventually. Meanwhile he's drawing five thousand dollars. Five thousand. He turns, I act like I wasn't listening. If the girl at the desk with the two buck teeth hadn't spat the words out like she was in a pool hall I wouldn't've heard nothing. I act like I'm deaf and blind but he doesn't buy it. He's smart Eli- been somewhere around with those hands- you don't live stupid with those hands, his age, if you're still pretty. He says his father sent him dough to buy a car. I say "Sure, great, Ravit won't need a cab driver to take 'er to the maternity wing. You can drive me. I'll be a spectator." He laughs, leaves me starting to wonder- why don't they have anything other than used clothes? And Frank Sinatra records?

(She turns the record over. Plays it.)

You like this? They listen to it all the time. Every night. When they get back I'll hear it. May as well get myself numbed to the pain. It ain't bad for a white man- you know what I'm sayin'? But that's all I'm sayin'. Aaron listened to blues.

(She dances, sort of, with stick.)

Nice to have a man with music in the house. And children- soon.

(She puts dish down on corner stage, crumples
paper bag etc. Straightens quilt on her chair,
drops her stick.)

Oh shit. Always doing that. Now Eli'll have to give it to me. Probably.

(She sits, squishes down in chair and tries to reach
the stick. Sighs.)

Come on Rochelle, come on, come on. For this you ate the Marzipan balls? Come on. One more. One roll of fat pushed in your wind-pipe won't - ah-

(gets it)

Aah!!!
God. Music. Now THIS is a singer.

(She presses the play button on the cassette player.)

God, one of these days I'll fall and Mozzie'll have my eye-balls for breakfast. I know you dear, you're just another male. Aren't you? AREn't you? Well.

(looking at tape)

Not wound right? Ach. Nothing works.

(She leans back, head to one side, nods off.
One, two seconds. Otis Redding's "Respect"
comes blaring from tape in mid-bar.
"Hey little girl, you're sweeter than honey
but I'm about to give you all of my money
all I'm askin' is for a little respect when I get home
Hey hey hey!" )

(She comes to with a start, orients herself and
switches tape off.)

Ohmigod Aaron, Mozzie, kids!
Shit. Otis, you're always late..and full of static. Getting old too. (Pause) I told you about the fire? Next door but one, Mrs. Levinsky with the white dog- leaves her windows open for air? Got ripped off something terrible and set fire to- her whole place. The landlords went and upped the rent to cover the fire-cost and insurance won't pay because she left her windows cracked. She lives right opposite Eli and Ravit's window. I must tell them to shut it. I'll leave a note. They're never home now. New rules. I drive a cab twelve, sixteen hours till I'm dead- come home, they're asleep or in the shower or out. Their rent's in an envelope on the fridge. Their milk carton in the third shelf down gets empty, I lose a little of mine, then there's a new carton. Every day I look. They drink coffee here- that's it. Ravit- last I saw 'er was out the side of the elevator with her belly- so far she was like a galleon-I don't know. Mozzie! Come and eat, come and talk to Mommie like a real person not a phantom cat- what are you doing? Shtupping my galoshes again? Silly- SHE'll never get pregnant, they're made in Korea.

Whatever makes you happy. Aaron wants to stick it in a twenty-four year old from Dartmouth with hair like a Barbie you can shtup inanimate objects. At least you have your dignity. Come and eat! A hard thing to keep beyond your youth. Nah.

(She sits. Looks for paper.)

The car's a write-off. How I'll make rent I don't want to even discuss. Eli and Ravit didn't pay this week and last Friday's envelope was ten bucks short- put THAT in the goddamn note. Rent rise, rent rise, my beloved, but at least I got partners in this. Community is important. I just got my and Mozzie's part of the bill to find. If they got the rent. And keep their windows closed.

(Goes off briefly. Sound of window closing.
Returns.)

Mozzie- what do you find in the back of your cab if you leave it two minutes by a bank? By a fucking bank!!! A brick. And they didn't even steal it. I see Eli, from across the street, I wave, he doesn't see me when he looks at me, I follow him into the bank, he's not there, I come back- white bits of glass like snow all over the back seat and the carpet and they didn't have the courtesy to steal it! That you saw, my dear, from the window. Right here, in the neighbourhood. While Mommie was calling the police and the windscreen specialist. And Ravit was showering- do they smell their armpits? Always in the shower when I'm home. Tsk. And you sat and watched them tow my cab away.

(Settles in her chair.)

I told Aaron, I said, I will not make love that doesn't keep me satisfied. I'm not a hog. I got needs- I'm not a stone, but I'm not a rock either- I don't need to grind just to make a fire. If I gotta wait for love I gotta. We used to look out of that window after days, at the snow, at the birds making little black holes in the boughs all white, after days, DAYS we wouldn't leave bed, what did we need? Now Eli can't leave the windows shut. Ravit?!! Ravit?!! I hear the shower running next door and I think I've got company. What I remember most is the pink cocktails- nothing elaborate, Aaron was in construction, not a chemist- but he'd mix these reds and blues and yellows and we'd see the snow turn red together. All over the bed- even at night. In the yellow street lights. When I go- that'll be it. No more making rent. I shouldn't've let my hands get pried off that taxi. Broken or not. I realized- after it pulled away and you watched, cat- it was the last thing in a long time - the last thing around here I give a shit about. Nothing special. Yellow like a broken egg. But. Really got a kick out of that thing. Mozzie- come and eat! I sold a tea-pot to buy this shit for you!

(She sits. Punches play on the tape. Nothing happens. She leans back, hand on brow. Sound comes on. "I've been loving you too long" by Otis Redding plays for a bar or so. She dozes and wakes.)

Otis. Otis. Otis...

(to read the moving conclusion of this short play, please buy em one)

Atar Hadari’s verse-plays have appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Derek Walcott’s Boston Playwrights Theatre, the Nat Horne Studio Theatre in New York City and Canal Cafe Theatre, London. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in the Times Literary Supplement, American Poetry Review, Poetry London Newsletter, Poetry East, Confrontation, Nimrod International Journal and many other publications. His volume of translations from the Hebrew poet Bialik, Songs from Bialik, is published in the spring by Syracuse University Press. Until recently he was the first ever holder of the Munroe Moore Fellowship in Playwrighting at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he wrote plays about Alexander Pope, Janis Joplin and others. In 1997 he will be teaching playwrighting at the University of Cincinnati and Florida Atlantic University.

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