The Miracle Worker (14 page)

(Gently.)

Attractive. You've done wonders for her, Miss Sullivan.

ANNIE
[
NOT A QUESTION
]: Have I.

KELLER:
If there's anything you want from us in repayment tell us, it will be a privilege to—

ANNIE:
I just told Mrs. Keller. I want more time.

KATE:
Miss Annie—

ANNIE:
Another week.

(
HELEN
lifts her head, and begins to sniff.)

KELLER:
We miss the child. I miss her, I'm glad to say, that's a different debt I owe you—

ANNIE:
Pay it to Helen. Give
her
another week.

KATE
[
GENTLY
]: Doesn't she miss us?

KELLER:
Of course she does. What a wrench this unexplainable—exile must be to her, can you say it's not?

ANNIE:
No. But I—

(
HELEN
is off the stool, to grope about the room; when she encounters
BELLE,
she throws her arms around the dog's neck in delight.)

KATE:
Doesn't she need affection too, Miss Annie?

ANNIE
[
WAVERING
]: She—never shows me she needs it, she won't have any—caressing or—

KATE:
But you're not her mother.

KELLER:
And what would another week accomplish? We are more than satisfied, you've done more than we ever thought possible, taught her constructive—

ANNIE:
I can't promise anything. All I can—

KELLER
[
NO BREAK
]:—things to do, to behave like—even look like—a human child, so manageable, contented, cleaner, more—

ANNIE
[
WITHERING
]: Cleaner.

KELLER:
Well. We say cleanliness is next to godliness, Miss—

ANNIE:
Cleanliness is next to nothing, she has to learn that
everything has its name! That words can be her
eyes,
to everything in the world outside her, and inside too, what is she without words? With them she can think, have ideas, be reached, there's not a thought or fact in the world that can't be hers. You publish a newspaper, Captain Keller, do I have to tell you what words are? And she has them already—

KELLER:
Miss Sullivan.

ANNIE:
—eighteen nouns and three verbs, they're in her fingers now, I need only time to push
one
of them into her mind! One, and everything under the sun will follow. Don't you see what she's learned here is only clearing the way for that? I can't risk her unlearning it, give me more time alone with her, another week to—

KELLER:
Look.

(He points, and
ANNIE
turns.
HELEN
is playing with
BELLE'S
claws; she makes letters with her fingers, shows them to
BELLE,
waits with her palm, then manipulates the dog's claws.)

What is she spelling?

(A silence.)

KATE:
Water?

(
ANNIE
nods.)

KELLER:
Teaching a dog to spell.

(A pause.)

The dog doesn't know what she means, any more than she knows what you mean, Miss Sullivan. I think you ask too much, of her and yourself. God may not have meant Helen to have the—eyes you speak of.

ANNIE
[
TONELESS
]: I mean her to.

KELLER
[
CURIOUSLY
]: What is it to you?

(
ANNIE'S
head comes slowly up.)

You make us see how we indulge her for our sake. Is the opposite true, for you?

ANNIE
[
THEN
]: Half a week?

KELLER:
An agreement is an agreement.

ANNIE:
Mrs. Keller?

KATE
[
SIMPLY
]: I want her back.

(A wait;
ANNIE
then lets her hands drop in surrender, and nods.)

KELLER:
I'll send Viney over to help you pack.

ANNIE:
Not until six o'clock. I have her till six o'clock.

KELLER
[
CONSENTING
]: Six o'clock. Come, Katie.

(
KATE
leaving the window joins him around back, while
KELLER
closes the door; they are shut out.

Only the garden house is daylit now, and the light on it is narrowing down.
ANNIE
stands watching
HELEN
work
BELLE'S
claws. Then she settles beside them on her knees, and stops
HELEN'S
hand.)

ANNIE
[
GENTLY
]: No.

(She shakes her head, with
HELEN'S
hand to her face, then spells.)

Dog. D, o, g. Dog.

(She touches
HELEN'S
hand to
BELLE.
HELEN
dutifully pats the dog's head, and resumes spelling to its paw.)

Not water.

(
ANNIE
rolls to her feet, brings a tumbler of water back from the tray, and kneels with it, to seize
HELEN'S
hand and spell.)

Here. Water.
Water.

(She thrusts
HELEN'S
hand into the tumbler.
HELEN
lifts her hand out dripping, wipes it daintily on
BELLE'S
hide, and taking the tumbler from
ANNIE,
endeavors to thrust
BELLE'S
paw into it.
ANNIE
sits watching, wearily.)

I don't know how to tell you. Not a soul in the world knows how to tell you. Helen, Helen.

(She bends in compassion to touch her lips to
HELEN'S
temple, and instantly
HELEN
pauses, her hands off the dog, her head slightly averted. The lights are still narrowing, and
BELLE
slinks off. After a moment
ANNIE
sits back.)

Yes, what's it to me? They're satisfied. Give them back their child and dog, both housebroken, everyone's satisfied. But me, and you.

(
HELEN'S
hand comes out into the light, groping.)

Reach.
Reach!

(
ANNIE
extending her own hand grips
HELEN'S;
the two hands are clasped, tense in the light, the rest of the room changing in shadow.)

I wanted to teach you—oh, everything the earth is full of, Helen, everything on it that's ours for a wink and it's gone, and what we are on it, the—light we bring to it and leave behind in—words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know—and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave. And I know, I
know,
one word and I can—put the
world in your hand—and whatever it is to me, I won't take less! How, how, how, do I tell you that
this
—

(She spells.)

—means a
word,
and the word means this
thing,
wool?

(She thrusts the wool at
HELEN'S
hand;
HELEN
sits, puzzled.
ANNIE
puts the crocheting aside.)

Or this—s, t, o, o, l—means this
thing,
stool?

(She claps
HELEN'S
palm to the stool.
HELEN
waits, uncomprehending.
ANNIE
snatches up her napkin, spells:)

Napkin!

(She forces it on
HELEN'S
hand, waits, discards it, lifts a fold of the child's dress, spells:)

Dress!

(She lets it drop, spells:)

F, a, c, e, face!

(She draws
HELEN'S
hand to her cheek, and pressing it there, staring into the child's responseless eyes, hears the distant belfry begin to toll, slowly: one, two, three, four, five, six.

On the third stroke the lights stealing in around the garden house show us figures waiting:
VINEY,
the other servant,
MARTHA, PERCY
at the drapes, and
JAMES
on the dim porch.
ANNIE
and
HELEN
remain, frozen. The chimes die away. Silently
PERCY
moves the drape-rod back out of sight;
VINEY
steps into the room—not using the door—and unmakes the bed; the other servant brings the wheelbarrow over, leaves
it handy, rolls the bed off;
VINEY
puts the bed linens on top of a waiting boxful of
HELEN'S
toys, and loads the box on the wheelbarrow;
MARTHA
and
PERCY
take out the chairs, with the trayful, then the table; and
JAMES,
coming down and into the room, lifts
ANNIE'S
suitcase from its corner.
VINEY
and the other servant load the remaining odds and ends on the wheelbarrow, and the servant wheels it off.
VINEY
and the children departing leave only
JAMES
in the room with
ANNIE
and
HELEN. JAMES
studies the two of them, without mockery, and then, quietly going to the door and opening it, bears the suitcase out, and housewards. He leaves the door open.

KATE
steps into the doorway, and stands.
ANNIE
lifting her gaze from
HELEN
sees her; she takes
HELEN'S
hand from her cheek, and returns it to the child's own, stroking it there twice, in her mother-sign, before spelling slowly into it:)

M, o, t, h, e, r. Mother.

(
HELEN
with her hand free strokes her cheek, suddenly forlorn.
ANNIE
takes her hand again.)

M, o, t, h—

(But
KATE
is trembling with such impatience that her voice breaks from her, harsh.)

KATE:
Let her
come
!

(
ANNIE
lifts
HELEN
to her feet, with a turn, and gives her a little push. Now
HELEN
begins groping, sensing something, trembling herself; and
KATE
falling one step in onto her knees clasps her, kissing her.
HELEN
clutches her, tight as she can.
KATE
is inarticulate, choked, repeating
HELEN'S
name again and again. She wheels with her in her arms, to stumble away out the doorway;
ANNIE
stands unmoving, while
KATE
in a blind walk carries
HELEN
like a baby behind the main house, out of view.

ANNIE
is now alone on the stage. She turns, gazing around at the stripped room, bidding it silently farewell, impassively, like a defeated general on the deserted battlefield. All that remains is a stand with a basin of water; and here
ANNIE
takes up an eyecup, bathes each of her eyes, empties the eyecup, drops it in her purse, and tiredly locates her smoked glasses on the floor. The lights alter subtly; in the act of putting on her glasses
ANNIE
hears something that stops her, with head lifted. We hear it too, the voices out of the past, including her own now, in a whisper:)

BOY'S VOICE:
You said we'd be together, forever—You promised, forever and—
Annie!

ANAGNOS' VOICE:
But that battle is dead and done with, why not let it stay buried?

ANNIE'S VOICE
[
WHISPERING
]: I think God must owe me a resurrection.

ANAGNOS' VOICE:
What?

(A pause, and
ANNIE
answers it herself, heavily.)

ANNIE:
And I owe God one.

BOY'S VOICE:
Forever and ever—

(
ANNIE
shakes her head.)

—forever, and ever, and—

(
ANNIE
covers her ears.)

—forever, and ever, and ever—

(It pursues
ANNIE;
she flees to snatch up her purse, wheels to the doorway, and
KELLER
is standing in it. The lights have lost their special color.)

KELLER:
Miss—Annie.

(He has an envelope in his fingers.)

I've been waiting to give you this.

ANNIE
[
AFTER A BREATH
]: What?