The Miracle Worker (9 page)

ANNIE
backs off a step, and watches;
HELEN
offers no move.
ANNIE
takes a deep breath. Both of them and the room are in considerable disorder, two chairs down and the table a mess, but
ANNIE
makes no effort to tidy it; she only sits on her own chair, and lets her energy refill. Then she takes up knife and fork, and resolutely addresses her food.
HELEN'S
hand comes out to explore, and seeing it
ANNIE
sits without moving, the child's hand goes over her hand and fork, pauses—
ANNIE
still does not move—and withdraws. Presently it moves for her own plate, slaps about for it, and stops, thwarted. At this,
ANNIE
again rises, recovers
HELEN'S
plate from the floor and a handful of scattered food from the deranged tablecloth, drops it on the plate, and pushes the plate into contact with
HELEN'S
fist. Neither of them now moves for a pregnant moment—until
HELEN
suddenly takes a grab of food and wolfs it down.
ANNIE
permit herself the humor of a minor bow and warming of her hands together; she wanders off a step or two, watching.
HELEN
cleans up the plate.

After a glower of indecision, she holds the empty plate out for more.
ANNIE
accepts it, and crossing to the removed plates, spoons food from them onto it; she stands debating the spoon, tapping it a few times on
HELEN'S
plate; and when she returns with the plate she brings the spoon, too. She puts the spoon first into
HELEN'S
hand, then sets the plate down.
HELEN
discarding the spoon reaches with her hand, and
ANNIE
stops it by the wrist; she replaces the spoon in it.
HELEN
impatiently discards it again, and again
ANNIE
stops her hand, to replace the spoon in it. This time
HELEN
throws the spoon on the floor.
ANNIE
after considering it lifts
HELEN
bodily out of the chair, and in a wrestling match on the floor closes her fingers upon the spoon, and returns her with it to the chair.
HELEN
again throws the spoon on the floor.
ANNIE
lifts her out of the chair again; but in the struggle over the spoon
HELEN
with
ANNIE
on her back sends her sliding over her head;
HELEN
flees back to her chair and scrambles into it. When
ANNIE
comes after her she clutches it for dear life;
ANNIE
pries one hand loose, then the other, then the first again, then the other again, and then lifts
HELEN
by the waist, chair and all, and shakes the chair loose.
HELEN
wrestles to get free, but
ANNIE
pins her to the floor, closes her fingers upon the spoon, and lifts her kicking under one arm; with her other hand she gets the chair in place again, and plunks
HELEN
back on it. When she releases her hand,
HELEN
throws the spoon at her.

ANNIE
now removes the plate of food.
HELEN
grabbing finds it missing, and commences to bang with her fists on the table.
ANNIE
collects a fistful of spoons and descends with them and the plate on
HELEN;
she lets her smell the plate, at which
HELEN
ceases banging, and
ANNIE
puts the plate down and a spoon in
HELEN'S
hand.
HELEN
throws it on the floor.
ANNIE
puts another spoon in her hand.
H
ELEN
throws it on the floor.
ANNIE
puts another spoon in her hand.
H
ELEN
throws it on the floor. When
ANNIE
comes to her last spoon she sits next to
HELEN,
and gripping the spoon in
HELEN'S
hand compels her to take food in it up to her mouth.
HELEN
sits with lips shut.
ANNIE
waits a stolid moment, then lowers
HELEN'S
hand. She tries again;
HELEN'S
lips remain shut.
ANNIE
waits, lowers
HELEN'S
hand. She tries again; this time
HELEN
suddenly opens her mouth and accepts the food.
ANNIE
lowers the spoon with a sigh of relief, and
HELEN
spews the mouthful out at her face.
ANNIE
sits a moment with eyes closed, then takes the pitcher and dashes its water into
HELEN'S
face, who gasps astonished.
ANNIE
with
HELEN'S
hand takes up another spoonful, and shoves it into her open mouth.
HELEN
swallows involuntarily, and while she is catching her breath
ANNIE
forces her palm open, throws four swift letters into it, then another four, and bows toward her with devastating pleasantness.)

ANNIE:
Good girl.

(
ANNIE
lifts
HELEN'S
hand to feel her face nodding;
HELEN
grabs a fistful of her hair, and yanks. The pain brings
ANNIE
to her knees, and
HELEN
pummels her; they roll under the table, and the lights commence to dim out on them.

Simultaneously the light at left has been rising, slowly, so slowly that it seems at first we only imagine what is intimated in the yard: a few ghostlike figures, in silence, motionless, waiting. Now the distant belfry chimes commence to toll the hour, also very slowly, almost—it is twelve—interminably; the sense is that of a long time passing. We can identify the figures before the twelfth stroke, all facing the house in a kind of watch:
KATE
is standing exactly as before, but now with the baby
MILDRED
sleeping in her arms, and placed here and there, unmoving, are
AUNT EV
in her hat with a hanky to her nose, and the two Negro children,
PERCY
and
MARTHA,
with necks outstretched eagerly, and
VINEY
with a knotted kerchief on her head and a feather duster in her hand.

The chimes cease, and there is silence. For a long moment none of the group moves.)

VINEY
[
PRESENTLY
]: What am I gone do, Miss Kate? It's noontime, dinner's comin', I didn't get them breakfast dishes out of there yet.

(
KATE
says nothing, stares at the house.
MARTHA
shifts
HELEN'S
doll in her clutch, and it plaintively says momma.)

KATE
[
PRESENTLY
]: You run along, Martha.

(
AUNT EV
blows her nose.)

AUNT EV
[
WRETCHEDLY
]: I can't wait out here a minute longer, Kate, why, this could go on all afternoon, too.

KATE:
I'll tell the captain you called.

VINEY
[
TO THE CHILDREN
]: You hear what Miss Kate say? Never you mind what's going on here.

(Still no one moves.)

You run along tend your own bizness.

(Finally
VINEY
turns on the children with the feather duster.)

Shoo!

(The two children divide before her. She chases them off.
AUNT EV
comes to
KATE,
on her dignity.)

AUNT EV:
Say what you like, Kate, but that child is a
Keller.

(She opens her parasol, preparatory to leaving.)

I needn't remind you that all the Kellers are cousins to General Robert E. Lee. I don't know
who
that girl is.

(She waits; but
KATE
staring at the house is without response.)

The only Sullivan I've heard of—from Boston too, and I'd think twice before locking her up with that kind—is that man John L.

(And
AUNT EV
departs, with head high. Presently
VINEY
comes to
KATE,
her arms out for the baby.)

VINEY:
You give me her, Miss Kate, I'll sneak her in back, to her crib.

(But
KATE
is moveless, until
VINEY
starts to take the baby;
KATE
looks down at her before relinquishing her.)

KATE
[
SLOWLY
]: This child never gives me a minute's worry.

VINEY:
Oh yes, this one's the angel of the family, no question bout
that.

(She begins off rear with the baby, heading around the house; and
KATE
now turns her back on it, her hand to her eyes. At this moment there is
the slamming of a door, and when
KATE
wheels
HELEN
is blundering down the porch steps into the light, like a ruined bat out of hell.
VINEY
halts, and
KATE
runs in;
HELEN
collides with her mother's knees, and reels off and back to clutch them as her savior.
ANNIE
with smoked glasses in hand stands on the porch, also much undone, looking as though she had indeed just taken Vicksburg.
KATE
taking in
HELEN'S
ravaged state becomes steely in her gaze up at
ANNIE.
)

KATE:
What happened?

(
ANNIE
meets
KATE'S
gaze, and gives a factual report, too exhausted for anything but a flat voice.)

ANNIE:
She ate from her own plate.

(She thinks a moment.)

She ate with a spoon. Herself.

(
KATE
frowns, uncertain with thought, and glances down at
HELEN.
)

And she folded her napkin.

(
KATE'S
gaze now wavers, from
HELEN
to
ANNIE
,
and back.)

KATE
[
SOFTLY
]: Folded—her napkin?

ANNIE:
The room's a wreck, but her napkin is folded.

(She pauses, then:)

I'll be in my room, Mrs. Keller.

(She moves to re-enter the house; but she stops at
VINEY'S
voice.)

VINEY
[
CHEERY
]: Don't be long, Miss Annie. Dinner be ready right away!

(
VINEY
carries
MILDRED
around the back of the house.
ANNIE
stands unmoving, takes a deep breath, stares over her shoulder at
KATE
and
HELEN,
then inclines her head graciously, and goes with a slight stagger into the house. The lights in her room above steal up in readiness for her.

KATE
remains alone with
HELEN
in the yard, standing protectively over her, in a kind of wonder.)

KATE
[
SLOWLY
]: Folded her napkin.

(She contemplates the wild head in her thighs, and moves her fingertips over it, with such a tenderness, and something like a fear of its strangeness, that her own eyes close; she whispers, bending to it:)

My Helen—folded her napkin—

(And still erect, with only her head in surrender,
KATE
for the first time that we see loses her protracted war with grief; but she will not let a sound escape her, only the grimace of tears comes, and sobs that shake her in a grip of silence. But
HELEN
feels them, and her hand comes up in its own wondering, to interrogate her mother's face, until
KATE
buries her lips in the child's palm.

Upstairs,
ANNIE
enters her room, closes the door, and stands back against it; the lights, growing on her with their special color, commence to fade on
KATE
and
HELEN
.
Then
ANNIE
goes wearily to her suitcase, and lifts it to take it toward the bed. But it knocks an object to the floor, and she turns back to regard it. A new voice comes in a cultured murmur, hesitant as with the effort of remembering a text:)