Written January 26, 2019

And so there it was that the gates of life gaped open before her. 

The chair Eva sat on was cold and hard. Her long, thin fingers were clasped in a clammy wad on her lap. She stared into the distance. There was a woman next to her with wispy blond hair that she seemed to perpetually run her fingers through. The hand in which she held the play script was quivering uncontrollably. Eva felt she should say something to console her, something witty and comforting. But she only read the scripts, she did not write them, so no words came to part her lips.

The woman’s name was called, and she whispered something under her breath that Eva did not catch. Perhaps it was a prayer. Just then, Eva wondered if she should do the same. The door shut.

Time passed in a haze, just as it always does, and soon enough the woman emerged with a strange look on her face. Defeat? No, it was much too real. Defeat was a pathetic feeling that could be detected with one glance. This feeling was much more elusive. It warranted studying, observing. It was not defeat, no. It was the absence of hope. This feeling had no name.

Eva was called. She rose to her feet and made her way to the door from which the blond woman came. The room behind it was sad and small. It had one window and bright fluorescent lights that hung low from the ceiling. The lights made the gray man beneath them look grayer.  He was sitting behind a foldable table on a foldable chair. Everything about the room was  temporary. His complexion was clear and smooth, and his head was bushy with thick strands of hair the color of graphite. He could have been anywhere from forty-two to fifty-six years old. His eyes were limpid.

“Good afternoon.” His voice was deep and sandy. It reminded Eva of waves caressing a rocky beach. “Eva Logan?” She nodded. Her breathing was shallow. “Begin when you’re ready.”

It was a beautiful script, deserving of a beautiful actress. Not physically so, but spiritually, though Eva was not ugly. This was extremely important. For this script, the actress needed to live in its words and run with them off of the page into people’s minds and hearts. If she did not do this, it would mean nothing to anyone. It was this delicate, like a rose with its petals poorly attached, but one that could be exquisite in no other way.

Eva began. She began like liquid. Like a single, quiet drop of water rolling off a duck’s emerald feather into dust with microscopic grains. Then she grew into a roar of a wronged lioness, screaming into the desert sun that brought this fate upon her, running with the wind that pelted her face with a vicious hatred. And then, she was an autumn leaf, drifting serenely on the breeze, drifting away from the thick bough that held it captive. She finished in a whisper—the leaf had joined its counterparts on a long-forgotten pile.

Eva had not realized that she had closed her eyes. She tried to open them, gently, slowly. And there was the sad, little room with one window and fluorescent lights shedding their beams on a gray man, as if the universe had left and returned before she opened her eyes.

Now Eva looked at the man. His thin lips were parted ever so subtly. His eyes were wide, and they were emanating a feeling that made Eva smile. Pure and innocent wonder. They glistened slightly with tears. But she saw all of this in a breath of a moment, and in the next the man was composed again. 

“Thank you for your time,” he said, and looked down, shuffling through papers.

Eva paused, and without thinking she asked, “Is that all?”

The gray man looked back up at her with an oddly knowing smile and said quietly in his deep, sandy voice, as if telling Eva a secret, “That is the question, isn’t it? It all depends.” 

The words didn’t sound complete, so Eva made the most logical statement she could. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

As if himself knowing what Eva meant, the gray man resumed shuffling papers, replying   in a half-sincere, half-brusque tone after a deep inhalation. “I never really liked that question.  Is that all? There’s a million things it could or could not be. Again, thank you for your time, Miss Logan. Good luck.”

Walking away, Eva wondered why he had wished her luck, when he would be the one determining it for her. She made her way through thin corridors out of the audition area. To exit the building, she had to walk through the theater and onto the stage. It was majestic.

The stage was wide and royal, only inviting to great actors. It looked out into the crowd of red-velvet upholstered seats with a sweeping gaze as if greeting peasants. Its golden surface glistened with the yellow brilliance issuing from the stage lights. Crimson curtains hung down from the ceiling in graceful folds, held back like fiery red hair by ropes.

The theater itself was just as regal. Marble columns grew from the floor on either side of the entrance as hundred-year-old trees do. Plump cherubs adorned the buttresses that heaved like ribs when the building inhaled with the wind. 

Eva stood for a few moments in the center of it all, as if standing the center of the world. She knew that she was worthy. She knew that the theater would shudder in awe when she spoke in the lucid, flowing tones she knew how. She would lift it off its feet in a standing ovation, and she would be the one looking upon it with a sweeping gaze. But she would be sure to thank it. She would nod her head slightly in acknowledgement. 

Reluctantly, she gathered herself and made her exit.

• • •

It was the manner with which she had said the line, “There were the shadows that passed forth gently. But so, too, did the light.” It was a beautiful line, but it was she who had made it beautiful. Her voice had begun the first sentence in a whisper, but one that wasn’t so quiet as to conceal her tones. Her voice was like a river—no—an ocean. It bulged and dipped and pulsated with life, and even a whisper did not betray her. The next sentence crescendoed as the pitch of her voice rose, and the last word hovered in the air. As if looking up at it, she had raised her chin slightly. 

It was a brilliant performance. But he could not let her play the part. It wasn’t that he wanted someone else to do it. It wasn’t that he was jealous. For some reason that he could not himself fathom, he could not have Eva Logan play the part. It was as if it was an unspoken law. She could not play the part.

Perhaps it was her smile. In that moment, he could feel her look deeply into him. It had been unsettlingly real. Or perhaps it was her question. She had asked it much too confidently: “Is that all?” It was a very foolish inquiry. That was never all. She should have known that as an actress. When the curtains close, the play is never over. The script is never dead. 

Walter Fischer thought about all of this as he made his way out of the theater into the outside world. It was as if he was emerging from a safe cocoon. That was what it felt like. The interior of the building smelled old and warm, and the stiff fall breeze hit him firmly across the face as if to say, “Wake up! This is real life!” It was the same feeling he had after Eva’s performance. Her voice was like the theater—a place where he could feel secure. Superb actors could do that to you. They could make you feel comfortable in a bed of lies. Fluff up the pillows and settle you in until it was time for you to emerge from the false ecstasy they spun.

But Walter was a hypocrite. He said he was looking for brilliant actors, but really he was only looking for great ones. There was a difference. Great actors told stories. Brilliant ones told secrets. Tantalizing secrets.
Was this what it was, then? Was Walter afraid that Eva could tell him a secret that could alter his life forever? But a secret couldn’t do that, could it? 

Walter told himself no as his conscience flew on the crisp fall breeze.

• • •

Eva could read the most moving of scripts. The most depressing, the most horrible, the most wonderful, the most joyous. Each time she read those scripts, she became all of those feelings and none of them. As she read the letter before her, she attempted to flood herself with a feeling that she had never before needed on the stage. Indifference. 

It was a rejection letter.

Characters in plays often felt rejection. Eva had acted the feeling so many times, one would think she would know how to handle it when she felt it herself. But this was the paradoxical thing about actors. They were simply vessels for shadows’ feelings. They filled themselves with feelings until their seams began to split. When without feelings, they were lifeless shells. This was why great actors were constantly in search of work. They needed it not for the money, but to be fulfilled. For their thirst to be quenched. Their thirst for feelings. 

If only Eva could express this to the gray man. Somehow, she knew he would understand. 

Her phone rang beside her. She picked it up and placed its cool surface on her face.

“Eva?” It was her brother.

“Jeff! It’s so nice to hear your voice.”

“Nice to hear yours.” A pause. “So? Are you Penelope Nightingale, or aren’t you?”

Eva sighed. “Nope. Just Eva Logan.”

“No! Eva, it’s their loss. My god, you fit the part like a glove. Do you have any idea why they didn’t take you?”

“I don’t know, Jeff. It could’ve been for any reason. Anyway, it’s not the first rejection letter I’ve gotten.”

“That’s the part that makes me angry.”

“There’ll be other plays. Other parts.”

“Parts like Madame Nightingale?”

“No, I guess not. Well, what am I supposed to do?”

There was static on the other line.

“Jeff, I’ve been thinking. I think that I should go back to school.” The static continued for what seemed like an eternal minute. “Hello? You’ve missed your entrance.”

“Is that what you want?”

It was Eva’s turn to hesitate. “No, Jeff. That’s not what I want. I want to be a great actress. I want to reign over that theater like a queen returning to her kingdom after an over-extended absence. But that’s clearly not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that until it doesn’t.”

“I know.”

“Eva, don’t give up. I know you can do it, just don’t give up. If you did, it would be like you walked off the stage before the climax of the play.”

“Thanks, Jeff. I need to go. I’ll call tomorrow.”

“Bye, Eva.”

She hung up.

• • •

Walter enjoyed riding the subway. What kind of playwright would he be if he didn’t? There were so many people, so many personalities. If feelings were water, one could drown in a subway. But there was something else that Walter loved about it. Everyone was an equal. An ally. Everyone was below sea level in a steaming, muggy, stinking environment, and everyone needed to go somewhere. It was exciting, it was real, it was human.

He made his way to a gap in the crowd of bodies, clutching a newspaper against his chest. Having found a comfortable enough spot, he opened the paper up and began to read. The vehicle jolted to a start, pushing him against the pole he leaned against. Suddenly, a whiff of jasmine penetrated the stale air. When Walter looked up, he saw Eva Logan standing before him, her dark eyes staring deeply into him, intense and fiery. But not with anger.

They stood there like that for several minutes, listening to the hum of voices around them and the whirr of the subway wheels on the track. Finally, like a good actress, Eva broke the silence.

“So,” was all she said.

“So, what?” Walter replied.

“You know I’d have been perfect for that part.”

“I know.”

Eva laughed good-naturedly. “That’s the most stupid response anybody could’ve come up with. Something like, ‘You were too brilliant,’ or even, ‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ would seem like more your style.”

Walter looked down at his paper, pretending to be consumed in its words. 

“Do you know the time?” Eva asked.

“I never like wearing watches. When I do, I feel I have so much power, and sometimes it’s better to be ignorant. Especially of something like time.” He looked up and smiled slyly. “Is that more what you’re looking for as far as responses go?”

“It was better. Better than ‘I know.’”

“Well, it was true. You would have been perfect for the part. I admit that.”

“Then why did you pick someone else?”

Walter put down his paper and folded it, as if it was a final gesture. “Why do you ask questions that have no real answers?”

“How does that not have a real answer? You were the one who made the decision, weren’t you?”

“Why would a lightning bolt strike a tree? You’d think that, of course, there is a scientific answer to that. But, really, why did it strike it? No one knows.”

“I’m asking you. I’m asking you how you could make the mistake of choosing someone else for Penelope Nightingale. Someone who says all the lines nicely, but simply doesn’t fit.”

“You want me to give you a straight answer?”

“Yes!”

Walter sighed. “Characters in plays are supposed to stay on the stage. They are meant to entertain. If in a tragedy, to make the audience feel tragic feelings, yes, but nothing more. When they come out of that theater they should be able to return to their normal lives.” He looked through the grimy subway windows. His voice, usually calm, became tumultuous and emotional. “You frightened me. You scared me to death. I thought that when you finished, you’d be standing before me, transformed, wearing a scarlet dress and pursing your blood-red lips as Penelope Nightingale herself. You became her.” He turned to Eva. “You don’t know how few actors can do that. You don’t know how frightening it can be.”

Eva stared at him, and finally spit out, “You’re a coward.”

Walter turned to Eva sharply. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more explicit.”

“You’re a coward.”

“I heard what you said.”

“How can a playwright be frightened by his own characters?”

“I’d be happy to tell you. Because if they’re alive, suddenly they can die. If you get sick, Penelope Nightingale gets sick. If you get injured, Penelope Nightingale gets injured. If you get hurt, stabbed, murdered, then all those things happen to my character. If you fall in love, get married, I’d be a jealous man, because I love Penelope Nightingale. I love all my characters. Perhaps that is what you call cowardice. But cowardice is just another feeling on the stage. Eva,” Walter walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, “You were brilliant. If people see you on that stage, you’ll be trapped as Penelope Nightingale for the rest of your life. Actors, I know, like to taste new feelings, try new skins and experiences all the characters that they play go through. It’s an inherent right to be several different people in a lifetime for an actor. But you—you, as a brilliant actress—have a severe price to pay. You give up your freedom.” Walter stepped away from Eva. “You’ll be bored by the fiftieth showing. That boredom will come through. I don’t want that for you or Madame Nightingale.” Walter shrugged and turned away again. “But, to answer the most important question you asked, a good actress, a decent one, one who can act well and convey the feelings that will draw people in. One who is just under worthy of the part. They won’t get bored by the fiftieth showing, or even the hundredth. You understand?”

Eva’s nod seemed like it was in slow motion.

Walter smiled kindly. “Everything that came out of my mouth was a compliment to you, you know.”

Neither of them felt the subway stop. The sliding doors opened. Walter turned away, and was about to exit when Eva grabbed his shoulder.

“Walter, that’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Walter, I have one more thing to say to you. I’m a great actress, you know, so I always have to have the last word on a stage. We’re in the same boat. Yes, that’s right, we’re both trapped. Walter, your play frightened me the first time I read it. And that was just what you wanted me to read for the audition. It was a living script. I couldn’t have done all the things you said I did without a great—no, brilliant—script. I’m telling you, Walter. You say that you can’t bear to see Penelope hurt. Well, separating her from me would be the worst decision of your life. Anybody else who played her wouldn’t do her justice. Please,” Eva took Walter’s hand. “I beg of you.” Eva closed her eyes. “There were the shadows that passed forth gently, but so, too, did the light. This would be the light, Walter.”

Walter stared down at Eva. “It’s like an actress to use a playwright’s words against them. Come on, then. Today’s the first rehearsal.”

At that moment, Eva experienced something that she thought would never happen to her in all her life. She was speechless.

• • •

The smell was that of spices and dust from other worlds. The only thing separating Eva from the rest of the universe—her universe—was a curtain. It lifted, and the sun shown in her eyes. She looked upon her audience with a sweeping gaze. She did not forget to thank them, nor the grand theater that was her kingdom.

She began, and the whole world was at her mercy. When she finished, there was a pause, like that before an explosion. The crowd erupted in a standing ovation, and the theater bowed at her feet, where flowers were being thrown by the thousands. One fell directly in front of her. It was a red rose. Delicate, exquisite.

Eva picked it up, holding it close to her chest. She did not need to look for the man who threw it.

All at once, the shadows fell away. Only the light remained. There would always be the light.

So, too, Did the Light © Safira Schiowitz