ACT II--THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS

[Jack with Henry and Shoko in Jack's New York apartment.] 

JACK 
I spent many hours talking with the countess about things she had me reading, but soon more than a month had passed and I had done almost nothing on the screenplay of her life. 

HENRY 
Shoko must have been quite a distraction.  [Takes her hand.] 

JACK 
[Smiling.]  We did spend a lot of time together . . . and a lot of time with Christine.  It was idyllic.  That's when I first began to call it Shangri La.  We all read a lot.  The major assignment the countess gave us the last month of the year was to read Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji, running to about 1100 pages in the Waley translation, which I read, while Shoko and the countess read it in Tanizaki's modern Japanese.   She said, "You can't understand the medieval Noh drama, or Tanizaki, or Mishima, if you don't know The Tale of Genji, Jack.  Let's set it as our goal to finish crossing 'The Bridge of Dreams,' the last of the six books, on January 1st, the date in Japan for settling accounts"--which we did.  When I asked Shoko how she'd come to be so close to the countess--almost her alter ego--she insisted that there was no mystery to the relationship at all. 

SHOKO 
There was no mystery.  I'd been employed by the countess in Japan, as companion, because my English was good and I could also read and speak French.  I'd been with her ever since.

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RANDALL 
[As Jack enters his office.]  How are you, Jack?  It looks like life with Natasha agrees with you.  You say you haven't done much on a screenplay.  Well, I think she wants the story told, Jack.  She just wants to be sure you're the right one to tell it. 

JACK 
Well, she is likely to control the process, all right--just use me as a medium.   I see the story as framed by two episodes in Japan--one with Tanizaki and one with Mishima, maybe opening with the countess as an old woman, then flashing back to when she was young.  But I hardly know what comes in between--either in a Russia shaping the young woman, or in Hollywood--with Barrymore, Valentino, and Fairbanks.  So I have little sense of plot--just a few of the pieces.

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BETTY 
[Gasps, then laughs.] Well, Jack . . . of all things! 

RANDALL 
[Smiling.] I thought you two might know each other. 

BETTY 
Worse than that . . . I think we're still married.  You haven't divorced me, have you, Jack?  In Mexico?  [Pause.]  How's Laura?  And Christine?  [To Randall.]  Jack got custody of our child.  And the baby sitter.  [Randall laughs at this.]  I finally did a Macbeth, Jack--with Jordan--in New York!  In a little theatre Henry found for us.  He arranged for us to do Miss Julie there last year, and for me to do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in Massachusetts this summer.  So it's working, Jack!  Jordan is

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JACK 
Well, Laura has left me, too.  Ran off with Tom Hazen.  That's why I'm now living with a seventy-year-old Russian woman. 

BETTY 
Oh, Jack, that's impossible!  But Tom is out here now, isn't he? [Looks at him soberly.]  But . . . is Christine still with you? 

JACK 
Yes--you left her in my care, didn't you?  And now she seems to have the grandmother neither of us could provide. 

BETTY 
The countess?  Well, Mr. Best, it's quite a surprise meeting "my husband" here.  [To Jack.]  So you must be doing the screen-play on this Russian countess when she was my age?  I'll have to try to win you back from this charming old lady.  [To Randall.]  How bizarre!  She sounds like quite a woman.  And you're doing a film on her early years in Hollywood?  Like old times--historical drama, with a notorious seductress, from the pen of John Curtis.  [Laughs.]  And Jack, I hope you've been tending to Christine's moral education, as you've been living in sin with one woman then another. [Randall laughs.] 

JACK 
Christine's doing fine.  But I have no script. I've only got a smattering of incident to build on so far.  I still need a plot line,

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RANDALL 
Exactly!  I don't mean to rush you, old man, but yes, it begins to be time.  If we put Betty under contract, it's that film I want to do.  And, Jack, Natasha wants you to bring Betty back with you. You could swing by her hotel and pick up her things. You're at the Wiltshire, aren't you?  [Betty nods.] 

BETTY 
[Later, in the car.]  I hope you know there was nothing personal in leaving you, Jack.  We'll work together just fine.  I'm coming into your world, so I'll need your help.  I am working mostly with Jordan now . . . which is what I wanted.  But he wants to do a Hamlet, with me as Ophelia . . . which I don't want to do.  Henry's our agent.  He encouraged Jordan to go to England, then me to come out here, for the increased professional credentials.  [Staring out the car window.]  And I'm enchanted by California.  I've never been here before.  For me, Hollywood and a screen test is a dream come true.  It's the compound myth of Middle America--Hollywood and Broadway--becoming a star either place seems so impossible.  I belong on the stage--live theatre.  I'm sure of that!  I love it, Jack.  Working in films?  I don't know.  But I expect to enjoy it.  [As they pull into the long drive.]  My God, I didn't know that places like this actually existed.  It is like a movie set.  Did she have it built? 

JACK 
One of her friends did.  But it suits her.  There'll just be six of us here: the countess, Christine and me, Thomas--chauffeur, gardener, cook--Shoko, and you. There's plenty of room--though I don't know how I'll survive with all you females.

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COUNTESS 
 [Who has been standing by the library windows, then steps out to meet them.]  Well, Jack, Randall told me you were bringing an interesting young woman, in whom I might be able to see a picture of my own youth.  I'd be flattered to think so.  But you seem to have frightened off our little Christine.  [To Shoko, as she comes in with Christine.]  Shoko, this is . . . Betty?  Could you help get her settled in her room?  [Shoko bows.] 

JACK 
[After they have left, with hesitation.]  I think I should tell you that Betty is my wife . . . still my wife . . . Christine's mother. 

COUNTESS 
I've heard something of this from Randall, and can see the resemblance.  Randall also says she's an exciting young actress. And I hope you know I mean you no harm, Jack.  [Jack nods, as she muses for a moment.]  What a beautiful woman she is . . .  a commanding presence, like Nefertiti.  We'll talk, let her read, let her sit in the garden, get acquainted with Shoko and me, and re-acquainted with Christine . . . and you.  Why not? 

JACK 
I don't see Betty as a sitter in the garden.  She'll get impatient, want to see a script, or be looking for action somewhere else.  When Jordan gets back to New York, she'll want to be there.  She's a stage actress.  [To Henry and Shoko.]  I hadn't reckoned

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BETTY 
I should tell you that I was Jack's Nora.  He directed me in the role . . . perhaps too well, for, at the end of the play, I left him.  And Christine.  If he hasn't told you, I'm Christine's mother. 

COUNTESS 
Perhaps I should have told you that Randall, then Jack, had told me this.  Jack and I have become very open with one another, and I'm happy to see that that's your inclination as well. [As if that settled that question.]  And you've just been in Macbeth.  I'd like to know what you think about Shakespeare generally. 

BETTY 
I didn't take to Shakespeare easily.  But, since Macbeth, I've begun reading all his plays.  The poetry takes getting used to--so I'm working with a few of the sonnets . . . "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," "That time of year thou mayst in me behold,"  "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun," "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments."

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JACK 
[To Henry--but do this.]  Betty attempted to, and, where she forgot, the countess picked it up, with me prompting in a place or two, so we were able to work out the whole poem.  At the countess's suggestion, they recited it together.  Then the countess asked her what that sonnet was about. 

BETTY 
Well, about love . . . and marriage?  Let me see. That love is "an ever-fixed mark," is permanent, like the navigator's north star, not a thing that passes, like "rosy lips and cheeks." 

JACK 
 [To Henry--again.]  Betty was thinking her way through her answer.  Then it was as if I weren't there at all as Betty began to talk to the countess about her decision to leave Christine with me.  She quoted Polonius's lines on being true to herself as if she were scoring points with more Shakespeare--then about priority in love, and the artist's commitment--accepted for the gander, why not for the goose?  She said she knew me to be a man with whom it was safe to leave a child, while her first love was theatre--that she'd not only do it again, but definitely wasn't coming back to be a wife and mother. 

BETTY 
[Laughs.] Let Jack sue me for child support--once I can I'll be happy to pay it.  It bothered me at first that I felt so little sense of loss in leaving them . . . just relief.  But now I can have a 

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 JACK 
 [Again.]  Then, about a week later, Betty sought me out in the garden, where I was reading through the Japanese literature the countess had in translation--was up to the Noh plays.  I'd seen Betty settle in, too--to living in a place that seemed almost out of time, and said the countess should establish the place as a sanitarium for theatre people, functioning as resident therapist. 

BETTY 
Yes, a remarkable woman, and how apt to speak of her as a therapist.  I'd like to talk to you about a session we had this morning.  I woke early, and was sitting in the armchair by the window, just looking out and thinking--about your countess and me.  I watched the dawn gradually bring color to this garden. I could see past the rolling hills and wheat fields to where the highway and railroad cut across the valley, two parallel lines running through random undulation, as headlights gradually went out on cars I couldn't even hear.  I could hear a train--one I couldn't see--echoing in the distance.  You'll have to come share the experience with me some morning, Jack. 

JACK 
[Not sure she means it.]  I'd be pleased to.

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COUNTESS 
I saw you sitting here by the window, Betty, and thought we might talk.  I'm frequently up much of the night, too, reading.  But it's also a good time to talk.  So let's look out over this lovely scene while we talk about things of interest to both of us. 

BETTY 
Fine.  I try to imagine what this world must have been like for you at my age . . . or when you first came to Shangri La. 

COUNTESS 
That's Jack's name for this place, isn't it?  I like that.  I do have reservations about a film story of my life.  My earlier life was a film story--and this place was much busier then.  President

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BETTY 
I'm only sure of who I am when I'm well into a role. 

COUNTESS 
And do you think Jack understands you?  I know you've given striking performances in Strindberg and Shakespeare, from what Randall has said, and reviews he's sent.  And Jack calls you the perfect Hester Prynne.  But now, tell me about yourself. 

BETTY 
Since you grew up in a European court, we could hardly have been more different at eighteen.  I grew up in Dodge City, Kansas.  In high school, I was a football and basketball cheerleader, and in the plays.  I read a lot  stories in women's magazines, and novels, not plays.  It was an adventure to go as far as Kansas City or Denver.  My father left us when I was in junior high.  My mother supported us by renting rooms in our

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COUNTESS 
And how do you feel about being a mother? 

BETTY 
I never hesitated about leaving Christine with Jack.  I knew that my reality could be found only in the theatre.  And I couldn't take her with me.  My experience tells me I was right.  What puzzles me now is why I'm spending this time here--absenting myself for so long from the world of illusion--from my reality. 

COUNTESS 
I think you may have come to a major turning point in your life. I remember something of the kind in my life--when I realized that a Chaplin or Barrymore might be charming for a weekend , but had nothing permanent to offer.   Have you read any Plato? 

BETTY 
Plato!  Who wanted to run the poets out of town as a bad influence on the young?  I remember people in a cave who took shadows on the wall for reality--the way I do the play I'm in.  A philosopher got out and saw the sun was making the shadows.  When he came back to tell those people, I think they killed him.

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BETTY 
Is this a new version of Stanislavski, re-creating the intellectual experience in feeling one's way into a role. 

COUNTESS 
One way to think of it.  Here's another.  Jack helped you discover theatre.  You must now recognize the trappings of this illusion better than he does.  Why not go back into the cave and lead Jack out, as you may begin to feel that the professional theatre, too, can be a trap.  If not, you will.  How well I know that feeling.  Like the feeling of the confirmed alcoholic, depending on the high of acting, yet knowing that your spirit thirsts to transcend illusions that have transcended illusions.  I say, "Read Plato."  Begin with the Apology.  [Smiles.] You may hate Plato even more by the time we have you on a film set, but I'd like to see you brooding on matters metaphysical. 

BETTY 
But I assume you'll let me ask questions.  I think Shakespeare was a man of the theatre, for example--not a student of the classics.  So how can you say he's like Plato?

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BETTY 
I see what you mean.  In the arts there can be a union of souls, irrespective of sex, giving birth to their child, and that child be more real than a living child . . . like Christine. 

COUNTESS 
And must the marriage partner even be alive?  Suppose you fall in love with Shakespeare, who died 350 years ago, or Socrates, who died in 399 BC.  You meet Shakespeare in a conception of Cleopatra quite different from the historical Cleopatra--and think of Shakespeare as seeing his very idea of Cleopatra in you.  Isn't that a marriage of true minds?  Or, as you think ideas that Plato thought Socrates thought, the father of his ideas becomes the father of yours as well.  That, too, is a marriage of true minds.  In Japanese literature, you'll find the great classical novel, The Tale of Genji, was written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, stories from which are picked up in those Noh plays Jack is reading just as slices of Homer were in the Greek plays.

BETTY 
Yes, with a playwright, we actors actually do bring characters he imagined to life.  There is a miracle of reproduction in that.

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BETTY 
[To Jack.]  On that note, she left me looking out of my window.  Later I went by the library and picked up Plato's Apology.  I've read it, and, now, here I am to have you explain it to me. 

JACK 
[To Henry.]  I didn't "explain" it to her, but we did talk about Socrates' conception of the philosopher--and the countess, who now seemed committed to making the film--because she liked Betty.  And Betty and I became more open with one another--in part due to Plato, and his modern priestess, the Countess Rostovna.  We began to talk about why the countess was so attracted to Plato. Betty wondered if it were just her European education, with its emphasis on the classics.  [To Betty.]  That's part of it, but can't be all.  It's the idealism, I think.  I begin to realize that's what I did when you left me--I idealized you!  As Dante did Beatrice, Petrarch did Laura.  What the writers of all the sonnet sequences did.  You remember the note you left me when you and Henry left for New York?  I saved that note, and would look at it frequently.  Remember what you told me?

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JACK 
You told me real life would never offer what was available only in books--or on the stage--which is profoundly true.  But let me tell you how I apply this to the way I feel about you now.  The countess was talking about Mishima's Forbidden Colors at lunch, how, in the last chapter, the old author, dying, is talking to his idea of Yuichi, as if it, not the actual Yuichi, were there with him.  Let me do that--talk to my idea of you.  Indulge my whim. Henry James has a short story, "Maud-Evelyn," which catches the psychology of this experience.  Marmaduke (I love  James' names) meets an American couple traveling in Europe.  They'd lost their daughter, Maud Evelyn, but were keeping her memory alive--and, more than that, were imagining her growing up, as she would have if she'd lived.  Marmaduke gets caught up in their imaginative experience--and finally marries Maud Evelyn!  Well, you're my Maud Evelyn--my Beatrice, my Stella--the idea that gives much of what I value a local habitation and a name.  And how much more comfortable it is to have that kind of imaginative control over your woman.  We all face disillusionment, but, as Henry once said, wisdom is reaffirming illusion in the face of disillusionment--since the illusion is the best--is all--you can have.  That's what I've done with you, Betty, taken my idea of you, after the traumatic accommodation to reality you forced upon me, and refined it.  Then I've come to live with that . . . happily ever after.  That's no doubt what Laura sensed . . . and why she left me. 

BETTY 
Well I'm not sure  . . . whether it's a good thing to be idealized.

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BETTY 
Please finish your tea, Jack.  Then come along with me . . . 

JACK 
[To Henry.]  She led me up to my room, where, in the middle of the afternoon, she refuted Plato, Sidney, and all of my best theory, with a passion as open and genuine as that she'd given expression to beneath the scaffold as a college girl.  Then she moved her things into my room, and we were back together as man and wife--the reality upon which the ideal was based. 

SHOKO 
[Laughing.]  But do you remember the dream Betty told us . . . about being out fishing with her father?  Tell it to Henry. 

JACK 
I think so.  We were sitting on the patio after lunch, and the countess was telling stories about writers she'd known.  Betty remarked that one of her favorite authors was Franz Kafka. 

COUNTESS 
Well, I lived in Prague for a time, saw him frequently.  He was only a few years older--and he died very young, you know. 

BETTY 
Well what do you think of The Metamorphosis?  It must be the product of a dream.  I had a strange dream last night.  It woke me!  You know that feeling.  You realize you're awake, safe, no longer confronted by the terror in the dream--not really turned into a cockroach.  Maybe you can interpret my dream for me.

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BETTY 
At first I thought I was out in a boat with my father.  I know we were in Minnesota, because of the techniques we used in the lake fishing up there.  We'd cast in toward the shore from a boat maybe a hundred feet out.  The vegetation was heavy along the shore, and to fish from the bank was almost impossible.  Using anti-snag hooks, and minnows or large worms as bait, we cast into the weeds and lily pads near the shore, then began reeling in.  If we got a bite, we'd reel in the first five feet quickly, to get the fish out of the weeds, even at the risk of pulling the hook loose.  My father caught some nice fish this way.  Bass and pike, I think.  But I'd catch fish, too, and when I did he'd brag on me to everyone.  But I hadn't seen his face.  I was watching my own line.  It seemed snagged, and I thought, "No, not again! In among the reeds."  Then it came through smoothly, and I knew, by the weight on the line, it was the biggest fish I'd ever hooked.  But why wasn't my father coaching me?  I glanced around quickly, ready to call for help.  What I saw surprised me.  [To the countess.]  It was you there with me! In the other end of the boat, sitting serenely, looking directly at me, not at the fish, and smiling what seemed to be gentle encouragement. 

COUNTESS 
When it comes to fishing, all I can do is smile encouragement. 
 

BETTY 
I hardly had time to wonder why you were there, for I began to see a form in the water, and was pulling, hard, thinking, "Don't lose him now!"  And the line coming out of the water was getting the skirt of my dress wet.  Then I saw the face . . . at

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JACK 
[To Henry.]  I said I should have been in the boat with her, helping to catch the countess, if it were to apply to our situation.  I wondered if she'd actually had such a dream, since Betty liked to play games.  The countess began to speak of dreams in Shakespeare, and in Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment, of ambiguity in Kafka's The Metamorphosis.  "But how do I know I'm awake now?" she asked. 

BETTY 
That's what I thought lying there in bed this morning.  Suppose I look down and find I have turned into a cockroach?  Or, like the Chinese philosopher who dreamed he was a butterfly, discover I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a Chinese philosopher?   I finally got up and took a shower--then, since I began to see signs of daylight, decided to take a walk out here in the garden.  And a walk in the garden did seem to be what I needed.  Again,

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COUNTESS 
I told you how I met Sigmund Freud, when I was younger than you are, and he was already . . . too old.  Some time I'll tell you about our sessions, though we talked more about his dreams than mine, some he'd described in his Interpretation of Dreams.  I tried to suggest ways he might improve his dreams.  I often analyze my own.  You'd be surprised at the lust in an old lady's dreams.  You dream a lot, too, don't you, Jack? 

SHOKO 
[Back to the present.] That's right, Jack, You haven't told Henry your dream . . . the one you told us that same day.  That's the one I particularly wanted him to hear . . . because of Christine. 

JACK 
I remember it began very peacefully and realistically. I was in the garden walking with Christine, or I was walking and she was running here and there.  She'd run and hide, then give herself away when she couldn't keep from laughing.  But here comes the bizarre part.  She began to laugh in different voices.  Sometimes it would seem to be the countess laughing, or Shoko, or Laura, or Betty, but then the simple laughter of the child herself again.  It was as if they were all playing the game, but, at first, whenever I traced the laughter to its source, there was Christine.  Then the garden turned surrealistic, the colors brilliant blues and oranges.  Shapes broke and faded, or flowed

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SHOKO 
So by that time it was no longer very realistic. 

JACK 
No.  Then suddenly there was a long straight path running through the forest as far as I could see--to where it became completely dark--and clear at the end of that path was a spot of white.  It was that spot that was calling me . . . first in Christine's voice, then Shoko's, then Betty's, then Laura's, then the countess's, or in a mixture, or medley.  It was as if they were all playing the game . . . using Christine as medium.  I was perplexed.  I concentrated on that white spot at the end of the alley of trees, as if it were a religious exercise, and the spot began to move toward me.  I didn't move--unlike Poe to Ulalume, this living lady was to come to me.  That white spot, which I took to be the little dress Christine has been wearing a lot that week, got larger, and, bouncing the way a child would

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SHOKO 
You remembered it better than I thought you would.  But I agreed with Betty then--and still do.  She said, "That's charming, Jack, but it makes too much sense to be a dream, has

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HENRY 
And you did use that Desdemona scene, didn't you, Jack? 

JACK 
Yes, I did, and now Christine is old enough to play Desdemona herself.  And those other two redheads are gone.  The similarities between the Betty of our film and the countess as Desdemona was remarkable, but I didn't have much to do with that.  The voice was Betty's achievement, a worldliness, or sophistication, but including the illusion of innocence.  And finally it was the ideal that informed the identity--the abiding reality of innocence--yes, embodied by Christine.  Betty, in her enthusiasm, boiled on ahead of me, speculating about the psychology of the countess, and how she'd be able to embrace it.  She constantly brought my theorizing back to the task at hand, and her own concept of what the countess must have been like when she was her age.  And I was getting very comfortable with my reincarnated wife . . . there in Shangri-La. But, by a week or so after Betty had so casually seduced me, I had sketched a plot outline, and sent it to Randall, so she knew how to get some useful work out of me.  A few days later Randall called and asked me to come in and talk.  As I entered his office, he jumped up to meet me, with that big smile. 

RANDALL 
You see, Jack, I knew that old woman would bring out the best in you.  And how about our Betty?  This is starting to work, isn't it?  Betty and Natasha . . . don't you agree?

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COUNTESS 
Well, bring him out here by all means.  He can see both at once. 

JACK 
Betty and I had begun speculating on who it might be when you came back with Jordan in tow.  She gasped--and I almost did.  "My God . . . Jordan!  There you are!"  I realized I hadn't seen him since before Christine was born, and now here she came, a six-year-old, looking bewildered.  I instinctively looked at the two of them, to see if I could see his eyes, his manner, anything, developing in the child--almost as if I wanted to. 

SHOKO 
You're so perverse, Jack.  Look in the mirror some time.  But that was the first time I'd met him.  I'd heard you talk about him--but was still surprised to see him there in person.  The countess wasn't awed, however.  At least she didn't show it. 

JACK 
Jordan got right to the point.  "Yes it has been a long time, Jack.  It's good to see you looking so well, and prospering in the movie business.  But I'm here to take Betty back to New York."  Then, looking at her, "Back where she belongs, working in the theatre."  He smiled.  "How'd you like to be Cleopatra?  To my Antony?  Now, who do I have to fight?"  With that, he looked directly at the countess, as the one obviously in charge there.

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