Abstract
Playwright
His latest short story, Casting Away, is set inside the office of a casting director as someone, who is presumably an actor, prepares to resign from a long-standing role, and has resonances with the questions we ask ourselves about life and death.
Add a dash of fascination with the relationship between power and literature – literature as power of the imagination, power in society and politics as a way in which those in authority censor and repress
The author, whose work has been translated into more than 50 languages, said: “I have always felt, since childhood, that someone is inhabiting me, that I am merely acting out a script engineered by others, that the control I believe I exercise over my life – that all of us believe we exercise over our own lives – is not more than an illusion. Couple that with my long-standing interest in the mass media – comic and film, soap operas and popular culture – as a major, often insidious, force that shapes our contemporary consciousness, and you have a glimpse into the origins of this short story. And, for good measure, add a dash of fascination with the relationship between power and literature – literature as power of the imagination, power in society and politics as a way in which those in authority censor and repress and manipulate that imagination – and the brew is complete.”
Dorfman, whose recently published memoir Feeding on Dreams charts his years of exile after Pinochet’s coup, said: “As in so many of my works, here I also wish to discover those acts of love and companionship, those words of hope and small glories, that we humans are able to create and nurse and transmit despite all the alienating commands and commanders of the universe. Although the narrator is limited (as we the readers are) by what he knows about his condition, the fine print that defines his existence, the fine print of our ultimate contract with death and destiny that we never read until it is too late; in spite of all this, I trust that there stirs in my nameless protagonist a redemption that transcends his life as spectacle, a love for one person above all that offers consolation and perhaps salvation, I trust that the reader may be as moved as I was by his dilemma, his dilemma and ours.”
Casting Away
The Casting Director doesn’t look up from the head shot she’s examining. She turns it this way, that way, peers at a slight blemish on the cheek of her subject’s face (unrecognisable no matter how much I try to find a resemblance to someone I know), lays the picture in a pile to her right, picks up another one, nods with pursed lips and places this one, just as unfamiliar to me, in a larger, separate group of photos. Then she reaches out her long hand with those pink fingernails, selects a piece of paper from a neat bunch at her side and begins to read, making a point of not even slanting her eyes towards me.
I wondered if this is a tactic she always uses, a strategy of silence perfected in the decades since I’d last visited her, last come to her long ago, a whole lifetime ago, in fact. On that occasion I was suitably impressed but I’m even more impressed now, overwhelmed perhaps is the appropriate word, left almost speechless.
I’d been told – the receptionist warned me while I cooled my heels out in the waiting area, but he was only repeating what I had already heard through the grapevine – that she didn’t seem to age, be prepared to be surprised, but still, I was startled when I came through the door and sat down in front of her, she gestured to the armchair without bothering to even glance in my direction, it was puzzling that she looks exactly like the first and only time we met, over 60 years back. As if, while I was labouring away for decades, working my character to the bone, while time frayed him and me down, not a minute, not even a second, had passed for her. She remained here, in the same colossal office I recalled – that hadn’t changed either, cavernous enough to accommodate an army of Casting Directors rather than just one, she had adamantly lingered here, making sure each individual in each show she commandeered got the perfect match, obtained the utmost attention.
ABOVE: Playwright and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman
Credit: Sergio Parra
Maybe it’s that work ethic which keeps her perpetually young. Or maybe my memory is playing tricks with me and this wasn’t the same Casting Director, in spite of what the receptionist had confided. Maybe it was the daughter of the woman who way back then had discussed my options with me, gone through potential vacancies and available candidates for my services, explained exhaustively the terms and conditions of the contract. Her daughter? More likely her granddaughter, the spitting image. But no, that wasn’t possible. It was her, exactly, precisely, identically her, the image of those irrevocable lips had been burnt into my retina like a sun that never sets, it was her, untouched by the wheel of fortune or the dust of time, unaffected by sorrow or frustration or small coups of artistic achievement, as immaculate as a deity in a temple.
Her eyes keep reading the piece of paper as if it were a sacred text or a memo from the past as to what to do next
I had scoffed at the admonitions of the others in the waiting area, at what the receptionist had told me was his experience. Prepare to be surprised, he had said, but no matter how astonished you may be, the others had added, don’t broach the subject with her, act as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that she comes to work every morning – she’s always here, maybe she doesn’t even go home, but the point is that she continues to dress in the same drab colours, wears the same fashions in vogue a century ago or more. Try to stay in her good graces, that’s what they recommended, so she’ll cast around for a new job soon and not leave you dangling for who knows how long. Right! No Casting Director, and especially not this one, likes to be subjected to scrutiny or doubt. Their unquestioned infallibility lends them authority – comforting for those of us engaged in this precarious profession of embodiment, trusting that her execution is impeccable, can be relied on to always act in the best interests of both performer and character and, of course, making sure that the all-powerful spectator is entertained, tunes in again and again.
So I have tried to be on my best behavior and not point out any apparent anomalies, did not even allude to the fact that this was the second time we met. Just stated my decision, my words “I can’t go on, I’m all worn out”, hovering in the grey light filtering from the shuttered windows above, as if this office had not been cleaned for millennia, tiny mites dancing in the thick murk of the air that she and I are both breathing, though she seems more like a statue, immobile now except for her eyes that keep reading that piece of paper as if it were a sacred text or a memo from the past as to what to do next, how she should answer requests such as mine.
Not as if there’s that much to it, really.
She has to honour the contract. Once a player comes in, states unequivocally that he or she needs to retire, not one more day, not one more episode, not a whole season, that was it. Negotiations have to start, it’s no longer a matter of if and whether, but when and how. The Casting Director would do her legendary best to persuade me to stay on for a while, gauge how truly weary and bored and desperate I am, try to entice me with the promise of a couple of bravura moments that were being readied exclusively for me, if I reconsidered, that is. Just for a while. She knows, as I did when I accepted this assignment, that nobody keeps a job like this forever, forever is not a word people like her ever use. But she’s adept, according to rumours, at convincing the most recalcitrant participants to prolong their commitment, at least until the Producers come up with a plausible explanation for my sudden departure, a satisfying ending for the audience out there, for the ratings god that is the only one who really matters.
“You can’t say you didn’t know.”
I hear my voice as if it didn’t belong to me, as if somebody was mouthing me in voice over. It pipes up out of me irrepressibly, making me ignore the advice, everybody else’s experience, that one should let the Casting Director answer before any further explanations or excuses, make her feel the uncomfortable weight of this protracted immobility. Let her listen to the ticking clock. It’s ticking more for her than for you, she’s the one who needs to find a solution. Time is on my side, all I need to do, ultimately, is not show up, one day simply call in sick – though nobody has ever dared to do so, nobody has had the guts to simply withdraw and leave the other players and their characters in the lurch. We’d be justified, given the hours we put in, only resting when our protagonists sleep, and even then bothered by dreams or nightmares.
It speaks well of me, earns me points, not to have ever pretended I had to flu, no unilateral pressure applied on my part, adamantly opposed to strikes or collective action as a way of bettering our working conditions, always the most considerate and deferential of players, always played by the rules.
I press the point.
“I’ve always played by the rules,” I say. And add, I can’t help myself, my motor mouth is running away from me, just as it always does for the character I embody: “It’s not as if I didn’t give you fair warning. I asked for this little conversation of ours months ago. You’re busy, I respect that. Everyone respects that. And don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me. It’s been a good run. You promised me a juicy role – those were the very words you used, if I’m not mistaken – and I have no complaints, I mean you could have insisted with any number of minor, terminal, secondary bit parts in Godforsaken lands forgotten by mapmakers, offered them up interminably until you forced me to submit. And the scenes! I can’t deny I’ve had some stellar scenes.”
Nobody has had the guts to simply withdraw and leave the other players and their characters in the lurch
I smile, try to make it radiant, remind her that critics have raved about my smile, remind her and anyone who happens to be eavesdropping on this one-way conversation that my presence in the show has driven up the viewings, so it is rumoured, with the only watcher that really matters, the owner of the studio, the big boss. Better not to mention that, don’t ever appear boastful, my Agent had driven home the advice all those decades ago. Right! No bragging, no preening. Let them draw their own conclusions, give them a chance to give you your very own show if they feel so inclined, shine the spotlight on you, syndication, run-offs, the works.
I wait. The Casting Director doesn’t blink, concentrates on her infernal piece of paper. Wait her out, wait her out. I can’t, I just can’t. I need this over and done with, I need closure.
She has spies and eyes everywhere, everything recorded and registered for posterity
“Stellar scenes, but intense. But maybe too intense, so intense, so deeply embodied, that they’ve tired me out, I’ve been going at it day in, day out, for-”
I stop. I sound as if I’m complaining. And I’m not, Just grateful. Maybe I should make sure she understands just how grateful I am for the opportunity, especially for the extraordinary woman they gave for me to love over so many episodes, how grateful I – but she’s heard the same litany a million times, there’s nothing she hasn’t heard, no praise she hasn’t soaked up, no protests left unattended, she doesn’t need to listen to a poor soul like me blabbing relentlessly to guess why.
And besides, she has spies and eyes everywhere, everything recorded and registered for posterity, the piece of paper she’s reading now must be one of the daily, perhaps hourly, reports she receives, probably about me, an instant evaluation of my latest performance, my recent lack of enthusiasm for the role, mistakes I may have lapsed into, tiny telltale signs that something is amiss, minor squabbles with the costume designer and the props manager, and that soon enough I’d be requesting a meeting with her. She could well even now have a solution in hand, have arranged for a replacement while I reconsidered, organise my character’s disappearance from the screen for a few months, simulate a fake trip overseas, give me time to change my mind and return to the show invigorated, an incident that would not overly disturb the flow of events. Anyone who makes it all the way to Casting Director has proven her worth a thousand times over, has faced ultimatums far more abrupt than mine, she must have already devised a plan, negotiated with the team of script writers, the decorators in charge of the set, contacted the legal department. This meeting of ours is a mere formality, making public and official what everybody has surely been gossiping about privately: one more player who’s all worn out.
I’m not the only one.
Thus far, except for my intermittent chatter, it has been quiet in here. Plush carpeting drowns out all noise, even the sound I make each time I lean forward, shift my armchair to draw closer to her, emphasise a point. But now, from nearby, what must be the next room where another Casting Director is receiving her protégé, perhaps delivering some bad news, a termination slip, notice that a show has been cancelled, a typhoon or an earthquake or a bomb or a famine has wiped out an entire cast – or is about to. Or maybe something less catastrophic, more personal: some character’s darling son or brother is slated to die in the next episode – as if I don’t know what that means, though I was given no advance warning about my love, I would have sobbed like that, I did so on screen many times, with dreadful precision, played the part to the hilt, I would also have punctuated this stillness with cries if I had been trawled in to be hit with horrible reports of sorrow, would have heard rise within me howls of despair.
ABOVE: A film studio –“The Casting Director must have devised a plan, negotiated with the writers, the decorators in charge of the set”
Credit: Shutterstock/Igor Terekhov igor
The Casting Director grimaces. Without lifting her eyes, her index finger presses a yellow button on the desk. The sound ceases as suddenly as it began, allows her to concentrate again on her piece of paper, finish perusing it. She sighs again, grabs a pen – seems to snatch it out of thin air –, signs at the bottom, with a flourish meant to stress her decisiveness. Also as if from nowhere, the receptionist emerges, reverently collects the piece of paper, winks at me with encouragement as he turns to leave, gives me the thumbs up as he disappears out the door.
Some character’s darling son or brother is slated to die in the next episode – as if I don’t know what that means
So it isn’t a report about me that the Casting Director has been reading, it doesn’t concern me or this meeting. Unless it was an order she was handing out, her consent to my petition before I’ve even formulated it, unless she’s been so far-sighted that when, over a year ago, I’d asked for this interview, she had understood so completely, was so up to date about my determination, knew it before I did, was so clear as to what would transpire today that she had prepared the paperwork and thus will now simply declare to me: “Right, it’s done, thanks for the coming in, we’ll be in touch as soon as we have another proposal for you, something juicy is sure to open up soon, hope you won’t be so fussy next time around.”
She doesn’t say anything of the sort. She just reaches for a compact sheaf of papers. This one is definitely not a report. I catch a glimpse of clauses and items, addenda and fine print: a contract! It may take her a while to wade through all that. Maybe it’s my final settlement or the deal I signed so long ago, maybe she’s reviewing it now to make sure I’m not in breach of terms and conditions as originally stipulated.
The Casting Director either admires me for my stubbornness or resents how I resisted her overtures
I rack my brains but have trouble recalling any of that, especially the fine print, I’m ashamed to admit it.
Because my Agent, while escorting me to the waiting room all those years ago, had offered two pieces of advice.
First: don’t accept that woman’s initial offer, or the second or third one, no matter how succulent the role may seem, how hard she tries to sell you the goods. She’ll want to test you, unload some minor character that nobody else wants.
And I had listened to him earnestly, I was so young back then, so inexperienced. It was crucial to mind my custodian’s caveats, select well who I was to spend my next decades with – or my next few hours, if I wasn’t careful, if I made a flawed choice. I might not have a chance to perfect my art and hone my talents, run the gamut of emotions, inhabit my subject’s dilemmas to the hilt, not really practice for an even more significant role next time around, climb the ladder of success, the spotlight, the spotlight we all desire so much until it is too late and we realise that that’s not what matters. Watch out, my Agent had admonished: too many aspirants find themselves short-changed, dead-ended, relegated to a secondary position at the end of season one, outshone by some other performer. Until you sign on the dotted line, you are in control. Be picky, my boy.
And she must now remember just how picky this boy was. The Casting Director either admires me for my stubbornness or resents how I resisted her overtures, at times irrationally (she offered me the role of a Prince, no less), precluded her first three proposals. So maybe that’s why she’s been so silent and unresponsive. She has it in for me, now she’ll put forward some dull incarnation, someone who repeats the same forlorn sequence of events, day after day, she may have been nursing a grudge, planning to teach me a lesson all this time. Let’s see who’s picky now, boy.
But no, I’m letting my apprehensions run riot. She has a soft spot for me. She’s used to first-time applicants rejecting the initial vacancies, she can’t be oblivious to the tactics of all those Agents out there, the sort of guidance they give their clients and wards. Maybe they’re even in agreement, each Agent and each Casting Director, negotiating ahead of time and behind our backs which role will be accepted, taking care to give players like me the illusion that we are in command.
At any rate, either because it was her plan all along or it was my ability to follow the Agent’s strict instructions, it turned out fine for me. At the fourth attempt, the fourth time she dragged out photos, a pilot episode, a full dossier and a partial treatment, I was hooked. Take your time, she said, we have all the time in the world. Better to be safe than sorry, we wouldn’t want you to be unhappy or your protagonist to feel you weren’t giving him your best shot.
Unhappy? Not me. As soon as I saw the array of head shots and body shots, torso and fingerprints and those curved ears of his, the man I was going to embody and burrow into, the man I was going to research and rehearse and arouse, as soon as I caught a glimpse of his mischievous eyes and his freckled skin, as soon as I managed a whiff of how he smelled and the lushness of his voice even when he was wailing, his voice and his tongue so pink, well, I fell in love with him, how can I deny it? I vowed I would be his servant for as long as our mutual episodes lasted, his servant but also his master, also leading and persuading him to utter his lines with conviction. It has to be done subtly so he doesn’t realise what or who is possessing him, so he succumbs to the mirage of free will, my Acting Coach and Dialect Instructor and Make Up Lady, they all explained, he can’t suspect that your shadow is inside him, that without you he’d be a zombie, as good as dead, that you’re his mirror on the road, that there’s a script written for him that pre-determines his whole life as a character, each nuance debated and approved by a committee, enforced by the director, we wouldn’t want any rebellion or hesitancy to creep in and interfere with the performance. As long as you really like him, really understand what the man dreams and desires, are willing to fuse with him, entwine his fate and yours, all will be well.
So I said yes, entranced and proud that I had heeded the Agent when we stopped outside the Waiting Room and he urged me to refuse the first three roles, even if one of them is a Prince. And then he had another recommendation, a second and last recommendation, before saying goodbye. I’m afraid my guardianship ends here, once you go through that door. No need to worry, I have vetted every contract, they’re all pretty standard, you’ll manage just fine on your own from now on. As long as you heed another piece of advice, the second one I mentioned. Read the fine-print, my boy. I may have missed something, the Agent admitted, shamefacedly, I may have misunderstood some obscure and convoluted clause. The fine print, that’s where they screw you over, be careful.
There’s a script written for him that pre-determines his whole life as a character, each nuance approved by a committee
I took his first piece of advice about not giving in easily to the exhortations of the Casting Director, but was less willing to follow the Agent’s counsel regarding the fine print.
ABOVE: A stack of film scripts – “Scripts overflowed from each shelf, each episode with its own black binder and a date on it”
Credit: Shutterstock/ Everett Collection
The Casting Director had been a sweetheart – not like now, where she adamantly keeps examining page after page –, hadn’t flinched when I turned down the first three candidates and had finally come up with – a marriage made in heaven, she had chortled, and I thought I saw her open and close her left eye at me, though such familiarity was not be expected from such a highly placed executive, so I must have been hallucinating. But what counts is that she added: yes, in heaven indeed, like all our collaborations, approved by those above us, those who infinitely know and care.
So she had been clearly pleased when I had ardently embraced the character she displayed for me in all his glory, warts and all.
Which is why, when she extracted the contract from inside her desk back then and handed it to me after having made explicit the main terms, I received the bundle of papers and scanned them somewhat mechanically, feigning an interest I did not feel – already the consummate actor, trying out my wares on none other than the Casting Director, but to tell the truth I was fed up with so much legalese and ifs and buts and therefores. By then, the session had lasted who knows how many hours – or had we been cloistered in her office for days or weeks? – and I’d been anxious to get on with the job, filled with excitement at the prospect of an unspoiled life ahead, fresh as a baby about to be born, written and planned expressly – or so she had assured me, perhaps to entice me to accept the role, but she had declared something similar about the three previous ones I had rejected – expressly for me, she said, aware, of course, that I would not read the fine print, keen as I was to make the acquaintance of the character I’d henceforth be inhabiting, particularly eager to cross paths in the distant future episodes with his future wife, the love of my character’s life, the woman who has made all this worthwhile for him and for me.
I had signed on the dotted line and had never seen the Casting Director again, had never needed to.
Until now. Until the unthinkable had happened.
All worn out.
Those words, I’d said those exact words out loud, just a while ago, but I hadn’t explained the circumstances to her, to the Casting Director, did I really need to? Hasn’t she been keeping tabs on me?
As if guessing my thoughts, the Casting Director turns to look at the wall behind her and lets her gaze slide over the cluster of scripts that overflow from each shelf, each episode with its own black binder and a date on it, shelves upon shelves, stretching upwards to a ceiling so far away I can hardly discern where it ends. And sideways too, the bookcases seem to extend endlessly left and right, irrevocably, in both directions.
I catch some of the dates and recognise them, each one has a personal meaning. These are my scripts, the interminable pages brimming with gestures and grimaces, headaches and joys written for me, for my character. For a moment I think this is an honor, that the Casting Director has taken the trouble to order that the full array of my existence and performances this time around be stacked up in her enormous office for this one interview. It must have taken an army of functionaries many days to transfer those binders from the vast vaults in which they have lain dormant, unvisited except by some assistant in charge of continuity and consistency, it must have taken an executive order to wrest these old scripts from some dank cellar – all that work so I can – I can what? Be reminded of the life I’m abandoning, abandoning my best friend in the world, the man I have incarnated, the brother I’m dooming to extinction.
It’s a manoeuvre, emotional blackmail. My memories, that’s what the Casting Director is taking such pains to display. She knows what I treasure most: the episode where my character and I met his future wife, almost lost the chance to ask her out on a date, fumbled that first lightening encounter, was consoled by a buddy at a bar, counselled not to let this moment pass. Hey, man, she might be The One, heaven is always just around the corner but we keep passing it by without a second glance, without a second thought. Well, if I were you, my man, from the way you’re describing her and your eyes are mooning all over, I’d say you should give her more than a second thought.
It’s a manoeuvre, emotional blackmail. My memories, that’s what the Casting Director is taking such pains to display
What was his name? How could I have forgotten? It was there, that name, anyway, if I dare to stand up right now, break protocol and cross the room and leaf through those binders till I find the episode, I know the exact date. I can read through it right now, before my resignation is accepted, before I go off to my well-deserved rest, recover that major moment in my life. Read through it as I did when I prepped for the daily work routine, rehearsed the lines, primed myself to enact each movement of my character’s body. Relive how I had managed to track the elusive girl down – the writers had been extremely clever, they had fed me the right, immaculate words to persuade that girl to go out on a – had it been a picnic, a movie, a dance, a hike, a dinner, a couple of drinks?
I’ve forgotten those details. How could I have forgotten those details?
A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me.
I would carry her memory with me to whatever other job I was lucky enough to land, smuggle her with me into the future
If I could only sail back to that day, those nights, the first time I had made love with her and what she had whispered in my ear, secret stanzas that no one watching the show could have heard or guessed, not even the Big Boss or anyone else, words that only belonged to the two of us, words that were not in any of those binders or those cosmic shelves, her words for him, her words for me, that no hack writer had invented, that no Casting Director had appraised or approved, that no sound designer had captured with multiple microphones hidden under the pillows, words that I will take with me during my imminent retirement, the music of her milk and her breasts made into clandestine language spoken so softly. The very words that I had just as quietly murmured to her – so quietly, again, that only she could perceive them as she lay on her deathbed, I had given them back to her as a farewell present, as a way of saying good-bye, another way of saying hello yet one more, one last time, so she would know that I remembered, that she might die but what I felt for her would never, could never, disappear, not in this world, not in the next one, that I would carry her memory with me to whatever other job I was lucky enough to land, smuggle her with me into the future.
That was our secret, our flaunting of the rules, our revenge for what the Producers had sprung on us: that accident, like a thunderbolt from above or a cesspool from below, and there it was, before we could even protest, grasp that there was something to protest about, before the professional who was performing her lines and her life could arrange a meeting to iron things out and arrange for a more prolonged and dignified exit, it was over. Or maybe she did, maybe she managed to get from them that last scene, managed to let me see her for that one last time, because she had been preparing those words for her exit and was not going to be cheated out of it.
I can’t be certain that this was her plan. Contact between players outside the set is strictly forbidden and even more strictly enforced. All I really knew about the woman assigned the role of my wife was what we shared on the set, what had been written for her in the countless scripts hoarded on those shelves behind the Casting Director. What that performer did with her time when we weren’t performing, that was none of my business, that was a different story, literally someone else’s story, her story and not mine. Which made those buried, terminal words she had whispered to me off script after our first night of love all the more valuable, all the more valuable that I had returned them to her as she faded away in the arms of my character and my arms, sent her that hidden farewell message under the hospital lights and the studio lights and the lights of faraway constellations – a small sanctuary of intimate words that were not made for transmission or consumption or public spectacle, something mine, something yours, something only ours. Those words that gave me faith that my wife’s departure from the world and from the show had been resolved by others, hope that she had not been the one to give up on me, she had not left me alone without putting up a fight.
And that had been the beginning of the end, nothing had been able to comfort me, no matter how many enticements the screenwriters cooked up to whet my appetite, to make me look forward to the next episode or a new season. She wasn’t by my side and everything was empty.
That was when the idea began to form in my mind, the blasphemous notion that the moment might have arrived to pack it in, the future without her was meaningless, that’s when I realised that all this time she had been the one to give me the energy to keep on performing, she was the one who had nurtured me, was my pillar of strength, and always had been, even before we had met, even before that friend whose name I can’t recall told me not to let heaven escape when it is just around the corner, even before she had whispered words to me that nobody had ever imagined, words only for me. Ever since I had caught a glimpse of her photo in the hands of the Casting Director as she explained my role, how there was this extraordinary woman who had already agreed to play my future wife, agreed, that is, if I also said yes, she had also been offered a glimpse of my head shot, it was love before first sight, way before first sight.
She was gone.
And what was I left with? More and more my character and I spent our time remembering the distant past, scenes from childhood flashing back on the screen of the mind – tricks he and I had engaged in when he was a youngster, apples he had stolen from an orchard dappled with moonlight and another night he and I had spent on the grass and under the pines counting comets and distinguishing mythical figures in the sky, wondering if on those celestial bodies someone just like one of us, if somebody like the woman we were already anticipating, dreaming her as she dreamed me, was staring into the void, someone like her or like me wondering if this life, this universe, was nothing more than a simulacrum, a façade, a galactic spectacle mounted for the pleasure of some concealed god. Living in the past, looking backwards.
All I really knew about the woman assigned the role of my wife was what we shared on the set, what had been written for her in the countless scripts
A sure sign that I was growing old, concerned with retaining what I would soon lose rather than with accumulating new experiences. Already saying goodbye to myself, to the character I had played my whole life, the mask of memories and desires he had tried on, already preparing for this interview with the Casting Director.
Would they allow me to carry those memories with me when I lapsed into the transitory retirement that was coming up, could I take some with me so I could spend time with each memory before dismissing it, before it was erased, obliterated to make space for whatever new role was being planned for me, a different life that would excite me all over again, use me to the hilt, push me to employ every resource in my repertoire, all the tricks and strategies I had learned during this run, what was rooted now in every fiber and gesture of my body. I know it’s forbidden, somewhere in the fine print I never read, but she explained it to me, the Casting Director was quite explicit about this clause: you can’t take anything from your old life into your new job.
Well, she’s finished reading the contract or whatever it was that had required such urgent and concentrated attention, maybe she’s been looking for that very item so she can show it to me in case I make an inquiry. But no. She sets the contract aside, slowly lifts her gaze to meet mine.
“I’m not giving up, not surrendering,” I say, in the most amicable voice I can muster, so we can part on friendly terms. “It’s just this role I’ve grown weary of. I’ll accept another one. Once I’ve rested, I’ll be glad to entertain other offers, something as juicy as this one.”
She looks at me with her sad, eternal eyes.
And speaks for the first and last time.
“Who says there’s another role? Who says a soul like yours gets another chance?”
I don’t respond.
All I do is whisper some words to myself that she can’t hear, that the Casting Director is straining to catch and capture. But she can’t hear the words that the love of my life breathed into me like milk that night long ago, I have no other words to call my own, no other words to hold on to as I fade into the gathering dark.