HOLDING HANDS AT MIDNIGHT
By Albert Repicci
Introductory music, “As Time Goes By” plays for 46 seconds.
(Lyrics…)
”You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.
And when two lovers woo
They still say “I love you.”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.”
AT RISE: An old man, MR. CONTI, is seated facing the audience. He is wearing a nice suit and white shirt. He holds a necktie in his hands.
After several moments he addresses the audience.
MR CONTI
(pondering a wrinkled photograph)
It was over 50 years ago. She was such a beautiful girl.
(pause)
I met her at midnight mass on Christmas Eve when she passed out in the pew in front of me. Because of the fasting that was required in those days. It is so crystal clear in my mind it seems like yesterday. But therein lies my problem.
(he sighs and rises to his feet)
As clear as a vision is of events fifty years ago, and yet…I cannot remember yesterday’s. One after another these new memories fall by the wayside and disappear. It’s as though yesterday never happened.
(pause)
Where was I?
(pause)
Ah yes. I remember tending to her in the pew. And after mass that night we went to a Christmas Eve party where we got acquainted. She was…beautiful. I thought she was too beautiful and too sweet to date someone like me. A guy with so little to offer. So…I kept her as a friend. But secretly I wished…that she was my girlfriend.
(pause)
This all happened at the army base in Germany, you understand. Where I was a junior officer. Serving as a journalist for the Army newspaper. The Stars and Stripes.
(pause)
She had just arrived in Europe and was applying for a civilian job as a nurse at the Army Hospital. There were no openings available, so she took a job as a waitress at the officers club.
(shakes his head sadly)
Those brutal winter nights. I remember them so well. And she had to walk home to her pensione at two in the morning after the officers club closed. I felt so sorry for her. So I would stop by the club just before closing and give her a ride home. This went on for several weeks. She expressed her gratitude for driving her home on those blustery winter nights. She said she would like to thank me by taking me out for a dinner.
(chuckles and sits in his chair)
I was stunned. I almost fell on my face. No girl had ever asked me out. Ever! And asking me to dinner! That was a kindness that exceeded my wildest imagination.
(he smiles, remembering)
MR. CONTI
When we were at dinner and quietly sipping our glasses of wine, I could hardly speak. I could only stare. I was recounting all the wonderful things about her. She was beautiful. She was sweet, gentle, generous, caring. In a word, I was smitten.
(sighs)
We continued to go out, two, three times a week. Still, I never felt confident. I could never be bold enough to regard her as a girlfriend. She was merely a delightful friend who was willing to endure me for some reason. Yes, we would kiss good night. Gentle, chaste kisses. And in time, the kisses, the embraces would last longer and longer. But I never exceeded the rules of propriety. I limited my displays of affection solely to these treasured good night embraces. Never anything more.
(pause)
This… “sort-of courtship” continued for three or four months. Through it all, I would never be so brazen as to…to take her hand while walking down the street. Or casually drape my arm around her shoulder as if she belonged to me. As if she was my girl. Goodness, beauty, charm, it all emanated from her, like golden light.
(pause)
After a time…After a time…I did so want to tell her how much I cared for her. But I could not summon the strength. I could not articulate the word. “Love.” I struggled with it when I was alone. The word. I practiced uttering it silently. “Love.” “Love.” But when I tried to say it out loud, the word got stuck in my throat. I could barely get it to dribble over my lips. Even in private. Even when I was alone.
(pause)
Then, one night…We were at the dance hall in Munich. I pulled her close to me during a waltz. And I said it, stumbling over the phrase. “I think I’m in luh…luh…I think…I’m in love with you.”
(pause, “ Vienna Waltz”, plays almost inaudibly in the background for 38 sec)
Perhaps it was the music, drowning out my voice. Perhaps she found my whimpering, pathetic appeal distasteful and wanted to spare me the embarrassment of an outright rejection. I will never know. All I know is my gut-wrenching declaration of affection received no response. None whatsoever. So we kept dancing in silence. At the time I chose to consider it nothing more than the rejection I deserved. Because, the truth be told, what did I have to offer? Nothing. Not a thing.
(pause, he rises to is feet)
Well! Then came the time I had planned to take a three-day leave from the newspaper office. I wanted to visit Paris. When I told her of my intentions, her whole face lit up. “I, too, would love to see Paris before returning to the United States,” she told me. So off we went, together, to the City of Love! Of course, as propriety dictated, we stayed in separate rooms.
(he chuckles)
MR. CONTI
We had a glorious day of sightseeing! The Eiffel Tower! Notre Dame Cathedral! The Louvre!
(pause, “The Last time I Saw Paris”, plays almost inaudibly for 32 sec)
That night, we stopped for dinner at a romantic bistro. A nearby violin was serenading us. “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” Here we were…and here it was that I would once again try to reveal my true feelings for her. The words were gathering in my throat. On the tip of my tongue. All they needed was courage, my courage, to be released, to be set free. But while I was hesitating, she turned to me and asked, “Do you know why I came to Germany?”
(beat, he sits)
It was a simple enough question, I suppose. So I said to her, “Well, I presumed you felt a need to employ your nursing skills for American soldiers. You want t to serve those who have so loyally served their country.” A long pause followed. Then she said, “That’s only part of it.”
(beat, )
Leaning forward in my chair, sipping my wine anxiously, I awaited the revelation she wanted to share with me. With no preamble, she stated flatly stated that she was running away. She had been engaged to be married, she told me. Then, a week before the wedding, her fiancé insisted upon engaging in…“privileges” she felt strongly should be reserved for married couples alone. He got angry. He said…terrible things to her. In that instant, she lost complete faith in him, in his dignity. She called off the wedding. A few weeks later she was on her way to Germany. And that’s where I met her. At the Catholic midnight mass in Munich. She finished her wine and stared down at the tablecloth. And then she said…“I need to go back home. I have to sort all this out.”
(pause)
I was so stunned, I froze. I don’t even think my facial expression changed. Not one bit. At the same time, I felt my heart collapsing, falling through my diaphragm and swirling around in my stomach. I thought…“What in the world does this all mean to me? Is this over? Did she keep company with me simply because I was harmless and she felt secure with me? I would never threaten her innocence? I was safe, the convenient bridge between her disappointment and her eventual reconciliation with the man she truly loved. The romantic violin music playing in the background faded, becoming just a…a muted undertone. And eventually it just disappeared. Dissipated in the sultry heat of an August Paris night.
(beat)
She told me…She said she was leaving the hospital in two weeks. She would be taking a final tour through Europe before returning to the United States to sort out her romantic dilemma. I was crushed. I was…dumbfounded. And very confused. Was I or was I not going to have a place in her life after tonight? Though I knew it would merely be prolonging the heartbreaking inevitable, I told her I was planning to take a few days leave in early September, that I had been hoping to explore Venice, Florence, and Rome during my stay in Europe. I asked her if these cities might not be on her itinerary. She smiled at me and said she would make it a point to catch up with me there. Venice and Rome would be her last stops before flying home. I was gratified, against my better judgement. Of course, I had my reservations. After all, issuing our final goodbyes in Italy, one of the world’s most romantic places…
(pause)
She then suggested we meet in Rome on Sept 1. Two in the afternoon. By the obelisk in front of St. Peter’s Cathedral. And so… …on Sept 1…at two in the afternoon…the obelisk…St Peter’s Cathedral…Rome. I remember it like it was yesterday. Better than yesterday.
(beat, he stands and winces)
What happened yesterday?
(pause)
“Arrivederci Roma.” The tune, it plays in my head. Perhaps it was just a figment of my imagination. Romance was in the air all around us but there was emptiness in my heart. She informed me…She said she was flying back to the United States the following morning. As I walked her home that night I realized that this…this…was, in all likelihood, the very last time I would see her. When we said goodbye, I pressed my lips against hers and kissed her as only a man in love would do. Then she turned and slowly climbed the steps to her pensione. I stood there, all alone in the piazza for a short while and stared after her. Then I gathered myself up and made my way back up to my campsite in a vineyard on a hill overlooking the city of Roma.
(pause)
I sat up all night, in the darkness, and watched the glow of the city lights in the distance. Feeling completely undone, I picked up a pen and let my feelings pour out onto a crumpled piece of paper. I knew of no other way to release my emotions then to fill the paper with piteous prose written to no one in particular. Except perhaps to myself. Was I in or out, loved or unloved? The ambivalence was killing me. It was the very worst of dilemmas, this not knowing. I would much rather have been rejected outright than to have to suffer like this in limbo, torturing myself that maybe, just maybe, I had a chance.
(pause)
The following morning, looking down from my hillside perch, I could see the airport. I could see…I thought I could just make out the outline of jet racing down the runway. Her jet, I was sure of it. It pointed its nose upward and disappeared into the thin clouds above it. Clouds that now separated me from her. Perhaps forever.
(long pause, he sits)
So! So now here I am, back on the army base in Germany. I didn’t know what else to do, so I dove back into my writing. For the newspaper. And the time went on.
(sighs)
Finally, one day in November, I received an invitation from the Philadelphia Inquirer to appear for an
MR. CONTI (Cont’d.)
interview. Going back to the States for this interview, I reasoned, might provide me with an opportunity to bring some clarity to my star-crossed relationship. Up until now there had been a most platonic exchange of letters. I’d be combining business, my interview, with…I don’t really know what.
(pause)
It was a blustery December morning when I interviewed at the Inquirer, and later that afternoon, I made my way to New York City by train, full of anticipation and…anxiety.
(beat)
We met at her apartment. The conversation was…generic. Once again, I neglected to expose my feelings, merely dancing around the subject of my affections. Once, perhaps, there had been a trace of fire in our relationship. Now there was nothing more than cooling embers. I made one last ditch effort to keep those embers burning. I had purchased two tickets for a Broadway play for the following week. It was “Funny Girl,” starring Barbra Streisand. The night of the play would be the last night before my return flight to Germany. I invited her to join me. At the theater. She said…She told me she was flying to Pittsburgh to visit her family for Christmas, but she’d be back in plenty of time. She said she’d love to join me and we shared a tepid kiss. I went out into the cold, bolstered by this last hope.
(pause, he stands
It was snowing hard when I returned to Manhattan the following week. I rushed to the theater, tickets in hand, and stood outside in the snow and the blustery wind, waiting for her. At 7:15, the crowd of theatergoers outside was loud and boisterous, full of excitement and anticipation. At 7:30, with curtain time approaching, the crowd started to move into the theater. Soon I was alone, my frozen fingers clutching to the tickets as snowdrifts inched their way slowly up my ankles. By 7:35 PM all activity outside the theater ceased. Standing there under a lonely street light, snowflakes resting on my eyelids, I, too, seemed to cease to exist. Eight o’clock came and went. I could hear music, laughter, applause coming from inside the theater. I tore up the tickets and threw them in the trash. I knew I would never see her again.
(long pause, he sits)
The following morning I was back in Germany. A few days later, I put in for a transfer. To Vietnam. What difference did it make? I was already emotionally dead. Physical death would be a relief.
(pause)
Strange, isn’t it? How actual brushes with real death can focus your attention on life? How the need to help your comrades-in-arms stay safe manages to siphon every ounce of self-pity out of your soul? I returned from Vietnam a different man a year later and began my new job as a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer. On the side, I began writing fiction. The perfect release, writing. For my pent up emotions.
(smiles)
And could you believe it? It took half a century. Fifty years of mediocre manuscripts, and finally one of my full length plays captured the attention of a producer and director. It was a drama with the Vietnam War as its backdrop, Elephants Mourning Their Dead. Honor, lost friendships, arrogance, ambition, all
meet on collision course. And suddenly, miraculously, a producer and a director were
enthusiastic about bringing my play to the professional New York stage.
MR. CONTI
And that brings us to now. Tonight.
(he thinks…he stands)f
Yes? Tonight?
(he thinks)
Yes.
(pause)
It’s funny. But all during rehearsals, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. My mind kept carrying me back fifty years, to that night, when I was standing alone, freezing, under the lamppost. And then…I had this crazy thought. This ridiculous…insane thought. Perhaps this would be an ideal vehicle for closure, for a face-to-face final goodbye with my love who never was. If she was still alive, of course. Imagine, meeting me at the premier of a New York play. One that I had written. Fifty years after our missed theater connection.
(pause)
When I was young…I never dreamed that something like the Internet could ever exist. But now, through the miracle of social media, it’s fairly easy to track down virtually anyone these days. So I took a chance…and I found her!
(pause)
She was…She is…She works in a hospital. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(he grins)
I’m…considerably bolder now than I was fifty years ago. Without hesitating, I picked up my phone…and I made the call.
(beat)
We talked…freely. Openly. We talked as if it were yesterday. We talked…We laughed… We relived all the fun times together. In Europe.
(beat)
And I asked her…The burning question…The fiancé. Had they ever…? “No,” she told me. “No.”
(beat)
But she did, in time, meet and marry a man. A nice man. A schoolteacher. He passed away some years ago. She’s still a nurse. Part time. And she cares for her special needs adult child.
(beat)
Then she said…To my next question, she replied that, of course, she had tried to rendezvous with me on Broadway that night. She had wanted to be there, with me, so badly. But her flight from Pittsburgh had been canceled that day, due to the snowstorm. She wrote a long letter of apology, explaining everything. But the letter came back from Germany marked “Return to Sender.” I was no longer there.
(beat)
Fifty years ago.
(pause, he sits)
I slumped down into my chair, clutching the phone in my hand tightly. And now…What good would it do to expose the feelings I had for her a half-century ago? How foolish could one a man be? But on the other hand, look what my caution and insecurity had gained me. I cleared my throat and wiped my brow. And I asked her, “Did you know how much I cared for you in those days? Did you know?” There was a long pause…then a slight quiver in her voice as she said,” I knew we were
good friends. But I was never sure if you really cared more than that. I never knew for certain.” “Wasn’t it obvious?” I asked her. “Didn’t you see I was crazy about you?” She paused again before she said, “How was I supposed to know? You never took my hand. You never put your arm around me as we walked. Taking my hand, that would have said, ‘This is my girlfriend. This woman belongs to me. Sure, we kissed. But I needed a clear sign that I was special to you, that I was not just another date. And I was dying for you to do just that.”
(shakes his head sadly)
I was stunned. I muttered,” I was both afraid and respectful. I couldn’t bear the thought of rejection. If I had taken your hand and you had pulled away, or if I put my arm around your shoulder and you twisted your way out of my reach, it would have been too much to bear. And now, it seems as though I may have twisted my way out of your reach. And the price has been fifty years of loneliness and self-doubt. For that, I blame myself.”
(pause)
But…But…To my great delight, she seemed excited about the prospect of rekindling our friendship. Said she would be thrilled to come and share the excitement of an opening night with the playwright. With me.
(he smiles)
Well! And here we are! Who would have thought it? Tonight is opening night. Now, after fifty long years, I will see her again. She will sit next to me. I don’t really care what she looks like now. The memory of what she was to me…that’s the only vision I need. I never told her on the phone about the time I had once whispered in her ear that I was in love. A declaration that had received no response. But tonight I will say it clearly…The “L” word…The word, the feeling I had had so much difficulty articulating fifty years ago. “I love you,” I will say. “I always loved you. Always.”
There is a long pause. Conti looks down at the necktie in his hand, frustrated.
MR. CONTI
I wish I could get this darn tie knotted.
A female NURSE enters from offstage. She crosses to Conti who is struggling to get his tie tied.
NURSE
So Mr. Conti, how are you feeling this evening?
MR CONTI
Never felt better! But if I could…If I could only get this knot tied probably. Perhaps you could help me with it?
NURSE
And why would you need a tie this evening?
MR. CONTI
I didn’t tell you? Well! This is a big night! A very big night! My show, it opens this evening! And she’s coming! She’s going to join me there! She will sit by my side. And afterwards, we will reflect on our friendship of fifty years ago. And I will take her to Sardi’s after the theater. For a late dinner. And to shake hands with the cast members and other celebrities.
Nurse shakes her head sadly.
NURSE
(she stands behind him with her hands on his shoulders then drops to his side)
Oh Mr. Conti! Dear Mr. Conti. Don’t you know? Don’t you remember? That was yesterday.
MR. CONTI
(agitated)
What? What?
NURSE
(She kneels in front of him to help him with his tie, then stands and moves behind him)
The opening? Your reunion? You know very well that all took place yesterday.
MR CONTI
(very agitated)
Yesterday? Yesterday? How could that be? What are you saying? No. No! This can’t be!
NURSE
(Leaning in toward him from the side)
It was a beautiful night. Your show was a big hit. And you and she…Oh my! What a lovely couple you made together.
MR. CONTI
Oh God…I can’t remember…Yesterday…Again, those damn yesterdays!
NURSE
(gently holding his arm)
A lovely couple! You sat here on the bench, very close to one another. You talked for a long while.
MR. CONTI
We did? I can’t remember. What did we say? What did she say?
NURSE
( she rises and stands resting her hand on his shoulder)
She said you looked just the way she remembered you. She said she missed you all these years.
MR. CONTI
She did?
(beat agitated)
And …And…What did I say? Did I just mumble and fumble and say stupid things. Like, “It’s nice that you came to the show?” Or did I say…did I tell her about…how I felt about her? Did I say it? Did I tell her…that I had loved her?
Nurse looks at him, hesitating.
MR. CONTI
(upset)
I didn’t, did I? I knew it! And she…she said nothing. Just like the first time.
(shakes his head)
I should never have opened my mouth! How could I have expected her to love me the way I loved her?
(looks up at the nurse)
No. Don’t say anything. Just…go. Just leave me be.
NURSE
(Speaking gently, she kneels at his side)
She answered you in the most genuine and sincere way. She said…“I only wish I had known your true feelings fifty years ago. It would have changed my entire life.”
(Silence.)
MR. CONTI
She…? Really? She said that?
NURSE
Then she took your arm and draped it around her shoulder. She nestled her head under your chin. You sat together for a good while saying nothing. Then you stood to walk in the garden.
(church bell rings once)
As the church bells rang at midnight, you took her hand, like this.
(she takes his hand in hers and walks a small circle around his chair)
And you walked with her. Through the garden to her waiting car.
(pause)
But now Mr. Conti, it’s getting late. I must get you back to your room.
MR CONTI
It happened like you said? Just as you said?
NURSE
It was all exactly as I said. A truly beautiful evening.
(Directing her voice off stage)
Orderly! Would you please escort Mr. Conti back to his room?
(Silence)
MR. CONTI
Thank you. Thank you for helping me to remember. It’s all so…unclear. I try to grasp it but… it’s so elusive. I will sleep well with that memory.
(he smiles, happily and exits into the darkness of the corridor)
She loved me! She really…She loved me! It was just as I had imagined. I can see us…under a starry sky…holding hands at midnight.
NURSE
(The nurse waits for Mr. Conti to exit)
Every night…same story…same women…same ending. Sleep well dear man.
(Lyrics from “Nice Work if You Can Get It” for 34 sec. as lights fade on Nurse)
Holding hands at midnight
‘ Neath a starry sky…
Oh that is nice work if you can get it,
And you can get it– if you try.
Strolling with the one girl
Sighing sigh after sigh..
Oh nice work if you can get it,
And you can get it– if you try.
CURTAIN