Greg put the knife up his sleeve.
“Othello must have a knife hidden on him,” Farnham said to McPhee. “That solves two problems for us. First, how Desdemona seems to come back to life just before she dies. We can have her succumbing to loss of blood rather than suffocation. Second, how Othello manages to stab himself after he’s supposedly been disarmed.”
They were doing the business with the knife now. Emilia calls from the door to the bedroom. Othello has the pillow over Desdemona’s face. Her arms are waving frantically. Othello has to hurry now because of the approach of the lady-in-waiting. He pulls the knife out of his sleeve and speaks: “I would not have thee linger in thy pain:/So. So.” On the first “so” he stabs her in the heart. On the second he twists the blade. Desdemona arches her back in an agony that looks also like sexual ecstasy.
Warden played with Othello’s words: “I would not have thee linger in thy pain.” It was the voice of one who loves intensely.
He was surprised when his throat thickened and tears burned his eyes. It was only a rehearsal of a high school play, and yet it had awakened an urge within him that had to be satisfied now.
SCENE 9
It was 6:15 before they got the damn death scene figured out. Thomas had sat around for over half an hour watching Farnham and McPhee screw around with the blocking while everybody else got bored out of their gourds. Teachers were always asking students to get to places on time so they could make them wait after they got there. It was nice of Mr. McPhee to be so interested in the play, but hey, come on, some of us have work to do. Farnham should have been getting as irritated as Thomas was over McPhee’s interference, since McPhee was out-blocking the director. But Farnham seemed glad for the help. Maybe McPhee would invite Farnham to basketball practice to put in new options for the offense.
What Thomas wanted more than anything was to do his scene. This acting business was okay, better than basketball even, except for the unpredictability of Mr. Farnham’s rehearsals. Thomas knew theater. His dad had been reviewing plays since before Thomas was born, and three years ago they had gone on a backstage tour in Stratford, England, where they had seen how slanted the stage was and how small the auditorium looked from the stage side. They had met one of the directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he had seemed just like a regular person you’d see at a cocktail party. But he’d been in a hurry to get to his rehearsals. Everything in the professional theater seemed to run on schedule. Mr. Farnham was too temperamental to be prompt.
In the back of the room Mr. Warden sat and watched. Thomas had waved to him from his seat on the front row, and Mr. Warden had waved back. Thomas had thought about going back to sit with him. He was a good advisor, really interested in what you were doing. But Thomas knew that sometimes he liked to be alone. If Mr. Warden wanted to see him, Mr. Warden would come down to the front.
Mr. McPhee jumped down off the stage and landed softly on his white basketball shoes. He sat beside Thomas in the cushioned theater seats. Thomas asked him how he knew so much about Shakespeare.
“Being a coach doesn’t mean you have to be ignorant,” said Mr. McPhee. “Remember, I’m a teacher, too.”
Thomas watched Mrs. Warden as Desdemona. She lay on the bed on her side, facing the audience, pretending to be asleep. Greg entered from upstage left, miming the holding of a lantern in his right hand. In his left hand, he was holding his book.
“Put out the light, and then put out the light,” Greg read. When Desdemona awakens, she springs up into a kneeling position, her legs tucked beneath her on the sheets. Her husband is pacing. He’s literally insane with jealousy. He accuses her of infidelity with Michael Cassio; she is shocked for a moment into silence, and then she swiftly denies any such treachery. He tells her to prepare to die.
“Kill me to-morrow . . . says Desdemona in desperation. “Let me live tonight . . .
“Nay, if you strive—”
“But half an hour!” she pleads. She has reduced her request to a mere thirty minutes, but her pleading only strengthens his resolve.
“Being done, there is no pause,” says Othello.
And it is here that she lifts her arms in pleading as he comes toward her. She is asking now not even for half an hour, only for enough time to speak to God: “But while I say one prayer!”
“It is too late,” Greg replied, and his hands closed around her neck. With Greg it was only one hand and a book pressing against her throat, but the result was amazing. She started to scream.
Greg jumped back and dropped his paperback. She had scared him. The screams subsided into sobs. Nobody moved. Farnham was on the apron of the stage; Mrs. Kaufman and Nathan Somerville were backstage but visible in the wings.
“I just started thinking about Robert Staines,” said Mrs. Warden. “The hands on the throat, the choking. I was in that room on the night he died, rehearsing this part. It all just caught up with me for a minute. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Farnham walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She got up from the bed and moved away from him.
“I’m all right,” she said.
Nathan Somerville looked at his watch. Mr. Farnham saw him do so and looked at his own.
“It’s 6:25,” said Mr. Farnham. “We’ll have to break for dinner now anyway.” He turned to Thomas. “Roderigo, can you come back at 7:00? Iago?” He asked Nathan with a swivel of his head.
That was so damn
