Broken Glass Read Free Page B

grandmother’s funeral? He stands outside the funeral parlor and decides who’s going to sit with who in the limousines for the cemetery. “You sit with him, you sit with her...” And they obey him like he owned the funeral!
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HYMAN: Did you find out what’s playing?
    MARGARET: At the Beverly they’ve got Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Jimmy Cagney’s at the Rialto but it’s another gangster story.
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HYMAN: I have a sour feeling about this thing. I barely know my way around psychiatry. I’m not completely sure I ought to get into it.
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MARGARET: Why not?-She’s a very beautiful woman.
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HYMAN, matching her wryness: Well, is that a reason to turn her away? He laughs, grasps her hand. Something about it fascinates me—no disease and she’s paralyzed. I’d really love to give it a try. I mean I don’t want to turn myself into a post office, shipping all the hard cases to specialists, the woman’s sick and I’d like to help.
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MARGARET: But if you’re not getting anywhere in a little while you’ll promise to send her to somebody.
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HYMAN: Absolutely. Committed now: full enthusiasm. I just feel there’s something about it that I understand.—Let’s see Cagney.
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MARGARET: Oh, no Fred Astaire.
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HYMAN: That’s what I meant. Come here.
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MARGARET, as he embraces her: We should leave now ...
    HYMAN : You’re the best, Margaret.
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MARGARET: A lot of good it does me.
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HYMAN: If it really bothers you I’ll get someone else to take the case.
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MARGARET: You won’t, you know you won’t.
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He is lifting her skirt
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Don’t, Harry. Come on.
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She frees her skirt, he kisses her breasts.
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HYMAN: Should I tell you what I’d like to do with you?
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MARGARET: Tell me, yes, tell me. And make it wonderful.
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HYMAN: We find an island and we strip and go riding on this white horse...
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MARGARET: Together.
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HYMAN: You in front.
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MARGARET: Naturally.
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HYMAN : And then we go swimming ...
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MARGARET: Harry, that’s lovely.
    HYMAN: And I hire this shark to swim very close and we just manage to get out of the water, and we’re so grateful to be alive we fall down on the beach together and...
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MARGARET, pressing his lips shut: Sometimes you’re so good. She kisses him.
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Blackout.

SCENE TWO
    The Lone Cellist plays. Then lights go down ...
    Next evening. The Gellburg bedroom. Sylvia Gellburg is seated in a wheelchair reading a newspaper. She is in her mid-forties, a buxom, capable, and warm woman. Right now her hair is brushed down to her shoulders, and she is in a nightgown and robe.
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She reads the paper with an intense, almost haunted interest, looking up now and then to visualize.
    Her sister Harriet, a couple of years younger, is straightening up the bedcover.
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HARRIET: So what do you want, steak or chicken? Or maybe he’d like chops for a change.
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SYLVIA: Please, don’t put yourself out, Phillip doesn’t mind a little shopping.
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HARRIET: What’s the matter with you, I’m going anyway, he’s got enough on his mind.
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SYLVIA: Well all right, get a couple of chops.
    HARRIET: And what about you. You have to start eating!
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SYLVIA: I’m eating.
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HARRIET: What, a piece of cucumber? Look how pale you are. And what is this with newspapers night and day?
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SYLVIA: I like to see what’s happening.
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HARRIET: I don’t know about this doctor. Maybe you need a specialist.
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SYLVIA: He brought one two days ago, Doctor Sherman. From Mount Sinai.
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HARRIET: Really? And?
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SYLVIA: We’re waiting to hear. I like Doctor Hyman.
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HARRIET: Nobody in the family ever had anything like this. You feel something, though, don’t you?
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SYLVIA, pause, she lifts her face: Yes ... but inside, not on the skin. Looks at her legs. I can