A monologue from the play by Lauren Gunderson
LOUISE (fifties)
I am so thoroughly tired of battling you. I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you that you are. Exhausting. And yet. I ask you here because he is dy-ing.
Soon. And I can’t stand for him to approach that and be so . . . undone. I thought I would get you here to plan something big for him, give him one last show.
But that’s not what he needs now. That’s not what we have to give. He needs you. He needs me too, God knows he needs me.
But I can’t do it alone. You charge him up. I ground him. I know this. I respect this. I have never fooled myself that you weren’t half of my husband’s heart.
And I kept it beating while you were gone, but it’s never really worked since you broke it. And that was manageable when his work was on some wall in some city,
but now we three are all we have. It’s just us now. And we can’t hover in the past. And we can’t let him die thinking he’s a shadow.
And maybe . . . that’s why I let you in here, Miss Rebay. To say that the past doesn’t matter. The future doesn’t either.
Tonight—Tonight is all we have. So. I think. You have to tell him you love him. Sie lieben ihn, Frau Hilla. Tell him this.
