A day without the internet so couldn't post yesterday, but here it is. 22 will come later today.
Scene 3
It is still early, Monsieur is at his table reading the paper, Celeste is sweeping and arranging the outdoor tables. Jacob approaches him.
Jacob: Pardon, is it alright if I put up a poster?
Celeste: What's it for?
Jacob: I'm giving a lecture and healing service tonight as the community looks forward to tomorrow.
Monsieur: It is the only direction you can face when discussing tomorrow.
Jacob: Pardon?
Celeste: I think we'll pass on the opportunity.
Jacob: You won't let me put it up?
Celeste: Correct.
Jacob: Are you the owner?
Celeste (pauses briefly): You asked me, I gave you my answer.
Jacob: But you may not be the final authority.
Celeste: I suppose that depends on your world view.
Jacob (turning to Monsieur): Excuse moi, Monsieur, do you know who is the owner of this establishment?
Monsieur (eyeing Jacob): I do.
Jacob: May I ask who it is?
Monsieur: Yes.
Jacob: You are toying with me sir.
Monsieur: I am answering your questions.
Jacob: But not my intent.
Monsieur (sitting back): How far into your intentions do you wish me to probe? Do you wish me, for example, to imagine the intentions behind your lecture and, what did you call the rest?
Jacob: A healing service.
Monsieur: A healing service—yes for that I would have to imagine your intention because the words mean nothing to me.
Jacob: It is an opportunity for people to heal themselves with the Lord's help.
Monsieur: Heal what sorts of things? Regrets, broken hearts?
Jacob: Certainly those.
Monsieur: Wounds, disease?
Jacob: Yes, sometimes those, indeed, the Lord can cure anything.
Monsieur: Do you bring back the dead?
Jacob: You mock me.
Monsieur: No.
Jacob: You do sir.
Monsieur: So raising the dead is not something your particular god can do?
Jacob: There is only one God. (Monsieur shrugs) Do you think there are many?
Monsieur: I am aware of many people who believe in many different gods.
Jacob: That does not make them real.
Monsieur (waits, finally speaks): Does it not? You seem to think otherwise about your own beliefs.
Jacob: I have seen the Lord's work. Indeed, I'm an example of it Monsieur. I don't know if you heard of Air Mexico flight 419? (Monsieur spreads his hands) It crashed about a year ago in the jungles of the Yucatan. Ninety-six people died—one did not. Me. (Monsieur continues to listen) Do you understand? One survivor out of almost 100 people. I know what it is to be touched by the Lord's grace.
Monsieur: And so? So you survived the crash and now you want everyone to believe in your god?
Jacob: Not my god. God.
Monsieur: Pardon, but there are so many and they all say the same things. Do you not think that the followers of other gods can also tell you of their gods' beneficence?
Jacob: There's only one God and Jesus was his son.
Monsieur shrugs.
Jacob: I knew from the moment I woke up in the hospital that he had a plan for me.
Monsieur: Which was to crash?
Jacob: You are a cynic. I was the only one of 97 passengers and crew to survive. When you experience something like that it changes you.
Monsieur: Of that I have no doubt. But it is your claim that your god had no plans for the other 96?
Jacob: What?
Monsieur: Or that god's plan for you necessitated the snuffing out of the lives of 96 other people in order for your plan to come to fruition? Or that the plan for them was to die so you would believe?
Jacob: No. I don't know why I was the one chosen to survive, but having survived I realized I could not waste my life.
Monsieur: I agree; so why do you?
Jacob: I'm not. I'm spreading God's word.
Monsieur: That there is a plan for every 97th person to believe?
Jacob: What do you mean?
Monsieur: That is all you are saying. You keep talking about a plan, a purpose, yet you say you don't know why you survived. So you don't know the plan. And you aren't doing anything.
Jacob: I am doing something. I know there must be a plan and that's the message I'm sharing. And when I share it, I see its effect on other people. I have seen the sick healed and the
Monsieur: And the dead rise?
Jacob: No. I have not seen the dead rise but if served God's purpose as it has before, I'm sure it could and would happen. In fact, I think you could say I am the proof of it. What is surviving something like that but returning from the dead?
Monsieur (thinks): Perhaps you are right. I know something of returning from the dead. In your sense I have done it too. But that did not lead me to proclaim a miracle. To claim my restoration, which did not restore others who died as evidence of a master plan of which I was the singular focus.
Jacob: I'm not saying I'm special.
Monsieur: It has been your entire contention—one in ninety-seven.
Jacob: But God has a plan for everyone.
Monsieur (starts, resists the circular argument): Pah. All religions claim there's a purpose, a reason, some more adamantly than others, but none of them can tell you what it is, so it does not matter. If you want a reason for your life you're the only one who can give it one. I agree that you have a powerful motive, more than most, for finding a reason—but you have not found it. You are just congratulating yourself.
Jacob: How dare you. You think I do this to brag?
Monsieur: I think you do it to ask forgiveness. Something you do not need to do. (He picks up his paper again)
Jacob (flustered): May I hang up my poster or not?
Celeste (who has been hovering): As I said...
Monsieur (cutting him off): If you wish.
Celeste: Monsieur?
Jacob: Well, thank you. I certaily invite...
Monsieur (laying his paper down): Do not tempt me to change my mind. I do not approve of you, not of you making a living off of other people's woes. You may put up your poster and depart.
Jacob starts to answer, nods curtly, crosses to bulletin board, which is covered with a variety of notices. Seeing neither a spare thumbtack nor space, he pulls a box of thumbtacks from his coat and pins his poster so it dangles below the rest, and exits.
Celeste: It sets a bad precedent (he turns and goes back behind the bar with broom).
Monsieur: Do not fret Celeste. He is a scared man, who cannot understand what has happened to him and he needs to be consoled.
Celeste: It is a consolation that can extract a heavy price from those who do not share it.
Monsieur: Maybe, but this is personal, it is not the abstracted ritual and demands of the Church.
Celeste: I think there you are mistaken Monsieur. You know he is living off this story. It may be true; it may not be. But now he tells it so that others will drop money in his hat, so that he can tell it to others....you know how this goes. It is no different. It's effect on people is no different: it is a promise of hope elsewhere, not a demand for actions that could alter their present.
Monsieur: You are still the revolutionary.
Celeste: And you still have better reason than most to know the damage of ritual beliefs (Monsieur shrugs).
Mdala: Bon jour messieurs. Permit me to post a flyer for a protest demonstration at tomorrows launch?
Monsieur and Celeste exchange glances and smiles.
Monsieur (waving at the board): But of course. May I ask what it is you are protesting?
Mdala: The spending of a nation's wealth on the destruction of our environment. The denial that sending men into space produces. Oh, we when we finish destroying this place we'll go live on some edenic other world. It's insanity.
Celeste: The space center has brought money to this nation.
Mdala: It has brought money to this department [Guiana is a “department” of France, something like a state in the US], but it is billions out of France's and Europe's economy.
Monsieur: I thought other countries were paying to launch satellites and so forth.
Mdala: It does not begin to cover the cost—and that is without calculating the enormous costs to the environment. Add those in, and the losses are staggering.
Monsieur: Interresant.
Mdala: Perhaps we can continue this later. I have other posters to put up, and I want to go up to the center today.
Monsieur: Bon jour, monsieur.
Mdala: Bon jour, the name is Mdala if anyone inquires, pleased to meet you. Ce soir perhaps. (exits)
Celeste: Perhaps I should put up some of the old posters.
Monsieur: For the revolution? I think the board is full Monsieur Celeste. (looks at his coffee) Celeste? Vin, s'il vous plait.
Celeste (smiling): We will change all our ways by the end of the day maybe.
Monsieur: Maybe.
Lights out
