Box of Lies: based on the journals of Anais Nin–Karin Diann Williams
An upscale airport bar. OR, a distinguished-looking man in his sixties, sits at the bar with a glass of
wine. ANAIS, a slight, beautiful woman in her forties,enters and sits next to him. She puts down her large shoulder bag.
ANAIS
A glass of something French, please. And a sandwich. I haven’t got much time before my connecting flight.
[He pours her a glass of wine from the open bottle on the counter.]
OR
Everything’s suspended. It came over the loudspeaker.
ANAIS
Really? For how long?
OR
It feels like I’ve been here forever.
ANAIS
What happened?
OR
A tornado, a lightning storm. Possibly a revolution.
ANAIS
We’d just as well relax and enjoy ourselves.
OR
That’s easy for you to say. I’m due to give a speech tonight. At a very important conference.
ANAIS
What sort of speech?
OR
The Influence of Psychoanalytic Transference on the Creative Mind.
ANAIS
You’re a psychoanalyst?
OR
I very well could be.
ANAIS
What luck! I adore psychoanalysts.
OR
That means you haven’t finished.
ANAIS
I know. But what’s the rush?
OR
I can’t quite place your accent. Where are you from?
ANAIS
Los Angeles. Or New York. Depending on who’s asking.
OR
Orin Richards.
ANAIS
Pleased to meet you, Dr. Richards.
OR
People call me Or.
ANAIS
People call me Anais.
OR
Anais from Los Angeles.
ANAIS
Or New York.
OR
Depending on who’s asking.
ANAIS
Exactly.
OR
And what if it was me? Who was asking?
ANAIS
Depends on where you’re from — New York or Los Angeles?
OR
Or somewhere in between?
ANAIS
That makes things more difficult.
OR
Let’s say I’m from Los Angeles.
ANAIS
Then I’m from Los Angeles too!
OR
What a coincidence.
ANAIS
Isn’t it? Pleased to meet you! Anais Pole. I live in the Sierra Madre, with my husband Rupert — he’s a forest ranger. We have a little cabin in the woods — it’s gorgeous there.
OR
An enviable lifestyle.
ANAIS
Absolutely. A handsome young ranger. A secluded mountain town. A husband who adores me. What more could a woman want?
OR
Unless, perhaps, she was having a glass of something French with a visiting New Yorker.
ANAIS
True.
OR
Let’s say I’m from New York…
ANAIS
I come from New York too!
OR
What a coincidence.
ANAIS
Isn’t it? Anais Guiler. I live in Manhattan with my husband, Hugh. He’s a banker. A very well-known patron of the arts.
OR
An enviable lifestyle.
ANAIS
What more could a woman want? A man of means, man of the world, the perfect match for a woman who writes.
OR
Depending on who’s asking.
ANAIS
But let’s say you’re a psychoanalyst.
OR
Which I very well could be.
ANAIS
You definitely talk like one.
OR
I might say the same of you.
ANAIS
I should hope so. I’ve had years of practice.
OR
There’s no hurry.
ANAIS
If you were a psychoanalyst, I might tell you a secret.
OR
Really? Which one?
ANAIS
I carry around a little box of lies. It’s here in my bag … would you like to see?
[Anais takes a small card file out of her bag.]
Depending on who I’m talking to, I’ll pull out one lie or another. I’ve told so many lies, I have to write them down to keep my story straight.
OR
You mentioned you’re a writer. A journalist?
ANAIS
No, but I’ve always kept a journal, ever since I was a girl. It’s how I capture time. I re-create myself, with every page.
OR
A novelist?
ANAIS
Some of my best friends write novels. They shuffle the cards and lay them out to paint fantastic plot lines. But women create things differently. We drink life in and we gestate life. Our narratives sew chaos. Our voices run wild.
OR
Regardless, you have a lovely voice. I still can’t place your accent.
ANAIS
My parents were Cuban. I was born in France. My father left my mother, and afterwards, we traveled. I grew up in Barcelona, New York and Havana and Paris.
OR
That’s quite a bit of growing up.
ANAIS
Apparently I haven’t finished.
OR
If a psychoanalyst heard you say that…
ANAIS
You don’t have to tell me — I’ve heard it all before.
OR
He might say you’re torn between two worlds — you haven’t found your perfect complement.
ANAIS
The man who completes me?
OR
The father who abandoned you. You won’t be at peace until you finally seduce him. You need to overpower him. And yet you need his dominance. You want to be the all-powerful Gaia, and, at the same time, the helpless child.
ANAIS
In other words, it’s hopeless.
OR
Of course not. You just haven’t found the right man yet.
ANAIS
Couldn’t the right man be two men?
OR
Impossible! You’ll have to keep looking.
ANAIS
You know, this is the only place I ever feel at peace. What if my perfect complement is here, on this tightrope between two lives? What if you’re my soulmate, Doctor?
OR
Me?
ANAIS
Perhaps I’ve made you up.
OR
You think I’ve sprung from your box of lies?
ANAIS
Why not?
OR
It’s an interesting theory.
ANAIS
This could be a scene I’m writing. A scene from one of my books.
OR
A journal or a novel?
ANAIS
There isn’t any difference! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s something that happened, a chance encounter that somehow got stuck in my mind. And it made such a fascinating story, eventually I had to tell someone…
OR
Who?
ANAIS
Does it matter?
OR
I suspect it might matter a great deal — to your husband.
ANAIS
New York, or Los Angeles?
OR
Either/or.
ANAIS
You’d be surprised. I write everything. I sleep with my whole life under my pillow. He never reads a word.
OR
Then who are you writing to, Anais?
ANAIS
Once, a wealthy collector offered me a fortune for some pornographic stories.
OR
So you wrote for him? You gave him what he wanted?
ANAIS
Why not? He paid me. A dollar a page.
OR
Was it worth it?
ANAIS
Why do you keep asking me questions?
OR
It’s my job.
ANAIS
And money is useful sometimes, isn’t it?
OR
What did you do with the money?
ANAIS
I gave it to a friend. A novelist.
OR
You’ve burned through quite a bit of money, haven’t you?
ANAIS
We’re writers. It’s what we do. We turn money into words.
OR
And vice versa?
ANAIS
Mostly vice.
OR
And your husband?
ANAIS
Tries to understand. He loves me.
OR
Because you’re a whore, or in spite of it?
ANAIS
Does it matter?
OR
Of course it does!
ANAIS
I’ll tell you a secret, Doctor. People in general are far too obsessed with sex for their own good.
OR
Especially psychoanalysts.
ANAIS
All I did was scribble a few moments. A few of the artists I knew, when I was a model in Paris. The tingle, running from your toes to the top of your head as you slip the robe off. None of it actually happened, you know. And no one is ever going to read it.
OR
Except for your private collector?
ANAIS
It was a lark.
OR
Perhaps he’s your soulmate.
ANAIS
God, no.
OR
Your true audience.
ANAIS
That old degenerate?
OR
Your father.
ANAIS
That charlatan?
OR
Your analyst.
ANAIS
That con artist? Do you think I’m an idiot?
OR
You’ve spent your whole life seducing him, whoring for him, writing for him.
ANAIS
It’s what I do. I turn passion into words.
OR
And they call you a feminist.
ANAIS
They can call me what they want.
OR
There’s an ache inside you, Anais. An emptiness. A longing.
ANAIS
I don’t believe a word of it.
OR
Let me fill you.
ANAIS
Don’t you understand? Look on the page. I did what I wanted. I wrote what it felt like. I took off my clothes and let them look at me because I liked it. And I’m sitting here, wearing this dress you love, and this lipstick, and sifting through my box of lies, and I’m talking to myself. Because you don’t exist. You’re slipping a dollar in between my breasts and you don’t have a face. You’re a fantasy. I made you up. Why should I care what you think of me? Guess what? I’ve been doing this for years. Because I like psychoanalysts. They’re obsessed with sex. And everything’s suspended, and it feels like I’ve been here forever, and dammit, I want to get laid. You think you can complete me? Dream on, doctor. You won’t
ever complete me. No one will. And I’m going to write down every word, and if I were a man, you’d worship me.
OR
Perhaps I do.
She kisses him. An unintelligible announcement comes over the public address system.
ANAIS
That’s my flight. It’s boarding.
OR
Which way are you headed?
ANAIS
New York. Or Los Angeles.
OR
Stay.
ANAIS
Give me your card.
[He gives her a business card. She takes it, scribbles something on it.]
OR
What are you writing?
[Anais smiles and puts the card in her box.]
ANAIS
For posterity.
OR
Tell me.
ANAIS
Someday.
OR
I need to know.
ANAIS
There isn’t any hurry. No hurry at all.
[She walks away.]
***
Karin Diann Williams writes speculative fiction, plays and screenplays. Her YA novel Eden: A Teen Frankenstein Meets Her Match was hailed as “A dramatic and engrossing look at the everyday horrors adolescents face” by Kirkus reviews. Her plays have been produced by San Diego’s Fritz Theater (where she served as playwright-in-residence from 1992-2001), NYC’s Looking Glass Theater, Art House Productions, Space 55, Long Island Theatre Collective, New York New Works Festival, Flush Ink! Productions, the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre Digital Performance Institute, Lamia Ink!, Collaboraction Theater, Boston Theaterworks, and many more. As a Partner in the motion media company CulpepperWilliams, she wrote and produced The Captive (Webby People’s Choice Award & NYTVF “Best Web Series” Award) and the independent feature Jordan. Her plays are available through Original Works Publishing, YouthPlays, and Lazy Bee Scripts.