The Golden House

I repeat: in too deep to stop now. I must go on imagining, must continue the peep show, put another nickel in / in the nickelodeon. Yes: in my imagination it’s now a movie. Wide screen, black and white.

The three sons of Nero Golden, PETYA, APU, and D, two of them considerably older than their father’s new love and the third just four years younger, are collectively at a loss. In spite of all their differences, this is a vital family matter, and they come together to discuss it, but do not find it easy to formulate a strategy. They meet away from the rented apartments, standing in a tight group on the island’s small beach, which is empty on account of the unseasonal cold weather, the low temperature, the high wind, the racing clouds, the threat, soon realized, of driving, freezing rain. They wear hats, coats and mufflers and look like a conspiracy of Czech intellectuals standing on a seacoast in Bohemia, closely observed, like trains. In spite of the frowns of the two older men, RIYA Z is there with D, clinging to him tightly as if she thought she might otherwise blow away. RIYA is the same age as Vasilisa. D has worked this out but does not mention it.

The camera watches them in extreme close-ups until they speak, but cuts to wide shots when we hear their voices.

PETYA

(he expresses his concerns theoretically, as is his awkward, inexorable way)

The crux of a great person’s life is the choice between doing what is right and what he wants to do. Abraham Lincoln, who was a proficient wrestler and enjoyed a good bout, probably would have preferred spending his time on the mat to starting a war in which approximately two percent of the population died, roughly six hundred and twenty thousand people, but it was the right thing to do. No doubt Marie Curie would have preferred to spend time with her daughter instead of being killed by X-ray radiation, but guess what activity she chose. Or take the case of Mahatma Gandhi, who when young showed himself to be a sharp dresser in a British bespoke suit which was a whole lot nicer than some loincloth. However, the loincloth, politically speaking…

APU

(interrupts what might otherwise turn into a long catalog)

So obviously our father should know better than to run after some Russian, let me avoid a word here, some Russian gymnast.

Circling, tight shot, around and around them on the blowing sand, slightly higher than their heads, looking down like a surveillance drone.

D

He’s going to marry her. That’s her plan. She won’t let up and he can’t resist.

PETYA

In the event of a marriage a number of legal issues arise. Next-of-kin status will be problematized, also executorship of a living will, and the broader subject of inheritance. There is also the uncertainty about where they may marry to discuss, the variations between the laws of Florida and the State of New York.

APU

Our father is not a fool. He may be, at present, a fool for her, but in all essentials he is not a fool. He has been a deal-maker all his life. He will see the good sense of a cast-iron prenuptial agreement.

PETYA

(his voice rises to a wail, mirroring the rising sound of the wind)

Who will talk to him about it?

(pause)

I can’t.

(pause)

He won’t like it.

APU

We should all do it together.

D

(shrugs, gets ready to walk away)

I don’t give a damn about the money. Let the old man do what he wants.

He and RIYA turn to leave.

RIYA

(in ECU, to APU and PETYA)

Have you considered that she may make him happy, and actually find it in her heart to love him? But even if she is faking it, this can still be good. Things are good which reduce the amount of global misery, or the quantity of injustice, or both. So if she reduces his unhappiness even for a brief time, even fraudulently, then that counts as good.

I see the life he has made for you all. He is like a great roof and you shelter beneath it. Step away from him and you are caught in the storm, all of you, but right now he is there. He is there until he won’t be there. But he is not only a house in which you live. He is a man and has the needs of a man, to desire and to be desired. Why do you want to deny him? Do you imagine that just because of the calendar, it stops? Let me tell you. It doesn’t matter how old you are. It never stops.

PETYA

(repeats, shamefaced, skipping sadly as the rain comes down)

It never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops, it never stops….

The downpour begins in earnest. Water on the camera lens. Fade to white.