Out of the Wings

El cruce sobre el Niágara (1969), Alonso Alegría

Crossing Niagara : ACT ONE, Scene One

Crossing Niagara, translated by Guenda Pandolfi

ACT ONE, Scene One

Context:

This conversation takes place early on in Carlo’s first visit to Blondin in his dressing room.

Sample text

CARLO:

Listen. You’re clinging to the tightrope more and more. You stopped to cook the omelette and what’s the absolute limit, you lie on the wire for a nap. You’ll soon be going across on your backside! That’s not what it’s all about. Each time you must try and get further away from the rope, every time freer, lighter. I watch you through my telescope … sometimes the sun shines on the rope and I can’t see at all. I can only see you, standing over the void, walking in space almost … but you can still see that your weight is resting on something. Just a bit, not too much. You seem to be learning how you can stay up there all by yourself … You’ve still got a long way to go, no question about that, but you could, believe me, you could one day walk over to Canada in no time at all, without a rope, without a pole, weightless! That would really be something! You’d be a bird, a god!

BLONDIN: (Smiling.)

Oh yes?

CARLO:

Hadn’t you ever thought of it? It is possible, for you.

BLONDIN: (No big confession.)

Yes, it has entered my mind, I have thought of it. But that’s not surprising. Everybody would like to fly, every boy has dreamt of flying. Sometimes, when I’m halfway across, when all I can hear is the roar of the river, with open space on every side, I’m all on my own, quite alone out there and there’s nothing anywhere around me, nothing at all but the shining air and the sun … when the sun is shining, that is … I get to thinking I could walk outside the rope, on every side. I want to walk off the rope and walk quickly through all that space, step by step, upstream, walking over the river, the trees, till I come to the sea, zigzagging higher and higher. I want to walk wherever I like, stop and have a rest in mid-air and then start walking again, as if a thousand, infinite, invisible ropes were criss-crossing the sky, criss-crossing space, and I can walk along them all and I’m trying to find the rope that will take me farthest so I can walk through the sky forever, nearer and nearer to the sun.

CARLO: (Entranced, after a beat.)

Sure. Precisely what I meant. That’s it.

BLONDIN:

Sometimes I feel it’s possible. And I stop. I look around at all sides but then I keep on going along the rope. And I get to the other bank. Solid ground.

CARLO:

You’re not trained for it yet, that’s all.

BLONDIN:

Do you think I’m pleased?

CARLO:

When.

BLONDIN:

When I feel the ground under my feet?

CARLO:

Of course not. You feel better in the air. It’s your natural element. You can fly.

BLONDIN:

Not true. I am pleased. Anyone would be.

CARLO:

Are you afraid? I mean, when you’re out there, do you think you’ll fall?

BLONDIN:

No, I don’t think about falling. And I don’t think about walking off the rope all the time either. Only sometimes, and not too often anymore.

CARLO nods.

BLONDIN:

Usually I think about what I’m doing; the next step; how much farther there is to go. I think about the wind. About my legs and arms, sometimes, not always. But mostly I think of … Oh, I don’t know, at times all sorts of memories come into my head … my imagination gets going. People I’ve seen, things people have said to me when I was small, things I’d forgotten about long ago and can hardly remember afterwards, it’s as if I had dreamt them and I am never sure whether they really ever happened or not. They’re very clear: I hear voices, I talk to them, I hear voices, music, and sometimes I sing a bit.

CARLO:

You’re happy.

BLONDIN:

Of course … and I slow down. That’s why it takes me longer on some occasions. It isn’t that I’m getting tired, which is what they all think. I’m pleased when I get back on the ground because … because sometimes when I’m in the middle of the rope I feel a tickling sensation in my veins, laughter that … as if my blood were bubbling, and unbelievable joy, right down inside, and I want to …

Pause.

CARLO:

What?

BLONDIN:

Sometimes I want to throw myself off.

(Beat.)

Throw myself into the void.

CARLO:

Yes.

BLONDIN:

You have no idea what it’s like. And then suddenly I don’t want to anymore.

CARLO:

Of course not.

BLONDIN:

I’m terrified of throwing myself off. That ruins everything. So I concentrate hard, grip the rope with my feet and press on to the finish as quickly as possible. And I’m pleased when I jump down off the rope at the other end.

CARLO:

I’ve seen it. I’ve watched that finish 14 times. There’s always a mass of people crowding around you, hugging you, giving you coffee, the women kiss you … five girls kissed you last time. People are crushing around you, pushing you and shoving you …

BlONDIN: