From the novel, If This Is an Animal (2018)
Que Reste-t-il de nos amours – What Is Left of Our Loves
Charles Trenet’s song, Que Reste-t-il de nos amours, is playing in the background.
The Characters (in alphabetical order)
Maria Aizawa (Maria): A Japanese porn star
Woody Allen (Woody): An American movie director-writer-actor
Charlie Chaplin (Chaplin): An Anglo-American movie director-writer-actor-musician
Emily Dickinson (Dickinson): An American poet
Christopher Hitchens (Hitchens): An Anglo-American writer-debater
Jacques Messier (Jacques): An Assassin
Yann Moix (Moix): A French writer
Friedrich Nietzsche (Nietzsche): A German philosopher
Michel Onfray (Onfray): A French philosopher
Philip Roth (Roth): An American writer
Carli Wanks (Carli): An American porn star
The Scene
The Western Wall. Dawn. Early 2018.
Hitchens (In his late 50s, wearing a white suit, white shirt and white suede shoes.)
(Walking slowly towards the camera, stopping six feet from them.)
My name is Christopher Hitchens. However, here and now, I am God. Yes; the God. I am an atheist but I am also God. How is that possible? you may ask. Again, I am God.
(The camera slowly zooms onto the backs of ten individuals, one by one, from right to left, standing in a row about two feet from each other and about two feet from the wall. They are all facing it motionless.)
Let us watch what could and perhaps should occur with this mixed group, this tensome of individuals, men and women, real and fictitious, living and departed, like me. They cannot see me. They can all speak English fluently, but with a suitable accent, of course. They can also speak any other language, but are limited, unaware of it, to a certain number of words in each of those tongues.
(They slowly start moving. The camera zooms on anyone that speaks.)
Onfray (In his late 50s, wearing a black shirt, black pants and black suede shoes.)
C’est quoi ce bordel ? (Subtitles: What is this mess?)
Roth (In his early 80s, wearing a black suit, white shirt and black leather shoes.)
Don’t we all recognise the Western Wall?
Moix (In his late 40s, wearing a dark brown suit, light grey shirt and grey running shoes.)
Yes. It seems we’re in Jerusalem. But who you are blows my mind even more. (Smiling) You, Philip Roth, and Michel Onfray before you, and Woody Allen! (In his early 80s, wearing a light suit, beige shirt and white running shoes.) Charlie Chaplin! (In his mid 50s, dressed as the Tramp.) My God! (The camera zooms on Hitchens smiling with a glass of whisky in one hand.) Nietzsche! (In his early 40s, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and black leather shoes.) Astonishing! I’m sorry but I don’t seem to know the rest of you.
Jacques (In his early 50s, wearing a blue shirt, white pants and blue running shoes.)
I know all of you, including these three ladies. Emily Dickinson! (In her early 40s, wearing a dark dress and black leather shoes.) You’re one of my favourite poets. I love you, Ms. Dickinson. Maria Aizawa! (In her early 30s, wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and white running shoes.) I love you too (Smiling), but in another way. Carli Wanks! (In her early 30s, wearing a blue floral dress and white sandals.) I know that it’s not your real name. I also love you like Maria Aizawa. (Has a wider smile) No! Maybe a bit more. As for me, I’m sure that none of you know who I am. I’m Jacques Messier, but it’s not my real name.
Woody
Great disguises, Dickinson, Nietzsche and Chaplin! Or are we seeing dead people?
Nietzsche
I seem to know that I had died but I am here now and do not know how.
Chaplin
Me, as well. Impossible!
Dickinson
Me too, but I am happy to be alive once more.
Carli
What the fuck?
Maria
Watashi wa kowaidesu (Subtitles: I’m scared).
Jacques
Don’t be! I’m sure that there’s an explanation for this. I’m also sure that it can’t be a simple one. Do you want me to hold you?
Maria
Yes, please!
Jacques
(Holds her in his arms.) I can’t believe that I’m holding Maria Aizawa. (The camera zooms on his smiling face. He closes his eyes.)
Onfray
Who is she exactly? And Carli Wanks? And you? I must be dreaming.
Jacques
Maria and Carli are two of my favourite porn stars, and I’m; it’s complicated.
Woody
This is getting better by the phrase and maybe by the word.
Dickinson
What is a porn star?
Jacques
Women and men who perform pornographic scenes that are filmed and shown for the pleasure of others. And a film, or a movie, is a long series of pictures taken consecutively that when shown on a screen, create the illusion of moving images.
Onfray
I can surmise that all the rest of us being here has to do with you. Who are you?
Jacques
As I said; it’s complicated. My real name is Joseph Shabbat, but for some reason I feel that I’m here as Jacques Messier, my professional name. I can’t tell you anything more.
Onfray
But it may be the key to all of this, whatever all of this is.
Jacques
I do like, no, love every one of you, so I may be indeed the key. But how and why? I can only say that I’ve been hired, though I would have done it for free, as the assassin of several very ruthless individuals.
Roth
The plot thickens.
Moix
Knowing what you love about each one of us and or why you love each one of us may help us to understand at least part of this unusual situation. I, we, can probably guess what you love (Smiling) about Maria and Carli.
Jacques
It would have been too obvious even if they weren’t porn stars. They are simply beautiful, and breathtaking (Smiling) when they are naked. Sorry cher (Subtitles: dear) Yann Moix that Maria is not your Maria, the one to whom you dedicated all your masterpieces.
Moix
Yes. Thanks!
Woody
That’s a good idea, Moix? Come on, Messier! Spell the beans! What am I saying? You’re an assassin. Shabbat! Does it mean that you don’t kill on the Sabbath? What day is it?
Jacques
I’ve only killed as Messier and I’ve once killed on the eve of Yom Kippur.
Woody
We are doomed.
Onfray
Can’t we just get out of here? Though I would love to speak to some of you.
Roth
Given this implausible situation, I doubt that we can just decide to depart. I’ve also noticed that this may not be the Western Wall, but a replica of some sort. Furthermore, three of us are Jews. Woody Allen, Joseph Shabbat and myself, which renders this situation even stranger.
Jacques
I would consider Moix a honorary Jew. More than that. He’s more Jewish than anyone of us. (The camera quickly zooms on Moix smiling.) I also think that the Western Wall, whether real or not, and four Jews may point to something significant.
Hitchens
(The camera slowly zooms on Hitchens, whispering audibly with a slight laugh.) I’m also a Jew by my mother, but an uncircumcised one.
Carli
Did you hear that?
Maria
(Frightened) Yes. (Jacques tries to hold her in his arms but she politely refuses.)
Jacques
(Smiles and looks at Dickinson)
“I heard a fly buzz when I died
The Stillness in the room
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm”
Dickinson
You weren’t just saying that you loved me.
Jacques
I liked your poetry when I studied it at the university but fell in love with you when I saw a movie about your life.
Dickinson
They have made a movie about me?
Jacques
Several movies with great actresses who really played you so well now that I see you in front of me, and numerous books have been written about you. I’m sure that the rest of us here also love your poetry. (Save Maria, they all nod their heads in agreement.)
Before we continue, please allow me to say a few words that I’ve been feeling for most of my life. (Turning to Chaplin) You, dear Sir, dear Charlie Chaplin, are one of the few individuals who have brought immeasurable joy to my life via your fabulous films, both silent and sound movies, much sorrow too within that joy. I’m sure that most of us here will agree that you are and will always be the greatest movie director, writer, actor and musician of all time. I adore all your movies. (Emotionally) My heart melts when I watch you, especially as the Tramp, with the apparel that you’re wearing right now. I love you with all my heart. (The camera zooms on Chaplin smiling.)
Chaplin
Thank you for your kind words!
Jacques
(Slowly turning to Woody.) You, dear Woody Allen, are the second greatest movie director, writer and actor of all time. Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Everyone Says I Love You, Anything Else, Midnight in Paris, and so many others are obviously some of my favourite movies of all time.
Woody
Did you like Shadows and Fog?
Jacques
Surely! I even read your play, Death, a few years earlier, on which it was based.
Woody
(Smiling) Can you believe this guy?
Jacques
(Turning to Nietzsche.) You, dear Friedrich Nietzsche, are the greatest philosopher of all time. The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and all others are some of the most thought-provoking books of all time.
Nietzsche
Thank you!
Jacques
I gather that like Ms. Dickinson you are also unaware of anything that transpired in the world following your passing.
Nietzsche
Yes.
Jacques
It pains me to tell you that some of your writings were misused by the Nazis, your fellow countrymen and countrywomen, to help devise and execute the greatest crime of all time, not necessarily in terms of the total number of dead, but in the sheer cruelty and mindset of operating unrelentingly to annihilate all the Jews in Europe and eventually the rest of the world. Oh, they also murdered numerous political prisoners, homosexuals, and mentally handicapped individuals, as well as countless Gypsies, but they employed singular measures for the Jews, hoarding them throughout most of Europe and carting them in freight trains to many concentrations camps. The lucky ones died on the way from thirst and or the cold, or were massacred in the streets, or amassed and executed in forests. The unlucky ones, millions of them, reached the death camps to be gassed and cremated as if they had never existed. The Nazis obliterated six million Jews during a world war that sported over forty million dead.
Dickinson
(Crying out) Oh my God!
Jacques
There is no God (Looking at Nietzsche), and you were one of the first philosophers to proclaim it so eloquently.
Hitchens
(The camera zooms on Hitchens who speaks to the audience.) I debated with so many faith-based fools on the matter. I am God and I assure you that there is no God.
Nietzsche
(In physical pain) I am so very sorry for the absolute madness of my people.
Jacques
I refuse to even pronounce the name of your country and the so-called continent in which it operated, and almost anything else in the 20th century that has to do with it. Your sister collaborated wholeheartedly with the Nazis, which is a telling example of how one’s family can be worse than or as bad as one’s foulest foes. The whole story is so much worse but I’ll leave it at that.
(Turning to Onfray.) You, cher (Subtitles: dear) Michel Onfray, are one of the greatest contemporary philosophers and surely the most prolific. L’Ordre Libertaire: La Vie Philosophique D’Albert Camus (Subtitles: The Libertarian Order: The Philosophical Life of Albert Camus), Un requiem athée (Subtitles: An Atheist Requiem), Thinking Islam (He can’t pronounce anything else in French), Cosmos, Decadence. I’m not sure what’s going on but I can’t speak French any longer. I can think in French but I can’t voice it.
Onfray
Ce n’est pas vrai (Subtitles: This is not true). Mais c’est quoi ce (Subtitles: But what is this) mess? I too can’t speak French any longer. It’s my language. What’s going on?
Roth
I think that we may be limited in other languages. I can think in several languages that I did not know before and I guess that I can speak them too.
Woody
Kan jag tala svenska? (Subtitles: Can I speak Swedish?) Yes! (Laughing) I can speak Swedish.
Jacques
(Turning to Moix.) You, very dear, Yann Moix, can surely guess how I feel about you. You’re a revelation, a true wonder in this cockamamie world. I love you more than a brother whom I essentially never had. The amalgamation of suffering and pleasure involved in reading your books was unparalleled for me. I salute you for writing and speaking with all your organs.
Moix
(Smiling) Merci. (Subtitles: Thanks.)
Jacques
(Turning to Roth.) You, dear, so dear Philip Roth, have brought me immense pleasure. I’ve read all your books, both fiction and nonfiction. You are definitely my favourite author and one of the greatest writers of all time. You should have been the only author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature twice, and yet, they were too corrupt to even offer it to you once.
Roth
Thank you!
Jacques
(Turning to both Carli and Maria.) Finally, both of you, Carli Wanks and Maria Aizawa, have brought me another kind of pleasure (Smiling) in the past few years. I thank you for all the positions, close-ups and encouragements.
Carli
You’re welcome, sweetie!
Maria
(Slightly bowing) Dōitashimashite (Subtitles: You’re welcome).
Jacques
How I wish a few more individuals whom I love and will love forever were present with us as well. The considerable Christopher Hitchens. Possibly the wittiest individual who had ever lived. Hitchslapping, his ability to utterly obliterate an opponent’s entire argument in one or a few concise statements, orally or in writing, is still celebrated.
Hitchens
(The camera quickly zooms on a smiling Hitchens who speaks to the audience) What a nice assassin!
Jacques
(Continues.) The stirring Sigmund Freud. I know that you may have proved him a liar, Onfray, and a few others before you, but I fell in love more with his literature than his psychoanalysis, though some of his intuitions in the latter surely remain remarkable.
The poignant Primo Levi. A concentration camp survivor, chemist and heart-wrenching and -warming writer. His novel, If This Is a Man, could have been titled This Is a Man, since he and I, and everyone truly aware for that matter, know that this is indeed a man whether one construes it as referring to all the atrocities that men are capable of committing, or simply to all the atrocities that one man, himself, can endure.
The jaunty Jacques Brel. The greatest heartfelt singer and songwriter of the French language. Of course, I can’t recite any lines from his songs, though I can do it in my mind, but at least Moix and Onfray can attest to his greatness. (The camera zooms on their faces nodding in agreement.)
The hereditary Herbert Pagani. A wide-ranging artist. A painter, sculptor, poet, singer, songwriter and so much more. His Plea for My Land; I can’t pronounce it in French but I can suddenly pronounce it in Italian, his first language, Appello per la mia terra (Subtitles: Plea for My Land) is monumental to say the least. And so many other great songs both in French and Italian.
The loving and lovely Leah, my dear wife, the love of my life. (Pensive) And so many other individuals.
Roth
I understand what you mean. I would also have loved to meet a number of individuals, but the ones present here are extraordinary as well. I was also thinking that facing this Western Wall, the ten of us make a minyan, a quorum of ten men, albeit an unorthodox one given the three women and seven gentiles.
Jacques
Six gentiles. Moix is a Jew. (The camera quickly zooms on Moix, smiling again.)
Roth
I stand corrected. Maybe this is only one of many minyans, or whatever the number of individuals brought together for some purpose.
Jacques
Since I knew of all of you and love you all, we assumed that all of you are here because of me. But this premise may be wrong, after all.
Nietzsche
From all that I heard so far, it seems to be the only plausible hypothesis.
Jacques
Yes. And if it is so, why the nine of you and not a different grouping? There are two philosophers, two writers, two movie directors-writers-actors-musicians, two actresses, one poet and one assassin. Cinema must rule in my life (Laughing). The only odd two are the poet and the assassin.
Roth
Maybe not. Isn’t a poet an assassin of some sort, combining specific words to shatter readers with their power.
“Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality”
Dickinson
You too?
Roth
We are all in your debt.
Dickinson
You are too kind.
Jacques
What can it mean, then? There are many assassins out there, deceased and living, but luckily none that I love, so I got Ms. Dickinson instead. Someone must still love me. (He kisses Dickinson’s hand.)
Carli
(Smiling) Smooth!
Jacques
It’s not your hand that I’d kiss.
Carli
(Laughing) Very smooth. I can probably guess which part.
Jacques
I doubt it.
Carli
Really?
Jacques
Yes.
Carli
(Whispering) One of my breasts.
Jacques
No.
Carli
(Laughing and whispering) My pussy.
Jacques
No.
Carli
Not my ass? Oops! (Laughing) I said it out loud.
Jacques
No.
Carli
What, then?
Jacques
Your mouth.
Carli
(Blushing slightly) Too smooth.
Jacques
(Looking at Maria) I don’t think that you like me.
Maria
I was a bit afraid when you told us that you were an assassin, but I’m not any longer.
Jacques
I’m glad because I would easily give my life for you, Ms. Wanks, Ms. Dickinson, Charlie Chaplin, Nietzsche, and Moix, and maybe (Smiling) Onfray. The rest of you, dear Allen and Roth, are in your 80s. Were you younger in this wonderland, I would have given my life for you too (Smiling). There is one exception, however. I would have given my life for Charlie Chaplin at any age. (The camera quickly zooms on Chaplin’s smiling face.)
Carli
My real name is Marsha Tilleland.
Jacques
What a sweet name! Yet, Carli Tillelland gives the tongue an extra fourth L movement.
Carli
So smooth. You can kiss me if you want.
Jacques
(Holds her in his arms and kisses her somewhat passionately.) I must have died and gone to some kind of heaven. Maybe that’s it. We’re is some paradise.
Carli
I felt something too. Maybe we are.
Jacques
You’re too kind.
Carli
I can be even kinder.
Jacques
(Smiling) Yes you can.
Carli
Do you want me to?
Jacques
If you remember me after we get out of here.
Carli
Don’t worry! I’ll remember you.
Jacques
(Smiling) Please, do!
Woody
Get a room already!
Roth
I also noticed that I, and therefore we, can’t walk very far. (He had been walking in all three directions.)
Onfray
I noticed it too. (He also had been walking in all three directions.) What a mess!
Nietzsche
I don’t see anything else near us, not even a chair, but I don’t feel tired. Do any of you?
Jacques
No! Nor thirsty or hungry.
Moix
C’est vrai, ça (Subtitles: That’s true).
Maria
I feel a little scared.
Moix
Kowagatte wa ikenai (Subtitles: Don’t be scared).
Maria
Arigatōgozaimashita (Subtitles: Thank you).
Woody
(Looking at Moix) You, now? (Looking at Jacques) Don’t you like a few more porn stars?
Jacques
More than a few, I must confess. But Carli; Marsha, and Maria are my favourites.
Hitchens
(Speaking to the audience) I almost included a third porn star instead of Dickinson.
Jacques
I may know of all of you, but all of you also know of Nietzsche. (Addressing Nietzsche) “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
Nietzsche
What my countrymen and countrywomen committed did not stop you from appreciating my work?
Jacques
No! You appeared decades before them, you weren’t, borrowing Philip Roth’s coining, a Judeopath, you actually respected Jews, and your writings were so wise, so mind-opening.
Nietzsche
Thank you!
Jacques
There’s no need to thank me or anyone else for that matter. We should be thanking you. Thank you, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche!
Carli
The smoothest!
Jacques
(Smiling) I’m not sure that you can deem it smooth when it’s genuine.
Carli
What a sweetie!
Woody
(Jokily) We can all turn around and face the wall while you two do something together.
Carli
(Looking smilingly at Jacques) I’m game if you are.
Jacques
Now I know for sure that we’re in some paradise. Marsha!
Carli
Yes!
Jacques
I feel that I won’t be respectful toward them if I accept your offer. I can feel my heart beating like a drum. But I’ll take a rain check. Please!
Carli
You got it, sweetie.
Jacques
(Looking at Nietzsche) I was always fascinated by your concept of eternal recurrence. The multiverse theory may be a different more plausible version of it. An infinite number of universes very similar to the one we live in but with some minute difference in each case. In another universe, Mozart and Beethoven could be here instead of Marsha and Maria. (Smiling) Probably not Marsha and Maria.
Carli
A smoothie!
Jacques
What flavour?
Carli
Banana!
Jacques
Of course! (Whispers in one of her ears) I would have preferred Marsha. It must be the best flavour.
Carli
(Laughing) It’s pretty good. I’ve tasted it.
Jacques
I know. I watched you do it many times.
Carli
I bet you did.
Jacques
Is it something more for me to look forward to?
Carli
Without a doubt.
Hitchens
(Speaking to the audience) They would all be flabbergasted if they knew that I produce these so-called minyan gatherings all the time. Ten is, after all, the greatest number, (Smiling) after one, of course. Why these gatherings? you may ask. Remember that “It is absurd, even for believers, to imagine that God should owe them an explanation.”
Jacques
(Looking back at Nietzsche) Yet, it is your concept that remains the most intriguing to me. Reliving the same life over and over eternally. I often wondered if déjà vus were some aftertastes of our previous lives. I happen to have many déjà vus relating to places and movie scenes. I’ve been in many places and watched myriad movies, which would be the simplest explanation for my déjà vus. But I still prefer your idea. Perhaps because it’s more literary than reality. After all, “Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth.”
Nietzsche
Yes, but in light of a conceivable multiverse and surely other findings and theories spanning over a century since my demise, my idea has been carried away like a grain of sand blown in the wind.
Onfray
You are being too harsh. Jacques, Joseph? is right. Your idea of eternal recurrence is more appealing.
Moix
I think so too.
Chaplin
Me too.
Woody
Life and death over and over again for everyone who had ever lived and died with no way to know it. Sure! Nothing could be more fitting.
Dickinson
“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
Jacques
It’s beautiful too, and especially coming from you.
Dickinson
(Smiling) Thank you!
Roth
“All that we don’t know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.”
Jacques
I love you too, Philip Roth. I don’t think that I felt it as much before.
Roth
(Smiling) You may have implied it.
Jacques
I said earlier that I would easily give my life for all of you except Woody Allen and you because you were in your 80s. I’m sorry and I take it back. I would easily give my life for both of you too.
Woody
Who’s talking here, Jacques or Joseph?
Jacques
Both.
Woody
Can I call you, JJ?
Jacques
You can call me whatever you like (Whispering smilingly in one of his ears) except for Jewie Joe.
Woody
But it may be the title of an upcoming movie.
Jacques
You don’t have a note in your movie-title drawer with my name on it, so I doubt it very much.
Woody
Can you believe this Joseph?
Jacques
I love you too.
Woody
I’m touched.
Carli
I know that you love me.
Jacques
Indubitably.
Carli
It’s true. We are here for you.
Jacques
It appears so.
Moix
It’s becoming evident. You seem to be mostly in love with the past, but then, most of us are.
Jacques
I’m mostly in love with the past because I’ve practically nothing in the present and I’m completely unaware of anything in the future. My déjà vus can obviously never foretell the future. They can only plug the past.
Carli
You have me, sweetie.
Jacques
You know what I mean.
Carli
You have the rest of us too. Charlie Chaplin! (Chaplin smiles, nodding in agreement). Woody Allen!
Woody
(Looks at the sky) Sure!
Carli
Philip Roth!
Roth
(Smiling) Yes!
Carli
Moix?
Moix
Yes!
Carli
Emily Dickinson!
Dickinson
Certainly!
Carli
Nietzsche!
Nietzsche
Yes!
Carli
Onfree?
Onfray
Onfray! Auðvitað! Of course, in Icelandic; a language that I couldn’t speak before.
Carli
Sorry. Onfray. And Maria!
Maria
(Bowing slightly) Hai (Subtitles: Yes).
Jacques
Thank you, Marsha! Thank you, all! (Reflectively) I was thinking that we assumed that Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin came back to life, but what if instead, the rest of us are also dead?
Nietzsche
An interesting thought but again, all this only relates to individuals that you like.
Jacques
Love!
Nietzsche
Yes, love!
Jacques
We can apply everything that has been said up to now as much to us being dead as to us being alive.
Nietzsche
True!
Carli
I don’t know about some of it.
Jacques
(Smiling) True! The tactile instances would be stranger in this context.
Roth
It is still an idea to be considered.
Onfray
Mathematically, we have seven living versus three deceased, so there may be a greater chance that we are all alive.
Moix
I’m surprised that I was thinking the same thing given that I tend to lean, head first (Smiling) towards the lugubrious.
Woody
We’re dead? I’m dead? Possibly. “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
Jacques
That’s one of your famous sayings. You kill me (Smiling), except that we may be dead already.
Maria
That’s not funny. I’m afraid of death.
Carli
Honey! Is there anything you’re not afraid of?
Jacques
(Smiling) Sex.
Maria
(Smiling) Hai (Subtitles: Yes).
Carli
Nobody’s afraid of sex, sweetie.
Jacques
(Smiling) You’ll be surprised, Marsha. There’s always someone who’s afraid of something, including sex. It’s called erotophobia.
Carli
Are you serious?
Jacques
I wouldn’t lie to you.
Carli
(Smiling) Let’s hope we’re not dead because I doubt that dead people have sex whether they fear it or not.
Jacques
With you, even dead I’ll rise to the occasion.
Carli
(Laughing) I believe you, sweetie.
Woody
Come on! You two can go to that corner and the rest of us can watch from that corner.
Jacques
(Smiling) Come on! I’m not a porn star. And in front of the Western Wall? Even as an atheist I couldn’t do it.
Woody
What if it’s now or never?
Jacques
Never, then, and especially if we’re dead.
Carli
Jacques? Joseph? Which name do you prefer?
Jacques
You can call me whatever you want. You’ve been calling me, sweetie from the start.
Carli
Sweetie, you are! Sweetie is right, and I gave you a rain check.
Woody
What a lucky guy!
Jacques
I’m not so sure about that. I’ve been somewhat lucky. I’m lucky right now with all of you beside me. But I think that my luck’s run out.
Carli
Don’t say that!
Jacques
It’s a serious situation, dear Marsha. (Looking at Chaplin) We need the Tramp to give us hope.
Chaplin
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”
Jacques
(Smiling) In most cases, yes!
Chaplin
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
Jacques
(Still smiling) Yes, except that laughter can never have the same intensity ever again upon perceiving the extreme severity that cruelty can reach.
Chaplin
I know, Sweetie (Everyone laughs). I wasn’t looking for a laugh. Didn’t you agree to be called Sweetie?
Jacques
I did.
Chaplin
My depiction of the monsters in the Great Dictator pale in comparison to the real monsters that took over Europe. I couldn’t even imagine that their monstrosity could attain such a level when I was making the movie. I agree that laughter could never be the same after such horrors.
Jacques
I’m glad that you couldn’t imagine it. We wouldn’t have had this masterpiece if you could or knew what was going to happen. Except for the monsters and their minions, I don’t think that anyone could have known.
Chaplin
It appears so.
Jacques
Your movies after the Great Dictator, after the war, were different but masterpieces as well.
Chaplin
I am afraid that I am not aware of anything after 1945.
Jacques
Yes. You are in your 50s? here.
Chaplin
56.
Jacques
I think that it’s safe to tell you that you made four movies after the Great Dictator. Monsieur Verdoux in 1947, a masterpiece in so many ways about a man who loses his job in the 1929 crash and supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money. Limelight in 1952, a masterpiece of the heart, with your best music, about a has-been comedian and a suicidal ballet dancer who share their lives to find meaning and hope. A King in New York in 1957, a masterpiece of the mind about a deposed European monarch who finds shelter in New York where he becomes somewhat of a celebrity. And A Countess from Hong Kong in 1967, about an ambassador returning to America who meets a Russian countess who’s hiding in his cabin. You weren’t an actor in this film, which may have been the reason why it was your least critically acclaimed movie even though Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren played the main roles.
Chaplin
It is a bit startling to learn things about my future self, especially to find out that I will be alive and making movies at least until age 78.
Jacques
You’ll be alive beyond that age and that’s all I’ll add if you don’t mind.
Chaplin
It’s more than enough. Thank you for your kind words!
Jacques
Thank you for all the laughter and for all the sorrow! In my case, I may have had more tears than laughs watching your movies because your comedies always had both misery and happiness, both in the foreground and background, which was also what made you unique and the best among your contemporaries and beyond, and your music was always perfectly scored.
Chaplin
Thank you!
Jacques
No need, dear Sir! No need at all!
Carli
When you say that you love someone, you really love him or her.
Jacques
Yes, and I love you too.
Carli
I know, Sweetie, but not in the same way.
Jacques
I think that my love for you may be the greatest given that it encompasses all of you from head to toes.
Carli
(Playfully) Oh, Sweetie! Are you trying to capture my heart too?
Jacques
It’s the best combination, heart and mind.
Carli
What about Maria?
Jacques
What about her?
Carli
Do you love her too in the same way?
Jacques
No!
Carli
That’s it?
Jacques
No, my love!
Carli
(Happily) Sweetie!
Jacques
Marsha, baby!
Woody
Come on! You can go to that corner and the rest of us can talk at that corner.
Jacques
Thanks, but no! We have to get out of here first, though I admit that I’m not eager to lose sight of all of you, especially those who are no longer with us. Perhaps, it’s for them that we are here; for dazzling Dickinson, intense Nietzsche, and enchanting Chaplin; to let them know what had happened in the world since their passing, though they had never passed for many of us.
Roth
You may have a good point. We may be here because of you but for them.
Onfray
A very interesting idea, indeed!
Moix
Yes, but what is the point of all this?
Hitchens
(Speaking to the audience a bit angrily) What is the point? What is the point of anything? And to know that most of you still believe in me? God, not Hitchens! Though I know that some of you believe in Hitchens, which to think of it, is much more defensible than believing in me. (Disgusted) What did I do to merit any belief? Any faith? You invented everything about me. You even gave me a son. What were you thinking? Clearly, you were not thinking at all, which happens too frequently. Most of them here do not believe in me for many valid reasons. Yet, one reason would have been sufficient, and it need not even have to be scientific.
But you are God, so how can you say that there is no God? you may reason. But here lies the hitch — pun intended. Your definition of God is unavoidably flawed. There is no such being or thing that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Your God belongs to fiction, not reality. I am what I am, but I am not all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. That is all that I will say about myself.
But why did you refer to yourself as God at the beginning? you may ask. It was the simplest way to waive some of your misgivings and allow the story to evolve. I do like good stories, and every story has the potential to be a good one.
Nietzsche
(Looking at Moix) I was thinking about, as you said, the point of all this. Most of the comments, if not all, were very instructive, but Onfray’s initial comment about it, that the rest of us being here has to do with Sweetie, seems to be the most plausible. Sweetie is the key.
Jacques
It’s funny to be called Sweetie by you, dear Nietzsche. It seems to only fit Marsha’s lips, and perhaps Chaplin’s, but it’s fine. Sweetie Shabbat. It has a nice ring to it.
Carli
It does.
Jacques
Sweetie Messier sounds even better.
Carli
(Laughing) Yes, it does.
Moix
Maybe something specific must be said by one of us to bring this minyan to an end.
Jacques
I don’t want it to end, and I’m sure that Ms. Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin are also hoping that it could last much longer.
Dickinson
Yes!
Nietzsche
Yes!
Chaplin
Yes!
Moix
(Smiling) We must stop talking, then, at least about how to stop this.
Carli
What do you think that Sweetie and I have been doing?
Moix
Touché! I wonder if it also counts as a French word.
Onfray
Did you think it in French or English when you said it?
Moix
English!
Onfray
Then I don’t think that it counts, but again, who knows.
Woody
We can easily test it. I never spoke in French since we’ve met, so we can count the words until I can’t pronounce anything in French any longer.
Roth
Great idea!
Woody
Who’s counting?
Roth
I will.
Woody
Here we go. Je n’ai pas peur de la mort; je ne veux juste pas (Subtitles: I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to) be there when it happens. Oh my God!
Roth
Twelve words!
Onfray
Yes, twelve words! We have to test it in another language.
Woody
Let’s see. Hebrew! Ready?
Roth
Yes.
Onfray
Yes.
Woody
Ani lo mefahed mimavet; ani pashout lo rotse lihiyot shum ke’she’ze kore (Subtitles: I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens).
Roth
(Laughing) Twelve words.
Onfray
(Also laughing) Yes, exactly twelve words. (Everyone is laughing.)
Woody
Hebrew is concise. I can’t pronounce one more word in Hebrew. Let’s try Spanish, of course! Ready?
Roth
Yes.
Onfray
Yes.
Woody
No le tengo miedo a la muerte; Simplemente no quiero estar allí (Subtitles: I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there) when it happens.
Roth
Twelve words!
Onfray
Yes! Twelve words! So, we can only speak up to twelve words in other languages.
Roth
The Western Wall. Four Jews out of ten. Twelve words in other languages. This strange situation is becoming even stranger.
Onfray
(Looking at Jacques) What is your favourite language?
Jacques
Even though French is my first language, English is my favourite. So is that why English is the main language that we can speak?
Onfray
I think so, which shows yet again that we are here because of you.
Jacques
How I wish that Leah was here! Whoever is responsible for this may be unkind, after all, granting me the impossible with Ms. Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin, and the improbable with the rest of you, but denying me the love of my life. Life is a bitch and a bastard.
Onfray
Yes, it’s the human condition.
Jacques
(Looking at Moix) You are probably the only one left who would know the name of a song and could still pronounce it in French. Woody Allen too, since it appeared in one of his movies.
Moix
Which song?
Jacques
Charles Trenet’s, What is left of our loves?
Moix
Que reste-t-il de nos amours ?
Jacques
Yes! Yes! So, are you what is left of my loves? (Looking at each one of them for a few seconds as he pronounces their name) Ms. Emily Dickinson! Friedrich Nietzsche! Charlie Chaplin! Woody Allen! Philip Roth! Yann Moix! Michel Onfray! Maria Aizawa! Marsha Tilleland! Carli Tilleland!
Carli
Yes, Sweetie!
Jacques
I have other loves but you are the second greatest minyan minus one of my loves.
Hitchens
(Appearing to everyone) Your second greatest minyan of your loves if you count me in.
Jacques
Oh my God! Christopher Hitchens!
Hitchens
Right on both accounts, my dear boy! It is a good day. Is it not?
Jacques
I love you so much. Now I know that I’m probably dreaming the greatest dream that has ever been dreamed.
Hitchens
You are not dreaming, Joseph Shabbat. What a quaint name! Or should I call you Sweetie as well?
Jacques
You can call me whatever your great mind and heart desire.
Hitchens
I’ll call you Joseph Shabbat.
Jacques
Are you responsible for this?
Hitchens
Yes!
Jacques
But even if you are, you can’t be God since there’s no such being.
Hitchens
Right, you are, my dear boy. But referring to me as God is the closest you will get to knowing who I am.
Jacques
Can I call you Christopher Hitchens or the Hitch, then?
Hitchens
Yes, you can.
Jacques
Dear Hitch! (Pauses for a few seconds.)
Hitchens
Yes!
Jacques
Is all this on my account?
Hitchens
No!
Jacques
Whose, then?
Hitchens
(Looking at everyone) It is for you to find out.
Nietzsche
It’s easy, now. But is this over if I reveal on whose account it is?
Hitchens
Here, yes, but you will live again in other spaces.
Nietzsche
(Looking at Jacques) Do you want me to reveal on whose account it is?
Jacques
Not yet! Don’t we have other questions? For one, how were Emily Dickinson, Charlie Chaplin, and you brought back to life?
Hitchens
That is a question that I will not answer.
Jacques
It’s easy for me too, then. I also know on whose account we’re here.
Hitchens
Does anyone else know?
Onfray
I do.
Moix
Me too.
Roth
I do too.
Woody
It’s obvious.
Chaplin
I think that I do.
Dickinson
I think so too.
Carli
Is this over if we all know?
Hitchens
Only if one of you articulates on whose account you are all here.
Carli
Then I think that I also know.
Maria
I am not sure that I know.
Woody
Dear God! (Pauses for a few seconds.)
Hitchens
(Laughing) Yes!
Woody
What’s the twelve-word rule about?
Hitchens
Mostly to render the situation somewhat funnier.
Onfray
Are we here for your amusement?
Hitchens
Not mine, theirs!
Onfray
Whose?
Hitchens
The audience.
Woody
(Laughing uncontrollably) Where is the audience?
Hitchens
Anywhere!
Roth
How long can this go on for?
Hitchens
As long as none of you articulates on whose account you are here, so as long as you want it to.
Roth
Is there a reason for the Western Wall?
Hitchens
It usually makes the conversation more interesting when there is at least one Jew in the tensome or minyan as you called it, and here we have three or four, or five if you count me too.
Roth
Why a minyan, initially?
Hitchens
Since ten is the greatest number after two and one.
Dickinson
“Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.”
Hitchens
As true as this.
Jacques
Do we remember this after it’s done?
Hitchens
Great question! No!
Jacques
No? So, the audience is the entire point. We don’t get anything out of this after it’s done?
Carli
I won’t remember Sweetie when this is over?
Hitchens
No and no!
Woody
I told you two to get it going. It’s not too late.
Jacques
So, this is like life. There’s nothing after it’s done.
Hitchens
Yes!
Jacques
Do you ever make an exception?
Hitchens
No!
Jacques
Well, this time you must make one.
Hitchens
Must I?
Jacques
Everyone here is going to join me and say yes. Ready? (They all, including Hitchens, say) Yes!
Hitchens
(Laughing) I doubt it, but who knows?
Jacques
I know. We know. We simply won’t say on whose account we’re here.
Hitchens
You will tire eventually and one of you will utter it.
Jacques
We won’t because I love every one of them and would give my life for them, including you.
Hitchens
I am touched.
Jacques
I also suspect that like Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin, we are copies of the originals, who are continuing to live their lives in the real world. Are you all with me? (They all, including Hitchens, say) Yes!
Hitchens
(Smiling) It is an interesting but erroneous theory.
Jacques
You won’t tell us the truth, so theories are what we can consider.
Hitchens
Indeed! It is part of it.
Jacques
Of what?
Hitchens
Of this.
Jacques
So, are you always what is left of our loves?
Hitchens
Rarely, and I am seldom loved.
Jacques
Well, I love you.
Hitchens
The one whom I represent or the one whom I am?
Jacques
Both! The one whom you are gave me the fortune to meet the one whom you represent and nine others whom I love as well. You gave me a minyan of loves. I’m the most fortunate here. Thank you for this! Thank you for giving me hope!
Hitchens
You are welcome, my dear boy!
Jacques
This could be heaven, after all. Another theory, of course. We don’t seem to tire. We don’t seem to require nourishment. I’m only surrounded by individuals whom I love. I, we, could stay here forever and just talk about anything that comes to mind.
Woody
What about sex?
Jacques
(Smiling) We can talk about it too.
Woody
(Laughing) You know what I mean.
Jacques
Yes! But I don’t see myself having sex against that wall and in front of you and the audience.
Woody
Ask God/Hitchens for a canopy bed with opaque curtains! The rest of us could talk at some corner at the edge of this heaven.
Carli
What a great idea!
Moix
(Looking smilingly at Maria and then at Jacques) Ask him for two!
Dickinson
(Diffidently) Could I get one too?
Woody
Who’s got your fancy, Ms. Dickinson?
Dickinson
(Still diffident but smiling) Just in case I do.
Woody
“Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.”
Dickinson
(Laughing) I agree.
Hitchens
No can do.
Jacques
I wonder if we need to breathe. (He holds his breath for about a minute.)
Onfray
It would be unbearable if we didn’t.
Roth
I agree.
Jacques
Apparently not! We can’t be alive, then.
Onfray
I’ll hold my breath too. (He holds his breath for about a minute.)
Roth
We may be alive but in a different way.
Onfray
Yes, we don’t need to breathe.
Carli
Oh my God!
Hitchens
(Smiling) Yes?
Carli
(Troubled) Sweetie, please hold me!
Jacques
(Embraces Carli for about 20 seconds, kisses her, and then puts his right arm around her waist.)
Moix
(Looks at Maria and then embraces her for about 30 seconds, and then holds her left hand.)
Dickinson
Can someone hold me too?
Nietzsche
(Looks at Dickinson and then embraces her for about 20 seconds.) May I stand by you from now on?
Dickinson
Please, do! (Nietzsche stands next to her smiling.)
Woody
(Looking at Hitchens) We need more women, or you could have included a few homosexuals. I’m sure that (Looking at Jacques) he loves several gays. Do you?
Jacques
Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing, Freddie Mercury, Stephen Fry come to mind, though I think that pairing us wasn’t a major reason for this gathering.
Woody
Probably not, but you forget that there’s an audience, and the audience always likes some love and sex in the show.
Chaplin
(Nodding) Yes!
Jacques
(Smiling) There is some love, but sex doesn’t seem to be feasible. (Kisses Carli keenly) Kissing, however, is the next best thing.
Carli
(Laughing) It is! (Kisses and embraces him.)
Moix
(Looking at Maria) May I kiss you?
Maria
(Smiling) Yes.
Moix
(He kisses her a few times, the last kiss lasting about 20 seconds, and then looks at Jacques and slightly bows.)
Jacques
(Laughing) Don’t bow to me! I love you. Bow to her!
Moix
I don’t think that she wants me to bow to her. (Looks at Maria) Do you?
Maria
Iie (Subtitles: No).
Nietzsche
(Looking at Dickinson) Do you want me to kiss you?
Dickinson
(Smiling) Hai (Subtitles: Yes).
Nietzsche
(He kisses her for about 10 seconds and then looks at Jacques and smiles.)
Woody
(Hugging Chaplin) You are one of my favourite moviemakers as well.
Chaplin
Thank you! From what Sweetie told us, I gather that you are one of the great ones too.
Woody
He exaggerates.
Jacques
No, I don’t! If it wasn’t for Charlie Chaplin, you would be the greatest.
Woody
Thanks, Sweetie! You are sweet.
Carli
Isn’t he? (Looking at Hitchens) Are our feelings genuine in this place?
Hitchens
They are, my dear girl!
Carli
I’m glad because (Looking at Jacques) I really like you, Sweetie.
Jacques
(Kisses her) I liked you before but now I feel that I love you.
Carli
Oh, Sweetie! I will love you too as long as we stay here given that we don’t remember anything after it’s over.
Jacques
No matter, Marsha! Let’s live for the moment! Perhaps it’s all that we could ever have.
Carli
(Kisses him and whispers in his right ear) I love you too!
Jacques
(Kisses her hands and then drops to his knees and kisses her feet.) There are many other parts that I want to kiss.
Carli
(Laughing) I bet that there are.
Woody
(Looking at Hitchens) Come on! Be a sport and give them a canopy bed with opaque curtains! I’m not asking you to undo the Holocaust.
Jacques
(Pleadingly) Dear God! Undo the Shoah if you can.
Hitchens
Such requests cannot be granted.
Roth
Do you grant any requests?
Hitchens
No!
Onfray
So, what is the point of your appearance?
Roth
Let me guess! For the audience.
Hitchens
Largely, yes!
Jacques
(Dispassionately, looking at everyone) What did you expect? Perfection? There’s no such being or thing. If “nature is an enormous restaurant” as Woody Allen’s main character, Boris, explains in Love and Death, then the universe is a colossal dicer. Stars die, galaxies disappear, and black holes ultimately disintegrate. And we, specks of dust, did we ever exist? Shakespeare was right. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Who wants to play? As if we had a choice. I look at each one of you and it breaks my broken heart. Some of you died and the rest of us are going to die. It’s been a blast. “So long, Marianne, it’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again,” sang the great Leonard Cohen. Well, it’s no laughing matter. After all, “We possess art lest we perish of the truth.” Yes, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant,” declared Ms. Dickinson. Yet, “Death is a false fear. When it is here, you won’t be. When it’s not, you are here,” argued Onfray. “It was astrophysics that I wanted to do. Calculate stars. Guess galaxies. Look over God,” mentioned Moix. But this is what you would have seen. A set up setting. “I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying,” said Chaplin. I tend to cry at home or in the car. “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre,” revealed Roth. And death is murder. But Hitchens may have said it best. “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” Thus, most individuals are like dogs, some individuals are like cats, and the rest are dead.
Carli
(Sadly) Sweetie!
Jacques
You are the sweet one, along with Ms. Dickinson and Ms. Aizawa, but I only yearn for you. Only women can make life bearable, both for men and other women. Can you imagine a world without women? It’s the foremost definition of loneliness.
Carli
(Kisses and embraces Jacques) My Sweetie!
Roth
(Looking at Hitchens) “Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.”
Hitchens
You just have to say the magic word, that is, on whose account you are here.
Roth
That’s not what I meant and you know it.
Hitchens
I do, dear boy.
Jacques
Who’s the audience? Other entities like you?
Hitchens
Such a question cannot be answered.
Onfray
At this point, you are basically useless.
Hitchens
The one whom I am or the one whom I represent?
Onfray
Both, unless the one whom you represent, Hitchens, can be himself unhindered.
Hitchens
He is, my dear boy!
Jacques
What’s your take on our situation, dear Hitchens?
Hitchens
(Smiling) “There is a sense in which all of us are prisoners of knowledge.”
Woody
I think that we passed that point.
Hitchens
Yes, my dear boy! The ball is in your court.
Jacques
I don’t think that you were Hitchens with the last sentence. Can we only have Hitchens from now on?
Hitchens
You forget that it is not Hitchens that brought you hither.
Jacques
You won’t or can’t say and do much of anything, so Hitchens would be far preferable. Too bad that he’s not separate from you because I would have loved to see you debate him, even that I know that he would have easily beaten you. I theorise that no one in the universe, or multiverse if it exists, could beat Hitchens, unless, of course, the subject was foreign to him, which he would have candidly admitted if it was the case. And two or more instances of Hitchens debating each other would always end in a draw.
Onfray
I heard of Hitchens but I never heard someone hold him in such high esteem.
Jacques
If it wasn’t for the existence of dear Charlie Chaplin, I would have easily declared Hitchens to be the most lovable individual of all time, for me at least.
Onfray
From what I heard you say about the individuals whom you love, Hitchens must be a great man.
Jacques
He’s so much more. I think that I would have gladly given up on the rest of my life for his return to the living, but as we all know too well, sadly, no one departed can be alive again, despite the apparent recurrence of Ms. Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin, as well as Hitchens through the outer guise of the originator of this oasis. I do welcome this magnificent manifestation but know that it’s not real, especially concerning at least the four of them.
Onfray
I think that we all agree that it’s a wonderful phenomenon.
Woody
Yet, we hope that it’s much more.
Jacques
It’s much more for Ms. Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin, and in a lesser degree for Hitchens, and it’s so much more for me. I couldn’t even have imagined such a singularity and I still can’t. I must be dreaming my greatest dream.
Hitchens
You are not dreaming.
Jacques
It’s the best theory that I have, and your claim that it’s false doesn’t disprove it.
Roth
I concur.
Woody
I also agree.
Onfray
Me too.
Moix
Me too.
Jacques
Please, abstain, Ms. Dickinson, Nietzsche, and Chaplin, especially if you also agree, since we don’t know if Hitchens/God appreciates impudence, which may cost you in future recurrences in other singularities.
Carli
I also agree, and Sweetie’s right.
Jacques
Thanks, Marsha! I love you. And as dear Nietzsche had said, “We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.”
Carli
I love you too.
Nietzsche
“I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word, and the third, a good deed.” I also agree and do not fear the consequences.
Hitchens
You are free to say whatever your minds think and hearts desire. There will be no consequences.
Jacques
Thank you! But can we trust you? Personally, I deeply appreciate this singular situation. Yet, should the others, especially those who were apparently replicated, feel the same? I prefer to raise the possibility, nothing more.
Hitchens
No worries, my dear boy! I highly regard freedom of thought whether it leads to notable events or dire occurrences.
Chaplin
(Looking at everyone) I think that we can trust him.
Dickinson
I think so too.
Jacques
I do too. How could I not? But we’re not in Kansas anymore, nor at the Western Wall. We don’t even know where we are.
Onfray
At least we know who we are.
Jacques
(Lightly) Sometimes I still wonder who I am. I look at my reflection in the mirror and don’t quite recognize myself. It’s as if I’m looking at a stranger who resembles me. What happened to you? I lament to myself. What has become of you? The passage from childhood to adulthood seems seamless, but then, one day, the transformation becomes too excessive. You said it too well in Everyman, dear Philip Roth. “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.” I’m in my 50s and I already feel that way. Life is not a bargain, as you all know, but since we’re here, some say, we might as well live it. Of course! What else is there to say? Hitchens had, has a unique take on this. Please, Hitchens! Tell us your issue with the party going on after you’re gone!
Hitchens
“The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on, only henceforth in my absence. It is the second of those thoughts, the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing. Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.”
Onfray
You are a great man.
Hitchens
Thank you, my dear boy!
Jacques
You are all great men and women.
Carli
Thanks, Sweetie! But I’m not a great woman.
Jacques
To me, you are, dear Marsha.
Woody
Come on already! Let’s walk as far as we can and let these two birds make an egg.
Carli
(Laughing) Please, do! And cover your eyes in case it’s not too far.
Jacques
(Laughing) But Hitchens will be watching.
Hitchens
(Smiling) I won’t.
Jacques
You won’t but your possessor will.
Hitchens
(Smiling) I will.
Jacques
(Kisses Carli for a few seconds) I’ll do whatever you wish.
Carli
We’ll go to the wall and (Addressing everyone else) the rest of you, please walk as far away as you can.
Moix
(Smiling) If it works, Maria and I may also want some privacy.
Maria
Hai (Subtitles: Yes).
Woody
We could soon call this the Western Wall Interchange, or the Wailing Wall Well. (Everyone laughs.)
Jacques
(He embraces Carli whose back is against the wall. Everyone save Hitchens is about 30 feet away talking to each other. Hitchens is a few feet away from Jacques and Carli.)
Oh, Marsha! You are even more beautiful and more feminine in my arms. Carli Tilleland! I would like my tongue to play the four L movements repeatedly on each one of your enticing nipples and endlessly in your exquisite …
Carli
Go ahead, Sweetie!
Jacques
(He lifts her dress, kisses her breasts and then swallows her nipples for about a minute each. She removes her panties. He takes it from her, smelling and breathing in the scent) It’s sweeter than I’ve imagined.
Carli
(Smiling) Oh, Sweetie! (He drops to his knees and buries his head between her thighs.)
Hitchens
(Only to the audience) I have been organising these shindigs for a long time and this is the first time that two of the protagonists are on the verge of having intercourse after a relatively short amount of time.
Carli
(As if in pain) Sweetie! You’re going to make me …
Jacques
Go ahead, baby! Go ahead! (Keeping his head between her thighs.)
Carli
And you’ll be in my mouth?
Jacques
No, baby! You’re too beautiful and it’s too messy. (Keeping his head between her thighs.)
Carli
Oh, Sweetie! It breaks my heart that we won’t know each other after this is over.
Jacques
What did you expect, sweet Marsha? Life doesn’t imitate art, after all. (Keeping his head between her thighs.)
Hitchens
(Addressing Jacques) You call this art?
Jacques
Aren’t you an artist? (Keeping his head between her thighs.)
Hitchens
I am more of a creator, a designer of social settings. You are right. I am an artist.
Jacques
Can you leave us be for a little longer? (Keeping his head between her thighs.)
Hitchens
Consider me gone. (Remains a few feet from them.)
Carli
I’m … I’m … (He keeps his head between her thighs until she moves it away and kisses him.) Sweetie! What about you?
Jacques
Are you kidding? I had so much pleasure. We could do it again later if we’re still here.
Carli
Any time, Sweetie! But next time, you have to … too.
Jacques
I did in my mind. Trust me! I’m used to … in my head.
Carli
But I want you to … for real.
Jacques
Had I been a woman, I would have too.
Carli
(Laughing) Yes, you would have. I would have made sure that you did. (Carli adjusts her clothing. Everyone approaches them.)
Jacques
You never know. If there’s a next time, the artist may turn me into a woman.
Hitchens
I do not change one’s sex.
Jacques
Even when you know that an individual would prefer it so?
Hitchens
Yes!
Jacques
You are missing many other scenarios by not doing so. I’m sure that the audience would love it.
Hitchens
I will take it under consideration.
Jacques
Will I get the chance to appear as a woman if you agree to do it?
Hitchens
I cannot say.
Moix
(Looks at Maria) It’s our turn.
Hitchens
The wall is long enough to accommodate more than one couple.
Moix
But you’re a voyeur, so I thought that you would prefer one couple at a time, unless you fancy orgies.
Hitchens
You can do whatever you like.
Moix
Really?
Hitchens
You know what I mean.
Moix
I don’t know what you mean.
Hitchens
Perhaps someone else can explain it to you.
Jacques
(Addressing Hitchens) He wrote a novel about orgies, the title of which I can’t pronounce because I used up my twelve words in French. The English translation would be Threesom without the e.
Moix
(Smiling) That’s a good one. The title is Partouz.
Jacques
Yes! Threesom, of course, doesn’t sound as exotic as the title in French.
Moix
(Smiling) True! (Looks at Maria) Are you ready?
Maria
(Smiling) Oui (Subtitles: Yes).
Moix
(Puts his right arm around Maria’s waist) Do you want them to walk away from our spot at the wall?
Maria
(Smiling) No. They can watch us if they want to.
Moix
(Addressing Hitchens) It looks like you won’t be the only visible onlooker this time around. I can’t use the French word any longer.
Hitchens
I am an observer, not a voyeur.
Moix
Are you kidding? (He takes Maria’s left hand and they walk to the wall followed only by Hitchens. Everyone else walks about 30 feet away.)
Woody
(Addressing everyone as they walk away) Are we sure of this? I once dreamed that I was kissing the Maria in The Sound of Music.
Jacques
Julie Andrews?
Woody
No! The Maria character!
Moix
(He embraces Maria whose back is against the wall. Hitchens is a few feet away.) Oh, Maria! Hermosa Maria (Subtitles: Beautiful Maria)! Jacques really knows his porn stars, his women. (She smiles) You are more beautiful than Carli. (She smiles again) Maria Aizawa! Even your last name is enticing.
Maria
As you know, it means some kind of swamp in Japanese.
Moix
To me, you are a marsh, a wetland, a bayou. (He unbuttons and lowers her jeans; smells, kisses and licks the part of the panties that covers her … for 20 seconds; lowers her panties; and then buries his head between her thighs.)
Maria
(Moaning) Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!
Moix
(Unbuttons her shirt and white bra) My God! They are so beautiful. (Buries his head between her breasts.)
Hitchens
(To the audience) They are!
Maria
(She unbuttons and drops his pants, lowers his shorts, drops to her knees and moves her head to and fro between his thighs.) Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!
Hitchens
(To the audience) What a …sucker!
Dickinson
(Looking at Nietzsche) Surely, we are not next.
Nietzsche
Surely.
Woody
“I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.”
Jacques
Doctor, doctor, what do you say, let’s put the ex back in sex!
Woody
Good one!
Jacques
I prefer Roth’s Portnoy’s proposition. “Doctor, doctor, what do you say, let’s put the id back in yid.”
Hitchens
It’s time to go.
Jacques
What do you mean?
Hitchens
Time’s up. It’s over. C’est fini. Owarimashita. Se acabó. Ze nigmar.
Jacques
Didn’t you say that one of us had to reveal on whose account this occurred for it to be over?
Hitchens
I exaggerated. I jested. I lied.
Jacques
I protest. We all protest. (All nod their heads in agreement.)
Carli
At least allow us not to forget. I want to remember Sweetie.
Hitchens
No can do.
Woody
I always presumed that “If it turned out that there was a God, the worst that you could say about him would be that basically he was an underachiever.”
Hitchens
I already told you that I wasn’t God.
Roth
We thought that you lied, that you jested, that you exaggerated.
Jacques
But I hoped that you would change your mind, knowing very well that if there was a God, it would be merciless or indifferent. You claim not to be God or a god, yet you act like one, like God if there had been such an entity.
Hitchens
(Addressing everyone) You have a few minutes to say your goodbyes.
Woody
How thoughtful of you!
Jacques
I need more than a few minutes. Please, at least give us more time.
Hitchens
You all have ten minutes and not one second more.
Roth
I didn’t expect more.
Jacques
(Hugs Chaplin) I will always love you. Farewell!
Chaplin
(Smiling) Thank you! Goodbye!
Jacques
(Kisses Dickinson’s right hand) There are couplets and stanzas from your poems that will always ring true through someone’s lips. Farewell!
Dickinson
(Smiling) Thank you, Sweetie, and farewell to you too!
Jacques
(Shakes Nietzsche’s right hand) If there is no eternal recurrence, at least your books are everlasting. Farewell!
Nietzsche
Thank you! Farewell!
Jacques
(Hugs Roth) You are one of life’s joys. I remember getting another writer’s novel signed by him at a reading and asking him if he had read your latest novel. He had not but he knew you quite well.
Roth
(Smiling) Poor writer! Thank you!
Jacques
(Hugs Woody) You are also one of life’s joys. I look forward to watching your new film every year.
Woody
(Smiling) I believe you.
Jacques
(Hugs Moix) You are a painful joy and one of my favourite Jews and my first revelation of 2017.
Moix
(Smiling) Thank you! I’m still working on being Jewish.
Jacques
(Shakes Onfray’s right hand) You were my second revelation of 2017. Please, continue writing your enlightening books and giving your educational lectures!
Onfray
(Smiling) Thank you! I will!
Jacques
(Shakes Maria’s right hand) You gave me much pleasure and were my second revelation of 2016.
Maria
(Bowing lightly and smiling) Thank you!
Jacques
(Hugs and kisses Carli) You gave me too much pleasure and were my first revelation of 2016 and I even had the luck of loving you, here, Carli Tilleland.
Carli
(Sadly) Oh, Sweetie! It’s not fair that it ends here and so soon.
Jacques
(Addressing Hitchens) Can I hug and kiss you?
Hitchens
No!
Jacques
(Smiling) I wouldn’t have asked if you were only Hitchens. I thank you for granting me some of the best moments of my life. I’m probably the one who felt the utmost wonder in meeting ten individuals that I admire and or love. Thank you for Charlie Chaplin! Thank you for Emily Dickinson! Thank you for Friedrich Nietzsche! Thank you for Philip Roth! Thank you for Woody Allen! Thank you for Yann Moix! Thank you for Michel Onfray! Thank you for Maria Aizawa! Thank you for Carli Tilleland! And thank you for Christopher Hitchens!
Hitchens
You are welcome, my dear boy!
(They all say goodbye to each other. Moix kisses Maria. Nietzsche kisses Dickinson’s hand. Roth kisses Dickinson’s hand. Woody shakes Chaplin’s right hand. Onfray shakes Nietzsche’s right hand. Hitchens disappears.)
The End