Story for performance #638
webcast from Sydney at 07:07PM, 20 Mar 07

This story doesn’t really have a beginning or perhaps I should say that it begins again and again. The first time I saw her might be a place to start.

She was about six feet tall, but some of that was the bright red four inch high heels that she wore. She was standing with a crowd of people at the Sotheby’s cocktail party, laughing and throwing her hair back over her shoulder. Needless to say, she was blond.

No, let’s begin again. Sit down and relax, have a cup of tea, let the warmth of the teacup soothe your hands. Now, are you ready? Because the fury has entered the story while you were thinking about tea. Did you miss the beginning?

It was the day I had changed my name. I was walking home from the courthouse, thinking that finally I had a name I could inhabit. I had an invitation to Sotheby’s but I didn’t intend to go there. I don’t know why I did.

Do you like your name? Has someone named you or did you choose your name yourself? Do you have more than one name? Or do you think of yourself as another, imagining that, if you are called Jane, someone might call you Maria, or Mark, or Mario, or you’ve changed your name so many times, you sometimes forget which name to call yourself.

I was born with a name that I should have been proud of. But you know how families are. I inherited a great deal of money, then lost it, stole a great deal more. When you change your name, you change your fate, or so it is said.

I think I’ll have a cup of tea myself.

I’d heard of the blond, by name only, but I’d never seen her in the flesh. I knew that I was somehow related to her or that I would be. It made me angry to see her so relaxed, drinking a martini in which someone had dropped a ripe lychee. Her lips were red too. Did I say that before?

It wasn’t retribution that I sought, not punishment either. What had been done to me had been done. I just wanted to live a normal life, without anyone knowing what had happened. I feared her for this reason. She knew me before or rather she knew of me and that was enough.

It wasn’t just a name change. I had changed my appearance over the years. New hair style and hair colour, glasses or contact lenses, plastic surgery to widen my jaw and reshape my mouth. I could see that it wasn’t going to work. This blond could see right through me or so I thought. I gave her a wide berth.

There’s no end to this story either. I could end it here at Sotheby’s, staring at the blond, trying to keep in the background, taking little bits of food from the trays that came by—a spicy shrimp, a miniature crab cake, sushi. Maybe I finished my drink.

I could tell you where I am now, but the water’s getting cold. Would you like a refill? I’ll put the pot on to boil. I’m having more myself.

I could be sitting here with you drinking tea. Yes, let’s end it there.

But you’re not satisfied. It hardly seems like a story. And who is this fury you ask?

Anger is a hard thing to bear. I don’t know which is worse, the anger I feel or the anger that others might feel against me. I’ve changed my name to avoid it all, the confrontations, the recriminations, the screaming, shouting, sobbing revenge. And if I won’t let it happen, if they never find me, if they don’t even know who I am, then it can never end, never…

And never begin.

She looked around with that inquiring look of hers. Curious, almost seductive. She enjoyed life, her life. I had to keep her away from mine. She might have seen me, lurking in the corner, watching her. She might have seen me, but she didn’t let on if she did. Very cool. I’d like to take her long luscious throat in my hands and strangle her. But I didn’t. Not now, not ever. I’m not the fury, that’s not my role.

I remembered everything, of course. My first life and all the lives after that. I remembered all my names. I was very creative about them. Each name signalled a new phase of my life or a new life altogether. I remember when I was a child, I’d name the days and the weeks, so that I could start again. I read somewhere that the Chinese Emperors did this, especially when things weren’t going well during their reign. The year would again become the first year and the reign name would change—from Prosperous Harvest to Conquering Fear, from Wealth Abundant to Humble Journey—or something like that.

I don’t claim to know anything about anything. A specific knowledge might give me away. Any clues to my identity must always be erased and sometimes I change my name without benefit of the courts. Which is why it was so strange and why I remember that day. I had gone to court to change my name, to make it official, and to leave a trail from the last name to the present name. This in itself was a change.

I suppose I could say I’ll continue my story tomorrow or the next day or the next. But I’ll be gone by then, out of town, and the blond will be gone too. There’ll be another beginning and another end, I can assure you of that. But it won’t be for me.

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by Ellen Zweig.