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LITUANUS
LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Volume 24, No.4 - Winter 1978
Editor of this issue: Kæstutis Girnius ISSN 0024-5089
Copyright © 1978 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc. |
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A WALK IN THE MOONLIGHT
(A tragicomic ritual by Anonymous)
Translated by Algirdas Landsbergis and Vytas Bakaitis
Editor's note: A Walk in the Moonlight was produced this spring at the Theatre for a New City. The director was Jonas Juraðas who was allowed to emigrate from Lithuania in 1974. The following excerpt is an introduction to the play written by Juraðas,
The manuscript of A Walk in the Moonlight found its intricate way to the West from Lithuania, Soviet Union, a couple of years ago. It was written in a slapdash manner and has no claim to completeness or perfection. However the manuscript has a peculiar atmosphere inherent in a totalitarian system.
The author, obviously a man of talent and courage, insists on remaining anonymous, because in his domain such qualities are rewarded by an involuntary stay in a "rest home", similar to the one he describes, or in a labor camp. His destiny is enmeshed in the play's web; he is one of its invisible characters.
The leitmotifs of the play are announced at the very beginning: the rise and decline of totalitarian Utopia, built upon the ruins of a destroyed society; the dying of the new religion that was to replace the repressed ancient faith; the massive unresolved guilt of Utopia's architects. The rest home is obviously a metaphor for an entire society and beyond it for hell itself. As if doomed to repeat into all eternity the crimes they committed, the old inmates lacerate one another's bodies and souls. Jagged fragments of slogans, shreds of pathetic speeches, shards of monstrous betrayals incessantly rain upon them. The youths, their faces pale in the moonlight, serve both as a counterpoint to, and an extension of, the painted elders' dance of death.
One will find in the play many affinities with numerous and almost unexplored anti-Utopian writings in East Europe. The play's quality of despair is tinged with Becketian flavor and resounds with echoes of Orwell's 1984.. Despite ,1 fervent prayer for God's mercy at the end of the play, the author sees no exit from Utopia's Endgame.
CAST
The Man, administrator of a special rest home
The Woman, a nurse
nmates of the rest home:
Old Man 1
Old Woman I
Old Man 2
Old Woman 2
Young Man J
Young Man 2
Young Man 3
The Caretaker
(Translators' Note: ANIMATE is the name of one character who does not appear.)
(In a brightly lit office, THE MAN, dressed in a business suit, is sorting the case histories of the rest-home inmates. He takes a count of the pending files in their sky-blue folders, enters this total in a ledger, and puts some of the folders on a shelf and others into a filing cabinet. (The doorbell chimes, and a wide glass door opens softly. THE CARETAKER, also wearing a suit, rolls in a stretcher bearing an old man's corpse. There is a small parcel placed by the corpse's bare feet.
(OLD MAN 2, who looks imposing, though drained of all color and not much different from the deceased, stares in through the glass door.
(THE MAN pries open the pupil of the deceased to make certain that he really is dead; then, from a folder on the shelf, takes a label, fills it out and hands it to THE CARETAKER. He, in turn, ties it to the dead man's toe, then proceeds to go through the belongings, sorting and stacking each item. There are personal documents, a couple of medals, a frayed notebook, a set of bright metal teeth, an inlaid knife, a silver watch, and a small cross.
(THE MAN makes another brief entry in the dead man's file, puts it into one of the sky-blue folders, ties the siring, and files it away behind the glass of a bookcase in a row of identical sky-blue folders.
(THE CARETAKER, meanwhile, picks up the watch, shakes it, winds it, and holds it up to his ear. The watch-chimes play a stately melody.
(THE MAN motions THE CARETAKER to wrap the things up again, but then the notebook catches his eye. While THE CARETAKER collects the other items, THE MAN looks through its pages and uses the knife to separate the ones that are stuck together.
(THE CARETAKER rolls corpse and belongings out. OLD MAN 2 also withdraws. Without taking his eyes from the notebook, THE MAN pockets the knife and sits down.
VOICE:
(low, elderly; coming from offstage); The rye fields, quiet streams, weary gods resting in the chapels. And sitting there, resting after work, you offered up your prayer to the god of your ancestors. Then one day, you noticed this god had been rotting away. You got up, your prayer still unfinished, and said: "I'm a man, with a head, hands, and eyes of my own. I don't need gods." And picking up an axe, you struck the ancestral god down. (The rest-home clock strikes the evening hour. One by one beyond the door, old men and women pass by, dressed in ornate robes and identical wool-caps.)
VOICE:
(offstage) The lightning tore the sky open, there was a roaring downpour, warm and red. You saw the rye fields and streams drenched in blood, the sun gone, the shattered wooden crosses adrift on the red flood.
(THE WOMAN enters through the door, carrying a man's overcoat and hat. THE MAN sees her and gets up reluctantly.)
WOMAN:
(helping him on with the coat) One thing I want to ask you. Let our boys out for a while. Just to walk around.
MAN:
Is their temperature down?
WOMAN:
But they've run this fever for months now, right from the day they were brought in. And we still don't know what's wrong with them.
MAN:
(after a pause) You're right. I don't know what to call their sickness. There may not even be a name for it yet. But I see the symptoms; and I'm afraid that once they're out, they are likely to act up, in a way we may not want.
WOMAN:
I'll stay with them. They listen to me. (Huddling up to him) Do this, for me. There's little chance they'll get well, locked up all the time.
MAN:
All right, go ahead. Just don't leave them on their own. Not for one second.
(WOMAN kisses MAN, then takes a set of keys from a cabinet and goes out the door.
(MAN, now in his coat, is engrossed f or a while in his reading; then, mumbling random words from the text to himself, goes out without his hat.
(A while later, the door opens. THE WOMAN enters, followed by three pallid YOUNG MEN who walk through the office slowly.)
(Evening twilight. The moon coming up behind a hill slowly illumines the group of columns at the main entrance to the rest home. The faint light of approaching night makes its way down through the shrubbery to a grassy ditch; where, now emerging into clearing; now vanishing in shadows or pits,
OLD MEN walk around by themselves, aimlessly.(OLD MAN 1 totters into view; his head held a little too high, eyes scanning something above the horizon.)
OLD MAN:
(punctuating his calls with pauses, as though expecting someone to respond) Ani! Animate! Any mate! (OLD WOMAN 1, a creature with a mustache, crawls out from the shadows)
OLD WOMAN 1:
Sh! Quit yelling.
OLD MAN 1:
Have you seen Animate?
OLD WOMAN l:
There's a new body in the morgue. Just shaved, too. That might be him. Listen: you didn't get this from me; but I don't have to tell you what it must feel like, when they lay you out and shave you.
(OLD WOMAN 1 takes a careful look around and fishes a flask out from under her robe.)
OLD MAN 1:
Forgive me, Animate. You're the only one this old man didn't get to save.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Here. Have a slug. Two fingers, no more.
OLD MAN 1:
Will things ever change?
OLD WOMAN 1:
It's bound to get easier. It's a sure-fire method they've already tested.
OLD MAN 1:
I knew this would happen. Animate knew it, and he knew when. He was sick with sadness yesterday.
OLD WOMAN 1:
What's past is done with. It's the future we have to worry about.
OLD MAN 1:
I can understand why they snuffed him. But why would they shave him?
OLD WOMAN 1:
There's this oldtimer here. Looks a lot like you. The same sharp profile, halo of grey locks. He used to hang out here, scaring the old ladies. One fine day, he's a celebrity. The jewel of party presidiums. It's been years now since he was put on extra rations. They show him off to the foreign visitors. The touring businessmen's mouths drop, when he goes into his speech. A real Moses, down from the mountain. And always quoting from the ancients. A true representative type. (Pause) You know who I mean. In his spare time, he's a caretaker over at the senior citizen's morgue. Looks after the cadavers. Could be, he took care of that Animate of yours, too. (Pause.) So, as I was saying, the old guy's far gone already. Hallucinating. That they've got a full orchestra already rehearsing the Beethoven. With the monument long ago commissioned. Get your application in at the right level, you won't have to stand in line. It's been so many years since the revolution that there's a real shortage of these representative types. (Pause.) Of course, I could try out for one myself. A touch of make-up, some cologne, and the look is there. The catch is, all the colognes have spirits in them. But I don't have to tell you what else that's good for. (Pause.) Well? Say something.
OLD MAN 1:
Leave me in peace.
OLD WOMAN 1:
You've got to be involved in something. It may not be much. Still, leave some sign. To show you were alive.
OLD MAN 1:
I am involved. Every night, I study the stars. And during a storm, observe the lightning flashes. You know how, after a thunderstorm, the meadow sparkles all green. Ever ask yourself why. Well, it's like this. Those lightning flashes, that's the cosmic orgasm. A thunderstorm brings the passion of outer space down to the grass. So the earth's menopause is put off, one more time.
OLD WOMAN 1:
I hear you, I hear you. You must be that old guy they say has a miraculous scar.
OLD MAN 1:
(looking around furtively) Yes. I've got one. Here, that's where the wound must have been. Still, though I've tried, I can't remember a thing. There are nights when remote scenes come back to me and I'm right on the brink of finding out. Then morning comes and the scar is still there. And I still don't know how.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(also looking around) I could tell you. I seem to remember something, too.
VOICE:
(off) Trudging through the muck, we grew frantic and crawled, weeping with rage, over the earth's clotting blood. No sun. No sky. We clasped rifles, Hags, crosses. (Grows stronger! Thirsty for blood, terrified of it, we stabbed blindly at love and charity. Under a bright cover of flags we peddled off our brothers' heads. Deranged, we'd shoot at man and woman, a bird, an animal, a beast, the sun or a worm, god himself. And we were left to sprawl there. Headless, among the shattered crosses and torn flags. Gored, and oozing. . . .
MAN 2 sneaks in, from the same direction as OLD MAN 1.
OLD MAN 2:
Psst. Top Secret.
OLD MAN 1:
You here, again? What is it you want? Animate is no longer alive.
OLD MAN 2:
What? What?
OLD WOMAN 1:
The question is: what are you doing here?
OLD MAN 2:
Following you. (Pause.) Big Joe himself appeared to me in a vision and this is what he said: "Here I am, cramped into my grave, while you wallow in a soft downy bed." And he pressed one cold finger of his to the side of my head and said: "Get up, you bum, and get moving!" I suddenly remembered, you understand, remembered I'd not fulfilled the order. Issued from down below. Top secret.
OLD MAN 1:
Why did you shave Animate off?
OLD MAN 2:
Wha7 OLD WOMAN 1:
You're being asked, why did you do the shaving?
OLD MAN 2:
If I don't fulfill the assignment, Big Joe . . . (shudders with horror)
OLD MAN 1:
What?
OLD MAN 2:
Big Joe plugs the Dnieper Power Plant into me.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(nudging OLD MAN 2) Say there, representative.
OLD MAN 2:
(startled) You're not . . . Big Joe? Are you?
OLD MAN 1:
Think I'd fool the Americans?
OLD MAN 2:
(fingering her mustache) You're not Big Joe! (Pulls her face up to his.) "And there shall come forth pretenders," said Big Joe, " who will take on my looks and ape my manner of speaking. You, therefore, shall be like the shadow that lurks outside the window and when you notice someone with a mustache, or otherwise suspect, you are to pull down the pants. In order to see, if he's a she! In the event that there is, in fact, a she there, you shave off the mustache, tar up her ass, and shut her up in the morgue." (He snatches at OLD WOMAN 1, below the waist.)
OLD WOMAN 1:
(evading him and slapping at him) You pervert, putrid piece of meat, shit-freckled ass. Here's for the tar: up yours! Your ass, your morgue, your pants!
OLD MAN 2:
(stoically) Thus spoke Big Joe.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(her voice coming from the shrubbery) Old dad, daddy, yoo hoo!
OLD MAN 2:
Psst, it's the Head Commissioner! (with a slit-throat gesture) The Chief Ogre, Beria!
(THE MAN slowly descends the marble stairs.)
VOICE:
(off) First we traded the flag-shreds in for lies, orgies, and bellies. Then, in exclusive beds, boxes, and sacks "for party members only", we processed and produced a new line of bellies and started a whole new breed of reptiles, the exclusive offspring of loveless lovemaking, and we didn't know how to tell them that we had raped, sold and murdered you, me, ourselves, all off. That this was the way the human being without God, a broken-down beast, a bird without wings, was making himself a new and terrible Jerk God.
(The YOUNG MEN now appear between the columns. They stand for a while in the moonlight, inhaling deeply. Intoxicated with the pure air, and with the perfumes of night, they stagger down the wide stairs, pass by THE MAN and the OLD MEN without being aware of them, and make their way, breathing hard, through the shrubbery and up the slope.
(THE WOMAN, having followed the youths down, stops next to the MAN and snuggles up to him.
WOMAN:
What a night. All those stars. (Pause.) What's wrong?
MAN;
Go on, go with them.
WOMAN;
I can't just leave, when you're like this.
MAN:
What if one more like that, should come into the world?
WOMAN:
He'll grow and live.
MAN:
Like us, or them?
WOMAN:
I'll teach him to be gentle, and to love.
(MAN suddenly embraces THE WOMAN and showers her with kisses. WOMAN sways and sinks down in the grass. Without interrupting his kisses, THE MAN sinks along with her.
(THE YOUNG MEN have, meanwhile, scattered all over the hillside.)
YOUNG MAN 1:
(from the very top) The small streams, orchards, green fields!
YOUNG MAN 2:
(on the slope) Puppies, with black spots, still wet.
YOUNG MAN 1:
All those colts! my brothers!
YOUNG MAN 2:
My lap, swarming with puppies!
YOUNG MAN 1:
Look, mother, how they bite each other on the mane.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Rolling so soft, daddy, all over my arms, my neck.
YOUNG MAN 1:
My foals, my colts with wings on!
YOUNG MAN 2:
My puppies, my pups!
YOUNG MAN 1:
They're flying, mother, flying!
YOUNG MAN 2:
All tangled, holding onto each other!
YOUNG MAN 1:
For the sun, and beyond!
YOUNG MAN 2:
A whole heat of pups! Frisking over my head!
YOUNG MAN 1:
Goodbye! I'm Hying off, with the colts!
YOUNG MAN 2:
Goodbye! Goodbye! I'm crawling off, on all fours!
(YOUNG MAN 3 stands on the slope and stares at the ground.
(OLD WOMAN 2, with a bowl under her arm, is stuck in the shrubs of the ditch; noisy, trying to get through.)
OLD WOMAN 1:
Over here, sister. Come and get your old man.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Fooling around, again! Won't you ever quit? Same dumb fooling around, day after day.
OLD MAN 2:
What? OLD WOMAN 2:
Always the same, that's what. Don't you ever get bored with it. Come over here, oldtimer, chomp on this. I brought you a nice fresh chunk of meat.
OLD MAN 2:
I'm on special duty. I had a revelation. Big Joe himself appeared to me.
OLD WOMAN 1:
He wants me to pull my pants down. And I'm not about to let him. I haven't got any on.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Dear Lord! where's your decency?
OLD WOMAN 1:
Don't get excited, sister. It's for purely political reasons.
OLD WOMAN 2:
We all know your reasons. (Snorting) You're no ordinary hag, sister. You're the latest rage. Just what the old guys are after. Panting for just that.
OLD WOMAN 1:
I don't know what you're talking about.
OLD WOMAN 2:
I won't stand in your way. You worked hard to get him, so he's yours. I'm sick and tired of running after him. Just let him out of your sight for a second, and there he is rubbing up to another one. As for the gals, any old crutch will do.
(to OLD MAN 1) Grandpa, eat up.
OLD MAN 1:
They killed Animate.
OLD WOMAN 2;
You silly old fool. How many times can one body get killed? Yesterday, and the day before.
OLD MAN 1:
No, no. Yesterday he was still alive. (Pause.) The city was under threat of menopause. I gathered some field-flowers and took them over there. When I got back, Animate was gone.
OLD WOMAN 2:
You couldn't have been to a city. There is none anywhere near here.
OLD MAN 1:
I did go there. And saw the old folks in the public squares. Plenty of old timers. All done up in their Sunday best. All smelling good, and looking good. With their cheeks all rosy. And not one youngster among them. The old guys had these bowls in their hands. Filled with porridge. Then, ! thought of something, so I reached out and touched one of them. And he was all soft. I rubbed his face in one spot, and a slight patch came off, leaving it blue underneath. (Pause.) I must have got there late. Somebody had painted them over. To hide the scars. Meanwhile, all the old people there were rotting away, overcome with senility.
OLD MAN 2:
"and it shall come to pass", according to Big Joe, "there will be those who tear their shirts open, shamelessly, and put their scars on public display in order to incite bad memories in regard to my person. Those, too, you shall shut up in the morgue." (To OLD MAN 1) Show me your belly, right now.
OLD MAN 1:
Makes no sense. You're half-rotten yourself.
OLD MAN 2:
What! What! (to OLD WOMAN 2) Beria! Beria! spike a couple of injections under his nails.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Come on, gramps, snap out of it.
OLD MAN 2:
(to OLD WOMAN 1) You! Inject him at once.
OLD WOMAN l:
You'd like me to, wouldn't you?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Shush, stop teasing him.
OLD MAN 2:
Injections for all! Three syringes per person. Beria! I said everybody. They'd best bare their bellies at once. (Pause.) So, you won't obey? (Pause.) In the ass! Spike them in the ass! (collapses in an epileptic fit.)
OLD WOMAN 2:
(rushing to him) Grandpa, grandpa.
(THE WOMAN stands still, trying to fight back her tears. THE MAN sits in the grass. He is still unbuttoned, his eyes downcast.)
MAN:
(very softly) Frantic, trudging through muck, we crawled and wept with rage over the earth's clotted blood. No sun, no sky. Blood-thirsty, terrified of blood, we made random stabs at love. Y
YOUNG MAN 3:
A pit! Hooray! Crawling with flesh. Spilling over with blood, shit and semen. The aftermath of an exclusive orgy for real hardliners. Sad as an empty ballroom. Come on, brother coyotes. To the sun, and beyond.
YOUNG MAN 1:
I'm sprawled out on the earth. The good earth. Above me, the skies open, on the dome of heaven.
YOUNG MAN 2:
But the earth ... is sucking me in. The earth, with its bloody mouth. Blood, all the blood.
YOUNG MAN 1:
But how small I am, so trivial . . . And how infinite space is.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Their fuzzy ears, soft eyes, and gentle paws. Scraps of my puppies splashing in blood.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Mother, who am I? And what for?
YOUNG MAN 2:
Tell me daddy, who killed all my puppies?
(Pause.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Hara-kiri, all the way. One gala suicide. Now and forever.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(to OLD MAN 1) You really have that miraculous scar?
OLD MAN 1:
Yes, yes. On rainy nights it sprawls across my chest. Black, splintered, its gorges all in flames. Then the whole world goes black. And I scream.
OLD WOMAN 1:
A scar, with flaming gorges. While you scream. That's very important.
OLD MAN 1:
At dawn it revives, shifts to my palms, and pulls a pink scab over itself. And keeps throbbing.
OLD WOMAN 1:
That is important. Could it be you're the same one . . . loved me so much, once.
OLD MAN 1:
In the daytime, I have it on my belly. Numb, coarse and grubby. Like a shoe-sole. So firmly attached, I can't even feel it. As if it wasn't there.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(pensively) I'm pretty sure I was the propaganda minister, in those days. Used to spell out the government policies to the old folks. And he was . . . Supreme Court Justice. A very special robe he used to wear over his naked body. On the night of a very big storm, he came to me all covered with ashes, still scattering ashes over himself; came up close like this and whispered: "They're dead, a million of my brothers; be gentle, this night." And with the ashes falling, his voice was sadness itself. "I will," I said, gulping back a tear, "I will". Here, lie down. My pillow is small, government issue; so fold your robe to put under your head, and the one blanket will be enough for us both. I nestled my head to the poor Chief Justice's chest and could feel that it was, as you just said, gorged, with a heat rising as though straight from hell itself. He shuddered once, breathed a slow sigh, and was asleep.
OLD MAN 1:
Animate, poor Animate, how kind and gentle he was . . .
OLD WOMAN 1:
We could give your Animate a paint job. Sneak him out of the morgue and paint him over. He'd be alive again.
OLD MAN 1:
He won't be living again. Not here. Not here.
OLD WOMAN 1:
All we need is to find the right color. The color of life.
OLD MAN 1:
Did you paint the old people?
OLD WOMAN l:
Hush. Better, they don't know it. Let them think they really do look good. Let them dream. They were waiting, for communism, so much.
OLD MAN 1:
They don't think about anything, the old guys. Staring into their bowls. Not even moving to wave the flies off. Just rotting away.
OLD WOMAN 1:
As I know only too well. Some of them completely ... Forget you heard this here; the caretaker is so lazy that he, the local dignitary, carries the sweet old troupers, one by one, half dead mostly, down to the cellar himself. And there he beats them black and blue. And shaves them. And makes them sit up on stakes. There's some guy with a scar he's after. There are rats, all over the place. And what rats! All of them freckled, no less. The government took me off propaganda, so what I do now is strictly on my own initiative and out of habit. I pull them off the stakes, carry them out to the square and paint them the most gorgeous colors, so everybody can admire our lovely old folks. This way even the old folks are happy . . . Most of them are rheumatic, and the cellar's damp. So now they soak in some sun. (Pause.) For you, of course, all this is just a lot of nonsense. You think I don't know it? Think it's happiness that drives me to the bottle. The dignitary just rounds all my old folks up again. And it's back to the cellar. (Pause.) If only I could find the color of life, I'd deck the whole world out with oldtimers I revived.
YOUNG MAN 1:
What have I changed into? I don't know any more . . . Like a wild mustang I was galloping over the prairie after a very special mare. A radiant vision of her.
She seemed to be in range.
One more jump,
and my itching teeth
sink into her mane.
But she kicked herself
off my forehead
to soar above the earth.
I could only
manage to graze
a hoof with my eager lips.
Wings!
Give me back my wings.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Quit driveling.
YOUNG MAN 2:
The wings, sawed off.
The mustang strapped to a gelding machine.
A film of blood covers his gaze,
while the horizon glimmers
and calls him to take off.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Shut up! I'm telling you.
YOUNG MAN 1:
The whirling earth, the swooping birds!
And the wind, urging us to join in!
YOUNG MAN 2:
You slithering bastard!
YOUNG MAN 3:
It's no use, my dear brothers. All that flying and calling, no use at all. It makes no sense, our getting excited or upset. We're nothing but a few heads. Barely protruding. Out of a ditch. Can't get out, or back in. Believe me. Too scared to go on, we may not even have the strength it takes. Go back? Who wants to? So we'll drop a few tears, a few curses, and let things go on being just as they are. Let's squat. And choke. In the stench. Till we croak. And turn to rot. And let our souls be replaced by sewer pipes.
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
No!
YOUNG MAN 3:
Who can escape? Those for whom liberty is the only solution. Those able, for an instant at least, to turn into lions. You? You're rabbits. Trembling with fear. For the wolf that may be waiting in ambush. Or some other beast.
YOUNG MAN 2:
We'll - kill!
YOUNG MAN 3:
That's great! Applause, on all sides. Sharpen your fangs, and let the trumpet sound, (infuriated, YOUNG MAN 2 stalks off. YOUNG MAN 1 follows right after him. They come in sight here and there, crouching, then crawl away into the bushes.)
YOUNG MAN 2:
(out of sight in the ditch) Pray, you snakes!
(THE MAN jumps to his feet)
WOMAN:
Don't go in there. Don't.
(The MAN pushes her aside and moves toward the ditch, where cursing and stomping is heard.
(YOUNG MAN 3 bars his way).
YOUNG MAN 3:
Better stay clear, comrade administrator. Never can tell, with those loonies . . . Isn't that right, sister? One good bop on the head, and it's "goodbye, world". And who'll do the stations of the cross, then? Not old Golgotha, with a cross and three nails at the last stop. I mean the new one. Our latter-day Golgotha. Neogolgotha. With a small patch of grass at the finish. And sweet flowers. And dainty mole-hills. And a cute little old man sitting there. (The MAN starts moving off, but YOUNG MAN 3 grabs him by the lapels.) Part deaf, part blind. With bits of dried snot stuck to his robe. His own snot, or maybe someone else's. There among the flowers. A lovely sight, ain't it, sister? And we'd feel real sad, comrade administrator, if you were to be deprived of this ultimate satisfaction. (YOUNG MAN 3 lets the MAN go.) And till it comes, there are charming promenades, the fresh-smelling grass, the moonlight serenades. A girl by your side. And what a girl! The velvet of her neck! The honey of her lips! Those arms of hers, those breasts, and all the rest put to the test. Oowee! Just dip and sip, comrade administrator.
(Snorting, tousle-haired, YOUNG MAN 1 stumbles in through the shrubs and dashes across the stage. YOUNG MAN 2 comes out right after him; he pauses, pulls up a tuft of grass to wipe his shoes off, and slinks away.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
I'm sure it will be a real pleasure, sister, to meet up with you again, (he winks at the WOMAN and goes off whistling, after the other two YOUNG MEN.)
(The WOMAN stands still a while longer, with only her lips moving.)
WOMAN:
Boys! Boys!
(She walks slowly toward the hill, repeating her calls.)
MAN:
(passing by the ditch): . . . deranged, we would shoot at man and woman . . . under a bright cover of flags, peddled our brothers' heads . . . and were left to sprawl headless . . . among the shattered crosses and torn flags. Gored. Oozing.
(Rumpled, stepped on, the OLD MEN & WOMEN are rolling in the grass). .
OLD MAN 2:
Once they did plug the whole Dnieper Power Plant into me.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(groping around) The jellied meat! Where's my jellied meat!
OLD MAN 2:
(to OLD MAN 1, who cowers in fear) Get up, you bum, get a move on. (grabbing him) You! You were in the morgue. How'd you get here?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Who stepped in my jellied meat!
OLD MAN 2:
What? What?
OLD WOMAN 2:
My jellied meat, that's what you stepped in!
OLD MAN 2:
He's here, and not in the morgue! (seizes OLD MAN 1 by the throat but gets no reaction) Open your mouth! Just follow orders, and nobody gets hurt. Please! I must complete my mission. On orders from down there.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Come on, stop it, gramps. What's he good for? A rotten old stump like him, covered with fuzz.
OLD MAN 2:
He escaped from the morgue. If I don't take him back, they'll plug the Bratsk Power Plant into me, next.
OLD WOMAN 2;
Just calm down, or you'll have another fit.
OLD MAN 2:
And he'll sneak back into town again. And I'll have to shadow him, again and again. So many times it seems I caught him, dragged him back, shaved him. Then it turns out I snatched the wrong body. And when I do nab the right one, he disappears from the morgue. Then I have to get up and go. Get moving, all over again. Not a minute's rest. Night and day. And I'm not a young guy any more.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Let go of him. Don't you see, he's not moving.
OLD MAN 2:
What? What?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Let go, I said. He'll pop off by himself.
OLD MAN 2:
By himself? What if ... I popped off, by myself, first? All my hard work, for nothing. (Pause.) Big Joe is waiting. Over there. He's sure to ask. What would I tell him? (Pause.) With Beria there, too. The Chief Ogre. Big Joe's right hand. Holding a pitchfork. "Garbage man! That's what you should've been. A shit collector, not a special agent!" he'll yell. (Pause.) I have no right to die all by myself. Open your mouth!
OLD WOMAN 2:
(to OLD MAN l) Come on, open up, if you can. Is it that hard? One look, and this sweet old guy will leave in peace.
OLD MAN 2:
(fingering OLD MAN 1's mouth) Not one tooth. He's the one! (Pause.) Though this can't be him. He's got a tongue. (Pause.) Who are you?
OLD WOMAN 2:
He can't tell you that, grampa. You've got your fingers in his mouth. Pull out.
OLD MAN 2:
I've got no right. I haven't established his identity yet.
OLD WOMAN 2:
He can't speak up; you can't pull out. You want to stay like this forever?
OLD MAN 2:
I am tired of shadowing them.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Then let go. He may not even be the one you're supposed to be shadowing.
OLD MAN 2:
We'll get all that straightened out in the morgue. "Better to tear out one tongue too many, than make the mistake of pulling out one too few." Thus spoke Big Joe.
(OLD WOMAN 1 stirs. She feels her face.
(OLD MAN 2 drags OLD MAN 1 for a couple of steps, then stops to rest, catches his breath; manages one more step, again stops for breath, tries again but his strength gives out.)
OLD WOMAN 2:
Need help, gramps?
OLD MAN 2:
I must do this alone. All by myself. Nobody's to know. TOP Secret. It's just between Commissioner Beria and myself. (Tries to make another advance, and fails.)
WOMAN:
(off) Boys! Boys!
(YOUNG MAN 2, who has been slinking among the shadows, stops to listen. So does YOUNG MAN 1, who has been wandering by himself along the slope. The WOMAN keeps on calling.
(YOUNG MAN 1 starts running toward the voice. So does YOUNG MAN 2.)
OLD MAN 2:
Pliers! This must be him. Right now! (OLD WOMAN 2 hands him a bone. OLD MAN 2 proceeds to cram it into OLD MAN 1's mouth.)
OLD WOMAN 1:
What d'you think you're doing, stupid!
OLD MAN 2:
(trying to get hold of OLD MAN 1's tongue) Just following orders.
(OLD WOMAN 1 seizes the bone from him and strikes him on the fingers with it.)
OLD MAN 2:
They beat me! They beat me!
OLD WOMAN 2:
What d'you beat him for, the poor old codger? What more could he possibly have done to that rotting slop-heap of yours?
OLD WOMAN 1:
What could he have done! You slimy toad!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Aren't you tough, though? You'd have starved to death a long time ago, if not for us! Who else brought you those special food rations during the years of famine?
OLD WOMAN 1:
You carcass in a skirt! My bowels are still rumbling from that swill of yours.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Swill, she calls it. You think we don't know what you and the Chief Judge were up to, under the blanket. Bare-assed. Of course, you're not out for the real female thrills. You couldn't manage that, if you had to. You do better with the bum-stuffers. You shriveled up stump, split down the middle!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Oh, sure, you moron of a whore!
OLD WOMAN 2:
And what are you? A hemorrhoid hermaphrodite mutant!
OLD WOMAN 1:
You gang-bang clap-trap!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Shithole trenchmouth!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Select committee of syphilitics!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Ass-fucker nympho!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Family vault of festering germs!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Ass-fucker! Ass-fucker!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Sewer of come-rot ideas!
THE MAN:
(turning toward the hill) . . . we traded the flag-shreds in for orgies and bellies ... in exclusive beds, boxes and sacks, processed and produced a new line of bellies ... a whole new breed of reptiles. . . exclusive offspring of loveless lovemaking . . .
(THE WOMAN is already on top of the hill) YOUNG MAN 1:
(rushing up to her) Save me!
WOMAN:
What from?
YOUNG MAN 1:
The world.
WOMAN:
My dear boy, if only I could.
YOUNG MAN 1:
You can! You always were able to ... (Pause.) Have you forgotten? (Pause.) The silver lakes, with the constellations shimmering on the surface? And you there. Approaching. In answer to my wordless call. Across the silver lake . . .
WOMAN:
The silver lake . . . Ah, yes . . .
YOUNG MAN 1:
I did not dare look at you or touch you, goddess, or even admit I loved you. So I'd rush off to the moonlit trails, and while the echo of your steps had not yet faded, kiss all the blossoms, where the fragrance of your lips still lingered, and reach out for the stars . . . Drop by drop, pick the scent and sparkle, take all I gathered over to a fresh haystack, and there . . . enraptured, clasp and caress your heart . . . hot and volcanic, dizzying. And you—no, don't deny it!—you gave yourself to me, gave me the strength the gods have, so my words made a song.
WOMAN:
(pressing him gently to herself) Lord, you feel so ... What hands have you . . .
YOUNG MAN 1:
Only the hands? That's all you remember?
WOMAN:
(kissing him) Their gentleness ...
YOUNG MAN 1:
Only the hands. And not the rest?
(THE MAN stops at some distance from them.)
YOUNG MAN 1:
Something capsized in me. Inside my brain, or heart, I'm not sure where. But the first love went on sheer feeling. Then, with the nerves burning, I felt I'd lost something. And, with you there . . . the second one of you, inside the sheets. . . I could touch you only with my hands.
WOMAN:
Don't. My dear boy, you don't have to.
YOUNG MAN 1:
You bit and scratched me. And there was I. Unable to see her, my first one, any more. Or satisfy the other.
YOUNG MAN 2:
(roughly tearing the WOMAN away) She's mine, you slob! I had her first.
WOMAN:
Wake up, precious child.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Me. Number one. I gave you the pearl necklace, and you . . . spread your legs.
WOMAN:
Is it possible?
YOUNG MAN 2:
On the bearskin rug. Under the framed family pictures.
WOMAN:
Not . . . really?
YOUNG MAN 2:
And I killed father. While we were out hunting. By the camp fire. Because of you!
WOMAN:
(painfully) Ah!
YOUNG MAN 2:
You're mine now.
WOMAN:
Dear child! you want . . . me, the one you killed your own father for? And you're . . . like this. All spattered with mud.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Mud? Where? I've been wiping it off for years.
WOMAN:
(cleaning him) Here. And here. And here. Your forehead's all clean. I'll do your lips in a second. And the hands. And then . . . I'll come by way of the silver lake to the valley of love. And you won't need any necklace, or bearskin, to welcome me.
YOUNG MAN 3:
(stopping beside THE MAN) Really something, our young generation, eh? Should be to your liking. Though you yourself were never anything like this. You don't seem the type to dilly-dally around, (Pause.) Oh well, we just don't feel like talking. After all, we are the administrative head. What anyway could we have in common with cretins?
MAN:
I'm human, and so are you.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Comrade administrator, you really amaze me. You're the first one to call me human. Until now, or to be more precise, up to the time I was designated an exclusive rest-home patient, I have been called anarchist, rebel, desecrator of my parental ashes and heritage, terrorist, evil genius, shitpile aristocrat, and a few other choice names; though frankly speaking I was a mere student, a threadbare philosopher with some real interest in the matters of truth, without having yet ever seen either parents, or bombs, or geniuses; not even in dreams!
MAN:
Does that mean it's not so bad here, after all?
YOUNG MAN 3:
It would be fine, if not for the phobias. No sooner do I close my eyes, than all at once there's a pale spider, creeping toward me! Lycose tarentula. In a business suit yet. Aiming a syringe. I don't have to tell you where, either. Meanwhile, I can't move. And the tarantula shoots a full dose into me. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. My tongue is paralyzed. (Pause.) Dear friend, respected comrade, you are, so far as I can tell, reputed to be a specialist in related diseases: what is your prognosis?
(THE MAN tries to control himself, but his hands are trembling visibly.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Hey, comrade human, what's with you? Some good old phobias got you? Excuse me!
(YOUNG MAN 3 walks over to THE WOMAN. Appeased, YOUNG MAN 2 is lying on the ground.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Me too, sweet sister. Take me into the valley of love.
WOMAN:
You really want to? With me?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Show me the way. Perform the miracle.
WOMAN:
(very softly) Love has no power to perform miracles, if you don't believe in it.
YOUNG MAN 3:
(embracing her) I do, I do. Because you will be with me. To guide me. You are love. Nothing but love.
WOMAN:
Let go of me.
YOUNG MAN 3:
For you have never known lust. Your blood never boils over. Pawing you, soiling you, both are taboo . . .
WOMAN:
Taboo, taboo.
YOUNG MAN 3:
You're free of sin. And of the ancestors. Free of crying infants.
WOMAN:
Lord, oh lord.
YOUNG MAN 3:
You can't be deceived, stepped on, destroyed.
WOMAN:
Oh no.
YOUNG MAN 3:
You are love. And nothing but. Eternal love.
(Both sink down in the thick grass of the slope. YOUNG MAN 1 and 2 have risen and are staring at them. The MAN is also with them. Exhausted and almost unable to speak, the OLD WOMEN go on reviling each other, down in the ditch; mumbling away, without listening to each other.)
OLD WOMAN 2:
A mess of hemorrhoids . . . colonize your ass!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Your crotch . . . like Rasputin's hairy . . . gaping jaw.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Stick to your . . . shit pot . . . for ever.
OLD WOMAN 1:
So devils heave . . . your gangrene carcass ... on redhot pitchforks, and . . . stick it on a spit.
OLD WOMAN 2:
And you suck horny he-goats . . . and horn-tailed he-goats.
OLD WOMAN 1:
The horniest red roosters . . . anywhere . . . snatch at ... your con . . . genitals.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Suck the goats . . . bloody, blood . . . both ends.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Make you scream . . . and snatch, and scratch . . . you scream . . . for more and more . . . for ever.
(YOUNG MAN 3 stands brushing dry grass off. WOMAN 15 lying on her back, her arms spread open. YOUNG MEN 1 & 2 are still staring on, from a short distance.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
It's weird. The centuries melt off, the dead grass sticks.
WOMAN:
Along with the joy.
YOUNG MAN 3:
All in the backrooms of the mind. The aura of love is a dandelion in the wind.
WOMAN:
Love is all savor and perfume. The only happiness. What's left, without it?
YOUNG MAN 3:
(pointing) See those penguins? What they turned into? (WOMAN, just now coming to, starts to get up. YOUNG MAN 3 points to YOUNG MAN 1.) The Romeo, for instance. Such a pitiful crybaby. Stroking this hair, this waist. All of his days and nights, dreams and hopes, he puts into this womb. And one day, this womb, this Juliet gives her all to another. All her savor and perfume! (stepping up to the WOMAN, in an icy voice) And one night someone's fingers choke this neck to death . . . (WOMAN gradually draws back into darkness.) And someone's gloved hands pack it all up in a black box. And that's that. Happiness. The one and only.
YOUNG MAN 2:
What did you do?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Didn't you see?
YOUNG MAN 1:
And I? How can I ... without her?
(YOUNG MAN 2 hits YOUNG MAN 3 who doubles over.)
THE MAN:
. . . we didn't know how to tell them . . . this was the way the human being without God, a broken-down beast, a bird without wings . . . was making himself a new and terrible Jerk God.
OLD MAN 1:
My wound: I just remembered how I got it. (Pause.) The old folks' city did not exist yet. There were the ruined temples and mass graves, and the earth in the cemeteries was heaving. All the old men were young then. Starving and fierce. Flinging corpses and crosses aside, as they went to build the new city. Dreaming of bread. Stores of bread. (Pause.) But there were those who had no faith in the new city. They went to pray in the ruined temples and came out at night to bury the dead. (Pause.) I was the one who tried them. (Pointing to OLD MAN 2.) He caught them, and I tried them. One time, a young man was brought in to me. With his teeth smashed in. "You really want to build your city over a lake of blood?" he asked. People need bread and shelter, I answered. Stores of bread. "You think bread will fill what human beings hunger FOR?" the young man asked. People are starving, I answered. So for now, bread comes first. "And how will you fill what people's hearts hunger for? With what? Booze? Circuses? Blood?" The heart's an ancient fiction, I exclaimed, and due to this, impossible to satisfy. (Pause.) And I signed the verdict. (Pause.) As they were escorting him to the execution site, the young man looked at me, smiled painfully and said: "It's possible." This said, he raised his palms and I saw the wounds burning bright, in each open palm . . . Then it was I felt. No, not then. Much later. The city was already built, and the old people were rotting away, staring into their bowls. I felt a pain. Here. I ripped my shirt open and there was a wound. Though no longer fresh. Don't tell anyone this.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Not a word. And listen: him too, your Animate. That local dignitary ripped his tongue out and pierced his palms again. I saw this. I was right there in back of him. Waiting for him to finish with the shaving. (Pause.) When I carried the mangled old guy out to the main square and set him down in the sun, he raised his hands too, and the blood appeared in his palms. That was the first dead man with living blood on his palms.
OLD MAN 1:
Animate, my poor Animate.
OLD WOMAN 1:
The government of elders gave orders to paint the palms over. So they'd stay white. Like the palms of all the other old people. Like their own palms. But the blood seeped red, right through the paint. And there was nothing I could do. You understand? It was the menopause. (Pause.) The government of elders knows what menopause is. They took me off the propaganda job and made me a trade union leader. And I bought myself a bottle of vodka.
OLD MAN 1:
I condemned you. Could I have done otherwise? When we were young and starving? And the new city was calling us? Our goal, and basic premise, a dream. While you wanted to make us see, how meaningless our whole struggle was.
OLD WOMAN 1:
And so 1 drink. I want to make sure all our old folks are handsome and happy. But I just can't find the color to camouflage blood. Sometimes it seems, when I'm dead drunk, all lit up, I see that color. Seems then, all I need is grab a brush and smear it on. But just as I'm set to do it, plop! a black lid drops, and there's nothing left to see. There's a spotted rat squats on the lid and grimaces. Holds a small key, in his fingers. (Pause.) What if, one time, the lid just did not drop? What would you say to that?
YOUNG MAN 3:
(getting up) You're weird, brothers. You should be celebrating now. Squirming with joy. It's gone for good, love is. And NOTHING has taken its place. Now NOTHING is EVERYTHING. With NOTHING left to lose. (Pause.) How much we had, even while living in the smallest boxes! While the seeds of mind, and the buds of passion, broke through the slightest cracks toward the sun. How light and airy it is here! How much room there is! Fly, where your heart desires. Crawl anywhere you wish. (Pause.) And then, with my nose poking out from under the punctured bellies, I saw it was all a cesspool. Whoopee! (Pause.) Our thanks to the bright world! And thanks to the virtuous parents, loyal husbands, loving sons. All those who crushed babies' balls into crumbs, penetrated the virgins, ripped the gold teeth right out of the jaws of the elders. And thanks to our enlightened patriots, who gave our noble work in the national interest their endorsement, then had bloodshed sanctioned by their holy writ. Thanks to you all! For the secret revealed. That only nothing is everything. That I'm nothing, too. (Pause.) And s(?)he. Tried to hang love's halo over me. To submit to gentleness for one whole minute is all that was required. And that would have left the following: lost pride, groveling, bootlicking; with this epitaph, groaned out in the hour of death: Under this bush a worm turns to rot, all covered in his own and others' snot. Charming!
YOUNG MAN 1:
His own and others' snot. But how can we clean it off?
YOUNG MAN 2:
Yeah, how?
YOUNG MAN 3:
A global shower. Steam and pestilence. Enough to make all the devils croak. Gross license. The dregs of love. Hatred Illusion. It's time for an Easter purge.
(In a somewhat demonstrative fashion, YOUNG MAN 3 begins to tear his clothes off and then breaks off some branches. Under his suggestive impact, YOUNG MEN 1 and 2 follow suit. All three begin to "wash off" with the brushwood, Their movements accelerate. The pleasurable sighs and moans of the self-flagellants gradually turn into ecstasy. Only YOUNG MAN 3 is obviously conscious of his behavior, and his words are tinged with irony.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Brothers! Stripped naked!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
All naked!
YOUNG MAN 3:
Purged and absolved, thus shall we know our brothers!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
Our brothers!
YOUNG MAN 3:
Our sisters!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
Our sisters!
YOUNG MAN 3:
Our wives and mothers!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
Our wives and mothers!
YOUNG MAN 3:
Our fathers!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
Our fathers!
YOUNG MAN 3:
We'll come together!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
We'll come together!
YOUNG MAN 3:
And be as one!
YOUNG MEN 1 and 2:
And be as one!
OLD MAN 1:
The Great Leader took their lives away from the old folks. Lured them out for bread and freedom. While they were still young. And gullible enough. For the freedom to kill. Off your master and root up his whole tribe; he's your class enemy. Off your next-door neighbor; he's your class enemy. Off your own father and mother. Your brother and sister. Off the dog, the cat, and the little old lady. All your class enemies. Off your soul, and your mercy. And dump them all together into one big morgue. Let emptiness replace your soul. Stuff it with bread. Fill it with booze. Rejoice in debauchery. And you shall know complete happiness. (Pause.) So the old guys die off, since they're lifeless already. Lifeless forever, without souls.
(The "ablution" is finished. YOUNG MAN 2 begins to coo! in his enthusiasm.)
YOUNG MAN 1:
(still in the throes of ecstacy,- walks away, his eyes scanning the horizon)
I saw her
there.
One ray of light
tearing the darkness open
reached through to her faraway eyes
and we were face to face.
YOUNG MAN 2:
(to YOUNG MAN 3) We ... haven't changed.
YOUNG MAN 3:
You really believed you would?
YOUNG MAN 2:
You cheated us.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Come off it, brother! don't you start blubbering. Cheated? Deceived? What does that mean? One more short step taken on a long, long walk. It still is better to take even the least step than just stand there. One step forward, one back. At least your joints get flexed. And you did want to stop. Or did you?
YOUNG MAN 2:
(with a threat in his voice) We're going into some real moves, now. Don't worry. We'll get to flex those joints.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Then the light failed.
And I was left blind, again.
All signs of a trail
gone, and now I'm dragging the load
of my loss, all over again,
off into the unknown.
You, who keep calling,
You, who don't hear me:
Who or what are you? Urging me where? From where?
While I'm stuck
here, at night, and stumbling.
(noticing the MAN) Please, man: show me how to pray.
MAN:
What for?
YOUNG MAN 1:
To them. Those faraway eyes. That cast light on all trails, waken and raise gentleness, and set the heart on fire. Eyes that rouse the night for the great celebration of daybreak.
MAN:
I don't know what that is.
YOUNG MAN 1:
That split second, when the world suddenly turns good. And you look on, eyes wide. Until the passions and feelings have all melted away . , .
MAN:
Please go on.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Till at last you have no urge, or thirst for anything, left. Merged with earth, wind, and light. Perfect silence. You become all things at once, (to MAN) Tell me, man: where's all that from? And what is it?
MAN:
There's no need for questions. So long as you feel good, for now.
OLD WOMAN 2:
That's what 1 say, too. It all turns out well, in the end. Take us right now. The night is warm. We've got jellied pig's feet to feast on. Why should we claw each other?
OLD MAN 2;
What? What? You're farting away like a rotting corpse.
OLD WOMAN 2:
I said we got jellied pig's-feet, that's what! just made. You'd love some right now, wouldn't you?
OLD MAN 2:
The bowl clean?
OLD WOMAN 2:
I washed it, already!
OLD MAN 2:
(pointing to OLD MAN l) But I saw him . . . cough his lung rot up, right into it.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Relax, stop raving, grandad. I said I washed it!
OLD MAN 2:
(to OLD MAN 1) We both eat from the same bowl. What you spit in it for?
OLD MAN 1:
Yes, we did. Eat together. Sometime, way back.
OLD WOMAN 2:
So, what's to stop you two eating together now? You see, it's Nothing. So come and get it.
OLD MAN 2:
I won't eat from a spittoon.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Go ahead and rot, you old fart! (Pause. To OLD MAN 1) Well, I hope you don't put on such airs. I washed it good, I swear I did.
OLD MAN 1:
(pointing to bowl) See that?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Made it fresh. With bay leaves.
OLD MAN 1: An eye . . .
OLD MAN 2:
(creeping close to them) What?
OLD WOMAN 2;
What's all the fuss for? It's an eyeball, so what?
OLD MAN 1:
It's been boiled!
OLD WOMAN 2:
You want to eat it raw?
OLD MAN 1:
The young man's eye!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Oh Lord, here they go again.
OLD MAN 2:
It's mine! Let me through! (at it!)
OLD MAN 1:
We have to bury it. And build a monument.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Don't smudge it, or the paint won't stick. I'll put it under glass. In the rec room.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Yech! you're nothing but trouble. (Resolutely pushing the old men away) Let the dogs eat it then! (She snatches the "eye" and walks over to the bushes, as if preparing to throw it away. Once at a safe distance, she puts it in her mouth on the sly and starts chewing)
OLD MAN 2:
(to OLD WOMAN 2) You know what you've done!
OLD WOMAN 2:
Chucked it. So what? Fart off now, why don't you.
OLD MAN 2:
No eye in the socket. Don't you know the smell that gives off?
OLD WOMAN 2: What smell is that?
OLD MAN 2:
We'll never get to gouge that eye out now. And Big Joe said: "Don't gouge the eye out, if the renegades still have their tongues intact. The gouging of the eye comes last." (Pause.) It all smells of the Chief Ogre, Beria! (His breathing becomes heavy as he tries to ward off an approaching fit.)
OLD WOMAN 2:
(holding smelling salts under his nose) Lord, it's all my fault again.
(OLD MAN 1 and OLD WOMAN 1 are crawling around, looking for the lost "eye.")
YOUNG MAN 3:
(sidles up to the MAN) A charming scene. Holy serenity. And in reality? A festering sore. The Big Lie.
MAN:
Dear child, why are you so terrifying?
YOUNG MAN 3:
A certain clergyman, well-known for his practical jokes, once put a rat inside the tabernacle. A dead rat. And while the candles were brightly burning, and the tabernacle glowed from afar, the people were praying, completely convinced it was the Lord's living body inside. Take a good look, old man, who it was they were praying to.
MAN:
If the truth is nothing but silence and muck, we don't need it. It has been said, if I remember correctly: Thou shalt not uncover either thy father or thy mother's nakedness.
YOUNG MAN 3:
But you shall. And finger it too. So you know. The way it was. And is. And is going to be. We must know the sins we were conceived in.
MAN:
It's better not to know, kid.
YOUNG MAN 3:
And let the putrid will, the nameless sewer, drive us insane? Is that it? You want us to devour each other, by ourselves? From the inside? and all together?
MAN:
All I want is peace. For you, as well.
YOUNG MAN 3:
That's why thou shalt uncover. Not only your father and mother. You're going to tear the veils off temples and stockyards, rulers and beggars, sages and crazies alike. So you know the truth. Because peace is to be found in truth alone.
MAN:
You'll perish, child.
YOUNG MAN 3:
How many cc's of heavy drugs have you spiked into the poor bastards who refused to lick the Great Leader's boots? And so transformed how many poets into idiots, how many idiots into poets? And made how many men of science into vegetables?
MAN:
Would you have wanted me to end up in their place? I simply followed orders. I wanted to live.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Then you're really living now, comrade executive. First they suck you dry, then spit you out. And kick you "upstairs." And, to be fair, where else could they have placed you? With hands shaking, so they can't hold the syringe. Put him in charge of a small rest-home-with-morgue. Let him maintain the entries in the Death Registry. Until someone enters him in.
YOUNG MAN 2:
(to the MAN) See, old man: the guy's nuts. Obsessed with rebellion.
MAN:
He's right, on some counts.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Bull! His one goal in life is to drown the world in shit.
MAN:
He is what he is. And through no fault of his.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Hey, that even rhymes! Like all jingling half-truths. Whose fault is it? (Pause.) Well, is it yours, old man? Mine?
MAN:
Listen, kid: don't try to find the guilty ones. You'll be finished. All of you. (Goes off.)
OLD WOMAN 2:
You're picking on my sweet old daddy for no good reason: He's this, he's that. Let's say you're right. Tearing out tongues is, like they say, inhumane. But what good is your tongue, once you're dead? Or your lips? Your eyes? Let him have his fun and tear out all he wants; nobody loses a thing.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Some fun. While the stench grows to cover the whole earth.
OLD WOMAN 2:
He's been working his butt off, my dear old daddy has. For years now. And not just as a way to pass the time. It's his higher calling. A labor of love (Pause.) A tour of his basement storeroom would make anybody's heart glad. Every organ he's ever torn out, any one big or little thing he ever cut off; all sorted out, on display, in neat little rows. With labels for what everything is, whose it was, where and when. Just like at the Museum of Natural History . . . But you don't believe me?
OLD WOMAN 1:
Oh we do, sister, we do.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Want a little peek at his collection of fingers? Step right over here. Is brain marinade a favorite of yours? Take a look in these jars. Do you get a yen for ears every so often? We've got those here. Try them in soup, or for a gravy that's out-of-this world; as a substitute, for mushrooms. And over here we have "Other Organs." These are extremely popular with our old folks. As transplants. They also make a good substitute for plum preserves.
OLD WOMAN 1:
But the real sensation is in the eye department. Ah yes, the eyes of our fellow citizens. Yellowish, turquoise and snow-white. A full aquarium. All comparisons pale before it. Our hearts flutter from the enchantment. We lick our chops and can't stop. Liberated for good from the least urge to dream of French oysters or Japanese frog-legs. (Pause.) Citizens-eyes; that's as high as a genuine gourmet's tongue can hope to reach. (Pause.) And not one living color. All this malnutrition, meanness and masochism.
OLD WOMAN 1:
We did not die in time. While we still had some life in us. Rot has consumed our dream.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Now hold on, not so fast! The basement's nice and cool. With just a pinch of salt, they won't spoil. We know the price of good meat today, don't we, sis? Really now, I'm not the common hag some might, at first glance, take me to be. Throughout the long years of famine, I was in charge of supply. Oh, if we'd only had such choice, juicy meat, in those days! Of course, there would have been more than enough to go around, even then. Sad to say, we had neither all the time we have today, nor the experience. Blood-pudding sustained us mostly in those days. (Pause.) One thing I still can't figure out: just how to put the beard shavings to use. During the years of famine, the beards were left uncut, and politics was the one subject they taught in all the required courses.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Now may be the time
to stop, calm down,
and let total oblivion
pile the last dirt on
one more, anonymous skeleton.
It's really a shame, to be
right in my young prime yet not get to see
the sun that shines in dreams,
nor feel the sunny breezes.
No longer kiss my dream-woman's hair,
cry or laugh, any more.
Or stumble on, blindly.
No, I don't want this!
Not in my young prime.
Yet the world is that . . . monstrous.
(Pause.) Brothers, who put us under this curse? Why are we like this?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Just cut the Shakespeare, and the answer is simple. The Great Forever. Grass stays green by feeding on tribal rot. Fathers at play on top of the ancestral bone-pile. Playing with the bones of their grandparents. And every once in a while some Mary or other drops her man child. Under what magnitude star, more or less, doesn't much matter. Whether as Christ, Herod, or Machiavelli makes no difference. That it happens again and again is all that matters. The anthill has to keep swarming.
YOUNG MAN 1:
And does that mean a new Judas, too? (to YOUNG MAN 2) You, my brother, would you be able to stick the knife in. Here, below this rib. Go right in. You able to do it?
YOUNG MAN 2:
Into the squirming jellyfish you are? There's not a firm rib inside you.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Human, and not born yet; at the same time ... I thought I had something. And was on my way, taking it somewhere ... A wolf-pack attacked, gnawed all of it up. Now emptied out, with legs spread apart, I stagger across the desert. (Pause.) Brothers! you're not the wolves, are you? Save me with a kiss. I have to get my lost faith, and peace, back. Have to get off this damned road some gruesome force drags me along. (Tries to get dose first to YOUNG MAN 2, then YOUNG MAN 3.) There's a wall between us. One solid wall.
YOUNG MAN 3:
That's how it is, my dear brother. Not much room for touch-and-kiss. We're all stuck in our little boxes. From naked Adam to ancient Abraham. All under the taboo.
YOUNG MAN 1:
But I don't have myself all intact. My spirit's all torn up, with the shreds scattered far off and vanishing. While I run after, as I have to, smashing into walls.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Bull! What walls? ("Stabs" YOUNG MAN 1)
YOUNG MAN 1:
(clutching his chest) No . . . new . . . Judas . . .
YOUNG MAN 2:
No walls!
YOUNG MAN 1:
(removing the hand from his chest) There's no wound. You missed. (Pointing between his ribs) Here, right in here.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Brothers, come off it. It's futile.
(YOUNG MAN 2 turns and "stabs" YOUNG MAN 3.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Not so fast! We need a few more hot arguments.
YOUNG MAN 1:
You sure?
YOUNG MAN 3:
And a real weapon.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Bound to turn up, you creep. (Goes off.)
(THE MAN comes over to the WOMAN, who is sitting on the slope.)
MAN:
We made a mistake. It was too early to let them out.
WOMAN:
When would the right time be, in your opinion? Never?
MAN:
I'm afraid so.
WOMAN:
You have no heart.
MAN:
And you're all heart.
WOMAN:
So I'm to blame for everything.
MAN:
Forgive me, I didn't mean to hurt you.
WOMAN:
Yes, it is my fault. My own guilt. I'm no help. To you, or them.
MAN:
I don't ask your help for myself. Go to them. Before it's too late.
WOMAN:
And tell them what? (Pause.) Please send a miracle, Lord, to make the boys believe there is love, and purity, and warm harmony, on this earth. Hear me out, oh Lord!
OLD MAN 1:
That young man was right. "How do you satisfy the hunger in people's hearts?" There are no other questions.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Suppose the whole earth is one big morgue. And all its citizens mummies without souls. This would explain why the old guys can't enjoy the sun, even though I paint them the most gorgeous colors.
OLD MAN 1:
He was still alive.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Did you say: alive? There are no live ones in the morgue. When one does revive, our dignitary here (pointing) takes care of him, fast.
OLD MAN 1:
The death of the living is an illusion.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Death is death.
OLD MAN 1:
Those who are truly alive have a spirit, which escapes and then flows into the realms beyond our understanding. And keeps waking us, from there.
OLD WOMAN 1:
"Beyond our understanding." You said it.
OLD MAN 1:
Have you ever gone out to the meadow, at midnight in July, to wash the sweat off in a stream and to listen with your whole being. (Pause.) Just you and the night. Somewhere around you, the insects are gnashing their teeth. You're all naked. Somewhere nearby, a bird keeps screeching. You're all alone. And somewhere there's a shudder of invisible wings. You turn into a pale shadow of the night. (Pause.) And whisper: why, oh Lord, am I so insignificant. (Pause.) There's a faint aroma to the darkness. A cool breeze pierces your naked body. Now the bugs quit, the bird quiets down, and the grass nuzzles up to your feet. Your immediate sensations fade, while remote memories revive. You stretch out prostrate and with one ear pressed to the ground you listen. Touched gently by the wings of the spirit, you hear what the dead who are still alive have to say.
(Pause.) The shimmering constellations. Their lights drift on the stream, and the stream cannot carry them off. You're gone. Over there. With the dead. Who stay alive forever.
OLD WOMAN 1:
What is it they're saying, these dead?
OLD MAN 1:
I've never been out to the meadow, at midnight in July . . .
OLD WOMAN 1:
Well, you sure give a fine speech. Like a top propaganda flack down from the capital. Just how do you get those fancy ideas into your head?
OLD MAN 1:
They don't come in. They're inside us already, and have been for ages. The night, the birds, the grass, the dead. All inside us. We're tongues. To set their voices free. What matters is that we should live.
OLD WOMAN 1:
What about you? Are you alive?
OLD MAN 1:
Sometimes I feel that I'm not. Anymore.
(YOUNG MAN 2, frantic in his search for a "real instrument," walks past the MAN. The MAN then follows him stealthily, suddenly grabs and twists one arm behind his back, and pushes him on toward the rest home. As they're climbing the stairs, YOUNG MAN 2 wrenches free, and grabs the MAN; and they both roll down the stairs, A long struggle ensues, in the course of which the advantage shifts from one to the other several times, Rage mounts in them both. MAN pulls out the knife, and their match becomes life-and-death, tottering in the balance; with both of them weakening, until finally they collapse exhausted, although they do not relax their grip on each other. A good while passes, before YOUNG MAN 2 gets to his feet, gropes around and locates the knife which has been dropped in the struggle, then staggers off the same way he came in. Knife in hand, YOUNG MAN 3 makes his way through the bushes, out of the ditch and toward the slope.)
OLD MAN 1:
Kill off your mercy. Along with your soul. He couldn't have had a soul.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Who?
OLD MAN 1:
The Great Leader.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Where?
OLD MAN 2:
Here he comes. Look!
OLD WOMAN 2:
(straightening her appearance) Oh Lordy!
OLD WOMAN 1:
They do revive. One did, at least.
OLD MAN 2:
(trying to gel to his feet) Yours to command, Great Leader!
OLD WOMAN 2:
(after a closer look) Snap out of it, grandad. It's just another rest-home guest.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Why couldn't the leader revive? Three times I painted him over.
OLD MAN 1:
He was never alive.
OLD MAN 2:
What! What's this you just said?
OLD MAN 1:
The Great Leader never was alive.
OLD MAN 2:
You renegade! (To the imaginary leader.) Yes. I'm a bum, good for nothing. I still haven't carried out your order. But please understand. I'm all by myself. And I'm old. My health is shot. But I will carry it out. Right now. I'm up, and moving.
OLD WOMAN 2:
I'm with him. How could the Leader ever have died? The old people today get enough to eat, don't they? And don't they have plenty of everything else, too? Glory be to the Leader!
OLD MAN 1:
Who will there be left to enter the after-life? The people now die off only after their souls have left them. How could the Leader ever have had a soul? Could he have ever been alive?
OLD MAN 2:
The Leader lives forever! Yours to command, Great Leader. (Pause.)
The Great Leader lives on, forever! (Pause.) So do I. Forever! I'm the Great Morgue-organizer. A real morgue-ogre. Grr. (He bites into OLD MAN 1).
YOUNG MAN 1:
Brother, how should we live?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Same way we live now.
YOUNG MAN 1:
There must be some other way out.
YOUNG MAN 3:
That's a dying nag's dream, brother. We're caught in the trap. Stuck. A trap we set ourselves. A trap set for us by all the others. Fathers, grandfathers. The screeching infants. A black man in the African jungle. Sun spots. The President of the United States. A VD germ. (Pause.) And we can't avoid it. (Pause.) Why should we, in that case, wrack our brains over it? We've got guts, instead. Our very own, beloved bowels. Let's stuff them with nutrients. And let's create something we can't help but create, i.e., carbon dioxide. Well, and to round it out, let's from time to time put the other organs to use too. Our instruments. The brain, for instance. The fingers and/or toes. To turn someone in; or snuff someone. And it's as though the riddle of existence never even came up.
YOUNG MAN 1:
(strangely elated) My brother! Judas did hang himself. Didn't he?
YOUNG MAN 3:
I wonder. Hang yourself once, and you don't have to again. Yet the Judases hang themselves over and over. Every day. On the hour. Turn someone in and hang. Turn someone in and don't hang. For those who have to hang themselves tomorrow can't go and hang themselves today. Though it doesn't matter. Everything does pass and vanish and write itself off. Both the so-called evil and good deeds, alike. Man included.
YOUNG MAN 1:
If only this were true.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Who pays all the bills? The fools and weaklings. And why? They get all caught up in alien words until their nerves can't take it any more. Be tough, and you won't have to pay. Create your own vocabulary, free of words, the frayed nerve-ends they are, and of squabbling mobs.
YOUNG MAN 1:
But then, you're left all alone.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Wherever you have two, dear brother, the force of will is half-diminished. With three, it's down to a third. While with one million, it's just about equal to the will of a herd.
YOUNG MAN 1:
You get trampled, alone.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Sure, that's more likely to happen. But believe me, it's still easier to keep the one million enslaved than to wipe out that one individual of yours.
YOUNG MAN 1:
And what do I do with this freedom, alone? What's it good for?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Just this, dear brother; that, having done everything you could not avoid doing, you can still use your last breath to calmly say: It still was good, not having had to live like an insect.
YOUNG MAN 1:
And afterwards? In those other regions. What's out there, waiting for us? Maybe we'll have to foot the whole bill, then.
YOUNG MAN 3:
If, my dear brother, there was anything out there, would all these things be going on here?
OLD WOMAN 1:
(to OLD MAN 1) Doesn't all this slobbering make you disgusted?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Disgusted! Look who's talking.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Insinuating again, you maggot eater?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Just what kind of crap made your teeth rot?
OLD WOMAN 1:
Same as yours, sis.
OLD WOMAN 2:
I've still got one-and-a-half incisors left. So there!
OLD WOMAN 1:
Open your robe. Show us, if you've got any bite left, you old wormhole.
(OLD MAN 2, unable to bite into OLD MAN 1, releases him briefly; he pulls a set of metal teeth from his pocket, sticks it into his mouth, grabs OLD MAN 1 again, tries to bite, but with no success: his jaws are too weak.)
YOUNG MAN 1:
(coming up to YOUNG MAN 2) The real thing, this time? Is it meant for me?
YOUNG MAN 2:
Why should it be you? After all, we do have one other close buddy. Shake on it.
YOUNG MAN 1:
No, never.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Every thing he does stinks of filth and corruption. Every word of his is thoroughly drenched in his shit-digger's arrogance. Just dripping with it.
YOUNG MAN 1:
But how do we? Alone. Without him.
YOUNG MAN 2:
He reviles us. And makes fun of everything we hold sacred. The purest impulse, once he's touched it, turns into a churning cesspool. We can never get clean, while he's alive.
(THE WOMAN enters.)
WOMAN:
(to YOUNG MAN 2) Good Lord, what are you up to?
YOUNG MAN 2:
A clean-up operation. It's a mission of sorts we're engaged in. For the sake of humanity.
WOMAN:
(to YOUNG MAN 1) You're in with him? Against our boy?
YOUNG MAN 2:
(pushing the WOMAN back) Get out, while there's time. (to YOUNG MAN 1) Everything that belonged to the administrator, now is mine. I beat him. You can share in all I've got. Let's shake on the deal.
YOUNG MAN 1:
I'm a poet.
YOUNG MAN 2:
A spineless jellyfish, that's what you are.
YOUNG MAN 1:
"Be tough, and you won't have to pay."
YOUNG MAN 2:
Give me your hand, and you can feel what power is. (They shake hands.)
WOMAN:
(grabbing for the knife) I won't let you. (YOUNG MAN 2 wrenches the knife back, and the blade slashes her dress and her hands.)
YOUNG MAN 1:
(to the WOMAN) Don't condemn me. I couldn't stand the void any longer. I had to fill it, any way I could.
WOMAN:
And the silver lakes? The faraway eyes? (Pause.) Eyes that awaken gentleness and set the heart on fire?
YOUNG MAN 1:
They don't exist. Nothing exists. There's only a road, all mud and pot-holes. Along which we have to crawl. Climbing over each other. To the end.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(to OLD MAN 1) Come on, old man! Give him a good kick, before he gobbles you all up.
OLD MAN 1:
I have no right to deprive a man of what gives his life a purpose. Moreover, if he did not do what he is engaged in doing now, he would not be himself. By definition. And I would not be myself. And so my life would lose its purpose.
OLD MAN 2:
(having released OLD MAN 1) He's like a big old boot. All patches. (To the OLD WOMEN) Which one of you stitched this tough leather to his chest? (To the imaginary Leader) Listen Big Joe, my Great Leader: he's all patched. Too tough for my teeth. (Laughs) All patched up. (Laughs.) Like one big worn-out work-boot! (Goes on laughing.)
(The other OLD PEOPLE join in, infected with OLD MAN 2's sad and eerie laughter.)
OLD MAN 2:
You're all laughing. At me! Why? I'm human, just like you.
OLD WOMAN 2:
You really cheered us all up, grandad. The night seems just that much brighter. All the way down into my bowels!
OLD MAN 2:
And me? They'll plug the Bratsk Power Plant into me!
OLD WOMAN 2:
(petting him) Poor old grandad. Wasting away right before my eyes.
OLD MAN 2:
I'm tired. Dead tired.
OLD WOMAN 2:
If only you'd come to your senses. And live in peace, without all these worries.
OLD MAN 2:
If I could only sleep. I start to doze off, and something starts creaking inside my head and crackling under my robe. So I'm scared to fall asleep. Any moment now, the voice may start up. And so, once again.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(pointing to her lap) Lay your head down. There. Relax and rest.
OLD MAN 2:
(after he has put his head in her lap) Ow! I hurt my ear.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(adjusting his head, to make him more comfortable) I've lost my pleasing plumpness. I know. My well-rounded hips lost their shape, long ago. And yet, in my young days, it used to be, when I'd walk down the street, the whole capital would stop and turn. Including even the cubscouts. Drooling, like the plague had hit them. I was wild! (Pause.) The ear doesn't pinch any more? And though your locks no longer are what they were once, throw in a hug, and a cuddle, they're all this granny needs. For now, anyway.
OLD MAN 2:
When will it ever end?
OLD WOMAN 2:
None of this sad stuff, you old dearie, you! Feel how balmy it is, this evening. With the crickets, just chirping away.
OLD MAN 2:
What? What?
OLD WOMAN 2:
Crickets, that's what. Chirping. Away.
OLD MAN 2:
Oh, chirping! (Pause.) But I don't hear a thing.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Not much I can still hear, either. But I do hear the little crickets. All the time.
OLD MAN 2:
Always something rustling—clogging—crawling over me. Don't let me fall asleep. Don't.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(on opening OLD MAN 2's robe) Good Lord, and no wonder! Poor old grandad, you're all covered with bugs! (picking imaginary insects from OLD MAN 2's body and sticking them in the ground) Hold off, you're colonizing him too much too early! Wait a bit. To every thing there's a season. (Pause.) How's that? You still hear the rustling? (Pause.) He dozed off, the poor dear. (Takes her robe off and starts picking "bugs" from her own body.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
(standing at base of slope, not far from the OLD PEOPLE) Almighty God, if you do exist, don't let the cup pass me by. Let me drink it all down. Right to the bottom. By myself. Without your will being done. I'm sick of this pit I'm stuck in. Sick of the reptiles crawling around. Their ferocious teeth. And churning bellies. All the carbon dioxide. Oh Lord Almighty, if you have any power, let me drink the whole cup down. By myself.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Brother!
(As YOUNG MAN 3 turns in the direction of the voice, YOUNG MAN 2 prods him in the back with the point of his blade.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
Friends! you're making a fatal mistake. Should have stabbed and got it over with, all at once.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Say your prayers, creep! Beg forgiveness!
YOUNG MAN 3:
I'd be most happy to oblige. Unfortunately though, the times don't much go in for this. Pray? You don't know to whom. Beg forgiveness? You don't know what for. Maybe you know. No, of course not; you never sink that low. It's in the name of all humanity that you come crawling. To gnash my throat open, with your teeth!
YOUNG MAN 2:
You finished yet?
YOUNG MAN 3:
Dear brothers, don't you appreciate my kind of prayer? And you, the poet! And this time Judas won't go hang himself, afterwards. Well, why waste time, if you don't like it? When there's no one left to squeal, you'll lose the urge to crawl around too. Then see what's left.
(THE MAN staggers in.)
MAN:
Humble yourself, kid. It's your last hope.
YOUNG MAN 3:
Glad to, comrade administrator. But I don't know the words for that.
MAN:
Arrogance makes you blind, kid. You're overcome with hate. Scattering the seeds of violence.
YOUNG MAN 3:
I've heard all this already, old man. Somewhere else.
MAN:
Let all forgive the injuries and injustices they've had to endure. Let every man throw down the rifle, or any violent tool, he keeps trained on his neighbor, whether man, woman or child. Let all the men and women greet each other with a smile, and let all join in one embrace, because each one is both man and woman, elder and child.
YOUNG MAN 3:
And all together in one happy squirming pile, as usual. The Judases in with the righteous, the infants with the Herods, the whores with the innocents. Exclusive orgies, as before, to raise a stench powerful enough to put the stars out. Because there's no way out. Because we scare worse than the weakest rabbits, and are fiercer than a pack of wolves, at least as blind and impotent as squashed worms.
(YOUNG MAN 2 kits YOUNG MAN 3 on the head with the side of his knife)
OLD WOMAN 1:
Corpses. Nothing but corpses. (To OLD MAN 1) What to do, old man. What do we do?
OLD MAN 1:
When a man no longer knows what to do, he has to accept his fate.
OLD WOMAN 1:
You've come to terms?
OLD MAN 1:
I know what to do.
OLD WOMAN 1:
What's that? OLD MAN 1:
I'm waiting for night to fall. So I can make it out to the meadow, once and for all.
OLD WOMAN 1:
You keep waiting, while the nights come and go.
OLD MAN 1:
My night is yet to come.
OLD WOMAN 1:
The old guys, meanwhile, sit out there in the squares. No longer living. Two hundred million of them. Along with their leader. And you don't care?
OLD MAN 1:
Nothing can help them. They have no spirit left.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Does that mean you've done all you could do?
OLD MAN 1:
When you carried me up from the basement, a spring storm was raging outside. The rain poured down, the lightning cracked. I myself don't know how many days and nights I lay sprawled out in the middle of the field. All I know is that when I came to, I could see sun and grass. The grass-blades caressed my wounds, my wounds were healing, and 1 was happy. (Pause.) But the city was in danger. Under the threat of menopause. The beginning of death. I gathered all the grass I could and carried it to the city. But the old men didn't even look up. Why? The grass sparkled to overflowing, with the cosmic passions.
OLD WOMAN 1:
And you? Were you so full and sparkling with love? Simple, human love.
OLD MAN 1:
Human love is a frail reed. Defenseless against mockery, loss, treachery and murder. It cannot satisfy the heart. The great cosmic love is far above both time and pain.
OLD WOMAN 1:
How smug! You condemn a man; conscience torments you; and so, to expiate your guilt, you pull up handfuls of grass and offer them to the dead. Look here: I've brought you a whole heap of the great love; here, help yourselves, and my conscience is clear.
OLD MAN 1:
Not even you can understand me.
OLD WOMAN 1:And did you understand the young man you condemned? And why, when he was being led to his death, he raised his bleeding palms and said: It is possible. Possible to fill the hunger in people's hearts; did you understand that?
OLD MAN 1:
If he'd only said with what.
OLD WOMAN 1:
You hide your wound and hold your scream back until after nightfall. What makes you think you would have heard him? His palms were bleeding in the daylight too. In full view of everybody. Come and see, they were shouting: see the miracle it is! (OLD WOMAN 1 pulls off OLD MAN 1's robe, fastens her lips to his chest and weeping aloud begins to tear off his "scars".)
OLD MAN 1:
Go on, tear into me. My heart, my itching scabs.
OLD WOMAN 1:
(throws off her own robe and "smears" her face and body with the "scars" she has torn off) Life color! Color of the pain stripped naked! Now that I found you, I'm taking you to the old people in the city.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(crawling up to OLD WOMAN 1) Give me a little piece!
OLD WOMAN 1:
("smearing" OLD WOMAN 2) And the painted old men shall lift up their eyes. And march, in a procession, up to the mausoleum. ("Smearing" OLD MAN 2) And the Great Leader, resplendent in his fourth coat of paint, shall lift his gaze and go forth into the red square.
OLD WOMAN 2:
Don't be so greedy!
OLD WOMAN 1:
And the sun shall shine down in red rays. The whole earth bright red.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(to OLD MAN 2) Look, grandad: I don't say no to anybody, and she's being stingy with one lousy little piece.
OLD WOMAN 1:
Shining for all the children. And the grandchildren. Forever and ever.
OLD WOMAN 2:
(to OLD MAN 2) Hey! old timer, wake up.
OLD MAN 2:
(sits up; startled on seeing OLD WOMAN 1) Yours to command, Big Joe.
OLD WOMAN 2:
What are you gaping at? Never saw a mustache on a naked body before?
OLD MAN 2:
(menacing) "And there shall come forth pretenders who will take on my looks and ape my manner."
(OLD MAN 2 crawls to OLD WOMAN 1 and starts to tug at her. OLD WOMAN 2 tries to snatch a "little piece." OLD WOMAN 1 resists them both. The three become embroiled in a bizarre and impotent naked wrestling match.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
(regaining consciousness) Still, brothers, some life left. Ever try that experience? I recommend it. How simple to let your breath out, once nothing else matters. Not any skirt, or other little thing; once you're off flying, tailing after your own sweet soul the devil knows where. Then, to come back, astounded, and open your eyes. You've won out! Against the call of life, and all the crybabies wailing away inside you. It's the absolute greatest. So snap to, brothers. Nose up. And off to the parade ground, hup two hup. There to proclaim the joys of the grave!
(YOUNG MAN 2 stabs him with the knife)
YOUNG MAN 3:
(collapsing) Drag each man, who's not a Judas, to the gallows. Guillotine each elder, whose hands are not smudged with power and blood. Drive the women who are innocent out on the platform of shame and tear off their clothes. (YOUNG MAN 2 keeps stabbing him; while YOUNG MAN 1 is down on his knees and crying, as he keeps trying to grab the bloody knife.)
YOUNG MAN 3:
(near death) Crawl in anywhere it stinks of manure, you virtuous, righteous citizens. Lather yourselves in it, or stay dry, as you wish, but keep on crawling, mug first, grinning from head to heel. Go on licking the boots of all the tyrants, blood-suckers, degenerates and villains. Not a, single, eye, take, pity, on, those, who, refuse to, do this. Not a single, arm, be raised, to defend, them. Because, this is, the only, way, we, preserve, weakness, treachery, blood-thirst, for, all eternity. So the, source of, innocence, never, comes up, to, flow for, the, off-spring. (The OLD PEOPLE wrestling nearby are near the point of exhaustion. Totally exhausted, YOUNG MAN 2 collapses. YOUNG MAN 1 sprawls on the ground. In a while, YOUNG MAN 2 rises somewhat. He is limp, expressionless. YOUNG MAN 1 also lifts himself onto his elbows. For a while they stare out, dead pan.)
YOUNG MAN 2:
The snake.
YOUNG MAN 1:
On purpose.
YOUNG MAN 2:
All of it.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Nothing.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Reptiles.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Coyotes.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Crawling.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Blind.
YOUNG MAN 2:
By night.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Sucked dry.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Slaughtered each other.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Sold out.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Uncovered.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Mothers and fathers.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Machiavellis.
YOUNG MAN 1:
Judases.
YOUNG MAN 2:
The rats.
YOUNG MAN 1:
The bellies.
YOUNG MAN 2:
All the leching.
YOUNG MAN 1:
And impotence.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Dust.
YOUNG MAN 1:
The great self.
YOUNG MAN 2:
The great nothing.
YOUNG MAN 1:
The great all.
YOUNG MAN 2:
Forever.
(THE WOMAN enters. Her wounds are visible. She kneels down beside YOUNG MAN 3, closes his eyes, and kisses him; then starts to pray.)
WOMAN:
How long, dear Lord? Or is your wrath eternal?
Is there to be no end to your fierce burning?
Return, oh Lord of Charity! Forget. Forgive.
Without your light as begging wolves we live.
Venom and salt-tears are our daily bread.
Without your mercy, life itself is dead.
Oh Lord, we implore your light on our faces.
Once we can see you, we shall be saved.
(The rest-home clock strikes the hour. THE CARETAKER descends the marble stairs. THE WOMAN covers YOUNG MAN 3 with her coat. ALL slowly rise, walk to the path, and with THE CARETAKER in the lead disappear among the columns.)
THE MAN:
(mumbling, as he walks last in the procession) Lord of Charity. Come back. We shall be saved.
(The words fade from his lips; his whole being speaks of exhaustion and indifference.)
END