KINDERBETT
In the darkness, we hear a rumbling sound. Music begins. As the first light appears
we see PETE sitting at the organ. He sings STAY AWAKE WITH ME.
Other sounds emerge – the chanting of monks, the ticking of a clock, a fifties pop
song, a fire. In this mix we also hear NINA’S voice repeating the names of people in
her story, along with other voices and story fragments.
KATARINA
I’ve had enough love to last me a lifetime
WALTER
Must I explain everything - my father was a Jew.
GITTIE
Please god ALOISIA
And? And? Where is he now?
GITTIE
- give me my father back.
ALOISIA
Gittie, go and stand – there won’t be another chance. Quick, smile now. Smile.
WILHELM
Listen to the watch Gitte – tick tack tick tack.
GITTIE
I miss my little brother
WALTER
Turn that music down I can’t hear anything –
WALTIE
Gittie! Gittie help me Gittie!
WALTER
You’re a good girl, Gittie.
NINA, lit at the microphone, speaks live for the first time.
NINA
It’s not right. To wake people up in the middle of the night. Three o’clock. To
wake me every single night, to wake them. One after the other to disturb their
dreams. Can’t you let me be in peace just for tonight? Can’t I just be allowed to
sleep? Won’t you just let me sleep?
2
PETE and NINA sing STAY AWAKE WITH ME.
As the song finishes, we can hear a noise like the exaggerated sound of a room.
NINA enters the room. The sound track marks her passage from one space to
another.
This bed was built because an old man saw a young woman play the violin.
In 1902 in Vienna.
PETE plays KATARINA’S MELK THEME on violin, and moves up to a raised
platform.
Katarina would one day in the future become the mother of Wilhelm, Alfred and
Walter, but she didn’t know that yet. She was busy playing the violin in the
great concert halls in Europe. Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Vienna,
Prague. She was talented, beautiful. Surrounded by handsome young suitors, who
wrote love songs to her. But the young admirers didn’t have a chance and neither did
Katarina. Wherever she played an old man sat in the front row winking at her.
That was him, Mr. Kareis, a wealthy Jewish delicatessen grocer, and owner of a
whole chain of delicatessen shops in Vienna. He’d made his fortune by gathering
morsels from all over the world and now he wanted one for himself. He wanted her.
The beautiful, talented violinist. He sat there every single night in the front row,
winking, sending her flowers and dinner invitations, he was relentless. Finally
Katarina succumbed.
One night when Katarina looked at him from the stage and saw him winking at
her she knew that everything was different. Now it wasn’t just a fantasy, but the
memory of what he’d finally made her do with him. And the certainty that his
child was growing inside of her.
The old man took Katarina to the monastery at Melk, to give birth amidst the
finest baroque splendour.
Recorded sound - the chanting of monks.
As soon as Wilhelm saw the light of day he was whisked away to a wet nurse.
And so that Katarina’s figure should not be destroyed by breast fed children,
nannies were hired and Wilhelm was left in the bed when her time came again.
Back to Melk, baroque splendour – pop – Alfred - off to the wet nurse. The two
brothers stayed behind with nannies the next time Katarina went back to Melk
for the third time. Out came little brother Walter – off to the wet nurse.
The live violin stops.
There they were, the three first children who slept in the bed, Wilhelm, Alfred
and Walter. The good, the strong and -
3
The sound track gives a suggestion of menace as NINA stops that story.
Well Vienna wasn’t the whole world. There’s another side to the story.
High up in the mountains a fine young girl who knew nothing of Vienna called
Aloisia who wanted to let it be known that a marriage would be considered by
her family. So as tradition decrees, she walked to the top of the mountain and
she said - ‘Give me a man. I want a man. I – want – a – man’.
In the clean air of the mountains, they had a little farm, things had to be done,
the same things everyday. They lived their lives simply, according to the seasons.
Josef sometimes worked as a blacksmith, and as time went on Aloisi also gave
birth to three children – Agnes, Rudolph and Pepi. They went to church, they
got along with their neighbours. They would have stayed away from trouble, if
trouble had stayed away from them.
She yodels to attract a mate. PETE answers. She is encouraged. She calls back his
name – Yodelly Josef. PETE plays the small accordion. They sing IN THE WOODS.
The FIRST FARM music begins. PETE and NINA move through a comic series of
farm tasks, also supplying the sound of the farm animals.
A bell sounds for church. ‘Still’ atmosphere. They go to receive communion, and
then return home. ‘Still’ atmosphere fades.
They play a game of cards, in which Aloisia cheats, and Josef sneaks drinks. NINA
wants to settle back to sleep. PETE gets up.
SCARY FARM sound begins.
PETE disrupts the room, lowering objects, opening cupboards, emptying out drawers.
The underscore becomes more menacing, and more like the exaggerated sound of the
room, which disturbed her sleep in the beginning.
In the mountains, they had a little farm, things had to be done, the same things
everyday. Sometimes Josef gathered wood – poor man’s wood, leftover wood – the
monks would let him remove the stumps of trees, to burn in his own fire. He had
hooks and chains, always clean, always sharp – he took pride in his work. He was a
simple man – he was content, to drink his schnapps and marvel at the size of pigs
– let me stay in clean air. Can’t I just stay there – away from trouble – in the
mountains –
PETE begins playing harmonium and sings THE CLOCK SONG.
Can’t you let me be – for one night?
4
Since she can’t retreat into the world of the farm, she at least arranges the past the
way she likes to have it. She begins to put up her pictures.
There’s not enough blood in Bregenz for you. Is there? Aloisia. A mountain woman.
Josef. Little farmer. Rudolph – you know what he did, this one, he cut the prisoners
hair, two eggs for a big head, one for a small. Agnes – what harm did she ever do to
anyone? Pepi. Even in the mountains there was grief. There they were, minding
their own business She picks up more photographs.
It needn’t have turned out this way. It could have been different. They had dreams.
Happy dreams - they were children. Wilhelm. This bed was full of their dreams just
the same way Vienna was full of bright minds. They were going to change the world,
they were going to do such things. Alfred. Then one by one their dreams were
disturbed. Walter. And that’s what you want to hear. How children grew up, just to
be murdered. This is the old man who started it all, old Mr. Kareis. And his beloved
Katarina.
The old man spent everything he ever made trying to buy his young wife
happiness. Nurses and nannies, smart Vienna parties, with Schiele, Klimt, Mahler,
Wittgenstein and Freud. Socialism, communism, nudism, feminism, and
psychoanalysis. They wanted to change the world.
After twelve years of constant attention from the man she’d had enough love to
last a lifetime. So, she divorced him. So here she was in 1914, just before the first
world war, a communist, feminist and single mother of three boys.
PETE plays violin – reprise KATARINA’S MELK THEME
Katarina went back to playing violin in the rich hotels, until she was too old, and
too ugly, and her fingers curled in the agony of arthritis. She and the sons
inherited the last delicatessen when the old man died, and she worked hard to
support her three boys. She raised them to become good communists, and in
return Wilhelm, Alfred and Walter helped their mother in the shop. But it was
the late twenties, and there was a depression - people had no money for exotic
morsels, and the last delicatessen closed.
Once upon a time, young men knocked at Katarina’s door late at night, to sing some
love song they had written for her. Now she was old and the young men came again,
knocking her door late at night, but now they brought her their stinking clothes, which
they threw in her arms. Katarina had become a washerwoman for students, who had
no idea what beauty she had once possessed.
And then she had only her boys. Wilhelm, Alfred, Walter were out of the bed and
growing up fast. Voices were already raised against the Jews. Backs were
turned. Ears were suddenly deaf. Doors were closing.
The live violin finishes. We hear the sound of ticking.
5
The oldest brother Wilhelm showed no signs of leaving home. Katarina didn’t
like Wilhelm’s girlfriends – if you really loved me you wouldn’t need anyone
else. Fine words from a mother, but it was okay, Wilhelm didn’t really like his
girlfriends either. When Sunday came, he liked to swim.
They had swimming parties at the river, Wilhelm and his friends. They’d lie by
the water, laughing together, enjoying the sunshine, silly jokes, stories. Sooner
or later they’d get to the edge, ready to take the plunge, and jump in together.
Swimming parties at the Danube, before the world went down.
Wilhelm had time to play with his niece, to have the little girl on his knee. She’d
pick at the wool of his suit, and listen.
The ticking stops.
Alfred trained to be an engineer, and as soon as he could he headed east across
the Soviet Union, all the way to Uzbekistan, to the city of Tashkent, to build
bridges in the communist utopia. He wrote letters home all the time, telling his
brothers and his mothers what life was like, what they were building, telling them he
would never come home until life in Vienna could be as good as his life was now in
Tashkent. He had a wife, and children of his own, two boys who he named for his
brothers.
Walter couldn’t wait to follow his brother to the Soviet Union. He was so sure he
was finished with Austria he didn’t think twice about marrying his ugly cousin
from Czechoslovakia. She only wanted to get papers to stay in Vienna, and it
was a shame for her, and anyway what did the Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan
care if he had an ugly wife in the west. Walter had trained as an engineer also,
but never worked. He wasn’t a bad engineer, he was just a Jew engineer. So
instead of building bridges he collected garbage, and for a while he removed
dead bodies in Vienna, and a string of other horrible jobs until one little dream
came true. He had loved cars all his life and now FIAT offered him a job as a
chauffeur, if he would move to Bregenz. He didn’t think twice about that either.
And so the worlds were closing in because in the mountains overlooking the lake
at Bregenz, Yodelly Josef wandered, now proud to have a daughter who had
blossomed into the same beauty that had once drawn him to his wife Aloisia.
This was Agnes, and now it was her time to let it be known that a marriage would be
considered by her family. So as tradition decrees, she walked to the top of the
mountain, and she said PETE begins the introduction to THERE ONCE WAS A MAN. Agnes walks to the
top of the mountain, but turns back. Agnes and Aloisia confer.
Yes mum, I know it’s a tradition, just I feel stupid – well if I must –
She comes to the top of the mountain once more.
6
I want a man – I want a man - a handy man – must be a driver - and have own
transport - knowledge of cars and other motor vehicles should be demonstrated –
Citroen, Renault, Volvo, Nimbus PETE sings THERE ONCE WAS A MAN.
She was a girl of the mountains, and probably pure - refreshing charms to a man
who has carried away bodies for a living. And to Agnes, Walter came drenched
with adventure, all the way from Vienna. Walter and Agnes touched each other
non-stop in public, so what they did in private god only knows.
We can hear the sound of the ukulele from somewhere on the stage. NINA opens the
cupboard door to reveal PETE playing inside.
I think they cavorted a lot. Walter was on his way to the Soviet Utopia, he knew
everything there was to know about all the latest motor vehicles, he was a man
on the move. He was a man with a future, a man with a past, a man with – a –
wife?
You have a wife?
No – not exactly.
You have a wife?
No – it’s my cousin.
So you aren’t married?
Well yes –
Oh Walter!
But I can explain.
So explain.
We aren’t married in that way.
But you are married?
Yes.
In some other mysterious way you are married?
For convenience.
Convenience?
Yes.
And am I too for convenience?
No.
What’s wrong with me that I’m not convenient.
You don’t understand.
I think I do.
No.
You think you can take advantage of a girl from the mountains.
Agnes.
You hear the yodelling you think – ah –
You have to see her face.
I don’t want to look at her.
Trust me.
7
Trust you – you make love to me and after all I find out you are married, trust
you –
Please.
Everything they said about Vienna it’s true.
Look –
And finally Walter managed to get a photograph out of his wallet, while Agnes
wept that he should carry a photograph of this convenient wife everywhere with
him and he begged her
Just look at it.
And she looked and she said
Ah. I see what you mean. Wow.
And the first jealously of Agnes was at an end.
The ukulele music stops.
I told you it was for convenience, he said. So that she wouldn’t have to go back
to Czechoslovakia. But now it’s okay to get a divorce. Then we can be married.
As long as we get married quickly.
Why quickly?
He said that after the first of April it would be forbidden.
Why forbidden?
Must I explain everything, he asked. My father was a Jew. Now the Nazis are in
power and they don’t want Jews to have rights like other people.
Walter.
Yes.
Is this another marriage of convenience?
No. Now hurry. I’ll get divorced. You get dressed.
It wasn’t how she had imagined it, but what did it matter, this man drenched
with adventure was returning to her, to marry her. Agnes made herself
beautiful according to local custom, and got ready to be married, to waltz, to
make love.
Agnes! Hurry.
Alright I’m coming. You’re worse than the Nazis.
Agnes walked up the aisle and took her vows and went to the wedding breakfast
on a cloud. But before the breakfast could begin the Gestapo arrived to take
away her husband, to take away the future they had just promised each other.
Nobody said a word. Backs were turned. Doors were closed.
8
The next day, they sent him back to her, but things were never the same again,
he was never hers again. They made love, they made a child, they sat in a meadow
one day, for a picnic in the sun, and all I can see in the photo is the dark shadow of
what was to come, in his eyes, in her heart. The Nazis took Walter to Berlin after
that, to work for them. Even a Jew engineer could be useful to the Luftwaffe.
Underneath the story, we can hear the electronic sound track.
Walter wrote to Agnes from Berlin.
Walter’s voice is heard on tape:
Dearest Agnes, Work is going well. Whatever anyone says about the Luftwaffe, I am
happy to work at last as an engineer. Berlin is big, bigger even than Vienna – you
would be amazed. And the night time is as busy as the day, with bars everywhere you
look. I enjoy walking in the streets at night, but as you know I enjoy a quieter sort of
company. I miss you Agnes. Kiss Gittie for me – is she getting bigger?
Beloved Agnes, Work is harder now and the new rules have made all the bosses
careful and strict. I wish we could meet. You can feel very lonely in such a big town.
I miss you so much. Kiss Gittie for me.
Dear dear Agnes, If this is a hard letter to read it is because it is first a hard
letter to write. After so long alone – I have met someone here who has made life
bearable. Perhaps you will already have guessed that she is a woman. She also
works in the Luftwaffe and I have moved into her house. This is so difficult for
me. I love you both. What should I do? Kiss Gittie for me.
Berlin. For a girl from the mountains it was as if the devil himself was at play.
Agnes was scared, but she still found the courage to go, alone with her little girl.
Walter let them stay in the apartment in Berlin. On the sofa. While he was in
the bedroom, behind a closed door, with his lover.
Agnes lay there, her pride lost, her child clutched to her, as tightly into her chest
as she wanted to clutch Walter. For two long weeks. Fourteen endless nights.
Clutching. Crying silently behind the child, staring past her shoulder, trying to
hear and not to hear, trying not to hear and not to believe. Her throat stinging
with tears and with a cry she couldn’t release.
PETE sings Gregorian chant live.
One day she went and sat in a big city chapel, watching candles burn down.
Feeling her child fidget. Feeling her own voice so small inside her, because of the
shame she had endured, hour after hour, night after night. If only all of that could be
put into prayer.
NINA tells us what Agnes wanted to pray but couldn’t. She stops.
9
God – you can stop this – stop this! Stop this evil – is Berlin now the devil’s
playground – how can you allow it – how can you allow this man, who made his vows
to me, in front of you, to be taken by this whore – don’t you see that I am here with
our child? I won’t stand for it! Make an end to it.
Yet she had no voice. She nudged her baby, pushed her forward to speak to the
almighty.
The little girl said ‘please god give me my father back’. And her prayer was
answered, as god answers prayers. A Jesuit monk stepped forward as tall as a
dream, smiling, at her, and he said ‘who was it who prayed so nicely’? That was
when Agnes let the bitter tears come burning out from where she had hidden
them. She wept her confession, all of the shame of it while the tall monk listened.
He prayed beside Agnes that Walter would realise his sin, that he would know
the Lord’s forgiveness and a wife’s blessing.
The electronic sound track stops.
Agnes went back to the apartment, and back to her blanket on the sofa. Walter
looked at her, but it was as if he didn’t see her. He said goodnight.
He turned the handle of the bedroom door, opened it, went in, and closed the
door behind him. She covered her ears then, not to hear, not to know for sure, so
she wouldn’t hear him in there, and have the picture in her mind.
There is another hint of menace on the sound track. Then, electronic music begins.
Agnes travelled back, still clutching the little girl, who now had her first ever toy,
which was all that the monk was able to deliver.
She returned to Aloisia and Josef.
Josef was quiet.
Aloisia was not.
Did you find him?
And? And? Where is he now?
Still in Berlin? With that swine of a woman?
Just because war is coming it doesn’t mean he can screw around. Didn’t you tell
him that? Well?
Give me my coat Josef. Come on. I’m going to Berlin.
Just because war is coming – schnapps is still schnapps – do you understand me.
And Aloisia put on her coat, and walked out of the house, and out of the village,
and out of the mountains and across the border and through Germany Munich, Augsburg, Nuremburg, Bayreuth, Dresden and Leipzig.
10
We hear a telephone ringing. The music snaps out.
Hello – Agnes Kareis at the apparatus – Walter? Oh good day Wilhelm. How
nice to – Yes. I’ll be home this evening. We are always pleased to see you.
Wilhelm knew that if he was ever going to tell the truth about why he didn’t like
his girlfriends, it had to be now. So he went to the woman he had loved in silence
for so many years, to Agnes in Bregenz, to his brother’s wife. They sat all night
together, his hand almost touched hers.
‘Her lipstick was so red. She asked what he liked to eat. That bitch even asked
me if I wanted her recipe for Berliner Pfannkuchen. It was so humiliating. I
just sat there…
When he saw how bitterly sad Agnes was, Wilhelm felt the colour rise in his face
– he was ashamed – of what his brother had done, and what he had planned to
do. How could he speak to her of his love, when…..
The music snaps in again, and now has a driving rhythm.
Leipzig, Magdburg, Potsdam, Berlin. Potsdammer Alle, Konnigs Alle, Bismark
Strasse, Johanna Platz, Kurfurstendamm, Keizer Friedrich Strasse, Wagner
Strasse, Goethe Strasse, Schiller Strasse, Schiller Strasse thirteen, fifth floor, to
the right.
Come out of there you swine of a woman! Come out you swine woman. Walter
open that door.
The music ends.
Walter opened the door. That was it. Soon the second jealousy of Agnes was at
an end.
Then help came from an unexpected quarter. The Nazis had destroyed her
wedding but now it seemed as though they saved her marriage. One morning
they came and picked up Walter and put him in the concentration camp
Buchenwald. If he stayed healthy he could work there. If he got sick…. But at
least in there he couldn’t screw around.
Even Aloisia couldn’t stop a war or keep her family safe. Her oldest son Rudi
did cartwheels when the Nazis came marching into Bregenz in the shiny
uniforms. He couldn’t wait to run off and join the adventure. Her youngest son
Pepi was only fifteen, and she could only hope that it would all be over, long
before his time came.
Pepi, I’m taking Gittie home. When I come back I want you to be here, (she winks at
Gittie) you understand me? Josef – you make sure – ah come on Gittie. (They walk)
11
PETE plays electric fiddle.
Whatever else, you and I we’ll walk through the war together Gittie. Pepi couldn’t
hurt a fly, why would they want to take him to a war? He loves you Gittie, more than
anything. But right now all he thinks about is girls his own age. Everyone’s time
comes for that silliness. Even your Grandfather Josef had his time. He was
handsome and sweet. Yes he was. And Pepi’s just like him. Whatever girl gets Pepi
better treat him right, or she’ll have us to deal with.
Now Gittie – you go over there, go on, and wait for your Grandmother.
I don’t like it. It’s dark. Grandmother.
(While you’re waiting Gittie, tell me. If you had three wishes, and they would come
true, what would you wish for?)
The war to end. My father to come back. And – sausages.
(And if there was only one wish?)
Sausages.
Gittie turned to see her Grandmother ascending to heaven in a cloud. That’s what it
looked like. Aloisia understood. Then we’ll get you sausages Gittie.
The fiddle music finishes.
When she got home, Aloisia lifted Josef’s axe down from the wall in the
workshop, and went back out into the night. Into her neighbour’s field. Aloisia
lifted the axe high above her head, and swung it down hard.
We hear an exaggerated axe swing.
The little girl saw blood dripping from the loft. She called for her mother, for
her grandmother – when there was no answer, she began to climb the stairs,
scared of what she would see. She stared in amazement.
Aloisia had killed a cow, and somehow tipped it’s enormous body onto a sledge,
and dragged it home. Agnes helped her to pull the carcass to the loft. And there
they spent all night, carving and mopping, cleaving and hanging. The little girl
saw sausages hanging everywhere, sausages, sausages, sausages.
PETE holds Wilhelm’s watch. We can hear the recorded ticking sound.
Gittie got well – she could eat again – she was a child, so she ate, she ate the
sausages Aloisia made. She wanted to tell Wilhelm about it - to sit on her uncle’s
knee. She’d pick at the – she’d listen. His voice. And the ticking. Uncle
Wilhelm. Give it to me.
12
She wrestles to get free, to get the watch. The sound is changing, to a rhythmic
clicking on the soundtrack. The build begins towards STAY AWAKE WITH ME. On
the sound track we hear the swimming party.
They didn’t tell her till she was older, that they came to the house looking for
him. They had papers for his arrest. He had the star and that was enough – how
is it enough – suddenly - If you weren’t in, they found out where you were. They
went to the river. He was swimming, laughing in the sun with his friends. You
don’t wear a star on your skin, but they took him. The Nazis rounded them all
up, at the river. They knew where he was to be taken. He didn’t.
NINA steps outside.
Nobody – how is that possible? So many people – every family – and nobody
knew –
PETE begins to play the accordion. He sings STAY AWAKE.
They knew there was a war. They knew what the chances were. It didn’t finish
soon enough so Peppi – he was a boy – seventeen years old - his time came, he got
his papers, only a few months to go, and it would have been over. His mother
took his picture in the garden, with the little girl. Gittie, go and stand – there
won’t be another chance. Quick, before we have to send the boy to die, stand
with him. Smile now. Smile. Peppi tried to smile too. It was only at the station
that he wept like a child – he begged like a child – for help – why didn’t they do
something? Aloisia who rose to heaven in the woods, who walked to Berlin to
slap the whore of Babylon, who pushed a cow over in a field and killed it with
her hands. How could she shut her ears to Peppi, just a boy, crying out to her.
Go now, go to your death, son. On the train, to be slaughtered. There’s a cross
made of birch somewhere in Poland. And a tiny angel on the mantelpiece that
Pepi sent home. A tiny deaf angel.
PETE has finished the song. Now we hear SCH-BOOM on the sound track. Live,
PETE makes a noise to mark NINA re-entering the room. She tries to find out where
the music is coming from. When she takes Alfred’s letter to read, the music stops.
It’s Alfred’s Mother. There have been changes at the party offices - the old
inefficiencies - Comrade Djomoldine told me - the party is improving life for workers
- we expect to hear more about our apartment soon, as we have been waiting longer
than anyone in our block. The children are well, and hoping one day - today they
were asking – if you will - they are curious about having a family so far Changes – there were always changes. Of course – it’s a big country. It took us some
time to work it out, which was stupid, because really it was so clear. At first we
thought we had offended him, we had forgotten one of the children’s birthdays or
something – and maybe the distance made the hurt bigger. We were worried for a
while, when the letters didn’t come. It was such a relief when we realised what had
happened. Obviously a letter had got lost somewhere – the Soviet Union – it’s
enormous, it was in chaos half the time. Then Alfred got his new apartment, and we
13
didn’t have the address, and after a while of writing letters and receiving none in
return – it doesn’t mean they were purged, it doesn’t mean he’s in a lime pit
somewhere – Alfred built his dream.
The menacing atmosphere is back on the sound track.
He saw his dream take shape. This Comrade Djomolodine – he was high up in the
party – if Freddie passed away - there would have been some recognition, a state
funeral, honouring the good comrade engineer, maybe they crossed over one of your
famous bridges – I hope it was like that for you.
Somewhere distantly in the sound track, we can hear the cry for help again. NINA
continues, along with the sound track.
Frau Kareis. We regret to inform you of the death of - from kidney failure. The
advanced condition suffered by your son Wilhelm Kareis was beyond even the
efforts of the best medical staff available at the Mauthausen camp. He was due
to be sent home within a few days, but died in our medical facility while Maybe it’s true. He swam – so what – he could have been ill. People who are ill
– they swim – it’s not against the law – he was weak, Helmie was – weak – small
The good. The strong.
SCH-BOOM comes in again. She finds that the radio is coming from the suitcase.
She breaks the antennae. Radio out.
You don’t know what you’d do, if you weren’t in the situation.
Walter was in Buchenwald, guards everywhere, just waiting for an excuse. They
had to try, to hope, to keep contact with the outside world. Somehow they made
a radio, in three parts. Incredible. If it was found they’d be shot. So they hid it,
a third each, in the only place they knew the Nazis wouldn’t look.
They must have worked out how to control it. Turn it on, and off. Volume. Where to
stand to get what station. If you go to all the trouble of getting a third of a radio
inside your body and learning how to work it, you don’t want the Nazi government
talking out of your arse.
That’s how they learned that the Russians were coming. Now it was more
dangerous than ever. The Nazis had told every lie you could imagine about what
these camps were for. If the Russians were coming, they had to hide what they’d
done, get rid of the evidence, the walking skeletons who would put them in the
shit for a crust of bread. Walter and his comrades with the – you know – they
planned an escape. They risked everything. The night before they escaped, a
boy – sixteen – sixteen – he came at Walter with a knife and said ‘take me with
you or I’ll kill you, I mean it’. Sixteen – in Walter’s face. And they did. They
took him.
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He got out before the Russians arrived. Walked home. Walked. He looked like
shit – his own little girl didn’t recognise him. He only stayed a day or two. When he
burst into the air raid shelter with a couple of months later, with ammunition strapped
round his body, a resistance hero announcing liberation, she didn’t recognise him
again. But this time she liked what she didn’t recognise.
Silence.
There was something about him, the strange one.
After the war and after a while they made him the deputy mayor – a Jewish
communist deputy mayor. He could look through the files of the old Nazis,
everything. It was like being able to read the mind of the devil. Lists for killing.
Lists for deportation. The little girl’s name was there. Gittie Kareis, ready for
deportation.
Even after the war stopped, there wasn’t enough food. The red cross organised
for trainloads of children to go where they could be fed.
PETE creates the sounds of the train live.
The children were told to bring picnics for two day’s journey on the train.
Two day’s travel that would turn into three, four, five and some had nothing to
bring in the first place. They were starving. The little girl waited as long as she
could, while the train passed by shattered town after shattered town, she waited for
hours, and then finally she gave in and ate her sandwich, facing out the window.
I’m not hiding my food. I’m watching.
Didn’t they tell you?
All the grown ups were talking about it.
They were whispering. They said an Iron Curtain was going to fall across
Europe.
Yes – an Iron Curtain.
They didn’t know when. But it would be soon. And it would be Iron. If it falls
on us we’ll be crushed for sure.
So she kept watch, all the way from Austria to Denmark. Where she
surrendered to the good family Neilson.
The train effects end.
Hello Brigitta. Welcome to Denmark. Oh look at her little coat.
Would you like some tea? Good. Oh she’s so thirsty Elsa.
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Some bread. Good. Oh my, so hungry.
Brigitta ate like she had not eaten for years. Egg schnapps, and Sarah
Bernhardt cakes, Spirolina, vitamins every day. And soon it was her turn to
feed their hunger.
Tell us Brigitta – what do you eat in your country? And what did you eat in the
war? Grass – aw poor little girl. Leaves? Oh Lord Jesus suffer this little child to
come unto you. Sausages? Oh? Oh? Actually thou shalt not kill thy
neighbour’s ox nor his ass Brigitta, did you know that? It’s in the ‘Bible’. Yes.
Do you have prayers in Austria? Her dad’s a communist? Oh! Poor little
Gittie. What chance does she have? We’ll pray for your father, and for your
grandmother, at bedtime shall we? Good.
PETE begins LIFE IS BETTER. Nina steps out and sings with him. She breaks into a
mock-Christian hymn during the song. At the end of the song, she returns to the bed.
Oh suffer the little children to come onto me
They are so appealing when they are wee
So frail as you intended, so weak and thin
Their eyes look so big, I can’t resist them
Dear mum and dad,
Life is so wonderful here in Denmark. It is so beautiful and everyone is so sweet
and kind. I get lots to eat, as you promised. Out in the countryside everything is
beautifully green. It looks like a real fairytale country. Just like Hans Christian
Anderson. It’s nice and clean and Mr. and Mrs. Nilson treat me as if I was their
daughter. Tell granddad that the pigs are enormous.
I miss you – I miss my little brother Waltie.
Love, Gittie.
PS I am so much looking forward to coming home.
She got her chance. But it was a long time to be away. At that age. Maybe that’s
why things looked different. Gittie’s mother and father, Walter and Agnes, looked
older It was hard after the war - to adjust. It wasn’t just my baby brother who was difficult
– it was all of them, homecomer babies they called them. Nobody could control them.
Babies born just after the war. Something had to be done.
By the time people forgot about the war – in the seventies – war wasn’t in
Europe any more – it was somebody else, somewhere else - Agnes became ill, and
she was dying. But Agnes was a girl from the mountains, and things change
slowly if they change at all – so Agnes was dying, and Walter couldn’t help
noticing Hildegard.
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She was visiting in the same hospital, which was - convenient. Walter could hide
a third of a radio from the Nazis, but he couldn’t ever hide anything from Agnes.
He didn’t even try. Only she could hide it, from herself. By covering her face.
He left her, lying on her deathbed, to make sure Hildegard knew of his grief.
They talked.
Is that your wife?
For now, yes.
Is she –
Yes. And I will have to go on. Alone.
She put her lonely hand on his, just before the doctor came to break the news.
That the third jealousy of Agnes was at an end.
Hildegard was fifty. No oil painting. A Catholic. A virgin. One of god’s foot
soldiers, marching along, without knowing the plan.
Without Hildegard, Walter was lost.
Walter – would you like an egg. A fried egg?
And without Walter –
(Hildegard stands on a street, lost, crying out for Walter.)
She was troubled by what they did together, even after they were married.
Sex.
No with my man. With Walter Kareis. I’m Hildegard Kareis now.
Oh, thank you very much. A few months now. He doesn’t even like me coming
here but I had to confess Father, because we’ve been having sex, my man and
me.
Aaaahhh. Walter!
She was always troubled about what she heard about Walter. She heard he was
a communist – like it was a secret – everybody knew – but she somebody was
having fun with her, they told her Walter was the chief. So she asked him Walter. Are you a communist? Oh Walter.
And then – But not the chief communist?
It took me by surprise. Walter looked at me, warning me. I didn’t say anything.
He nodded.
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Oh Walter!
And she went out. Probably to confession. Walter couldn’t stop laughing, and
repeating it ‘not the chief communist – oh Walter’ and looked at me because I
hadn’t spoiled –
He said ‘You’re a good girl Gittie.’
Now PETE is playing the ukulele. He is singing Sch-boom.
That’s what he said. I remember how he said it. How he always said it. Long
before Agnes died, before my mother died, he said it.
Good girl Gittie. You don’t interfere.
He came up here one night and set fire to the past, he tried to burn everything he
could find. Maybe he was right. To get rid of it. To try to get rid of it once and
for all. What use is the past, it’s only more suffering. But he couldn’t burn the
past in his head. So night after night I heard him.
The little girl had a brother. It wasn’t just him. It wasn’t only Walter Junior
who was difficult. They were notorious. Something had to be done.
Keep that music down!
At least the Nazis taught young people how to shine their shoes!
Walter Junior turned the radio up, listening to jazz, to the new music, trying to
play along with the music he loved.
He thinks he’s clever, doesn’t he, with his doo wop songs. He should try putting
the radio up his arse and then see how much he loves listening to Yatz. But you
Gittie, you are good to your father – you don’t break his heart – you don’t
interfere.
Turn that music down I can’t hear anything except sch-boom and I don’t want
to listen to it anymore. I’m warning you Waltie!
PETE stops playing suddenly.
At least you know how to honour your father, Gittie. You’re a good girl, Gittie.
You don’t interfere.
PETE sets her universe spinning.
I didn’t say anything.
It was a curse, lying in wait from the start. The violinist gave birth to Wilhelm in Melk Monastery, amidst the finest baroque. When the Nazis built Mauthasen
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concentration camp, it grew like a cancer, more and more camps, 22 little
Mauthausens, a cancer that spread across Austria to the walls of Melk
Monastery itself, right under the monks’ windows.
As Wilhelm waited to die in Mauthausen, maybe he looked towards his
birthplace, and prayed. Take me from this hell on earth – Jewish, Christian –
what the fuck – don’t pretend you don’t see what’s happening – you have to do
something – how could they turn away –
We can hear the cry for help in the soundtrack.
In Mauthausen the prisoners carried stones weighing twenty-five kilos up the
quarry steps. One hundred and eighty six steps, twenty-five kilos, no gloves, all
day, all year, and if they fell, or dropped their rock, they were beaten. Wilhelm,
who was too ashamed to tell Agnes of his only love. They died in their thousands
at the quarry. And sometimes they took it into their own hands. The Nazis
called it The Parachute Jump. I picture them, Uncle Helmie and the all of them
who swam on Sundays holding hands at the edge, ready, to jump in together.
She steps outside.
It wasn’t safe to listen to prayers. So nobody heard anything. How could they
all suddenly –
They pretended nothing was happening.
Can’t you leave me alone? Night after night?
She steps back inside
Waltie was only a child when the music stopped. He used to look up, at my face,
searching it, smiling, because everything would be okay, because of me, he
trusted me. That was before. The music stopped - and the cries - Gittie! Gittie!
I knew what was happening – Walter, our father, dragged him into the cellar and closed the door behind him. I covered my ears then, not to hear, not to
know for sure. Gittie! Gittie help me Gittie! I ran to his bed that was empty –
and rolled my head in his blanket while his father beat him, night after night like
a dog in the cellar, and I tried not to hear, so I couldn’t have the picture in my
mind. Finally it stopped. Just sobbing after that, then footsteps.
Good girl Gittie. You don’t interfere. You’re a good girl Gittie.
I stood by, and did nothing.
It’s happening again, and nobody says a word. Backs are turned. Doors are
closing. It’s not the time for sleeping. Not now.
NINA settles into her vigil. PETE sings WOE TO HIM.
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