Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays: "Baal", "Drums in the Night", "In the Jungle of Ci (World Classics) (27 page)

ONE OF THE MEN
: That fellow has nothing to laugh about.

GARGA
: I’ll leave the apartment open, Jane. You can ring at night.

WORM
steps up to the table
: You’ve probably noticed: there’s a family here in our midst, or what’s left of it. Motheaten as it is, this family would gladly give its last cent to find out where the mother, the mainstay of the household, is keeping herself. The fact is, I saw her one morning at about seven o’clock, a woman of forty, scrubbing a fruit cellar. She’s started a new business. She’d aged but she was looking all right.

GARGA
: But you, sir, didn’t you work in the lumber business of the man they’re combing every inch of Chicago for?

WORM
: Me? No, I’ve never laid eyes on the man.
Goes out, on his way inserting a coin in the nickelodeon. It starts playing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’
.

THE PREACHER
at a corner table reads the liquor list aloud in a hard voice, savouring each word
: Cherry Flip, Cherry Brandy, Gin Fizz, Whisky Sour, Golden Slipper, Manhattan,
Curaçao extra dry, Orange, Maraschino Cusenier, and the specialty of the house, Egg-nog. This drink is made of egg – one raw egg – sugar, cognac, Jamaica rum, milk.

THE PUGNOSED MAN
: Are you familiar with those drinks, sir?

PREACHER
: No!

Laughter
.

GARGA
to the men with him
: It has been necessary to show you my broken family, but you can see how humiliating it is for me. You will also have realized that that yellow weed must never again be allowed to take root in our city. My sister Mary, as you know, was in Shlink’s employ for some time. In speaking to her now, of course, I shall have to proceed as carefully as possible, because even in her deepest misery my sister has preserved a certain trace of delicacy.
He sits down beside Mary
. Won’t you let me see your face?

MARY
: It’s not a face any more. It’s not me.

GARGA
: No. But I remember once in church – when you were nine years old – you said: let him come to me beginning tomorrow. We thought you meant God.

MARY
: Did I say that?

GARGA
: I still love you, soiled and wasted as you are. But even if I knew that you knew you could do as you pleased with yourself if I told you I still loved you, I’d tell you all the same.

MARY
: And you can look at me when you say that? At this face?

GARGA
: That face. People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

MARY
stands up
: But I won’t have it. I don’t want you to love me that way. I like myself the way I was. Don’t say I was never any different.

GARGA
in a loud voice
: Do you earn money? Do you live entirely on what you get from men?

MARY
: And you’ve brought people to hear about it? Can I have some whisky? With plenty of ice. All right, I’ll tell them. All right, I threw myself away, but as soon as I’d
done it I asked for money, to make it plain what I am and that I can live on it. It’s only a business arrangement. I’ve got a nice body, I never let a man smoke when he’s with me, but I’m not a virgin any more, love is my job. I’ve got money here. But I’m going to earn more, I want to spend money, it’s a craving I have; when I’ve made money, I don’t want to save, here, I throw it down the sink. That’s the way I am.

MAYNES
: Horrible!

ANOTHER MAN
: You wouldn’t dare to laugh.

PREACHER
: Man is too durable. That’s his main fault. He can do too much to himself. He’s too hard to destroy.
Goes out
.

MAYNES
standing up with the other three men
: We’ve seen, Garga, that you’ve suffered an injustice.

THE PUGNOSED MAN
approaches Mary
: Whores!
He guffaws
. Vice is a lady’s perfume.

MARY
: You call us whores. With this powder on our faces you can’t see the eyes that were blue. The men who do business with crooks make love to us. We sell our sleep, we live on abuse.

A shot is heard
.

BARMAN
: The gentleman has shot himself in the neck.
The men bring in the Preacher and lay him down on the table among the glasses
.

FIRST MAN
: Don’t touch him. Hands off.

SECOND MAN
: He’s trying to say something.

FIRST MAN
bending over him, in a loud voice
: Do you want anything? Have you any relatives? Where should we take you?

PREACHER
mumbles
:’La montagne est passée: nous irons mieux.’
¹¹

GARGA
standing over him, laughing
: He’s missed, and in more ways than one. He thought those were his last words, but they’re somebody else’s, and anyway they’re not his last words, because his aim was bad and it’s only a small. flesh wound.

FIRST MAN
: So it is. Tough luck. He did it in the dark, he should have done it in the light.

MARY
: His head is hanging down. Put something under it. How thin he is. I recognize him now. He spat in his face one time.

All except Mary and Garga go out with the wounded man
.

GARGA
: His skin is too thick. It bends anything you can stick into it. There aren’t blades enough.

MARY
: He’s still on your mind?

GARGA
: Yes, to you I can admit it.

MARY
: Love and hate! How low they bring us!

GARGA
: So they do. Do you still love him?

MARY
: Yes … yes.

GARGA
: And no hope of better winds?

MARY
: Yes, now and then.

GARGA
: I wanted to help you.
Pause
. This fight has been such a debauch that today I need all Chicago to help me stop it. Of course it’s possible that he himself wasn’t planning to go on. He himself intimated that at his age three years can mean as much as thirty. In view of all these circumstances I’ve destroyed him with a very crude weapon. I didn’t even have to be there in person. In addition, I’ve made it absolutely impossible for him to see me. This last blow will not be discussed between us, he won’t be able to find me. You could call it a technical knockout, and on every street corner the taxi-drivers are watching to make sure that he won’t show up in the ring again. Chicago has thrown in the towel for him. I don’t know where he is, but he knows what’s what.

BARMAN
: The lumber yards in Mulberry Street are on fire.

MARY
: If you’ve shaken him off, it’s a good thing. But now I’m going.

GARGA
: I’ll stay here in the middle of the lynch mob. But I’ll be home tonight. We’ll live together.
Mary goes out
. Now I’ll drink black coffee again in the morning, wash my face in cold water, and put on clean clothes, first of all a shirt. I’ll comb a good many things out of my brain in the morning; there will be fresh noise and many things happening all around me in the city, now that I’m rid of that passion. It
wanted to go down to the grave with me, but I’ve still got things to do.
Opens the door wide and listens laughing to the howling of the lynch mob that has grown louder
.

SHLINK
enters, wearing an American suit
: Are you alone? It was hard to get here. I knew you were getting out today, I’ve looked for you at your place. They’re close at my heels. Quick, Garga, come with me.

GARGA
: Are you out of your mind? I informed on you to get rid of you.

SHLINK
: I’m not a brave man. I died three times on the way here.

GARGA
: Yes. I hear they’re hanging yellow men like linen on Milwaukee Bridge.

SHLINK
: All the more reason for hurrying. You know you’ve got to come. We’re not through yet.

GARGA
very slowly, aware of Shlink’s haste
: Unfortunately your request comes at a bad time. I have company. My sister, Mary Garga, ruined in September three years ago, taken by surprise. My wife, Jane Garga, debauched at the same time. Last of all, a Salvation Army preacher, name unknown, spat on and destroyed, though it doesn’t matter much. But most of all, my mother, Mae Garga, born in 1872 in the South, who disappeared three years ago this October and has vanished even from memory, now faceless. Her face fell off her like a yellow leaf.
Listens
. That howling!

SHLINK
also absorbed in listening
: Yes, but it’s not the right kind of howling yet, the white kind. Then they’ll be here. Then we’ll still have a minute. Listen! Now! Now it’s the right kind – white! Come!
Garga quickly leaves with Shlink
.

A Deserted Tent, formerly used by Railway Workers, in the Gravel Pits of Lake Michigan

19 November 1915, about 2 a.m.
Shlink, Garga
.

SHLINK
: The perpetual roar of Chicago has stopped. Seven times three days the skies have paled and the air turned grey-blue like grog. Now the silence has come, that conceals nothing.

GARGA
smoking
: Fighting comes as easy to you as digestion. I’ve been thinking about my childhood. The blue flax fields. The polecat in the gulches and the light-frothing rapids.

SHLINK
: Right. All that was in your face. But now it’s as hard as amber, which is transparent; here and there dead insects can be seen in it.

GARGA
: You’ve always been alone?

SHLINK
: Forty years.

GARGA
: And now, towards the end, you’ve succumbed to the black plague of this planet, the lust for human contact.

SHLINK
smiling
: Through enmity?

GARGA
: Through enmity.

SHLINK
: Then you understand that we’re comrades, comrades in a metaphysical conflict. Our acquaintance has been brief, for a time it overshadowed everything else, the time has passed quickly. The stations of life are not those of memory. The end is not the goal, the last episode is no more important than any other. Twice in my life I’ve owned a lumber business. For the last two weeks it has been registered in your name.

GARGA
: Have you premonitions of death?

SHLINK
: Here is the ledger of your lumber business; it begins where ink was once poured over the figures.

GARGA
: You’ve been carrying it next to your skin? Open it yourself, it’s sure to be filthy.
He reads
. A clean account. Nothing but withdrawals. On the seventeenth: the lumber deal. $25,000 to Garga. Just above: $10 for clothing. Below: $22 for Mary Garga, ‘our’ sister. At the very end: the whole business burned to the ground again. – I can’t sleep any more. I’ll be glad when you’re covered with quicklime.

SHLINK
: Don’t deny the past, George! What’s an account? Remember the question we raised. Brace yourself: I love you.

GARGA
looks at him
: That’s disgusting! You’re terrifyingly loathsome. An old man like you!
¹²

SHLINK
: Maybe I’ll never get an answer. But if you get one, think of me when my mouth is full of dry rot. What are you listening for?

GARGA
lazily
: You show traces of feeling. You’re old.

SHLINK
: Is it so good to bare your teeth?

GARGA
: If they’re good teeth.

SHLINK
: Man’s infinite isolation makes enmity an unattainable goal. But even with the animals understanding is not possible.

GARGA
: Speech isn’t enough to create understanding.

SHLINK
: I’ve observed the animals. Love, the warmth of bodies in contact, is the only mercy shown us in the darkness. But the only union is that of the organs, and it can’t bridge over the cleavage made by speech. Yet they unite in order to produce beings to stand by them in their hopeless isolation. And the generations look coldly into each other’s eyes. If you cram a ship full to bursting with human bodies, they’ll all freeze with loneliness. Are you listening, Garga? Yes, so great is man’s isolation that not even a fight is possible. The forest! That’s where mankind comes from. Hairy, with apes’ jaws, good animals who knew how to live. Everything was so easy. They simply tore each other apart. I see them clearly, with quivering flanks, staring into the
whites of each other’s eyes, sinking their teeth into each other’s throats and rolling down. And the one who bled to death among the roots was the vanquished, and the one who had trampled down the most undergrowth was the victor. Are you listening for something, Garga?
¹³

GARGA
: Shlink, I’ve been listening to you now for three weeks. I’ve been waiting the whole time for a rage to take hold of me, under any pretext, however slight. But now, looking at you, I realize that your drivel irritates me and your voice sickens me.
¹⁴
Isn’t this Thursday night? How far is it to New York? Why am I sitting here wasting my time? Haven’t we been lying around here for three weeks now? We thought the planet would change its course on our account. But what happened? Three times it rained, and one night the wind blew.
Stands up
. Shlink, I think the time has come for you to take off your shoes. Take your shoes off, Shlink, and let me have them. Because I doubt if you’ve got much money left. Shlink, here in the woods of Lake Michigan I’m putting an end to our fight now going into its fourth year, because its substance is used up: it’s ending right now. I can’t finish it off with a knife, I see no need for high-sounding words. My shoes are full of holes and your speeches don’t keep my toes warm. It’s the old story, Shlink: the younger man wins.