The Pillowman

by Martin McDonagh

  MICHAL. It could never be washed off and it could never be painted over.

  KATURIAN. Exactly. And he went to sleep. Bur that night, as all the pigs in the fields lay a-sleeping, these strange, strange storm clouds began to gather overhead and it began to rain, slowly at first but getting heavier and heavier and heavier. But this was no ordinary rain, this was a very special green rain, almost as thick as paint and not only that, there was something else special about it. It could never be washed off and it could never be painted over. It could never be washed off ... (Katurian looks in on Michal He's asleep. Katurian keeps the rest of the story to a low whisper.) ... and it could never be painted over. And when morning came and the rain had stopped and all the pigs awoke, they found that every single one of them had turned bright green. Every single one except, of course, the old little green pig, who was now the little pink pig, upon whom the strange rain had washed right off because of the unpaintoverable paint the farmers had covered him in earlier. "Unpaintoverable." (Pause.) And as he looked at the strange sea of green pigs that lay around him, most of which were crying like babies, he smiled, and he thanked goodness, and he thanked God, because he knew that he was still, and he always would be, just a little bit peculiar. (Pause. Katurian listens to the sleeping Michal a while, stroking his hair gently)

  You like that one, don't you, Michal? (Pause.) You used to like that one. No little toes in it ... no razor blades in it. It's nice. (Pause.) Maybe you should've acted out that one. (Pause.) It's not your fault, Michal. Its not your fault. (Pause. Crying.) Sweet dreams, little baby. I'll be coming along soon. (Katurian takes the pillow and holds it down forcefully over Michal's face. As Michal starts to jerk, Katurian sits across his arms and body still holding the pillow down. After a minute Michal's jerks lessen. After another minute he's dead Once Katurian is certain of this, he takes the pillow off, kisses Michal on the lips, crying, and closes his eyes. He goes to the door, clangs it loudly.) Detectives?! (Pause.) Detectives?! I would like to make a confession to my part in the murders of six people. (Pause.) I have one condition. (Pause.) It involves my stories. (Blackout. Interval)

  Scene 2

  Katurian narrates the story that the girl and the parents act out. Slight costume change from nice parents to foster-parents, played by the same couple.

  KATURIAN. Once upon a time in a land not so very far away there lived a little girl, and, although this little girl's gentle parents hadn't brought her up very religiously at all, she was quite quite determined that she was the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Girl puts on a very false beard and a pair of sandals and starts blessing things, etc.) Which was somewhat strange for any six-year-old. She'd wear a little beard and would go around in sandals, blessing stuff. She could be forever found walking amongst the poor and the homeless, consoling the drunks and the drug addicts, and generally consorting with the type of person her mummy and daddy didn't deem suitable for a six-year-old to be consorting with. Each time they would drag her home from some unsavoury sort she would stamp and scream and throw her dollies about, and when her parents would counter that ...

  PARENTS. Jesus never stamped and screamed and threw his dollies about ...

  KATURIAN. She'd reply, "That was the old Jesus! Get it?" Well, one day, the little girl slipped away yet again, and for two horrifying days her parents could find neither hide nor hair of her, until they received a distraught call from a priest they didn't know, saying, "You'd better come down to the church. Your daughter's here giving us a lot of shit. It was cute at first but now it's really getting irritating." (Lights slowly fade on smiling nice parents.) Well, her parents didn't care about all that, they were just relieved that she was alive and well, and they sped downtown to pick her up, but in their haste they careened into an oncoming meat truck, were beheaded and died. (Lights filly out on nice parents as they bleed.) The little girl was informed of the news; she cried one single tear, and not a single tear more, as she thought Jesus would've done if he'd lost his parents in a vehicular beheading; and she was shipped off by the state to live in a forest with some abusive foster-parents ... (Enter the evil foster-parents, who take the girl by the hand, holding it too tightly.) ... who hadn't informed the state that they were abusive on the form; who hated religion, who hated Jesus, who hated anybody, in fact, who didn't hate anybody, and who, as would follow, hated the little girl. (Foster-parents whip off her beard and throw it away.) She bore their hate with a happy heart and forgave them, but this didn't seem to work. When she insisted on attending church of a Sunday, they took her sandals away, forcing her to walk there barefoot and alone, over craggy roads of broken glass, yet when she got there she'd kneel for hours, praying for her Father in Heaven to forgive them, only to get told off for bleeding all over the church. She'd receive a beating for arriving late home, though no time had been set for her arrival; she'd receive a beating for sharing her food with the poor children at school, she'd receive a beating for cheering up the ugly kids, she'd receive a beating for wandering about looking for lepers. Her life was a constant torture, yet she bore it with a smile and it all only made her stronger, till this one day when she met a blind man begging by the roadside ... (Katurian plays the blind man. She rubs dust and spittle over his eyelids.) She mixed a little of her spittle in the dust and rubbed it over his eyes. He reported her to the police for rubbing dust and spittle in his eyes, and when her foster-parents got her back from the police station they said to her ...

  FOSTER PARENTS. So you want to be just like Jesus, do you?

  KATURIAN. And she said, "Finally you fucking get it!" (Pause.) And they stared at her a little while. And then it started. (The dreadful details of the following are all acted out onstage.) Her foster-mother embedded in her daughters head a crown of thorns made of barbed wire, because she was too lazy to make a proper crown of thorns, while her foster-father whipped her with a cat-o'-nine tails, and after an hour or two of that, they asked her, when she regained consciousness ...

  FOSTER PARENTS. Do you still want to be like Jesus?

  KATURIAN. And, through her tears, she said, "Yes, I do." (The parents place a heavy cross on the girl's back. She walks around with it in pain.) So they made her carry a heavy wooden cross around the sitting room a hundred times until her legs buckled and her shins broke and she could do nothing but stare at her little legs going the wrong way, and they said to her ...

  FOSTER PARENTS. Do you still want to be like Jesus?

  KATURIAN. And she almost got sick for a second, but she swallowed it so she wouldn't look weak and she looked them in the eye and she said, "Yes, I do." (The parents nail her to the cross and stand it upright.) And then they nailed her hands to the cross and bent her legs back around the right way and nailed her feet to the cross and they stood the cross up against the back wall and left her there while they watched television, and when all the good programmes were over they turned it off and they sharpened a spear and they said to her ...

  FOSTER PARENTS. Do you still want to be like Jesus?

  KATURIAN. And the little girl swallowed her tears and she took a deep breath and she said, "No. I don't want to be like Jesus. I fucking am Jesus!" (Pause.) And her parents stuck the spear in her side ... (They do so.) ... and they left her there to die, and they went to bed. (The little girl's head slowly bows, eyes closing. Morning light, foster parents return.) And in the morning they were quite surprised that she wasn't dead ... (Girl slowly opens her eyes, nods a hello. They gently take her down off the cross. She touches their faces as if she has forgiven them. They place her in a glass coffin and seal the lid.) ... so they took her down off the cross and they buried her alive in a little coffin with just enough air to live for three days ... (They shovel dirt onto the coffin lid.) ... and the last voices she heard were her foster parents above, calling out ...

  FOSTER PARENTS. Well, if you're Jesus, you'll rise again in three days, won't you?

  KATURIAN. And the little girl thought about it for a while, then she smiled to herself and
she whispered, "Exactly. Exactly." (Pause.) And she waited. And she waited. And she waited. (Lights fade on the coffin somewhat, as the girl, slowly, scrapes her fingernails down the ltd. Katurian walks up to and over it.) Three days later a man out walking the woods stumbled over a small, freshly dug grave, but, as the man was quite quite blind, he carried on by, sadly not hearing a horrible scratching of bone upon wood a little way behind him, that ever so slowly faded away and was lost forever in the black, black gloom of the empty, empty, empty forest. (Blackout.)

  End of Act Two

  ACT THREE

  Police interrogation room. Katurian hurriedly writing out a lengthy confession. He hands the first page to the seated Tupolski. Ariel is standing, smoking.

  TUPOLSKI. "I hereby confess to my part in the murders of six people; three carried out by me alone, three carried out by myself and my brother while acting out a number of gruesome and perverted short stories I had written." Brackets, "Attached," close brackets. (Pause.) "My most recent killing was that of my brother, Michal ... " Yeah, thanks for that, Katurian. We'd never've been able to pin that one on you. "Held a pillow over his head ... " blah blah blah ... "save him the horror of torture and execution at the hands of his ... " blah blah blah. Stuff about how much he loves his brother. Yeah, you really showed it. "My most recent killing prior to that was of a little mute girl, about three days ago. I do not know her name. This little girl ... was ... "

  ARIEL. (Pause.) This little girl was what?

  TUPOLSKI. It's the end of the page.

  ARIEL. Write quicker.

  TUPOLSKI. Write quicker. (Pause.) Or is it "write more quickly"? "Write quicker." "Write more quickly."

  ARIEL. It's "write quicker" ...

  TUPOLSKI. It's "write quicker." (Ariel cricks his neck, reading upside down what Katurian is writing. Katurian, almost instinctively, covers what he's writing with his hand. Ariel slaps him across the head.)

  ARIEL. You're not doing your fucking exams!

  KATURIAN. I'm sorry ... (Ariel reads over Katurian's shoulder.)

  ARIEL. "Killed as we acted out a story called ... 'The Little Jesus.' " Which one's "The Little Jesus"? I didn't see that one ...

  TUPOLSKI. What? (Ariel flips through the box file, finds "The Little Jesus" story.)

  ARIEL. He says they killed her like a story called "The Little Jesus." Did you see that one?

  TUPOLSKI. (Sickened, sad.)Yes. I did. (Ariel starts reading through the story. Katurian glances at Tupolski and is disturbed by his stare. He gives him the second page of the confession and continues writing.) Where did you leave her body?

  KATURIAN. I've drawn a map. There's a wishing well about two hundred yards behind our house in the Kamenice forest. Right behind that wishing well, her body's buried there. With two other people. Two adults.

  TUPOLSKI. What two other people?

  KATURIAN. I'm getting to that. (Tupolski checks his gun. Katurian notices but continues writing.)

  TUPOLSKI. (To Ariel.) Where are you up to?

  ARIEL. "She'd wear a little beard and would go around in sandals."

  TUPOLSKI. Ariel, if you're reading a story to find out how a child got murdered, wouldn't it be an idea just to skip to the end of it?

  ARIEL. Oh. Right.

  TUPOLSKI. Like, skip to the bit about the crown of thorns. Or skip to the bit about the cat-o'-nine-tails. Or skip to the bit about the "carrying a crucifix around the room until her legs fucking buckled." Or skip to the bit right after that. (Pause.) I'll get them to send out the forensics people, pick up the body. (Tupolski exits with Katurian's map. Ariel finishes the story and starts quietly crying. Katurian looks at him, then continues with the confession. Ariel sits, sickened.)

  ARIEL. Why does there have to be people like you? (Katurian finishes the page, continues on another. Ariel reads through the first page.) "And I held him down as my brother cut his toes off, acting out a story called 'The Tale of the Town on the River.' Attached." (Pause.) "And I held her down, as he fed her a number of little figures made from apples, with razor blades inside them, acting out a story called 'The Little Apple Men.' Attached." (Pause.) Do you really think we're not going to burn every one of your stories the minute we kill you?

  KATURIAN. I've confessed to everything truthfully, just like I promised I would. And I believe that you'll keep all my stories with my case file and not release them until fifty years after my death, just like you promised you would.

  ARIEL. What makes you think we'll keep our word?

  KATURIAN. Because I think, deep down, you're honourable men.

  ARIEL. (Standing, seething.) Deep down?! Deep lucking down...?!

  KATURIAN. Could you beat me up after I've finished this? I'm just up to the part about murdering my mother and father. (Katurian continues writing. Ariel lights a cigarette.) Thank you.

  ARIEL. (Pause.) You killed your mum and dad? (Katurian nods.) This may seem a ridiculous question, but, er, why?

  KATURIAN. Um ... There's a story in there called "The Writer and the Writers Brother." I don't know if you saw it ...

  ARIEL. I saw it.

  KATURIAN. Well ... I kind of hate any writing that's even vaguely autobiographical. I think people who only write about what they know only write about what they know because they're too fucking stupid to make anything up, however "The Writer and the Writer's Brother" is, I suppose, the only story of mine that isn't really fiction.

  ARIEL. Oh. (Pause.) How old was he? When they started.

  KATURIAN. He was eight. I was seven.

  ARIEL. How long did it go on for?

  KATURIAN. Seven years.

  ARIEL. And you heard it all those years?

  KATURIAN. I didn't know exactly what it was, till the end, but yes.

  ARIEL. And then you killed them? (Katurian nods, handing the finished confession to Ariel.)

  KATURIAN. I held a pillow over each of their heads, then I buried them behind the wishing well behind our house. I thought the wishing well was kind of apt. Anyway, its the same place where the mute girls buried. (Ariel goes over to the filing cabinet, checks inside.)

  ARIEL. Y'know, your childhood could be used as a pretty decent defence in court. Well, it could if we weren't going to bypass all that court shit and shoot you in an hour.

  KATURIAN. I don't want to bypass anything. I just want you to keep your word. To go ahead and kill me, and to go ahead and keep my stories safe.

  ARIEL. Well, you can certainly half-trust us.

  KATURIAN. I can trust you.

  ARIEL. How do you know you can trust me?

  KATURIAN. I don't know. There's just something about you. I don't know what it is.

  ARIEL. Oh, really? Well, y'know, I'll tell you what there is about me. There is an overwhelming, and there is an all-pervading, hatred ... a hatred ... of people like you. Of people who lay even the littlest finger ... on children. I wake up with it. It wakes me up. It rides on the bus with me to work. It whispers to me, "They will not get away with it." I come in early. I make sure all the bindings are clean and the electrodes are in the right order so we won't ... waste ... time. I admit it, sometimes I use excessive force. And sometimes I use excessive force on an entirely innocent individual. But I'll tell you this. If an entirely innocent individual leaves this room for the outside world, they're not gonna contemplate even raising their voice to a little kid again, just in case I fucking hear 'em and drag 'em in here for another load of excessive fucking force. Now, is this kind of behaviour in an officer of the law in some way questionable morally? Of course it fucking is! But you know what? I don't fucking care! 'Cos, when I'm an old man, you know what? Little kids are gonna follow me around and they're gonna know my name and what I stood for, and they're gonna give me some of their sweets in thanks, and I'm gonna take those sweets and thank them and tell them to get home safe, and I'm gonna be happy. Not because of the sweets, I don't really like sweets, but because I'd know ... I'd know in my heart, that if I hadn't been there, not all of them would have been
there. Because I'm a good policeman. Not necessarily good in the sense of being able to solve lots of stuff, because I'm not, but good in the sense of I stand for something. I stand for something. I stand on the right side. I may not always be right, but I stand on the right side. The child's side. The opposite side to you. And so, naturally, when I hear that a child has been killed in a fashion ... in a fashion such as this "Little Jesus" thing ... You know what? I would torture you to death just for writing a story like that, let alone acting it out! So, y'know what? (Takes out from the cabinet a large, grim-looking battery and electrodes.) ... Fuck what your mum and dad did to you and your brother. Fuck it. I'd've tortured the fuck out of them if I had them here, just like I'm gonna torture the fuck out of you now too. 'Cos two wrongs do not make a right. Two wrongs do not make a right. So kneel down over here, please, so I can connect you to this battery. (Katurian backs away.)

  KATURIAN. Come on, not again ...

  ARIEL. Come over here, please, I said ... (Tupolski enters.)

  TUPOLSKI. What's going on?

  ARIEL. I'm just about to connect him to this battery.

  TUPOLSKI. Jesus, what kept you?

  ARIEL. We were talking.

  TUPOLSKI. What about?

  ARIEL. Nothing.

  TUPOLSKI. Were you doing your "Children are gonna come up and give me sweets when I'm an old man" speech?

  ARIEL. Fuck. You.

  TUPOLSKI. (Taken aback.) Pardon me? That's the second time today you've ...

  ARIEL. (To Katurian.) You! Kneel down here, please. I've already asked you politely. (Katurian slowly goes over to Ariel. Tupolski sits at the desk, scans through the rest of the confession. Katurian kneels down.)

  KATURIAN. And who was the first one who told you to kneel down, Ariel? Your mum or your dad? (Ariel stops dead still. Tupolski's jaw drops.)

  TUPOLSKI. Fuck me.

  KATURIAN. I'm guessing your dad, right?

  TUPOLSKI. Oh you didn't go and tell him all your dad shit, did you, Ariel? Jesus!