Kindertransport
Page 8
FAITH. Why didn’t you tell Dad?
EVELYN. Is it so wrong to want a decent, ordinary life?
FAITH. It’s hard starting from scratch.
EVELYN. There’s a portable television somewhere.
FAITH. This is what you’re best at.
EVELYN. What is?
FAITH. Providing for me.
EVELYN (pulling out a desk lamp). What about a desk lamp?
FAITH. Does it work?
EVELYN. There’s no bulb.
FAITH. That’s no problem.
FAITH turns to pick up a box.
I’ll start taking it all down.
EVELYN pulls out the Haggadah and the Rattenfänger books.
EVELYN (holding them out to FAITH). There are these too.
FAITH (putting down the box). You said everything had been destroyed.
EVELYN. They’re just books. You might not want them . . .
FAITH (taking the books). Of course I want them.
EVELYN. One is the storybook and the other is for some Jewish festival.
FAITH. Thank you.
EVELYN picks up the mouth organ.
EVELYN. And this. It must have come with me.
FAITH takes the mouth organ and lays it on top of a box.
FAITH. I’d better start taking these down.
FAITH picks up a box and starts to exit.
EVELYN. Leave it to the left of the door in the hallway, not the right.
FAITH exits.
EVELYN carefully sorts through boxes.
Sounds of a quayside. A boat is about to leave.
EVA enters.
HELGA. Where have you been?
EVA. I said. In the lavatory.
HELGA. For half an hour in the lavatory?
EVA. I was being sick.
HELGA. Sick?
EVA. I’m alright now.
HELGA. Are you sure?
EVA. Yes.
HELGA. You should change your mind and come with me.
EVA. I haven’t got a case.
HELGA. You could have your things sent on.
EVA. You said it was alright to come later.
HELGA. I said I would prefer you to come now. There is enough money from Onkel Klaus for a ticket.
EVA. I can’t just leave.
HELGA. Why do you not want to be with your mother, Eva?
EVA. Evelyn. My name is Evelyn.
HELGA. Why are you so cold to me?
EVA. I don’t mean to be cold.
HELGA. We have been together a week and you are still years away.
EVA. I can’t help it.
Boat’s hooter sounds.
HELGA. Boats do not wait for people.
EVA. I hope you have a safe trip.
HELGA. When is ‘later’ when you are coming?
EVA. In a month or two.
HELGA. Just get on the boat with me. Do it now.
EVA. I’m not ready yet. Not at all.
HELGA. You’re making a mistake.
EVA. You’re making me . . .
HELGA. What am I making you do! I am your mother. I love you. We must be together.
EVA. We’ve not been together for too long.
HELGA. That is why it is even more important now.
EVA. I can’t leave home yet.
HELGA. Home is inside you. Inside me and you. It is not a place.
EVA. I don’t understand what you mean.
HELGA. You are wasting a chance hardly anyone else has been given.
EVA. I will come.
HELGA. Will you?
EVA. If you want me to.
HELGA. If I want you to?
EVA. Just not yet.
HELGA. Do you want to come to make a new life with me?
EVA. You keep asking me that.
HELGA. Do you?
EVA. It’s hard for me.
HELGA. I lost your father. He was sick and they put him in line for the showers. I saw it. You know what I say to you. I lost him. But I did not lose myself. Nearly, a million times over, right on the edge of life, but I held on. Why have you lost yourself, Eva?
Ship’s horn sounds out.
I am going to start again. I want my daughter Eva with me. If you find her, Evelyn, by any chance, send her over to find me.
HELGA embraces EVA who stands stock-still.
HELGA picks up her case and starts to walk away.
EVELYN. Don’t look at the razor eyes. Whatever you do.
She looks at HELGA.
Why do you only ever stare at me like that? Are those the only eyes you have? Didn’t you have others once? I wish you had died.
HELGA. I wish you had lived.
EVELYN. I did my best.
HELGA. Hitler started the job and you finished it. You cut off my fingers and pulled out my hair one strand at a time.
EVELYN. You were the Ratcatcher. Those were his eyes, his face . . .
HELGA. You hung me out of the window by my ears and broke my soul into shreds.
EVELYN. You threw me into the sea with all your baggage on my shoulders.
HELGA. You can never excuse yourself.
EVELYN. How could I swim ashore with so much heaviness on me? I was drowning in leagues and leagues of salty water.
HELGA. I have bled oceans out of my eyes.
EVELYN. I had to let go to float.
HELGA. Snake. Slithering out of yourself like it was an unwanted skin. Worm.
EVELYN. What right have you got to accuse me? You kept saying something. What was it? Over and over? Yes. ‘No,’ you said. That was all. ‘No. I won’t help you. You have to be able to manage on your own. Take the needle. Sew the button and it’s time to go. You don’t need me. See. It’s good.’ Was it really so very good, Mutti? Was it really what you wanted?
HELGA. My suffering is monumental. Yours is personal.
EVA exits.
EVELYN. You should have hung onto me and never let me go. Why did you send me away when you were in danger? No one made you. You chose to do it. Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might have wanted to die with you. Because I did. I never wanted to live without you and you made me. What is more cruel than that? Except for coming back from the dead and punishing me for surviving on my own.
EVELYN sobs. FAITH enters.
FAITH (to EVELYN). Are you crying?
FAITH tries to get close to EVELYN. EVELYN does not turn to face FAITH.
What can I do for you? Please tell me what I can do to help?
EVELYN. Stay my little girl forever.
FAITH. I can’t.
EVELYN. Then there’s nothing you can do.
FAITH. I’m going to find out what everything means. Get in touch with my relatives. I want to meet them.
EVELYN. You’ll find them very different.
FAITH. I’m sure they’d love to see you too.
EVELYN. I have nothing in common with them and neither do you.
FAITH. I want to put that right.
EVELYN. I don’t want you to bring trouble onto yourself.
FAITH. There won’t be any trouble.
EVELYN. You don’t know . . .
FAITH. We can do this together. It would make us closer to each other.
EVELYN. I’d rather die than go back.
FAITH. You might change your mind . . .
EVELYN. I can’t.
HELGA and EVA exit.
FAITH. Can I have my toys?
EVELYN. Surely you can leave those here.
FAITH. I want to take them with me.
EVELYN. I’d like to keep something from when you were little.
FAITH. They mean a lot to me.
EVELYN. Take them.
FAITH picks up the box of toys.
Have you got everything you need now?
FAITH. More or less.
EVELYN. All done in here then.
FAITH. Yes we are.
FAITH exits.
The shadow of the RATCATCHER covers the stage.
The End.
&
nbsp; DIANE SAMUELS
Diane Samuels was born in Liverpool. She now lives in London where she has been writing extensively as a dramatist and author since the early 1990s.
Kindertransport won the Verity Bargate and Meyer-Whitworth Awards, and was first produced by Soho Theatre Company in 1993. Subsequently it has been translated into many languages, performed in the West End, Off-Broadway and all over the world, and revived in 2007 in a highly acclaimed production by Shared Experience Theatre Company. Her other plays include The True Life Fiction of Mata Hari (Watford Palace Theatre, 2002) and Cinderella’s Daughter (Trestle Theatre tour, 2005). She has also written widely for BBC radio, plays including Swine, Doctor Y, Watch Out for Mister Stork and Hen Party.
For younger audiences, her plays include One Hundred Million Footsteps (Quicksilver Theatre Company); Chalk Circle and How to Beat a Giant (Unicorn Theatre). Diane has wide experience of teaching creative writing, lecturing at the universities of Birmingham, Reading, Oxford and Goldsmiths College, London. She runs a regular writers’ group and is writer-in-residence at Grafton Primary School in Islington, north London.
Diane was one of a creative team awarded a Science on Stage and Screen Award by the Wellcome Trust in 2001. The resulting work, PUSH, was performed at The People Show Studios in London in June 2003. Her short story, Rope, was one of the winners in BBC Radio 4’s online short story competition, broadcast in 2002. As Pearson Creative Research Fellow 2004/5 at the British Library, she completed research into magic and her booklet A Writer’s Magic Notebook was published in 2006. Diane regularly reviews books for the Guardian.
A Nick Hern Book
Kindertransport first published in Great Britain in 1995 as a paperback original by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP
Reprinted in this revised edition 2008
This ebook edition first published in 2013
Kindertransport © 1995, 1996, 2008 Diane Samuels
Introduction © 2008 Diane Samuels
Personal accounts of the Kindertransport reproduced with permission
Passages of German based on a translation by Rena Gamsa
Diane Samuels has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover image: Eight-year-old Josepha Salmon, the first of 5,000 Jewish and non-Aryan refugees, arrives at Harwich from Germany, destined for Dovercourt Bay camp. 2nd December 1938 (Fred Morley/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Cover design: www.energydesignstudio.com
Typeset by Country Setting, Kingsdown, Kent CT14 8ES
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78001 132 5 (ebook edition)
ISBN 978 1 85459 527 0 (print edition)
CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Amateur Performing Rights Applications for performance by amateurs, including readings and excerpts, should be addressed to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, tel +44 (0)20 8749 4953, e-mail info@nickhernbooks.co.uk, except as follows:
Australia: Dominie Drama, 8 Cross Street, Brookvale 2100, tel (2) 9938 8686 fax (2) 9938 8695, e-mail drama@dominie.com.au
New Zealand: Play Bureau, PO Box 420, New Plymouth, tel (6) 757 3103, e-mail play.bureau.nz@xtra.co.nz
South Africa: DALRO (pty) Ltd, PO Box 31627, 2017 Braamfontein, tel (11) 712 2008, fax (11) 403 9094, e-mail theatricals@dalro.co.za
United States of America and Canada: Susan Schulman, 454 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036, fax (212) 581 8830, e-mail schulman@aol.com
Professional Performing Rights Application for performance by professionals in any medium and in any language throughout the world (except for USA and Canada, contact Susan Schulman, see above) should be addressed to Micheline Steinberg Associates, 48–56 Bayham Place, London NW1 0EU, tel +44 (0)20 3214 8292, e-mail info@steinplays.com
No performance of any kind may be given unless a licence has been obtained. Applications should be made before rehearsals begin. Publication of this play does not necessarily indicate its availability for amateur performance.