Treason
Page 18
(He is grasping the bars.)
“I have tried to write Paradise.
Do not move. Let the wind speak
That is paradise.
Let the Gods forgive what I
Have made
Let those I love try to forgive
What I have made.”
(Brilliant blue light bathes the cage. He covers his eyes. Lights burn with increasing intensity as EZRA begins to tear off his clothes.)
Hot … hot … burning …
(He grabs his head with both hands.)
WHITESIDE!
(SGT. WHITESIDE enters.)
SGT. WHITESIDE
What’s wrong?
EZRA
My head.
SGT. WHITESIDE
What’s wrong with your head?
EZRA
Bursting.
(He crawls to the waste can, appears to vomit.)
SGT. WHITESIDE
Hold on …
EZRA (Desperate)
Nothing remains.
(SGT. WHITESIDE unlocks the cage. EZRA cowers in the corner, does not exit. SGT. WHITESIDE takes him by the arm to lead him out. He crawls to the table, drags off book, notes.)
I do not believe I will be shot for treason. If I am not shot I think my chances of seeing Truman are good. I rely on the American sense of justice.
(Begins to howl)
The world is falling in on me, the world is falling—
SGT. WHITESIDE
(Alarmed, leading him)
I’m taking you to the infirmary.
EZRA
Mr. President—members of Congress—what are you doing in this war at all? What are you doing in Africa? Who amongst you has the nerve or the sense to do something that would be conducive to getting out before you are mortgaged up to the neck and over it?
(As SGT. WHITESIDE tries to lead him off)
Take me to the president! Stinky Rosenfeld! Give me twenty minutes—
SGT. WHITESIDE
Mr. Pound … you’re going to the infirmary. Now. Have one of the shrinks take a look at you.
EZRA
(Shaking off WHITESIDE)
America has been up Freud’s asshole for fifty years.
SGT. WHITESIDE
Is this one of your goddamned tricks, Pound?
EZRA
(Smiling, puts on a shirt)
Do you favor putting men in cages, WHITESIDE?
SGT. WHITESIDE
Come along, Mr. Pound.
(Begins again to lead him off)
EZRA (Kindly)
Out there’s the Via Aurelia, Whiteside. Named for Marcus Aurelius—he said, “If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody.”
SGT. WHITESIDE
Like hell …
EZRA
Hemingway and I and his wife—which one, was it Martha?—passed this way on our walking tour looking for the fifteenth-century battlegrounds of the Malatesta—lunched on cheese and wine under those olive trees.
“We will see those old roads again …”
Possibly, but nothing appears less likely.
(SGT. WHITESIDE drags EZRA off.)
BLACKOUT
SCENE 7
(In the blackout, a spotlight on DOROTHY. She is writing to EZRA.)
DOROTHY
“Black huts
dark tents behind
Leveled & arid flatness—
Camp EM Tousa
Disciplinary Training Center.
A great draught pushed from the heavy mountains
Sweeping over the walks.
All washed out
curtained
obliterated by the quick clasp
and sudden glow of intimacy
Ourselves joined again
after five months of half-life.
Ming Mao, bright-haired one.
For five days I was undivided from you
Smoothing your wrist & ankle—
Apollo
O Apollo
accept the olibanum
look after your own.”
(Looking up, as though to EZRA)
Did you ever get my letter—with my poem? Well, not really a poem …
BLACKOUT
SCENE 8
Setting: Infirmary, Disciplinary Training Center. Several months after events of Scene 6, 1945
(Spotlight on EZRA, typing at a table in the infirmary. He types with vigor, shaking the table, humming and singing to himself.)
SGT. WHITESIDE
(Enters with a document)
I’ve got something for you.
EZRA
Not now. Too busy. Got to write this letter for Ed Page—his execution’s tomorrow, don’t want me to tell his Ma anything about that …
(He ponders, begins to write.)
He murdered a man in a café in Milan, drunken as a skunk, Old Ed’s a quick man with a knife. Learned that when he was cuttin’ his way up from the beachhead at Salerno and the ammunition give out. Guess nobody told him to stop that cuttin’ once the armistice was signed.
(Goes back to writing and reading)
“Things here in the DTC are tolerable, three squares a day, they don’t work us too hard …”
SGT. WHITESIDE
Mr. Pound …
EZRA
(Hastily finishing letter)
Take this to Ed Page in Cell 19, tell him to put his mark on it, there.
SGT. WHITESIDE
Your orders have come through. They’re flying you out tonight.
EZRA
(Jumping up)
To Washington?
SGT. WHITESIDE
Yes. To stand trial.
EZRA
(Ignoring this)
Across the ocean! My first time! Flying, Whiteside. Do you know what that means? Icarus when his wings were first put on his shoulders, soaring, before the wax began to melt …
SGT. WHITESIDE
You’ve been charged, Mr. Pound. Nineteen counts. Treason.
(Tries to show the document to EZRA)
EZRA
The bullet has yet to be made that will kill me.
Lights crossfade to SGT. WHITESIDE)
SGT. WHITESIDE
(Reading from the official report)
“Mr. Pound accepted employment from the Kingdom of Italy in the capacity of a radio propagandist, broadcasting over shortwave radio audible in the United States in order to provide aid and counsel to the Kingdom of Italy. These activities were intended to persuade citizens and residents of the United States to decline to support the United States in the conduct of the War, to weaken or destroy confidence in the Government of the United States and to increase the morale of the subjects of the Kingdom of Italy.”
BLACKOUT
SCENE 9
Setting: A room in Howard Hall for the Criminally Insane, St. Elizabeths Hospital, Washington, DC. February 1946
(The small room is simply furnished: a bed, table, lamp, closet, window with drawn curtain. It is late afternoon. From time to time, shrieks and moans are heard from the hall. EZRA lies on the bed, propped up on a pillow. He is dressed in baggy pants, shirt, sweater, bare feet. He is holding notes. DR. OVERHOLSER, in white coat, sits in a chair at the foot of the bed.)
EZRA (Reading)
“I obtained the concession to broadcast over Rome Radio with the following proviso. Namely that nothing would be asked of me contrary to my conscience or contrary to my duties as an American citizen.”
DR. OVERHOLSER
Mr. Pound …
EZRA
“These conditions were adhered to … I believe in the free expression of opinion for those qualified to have an opinion.”
DR. OVERHOLSER
Mr. Pound …
EZRA
(Holding up a hand to stop him)
“I have not spoken in regard to war, but in protest against a system which creates one war after another.
I have not spoken to the troops and have not suggested that the troops should mutiny or revolt.”
DR. OVERHOLSER
Mr. Pound—I must insist. Your letter of explanation to the attorney general is for your lawyer, not for me. What I need to know is: Do you understand that you are under indictment for treason?
EZRA
Nineteen counts.
DR. OVERHOLSER
It is my responsibility, as the psychiatrist in charge of your case, to make the determination as to whether or not you are competent to stand trial.
EZRA
Very difficult for me to concentrate.
DR. OVERHOLSER
And yet you are still a noted poet, editor, translator—and continuing your work, by the look of things.
EZRA
I broke my head. I’m all right when I’m rested, but when I’m not rested it goes beat, beat, beat in the back of my neck.
(He gestures.)
DR. OVERHOLSER
(Making a note)
What goes beat, beat, beat?
EZRA
I told them in Pisa the main spring had busted.
DR. OVERHOLSER
What do you mean by “the main spring”?
EZRA
At the vortex of my skull.
DR. OVERHOLSER
The report from the psychiatrist at Pisa is that you are mentally fit and fully aware of your actions and their consequences.
EZRA
(He puts his hand to his head, dramatically.)
Memory gaps. Exhausted.
(He rolls off the bed and lies on the floor.)
DR. OVERHOLSER
Mr. Pound, I can’t interview you on the floor.
EZRA
Can’t get flat enough.
(DR. OVERHOLSER leans forward in order to hear him better, continues to take notes.)
DR. OVERHOLSER
You will have to get up.
EZRA
(EZRA doesn’t move.)
Can’t … can’t …
DR. OVERHOLSER
Let me ask you—in your opinion—do you think you’re insane?
EZRA
(Propping himself up on his elbow)
No, in my opinion I don’t think I’m insane—but I’m shot to pieces—would take me years, now, to write a sensible piece of prose. I am absolutely unfit to conduct any … business.
DR. OVERHOLSER
But I understand you mean to assist in your own defense?
EZRA
I wanted to represent myself, but the females prevented it …
DR. OVERHOLSER
Do you understand what the consequences could be if the trial is allowed to go forward?
EZRA
Two witnesses—two witnesses to an act before it can be called treason. Those radio technicians they flew in from Rome to testify against me don’t even speak English! They have no idea what I said in those broadcasts.
(Suddenly collapsing, hands to head)
My mistake was to go on after Pearl Harbor.
DR. OVERHOLSER
(Pausing in note-taking)
What did you say?
EZRA
I can’t work here, can’t sleep. Terrible pain in my head.
(He begins to groan.)
DR. OVERHOLSER
When did this start?
EZRA
Fifty hours in the airplane, from Rome. They moved an ambassador and his wife so I could have a seat! I told him of at least forty instances I know of, proof positive, where the tax dollars of United States citizens were used to improve the position of Jews in Europe or America—four billion dollars, proof positive—diverted to the profit of individuals, most of them Jews.
DR. OVERHOLSER
What is your proof?
EZRA
Socrates opposed his own country when it was at war. I am being guided by an interior light, my ideas are above warring factions. Are you a Jew?
DR. OVERHOLSER
No.
EZRA
Are you sure?
DR. OVERHOLSER
Yes.
EZRA
Don’t start a pogrom. The problem, the Jewish problem, is not insoluble. Don’t start a pogrom! Sell ’em Australia … don’t give ’em a national country if they’ll buy it.
(Assuming his Shylock accent)
“Of course, you’ll have to bargain with them, make them think they’re getting it at cut rates, offer them long-term credit….”
(Returning to his normal voice)
This country is overpopulated. I mean, especially after the war, with the loss of tonnage and the loss of your markets, you will have to thin out the population. Sell ’em Australia!
DR. OVERHOLSER
You’re not insane. You’re just another fascist anti-Semite …
EZRA
(Leaping up)
I am the Defender of the Constitution! You think that snotty barbarian, ignorant of T’ang history …
(Breaks off)
DR. OVERHOLSER
Who in the world do you mean?
EZRA
Why, Stinky Roosenfelt. I came back here to Washington in ’39 to advise him.
DR. OVERHOLSER
The president?
EZRA
Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him, don’t shoot the president. Assassins deserve worse, but don’t shoot him. Diagnose him, diagnose him. It is your bound duty as an American citizen.
DR. OVERHOLSER
President Roosevelt died in April, Mr. Pound.
EZRA
If some man has a stroke of genius and could start a pogrom at the top …
DR. OVERHOLSER
Have you been following the Nuremberg trials?
(EZRA mutters something, lies down on the floor.)
EZRA
Benito never enforced those laws.
DR. OVERHOLSER
But after his defeat—
EZRA
Hung up by the heels in Milano, with La Clara. Christ was crucified once, Benito twice.
(Quickly)
The Jew is a savage.
DR. OVERHOLSER
From the Venice ghetto alone, thousands to the crematoriums. How could you not have known?
EZRA
I was in Rapallo. No Jews in Rapallo.
(Rapidly changing the subject)
I never told American soldiers to revolt.
DR. OVERHOLSER
Is it possible that you are prepared to plead …
EZRA
Innocent! Innocent! Innocent!
(Pause)
I do not believe the simple fact of speaking over the radio can in itself constitute treason. I think that must depend on what is said, and on the motives for speaking.
DR. OVERHOLSER
Quisling in Norway, Lord Haw-Haw in England, Tokyo Rose in America—they’ve been shown no mercy. Quisling and Haw-Haw—an American, by the way—will hang. Tokyo Rose goes to prison.
EZRA
A country is judged by how it treats its poets. And its critics.
DR. OVERHOLSER
And its traitors.
EZRA (Shouting)
Two witnesses! Two witnesses to an act before it can be called treason!
DR. OVERHOLSER
Your lawyer will discuss that with you, Mr. Pound. I am here to formulate a diagnosis.
EZRA
Then my goose is cooked.
DR. OVERHOLSER
You and I understand, I believe, that between the fully normal and the grossly abnormal lies a no-man’s-land of deviations. There is no logic in the assumption that a man is either “sane” or “insane.” Do you follow me? I have spent the last five years writing on the difference between genius, like that of a poet, and insanity, like that of a Mussolini. I’ve found that the individual with special gifts is always abnormal, but that is quite different from saying he is psychotic or mentally deranged …
EZRA
It’s all one, in the world’s eyes—genius, i
nsanity.
DR. OVERHOLSER
Some appear to know the difference. We’ve been receiving a good deal of mail on your behalf.
(He pulls letters from his pocket; EZRA eagerly examines them.)
“I never thought Ezra was insane unless a ludicrous egotism qualifies. His lawyer should try the case on the freedom of speech issue.”
EZRA
Good old Archie MacLeish!
DR. OVERHOLSER
You know his “Ars Poetica”?
EZRA (Disparagingly)
Waall …
DR. OVERHOLSER
“A poem should be equal to:
Not true.”
EZRA
(Looking at another letter)
Bill Williams.
(Reading)
“I have made up my mind to defend him if I am ever called as a witness in his trial.”
(He leaps up, cavorts with pleasure.)
DR. OVERHOLSER
(Recalling him)
Here’s one from Robert Frost. Wasn’t he nominated for the Pulitzer?
EZRA (Offended)
How would I know? I don’t keep up with that kind of thing.
(He takes the letter, starts to read.)
EZRA
“As you know better than I, nations are judged in the perspective of history by the way they treat their poets, philosophers, artists, and teachers.”
I helped him get his first book published—he was a country boy, lost in London.
DR. OVERHOLSER
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by …”
EZRA (Impatient)
Yes, yes. Anything from Old Possum?
DR. OVERHOLSER
(Not understanding)
Excuse me?
EZRA
Eliot! T. S. Eliot!
DR. OVERHOLSER
I think so …
EZRA
(EZRA grabs the letter, examines the signature. He reads from the letter.)
“A man does not have to agree with Pound to acknowledge the excellence of what he has written.”