by Tom Stoppard
MAX Why me?
JAN Hey, Max—an ideological ally and persona grata with the ruling class? Sure, why wouldn’t they take your measurements? When I read this file I understood how you spoiled my summer vac in ’68. How excited they must have been when with no warning you gave them a little plum! I was told not to come home, make myself indispensable …
MAX What happened when you got home?
JAN They took my albums.
MAX Is that all?
JAN I got them back and in return I told them things they already knew. Who was friends of who, you know. They think they’re using you, but really you’re using them. But finally, in ’76, they reminded me who was using who. They smashed up my records. Because, in the end, there are two realities, yours and theirs.
MAX Is there a point to this?
JAN I ask your forgiveness.
MAX Ah. All right. Go, and sin no more. Is that it?
Max doesn’t unbend. It’s unsatisfactory, but Jan nods.
JAN What should I do with this?
MAX I don’t care what you do with it. (unkindly) What did you do with yours?
JAN The STB burned many files in the last days of Communism. So it seems I have no file.
Max laughs.
MAX Well, then, you didn’t have to tell me, did you?
JAN No.
Max gets it, but is not going to go into a swoon about it. He sighs, and unbends enough to oblige Jan with an awkward hug. Jan starts to shake, so Max hugs him tighter.
Blackout, and ‘Don’t Cry’ by Guns ‘n’ Roses.
Smash cut to:
Lunch for eight at the debris stage, a success by the sound of the babble, in which there is some laughter.
Two or more mismatching chairs have been added.
Jan is at one end of the table, next to Lenka. Max is facing Jan at the other end, next to Esme.
There are three conversations going on simultaneously with some energy.
Jan is speaking to Lenka in Czech. She is giving him all her attention, leaning in to catch his words, laughing, happy.
The second conversation is between Nigel, Alice and Stephen.
The third conversation is between Candida, Max and, notionally, Esme, who is not contributing.
Little or nothing intelligible emerges from the babble.
Candida is of an age with Nigel, fortyish, self-made, attractive.
Lenka is still sexy in her early forties.
Jan is telling Lenka, in Czech, about his mother singing and when Jan does the song, in English, his words drop into a hole in the hubbub.
JAN (in English) ‘…but I know we’ll meet again …’
Lenka laughs.
JAN (cont.) (apologising generally) Sorry. Childhood is a lost country. When I came back it wasn’t here.
STEPHEN When did you come back?
JAN ’66 to ’68.
LENKA That one is lost, too.
CANDIDA I can’t remember the sixties, so I must have been there.
NIGEL I thought you weren’t born, darling.
MAX I was embarrassed by the sixties. It was like opening the wrong door in a highly specialised brothel. To this day there are men in public life who can’t look me in the eye because I knew them when they went about dressed like gigantic five-year-olds at a society wedding … exchanging bogus wisdom derived from misunderstood Eastern religions.
NIGEL I owned a kaftan. Photographs exist.
LENKA Jan had all his hair.
JAN I did. We all had hair. It was our right.
NIGEL When I met Esme, she was living in Clarendon Street in a—would you call it a squat or a commune? Esme?
ESME Yes …
NIGEL I infiltrated to do a story, but—sadly—I went native.
ALICE Not sadly. You fell in love with Mum.
CANDIDA Well said.
MAX The fifties was the last time liberty opened up as you left your youth behind you. After that, young people started off with more liberty than they knew what to do with … but—regrettably—confused it with sexual liberation and the freedom to get high … so it all went to waste.
NIGEL Right on. Sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
LENKA (protests loudly) Excuse me, we changed the world.
CANDIDA Yes—what about 1968?
MAX What happened in 1968?
CANDIDA Revolution!
MAX You’ll have to help me. I’ve got that disease where you can’t remember its name.
LENKA Candida means the cultural revolution.
CANDIDA No, I don’t, I mean the occupations—Paris, the LSE, or in my case, Hornsey College of Art.
MAX Oh, the occupations, yes. Do you remember the occupation of ‘68, Jan?
ALICE Grandpa.
MAX What?
ALICE You know what.
CANDIDA (smiles at Alice) Max knows damn well what I’m talking about, and we were all high on bringing down capitalism.
NIGEL Bringing down capitalism was Candida’s youthful indiscretion.
MAX Street theatre.
CANDIDA And ending war. All war, not just Vietnam. I don’t know what you mean about the dressing up. I wore a camouflage jacket and combat boots. Oh, I see what you mean. But I also had a Sergeant Pepper coat from Chelsea Girl. No, okay, so we dressed up. So what? We were very political. My boyfriend was a Black Dwarf cartoonist.
Jan is taken aback. Lenka explains.
LENKA Newspaper.
MAX But Lenka is right. It turned out to be merely a cultural revolution. It left the system in place … because, as I could have told you at the time, altering the psyche has no effect on the social structure. You drop out or you fit in. In the end, you fitted in. (to Esme) Shove the bottle along.
CANDIDA (laughs) And there’s me thinking I’m famous for skewering the high and the mighty.
MAX (to Esme) Bottle.
Stephen pushes a wine bottle past Esme to Max.
ESME What? Yes. Who wants more (coffee) …?
Esme gets up, taking the coffee pot.
ALICE (anxious about her) Should I …?
LENKA Don’t try to put me on your side, Max. ‘Make love, not war’ was more important than ‘Workers of the world unite’.
JAN I agree with Lenka.
Esme glances at Jan and Lenka, and leaves with the coffee pot. Alice follows Esme out, concerned for her.
ALICE What are you doing, Mum? I’ve already filled it.
LENKA (meanwhile) Actually, who owns the factories doesn’t change anything at all.
STEPHEN (amused) Did you get that, Max?
CANDIDA (scratching the itch) What do you mean, I fitted in?
NIGEL Yes, we’re the fourth estate, thank you very much. Good men went to prison to establish the public’s right to know.
MAX They did, and personally I’d be keeping quiet about them if I were filling half the paper with salacious drivel about celebrities I’ve never heard of.
STEPHEN Actually they would have loved it.
MAX The proletariat wouldn’t follow where Stephen led, so he follows where the proletariat lead.
Alice returns with the coffee pot. She silently offers coffee to Candida and gets a smile.
MAX (cont.) (meanwhile, to Candida) I’ll tell you, then. Everything you write is hostage to the market. Your proprietor is in thrall to the consumer. While profits rise, he will reward you for telling lies; while profits fall, he will punish you for telling truth—
NIGEL (explodes) This is bullshit, Max!
Alice continues her round with the coffee.
MAX (to Candida) Try skewering your advertisers.
CANDIDA (cool) As it happens, my contract says not a word of my column can be changed except for libel.
MAX Your contract serves no purpose. Why would you jeopardise your privileges?
ALICE Grandpa.
MAX (deliberately mistaking) No, thank you.
ALICE You’ve upset Mum.
MAX How?
ALICE How?!
> She puts down the coffee pot and moves to exit.
ALICE (cont.) She’s gone upstairs anyway. I think she’s sickening for something.
JAN (to Alice) Is she (all right) …?
Alice leaves.
NIGEL (pointing to Jan) Yes—ask him!
MAX Ask him what?
NIGEL Ask him to tell you about truth and lies in your beloved system.
MAX I don’t need Jan to tell me. Systems don’t set out to undermine themselves. Newspapers are part of the system, and truth is relative to that simple fact.
NIGEL (triumphantly) Thank you!
MAX I was talking about your lot.
NIGEL (pressing the point) Tell him what you said to me in Prague.
JAN What was that?
NIGEL Shit, I don’t know—you were there. About having lots of different truths being human.
JAN No, I said it was human to disagree about the truth.
NIGEL Exactly. That’s our system.
JAN But Max is right. How did the propaganda paper and the capitalist press arrive at the same relation to the truth? Because all systems are blood brothers. Changing one system for another is not what the Velvet Revolution was for. We have to begin again with the ordinary meaning of words. Giving new meanings to words is how systems lie to themselves, beginning with the word for themselves—socialism, democracy … An invasion becomes fraternal assistance, and a parasite can be someone who is punished by unemployment and punished again for being unemployed—isn’t that so, Max?
MAX I would have let you stew if Esme had given me any peace.
LENKA Lies didn’t start with language …
JAN (to Max) What do you mean? Esme …?
LENKA The first lie was man turning away from his nature.
CANDIDA What about us girls?
STEPHEN Actually, Candida, did you read your Bonkers Barrett story today?
CANDIDA Mine?
LENKA I read it.
NIGEL I suppose you’re going to say it’s not true.
STEPHEN Nothing so simple. What it is, is an unrebuttable lie. To anyone who knows, it’s an overheated nonsense, apparently written for people with arrested development, and mindlessly cruel, but totally safe, a sort of triumph, really. But the oddest thing about it is that the cruelty and the dishonesty are completely unmotivated, it’s just a … a kind of style. Lenka, why do you buy it?
LENKA It’s got the best horoscope.
MAX (to Stephen) Newspapers are human nature in print, and human nature being what it is, full of cruelty and superstition, Lenka—
NIGEL (getting up) Okay, everybody, thanks very much—
MAX —I prefer a system where the papers are too boring to do much harm.
NIGEL Come on, Candida.
Nigel goes out to get her coat.
CANDIDA I must say goodbye to Alice.
LENKA You think human nature is a beast which must be put in a cage. But it’s the cage that makes the animal bad.
NIGEL (returning with Candida’s coat) Goodbye, all.
MAX The cage is reason.
LENKA Reason is your superstition. Nature is deeper than reason, and stranger.
MAX Is this going to be about the I Ching?
Lenka grabs a table knife and advances the length of the table on Max.
NIGEL We only came to see Alice. We’ll leave you to it.
Alice enters with a newspaper.
ALICE Is this your paper, Candida?
LENKA (stopped) I think it’s mine.
Alice beats the paper to tatters on Candida’s shoulders. Nigel pulls Alice away. Alice breaks free and leaves in tears. Stephen follows her. Candida is in shock. Nigel puts his arm round her.
NIGEL You’re all insane!
He takes Candida out, with a parting shot at Max.
NIGEL (cont.) I’ll tell you your problem—you’ve been wrong all your life and now you know it. Come on, darling.
Max, Lenka and Jan gaze at the exeunt. Voices outside, the front door slamming.
MAX (pause) And it was all going so well.
Max reaches for Lenka’s hand, removes the knife, puts her hand to his lips.
MAX (cont.) It’s good to have you back. I was getting boring.
Lenka kisses Max’s head.
MAX (cont.) I asked Lenka to stay.
JAN Oh. Good. To stay?
MAX One day at a time, you know.
LENKA It’s upset Esme.
MAX She doesn’t know.
LENKA You didn’t ask her?
MAX Why? It’s my house.
She hits him playfully.
LENKA What’s upset her, then?
JAN I don’t want to go without …
Max drains his wine glass, his mood lowered.
MAX There was a place once, a huge country where square-jawed workers swung sledgehammers, and smiling buxom girls with kerchiefs on their heads lifted sheaves of wheat, and there was a lot of singing, and volumes of poetry in editions of a hundred thousand sold out in a day … What happened to it?
JAN If pornography was available, the poetry would have sold like poetry in the West. We don’t yet understand what we’ve done.
MAX (grins) I do.
JAN Tell Esme thank you.
MAX Come back and finish your doctorate.
JAN When my mother died I thought of it. Emigration, even.
MAX Jan loves England.
JAN (laughs) I do!
LENKA You think you do. Don’t come back, Jan. This place has lost its nerve. They put something in the water since you were here. It’s a democracy of obedience. They’re frightened to use their minds in case their minds tell them heresy. They apologise for history. They apologise for good manners. They apologise for difference. It’s a contest of apology. You’ve got your country back. Why would you change it for one that’s fucked for fifty years at least?
Esme comes in holding a record album, ‘Opel’.
ESME Sorry. I … Have they all gone?
LENKA Are you feeling better, Esme?
ESME What do you mean?
She gives Jan the record.
ESME (cont.) I got you something to take.
JAN Oh … Thank you.
ESME In case you, in case you can’t get it.
JAN ‘Opel’!
ESME (to Max) What did you think of her?
Jan puts the record on the table and searches out his briefcase.
MAX I was pleasantly surprised.
ESME Really? I hope Alice liked her.
JAN So. Some sunny day.
He shakes hands with Max.
MAX Where are you parked?
Jan gestures beyond the garden. He exchanges kisses with Lenka.
JAN I’m glad I saw you, Esme.
ESME Go carefully, then.
They exchange kisses. Jan leaves abruptly by the garden. Lenka starts clearing the table.
ESME (cont.) Don’t … don’t do that.
Lenka desists at once; an acknowledgment of territory encroached.
LENKA I’m sorry. (pause) I should have said, Max wants me, has asked me, to stay. Would you mind, Esme?
MAX Why should she mind? Shares the burden.
LENKA I won’t if it—if you …
ESME He forgot to take it.
She picks up the record.
ESME (cont.) Sorry. What …?
LENKA I miss him … and Max says he misses me.
ESME Yes. Of course. Of course I don’t mind. When did you …? (bewildered) Do you mean just now, this happened just now?
LENKA He wouldn’t get off the phone. I said I’d think about it. (laughs) But I put a few things in the car.
ESME I saw you were happy. I thought—Oh, Lenka.
Esme embraces Lenka, coughs a laugh, looks round for her cigarettes, remembers where she left them, makes a bee-line for her jacket on the garden chair … lights a cigarette, sits down, smokes, stubs the cigarette after two puffs, sits blank.
Lenka meanwhile resumes clearing the table.
Jan returns.
JAN Ahoj.
ESME Jan. Oh—yes, you left it on the table.
JAN (?)
ESME Did you come back for Syd?
JAN Oh … no.
ESME Oh. I came out for a cigarette, then I remembered I don’t smoke.
JAN Oh.
ESME I wish I had some grass.
She gestures at the garden wall.
ESME (cont.) He was beautiful. He was like the guarantee of beauty.
JAN I came to ask you, will you come with me?
ESME Yes.
JAN To Prague.
ESME Of course. Yes. Of course.
JAN Will you come now?
ESME Yes. All right. I’ll have to get my passport.
JAN Okay.
ESME It’s upstairs.
JAN Okay.
ESME Will you be here when I get back?
JAN Yes.
Esme goes indoors and walks briskly through and out, ignoring Max and Lenka. Jan comes inside. He reclaims the album. Max and Lenka have worked it out, and don’t find it necessary to speak. After about half a minute, Jan looks at his watch.
LENKA She’s brushing her teeth.
Jan nods.
Blackout
And ‘Vera’ by Pink Floyd—in entirety:
‘Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that we would meet again?
Vera, Vera, what has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?’
Smash cut to:
Prague exterior, 1990 (Lennon Wall).
Cambridge garden, 1990.
In the place near the Lennon Wall, Esme, in bright, cheap summer clothes, happy behind big sunglasses, has her photograph taken by Jan with a cheap camera, several times. The Beatles’ ‘Rock and Roll Music’ plays off-stage on a tinny cassette-player.
In the Cambridge garden, Lenka listens to her pupil, DEIRDRE, reading her ‘sight unseen’ from Plutarch.
DEIRDRE ‘… And suddenly to everybody’s amazement, a voice was heard from the Island of Paxoi shouting his name, “Thamous”. Thamous was the Egyptian helmsman, not known by name …’ um, empleonton …?
LENKA Present participle, Deirdre …
Ferdinand enters, greeting Jan joyfully in Czech.
JAN This is Ferdinand. He doesn’t know English except lyrics.
Ferdinand and Esme greet each other.
DEIRDRE ‘The third time, Thamous answered the caller, and the caller shouted, “When you’re in earshot of Palodes” …’
LENKA Good.