explain to you. Please excuse my repeating the question, but I asked what you knew about Anna's past life.
TONY: Well, not a great deal, as it happens. She doesn't like to talk about it. I gather that she dislikes the government of her own country and is afraid to go back.
PLACEK: With good reason, I dare say. But I doubt very much whether it is the government that she fears.
TONY: What?
PLACEK: I have no proof of this, you must understand. Few would have access to the evidence. What I say is only rumour, but in my country it is wise to pay heed to it. That is why "rumour-mongering" is considered so serious an offence.
TONY: Now you're really getting me worried.
PLACEK: So; you are learning. It is well. Now, what has Anna said of her family?
TONY: Only that her parents disappeared a while ago, presumed dead.
PLACEK: That at least is true. She would not tell you, I suppose, that it was after she herself denounced them for dissident activities.
TONY: Good God!
PLACEK: Or that among every circle of friends that she has made since then, anyone showing signs of sympathy with the dissidents, or impatience with government policy, has suffered for it?
TONY: This is terrible!
PLACEK: I fear so. We have made in many ways a terrible world.
TONY: But accepting for the moment that all this has happened, how can I be sure that the girl you're talking about is my Anna? It's easy to make a mistake. And you can't have known her well, otherwise by your own account you'd have been in the soup yourself.
PLACEK (briefly wrong-footed): Hmm. I must remember that phrase, Professor - "in the soup." So much more decorous than the usual vulgarism. Yes, you are right; my acquaintance with her was not close, and such an error is always possible - indeed, greatly to be hoped. So by all means let us try to establish the negative hypothesis; that is the scientific method, is it not? Now, the girl of whom I speak, she herself vanished from her home - it would be about a year and a half ago. If your Anna was here before that, then she is not the same.
TONY: Well, as I told you, we were married six months ago. And she'd spent about nine months working in the village. I think she came over six or seven weeks earlier.
PLACEK: So it fits. I think you had better ask her some very serious questions – (pointedly) and check the answers carefully with those contacts that you do not have in the East. Farewell.
He departs briskly. Tony stands for a moment, deep in thought, then slowly wanders away.
FADE OUT
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FADE UP: TONY'S SITTING ROOM, THAT EVENING.
Anna is unsettled but trying to read. Shortly, Tony enters.
ANNA: Hello, have you had a good day?
TONY: Not really.
ANNA: You do look worried.
TONY: I am. Desperately. Anna, we'll have to have a serious talk.
ANNA: Yes? What is it about?
TONY: I've been talking to Dr. Placek. What he told me was horrifying. I haven't been able to think of anything else since.
ANNA: Oh.
TONY: How well do you know him?
ANNA: Well, I have met him two times, when he came yesterday, and before that when he called to see you but you were out.
TONY: Is that all? You didn't meet him before you left home?
ANNA: It may be possible. I do not remember. Why do you ask?
TONY: He seems - or rather, he claims - to know a lot about you.
ANNA: What sort of thing?
TONY: Well - please understand, Anna, this is what he said, not what I want to believe - he said that before you came over here you would inform on anyone with dissident sympathies; and that you'd even shopped your own parents.
ANNA: Shopped? I do not understand ...
TONY: Denounced them to the police.
ANNA: But that is not true!
TONY: No, it's the last thing I'd expect of you.
ANNA: I am very glad that you say so.
TONY: But how can I be sure?
ANNA: How can you be sure of anything? Tony, we have lived together for six months. How well do you know Dr. Placek? Who do you believe?
TONY: God knows I want to believe you. But because I know that, I can't tell if I'm really convinced or simply want to be.
ANNA: Why do you always have to be so damnably philosophical?
TONY: It's the way I'm made. I can't always take things at face value.
ANNA: Except Dr. Placek, it seems.
TONY: Now be fair, Anna -
ANNA (exploding): How can you expect me to be fair over an accusation like that?
TONY: It isn't an accusation.
ANNA: If it is not - and one of the worst you could possibly make - I should like very much to know what is.
TONY: I'm merely telling you what he said. Oh, what's the use? We're just going round in circles.
ANNA: Then can we please drop the subject?
TONY: If only we could! But now it's been raised ... Once the slightest seed of doubt has been sown, it's liable to grow out of all proportion. So I'd like to crush it once and for all right at the start.
ANNA (slightly mollified): I see. But how can you do that?
TONY: That's the trouble. You can't prove a negative. But there's just one chance.
ANNA: What is that?
TONY: Placek wasn't absolutely sure that you were the girl he thought. He said she disappeared from home eighteen months ago. Now we can account for you for most of that time: if you can think of any way to establish that you were in this country - or at least, not in your own - for say three months before then, you'll be in the clear.
ANNA: It will be difficult.
TONY: But can you try?
ANNA: Let me see. I did leave my town two years ago, though I stayed a while in the country. Maybe someone could vouch for me during that time. But why should you believe such a person more than me - or Dr. Placek? Even if you could find one.
TONY: I don't know! Is there perhaps some document that would show where you were - something you couldn't have got afterwards?
ANNA: I will try to think of something. But I cannot think while you are staring at me like that!
TONY: No, that's fair enough. Look, I'm more desperately sorry than I can say that this has come up. But now that it has - and with your background - I'm sure you realise that I can't just let it pass by.
ANNA (dully): I understand.
TONY: Thank you, darling.
Beat
TONY: I think I'd better go for a walk.
ANNA: Very well. But please take care. You know how you notice no danger while you are preoccupied.
TONY: I'll be careful.
ANNA: And Tony -
TONY: Yes?
ANNA: I love you.
He pauses a moment, and goes out. Anna sits for a while, thinking, then comes to some decision, finds paper and pen, and writes, carefully composing and reading aloud as she does so.
ANNA: "My dearest Tony; there is so much that I have to say to you, and it is so difficult to put into words. The first, last and most important thing is that I love you."
CUT TO A NONDESCRIPT STREET, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING.
Tony is walking despondently.
ANNA (voice over): You have given me during the past six months the greatest happiness that I have ever known, and if it has now turned to the greatest misery, that is my misfortune, not your fault.
I must now be completely honest. There is no possible way to prove that I am not the girl of whom Dr. Placek has spoken, because I am. Even the accusation that I betrayed my own parents - the parents whom I loved so deeply that grief at their loss still haunts me - even that has some foundation. The cruellest lies are the closest to the truth. What really happened was that my boy-friend taunted me with having such conforming parents, and like a fool I let slip something of what I had seen, not realising that he was working for the Secret Police. After that no one decent who knew the story would have an
ything to do with me, and in time I drifted into the Service almost by accident.
Dr. Placek was my chief, and it was he who sent me here. My task was to find a way into your household - why, I did not know until he came here while you were out yesterday - but it was part of a plan to destroy your reputation and that of the dissident organisations for which he was convinced you were working. When I realised, I refused to do it, and this is his revenge.
CUT TO TONY'S SITTING ROOM, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING
Anna is finishing her letter.
ANNA: "After this I can never hope to regain your trust, and without it life would be unbearable. Please forgive me for what I must do. That it will hurt you so much causes me even more pain than my own loss. Forgive me, I beg of you again, and remember me as kindly as you can. Your own Anna."
She reads through what she has written.
ANNA: There, it is done.
She lays down the pen and goes out briefly, returning with a half-empty bottle of tablets and a glass of water.
ANNA (reading the label): "It is dangerous to exceed the stated dose." Good.
She swallows half the tablets, washed down with water; considers a moment; then takes the rest to make sure. She weights down her letter with the empty bottle, sits on the settee and waits. After a moment, she gets up and puts on a record of Samuel Barber's violin concerto, selecting the second movement. A little later, she lies back on the settee, eyes closed.
Tony enters wearily. At first he notices nothing, but then spots the empty medicine bottle and glass, and finally Anna supine on the settee. He rushes across to cradle her head on his arm. Her eyes open and she manages a weak smile.
TONY: Anna!
She feebly takes his hand: both freeze.
SLOW FADE OUT.
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FADE IN TO TONY'S SITTING ROOM, EVENING, JANUARY 1985.
Eric is seated; Tony pours coffee for both and sits.
ERIC: Damn good
Exit, pursued by a bear Page 5