HERMANN
What.
Beat.
What.
RUDI
Just… I don’t know.
RUDI breaks away. He lights a cigarette.
HERMANN
What.
Beat.
Use language. That’s what it’s for.
Beat.
It’s hot out there, hot and dry, but I suppose you wouldn’t know because you haven’t left the house.
Beat.
(frustrated) Something about your father.
RUDI
It’s just, when I think about what he’s been through, Berlin, and the Allies closing in, losing the war, Nuremburg, all his friends executed or handed over to the Russians to be killed or tortured, or, what do the Russians do?
HERMANN
Kill, torture.
RUDI
Then Paraguay, running a pharmaceutical company in some spic colonial outpost, that was fine. The Führer was still the Führer and Deutschland über alles.
HERMANN
(referring to the cigarette) Pass me that.
RUDI
And now he’s…! He’s eating dinner, when he eats it, with the servants in the kitchen. With the servants. And he hasn’t stopped working for weeks. Works late, he’s probably raking in the profits, the grosses are up because of me. His employees must wonder what the fuck is going on, this fit of enthusiasm for work suddenly—
HERMANN
Yes, well it’s working, isn’t it?
RUDI
What is?
HERMANN
Your experiment.
Beat.
Look, forget it. Where is he now?
RUDI
Downstairs.
HERMANN
Then he’ll be sure to hear.
HERMANN kisses him. RUDI hardly responds, holds his cigarette. HERMANN stops, leans back, looks at him. Beat.
RUDI
I told him I want to leave.
HERMANN
Leave.
RUDI
Leave, yes. Get out of the house, out of the country, if possible.
HERMANN
Out of the… country?
RUDI
I told him I would go to Germany.
HERMANN
Germany. Why?
RUDI
Why not?
HERMANN
Good, well, that’s nice, you’ll be able to keep up your German, and perhaps visit relatives? Go see where your father grew up, worked, met your mother. Wasn’t that at Wannsee?
RUDI
I’m not going to Germany. I’m leaving Paraguay.
Beat.
ODESSA will fund it if I go to Germany. I don’t want him to pay for it, and I don’t want to stay here, so, Germany.
Beat.
HERMANN
You’re going to… leave? You’re going to leave me… here?
RUDI
(not sad to leave him) I’ll be sad to leave you, but, on the whole, Paraguay’s a shithole, really.
Beat.
I went by his study, an hour ago, told him, “I want to leave.” He was working on his—I don’t know—accounts, anyway, he kept working, told me he would “make the arrangements”—
HERMANN
Well, what did you think would happen? You thought he would… what? Shake your hand?
RUDI
No, I—
HERMANN
Give you a fucking medal? (off RUDI’s look) Well?
Beat.
RUDI
Anyway, I’m leaving—
HERMANN
Leave, then! Go to Germany, New York, Jerusalem! Your father’s a war criminal. It’s going to be like this your whole life. You’re going to spend half your time wanting him to die in a car crash so you can piss on his grave, and the other half scared he’ll get extradited. Look at you. You’ve done this to piss him off, or, I don’t know, shame him, and now—
RUDI
(under HERMANN’s line) —no, it was to—
HERMANN
—that you’ve done it… yes it was.
RUDI
No, I didn’t, it was to—
HERMANN
Yes, it was, in his study, on the fucking floor—
RUDI
No, I—no, I… meant to, yes, to—
HERMANN
What?
RUDI
To…
Beat.
(sarcastic) Yes, I—yes, this is what I thought would happen, I thought he would be like this, I thought he would—
HERMANN
But now “it’s happened,” you’re all—
RUDI
No, I’m—I’m just—I don’t know.
Beat.
I don’t know!
Beat.
HERMANN
(more gently) He’s your father, you have to… You want him to be… proud of you, it’s not… it doesn’t make you guilty, or, like him, you’re nothing like him—
HERMANN touches RUDI. RUDI shrugs him off violently.
Well, you’re a little like him.
RUDI
You’re nothing like your father; I can’t say that, I’m not a fucking…
Beat.
I’m not a…
Beat. HERMANN walks to the door. RUDI runs and blocks his way, gets hold of his arms.
But my father thinks I am, so that’s something, isn’t it, Hermann? Hunh? That’s something, isn’t it? My father thinks I’m like you, so that’s something?
Beat.
Lucky you. You’ll never be like your father.
HERMANN gets RUDI off of him, and exits. HERMANN slams the door on his way out. Transition. RUDI regards the audience.
I was a little… confused, back then. Poor Hermann. But, he would easily find another…
Beat.
I left. I was seventeen, eighteen, by then, and I went to West Berlin, to Europe. I had a German passport and I went. ODESSA funded me to go to Germany. I—yes—accepted money from a Nazi organization, but I thought better I have it than whoever else they’re…!
Beat.
I took very little with me when I left, very few… keepsakes.
Beat.
I went by the name on my German passport, after that, which perhaps you’ll remember was “Otto Henrick.” Not that my father’s name is particularly remarkable, it’s not a household name like Eichmann, or Mengele. Hitler. I just didn’t want to use it.
Beat.
After that, a period of almost happiness. A period of…
Beat.
When I arrived in West Berlin, I rented rooms in the American sector, enrolled at Berlin’s Free University, threw myself into my studies.
Beat.
Well, no, there was a brief period of— I was in occupied Germany, I saw all the bombed-out buildings, the Soviet soldiers my mother was terrified of when I was growing up, the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag. I walked around this… city that was so… familiar.
Beat.
But after that I threw myself into my studies. I took sciences, chemistry, and biology, played to my strengths. I tried to behave like any ordinary student, to live for the future. And West Berlin, Germany, was so disordered, so broken then—the Americans, the Soviets—that I could go unnoticed. I was just another anonymous post-war German. I didn’t like to talk about the war, but then, who did?
Beat.
I got into the habit of referring to my parents in the past tense. At some point, someone asked me how it had happened. I said “car accident,” and a
fter that I just… kept saying it.
Beat.
I had a set of friends I spoke to about surface things. No politics, no history. I didn’t join any of the student groups. I dated a series of nondescript blonds. I favoured classes taught by young professors, who qualified after the war. I was a good student, I worked hard, threw myself into it. When I wasn’t studying, I was drinking. It was like three years of white noise. In my final year, I scored the highest in my class.
Beat.
My professors recommended medicine. (RUDI laughs.) Kept saying it, “Take medicine, you’re right for it, the right temperament.”
Beat.
“Congratulations on those scores, you’re not going to go into business, I hope, not with those scores.”
Beat.
“I’ll write your reference letter for you, I know the head of the medical department, I’m sure they’ll accept you.”
Beat.
“My brother’s a doctor, why don’t you take a beer with him on the weekend, he’ll tell you what the career is like…”
RUDI regards the audience.
What do you suppose I did?
Beat.
I applied for medical school. I was accepted into the university’s Faculty of Medicine, and in the fall, I began attending classes.
Beat.
I was… a very good medical student. It quickly became apparent that I had a natural aptitude for it. I was often singled out by my professors. I was envied by the other students. Admired.
Beat.
Yes, that’s right. I was very good at it. Good at labs. Good at exams. Also, I found I was never the one vomiting into the water fountain outside the auditorium.
Beat.
In my white coat.
Beat.
My father wore a white coat, over his SS uniform, in the camps.
Beat.
In my second term, I assisted in the dissection of a corpse. Four of us, three German physicians, and me, standing around the corpse of… this man, and I helped… dissect him, and I thought, I can’t—this is what my father—I can’t…
Beat.
The trains, over and over again I saw… myself on the ramp.
Beat.
I dropped out of medical school.
Beat.
I dropped out, and I didn’t—I just—there was a long period of nothing, of… subsistence.
RUDI lights a cigarette.
I smoked a lot of cigarettes. (RUDI laughs.) There were cigarette burns in my rooms. I would find I… didn’t want to move; I would be lying on the floor and I didn’t want to move, so I would put my cigarette out where I was. I lost my deposit on those rooms because of that, because of all the cigarette burns in the carpet.
Beat.
I cashed my ODESSA cheque once a month.
Beat.
I walked around the city.
Beat.
I wondered if my whole life was going to be like this, a sort of doomed flight.
Beat.
And that’s when I met her, Sarah Kleinman. I met her in the German Federal Archive. I had taken to going into libraries, archives, and circling my father’s name in war documents, survivors’ testimonies, the Nuremberg Trial transcripts. I was looking through deportation and transport records, and she—well—introduced herself.
Transition. RUDI and SARAH are in the German Federal Archive in West Berlin. RUDI is kneeling in the middle of a pile of papers.
SARAH
You’re smoking in the archive.
Beat.
RUDI
I’m sorry?
SARAH
You’re smoking in the archive.
Beat.
RUDI
I’ll… put it out.
SARAH
No, no, I’m not an archivist.
RUDI
What are you then?
SARAH
I’m researching here, as well, in the archive, and I see you sitting here, on the floor, with those documents. You smoke about an inch away from them and ash onto the floor. Are they of interest?
RUDI
What?
SARAH
Those documents.
RUDI
Yes.
Beat.
SARAH
You seem to be spending a lot of time, on the floor, with those documents, and I wondered if… you’ve found what you’re looking for?
Beat.
RUDI
I’m sorry?
SARAH
Are you looking for…?
Beat.
Last week there was a man from Norway. He sat there, just like you, in the aisle, until he found the record of it, of the transport.
Beat.
RUDI
Of the… I’m sorry, you’re researching here, as well?
SARAH
I’m—yes—I’m looking through housing records. I had family in Berlin, so they must have had… housing. But, I came here first, to this section, I found my… mother here, found the record of a transport on the date when I know she went east.
RUDI
East.
SARAH
Yes.
RUDI
To the camps?
SARAH
Yes?
RUDI
You…? You’re…? Are you…? Are you…? I’m sorry, are you… a…? You’re saying you had family who were deported to…?
SARAH
You… didn’t have family… who were—?
RUDI
No. No, my family… no.
SARAH
You’re… German?
RUDI
Yes.
Beat.
I’m… sorry, there aren’t many of you who stayed, who—after the war—
SARAH
No, we didn’t feel… all that welcome.
RUDI
Yes. No.
SARAH
And we didn’t stay. We moved to the States. (off RUDI’s look) The United States of America—
RUDI
I—yes, but when?
SARAH
In 1945, when the Allies liberated the camps. She met my father. He was with the 14th Armoured. He found her at one of the displaced persons camps, and they fell in love. It’s an unlikely backdrop for love, post-war Germany, but they did somehow manage to fall in love, and they were married and my mother emigrated to the States.
RUDI
Is your father also… a—
SARAH
Yes?
RUDI
Your mother… survived the camps?
SARAH nods.
Which one?
SARAH
Auschwitz.
Beat.
And your parents? During the war?
RUDI
They were—my father was—he was, yes—a National Socialist. He was—I’m not. I’m studying Jews—Jewish—so, I’m researching here—
SARAH
He served in the war?
RUDI
He was a medic, a troop physician, yes. With the—he was in Russia, mostly, Eastern Front. And then, after the war, he worked in pharmaceuticals, until he… There was an accident. On the Autobahn.
SARAH
(polite, but not sorry) I’m sorry.
Beat.
And you’re researching…?
RUDI
I’m researching, yes, he’s… My father died, so I can’t ask him if he was involved in the… resettlements, the deportations, in the… east.
SARAH
You t
hink he might have been?
Beat.
RUDI
Yes.
Beat.
SARAH
My mother also… died, before I could ask her about… herself, her family, so I wanted to come here, see where she lived, see Germany. (indicating RUDI) Germans.
RUDI
I’m…! I’m very pleased to…! I’m pleased that you are—feel you want to—welcome!
SARAH
Thank you.
Beat.
RUDI
Otto Henrick.
SARAH
Sarah Kleinman.
They shake hands awkwardly because RUDI doesn’t know what to do with his cigarette. Transition. SARAH is gone. RUDI regards the audience.
RUDI
Sarah was… Jewish, so that was odd. That was very odd and also… exhilarating. She was the first Jew I’d met. I’d only ever seen photographs. And… anatomical sketches in my father’s… medical…
RUDI looks away.
Sarah’s mother, Inge Rosenthal, was deported to Auschwitz on September 3, 1943. My father was… there, at the camp, at that time. So, yes.
Beat.
It wasn’t exactly a premeditated… but, after that, I did—I know I did—I spent a lot of time helping Sarah to use the archives, and, well, following her around, so I suppose it’s not so surprising that the desire to know her, to… apologize to her… on behalf of my…
Beat.
When I left Paraguay, I took one… keepsake… (RUDI laughs.) of my father’s with me. I told Sarah I had it, at my apartment, and she… wanted to see it.
Transition. RUDI and SARAH are in RUDI’s Berlin apartment. RUDI is holding out his father’s military jacket for SARAH to look at.
SARAH
It’s in good condition.
RUDI
Is it?
SARAH
He kept it all wrapped up?
RUDI
Yes, in the closet.
SARAH
There must be a lot of these jackets in closets and basements, in Germany, Austria, Poland.
Beat. RUDI lights a cigarette.
This insignia is Brandenburg Division.
RUDI
Yes.
SARAH
They were smokers. Like you. The Germans who surrendered to my father’s regiment were Brandenburg. He told me they were always begging for smokes.
Beat.
He’s well decorated, for a non-combatant. He was a physician?
RUDI
Yes.
SARAH
This is the Iron Cross, Second Class. The Winter Campaign ribbon. A wound badge, he was wounded?
East of Berlin Page 3