EMILY: You only know what you read in the newspapers and hear on the radio, the same as I do. We’re not over there. Just because the Nazis are a little heavy handed in running their own affairs doesn’t mean they want war with England or anyone else. War is not the solution.
DAVID: Heavy handed? They’re brutal. Hitler will have to be stopped sooner or later. War will be the only answer, I’m afraid. Anyway, Germany will force it upon us whether we wish it or not.
EMILY (disbelieving): Hitler was a corporal wasn’t he? In the trenches. No one who lived through that could possibly want to repeat it.
DAVID: That’s exactly what he’s gambling on. Sooner or later, a stand will have to be taken.
EMILY (distressed): Not by you! I’d rather we just went to Sydney, as far away from it as possible. Daddy’s other brother is over there. He could give you a job.
DAVID: That’s running away, Emmy.
EMILY: I don’t care!
[Silence descends upon the room again. EMILY looks as though she might cry, but doesn’t. DAVID hands a cup of tea to her from the tray and she accepts it with a weak smile. He retreats to his former position against the desk.]
DAVID (quietly, tentatively): Jeremy came home last week. He says hello.
EMILY: How is he?
DAVID: He’s fine. He’s getting used to the crutches. I suppose he’ll get used to the leg – he says the stump hurts like hell. He’s not looking forward to winter. The doctors have told him it’ll ache with the cold. (Feebly) No rugby for him this year, I suppose!
EMILY (reproachfully): David!
[David’s eyes are downcast. He is thoughtful.]
DAVID: He says the Italian Fascists and the Nazis are winning. It’s inevitable. It’s not a war – more like the wholesale rape and murder of Spain. Now Hitler is riding into Austria like Julius Caesar and being hailed as a conquering hero – a liberator, for God’s sake. It’s madness. He’ll not stop until the whole of Europe belongs to him and his cronies.
EMILY: What about the League of Nations? Won’t they do something?
DAVID: Come on, Em! You know as well as I do that they’re full of ineffectual bureaucrats. They’re all spineless and scared stiff of another war. As for England, half of Westminster and most of the blue-blooded aristocracy would openly side with Mosley if they were honest. That number includes our former King and his American lady-friend. Not to mention the working classes. Hitler and Mussolini promise stability, strength, jobs, unity against Stalin. The only things they don’t dwell on are their methods of achieving all that.
EMILY: You mean, “Let everyone else get hurt as long as they leave me alone.”
DAVID: Yes! Which is precisely the blindfolded attitude we’d be adopting if we weren’t openly involved against it. That’s why Jeremy went over there.
EMILY: I know… but what if you don’t just come back on crutches? What if you’re in a coffin! Or… like my uncle. Destroyed on the inside. I couldn’t bear it.
DAVID: It might not happen, Emmy.
EMILY (exasperated): You just said yourself that it will, that it’s coming. Everyone knows it, David, but no sane person can bear to consider it for a second.
DAVID: I’m not sure if Hitler’s mad, exactly. But he is evil. He and that nasty little fellow Goebbels certainly seem to know what they’re doing, creating mass hysteria among the Germans the way they have. Their rhetoric is leading the world back into the depths of Hell, I’m certain of it.
EMILY (after a prolonged pause): We’d better get the unpacking finished, or Mrs. Wilson is going to assume you’ve had your wicked way with me up here, leading me down into the depths of Hell yourself.
DAVID: I never mix romance and political debate.
EMILY: I should hope not!
[They half-heartedly attend to the unpacking of several boxes, careful to avoid each other’s gaze and physical proximity. After a few minutes, the tension has built to a point where EMILY can no longer bear the strain of it. She slams a box heavily down on to a wooden chair.]
EMILY: I’ve had enough! I’ll leave you to your unpacking David – and to your precious self-righteousness. Anyway, that noise is bound to have Edith rushing up here to investigate, so I had best be leaving. Just be thankful, David, that it’s not a squad of SA brownshirts storming up here to beat down your door!
DAVID (meekly, as she is leaving): But that’s my point precisely.
[After a moment, MRS WILSON enters without knocking.]
MRS. WILSON (stridently): Have you finished with your tea, Mr. Farnborough? Only I wanted to get the cups washed before they were stained…
Curtain. End of Act One.
ACT TWO
An Absence of Light Page 2