Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8

by Bertolt Brecht

  They’re good for nothing, or they’re good for fleecing -

  I know the score - and so I take my cut.

  QIUNG: That’s something for you, Ma. - She’s got her own launderette, and she wants to buy her son a big laundry. You might learn how to make a bit of cash.

  MA GOGH: Could you open it at the page where it says something about loans?

  MEDICINE TUI: What about your aches and pains? Maybe you’re sick and just don’t know it? Want to find out what the doctor knows? Just one yen!

  Let’s say you’re wracked by shooting stomach cramps:

  The doctor takes one look … he’s seen enough.

  The patient staggers out in pain, but first.

  He pays. Because the doctor knows his stuff.

  He knows the Latin names but, more important

  He knows the rate for such a painful gut.

  Unless you know, you’ll ache and ail and sicken

  But if you know - why then you’ll take your cut.

  MA GOGH: I should really take a look in here too. I’ve got a sore shoulder from the washing. But I’d better see how I can get a proper laundry for my son. But the pain has been quite bad lately.

  QIUNG: A woollen shawl would be better for your aching shoulder.

  MA GOGH: But that would cost fifteen yen.

  Gogher Gogh’s second bodyguard enters with two other bandits and Turandot’s two maids.

  SECOND BODYGUARD: There you are, Mother Ma. And in such an unhealthy part of town. Do you know what we are now? He points to his armband. Policemen! Don’t worry, it’s all the other way around now, from today. Mother Ma, your son has made quite a step-up, he’s waiting for you in the Imperial Palace. There, you see.

  MA GOGH: Tut, don’t you go talking to me in public, Scarface. You’ll embarrass my friends.

  SECOND BODYGUARD: Mother Ma, these young missies will be telling their children and their children’s children how, once upon a time, they used to know you. Come on, let’s go. He takes hold of her.

  FIRST MAID: My lady, a personality such as yourself, so elevated that it would be improper to address you by name, belongs by the side of her great son.

  MA GOGH: Something must have happened to Gogher. I’d better see how he’s getting along. She makes to leave with them.

  FIRST MAID: Permit us, dear lady, to accompany you to the corner, to the sedan chair. The bearers didn’t want to enter this filthy market street.

  The first bodyguard returns with five other bandits, all carrying torches.

  FIRST BODYGUARD: So you found her. Great times, Mother Ma! Ma Gogh makes a dismissive gesture and goes off with the second bodyguard. Hey you, say, where are the Emperor’s warehouses?

  QIUNG: Over Tanners’ Bridge. Exit the bandits. What’s going on? I have a bad feeling. We’d better go home, Su!

  SU has reached the Love-life Tui’s stall: I’ll catch you up.

  LOVE-LIFE TUI: The mysteries of love! Happiness or broken hearts? How should I behave towards my love?

  The game of love has two quite different players

  The one adores, the other one’s adored.

  One partner gives, the other one just takes it

  One plays his heart, the other looks on, bored.

  So hide your face if e’er you feel it blushing

  And keep your pretty, pouting mouth tight shut.

  For if you give him leave, he’ll have your heart out

  And if he knows you love - he’ll take his cut.

  Come along, miss. Find out the truth, before it’s too late. One yen.

  SU pays: Should I throw myself at his feet, or behave as if I didn’t even fancy him?

  LOVE-LIFE TUI: The latter, miss, always the latter! He reads to her in low voice.

  QIUNG: Why do you bother with that rubbish, Su? If the man who wrote it had understood enough to get himself a girl, he wouldn’t have had time to write a book at all.

  SEN who has been standing undecided in front of the Economics Tui’s stall: Ladies, don’t make jokes about knowledge. If I wasn’t so drawn to this book, I’d certainly make a study of that one. It’s my opinion you should never deny anyone a pleasure, and least of all yourself. Why is the young lady laughing? He smiles at Yao, who was laughing.

  QIUNG alarmed: Yao, you’re not answering.

  SEN: Indeed. You should always answer.

  YAO: I’m laughing because, old man, you can’t do it any longer anyway.

  SEN laughs as well: That may be true, but don’t tell anybody. If you can’t catch the tiger, maybe you can still catch the hedgehog, as they say. And if you don’t learn for yourself, maybe you should still learn for others. Gesturing to the boy. He’s growing fast.

  Unrest amongst the Tuis. They all look towards the rear.

  QIUNG: Look, something’s burning. Over Tanners’ Bridge.

  SEN: It smells of burning cotton.

  TUIS: We’d better move our stalls out of the way. When the fire brigade come they smash straight through everything. -There’ll be no fire brigade. - What do you mean? Gogher Gogh and the Prime Minister arrive, with armed troops.

  GOGHER GOGH: That conflagration must have been started by the Clothesmakers and the Clothesless, along with the disaffected Tuis. It’s a beacon for the rebel Kai Ho, no question. This calls for rigorous measures. Above all, we must root out the intellectual arsonists. Search through the books, and discover how they undermine the state. Exits with the Prime Minister.

  FIRST SOLDIER to the Medicine Tui: What does it say in this book?

  MEDICINE TUI shaking: All you need to know about tuberculosis, or broken bones.

  FIRST SOLDIER: What? Broken bones? We’ve had enough of that, broken bones indeed. That’s a direct assault on the authority of the police. Arrest him! He throws the book to the ground and stamps on it.

  SEN tries to stop him: Don’t stamp on it, it’s useful.

  FIRST SOLDIER strikes him down: You swine! Daring to resist state authority. To the General Education Tui: And what’s this filth here? Confess!

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: Knowledge, Officer, sir.

  FIRST SOLDIER: Knowledge about what? Anything about cotton, eh?

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI shaking his head: That’s not a part of general education, Officer.

  FIRST SOLDIER: You crooks, you’re all in cahoots with the arsonists. Inciting people against the Emperor.

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: That’s only the great Tuis, if at all, and not them either.

  FIRST SOLDIER: Did you see anybody come through here with torches?

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: Some men with armbands passed through.

  A bandit with an armband and torch comes from the other direction.

  BANDIT: Captain, two Kai Ho supporters have been spotted down at the Tuis’ teahouse.

  FIRST SOLDIER: Like him here?

  The General Education Tui shakes his head in alarm.

  FIRST SOLDIER: So, have you seen anyone with torches?

  QIUNG standing in front of Yao: Not us, no.

  YAO: But he’s got one over there, Qiung.

  QIUNG: That’s just a truncheon, like the police have. We’d better go, Yao. Su, we’re just leaving.

  FIRST SOLDIER: Not so fast! Maybe you’ve seen someone else round here? Like him?

  YAO: Five of them. And that’s not a truncheon either.

  FIRST SOLDIER: But this is. He strikes her down and the soldiers drag her off.

  LOVE-LIFE TUI helps Sen to his feet: Don’t cry little one, he’s alive. They set fire to the warehouses themselves, and now they’re arresting everyone who saw them do it.

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: And now they want to ban this book, by which I make my meagre livelihood. It’s rubbish anyway, and not a word against them, hardly a true word in it! The poets, sucking up to their iron fists, the nation’s great thinkers, worrying about their salaries! It’s all rubbish anyway. Rubbish, stuff and nonsense!

  SEN: Don’t exaggerate, you made your living from it.

 
; THE SCRIBE from the Tui Academy comes running, he’s bleeding from a head wound: Oh Su, I’ve been looking for you for hours.

  SU throws herself in his arms: Oh Wang! I shouldn’t embrace you, I know. He’s the one, I’m sorry, I just can’t play it by the book.

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: You’re hurt, what happened?

  SCRIBE: I’m a scribe at the Tui Academy. Or I was. The Palace of the Tui Association has been stormed by Gogher Gogh’s men. They’ve been incorporated with the police, and they’ve got new armbands with insignia stamped on them. The Tui Association is accused of insulting the Emperor, because a state secret was revealed at the Great Congress. At this very moment they’re burning the three thousand theses about the history of China, just because they mention defeats in the seventh century. Nu Shan has been hanged because he’s supposed to have said that Gogher Gogh, who’s been Chancellor since five o’clock, didn’t know what three times five makes. I’m in danger myself, because I witnessed it all. And it’s all because Kai Ho is already in Szechwan.

  QIUNG to the Tuis: You’d better get rid of your hats.

  LOVE-LIFE TUI: Where shall we put them? I live at the other end of town.

  ECONOMICS TUI to Qiung: Take mine. I live quite a way away.

  LOVE-LIFE TUI: I asked first.

  ECONOMICS TUI: It’s for the life of the mind, my dear.

  QIUNG: Give them here, you poor things. She hides the hats in her skirts. If my Sun sees me like this he’ll think I’m expecting, he’ll run a mile.

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI: But the unions won’t stand for it. They’ll get together now.

  Soldiers bring on the delegate of the Clothesmakers and his Tui, in chains.

  SOLDIER: We’ll teach you to ask the Emperor questions.

  DELEGATE: You’ll be teaching a lot of people then. They beat him.

  Bandits bring on the delegate of the Clothesless and his Tui, also in chains.

  BANDIT: SO, do you still think our leader set fire to the warehouses?

  They beat the delegate.

  SOLDIER: Hey you! Why don’t you come with us to the slaughterhouses: these two should get together.

  The bandits turn round, and both sets of captives are led off.

  DELEGATE OF THE CLOTHESLESS: We didn’t know anything about it!

  SCRIBE: Where can we go?

  QIUNG: To the laundry. Maybe Ma will send someone. They fetched for her from the palace, her Gogher’s been made a minister, so perhaps she can save poor Yao. She told the truth again, I couldn’t stop her. But we should take the old man too. They can see by his bruises that he’s been beaten once, they might just drag him away as a state criminal.

  SEN to the Economics Tui, who is busily ripping pages out of his book: What are you tearing out?

  ECONOMICS TUI: The pages about low earnings.

  SEN: Can I buy them off you?

  GENERAL EDUCATION TUI beckons to Sen, in a low voice: I understand what you’re after, old man. But I’ve got something better for you. He draws a little book from his pocket. Don’t show it to a soul, it’s by Kai Ho.

  SEN: I see, yes, I’d like to buy that.

  QIUNG: Come with us to the suburbs, old man. You can’t read it anyway.

  SEN: Others can read it for me. Here’s the money I got for my cotton. My journey has been worthwhile.

  He gives him the purse and leaves with the girls and the scribe. The Love-life Tui joins them, dragging his book with him. That leaves only the General Education Tui, who is undecided, and the Medicine Tui, who is crouched over his battered book, sobbing.

  8a

  IN THE COURTYARD OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE

  Turandot’s two maids enter with a copper bath.

  FIRST MAID sets down the bath: I’m not crossing the courtyard like this. She loosens the top of her smock.

  SECOND MAID: If that cow sees you she’ll have you whipped.

  FIRST MAID: She’s so jealous about that bloke!

  SECOND MAID: I managed to brush past him on the way to the conference hall, you know, where it’s so narrow. And do you know what he said? ‘I beg your pardon.’ There’s manners for you.

  FIRST MAID: She says she loves him because he’s so clever.

  SECOND MAID: She says he’s clever, just because she fancies him.

  FIRST MAID: That’s for sure. There’s clever ones as many as fish in the sea, but not so many fine figures.

  They take up the bath again and carry it inside.

  9

  IN FRONT OF THE ALMOND BLOSSOM LAUNDRY

  Old Sen is sitting on a barrel outside the laundry, the boy is damping his head bandage. Next to them Qiung is altering a Tui-hat for herself. On the other side, in front of a tall narrow house, a swordsmith is standing directing operations, which proceed invisibly on the first floor. Next to him, a Tui, Ka Mü with parcels of music scores. The district is very poor.

  KA MÜ: Sir, they’re all masterworks! You must look after them, as I have to go away for a while. This is ancient music. It’s endangered because it’s not Chinese, and the government we have now …

  SWORDSMITH: I can’t store anything more. I’ve already had a statue dumped on me, a goddess of justice, two storeys high. We had to break through the roof. Hey, slower there, turn it slowly!

  KA MÜ: And this is new music. It’s in trouble because it’s not ‘true to the spirit of the people’.

  SEN: That’s so unnecessary. The people don’t want ‘true spirits’ anyway.

  SWORDSMITH sighing: All right, I’ll put them in the bedroom. As they’re in danger. He lets him into the house.

  A WOMAN calls from the upper floor: I’m sorry, Mr Lü Sheng, you’ll just have to stand on your head, the children are so scared of your face.

  KA MÜ comes back out without the packages: Thank you! Thank you! He embraces him. It’s for China! Exits quickly.

  SEN: When I was young like you I always wanted to hear just the one tune that the village carpenter used to play on his flute. These days I want variety in my music, something new all the time.

  SWORDSMITH: How can they destroy something that took so much effort! All those little dots!

  THE WOMAN from the window: Have you heard, they say the forbidden one is just a hundred miles from the capital.

  SEN: Not so loud!

  Enter Ma Gogh with Yao.

  MA GOGH calls from afar: Qiung! Su! Good evening, Lü Sheng. So here we are again. Qiung and Su come out of the house. Embraces all round. She had the good sense to tell those thieves she worked in my laundry. And the stories she told me got me thinking all right. I couldn’t have stood it much longer anyway. Gogher has gone mad, he’s in charge now. I was proud of him in his old job, but now I’m ashamed. They wanted me to feel at home in the palace. This morning they brought a copper tub from the museum and set it down on the blue carpet in my chamber, which is that big you could stable fifty mules. And the Prime Minister says: Ladyship, your illustrious son says you only feel at home when you’re washing. Please, wash - to your heart’s desire! I gave him a kick, but I shouldn’t have done that. When he’d gone a servant came in and turned his backside to me, to kick - to my heart’s desire. The only sensible person in the whole palace was the Emperor’s mother, she told me what she thinks of her son, and gave me a recipe for a special sort of cake. And they all thought she was mad! I made note of the recipe though, for Gogher. Where’s my tea? And who’s that?

  QIUNG: That’s Mr A Sha Sen, he’s from cotton country, he came to the capital to study.

  SEN apologetically: They told me I didn’t have the head for it, but it seems I do after all, as this bump proves.

  SU: What a horrible bruise!

  YAO: It’s not that big, it’ll soon heal.

  QIUNG gives her a hug: You’re so rude, Yao.

  The paper window on the first floor rips open and an iron hand pushes through with a huge upturned scale hanging from it.

  SWORDSMITH: Careful you idiots!

  VOICE from inside: There’s not enough
room for the arm!

  SEN: They’re stowing away the cultural artefacts, or whatever they call them. At the East Gate I saw a Tui at a temple where there’s an invisible god. As we speak, he’s probably leading it on a chain to the suburbs, where it can be housed in safety.

  Three of the Clothesless come out of the narrow house with large bundles. Suddenly they begin to run.

  ER FEI tugs at Sen’s arm: Soldiers, grandfather!

  They all run into the houses. The swordsmith just has time to throw a carpet over the arm of Justice, as two armed men come patrolling down the street. After they’ve passed by, a street-seller is heard in the background: ‘Cotton! Cotton! Cotton for sale! Cotton from Yao Yel’s warehouses, the enemy of the state!’. The woman looks out from the upper window. The street-seller comes down the street with a wagon loaded with cotton fabrics, guarded by an armed soldier.

  STREET-SELLER: Cotton! Cotton! Cotton, from the burning warehouses of Yao Yel, hanged at the scaffold! Half a year’s harvest destroyed by fire! Prices are soaring! Buy now, while you can still afford it! No one reacts, so he moves on, still calling ‘Cotton! Cotton!’.

  WOMAN: You can keep it. We’ve got nothing to eat and no shoes to wear. Anyway, the forbidden one will take care of everything.

  She slams the window shut. Su and her scribe emerge.

  SCRIBE: Don’t cry too much, a little bit tonight, but then no more tomorrow. Promise me.

  SU: Tomorrow too.

  SCRIBE: All right. If I’m not back in three weeks it’ll be because I’ve gone a long way round, that’s all.

  SU: How will you find your way? In those old shoes!

  SCRIBE: I know a weaver over on the other side, he’s leaving today with three others. And there are thousands of them already. They’ll be easy enough to find.

  SU: But your shoes are so worn, Wang. What are we to do?

  SEN comes out with the boy and Qiung: If you could wait a while longer, we could leave together, perhaps.

  SU: But you’re heading north, whereas Wang’s business is here in the neighbourhood. But his shoes are useless, what are we to do about that?

  SEN: I see, so his shoes aren’t good enough for a little business in the neighbourhood.