Once, I saw a play in a city that no longer stands. This was the city of my birth. It was entirely demolished in the war. Every last brick of every last building was actually made to vanish by a single bomb. There is a sort of crater there now. I’m not joking. There is a kind of viewing platform, a boardwalk of sorts. You take the train to a little hotel town — a set of hotels that are perched where the boardwalk begins. Then, you go off down this wooden pier, out over the crater. The boardwalk extends all the way to the very center. It is far — maybe six or seven hours’ walk, so most people ride bicycles. At the very center there is a little shop that serves drinks and sandwiches. You can sit and look down into the crater. There isn’t anything to be seen there at all of what was. The city itself is clearly gone. In fact, when I went, I had a feeling similar to when I saw the Grand Canyon. I thought, my, how the world can be. This destruction was so bloodless it has come to feel like one of the great works of man. Of course, thirteen million people died beneath that bomb.
In any case, I lived in that city, and on one of the old streets that ran down by the courthouse, there was a theater, the Chamber Pot. I used to go there to see plays. I was a young woman, quite your age, actually, and I enjoyed seeing plays. I felt that there was in them the power to change the world. In such a mood, I went with a young man to see The Onion Knife, a new play.
The theater was very small. There were three rows of seats — maybe twenty could sit there. Then there was a small stage, about the size of a parlor. The actors took the money through the front door of the theater — there was an aperture, and gave you pieces of paper with a word on it. Each word matched a word on a sheet they had inside — and could be used once, so you couldn’t cheat and just write the word on other sheets to get more people in. Also, you wouldn’t want to. It cost almost nothing.
We had brought some cognac with us in a little metal flask and we got seats on the end of the first row. I had a fur coat then, and I was very proud of it. Often, I wouldn’t take it off. I would wear it under inconceivable conditions, just in order to be seen. I had gotten the coat at a very low price in a store because there was a hole in it where someone had been shot. Apparently this thrift store would get clothing from the police ministry — evidence clothing that was no longer necessary. Yes, someone had been shot in my fur coat, but I wore it anyway. That’s the sort of girl I was.
~ ~ ~
The lights dim. A man comes out in front of the screen that protects the stage from view. He is wearing a shirt and vest and wool trousers. He holds up a card that says, Cecil. Then he very deliberately moves the screen out of the way, revealing a small kitchen and a kitchen table. At the kitchen table sits a young woman. She is holding a sign that says, Lily. A buzzer goes off and both signs drop to the floor.
CECIL
When your husband returns, I swear I will…
LILY
He is not going to return.
She holds up a letter.
He says he has found a new life in Perugina. He will stay there forever.
Lily and Cecil dance happily all around the room. Someone plays the fiddle offstage.
CECIL
Then I shall make you my wife, and we will live happily forever.
LILY
But…
CECIL
But, what.
LILY
But, there is still the matter of the onion knife.
The two part and stand some feet away from one another.
CECIL
Oh, the damned onion knife. The onion knife. Why do you have to harp on it? Haven’t I given you enough things? Haven’t I done enough for you? And all it is with you is — the onion knife, the onion knife. You’re like a drooling madperson in an asylum, sitting by a freezing windowpane on a March morning, pressing the side of your face to the glass and muttering, onion knife, onion knife, onion knife.
LILY
You lost the onion knife. I told you, never touch the onion knife and then you went and lost it.
CECIL
I brought it to work with me. You gave me a lunch that day: a little piece of cheese, an old piece of bread, and a very small onion. I noticed that there was an onion in my lunch. I brought the onion knife with me.
LILY
And you did not bring it back.
LIGHTS
~ ~ ~
A Third Person Who Has Not Been Seen, Appears On Stage With A Piece of Paper That Says:
IT IS THE NEXT DAY
Lily comes in the front entrance of the theater. She makes her way over to the screen that again hides the set. She takes out a piece of paper and hammers it into the screen with a long nail. She goes further down and does it again and again. The paper cannot be read by the audience. She goes behind the screen.
Five minutes pass.
The front entrance of the theater opens. Cecil enters. He goes onto the stage and walks along the screen, stops. He peers at the paper in horror. He tears it down. He runs along tearing all the papers down. He turns to the audience. Tears are on his face. He composes himself and carefully removes the screen to reveal the kitchen again. Lily is sitting at the kitchen table, happily reading.
CECIL
Lily? Are you out of your mind?
Cecil runs to her, waving the paper.
LILY
No more than you.
CECIL
(almost weeping, reads from the paper)
Lily Caldwin has lost her onion knife. It has a serif G inset in the handle. It is worn but extremely sharp. Please return it to 3 Welton Rd. for a reward. That reward is: Lily Caldwin will lie down with you.
LILY
I think the onion knife will reappear pretty soon, don’t you?
CECIL
Lily? How could you? You won’t do it, will you?
LILY
Find the knife.
CECIL
I love you, Lily. You can’t do this. I lost the knife, but it shouldn’t be such a…
LILY
Find it.
~ ~ ~
A Third Person Who Has Not Been Seen, Appears On Stage With A Piece of Paper That Says:
IT IS THE NEXT DAY; CECIL DID NOT WANT TO GO OFF TO WORK BUT HAD TO; LILY IS THERE ALONE
A knock on the front door of the theater, another knock, another knock.
LILY
(from behind the screen)
Can someone get the door?
An audience member rises and gets the door. At the door is an older man, perhaps fifty, slightly fat. He enters, somewhat apologetically, looking at the crowd. He clearly sees the crowd, and bows to them. He is carrying an onion knife, which he holds up as if in explanation. He goes up on stage and knocks at the screen.
LILY
Come in.
The man moves the screen aside to reveal the set of the kitchen. The kitchen table has been pushed to one side, and there is a mattress laid out on the floor. The audience sits immediately before the stage, so the mattress is immediately before their eyes. Lily is lying on the mattress. She stands up.