PAULA
(Suddenly embraces QUITT’S WIFE, releases her, and tosses QUITT a friendly as well as a serious kiss as she walks out.) “No hard feelings …”
(QUITT throws a stool after her. PAULA exits.
QUITT’S WIFE comes closer. They stand opposite each other, not saying anything. The stage light changes after some time. First sunshine, then cloud shadows moving across the two of them. Crickets chirp. Far off in the distance a dog barks. The sound of the ocean. A child screams something into the wind. Distant church bells. Woolly tree blossoms blow across the stage. Both of them as silhouettes in the dusk against the backdrop of city lights, which are just coming on. The noise of an airplane engine, very close, slowly receding — while previous stage lighting comes back on. Quiet.)
WIFE
(Softly) You look so unapproachable.
QUITT
Remembering does that. I’m just remembering. Let me be. I’ve got to remember to the end. (He sits down on the deck chair. She steps closer. He touches her lightly with his foot.)
WIFE
Yes?
QUITT
Nothing, nothing. (He leans back and closes his eyes.)
WIFE
(Sighs.) Oh.
QUITT
(To himself) So that it crashes and splinters …
WIFE
What will you do?
QUITT
(To himself) Stop. Destroy. (He looks back at her.) Strange: when I look at you, my thoughts skip a beat.
WIFE
I’d like to speak about myself for once too.
QUITT
Not again!
WIFE
Why, are you listening to me?
QUITT
You could have been talking about yourself while you asked that. Did you wash your hair?
WIFE
Yes, but not for you. I am not well.
QUITT
Then scream for help.
WIFE
When I scream for help, you reply by telling me a story how you once needed help. (Pause. She laughs a few times in quick succession as though about something funny. QUITT doesn’t react.) Help!
QUITT
You have to shout at least twice.
WIFE
I can’t any more.
QUITT
(Gets up.) Then do away with yourself. (He turns away.)
WIFE
(Mechanically wipes the dandruff off his shoulders.) You’re up to something. I can’t look at you for too long, otherwise I’ll find out what.
QUITT
What do you want? I have a pink face, my body is warm, pulse eighty.
(Pause.)
WIFE
My eyes are burning. I’m so sad I forgot to blink.
QUITT
What’s there to eat today?
WIFE
Filet of veal with truffles.
QUITT
I see. Well, well. Interesting. What is there to eat today?
WIFE
But you just asked that. Why are you so distracted?
QUITT
(To himself) Because every possibility has been tried except the very last one, and that one shouldn’t turn into just another idle mental exercise! Of course, filet of veal with truffles, you said so — I hear it only now. Why am I so distracted? I have to tell you something, my dear.
(A pause. She looks at him.)
WIFE
No, please don’t say it. (She shies back.)
QUITT
I have to tell someone.
WIFE
(Shies back and holds her ears shut.) I don’t want to hear it.
QUITT
(Follows her.) You’ll know it in a moment.
WIFE
Don’t say it, please don’t. (She runs away and he follows her. Quiet. Pause. She returns, slowly, walking backward, and goes off again, not that one sees her face.)
(KILB storms in. HANS appears behind him, wearing the chef’s hat. KILB is holding a knife and runs back and forth.)
KILB
You have to die now. It’s no use. I’m alone. No one pays me. Not even they. It’s our last way out. Don’t contradict me. (He notices that there’s no one present, and puts the knife back in his pocket.) He isn’t even here! And I rehearsed it so well! Into the room and right at him! One, two. A picture without words, only dashes for the caption underneath.
HANS
You have to try again.
KILB
I have to concentrate once more for that. If I’m as unconcentrated as I am now, everything could just as easily be something else, I think, even I myself. And that is a hideous feeling. Leave me alone.
HANS
But look at me first: because it’s really me now. People used to say about me: That fellow, it’s eating him up inside, but one day he’ll blow his stack and the walls will come tumbling down. That moment has come. So I will leave the room and cook the truffled filet with special tenderness, thinking how it will be left over for me. I leave Mr. Quitt to his fate, he believes in things like that. First of all, I’m going to stick to myself and I am curious what that will bring. My big toe is already itching, a good sign; I’m becoming human.
KILB
How?
HANS
Because an itching big toe means that you should remember something, and someone who remembers becomes a human being. So all I need to do is remember.
There was a time something inside me wanted to scream
At the mere thought that I might dream.
Now I want to learn to dream without end
So that the floor of facts I might transcend.
My eyes I want to learn to close
So as to know more of the little I knows.
In my youth a palm reader told me a fable
That I would be able
To change the world’s plan.
I hereby announce that at least my world is changing.
(He quickly punches the balloon punching-bag fashion. The balloon bursts. HANS exits.
KILB concentrates, puts the stool on its legs, gently closes the cover of the piano, puts in order what needs putting into order.
QUITT returns.)
KILB
Not yet!
QUITT
You again.
KILB
But we haven’t seen each other in ages.
QUITT
Not ages enough. Recently I thought of a mistake I once made. I couldn’t remember what kind of mistake it had been — but I was sure at once that it was not an important mistake. Later on I remembered more distinctly: it had been an important mistake after all. It occurred to me only when I was dealing with you.
KILB
Please stay like that.