Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays: "Baal", "Drums in the Night", "In the Jungle of Ci (World Classics) (7 page)

BAAL
gets up, stretches
: A bitch with a heart! … I’m dead lazy today anyway.
He throws paper down on the table and sits down
. I’ll make the new Adam.
He sketches big letters on the paper
. I’ll have a go at the inner man. I’m hollowed out, but
hungry as a vulture. Nothing but a bag of bones. The bitch!
He leans back and stretches his arms and legs with emphasis
. I’ll make summer. Red. Scarlet red. Greedy.
He hums again
.

3
Evening
.

Baal sits at his table
.

BAAL
picks up the bottle. The following speech to be delivered with pauses
: I’ve covered the paper with red summer for four days now: wild, pale, greedy; and fought the bottle. There have been defeats, but the bodies on the wall are beginning to retreat into the dark, into the Egyptian night. I nail them to the wall, but I must stop drinking.
He murmurs
: This white liquor is my rod and staff. It reflects my paper and has remained untouched since the snow began to drip from the gutter. But now my hands are shaking. As if the bodies were still in them.
He listens
. My heart’s pounding like a horse’s hoof.
With enthusiasm
: Oh Johanna, one more night in your aquarium, and I would have rotted among the fish. But now I smell the warm May nights. I’m a lover with no one to love. I give in.
He drinks and gets up
. I must move. First I’ll get myself a woman. To move out alone is sad.
He looks out of the window
. No matter who. One with a face like a woman.
Humming, he goes out. Tristan is being played down below on the hurdy gurdy
.

Johannes enters, wretched and pale. He riffles the papers on the table, picks up the bottle and goes shyly to the door.
He waits there
.

Noise on the landing. Whistling
.

BAAL
pulling Sophie Barger into the room. Whistles
: Be nice to me, darling. That is my room.
He sits down, sees Johannes
. What are you doing here?

JOHANNES
: I only wanted to …

BAAL
: So you wanted to? What are you standing there for? A tombstone for my Johanna, who’s been washed away? The ghost of Johannes from another world, is that it? I’ll throw you out! Leave this room at once!
Runs round him
. It’s
an impertinence! I’ll knock you down. It’s spring, anyway. Get out!

Johannes looks at him and goes
.

Baal whistles
.

SOPHIE
: What did the poor boy do to you? Let me go!

BAAL
opens the door wide
: When you get to the first floor, turn to the right.

SOPHIE
: They followed us after you picked me up in front of the door. They’ll find me.

BAAL
: No one will find you here.

SOPHIE
: I don’t even know you. What do you want from me?

BAAL
: If you mean that, you may as well go.

SOPHIE
: You rushed up to me in the street. I thought it was an orangutan.

BAAL
: It’s spring, isn’t it? I need something white in this damned hole, a cloud.
He opens the door and listens
. Those idiots, they’ve lost their way.

SOPHIE
: I’ll get thrown out if I come home late.

BAAL
: Especially —

SOPHIE
: Especially what?

BAAL
: The way a woman looks when I’ve made love to her.

SOPHIE
: I don’t know why I’m still here.

BAAL
: I can give you the information.

SOPHIE
: You needn’t think the worst of me, please!

BAAL
: Why not? You’re a woman like any other. The faces vary, the knees are always weak.

Sophie is half prepared to go; at the door she looks round
.

Baal looks at her, astride a chair
.

SOPHIE
: Good-bye!

BAAL
indifferently
: Do you feel faint?

SOPHIE
leans against the wall
: I don’t know. I feel so weak.

BAAL
: I know. It’s April. It’s growing dark, and you smell me. That’s how it is with animals.
Gets up
. Now you belong to the wind, white cloud.
He goes to her quickly, slams the door, and takes Sophie Barger into his arms
.

SOPHIE
breathlessly
: Let me go!

BAAL
: My name’s Baal.

SOPHIE
: Let me go!

BAAL
: You must console me. The winter left me weak. And you look like a woman.

SOPHIE
looks up at him
: Your name’s Baal?

BAAL
: That makes you want to stay?

SOPHIE
looking up at him
: You’re so ugly, so ugly, it’s frightening. – But then —

BAAL
: Mm?

SOPHIE
: Then it doesn’t matter.

BAAL
kisses her
: Are your knees steady, mm?

SOPHIE
: You don’t even know my name. I’m Sophie Barger.

BAAL
: Forget your name.
Kisses her
.

SOPHIE
: Don’t – don’t – it’s the first time anybody’s ever …

BAAL
: Untouched? Come!
He leads her to the bed. They sit down
. You see! Bodies have poured through this room like water. But now I want a face. We’ll go out tonight. We’ll lie down in the fields. You’re a woman. I’ve become unclean. You must love me, for a while.

SOPHIE
: Is that what you’re like? … I love you.

BAAL
rests his head on her breasts
: Now the sky’s above us, and we’re alone.

SOPHIE
: But you must lie still.

BAAL
: Like a child.

SOPHIE
sitting up
: My mother’s at home. I have to go home.

BAAL
: Is she old?

SOPHIE
: She’s seventy.

BAAL
: Then she’s used to wickedness.

SOPHIE
: What if the earth swallowed me up? What if I’m carried off at night and never return?

BAAL
: Never?
Silence
. Have you any brothers or sisters?

SOPHIE
: Yes, they need me.

BAAL
: The air here is like milk.
Goes to the window
. The willows down by the river are soaking wet, and unkempt from the rain.
Takes hold of her
. Your thighs must be pale.

Sombre ringing of bells. Baal. The tramp, a pale drunk individual
.

BAAL
striding in a half circle round the tramp, who sits on a stone, his pale face turned to the sky
: Who nailed the tree corpses to the wall?

TRAMP
: The pale ivory wind around the corpses of trees. Corpus Christi.

BAAL
: Not to mention ringing the bells when plants die!

TRAMP
: Bells give me a moral uplift.

BAAL
: Don’t the trees depress you?

TRAMP
: Pff! Tree carcases!
Drinks from a bottle
.

BAAL
: Women’s bodies aren’t any better!

TRAMP
: What have women’s bodies to do with a religious procession?

BAAL
: They’re both obscene. There’s no love in you.

TRAMP
: There’s love in me for the white body of Jesus.
Passes him the bottle
.

BAAL
calmer
: I wrote songs down on paper. They get hung up in lavatories these days.

TRAMP
transfigured
: To serve the Lord Jesus! I see the white body of Jesus. Jesus loves sinners.

BAAL
drinking
: Like me.

TRAMP
: Do you know the story about him and the dead dog? They all said, it’s a stinking mess. Fetch the police! It’s unbearable! But, he said, it has nice white teeth.

BAAL
: Perhaps I’ll turn Catholic.

TRAMP
: He didn’t.
Takes the bottle from him
.

BAAL
runs about enraged
: But the women’s bodies he nails to the wall. I wouldn’t do that.

TRAMP
: Nailed to the wall! They never floated down the river. They were slaughtered for him, for the white body of Jesus.

BAAL
takes the bottle from him, turns away
: There’s too much religion or too much gin in your blood.
Walks away with the bottle
.

TRAMP
beside himself, shouting after him
: So you won’t defend your ideals, sir! You won’t join the procession? You love plants and won’t do anything for them?

BAAL
: I’m going down to the river to wash myself. I can’t be bothered with corpses.
Goes
.

TRAMP
: But I’m full of drink, I can’t bear it. I can’t bear the damned dead plants. If I had more gin in me, perhaps I could bear it.

Baal. Sophie
.

BAAL
lazily
: It’s stopped raining. The grass must still be wet … it never came through the leaves of our tree. The young leaves are dripping wet, but here among the roots it’s dry!
Angrily
. Why can’t a man make love to a plant?

SOPHIE
: Listen!

BAAL
: The wild roaring of the wind through the damp, black foliage. Can you hear the rain drip from the leaves?

SOPHIE
: I can feel a drop on my neck … Oh, let me go!

BAAL
: Love rips the clothes from a man like a whirlpool and buries him naked among the corpses of leaves, after he’s seen the sky.

SOPHIE
: I should like to hide in you, Baal, because I’m naked.

BAAL
: I’m drunk and you’re staggering. The sky is black and we’re on a swing with love in our bodies and the sky is black. I love you.

SOPHIE
: Oh, Baal, my mother’ll be weeping over my dead body, she’ll think I drowned myself. How many weeks is it now? It wasn’t even May then. It must be nearly three weeks.

BAAL
: It must be nearly three weeks, said the beloved among the roots of the tree, after thirty years had passed and she was half rotted by then.

SOPHIE
: It’s good to lie here like a captive, with the sky above, and never be alone again.

BAAL
: I’m going to take your petticoat off again.

A small, swinish caf
é
; whitewashed dressing-room; at the back on the left a dark brown curtain; to the side on the right a whitewashed door made of boards leading to the lavatory. At the back on the right a door. When it is open blue night sky is seen. A woman entertainer sings at the back of the café
.

Baal walks around, chest and shoulders bare, drinking and humming. Lupu, a fat, pale boy with black glossy hair gummed down in two strips on to his sweaty, pale face and a prominent back to his head, stands in the doorway right
.

LUPU
: The lamp has been knocked down again.

BAAL
: Only pigs come here. Where’s my gin ration?

LUPU
: You’ve drunk it all.

BAAL
: You watch your step!

LUPU
: Mjurk said something about a sponge.

BAAL
: Does that mean I don’t get a drink?

LUPU
: No more gin for you until you’ve done your number, Mjurk said. I’m sorry for you.

MJURK
by the curtain
: Make yourself scarce, Lupu!

BAAL
: No drink, no song.

MJURK
: You shouldn’t drink so much, or one of these days you won’t be able to sing at all.

BAAL
: Why else do I sing?

MJURK
: Next to Savettka, you’re the ‘Night Cloud’s’ most brilliant attraction. You’re my personal discovery. Was there ever such a delicate talent in such a fat lump? The fat lump makes the success, not the songs. Your drinking’ll ruin me.

BAAL
: I’m sick of haggling every night for gin that’s my contractual right. I’m clearing out.

MJURK
: I’ve got police backing. You should try sleeping one of these nights, you crawl around as if you’d been hamstrung. Tell your sweetheart to go to hell!
Applause in the café
. You’re on now, anyway.

BAAL
: I’m fed to the teeth.

Savettka with the pianist, a pale apathetic individual, coming from behind the curtain
:

SAVETTKA
: That’s my lot. I’m off now.

MJURK
forcing a tail-coat on Baal
: You don’t go half naked on to the stage in my club.

BAAL
: Moron!
He throws down the tail-coat and goes off behind the curtain, dragging the guitar
.

SAVETTKA
sits down and drinks
: He only works for that woman he’s living with. He’s a genius. Lupu imitates him shamelessly. He has taken his tone as well as his girl.

PIANIST
leaning on the lavatory door
: His songs are divine but he’s been haggling with Lupu for his drink for the last ten days.

SAVETTKA
drinking
: Life’s hell!