Crown of Thorns (English version - Scene 2)
SCENE 2
A questioning room. There’s a chair. A very young girl, ICHIKO, is sitting on it. Her hair is long and blood-red in color. Her eyes are closed. Kreuz is standing at the corner. His eyes are fixed on the girl. He is holding another briefcase. It is marked with another cartoon figure, perhaps Betty Boop. Silence. Kreutz slowly opens the briefcase. Takes from it a pair of large, 1940’s vintage headphones. The headphones remain connected to a device inside the briefcase
KREUZ: There was a girl in Mittelbau. Gypsy girl. Her body the strangest asymmetries. (Touches his own chest) Her breasts. They were unusual. Nobody knew that until she came to the camp. Not her friends, not her fiance. She used padding. Can’t hide that in the camp’s communal bath. I rewarded inmates who reported deformities with extra rations. Well, all inferior races are deformed, of course. But Clara was unique. That was her name, Clara. (Puts one headphone to his ear. Listens, without taking his eyes off Ichiko) One breasts was very small. The size of an apple. (Beat. Ichiko is motionless) Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. There was an incident in the camp. We had microphones hidden in prisoners’s dormitories. One day, a mike picked up two Jewish women talking about the German Army’s defeat at Stalingrad. We thought they made up stories to give themselves hope. You know why? Because we didn’t know our army was defeated! Censorship kept it hidden. The Jews knew about it before we knew. Commandant Weiss was furious, he had the guards beaten. Silly man. It wasn’t the guards, of course. I questioned some women. Tracked the rumor to its source. Clara. It was her. My laboratory specimen. Saw it in my dream, she said. One day I got sick. I ran a fewer. I fell asleep. In my dream I was my brother. I was polishing German officers’ shoes. They talked. They didn’t worry about me, because I was only a Gypsy shoeshine. They talked about a town called Stalingrad. About the winter. And the defeat. Their faces were drawn, hard, snarling. (We hear what Kreuz hears: Clicking sounds from the headphone, like that of a Geiger counter’s. Kreuz reacts) And here’s the funny part. We found Clara’s brother. He lived in Wien. He had indeed heard two SS men talk about Stalingrad. I made an experiment. I ordered Clara’s brother to be shot at exactly two past midnight. There’s no time difference between Wien and Mittelbau. Clara slept on a bed in my laboratory. I waited. I waited with excitement. But two AM came and went. Nothing happened. Dreams remain in the memory for only a few minutes. Then they are forgotten. To ask if she saw any unusual dreams, I shook her. She opened her eyes. But didn’t wake up. She had become catatonic. She could not move. I felt terrible. My experiment had been successful. She had indeed seen her brother’s death. But I had wasted a rare specimen. She never became herself again. (Clickings from the device are louder now) Do you ever see such dreams? Clara was indeed unique. Like I said, her breasts were very asymmetric. And her vagina was underdeveloped. Like a child’s. I have a wax casting of her vagina. I always carry it with me, like an amulet. I could show it to you, if you want. It’s very small, like a ten year old’s.
Ichiko grimaces. The device’s clickings become a deafening cacophony. Kreuz removes the headphones from his ear and the sounds fade away.
A slow clapping is heard. “The Man” enters, leading Henry. He applauds.
MAN: A touching story if I ever heard one. You should become a novelist, Kreuz.
KREUZ: I have no talent for fiction.
HENRY: (Astonished) The pilot is a woman?
MAN: Didn’t I tell you? Yes, the pilot of the rocket plane is a woman. And a cute one at that.
KREUZ: (Disdainful) Cute? Look at that flat nose, those crude cheeks.
MAN: Well she’s an Asiatic, Kreuz.
KREUZ: And so is your partner.
MAN: My interpreter.
KREUZ: (To Henry) I tried talking to her. But she won’t respond to me. Her name is Ichiko. Introduce yourself to her.
HENRY: What’s her surname?
KREUZ: Ichiko.
HENRY: That’s not a surname. It would be rude to call her Ichiko.
MAN: She only identified herself as Ichiko.
HENRY: (Approaching her) Madam envoy, I am Henry Kataoka. A second generation Japanese American from Fremont, California. With your permission, I will represent the United States Army Air Forces. I’ve been told your nation wants to reestablish diplomatic relations.
(Beat)
KREUZ: She doesn’t react. Then again, it’s been eleven years since the war began. Perhaps the Japanese language evolved in time and she does not even understand what this… “Henry” is saying.
MAN: (Not looking at Kreuz) She understands all right. She talked when she first arrived. I heard her.
KREUZ: Oh. (Casts a meaningful gaze at him) And what did she say to you?
MAN: She wasn’t talking to me. I simply happened to be in the vicinity. Go on, Henry.
HENRY: My colleages are an observer from the intelligence department and Dr. Kreuz, an expert from the University of California. You requested a Japanese interpreter. As a token of goodwill, we accepted your request. In return, we request Japan to refrain from launching any rocket attacks for the duration of your visit.
KREUZ: (Listens to the headphone) I don’t think she likes you, Henry. This device is buzzing like a hundred cicadas. That means she’s agitated.
MAN: Like I care.
KREUTZ: Do you smell that? It smells like blood in here.
ICHIKO: (Her eyes still closed) That man… isn’t from California.
A beat. Henry looks at Kreuz. Looks back at Ichiko)
HENRY: Yes, madame envoy. He is an expatriate from Germany.
ICHIKO: He is a criminal.
MAN: I overheard what he told you. I believe Dr. Kreuz has been playing a little prank to make you more willing to converse. He’s a psychiatrist, after all.
ICHIKO: No. It was all true.
Henry glances at “the Man”, who nods solemnly.
HENRY: Will you accept our request? A kamikaze attack could ruin our negotiations.
ICHIKO: I do. Possibly, new rockets might be launched from Japan, for peaceful purposes. But there won’t be any… “Kamikaze” attacks.
HENRY: Then kindly contact your government. We shall provide the necessary communication equipment.
ICHIKO: That won’t be necessary. My government already knows your… request.
HENRY: How?
(Beat)
MAN: You know our terms. Unconditional surrender. Japan will surrender and allow herself to be occupied. Or the war shall go on.
ICHIKO: Those are not terms. They are demands. Wanting everything and giving nothing in return leaves no room for negotiation. In our view, the war is already over. What we have been doing is not war.
MAN: Your kamikaze rockets sank one of our ships the other week. Twenty five sailors perished. It looks very much like a war to me.
ICHIKO: There is a method, an aim and an end to war. Sitting on opposing islands and bombing unseen opponents is… not war.
MAN: Then what is it?
ICHIKO: A vendetta.
KREUZ: I don’t know that word.
HENRY: It means blood feud. Happens often in the Southern Europe and the Middle East. One clan attacks the other. Killings are followed by revenge killings. Once it begins it lasts decades.
KREUZ: Why?
HENRY: I don’t know.
MAN: Honor. Vendettas go on when it becomes honorable to kill and shameful to live. (To Ichiko) Vendetta is a Corsican word. I’m surprised a Japanese person knows it.
ICHIKO: I did not know it… until I came to this island.
MAN: Did you it hear from someone?
ICHIKO: (Looks at Henry) I heard it from him. Are you willing to hear our terms?
MAN: I can listen to them, but I cannot…
ICHIKO: I wasn’t adressing you, American. Have you forgot? I will only talk to my own kind.
Henry looks at the Man, who shrugs.
HENRY: I will listen, madame envoy. And I will relay them to our superiors. That is the extent of my capabilities.
ICHIKO: Very well. Japan proposes peace under two conditions. First. You will vacate our islands.
HENRY: But we never invaded Japan.
ICHIKO: You have.
MAN: Is she from another world or something? No American soldier ever set foot on Japan.
KREUZ: Airmen who were shot down over Japan notwithstanding. Thousands went missing on bombing missions. Who knows what became of them?
MAN: Shut up. (To Henry) We never invaded Japan.
ICHIKO: This is Japan. (Stands up and hits her foot on the ground) This soil you are standing on is Japan. These islands are ours. We want our land back. All lands that were part of Japan after Treaty of Portsmouth will be returned to us.
MAN: That’s Okinawas, Formosa, Bonin Islands, the Kuriles and Sakhalin. (Harrumphs) Fat chance.
ICHIKO: They are ours.
MAN: We gave the Kuriles to Russians.
ICHIKO: They weren’t yours to give. They have been part of Japan for more than 200 years.
HENRY: We will relay this message to Washington. It’s not our place to decide…
MAN: (Interrupts) I can see what kind of reaction this is going to pull already. They will laugh this proposal down in the Congress. (Shrugs) Maybe, just maybe, President Dewey might agree to return the Okinawas to Japanese control. But only for appearances’ sake. The strategic value of this archipelago is immense. America would never abandon her bases here.
ICHIKO: (To Henry) Even a single American marine anywhere on our soil would be a breach of Japanese sovereignty. Tell him that as long Americans stay, there will be no peace.
MAN: See here, woman. Do you know how many American soldiers are there in Okinawa?
ICHIKO: (To Henry) I won’t answer his questions.
MAN: This nonsense again? You just don’t know.
ICHIKO: Our intelligence estimates… sixty thousand.
MAN: Wrong.
KREUZ: Quite true, in fact. Where did you learn that, hmm? Perhaps the natives are sending you information. How? Short wave radios? Letters in bottles?
MAN: (To Kreutz, coldly) Wrong! There are one hundred thousand American soldiers in Okinawa. Sixty thousand are above the ground; working, manning radar stations, cleaning up plots polluted by Japanese gas bombs. Another thirty eight thousand are sleeping under the soil. Twenty thousand died when we invaded. Another seven thousand, when the Japanese tried to retake Okinawa. Eleven thousand died over the years. Some fell to Kamikaze planes. Most were killed after the Japanese learned how to build rockets and put men inside them. Thirty eight thousand Americans lie in this island; one of them is my neighbor, another is my best friend. We are not leaving.
ICHIKO: Then Okinawa’s American population will only increase, as more men join those sleeping below.
MAN: This is ridiculous! Does the Emperor really think he can go to status quo? We won! We are the victors. We hold all the trump cards. The sea is ours, we rule the sky!
KREUZ: You rule the air.
MAN: Air, sky, same thing.
KREUZ: Why, those two words are hardly synonymous. Air is a thin layer of gas that covers our Mother Earth. But the sky… is infinite. Most of it is vacuum. Space. The Japanese found a way to navigate through it.
MAN: They didn’t “find” it. You Germans taught them. You sent plans, schematics, information on rocket engines.
KREUZ: All the same, Japanese boys pilot rockets to Okinawa, Iwo Jima, even Beijing. You can’t stop them.
MAN: You are really savoring this, aren’t you, Kreuz?
KREUZ: What does that word mean?
HENRY: To enjoy.
KREUZ: Naturally. Naturally I enjoy it. As a man of medicine, as an intellectual, I am esctatic. Ms. Ichiko is not just an envoy from Japan. Do you realize that we stand before the first human being to fly in space and to come back alive? It’s a great achievement.
MAN: I’m not impressed. And neither will the Congress be, unless the Japs make a rocket big enough to hit San Francisco.
KREUZ: My good friend, it’s not nice of you to use slurs.
MAN: (Walks away in exasparation) Brilliant. I just got told off for being racist, and by a friggin’ Nazi. (To Henry) Ask her what the other condition is.
HENRY: Madame envoy, you mentioned two conditions. What is the second one?
ICHIKO: That won’t be said until I know how your leaders respond to the first condition.
MAN: Great. She refused to speak without a Japanese present and now she won’t talk anyway.
(Exits)
KREUZ: I suppose we have time. It will take a while until he reports this and gets a response. (To Ichiko) Ms. Ichiko, you said you won’t talk to an American. How about a German? (Silence) I am not a government official or a soldier. I am a scientist. Pursuit of knowledge is my only ambition. I used to work in Mittelbau camp, Germany, before the war in Europe ended. My name is Kreuz. Do you know me?
ICHIKO: I do not know you.
Kreuz is very disappointed and upset. He puts some distance between himself and Ichiko.
KREUTZ: You do not know me? And I thought… you would know about me. After the experiments. All the data I broadcasted. Engines, fuel injectors. Thrust control vanes. Sent through a cyriptic channel no spy could eavesdrop. I thought you would know about me, madam.
ICHIKO: I do not know you.
KREUTZ: Perhaps not personally. But I sent. And someone received. A Japanese person. A woman, I believe; or perhaps a girl, very young. I sent her images of rocket ships rising above columns of fire to the skies. I thought she was you.
HENRY: If you are confessing treason, perhaps you should not do it before me.
KREUTZ: (Lashes out) Zum Teufel! Who the hell cares what YOU think? Who are you even to talk to accuse me of anything? You are the traitor.
HENRY: I don’t understand you. I always loyally served my country.
KREUTZ: (Livid) My country, he says; my country! The absurdity of it! Your country. A country is arbitrary lines someone put on a map. Might as well be loyal the tropic of Capricorn, or the Greenwich meridian. It’s the RACE that matters, and you betrayed yours.
HENRY: That is not true. I joined the American Navy because I wanted the war to end as soon as possible. I wanted bloodshed to end. I wanted to save American AND Japanese lives.
KREUTZ: No. You didn’t even think about that at the time. You were trying to prove something. To yourself and other people. You came with that, life-saving excuse after the fact. After they sent you to the Pacific and everyone looked at you with hate in their eyes… both your enemies and your companions.
HENRY: Please stop making up stuff about me. You don’t know me.
KREUTZ: Oh I know you all right. Possibly better than you know yourself.
ICHIKO: He is right, Henry; you know that. You were trying to prove something. But at the end, you proved the opposite.
HENRY: Madame envoy, with all due respect, you cannot know the circumstances in which I…
ICHIKO: A place in the desert. Tin roofed shelters. A mountain in the distance. That mountain was the only beautiful thing your eyes could see. There was nothing else. You would gaze at it for hours. Heat made the desert sands shimmer as you looked. Small whirlwinds crossed your sight. You didn’t know what they were called. You wanted to ask, but you were afraid. You never learned what the whirlwinds were called…
HENRY: Dust devils.
ICHIKO: Until you left the camp.
(Silence)
HENRY: How could you… how could anyone know? I never told anyone about Manzanar.
ICHIKO: So that’s what that place is called. Manzanar.
HENRY: How do you know about it?
KREUTZ: My, my. This is getting romantic. But take care, my friend. Under their clothes, women never look as nice as you imagined them to be. There was a woman in Mittelbau who had a very small breast.
Ichiko reacts. Kreutz folds his arms and obverves her.
HENRY: Do not be so disrespectful. She’s an envoy. Why does she know about Manzanar?
KREUTZ: She saw it.
HENRY: Nonsense.
ICHIKO: I saw that camp. That mountain. The dust. And the devils.
HENRY: When?
ICHIKO: When I looked at you.
(Silence)
KREUTZ: There was a woman in Mittelbau… a woman with red hair. She saw things no one else could. I studied her for years. Even after the war ended. I thought at first she could do that because she was a gypsy. Gysies make excellent soothsayers. But one August night she spoke in her dream. She talked about clouds looking like mushrooms, raining white ashes on cities. (Looks at the door) At first I thought that was the repressed memory of sexual abuse. The mushroom symbolizing the penis. But never mind. Here he comes.
The Man comes back into the room.
HENRY: What did they say?
MAN: No go. Just as I expected. The base commander refuses to relay this… Ichiko’s demands to the States.
HENRY: On what grounds could he do that? He’s exceeding his authority.
MAN: On the grounds that she has not proven that she’s an envoy. We can’t be sure that she represents the Emperor.
HENRY: But we could verify that! We could contact Japan over the wireless and…
MAN: And someone would respond. But who? The Emperor? Who knows where he is? If this was 1946, perhaps we could triangulate the signals to his palace and say: Well, it’s probaby Hirohito. But we dropped an atomic bomb on Tokyo and the palace is now so much radioactive ash. Hirohito wasn’t there, of course. He is now somewhere in the forest, like all Japanese.
KREUTZ: (To Ichiko) American press tells us there are no cities left in Japan. Is that true?
MAN: Of course it is true. If there had been a city left we’d drop an atomic bomb on it. The Japanese all took refuge in the forest long ago.
KREUTZ: If there are no cities, where are the rockets coming from? Where are they built?
MAN: In the forest, probably.
KREUTZ: (Mocking him) Are you going to tell me the Japanese make them out of wood and bamboo?
MAN: I am. (Kreutz reacts) They use methanol as fuel. Our recon planes observed rockets taking off from camouflaged launch pads. We ran a spectroscopic analysis. They burn methanol.
(Beat)
KREUTZ: So what?
MAN: You don’t know anything about engineering, do you?
KREUTZ: Why would I know? I’m a psychiatrist.
MAN: You were in Mittelbau. The friggin’ Nazi rocket factory!
KREUTZ: I was there as a psychiatrist.
MAN: Methonol is wood alcohol. They distill it out of wood. Ninety percent of any rocket’s mass is propellent.
KREUTZ: And most of Japan is covered with forests. They make rockets out of wood. I see.
HENRY: Sir, this German mentioned something about sending data to Japan. I believe he might have leaked rocket blueprints to the enemy. He should be arrested for spying.
MAN: (Dismissive) If he did that in Mittelbau, that’s none of our business. He was the enemy then. He is an American citizen now.
HENRY: I believe he harbors no loyalty for the US.
MAN: Of course he doesn’t. But that, in itself, is not a crime.
HENRY: But what if he leaked the blueprints after the war? After he became an American citizen?
MAN: (Casually) We would hang him. (Shrugs) We know he’s a Nazi, Henry. We have him under constant surveillence. How could he contact Japan, even if he wanted to? He’s not allowed to buy radio equipment. Last year an ex-Nazi scientist, a guy called Von Brahn or Von Braun or something; phoned a local radio station and asked them to play a song. The FBI arrested him ten minutes later. Nobody has seen him since. They told us he committed suicide in custody. Maybe he has.
(Looks at Kreutz and pulls up his mask to reveal a grin. Kreutz grins right back)
KREUTZ: Natural selection.
HENRY: He was a scientist. Weeding him out would be weeding intelligence out.
KREUTZ: Geniuses are often fools outside their field. Before Americans landed on Normandy, they broadcast a poem on BBC radio. That was a signal to the French resistance. If I had been the FBI, I would have done the same.
MAN: Woman. Do you have any means to contact your people?
ICHIKO: I do.
MAN: What is it? We searched your rocket plane. There was nothing there that resembled a radio.
ICHIKO: Why do you want me to contact Japan?
MAN: You will be returned to your country. A plane will carry you to Kyushu. I ordered my boys to paint it white all over, with green crosses on both sides. You must tell your people to avoid shooting it.
ICHIKO: What time is it now?
MAN: What in the name of God almighty’s name does that matter? Are you afraid of disturbing Hirohito’s sleep?
ICHIKO: So it’s nighttime. Very well. It will be proven that I represent Japan. Watch the town... what’s left of it. You shall see a sign. A beacon.
Kreutz opens his briefcase and studies the instruments within.
MAN: This sounds awfully like a bluff. (Shrugs) Very well. Soldiers patrol the Japanese quarter at all times. If they spot anything unusual, we’ll soon know about it.
KREUTZ: (Still looking at the briefcase) I’d really like to ask a few questions before she leaves. As a man of medicine.
MAN: Suit yourself.
KREUTZ: Ms Ichiko, your people have been living with radiation for seven years. Have you experienced any effects like… the loss of individual identity?
ICHIKO: Identity?
(A woman’s scream in the distance)
KREUTZ: In our labaratory in Mittelbau, we observed a most peculiar effect in irradiated specimens. After a certain dose was reached, most subjects would die. But sometimes, the survivors would huddle together, mentally as well as physically. Pry them apart and their symptoms would worsen. (Another scream is heard) But together they could survive, as if each specimen made up for the damaged parts of the other. (Children’s cries, dimly heard. The sound of a hundred mouths wailing, slowly rises) What astonished us that this… fusion, happened on the mental level as well. We would ask questions and subjects would speak together, in one voice, simultaneously, before they died.
HENRY: Speak?
KREUTZ: Parrots. We used parrots.
MAN: Yeah, sure. And you tested your chemical weapons on partrigdes.
KREUTZ: My good friend, that would be barbaric. Though not as barbaric as testing atomic bombs on actual cities.
MAN: I’m not your friend. (The wailing is too loud to be ignored now) This comes from the Japanese quarter. What in the world? (The lights dim)
HENRY: Sabotage? Somebody’s messing with the power plant.
MAN: An uprising!
KREUTZ: No.
MAN: The Japs on the island are rebelling.
KREUTZ: (Sits on the chair) No.
HENRY: Why are you so calm?
KREUTZ: They just woke up, Henry.
HENRY: They?
KREUTZ: Your people. They saw the same nightmare and they woke up. At the same time.
HENRY: Are you sure?
KREUTZ: The gauges in my briefcase have been doing backflips. This has been going on for weeks. That’s why I am here. To find the cause. And I think it’s her.
MAN: The envoy.
KREUTZ: She does not only represent her people. She is her people.
The lights go out. A crimson light floods the stage.
MAN: Emergency lighting. The natives. The Japs! They took out the power plant.
KREUTZ: They just saw a bad dream. They woke up. Turned on the lights at the same time. And overloaded the grid.
MAN: (Grips his collar) What do you know about this? That is happening to all the Japs?
KREUTZ: Who knows? I don’t understand the specifics. I am not of their race. Ask her.
(Beat)
ICHIKO: They are given… a vision. A diseased forest. Trees merged into one knotted mass. Naked children playing among the roots; blind, paralyzed.
HENRY: My god.
MAN: Is that it? Is that the nightmare they see?
HENRY: It is.
MAN: How? Why?
KREUTZ: Because she’s here. She’s a relay. I have seen her before.
MAN: Where?
ICHIKO & HENRY: In Mittelbau. There was a woman with blood red hair.
(The wailing rises in volume and the stage goes dark)
Thanks for reading!
