photo by Joe Mazza and Brave Lux

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Distrust of Victory

             Distrust of Victory
            By Jacob Juntunen
(MARY and JANE sit. JANE holds a small bottle of clear liquid.)
            MARY
It’s so damn hot on this train. At least give me a sip of that to take the edge off.
            JANE
It’s for the wounded, not—
            MARY
Goddamn shortages of everything. Even water. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a drink that wasn’t muddy?
            JANE
Why are we just sitting here for so long?
            MARY
They’re going to let troop carriers go past before a Red Cross transport.
            JANE
How far are we?
            MARY
Hold your horses. Berlin isn’t going anywhere. I can’t believe we have to nurse Nazis as well as our boys.
            JANE
They’re human, too.
            MARY
You think so? I was in some of the camps we liberated, identifying prisoners that looked more liked skeletons, trying to reconnect families—
            JANE
That’s over. We won. We need to make peace, to staff the Allied hospitals—
            MARY
All the while you were living it up in Paris.
            JANE
Well, we’re both assigned to Berlin now, so we just have to make the best of it.
            MARY
Just give me a swig of that, and I’ll stop bothering you.
            JANE
The patients need it more than you do.
            MARY
When I was in Illinois, I let the tap run while I brushed my teeth. I close my eyes here and see those gallons back home swirling down the drain, and now we can’t even get a bucket full—
            JANE
Where are they going to get it? Most of the ground water’s completely contaminated from the corpses.
            MARY
I can’t believe we’re rebuilding Berlin after all those bastards did to—
            JANE
Germany’s part of Western civilization. It just went astray for a few years. What about all its great artists?
            MARY
And look what all that “great” culture led to. At least let me have a little of that, just a drop—
            JANE
People would have killed for this in Paris, in the hospitals where I worked. Patients screaming, nothing to dull their pain, bandages soaking through and dripping and covering the floor—
            MARY
So just give me a swig of that and I’ll clean the slop out of whatever pile of debris they give us for a hospital in Berlin.
            JANE
You need this more than some poor boy missing half their face?
            MARY
I’m on my way to give comfort to the enemy, I’ve gotta have some comfort myself.
            JANE
They’re not the enemy anymore. There are more similarities between us than differences. When I was a little girl, my parents took me to every performance of the symphony in Houston: Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart. We have the same heritage underneath all the—
            MARY
The same imperial ambitions, the same romanticism, the same blind faith that better times lie ahead, the same exceptionalism—
            JANE
But we won! We’re making the world safe! We are exceptional.
            MARY
I distrust victory. Just give me the bottle.
            JANE
They’ll notice it’s missing.
            MARY
One bottle on this whole goddamn Red Cross train?
            JANE
They gave it to me because there’s hardly any left.
(They bump as the train moves forward)
            JANE (CONT)
Oh! Thank God we’re moving. We’ll be in Berlin soon.
            MARY
And those SS officers who escaped unharmed will be listening to their Brahms again soon— they deserve the comfort in that bottle more than I do?
            JANE
They’ll be punished, there’s the Nuremburg trials coming up—
            MARY
A few scapegoats. The Marshall Plan’s going to make sure this is all swept under the rug.
            JANE
What about all the normal boys who were just doing their jobs? Or the women and children who got caught in the crossfire?
            MARY
You’re right. The Germans are the real victims of the war. I can’t handle this sober. Just give me a goddamn drink and when we get to Berlin I’ll scrub the gore off the floor and clean the shit out of bedpans. You can just Nightingale around and bat your pretty blue eyes at all the handsome Fritzes you’ve got so much in common with.
            JANE
Do the floor, the bedpans, and change the bloody bandages.
            MARY
Fine.
(JANE gives MARY the bottle)
            JANE
But just a little, there’s an anesthesia shortage—
(MARY downs the liquid in one quick swallow.)
            JANE (CONT)
That much will kill you!
            MARY
I certainly hope so.
            JANE
It’s supposed to be for the operations! They gave it to me for safekeeping—
            MARY
Just say I stole it; what can they do to me now—
            JANE
I don’t understand—
            MARY
Oh. Wow. That packs a punch.
            JANE
But we won! Why would you—
            MARY
Because you’re right. There’s more similarities between us than differences.
(MARY slumps over.)
 (Blackout)
 
Jacob is head of playwriting at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. 
Read his full lengths
here.

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