Ahasuerus (A play) Act II

Act II

Afternoon

(Inside the camp)

(Stage right, there are barracks with several dirty windows impossible to see in or out of; stage left, there is the base of a watch tower. Between the two an electric wire fence seals the stage space from a forest beyond the wire. The space in between should feel constricted. The base of the watchtower should be big enough to double as the shop front in the dumb show and should open up into the shop at the appropriate time)

(Ahasuerus is now dressed in inmate’s clothes with the yellow Jewish Star of David on the jacket. He is barefoot. He has a brush in hand but is not sweeping anything. The Guard enters. He is carrying a pail of water with a ladle. His rifle is slung around his shoulder)

Guard (Quizzically): What are you doing?

Ahasuerus: Nothing.

Guard: Nothing, you cannot not do nothing! You must do something.

Ahasuerus: Why? What are you doing?

Guard (Forgetting himself again): Just getting some water.

Ahasuerus: For me?

Guard: No, for the men. (Dropping pail in anger) For crying out loud man what I do is none of your business!

Ahasuerus: But I’m thirsty, my throat’s parched.

Guard: I can’t. If I did I wouldn’t have a throat to get parched.
And if you do nothing they’ll kill you.

Ahasuerus: Why?

Guard: Is your brain that dense it cannot digest the simplest information? If you don’t work they will punish you.

Ahasuerus: But they seem to punish you whether you work or not.

Guard: You cannot say I didn’t try to dissuade you. You got yourself in here.

Ahasuerus: Not without permission. Nevertheless your discouragement lacked some detail.

Guard: Do I suspect a little regret that you were so curious?

Ahasuerus: You misunderstand me I don’t regret a thing.

Guard: But you were free. You wandered. These are luxuries you have forfeited.

Ahasuerus: Where are my shoes?

Guard: Lost forever. They will wander by themselves now.

Ahasuerus: I cannot continue my journey without them. You must find them Helpmann.

Guard: You have no more journeys, and don’t use my name when you address me. We are not friends.

Ahasuerus: Then why did you help me?

Guard: You’ve helped yourself.

Ahasuerus: You chose me for this detail. I think your superior wanted me dead.

Guard: Your sense of gratitude is strange then.

Ahasuerus: Oh no, I am most thankful.

Guard: Then sweep for me, if not for yourself.

Ahasuerus: But I’m not here for this.

Guard: Oh I am sorry. Take a seat and I’ll bring you a nice coffee and a piece of cake. (Angry) There is only this! What is it about old men that they cannot...?

(Pause)

Ahasuerus: Go on.

Guard: It’s nothing. Something I thought I’d forgotten.

Ahasuerus: If you tell me your secret, I’ll tell you mine.

Guard: I don’t want to swap secrets with you. My private life is of no concern to you.

Ahasuerus: But yet you have saved me.

Guard: Don’t get too comfortable…you’re not saved, merely postponed.

Ahasuerus: You make me sound like a birthday party or a first date with a pretty Fraulein.

Guard (Gesturing as if to hit Ahasuerus with the butt of his rifle): Don’t be disgusting. Keep those impure thoughts to yourself. No decent German girl would ever…

Ahasuerus: What is your wife’s name?

Guard: How dare you ask me that? How do you know I am even married?

Ahasuerus: Because you are such a young boy.

Guard: Ach, you make no sense. What sort of warped logic rattles around in that empty mind of yours?

Ahasuerus: You are too old to live with mummy but too young to be left to fend for yourself.

Guard (Insulted): You provoke me after all I’ve done to spare you?

Ahasuerus (Correcting him): Postpone me.

Guard: I’ll replace you if you don’t sweep up.

Ahasuerus: If you only had the power.

Guard: I’m going to ignore that. You must be ill. If you do not work you must be sick. If you get sick then you will die.

Ahasuerus: I don’t get sick, but if I must die, die I must.

Guard: You misunderstand everything I say. Look about you. Do you see a hospital barrack; are there doctors and nurses? There are no ill people here – you are either fit to work or you die.

Ahasuerus: Hardly the best bedside manner I’ve come across!

Guard: Why don’t you direct some of that verbosity into sweeping the floor? That’s all you have to think about. If you sweep you are safe.

Ahasuerus: For now.

Guard: I am not your saviour. I can only do a little. I could end up sweeping this yard for the help I’ve given you.

Ahasuerus: Well at least you’ll be safe.

(The Guard hits Ahasuerus with rifle butt and he falls to the floor, his nose bloodied)

Guard: Why won’t you sweep God damn you! I’m ordering you! You must obey!

(The Guard turns away in frustration whilst Ahasuerus wipes the blood from his nose with the part of his jacket where the yellow star has been stitched. It leaves a red mark. There follows a silence of some moments. The Guard turns back toward Ahasuerus)

Guard: I’ll tell you my secret, but you must promise me that if I do you will work.

Ahasuerus: Sweep?

Guard: Yes.

Ahasuerus: Safe?

Guard: Promise.

Ahasuerus: Tell me then, Helpmann, what is this great confidence that provokes your philanthropy towards a measly old Jewish man.

(The Guard settles himself, anxiously looking behind and beyond for overseers. When he feels comfortable he begins)

Guard: I am from Munich. Apart from this posting and my army training, I have lived there all of my life. I have happy memories of childhood…

Ahasuerus: I thought your parents locked you under the stairs?

Guard: I had to be disciplined didn’t I? Every child must be guilty sometimes.

Ahasuerus: Sorry.

Guard (Continuing): Happy times, a good neighbourhood and lots of friends. My parents were wonderful, particularly for an only child, who didn’t have to share. There were deprivations of course because of the Great War, but not that I would have noticed.

(Pause)

(The base of the watchtower is opened out to reveal a shop window and door. Inside the shop is the shopkeeper and the interior is exactly how the guard describes it. He will conduct a tour of it whilst he speaks)

My happiest memory was of the local shop; a general store owned by an elderly gentlemen. My mother would take me there.

(The Guard’s mother appears stage right and takes him by the hand. They walk towards and then enter the shop. Once there the Guard will go down on his knees before the shelves to demonstrate his awe)

Inside the shop the shelves of tins and packets seemed to stretch upward for miles to a nipper like me. There was magic and wonder in all those different shapes and colours. And then there was the long wooden counter that ran the length of the store. It was always shiny and polished. The old man would come from around the back of it and lift me up and sit me there.

(The old man lifts up the guard. The Guard shimmies his bottom)

I could feel that smooth surface beneath my shorts, and I knew that if I just gave myself the slightest nudge that I would shimmy all the way to the far end, and whoosh, straight off! (Laughs) And the smell of that polish; you know Ahasuerus, there are two great smells in the whole world; one is baked bread, hot from the oven and the other is polished wood.

Ahasuerus: What about fresh-ground coffee?

Guard (Walks back toward Ahasuerus): Please, I am sorry for hurting you. You test me, even now. Will you listen – I may never have the nerve…I may never have another opportunity to say this.

(Ahasuerus sits down and crosses his legs in the manner a child would do when he is about to be read a story).

Guard: The best thing about that shop were the candies the old man always kept in a big glass jar on that beautiful wide sweet-smelling counter. They were like little marble stones. When you sucked on one it felt like a rock in your mouth, but the sweetest rock you ever tasted.

(Old man gives the Guard a sweet)

They were a penny a time, but I’ll bet the old man never sold one in his life. He just kept them just for the children. It was a treat, mind. My mother only took me once a week, so did the other mothers. They wouldn’t take advantage. It was a good neighbourhood.

(The light should fade out on the dumb show and the base of the watchtower should be closed)

(He begins to feel more at ease and sits down beside Ahasuerus)

Ahasuerus: That wasn’t much of a secret. I have better.

Guard (Impatiently): I haven’t finished. (Pause) In the Thirties things changed. It wasn’t an overnight thing but a gradation, and yet it still came as a surprise to us. All of a sudden the Party was everywhere, all-powerful, unstoppable. Neighbourhood took on another meaning. People didn’t gather out of kindness anymore. There was accusation instead of conversation. I was a teenager now. I thought that it was just a phase and that sooner or later things would return to normal. Yet soon I would be integrated too, but that’s another story.

(The Guard relates the last few words in a very melancholic manner)

Ahasuerus (Sarcastically): The rate this one’s going I’ll never hear it.

Guard (Stands up): And you won’t hear the end of this one either! Christ, here I am sharing secrets I haven’t even told my wife, with a sarcastic miserable old man who is only breathing thanks to me.

Ahasuerus: Not through this bloody nose.

Guard: I’ve apologised, is there no forgiveness?

Ahasuerus: Perhaps, if I saw any evidence of it.

Guard (Long pause while the Guard regains self-control): The night of November 9th, 1938.

Ahasuerus: I was at the cinema, officer! (The Guard exhales painfully)
Oh sorry, this…is…

Guard: …the secret, yes.

Ahasuerus: November 9th, 1938, yes?

Guard: Kristallnacht.

Ahasuerus (Pretends to mishear): Christmas night?

Guard: Kristallnacht!

Ahasuerus: Sorry. Do go on. What happened? I truly was out of the country at the time.

Guard: A German Jew, Grynszpan, had assassinated a German diplomat, whose name escapes me, in Paris.

Ahasuerus: Funny that.

Guard: What’s so funny about an innocent German being gunned down in the street?

Ahasuerus: That you remember the Jew’s name not the German.

Guard (As if it has only just dawned on him): I…he was a murderer…

Ahasuerus (Interrupting): Like Jack the Ripper then? His infamy has overshadowed the names of his victims. That’s hardly fair.

Guard: Murder is glamorous.

Ahasuerus: For the perpetrator, perhaps, and the historian. I doubt if it extends beyond that.

Guard: That night the people took revenge.

Ahasuerus: The people, all of the people?

Guard: Yes… well no…mostly the youth. But we represented the people.

Ahasuerus: You had a directive then?

Guard: There wasn’t time to…

Ahasuerus: Ask?

Guard: Ask who? We had the highest authority, and we had to act swiftly. This was war.

Ahasuerus: So you were under attack?

Guard: We may have been without decisive action. Who knows what dangers slept amongst us? Perhaps Grynszpan’s obscenity was a signal?

Ahasuerus: For what to happen, a massed attack on the German heartland by hundreds of Jewish butchers and bakers armed with liverwurst and pretzels?

Guard: Mock sceptic, but we had to assume.

Ahasuerus: And were you right?

Guard: That isn’t the point.

Ahasuerus: But did the Jews defend themselves with weapons?

Guard: No.

Ahasuerus: Did you find hidden arsenals after you routed them?

Guard: No, but they may be there still.

Ahasuerus: I see, waiting for this army of emaciated ghosts to reclaim them and exact revenge.

Guard: One has to take adequate precautions.

Ahasuerus: And you? What did you do on Kristallnacht?

Guard: What could I have done? I had been ordered, as had the others. We should strike a blow.

Ahasuerus: Orders! What about evidence?

Guard: What did we need? The Jew was undermining all the great powers in Europe.

Ahasuerus: This was common fact?

Guard: We saw it daily, in newspapers and the cinema.
Nobody was safe. But only we, in Europe, had the strength to act.

Ahasuerus: But what did you do, personally?

Guard: How can you understand? I was part of something, not like you wandering around, friendless…lonely…noticeable. I just wanted to blend in, you know; run around with my friends, shout out slogans…I reckoned there’d be some violence but nobody could’ve predicted that level of destruction. I hesitated at first. I was scared. But doing nothing attracted attention. The others would look at me. Their eyes had a look I’d never seen before.

(Pause)

Ahasuerus: What did you see there?

Guard: The end of the world. My old life was over. The pathway back overgrown with weeds and thorns, closed off forever. I felt abhorrence mixed with fear sitting deep within the core of my stomach. I couldn’t oppose whatever force was moving my fellow youth. A crazy urge overcame me, like a sudden violent itch that you have to scratch. That was when I picked up my first stone and hurled it at a window. The crackle of that falling glass appalled me at first but the cheers and congratulations of my friends exhilarated me. Suddenly I had become part of this huge crescendo of power – uncontrollable, omnipotent. We carried on smashing window after window until, without realising, we found ourselves outside the old general store.

(Pause)

(The watchtower base is opened up again to reveal the shop but this time the window has the legend “Juden” and the Star of David daubed in white paint over it)

I recall there was a still moment; how long it lasted I cannot say for sure. It was still our old store, despite the whitewashed legend and the Star of David. We hadn’t been allowed to use it in years nevertheless we hesitated. Smashing those windows would have been like killing a precious part of us, and just for a moment, a brief second, I really believed we could have carried on and left it untouched. But another boy, I didn’t know him, threw the first rock. That’s when we all had to join in.

Ahasuerus: Even you?

Guard: Not at the window - no, I didn’t even have a stone in my hand. (Pause) I just stared as piece by piece every single shard of glass shattered to the ground and what was once a window became this huge void, almost like looking onto an empty stage after the play has ended.

Ahasuerus: But one actor remained.

Guard: I had been praying ever since we landed at his store, “If I could only get away without seeing him everything would be fine”. But no, like an old ham that doesn’t know when to quit, he had to appear. He stood there like a...

Ahasuerus: A shopkeeper?

Guard: It was too late for sweets. But his look…there was a shine that flickered briefly across those tearful eyes and then submerged into his dark irises.

Ahasuerus: What was it?

Guard: It was the child in both of us dying.

Ahasuerus: What did you do then?

Guard: I wanted to cry but I couldn’t move and the longer he stood there with his arms hanging out to the side like a mock half-crucifixion, the more immobile I felt; the others too, even the one who had thrown the first stone. I thought to myself: “Don’t let him say anything. Don’t let anything break this silence”. We can still walk way.

Ahasuerus: But he spoke didn’t he?

Guard: I knew he would. That’s what started the fury in me. I saw his mouth judder apart so slowly the flesh of both lips seemed to cling to each other like a limpet on coral. Time moved in heartbeats. Then a low guttural sound, like the last call of a dying frog, escaped from those pitiful lips.

(Pause)

Guard: “Boys, boys”, that was all he said, but it was enough. The stillness had been smashed like another glass window. I felt my right hand reach down to the ground. There was a rock there and my hand slipped around it as if it knew it was there all the time.

(The Guard picks up a candy-coloured sweet similar to those sold in the shop)

I threw the rock at him. It struck his forehead and he collapsed beneath the window frame and out of view. Then there was a roar that rose up like a clarion call from the other boys; they charged into the shop and…

(Pause)

Ahasuerus: Did they kill him?

Guard: I never found out. I didn’t follow them into the shop, I didn’t need to; I’d done my share. I watched for a minute as the punches and kicks slammed down. He whimpered like a puppy. I was glad I couldn’t see him.

Ahasuerus: So this is atonement?

Guard: My helping you...a cure maybe?

Ahasuerus: You are ill.

Guard: Perhaps.

Ahasuerus: But if they class you as ill they will kill you.

Guard: What? (Then remembering his earlier words) Why are you cruel to me? You should be dead now, if not for me.

Ahasuerus: I am not your doctor, neither am I your priest nor psychiatrist.

Guard: What do you mean by that?

Ahasuerus: “Physician heal thyself”. I could make you a nice pair of boots if you like.

Guard: I don’t want boots. There are no choices here. Sweep or be shot.

Ahasuerus: That’s a choice.

Guard: I should have shot you yesterday.

Ahasuerus: Yes, after all you are a soldier and this is a war.

Guard: I didn’t think so, not here. Not until you turned up. I think I’d prefer the front line than dealing with you.

Ahasuerus: So your weapon is clean then.

Guard (Absently): Cleaner than the Commandant could know.

Ahasuerus: Another secret?

(Pause)

Guard: Sometimes you have to make up a firing squad.

Ahasuerus: For the ill or just for the lazy?

Guard: Both!

Guard: When I have been ordered to shoot people, you know. We line up and then…pop.

Ahasuerus: What, you just make the noise…pop?

Guard: What do you think this is make-believe? Of course I don’t just go pop. If I did I’d be on the other end of the…pop.

Ahasuerus: Well how do you keep your weapon clean?

Guard: I fire off to one side. The bullet still stings whether it’s one or many. Besides, the Commandant always finishes them off with one in the head.

Ahasuerus: So you’ve never killed anyone?

Guard: No, thank god.

Ahasuerus: Are you sure? What about these? (Gestures with his arms as if indicating toward other inmates) Aren’t you killing them?

Guard: I am purely an employee.

Ahasuerus: But surely this belongs to the party? And you are in the party, aren’t you? Don’t you have shares?

Guard: It’s not the same. My hands are clean.

Ahasuerus: Like your rifle – indirect action equals absolution.

Guard: My hands are tied.

Ahasuerus: So you are a prisoner too?

Guard: You understand now?

Ahasuerus: But your stomach doesn’t swell with hunger, your throat slake with thirst. You can wash, dress in clean clothes, laugh and drink with your fellow comrades, sleep with whomever you wanted. That's hardly a fair comparison.

Guard: These are only tenable through obedience. They are gifts and can be taken from me too.

Ahasuerus: Is that what they are. What about pain, misery, starvation, cruelty, old companions of mine; are these not gifts too?

Guard: What about death? Why forget that one? That’s surely the greatest gift of all.

Ahasuerus: You are right. I am jealous of death, but he is an enemy not a companion besides which mine is the only death I am interested in.

Guard: Hypocrite! You feign mercy for your compatriots but are as guilty of the same selfishness you accuse me of.

Ahasuerus: I simply observe the facts. Besides which, death is the most personal of all truths.

Guard (Bewildered): Yet you have contrived your confinement in this death-camp?

Ahasuerus: But your concept of life is different than mine. When I die I shall live.

Guard: Philosophical bollocks! Death is not life. This is how I know I’m alive. I look around me. My life is measured in all those deaths out there. I live because these die. If this camp wasn’t necessary I would be out there, probably dying somewhere in a rat hole, shot to pieces, or in smithereens blasted by a shell, or worse still maimed, limbless, left in dependency for the rest of my life.

Ahasuerus: I understand…you do not. (Pause) Shoot me.

Guard: You know I can’t.

Ahasuerus: Please.

Guard: No.

Ahasuerus: You might not kill me.

Guard: Why not? I don’t have to miss.
Ahasuerus: I don’t want you to miss.

Guard: Then you’ll die.

Ahasuerus: Maybe.

Guard: Oh I get it! Now it’s all becoming lucid. You’re immortal. You can’t be killed. This is a metaphor for the futility of the concentration camp, the flaw in the final solution.

Ahasuerus: You are right, but not just the Jews. All your enemies will persist. That is the way with empires, they run their course. But that has nothing to do with it. You’re trying to make some political point out of what is a simple request to shoot me. (Pause) I’ll tell you what if you shoot me and I don’t die I’ll go away. If I do die you’re rid of me that way too. You can’t lose.

Guard: But I don’t want to kill you.

Ahasuerus: What if your Commandant saw us talking? Wouldn’t he order you to shoot me?

Guard: Probably.

Ahasuerus: And you would do it?

Guard: Reluctantly.

Ahasuerus: So why bother him? Shoot me now.

Guard: I have no reason to.

Ahasuerus: Of course you have, I’m not working.

Guard: I went to a lot of trouble yesterday. I recommended you for a work detail because you were strong. I smuggled you a little food.

Ahasuerus: You felt guilty.

Guard: I am not guilty. I have nothing to feel guilty about. I have done nothing but help you. Christ, here comes the “Glove of Death”.

(Commandant enters)

Commandant: You again, why aren’t you dead?

Ahasuerus: It’s what I keep asking myself.

Commandant: Helpmann, why isn’t this old fool dead?

Guard: We were short on a work detail sir. Some of the numbers didn’t quite work out yesterday. Don’t you remember you agreed…?

Commandant: What is that supposed to mean?

Ahasuerus: You were a little liberal with the glove yesterday.

Commandant: Silence! Or I’ll kill you myself here and now.

Guard: Not just that though, sir. Strauss got drunk again and…

Commandant (Laughing): He got a little over zealous. One of these days he’ll blow his own head off.

Guard: I have warned him sir.

Commandant: Shame, he’s a fine officer.

Ahasuerus: He’s a pig.

(Guard hits Ahasuerus with the butt of the rifle)

Commandant: What did you say?

Guard (Raises rifle): Apologize or I’ll kill you.

Ahasuerus: Don’t let him do it.

Commandant: You are scared then.

Ahasuerus: No, he might miss!

(Guard hits him again)

Commandant: I cannot understand this. This is crazy. I have the power to remove you from the face of the earth. (Points the gloved hand at him) I do not need to explain my actions. I have nobody to answer to if I decide at a whim to end your pathetic life, and you know this; and yet you refuse to bend. Look at that brush, there is not a trace of dust on it. You haven’t done a stroke and yet you see others beaten and shot for less than this.

Ahasuerus: I cannot understand you. You say you have the power and yet you do not kill me. But you have only the power I have lent you. I have offered myself up here, as he did, but you do nothing. There are people here who want to live and yet you kill them. I want to die and you will not grant me my wish. You are perverse.

(Guard lifts his rifle again)

Commandant: No, leave him. If he wants to die then we should oblige him. (Takes brush away) Put him in line.

Ahasuerus: One question please before I go.

Commandant and Guard (Together): What!

Ahasuerus: What did you do with my shoes?

Commandant (Laughing): You are a hilarious, horrible little man aren’t you? You won’t need your shoes anymore.

Ahasuerus: I may leave tomorrow though.

Commandant: Perhaps but not perpendicularly.

Ahasuerus: If it could just be so. What peace. But I would still rather have my shoes…just in case.

Guard: Your shoes have gone to be recycled.

Ahasuerus: Shame. I made them myself you know. It was my final task before I set off hundreds of years ago.

Guard: He’s doing it again sir.

Commandant: Doing what?

Guard: Raving.

Commandant: Well all the better for ridding ourselves of this nuisance, which by the way, should have been accomplished yesterday.

Guard: But the work detail sir. We are still short. Even if he is mad he can still sweep.

Commandant: Being mad isn’t the problem. He refuses to sweep and must die.
Guard: If I can persuade him sir.

Ahasuerus: You won’t.

Guard and Commandant (together): Shut up.

Guard: What if I get you your shoes, will you sweep then?

Ahasuerus: Possibly.

Guard: Sir, if he sweeps you will spare him?

Commandant: Possibly. He is amusing in a grotesque way. He might prove to be a little entertaining.

Guard: I’ll go then. (Aside to Ahasuerus) Keep your mouth shut for two minutes.

Guard runs off.

Ahasuerus: I hope he finds them.

Commandant: I doubt it. Do you know how many shoes we have to deal with here; it’s a logistical nightmare. Not just shoes mind you. There’s…

Ahasuerus: It is a wrench you know. I’ve walked on every conceivable landscape, desert, ice and mud but until now, I have never lost my shoes.

Commandant: Are you trying to tell me that one pair of shoes has taken you around the world?

Ahasuerus: Yes, but these were no ordinary shoes. I made them. I am a craftsman. I can shape leather like no one can. The fit is so good- well they feel more like socks. Yet every sharp stone, every knife-edged rock I ever stood on couldn’t penetrate them.

Commandant: I’d like a pair of shoes like that, could you make me some?

Ahasuerus: Why are you waiting for him too?

Commandant: Who, the guard? I don’t wait for anybody here they wait for me.

Ahasuerus: Then ordinary shoes should be enough.

Commandant: Ach, you talk nonsense. You are becoming less amusing.

Ahasuerus: So in other words if I don’t tickle your fancy or your feet I am to die?

Commandant: Where is that guard?

Ahasuerus: He shouldn’t be too long; nobody could mistake the quality of my shoes.

Commandant (Uncomfortable, shuffling): What should we do now?

Ahasuerus: Wait?

Commandant: I don’t like it I get bored.

Ahasuerus: It’s easy it only requires patience.

Commandant (Mishearing): What was that…practice?

Ahasuerus: That too.

Commandant: I haven’t the time.

(Guard returns with a clean looking pair of shoes but quite obviously not Ahasuerus’s)

Guard: Here they are.

Ahasuerus: They are not my shoes. Look at them; they’re full of holes.

Commandant: He’s right you know…he’s a craftsman…he wouldn’t be seen dead in those shoes.

Guard: These were the best I could find.

Ahasuerus: Well I’m not sweeping up in those.

Guard: But he’ll kill you.

Ahasuerus: No he won’t, he hasn’t the time.

Commandant: I’m bored. Helpmann shoot him.

Guard: Sorry.

Commandant: I said shoot him.

Ahasuerus: Yes shoot me. That’s an order.

Commandant: He’s right Helpmann; that is an order.

Guard: Sweep man, will you. (Picks up brush and thrusts it at him)

Ahasuerus: No.

Commandant: Helpmann, are you disobeying me?

Guard: Look, it’s easy, watch.

(The Guard begins to sweep)

Guard: You can even hum to yourself to pass the time. (Hums)

Ahasuerus: No, I won’t hum and I won’t sweep.

Commandant: Helpmann, I won’t order you again.

(Guard drops the brush in anger and points the rifle at Ahasuerus)

Guard: Is this what it’s all for to make me the murderer? No I won’t accept that. You came here of your own free will, not like these others. You picked on me deliberately; my shift. You knew I had never killed anybody. You’re evil you are. Not me, I’m the innocent one here. I never wanted to kill anybody I just didn’t want to die.

Ahasuerus: Nobody can be an authority on innocence and brandish a gun.

Commandant: Helpmann!

(The Guard shoots)

Ahasuerus: Pop!

(Ahasuerus drops)

Commandant: Good. Leave him. I’ll get a work detail to get rid of the body. (Exit)

(The Guard is still frozen in the same position. The rifle pointing to where Ahasuerus was but he himself is looking skyward. All of a sudden he throws away the weapon)

Guard: My God, the rifle, it’s so hot. My hands, Christ, they’re burning.

(The Guard runs around in panic then crosses over to the pail and plunges his hands in. He keeps them there for several seconds and then removes them examining them for marks. Then slowly he exits looking back toward Ahasuerus’ body)