Ahasuerus (A Play) Act III

Act III

(Night-time)

(Inside a barrack in the camp)

(There is a door stage right and a row of several narrow beds in three tiers. It will require actors as the inmates on these beds for the procession at the end of the act. There is a window stage left through which occasionally the haunting glow of the searchlight intrudes. This part of the barrack will open up for the flashback)

(There are moans coming from the bunk in the lower row of the middle tier. The Guard enters with his rifle ready to shoot)

Guard: What is that noise? Who cries? Cease or you will be shot?

(More moans. He moves toward the bunk where the noise is coming from)

Guard: What are you doing? What is wrong? Are you ill, if so be quiet and save it for the morning?

(The moaning continues. The Guard pushes the rifle barrel into the back of the figure in the bunk)

Guard: You there, stop that moaning. You’ll wake the others.
Do you hear me?

(More moans)

Guard: Are you testing me? I will shoot you know. Do you want me to kill you?

(The figure in the bunk turns around. It is Ahasuerus. He is now dressed in rags and filthy, almost unrecognizable from the previous act)

Ahasuerus: You already have my friend.

Guard: Sweet Jesus. It can’t be you. I shot you. No, I’m sleeping. Sleeping on watch! I’d better wake up the Commandant will kill me.

Ahasuerus: Helpmann, Helpmann, calm down. Come, touch me and believe with your hands what your eyes are telling you.

(Touches Ahasuerus’ body)

Guard: You are real. You’re not a spirit!

(Pauses and considers this)

Oh my god, all that practice missing - now I can’t shoot straight at all. They’ll shoot me for this. Hang on though. You were buried. (Pause) No you couldn’t have dug yourself out. But you must have. But how could you breathe?

Ahasuerus: Helpmann…how are you?

Guard: In shock to tell the truth. How did you hold your breath so long? Are your hands so leathery that they can shovel all that dirt away? Oh my god what will the Commandant say when he sees you?

Ahasuerus (Now sitting on his bunk): I am not so important that he will spot me. A few seconds ago with my back toward you I was just another anonymous figure in this pathetic tableau.

Guard: But I don’t understand; bad shot or not, surely I must have wounded you?

Ahasuerus: You did more than that.

Guard: I did?

Ahasuerus: Of course, you killed me.

Guard: I did?

Ahasuerus (Smiling): Yes.

Guard: So what you’re telling me now is that I am actually talking to a ghost.

Ahasuerus: Oh no, I’m very much alive.

Guard: I killed you but you’re still alive…I must be dreaming. If not I need to go and rest.

Ahasuerus: We all need that.

Guard: Why were you moaning?

Ahasuerus: Another nightmare. I’m not immune to those.

Guard: I’m confused. Maybe I’m the corpse. Perhaps the Commandant shot me and let you go. No, no, I’m definitely in my own bunk and dead to the world. This cannot be.

Ahasuerus: Remember me telling you that I was a criminal?

Guard: Outside the gate…that seems so long ago but it was only a couple of days…I think.

Ahasuerus: But you wouldn’t listen. You wanted me to go. And do you remember that I didn’t seem to know where I was or where I was going.

Guard: Yes.

Ahasuerus: I am a criminal, a lost criminal, lost a long time ago. (Pause) Do you believe in the Christ?

Guard: Jesus Christ?

Ahasuerus: Yes.

Guard: In all this mayhem who could?

Ahasuerus: And yet he was a real man.

Guard: And you have evidence I suppose?

Ahasuerus: The best…first hand.

Guard: This is insane. I’m conversing with a dead man, only this dead man is actually alive. Even better he has been alive for the last 2000 years, and he was friendly with a mythical figure, who, in fact, turns out to be a real person.

Ahasuerus: Am I dead?

Guard: You should be. I don’t understand it.

Ahasuerus: But as you can see I am sitting here. Would you like to put your fingers into the bullet holes?

Guard: Yes. Let me see you hands.

(Shows him his hands)

Guard: Dirty, and mud caked underneath your fingernails as if you had dug yourself out of that grave!

Ahasuerus: Then listen to more madness and then you can go back to sleep.

(Long pause)

Ahasuerus: 2000 years ago I was a shoemaker in Jerusalem. I looked much as I do now. I made good shoes, better than good. I was famous for them, and rich. My customers were from the highest places of Roman and Jewish society. And they paid well. I had everything I could have wished for.

Then, one Sunday, he came. I heard of Him of course, who hadn't, travelling around the country, performing miracles, curing the sick, casting out demons and giving sight back to the blind. And here he was. Crowds surrounded him, especially the poor. He was their champion you know, they flocked to him. Emmanuel they cried. Do you know what Emmanuel stands for?

(Guard shakes his head)

Saviour and they believed it. Saviour... (Quiet sardonic laugh) A week later he was dead. He came like a beacon in the dark and was extinguished like a wickless candle. The poor wailed. Why did they wail? They wailed because they were still poor, not because he had died. Me, I was glad. He was no friend to me. He condemned the rich but why? Because I was not as stupid or lazy as my neighbour; because I worked hard, because I was not idle; was that the reason I was condemned? Who was he to pass judgement? He never congratulated me on my enterprise; he belittled me and others like me.

Guard: What did you do?

(Part of the barrack stage left opens up to reveal a small corner of a street in Jerusalem. The road should lead off stage left from where the Christ figure will appear. On the side of the street facing the audience there should be Ahasuerus’s shop with the legend clearly visible: “Ahasuerus. Shoemaker of Quality”; there should be another business opposite resembling the Munich shop in the Guard’s reminiscence and a small crowd milling on both sides of the street. It would be preferable that the crowd is gathered in such a way that Ahasuerus’s movements in and out of the dumb show are not impeded)

(Ahasuerus will narrate his story moving in and out of the dumb show to talk to the Guard and to act out his part within the action. The crowd can slowly build as Ahasuerus narrates. It is important that the crowd noise does not drown out Ahasuerus’s dialogue)

Ahasuerus (Gravely and from the dumb show): That Friday when they sentenced him to death, he was given his cross and forced to walk to Golgotha.

(Guard looks quizzically)

That was the place where they were to crucify Him.

Well he had to walk right past my business. I got up early, blocking the front of the shop, reserving my space; didn’t stop the crowds though. There was a couple, followers of his, parked themselves in my spot, bawling like babies. Chased them away I did, laughing at them and their tears. They were so convinced they were ‘saved’. He had lifted them from the gutter and they looked contemptuously at honest businessmen like me, but my stock was rising again. Now it was my turn to close the circle by humiliating their idol in front of them and putting them back in their place.

Guard: Nasty bit of work you were.

Ahasuerus (Goes back toward Guard): I was bitter, true, then. I couldn’t see what I’d done wrong. My prices were high, sure, but that’s what attracted the better clientele. I couldn’t work with inferior materials just to suit the pockets of the poor, not a craftsman such as me.

Guard: Couldn’t you have just sold the poor your shoes at cheaper prices?

Ahasuerus: And what would my other customers do if they’d found out, demand the same or quit the shop to avoid the riff-raff? I’d have been ruined.

Guard: But surely there were more poor than rich?

Ahasuerus: Meaning?

Guard: You’d have had more customers.

Ahasuerus (Ignoring the last comment and moving back into the dumb show): Nearing the afternoon the crowd grew thicker and there was a lot of barging and bumping. But I barged and bumped back. I wasn’t giving up my spot for anyone, least of all any of his weeping sheep.

(Pause)

Suddenly there was an outbreak of low murmuring. Have you ever seen a fire catch hold and spread through dry hay? It was like that. Just a single spark, a whisper, and in an instant the whole world is ablaze. Where a second ago there was a babbling spring now came a roar like the surge of a tidal wave, but a tidal wave of human voices, a multitude of resonance, a mish-mash of shouting, screaming, wailing…

I began to panic. Not because I was scared but I was afraid no one would hear me.

Guard: Hear you say what?

Ahasuerus: That’s just it. I knew I needed to say something but I hadn’t a clue what. I kept practising insults in my head, something like “Call yourself a Saviour, you couldn’t save a denarius” (Giggles)

(Guard looks at him vacantly and shrugs his shoulders)

Ahasuerus: You had to be there. Anyway, nothing I could think of was sufficient to express my utter contempt for Him. I could see him approaching, slowly. I could feel the weight of that wood, too heavy for him to lift completely off the ground. You know how I could tell how cumbersome his cross was? By the echo of the thuds as the base slapped the ground, every step an agony…His progress painfully slow.

(Christ figure enters. Ahasuerus will come forward out of the crowd so that he can walk unimpeded between the Guard and Christ)

Then all of a sudden He was there in front of me. A more pathetic figure you never saw. I could see where they had flayed his flesh; it was hanging off in strips. I could see where the constant pressure of the cross had ripped open his tunic and was beginning to gnaw away at his collarbone. There were wooden splinters too, impressed into his skin like he was wearing a porcupine on his shoulder. The thorns in the mock crown they had put on him had dug their way into his skull. One could sense the points tickling and aggravating the nerves underneath.

Where were His followers now? There were enough of them. Why didn't they rush out and steal him away? Why didn't he save Himself? You know why? He couldn't...or wouldn't. He was too busy trying to make a point.

Then the most remarkable thing happened. (Pauses and goes toward the Guard)

Guard: Don’t stop on my account, everything that has happened to me tonight is remarkable.

(Ahasuerus says nothing) Well?

Ahasuerus (Now positioned equidistant between the Guard and Christ): He turned and looked at me.

Guard (Looking deflated): For crying out loud! I thought you were going to tell me He was your long lost son or that He was wearing a pair of your bloody shoes.

Ahasuerus: No, listen, you don’t understand. He wasn’t going to speak to me; He was waiting for me to talk.

Guard (Misunderstanding): What did He want you to say?

Ahasuerus: It wasn’t that He wanted me to say something more than He already knew what I was planning to do; that He had somehow heard me practicing over and over in my head. It was an inquiring look. It seemed to ask me if I’d made my mind up yet.

Guard: And had you?

Ahasuerus: No. What made matters worse was that now I couldn’t think of anything to say. Because He was looking at me so was everybody else.

Guard (Disappointed): So in the end you said nothing.

Ahasuerus: On the contrary I had to speak. It looked to everyone around me that this Jesus knew me. Well you know what that might have done to me. Tarnished as one of his disciples, my business would have failed; I would have been ostracized, maybe even killed.

Guard: So you did say something?

Ahasuerus: Yes…wait...I must explain first. I was angry. He had usurped me. I was the one who was going to ridicule Him and now this battered figure being led to His death, this failed Saviour of men, was belittling me…in front of everyone. I couldn’t let that pass.

Guard: Finally! You said…

Ahasuerus: I told him to go faster.

Guard: You never! Aren’t you the witty one? And what was his riposte?

Ahasuerus (Long pause): He said:

Christ: I am going now but you will be waiting here when I return.

Guard: Shouldn’t you be in Jerusalem then? Won’t He miss you if you’re hanging about here?

Ahasuerus: He was speaking metaphysically. This, you see, is as much here as Jerusalem. Have you never heard the myth of the Wandering Jew? I am he. All good myths, you know, have some basis in truth.

Guard: But what does it all mean?

Ahasuerus: I am cursed to wander the earth until His Second Coming.

Guard: Christ’s Second Coming...but when is that?

Ahasuerus (Turns and looks at Christ): He wasn’t going to tell me that was he? (Then back to the Guard) Besides did you think the Roman guards were just going to let us stand around chatting? I didn't see your lot being so charitable.

Guard: Don’t get me involved. I can’t do anything. I’m not responsible. I’d much rather be at home. I’d rather be anywhere but here, well except the front. The next thing you’ll be accusing me of starting the war.

(Lights should dim over the dumb show as the Christ exits, and the crowd disperses)

Ahasuerus: I do not accuse. I am not a magistrate. I have no evidence for innocence or guilt. Is a man guilty because He offers the World a different philosophy, one that questioned the ideology of state, religion and business? Where we strove to be better, he preached tolerance; where we censured, he forgave.

Guard: How could that ever work? What would we become if we had no goals, no incentives to make more of ourselves? If we didn’t investigate, explore, invent; we’d still be apes.

Ahasuerus: I’m not sure that we aren’t.

Guard: Is that slur aimed at the Party?

Ahasuerus: Don’t flatter yourselves. I have seen barbarism in many forms, each one unique in its ability to persecute and prosecute the greatest misery on its victims. Your ministry is wicked but perhaps not more so than others. When the great chronicle of this planet is finally written it will be seen that the recurring human motif that sustains all evils is intolerance. Intolerance has often been linked to the culpability of an unkind omnipotence, but it is more relevant to the hypocritical evangelist, the indolent parent and the insensible policeman. It is found in the granite heart of the banker, the impatience of the tutor and in the lifeless eyes of the supercilious judge.

Guard: So we’re all guilty? What about you?

Ahasuerus (Holds his hands up): Guilty incarnate. Judas was a fall-guy, compared to me.

Guard: Iscariot, the traitor; you cannot compare yourself to him?

Ahasuerus: He’s an innocent. What could he have done otherwise? He was either divinely coerced or destined for it. Imagine that, no betrayal – no crucifixion – no eternal salvation. What a Last Supper that would’ve been, Christ solemnly declares to his Apostles: “One of these who has shared my bread will betray me” And Judas replies: “Actually I had second thoughts and I didn’t fancy it”

Guard: So Judas is forgiven.

Ahasuerus: Of course, how can he have sinned if he played a major part in promoting Christianity? He did for me though.

Guard: He didn’t make you insult Christ. Isn’t that what they call exercising free will?

Ahasuerus: Is there such a thing? I’ve replayed those events thousands of times and yet in my heart I know that I still would’ve said what I said.

Guard: What did you do then? When did you begin to recognize you were cursed?

Ahasuerus: I witnessed his death, you know. I had no intention of doing so but an unseen force seemed to drag me there like a foundering boat toward shore. I heard him dispensing mercy to the whole world, even until his last breath. That was when the storm arrived and the world seemed to snap in two.

Yet like all storms it ended and I went back to work. Things were much as they were before he came. I had all my clients back. I made wonderful shoes again and I got richer. I felt fine physically and was complimented on several occasions about how graceful I looked for my age. Then one day, some years later, I was shaping a piece of leather. As I was stretching it, I caught sight of my reflection in a glass. I realised that I hadn’t altered one bit from the day He was crucified. Suddenly my grip loosened and the leather piece slipped out reshaping itself in the process. From that moment I only ever made one more pair of shoes.

Guard: But surely you were wealthy enough by then?

Ahasuerus: For what it was worth, yes. But closing my business wasn’t a problem, after a while people began to suspect me.

Guard: Of what?

Ahasuerus: Of being some kind of freak. It was all very well to look good when you’re fifty, but to be exactly the same at sixty and seventy. Then others who had witnessed the curse began to believe in it and I was quickly regarded as a pariah. When times were bad, when crops failed or when our Roman masters increased their tyranny, I was to blame. So I fashioned myself probably the finest shoes I had ever made, the ones your Party have appropriated, and I began to wander.

Guard: But you had eternal life. Think what the interest on your savings would be, 2000 years of it. You’d never have to touch the principal.

Ahasuerus: Eternal life – I never considered the irony…

(Commandant enters)

Commandant: Helpmann, I need to…what are you doing with that prisoner?

Guard: I thought he was sick.

Commandant: And you were going to shoot him? Good, but it can wait for now. Come here I need a word.

(The Guard goes over to him)

Bad news; it seems the Party are not happy with our progress. We have to accelerate things. Perhaps even tidy a few things up.

Ahasuerus: I’d borrow you my broom but I’m afraid I lost it.

(The Commandant takes off his glove and slaps Ahasuerus with it. He falls back into his bunk. The Commandant moves his hand toward his revolver but the Guard intervenes)

Guard: Don’t bother yourself sir, I’ll deal with him later.

(Commandant looks contemptuously at Ahasuerus and then turns on his heels and moves stage right taking the Guard with him)

Commandant: We have to be models of efficiency and competence; and we need to be urgent.

Guard: Are we losing the war?

Commandant: No, no – everything’s fine. It was inevitable that the enemy would strike back. But they will soon lose the initiative. We will stand firm, halt their march and begin to repel them for good.

Guard: Then why the emergency?

Commandant: We must always have alternatives. Just in case.

(Pause)

Do you know what will happen if the enemy discover what has been happening here?

Guard: We would be…

Commandant: Yes Helpmann, guilty.

Guard: Guilty, us, but how?

Commandant: The rest of the world does not share the purpose behind our mission here. They cannot see the danger as we see it. They will never appreciate the benefits our actions have delivered for them. Already history is attempting to twist and unravel the unfailing logic behind our achievements. For all the good we’ve done combating the Zionist infiltration and control of our planet, we’ll still be branded as criminals.

Guard: What will the allies do to us?

Commandant: Condemn, imprison…maybe even execute us.

Guard: But I’m only a soldier. I hold no rank. These are not my designs.

Commandant (Angry): You never refused the posting. You felt safer here than dodging bullets on the front line. Besides, (Tugs at the Guard’s lapel) this uniform is tailored in guilt now. That’s why we need to put this operation to bed as quickly as possible.

Guard: What must we do?

Ahasuerus: Sweep!

Commandant: Shut up you scum!

(Removes revolver to shoot, but guard intervenes again by placing his body in front of Ahasuerus)

Guard: Keep your bullets sir. You may need them.

Commandant: True. Guards!

(More uniformed guards enter the barracks)

Clear the barrack. Clean this place up. (Looks at them pointedly) You understand?

(As he says this he lifts the hand with the black glove on and points toward the door. The inmates see the glove and begin to wail)

Soldiers: Sir! (They try to silence the inmates by hitting and pushing them and slowly herd them out of the barrack door)

Guard (Grabbing Ahasuerus): Leave this one to me sir.

Commandant: Very well.

(He goes among the soldiers to supervise the removal)

Ahasuerus: No. Leave me alone. I wish to go with the others.

Guard: No, he's mine. (Whispers) You idiot they are taking them to be gassed. Be quiet and do as I say.

Ahasuerus: But you are not helping me. I need to go.

Guard: You actually believe you are invincible? They will find a way to kill you.

Ahasuerus: All the more reason to let me go.

Guard: Go then, it seems your destiny is more powerful than my will.

(Drags himself out of the Guard's grasp and joins the line walking past the Commandant. As Ahasuerus passes him he looks at him inquiringly)

Commandant: Halt! I know you, don't I?

Ahasuerus: I should think being an acquaintance of yours would be a very short-term affair.

(Commandant ignores his remark and looks at him more closely; then down at his barefoot feet)

Commandant: Did you have a brother in this camp?

Ahasuerus: Many.

Commandant: Yes, that would explain it.

(He looks unconvinced whilst Ahasuerus, who is still standing still, stares deeply at him)

Commandant: Well? Go on then, get out!

(The inmates all troop out including Ahasuerus)

Commandant: Well Helpmann it looks like your bullets may be needed for other things too.

(Pause)

Guard: Have you ever prayed sir?

Commandant: Of course, I still do.

Guard: Are you petitions ever fulfilled?

Commandant: Mostly, yes. Why, what would be the point in praying if there was nobody listening?

Guard: So you too are forgiven?

Commandant: I must be, otherwise who would grant my wishes?
Everybody occasional errs Helpmann, even a distinguished officer like me. I blaspheme, drink a little too much and have even taken the odd woman in. But these are simply acts to relieve the stress of war.

Guard: So they are not really sins?

Commandant: Under the circumstances I would say not; but one must nevertheless be contrite.

Guard: Are these the only sins we ever commit?

Commandant: It is wise perhaps to admit a few failings, but one cannot be totally conciliatory; it would weaken the race, allow our enemies a psychological advantage. Don't worry Helpmann; your prayers will be answered.

Guard: That is what I am most afraid of.

Commandant: I won't hear that talk. Fear is a sin. There is always an explanation to resolve an irrational idea. Two minutes ago I looked into the face of a man I thought I had killed. For a second, but only for a second, I too was gripped by a frightening sensation.

Guard: You - scared?

Commandant: I am human too, despite my rank.

Guard: What form did this fear take?

Commandant: At first I actually considered the concept that ghosts exist. But almost immediately I was struck by a worse fear. I actually had the fleeting insane notion that we had found somebody that we couldn't destroy. Ridiculous I know. So how did I cope with my fear? I confronted it with hard fact. This could not be the man I killed, I saw him shot and buried. The next logical step was to find out why there was a resemblance. Explanation - it was his brother. One must control the imagination if one is to survive in this world. My God, could you imagine if there really were ghosts? We'd have to build extra barracks.

(Laughs and exits)

(Pause)

Guard: I cannot tell the living from the dead now. He's lying too. We are losing the war. The Russians will invade from the east. They'll discover the camp and then retribution will take place. Revenge for what we have done to their country and then a final reckoning for what we have done here.

(Pause)

It's time to pray.

(Kneels down and clasps his hands together)

Dear Christ (pause) I can't begin to...it's been so long since... I'm Helpmann Lord, you may not remember me (laughs uncomfortably) We haven't spoken in a long time, since I was in short pants maybe. I don't really know why, I guess it's one of those things that you do only as a child. Now I need you; mostly now that my comfortable and secure existence is crumbling. No longer protected from a world in chaos; no longer blind and closeted in in my little malevolent universe; no longer can I claim my guiltlessness at the hands of a greater author. I am stained with that ink too and now for the first time in ten years I am truly scared.

(Pause)

Therefore I confess and am genuinely sorry for all my failings. In return for my true penitence I will only ask you to grant me one thing...save Ahasuerus.

(Curtain)