REUBEN HERSCHEL Jewish academic in his 5os. Husband of Elisheva and father to Jacob and Magdalena.
ELISHEVA HERSCHEL Jewish housewife in her mid-to-late 30s. Married to Reuben. The mother of Jacob and Magdalena.
MAGDALENA HERSCHEL Daughter of Reuben and Elisheva. Aged 13.
JACOB HERSCHEL Son of Reuben and Elisheva. Aged 9.
LOCATION
A holiday cottage in Southwold, England in July 1931.
Basic Plot Outline
July 1931.
A German Jewish family have travelled to England for a seaside holiday.
The political turmoil in Germany is worsening as the last days of the Weimar Republic brings the Nazis to the cusp of power. REUBEN HERSCHEL, his wife ELISHEVA and their two children MAGDALENA (13 years) and JACOB (9 years) arrive back at their holiday cottage in relaxed mood.
But ELISHEVA is restless and soon broaches the vexed issue of emigration again. The threat posed by the Nazis is now too serious to ignore and she fears for the safety of her children. However, her willingness to uproot the family only serves to bring her into conflict with the overly pragmatic REUBEN who will not countenance such a radical alternative.
Her ever-cautious husband does not want to contemplate a life away from Berlin.
Their previously stable marriage is now put under renewed strain as the frustrations and fears of a wife and mother are laid bare. An argument erupts which is shot through with the challenges of a turbulent era - and with irreconcilable visions of a future evermore at risk.
A German Jewish family have travelled to England for a seaside holiday.
The political turmoil in Germany is worsening as the last days of the Weimar Republic brings the Nazis to the cusp of power. REUBEN HERSCHEL, his wife ELISHEVA and their two children MAGDALENA (13 years) and JACOB (9 years) arrive back at their holiday cottage in relaxed mood.
But ELISHEVA is restless and soon broaches the vexed issue of emigration again. The threat posed by the Nazis is now too serious to ignore and she fears for the safety of her children. However, her willingness to uproot the family only serves to bring her into conflict with the overly pragmatic REUBEN who will not countenance such a radical alternative.
Her ever-cautious husband does not want to contemplate a life away from Berlin.
Their previously stable marriage is now put under renewed strain as the frustrations and fears of a wife and mother are laid bare. An argument erupts which is shot through with the challenges of a turbulent era - and with irreconcilable visions of a future evermore at risk.
The play is set in Southwold, Suffolk and has two acts. Approx running time: 120 mins.
Their heated exchanges embroil them in issues of race and religion but it also reveals the personal dynamics at the heart of a marriage sagging under the weight of historical events.
There is a contrast struck between the two main characters and their approach to the issue. ELISHEVA has an instinctual awareness of the dangers posed by the Nazis whereas REUBEN is more assiduously patient - even pedantically so.
Their heated exchanges embroil them in issues of race and religion but it also reveals the personal dynamics at the heart of a marriage sagging under the weight of historical events.
There is a contrast struck between the two main characters and their approach to the issue. ELISHEVA has an instinctual awareness of the dangers posed by the Nazis whereas REUBEN is more assiduously patient - even pedantically so.
Eventually, and with little to lose by such, ELISHEVA invites REUBEN’S uncle (who resides in England) down to see them at their rented cottage. REUBEN is incensed because she acted on her own initiative, having failed to consult him beforehand. Additionally, REUBEN does not get along with his eccentric relative and indeed describes the rift between them as ‘unbridgable.’
UNCLE MORDECHAI arrives and strikes up a good relationship with the children. However, he is also present as the two continue their disagreements.
On hearing of their troubled life in Berlin, UNCLE MORDECHAI eventually sides with ELISHEVA, venturing to suggest that he himself could help them emigrate.
The play’s conclusion revolves around the stark choice which REUBEN must now confront: do they emigrate or not?
UNCLE MORDECHAI arrives and strikes up a good relationship with the children. However, he is also present as the two continue their disagreements.
On hearing of their troubled life in Berlin, UNCLE MORDECHAI eventually sides with ELISHEVA, venturing to suggest that he himself could help them emigrate.
The play’s conclusion revolves around the stark choice which REUBEN must now confront: do they emigrate or not?
Act One
July 1931
The HERSCHEL family enter. They are returning from a day at the beach and carry an assortment of bags, buckets and spades. REUBEN HERSCHEL has a large blanket tucked under his arm. His wife ELISHEVA HERSCHEL places a bag containing towels and different-sized thermos flasks on a nearby chair. She immediately starts to fuss with her headscarf. Their two children MAGDALENA and JACOB offload their playthings onto the hallway floor and hurry off to their rooms.
REUBEN: (calling them back) Children, you first need to take off your shoes. (to their moans) No fuss now. We must behave on holiday in England just as we would in Berlin.
MAGDALENA: (racing to take off her shoes) I’m going to my room.
JACOB: (with similar haste) I’m going to mine.
THE CHILDREN EXIT. ELISHEVA STARTS TO CLEAR UP THE HALLWAY.
REUBEN: (staring at the floor in an amused way) Look at the amount of sand they drag into the house. It’s so beautiful. We should ask Mrs Peters to leave it there.
ELISHEVA: (still tidying up) Mrs Peters doesn’t clean the cottage herself. She employs somebody from the town to do it. (having finished tidying the hallway). Shall I make us some coffee?
REUBEN: Good idea.
REUBEN SEATS HIMSELF ON THE SOFA.
REUBEN: (contd). Ah! Places like this are so utterly charming.
ELISHEVA IS BUSY LOCATING CROCKERY. HE WAITS FOR AN ANSWER.
REUBEN: (contd.) Elisheva?
ELISHEVA: I’m listening.
REUBEN: They make it so uncomplicated. So relaxing. You get up early and you go to the beach. Wake me when the tide comes in.
ELISHEVA: We have some orange-and-walnut cake leftover. But no cream. If you want cream, Reuben, you will have to walk into town.
REUBEN: The cream we can do without.
REUBEN WALKS TO A SMALL TABLE WHERE HE HAS SET OUT
A FEW DOCUMENTS. HE STARES IDLY DOWN AT THEM.
ELISHEVA: (with a mischievous note of censure) Is that an itinerary of some description?
REUBEN: (chaffing at the joke with a resigned air) Of a loose non-binding sort.
ELISHEVA: You wrote an itinerary for our holiday?
REUBEN: I simply made a list of places we might visit.
ELISHEVA: I thought we had the Baedeker’s for that. By the way, do you sometimes take the Baedeker’s into work with you?
REUBEN: No.
ELISHEVA: Then why is it that I can never find it?
REUBEN: I’ve no idea. It will always be about the house somewhere.
ELISHEVA: I thought this holiday was meant to be less about routine and more about our unwinding.
REUBEN and ELISHEVA bicker over their plans for the next day. We start to see the personal dynamics between the two.
It becomes noticeable that ELISHEVA has a warm and playfully sarcastic side to her character which her more rigidly configured husband finds difficult to judge and/or counter.
ELISHEVA: So, why go there? What is at Snape Maltings that you have to drag the whole family to see?
REUBEN: I’ve told you already, the topography of the area is interesting. The brewery itself is also worth viewing for - amongst other things - its architectural features.
ELISHEVA: You sound just like a Guide Book.
REUBEN: I do not sound like a book. I’m furnishing you with an answer to the rather off-colour question you posed, that’s all.
ELISHEVA: That’s a very Reuben-like thing to say.
REUBEN: Picking people up on stuff like that only makes them more self-conscious.
ELISHEVA: Oh, but I like to see you self-conscious, Reuben. It reminds me of our first eleven dates.
A PAUSE
ELISHEVA: (contd.) Reuben, you don’t have to burden the rest of us with your lecture hall persona. Is it in the Baedekers?
REUBEN: Well, no.
ELISHEVA: (affirming her suspicions with a smile) You researched it didn’t you?
REUBEN: Yes, what is wrong with that? I work at Berlin University. The University has a library. It’s only natural to want to take advantage of such an opportunity.
It is clear that REUBEN would much rather avoid the subject - and the more so for the duration of the holiday.
But ELISHEVA relentlessly pushes him on the point and avouches that emigration to England is an option. REUBEN does not want to countenance such a step and the argument becomes more heated.
ELISHEVA narrows her concerns down to their children and implies that she is ready to take decisive action even without the support of her husband if necessary.
It is clear that REUBEN would much rather avoid the subject - and the more so for the duration of the holiday.
But ELISHEVA relentlessly pushes him on the point and avouches that emigration to England is an option. REUBEN does not want to countenance such a step and the argument becomes more heated.
ELISHEVA narrows her concerns down to their children and implies that she is ready to take decisive action even without the support of her husband if necessary.
ELISHEVA: I will not deliberate more than I have to, Reuben, before I do something! I will not jeopardise their chances in life. These are children! These are our children!
REUBEN: Just listen to you. (a pause.) What a radio disgorges into our home is not important. The ebb and flow of political life brings people to the fore who chaff on some and who others champion. Nationalism is nothing new in Germany. Anti-Semitism is nothing new. Name me one part of the world where Jews can or have lived unimpeded for any length of time. If a nationalist squall blows up in Germany, who is to vouchsafe that it will take on a different and more threatening character? And who, above all, can tell me it will be the last.
ELISHEVA: You are blanked off in some world I don’t understand, Reuben. Say what you like, but a normal family life is something I won’t ever underestimate again. How can I explain it to you? I want to be where I feel cosseted by indifference. I want a life shorn of all aggravation save for the usual. I want mundanity. Household bills and birthdays I still need to plan for. Do you not understand that? The trivialities of family life are what they take for granted here. It’s what I envy them for. But if we lived here that would be our life too.
REUBEN: You want some present respite from the way they stigmatise us. I understand. If one were to look at what they urge their followers to do; if one were to experience it as we have, it would be difficult not to feel un-impacted by it all. If you were a foreigner looking in at the political travails of the Republic, it could cloud one’s judgement of what was possible in the long-term. It could make Germany seem a more forbidding place than it is. I know this. I can see your point. But, Elisheva, we cannot extinguish our reason and have it subject to base fear. (a slight pause) Would you, could you really uproot the children like that?
ELISHEVA: I would do so tomorrow.
REUBEN: You would do so tomorrow and not wonder at the harm it could do to their prospects in life? It would severely impair their chance of studying the things in life they might want to.
ELISHEVA: You can put on your professor’s gown, Reuben, and lecture me for the rest of today and beyond that….
REUBEN: Elisheva.....
ELISHEVA: ….I have heard it all before. And I don’t rightly care what you think. You can think what you want. Only let me say what is important. Reuben, I have forebodings! I have fears! I don’t care if that is outside of your competences as a lecturer. What good are all your theoretical musings if you can’t see what is plastered on the walls of every backstreet roundabout. These voices on the radio are what will suck down your family eventually! Don’t you understand that? In such a context, your academic posturing is useless. Your trained mind….your analytical acumen, what is it worth? Can it make people vote differently? Can it do more in an unjust world than prejudice and myth? Can it make a single one of these Nationalists falter in their beliefs? No, of course not. The thugs only follow the histrionic bile of their leader. They would look at you as some Jewish intellectual blowhard. Why can’t you piece together the future from the evidence they place before you, Reuben? Why can’t you see beyond the things which they have long since disregarded? They loathe the institutions of democracy. Civilization as we understand it is abhorrent to them. Hitler himself could not be more transparent on the point. “When I hear the word ‘Culture’, I reach for my gun.” Dear husband, dear foolish Reuben, I want normality. And I like it here.
REUBEN: You know nothing of England.
ELISHEVA: I know that the people here don’t seem to fuss too much with who or what I am. I don’t see them try to push me from their thoughts. I don’t see them mark my presence and wonder at it. In Berlin, when I do something so simple as walk with my children through a department store, there are old women shaking their heads as if I had no right to be there. You can call me selfish if you want. But I crave to be anonymous again. As I walk out to that beach every day, I am anonymous. It’s what I deserve. As a mother, as a wife, as a Jewess.
As the argument subsides, ELISHEVA asks REUBEN about the one relative he has living in England.
However, REUBEN is in disparaging mood when it comes to his UNCLE MORDECHAI. The two have never been on friendly terms and REUBEN is determined not to avail himself of any contact while they are on holiday.
UNCLE MORDECHAI’S own strength of character and his singular traits are discussed. REUBEN confesses that he was awe-struck by his uncle when he was a child but that the differences between them as adults are unbridgable.
ELISHEVA then drops a bombshell. She informs her husband that she wrote to UNCLE MORDECHAI on her own initiative and has invited him down to their holiday cottage. He will arrive the following day. REUBEN is incensed but can do nothing about it.
ELISHEVA: What are you talking about? He’s coming. (a slight pause) He’s coming.
Act Two
UNCLE MORDECHAI is seen returning with the family from a day at the beach.
The warm, avuncular side of his character is a delight to the HERSCHEL children, who obviously value his apparent eccentricities and the marked interest he shows in them.
MORDECHAI is unspun and seems not to care for social deference of any sort. He is both voluble and imaginative in the way he goes about entertaining those around him of whatever age.
Of the group, only REUBEN seems to be at odds with the carefree mood.
We are apprised of MORDECHAI’S respect for ELISHEVA and what he notes of her strength of character. His attitude to REUBEN is altogether different and emerges via the usual haze of sarcasm.
MORDECHAI: (contd). Marrying this woman, Reuben, I must say, I didn’t think you had it in you.
The three adults settle into conversations based around the latest family gossip and MORDECHAI expands on the various factors which, after a lifetime of travel, led to his eventually settling in England. He does so in answer to ELISHEVA’s questions, as she tries to eke out the information that might see them follow his example at a later stage.
MORDECHAI then asks about the political situation in Berlin and if it is really as volatile as the newsreels suggest. This question leads to an argument, with REUBEN trying to play down the fact that recently the Nazis had achieved notable electoral success nationwide.
ELISHEVA is hoping to co-opt her uncle into her way of looking at the threat posed by Hitler and cites the interests of the JACOB and MAGDALENA as being paramount.
MORDECHAI tries to imagine what it must be like for those Jewish families forced to leave their adopted homeland under duress.
As the argument subsides, ELISHEVA asks REUBEN about the one relative he has living in England.
However, REUBEN is in disparaging mood when it comes to his UNCLE MORDECHAI. The two have never been on friendly terms and REUBEN is determined not to avail himself of any contact while they are on holiday.
UNCLE MORDECHAI’S own strength of character and his singular traits are discussed. REUBEN confesses that he was awe-struck by his uncle when he was a child but that the differences between them as adults are unbridgable.
ELISHEVA then drops a bombshell. She informs her husband that she wrote to UNCLE MORDECHAI on her own initiative and has invited him down to their holiday cottage. He will arrive the following day. REUBEN is incensed but can do nothing about it.
ELISHEVA: When was the last time you wrote to your uncle?
REUBEN: To Mordechai? It’s been nearly a year since I wrote to him.
ELISHEVA: So long?
REUBEN: The truth is, I only do so for what he meant to my father. He and I are not a good fit. The disreputable comments launched my way from that old dog. He seems to take delight in challenging my place within the family at every turn. He’ll sit through some speech of mine at a family function and then once the applause has died down - and within earshot of everybody there - he’ll say, “Idiot!” or “Idiot boy!” “I saw his mouth opening and closing like a wet paper bag, but I heard nothing. Is that my brother Ishmael’s boy?” Ay, ay, ay! Why would he do such a thing? Why would he want to do such a thing? (a slight pause) Where some within the family give the man excuses, I do not. To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten that he even lived here. That’s the extent to which he figured in my plans for this particular holiday. I’m not alone in my aversion to him either. There are relatives who loathe him even more than I do. “Stripping back convention has its limits, Uncle Mordechai.” Somebody should tell him that.
ELISHEVA: (suggesting he is afraid to) But not you?
REUBEN: Why does he go out of his way to challenge people on such a broad range of issues? Nothing is sacred to him. Nothing - there’s nothing which can’t be put down in some moment of vulgar cynicism. He spares nothing. Well, I say that but, of course, he does connect to some people - you being one of them. No, don’t shy away from it. It’s plain enough. He much prefers you to me. I can’t think why. Why does he like you so much?
ELISHEVA: He and your father were very close. I know that.
REUBEN: Perhaps.
ELISHEVA: All Jewish families have at least one, they say. Uncle Mordechai is the black sheep of the Herschel family.
REUBEN: Well, there’s black and there’s black.
ELISHEVA: He and your father were as different as two sons could be. The one – your father Ishmael - conventional and family bound, a hard-working man of business. A person who set great store by doing the right thing. And then there was Mordechai - wilful and somewhat conflicted. Headstrong. Individualistic. A man drawn to the open road. Providing only for himself in a world void of expectation. His whole life complicated only by the new things he encountered on his travels.
REUBEN: That’s him, alright. You know, he took off travelling at the age of seventeen. How can you be that young and just abandon everything on a whim? For him, the family was only something to kick off, like a pair of patent leather shoes at the end of the day, so he could walk around in felt slippers or a pair of moccasins. He sent my father postcards. Everywhere he went, no letters, just a solitary postcard. He never came home for fifteen years. I only got to meet him for the first time when I was eight years old. I can’t say it went well. I was much too deferential for his taste. But then, I mean, he was the next best thing to an explorer in the family. He washed dishes on a leaky lugger in the China Seas. He worked in a haberdashers on a cruise ship. Why they would have a haberdashers on a cruise ship, I have no idea. Maybe it was a Jewish cruise ship. He sold amulets in Marakesh, he worked a chain-ferry in Hong Kong, he trekked across Peru and boiled fish-heads Guatemala - just to keep himself in shoes. Every postcard he sent to my father I kept in a tin box. For as much as I loathe him now, back then he was a laudable figure from my childhood. You could dish up his life as a film and people would surely watch it, that’s what I believed. And I would be stood by the exits as the audience filed out, probably saying, “You know, that’s my Uncle.”
ELISHEVA: And now he’s in England, wealthier than any one of you. How did he come to settle here?
REUBEN: I don’t think he intended to stay at all. But London seemed to grab him somehow. Or maybe he was just tired. He’d been travelling for close to thirty years by then. Mostly he wanted to know about the Stock Exchange, and if he could invest a little money he had saved. Eventually, he took up some minor role in one of the Investment Groups from overseas - some place he knew from his travels. He worked his way up from there.
ELISHEVA: And now he lives in a big house in Golders Green.
REUBEN: According to report, he lives in a house with seven bedrooms. There is a housekeeper in one and he occupies another. The remaining five rooms are all empty. It’s a house set within its own grounds. All rather grand in scale.
Not that anybody in the family has ever been invited there - or ever will be - or will ever want to go if they are. I’m sure the neighbourhood is full of stories about the lonely old Jew, who keeps strange hours and who built a swing for himself in a garden he prefers to keep untended.
ELISHEVA: Is it true he has a swing?
REUBEN: Yes, he has a swing….a customised swing….a bespoke swing. He paid good money to have it just the way he likes: long ropes lashed to the bough of a tree and a slatted wooden seat. He likes to use it at night - the rumour is - in the pitch black. People, neighbours can hear Old Mordechai of Berlin parts swinging back-and-forth….the remorseless, metronomic creaking vying with the sound of a Nightjar or an Owl. He’s on it for hours at a time….the constellations overhead….the wind high up in the brake. You have to say, it’s very Uncle Mordechai.
ELISHEVA: Why are you so harsh on him? He’s very sweet.
REUBEN: He is not sweet.
ELISHEVA: He likes you.
REUBEN: He does not like me.
ELISHEVA: The only son of his beloved brother Ishmael - he has no choice but to like you; love you even.
REUBEN: He enjoys disparaging me and everything he thinks I stand for. He supposes me dull and unprepossessing in the way my father was - to him at least. A joyless, unoriginal conformist. A grey, suburban captive. That’s me. That’s Ishmael’s boy. A family-bound bore. A flagship bore.
ELISHEVA: Why didn’t you want to see him?
REUBEN: Why should I? What joy could it possibly bring to either one of us?
ELISHEVA: I wrote to him.
REUBEN: You did what?
ELISHEVA: I wrote to him. He’s on his way to see us.
REUBEN: I don’t understand.
ELISHEVA: He’s coming here. I invited him.
REUBEN: (shocked) You mean now? Today? He’s coming here today?
ELISHEVA: He’s travelling up today but he wants to stay in a hotel and meet ustomorrow.
REUBEN: (with growing incredulity and anger) You can’t be serious. You asked a member of my family to visit us here and without my consent, without so much as asking me whether I would countenance that? This not to be tolerated. I can’t believe that you would do such a thing.
ELISHEVA: He’s coming.
REUBEN: He can’t come. I had no knowledge of it.
ELISHEVA: I invited him. He wants to see us both.
REUBEN: Elisheva, this is not right. This is not right. I forbid it. I forbid it!
Act Two
UNCLE MORDECHAI is seen returning with the family from a day at the beach.
The warm, avuncular side of his character is a delight to the HERSCHEL children, who obviously value his apparent eccentricities and the marked interest he shows in them.
MORDECHAI is unspun and seems not to care for social deference of any sort. He is both voluble and imaginative in the way he goes about entertaining those around him of whatever age.
Of the group, only REUBEN seems to be at odds with the carefree mood.
We are apprised of MORDECHAI’S respect for ELISHEVA and what he notes of her strength of character. His attitude to REUBEN is altogether different and emerges via the usual haze of sarcasm.
Act Two
Late afternoon the following day
Lights Up. Enter ELISHEVA and the CHILDREN carrying bags, buckets and spades etc. They are closely followed by UNCLE MORDECHAI. He puts down a flask of water on the table and hangs his jacket on the back of a chair.
MAGDALENA: I don’t want to take off my shoes.
MORDECHAI: It’s a stone floor, leave them on if you want to. Uncle Mordechai, he brought back some of the beach in his daffy little socks. (the children giggle) Why are you laughing? At my socks? (in mock indignation) You want to mock an old man for dressing in a civilised way? This is an outrage! Mama, these are your children. Do something. (to the children) I’ll have you know my socks are everything that I would have them be. You see that? It’s a Jermyn Street shirt. And my socks are from the Burlington Arcade. Pah! What would you know of a Gentleman’s attire. Really! (reacting to something) Oh! I just felt the sand move a little bit further down my shoes! Maybe it isn’t sand at all. Mordechai, you big lug, it’s a family of termites! (the children laugh again). Perhaps my Gentleman’s socks are like an oversized tent for a family of termites on holiday. Either that or they’re meeting at the Town Hall to discuss the weather. (a slight pause) Ah! Children, children, did we have a wonderful time or not? (a slight pause) Such a hot day! (he mops his brow with a silk handkerchief) (contd).
ENTER REUBEN LUMBERED WITH AN ASSORTMENT OF BAGS AND TOYS.
MORDECHAI: (contd). You looked like you were coping, Reuben, so we went ahead.
REUBEN: (setting down the bags) Children, house rules, please. Shoes where they should be.
MAGDALENA: Uncle Mordechai told us we could leave our shoes on.
MORDECHAI: (to Reuben) Since when did you become such a bore? (to Elisheva) My brother Ishmael - his father - was just like this. Reuben, let the children off-the-leash a little. Mmm? And if the hallway looks un-Germanlike because of it, then you can always blame me. They are so alike. My brother Ishmael, put him in a room with a musty carpet and a coat off its hook and he could moan about it for hours – until your ears bled. It was like training to sit through Wagner’s Ring Cycle! Isn’t that right, Reuben? Everything had to be just so. It was more than a fixation. Fixation? It was like a fetish! The dog was not allowed a hair out-of-place. (Elisheva laughs) No, but it’s true. “Order and example,” he would say, “Order and example.” The two great watchwords of his life. Watchwords? They were like a mantra! And you know what, I’m the one touted as the family eccentric. Can you believe that? As if you can dole out life from behind the counter of some well-painted shop on the High Street. My brother Ishmael - with the pomaded hair that I can still smell, and the beefy shine on his shoes that he put there himself - for no servant could do it quite as well - my brother had the meaning of such words under lock-and-key. He really did. (stooping to relate such to the children). The inside of his head was a series of immaculate, bare rooms, I think. “Ishmael,” I said, “go for a walk once in a while - in your head….Step onto the grass, won’t you…..Find a hay meadow and roll in it!” “Not this!” I said, “Not this!” (to Elisheva) I mean, who wants to measure out their life with a dessert spoon, really? Though for him, a dessert spoon would have been too big - the same as a shovel, I think. He would need something smaller like a demitasse. Ugh! This German obsession of leaving your shoes in the hall - you even have to do it as a guest - especially as a guest. And at the end of it you feel like a monkey-in-a-silk-shirt! Give it a little air, Reuben, for my sake. Won’t you? Delightful scamps that they are, let them do as they please for once. At least for an hour – before I take the rug-beater to both of them! (contd).
REUBEN FISHES FOR A TOWEL FROM ONE OF THE BAGS. HE WIPES THE PERSPIRATION FROM HIS FACE.
MORDECHAI: (contd). (to the children). There, I fixed it for you. Now do as good children and scuttle off to your rooms, before I make you wash my hat – inside and out. (the children pull a face and exit) (contd).
MORDECHAI GOES AND PUTS HIS ARM AROUND
ELISHEVA.
The three adults settle into conversations based around the latest family gossip and MORDECHAI expands on the various factors which, after a lifetime of travel, led to his eventually settling in England. He does so in answer to ELISHEVA’s questions, as she tries to eke out the information that might see them follow his example at a later stage.
MORDECHAI then asks about the political situation in Berlin and if it is really as volatile as the newsreels suggest. This question leads to an argument, with REUBEN trying to play down the fact that recently the Nazis had achieved notable electoral success nationwide.
ELISHEVA is hoping to co-opt her uncle into her way of looking at the threat posed by Hitler and cites the interests of the JACOB and MAGDALENA as being paramount.
MORDECHAI tries to imagine what it must be like for those Jewish families forced to leave their adopted homeland under duress.
ELISHEVA: I’m telling you, the children could be dogged by prejudice for years to come! A path through life could be denied them!
REUBEN: This morbidity of yours is what will ultimately hold them back. Hitler….the perturbations he has caused….will one day have an end. Why don’t you listen to me? The exhortations….the vitriol….everything that has fanned out from the beer halls will reach its high-watermark….and then recede. It will flow back under the doors of the Hofbrauhaus and every other drinker’s den where he has made his mark. This make-believe world of his….Wagner, Wotan, Siegfried….shield-maidens with braided hair….blacksmiths who are also dwarves….You are telling me that Germany’s future lies there? In that? In him?
ELISHEVA: Can you believe this, Uncle, what I have to put up with? Everything must pass beneath a microscope in Reuben’s world - or what hope is there?
A PAUSE
MORDECHAI: How they must feel it….our pitiful tribe….to so adapt….to thrive….in every way to thrive….and at the end….as bona-fide Germans not to have their identity honoured but rather unpicked….everything pulled to ash ….Their last point of contact an embarkation hut temporarily assembled on the harbour-side….our tribe, our Jewish neighbours ordered into line by some fat, wearisome official….Berlin - what was Berlin - part of their familiar selves - a figment only. What had been comfortable….what they had called their own….between the Rhine and Oder….what was in their history….the very place which housed their Jewish souls….implausibly adrift. Can’t you just see them? Being ushered forward one-by-one….the emigrants with their depleted smiles….expressions hollowed out by the unfairness of it all….availing each other of their terrible stories….and the cold wind off the open sea….everywhere the stink of wet rope….of sodden wood….of oil and sacking….the iridescent sheen on the water….small children….small children waved up the gangway on their own….a boarding pass pinned to their lapel….older relatives with canes who need assistance on the steep ascent….and the parents in their greatcoats following behind. Can’t you see it? I can see it. Berlin must seem like the husk of a city….at one time home to one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand of us….a third of all the Jews in Germany. And now? Who knows how many? That Austrian….that piece of snake’s piss needs destroying….He’s put the world on notice….he cannot work from compromise….the very notion is abhorrent to him. The sort of coruscating verve he brings to every speech….it carries over in a way that mortifies one….at least to start with….and then the loathing starts and with the loathing….the mischief….I see it on the newsreels in the cinema….I sit there in the darkened auditorium and I want to yell at the screen, “I’ve seen a photograph of you in Lederhosen, Adolf. You’ll need a sharp stick to scratch your behind in those things!” Even the political journalists used to think of him as a novelty act - not anymore. The man - the myth - has seen off all his doubters….and he’s done so by what….by pouring out his soul in public….so that now the joke is on us.
REUBEN: You have to place him in context. The Nazis are like a bath with both taps running and the plug pulled. Seventy per cent of them are said to be ex-communists.
MORDECHAI: I heard that too. And that the garb they wear - the brown shirts - the whole bundle….this is from their earliest days….their very earliest days when they had little to no money. The uniforms had been planned for Germany’s colonial troops. Did you know that? But after the War ended, they were redundant issue….so they put them on the open market at a knock-down price. Quite a story. It wouldn’t have made it into any of Wagner’s operas - not that I can imagine.
REUBEN: In short, Uncle, I don’t think there is more to do than just wait. Hindenburg himself is not an Anti-Semite. There are people who advise him from a slew of different political persuasions….but none I vouchsafe to add are motivated by something so crude as racialism.
MORDECHAI grows more solicitous of ELISHEVA’S mental and emotional welfare as he realizes how much the political agitations in Berlin are affecting her.
To offset the strain of such, he asks her to speak openly of things she has encountered and heard.
ELISHEVA recounts a story of when she was accosted in the street by three drunken Nazis.
She speculates on what might occur should the situation not improve and restates her fears for the children and what any fatal hesitancy on their part may mean for the family’s future.
MORDECHAI grows more solicitous of ELISHEVA’S mental and emotional welfare as he realizes how much the political agitations in Berlin are affecting her.
To offset the strain of such, he asks her to speak openly of things she has encountered and heard.
ELISHEVA recounts a story of when she was accosted in the street by three drunken Nazis.
She speculates on what might occur should the situation not improve and restates her fears for the children and what any fatal hesitancy on their part may mean for the family’s future.
ELISHEVA: (with agitation) (contd). I can’t sleep at night for what oppresses me. The night of this same incident….I couldn’t sleep….I went into the children’s bedroom and simply gazed at them….as if I was doing so through iron bars. I could have been there an hour….I sat against the wall just looking at them….looking….I saw them twitch….and turn down the corner of the blanket….I heard one of them murmur something….I wanted to lie with my babies….as if….as if such a moment might be the last I ever had….I felt such a pang in my heart….I was so full and empty at the same time…. 'Tomorrow I will make a list of things we need for the journey,’ I thought. Things we need….to put an end to all the guesswork….So, that in leaving here….leaving there….leaving Berlin….I can start replenishing the future.’….Uncle, I ache with the injustice of it all….I feel such bitterness….Is it wrong, I ask, to hate those who hate what I am?….I want, demand some recompense for never being heard….I want them to know what it is to be isolated….and to tell them I will not be cowed!
MORDECHAI advises them to leave Berlin immediately.
He states that he can almost certainly help smoothe their emigration to England. Via his contacts in the City of London, and working outside of normal channels, he believes he could secure them a life away from their present difficulties and do so at short notice.
REUBEN thanks him but declines the offer.
Eventually, and after more deliberations on the matter, MORDECHAI declares he must return to London. Before he goes, he urges REUBEN to think very deeply on the matter and to do what is best for his family.
After he leaves, REUBEN and ELISHEVA lapse into more recriminations.
But then, REUBEN has a change of heart.
MORDECHAI’S words have left a deep impression on him and he all but collapses into a moment of profound self-realisation.
ELISHEVA: My Reuben.
MORDECHAI advises them to leave Berlin immediately.
He states that he can almost certainly help smoothe their emigration to England. Via his contacts in the City of London, and working outside of normal channels, he believes he could secure them a life away from their present difficulties and do so at short notice.
REUBEN thanks him but declines the offer.
Eventually, and after more deliberations on the matter, MORDECHAI declares he must return to London. Before he goes, he urges REUBEN to think very deeply on the matter and to do what is best for his family.
After he leaves, REUBEN and ELISHEVA lapse into more recriminations.
But then, REUBEN has a change of heart.
MORDECHAI’S words have left a deep impression on him and he all but collapses into a moment of profound self-realisation.
REUBEN: (utterly dismayed) The old man is right, we have to leave Berlin….
ELISHEVA: (attempting to pacify him) Reuben….
REUBEN: Everything has to go. The life we built….the expectations….the future….everything….
ELISHEVA: Reuben….
REUBEN: We have to leave it all behind….
ELISHEVA: Reuben, please calm down….
REUBEN: Why? That’s it! That’s everything gone! All available options shrunk back to just the one road out. We - the Jews - have to wander off the map again….
ELISHEVA: For a time, Reuben. We don’t even know for how long.
REUBEN: How will we sustain ourselves away from what we know? Think, Reuben, think. I’ll find some job. I’ll teach. Yes, that’s right, I’ll teach. I’ll do what I have to. Let them do what they will….I will do more. (announcing such loudly) The Herschels are set by some new course. You might as well be told. We won’t give up. We won’t let you take what is ours. You hear me! Nazis! Out with your figmented world! Out with your barbarity! Filthy Nazis! Filthy nationalist swine! Listen to me! Listen to the Jew! You are the dregs! You are the scum! You have no future! Freedom! Freedom! I, Reuben Herschel the Jew will watch your laughable fantasies evaporate! Others of this world shall foul your temples just as readily as you foul theirs! You hear me! (contd).
PAUSE
REUBEN: (contd). (tearfully) Why do they hate us? What have we done? (contd).
PAUSE
REUBEN: (contd). (with quiet determination) Let’s do it. Let’s abscond from that great madness of theirs.
PAUSE
ELISHEVA: You’ve changed your perspective but not overnight.
REUBEN: I knew it was over months ago. I just didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know, Elisheva, the cost of….picking your way through what is right….it’s exhausting.
ELISHEVA: But, Reuben, we shall be together as a family. (a slight pause). When? Reuben, I don’t want to act in a precipitate way but earlier is better. It’s July now. We could try to work towards the month of September - the start of the academic year. It would require a prodigious feat of organisation, but why not? We two are capable enough working together. If it was possible for you to take up some post by then….teaching German Literature….perhaps at Oxford or Cambridge. Mordechai would help you to secure some opening….and he would use his contacts to speed up the process so that everything was settled early. We could initiate the process in Berlin - immediately. We could - if we wanted - start planning the move right away.
REUBEN: (catching at some new idea) No, we’ll do it differently. Let’s use our being here - right now. We are where we plan to be - in England.
ELISHEVA: What do you mean?
REUBEN: I mean, there might be more sense in not going back at all.
ELISHEVA: But organising everything from this far away….It isn’t possible is it?
REUBEN: Why not? The family can organise the move. I’ll even pay them. I’m not sure what the legality of such is, but let’s take Mordecai at his word. If he can work his contacts so that in some way our situation is resolved outside of the normal channels….why not? We don’t need housing. We will - at the outset - stay with Mordechai. We don’t as a family require any kind of financial plug. We can live well enough on what we have. We can do so for years. No handouts….just a starting gun. If Uncle Mordecai thinks such is feasible, again, I say, why not? With his good offices, with people who he knows are of some influence in the academic sector….I could what….arrange the first round of interviews within the next few weeks.
ELISHEVA: Are you sure?
REUBEN: I don’t want to go back….or at least not yet.
PAUSE
ELISHEVA: (with sudden eagerness) We can catch him at the train station….Reuben!
REUBEN: No, I want to write to him. I’ll put together a long letter - tonight.
ELISHEVA: Reuben, he’ll stand by us. I know he will. He’ll do his utmost to give us a fair chance. (contd).
PAUSE
ELISHEVA: (contd). (tearfully) Thank you. (a slight pause) And you didn’t need your notebook. No lists. Reuben, this is what they call ‘progress.’
REUBEN: I think I heard Mrs Peters return from town. I’m going to ask her to look after the children for an hour.
ELISHEVA: You mean now?
REUBEN: Yes. I want to take you for an ice-cream.
ELISHEVA: What, the two of us?
REUBEN: Yes, we’ll go for a walk on the beach - you and I.
ELISHEVA: I should like that, Reuben.
REUBEN: Well, the children want to eat. Why don’t you set the table for them and make a tea for Mrs Peters. (a slight pause) My Elisheva.
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