CRYSTAL STAR - segment 08

well, I decided to publish my one-act play CRYSTAL STAR in piece, and in the manner of "last in, first out". Dear Reader, if you'll look through the following articles, you'll find the concluding segments I've published. It takes only a little investigation to discern that I've published the last few pages in the concluding segment. In the segment before that, I've published the few preceding pages. The text in green is meant to explain how I'm publishing this play.

And as for the text in blue, it serves as a memorial to the article that previously appeared in this slot. My five doughnuts to somebody's three, it'll take the hierarchy of our right wing five years after the departure of "dum'ass botch" from the White House to feel the sting of the following "bon mot". Wood'ja (?) buh'leave! It's so obvious to the point of trivial among the Pygmies, who inhabit the edges of the Congolese jungle. Anyway, here's the bon mot for your edification, dear Reader,
. . . . better a smart enemy than a stupid friend ...

And the text in brown comes from pages 70 thru 79 of my one-act play, speficifally, CRYSTAL STAR:

Scene 6 - page 70 -

Volumna: ____ Officer, you got to do something, you see there's this - - ***(Excited as all out hell, and barely coherent.)***

Rabbi: ____ Schweigen! Fraulein Cliothal, this is official business, and it must be handled conscientiously, and according to form. Surely, you can perceive that. Moreoever, only I am qualified to tend to this business. Doch, there is no reason for you to get excited.

Volumna: ___ No reason? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? *** UNREAL ***

Rabbi: ____ Schweigen, Fraulein.

Beige: ____ Rabbi Gottesmann, what could be upsetting her? Tell me.

Rabbi: ____ Mein Herr Offizier, surely, it has not escaped your notice that my guest is a young American girl in an unfamiliar country. Very likely, she's heard wild camp fire stories about the Volspolizei. Is it a mystery why she should be excitable"

Beige: ____ Of course no, Rabbi, of course not.

Volumna: ____ I've got damn good reason to be excited.

Beige: _____ Schweigen, Fraulein! One more outburst like that, and Schultrein will give you one across the lips.

______ *** (After audience re-action) ***

______ *** (Shakes his head.)*** Americans. No respect for their elders. Their women use such language.


Scene 6 - page 71 -

Volumna: ____ *** (Makes fists and stomps floor.) ***

Rabbi: _____ *** (Smiles a bit.) *** You must learn to be cool and collected. This I must tend to. *** (Turning to Beige.) *** Mein Herr Offizier, may I have a few moments with you in private.

Beige: ____ Ja. *** (Goes off with Rabbi to spot near the door.) ***
____ *** (After talking ten seconds.) *** Schultrein, kommen Sie mit mir. Wir haben hier jetzt soeben nichts mehr zu tun.
_____ Ja, my good rabbi, I am right. You would. You would indeed. Auf Wiedersehen.

********* (After the two cops are gone and the door's closed, there's Joachim.) ****

Volumna: ____ I thought you wanted to turn that brute in. Why didn't you do it? You crazy idiot, why didn't you do it?

Rabbi: _____ Whom she loved and touched with forgiveness, how could I turn over to death. Just like that. Correct and proper procedures must be followed.

Voumna: _____ Did Joachim just happen to meet your price. *** (Good old American cynicism.)***

Joachim: ____ Miss Clothal, that has become immaterial.

Volumna: ____ "Immaterial"? How do you know it's not immaterial to him? Mein Herr, you've got to be loaded with talent. You must read minds as well as amputate hands.

Joachim: _____ It is immaterial because I shall meet death tonight.


Scene 6 - page 72 -

Volumna: ___ What?

Joachim: ___ My dear rabbi, you are right it is all over for me. Maybe, even now, you could hide me. Even so, I've grown tired of the chase. Nor shall I live in fragments. I shall die a whole man. Spirit demands it. No more shall I race as sport for fools and buffoons. Spirit demands it.

Rabbi: ____ What demand do you have of me?

Joachim: ____ Tell me the truth. The dead have the right to the truth. What makes you believe that Helushka forgave me?

Rabbi: ____ Very well, you shall be told the truth, and you shall bear it in a manner befitting you. May it give meaning to these last few moments of your existence, your journey on earth.

Joachim: ____ Bitte, Rabbi.

Rabbi: _____ The Kristalsterns fled to Holland. There, some time later, Helushka fell in love. She and her chosen, after a fitting courtship and proper arrangements, married. Quite happily, I understand.

Volumna: ____ How does that forgive Joachim?

Rabbi: ____ It was not easy but I managed to get a letter from Helushka. She wrote that for the sake of the happness she shared with her beloved - - that is how she wrote it - - for the sake of the happiness she shared with her beloved, she wanted no hatred in her heart. As hatred was expelled, the love she had once felt for Joachim returned. Where there is love, there must be forgiveness.


scene 6 - page 73 -

Volumna: ____ That's beautiful.

Rabbi: ____ It came in a new form, however. There is love one has for those free to love, and another for those in prisons remote from love.

Joachim: ___ And what about Helushka herself? What was her fate?

Rabbi: ____ Better than yours or mine. *** (Catches my deeper meaning.)***

Joachim: ___ *** (Catches it.) ***

Volumna: ____ Through all that, how did she manage with her marriage. I mean. What helped her to cope and find the emotional security to relate to her husband.

Rabbi: ____ Thanks to some very well forged papers, she even felt safe enough to be grateful for the spark of new life she bore in her body. Yes, she felt this gratitude deeply, even in those circumstances of horror and despair.

Volumna: ___ *** (Blithely.) *** Was her first a boy or a girl?

Rabbi: ____ She was somebody's wife, but before she could become somebody's mother,
*** (Accusation.) *** your SS comrades . . . your SS comrades . . .

Volumna: ____ Oh, my God. *** (Catches on.) ***

Joachim: ____ I was a lieutenant in the WAFFEN SS. *** (That's his defense.) ***

Scene 6 - page 74 -

Rabbi: ____ *** (As if that makes a difference.) *** After the little country of Holland had been over-run, the SS had to contend with underground resistance. They carried out a series of surprise searches.

One night, while Helushka was in her bath, a platton of SS stormed her house. They conducted their search methodically and efficiently. Just as the SS were about to leave, one of the troopers for a joke tried to yank Helushka's bathrobe off from behind.

After they had found Joachim's handiwork on her shoulder, they first shot her husband before her eyes. Even though she had fainted and her body showed signs of pregnancy, they carried her up to her bed. There they raped and finally strangled her.

Joachim: ____ Mein Gott.

Volumna: ____ *** (Too horrorified to speak and it shows.) ***

Rabbi: ____ It was not easy for me to uncover those details.

**** (Joachim bounds for the door. Before he can open it, the rabbi catches him by the shouler.) ***

Rabbi: _____ Listen to Joachim, just a little while ago, you offered me - -

Joachim: ____ *** (Shoves the rabbi back) *** Hah! No old Jew fox fails to snatch at eggs or gold. Ja, one must be practical.

Rabbi: ____ *** (Shakes his head.) *** Death no more a door away, yet you persis in willful blindness. I should not be astonished. however. An old Jew such as I has seen too much for astonishment and ah, . . .

scene 6 - pg 75 -

Joachim: ____ You want to avoid the word "disappointment". One must be diplomatic.

Rabbi: ____ I ask your pardon.

Volumna: ____ *** (Mean.) *** You think you're going to take it with you?

Joachim: ____ I am going to take it with me outside that door. The Volkspolizei play their role of hounds well. They must suspect I came through that door. Somewhere out there in the shadows, they wait, their guns ready. The Volkspolitizei will search my corpse, find the money and count it mark by blood-stained mark.

Volumna: ____ It sounds gruesome.

Joachim: _____ *** (Grimaces.) *** The Volkspolizei know almost to the mark how much I have. If any money is missing, they will look for it here. Can you imagine what questions they could put to this strange rabbi? Just for a start, they may ask the both of you why was not my presence here reported.

Volumna: ____ Oh, my.

Joachim: ____ I will take the money, and the Volkspolizei will have it and the body -- case closed.

Volumna: ____ That's one way to look at it.

Rabbi and Joachim: *** (What can you expect from Americans?) ***

Scene 6 - page 76 -

Joachim: ____ Besides, my good rabbi, you are a pitiful old man, and you are crazy. What good could any of the money do you?

Rabbi: ____ If you could have given me the money, I would have used it to fulfill what is now the purpose of my final years.

Joachim: ____ How much chicken soup do you want to drown me in?

Rabbi: ____ Bitte, for a while, let us not have to endure your gallows humor. There is no need for you to play act American tough.

Joachim: ____ Entschuldigung! *** (Well, pardon me!) ***

Rabbi: _____ One night, it came to me in a dream about what I should do.

Joachim: ____ *** (Rolls his eyes up.) ***

Rabbi: _____ You think "stale chicken soup". No matter, I still had the dream, and ever since I have gathered stone and mortar. *** (Indicates same on floor.) *** With these I shall build a fountain near what our municipal authorities call "The Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of Socialism for Soccer and Other Worthwhile Recreation."

Volumna: ____ That's quite a mouthful.

Rabbi: _____ The local people are practical, however. They call it "dead Jew" park. It is where Isaac died.

Volumna: ____ Rabbi Gottesmann, I know now you never would have asked Joachim for the money, had not this fountain some very special importance to you.


Scene 6 - page 77 -

Rabbi: ____ Bless you, Volumna.

Volumna: ____ Please, Rabbi, what is the reason why you're going through all this trouble, getting together the materials and, I'm sure, the thousand and one official permits.

Rabbi: _____ I told the Communist municipal officials that I wanted to prove that I am not afraid to fly over water.

Volumna: ____ But this is a stupid reason.

Rabbi: _____ So, what can you expect? Most government officials refuse to believe any other kind.

Joachim: ____ Did the dream give you a reason?

Rabbi: ____ Not just the reason, but also the design. Every so often, some one steeped in the spirit of or Truth will pass through this little town. This someone will look at the fountain, then see and then know that this fountain is a monument.

Joachim and Volumna: _____ A monument?!

Joachim: _____ What need does Helushka have for a monument?

Rabbi: _____ Those she left behind have the need. Perhaps, I should regale you with a heroic speech about how this fountain will proclaim the power and the glory of the indomitable human spirit. So, is it proclaimed here in the lair, the Heimatland, the charnal house of the Wolf Prince.

Joachim: ____ What kind of speech do you want to make? What do you want to proclaim?

Scene 6 - page 78 -

Rabbi: ____ "Proclaim"? That is a word for titanic tasks and other things that shake the world. I want this to be only whispered. No matter the horror and the despair, the best of the heart, that tender radiance shall endure.

Volumna: ____ That's beautiful.

Joachim: _____ It endures through the grace of your God, I suppose. How strange are those companions - - life and death. To hear such things so close to the edge of death. That deep chasm.

***** (Joachim is looking into the woods and watching the boy Joachim walk into a spot light that went on at the words "deep chasm". The boy sings SOME STAR-LIT NIGHT and then walks off stage behind the tree.) *********

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Volumna: _____ Joachim, think back. Why didn't you just do what she asked you to do?

Joachim: _____ I want to take that with me into the chasm.

Rabbi: _____ Joachim, you are a dead man. The living have the right to the truth from the dead.

Joachim: ____ As you say, Rabbi Gottesmann, if I had not refused Helushka's request, I would have had to witness, and so be part of the debasement of my life's most precious jewel. That thought I could not bear. *** (Pause.) *** *** (Puzzlement.) *** How can such things happen? How can such terrible thoughts come from such tender emotions?

Scene 6 - page 79 -

* * * * * * * (And the siren wails again.) * * * * * * * *

Joachim: _____ Miss Cliothal, my death has drawn near. I am a man, and there are thoughts one man can share only with another man. Bitte, let me speak for a few moments with the rabbi.

Volumna: _____ Of course. *** (After the rabbi and Joachim go near the door to talk) ***
*** (She sings WARM DREAMS.) ***

**** (At the conclusion of the song, she moves toward the men, who in turn go a little toward her.) ***

Joachim: ____ *** (Breaking the silence.) *** Rabbi Gottesman, I have a small favor to ask of you.

Rabbi: ___ I am at your service.

Joachim: ____ I was born into a tradition that places a high value on the relics of its saints and martyrs - - the bits and pieces of their lives, their bodies. *** (Takes out dagger and offers it rabbi, grip first.) *** Bitte, take this as a relic of Helushka's life.

Rabbi: ____ *** (Accepts the dagger.) ***

Joachim: ____ Rabbi Gottesmann, incorporate it into the monument, that fountain.

Rabbi: ____ So shall it be done, Joachim.



Copyright (C) 1978 by Albert A.M. Stella