JOHANN. [ON THE LAST CHIME] Time’s up. Switch off that ear-trumpet, Cornelia, will you? And please light up the stage.

CORNELIA. [CALLING] Time for coffee! Johann is waiting.

JOHANN. We can skip coffee. Come, let’s start. It’s past two already. Has the platform been set?

CORNELIA. In the hall-way this Sunday. There’s still plenty of refurbishment to be done in the sitting room.

JOHANN. [AFFECTIONATELY] If only you could render it as suitable as your house uniform.

CORNELIA. Pray, you always wanted me to look smart.

JOHANN. With small laced apron over a black miniskirt, ever neatly balancing the household on the axis of your hair bun which you keep fit and tight with a cord reaching down perpendicularly to the apron fastening-string on your back.

CORNELIA. I only do it to add weight to your masterly ego, sir.

JOHANN. You do, indeed?

CORNELIA. As when I fondle that graying goatee of yours jutting over an old cardigan whose lower button you always leave open as an ostentatious sign of opulence. You need a shave, Johann, and besides I’ll take care of a more modest present of attirement this Christmas. It will make you look younger.

JOHANN. Er… the stage, have you lit it up?

CORNELIA. Ah, changing subject! You mean the lantern candle hanging down the red velevet roof?

JOHANN. Alright, I can see you with smouldering wick in hand and smelling it too. Pity we cannot use the spot light today. We shall miss the gilded columns and balustrade.

CORNELIA. We can place your desk-lamp beside the three creaky steps. It will also shed light on the box floor…

JOHANN. Stage platform, my dear Cornelia. The gilding and the mahogany, they all give a sense of majesty. The action taking place on stage must be seen to carry weight based on history. Now off to a belated start.

CORNELIA. [CALLING] We’re starting off, Martinus. Katharina. It’s well past two and I’m off to the kitchen preparing coffee. [CHANGING TO GRETA’S VOICE, BAWLING FROM AFAR] Four quarters and two hours chime, and we’re all in for a good playtime.

JOHANN. Mother, please, we’re about doing serious business. What would you have said had I denigrated father? After all the play is culled from his notes.

GRETA. Those notes, and the nights he spent writing them, away from me.

MARTINUS. If we only had some peace and quiet in this household. I cannot stand it any longer, ever in a running state of rumpus with grandma Greta clattering from her second-floor room.

KATHARINA. You see, we’re back, dad.

JOHANN. Where are you coming from, son? Wasn’t it at table I last saw you having your dessert? And please don’t waive your hand at me to make a point and put your ruffled hair straight.

MARTINUS. After lunch we walked out of the back door, father …

KATHARINA. … after staying a bit in the back garden, there to hold hands and murmur a few words, dad …

JOHANN. To buy it all, my dear Katharina!

KATHARINA. Yes we did, father, Martinus and me. We put a pair of skates on and ran round and round the pond, holding hands as if dancing on an ice-rink.

JOHANN. Apart and conjoint, I imagine, embroidered with hugs and kisses!

CORNELIA. [IN GRETA’S GRUFF, FAR-AWAY VOICE] Away with your hugs and kisses. Or are you jealous, perhaps? When shall I be getting my coffee?

JOHANN. Come, let’s get started. I will narrate today.

MARTINUS. Are we still starting off in the middle of things?

JOHANN. I have written an introduction ...

MARTINUS. which takes you out of the frying pan and soft-lands you into the fire ...

JOHANN. Which rather creates a sixteenth century atmosphere, a school for novices ...

MARTINUS. with large flat books and Gregorian chant ...

CORNELIA. [ENTERING WITH RATTLING TRAY] Coffee is served, don’t let it go cold.

JOHANN. Mother, have you served her?

CORNELIA. [SLYLY] Only a short while before your goodselves, Sir.

MARTINUS. [MUTTERS] Hmph! We’re at it again.

CORNELIA. There are still some chores to attend to in the kitchen. Please do call me when you need a role.

JOHANN. Ah, her good thoughts about my dear mother. Cornelia wishes her so well!

MARTINUS. [OFF-BEAT MUTTERING AGAIN] Oh, constantly entering and exiting the room while attending to everybody’s needs and making sure her everlasting presence is felt.

KATHARINA. Off with it! The prologue first, and no further arguments.

JOHANN. [CREAKING STEPS WHILE ASCENDING THE PLATFORM] Why are you in such a hurry all so suddenly? Where shall you be entertaining yourself this afternoon?

MARTINUS. Leave her alone, father. Your times, a short distance away from here, there used to be a commoner’s dance hall. Do you recall?

JOHANN. That was ages ago. [SERIOUS STANCE] Business now. Here we go!

MARTINUS. Sit still and behold the oracle.

JOHANN. [AS IF THUNDERING OUT] ‘A history of the life and actions of the very reverend man, Doctor Martin Luther, of a true Doctor of Theology, a document in good faith by Philip Melancthon.’

MARTINUS. [CATCHING UP WITH JOHANN] … a document in good faith by Philip Melancthon. It’s like we’re walking to a funeral pile, dad. It’s too dragging.

JOHANN. [MORE AGILE] ‘These incantations are being added to the document by John Policarius on account of the benefits conferred …’

CORNELIA. [IN GRETA’S VOICE] ‘… through Luther upon the whole world.’ [BOISTEROUS LAUGHTER]

MARTINUS. [WHISPERING] Put your knuckles down from over your head, Kate, and stop pacing around like a decrepit guard. It will soon be over for us two.

JOHANN. ‘… through Luther conferred on all humanity.’ I have changed the script, mum, this time around. Your turn, Katharina. Get on stage and continue the narration. And tenderly, please.

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE] Ah, so he’s stepped into his father’s shoes at last.

KATHARINA. What does she mean?

MARTINUS. Come on, Kate, coddle up your voice!

JOHANN. Ready? Hm, that curtsey was out of place. Do steady up and stop jittering.

KATHARINA. Go, go-go-go … [CHANGE TO TENDER VOICE] ‘There has been an old standing family of commoners, by the name of Luther, widely spread in the district of Mansfield. Martin’s parents originally resided in the town of Eisleben, where the child was born, until they moved to the town of Mansfield where father Hans acted as Magistrate and was, because of his integrity, endeared by all good men.’

JOHANN. Alright Kate, skip over to the mother and child piece – one paragraph down.

KATHARINA. Sure, Sir, I will even if you want me to get to the end of the scene. ‘In his mother Margaret there came together a bunch of honest wifely virtues, mainly exemplary virtue, and she answered me when I asked her several times about the time when her son was born, that he was born on the tenth of November after the eleventh hour at night, and that the name Martin was given to the child as the following day, when the child was brought through Baptism into the Church of God, was dedicated to Saint Martin.’

JOHANN. I have to put in a few words here what Hans must have felt that night. It adds to sentiment and dramatic effect.

MARTINUS. What were your feelings like when I was born, dad?

JOHANN. On with it, Katharina. His family history.

MARTINUS. [MURMURING] Sunday afternoon. How long shall it go on?

JOHANN. So you take a turn, son, and keep your mouth occupied.

MARTINUS. No need to get on the stage, dad. My weight does not add up to hers, sure.

JOHANN. The education piece.

MARTINUS. [PROCLAIMING VERY DRAMATCALLY] ‘When he had reached an age at which he was able to receive instruction, the parents trained their son Martin and took care that he could read letters, and he was taken still a young child to the grammar school run by the father of George Emilius who, being still alive, can bear truth to what is being said here.’

CORNELIA. [WITH GRETA’S VOICE] Very good writing indeed, Johann! Does this remind you of your father and all the midnight oil he burnt for you, cooking up books?

MARTINUS. What, dad? Never knew anything about this and I am all ears to hear real family stories.

JOHANN. Let’s keep family secrets to ourselves, mum. Don’t you know there are strangers around?

MARTINUS. I always thought life must be like a disc on that old gramophone player, dad, going round and round its own navel and bleating out the same old wailing notes. If we do not take care, Katharina, that may also be our lot.

MARTINUS. [EXASPERATED] We are off, dad.

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE, SHOUTS] Did anyone take my ear-trumpet, or have they taken my ears?

JOHANN. Where to?

MARTINUS. As far away from this madhouse as possible.

KATHARINA. Martinus!

MARTINUS. Come down from that box, Kate, and do mind your steps. Its somewhat slippery around here.

KATHARINA. See you, Johann, but only after you have folded up your august friar’s tale and forgotten about seeing me in Bora’s garb rearing six children. [DOOR SHUTS WITH HALF SLAM]

JOHANN. [CALLS] Is there anything I can do for you, mum?

JOHANN. Come out here for some fresh air, would you? How are you all? Theresa! The splendid young jewel my brother has been talking so much of.

THERESA. Hi, wonderful to see you! Friedrich you never told me Johann had such a big garden.

FRIEDRICH. [STAMMERING] I rather had more personal things to tell, dear.

JOHANN. And besides, Friedrich was sure his obliging brother would show you round.

FRIEDRICH. [STAMMERING] Up the garden path, as always, Johann?

THERESA. Fine. I appreciate the lack of formality with which you greet strangers. May I fetch you herald and trumpet to have it fully done?

FRIEDRICH. Come on, Tess. We only do it to show you’re welcome in the family. How is mum, Johann?

JOHANN. Clattering like a laying hen, her usual old self.

FRIEDRICH. Don’t you worry, Tess. Mother delights shaming me. [CALLING] Yes, mum, if you want it your way, my friend Theresa is here.

FRIEDRICH. Martinus and Katharina. Have they already gone? They look like being quite attracted to one another, Johann, don’t you think so?

JOHANN. Call them friends, or lovers, or whatever nowadays. They may yet get engaged and start taking life somewhat more seriously, perhaps.

FRIEDRICH. Perhaps. Your scepticism astounds me.

JOHANN. Then they might tie the knot, possibly, and take the tortuous uphill path from there. Like I did. But here I am today, take me or leave me. I enjoy living this life of make believe.

FRIEDRICH. Your condition goes way back in your life, Johann.

JOHANN. It was her majestic highness, up there on the second floor, who has bungled it all up for me.

FRIEDRICH. Poky nose she was, but she was mother. She had tried botching me up the same way.

JOHANN. Yet you have always been a cunning wolf. You had the upper-hand over her guile and made a safe exit.

FRIEDRICH. Or should I say a strategic retreat? Don’t you think I regret it? Often, after I had abandoned her, I would visit father unnoticed at his office lest I might meet her, until one day …

THERESA. [SOFTLY] … Until one day?

FRIEDRICH. … Until one day I was found out and given a verbal bashing.

JOHANN. And you would not forgive her that day ...

FRIEDRICH. Or rather say I have forgiven her, for my own peace of mind.

JOHANN. Anyway, all roads have always led to your being well.

THERESA. [AFFECTIONATELY] Oh, he can spin the world upside down on its axis and carry over its poles along the equator. Can’t you, darling?

FRIEDRICH. How is that? Do mind your words, Tess.

JOHANN. Come on, Friedrich, you must recall how the clerk in dad’s room had come to solace you in your distress. For how long had you been out with her before dubbing her a bore? Six months?

FRIEDRICH. Really? Are you so mindful?

JOHANN. Was it not through your opportune intervention that father had patched up with mother after you had seized her, let us say emotions?

FRIEDRICH. Emotions?

JOHANN. Or heart to be more exact.

THERESA. More of that, Johann, more. Quite entertaining teledrama this is. You never told me anything about this, Friedrich.

FRIEDRICH. Nor have you recounted all your foibles. Besides, we are still starting off, aren’t we?

THERESA. But you always said you intend renting and furnishing a flat in six months and then being wed?

FRIEDRICH. [TENDERLY] Whatever I say in between hugs melts away in thin air until I exactly know what is concealed under that coat of elegance aloft those squeegee heels.

JOHANN. Now please it’s a bit too early in your relationship to start quarrelling.

THERESA. Even within these family walls where words fly about like fireworks?

FRIEDRICH. Mother, how is she? I have not heard much from here today.

JOHANN. You may go and see her. Upstairs as normal. So long as she is not taking a nap.

THERESA. [PONTIFICATING] After lunch blood floods the guts and restrains the pressured ascent to the brain.

FRIEDRICH. Very poetic, indeed. Do you by chance intend usurping mother’s seat of enigma?

THERESA. Daft.

JOHANN. There will be a time I will make good use of you in my Ludher drama.

THERESA. Drama?

FRIEDRICH. The play he has been writing these past years.

JOHANN. You look like two philosophers in the Diet of Worms, taking each other’s guts out with your verbosity. I cannot imagine you living under the same roof in a year’s time. Deliver us, Lord, from evil …

FRIEDRICH. … and all of Greta’s iniquities.

JOHANN. That’s unfair. Dad used to say it, and you have no right to repeat it.

FRIEDRICH. Have you taken out copyright, perchance? I’m up and gone.

JOHANN. [MUTTERS] Down to Hades with you.

THERESA. This suburb looks quite peaceful? Not much like the rest of Erfurt.

JOHANN. Especially here. A very undisturbed area unless our football team wins the regional league or elections are round the corner.

THERESA. It’s the same all over, but then each place has its characteristics.

JOHANN. [MURMURING] Flowing down chasms to the bottomless pit.

THERESA. From Revelations, or nearly so. What can it be that drives you so … catastrophic, Johann?

JOHANN. The woman upstairs. Mother, and Friedrich’s, I presume.

THERESA. Presume? Can these things be presumed?

JOHANN. Why should I not be free to presume if Friedrich and myself have two such different characters. I have been continually worrying all my life while Friedrich enjoys living his life out on a trapezium, ever in constant flutter between highs and lows.

THERESA. Is that what you think of Friedrich?

JOHANN. [SARCASTICALLY] Perhaps you know him better? How long have you been together now?

THERESA. Enough to meet you and Martinus several times about Erfurt, but never at your and Friedrich’s house.

JOHANN. I could have invited you earlier around but my mother’s behaviour did not allow me to do so. I wanted some proof you are about taking matters seriously before starting to share this household’s secrets with an extraneous woman.

THERESA. In plain terms, you mean I’m still considered somewhat of an outsider. Did this apply to Katharina as well? Did she have to go through the same frustration?

JOHANN. Why not? Given the prevailing circumstances, perhaps a short while less than your goodself. After all, it is my son who is her partner. Her story around this house is different.

THERESA. Yet Friedrich’s mother lives here, does’nt she?

JOHANN. Most certainly. But let it be known that as a reasonable family man it is me, at least until now, who decides what happens in this house.

THERESA. Which really means you’re the man who calls the shots around here. Granted, but back to Friedrich. Do you really think he is rash about life?

JOHANN. [LOWERING HIS VOICE] If he were not, would he have left me alone with old mother upstairs? Not helping a single jot?

THERESA. Would you let him help? Even so, Friedrich cannot nurse her. There is Cornelia to do those chores.

JOHANN. Yet he can write out a cheque, can’t he? When I once told him to, he was in a rage. He shouted the pension was issued in my name, that I was given better education, that he had once helped father out when he had some trouble he wanted to conceal from mother... because, because and because.

THERESA. Because, as I see it, you are all so roped in to past times. But as for Friedrich, he still has some sense in his mind and can enjoy any given moment. True to say, he is younger than yourself, and when he is older he might fit into your shoes. But I still perceive that fudamental difference between you – there is something which no matter how hard I try, I still cannot explain.

JOHANN. Beware before committing yourself to him, lest you find a destructionist Faust ever ready to cast your life into a fissure of disappointment.

THERESA. [LAUGHING] There would certainly be no motive for such doing.

JOHANN. You attended university, no? I remember you well.

THERESA. But not me. I do not recall your face.

JOHANN. Certainly not. Once, before starting reading medicine, I attended the Junior College. I used to go out with a girl then, but when she got to know how poky-nosed mother was, she left me abruptly.

THERESA. Goes without saying. No one is fond foreseeing early problems.

JOHANN. Scarcely a week had passed since I started dating another girl. She later became Martinus’ mother. She was hell bent on getting married and her father had found me job on which I started off my career.

THERESA. And me, where do I fit in all this?

JOHANN. Year after year I kept espying that first girl I had from afar on graduation day, watching her pass by wearing toga in procession in university square. Soon afterwards she would change into jeans and rush out to the students’ picnic. I would imagine at sunset she would have taken part in the concluding riotous event out of town, pitting faculties one against the other. At least that was the tradition.

THERESA. And me?

JOHANN. Again? Soon about you. I recall the last time I saw her, she was wearing colours that day, being her doctor’s graduation day. It’s over I assumed, she would now be off somewhere hard to find. But then why should I care any longer. I then had a wife and child to care for. But then, all of a sudden, just as I was having these thoughts, I saw a young girl spritely rush by, free as the air. She was young and innocent, apparently a sophomore. When I first saw her in October finding her way through for the opening day ceremony, my attention had been drawn to her looking very shy and not knowing her place in that long standing line of students. It was the first time I had seen her but then, on graduation day, my girl ...

THERESA. Your girl? I didn’t expect that of you.

JOHANN. ...I saw that my girl had completely changed. She was dressed in tatters along with two other girls and as many lads were chasing them to the parking place from where a coach would take them off on a picnic at noon.

THERESA. And so? Is that all? It means I had already become an insider.

JOHANN. Did you enjoy the sunset event?

THERESA. No, I did not.

JOHANN. Why not?

THERESA. That day I had already made friends with one of those lads and we stayed on the coach watching the event from behind the sliding windows.

JOHANN. About a year later me and my family had gone to visit a friend who lives in the Thuringer Wald district. As the half-empty coach passed through a village in the mountains, I saw a girl standing, wearing long golden hair and black specs, Nana Mouskouri style. I could not erase that face from my memory.

THERESA. More of that. I am all ears.

JOHANN. Waiting at the coach station along with her was a woman, her mother I presumed, with sombre face and watery eyes – she must have been weeping softly. There was also a man, her husband maybe, with a white tuft of hair patching his balding head, holding a luggage in one hand and supporting the girl by the arm with the other. They boarded the coach and the girl sat next to the mother who gave her a somewhat largish bag to hold on her lap, as if she had something to conceal ...

THERESA. Inside her?

JOHANN. Yes, inside her it must have been. They stopped some fifty kilometres on in the Thuringian forest, close to a hospice for mothers-to-be.

THERESA. [SUBMISSIVE] I had found respite in that place ...

JOHANN. I could imagine so.

THERESA. ... from people with biting tongues and beaming eyes. Times were different then

JOHANN. How long did you stay in that place?

THERESA. Three months pre-natal, six weeks post.

JOHANN. You have acted rightly in all circumstances.

THERESA. I feel honoured.

JOHANN. Better than having mangled and killed the child.

THERESA. There are couples who pine for children but remain childless …

JOHANN. … while others play tricks with nature not to have any.

THERESA. I had a stray mind at the time, I did not plan anything, and I do not regret it.

JOHANN. I do not judge you. You deserve all praise.

THERESA. [CHANGING SUBJECT ABRUPTLY] Your wife, what was her name?

JOHANN. Elisa. That is how I used to call her. It was the name I gave in my imagination to my first girl-friend. In reality her name was Elisabeta and I convinced her Elisa fit her just as much, albeit her father was not charmed by that name.

THERESA. So even you can conjure tricks, just like your brother. Does this run in the family?

JOHANN. It does and it doesn’t. It usually does if I find someone playing tricks on me earlier on. Her father had rushed me into marrying her. She was sickly and soon passed away.

THERESA. Poor soul, you must have gone back to your mother’s then.

JOHANN. Skin, bones and all.

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE]. Hurrah for Theresa, for she can manage two men at one go!

JOHANN. She looks like having taken a craze on you. Which means she has accepted you in the family.

THERESA. And had she not? What would have happened?

JOHANN. She would have persecuted you all your life and spoiled your engagement to Friedrich.

FRIEDRICH. Wow, a breath of fresh air. Mum looks alright. She has put TV on. She’s viewing the variety show.

CORNELIA. Give her time. She will soon take a sweet cat-nap.

THERESA. Churchill thrived on them during the war.

JOHANN. By the way, I had to phone the doctor.

THERESA. On a Sunday after lunch?

JOHANN. That’s the way he wants it. [EXITING, VOICE FADING] He’s so discontent with mother that he suggests the strangest of times when he can digest it all.

CORNELIA. [CALLING] Take care to jot down well the prescribed times, Johann, if you want the cocktail to have its effect some day.

THERESA. Is it long since Johann last called the doctor?

FRIEDRICH. About a week ago, this time. He said he would be visiting to see progress made.

THERESA. Johann is very much devoted to your mother.

FRIEDRICH. More than anyone can ever expect. She means all to him and he’s frequently phoning Cornelia from office to ask about her.

THERESA. To ask about her?

FRIEDRICH. His mind runs on her.

THERESA. Who, mother or Cornelia?

FRIEDRICH. [PAUSE] Both, I would say. At times I suppose our dear brother Johann must love caressing an undone hair-bun flowing to the waist.

THERESA. Downright jealousy.

FRIEDRICH. Could my brother have made such an impression on you?

THERESA. You are casting your fondling ways on him.

FRIEDRICH. That’s the way women act.

FRIEDRICH. Dare you!

FRIEDRICH. With pacific preludes to words bonding in clusters of mild thoughts like interlacing threads.

THERESA. [DETERMINATELY] How long has she and Johann been together?

FRIEDRICH. For quite some time now. Since the latter days of his wife. She was commissioned to administer her injections three times a day.

THERESA. How did Elisa put up with it all?

FRIEDRICH. It all fell on her suddenly. After the doctor diagnosed her illness she bravely endured it for a few weeks, as if nothing was gravely abnormal. Then she became bed-ridden for three months and was in need of constant nursing and Johann asked Cornelia, a state-registered nurse he knew around, whether she could help out in the circumstances.

THERESA. Yet she already had a job, didn’t she?

FRIEDRICH. [UNINTERRUPTED] Elisabet was very fond of Cornelia. They became very good friends rather verging on intimacy during that time and Cornelia made arrangements to work three consecutive shifts on her job and be free for two days during which she could attend to Elisabet. Besides that, she asked permission to use all her leave days.

THERESA. She was very loyal to her.

FRIEDRICH. Rather innocent, I would say. So much so that Elisabet little by little fed her plenty of information about Johann, sweetly conversing with her, about his acts and omissions, beliefs and fixations ...

THERESA. A planned handing over, perhaps?

FRIEDRICH. Eventually, that is how it turned out. She wished someone would take care of Johann and her son after she had crossed the bridge.

THERESA. The bridge?

FRIEDRICH. Leading to a land where time has no dominion. She kept harping on the same theme day and night.

THERESA. A bridge of all resemblances?

FRIEDRICH. The bridge had to be made of granite, a mineral able to withstand the tyranny of time.

THERESA. Science will be soon able to tell us more about time.

FRIEDRICH. Do you believe so?

THERESA. [UNDAUNTED] Tell me, Fred. Did she become ill all of a sudden?

FRIEDRICH. Some five months before crossing over she had stood at the edge of a grave watching her sister’s coffin being laid to rest.

THERESA. Poor girl.

FRIEDRICH. Up till that time she had not felt any illness. Soon, though, all her joints and limbs ached her terribly. It was all over her body except where the ilness really lay. It was a hectic time of running about doctors’ clinics and analysis labs. It was later explained that the nervous system ran through the whole body and that the site of the pain was not necessarily the site of the source of the pain. To cut a long story short, much time was lost in running about.

THERESA. Those days diagnostication was less technologically sophsticated.

FRIEDRICH. That was it. But why should I be telling you all this? I feel I am giving away too much.

THERESA. Your family is too reserved. Is mum having a nap?

FRIEDRICH. I would say so. If Cornelia is having a nap, then so should Greta. All the household spins on Cornelia’s axis. Don’t you hear her boisterousness? Juggling us about any way she likes.

THERESA. [GENTLY] Is that why you left home, Fred?

FRIEDRICH. Partly so. I could not face up to the infamous triangle set between mother, Johann and Cornelia. I could never square it up. I felt completely left out of their geometry.

THERESA. They must have created a new close-knit dimension among themselves, Johann with mother …

FRIEDRICH. And mother with Cornelia. Greta and Cornelia, they act just like one person, those two women.

THERESA. It must be mother again, she can’t stand Cornelia stealing away her son from her. Or possibly Cornelia taking to Elisabet’s instructions to the hilt. I am sorry for Johann, lying in the heart of it all …

FRIEDRICH. Or is it in the thick of it all? No. It is he who has driven us all mad.

THERESA. Come on, Fred. What has he ever done to have distressed you so? Anything having to do with some will, perhaps?

FRIEDRICH. It is not a matter of money. But then why should you show such interest in our affairs? You act on my mind like a fine maid at her embroidery.

THERESA. But there must be a time to talk over matters. We’re comfortable at this house under a roof and … alone. We rarely live in such environment. Home. Always on the run from restaurant to pub in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke, spiced food and alcohol. So why not talk, here and now.

FRIEDRICH. [RIGID] It’s raining outside.

THERESA. It’s little drops that fill in a stream and that is how we shall get to know each other. If … if as you say, we’re engaged to get married, or is that talk thin air?

FRIEDRICH. Thin air? You and your stylish look.

THERESA. That’s no more than a make-over to cover up the frustrations I’ve had in my life. Yet I am very happy today.

FRIEDRICH. How can it be?

THERESA. [NEARLY BURSTING IN TEARS] Because I have been accepted in a family, in spite of it being a blooming mad-house.

FRIEDRICH. How’s that, didn’t you receive any love from your family?

THERESA. As an only child dad and mum had given me all their affection, but I was rebellious and bothered them quite a deal.

FRIEDRICH. And they did not enjoy living to an old age. [EMPHATIC] You told me this.

THERESA. I was still young and stubborn.

FRIEDRICH. And not heeding their advice. Alright I understand that. It’s rather hard living off others’ experience. You must have it your own way first before accepting your vicissitudes as a personal experience.

THERESA. I regret having abandoned parents’ advice. I never knew before how hard it is to face people who have made me the subject of their talk.

FRIEDRICH. Why should they? You should have taken up politics and you’d see how differently you would have been treated. You would have dealt with your detractors with an iron fist and acquired the respect of any person sitting in front of a TV screen, hecklers excluded.

THERESA. Bulldozing people, you mean, marching straight on, undaunted? No, that’s not for me.

FRIEDRICH. Rumbling over anyone who stands in your way, holding your pennant high over past events.

THERESA. Why? Have you been delving into my past?

FRIEDRICH. We all do have a backdrop throwing light on our present drama.

THERESA. Really?

FRIEDRICH. Why should I be confined to size up a person only from her appearance?

THERESA. So what do you know about me?

JOHANN. [ENTERING, HUMPHING] The dose is up again. Three and two in the morning and an early bird before breakfast. One, one and one in the afternoon, definitely after lunch. And two, two and three in the evening, just before dropping off to sleep, no matter if she sits up again on her buttocks five minutes later. The pink, blue and small red pills. The big red one, like a rugby ball, in between the prescribed times, two a day, between lunch and dinner. Did you get me well?

FRIEDRICH. [WITH A SMILE] Anything for you, Johann?

JOHANN. Please, I am being very serious. If I forget any detail you should tell Cornelia about it.

FRIEDRICH. Wasn’t there a pen around, Johann?

JOHANN. I have scribbled a note but I am exasperated by this illness … er, my mother’s illness. I would not be surprised should I mislay the note. I usually only write important things, none else.

FRIEDRICH. Your life has been taken over by Luther. You have become victim to that pastor’s pious influence.

THERESA. Pastor?

FRIEDRICH. Pastor Erik from Denmark, he was on supply in a nearby church a few years ago.

THERESA. Which leads to this Sunday afternoon fare between pulpit and stage.

JOHANN. Earnest preaching must still be given to the practising faithful and they expect it. Protracted learned sermons as of yore.

FRIEDRICH. To the few remaining faithful.

JOHANN. I was told we should keep the authenticity of early times, despite all current social habits … and vices. Stable pylons, pillars of society.

THERESA. Right. You know your subject well. Tell me more. I had once attended lessons about the philosophy of religion.

JOHANN. Were you then told that faith is not religion, that only faith can save us. Paul wrote this to the Romans and Luther was well aware of it.

FRIEDRICH. Too much sophistry for me which I cannot take. I’m going to the pub round the corner to watch the match. They usually put up a big screen outside when town is playing.

THERESA. Is it ball or drink your’re out for? I would like to have a drink too.

JOHANN. Come on, Fred. You are leading Theresa into temptation. Let’s divert ourselves with some drama. The play is called Ludher, Tess, and I am writing it to take place in family reunions on Sundays and holidays, not to pass idle time back-biting each other and fellow neighbour.

FRIEDRICH. Buy that! How much demand was there for the script?

JOHANN. Get on the stage, Tess. Here’s a copy of the text. Your turn comes later, Fred.

FRIEDRICH. Many thanks. Much obliged. [MUTTERING] If I will be around …

JOHANN. We will do the tempest scene. Page five.

FRIEDRICH. It’s raining hard outside.

THERESA. Found it. Starts with ‘days of wrath’ at the top of the page.

VOICE ON RADIO: It’s four o’clock and here is a summary of the news …

MARTINUS. Damn. [CHANGES STATION, MORE POP MUSIC]

KATHARINA. Shut that thing off, Mart. We need to talk. And slow down please, you’re taking the wind out of my breath.

MARTINUS. Talk? About what?

KATHARINA. Mind that off-roader coming out of the side-road. We need talk about ourselves. Who we are.

MARTINUS. Beyond our surnames?

KATHARINA. Deep under the skin … [PANICKY] slow down … he’s driving on … Martin, he’s coming out …

MARTINUS. Damn, damn, damn … I had right of way … [BAWLING] Didn’t you see that stop sign? [PAUSE] Katharina, Katharina, are you alright?

KATHARINA. [MUTTERING] Mother … Johann … Where’s mum?

JOHANN. My mobile phone. I’ll take it. It’s Martin’s number. Hallo. Katharina? What’s wrong? You had an accident? Where? The cross-road before going uphill to the forest. Was it the other car’s fault? It came out of a side-road the breaks failed. Now listen to me, Katharina, calm down. Thank heavens, nothing’s wrong with you. Only a shock? That’s normal.

THERESA. Ask her if she needs help. I can drive around and fetch them.

JOHANN. Where is Martinus? Talking it out? I can imagine. Have you phoned the police? You have to, this is not a simple front-to-back bump. No matter what, unless you phone them up the blame may lie on you. Now look here, better if I come along to help you out. Wait for me and keep calm. I will bring with me a flasket of whisky, I bet you need it. Expect me soon. [CUTS OFF]

THERESA. How are they? Poor Katharina. How is she? I wonder whether she ever had an accident before. When I had my first accident I was really out of my mind. The shock of it all and passers-by eyeing you with pity in the middle of the road.

JOHANN. I’m off. Where’s my coat?

THERESA. [EXCITED] Mind your driving now, Johann, and please do call us when you’re there.

JOHANN. I should not think things are as bad, after all, and the tinkle of the coin will mend it all.

CORNELIA. You have been pacing up and down the garden like a dishevelled ghost. Don’t worry, Miss Tess. Martinus can drive just as fast as he knows how to crash. This must be his third or fourth since he first got behind the wheel.

THERESA. I am worried about not having heard from either of them. Must something be seriously wrong and they do not want to tell us about it?

CORNELIA. That’s the way Johann works. When he looks like jumbling up all, he ends up putting things straight in spite of his perplexed state of mind.

THERESA. Or perhaps he is acting not to trouble mum?

CORNELIA. Trouble mum! Believe me, there’s more trouble for me in anything he does than for Greta. She does not worry one tittle about anything.

THERESA. [HUSHING HER] Oh please, lower your voice or she might hear you. Tell me, Cornelia, don’t you think things are not as straight as they seem in this house? Johann looks like a big mystery to me, far from reckoning. What about you? In spite of his doings you are always at one with him.

CORNELIA. Is that what you think?

THERESA. Greta looks more like a ghost than a woman. She only appears to anyone Johann bids. Do pardon me, but I have to say this. It looks like a house where there is, [STUTTERING] or should I say seems to be, a whiff of, well, mental disorder, don’t you think so?

CORNELIA. A whiff? Oh gosh, unless Johann turns up, his pill will soon be overdue. And that will be bad for us all.

THERESA. Is it the red rugby ball?

CORNELIA. Oh yes ... how did you get to know about it?

THERESA. Was it not Greta that pill was prescribed to? That’s what the doctor told him, to take two between lunch and dinner.

CORNELIA. Two? Now listen to this, and keep it to yourself. The pills Greta takes she shares with Johann. You have to consider Johann and his mother act as one person, whatever that may mean.

THERESA. In taking pills too? Hey, I smell a rat.

CORNELIA. Smell? Sure not as smelly as vitamin pills. Those really stink.

THERESA. This play of his. Has it been going on for a long time?

CORNELIA. From about end September. He hibernates from that time till May. He believes Sunday should be passed at home, writing or acting, or both at one go. What’s important is that he stays home, and he loves it. He bids family or visitors to play a role in his ever unfolding drama, and passes the day polishing the script.

THERESA. Did the platform belong to the family? It looks fine old stuff.

CORNELIA. Definitely not. He had it made to bid and measure at a carpenter’s in a side-street down the road. He turned him crazy visiting mornings and afternoons, inspecting every single wood-plank and nail and whether they were struck secure together.

THERESA. Really, was he so keen about it?

CORNELIA. Until one day Nikolai pulled a fast one on Johann. He said he was not feeling well and kept closed shop for three days. He was back at his bench Monday morning and when Johann turned up with a chocolate box, the platform-stage was up and lustred.

THERESA. A fait accompli. So tell me, does this … catafalque, for lack of a better word, always stay in this place? It must be a great dusting job.

CORNELIA. No, it is set up every Sunday morning or on Saturday when he is rarely in the mood for it. Then in the evening, after everyone has left, we disassemble it together. He does the unbolting and heaving while I take care of the drapery and small movable pieces. Then it is laid like in a sepulchre with the greatest of care in the space under the stairway, and Johann locks the script in his desk from where he resuscitates it the next week-end. A very sacrosanct situation, indeed, and mind you are caught out wincing or grimacing while he is at it.

THERESA. Can it be so serious?

CORNELIA. More than that, I have to go along with him in full loyalty or else he would be really displeased. [ACTING IT OUT] "Take it easy or you will scratch it against the wall, Johann. Handle from the middle part, Johann, and do not drag it along. No, no. Leave that drapery to me, that’s not the way to fold it. Shall I place it in the upper drawer of the bureau? I have left some space for it there. Better than in that hardened leather bag…" And that’s the way it goes for some twenty minutes.

THERESA. I would imagine you wouldn’t want to displease him in all this, no? But why?

CORNELIA. Cay I do otherwise? He is continually pining for compassion in the mental depression he finds himself in, otherwise he would seclude himself within his inner self and fall into some greater illness. That is why in summer I feel better when he takes more to taking a stroll in town.

THERESA. And don’t you ever take a break outside?

CORNELIA. This garden serves me quite well. If Johann goes for a ramble he does it because he can set his mind at rest Greta is being taken care of. Otherwise you’d certainly not see him out of house ... [CREAKY GATE OPENS, FOOTSTEPS]

THERESA. They’re back, they’re back! Here they are!

KATHARINA. [AGITATED]Oh what an experience. What a great fright I had. Oh dear, dear me.

THERESA. [EMOTIONALLY] But nothing is wrong with you, Kate? Tell me, sure nothing is wrong with you?

KATHARINA. No, definitely not. I only had a great shock. On impact I could not think about what to do. I was confused and started crying. Then Johann came and gave me a drink. It was then I came to and started taking grasp of the situation.

JOHANN. A drink of whisky animates the spirit and revives the mind. So far as it is administered at the right time and in sufficient measure.

CORNELIA. Was it a double shot, Johann?

JOHANN. It is surprising how quick women are to form a tender attachment. They can be great friends when first meeting. What is that called by the way, sym... syn... syntony! That’s it, syntony.

THERESA. [SLYLY] Is that how you think?

JOHANN. And empathy too, I would say, because they can feel so tenderly for one another like complementing parts of the same gender. I would not be astounded.

CORNELIA. I think you must have some tea, Katharina. It helps against the cold, even with a drop of whisky in it.

JOHANN. Thank heavens, she’s got the message at last.