FRIEDRICH. It’s hot inside here.

JOHANN. And stuffy. The little sun’s rays the zinc roofing collects can turn it into an oven in summer.

FRIEDRICH. Mind your fingers. You need them to pencil your play.

JOHANN. I must have this goblet done. I need it pretty soon for the wedding scene.

FRIEDRICH. There were some old friends of yours at the pub. Mine too, I would say.

JOHANN. Such as?

FRIEDRICH. Kurt and his brother. They look like twins those two even if they are only step brothers.

JOHANN. Were they drinking heavily?

FRIEDRICH. That’s there usual fare on Sundays and you cannot expect them to do otherwise. They place themselves as reciprocal stumbling-blocks to each other and to those around them.

JOHANN. That’s there real ego which they do not shun to show in public. For all I know, I would not dare doing that.

FRIEDRICH. How? Do you make out yourself to be shy? This must be a new school of psychology.

JOHANN. None at all. My problems might crush my ego just as much as they may be a stumbling block for the ego of those around me. But would you think they would be so gallant as to help me carry them around?

FRIEDRICH. Now I understand. This is your psychological outlook to it all. Psychiatrists must have a different word for it.

JOHANN. Psychosis, or in simple terms, a cocktail of elements of madness.

FRIEDRICH. If you say so, I will not contest it.

JOHANN. And what’s my real madness?

FRIEDRICH. That you see yourself trodding along Luther’s path. Which means ...

JOHANN. Which really means that once I get something into my mind I will plod on until I get it done, notwithstanding hell’s forces which might rise against me … [BREATHLESS] That nothing will stand in my way from living out my own life if there ever be any moral principle I want to embrace … That I gather and drag along with me all those around me to the bitter fringes of my psychosis.

FRIEDRICH. That you live your own life as you like? Psychosis? Don’t you see this is all abstract muttering, brother?

JOHANN. It’s only muttering if I do not enjoy the freedom I should have as a human.

FRIEDRICH. With all conditioning factors fettering us since before birth?

JOHANN. There’s science on our side now. DNA, staminal cells, genetic illnesses. Whatnot. But we shall be free all the same if only we live by the law.

FRIEDRICH. The law? Take care, Johann. What has become of my father’s estate?

JOHANN. No, no. If only we live by the law that makes us free. That’s the law of the heart, of love and mutual understanding., the law that does not require loads of codices which ever impose obligations on us but which gives us respect towards each other, leads us to love without any pre-condition.

FRIEDRICH. Yet you still believe we have been conditioned since the very beginning and thus predestined.

JOHANN. And that’s where the crux of the law of love lies: that you may go against your very grain and love those who want to take your life when the world tells you to hate them. That’s the law of love to my reckoning.

FRIEDRICH. A very senseless law, as I see it.

JOHANN. Ah, no, Friedrich. When you go against your nature’s will you would be taking your own life and winning the prize ...

FRIEDRICH. [BURSTING IN LAUGHTER] The prize? Blast, what prize?

JOHANN. The prize of living in peace after having brought your ego to nothing and are now free to love one and all.

FRIEDRICH. [SCEPTICAL] Does this include your mother, by chance?

JOHANN. Of course it does. Why should you be asking? Is not all I am doing with her out of love for her, to have her recollected by all those who knew her as a good old family woman?

FRIEDRICH. It may all be the result of a strong guilt complex. All this love talk, now.

JOHANN. Guilt? What guilt?

FRIEDRICH. About the first girl you had and the ideal wife you thought she would be and whom she had taken away from you. About the sickly wife you then had to marry who left you a widower with a ten-year old to bring up.

JOHANN. Martin!

FRIEDRICH. You should thank Cornelia for all she has done for you.

JOHANN. She’s still helping out today.

FRIEDRICH. Any more reasons you want for your guilt? About wanting to put her in an old peoples’ home when she started showing the first signs of confusion …

JOHANN. But today she’s here with us, is she not, making us happy with her taunts. Sure you cannot say anything about this situation, can you?

FRIEDRICH. [SARCASTICALLY] No, once you have drawn me into a trap, and Cornelia has been at one with your wishes undoubtedly for your very well-being. By the by, how is dad’s inheritance doing under your able hands? Do you still register any progress?

JOHANN. The capital is still intact. Interests go on medical expenses but I would soon have to start digging into the capital too, with your gentle permission.

FRIEDRICH. [LOW VOICED] Ah, that’s the law of love! Doing with humankind that which you had never before thought of doing. [LOUDER] Get on with it, brother. The management is all yours if this makes you give up your ego.

JOHANN. Mother certainly deserves the best and I wish I could go on giving it to her also in her after-life.

FRIEDRICH. After-life! Only to imagine. Looking at that sand-glass I thought time had stopped in this shed.

JOHANN. Stopped! Between you and me, dear brother, I will tell you what has stopped.

FRIEDRICH. So out with it.

JOHANN. It is my life that has stopped, Fred. But with Cornelia and me on either side of the globe, we can make it revolve east or west at will without anyone ever noticing.

FRIEDRICH. O.K. then, I’m baling out again. I need a pint at the pub after this.

JOHANN. How are you feeling, Katharina? It must have been a big shock for you.

KATHARINA. You bet! I felt fiery and sweaty. The car just came out of the side-road at the same speed it was going. He must have tried applying the brakes but the road was smooth and slippery and they did not work.

THERESA. Usually I get such bumps from the rear. First thing I do is take a deep breath, then I garner all my strength and creep out of the car, face down and with hazy eyes not to face up to my adversary or to the full extent of the damage. Then I have a sudden look at the car, hoping not to see it in a new shape. But soon all hope is gone. Coloured glass all over and a dented bumper, and the next day when I go over to the panel beater he greets me with a very polite "Ah, so you are back, ma’am."

KATHARINA. He must be as outspoken as the people in this area.

JOHANN. Is that so? There are several repair garages down the road? And how do you know she comes around here, Kate, eh?

THERESA. We were talking while you were in the shed with Friedrich, is not that so, Kate? And certainly not on the ninety-nine theses Luther fixed to the church door of the castle at Wittenberg.

JOHANN. Oh no, indeed. Please don’t tear me to pieces and if you really mean joining the family don’t expect me to keep my mouth shut to the utterings of four women.

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE] You can take my ear-muffles, Johann. I would like to keep company with the other women.

JOHANN. Oh mother, please. [TO OTHERS] Come on, shall we pass some time on stage with "Ludher"?

THERESA. Why do you call him Ludher, with a dee and an aitch?

JOHANN. That’s his proper name. Martinus Ludher ex Mansfeld who graduated from the university of Erfurt when he was twenty-one. It is noted in the books kept at the place.

KATHARINA. Goodness, this household is very depressing.

JOHANN. Let us get on with it. I hate this buzz word. You have to be unwavering if you want to get on well with my son.

KATHARINA. And do you think your son is four-square with you? He is damned wound up when he is with you but lets himself go as soon as he sits up behind the wheel with me.

JOHANN. I know. He puts on his radio at full blast and speeds up to beat Einstein’s theory. He then crashes and poor me, having to go out on a Sunday afternoon to fetch you out of the mess. It seems you are learning well from Theresa.

KATHARINA. I am bored stiff. When is Martinus arriving?

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE, SINGING TO RHYTHMIC CLAPPING] Good son Martinus, champion of Wittenberg! They brew good beer in that town, Johann. You must tell Friedrich when he is back.

JOHANN. Alright then, get down from that stage. It’s as if we are all in a bad mood today, saints and sinners that we are.

THERESA. Saints and sinners? Why, do you believe in them too?

JOHANN. It is a matter of interpretation. The underlying layer is one of sainthood. In early times all were saints but there could also be sinners among them. That is why it is important to go back to early times.

THERESA. And I assume Martinus Ludher used to keep such times.

KATHARINA. And he stopped there. A dead stop.

JOHANN. No, you should not say that.

THERESA. [MOCKING] Katharina, you should strictly toe the line while in Johann’s house. Especially when talking about Martinus or Johann’s mum.

KATHARINA. Martinus? Which Martinus?

THERESA. Either of them.

KATHARINA. I am worried he’s not back yet. It’s quite some time now since the accident.

JOHANN. Is Cornelia on her own? What is she doing in the kitchen? I always keep an eye on her else she turns the house tipsy-turvy. She is a very inventive person for all that matters.

KATHARINA. I will see to that myself, da-ad, and I hope nobody will pry on me when Martinus and me have our own family.

THERESA. Katharina!

JOHANN. The girl has a very assertive character. She quite impresses me.

THERESA. She does, I dare say.

JOHANN. I wonder how she gets along with her parents.

THERESA. Have you ever met them? She might be a chip of the old block, as they say.

JOHANN. Do I really need to? In her assertiveness, her mind unknowingly speaks out.

THERESA. I’m sure you like burrowing between lines.

JOHANN. I am certainly not rushing things about and I want to delve deeply into matters. There’s still enough time to take things easily, up to five years I would say. Martinus will do as I say, no matter how boastful he seems to be.

THERESA. Is that so? And what would you call this attitude? Maybe, dad’s overbearing presumption?

JOHANN. Martinus has been himself conditioned just as much as we all have our own, even if we are not aware of it. And I’m surely not going to mess up with his conditioning no matter what.

THERESA. Certainly, it does not suit you to do so. Are you not aware that in messing about with him you are passing on your own character to him? He will start thinking and reasoning out things the way you do, beoming your very clone, That’s it, that’s the word. A clone, not of your body cells but of your frame of mind and eccentricity.

JOHANN. A clone of my mind and eccentricity? Indeed, I have never thought of it like that before? Quite a good idea for a short poem, I would say, but I shall still get on with my responsibilities the same way I have been doing.

THERESA. [EXASPERATED] Responsibilities!

JOHANN. That’s the way I was brought up by my father. Break your child’s neck with a stick should he require it. Wisdom books, several chapters and verses.

THERESA. Bend their neck, in all preciseness, and only in one verse. Barefoot doctor’s stuff, I’m afraid. Sorry, but that is the way I see it.

JOHANN. Should we not have a measure of human conduct to go by? There are enough bewilderment and blunder in the world to plod our way through, aren’t there?

THERESA. Still it will not be fully up to you to straighten him up. Just let the world spin on its axis and you will see how good it is to have a motley of colours and of ideas. Not all robots or clones!

JOHANN. Come, do have a seat. There is something more important to talk about.

JOHANN. The child you had? What had become of her?

THERESA. My daughter, you mean? I wanted to keep her. When I went back home I entrusted her to some nuns to care for her for some three weeks. It had all been arranged by my parents until uncle provided me with a flat out of town.

JOHANN. And resided there ever since?

THERESA. Yes, not very far away from my parents, but they came over to see me every day, driving a slow-moving noisy volks as old as themselves.

JOHANN. Your daughter, have you brought her up as a single parent?

THERESA. To this very day, warning her not to give in to the sweet words of whoever wants to turn her into a puppet of his grasp.

JOHANN. Did you finish at university?

THERESA. No, I had dropped out. I was very disappointed at what had happened. After that I attended several off-beat courses giving away usesless diplomas but no degree letters to tail my name. I liked these courses though, because I started to face up to life and people again.

JOHANN. I suppose you had lost your sense of self fulfilment.

THERESA. Yes and I was determined to find it again. I would not let go of life and I wanted to show I was able to do things even if I did not make a name for myself. It was at that time I started working.

JOHANN. So you were coming back to work-life, and to the enlightenment of civilisation.

THERESA. As you know, we are considered to be good workers. Employers understand quite well we do not quit our jobs easily as the only bread-winners. The more so when they know you have a daughter dependant on you who is being privately educated. Then ...

JOHANN. Then?

THERESA. [STAMMERING] They would expect of you plenty of work other than what any man pretends out of a woman who is subject to him.

JOHANN. Any man? There are also holy monks to be found on earth, and those who attempt walking in their foot-steps. [THOUGHTFUL] Maybe that is why Ludher took a fancy to Katherine von Bora. And your daughter, she must be in her teens now. Where might she be this afternoon?

THERESA. She’s been at her piano since after lunch. She might have gone out with friends now.

JOHANN. It does her good to feel accepted. Not only by her parents. The family bond makes me wonder how attached some persons can be. When driving back home a short time ago, Katharina was constantly muttering and asking about her mother.

THERESA. Muttering?

JOHANN. Yes, muttering, as if she were partly out of her mind. At first I did not understand what she was saying. But soon she started neighing and calling out, "Mum. Where is mum? I want my mother."

THERESA. [EMPHATICALLY] You must have given her a double measure of whisky.

JOHANN. Among other things, when we were at the town’s outskirts, she was saying, "Mummy Thè, Mummy Thè. Find me my mother."

THERESA. Was she saying Mummy Thè? Her mother’s name could be Anthea.

JOHANN. No, I wouldn’t say so. At one time she lisped out the full name.

THERESA. [AGGRESSIVELY] What did she say?

JOHANN. She was crying and moaning when she said "Get me my mother. Where is Theresa?"

THERESA. Theresa? Must be quite a common name.

JOHANN. Come on. The comedy is over. She wanted you, Theresa.

THERESA. She did not know what she was saying, I am sure of that. How can she mix me up with her mother. You must have given her a good measure of whisky, Johann, which had a bizarre effect on the shock.

JOHANN. Or might she have forgotten the role you had coached her to play? Tell me, Theresa, why are you here?

THERESA. Having fallen in love with your brother. That is all and that is why I am in your house.

JOHANN. Or is it perhaps you wanted to enter into my family and you chased after my brother to find yourself in my house?

THERESA. Me, chase after your brother. [FIRMLY] No, it was simply by mere chance that I found myself in this place. And please, be kind enough not to tell tales about me.

JOHANN. [ENDEARINGLY] You might have wanted to pry into my family’s business, isn’t that so? Especially after what you had gone through. You might have wanted the kind of connections your daughter was making.

THERESA. [CALMLY] Alright. O.K. I could not restrain myself to wait. I wanted to know what was going on before love sunk in more than skin deep. I have a right to protect my family, don’t I?

JOHANN. Of course you do. So you must have queried about us till you got to know my brother was a bachelor.

THERESA. And a bit of a playboy too.

JOHANN. He is a different offshoot from the family trunk. My father was twice married. My mother is the old woman upstairs.

THERESA. Indeed? Tell me more.

JOHANN. How did you go about to ensnare him?

THERESA. I got to now about his water-holes, the coffee shops he frequented. So that one day I found myself seated in front of the table where he usually sat, espying girls, those wearing long heels especially.

JOHANN. He is quite used now to looking at the world from the same angle.

THERESA. And we started conversing. He, rather.

JOHANN. Words grow in clusters, especially when bachelor meets spinster, and that which is not said one day might well spill over to the next day’s conversation. Isn’t that so?

THERESA. We dated day in day out, and that was it.

JOHANN. He must have told you quite a bit about me, didn’t he?

THERESA. All that I wanted to know, spoon-fed in moments of intimacy. I never intended hurrying up this discourse otherwise he might have suspected a hidden agenda.

JOHANN. Tender stuff, you Mata Hari. What did he tell you about me? That I am a miser, perhaps?

THERESA. That you lead a niggardly life even after having unlawfully taken into your hands the administration of your father’s estate [SLOWLY] as if to maintain your mother.

JOHANN. Number one. We are quite used to that now.

THERESA. That your affective attitude towards your mother is off-tracking you from living a full life and instilling in you anti-social behaviour.

JOHANN. Two. I never knew it really mattered to my brother what I do. I have, after all, been walking on a tight-rope all my life with him jealously gazing at me from below.

THERESA. That whatever you might think of yourself, the world would still spin on its own axis, and that …

JOHANN. Oh no, please, that would be all. I have always believed in tripods.

THERESA. Yet there is still another argument which you have to listen to.

JOHANN. Coming hot and sizzling from my brother’s pot of shame? Alright, give it to me slowly. Remember, I’ve had heart trouble.

THERESA. That Martinus would certainly feel to have obtained real freedom when he gets out of this household and becomes independent of your will.

JOHANN. So is that what my dear brother has told you? He has flayed me before you and laid me naked on the your tongue’s burner. Have you told this to your dear Katharina?

THERESA. I never wanted to spill beans before getting hold of every piece of information. [DERISIVELY] Only then shall I give my considered opinion.

JOHANN. Your considered opinion? No wonder. [KEYS OPENING CREAKY DOOR] Here he is. Martinus is back. [EXCITED TALK, KATHARINA AND MARTINUS] Katharina is already by his side. Let’s go. Their parents must be there too.

MARTINUS. It was a smooth ride back home, looking straight ahead, no neck jerking either way. Above all, in total silence.

THERESA. What do you mean by that? I shouldn’t think Katharina is usually very talkative.

MARTINUS. Certainly not. It was only a joke we share. Isn’t that so, Katharina?

KATHARINA. If that is the way you want to put it.

JOHANN. Mark your words, son. You lie between Scylla and Charybdis, the frying-pan and deep fire. Beware, Martinus.

THERESA. Dad must be in a joking mood. After all, all’s well that ends well.

JOHANN. You see, son, Theresa has spoken. In future that might sound like when we say Rome has spoken.

THERESA. We all need each other, don’t we? Has ever been so since ‘homo erectus’.

KATHARINA. And that’s how it shall be, Martinus. Like bolted car parts, unable to achieve anything on their own but which can make you fly faster than a jet plane. I hope you have now taken your lesson.

MARTINUS. A useless pretension.

JOHANN. So let’s face up to it, Martinus. Or would you like a drink to wash it smoothly down?

MARTINUS. Why all the preambles? Kath, what is dad up to?

THERESA. No, Johann, don’t, please don’t.

JOHANN. I am quite pleased to introduce to your mother-in-law.

THERESA. No, Johann, no.

JOHANN. Now dear Theresa, you must realise it’s an honour coming into our family.

THERESA. How unfeeling of you. Why did you tell him, why?

KATHARINA. Mummy, how did this happen now? Hadn’t we to wait?

MARTINUS. Glad to know about it. At long last I would be able to call someone mum again.

JOHANN. Is that all, Martinus? Aren’t you worried we’ve been taken for a ride?

MARTINUS. I love rides, dad. Fast ones mostly.

THERESA. Certainly there is no trickery about it. I’d rather call it female logic and caution or the hidden wisdom a woman has to protect daughter and herself after all we have passed through.

KATHARINA. Or how to make use of all available resources of heart and mind.

JOHANN. You’re very good speakers between those teeth. Was this your first trap you have set for anyone?

THERESA. [CASUALLY] For let it be known, dear Johann, that if men prod their way through with muscle power, we’d rather use brains and prudence. Don’t we, Kath?

KATHARINA. Which means our minds are thyming with considerate thoughts at any given time.

JOHANN. Shall we call it circumspection or a mix of shock and whisky?

MARTINUS. How, dad?

JOHANN. Katharina murmured it out in the car back home. She was asking about mother, by name, and I soon added up the whole truth.

MARTINUS. A third degree situation.

THERESA. Third degree?

KATHARINA. Martinus is reading law. I had told you so.

JOHANN. Maybe one day he will find a solution to the inheritance issue with my brother.

MARTINUS. Who me, dad? Involve myself between you and your brother?

JOHANN. It looks like you were not taken off your feet, Martinus. You must have been around here for some time to be taken by surprise, haven’t you?

MARTINUS. Before going out I had sensed that nothing had happened for some time in this darned house, nothing new or shock-busting like this one we just had. And I like the way things have turned out this past hour. I hope nobody got hit in the face.

JOHANN. The way things have turned out? I thought you must have known about all this.

THERESA. Katharina!

KATHARINA. Yes, mum. I wanted to build a well founded relationship from the very start. I didn’t feel like hiding things from Martinus as if he were an outsider. I felt I should tell him all.

JOHANN. I wonder how much is all.

KATHARINA. I spilled out the whole story.

JOHANN. Or spun a web with big holes in it.

THERESA. What have you said about me, Kath? I hope you have kept to your own affairs. That’s the trouble with drinking at pubs.

KATHARINA. Have I been told everything, mum? I have only told what little I know, my story basically.

CORNELIA. [ROWDY AND CAUSES A STIR IN THE SITUATION] Coffee is ready. Yours is special, Martinus, with a few drops of gin in it. As for you all others, you may squeeze anything you like in it from the bar. Come ye and drink, all’s free.

JOHANN. [VOICE COMING TO THE FOREGROUND] Say, what do you think of this house?

THERESA. Hmm. It breeds many surprises I should say.

JOHANN. One after the other, all standing in each other’s way and stumbling over events.

THERESA. That’s life. Come let’s patch it up like children do and get off on a fresh start.

JOHANN. A fresh start? How can I ever?

THERESA. By forgetting past events. Completely.

JOHANN. Good idea. [WHISPERING] After all we have found each other again, even if you shall only be my brother’s wife.

THERESA. [ALSO WHISPERING] But that means we shall be in each other’s company quite often.

JOHANN. Meanwhile Martinus has found a new mother. I hope you will care for him as his true mother did. He still misses her.

THERESA. I noticed that. You should have no doubt about my affection.

JOHANN. And while Katharina thought she had only stumbled on a partner, she has now also found a father …

THERESA. Who might be Greta’s other side of the coin?

JOHANN. Is not that how family bonds should be?

THERESA. And Cornelia?

JOHANN. [STAMMERING] Cornelia? She will have to keep on living with us if we still want Greta to share our fortunes.

THERESA. Step down from there, Friedrich. Johann surely won’t like it.

FRIEDRICH. [GOING DOWN THREE CREAKY STEPS] Theresa, I want to talk to you badly, you and me, alone.

THERESA. What’s wrong, Fried? Can you close the door?

FRIEDRICH. I’m fed up stiff now. Why should I continue living in all this trouble?

THERESA. Is it not most families that one time or another find themselves in similar quandaries? Only that more often than not such trouble does not surface and if it does, people keep on talking about it until it sinks to the bottom where it has its home.

FRIEDRICH. Which bottom? Down memory lane perhaps?

THERESA. Now look here Friedrich. We all have our idiosyncrasies, don’t we? You too.

FRIEDRICH. Me?

THERESA. Sure. You too have your peculiarities of mind.

FRIEDRICH. Like what?

THERESA. Any news you get picks out your sensitive character.

FRIEDRICH. Why, is it diffferent with you when you get shocking information?

THERESA. When has it been you last felt so? Ah yes, I remember. When we were having an argument about you going to Brazil for good. It was a big quarrel we had that evening.

FRIEDRICH. And we are going to have a bigger fight today, sure for the last time.

THERESA. Quick, out with it. I cannot wait to regain my freedom.

FRIEDRICH. I have now decided. I shall be leaving this family and fleeing this house and town. And I couldn’t care less any more about my inheritance. Johann can do with it what the hell he likes.

THERESA. Is that all that matters? Your inheritance? And what about mother …

FRIEDRICH. She is Johann’s mother, not mine.

THERESA. And your brother Johann, Martinus and myself, simply to bring up the rear. No mention of us at all?

FRIEDRICH. You talk as if you already belonged to the family. But you were all playing about with me the way you wanted. I don’t feel like belonging here any longer. I have friends at São Paulo, constantly inviting me to move to their place. Childhood friends, with whom we still go well together when they visit here.

THERESA. You will lose your job in Erfurt. Many envied you because of it.

FRIEDRICH. I will find work, no worry. Tomorrow I’ll be posting an advert in the local papers putting up the flat for sale.

THERESA. [TENDERLY] Say, might there be something or perhaps someone else you want to get rid of? [FACING UP TO HIM] Is it me?

FRIEDRICH. No, it is not you. But since you form part of this small gossipy town, you go body and soul with it. No hard feelings, sure.

THERESA. So it is not the family situation only that’s kidding you. There must be social attitudes too.

FRIEDRICH. Believe me, it’s a jumbled up situation, Theresa. If we have this particular situation it is because no one ever bothers to show us any compassion. People back-bite, feel no mutual sympathy and put up false appearances to look better than their kinsfolk.

THERESA. There would be no black sheep grazing if only we knew the whole truth about each family.

FRIEDRICH. The whole truth is hard to get by, Therese.

THERESA. These friends from Brazil, who are they Friedrich?

FRIEDRICH. John, his brother and wife. John and his brother to be exact. The wife has gone. I’ll be staying with them at first.

THERESA. And after that? With someone else, perhaps, floating from exile to exile?

FRIEDRICH. You have always thought me an upstart, Therese? Whatever the situation is, better than a man caught in a woman’s snare.

THERESA. Is that all your betrothed love? All your promises? Have it your way, then. You may leave and please, don’t ever come back crying in my arms.

FRIEDRICH. Why should I do so? I’m off. And mind you take a great fright when they’d show you Greta.

SCENE ELEVEN

CORNELIA. What’s going on here?

THERESA. Friedrich has left. For good.

JOHANN. That’s of no concern. I’m worried about his banging doors.

THERESA. He’s gone. He could not carry his and my daughter’s honour on his shoulders. He told me he preferred starting a new life in Brazil.

JOHANN. That’s the problem. He was never really concerned about family. No kinsman ever meant anything to him, nor did mother. His interests always came first in all.

CORNELIA. But as for you, we shall keep on seeing around, won’t we? We have become good friends now. Besides, your daughter is still family, isn’t she, and Martinus must have someone he can call mum quite often.

THERESA. Certainly, even for Johann’s sake, he needs company.

JOHANN. [SLIGHTLY COUGHING] That’s another matter. [DIPLOMATICALLY] Actually there is Cornelia who takes good care of me, other than my books about Ludher in my solitary evenings.

CORNELIA. God bless his soul.

JOHANN. Cornelia! Some respect please. [CHANGE OF HEART] Yet as for you, dear Theresa, you are always welcome at home as Katharina’s mum and Cornelia’s friend, and for myself you can always keep me some company in my literary bouts, can’t you?

THERESA. Thank you. Then there’s your mother too.

CORNELIA. Greta?

THERESA. Yes of course. [TENDERLY] Maybe after you would let me meet her, I can stand in for Cornelia. You need take a break, Cornelia, won’t you, every now and then …

JOHANN. [SOFT VOICED, STAMMERING] Ehr, actually she doesn’t need so much.

THERESA. ... mostly when Cornelia would like to rest, Johann, or go out on an errand while you are not here.

CORNELIA. I’m off to prepare some dinner. Greta is used to a light early bite. [EXITING SOUNDS]

THERESA. Tell me, Johann, is it such a big problem that I see mum?

JOHANN. Not at all, only that it is not yet the right time.

THERESA. Maybe some day when we are on our own and you feel more comfortable about it?

JOHANN. Please don’t shout, both wear donkey ears.

THERESA. But I now think there will be a new relationship between us, won’t there?

JOHANN. Why should it be any different? And if there will be, only a light one between a woman and a widower ...

THERESA. Who knows what a widower might have done in his younger days?

JOHANN. He got himself hooked to a woman dumped on him by her father to please his mother.

CORNELIA. [GRETA’S VOICE] Can you shout out a bit you two down there! Although I am holding the trumpet to my ear I still cannot hear you.

JOHANN. [CALLING] I’m afraid too many things have happened this afternoon. We do not have any vocal energy left.

GRETA. Well done, Theresa. You spin lacy webs too, just as I can do.

THERESA. [SOFT VOICED] Tell me, Johann. The last words Friedrich told me were not to be taken aback when I meet Greta.

JOHANN. Is that what my dear brother told you?

THERESA. Is there anything wrong with Greta? Perhaps something wrong with her legs? You can fix a lift to make things easy for her, can’t you? It is at this level you mostly live out your lives, Sundays especially.

JOHANN. That would be quite expensive. I do not afford it. After all, she is doing well at her place, bless ’er soul. Down here she’d cause us a headache, to say the least.

THERESA. [MAIN DOOR OPENING, KEY IN LOCK SOUND] They’re back, Katharina’s here. They’re back at last.

JOHANN. [MUMBLING] And Martinus too. Poor Martinus. Does he really need a new mother and a dad caught up between two women. No, this is going to be cruelty.

KATHARINA. Mum, this should be all. I feel like going mad in this house.

THERESA. What’s wrong, Kath? Is whisky still causing you fits?

KATHARINA. [SOBBING HARD] No, mum, I am in full control of my senses and I know well what I am saying.

JOHANN. Martinus, what has gone wrong?

MARTINUS. We’ve met Leo. He was going to the pub, breathless. For a last drink, he said. He will be going away from here for good. He could not take our family fantasies any longer. And he was telling about you, dad, … and Cornelia.

JOHANN. Is that all, son?

MARTINUS. He was uttering many things about you two, dad.

CORNELIA. [ENTERING CASUALLY] Did I hear you calling me? Ah, Martinus is back. But you, my dear Katharina, are you still crying?

THERESA. Please, leave her in peace. She’s been through a trauma today.

JOHANN. So you let him speak out, Martinus?

MARTINUS. I couldn’t stop him. Words were cascading from his lips like in a waterfall and we met at a busy corner.

JOHANN. And so, you nitwit, couldn’t you shut him up?

MARTINUS. You have always told me to wash dirty linen at home, dad. And this was quite a filthy argument.

JOHANN. Filthy? So what did he say?

MARTINUS. He was talking about your confusion and paranoia, dad, and Cornelia who prods you on and flatters you in your confused state ...

CORNELIA. [EXCITED] Who, me? Now look here. That’s the last straw on my back. He should have told you what his intentions were when he came around teasing me and caressing my hair.

JOHANN. Shut up, Cor. Get on with it, Martinus.

MARTINUS. He told me about your strong complex tying you up to your mother, and all she means to you ...

THERESA. Don’t shout! She must be all ears.

JOHANN. Let him spit it out.

MARTINUS. What she had done for you and all the bother she has caused you ...

JOHANN. [SOBBING] More, more!

MARTINUS. Your simultaneous love and hate for her!

JOHANN. [CRYING OUT] Stop, stop, please!

THERESA. [CARINGLY] Johann?

CORNELIA. It is all our fault, Martinus, for not having told him how me and Johann had found each other.

JOHANN. No, definitely not. I will never shoulder any fault for all this. It was Friedrich who never cared to know anything about us. He rather antagonized Cornelia.

CORNELIA. [WALKING AWAY] Indeed he did. [MAKING GRETA’S VOICE] Theresa!

JOHANN. For God’s sake, what are you doing?

CORNELIA. [WITH GRETA’S VOICE] Please get your clutches off Johann. He’s mine and I handle him the way I want!

JOHANN. [SHOUTING IN A FIT] Oh no, no, no! But why, why, why? [SOBBING] Why have you done this to me, Greta?

THERESA. Greta?

KATHARINA. But Mother! Please do understand, Mother. Cornelia and Greta are the same person. Johann could not live without his mother after she had died ...

CORNELIA. Nor could he evict me after his wife had taken me into the family.

MARTINUS. It was then that his complexes started taking over.

JOHANN. [CALMLY] Oedipus. Luther. Cornelia.

THERESA. Cornelia?

CORNELIA. [TONGUE IN CHEEK] Verily, that’s me. For Johann has always kept me on high ground with these people, should it be known to you.

THERESA. [CAJOLING] And why might that be, Cornelia?

JOHANN. [IRRUPTIVE] Because that is the way my wife had worked it out on her death-bed. She wished I would marry Cornelia so that she might foster Martinus.

MARTINUS. I was very young at the time but Cornelia never wanted to get married.

CORNELIA. Family secrets those.

JOHANN. Even if I always wanted to put my house in order, for social reasons, of course, and my peace of mind.

MARTINUS. Other times you called them precepts of morality, dad.

JOHANN. I’d rather say looking upright. Having social righteousness.

KATHARINA. Yet she still cared for Martinus, didn’t she? Spill it all out.

JOHANN. She did, I’d say, and for me too.

THERESA. Although you never got married.

CORNELIA. [AFFECTIONATELY] But we still kept very close to each other, didn’t we Johann?

JOHANN. [TENDERLY] When the complexes surfaced, mostly. And before that too.

CORNELIA. Luther’s and Oedipus’. [CATEGORICALLY] It was then I felt I had a nursing job to do, when he needed me badly.

JOHANN. Inspite of all the pills I have been taking since then. I found out that the best solution was to start living out my life and not to run away from my real situation.

MARTINUS. That Pastor, he was very influential in your life.

JOHANN. Leo? A bit, perhaps. He taught me how to face up to life, notwithstanding any social persecution. After all, as our beloved Ludher had done in his times.

CORNELIA. [SELF CONCEITED] But even he had been greatly tempted in his lifetime. He had his Friedrich too.

JOHANN. No, not my brother, please. He’s gone now. It was Leo then. Ludher had been excommunicated by a pope who went by the name of Leo and a big X after his name.

THERESA. You’re really good at surmising things, Johann. Your intellectual babble confounds me.

JOHANN. That Leo the Tenth had issued forth the bull Exsurge Domini. In his eyes Luther had been in error from the time he swore he would become a monk during a thunderstorm.

CORNELIA. Time for your pills, Johann. Better take them earlier than usual, Johann, it has been an eventful evening, hasn’t it?

THERESA. Hold on, not all is clear yet. How did Cornelia take up your mother’s role?

JOHANN. Ah, you’re still prying into our family affairs. I will tell you yet. I consider as one of the family today, but I cannot vouch I will still do that tomorrow.

THERESA. Thank you. About your mum and Cornelia now please.

JOHANN. Cornelia was sentimental about me. When she saw how I was breaking on mind’s shores, she remembered what she had been told in the nursing course years ago …

CORNELIA. [PONTIFICATING WITH SUPERIOR KNOWLEDGE] That there comes a time when old age brings dementia along with it ...

KATHARINA. Which means?

CORNELIA. That they become forgetful and confused, they live back past times as if it were now and past and present do not exist. Or that they would be avert to accept anything new before an event which happened a long time ago in their life is wiped out of their memory now …

THERESA. And so?

CORNELIA. So you have to go hand in hand with them in this delicate phase of their life. Not going against their will but going along with them until they do not accept your play-acting any longer and realise that they are living in a fantasy world. Then they would get out of that phase on their own, or by taking pills, not wanting anyone to act it out with them any longer.

JOHANN. And this way we begot Ludher and revived Greta that I may perhaps evade this stark reality of mine.

THERESA. Fine drama.

JOHANN. Yet the way I feel right now, I am most comfortable! I cannot let Cornelia go even because in her I see my mother.

MARTINUS. That’s where things went wrong, dad. My mum gave you a wife, dad, and you turned her into a mother.

KATHARINA. [HYSTERICALLY] Oh God, all this is crazy, this must be a mad-house. I certainly do not want to live this life. And I am going to run away from it all. Do you understand that? I am running away from it all.

THERESA. Katharina! Do calm down, will you? Sons do not always have to be chips of the old block, especially in mental conditions which have come out during a hard lifetime. Johann has led such a hard life and you may not yet be aware of everything about him.

CORNELIA. How’s that? Do you know?

THERESA. Pretty too much I would say although now I have my doubts what’s the truth. Johann has known me since my university days and he lied when he said I had come in this house to spy about his family.

JOHANN. Isn’t that so? Myself, I only pried about you, with great prudence then, to satisfy my curiosity.

KATHARINA. Tell us more, mother, but still you will not change my mind.

THERESA. When I was then pregnant with you, Johann had seen me going to a rest-house with mother and father …

MARTINUS. You never told me anything about it, Katharina. I thought we were sharing everything together.

KATHARINA. Up to a short while ago I was unaware of this too. Whenever I asked who my father was, mother was always prompt to change subject and little do I know my origins.

JOHANN. It was fate, Theresa. There exist situations in life which bind persons together, even if very lightly, during several periods of their lives. Ours must be one of these situations.

CORNELIA. So better see how you are going to tie the right knots as surely I do not intend leaving this place.

JOHANN. Definitley not. Sure we are not sending you away from here. Life must go on spinning on its axis even if Friedrich has now left us... and Greta came downstairs.

CORNELIA. She still lives in your mind’s eye, Johann.

JOHANN. And she will live on, but not the same way she lived before. She will now accompany me as a guardian spirit, ever present but no longer communicating, on my left-hand side.

CORNELIA. Your left hand … ?

JOHANN. Yes, my wife is on my right-hand side. She has been there since she passed away. I feel her though she does neither talk nor touch.

CORNELIA. So long as you do not get a relapse, Johann, it’s good feeling her presence. It surely saves my throat.

KATHARINA. As to my father, mum, who was he?

THERESA. He turned from playboy to law student and is now a renowned international lawyer. Don’t waste your time looking for him, he’s not based in Erfurt any longer. He has wife and children and moves house according to the needs of his practice. Whenever I saw him going down main square, devotedly hugging a brief-case to his chest, walking with great dedication to his legal calling with another lawyer or two, I felt very belittled and used to lower my eyes.

JOHANN. Men of inestimable integrity.

KATHARINA. Is he nameless, mother?

THERESA. What’s that to you, Katharina? Better you should not know him. That way you will not have anyone to curse for having given you a place in this world.

KATHARINA. So I will start looking for him myself, mother. At last I’m sure I’ll get to know the truth.

THERESA. No, Katharina, don’t do that. That day you discover the truth it will be me who starts sinking.

KATHARINA. Why, mum?

THERESA. Because it was me who brought it all about. I didn’t then understand that sexual attraction had such a gravity pull on men. Beware even Martinus, young girl.

JOHANN. [MUTTERING] Not everyone is cold like me and Cornelia.

CORNELIA. Your opinion, Johann. After all, would you expect to go in bed with your mind’s mother?

JOHANN. Notwithstanding your advances?

CORNELIA. Only to cure you, my dear Johann. I have always wished to see an end to this story, and now …

JOHANN. It’s over and buried. In deep ground.

MARTINUS. Take care of the roots, dad. They sprout thicker from deeper ground.

THERESA. And bud brighter flowers too, I would say.

KATHARINA. Stop it, mum, please. I hate these wordy somersaults. Come let us go home. [FLATTERINGLY] Sorry Martinus, my eternal love, I do not promise you shall ever see me again inside this house.

MARTINUS. Shall we put a stop to everything? We can still be friends, can’t we, and meet at your mother’s? I’m sure mum will still visit from time to time even as Johann and Cornelia would now need her more than ever.

CORNELIA. True to say, Theresa, we have become good friends now.

THERESA. Please leave me alone, I cannot concentrate. Today’s gone, tomorrow is another day. I hope it will be fine, and then ...

JOHANN. And then?

THERESA. ... when the sky shall be blue and and the gale calms down, then we will see.

KATHARINA. We have to talk things thoroughly, mum, and please no phone calls for now. It will be us to take up the line first …

MARTINUS. You can always send an SMS, Kath. You must keep that sore thumb going.

KATHARINA. Not even that. Nothing. Just absolute silence. We still have to thrash out many things, mum and me.

THERESA. Like how to give our backside to a haunted past and face up to the future.

KATHARINA. We need that, don’t we, mum?

MARTINUS. Back to normal, dad. You, Cornelia and me.

CORNELIA. Greta has gone too and I am so much the happier for it. And we’ve had a very heavy working day though it was Sunday. I’m dead tired.

MARTINUS. So are we all.

JOHANN. When will you be taking in the car for repair?

MARTINUS. I’ll give him a tinkle in the morning.

CORNELIA. The stage. Shall I put off the lights?

JOHANN. You can. Next Sunday, it may be a different story.

CORNELIA. [CREAKING STEPS UPSTAGE] So we may start dismantling it too?

JOHANN. Of course. I will give you a helping hand. [NOISE OF WOOD BEING DISJOINTED AND KNOCKING TOGETHER]

MARTINUS. [WEAK VOICED] Tell me something, dad. That bridge you like talking about …

JOHANN. The stone-bridge leading to a timeless land. Yes, son?

MARTINUS. Is it quite difficult to build?

JOHANN. The stone-work is not very hard. It’s when you come to pave it with granite slabs that it turns out to be a bit strenuous.

MARTINUS. Must you have plenty of perseverance to build it?

JOHANN. Much less, Martin. Everyone is capable of building it, and the faster it is built the more solid and enduring it is.

MARTINUS. How come?

JOHANN. Ha! Because we usually pass over it when we lose patience ...

MARTINUS. Lose patience?

JOHANN. The patience to let the world go by, or to watch our body moving slowly towards rottenness, or wanting to get somewhere tomorrow when we hardly know our bearings this very day. All speed and little thought ...

MARTINUS. And this gets us on to the other side?

JOHANN. It only hastens us to get to this bank’s side of the bridge.

MARTINUS. Is that because we would be speeding up time?

JOHANN. Right, my boy. Because we would be doing all we could to escape time and without knowing, we would be approaching fast the other side where time has no domain.

MARTINUS. [CONFUSED] Over the stone-bridge to the land of no time.

CORNELIA. [CREAKY STEPS DOWNSTAGE] I’m off to set the table.

MARTINUS. No, Cornelia, please stay with me. I need you. [CONFUSED AGAIN] Over the stone-bridge to the land of no time. Dad, is it there mum might be, perhaps?

JOHANN. Yes she is, waiting on the other bank.

MARTINUS. And Greta, too?

JOHANN. [MUTTERING] Yes, she’s there too, Martinus.

MARTINUS. So they’re all on the other side of the stone-bridge with Martinus and Katharina.

JOHANN. Martinus and Katharina? What are you saying, son?

MARTINUS. Ludher and Bora, of course.

JOHANN. You mean von Bora. One day we’ll join them too. But you need to have a rest now, come let’s go upstairs, even if we have to bring you up dinner later in your room.

MARTINUS. [SONNING AND MUTTERING] Cornelia, come closer, will you hold my hand?

CORNELIA. Here I am, Martinus. Come let’s go upstairs as father said.

MARTINUS. Oh my mum, my mum. So mother, has she already crossed to the other side?

CORNELIA. Come on, Martinus. If we are going to use dad talk, she did.

MARTINUS. So Cornelia, for tonight only, will you take mother’s place?