A TRAGEDY OF IDEOLOGY AND LOVE

Characters: A, B

A- Summer. A river. Europe. These are the basic ingredients.

B- And a river running through it.

A- A river, exactly, running through a great European city and a couple at the water's
edge. These are the basic ingredients.

B- The woman?

A- Young and beautiful, naturally.

B- The man?

A- Older, troubled, sensitive, naturally.

B- A naturally sensitive man but nevertheless a man of power and authority who knows
that this is wrong.

A- They both know this is wrong.

B- They both know this is wrong but they can't / help themselves. Exactly.

A- They're making love in the man's apartment.

B- Doing what?

A- Making love. Making love in the man's apartment. A luxury apartment, naturally, with
a view over the entire-city. These are the / basic ingredients.

B- A panorama of the entire city. The charming geometry of the rooftops. The skylights
and the quaint chimneys. And beyond the TV aerials are monuments of culture: the Duomo
of Florence and the arch at La Defense, Nelson's Column and the Brandenburg Gate to name
but four.

A- The woman cries out. Her silken hair cascades as it were over the edge of the bed. She
grips the bed-frame. Her knuckles whiten. There are tears / in her eyes.

B- The apartment is beautifully furnished.

A- Well obviously the apartment would be beautifully furnished. Obviously it would

have high ceilings and tall windows and date in all probability date from the end of the
nineteenth century when the rise in speculative building coincided with the aspirations of the
liberal bourgeoisie to create monumental architectural schemes such as I'm thinking
particularly now I'm thinking of the Viennese Ringstrasse which made such an impression on
the young Adolf Hitler as he stood one morning before the Opera.
B- Or one of the great Parisian / boulevards.

A- Or one of the great, exactly, Parisian / boulevards.

B- And meanwhile, as you say, her silken hair cascades as it were over the edge of the
bed. She grips the frame. Her knuckles whiten and her pupils widen, while he­--

A- Let's say he grunts.

B- Grunts?

A- Let's say he grunts, yes, but sensitively. Let's say it's the sensitive grunt of the
attractive man of power and authority, not for example the coarse pig-like grunt of a
mechanic lying on his back in a confined space trying to loosen a cross-threaded nut with a
heavy and inappropriately sized wrench.

B- Absolutely not.

A- Absolutely not, but the masterful grunt of a man who breakfasts on one continent and
lunches on another, who flies first class with a linen napkin and a comprehensive wine list.

B- That kind of man.

A- That kind of grunt.

B- That kind of light.

A- What kind of light?

B- The kind of light that streams in. It streams in through the tall windows transforming
their bodies into a kind of golden mass.

A- A writhing mass.

B- The light -- the golden mass, these are the / essential ingredients.

A- But now a look crosses her face.

B- A what?

A- A look.

B- A doubt.

A- A look of doubt, yes, good, crosses Anne's face.

B- Even now.

A- Even now in the / intensity of her passion.

B- Even now in the intensity of her passion a kind of shadow crosses her face.

A- A premonitory shadow.
B- Premonitory?

A- A premonitory shadow, yes, crosses her face.

B- Is that a word?

A- Is what a word?

Pause.

A- Well yes, of course premonitory / is a word.

B- Later. Night.

A- The lights of the city at night. Strings of light, suspended star-like along the quays and
the frameworks of bridges. Odd dull red warning lights pulsing on the tops of tower blocks
and TV transmitters. The man at the telephone. His lowered voice. His troubled glances.

B- Anne wakes up in the solid walnut bed, hears his faint male voice in the adjoining
room. The exquisite Louis . Quatorze clock beside her chimes three by means of a tiny tiny
naked gilt shepherd striking a tiny tiny golden bell held between the teeth of an enamelled
wolf, no doubt a reference to an ancient myth well known to the seventeenth-century French
nobility but now totally erased from human consciousness..

A- Ting ting ting.

Pause.

A- 3 a.m. Anne wakes up. Hears voice, lights cigarette. Appears in the doorway.
Dialogue.

B- Who was it, she says.

A- Nothing, he says.

B- Who the fuck was it, she says. End of dialogue.

A- And now she's angry - exactly; end of dialogue - and now she's angry. She's angry
because she knows exactly who it is.

B- His political masters / calling him.

A- His political masters, that's right, calling him. Just as they have always called him.
The very political masters that she hates with every fibre as it were of her being. The very
men and women, that she, Anne, in her youthful idealism holds responsible for the terminal
injustice of this world.

B- The leaders who in her naive and passionate opinion have destroyed everything she
values in the name (a) of business and (b) of laissez-faire.

A- In the name (a) of rationalization and (b) of enterprise.

B- In the name of (a) so-called individualism and (b) so-called choice.

A- The basic ingredients in other words of a whole tragedy.

B- A whole, exactly, tragedy unfolds before our eyes in Paris, Prague, Venice or Berlin to
name but four, as the moon, vast and orange, rises over the renaissance domes, baroque
palaces, nineteenth-century zoos and railway stations, and modernist slabs of social housing
exemplifying the dictum form follows function.

A- Form follows function.

B- This whole tragedy of love.

A- This whole tragedy of ideology and love.

B- She stubs out the cigarette.

A- She begins to shout.

B- She begins to beat him with her fists.

A- She begins to bite him with her teeth.

B- She begins to kick him with her bare white feet.

A- She beats and beats / and beats.

B- She beats and beats. And the exquisite clock which has survived two revolutions and
three centuries is smashed to pieces on the smooth and highly polished parquet as she beats,
bites and kicks.

A- The tiny tiny shepherd and the tiny tiny bell both vanish - rather a nice touch this -
vanish forever under the / walnut bed.

B- Until she stops for breath. Let's say she finally, shall we, stops, at this point, for
breath.

A- The woman?

B- The woman, Anne, yes, stops for breath.

Pause.

A- And he?

B- Bows his head.

A- Yes.

B- Looks up at her.

A- Yes.

B- Takes her tear-stained / face between his hands.

A- Takes Anne's tear-stained face between his hands like a precious chalice.
B- Or a rugby football.

A- Like a precious silver chalice or as you say a rugby football before a drop-kick he
takes Anne's angry tear-stained face between his hands.

B- He still loves her.

A- For all their ideological differences - that's right - he still loves her. Speech.

B- One day, Anne, he says, you'll understand my world. One day, Anne, you'll
understand that everything must be paid for, that even your ideals must finally be paid for.
End of speech. At which he smoothes the wet strands of hair from her lips and kisses her.
These are the / basic ingredients.

A- He kisses her and presses her back down onto the bed. Or she him. Better still: she
presses him back down onto the bed such is her emotional confusion, such is her sexual
appetite, such is her inability to distinguish between right and wrong in this great consuming
passion in the high-ceilinged apartment with the solid walnut bed, the polished parquet floor,
the grand piano by Pleyel circa 1923 without it should perhaps be noted any visible means of
protection against pregnancy in the case of Anne or in the case of either against sexually
transmitted diseases including the so-called AIDS virus more correctly known as the human
immune deficiency virus or / HIV for short.

B- A portrait of a young girl sketching once thought to be by David but now attributed to
his female contemporary Constance Charpentier, and a triangular yellow ashtray with the
legend 'Ricard' containing three cigarette butts and a quantity of fine grey ash.

Pause.

A- A great tragedy in other words / of love.

B- A great - exactly - tragedy of ideology / and love.

A- These are the basic ingredients.