The Pillowman - Tupolski Line Memorization

ACT I SCENE i

Police interrogation room. Katurian sitting at table,

centre, blindfolded. Tupolski and Ariel enter and sit

opposite him, Tupolski with a box file containing a large

sheaf of papers.

Mister Katurian, this is detective Ariel, I’m detective Tupolski … Who left that on you?

KATURIAN: What?

Tupolski takes the blindfold off.

Who left this on you?

KATURIAN: Um, the man.

Why didn’t you take it off? It just looks stupid.

KATURIAN: I didn’t think I was supposed to.

It just looks stupid.

KATURIAN: (pause) Yes.

(pause) Like I was saying, this is detective Ariel and I’m Detective Tupolski.

KATURIAN: Well, the main thing I want to say is, I have complete respect for you and for what you do and I'm glad to help you in any way I can. I have complete respect.

Well, that’s good to hear.

ARIEL: Am I mumbling? Tupolski, am I mumbling?

No, you’re not mumbling. You’re quite clear.

KATURIAN: I am going to try not to make you fuck me up at all because the reason is I will answer everything.

Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?

Eyeing Katurian, Ariel idles to a side wall, smokes a cigarette.

Why do you suspect we have brought you here? You must suspect some reason.

ARIEL: Look, why don't we just start torturing him and

cut out all this shit?

KATURIAN: What...?

Who’s the Number One on this case, Ariel, me or you? (Pause.) Thank you. Don’t listen to him. Anyway, so why do you suspect we have brought you here?

KATURIAN: I’ve been racking my brains, but I can’t think.

You’ve been racking your brains but you can’t think?

KATURIAN: No.

Well, yes or no?

KATURIAN: Yes.

Huh?

KATURIAN: Because I’ve never done anything. I’ve never done any anti-police thing. I’ve never done any anti-state thing …

You’ve been racking your brains but you can’t think of a single reason we might have brought you here?

KATURAIN: I can think of a reason or not a reason but a thing I assume there might be a linkage, although I can’t see how there can be a linkage.

The linkage of what? Of what to what? Or, of what to what?

KATURIAN: What? Just, only the thing of how you took my stories away too when you took me, and that you have them there, is the only thing.

And that I have them where? Have you been reading the papers I’ve got in front of me?

KATURIAN: I haven’t been reading …

Papers which, for all you know, may have been some immesnely classified, very very secret thing.

KATURIAN: My eyes only caught the titles, just glancing.

Oh, like your peripheral vision?

KATURIAN: Yes.

But, hang on, for it to be your peripheral vision, you’d have to be turned around this way … (Tupolski turns sideways on, glancing down at papers.) See, like this way. Like sidewards, like this way …

KATURIAN: I meant …

See? Like this way. Like sidewards.

KATURIAN: I meant my peripheral vision at the bottom of my eyes.

Ohh, the peripheral vision at the bottom of your eyes.

KATURIAN: I don’t know if there’s a word for that.

There isn’t. (Pause.) Why would there be a linkage, your stories, you being taken here? It isn’t a crime, you write a story.

KATURIAN: That’s what I thought.

Given certain restrictions …

KATURIAN: Of course.

The security of the state, the security of the general whatever-you-call-it. I wouldn’t even call them restrictions.

KATURIAN: I wouldn’t call them restrictions.

I would call them guidelines.

KATURIAN: Guidelines, yes.

Given certain guidelines, the security of the whatever, it isn’t a crime, you write a story.

KATURIAN: That's what I thought. That's the whole thing.

What’s the whole thing?

KATURIAN: I mean, I agree. You read these things, these"stories', supposedly, "The police are all this,' "The government is all this.' All these political. what would you call 'em? "The government should be doing this." Please. Fuck off. You know what I say? I say if you've got a political axe to grind, if you've got a political what-do-ya-call-it, go write a fucking essay, I will know where I stand. I say keep your left-wing this, keep your right-wing that and tell me a fucking story! You know? A great man once said, "The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story, and I believe in that wholeheartedly, 'The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a storv.' Or was it ‘The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story’? Yeah, it might have been ‘The only duty of a storteller is to tell a storv.' I can't remember, but anyway, that's what I do, I tell stories. No axe to grind, no anything to grind. No social anything whatsoever. And that's why, I can't see, if that's why you've brought me in here, I can't see what the reason would be, unless something political came in by accident, or something that seemed political came in, in which case show me where it is. Show me where the bastard is. I’ll take it straight out. Fucking burn it. You know?

Pause. Tupolski stares straight at him.

You know what I mean?

I have to fill this form out now. It’s a form in case anything bad happens to you in custody. (Pause.) We’ve got a mistake here with your name, I think. Your surname is Katurian, yes?

KATURIAN: Yes.

See, we’ve got your first name as Katurian.

KATURIAN: My first name is Katurian.

(pause) Your first name is Katurian?

KATURIAN: Yes.

And your second name is Katurian?

KATURIAN: Yes.

Your name is Katurian Katurian?

KATURIAN: My parents were funny people.

Hm. Middle initial?

KATURIAN: K.

Tupolski looks at him. Katurian nods, shrugs.

Your name is Katurian Katurian Katurian?

KATURIAN: Like I said, my parents were funny people.

Mm. For ‘funny’ I guess read ‘stupid fucking idiots’.

KATURIAN: I’m not disagreeing.

Your address is Kamenice 4443?

KATURIAN: Yes.

Which you share with … ?

KATURIAN: My brother. Michal.

Ah, Michal. At least it’s not fucking ‘Katurian’!

ARIEL: He's backward, your brother, yeah?

KATURIAN: He's not backward, no. He's slow to get things sometimes.

ARIEL: He’s slow to get things. Okay.

Next of kin?

KATURIAN: Michal. My next of kin?

Just formalities, Katurian. You know what I mean? (Pause.) Place of work.

KATURIAN: The Kamenice abattoir.

ARIEL: This writer.

KATURIAN: It’s not so bad.

You like your work there?

KATURIAN: Yes.

ARIEL: I see.

Pause. Tupolski puts his pen down, then tears the form he has been filling in in two.

That wasn’t a form in case anything bad happens to you in custody. I was just mucking around.

KATURIAN: What was it?

It was a piece of paper I was about to tear in two.

Tupolski flips through the sheaf of stories till he finds the one he is looking for.

Here we are, 'The Little Apple Men'.

KATURIAN: What about it?

Ariel idles back to table, sits, stubs cigarette out, as Tupolski familiarises himself with the story.

It's not one of my best. (Pause.) It's pretty good, though.

This is a story, it starts off, there is a little girl, and her father treats her badly …

KATURIAN: He slaps her around and that. He’s a …

You seem to have a lot of st … He’s a what?

KATURIAN: What?

The father.

ARIEL: 'He's a ... ' something, you said.

He represents something, does he?

KATURIAN: He represents a bad father. He is a bad father. How do you mean, ‘represents’?

He is a bad father.

KATURIAN: Yes. He slaps the little girl around.

This is why he is a bad father.

KATURIAN: Yes.

What else does he do to the little girl, ‘he is a bad father’?

KATURIAN: I know.

ARIEL: Fucking ... hah?!

Ariel gets up and paces.

Ariel’s getting a bit aggrieved because ‘We can draw our own conclusions’ is, sort of, our job. (Pause.) And the first conclusion we are drawing is exactly how many stories have you got ‘a little girl is treated badly’, or ‘a little boy is treated badly’?

Ariel (approaching) 'I am trying to say? He's putting words into my fucking mouth now, 'I am trying to say,' let alone draw our own fucking conclusions...

KATURIAN: No...!

ARIEL: We can't even speak now, this fucking man says! Put your fucking hands down ... !

Ariel pulls Katurian off his chair by the hair, kneels across him and gouges into his face. Tupolski looks at this, sighs.

Any time you’re ready, Ariel?

Ariel stops, breathing heavily, goes back to his seat.

(to Katurian) Retake your seat, please.

In pain, Katurian does so.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention … I’m the good cop, he’s the bad cop. (Pause.) So, back to the literature. The father, as we have established, treats the little girl badly, and one day the girl gets some apples and carves some little men out of these apples, all little fingers, little eyes, little toes, and she gives them to her father but she says to him they’re not to be eaten, they’re to be kept as a memento of when his only little daughter was young, and naturally the pig of a father swallows a bunch of these applemen whole, just to spite her, and they have razor blades in them, and he dies in agony.

KATURIAN: And that's kind of like the end of the story, that should be like the end of the story, the father gets his comeuppance. But then it goes on.

But then it goes on. The girl wakes up that night. A number of applemen are walking up her chest. They hold her mouth open. They say to her …

KATURIAN: (slight voice) ‘You killed our little brothers … ‘

‘You killed our little brothers.’ They climb down her throat. She chokes to death on her own blood. The end.

ARIEL: But you don't have anything against any Jews?

KATURIAN: No. Should I have?

‘Should I have?’ Good answer. ‘Should I have?’ Kind of lily-livered and subservient on the one hand, yet vaguely sarcastic and provocative on the other. ‘Should I have?’

KATURIAN: I wasn’t trying to be provocative?

Were you trying to be subservient?

KATURIAN: No.

Then you were trying to be provocative. And now Ariel is going to hit you again …

ARIEL: This reminds me. I'm going to talk to the brother.

Ariel exits, Tupolski smiles, Katurian stunned, scared.

KATURIAN: My brother's at school.

Me and Ariel, we have this funny thing, we always say ‘This reminds me’ when the thing hasn’t reminded us of the thing we’re saying it reminds us of at all. It’s really funny.

KATURIAN: My brother’s at school.

Your brother is one door down.

KATURIAN: (pause) But he’ll be scared …

You seem a little scared yourself.

I am a little scared.

What are you scared about?

KATURIAN: I'm scared my brother is all alone in a strange place, and I'm scared your friend is gonna go kick the shit out of him, and I'm scared he's gonna come kick the shit out of me again although if he does it's okay, I mean I'd rather he didn't but if there's something in these stories you don't like then go ahead and take it out on me, but my brother gets frightened easily, and he doesn't understand these things and he's got nothing to do with these stories anyway, I've only ever read them to him, so I just think it's completely unfair you should've brought him down here and I think you should just fucking go and fucking let him out of here right now! Right fucking now!

(pause) I bet you’re all adrenaline now, aren’t you, all "‘Ooh just shouted at a policeman,’ all ‘Ooh probably shouldn’t’ve but ooh got really angry.’ Ooh. Calm the fuck down. Alright? Do you think we’re animals?

KATURIAN: No.

Well we’re not animals. We deal, sometimes, with animals. We’re not animals (Pause.) Your brother will be fine. I give you my word.

Tupolski looks at another story from the pile.

‘The Tale of the Three Gibbet Crossroads.’ This does not have your theme it seems.

KATURIAN: What theme?

Y’know, your theme, ‘Some poor little kid gets fucked up.’ Your theme.

KATURIAN: That isn’t a theme. Some of them have come out that way. That isn’t a theme.

Although maybe, in an oblique way, it does have your theme.

KATURIAN: I don’t have themes. I’ve written, what, for hundred stories, and maybe ten or twenty have children in?

Have murdered children in.

KATURIAN: So, what, this is about stories with murdered children in! Do you think I'm trying to say, 'Go out and murder children?'

I’m not saying you’re trying to say ‘Go out and murder children.’ (Pause.) Are you trying to say, ‘Go out and murder children’?

KATURIAN: No! No bloody way! Are you kidding? I'm not trying to say anything at all! That's my whole thing.

I know, I know, your whole thing, the first duty of a storyteller is to …

KATURIAN: Yes …

… Blah blah blah, I know. This ‘Three Gibbet Crossroads’ …

KATURIAN: If there are children in them, it's incidental. If there is politics in them, it's incidental. It's accidental.

Except, the thing is, don’t interrupt me when I’m talking …

KATURIAN: No, I’m, sorry …

If I ask you something outright, or if I go with my eyes, like, ‘Go ahead and say something,’ like with my eyes, then you go ahead and say something, but if I’m in the middle of something …

KATURIAN: I know, I’m sorry …

And you’re fucking doing it again! Did I ask you something outright?! Did I go with my eyes like, ‘Go ahead and say something’?!

KATURIAN: No.

No, I didn’t, did I? (Pause.) Did I? See, that was an outright question and I did go with my eyes like, ‘Go ahead and say something.”

KATURIAN: I’m sorry. I’m nervous.

You have a right to be nervous.

KATURIAN: I know.

No, you didn’t hear me. I said, ‘You have a right … to be nervous.’

KATURIAN: Why?

(pause) ‘The Three Gibbet Crossroads.’ What are you trying to tell us in this story?

KATURIAN: I’m not trying to tell you anything. It’s supposed to be just a puzzle without a solution.

And what is the solution?

KATURIAN: (pause) There isn't one. It's a puzzle without a solution.

I think there’s a solution. But then, I’m really clever.

KATURIAN: Well, I mean, you're right, the idea is you should wonder what the solution is, but the truth is there is no solution, because there is nothing worse, is there? Than the two things it says.

There is nothing worse?

KATURIAN: (pause) Is there?

Tupolski paraphrases through the story.

A man wakes up in the iron gibbet he’s been left to starve to death in. He knows he was guilty of the crime they put him in there for, but he cannot remember what the crime was. Across the crossroads from him are two other gibbets; there’s a placard outside one that reads ‘Rapist’, there’s a placard outside the second that reads ‘Murderer’. There’s a dusty skeleton inside the rapist’s cage; there’s a dying old man inside the murderer’s cage. Our man can’t read the placard outside his own cage, so he asks the old man to read it for him, to find out what he’s done. The old man looks at the placard, looks at our man, then spits in his face in disgust. (Pause.) Some nuns come along. They say prayers over the dead rapist. Uh-huh. They give food and water to the old murderer. Uh-huh. They read our man’s crime. The life drains from them and they walk away in tears. (Pause.) A highwayman comes along, ah-hah. He looks over the rapist without much interest. He sees the old murderer, smashes the lock off his cage, sets him free. He comes to our man’s cage, reads his crime. The highwayman smiles slightly. Our man smiles back, slightly. The highwayman raises his gun and shoots him through the heart. As our man is dying he screams out, ‘Just tell me what I’ve done?!’ The highwayman rides off without telling him what he’s done. The last words that our man ever says are, ‘Will I go to Hell?’ And the last sound he ever hears is the highwayman quietly laughing.

KATURIAN: That's a good story. That's something-esque. What kind of 'esque' is it? I can't remember. I don't really go in for that 'esque' sort of stuff anyway, but there's nothing wrong with that story: Is there?

No, there’s nothing wrong with that story. There’s nothing in that story you would say the person who wrote this story is a sick fucking scummy cunt. No. All this story is to me, this story is a pointer.

KATURIAN: A pointer?

It is a pointer.

KATURIAN: Oh.

It is saying to me, on the surface I am saying this, but underneath the surface I am saying this other thing.

KATURIAN: Oh.

It is a pointer. You understand?

KATURIAN: Yes. It is a pointer.

It is a pointer. (Pause.) It’s your best story, you say?

KATURIAN: No. It’s one of my best stories.

Oh, it’s one of your best stories. You have so many.

KATURIAN: Yes. (Pause.) My best story is 'The Town on the River' one. "The Tale of the Town on the River.'

Your best story is ‘The Tale of the Town on the River’? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait …

Tupolski quickly finds the story.

Hang on … Here we are. Ah-hah. This tells me something, ‘This is your best story.’

KATURIAN: Why, what is it, is it a pointer?

Tupolski stares at him.

Um, it’s the only one that was published.

We know it’s the only one that was published.

KATURIAN: So far.

(half-laughs. Pause) The Libertad it was published.

KATURIAN: Yes.

The Libertad.

KATURIAN: I don’t read it.

You don’t read it.

KATURIAN: I send the stories around, you know, just in the hopes, to wherever might take them. I don’t read all the …

You don’t read The Libertad.

KATURIAN: No.

It isn’t illegal, you read The Libertad.

KATURIAN: I know. Not if you have a story published in it. I know.

It has your theme. (Pause.) Did they give you themes. The Libertad? Like, ‘Write a story about a pony,’ or, ‘Write a story about some little kid who gets totally fucked up.’ Did they do that?

KATURIAN: They just gave a word-count thing. The maximum words.

It was a theme of your own choosing?

KATURIAN: It was a theme of my own choosing.

Tupolski hands Katurian the story.

Read it to me.

KATURIAN: The whole of it?

The whole of it. Standing.

Katurian stands.

KATURIAN: This feels like school, somehow.

Mm. Except at school they don’t execute you at the end. Pause. Unless you went to a really fucking tough school.

(pause) Um, 'Once upon a time in a tiny cobble-streeted town on the banks of a fast-flowing river, there lived a little boy who did not get along with the other children of the town; they picked on and bullied him because he was poor and his parents were drunkards and his clothes were rags and he walked around barefoot. The little boy, however, was of a happy and dreamy disposition, and he did not mind the taunts and the beatings and the unending solitude. He knew that he was kind-hearted and full of love and that someday someone somewhere would see this love inside him and repay him in kind. Then, one night, as he sat nursing his newest bruises at the foot of the wooden bridge that crossed the river and led out of town, he heard the approach of a horse and cart along the dark, cobbled street, and as it neared he saw that its driver was dressed in the darkest of robes, the black hood of which bathed his craggy face in shadow and sent a shiver of fear through the little boy's body. Putting his fear aside, the boy took out the small sandwich that was to be his supper that night and, just as the cart was about to pass onto and over the bridge, he offered it up to the hooded driver to see if he would like some. The cart stopped, the driver nodded, got down and sat beside the little boy for a while, sharing the sandwich and discussing this and that. The driver asked the boy why he was barefoot and ragged and all alone, and as the boy told the driver of his poor, hard life, he eyed the back of the driver's cart; it was piled high with small, empty animal cages, all foul-smelling and dirt-lined, and just as the boy was about to ask what kind of animals it was had been inside them, the driver stood up and announced that he had to be on his way. '“But before I go,” the driver whispered, “because you have been so kindly to an old weary traveller in offering half of your already meagre portions, I would like to give you something now, the worth of which today you may not realise, but one day, when you are a little older, perhaps, I think you will truly value and thank me for. Now close your eyes." And so the little boy did what he was told and closed his eyes, and from a secret inner pocket of his robes the driver pulled out a long, sharp and shiny meat cleaver, raised it high in the air and brought it scything down onto the boy's right foot, severing all five of his muddy little toes. And as the little boy sat there in gaping silent shock, staring blankly off into the distance at nothing in particular, the driver gathered up his bloody toes, tossed them away to the gaggle of rats that had begun to gather in the gutters, got back onto his cart, and quietly rode on over the bridge, leaving the boy, the rats, the river and the darkening town of Hamelin far behind him."

Katurian looks at Tupolski for any response, giving him back the story, sitting back down.

Of Hamelin, see?

Of Hamelin.

KATURIAN: Do you get it? The little boy is the little crippled boy who can't keep up when the Pied Piper comes back to take all the children away. That's how he was crippled.

I know that.

KATURIAN: It’s a twist.

I know it’s a twist.