HYSTERIA

BY
TERRY JOHNSON

Theatre Royal Bath Version

2012
 2

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

Night. Rain beyond the windows.

FREUD asleep in the tub chair. Wakes and looks at
his watch. A long silence.

FREUD If you are waiting for me to break the silence you will be deeply disappointed. The
silence is yours alone, and is far more eloquent than you imagine.

He turns in his chair and looks towards the couch.

Double-takes when he sees there is no-one on it.
Looks around the room. Opens the door, peers out,
closes the door. Goes to his desk. Hesitantly presses
the buzzer on an unfamiliar bak-o-lite intercom.

FREUD Anna?

ANNA (A VOICE PULLED FROM SLEEP) Yes, father?

FREUD She's gone.

ANNA Who, father?

FREUD Where's she gone?

ANNA Where's who gone?

FREUD It's um...

Looks at his watch.

ANNA What is it?

FREUD Ten to.

ANNA It's ten to five. It's the middle of the night.

FREUD There was a girl.

ANNA Have you slept yet?

FREUD I had a patient.

ANNA Maybe you dreamed her.
 3

FREUD I don't dream patients, I dream surgeons and publishers.

ANNA Go to bed, father.

FREUD The nights are valuable.

ANNA Yahuda will be here for lunch, and you've an appointment immediately after.

FREUD I'll sleep in the morning. What's this thing?

In front of his face hangs an electric light pull; a four

foot cord with a brass knob on the end.

ANNA What thing?

FREUD This thing hanging here in front of me. This thing in my hand.

ANNA Um...

FREUD It's just dangling here. It's got a knob on the end.

ANNA Mm hm?

FREUD What is it?

ANNA I've... no idea.

FREUD What am I supposed to do with it?

ANNA Shall I call the nurse?

FREUD Shall I give it a tug ?

ANNA No, just... leave it alone, father.

He pulls it. The lights go out.

FREUD Scheisse!

ANNA Father?

FREUD I gave it a tug and the lights went out!

ANNA Oh, that thing!

A crash of falling objects.

FREUD Can’t see a damn thing.
 4

ANNA Ernst put it up this afternoon. Come to bed now; you should be sleeping.

FREUD I hate the dark. I’ve seen what’s in it.

ANNA Nevertheless; you need sleep.

FREUD And what hides there, also.

ANNA You need more, not less, as time passes.

FREUD The body maybe. The mind more than ever craves...

He switches on the light.

FREUD Illumination.

ANNA Shall I come down?

FREUD No, I'm fine. Perfectly fine.

ANNA Goodnight then.

FREUD Goodnight.

He switches off the intercom. Some of the antique

figures on his desk have been knocked over; he rights
them.
He gets up and lies on the couch.

FREUD I have been preparing, somewhat unsuccessfully, for my death which Yahuda would
have me believe is imminent. I am inclined to agree with his diagnosis, but this morbid
preparation is... difficult. I have never liked waiting for trains; standing on the platform looking
back down the track: never a glance, of course, in the direction of one's destination. Like all the
trains I ever caught, this one is running late. And so I wait. I re-arrange the luggage at my feet; I
unfold and refold my newspaper, failing to find anything of interest, even though the headlines
roar. And over and over I mentally rehearse the panic of boarding, check my watch with the
clock, grow anxious and inexplicably... impatient. I prepare and prepare and yet remain
unprepared, because when the train arrives there is never time to button the jacket or check the
ticket or even say a meaningful goodbye. So until my inevitably fraught departure, all I can do is
wait, and re-arrange the luggage.

His eyes have closed.

A pause, then a figure appears through the rain and

stops outside the french windows. JESSICA is
sopping wet and initially appears waif-like. She wears
a thin macintosh. Her hair hangs dripping to her
shoulders.
 5

She taps on the glass. FREUD opens his eyes. She

taps again. He rises, disorientated, and discovers the
source of the noise. She smiles.

FREUD Go away. Go away. . I admit I found it flattering when I arrived, this English passion
for standing and staring, but this is a private house, not Madame Tussauds. I'd rather be melted
down thank you, than have any more thumbnails surreptitiously pressed into my flesh, so
please... go away! Oh very well then, stay. Stay where you are, and catch your death for all I
care.

He goes to his intercom. She raps frantically.

He doesn't press the buzzer.
FREUD What do you want?

She speaks. We don't hear her through the glass.

JESSICA I have to speak to you.

FREUD What?

JESSICA I have to speak to you.

FREUD I can't hear you. Go away.

Very matter-of fact, she takes out a cut-throat razor

and holds it to her wrist.

JESSICA I have to speak to you.

FREUD looks away. Thinks. Then goes to the french

windows and unlocks them. He steps back. She
enters.
FREUD Stop there! Stop.

She stops.

FREUD Give that to me.

Offers it to him. He takes it, closes it, and secures it in

a drawer.

JESSICA I wasn't sure you'd let me in.

FREUD You're sopping wet.

JESSICA It's raining.

FREUD That rug is from Persia.
 6

JESSICA You told me to stop.

FREUD Get off the rug.

JESSICA Here?

FREUD There. Good. How did you get into the garden?

JESSICA I climbed. Where the elm rests on the wall.

FREUD I'll have a tree surgeon to it first thing in the morning.

JESSICA Grazed my knee; look.

FREUD So let me guess; you are a student with chronic insomnia?

JESSICA No.

FREUD You want me to read something you wrote?

JESSICA No.

FREUD Are you inebriated? Is this a dare?

JESSICA No.

FREUD Do you know who I am?

JESSICA Oh, yes.

FREUD Then what do you want?

JESSICA I haven't yet decided.

FREUD Who are you?

JESSICA Don't you recognise me?

FREUD It feels as though I should.

JESSICA Yes, you should.

FREUD We've met?

JESSICA No, never.

FREUD Please. It's late. Tell me who you are.

JESSICA I am your Anima, Professor Freud.
 7

FREUD My what?

JESSICA It's a psychological term denoting the denied female element of the male psyche.

FREUD I know what it is.

JESSICA Denied but desired.

FREUD Damn nonsense, that's what it is. Did he send you?

JESSICA Who?

FREUD The Lunatic. Jung! The crackpot. Friend of the Gods!

JESSICA No.

FREUD He did, didn't he? This is his feeble idea of a practical joke.

JESSICA No-one sent me.

FREUD Due to my advancing years I am quite prepared to come up against the odd figment of
my own imagination, but I have no time for flesh and blood imposters. And I certainly refuse to
confront aspects of my personality I did not even propose! Anima is tosh. Archetypes are a
theatrical diversion!

JESSICA I've not read much Jung.

FREUD Not much is too much. How long have you been in the garden?

JESSICA All night. Watching the house. The lights going out. Then one last light, illuminating
you.
FREUD Perhaps you should sit. Judging from your behaviour so far you are either
dangerously impulsive or pathologically unhappy.

JESSICA That's true.

FREUD Which?

JESSICA Both, I think. I have inverted morbid tendencies, I know. And a great deal of free-
floating anxiety desperate for someone to land on. I am mildly dysfunctional, yes.

FREUD You have recently been in analysis?

JESSICA No, I've recently been in the library.

 8

FREUD If you are looking for a doctor, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. My health
deteriorates daily. I cannot take any more patients. Those I see now will soon be abandoned. I
cannot add to my unfinished business.

JESSICA What if I were desperate?

FREUD There would be no point; I could never conclude. I will give you the name of a good
man.

JESSICA No. It's you I must see.

FREUD Then you must be disappointed. I shall call someone to show you out.

JESSICA Don't do that.

FREUD It's very late. I'm an old man.

His jaw gives him pain.

FREUD Ah. Most uncalled for.

JESSICA What's wrong with your mouth?

FREUD With this half, nothing. The other half I left in Vienna.

JESSICA How careless of you.

FREUD It's in a jar of formaldehyde. The surgery was drastic. This half of my jaw I now owe to
the miracle of Bakalite.

JESSICA Can you get the home service?

FREUD Cancer cells develop a passionate urge to replicate. They abandon any concern for
the function of their familial organ and strike out to conquer foreign tissue. They undermine the
natural state, absorb and conquer! They are the National Socialists of human meat; best left, I
felt, in Austria. Now, you must go.

JESSICA It's still raining.

FREUD How could you possible get any wetter? If you want to get dry, get home.

JESSICA I have no home.

FREUD I must insist. This is improper.

JESSICA Oh, I'll show you improper.

She takes off her coat.
 9

FREUD What are you doing?

She takes off her dress.

FREUD Please, I am perfectly aware you wish to gain my attention but this is highly
inappropriate. I shall call my daughter.

JESSICA And how will you explain me?

FREUD There is nothing to explain.

JESSICA Naked and screaming?

FREUD She will understand.

JESSICA But will the inhabitants of West Hampstead?

FREUD Now stop this. Your behaviour is totally unacceptable!

JESSICA My behaviour, Professor Freud, is as you first diagnosed. It is desperate, as am I!

She goes into the garden, still undressing.

FREUD Come back inside!

JESSICA (OFF) One hour of your precious time, or I shall scream.

FREUD I will not be blackmailed.

She tries to scream but it’s an aching sob.

FREUD I am aware of your distress; now please; come out of the rain!
JESSICA (OFF) No. I shall stand here until I'm too wet to think anymore. Too cold to care.

Thunder. FREUD takes her coat and pursues her.

FREUD Put this back on.

He brings her back inside, wrapped.

JESSICA I'm sorry.

FREUD Hmph. Sit.

He moves a chair nearer the stove and ushers her into

it.
 10

JESSICA Thank you.

She cries.

FREUD I shall try to help. But could we please remember this is my study, not some boulevard
farce.

JESSICA This isn't your study. Your study was in Vienna.

FREUD What is your name??

JESSICA Is it the same?

FREUD Almost. In the Bergasse it wasn't as simple to run naked into the garden.

JESSICA Why?

FREUD I was on the second floor. And there were many more books.

JESSICA More?

FREUD I had to choose between books and the survivors.

JESSICA Who?

FREUD The figures.

JESSICA They're beautiful.

FREUD . It felt almost criminal, cramming them into rail crates for transportation. Each of them
is quite unique but packed in side by side, they lose their individual identities. Wrapped in
newsprint they become... faceless.
JESSICA Are you in pain?

FREUD Yes. Are you?

JESSICA Oh yes.

FREUD I cannot take you on. I have… no time.

JESSICA It won't take long. I know what's wrong with me.

FREUD Self-analysis is rarely successful.

JESSICA You did it.

FREUD I had the advantage of being me.
 11

JESSICA I've read all your books.

FREUD Have you really?

JESSICA Yes.

FREUD Understand much?

JESSICA Most.

FREUD Hmph.

JESSICA I didn't much enjoy Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious. If you were
going to analyse jokes you might have chosen a couple that were funny. I suspect you've no
sense of humour.

FREUD Nonsense. Only last week I was taken to the theatre and I laughed three or four times.

JESSICA What at?

FREUD I believe it was called… Rookery Nook. Here it is, look.

He shows her a theatre programme.

JESSICA That doesn't prove you've a sense of humour; it proves you've a complete lack of
taste.

FREUD It had a seductive logic, and displayed all the splendid, ha!, anal obsessions of the
English.

JESSICA Frankly some of your concepts are funnier than your jokes.
FREUD For instance?

JESSICA Penis envy, for instance. How in a thousand years of civilised thought anyone could
imagine a penis an object of envy is beyond me. Those I have seen erect and bobbing seem
positively mortified at their own enthusiasm.

JESSICA (CONT) The only one I ever saw flaccid looked like something that had fallen out of
it's shell. Asquidgy little proboscis that thinks it’s God’s gift to those without! Distain perhaps;
envy, absolutely not.

FREUD You say you've done no analysis?

JESSICA None.j

FREUD I think you should begin as soon as possible.

She lies on the couch.
 12

FREUD But not with me.

JESSICA Don't pretend you're not curious, Professor. You're longing to know what brought me
here. There's nothing you'd like better than to see me barefoot in the head.

FREUD You are mistaken.

JESSICA Please.

FREUD If I were to listen to anything you had to say, I would do so only because you are
obviously disturbed, and only on the strict understanding that what we were doing was an
assessment pending a referral.

JESSICA Alright.

FREUD Very well.

He sits at the head of the couch.

JESSICA How do we start?

Pause.

JESSICA I can't see you.

Pause. She twists around. He looks at her with a well-

practiced neutral expression.

JESSICA Oh, that's the point is it? That's part of it?

She lies back. Pause.

JESSICA And silence? Is that part of it too? I suppose it must be. How many minutes of
silence must you have endured? I don't know how to begin.

Sunrise happens; a tiny glimmer of red light and a

burst of birdsong.

JESSICA . I was born in Vienna 29 years ago. I am an only child. My mother was beautiful, my
father was the owner of a small print works, and a temple elder. We lived in a tall, narrow
house. It had four floors but not many more rooms; a strange house, as if built by a child, an
unsteady tower of wooden bricks. My father had a bad hip; he claimed he couldn't climb stairs.
He had a room made up in what was the parlour. This was his room, at the bottom of the house.
Anyway, I grew. I grew up, as you can see.
He makes a note.
 13

JESSICA You made a note, I heard you scribble.

She twists around.

JESSICA What did you write, what did I say?

She gets the same neutral expression.

JESSICA I see. Well anyway, here I am. Should I talk about now or then? Past or present?
Both, I know, I'm sure, but which end should I begin?

She rubs briefly at the top of her breast, as if removing

a splash of wine. A hysterical manifestation.

JESSICA Why am I here? I'm here because I was sent. I wouldn't have come of my own
accord. I have been married for two years and my husband is concerned for me. I would find it
flattering if it were not.... He worries about my appetite, which is small, but does not concern
me. I eat no more than I desire. My husband also wishes I spent more time outdoors; I prefer it
inside. It is merely a preference, not an illness. So that's why I'm here. It is desired that I eat like
a horse and live like one too, in a field if possible. If you could turn me into a horse my husband
would be overjoyed.

She rubs. She gags.

FREUD Would you like some water?

JESSICA No, thank you. Don't stand up. I don't like the outdoors, is all. I don't need three
enormous meals a day.

FREUD How long have you felt this way?

JESSICA A year. Maybe longer. Yes. Nearly two. It's always longer than I remember.
FREUD When did it start?

JESSICA It developed. Nothing sudden, nothing....

She rubs. Shakes her stiff fingers.

JESSICA One just became happier indoors. Less interested in the taste of food. Really, I
wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for my wretched husband. What has he told you?

FREUD What is wrong with your hand?

JESSICA Didn't he say ? The fingers of my hand. My hand has been examined by specialists;
neither could explain the problem with my fingers.
FREUD What is the problem?
 14

JESSICA We thought arthritis, but we're assured otherwise. These three fingers have grown
stiff, you see. They bend at the joints but will not move apart. The hand still functions. I can use
it. But it looks so... reptilian. It is intensely frustrating.

FREUD And there is no physiological impairment?

JESSICA None, I'm assured.

She gags, then rubs.

JESSICA I'm sorry. Don't stand up. Well, Doctor Freud? Can you help me?

FREUD No. I cannot.

JESSICA I'm sorry?

FREUD And now it is certainly time for me to go to my bed.

JESSICA That was hardly a full consultation Professor; we're barely beyond the symptoms.

FREUD I am as aware of the symptoms as you. And I am aware of the aetiology of your
hysterical paralysis, as well as the traumatic triggers of your anorexia and agoraphobia.

JESSICA So soon?

FREUD I know these things not because your compulsive behaviour is unconvincing or
because I am capable of completing an analysis in less than ten minutes, but because I
published the facts of this case thirty years ago, and you no doubt, judging by your excellent
knowledge of them, read them only recently. Now I am very tired, both of your games and of
this evening...

JESSICA Please, don't call anyone.

FREUD Either you leave, this instant, or I'll wake the house.

JESSICA It was a stupid thing to do. I'm sorry.

FREUD What do you take me for, an idiot?

JESSICA It's a case history that interests me, that's all.

FREUD So you are a student.

JESSICA Yes. Yes, I am.

FREUD Then your methods of study are most unorthodox.

JESSICA May we discuss the case of Rebecca S. ?
 15

FREUD Certainly not. You disturb me, you attempt to deceive me...

JESSICA Did I?

FREUD What?

JESSICA Deceive you?

FREUD Not for long; no you did not.

JESSICA I did though, didn't I? The gagging and the...

She rubs.

JESSICA Was that how she...?

FREUD I was very explicit in my descriptions. You were very accurate in your impersonation.

JESSICA Spooky, wouldn’t you say?

FREUD Now if you've had your fun...

JESSICA Listen. I know I'm a fool. But Rebecca means a lot to me. She's the basis of my
thesis. Please.

FREUD You have forfeited any right to my time and attention. Now you may go into the
garden, scream your head off, or dance with the spring fairies, I care not.

JESSICA What would Dr Jung say if he heard you mention fairies?

FREUD Jung?! He'd walk me down the path and attempt to introduce us; now gather your
clothes and go home.
JESSICA Please...

FREUD Not one more word.

JESSICA I'll go then.

FREUD Good.

JESSICA Could I ask one thing of you?

FREUD What thing?

JESSICA Could you lend me a pair of wellingtons?

FREUD Wellingtons?
 16

JESSICA My feet are freezing. No, it's too much to ask. I'm sorry; I'll be fine.

FREUD Wait there.

JESSICA No really, I couldn't.

FREUD Believe me, it’s a price worth paying

JESSICA A pair of socks would be heaven; those thick sort of wooly ones?

FREUD leaves.

Her manner changes. She attempts to open the filing

cabinet, but finds it locked. Looks for and finds the
key, in a desk drawer hung staff-like on the arm of one
of the figures .

The sound of a door off alerts her. Thinking quickly,

she opens the french windows wide, then hides in the
closet.

FREUD returns, with boots and walking socks, to find

her gone. Stands at the french windows for a while,
until his confusion turns to philosophical acceptance.
He closes the windows and leaves his study,
switching off the light.

JESSICA comes out of the closet. Turns on the angle

poise. Takes a journal out of her coat pocket, and
carefully puts it on the desk. Then she opens the filing
cabinet and looks under F. Takes out a maroon file of
flimsy carbon copies of correspondence.
Settles down to work her way through the
correspondence; a concentrated, obsessive search...

Lights fade.
 17

SCENE TWO

Late afternoon. JESSICA has gone, as have the

wellingtons. The room is reasonably tidy.

Door opens and in marches YAHUDA, an elderly

Jewish doctor. He clutches a visiting bag and a bound
document.
FREUD follows.

YAHUDA No, no, no. I'm not here to debate with you. No one in your family, no friend,
colleague or critic has ever convinced you that you were wrong about anything. I'm quite happy
to be argued into my grave, but I'm not about to be argued into yours. I did you the courtesy of
reading this... babble, now you will do me the courtesy of listening.

YAHUDA stops at a chessboard in play and takes a

move he's already prepared.

FREUD I had wondered at your silence during lunch.

YAHUDA Being polite has given me indigestion. We are both old men.

FREUD Time is short.

YAHUDA I shall allow your ill health to temper my anger, but not to lessen my resolve. I shall
not leave this room until you have agreed not to publish this work.

FREUD My friend...

YAHUDA That remains to be seen.

FREUD I see.

YAHUDA The first paragraph made my blood run cold. "If Moses was an Egyptian..."

FREUD If.

YAHUDA You do not mean the if, Freud. None of your ifs are questions; all your ifs are
excuses for the outrageous statements they precede. Your proposal is that the man who gave
us the word of God; the founder of the Jewish nation was an Egyptian aristocrat.

FREUD A simple reading of the facts...

YAHUDA You deny his origins...

FREUD Any intelligent analysis...
 18

YAHUDA You undermine the core of the myth!

FREUD Myth, precisely.

YAHUDA The symbolic expression...

FREUD The reflection of an inner desire...

YAHUDA Of a basic truth...

FREUD A perversion of truth, an attempt to satisfy...

YAHUDA Moses was a Jew! Moses was chosen! If Moses was not a Jew, then we were not
chosen! He was a Jew as I am a Jew. And you?

FREUD I have never denied, ever denied...

YAHUDA Well deny Moses and you deny us! At this time, of all times.

FREUD Yes.

YAHUDA When the little we have is being wrenched from us.

FREUD I understand. .

YAHUDA At this most terrible hour...

FREUD I take away our best man.

YAHUDA This is dreadful stuff. It is irreligious, unforgivably ill-timed, badly argued piffle.

FREUD But apart from that, what did you think?

YAHUDA There can be no discussion. You may not publish.

FREUD takes a move on the chessboard.

FREUD Yahuda, you are a scholar. A believer I know, but a scholar all the same. And you do
not believe that the red sea parted...

YAHUDA The this and that of the event...

FREUD Or that a babe floated down a river in a basket...

YAHUDA Are lost in the mist, the history. The mystery...

FREUD A babe in a basket would have drowned as sure as our nation on the ocean floor.
YAHUDA The myth, Freud.
 19

FREUD You know these things for what they are.

YAHUDA The myth is what's important.

FREUD Have you been talking to the lunatic?

YAHUDA Remove the essence of the myth and you undermine the foundation of our faith. As
indeed you seem intent on doing. Here. Right here. "Religion is the neurosis of humanity"! You
presume to find no evidence of God but in the heads of men. In the imaginings of desperate
minds. And what is a mind, according to your science? Sparks in the brain!

FREUD Plus a little history.

YAHUDA Well, God is more than meat and electricity. Or the sufferings of a child, or the
arrogance of a traitor Jew.

FREUD What alternative are you suggesting? That I censor my last thoughts? No. God is no
more light in this darkness than a candle in a hurricane; eventually he will be snuffed out. And if
one man's denial can explode him then that tiny conflagration would be a light far brighter than
the guttering hopes he kindles in us. The death of God would light us not to hell or heaven, but
to ourselves. Imagine. That we begin to believe in ourselves.

YAHUDA Damn yourself if you must.

FREUD I have to publish.

YAHUDA But remember one thing.

FREUD What?

YAHUDA You are not the only Jew who will die this year.
The pain FREUD has been suppressing overwhelms
him. He fights and defeats it.

YAHUDA Sigmund? Are you in pain?

FREUD Most uncalled for.

YAHUDA I shall examine you.

FREUD We both know what you'll find.

YAHUDA A man in your condition should be making peace with his God and his fellow man.
Not denying one and outraging the other. Now fetch a towel.
FREUD goes to the closet.
 20

FREUD I have always believed that the truth, however unpleasant, however inconvenient,
should never, not ever…

He opens the closet. An arm comes out and gives him

a towel.

FREUD Thank you.

He closes the door.

FREUD ... be hidden. Aargh!

Stops. Realises. Looks back.

YAHUDA I’m sorry You’re in pain, but reconsider, or you lose my friendship.

FREUD Good God.

YAHUDA Harsh, I know, but there it is.

FREUD Get out.

YAHUDA No need to be offensive.

FREUD No, not you.

YAHUDA Then who?

FREUD What?

YAHUDA You said; "get out!".

FREUD Indeed. Get out... your things. Get your things out of your bag. And please, examine
me.

YAHUDA takes an instrument from his bag, and peers

into FREUD's mouth.

YAHUDA Be certain of one thing; there is precious little I would not do to prevent you
publishing. If you had the clap I'd hang the Hippocratic oath and seriously consider blackmail.
But not you of course. Guiltless. Half a century of meddling in other people's passions,
countless female patients lying there in front of you, and never a whisper of impropriety. Open!
No scantily clad secrets in your closet, more's the pity.

FREUD Absolutely ihiculoh.

YAHUDA What?
FREUD Nothing.
 21

YAHUDA Oh, for a scandalous lever to prize you off your pedestal.

Finishes the examination.

YAHUDA It's as you thought.

FREUD Inoperable?

YAHUDA It's very deep now. I'm sorry.

FREUD And if I had a God to thank, you think I should?

FREUD grimaces.

YAHUDA That's me prodding around. Would you like a painkiller?

FREUD No, thank you.

YAHUDA I could apply a little pressure.

YAHUDA removes from his bag a bicycle pump, a

puncture repair outfit and an inner tube.

FREUD What do you intend doing with that?

YAHUDA I have to mend my bike.

Finds the bandage. Ties it tight around FREUD'S jaw,

with a bow on the top of his head.
YAHUDA Of course, two centigrammes of morphine...

FREUD No.

YAHUDA Just the one?

FREUD Absolutely not. I would rather think in pain than dream in oblivion.

YAHUDA Continue being a stubborn irreligious fool and oblivion's precisely where you're
headed.

FREUD I cannot end with an act of disavowal.

YAHUDA Then for pity’s sake, end in silence.

YAHUDA moves to the closet.
 22

FREUD No!

YAHUDA What?

FREUD Don't go in there.

YAHUDA I need to wash my hands.

FREUD Please. Use the one across the hall. This we use now as a closet. So much
correspondence, so many books...

YAHUDA Ha! That certain things are hidden from us does not deny their existence.

YAHUDA heads for the door.

FREUD What things?

YAHUDA The minds of men, the face of God. You devote yourself to one invisible thing yet
refuse to contemplate the other.

Exits. FREUD rushes to the closet and flings open the

door.

FREUD You said you were going, I though you were gone.

JESSICA appears wearing her raincoat and

wellingtons.

JESSICA Get rid of your visitor, Professor. We have work to do.

FREUD We have no such thing. I have other appointments.

JESSICA Cancel them.

FREUD I said I would arrange a referral.

She goes back into the closet.

FREUD Would you please come out of there!

JESSICA No

FREUD Very well, you give me no choice...

He steps towards the closet.

The raincoat hits him full in the face.
FREUD My God.
 23

YAHUDA enters through the other door. FREUD

closes the closet door.

YAHUDA I left my bike in the garden. I'll fix the puncture then I'll be off.

FREUD Good.

YAHUDA And you've another visitor; some Spanish idiot with a ridiculous moustache. Dilly,
Dally?

FREUD Dali.

YAHUDA Doolally by the look of him.

FREUD The painter.

YAHUDA Really? If you want a physicians advice, you're not up to it. You should be resting,
not entertaining foreigners.

FREUD A favour for a friend.

YAHUDA Whose is that?

FREUD Mine.

YAHUDA Is it raining?

FREUD Usually.

YAHUDA Looks alright to me.

FREUD The forecast was ominous.

YAHUDA Indoor storms imminent?

FREUD Yes. No. A possibility of flash flooding.

YAHUDA Damn. I'll bring my bike inside.

FREUD No.

YAHUDA I can't mend it in the rain.

FREUD It's not raining.

YAHUDA You said it was just about to.

 24

FREUD No, I said there was the possibility of some weather. They weren't precise as to which
sort.

YAHUDA Looks awfully small for you.

FREUD It shrank.

YAHUDA Really?

FREUD Why don't you bring your bike through and mend it in the hall?

YAHUDA As you wish. Though upstairs might be best.

FREUD Upstairs?

YAHUDA To eliminate the danger of drowning of course, when the next flash flood comes
thundering through your study!.

YAHUDA exits through the windows. FREUD opens

the closet to return the coat.

FREUD Now please, I must insist that you come out of the closet.

JESSICA Whatever you say...

FREUD No. I mean, stay where you are, put your clothes back on and then...

A wellington boot flies out, which he catches.

FREUD Please. You must modify this behaviour immediately. This is a childish and ineffectual
form of protest since I haven't a clue what you're protesting about.
JESSICA'S arm appears from the closet. Between her
fingers, a letter of FREUDS. He moves until it's in front
of his face, and starts to read it.

FREUD I don't understand.

She stuffs the letter right down into the boot. YAHUDA
re-enters pushing his bike and walking on one heel.
FREUD closes the closet.

YAHUDA Sigmund. You're over-run by snails; they're all over the path. I've trodden on half a
dozen.

FREUD Please, the rug.

YAHUDA Could you take this for a second?
 25

He hands the bike to FREUD. It is covered in snails

and has a hot water bottle tied to the handlebars.

YAHUDA Where's your boot scraper?

FREUD We don't have a boot scraper.

YAHUDA This is England for heaven sake.

FREUD And every boot scraper I encounter sends me flying!

YAHUDA I'll find a stick or something. They’re all over the bike! Oh, there goes another one.

YAHUDA exits.
FREUD puts the wellington on the floor and uses his
free hand in an attempt to retrieve the carbon-copy.

YAHUDA What the devil? Freud! What's this?

FREUD rises, his arm inside the boot.

YAHUDA re-enters with only one shoe on, hopping.

FREUD What's what?

YAHUDA I don't know what you call the damn things. It was in the middle of your lawn. When I
was a married man they were made of sterner stuff.

FREUD Snail!

Standing on one leg, he holds up JESSICA's slip. It

falls in front of him.
DALI (OFF) No no no! Is alright; I see myself.

A sharp knock on the door.

Enter DALI. A surprised pause, then sheer delight.

DALI So. Is true. That which Dali merely dreams, you live! Maestro!

FREUD I can assure you there's a perfectly rational explanation.

DALI He does not wish to hear it.

FREUD Who?

DALI Dali.
FREUD Of course. Tell your Mr Dali I shall see him in just a few minutes.
 26

DALI But he is here.

FREUD I'm aware of that.

YAHUDA And there's more of it, underwear and allsorts.

FREUD It must have blown off the line. I'll be a few minutes.

DALI No, but he is here.

YAHUDA There is no line.

FREUD I know he's here, I heard you the first time. Ask him to wait a few minutes.

YAHUDA Whose is it?

DALI But wait he cannot. He is here.

FREUD Look dammit...

DALI I am he.

FREUD Oh, I see. (To Yahuda. Gesturing to the bicycle) Would you put this down?

YAHUDA Certainly And I'll put this on the compost.

FREUD No! Give it to me.

YAHUDA It's not yours is it?

FREUD Yes. No. It's... my daughters.

YAHUDA Anna's? At her age she should be dressing for warmth.

He stuffs the slip into the bicycle basket and exits on

his heel.

FREUD You are he.

DALI And he is honoured.

A crunch. YAHUDA slips.

YAHUDA (OFF) Oh shit. There goes another one.

DALI sits, pulls out a pad.

DALI You will not object?
 27

FREUD What?

DALI A first impression.

FREUD Ah.

DALI sketches.

FREUD It's not my bike. And my physician has piles, thus the...

Hot water bottle.

FREUD As for the snails...

DALI Dali is passionate with snails.

FREUD For, you mean.

DALI For, with, Dali's passions knows no bounds.

FREUD They just... took a liking to the bike I suppose.

DALI You have a head like a snail.

FREUD Thank you very much.

YAHUDA re-enters with a clean shoe and more

clothing.

YAHUDA Has Anna lost a lot of weight in the last week?

FREUD Please, Yahuda. This is our family physician, Dr Yahuda.

DALI Ola

YAHUDA Gesundheit. I’m somewhat suspicious.

DALI And, You suffer from piles.

YAHUDA How extraordinarily acute of you.

DALI Dali suffers also.

YAHUDA I know; I've seen your pictures.

DALI You do not like the work of Dali?

YAHUDA You want a frank answer?
 28

DALI Always.

YAHUDA I find your work explicitly obscene, deliberately obtuse, tasteless, puerile and very
unpleasant to look at.

DALI Is deeply embarrassment; please. You must temper these compliments to Dali.

YAHUDA I think I'll leave you to it, Freud.

DALI This is the man; the only man who can fully appreciate the genius of Dali's spontaneous
method of irrational cognition and his critical interpretive association of delusional phenomena.
Wait.

Exits.

YAHUDA You want some advice?

FREUD What?

YAHUDA Don't let him get on the couch.

DALI enters with a finished canvass. Metamorphosis

of Narcissus.

DALI Is for you. Now you tell me. Look closely, and tell me... from what does Dali suffer?

FREUD Eyesight?

DALI Is true. This man is genius.

YAHUDA Excuse me, I have an operation to perform.

FREUD Please, don't feel you have to...

YAHUDA No, no. I'm sure you two have much to discuss. Here.

Offers FREUD a bundle of underwear.

FREUD Thank you.

YAHUDA I'm damned if I can imagine her in them. And somewhat grateful for it, frankly. I'll
see you when he's gone.

Exit YAHUDA with his bike. DALI resumes his sketch.

FREUD I'd really rather you didn't.

DALI A thought, an idea from your head, it belongs to you. But your image belongs to Dali.
Please.
 29

FREUD I must insist. Put your pencil away.

DALI You neither do not like the work of Dali?

FREUD Not if I am to be the subject. If I'd known this was your intention...

DALI Please. Dali has no intentions, only intent.

He puts his pad down.

DALI I have come to salute you...

FREUD Please don't bother.

DALI ... on behalf of all true disciples of the critical-paranoiac school of paint.

FREUD Who are they?

DALI Dali. He is the only true disciples.

FREUD I see.

DALI You are held in great esteem. We, by which I mean Dali and I, are engaged in a great
struggle, to drag up the monstrous from the safety of our dreams and commit to the canvass. It
is you have inspired this.

FREUD I am most flattered.

DALI You say to dream, and there to search... is what I do. You say paranoia it transform
reality to conform with the unconscious obsession, yes? So Dali gazes; is turned to stone, but
and an egg. Narcissus flowers from the egg. Desiring to be reborn he only gazes at himself and
dreams of death. Life in this state is as unlikely as a flower from an egg. Expressed with
masterly technique and ingenious illusion of course, and this is what Dali does, and only him.
Would you like me to hang him?

FREUD Oh please, don't bother yourself.

DALI Is no bother. Is an honour. I put it here.

FREUD That's a Picasso.

DALI Picasso is Spanish. (REMOVES PAINTING) So is Dali.

FREUD You like Picasso?

DALI Picasso is genius. (TOSSES PAINTING) So is Dali.

FREUD I much admire Guernica.
 30

DALI Picasso is communist.

FREUD Yes.

DALI Neither is Dali.

FREUD You'll have to forgive me for being frank. I am in a certain amount of pain.

DALI Divine.

FREUD Distracting. It's been a pleasure to meet you.

DALI No. Dali cannot go. Not so soon. Let me describe to you the painting that the paint is still
wet that I could not bring. It is called... Dream Caused By The Flight Of a Bee Around a
Pomegranate One Second Before Waking Up. It depicts the splitting of a pomegranate and the
emergence of a large gold fish. From the mouth of the fish leaps a tiger. From the mouth of the
tiger leaps... another tiger. From the mouth of this tiger, a rifle with fixed bayonet about to pierce
the white flesh of a naked girl, narrowly misses her armpit. Beyond all this a white elephant with
impossible legs carries past a monument of ice.

Pause.

DALI You have to see it for yourself, really.

FREUD Again, forgive my lack of courtesy...

DALI Please, have none.

FREUD Very well. I have always thought the surrealist movement a conspiracy of complete
fools. But as you had the audacity to elect me some sort of patron saint, I thought it only polite
to meet you. I now find I lack the energy even to be polite.
DALI Excellent! Dali has no concern for your health, no desire to be liked, and no manners.
Until the moment he dies, he does as he please. And today he refuses to leave.

FREUD I don't think I've ever met a more concise example of a Spaniard.

DALI Do you mind if I examine your room?

FREUD Yes.

DALI But I must.

DALI looks around the room. Very nosey.

FREUD I suppose the war has brought you to England?

 31

DALI In Spain until one week ago, Dali paint and is contemptuous of the fascist machine
rolling towards.

He toys with the light-pull, threatening some

antiquities as if they were bar-skittles.

DALI Then he think; no, this is all getting too historical for Dali. Immediately the desire to leave
is enormous, and acted upon immediately.

FREUD Have you any idea when the desire to leave here might become at all substantial?

DALI When Dali, being here with you, no longer feels real to Dali.

FREUD Well, that shouldn’t take too much longer, surely? take too long then?

DALI Please. Your life is almost over. Don't waste your precious time trying to analyse Dali; he
is completely sane. In fact, the only one.

DALI finds a snail on FREUD's desk.

DALI Hello, little snail.

He unsticks it, prizes it from it's shell with the point of
his pencil, and eats it.

DALI It's not good. What sort of snail is this?

FREUD English garden.

Swallows it.

DALI Is tasteless. Typical English.

Dali bins the shell with a clonk, and starts looking
around the room again

DALI The room of a man; you have said this but Dali has thought it first so must say it before
you, the room of a man is a microchasm of his mind. Dali’s room is paint and chaos. Your room
is knowledge, and of many little people, and also the unknown door to what is beyond…
Dali has arrived at the closet and opens the door.

FREUD No!

Dali takes a look inside and closes the door again.

FREUD Um…

DALI Maestro! But this therapy with no clothings, you have never published, no?
FREUD I can explain.
 32

DALI No need. Is revolationary. I have an idea to help. Excuse.

FREUD No, please…

DALI goes back to the closet and goes inside, closing

the door behind him.

DALI (OFF) Buenos dias, mi amor. Ahora mi hermoso, decir adiós a su represión sexual!
(Hello, my love. Now, my beautiful one, prepare to be released from all sexual repression!)

JESSICA (OFF) How dare No thank you.

A muffled blow, a cry and a crash.

DALI emerges holding his genitals. Unable to speak
for some time.

DALI The girl in your closet.

FREUD Girl? What girl?

DALI In the closet.

FREUD There's a girl in my closet?

DALI Naked girl.

FREUD Nonsense. She must be a figment of your unique imagination.

DALI She kick me in the phallus.

FREUD An impressive hallucinatory sensation.

DALI I have pain in the testicle.

FREUD Hysterical.

DALI No, is not funny.

FREUD Obviously you are at the peak of your imaginative powers.

DALI You think?

FREUD leads him to the door.

FREUD Your fantasies have grown so undeniable, they push through the fabric of reality.
DALI Si?
 33

FREUD It is imperative you return home and paint at once.

DALI A naked girl in the closet of Freud with the hooves of a stallion; is good.

FREUD Visionary.

DALI I shall dedicate to you.

FREUD Thank you. Goodbye.

DALI The pain is transformed; is divine.

FREUD So good to have met you.

DALI The honour, it is Dali's. I owe you my life.

FREUD An unintentional gift, I assure you.

DALI Goodbye!

He leaves.
FREUD grabs the clothing and has his hand on the
closet door handle when DALI re-enters.

DALI No, no, no, no, no! I cannot leave.

FREUD hides the clothing behind his back.

FREUD Please, be firm in your retholution. Resolution.

DALI Dali is firm in his trousers. His pain has transformed, his member tumescent. Dali is
obsessed. And you, a little liar! The patient in the closet must be cured. He must attempt this
again.

FREUD Absolutely not!

Enter YAHUDA. FREUD spins.

YAHUDA Anna's? I think not. Give them to me.

FREUD The what?

YAHUDA The flimsies.

FREUD I don't have them.

But DALI can see them, and pounces.

DALI Ahah! The garments of the Goddess.
 34

He takes the bundle and buries his face.

YAHUDA Has he met your daughter?

DALI She is a feast; you smell.

YAHUDA takes the bundle.

YAHUDA I'll do no such thing. Freud, there's barely enough silk here to cover Anna's left shin.
I intend to confront her with these.

FREUD Ah.

He heads for the door.

YAHUDA And you'd better hope for a positive identification.

FREUD No, Yahuda...!

DALI She fill my senses!

He throws off his jacket, grabs his pad, and opens the
closet.

FREUD No!!

FREUD rushes for the closet, YAHUDA escapes.

Closet door closes behind DALI before FREUD can
get there. He rushes to the other door, but it closes
behind YAHUDA.
DALI (OFF) Ahh... mi amor…
FREUD approaches the door, curious. Puts his ear to
it.

JESSICA (OFF) Keep your hands to yourself.

DALI (OFF) Si. Si.

JESSICA (OFF) Kneel down.

DALI (OFF) Is anything for you.

JESSICA (OFF) Bend over.

DALI (OFF) Ah, mi amor!!!

The toilet flushes. A cry from Dali, and a wrenching
noise. The door flies open, hitting FREUD on the jaw.
 35

DALI hurtles out, head wet, and toilet seat round his
neck.
DALI Scuse.

He trips, and lands spectacularly, out for the count.

FREUD What have you done!

JESSICA (OFF) I am a defenseless woman and refuse to be intimidated by amorous

Spaniards!

FREUD His arousal is entirely your responsibility.

JESSICA (OFF) A woman has the right to sit naked in a closet cupboard without being
propositioned.

FREUD I would defend your right, but not your choice of closet . Should this man sadly regain
consciousness, I can give you no guarantee of his behaviour unless you get dressed.

JESSICA (OFF) Then give me my clothes.

FREUD Ah.

JESSICA (OFF) What does that mean? Ah?

FREUD I have temporarily mislaid them.

JESSICA (OFF) Then you'll have to take me as I come.

FREUD No! Wait. Here.

Throws her DALI's jacket.

JESSICA (OFF) Thank you.

FREUD Alright?

JESSICA (OFF) Well, I don't think I'll get into the royal enclosure.

FREUD Please, stay hidden.

She appears in the jacket

JESSICA If you swear to give me a hearing.

FREUD Alright, I swear.

JESSICA When?
 36

FREUD When Yahuda's gone. I'll give two knocks.

He closes the door on her. It opens again.

JESSICA It's bloody cold in here; I want more clothes.

FREUD Alright! Alright! I'll get you some. Just wait quietly.

FREUD closes the door on her again, Lifts DALI's

head, looks in his eyes. Drops his head and starts to
remove his trousers.

Enter YAHUDA with Jessica’s dress &

undergarments..

YAHUDA These are not hers. She found this on the lawn.

He sees FREUD and DALI. Pause.

YAHUDA You and I have to have a serious chat.

FREUD I was just... removing his trousers.

YAHUDA He appears to be unconscious.

FREUD Exactly. He began hyperventilating and fainted. I'm loosening his clothing.

YAHUDA He breathes through his backside as well does he?

FREUD He was complaining of abdominal pains.

YAHUDA Was he? Really?

YAHUDA's professionalism takes over. He examines

DALI.

FREUD Most definitely. Indigestion maybe, but perhaps something very serious. Hopefully a
ruptured appendix.

YAHUDA Hopefully!?

FREUD Well I mean, something worth your rushing him to hospital for, but of course hopefully
not, touch wood.

Raps twice on the nearest bit of wood, which happens

to be the closet door.
YAHUDA Mr Dali? Mr Dali?
 37

JESSICA comes out of the closet. FREUD steers her

back in and closes the door, stubbing her elbow.

JESSICA Ow.

FREUD Ow. That was the sound he made, just before he collapsed.

YAHUDA rises.

DALI Owwww.

YAHUDA This man has suffered a blow to the head.

FREUD Yes. He was going into the garden and hit his head on the doorframe.

YAHUDA As he fainted?

FREUD Yes.

YAHUDA Which?

FREUD Both.

YAHUDA That's not possible.

FREUD Yes it is. He was standing on thefiling cabinet, fainted, took a dive and hit his head on
the way down.

YAHUDA What was he doing on the filing cabinet?

FREUD I don't know. I wasn't here. I was already in the garden.

YAHUDA Doing what?

FREUD Chasing a swan.

YAHUDA Where did that come from?

FREUD I haven't the faintest idea. But it could have been the swan that entered the room very
aggressively and forced Dali to retreaton to the filing cabinet where he fainted in terror.

YAHUDA This is utter nonsense.

FREUD The answer is a sponge cake.

YAHUDA What?
FREUD Nothing.
 38

YAHUDA Freud, you've finally lost your marbles. Sixty years of clinical smut has taken it's toll.
Cross-dressing, violent tendencies and attempted sodomy... I'll keep it quiet of course, but I
don't think you'll be publishing much else.

FREUD That is slanderous! What proof have you?

YAHUDA I'll get my bag. When he regains consciousness I shall find out exactly what's been
going on here.

YAHUDA exits.
FREUD close to panic. Knocks on the closet. Lifts
DALI by the ankles.

The closet door remains closed. He drops DALI and

knocks again. Lifts DALI by the ankles. The door
remains closed.
FREUD goes to the door.

FREUD Open the damn door.

The door opens. He gets DALI by the ankles and

slides him towards the closet.

FREUD I gave the signal.

JESSICA You hurt my elbow.

FREUD Two knocks is the signal.

JESSICA That's what you did, and I came out and look at my elbow.

FREUD Not one knock, not three knocks; two knocks.

JESSICA I'm not having him in here.

FREUD He's been rendered harmless. Just a few minutes, please.

JESSICA Over and above those already agreed.

Closes door as YAHUDA enters.

Pause.

YAHUDA Where is he?

FREUD He left.

YAHUDA He what?
 39

FREUD Straight through the garden, and over the wall. What a day . You were right; I should
be resting.

YAHUDA He was only half conscious.

FREUD Self induced trance; he uses it to paint.

YAHUDA Absolute rubbish.

FREUD I couldn’t agree more. How's your bike?

YAHUDA What about the underwear?

FREUD What?

YAHUDA This stuff.

Pulls it from his pocket.

FREUD Ah.

YAHUDA Well?

FREUD What did I say last time?

YAHUDA You said it was your daughter's.

FREUD Utter nonsense. She's far too...

YAHUDA I completely concur.

FREUD But she's hoping to lose weight. These are an incentive to diet.
YAHUDA What sort of a fool do you take me for?

FREUD Yahuda.... The truth of the matter is.... Um.... The Spanish lunatic came early this
morning; we had given him permission to paint in the garden. He brought with him a young lady,
a professional model...

YAHUDA It's common knowledge Dali only ever paints his wife.

FREUD His wife. She was his wife. The model was. His wife the model. It was just here, He
set up his easel, and look, she unfortunately disrobed. If we had known, it goes without
saying.... They were discovered shortly before you arrived. To save you any embarrassment
they were hurried indoors and Dali made a pretence of arriving after you.

YAHUDA She's Russian isn't she?

FREUD Wh....er?
 40

YAHUDA Dali's wife.

FREUD She's er... is she? Is. Russian, yes.

YAHUDA Where is she now?

FREUD Oh, she... she left. Much earlier.

YAHUDA What was she wearing?

FREUD Um.... I give up. What was she wearing?

YAHUDA Well not these, for a start.

FREUD Well no, but I lent her a jacket and... my wellingtons.

YAHUDA eyes the wellington.

FREUD She only took one.

YAHUDA I see. And then presumably she hopped, half naked, all the way down the Finchley
Road?

FREUD No, she hopped across the lawn to the laburnum bush beneath which she had
previously concealed her clothes. Then she left.

YAHUDA No-one passed me.

FREUD Ah, no; they climbed over the wall.

YAHUDA What on earth for?

FREUD They um, they're in training. They intend to climb a mountain together in the spring. A
small Himalayan one. They're very adventurous and very in love.

YAHUDA Oh well, that explains everything.

FREUD Does it?

YAHUDA I'm sure the Himalayas are knee deep in fornicating Spaniards. Not to mention
naked Russians looking for their wellington boots.

FREUD There are more things in heaven and on earth, Yahuda.

Pause.
YAHUDA Alright, I believe you.
 41

FREUD You do?

YAHUDA I've come to believe anything of the Godless avante-guard.

FREUD Good.

FREUD collapses with relief.

YAHUDA There's only one more thing you need to explain.

FREUD Yes?

YAHUDA wanders to the closet. Raps it once with his

knuckles. His hand waves through the air as if to rap
again, FREUD stiffens, but the hand becomes an
accusing finger.

YAHUDA What's in the closet?

FREUD Absolutely nothing.

YAHUDA Don't give me that; you've been buzzing around it like a blowfly.

FREUD joins him at the closet.

FREUD Papers, papers, a life's work...

YAHUDA Open it up.

FREUD I've mislaid the key.

YAHUDA Open this door.

He raps twice. FREUD instantly adds a third rap.
Grins inanely.

YAHUDA frowns, suspicious. Raps twice again.

FREUD adds a third rap.

YAHUDA raps once. FREUD raps twice.

YAHUDA What in Gods name is wrong with you?

YAHUDA raps again, once, and strides away. FREUD

in complete confusion adds another one, and also
walks away. Then stops dead.
FREUD Nothing. Nothing. Scheisse.
 42

The closet opens. JESSICA, dressed in DALI's

clothes, walks out. Sees YAHUDA's back. As he
turns, so does she, and attempts to return to the
closet.

YAHUDA Ahah! Stop where you are!

She stops.

YAHUDA Over the wall is he, Freud?

YAHUDA closes the closet to cut off her escape. She

keeps her back to him.

YAHUDA Alright, you bohemian buffoon; what have you got to say for yourself?

She shrugs

YAHUDA Don't give me any of your continental gestures. Turn around dammit and face me
like a man.

JESSICA fiddles with her hair.

YAHUDA I swear he's got shorter.

She turns round. She's attempted to fashion herself a

moustache. A pause.

YAHUDA Alright, Freud; over to you. Let's hear it.

FREUD Um...
JESSICA Dr Yahuda, the truth is...

FREUD You wish to speak to me!

JESSICA That's true.

FREUD So in order for our conversation to happen, you did not leave with your husband.

JESSICA Who?

FREUD Dali; your husband. Because you wished to speak to me.

JESSICA That's right. I didn't go with my husband Dali, Dali my husband

because...(DREADFUL SPANISH ACCENT)...I thtayed behind to thpeak to Profethor Freud
which ith why I wath thitting in the clothet.
FREUD Besides; you'd had a row.
 43

JESSICA Ith correct.

FREUD And you hit him on the head.

JESSICA Thith ith true.

YAHUDA With a swan, presumably?

JESSICA Que?

YAHUDA May I ask you a personal question?

JESSICA Thertainly.

YAHUDA What country do you come from?

JESSICA Thpain, of courth.

FREUD behind YAHUDA now, gestures frantically.

JESSICA Not thpain? No, I hate thpain. Spain. Spain? Plagh!

YAHUDA So?

JESSICA Sssso... I come from...

FREUD tries to look like LENIN.

JESSICA A place where all the men wear beards. A very beardy place. Afghanistan? No, of
course not. Only joking.
FREUD holds up and umberella and with his curved
arm, tries to make a hammer and sickle.

JESSICA It rains a lot. Where I come from. England, it's... no.

He stands in a Russian sort of way.

JESSICA The people where I come from are very rugged because it rains so much.

He slow marches.

JESSICA In fact many of them are dead.

He tries the same thing again, but more exaggerated.

JESSICA Turkey? No. I'm just having you on. If you seriously want to know, um...
 44

FREUD stabs at his head with a finger, impersonating

Trotsky's death.

JESSICA Where I come from... They're all mad. The entire country is completely barmy.
France! It's France! I'm French! No, I'm not, what a stupid thing to say.

She's losing her patience with FREUD. he's losing his

with her. He stands with his finger on his head.

JESSICA I come from Mars.

He does a Russian dance.

JESSICA Or Russia, I don't give a d... Russia? Russia! I come from Russia. That's where I
come from. Russia.

YAHUDA Really?

JESSICA Oh yes. It's very warm for October isn't it? Precious little snow.

YAHUDA You don't sound Russian.

JESSICA Oh... Vy mozhete skazat' mnye chuke proiti k zimnemu dvortcu? Dva kilograma
svekly i butylku vodki. Da zdravstvuyet velikii Sovetskii Soyuz! (Can you tell me the way to the
Winter Palace? I would like half a pound of beetroot and a bottle of vodka, please. Long live the
glorious USSR!)

FREUD Oh, bravo.

YAHUDA Alright, I give up.

FREUD That was brilliant.

YAHUDA But you came close Freud, so be warned; I may be willing to suspend my disbelief
this far, but not one step further.

DALI comes out of the closet in his underwear.

DALI Excuse me please. Dali does not remove his clothings.

FREUD I can explain this.

DALI Pretty girls remove their clothings for Dali, not versa vica!

FREUD This is easily explained. Please; explain to him.

JESSICA I've had enough of this pathetic farce.

She takes her clothes and goes back into the closet.
 45

YAHUDA Freud, will you tell me why on earth you are consorting with these lunatics?

FREUD Patients, Yahuda.

YAHUDA I've been patient long enough!

FREUD No, these are my patients.

YAHUDA Patients?

FREUD My last patients. A couple of mild cases to occupy my mind until… the inevitable.

YAHUDA Oh, I see. Freud, my friend; I must apologise. It all falls into place. You were always
one for a challenge, weren’t you?.

FREUD You are a generous and understanding man.

YAHUDA Not at all.

DALI You will pose for Dali, yes?

JESSICA (OFF) No.

DALI Your armpit, it is divine. I must make unto it the graven image!

YAHUDA You’ve got your work cut out. I'd better leave you to it. Good afternoon.

FREUD Good afternoon.

YAHUDA I'll be back of course.

FREUD Mmm?

YAHUDA You know what for.

FREUD discerns something sinister in these parting

words as YAHUDA exits.

JESSICA emerges, buttoning her dress.

DALI Ah, my Venus! But your armpit; where is it?

JESSICA Under my arm. Professor Freud, I wish to continue the analysis.

FREUD Whose?
JESSICA The one we began. Last night.
 46

FREUD What is the point? The details of the case are fully documented.

JESSICA Not only by you.

She produces a small book.

JESSICA This journal belonged to the patient you called Rebecca S. Her real name was
Miriam Stein. This is the journal she kept of her work with you.

FREUD So?

JESSICA I'd like us to read it. I've simplified what she remembered of the sessions, and
selected the most apposite passages. Please; read with me.

FREUD I have neither the time nor the inclination.

DALI Please.

JESSICA What?

DALI To consider my request a professional proposition.

JESSICA No.

DALI Name your price.

JESSICA I'm not for sale.

DALI The armpit only. I am on my knees.

He kisses her hand...

JESSICA Professor?

FREUD It would be a pointless exercise.

... and lifts her arm for a peek.

JESSICA Get off!

DALI You are my inspiration.

FREUD I will have nothing to do with this.

DALI Dali will do anything you ask.

FREUD You hear me? Nothing.

JESSICA Can you read English?
 47

DALI Dali is perfect English. Not have got you ears?

JESSICA Very well. Read the passages underlined.

DALI Que?

FREUD No. I really must insist...

DALI What for is this?

JESSICA We are going to reconstruct one of the Professor's case histories. You sit here.
When we are finished you may have fifteen minutes to do what you will with my armpit.

DALI Is a deal. I am to be the fraud of the great Freud, yes?

DALI sits in the tub seat.

FREUD No. I will not tolerate this.

DALI Ah.

JESSICA What anxieties are prompting your objections, Professor? Read the passages
marked with an F.

DALI But if the Professor object to this worm presuming to embody him then this Dali cannot
possibly...

JESSICA puts her hands behind her head, revealing

her armpit to Dali.

DALI ... refuse you my darling, and to hell with this man and his beard also.
JESSICA The sooner we so this, the sooner it’s done.

FREUD Very well, if you insist. Get it over with.

JESSICA From the top of the page.

DALI So. "As you speak to me you will notice ideas will occur that you feel are not important,
are nonsensical, not necessary to mention. But these disconnected things are the things you
must mention." Dali knows this; he has read this from the book. "You must leave nothing
unsaid, especially that which is unpleasant to say." Maestro.

JESSICA Concentrate.

DALI Of course.
JESSICA settles onto the couch.
 48

JESSICA It's a warm day. I had difficulty getting here. The cab driver was reluctant to raise the
canopy, and I cannot travel in a open cab.

She rubs her breast.

JESSICA I don't like leaving the house. Walking across a field or a town square is a
nightmare. I want to stick to the hedge or the edge of the wall, but even then there's this
constant possibility... A wicker basket. Just came into my head. Is that the sort of thing?

DALI is rubbing his nipple exotically.

JESSICA What are you doing?

DALI Is what it says here. I was gently rubbing my breast.

JESSICA Not your breast, my breast.

DALI You rub the breast of the patient? Is not in the published works you did this.

He reaches out, she slaps his hand.

JESSICA She was rubbing her own breast.

DALI Que?

JESSICA "I" is me.

DALI Oh, si. Si. Apologise. "Continue".

JESSICA When I was young we had a wicker basket; I used to play ships in it. It was a picnic
basket. I don't know why I've thought of this, but... my mother reading to us, the story of chicken
little. A piece of the sky falls on his head. Bits of the sky falling. I hate the sky, the way the
clouds scud. Looking through my grandmother's window. There's a birdcage next to me with a
canary. It's got some sort of disease; it's beak is being eaten away.

Gags.

JESSICA Something I've just remembered God it was horrible, and I'd forgotten all about it.
I'm lying in my Grandmother's garden. I'm an adult, I'm nineteen and she's told me to wait for
something spectacular. I remember this now. She said if I lay still I'd get a spectacular surprise.
And I'm full of anticipation, waiting for her to bring out a cake or something and suddenly...

She rubs.

JESSICA The air is full of birds. Starlings. Not just a few dozen but thousands. A black cloud
of starlings. A tattered sky and those horrible birds just...
She gags.
 49

JESSICA I run inside. I'm really angry with her. And the starlings roost in trees all round the
house and I sit curled up in a cold dark study in a leather chair and listen to the noise and I am
terrified. Some of them swoop to the windowsill. My heart races. I'm scared of the starlings. I'm
frightened of the birds.

DALI applauds.

JESSICA Don't do that.

DALI It says this. There was applause.

She takes the journal.

JESSICA There was a pause.

DALI Si. I see, si.

Pause.

DALI In this pause you think maybe I light a cigar?

JESSICA No.

DALI No, si.

JESSICA I don't know why but I'm thinking now of a flame, a small, a candle flame... and it's
burning upside down. I don't understand that. A heavy sky. Leaden. I'm afraid of the sky. No I'm
not. It's not the sky, is it? It's that a bird might fly, might pass overhead. Not all those starlings,
something far worse; one bird in a blue sky. That's what frightens me. The possibility of a bird.

She rubs.
FREUD Are you finished?

JESSICA No. Later in that same first session, they discuss her eating disorder and she free
associates around food and meals. I haven't learnt this bit. Give it to me.

She reads.

JESSICA "Knife fork and spoon should be lined up just so. A knife should never be put into the
mouth... all these rules my father had. Preparing for a picnic... the basket!" And eventually...
here it is.

FREUD I really think…

DALI Please... shhh.

 50

JESSICA "I am about seven years old. I am at the table. My father is giving a dinner party and
I have begged to attend. I am on my absolutely best behaviour. The candles are lit and the
mahogany shines. I ask my mother to pass the salt, even though my father disapproves of my
using condiments. I tip the salt cellar, but nothing comes out. The salt is damp. I shake the salt-
cellar, only once, and the silver top flies off. Salt pours in a thick quick flow all over my plate, all
over my food, and flicks down the table as I try to stop the flow. The guests turn as one to look
at me. Some laugh. I feel the most unbearable humiliation. My ears burn. My mother brushes
some of the salt into her hand with a napkin, but the food is ruined. So I picked up my knife and
fork and I eat it. I pretend it does not taste disgusting. I eat until my mouth is dry, my gums are
stinging. Tears of shame and embarrassment spill down my cheek. I run upstairs and vomit. Put
myself to bed, the bed is cold. I listen miserably to the guests leaving and pray my father will be
angry w... will not… be angry with me." There was a silence, then you announced that the
session must come to a close. Then asked, as if in passing, how often she had intercourse with
her husband. She refused to answer. She was pressured to do so.

FREUD Where is this leading? What is your point?

JESSICA I need to take this step by step. We shall leap to another session; the sixth.

FREUD No. I refuse to participate any further.

JESSICA We're almost there.

FREUD Please. I must ask you to leave.

She opens a desk drawer and pulls out her razor.

JESSICA I have to finish this. Help me finish it.

DALI Please. I say something?

JESSICA Yes?
DALI Goodbye.

JESSICA Stay where you are.

DALI Just here?

JESSICA Just there.

DALI Yes, is good here. Just here. Is very nice right here.
FREUD Put that down.

JESSICA Let me do what I have to do and then I swear, I'll disappear.

FREUD Very well, but give me the razor.

JESSICA No.
 51

DALI Is good to give it to him. Is better to keep it though. While I stand right here with no
desire to move. Anywhere, and ever. OK?

JESSICA Sit down. By this time her anorexia has been suspended. She's eating again, quite
well. The gagging has greatly reduced; she has successfully related the gagging to the taste of
salt, real or imagined, and thus to the trauma of the dinner party. From there.

DALI "I wish you to concentrate on your fear of birds. What thoughts come to you?"

JESSICA The smell of leather. Mahogany. A candle flame. Of course, at the dinner party the
candle flames were reflected in the polished wood. They were upside down.

DALI "What of the birds?"

JESSICA Oh, birds, eggs, boiled eggs... the picnic basket. I'm sick to death of that picnic
bask....

DALI A pause.

JESSICA I'm eating a boiled egg at a picnic. My whole family is there. My father has refused to
undo his collar. It is very hot. He offers me salt in which to dip my egg. I of course decline. I'm in
my late teens by now, I think of myself as very demure. I am dressed in white. And there are
friends of the family there. This is more than a... It was my father's birthday! I feel good towards
him. I feel he likes me now. He gives me the odd stiff smile. I wish we were alone; I'm sure we
could talk together now. I wish we were alone. A long way off a child is crying. A bird flies
overhead. My father calls my name. Miriam. No! I look up and smile and NO!

She cries out in disgust. Rubs violently. Gags.

JESSICA It's all over me; my dress, my breast.

DALI What is this?

JESSICA A bird, a filthy bird. A streak of white, a sudden flash of green, it's warm and wet and
it's on my breast. It's excrement.

DALI "RelaxYou are here, you are safe. He embraces me ."

The fit continues. She moans.

DALI Is your line.

FREUD He embraces her!

DALI Oh, si. Sorry. Is allowed?

FREUD Yes, is allowed.
 52

DALI embraces her. She calms down.

JESSICA I wipe at the stuff with my fingers. It makes it worse. It's all over my fingers and my
beautiful new... breast. My father, thankfully, looks away embarrassed. He pretends he saw
nothing. I try to clean up with a napkin but my dress is stained and however much I try to clean
them, all afternoon my fingers feel...sticky. Stuck together. All the way home, I hide my hand.
And my father, all the way home, never once looks at me.

Pause.

JESSICA Is that how it was? Her fit?

DALI Was magnificent.

JESSICA Is that how it was?

FREUD Similar.

JESSICA And did you embrace her?

FREUD Yes.

JESSICA She says...(READS) "I clung to him to prevent myself falling through the door that
had opened up beneath me and through which I had seen that summers day so clearly. And the
door righted itself and I knew it was now my choice to step through and remember whatever I
wished. I am so deeply and eternally grateful to this man."

FREUD Transference is common to all successful analyses.

JESSICA They all fall in love?

FREUD Without exception.

DALI Wow.

FREUD And the sole reciprocation, an acceptance of that love, with no love returned, no
demands made, no respect diminished.

JESSICA You never loved in return?

FREUD Of course not.

JESSICA She felt euphoric at the revelations tumbling from her past. And the symptoms
began to disappear. She recognised the wiping gesture for what it was, and laughed when she
caught herself doing it. Life opened up she said, like a painted fan. What continued to disturb
her were your questions about her intimate affairs. She had admitted her distaste for copulation
and acknowledged her husband's frustration, but still every week you pushed, you probed, you
insisted that she spoke of these things.
 53

FREUD This is indelicate. I've had enough.

JESSICA We've reached he crucial session.

FREUD You will leave my house, please.

JESSICA What have you to hide?

FREUD Don't be impertinent. Whatever confidences you are about to reveal from this poor
woman's private reminiscences, and whatever conclusions you may have reached, I can assure
you that no impropriety took place between us. And no such impropriety has ever taken place
between myself and any patient.

JESSICA I'm not accusing you.

FREUD I believe you were about to.

JESSICA It's obviously something you feel very defensive about...

FREUD How dare you!

JESSICA But I have no intention of making any such accusations.

FREUD Then what on God’s earth is this about?

JESSICA One more visit. The seventh. She returns. Things are not good. The gagging has
returned and she finds it impossible to keep any food down. Her fingers are useless, and her
wiping tic incessant and exaggerated. She's distraught that in spite of all she's learned, she's
iller than ever.

FREUD When she arrived. Not when she left.

JESSICA She was very angry with you, very angry, and you sensed this. Didn't you?

FREUD Of course.

JESSICA And you encouraged her to express her anger, didn't you?

FREUD Of course.

JESSICA And did she? Did she? DID SHE?!

She hits him.

DALI No!
FREUD It's alright. Yes. She did.
 54

JESSICA I'm almost there. Almost there. Almost there now.

The hysterical symptoms take hold of her, more

exaggerated and more frequent. Other physical tics
manifest themselves. She returns to the couch in an
increasingly distressed state.

DALI Is what page, which, I don't know.

JESSICA moans loudly, an agonized exhalation that

frightens DALI.

DALI Please.

FREUD Stand aside. It's alright.

DALI To help me, please.

FREUD She's alright. Everything is going to be alright.

He takes the chair.

FREUD Rebecca? Rebecca? What is wrong with your hand?

JESSICA The excrement.

FREUD Your breast?

JESSICA And my fingers; covered in shit. I know! I know! But I can't, it's... I'm still so angry!!

FREUD Angry.
JESSICA Yes, angry.

FREUD At the bird?

She breaks down. Gags.

FREUD What is wrong with your mouth?

JESSICA The taste.

FREUD Describe the taste.

JESSICA The taste of salt. It's salt. Everything tastes of salt!!

I'm filthy with this shit and all I can taste is salt.
FREUD Associate. The taste of salt.
 55

JESSICA A candle burns upside down; it's reflection in mahogany. The dinner party.

FREUD A candle?

JESSICA Put it out. No; the... cutlery.

FREUD Tell me about the candle.

JESSICA It's in the middle of the dining table.

FREUD No, the other candle.

JESSICA What other? There is no other candle. Except the one I was allowed. I hate the dark;
my mother allows me a candle. My father thinks it a waste. He will open my door and bark "put
it out". The door opens...

Pause. She's still for a moment.

Don't put the knife in your mouth. He opens the door. Put out the candle. The taste of salt and
my... my fingers.

She sobs quietly.

FREUD Why are you crying?

JESSICA I don't know.

FREUD I think you know. The candle is burning.

Sobbing openly, growing in violence.

JESSICA The candle is burning. He opens the door. He says "put it out." Put it...! Put it...!
FREUD That's enough.

JESSICA The candle isn’t is not upside down! It's me, I'm upside down! My head is hanging
over the side of the bed. Put it...!

FREUD That's enough now. Rebecca.

JESSICA Put it in your mouth!!

Incapable of continuing, she stops.

FREUD Rebecca. No more now.

JESSICA She remembered. She remembered. The mess on her breast and her fingers and
the taste of salt.
 56

DALI Don't cry. Please.

JESSICA I'm sorry. I'll be alright in a minute.

DALI What was this?

FREUD She had remembered being raped. Orally. Before she was five years old.

JESSICA The taste of salt was the taste of her father's semen. The filth on her breast that she
tried to clean off was his. When she woke in the morning her fingers were stuck together. She
had to be carried from your study, and accompanied home. She slept for almost three days.

FREUD Over the next few sessions she released a great deal of anger and began to examine
her feelings of guilt. She regained her appetite and her physical symptoms disappeared.

JESSICA She was ecstatic. (READS) "For the first time in my adult life I am happy. A simple
thing to have been so painfully elusive. I feel there is nothing now in my past that can throw a
shadow over my future. This morning I shall prepare... a picnic basket."

FREUD However. The events that Rebecca had remembered...

JESSICA Miriam! Her name was Miriam.

FREUD Miriam.

DALI So Miriam she was saved, and her marriage also, si?

JESSICA Oh, of course. Sexual relations were eventually resumed. Which I suppose means
that I also have you to thank, Professor Freud.

FREUD What for?

JESSICA My life.

FREUD She was your mother.

JESSICA You cured her.

FREUD You have her mouth.

JESSICA You released her, enabled her. You were her saviour.

DALI Is good. You come not to criticise, but to pay homage.

JESSICA What did you think, Professor?

FREUD lowers his head, thinking.

JESSICA When I found her journal I had to come.
 57

DALI I like this. Your mother is cured and is a happy ending, yes?

JESSICA Not really, no.

DALI No?

JESSICA Nine years later my mother died in the washroom of an insane asylum near Paris.
She took a rubber tube they used for giving enemas and swallowed it; force fed it to herself.
The other end she attached to a faucet, turned the tap, and drowned. In case you're still
wondering Professor, that is why I'm here.

END OF ACT ONE

 58

ACT TWO

The same. Twilight.

DALI Is serious now, yes?

JESSICA Yes.

DALI I go put my trousers on.

He retires to the closet.

FREUD I had no knowledge of your mother's death.

JESSICA That's hardly surprising. Rebecca S. has little in common with Miriam Stein. Your
patient Rebecca is a successful case history; my mother Miriam, a suicidal hysteric.

FREUD The last time I saw her was a year or so after our final session. She returned to inform
me of her health and happiness.

JESSICA She was pregnant, with me.

FREUD She had had, she said, a wonderful year.

JESSICA 1897.

FREUD What?

JESSICA 1897.

FREUD But that would make you... It was...?

JESSICA 1897.

An air-raid siren sounds. Frightened, JESSICA covers

her head with her arms.

JESSICA What is that?

FREUD It’s a warning, is all.

FREUD To alert us, not harm us.

DALI comes out of the closet, crosses and exits out

the door.
DALI Scuse.
 59

FREUD draws the curtains. The intercom buzzes.

FREUD Yes?

ANNA Father? We are going to the shelter.

FREUD I'm not. I told you when you dug it.

ANNA This might not be another drill.

FREUD I have been thrown out of my home, shunted over Europe, and shipped across the
channel. No further.

ANNA It's just down the garden. Fifty yards.

FREUD I shall soon be spending a substantial amount of time in a hole in the ground. I don't
intend to climb into one while I can still argue the point.

ANNA Very well. But keep the curtains closed.

FREUD Of course.

ANNA And if there are bombs, get under the desk.

FREUD Don't be absurd.

He switches it off. DALI enters in a gasmask.

DALI Scuse.

And goes back into the closet.

FREUD If you would prefer to shelter...

JESSICA No. I would prefer to talk.

FREUD What were you looking for last night?

JESSICA Unpublished letters. I wanted to find out if you knew what you did to my mother.

FREUD I?

JESSICA On that final visit.

FREUD She was strong, healthy, and functioning well.

JESSICA Obviously you had managed to turn her into a horse.
 60

FREUD Her symptoms had subsided, her neuroses were negligible.

JESSICA And my father could penetrate her whenever he so desired. Thank you doctor; my
wife is cured.

FREUD Not cured no, rendered capable. Remarkably so, considering.

JESSICA What?

FREUD That her analysis was incomplete.

JESSICA Was it? Was it?

JESSICA takes a book from the shelf. Opens it at a

page she's previously marked.

JESSICA The Aetiology of Hysteria. 1896. "In every case the cause of hysteria is a passive
sexual experience before puberty, ie, a traumatic seduction." This is what you wrote.

FREUD Yes, it is.

JESSICA No equivocation, no trace of doubt. You wrote to your friend Fliess;

FREUD Those are private.

JESSICA "Have I revealed the great clinical truth to you? Hysteria is the consequence of
presexual shock." That's what you believed.

FREUD Yes it is.

JESSICA And you published.

FREUD Yes I did.

JESSICA You were absolutely certain.

FREUD Yes I was.

She pulls a crumpled letter from a wellington boot.

JESSICA One year later. "My Dear Fliess. Let me tell you straight away the great secret which
has been slowly dawning on me in recent months. I no longer believe in my neurotica."

FREUD What is the point you wish to make?

JESSICA Just one year later. And you what, you...c

FREUD A year?
 61

JESSICA Change your mind in less than a ...

FREUD The year of my life! 1897 may have been a wonderful year for your mother, but it was
torture for me.

JESSICA Why?

FREUD My clinical cases began to falter.; One analysis after another failed to come to a
satisfactory conclusion; the results were imperfect therapeutically and scientifically. I suffered
disappointment after disappointment I came to the inevitable conclusion that I was wrong.

JESSICA And when my mother returned, smiling, to confide her happiness and my genesis to
you... you took back your blessing.

FREUD At first I believed I had uncovered the inciting trauma. A year later I knew this was not
the case.

JESSICA You told my mother that her memory of abuse was a fantasy born of desire.

FREUD It is more complex than that.

JESSICA It's not that complex, Professor. You said her father did not seduce her; that it was
she who wished to seduce her father.

FREUD That is a gross over-simplification.

JESSICA But by the autumn of that year, all the childhood seductions unearthed by your
patients; none of them had ever occurred.

FREUD In the unconscious there is no criterion of reality. Truth cannot be distinguished from
emotional fiction.
JESSICA So you abandoned them.

FREUD I abandoned the theory. It was false and erroneous.

JESSICA I don't have many vivid memories of my mother. She never went out, and she ate
alone. I never ate a single meal with her. She would have fits which terrified me. I don't
remember her treating me badly, but nor do I have the faintest recollection of her loving me. My
father had her committed when I was five years old. I never saw her again.

FREUD If we had the time I could help you understand...

JESSICA Oh I understand perfectly. When you proposed that abuse was the root cause of so
much mental illness your movement was at it's most vulnerable. You needed the support of the
intelligentsia, of institutions, of publishers and instead you were laughed at and reviled. Doors
were closed. Anti-Semitic tracts appeared. Everything you'd worked for was threatened.
FREUD This is true.
 62

JESSICA Your patients were the daughters and wives of wealthy and privileged men. Whom
you began to accuse of molesting their own children. And then quite suddenly, you decide you
were wrong. How very convenient.

FREUD Convenient? To have shared a Revelation and then discover it was false? All I had to
steer myself through that terrible year was my integrity.

JESSICA Hah.

FREUD I have weathered many storms of protest, but I have never bowed to outrage or to
ignorance.

JESSICA Had you not changed your mind, the outraged and ignorant would have crucified
you!! My own Grandfather, who my mother accused, was friend or acquaintance to every
publisher in Austria!

FREUD You are accusing me of the most heinous opportunism!

JESSICA Yes! Yes I am!

FREUD Do you realise how many women retrieved "memories" of abuse while lying there?

JESSICA Many.

FREUD More than many. You will forgive my astonishment at being asked to believe that
sexual perversion was prevalent amidst the genteel classes in epidemic proportions. I was
proposing a virtual plague of perversion. Not merely socially unacceptable; but fundamentally
unthinkable!

JESSICA So you thought up something else.

FREUD The theory of infantile sexuality...

JESSICA ...Is the cornerstone of your entire edifice! Take that idea away and psychoanalysis
would be rubble.

FREUD No one has been readier than I to risk our movement in the pursuit of truth.

JESSICA My mother...

FREUD (HARSH) Your mother was a hysteric! Her memories of seduction were wishful
phantasies based on her unconscious desire to posses her father, his penis and his child.

JESSICA Oh please. ...

FREUD These desires in turn based on her desire to posses her mother, to suckle indefinitely,
and to give her a child.
 63

JESSICA I've read all this...

FREUD (RAPID) A premature rejection of her mother, an unresolved anger at having no penis,
a fierce fixation on her father. At the crucial age of seven, if my memory serves me, her mother
dies. She believes herself to be guilty of killing her mother to attain her father. Her development
is arrested, her guilt repressed along with her desires. Years later she develops the hysterical
symptoms and the fantasies begin to emerge alongside the memories.

JESSICA It sounds so ridiculous, it’s all so….

FREUD Complex. Indeed.

JESSICA I know one thing for certain. I know that my mother's father...

FREUD You know nothing!! You are ignorant, presumptuous and obsessed. Your theories are
simplistic. Your motives malicious. I have given you quite enough of my time. Thank you.

JESSICA Why so angry?

FREUD I AM ANGRY WITH NO-ONE!!

DALI (OFF) Argh!

He bursts out of the cupboard, holding his forefinger

before him like a beacon. It's bleeding.

DALI Maphu mothur ufgud! Haffmee!

He tears off his gasmask.

DALI Is my blood.
JESSICA What have you done?

DALI Please, call an ambulance and alert the hospital. Look, is my blood. Is coming out of my
finger.

JESSICA Calm down, it's not that bad.

DALI Is my blood.

JESSICA Have you first aid?

FREUD Here How did you cut yourself?

 64

DALI Is not! I sit in the closet, I notice on the wall the piece of... how you say this? Nasal
mucus. Fastened to the wall with much exhibitionism. Very old; a previous owner I am sure. Is
pearly green with a sharp point that makes a gesture which is a trumpet call for intervention. Is
disgusting, so I take my courage, wrap my finger in handkerchief and savagely tear the mucus
from the wall! But is hard and steely point like a needle! Look; is here. It penetrate between the
nail and the flesh! All the way down.

JESSICA Alright, sit down.

DALI Is great painful.

JESSICA I'm sure it is.

DALI Is to the bone.

JESSICA I'll pull it out.

DALI Please. Be carefully.

She pulls out the mucus. Wraps it in handkerchief.

DALI Argh!

JESSICA It needs disinfecting.

DALI Is throbbing.

JESSICA Be a brave soldier.

FREUD begins reading his letters to Fliess.

DALI Is go boom boom boom; the music of perfidious infection. Argh!

JESSICA What?

DALI Is still there! The pointy part is still deep down. I see it through the nail. Get it out.

JESSICA Well, I can't.

DALI Do this!

JESSICA It's far too deep.

DALI No! Is, but...! It still throb. Is will be infected. Is death. Death weigh in my hand like
ignominious kilo of gesticulating worms.

JESSICA It's only a splinter.

 65

DALI Is unknown nasal mucus! This finger is swelled. This hand is begin to rot. Please, get me
to a hospital. I have it surgically dismissed at the wrist. Buried. It decompose without me.

JESSICA It's not snot anyway.

DALI It's not?

JESSICA No, it's not.

DALI Si si! It's snot. Is what I said.

JESSICA It's a bit of glue.

DALI It's not.

JESSICA No. A drop of wood glue.

DALI Oh. Si.

JESSICA You'll survive.

DALI Is possible. Thank you.

FREUD replacing letters in cabinet.

JESSICA What are you doing?

FREUD I'm sorry?

JESSICA I haven't read them all yet.

FREUD And why should I allow you to examine my personal correspondence?

JESSICA Why should you not?

FREUD Because it is personal. The discovery of your mother's sad history has been very
traumatic for you, but whatever mad quest you have set yourself is a hopeless one. I have
nothing to hide.

Loud knocks from the front door.

FREUD Who the devil? Indeed, to hide nothing has been my sole quest.

He leaves, taking the letters with him.

JESSICA Then let me read those letters!

FREUD (OFF) Certainly not!
 66

DALI Dali lives!

YAHUDA's voice off, then both enter.

YAHUDA Freud. Apologies for this but I must beg hospitality. Every time I turn on my bicycle
lamp I'm yelled at by cockney plebeians in flat caps and armbands. It's pitch black; I can't get
home. Ah.

FREUD Nor can Mr Dali and his wife.

DALI looks for his wife.

FREUD Your wife.

DALI Please?

YAHUDA We met earlier.

DALI Oh, si. Si.

YAHUDA Sorry for the misunderstanding earlier. I very much admire your hobby.

DALI Which is this?

YAHUDA I got on top of one or two myself when I was younger.

DALI Please?

YAHUDA Couldn't keep it up though.

DALI Oh, si.

YAHUDA The nice thing is luckily they don't have to be enormous to be satisfying, wouldn't
you agree? Small ones can be sufficiently stimulating. How far up her do you hope to get?

DALI This man is a doctor?

FREUD I mentioned that you and your wife...

YAHUDA A word of advice; always use the best quality rope and don't attempt anything
vertical the first time.

DALI Please?

FREUD That you and your wife enjoy mountaineering.

DALI Oh?
JESSICA I think it's time Dr Yahuda was told the truth.
 67

FREUD No!

JESSICA Mr Dali and I are not married.

FREUD But share a common law agreement. It's a changing world, Yahuda.

JESSICA We met for the first time earlier this afternoon.

FREUD A rapidly changing world.

YAHUDA So why were you here in the first place?

JESSICA It is true that I am Russian.

FREUD Is it? Good.

JESSICA And I have been engaged by Professor Doctor Freud to translate some of his letters.

FREUD Yes, that's it. Precisely.

JESSICA And those are the only ones I haven't read.

FREUD Ah.

JESSICA May I continue?

FREUD No.

JESSICA Why not?

YAHUDA Why not?

FREUD Very well. If you must.

JESSICA takes the letters. FREUD can't let go of

them. She pulls, third time lucky.

JESSICA Thank you, Professor.

She retires to read.

YAHUDA What's wrong with your hand?

FREUD Nothing. Hysterical grip reflex. When I was young I er...

Makes a repeated gesture with his wrist. Recognises it

as an obscene gesture.
 68

FREUD ... dropped an ice-cream.

YAHUDA finds the manila envelope containing the

Moses article.

YAHUDA Stamped and addressed, I see. Off to the publishers?

FREUD Yes.

YAHUDA You realise of course, you have a Moses complex?

FREUD I beg your pardon?

YAHUDA I read an article. Some woman you once sent barmy. Said you identified with Moses.

FREUD Moses is nothing but the flesh of sublimation.

DALI Superb.

He makes a note.

YAHUDA It is a bad time to discourage men from putting their faith in God.

FREUD On the contrary.

YAHUDA Have you read this evenings paper?

FREUD No.

YAHUDA Then do so.

Slaps it at him.
YAHUDA Seven thousand Jewish shops looted. Three hundred synagogues burned to the
ground. Babies held up to watch Jews being beaten senseless with lead piping. They are calling
it Kristallnacht.

FREUD takes the paper.

YAHUDA Apparently Goerring is displeased that so much replacement glass will have to be
imported. He said they should have broken less glass and killed more Jews. Have you heard
from your sisters?

FREUD No.

JESSICA Sisters?
FREUD Three elderly ladies. We have not been successful in our attempts to bring them out.
 69

YAHUDA Don't blame yourself.

FREUD It is entirely my fault.

YAHUDA No.

FREUD If I had left sooner, I would have been more able to make suitable arrangements.

YAHUDA You've done what you can.

FREUD I do not believe I shall see them again.

YAHUDA They say it is to be the last war. Do you think so?

FREUD My last.

YAHUDA You lead us from the wilderness and then abandon us. If you think you're Moses
why for the love of God throw doubt upon him now?

JESSICA Why indeed?

FREUD Have you finished with those?

JESSICA It couldn't mean you wish to be doubted, could it?

FREUD I wish to be left in peace!

JESSICA You doubt nothing?

FREUD Nothing!

YAHUDA What are you reading?

FREUD Nothing.

JESSICA You should read them also.

FREUD Yahuda; a cigar?

YAHUDA You stink of cigars.

FREUD No more lectures, please. I have already smoked myself to death. Now it is purely for
pleasure.

FREUD lights a cigar.

JESSICA This one's interesting.

YAHUDA Is it?
 70

FREUD No, it isn't. Yahuda, come with me. I need some fresh air.

YAHUDA What about the Luftwaffe?

FREUD You think from two thousand feet they could spot the butt of an old cigar?

YAHUDA With my luck they'll recognise you instantly.

YAHUDA and FREUD exit into garden.

DALI What are you looking for?

JESSICA I don't know, but I think he does.

DALI Please. Lift your arm. You owe this.

She lifts her arm. He draws while she continues

reading.

DALI Later, you and I; we have dinner of seafood. Crush the complacent shell of crab and
lobster and eat the flesh while still surprised. Then, break into national gallery and visit the
London Exhibition of Degenerate Art courtesy of Adolph Hitler, then tomorrow at dawn, by the
light of the sun rising over Primrose Hill I shall render your armpit through my eyes and into
history.

JESSICA I'm washing my hair.

DALI Heaven, to Dali, is the depilated armpit of a woman.

JESSICA Do you expect to make love to all your models?

DALI No more . Dali grow to hate the love mucking.

JESSICA You don't like being touched do you? I noticed earlier. It makes you anxious. It
makes you squirm.

DALI Please.

JESSICA Do you make love to your wife?

DALI We did this, but no more.

JESSICA Why not?

DALI The last time we made love, Dali, at the climax of his passion, cried out the name of
another.
JESSICA Your mistress?
 71

DALI No, my own. Gala she say is over, and goes fuck fishermen.

JESSICA Does that bother you?

DALI Gala I adore. She is everything. But no, I cannot let her to touch me. Always, I hate to be
touched.

JESSICA So have I.

DALI Is true?

JESSICA Unlike you I find it very painful.

DALI Touching?

JESSICA Not touching. I pray I shall not have to live my entire life like this.

He stands, she stiffens, he sits again.

She stands and sits beside him.
Their hands rise, fall, courting.
Finally they hold hands for about four seconds, then
let go.

DALI How was it for you?

JESSICA Somewhat conflicting, but thank you.

She moves away, wiping her hand.

DALI You feel the bones too? Is enough sex for Dali. How these ugly millions do this thing to
get these gruesome children; all this sucking and prodding and body fluids in and out of one
another I will never understand. Inside a beautiful woman is always the putrefying corpse of
Dali's passion.

FREUD returns.

FREUD Are you finished?

JESSICA No. Where's your friend?

FREUD He wished to be left alone. He is a good and powerful man. It is hard to see him
powerless.

JESSICA It is hard to believe in good and powerful men, it is so often a contradiction in terms.

FREUD Give me the letters.

She heads for the closet.
 72

JESSICA Is there nothing you regret?

FREUD Nothing! Not in my entire life. Except perhaps one inadvisable evening at Rookery
Nook.

JESSICA Don't worry, I shan't be in here forever.

Closes and locks the door behind her.

FREUD Then come out for pity's sake! Say what you have to say and leave me alone! Is this
me?

DALI No. Is a drawing by Dali.

FREUD But is this what I look like?

DALI To Dali, si.

FREUD I look dead.

DALI Is no offence. But Dali sees… beneath.

FREUD Soon, then.

DALI Bye bye byes. But before you go. Please. One thing you do for him.

FREUD What?

DALI To judge the work of Dali. The world is a whore, there is no-one can tell me. Only you.

FREUD Your work?

DALI Please. You see, if this is no good in your eyes... I have wasted the time of my life. When
you look at my paintings, what do you see? Well, you see what I see, obviously, that is the
point. But have I caught what we are chasing, you and I? Can you see the unconscious?

FREUD Oh, Mr Dali. When I look at a Rembrandt, or a classical landscape or a still life by
Vermeer, I see a world of unconscious activity. A fountain of hidden dreams.

DALI Si?

FREUD But when I look at your work I'm afraid all I see is what is conscious. Your ideas, your
conceit, your meticulous technique. The conscious rendition of conscious thoughts.

DALI Then this... He... I see.

FREUD You murder dreams. You understand?
 73

DALI Of course. (PAUSE) Of course.

FREUD I hope I've not offended you.

DALI No, no no. Is just the Death of the Surrealist Movement, is all.

FREUD Surely not.

DALI Is no matter, but is caput. You tell me nothing I do not know already. I shall give up the
paint.

FREUD Oh please, not on account of me.

DALI No, no no...

FREUD You must continue.

DALI No. No no no. No. Alright, I shall continue. I thank you. You and me, we know is shit. But
the world is a whore, she will buy the shit. I shall buy a small island.

FREUD Could you spend your life pursuing something you no longer believed in?

DALI Oh yes, no problem.

JESSICA emerges from the closet.

FREUD is now genuinely frightened of her.

JESSICA I'm ready. I have it now. 1897. Who can tell me what is odd about this sentence?
"Those guilty of these infantile seductions are Nursemaids, governesses, and domestic
servants. Teachers are also involved, as are siblings." Well?

DALI Give us a clue.

JESSICA If you like.

She finds another letter.

JESSICA "The old man died on the night of October 23rd, and we buried him yesterday." This
was your father. "He bore himself bravely, like the remarkable man that he was. By one of the
obscure routes behind my consciousness his death has affected me deeply. By the time he died
his life had been long over, but at death the whole past stirs within one."

FREUD Give them to me.

JESSICA No. Nursemaids, governesses, servants, siblings... no mention of fathers,

Professor?
FREUD I've had enough of your inquisitory meanderings.
 74

JESSICA I need look no further! I know why you changed your mind. Another letter to Fliess,
justifying your decision. Pleading your seduction theory could not stand up because "In every
case of hysteria the father, not even excluding my own, had to be blamed as a pervert". Not
even excluding my own.

FREUD My father was a warm-hearted man. He was possessed of deep wisdom.

JESSICA And?

FREUD I loved and respected him.

JESSICA And.

FREUD This is preposterous.

JESSICA An earlier letter. "I have now to admit that I have identified signs of psychoneuroses
in Marie". Who was Marie? Marie was your sister.

FREUD The error into which I fell was a bottomless pit which could have swallowed us all.

JESSICA Perhaps it should have done. You suspected your father.

FREUD That is quite enough.

JESSICA Your family leave for the summer, you stay alone. You embark on your own self-
analysis.

She flicks pages.

FREUD Those letters are private.

JESSICA Analyse this sentence, Professor Freud. "Not long ago I dreamt that I was feeling
over-affectionate towards Matilde; my eldest daughter, aged nine.

DALI No. No more. This is a great man. It take one to know one, which is proof.

JESSICA Your mind was in turmoil! The year he died you condemned your own father! And
your dreams reveal your own complicity. A desire for your daughter!

FREUD There was no desire. The dream fulfilled my wish to pin down a father as the
originator of neurosis.

JESSICA Then you admit you suspected...

FREUD My wish to do so!

JESSICA And yet the year of his death...

FREUD I suspected nothing.
 75

JESSICA The year of your own analysis...

FREUD Do not presume...

JESSICA You choose to denounce you own theories!

FREUD I had no choice!

JESSICA Other than denounce your own father! Other than denounce yourself!

DALI No! You, miss prissy kiss my armpit tightarsed girlie say this slandering things no more!

JESSICA It only remains for me to make my findings known.

FREUD To whom?

JESSICA I believe Dr Yahuda may lend a sympathetic ear.

She exits into the garden.

FREUD Come back here!

JESSICA Dr Yahuda!

DALI She is cast aspersions on integrity of all great men!

FREUD Stop her. Please. She must be silenced.

DALI She is need have her head examined!

DALI pursues. YAHUDA enters through the DS door.

YAHUDA I've mislaid my gasmask. Did I leave it in here?

FREUD I've not seen it.

YAHUDA Maybe on the porch.

FREUD No. I think I saw it in the hall.

YAHUDA I've looked in the hall.

FREUD I'll look with you.

The sound of breaking glass.

YAHUDA What's that?
 76

FREUD Nothing. I'm not sure. Probably just… a bomb.

YAHUDA A bomb!?

FREUD Unexploded. So far. I suggest we take immediate refuge.

YAHUDA In the shelter?

FREUD No! Under the stairs.

YAHUDA Under the what?

FREUD hustles YAHUDA out the door. JESSICA

enters through the window.
Scrunching through broken glass off.

DALI (OFF) You think it discourage Dali you wield at him the greenhouse? No! Scabrous little
non-fornicating fantasists like you Dali will squeezed between his fingernails!

She notices the buff envelope on the desk. An idea

comes to her. She removes the Moses and
Monotheism text from the envelope and puts the
Fliess letters in it's place, resealing the envelope.

The other text she puts in the maroon file.

DALI You must learn to respect for betters and olders and men who struggle in the mind like a
silly girl could not begin to do!

As she finishes he bursts in holding a length of hemp

rope.
DALI Is swingy rope, from tree. You want to give me papers and shut up and be good girl, or I
do this worst thing to you.

She picks up a phallic stone figure.

JESSICA Try it.

DALI Ha! I am fearless, si?

He takes a step forward, she swings the figure, he

cowers.

DALI Not to hit the head, please! Is full of precious stuff!

Enter FREUD.
FREUD Move the U-bank and tuck yourself well in.
 77

YAHUDA (OFF) This is absurd.

FREUD I'll find your mask.

Closes the door behind him.

DALI Dali is got her but she grow violent, so best cure her quickly, si?

JESSICA There's nothing wrong with me.

DALI Put this down or be warned.

JESSICA Go to hell.

DALI OK. OK. You push Dali to employ his superior intellect!

He picks up a similar but much larger figure.

FREUD That phallus is four thousand years old!

JESSICA What about this one?

FREUD Priceless.

She throws hers at DALI.

FREUD Catch that!

DALI catches it but drops his own weapon on his foot.

DALI Got it. Argh!

JESSICA runs out of the french windows.

JESSICA Dr Yahuda!

DALI Alright, now is personal.

He pursues her, taking a really big figure. FREUD

picks up the maroon file. and goes to the filing cabinet.

FREUD changes his mind, crosses to the stove,

opens the lid, and drops the file in the fire. The fire
roars.

YAHUDA enters.
YAHUDA What do you want?
 78

FREUD Nothing.

YAHUDA Not you; her.

FREUD Who?

YAHUDA I heard shouts.

FREUD For the warden. There is a large unexploded bomb in the greenhouse.

JESSICA (OFF) I need your help, Yah...(HAND CLAMPED OVER HER MOUTH)...huda!

YAHUDA There, you see?

FREUD No, no. Our local warden is Mr Yahoohaa.

JESSICA (OFF) Yahuda!

YAHUDA I distinctly heard my name.

FREUD Nonsense. It's all in my head. Your head.

YAHUDA Was that a Freudian slip?

FREUD Certainly not. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must… the bomb.

He picks up a soda syphon and exits into the garden.

YAHUDA spots the buff envelope and picks it up.
Unable to restrain himself, he takes it to the stove and
hesitates.
JESSICA (OFF) Dr Yahuda!

This spurs him to action. He lifts the lid.

JESSICA enters, her head bleeding, and tied round

the waist by a rope. On the end of the rope,
attempting to restrain her, FREUD and DALI.

JESSICA No! Don't do that!!

YAHUDA I was er... warming my hands!

JESSICA What's that envelope doing in them?

YAHUDA Good grief; thank God you spotted that.

FREUD How dare you!
 79

He takes the envelope from him.

FREUD Have you no regard for a man's life work?

YAHUDA Life's work? Senile piffle.

JESSICA There's something you must know. The theory of infantile sexuality is based upon...
(a false premise!)

FREUD puts a gasmask on her.

FREUD This woman has turned violently psychotic.

She yells her findings unintelligibly.

FREUD In extreme cases I'm afraid only extreme methods will suffice.

JESSICA tries her best.

FREUD You see; senseless ramblings.

DALI Please to calm down like the good little girl should be seen and not heard.

She gives up.

FREUD But you Yahuda; you should be ashamed of yourself. A man's words are his legacy.
They should not be censored, but should stand in their entirety...

Checks the contents.

FREUD ....aahg! No, you're right, let's burn the damn stuff.
YAHUDA Bravo!

JESSICA No!

She grabs it. DALI tries to get it off her.

FREUD Give it to me!

JESSICA Yahuda... read this.

She gives the envelope to YAHUDA.

YAHUDA What?
JESSICA Read it. Read it!
 80

YAHUDA I've already read it.

FREUD TRIPS

YAHUDA Is that a Freudian slip?

FREUD grabs the envelope from YAHUDA. JESSICA

then grabs the envelope from FREUD.

DALI Leave this things alone now; is none of little girls business

FREUD Enough!

JESSICA throws the envelope to Yahuda but FREUD

catches it and manages to secure it in a drawer.

DALI Sit your silly self down!

FREUD It has been a very stimulating evening afternoon, but I must ask you all to leave now.

FREUD goes for the door. He pulls the handle, but the
door has become rubber-like. It bends without
opening.

FREUD Good God.

DALI How you do this?

FREUD What on earth's going on?

DALI Do it again.
JESSICA Yahuda; you have to read those letters.

YAHUDA What?

FREUD uses the intercom.

FREUD Anna!

DALI tries the door.

DALI Is fantastic.

FREUD Anna!
From the intercom a childs scream.
 81

CHILD No, Papa! No!

And a FATHERS solemn reprimand.

FATHER Sigmund.

FREUD No.

Turns off the intercom and retreats in fright.

YAHUDA What was that?

FREUD Nothing. You heard it?

JESSICA I will not be silenced.

FREUD You will leave this house.

JESSICA I shall go to the papers.

FREUD I shall call the police.

JESSICA I shall publish those letters.

FREUD picks up the phone. It turns into a lobster.

FREUD Hello? Would you please connect me with... aaaargh!

YAHUDA What the hell is going on here?

DALI Don't look at me.

FREUD, frightened now, goes for the door, thinks
better of it, heads for the french windows.

FREUD Everything's fine. But Yahuda; it’s getting late. Reluctantly I must bring the evening to
a close.

He opens the curtains. A train is hurtling across the

garden towards him. Steam, bright lights glaring
straight ahead, and a piercing whistle.

FREUD Arch!

YAHUDA What the devil?

FREUD closes the curtains.
 82

YAHUDA What was that?

The clock strikes. FREUD, terrified, compares his

watch. The clock melts.

YAHUDA What's happening?

DALI Is the camembert of time and space, no?

A deep dangerous, thunderous music begins, low at

first, building.
The edges of the room begin to soften.

YAHUDA Are you alright?

FREUD Please Yahuda...

YAHUDA You look unwell.

FREUD Go home.

YAHUDA I'm your physician Freud, not another figment of your addled imagination.

FREUD That’s as maybe, but I imagine you’d be far happier at home.

YAHUDA disappears through a trap door, or in a puff

of pantomime smoke.

FREUD Dear God in heaven!

JESSICA gets a hand free and tears off the mask.

JESSICA Dr Yahuda!

FREUD You’re too late. He’s gone. If indeed he was ever here. This is beginning to make
sense now.

JESSICA Then I shall leave too. And find someone willing to listen.

FREUD No, no. You are powerless, you understand? You are nothing more than a neurotic
manifestation...

JESSICA Of what?

FREUD Of a buried subconscious... you don’t exist.

JESSICA Of what?
FREUD I refuse to acknowledge you.
 83

JESSICA Of a what, Professor Freud?

FREUD Of the vaguest sense...

JESSICA Of what?

FREUD Of…

JESSICA Of guilt?

FREUD Get out of my head! House!! Head!!!

The room continues to melt.

DALI Ok now. Back in the closet and there to stay.

FREUD No!

JESSICA Let me go!

She kicks DALI in the crotch and dashes out of the

downstage door. He dives for and catches the rope.

DALI Is no panic. He is got her!

Her momentum pulls him out of the room.

FREUD And good riddance to you all!

But DALI re-appears almost instantly, pulling the rope.

DALI All is OK. Dali has got her!

FREUD No, no! Let her go.

DALI I bring her back.

FREUD No! I beg you!

DALI Is no problem.

FREUD Just... let her go!

DALI We sort this naughty girly out once and for all, si?
FREUD No, please, please don’t…
 84

DALI The doctor will see you now, you hysterical bitch!

DALI gives an almighty tug. JESSICA is no longer tied

to the rope. Into the room spills a nude WOMAN.
Glittering music.

FREUD No.

DALI Who is this?

FREUD No, please...

The WOMAN moves towards FREUD; he's both

attracted and repelled.

DALI Is fantastic! But is who?

FREUD Matilde?

WOMAN Papa.

FREUD No, no. Matilde?

The WOMAN embraces FREUD.

WOMAN Papa.

FREUD Oh, my Matilde...

FREUD No.
DALI Is your daughter, si?

The embrace turns sexual.

FREUD No! Don't touch me.

He disengages.

DALI Is the most desirable, no?

FREUD No!

WOMAN Papa!
FREUD I never touched..! I never even imagined..!
 85

WOMAN Papa!

FREUD Leave me alone!

DALI (Sings) Thank heaven, for little girls…

He runs to the window. She pursues him. A train

whistle blows in the garden, and the curtains billow.
FREUD backs away from the window.

DALI … for little girls grow bigger every day!

The WOMAN tries to embrace Freud. He avoids her

and runs to hide in the closet. Opens the door and
through it topples a cadaverous, festering, half-SS
officer, half CORPSE. Screeching music.

FREUD Aaaargh!

DALI Good evening; please come in.

FREUD No, no no no…

DALI Si; is history! You must be part of!

CORPSE Doctor Freud?

FREUD God help me…

The CORPSE pursues FREUD. The WOMAN tries to

embrace him.
WOMAN Papa.

CORPSE Dr Sigmund Freud?

Sounds of shunting trains compete with music; a

drowning cacophony. We hear Nazi marching bands
and waves of Hiel Hitlers. We hear Beethoven. Dali
helps the room transform, pushing away the walls,
conducting. Grotesque IMAGES appear, reminiscent
of DALI'S work, but relevant to FREUD'S doubts, fears
and guilts. FREUD is horrified as the contents of his
unconscious are spilled across the stage.
 86

More BODIES appear, reminiscent of concentration

camp victims, and are bullied by ghostly Nazi figures.
Distant chants from the Third Reich. Three nude OLD
LADIES appear. They are escorted to a gas chamber.

LADIES Sigmund. Siggy. Sigmund.

FREUD No. No! NO!

FREUD tries to get to the old ladies but he is stopped

by Nazis, or the impossibility of glass. Suddenly a
piercing scream and Jessica runs on, terrified. She is
wearing her slip, but it is tattered and torn; she’s been
ravished.

JESSICA No, Papa. No! No! No, Papa…!

She is followed relentlessly by a huge, crippled,

faceless PATRIARCH. She tries to hide behind Freud.

JESSICA (Barely coherent) Help me. Help Me. Stay away from me!!!

FREUD Leave the child alone!

But the Patriarch towers over Freud. He speaks with a

huge and disembodied voice.

PATRIARCH Sigmund!!!!

FREUD Papa?

Music descends to a rumble.

JESSICA (Imploring) Mama! Mama!

FREUD Papa…!?

PATRIARCH Ungrateful young wretch!

The room fills with the voice of the Patriarch, and this
continues under the action.

PATRIARCH (A litany of utterances) Now keep your mouth shut. Open your eyes. Open your
mouth. Close your eyes now. Do as I say. Shut your mouth and open your eyes.

FREUD This is unjust…

PATRIARCH Open your eyes!
 87

He shakes his head.

FREUD No Papa!

Jessica has taken the razor from the drawer and like a
marionette, comes up behind Freud.

JESSICA Then I shall open them for you!

FREUD No! No!

She straddles him. She is about to cut open his eye

with the razor. The music crescendos.

DALI Enough.

The action freezes. Shadowy figures and a single spot

on Dali.

DALI This razor through the eye thing I imagine in a small café in 1929. Bunuel pretends is
him, but is Dali. But this is not Dali; this the mind of Freud. And is enough, now.

Stillness, and a single light on Freud.

FREUD Deeper than cancer. The past. And of all the years, the year I looked into myself is the
one that has been killing me. In the months of April and of May , one by one, I hunted down my
fears, and snared them. Throughout the summer, mounted, pinned and labeled each of them. In
October; my anger, for the most part, I embalmed. And in December I dissected love. Love has
ever since been grey and lifeless flesh to me. But there has been little pain. The past, for the
most part, has past. I chose to think , not feel .
The air raid siren sounds. The PATRIACH, the
WOMAN, the CORPSE and the OLD LADIES all
disappear. The set returns to normal. The siren stops.

FREUD Am I dying?

DALI Si.

FREUD And all this?

DALI Don't blame me for this; is nothing to do with. I tell you already; surrealism is dead.

FREUD And what about you?

DALI Dali? Is true. He visit you. This was two months ago. And he look at the death in your
 88

face of Freud and he understand how many things were at last to end in Europe with the end of
your life. But apart from this he visit and... nothing happens much.

DALI sits FREUD in his chair.

DALI So... Dali visits. Freud remembers... and sleeps. Goodnight.

Exit Dali.

The air-raid all-clear siren sounds. The set completes

it's return to normal, as do the lights.

JESSICA stands looking at the sleeping FREUD.

JESSICA Professor?

His eyes open.

JESSICA Were you sleeping?

FREUD I don't believe so.

JESSICA I'm sorry I got angry.

FREUD To get angry is most necessary.

JESSICA But what about those who get hurt?

FREUD If the anger is appropriately expressed...

JESSICA What about the children?

FREUD No-one gets hurt.

JESSICA Ha.

FREUD It is painful to understand one's complicity in these things.

Pause.

JESSICA Do you still insist my mother was never molested by my grandfather?

FREUD No, she was not.

JESSICA Well, that's a remarkable thing.

FREUD Why?
 89

JESSICA Because I was. And please don't suggest that I imagined this. He was no beloved,
half-desired father to me. He was a wiry old man who smelt of beer and cheese and would limp
to my bed and masturbate on me. Only once was it an unexpected thing. And once he
whispered if I told my father, he would do worse to me with this.

She shows the razor.

JESSICA My mother knew what he would do, if she were not there to listen for the door, the
creaking stair. That's why she protested at being sent away. And so fierce and vehement her
protest, sent away she surely was.

FREUD bows his head.

JESSICA What was it you remembered in your self analysis, Professor? About your father?

FREUD What is more relevant is what I could not remember.

JESSICA Have you no feelings?

FREUD I chose to think. And if now I am not so much a man as a museum, and my
compassion just another dulled exhibit, so be it. All I have done, what I've become... was
necessary. To set the people free.

JESSICA So Then you’re dead already.

FREUD Oh, a few bats hang in the tower; fear. The odd rat still scampers through the
basement; guilt. Other than that the building is silent.

JESSICA Liar.

FREUD I hear nothing.

JESSICA You heard me.

FREUD Nothing.

JESSICA Listen harder.

FREUD breaks down. Weeps.

JESSICA What? What is it?

FREUD The exhibits are screaming.

JESSICA Goodbye.

FREUD I don't know your name.

JESSICA Jessica.
 90

FREUD God is looking.

JESSICA Goodbye.

FREUD Jessica. The young may speak what the old cannot bear to utter.

JESSICA Because I can articulate these things does not mean I am able to bear them.

She leaves. YAHUDA enters. FREUD speaks with

difficulty.

YAHUDA Freud?

FREUD You will remember you promised to help me when the time came. Well, it's torture
now.

YAHUDA nods.

YAHUDA Have you spoken to Anna?

FREUD She will understand.

YAHUDA nods. From his bag he takes a hypodermic,

prepares it, and injects FREUD with two
centigrammes of morphine.

FREUD Thank you, my friend.

He closes his eyes. Grimaces.

YAHUDA I shall repeat the dose in twelve hours time. Two centigram’s, a little more,
whatever's called for. You may hallucinate. Don't be afraid.
The grimace tightens, then the drug takes hold

FREUD Oh... heaven.

And FREUD's face relaxes as he falls into a sleep

which will become his last.

YAHUDA dismisses a tear, takes a last move at the

chessboard and leaves quietly.

The sound of rain beyond the window, and a subtle

change of light.

FREUD wakes. Looks at his watch.

 91

FREUD If you are waiting for me to break the silence you will be deeply disappointed. The
silence is yours alone, and is far more eloquent than you imagine.

He turns in his chair and looks towards the couch.

Frowns when he sees there is no-one on it.

JESSICA appears through the rain and stops outside

the french windows. Her hair hangs dripping to her
shoulders.

She taps on the glass. FREUD looks at her. Closes

his eyes, too tired to go through all this again, but
knowing he may have to.

JESSICA continues to tap as the lights fade.

END