An Excerpt from the Play "Pulling Apart"

April 25, 2008 

by Ellen Kaplan

SARAH and JOSH sit on a  bench, overlooking Jerusalem.  SARAH is agitated.

JOSH:  Atrocities were committed.

SARAH:   On both sides.  Yes.

JOSH:  We didn’t grow up with this, Susie.  By the time we had any politics, Israel was a dirty word.   So, why now, out of blue nothing?   Why are you here? 

SARAH:   Why did you come?   Why are you here?

JOSH:  To see you.

SARAH:   We’ve been estranged for years, Josh.

JOSH:   Estranged?  That’s how you think of it?

SARAH  What do you call it?

JOSH:   (PAUSE)  Let’s try to fix it. 

SARAH:  Why?

JOSH:  You only get one family.   We can’t just…drop.it

SARAH:   And now you feel – what?  Some small Zionist tug….?

JOSH:  You’re making it harder.

SARAH:  It’s already too hard. 

JOSH:  Why do you want to live here?  It’s not your home. 

SARAH:  Look at these – (PULLS OUT PHOTOS) – This is Chaim.  Blumfield.   Here’s Yoni, Ariela,  Arye.  They’re Adin’s friends.  Kids.  They trade photos of each other – just in case.  To have a memory.  They’re babies, they do this, just in case.  It’s sick.  You don’t kill people’s children!

JOSH   That’s what I’m saying!  It’s insane to live here!

SARAH:  This is why!

JOSH:  (GETS UP, AGITATED)  You’re fanatic.  It’s your son’s life and you…

SARAH:  We can’t let them win.

JOSH:  I don’t know you anymore.

SARAH:  It’s one reason.  It’s not the only reason….

JOSH:  I don’t understand your reasons.

SARAH:  No.  You don’t.

JOSH:   I’m not the enemy.

SARAH:   No, you’re “family.”  But when my pregnant friend, acquaintance - and her husband were shot in their bed, by a monster whose 94 year old father who cheers him on, who is proud of it, I could kill with bare hands.  She was Dov’s tutor!   What can I tell him, where is Rachel?  She’s my family

JOSH:   They’re in despair.  They’re humiliated… you have to understand

SARAH:   I should understand!?  I don’t understand!  You come here to talk politics to me, and family.  Why?   My politics is my family. 

JOSH:  You’re my family, all I’ve got. 

SARAH:   You opted out.   What do we have?  You and I?

JOSH:   Memories, habits, arguments, I don’t know!  Brother and sister, doesn’t that count!  It doesn’t just dissolve into thin air, we have a bond.

SARAH:  No.  It doesn’t just dissolve.   A MUFFLED BLAST, THEN TWO MORE.

JOSH:   What was that?

SARAH:  I don’t know.  SILENCE.  ANOTHER BLASTS, FAR OFF.  I have to go.

JOSH:  I’m not a kid anymore.  I’m rummaging around my life….

SARAH:  We shouldn’t sit here. 

JOSH:   Walk with me.

SARAH:   I’m making a shiva call to the family.  You could come. 

JOSH:  I don’t even know them.

SARAH:  And it’s in the Gush.  Settlements, I know.  I have to go. 

JOSH:   Just be careful.

SARAH:  You be careful.  Promise me you won’t go to Hebron.  Please.

JOSH:   According to you, I’m on their side anyway.

SARAH:  You’re wrong, Josh.  You don’t have a side.

JOSH:  I want people to talk to each other.  That’s enough reason to do the story in Hebron.

SARAH:  You pay nothing for your good liberal sentiments.  You think we should love everyone?  We don’t have that luxury.  Here you have to choose sides. 

JOSH:   I’ll call you when I get back.

SARAH:  We can always try again.     SHE EXITS.     BLACKOUT 

ACT II, Scene 2

ELLIOT:   Stupid fucker!  .  I’ll paste your skull to the mud, martyr boy.  Get up. HE GETS TO HIS FEET WARILY, THEN LUNGES AT ELLIOT. WHO PUSHES HIM AGAINST A PILE OF CRATES. THE WOMAN DOESN’T LOOK UP.  A PITCHER OF MILK SMASHES, CRATES TOPPLE, ORANGES FROM A BOWL SPILL OVER. 

BOY:  Soon I’m big. 

ELLIOT:   Soon you’re dead.

RUTH:    (UPSTAGE)   He wants to spit in your face.  (SHE COMES DOWN FROM THE RUBBLE. KNEELS TO CLEAN THE MILK, USING HER SCARF)

ELLIOT:  He’s an animal.

BOY:   I have 10,000 heads, my head grows back a thousand times under your boot.

ELLIOT:   Sneaking little Arafat. (TO RUTH)  Comes up on me with a knife.

BOY:   When you die I’ll lick your blood.  (HE TAKES TWO EGGS FROM HIS POCKET,  THROWS THEM AT ELLIOT, RUNS OFF)

ELLIOT:  Get off your knees. 

RUTH:  Someone has to clean up.

ELLIOT:  They hate us.

RUTH:   You humiliated him.

ELLIOT:  I’ve got 3 kids.  This little bastard….

RUTH:  You don’t want to be a picture in tomorrow’s paper.  I understand.  (SHE PUTS ORANGES BACK IN BOWL.  ELLIOT WATCHES HER)

ELLIOT:  You shouldn’t be here.  

RUTH:   Neither should you. 

SARAH:  (CALLS FROM OFF)  Elliot?  Please…

ELLIOT:     Make it fast.  (SARAH ENTERS, DOESN’T NOTICE RUTH

SARAH:  Let me talk to her alone.

ELLIOT:  You shouldn’t be here. 

SARAH:    If you stay, she won’t talk to me at all.

ELLIOT:   Sarah, we’re in Hebron. 

SARAH:  Elliot.  Please. 

ELLIOT:   I can’t protect you here.   (HE HESITATES.  SHE JUST STARES AT HIM. HE GOES, CLIMBING OUT OVER THE RUBBLE)

RUTH:   You won’t find him here.  (RUTH PUTS HER SCARF IN A BUCKET.  HER PRESENCE, WE REALIZE, IS A FICTION, SHE’S IN ELLIOT’S MIND, & IN SARAH’S)

SARAH:  My throat is so dry.

RUTH:   Sorry.  The milk’s spilled. 

SARAH:  I need to talk to her.  Maybe she knows something…

RUTH:    I’ll translate.  Otherwise you won’t understand each other.  MORE WOMEN COME SLOWLY, AND WATCH FROM VARIOUS PLACES IN THE RUBBLE.

SARAH:   I’m  so sorry.  I’ve uh …been dreaming at your doorstep.   THE WOMAN LOOKS UP, STARES AT SARAH,, THEN SPEAKS, IN ARABIC:

MOTHER: (NAIFA)

ARABIC:  (I welcome you to my home.  What there is.)

SARAH:  I don’t think I can understand you.  I don’t speak…

RUTHIE:   But she said to her:

MOTHER:  I knew in my bones I would see my son die.  I knew he would die before I did, and that I would bury him.

SARAH:   I’m so sorry.

RUTH:  And she said:

MOTHER:   Everyone is sorry.  Who isn’t sorry, tell me.

RUTH:  And Sarah thought:

SARAH:  I can’t speak freely here.  You want revenge for your son. 

MOTHER:  Why not?  You steal our children, you steal our land.

RUTH:  Sarah says:

SARAH:    I want to find my brother.

RUTH:  She means:  You stole from us too, and you keep on stealing, our hopes, our lives.  You dream of towns where your great-grandfathers lived, on land we bought, land that no one owned.  You remember smoke and air you never breathed.. 

MOTHER:   I smell the scent of flowers in the air, and olive groves, and my grandmother’s grave.  

RUTH:  She thinks: 

MOTHER:   I keep the key to my uncle’s house, where his parents were born, and I will never give it back to you.  I tell my sons, fight to the last bullet, we don’t surrender to our dream to thieves.

RUTH:  She dreams….

SARAH:   That dream died, it’s you who killed it.   The men who teach your children, only Muslims belong here.  Fifty years dreaming we’ll disappear into the sea.

MOTHER:   I cannot help you.  Why should I?   What have you done for us, but force us to eat stones.

SARAH:  I’ve brought money.

MOTHER:  That won’t help me here.  

SARAH:  Your baby, is he a boy?

MOTHER:  Yes, a boy.  I feed him the juice from lentils, that’s all we have today.

SARAH:  Is Nabil also your son?   My brother was with him. 

MOTHER:  What is your name?

SARAH:  Sarah. 

MOTHER:  Abraham’s wife.   I know your stories.  We have stories too.  Abraham…Ibrahim, my own father’s name.

SARAH:  My brother is a journalist.  He’s not responsible…  Please help me.

MOTHER:  I say the same to you.  Please help me.

RUTH:   She thinks, why is she here, this woman, this Jew? 

MOTHER:   Leave now.  You shouldn’t be here.

RUTH:  They can’t talk to each other, you know.  They don’t speak each other’s language.  I’m invisible, translating.  A woman without a shadow – a ghost.  SHE DRAWS  WATER FROM A WELL,. POURS IT INTO A JAR, BRINGS IT TO NAIFA, SETS OUT GLASSES. 

NAIFA:   Would you like something to drink?  We have very little water.   As you know.

SARAH:   Yes.  But I could ask you why.

NAIFA:  Don’t.

SARAH:     Of course..  I’m your guest

RUTH:   She’s a guest, but not a guest. 

SARAH:  “A dog that had his teeth before his eyes…”

NAIFA:   I’m sorry?

SARAH:   I used to teach - those words.  It seems absurd now…

NAIFA:   Yes.  

SARAH:

“from forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept

A hellhound that doth hunt us all to death…

That dog that had his teeth before his eyes

To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood

Something about the galled eyes of weeping souls, and a womb that lets loose to chase us to our graves…”

NAIFA:   Your womb, planted in my soil.  PALESTINIAN WOMEN GATHER STONES IN THEIR DRESSES,   I have no words. My children eat air.  . 

RUTH:    No one hears.  The big stories hide our little ones…

SARAH:  Can’t you tell me anything about my brother?   Please, he came this way…

NAIFA:    I have nothing for you.  The milk is sour, the well is dry.  My son was here, but he left alone.  (SHE GOES INTO THE HOUSE, THE OTHER WOMEN LEAVE.  A WINDSTORM STARTS, DUST BLOWING.  SARAH STARTS TO TREMBLE.  RUTH COMES BEHIND HER, HANDS HER WATER.  SARAH DOESN’T DRINK).

ELLIOT  (ON THE HILL, CALLING).  Sarah!  We have to go,. Night, dust, fog, let’s go!   SHE IGNORES HIM.  RUTH KISSES SARAH’S HEAD.     LIGHTS OUT.

ACT II, Scene 4

SARAH, HOLDING HER BOOKS.  SHE IS TALKING TO RUTH (AGAIN, AN IMAGINED RUTH.  RUTH IS EATING CHOCOLATES FROM A CANDY BOX) 

SARAH:   Velvet and parchment.  Gold threads.  Rough and smooth, I love the texture, my fingers burn and dance.  Leather, gold, parchment, ink – the sages are with me at my table. The words hold me.  I lean into them.  I used to push forward, reaching out, off balance.  Straining – to catch an idea, to propel what I knew, thought I knew, out from myself, into my students, people, career, always pressing, on, on.

RUTH:   (STUDYING THE BOX OF CHOCOLATES)  And now? 

SARAH: I stand on a rock. 

RUTH:  (TAPS ON CANDIES WITH HER LONG RED NAILS)   This is caramel, there’s cherry cordial, marzipan, I love that word.  Marzipan.  Want a chocolate?

SARAH:   No.  I have something so certain… I am held strong, braced. 

RUTH:   Like a girdle? 

SARAH:  Like a cradle. 

RUTH:  For an infant? 

SARAH:   No not a girdle, not a cradle.  Organic, not rigid, not what you say.  A living breath inside me…I can’t explain it to you, Ruth.   Put those away, you’ve had a dozen. 

RUTH:   Haven’t.  Crème centers, good.   

SARAH:  I can’t make you understand.

RUTH:   Nope, can’t.  Too bad for me, really.  They cut it.  Our Zionist daddies.  Those six thousands years of Jewish story, they cut the roots when they got here.  New Jew, no Jew.   I was born on a kibbutz, believe me.  They cut the roots out, now it’s gone..   

SARAH:   I’m sorry for that.   

RUTH:   But I really don’t care.   

SARAH:   (PAUSE)  We’re a shattered people.  Our country is disintegrating. 

RUTH:   Not your country. 

SARAH:    It is now. I claim it.  I have that right.  (PAUSE)  My whole life I was awed by words.  That’s why I taught, and Shakespeare, oh!  Such words, glittering amethysts, burnished treasure, they gave me the whole world.  But still, there were never enough words to hold me.  None for prayer.  Now, Torah…I found my soul in its words.. 

RUTH:  (LICKS HER FINGERS, PUTS AWAY THE BOX)  What about them?   

SARAH:   Who?  

RUTH:   How nice you have poetry, you also have water.  So should they.    

SARAH:   Why is that my problem?   

RUTH:   Oh, so that’s where religion gets us.                                                   

SARAH:   We glorify life, not death.   

RUTH:   It all circulates.  Look in your own eye in the mirror. Are you ashamed?   

SARAH:   You bet I’m ashamed, they shame us all!    

RUTH:   (MAKES HER SCARF LIKE A KAFFIEH ON HER HEAD)  The man says:  You humiliate me.  Your every act is a humiliation – Do you forget, does the world forget that we are living under your occupation?  We are refugees in our own land, for 50 years.  Is the world forgetting that we are human, with human needs to live, to work, to drink our own water from our own wells.  You hope to make me feel my smallness, but that will never happen.  We are greater than you and in the end we will win.  We will never put up our hands and surrender, we’ll sooner die.

SARAH:   And we’d sooner live.  So we’re weaker in the end..  . 

RUTH:  (TAKES OFF HER SCARF)  Seems like it. 

SARAH:  It’s in Hashem’s hands, not ours. 

RUTH:   And that’s good? SARAHWe’re not in control – if I were, do you think my brother would have…disappeared? 

RUTH:   You don’t know. 

SARAH:   I know.  I know enough.   

RUTH:   Well.  I don’t know anything.  (LICKS HER FINGER TIPS, GENTLY) 

SARAH:   Where is my brother?  LIGHTS GO DOWN ON RUTH.  SARAH STARES.  Oh, oh, I…How stupid!  I’ve been dreaming.  I lost my place, where was I  Forgive me. 

ACT II, Scene 5

SARAH IN SPOT, SORTS THROUGH BOOKS, FINDS HER NOTES, SHE IS TEACHING.   And so the overarching question in the text is: Who owns what?  Who is entitled to a piece of land?  Chazal says, well, we’ll get to that, but our question is, what do we mean by ownership?   Say you buy a piece of land, but the person you bought it from is a thief, he didn’t actually own the land when he sold it to you, he had no right to sell it.  The owner – the real owner – comes – even 3 years later, the text is clear, but you who bought it, worked it, now it’s yours, you bought it legally. Yes?  No!  The judge is saying if the real owner comes, no matter if you worked it, bought it, it’s not yours.  It belongs to the original owner.  And who is original owner?  That’s the proper question.  The tractate clearly says, if a person is forced off what is theirs, and it is acquired by someone else, it must be returned to the original owner.  How far back do we go?  (PAUSE)   Of course, this applies only to Jews.  To us.  Not them.  This is ethics.  It is valid only if the people involved are all Jews   Something is wrong….with that.

THE CHORUS OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN  BEGIN SETTING FIRES.  SMALL FIRES, COOK FIRES, BUT WHICH BURN BIG, BRIGHT, THREATENING TO ENGULF THE STAGE.  RUTH WATCHES FROM A HILLSIDE, SMOKING A NARGILLEH.  SARAH WATCHES SILENTLY.

Ellen W. Kaplan is Professor of Theatre at Smith College, Fulbright Scholar (Costa Rica, Hong Kong), and a professional actor, director and writer.  Her plays have been produced in New England, North Carolina, California, Israel and Romania.  Her essays appear in Theatre Topics, Jewish History, Our Lives: Anthology of Jewish Women’s Writing and The Deronda Review; in addition, her poetry recently won recognition in Springfield, MA.  Ellen does extensive theatre outreach, working with women in prison, adult learners, special education students and adjudicated teens.