Scene Nine
from The Bells of Amersfoort
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2019
Summary
As the lights rise we discover KATJA and MARTIJN. The barstool that represents Tami's flat is there. But no wine or glass. TAMI is not there.
KATJA: She has changed. She is no longer the same. You must have had a good effect on her.
MARTIJN: If it were really my effect she would be reachable. I can't reach her, Katja. We play the music, we seem to gel, but she's as distant as ever.
KATJA: What is important is that she no longer has what she called the ‘demons’ that possessed her. You, the music, or both, have exorcised them. She no longer uses wine as a security blanket.
MARTIJN: She was beginning to melt, until she discovered who the Dominee really is. Now she is consumed by anger. I fear she will go back to that wine.
Enter JOHAN VAN DER BIJL.
KATJA: You have the gall to come here after what you have done to her!
JOHAN: Where is she?
MARTIJN: What the hell do you want from her?
JOHAN: Hell doesn't half describe what I have been through.
KATJA: What you have been through? What about what you put her through?
MARTIJN: He hasn't told us what he wants here.
JOHAN: Tami Walaza asked me to ask Catharina and Fritz to join her outfit. I thought she would be glad to hear that they have agreed.
KATJA: Fine, we'll tell her when she comes. Goodbye.
MARTIJN: Close the door after you.
JOHAN: You people, you think you can judge. You don't know half the story.
KATJA: We know that you damaged a young woman and destroyed all her prospects.
JOHAN: She could have rebuilt her life. Many people did. And became even better people because of the very damage that we did to them. They are running South Africa today.
KATJA: That is a good one, isn't it? She was too weak to rebuild herself as others did? It is all her fault. You were doing her a favour when you arrested her at her wedding and tortured her almost to death. You merely wanted her to be a stronger person so that she could run South Africa one day.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fools, Bells and the Habit of EatingThree Satires, pp. 148 - 152Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2002