Pigsty (Porcile)

After a thorough examination of our conscience,

we've decided to eat you because of your disobedience.

Wife, you and I are allies.

You, mother-father, I, father-mother.

Tenderness and harshness surround our son from all sides.

My God, the Germany of today's Bonn, is nothing like Hitler's Germany.

They make wool, cheese, beer and buttons.

Cannons are only made for export.

It's true, we know Hitler was a little female,

but we all know he was a female killer.

So our tradition has definitely improved.

So, she, the killer-mother

had obedient, blue-eyed children full of great desperate love.

Whereas I... l, an affectionate mother,

have a son who is neither obedient

nor disobedient.

PIGSTY

Julian, we are two rich bourgeois.

The destiny which brought us together is not two-faced.

It has smiled on us with great naturalness,

and we're here to analyse ourselves because it's our privilege.

I won't talk about it. It's painful to talk about myself.

How is it painful'?

It's pain you can't even imagine!

Sure, today is the first day of spring.

It's your birthday and the day we have some explaining to do.

What a bore. I feel like making a kite and going to the beautiful fields of Godesberg.

You make me laugh!

You always find excuses to get out of things.

Julian's lucky.

He always has an overpowering and childish desire for fulfilment.

His reserves of happiness and freedom are always at hand.

His purpose is always obscure.

My 17 years are 47, the age your mother won't admit to.

I know what these brilliant ideas are for.

But today I won't continue being confused and tremulous

and admire the dumbfounding prospect of you running to Cologne with a kite.

No, I'll keep you here to talk about the two of us.

If you were to die, my pretty, I wouldn't even be curious where you were buried.

But you kissed me once, did you or did you not'?

I'm scratching my head.

His sex is male and his name is Julian. You don't know who you are.

Don't you want to know yourself'?

- No, I don't want to. - Why not'?

I like the way I am now. It's the prerogative of my gender.

In your grandfather's ltalianised temple, as big as a world of a thousand souls,

and where, instead, an emperor lived alone amid monochrome frescoes,

coloured like snow and yellow Indian ink, you once were a child.

- What happened to you'? - What happened to you'?

What has kept you here, stunned and unable to leave?

In this immense ltalianised villa, just little things, of course.

A wandering leaf, a creaky door, a distant grunt.

Why do you always kid around, you, who are never the comic?

Because if you could see me for just one instant

as I really am, you'd run off terrified to get a doctor,

if not an ambulance! Hooray!

Leave them alone, Father.

- Don't worry, we have no secrets. - Well, are you engaged or not'?

Not on your life!

- That's a good one. - Really, Ida, not yet'?

We've decided to take a trip to Sicily instead.

Taormina, an enchanting village.

- Have you been there, Mr Klotz'? - Yes, little Ida, during the war.

It's too bad you haven't made up your minds.

Julian needs a kind, sweet woman, one who truly loves him.

- Who says I'm in love with him'? - Well, it would be a good marriage.

If we combined our wealth, I'd own half of West Germany for sure.

Wool, cheese, beer and buttons, not to mention cannons.

- Hooray! - I can see you two get along anyway,

a wonderful complicity.

- Coward! - My best quality is remaining inalienable.

Since you're inalienable, you won't change. Why don't you come with us to Berlin

to join in the first and maybe only German march for peace?

Because today is a day in August of '67 and I don't have opinions.

I tried to have them, and so I did my duty.

I discovered that even as a revolutionary I was a conformist.

But conformity leads to other worries,

for example, taking care of your father's business.

Yes, but in return it protects me from being afraid.

- You know exactly what you want. - So do you.

The time has come. For the first time the youth of Berlin are doing something.

Ten thousand of them are going to piss on the Wall in protest.

The Communists on the other side will watch them.

- You're missing that thing. - I'm a girl-boy and I'll piss as well.

I've got something else to do.

- What? - I'm not telling you.

- Please tell me. - No.

- Tell me. - No!

- I want to know. - You'll never find out.

- Please! - Give up.

- What are you going to do? - I don't want to tell you.

- Why? - You're not kidding around any more'?

- I never kidded around. - Do you really want to know'?

- Yes, I want to know! - Are you really going to cry'?

- Yes, I'm going to cry. - You're a fool.

But I never know what you're doing, what you think, who you are. Never, never!

Regarding our march on Berlin, all I know is you're a disgusting individualist.

Yes, partly, I grunt like my father, in fact.

But I won't let you say it.

But I'm going to say it. You're on your father's side.

People like you who want nothing, want power.

- Your father has power, too. - I'd still love you even if you were black.

I'm scratching my head. None of this interests me.

The 50 conformist parts of me are bored,

and my 50 revolutionary parts are suspended.

Both of them want to stay here to enjoy...

- What? - The infinite repetition of just one thing.

- What? - What I said before.

What I'll do when you and your friends are at the Berlin Wall

standing under stupid puritanical signs.

If you tell me what you're going to do

while the rest of those your generation, the best in our country,

will be marching for the first time, I'll be more heroic than my heroism, Julian.

I'll be disloyal and stay here with you.

Even if you were to betray not just those of your generation,

but yourself and the truth,

you'll never find out what I'm going to do.

What right do you have not to tell me'?

- It's just my right, that's all. - What good will it do you'?

If anything, to make you cry and suffer. Tra-la-la.

And without fail I'll cry and suffer. Tra-la-la.

Just little things, a wandering leaf, a creaky door.

A grunt.

What do you mean, Julian? What do you mean'?

Come on, don't cry, don't be a bore.

Of course I'll go with you and piss on the Berlin Wall.

I heard that our son has plans to go to Berlin

- with those Communist students. - No. He didn't go after all.

- Where did he get such an idea'? - Ida.

- But Ida's only 17. - That's right.

And he's 25. And she's there waiting for him.

- Is he on my side or against me'? - Who knows?

The times of Grosz and Brecht are not yet over.

I could easily have been drawn by Grosz

as a sad pig and you a sad sow, at the dinner table, of course.

I with a secretary's bum on my knee

and you with your hands between the driver's legs.

And Brecht could easily have us be villains in a play where the poor are the good guys.

So what's Julian waiting for to grow fat like a pig'?

Or to give gifts to the poor and dance a Tyrolean dance with them'?

Or what's he waiting for to call me a pig'?

And to call me a sow.

Did you do that thing while I was in Berlin'?

Ida, I have a proposal for you.

What a strange tone of voice you have. It's almost like mine.

A proposal'? Yes, tell me, Julian.

I want to kiss you.

A kiss? Oh, Julian, you don't know how that fills me with joy.

I could dance, sing. I could jump forjoy like a puppy and clap my hands.

It's a joy more spectacular than the sun or the stars.

Who can I tell'? Who can I open my heart to'?

Who do I thank while I'm crying and laughing'?

Nevertheless, Julian, I won't let you kiss me.

- All right. How did it go in Berlin'? - Everything went well in Berlin.

What was written on your sign'?

Nothing in particular. "Down with God."

- What do you care'? - But you care about it a lot.

I don't know.

So what about our kiss?

Ida, why don't you want me to kiss you'?

Julian, my dignity!

What dignity'? Tra-la-la.

Not that of a woman, or a girl, but my freedom. Tra-la-la.

But if you love me, you're free.

I'm free to not let you kiss me and suffer horribly. Tra-la-la.

- Ida, have pity on me! - No!

Not on any condition?

Not on any condition?

I'll let you kiss me if you tell me...

The truth about what I did while you...

Yes, what you did while I was there.

What I always do while I'm alone.

You think I fly kites over the villas in Godesberg.

What do you do, then'?

I'm 25 years old and five months.

And do you know I've never kissed a woman!

That's a big one!

With all my pacifism and polemics about the wealth of Germany,

with all my anticlericalism, and with all my devotion to free love,

with everything that unites me to the hundreds of thousands of

the most progressive youth in the world,

Julian, you shock me or even make me laugh.

Laugh, that's just what you ought to do.

That's why I want to be an SS and massacre you with my secret!

Come on, kiss me.

I can't now.

Why not'? I give up, you see. Tra-la-lera.

The desire to kiss you, as you can see, made me want to kill you. Tra-la-la.

Do you think I wouldn't be up for that, too'?

- You're asking me'? - I'm sure of it now.

I won't kiss you. I won't kill you.

- Because I love... - Who?

There's no "who". There is only my love.

Dear guinea pig, you're free.

The last miserable experiment is over.

There he is. Like Christ on the cross.

- Does he recognise us'? - Who knows? No one knows.

- He's not looking at anything. - He always stares blankly up in the air.

- Doesn't he move'? - No. He never moves an inch.

He's been lying there rigidly since August.