After the War
drama by Christian Lanciai (2008)
The characters:
Thomas, fisherman
”Max”
Ulf
Doctor Wolf
Lars Forssell, father Gunhild
Pastor Wrede
Wedding guests
Father Francis a nurse ”Max II”
The action takes place on Emsalo, outside Borga, in Borga and in Helsingfors 1951.
The drama is inspired by true events, but all names are fictitious.
Dedicated to the memory of Ulf Segerstrale.
Copyright © C. Lanciai 2008
After the War
Act I scene 1. A seashore. The swell of the beaches. One man washed ashore seems lifeless. An old fisherman passes by.
Fisherman (removes his pipe from his mouth) My God! (puts back his pipe, takes care of the man, examines him to find out if he is dead, tries to wake him up, and he does wake up.) What are you doing here?
Max Who are you?
Fisherman Fisherman. What are you?
Max (tries to think) I don’t know.
fisherman You must know something?
Max What am I doing here?
fisherman That’s what I asked you. Don’t you know?
Max No, actually not. I have no idea.
fisherman But you are alive, and that’s the main thing. We must get more life into you. The rest will come by itself. Can you stand up?
Max I could try.
fisherman Can you walk?
Max I could learn.
fisherman At least you understand Swedish. Don’t tell me you have lost your memory.
Max (thoughtfully, honestly, tries to really think hard) I am sorry, but I really seem to have lost my memory.
fisherman Obviously you’ve had a blow. An accident? Shipwreck?
Max (thinks hard, helpless) I don’t know.
fisherman Come. I will help you to get home to my cabin. Some porridge is what you need. With your strength returned your memory will surely come back to you.
Max I hope so.
fisherman No identification? Driver’s licence? Passport?
Max (feels around) I have got nothing.
fisherman But you are Swedish, and that is the main thing. We will surely get you in order. If you can’t find out who you are others will. Come now! Get up on your feet!
Max (rises with an effort) I actually seem to be able to stand.
fisherman You don’t even have water in your lungs. At least you are not drowned. We shall hear around who is missing.
Max Where am I?
fisherman In the eastern part of the archipelago. Emsalo. Does it mean anything to you?
Max No.
Fisherman But you are a Swedish Finlander, and we are not that many. If someone is mising it is immediately noticeable. It was worse during the war.
Max (alert) What war?
Fisherman The Second World War. The Winter War. The contiuation war. Then everyone disappeared, and many did not even come home after the war.
Max Is it long ago?
Fisherman (is stunned) Don’t tell me you are one of those!
Max How long ago was it?
fisherman Seven years ago. If you are a lost son since the war we are happy. Many were those who never returned.
Max (supports himself on him, is ready to start walking) I am sorry, I know nothing. Thanks for wanting to help me.
fisherman You even sound as if you came from Borga. Many sons are still missing there.
Max Thanks, my friend. What is your name?
fisherman Thomas. And you?
Max (thinks hard again) I am sorry. I haven’t the faintest idea.
Thomas It will be all right. Come on now. (helps him staggering out)
Scene 2. In the cabin. Max lies on a bed at the side of it.
Thomas sits with a friend at the table by the window. They have coffee.
Ulf How long have you had him?
Thomas Two days.
Ulf And he still does not know anything?
Thomas His loss of memory is and remains total.
Ulf But for the rest he is healthy?
Thomas His constitution is robust and he has a good appetite. His condition is almost perfectly normal.
Ulf No disabilities indicating anything of what he could have suffered?
Thomas He was chilled by the water and stiff to get going. Nothing else was wrong, except for a bump in the head.
Ulf A bump?
Thomas His hair is thick, so it took a while before I discovered it, but he has had a hard blow in his head.
Ulf Concussion? Any blood?
Thomas Very little.
Ulf A blow in the head in a sensitive place could cause any kind of trouble. We must get him to Borga.
Max (wakes up a little) I apologise for causing you such trouble.
Thomas No trouble at all. I have taken care of and bandaged shipwrecked before. Many floated ashore here during the war.
Max I am obviously a latecomer.
Ulf You have at least an alert mind. We won't have to send you to Talludden at Ekenas.
Max Don't be too sure. My head is still a complete void.
Thomas But there is hope.
Max Is there?
Ulf Someone might recognize you. Many are still missing after the war. You could be one of them.
Thomas Perhaps you escaped from some prison camp in Russia under extreme ordeals.
Ulf That actually seems probable.
Max You may think and believe what you want. All I know is nothing.
Thomas Some coffee?
Max Do you think that will help against my headache?
Ulf Do you have headaches?
Max Constantly.
Ulf How do they manifest themselves?
Max It is crazy. It comes and goes and wanders around everywhere. It is completely incalculable.
Thomas It will pass.
Ulf It sounds like some rheumatic migraine.
Max Is there any cure?
Ulf You could get it by many years of exposure to extreme cold with a bare head. It is not unusual in Lapland.
Thomas All Russia is nothing but a constant headache to all Finland.
Max Is that my trouble?
Ulf No, my friend, you have had a blow in your head, perhaps intentionally by someone who wanted to sabotage your life, perhaps by some accident. I think the latter is more likely.
Max Are you a doctor?
Ulf Student. But I could get you to a qualified doctor.
Max Could he help me?
Ulf That will be a later issue. Each one is his own best doctor, and that responsibility is up to each one to handle himself. That's what you must find to take upon yourself.
Max I will do my best. I am completely at your disposal concerning cooperation.
Thomas It will probably be all right.
Ulf I think so too.
Thomas Some coffee?
(They concern themselves with their coffee in peace and quiet.)
Scene 3. At the doctor's.
doctor Your case is interesting, my friend, but not at all unique. I have dealt with many cases of shellshock in my days. In every case the brain has been damaged, but in all cases the brain has also recovered, although never completely. Even if you will recover your memory one day there will always be some scar remaining.
Ulf How great are the chances, doctor Wolf?
Wolf It depends completely on the patient and to a high degree on his own strength of will. If there is any subconscious wish to keep what is forgotten in suppression the chances could be less. But you want to remember, don’t you?
Max Of course.
Wolf What do you remember?
Max I make constant hard efforts all the time. Sometimes there are fragments and flashes of memory, but I can never hold on to them. They vanish as quickly as they occur, just like dreams.
Wolf What are your dreams about?
Max Unfortunately they never remain in my memory.
Wolf How do you experience your own condition?
Max As extremely puzzling. I do have a language intact, and I have knowledge, even if I haven’t got the faintest idea about how I got it or where I went to school.
Wolf Do you know any other language?
Max I know English and German, maybe also Russian, but I haven’t had reason to test them yet. If anyone speaks English or German with me, I understand it and can reply. But no one has yet spoken Russian with me.
Wolf Go on with your story.
Max Even though I don't have an ego, I feel confident in myself and in my judgment. I know the people and can see through them – I must have accumulated thorough psychological experience. Even though I don't recognize a single house
here in Borga, I feel at home here, but I could probably feel at home anywhere. What do you think about my bump in my head?
Wolf Ulf's theory that you have been in a shipwreck is actually the most likely scenario. You may simply have had a boom in the head. Then the refugee theory comes to light. It doesn't bring anything close to reality to you, that you may have fled in a sailboat from the Soviet Union and crashed on the way? We had a severe storm quite recently, and there are always fresh small boat wrecks sloshing around in the archipelago....
Max It doesn’t wake up any insight.
Wolf Go on with your story.
Max There is not much more. It is as if all my memory always was there but out of reach, as if it had sunk to the bottom of an ocean that I can only fish in and pull about blindly in, and as if I could only regain it by a stroke of luck, an unconscious hit by the purest luck. I can't look into the past, I can only grope. It's as if I had lost my memory as one sense while I still have all my other senses intact.
Wolf I have a suggestion.
Max Would you like to operate?
Wolf Certainly not. But I could give you an identity.
Max Do you know who I am? And you don’t tell me?
Wolf Take it easy. As you well know, Borga misses many sons after the war. Some are confirmed dead, some are probably dead, and then there are those about whom it is impossible to know anything and perhaps even impossible to ever know anything about. One of these has a single father still alive who is looking for his only son, who disappeared in Karelia behind the Russian lines in 1944. You could be his son because you are very similar to each other, and your intellectual standard is equal to his. Would you dare to meet him?
Max Would he dare to meet me, aware of a possible disappointment?
Wolf He offered himself to dare the experiment.
Max Then I have hardly anything to lose by it, do I?
Wolf He is waiting outside. I will immediately let him in. (gets up and opens a door) Come in please, Mr. Forssell.
(He enters, a slim elderly gentleman, obviously sore tried but very vital.)
Forssell (hesitates just for a moment) My son! (embraces Max spontaneously) I knew it! You are back!
Max Who am I?
Forssell You are Max Walter Forssell, 33 years old. You have been lost for seven years, and now finally you have turned up again. I knew it! I knew you would be back one day! (embraces him again) But what have you been doing these seven long years?
Max I wish I knew. I am sorry, father, if you are my father, but my memory is completely lost. I don't remember anything I've been through before a friendly old fisherman brought me to life on a deserted seashore. I don't recognize you. Even less do I know your name.
Forssell Call me Lars! Others called me Larry or Lauri, but you always said Lars. (more downheartedly) So you actually remember nothing?
Max Nothing.
Forssell Not even your sweetheart?
Max Do I have a sweetheart?
Forssell She is still here! She never let you down! The most beautiful girl of Borga, although everyone tried to woo her!
Max (incredulously) What is she called?
Lars Gunhild. Gunhild Wahlroos. Taste the name. Doesn't it mean anything to you?
Max (tries) Gunhild Wahlroos. Gunhild Wahlroos. I am sorry, Lars. It doesn't ring any bell.
Lars You were the most beautiful couple in town and will be so now again! She has kept all your letters written from the front.
Wolf Are you able to write, Max?
Max Without difficulty.
Wolf Then we can compare handwritings, even if differences wouldn't prove anything but on the contrary only be probable and natural after so many years.
Max All this is so overwhelming, as if I had received a great catch of fish without having been fishing…
Wolf You will have a life given to you instead of the one you lost It's as simple as that. It's just for you to receive it and make the best of it.
Max (doubtfully, to Lars) So you actually recognize me?
Lars You couldn't be anyone else. There is no doubt about it. We shall celebrate this for the rest of my life.
Max How old are you?
Lars I am seventy years but have a weak heart. But if I can bear with the overwhelming emotion of seeing you again, I could bear with anything, except losing you again.
Max (exchanges glances with Wolf, who nods approvingly) Very well, father, receive your lost son and guide him through the life he has lost. We hardly have any other choice than to make the best of it.
Lars That's the spirit! Welcome back to your life! (embraces him one more time)
Wolf Bring him home, Lars, and provide him with food and clothes and a room of his own. He has been missing all that for far too long.
(Lars leaves with Max)
Ulf And what if he is not the one? What do we do then?
Wolf The situation is unique, Ulf. No one else has returned after the war after more than three years. We can neither prove that he is the one or not, but if father Lars sees an opportunity to get back a beloved and talented son, then who can deny him that bliss? It's something of an experiment, and we'll have to follow it closely to see how it will turn out. As I see it, only the fiancée has the power to thwart it, since the real Max, if it really isn't him, is unlikely to ever show up again. Who wants to begrudge a father a dead son when he can have a living one? (Takes Ulf by the arm and walks out with him.)
Scene 4.
Gunhild Welcome home, Max, if you really are the same man.
Max Even if I would be Max, Gunhild, I am not the same man. I have to be honest with you. I don't know who I am, and I don't recognize you. Do you really recognize me?
Gunhild Not quite, but I would rather have you for Max than his double. So you remember nothing?
Max Absolutely nothing.
Gunhild Doctor Wolf thinks you might have been brainwashed and had some brain surgery by the Russians before they sent you back as a neutralised source of information.
Max He went wild when he discovered the second scar in my head.
Gunhild Does it hurt very much?
Max All my headaches come from there, and when I press it I feel some relief. Gunhild If you were not operated on you must have damaged your head severely.
Max I don't think I was operated on.
Gunhild You have forgotten it like everything else.
Max Gunhild, you are a sensible being with empathy and good common sense. Do you really think I was Max?
Gunhild I don't know. Let's leave it at that. You have filled a big void in father Lars' heart, and he has accepted you completely. There are so few sons who returned alive after the war. That you floated ashore was like a godsend for the whole city. Everyone is talking about the miracle, the papers have established you as Max in everyone's hearts, and if you suddenly realized you were someone else, no one would believe it.
Max But what do you think?
Gunhild I think nothing, for like you I know nothing. But I am ready to accept you as Max.
Max What was he like? What did he do?
Gunhild He was very musical. Are you musical?
Max Yes.
Gunhild He knew everything about birds. He was soft and easy for anyone to deal with, just like you. He had an enormous sense of justice and always stood up for those who were at a disadvantage. He looked like you must have done seven years ago – the same height and physique, the same color of hair and eyes, in short, it's too much 'the same' for it not to be too much a cruelty of fate if it really wasn't you.
Max Still you hesitate.
Gunhild Your amnesia. Who knows what you have been up to and what has happened to you during these seven years? Who knows whom you have possibly made love to?
Max Could he be unfaithful?
Gunhild I don’t know. Everybody loved him.
Max Had he no weakness?
Gunhild He was forgetful. He didn’t always remember what he should, what he had said and promised, for example. But that would fit you as well, since you ultimately have forgotten everything.
Max Just because you are my betrothed, Gunhild, I wish to be completely honest with you. I will always keep searching for what really happened to Max, fully aware of the risk that I might one day find him.
Gunhild If you are not he, then he must be dead. In that case I prefer a living substitute.
Max As much as I doubt myself as Max, I doubt that he is dead. Perhaps my research only will lead up to myself.
Gunhild That would be the best thing.
Max The more vital that I conduct it.
Gunhild Do you know who you should talk with?
Max No?
Gunhild The priest. He was in prison during the war.
Max Was he red?
Gunhild No, I mean the civil war. He was a friend of Jarl Hemmer’s. They say he got the idea to ”A Man and His Conscience” by him. Do you know it?
Max I have heard about it.
Gunhild Read it. Perhaps it could help you.
Max I would like to speak with that priest.
Gunhild And he would like to see you, to find out if he could help you. He could certainly make himself available at any time.
Max Could you arrange a meeting?
Gunhild Already done. Wednesday evening? Would that suit you?
Max Splendid. Will you come along?
Gunhild You had better see him first in private.
Act II scene 1.
Wrede Your appearance from the sea is the greatest thing that has happened to Borga this year, Max, and no matter how much everyone else has welcomed you, I cannot with a good conscience do the same, because Finland is a staggering war invalid on crutches, who does not even know if recovery is possible. Do you know Finnish? Can you keep up with politics? Can you understand President Paasikivi?
Max I understand Finnish without difficulty, even though if I prefer not to speak it, as the Swedish language means a lot to me, especially because I have lost my entire memory, which is why it feels especially important to safeguard and nurture that particular faculty
Wrede But I understand that you speak and understand other languages as well.
Max At least English and German, maybe also Russian.
Wrede Where did you learn Russian?
Max I don’t know.
Wrede Probably not at school, probably during your seven unknown years. No reminiscence or vague scent of anything you experienced during these seven years?
Max Nothing at all. And nothing from earlier years either.
Wrede Fortunately your life is well known up to that point by others. Your father is certain that you are his son, but you yourself seem to still doubt it. Is your father quite well?
Max Yes, apart from his weak heart. I don’t think he would ever be able to bear for instance to hear that I was another than the one I am.
Wrede That’s why you should remain the one you are as long as it is possible, for your father’s sake, for Gunhild’ sake and for the sake of the whole town. Do you think you are someone else?
Max I don’t believe anything. I don’t know. And I don’t even know if I want to know. I am afraid of perhaps learning too much about myself.
Wrede You have reason to be in that case. Your case indicates a severe repression. The risk is that you one day by pure coincidence suddenly will be faced with a drastic curtain opening.
Max I am aware of it.
Wrede (sighs) Even if it happens, and it turns out that you were someone else, still try to continue to be Max, for the sake of all your loved ones. As you said, your father would not tolerate such a curtain opening. It would be the curtain fall for his life.
Your fiancée has accepted you. Don't become someone else, even if you would be. As Runeberg said, Finland is a poor widow who needs her sons, and during the war years she has seen her best sons lost and her country bled to death. In addition, she is overwhelmed by sorrows without end as a result of the war years, a ruinous unjust war indemnity, when it was the Soviet Union that attacked, the army of our war heroes then succumbed to alcoholism or worse brain damage, as if the incurable trauma of the civil war had not been more than enough, and so on. You come home to sorrows and worries of no end, but unlike all the fallen and missing and injured, you are unscathed and indemnified except for the detail that you have come back without your memory. This may even be a stroke of luck under the circumstances, for you alone have gotten rid of all the horrors of our war and its consequences. You stand as a lonely virgin in the middle of a whole world crushed by traumatic war debts.
Max You are suggesting that I should be happy in my complete ignorance?
Wrede It is perhaps a divine providence that such a blank page should be sent to us. The only advice I can give you, and the only thing I ask of you, is therefore, that you would sustain that role as far as possible.
Max A wise advice, which I will do my best to follow.
Wrede Thank you, my son. Now, how about some coffee?
Scene 2.
Gunhild And are you going to follow the priest’s advice.
Max No.
Gunhild Why not?
Max His advice is the most sensible imaginable, and he only wants the best for everyone and acts accordingly. I have thought a lot about it, Gunhild. Although he and absolute reason urge me to leave my unknown past alone, I am tempted not to do so, and I cannot resist that temptation. I used to hesitate, but now I know that I have to get to the bottom of myself. I have no choice. I can't lie to myself. I have to find out the truth, both about myself and about Max.
Gunhild ” No wilderness is as great as the wilderness of your own darkness of soul, but if you are to go through it, you must find your way yourself." Quote by Jarl Hemmer. That's brave of you. I want to help you if I can.
Max Do you still believe me to be Max?
Gunhild I think you could be, even though you are very much changed, but the war changed all of us, and especially those who had to sacrifice themselves whether they wanted to or not.
Max The war gave us no choice. Everyone had to sacrifice himself. The problem here is that I neither know whether I did it or how I did it.
Gunhild But you are one of us. You must have done it. You are a Swedish Finlander and can’t have got away. Whoever you are, you are just as good as Max.
Max How far did you develop your relationship?
Gunhild We were about to get engaged when he was enlisted. We decided to postpone the engagement till after the war, for him to be free if anything would happen to him, and for me not to feel any obligations towards you if anything would happen to me.
Max What could have happened to you?
Gunhild Also Borga was exposed to bombings.
Max And all for the sake of megalomaniac power hysterics. When will humanity finally wake up and cease to be seduced by them to death? They can only bring about ruin. Why can humanity never grasp it, see through it and renounce it? After all, only ordinary people can give crooks power over them.
Gunhild You mean the dictators.
Max Hitler and Stalin above all.
Gunhild Hitler came to power by the humiliation by the democracies of Germany after the last war.
Max Yes, it was unwise and inhuman of the democracies.
Gunhild Stalin took his power from Lenin, who took his power from the Czars.
Max No, Lenin raped the power of the democratic Kerensky. There is no worse rape than political rape, which must affect the whole world. Hitler came into being through the same rape force: he found his main political mission to fight the bolsheviks.
Gunhild You are a historian.
Max I just know it. I must have engaged in it thoroughly.
Gunhild The Russians could have observed it and for that reason brainwashed you the more thoroughly.
Max It’s not impossible. Nothing is impossible. Could you love me, Gunhild, although I am impossible as a human being, although I might not be Max, although I am a confirmed invalid without any income to be able to take responsibility for a family?
Gunhild Are you proposing to me?
Max Yes.
Gunhild When I first heard about Max's reappearance in the world, I decided there and then to wage everything on the possibility that it could be true, precisely because it was too good to be true. I still believe in that possibility. I will love you, Max, with all my heart as I always have done so far, but now perhaps even more, until the real Max comes to his senses, if he ever does, whether he be you or someone else.
Max Then I will gratefully receive you, Gunhild, if not for anything else so then at least as the one who could help me find myself.
Gunhild I might perhaps become your combined Beatrice and Virgil.
Max That would be too good to be true.
Gunhild That’s exactly why it could be true.
Max Let’s go at once to my father and tell him the news.
Gunhild He will be frightfully happy. He planned our engagement party once before.
Max So now it could finally be carried through.
Gunhild He invited half the city already then.
Max No war can enlist me any more. All wars are dead.
Gunhild Believe it anyone who can. Tell it to the communists in Korea.
Max They are far away from here. At least Finland has made wars enough forever.
Gunhild With all Europe.
Max Outside the Soviet zone of interest.
Gunhild Do you know why I most believe you still are Max?
Max No?
Gunhild Your hatred of the communists.
Max It’s not hatred. I just see them for what they are: bullies of mad power greed.
Gunhild You must have had too much to do with them.
Max I believe you could be right.
Gunhild Let us now together go to father Lars and tell him the news first of all, and then to reverend Wrede.
Max You are my life’s only law, Gunhild. (They candidly embrace each other, take each other’s hands to never let them go again, and leave like that.)
Act III scene 1. The wedding feast. Great festivity banquet, all dressed up, Max and Gunhild at the head. Among the guests are reverend Wrede, Ulf and Thomas with wives.
Lars (gets up and pings the glass) Dear friends, never has old Borga come alive as it does now, when the post-war reconstruction has begun in earnest, and Finland can finally begin to look forward again, and when a double happiness has been pruned for us, first with the miraculous return of Max and then with his final engagement and fulfilled marriage! Praise be to you, Gunhild, who from the very beginning and all the way helped him along the way!
Gunhild You were the first one to receive him back into your heart, father Lars! Lars And the last one to let him go. Through your misfortune, Max Walter, I don't think you will ever be able to comprehend what your return has meant to us all, both symbolically, morally and in reality. It was as if our whole world was reborn. I never thought you were killed, but to those who saw you as fallen, you became a living legend, a war hero who disappeared beyond the lines to perhaps make a triumphal march through the whole of Russia as its redeemer and convertor from the destructive and dark road to the dissolution and degradation of human dignity to insect-like automatism – you were the light to your friends and relatives both as missing and regarded as dead. But we who knew you, and especially I, never stopped believing in you. When you reappeared, I just saw it as a matter of course. In retrospect, you have received your well-deserved medal of bravery, while your heroic halo has been raised many times more by your return. In short, you have become the symbol of our regained hope and future, and this feast day with your marriage to your betrothed, who, like me, always expected you back, has sealed your significance and confirmed it. (wiping a tear from his eyes, can't continue,) Cheers to the bride and groom!
Max (rises) Thank you, Dad, for your warm words, but I have to protest against certain hyperboles. I wasn't alone. I'm not unique. There were many of us who disappeared behind the lines on impossible reconnaissance missions or through death traps, and many mothers and possible widows are still waiting for news of missing sons and fiancés, whom the Soviet Union will never let go. The fact that I came back was not my own merit but pure coincidence. I had no idea that I had a
father and a fiancée waiting for me. And look at me. What am I? Nothing but a war wreck with no memory, who doesn't even know for sure that I am who I am. Many others came back with worse war injuries, incredible war heroes who after the war could not fit into a badly ruined post-war society but who could only find compensation for their lost souls and lives in drinking. I have seen them, they have nothing to live on but their war memories, and they will live on for a long time yet as blood-curdling ironic ghosts and witnesses of every war's bottomless abyss of curse and pure evil. If there is anything evil, it is war, and someone who starts a war in our time must be described as the most disgusting criminal there can be, when he intentionally commits the rape of entire nations. Nothing can excuse or forgive this. Gunhild Nothing can deny what you have been through in the war, Max, but you have a wife now.
Max And for that I am infinitely grateful. (takes her hand to his heart) You supported me all the way, Gunhild, and raised me up from a wreck to a man, and for that I will owe you thanks for the rest of my life. (kisses her hand tenderly)
Lars (rises again) Hurray for the wedding couple! Now we must party! The fattened lamb has been slaughtered, and now good times are to be celebrated, for the one we thought was lost has returned! (The feast resumes its splendour and gaiety.)
Francis (among the guests, to Wrede) Who is the bridegroom?
Wrede Max Walter Forssell, son of Lars Forssell, the town architect, you know
Francis No, I don’t know, for he is not Max Walter Forssell.
Wrede (lower) Be careful about what you are saying. This is his wedding day. What do you know?
Francis I know him, and he should know me.
Wrede He suffers from complete amnesia.
Francis I heard of the case. He is innocent. I will be discreet, but please present me to him.
Wrede What do you want with him?
Francis I want to know what he wants himself. If he wants, I could perhaps be of some assistance to him.
Wrede How?
Francis I know something of what he has been through.
Wrede Can I rely on your discretion? His happiness must not be disturbed.
Francis Of course not. He is a sensible man who can endure shocks. I know that.
Wrede Do you want to see him now?
Francis The sooner, the better.
Wrede Give me time.
Max (speaks again) Thomas, come forth! You were the one who fished me out! I hope you will not find your new costume too tight! Thanks for coming here to my wedding! (to everyone) This old fisherman saved my life! (Everyone toasts him cheerily.)
Thomas But it was Ulf who brought him home to Borga. Where are you, Ulf?
Ulf (rises, and everyone applauds) It was doctor Wolf here who helped him on his way to get back into his old life again. Please rise, doctor!
Wolf (rises) I only did my duty, and it was more his soul than his body that needed restoration, and I think our old reverend here was the one who performed the definite miracle of getting him finally properly married in spite of all!
(All toast and applaud as Wrede rises.)
Wrede My friends, I have met with many strange destinies on my way but never anything like this. You all know the story of the resurrection of Jesus, a case
put under ever-renewed doubt and re-examination and not without reason and right, but this man has indeed risen from the dead, when in fact most of the city has declared him dead. The strangest thing in his fate, however, is the fact that we know nothing, and least of all he himself, how he spent these seven years in the underworld. Now, I don't want to shock the congregation, but here has actually appeared a person who can possibly shed light on the matter, if desired. May I introduce to you, Max, my colleague ever since the Civil War, Francis Bondesson, Archimandrite in the Orthodox Church.
Francis (rises with dignity, directly to Max:) How are you, my son?
Max (overwhelmed, like thunderstruck, threatens to sit down in his chair, is immediately supported by Gunhild)
Gunhild How is it, Max? Do you recognize this man?
Max (benumbed) My God! No! (sits down, almost collapsing)
Gunhild Some water! Quick!
Wrede You had better leave, Francis. This is exactly what I wished to avoid.
Francis I am sorry. I will be back. (vanishes)
Max (collects himself after a glass of water) A phantom out of the past. Where is he? I am sure he was here!
Gunhild Take it easy, Max. This is our day of felicity. Let no ghosts in to disturb it. Who was he? How do you know him?
Max I can’t now. Take me home.
Wolf (has immediately got the whole picture) The groom is sick! A taxi! He must be brought home! He is only temporarily emotionally overworked, and it's no wonder after everything he's been through and all this day’s emotions at that!
Gunhild It’s all right, Max. We go home.
Max Forgive me. It will pass. It was just the shock (Gunhild helps Max to get out with friends and relatives.)
Lars (understands nothing) Who was that man? Has Max suddenly had a relapse? What is the meaning?
Wrede (calms him) It’s all right, father Lars. The risk is that Max suddenly has had some unexpected memories brought back to him. It will pass. He will recover. It could even be a decisive sign of regained health.
Lars The memory returned… Is it possible? (finds his bearings again) It’s all right, good people! The party will go on without impediment! The wedding couple has left us, but so must all wedding couples do from their wedding party to devote themselves to what follows, but the party isn’t over for anything! The champagne will continue flowing throughout the party as long as it goes on! Be my guests! (The party gets going again.)
(Wolf and Ulf are seen aside conferring with Wrede. Questions are asked, Wrede cannot answer them, but the discussion continues…)
Scene 2.
Wrede Pardon me, Francis, but you can't just come here bursting in to ruin the most promising and happy marriage which has been celebrated here since before the Winter War!
Francis Forgive me, Bo, but I had no idea what lay ahead. I happened to come back after too many, long and difficult years abroad, you take me like an old brother of destiny with me to a festive wedding, where I happen to recognize the groom as a
different person than he pretends to be... Shall we then betray the truth for the sake of a conjugal lie, we who have devoted our lives to the truth?
Wrede The truth is that they would have become happy!
Francis They still are able to, if you don't make any fuss about it.
Wrede (calms down) Forgive me. We've been through a lot, you and I. If it hadn't been for you, I would never have made it through hell as a prison priest at Sveaborg, where my thankless task as a priest was to give words of comfort to reds who were to be shot, whereupon they mostly spat in my face for thanks. But you saved me to the faith. Don't ever think I forgot. You yourself were a red prison inmate who risked getting executed, but you gave me the opportunity to save you. One single life that was saved gave me strength to endure all those cases whom I sent to their death.
Francis You were innocent. You had been assigned there as an experienced and rough-hewn hospital chaplain to replace another chaplain who lost his nerve. You had no choice. You sent no one to their death. And most of those who were executed had themselves intentionally murdered innocent whites in long rows. It was mundane or political justice that ruled. You were there for mere formal reasons.
Wrede And I succeeded in saving you out from there.
Francis And I fulfilled your conditions. I became ordained like you but in a different church.
Wrede If only I could forget those years and all their horrors! You have no idea how I envied this Max because he got the unusually lucky gift of being able to forget the whole war that he must have lived through anyway! And then you come and recognize him, and he recognizes you, and perhaps gets his whole shocking memory back as a worse shock than any shell shock!
Francis Pardon me. No one could guess…
Wrede No, no one could guess, and that's the worst of all. Now we know less than ever. Who is he if he is not Max? How much have you made him traumatically remember? Can his damages be repaired? What do you know about him? Do I have anything to do with it? Have I the right to ask?
Francis We are both under the clerical obligation of silence.
Wrede Can't you tell me anything?
Francis Not without his personal consent. I have to speak with him myself first. Wrede Of course.
Francis However, as always, I must admonish you that you have no right to take any blame in the civil war and its consequences. It was a war of everyone against everyone, it was a savage fratricidal war for which no one was really to blame but Lenin, who transported arms to the Reds in southern Finland with the implied intention that they would revolt against the legal government, which they did. Lenin and the revolution seduced them and sent them all to their deaths. The massacres of them by the whites, especially through the siege of Tammerfors, were an inevitable consequence and perfectly logical from a military and legal point of view. They started the civil war, so they had to reap the consequences of it. Many like you took on themselves burdens of guilt and a guilty conscience for nothing, like the Swedish general Harald Hjalmarsson, who committed suicide out of unendurable haunting nightmares afterwards, which they had no right to do. You had no right to be so good against such rotten eggs of ignorance, seduction and indoctrination. I saw the Soviet Union from the inside and got to experience Stalin's macabre creation of an accomplished terrorist state where the terror was the omnipresent authority, and like you helped me out of Sveaborg, I managed to get Finnish prisoners of war out of the Soviet Union. One of them was the bridegroom of today, but there wasn't much left of him there then, at most a wasted worm trampled to unrecognizability
Wrede Don't tell me more until you have met him.
Frans Pardon me. A slip of the tongue.
Wrede It's all right, Francis. Let's go to bed. (The doorbell.)
Who could it be at this hour? (goes to open the door, carefully at first, then opens it wide) Max!
Max (pale but still in wedding clothes) I wished to speak with your colleague. I heard he was staying with you.
Wrede Come in!
Francis (rises when he sees him) My brother! I am sorry for having disturbed your wedding. It was not intended.
Max Yes, it was intended, but by a higher mind than yours. Let's talk in private, reverend.
Wrede Of course. (leaves prudently and closes the door)
Francis It has been many years, my boy.
Max You saved my life.
Francis That was also intended. But have a seat. We have some things to settle, if you can brace it.
Max I can brace anything.
Francis Where shall we start?
Max Moscow. Is Raoul Wallenberg alive?
Francis I wish I knew! He probably is, but probably no one knows where, perhaps not even he himself.
Max I was with him in Budapest together with Per Anger.
Francis I know, and you swore to find out about him in the Soviet Union, which didn't succeed very well. Where did you finally end up?
Max Here.
Frans Yes, I can see that, but how?
Max I always knew too much. That was the problem. I constantly wished to get rid of my most dangerous skills, on the condition that they never harm an innocent person, and the irony of fate was that in the end that wish was more than fulfilled.
Francis Until you saw me.
Max And that you would appear precisely at the moment of my wedding and when the innocence of my amnesia was invincibly established!
Francis It was not intended.
Max I know. You are innocent. It was destiny as always.
Frans Do you remember everything?
Max The curtain rose to an entire life that would have been better off buried alive.
Francis You are still officially Max Walter Forssell, married and with a good father. Could you reveal yourself to them?
Max Never.
Francis So you ask me to keep my obligation of silence.
Max Yes.
Francis No problem.
Max But I could need your counselling. It was not possible to conceal the curtain rise to my wife.
Francis You shouldn't have left her on your wedding night.
Max She actually asked me to visit you and sort out our affairs.
Francis Women feel what's necessary.
Max I just wanted to see you and secure our positions.
Francis Thank you, my friend. I know where I stand, and you will be quite safe from me.
Max Thank you, father. Please give me your blessing. (kneels to him. Francis gives him the orthodox blessing.)
Francis Go home to your bride now and love her.
Max With your blessing and with a good conscience. (breaks it up in haste)
Wrede (enters) Well?
Francis Everything is fine, brother. The obligation of silence holds firm. Wrede Then I feel safe.
Francis But he might need both of us as counsellors.
Wrede Is his memory fully restored?
Francis So it seems.
Wrede Who is he?
Francis I am afraid I can’t tell you, (takes him nicely around his shoulder,) – yet. (They retire together like old tried colleagues.)
Scene 3.
Gunhild (in the bride chamber, beside herself) Could a wedding suffer a more difficult omen and test than the groom suddenly suffering from a traumatic past that he did not have before? I no longer know who I am married to, and my bridegroom is gone.
Should the bride cry herself alone to sleep on her wedding night?
Max (enters) My beloved, forgive me these turbulences, but they have to be handled at once
Gunhild Who are you?
Max The one you married. I am your true wedded husband whatever happens.
Gunhild What has happened?
Max I have had a life returned to me which I would have been happier without. Now I am no longer one person but two, and the one you are married to will always remain faithful to you.
Gunhild And what might I expect of the other one?
Max You had better never get to know him. (takes care of her) Don’t cry, my love, not on your wedding night. Yes, I swear to you, that whatever has happened has only made my love for you the stronger and the more important. It’s a crisis, but we shall manage it.
Gunhild And that orthodox priest – who is he?
Max My teacher. He made me a preacher in my youth, and my great task would be to make underground missions among the atheistic communists in the Soviet Union and thereby contribute to the gradual undermining of the only state in the world which succeeded in establishing atheism as a compulsory ideology with the most inhuman suppressive system in the world as a result.
Gunhild So you actually are not Max?
Max Gunhild, keep calling me Max and regard me as Max. I've entered into the life of Max to stay. I cannot abandon that life, which includes you and my father and all our families. I promise you that I didn't know for sure that I hadn't always been Max until today at the wedding dinner, but when I suddenly got another life back, I immediately realized the impossibility that I could ever stop being Max. I married you as Max. It's Max you have for the rest of your life.
Gunhild And the real Max?
Max I also told you, Gunhild, that I would do everything in my power to find out about the fate of the real Max. He exists somewhere alive or dead, and we will find him out.
Gunhild Then I feel calm. I feel that I could trust you, even if you would be a double agent.
Max So you can forgive me?
Gunhild You never deceived me on purpose. Your father almost forced you into the role. I can only forgive you if you keep on acting it.
Max I promise to do so all the way.
Gunhild Then I am satisfied.
Max It is our wedding night, Gunhild. We disappointed our wedding guests, but we must never disappoint each other.
Gunhild At last you get to the point. Max, if you can love me the more just because you suddenly aren’t Max any more, I could also do that.
Max Thank you, Gunhild. Forgive me. (cries in her bosom, suddenly breaking down in the amassment of turbulences)
Gunhild You are at home with me, Max. Never tell me your real name. I will always be your best friend.
Max Thank you, Gunhild. I couldn’t ask for anything better.
(They start preparing for the bridal bed.)
Act IV scene 1.
Max (comes to Francis, who interrupts his letter-writing) What do you really demand of me, father?
Francis You can’t let us down now, Robert. There is too much to do, especially now after the war, especially now after the establishment of the iron curtain.
Max You break into my life, interrupt my wedding and almost ruin it and give me back a most undesired identity when I just had established a new one that was better.
Francis We have already been through all this, Robert.
Max Don’t call me by that name! My name is Max!
Francis Very well, Max, the better your real identity could be protected. But you have to get out into the field again. There is no better mole than you.
Max And how should I explain it to my newly wedded wife?
Francis You can always return to her later on.
Max After what? After having lost my memory once again, as yet another human wreck after having been tortured to death? Do you really think she would want me a third time after your incursions?
Francis It concerns the future of our entire world, Robert. The Soviet Union could be dissolved, the greatest, most dangerous and most inhuman dictatorhip in the world, we have the formula of its dissolution and therefore have to implement it.
Max Still you yourself fought in your youth for that dictatorship.
Francis I came from a poor family that was always exploited by the masters. When everyone else around me took up arms against the oppressors, I also did so to avenge my father and brother and helpless generations. We did not ask where the weapons came from. We knew nothing about the bolsheviks. We saw their rebellion against the Czar as more than justified, and Finland participated from the beginning in the same rebellion and was recognized independently directly by Lenin.
Therefore, when we received arms from him we thanked and received arms to overthrow our own bailiffs and masters without asking about Lenin's real intentions. Only after the civil war and its atrociously stinging brotherly tragedy did we realize that Lenin only wanted to plunge Finland into misfortune and succeeded in doing so. Bo Wrede succeeded in the impossible to save my soul to Christianity, and I found it as my life's penance and duty to take on the mission of disarming the nihilistic Russian atheism, which only turned all people into unhappy slaves who were not even allowed to keep their own souls. My mission was successful from the start, and you were my supreme talent, the ideal combined preacher and agent. I helped you to perfection of the Russian language and smuggled you in to where you became a natural cog in the network. You still are, and so obvious and indispensable that we can't afford to lose you. You became for me the son I never had in real life.
Max But the price of your holy madness and your fanatical demand on me was that I was left without a life of my own, until one day a total amnesia seemed to give me just that. And just as I've put it ashore, you step in and demand my old selflessness back.
Francis Whatever happened to you, that you lost your memory, is no less a mystery to me than to everyone else. Maybe you got caught in the end. Perhaps reverend Wrede is right in his wild theories that you were brainwashed so thoroughly that your memory was erased, perhaps even subjected to medical experiments – I hear reports of such things from the Korean War these days. Americans are sent home after captivity as programmed killers, and they aren’t even aware of it. Maybe you've been through something even worse. But you've always made it and come back in better shape than ever – and so also now.
Max I can’t refuse you, father. I can’t deny that I feel my duty. But then I have to make conditions.
Francis Whatever, my son.
Max I know that the real Max Walter Forssell is alive. I can feel it all around me. He is somewhere. His father and fiancée have always been sure of it, and I am almost sure of it also. You have the ability and means to find anyone. Track him down and find him for us. Let me see him and see if he can accept the life that I can give him, just as he unconsciously gave me his.
Francis I can institute enquiries…
Max Do so, please.
Francis I have to warn you, though. If we find him it could backfire, since we don’t know anything. He could be sitting, lost in gaga mists in some mental hospital somewhere completely blown off the hook of reality by the war. Many who have persisted in searching for lost war heroes until the end have unfortunately found the end of the search in such a dead end and wished they had never found him.
Max Still do it, father, for the possibility that he could have his life back, and in that case I would be glad to resume my old life as an agent without second thoughts.
Francis Your request is reasonable enough. I will see what I can do.
Max I am certain, father, that you could find him, as certain as you are in your sacred mad belief that the whole Soviet Union could be brought to collapse.
Scene 2.
Gunhild I can't see him as anything else than an evil spirit who has come just to take him away from me. As soon as I'm completely sure that I've really regained my Max one hundred percent, that orthodox skimmer shows up and puts everything on edge. Is he with him now? Why does he have power over him? What is the catch? And how can my husband accept someone over him?
Wrede I have to be honest with you, Gunhild, and keep you informed about what I know. You've won Max to never lose him again. He's yours forever. You can be sure of that. But another man has been brought back to life within Max, who had no memory. This memory that suddenly has returned is the other man over whom Francis has power, but it is not an evil power. It only includes obligations. As a good responsible nature, Max has been unable to do anything but accept these extra obligations, which may mean that he has to go away, but only temporarily. If he travels away, he will come back. However, I must warn you about a dubious detail. As a condition for agreeing to the demand of Francis on him, Max has made it a condition that Francis must find out by every means what really happened to Max. Francis has agreed to it, and I know that he is on the right track.
Gunhild (pales) Have there been results?
Wrede I know there will be results.
Gunhild What does it mean? Will there be yet another Max coming back? Will he be found dead? I am now married to a living Max. What kind of a situation will we have if another Max turns up?
Wrede We know nothing about that yet. I have only warned you against this new unknown. Your husband’s intentions are exclusively good. He wants to do what is right, and he finds it an obligation to find the earlier Max if it is possible or at least to obtain some clarity concerning his fate.
Gunhild His father could never accept another Max than the one he now has.
Wrede That is also something we have to consider.
Max (enters, pale) I am sorry, my love, but I have to go to Helsingfors for a while.
Gunhild Why?
Max I must not conceal anything from you, since you already know everything. By his research Francis has found a trace to a person who could be my predecessor.
Gunhild Is he alive?
Max That’s what I must find out. I will go with Francis immediately to quickly find out what it is. Perhaps it’s just a blind alley.
Wrede Your new search for Max might in the end just lead up to yourself, Max.
Max If only that could be the case.
Gunhild (embraces him) I will never part with you, Max, no matter how many persons you might be and become, except temporarily geographically.
Max And I will always return. (embraces her tenderly and leaves)
Gunhild (worried) What could it be?
Wrede We will see, Gunhild. We will see.
Scene 3.
Francis I have to warn you. The truth is always worse than you think.
Max That's why we must never cease to search for it.
Francis You are doing this at your own peril, Robert. You don't have to.
Max So you have found him?
Francis If he is the one.
Max Are there any doubts?
Francis You were more recognizable as Max than he is.
Max So it is really Max?
Francis I am afraid so.
Max What is he? A war invalid? A mental patient?
Francis It's worse than that.
Max Could it be even worse?
Francis War is always worse than anyone could believe.
Max You have prepared me. I am ready
Francis Let's enter then.
(They enter the clinic.)
Nurse (recognizes Francis immediately) We fished him out of the gutter.
Francis I know.
Nurse We had to change all his clothes and throw the old ones. They were all puked down and bloody.
Francis Why bloody?
Nurse He had struck his front all bloody against the gutter on purpose.
Max II Hi, you bloody priest of shit. Have you come to honour me with another humiliating visit?
Francis We have saved your life, Max.
Max II As if it was worth saving. What do you think I've been doing ever since I got home from the war? My welcome as a war hero when I got off the train was to be robbed of my entire soldier's pay. That's how much I was worth as someone who nearly bled to death for the sake of saving Finland's life. Even those who came home in coffins were worth more. Don't you have any booze with you, priest? What else are you doing here?
Francis I brought a friend.
Max II To inspect a consummate wreck of the war? The only good war heroes are those who are dead. Those who were unlucky and made the mistake of surviving are all fallen to society as alcoholics or chronically insane. They are only there to increase the burden of Finland's war debts. So what's better than to let them kill themselves and at least allow them to have some fun?
Francis My friend here knows your father, Max.
Max II I could not show myself to him after the war, but you must never let him know. It's better that I am dead to him.
Max He has always felt that you were alive, Max. He could never accept you as dead
Max II That hardly makes it any better, does it? Then I can even less show myself to him.
Max You also had a fiancée.
Max II So you know. Don't tell me you are from Borga.
Max I live there. I know both of them.
Max II Did Gunhild never marry?
Max Only you.
Max II But we were never married. Just to be safe, I let her keep her freedom as I didn't know what would be left of me after the war. As you can see, there is nothing
left. The soul went up in smoke, the stomach ran out into the snow in dysentery and surrogate poisoning, the lungs went up even more in the smoke of cigarettes, the brain was mashed by the booze at every possible opportunity, and all that remains is an empty burnt out case, where the most important limbs were shot off or frozen to pieces and rendered unusable. I could never have children after the war. What then was the use of Gunhild? She would make better use of others. Therefore I refrained from showing myself to her any more.
Max Didn't you love her?
Max II Yes, as long as I lived, but you see, now I'm a living dead and thus worse than a finished corpse and live only to at least get qualified for that class. Is that why you've come here? Do you want to take her over? You don't look scarred by the war at all. You look like I might have looked if the war hadn't raped me beyond recognition. She could imagine you were me. Why don't you marry her? She would be happier with you.
Francis (to the nurse) How is he, sister? Could he return home? We know his father.
Nurse As soon as he gets out of here he immediately goes to his war comrades to get drunk with them and lives just for the pleasure of drinking with them, until we have to fish him out again. It's an entire generation of young men who ended up in that blind alley.
Francis I know. But that's no answer to my question.
Nurse He doesn't want to return home, and no one can force him.
Francis You get the situation, Robert.
Max II Robert? Is your name Robert? Don't tell me you are Robert Sund! I heard about a double of mine even further beyond the lines than I whose name was Robert Sund. Is that you?
Robert Yes, Max, that's me.
Max II Let me shake your hand. Just imagine, I have shaken hands with the legendary Robert Sund, the master spy behind the lines, who could take on any role and always get away with any counterfeit! How close you are to me in likeness! Then it was true! I did have a double!
Francis Unfortunately hardly anyone today would even think you could be brothers.
Max II (still holding Robert's hand) It is true. You have remained how I was, but I have changed into unrecognizability. Damn how thirsty I get! When will I at last get out of here to be able to go out on the booze again?
Francis (to Robert) You see, Robert.
Robert If I didn't know it would just hurt him and cause him pain or even anger, I would just cry out in absolute despair.
Francis I think we had better leave.
Nurse I think so too. The patient needs to have a rest.
Max II Come back when I'm free You know, devil priest, where to find me and my brothers, and we'll have a proper talk about the war and our blind bravado for a country that still bled to death and instead of gratitude only has that question left for us: why did you do it, and voluntarily? – which we never can answer.
Robert That's good, Max. Have a rest now. We will be back.
Max II Promise!
Robert We promise. (Francis takes him out.)
Max II (to the nurse) Imagine! I shook hands with Robert Sund! I'll tell the boys as soon as I get out.
Nurse If you ever get out any more.
Max II I will live for that only!
Nurse Take care, and you might still make another journey.
Max II She told the alcoholic who obeyed her advice and went home to shoot himself and let the caretaker take care of him. Why did I never do that? Because the spirits eased and prolonged the pain…
Nurse Sleep now
(He calms down to fall asleep, and not until then the nurse leaves.)
Scene 4. A joint. Max and Francis at a table. Max drinks.
Max I can't, Francis.
Francis Yes, you can. You can't let them down now.
Max The real Max is alive, and I have taken his wife and his father away from him. How could I live with that?`
Francis You have to. You saw for yourself. Max actually asked you to do what he can’t.
Max There must be some way of getting him on his feet!
Francis We will never get rid of the war, Robert. We can never do without the history of reality. That’s the price we have to pay to live in that reality – we will not be rid of it as long as we live. You heard what the nurse said. A whole generation of young men have been lost in that mistake.
Max But the mistake was not ours! We were all innocent! Stalin wanted Finland and thought he could take it by force! The Russians had to pay the price ten times more with their blood and lives than Finland, but they were at least Russians! We as Finlanders were innocent of being attacked for the sake of one man’s greed for power!
Francis And that’s why we have to save Russia from Stalin and communism
Max But I can’t go home now, Francis. I can’t look Gunhild and father Lars in the eyes after having seen Max in reality. I can never become Max, Francis. I can’t steal the life he deserved away from him, even if he can’t live it himself.
Francis Do you mean you could never see your wife and father again?
Max I don’t know, Francis. Give me time to think. Send me directly out to the front. Give me the most impossible mission you can, and I will manage it, but don’t ask me to meet Gunhild and father Lars now.
Francis (devoutly) As you wish, my son. But you must know, that they will always be waiting for you. They can’t give you up now.
Max Just send me as far away from here as possible. Perhaps I could that way get some detachment from the matter. But not a word to them about Robert Sund. They must never know that such a person existed. Do you understand?
Francis I understand. Finish your drink now and let’s leave here before you end up like another Max.
(Max knocks back his filled up drink. They break it up. Francis pays before they leave.)
Act V scene 1.
Gunhild How dare you come back without Max? You break into our wedding and make him sink down under the earth, you say it means nothing, you bring him to Helsingfors, and then he is gone without a trace
Francis He will be back.
Gunhild When? After another seven years? I must hold you alone responsible. What were you doing in Helsingfors, and what happened?
Francis Gunhild, hold me reponsible by all means, but my life is not my own. A higher power than ours rules all our lives. Call it destiny if you want, and call it evil
if you want, but we can’t escape it. Max has been called on a dangerous mission abroad, but he promised to be back. I insisted myself to him that he could never leave you, and he agreed.
Gunhild At least you don’t defend yourself cowardly by the obligation of silence for suppressing what you know. What kind of mission abroad was that?
Francis He speaks fluent Russian and has been smuggled in by Estonia to cultivate our underground contacts there with the ultimate aim to accomplish the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Gunhild So the war never ended but just keeps on stealing our sons away from us.
Francis Finland cannot accept the Soviet Union as an unjust victor in an unjust war where the Soviet Union was the aggressor.
Gunhild Not in the continuation war.
Francis I know. We should have stopped at the old Russian border and made diplomatic and political assurances about it. The entire Swedish People's Party was in favor of that principle, but it stood alone. But the Soviet Union was the aggressor from the beginning, and it is a hellish state of prison camps and oppression where terror paralyzes all human life. That state of affairs is not acceptable, and those of us who can must do something about it. Max is one of them. He has taken responsibility for his ability.
Gunhild Do you understand what that means? The risk is that he will not come back. The risk is that I will have to live another seven years without knowing whether he is alive or dead.
Francis At least you married him at last.
Gunhild And I am pregnant with his child.
Francis (with reverence) My girl, I beg to congratulate.
Gunhild Let's see if I may keep it first, but for now it's the only concrete thing in life I have to stick to. My immediate future prospects are a position as a war widow. A single mother does not have very good prospects of being able to provide for a child.
Francis My daughter, I have a suggestion.
Gunhild Could you do more harm than you have done already?
Francis Give him to me, if he is a son. He shall have the world's most careful education to be able to perform historical miracles in the world. He will be a greater source of pride to you than any other son to any mother. You will not have to provide for yourself, and he will be as good a son to you as Jesus Christ to his mother.
Gunhild With the same fate?
Francis Max was like a son to me. And he always succeeded on his missions. Your son could surpass him, if we had the chance to take care of him from the beginning. By its suppressed position at a disadvantage, my church has a stronger moral, basis and power than any other spiritual institution.
Gunhild You may have him, but only if Max never comes back. As long as I believe that he will be back, I want to keep him as a pawn for Max. But if you really succeeded in taking him away from me, you might as well have his son as well, for I would only cry myself to death over him, which wouldn’t be a very edifying way of bringing him up
Francis That’s fair, Gunhild.
Gunhild But if it is a daughter I will keep her.
Francis That is also fair.
Gunhild And what shall we say to father Lars?
Francis My colleague Wrede will take care of him. He is the only one Lars can trust.
Gunhild So get out of my life now, damned stealer of souls, and never dare to get in touch again until Max is back!
Francis Don’t forget your promise about the child.
Gunhild In that case I will contact you. Never try to contact me again!
(Francis bows and leaves, the scene is turned away from Gunhild, who naturally breaks out in desperate tears Francis goes home to his place, sits down at his desk, sighs Enter Wrede.)
Wrede A word with you, Francis. You went with Max to Helsingfors but came back alone. I have heard strange rumours.
Francis What have you heard?
Wrede The worst imaginable. That Max will not be back. That you met the real Max in Helsingfors. That Max isn’t actually Max but a legendary agent with international connections called Robert Sund.
Francis You are badly informed. The legend Robert Sund never existed in reality. He does not exist.
Wrede And the rest? Who was Max?
Francis His life is on my responsibility. He is in safe hands. He will be back. He promised that both to me Gunhild, and his father.
Wrede Who did you meet in Helsingfors?
Francis A few war veterans that could confirm Max’ past.
Wrede You are hiding something from me.
Francis No.
Wrede You are lying.
Francis Prove it.
Wrede At least you don’t blame the obligation of silence. Is there nothing more you could tell me about this mystery?
Francis I will leave that to Max when he returns after having completed his mission.
Wrede And when will that be? In what kind of shape? Washed ashore again as some kind of forgotten wreck? Lars wants to know why he didn’t come back with you.
Francis Tell him as it is.
Wrede That’ what I can’t do as I don’t know it!
Francis He will be back.
Wrede Is that all I can say?
Francis That’s the main thing. Proceed from there.
Wrede We priests don’t always have an easy life to lead.
Francis The gods know that indeed That’s maybe why we become priests.
Wrede How do you mean?
Francis No one would voluntarily become a priest if he didn’t know God would not make it easy for him.
Wrede You said it. I will leave now.
Francis Good luck. My greetings to Lars from me and Max. He expressly promised his father by me to be back.
Wrede I know how these war hunters work. They promise anything well aware that they might not keep any promise.
Francis They keep their promises as well as they can.
Wrede No one is more aware of the limitation of human powers.
Francis Thank you.
(Wrede leaves. Francis immediately resumes his work at his desk. The scene follows Wrede away from him to his dwelling-place.)
Lars There you are at last, reverend. Have you had news?
Wrede He will be back.
Lars Is that all? Nothing about what kind of new wanderings beyond the lines he has been called out on?
Wrede He will be back, Lars.
Lars If only I could believe it. His return was like an unreal dream. It was too good to be true. Now that unreality has come true. And I never even got to know whether it was my son or not.
Wrede Did you doubt it?
Lars Never for a moment, it had to be true in all its unreality, nothing else could be possible, and still the war had made him into a different person, whom I did not recognize. But I guess the war did that to everyone who were forced into it but in different ways from one individual to another. Yes, reverend, I accept your word that he will be back, and I will live only for that.
Wrede You also have a daughter-in-law who appears to be pregnant.
Lars It’s more than just a visiting card, reverend. It’s a promise of an entire future.
Wrede And that promise, Lars, Max has given to never take it back.
Lars Of course. And by that no one could be more motivated to come back than himself?
Wrede Of course.
Lars How important illusions and ideals are after all, reverend! Reality visits us sometimes as a guest, but the ideals always remain, and the illusions never go out. What more have we to live for when it comes to the point than them, in a reality which only offers losses, wars and tears for an alternative?
Wrede (embraces him) He will be back, Lars. He always comes back.
Lars (with tears in his eye) I wish I could believe that. The problem is, that he remains as an ideal but lost in reality.
(Wrede comforts him tenderly )
CURTAIN
Leh 11.8.2008, translated for Christmas 2024.