Our Class

Tadeusz Slobodzianek, Ryan Craig

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781840029468
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Your classmate is like your family. Maybe even more important than that. A group of schoolchildren, Jewish and Catholic, declare their ambitions: one to be a fireman, one a film star, one a pilot, another a doctor. They are learning the ABC. This is Poland, 1925. As the children grow up, their country is torn apart by invading armies, first Soviet and then Nazi. Internal grievances deepen as fervent nationalism develops; friends betray each other; violence escalates. Until these ordinary people carry out an extraordinary and monstrous act that darkly resonates to this day. Polish playwright, Tadeusz Slobodzianek, confronts his country's involvement in the atrocities of the last century and follows the one-time classmates – amidst the weddings, parades, births, deaths, emigrations and reconciliations – into the next.

LESSON XIV

MENACHEM	I went back to Warsaw and got a flat in Mokotow and the dirtiest of jobs infiltrating the underground rebels.
ZYGMUNT	I was sentenced to fifteen years in Rawicz for participating in the anti communist underground. Helenka was left alone with Hania, Malgosia and Jurek. How could she be expected to raise the boy without his father? In prison I devised a way to get my own back. What did I have to lose?
MENACHEM	I started drinking. Heavily. It was a living nightmare. An endless merry-go-round of beatings, screams, blood…then vodka, dancing and hookers…then back to beatings…
ZYGMUNT	I wrote a letter to the President. No response. To the minister. Nothing. Another letter. Until one day I was called in to see the prison Governor. It was relief to find a civilian sitting there rather than a Jew.
MENACHEM	I woke up from this nightmare when they arrested me and accused me of ‘employing unlawful interrogation tactics’. Fuck. Those bastards had done far worse and now they were accusing me? The witnesses against me were a couple of murderers…and Zygmunt.
ZYGMUNT	I wish to confirm that the accused employed forty-nine different kinds of torture. Among them breaking fingers in a door, sticking needles under finger nails, beating genitals with a military baton, forcing detainees to sit on a chair leg with a bare anus…
MENACHEM	What kind of horseshit is this you lying fuck? When did I break your fucking fingers? Let’s see your second arsehole then! Or shall I rip you a new one? And I launched myself at him. They tore me off him and pulled us apart. They sentenced me to ten years, but put a deal on the table. Do the ten or fuck off out of Poland for good.
ZYGMUNT	I went home. To Helenka, Hania, Malgosia and Jurek. Jurek wouldn’t let me out of his sight for second. He would cling on to my trouser-leg. He went literally everywhere with me.
MENACHEM	I emigrated to Israel and started working on Kibbutz Dovrat mending tractors. Turned out that Soviet book Tractors and Agricultural Machinery by Volkov and Rojst came in handy after all.
ZYGMUNT	In 1956 I joined the United Polish Labour Party.
HENIEK	I was a Deacon for a long time. But the waiting paid off and I was rewarded with my own Parish…in this Godforsaken cesspit of a village near Bialystock. Even the Catholics spoke like foreigners.
MENACHEM	I wrote to Abram. I wanted to know how Zocha was?
ABRAM	Menachem don’t you think people have shed enough tears over you? Especially women. Zocha has a husband and children of her own now. Leave her alone.
ZOCHA	When Stan went to school and Lucy to kindergarten, I was able to go back to work as a seamstress. Life muddled along…
MENACHEM	I married Ruth. A Sephardi Jew. She was great looking. Nice legs. Pretty eyes. Reminded me of Dora. Our son was born. Jakub. He looked like a proper Sabra. We left the Kibbutz. I took out a loan and started up on my own working as a mechanic. I also built us a house.
ZYGMUNT	The sixties were great.
HENIEK	At last I was able to fulfil my most cherished dream, when the Priest of my home town was finally called to be with the Lord and his Provostry passed to me. My old classmate played no small part in my selection.
ZYGMUNT	Comrades, Father Heniek is one of us. He and I were classmates. He was born here. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. What’s more we’re all aware of his virtues, and, if I may put it like this, his sins. It is for these reasons I suggest we convince the Bishop to support Father Heniek’s candidacy for the position of our Parish Priest.
HENIEK	Only amongst his own people can a man truly spread his wings. This is particularly fitting for a Priest.
ZYGMUNT	I gave away both my daughters to be married… Hania to a doctor… Malgosia to a lawyer…while Jurek went to study architecture in Warsaw. When the so-called Student Uprising flared up in ’sixty-eight, my Jurek did not succumb to this provocation. Instead he kept his head down and got on with his studies. Heniek and I worked well together. As classmates we trusted each other and stood together on any particularly contentious issues in the town. One night we’d had a few drinks and he turned to me and said.
HENIEK	I know it was you. I know it was you that betrayed Rysiek to the Soviets. Not that poor wretch Jakub Katz. I’ve always known.
ZYGMUNT	Shut your mouth Heniek. I hope I don’t have to remind you who held down Dora’s legs the day we skewered her. Or what was poking out of your pants.
HENIEK	We never broached the subject again.
ZYGMUNT	We didn’t forget about our other classmates either. I arranged for Władek to be recognised as ‘Righteous Among The Nations’ for giving sanctuary to Marianna. But because his marriage was on the rocks and the mill, which was supposed to make him a millionaire, was on the slide…he hit the bottle. Hard. He was beyond help.
WŁADEK	Zigmuś, lend us a hundred. Just till the end of the month.
ZYGMUNT	Władziu for fuck’s sake. Here. But lay off the sauce.
WŁADEK	Zygmuś I haven’t slept a wink. They come to me at night. Jakub Katz. Rysiek. Dora and her baby. How do you sleep Zygmuś? Tell me the truth. How’s your sleep?
ZYGMUNT	Give me that hundred back, you dickhead!
WŁADEK	No I’m all right. I’ll be all right. Fuck it, yeah? You take care Zygmuś. Sleep well.
ZOCHA	When Lucy started school we took out a loan and bought a house in New Jersey. That’s when the bad thing happened. I’m not sure how Abram found me.
ABRAM	Zocha, wonderful news. You’ve been awarded a medal. ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’ Sign this statement. Something good will come of this I’m sure of it. Maybe money. Menachem arranged it in Israel for everything you did for him in the war. See, the Jews aren’t so ba...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Characters
• Lesson-I
• Lesson-II
• Lesson-III
• Lesson-IV
• Lesson-V
• Lesson-VI
• Lesson-VII
• Lesson-VIII
• Lesson-IX
• Lesson-X
• Lesson-XI
• Lesson-XII
• Lesson-XIII
• Lesson-XIV