Scene I
Josef: "Excuse me…"
Julius: "Yes?"
Josef: "Excuse me, but I'm on my return to another part of the city. Could you point me toward the Dakota Life Building?"
(Julius snickers and looks away momentarily before turning back to the stranger.)
Josef: "Pardon me, sir, but I…"
Julius: "You must be confused, sir. That building, too, was in an entirely different part of
the city the last time I was there."
Josef: "Oh. In that case, I must be confused. I remember being told it would be in this
area. Perhaps I misjudged those remarks."
Julius: "Or perhaps you've just been fooled."
Josef: "Do you mean, intentionally."
Julius: "Well… if it came to that."
(Josef sighs, seemingly accepting the hypothesis.)
Josef: "I guess that does happen. I've been guilty of it myself, but everyone I've fooled
has been a saint… or lazy."
Julius: "Oh."
(Julius looks in the direction in which he was walking, as if to continue, then returns his gaze to the man.)
"You notice such distinctions in people?"
Josef: "They reveal themselves. They encounter bombast and are either threatened or
apathetic."
Julius: "It sounds as if you admire lazy people…"
Josef: "There's nothing to admire and yes… I suppose that is admirable."
Julius: "But what about the saintly? Or the effective?"
Josef: "Effective as in whom?"
Julius: "Oh, I don't know. Maybe some poor lass, a sculptor for instance."
Josef: "Ah… thank you."
Julius: "For what?"
Josef: "I was afraid of what you meant by effective. Some of us have been reduced to
considering it simply the beginning of a limited amount of time."
Julius: "Oh? But… whatever for?"
Josef: "I know, it's rather obtuse. Something to do with the rather obvious phrase,
'effective immediately'.
Julius: "Redundancy is sometimes hard to top. Tell me, Mister…?"
Josef: "Yes?"
(Julius wrinkles his brow confusedly, but attempts to carry on without further notice.)
Julius: "Did you hear, I was just reading of the coup yesterday? The president nearly lost
his head."
Josef: "You don't say! I'll admit I could rather not tell the difference."
Julius: "Whether the fellow had his head or not?"
Josef: "Not just that. But the idea of an overthrow. It's just so… noisy. How on earth
would one know the difference?"
Julius: "But you're talking about a man's head!"
Josef: "That's only because it came to that. Listen, if the news were to merely trickle
over your grape like a misty rain, you'd be perfectly willing to accept
anything."
Julius: "But aren't I? Perfect and willing?"
Josef: "For many things, I imagine you are. However, I question your willingness to
believe."
Julius: "How dare you question me, sir! To believe in what?"
Josef: "See! That's exactly what I'm talking about."
Julius: "But if you charge me to believe in something, might I not rightly ask to know
something about it?"
Josef: "As I said - for many things you are willing - but not everything."
Julius: "I don't understand."
Josef: "But I would guess that doesn't normally hinder you."
Julius: "Yet… something tells me to hesitate here. Perhaps there is something more important involved and you are trying to fool me…"
Josef: "But why would I? You appear only to be a working man, and of little interest or
time for being fooled."
Julius: "Oh?"
Josef: "Well… are you busy? Productive? Worried? Or indebted?"
Julius: "I suppose I am many of these things."
Josef: "Okay then, why might I concern myself with you?"
Julius: "I couldn't fathom. But you seem concerned…"
Josef: "Or is it you who actually is?"
(Silence)

Josef: "Ask yourself for a minute to consider the hindrance of the effective someone you
so carelessly mentioned. Is there a motive?"
Julius: "Let me see… the sculptor?"
Josef: "If you like."
Julius: "His first motives, I would guess, are beautiful."
Josef: "What has beauty done for him?"
Julius: "Why… beauty can give him many things, perhaps all things."
Josef: "Do you, as a working man, believe that?"
Julius: "No. But as just a man - which I plan to become someday - I will believe it."
Josef: "So you are somehow… evolving?"
Julius: "I didn't plan on saying that."
Josef: "But you hinted it's in the offing…"
Julius: "It's somehow more appropriate for later on, yes. But I'll admit, I do believe it
a little now."
Josef: "Yes, I know. At times, now becomes later. And because eventually it always
will, you might throw in the towel early, from time to time or, now and then, if
you like."
Julius: 'I didn't say that."
Josef: "Didn't you? Tell me, what other motives might the sculptor have?"
Julius: "I don't know. Is this some type of survey?"
Josef: "In a way, I suppose it is."
(The two stare at each other, then Julius looks toward the distance in thought.)
Julius: "Uh… I guess he needs to make money."
Josef: "But what happened to beauty?"
Julius: "I don't know. The word 'motive' changes the more times you say it. Becomes
less beautiful and more like an angle."
Josef: "And would you say being a sculptor might be a pretty good angle?"
Julius: "I wouldn't know. Maybe for some things."
Josef: "Like what?"
Julius: "Like beauty, I guess. For making money, it would seem to be a pretty flimsy
angle."
Josef: "So… we arrive at the conclusion, by your own logic, that making money is
probably not one of the sculptor's motivations?"
Julius: "I guess not."
Josef: "No, I guess not. But this leaves us with a second question on top of what are his
motives; and that is, how does he make money if he's a sculptor?"
Julius: "I don't know; maybe he's figured out a way."
Josef: "But you said it's not a proper angle for making money?"
Julius: "Well… look… maybe it's just not that important to him."
Josef: "Oh yes, beauty. But does it fill an empty stomach?"
Julius: "Just the thought of it might…"
Josef: "Do you believe that?"
Julius: "Not yet. But maybe one day…"
Josef: "Oh… I get it. You're saying there's hope."
Julius: "Why shouldn't there be? There's everything else."
Josef: "Granted… but hope can fill your stomach with air for just so long…"
Julius: "But… it's easy to have hope on a full stomach. That's really not hope. It's a
pastime like knowledge or badminton. Hope is all about an empty stomach. If
you don't need hope, why would you need it?"
Josef: "And what's the difference, if I would so ask, between hope and hopeless?"
Julius: "Beauty, I would say to you."
Josef: "Ah… and 'beauty, truth'?"
Julius: "Don't make things up."
Josef: "I didn't. It's just the resemblance is astonishing."
Julius: "If you say so."
Josef: "Have you had your lunch? If not, I would like to buy you a hotdog from that
vendor."
Julius: "Why him?"
Josef: "No reason. He's just right across the way there."
Julius: "So, it's a random choice?"
Josef: "No. If there were two vendors, we would have a choice. This actually seems
rather pre-determined."
Julius: "Okay. I'll take your offer for a hotdog, but then you must explain something to
me."
Josef: "If I can. After you."
(They exit.)
(On a park bench, each with napkins and empty hotdog wrappers crumpled in hand.)
Josef: "Ah… that's better."
Julius: "Quite. Tell me, is this some sort of occupation?"
Josef: "What? Eating?"
Julius: "No… or yes. And this other thing we've been doing."
Josef: "Well, it is. Talking to people is a sort of occupation, I tend to think of it as a
lost civilization. What about you? You espouse yourself to be a working man but
you seem to be in no particular hurry."
Julius: "I'm between jobs at the moment."
Josef: "Does it bother you then, in your deliberations, all these people hurrying about?"
Julius: "Not in the least. Should it?"
Josef: "Oh… that's for you. But it would seem to paint the day with some despair for
someone with no place to be."
Julius: "Did I say that?"
Josef: "You said…"
Julius: "Perhaps I misspoke. At the moment I am precisely where I am supposed to be."
Josef: "Oh?"
Julius: "Yes. Talking with you redeems that very assurance for me. Perhaps there is
something I have to offer you ."
Josef: "Me? Whatever do you have to offer me?"
Julius: "Well, I permitted you to buy me lunch."
Josef: "But that was my idea!"
Julius: "See, there's another thing."
Josef: "If you suppose you are here for such random occurrences, what happens when
nothing arrives?"
Julius: "That, too, must be accepted at random."
Josef: "But it's nothing."
Julius: "Is it? We are definitely talking about it - and moving it into the direction of
something."
Josef: "It takes a bit more than that I'm afraid."
Julius: "Don't be."
(Pause.)
"Look up at that high open window there. Does it strike you as odd?"
Josef: "Not particularly. It's a lovely day."
Julius: "But it's the only open window in the entire façade, that I can see."
Josef: "Yes, it is curious now from that angle."
Julius: "But it's not an angle at all. It's an open window."
Josef: "Yes, but the person behind it has become curious for us."
Julius: "Has he?"
Josef: "Or she. And yes. Out of all the windows in the building, for that particular
one to be open strikes me as odd."
Julius: "So… personified, the curiosity becomes an angle…"
Josef: "You must admit, it does effectively leave all the other windows closed… of a
sudden."
Julius: "Ah… you're right. This is your occupation. Forgive me."
Josef: "But now I am forced to deal with the imagined dilemma of hundreds of closed
windows and why that is on such a lovely day."
Julius: "But it's not imaginary. I see the open window."
Josef: "Imagined. I didn't imagine a problem with the others until I saw the one. Shall
we investigate?"
Julius: "We are."
Josef: "No, I mean climb the stairs of the building and find the open window."
Julius: "But we have no right. What harm is it doing us?"
Josef: " Hmm. I suppose you are right. Yet there is something earnest in me that longs
to judge the open window."
Julius: "Why? It has every reason."
Josef: "Yet why hasn't that reason spread? To all the other windows, or at least a few?"
Julius: "These things take time, I suppose."
Josef: "It is difficult to attest, a schedule like that."
Julius: "But no one involved minds. The open window is already opened and the others,
being closed, haven't a clue. It is merely excruciating from down here."
Josef: "Yes, you seem to have a point. But… oh, never mind."
Julius: "Exactly."

Scene II

The sun is high and the two have meandered to a different corner of the same park. Julius has lost what appearance of engagement with Josef he had and is again on the verge of bidding a hasty farewell. Josef has not given the slightest fall to his chin or demeanor and continues to speak with a thoroughly rapt self-satisfaction. Julius has begun to physically tire of the banter, with his clothes subtly askew, providing the outward sense that he may withdraw at any moment.

Josef: "So… from here, the Dakota Life building would be directly ahead, about two
miles as the crow flies."
Julius: "Yes, as I explained. And I am afraid that I'll have to leave you to find it for
yourself, as I must be on my way."
Josef: "But where shall you go?"
Julius: "Well… first of all, seeing as it is high afternoon, I should go and rest, so as to be
refreshed for the night."
Josef: "For forested repose… I choose the continental divide."
Julius: "But I didn't ask you…"
Josef: "Oh, but you would have. You see, forasmuch as it takes time to develop
these things, we are just jockeying into position so that we might ask the
questions."
Julius: "What questions?"
Josef: "Oh… whatever they are. They're apt to change but frankly they do not. We
point our way into the so-called intrigues, but they really are not curious at all.
How much money I might have, what I do, which you see, you have already
asked."
Julius: "I was just making conversation…"
Josef: "Of course you were; and so I have offered my vacation preference to pre-empt
your wondering. Now, might you wonder about other things?"
Julius: "I might. But I also may doubt your ability to answer me."
Josef: "How would you know without… ?"
Julius: "I can tell."
Josef: "By looking at me? Well…"
Julius: "Maybe by some things you've already said. There is some jockeying for position
that is transparent, others which are not."
Josef: "Are you saying I'm insincere?"
Julius: "I couldn't know that. I'm just saying I might not believe you."
Josef: "But why not? What has tainted what we have?"
Julius: (insouciantly) "We have nothing."
Josef: "Don't we? You're challenging our very lack of pretense."
Julius: 'Our what?"
Josef: "It was an innocent conversation!"
Julius: "So…"
Josef: "So! That is extremely something and rare!"
Julius: "I wouldn't call it all that rare. My day is filled with innocent conversations.
Brief… yet innocent."
Josef: "But also meaningless. You discuss yesterday with the milkman and tomorrow
with your banker, but these aren't conversations… and neither are they innocent."
Julius: "What? Why wouldn't they be?"
Josef; " Because conversations are revealing, and with those gentlemen you speak merely
to show your tongue works, nothing more."
Julius: "You don't know that!"
Josef: "But your denial proves I am more right than wrong."
Julius: "So what! What then?"
Josef: "What do you mean?"
Julius: "What does it prove?"
Josef: 'That would depend on you. I, personally, was already convinced."
Julius: "Aha! I thought as much!"
Josef: "But upon reflection, I must admit to you that I also rather fancy the city at certain
times of the year."
Julius: "Yes! It can be nice."
(A brief silence interrupts.)
Josef: "I'm not calling you simple, but you can be easy to talk to."
Julius: "It's funny you would say that. Not comic, but one might ostensibly think us
to be ill-matched."
Josef: "And that would be nonsense. Accordingly… I've lived every life, every other
life, that is, which could have been mine but wasn't."
Julius: "Why wasn't it?"
Josef: "Ah… that seems a pertinent question. You can be easy to talk to, may I call
you Esterhazy?"
Julius: "Who's she?"
Josef; "Not a she at all, but simply one of history's great side-notes. He himself wasn't
too important, but his roll can't be overstated."
Julius: "I'd rather you didn't."
Josef: "Didn't what?"
Julius: "Call me Ester. It's rather feminine, I'm afraid."
Josef: "Don't be. It was only a simple desire. You've every right to refuse it."
Julius: "Thank you. So you were saying… you've been trying many things that have
never turned out…"
Josef: "I said nothing of the sort."
Julius: "Perhaps it was implied…"
Josef: "I can think of little that would be more dangerous."
Julius: "Oh, you should leave such drama aside, you know."
Josef: "It bores the least of us, yes, but the rest live for it, I'm afraid. Have you ever been
to Europe?"
Julius: "But, my friend…"
Josef: "I know, I know. Yet I speak of the true Europe encased in the old court of
privilege. Not this tired egalitarian parliament."
Julius: "I'm afraid it's been gone for quite a few centuries proper now."
Josef: "It yet exists… even by its secrets. It is where the true desires of men and women
were once given play."
Julius: "And play they did, I imagine."
Josef: "Don't be silly. It's all given play. The shared sensitivities for inviting the
vengeance of a coming-one-day fairness were flaunted as a rule."
Julius: "Why do you speak so? Are you a closet royalist?"
Josef: "Closet? Why should I be?"
Julius: "As a working man, let me remind you that I will not stand for conspiracy."
Josef: "But you don't actually care."
Julius: "I do!"
Josef: "It's enough for you to protest. I'll bet you already feel better."
Julius: "Perhaps."
Josef: "See… you haven't the slightest concern for action against anything. The opinions
you voice in protest purely suffice. Tell me, do you believe in war?"
Julius: "When necessary, I will."
Josef: "But you don't today?"
Julius: "It's not necessary today."
Josef: "But it is. There are infidels on every corner!"
Julius: "Where? Show me. I haven't seen any."
Josef: "Perhaps that because… well… the open window."
Julius: "Are you saying we may have been spotted?"
Josef: "I'm saying we might have."
Julius: "That's paranoid!"
Josef: "Is it?"
(END)