This interactive story about a child who escapes a pogrom uses magical realist narrative techniques, Brechtian alienation devices, and folk motifs to juxtapose myth and legend against recent and current historical forces.

" As the boy's grandmother staggered downstairs from his mother's room and made blindly for the door, his father gave him a heavy smack on the behind with the iron spoon, so strong and so hard that in pure shock and astonishment the boy jumped up and scrambled with his short legs out the door across the fields into the forest, never looking back, although he could hear rhythmic bellows from his mother's room, men shouting, furniture overturned, wood breaking, metal ringing against stone, gurgling screams suddenly cut off.

" Under the trees it felt cool. Vines between the roots tangled him, fallen logs tripped him, brambles stuck his ankles and knees, twigs snapped out to whip him across the face. One of his sisters fell. His older brother stopped to help. A tree smacked his other brother across the face. Blood blinding him, that brother fell. The boy ran past his grandfather who stopped, short of breath, leaning to one side, a hand pressed to his ribs. The boy ran, his heart pounded, he cried salt tears, his ribs cut. Far back in the trees he heard his oldest brother shout. There was a grunting, snuffling noise like a wild pig. He ran, his heart beat, the salt tears stung, pain cut his ribs. Far back under the bushes, his younger brother screamed like a horse. There was a floundering, crashing, and whinnying in the underbrush, like a steed pulled down by wolves. The boy ran, his heart beat like a huge, brass potlid, salt tears ate into his tongue, pain cut his heart. Not far behind he heard his sister whimper. Her voice changed to a high, bubbling squeal like a rabbit hung up by its heels and knocked on the head in the butcher's dark back room. Then the squeal choked off. The boy ran, his heart tore through his body into the darkness, tears burned his face, the pain pushed outwards till he felt he would burst. Right behind, at the back of his neck, close at his ear, he heard a small child whimpering, blubbering, and gasping like water sucked out through a drain. 'Stop it, stop it,' he screamed, but no sound came. 'Shut up, I can't stop for you, I can't help. The strong must not stop for the weak, the fast for the slow, the one in front for those that fall behind. My father said to save myself. Let me go, don't follow me.' But he had no voice. As he ran he heard the whimpering and the blubbering fall farther behind, until all that was left was his own gasping breath as he fell to his knees and crawled through the brambles tearing at him, snagging him, the vines knotted around him, the twigs snapping back, whipping his salted and bloody face. Much later he crawled on his belly under the vines, between the roots, through the cooling mud and moss. Still later he woke under the moon in a grassy field where a cool wind lifted his wet hair, letting it fall back over his eyes, and whispered, 'Don't stop, never stop, save yourself, forget your father, forget your mother, forget your sisters, your brothers, forget your name, the name of your village, the Holy Name of God. Those things are finished. They can never help you again. But now they're gone, the pogrom won't follow you. You will be safe.'"

The child, obeying his father and the needs of survival, achieves a selective amnesia, half remembering what happened, but forgetting his own name, his religion, and his origins. The interactive performance shows how and at what cost he preserves his life, and how he gives it back again.

Performance Copyright 1985, Judith E. Johnson

Text Copyright 1985, Judith E. Johnson

Story first published in Groundswell

Performance by arrangement with author