Rock 'n' Roll (16 page)

LENKA
You think you do. Don't come back, Jan. This place has lost its nerve. They put something in the water since you were here. It's a democracy of obedience. They're frightened to use their minds in case their minds tell them heresy. They apologise for history. They apologise for good manners. They apologise for difference. It's a contest of apology. You've got your country back. Why would you change it for one that's fucked for fifty years at least?

Esme comes in holding a record album, ‘Opel'.

ESME
Sorry. I … Have they all gone?

LENKA
Are you feeling better, Esme?

ESME
What do you mean?

She gives Jan the record.

ESME
(
cont.
) I got you something to take.

JAN
Oh … Thank you.

ESME
In case you, in case you can't get it.

JAN
‘Opel'!

ESME
(
to Max
) What did you think of her?

Jan puts the record on the table and searches out his briefcase.

MAX
I was pleasantly surprised.

ESME
Really? I hope Alice liked her.

JAN
So. Some sunny day.

He shakes hands with Max.

MAX
Where are you parked?

Jan gestures beyond the garden. He exchanges kisses with Lenka.

JAN
I'm glad I saw you, Esme.

ESME
Go carefully, then.

They exchange kisses. Jan leaves abruptly by the garden. Lenka starts clearing the table.

ESME
(
cont.
) Don't … don't do that.

Lenka desists at once; an acknowledgment of territory encroached.

LENKA
I'm sorry. (
pause
) I should have said, Max wants me, has asked me, to stay. Would you mind, Esme?

MAX
Why should she mind? Shares the burden.

LENKA
I won't if it—if you …

ESME
He forgot to take it.

She picks up the record.

ESME
(
cont.
) Sorry. What …?

LENKA
I miss him … and Max says he misses me.

ESME
Yes. Of course. Of course I don't mind. When did you …? (
bewildered
) Do you mean just now, this happened just now?

LENKA
He wouldn't get off the phone. I said I'd think about it. (
laughs
) But I put a few things in the car.

ESME
I saw you were happy. I thought—Oh, Lenka.

Esme embraces Lenka, coughs a laugh, looks round for her cigarettes, remembers where she left them, makes a bee-line for her jacket on the garden chair … lights a cigarette, sits down, smokes, stubs the cigarette after two puffs, sits blank.

Lenka meanwhile resumes clearing the table.

Jan returns.

JAN
Ahoj.

ESME
Jan. Oh—yes, you left it on the table.

JAN
(?)

ESME
Did you come back for Syd?

JAN
Oh … no.

ESME
Oh. I came out for a cigarette, then I remembered I don't smoke.

JAN
Oh.

ESME
I wish I had some grass.

She gestures at the garden wall.

ESME
(
cont.
) He was beautiful. He was like the guarantee of beauty.

JAN
I came to ask you, will you come with me?

ESME
Yes.

JAN
To Prague.

ESME
Of course. Yes. Of course.

JAN
Will you come now?

ESME
Yes. All right. I'll have to get my passport.

JAN
Okay.

ESME
It's upstairs.

JAN
Okay.

ESME
Will you be here when I get back?

JAN
Yes.

Esme goes indoors and walks briskly through and out, ignoring Max and Lenka. Jan comes inside. He reclaims the album. Max and Lenka have worked it out, and don't find it necessary to speak. After about half a minute, Jan looks at his watch.

LENKA
She's brushing her teeth.

Jan nods.

Blackout

And ‘Vera' by Pink Floyd—in entirety:
‘Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that we would meet again?
Vera, Vera, what has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?'

Smash cut to:

Prague exterior, 1990 (Lennon Wall).

Cambridge garden, 1990.

In the place near the Lennon Wall, Esme, in bright, cheap summer clothes, happy behind big sunglasses, has her photograph taken by Jan with a cheap camera, several times. The Beatles' ‘Rock and Roll Music' plays off-stage on a tinny cassette-player.

In the Cambridge garden, Lenka listens to her pupil,
DEIRDRE,
reading her ‘sight unseen' from Plutarch.

DEIRDRE
‘… And suddenly to everybody's amazement, a voice was heard from the Island of Paxoi shouting his name, “Thamous”. Thamous was the Egyptian helmsman, not known by name …' um,
empleonton …?

LENKA
Present participle, Deirdre …

Ferdinand enters, greeting Jan joyfully in Czech.

JAN
This is Ferdinand. He doesn't know English except lyrics.

Ferdinand and Esme greet each other.

DEIRDRE
‘The third time, Thamous answered the caller, and the caller shouted, “When you're in earshot of Palodes” …'

LENKA
Good.

DEIRDRE
‘…“tell them that great Pan is dead”…'

ESME
What is it?

JAN
Nothing.

Ferdinand finishes telling a story, then asks for the camera, in Czech.

He takes a photo of Jan and Esme.

ESME
(
insists
) No—tell me.

JAN
Ferda saw a friend from Plastic People. Now he is in a new band, Pulnoc—it means ‘midnight'. They're going to America.

FERDINAND
(
in Czech
) Smile.

ESME
What's the matter?

JAN
Really nothing. Nothing. These are new times. Who will be rich? Who will be famous?

FERDINAND
(
in Czech
) Smile.

Ferdinand takes pictures.

DEIRDRE
‘…and Thamous in the stern shouted towards the shore—
“Great Pan is dead!”
Before the words were even out of his mouth …'

LENKA
(Good.)

DEIRDRE
‘… there was a great cry of lamentation, not one voice but many …'

Ferdinand finishes telling a story in Czech. Jan is convulsed by it. Jan, Esme and Ferdinand move to one of the café tables. The cloud has passed.

JAN
(
laughs
) He says President Havel showed the Stones round the castle. When they went to wave to the fans from the balcony they found the balcony door was locked and no one had the key …

Bar-room noise and music. The music is the Plastic People. The music and the noise remain as background.

A
WAITER
arrives with a menu and greets Jan. They talk about going to the Rolling Stones. Ferdinand orders three beers.

JAN
But we must eat before the concert.

Esme takes the menu from Jan.

ESME
I'll tell you what I want.

JAN
You can't read it.

ESME
Can I have anything I want?

JAN
(?)

Esme indicates different places on the menu.

ESME
To start, I want the all-over kissing—and for the main course, I'll have the shagged senseless. I'll let you know about dessert, (
handing back the menu
) So can we go before I die?

JAN
(
to Waiter
) Did you get that?

WAITER
(
deadpan
) I'll come back with the beer.

The Waiter leaves. Esme doesn't care.

ESME
(
exuberantly) I
don't care. I don't care. I don't
care.

Smash cut to Jan, Esme, Ferdinand and unknown others at the Rolling Stones concert, and the pre-concert crowd noise from the first track of the Rolling Stones live album, ‘No Security'. They are focused on the distant stage.

The crowd noise changes when the band appears, at which point everyone stands up.

The first guitar chords slash through the noise.

Blackout.

The End

Dates of musical events are in italic type

1967

MARCH

The Velvet Underground and Nico

AUGUST

Pink Floyd,
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

DECEMBER

Velvet Underground, ‘White Light/White Heat' (June 1968 in UK).

1968

JANUARY

Syd Barrett's last performance with Pink Floyd.

MARCH

Angry demonstrators try to storm the American Embassy in London after a rally protesting against the Vietnam War.

MAY

Thousands of students, supported by striking workers, fight the police in Paris. At the London School of Economics and other universities and art colleges, students take over the college buildings. Meanwhile, Moscow moves Soviet troops to the Czech border, alarmed by the liberalisation of Czechoslovakia under the Communist leader Alexander Dubcek.

JUNE

Syd Barrett, ‘Jugband Blues' (on Pink Floyd,
A Saucerful of Secrets).

JULY

Soviet and Czech leaders meet at a frontier village to resolve their differences over the ‘Prague Spring'.

AUGUST

20–21 The forces of the Warsaw Pact invade Czechoslovakia.

OCTOBER

Czechoslovakia and USSR sign agreement to allow Soviet troops to remain ‘temporarily'.

1969

JANUARY

Czech journalists agree to self-censorship to end their conflict with the government.

JANUARY

16 Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Wenceslas Square, Prague, and dies three days later.

FEBRUARY

Czech Destiny,
an exchange between Milan Kundera and Václav Havel.

MARCH

Velvet Underground,
The Velvet Underground (
April in UK).

APRIL

Dubcek is sacked from the Czech leadership. ‘Normalisation' begins in earnest under his replacement, Gustav Husák.

MAY

Czech Central Committee adopts hard-line policies and begins purges of reformers.

JULY

First man on the moon.
The Rolling Stones give free concert in Hyde Park for 250,000 people.

NOVEMBER

Syd Barrett, ‘Octopus' / ‘Golden Hair' (single).

1970

JANUARY

Syd Barrett, ‘The Madcap Laughs'.

FEBRUARY

Czech Communist Party announces loyalty checks.

APRIL

The Beatles formally split up.

MAY

Four students shot dead by National Guard at Kent State University, Ohio.

JUNE

Dubcek expelled from Communist Party.

NOVEMBER

Syd Barrett, ‘Barrett'.

1971

MARCH

Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground featuring Nico (UK).