Сценарий спектакля на английском языке "Остров на птичьей улице" Ури Орлев

          The Island on Bird Street

                                                             by Uri Orlev

1. Father’s secret

I woke up. Father was sitting on the floor with a lit candle beside him. I was very sleepy and still in the middle of a dream. I yawned and tried to get back to it. Sometimes, if you're not fully awake yet, it works.

Father looked at me for a minute and then took his hands off the parts of the pistol. I started to ask him about it, but he put a finger to his lips.

"Is it real?" I asked in a whisper.

"Yes," he said, smiling at me.

"What are you doing with it?"

"Cleaning it and oiling it in case I have to use it."

"To kill Germans?"

"Yes, Alex," father said.

I winced. "Tomorrow?"

"No," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"How come you know all that?" "I was a soldier once," he said.

"You never told me."

"It wasn't the happiest time of my life. I was lucky enough to make the army boxing team, but the other Jews had a hard time and I felt bad for them."

(закадровый текст)It was an Italian Beretta with seven bullets in its clip. Father took them out one by one and showed me how they were made…

He thought for a while.

And then, as though suddenly making up his mind, he said, "I'm going to teach you how to shoot."

(закадровый текст) After that first time, we sat on the floor night after night while I practiced assembling and disassembling the pistol. Father showed me one thing after another. How to cock it. How to open the safety catch. How to aim. He lay facing me with a piece of cardboard while I aimed at a little hole he had made in the middle of it. Then I pressed the trigger and said, "Bang!"

"Some day, Alex," he said, "these lessons may help save your life. Who knows when and how this war will end." 

2. Стихотворение: выходят дети гетто, выносят обломки, закладывают ими сцену, затем читают стихотворение

3. The pistol really shoots.

I was on my way out when I heard shots and the sound of a car. It was definitely coming from the ghetto and not from the Polish side. I decided to stay in the cellar. I sat near the opening and tried hard to listen.

        There were German soldiers and Polish policemen. I thought I saw a Jewish policeman too. The soldiers had some kind of strange instruments. After a while I heard them knocking and tapping. They must have been looking for bunkers. They came to the entrance to the cellar and stopped to examine it. One of them said in German, "We should widen this hole and look inside."

Pistol

"No one could possibly get through there," said someone else.

I heard scraping noises and laughter. I peeked out of my storage room and saw someone trying to squeeze inside. It must have made the others laugh, because he could hardly get his booted foot through the hole. Then I heard them searching outside the building, and finally they left.

By now I felt sure of myself as far as the corner house, and I moved quickly and even carelessly, not stopping even once to listen, until I reached the loft where I had found and lost the food. Even before I heard the scream I had a feeling that something was wrong. Perhaps I'd heard noises without being aware of them.

"Papa!" shouted a small girl.

It wasn't an ordinary shout for someone to come. It was a scream for help. I stood perfectly still. My first reaction was to run. But then I thought that maybe it was Martha. I headed for the scream. Suddenly I heard a man laugh brutally. I stepped up to the passage that led to the next loft. In the dim light beyond the wall I saw a large man with a big sack on his back dragging a girl by the arm. I strained to get a glimpse of her. I couldn't make out her face, but I recognized the polka dot dress. Without thinking, I drew the pistol, cocked it, and released the safety catch. The man heard the click and spun around.

"Leave her alone!" I said in the deepest voice I could make.

And I fired.

The shot scared the pants off me. The bullet hit a wall and I heard plaster fly in all directions. There was a strange smell too. It must have been the gunpowder that father had told me about. For the first time since I'd set eyes on the gun, I realized that it really could shoot. I guess I'd never quite believed it until then.

It certainly had an effect. The big oaf let go of the girl, threw down his sack, and ran for dear life. If I hadn't been so frightened by the shot, I would have burst out laughing. Martha was too scared to move. I was sure she would have run away too if she could have.

I slipped through the passageway.

"It's just me," I said. "The boy whose food you took, remember?"

I took a step toward her. She backed away as though I were a German.

"You ate some sugar and your father tried to grab me, remember? I know your name's Martha." She stood still.

"Who was that who shouted?"

I couldn't manage to make my voice as deep as before. Still, it came out pretty low.

"It was me." I thought I saw her smile.

"And what was that big bang?"

"It was just a rock I knocked against some tin," I explained.

"It was like a real shot," she said shakily. "It even chipped stuff off the wall." She pointed behind her.

I said nothing.

"What will happen if he comes back?" she said in a worried voice.

"Where did you come from?"

"From our hideout. I'm not supposed to leave it. But my parents went to look for more food and I thought I'd just come out for some air. It's so dark and stuffy in there. And then all of a sudden he came.'

"Come," I suggested. "Let's wait for your parents in your hideout."

She didn't answer. Then she stepped close to me and whispered, "I'm not allowed to tell where it is. My father would kill me."

"All right," I said. "Let's go to the loft next door and hide there in a corner.'

"What if my parents come back and don't find me?"

I was dying to talk with someone, even if it was only a girl. But I couldn't force her to stay, as much as I tried dragging it out.

"How old are you?"

"Nine.'

"I thought you were only eight."

"That's because I'm small. How old are you?'

"Twelve. Actually, eleven and a half. Where did you live before?"

"In the ghetto." She told me where they had lived before the transports, and where they had lived before the war. Then she told me about the dolls she used to have. She had only one of them left, plus another her father had found in an apartment. I told her about my mouse. That scared her.

"You really touch it?"

"Yes. "

"And it doesn't bite or give you germs?"

That made me laugh. I'd forgotten how scared some people were of mice. Like old Boruch. "You know, human beings have been raising mice for three thousand years."

"How do you know?"

"It's in the encyclopedia."

"I'd better get back to our hideout," she said all at once.

I nodded.

"Where will you go from here?"

"All the way to the rope factory. I have to get something there."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"Sometimes. '

Before she left, she took a pin from her hair and gave it to me. I listened to her going down the stairs and then went to look at my present in the light. I hadn't even told her my name.