The Tulse Luper Suitcase

•
THE EARLY YEARS
• A Film By Peter Greenaway

1
THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASE

EPISODE 1
NEWPORT
..........
~
SECTION 1
1998. Newport, Wales

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 1. Exterior: Newport Backyards 1998
35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
It is 1998. We see an overview of ten parallel back-yards in a quiet working-class neighbourhood of Newport, a
South Wales town on the River Usk. Each backyard is divided from the next by a parallel brick-wall about two
metres high. The backyards show evidence of good house-keeping - plant-pots, yellow wheel-barrows, neat
spaces. The neighbourhood is respectable - and has gradually become so since its beginnings as a rough, noisy,
lively and vibrant working-class neighbourhood in the 1920 -1940s. It is raining from dull grey skies. The camera
travels along a back lane looking over the back-walls into the backyards.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 2. Interior: Newport Music-Theatre 1998
It is 1998. A group of twelve children are being rehearsed on a theatre stage where three barriers of red-painted
chairs and red-painted planks have been set up in parallel rows. The children are aged from 5 to 12. There are
eight boys and four girls. They have printed cards around their necks identifying their characters - Tulse,
• Martino, Ryan, Donald, Arnold, David, Celan, Aga, Macey. There are two Donalds and two Maceys and three
Agas. Pieces of ambiguous scenery are heaped at the back of the stage, including a large pile of yellow sand
arranged to make a conical shape, a back-cloth featuring bright stars, and a toy horse standing on large red
wheels. The rehearsal is watched by a production assistant, a children's casting director, and is conducted by a
young, small and plump Chinese woman with page-boy cut hair, who shouts and fiercely blows a whistle. This
Chinese woman bears a strong resemblence to the Rupert Bear cartoon character of Tiger Lily. She has a thick
Chinese accent.
The children - on command - climb and scramble over the chairs.
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
When I blow the whistle - you must run to climb the first barrier.
Imagine it is a garden wall, and that there is treasure on the other side;
Are you ready? Watch out for the dogs. One two three - gal
The children rush at the barriers and throw themselves over. Parents in the audience watch with concerned
faces as the children clamber and fall over the chairs. .

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 3. Exterior: Newport Backyards 1922.
35mm CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE. .
It is 1922. The same ten parallel working-class backyards as seen above - are seen again· this time in 1922
when the community that lives here is poor working-class; the male wage-earners being miners or steel-workers
working in local pits and factories. The backyards are much more lived in than in 1998 - they are very necessary
overflow spaces for the small crowded houses which are inhabited by large families. The backyards are used for
growing flowers and vegetables, and for keeping chickens. They are spaces of beaten earth or sparse lawn
where children can play, lounge, squabble and sunbathe. They are spaces for staring bicycles, stripping down
motorbikes, and setting babies in prams in the sun. Most of the yards are presently full of lines of drying
washing. The bright, clean weather is in sharp contrast to the rain we have witnessed in the location in 1998.
2
A group of nine children are assembled in the yard of the first house in the row - the yard belonging to the Luper
family. We recognise that they are nine children selected from the twelve children of the 1998 rehaarsal stage.
Now they are in 1922 dress. Several of them wear makeshift helmets and carry rifle-shaped sticks. There are
seven boys and two girls.
•1 Donald· A 5-year old - the 'baby' of the group, Ryan's brother

2 Celan· A fat 11-year old in short trousers
:3 Ryan - A plump 10-year old, Donald's elder brother
·4 Arnold - . A 8-year old, Aga's brother
•5 David - A large-framed, red-faced, asthmatic 12·year old
i 6 Aga - A 4-year old, Arnold's sister
•7 Macey - A 1O-year old, dressed like an adult· serious and courageous.
8 Marty - Martino Knockavelli. 10-years old. Tulse Luper's best friend - a
plump, dark-haired, handsome boy.
·9 Tulse· Tulse Luper. 10 years old. Fair·haired, a face full of curiosity.
In the Newport backyards, the 10-year old child Tulse Luper shouts:
LUPER
Alright Marty, nowl
MARTY
Ready ... steady ... go!
LUPER
Over the top!
•With much shouting in South Wales accents, the nine children race enthusiastically to climb the first wall over into
the next garden. There is a mad scramble - the youngest children having difficulty in climbing the w~II - the
ieldest helping them.
11917. Flanders, Belgium.

iEplsode 1. Section 1. Scene 4. Exterior: 1st World War Battlefields 1917.
i16mm ACADEMY RATIO SEPIA.
It is 1917. A different aspect-ratio than the 35mm footage. A brief clip of the tragic-farce of the 1914 -18 Somme
~attfe-ground - sepia-coloured film of soldiers making 'a charge' left to right and parallel to the same camera-
track taken to film the children. But the imagery is taken from an iinage-bank. These images of the First World
War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which - are written:
PICTURE·BANK. SUBJECT: WAR.
ITEM: First World War. SECTION 768F.
Although this is apparently footage faken from a central source of imagery - there is a close visual comparison to
be made in the activity of the soldiers and the children climbing the walls in the Newport back-gardens. The film
$equence from the Picture-Bank ends in a freeze frame still-photo which briefly bursts into flame and bums like a
¢onventional photograph in a tray of paraffin.

episode 1. Section 1. Scene 5. Interior: Newport Music-Theatre 1998
On the 1998 theatre stage rehearsal space the twelve children have climbed the wall of chairs which has
CIOliapsed - leaving the children sprawling on the ground. The children's parents in the aUditorium look on with
4larm. The Chinese rehearsal director is looking irritable. On the back wall of the stage - a back projection shows
a handwritten text-
Armentieres. Koblenz. Cambral.

Amiens. Aachen. The Ardennes. Eindhoven.
3
Potsdam. And the Brandenburg Gate.
• 1922. Newport, Wales

3Smm CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
In the Newport backyards, the nine children· climbing over the first wall· jump down among the squawking
chickens of the next backyard, shouting to keep up their courage as an angry man wearing no shirt and holding
up his trousers, rushes out of the yard's outside privy to chase them. The nine children rush for the second wall in
the terrace.
LUPER
Armentieres! Koblenz! Cambrai!
It's not certain if Luper knows where these exotic, mysterious places are. He pronounces them in a strangled
Welsh accent • so they could almost be anywhere. It's the magiC of the names that excites him, and he knows
that they are somehow associated with the mythology of the First World War. Trampling on upturned buckets and
f1ower·pots, the children climb over into a yard of beaten earth guarded by a leashed and furiously barking dog.
The children run around its ferocious slathering mouth. They make muddy marks on the hanging bed-sheets on
the line, to attack the third wall.
LUPER
Amiens! Aachenl The Ardennes!
MARTY
The Somma and Aberdovey!
•
LUPER
Aberdovey's on the River Dovey and it's near Aberystwyth, you dope!
The children jump down into a garden where two teenage girls - with their hair in curlers· are sun-bathing in
deckchairs on a neatly trimmed lawn surrounded by f10werbeds and divided by a cement path. There are
screams and shouts as the deckchairs are upset. The girls throw water at the children from a bowl of soaking
washing stood on the cement path. The children race for the next wall. One child - the 5 year old Donald - doesn't
make it. Terrified, he slides onto his backside in the f10werbed against the wall and bursts into tears.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 7. Exterior: 1st World War Battlefields 1917.
16mm ACADEMY RATIO SEPIA.
Sections of 1st World War reconstruction show terrified soldiers panicking in a battle-ground assault. There are
parallel associations In action and ~mposition between soldiers and children.
The images of the First World War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which are written:
PICTURE-BANK. SUBJECT: WAR.
ITEM: First World War. SECTION 805S0.
This film sequence ends in a freeze-frame that, as before, bums.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 8. exterior: Newport Backyards 1922
The imtatlon of the two girls evaporates. They pick the child up and hug him, whilst still shouting and waving
• their arms over the wall at the Children who are now shouting wildly and being chased by a woman holding a
bicycle-pump. This is the back-yard belonging to Celan who gets caught by his mother, who soundly slaps him
across the back of the knees.
CELAN'S MOTHER
I'll teach you. Whose idea Is this Celan?
4
This is the second time this week. Choosing a Sunday.

It's Tulse and that Macey BrittJestone put you up to this.
And that bloody Eyetie - Martino KnockaveUiI

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 9. Interior: Newport Music-Theatre 1998
On the 1998 theatre rehearsal space there are five small boys lined up - aU with a card around theit necks with
the name RYAN. That are being tutoured by the Chinese rehearsal director. Behind the group - 0111 the back
: projection screen - is the handwritten text.
Come back. I've broken my leg. I'm wounded. Send for the Red Cross.
The camera travels along the line, observing the children.
CHILDREN PLAYING RYAN

, 1922. Newport, Wales

, Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 10. Exterior: Newport Backyards 1922.
35mm CINEMASC0PE BLACK & WHITE.
In the 1922 Newport backyards, the chase - down to 7 runners - is at the fifth wall and the children fall into a pile
' of bicycles and a washing-line of underwear. One child - the chosen boy Ryan - hops about on one leg,
shouting,_making,extravagant gestures of being hurt.
RYAN
The other children, sitting astride or climbing the next wall, look back - and see he is overdoing the play-acting.
,David shouts through cupped hands.
DAVID
Get yourself a trophy Ryan. Get a pair of knickers off the line.
LUPER
Take them to Passiondale and claim an armistice.
There is a close-up of female underwear on the washing line.
ALL THE CHILDREN IN UNISON

What's the time?
Half past nine.
Hang your knickers on the line.
MARTY
(through cupped hands) See you in Berlin!
We'll order you a pistachio knickerbockerglory. With a bent straw.
LUPER
Why bent?
MARTY
They suck better.
t917. Flanders, Belgium.

5
• 16mm ACADEMY RATIO SEPIA•

Sections of 1st World War reconstructed footage where wounded soldiers are picked up on stretchers from an
area of battlefield. The images are letter~boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which ~ are written:
ITEM: First World War. SECTION 907GH.
The sequence ends with a frozen frame that bums.

The 8 year-old Arnold - over-excited - has to stop to urinate against the wall, and his 9 year old sister, Aga, grabs
his arm • as she sees an elderly man coming in the back gate wheeling his bike. Arnold is yanked off·balance,
and dribbling pee down his leg, is dragged by his sister through the backyard door of the house, through the
house corridor and out through the open front door into the front street beyond.
There are four children left - David, Marty, Tulse and the girl Macey.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 13. Interior: Newport Muslc·Theatre 1998
3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In the 1998 stage rehearsal space· a row of six 10·year old girls stand In a line· each holding identical bunches
•
of red imitation tulips. As the camera tracks along them - they rehearse the line:
- CHILDREN PLAYING MACEY
Don't touch me! Don't touch me, Mrs Warren!
I'm Florence Nightingale picking flowers for the dead.

35mm CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
The girl chosen to play Macey sees some blue flowers growing in a clump in a garden bed, and, after scrambling
up the next wall- she climbs down again to go back to pick them as a trophy. She is seen by a woman in her
fifties· with grey hair and a large bosom. Macey starts to shout to scare the woman off whilst she continues to
pick the flowers.
MACEY
Don't touch me! Don't touch me, Mrs Warren!
I'm Florence Nightingale picking flowers for the dead. For poppy day.
MRS WARREN
They're not poppies, Macey Brittlestone, they're cornflowers.
As Macey speaks her garbled phrases· she picks a flower· one for each phrase· all the time eyeing the woman.
MACEY
'.
It's to remember them. (pick) We will remember them.
(pick) In the evening (pick) and when the sun goes
down ... (pick) when the sun sets ... (pick) at night ... in the West ..
(pick) or in the East. (pick) We will remember them. (pick). Always.
The woman is so surprised at the confused and nervous tirade, she stops and watches the performance. Macey
stands flustered - clutching the picked flowers, and shouts as though the woman was deaf ~ which she is not.
'.
f •
MACEY
They're a trophy, Mrs Warren. A trophy. For taking
back home. To England. For the 'Disabled, Gassed and Blind Fund'. The
DGBF. My Dad says ... Tulse Luper says ... So there won't be another war. Ever!
Ever againl The D G B FI
.t.-
«.
Treating the woman as though she's an idiot - Macey shouts the initials. Then, flustered and red in the face,
Macey curtsies quickly and rushes out the backyard gate. Meanwhile the others have scaled the next wall.
; David, out of breath, is getting tangled in the sheets on a washing line. He stumbles and pulls the sheets down
. with him onto a lawn. He wriggles about like a plump stage-ghost under the sheets. Luper and Marty stop to try to-
untangle him. David squirms and wriggles and starts to giggle.
DAVID
Stop it. Stop it. You're tickling. Stop it. I'm ticklish.
Everywhere - not just under my arms.
They find his red face among the sheets. He is laughing and wheezing asthmatically. Luper and Marty stare at
. him.
LUPER
He's shell-shocked. He'll have to go to the dippy-farm.
Best to leave him for the Red Cross. They'll be along shortly.
MARTY
We can't leave him. He'll get captured and taken to Berlin where
they'll make him eat Black Forest Cake and he'll get fatter stilI.
LUPER
How do you know about Black Forest cake?
MARTY
It's in my father's Ice-Cream Gazette.
LUPER
Fattening up children? Sounds like Hansel and Gretel.
i1917. Flanders, Belgium.

German generals in elaborate, plumed 1st World War dress uniform convening at a military conference. The
.Images of the First World War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which- are written:
ITEM: First World War. S~CTION 1212.
~he last frame of the sequence freezes and burns.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 16. Exterior: Newport B~ckyards 1922.
GSmm CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
Luper and Martino stop to talk in the backgarden race.
MARTY
The Kaiser used to stick the cake on the spike of his helmet.
LUPER
Whalfor?
MARTY
To attract the Bolshi vultures.
LUPER
7
What vultures? They don't have vultures in Berlin.
• Do they? Get up David - or the vultures will get youl

DAVID
Leave me, Tulse. I want to play dead.
Whatever for?
LUPER
DAVID
I want to be a mitre.
MARTY
Only Roman Catholics can be mitres.
LUPER
Ifs 'martyr' - and you can't David - you're Jewish.
DAVID
David's a Welsh name.
LUPER
We've all seen you swimming in the Potato Pond, David.
You've Jewish because you've lost a piece of your willie.
MARTY
Ask the Red Cross to find it.
LUPER
They'll be along shortly.
DAVID
I'm Welsh!
MARTY
It's alright David, you can be Welsh-Jewish - can't he Tulse?
• They shake him again. He giggles and wheezes. They can't get him to follow so they leave him and climb the last
wall into the last garden. There is a flower bed edged in lumps of white chalk and black coal.

Section of First World War Reconstruction footage where crazed and shell-shocked soldiers splash in a muddy
pool, stripping to show white bodies, splattered with blood and mUd. The images of the First World War are letter-
boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which - are written:
ITEM: First World War. SECTION 1457.
The last frame of the sequence free7es and burns.

Back in the Newport backyards, Luper and Martino are shouting with exhilaration ..
LUPER
We're nearly there! Eindhoven ...
MARTY
• Eindhoven!
Potsdaml
Potsdaml
LUPER
MARTY
LUPER
8
And the Brandenburg Gatel

MARTY
And ·the Battenberg Cakel
Luper looks at Marty in puzzled .disbelief. But thinks better of correcting him. Luper and Martino Knockavelli, are
the only ones to make it to tho end of the row. Luper picks up a lump of white chalk and Martino picks up a lump
of black coal. They write their names - in large letters - on the last wall in the row of backyards. Over this last wall
is the street.
Luper takes pains to write his name properly - as though he was in the classroom being supervised - his tongue
licking his /ips in concentration - 'Tulse Henry Purcell Luper'. Knockavelli - fearful of being caught. scrawls his
name - 'Matty' - as quickly as possible.
MARTINO
You shouldn't have such a long name Tulse.
We'll be Prussian sauerkraut before you finish.
LUPER
I'm going to do it properly - for all the world to see ...
Whilst Luper continues to write his name, Marty is already dragging an upturned pail to put beside the wall to give
himself a leg up to climb over into the street on the other side.
LUPER
... and then I'll be making the return run.
Martino is Climbing over the wall when he dislodges twenty or more bricks which fall down on the garden side, all
around Luper, covering him in brick dust. The sound of the falling bricks is very loud - far louder than you'd
expect. _
LUPER
Bloody Hell Marty - watch out - or you'll get us court-marshalled!
Marty drops down to the safety of the street, and turns to see Luper, through a gap in the partially fallen wall,
making off back across the gardens. Framed by the hole in the wall - Marty looks very shaken and wide-eyed as
, the camera retreats further and further from him. There is a close-up of Marty's frightened and distressed face
getting smaller and smaller, as Luper leaves him. It is an image we shall see again.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 19 Exterior: 1st World War Battlefields 1917.
Section of First World War Reconstruction of gunsmoke and barrage on a war tom strip of battlefield. The action
this time moves from right to left to parallel Luper's return run.
The images of the First World War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which - are written:

The last frame is frozen and burnt.

Luper sets off on his return journey, making a great deal of noise, causing the neighbours to shout and curse. We
watch him from a high-moving vantage-point. It's the first time we've been so high. Luper is a lone figure making
a hazardous return. He is chased around one back-yard by a coal-dust-covered miner just returned ,from a work-
shift. Luper and the miner dodge around sheets drying on a washing line and the miner ends up blacking the
sheets with his hand-prints - his wife rushes out into the garden to scold him - Luper darts away over the next
9
wall, shouting out the place-names of the journey from Berlin to London. Give the wide visual perspective - we
• hear his shouting louder than we conceivably should .
LUPER
Colognel Amiens! Tours! Le Tourquet! Calais! Doverl Blighty!

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 21. Interior Bedroom of Luper's Parents 1922.
The noise Tulse makes is heard in his parents' back-bedroom, where his night-shift-working father is wakened
from his Sunday afternoon lie-in. The bedroom is full of makeshift shelves untidily crammed with modest text-
books, newspapers and pamphlets - mostly of history and politics - and well-thumbed children's encyclopaedias.
Lupe(s parents have gone to bed after Sunday luncll with four bottles of light beer and Luper's baby brother -
Cappy (real name Gabriel) - aged 8 months - who, naked save for a diaper, is being breast-fed by Luper's mother
- Carrie Luper - whose thin cotton nightdress is pulled down to her waist. Lupe(s mother is beautiful, with curly
hair, plump breasts, white skin, a slow smile, bright eyes- a 1920s image of maternalism. Lupe(s father - Ivor -
leaping out of bed to go to the window· is naked save for a cotton, armless vest that only reaches down to his
navel.
IVOR· LUPER'S FATHER

That bloody boy's in the bloody war again!
CARRIE - LUPER'S MOTHER
Come away from the window Ivor - showing all you've got to Mrs Warrenl
She's asthmatic!
• 1922. Newport. Wales

From a poSition that see Luper's half-naked father turning away from the window· Tulse makes it back. He
climbs the last wall before entering his own back-yard, still shouting.
LUPER
Picadilly Circus. And Leicester Square!
He is caught by his father - wearing a wrap-around bed-sheet. He grabs Luper. trapping him against the wall -
whipping down his trousers and belting him on his bare backside - alternating a whack with an oath.
. IVOR· LUPER'S FATHER

You bloody idiot child! (whack) People are trying to get a bloody
Sunday afternoon (whack) bloody nap and all you can do is make a
bloody hell (whack) of a bloody din (whack). And how many times
have I bloody told you (whack) that the bloody garden walls (whack) are
not bloody safe. (whack). You'll have them bloody down (whack) and ifII be me that'll have to
bloody (whack) put them up again(whack).
Tulse refuses to scream. Luper'S father is exhausted by the activity, having suffered wartime gassing at Ypres.
Luper is dragged by the scruff of the neck into the coal-house and the door is locked behind him. Luper's father
'.
continues to pant, cough and shout as he walks back to the house, goes into the kitchen and walks up the inside
stairs. Lupe(s mother - holding the baby - is watching out the bedroom window.
IVOR - LUPER'S FATHER

And forget the bloody war child. It's bloody over.
10
I want to bloody forget it. We all want to bloody forget It. Misery,
longing, sacrifice, grief and Evil. Stamp out the Evil. Never let it happen
again. Gone and bloody forgotten. On a bloody glorious bloody Sunday
bloody afternoon!

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 23. Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922
Luper sprawls among coal and lumber - exhausted, crying at the pain of his fathe~s leathering, with his trousers -
and underpants around his ankles and his face smeared with tears and coal~ust, along with the dirt and dust
he's accumulated on his hands, face and clothes from his running up and down the gardens.
The coal house has a high ceiling with a half.apen skylight in the roof impossible to reach from the Inside without
a ladder. The afternoon sun shines down making beams in the coal-dusty air.

First World War defeated, exhausted, wounded soldiers sprawl in no-man's land, lit by beams of an afternoon
sunlight. The images of the First World War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which - are
written:
PICTURE.;BANK. SUBJECT: WAR.
HEM: FirstWorld War. SECTION 2345.
The film s_ection ends in a frozen frame that burns like a photograph doused in paraffin.

Outside the coalhouse, Luper's friends - Celan, Macey, Arnold, David, Aga, Donald and Ryan - come and stand
outside the coal-house door.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 26. Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922.
35mrn CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
Luper pulls himself together - pulls up his trousers, wipes the tears off his face, blows his nose on his sleeve.
Luper's friends pass him an apple t~at's already been bitten, and a half-eaten bacon-sandwich - poking the food
under the gap at the bottom of the coal-house door.
1922 Newport, Wales

35mrn CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
At the sight of Luper'S mother coming down the garden, the friends run off. His mother, carrying Cappy, brings
Luper out a plate of beans, bread and fat-dripping. She unlocks the coal house with a large key, wags the key
(with a suppressed smile on her face) at Luper, bends down to let Tulse kiss his brother on the cheek, where he
leaves a black smudged coal-mark, and then returns to the house.
1922 Newport, Wales

'.
11
Luper begins to like his prison. He makes it his own. He is a boy with a den. With his mouth full of bread and
dripping, he scrabbles across the coals to touch all four walls. He touches the floor. He wants to, but cannot,
touch the high ceiling. He finds a wood-knot hole in a plank in the door and, from the outside, we see that he
pees through it. He takes his shoes off, hanging them by their laces on a hook.

A First World War dug-out - makeshift benches, shelves, chairs, candles in bottles, photos of England, pin-ups -
etc.
The images' of the First World War are letter-boxed top and bottom by black spaces on which - are written:
There is a solitary young soldier - seated, writing a letter at a makeshift table. The young soldier is recognisably
Luper's father of five year's before in 1917. We can see what he is writing. It is a letter that is read in a whisper
by Luper's father. It makes a back-projection background behind him.
Dear Carrie,
The rain is Belgian,the cooking is English,the enemy is

German, my miseries are all in foreign languages, only
Paradise has your name on it. How long are your arms? Can
they reach me? I step in your footsteps every hour of
•
the day, and at night I sleep between your knees,with my head
on your breasts. I love you Carrie,like these
battlefields love death. I often want to die, to put an
end, not to my life which is quite worthless without you, but
to put an end to the pain of not being with you, kissing
you,whispering to you in the middle of the night, laughing with you
when you hear me snore with relief and happiness at being with
you, touching youin places where Heaven is.
This is the first of many love letters that are included in this project - letters that can often say more than the
characters are often able to say to one another in person and in speech.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 30., Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922
35mm CINEMASeOPE BLACK & WHITE.
Luper is searching In the coal-heap, making himself and his clothes still dirtier. Amongst the gritty lumps of
shining coal and a bicycle wheel and several tin buckets, he finds a small empty battered suitcase. It is covered
in damaged railway labels from Welsh towns - Aberystwyth, Barry Island, Caemarvon, Holyhead, Uandudno,
Abergavenny, Aberdovey, Snowden. Luper collects pieces of coal, and standing them on end, or on their side, to
represent mountains in a landscape, he arranges them on,the closed lid of the suitcase.
A close-up reveals the 'Iandscape-effect of the coal-lumps on the suitcase-lid' - reminiscent vaguely of a
Japanese sand garden to be seen much much later.
• Luper takes a small metal-tin toy-figure out of his pocket. It is some ten centimetres tall. It's a toy-figure of a
man - an anonymous figure - a walking cowboy or a soldier without a gun or a farmer in the act of sowing seeds.
Age, use and wear in Luper's pocket has smudged its identity - ideally it conjures up the image of a traveller with
hat and knapsack; the paint is battered, and the metal detail chipped. Luper stands this small figure in among
the coal-lumps on his suitcase lid.
12
A large closa.up views this figure in a landscape which i~ artificially lit (with out-of-Iocal-context light) by warm
orange light that suggests a low summer sun in a hot country, throwing shadows from the coal-lump mountains.
In each section of the Tulse Luper Suitcase film, when Luper has settled into his current prison _having
established a fatalistic, if not amicable, relationship with his prison-walls - there is a special set-piece framing
modelled on the serenity and peace of a Vermeer interior - a static shot that is lit and framed to appreciate an
effect of balance and proportion of a self-absorbed serene prisoner in a small utopia. If necessary - whatever
light is a characteristic of the rest of the scene - it will change as we watch - to accommodate the new intention.
This image will last a significant time to register its artificiality and will always be accompanied by the same
serene violin music - starting at the beginning of the piece, and never reaching the end until the finale of the film.
Luper now carefully packs his suitcase with choice lumps of shiny coal.

Outside the coal house, in the late afternoon - Martino Knockavelli, warily eyeing Luper's house to see if Luper's
· parents are around, sits on the step outside the coal-house door. He has an untidy bundle of books and papers
; under his arm. He whispers to Luper.
MARTINO
What are you doing in there, Tulsey?
LUPER
Go away, Martino Knockavelli -I'm bloody busy.
· Carrying his load of books and papers, Martino climbs up onto the backyard wall and, using the drain-pipe, up on
: to the sloping tiled roof and then to the half-open skylight - looking all the time towards the house to see if Luper's
father is about.
: 1922 Newport, Wales

EpisOde 1. Section 1. Scene 32. Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922.
· From inside the coalhouse, Luper encourages Martino to jump down. Martino throws down his bundle of comics,
: newspapers and books, and then daring himself, swings on the coping, his feet dangling, Luper underneath waits
to catch him. Martino finally lets go and falls on Luper. They both crash down into the coal.
LUPER
Jesus Christ!
MARTINO
Don1 swear - eSpj!cially not on Sundays. You'll be damned.
LUPER
You weigh a bloody toni Fatty Arbuckle!
MARTINO
Ida Lupinol
LUPER
The man with the moustache!
MARTINO
Crlppenl
LUPER
Dripping I
MARTINO
Wet
They fight. But it's routine - like the rapid-fire word-game. Luper ends up sitting on Martino's chest - with
Martino's legs kicking in the air. Luper rolls off as soon as Martino has given in. Luper unties the string around
the books and newspapers.
13
•
MARTINO
I've brought my sweetheart.
They flick through the pages and Martino produces a newspaper photo of the Little Mermaid ~ the statue on the
rock in Copenhagen.
MARTINO
Find me Tiger Lily.
Luper finds a collection of comic-strips of Rupert Bear In the Daily Express. There are close~ups of the Chinese -
cartoon figure of Tiger-Lily. This cartoon character looks very like the Chinese woman we saw as rehearsal
director on the stage rehearsing the children.
MARTINO
Mine's got no clothes on.
LUPER
Only because she's going for a swim.
MARTINO
It's too cold to swim in Denmark. Yours lives so far way - you'll never meet.
LUPER
Tiger Lily is the daughter of a magician and she wears shoes on stilts.
We see close-ups of the cartoon figures, Tiger Lily and Rupert Bear.
MARTINO
•
She smiles a lot.
LUPER
That's because she is Chinese and is in-scru.table.
MARTINO
The reason mine doesn't wear a bathing suit is because
she's half fish. I think she looks like your mother. I quite like your
mother. She's got big breasts.
Luper looks steadily at Martino, thinking of what he's just said. Both boys stare at one another, thinking of Luper's
mother. We see a close-up image of Luper'S mother breast-feeding her child. It is true what Martino says. Luper's
mother is seated in sunlight streaming through a window in Luper's house, before a meal table where she breast-
feeds her child. The two boys stand very still, watching her in boyish surprise and admiration. They are disturbed
and excited.
Back in the Newport coalhouse.
MARTINO
What are you going to be later on, Lupey? If you grow up.
LUPER
We'll have to see. Not a coal miner. Not a soldier.
I am going to have adventures.
MARTINO
I'll stay at home and eat ice-cream and you can send me postcards.
I'll watch you do things from a distance.
LUPER
•
I want to find things
MARTINO
What sort of things?
LUPER
Oh - things people have lost
MARTINO
Like what? (pointing at Luper's suitcase) Suitcases?
14
You want to work in a lost property office?

LUPER
Lost cities. People. Men. Women. Girls
MARTINO
Girls? I want to kiss lots of girls. Plump girls who eat lots of ice.cream.
LUPER
You'll end up in jail
MARTINO
Like this one?
LUPER
Is this a jail? I expect there will be lots of jails
MARTINO
Do you like being a prisoner then?
LUPER
My father's a prisoner
MARTINO
No he's not.
LUPER
Of the things he remembers. Bad things.
MARTINO
You mean the gas?
LUPER
AM being poor. And being in love.
MARTINO
With your mother? Is being In love being a prisoner?
LUPER
Sort of.
Martino takes a book and opens it. It is book of phrenology· an early 20th Century photographic account of
bodily parts. There are pages of noses, ears, eyes, chins, torsoes, hands, even genitals, teeth, breasts, buttocks
and tongues. The book has been heavily thumbed ~ much explored. Martino runs his fingers through the book
I with familiarity. He opens the pages that show chins.
MARTINO
What sort of chin have you got, Lupey?
LUPER
Average.
Martino runs his finger down the many hundreds of chins and looking at Luper's face ~ picks out a chin and marks
,it with a short stub of a pencil.
LUPER
I want to fall in love with a girt like my mother
MARTINO
What is"falling in love"?
LUPER
(they look up at the ceiling above) I don't know. But I like the
falling bit and the love sounds like a nice place to fall to.
But then perhaps I won't grow up.
MARTINO
(resignedly) You are bound to. We all are.
LUPER
I don't know that I want to ~ mind you.
MARTINO
What sort of eyes have you got, Lupey?
LUPER
Bloody Hell, Marty - the normal sort.
15
• Martino flicks over the pages of his book to find a selection of eyes. He runs his finger down the eyes and marks
a pair, after scrutinising Luper's face.
MARTINO
I don't want to get it wrong. I need to remember.

Luper's father, wheeling his bike - dressed in overalls and looking scrubbed and shaved for a night-shift, and
carrying his metal lunch-box and miner's lamp - comes out of the back-door of the house.

Episode 1. Section 1. Scene 34. Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922.
Inside the coal house - Tulse and Marty continue to talk.
MARTINO
I'll make sure you'll grow up and have adventures and kiss
girls like your mother And others of course you don't have to kiss.
But they might kiss you.
And find things of course. And be a prisoner - if you really
•
.want to .
LUPER
Thank you Marty
MARTINO
No problem. Think nothing of it. lowe it you ... considering.

Luper's father is abreast of the coal house and hears Luper and Martino talking inside.

Who are you bloqcly talking to in there Tulsey?
If you're talking to yourself that's the first sign of trench-fever.
He unlocks the door and discovers Martino.

Inside the coalhouse.
IVOR- LUPER'S FATHER
Bloody Knockavelli. The Eye-ties are fair-weather allies.
Get out Martino - Tulse is in solitary.
He then delivers a tirade with some passion - very similiar to the one he delivered before.

f
'.'
16
And forget the bloody war.

It's bloody over. I want to bloody forget it.
We all want to bloody forget it. Gone and bloody forgotten.
On a bloody glorious bloody Sunday bloody afternoon!
« He pulls Martino out by the ear and cuffs his head. Marty runs off. Luper's father re-Iocks the coalhouse door.
. .....
, 35mm CINEMASCOPE BLACK & WHITE.
Luper's father cycles off down the lane, playfully clipping Martino's head again as he cycles passed him. Martino
yelps.

What's friendship for Martino? You wanted to share the punishmentl
You feeling guilty too Martino Knockavelli?
Martino stands in the lane, rubbing his head, as Luper's father, laughing and ringing his bicycle-belli to warn
children playing on the cobbles, rides off down the lane.

! Episode'1. Section 1. Scene 38. Interior: Newport Backyard Coal house 1922
Luper sits among the coals with his shut suitcase on his knees - in the evening light, looking very seribusly at the
, newspaper comic-cartoon of Tiger Lily. He murmurs to himself.
LUPER
I'm in prison - and I'm bloody busy
EPISODE 1
NEWPORT
SECTION 2

, Episode 1. Section 2. Scene 1. _Kitchen/Sitting-Room of Luper's Parents 1922
The coal-dust-covered Tulsa is bathed by his mother. He stands naked, with his feet in two enamel basins of
soapy water which stands on newspapers on the carpet in the liVing-room, but he still grips the handle of the
suitcase he discovered in the coal-house. His backside still shows the large red hand imprints of his father's
beating. Whereas before Tulse seemed adult and old for his age, he is now a small boy, reduced to dependent
childhood.
MOTHER
How on earth did you get yourself so covered in the stuff? You were only in
the coal-house - not down the mine.
,Kneeling on the carpet, turning him around, his mother lathers Tulse's head and face - and amused :- shapes his
,hair into two lathered horns to make him look like a little devil, but his dirty but frank serious face belies the
'transformation. Luper's mother rubs and scrubs his face with soap, wollking her fingers into his eye-.sockets,
around his mouth, into his nostrils, into his ears. We watch her attentio~. She douses his head with a saucepan
of clean water, rinsing off the soap suds. His face is shiny and pink, his eyelashes damp. She places her
forehead against his - nose to nose - and kisses him on his forehead and on each cheek and on the lips, then
17
she holds his wet body to herself. He acquiesces without embarrassment, pleased and dignified at so much
•
attention. He steadfastly clings to his suitcase .
Projected on a backaprojection screen behind Luper's mother - is a part of one of the love letters sent to her by
Luper's father during the First World War.
So you see dawn is the most savage, when the few birds sing and I see you
in the streets, under the green trees, watching the twilight before the
sunrise, so far away from me, as you wheel your bicycle on the wet
pavements ... could we really have spent such times together? Could you
really have breathed warm air into my ear? Did I really see you laughing as
you lay on the kitchen floor naked like a baby that knows no shame because
with you shame was not invented? I love you, Carrie, like no one has loved
before, because to love like that leaves no survivors to tell the
tale. It is more virulent than bullets, more painful than shrapnel,more
hopeless than a descending cloud of pale green gas ....
Laughing out loud, Luper's mother says:
MOTHER
What the hell have you got in your little suitcase, Tulsey?!
Close-up of the suitcase held in Luper's hand. It is framed such that we see the suitcase - and Luper's tightly
clenched,fist holding its handle.
•
1998. Brooklyn Museum, New York•
Episode 1. Section 2. Scene 2. Luper Exhibition.
Close-up of this first Luper suitcase -looking small, dirty, dusty, battered and insignificant, inside a vitrine in an
exhibition of Luper artefacts at the Brooklyn Exhibition. The camera moves in to see a caption and legend beside
an indistinct photograph of Luper aged 10.
EPISODE 1
NEWPORT
SECTION 3
1910. Medina Sidonia Alport, Spain.

Episode 1. Section 3. Scene 1. Night: Airport Carousel in the Deserted Airport Luggage-Bay. 1910
As a background to the film's titles, we steadily - with a fixed camera - watch a luggage carousel in Medina-
Sidonia - a small national airport in Southern Spain - with hundreds of suitcases passing by at eye-level. The
baggages are all different with some curious items - boxes wrapped around with string, different sized soft
spheres In muslin bags, a children's bicycle wrapped in transparent wrap, rolls of packaged carpet, untidy items
in broken, unsophisticated cardboard parcels .
• 1998. Brooklyn Museum, New York.

A 55-year old, bald, American-accented lecturer - in close close-up - Thomas John Imox - is talking with
enthusiasm to a class of unseen listeners. He is lecturing on Tulse Luper. He is the First Luper Lecturer. He has
18
a pfastic lapel label showing his name, portrait-photo and signature. He has a hearing-aid in his right ear. His
talking head alternates with excerpts of the typewriter-printed text of his lecture in a larger inserted frame. We
can hear the low burble of a Portuguese translation of the same text in the background. We cannot yet know that
this lecturer is talking at the Brooklyn Museum at a large symposium on Luper - the location will be revealed by
stages.
FIRST TULSE LUPER LECTURER - THOMAS JOHN IMOX

If we wanted to see the Tulse Luper story as a fiction, it could be
conceived as a sixteen episode narrative of a man and his prisons.
The story starts in 1922 and perhaps is still not finished. Luper was last
heard of - we believe - in 1983. Tulse Luper was, or is still perhaps, almost by
default, a writer. Perhaps a naturalist. perhaps an archaeologist.
Perhaps it is important that he is primarily seen as a collector. Of anything.
He collected and collated - books, images, events, lumps of coal, names,
letters, alphabets, dead frogs, used tickets, experiences, people, prisons ...
suitcases? He said of himseif that he was a kind of clerk. He reserved a
special admiration for collectors, dictionary-makers, encyclopaedists of all
sorts· Diderot and d'Alembert, Samuel Johnson, Pitt-Rivers,
Peter the Great, Linnaeus. He enjoyed making lists.
. The dictionary encyclopaedists are illustrated in association with the written text - using engravings and paintings.
1970. Medina Sidonia Airport, Spain.

Episode 1. Section 3. Scene 3. Night: Airport Carousel In the Deserted Airport Luggage-Bay. 1970
35mm CJNEMASCOPE COLOUR.
With the final credit just disappeared from the screen, a medium-sized suitcase, passing on the carousel at
Medina Sidonia Airport. explodes, very violently and dramatically.
. Briefly the air is full of charred, Second World War, Belgian newspapers, featuring photos of Tulse Luper as a
young journalist in Antwerp. Many of them apparently taken surreptitiously with a 'spy' camera.
19
•
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 1
1934. Moab Desert Utah

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 1. June. Exterior. Dawn
A section of dawns and sunsets - swiftly viewed at high speed - appears on a screen captioned PICTURE-BANK.
The images slow down and fix on a single spectacular dawn over the Utah desert. There is a captioned letterbox
framing on the image, with a legend above and below.
•
PICTURE BANK. SUBJECT: Meterological.
ITEM. Dawn. Number 356. Utah Desert.
Dawn is rising over the Utah desert on a speeded-up camera. The dark lightens to pink, to violet, to dark blue.
The letterboxing captions fade away. Clouds slowly evaporate. The distant mountains harden and sharpen into
focus. The dark blue turns lighter. The mesas become strongly shadowed. The rocks grow hot and red.
1998. Moab Desert Utah A Farm on the edge of the Utah Desert. Afternoon.
There are rehearsals to find an actor to play the young man Tulse Luper. They take place on a Utah farm - in a
cherry orchard - where the hopeful auditioners are asked to mount an old white horse. Six young men make the
attempt with varying success. The actor who eventually plays Tulse Luper falls off the horse.

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 3 June. Exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In the Utah desert, the rising-sun back-lights a small orange tent parked alongside a battered truck with an old
and not particularly strong white horse grazing close by.
Tulse Luper and his childhood-friend Marty Knockavelli (both aged 22) are on a camping holiday-expedition
travelling through Utah with a hired truck and a horse. They are spending a few days looking for Mormon
townships in the desert near the Colorado River.
The sun silhouettes the plump young man Martino Knockavelli.
• 1998. Antwerp, Belgium.

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 4. Day. Interior Rehearsal Studio. 1998.
There are rehearsals to find an actor to play the young man Martino Knockavelli. In a rehearsal studio, ten
young men - variously fat or plumpish • are lined up and are being encouraged to eat an ice-cream from a cone
20
offered to them by a bright¥faced young woman wearing harsh red lipstick. She appears very young ¥perhaps as
young as 15. She carries a zinc tray perforated to hold the cones. This young woman will eventually play the
character Passion. The actors are being bullied to lick the i~cream by a short aggressive assistant director
with a strong American accent. This man will eventually play the character Percy.
PERCY
Okay ¥just eat the ice-cream, Go on • lick it.
The camera tracks along the line of licking faces.
FIRST ACTOR
What are we supposed to be dOing? Is this character-building?
SECOND ACTOR
No • just fattening.
PERCY
Lick - lick - lick! Lick - dam it! Stick your little tongues out and lick the stuff up -
you arseholes.
THIRD ACTOR
Hey - watch your languagel
FIRST ACTOR
Is this provocation character-building?
PERCY
No you creepl
FIRST ACTOR
Who you calling a creep - you jerk!
PERCY
Lick the goo up, stick the cone on your prick and then you can go home.
, The first actor slams his ice-cream into Percy's face. Percy lashes out and strikes him in the chest. There Is a
fierce fight. The ice-cream flies.

i Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 5. June. Exterior. Dawn and Morning 35mm
i CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In the Utah desert - the actor who got the part of Knockavelli comes out of the orange tent, yawning. Taking a
small shaving-mirror and shaving equipment, he strips out of his curious underwear - off-white wool with cloth-
•covered buttons on fly and chest and arm-holds, with a backside buttoned flap, and he sits, plump and naked, in
'a small fast-flowing stream that brings cold waterdown from the distant mountain. He starts to shave.

'Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 6. Exterior. Day. "Natural History Documentary"
:35mm TV RATIO COLOUR.
'A beautifully filmed documentary - made in the 1990's - creates an informative but idealised account. of the
Colorado desert - small animal life, birds, insects, vegetation details etc. There are various shots of the stream
iand the desert filmed to make a comparison between the rich wildlife of the mini-climate on either side of the
,stream, and the apparent sterility of the desert itself. Lacewingss and caterpillars cling and feed on the grasses,
damselflies fly above the water. Beetles, leeches, shrimps swim in the water.
COMMENTARY
The stream is only a metre wide and perhaps 30 centimetres deep.
It is isolated and artificial in the wide, cactus, desert terrain.
With one metre of vegetation on either bank, this mini-landscape is
only three metres wide and some twenty kilometres long. Beyond the
extent of the artificial clay-banks laid down some hundred years
ago by Mormon Farmers to imprison the water and lead it across
• '.
•
21
t. the desert from mountains to the fanning lands ~ the dry hot desert
untouched and unaffected by this bountiful supply.
All these details are seen ~ expertly filmed in the fine traditions of contemporary Natural History Filming. There is
a graphic diagram cross~section.of the stream and its habitat.
is
•......
•
Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 7. June. Exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
Luper, wrapped around with a bulky eiderdown, and carrying a 16 mm Bolex movi~camera, comes out of the
tent. He sees Marty siUing in the stream, and proceeds to film him.

Episode 2. Section 1. Scana 8. June. Exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 16mm
ACADEMY RATIO BLACK AND WHITE.
The naked Martino is shaving his face as he sits in the Utah stream, filmed by a hand~held 16mm Bolex
clockwOrk camera which only allows a 16 second take maximum.
We constantly cut from the "1934" 35mm cinemascope footage of Martino shaving, Luper's 193416mm footage
of the same, and the 1990s Natural History film.
1998. Brooklyn Museum, New York.

35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR
A fiction documentary called The Water~Wrackets is being projected on a screen in the Brooklyn Museum, New
•
York in 1998 at the Tulse Luper Symposium and Exhibition .
We see little ~ as yet - of this location - but enough to sense it is a prestigious projection-hall within an exhibition
space glimpsed through side doors - the screening is well attended with a full house and people standing around
the walls.

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 10. June. Exterior. Dawn and Morning 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In the Utah desert.
LUPER
I think you ought to know Knockavelli, that a small transparent
virus - looking a little like a fat wonn with hooks - has chosen to
live in this delightful, life-gil{jng, amazingly cold and pure mountain stream ... a river-virus
called Entere-Orificialis, or more unofficially, 'Abandon hope all ye who let me enter here'. This wonn
has the engaging habit of entering the intestine of any animal that happens to be
passing and sinking deep hooks into its stomach-wall from where it is seldom, very seldom,
shaken. This delightful parasite has no compunction whatsoever about how it
enters the body - it is quite unselective about which body orifice to
choose from· it is not in the least bit fussy ...
Knockavelli hurriedly stands up in the stream, and· with his mouth extravagantly shut tight, and the thumb of his
left hand plugged finnly in his anus, and with the two forefingers of his right hand carefully and tightly squeezing
the uncircumcised foreskin of his penis - he sits down again in the water.
• Bollocks Luper
Maybe. Maybe.
MARTY
LUPER
22
But your condition is now on camera.

And all I've got to do is wait for the worm to settle in.
Ever afterwards Martino Knockavelll suffers from stomach-cramps and has to spend much time on his haunches, '
defecating - he is usually decorous, and the problem is usually one of etiquette and not of pain or vulgarity.
, 1. 1934. Moab Desert Utah

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 11. June. Exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
2. 1934. Moab Desert Utah
· Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 11. June. exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 16mm
· ACADEMY RATIO BLACK AND WHITE.
• 3 1998. Brooklyn Museum, New York.
· Luper's 16mm camera and the 35mm cinemascope film watch Martino bathing In the stream. Both viewpoints are
, intercut and united by excerpts from the film Water-Wrackets, which is commented on, with a voice-over
commentary, spoken in the context of the lecture-hall at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, by the Luper
commentator, Gordon Merovian.
SECOND TULSE LUPER LECTURER - GORDON MEROVIAN

Several years later in England, Luper made plans for a film called Water-
Wrackets, a fake anthropological documentary that narrated the gradual
invasion of a section of peaceful English riverside landscape by ferocious
predatory colonialists.
We see the Luper lecturer Gordon Merovian standing before the film screen showing Water-Wrackets in the
ISrocklyn Museum, delivering his lecture. Merovian is a thirty-year old short balding man with a pronounced belly
and long shirt cuffs that extend well over his manicured hands. He wears half-glasses that look strange on such
a young man.

Perhaps he saw Knockavelli as the natural inhabitant of peaceful water,
some sort of indigenous minor River Deity, and the threat to his person by the predatory
bacillus was writ large in the film The Water-Wrackets into a whole conquoring
army of dangerous enemies. Perhaps it was a presage of what was to come ... and
also at this juncture in Luper's life, to come very quickly. The-same day that this
16mm footage was filmed, was a Luper day of reckoning.
'934. Moab Desert Utah

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 12. June. exterior. Day. Dawn and Morning 16mm
ACADEMY RATIO BLACK AND WHITE.
the same site as we have seen before showing the same small and dusty tent pitched in a similar position -the
¢ameraman's hatted shadow falls into frame and the subject of his viewpoint is Marty Knockavelli dressed in his
<::urious underwear. He is frying eggs over a camp fire. To one side of the tent is the pick-up truck, the elderly
horse, and two bicycles.
We see hand-held details of the frying eggs, Marty's plump face with its round-spectacled sun..glasses, the
t,orse's head, the mountains, the bicycle, the cameraman's hatted shadow, his boots, the tent, the stream. Also
included - and with particular prominance • are several verticals in the landscape - the tent-pole, a tel$graph-pole,
aspade set upright in the sand, a walking-stick set up among the rocks, an archaeologist's striped scale-rod set
~p in the stream. The camera is presumably hand·held by both Luper and Marty in tum. They are both seen to
~at breakfast cooked over a wood fire, with Luper opening a brown envelope which is printed CITY PRINT·SHOP
.1 and taking out and looking at five small, drawing-maps of possible abandoned townships - surrounded by and
~uilt amongst, eccentric-shaped rock formations. Prominent on the maps are typical Mormon names from Utah·
23
Jesophat, Nemesit. Sodom, Gomorrah, Judeatown, Bethlehem. Luper's voice reads out the names - relishing
• their exoticism (as he enjoyed the place-names of the First World War when he was a child). He throws in a few
exotic names of his own -
LUPER
Moab, Jesophat, Gullea, Nemesi!, Sedam, Dormis,
Antilipe, Gomorrah, CalliOpe, Judeatown, Bethlehem •.••
1998, Brooklyn Museum, New York.

Episode 2. Section 1 Scene 13. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition.
We move again to the Brooklyn Movie screen where an excerpt from the film A Walk through H is being shown.
Names on the maps Luper holds in the Utah desert also appear in the film.

Episode 2. Section 1. Scene 14. June. exterior. Morning
Knockavelli drives off to Moab in the truck to collect provisions.
Luper with a small battered suitcase tied with rope to his saddle, and wearing buckeHopped thigh-high boots and
a wide-brimmed hat ... making him look like an early American settler ... climbs on to the white horse. Behind·
with a back-projection device - are projected the maps of the Mormon settlements - the difference In scale dwarfs
Tulse and his horse. Tulse and the horse fade out - leaving the maps filling the screen .
• 1953. Oslo - Norway - Vigeland Park

Episode 2. Seclion 1. Scene 15, November. Exterior. Night. Foggy.
Details of the family of granite sculptures by the Norwegian sculpture Vigeland in the Oslo Park are seen dimly
on a foggy winter evening. The naked figures glisten with cold water droplets from the fog. A man in a heavy
coat and a brimmed hat is leaning quietly against one of the naked stone figures, a black battered suitcase at his
feet. A second male figure - also wrapped up heavily from the cold in a raincoat, scarf and hat, approaches,
carrying a second suitcase. The two men exchange their suitcases. The first man opens his suitcase to find it full
of money - used dollars stacked in bundles. He closes the suitcase and walks away into the fog. The second
man places his suitcase on one of the sculptural plinths and opens it. It is full of bundles • but this time of letters
- some wrapped in white, and some in blue, ribbon. The man unties a bundle and extracts a letter. It is one of the
1st World War love letters written by Ivor Luper to Carrie, his future wife and Luper's mother. It begins;
Dear Carrie,
I am standing in the dark. No one can see me. I am lost. I am as black as the earth. There is no moon. Thick
clouds. No stars.
The weather described in the letter and the weather of the meeting in the Vigeland Park are very similiar. Whilst
the letter is read by Ivor Luper's voice on the soundtrack, the camera views details of the Vigeland figures .
...... I remember so often standing in the garden of your mother's house, resting our backs against your
coalhouse wall, your hand in my pocket, your head on my shoulder .... thinking of al/ the things that were going to
•
happen to us ... long long long days and nights ... babies, children ... children growing up ... growing old .... us
growing old .. .
The camera in the Vigeland Park finds equivalents of the human figures talked of in the letters.
24
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 2

Episode 2. Section 2. Scene 1. June. Exterior. Morning
Luper is walking back and forth along a section of the now red-hot desert that features the surreal shapes of
Colorado River rock formations - looking somewhere between being part fashioned by the wind, part fashioned
by man - much caught in a shimmering heat-mirage. Luper's horse is tied to a small shrub some two hundred
years away.
On a promontory somewhat higher than the surrounding landscape, Luper has come across a ridge surrounded
by bulbous rock-shapes that could have been man-made. There is the suggestion of a trench that could have
marked the site of a homestead. He has stuck vertical poles into the ground of the site - sections Of timber, old
fence-posts, marking the corner-places of the old settlement buildings. We realise that there is a similiarity with
the characteristics of the verticals at the breakfast site. These verticals are an inspiration for the project for a film
Luper later plans in England called 'VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE'

Episode,2. Section 2. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition.
In the BrQoklyn Museum cinema - the lecturer Gordon Merovian talks to his audience of Luper enthusiasts, whilst
standing in front of a screen showing Luper's projected film - Verticle Features Remake.

Luper often argued that at moments of crisis, seen and unseen,
expected and unexpected, projects flowed thick and fast. The
barreness of the desert, created in some measure by man's
interference and over extensive cattle grazing, was a warning.
Traditionally a desert is a landscape without verticals. It is possible that
Luper's project for the most argued-over film Vertical Features Remake was
naugurated here in Moab. In 1934 the wide American landscapes appeared to
· be in no discernable and immediate catastrophic danger of dlstructive pollution - but this was
. deceptive. The Moab desert was prey to
unthinking exploitation. The cattlemen twice yearly fulfilled their pledge to
un cattle across this fragile soil whose vegetation layer took decades to
ressurect itself in the very harsh conditions of heat and minimum rainfall. One
afternoon's cattle grazing took twenty years to repair. Luper's Vertical Features Remake
i film, shot on the Welsh English borders was a comparable if ironic plea for landscape recognition.
Excerpt from the film Vertical Features Remake at such a point as to demonstrate Luper's early ecological
interests in preserving precious indigenous landscape.

In the Moab desert, Luper has laid his red-and-white marked surveyor's scale-rule along the trench's length. He
has found a tin-can shot through with bullet-holes, a rusted frying pan, a broken termite-ravaged wooden wheel,
a few shards of white crockery, and, incongrously, a rusty anchor for a small boat. These items appear in a
suitcase at a later stage.
25
• 1934. Moab Desert Utah

16mm ACADEMY RATIO BLACK AND WHITE.
Luper's Hand·Held Bolex. We see various black-and-white images of what Luper has found - also capturing
and repeating some of what we have seen in colour - including the horse tied to the shrub, and one or two 'new'
items - verticals in the desert - telegraph poles.

Pausing from his ground-searching, Luper sits on a rock. He drinks water from a flask. He looks at the
landscape through binoculars. He fixes on a distant homestead and focuses his binoculars to examine it.
Through the powerful binoculars - at the very end of a flattened long lense - he (and we) view a well-set-up
wooden ranch-building surrounded by neatly ranged white-painted wooden beehives - about two miles away,
down in the valley. The binoculars travel from left to right. Luper (and we) see smoke issuing from a chimney-
stack, a dog eating a bone on a patch of dry ground, an empty chair on a porch, a window with the vague
movement of people inside, a verandah with a table set with a white cloth and a bunch of yellow wild flowers, a
kitchen chair draped with a towel and a dressing-gown. In nearly every frame there is evidence of the beehives.
The bees are artificially noisy on the sound-track. The binoculars continue to travel until they see a metal square
tub on the ranch-verandah -like a galvinised water-tank usually seen in an attic, and in the tank is a young
woman - a very young woman - she could be 15 to 18. She is bathing. Her hair is wet, her body is naked. Her
breasts are visible. She is played by the young actress we saw earlier in the auditioning of actors for the part of
Martino Knockavelli.
•
Sitting oO-his rock in the hot sun, Luper. staring through his binoculars - is poked in the back with a rifle. Two
young men stand over him.
PERCY
I'd quite like to look at what you're looking at.
He snatches the binoculars, looks through them, and then gives the binoculars to his friend.
HEINER
Well, I don't think you'd be looking at the smoke coming out of the chimney.
We see the view through the binoculars - the smoke coming out of the chimney - but as we watch, the coloured
moving image freezes and becomes black and white, almost blue in its high-contrast characteristic, then it
acquires a border of a photographic plate complete with a small Kodak number. Heiner hands the binoculars
back to Percy, who looks through t~em.
PERCY
Or the dog chewing the bone.
Again the moving image freezes and becomes a black and white photograph. Percy hands the binoculars to
Heiner.
HEINER
Or the bunch of pretty yellow flowers on the table.
Again the black and white photograph transformation. Heiner hands the binoculars back to Percy. Both young
men - not much older than Luper - are dressed for horse-riding. Heiner has a pronounced German accent.
Percy is pugnacious and exhibitionist.
PERCY
"
f '
26
Don't you have women of your own at home?

LUPER
(with calm sarcasm) Well .... there are some· it's true ...
PERCY
So what would you be looking at here on private property?
LUPER
(thinking quickly) Well· I have a friend who tries to keep himself very clean.
And I could be doing him some research ...
He snatches the binoculars back off Percy and focuses them again on the distant bathing figure.
LUPER
... about the bathing habits of the indigenous peoples of Utah?
We watch what Luper watches through the binoculars and again the coloured moving image freezes and
becomes a black and white photograph.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 3

Episode 2. Section 3. Scene 1. June. Exterior. Day. Morning
! Walking towards camera in the mirage heat of the desert are the three men· Luper, leading his white horse by a
simple bridle and Percy and Heiner riding. We are aware of Percy and Heiner, but concentrates on Luper, who,
with his broad brimmed hat, his bucket·topped boots, carrying a book under his arm and a suitcase and an
· anchor in his right hand, looks· to the superstitious· like an early American settler. Back·lit, with his face alert
; and head held erect, he also looks like some biblical prophet· an Old Testament apparition.

· Episode 2. Section 3. Scene 2. June. Morning. Interior Ranch·house.
• 35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
· Inside a spacious ranch-house kitch~n, Luper stands before nine people seated around a beakfast table. They all
stare at him with a certain awe. Luper does look impressive, a dust covered prophet from out of the desert,
carrying a suitcase and an anchor. The moment passes. The 9 people concentrate on their breakfast - coffee,
bread, bacon, eggs, beans, com-on-the-cob, honey, honeycomb, toast. More hot food is simmering on a wood-
stove. A German popular-song is playing on a gramophone tum-table. The 9 people are itemized by
photographic portraits supered over the general appraisal of the kitchen. We recognise the style olthe portrait-
photographs as being related to the photos we have already seen.
• The people in the room are:

1) Passion Hockmeister - the girl from the verandah-tub - looking anywhere between
15 and18 - American-accented. Bold, sexy, sharp-Witted.
, 2) Percy Hockmelster - a handsome thug - American accented. Compulsive bully.
3) Julian Lephrenic, a well-fed, immaculately dressed, handsome, educated,
German-accented Mormon America-German-businessman. Clever, smart, ambitious.
He Is attractive and intimates evil.
4) Gottschalk - a small, rather ugly mysterious gaunt man - also German-accented.
The man in the room with equal charisma and authority to Lephrenic.
27
5) Tom Otanssen - American ranch owner - Scandinavian-accented. Bluff.
• 6) Horace Grienner - American ranchoo()wner with the vague suggestion of a foreign,

German or Scandinavian, accent - hearty and vulgar.
7) Gerdie Otanssen - plump, 4().year old, German-accented wife of Tom.
Given to shrieks and mild hysteria.
8) Zelke Stokes - German partner of Grienner. Complacent and good-looking.
9) Hans Heiner - Percy's friend - handsome fair-haired German. Brusque.
1998. Antwerp, Belgium.

Episode 2. Section 3 Scene 3 Day. Interior Rehearsal Studio. 1998.
In a 1998 rehearsal room - the actors around the Utah location breakfast table are seated and standing _
dressed in their own 1998 clothes, with text-scripts In their hands or within easy reach - rehearsing the text.
OTANSSEN
What's your name, Mr Peeper?
LUPER
Tulse Luper. Tulse Henry Purcell Luper.
GRIENNER
And where are you from Mr Tulse Henrypersillooper?
LUPER
England.
PERCY
England? So Mr Sweet-eyed Tulse Persillooper - (peering closely at
•
Luper's face) - you don't wear make-up do you? - what the hell are you
doing so far far far from home, in our Mormon God-fearing, God-loving,
God-happy community?

Episode 2. Section 3. Scene 4. June. Day. Morning. Interior Ranch-house.
We now see the same actors in their Utah location - dressed for the 1934 performance. Much of the conversation
that follows is spoken with mouths stuffed with food. The camera watches them eat their rich, juicy, salty, sticky
foods - bright yellow butter, red greasy bacon.
PERCY
You wouldn't be looking for a child·bride would you? Apple tits,
Heidi plaits, and a dimpled.pink fanny for a private bedroom spanking!
GERDIE OTANSSEN
Shut up your dirty mouth Percy!
PERCY
Why's that Gerdie? Can't you remember those hurdy-
gurdy knicker-wet days?
HEIDI OTANSSEN
Oh my God! He's larking up for a showdown.
Tell him Julian to douse his head.
•
ZELKE STOKES
Preferably in broken glass.
PERCY
Naughty, naughty, naughty!
28
Percy has a habit of repeating stressed words three times - sometimes it's conscious - most times, it is not.
Luper is temporarily forgotten as Percy voices his menacing vulgarity. Luper speaks and they all turn back to
look at him.
LUPER
I'd be looking for lost cities.
GRIENNER
We haven't lost any. How come you want to find what we haven't lost?
PERCY
I think you're just pooping and snooping ...
PASSION
." with a pair of first class, quality-class, bin-oc-u-Iars ".
She looks at a brand-name written on the side, and - amused - looks Significantly at the others in the room.
PASSION
... made in Germany.
LUPER
(indicating his suitcase) I bought a map in Salt Lake City where several lost
Mormon outpost towns are marked between Moab and Salt Lake - Joshua,
Isphat, Medam, Sodom and Gomorrah.
The breakfasters watch and listen to Luper with real curiosity.
LUPER
The last two sound unlikely but - apparently true. God-awful places.
Indians, no water, scorpions, metallic rocks, hot as Hell ." they were after
several years abandoned.
ZELKE STOKES
You have a map? Are you a claim-jumper?
PERCY
He's just a peeping tom-snake wanting to exercise his prick looking at other
men's women washing their pretty bodies. .
OTANSSEN
And what else do you have in your little sweet suitcase?
GRIENNER
Are you a commercial traveller Mr Loopey? /
Grienne and Otanssen unpack several books from Lupe(s suitcase that include a Mormon Bible, a text-book on
Mormonism and Darwin's Origin of Species.
Lephrenic and Gottschalk have so far said nothing - just watched with curiosity. Lephrenic now leans over and
picks up Lupe(s books - looking at their titles.
GOnSCHALK
You in the habit of always carrying a library around with you?
LEPHRENIC
Can you truly Mr Luper, put a book that says man evolved from the ape in a little
hot cheap suitcase along with the Holy Bible?
Lephrenic takes the Darwin, opens the stove-door and throws the book onto the flames. We watch it burn in
close-up. Gottschalk watches Lupe(s face closely.
GOnSCHALK
What are you thinking Mr Luper? Are you thinking that
after burning books, we will burn their authors?
LUPER
29
He's dead.
• .... and then their readers?
You're from England?
Yes.
LEPHRENIC
GOnSCHALK
LUPER
L.EPHRENIC
You got trouble brewing there? In England?
OTANSSEN
No wonder you've got trouble brewing there in your country Mister Loopey,
if you think man is nothing but a great hairy ape.
LEPHRENIC
I'd like to know because you see, our people are from Germany.
And your people and my people aren't seeing eye to eye
at the moment· isn't this true?
LUPER
It could be.
LEPHRENIC
I think it sure is true.
GOnSCHALK
You think if there should be real trouble you're going to
win in England, Mister Loopey?
LUPER
Well· we won the last time. We could do it again.
•
LEPHRENIC
You think so?
GOnSCHALK
And what would your position be Mister Loopey?
LUPER
I'd fight.
LEPHRENIC
You would?
GOnSCHALK
And why's that?
LUPER
(blandly) Why. to stamp out Evil· of course.
There is loud laughter around the table. Luper is fully aware what he has said· quoting his father. But his
audience have not appreciated his deliberate disingenuity. They laugh at his apparent youthful naivety. Passion
- only slightly smiling· studies Luper intently. Lephrenic smiles and lights a Cigarette. Gottschalk looks at Luper
with renewed interest. LEPHRENIC
Stamp out!? That sounds aggressive, Mr Luper.
Gottschalk looks at Luper intently.
LUPER
(quietly and with the gentlest of sarcasm) As a God·fearlng community
- I am sure you would understand very easily what I mean.
PERCY
• I doubt you'd fight. I doubt you'd fight at all. You look and sound
really really really green to me Mister Tulsey Luper. So green I don't know
you're exercising your prick-time looking at women washing themselves
beautiful American Mormon deserts of Salt Lake City, Utah,
what? I doubt if you've even got a
in private in the
America, USA, the Universe. You know
prick to exercise. Let's take a look.
why
30
The women groan at Percy's familiar, crude, rude blustering.
GERDJE
Percy. for God's sake. Jtold you Julian!
ZELKE
We're having breakfast Percy.
PASSION
Jesus Christl
The women's complaints encourage Percy. Heiner and Grienner grab Luper.
PERCY
Don't worry that there are ladies present· they've
seen plenty· we all here have got the necessary.
How could you possibly interest them?
Deftly Heiner strips away Luper's belt, and Percy whips down Luper's trousers and underpants. Luper has his
back to the camera.
PERCY
Hell· you've got one, Mr Loopey. An English prick. Isn't that sweet?
Passion· who is spreading honey on her toast - and the other women - look on with unconcealed interest.
PASSION
We could make it sweeter.
Passion hands Percy the honey-pot. Percy picks up a sharp kitchen knife - Luper violently struggles, but is held
fast. Percy digs the knife deep into the honey-pot and then spreads the honey on Luper's genitals.
PERCY
A sticky dick for the files, bees, bugs, ticks and
mosquitoes of the American Colorado Desert Utah, USA.
HEINER
Tie him up to Ruby's fence-post.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 4
· 1942. Ventlmlglla,ltaly/France Border.

Episode 2. Section 4. Scene 1. Exterior. August. 3 o'clock In the Afternoon.
A man and a woman - lovers in their mid-twenties· Jewish, wearing civilian clothes - are undressing on the end
· of a Ventimiglia railway station platform in the mountains. Behind them are the railway lines and level-crossing
· gates. It is a hot summer afternoon, with a bright sky and a haze above the distant mountains. There is Italian
music being played on the station Tannoy - an aria sung by a virtuoso singer from a popular opera. We see the
gramophone standing alone on the station platform in a patch of sunlight with the shadow of the revolving record
sharp on the platform tarmac. The stripping of the lovers is being watched by curious onlookers looking out of a
, signal box, and from houses overlooking the railway line and the level-crossing gates. A man in his pyjama
jacket and wearing tight-fitting light blue underpants is brushing his hair at an open window in one of the houses.
• •
31
'.
Behind him is a woman in a negligee putting on a brassiere and manoevering his hands behind her back to fit the
straps and clasps - a man and his wife getting up after the siesta.
The two lovers on the station platform are packing their clothes, as they take them off, Into two suitcases placed
side by side on a table on the platform. The man packs his clothes neatly, the woman throws her clothes in
without caring how they are packed. They are being watched by four lecherous Italian guards in uniform, and
two indifferent German officials in suits with swastika armbands.
When the couple are naked and their clothes packed in the two suitcases - a German official closes the suitcases
and writes THE CLOTHES OF A TRAITOR in German on the lids. The couple are taken away around the comer
of a station building. There is the sound of two shots. We look at the gramophone and its shadow and see a
slow trickle of blood run slowly across the platform. Then we see a splash of water from a watering cail wash the
blood away: We follow the porter back to the gramophone and see one of the Italian guards copulating with the
woman's dead body as it lies over her dead lover. The porter walks up the platform making figure of eight spirals
of water on the hot dry tarmac.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 5

Episode '2. Section 5. Scene 1. June. Day. Noon. Exterior Ranch-house.
•
Percy and Heiner have tied Luper's suitcase around the neck of his elderly horse. They are shooting at the
suitcase, and the horse is panicking - rearing and whinnying. It cannot escape.
In close-up - and with violent noise - bullets drive holes through Tulse Luper's suitcase in a form of slow-motion
that permits us to understand a true violation of the suitcase.
In wide-shot we see the origin of the bullets that drive holes in the suitcase. Percy and Heiner are seated on the
roofs of two brand-new and expensive-looking cars parked some 100 yards apart. They shoot up Luper's
suitcase with great seriousness.

Episode 2. Section 5. Scene 2. Exterior. Day. "Natural History Film".
35mm TV RATIO COLOUR
A sequence from the natural history film· featuring exotic and dangerous-looking insects - bees, biting-flies,
wasps, crawling ants. The destructive 'artificial' violence of the SUitcase-shooting is associated with the
dangerous 'natural' violence of the aggressive insects.
COMMENTARY
There is little seasonal change in the desert. The days are always
hot and dry. The temperature drops steeply at night. Insect life is
determined by the presence of available food. All animals,
including, and most especially man, mean food .

Episode 2. Section 5. Scene 3. June. Noon. Exterior Ranch·house.
32
With the shooting happening in the background - in the foreground - with his trousers around his ankles, Luper
has been tied to a stout hitching-post in the sun to attract wasps and bees with the smell and sweetness of the
honey on his genitals. Close-ups of his naked legs with ants crawling up his knees.
Close-ups of his sweating face with flies landing in the comers of his eyes.
Percy and Heiner finish their shoot-up - and swing down from the roofs of the cars into the driving seats,
accelerate noisily and drive off - chasing one another - into the desert.
Luper's horse lies dead "on the sand, its head and neck riddled with bullets, the suitcase still intact but bloodied
from the horse and holed many times.
Passion, looking through the stolen binoculars, Is watching Luper from the verandah of the ranch-house. Luper
knows she's there - the binocular-lenses glint in the sun - but she could well be hidden from anyone else.
I Lephrenlc also watches from the ranch - from the porch-doorway. Then slowly he walks over - picking up the
, bullet-holed and horse-bloodied suitcase on the way. He walks up to the bound Luper.
LEPHRENIC
Well Mr English Luper. How do you like Americans?
LUPER
Enough.
LEPHRENIC
How do you like German-Americans?
LUPER
I haven't met too many. And they would have to open
their mouths for me to recognise them.
LEPHRENIC
You seem to like German-American women.
There's a long pause when Lephrenic walks up and down in front of the tightly-bound Luper. He peers at Luper
ftom out of the deep shadows under the broad brim of his black hat. He pauses for effect.
LEPHRENIC
When you said you were looking for ghost-towns, were
you telling the truth?
LUPER
Yes.
LEPHRENIC
You weren't looking for anything else, were you,
Mr Luper? Have ~ou got any special geological
knowledge, Mr Luper?
LUPER
No - just a little archaeological knowledge.
LEPHRENIC
Well - you've certainly got some religious knowledge - I'll grant
you - which you've deliberately unleamt.

Episode 2. Section 5. Scene 4. June. Day. Noon. Interior Ranch-house.
Unknown to Lephrenic - but known to Luper, Passion Hockmeister is watching the scene through binoculars from
deep inside the shadowy kitchen. The sound of the other women of the ranch-house can be heard elsewhere in
the house, talking and laughing. We watch the scene through the binoculars Passion is holding. Lephrenic has
resumed his pacing. We hear the dialogue only slightly less loud than before.
33
•
LEPHRENIC
How come an unreligious man is interested in Mormon
frontier-towns long gone back to God?
You said you were interested in Sodom and Gomorrah ~
that wouldn't be a coded interest in Sin would it Mr Luper?
You know - women, lechery, greed, minerals, gold? You weren't
looking for gold or anything like that, Mr Luper, were you ... in
these hills ... in this desert?
LUPER
No.

Episode 2. Section 5. Scene 5. June. Day. Noon. Exterior Ranch.house.
Lephrenic has stopped his pacing and now stands directly in front of Luper.
LEPHRENIC
Have you heard, Mr Luper, of u·rain-i-um?
Lephrenic pronounces the word very strangely - an unfamiliar word in 1934.
LUPER
Yes.
LEPHRENIC
• You weren't looking for u-rain-i-um, Mr Luper, were you? Mr Luper?

Around here? Around Moab? U·rain-i-ium? Atomic number 92?
Unobtainable in pure form - but a geologist knows where to look.
Symbol - the big U? U for useful, U-tah, United States of Amer.i-ca.
And U-top-i-ia.
Lephrenic comes up very close to Luper. He speaks slowly and with humour and playful intent that nonetheless
masks true seriousness. .
LEPHRENIC
Uranium? Smells nicely dirty -like semen? Tastes nicely greasy-
like blood? Powerful metaphors· eh?
You've seen any, smelt any, tasted any?
If you were to be interested - I could patronise you.
We could find a w~y to subsidise your searching.
We could buy you a desert ha? Feed you up to make a decent belly?
I like to see a decent belly on a man.
You know -like he's just three months pregnant? Gives him gravity.
Centres him. Sets off what could hang beneath? And - if you want - we could fix
you up with a little milky- child white bride. The sort you play with ... before
tackling something bigger and better ." and more exciting?
We see Luper wince, squirm and struggle. Lephrenic is standing very close to him.
LEPHRENIC
Mormon Uranium from Sodom and Gomorrah?
U-ran-i-um from U-top-i-a. You like the word? You like the ideas?
Out of the sight of the camera, it could be that Lephrenic - with his right hand· is fondling Luper's genitals.
LEPHRENIC
34
A little digging - archae logically ... geologically? How would you like that?
(Long pause) You're not a great talker are you Mr Luper?
LUPER
The sun is in my eyes. The insects are biting. I am not a geologist
and my trousers are around my ankles.
We see Lephrenic's right hand fondling Luper's honey-covered genitals.
LEPHRENIC
Yes - you're right. We are bad hosts - not a characteristic among Mormons.
Whilst he's talking - Lephrenic takes out a knife with his left hand - he holds it up in the air - it's a thlreat that is
non-specific.
LEPHRENIC
We've kept you long enough from your important
investigations into the ghost-towns of the Mormon Inheritance.
He lowers the knife. We expect the worst. But he only cuts Luper's bonds.
LEPHRENIC
Feel free to go Mr Luper. Feel free.
Luper pulls up his trousers - then takes an ill-judged, clumsy, angry swipe at Lephrenic's head - Lephrenic easily
ducks back. The dogs start barking in the stable. Lephrenic smiles. Luper picks up his battered suitcase, and
turns anc! hurries away towards the road. Lephrenic watches him leave, then slowly lifts his right hand and licks
the honey off his fingers.
Luper's hired horse is lying bleeding on the ranch yard dirt. A tow-rope is attached to the dead animal and it is
winched away through the dirt and sand and dumped in the desert. A later (histOrical) shot shows the decayed
animal covered in flies, its rib-cage showing, parts of the cadaver scavenged by predators.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 6
Episode 2. Section 6 Scene 1. June. Day. Early Afternoon. Exterior, Dirt Road.,
35rnm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
Luper is walking along a dirt road in the early afternoon. The landscape is dramatic and harsh. Luper is
hot and sweaty and angry. He is carrying his bullet-holed and bloodied suitcase.
A car, throwing up dust, approaches. Luper hides behind a boulder. The expensive new car with loud, bright-red
upholstery slows and stops. Its car-radio, playing fast and hectic fiddling music, stops as the car stops. The car
is driven by the girl Passion from the bath-tub and the ranch-house. She is showily dressed - as though she
were to be going somewhere special. Without looking in Luper's direction, she waits - looking at herself steadily
in the driving mirror. She speaks - still looking at herself.
PASSION
It's a long way in almost any direction from here.
(long pause) I could give you a lift.
Luper stays in hiding.
PASSION
35
•
Suit yourself - but I don't think you're going to get anywhere special
much before it gets really black dark night.(long pause) Heat stroke.
Foreigners often suffer from heat-stroke. No hat? (long pause)
They say they're animals still up there ..
She looks at the mountains· and says the word 'animals' with clever, distasteful, ambiguous menace.
PASSION
... with bad teeth and bad breath and bad manners.
(long pause) You could tread on some curly creature down here
warming itself angry in the hot sun.
Luper steps out from behind the rock, and stares at Passion in her car.
PASSION
It can get cold at midnight· snowy cold· you know? Shivery cold?
(long pause) And you're not wearing that much· as we all noted.
Luper looks around, up and down the track.
LUPER
You've caused me more than enough trouble already.
He throws his suitcase in the back of the car.
• PASSION
You think so? (she looks at him for the first time)
Luper starts to get into the car.
PASSION
You smell kind of sugary. How does it feel to have all that stickiness
between your legs? You'd better not mark my father's car-seat with your
sweetness.
LUPER
Your father?
PASSION
I'll leave you guessing. You'd better sit on something. How about your shirt?
Luper hesitates. Then he takes off hiS sweat-stained shirt. He throws it on the red-leather front passenger-seat
and sits on it. Passion immediately drives the car away at speed, the car radio music furiously fiddling.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 7

Episode 2. Section 7. Scene 1. June. Early Afternoon. Exterior, Dirt Road.
Behind the travelling car - with Passion driving and Tulse in the passenger-seat - on a back-projection device _
are eight large close-up head-and-shoulder still black-and-white photO-images of actors - dressed in costume _
36
auditioning for the part of Fender, the Moab sherif. Each photo is just slightly blue-tinged, and every actor is
aged between 50 and 65, thin and lugubrious-looking.
Luper and Passion eye on another as she drives along. Suddenly Passion pulls up in a screech of brakes, dust
and scattered pebbles. She swiftly puts her arm around Lupe(s neck and kisses him on the mouth. He accepts
#. .. her kiss. As she kisses him again, she begins to undo her brassiere under her blouse. When Luper surfaces
~- from the kiss, she dangles her scarlet brassiere under his nose, reaches over and undoing Luper's suitcase, puts
it inside. She suggestively sticks her finger through a bullet·hole in the lid and smiles at Luper. She kisses him
again - and takes a pair of her scarlet pants from her skirt pocket and puts them in the suitcase.
PASSION
Mr Lephrenic obviously liked you. Percy didn't. I quite like you too.
She kisses him again. She drives on.

As they approach the early morning camp-site with the orange tent and the remains of the breakfast fire, there is .
a roadblock across the track - two oil drums and a pole. Passion pulls up. Three men with rifles are waiting.
The audition photos of the Moab sherif have continued all this time and now the sequence of eight heads finisheS
with the actor chosen to play the part of the sherif. This same man - sherif Fender - steps forward. He is an
elderly, thin and lugubrious-looking man, around 60. Gopel is young. Stringly, even younger - perhaps 18.
Stringly wears decorated boots.
GOPEL
Good morning Miss Hockmeister.
FENDER
Get out of the car sir. We are arresting you for sexually consorting
Yiith a minor.
LUPER
That's not true at all.
FENDER
What - that you were not sexually consorting? Or that she's not a minor?
Knowing exactly what to do - Fender takes the suitcase from the backseat and opens it. He takes out the
underwear and dangles it in front of Lupe(s face. Stringly snatches the underwear and puts it to /Ilis nose and
makes a mock swoon.
STRINGLY
We have evidence.
Gopal snatches the underwear from Stringly.
GOPAL
Or are these yours sir?
Luper doesn't answer.
GOPAL
Then I presume these belong to you Passion Hockmeister.
PASSION
Yes indeed· I think they may be mine.
STRINGLY
Oh oh oh-ho mister - I would rather be walking on the
moon than be in your shoes.
PASSION
Perhaps he has already been walking on the moon, Tartar Strlngly?
Think of that. And your shoes don't look too innocent either.
37
Stringly looks down at his gaudy decorated boots - a littie nonplussed, out-talked.
• Passion drives away without a backward glance - her radio blaring. Luper is bundled into the road-blocke~s truck.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 8

Episode 2. Section U. Scene 1. June. Day, Interior, Moab Prison·Room Lock.Up
Luper is in jail. The cell is some 20 x 12 metres with a four metre high ceiling. It is a ground floor room of a
wooden building. It has a bare wooden planked floor. The cell is papered in white lining paper - painted over -
sloppily - in white matt paint. The room is filled with warm evening light. There is a magnificent view of desert
and the mountains through a large, lightly barred window. It is very hot both inside and outside - the temperature
of the cell being little different from the temperature of the desert. There is a large water-filled yellow oil-drum in
the centre of the room.
Luper is pacing up and down the cell, measuring its length and breadth with his feet - placing one foot against the
next and marking and numbering the floor with a stub of chalk. He has made foot-chalk-marks squaring up the
floor and the walls - as though preparatory to the manufacture of some solemn major mural painting-work. His
•
open battered empty suitcase - full of bullet-holes - stands on a wooden bench. Luper stops his pacing and
stands by the window looking out at the magnificent view.
Accompanied with the same serene (string-instrument) music as previously used in the 'Vermeer-effect' framing
of a Luper prison, Luper is seen as a serenely posed figure in a sunlit interior - illuminated by the exterior light.
We do not see the view through the window.
Episode 2. Section 8. Scene 2. Luper exhibition.
An insert picture shows an academic delivering a lecture on Luper in the Brooklyn Museum New York, to a class
of listeners we do not see, but occasionally hear as they make some reaction to the lecture~s speech - a short
laugh, a cough, a scraping of chairs. This second lecture~s name is Blaise Polgnard - a French Canadian. He is
young and urgf!nt and nervous - delivering his first lecture in public on Luper. To show he is sophisticated but
relaxed, he has an open shirt and no tie, and his plastic Identity-tag is attached to his shirt-pocket. We see him in
close-up and in a shot that frames him to his waist. His hand-written, red-ink-corrected typescript is also in
evidence.
LUPER LECTURER - BLAISE POIGNARD

Perhaps Luper was, or is, a natural prisoner. He says so himself.
He said that there must be something in his make-up that is pre-
disposed to always make him a prisoner. But then, he says, that is
not so unusual.
As the lecturer continues in voice-over, the 'Vermeer-effecf ceases, but the music continues.

Episode 2. Section 8. Scene 3. June. Day, Interior, Moab Prison-Room LOCk-Up
We now see a framing of Luper in front of the window and its magnificent view. Luper has taken the small metal
toy-figure of a man out of his pocket - and standing it on the top edge of his bullet-holed suitcase in front of the
38
window - we see the toy figure against the mountains - to remind of the same 'small-landscape' of the coal-lumps
on Lupe~s suitcase in his parent's coal-house.
LUPER LECTURER - BLAISE POIGNARD

Luper got to know and recognise a great many people who were all
prisoners of one thing or another. Memory. Time. Nostalgia. Place. A
person. A relationship. An obsession. Money. Sex. He suggested that
everyone has a jailer. It was not a boast. Or a criticism. Or a
compensatory remark by a man whose prison was for the most part very
self-evldently physical. It was a given. For Luper, it was so self- evident, it was hardly -
even a fact. Facts become fixed because they are noted. Being a prisoner is
such an every-day state of affairs, it is not even noted.
1948. Warsaw, Poland.

Episode 2. Section 8. Scene 4. May. Interior. Night. Disused Swimmlng..Pool.
In 1948 in Warsaw - in a disused Art-Deco echoic empty swimming-pool heaped with the belongings of refugees
- five Soviet-uniformed Customs Officials are sorting through a huge collection of clothes, shoes and parcels.
They come across a large, battered suitcase. Opening it - they find it is stuffed full of what can only be called
ecclesiastical pornography - hard-porn images of copulating priests, cardinals and nuns. We see just enough to
set the imagination working. All five officials examine the contents, laughing and joking in Polish With the most
dead-pari language entirely oblivious of propriety - the five-part conversation is translated in sub-titles - full of
crudities and outrageous blasphemies.
The conversation reveals the phrase 'Vatican Pornography' which is repeatedly translated in the sub-titled
English. The laughing turns to argument as the officers squabble for possession. There is a fight and the
pornographic photographs are scattered. A pistol shot rings out in the echoic space, and a young, plump
uniformed officer - crying and blubbering in distress, clutching his blood-covered belly - writhes among the rags
and shoes.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 9

Episode 2. Section 9. Scene 1. June. Sunset. Interior, Moab Prison-Room Lock-Up
The light has fallen. The sky through the window is ablaze with a sunset. The jail-room is gloomy. Luper is
pacing his cell.

Episode 2. Section 9 Scene 2. Luper Exhibition.
In the Brooklyn Museum lecture-hall, the Luperr lecturer speaks ..
BLAISE POIGNARD
Luper once said that If being a prisoner was the human condition, then he
had better get used to it. Use it. Make something of it. Luper was interested in
making being-a-prisoner - an art.
39

Episode 2. Section 9. Scene 3. June. Sunset. Interior, Moab Prison-Room Lock-Up
3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR
In wide shot. Luper's jailor, Tom Fender enters the cell. The violin-music of the 'Vermeer-effect' ceases.
FENDER
For trespass you are fined one dollar.
Fender holds out his hand for luper's tin-toy-figure - Luper reluctantly puts into Fender's palm. Fender holds ollt
his other hand. Luper takes out some crumpled currency notes from his trouser back-pocket· and solemnly pays
the jailor one dollar.
FENDER
For kissing a minor you are charged five dollars.
Luper pays him the five dollars. There Is a sound of splashing in a nearby room.
FENDER
And now for the serious charge ......
LUPER
What's that?
FENDER
Voyeurism.
•
LUPER
Is this a special Mormon crime?
FENDER
Could be. It's like theft with the eyes. Heated up by sex.
And is your passport in order?
The sound of splashing and now gurgling from the nearby room increases. Luper takes out his passport from his
back-pocket. Fender quickly, and with diSinterest, flicks through the pages. Luper takes a wooden scoop
hanging on the side of the oil-drum and makes to drink water from the drum. He hesitates. The water moves
and ripples.
Fender snaps Luper's passport shut.
FENDER
No ball.
Fender sees Luper watching the water move.
LUPER
No bail!?
FENDER
No bail. Just think - where would you eat and sleep tonight?
Fender still watches Luper hesitate to drink the water from the oildrum. The sound of the water-splashing next
•
door gets louder.
As before - with the collection of actors auditioning for the sheriff Fender· now there is a collection of actresses
auditioning for Fender's wife - a woman between 50 and 60 with wet hair and water-spashed face with a towel
around her shoulders. Again the photos have a curious slightly blue tinge to them.
------,..-----------------~-~-----------:---.----------'
40
FENDER
It's OK. We might live in the desert but God gave us water.
We are always liberal with water.
LUPER
Is there anything else in there?
FENDER
A fish.
LUPER
What sort of fish?
FENDER
For your supper tonight.
Fender and Luper watch a large fish swim slowly around in the beam of the jaile~s torch. We watch the fish as
though through a glass window in the side of the drum· it is so large its body almost touches the Sides of the
drum as it swims around. The sound of the splashing and gurgling in the next room increases. It now sounds as
if someone is drowning· perhaps someone is being water·tortured. Luper cocks his ear.
FENDER
No • they're not drowning. just taking a bath.
Luper and the jailor return their attention to the fish.
FENDER
Smokey white trout with scouse.
LUPER
What's that?
FENDER
Peasmash with red peppers, a little dewey cabbage and a
flinch of gutrot whiskey to make it tart.
The noise in the nearby room stops abruptly. The display of auditioning portraits of candidates for Mrs Fender
comes to an end with the portrait of the successful candidate .... and this same woman· aged around 55 with
long wet hair· her body wrapped in a towel- comes into the room in front of the photo. Despite the presence of
, a stranger - she has no particular modesty; her shoulders arms, neck, throat and legs are bare. She carries a net
, and she bends over the oil-can of water and struggles to catch the fish. Luper watches her with some silent
amazement. When Mrs Fender has caught the fish - her back-projected portrait vanishes.
Close-up of the splendid 'imprisoned' fish wriggling in the net in the light of the setting sun:
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 10

Episode 2. Section 10. Scene 1. Utah Desert. Exterior. Night. Luper Campsite.
35mrn CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
. With three storm·lantems • perched on his truck, on the tent-pole and on the ground • Marty Knockavelli, at the
desert camp-site in the dark lit also by moonlight, is packing up the tent and stowing everything in the truck.
There are long-homed cattle standing all around him in the dark - their outlines seen against the night-sky - Marty
is singing an Italian operatiC aria (the same aria that was sung on the Italian railway station at Ventimiglia) to
• keep his spirits up. He finds an empty suitcase full of locusts settling down for the night.
f .
41
.'. EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
«... .
.....
- SECTION 11
1934. Moab Desert Utih

Episode 2. Section 11. Scene 1. Interior, Night. Moab Prison·Room Lock·Up
At Luper's cell- it's dark and very hot. There is the sound of cicadas. Insects - moths, beetles, bugs - bang
against the window-glass of Luper's cell- attracted by a bare bulb light hanging in the centre of the cell. To keep
cool - Luper - wearing his clothes ~ stands in the 011· barrel - dousing his head with the water bailed out with ths
wooden scoop.
Carrying a lamp that is brighter than the cell's bare bulb, the jailer's wife enters to read to Luper. She is now
wearing a smart wMe linen dress that looks like a religious garment· something to be baptised in - and bright
red lipstick which looks incongrous. She carries an illustrated Mormon Bible, inside which are numerous slips of
yellowing paper. She sits with the lamp beside her - and at once becomes an immediate attraction for the bugs,
bees, moths and insects which swarm around her· and of which she takes no notice. She looks like some
'insect-lady' - an entomological siren. We watch her carefully. Behind her, a projection screen shows indigenous
desert insects in close-up - fluttering and crawling on white paper. .
MRS FENDER
•
John Smith came across the Atlantic in a submarine from Palestine.
We see illustrations from the Mormon Bible of a Jules Verne-type submarine travelling just below the water
surface.
MRS FENDER
And they settled in Kentucky and then made their
way west leaving the sea behind them.
They arrived at Salt Lake City.
Because the lake was so large and so salty they believed they had hit
the sea again. They had always wanted to remake Palestine and the Holy
Land. You know - a new Judea-by-the-sea, USA.
Intrigued by Mrs Fender'S reading, Luper continues to pour water over his head - whilst looking at her sitting in
the comer of the room • lamp-lit and jnsect-attractive. There is a visual correspondence between Luper's water
and the water Mrs Fender talks about. Perhaps Mrs Fender is rippled with a little blue water-light.
MRS FENDER
They believed they had the right sort of landscape here to do it In.
A sense of landscape's very important to the Mormons. So they
built some handsome cities in the desert - most of them are
vanished now - well· it was a long time ago.
She has several map-drawings interleaved into her Mormon Bible. They look a little like the drawings Luper was
using to find the vanished Mormon cities. She shows Luper, who is interested.
• LUPER
Where did you get these from?
MRS FENDER
My mother, and her mother before her. You know, none of us Fenders and
Hallises have ever seen the sea. What's it like? You seen it?
42
Luper gets out of the oil,-{jrum, his soaked clothing dripping water over the floor.
LUPER
If I had something to draw with I could show you.
Mrs Fender leaves the room. Still dripping, with his feet squelching in his wet shoes, Luper pace$ up and down .
in front of the largest white wall of his cell. His shadow gets larger and then smaller as he walks up and down.
Outside in the desert landscape, the bright moon throws large shadows on the rocks.
, -
Inside the jail, Mrs Fender retums carrying a battered medium-sized suitcase. She places it on the floor. Mrs
Fender and Luper squat beside it. She unfastens the clasp and triumphantly she throws back the lid. The
shadows of the suitcase lid and the two squatting figures are thrown on the wall. The suitcase is full of pencils, of
all colors - by far most of the pencilS have been used, most are small, with chewed ends and blunt and
sharpened points. Several pencils spill out onto the floor.
MRS FENDER
They belonged to Ruby. She was a drawer.
Never stopped. Percy bumt all her drawings.
Luper hesitates at such a huge possible choice. He finally takes a red soft-leaded pencil-stub out of the case.
He stands up and starts to draw a map of the world on the wall, paying careful attention to the coast-line. He
then writes a list of the 5 oceans, followed by a list of ten inland seas, including the Salt Lake.
LUPER
Well - the sea's different in different places.
Though I suppose you could say it's always the same.
You could talk about old sea and new sea.
Could you talk about old water and new water?

There is a tracking shot in the Brooklyn Exhibition of Luper Artifacts - that shows a selection of paintings by Luper
of blackboard images - visual investigations of water - real, geographical, apocryphal. One of the' paintings is
titled Old Water.
1934. Moab Desart Utah _

Episode 2. Section 11. Scene 3. June. Sunset. Interior, Moab Prison·Room Lock·Up
Back in the 1934 Moab Jail.
LUPER
Seven-tenths of the earth's surface is sea. Nine-tenths of a man's
body is water. We are all born in amniotic fluid. To accompany our
highest emotional states - when we laugh and cry - our eyes water.
Whilst Luper is talking and drawing and writing on the wall, Fender, the sheriff, brings in a small collapsible table·
large enough for three. He lays it quickly and neatly, and with practised hands - white cloth, cutlery, napkins,
condiments.
Without Luper notiCing - so that he talks to an empty room - the jailer and the jailer's wife leave the cell. Luper
has to change the pencils out of the suitcase several times as they soon become blunt on the rough wall.
43
LUPER
• You'd think the most intelligent animal on earth ought to be a fish .

Dolphins and whales are supposed to be intelligent.
Mrs Fender returns with the cooked fish. Fender follows her with the hot cooked vegetables. The Fenders are
very seriously domesticated.
LUPER
There's a theory that apes learnt to swim and since you don't need
body hair in water· too much drag. early man came up out of the
water a million years later having lost his body hair ...
MRS FENDER
John Smith said much the same.
FENDER
The original baptism.
Luper looks a little surprised - at their quick assimilation of what he is talking about. The jailer's wife serves out
the fish - the jailer tucks a napkin into his overall. Luper watches them out of the comer of his eye - he now
silently continues to write and draw - marking in the Mormon journey across the Atlantic, and writing down lists of
celebrated bays, coastal features, sea promontories and islands.
The jailer and his wife - with napkins tucked in their overalls - sit and eat - watching Luper as though he was
dinner-entertainment.
Luper puts away his-pencil- and comes to sit down with the jailer and his wife, to eat the fish served out on a
third plate'. All three sit silently eating and staring at Luper's writing on the wall, in front of which is Ruby'S open
suitcase of pencils. Luper is silently amazed and delighted at the tastiness of the fish .
• EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 12

Episode 2. Section 12. Scene 1. Interior, Night. Moab Prison·Room Lock·Up
Later at night in the Moab jail. Much of Luper's cell-wall space is covered in Luper's handWriting - it's now lit up
with the moonlight coming in through the window - the window-frame's shadow breaking It up into illuminated
sections. The Luper handwriting is achieved with a special magical effect - it's a back-projection, a cinema trick -
the lettering reversed white on black.
With the window being open - many"insects have been attracted into the room· flying and fluttering about in the
light of the oil-lamps. The room is excessively full of insects. It is an insectorium. Luper is asleep standing up in
the oil-drum of water· his head resting on his hand which is resting on the rim. The fish-bones on the plate on
the table are being eaten by a pole-cat that has mysteriously got into the room. There is a water-snail crawling
slowly across Luper's hand. We see it in close close-up.

• The third Tulse Luper lecturer's name is Alphonse Fengetty, a German - an elderly man in a black suit. We
watch him in close-up and waist-wide shot - his identity-tag attached neatly to his lapel. He has a pronounced
jerky manner of delivery.
LUPER LECTURER· ALPHONSE FENGETTY

Luper made analogies. He compared himself, ourselves, to the snail.
44
There is an excerpt from the final sequence of the film A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS· which shows details of
landsnails crawling over the bodies of two men lying on a sloping bench at night in a damp field.
ALPHONSE FENGEm
Snails are remarkably self·reliant. Luper studied snails.
The snail is hermaphrodite. It can mate with any other snail of the same
species· no gender problems. Carrying its own house. Its own suitcase.
Its own prison. live anywhere - almost. The environment has to
be just a little damp. Not too bright. Not too much sunlight. Snails
like moonlight. Ideal prison conditions.
An external shot of the desert lit by the bright moon· that includes Luper's prison jail from the outside· its
window illuminated with a pale yellow rectangle.
There is intercutting and inserting and over·inserting of images from Luper in his Moab prison - to the snail
crawling on his arm • to the lecturer's animated close-up· to a continuation of the film excerpt.
ALPHONSE FENGEm
Crack open the prison. Lose the occupant. Omnivorous.
living on decay. Responsible for cleaning up the world.
Breaking material down into its components. So it can be rebuilt.
The snail, Luper said, was a catalyst. And the ultimate bourgeoise.
A1ways living at home. But living at home anywhere. Since he did not
have a home for any great length of time, Luper's home and shell
were his suitcase.
The suitcase is a most potent metaphor. All the world is on the
move. In North America you will seldom find a mature adult
living in the place where he or she was born. Central Europe is on
the move. 25,000 people enter Shanghai and Bejing every day
carrying their possessions with them. The Suitcase.
That's where Luper always kept his few possessions. That's not true of
course. He made a great many things. Some are this exhibition.
On the sudden outward wave of the lecturer's arm and hand - we move to a wide shot. We are in a gallery - in
the Brooklyn Museum, New York· though we do not understand the full identity of this place as yet - where there
is an exhibition of Tulse Luper artefacts - a white-painted room where the walls are hung with the self-same
drawings and writings from Luper's Moab cell - now looking a little older and perhaps a little darker. They have
been sliced, pared, cut or otherwise removed from the Moab cell-wall- and have been framed and glazed and
hung in sequence on the gallery wall. In the gallery are other items· opened suitcases exhibited in vitrines, a
wall of portrait photographs and Lu~r's Moab maps.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 13

Episode 2. Section 13. Scene 1. June. Morning. Interior, Moab Prison-Lock-Up
In the bright early morning sun-light that fills the cell. the white-papered walls are covered with Luper's pencil
handwriting - more so than they were the previous night· Luper has been up early writing.
45
•
Magically, the night-time writing-on-the-wall effect is reversed - the writing is now back-projected black on white.
Luper is standing on the bench writing on the wall. His clothes continue to look a mess. The desert-walking, the
honey, the dousings in the oil-drum have left them grubby, stained and shrunk.
Into the room enter the jailer and his wife. He carries a pen and a Clip-board. She carries a cup of strong coffee
which, after taking a sip herself, she gives to Luper.

Episode 2. Section 13. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Rehearsal-Room In a TV Studio.
The same three characters as appear in the Moab cell-room - Fender, Fender's wife and Luper - appear in a
rehearsal room - but they are not played by the same actors - but a different set· though within the same
physical types and ages - and standing in identical positions and stances. They hold their script-pages in their
hands. Some of the auditioning actors we have seen before.
Fender's manner is brisk. He applies himself to bureaucracy with distaste. Luper is amused. Luper answers
briskly back.
FENDER
Particulars. Height?
LUPER
Six foot.
FENDER
• Weight?
LUPER
Ten and a half stone.
What are stone?

FENDER
LUPER
147 pounds.
MRS FENDER
Give me your clothes. They need a wash and iron.
Luper takes off his shirt, and then, reluctantly - his trousers.

Episode 2. Section 13. Scene 3.. June. Sunset. Interior, Moab Prison-Room Lock-Up
35mm CINEMAS COPE COLOUR.
The rehearsal room actors in the 1998 rehearsal space change to the Moab actors in the Moab jailhouse.
FENDER
Hair colour.
LUPER..
Nondescript.
FENDER
Religion.
•
LUPER
No religion.
Fender becomes interested.
FENDER
of
'.
46
Come on • I'll give you a second chance.

LUPER
No religion.
FENDER
No religion? A pagan-heathen-monkey-man?
LUPER
« ..
-k ~~.
Not necessarily.
The local photographer; Joe Maistersinger - who takes identity photos for the police - enters the unlocked cell.
He is carrying too much equipment and has trouble getting through the door. He is in time to hear a Fender
joke.
FENDER
I was once a Methodist till I could see their method and I gave up.
This is a standard Fender, often-repeated joke-homily at which he and Maisterslnger chuckle. Luper is now
standing in his boots and honey-stained underpants.
MRS FENDER
What you done to yourself? We scared you?
LUPER
(embarrassed in front of three pairs of eyes) It's honey.
MRS FENDER
Honey? Do the English piss honey?
I've seen Worse. When Tom and Joe went bear-shooting - he ...
FENDER
Shut up Ma!
MRS FENDER
Take them off. I just won't ask why you waste the honey, honey, on
your John Thomas.
FENDER
So - trespasser, womaniser, peeping-Tom, (he looks at the walls)
scribbler, defacer of Maob Jail property. Honey·pisser ...
Luper has taken off his underpants and given them to Mrs Fender. Luper stands naked save for his boots in the
sunlight in the centre of the room.
FENDER
... and a pagan-heathen-monkey-man?
MRS FENDER
I'll see if I can find you a pair of Tom's.
FENDER
(he shouts) No heathen monkey-man's wearing my pants!
Your crimes Luper - get worser and worser.
The photographer Mastersinger Is putting up his eqUipment,
FENDER
Stand against the wall, Luper so we'll all be able to recognise you in
Hell - because unlike you I'm a religious man - but I like being evil
too much to even want to go to Heaven, and I want to recognise
you so I can whip you for having no religion and being a
pagan-heathen-monkey-man.
47
•
They stand Luper against a wall that he has heavily covered with his writing, and they give him an identification-
board to hold. It has movable letters and numbers. Fender and Maistersinger quarrel about the right
identification.
FENDER
Give him W for weekend prisoner, and PT for Peeping-Tom.
Initials TL.
MAISTERSINGER
As in .... ? I have only one T.
FENDER
Use V for voyeur.
MAISTERSINGER
What's that mean?
FENDER
Someone who watches when he shouldn't.
MRS FENDER
Which is a good definition of a photographer.
Mrs Fender winks at Luper, carries Luper's clothes, and leaves the cell, leaving the cell-door wide open on the
sunlit outer office. Luper leaves the wall for a moment to pick up his holed suitcase. He goes back to his place.
MAISTERSINGER
And the number?
FENDER
•
Add a few noughts or it'll look as though we're under-employed .
They end up with WPVTL 7050300.
MAISTERSINGER
That looks dangerous - a real felony. Bit much for a kid
with such a baby-face.
FENDER
Pagans are dangerous. They push forward all manner of
unwanted freedoms. Free thinking, free love, free politics, free milk.
LUPER
Free milk?
FENDER
Roman charity. Ma Fender's speciality. But don't go taking advantage.
Don't you go thinking you're so important. We've had a real shooting gallery
of hoodlums in here. Make mincement out of your puny foreignness. We're not
so short of some real good sinners.
A long list of Maistersinger's photographs of local 'sinners' - under-nourished, impoverished-looking youths,

drunks and whores, but also including many surprises - of handsome women and beautiful children - in a
consistent 'mug-shot' like frontality and in black-and-white, with the slightest blueish tinge ... are now inserted in
small boxes on the screen. Each photo has Maistersinger's prison identity board with the initials and numbers
variously and often unconvincingly re-arranged. There is a shot of Fender and his wife among the photos. We
now realise that Maistersinger is the photographer of the collection of photographs we have being seeing
•
throughout this section - most of them framed by the photographic mount, and bearing often a Kodak number or
a photographic identity of some other deSCription.
In the present collection, one particular photograph of a beautiful fair-haired 11-year old girl keeps re-appearing
in basically the same arrangement and format - but taken at different times, with the girl wearing different clothes
- and sometimes naked at a swimming-pool in the forest. These photographs show a particular Maistersinger
obsessive fascination.
48
Luper is standing up - naked save for his boots - and holding his suitcase - up against his own writing on the cell.
wall.
MAISTERSINGER
Too much foreigness is a culpable sin. What you gripping that
suitcase for like that? What you got inside? It's full of holes.
Why are you keeping that thing?
LUPER
In case I find something.
FENDER
Mrs Fender tells me your interested in the lost gold of the Mormons.
Is the suitcase for the lost gold? You'll soon lose it through those holes.
LUPER
Do you all believe in that stuff?
FENDER & MAISTERSINGER
(together) Could do.
MAISTERSINGER
You got any friends?
LUPER
Yes.
FENDER
Do you think they'll be looking for you?
LUPER
Sure to be.
MAISTERSINGER
What they look like?
LUPER
Is that a professional question? If I tell you - you'll want to
photograph them - so you can frame them and lock them up.
Fender flicks him around the face.
FENDER
And feed them well eh Luper? On Mrs Fender's cooking?
I hope you are not being too clever Mr Luper? You are in a foreign
country - foreign to you - country to me.
Through the jail-window, they all see Passion's car drive up. Fender leaves the room, locking Luper and the
photographer in together. The photographer starts taking Luper's photograph.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 14
1939. Romania.
Episode 2. Section 14. Scene 1. A Romanian Sewing Factory. Interior. Night.
A sewing-room in a factory producing the uniforms for the Red Fox Belgium Fascist Party - brown trousers and
jackets, brown shirts, red ties, red arm-bands marked with a fox's head.
1. A long room - impoverished, with white-washed walls - where some thirty women are sitting in front of a long
table spread with bales of cloth, sewing materials and the occasional hand-cranked sewing-machine, all poorly lit
49
under a sequence of naked hanging bulbs. The woman are country women, wearing faded print dresses, their
hair tied up in head-scarves. Some of the women are over 70, some are just 15. Some are pregnant.
The camera is following the passage of a suitcase being passed from woman to woman down the table. The
suitcase is open and completely full of sewing needles. The thousands of needles make a thick prickly cushion
that looks dangerous - the points shining in the artificial light. There is a paper stuck into the lid and a pencil tied
to a string wound around the suitcase clasp. A thick-set middle-aged man - wearing a white shirt and braces
holding up baggy trousers over his paunch, his hair in a hair-net -Is urging the women to take a needle and sign
for it. He barks at them in Romanian, and unr.eccessarily pushes and prods them. Each woman takes a needle
and makes a mark against her name in the suitcase lid.
The man slaps one young girl around the head because she fumbles to sign her name.
2. A factory cellar. The thick-set middle-aged man is lying naked on his back· his chest, belly and genitals
exposed and all stuck with needles - several thousand of them stuck into his plump flesh.
3. The long sewing room. All the women are sitting at their places and rhythmically clapping slowly in
unison, their faces entirely placid. The suitcase is on the table. It is completely empty. The tables are now
covered in children's dresses· frocks in flowered materials with plenty of ribbons.
4. The man's corpse has been laid out on a sewing table. And an elderly woman - probably the man's
mother - is picking out the bloodied needles from her son's naked corpse. She drops them into the suitcase.
The suitcase is already half-full of blood-stained needles but the corpse is still stuck with that seems like
thousands more. The woman's counting the needles as though the needles might be more valuable than her
son's body. -
EPISODE 2

MOAB UTAH
SECTION 15
Episode 2. Section 15. Scene 1. June. Interior. Day. Sherif. Office at the Moab Prison.
Passion comes into the lock·up's outer office and faces Fender. On Fender's desk is Luper's passport and on
top of the passport - the small tin·toy·figure Fender took from Luper.
PASSION
Alright Mr Fender I want to see the man you arrested.
FENDER
No way· we have. Mr Percy's orders.
PASSION
I can deal with Mr Percy. Can you deal with me?
She lifts her blouse and shows the jailer her breasts. The jailer's wife comes into the office. Jailer and wife stare
at the girl and at her breasts. They both dispaSSionately admire her anatomy. The wife looks at her husband
and slowly nods her head. The jailer gives Passion a key. Passion leaves the room. The jailer's wife pulls up
the blouse to expose her breasts to her husband who stares at her. He is appreciative.
EPISODE 2
•
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 16

Episode 2. Section 16. Scene 1. June. Day. Interior. Moab Prison·Room Lock·Up.
50

In the cell, as the photographer Maistersinger takes his photos of Luper, Passion lets herself in wlh the key.
MAISTERSINGER
What do you want Passion, Mrs Hockmeister?
She stands beside Luper - trying to share his identification-board.
MAISTERSINGER
You can't do that.
PASSION
I want my photograph takpn too Joe Mister Maistersinger.
The camera keeps clicking. Luper and Passion both stand stiffly posed for the photographer - Luper fearful of
more deceit. Passion immediately starts to take her clothes off. Between each divested gannent she strikes
another pose with Luper. Luper - reluctant partner to the dangerous Passion - clings on to his suitcase.
There is an insert-sequence of black-and-white photos supered and intercut into the real photo-session - of Luper
and Passion standing side by side against a background of Lupe~s wall-writing - the sequence (with the number..
board) indicating a growing intimacy between the two • first the two figures are serious-faced - Luper looking
dubious, then Passion begins to 'thaw' Luper out.
MAISTERSINGER
Now you're beginning to really look like young lovers.
And I've photographed them all. Special rates for loving couples. You
could - you could· just - in some cases - call them marriage photos.
Guarantees of a sort to show two people having taken the vows. Though many
don't work out so well.
As before· a line of inserted black-and-white photos of the local Mormon community are inserted as small boxes
- into the major-screen space. Now the photos are of couples, and the prison-identification-board has gone.
MAISTERSINGER
I've photographed all this community. mayors. sheriffs, councillors,
mistresses, wives, proper wives and secondary wives. Improper wives.
Bigamists, polygamists ...
Luper and Passion are now smiling. She begins to hug him.
MAISTERSINGER
.... elopers. adulterers. And their children. Many many children. Sick and
well. And dead. Not so pretty, middling pretty, and so pretty they are
unbelievable little angels. Take your sister-in-law, little Ruby.
The collage of photos now includes children.
PASSION
Careful now Joe.
There is an old sore secret about Ruby that hurts both Meistersinger end Passion. She is gentle but finn with
Joe's memories. Maistersinger mocks Percy's tripling language. Luper now returns Passion's hug.
MAISTERSINGER
Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.
PASSION
Careful Joe.
f "
51
'. Maistersinger quickly works himself into a state of anxiety. There are tears in his eyes.
MAISTERSINGER
That child was accused of profanity. Impossible! I took so many
photos of that-child - the lense became fixed with her image.
(He changes the subject) Now are you planning on having children?
I know you can't be husband and wife - now can you? Percy being ....
He has broken the spell: Luper and Passion st~nd apart.
Fender and his wife let themselves into the cell - they both looked flushed. Mrs Fender has a set of hel"
husband's crothes for Luper. Luper takes them. Passion picks up her clothes, and puts on a shirt without
underwear..
PASSION
Now I'd like to see those photos very smartly Mr Masterslnger
(to Fender) And while we wait - we'll use your bed Mr Fender.
I guess it'll stili be warm?
FENDER
It may be. (he nods at his wife) But I'm putting the irons on.
PASSION
That will be fine. On his wrists and on his ankies.
FENDER
OK by me - So Mr Pagan-heathen-monkey-man ~ we will be
able to add the charge of fornication in old Ma Fender's bed to add
•
to
your long-list of heinous crimes - that'll make it really stick!
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 17
1934. Moab Desert Utah.

Episode 2. Section 17. Scene 1. Sherifs Bedroom at the Moab Jail.
In the Moab sherifs bedroom with a large four-poster iron bedstead and another fine view of sunlit mountains
and the road into Moab. With this vi!3w as a background, Passion bounces on the bed. With the shackles joining
his wrists and ankles, Luper stands awkwardly and watches her.
LUPER
Why the Hell did you do all this?
PASSION
Isn't it obvious? I wanted to get you safe somewhere
where we would not be disturbed.
Where better than the sheriffs nest?
LUPER
•
I'm falling in deeper. You're g6ing to have to explain .
PASSION
It's OK. There's no explanation. And you don't have
to get excited about screwing a child-bride - I was 18 last April.
April 1st. I'm an April Fool birthday girl.
She gets off the mattress and pushes him violently so that, hampered by his bonds, he tumbles onto the bed.
52
PASSION.
Doubting Thomas?
She takes her birth certificate from her handbag. We see a close-up. It indicates indeed that she is 18.
PASSION
You know what this means - it means my dad was very very patriotic.
A truly patriotic man. A true American making me a true American girl.
I was conceived on the 4th July. You still don't believe me, do you?
Luper looks dubious and puzzled. She flourishes the certificate in front of Luper - then inadequately covers her
breasts with the slip of pink paper.
PASSION
Don't fret yourself - all women to Mormons are minors to outsiders
till they say otherwise. You English grow up slowly. Mormons live in the
present tense. Joseph Smith was a present-tense man. You've got to live that way.
Tomorrow's Hell - which will be as boring as sitting in the hot desert with the snakes and
the drunken Indians - we've got a mighty taste of that already - and Heaven - well Heaven's
going to be Hell too - sitting about in a man's world sharing his unwashed knees with the
other wives.
She switches on the radio - to fast-played fiddling music. She dances and jigs beside the bed with her back to
Luper. Then she bends over.
PASSION
OK - now kiss my arse, Englishmanl
Luper, with mingled apprehension and delight - does as he's told.
PASSION
Now that is something you can't put into a suitcase!
1953. Zagreb
Episode 2. Section 17. Scene 2. A Large White-tiled Bathroom.
It is Zagreb in 1953 - two gangsters burst into a large white-tiled bathroom where a charred male corpse lies
electrocuted by an electric fire in a bath of clear water. The corpse clutches a locked suitcase - the bathwater is
still 'live' and sparking and steaming. The gangsters shoot the suitcase open and inside are hundreds of cork
frogs that burst out to bob and float on the water.

We understand that the film A Walk Through H is being projected in a cinema in the Brooklyn Museum
Auditorium. In front of the screen and dwarfed by it - is a lecturer - May Jacoby in her mid-forties, a flamboyant
dark-haired woman with a mass of black hair piled high on her head, brilliant red lipstick, a brisk manner and an
Austrian accent. She is accompanied by two assistants who just smile and nod - sitting beside Mr, left and right~
one a beautiful fair-haired young woman with big soft eyes and a gauche manner, and the other a wizened,
lecherous-looking man, very neatly dressed in gangster's pinstripe, Who sits with his hands placed between his
knees. May Jacoby has a remote-control to tum down the sound-traCk of the film to get herself heard.
THE LUPER LECTURER - MAY JACOBY

53
•
The seeds of many things happened for Luper in Moab.
The Utah maps made him into a cartographer.
The verticals in the desert made him a campaigner for the rural environment - long
before that word appeared on the fashionable statute¥book.
The film on the big screen changes to the movie Vertical Features Remake.
THE LUPER LECTURER - MAY JACOBY

And Passion Hockmeister made him into an outlaw - if outlaw truly means
someone outside the law - few laws looked after Luper ever again.
Close-up of May Jacoby.
THE LUPER LECTURER - MAY JACOB

He was certainly now an adulterer - something he hadn't been before.
He'd been a fornicator but not an adulterer.He was soon to become afugitive.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 18
• 1934. Moab Desert Utah.

Episode 2. Section 18. Scene 1.
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
June. Day. Interior. Sherifs Office, Moab Jail. 35mm
Martino Knockavelli is at the jail remonstrating with Fender. In the sheriffs office, he is accused of polluting the
water of the desert conduit. We break into their conversation.
MARTINO
"" I was washing I
FENDER
That water supply runs on to Creelie - it's their drinking¥water.
MARTINO
I doubt it. It's full of stomach-worms "
FENDER
Creelies have drunk that water for thirty years - their eldest is now 93.
As an ignorant alien, you've gone and pissed in their drink ...
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 19
• 1934. Moab Desert Utah.

Episode 2. Section 19. Scene 1. Sherifs Bedroom at the Moab Jail.
Jailhouse Yard.
And View from Window over
Luper is looking out of the Fender's bedroom window to see Martino Knockavelli's truck in the sheriffs office
yard. Passion is riding naked on Luper's back.
54
LUPER
(seeing the truck) Jesusl
PASSION
What?
LUPER
(changing the subject) You ever been to Europe?
PASSION
We're planning to. All the Lephrenics are aiming to go back to Germany to
make a lot of money. And fight the English. Nothing personal.
Mrs Fender enters the bedroom without knocking. She is canylng a coffee-pot and two cups on a tray. Also on
the tray are Luper's passport and his tin-toy-figure. Luper covers himself with his chained wrists - which do not '
suffice to hide much. Mrs Fender is surprised and delighted by the sight of him.
MRS FENDER
My! Out of the desert cometh the saviour, leading a
white horse and scented with honey. Is your name John?
LUPER
No Mrs Fender?
MRS FENDER
I was dreaming. Dreaming'S fine when it makes you feel uplifted.
(she speaks in Alsatian) Constructive dreaming is fine for the spirit.
LUPER
What language is that?
MRS FENDER
Alsatian - as in dogs.
LUPER
You ever been to Europe, Mrs Fender? There's plenty of sea in Europe.
MRS FENDER
You planning to go there? OK I could take a few hours off. Is is far?
Tonight's Friday. Tommy could warm up some potato-broth with
lentils and apple strudel. We could take the Cameron High Way.
Mrs Fender stares hard at Passion and lowers her voice.
MRS FENDER
I must be back for supper - I've got a soup on the slaw bail.
Mrs Fender approaches Luper. He's not sure what she's going to do, until she lifts her apron and reveals her
• husband's bunch of keys. She unlocks Luper's chains.
MRS FENDER
Get dressed, I'll let you out the porch. I'll lock Tommy in the john.
But you've only got five minutes - he's learnt how to pick the lock.
. Mrs Fender leaves the bedroom.
LUPER
God! Is she stupid?
PASSION
What do you think? She'll be seen as a hostage - Fender won't shoot.
LUPER
Does she even know where Europe is?
PASSION
55
•
You're a geography snob. She's my mother's cousin. Mormon women have
great sisterly love. It surpasses all male understanding and geography.
They scramble into clothes· Luper into Fender's underwear, shirt and trousers which are a little too tight, and too
short in the arm and leg. Luper-throws his suitcase out the window.

Episode 2. Section 19. Scene 2. Yard outside Sherifs Bedroom at the Moab Jail.
From outside the jailhouse building, we watch Passion and Luper climb out of the window onto the porch roof and
drop to the ground. Mrs Fender is in the yard, waiting. Luper shouts to Martino who comes running out of the
office.
LUPER
Mart· for God's sake· start the truck.
MARTY
What are you dOing?
PASSION
Eloping with a foreigner. (to Luper) Who's he?
LUPER
Marty Knockavelli, son of an Italian ice-cream seller.
MRS FENDER
Drive slowly -I often get car-sick.
• LUPER
Don't worry - so does he. (painting at Martino)
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 20

Episode 2. Section 20. Scene 1. A Tannaced Highway Running Through the Desert 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In the sheriff's car. Hand·held travelling shot. There is a chase. There are four in the sheriff's car • Fender,
Mastersinger, Gopel and Stringley. Mastersinger is driving. He has his photographic equipment with him.
FENDER
Move this thing faster,
MASTERSLINGER
Stop fretting. She'll be back before eight - she's got a broth on.
They approach a small community where there is a great plume of smoke and flames licking out of a petrol
station. Mastersinger brakes sharply,
•
FENDER
What the hell are you stopping for? They've got my wife.
MASTERSLINGER
I can't miss this - I haven't snapped a petrol fire for six months.
FENDER
Jesus - a breakout, a kidnap and you're watching fires.
MASTERSLINGER
•
56
A fire's greater on the Richter scale than any old woman kidnap.
FENDER
Any old woman? ... you watch your tongue Maistersinger
or you'll be any old photographer.
GOPlEY
«.
~ .- You've got to agree a fire's more photogenic.
FENDER
Photogenic my arse.
Kidnapping a married woman - two married women - is State felony!

Episode 2. Section 20. Scene 1. A Tarmaced Highway Running Through the Desert 35mm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
In luper's hired truck.

A second roadside community. Mrs Fender taps Marty on the arm.
MRS FENDER
It's okay sweethearts. Here'li do. Stop the car. I'll thumb a truck back.
My mother's cousin lives on the corner. I could pick up some
wurstzels and corn-jollop for Tommy's breakfast.
Passion gets out of the car to let Mrs Fender out. She lays her hand$ on Passion's breasts.
MRS FENDER
You and yours were a jolt to the system Passion. Made
him stand up no end. I thank you kindly.
As Mrs Fender leaves - waving to some.ane in a house-porch, Passion gets back into the car smiling. As
Knockavelli drives off, Passion turns on the car-radio - spins the dials to find Hill-Billy fiddling music. She turns
the sound up loud.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 21
Episode 2. Section 21. Scene 1: Exterior. Afternoon-Evening. Cherry Orchard Alongside the
Highway
Having left the hot low-lying desert, and driven into the cooler foothills of the mountains, the road passes cherry
orchards. All the trees are covered in dark red cherries in full ripeness and maturity. Many cherri$s have fallen
into the long grass underneath.
Luper and Martino's rented truck is parked off the road in a particularly lush cherry orchard, along$lde a deserted.
group of buildings which appear to be abandoned and are partly hidden from the road by the trees. A stream,
possibly the head of the same stream that Martino bathed in early the previous morning, runs through the
orchard. Luper and Passion and Knockavelli are sitting on the grass, not far from the stream, eating the blood-red
cherries. Their fingers and cheeks are stained with the red cherry-juice. They are like children. It Is a scene of
idyllic security. The camera examines the stream, the grasses beside it, the insect life.

57
Episode 2. Section 21. Scene 2. "Natural History Documentary."
• 3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.

A further excerpt of the natural history film discusses the head of the stream.
COMMENTARY
Within five kilometres, climbing up 2,000 metres, the heat of the
desert lessens by 10 degrees, the trees grow, and grow larger.
Cactus is replaced by pine. The fauna changes with equivalent
rapidity. Insects are larger, fecundity greater.

Episode 2. Section 21. Scene 3. Exterior. Afternoon-Evening. Cherry Orchard 3Smm
CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
The idyllic *scientific' appraisal of the stream is suddenly interrupted, when Knockavelli is suddenly taken with a
stomach gripe.
MARTY
Jesusl
LUPER
What's the matter?
MARTY
My stomach!
PASSION
Too many cherries.
•
MARTY
God! I've got to run.
With Passion and Luper laughing, Knockavelli rushes off some twenty yards into the cover of the trees. Groaning
with pain, with his trousers around his ankles, he squats to relieve himself. Luper shouts after him.
LUPER
It's the water~worm Marty ~ I told you!
Passion puts her hand over Luper's mouth and rolls him into th~ grass, kissing his mouth coated in cherry juice.
She opens his trousers, lifts his shirt and kisses his stomach. He buries his fingers In her hair, and she puts his
penis In her mouth, covering It in cherry juice that looks like blood. A wide shot demonstrates how far apart
Luper and Passion are from Martino. Though it is not over~stated, there could possibly be something significant
in the fact that Martino has moved himself so far away from the lovers,
Absorbed with their private interests, all three do not notice two large cars driving on the road behind the trees.
One passes, the other slows down, stops, reverses and drives off the road and into the grass among the cherry-
trees. The second reverses back down the road and follows the first. pulling up beside it. Both cars are close to
the stream. The cars are heavily laden with roof-racks stacked with suitcases. The camera (always interested in
suitcases) takes a close look at the cases which are copiously labeled with handwritten addresses that give the
complete address of Moab in the Universe. 'Hockmeister, BAR-T Ranch, Clearwater, Moab, Colorado River,
Utah, USA, Earth, The Universe'.
Driving one car is Percy with Lephrenic in the back seat, Driving the other car is Gottschalk, with Horace
Grienner and Tom Otassen in the back seat. All the men are dressed in American Fascist Party uniforms, Percy
• gets out of his car. He is particularly smart in his uniform.

Marty, seeing the cars arrive, gives out a half-hearted shout. Percy rushes over to Marty and kicks him over as
he squats in the grass. Trapped by his trousers and his pain, he cannot, or does not, get up. His large buttocks
moon on the sunlit landscape.
--------,---------------------------------------------- 1---
I
58
Percy strides over to the two semi·naked lovers who are struggling to stand up and adjust their dothing. He aim$
a hefty kick into Luper's body and a mighty swipe across Passion's face that sends her reeling. She screams.
Hampered by his half-dress, Luper has difficulty in staying on his feet. Percy t~kes advantage.
Percy punches Luper. Percy kicks and punches Luper's face until it is quickly a mass of blood, mingling with the
cherry juice. Lephrenic watches dispassionately from the car.
1998. Brooklyn Mus~um, New York.

Cut to the film WATER-WRACKETS being shown at the Luper Symposium - to a section of the film
commentating on riot violence,
i 1934. Moab Desert Utah.

Episode 2. Section 21. Scene 5. Cherry Orchard.
In the cherry orchard, Gottschalk gets out of his car, strides up to Percy and grabs his swinging arm.
Gottschalk's strength and authority are considerable. Pushing the sweating, panting Percy backwards until he
slams his back against the car, Gottschalk turns his back on him and walks back to Luper lying moaning on the
grass, smeared with cherry juice and blood. He stares at him. His tone is laconic
GOnSCHALK
I could make you a bargain. This man is a professional mad dog.
They all believe he killed his sister because he caught her rubbing
herself against that hitching-post they tied you to in the yard.
Sex - any hint or smell or talk or mention of sex·
to this man is the quick fuse to madness.
Percy has skirted round Gottschalk and Luper and grabbed Passion and is slapping her - but noticeably not too
hard. He keeps looking at Lephrenic in the car· as though for approval (or disapproval) of what he is doing.
GOnSCHALK
He is· a little jealous. You may recall his reasons. You are screwing his wife.
LUPER
His wife?
GOnSCHALK
Crazy isn't H? As if you didn't know? But then maybe you didn't.
Percy might have wanted you not to know in order to tempt you so that
he could righteously beat you to a pulp. But forget Percy.
The real devil - the real evil piece of shit· is that man in the car.
Remember his name - Lephrenic. Julius Lephrenic.
Watch him carefully. He is a scar on the landscape,
Luper looks into the back of the car. The shadowy figure of Lephrenic returns his look with a smile.

Cut to the film Water-Wrackets. There is talk on the film's soundtrack of merciless Wracket leaders perpetrating
endless evil.
The lecturer is a diminuative figure in front of the screen. He commentates over the film sound-track..
LUPER LECTURER· MAY JACOBY

59
Perhaps Luper's fascination with the figure of evil was boosted by
• this encounter.
He sought out later to invent a figure of total evil, at the same
time avoiding any of the charisma of evil.

Episode 2. Section 21. Scene 7. Day. Exterior. Cherry Orchard.
Back in the cherry orchard.
GOTTSCHALK
Watch Lephrenic for me. He's going to Europe - Belgium, Holland, Gennany.
Watch him for me and I'll protect you. Then. And now.
Awkwardly, Percy is struggling to pull something out of the boot of the same car that Lephrenic sits in. Luper
turns to talk to Gottschalk and does not see Percy dumping Fender's corpse - the head soaked in blood,the arms
tired to his rifle - into the stream beside the cherry-covered grass in the evening sunlight. We watch the stream
wash away the blood from Fender's face.
Perry is anxious to minimise getting blood on his unifonn. Martino, sitting with his naked buttocks on the grass -
his trousers stills around his ankle - stares, with wide eyes at what Percy is doing. There is something curiously
voyeuristic about Martino's glance - as though he might be enjoying the spectacle - watching the events as
though he was watching a film. We see a close-up of Martino's amazed face - we will see a variation of this
•
Martino close-up quite a few times throughout the film .
LUPER
Alright. It looks like an easy bargain.l may never see you again. Or him.
GOTTSCHALK
I should make it your business to see me again, Or .... the mad dog goes loose.
LUPER
If I make a bargain with you - how do you know I'll honour it?
GOTTSCHALK
I don't. But you'll know.
Luper, in great pain, stiffly gets to his feet. Percy is now dragging a second body out of the trunk of his car - it is
Maistersinger's bloodied corpse tied to his tripod. His eyes have been shot away. His suitcase is thrown out of
the boot - it is open and full of a great many photos - the photos we have been seeing throughout this section.
LUPER
It seems like you're buying up my future. Whereas if I just now have to take a
beating for the present, then my future belongs to no-one.
GOTTSCHALK
Suit yourself. Face the future with a broken neck.
Pulped bollocks. A police-station morgue.
It would be the sad end to a dream. You can only have so many lives.
Taking Luper by the shoulders, Gottschalk turns him around to see what Percy has been doing. Luper blanches
when he sees the corpses. We see Martino's reaction again .
• With reference to the collection of Moab Community photos that Maistersinger took - super-imposed/inserted in a
box - are now two black-and-white photos in the same style - of the head and shoulders of the corpses of Fender
and Maistersinger. Also of the dead bodies of Gobal and Stringly (presumed left dead on the road). Each photo
is complete with the pOlice identity-board with cryptic letters and numbers.
60
In a swift movement Gottschalk drags Luper by the shirt collar and marches him over the ten paces to Percy.
Percy immediately takes a swipe at Luper. And continues to beat him. Luper tries to defend himself but is an
easy target for Percy's insane violence.
PERCY
You dirty little peeper. I'm going to make sure no part of your miserable body
touches a woman again.
Moving further and further away from the Lephrenic car, Percy knocks Luper over, steps on his hand, smashes
his face, punches his chest, thumps his belly. He is about to very obviously kick Luper !n the genitals.
Lephrenic, from inside the car, in a quiet voice, tells Percy to stop.
LEPHRENIC
OK Percy that's enough.
Percy stops - reluctantly - backs away from Luper's body on the ground, grabs Passion and pushes her In the
car. He gets in. Lephrenic tips his hat to Gottschalk and they drive off. Passion screaming.
, Driving away from the cherry-orchard scene, Passion is screaming.
PASSION
You bastard! The only little pleasure I get and you can't provide, and you
Goddam trash all over it. Who the hell do you think you are?
Her shoujing is drowned by the car radio loudly playing hili-billY music as it accelerates.
Gottschalk walks over to the bleeding Luper on the ground.
GOnSCHALK
You could be stupid or you could be... No. You're just stupid.
I'll try once more - if you are not intimidated by the stick perhaps you'd be
interested in the carrot? I have a present for you.
He walks over to his car, opens the trunk and produces a brand new, shiny metal suitcase. He puts it on the
ground next to Luper. It shines brilliantly in the sun.
GOnSCHALK
Take good care of it.
As Luper moves, he moans in pain.-
GOnSCHALK
It could have been a lot worse. His daughter, who got you into this mess,
liked your prick, but it was Lephrenic who got you out of it - he liked your
balls - and we do not just mean in metaphor.
Mormons are very physical - they take an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. And they believe in visions. They all saw you coming out
of the desert leading a white horse and wearing bucket-top
boots. Joseph Smith wore bucket-top boots and he was the only one allowed to ride a
white horse. You are presuming on their history. They are solid Old Testament believers. Like
Jacob and Joseph and Isaac and Noah and Abednego. As regards their woman -
they are ... (he mimics Percy's habit of saying some key words three times) very, very, '
, very .... (a long pause) ... touchy.
" .
61
Gottschalk gets into his car. Luper opens the suitcase - it's full of lush red-black cherries. and underneath, dollar-
•- .
«. .
bills. The juice of the cherries has stained many of the bills bright crimson. Gottschalk leans out of his car-
window.
GOnSCHALK
If you want to stamp out evil- then you're in my pay.
Remember that. Joseph Smith was keen to stamp out evil .
'"' That's just a little home-golng money.
I think you'd better go home. Don't you? Now.
Gottschalk looks towards the bloodied bodies of Fender and Maisteringer on the ground.
A close-up'shows the flies and insects are gathering around the sticky blood.
GOnSCHALK
And then you could consider going to Europe. Don't worry. I'll find you.
We'll all grow to love you in the end.
He drives off.
EPISODE 2
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 22
•
-
A black-and-white film of 1950s Cold War Berlin - during the Allied air-drop of supplies in the walled-up city.
Down a long straight empty street of four storey houses seen in perspective - some eight small children are
drawing with chalk on the street, making large drawings of bombs and soldiers and the numbered squares used
for playing hopscotch.
The sound of bomber planes start to rumble, and a single siren sounds. The children run into houses along the
street, abandoning their games and drawings, leaving lumps of drawing-chalk In the road. There is a low angle
dose-up framing of a lump of chalk which is identical in size and shape to the chalk used by Luper in the Newport
garden when he was a child. The street stretches out in deep perspective behind the piece of chalk.
The US bombers appear in the sky and drop food parcels on the long street. The food parcels are contained in
large suitcases. Twenty suitcases are dropped from a low-flying plane at intervals of twenty yards. Some suitcase
burst open on impact. Some stay ominously shut. Some bounce. One explodes. After they have fallen in long
shot - we see each of them fall again in slow-motion close-up to see the nature of their falling and the nature of
their contents, if and when they burst open.
The close-up images are all numbered with stencilled-letters and times - as though in some exercise to measure
suitcase resilience. As the falling suitcases get closer to camera - the camera backs away down the street.
When all the suitcases have landed and the sound of the planes have receded - people open windows, and
open doors to come out of their houses - they rush into the street, steal the suitcases and return to their houses.
•
The street is empty again save for the lumps of chalk and the chalk drawings.
The incident we have just witnessed is on film projected in the auditorium of the Brooklyn Museum New York,
before some 100 delegates at one of a series of lectures at a Luper symposium. The reflected light from the
black-and-white cinema screen illuminates faces we have already seen as audience members and Luper
lecturers - and there are faces which we will also come to remember at a later date.
62

EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 1
Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Breakfast Time. Antwerp Apartment.
In a Belgian five--storey 19th Century city-house of apartments with an Art Nouveau interior possessing numerous
art nouveau fixtures and fittings, a restless hand·held camera circles a bed in a bedroom with a high ceiling, with
rooms leading off all glimpsed through open doors. A general untidiness clothes on the floor, open books In
M M
inappropriate places. Bright early morning sunlight streaming in across a high mattressed bed with many sheets I
and pillows where a plump 40 year old naked woman - Sophie van Osterhaus is kneeling astride the hips of the
M
I
I:
naked 26-year old: Martino Knockavelli - who is considerably plumper than we last saw him.
Sophie van Osterhaus Is wearing black high heel shoes and small black straw hat with a feather and a veil, five
bright bead-necklaces, several clanging bracelets and many rings. Her lips are small and bright red. Her eyes
sparkling with good humour. The pair are copulating and giggling and eating breakfast all at the same time.
There is a plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs with kippers in thick butter balanced on Martino's chest. On two
silver trays on the carpet are a coffee-pot, cups, silver tureen serving dishes and two bottles of champagne in an
ice bucket.
SOPHIE
Fourteen-stone people should take it slowly.
Sexual activity aids digestion ..
And, as promised, we have to make it last an hour.
MARTINO
It's a challenge I doubt I'm up to.
Or is this some expense-account requirement?
SOPHIE
For you I'll strike off the extras.
63
• As Sophie gently rocks - her generous flesh variously on the move - she is holding a coffee-cup in one hand and
a laden food-fork in the other. She hovers the fork above Martino's mouth, urging him to eat. The atmosphere is
one of honest good humour.
MARTINO
Now I wonder what on earth could they be?
SOPHIE
This breakfast has to be more expensive than I am.
MARTINO
Not if you charge according to body weight.
SOPHIE
Don't tempt me. You couldn't even afford the tip. Eat!
She ladles food into his mouth.

Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 2. Exterior. Day. Breakfast Time. Antwerp Street.
As seen both through the apartment window - and from street-level - across the street, in the bright sunshine, five
members of the local Antwerp fascist organisation - The Red Fox - wearing local fascist party uniforms· are
watching the house-from a car. Inside the car - in the driving seat and the front passenger seat· sit two men
whose identity is ambiguous because of the reflections in the windscreen - but they are the characters Zeloty and
Figura. They are dressed in smart suits - Zeloty in white, Figura in dark grey.

Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 3. Interior. Day. Breakfast Time. Antwerp Apartment.
A restless hand·held camera follows Luper .... in his large bed-sitting room. The 26-year old Tulse Luper has
been typing in bed. The sheets are covered in manuscripts and typescripts. Luper is pulling on his shirt. He
comes out of his room onto a landing. Tucking his shirt-tails into his trousers and putting on his jacket, he crosses
the landing. His shoe·laces are undone, his hair tousled, his tie already around his neck. He shouts across to
the closed door of Martino's room.
LUPER
I'm going to get the papers. Want anything?
SOPHIE
Croissant du choQOlate ." patisserie ". gelatine de sourire
... soupcon de vaseline de Mata Hari ...
Luper runs downstairs· Sophie's voice and laughter trailing behind him. He leaves the house, slams the front
door, runs down the front steps in the sunlight, and sets off down the street. Two of the uniformed fascist
observers leave the car and follow Luper.
The two suited men in the car - Zeloty and Figura - though we still do not see their faces, step symmetrically and
with perfect timing out of the car on either side. The imag~ freezes.
• 1998. Ghent, Belgium.

Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 4. Interior. Day. Ghent OperaHouse Reception Room.
In the elegant 19th century reception-room of the Ghent operahouse an audition is being conducted in 1998 for
the parts of Luper's jailers - Figura and Zeloty. The 28-year old Gunter Zeloty is to look as close as possible to
64
the celebrated photograph of the young Kafka, whilst the 55-year old Stephan Figura _is to look like the
celebrated photographs of the middle-aged Samuel Becket.
Three casting directors are lounging in easy chairs as the auditioning actors appear before them. They have
photos of Kafka and Becket in front of them on a small table. The room is full of mirrors and the Figura-Becket
and Ze/oty-Kafka figures are reflected many times. The auditions happen repeatedly in three stages for seven
pairs of actors, with remarks made off-screen by the casting directors. The whole event is cut very quickly.
1. The actors appear before the casting directors in asingle double-suit, pin-striped and joined at the shoulder,
waist and leg. The casting directors talk off-screen with occasional lines from the auditioning actors.
CASTING DIRECTOR
His hair was longer
CASTING DIRECTOR
He could certainly play the beetle.
CASTING DIRECTOR
He didn't look quite so feeble.
CASTING DIRECTOR
The eyes are right but the height's not good.
ACTOR FOR BECKET/FIGURA

I'm fifty-six and Irish
CASTING DIRECTOR
Looks a little crazy.
ACTOR FOR ZELOTY/KAFKA
My mother slept with Isaac Singer
CASTING DIRECTOR
Tell us a joke.
Kafka never told jokes.
CASTING DIRECTOR
He looks like his brother
2. In their normal clothes - dressed for winter - where their appearance is checked with the celebrated images
of Kafka and Becket - held up in front of them.
CASTING DIRECTOR
Could never be a writer.
ACTOR FOR BECKET/FIGURA
No nude scenes
.CASTING DIRECTOR
Max Brad wouldn't recognise him.
I've been to China and seen the Great Wall.
CASTING DIRECTOR
But can you speak German?
;3. Dressed as St Nicolas and his Black Servant - Figura as St Nicolas and Kafka as the servant.

iEpisode 3. Section 1. Scene 5. Interior. Day. Breakfast Time. Antwerp Apartment.
Staircase and Rooms.
There is a succession of three pairs of actors playing Zeloly and Figura rushing up the wide curving staircase of
the Antwerp house in 1938 - behaving like over-active special agents. They are filmed with a hand-held camera
65
•
that contrasts with the formal framing of the audition sequences. They climb the four flights of stairs quickly and
noisily· and with increasing breathlessness .
From inside Knockavelli's apartment, the door bursts open to reveal the two actors finally cast to play the parts of
Zeloty and Figura for the rest of the project.
FIGURA
PoliceI
Sophie and Martino are violently startled. Sophie immediately regains her composure. She finds her situation
to be no problem· It's not improbable that she has been in the same circumstances before. Martino is too
trapped by Sophie's body to escape or hide or conceal himself. She puts a hand over Martino's mouth to stop
him speaking.
SOPHIE
No you're not· you're Fascist Party Members.
ZELOTY
Same difference.
FIGURA
So where's Luper gone?
SOPHIE
Gone to get me croissant, pretzels, hot chocolate ..
Zeloty and Figura approach the bed • both more than a little awed at the sight of the two naked bodies in such
a position;
•
ZELOTY
Can this have been a threesome?
SOPHIE
Don't be crude.
FIGURA
Where's he sleep?
SOPHIE
Next door.
Zeloty and Figura attempt to part the couple.
ZELOTY
They are like dogs. They won't uncouple.
Stephan Figura comes out of the bathroom with a bowl of cold water. He throws it at the two on the bed into
Sophie's lap. Martino and Sophie shout and squeal and part, and cover themselves with the sheets, spilling
the breakfast across the bed. Gunter Zeloty stares closely at Martino's face.
FIGURA
God· you've got great staying power.
ZELOTY
What do you drink?
FIGURA
You can see what they eat.
• Stephan Figura fingers whipped cream from Martino's chest and licks it.
Imitation.
It's the Depression.

FIGURA
MARTINO
., .'
66
Sophie slams her hand back over Martino's mouth - but it is too late. Hearing Martino's English accent, the
interlopers go into an anti-foreigner routine.
ZELOTY
....-. Foreigners, nationalists, spies ...

FIGURA
... imports, aliens, rubbish ...
Sophie quietly ignores their ranting.
SOPHIE
No - I am Dutch - I speak almost the same language as you do.
My mother was a confectioner.(indicating Martino) He make speak a little
English - but his father was an Italian ice-cream seller. Mussollni is an ally.
With such a sweet-toothed background we are compatible.
Physically and politically, both ways it is a perfect fit - which you
have interrupted.
Sophie does a double-take as she recognises Stephan Figura. She grows in confidence and gets angry _real
or assumed.
SOPHIE
Godll recognise you behind your new short fascist haircut
Stephan Figura. How's your mother?
FIGURA
Shut up!
He slaps her. She gives him a stinging slap back. He winces, his eyes watering.
ZELOTY
When will he be back? (he jerks his thumb to the outside door)
SOPHIE
(defiantly) When he feels like it!
Zeloty and Figura rush into Luper's room and quickly throw it into massive disarray. They make a great mess
very swiftly. They dramatically sweep all the objects off the mantelpiece, they rip the manuscripts off the
, walls, they pull suitcases of manuscripts from under the bed, they ostentatiously throw bundles of manuscripts
into the air, they drag the sheets from the bed .... all to deliberately demonstrate their apparent powers of
entry and search. On the top of a wardrobe, they find a suitcase of 16mm films -loose, in cans, in cardboard
boxes -labelled with the titles -Verti~1 Features, Intervals, A Walk Through H, The Water-Tower, The Water-
Wrackets.
1998. Brooklyn Museum, New York

'Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 6. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition.
,3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR. .
I Boxed into the image of the mayhem in the Belgian 1938 apartment is a Luper-symposium lecturer in 1998 at the
•Brooklyn Museum, New York delivering another Luper lecture. He's a Scotsman of Italian origin named
.Constantino de Ripa. We see de Ripa first in close-up with his identifying tag - though he stands in front of a
large sunlit window and it's difficult to see his features clearly.
FIFTH LUPER LECTURER - CONSTANTINO DE RIPA

We only have Luper's account of what happened on the
morning of the August 23 1938 - for he himself of course was not
there - he relied on what Martino Knockavel/i told him, and
67
Knockavelli was well known to exaggerate ... especially as
•
regards his and other people's relationships with women
We see a wider shot of the lecturer - with a view out of the large window of the Museum Administrator's Office
over-looking Grant Park and on the far horizon - Coney Island. Standing beside de Ripa is a sign-language
expert 'translating' the lecture - his movement balletic against the back-light.
CONSTANTINO DE RIPA
Martino Knockavelli was sometime literary critic for the London
News Chronicle - and his eccentric splenetic reviews frequently
castigated two particular literary discoveries of his - Kafka who he
had read in German - and Becket who he had read in French. He
hated and was frightened by their reductionism. He had been stood up
without a hint of apology by Max Brad, Kafka's publisher in
Prague. And Becket· who he had met at a literary luncheon in
Dublin - had urinated over his shoes in the gentleman's toilet.
The lecturer's sign-language translator graphically Signals the last statement, even to gesticulating a stream of
urine and the image of Martino jumping back from being splashed.
CONSTANTINO DE RIPA
Luper was writing for a living - as unofficial Belgian correspondent on
Natural History for two English newspapers - The Times and the
Manchester Guardian. It was undoubtedly a cover - Belgian Natural
History being neither exotic or especially different from English Natural
I:listory - barring a stork on a steeple or two. Something of what Luper
• knew was going on in Belgium can be gathered from the film made
from his story The Water-Wrackets • an allegory of the rapidly gathering
brutality in Europe.
An excerpt from the film Water-Wrackets - joins all the other information on screen - we have three layers -
Zeloty and Figura trashing Luper's room in Antwerp in 1938 - the lecturer and his sign-language translator in
Brooklyn in 1998· and the 1983 film the Water-Wrackets.
Though the images of the film Water-Wrackets cease - the soundtrack continues over the aftermath of the
trashing of Luper's sunlit room. Whilst Zeloty meticulously scrubs his finger-nails in the wash·basin, sniffing at
the scented soap, and watching his reflection in the wash-basin mirror, Figura sits· overdressed, sweating
and red-faced - on the bed, looking disconsolate and melancholic as though, no longer under-orders, he has
no idea what to do • an automaton awaiting another wind of the key. Behind them in the room, three young
teenage Fascist youths in Belgian Red Fox uniforms are collecting the Luper manuscripts from where they lay
scattered, hopelessly muddled in continuity. They try to tidy the manuscripts into bundles and pack them
neatly into some twenty suitcases. One youth carefully rewinds the unspooled films back onto their 16 mm
spools.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 2

Episode 3. Section 2. Scene 1. Interior. Spring Morning.
Antwerp Central Railway Station.
68
The Antwerp Railway station is one of the grand and prestigious Railway Age building projects of Europe,
boasting extravagant architectural breadth and detail, and incorporating a grand hotel for the convenience of one-
time wealthy travellers who journeyed in style. The hotel and the station main building are an int$rconnected
warren of suites, rooms, offices and corridors.
Luper enters and crosses the station forecourt. He stops momentarily to listen to a man's voice relay the train
arrivals and departures, listing celebrated towns in Northern Europe. It Is the voice of a man we shall know later
as Palmer/on.

Episode 3. Section 2. Scene 2. Interior. Spring Morning. Tannoy Room - Antwerp Central Railway
Station ••
There is an image of Palmeri on sitting in a dark room under a triangular beam of white light, in front of a large
table with train timetables and a microphone in front of him.

Episode 3. Section 2. Scene 3. Interior. Spring Morning.
Antwerp Central Railway Station.
On the sun-lit forecourt of the station, Luper buys his English morning newspapers at a newspaper-kiosk which is
managed by a plump, blind woman who wears pale-blue tinted glasses, has a low neckline to her dress exposing
much cleavage, and has very red-painted lips. She looks flushed" her cheeks hot. Luper calls her Fastidleux-
she is obsessed with the cleanliness of the small change in her money till. Fastidieux· making sucking noises
with her-large red-painted lips - is throwing grain onto the station forecourt for the pigeons who surround the
kiosk. Not far away, the two Fascist-uniformed young men from the car outside Luper's house, are searching the
faces of the station-pedestrians.
LUPER
Good morning Madam Fastidieux.
FASTIDIEUX
Good morning Mister Luper. Clean money? ........ (She holds out her hand)
LUPER -
..... dirty newspapers ... ?
This is a ritual conversation often played out by Fastidieux and Luper.

Luper holds out a handful of small change for her to choose from.
FASTIDIEUX
... only in content..
LUPER
... not in appearance?
Fastidieux holds up Luper's small change to her apparently blind eyes to inspect the coins - she polishes them
with a clean bright yellow cloth. On the kiosk wooden cash-box stands a can of metal-polish. Luper quickly
flicks through the quality English newspapers ..... he's bought The Times and The Manchester Guardian ... to
find his journalistic contributions. In one newspaper his piece is modestly headlined 'The Skipper' and is
accompanied by a small photo of Luper - a photo that would not totally identify his features for definitive police
examination. And in the other newspaper, the modest headline 'The Continental Shoal' - is on the Sports
page and is associated with a line-drawlng of a jumping fish and sub-head-line 'The Flounder'.
Further over on the station concourse, two of the fascist youths we saw in Luper's apartment are unloading
the suitcases of Luper's manuscripts from a car pulled up on the concourse, and are taking them into the
station offices at the back of the ticket-office. LUPER
All newspapers lie ...
FASTIDIEUX
69
•
... including the ones you write for?
Behind the counter and invisible to the public and to Luper is a fascist party member kneeling on the floor.
Fastidieux's skirt has been rucked up to her waist, exposing her underwear that bites tightly into her plump
flesh. The guard has an arm around her waist and a gun poked under her underwear, between the cheeks of
her buttocks.
LUPER
You think so?
FASTIDIEUX
But I like their lies· they're harmless.
Which I am afraid is not a condition of some of the others.
The fascist gunman on the kiosk floor jabs his gun deeper into Fastidieux's body. She stifles a scream that
startles Luper.
FASTIDIEUX
Excuse me Mr Luper - this is nothing at all personal.
But I am forced to have new allegiances.
LUPER
I beg your pardon?
The morning conversational ritual has departed from the normal- Luper looks up at Fastidieux and studies her
face. Fastidieux puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles loudly. Luper is immediately pounced upon by the
two red-haired young men wearing the brown-red uniforms advertising the Belgian Red Fox Fascist Party,
•
who have been wandering the station looking for him. His English newspapers go flying, disturbing the
pigeons pecking at grain that surround the kiosk. One of the Red Fox fascists gathers the newspapers - not
before having set his large foot to dirty Luper's photo in the newspaper.
Behind the kiosk counter, the Red Fox Guard relaxes, putting his nose to the end of the barrel of his pistol and
then licking it. Tears rolls slowly down the cheek of the blind Fastidieux as the Red Fox guard makes a
pronounced love-bite on each of Fastidieux's buttocks. The guard empties the small coins from the till into his
pocket.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 3
Episode 3. Section 3. Scene 1. Interior. Spring Morning. Luper's Bathroom.
Railway Station Hotel.
Luper is thrown into a hotel·suite bathroom in the Antwerp Station Hotel by the Red Fox guards. Then the door is
abruptly slammed and locked.
The bathroom is a tall-ceilinged narrow room - quite large, painted matt white. It's almost empty except for a
large cast-iron white porcelain bath and toilet. Both seem over-adequately furnished with pipes which have also
been painted matt white. The floor is a dark plain lino. Up against one wall, stacked neatly, is a large collection
• of old railway timetables. And some 10 of the suitcases of Luper's manuscripts taken from his apartment are
also stacked neatly by the door, each are bound with a red tape and sealed.
The ceiling has gesso decorations now swabbed over crudely with white paint. The bath is set against the wall
in front of a large frosted sash window which is locked, with the bottom-half stuck fast with repeated white
coats of gloss-paint. The top half of the sash-window is movable but only a few inches. The window· if it
70
could be opened - looks down onto the station. The noise of the station is very apparent - trains, people, the
station Tannoy. There's a bare-bulb electric-light hanging from the ceiling with an on/off cord hanging down to
head-height to be operated by someone sitting in the bath.
Luper examines the room. He swings the on/off light-cord. He turns on the taps - there is hot water enough
for him to retract his hand swiftly from under the tap. He looks at the window, stands on the bath-rim and tries
to open the sash. It only budges a little at the top - a few inches - enough to see the stalion roof outside but
nothing else - not an easy escape-route.
Intercut with Lupe~s activities in the bathroom - is a black-and-white documentary film discussing The Great
Railway Golden Age of Travel with its luxurious Station Hotels. It is a film full of images of grand steam trains
and considerable smoke and steam.
As Luper lays in the bath, Zaloty and Figura burst in. Zeloty holds a ciip-board and pencil. They don't see Luper
- he's hidden in the bath. All they see is the swinging light-cord.
They approach the bath, see Luper, and loom over him. Luper makes a move to get out of the bath. They hold
him in. Figura, the Samuel Becket lookalike turns on the cold water taps and wets Luper's shoes.
ZELOTY
Name.
LUPER
Tulse Luper
ZELOTY
Age.
LUPER
26.
-
Episode 3. Section 3. Scene 2. Interior. Spring Morning. Railway Station.
In anticipation of the arrival of the next two new characters - the auditions for the actors to play those parts Is now
• introduced· short shots of the auditioning of an actor to play Van Hoylen, and an actor to play Palmerion ...
, intercut into the following interrogation squence.
The situation for Van Hoyten's part is on a railway platform where the five hopeful actors are dressed in a
Belgian station master's uniform of 1938, and are asked to blow loudly on a station;,maste~s whistle, and say
the lines:
ACTORS AUDITIONING VAN HOYTEN

Good morning Mr Luper. I am the station-master.
·.... and Palmerion where the uniform is of a dentist in a white coat standing behind a dentist's chair where a
·patient is having his teeth examined. The actors auditioning for Palmerion have been encouraged to be rough
·with "the patie", and to say the lines:
ACTORS AUDITIONING PALMERION

Good morning Mr Luper. I am the dentist.

,Episode 3. Section 3. Scene 3. Interior. Spring Morning. Bathroom.
;Railway Station Hotel.
tn the bathroom where Luper is a prisoner.
ZELOTY
Height.
. .
71
LUPER
Lying down? (he indicates his supine position). Standing up I'm six foot.
ZELOTY
Weight.
LUPER
Wet or dry?
FIGURA
Smart talker.
ZELOTY
What do you know?
LUPER
What do you want to know?
ZELOTY
Everything.
LUPER
Where shall I start? Genesis?
Zeloty and Figura bustle about being torturers. They grab Luper.
LUPER
This is a bit excessive Isn't it - just so I'll tell you the story of the Creation?
They start to cut out his shirt~front with a pair of scissors, then tear the shirt and then flap it over his head,
covering his face and eyes .
• And then there was Night!
They turn the cold tap full on.

LUPER
LUPER
And He separated the land from the sea!
They soak his shirt with cold water.
LUPER
All this - and we haven't got to the Flood yet!
Luper struggles desperately, gasping for breath, bursting a blood vessel in his nose. Blood covers his shirt
and floods into the bath. Zeloty and Figura are cynically sadistic. The cotton shirt clings to his face and
mouth. Luper struggles for breath. They release him.
LUPER
I've obviously be expelled from the Garden.
They slap him. He punches back. But he's trapped in the bath and it's difficult to strike out. He lands a serious
blow on Zeloty's chest which winds Zeloty. The bathroom door opens and the actors finally chosen to play Van
Hoyten and Palmerion enter the room.
•
Zeloty and Figura stand back, a little ashamed at their own enthusiasms. Van Hoylen is the Station-Master, a
bureaucrat, stout. officious, but when pressed, not unaware of the figure he cuts. He is smartly dressed in a
station maste(s uniform with considerable braid and good-service medals. He wears a Red Fox Fascist
armband. He carries several English newspapers under his arm. Van Hoylen is curiously leamed and
knowledgeable, invents neologisms with flair and thoroughly enjoys his position. Palmerion is thin and wiry and a
dandy in an expensive three-piece suit. He is the Station~Medical man - a doctor and a dentist. He too wears a
Red Fox Fascist armband.
72
VAN HOYTEN
Good morning Mr Luper.
LUPER
Good morning. Who are you?
VAN HOYTEN
I am the station master and also chief commissioner
of the Antwerp National Socialist Confederation.
This is my adjutant, Jan Palmerion. He is the Station Doctor ...
PALMERI ON
.. and dentist. Good morning.
Palmerion bows slightly, and takes out a stethoscope from an inside jacket pocket. He indicates that Luper
should stand up. Luper - in his torn shirt and soaked trousers, stands up in the bath.
LUPER
Why am I arrested?
VAN HOYTEN
Not arrested - merely detained. A temporary arrangement. (waving his
hand around the bathroom). You can see how temporary. We just need a
few days - perhaps longer - who knows - to investigate - your
friends, your contacts, your manuscripts ...
ZELOTY
... what you eat ...
PALMERI ON
... how you breathe.
FIGURA
.. what you look at out of your bedroom window.
Van Hoyten is a little surprised at this list of invented reasons.
VAN HOYTEN
That sort of thing. Irrevementallncidentals. Don't be concerned - at the
present moment - all journalists are detained.
Palmerion puts his stethoscope to Luper's chest.
PALMERION
Breathe in.
ZELOTY
All aliens are detained.
PALMERION
Breath out.
FIGURA
All English are detained.
PALMERION
Please turn around.
ZELOTY
A journalist. (prodding him in the belly)
FIGURA
An alien.
ZELOTY
And English. You perfectly fit all three categories.
VAN HOYTEN
Thank you Zeloty.
73
'.
Palmerion puts his stethoscope to Luper's back. Van Hoyten indicates Luper's suitcases on the floor by the
door to Zeloty and Figura.
VAN HOYTEN
Why don't you- take some more of Mr Luper's manuscripts to Frau
Colpitts?
Zeloty and Figura reluctantly do as they have been ordered, and for the rest of the scene they come and go,
canying the cases, lingering where possible to observe events with Luper. All the time, the bathroom door is
left open - Luper keeps glancing at the open door, thinking of escape. Van Hoyten turns to Luper.
VAN HOYTEN
We have a talented English-speaking stenographer who
types most eloquently.
Van Hoyten makes elegant typist gestures across imaginary keyboards.
VAN HOYTEN
You will be in very safe hands. Nothing will be left out. Nothing missed.
Incriminations will incriminate. Subjectivities will subjugate.
And then we will see.
Van Hoyten flourishes the English newspapers.
VAN HOYTEN
•
You write under an alias, a nom de plume, a nom de guerre?
A pseudonymity? Flounder, flipper, skipper - what are all these aliases?
PALMERION
Please open your mouth.
lI,lper does as he is told. Palmerion takes a small torch from his pocket and looks into his mouth. Luper tries
to talk with Palmerion looking at his teeth and tonsils.
LUPER
Flounder when I write about fish.
Skipper when I write about butterflies.
PALMERI ON
Please cough.
Luper coughs.
VAN HOYTEN
A veritable natural historian.
PALMERION
Please take off the rest of your clothes.
VAN HOYTEN
But you don't really write about the birds and the
bees do you?
Luper takes off his soaked clothes
VAN HOYTEN
When the English write about Natural History, it is always a cover for
something else - isn't that so? Illicit sexual matters mainly - but also a little
shop-keeping and a little politics and the general state of their bank
74
account. Sometimes even the business of death. I have always enjoyed

this English habit. it trains you to think of at least two things at once.
Zeloty and Figura are back for more suitcases. They linger, watching Luper take off his underclothes as he
stands in the bath under Palmerion's medical inspection.
VAN HOYTEN
Gilbert White pretended to examine the migrating habits of swallows as a
cover for his own migration of Faith. Wordsworth discussing vulvular
daffodils to mask his lechery for his sister. William Blake worrying about
his reputation as a caged robin, Keats pretending he didn't have
pulmonary tuberculosis by writing gaily of autumn gnats?
Luper stands naked in the bath, smiling at Van Hoyten's knowledge of English literature.
PALMERION
Please cough.
Luper coughs. Van Hoyten stares hard at Zeloty and Figura who stand holding suitcases. They take the hint
and leave.
VAN HOYTEN
When you write about buoys and sandbanks ... Shoals and lighthouses ..
are you making an elaborate cover for something else? Are you sending
signals?
PALMERION
Cough again.
Luper coughs.
VAN HOYTEN
Are you sending codes, Mr Luper? Making observations for the enemy?
Palmerion puts a thermometer into Luper's mouth.
LUPER
Enemy? What enemy?
Luper mumbles around the thermometer stuck in his mouth.
VAN HOYTEN
How can I conduct a serious interview if you fill
his mouth with medical instruments?
PALMERION
Very well. Please tum around and bend over.
VAN HOYTEN
You were seen with binoculars on the coast.
, Luper does as Palmerion asks. He answers from a bent-over position with Palmeri on greasing the
thermometer from a phial.
LUPER
I have been seen in many places with binoculars.
, Palmerion places the thermometer in Luper's rectum. Van Hoyten produces photographs - which he holds out
- waiting for Luper to turn around and look. It seems that Van Hoyten is holding out the photos to the
thermometer sticking out of Luper's backside.
75
•
VAN HOYTEN
I know and admire English eccentricities, Mr Luper.
But you were seen swimming naked in the North Sea in
November. In Belgium this is not normally seen as the activity of a sane
man - but perhaps the -activity of a spy.
Luper straightens up and turns around. Palmerion is counting the seconds on his watch to take Luper's
temperature.
LUPER
You think swimming naked and spying go together?
Luper looks at the photos - they could be of anyone. A telephoto-lens has caught a naked man swimming in
rough seas· and a man walking a dark windswept cliff looking through binoculars. These photos are placed
into a box on the screen.
LUPER
Difficult to prove it's me - I'd think· don't you? But if you insist
• here (he holds up one photo) I could be practising the butterfly-stroke
and here (he holds up another photo) I could have been bird~
watching. In both cases· I was obviously in character as a Naturalist.
VAN HOYTEN
At Night?
LUPER
Owls.
•
PALMERION
Owls?
LUPER
Did you know that the Belgian Bam owl has taken to nesting in ships· and
the Belgian Little owl goes fishing? Even the wildlife are starting to object
to what is happening inland.
Luper's undiminished spirit against an intimate examination of his person in public and against cross-
examination on the serious charge of spying - breaks Van Hoyten's bureaucratic seriousness. He smiles,
impressed at such resilience and replies with irony.
VAN HOYTEN
So what? Birds in Belgium have always needed little encouragement to act
unnaturally.
Luper takes the thermometer out of his backside.
PALMERION
(looking at his watch) Too soon!
Luper holds the thermometer up to the light - he examines its reading, Zeloty and Figura have returned for the
last suitcases.
LUPER
(reading temperature) Too soon? In the circumstances
I don't think so. Exactly 92. A low temperature for the human
body but things are heating up. They are gOing to get hotter and
then all our arses are in danger. Do you know what 92 stands for?
Close-up of thermometer reading.

• "
•
76
LUPER
It's the atomic number of uranium. Do you know what uranium is? I'll tell
you what I was doing. I was looking for uranium off the coast of Belgium.
His audience of Van Hoyten, Palmerion, Zeloty and Figura are nonplussed. They don't know what Luper is
«....... talking about.
~
:.. ..
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 4

Episode 3. Section 4. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Railway Station Waiting-Room ..
Late on a warm summer night, a beautiful, black-haired, wet-lipped woman in her mid thirties, sits. behind a
typewriter placed on a large table at one end of a large echoic empty waiting-room of Antwerp Railway Station.
She is typing out Luper's manuscripts. She sits upright and the large table is loaded with files. Behind her is a
large framed Railway Art Deco poster. We watch her typing for a few moments and then the camera tracks on
down the long table to see a second woman - dressed identically to the first and occupied in the same way, with
an Identical framed Railway Poster on the wall behind her. When the camera has contemplated this second
woman for a few moments, it moves on again to see a third woman - again identically dressed, and surrounded
by files and backed by the poster.
We are auditioning actresses for a new part - that of Cissie Colpitts - Luper's eventual lover. In total - we watch
six women candidates and then the camera tracks back to stop in fror'lt of the fourth in line· to watch the actress
who has been chosen. Immediately it is realised that this is the actress chosen - two secretaries and two station
porters - all in 1938 uniform appear from left and right of camera, and place before this chosen actress, two more
typewriters, and more files, including named files relating to Tulse Luper, marked bureaucratically with dates and
nameS - NEWPORT, SWANSEA, CAMBRIDGE, MOAB, LONDON, WARDOUR, GLASBURY, PARIS, BRUGES,
ANTWERP.
There is a collection of index cards with places and dates, marking out Luper's life so far:
NEWPORT 1912-1926 0-14

SWANSEA 1926-1931 15-20
CAMBRIDGE 1931-1933 20-22
MOAB Summer 1934 22 • -I
LONDON Autumn 1934 22
WARDOUR 1934-1935 23
GLASBURY 1935-1935 24
PARIS 1935-1936 24
BRUGES Spring 1936 25
GHENT Summer 1937 26
ANTWERP 1938 27
This list marks out eight years of Luper's writing life from his student days in Swansea, Cambridge and London
to his travels in Utah and Europe and his ear1y journalist days in Belgium. There is evidence that Luper wrote on
every sort of paper that was to hand - white, off-white, pink, yellow, graphed. lined, brown, buff, the backs of
envelopes, on special headed hotel note-paper, in children's exercise-books. The typist's 'musical' type-writing
'sings' in the echoic spaces of the room which - further revealed with a long shot - has more Art-Oeco-style
posters of rushing, speeding express-locomotives on its wide open walls. Behind the sound of the rhythmic
'musical' typing· is a suggestion of the sounds of speeding steam locomotives. She is the soloistin a musical
type-writing 'orchestra'.
77
Behind her is projected a Black and White German Propaganda Film of Typing-Pool: A German
•
documentary film shows some thirty typists in an office typing-pool typing in time to German patriotic music on a
gramophone-record.

Episode 3. Section 4. Scene 2. Interior. Luper's Bathroom. Spring Morning.
On the same warm night, in his hotel bathroom, Luper prepares to sleep in the bath. He shreds the pink pages of -
the train time-tables that have been stacked against one wall, bedding the paper shreds down to make a
comfortable mattress in the bath. In the distance· the music from the 'orchestral·typing pool' can still be heard·
soft and echoic.

Episode 3. Section 4 Scene 3 Interior. Spring Morning. Waiting-Room.
Engrossed in the typing of Luper's manuscripts Cissie Colpitts becomes fascinated by the manuscripts she is
transcribing. She reads and re·reads a section of manuscript.
Gunter Zeloty and Stephan Figura stagger into the room carrying more heavy suitcases bursting wKh more Tulse
Luper manuscripts. -Colpitts looks up.
ZELOTY
Here are some more English scribblings Frau Colpitts .
• FIGURA
Don't forget we love you dearly, Frau Colpitts, and we sympathise that your
delicate fingers should have to waste their energies on such alien filth.
COLPITIS
Why thank you Stephan and give my regards to your wife and all the little
Figuras· however many there now may be.
With mock courtesy· deliberately fUlfilling stereotypical gender roles· Figura and Colpitts playa game they have
played before. Figura blows Colpitts a kiss. She blows one back, and goes on typing the manuscripts. The two
men leave, whistling the same song as accompanied the typing·pool, Zeloty looking over his shoulder w~h some
lechery. Figura is harmless. Zeloty Is dangerous.

Episode 3. Section 4. Scene 2. Interior. Luper's Bathroom. Spring Morning.
Luper is fast asleep in his clothes on the shredded time·tables in the large porcelain bath. Light from the station·
roof outside the frosted window stripes his body. Very distantly, the music from the German propaganda typing
film still drifts into the room .
•
78
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 5

Episode 3. Section 5. Scene 1. Interior. Spring Morning. Station-Master's Office.
Van Hoyten has a large impressive office of which he is proud. It is dominated by three large heavy desks
placed in a row across the length of the room, each fitted with green-glass-shaded desk-lamps and various brass
fittings - pen-holders and letter-racks. There are ten hard backed wooden office-chairs, four large green-leather
upholstered swivel chairs, two green-leather, brass-buttoned Chesterfield sofas, wall-racks of brass-trimmed
shelves crammed full of ledgers alphabetically indexed. There is a glass-case with a model locomotive. There is
awall of expensive-looking clocks showing different times in some ten European capitals. There is a wall of
regimented coat-hooks holding smart caps, hats, walking-sticks, umbrellas, the occasional coat. There is a
16mm film projector - impressive with brass fittings standing high on a stand - and across the room, above a
fireplace a large white projector screen. The ceiling is strung with efficient brass-fitted lighting. Sun-light comes
in from the street on one side, and from the station forecourt on the other. There are neat stacks of time-tables
and station-literature in various places. The office is a place of well-ordered efficiency and some style. It has an
overall colour scheme of brown, green and brass-gold.
It is also a Fascist HQ and meeting place. Some twenty smartly-turned out, young, red-haired Fascist Youth
belonging to the Belgian Red Fox National Socialists - at least half of whom have natural red·haired moustaches
and some of whom have obviously dyed their moustaches red. They are rehearsing their anthem· a song that
owes more to political fervour than it does to good sense. It seems like a Nursery Song elevated to a patriotiC
anthem. ::rhe youths are standing at attention in a four by five figuration in the centre of the office, assembled in
and around the furniture. They are back-lit from the street sunshine. They are keen and eager.
Van Hoyten has brought Luper into the office to impress him. Luper sits between his two jailers, Z$loty and
Figura, on one of the Chesterfields· all three sit like children watChing a Punch and Judy Show. Luper has
handcuffs on his wrist and ankles.
Van Hoyten, the proud leader of the local Antwerp cadet choir, conducts the singing cadets in time to a brass
band playing on a wind-up gramophone. He has brought in a photographer with a flash-bulb camera to record
the cadet-core for the national newspaper.
Palmerion, in Fascist Party uniform, sits at a side-desk with a note-pad and pen in front of him and a suitcase
of neatly packed glass corked bottles of a clear liquid, each bottle identically labelled. The liquid isa bit of a
mystery, perhaps its pure alcohol, perhaps a patented elixir, perhaps a medicine. It could even be a cleaning
, fluid or a purified petrol.
CHORUS
The Red Fox is the farmyard scourge.
Keeping the chickens in order.
Reynard is his name, Reynard is his name.
The banality of the lyrics is irrelevant to the political fervour with which they are sung.
Van Hoyten turns aside whilst he is still conducting - shout to Luper over the singing.
VAN HOYTEN
As you can see - at this time· I have many duties
in running this happy, sun·filled terminus.
Zeloty taps his fingers in time to the music. Figura nods his head. Luper is very quietly amused by the
sentimentality of the occasion. The cadet force continue to sing.
79
CHORUS
• Our farm is a model of agriculture.

No strutting cockerels wake the sleeping sheep,
Till the fox has passed this way.
Reynard. Reynard. Reyriard.
Van Hoyten; with urgent nods of his head, indicates to the photographer that he should take a photo of Luper
and his companions on the Chesterfield. Before the singing is finished, the photographer does 50 • Luper
flinching at both the bright flash·bulb and the indignity of being photographed at a fascist sing·song. Van
Hoyten brings the chorus to the finish.
VAN HOYTEN
Excellent. At ease.
The contingent fall at ease.
VAN HOYTEN
We meet the twenty·thirty-one express from Berlin.
Platform Eight. Carriage five. Dismiss.
The cadets smartly swivel forty-five degrees and disperse through the office furniture and out through the
street doors. On their way out they pass by Palmerion • who getting them to sign their names in a pink-paged
receipt-book - gives them a bottle of the clear-liquid out of the suitcase on the desk in front of him.
VAN HOYTEN
•
Capital efficiency. Head and heart. The body throbs with
excitement to be alive at this time. I have 24 passenger trains a
day running due East - 18 trains exactly on time into Germany, six
trains to Berlin - straight into the rising sun. Think of that.
Van Hoyten takes off his station-master's uniform jacket and re-fits his fascist Red Fox arm-band on the
sleeve of his white shirt, alongside his gold elasticated arm-bands that keep his long cuffs from falling over his
wrists. He fastidiously hangs up his jacket· brushing invisible dust from its lapels.
VAN HOYTEN
And 26 passenger-trains coming back - straight as a die into the
sunset. I imagine. indeed I know· that there are exciting plans
afoot to hopefully one day extend that westward route - who
knows - we may soon be able to take a train straight from Berlin
to London. Think of that.
LUPER
The English have too much sense to permit rabid Red Foxes to come
blundering into Dover via a tunnel under the North Sea.
VAN HOYTEN
Now we know you are a naturalist ...
Van Hoyten frowns and chooses to pursue his line of thinking. He sits down at his imposing desk. A junior
station-clerk places a thin file of Luper's papers in front of Van Hoyten entitled 'Tulse Henry Purcel Luper' in
large capital letters.
'. and a half of the stuff.

VAN HOYTEN
(to the clerk) Is this all? I though we had confiscated over a ton
CLERK
This is all we have had translated so far - it will take time. A long time.
80
When van Hoyten opens the file it is full of English newspaper articles neatly scissored-out, and various
manuscript pages in Lupe~s hand - sorted into smaller files marked in Flemish - Ornithology, Fiction,
Architecture, Children, Welshmen, Louis XIV, Horse-Fleas, Lavatory Habits, Sand, Navigation ... and several
photographs of Luper. Van Hoyten, flicking through the files, loses some of his conversational grip, as he
reads occasional phrases from the manuscripts in front of him, but continues to rhapsodise about his job.
VAN HOYTEN
I have 26 trains running south, 18 of them passing through Paris.
'The story of the architect pushed from the roof of the building
he has just completed is not uncommon. '
Plus a variable time-table of goods-trains - coal-wagons and cattle-trucks .
.Welshmen are supposed to conform to five characteristics. Alcohol, singing,
sentimentality, sexual philistinism, self-education.
A great many cattle-trucks. (he taps his nose).Up to 194 trains a day.
'It's a curious fact that even left-handed people wipe their backside with their
right hand. '
All on time. Every day. My station is a clock. I am the hour-hand.
Palmerion is the minute·hand. God could time his Universe by my station-
clock. I am sure you admire good timing, Mr Luper. We all admire good
timing. As a special reward for admiring good timing, I permit my
employees the privilege of bp.ing station-announcer. An honour permitted
to the very few. Perhaps one day, when we become firm friends, you could be
a
accorded such privilege. You have a firm voice and an enjoyment of
words and an admiration of good writing. And you can see I too am a man of words.
(he indicates his ledger-filled office) Our writings do not exactly fulfil the same c"iteria as
yours, but since I know that there is scarcely a subject that you do not have
a written opinion on - you could stretch a point and say that they overlap.
And since you're a writer, Mister Luper, I know that you could write for me. Natural History
stories.
With double meanings. I'd like that.
Exhilarated by his own self·esteem, Van Hoyten becomes confidential and familiar.
VAN HOYTEN
Or short erotic stories· typically English stories - about children and dogs
- please keep them very sentimental. I'm childless - possibly impotent -
though I haven't tried often enough to be absolutely certain. (he laughs)
ZELOTY
(eagerly and ingratiatingly) But I could write for you, Herr van Hoyten.
Zeloty looks over Van Hoyten's shoulder at the titles of Lupe~s files. leloty is the guard who looks like Kafka.
ZELOTY
Insects and the Great Wall of China· that sort of thing. (pointing to Figura)
Even he could write for you. What could you write about, Stephan?
FIGURA
I could write about religious matters - God. I've got a lot of slow words ...
VAN HOYTEN
Zeloty, you're supposed to be a man of action - and Figura -
there's no sentimentality in you Figura - no sentimentality at all.
You've got too many children. (to Luper) Think about it Luper - the pay'll
be in horse steaks and Camembert· not bad for a third class prisoner
under bathroom arrest. (to Zeloty) We should fit Mr Luper up with a
uniform. (to Luper) For public photographs, Mr Luper, you understand.
Here, take my own personal arm-band, embroidered by prisoners
. .
81
in the Antwerp Penitentionary. Don't worry - they weren't dangerous.
•
«......
~
Just the debtors. Debtors make good embroiderers .
Van Hoyten, as a great honour to Luper, takes off his armband and lays it on Luper's knee. The slightest of
smiles flickers across Luper'S face· he is amazed at the danger and the silliness of it all- local Fascism
sentimentally flexing its muscle.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 6

Episode 3. Section 6. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Railway Station Hotel Corridor..
A hand-held camera rapidly tracks backwards along a station-hotel corridor preceding Zeloty and Figura who are
hurrying to Luper's 'bathroom-jail' with a tailor's dummy on wheels that is partly dressed in a new Red Fox fascist
uniform, and wrapped around with tape-measures and stuck with pins. There is a large window at the end of the
corridor that looks over the station. Sunlight from this window back-lights the two jailers and the dummy. The
head of the dummy has bee painted red. The corridor outside the bathroom where Luper is being held under
'bathroom·arrest' is crowded with a mixture of potential passengers - three working-class families (5 adults and 6
children) who have somehow been misdirected with their luggage of packed brown-paper parcels and canvas-
•
bags· and two middle-class families (4 adults and 3 children) with two porters carrying their five smart suitcases
to a hotel-suite. The corridor also has some 20 miscellaneous suitcases temporarily placed there. Zeloty and
Figura bully their way through these lost passengers, knocking over the children, kicking the luggage, pushing
the porters.

Episode 3. Section 6. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Bathroom. Railway Station Hotel.
Luper has begun to write on his prison-wallpaper, standing on the bath-rim to start by the window high up near
the picture-rail. Although it will be some time before a full idea of what Luper is writing is fully realised, it is a long
story, a picaresque saga, concerning a man who walks out of the sea to explore a continent of gradually
unfolding exotic landscape, flora and fauna, all intimately related in a grand ecological system as complex and as
interdependent as our own, but all - as will be seen - ultimately existing to serve the man who walks out of the
sea. The title keeps changing. In the Antwerp bathroom, it will variously be called The Quadruple Fruit or A
Walk Through H or The Human Garden.
The novel begins like this:
"A man walked out to sea. Up a very slowly slanting beach of fine sand. He walked half a mile before his
calves were free of water, and another quarter of a mile be'fore his toes were uncovered. The first footprints
he made quickly dissolved in the last dribblings of the shallow tide. It was a mile before a print he made
stayed firm. glistening on the damp sand under the bright sky ..... •
•
The wall for writing in the Luper Hotel Bathroom is a back-projection wall with Luper's handwriting magically
projected either white on black or black on white or variously coloured within one paragraph. Since at a later
stage, the 'wallpaper' will be carefully removed as a Luper memento - the writing also has to be made
manifest as handwriting on white paper with black ink.
82
Zeloty and Figura burst into the room with the dummy. Suitcases they have knocked over in the corridor jam
the bathroom door open. Luper can see the people and suitcases in the corridor. Whilst Zeloty and Figura's
obsessive attention is focused on the dummy, Luper makes a dash for the door. He manages to get as far as
the corridor, but is hindered by the passengers and luggage. Zeloty and Figura make a dive for him and there
is a melee of jailers, passengers and Luper sprawling on the floor. Suitcases have burst open - one containing
some 30 bottles of French perfume in elegant spray-top bottles with white.paper labels saying PARIS FLEUR
in farge elegant letters, another containing scarlet female underwear - very similar to Passion's underwear in
the Moab desert, a third contains earth and dust and ashes - possibly small pieces of crushed bone. it could
i be the cremated ashes of several people. And a fourth contains 60 watt light-bulbs - each packed carefully in
white tissue paper. The camera briefly examines the contents of each suitcase in tum.
Luper is surprised and fascinated by the contents of all four suitcases and he searchingly looks at the
passengers for explanations. Zeloty and Figura drag Luper into the bathroom - leaving the passengers staring
back as though guilty of some crime of international contraband.
Zeloty and Figura throw Luper against the wall opposite the bath. They crowd in on him, bringing the dummy
with them.
ZELOTY
Jesus Christ - making a dash for it like that is not a good idea
Luper - consider the publicity - "Frightened Englishman runs amok"
Is that the sort of newspaper article you'd want to appear in?
FIGURA
Most Belgians want to live in Paris and those that
don't would like to live in London - don't spoil it for tfilem.
ZELOTY
That's why Van Hoyten wants you to wear a uniform - look Belgian.
FIGURA
You have just the body to wear a uniform.
ZELOTY
Like a column - undifferentiated.
FIGURA
And you should grow a moustache. Like all our cadets. A red one.
Figura takes a knife from his pocket and swiftly makes a horizontal slit above Luper's mouth - blood spreads
at once into a red moustache. Zeloty looks aghast.
ZELOTY
What the hell!
. FIGURA
(by casual way of explanation) He shouldn't try to escapel
ZELOTY
You stupid idiot! Get a cloth! Find a bandage! Stop the blood!
Zeloty takes a handkerchief from Figura's top-pocket and tries to staunch Luper's bleeding face. Figura sits on
the bath-rim and, turning on the tap, calmly washes the blood off his knife.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 7

, Episode 3. Section 7. Scene 1. Interior. Evening. Railway Station. Platform 8.
I 35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
83
Platform 8 of the Antwerp Railway Station is decked out with Red Fox flags and bunting. The Red Fox Fascist
Youth Contingent are standing at attention on the platform, watched by a crowd of travellers. A train has just
come in on the platform adjacent to platform 8, and a passenger" a smartly dressed man opens the door too
soon - before the train has come to a stop. The cadet soldiers leap out of the way. The man falls onto the
platform and is dragged along his foot caught in the door. His torn coat covered is dirt and grease. There is
blood on his hand. The train stops. Van Hoyten, dressed in his full Red Fox fascist uniform, goes over to
investigate. A porter, surrounded by a small crowd of sympathetic passengers, and fearful of Van Hoyten,
explains.
PORTER .
He fell off the train - trying to get off before it stopped.
Van Hoyten is furious. Regardless of the feelings of the man on the platform, he shouts at him.
VAN HOYTEN
What on earth did you think you are doing? This train has to
leave here at 19.31 precisely. Your selfishness will have made it
40 seconds late. What will happen at Dusseldorf? What will happen at Frankfort?
What will our German friends say in Stuttgart when a Belgian
locomotive arrives there two minutes late?!
For the first time, the wounded man turns his head towards Van Hoyten. The man looks almost exactly like
Tulse Luper. He is played by one of the actors who were turned down at the audition for the part of Luper.
VAN HOYTEN
•
My God Luper? What the Hell are you ...
Van Hoyten looks more closely at the wounded man. The man looks white and frightened and nonplussed at
Van Hoyten's reaction. Van Hoyten recovers himself and his anger. A train comes in on Platform 8. There is
a movement among the platform passengers and clouds of steam from under the carriages.
WOUNDED MAN
I'm sorry. I am a regular traveller.
I never expected to find your guards here.
VAN HOYTEN
My guards? They are your guards too! Get up at once and come and see
me in my office. At once. Take the names of all these witnesses.
Van Hoyten raises his hand and conducts the cadet chorus in their anthem - the anthem they rehearsed in his
office.

Episode 3. Section 7. Scene 2. Interior. Evening. Bathroom. Railway Station Hotel.
Luper's Hotel Bathroom: In his locked bathroom-prison, Luper, with a large blood-stained towel held to his
upper lip, is standing on the bath-rim. He has managed to lower the top sash-window sufficiently to look down on
a restricted section of the station - onto platform 8. He has seen the incident on the platform. As he watches,
Luper sees a small contingent of five passengers - three men and two women - walk down the platform from the
top end of the newly arrived train. All apart from one young woman are dressed in American Fascist Party
• uniforms. Two of the men are recognisable - Julian Lephrenic and Percy Hockmeister. The woman is civilian
dress is Passion.

Episode 3. Section 7. Scene 3. Interior. Evening. Railway Station. Platform 8.
84
Passion, extravagantly and sexily dressed for travelling, is the self-conscious centre of a" eyes. She reciprocates
by walking to exaggerate her hips. Nonetheless she is in some considerable distress from a toothache. Her face
is puffy, her eyes red, she grips her jaw with a man's white handkerchief.
There is an intercutting between-Passion and her distressed face and Luper and his distressed face. Luper's
face registers surprise, great curiosity and much amusement.
Van Hoyten sees the Americans, and conducts the Cadet choir more vigorously. The anthem is relayed through
the echoing Station Tannoy.

Episode 3. Section 1. Scene 4 Interior. Evening. Bathroom. Railway Station Hotel.
Luper continues to watch from his bathroom viewpoint. He sees the dentist Palmerion talk some soothing words .
to Passion. When the anthem has finished a chorus, Van Hoyten waves them to stop. He greets the Americans.
His words are relayed across the Station Tannoy.
VAN HOYTEN
We welcome our American Mannon brother

Episode 3. Section 7 Scene 5. Interior. Evening. Railway Station. Platform 8.
The Americans and Van Hoyten enthusiastically shake hands - standing well back from one another.
LEPHRENIC
We are delighted to be here in Antwerp. Our greatest regret
is that Homer Gottschalk could not be with us.
Three white-faced, red-haired Red Fox fascist youths Hercule, Pierre and Emile, collect the American's
, luggage which includes several metal suitcases exactly like the one Gottschalk gave Luper. The camera
examines the suitcases - but there is nothing very special about them. Accompanied by the dentist, Passion
. steps ahead of the others to leave the platfonn.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 8

Episode 3. Section 8. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Dentist Surgery in Hotel Suite.
In Palmerion's dentist surgery, in a station hotel-suite, Passion Is seated on the dentist's elaborate chair.
Palmerion is bending over her mouth· probing her teeth and gums. The dentist surgery is unorthodox - the room
is full of dentist equipment but also rows and rows of plaster heads once used for bogus phrenological purposes
but now fitted with experimental face-masks that hover somewhere between oxygen-masks and bondage-masks.
Some are threatening in their construction, devised apparently to shut the wearer off from air. There are also
various paintings stacked in the room and hanging on the walls - including two apparent Vermeers and several
fake Vermeers in the style of Van Meegeren.
PASSION
Jesus For God's sake! Watch what you're dOing!
PALMERION
It's an abscess· I'll have to lance it.
PASSION
85
You what? No injections.
• PALMERION
We'll just put you to sleep for ten minutes.
PASSION
No - I need alt my waking time! We're all too long asleep.
PALMERION
Then how about a little liquid ether?
PASSION
No gas - it makes me sleep for ever.
PALMERION
What would you like me to do then?
PALMERION
(feeling great pain) My God - what have you done?
It's worse than it was - are you are a real dentist? You got any certificates? What's
the state of Belgian teeth?Okay, okay -let me see a clock. If I'm out for more than five minutes
your a dead dentist. And if I've got to wake up completely pain free - do you hear?
Palmerion indicates the large clock on the wall.
PASSION
Jesus! I don't like the smell of gas.
Or dead pus for that matter. Scatter some of this about.
She takes a small bottle of perfume from her handbag.
•
PASSION
I am completely terrified of the smell of gas.
PALMERION
That's a very small and expensive bottle, I can do
better.
He opens a cupboard to show some 30 bottles of perfume lined up on two shelves. identical to those taken
from the passenger outside Luper's bathroom the previous day.
PALMERION
French. Contraband. Imported. Requisitioned from illegal travellers.
He takes down a bottle, unscrews the cap and gets Passion to sniff. She sniffs like a connoisseur.
PASSION
A little pretty. Chuck it about before you turn that stuff on!
Here - give me one.
Whilst Palmerion sprays the air with his perfume-bottle - Passion undoes the cap on hers and flicks and
dribbles the perfume around the surgery. Palmerion busies himself pouring liquid ether on a flannel and
arranging it in a breathing mouth-piece. Apprehensively Passion arranges herself on the chair.
PASSION
I'm watching that clock. Two ticks over the five minutes and
you're a corpse in a messy white dressing-gown!
Palmerion covers Passion's mouth. He looks at the clock. When Passion is still and unconscious, sitting with
the perfume bottle open crooked in her arm, Palmerion goes to the clock and winds the minute hand back ten
minutes. He covers Passion's throat with a white sheet, places swabs and wooden spatulas in her mouth,
I··
. ' . !
86
manoeuvres with a syringe and a scalpel and collects pus on a spatula. Passion's mouth bleeds a little. He
tests her pulse.
Palmerion unbuttons Passion's dress. He exposes her breasts and sprays her nipples with perfume from his
perfume bottle. He pulls Passion's silk underwear down to her knees and sprays her pubic hair and her thighs.
He leans over her half-dressed body and dramatically sniffs in the perfume.
•.-
~ •
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 9

Episode 3. Section 9. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Station Corridor.
Luper - with a large plaster covering his top lip - is being conducted along a station corridor by Zeloty and Figura.
They pass by the waiting-room sealed off for the stenographer Cissie Colpitts to translate and transcribe the
Luper manuscripts. Cissie is at her desk, rolling her head back in laughter at something she is reading in the
manuscripts. We cannot hear her - the window is double-glazed.
Luper and his minders turn a comer to see Passion walking towards her hotel-suite, accompanied by Palmerion,
the dentist. She still has a swollen face and puffy eyes. Passion and Luper glance at one another as strangers
in a public place. Luper recognises her. For a moment Passion does not react. Then she realises who is Luper
is, does a double-take and screams. And faints. She could be faking. But probably not, for her dress is awry,
her underwear visible. Palmerion is at her side, kneeling on the carpet, pulling her skirt down. He keeps looking
from sideJo side as though guilty.
ZELOTY
What's the matter with her?
PALMERION
She's American. She fainted.
ZELOTY
Do they normally go together?
FIGURA
What have you been doing to her, Palmerion?
PALMERION
Toothache.
FIGURA
(idly concerned) Abcess? My wife had an abcess that made her blind for a
month ...
ZELOTY
What's that beautiful smell?
PALMERION
It's her. Do you like it?
ZELOTY
I bet it's the medication.
PALMERION
Oh - and what do you know about dentistry?
FIGURA
Nice knickers.
Zelolyand Figura continue to lead Luper down the corridor. They ostentatiously sniff the air, laughing at
Palmerion.
ZELOTY
Pimp!
87
•
Luper looks straight ahead.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 10

Episode 3. Section 10. Scene 1. Exterior. Night. Antwerp City Street
At night, Palmerion and Percy, dressed in their respactive Belgian and American Fascist uniforms, and carrying
rifles, are out in the Antwerp streets. They are on a street comer in a dark area of town. A complicated
conversation takes place - full of misunderstandings. Percy is intoxicated with his new found power and in
wishing to show off his wife to Palmerion.
PERCY
She's beautiful. Stili only 21. Sweet. Not a blemish on her.
Good German family. Stratzbourg.
PALMERION
It's Strasbourg and the Alsatians are now French.
- PERCY
What?
•
Palmerionstops three male pedestrians. They may be Jewish -one a 15-year old boy, one an old man, one a
middle-aged man. Palmerion speaks in Flemish.
PALMERION
Papers. Documents. Residency permits!
The two man and the boy - not unused to such street-searches· take out their papers. Palmerion examines
the documents. Percy snatches a passport and not understanding the language, tries to force his authority
another way.
PERCY
Trousers!
The men do not understand his language.
PERCY
Trousers? Trousers! Trousers! What the Hell is Flemish for "get
your trousers down"?
PALMERION
'Broeken Neer".
PERCY
'Bruckeneer' Get your smelly trousers down you wop!
Intimidated· the men lower their trousers on the street to prove they are not circumcised. Percy pushes and
jostles them· shining a torch Into their faces and at their genitals. Street-life continues around them as though
• nothing unusual was happening. Street trams pass by. Bicycles pass. Pedestrians step out into the
pavement - simply because Palmerion's activity is an impediment.
PERCY
Passion was brought up in the Utah desert. She has the sweetest
kernel. (to the man) Clean! (he pushes away the old man who
88
struggles to pull up his trousers) She was nut-brown like the

sand. Small but cleanl Get on. Move on. (the boy hobbles off down the
street - his passport in his teeth as he pulls up his trousers)
Roses and peaches and apricots in the desert.
PALMERION
All imported.
PERCY
No? Who are? Really? These are illegal immigrants?
PALMERION
No - the fruit of the desert.
PERCY
(he jostles the third man) Come on I can't wait all day whilst you
fiddle with yourself! I'm a lucky man. She was fed all her life on
American pie. Take your fucking underpants down - you smelly
Belgian Semite. A Mormon woman. I've got the key to the world.
PALMERION
Aren't Mormons allowed more than one wife?
PERCY
Men died early in the desert. Too many women. Not
enough men. Come on - you know how to undo buttons!
PALMERI ON
What about you? Second wife? Third wife?
PERCY
Negotiating, negotiating, negotiating ..
-
The pedestrian, taking advantage of Percy's distraction - suddenly runs off down the street.
PERCY
Hey! Hey come back! Belgian bastard.
Percy cocks his rifle and takes aim. Palmerion knocks his rifle barrel up into the air, as the fugitive ducks into
a doorway and disappears.
PALMERION
Don't shoot. We're standing under the sitting-room window of the Jesuit
seminary - we don't want to embarrass the unembarrassable.
PERCY
You're gOing to let me get away?
PALMERION
He's got away. .
PERCY
(he shouts up the street) Another day, another way!
(he turns back to Palmerion) I met her at the schoolgate.
Waste of time tieing her to her schoolbooks.
Another middle-aged male pedestrian comes down the street. Percy doesn't bother with the papers routine.
PERCY
"Buccaneer!. I said "Buccaneer'-.
PALMERION
(laughing) If you pronounce it that way - it means "a
man with a parrot". (laughing) Which sort of works!
PEDESTRIAN
Try 'trousers' - we all speak English - it's a civilised country.
PERCY
f .
89
Okay· clever dick wiers see the monkey.
• You dirty sod~
It's a fair request.

PEDESTRIAN
With pleasure. Let's see yours.
PERCY
PALMERION
PERCY
Hey· who's side you on. I'm doing the asking.
PALMERION
No· you're doing the shouting. This Is my cousin.
PERCY
Cousin or no cousin "" Okay. Get moving. Get moving.
(to Palmerton) You might have warned me.
PEDESTRIAN
You married?
PERCY
Of course I'm married!
PEDESTRIAN
Don't let your wife know you're enjoying this ...
PERCY
Get lostl I love my wife. Lucky is a man who boards the boat of love.
The pedestrian walks off down the street, laughing out loud. Laughing louder as he walks further away.
• PERCY
What did he mean· 'Am I married?' (he shouts after the pedestrian) I have
wife that's worth a million. (to Palmerion) High chest like a frilly lizard.
beavering in the bush.
PALMERION
Lizards, beavers, bushes ... ?
Beats
a
PERCY
I'm the slippennan. No prisoners taken. She's a queen, a real
right beaverie. You married Palmerion?
PALMERION
No. Aren't the Monnons descended from the tribes of Israel?
PERCY
(ignoring any inference· perhaps not seeing one)
You fancy a poke? I bet you fancy a poke? What do you say· eh
eh? (singing) My Passion's come to stay.
Another male pedestrian. After his equivocal experiences. Percy's not so sure now to tackle this one.
PERCY
Going home to our wife, were we sir? (to Palmerion)
Rings galore on his fingers. Married many times over. Like me.
A new honeymoon everyday.
PALMERION
• She's a lucky woman.

PERCY
(laughing at Palmerion) Hands off, hands off, hands
off pokey! She's not just a lucky woman - I'm a lucky man Chuck.
Chuck?
PALMERION
90
PERCY _
Hey - (Percy opens the man's overcoat with the end of his rifle)
How come all Belgians wear belts and bracers? Gravity's strong in
Flemland, but elastic's stronger. Afraid your money's going to drop on the
pavement. Capitalist comcrakes.
PALMERION
What?
A woman - in her late thirties· walks down the street. She's wearing trousers.
PERCY
Hey· women wearing trousers is an offence on the
street. At night. Let me see your papers.
As the woman searches in her handbag for her papers. Percy burbles on. The woman is somehow familiar.
Her face is in shadow and she wears a hat with a veil.
PERCY
Palmerion - as a favour· I'll show you my wife. Spanish descent.
PALMERION
I thought you said she had a German father.
PERCY
I did. I did. I did. The unmarried are the underprivileged.
Fox and fox again. You'll see. Did you know that wearing trousers
classifies you as a man?
WOMAN
Rubbish! (in Flemish) Who are you? Perverts pretending to be soldiers?
PERCY
What did she say?
PALMERION
She said we were perverts.
PERCY
So who's wearing the trousers then?
Almost unnoticed, a small crowd is gathering in the street - the previously interrogated pedestrian with the
many rings on his fingers stands on the kerb, one or two other people stand in the road. Two more men are
coming along the pavement.
PERCY
Are you a man? If you aren't a man· prove it. Your
passport could be a fake.
Palmerion - seeing the arrival of more pedestrians· is getting anxious.
PALMERION
Percy? I think you've taken this one far enough.
PERCY
Come on Palmerion • what's this uniform for?
They wouldn1 touch us. I want more proof.
The woman throws out her chest, and pulls back her coat, to reveal the shape of her breasts under her
, blouse. The growing crowd of some ten people laugh.
PERCY
They could be fake!
91
The crowd laughs louder. Percy is beginning to shout to keep up his courage .
• PERCY
I think there's only one conclusive proof, don't you
Palmerion? It· means off with the trousers and let's
Helll Come on. Come on. Come on!
see the entrance to
Percy places the gun at the woman's throat. She removes her trousers. She stands in her overcoat, b~ouse,
stockings, petticoat and high.heeled shoes on the pavement. Some twenty people have now gathered and
are coming closer. With his rifle barrel, Percy tries to lift the thigh-length hem of her petticoat. There are
munnurs from the crowd. Percy drops his torch. It rolls on the pavement and a pedestrian darts in and kicks
it away into the curb. Palmerion points his gun at the pedestrian, and shouts - but his voice has no authority.
PALMERI ON
Get back! This is a police check-point. Get your papers out!
PERCY
I can't see a thing! We can't see what you've got to show us!
Come on Flemish bitch - I want the only proof that'll convince me.
Convince us all!
Percy tries to play to the crowd - but fails. Percy pushes the woman backwards into a doorway, and begins to
wrench at her overcoat. Surprisingly - the double-doors swing in and Percy follows the woman inside. There
is a shouting inside and Percy's strident voice.
•
PERCY
Get those fucking clothes off! I want to see Eve's bushy polecat!
Then there is silence. Palmerion is on the pavement on the dark street on his own - menaced by the crowd of
some twenty-five pedestrians - most - but not all of them men. He paints his gun in their general direction·
but refrains from painting at anyone single person. He looks up and down the street. He looks up at the
building. Then he makes a move to go inside and it struck backwards almost immediately as Percy comes
hurtling out as the double doors burst back on their hinges. Percy falls at the Palmerion's feet. He has been
stripped of his clothes, apart from his beret and his socks and a red T-shirt-vest which falls to cover his
backside. He is bleeding from the nose.
PERCY
Bastards. Bastards. Bastards.They've taken my gun.
PAlMERION
Thafs not all they)e taken!
There is laughter from the crowd and jeers. Percy for the first time· truly realises his nakedness - he tries to
pull down his vest to cover his thighs and backside. The crowd come in closer. Brandishing his rifle-
Palmerion menaces the crowd· they open up and let Palmerion and Percy through. The two men run off
down the street followed by laughter.
Standing in the doorway is the woman who wore the trousers - it is Cissie Colpitts. A man is wrapping an
overcoat around her shoulders - it is the first pedestrian who had run away from Percy. They are accompanied
by three other men, and the 15-year old boy who Percy had threatened earlier. It has been an organised
ambush. The boy is kicking Percy's US fascist party uniform around on the dirty pavement. He scatters
lighter-fluid from his Cigarette lighter onto the uniform and sets it alight.Another man lifts a cover In the gutter
and kicks Percy's rifle into the drain.
92
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 11

Episode 3. Section 11. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Hotel Bedroom-Suite.
I Railway Station Hotel.
35rnm CINEMAS COPE COLOUR.
In a darkened railway-station hotel-suite bedroom, Percy leads Palmerion towards the bed where his wife
Passion is sleeping. He's holding a bedside lamp and trailing the electric cable. Percy is wearing a Stars and
Stripes dressing-gown inside out - and there is caked blood still around his nose. His face is smudged with dirt
and his hair is tousled. Palmerlon is still wearing his Belgian fascist uniform and carrying his rifle, Percy. very
agitated and very exciled - whispers loudly.
PERCY
I made a promise. I made an effing promise!
(he sniffs the air) Jesus - what's that smell?
You should see her in all her bedtime glory.
Don't let the bastards spoil your private life.
(he sniffs) Doesn't that scent just knock you out? Work and play.
Poblic and private.Abroad and at home.
Strictly business and strictly domestic.
(he sniffs again) Jesus - doesn't she smell just enticing?
Now - wait - wait - wait ....
Percy has gripped the edge of Passion's bed-sheet· and he plays with Palmerion's expectations -but more
pertinently - he is playing with his own.
PERCY
Now this should make your prick rise.
Percy whips the sheet off his wife at the same time he turns on the lamp. Passion sits up in bed in fright. She
is wearing a scarlet nightdress that reveals as much as it conceals.
PASSION
What the hell!?
She sees the two men.
PASSION
Bloody hell Percy what the fuck are you dOing?
And who the Hell's your friend? In uniform. Smiling his socks off.
With his gun held up so tightly?
PERCY
This is Palmerion. He's a friend .. an admirer .. and a fellow officer.
PASSION
Fellow-officer? (she laughs) He's a dentist.
Passion covers herself with the sheet. But - in front of the two men - she preens.
PERCY
Of course he's a dentist! How do you know he's a dentist?
PALMERION
Excuse me Madame Percy".
93
PERCY
• How do you know he's a dentist?
... I have intruded.

PALMERION
PASSION
Thars right you have. But what the Hell? My husband's here to
protect me, aren't you Percy? And you've seen the Inside of my
mouth, so what the Hell have I got to hide?
Percy is not aware of Passion and Palmerion's previous meeting and Passion is enjoying the sexual game she
can play with the ever-jealous Percy.
PASSION
Lying on your dentist's slab for half an hour in a
room full of slow clocks .. eh?
PALMERION
Time ticks so swiftly when you're amused.
PERCY
What?
PASSION
So as not raise the alann about contraband smells?
PERCY
What does that mean? (he sniffs)
PASSION
•
It means that this is the second time that sleep and the dentist
were bed-fellows.
PERCY
What?
PASSION
Don't you like it? I can't stand it. I'm covered in it. It must be a
hotel speciality - mustn't it Palmerion? A cover for all the bad
little smells of the Belgian National Socialist Party?
PERCY
Have you been giving my wife perfume, Palmerion?
That's the same as adultery in my country Palmerion!
PASSION
Showing off Utah again Percy? Percy is a patriot ...
PALMERION
I think we all are. "
PASSION
... standing there in his USaf A dressing gown on inside out.
Percy looks down at his dressing-gown. Unabashed, he takes it off. He is naked underneath and he
struggles to put the dressing-gown on the right way round.
PERCY
(to Passion) I buy your perfume. You do not buy my wife fucking scent!
PASSION
Jesus - the master-perfumer speaks and lies.
• PERCY
Don't fucking tell me I'm a liar.
PALMERION
(mocking Percy) Scent is very very very personal.
PASSION
• •
94
You bet it is. Try sniffing Percy's armpits when he's been drinking.
PERCY
(he grabs Palmerlon by the jacket) I buy the smellies!
PASSION
(laughing) Leave him alone Percy. He's only the dentist. But guess who I've
seen today? (she squirms with delight in the bed)
PERCY
I'll be watching you Palmerion!
PASSION
We all will.
PALMERION
(to Passion) I like being watched.
PASSION
I've just seen the man from the desert. The guy with the honey honey prick?
PERCY
Palmerion - you'd better go. My wife's dreaming.
PASSION
Dreaming? Yes I'm dreaming.(in anger)
You brought a bloody Belgian dentist into my bedroom to watch me
sleeping? I'd better be dreaming.
PALMERION
Shut up! Get out Palmerlon!
PASSION
Yep! - get on the scent Dentist-man.
PALMERION
Thank you Percy for the excitement.
Palmerion leaves - closing the door qUietly.
PERCY
He's a coward. Got me into an ambush with his Jewboy cousins.
PASSION
A dentist did that? I doubt it. But he's a man who knows his death-smells.
Ether. Ammonia chloride. Xylon B? I can't stand gas - can you stand gas,
Percy? Gives me nightmares. But now I'm not dreaming Percy.
Remember the pompous Englishman with the Eye-tie sidekick who looked
like Verdi? The man with the anatomy you drew so much attention to so .
subtly with a little sticky knifework ?
PERCY
(sulkily) So?
PASSION
So he's here. In the hotel. Go and wash your face - you have
dried blood on your face. Please don't tell me how it got there.
•Palmerion is listening outside the door.
PASSION
Somewhere - our Englishman is here. Under arrest.
He's here under bathroom arrest. Our very own little Anglo-Mormon - how
do you like that Percyboy?
Percy aims a vicious swipe at her face. She darts backwards, laughing. He tries to strike her again. They
chase around the bedroom. He trips over his dressing-gown. She drags the counterpane and a pillow from
Ithe bed into the bathroom and locks the door. With her voice echOing in the tiled bathroom, she continues to
95
laugh - rejoicing - at humiliating Percy and finding Luper ~ the latter much more a cause for celebration than
• the former.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 12

Episode 3. Section 12. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Bathroom and Bathroom Corridor. Railway Station
Hotel.
35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR•.
A hand.cuffed Luper is in his bathroom-prison sitting on a wooden chair against the wall that Is covered with his
hand-writing. The wall is strongly luminous to accentuate the Luper handwriting (perhaps it is a back projection
wall).
leloty, sitting on the bath-rim, and Figura sitting on the closed toilet-seat, are talking to him. leloty is
impersonating his idea of a Parisian intellectual - gesticulating with his hands and fingers, crossing and
uncrossing his legs, busily smoking. Figura, as always, is morose and melancholy. Luper is amused.
ZELOTY
I'm interested in becoming the ideal jailer.
•
FIGURA
And what's that when he's at home?
LUPER
He's never at home - he's always at the jailhouse.
ZELOTY
(emphatically agreeing) The jailhouse is his home.
FIGURA
(dismissively) Then he's as much a prisoner as the prisoner.
LUPER
Prisoner and jailer have always been interchangeable.
Overlaid on this image of three men in conversation - as a sub-title - is the verbatim type-written dialogue of
the conversation as it is spoken - which is moderately fast. The type-written words are typed on a typewriter
which has occasional damaged type and partially dropped keys.
lELOTY
Ideally there should be one jailer per prisoner.
FIGURA
Expensive on man power.
LUPER
Am I an Ideal prisoner?
In the Bathroom Corridor, we now see a close-up of a typewriter and the red-varnished finger-nailed hands of
the typist, typing the conversation.
• Inside the Bathroom•
FIGURA
Half the world in prison and the other half jailers.
ZELOTY
96
No, you're not an ideal prisoner.

The ideal prisoner understands why he's In prison. You don't.
LUPER
This Is true.
FIGURA
Prisoner and jailer should take it in turns?
ZELOTY
They probably do.
LUPER
In this case they certainly will.
We now understand why the spoken dialogue is appearing on a typewriter. In the corridor is Cissie Colpitts.
She Is sitting at a small table typing out what she is hearing through the thin wall. A tall empty glass is
pressed against the outside wall and held to her ear.
ZELOTY
Be careful Luper. The ideal jailer is totally impersonal, totally
loyal to his employer, and totally uncritical as to the reasons why
the prisoner is a prisoner. There should be no trace of
disloyalty or duplicity or emotional interest in me at all. I should be totally impassive
• down to the way I tie my shoes.
FIGURA
But there will come a day when you don't have to tie your shoes.
Over this dialogue, the thoughts are illustrated. There are four quick black·and·white shots of men tieing
shoe·laces in large close-up seen from ground level- each one tieing the shoe-lace a little differently. The
men concerned are leloty, Figura, Luper and Van Hoyten.
ZELOTY
... down to the way I comb my hair.
FIGURA
There'll come a day when you don't have to comb your hair.
Four black-and-white close-ups of leloty. Figura, Luper and Van Hoyten combing their hair, each Gne looking
in the same bathroom mirror. leloty is getting irritated by Figura's parroting.
ZELOTY
... down to the way I brush my teeth.
FIGURA
There'll come a d~y when we won't have to brush our teeth.
As before four close-up shots of Zeloty, Figura, Luper and Van Hoyten cleaning their teeth in a basin beneath
the mirror. Luper sets Figura a trap.
LUPER
... down to the way you wipe your backside.
FIGURA
There'll come a day when we won't have to ...
I Four close-ups of four men - Zeloty, Figura, Luper and Van Hoyten, about to wipe their bare backsides. The
words of the conversation are still being type-written onto the screen.
LUPER
Why am I a prisoner?
FIGURA
97
You're a spy and an enemy of Belgium.
• That'll take some proving.

LUPER
Som&oOne bangs on the bathroom door. Zeloty and Figura stand up.
Outside the Bathroom In the Corridor, Percy is banging on the door. He is wearing an III-fitting Red Fox
unifonn. Cissie has stopped typing and is watching him.
Inside the Bathroom, Zeloty lets Percy in.
FIGURA
Now here's an imperfect jailer.
PERCY
! want a word with the prisoner. I know him.
I need to speak to him in private.
A domestic matter.
Percy is intimidating. Zeloty and Figura move towards the open door of the bathroom. Suddenly, Percy
snatches the bathroom keys from Zeloty and pushing them both outside, he slams the door after them.
PERCY
Well - then - where's your friend Gottschalk now?
I'll-tell you - he's in American counting converts.
You should never trust a Gottschalk.
•
Outside ID the Corridor, leloty and Figura - looking foolish at being tricked· stare at Cissie Colpitts - who
continues to type what's being said in the bathroom. leloty looks over her shoulder and sees the type-written
dialogue of his own conversation.
ZELOTY
God - did I say that ... and that .... and that?
COLPITIS
If I've typed it - you said it
FIGURA
What the Hell are you doing that for?
COLPITIS
Orders. I'm trying to incriminate Mr Luper
ZELOTY
Seems like you're trying to incriminate us.
COLPITIS
Then you should learn to be very careful.
Inside the Bathroom, Percy sees Luper's suitcase on the floor.
PERCY
I see you've still got your little suitcase. What's in it this time?
Percy opens Luper's suitcase - and finds it to be full of Palmerion's scent-bottles. Luper is genuinely
surprised. Percy takes one, opens it and sniffs it.
•
PERCY
How come you've got all these scent bottles in your little suitcase?
LUPER
Search me. I never put them there.
98
Percy empties the scent bottles out onto the floor. They clatter and roll. One or two smash.
PERCY
How come ~ have the bottles - and my wife's covered in the dam scent?
LUPER
Ask her.
PERCY
You bastard!
Percy swipes Luper around the head. Luper defends himself as much as he can with manacled wrists.
LUPER
How come Percy - you and I always conduct our
affairs like gentlemen?
Luper is beaten up by a jealous Percy - making a sequence of bloodied violence, orchestrated to sacherine..
sweet music, inte~ected by statements from Luper intended to intensify Percy's anger.
LUPER
How is it Percy you have the energy for all this pent-up friendship?
The blood is sprayed up the wall in a fine spray· across Luper's wall.writing.
LUPER
Is it the uniform?
Swipe.
LUPER
It doesn't fit too well. I think it was the uniform they were making for me.
Swipe.
LUPER
Or is it the excitement of hitting a bound man?
Punch.
LUPER
Or just to see the colour of blood?
Luper lies slumped on the floor in front of the chair. Outside In the Corridor, Zeloty and Figura and Colpitts
i are banging on the door. Van Hoyten arrives with a key.
Inside the Bathroom, they burst in: Colpitts goes to Luper and tries to sit him up. She gets covered in his
blood. On her hands. Van Hoyten is furious and disgusted at the mess Percy has made with his violence.
VAN HOYTEN
Look at the walll How the hell am I to keep this beautiful station
in order with foreign louts like you let loose?
The silhouette of Luper and the chair he was sitting on are clearly marked in blood spatters up the wall. Five
different views of the bloodspattered wall- featuring five different sorts of spattering (as though an art director
was experimenting to see what looks best) are intercut one after another.

Episode 3. Section 12. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition.
35mrn CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
f •
99
'. - .
c. .
At the Brooklyn Museum Luper Exhibition, where there are a series of paintings of Luper's bathroom wnh
writing on the wall and various paint-spatterings.

Episode 3. Section 12 Scene 3. Interior. Bathroom. Day. Railway Station Hotel.
:,.. 3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR•
Back In the bathroom.
PERCY
I am not a foreign lout - just you watch your tongue Frenchle.
VAN HOYTEN
I am a Belgian. France is another country. But a considerable
sight more civilised than where you come from, Yankee.
Figura ushers Colpitts out of the bathroom. Luper slumps back onto the floor, semi-conscious.
PERCY
I am not a Yankee, you stuffed shirt.
Why do you want to cover for this English spy with his Jewish friends?
VAN HOYTEN
For a start he's got more manners. And we are busily looking for evidence
of collaboration. We have to be patient. Mr Luper is a prOlific writer.
PERCY
Jesus - who's side are you on?
VAN HOYTEN
•
There are other ways of being superior than breaking noses .
PERCY
Perhaps you count yourself amongst his Jewish
friends the way you molly-coddle his precious body.
Van Hoyten and Percy are nose to nose and red-faced in caricature hate-anger.
PERCY
Prove to me you're not a Jew, Mr Station-Master? How
are you going to defend your fascist honour?
VAN HOYTEN
You coarse little American thug.
Van Hoyten hurls himself at Percy. They fall together on the floor. There is an undignified struggle between
them. Percy tries to sit on Van Hoyten's face, punch him in the belly and pull his hair. In a chance blow.
chance because Van Hoyten is going to be no real match for Percy - Percy has a tooth knocked out. Percy
holds back, agha$Ut loosing a front tooth and searching for it on the floor. Lephrenic enters the room through
the still open bathroom door. He stands above the two men scrapping on the floor. He speaks languidly.
LEPHRENIC
You are a guest in a foreign country, Percy - you cannot go around beating
people up like you can in Utah, USA.
Figura picks up Percy's lost tooth, and holds it up into the light with two out-stretched fingers.
FIGURA
• You're lucky. Your wife knows a good dentist.
This last line is written on the type-writer and super-imposed across the screen.
100
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 13

Episode 3. Section 13. Scene 1. Interior. Late Afternoon. Lephrenic's Hotel.SuHa • Bedroom and
Bathroom. Railway Station Hotel.
In the late afternoon - with the sun hidden behind semi-see-through curtains - lephrenic _wearing only an open
pyjama jacket - half-lies under the sheets in a dishevelled double-bed in a smart and expensive suite in the
station-hotel. He has reading glasses propped up on his forehead, and he is reading an English newspaper.
The bed is covered in plates of food - mainly creamed cake. There are Belgian, Gennan, French and English
newspapers, coffee-cups, wineglasses, two telephones and various soft toys scattered over the bed-sheets. The
counterpane is on the floor. The room is in pleasant wann afternoon darkness - lit by two bedside lamps. There
is a bright light shining out of the ajar bathroom door - from where also comes the sound of a female singing an
Italian aria, and the sound of running water.
The bedroom door bursts open and Passion comes in. She is dressed in a bright crimson suit with a short red
skirt and red-fox furs, and red high-heeled shoes. She wears the Red Fox Fascist party armband.
PASSION
We've found him.
lEPHRENIC
Found who?
She kicks off her shoes and dances over the bed.
PASSION
Remember him - that pearly-teethed English boy with
the smiling eyes and the bulging pockets?
LEPHRENIC
Pockets?
PASSION
Well bulging between the pockets. He's here!
She jumps around the room.
PASSION
He's here! They got him for upsetting the coastguard.
She stops, and listens to the singing in the bathroom.
PASSION
Who's that?
LEPHRENIC
Just some homework.
What's he been dOing to upset the coastguard • making sandcastles?
Passion points questioningly at the bathroom, demanding an answer.
LEPHRENIC
A Dutch fat whore. Mind of a sewer. Body of a baby. Ego like a tank.
She thinks she's a Soviet Mata Hari. Her body smells of car polish.
101
Passions looks through the illuminated crack of the bathroom door.
• LEPHRENIC
She chews those little nuts from Surinam or is it Madagascar?
She has so much backside and frontside, she doesn't know which
side she's on. But she knows this station hotel like a postman.
I bet she's delivered a French letter in every room.
PASSION
(laughing) She's obviously made a big impression.
LEPHRENIC
On the bedsprings. She eats like a sperm whale· all wide gaping
mouth. She has a monstrous vulva but a nice little rectum· for
an orifice thafs used to excess from within.
PASSION
(laughing louder) I knew you'd find something to like.
LEPHRENIC
I sometimes wonder Passion, how you think you got born.
. PASSION
Mother probably wondered that too.
Passion is back jumping on the bed, coming very close to jumping on her father.
PASSION
Get him moved.
LEPHRENIC
•
Get who moved?
PASSION
The Englishman! Into a room next to mine. Bribe the guards.
Maim the guards! Kill the guards!!
LEPHRENIC
Jesus - what he's got?
PASSION
You know what he's got?
LEPHRENIC
What about Percy?
PASSION
He's out stalking Jews with a scented dentist.
The plump Dutch woman - Sophie van Osterhaus - comes out of the bathroom - she's wearing silver.white
underwear with garter-belt and stoc~ings. She's replacing her earrings as she enters the bedroom.
SOPHIE
Who are you talking to?
LEPHRENIC
My daughter.
SOPHIE
Your daughter? How'd she get here?
PASSION
(laughing out loud) You see?! They all ask the same questionl
LEPHRENIC
•
I'm sure she's not being anatomical
SOPHIE
Pleased to meet you, Signora.(she curtsies)
LEPHRENIC
102
Jesusl She's not royalty, Gretchen, and she's not Spanish - she's a
Gennan American. It's a new patriotic breed - (eyeing Passion) so
patriotic they lust after the enemy ... like you.
Passion opens her handbag to find her wallet.
PASSION
My father has a proposition - he shops you to the station-master
for illegally soliciting on his station or you get me the keys to his
prime prisoner.
Passion swiftly offers Sophie a wad of Belgian currency notes from her handbag, as her father gets out of bed
and, turning away from the women, puts on pyjama-trousers. Both women briefly contemplate Lephrenlc's
backside.
SOPHIE
That doesn't sound like a very serious threat, Van Hoyten?
Mr Luper? (she weighs both men in her imagination) No contest.
How do you want me to do it? Can I wear a disguise?
LEPHRENIC
How do you know that Luper is Van Hoyten's prime prisoner?
SOPHIE
Like most people - I read the newspapers. Mr Luper writes in the London
newspapers and appears in the Belgian newspapers.
Sophie plumps herself down on the bed and riffles through the local Antwerp newspapers, finding a photograph
. of Luper ·-the one taken by the photographer on the occasion of the cadet-core singing practice in Van Hoyten's
. station·master's office· with Zeloty and Figura smiling on either side of Luper on the Chesterfield ... and a small
' paragraph with a headline saying (in Flemish):
'Celebrated London journalist helps Belgian authorities in their enquiries.'
Lephrenic and Passion snatch up the newspaper and read. Sophie smiles.
SOPHIE
So • do I get to wear a disguise?
LEPHRENIC
You'd be sure to be recognised.
PASSION
You could derail a train or seduce the jailers.
SOPHIE
Derail a train is simple. But I can't stand those two Idiots.
One's al/ itchy, and besides I believe he's slept with my mother.
And the other's so polished, he squeaks.
Lephrenic lifts a suitcase onto the bed. It is full of hand-guns and ammunition. He takes out a hand-gun and
tucks it down between Sophie's breasts tightly clasped in her white elasticated underwear. He takes out
ammunition, and lifting the elastic of her underpants, fills the front of her knickers with bullets. She aCquiesces
illS though familiar with the routine. He turns her around and stuffs the cleavage of her buttocks with Belgian
¢urrency-notes.

t;plsode 3. Section 13. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition.
~5mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
Uecturer speaks before Luper Exhibition Audience.
103
LECTURER
• Sophie was the source of information for this incident and Martino was
her greatest current interest. Martino always had a predilection for plump
women in light underwear with guns.

Episode 3. Section 13. Scene 3. Interior. Late Afternoon. Lephrenic's Hotel-Suite· Bedroom and
Bathroom. Railway Station Hotel.
Lephrenlc continues.
LEPHRENIC
There you are - a gun, bullets and money.
What more do you need?
SOPHIE
(she absentmindedly makes a list)
A vocation, a steady job in a confectioner's shop, patriotism, motive, love,
a husband whose father makes ice-cream .....
LEPHRENIC
Oh those? Mere decoration.
Sophie removes a handful of ammunition from her strongly elasticated underwear and dumps them into
Passion's still open handbag and she removes the gun from her cleavage.
•
SOPHIE
You can Keep your gun. There are other weapons.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 14

Episode 3. Section 14. Scene 1. Interior. Evening. Luper's Bathroom.
All in one shot - the evening sun's orange shadows travel across and down across the blood-spattered wall and
settles. Luper is lying in the bath filled with hot water. He is easing the pain and bruiSing and washing away the
blood of Percy's assauH.
Van Hoyten unlocks the bathroom door and lets in a cleaner, wearing overalls, a balaclava and a cap, and
carrying a metal pail, a mop and a small suitcase. Van Hoyten, without saying a word, and with obvious
distaste of what he sees, indicates the blood-stained floor and wall, then leaves, locking the cleaner in with
Luper.
In the uncensored version, two cleaners enter, one a man and the other a woman, both similarly dressed, both
• plump. From the bath, Luper looks over the rim of the bath as the cleaner gets down on his knees to unpack
his suitcase which contains cleaning materials - various brushes, rags, cleaning fluids, various scrapers, soap
and polish. The cleaner, fills his bucket with hot water from the basin tap, and starts to scrub the floor. Luper
settles back in the bath. The cleaner from his position on the floor keeps giving sideways glances from under
his cap, in the direction of Luper hidden in the bath. After several moments - Luper, still hidden from the
cleaner· and with a totally expressionless face - speaks.
f •
104
LUPER
Don't bother· you're bound to make it worse.
MARTINO
Pardon me?
LUPER
Okay Marty. since when you have you learnt to mop floors?
The cleaner is Martino Knockavelll in disguise. He throws off his cap and balaclava, steps over te) the l.Iath •
Luper stands up in the bath and they embrace· Luper wincing at his bruises being pummelled by Martino's
enthusiasm to greet him.
MARTINO
Sophie's got the bathroom keys.
Martino takes the bathroom keys out of his overall pocket and jingles them.
Both cleaners greet Luper with enthusiasm. The woman is Sophie van Osterhaus, eager for disguises, and
keen to associate espionage with eroticism. When Martino announces they have the key, he turns to Sophie
who unzips her overall, lifts her skirt, pulls down her underwear and withdraws the key from her vagina. The
key lies damp in Martino's hand. Luper smiles.
MARTINO
Isn't she clever?
LUPER
I should make sure she sees a good doctor.
MARTINO
Whatever for?
LUPER
Just imagine how she got them. Then leave eight weeks before
you kiss her· leave alone sleep with her.
MARTINO
Nonsense! We have a plan to get you out. But first.
you've got to tell me everything that's happened.
LUPER
First· you get me out· then I tel/.
MARTINO
No • first tell· then escape.
LUPER
Bloody Hel/- no/
-
We see Luper settle back in the hot bath and Martino sits on the rim • they talk. We do not hear what they say.
We can see Martino listening very carefully to everything Luper tells him. Martino and Sophie sit on the bath.
, rim listening intently. Sophie with her overalls rol/ed up to bathe her feet and calves in the water, occasionally
resting her feet on Luper's knees. She has the stub of a pencil and is writing on a pink-sheeted train
timetable. It is almost as if she is taking notes for Martino.
LUPER
What are you doing?

iEpisode 3. Section 14. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Luper Exhibition•
.35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
.There Is a new lecturer· Jacques Appenhost - Belgian· speaking at the public symposium on Luper at the
Brooklyn Museum, New York in 1998.
105
LUPER LECTURER - JACQUES APPENHOST
• It seems Martino got his way. But Martino Knockavelli was a great
inventor of tales. He might well have embroidered the stories about the
retrieval of the keys to find a way to equal the sensational details of
Luper's imprisonment. "If he wanted to be the Martino Knockavelll Boswell
Luper's Samuel Johnson, he was not averse to inventing some
long tall-story-telling of his own.
to Tulse
back-up
Inserted - alternative ways that Sophie might have used to steal the keys.
1. Sophie with Zetoty in a small cheap hotel. A nude Sophie in the foreground taking the keys out of Zeloty's
trouser pocket - as Zeloty in his vest and socks - in middle-ground - sits astride a bidet - washing himself.
2. Sophie with Figura in a passenger-train compartment at night - her buttocks pressed against the window under
a Non-Smoking sign - she reaches over and places a key-ring holding two slender-keys between her flesh and
the glass and holds them there with the cheek of her backside as she does something sexily unspecified with
Figura whose lugubrious face we see as he lights himself a Cigarette.
3. A derailed train in a siding with Sophie disguised as a female cleaner in clothes exactly like the station-cleaner
clothes that Martino wore when he washed Luper's bathroom. She is watching Van Hoyten stand with his head in
his hands, looking at the damage.

Episode 3. Section 14. Scene 3. Interior. Night. Luper's Bathroom.
In the Antwerp Hotel Bathroom - after dark - a jubilant Martino back in his cleaner's disguise, tries out the stolen
•
keys on the bathroom door. Then luper, now dressed, and Martino, get down on their knees to furiously scrub
the floor and walls to clean away Luper's blood - to get the bathroom cleaned for Van Hoyten's inspection.
EPISODE 3
MOAB UTAH
SECTION 15

Episode 3. Section 15. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Station Concourse - Outside Waiting-Room.
35mm CINEMAsCOPE COLOUR.
The waiting-room where Cissie ColQitts is translating and transcribing Luper's copious manuscripts is brightly lit
by lamps that illuminate the typewriter and Cissie's face. OutSide the window of the waiting-room and looking in -
Van Hoyten and Palmerion are in conversation, standing under umbrellas that are sluiced with rain, in close
close-up, nose to nose. They both wear upturned coliar raincoats. They are discussing Percy's undesirability.
Reflected in the glass windows behind them is a collection of seven green GO-signal lights - some near, some
far.
VAN HOYTEN
The man is a liability.
PALMERION
He is the wolf not the fox. He has too many teeth.
VAN HOYTEN
•
He dribbles when he's excited.
The seven green-GO-signallights start changing to orange.
PALMERI ON
106
Misaligned front left incisors (he taps his teeth)

He's as subtle as an avalanche in April.
VAN HOYTEN
He Is a monster, a monster.
PALMERION
We just do not need such monsters, Erik.
The seven green GO-signal lights - having changed to orange - now start changing to red.
VAN HOYTEN
They belong in the sea or the morgue ...
PALMERION
Or in an American movie.
VAN HOYTEN
We should put him in a Russian novel- a railway novel about infidelity.
The green and orange signal fights reflected in the window-glass finally all show red. Van HOyle" puts is
station-master's silver whistle in his mouth. puffs up his cheeks, and blows hard on the long phalNc silver
shape. There is a shrill, harsh whistle and all the red lights go green. Close-up of a glaring harsh green
station light.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 16

, Episode 3. Section 16. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Hotel Corridor•
. Railway Station Hotel.
.3Smm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR•
.Passion had dressed extravagantly In black feathers to seduce Luper. She leaves her suite of rooms in the same
',corridor as Luper's bathroom. She puts the key to his bathroom in her mouth, and she walks along the corridor to
luper's bathroom prison. She is smiling, thoroughly delighted - nobody could be more delighted - pleasure
entirely animates her face. She takes the spittle-wet key out of her mouth, and with hands trembling with
Mticipation and eyes wet with excited tears, she unlocks the door on the darkened room.
1\938. Antwerp, Belgium.

Episode 3. Section 16 Scene 2. Interior. Night. Luper's Bathroom.
3$mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR.
She finds the bathroom empty ... just the long cord to the electric-light switch swinging. The lower pan(t of the
sash window is smashed - light from the station enters the bathroom and makes patterns up the bathroom wall-
illuminating Luper's handwritten wail-manuscript. We can read some recent writing. Passion rushes to the
wiMow. Standing in the bath, she looks out the window - she sees Luper Inching his way along the facade of the
st~tion-hotel • we are some four or five storeys above the station-concourse. It is a dangerous climb. He is
m~king his way to a collection of stout-looking drainpipes that lead down to the station platforms. He is presently
out$ide her suite of rooms.
193~. Antwerp, Belgium.

Epl$ode 3. Section 16. Scene 3. Interior. Night. Station Concourse.
•
107
•
Down on the station concourse, Knockavelli, dressed very approximately like Fastidieux - certainly in pink
glasses - waits for Luper in the newspaper-kiosk. There are a few late-night travellers, mostly soldiers. A group
of soldiers are drunkenly singing on a distant platform. Several tramps are sitting and sleeping on station
benches. Knockavelli discreetly-- over his pink glasses - is looking up at the small black figure on the facade of
the station hotel.

Episode 3. Section 16 Scene 4. Interior. Night. Hotel Corridor.
Passion rushes out of the bathroom, along the corridor and back into her suite.

Episode 3. Section 16. Scene 5. Interior. Night. Passion's Hotel-Suite.
With difficulty, she throws open the first of three windows in her room. Luper, standing on the ledge outside, is
nearly knocked off balance. He moves on to the second window of Passion's suite. When she throws open the
second window, he reaches the third. At the third window being thrown up, she stands right by him. We can see
that Luper's face if full of healing cuts and bruises from his battering by Percy. Passion is in a position to knock
Luper down to the station concourse below. She exercises that position.
• difference?
LUPER
PASSION
Okay. You have a choice - fuck or die. Some choice, don't you think?
Knowing your husband - as we both do - perhaps they are the same
PASSION
He's useful. If only to give you the most exciting scabs and bruises.
We could spend the night picking your scabs and licking your bruises.
LUPER
Okay let's fuck and then I die
Or - you ghoul- I'll die and then you can fuck.
He makes to leave go of the window. She screams. It's a trick. She has revealed her deep anxiety.
PASSION
Don't try. I have the stationmaster's whistle -I'll blow it.
She has indeed a station-whistle. She puts the long phallic shape into her mouth and puffs out her cheeks.
LUPER
You'll just set the trains going in all directions
all over Europe - which will please the station-master no end.
•
He enters Passion's suite through the window. She drags him to the bed. She undresses him - sniffing his
clothes as she takes them off - putting her nose to the armpits of his shirt and then to the inside creases of his
trousers and his underwear.
LUPER
You'll spoil your sense of smell for later.
108
PASSION
No I will not· it is just a preparation for the real thing.
I have always followed my nose.
She proceeds to smell his body.'
LUPER
It's a fine nose, if only a little too short to reach the very best places.
PASSION
Surely that's my line for you to act upon. (she begins to enjoy
herseln Oh I remember. I remember. I remember.
LUPER
No quotations here please.
When he is naked and she is stili dressed, she sits astride his body and slides herself up and down his torso
and belly. And then sits on his face. He laughs and struggles and rolls her over In the pink-sheeted large
double-bed, and with her body hidden under the pink sheets, fumbles, sight·unseen to undress her from under
the sheets - throwing each garment he takes off her, out the still open window.
Down on the station concourse - Knockavelli sees the female garments being flung out onto the pUblic
platform space - and, panicking that all well be discovered, leaves his kiosk to collect the clothes. He hides
them in a station waste-bin. A high-heeled shoe hits him on the head.
When there are no more garments to take off and Passion is naked under the pink sheets, Luper rips the
sheet above her thighs with his teeth, and arranges to copulate with her through the tear in the sheet. She
grips him fiercely and it looks as though he is grappling with a pink-sheeted ghost. She is very noisy in her
love-making, he laughs.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 17

Epi$ode 3. Section 17. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Palmerion's Dentist Surgery in Hotel-$ulte.
35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR. _
At night, in Palmerion's dentist surgery, Percy is sitting in the dentist's adjustable chair in a pool of light. He is
wearing his ill-fitting Red Fox Uniform. The machinery of a 19305 dentist is grouped about him - drilling
equipment, wash-basins, boxes of teeth, a primitive glass, X-ray show-case, and a formidable apparatus with
metal cylinder and mask for administering anaesthetising gas. Also on the shelves, as before, is Palmerion's
collection of masks arranged on phrenological plaster heads. They are macabre, as though Palmerion was trying
to invent torture equipment to inhibit or stifle breathing. Palmerion, wearing a white coat tied around his fascist
uniform, is examining Percy's broken tooth. Percy has a mouth stuffed with cotton-wool, clamps, and three sharp
pencil-thin dental tools - but his speech is audible enough - an American, with a mouth full of dental material,
talking to an English-speaking German.
PERCY
Well· you've seen her now - wasn't I right? What do you think?
PALMERION
She's your wife - you should have more respect.
PERCY
f .
109
I didn't see much respect in your eyes. Alii saw was lust and lechery.
PAlMERION
Then you saw your own glowing reflection.
PERCY
What are you for God's sake? I've come for dental treatment - not glasses.
c .
~ .... And you've got to put the same tooth back.
PAlMERION
(he laughs at Percy's naivety) I can't do that. We'll fit you with a new
crown - so you can bite the Jews instead of just lick them (he smiles).
PERCY
Whafs that supposed to mean?
PAlMERION
Now you must hold stili.
Palmerion rolls up Percy's sleeve, crooks his ann, and gives him an injection.
PAlMERION
You're right. She Is beautiful. Breasts, legs, belly, buttocks, mouth, cunt.
PERCY
Watch your language! She's my wife and I'm her husband.
PAlMERION
A beautiful body. So beautiful- she's wasted on you.
PERCY
What the Hell do you mean - wasted?
PAlMERION
•
A beautiful woman wasted on a boy-scout.
PERCY
A boy-scout?
The injection begins to take effect. Percy begins to ramble. Palmerion lights a bunsen burner flame on his
dentist's bench and then quietly begins to pack a small suitcase with shiny dental tools - sharp instruments
that scratch and pick and dig. We examine their aggressive characteristics. We contrast the cruelty of the
dental instruments to the cruelty of Palmerion's murder of Percy.
PERCY
What's wrong with boy-scouts? I like those guys.
Keeps them off the streets. or perhaps it keeps them on the streets.
No politics - just patriotism ... a little Nationalism and a little religion.
I'm a religious man, Palmerion - Moab Mormon Church Utah, United
States of America, the Northern Hemispheres, Earth,the Universe.
,(a pause) What sort of name is Palmerion, Palmerion? Sounds like
an island off Florida Keys. Or a brand name for soap. Or a four-
hundred-islands dressing for a cheese salad. I bet you put Belgian
salad all on your hair, Palmerion. It's so shiny. (a pause) Or are
you really some kind of Belgian cheese, Palmerion? like Edelweiss.
PALMERION
An Edelweiss is an Alpine flower. It grows on the mountain-tops.
Mainly in Switzerland.
PERCY
'.
Garibaldi?
PALMERION
A biscuit or an Italian patriot. Perhaps you mean Gorgonzola?
PERCY
I love all these smells. Passion had a nose for smelling.
Like on your fingers after you've picked your navel. After you've picked
your toes. like after you've had your finger in your wife's VIP lounge.
or
110
Ptarmigan .... .
PALMERION
That's a fat game bird found in Scotland. You may mean Parmesan.
PERCY
Aida.
PALMERION
Opera.
PERCY
I just love all those smells. Little decaying smells. Have you noticed that in
the end most decaying smells all smell the same?
(a pause) Wet dogs, bad breath, vomit, shit, death.
I wonder if there were bad smells in Paradise? Eden!
PALMERI ON
Edam.
PERCY
Mozzarella.
PALMERION
Mozzarella. Good. Very good. One out of six. Very good.
Palmerion watches as Percy goes to sleep with his mouth open. He Snores twice and then becomes still, and
then very still. We look into Percy's mouth with the perfect shiny teeth,(except for the missing tooth) the wads
of cotton wool and the protruding dental picks and hooks. Palmerion finishes packing the dental! suitcase. He
goes over to the dead Percy - takes out the three dental-picks from Percy's mouth and tosses them _ -
unwashed, unsterilised - accurately - some three yards - into the suitcase. We watch the dental picks land
amongst the other tools in extreme close-up and in very slow motion, such that they lose their identity and
could be gigantic spaceships crash-landing in a spaceship junkyard. The spiky metal tools with their cruel
points and claws, land with a reverberating clang and metallic tinkle out of all proportion to their size and
Significance. The last dental-tool falls in the suitcase lid, and with its impact, causes the suitcase lid to clang
shut like a metal jailhouse door. Percy's violent life is truly over. Palmerion goes over to Percy's corpse in the
dentist's chair and unbuttoning Percy's trousers, he takes out Percy's genitals, stretching the fore$kin of the
uncircumcised penis. Palmerion goes back to his dentist's bench and selects a sharp curved scalJll8I. And a
pair of surgical scissors. He takes up a long-handled metal tool. It's a converted dental tool, and has a Jewish
star of David wrought in cast iron on its end. It's a branding iron. Palmerion puts the star Into the /hottest part
of the bunsen burner flame.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 18

Episode 3. Section 18. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Passion's Hotel Suite Bedroom.
At around one o'clock in the morning, stealthily covering Passion's naked body with the ripped pink silk sheet as
she sleeps stomach-down on the wide bed, Luper - dressed - goes to the open window above the station
concourse. He climbs through the window and out onto the window ledge. There is a commotion down on one of
the platforms.

Episode 3. Section 18. Scene 2. Interior. Night. Station Platform and Concourse.
111
• A body has been found under a train on platform 9. Watched by some dozen late·night passengers, Van Hoyten
is directing three platform porters and an engine-driver down on the track to try and release a man's body
dressed in a Red Fox Fascist uniform from under the wheels.
Seen from the station platform - we see the small figure of Luper leading his way along the connecting window·
ledges, and reaching the complex of draining-pipes.
The station-guards have released the body from under the train wheels and are lifting it up onto the platform. it is
covered in grease and blood
.Benefitting from the distraction on platform 9, Luper finally reaches the ground of the station forecourt. He
brushes himself down, straightens his jacket. He goes to the kiosk to buy a newspaper as arranged.
He takes out some small change. A tall familiar figure is standing behind the kiosk desk - wearing Fastidieux's
pink glasses and her green apron. The attempt at disguise is so poor - it seems like a deliberate charade. Luper
puts his small change in the wooden scooped cash-counter. He asks for the Belgian National Newspaper.
GOnSCHALK
(loudly) Your change is dirty.
LUPER
God?! (whispering) What are the Hell are you dOing here?
GOnSCHALK
(louder) Your change is dirty.
LUPER
(whispering) Is that some sort of password?
- GOTTSCHALK
(whispering) I told you I'd find you.
(shouting) Where do you keep your change - in a coal-house?
• -
The small group of Van Hoyten and the porters accompanied by two Fascist cadets, Hercule and Emile, are
wheeling the corpse of the man they found under the train on a mail-barrow, across the railway forecourt.
LUPER
(whispering) Where's Fastidieux?
GOTTSCHALK
(whispering) On holiday.
LUPER
(normal voice) She's blind - she never goes on holiday.
GOnSCHALK
(whispering) Look - it's fine that you have tried to escape· it shows you're
guilty.
LUPER
It does notl
GOTTSCHALK
Well it shows you have spunk.
LUPER
Oh yes?
GOnSCHALK
But you still have plenty of time - the Colpitts women - for reasons of her
own - is only half way through your dam manuscripts - they will not
officially arrest you until they find some evidence - but thafs good. You
.•
;
are dOing fine.
LUPER
By whose standards and who's measuring?
GOTTSCHALK
You have got us rid of Percy Hockmeister with no chance of recriminations
on our side. We've managed to get more manuscripts to the Colpitts
women to slow her up further.
LUPER
112
What do you mean "got rid of Perey-, and what are

these "more manuscripts". Martino said they took the lot?
GOTTSCHALK
We faked some.
The party carting the corpse from under the train have stopped. They are covering the body with mail sacks
to frustrate the eyes of curious onlookers.
LUPER
Jesus. How can you do that?
GOTTSCHALK
You are not so difficult to fake Luper. We need the time - so get
back to your bathroom!
LUPER
No!
GOTTSCHALK
Your friend Knockavelli and his Dutch Mata Hari are
not on your sidtl. She's balling my brother-in-law,
and she's in league with your jailers.
LUPER
(talking normally) You idiot - you're confusing her occupation
with her ethics. Her private parts may be for European
Community use - but her heart's .... she's a professional whore.
GOTTSCHALK
(whispering) And you're a professional fantasist!
(shouting) And keep your money in a better state, foreigner!
It's a disgrace to the Belgian king.
Gottschalk's deliberate shouting has attracted Van Hoyten's attention. He recognises Luper. With the two
fascist cadets, Hercule and Emile, he rushes over to the kiosk. All three tackle Luper with unnecessary
violence.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 19

Luper is pushed into his bathroom prison by Zeloty and Figura. He immediately sees the body of Percy lying in
the empty, waterless bath - his head at the tap-end, his Red Fox fascist uniform stained with blood and engine
grease - his uniform trousers open at the groin. His is the corpse found on the rail-track by Platform 9. They
have made him look as though his body had been crushed at the left shoulder. A Jewish Star of David has been
branded onto his cheek and he has been circumcised" the wound still fresh. His mouth is open and the gap of
the missing tooth is visible. Luper is shocked. He tries to hide his surprise. He is determined to be resigned to
shocks and surprises.
LUPER
Well, well, well" Percy, Percy, Percy" it was you all along on
platform nine, platform nine, platform nine.
ZELOTY
113
Do you always say things three times?
• LUPER
Percy did. It's a kind of last homage. Seeing he lost a tooth.
FIGURA
(bored and lugubrious) Tulse Henry Purcell Luper,
you now stand charged with murder.
LUPER
Well ~ that's not so surprising. But he was found under a train,
more Tolstoy's style than mine.
FIGURA
We've read Tolstoy.
ZELOTY
Van Hoyten told us to read him.
LUPER
And our Jewish friends have left their mark. Now Percy was a real friend
of Zionism. Part of the Mormon tradition. Percy was a fully paid up
member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Was Tolstoy anti~semitic?
Confusing ~ eh? How many motives for Percy's death do you want?
ZELOTY
Jealousy of a husband is the best.
LUPER
Right. Well that fits perfectly.
All three look down at the body of Percy lying in the bath .
• EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 20

Episode 3. Section 20. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Lephrenic's Hotel·Suite Bathroom.
Lephrenic is seated in a very large pink porcelain bath in his plush bathroom suite. The bath is wide. Two people
could sit in it,side by side. We can hear the station noises outside the window. This bathroom with its luxurious
fixtures and fittings make a strong contrast to Luper's sparse bathroom. Passion, wearing black from attending
Percy's funeral· including a smart black hat with a veil - walks around the bathroom throwing off her black high.
heeled shoes. She then sits on the toilet-seat lid. She starts to unbutton her dress.
LEPHRENIC
Okay. Tell me.
PASSION
What is there to tell?
LEPHRENIC
What is he like? Is he strong and masterful? Or does
'.
he prefer to sit back and let you perform?
Passion smiles. She stands up and she takes off her black dress - dropping it on the floor.
LEPHRENIC
Tell me.
PASSION
.. .
114
Daddy. why do you want to know? He is mine. Not plcked by you this
time - but mine. When I stand up, my eyes are level with his mouth.
When I lie down ...
LEPHRENIC
His lips are hard?
«
........' PASSION
:,. .. Not always.
LEPHRENIC
Tell me about his prick.
PASSION
Daddyl
Passion sits down again on the toilet-seat and takes off her black stockings.
LEPHRENIC
You could tell me.
PALMERI ON
If I am to tell you I must get more practice - and you must make it
possible. Keep him under lock and key.
Give me the key. Don't let him escape. Let me keep the key.
LEPHRENIC
Van Hoyten has him under arrest for spying, sabotage and now murder.
I-don't think we should worry about voluntary release.
Passion takes off her petticoat so that she stands in her underwear but she still wears her hat with the veil.
LEPHRENIC
We should send him a present to show our appreciation.
Our affection. Show him he will be well looked after with us.
PASSION
Just send him me. Move over.
Passion slips out of her underwear and, naked apart from her veiled hat, gets into the bath beside her father.
LEPHRENIC
You're greedy. It's all looking good. Percy's just done you a good tum.
PASSION
Percy wasn't even a good excuse to wear a good hat.
She finally takes off her funeral hat .with its veil, and hurls it like a flying saucer across the bathroom. She
slips right down into the wann bath-water in the large bath beside her father. She then res~rfaces, her hair
drenched.
PASSION
I hate funerals. Let's try a wedding. I could wear white.
LEPHRENIC
God you've inherited your mother's sentimentality.
The husband is dead. Long live the husband.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 21
115
• 1938. Antwerp, Belgium •

In luper's bathroom prison, the window onto the station concourse has been boarded up and fixed with bars. On
the bathroom-walls are columns of Luper's new writing with the title THE MAN IN THE BATH - a title which as
been crossed out and re-written as THE MEN IN THE BATH.
Whilst 2 walls of Luper'S bathroom are covered in this Luper long fiction, seen in back projection white on black - -
he has started a new work • we see the first words (Belly of an Architect text concerning a man who tries to
commit suicide by self-drowning).
Luper's bath - very full of hot water - appears to be empty of Luper. There is a board across the bath and
numerous hand-written manuscript-papers on the floor beside the bath. The bath and the room have strong
recall of David's painting of The Death of Marat. Coincidentally, the Station Tannoy plays the Marseilles.
The bathwater suddenly erupts and Luper surfaces. He has a pencil in his right hand. He stretches and lays
back, his head on the rim - in the same position as Marat in the David painting. He closes his eyes and listens
to the station Tannoy music. It still plays a slow version of the Marseilles.
leloty unlocks the bathroom door. luper opens his eyes. leloty enters. He is carrying a tray balanced on
his right hand level with his head. Swiftly placing - with his left hand - a small blue-and-white-checked
tablecloth-on the board laid across Luper's bath, he puts the tray down on the table-cloth. He behaves like a
waiter laying table in a smart Parisian street-cafe. Luper watches his antics silently. The tray contains two
•
shiny metal covers, polished to high-shine perfection. Then with a flourish - leloty - apparently out of
nowhere, produces a sharp shining knife. Momentarily Luper believes he is about to be stabbed. He recovers
his equanimity.
LUPER
Good evening, Charlotte.
lELOTY
Pardon me?
LUPER
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
lELOTY
Why do the English ....
LUPER
Godl (pause) Percy was American.
-
leloty places the knife adroitly beside the shiny covers and then retreats with many mock bows. luper waits
until Zeloty has closed the door .. and then some more ~ making sure leloty isn't spying - then he lifts the
covers. Under the first cover is a pot of honey. Under the second is a bowl of cherries. There is a note 'Bon
appetite, from your admirers'. Luper smiles, then a flash of anger and frustration passes through him. He
reaches out and turns the hot and cold water-taps on full. The water rushes into the already full bath and
overflows. Sitting In the bath, Luper watches the water overflow onto the floor and run through the floor-
boards. He smiles.
This is the sequence that parodies the contented prisoner in his cell seen previously with luper sitting in his
'.
Newport coal-house, and in his Moab desert sheriff's jail in the desert - same music, same lighting.
116
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 22

Episode 3. Section 22. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Stationmaster's Office
Luper's bath-water at first trickles, and then steadily pours into the Station-Master's office beneath his bathroom. _
prison. Light seeping through from the station-concourse picks up and backlights the dripping water and the
damp settees, chairs, desks, armchairs. It is a sad destruction of an impressive, neat and expensive office - but
it is beautiful to watch how the water ruins everything according to every objects's characteristic. Nothing is
reprieved, including several piles of Luper's handwritten manuscripts, the ink blurring and running from the damp
pages. The water begins to flood the floor - and not finding anywhere to run to - it begins to rise up the walls ... ;
till objects float.

Over the slow and beautiful destruction of lephrenic's Office - there is an insert box of a Brooklyn. Museum
lecturer, Lennie Cartoucher - talking to us in a Brooklyn cinema-lecture-hall. He's American and Wears familiar
'nursery" golfing clothes - a pink angora sweater, loud yellow-check trousers, a pale blue shirt. Behind him are
large blow-ups of projected black-and-white photographs of the characters he mentions - each ol1e a photograph:
we haven't seen before - and identifying the characters in ways we probably do not expect.
LUPER LECTURER - LENNIE CARTOUCHER

Luper enjoyed all these assorted people with their different exoticisms,
with their curious North European names - Gottschalk - clean, lean and
self-important. Lephrenic, heavy and sly, lecherous and seductive with
manicured fingernails and an extravagantly coarse imagination.
Luper noted that Gottschalk's sentence construction, was full of brief and
economic bursts, whilst Lephrenic spoke in long melodious extended lines
full of an enjoyment of words.
If these two were going to represent Good and Evil, shouldn't their speech
patterns have been the other way around?
The Moab Fenders - eccentric naive Creationists.
The Hockmeiste~, Percy and Passion - the two Ps - inappropriate names
for a psychopath and a baby-doll seductress - improbable Mormons.
Palmerion - smooth dental sadist with a liking for Vermeer.
Van Hoyten, the keen and eager bureaucrat and joke-bully.
Zeloty and Figura. From available archive photographs, it's not
always possible to see these characters through Luper's eyes, though we
must remember, most of what we know of Luper's activities is seen in the
light of the recollections of Martino Knockavelli in the weeks leading up to
the German invasion of Belgium.

Cutaway to Luper in the bathroom above Han Hoyten's office - the bathroom is spangled with exotic green and
yellow water-reflections from the flooded bath - with the walls back projected with Luper's writing and a strong
117
•
white glow emanating from the bathwater in the bath - illuminating Luper's face from underneath. Lennie
Cartoucher's voice continues in voice-over.
LUPER LECTURER - LENNIE CARTOUCHER
Luper could easily of course have invented them all.
Van Hoyten was built on the archetype of the time-
obsessed and sentimental, bullying bureaucrat excused everything
for getting the trains to run on time. Van Hoyten however if he
was an archetype, is nonetheless a curiously open, candid and
often sympathetic character.
In the sequence of projected lecture-slides, the photo of Gottschalk puts him on horseback at a rodeo in a
fringed buckskin jacket, holding a lasso. Lephrenic is seen at a business conference, sober in a dark suit.
The Fenders are seen sitting at small saloon bar, looking happy. The Hockmeisters - Passion and Percy -
are seen in their wedding photo - both looking age 17. Palmerion is seen wearing a fencer's outfit. Van
Hoyten, holding a baby, is standing in a garden. Zeloty, looking very like Kafka's famous photo, is sitting at a
meal-table. Figura, looking like Becket, is surrounded by his 12 children seated on a river bank (as in a
Cartier-Bresson image) at a family picnic with his wife.

Episode 3. SectiQn 22. Scene 4. Interior. Night. Stationmaster's Office
In the steadily drowning station-master's office, Van Hoyten returns and is horrified .... but then is curious. He
stares at the ceiling, at the water coming though the wooden ceiling boards.
• He sits in- a drowned armchair.

Then, as though preparing for a day at the seaside or the swimming-pool, he undresses down to his black shiny
shoes and socks with garters, and stretches out naked on a water-puddled settee. He puts on a record of an
angelic choir on his turntable - which is just above water-Ievel- the gramophone eventually floats and then its
turntable revolves underwater.
Lephrenic, accompanied by Zeloty, opens the office-door - there is a great rush of water that swirls around their
feet. Zeloty prepares to take incriminating photographs.
There is a camera-flash, Van Hoyten shouts, hiding his genitals like the whore in Manet's Olympia.
Lephrenic holds a gun.
LEPHRENIC
Stay there, don't move - Olympia.
Zeloty takes more incriminating photographs.
VAN HOYTEN
(apparently unembarrassed) Are these for your private album or
can I have copies for my grandchildren?
LEPHRENIC
Nothing personal personal. We are just looking for some leverage.
VAN HOYTEN
I'm not an unreasonable man. What do you need leverage for?
To get Luper's arse off the floor long enough for your daughter to
get herself under it. That's easy.
• Oblivious, and passed caring about his ridiculous position, Van Hoyten gets up and turns on his film-projector
which, fixed on a stand high above the floor, and under a metal canopy, has not been touched by the bath-
water dripping through the ceiling.
VAN HOYTEN
Have you seen my favourite piece of film?
118
At once the projector throws a bright beam through the various falling cascades of water coming I through the
celling and makes a bright image on a screen attached to the wall above the office fireplace. It i$ the film of
the stenographers typing to music.
VAN HOYTEN
It's so beautiful. Rhythmic .. unified .. efficient ... beautiful.
I want a station of happy stenographers just like that
They need not be women .....
Van Hoyten standing naked in his shoes, socks and suspenders, his hands on his plump hips, rhapsodislng at
the images on the film screen whilst Zeloty and Lephrenic watch the screen in some dumbfoundment. The
Nazi propaganda film of happy German secretaries typing to patriotic German music fills the screen.
Suddenly Van Hoyten has a gun. He is standing ankle deep in water, a curiously dangerous but absurd
figure. He fires the gun and the pistol held by Lephrenic splashes into the water of the drowned office. With
the German stenography film stll! running and against the background of the music, Van Hoyten talks.
VAN HOYTEN
Now we can talk on more equal terms. This is what we do. We need to
keep the Englishman longer.
We need to find evidence. I need to convince the newspapers of our
Vigilance and the British Embassy of his guiH. His papers have still not all been
transcribed but the information is suddenly becoming more
interesting. -Too interesting perhaps, since it looks as though Luper's
stJddenly changed his handwriting.
I didn't know Lephrenic that you and Luper had met before and that you
h~d charged him with rape? How come your daughter wants a man so
badly because you've accused him of rape? I have a feeling that you are
now providing Frau Colpitts with false evidence.
Suit yourself. I want Luper's face. I like him. He's a sort of English
insurance policy. English naturalists are admired. And despite the
double-dealings - dOing one thing whilst thinking about another - their
double dealing is curiously very personal - very private - between
themselves and themselves so to speak. And I want his face seen with your faces,
and with my face and with Palmerion's face and with faces of my
cadet force. When I have made enough propaganda from his face
your daughter can have his prick - in a jar of alcohol for all I care.
leloty takes the photos. I hold the negatives. The newspapers do the rest.
LEPHRENIC
Suits me Station-Master. We share the prisoner for three months and then
he's mine.
VAN HOYTEN
Very good. Now with that business settled and the
evening water-logged so to speak, perhaps I can entertain you.
Van Hoyten opens a water-logged cupboard, producing a whiskey bottle and glasses, and then he switches a
switch on his projector and the stenographers in his German propaganda film typing to music become naked.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 23

'.
f .
119
Episode 3. Section 23 Scene 1. Interior. Night. Station Announcer's Room. Antwerp Railway
Station.
Just before midnight, Cissie Colpitts sits alone in the station·announcer's room. It Is a darkened room - a black
void high up near the station-roof. She sits before a heavy-legged table under a bright light that makes a centrally
...-
c.
;.
placed hard-edged triangle that top-lights 'her low cleavage and her red mouth, but shades her eyes. She wears
heavy headphones and clutches a white handkerchief, and she speaks the train stations with extravagant beauty.
CISSIE COLPITIS
The 11.15 night-train to Rome will leave platform 10.
Arriving at 12.12 tomorrow midday at Rome Statione Tennini
via 'Paris, Lyons, Genoa, Rapallo, La Spezia, Plsa, Firenze ....
The 11.27 train to Utrecht will leave Platform 7 calling at Ghent,
HertendenBosch, Maastricht, Idenhoven and van Deimenlanden ..

Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 2. Interior. Night. Station Concourse.
Antwerp Railway Station.
When Cissie starts to Ignore logical geography in order to make play with the place-names, on the almost empty
station platform, individual lights grow perceptibly brighter on the relaying of each successive place-name as It
booms out richly in eissie's sensuous commanding poetic voice to fill the echoic spaces of the station.
•
1938. Antwerp, Belgium•
Luper, his clothing taken away from him, wearing only white underpants, is sitting on the floor of the bathroom,
cross-legged like a tailor, under the room's central hanging light-bulb. He Is making himself a paper suit from the
pink and white pages of the train time-tables left in his room. He has cut out and sewn several segments of the
suit, and they are lying on the floor. He Is now in the act of sewing them all together. The bathroom bears the
tide-mark of the flood that he caused by leaving on the taps - a tide-mark some twenty-four inches from the floor-
boards where his writing has been washed away from the walls.He can hear Cissie's train announcements, and
the light bulb above his head grows perceptibly brighter in synchronous sympathy to the poetiC names. Luper
watches the light-bulb and listens intently.
CISSIE COLPITIS
The 11.35 will leave Platform 3 for Menilmontant, Fontenay,
ColomtJe..les-deux-Eglises.. L'Escargot du Arc en Ceil, Vaux Ie
Vicom~;, The 11.43 will leave platform 6 for ....
Cissie is now making up entirely false journeys without concern for geography.
CISSIE COLPITIS
... Beaurgard-en-mer, Santa Philomellna, Romarigrad,
Leisendrograd, Baden-Marienbaden ...
• Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 4. Interior. Night. Station Concourse•

The imaginary and developed real names continue to boom out across the echoic spaces of the station. The few
late-night travellers listen awestruck as the curving dome of the station and the elaborate iron-work of the arched
vaults get brighter and brighter.
120

Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 5 Interior. Night. Luper's Bathroom.
Antwerp Railway station.
3Smm CINEMAS COPE COLOUR.
Luper tries on the paper suit, fixing the jacket with a pin. He stands on the lavatory seat and searches behind the
cistem, finding the key that Martino brought him for his escape. He goes to the door and as quietly as possible
tries the lock. The door opens.

Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 6. Interior. Night. Station Corridors and Rooms.
Luper enters the empty corridor where Cissie's voice is louder and the light-bulbs grow brighter.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Carcassone, Marmontiere, Valenciennes, Fanjeaux,
Saarbrucken, Mireaupoix, Crevecoeur ...
Watching out for his jailers, Luper, in his white and pink paper suit, starts to make a joumey, walking the
corridors, climbing upwards by way of various flights of stairs. He is searching for the source of the station-
loudspeaKer's voice in the labyrinth of the station-hotel.
On his joumey - accompanied always by Cissie's voice - now low, now loud, now muffled - he opens various
doors in the station-hotel, encountering bizarre and often disturbing events, an Introduction to the brutal and
bizarre cataclysmic events soon to engulf EUrope. There are memories of Dix, Gras, Beckman and Schultz.
1) In a small station-office, four station-uniformed porters sit smoking around the kiosk-vendor - Madame
'Fastidieux' - the fat, naked, blind woman strapped to a chair with thin cord that cuts Into her plump flesh - her
face and head are wrapped around with elastic bands. She is naked but wears a feathered hat.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Regis Augustino, Agrigento, Cafferelli, Lampedusa.
Cimarosa, Santa Pomponio, Castle del Monte Assassino ...
2) In a store-ropm, a family, men, women and children, dressed In old rags - are sleeping'on the chequered
floor or leaning asleep up against piles of suitcases.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Gaetanelli, Beneventura, Riposte, Paray-Ie-Mondial ...
3) In a small drawing-room, a stout gentleman stripped to his underwear and standing on a Nazi flag, is
performing strenuous gymnastics - each of which ends in a Nazi-salute to a large coloured photograph of
Hitler on the wall.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Grogarostora, Mlnksaria, Polockl, Carlsburgen, Leidenfrag,
Boristavari, Bratislava, Mejdfen den Largo, Santa Barbarino ...
4) In a lost-property office, a young woman in a long white dress is doing handstands, revealing her white
underwear as she flings her legs against the wall. The look-a-like Tulse Luper - the passenger who fell from
the train on platform 8 when Van Hoyten first welcomed Lephrenic and Passion to his station - is sleeping on a
: counter, his head on his rolled-up overcoat, his body covered in newspapers for warmth. Luper does not see
this man, certainly he does not see his face. Only we see his face.
121
5) In a room used as a rest-room for station personnel, scattered w~h dirty cups and plates, ten RED FOX
• cadets, including Pierre, Hercule, Emile, Brodie and Pip. They are relaxing, smoking, have found a suitcase
full of train-whistles. Each whistle has a different note and the cadets have composed a single tune which
they play with great concentration. Emile stops whistling and places the phallus-shaped silver whistle into the
fly of his trousers and dances to-the tune of the other whistles. His whistle note is noticeably absent from the
tune. Pierre crouches on all fours and blows Emile's whistle. The group break up in vulgar laughter and all
copy Emile.

Episode 3. Section 23 Scene 7 Interior. Night. Station Announcer's Room.
Antwerp Railway station.
In the station-announcer's room - Van Hoyten the station~master, enters and starts to beat Cissie Colpitis around
the face and head.
VAN HOYTEN
How dare you disrupt my schedule.
What the hell do you think you are doing? I am a realist. You are a realist.
In these realist times we must keep our secret fantasies buttoned
down .. hidden .. concealed. I have secret fantasies tool
They are not for public displayl
Altthe world is waiting for great events - and you play games!
You type like a snail and you play games!
•
-
Episode 3. Section 23 Scene 8 Interior. Night. Station Concourse.
As Cissie is being beaten, the station-lights on the platform go out one by one - the few late-night travellers listen
with alarm - as the Tannoy relays van Hoyten's voice and the blows he strikes to Cissie's face and head across
the station. .
VAN HOYTEN
This is not the time or the place to be dealing in dreams.
Keep your geography for the fairies!
There is a long silence on the Tannoy, then the sound of a woman weeping.

Episode 3. Section 23 Scene 9 Inter/or. Night. Station Corridor.
35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR;
In a low-ceilinged corridor, Luper can hear Cissie Colpitts weeping on the Tannoy. He begins to hUrry. He
opens a trap-door in a low ceiling and sticks his head and shoulder up into a shadowy room.
• Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 10. Interior. Night. Station Announcer's Room. Antwerp Railway
Station.
35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR. .
Cissie lies bleeding and weeping on the floor of the office when Luper finds her· the camera travels up as Luper
opens the trap-door and we see Cissie Colpitts as Luper would have first seen her. He watches her for several
moments and then speaks.
122
LUPER
Who are you?
CISSIE COLPITIS
My name is - you don't need to know my name. You're the English writer.
LUPER
I could be. I have not heard your voice as station-announcer before.
Where are these mysterious cnies? Where is Beauregard..en-mer?
CISSIE COLPITIS
For services to the Belgian state Station Master Van Hoyten has accorded
me a temporary privilege. And Beauregard.an-mer is on the coast near
Nevers.
LUPER
Nevers is way inland· along the way from the sea.
He kneels on the floor beside her and kisses her hand.
LUPER
Where is Rousscaricord?
CISSIE COLPITIS
Near Minsk - in the mountains.
LUPER
There are no mountains at Minsk.
But I have always tried to find such places.
He kisses- her cheek.
LUPER
I used to think that the best places to find them was in the desert.
How do you know about them? How did you know they existed?
Is it possible to go there?

Episode 3. Section 23. Scene 11. Interior. Night. Station Concourse.
The half-whispered conversation echoes through the loudspeakers of the empty midnigh{station. It is listened to
by rapt late-night travellers.
LUPER
Where is Santa Philomelina?
CISSIE COLPITIS
Somewhere south of San Germiniano, along way from Castranostro.
Perhaps close to the gates of ...
Before Cissie can say '... Paradise', Luper kisses her mouth. He gets blood on his lips. He wipes his lips on his
hand, and looks at the blood.
LUPER
Your blood is very dark.
CISSIE COLPITIS
It's mixed to match my lipstick.
123
•
They both smile. She reaches over and flicks a switch to tum off the station Tannoy. The travellers on the
station wait for more conversation - but there is none. He unbuttons her blouse.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Well - we finally meet. The man who covers pages
and pages and pages and pages ...
LUPER
You're the Infamous stenographer who is so slow.
" CISSIE COLPITTS
I am guilty. A slow lypist. A station-announcer who makes up the
station-names. Unforgivable.
LUPER
My handwriting is not easy to read.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Well - it appears there are two of you are two people - the first of
you is not so easy to read until you get used to It - but the second
is no problem at all.
LUPER
The second me is not me - he's a fake. Those who write with a
good hand want to be read. A readable hand made you
suspicious. What did he write?
CISSIE COLPITTS
You wouldn't want to know. But what about my guilt? It's my fault that
you were locked in your bathroom for seventeen weeks. I worked as slow
as I dared. They are trying to frame you in some way and they think the
• evidence is going to tum up sooner or later in the writing. The longer I take,
greater the delay. As for myself, I do not think we should always
writer with what he writes. That would be far too easy.
He kisses her.
the
identify a
CISSIE COLPITTS
You weren't listening. It has been me that has kept you prisoner.
LUPER
The bathroom's not so bad. Hot and cold runningwater, electric light.
Train timetable to be consulted if I ever manage to escape.
We must escape - to some safe place
CISSIE COLPITTS
I don't think before very long there will be any safe places.
LUPER
One of those magical places you announced to the station.
CISSIE COLPITTS
There isn't going to be a train. Listen.
Cissie - leaning against the leg of the table-desk - reaches up over her head and switches on a machine - it
looks like a combination of traditional gramophone and a ticker-tape machine - a vinyl-disc lays itself down on
a tum-table - Cissie looks carefully at her watch - at the clocks on the walls, turns a dial, a needle engages
and Cissie's voice is relayed to the darkened station.
•
CISSIE'S PRE-RECORDED VOICE
The train on platfonn 8 - the 11.10 to Ostend calls at Bruges,
Idenhoven, Plasthoven, Debrugge and Harwich, arriving
Harwich at 6.05 am. To connect with the 7.00 train to London Waterloo.
They both listen for a few moments. Then he kisses her again.
f
·.•
124
CISSIE COLPITTS
We could be in London for breakfast.
On the wide-screen image seen from floor·level, Luper and Cissie Colpitts make love on the floor of the
station-announcer's office. He unbuttons her dress and kisses her breasts, then her belly. He carefully takes
off his paper suit, locks the room trap-cfoor and lies down between her legs. On the black void behind and
above their prone bodies, a spectral projection of the same place-names as are being relayed by the sound·
machine· gently fade In and out In synchronicity to Cissie's vOico.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 24

Episode 3. Section 24. Scene 1. Interior. Morning. Luper's Bathroom.
Luper, standing in his underpants in the early morning light, is painting his pink and whHe paper-suit· made with
the train time-table pages - with black ink. The suit is pinned to the bathroom wall. He leaves regolar thin vertical
white lines on the paper to give himself a pin-striped suit.
Zeloty and Figura enter with CIssie Colpitts who is carrying a suitcase, inside which is the Red Fox Belgian
Fascist Party Uniform made to Luper's measurements. Cissie and Luper are excited and pleased at seeing one
another, but they are apprehensive of events, Luper can deal with his absurd jailers on his own· even if it means
violence - but he is not so sure of implicating Cissie. They refuse to aCknowledge one another except in the most
formal way - but want to touch one another, talk and be in one another's company. Luper becomes excited and
frenetic in his apprehension. He tries to amuse and distract. Cissie opens the suitcase and begins:to unpack the'
uniform. It is covered in pins which she takes out and sticks in the lapels of her dress. Luper watches her with
great concern and affection. Cissie discovers that some of the pins are covered in dried blood. It is a strange
token of the murder of the Rumanian clothing·manufacturer.
FIGURA
Okay Luper. photography time. Before the balloon goes up.
LUPER
No photographs. I'm allergic to split seconds of time.
I just don't show up.
ZELOTY
I think you do. You're going to show up all over the place.
Put on the trouser.s.
LUPER
FIGURA
Miss Colpitts· the trousers. Pressed neatly you see. Bracers or belt?
LUPER
Neither. You see I have made my own suit. Van Hoyten would be pleased - a
suit for our times· railway efficient. In this suit I can become the Ideal
train passenger. I could make one for you· a double suit· as with Siamese Twins?
Joined on the job. Joined in duty. The joined jailers. Which side suits you?
Do you gentlemen hang on the right or the left? Which of you would
prefer the Italian journeys, taking you from Rome down the leg of Italy to
Brindisi and then across the sea to Abyssinia and the cities of the
pseudo-African·italian Empire along the trouser tum-ups. Or due east - to Tailor
Adolf country· I can take the sleeves as far as the Polish border. I doubt
whether we can go further. Who knows? RUssia? Seamstress Stalin
may come up with a new agreement on tweeds. And I'm short on buttons.
125
• FIGURA
Put on the jacket.
I need a shirt.-
We have a shirt.
LUPER
ZELOTY
LUPER
I need a shave.
FIGURA
You can shave afterwards.
LUPER
I need a tie.
FIGURA
We have a tie.
LUPER
I'm allergic to ties.
FIGURA
I think Mr Luper you are prevaricating. We need a portrait of you
with Herr Van Hoylen to demonstrate the friendly relations
between your country and ours.
LUPER
You sound like a public broadcast.
•
ZELOTY
Are you going to tell him everything?
FIGURA
That's not everything.
Figura gets out his knife.
FIGURA
You are embarrassing and you are again making my relations
with my Frau Colpitts partner difficult.
LUPER
Again? That's your affair. Frau Colpitts is only amused, not
embarrassed. I don't smoke.
ZELOTY
What's smoking got to do with it?
LUPER
Tobacco's rationed.
ZELOTY
So?
LUPER
You should drink less coffee?
FIGURA
Shut up!
Figura holds his knife to Luper's genitals.
• FIGURA
Get into the trousers whilst they still have flies, because if you
don't, they won't need any.
126
Cissie, with the faintest of smiles, holds the suit whilst Luper dresses. He dresses in silence, contriving to
arrange that Figura and Zeloty do not see him caress Cissie's hand as she adjusts his trousers.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 25

Episode 3. SectIon 25. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Station Platform 8.
Luper Is photographed on station platform Number 8 In front of a puffing and steaming international locomotive
decked with red flowers and the legend in Flemish 'The Red Fox National Socialist Party of Belgium' ~ on a red
ribbon with its Flemish initials. Luper is dressed in his new Red Fox Uniform. He is handcuffed to Figura. He has
to keep holding his trousers up because they have left him with no belt or bracers. With Zeloty standing self~
importantly behind a camera on a tripod, Luper is forced to line up with Van Hoyten who beams With pleasure,
Palmerion who stands up very straight, Lephrenic who smiles serenely, and Passion Who giggle$ and who stands
as close as possible to Luper. Several Red Fox guards have managed to get themselves Into the frame - one of
them is Emile. Zeloty clicks his camera.

Episode 3. Section 25. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Station Hotel Steps.
Front steps of the station hotel. Luper,in his Red Fox Uniform, stands in front of Antwerp station, on the steps,
being photographed with Van Hoyten and two Japanese politicians. Luper looks dazed as though drugged.
Figura holds him up.

Episode 3. Section 25. Scene 3. Interior. Night. Antwerp Station Zoo.
With a group of dark-suited businessmen and dignitaries and two Nazl~uniformed Germans, Luper, In his red
Fox Belgian uniform, stands in front of the lion House. As Zeloty, and now two other photographers, take
pictures, Luper makes a bid for escape. He rushes off, scattering a small crowd, with Figura and Zeloty chasing
after him, assisted by the Red Fox cadet Pip who Is now a motorbike messenger wearing his full uniform plus
goggles and gauntlets and boots. ~uper does not get far. A crowd of zoo visitors are hurried away, as Luper
falls over in front of Pip's motorbike.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 26

Episode 3. Section 26. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Station Concourse.
35mm CINI':MASCOPE COLOUR.
It is raining. In a corner of Antwerp Railway Station, with his arm in a sling and his face dirty, scuffM and
bruised, the seated Luper, under an umbrella fixed to his chair, and handcuffed to a railing, is being made up for
127
the cameras by Cissie Colpitts. She has a small table, a wash-basin, towels and soap and face powder. She is
• combing his hair and towelling his face. Under umbrellas, Zeloty and Figura are close, smoking and talking to
Palmerion, and a group of foreign German guests, several of whom are in German Nazi uniform. They are all
talking in German. Three photographers are setting up cameras In front of a station sign marked with the name
ANTWERP. "
LUPER
(whispering) Traitor.
CISSIE COLPITTS
(whispering) To me, to you or to my country?
What's a few miserable photographs worth?
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Cissie says the words as deadpan and as non-emotional as she can. Luper Is taken aback, but delighted.
His face shows his relief and delight. They continue to whisper and keep an eye open for listeners. She
combs his hair and towels his face.
LUPER
(whispering) Is this the way you show your patriotism?
CISSIE COLPITTS
Be careful. We are very near the Zoo. The animals are very dangerous.
The longer we can keep this charade going - the longer you are safe. If you
keep running off - you'll end up shot. I'll think of something. The Germans
are at Karlsruhe.
(She sighs deeply) But in the meantime, you could imagine that
•
this comb is my fingers, and this towel is my mouth .
Cissie sensuously wipes Luper's mouth with the towel.
LUPER
What can I have for a breast - a bar of sweet-smelling soap?
Luper picks up the soap and smells it.
CISSIE COLPITTS
Only one?
Cissie contrives to press her breasts against Luper's face.
Luper is taken away some ten yards. by Figura who has the key to his padlocked chain. From Cissie's
position, standing in the rain, we watch Luper being photographed with Lephrenic and Passion and three
German officers and two men in dark suits - all standing under black umbrellas before five flashing cameras.
A close-up of Luper's hand hidden behind his back shows he Is tightly gripping and caressing the white soap.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 27

Episode 3. Section 27 Scene 1. Interior. Night. Van Hoyten's Office.
128
In Van Hoyten's office, Luper Is being photographed with European Politicians and the cadet core _al/ sitting like
SChoolboys at an end-of-term school photograph. luper starts a fight. The European politicians are annoyed.
Figura smashes luper in the face, it's an excuse for the cadet force including Hercule, Pierre, Emile and Brodie'
to jump on luper. There is a vigorous skirmish. Van Hoyten and lephrenic wade In, separating the cadets from
a very battered and bloodied luper. Lephrenic is disgusted by the unnecessary violence.
lEPHRENIC
Jesus Christl
. lUPER
God lord lephrenlc - do I hear a religious oath?
lephrenic ignores him and gives him his handkerchief to wipe his bleeding nose. He Is remarkably solicitous.
VAN HOYTEN
Now look what you have done - you stupid idiots!
This has got to stop.
Lephrenic is so solicitous, wiping Luper's mouth, Van Hoyten and the cadet guard are surprised. They stare
at him.
lEPHRENIC
We all have a stake in this young man (with a smile). Including my
daughter. We wouldn't want to deliver damaged goods.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 28
1939 Antwerp, Belgium.

Episode 3. Section 28. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Station Left-Luggage Depository. Antwerp Railway
Station.
In the left-luggage depository, fuil of refugees, lost children with labels around their necks, displaced people and
I including the disconsolate luper lookalike - now looking very ill and unShaven, - lephrenic is talking to leloty and
· Figura. He is counting out large Belgian currency notes in his hand. They are standing leaning on the counter.
The luper lookalike Is close-by, drinking a glass of beer given to him by the counter clerk; his minder. lephrenic
holds two identically bound volumes under his arm. They are standing by a large collection of ticketed books _ail
, lost property.
LEPHRENIC
You could now be my jailers, amenable and answerable to me.
Who knows - America might welcome such as you - when the
war's over. 00 you drive, can you handle a telephone, have you
fired a gun in anger, are you Jewish, are you over 65, do you suffer from
any hereditary diseases, are you sterile, can you pronounce SiOUX,
Milwaukee and Wisconsin, What was the Boston Tea Party and who was
Thomas Jefferson? All good questions. At Ellis Island. With me you
wouldn't necessarily have to answer these questions and if you got them
wrong, I could find perhaps a way of making your incorrect answers the
correct answers. Who knows, we could even change American
history just a little to welcome you? Don't look so worried.
Have you read this?
'.
f •
129
He proffers the two identically covered books. It's Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in two volumes.
LEPHRENIC
Tolstoy. Two "Volumes. Volume One. Read it tonight.
«.
~ ... FIGURA
(softly) We've read it.
LEPHRENIC
(he doesn't hear him or does not want to hear him) In a Flemish
translation. It's Russian· but Germany has a pact with Stalin,
so It's sort of legitimate.
ZELOTY
(louder) We've read it.
LEPHRENIC
Unusual reading material for you?
ZELOTY
It starts in a railway station with an accident and finishes in a
railway station with a suicide.
LEPHRENIC
The best things happen in twos.
FIGURA
We've completed the first half.
LEPHRENIC
(he is genuinely surprised) You have?
, ZELOTY
•
But, in the book, the suicide was a woman .
LEPHRENIC
Weill am interested in a man - this man (he indicates the Luper
lookalike). You sort of recognise him? He could take a walk the
length of Platform Nine.
Lephrenic takes five large currency notes and tears them in half. He opens Volume One of Anna Karenina at
the front, at Chapter One, and inserts the half notes in the pages that relate Anna Karen/na's observation of
the death of the railway worker under the wheels of a train. He gives the book to Zeloty. He puts the other
currency halves Into Volume Two which he gives to the counter-clerk who takes the volume, puts it in a locked
cupboard and gives Lephrenic a ticket. Lephrenic waves the ticket in front of the faces of Zeloty and Figura.
LEPHRENIC
You can read Volume Two when I see a certain photo
in tomorrow's newspapers.
Lephrenic leaves;, Zeloly and Figura open Volume One of Anna Karenina, take out the half notes and
continue to flick the pages over. Lephrenic has interleaved the remaining pages with cheaply coloured photos
showing attractive aspects of the American way of life - big cars, rich food, scantily-clad women, illuminated
cities, shiny guns, money, gambling, and photos of young mean posing in the nude.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 29

Episode 3. Section 29. Scene 1. Interior. Night. Van Hoyten'. Office.
130
In Van Hoyten's office, Zeloty and Van Hoyten with Figura and Lephrenlc and three newspaper Fhen are leaning
over a light box that strongly illuminates their faces from beneath. They are looking at some 50 photographs of
Luper - most of them unusable because Luper moves or puts out his tongue or runs off, or his face is covered In
blood or his eyes are swollen. The photos also Include various German soldiers, officers and businessmen and
several of the recognisable Red-Fox cadets, including Pip in his motorcycle gear. Van Hoyten puts a cross on the
photos they cannot use - which Is 90 per cent of them.
At the Brooklyn Museum Tulsa Luper symposium, the lecturer Lennie Cartoucher speaks. He is standing on a
large stage in front of a black-and-whHe projection screen where photos of Luper are being projected· many of
these photos are the ones that are being examined in Van Hoyten's office· complete with Van Hoyten's
crossings-out and other marks - but, surprisingly there are other photos· taken under unknown circumstances·
photos of Luper In the bathroom of his bathroom arrest - some Intimate photos of him naked In the bath, asleep
on the bathroom floor, washing, shaving, sitting on the toilet. Van Hoylen is furious at the wasted time and effort"
LENNIE CARTOUCHER
Van Hoyten's propaganda exercise was not very successful.
To keep a man prisoner to take his photograph is unusual but not unique.
Perhaps taking a photograph is some way of holding a man prisoner.
'I have your likeness so therefore I have you'. But Van Hoyten wanted
special likenesses of Luper - smiling, alert, sympathetic, in the right
uniform witl'l the right people. He wanted his own little Englander to be on
h1s side. His Anglophilia was demanding. The Belgian newspapers were
either not sophisticated enough or not interested enough in perfecting a
montage technology that was perfected In Russia where people entered
and disappeared from photographs with consummate skill. The
fact already been taken .....
:. The back-projection shows the particular photo.
LENNIE CARTOUCHER
... on the Chesterfield in Van Hoyten's office almost at the very
start of Luper's arrest· a photograph that was ideal· Luper was
smiling - though at Van Hoyten rather than for him - looking
alert, intelligent and apparently relaxed· and then with this one
photo - they could have dressed him in anything they pleased and
sat him or stood him anywhere they liked.
, The back projection does exactly what Is described - montaging Luper's photo in connection with European
•politicians, businessmen, German soldiers, celebrities, film-stars to make him appear a celebrated person in
his own right - fulfilling what van Hoyten had hoped for him.
LENNIE CARTOUCHER
Anyway, Van Hoyten probably finally recognised that his prey was not a
big enough fish on which to waste valuable effort now that the Germans
were on the Belgian doorstep. And just as there was talk that Palmer/on
the dentist, after the aCCidental death of Percy Hockmeister, had suddenly acquired a
van Meegeren • a Raising of Lazarus • with America dollars - there was
also talk of Lephreni coffering Van Hoylen material inducements far more valuable than
political affiliation with the richest and most powerful country In the
world.
~ 939. Antwerp, Belgium.

~plsode 3. Section 29. Scene 3. Interior. Night. Van Hoyten's OffIce.
131
• 35mm CINEMASCOPE COLOUR•

In Van Hoyten's office, Van Hoyten is exasperated.
VAN HOYTEN
I've had enough of this man - we look after him, feed him, protect him, and
he refuses to co-operate. Get rid of him, expel him, shoot him.
LEPHRENIC
Do not concern yourself Herr van Hoyten. It has already been
accomplished.
Lephrenic shows Van Hoyten a copy of the most important morning Antwerp newspaper. There is a photo of
Lupe(s dead body being taken from under a train, and a headline saying 'SUICIDE OF PROMINENT
ENGLISH JOURNALIST UNWILLING TO RETURN TO ENGLAND'.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 30

Episode 3. Section 30 Scene 1. Interior. Day. Luper's Bathroom.
•
There is a heavy rumbling of aircraft in the distance, as, entering his sun-lit prison-bathroom, Luper finds his
lookallke corpse naked in his bath of clear, clean, slightly green water that pleasantly sparkles and reflects onto
the ceiling. In the chair beside the bath there is the Flemish-language newspaper that reports that the English
writer Tulse Luper was killed in an accident trying to catch a train. There are photographs of Luper under a train
on the front page - these are identical photos as appeared in the other Antwerp paper - though the news
conclusions are different. Luper quizzically compares his hands with the hands of the corpse in the bath.
LUPER
The man who met himself Do I look like that?
Luper takes up the front double page of the newspaper and places it over the face of the corpse in the bath.
LUPER
How little do you have to hide to still prove you're yourself?
Could I be recognised by my hands? By my navel? By my prick?
Then he takes up another double-page and covers the belly, hands and genitals. The bathwater moistens the
newspaper. He stares again.
LUPER
Is it possible to recognise a man by his toes?
FIGURA
My grandmother was identified by her thumb. She was a seamstress who
spent her life making lace. She was killed in an explosion at Metz. My
mother said she would recognise her thumb anywhere.
•
Figura and Luper look at their thumbs. Then Figura pats Luper on the back in consolation for being dead.
FIGURA
My consolations Mr Luper.
Luper smiles but he is touched at Figura's concern. Zeloty and Figura hustle Luper to get ready to leave his
prison bathroom. With his suitcase in his hand, Luper takes a last look at his bathroom prison now filled with
132
his writing on every wall. Four men wait outside In the corridor· two in overalls and two holding. cameras. In
the corridor. just before Zeloty puts a Red Fox blanket over Luper's head to hide his identity - one of the men
in overalls steps forward. quickly taking a pencil out of his pocket, and searching for paper.
MAN IN OVERALLS ONE
Mr Luper-sir?-Can I have your autograph?
LUPER
But I am dead.
MAN IN OVERAlLS ONE
Are you sir? Surely not. I much admire your work sir.
Luper takes the man's offered pen and paper and writes his signature. Zeloty and Figura look on - apparently
oblivious of the incongruity of a dead man signing his autograph. Amused by the games of signatures, Luper
goes over to the wall where his writing is finished and signs his name and the date. -Tulse Luper September
8
121939 It is the date of the German invasion of Belgium.
,
MAN IN OVERALLS TWO

Where are you going now sir?
FIGURA
(sternly) Destination unknown.
LUPER
(shrugging his shoulders and smiling). It figures
ZELOTY
No Americanisms.
The red blanket is thrown over Luper's head and he is hUrried away along the corridor. The four men from the
corridor enter the room. The photographers, setting up their tripods, prepare to take photographs of the body
in the bath, and the two men in overalls begin to carefully strip the wall-paper off the wall - to preserve the
Luper handwriting, There is the sound of high heels walking swiftly dawn the corridor and the sound of
Passion's angry voice.
PASSION
He's being tortured. I know it. You mustn't hurt him. This has got to stop.
This has all got to stop. At once. I want the keys to his room.
Give those keys to me!
PaSSion enters the room, followed by a station-porter wnh a Fascist Party armband. Passion Is wearing a
short-skirted, expensive silk dress, and a hat with a veil. She is surprised to find the door open , and the four
men in the room. She hesitates, sees the body in the bath, bends down and rips away the floating
. newspapers. She sees the corpse of Luper's lookalike. She screams, climbing into the bath to clasp and hug
the body. She goes berserk. She is soon drenched. Bathwater splashes around the room. It splashes over
Luper's blue ink handwriting on the walls, making the ink blotch and dribble and run. Palmerion has entered
the room. With the two photographers and the two workmen and the station offiCial, he tries to hold Passion
still.
PALMERION
It isn't him. He's safe. He's left town. Ifs a trick.
She will not listen - she Is intent in believing what she thinks she sees. Her skirt Is up around her thigh. Her
blouse is ripped and soaked. Her underwear clings to her buttocks. Palmerion injects a sedation into her
i backside. Palmerion picks Passion up as she drifts off to sleep and he carries her out of the bathroom. The
'onlookers are stunned.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 31
133

Episode 3. Section 31. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Station Platform.
Luper - carrying a small suitcase - the one that belonged to Knockavelli when he was disguised as a cleaner - is
conducted In the shadows across the plattonns to a train - with Zeloty unnecessarily holding open an umbrella to
hide Luper from possible recognition, even though he is hooded with a red blanket. The station is now full of the
noise of approaching aircraft, city-sirens, and the sound and flash of distant explosions as the Gennans begin
their attack on Belgium. The statIon is awash with fleeing people.

Episode 3. Section 31. Scene 2. Interior. Day. Statlon·Announcers Room Antwerp Railway Station.
Cissie Colpitts in the darkened Tannoy room high above the station calls out the train times and destinations - the
small dark room occasionally lit with white flashes from the skylight.
CISSIE COLPITIS
The 9.10 slow night-train to Paris leaves plattonn 9 in five
minutes, calling at Broden, L1l1e, Amiens, Tours ...

Episode 3. Section 31. Scene 3. Interior. Day. Station Concourse
e- 35mm ClhlEMASCOPE COLOUR.

On the station forecourt, standing among many anxious travellers, Knockavelli and Gottschalk read the
newspapers that say Luper is dead. It is not certain whether or not they believe the news.
CISSIE-TANNOY
.... Arras, Methal, Gustav, Minden, Linz, Stokken ..
She prophetically calls out the Belgian cities that are about to be occupied by German troops.

Episode 3. SeCtion 31. Scene 4 Interior. Day. Interior Moving Train
In the train without interior lights, Luper is slowly taken away from Antwerp Railway Station. He is seated
between Figura and Zeloty - both of whom have small suitcases which amuses Luper. In the train are a division
of unifonned Red Fox Fascist Youth who are singing the Fascist anthem. They are very young -17, 18, 19. And
they are scrubbed, clean, healthy and many are angel-faced - like a della Robbia choir. All of them - without
exception - are red-haired like cub-foxes. Some have immature red moustaches - it's probably they have been
dyed. White complexions often go with red-hair - most of them are very white complexioned - often with freckles.
Among them are those we have learnt to recognise, Emile, Hercule, Pierre, Brodie. Their singing faces are
glimpsed in the darkened slow-moving train as it flicks in and out of the station tunnels, smoke-filled archways
and satanic darkened goods-yards under bombardment. It is like a dream of Singing faces.
'. 1939. Antwerp, Belgium.

Episode 3. Section 31. Scene 5. Interior. Day. Van Hoyten's Office.
f
134
In his darkened ticket-offlce lit by bombardment flashes that illuminate the room through the shadows of criss-
crossed protections on the windows - Van Hoyten is calmly and carefully dressing in his full regalia of the
Belgium Red Fox Fascist Party, Cissie Colpitts Tannoy destinations become fantastical,
TANNOY-CISSIE
.. , Partin, Holslough, Genintigden, Salmo, St Fantomas, Vaux Ie Vicompte.

Episode 3. Section 31 Scene 6. Interior. Day Interior Moving Train.
In the train Zeloty and Figura try to sing along with the detachment of Red Fascist Youth _mouthIng the words,
but not too certain of them. MOVed by the angelic beauty of the soldier-choir backed by the Wagnerian
bombardment, Figura murmurs;
FIGURA
We are all gOing to Heaven.
LUPER
(whispering) ... or to Hell.
EPISODE 3
ANTWERP
SECTION 32

Episode 3. Section 32. Scene 1. Interior. Day. Palmerion's Dentist Surgery
In Palmerion's dentist surgery - with the background noise of the bombardment, Palmerion is lifting the comatose
and unconscious body of Passion onto the dentist's chair, with Passion's face down on the seat. He cuts away
her clothes with a scalpel till she is nearly naked and then he foot-pedals the chair to a convenient position for
himself, he drops his trousers and endeavours to rape Passion from behind.
lephrenlc, searching for his daughter in the bombardment, enters the surgery, sees what is happening, pulls a
gun and aims it at Palmerion.
Palmerlon tums around, covering his genitals with his hands. Palmerion sees lephrenic looking at him and
slowly Palmerion takes his hands away to reveal his erect penis. lephrenic sees what Palmerion is showing him
- and lephrenic slowlY lowers his gun. A bomb explodes in the station and there is no telling the outcome of
Lephrenic's acti~ ,
The room is blacked out, is full of flying glass, black dust and flying teeth.
TO BE CONTINUED

The Tulse Luper Suitcase

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•

THE EARLY YEARS

• A Film By Peter Greenaway

THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASE

1998. Newport, Wales

1998. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

•1 Donald· A 5-year old - the 'baby' of the group, Ryan's brother

11917. Flanders, Belgium.

1998. Newport, Wales

Armentieres. Koblenz. Cambral.

Potsdam. And the Brandenburg Gate.

• 1922. Newport, Wales

1917. Flanders, Belgium.

This film sequence ends in a freeze-frame that, as before, bums.

This is the second time this week. Choosing a Sunday.

1998. Newport, Wales

The camera travels along the line, observing the children.

CHILDREN PLAYING RYAN

, 1922. Newport, Wales

There is a close-up of female underwear on the washing line.

ALL THE CHILDREN IN UNISON

t917. Flanders, Belgium.

• 16mm ACADEMY RATIO SEPIA•

The sequence ends with a frozen frame that bums.

1922. Newport, Wales

1998. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

i1917. Flanders, Belgium.

~he last frame of the sequence freezes and burns.

1922. Newport, Wales

What vultures? They don't have vultures in Berlin.

• Do they? Get up David - or the vultures will get youl

1917. Flanders, Belgium.

The last frame of the sequence free7es and burns.

1922. Newport, Wales

And the Brandenburg Gatel

1917. Flanders, Belgium.

ITEM: First World War. SECTION 1567.

1922. Newport, Wales

• hear his shouting louder than we conceivably should .

1922. Newport, Wales

IVOR· LUPER'S FATHER

• 1922. Newport. Wales

. IVOR· LUPER'S FATHER

IVOR - LUPER'S FATHER

1922. Newport, Wales

1917. Flanders, Belgium.

1922. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

1922 Newport, Wales

1922 Newport, Wales

1917. Flanders, Belgium.

The rain is Belgian,the cooking is English,the enemy is

1922. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

: 1922 Newport, Wales

You want to work in a lost property office?

1922. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

1922. Newport, Wales

IVOR - LUPER'S FATHER

He unlocks the door and discovers Martino.