The Prague Orgy Read Free

play the role of the Jewess Anne Frank on the stage when you were only nineteen years old? ’ Eva answers, ‘ I played the role beca use I was chosen from ten young actresses. And all of them wanted ii more than the world. ’ ‘ Young actresses, ’ he asks her, ‘ or young Jewesses? ’”
    “ I beg you, Zdenek, I cannot hear my ridiculous story! I cannot hear your ridiculous story! I am sick and tired of hearing our story. I am sick and tired of having our story! That was Europe, this is America! I shudder to think I was ever that woman! ”
    ‘“ Young actresses, ’ he asks her, ‘ or young Jewesses? ’ Eva says, ‘ What difference does that make? Some were Jewish, I suppose. But ! am not. ’ ‘ Well then, ’ he says to Eva, ‘ why did you want to continue playing this Jewess on the stage for two years, if you weren ’ t, at the least, a Zionist sympathizer even then? ’ Eva replies, ‘ I have played a Jewess in Ivanov by Anton Chekhov. I have played a Jewess in The Merchant af Venice by Shakespeare. ’ This convinces him of nothing. That Eva had wanted to play a Jewess even in a play by Anton Chekhov, where you have to look for one high and low, does not, in the opinion of the vice-minister, strengthen her position. ‘ But everybody understands, ’ Eva explains to him, “ … these are only roles. If half the country thinks I ’ m a Jew, that does not make it so. They once said I was part gypsy too; probably there are as many people who still believe that because of the ridiculous film I made with Petr. But, Mr. Vice-Minister, ’ Eva says, ‘ what everybody knows, what is true and indisputable, is that I am none of these things: I am an actress. ’ He corrects her. ‘ An actress, Madam Kalinova, who likes to portray Jewesses, who portrays them masterfully— that is what everyone knows. What everyone knows is that no one in all of our country can portray a Jewess belter. ’ ‘ And if that is even true? Is that also a crime in this country now? ’ By then Eva is shouting and, of course, she is crying. She is shaking all over. And this makes him nice to her suddenly, certainly nicer than before. He offers brandy to calm her down. He explains that he is not talking about what is the law. He is not even speaking for himself. His heart happens to have been greatly moved in 1956 when he saw Eva playing little Anne Frank. He wept at her performance—he has never forgotten it. His confession causes Eva lo become completely crazy. “ Then what are you talking about? ’ she asks him. ‘ The feelings of the people, ’ he replies. ‘ The sentiments of the great Czech people. To desert Petr Kalina, an Artist of Merit, to become the mistress of the Zionist Polak would have been damaging enough, but to the people it is unforgivable because of your long history of always playing Jewesses on the stage. ’ ‘ This makes no sense, ” Eva tells him. ‘ It cannot be. The Czech people l oved Anne Frank, they loved me for portraying her! ’ Here he removes from his file all these fake letters by all the offended members of the theatergoing public—fake, just like the writing on the theater wails. This closes the case. Eva is dismissed from the National Theater. The vice-minister is so pleased with himself that he goes around boasting how he handled Polak ’ s whore and made that arrogant Jew bastard know just who is running this country. He believes that when the news reaches Moscow, the Russians will give him a medal for his cruelty and his anti-Semitism. They have a gold medal just for this. But instead he loses his job. The last I heard he was assistant editor of the publishing house of religious literature. Because the Czechs did love Anne Frank—and because somebody high up wants to be rid of the stupid vice-minister anyway—he is fired for how he has handled Eva Kalinova. Of course for Eva it would have been better if instead of firing the vice-minister they would restore her position as