Literature

The Lighthouse Keeper

SCENE 4

Stage setting as before. It is again the following night. Jason is still sitting at the table, his hands folded, his arms on the table, his head down. The lighthouse keeper is standing behind him, leaning at the door.
For some minutes there is silence. Jason is sitting motionless. The lighthouse keeper sometimes makes a restless movement, which causes Jason to startle. Then they stand respectively sit silently, motionless, as before.
Only after a while the lighthouse keeper takes a step away from the door, as if he wanted to come to the table. However, he changes his mind and pauses.

KEEPER: I will look after the light once more.

He leaves the room; it is clearly audible that he locks the door. Jason is left behind, alone. Only after the lighthouse keeper has been gone for quite a while, Jason dares to look up. At first he stares blankly towards the audience, then abruptly turns towards the door, remaining in this pose for another few moments, motionless. Then he returns to the posture he was in at the beginning of this scene.
For about a minute, absolutely nothing happens. Then Jason is getting more and more uneasy, repeatedly looks to the door or to the audience, makes impatient gestures, maybe drums his fingers on the table or plays with the quill. The more time goes by without the lighthouse keeper returning, the more restless Jason becomes.
Suddenly he stops, as if he heard something. A moment later he jumps up and to the door, trying to open it, but he must realize that it is locked. Refusing to accept it he pulls at the handle with all his might, hammers his fists against the door, but gives in after a while and sits down on the ground, close to the door. For some minutes he stays like this, shaking, his head buried under his arms.
Finally Jason stands up, quickly returning to the table, taking his seat again. Hastily he takes the sheet of paper he has been writing on and scans the text, then reads it out loud.

JASON: "Without the help of the beacon he steered the small ship out into the open sea, under the erroneous impression that he was returning to the harbour. The fishing boat could not hold out for long against the impact of the sea. A few hours later, the storm had long since passed, the dark clouds disappeared, and the sun was in the sky, shining down on the mirror-like sea, a few hours later only they pulled his body out of the water, only a few steps away from the lighthouse. I heard them talk, their voices subdued, 'he must have tried to get away from the storm, he did not make it', and, 'he must have seen the beacon, he was so close, he almost would have escaped, why did he not see the beacon?'. They notice me only as I step between them, as I kneel down and brush the wet hair out of the dead young man's face, as I answer with a quiet, low voice their questions, the spoken and the unspoken one. 'The beacon was not burning. He is my son.'"

Silently he sits for a while, the paper in his hands. Then he starts, with slow movements, to fold a boat from it.
Curtain.


----- to Scene 5

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