DAY OF RECKONING PROGRAM #5 THE PEOPLE VS QUISLING BY KENNETH WHITE AND PAUL GREEN SATURDAY APRIL 3, 1943 CAST CARL OLAP 'FATHER WOMAN - - voice of Norway' FIRST MAN CHILD OLD MAN SECOND MAN SECOND WOMAN BOY FIRST GUARD SECOND GUARD QUISLING ROSENBERG VOICES WEAF-NBC "DAY OF RECKONING" NO 5 7:00 - 7_30 FM APRIL 5 19^3 SATURDAY (MUB_IC_: THEMEJJP AND UNDER) ANNOUNCER: The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council for Democracy, brings you the fifth program in a special series entitled "Day of Reckoning", This program was written by Kenneth White and Paul Green and stars - the distinguished actor, , (MU;3IC_: UP__AND OUT) (AFTER ANNOUNC_EMENT_MUSIC_CO_NTINUI_NG; _HR0UGH) ANNOUNCER: A Norwegian family is eating supper. (DISHES. A CUP BEING PUT DOWN IN A SAUCER, A KNIFE BEING LAID ACROSS A PLATE. BUT NO WORD IS SPOKEN AS MUSIC CONTINUES UNDER UNTIL:) CARL: Father - ^S.1^^ _A5.R£P1LI P_u_.) CARL: I'd like some more bread. (PAUSE) Never mind. I can cut it myself. (PAUSE) (DISHES) CARL: I guess it isn't every family in Norway that las butter I (PAUSE)(NO RESPONSE) Mother, are you tired? Did you have a hard day? (PAUSE, NO RESPONSE.) Well, Olaf, you'll talk to me? You'll talk to your brother Carl. Of course you will. You're too young to have a part in these silly family quarrels. How's school, Olaf? Come on tell me. You are a fine youngster Olaf. I'm proud of you, (MORE) GAEL: (CONT'D) I'll beb all your schoolmates envy you, don't they? I'll bet they envy you having a big brother like me. Now come on; tell me, don't they? (NO RESPONSE. THEN A WOMAN BEGINS TO CRY SOFTLY) FATHER: Don't bawlI Don't let him see your bears. If you must cry, wife, cry where he can't see you - behind the door, (CHAIR BEING PUSHED BACK. FOOTSTEPS, STIFLED SOBS) CARL: Mother J (DOOR SHUTS PAUSE) CARL: Why is she crying? OLAF: (YOUNG VOICE: BITTERLY) They say we eat traitor's bread and butter. FATHER Silencei The rotten dead cannot be addressed, They cannot hear. Finish your bread, Olaf, You need your strength. CARL: Father, how long are you going to keep up this farce I Not speaking to me. Acting as though I weren't here. What if the neighbors do talk. They're jealous that's all - jealous of the food we've got that they haven't. FATHER: Olaf - OLAF: Yes, father? FATHER: My neighbors did not always despise me. OLAF: No, father. FATHER: They didn't curse the bread I pub in my mouth. My name the name of Soren Pederson - was an honest name. OIAPJ Yes, father. CARL: (BELLIGERENTLY) I asked you a question, father0 How long are you going to keep up thLs farce? FATHER: Until the stinking dead carcass of my first•born, Carl, Is taken from this house. Until It lodges with the other rotten bones like It, CARL: (CRYING OUT) FatherJ You can't fcreab me this way. I've done my duty as I thought "best. Father, listen to me ~ your son, I don't want to leave my family „ I love you, father, I love mother - father - father will you speak to me? (NO RESPONSE) Father, you didn't used to hate me, (PAUSE) PATEER: I had a son once, A fine young man, I was proud of him. CARL; You still can be, father, FATHER: (IGNORING THIS) I could speak his name to my neighbors. They would listen as to any proud father. Now I have no such son, CARL: (CRYING OUT) Father' FATHER: His name I cannot even utter. In the factory, in the street, In the stores. When the neighbors speak of him his own mother says, I have no son named Carl, No, She is right, A dead man lives with us, pretending he is out son Carl, From the grave he brings us food and to our shame we eat it, OLAF: (WILDLY) Traitors' bread 1 FATHER: Hush, hush. This ghoul who says he is my son is a follower of Vidkun Quisling, The bread we eat at his hands is bloody. The meat we take from his hands is the limbs of our fellow countrymen. Cannibal! Who would devour the breaatsthat gave hla nourishment, Quislingl CARL: (WEAKLY) FatherJ FATHER: Are you my son, Carl? CARL: (GROVELLING) Yes, father, yea. FATHER: Are you. the young mail who follows Quisling, halls him as leader of our people? CARL: Yes, father, yes - God forgive me. FATHER: Then look me In the face. Look at me, this once, CARL: I am looking, father. FATHER: Then Into your face, take your father's spit, (SPITTING, ) UPJJARSH^ LOUD^ UP_FULL,__ FADEJPO ANGRY MJRMJRjnjpBR^) WOMAN: (ON ECHO) It Is a bitter thing to see the spittle of a father trickling down the face of his first born son, But It Is more bitter to see your land laid under a conqueror's feet like a carpet, by one man6 QuislingJ (THE NAME ECHOES AND IS REPEATED UNTIL IT IS NOTHING BUT A HISS) WOMAN: Out of the pit of snakes. Quisling! (PAUSE) Who am If My voice Is bitter now, speaking the name, Quisling, But mine Is the voice of Norway, WOMAN: Once It was the voice of a land ~ a nation - where the soil yielded only to man's sweat. Where the rocks resisted the struggling hands. There stand the mountains, snow living on their heights, crowning them In cold forever, In the rocky bays the fish swarmed. The hands of the men who gathered them for food were scarred and torn and swollen. (MORE) WOMAN: (CONT'D) Bub out- of the nature of this sea-girt land the men and women who have dwelt here made their lives. Among the rocks and ridge's they carved a sturdy image of themselves. Prom the seas, out of the briny assault of the sea they learned courage. They learned peace. Peace tie unto you - was their greeting to each other. (FADE IN BACKGROUND SOFTLY STRIKING BELLS) WOMAN: Through the long dark winter and the rapid bliss of our springtime - peace be unto you and to us, (PAUSE CONTINUE BELL FADE AS:) WOMAN: Once my voice was the voice of the wind through the pines of our land, Once my voice was the kind speech of a man tending in the dark hush of the night an ailing animal, FIRST MAN: (OFF MIKE) There, boss, there, it will be all right. There, boss ~ (SOFT LOWING OF COWS IN STABLE, FADE UNDER) WOMAN; Once my voice was that of a mother singing her child to sleep'm (FADE_IN WOMAN'S VOICE SINGING,J3FPJMIKE,JJORWEGIAN LULLABY^, CONINTUE UNDER:) WOMAN: Once my voice spoke in the tones of a child - CHILD: (OFF MIKE) What kind of flowers did you say they were, Grandfather? OLD MAN (OFF MIKE) Anemones. The spirit of early spring, my childe -6- WOMAN: Once my hair was like the shadows of the clouds that pass and cross over oar valley. Once my hair was like the dark vast night, of winter where--in play the noiseless cold fountains of the stars.. But now I (LULLABY ABRUPTLYJWT^ _BEGIN_ROLL 0F_DRUM £ONTINUIWGJTO CRESCENDO. WOMAN: My hair is a nest of serpents ~ VOICES: (OFF MIKE) Quisling ~~ quisling ~ WOMAN: Now each mountain is a seat of venom. The shadows of the clouds hide only the desire fco strike - VOICES; (OFF MIKE) Quisling! Quisling! WOMAN: Let each house be a source, let each window be a fang, let us gather our poison of hate to kill and destroy - VOICES: QuislingI Quisling, WOMAN: Who answers me? SECOND MAN: I do. My brother was a teacher, lie was shot against the wall. Because he told his pupils that freedom was good, VOICES: Quisling! Quilsing! SECOND WOMAN: I answer you. Because my husband was dragged to forced labor in Germany, VOICES: Quisling! Quisling! WOMAN: Who else answers me? I do. Because my mother was killed by the invading Nazis, VOICES: Quisling! Quisling! Quisling! Quisling! 1D1^0EDkWS_GM.SHJ)F^ MUSIC, OUT) -7*. WOMAN: Who Is this man who has turned the hair of my head Into a nest of serpents, -who has made my voice the voLce of a Fury - a Fury of vengeance] Who 3Ls this man, Quisling? Who will go with me to confront him? Who will speak with the voice of Norway against him? Who? VOICE; I will I ANOTHER VOICE:I wlllj MORE VOICES: And I. And I. And I. (UNTIL IT SWELLS TO A GREAT SHOUT) (MUS_IC_; MUS.X2- IN_°E 1°L £.P_SSOU.T_P^P1 AS_0 WOMAN: In the city of Oslo, the city that was the capltol of our peaceful country, this man - Vldkun Qullslng - has a mansion, (FADE IN WIND SOUND UNDER) WOMAN: A gloomy great house before which guards march back and forth, (FADING OUT) (WIND SOUND CONTINUING THROUGH. FADE IN PACKING FOOTSTEPS) FIRST GUARD: (OFF MIKE) Halt, who's there. SECOND GUARD: (OFF MIKE) Me, you fool. Who else would It be. GUARD: I thought maybe It was Carl Pederson. He's supposed — SECOND GUARD: (INTERRUPTING) Ah, It's not time for him yet. The cold has numbed your brain. If you ever had one, FIRST GUARD: I could stand the cold, but It's this uncertainty - this fear « every shadow armed with a .knife « never knowing when somebody may jump on you. Never being sure. Never knowing when you may get a bullet In your back. SECOND GUARD; You must be new* Ah, you'll get used fco its What do you expect - you're guarding the Chief of Norway.