Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 13 • Spring 2005 • Featured Writer • Drama

Vessels

Kim Yaged

In the Camps

(ALL line up for roll call.)

25-54

Not all lesbians were heroes.

12-17

There was a lesbian room senior in our block at the camp.

AGED

What makes a lesbian most?

12-17

She would use her position to pressure prisoners into granting sexual favors.

25-54

Promise or profit? Practice or purpose? Passion or proximity?

AGED

We slept three in a bed.

12-17

A cuddle?

25-54

A touch?

AGED

The bravery to care?

25-54

Lesbian by degrees.

12-17

Situation

AGED

Semantics

12-17

Shameless

AGED

Hunger

25-54

Vitality

AGED

Lesbianism was not illegal outside the camps, but inside it was.

12-17

The guards were frequent offenders.

AGED

So how could they turn others in?

12-17

You couldn't help but oversee the lovemaking.

25-54

Unwilling voyeur.

12-17

"Jules." That's what we called the more masculine ones in a couple.

25-54

Profound, durable relationships.

AGED

Lending new meaning to the words, "Until death do us part."

(AGED hands 25-54 a withered bouquet.)

25-54

They had brothels in the camp.

12-17

Not just for SS.

AGED

The prettiest women went to the brothels for the SS.

25-54

But the prisoners had their own brothels.

AGED

They thought it would combat male homosexuality, improve the work of prisoners -- more weapons.

12-17

Incentive programs

AGED

With the promise of better food, private rooms, more comfortable conditions, and release after six months.

12-17

They asked for "volunteers."

AGED

Prostitutes. Mostly former prostitutes. But others too.

(25-54 timidly raises her hand.)

25-54

I had already been there four years.

(AGED reads from a report.)

AGED

"Their commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the weakness of their numbers."

12-17

Nazis especially liked lesbians to work the brothels.

AGED

Shape them up!

12-17

My period

AGED

Designation of readiness

25-54

of service.

(25-54 saunters over to an imaginary client.)

25-54 (CONT'D)

Eight men. In two hours. Every day. There was this one. He was a handsome young man. I'm sure he was. By the time I met him -- not so much. But, such charm. You don't get that from nowhere. "Please, call me --" Odd sort of courtship. I was part of his treatment. Re-education. Or eradication. He never touched me. Not once. Maybe when the SS were looking through the peephole. But that's it. Pink triangle. A kinsman of sorts. It was a relief to just talk. Not for nothing, I would have sworn up and down for him. But, one day, he was gone.

AGED

Strip

25-54

Tease

12-17

My mind

AGED

Put in your time.

25-54

I can convince myself to suck up my soul just long enough.

AGED

Lured

12-17

Forced

25-54

Promised

AGED

Half a year

12-17

Six months

25-54

Recommended time

AGED

To cure

12-17

or be cured

25-54

Just wishful thinking

12-17

Because there's nothing left to hold on to once you give up your dreams.

AGED

You will never know

25-54

You will never know

12-17

You will never know

25-54

What's become of me?

Next Page:   Post-War   (page 6 of 8 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   Vessels

Kim Yaged is an award-winning playwright whose work has been performed throughout North America. Her chamber opera www.love was showcased by the New York City Opera and subsequently performed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This production won four Best of 2001 Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Production, and was runner-up in two other categories. Kim was a recipient of the Kennedy Center's Meritorious Achievement Award for the Diego Rivera Theatre's production of her play America. She was also an ArtServe grant recipient. Kim has written children's books for Disney Publishing. Her short stories and poetry are included in anthologies published by Ballantine Books, Cleis Press, and Arsenal Pulp Press. (Photo credit: Sarah Grace Shierson Dumser)

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