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It is 1955. The Merz family apartment in Vienna has been abandoned for years following the end of World War Two. Nathan and Rosa are re-discovering it, along with their cousin/nephew Leo, who is 24 and (to all intents and purposes) an Englishman. They are the only family members left after the horror of the holocaust. Rosa left Austria over a decade before the war and she is the epitome of a smart New Yorker. Leo was taken to England as a child with his mother, Nellie, and his stepfather Percy.
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START: ROSAThe first time I came back after the war—January ’46—I was so excited to see that Demel was still there I went in and ordered coffee and cake. The waiter said, ‘We have no coffee and no cakes.’ ‘Oh. What have you got, then?’ ‘Camomile tea.’ So I had camomile tea.
[... …]...
END: But it turned out America never filled the quota. It let in ten thousand fewer Jewish refugees than the quota.
Nathan barks a laugh.
NATHANIf you don’t think that’s funny, you’re not close enough.
But his laughter is overtaken by his agony. He starts to howl. Leo doesn’t know how to respond. Rosa, smoking, watches Nathan dispassionately.
ROSARight. I’m a Viennese Freudian analyst in New York with an office on the Upper East Side, I should complain?
Tom Stoppard, Leopoldstadt. Grove Press, 2020. pp.105-116
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