Summary
Tupolski asks Katurian if it's true that he and Michal put a crown of thorns on the mute girl's head, and Katurian says it is true. He asks Katurian about all of the steps that it took to kill the girl and Katurian confirms all of them. He then asks, "In the story itself, the little girl is still alive when she's buried. Was the little mute girl still alive when you buried her, or was she dead?" Katurian falters, unsure.
Hearing this, Tupolski sends Ariel to check the grave and make sure the girl isn't still alive in the coffin. "How can you not know?" Tupolski asks, disconnecting the torture device, as Katurian insists that it was unclear if the girl was dead or not. Tupolski suggests that he is not satisfied with Katurian's confession, as he is a detective, while Ariel is simply a policeman. "I'm sure she's dead," Katurian says, even though he is not completely sure.
Tupolski tells a story of his own, called "The Story of the Little Deaf Boy on the Big Long Railroad Track. In China." Tupolski wants to know what Katurian thinks of the title, as a writer, and asks for his honest opinion. "I think that's probably about the worst title I ever heard," he says, "The title's almost insane." Tupolski suggests that perhaps his title is just ahead of its time.
Tupolski's story is about a little deaf boy in China who walks along the train tracks. "Maybe he's a bit retarded too, this little kid," Tupolski says. As a train comes barreling towards him, an eccentric old man who lives in a tower some ways away sees what is about to happen, and decides to write some calculations about the physics of the scenario rather than save the boy. He tosses the calculations out the window as a paper airplane, and the boy runs to catch it, which saves him from getting hit by the train.
Katurian admits the story is good, but they fight about whether it is better than his morbid fairy tales. Tupolski tells him that the old man represents him, and the boy represents his "fellow man." The story represents his selflessness as an enforcer of the law, the fact that he works to save people's lives for no thanks. Katurian asks Tupolski if the old man in the story meant to save the boy, and Tupolski says he did. "I think it could've been more clear," Katurian says.
Angered, Tupolski picks up Katurian's stories and the matches, threatening to burn them. "Your story was better than all my stories," Katurian says, hoping to pacify Tupolski and convince him to not light his stories on fire. This convinces Tupolski, who puts the stories down, before telling Katurian that he has to shoot him in the head in 20 minutes.
Tupolski tells Katurian that he liked "The Pillowman." When Katurian asks Tupolski if he lost a child, Tupolski tells him that his son drowned alone while fishing. The detective then takes out a black hood and tells Katurian that when they get word about the girl's body, they will take him in the next room and shoot him, with about 10 seconds between the moment they put the hood on him and the moment they shoot him.
Suddenly, Ariel comes in, dumbstruck, and scolds Katurian for his horrifying act. When Tupolski asks if the little girl was dead, Ariel tells him that she was not. He then calls to the little girl, about 8, who is painted bright green. She says hello in sign language, and Ariel tells them that they found her in a little house with three piglets, and calls her Maria. She seems quite happy, and Ariel takes her off to get her cleaned up.
When Ariel reenters, he tells them that they found the bodies of Katurian's parents buried where he said they were buried. They question him about why he did not know about the girl and he cannot say. Ariel then asks Katurian the hair color of the boy whose toes he cut off, but when he says it was brown-black, Ariel informs him it was actually red.
"You never even saw those two children, did you?" Ariel asks, and Katurian admits he did not. Ariel suspects that Michal killed their parents as well, but Katurian insists that he is the one who killed his parents. "I believe you did, but you didn't kill any children, did you?" Ariel asks. Katurian shakes his head.
Tupolski asks Katurian why he lied, and Katurian tells him he wanted to save his stories. Tupolski tells him that, because his confession was not completely truthful, they have to burn his stories after all. He pours lighter fluid into a bin, ordering Katurian to put on his hood as well. Katurian begs him not to, imploring Ariel to help him, but Ariel tells him that he never liked his stories anyway. Tupolski shoots Katurian in the head, then orders Ariel to clean up the room and burn the stories, before leaving.
As Ariel stares at the pages, Katurian stands and takes the hood off to reveal his bloody head. He narrates that in the moments before his death, he thought of a story: "A happy, healthy little boy named Michal Katurian, on the eve of the night that his parents were to start torturing him for seven consecutive years, was visited by a man made of all fluffy pillows..." In the story, the Pillowman tells Michal that he ought to kill himself, but Michal wants to live, so that his torture will inspire Katurian to write his stories. The irony of the story, he says, is that the stories get burned by the policeman.
In a shocking twist, Ariel puts the stories in Katurian's file and puts out the fire in the bin.
Analysis
Tupolski experiences some doubt about Katurian's confession in this final section of the play. While Ariel is very eager to take Katurian at his word and punish him, Tupolski is not so sure that Katurian is the master villain he says he is, and wonders whether he actually put the mute girl in the coffin as he says. When he questions Katurian about whether the girl was dead or alive, Katurian is confused and does not know how to answer. The fact that Katurian cannot account for the details of the crime he alleges to have committed is enough for Tupolski to doubt his entire confession.
In a rather comical sequence, Tupolski reveals to Katurian that he has a story of his own that he wants to tell. Suddenly, their relationship shifts from the relationship between a detective and a suspect to that of an aspiring writer and his mentor. When Tupolski introduces his story as "The Story of the Little Deaf Boy on the Big Long Railroad Track. In China," he wants to know Katurian's honest opinion about it as a title. When Katurian says it is a bad title, Tupolski becomes defensive. This kind of unusual comic interjection is characteristic of the play's dark sense of humor, its insistence that even in the most unexpected moments, human foible and ridiculousness can emerge.
Throughout the play, Katurian is more protective of his stories than he is of his own life. He is fine with killing his brother and dying for murders he did not commit so long as his stories are preserved. Katurian is more committed to the legacy of his strange little stories, their capacity to outlive him, than he is in his own life. This suggests that for the writer, the writer's work is even more important to him than his own life. Leaving something behind, a reflection of that life, is essential.
A twist occurs when Ariel returns and reveals that the third child was not killed in the way that Katurian confessed to having killed her. Instead, the mute girl was painted bright green and was living happily in a little house with piglets. This throws a wrench in Katurian's strange plan to protect his stories. Now that they know that he was lying in his confession, the two detectives are even more confused about his part in the murders and whether he is guilty of the crimes he purports to have committed. In a play that is full of morbid and horrifying twists, this twist is quite wholesome and fanciful, the image of a girl painted bright green with three piglets in a little house, happy as can be.
The play ends tragically, with Tupolski ruthlessly shooting Katurian in the head and threatening to burn his stories. Katurian, in spite of not having killed the children he is alleged to have killed, is executed for lying, and stripped of his only legacy, his stories. However, in the final moments of the play, Ariel, the brutish cop, elects to not throw the stories away, but instead tuck them away in Katurian's file. This is a small consolation for the tragic writer, who only wanted his stories preserved, and was willing to die for their preservation.
