The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia

The Theatre of Genocide

The Theatre of Genocide Four Plays about Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia

Edited by

Robert Skloot

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059 www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 2008 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved 5

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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The theatre of genocide : four plays about mass murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia / edited and with an introduction by Robert Skloot. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-299-22470-8 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 0-299-22474-0 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Genocide—Drama. 2. Mass murder—Drama. I. Skloot, Robert. PS623.T48 2007 812´.54080358—dc22 2007016820

Exile in the Cradle © 2003 Lorne Shirinian. Originally published by Blue Heron Press, 2003. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. All rights reserved. For performance rights, contact Lorne Shirinian, 160 Greenlees Drive, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7K 6P4. Silence of God © 2007 Catherine Filloux. Reprinted by permission of Elaine Devlin Literary Inc. All rights reserved. For acting editions of this play or stock and amateur performance rights, you must contact Elaine Devlin Literary Inc., 20 W. 23rd St., 3rd floor, New York, New York 10010 ([email protected], 212-206-8160 ex. 20). A Patch of Earth © 2007 Kitty Felde. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved. For performance rights, contact Kitty Felde, PO Box 45183, Los Angeles, CA 90045. Maria Kizito © 2007 Erik Ehn. Reprinted by permission of the author. No rights reserved— the script is public property. Copy and quote at will. For performances, however, the author would like to be informed, care of Morgan Jenness, Abrams Artists Agency, 275 Seventh Avenue, 26th floor, New York, New York 10001.

Contents

Introduction: “The Light of Dead Stars”

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Robert Skloot

Exile in the Cradle

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Lorne Shirinian

Silence of God

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Catherine Filloux

A Patch of Earth

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Kitty Felde

Maria Kizito

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Erik Ehn

Other Plays about Genocide in English Contributors

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For my students and my teachers

The Theatre of Genocide

Introduction “The Light of Dead Stars” Robert Skloot

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hen Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” in 1944, he provided a name for the kind of human savagery with which he had personal experience. Born in Poland at the turn of the twentieth century, he escaped the Nazi invasion and occupation of his country, fleeing to the United States just prior to the world’s plunge into war. Forty-nine members of his family were not so lucky, and they perished in what has been called the Jewish genocide, or the Holocaust.1 Genocide joins together the Greek “genos” (race or kind) with the Latin “caedere” (to kill) to name behavior that had been known but not defined conceptually or legally. Article 2 of the United Nations genocide convention reads: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” and lists five examples of how genocide may be identified as specific acts that require punishment. Lemkin’s precise and expansive definition addressed the massive scale and clear intent of the killing and stipulated that it could occur during war or peacetime and could be carried out by governments or individuals. He insisted that genocide was different than common savagery, no matter how large-scale, because whole groups were targeted for annihilation; that condition creates an entirely new crime requiring an entirely new system of punishment. Although he had no official diplomatic status, Lemkin spent the next years of his life as an internationally known statesman for human rights, lobbying politicians and governments to endorse his proposal for what became the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

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Genocide in the early years of the United Nations. At the time of his death in 1959, the list of ratifying countries numbered about sixty; the United States ratified the treaty in 1988.2 In recent years, Lemkin and his work have generated much interest. Although a few have pronounced the convention an outright failure, most observers have maintained the hope that universal ratification and adoption would result in establishing both the legal definition of genocidal behavior and a mechanism for stopping a genocide that is in progress, if not preventing genocide in the first place. Among legal scholars and international human rights groups, the treaty is seen as the best framework to ensure the punishment of the perpetrators of genocide.3 To be sure, a number of scholars and activists have proposed to modify some of the language of the treaty to correct errors that are understood to have their origins in the political necessities of the time during which the document was written. For my purposes, Helen Fein’s definition, one that builds on Lemkin’s seminal work, will be the definition that guides the analysis of the plays that appear in this volume. Fein writes of genocide (in part) as a “sustained, purposeful action by a perpetrator to physically destroy a collectivity directly or indirectly.”4 In the twenty-first century, as genocide continues to be in evidence in the world, the hardest lesson may be that human beings are rarely able, as individuals or working as nations, to prevent or postpone the wholesale slaughter of innocent groups. Certainly, the cry of “Never again!” that was heard first in the aftermath of the Holocaust has come to seem little more than a hollow slogan today; “Always, everywhere!” would seem a more accurate description of world events.5 Nonetheless, in the face of continuing violence and mass death, the horror of genocide also provokes an antigenocidal response, a genuine desire to prevent group murder, on both a governmental and individual level. Action to stop genocide takes the form of a wide range of behavior including collecting and studying facts about atrocity, working actively to condemn and intervene in its practice, and mobilizing resources for humanitarian assistance. The commitment to diminishing genocide also includes the efforts of artists whose work creates a cultural awareness of and a social context for

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the discussion of how best to confront, understand, and reduce genocidal violence. The four plays in this anthology, all written within the first years of our new century, represent contemporary theatrical investigations of genocide in English. Their artistic strengths—exciting action, evocative language, provocative engagement with difficult themes—make their contribution to the discussion and prevention of genocide noteworthy. Their authors’ purpose is to bring audiences closer to both recent and distant historical periods of violence through the dynamics of theatre performance.6 These examples of antigenocidal playwriting fill a notable gap in the materials available for studying and confronting genocidal violence. Along with film and literature, the theatre contributes to the discussion that is being carried out in historical, political, and journalistic accounts. The category of art I call the theatre of genocide complements and advances Lemkin’s political advocacy. Like all engaged art, it seeks to comment on and influence public discourse through various strategies: by the description of the victims’ suffering and the assertion of their essential worthiness, the discussion of the perpetrators’ motivation, the presentation of images of healing and compassion, the evocation of empathy, the questioning of the proper use of historical knowledge, and even the expansion and dissemination of what the critic Susan Sontag called a “collective instruction” of culture.7 In the following introduction I provide a summary of the issues that link the theatre and genocide, explore the common issues raised by the plays, assess their theatrical and cultural effectiveness as texts worthy of stage production, and discuss how understanding and dealing with genocide can be made more important in the education of people about their history and their future. “We want to know,” writes Morris Dickstein, “how life feeds into art, not simply how art feeds on itself.”8 To be sure, the restorative, humane artistic project is a worldwide phenomenon. The examples provided here, part of a growing body of literary and cinematic material committed to halting genocidal violence, share a common language and a common ethical concern. Each focuses on a discrete genocide: Armenian (1915–23), Cambodian (1975–79), Bosnian (1992–95), and Rwandan (1994). As a group, they bring to audiences powerful and disturbing images of the horrors of a century that began and ended in mass killing. They map out a landscape of inquiry and raise for

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discussion issues of culpability, responsibility, and justice that both inhibit and encourage the formation of the nonviolent world in which most people want to live. The plays do not, individually or as a group, propose definitive answers to political or strategic questions inherent in the historical record of destruction; several imply that the violence will continue despite the best efforts to prevent and punish it. Nonetheless, they are in accord with one journalist’s assessment: “The central passion of the history of genocide is that the essential starting point of any response is to bellow moral outrage.”9 By incorporating that outrage into ourselves, we can then move on to advancing ideas about what to do next. In truth, plays are ineffective in bringing about immediate changes in societies no matter how intelligent or powerful they may be. But like the best art, they can help us to better understand the violent world and provide insights into human behavior, creating images that, in the long run, may make the world more peaceful and more just. In the playwright Tom Stoppard’s words, plays provide a “moral matrix” for human affairs.10 They prepare the ground for changes in policy and thinking and, on a level of emotional engagement, give theatrical life to those whose voices have been silenced because they were marked for exclusion from a place among humanity where they rightly belonged. Raphael Lemkin wrote in his unpublished autobiography: “I always wanted to shorten the distance between the heart and the deed” and “to live an idea” through concrete action. His own method was political persuasion, exercised relentlessly and in many languages, in the legal circles and chambers open to him (or forced open by him) in the 1950s. In our time, the theatre has attempted to shorten the distance between heart and deed also. Though its methods differ from outright political advocacy, by its humane, active presence it too can contribute to Lemkin’s judicial goal of preventing the scourge of genocide by offering up the kind of knowledge and feeling that only art can provide.

Definitions and Antecedents Until we find a way of toppling the barrier that sequesters mass suffering in other regions of the world from the comfort and safety we enjoy far from its ravages, 6

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little will be done to rouse the attention of our political or professional leaders. . . . Domestic calm encourages distancing foreign pain. . . . We need, but lack, a new kind of discourse to disturb our collective consciousness and stir it into practical action that moves beyond mere pity. Lawrence L. Langer, Preempting the Holocaust

The long history of theatre includes examples of “scenarios of genocide” that reaches back to classical Greece. Euripides, in writing of the removal and destruction of the women and children of the island of Melos by the Athenians in his play The Trojan Women (415 BCE), was the first to write about genocide. (In the play, Troy stands for Melos.) The play, ever timely and relevant, continues to be staged around the world. “Scenarios of genocide” is the term the political scientist Helen Fein coined to describe narrative models or historical archetypes of genocidal behavior.11 Fein’s term can be used to refer to plays that imagine the personal relationships of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders, plays that invite the public to experience dynamic stage performances that demand emotional engagement and rational response. Several thousand years after Euripides, western playwrights continue to bring to the stage stories of the annihilation of vulnerable and innocent populations. Often, their purpose is to raise the consciousness of audiences whose own governments have perpetrated the bloodshed and then denied their responsibility in the killing. Such plays as Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1967), Arthur Kopit’s Indians (1969), Christopher Hampton’s Savages (1974), and James W. Nichol’s Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons (1977) were attempts to supply compelling narratives exploring the part colonial powers played in the historical occurrence of genocide and blaming them for it. The plays focused on the destruction of indigenous peoples and their cultures (“ethnocide”) at the hands of ignorant and violent countries and institutions seeking power, treasure, or religious domination. In addition, the playwrights recreated specific cultural rituals to attest to the magnitude of the loss (the Sun Dance in Indians, the Quarup in Savages), providing an artistic strategy for staging genocide in a nonrealistic way.12 Shaffer, Kopit, Hampton, and Nichol are “first-world” writers whose concern for indigenous groups that fall (in Fein’s phrase) “outside the universe of obligation” is motivated by the felt need to publicly accuse their own governments of heinous, irreparable crimes. They write as insiders, full of

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anger, rebuke, and guilt that spring from their connection to the colonial oppression.13 The authors of the four plays in this volume, however, with no colonial complicity, have only their human connections to the stories they dramatize, connections that provoke a different stance toward genocidal inquiry. The motives of the perpetrators of the genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda are different, these plays suggest, from the perpetrators’ motives that resulted in the destruction of the native Indian populations of North or South America because the genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Rwanda were provoked less by religious crusading, military adventurism, cultural imperialism, or economic exploitation than by the deadly effects of violent ideology, racist ignorance, and exploitable fear. It is a harder task to understand and assess the events, ones that are located inside a community (the Armenian genocide is the partial exception here), though the playwrights are determined to try. The plays that make up The Theatre of Genocide present retrospective assessments of specific historical genocides. Lorne Shirinian (Exile in the Cradle) looks back the farthest, presenting the Armenian genocide of 1915– 23 in its own time as well as in ours. The play is important for asking how an affected diasporic community deals with its own history generations after the violent and deadly encounter. Catherine Filloux’s retelling of the facts of the Cambodian genocide (Silence of God) features a journalist protagonist whose objectivity is compromised by personal entanglements that threaten her sanity and safety and make her doubt the usefulness and even the truth of the very act of writing. In A Patch of Earth, Kitty Felde deals with genocide in the former Yugoslavia. She shows in her play the legal system (the International Court of Justice) that was put in place to find justice for the victims, a tribunal envisioned by Lemkin’s treaty forty years earlier. Erik Ehn likewise uses a real trial to structure his scenario in his rumination on human evil during the Rwandan genocide (Maria Kizito); for him the trial has a double meaning, both legislative and religious. What differentiates these plays from earlier theatrical explorations of genocide is their commitment to understanding both what happened and what survivors (in the widest possible sense) are to conclude about the historical events in the present. Though they identify the perpetrators, the

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plays move beyond placing blame—indeed they are not sure who or what can be blamed at all—but they are determined nonetheless to present an exploration of motive and a consideration of individual responsibility that reveals the extent to which those who feel guilt also feel an overwhelming sense of loss. In so doing, they also resist the reductionist urge often seen in the work of social scientists that results in trends and statistics replacing the human image, however abused that image may be. As Joan Ringelheim has written about the Holocaust: “We are capable of understanding within the limits of our languages and imagination. These means for approximating experience may not satisfy our deepest needs to understand, but they are all that we can hope for as humans.”14 The theatre’s lasting influence lies in its ability to extend the limits of our language and imagination.

The Plays and Their Premises I contend that, ultimately, our awareness of our own capacity for evil—and of ways to cultivate the moral sensibilities that curb that capacity—is the best safeguard we can have against future genocide and mass killing. James Waller, Becoming Evil

Lorne Shirinian’s Exile of the Cradle dramatizes the Armenian genocide over the course of nearly a century and across continents, from Constantinople to Toronto. Beginning with the deportations and forced marches that preceded the wholesale extermination of the Armenians by the Turks in 1915, Shirinian’s play shifts its attention to the legacy of the genocide for subsequent generations that have no personal experience with the destruction. His play describes a profound and crucial fissure in communities where genocides have receded in time and survivors are almost completely absent. What will be remembered when the witnesses are gone? Who gets to decide? Does there come a time when history is only “past” and not “present”? These questions have wide application to other genocides, most notably the Holocaust, where the world will soon confront a “chronology of absence,” though with significantly more cultural carriers of memory available (memorials, museums, libraries, recorded testimonies) for consultation and study. The playwright writes in his essay “Towards an Armenian

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Diaspora Theatre” about the challenges to creating personal identity in a diasporic community formed and organized around historical catastrophe.15 Through a clever staging device, Shirinian unifies the wide expanse of time and place. He calls for identical images and spatial relationships to define the areas of action, so that the funeral parlor in act 3 can suggest the deportation train in act 1. Characters age through the play, but their presence unifies the text in performance, enabling the audience to see the same actor playing a character in different times. When that occurs, we realize how a people can inhabit simultaneously various times and spaces in the conflict that arises between memory and present understanding. Old and Young Pierre confront each other at the start of act 2—Young Pierre of Anatolia speaks to Old Pierre of Toronto in 1985: “On some nights, I dream of Pierre, sitting alone in this apartment, dreaming of me.” Throughout the play, Shirinian the artist questions his own role, and the role of artists in general, in the creation and maintenance of cultural identity. Pierre is a poet; he writes to provide a voice for his abused people and to record the atrocities they suffered; “something must remain,” he says at the end of the first act. But his antagonist Salim has good reason to mock the idealism of his prisoner: “People will learn what we tell them. We will become the source. There will be no others.” And so it went during the Armenian Genocide, when even with the eyewitness reports of emissaries of foreign governments, the killing went on for eight years without interruption; only years later, in the survivor community, was the truth known and disseminated. “They’ll allow no record of our presence,” despairs Young Pierre, before he becomes the lone survivor of the death train. In the next generation, Old Pierre’s daughter Armig has inherited his poet’s gift and his passion for witnessing. She is of the “middle” generation, positioned between the genocide survivor and the “new world,” where the memories of the atrocities are contested—both their content and their perpetuation. Armig’s two daughters, one of whom is also an artist, seem in perpetual disagreement over what, how, and whether to remember the killing that has been the defining historical event of their community. As noted earlier, other communities face, or will face, a similar situation as they invent themselves and reinvent their past in the face of relentless pressures to assimilate and the loss of both “reliable” memory and language to evoke it.

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In the last act, Armig’s poetry becomes the object of discussion and source of motivation, the basis for personal negotiation and communal disputation. Cradling baby Yerchanig (“happy” in Armenian), grandmother Armig recites her last poem about the legacy of slaughter. Accompanied by the sound of the deportation train, the final image embodies two restrictive circles, one generational and the other historical. Shirinian’s characters worry about the meaning and use of history; the freedom they seek from the weight of history and culture troubles and conflicts them. His own work as an artist relates the story of genocide that can be both hopeful and hopeless, an affirmation of both life and death, a future full of paradox and conflict. Thus, if exile begins in the cradle, can home ever be found? Catherine Filloux’s Silence of God (2002) is one of several plays she has written that deals with the genocide in Cambodia, a country she has lived in and knows well. The play’s protagonist is Sarah Holtzman, an American journalist who has scored a scoop by gaining an interview with Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge. The scenic design of the play relies heavily on light and sound to move the action over several countries and many years, though the action begins and ends in 1998. Filloux writes in her author’s note about the historical incident that is at the center of the play’s fluid chronology: “In the spring of 1998 the U.S. had a secret plan to capture Pol Pot to try him for crimes against humanity, and Pol Pot’s adversary Ta Mok made overtures to hand him over. I have placed fictional characters in a fact-based story.” The Edmund Burke epigraph that introduces the text seems to point to the play’s theme: “All that must be done for evil to flourish in this world is for the good man to remain silent.” Nonetheless, the play complicates Burke’s pronouncement, and through its action wonders whether it is too simple a declaration, one that if invoked at all ought to be done so ironically. In fact, the focus of the play comprises a philosophical inquiry concerning the origins and consequences of evil as well as our complicity with it. When Pol Pot first appears in the play, he is dressed partly in Khmer Rouge black pajamas and red scarf and partly in a monk’s orange robe. The image is one of several throughout the play that combines the visual opposites of peace and war, of goodness and evil. The technique becomes more prominent through the casting of the same actor to play both Pol Pot and

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Heng Chhay, a Cambodian poet, later a monk, with whom Sarah falls in love. Earlier in time (1985), Sarah urges Heng to help her “crack the puzzle” of why evil flourishes by describing his past life during the genocide, a past dramatized through a flashback to 1976. Reluctantly, Heng speaks of his “transformation” into a farmer, the murder of his wife and sons, and of his connection to murder when he recounts how the gold bracelet he sold for food causes the brutal death of the desperate man who bought it. In Sarah’s interview with Pol Pot, he appears as a gentle and kindly patriot, partially blind and sick, and he successfully evades Sarah’s inquiries. Another interview follows with Ta Mok, a homicidal madman who represents the continuing degradation of a country whose mass murder of innocent thousands by governmental edict has, in a literal way, lost its humanity. Disgusted with Sarah’s glib journalism, Heng assumes part of the blame for the paralysis of his own goodness. He is tormented by the doubled guilt of an accomplice and a survivor and asks: What can you do with your life, when you have caused the deaths of others by your very acts and turned away from them to go on living? Why do you survive and not them? There is no life after that. That is the truth. No Life. My wife killed because of her “light” skin. You are right. You are exactly right. The smell of fear is everywhere. Even here. But do you know what it is like to survive? To find food to live just one more day? “Where is Buddha?” you ask yourself. Everyone has a story like mine, in Cambodia. It’s the truth. And the truth is good.

Lost and afraid, Sarah asks Heng: “What is there left for me to do?” The play does not provide an easy answer to that question, and it certainly complicates Burke’s aphorism. Despite the pleading of an American diplomat, Sarah files her story of her Ta Mok interview, nearly desperate to do something meaningful to stop and punish genocide. Moments later Pol Pot, a solitary prisoner, declares he has no moral sense of evil. He protests that his “hands are clean” and admits to only one mistake: leaving a photograph of his part in a political assassination. “You see,” he concludes, “there must never be a face to the act.” In a dream, a Khmer Rouge man eats a human heart while Pol Pot’s voice proclaims “Even God is silent,” and Sarah, terrified, begins to eat as well, asking “What is inside the heart?” Silence of God ends as it began, with a scene between Sarah and the Faceless Man

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who has been disfigured and blinded by an acid-throwing thief. Sarah, bereft and alone, embraces the Faceless Man, thus conceding and relieving her part in the horror. Facelessness thus links perpetrator and victim, another of Filloux’s images that specify the connection between the doer and the recipient of evil as well as the contending forces of ego and anonymity in human life and action. Filloux’s strategy of having one actor portray both Heng and Pol Pot shows the contradictory human impulses that permit people to both accept and reject responsibility for evil. Both characters commit suicide in an identical way. Late in the play, at Heng’s destroyed house, Sarah reflects on what she has learned, about herself and the world. She speaks to the “imaginary” Heng: I’ve cracked my father’s puzzle. Remember? Why does evil flourish? . . . This is a world where you float. So beautiful and . . . bottomless. . . . [T]he glistening, bending light, the reflections, are the magic of love, and also your own suffocating drowning. That’s the world of water. . . . You might ask yourself, “Are we fish, not human?” and I will answer that we are human, but that we don’t always do human things, and that is all I can tell you.

“Heng,” she says, “I love you more than the shadow.” And he replies in her dream: “And I love you. With it.” Filloux’s shifting, changing characters and moving, questioning dialogue provoke a continuing inquiry into the human origins of genocide and our responsibility for it. Kitty Felde’s A Patch of Earth has its origin in her work as a journalist covering the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague in 1996. The protagonist of the play is Dra¢en Erdemoviµ, the twenty-four-year-old soldier who was the first man convicted by the tribunal after pleading guilty to war crimes. Erdemoviµ was sentenced to ten years in prison, a term cut in half on appeal. He was released from jail in 2000. The staging of A Patch of Earth calls for multiple locations, in part because Felde has located much of the action (as did Filloux) in the “mind and memory” of her protagonist. In a series of quick scenes, Felde dramatizes the actions and motivation of Erdemoviµ who admitted to killing 120 people during the massacre of 7,000 Muslim men and boys that took place

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during the siege of Srebrenica in July 1995. The play covers a year’s time, and uses some of Erdemoviµ’s actual testimony before the court where he defended himself by insisting he would have been shot by the Bosnian Serb forces if he refused the order to kill the Muslims in their custody. A Patch of Earth takes its title from the question posed in the play about the amount of blood a patch of earth can absorb before being saturated. It dramatizes the events leading up to the massacre and its judicial aftermath. Erdemoviµ begins as an inept and unaffiliated war profiteer who, fearful of being killed, enlists in the Serb army. Felde wants to focus on the quality that distinguished him from the others: that among killers, he held to some kind of an ethical standard the longest. Rejected by his family and his wife, Erdemoviµ is shot by his comrades who suspect him (correctly) of wanting to talk about his participation in wholesale murder. Later, we see him in his jail cell in the Netherlands, abandoned by everyone except his Dutch prison guard. Felde’s particular interest in Erdemoviµ lies in her belief that, despite his part in the Srebrenica slaughter, he was a man of some conscience. He weeps throughout the play, especially when confronted by the ghosts of his victims who enter the play to form an accusatory presence in his fevered imagination. Felde, like Filloux, has ghosts haunting her play, stage presences asserting the terrible events that surround the story and carrying moral questions that are raised by Dra¢en’s involvement in the massacre. At one point, the ghosts even form a chorus that provides the voice for Dra¢en’s infant son, Nevin (played by a large doll), calling him “monster” over and over. Along with staging the repeated appearance of the ghosts, the other challenge of the script in performance is to decide the nature and duration of the audience’s sympathy for the perpetrator of atrocity. At the end of the first act, the challenges are combined when Dra¢en unburdens himself to a friendly bar owner: I am a coward. So what? Show me one human who’s not a coward in his heart. Everyone thinks they will do the right thing when the time comes. They think “Oh, yes. I will be the one to rescue the woman being beaten by her husband. I’ll be the one to catch the thief stealing from the fruit stand.” But what do we really do? Stand there and hope like hell someone else will do it. Well, Julija, nobody else

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did a damned thing out there in that cornfield. And when it came down to it, neither did I. Is it my fault that I tried to save my life? Am I to be blamed for that? All I could think was, “I want to live. Dear God, let me live.” . . . Stanko [his Serb commander] was right. He said I was soft here, in my belly. . . . I have no stomach for courage.

When Stanko shoots and wounds him, Dra¢en’s only defender is one of the ghosts of his victims, and Dra¢en, knowing his guilt, recoils from its protective presence. His statement of his actions raises for the audience questions of culpability and responsibility that are at the ethical center of the play. Erdemoviµ’s most articulate antagonist is his wife, Vesna, who is appalled at his desire to tell the truth. She says: “People don’t want to believe these things. We are civilized modern people. Not monsters. You’re the monster, Dra¢en. You.” Yet, her bitterness and rejection of him, together with the hostility of all the others, are what in the end convince him to confess to the tribunal. By confessing, he is able to raise publicly the issues of complicity and truth that are often asked about perpetrators’ murderous deeds. A provocative and complicating event occurs late in the play in a conversation Erdemoviµ has with his prison guard, a Dutch soldier named Elsbeth van der Kellen. She speaks about her brother, a U.N. soldier assigned to guard the Muslims at Srebrenica whose failure to protect them, because of institutional cowardice, made her brother another casualty of the atrocity at the farm in the nearby village of Pilica. Elsbeth’s story makes a shrewd contrast to the prisoner’s and complicates further the distinctions observers make between those who act morally and those who don’t. She says, When Willem came home, he and the rest of the Dutch peacekeepers were considered heroes. Some of his mates were taken as human shields, you know. Not Willem. But he was a hero in my father’s eyes anyway. They all were. Until the truth leaked out. Suddenly the Dutch heroes were labeled collaborators and cowards and criminals. . . . He never talked about Srebrenica. After a while, he stopped talking at all. He hung around with his mates, mostly. Drinking. He was drunk that night. It was in January. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze the canals, but the roads were icy. Willem slipped on the ice and fell off his bicycle. They found his body in the Mauritskade canal. They say he killed himself.

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A Patch of Earth concludes with the session of the ICJY during which Erdemoviµ is convicted of war crimes. He speaks of his sorrow for the victims of all the Bosnian war atrocities and defends his actions: “Because of everything that happened, I feel terribly sorry. But I could not do anything. When I could do something, I did it. I have nothing else to say.” Later, when he hears his sentence of ten years, he is furious. In his final speech, he speaks to the ghosts of his victims who “bow to him in unison. One by one they turn their ‘faces’ away from Erdemoviµ. He is truly alone.” Convicted and abandoned. Dra¢en concludes with words whose interpretation is left to be defined in performance: “Free. I’m free.” However they are to be understood, there is no doubt that Felde means the ghosts of Srebrenica to haunt us long after the play ends. The plays of Erik Ehn are distinguished by their extraordinary imagery, vibrant poetry, dense religiosity and avoidance of realistic forms. His play Maria Kizito, like Felde’s play stimulated by an actual courtroom trial, seeks to find an answer to the question of why a Rwandan nun, Sister Julienne “Maria” Kizito, could have joined the forces that directly caused the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsi victims in the savage “hundred days” of 1994. When Tutsi women and children sought refuge from the genocidal terror in the convent at Sovu, Sister Maria welcomed them, only to distribute gasoline to the Interahamwe (Hutu) killers who incinerated the five hundred fugitives in a garage. She was convicted, along with another nun and two others, and sentenced to twelve years in jail at a trial held in Brussels in 2001. Like the other plays in this volume, Maria Kizito is highly poetic, presenting extraordinary staging challenges in dramatizing genocidal action. Ehn’s lyrical text provides powerful images but is not prescriptive in its directorial guidance. Like Filloux and Felde, he asks for fluid and nonrepresentational staging, with actors playing multiple characters (as when the nuns also play the Interahamwe killers and their victims), all of whom are visible on stage during most of the performance. He structures his play around three stories: Maria Kizito’s trial, the massacre at Sovu, and the attempt of a white Catholic novice, Teresa, to come to an understanding of what happened in Sovu and how to integrate it into her faith. The text is preceded by an epigraph from John 16.2: “The hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”

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Music plays a dominant, continuous part in Maria Kizito, supplying the play with theatrical excitement, cultural/ethnic contrasts, and thematic meaning. Ehn suggests specific pieces of music that could be used in production, including songs taken from Africa: Music from Rwanda from the Anthology of World Music series; they are set against Catholic hymns, contemporary rock, and the music of Brahms: God is what is left when we give everything away. Vocation is when you are only a space. Citizenship is the hole through which emergency rushes. Country is what is left after you have given the citizens to God. (Music of Brahms. maria knifes the ceiling.)

Bringing together Brahms, a representative of classical Western music and an example of how, in Maria’s words, “religion came in with the Germans,” with contemporary popular musical forms creates both clashing and complementary sounds that continuously energize the dialogue and action. The playing of the Rwandan music is important because the songs and accompanying talk, broadcast on Rwandan radio during the genocide, served as the primary means of incitement against the Tutsi and as the urgent disseminator of hatred and vengeance as the slaughter ran its terrible course. The only male figure in the cast is “Radio/Rekeraho,” the thug who “broadcasts” the Rwandan music and the leader of the Hutu militia as well. In addition, the text of the play “incorporates witness accounts from African Rights’ Obstruction of Justice: The Nuns of Sovu, along with material from the trial and the Catholic Divine Office.” Speeches frequently overlap, and the structure of the play is doubly chronological because most of the text follows the sequence of the atrocities committed from April 15 to May 6, 1994, and because it is informed by sung prayers roughly aligned with the Catholic Office of the Hours. The action of the play mixes the murder of the innocents with scenes from the trial and Teresa’s judicial witness. Often, prose testimony grounds the play in a clearer linguistic reality than is possible in the more ritualized and poetic parts of the play that include a stylized “machete dance” by Rekeraho and a “play-within-the-play” performed in owl masks by the nuns/ refugees. Elsewhere, money is set on fire, eyeglasses are made to burn candles on their lenses, “Fire” has a dialogue with its refugee victim, and

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somewhere near the middle of the play, Teresa begins to speak more than a little like Maria: She makes coffee in a dead woman’s mouth with a teaspoon of earth. She makes bread out of chewed grass on the dead woman’s belly. She makes gasoline out of wet nerves inside the dead woman’s teeth and siphons it into seven beer bottles. She makes candles out of the woman’s eyes. She makes beer from fat. She pulls a city out of the salt at the base of the woman’s throat, with tweezers. She gets the gasoline.

Meeting the staging challenges of the play, from its graphic and allusive language to its charged and shocking action, is the difficult and creative work left to the director. Ehn seems to say that facts have their place in law courts and official testimonies but that understanding human action, if it can be understood at all, comes in forms other than the rational and the literal. He knows the books of great faith are also books of great violence and that the spiritual transformations that faith inspires are akin to the theatrical transformations that attract artists to ritual, magic, and wonder. Maria Kizito makes the placing of blame a secondary concern; the identity of the perpetrators is never in doubt and their acts are both reprehensible and beyond literal description. Instead, Ehn suggests the value of a less factual kind of understanding involving knowledge of human behavior that sees atrocity and complicity with it as provoked by terrors harbored in the human heart, terrors that seem to be both provoked and condemned by theological belief and religious witness.

The Plays in Performance It seems a good in itself to acknowledge, to have enlarged, one’s sense of how much suffering caused by human wickedness there is in the world we share with others. Susan Sontag

The work of genocide awareness and prevention encompasses many strategies, from armed intervention to academic symposia. My aim here is to

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argue for the power of the arts to carry forward Lemkin’s legacy. The theatre in particular possesses the capacity to assist in raising awareness of the scourge of genocide and in engaging emotional responses that can both offer images that provoke empathy for peoples whose lives are vulnerable and endangered and bring audiences closer to understanding the historical and cultural forces that create the lethal conditions for mass murder. Through theatrical production, the four plays in this volume do the humane work that the theatre contributes uniquely to the world. In attempting to provide a sense of what these plays are about, something more can be said by comparing one with the others. First, the plays deal with the perpetrators of the genocides as well as with the victims. Of great importance is the strategy of all the playwrights of “doubling” their characters by having their actors assuming multiple roles. This complicates (but does not eliminate) our awarding sympathy to specific characters. As I have already noted, in Silence of God, the same actor plays Pol Pot/Heng Chhay, a technique through which Filloux asserts that good and evil are found in each of us. In Ehn’s play the nuns and the refugees alternate roles, and in Felde’s play, one actor plays Dra¢en’s father, a Serb officer, and the Serbian defense attorney. Shirinian’s play moves Young Pierre through time, and his presence asserts the continuing effect of genocidal history in the lives of people in the present. Associated with this multiple roleplaying are the fluid, abstract settings, a technique that produces dynamic theatricality and faster pacing as well as lends universality and relevance to the story. All the plays rely heavily on the use of lights, sound, and devices such as projections to tell their stories. All four plays contain ghosts of one sort or another. The plays’ scenic abstraction, which the playwrights achieve by dispensing with the detailed objectivity of stage realism, frees them from the problems of realistic representation of atrocity. To be sure, there is much “naturalistic” dialogue, and even the eating of the human heart in Silence of God might be stylized in production. But gone is the need to show “real” atrocity—as if that were possible anyway. In its place are poetic images that move us emotionally to respond to the violence and death at the center of the plays. Shirinian’s play progresses to a more realistic staging (though it can be positioned “in space”) to define the problem of what to do when the

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everyday world, generations after the genocide, displaces the abstract one (early images of atrocity appear as upstage projections). Several of the plays use media as both staging devices and thematic points of reference. In Maria Kizito, “Radio” functions as both exciting purveyor of song but also as the incarnation of the hatred of the murderers; he accomplishes his destructive deeds through manipulation of sound. (And what does it mean that we in the audience might be moved and excited by the music?) Felde’s play utilizes scrims and screens for the projection of historical newsreels and as a way of adding the component of “TV news” to the dramatization of Dra¢en’s confession. Cell phones are props in Filloux’s play. Two of the plays (Maria and Patch) utilize the trope of the trial to explore the nature of both evil and justice, a theme also explored by Filloux in Silence. None of the playwrights provide immediate answers to the question of how to stop homicide and torture; they are interested in psychological, philosophical, and cultural inquiries into the phenomenon of genocide. In trying to understand the perpetrators’ reasons for rape and murder, Ehn, Filloux and Felde reveal complexities of motivation rather than easy answers to catastrophic human action; Shirinian keeps close to his focus on the complicated effect genocide has on the identity of those who are born much later. Interestingly, none of the four plays makes comparisons to other genocides; only Filloux makes an oblique reference to the Holocaust, which has long been accorded “first among equals” status because of its well-known history and the wide dissemination of the artistic attempts to deal with its meanings and its legacy. In a notable overlap with the premises of postmodernism, the plays seem to provide material for the study of “the absence of things.” That is, in a world without millions of people who were connected to families, communities, and ethnic groups, there is opportunity to theorize about “what isn’t there” and about how that gap gives a charged valence to everything that remains. Testimonies of victims of genocide, including Holocaust testimonies, for example, contain breaks and ruptures where past experience is both inexpressible and ineradicable.16 (In general, theatre works in more concrete ways, so that the ache of loss is manifested in psychological disturbances of character, and the evidence of destruction may be shown

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or symbolized in diverse ways, from fragmentary scenery to the appearance, as in a number of the plays at hand, of ghosts who refuse to rest. Of course, this can be said to apply to the staging of Shakespeare’s Macbeth too.17) The plays in this volume, taken together, make an important contribution to the study of genocide. They are dynamic, provocative, and powerful, and enlarge the critical mass of caring and concern that is necessary for contributing to the struggle against genocide. Different from other arts in their method and from history in their mode of understanding, the plays offer stories inhabited by characters who perform their experiences and who, through their “liveness,” create immediate, emotional connections in asserting their truths. From their places of safety, the playwrights appeal to audiences similarly situated to take into themselves new knowledge of the misfortunes of others in places far away. They create stories where violence and betrayal are both human and seemingly inevitable and where chaos and fear touch everyone, including themselves. They speak in worried, chastened voices, too familiar with the past to evince hope but too concerned with the future to accept helplessness. But their words and images are part of the work necessary to understand and respond to genocide and help create the moral matrix whereby change for the better can be identified. They provide a field of feeling with which Lemkin’s antigenocidal text can be more complete and effective.

The Pedagogy of Genocide In his book Anti-Genocide, Herbert Hirsch asks: “Is it possible, if people believe that they must share their fate on this small planet, that the seemingly continuous cycle of violence might somehow be broken?”18 Hirsch provides an affirmative answer that relies on the transformative force of education, and it is here that some final remarks about the ends of a theatre of (anti)genocide can be made. Many years ago, I wrote: “Although I have my doubts that the theatre can ever change people, it would be foolish, even irresponsible, to suggest that the arts cannot make a contribution to improving the cultural health of society.”19 It is the theatre’s purpose to expand understanding and advance

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questions that may, subsequent to the theatre performance, lead to a world that more closely resembles the one that Raphael Lemkin envisioned. It is likely that the specifics of language, economy, culture, and geography determine whether a particular play will serve to strengthen a disposition toward peace or even tolerance, but I have no doubt that the plays collected here can assist the larger project well. Plays have many functions, and education is one of them. “To fail to educate students and the public at large about genocide . . . has . . . profound implications.”20 In her book about photography and its power to inform about the suffering of people, Susan Sontag disputes that there is such a thing as “collective memory” and proposes instead the phenomenon of “collective instruction” that I mentioned earlier. “All memory is individual, unreproducable—it dies with each person. What is called a collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.”21 The theatre in performance contains an inexhaustible supply of images and words, created in the present (not like the pastness of a photograph) that can in an important way add to the process of instruction. The dramatized stories of terror from Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda lock the pictures of genocide in our minds, and with them in place, they become a stimulus for encouraging and sustaining purposeful, humane action in response to what is revealed on stage. In the conclusion to his book Fantasies of Witnessing, Gary Weismann points to the ways in which representations of the Holocaust have become “dispersed and fractured” and now appear in multiple genres with varying concerns and intentions. “And yet,” he writes, “the problem of the unpresentable Holocaust will not go away.”22 The issue of the “representation” of the Holocaust has a long critical history, and my hope is that by referring to examples of the destruction of Europe’s Jews between 1939 and 1945 together with the theatre of genocide, a useful relationship can be created that will enhance our understanding of all attempts to imagine genocide and its consequences. Because in the twenty-first century we know a lot more about the Nazi process of mass murder, and a lot more about the politics and culture that shaped that catastrophe, we are able to assert historical correspondences and engage common methodologies in assessing a

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theatre of genocide, which is situated now where the theatre of the Holocaust was a generation ago, with artists asking similar questions and seeking suitable answers to historical, artistic, and ethical problems. It is a commonplace to say that showing the killing of hundreds of thousands of people needs to be managed abstractly or obliquely, poetically and symbolically, on stage, because theatrical realism cannot accommodate this purpose.23 The plays in this anthology proceed in that way, utilizing poetic language, retrospective narrative, ritual enactments, and the bridging of the spatial gap between actor and audience to portray atrocity without attempting to replicate it. Weismann is correct that “no matter how much we are affected by portrayals of brutality and suffering, the reality was different[;] . . . no simulation of past reality grants full presence to what it represents.”24 In addition, the theatre’s presentness and inherent pretense (to say nothing of the magnitude of the slaughter) demands that genocide be displayed in ways that dispense with the need for realism, replacing it with other forms that arouse conscience and deeper understanding. In its confrontation with genocide, theatre records stories of human responses that typify the conflict: fear, endurance, resistance, despair, grief, confusion, courage, and cowardice. Testimonies of victims of recent genocides have appeared to provide eyewitness descriptions that, along with the records of the International Court of Justice and several truth and reconciliation commissions, offer plentiful raw data for artists to use as a basis for their antigenocidal work.25 Remembering the past gets both easier (as more is known) and harder (as more is forgotten); in fact, Shirinian’s play takes this as its central concern. With these materials at hand, the theatre, always a controversial and complicated art form, has continued to supply performative interpretations of the phenomenon of genocide. What the theatre can bring to this social and political challenge is an emotional connection among human beings and among groups through the creation of empathy. In A Human Being Died That Night, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, recounting her interviews with Eugene de Kock, “the most despised white person in post-apartheid South Africa,” provides an assessment into the benefit of empathy as well as an insight into how the theatre and performance could heal a politically shattered community or world:

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One of the challenges a political community faces in seeking to make the transition into a properly functioning democracy is therefore to create conditions that encourage replacing enmity with, if not love or friendship, then at least regard for others as fellow human beings. For the absence of empathy, whether at the communal or personal level, signals a condition that, in subtle but deeply destructive ways, separates people from one another. . . . We are induced to empathy because there is something in the other that is felt to be part of the self, and something in the self that is felt to belong to the other.26

Ehn’s Teresa and Filloux’s Elizabeth explore this insight in complicated encounters, while the ghosts that appear in a number of the plays arouse empathy wherever genocide shows itself. Finally, the plays in The Theatre of Genocide have many objectives, not the least of which is to present to readers and audiences words and images that concern the very complicated ongoing debate regarding the prevention and punishment of genocide; the playwrights themselves recognize their responsibility to enter this debate. In Ehn’s “Historical Note” we read of drama as an agent of repair: “That drama and literature come as correctives to staged, rhetorically perverse distortions of truth is right, just, and effective. What was taken away, what was cast in ruin, must be restored through story.” In her book Utopia in Performance, Jill Dolan demonstrates through a number of examples how performance artists have been able to create the images of a better world and combine those with moments of awareness where sectarian antagonisms can be transcended and human communities formed.27 In doing antigenocidal work, theatre artists accept the challenge that is informed by the theatre’s humane and inclusive goal: to bring the excluded into the universe of obligation. The prevention of genocide can be advanced through theatrical images that protest against killing, test our ethical assumptions and responsibilities, and affirm a knowable, palpable communality as a basis for a humane future. They supply the stories that, through word and image, can move audiences to action.28 Helen Fein has written: “Any strategy to defend human rights which empowers individuals and associations and restricts the state from exploiting its monopoly of force without internal checks or external sanctions is a strategy to prevent genocide.”29 That strategy includes the theatre.

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Notes The subtitle to this introduction is taken from the opening sentence of André Schwarz-Bart’s novel The Last of the Just (1959). I want to thank Barbara Grossman for her editorial assistance on this essay. 1. Other names for the destruction of the Jews of Europe are Shoa (Hebrew) and Churb’n (Yiddish). 2. An up-to-date list can be found on the Prevent Genocide International Web site, http://preventgenocide.org. 3. The best place to begin a study of Lemkin and his treaty is Samantha Power’s “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002). Two recent plays have Lemkin as their protagonist: Catherine Filloux’s Lemkin’s House (New York: Playscripts, 2005) and my own If the Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty against Genocide (Madison, WI: Parallel Press, 2006). 4. See Fein, “Genocide: A Sociological Perspective,” in Genocide: An Anthropological Reader, ed. Alexander Laban Hinton, 74–90 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). 5. “The Holocaust remains the ghost at our feast; every time it slips from our mind it makes a terrible recurrence: Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, now Kosovo” (Michael Ignatieff, “Ascent of Man,” Prospect [October 1999]: 31). Also see Ignatieff ’s essay “The Legacy of Raphael Lemkin,” delivered as a lecture at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, December 13, 2001. 6. This anthology avoids intentionally the inclusion of plays about the Holocaust, which are readily available elsewhere, including the two volumes of The Theatre of the Holocaust, ed. Robert Skloot (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981, 1998). 7. Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 85. 8. In A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 256. “Long-term genocide prediction and prevention require understanding of the societal nutrients that fertilize the seedbeds of mass murder,” write Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan. “We do not suggest,” they continue, “that the specter of genocide can finally be banished merely by pronouncing its name. But even if scholars fail to speak out clearly, or mumble prevarications, victims will continue to suffer unheard, and the unspeakable will haunt our species in a new century of genocide” (The Specter of Genocide: Mass

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Murder in Historical Perspective [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 374, 380). 9. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Never Again, Again?” New York Times, November 20, 2005. 10. Stoppard summarizes: “Briefly, art—Auden or Fugard or the entire cauldron—is important because it provides the moral matrix, the moral sensibility, from which we make our judgements about the world. . . . The plain truth is that if you are angered and disgusted by a particular injustice or immorality, and you want to do something about it, now, at once, then you can hardly do worse than write a play about it. That is what art is bad at. But the less plain truth is that without that play and plays like it, without artists, the injustice will never be eradicated” (“Ambushes for the Audience: Towards a High Comedy of Ideas,” Theatre Quarterly 4.14 [May–June 1974]: 13–14). 11. Helen Fein, “Scenarios of Genocide: Models of Genocide and Critical Responses,” in Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide, ed. Israel Charny, 3–31 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984). Fein’s important work in defining genocide begins with and credits Lemkin. See also “Defining Genocide as a Sociological Concept,” in The Holocaust: A Reader, ed. Simone Gigliotti and Berel Lang, 398–419 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), and Benjamin A. Valentino, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004). 12. See Robert Skloot, “Theatrical Images of Genocide,” Human Rights Quarterly 12 (1990): 185–201. 13. Pascal Bruckner, in his book of the same name, is contemptuous of “the tears of the white man,” which he defines as “compassion as contempt.” From his perspective, the performance of “rituals” might be seen as further evidence of cultural exploitation (New York: Free Press, 1986). Plays written by victims of colonial rule are now a common part of academic inquiry in postcolonial studies. See, for example, Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology, ed. Helen Gilbert (London: Routledge, 2001). 14. Joan Ringelheim, “The Strange and the Familiar,” in Humanity at the Limit: The Impact of the Holocaust Experience on Jews and Christians, ed. Michael Signer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 41. 15. The essay is reprinted in this volume, after Exile in the Cradle. The Turkish government’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the Armenian genocide continues to be a volatile international subject in European and Near East politics and it energizes Armenians in their demand for recognition of their genocide now nearly a century ago.

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16. See Lawrence L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991). 17. I have dealt with these issues in “‘Where Does It Hurt?’ Genocide, the Theatre and the Human Body,” Theatre Research International 23.1 (Spring 1998): 50–58. 18. Herbert Hirsch, Anti-Genocide (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 168. 19. Skloot, “Theatrical Images of Genocide,” 201. 20. Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, and Robert K. Hitchcock, “Confronting Genocide and Ethnocide of Indigenous Peoples,” in Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide, ed. Alexander Laban Hinton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 82. 21. Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 86. 22. Gary Weismann, Fantasies of Witnessing: Postwar Efforts to Experience the Holocaust (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 207. The description of the “breakdown” is taken from an essay by Andreas Huyssen. Many Holocaust writers and critics deal with this ethical-artistic issue but rarely discuss theatre. Such is the case with, for example, Saul Friedlander’s Probing the Limits of Representation (1992) and Michael Rothberg’s Traumatic Realism (2000). A useful volume is Claude Schumacher, ed., Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 23. The literary critic Geoffrey H. Hartman has written: “At best, [art] also provides something of a safe-house for emotion and empathy. . . . Most historians are intensely suspicious of any discursive or creative mode that deviates from realism or clear, referential touchstones. They see positivistic accuracy as the last remaining safeguard against relativism and revisionism” (The Longest Shadow [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996], 197). 24. Weismann, Fantasies of Witnessing, 208. 25. See Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, and Israel Charny, eds., Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (New York: Garland, 1997). 26. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, A Human Being Died That Night (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 126–27. 27. Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). She writes: “I do believe that the experience of performance, and the intellectual, spiritual, and affective traces it leaves behind, can provide new frames of reference for how we see a better future extending out from our more ordinary lives. Seeing that vision, we can figure out how to achieve it outside the fantastical, magic space of performance” (20). 28. “Darfur [i.e. the genocide in Sudan] is just the latest chapter in a sorry history of repeated inaction in the face of genocide, from that in Armenians, through

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the Holocaust, to the slaughter of Cambodians, Bosnians and Rwandans” (Kristof, “Never Again, Again?”). Working with Kristof, Winter Miller has written a play about the Darfur genocide that was read in January 2007 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in May 2007. 29. Helen Fein, “Scenarios of Genocide,” 23.

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Exile in the Cradle Lorne Shirinian for all those who suffered the Armenian Genocide and for those who still feel the pain

T

here have been two productions of Exile in the Cradle, both of which had the same director (Seta Keshishian), producer (Jolanta Izmirliyan), cast and crew (see below). It first played at the Sir John A. Macdonald Theatre in Toronto on April 23, 2006, and played again at the Fairview Theatre in Toronto on September 5, 2006.

Cast of Characters young pierre srabian hagop keosserian salim bey the turkish soldier woman in the crowd old pierre srabian armig srabian liz samuelian helen srabian vicken samuelian harriet garabedian theofanis karlides carol green

Mano Ishkhanian Vicken Keshishian Andre Kutyan Sam Makdessian Janet Sakarya Ben Tertibian Eva Yenovkian Taline Baltayan Christine Topjian Serge Keshishian Calabrina Boyajian Matius Adamian Shogher Menengichian

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Act 1. Forgiveness (Constantinople, April 26, 1915) pierre srabian, a twenty-five-year-old poet, who published a revolutionary article and a series of poems in a literary gazette in the city last week, which brought him rapid notoriety. As a result, his single, slim volume of poetry sold out in three days. The Interior Ministry of the government of the Young Turks placed him on their list of subversives. hagop keosserian, a wealthy fifty-three-year old merchant and community leader. He has made his fortune by selling foodstuffs to various ministries of the government. He wears a battered, bloodstained fez. salim bey, an ambitious member of the government of the Young Turks who is in charge of the deportation of the Armenian intelligentsia from Constantinople, a cleansing operation begun two days earlier on April 24 that he knows is the beginning of the plan to eliminate Armenians from the Ottoman Empire. He is tall and wears a dark suit and a blood-red fez. His demeanor is that of a funeral director. a woman in the crowd turkish soldier

Act 2. Moon Monologue (Scarborough, an eastern suburb of Toronto, July 18, 1985) pierre srabian, ninety-five-years old. He alone escaped from salim bey’s death train when it stopped at Ayash. He wandered through Anatolia for four years, witnessing the Armenian Genocide firsthand. At the end of the war, Near East Relief placed him in a refugee camp and then sent him to Paris. He emigrated to Canada in 1938. young pierre srabian, twenty-six, dressed as he was when he escaped from the train at Ayash. armine´e srabian (armig), forty, is pierre srabian’s daughter and like her father is a poet. She lives with her husband Yervant Avakian and her two daughters, Liz (fourteen) and Helen (thirteen). She is haunted by memories and images of the Armenian Genocide, which, in large part, motivate her work.

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Act 3. The Storm That Never Breaks (Toronto, August 2, 1995, 7 pm) armig srabian, fifty, has become a widow as her husband, yervant, who had been ill for years, has passed away. liz samuelian, armig’s daughter is twenty-four-years old. Like her father was, she is a devoted member of the community and makes every effort to maintain her Armenian identity in Canada. helen srabian, twenty-three, is liz’s younger sister. She has an independent spirit and works full-time at her art. Her sculptures have brought her distinction in recent shows. vicken samuelian, thirty, is liz’s husband and a successful accountant. harriet garabedian, fifty, is a close friend of armig’s. They grew up together. She is a tireless worker for the community and is comfortable within its walls. yervant samuelian, armig’s late husband in the casket.

Act 4. Life Support (Toronto, December 24, 2001) armig srabian, fifty-six, now lives alone with the objects of her solitude. She ended a relationship with the artist theo karlides, which she had begun before her husband Yervant passed away. She is focused on her new book and performance pieces. theofanis karlides, forty-eight, is a Greek Canadian artist, who has achieved great success in the Canadian art world. He is preparing a new show at a Toronto gallery and is receiving strong media attention. harriet garabedian, fifty-six has remained armig’s close friend despite the fact that they have different views on their Armenian identities and the future of their community. carol green, twenty-five, is a recent graduate from the University of Toronto, where she majored in art management. She works for the Shurmer Gallery in Toronto as a liaison between the gallery and the artists who have shows there. liz samuelian, thirty, has recently given birth to her daughter, yerchanig.

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helen srabian, twenty-nine, has been developing her art as a sculptor and is looking for new horizons to allow her to grow as an artist. baby yerchanig, in the cradle.

Chronology Pierre is born: 1890 Armenian Genocide: 1915 [Pierre is twenty-five] Armig is born: 1945 [Pierre is fifty-five] Armig marries Yervant: 1970 [Armig is twenty-five] Liz is born: 1971 [Armig is twenty-six] Helen born: 1972 [Armig is twenty-seven] Pierre dies: 1985 [Pierre is ninety-five; Armig is forty] Yervant dies: 1995 [Armig is fifty; Liz is twenty-four; Helen is twenty-three] Yerchanig is born: 2001 [Liz is thirty; Helen is twenty-nine; Armig is fifty-six]

Act 1. Forgiveness Place: Constantinople. Time: April 26, 1915. The Armenian Genocide began two days ago. (Black. Crowd noise. A spotlight illuminates a young man who enters SR, dressed in the manner of a European of Constantinople in 1915. He is very nervous as he fears he is being watched. Suddenly, three shots ring out. He starts.) woman in the crowd: Shsh! Listen carefully. I don’t know how much time I have. The Young Turk government has issued an order to arrest all Armenians in the city suspected of antigovernment opinions. Two days ago on the 24th, shortly after ten o’clock, groups of armed gendarmes went through the Pera district and took over two thousand of our artists, intellectuals, and community leaders to the central police

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station. They’ve been kept there for three days, but I’ve seen them just now. They were marched through the streets to the train station and forced into cars. (She backs into the shadows for a moment then returns into the light.) I heard the guards say the train is going to Ayash, Kalejk, Chankiri, and Chorum. It’s started then. There can be only one destination for us now. How long will it be before they come for me? (She looks around as if she hears something and disappears into the shadows.) voice off: All aboard! (Lights up. A passenger compartment on the train. pierre srabian and hagop keosserian sit, facing each other on benches at CS. Both have been beaten and are disheveled. They are silent as the train jostles them as it pulls out of the station. pierre glowers at hagop’s fez. Behind them is an open doorway that leads to the corridor along which an armed soldier passes by from time to time. He stops and looks in on the two men sitting silently then disappears down the corridor to check on the other deportees as the train leaves Constantinople. There is the sound of the train leaving the station, which slowly fades away.) pierre (he suddenly jumps up and knocks the fez off hagop’s head): How can you wear that? Look at what they’re doing to us! That ugly hat is a sign of our Ottoman oppression, and you dare wear it. (hagop attempts to reach for it but winces in pain.) Don’t you! (pierre takes it and steps on it and kicks it under the bench.) hagop: It’s bad enough the Turks are abusing us. You don’t have to add to it. (He holds his chest.) pierre: What’s wrong? hagop (in pain): In the police station—(hagop pulls his hand from his chest. It’s covered in blood. pierre stands over hagop and pulls back his jacket. pierre winces at the sight.) Just before they marched us to the train, a sergeant raised his rifle. Giavour! he called me. Infidel! I told him I have friends in several ministries, but he stabbed me. pierre (he takes out a handkerchief and holds it against hagop’s chest. The

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armed soldier walks by and looks in then moves on.): Here, this might help. So where are your Turkish friends? hagop: They obviously don’t know what’s happening. pierre: Don’t be so naïve. It’s they who’ve put us here. Please, no false hope, not now. There’s no time left for us. hagop: What do you mean? pierre: What do you think is going to happen to us? hagop: Internal exile for a while, I suspect, until things in the capital calm down. Then, they’ll bring us back. pierre: Have you lost your memory? Believe me, we won’t be coming back, none of us, ever. hagop: I must. I must see my family. (hagop looks away toward the audience. pierre stares at him.) pierre: What’s your name? hagop: Keosserian, Hagop. pierre: The food merchant near the British embassy? hagop: Yes. pierre: You must be prosperous. hagop: Thanks to God I’m able to provide for my family. pierre: And the church. hagop: And my community. pierre: No doubt you hold an important position on the parish council. hagop: Chairman. (pierre smirks; hagop angers.) What’s wrong? pierre: And you supply the Ottoman Army, too, don’t you? hagop: Yes. pierre: We’re all doomed, don’t you see? Who will save us? Not the French. Certainly not the British. The Russians? hagop: The Turks. We gave them our pledge of loyalty. pierre: Ah, yes, our pledge to the Turks. No doubt they’re taking us to a resort for being such loyal citizens. We’re the fortunate ones in the first group. hagop: I have faith all will be well. pierre: You’re a fool, there’s nothing to base it on. When the train slows, I’ll jump. I’ll go over the border to Yerevan or Tiflis.

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(The armed soldier walks by, stops and looks in on the two of them. They are silent. The soldier moves down the corridor.) hagop: There’s nothing in Yerevan. It’s a dusty provincial town. There are more Russian troops in the place than there are Armenians. pierre: At least they won’t kill me because I’m Armenian. (pierre takes out a small notebook and a pencil and begins writing.) hagop: You’ll bow to them as you do to the Turks. pierre: I don’t bow. (The lights flicker on and off for five seconds. The armed soldier appears at the door. salim bey enters holding a black book. pierre hides his notebook.) hagop (in pain; he attempts to stand): Effendi, I am Hagop Keosserian, food purveyor to various ministries of the government. I am an acquaintance of Djemal Bey. I really must protest this treatment. salim (he hands the book to the soldier): Check his name. Keosserian, Hagop. (The soldier flips through some pages and makes an attempt to look for the name but is unable to find it.) Bastard! Can’t you read? soldier (the soldier snaps to attention): No, sir! salim (he shakes his head and takes the notebook from the soldier): Wait outside! (The soldier backs out of the compartment into the corridor and stands at attention with his rifle perpendicular to the floor held upright with the large bayonet sticking up menacingly. salim leafs through the book until he finds hagop’s name.) Ah, yes. I put your name on the list. hagop (desperately): Effendi, I have influential friends in the ministries. They could be useful to you. salim: I have been appointed by Talât himself. Do you think I have need of you? You have no influence. Your name was given to me by one of your “friends” in the government. That is why you are here. (During this, pierre looks on, slightly amused.) hagop: But I—

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salim: Armenians no longer have any import in our new country. hagop: But the empire has always been a place of many peoples. Armenians were here centuries before Turks arrived. We have always been a loyal community. salim: When we push back the Russians and the British, there will be only the empire of the Turkish people, stretching through Armenia into central Asia. This is Turania! hagop (more desperately): Effendi, I am a wealthy man. I can— salim: No longer. All Armenian financial assets in Ottoman banks have been seized. hagop (frantically): Slow the train, Effendi, just for a moment. Let me leap clear. I have money in Paris. I will transfer funds to you. salim: Why do you worry so? What do you think is happening? We’re just taking some of you away where it’s safe for further questioning. Your revolutionaries are planning actions against our government. It’s too dangerous in the capital. pierre: Dangerous for whom? (salim looks at him threateningly.) hagop: And after the questioning? salim: When the government decides it is safe for you to return, this very train will take you home. hagop (hagop looks to pierre relieved ): You see; it’s as I told you. No doubt we’ll be home in a matter of days. salim (he smiles): Eench Allah. Whatever god wills. (salim looks over to pierre.) Your name. pierre: Pierre Srabian. salim (he searches his memory): Srabian. Srabian. No, I don’t recall. What do you do? pierre: I’m a poet. salim: A poet! Why on earth would they. . . . (He searches in the book.) You wrote that subversive article in your literary gazette last week. pierre: I just wrote the truth. Nothing has changed for Armenians since your revolution.

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salim: You are impatient. Reform takes time. pierre: Massacre appears to be the government’s preferred method of reform. salim: You have created more trouble for yourself than you know. Poets should write about nature and love. You must be prepared for the consequences if you write about politics. pierre: I suppose it’s different for Ziya Gökalp. salim: He is a great poet, a true nationalist. pierre: He’s a hack. He gives you what you want to hear. salim: The whole nation knows his poetry. Who knows yours? pierre: He writes patriotic drivel. salim: He speaks for our nation. pierre: Believe me; it’s not poetry. You and Gökalp dream of a union of all Turks under one government, and you shall sacrifice us in the process. hagop: No, Srabian, what are you saying? salim (he recites): “The land of the enemy shall be devastated / Turkey shall be enlarged and become Turan.” You see, Gökalp is a prophet. You no longer have any rights in our country. (salim exits. The soldier walks back and forth along the corridor, holding his rifle menacingly then moves on. pierre takes out his notebook again and writes.) pierre: Do you see now? hagop: This can’t be. pierre: You and your wealthy friends have been serving an empire that constantly eats its own. There have been thousands and thousands of our compatriots in the eastern provinces who have been taxed into starvation, robbed, beaten, humiliated and murdered, their women violated. hagop: We served our people by serving the empire. pierre: No! No more! The more you and your merchant friends grew wealthy, the more you became blind. You fed the snake; now the snake has you in its bloody fangs. hagop (angrily): What would you have us do? We have no country, no government of our own. We worked hard and suffered indignity so that our families and our institutions could survive. And what have you contributed, parasite? I kept our community alive.

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pierre: You maintained it in a coma. hagop: What right do you have to criticize me? You write a few verses of doggerel and rail against the government in a small newspaper, if you can call that rag a paper. There’s a war threatening the empire. pierre: There’s a government set on destroying our people. hagop: All you have succeeded in doing is call attention to your disloyalty. Now we’re all paying. pierre: Look where your loyalty has landed you. We’re all going to be killed, Keosserian. hagop: No, they’re just going to ask us some questions, that’s all. We’ll be home very soon, you’ll see. pierre: We’ll never see the city again. hagop: My family. I must— pierre: Don’t you see? I have friends in the other cars. We were in jail together; none of us is guilty of anything but being Armenian. That’s our crime. We’ve become a category, an impediment. You heard Salim Bey. Centuries of hate will soon be released on us. In the end, they’ll come for us with axes and swords. There’s no haven for us anywhere in the empire. No one will save us. hagop: Srabian, help me up. Take me to the window. Push me out. pierre: You can’t; you’re too badly wounded. Besides, there are soldiers. hagop: I’ll take my chances. I won’t be killed like a dog. Not after all I’ve done for them. (pierre puts his notebook in his pocket and goes into the corridor. He looks left and right then lowers the window and comes back into the compartment and helps hagop to his feet.) Come with me, Srabian. Help me get to my family. I’ll hide you. I have a large home. Soon things will return to normal. pierre (sarcastically): Normal. Things will return to normal, and we’ll be safe. hagop: We’ll be alive. (pierre puts his arm around hagop, who winces in pain as they move toward the door. salim and the soldier arrive. salim pushes hagop violently back onto his seat. He screams in pain.) salim (to pierre): Sit down! (To the soldier.) Close the window!

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(The soldier closes the window.) There’s no escape. Your fate has been sealed, quite some time ago, in fact. The Committee of Union and Progress1 is doing away with a serious problem by eliminating its cause. pierre: The Turkish solution. salim: You must take a longer historical understanding of these things. Not all nations are born to survive. Where are the Phrygians today? Tomorrow, people will wonder what happened to the Armenians. pierre: And what will you tell them? salim: That they disappeared in the war. They were a small nation. pierre: And when accusations are hurled? salim: Few will bother, and if they do, we will deny everything. With time, who will care? You will exist as a curiosity in the history we will write. pierre: Turks will follow soon after. salim: Perhaps, but I think not. No one really cares about the Armenians. What have the great powers done for you but bring down misery on your heads? You’re pawns for their ambitions, nothing more. hagop: We have been loyal to you. salim: Eventually, you would turn on us. You would side with the English, the French, or the Russians. (The soldier arrives and gives salim a message. They leave together.) pierre: You see; we must be sacrificed in order for the empire to exist. There must always be a scapegoat. (Each speaks without regard to the other as in a monologue.) hagop: I won’t die. I will see my wife and sons again. pierre: In jail before they put us on the train, I knew the outcome. I don’t know at what point I let go. When you accept your fate that your life depends on the whim of others, there is an unburdening. You no longer fret between the extremes of hope and uncertainty. hagop: We planned to go to Paris to open a business with my brother Kevork. Then this bloody war. I couldn’t leave. The government placed 1. The Committee of Union and Progress was the government of the Young Turks.

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many large orders with me. Then last March suddenly everything stopped, as if I no longer existed for them. pierre: I met other poets in Paris. They translated some of my poems and published them in Le Mercure. When you have no country, the world is yours. Why did I come back? hagop: Constantinople is my city, my community. Why didn’t I leave? pierre: The bookstores and cafés in the Latin Quarter, I finally felt free for the first time. hagop: The orders from the ministries made me rich so I could buy more of this and more of that. But Paris . . . pierre: And now. hagop: This train to hell. (hagop takes out a photograph of his family and stares at it intently.) pierre: Armenia will soon be a charnel house. (salim returns and sits next to hagop.) salim: What’s this? (He takes the picture from hagop’s hand.) Ah, your family, no doubt. (He looks at it.) You’re a lucky man, Keosserian. How old are your sons? hagop (he’s shocked that he would ask): Avedis is twenty-five. He’s an officer in the Third Regiment. The last we heard he was posted near Erzerum, fighting the Russians. We haven’t had news from him for months. Hrant is twenty-two and is . . . was studying law. salim: Things are very difficult now. Soon, you’ll all be reunited. (salim puts the photograph in his pocket.) hagop: My photograph. salim: I’m confiscating it. I’ll return it to you when we arrive at our destination. hagop (he reaches out for the photograph): Please, it’s all I have left! (salim looks over to pierre and sees his volume of poetry in his pocket. He stands over him and takes it.) salim: And this, no doubt, is the poetry of the great Armenian realist. Rather slender, isn’t it? Not much to say, then. pierre: I’m just one voice. There are many others. People will learn of this. salim: People will learn what we tell them. We will become the source. There will be no others. Against your rumors, we will produce archival

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documents detailing your ambitions and treachery against the empire. We have acted to prevent a civil war. pierre: No one will believe you. hagop: I don’t understand. salim: We have only to plant a single seed of doubt to succeed. hagop: Salim Bey, please, my photograph. salim: I told you; it’s confiscated. Like you. Like all of you. Now do you understand? (The soldier arrives and snaps to attention.) soldier: Sir, we are arriving at Ayash station. salim: Go make ready. (The soldier leaves. There are flashes of lightning outside the window. salim leans on hagop and presses his hand on his chest, causing him to yell.) Now do you understand? (salim withdraws his bloodied hand.) We’ve arrived at the end. (The lightning continues silently outside the window. salim exits. hagop winces in pain. pierre sits beside him and puts his arm around him. They lean on each other.) pierre: We’re doomed, Keosserian. We’ve lost our home, and now they’ll destroy us. What could I do but write? I was trying to warn everyone, to leave some document of what is happening to us here, but they’ll allow no record of our presence. hagop: He took my photograph, my family. I’ve nothing left. pierre: You know what they did to Armenians in the army. hagop: I know. I know. Avedis disappeared months ago. We learned that the army disarmed the Armenian soldiers and killed them all. (pierre rips a piece of his shirt and places it on hagop’s wound. hagop hangs his head in pain.) pierre: For generations, old and young will bear this pain. We’ll be a people haunted by images of columns driven into exile and deathly visions in mountains and the eastern deserts, our life’s blood gorging rivers. The sound of sabers and bayonets will steal our sleep. Village mobs screaming their hate for us as they tear children from their mothers’ arms will forever deny us peace. And always, the sound of

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this train. (The sound of the train returns as it enters the station.) Something must remain. Someone must remember us. When the train stops, I’ll break free and run into the night. I’ll take my chances. I won’t go easily. (pierre looks toward the audience as lightning rips through the sky.) My god, the world’s on fire. (Blackout. End of Act 1.)

Act 2. Moon Monologue Time: August 2, 1985. Place: Scarborough, an eastern suburb of Toronto. (The stage is bare but for a couch and two armchairs which face each other at CS, reminiscent of the train car in Act 1. There is a side table and a lamp beside the couch. At SL towards the rear, there are a table and two chairs. At SR, there is a bookshelf full of books and papers. Above old pierre’s head behind him is a projection screen. Lights up. The stage is dimly lit as young pierre enters from US and stands beside old pierre, who is asleep on the couch. young pierre is dressed as he was on the train.) young pierre (he approaches old pierre, whispering): Pierre. Pierre. Pierre is dreaming of us as we are pushed the length of Anatolia, trying to avoid the fury of Turkish soldiers and the wrath of Kurdish villagers. Most nights, we dream of our lost family and an endless road that disappears in the desert. On some nights, I dream of Pierre, sitting alone in this apartment, dreaming of me. (There is the faint sound of train arriving. young pierre slowly exits US. old pierre awakens.) old pierre (he stretches and looks at the moon): Thank you, moon, for your light. I’m like this ragged oriental carpet, faded but still retaining the bare outlines of its Armenian designs. All I am is memory now. What can I do but sit among the remnants of my life?

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I don’t sleep much anymore. Haven’t for some time. I know if I do, I might not wake up. I’m old, too old. Such torment shouldn’t be allowed. I’ve come so far when so many of us didn’t have a chance. They just came to our homes and told us to leave. Forced us all out. If only I could sleep just for a while, I could find some peace from the pictures and the voices. They came in the spring when the flowers were in bud and spilled our blood on the roses. (He sits back in his chair and dreams for a moment.) Oh, moon, what I have seen. When they pushed us off the train at Ayash, I took off and ran and ran. I surprised them and disappeared quickly into the dark. But I was captured soon after. (Five seconds.) Salim Bey must be dead. That is a small comfort. I was put in the lines of our deported forced to the east and became a son to some, a brother to others, a husband to yet others. (He sees in his memory.) On the sandy slope where the exiled lie strewn like stones thrown carelessly by god’s hand, Mrs. Manuelian and her daughter Arsho are quiet, having been terrorized into sleep. (Points.) Off to the left of the long column, the soldiers sit around a glowing fire and bite off great mouthfuls of grilled, spiced lamb skewered on sticks as they laugh and tell stories of the women in the brothels near their barracks and plot the morning’s assault on the few remaining men they are certain have hidden gold coins inside their bodies. There’s the big blustering one who grabs a large, hot chunk of meat and tears deep into it then twists his foul, greasy hand around one of the ends of his long, thick, dirty moustache. I know that he lusts after the young women, fatigued and helpless by weeks of walking barefoot on the high stony mountain trails and along the blazing expanse of sand and rock. In his mind, he picks out one lying there beside her mother. He observes the fine line of her thighs and breasts. Brothers, he says, there is cause for many dreams this night. They laugh. Some sharpen their bayonets; others snicker. What pickings, he thinks. God is great. (He winces.) The goddamned desert of Der Zor. If only I could take more medication, this pain is unbearable. When I close my eyes, I hear the sound of metal breaking bone and the endless screams.

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Every day we’re awakened by their vile curses and the sharp points of their blades: eat grass, infidel; drink your urine; if you stop you will die; if you fall you will die; move forward! All I asked the doctor for was a stronger sedative, a little something to ease the memories, the screams: mama, I’m thirsty; mama, I’m hungry; mama, I can’t go on; mama, where are we going; mama, what’s happening? One hot afternoon, we come upon a stream. The stench of death is everywhere. At first I think rocks have blocked the river causing it to spill over its banks. The cool water is a mercy for our callused feet. But as we walk further out in the stream, I see the cause. Armenian victims from another column, floating in the turbid water have been pushed together by the current, forming a dam of black bloated flesh. Even the soldiers look away and take out cloths to cover their faces, as they force us to wade among them. (He covers his eyes with one arm and lets the other drop.) I can feel them as they bump up against me. My hand touches the cheek of a young boy lying face up. Worms feast on his eyes. The thirst is overwhelming. I’ve never felt such emptiness and such desire. I let my arm drag in the river and scoop up handfuls of black water to my cracked lips. (He puts his cupped hand to his lips.) I just asked the doctor for something a little stronger; I can’t stop these damn memories running crazy in my head and the terrible pain all over. Oh, I’ll give that doctor a piece of my mind. Then Mr. Paragamian goes up to one of the soldiers, that mean one with only one eye, and he begins to yell at him: ‘Bastards! You lousy bastards! I curse seven generations of your family!’ (He turns his head as he tries to hear.) I don’t hear what one-eye says, but I see his bayonet pierce through Mr. Paragamian’s back. He drops, screaming, kicking his legs as the soldier sticks him over and over until he stops moving. I’ve explained to the doctor about the train and what’s happening all over, the long lines of the exiled being marched to their death, but he doesn’t understand. Surely, someone can do something; I really need to sleep.

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Survival was enough. Survival was enough. Out of Armenia, forever. Twenty-five hundred years of history and culture deported to oblivion. After the war, I returned to Constantinople and looked for my family, but none survived. There was no future for me there; I refused to live among the murderers. I went to Paris. I never thought I would see it again, but I returned and began to write. I taught poetry. I became human again. I don’t remember why I came to Canada. Perhaps I needed to leave the old world. I had hoped it would be different here. I remember the way some Armenians bowed to the Turks to make themselves small so they would feel superior and leave them alone. I promised myself I would never do that. In Canada, I learned there are many forms of oppression and many ways to bow. (Silence for five seconds.) Last month, two students from the university came to interview me. “Can you tell us about the Genocide?” they asked. “We want to film you.” They asked so many questions. As I spoke, I remembered more things, things I wanted to forget. I couldn’t tell them everything. It would have been too cruel. (Projected photos of the dead.) This is Armenology I’ve discovered. The past is always present. 1915 was just a moment ago. Our history is a vast ocean, whose waves break on the shore all over at the same time. The young girl behind the camera cried as I spoke. She looked like my sister Hasmig; she had a lovely face, beautiful eyes. She said that I was one of the last living links to their heritage in western Armenia. They wanted my story for other generations. There are so few of us left now. Survival was enough. (Sound of the apartment door opening.) armig: Dad? Dad, it’s me, Armig. old pierre (he looks over to her): Armig, my dear. How are you? Come sit near me. (armig sits next to him on the couch. They kiss on both cheeks.) armig: I’m fine, Dad. And you? old pierre: As well as I can be for a man with no expectations beyond the moment.

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armig: That’s not true. I went through your new manuscript last night. There are some wonderful poems in it. old pierre: My last manuscript. I don’t think I’m responsible for any of the poems. They’re pure memory made flesh through the word. armig: Your words. We have to publish them. You know you’re the last Armenian poet who survived the Genocide. old pierre: Every time someone talks about me, the word “last” is always used. It’s not very comforting. armig: You’ve always been a realist, Dad. You’re not going to hide from it now, are you? old pierre: No, my dear, eyes open till the end. Tell me, how are my grandchildren? Why didn’t they come with you? armig: It’s a school day. They’re coming this afternoon. They’re both fine. Liz still wants to be a dentist; she’s so focused on a career. old pierre: How old are they now? armig: Liz is fourteen, and Helen is thirteen. old pierre: And what does Helen want to do? armig: She’s going to be an artist. No question. She’s taking lessons in sculpture. As a matter of fact, she’s making something for you. old pierre: Really? That’s wonderful. She’d better finish it soon. I don’t know how much time I’ve left. armig: Shall I put on some tea? old pierre: Aren’t you going to indulge me even a little? armig: Not even a little. old pierre: Oh, you are a mean daughter. armig: That’s right. Tea? old pierre: So, she’s an artist. armig: She’s only thirteen, Dad. old pierre: I published some poems in the literary gazette in Constantinople when I was fifteen. God, they were awful, derivative. Now, my poems are just awful. armig: Maybe we should title your new collection, Awful Poems in My Own Voice. The kids fight all the time, but they are determined. Liz volunteers at the community center. Helen refuses to. She’s rejecting her Armenian heritage.

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old pierre: She has to find her own way. armig: We talk about it all the time. She’s going to be good. I can feel it. But she’s headstrong. old pierre: Like you, as I recall. armig: As you still are. Tea? old pierre: Tell me, how’s Yervant? armig: He has bad days and worse days. The chemo has changed him so. I’m going to see him at the hospital now. old pierre: My poor Armig. You’re caught between the dying and a moribund culture. It’s the final act of the Genocide. No one speaks of it, but soon it’ll pass from memory. We’ll always be orphans in the diaspora until one day we’ll no longer feel the pain; then, it will no longer matter. armig: It still matters, Dad. A lot of people come to my readings. They need to share a part of themselves, to affirm something. But before too long— old pierre: The final act. Blackout. Polite applause. We all go home. Living is more important. armig: I’m trying to work this out in my new book . . . Dad, why don’t I arrange for a reading? The two of us. old pierre: Who’d want to hear me? I barely have enough breath to keep alive. And besides, who knows Armenian anymore. A handful. armig: We can do it, Dad. Lots of people know your work. It might be the last— old pierre: There it is again. The last chance to hear the old poet. The final gasp of the old culture. armig: Trust me, Dad. old pierre: I’m being difficult, but you know I’d love to. I might even use the word “excited.” armig: I’ll arrange it; I promise. old pierre: Something to hope for at my age. I’m so proud of you. What will you call your new book? armig: Sloughing Off. old pierre: What do you think you’re sloughing off ? armig: Old habits, ways of thinking and being.

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old pierre: You were always radical. Have you had any success? armig: Yes, yes, I have. (She checks her watch.) I have to see Yervant, Dad. old pierre: Please tell him I’m thinking of him. (They kiss.) Thank you for coming, dear. You helped me forget for a while. I can’t stop these damn memories. They’re vicious, sometimes, you know. There’s no rest. It’s as if my mind is working overtime to stay alive while the rest of me shuts down. (armig hugs her father.) armig: The kids will come by later this afternoon. They’re doing a shopping for you. I’ll see you tomorrow. old pierre: Good-bye, Armig. Thank you. You’ve been a wonderful daughter. Your mother would be proud of your accomplishments. armig: That means a lot to me. I really miss her. old pierre: Back on the train that terrible year, I thought my life was finished. If my survival has a reason, has meant anything, it’s because of you and the girls. You’re so precious to me. armig: You’re precious to us, Dad. Bye. old pierre: Armig! armig: Yes. old pierre (urgently): Call me tonight. armig: I will. (armig exits.) old pierre: It’s too good to be true, a reading, someone to listen to my work again. Ah, Sarah, you left too early, and I’ve stayed too long. (He shakes his head.) A life lived: less than what I hoped for, better than I expected. Now a reading, a last chance, sprig of hope against the final despair. My new manuscript. I must prepare . . . (He rises very slowly from the chair, obviously weak. He stands and turns toward the audience with a deathly look on his face then falls back down into the chair. He recites.) and so the train departs should you see my mother . . . (He dies. young pierre enters from US and stands before old pierre. The faint sound of a train is heard. young pierre puts his hand on old pierre’s shoulder and completes the lines old pierre recites.) 48

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young pierre: should you see my mother tell her that we . . . Oh, moon, what we have seen. (They remain frozen. Blackout. End of Act 2.)

Act 3. The Storm That Never Breaks Place: Toronto. Time: August 2, 1995, 7 pm. (The chapel of a funeral home in Toronto just before the ceremony takes place. An intense summer electrical storm is about to break over the city. The air is very hot and humid; the atmosphere is unstable. There is a feeling of imminent danger. At CS, there is a podium at the altar in front of which is the casket. Two benches on either side recall the compartment on the train. A feeling of restriction permeates. Lights up. The lights flicker, creating a strobe effect on the characters. Suddenly, the stage goes dark for eight seconds; then, the lights return. liz and helen stand before their father’s coffin during the private family viewing.) liz: It feels as if the whole world is about to explode. Why can’t we say good-bye to our father in peace? helen (pointedly): You haven’t changed, Liz. There’s always something wrong. There’s always something, isn’t there, Liz? Well, I love a storm. All that energy is exciting. Tell me, Liz, why did Dad want the casket closed? Why did he deny us a final look? liz: He told me he wanted us to remember him healthy, not as he had become. helen: He told you? He spoke to you? Why didn’t he tell me? I saw him as often as you did. liz: Don’t do this, Helen, not now.

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helen: When then? You never hear me out. What else did he tell you? liz: We’ll talk after the funeral, Helen. I know he told you things when I wasn’t around. helen: Rarely. liz: He must have spoken to you about your sculptures. helen: All I got were complaints. “Why don’t you sculpt Armenian things, Helen?” liz: He was proud of your accomplishments. helen: Really? Do you think so? Did he tell you? liz: Not in so many words, but I know he was. helen: I wish he had told me something. I wanted to hear it from his lips, just once. liz: Toward the end all he spoke about was what happened to our grandparents back then. helen: The Genocide, the bloody Genocide. That’s all Armenians ever talk about. I’m sick of it. There’s a life to live. liz: It was important to him. His parents were survivors. How could Dad ever forget that? helen: He was obsessive about it; he let it consume him. liz: Dad was our link to our past since granddad Srabian died. helen: Not mine, thank you. I have a heritage. It’s the here-and-now. There’s no room in my life for that stuff. Dad always freaked me out when he spoke about it. liz: Maybe he didn’t have a choice but to confront it. helen: Well, not me, Liz. If you’re not careful, it’ll screw around with your head. Next thing you know, you’ll end up sitting on the church steps begging god for answers. liz: You didn’t have to say that? Why must you always react this way to Armenian things? helen: You know as well as I do, but if you really want me to remind you. . . . (vicken enters and puts his arm around liz.) vicken: How are you both doing? liz: We’re okay, dear. (helen doesn’t answer.)

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vicken: Helen, are you okay? helen (dryly and annoyed): Yes. vicken: People are starting to arrive. The priest is waiting to enter. Where’s Armig? Your mother should have been here by now. liz: Hold him off for a while, will you? We need more time alone. Mom said she might be late. vicken: It’s not like your mother. I’ll ask the Reverend Father about the building fund. That should be good for at least fifteen minutes. helen (to vicken): You’d better leave your wallet with Liz. (vicken shakes his head then leaves.) liz: You’re a real number, aren’t you? (As they talk, they circle the casket.) helen: I’m tired of being caught between these worlds. I’m sick of dealing with it. The Armenian past is like thick gauze. It blinds me to what’s real. I won’t let it hold me back. liz: What do you mean? You don’t look hard done by. helen: How would you know? Have you ever asked me what I think about anything? Sometimes you act as if you’re my mother. liz: That’s not fair, and you know it. I’m just trying to help Mom. We need to make things easy for her after all she went through with Dad. helen: You always indulged Dad, let him go on about Armenian history and culture. I mean what kind of world was he living in? liz: Why can’t you accept that this was important to him? helen: I didn’t want any part of it then, and I don’t now. It’s tough enough being a Canadian trying to make it. I’m an artist, Liz. This is what’s important to me. Being Armenian in some remote way has no significance for me. I want to be free of it. liz: Why do you always bring things back to you? You’re so damn selfcentered. This is our father lying here. Can’t you stop even for one afternoon? helen: Our father, who art no more. Hollow be thy name. liz (outraged): How could you say that? He only wanted what was best for you. So what if he went on about the Genocide. What do you expect? His parents were orphaned at the age of five. Can you imagine what they saw, what they lived through? You don’t think this affected Dad?

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helen: That whole generation isn’t quite normal, Liz. liz: You just don’t want to understand, do you? Their exile was a constant adaptation. You and I were born here. We can’t possibly know what it’s like. helen: Yes, but Dad was born here, too. liz: He was comfortable here, but he wasn’t always at home. helen: No wonder, going on as he did. liz: He did it to fight the denial. helen: Armenians and Turks. I don’t give a damn about them. They’re never going to be free of each other. You know, when we were younger and he talked about it, telling us the stories that his parents told him, and listening to Mom’s Dad, I felt as if I were in one of the deportation columns, that my life was meaningless. I hated that feeling. I hate the Turks for what they did to us then, and I hate them now for what they’re still doing to us. But I can’t let this be part of my life. I’m not going to be another victim three generations later. I can’t live with this hate, these images. liz: And we can’t live with the denial. We can’t let them get away with what they did. All those lives mean something. We have to give them a voice. That’s what Dad taught us. helen: I think you enjoy being a victim. You just can’t tell the difference anymore. My identity doesn’t depend on this. I rejected it a long time ago. liz: Yes, and here we are still discussing it. helen: Sometimes, I wish— (harriet enters.) harriet: Hey, you two, what’s going on? We can hear you outside. liz (she looks at helen): You see? (She looks at harriet.) Has Mom arrived yet? harriet: Not yet. The Armenian priest is giving Vicken a lesson in fundraising. Are you two okay? helen: It’s the same bloody thing every time we get together: family history, exile, blood and carnage, survival and assimilation, genocide, genocide, genocide! Only Armenians in the diaspora could believe that their identity will be assured because of genocide. God, the irony is too dark. 52

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harriet: This isn’t the best moment, Helen. liz: Oh, no, not her. Nothing’s ever done peacefully. Apparently, we always put off dealing with these issues. The Canadian sculptor wants to get into them now. harriet: Come on; you’re both under a great deal of stress. (vicken enters.) harriet (to vicken): They’re at it again. See what you can do, Vicken. (harriet exits.) vicken: You were right, Helen. I should have left my wallet. He got me for two hundred. What’s going on? liz: The usual. vicken: Not again. Not here. Not now. helen: Stay out of it, Vicken. vicken: Someone has to give this family direction; your mother refuses to. helen: The family is finished. Face it, Liz. We don’t like each other. liz: Helen, we’re sisters. helen: We’re too different. You’re part of the community. It defines you. I’m not and never wanted to be. That’s always been a source of friction between us, between Dad and me. I want to be free to explore my potential. Being Armenian is a net. liz: Can’t it be a source, Helen, a source of material for you to use? helen: Never! The cost of going there is just too great. You saw what it did to Dad. Every time we went to Armenian events, I’d come home filled with terrible anxiety. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks because of all the images and voices, things I couldn’t name. You use the past for your needs. I want to cut it off. I’ll make my own meaning of my life. vicken: This is awful. What would your father say if he could hear us? Think of your mother. helen: You know Armig; she always gets along. It’s the sad story of our family, not yours. liz: Helen, how could you? vicken: That’s not fair. When the family needed help, I was there. When your father was sick, I took him to the doctor and bought him the medicine he needed. When you needed material for your sculptures last year and didn’t have the means, I purchased them for you. Don’t tell me I don’t care about this family.

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liz (to helen): I’m just hanging on, Helen; you don’t know . . . by a thread. vicken: No, Liz, don’t. Let’s respect your father tonight. (Silence. vicken comforts her.) helen (to liz): Not always in control, are you, Liz? (armig enters. She hugs and kisses everyone.) armig: Sorry. I’m sorry, everyone. liz: Where were you, Mom? armig: I had some things to attend to and got caught in traffic. (liz and helen look at each other.) helen: Things to do? Today of all days? armig: Life goes on, Helen. liz: Mom, how can you say that? armig: Your father had been ill for a long time. We made our peace many times over. vicken: Armig, we were just about to have a moment of remembrance by the casket. armig: Yes, thank, you, Vicken. (They all stand behind the casket, facing the audience. armig places her hand on the casket.) Good-bye, my darling. We’ll miss you dearly. vicken: I loved him like a father. liz: He fought for those who were silenced. armig: Like my father through his poetry. liz: To free the living. helen: To free those not yet born. (The lights flicker for a moment.) liz (startled): Damn storm. Why tonight of all nights? helen: It’s just a storm. liz (she hugs her mother and sister): Promise me we’ll always stay together. armig: Of course, dear, why wouldn’t we? We’re family. helen: Why is this important to you? vicken: Come on, Helen, we need to be together now more than ever. liz: If we don’t help each other maintain our identity and our family, what are we?

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helen: Just what is it you’re trying to preserve, Liz? liz: Everything we remember. What we were and what we are. Some presence. Some way of being Armenian here. helen: Starving Armenians. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The Forgotten Genocide. I can’t do it. armig: You’re being an ass, Helen. liz: We have to keep faith with the past. What are we if we don’t? helen: What are we if we do? I can’t, Liz. armig: Stop it, both of you! liz: I’ve no choice. I’m too afraid not to. helen: I won’t. I refuse it all. I can’t stay here anymore. (helen exits. liz is shocked and breaks down and cries in vicken’s arms.) armig: Helen! Helen! Come back! (Silence as armig, liz, and vicken stand alone before the casket.) liz: The world by a thread. (Knocking at the door.) armig: When will it end, dear god, when? (Blackout. End of Act 3.)

Act 4. Life Support Place: The living room of Armig’s home in Toronto. Time: December 24, 2001. (Lights up. The stage is bare but for a sofa and two armchairs placed parallel before each other at CS, recalling the train compartment. At SR a window frame is suspended. Further along SR is a writing desk and chair that face the audience. At SL is a small table on which are bottles of wine and liquor and glasses; just beyond is the door to the house. There is a cradle beside the sofa. armig srabian is alone on Christmas Eve, working on the final poem of her new collection. She enters from US, pulls back the curtain, and looks out the window.)

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armig: So much snow. A clean slate. A chance to begin again. Finally. (A knock at the door. armig opens it. liz enters.) It’s about time. I’ve been waiting to see my granddaughter. (They kiss.) liz: There’s so much to do, Mom. Vicken and I are still learning how to adjust our lives to our baby. (armig takes yerchanig from liz and holds her in her arms.) armig: Yerchanig is a joy. You should never consider her a burden. liz: Is that how you felt when Helen and I took you away from your writing? armig: Sometimes, dear. She’s sleeping so soundly. liz: She was up all day. armig: Let’s let her sleep. (armig puts yerchanig in the cradle.) liz: You don’t mind keeping the cradle here? armig: Not at all. I want to have her with me as often as I can. Have you spoken to Helen today? liz: She dropped over for a coffee this morning. armig: How is she? I haven’t seen her for a while. She must be busy. liz: I’m a little worried, Mom. She was a little hyper. armig: You’re always worrying, Liz. Helen is always hyper. liz: This is different. There’s something going on. She wouldn’t talk about it. armig: Well, we’ll all be together at your house tomorrow for Christmas dinner. We’ll talk about it then. liz: I have to go, Mom; Vicken’s waiting. (They move toward the door.) I’ve left some diapers and milk I pumped out a while ago in case. I think she’ll sleep until we come to get her. armig: Don’t worry; we’ll be waiting for you. I have the number where you’ll be. (They hug.) Have a wonderful time. Try to relax, Liz. liz: I will. I’ll try. Thanks again, Mom. armig: Bye, dear. (liz leaves. armig closes the door goes to the cradle and to check on the baby.)

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Sleep, my lovely. You’ll need all your strength to cope with the world you’ve come into. (She goes to the liquor cabinet and pours herself a drink then looks at her watch.) Soon. He should be calling soon. Be patient; you’re used to loneliness. (She looks over some loose sheets of paper on her desk.) This last poem then the collection will be complete. What should I call the book: “Erased Memories of a Shared Past?” No, “The Erased Past of Our Shared Memories.” Much better. (She takes her fountain pen and speaks as she writes.) in the final hours you will come to me and i will explain to you the mystery “The mystery.” I’ve always said, adapt, reinvent, and transform. Amen. (She looks at her watch and shows frustration that her friend has not yet called. There’s a knock at the door.) Well, it’s about time. (She gets up and goes to the door. harriet garabedian enters.) harriet: Merry Christmas, Armig. (They hug.) How are you, dear? armig (surprised): I’m well, Harriet. What brings you out on Christmas Eve? harriet: The families are gathering at our place tonight. I needed some fresh air before they arrive. I wanted to see you. armig: That’s thoughtful. We haven’t seen each other for some time. Come have a drink with me. harriet: Okay, but just a sip. armig: I have white wine. harriet: That’s fine. (armig goes to the table and pours two glasses of wine. harriet sees the cradle and goes over to it and looks in.) Oh, Armig, Liz’s baby. She’s adorable. Congratulations, grandma. How is Liz? (armig returns and hands harriet a glass.)

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armig: She’s fine. This is the first time she and Vicken have gone out since the birth. And please don’t call me medzmama.2 Not just yet. harriet: She’s so delicate. What’s her name? armig: Yerchanig. “Happy.” I’d let you hold her, but I don’t want to wake her. harriet: Another time. Yerchanig is a lovely name. (She raises her glass.) Here’s to Yerchanig and here’s to you, Armig. Genatset.3 (They toast and drink.) So how have you been, dear? armig: I’ve been busy getting the new book ready. harriet: How’s it coming? armig: I’m working on the final poem now. harriet: Wonderful! I should begin planning the book launch, then. armig: It won’t be long. harriet: We all look forward to it. armig: I just reread Professor Tertibian’s review of Invocation in the Literary Gazette. harriet: It was good, wasn’t it? armig: He understood at least. harriet: What? armig: Our need to reinvent ourselves in the diaspora. harriet (suddenly troubled): I’ve always felt uncomfortable with that, Armig. armig: Why’s that? harriet: I’m afraid we’ll no longer be Armenian. armig: Maybe we’ll be Armenian in a different way. I know it sounds ironic, but it might be the only way to retain something meaningful of our heritage while everything else around us weakens and disappears. harriet: It’s such a risk. We can’t give up our identities like that. armig: I’m not suggesting we do. We have to be open to the process. I’m afraid that before much longer we won’t have a choice in the diaspora. The old world without a context in the new isn’t encouraging. 2. Grandma. 3. A toast: to your health.

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harriet: Perhaps it’s something we need to guard against if we’re to survive. (Five seconds.) Listen to us. This is all too serious to discuss on Christmas Eve. armig: On the contrary, it’s another story of salvation. harriet: Oh, you are clever. armig: Do you remember the fights I had with Vahé at the centre years ago? harriet: How could I forget? armig: He was another one of the damaged after the Genocide, compelled to commit his weakness to the cause. He and others like him clung like stubborn leeches to the past; they turned massacre into songs and prayers or worse, propaganda, an anthem for a bankrupt future, holding generations to ransom for their deathly vision. They hated it when I told them we had to reinvent ourselves in the diaspora if we wanted to continue. harriet: That’s unfair. He was just doing what he believed was necessary. armig: He prevented creative thinking, kept us from being vital. If there’s anything we need— harriet: He and the others were trying to keep us together to preserve the fragments of our heritage here. You’re being too harsh. armig: Let’s have this conversation in fifteen years; then, we’ll decide. harriet: If you supply the wine, I’ll be here. (She drinks.) armig (she goes to her desk and gets a sheet of paper): Harriet, I’ve been writing down postmemories of the Genocide I’ve been having. I know I’m not their source so they aren’t really recollected, but they live in me. I’m going to perform one at the book launch. harriet: Can I read it? armig: You’re the first person I’ve shown it to. (She hands it to harriet.) harriet (she reads aloud): “For months, I carried my baby barefoot as we were forced east along the dirt roads out of Dyarbekir. (armig stands by the cradle.) I held her close against my breast day and night. (Bright lights flood the stage; the air hisses and crackles.) All that remained to cover us from the burning sun was a piece of ragged cloth, which I

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placed over my numbed head and draped across her sweet face. One day she stopped crying. I had carried her for kilometers, not knowing. Under the moon, I buried her by the side of the road. Under the pitiless moon, soldiers dragged away young girls into the night never to return.” (Uncomfortably.) Armig, I don’t know what to say. armig: Are you telling me you’ve never been haunted by dreams and nightmares like this? harriet: Yes, but I keep them to myself. armig: Imagine how many of us share these memories we’ve inherited. How can we cope if we don’t understand them? For us in the diaspora, there’s always a surplus of meaning or an abundance of nothing. Either way, it’s unbearable. We have to speak to each other honestly. harriet (she puts down her glass somewhat flustered and looks at her watch): I don’t know. I have to go, Armig. armig: Harriet, I didn’t think you’d react this way. I want to expose the clichés of our history, the emotional automatism every time the Genocide is mentioned to get to what’s real. harriet: And you think this is the best way to do it? armig: We have to break the taboos if we don’t want to be choked by them. harriet: It’s still too painful, too raw for us. No one will understand; the community will think you’re mocking us. armig: My father was a survivor. I’m not mocking. I just want people to rethink their reactions and what programmed them. harriet: You can’t eliminate our history. armig: Maybe I can provoke a reconsideration of our lives in the diaspora. It’s the first step toward change. harriet: Armig, I’ve got a houseful of people coming. I can’t get into this now. Why don’t you and Yerchanig join us? We’d love to have you with us tonight. armig: That’s kind of you, but Theo’s coming over in a while. harriet: Theo? Have your daughters forgiven you for seeing him before Yervant’s funeral? armig: It took time, but we’re okay now. Theo’s setting up his new show at the Shurmer Gallery on Queen. He’s just coming over for a drink.

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harriet: He’s an artist, then. I didn’t know. armig: A very well-known artist. harriet: Armig, it’s none of my business, but I want you to know I understand. Some people said things against you after. armig: It’s okay, Harriet. It doesn’t matter. harriet: I know the last years with Yervant were very difficult. armig: I gave him everything I could. He knew I loved him to the end. harriet: You’re still seeing Theo, then? armig: Not anymore. Not like before. harriet: I hope it works out for you. armig: It rarely does. harriet: We continue somehow. armig: We adapt. (They hug.) harriet: You are incorrigible. Merry Christmas, Armig. armig: Thank you for coming, Harriet. (harriet leaves. armig closes the door. She takes the glasses to the table then goes to her desk and begins writing. There are three knocks at the door. She goes to open it.) What did you forget, Harriet? (She opens the door to find theo.) Theo! I’m sorry; I thought it was Harriet. theo: That must have been her leaving just now. armig: I’m angry with you, Theo; you kept me waiting. Come in. (He enters. carol green follows him in. armig is taken aback.) theo: My apologies, Armig. I was at the gallery, hanging pictures. There’s still a lot to do before the show opens next week. Forgive me? armig: Apology accepted. (They kiss.) theo: Armig, this is Carol Green. She works at the gallery; she’s helping me put the show together. armig: How nice. (She offers her hand.) Welcome to my house. carol: Thank you. Theo’s told me a lot about you. armig: Really? I’d like to hear what he said. (She takes their coats.) Please come in. (theo and carol go to the cradle and look at the baby.)

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theo: And this must be your granddaughter. carol: She’s lovely. armig: Thank you. Her name is Yerchanig. It means “happy” in English. carol: We’ll have to be quiet. armig: She’ll sleep soundly. She was up all afternoon with her mother. I have red and white wine or scotch. theo: Scotch, please. Tonight, I need scotch. carol: White wine, please. armig: I’ll have wine as well. (She goes to the liquor cabinet and pours the drinks then returns with them on a round, oriental copper tray. She offers theo and carol their glasses.) Your paintings are wonderful, Theo. I know the show will be a great success. theo: Thank you, Armig. Carol’s been a great help. armig: I’m sure she has. theo: When we spoke yesterday, you told me you were working on the final poem of the new collection. How’s it going? armig: I was working on it just now. theo: Can we hear some of it? armig: I’m not ready for that yet. Let’s talk. I warn you; I’m particularly connected tonight. The poem’s been flashing through me all day. theo: I’ll be careful, then. armig: You’ve changed then. theo: You’re awful. Do you really want to revisit the past tonight? armig: I always seem to be confronting it. theo: There was more to it than that, and you know it. armig: Please remind me. I’m not depressed enough tonight. theo: Christmas Eve is the worst night of the year for you, isn’t it? armig: I don’t handle it very well. Thank you for coming. (She leans over and kisses him.) You know I still love you. theo: And I still love you . . . but— (carol is embarrassed.)

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armig: But you can’t live with me. Yes, I remember: you’re too obsessive, Armig; you seem to dwell in a hidden pocket of the past. I liked that one. Or, you’re always changing; I never know who you are from one moment to the next. And my favorite: you’re always on the edge; it’s as if your feet are half way over the rim of a black chasm that you’ve taken great delight inching toward. A mouthful, to be sure, but precise in its imagery. theo: Did I really say that? armig: What do you think, Carol? carol (hesitatingly): Well, I’m sure I don’t know. How could— armig: I won’t even raise the older woman issue. theo: That never was a question between us. carol: How could you say that, Theo? (To armig.) Don’t listen to him. armig: Thank you, dear. I like you already. Apparently, it was an issue for me. theo: But I never said . . . that’s because— armig: That’s because you had plenty of willing young art groupies. theo: We’ve been together only a few minutes, and already we’re digging up the ancient past. Tell me; what are you calling the new collection? armig: The End of Hope. theo: That’s rather bleak, isn’t it? You’re kidding, I hope. armig: You know me; that’s the way I like it. Yes, I’m kidding. I’m calling it The Erased Past of Our Shared Memories. theo: It’s focused on the Genocide again. (To carol.) I told you. armig: How could it be otherwise? I’ve also included some memory performance pieces as well. (She recites a line.) And if you listen. theo: What? armig: The poem. (She recites.) in the final hours you will come to me and i will explain to you the mystery and if you listen

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theo: Yes, and if I listen, what then? armig: I don’t know yet, you’ll have to wait. You’re too clever, Theo. I was addressing Carol. theo: But you don’t know Carol. armig: Not as well as you do, no doubt, hanging pictures together all day. carol: I don’t like the insinuation; it’s not like that. armig: If you’re around long enough, it will be. What’s your thought, Carol? carol: When Theo told me about your work, I wanted to read it. I’m not so sure now. armig: Don’t be so sensitive. You know what you’re getting into, “exposing” all day at the gallery. theo: You won’t give up, will you? Let me offer a primer on Armig, Carol, if only to win her affections momentarily and give you an insight into her talent and her growing bitterness. (He sees her negative reaction.) armig: This I have to hear, Theo, but only if it’s astute and particularly flattering. theo: Very well, your poems are fragments of testimony. armig: I thought you were going to be perceptive, Theo. theo: I’ll continue against my better judgment. armig: Yes, you always did. theo: Her writing is the search for coherence among the fragments. carol: I don’t understand. What fragments? armig: You’ve got to try a lot harder. theo: Her testimony is an attempt to connect those who have suffered the Genocide to a community of listeners. carol: We all need to connect to something. armig: Very few speak about the Armenian Genocide today. Nobody’s listening. carol: I’m listening. I want to learn. theo: Armig is a powerful voice against the silence. armig: You see; flattery does work, doesn’t it, Carol? carol: Well, no, not always. theo: Your poems, my paintings, we’re both hoping for some redemption.

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armig: Enough talk of redemption; you’re really depressing me. theo: Just a little more. armig: Now you are being cruel, but then you’re no stranger to— theo: I’m saying this as someone who respects your work. armig: So you say. carol: He does, Armig. He talks about you a lot. armig: As you’re hanging pictures together? As you lean against the wall and raise your hands high over your head to mark the spot so he can hammer home the nail? carol (pointedly): Yes, and after, too. (armig acknowledges carol’s retort.) theo: In the end, Armig’s poems move from personal grief into public memory, making the Genocide part of public discourse. armig: Nice theory, but to what effect? Who controls the public discourse? And what about my personal grief ? theo: So I hit a nerve, then. armig: It’s always personal with you. theo: You wear it as an emblem. armig: That’s it? That’s all? I’m traumatized. If you’re going to be honest tonight, Theo, I’m going to need more wine. Anyone else? No? (She goes to the table and pours herself another drink.) theo: And as long as we’re being honest, you need to come out. armig: Come out? theo: Of the ghetto. Your voice needs to be heard outside the walls. carol: Yes, you’re right. (To armig.) He’s right. armig: There’s no market for atrocity unless it’s fictionalized into historical romance or dissipated in a fractured postmodern narrative. theo: Well, there’s a choice. Don’t you want to be a writer who has a publisher with wide distribution? armig: A writer who fictionalizes the Genocide and turns pain into romance? theo: You always say “adapt, reinvent and transform.” armig: That hurts, Theo. theo: There’s always a choice to make. armig: How do you do it, Theo? How have you done it?

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theo: It’s easier with painting. Most people haven’t a clue what’s happening on the canvas. They buy a work because the colors match their living room décor or the lines and figural representation are recognizable. They need an easy and fixed interpretation so they can tell visitors the set story of the painting. The moment I become provocative or experimental, the tableau is doomed to stay in my permanent collection at home. carol: Theo, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’m shocked. theo: You should know better. carol: I’m still naïve enough to believe in art. theo: We all do; the trick is to lose the naïveté. armig: Sounds like the end of hope to me. theo: You need to go away for a while armig: You’re right, but you can’t really escape these things. theo (he looks at carol): Listen, after the show here, I’ve another one in Vancouver. carol: I arranged it for him at a sister gallery. We’re leaving soon. theo: I’m going for two weeks in mid-January then on to France and a series of shows in Europe. Come with me. (carol looks at him hurt.) No strings. Just two friends, two artists. carol: There’s a lot to do there, Theo. We’re not going to have much free time. armig: Isn’t Vancouver dreary this time of year? theo: We’d be together, working on new projects, new landscapes. armig: Low clouds and heavy rain. theo: New ideas. armig (pondering his proposal): I’d have to finish a few things first. Make some arrangements. Prepare to leave the ghetto. Meet the world outside the walls. God, does this mean I’d be your protégée? theo: Hardly. armig: Your muse? theo: Partly. carol (aside): Amusement, more likely. armig: What then? theo: That’s for us to discover.

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armig: A chance at a new start. theo: Hopeful? armig: It’s not a word I use easily. theo (he holds his glass up for a toast): To Vancouver, then, in the New Year. carol: To a sober awakening. (She drinks.) armig (she recites): I will offer you no comfort. theo: Pardon? armig: The next line of the poem. and if you listen i will offer you no comfort theo: Not very reassuring. armig: Things rarely are. I can’t forget what happened. There’s no possibility of reconstruction or recuperation, Theo, no salvation in what’s been done, no restoration. theo: Surely, more than destruction remains. armig: More than the horrible absence? theo: There is art. armig: I can’t find a way out, Theo. theo: Come with me. We’ll find new ideas, a new direction. carol: Oh, right, art. Four years of university and two years of slave wages at the gallery all for the chance to hang paintings and get coffee for arrogant artists. Tell me about the redemption of art. theo: That’s not what you said yesterday. armig (to carol): You’re right to be cynical. (She smiles.) Two new lines. theo: What? armig: The poem, Theo. It’s becoming clearer. It’s writing itself. (She recites.) i will bind your eyes and steal your words theo: I think I’d better leave while I can. armig: If you don’t go now, you might never. theo: You might be right. Listen, my parents are expecting me for a late supper tonight. Why don’t you come with Yerchanig? They’d love to see you again.

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armig: Not tonight, Theo, thank you. I really want to be alone. I need to work on the poem tonight. theo: It’s Christmas Eve; you should be with friends. armig: I’m with my granddaughter. I’m okay, really. I have a lot to think about. theo: I’m counting on you. (He turns to carol.) We’ve got to go. (theo gets his coat and carol’s. He helps her put it on then wears his. They walk together toward the door.) Think about Vancouver, please. armig: You know I will. theo (they kiss and hug): Merry Christmas, Armig. armig: Good night, Theo. Give my best wishes to your parents. (theo opens the door.) theo: I will. I’ll call tomorrow. armig: Yes, call. (To carol.) It was nice meeting you, Carol. Bye. carol: Nice meeting you, too. You know it rains a lot in Vancouver. (They exit. armig closes the door and returns to the living room. She sits on the couch and buries her face in her hands for moment.) armig: Ah, Theo, you have so much hope. Will my poems help heal the wounds and show new possibilities? A fresh start. Perhaps that’s all there is. (She goes over to her granddaughter sleeping in the cradle. There’s a knock at the door. She goes and opens it. helen enters.) Helen, dear, come in. (They hug.) helen: Hi, Mom. armig: I thought you were going to a party tonight. helen: No, I can’t. Too busy. armig: Busy? It’s Christmas Eve. Come in and sit with me. Can I get you a drink? helen: No thanks. (They sit together on the sofa.) armig: You look troubled, Helen. What’s on your mind? helen: I’ve got something to tell you.

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armig: There’s nothing wrong, is there? helen: No, nothing. armig: You worry me sometimes, Helen. I’m never quite sure what to expect from you. helen: I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t mean to. It’s just that I’m going through a lot of things, and— armig: We both are. You know that Theo was just here. helen: I thought that was over. armig: He has a show in Vancouver next month. He’s asked me to go with him; then to Paris. helen: Vancouver and Paris. You’re going, I hope? armig: I need to get away, Helen. I’m drowning here. I looked after my father for so long, you and Liz, then your father . . . I’ve lost myself. I can’t see the future anymore. I might be writing my last poem tonight. helen: I never thought I’d ever hear you say that. Go, Mom. You have to go. armig: I want to. It’s a chance. And you, Helen, what’s on your mind? helen: I’m leaving, too, Mom. armig: Leaving? Where? helen: Isaac Lowenstein has accepted me to work with him in his studio in New York. I’m so excited. armig: Lowenstein? He’s a great artist. It’s such an honor, Helen. It’s a risk, but it’s a wonderful opportunity. How— helen: It could be a long time. I’ve no plans other than leaving and working. armig: When are you leaving? helen: Right after the New Year. armig: So soon? Does Liz know? helen: Not yet. armig (visibly upset): This changes everything. helen: No, it doesn’t have to. We can visit each other. Don’t do this, Mom. I need to know that you’re okay with my decision. Please. It’s important to me. armig: You’re headstrong, Helen. Always been. You’ll go whatever I say. If this is what you want, if you think it will make you a better sculptor—

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helen: Do you know how many galleries there are there? armig (she hugs helen): Go with my blessing, Helen. I know you’ll be an important artist. helen: Thank you, Mom. I’ll make you proud. armig: I’m already proud of you, dear. (helen goes to the cradle and looks in. She kisses her hand and reaches in to touch yerchanig’s cheek.) helen (going to the front door): Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow at Liz’s. Bye. (She exits and closes the door after her.) armig: Good-bye, Helen. (She goes to the cradle and picks up yerchanig and holds her.) Dear Theo, it wasn’t meant to be. (To yerchanig.) Who will help your mother look after you, my dear? Who will tell you stories? My sweet, once upon a time, there was and there was not. Soldiers came to a village and forced all the people from their homes. They were formed into a frightened column and pushed with swords and bayonets into the mountains where they trod on narrow, stony paths. Every day, the soldiers slaughtered thousands. Those still living were not allowed to stop and drink from the creeks and rivers. The people starved and suffered terrible thirst. In time, some went mad from seeing their friends killed and from the fatigue and heat. To end their suffering, many jumped into cold running streams, singing village songs. The soldiers swore vile curses as they shot them. In late evenings, when the column finally stopped, mothers fed their sons and daughters sprigs of dried grass they had gathered. And every night, the soldiers slaughtered thousands. In the end, some managed to drag themselves into the deserts in the east where disease and worse starvation and thirst awaited them. When the killing stopped, the few remaining went into exile. No one remained in their towns and villages to miss them or to mourn them. I see my father, silent in his fear of letting his mind wander to feel again the suffering. What were his nights like lying beside my mother in their hushed bedroom? What did they whisper to each other in the middle of the night when he awoke startled from the long deportation into the flames? Surely, there must be an end to exile and pain. You will

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write your own story, my Yerchanig, your own history. The final line, the first line. (Holding yerchanig, she goes to her desk and writes the last line of the poem then faces the audience and recites.)

Life Support in the final hours you will come to me and i will explain to you the mystery and if you listen i will offer you no comfort i will bind your eyes and steal your words put strange thoughts into your head you will dream of an endless path through mountains a bed of nettles in the consuming dark nightmares crawling blind in burning sand your belly will distend your tongue swell and you will know that you are hated and feared in the end you will renounce everything and learn that at the end of hope there’s a ghost of a chance in the final hour you will trust my poems words will become the last asylum in which nothing will be redeemed but your raw and painful presence in the world. (The stage progressively darkens until only a spotlight remains on yerchanig. There is the sound of a train approaching, which grows unbearably loud. Black. In the dark, the sound of the train is heard passing by; the sound diminishes and disappears. Blackout. End of Act 4.)

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Toward an Armenian Diaspora Theatre The very existence of a diaspora questions the nature of personal identity. The root of the word suggests not only a scattering but also a reforming which gives rise to new moments of becoming, that is, the creation of new and multiple identities. While this sense of becoming, of being worked on, is accompanied by the effects of dislocation, a typical constituent of most diasporic journeys, it is, at the same time, subject to the processes of hybridity and heterogeneity at the national, cultural, and linguistic levels, which challenge the traditional understanding of identity. It soon becomes apparent that diaspora is experienced in and through change and difference. In a diaspora, a dialogical space develops that permits a multivocal challenge to the exclusive, dominant versions of national identity, which are essentially monological. These new hybridized forms of national identity are not compatible with an essentialized identity based on nation and homeland. Before long, confusion, tension, and dramatic conflict arise in diaspora individuals and in their communities. Turning specifically to the Armenian diaspora in Canada and America, one can see that these communities are susceptible to internal pressures and stresses that revolve around issues of history, culture, and identity. In addition, they are also subject to the considerable transnational forces of globalization that include the movement of people, goods, capital, and information across borders. One wonders in the Armenian diaspora, as more children are born, raised, and grow, how their ideas of homeland will develop and how they will relate to the cultural heritage of their parents, already problematized since the first generation went into the modern diaspora perhaps as early as 1900 and certainly after the end of the first phase of the Genocide, 1915–18. What elements will they embrace; which will they reject? What new alliances will they forge? At what point will a new generation of Armenians in the diaspora not know how to look back? Even if they do, looking back may mean looking back to a city in Canada like Toronto or Montreal and not to their great grandparents’ villages in western Armenia, or it may mean to a site of the first diasporization of their family such as Beirut, for example.

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The myth that has grounded the particularity of most diaspora Armenians results from the Genocide (1915–). Questioning this founding myth is a heresy that is most surely interpreted as an attack on the community. While one cannot turn one’s back on one’s history, the evolving Armenian diaspora must find new and relevant reasons for its existence as the influence of the traditional markers of identity such as family, language, culture, and religion, diminish. Today, diaspora Armenians find themselves caught in the following double bind: “Armenia,” which I have purposefully placed in quotation marks, is not always materially real; nevertheless, it is strong enough to slow the forces of acculturation. Canada is very real; however, it is not strong enough to make many diaspora Armenians feel authentic. These are the dynamic tensions that work on the characters in the play. In Exile in the Cradle, Armig Srabian and her younger daughter Helen question the extent to which “the old country” offers a regulating framework for their transplanted diaspora identities three generations after their family’s arrival in Canada. Armig has understood through observing her father and understanding his history that identity and traditions change with travel, diasporic travel in particular. Equally importantly, she realizes that such changes can be achieved intentionally and can offer new possibilities. Armig knows and respects the past but refuses to pass it on unquestioned to her granddaughter Yerchanig as her older daughter Liz may wish to. At the end, motivated by her need to pass on their familynational story, she recounts the genocide narrative as a quasi tale or fable, which, of course, the baby cannot understand. She, thus, refuses to impose it on her granddaughter. Armig proposes conscious change as resistance and as a form of self-direction. This is her way of taking control of her own agency and creating a space that will allow for new possibilities of Armenian cohesion, unity, and solidarity in the diaspora. Lorne Shirinian Kingston, Ontario November 17, 2005

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Silence of God Catherine Filloux

S

ilence of God had its world premiere at Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in 2002 (commissioned by CATF). It was directed by Jean Randich. Set design was by Markas Henry, lighting by Paul Whitaker, costume design by Daniel Urlie, sound design by Kevin Lloyd, casting by Beverly D. Marable. The stage manager was Alison C. Wolocko and the vocal coach was Kirsten Trump. The cast was as follows:

Cast of Characters sarah holtzman

Mercedes Herrero

pol pot/poet (heng chhay)

Ron Nakahara

faceless man, man 1, translator, ta mok, pol pot’s guard, heng’s brother, brother’s guard

JoJo Gonzalez

man 2, male journalist, cia guy, christopher, father’s ghost, shadowy figure (ieng sary)

Christopher McHale

understudies

Brandy Burre, Ashley Ivey

Acknowledgments to: Brad Adams, Elizabeth Becker, Vicki Butler, Tim Carney, David Chandler, Youk Chhang, Arn Chorn-Pond, Cecily Cook, Craig Etcheson, Adam Fifield, Kek Galabru, Evan Gottesman, Davin K. Hun, Lay Huor, Supharidh Hy, Sos Kem, Pich Tum Kravel, Dr. Chhor

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Kylin, Judy L. Ledgerwood, Peter Maguire, Eleanor Mannikka, John McAuliff, Laura McGrew, Anne Nelson, U Sam Oeur, Chanthol Oung, Chath pierSath, Kenneth Quinn, Sambath Reach, Sam-Ang Sam, Ralph Samuelson, Soeun Say, Sydney Schanberg, David Scheffer, Chivy Sok, Leakena Tep, Nate Thayer, Leslie Timko, Chinary Ung, Galen Williams, Eve Monique Zucker

Cast of Characters sarah holtzman, a female journalist, late thirties/early forties. She is sometimes younger when she appears with the poet. pol pot/poet (heng chhay), both roles played by an Asian actor in his forties. The poet heng chhay is in his forties; sometimes younger when he appears with sarah; pol pot is older. faceless man/man 1/translator/ta mok/pol pot’s guard/heng’s brother/brother’s guard, played by one Asian actor (roles listed in order of appearance). man 2/male journalist/cia guy/christopher, a “war crimes” diplomat/ father’s ghost/shadowy figure (ieng sary), played by one actor (roles listed in order of appearance). The play takes place in Cambodia, the United States, and Thailand.

Set: Locales are suggested by light and sound. Time: 1998, with flashbacks. (Pol Pot was in power from 1975 to 1979. He died on April 15, 1998.)

Author’s Note In the spring of 1998 the United States had a secret plan to capture Pol Pot to try him for crimes against humanity, and Pol Pot’s adversary Ta Mok

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made overtures to hand him over. I have placed fictional characters in a fact-based story. I have been assisted by many people to whom I am grateful. Nate Thayer was especially helpful with his knowledge and in letting me view the videotapes of his 1997–98 interviews with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership; David Chandler with his help on Pol Pot; Elizabeth Becker with her insights, having interviewed Pol Pot in 1978, and for reading my plays; Craig Etcheson with his instructive e-mails.

All that must be done for evil to flourish in this world is for the good man to remain silent. Edmund Burke

Act 1 Scene 1 (Cambodia, 1998. We see a faceless man seated in a chair, holding a book of braille. Across from him is sarah holtzman, a journalist wearing glasses, disheveled, holding colorful paper and an envelope. She turns away from him.) faceless man: When it came time to pay me, the customer took acid and threw it in my face. Then he stole my moto. I lost my eyes and my nose, my mouth, ears. Dissolved in the acid. My face. (He listens for her, unsure.) I became a member here—“the Center for the Disabled”; the director here nominated me for the scholarship. (He looks in her direction.) I would like to appeal to you, on behalf of all the people here to help Cambodia’s blind to have opportunities. Help us to open the door. (sarah turns to him. They are in silence.) You’re writing about acid attacks? They use it because it’s harder to get guns and grenades now, the government’s made it harder, and acid is easy to find. Cheap. (A beat.) Is it because of the acid attack on the 76

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famous karaoke singer, Tat Marina, that people in America want to know about me? I had six operations. (With delight.) They trained me so well here. I can do anything other people can do! Clean, sew. Even sharpen knives! (He seems to smile at her. She takes a step, reaches out to comfort him. But then steps back and turns away. He is puzzled.) You write for an American paper. (Trying to pronounce.) Washington . . . ? sarah: Yes, the Post. faceless man: You’re famous right? You Interviewed Pol Pot! . . . (She stares off into space. pol pot appears in a pool of light. He is at a stupa1 near a destroyed wat. He wears a costume, part-black KhmerRouge pajamas with red scarf, part-orange monk robe.) Are you still there? (She looks down at the paper she is holding and begins to read aloud, chanting.) sarah: I dream at night That I see you . . . (She moves toward the stupa reciting a traditional Khmer “Hopping Crow” poem,2 except that the words are in English. We hear a flute whenever she recites the poem. She is simple and open. She concentrates only on chanting. pol pot (slowly transforms into the poet heng chhay.) Standing As you are standing the day You are packing your things For a moment I reverse it Look Sarah 1. A Buddhist spiritual monument. 2. Traditional Khmer poetry is usually chanted. Laments are written in the “Hopping Crow” form. A wooden flute is used as accompaniment.

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As we walk to the top of the world And go over And disappear, you say And just then, in that moment I take the step What mistake do I make? What mistake? (The poet heng takes a step toward her.) Glass breaks: The wall of time.

Scene 2 (It is 1985. sarah and heng are now much younger; she does not wear glasses. She is eating an orange. It is summertime in Nantucket.) heng: Khnhom châhng kleye jia-nek nee-pon. sarah: Khnhom châhng kleye jia-nek nee-pon. (He corrects her.) heng: Yes. “I want to be a writer.” (Patiently and with great care.) Nek nee-pon. sarah: Nek nee-pon. (She writes it in Khmer letters, from left to right.) heng: This is very good. (He corrects and she writes again.) sarah: It takes longer to write, in your language. But I like it, I like the time it takes . . . it’s like a window. heng: To what? sarah: To a world. heng (with disgust): I don’t know what I see anymore through this window. Of my language. (She looks at him a moment.) sarah: Heng. Tell me what happened to you. (Silence.) I think I need to know. 78

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heng: No. I don’t think so. sarah: After all this time? You can’t trust me still? heng (going back to the lesson): You want to be a writer. Why? (He says it in Khmer.) Hait ay? sarah: You can tell me. It hangs there. Everywhere. If you told me . . . heng: Hangs there? sarah: If you told me, you would have shared it. We could go to the next step. (He looks at her.) heng: You’re young. (She looks at him.) sarah: So are you! heng: Old. sarah: It will be better if you do. (A beat.) Why? heng: Say it in Khmer. sarah: Hait ay? heng: Good. sarah: Hait ay? Hait ay? Hait ay? heng: A question I ask myself everyday. sarah: It’s what makes us human. heng: What? What makes us human? sarah: That you can tell me, that I can listen to you. That I am here. (He looks at her.) heng: You are so lovely. (She looks at him a moment.) sarah: I’m not innocent. heng: Hait ay? sarah: I’ve seen what it’s cost my father. (They look at one another.) heng: Shall we go for a swim? It has been an hour. (They look at one another.) When I’m here, at your family’s, on this beautiful island, I feel as if I’ve been transported to paradise. Undeserved. sarah: It’s not paradise. heng: Why? sarah: You have to know, it just isn’t. And you do deserve it.

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heng: Do I? (He looks at her.) sarah: Yes. Now, tell me. Then we’ll go for a swim. heng: Before the swim, I will give you your assignment. Write to me, for next time, what kind of writer you will be. A poet? sarah: Are you kidding? heng: Why not? sarah: You’re the poet. You’re Khmer. heng: So? sarah: Poetry in America? I don’t think so. heng: So what kind of writer? Your father has very high expectations for your writing. At the big school you attend. sarah: He wants me to crack the puzzle. (She laughs.) heng (a beat): Which one? sarah: Why evil flourishes. Why it can’t be stopped. (She looks at him, waiting for him to tell her his story.) So . . . ? (He shakes his head, uncertain about telling her. He has a realization.) heng: You’ll be a journalist. sarah: Of course. heng: Of course. (He looks at her.) You say because we are human, that I should tell you . . . ? (He kisses her.) I’ll say it for another reason, Sarah. (He pronounces her name altogether differently than Americans do; his own interpretation.) sarah: Maybe I know it. (He shakes his head, unable to tell her.) heng: Oh. (A beat.) My wife’s jewelry hidden in the hems of our black clothes so they were a little heavier when we walked. Our youngest, left, after the other son had died. I was twenty-five, finishing my studies in Khmer literature in Phnom Penh, but then Pol Pot, and suddenly I’m a farmer. (Two faceless black-clad men enter. man 1 is dragging man 2, shackled at the ankles.

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It is Cambodia, 1976.) man 1: GIVE ME THE GOLD, TAKE IT OUT! (Screaming.) DEVIL! man 2: I HAVE NOTHING! I PROMISE I HAVE NOTHING! (man 1 kicks man 2 to the ground.) heng (to sarah): I sold my wife’s gold bracelet for food. My gold, my mistake, found on this man’s person. Me, in the shadows—a witness. Watching. man 1: POL POT HATES LIARS! Give it over or your feet will be cut off for following the path of Western thought! man 2: My child is sick, I need medicine. (man 1 begins to hit man 2 with the butt of his rifle.) man 1: Spies report you sell food. (Under the blows man 2 takes out a piece of gold jewelry from his pocket; he struggles to kneel in prayer.) man 2: MY BOY IS SICK! HAVE MERCY . . . man 1: WE TRUSTED YOU. Pol Pot trusted you! man 2: PLEASE, COMRADE. I WILL DO BETTER. FOR POL POT I WILL WORK HARDER. MY BABY IS DYING, MY LITTLEST . . . heng: My words coming out of his mouth, Sarah. (man 1 hits man 2 over the head with the rifle. Blood spurts from his cracked head, sprays out. heng screams.) man 2: OEUY! MY BELOVED . . . ! man 1: POL POT KNOWS YOUR WHOLE LIFE HISTORY! AND YOUR FUTURE! Fertilizer for Angka.3 (He cracks man 2’s skull.) We don’t waste bullets on traitors. (man 1 looks at heng and sarah for a moment. man 1 then kneels in front of dead man 2, unbuttoning his shirt. Using the sharp edge of a sickle he takes from his belt, he cuts out man 2’s heart. 3. “Angka” means the “organization”; “Angkar” was used to describe the Cambodian communist party during the Khmer Rouge regime.

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He holds the heart in his hand. He wipes some of the blood with his red krama.4 man 1 begins to walk toward heng and sarah.) Let me show you this. (Laughing.) THE HEART OF ANGKA! ANGKA IS ALL POWERFUL: GOD! (To heng.) Look at you holding what you have bought with your wife’s jewelry, SUCKING THE LAST DROP OF JUICE FROM YOUR ORANGE. heng: So hungry . . . (Clutching his stomach.) Eating what I have purchased with the gold. man 1: LICKING YOUR FACE ALL OVER IN YOUR SELFISH GREED. heng (softly): My greed. man 1: ANGKA WILL FIND YOU. heng (to sarah): They find me. man 1: “Intellectual.” (man 1 continues to advance toward heng and sarah with the heart.) It has stopped beating now. (man 1 picks up the jewelry.) This gold bracelet, so beautiful . . . (heng shows man 2 to sarah.) heng: This nameless man’s death, Sarah. And then my wife—killed because of her “light” skin. A chain of action. (man 1 now holds out the heart to heng and sarah, laughing, as lights fade on man 1. sarah looks at heng. They are in Nantucket again.) sarah: Hait ay? heng: Maybe enough for today. Let’s go. In the water. sarah: Heng . . . (He looks at her, unsure.) If I had known . . . heng: You wouldn’t have asked. sarah: I thought that if you told me, that maybe . . . 4. Cambodian scarf.

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heng: Maybe . . . ? sarah: I don’t know . . . heng: What do you want to say, Sarah? sarah: How can that happen? Out of nowhere? heng: Not out of nowhere, Sarah. It did not occur out of NOWHERE. sarah: From where then? (He shakes his head. She continues to read from her paper, chanting the traditional Khmer “Hopping Crow” poem. We hear the flute.) Time Skimming soft Wind (heng moves back into the light of the stupa near the destroyed wat.5) Over water’s surface Coil of time Cannot reverse . . . (heng has transformed back into pol pot.) Cannot reverse . . .

Scene 3 (A dirt road along the Thai-Cambodian border, 1998. sarah sits with an anonymous male journalist, who has taken off his shirt. Despite her anxious state, she is in top form, at her height. Both hold cell phones; their clothes are stained with sweat. We hear shelling in the distance. sarah hits her redial, hears just a phone ringing on the other end.) sarah: This is terrific, just terrific. Good thing we got here at the crack of dawn, so we could sit on the side of this goddamn road for ten hours, in a sweat bath. (The male journalist lights a cigarette. We hear birds.) 5. A Buddhist temple in Cambodia.

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They decided to take two of us so they can leave one of us on the side of the road in some cryptic gesture of GOD-KNOWS-WHAT? . . . Did they tell you it was an exclusive too? (Sarcastic.) You’re the strong, silent type, huh? (He inhales deeply on his cigarette.) Thanks for the review of my book. Nice how we try to help each other out in our field. Then I guess there’s something about me that’s different. (The male journalist clears his throat.) male journalist (serious, technical): There were some “inaccuracies.” (She turns away, closing her eyes. He stubs out his cigarette and exits. She falls asleep. Lights shift to her dream: pol pot enters flanked by an armed guard. pol pot wears black; he walks with a swagger and is sinister. sarah opens her eyes.) pol pot: Washington . . . ? sarah: Yes, the Post. pol pot: I read your book. I fear there were some “inaccuracies.” sarah: Now, let us begin. pol pot: I was not a bad student in school. I was an average student. sarah: Would you like to sit? pol pot: No, I will stand. Did you bring the radio? sarah: Excuse me? pol pot: I was promised a shortwave radio. And an “Icom.” sarah: Of course. The radio. It’s in the Jeep. pol pot: And the watch? sarah: The watch. Also in the car. With the bicycle. pol pot: I did not ask for the bicycle. sarah: Oh, I know. I brought it for your daughter. pol pot (firmly): She rides no bicycle. sarah: The world has questions. We should not waste time. I would not want to waste your time. pol pot: No, you would not. sarah: During the Khmer Rouge regime 1.7 million died. Are you responsible for these deaths?

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(He looks at her a moment.) pol pot: What do you think? sarah: Yes I think you are. Without question. Hait ay? pol pot: You speak very good Khmer; I am impressed. sarah: Hait ay? pol pot: Your father was Evan Holtzman, from the famous Nantucket family, is that correct? He was in charge of the U.N. peacekeeping mission? sarah: My father is not the subject of this interview. Hait ay? pol pot: He had a Khmer friend. This man taught you Khmer, he is the ghost behind your book? sarah: Why did you kill so many people? pol pot: My goal was to save my country. sarah: And yet you are responsible for its genocide. (He assesses her.) pol pot: Tell me, how do you know my country? Do you see its beauty? sarah: Respond. Are you responsible? pol pot: I also saw its beauty. But could we maintain it in the wreckage of the American bombs . . . ? sarah: Fourteen thousand exterminated at Tuol Sleng. Barely one man, woman or even child survived. pol pot: I did not know about Tuol Sleng. sarah: Of course you knew. You were the top leader. pol pot: I’m over. (She contemplates him.) sarah: You know, I’ve tried for so many years to meet you face to face. Reapplying for my visa. pol pot: Now it is my turn to ask “why”? sarah: I had to know your answer to why you did what you did to people I care for. pol pot: And now what do you know? sarah: I know more about how I have not found the answer. Is there anything you want to say to the individuals who suffered? pol pot: Sarah.

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sarah: Now, before it’s too late? What do you want to say? (pol pot stifles tears.) pol pot: . . . The way you make a man open his heart . . . tell them . . . Will you ask them . . . (She nods sympathetically.) sarah: What? pol pot: Will you ask them for forgiveness? (We hear a man’s voice offstage.) man’s voice: They’re asking for you. (Suddenly pol pot speaks to the guard.) pol pot: Give her a heart attack. (The guard raises the gun and shoots her in the chest. She falls, as lights shift; the male journalist stands in front of her.) male journalist: They’re asking for you. Wake up. (She stares at him, waking up.) Up the road. (She rubs her face. We can hear a Jeep’s engine.) sarah: God, I fell asleep—I was dreaming. male journalist: Washington . . . They want the Washington Post . . .

Scene 4 (Minutes later. sarah faces pol pot in an open-air hut in the Anlong Veng jungle—in the real interview. pol pot is gentle, wise in appearance, as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He wears a gray shirt with a green scooped neck, which looks lovely against the jungle. He is almost in a halo of sunlight. Next to him sits a male translator.) sarah: I do prefer to speak Khmer, thank you, but maybe your translator will help me to understand everything as clearly as possible. Since so many people around the world will read this interview. Thank you for seeing me today. I am very . . . honored. (pol pot smiles shyly.) pol pot (soft spoken): I thank you for the opportunity, you are very kind. sarah: I realize our time is limited, so I will try to raise the important questions. 1.7 million died. For the record, the world would like to know are you . . . 86

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pol pot (interrupting): Yes, I understand, thank you for allowing me to clarify. I came to carry out the struggle. It was not to kill the people. Even now, you can look at me, am I a savage person? No. (sarah looks at his kind-looking demeanor. pol pot becomes more energized.) pol pot: Permit me to elaborate, I am not trying to avoid responsibility. I would like to cite for you an example. We had to defend ourselves against the Vietnamese. We made some mistakes, like every other regime in the world, but there is one thing that we did succeed in. sarah: Yes but my question . . . translator: If you will allow him . . . pol pot: Yes, I understand what you are asking, but you see, Cambodia still survives today, our country has not been swallowed up. (pol pot passes his hand delicately over his face.) pol pot: When I close my eyes, if Cambodia wins, my soul is clear. (She is drawn in as pol pot fans himself gracefully.) I was only making decisions at the top on key points. You cannot see what is inside me. I would like to tell you a bit about my condition. sarah: Yes but first let me . . . translator: He would like to confide. pol pot: A few years ago, I had headaches, I was working too hard, I had some problems with this eye. (He points to his left eye.) And something with my . . . my . . . (Groping for the word.) (He motions to his chest.) sarah: Yes, your heart . . . pol pot: Yes, you are right. Exactly. My left eye stopped seeing. It was because of my heart. (He makes a halving motion with his hand, as if to cut his body in half.) The left side of my body . . . sarah: Please . . . translator: Paralyzed. pol pot: Yes, and my eye does not see. I may seem normal but, with this eye, I cannot see. (He refers to his cane.) And that is also what is wrong when I walk. My heart was wrong . . . sarah: Yes, your heart was wrong but could we . . .

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translator: It was since his birth. pol pot: This is the truth. As a boy I played football, I did not know. Now I want to tell you I do nothing but listen to the Voice of America broadcasts on the radio . . . And even then sometimes I cannot stay awake . . . sarah: Voice of America . . . ? translator: He listens every night. pol pot: It is one of the rare things I enjoy . . . sarah: The world, the international community . . . translator: He is very grateful to you . . . (pol pot nods at her gently.) pol pot: I thank you for that. You give me the opportunity to provide an explanation . . . sarah: But the question . . . ? translator: This is very important. pol pot: I want you to know it was because I saw what was happening to my relatives that I joined the Communist Party. They lost their land, their buffaloes. This is what inspired me to help . . . sarah (frustrated): But you did not help your relatives. It was only when your own brother saw your picture in the camps he realized that you, Saloth Sar, were actually Pol Pot . . . translator: Please . . . sarah: The man making him and his country suffer so. You cannot say you helped your relatives, that would be absurd . . . (A beat.) pol pot: I am tired . . . I am very tired. translator: He is a sick man. (pol pot speaks to the translator softly, calmly.) pol pot: Please, the next one, bring in the next one. translator: We must stop now, it is over. sarah: What? No. You entered the city, you must admit, at NIGHT in your victory, hidden behind a SECRET NAME, with NO FACE . . . pol pot (kindly): Thank you. sarah: A master of secrecy. translator: He would like to rest . . .

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sarah: But I’m not done. translator: He is very old. Very sick. Unwell. (She looks to pol pot who tranquilly peels an orange. She mops the sweat from her face.) sarah: Could he simply answer my first question? translator: Come. You must come now. The interview is over. sarah: But please . . . (pol pot eats his orange and gently waves away insects.) translator: You must come. (Harsh rain starts. The translator forcefully leads her out.)

Scene 5 (Minutes later. Steady rain is still heard as ta mok, the current Khmer Rouge leader, shows off to sarah communist slogans written in large white Khmer letters on a green surface. mok giggles constantly, exposing a rotten canine tooth. He limps because of a fake leg. He’s as loud and unread as pol pot is soft-spoken and studied. sarah impatiently scans the wall.) sarah: “Cadres and combatants in every region must consolidate to develop national reconciliation relentlessly. Adopt the policy to have liberal democracy.” ta mok: You can tell the American people you saw these slogans. We are embracing democracy in the name of national unity. Our doors are open! The black clouds are gone. Only me and my own people right here in Anlong Veng could succeed in arresting Pol Pot! (He looks over his shoulder into the jungle, coyly.) He did not like you. sarah: Perhaps you could speak to him. I don’t think he realizes how important my paper is. (He laughs a lot.) ta mok: It is not fair to say millions died. Hundreds of thousands, not millions. sarah (neutrally): Hundreds of thousands . . . May I show you my questions, if he could agree to answer a few.

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(Lots of laughter and posturing from mok.) ta mok: But now, no more Pol Pot! No dream of Pol Pot, his hands are full of blood. Everyone denounces Pol Pot, man, woman and child. Pol Pot is the desecration of the Cambodian people. Do you believe me? (Lots of laughter.) We are sorry we kept you waiting this morning. At least you were with your journalist colleague. (Lots of laughter.) sarah: Right. This is not what I was promised. ta mok: Thank you. We need people like you to play the role of intermediary to the outside world. sarah: There are consequences . . . ta mok (cutting her off): There is something. I don’t know. I must confess we are a little confused. (She looks at him.) ta mok: We are having a problem. Perhaps you could help us. sarah: I’m sorry? ta mok: I don’t know. We cannot for some reason seem to “connect” with the Americans. sarah: “Connect”? I’m afraid I don’t understand . . . ta mok: Maybe you can help us, put us in “contact” with the right people. sarah: The right people? (Firmly.) My paper, the United States government was made a promise. ta mok: You see, you must understand that we have offered a deal to give them Pol Pot, but now we can no longer “connect” with them. sarah: You have offered to give whom Pol Pot? ta mok: The U.S. Would you please tell them we are very willing to negotiate. Pol Pot is prepared to face an international tribunal. (Lots of laughter.) The U.S. has a plan. A plane. An island. A secret island. sarah: The U.S. has a plan? (More laughing.) ta mok: The U.S. is in Beijing? sarah: Yes, the undersecretary. He is asking China to approve a tribunal . . . Talking about trying Pol Pot for war crimes for the very first time . . .

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(mok takes out a card.) ta mok: Exactly. Perhaps you would like to speak to my friend. The Colonel. (He gives it to her.) Would you like me to call the Colonel on my new cell phone? (She looks at him, intrigued.) sarah: Sure, that’d be great. Thanks. (mok checks pockets.) ta mok: I do not have my new cell phone with me . . . I can do it for you when my cell phone is returned . . . There will be grave consequences for the thief. sarah (very matter-of-fact): Well, Ta Mok, they do call you “The Butcher” . . . (He glances at her watch.) ta mok: Ah . . . (She takes off her watch and gives it to him. Lots of laughter from mok.) Rolex, gold. sarah: Yes. (He puts it in his pocket, pleased.) Well when you find the phone, that’d be great if you could call the Colonel. I’d like to see him in Bangkok. (Smiling at him.) Can we get the Jeep? ta mok: Yes, of course. Please tell the Americans we want to accommodate them. We simply need some rice, medicine. It is my promise. Pol Pot listens to me now. (Looking into the jungle.) Your New York Times colleague seems to be having more luck. Perhaps he and Pol Pot are like-spirits. sarah: Perhaps. (He takes out his cell phone. More laughter.) ta mok: The Colonel can tell you everything about the Americans.

Scene 6 (Karaoke bar in Bangkok, 1998. sarah is with a cia guy. She observes offstage a woman singing karaoke.)

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sarah: “Acid attacks”? cia guy: Latest method of warfare, five quarts of acid, spurned wife gets revenge with impunity. sarah: This karaoke singer? cia guy: No, the famous one, Tat Marina. Beautiful. Gangrene. On the burned parts . . . sarah: Don’t know much about the whole thing. cia guy: I know too much. (He takes a hefty swig from his drink.) sarah: So the agency has you set up in a cubbyhole as a diplomat? cia guy: Soon it’ll be a closet, then I’ll come out and join the pedophiles, internet-porn guys, and virgin-traffickers . . . sarah: And you’re betraying the Khmer Rouge? cia guy: Yeah, the guys we used to pay off. Out of the blue we decided to try genocidal killers rather than help ‘em. Look, basically, the Thai will assist in our capture if we get Pol Pot out of their country fast. Thailand is the nose Cambodia breathes through. And a minor caveat: China has to agree. sarah: There is actually a true arrest warrant? cia guy: It’s a “finding” from the president. When we have Pol Pot in custody, we take him to the Mariana Islands or Guantanamo Bay. sarah: A Thai colonel told me Canada. . cia guy: No, they don’t “do kidnappings.” Currently we’re on hold over what department’ll pay for his food, his incarceration . . . sarah: So let me get this straight, he’ll be in a jail cell somewhere in the Pacific eating hamburgers, while the Security Council hammers out an impromptu trial at the Hague? cia guy: The new “war crimes ambassador” thinks we can do it. sarah: The new appointee? I know him. cia guy: Look, plans are not what we’re missing. We’ve flown over the country, looked at vectors, scrutinized the jungle, installed marshals in Phnom Penh, made up payrolls, calculated flights, smuggled our new war crimes guy into the country so the press wouldn’t find out, held meetings in languages we couldn’t understand because we’re too afraid

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to bring in translators. But we’re just not on the ground. One very simple thing we haven’t done. sarah: Yes. Why haven’t you talked to the Khmer Rouge? cia guy: Too afraid we’ll get our picture taken together, so cute. sarah: Well, Mok seems more than willing to “connect with the Americans.” What’s the problem? cia guy: Bottom line is “zero-casualty.” Face it, Cambodia’s just a SIDE SHOW. (A beat.) You getting the Pol Pot interview, that’s quite a coup. Should make you famous, for a minute. So you tell me? How did he look? Was he up to a transcontinental trip? (She is silent. The guy listens to the woman’s voice singing karaoke. Colored lights.) cia guy: I’ll refresh our drinks, and we’ll do one. Find a song you like. (She looks at him a second.) sarah: “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” cia guy: Is that your special song? sarah: That’s what the Khmer Rouge were playing. In the Jeep. cia guy: How touching. sarah: A friend of mine would kill me if I sang karaoke. cia guy: What’s wrong with karaoke? (She glances toward the woman’s voice singing karaoke.) sarah: “Acid attacks”? (We hear sarah begin to sing “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Then the crackling of burning acid.)

Scene 7 (sarah continues chanting the traditional Khmer poem at the stupa near the destroyed wat.) sarah: Im Perceptible To me But loud

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To you To the bird To the ground To the pulse Please Reverse (Lights rise on the poet, heng, wearing an orange monk’s robe, watching her. His face shows love. He speaks softly.) heng: Sweet . . . Sarah. (She looks at him a moment. It is 1998; she has just returned from Bangkok and is in Washington, D.C., in a Buddhist temple. She is holding a Washington Post newspaper, looking at heng who is in the middle of packing a suitcase.) sarah: What? . . . You looked different . . . (He continues to look at her. She enters, going to kiss him on the cheek automatically. He quickly backs away, not without humor.) heng: You can’t touch me, I’m a monk. sarah: Oh. (She backs away, pointing to a box of oranges.) I brought you some oranges. (He picks one up.) heng: A simple orange. How it can destroy you. sarah: Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot. heng: No. Thank you. The monks will like to have them. sarah (showing him): Did you see it? The paper? (He nods.) What a joke, that he of all people ended up getting that fucking interview. He doesn’t even speak Khmer. Did you read it? heng: Yes. sarah: Same old rhetoric. A “shadowy figure”? We’ve known exactly where Pol Pot was for decades. It’s like interviewing Hitler in 1965. heng: I’m sorry for you. sarah: No, I got the real story. The interview was just a scam to get us there to make “contact.” You’re not going to believe what I found out—it has more than appeased my editor. Shit, I have to hurry . . .

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heng (sarcastically): You shouldn’t swear. (She looks at his monk robe.) sarah: I thought you were going to honor your ancestors, be a monk for just a week. The seven-day plan? My mother told me . . . (A beat.) I’m sorry I missed your ordination. heng: No don’t be sorry. sarah: She loved it. The Twinkies in the offering bowl, that really got her . . . She really loved it, it’s good you invited her. heng: I was happy she was here. sarah: What about your poetry? (She waits.) Weren’t you supposed to go teach? heng: I’m going to Cambodia. sarah: Cambodia? . . . Wait. When did you decide that? What made you change your mind? (Before he can answer.) The U.S. actually has a plan to capture Pol Pot. Ta Mok is offering him to the Americans. It’s all a big secret, though multitudes in Thailand seem to know about it. heng: I am not interested. (She looks at heng.) sarah: I was there facing him. He told me about his heart condition. Got me nowhere. heng: Where did you want to go? (She looks at him.) You’re a writer, Sarah, not a sensationalist. (Looking at her.) That’s what you said. sarah: When? heng: When you first started learning Khmer. sarah (laughing): I never said that! heng (saying it in Khmer): Khnhom châhng kleye jia-nek nee-pon. sarah: Did I? I don’t remember. (Looking at newspaper.) Wasn’t what he wrote terrible? heng: Pol Pot was “for sale.” You treated him like a celebrity. He will go to his grave even fuller of himself than he was before. sarah: He’s not dead . . .

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heng (cutting her off): I don’t like the way you write about my country. “The smell of fear is everywhere . . .”? Sarah? sarah: What is Pol Pot’s legacy? People throw acid on each other now. That’s the latest. The smell of fear is everywhere. We can’t turn away— it’s a hall of mirrors, where everyone looks uglier and uglier . . . (He looks at her.) heng: Everyone. (heng continues to pack his suitcase, places some manuscripts inside.) sarah: You just shut down. heng: What? sarah: You float away. heng: I’m like a water buffalo, I move away. sarah: You know that isn’t true. It’s always there, it never goes away. heng: What? sarah: The pain. (He looks at her.) heng: Yes. sarah: That’s what you’re supposed to say. The Buddhist stuff. But you’re not a water buffalo. And you can’t just move away. (He looks at her, impressed.) heng: This is better, Sarah. sarah: What is better? heng: You are better. You are speaking your heart. (He looks at her for a moment, realizing something suddenly.) Eyeglasses. How could I not see it? sarah: Things in the distance got fuzzy. I tried to fake it through an eye test. I had perfect vision; eye doctors used to tell me I should have been a ball player. heng: Very distinguished. sarah: I don’t think so. (He scrutinizes her.) heng: Yes, they fit you well. Sarah with glasses. sarah: Time goes by, we’re not the same. (He looks at her.) heng: This is what I want to talk to you about. Now. I must.

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(A car alarm goes off on the street outside.) When it rains here and there’s lightning, all the car alarms on the street go off at once. It’s hard to pray. sarah: Cambodia’s just as loud, you know. (A beat.) heng: When I pray, I think to myself perhaps now it is best to focus on the present. (A beat.) And if you didn’t get your famous interview it may be time to stop. (His cell phone in his pocket rings. He takes it out and speaks softly.) Yes, yes, I am here. (He listens to the person on the other end.) sarah: A monk with a cell phone? heng (on phone): Yes, it’s best that you come to see me, I can help you, you must forgive. Yes, good-bye. (Putting away the phone.) The older monk says you have to tame the Khmer people who come to this temple. Drinkers, gamblers, they fight with guns, only impressed by money, karaoke. Karaoke has taken over everything, replacing all that is beautiful and sacred in our culture . . . sarah: Don’t start with karaoke. (He looks at her, intrigued.) heng: Oh. Have you tried it? sarah: Of course not. heng: I can’t be a monk here. I’m going to give up my robe. (She looks at him.) sarah: Why am I better? You said I was better. heng: Yes. You said the truth. About me. “Shutting down, floating away.” You’re right, perhaps, my country, we keep it inside. I’m happy you said it. sarah: I thought I insulted you. heng: No, there is nothing insulting about the truth. But you should not write about what you don’t know. “The smell of fear is everywhere.” sarah: “Everyone there has their Sophie’s choice.” That’s what I wrote. It was in the context of an American movie. (Angry, he stops what he is doing. He examines her for a moment.) heng: Yes, I know. I know the movie. I am more aware than you think.

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sarah: Heng. heng: You can reduce it down to a movie concept, Sarah, and then to a phrase. A movie title. From another holocaust, another war. Rob us of our very war. But for you, it is just “writing,” the kind of writing you do for your newspaper, for your big salary, without realizing that these words may take more away than they give. This is not the kind of writer I thought you would become. sarah: Heng . . . heng: Can you truly say it so glibly? (He angrily upsets the box of oranges, which scatter.) What can you do with your life, when you have caused the deaths of others by your very acts and turned away from them to go on living? Why do you survive and not them? There is no life after that. That is the truth. No life. My wife killed because of her “light” skin. You are right. You are exactly right. The smell of fear is everywhere. Even here. But do you know what it is like to survive? (Picking up an orange.) To find food to live just one more day? “Where is Buddha?” you ask yourself. Everyone has a story like mine, in Cambodia. (Sarcastic.) It’s the truth. And the truth is good, I said. (She goes to him.) sarah: I’m sorry. (He takes a moment to recover.) heng: No, it is I who am sorry. To be so cruel to you. Please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. sarah: It’s good that you got angry. (They look at one another.) heng: Why did you come today? sarah: I wanted to see you. And now you’re leaving again. I miss you. I need to talk to you. heng: Even when I do not see you I think about you, I pray for you. sarah: You said you’d never go back to Cambodia. heng: I have a brother. My only family. (We see his brother in silhouette marching slowly.) sarah (surprised): Did my father know that? You never told us. heng: No, my brother was dead to me. I did not tell your father because I did not tell myself. But then not too long ago I had a dream. He was 98

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marching in a row of soldiers. I could see his neck. Slick with sweat, the soft hair of adolescence on his face . . . (He looks at her.) I called him a “crow.” Black crow. For many years. To myself. And then he had no name at all. He was gone. But after the dream it seemed as if my life could only truly exist if I could see him. And see Cambodia. sarah (nodding): He was Khmer Rouge. (heng nods.) heng: Yes, after the dream I picked up the phone. He called me “little brother.” He is in the government. A wife I do not know. Two sons. I went to see your father’s grave to say good-bye. Burned some incense. It was a cold day. sarah: But what about the old lady you were taking care of, in Long Beach? And you’ll come back to teach? Right? heng: Ah. Now, your assignment. One “hopping crow” poem. sarah: Seven lines in a stanza, four syllables in a line. heng: Let yourself go a little. You were such a devoted pupil. sarah (laughing): Devoted? (A beat.) I was smitten. (He looks at her a moment.) heng: Yes. Smitten. sarah: . . . And now you’re a monk. heng: Yes, a monk. sarah: And, I’m a writer. heng: Perhaps. (They stand there. A yellow light, a halo appears onstage.) I will say—something is happening to both of us. Right here, right now. (She looks at him.) We are walking up over the earth, to the top, and I can see we are about to disappear down the other side. Sarah, you wear glasses now, I don’t want to be old when we decide to stay together. (He takes a step. She is afraid and laughs it off.) sarah: Another dream? (Her cruelty takes his breath away. He stifles his emotion, nodding.)

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heng: Yes. Another dream. (He steps back. She tries to confide, sensing a moment has passed and trying to regain it.) sarah: I wish I could go, be there with you. You’ll be in Cambodia for the new year! What’s the cell phone number over there? (He writes it down.) heng: My brother’s phone. Give it to your mother too. You will tell her I wish her well on her birthday. It may be hard to call, but I will try . . . sarah: And your e-mail? heng: You know, you can have ten aliases at AOL dot com! sarah: And still be impossible to reach. Who do you think will find you? heng: Don’t worry, Sarah. sarah: It’s okay, Heng. I haven’t been to my father’s grave. Everything in me is what he wanted for me . . . and now I’m here and he’s not. What is there left for me to do? heng: Have you prayed to him? Talked? (She doesn’t answer.) He can help you, Sarah. Write his name down on a piece of paper. (A beat.) I was thinking, when he employed me, at the beginning . . . his open door, he was like a father. (She looks at him. Teasing.) sarah: That makes us brother and sister. heng: Yes. sarah: I gave his Rolex away. To get the story. I had that watch for fifteen years. heng: I will return to our wat in my village. I will rebuild the stupa. Pretend there are ashes to put in the jchadáy 6 to honor my ancestors. Pray to my family for protection . . . guidance. You must do the same. (She touches him. Then quickly pulls her hand away, remembering.) Buddha would forgive us. (As he pulls away, she looks at him, unable to let him go.) sarah: Buddha? 6. Stupa.

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(A beat.) heng: I hope your new story will help you. sarah: When I come, you’ll take me to the lake? The world of water. All the way to the horizon . . . ? heng: Yes. sarah: I love you. (He begins to recede into shadow, toward the stupa near the destroyed wat. She continues to chant the traditional Khmer poem.) To be still. In your eyes In your body In your heart Is everything . . . (She looks at him.) You never said it. heng: You forget everything. (Blackout.)

Scene 8 (Washington, D.C., 1998. sarah is writing in her office. christopher, a “war crimes” diplomat, enters, closing her door.) christopher: We are a few days away, hold the story. Give me three more days, Sarah. (She stands, surprised.) sarah: What are you doing? You must be pretty desperate to be here, Mr. Ambassador. christopher: Look we went to the same school, we’re cut from the same cloth, we stand for something . . . sarah: How did you get in my office? christopher: International justice is a slow process. It’s a matter of sufficient jurisdiction.

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sarah: How did you get in here? I’m serious. (She goes to the door.) christopher: You don’t get the big interview so you come up with this story, to save your job. The plan to capture Pol Pot can only work if it’s a secret. This story is irresponsible. sarah: I’m asking you to leave. christopher: This will be on your conscience. It’s about impunity. Worldwide. (He rubs his face.) You know what I actually dream? . . . (She starts for her phone.) I’m flying. sarah: I’m calling security. (Lights transform to christopher’s fantasy.) christopher: I’m flying when I have this dream . . . sarah: Why are you telling me this? (pol pot walks toward christopher, in handcuffs, escorted by an armed guard.) christopher: He’s just gotten off the plane. sarah: Who? christopher: Pol Pot. sarah: Maybe you need to take a day off. christopher: I have managed, Sarah, by brilliant calculations made in the air as I travel back and forth to the countries in which there are genocides, which are everywhere, and very faraway . . . sarah: You better think about getting some sleep. christopher: I know the quickest route from D.C. to San Francisco to the island. sarah: The island? christopher: The secret, nameless island, where we’re taking him. He’s in handcuffs. sarah: Since you’re here maybe you can confirm the island’s name. (christopher and pol pot stare at each other.) christopher: There he is, Sarah. Right in front of me. sarah: Guantanamo, the Marianas . . . ? christopher: In the dream my plan has finally worked—I am there at the door.

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sarah (making a phone call): See me pressing the buttons. (christopher flanks pol pot as the guard escorts pol pot forward.) christopher: The jail cell. I am there at the jail cell. sarah (on phone): Could you please send someone up? (A beat.) Yes. (The guard opens the jail cell door as pol pot looks at the ground.) christopher: He is looking at the ground. sarah: Of course he’s looking at the ground, it’s your dream. christopher: I am standing there when he enters the jail cell. That’s it. Just standing there. (pol pot enters the cell.) christopher: A feeling washes over me. I am flying. sarah: You said that. Security is on its way. christopher: I’m always flying when I have that dream. And I’m running. sarah: That’s enough. christopher: I’m running to make these connections, so I can be there, at the jail cell. (We hear the creaking of a door.) And the door shuts. The guard closes the door. Behind him. (The guard shuts the door.) And the sound of the door closing. That is my dream. I am there when the door closes. He is inside. Inside the cell. sarah: Christopher. I’m sorry to say, that’s stupid. christopher: This is what’s in my heart. I thought you might have an allegiance. sarah: To what? christopher: Cambodia. To the 1.7 million dead you always write about. sarah: Sorry, I’m not in the business of keeping government secrets. christopher: There are individuals and governments who will pull out of the plan if this is published. sarah: There aren’t any national security issues here. christopher: This is Hitler. sarah: We could have captured Pol Pot in the early eighties. But you were too busy signing treaties with the Khmer Rouge. christopher: That wasn’t my administration.

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sarah: It’s not real enough to withhold the story. christopher: You could say you’re not ready to publish. What’s the goddamn rush? sarah: A friend went back to Cambodia. He has a brother there. What do you think he’ll find? christopher: A better world. (A security guard enters.) sarah: For decades the editorials are filed like clockwork. “Bring Pol Pot To Justice.” Each time we break out the Tuol Sleng photos, and you see the victims staring out at you. Writing moralistic op-eds is the best we’ve ever been able to do. You keep secrets. Make vapid plans. Frankly, I don’t make the stories, I just write them. christopher: That’s right, you just write! sarah: It’s too late, Christopher. It’s on the front page. The world’s moved on to other genocides. (christopher exits followed by the security guard. End of Act 1.)

Act 2 Scene 9 (Anlong Veng, Cambodia, 1998. pol pot sits hunched, in shadow, on the side of his bed at night listening to Voice of America on a shortwave radio. A guard in Khmer Rouge uniform stands at the hut door.) radio: “ . . . Leading the news on ‘Voice of America,’ Washington Post correspondent Sarah Holtzman reports plans are currently in progress by top Khmer Rouge leaders to hand over Pol Pot, to be tried for crimes against humanity. The dying Khmer Rouge movement hopes to receive food and aid in exchange for their former leader. (pol pot looks at the guard, speaking softly.) pol pot: I do not have the strength . . . radio: After nearly two decades on the run . . . pol pot: To escape again.

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radio: The man said to be responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen may be near apprehension. Sources in Thailand and the U.S . . .” (pol pot reaches out and turns off the radio.) pol pot: We are surrounded. guard: Baat.7 (pol pot is tender to his guard.) pol pot: It is fitting you are here with me tonight. (The guard nods deferentially. pol pot motions for him to approach.) Come, tell me. When did you join the revolution? (The guard moves in.) guard: I was twelve, Respectful Uncle. pol pot: Please. Call me “friend.” And did you know how to read and write? guard: No, Respectful Uncle. (Correcting himself.) “No, friend” . . . pol pot: You see, I want you to know, what I tell you is very important, all I did, I did for you. guard: Baat. pol pot: I only wanted to help the poor. When I joined the movement, I was living in a country where half the people were illiterate. guard: Baat. pol pot: Now you and I must draw a lesson from this report by “Sarah Holtzman” of the Washington Post. (pol pot puts his hand on his heart, motioning to the guard.) Would you pour me a bit of whiskey? (The guard locates a hidden bottle and pours. pol pot points.) You will gather for me those two bottles of pills. Yes, right there. When they are writing the book, you will know how to explain exactly why. (Taking the pills.) Good. Thank you. (Gesturing to the guard.) You should write. guard: Baat. (The guard takes paper and pencil.) 7. Yes.

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pol pot: You see, I will face any court. But to give Mok this victory—never. A man whose mind has never been in the least connected to his mouth—who would kill to keep a wristwatch. A thief. This I despise. Write. (pol pot pours pills from one container.) For malaria. (He dictates to the guard.) One, single mistake I made. The photograph of the assassination of my former defense minister. Mok used this photo to name me a TRAITOR. You see there must never be a face to the act. Never a face to the act. “Why did I order the assassination?” Because I’d just been betrayed by my brother-in-law with whom I studied in Paris—my own brother. “Brother Number Three.” He had joined the puppet government. Lesson: could I be betrayed again? guard: Never, mit.8 (pol pot pours pills from another container.) pol pot: Valium. (He turns to the guard.) For the little children assassinated with the defense minister, I am sorry. And the men shouldn’t have run over the dead bodies with a truck. You see I am Mok’s last playing chip. He needs me of course to save himself. Final lesson: look, my hands are clean, friend. I never killed a man (To himself.) besides myself. (The guard writes as if he is putting an epigraph on a tombstone, with pride.) guard: He has a large spirit of union, deep and firm confidence, likes to live in the calm. In silence. (pol pot calmly pours a glass of water from a pitcher. pol pot sits hunched in shadow as the guard comfortingly lays a robe around him. 8. Friend.

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Lights shift to bright wonderful sunlight and we are in the water. sarah and heng are swimming. It is 1985 and they are much younger; they are in Nantucket.) sarah: You swim like an eel. Who taught you? heng: Myself ! I jumped in, became a fish, catching fish, eating fish, dreaming fish, flying fish, falling fish, taming fish, holding fish, loving fish, and loving water, currents, rising and falling. The color, the sound, the brightness at midday, the descent into darkness, the moonlight. The soft fluidity. No one had to teach me. The lakes are shallow in Cambodia, you can stand. And you? sarah: My father. heng: Yes, what a good teacher! sarah: His hand under my stomach, my legs and arms wriggling like a lizard, totally and absolutely hopeless. Landborn. I couldn’t learn . . . heng: But now you are such a strong swimmer. sarah: I could always feel that he would hold me up. heng: Love. The true patience. This salt stings. Your Nantucket ocean. The lakes were sweet. Sweet-watered. (She looks at him.) sarah: You’re sweet, the way you repeat the words over and over. The same way. The way you write the letters so carefully. I can’t believe the way you do that! It’s the hardest language in the WORLD!!!!! heng: I made a promise to your father. I must keep it. sarah: Sweet. heng: Is that good? sarah: Was the water in the lake good? heng: Yes the water in the lake was good. (A beat.) sarah: Thank you for telling me what happened. (A beat.) I’m so sorry. heng: Okay. sarah: You’ll help me? heng: I’ll help you in any way I can. Because I love your father. For what he did, to give me a new life, here. But I would warn you to be careful. What you are entering is very black. sarah: If I speak Khmer then that will be one key.

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heng: Yes. “Lake” in Khmer. “Beung.” I’ll tell you about the lakes in Cambodia. Tonle Sap. Water all the way to the horizon. An occasional fisherman living a life of fish. sarah: I wish there was another kind of land. A land of water. We could live . . . heng: I don’t think so. (He looks at her.) I will promise to help you in any way I can. sarah: I always wear my suit in the summer. Ever since I learned to swim. I put it on first thing in the morning and I wear it all day. So I’m ready . . . heng: I went naked, and so I was always ready. sarah: We could do it at night. Naked. Just the waves. (They begin to kiss.) heng: We could do it anywhere, it would not matter. (They make love.) What will I do to you? sarah: Don’t think. heng: A luxury you might have. But not I. sarah: Heng, your skin. heng (touching her): Your skin. sarah: I could bury myself in it . . . heng: Bury myself. sarah: Don’t be afraid. heng: You never are? sarah: Always. heng: Of what? sarah: So many things. That I’ll fail, that I won’t arrive. That my parents will die. That you’ll think I don’t understand, that I have too much privilege, that you’ll want me to cook for you, that I can’t be what you expect . . . (He looks at her, extremely amused.) heng: Cook for me? sarah: Khmer women do. heng: I don’t care about that.

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sarah: What are you afraid of ? heng: What I will do to hurt you . . . sarah: Shhshh. heng: What I won’t do. sarah: I love you. heng: I don’t believe . . . sarah: You don’t believe in . . . love . . . ? heng: I don’t know. We should return. They will think we have drowned. sarah: We have. (They go underwater, caress each other, come back up.) Say it in Khmer, I’ll listen. heng: Bong sra-lanh own.9 sarah: You can cry. It’s just tears. And there’s so much water out here already. A world of water. (Lights shift. Washington, D.C., 1998. At night sarah sits on the side of her bed, looking into darkness. She searches the dark.) Heng told me to write your name, Father. On a piece of paper. I can’t visit your grave. Cement is so lonely. (She lights a cigarette. She smokes, self-deprecating.) At least smoke is rising to the heavens. For you. (She stands and looks into darkness. She sees just a man’s faint shadow.) father’s ghost: Cultures are remarkable. The individuality, the idiosyncrasy. They must be saved, nurtured at all costs. (She looks out at the shadow.) sarah: In the morning there’s a stillness, Father. Running, I think I see you—my eyesight is gone. I see figures in the distance—I see then that they are you and Heng. I’m running, gasping for air, where am I going? Off the shore? Straight into the river? father’s ghost: Billions of dollars—and the country wrecked. sarah: You think your peacekeeping mission in Cambodia failed. father’s ghost: Go see Heng. Try. (The man’s faint shadow fades as sarah goes to sleep. Lights rise on heng sitting on the side of his bed, holding a cell phone. He no longer wears the monk’s robe. Lights also rise on 9. I love you.

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an anonymous man in a military suit, wearing gold, facing away from us. He holds a golf club.) heng: My brother Wrapped in his wealth The shell of corruption At the expense of the poor So apparent Everywhere I look at him. My brother. (Lights out on the brother.) No. I love my country Its people. (Asking for forgiveness.) Save my country, save my country, oh Lord, give the dead a proper resting place: Tee bonh choh tee-et. Tee bonh choh tee-et.10 (heng carries an effigy of pol pot, watching it go up in flames. heng watches pol pot burn. sarah is agitated in her sleep.) sarah: No. Stop. You can’t. Wait. (We hear the hissing, whispering, of pol pot. He sounds brainwashed, obsessive.) pol pot (voice-over): I want to reply, mistakes were made, fighting, like every movement in the world . . . I don’t like the way you write about my country, Sarah. (Pronouncing her name as heng does.) sarah: No. pol pot (voice-over): It has been written in the book, lesson number one. Rob us of our very war. 10. A proper resting place. 110

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sarah: No. pol pot (voice-over): Your assignment, save Cambodia. sarah: No. (sarah sits up, wide awake. Smoke rises from the effigy. We see the Khmer Rouge man 1 holding out the heart that he cut out from the dead man 2’s chest. He begins to eat it.) pol pot (voice-over): Even god is silent. sarah (to Khmer Rouge man 1): What is inside the heart? (Frozen with fear sarah takes the heart and begins to eat it. heng looks at sarah’s bloody mouth. Lights out.)

Scene 10 (sarah sleeps. She is jarred by the ringing phone. Breathless she answers the phone.) sarah: Yes? Who is it? . . . Yes? (Light up on christopher, the diplomat, standing in a pool of light, on his cell phone.) christopher: Happy? sarah: Who is this? christopher: He’s dead. sarah: Who is this? christopher: Pol Pot. He died today. Are you satisfied now? (She realizes who it is.) sarah: Christopher . . . Wait . . . christopher: Dead. sarah: How did he die? christopher: The day your article came out and you revealed the plan was the day we were going to take him into custody. sarah: How did it happen? How did he die? christopher: You played right into his hand, he fooled you. sarah: I was on deadline, I wrote the truth. christopher: You robbed Cambodia of its only chance for justice. sarah: The public had a right to know. christopher: No punishment, no crime.

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sarah: You know he was impossible to capture. christopher: I want you to know I will count it as the biggest failure of my professional career. sarah: I did what I was paid to do. christopher: Over. (christopher hangs up as sarah stares into darkness, holding the phone. She takes out a piece of paper and dials a number. Lights rise on heng sitting on his bed, holding his phone.) sarah: Heng, I dreamed Pol Pot was whispering in my ear, The devil in the most beautiful disguise. Is there the devil inside of me for seeking him out . . . ? heng: Come with me to the village, we’ll rebuild the stupa. (He looks at her.) sarah: I talked to my father. Wrote down his name. heng: What did he say? sarah: He told me to try. heng: We’ll pretend there are ashes to put in the jchadáy. Free my family’s spirits. (Sounds of heavy artillery echo in the jungle.)

Scene 11 (Cambodia, 1998. sarah stands with ta mok, who holds a cell phone.) ta mok: His wife came to tuck in the mosquito netting around his bed and found him dead. It was 10:15 in the evening. sarah: On April 15th, right? And what was the cause? Of death? (ta mok laughs.) ta mok: He died of heart failure. I did not kill him. He was right here, in his hut. sarah: He died in his sleep? (Lots of laughter.) ta mok: Yes. Exactly . . .“In his sleep” . . . His heart was very bad. He listened to Voice of America at 8 pm and went to bed, as usual . . . sarah (looking at him): He listened to Voice of America? ta mok: Every night. He heard he was going to be captured and perhaps he had a shock. Shock of the heart. Who knows? 112

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sarah: You can confirm he heard he was going to be captured on Voice of America? ta mok: Yes, your report was on the news! We warned him earlier this week he might have to go “abroad.” He and his family had to hide in that trench, right there, because of fighting with the traitors. He dyed his hair black to disguise himself, but everyone will always know pol pot! Right? sarah: You know he heard the broadcast? ta mok: We are more connected than you think! sarah: There wasn’t a chance in a million we could have captured Pol Pot. It was a fairy tale. (ta mok laughs, tickled.) ta mok: But you Americans like fairy tales! (Pouting.) Don’t you? sarah: The government has requested that his body be handed over for an autopsy. ta mok: Later today he will be cremated. sarah: To establish cause of death. ta mok: Heart attack. Bad heart. Black, black heart. (Laughter.) His death is good for the Khmer Rouge. I feel no sorrow. sarah: May I speak to his wife? ta mok: She is in mourning. sarah: And your movement? Did your forces kill innocent people on the outskirts of Phnom Penh? ta mok: I am very tired. sarah: There are reports you met with the Cambodian government for the first time yesterday. ta mok: I am not going to be a running dog of Vietnam like Pol Pot’s right-hand man Brother Number Three. You tell the world community it was all Pol Pot. sarah: He was alone when he died? (He has been sketching something for her on a scrap of paper.) ta mok: This is the model of the satellite phone. I want a good one. One that I can call anywhere in the world. Collapsible. sarah: Allow an autopsy. ta mok: I would like to invite you to be the witness. I want you to see him burn.

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(pol pot is bathed in red flickering light as we hear Jay Leno’s monologue: “Pol Pot died with his head down so he could see where he was going. What were his brothers’ names? ‘Crack and Crock?’” Canned laughter and then a chanted Buddhist prayer in Khmer.)

Scene 12 (Cambodia, 1998. sarah and heng kneel in front of a beautifully sculpted stupa amidst rubble of heng’s destroyed family wat. heng writes down on pieces of paper.) heng: Sarah, The names of My wife. My mother. My father. My two sons. Ashes to put in the jchadáy. (Together they place the pieces of paper in the stupa and burn them.) Smoke rising to the heavens. Air . . . Fire Earth sarah: Water. (heng takes her hand, chanting a prayer in Khmer.) heng: Som thai rehk-sa yung. sarah: Please, take care of us . . . heng: I pray my family will give me the strength to love you. heng/sarah (praying): Som thai rehk-sa yung. heng: Protect us, ancestors. sarah: Oh! Kúhn bon ba-roh-may! 11 (They light incense and put the sticks in the ground.) 11. Protect us ancestors.

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heng: There’s a prediction people tell each other, here in the countryside. “Pra-put tomnyay, ‘Kra-lap make.’” sarah: “Buddha foretold, ‘The sky will be turned upside down!’” heng: Kapúh lang pong luh phnom. sarah: Shrimp will lay eggs on top of mountains. heng: K’ike k’mau punreay play lewier krop kuh-lein . . . sarah: Black crows will spread figs on the land . . . heng: Mul-tau luh-áh kongcrau ru-luy kan knong. sarah: Beautiful on the outside, corrupted inside. (He turns to her.) heng: When I came back, Sarah, Cambodia had been dusted by a cloud. It was as if I was looking through a kaleidoscope that made my eyes red and my head ache. I couldn’t adjust, couldn’t see straight. The future, when I tried to adjust my eye, slipped away, turning, back into the past before the war, after the war . . . sarah (nodding): It’s like when I look at you. (We hear the sound of rain.) heng: Plee-ing hai . . . sarah: The rain . . . heng: Sadáp, somlaing yum. sarah: Listen to the sound of crying. Souls. (sarah closes her eyes, feeling the rain.) Water all the way to the horizon . . . heng: Sweet water. sarah: A world of water. (He holds out his hand.) heng: Sarah? (She opens her eyes and looks at him.) heng: Marry me? Live with me, try. (She takes his hand.) sarah: Zha! Zha! Zha! 12 My mother will be so glad. heng: I will tell my brother, I need to forgive him—his children are good . . . 12. Yes! Yes! Yes!

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sarah (looking upward): My father will be disappointed he wasn’t here . . . heng (whispering to the sky): Santo.13 sarah: I’ll buy some silk from the women at the curve in the river . . . heng: After, we’ll go to the lake, I know a place . . . The rain! (She looks around at the destroyed wat.) sarah: The wat is beautiful, your family village. We’ll have the ceremony here . . . heng (shocked): Beautiful? sarah: Through your kaleidoscope, I can see it is. heng: Yes. sarah: We’re all wet! Let’s go down the road—celebrate! Sing some karaoke! heng: Never. sarah: Yes! What song will you sing? (The rain falls on them. He holds out his arms, lifting his face to the rain. She does the same. He starts to sing a Beatles song simply, his own interpretation, and not karaoke. He takes her in his arms and they dance in the rain.)

Scene 13 (Phnom Penh, 1998. heng is at a government function with his brother, in a military suit, wearing gold.) heng: I must talk to you, brother. I have good news. brother: First there is someone I want you to meet . . . heng: I am not one for these types of gatherings . . . brother: The man I work for. heng: The gold jewelry makes me uncomfortable. brother: You are from America; this is impressive. You don’t want to know for whom I work? Help yourself to whiskey, cognac, or brandy . . . Are not these buildings still as striking? The good news is now the French don’t own them. heng: Yes, yes . . . I want to tell your family something, your children. Could we have a moment before the meal? 13. Sorry.

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brother: Where is the American journalist? heng: Here in Phnom Penh. That is what I must speak to you about. I was hoping you could meet her tonight. We’re going to be married. brother: Married? heng: Yes. brother: Well. Tonight, I will not have the time, I must play golf. heng: Golf ? brother: But tomorrow, we’ll go to the restaurant across the bridge, remember? Yes, of course, not all has changed, there is the restaurant across the bridge. (heng notices in the crowded room a shadowy figure holding a cocktail glass, with his back to us. Trying to get heng’s attention.) Beautiful, on the roof, we have the whole roof, you bring her with you. heng: Who is that man? brother: You know who that man is. It’s Ieng Sary. heng (in disbelief): But Ieng Sary is Brother Number Three. brother: Just Ieng Sary now. heng: Yes, I thought I was imagining things. brother (pointing in another direction): There is the man I work for, over there. Come and meet him. heng: Why is Brother Number Three at this party? brother: He is no longer called by that communist name and this is not a party, it is a meeting. heng: He’s still Brother Number Three. brother: My boss works for him. Let me introduce you. heng: Works for him? (heng’s brother brings heng to the shadowy figure. We see heng’s face over the shadowy figure’s shoulder.) shadowy figure (to heng’s brother): Hello, a pleasure to see you. (To a waiter, offstage.) Can you refresh my drink? (To heng.) What can we bring you? brother (to heng): He lives with his wife off Norodom Boulevard. And his wife’s sister Ponnary, remember, Ponnary, she lives very close. heng: Ponnary?

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brother: Yes, you know she was a teacher at the high school we attended. heng: And Pol Pot’s first wife. brother: Now let bygones be bygones. shadowy figure: Exactly. (Taking out a wallet; to heng’s brother.) May I show you pictures of our new grandson? brother: Of course! (Referring to heng.) My brother has come from America to see me. (Looking at photos from the figure’s wallet; to heng.) Look, he is a very serious boy. (heng glances at the photo, tries to smile.) shadowy figure: Very serious, already wearing glasses at such a young age. heng: Like his grandfather. brother: A true compliment. shadowy figure: Eyesight was not always our forté. (Showing pictures.) And this is the rest of the family. brother (showing heng): So many! shadowy figure: Yes, a very large clan. brother: How are your efforts to secure the land for the hotel? shadowy figure: The land by the river is ours, the most beautiful part! brother: Congratulations! This is wonderful news! heng: Hotel? brother: He is building the nicest hotel in the city. At the curve in the river, you know? (To the shadowy figure.) When do you start to build? shadowy figure: So many luxury hotels ahead of us, we may have to pull a few strings, for I am impatient, I am not young. brother: You are not so old. (heng starts to go.) shadowy figure: Your brother is very quiet. brother: Will you please excuse him, I am very sorry, he is tired, from his . . . airplane trip, he is not himself. (heng’s brother crosses to heng.) Brother, what are you doing? Mr. Ieng Sary is in the middle of showing you pictures of his grandchildren. heng: I do not want to see them. (heng’s head is spinning and sound slows down. In shock.) I must go. (To himself.) No air . . .

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brother: You must be respectful of this man. He is high up in the government, powerful. (heng stares aghast at his brother.) heng: Do you not remember? brother: What? heng: He was Pol Pot’s right-hand man. Do you not remember? brother: I don’t know what you are talking about. heng: His children? What about my children? (heng walks away.)

Scene 14 (Phnom Penh, 1998. It is extremely bright and sunny on the white, dirt street. sarah rings a buzzer at an ostentatious, black gate. As she waits she inspects a piece of silk she has purchased. An anonymous guard in crisp uniform enters.) guard: You are the woman who called? (Reading from an envelope.) Sarah Holtzman? sarah: Yes. I’d like to see Heng. He’s staying with his brother. (He hands her out a letter.) guard: Please read and return. I am standing here. I am waiting for you. And watching. (sarah takes the letter, looking at it confused.) sarah: May I speak with Heng? guard: The letter. Read the letter. (The guard shuts the gate. He takes out an orange and begins to peel it.) sarah: Is Heng’s brother home? guard: Read the letter. (sarah stares at the letter. She opens it and unfolds the colorful sheets of paper. heng appears.) heng: Sarah, while I was with my brother a strange thing happened. I was introduced to Pol Pot’s right-hand man “Brother Number Three.” I learned he has now purchased land to build a luxury hotel on the most beautiful part of the river.

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(The guard at the gate eats the orange, watching sarah.) There are many ways to try a killer. Gather all the evidence in a stack on the floor. And there are piles and piles of evidence. (He writes on a paper.) Take a piece of paper and write, “Pol Pot is guilty.” And “There was a devil.” Gather the people who lost their families in whatever court is brave. Take the piece of paper and post it on the court wall. Or I’m afraid there will be another Pol Pot. I cannot live with the shame. I honor those who can. (He looks at her.) I do not deserve happiness. I do not feel worthy of you. Perhaps I believe that we are too strange for each other—that our fantasy of seduction is better left just that. For when you are real, you suffer. I am from a small, faraway country that has destroyed itself. And you, from a country that many believe helped destroy mine. It’s hard to live out each day but with you I thought I could. (sarah sees the guard holding up the orange, which has now turned into the bloody heart.) I have died a thousand times already. (heng pours a glass of water from a pitcher and holds out to sarah a handful of pills, showing her.) Malaria and valium. sarah: A known combination. (He downs the pills. She looks at him.) heng: The only paper I can find is the receipt from an Internet café. I leave this letter with my brother to give to the woman whose name is on the envelope. Sweet Sarah. (She starts to double over as heng suddenly disappears and she is back on the bright, white street. The guard, wiping his hands with a handkerchief, walks toward sarah. He looks toward the house behind the black gate.) guard: My employer would like the letter now. He had no choice but to show it to you. He knows who you are. sarah (dumbly): Who? guard: Washington Post. He knew you would dig until you found out the

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truth. And that could do damage. (Reaching for the letter.) This is personal information, the letter belongs to him. sarah: I must speak to him now. guard: Let bygones be bygones. The letter. (She tries to get past him to the gate.) sarah: I have to speak to Heng’s brother. guard: On the phone you said you had an appointment. At three ‘o clock? You will be late. (Reaching for the letter.) After your appointment you said you leave for Bangkok? Is that correct? sarah: There are some things I need to know. guard: Washington Post. (Reaching for the letter.) You do not understand. sarah: More than you can imagine. (She starts to leave.) guard (a threat): You Die when you Write it down on a piece of paper. (She hurries away.)

Scene 15 (Cambodia, 1998. We see a faceless man seated in a chair, holding the book of braille. Across from him is sarah, disheveled, holding the colorful letter. She turns away from him.) faceless man: When it came time to pay me, the customer took acid and threw it in my face. Then he stole my moto. I lost my eyes and my nose, my mouth, ears. Dissolved in the acid. My face. (He listens for her, unsure.) I became a member here—“the Center for the Disabled”; the director here nominated me for the scholarship. (He looks in her direction.) I would like to appeal to you, on behalf of all the people here to help Cambodia’s blind to have opportunities. Help us to open the door. (He seems to smile at her. She takes a step, reaches out to comfort him. But then steps back and turns away. He is puzzled.) You write for an American paper. (Trying to pronounce.) Washington . . . ?

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sarah: Yes, the Post. faceless man: You’re famous right? You interviewed Pol Pot! . . . (She stares off into space. heng appears in a pool of light. He wears a costume, part-orange monk robe, part-black Khmer-Rouge pajamas with red scarf. With light and sound he transforms between heng and pol pot.) heng: I am the devil . . . (She looks to the faceless man.) faceless man: When I first became blind I became a masseur. (She looks at pol pot.) pol pot: And a poet, a killer angel. (She sees heng.) faceless man: I wondered why people would entrust their bodies to me. (The faceless man moves to her and slowly begins to massage her back.) heng: I am guilty of everything. faceless man: In my hands they said there was magic . . . (heng becomes pol pot.) pol pot: I’ve killed no one. faceless man: My hands could heal them . . . heng: But the blood of all is on my hands. faceless man: They became my friends . . . pol pot: There are hundreds who should be brought to trial. faceless man: A man like me, given chance after chance . . . heng: I am solely responsible. faceless man: The opportunity to feel useful. pol pot: The best of intentions. faceless man: When I am old, my hands will be tired . . . heng: The worst of reasons . . . faceless man: I will need to read with my hands . . . pol pot: This pitiful country swallowed up by her enemies . . . faceless man: To educate my children . . . heng: Write it down on a piece of paper. (She looks and sees only heng. He remains.) faceless man: To write. Write it down on a piece of paper.

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(She looks at the faceless man. heng is gone. She stands and puts her arms around the faceless man. She hugs him tightly to her. He holds her, comforting her.) Bong sray, kum prooy men ay tay . . .14

Scene 16 (Cambodia, 1998, sarah writes heng’s name on a piece of paper, kneeling at the stupa near heng’s destroyed family wat. She places the paper under a small flame.) sarah: For the afterlife. (She lights incense.) Som thai rehk-sa yung.15 Hait ay? Why? (She takes out a piece of paper.) I cracked my father’s puzzle. Remember? Why does evil flourish? Here is the article. I’ve written it. Heng Chhay was a poet. Together we lived in a world of water. This is a world where you float. So beautiful and . . . bottomless. You might ask yourself how many teardrops or raindrops or drops of fresh morning dew would it take to fill the ocean, to fill the lake, and I would tell you not as many as you think, and what you see at night in the water, the glistening, bending light, the reflections, are the magic of love, and also your own suffocating drowning. That’s the world of water. You can go under the surface and slowly motion to the one you love, and he will answer with his hands. You might ask yourself, “Are we fish, not human?” and I will answer that we are human, but we don’t always do human things, and that is all I can tell you, for there was so much I did not let myself know, and so much I will never know. Heng Chhay, the man I was going to marry, wrote me a letter the day he died. He said while in Phnom Penh he met Pol Pot’s right-hand man, “Brother 14. There, there . . . It’s okay . . . 15. Please take care of us.

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Number Three,” who had just purchased land for a luxury hotel on the most beautiful part of the river. There are many ways to try a killer. Write his guilt down on a piece of paper. And so I am. The luxury hotel will sit on the bones of Heng’s family, open to the green-brown water upon which shadows fall like tempests. Storms leave you altered, barely swimming. (We hear heng speaking to her.) heng: Khnhom châng klay chea neak nipon. sarah: I want to be a writer. That’s what I always wanted. I owed you an assignment. I didn’t do the rhyme scheme. (She chants the traditional Khmer “Hopping Crow” poem. We hear the flute. She is simple and open. She concentrates only on chanting.) Look, you said As we walk to the top of the world And go over And disappear And just then, in that moment I take the step Glass breaks: The wall of time. (She faces heng.) Heng, I love you more than the shadow. heng: And I love you. With it. (She watches as lights go out on heng. End of play.)

Timeline 1969–73: Nixon authorizes secret carpet bombing of neutral Cambodia to fight the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

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1975: The fall of Saigon; the Vietnam War ends. The Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror begins under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership, including Ieng Sary, Brother Number Three, and lasts until 1979. 1978: Journalist Elizabeth Becker interviews Pol Pot in Phnom Penh. 1979: Vietnam, Cambodia’s historical enemy, invades Cambodia; Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership flee to the jungle along the Thai-Cambodian border (where Pol Pot remains until 1998.) Many Cambodian survivors flee to the Thai border refugee camps and are taken in by other countries, including the United States. 1979–91: In a Cold War strategy, the United States supports the Khmer Rouge, which holds a seat in the United Nations. 1997: Pol Pot is captured and placed under house arrest by his Khmer Rouge adversary, Ta Mok, “The Butcher.” Journalist Nate Thayer interviews Pol Pot. 1998: The United States has a secret plan to capture Pol Pot to try him for crimes against humanity, and Ta Mok makes overtures to hand him over. An article about the secret capture plan is published on April 9, 1998. Pol Pot dies on April 15, 1998. Ieng Sary, Brother Number Three, currently lives in Phnom Penh and is a member of the present government under Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former member of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge has not yet been brought to trial and in 2002, the United Nations pulled out of a tribunal plan. 2006: Ta Mok dies. Cambodia is currently among the poorest countries in the world.

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A Patch of Earth Kitty Felde

Cast of Characters dra¸en erdemoviÇ—twenty-four. vesna erdemoviÇ—his young wife (also plays the telephone operator at the American Embassy). father erdemoviÇ (also plays brano, the calm commanding officer, and jovan babiÇ, the Serbian defense attorney). mama erdemoviÇ (also plays the judge). elsbeth van der kellen—the Dutch prison guard (also plays voice 2). julija—dra¸en’s old girlfriend (also plays newscaster 2). stanko—erdemoviÇ’s nemesis (also plays newscaster 1 and guard 2). aleksandar—dumb kid who joined the army (also plays bailiff, voice 3, philip). prosecutor (also plays soldier, bus driver, voice 4, french reporter, and old man). All available actors play ghosts. All the women play the whispered voice of dra¸en and vesna’s son, nevin, who is represented by a large doll.

Production Notes The play is performed without accents. There is no definable set for this play, since most of the events take place in the mind and memory of Dra¢en Erdemoviµ. Shifts in setting are created with lights and sound.

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The cast plays multiple roles. Characters from different periods of Erdemoviµ’s life drift in and out on stage—much like his thoughts and worries. The stage is also inhabited from time to time by the ghosts of Srebrenica’s dead, played by various members of the cast wearing similar grayish burlap garments. The voice of the child Nevin is performed by the female cast members as a chorus. The play is performed without an intermission.

Pronunciations Aleksandar—Alexander Bijeljina—bay-ya-LEEN-uh Babiµ—BAH-bich Brano—BRAH-noh ¥i§µenje (cleansing)—cheesh-CHEN-ye Croat—CROW-at Cvetkoviµ—SVEHT-koh-vich dinars (currency)—DEE-nahrs dobro jutro (good morning)—DOH-broh YOO-troh Dra¢en—DRAW-szhen Erdemoviµ—air-DEM-oh-vich glupak (imbecile)—GLOO-pack Gojkoviµ—GOY-kah-vich gospodine (sir)—ghos-poh-DEE-nay jongen (boy)—YAWNG-uhn Julija—YUHL-ya Juffrouw (miss)—yuh-FROW kurac (penis)—KOO-rats Maastricht—MOSS-strict Maja—MY-yah Mauritskade—MOW-ritz-skahd Medjugorje—MEHD-juh-GHOR-jia

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nazdraviti (to your health)—nahs-draw-VEE-tee obstina (county)—ahb-SHTEEN-uh oprostite (sorry)—oh-PROHST-eet-eh Pilica—PEE-lee-tza pivo (beer)—PEE-voh rakia (brandy)—RAH-kee-ya Savanoviµ—sih-VAHN-uh-vich Scheveningen—SHVEN-ing-en slivo (plum brandy)—SLEEVE-oh Srebrenica—SHREH-breh-NEET-za Svetkoviµ—SVEHT-koh-vich Tito—TEE-toe Ustashe—oo-STAH-shuh Vesna—VEHS-nuh Willem—VILL-uhm Zaniµ—ZAW-nich

A Brief History of Yugoslavia Conventional wisdom holds that it was ancient religious rivalries that led to the outbreak of violence in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Not so. It was said of Bosnia that even back in the fourteenth century, the country was an “example to Europe of how people of different religions could live together in harmony.” But there has been ethnic violence over the years. On June 28, 1389, St. Vitus Day, Turkish Muslims fought Orthodox Christian Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo and then occupied much of Yugoslavia. It was a day that would live on in numerous anniversaries. Five hundred years later, in 1876, Serb allegations of Muslim cruelty led to war with Turkey. Twelve thousand Orthodox Christians were killed in nearby Bulgaria. Russians (including the fictional Count Vronsky from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) rushed to volunteer to fight in the Serb army. When the war was over two years later, Bosnia became part of the AustroHungarian empire.

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On June 28, 1914, again on St. Vitus Day, a Bosnian Serb fired the shot that began World War I. Serb casualties during the war were two and a half times greater than even those suffered by the French. The treaty that ended the war was signed at Versailles—again, on St. Vitus Day. It established the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes—or SHS. No one was happy. The Roman Catholic Croats called it “the Serbs want it all.” The Serbs called it “only the Croats spoil it.” In 1929, King Alexander banned all political parties. Five years later, he was assassinated by Croatian nationalists known as the Ustashe. World War II did much to truly divide Yugoslavia. It is said that Hitler hated the Serbs second only to the Jews. Croats sided with the Germans and were accused of committing atrocities that even the Nazis found appalling. Serbs were forced to wear blue armbands with the letter “P” (Pravoslavni, meaning “Orthodox”) on them. Orthodox priests were massacred. And on St. Vitus Day in 1941, at a Franciscan monastery near Medjugorje—the place where believers say the Virgin Mary appeared in the 1980s—six hundred women and children were thrown off a cliff. After the war, Marshal Tito and communism came to power and there was no discussion of the war crimes of World War II. Officially under communism, there was also no practice of religion. In many ways, this enforced “can’t we all just get along” policy worked. In larger cities like Sarajevo, Serbs, Croats and Muslims intermarried. In smaller cities, neighbors worked together to build a new roof or act as pallbearers at a funeral. No one asked whether you were Serb, Croat, or Muslim. But after the fall of communism, political leaders were looking for a way to strengthen their power. The state still controlled the media, a holdover from communist days. So leaders used the airwaves and television channels to broadcast a message of hate twenty-four hours a day, for several years—that “they” were out to take your job, that “they” were having too many children, that “they” were stockpiling weapons and planning to come kill you. What resulted was the slaughter of civilians, the rape of girls as young as twelve years of age, and the destruction of churches and libraries and villages. The international community was slow to respond to the crisis in Bosnia. But after the fighting, the United Nations dusted off the international

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law books and created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and its sister tribunal for Rwanda. It was the first time since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II that individuals would be held responsible by the international community for war crimes. So far, fifty-nine individuals have been publicly indicted. But because the tribunal has no police force of its own and must rely on other countries or NATO troops to make arrests, more than half of these suspects are still at large. The first man to be tried by the ICTY in 1996 was a karate teacher named Dusan Tadiµ. After a nine-month trial, he was found guilty of acting as a freelance terrorist, entering prison camps at will, and savagely beating his former neighbors. Dra¢en Erdemoviµ was the first man to be sentenced by the tribunal. There was no trial: he simply pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He successfully appealed and his sentence was cut in half. He was released in August 2000.

Program Notes The courtroom scenes in A Patch of Earth are taken directly from transcripts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The facts of his case are true. The personal and family life of Erdemoviµ in A Patch of Earth have been created from the playwright’s imagination.

Act 1 (The play begins in the dark. We hear echoes of voices.) voice 1: Erdemoviµ! voice 2: Erdemoviµ! voice 3: Erdemoviµ! voice 4: Erdemoviµ! (The lights come up on what appears to be a jail cell. We see twentyfour-year-old dra¸en erdemoviÇ. He’s a short kid with acne scars

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and a hip haircut. erdemoviÇ jerks awakes from his nightmare, covered in sweat.) erdemoviÇ: I am Dra¢en Erdemoviµ! (guard 1 taps his wooden baton on the metal bars.) guard 1: Hey! Hey! Keep it down in there! You’ll wake up everybody else in detention. (To another guard.) The kid sounds terrified. guard 2: Wouldn’t you be? (We hear three slow taps of a gavel on wood. The lights become much brighter. The stage has become the courtroom.) bailiff: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is now in session. Please be seated. (The two guards escort erdemoviÇ to an area down center. They stand on either side of him. A handsome fifty-something man in a long black robe joins them. This is jovan babiÇ, the defense attorney. He nods to erdemoviÇ. Up center, on a platform behind a scrim, a redrobed female judge appears. On either side of her are silhouetted outlines of two fellow judges.) judge: The tribunal must now ask you whether you plead guilty or not guilty. erdemoviÇ: Your honor, I have told my counsel that I plead guilty to crimes against humanity. babiÇ: Your honor, my client is a victim of the whirlwind of war—and the victim of his own deed. judge: Mr. Erdemoviµ, you have heard the version of the facts which the prosecutor has just stated. Do you agree with what he said? erdemovic: I agree with everything that the prosecutor has said. And I have more to add. judge: Mr. Erdemoviµ. You will be given the opportunity to speak at a later time. erdemovic: Your honor, I had to do this. I had no choice. judge: Mr. Erdemoviµ! erdemoviÇ: If I had refused, I would have been killed together with the victims. My comrades told me, “If you’re sorry for them, line up with them and we’ll kill you, too.” I’m not sorry for myself, but for my family—my wife and son.

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(The lights come up on vesna and nevin, erdemoviÇ’s young wife and child, in their “house” in another part of the stage. vesna stands over a wooden cradle, slowly tearing a piece of paper into small bits. vesna sings to the “child” in the cradle.) vesna (sings): Papa’s gone to be a soldier Gone to fight the evil ogre Tiny baby sleeps In silent castle keeps Lying on a downy bed of clover . . . (The lights fade on vesna.) erdemoviÇ: My son. He was only nine months old. (He openly weeps.) I couldn’t refuse because then they would have killed me. That is all I wish to add. (The judge is clearly uncomfortable.) judge: All right, Mr. Erdemoviµ! Try to get hold of yourself ! Sit down for a moment. Please sit down for a moment. babiÇ (whispers): Dra¢en! Dra¢en, please! The worst is now over. You must be quiet! erdemoviÇ: No. I can be silent no longer. (We hear the three gavel pounds. The lights fade. They come up again at the father’s front door. erdemoviÇ enters, carrying a heavy television set. It’s obviously not brand-new. He juggles the set and pounds on the door.) erdemoviÇ: Mama? Mama, are you home? mama: Dra¢en? Dra¢en, is that you? erdemoviÇ: Open up, Mama. I’m a Croat bearing gifts. (mama opens the door wide. She laughs with delight when she sees the TV set.) Happy birthday, Mama. mama: Dra¢en! (She kisses him on both cheeks, over the television set.) Just wait until I show this to Sylvana! She who brags so often about her fancy television set.

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erdemoviÇ: It’s not so fancy, Mama. mama: It’s fancy enough for me. Any more buttons, I would never learn how to make it work. erdemoviÇ: Happy birthday, Mama. (She kisses him again.) erdemoviÇ: Let me in, Mama. Let me put this down before I drop it. mama: Come in, come in! (erdemoviÇ struggles to get the set through the door. As he puts it down on a table, he looks up to see his father standing there, watching, not offering to help, his arms crossed over his chest.) See who’s here to celebrate my birthday! erdemoviÇ: Father. father: Dra¢en. Shopping again, I see. erdemoviÇ: For Mama’s birthday. father: From one of your “clients,” I suppose. erdemoviÇ: They couldn’t take it with them when they crossed the border. I offered them a fair price. father: I’m sure you did. erdemoviÇ: Better than leaving it behind for someone to steal. father: Yes indeed. Better to steal it yourself. erdemoviÇ: I told you, I paid them– father: Yes, I heard. You paid them a fair price. erdemoviÇ: Something you always did, Father, I’m certain. mama: You should be proud, Papa. Your son taking after you, an entrepreneur through and through. father: Dra¢en always finds a way to make a dinar. Even in the middle of a civil war. What exactly do you call this line of business you are in these days? erdemoviÇ: I’m in transportation, Father. I told you. father: Transportation. Smuggling cowards across the border is more like it. And what happens when you get caught? erdemoviÇ: I won’t get caught. father: For your mother’s sake, I hope not. But knowing you, Dra¢en, I wouldn’t put any money on it. erdemoviÇ: What’s that supposed to mean?

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father: You haven’t exactly had a sterling track record when it comes to your various careers. erdemoviÇ: There is a war going on, Father. mama: And Dra¢en did serve in the army, Papa. Remember? father: I remember he came home with his tail between his legs, boohooing about the harsh treatment he received. erdemoviÇ: I had to leave. father: Yes, I know. Army food wasn’t as good as the fine meals your mother makes. erdemoviÇ: There were maggots in the gruel. The meat was rancid. mama: Who wants a bite of my plum cake? Dra¢en? erdemoviÇ: No, thank you, Mama. mama: Papa? father: No, thank you. (There is an uneasy silence. erdemoviÇ plugs in the television set and fiddles with the antenna. There is a lot of static.) Look, Dra¢en. You are a bright boy. erdemoviÇ (he scoffs): Puh. father: Come here, boy. I know I’m hard on you. Too hard, perhaps. But you’re my best and my brightest. I just wish you would use those brains. It makes me angry when you take the easy way out. erdemoviÇ: Easy way? You think sneaking families over the border is easy? father: It’s another of your “get rich quick” schemes. With no thought for the future. erdemoviÇ: What future? It’s easy for you to talk, Father. You lived your life under Marshall Tito. Your future was secure. What kind of future is out there for me? My country is splitting apart and the only place that wants my talents is the army. mama: Well, I for one, am glad Dra¢en is no longer in the army. I would not sleep at night, worrying about my boy. father: He’s not a boy, Mama. He’s a married man. (Under his breath.) He’s certainly no soldier. erdemoviÇ: No, I’m not, Father. Why should I be? Why should I kill anybody? Just to prove to you that I am a man? This war is craziness. I have no stake in it. Why should I fight?

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father: You are afraid. mama: Papa– father: A coward. mama: Enough! father: A crybaby. erdemoviÇ: Good-bye, Mama. Happy birthday. mama: Dra¢en! (He starts to leave.) father: If they catch you, Mr. Crybaby, they’ll send you to the front. And then what will your mother think? (erdemoviÇ slams the door. We hear the three taps of the tribunal courtroom gavel. The lights change.) judge: Mr. Erdemoviµ, you pleaded very much the cause of peace. At the same time, you happened to join all the fighting groups during this war. Wasn’t there any other way to express your belief in coexistence? erdemoviÇ: Your honor, we were forced to join the army. Who was I? Just simple Dra¢en Erdemoviµ. No one would listen to me. Nobody asked me whether I wanted to join the army. Only those with enough money could buy out their lives. People with cafés, with petrol stations, those with small businesses. They could buy their way out of the army. Not me. Not Dra¢en Erdemoviµ. I didn’t want the war. I had no motivations to go to war. If I did not join willingly, they would have taken me anyway and sent me to the front lines. That’s the situation in the Republika Srbska. You follow orders or there are fateful consequences. (Pause.) Is there anyone here who can understand me? My wife is a Serb. It’s not her fault she’s Serb and I’m Croat. It’s not her fault Serbs are waging war. Was I supposed to hate her because she’s a Serb? Is there anybody here who can understand me? (The lights go to black. A moment later, they fade up to very dim light. We see erdemoviÇ splashing water from a bowl onto his face. He dries his face on a towel and reaches for a uniform shirt. He starts to put it on. He hears a threatening voice.) vesna: Stop right there, Dra¢en Erdemoviµ. (He freezes.) Thought you could get away with it, did you?

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(vesna enters. She is a young woman in a nightgown. She approaches erdemoviÇ from behind, putting her arms around his chest, under his shirt.) Running away in the dark without saying good-bye. erdemoviÇ: I didn’t want to wake you. vesna: Well, I’m awake now. What are you going to do about it? (He finishes putting on the shirt, her arms still entwined around his body. He turns around and kisses her.) Come back to bed. erdemoviÇ: I can’t. I’m late. vesna: Who cares? Let them wait. Tell them you have other, more important duties to perform. Come back to bed. erdemoviÇ: I don’t think my commander would understand official duties performed without a uniform. vesna: Then leave your uniform on. Or most of it, anyway. (She starts undressing him.) erdemoviÇ: Vesna, stop. I really have to go. vesna: Then go! I think you want to spend time with your comrades instead of your dull wife and child. Stupid army. erdemoviÇ: Stupid army that found us a home to live in. vesna: They could have been more careful with their mortar shells, making holes in the roof where the rain pours through. erdemoviÇ: It’s better than nothing. It’s better than having our baby out under the plum trees. vesna: It’s not fair. To have to live like this. Like peasants. I want a real house, Dra¢en. A house where there are electric lights and a toilet that flushes. Look at us, Dra¢en! We’re living the life of our great-grandparents! erdemoviÇ: Things will get better. vesna: That’s what you always say! Things never get better. erdemoviÇ: It was not so long ago that we had nice things. vesna: Yes. And now all the nice things are gone—gone to buy food and diapers and toilet paper. All that money they paid you, Dra¢en— deutschmarks and dinars and dollars. You were such an important man! Like your father.

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erdemoviÇ (bitterly): Like my father. The businessman. vesna: You were the real businessman, Dra¢en. A tour guide, really, taking clients across the border on a Swiss holiday. For that they throw money at you with both hands. Both hands! erdemoviÇ: We were greedy, Vesna. We got caught. vesna: Is it greedy to want something better for our little boy? I remember you in the disco, Dra¢en. Flashing dinars around like they were paper money. Everyone paid attention to you. Everyone. The eyes of every girl in the disco were on Dra¢en Erdemoviµ, the boy with the dinars. And now, look at us. Look at you! Working as a stupid soldier for a stupid army that is not even your own. erdemoviÇ: Would you rather have me in prison? The penalty for smuggling is twenty years behind bars. vesna: You don’t know that for sure. The world is upside-down. You don’t know they would carry out the sentence. erdemoviÇ: Oh, I know. vesna: All I know is that you chose to enlist. We should be in Switzerland, not them. All those neighbors you helped across the border. People you risked your life to save! If they had been true friends, they wouldn’t have turned their backs on us, pretending we didn’t exist. erdemoviÇ: They weren’t our friends, Vesna. They were people with a few thousand deutschmarks to spend on safe passage to somewhere away from the fighting. vesna: Yes, and now they’re all safe in Switzerland. And where are we? Stuck in the middle of a war that will never end. And now you are marching off to die. erdemoviÇ: I’m not going to die, Vesna. I’m too smart for that. vesna (she laughs): You’re not that smart, Dra¢en. Nobody’s that smart. (He kisses her, trying to reassure her. She pouts for a moment, but then kisses him back. Her anger is gone, replaced by fear and longing. They hold each other for a few moments. And then there is the distant sound of rocket fire. We see the reflected glow.) Listen. They light up the sky with their rockets. erdemoviÇ: It’s time for me to go. (erdemoviÇ pulls away.)

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vesna: Damn the Muslims. And damn the Serbs. And damn the Croats, too. Who am I supposed to hate, Dra¢en? Who is your son supposed to hate? You are Croat. I am Serb. Who is your son supposed to hate? erdemoviÇ: I have to go. vesna: What is it this time? erdemoviÇ: Srebrenica. (The lights fade to black. Lights up on a television reporter and a cameraman. The video of this is broadcast on a large screen television that appears behind the scrim, stage left.) newscaster 1: Dutch peacekeeping troops today pulled out of the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica. About four hundred soldiers abandoned their mission of trying to protect twenty-five thousand Muslim men, women and children from the army of invading Bosnian Serb troops. Thousands of Muslim men were loaded onto busses and driven away from the U.N. safe area. The Dutch U.N. commander says he’s received assurances from the Bosnian Serb military commander that the men will not be harmed. (The cameraman changes angle to shoot another reporter.) newscaster 2: Another mass grave was discovered late yesterday in a remote forest outside the town of Srebrenica. Forensic investigators say the ditch carved out of an abandoned soccer field may hold as many as two hundred bodies . . . (papa erdemoviÇ enters the stage. Both reporters and the cameraman surround him. Again, the action is “broadcast” on the large screen television.) philip: Mr. Erdemoviµ. Sir? I wonder if I could talk to you about your son. Your son, Dra¢en Erdemoviµ? father: Reporters! Leeches! Go away! Leave me alone! I lost the best I had. He should die. Let him die. At least I would know where he was buried. I don’t need him alive. He’s better off dead. reporters: Mr. Erdemoviµ! Mr. Erdemoviµ! Mr. Erdemoviµ! (The reporters chase him offstage as the lights fade out. There is the sound of a truck motor. The lights come up on the back bed of a rag-tag military truck, seemingly bumping along a country road. This is a low platform at center. It later becomes the jail cell and the bed for dra¸en and vesna. 138

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The troops are jolly, singing a dirty Serbian song and slapping each other on the back. erdemoviÇ runs alongside and is helped up by one of his comrades. erdemoviÇ sits next to stanko, legs hanging off the end of the truck. brano stands quietly, holding onto the cab of the truck. He doesn’t sing.) brano: Glad you could join us, Sergeant Erdemoviµ. erdemoviÇ: Sorry, sir. brano: I notice you didn’t bother to shave this morning. erdemoviÇ: Sorry, sir. brano: I should make you run behind the truck for a few kilometers. erdemoviÇ: Sorry, sir. (The men tease him by chanting “sorry, sorry” in sing-song Serbo-Croat.) men: Oprostite. Oprostite. Oprostite. brano: Enough! (He bangs on the cab window.) Turn left here. (The crowd in the truck leans to the right as the truck “turns.”) stanko: Where are we going, Commander? brano: A little target practice. aleksandar: Another drill? I’ve been in this army three months and all I ever shoot are stacks of hay and scarecrows. brano: Be careful what you wish for, Private. erdemoviÇ (quietly): Stanko. stanko: Something wrong, comrade? erdemoviÇ: You ever kill anybody? stanko (he winks): A few jealous husbands. aleksandar: Hah! When are you gonna share your secrets of your kurac, Stanko? stanko: When you’re old enough to know what to do with one, glupak. (He slaps aleksandar on the side of his head. To erdemoviÇ.) How’s that wife of yours, comrade? erdemoviÇ: Fine. Fine. stanko: Prettiest girl in the disco. Prettiest girl in the obstina. erdemoviÇ: I don’t know if I can do it, Stanko. stanko: Do what? erdemoviÇ: Shoot someone. Kill someone.

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stanko: Just remember they’re the bad guys. We’re the good guys. erdemoviÇ: I’ve never seen anyone die before. (The “truck” has stopped. The soldiers start to jump off, leaving erdemoviÇ and brano behind. brano slaps erdemoviÇ on the back.) brano: Buck up, Erdemoviµ. Today’s your lucky day. (brano jumps off and exits. The light remains on erdemoviÇ for a moment, the lights go to black. Lights up on the prosecutor.) prosecutor: Your honor. Dra¢en Erdemoviµ, present here in the courtroom today, was a soldier in the Tenth Sabotage Detachment of what was then the Bosnian Serb army. This unit was ordered to a farm near the village of Pilica. There, he was ordered to receive busloads of Muslim civilian men who had surrendered or had been apprehended fleeing from Srebrenica. They were brought by these buses to this remote farm on the day of the sixteenth of July 1995. The soldiers ordered to this farm were given the task to summarily execute the civilian men. These executions resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Muslim men. Dra¢en Erdemoviµ was a member of this squad. He did what he was asked to do. These, your honors, are the facts behind the indictment. (The lights go out. We hear the sound of keys in a heavy metal lock. The lights come up on erdemoviÇ’s jail cell. erdemoviÇ is lying down, with a “how to get rich” book over his face. A female guard enters. She is very tall, broad shouldered, and blonde.) guard: Lunchtime. erdemoviÇ: I’m not hungry. guard: Sure you are. erdemoviÇ: Go away. guard: Sorry. No can do. It’s my job to make sure all detainees eat a hearty lunch. erdemoviÇ: What are you? Designated detention mother? guard: That’s right. erdemoviÇ: Too bad. I’m still not hungry. guard: Suit yourself. (Pause.) It’s pea soup. Local delicacy. erdemoviÇ: Please leave me alone. guard: Sorry.

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(erdemoviÇ goes back to his reading. The guard starts whistling.) erdemoviÇ: Excuse me. Excuse me! guard: What? Oh, sorry. erdemoviÇ: Do you harass all the detainees this way or just me? What’s your name? guard: Why? You gonna report me? erdemoviÇ: Maybe. guard: Officer Elsbeth Van der Kellen. (She salutes.) Sir! erdemoviÇ: Sir. I like that. Army, huh? guard: Yup. Look. I’m not trying to bother you. I’m just trying to cheer you up. erdemoviÇ: And what do I have to be cheerful about? guard: You’re alive. You’ve got a good solid Dutch roof over your head. (She leans in to whisper.) And they don’t believe in the death penalty at the tribunal. erdemoviÇ: I feel so much better. guard: Good. So what else can I do to cheer you up? Another book? How about a game of ping-pong? Maybe I can requisition a gameboy. erdemoviÇ: You really want to do something for me? guard: I know. Go away and shut up. (He sits up with the thought.) erdemoviÇ: A letter. You can write me a letter. guard: A letter? erdemoviÇ: That’s right. guard: Okay. A letter to the newspaper? Or maybe to the prison warden? erdemoviÇ: A letter to my wife. Every day. guard: All—all right. What do you want me to say? erdemoviÇ: Ask her to come visit me. Here in Holland. Here in prison. guard: Don’t you think she’d rather get a letter from you yourself ? erdemoviÇ: She does get letters from me. Every day. (He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a torn letter.) And every day, they come back. Torn into little pieces. (He dumps the contents of the box, and tiny pieces of letters tumble out like snow. The lights fade on the actors, though we can still see the pieces of letters falling to the ground. The lights come up on the house portion

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of the stage where the bits of paper have become autumn leaves falling to earth. The cradle is onstage and we hear the child babble to himself. erdemoviÇ quietly enters the yard, stands for a few moments to watch his small son. vesna walks outside to dump a pan of water.) Vesna? (She is surprised and drops the pan, which startles the child, who starts to cry.) vesna: Dra¢en? Dra¢en, you’re home! Dra¢en! erdemoviÇ (he breaks into tears): Vesna. Vesna. vesna: Shh. Dra¢en. Hush. You’ll make Nevin cry as well. (nevin carries on.) You see? Nevin, you silly boy. Don’t you recognize your own papa? (The child cries even louder.) Hush, Nevin. Shh. It hasn’t been that long. You remember your papa. (To dra¸en.) He acts as if he’s seen a ghost. erdemoviÇ: Maybe he has. vesna: You’re talking nonsense. (She touches her hair.) Oh, look at me. No! Don’t look. Here, let me put Nevin to bed while you go tell your parents you are home. Go, quickly! I saved a nice piece of meat for dinner. Maybe I knew in my heart you were coming home today. You are home for good, Dra¢en? erdemoviÇ: Good or bad. I’m home. (vesna takes the large rag doll that is nevin inside the house. erdemoviÇ leaves his bag on the steps and walks over to his father’s house, where we hear the sound of a staticky television program. His father pounds on the side of the set.) father (calling offstage): You see, Mama? I am just as clever with my hands as I am with my brain. A little bang on the side was all it needed. Not that there’s anything to watch these days. Maybe we’ll be lucky and there will be a football match. (He clicks through the various channels. They are all news programs.) (Calling.) Sorry, Mama. No luck today. There’s nothing but propaganda from that lot in Belgrade. erdemoviÇ: Father?

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(father looks up. He is caught off guard. He is genuinely relieved and happy to see his son come home in one piece. He starts to embrace him, remembers himself, and pulls back. He and erdemoviÇ awkwardly shake hands.) father: Dra¢en. Dra¢en, my son, is it really you? erdemovic: Hello, Father. (Embarrassed, father calls for mama.) father: Mama. Mama! Look who’s here! (mama rushes in and embraces erdemoviÇ.) mama: Dra¢en! Thank the Lord. Let me look at you. No bullet holes. No scars. But what is this uniform? erdemoviÇ: Mama, I told you. Bosnian Serb. mama (she spits): That’s what I think of your Bosnian Serb uniform. You are Croat. Not Serb. Why don’t you serve in your own people’s army? father: You remember, Mama. That was last month. This is our son who wears the uniform coat of many colors. erdemoviÇ: It’s a job, Mama. That’s all. I had no choice. father: Choice? You always have a choice, Dra¢en. erdemoviÇ: Do you, Father? Do you really? mama: Don’t start arguing again. Not today. This is a celebration. A homecoming. We must toast our son, home in one piece, thanks be to God. (She finds three slightly chipped glasses and puts them on a tray. father takes his favorite chair. erdemoviÇ hovers nearby. He can’t sit still. Suddenly, out of the darkness up center stage, one of his ghosts appears. It is a man in gray, with a burlap sack over his head. erdemoviÇ leaves the window and returns to where his father is reading the paper.) erdemoviÇ: And how are you doing, Father? father: How am I doing? What am I doing is more like it. Nothing. Not a damned thing! Every factory in the country has stopped making anything useful. How can you export fine furniture when there is not a spring to be had for love or money? And who would want to buy a chair from a country that doesn’t exist anymore? I tell you, this country went straight into the toilet the day Tito died. (mama hands around the brandy.)

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mama: Enough politics, Papa. We drink to Dra¢en, home at last. father: To Dra¢en. To my son. Nazdraviti! (They drink. Another ghost appears. erdemoviÇ shakily puts down his glass and walks to the window.) erdemoviÇ: Father. Do you remember grandfather’s war? father: Your grandfather was not a Nazi sympathizer! erdemoviÇ: I never said he was. But Father. In the army, I heard stories I never heard at home. Stories about grandfather’s war. father: Rumors. Just rumors. erdemoviÇ: Perhaps. But such stories, Father. Stories of ˇ cisˇ´cenje—ethnic cleansing they call it now. The Serbs remember a massacre on St. Vitus Day, near Medjugorje. Six hundred women and children thrown off the cliff near the Franciscan monastery. And the story of a Croatian law student who won a special competition by slitting the throats of more than thirteen hundred Serbs, using a special knife. They say he received a gold watch and a roast suckling pig for his service to the Croatian people. father: Lies! All Chetnik lies! Your grandfather was Ustashe, it is true. But he was a true patriot. A fighter for the Croatian people, a true crusader for our people and our holy Catholic church. erdemoviÇ: I’ve never seen you in church a day in your life. mama: Dra¢en. Drink your rakia and leave your father alone. He is tired. father: What do you want from me? erdemoviÇ: I want to know what grandfather said about the war. Did he ever follow orders he knew were wrong? Did he ever have to follow orders that made him sick? father: Your grandfather put the war behind him when he came home. Never talked about it again. That’s good advice, Dra¢en. You are home now. What happened happened. Take off that uniform, and go home and kiss your wife. (erdemoviÇ starts to say something else but catches a message in his mother’s eyes. He kisses her on the cheek and leaves the house. He starts to walk home but hears loud laughter and Serbian jukebox music down the street. He enters the smoky bar—full of patrons—and is immediately kissed by julija. erdemoviÇ is surprised. They both laugh.)

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erdemoviÇ: Julija, you little witch! I didn’t know you were working here. julija: Working here. I own the place! Dra¢en, it’s so nice to have you home again! (She kisses him again.) erdemoviÇ: Careful. I’m a married man these days. julija: Oh, yes. And where is the precious Vesna? erdemoviÇ: Home with the baby. julija: You used to be such a fun fellow, Dra¢en. The king of the discos, we used to call you. Marriage doesn’t look good on you, Dra¢en. Especially marriage to precious Vesna. erdemoviÇ: Julija. julija: No, no. You can see I’m not a bitter woman. I have learned to lose at love with humor and grace. Though why I ever brought Vesna to come with me that night is a mystery to me. She was a stick-in-themud even then. God, we were young! erdemoviÇ: Your hair was long then. Down to your hips. You shouldn’t have cut it. julija: It was too hard to keep clean during the siege. Too many buckets of water. Not enough soap. erdemoviÇ: It’s still nice. julija: Thank you, gospodine Erdemoviµ. (She assumes a John Travolta-like stance, remembering their disco days.) Do you remember that nickname? erdemoviÇ (he laughs): It was a long time ago. Ancient history. I’m making a vow not to live in the past. Not to ever look back. Let’s drink to the future, Julija. You have the honor of serving me my first beer now that I’m back home. julija: With pleasure. One pivo. (She starts to exit. erdemoviÇ grabs her hand and pulls her into a disco dance pose. They both laugh and she exits.) stanko: Why don’t you join me over here, comrade? erdemoviÇ (a bit out of breath): Stanko! (stanko slowly crosses the room. He is drunk.) stanko: That’s right, old friend. Savanoviµ Stanko. Such a reunion of old army comrades requires a celebration, does it not? erdemoviÇ: Stay away from me, Stanko. I am no longer a soldier.

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stanko: Ah, au contraire, my old friend. You are forever a member of the Tenth Sabotage Detachment. And as your closest comrade, I’m going to buy you a drink. Julija! Two more pivos! And here I thought I’d lost track of you, old friend. erdemoviÇ: Leave me alone, Stanko. stanko: Have a seat, comrade. (They walk over to a table. stanko laughs.) Somehow I knew I’d find you here. After you bragged to the rest of us soldiers of weaker character that you were going to give up drinking. Now that you’re a married man. erdemoviÇ: I’ve had trouble sleeping lately. I thought a drink would help. stanko: What’s wrong, old friend? The little wife isn’t giving you enough exercise at home? (He laughs again. julija plunks down two beers.) julija: You have cash this time, Stanko? stanko: Where’s your faith in your fellow man, Julija? julija: I place my faith in anything that fills the empty spaces in my cash register. (stanko laughs and slaps down several coins on the table. julija scrapes them up and walks away.) stanko: So. Did your family give you the homecoming of your dreams? erdemoviÇ: My mother spits on my uniform. My son stares at me as if I am a stranger. No. Not just a stranger. As if I’m a menace. A monster. He screams when I pick him up. stanko: You let him get away with that and you’ll have problems later. Listen to Papa Stanko. You just have to let him know who’s the boss of the family. erdemoviÇ: And you are such an expert? “Papa” Stanko? (A ghost enters and takes a seat at the bar.) stanko: Who’s to say how many children I have fathered in the line of duty? (erdemoviÇ stares at the ghost.) erdemoviÇ: Stanko. I can’t stop thinking about it. stanko: About what? erdemoviÇ: You know what. I keep seeing the blood under the cornstalks. I keep seeing their eyes. I hear them, Stanko. Every night in my dreams. 146

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stanko: Pull yourself together, comrade. You are a member of the Tenth Sabotage Detachment of the Bosnian Serb army. Remember that. (The ghost exits.) erdemoviÇ: What about you? Is it so easy for you to forget about it? stanko: Forget? Never. I want to remember every drop of blood I spilled that day. Every drop. erdemoviÇ: How can you live with that? stanko: Listen, comrade. Those stinking Turks killed my brother. Shot him before he even reached his eighteenth birthday. This was my chance to pay them back. I should have just buried them alive and not wasted the bullets. erdemoviÇ: Stanko, how do you know it was those men who killed your brother? stanko: How do you know they didn’t? (Pause.) I got 253 of them at Pilica farm. Two hundred fifty-three stinking Turks and it still isn’t enough to equal the man my brother never grew up to be. I was the one who had to tell my mother that her favorite son was not coming home. I was the one who had to look her into her eyes. Like staring at a frozen river. Nothing but ice. But underneath, everything is black and rushing somewhere I can’t see. Everywhere I go, I am haunted by those eyes. erdemoviÇ: But, Stanko. So many bodies. So many people killed. It wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter. stanko: It was smart soldiering. Killing them right there and then meant they couldn’t come back and kill another day. Less bad news to deliver to sad Serbian mothers. erdemoviÇ: Who’s delivering the news to sad Muslim mothers? stanko: That’s the beauty of it. Nobody. Nobody’s delivering the bad news. That’s because there are no witnesses! No proof. Just another case of troops missing in action. For all those U.N. fellows know, our Turkish friends just left the country. Emigrated to parts unknown. Parts unknown. That’s pretty good. (He laughs. And then he stops.) You don’t have plans to talk to those Muslim mothers or anyone else about our little mission? erdemoviÇ: Why would you say that? stanko: I have a bad feeling about you, comrade. erdemoviÇ: I can hold my tongue.

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stanko: You’d better, my friend. Because the fewer witnesses left alive to talk means the rest of us have to worry that much less. Understand? erdemoviÇ: I get it. I’ve got to get home to my family. stanko: All the more reason for you to keep your mouth shut. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that nice wife and kid of yours, would you? (erdemoviÇ rises.) erdemoviÇ: You stay away from my family, Stanko. I’ll kill you. stanko: Yes. You’re pretty good at killing, aren’t you? Not as good as me, though. You just don’t have the stomach for it. (He calmly rises and walks over to erdemoviÇ and punches him in the stomach. erdemoviÇ gasps.) julija: Dra¢en! stanko: That’s to put something solid in that soft stomach of yours. Adios, comrade. (stanko leaves the bar.) julija: Dra¢en, can you breathe? (erdemoviÇ is again weeping.) Dra¢en? erdemoviÇ: Leave me alone, Julija. Please. Just leave me alone. (She does. The lights fade on the bar. Lights come up on the central platform. It has become the bedroom of erdemoviÇ and vesna. She enters with a quilt and lays down beside him. The cradle is in the downstage corner. A clock strikes three. Two ghosts also enter and sit across the room. erdemoviÇ is tossing in his sleep.) erdemoviÇ: No. I won’t do it. Do you hear me? I won’t do it! No! vesna: Dra¢en. Wake up. Dra¢en, it’s only a dream. Shh! Wake up. (nevin screams in his sleep. Their dreams seem to intersect.) erdemoviÇ: What? What!!? vesna: This house is full of nightmares. (nevin continues to scream.) erdemoviÇ: Nevin. I’ll see to him. (He lights a lamp and stumbles over to nevin’s cradle.) Hush. Hush, Nevin. It’s only a dream. Shh. (He brushes the child’s hair out of his eyes. He sings to nevin.)

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Papa’s gone to be a soldier Gone to fight the evil ogre Tiny baby sleeps In silent castle keeps Lying on a downy bed of clover . . . (We hear the voice of nevin. It is the whispered chorus of all three female actors.) nevin: Papa? erdemoviÇ: Yes, little one. It’s your Papa. nevin: Monster. erdemoviÇ: All gone. Papa killed the monster. All gone. nevin: All gone? erdemoviÇ: That’s right. nevin: Papa monster. (erdemoviÇ nearly sobs.) erdemoviÇ: No. Not a monster. Your Papa was a soldier, Nevin. Just a plain soldier. nevin: Papa monster. erdemoviÇ: Nevin, stop it. I’m not a monster. I’m not. Please believe me. nevin: Papa monster. Papa monster. erdemoviÇ: No. No! Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up! (He shakes the child violently.) You know nothing! Nobody can know what it was like! They turned us all into monsters. All of us! (erdemoviÇ realizes what he is doing and freezes. He clasps the child to his chest.) My God, I am the evil ogre! Nevin. Nevin, my sweet plumkin . . . Please forgive me. You must forgive your poor Papa. Nevin? Can you ever forgive me? nevin (muffled): Papa monster. (erdemoviÇ realizes that they are not alone. Slowly, erdemoviÇ turns around and sees a pair of ghosts. He realizes that nevin sees them, too.) erdemoviÇ: My God! (He turns to the ghosts.) Go away! Leave us alone! (But the ghosts stay where they are.) What do you want? My life? My soul?

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nevin: Papa monster? erdemoviÇ: Papa’s not a monster, Nevin. Not so. Don’t believe them. Is it my fault I tried to save my life? Am I to be blamed for that? I did not want to shoot them. (He touches the boy’s hair.) That boy. That one young boy. His hair stuck out on all sides of his head, just the way yours does when you wake up from a nap. He was so scared. So scared he even peed in his pants. Just the way you do, Nevin. He was such a funny-looking fellow. Barely a teenager. And yet, God help me, Nevin, I shot him dead. I shot him dead. I am so very, very sorry, Nevin. Please, please, forgive your papa. (He sobs.) nevin: Don’t cry, Papa. Monster gone. (erdemoviÇ looks up and notices the ghosts have gone. He again clutches the child to his chest.) erdemoviÇ: Monster all gone. Monster all gone. Monster all gone. (erdemoviÇ staggers back to bed. His murmuring wakes vesna.) vesna: Monsters? What monsters? Dra¢en. erdemoviÇ: Hmm? vesna: Dra¢en, what are these dreams you keep having? Every night. erdemoviÇ: Nightmares. Just nightmares. (The ghosts return. There are three of them this time.) vesna: Maybe you should talk to someone. Maybe Father Zaniµ. erdemoviÇ: No one. I can talk to no one. vesna: You can talk to me. (He sees the ghosts. They nod at him. He swallows.) erdemoviÇ: Vesna, what stories did you hear about Srebrenica? vesna: A victory for our troops. erdemoviÇ: Yes. A victory. Do you know what that means? vesna: It means you came home, alive and in one piece. erdemoviÇ: Do you ever think about them? vesna: Them? (The ghosts are everywhere. Listening.) erdemoviÇ: The ones we’re fighting. The ones who won’t come home in one piece because we shot them full of holes. vesna: It is none of my concern. You and Nevin are my concern.

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erdemoviÇ: Vesna. What is the worst thing you can ever imagine? vesna: Dra¢en. Don’t play these games. erdemovic: The very worst. vesna: All right. Your not coming back from the fighting. erdemoviÇ: Worse than that. vesna: Losing our little Nevin. God protect us all. (She crosses herself, touching her forehead, then chest, then right and left shoulders. erdemoviÇ rises and walks away from vesna and the child.) erdemoviÇ: What would you say if you knew I had done worse. Much worse. vesna: Dra¢en, you’re scaring me. Stop it. erdemoviÇ: Vesna. Look in my eyes. Have I changed since coming home? vesna: No. No, of course not. You’re a little thinner. A little browner. erdemoviÇ: Look at my hands, Vesna. Can you see the blood on them? (The ghosts rise.) vesna: Stop it. erdemoviÇ: I killed them, Vesna. I killed them all. Shot them in the back one by one by one. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. (One by one, the ghosts fall down. The lights fade out as we hear erdemoviÇ’s litany of bangs. Overlapping his bangs, in the dark, we hear the sound of a gavel pounding three times. Lights up on the courtroom. The “judges” appear upstage. erdemoviÇ is escorted by his ghosts to the docket.) bailiff: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is now in session. Please be seated. prosecutor: Mr. Erdemoviµ. Are you able to estimate how many people you killed on July 16 in that cornfield outside of Srebrenica? erdemoviÇ: I don’t know exactly. But to be quite frank, I’d rather not know how many I killed. There was an elderly man. Between fifty and sixty years of age. When he came out of that bus, he said he had saved Serbs. (One of the ghosts steps forward. He takes off his mask. He is this old man.)

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old man: Please. Please! You must listen to me. erdemoviÇ: Why? old man: I saved them. Lots of them. erdemoviÇ: How? old man: Smuggled them across the border. erdemoviÇ: For cash, I suppose. old man: I saved Serb lives! Dozens of them. Me, a Bosniak, saving Serbs. I took them to safety across the border. I never lost a soul. Doesn’t that count for something? (brano enters and walks over to erdemoviÇ and the old man.) erdemoviÇ: Captain? Uh, this old man here says he’s saved a lot of Serbs. old man: Please, Captain. I can prove it. I have names and phone numbers. Please. Let me live! (erdemoviÇ turns to the judges to plead his case. The old man and brano remain in their tableau.) erdemoviÇ: I wanted to save that man. I was simply sorry for those people. I had no reason to shoot them. They had done nothing to me. But my commander. He didn’t want to have any witnesses to that crime. brano: Shoot him. erdemoviÇ: No, sir. Please. He is a good man. He saved Serbs. He has proof. Surely that is enough to let him live. brano: Shoot him now. erdemoviÇ: But sir! brano: The chief doesn’t want to leave behind a single living witness. (brano leaves the stage. erdemoviÇ and the old man are left to stare at each other. The old man slowly puts back on his sack mask. The lights change again. erdemoviÇ returns to his cell. The guard enters with an envelope.) guard: Mail call. erdemoviÇ: I don’t even want to see it. guard: Buck up, Erdemoviµ. We’ve already x-rayed the thing, and it’s definitely not a bomb. What’s the worst it could be? erdemoviÇ: You open it.

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(She tears open the envelope. And looks inside. Sadly.) Don’t tell me, let me guess. Torn into eight perfect little pieces. Vesna is nothing if she isn’t neat. guard: I’m sorry. erdemoviÇ: So am I. guard: Maybe tomorrow– erdemovic: I have no tomorrows. (The lights come up on the erdemoviÇ’s bed. vesna brings breakfast in bed.) vesna: Wake up, sleepyhead. (erdemoviÇ groans and rolls over.) Come on. Breakfast. (erdemoviÇ slowly wakes up.) erdemoviÇ: I’m so tired. vesna: I’m not surprised. No one sleeps in this house anymore. It’s one continuous nightmare. erdemoviÇ: I’m sorry. vesna (pause): I don’t understand why you are the only one who believes there was a massacre at Srebrenica. (A ghost joins them. erdemoviÇ sees it. vesna does not.) erdemoviÇ: I was there, Vesna. vesna: Yes, but the news people say the stories are just Muslim propaganda. erdemoviÇ: Why would anyone make up a story like that? vesna: The world hates the Serbs. It always has. This is just more manufactured proof that Serbs are the villains. erdemoviÇ: Manufactured proof. vesna: How do you know those so-called missing men in Srebrenica aren’t just hiding out, trying to avoid military service? How do you know they haven’t just emigrated to Germany? erdemoviÇ: I saw the bodies, Vesna. vesna: In your dreams. In your nightmares, you saw those bodies. It’s not real, Dra¢en. It’s all in your head. erdemoviÇ: No.

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vesna: Where’s the evidence, Dra¢en? How many people did you say your unit supposedly shot? Twelve hundred? Where are the bodies? Surely you’d remember disposing of twelve hundred bodies. erdemoviÇ: I saw the bulldozers driving down the highway. Big yellow machines. To dig hundreds of bodies into the ground. vesna: And why has no one found these giant holes? (erdemoviÇ rises and moves away.) erdemoviÇ: I don’t know. vesna: Why are you the only one who talks of such things, Dra¢en? Surely if it had truly happened someone else would have told such a story. erdemoviÇ: People are scared. vesna: And I’m scared, too. (She rises and goes to him.) I’m scared that you are slipping away from what is real. Dra¢en. Look around you. This is real. Your home. Your family. Touch me, Dra¢en. I am real. All the rest? Just smoke. (But the ghost has been joined by a few friends who take their places around the bed. The lights come up on the smoky bar. erdemoviÇ enters. He looks around. There are no ghosts present.) julija: Well, Dra¢en. It’s nice to see your face again. erdemoviÇ: Julija. julija: Such a pretty face. But not too pretty. I knew those acne scars would give you character. (She brings him a beer.) erdemoviÇ: I know I can always rely on you, Julija, when my ego needs a boost. You certainly have a way with a compliment. (She laughs. He drinks most of the beer.) erdemoviÇ: Have you seen Stanko around? julija: Not for weeks and weeks. I hear he’s looking for work in Tuzla. erdemoviÇ: Good. I mean, well—good. julija: Something on your mind, Dra¢en? (He looks around again. Still no ghosts. He finishes the beer.) erdemoviÇ: Julija, have you heard the stories about Srebrenica? julija: Who hasn’t?

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erdemoviÇ: Do you believe them? julija: What? That eight to ten thousand Bosnian Muslim men are still missing? erdemoviÇ: And presumed dead. Do you believe such stories? julija: Of course I believe them. The Serbs commit horrible crimes against the Muslims. The Muslims commit horrible crimes against the Serbs. The Croats commit horrible crimes against both. What do you expect, Dra¢en? This is war. People do awful things. And life goes on. erdemoviÇ: Vesna doesn’t believe it. Won’t believe it. julija: Well. erdemoviÇ: I believe it. (Softly.) I was there. julija: So. (Pause.) Now what do you do? erdemoviÇ: What was it you said? “Life goes on.” I try to get on with my life. julija: And that’s why you’re in here in a bar in the middle of the day. erdemoviÇ: I am trying, Julija. Trying as hard as I can. My father tells me that it’s my duty to leave the war behind me now that I’m home. But it haunts my dreams. Every night. Vesna thinks I’m just imagining the horrors. julija: She’s young. She’s scared. She has a lot to lose. It’s safer for her to believe your stories are nightmares. erdemoviÇ: They’re not. They’re real. They follow me day and night. I think I may be losing my mind. julija: Then do something about it. Cast out your demons. erdemoviÇ: You sound like a priest. Confess my sins to Father Zaniµ and my immortal soul will be washed clean of sin. julija: It works for some people. erdemoviÇ: But not for me. julija: You don’t have to confess to a priest. erdemoviÇ: What do you mean? julija: Listen, Dra¢en. A French reporter has been sniffing around the village the past week. Have you seen him? erdemoviÇ: I haven’t left the house for days.

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julija: Talk to him. erdemoviÇ: I don’t think so. julija: Why not? Afraid of the wrath of Stanko? erdemoviÇ: Wouldn’t you be? julija: What’s the worst he can do to you? Kill you? erdemoviÇ: I have a wife and a family, Julija. I don’t want to die. julija: A wife who thinks you’re a madman and a child who thinks you’re a monster. What kind of life is that, Dra¢en? erdemoviÇ: It’s my life, Julija. The only one I have. julija: Fine. Then live your life, Dra¢en. Go home. Kiss your wife and son. Go! erdemoviÇ: You think my silence makes me a coward. julija: I didn’t say that. erdemoviÇ: I am a coward. So what? Show me one human who’s not a coward in his heart. Everyone thinks they will do the right thing when the time comes. They think “Oh, yes. I will be the one to rescue the woman being beaten by her husband. I’ll be the one to catch the thief stealing from the fruit stand.” But what do we really do? Stand there and hope like hell someone else will do it. Well, Julija, nobody else did a damned thing out there in that cornfield. And when it came right down to it, neither did I. Is it my fault I tried to save my life? Am I to be blamed for that? All I could think was, “I want to live. Dear God, let me live.” It’s not that I didn’t think about them. Their faces staring at me, as if they expected me to do something. Stupid, stupid souls who believed the stories they were told. Believed they were going off to a prisoner-of-war camp. Marching off like sheep. Stupid. Stupid. There was one kid, younger than me. And he’s looking at me when he figures out he’s not going to any camp. That he’s going to be dead in about sixty seconds. He just keep looking at me. And I shoot him. Stanko was right. He said I was soft here, in my belly. He’s right, Julija. I have no stomach for courage. julija: Then find some. erdemoviÇ: Not a problem. I’ll pick some up at the corner chicken kiosk. They hang bags of courage right next to the dead roosters. Just to remind you the price of courage.

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julija: Is the price of fear such a bargain? erdemoviÇ: No. It’s not. It eats away at me. Little by little. I hate myself for being afraid. I hate it. I truly hate it. (Pause.) Julija, suppose— suppose I wanted to talk to that French reporter? How could I find him? julija: I’ll find him. What about tonight? erdemoviÇ (losing his nerve): Tonight? No– julija: Tomorrow night, then. Late. You come back to the bar. See that table over there? That’s where the Le Figaro reporter will be sitting. Will you be there? He’ll wait for you. (There are the echoes of erdemoviÇ’s ghosts.) ghosts: Erdemoviµ. Erdemoviµ! Erdemoviµ! Erdemoviµ! erdemoviÇ (pause): He could be waiting a long time. (The ghosts continue their chant. And then there is silence. End of Act 1.)

Act 2 (Act 2 begins the same way as Act 1. We hear the sound of the three gavel strikes. The lights come up on the courtroom again.) judge: Mr. Babiµ. You had one last question. (babiÇ walks over to the Plexiglas lectern.) babiÇ: Yes, your honor. You have a wound, Mr. Erdemoviµ. erdemoviÇ: Yes, sir. Pieces of a shattered bullet are still in my stomach. babiÇ: Who shot you, Mr. Erdemoviµ? erdemoviÇ: One of my mates in the Tenth Sabotage unit. babiÇ: And what was the reason for the shooting, Mr. Erdemoviµ? erdemoviÇ (he pauses): Someone had conveyed to the commander of my unit how I had behaved at the farm. And he probably reached the conclusion that I just couldn’t stand it. And perhaps—I don’t know—do what I’m doing today. Testifying. (Lights out on the courtroom. Lights up on the bar where stanko, brano, and aleksandar are gathered around a table, drinking and talking.)

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stanko: So then I said to her, “I’ll show you where we keep our spare ammunition. Right here inside our pants!” (They all laugh.) Julija! Three slivos. Come meet my esteemed colleagues of the Tenth Sabotage! (She walks over to the table.) julija: Stanko. So. You’re back from Tuzla. stanko: No. I’m just a ghost come back to haunt you. Of course I’m back. Shake hands with the best commanding officer in Bosnia. Brano Gojkoviµ. julija: Commander. brano: A pleasure, I’m sure. julija: And who’s your other pal, Stanko? (aleksandar stands, clicks his heels, and bows.) aleksandar: Aleksandar Svetkoviµ, at your service. julija: They take them young into the army, don’t they? aleksandar: I am fifteen years old. Old enough to kill. Old enough to drink. julija: Well, do your drinking and get yourselves out of here, fellows. The bar is closing early tonight. stanko: That’s not like you, Julija. Here are three thirsty men with pockets full of deutschmarks, willing to spend every last one of them here tonight. julija: One more round and I’m closing up shop, Stanko. (She walks away.) brano: It is a nice town you have here, Stanko. Small, but nice. aleksandar: I thought we were going to the discotheque. brano: All in good time, my friend. (julija returns with the tray of drinks and slams them on the table.) julija: Drink up and go. aleksandar: Hey. We don’t have to take this. We can go to the discotheque. stanko: Shut up, Svetkoviµ. You act as if you have a lover waiting for you, Julija. Is that him? The fellow over there in the corner with the pencils?

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julija: I don’t know what you’re talking about. (stanko pushes his chair away and walks over to another table, where a fellow sits quietly drinking a glass of beer.) stanko: You. Pencil man. You have some business with Julija, here? A little rendezvous later on? julija: Leave my customers alone, Stanko. reporter: I’ll be back later, Mademoiselle. You know how to contact me. (He leaves the bar.) julija: There. Are you satisfied? stanko: Not yet. brano: Where is he, Mademoiselle? julija: Where is who? brano: Don’t play the fool. We know your boy Dra¢en was meeting that reporter tonight. julija: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m closing down for the night. (julija starts to walk away. stanko grabs her by the wrist.) stanko: Always with the smart mouth, Julija. julija: Let me go. stanko: Too good for the rest of us. julija: You’re hurting my arm. stanko: That’s the general idea. (julija reaches around with her other arm and slaps his face. stanko and aleksandar rise, knocking over a chair or two. stanko slaps her back.) brano: Enough, Stanko. erdemoviÇ (offstage): Julija. Sorry I’m late. Nevin is running a fever, and I was trying to get him to swallow the apple syrup, but he kept– brano: Get her out of here. (stanko pushes her away. erdemoviÇ enters the bar and freezes in his tracks when he sees the three men.) stanko: Comrade. Welcome. julija: Run, Dra¢en. Run! stanko (to julija): Get out. (He pushes her out the door and stares at erdemoviÇ.)

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brano: Well. Good evening, Sergeant—no, sorry. I forgot you lost your rank for not following orders. Good evening, Private Erdemoviµ. erdemoviÇ: Commander Brano. Svetkoviµ. Stanko. stanko: It’s practically a reunion of the entire Tenth Sabotage unit. erdemoviÇ: What do you want? brano: Come drink with us, Dra¢en, my boy. (stanko escorts erdemoviÇ to the table, stopping at the bar for a bottle and glasses. brano indicates that aleksandar should pour another drink. He does. The glass is passed to erdemoviÇ. brano salutes him with his glass. And drinks. erdemoviÇ does not drink.) brano: Well, well, well. Our little Dra¢en. Home at last. Comrade Stanko tells me your little boy is nearly a year old now. Sorry to hear he’s not feeling well. erdemoviÇ: Yes. He has his father’s stomach. What do you want, Commander? brano: To talk over old times. Stanko tells me you’re having bad dreams about certain activities of the Tenth. erdemoviÇ: I’m all right. brano: Glad to hear it. I, myself, have sleepless nights from time to time. aleksandar: All those Turk women throwing themselves at you, eh, Commander? brano: Shut your mouth, Svetkoviµ. War is not a very pleasant thing, is it Dra¢en? erdemoviÇ: It’s the worst kind of hell. brano: And yet, you are not fighting for yourself, Dra¢en. You are fighting for a greater Serbia. erdemoviÇ: I don’t care about politics. brano: Ah, but you should. erdemoviÇ: I’m a Croat, not a Serb. brano: Yes, and isn’t that what was so wonderful about our small band of freedom fighters? Croat and Serb together, fighting against the infidels. erdemoviÇ: You talk like my father, discussing wars in the Middle Ages as if they were yesterday. brano: Of course I am, you young fool. If you call yourself Yugoslav, you must live your history. Every day. How can you forget St. Vitus Day?

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The Battle of Kosovo? 1389 may sound like a hundred million years ago, but it’s just yesterday for a Yugoslav. This is a country with a memory. A true Christian nation. God’s country. Until the Turks marched in and slaughtered everyone in their wake. And that’s just what the Muslims of Srebrenica were going to do to us if we had let them live. erdemoviÇ: You sound like all the propaganda that’s spewed out over the radio. Propaganda from that mafia that led us into war. This was their war, not mine. brano: Dangerous talk, comrade. erdemoviÇ: Those prisoners at Srebrenica. They were told they were going to prison camps. Would it have been so bad to put them in prison instead of killing them all? brano: Think, boy. Let them live, and they’ll breed more babies who will grow up to kill your young son. Listen to me, Dra¢en. You may think your actions had no meaning, but you’re wrong. By shooting your gun in that cornfield, you saved the lives of thousands of others. Can you understand this? You were a hero. erdemoviÇ: Then why don’t I feel like a hero? brano: You’re just tired, my boyo. Tired from all the fighting. It’s good you came home to your family. It’s good to forget all the fighting and the killing. erdemoviÇ: And if I can’t forget? (There is a pause.) brano: That presents a bit of a dilemma . . . stanko: You were going to talk to that reporter, weren’t you? aleksandar: What reporter? Is that Julija’s boyfriend with the pencils? brano: You will close your mouth, Svetkoviµ, and you will not open it until I give you permission to do so. Dra¢en, I’m afraid we have a small problem here. erdemoviÇ: We have no problem here. brano: When you joined the Tenth Sabotage unit, you knew the rules. Any soldier who threatens the security of the group can be executed on the spot. Dra¢en, I’m afraid you have become a danger to the group. stanko: If you talk, you could put all of us in danger. erdemoviÇ: Then I won’t talk.

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brano: I’m afraid we can’t risk that, Dra¢en. Stanko? (stanko pulls a gun from his holster. He cocks it. erdemoviÇ rises and backs away.) erdemoviÇ: Stanko, no! (He shoots three times.) Aahh!! aleksandar: Jeez, he’s bleeding all over me! brano: I’m afraid this must be good-bye, Private. Come. stanko: Sorry, comrade. Maybe that will put a little iron in your gut. erdemoviÇ: Stanko. I’m bleeding. Help me. stanko: They were just stinking Turks, comrade. Nothing to get yourself upset about. Not worth dying over. (The men walk out, laughing. erdemoviÇ reaches out for help. A ghost enters and extends a hand. erdemoviÇ recoils in terror. The ghost slowly backs away. The lights change. vesna enters and puts a pillow underneath erdemoviÇ’s head. She covers him with a quilt and fusses with his bed. He grabs her hand, looks at it, and kisses it. vesna is clearly uncomfortable and pulls her hand away.) vesna: You’d better lie still or you’ll reopen that wound again. erdemovic: I’m all right. (Pause.) How are you? (She doesn’t answer.) erdemoviÇ: Where’s my little plumkin? Where is Nevin? vesna: He’s at my mother’s house for a few days. I don’t want his crying to disturb you. erdemoviÇ: He won’t disturb me. vesna: If he jumps on your bed, you’ll start bleeding again, and you will have to go back to the hospital. erdemoviÇ: That’s not it, is it? It’s not my bleeding you’re worried about. You don’t want our child to come near me. vesna: You’re talking crazy again. erdemoviÇ: It’s true. Isn’t it, Vesna? You’re afraid of me now. You can see the blood on my hands. The blood in my gut. vesna: Dra¢en. You must try to put the war behind you. Let it go. You must try to live in the present. erdemoviÇ: Vesna. I must tell them.

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vesna: Tell who? Not that tribunal business again. erdemoviÇ: All those weeks I was in the hospital, it’s all anyone would talk about. A court for the massacres. vesna: And justice for all. You sound like one of those American court dramas. And what does this war crimes tribunal have to do with you? erdemoviÇ: I must tell them. vesna: Why? Why must you be the one to talk to them? Do you think Stanko and company will throw you a party to celebrate you telling your stories to this tribunal? erdemoviÇ: Someone has to know. Somebody has to tell the world. vesna: Why you? Why do you have to do it? Do you think this tribunal will say “thank you” after you tell them your story about killing people? Haven’t you caused enough trouble for your family by trying to talk to that reporter? erdemoviÇ: Someone has to know the truth. vesna: Truth. Is that what you call it? Dreams. Nightmares. And even if it were true, what difference would it make? Will it bring one of those people back? No. All your truth-telling does is make people angry. You should have listened to me, Dra¢en. You should have forgotten those dreams. erdemoviÇ: You want me to forget those faces? Forget what I did? When you yourself can’t forget. I see you, Vesna, watching me when you think I’m asleep. You ask yourself, “Who is this man? vesna: You’re imagining things. erdemoviÇ: Come. Prove it to me. Lay down beside me. Let me love you, Vesna. vesna: You’re too weak, Dra¢en. Your wound will begin bleeding again. erdemoviÇ: It’s the blood you’re afraid of. That’s true. But not mine. You’re afraid of all those bleeding corpses. See? They’re all around you. vesna: Stop it, Dra¢en! Stop it! Can’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve ruined everything! Your stories have made you an untouchable. The village leper. No one will ever speak to us again. No one will invite us into their homes. Or share a meal with us. Or even buy us a drink. Do you know what someone called me yesterday? “Ustashe whore.” Me! You did this, Dra¢en. You. Everybody knows the war was difficult and

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violent and bloody. But that was out there. On the battlefield. You brought your demons home, Dra¢en. You shoved them down people’s throats. Even though you are the only one in the whole world telling such stories. You believe they are true. People don’t want to believe these things. We are civilized, modern people. Not monsters. You’re the monster, Dra¢en. You. erdemoviÇ: Yes, it’s true. I count only corpses as my friends. You see? They don’t scare me anymore. So long as I speak the truth, they can’t harm me. vesna: You’re mad, Dra¢en. Crazy. erdemoviÇ: Don’t you see, Vesna? I must speak the truth. Or lose my very soul. I must speak the truth. vesna: No! (She leaves the stage and returns with a suitcase. She leaves and returns with a coat.) erdemoviÇ: What are you doing? vesna: I am going home to stay with my parents. erdemoviÇ: Vesna. Don’t leave me. Please. vesna: Everything has changed, Dra¢en. Everything. erdemoviÇ: My son? vesna: He is staying with me. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, please. I will stop talking about the war. Stop talking this crazy talk. vesna: I will send someone over to check on you every day to make sure you have not bled to death. And to leave you a bit of soup or something to eat. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, wait. You were right. I made it all up. It never happened. I was just trying to get even with Stanko. vesna: Good-bye, Dra¢en. erdemoviÇ: My unit was just a patrol unit. We never even saw any action. Vesna! (She exits. We hear the door slam.) erdemoviÇ: Vesna. Vesna. Vesna. (The lights change again. erdemoviÇ is back in his prison cell. The guard returns.)

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guard: Lunchtime. erdemoviÇ: Not hungry. guard: I wrote another letter to your wife. erdemoviÇ: Let me guess. It came back in little pieces. guard: I’m sure she’ll answer this one. erdemoviÇ: I’m sure she won’t. Enough talk about Vesna. I’m sick of talking. It’s your turn. guard: My turn? All right. erdemoviÇ: So, Officer Elsbeth Van der Kellen, what’s a nice Dutch girl like you doing in this medieval prison? guard (she shrugs her shoulders): I finished up my army service and needed a job. A few of my pals heard the U.N. was paying good money for security personnel. Even built a private gym for the guards in the basement of the tribunal building. Sounded interesting, babysitting accused war criminals. So I signed up. End of story. erdemoviÇ: Babysitting. Thanks. Where did you serve in the army? guard: No place interesting. But my brother served in Bosnia. erdemoviÇ: Really? Where? (There is a pause.) guard: Srebrenica. erdemoviÇ: Quite a coincidence. guard: Not really. I requested this duty. I could have stood around in the courtroom all day. But here, at least, they let you talk to the prisoners. erdemoviÇ: And you wanted to talk to me? (She nods.) Why? guard: I wanted to know what I would have done if I were in your shoes. erdemoviÇ: You would shoot. (She stiffens and is silent.) I’m sorry. Talk to me, Elsbeth Van der Kellen. (She does not respond.) Your brother—what’s his name? guard: Willem. He was a year older than me. Whatever Willem did, I wanted to do the same. He rode his bicycle to Maastricht, I rode my bicycle to Maastricht. He joined the army, I joined the army. He went

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to Srebrenica to meet Yugoslavs, I’m here in Scheveningen talking to you. (Pause.) Willem was with the Dutch peacekeeping forces guarding the U.N. safe area. erdemoviÇ: He must have felt very proud of himself. Helping to separate men from women, helping to load the buses that brought the men to the killing field. guard: It wasn’t his fault! The Serbs had surrounded Srebrenica. Willem’s garrison had shrunk to four hundred men. Four hundred to protect twenty-five thousand! It couldn’t be done! erdemovic: Then the U.N. had no business promising something it had no intention of carrying out. guard: My brother wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger that killed those people. erdemoviÇ: No. Those were my orders. guard (pause): When Willem came home, he and the rest of the Dutch peacekeepers were considered heroes. Some of his mates were taken as human shields, you know. Not Willem. But he was a hero in my father’s eyes anyway. They all were. Until the truth leaked out. Suddenly the Dutch heroes were labeled collaborators and cowards and criminals. erdemoviÇ: And what did Willem say about what happened? guard: He never said anything. He never talked about Srebrenica. After a while, he stopped talking at all. He hung around with his mates, mostly. Drinking. He was drunk that night. It was in January. It wasn’t cold enough to freeze the canals, but the roads were icy. Willem slipped on the ice and fell off his bicycle. They found his body in the Mauritskade canal. They say he killed himself. I don’t believe it. erdemoviÇ: I’m sorry. elsbeth: So am I. Why are you the only one in court, Dra¢en Erdemoviµ? Why isn’t your commanding officer on trial? Where are the other men who pulled the trigger? stanko: Yeah. Where are your old comrades? (stanko enters and sits beside him in the prison cell.) erdemoviÇ: Stanko! stanko: It’s me, old friend. guard: Who are you talking to?

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erdemoviÇ: Stanko! I knew you’d find me here. guard: There’s nobody here but me, kiddo. erdemoviÇ: Why have you come back? To finish the job? stanko: Too easy. Shooting you is like shooting fish in a barrel. guard: Hey, Erdemoviµ. Snap out of it! (She pounds on the bars. erdemoviÇ notices her and tries to ignore stanko.) You okay, kiddo? erdemoviÇ: Yeah. Fine. Thanks. Just another afternoon nightmare. I’m okay now. stanko: Sure you are. erdemoviÇ (to stanko): Just go away. guard: Okay, okay. If that’s what you want. See you later, kiddo. (She exits.) stanko: Pretty girl, comrade. But then, you’ve always had the pretty girls, haven’t you? Vesna. Julija. Elsbeth. erdemoviÇ: Why don’t you leave me alone? stanko: Hey, it’s either me or the guys with bullet holes. erdemoviÇ: What do you mean? stanko: You wanna share your cell with a bunch of stinkin’ Turks? (He laughs and laughs. Again, the lights change. erdemoviÇ pulls a bottle and a glass from his pillow. He staggers over to the kitchen table and sits. And drinks. His ghosts—more of them this time—appear as well and sit around the stage. A rooster crows.) erdemoviÇ: Oh, shut up. (He pours another glass. And staggers over to a telephone. He dials. He is drunk.) telephone operator (on phone): Dobro jutro. Good morning, American Embassy. erdemoviÇ: Hello American Embassy. I want to speak please to– telephone operator: One moment please. (We hear music on hold. erdemoviÇ keeps on talking.) erdemoviÇ: Hello. Hello! I want to speak to your United Nations Tribunal. telephone operator: Good morning, American Embassy. How may I help you?

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erdemoviÇ: I have important evidence for this Yugoslav Tribunal. telephone operator: I’m sorry, sir. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is located in The Hague. erdemoviÇ: In the where? telephone operator: In The Hague. In The Netherlands. erdemoviÇ: Well, give me the number for the Belgrade office. telephone operator: Sir, there is no Belgrade office. erdemoviÇ: Listen to me. I have a story you must hear. Will you listen to me? (julija enters.) telephone operator: Uh, sir, I have other calls to take. erdemoviÇ: You must listen to my story. Please! julija: Dra¢en. erdemoviÇ: Julija. They won’t listen to my story. No one will listen to my story. (She takes the phone from his hands. He cries. Wipes his nose. Pours himself another drink.) julija: Haven’t you ever heard that drinking alone is one of the signs of an alcoholic? erdemoviÇ (toasting): To the alcoholic! julija: I heard you were holed up here all by yourself. erdemoviÇ: Vesna is—just visiting her family for a few days. julija: That’s what I hear. Are you all right? erdemoviÇ: I’m surviving. It will take more than a few bullet fragments to kill me. Just means I can’t drink the way I used to. julija: You never drank the way you used to. You got another glass? Never mind. (She drinks from the bottle.) erdemoviÇ: It’s good to see you again, Julija. You don’t think I’m an ogre, do you? julija: An ogre? You? You were always a scared little boy, Dra¢en. A crybaby. But not an ogre. erdemoviÇ: I can live with crybaby. To the crybaby! julija: To the crybaby.

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(They clink his glass to her bottle. There is an awkward pause.) So. erdemoviÇ: I miss my son. julija: But not your wife. erdemoviÇ: “The most beautiful girl in the obstina.” (After a moment.) You are beautiful, Julija. julija: And you are very drunk. erdemoviÇ: Yes, I am. But you are still very beautiful, Julija. (She considers him for a moment. And kisses him full on the lips.) julija: Here. (She slaps a piece of paper into his hand and turns to leave.) erdemoviÇ: What is it? julija: Call that number before you sober up. (She exits. He reads the paper and dials. A phone rings. Lights up on a young reporter.) philip: ABC News. erdemoviÇ: Hello? philip: Yes? (There is a click on the line. To himself.) Damn phones. There’s so much clicking and clucking on the line you’d think chickens were running the telephone company. (Back to phone.) Yes? Hello? erdemoviÇ: Yes, I have a story you might be interested in hearing. philip: Yes? Who is this please? erdemoviÇ: You have heard of Srebrenica? I was there. philip (pause): Where can I meet you? (The stage grows dark. We hear crickets and perhaps an owl. erdemoviÇ is nearly sober by now. But here and there, a ghost lurks in the dark shadows. Sitting on a log is a young journalist, philip. With him is a bored cameraman who will film the interview. We see the close-up of erdemoviÇ on the TV screen.) philip: So, Mr. Erdemoviµ. How many men were there in this special squad, the—what did you call it? erdemoviÇ: The Tenth Sabotage Detachment of the Bosnian Serb Army. There were eight of us. Serbs. Croats. Even a few Muslims. philip: Did you have some sort of official mission?

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erdemoviÇ: It was after the fall of Srebrenica. philip: You were one of the soldiers attacking the so-called U.N. safe area? erdemoviÇ: I was one of the soldiers who finished what they started. (Pause.) Did you ever wonder how much blood a patch of earth can absorb before it turns into a small lake? philip: Can’t say that I have. erdemoviÇ: I can tell you. About three bodies worth of blood. Then the earth can absorb no more. My unit was assigned to a farm near Pilica. philip: Go on. erdemoviÇ: It was a hot day. No wind. The cornstalks were taller than a man. They showed us how to shoot our guns without wasting bullets so we could execute as many people as possible in a very short period of time. philip: How many people? erdemoviÇ: I don’t know how many. Busloads and busloads. Maybe twelve hundred men. Some of them were very young. Seventeen to eighteen years old. The soldiers from the other unit cursed them. Called them Turks and worse. Beat them with metal bars. They didn’t say a word. But when the second bus arrived, the men saw the bodies. Some cried out to us. (stanko and aleksandar appear at one side of the stage. The ghosts line up.) ghost: Allahu akbar. God is great! Please! Don’t kill us! Our families in Austria will bring us money! stanko: Whoever has two marks will save himself. Get out the money. ghost: We have already emptied our pockets. stanko: Resume firing. erdemoviÇ: I tried not to shoot at the youngest. I don’t think that I killed more than a total of seventy prisoners. Maybe less. At one point, I told one of my comrades, “God knows everything we’ve done today.” stanko: Shut up and shoot! erdemoviÇ: Even the bus drivers were forced to kill someone. They had no idea they were driving their busses to the execution grounds. They thought they were part of a prisoner exchange. The commander gave his rifle to a driver.

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(brano enters, pushing along a bus driver. He hands him his gun.) brano: Shoot one of them. bus driver: No. No! brano: Go on. Pick one. Pick two. Kill them. Do it. (Lights go out on brano and the bus driver and on erdemoviÇ and the reporter. There is the sound of shots and grenades exploding. And screams. They fade out. We hear a cough or two. A blank white slide is shown on the back wall. No picture. The prosecutor steps in front of the light, so all we see is him in profile.) prosecutor: Later that same day, the Tenth Sabotage Unit was ordered to the town of Pilica where an additional five hundred Muslim men were being held inside town meeting hall. Now, exhibit number 9— in this photograph, we can see the inside of the building in which the executions are alleged to have taken place. The definition of the image is not very good, but inside the building, there were traces of bullet impacts, which can be seen on all the walls, on the floor and on the platform. (We hear the sound of a slide changing. The lights flicker, but again, it is a blank, white slide. No picture.) Exhibit number 11 shows the traces of blood with bits of hair as well. The ceiling was also splattered with all kinds of substances— probably from human beings, but for which the analysis has not yet been completed. (The slides change again. Again, no picture.) Exhibit 13 is a view of the back of the room, behind the podium. Certain parts of that podium have been destroyed because it appears that there were grenade explosions there. (The “slide” light goes out. The prosecutor addresses the court.) All of the statements made by Dra¢en Erdemoviµ have been confirmed by the observations we were able to carry out on site. Your honors, before Dra¢en Erdemoviµ, the prosecution had no knowledge of these events. (We hear a knock on a door. Lights out on the prosecutor. When the lights come up, erdemoviÇ is down center in the space used for his jail cell. father appears in the place up center where the judge usually sits.)

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erdemoviÇ: Father. Father? father: So. The media star shows his face. erdemoviÇ: May I come inside? father: What for? erdemoviÇ: Is Mother home? father: Sylvana saw your mother at the chicken kiosk. You know Sylvana and her fancy satellite dish and her American soap operas. Imagine her surprise when the famous CNN news anchor starts talking about Dra¢en Erdemoviµ! So naturally Sylvana rushes to tell your mother. Such a thing for your mother to hear from the neighbors! Her son, the murderer! erdemoviÇ: Father. I did not want to do these things. father: But you did them anyway. erdemoviÇ: I had no choice! father: Your arguments are those of a child. Grow up, Dra¢en. You made your own choices. You chose to leave the Croatian army. You chose to smuggle Serbs across the border. You could have chosen not to shoot your gun. erdemoviÇ: I tried! father: You tried. erdemoviÇ: At first I resisted. I told him I am no robot for the extermination of people. But my commander said if I was so sorry for those people I should line up with them and be shot. father: Better a dead son than a living piece of shit. Go away, Dra¢en. Go away. erdemoviÇ: Father! father: Go away. (Lights go out on father. A telephone rings. Lights up on stage left where philip stands with a phone in his hand.) erdemoviÇ: Hello? philip (on the phone): Dra¢en, it’s me. Philip. Listen to me! You’ve got to get out. Now. My tapes were confiscated at the airport. My telephone must have been tapped. Get out. Now! (We hear soldiers pounding at the door.) soldier (off stage): Dra¢en Erdemoviµ?

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erdemoviÇ: What do you want? soldier (off stage): Dra¢en Erdemoviµ. You are under arrest by order of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Open the door! (The lights fade as the pounding continues. Over the pounding, we hear the familiar three taps of the tribunal courtroom gavel. Lights come up on the judge, who is back in her customary place.) judge: Mr. Erdemoviµ. Tell us please. Why did you decide to testify before this tribunal? What feelings underlie your decision? (The lights go out on the judge, once again leaving erdemoviÇ alone on stage.) erdemoviÇ: I wanted to testify because of my conscience. Because of all that happened. Because I did not want that. I was simply compelled to, forced to. And I could choose between my life and the lives of those people. And had I lost my life then, it would not have changed the fate of those people. The fate of those people was decided by someone holding a much higher position than I did. And as I have said already— what really got me—it’s completely destroyed my life. That is why I testified. (Lights change. erdemoviÇ is once again in his jail cell. The guard enters with vesna.) Vesna? Is it really you? (erdemoviÇ reaches out, trying to touch her through the bars.) guard: Hold on a minute, kiddo. Let me get the door open. (The guard unlocks the door.) erdemoviÇ: Vesna! (They embrace. vesna is stiff.) vesna: Hello, Dra¢en. You’re so pale. guard: Congratulations, kiddo. I told you she’d come. I’ll be right outside. erdemoviÇ: Vesna. You came. You’re here. vesna: We saw you on television, Dra¢en. Nevin and I. At Sylvana’s house in the village. We saw you testify in court. erdemoviÇ: It’s so good to see you, to touch you, Vesna. vesna: It’s funny. On Serbian TV, they call you a traitor. On Muslim TV, they call you “the brave one who speaks.” erdemoviÇ: What do you call me, Vesna? Do you call me “husband”?

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vesna: Your attorney, Mr. Babiµ, asked me to come to court. He thought it would help your case. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, I love you. vesna: You look different on television, Dra¢en. Taller. More aristocratic, perhaps. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, tell me everything that’s happened since I’ve been gone. Have you talked to my parents? (She remembers the package in her hand.) vesna: Your mother baked you a plum cake. (He takes it.) Dra¢en, I told Mr. Babiµ I will testify for you in court if he needs me. erdemoviÇ: That’s very good news. vesna: And in exchange, you will do something for me. erdemoviÇ: Anything, my Vesna. Anything. vesna: I want an annulment. erdemoviÇ: A what? An annulment? What? vesna: Fr. Zaniµ says in light of your confessed crimes, you cannot have been a sane man. And with your cooperation, an annulment will be relatively simple. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, no. vesna: I will live with my parents for a time. They will help with Nevin while I find a job and go on with my life. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, please wait. Mr. Babiµ says I have a good chance of being set free, of serving no more time in prison. vesna: And what if you have run out of good chances? What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Sit at home and wait? Work to provide for our son all by myself ? Our life is ruined, Dra¢en. Ruined. And all because you could not leave well enough alone. All because you could not keep your mouth shut about Pilica. erdemoviÇ: Vesna. vesna: My parents were right. You are cursed, Dra¢en. And it is not my responsibility to wait for you. Good-bye. Guard! Guard, I am ready to leave. erdemoviÇ: Vesna, please. Vesna! Vesna!! (The guard opens the door.) vesna: It’s time to go. Good-bye, Dra¢en. Good luck in court. (She walks away.) 174

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erdemoviÇ: Vesna! (Once again, we hear three slow taps of a gavel on wood. The lawyers take their places in the courtroom. So do the ghosts. The judge appears upstage.) bailiff: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is now in session. Please be seated. prosecutor: Your honors. The defendant before you, Dra¢en Erdemoviµ, will be the first person to be sentenced before an international criminal tribunal in fifty years. Mr. Erdemoviµ has pleaded guilty to a crime against humanity. The underlying facts of which are undisputed. Exactly how many people Mr. Erdemoviµ personally killed, I cannot tell you. I do not know. Mr. Erdemoviµ may not know. Only God knows. In every national jurisdiction, the taking of a life or of lives by another is punished by the severest of sanctions. In this court, the maximum punishment that Mr. Erdemoviµ faces is life imprisonment term. Were Mr. Erdemoviµ the one who planned, organized or instigated this monstrous crime, my recommendation to you would be simple and direct: impose a life sentence. That will not be my recommendation to you. In this case, Mr. Erdemoviµ, a low-ranking member of the Bosnian Serb army, followed orders—albeit patently illegal orders—of a superior to execute innocent civilians. He says he did so out of fear for his life. You may consider these as mitigating circumstances and give them whatever weight you deem appropriate. Let me very clear on this point: Mr. Erdemoviµ has provided substantial assistance to the prosecutors’ office in relation to the investigations of Srebrenica. His cooperation was and continues to be unconditional. I will tell your honors quite frankly: his assistance to us has been invaluable. Your honors, the prosecutor recommends leniency in the case of Mr. Erdemoviµ. judge: Thank you prosecution. I now give the floor to you, Mr. Babiµ. babiÇ: Your honors. When I first contemplated the defense of the accused Erdemoviµ, I silently scanned the titles of books in my library. My eyes lingered and my mind came awake at the title The Naked and the Dead. This is a novel that you all know—a novel by the American author Norman Mailer, a book that paints a hardened picture of war.

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But this is also a book filled with yearning for the peaceful sleep without suffering, blood, mud, and insomnia. The title reminded me forcibly of the fate of man in the cruel war in the former Yugoslavia: the fate of my client, a man who is a victim of his own deed. At the Nuremberg Trials, twenty-two people were tried, the main war criminals of fascist Germany. Twelve were sentenced to death. Three to life in prison. And four to imprisonment from ten to twenty years. And three were acquitted. It is well known that this was the political and military leadership of Germany whose crimes had killed millions of people and brought awful terrors to the world. The accused Erdemoviµ is not a field marshal, nor any kind of military commander. He was a plain soldier. He had to obey orders and not his conscience. He could not resist the order in any possible way. I believe it is not moral to expect that he should have sacrificed his own life first, and then quite certainly, the life of his family, too. Therefore, your honors, I request that he be acquitted. Thank you. judge: Thank you, Mr. Babiµ. Mr. Erdemoviµ, is there anything you would like to add? erdemoviÇ: Yes. First of all, honorable judges, I wish to say that I feel sorry for all the victims. Not only for the ones who were killed then at that farm, I feel sorry for all the victims in the former Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of their nationality. Mr. Babiµ, when he first arrived here, he told me, “Dra¢en, can you change your decision? I don’t know what can happen?” I told him because of those victims, because of my conscience, because of my life, because of my child and my wife, I cannot change what I said. Because of the peace of my mind, my soul, my honesty because of the victims of war, because of everything. Because of everything that happened, I feel terribly sorry. But I could not do anything. When I could do something, I did it. I have nothing else to say. judge: Very well. Mr. Erdemoviµ. Having considered all of the facts of the case submitted for its attention, the trial chamber sentences Dra¢en Erdemoviµ to ten years imprisonment. This judgment shall be enforceable immediately, today, 29 November 1996, The Hague, The Netherlands. The hearing is closed.

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bailiff: All rise. erdemoviÇ: Ten years. Ten years! babiÇ: Calm yourself. Please, Dra¢en. It is a surprise, yes. But we will appeal. The court refused to take into account the extreme necessity. The fact that you had no choice. That is certainly a strong basis for appeal. (We hear the voice of stanko.) stanko (laughing): You should have kept your mouth shut, comrade. babiÇ: I’ll come see you tomorrow and we’ll talk about our next step. Hold onto your courage, Dra¢en. This is not the end of our struggle. Goodbye, my boy. (He shakes hands with erdemovic and joins the rest of the cast in their ghost masks.) erdemoviÇ: It is finished. (He turns to the ghosts.) And you. Are you satisfied? I told them your story. I told the world. Is it enough? (The ghosts bow in unison. One by one they turn their “faces” away from erdemoviÇ. He is truly alone.) Free. I’m free. (The lights slowly fade to black.)

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Maria Kizito Erik Ehn The hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. John 16:2

Author’s Note This play meditates on the recent trial and conviction of two Rwandan nuns charged with genocide. They were accused and found guilty of encouraging and facilitating the murder of seven thousand refugees seeking shelter at their convent during Rwanda’s genocide (which just recently marked its ten year memorial). The play is about faith. In what did these nuns (Sr. Maria Kizito and her mother superior, Gertrude Mukangangwa) believe? What was the architecture of their inner prayer space? With what kind of God were they intimate? Maria Kizito doesn’t seek to explain the source of the genocide or to fix blame. It attempts to enter into the inner life of a perpetrator. The form of the piece is built on the Office of the Hours; Maria and Gertrude are Benedictines and spend many structured hours in prayer each day. In the play, nuns and refugees pray out of the Bible of Genocide: all readings, psalms, hymns relate to the atrocity. In this way the text is liturgical—for chant, song, dance . . . The play incorporates witness accounts from African Rights’ Obstruction of Justice: The Nuns of Sovu, along with material from Maria’s trial and the Catholic Divine Office. Singing and stylized movement are indicated by enjambment and other textual cues. Choral speech is divided

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and assigned variously, as well as chanted in unison. Asterisks indicate areas of dialogue overlap. Music should be nearly continuous. It could be scored lyrics or just sound and could include Brahms’s Concerto for Piano and Cello no. 99; Africa: Music from Rwanda (Anthology of World Music [Rounder CD 5106]); songs by Gene Vincent, the Skylarks, Mexicano 777, Captain Beefheart, Rancid, and Cécile Kayirebwa. It comprises the global/temporal drizzle in the gray space of ambient cultural static, always authentic, never sentimental. This play is the second of three dealing with acts of collective violence. The first (Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling) centers on the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and takes on a survivor’s point of view. Maria examines agency. The third, Drunk/Still Drinking, adopts the perspective of a witness, one who fails to recognize complicity.

Cast of Characters maria gertrude sisters a, b, c, d, e, and f teresa radio/rekeraho The nuns are Benedictine. Sisters A-D play all the refugees and the Interahamwe. All the nuns are Rwandan, except for Teresa, who is a white American. Radio/Rekeraho is a Rwandan man (and other men as necessary). He could be accompanied by music.

Historical Note The swiftness and scale of the Rwandan genocide, and the world’s complicity, bring conscience to acute focus. In 1994, 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed, largely with hand tools, largely by neighbors, in an

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intense outburst of violence framed by the assassination of the president on the one hand and the rebel army’s victory on the other. The world community was aware and turned away, justifying inaction (in effect, collaboration with the genocide) by claiming that the situation arose from intractable “ancient tribal rivalries,” that the killing was an aspect of civil war (an internal political matter, horrible, but not a breach of international law), and by arguing that any effort to intervene could only lead to deeper confusion and more widespread entanglement. There are no ancient tribal rivalries. There is one language, one monotheistic religious history and a nearly homogenous postcolonial religious history (Catholic). “Tutsi” means “leader” and “Hutu” means follower; the Tutsi represent the traditional ruling class, generally herdspeople, and the Hutu are the cultivators. There was intermarriage and social mobility. The Germans, and then the Belgians, introduced the idea of racial difference; they declared the Tutsi genetically superior, gave them privileges, assigned identity cards, and promoted the oppression of the Hutu. That is, until independence in the 1960s, when the Belgians perceived that a strong leadership along classical lines might promote a level of self-sufficiency out of keeping with their postcolonial sense of propriety. The racial myth was reversed; stability along new lines, invented by the Belgians, would allow the former overlords to maintain a presence in Rwanda. The Tutsi were cast as invaders, stripped of rights, and the Hutu majority was promoted. The heavy abuse of history yielded a shocked and unstable culture. There were pogroms against the Tutsi and a refugee exodus; an army in exile was formed. In the 1990s, as the Hutu-led government began to make peace overtures to the exiles, hardliners deep within the administration began to work in the opposite direction. Civilians were organized into militias and armed with machetes. Race hatred was promoted over the radio (over the country’s single station, later joined by an even more virulent, ad hoc second station; radios are ubiquitous in Rwanda and the chief source of information). The president’s plane was shot out of the sky on his way back from a peace conference. Blame has never been decisively attributed, but clearly, the act was a signal. Hours later, roadblocks were in place, and the genocide commenced. Its progress

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was rigorously organized and astonishingly methodical. Yes, there was a civil war on; but genocide was a tool of war, not a byproduct. That the violence was genocidal was recognized immediately by Rwandans as well as by the pitifully small U.N. units sent in with a passive mandate. The U.N. presence was actually reduced over the course of the conflict. The United States and others refused to use the word “genocide” for fear of triggering required international response; we (the United States) did not even jam the radio broadcasts that were being used to direct the course of the genocide (too expensive). Recently a former UN official defined the “international community” as a set of independent and wealthy powers united largely by their shared desire to remain disengaged from participation in the lives of the less advantaged. We have apologized. We (the world) frequently apologize. And yet—there have been fifty genocides since World War II and “Never again.” That drama and literature come as correctives to staged, rhetorically perverse distortions of truth is right, just, and effective. What was taken away, what was cast in ruin, must be restored through story. The research, writing, rewriting, rehearsal, presentation, pre- and post-presentation discussions in which we engage disseminate information, advance dialogue, and improve the space for imagining ways forward in unity.

Prologue (In a room in America.) teresa (to her unseen superior): May I have your permission? Your permission to travel? To travel to Belgium? To see the young nuns? My father will pay. May I deceive you? May I leave aside the veil and stay in a narrow hotel near a construction site? May I take an unscheduled leave to see Maria Kizito? May I watch and discover what our sister was thinking? There are enough dead finally to make one wonder. She is enough an individual to expose something in myself, or, well, someone nearly like me. Two nuns are on trial for the deaths of seven thousand.

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(She rides to Belgium in a small, silver plane. Elsewhere in a light more spare, thoughts revolve; maria prays.) maria: MY HEART IS A JERRICAN, A JERRICAN OF— (A knock.) gertrude: Maria, are you in there? Maria, open up. maria: A JERRICAN OF GASOLINE . . . radio: Hot Music. Good Music. (Music plays.) gertrude: Are you in there? maria: Yes, Sister. gertrude: We have to go. What are you doing? maria (to herself, about herself): Gapyisi.1 (Praying.) In the sky a plane, and from the sky a plane, two men and more inside the plane, one home nose first and then the whistles. (Starlight. No moon. We can barely see her. She stands, takes census.) What is your name? gertrude: Maria Kizito? It’s Gertrude. We go to Ngoma. maria: My heart is a white jerrican, a jerrican of gasoline. My fingers are smoke and my feet are shadows and . . . gertrude (no longer calling through a door; intimately): Are you living? Are you living still? maria: My feet are shadows and my body is a lie. Gasoline eyeball I blink and— Open the gate. O salutaris hostia Quae caeli pandis—2 Open up! 1. Hyena (Kinyarwandan). 2. “O saving victim / who has thrown open the gates of heaven” (from the Eucharistic hymn “O salutaris hostia”).

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This is quiet. This is private. Don’t be ridiculous. This is God. I am in God. I give myself in faith to God. This is morning. This is begun. This is time to go away shut up and good morning. (Starlight intensifies, fades.)

April 15–18 teresa: Third Nocturn of Vigil. Sisters pray from the Bible of Genocide. sisters: O God, come to my aid. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the— burgomaster: We can no longer control the boys Rekeraho leads. (maria lights a candle; sisters wake, light candles. Small hot air balloons, the shape of houses, float over the flames. rekeraho comes by and whispers in every candle-tender’s ear; he burns the floating houses.) sisters (hymn): Tuesday April 17 Our fear of the threat too great We left our homes And went to hide with the nuns Behind their gate. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end. Amen. *The church was open— So we went inside. Get out; go home. We did leave, but we came back. sister (reading): *As soon as the mother superior, Gertrude Mukangango, saw the refugeess enter the church, she ran, she ran over and told them to go, to get out and go home. They did but came back to the church at about four in the afternoon. This time, they went to the Health Center, where they stayed. sisters (hymn): Where on earth does she expect us to go? The children gnash their teeth It rains in sheets, it rains through the night, And there is nowhere else to go—But the hostel, the chapel, the empty rooms; Do not turn us into the night.

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maria (Psalm 22): My heart has become like wax, it melts away within. So wasted are my hands and feet that I can number all my bones. gertrude: Glory, glory, glory as it was— sisters: The people who were already inside made a hole in the wall, and they got in. sister (reading): The next day, it rained heavily. (Meanwhile, words for rain, overlapping speeches.) rain: Eleison, eleison. Say one hear two, one behind anMiserere mercy. other in ways that can’t be unMercy, mercy. wound drops too many to count: Jesus, Jesus is the son of God. tasks and rain: chanting obediEach drop is a son of a bitch. ence: my God is a down God: The dick, dick, dick of the mother- Mary: bent farm tool moon at her fucking rain. feet: rain held together by static, Shadow, shatter. muscles of the stomach by white Uncaulked ship. webbed tissue— One hundred Relieving themselves where they and fifty psalms at once. stand unable to go home any more than rain may stand apart from itself or organize itself humanely because these people this rain these There is a diamond in heaven and tasks this mouthing radio don’t rain is a ladder; you cannot climb work that way: persistent simultato heaven’s diamond on the ladder neity of events with no union: the it offers up above in the shit-for- wording of the world, the senselessness of words: brains sky.

There are seven thousand raindrops occurring, recurring steadily.

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The billion named rain’s canceling imperative to solve, dissolve. The rain so clearly outnumbers you; nothing to be done but to follow it down.

teresa: The rain makes the clouds bright even at night. The rain makes the ground bright as setting concrete. Hundreds stand as rain would stand if it could get back up off the ground. Pissed off. gertrude: This is giving me a headache. sister (reading continued): There were many of them, and more kept coming. They could not all take shelter at the Health Center and wanted to come inside the compound of the monastery. They reached the entrance but the gate, always open, was locked. sisters: Tooth, crack on rain’s cold sink Mouth all thumbs, Baby, tight, broken breath sister (reading continued): Faced with the cries of the children, the wailing and shaking of the soaked refugees, nearly all the sisters told Gertrude that she should let the refugees take shelter. There was no shortage of space; the monastery had a hostel, a chapel—other empty rooms. Gertrude refused. (A woman, chantal, makes a convent with a child’s blocks.) chantal: She locked all the doors. We tried to climb in. Pregnant women were climbing. Others managed to get through the cypress hedge and in between the barbed wire. (The woman holds her head back, mouth open. Water pours in. She fills her cheeks. She walks across the blocks, on tiptoe. A door slams.) teresa: Chantal Kayigirwa was trying to climb in when she fell off with her baby, injuring her head. (chantal steps down off a block. She swallows the water.) They come through. maria: They swallow paper and write on it with their insides. We read their protest poetry smeared on the wall, then scrub it as if it were just another day. (maria scrubs a refugee’s fingernails with a fingernail brush, furiously.) refugee: Kizito came and took the children, myself included, down to the cellar where they made communion wafers, but she came back later and drove us out. radio (wanting to interrupt, introducing music): All right, all right, then listen then . . . (Music plays.)

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maria: I am from the hill. Essentially, I am original to this hill. I have seen, essentially, this hill . . . (Making hosts.) So early, as early as a dog, we mix then roll the white paste onto a cool flat surface—dental-intimate . . . smooth, even. Stamp. Seven. Thousand. Holes. refugee: We held a crow by its feet as fire fell, cold. (A crowd tries to stay dry under one umbrella.) You would have thought even the heavens didn’t want us anymore. maria: The mustard seed The mote Hyena Obey Obey is shadow. I was a girl. teresa: Nothing is better at reproducing than death. Shadow, obedience, says yes, yes, there you are—says to power you are so definite behold even your negative has a shape. maria (to gertrude): Sister, they are climbing over the gates. gertrude: They are good gates. maria: They are spreading the barbed wire. gertrude: The wire works. maria: They are coming. More are coming. gertrude: It is raining. maria: They are falling. gertrude: There are only so many of them. maria: They’re right outside. gertrude: They’re falling. maria: We’re inside. gertrude (to refugees): You’re falling. Ha ha ha. maria (to refugees): Go away. gertrude: Ha ha ha. maria: Ha ha ha. gertrude: Shhh. By the mouth you die. (gertrude disappears. sisters kneel, facing various directions. They adore the Eucharist.)

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sisters: Nobis donet in patria.3 maria: Mass is making a hole. I make a hole, a hole in the day. One two three four five six seventy eighty ninety . . . Everyone must do it so that everyone is done . . . then we are falling so fast so far we are not even moving. One, two, three, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred. Sovu, Butare, Kigali, Gikongoro . . . God is what is left when we give everything away. Vocation is when you are only a space. Citizenship is the hole through which emergency rushes. Country is what is left after you have given the citizens to God. (Music of Brahms. maria knifes the ceiling.) maria: I will sit next to Brahms in a room made for breaking down and we will make sounds in our throats while the music plays. Glad! I’m glad they’re dead! I did not throw up once. (maria pours a pitcher of milk out onto the floor. There is a length of chain at the bottom of the pitcher. It slurps out.) sisters (Canticle: Te Deum): God, help your servants, number them. Of your goodness, Lord, keep us without sin for today. Have mercy on us; Lord, have mercy. Glory be to the Father Son, Without end. Amen. maria: I clear God from the drain so spirit may flow through. (gertrude and maria nap spooned. sisters join them.)

April 19 teresa: Lauds. sister: The nineteenth. Tuesday, 19 April. gertrude (knocking sound): Open up. 3. “In our homeland with Thee.”

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maria: This is quiet. This is private. Don’t be ridiculous. This is God. I am in God. I give myself in faith to God. This is morning. This is begun. This is time to go away shut up and good morning. teresa: Sun walks like a goat to day’s knife. Long, long psalm at Lauds. Turn, then— (Morning comes in through sugar windows.) gertrude: Get in the van. maria: Where are we going? gertrude: To Butare. maria: Oh. (She looks out the window at the receding monastery. sisters follow the progress of the car, then disappear.) We go to Butare to complain to the burgomaster to provide military and police to protect the refugees and restore the convent to its purpose. The buildings are modern. (To gertrude.) This is an excellent facility. We could do—we do so much good when they let us. (Pause.) Can I drive next time? gertrude: Don’t be ridiculous. maria: Rekeraho? gertrude: We start with the burgomaster. maria: Organization. gertrude: Don’t talk. maria: It’s hot. gertrude: Don’t talk. maria: The clouds are as low as bananas. gertrude: Don’t talk. (Pause.) maria: I think it will rain tonight. (Turns on the radio. Sweet music.) I’m a good driver. (Looking out the window.) The other hills. Fires on the other hills, smoke. The RPF4 kills priests and nuns. gertrude: The RPF should know better. sister (reading): Kizito told us that they were taking a census so they could know our exact number and feed us. She asked us to draw up a list of 4. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, the exile army led by Paul Kagame, later president of Rwanda, whose capture in Kigali effectively ended the genocide.

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our names, family by family. She came from here; we thought she was worried about us. We waited for food, in vain. We received nothing from the nuns, not even a banana for the babies. Kizito was counting. “If there are any Hutus, could they stand to one side?” Kizito told them to leave us, so that we would die of hunger. We waited for the rebel army, a rebel army, anybody’s helicopter, any opposing blade . . . We waited for God, for food, in vain. (A door slams, heads turn. Prayer resumes.) refugees: Karuhay and Karido5 Cassien and Kabera Sweet potatoes or bananas Pascasie Nyanirimo Kizito lied to us. Kizito lied to us. Kizito lied to us. Kizito lied to us. sisters: Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, The beginning, now, and forever. Amen. (Lauds over; sisters return to work, making hosts.) teresa: We are making a goat, a hyena. We are making a Maria Kizito, to walk away from us, to take the blade or scavenge the abominable. If we can make her live, we can make her walk away. (Cleans her glasses. maria cleans her glasses, too, and studies teresa.) maria: She watches me sit my station: the defendant’s glass box Watches me in glasses behind glass, Watches from my left. (Music of Brahms.) 5. The names of people murdered.

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teresa: Trial is reiteration as if for the last time. Two nuns are on trial for murder. For the murder of seven thousand refugees. Who sought refuge in the convent. The younger nun, Maria Kizito, is accused of providing gasoline to the militia, which was used to burn three to five hundred victims alive. I consider this as a dire knick-knack—a snowglobe filled with napalm. I consider this with music as if this were the plot of a toy ballet. A decimal error. A lie. A ghost story I am at last old enough to talk myself out of and go to sleep. As if this were on an African scale and by that measure, not so many dead. maria: That place in a Brahms concerto where you think the work is ending, but it makes peace again before building back to what surely then must be the end. Morning, briefly—light is peach. And I am young again, At home in the world, Or at least not so old. At least the rent is paid, someone has paid the rent. teresa: Low round clouds disperse. Sun pushes through. Air is about to rainbow. Maria cries so prettily . . . every tear is a different color.

April 20–21 teresa: Sisters pray Terce. sisters/refugees: O God, come to my aid. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father Warrant Officer Rekeraho and to the Son Arrived at the monastery and to the Holy Spirit, With Gaspard Rusanganwa. as it was in the beginning, Kizito was always going out with Rekeraho. is now, I don’t know where they went. and ever shall be,

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* On 20 April between 5 and 7:30 pm, Warrant Officer Rekeraho arrived with Gaspard Rusanganwa. At 9 am on 21 April we heard noise, whistling, and shouting. world without end. God says one thing I hear two. Amen. Alleluia. rekeraho (overlapping above from * on): *On 20 April between 5 and 7:30 pm I went to see my friend Gaspard Rusanganwa, the assistant burgomaster of Ngoma, who lived next to the monastery. Gertrude Mukangango and Julienne Kizito joined me there. We talked about Habyarimana’s death.6 I didn’t like the man, but I didn’t want him to die. (A small plane crashes.) We were sad that his plane had been shot down by the Inyenzi.7 Sister Gertrude said we must avenge him. (maria pulls a bloody rag from the wall and makes a glass of milk pink.) She said Sindikubwabo was right to call the Hutus of Butare “ntibindeba.” 8 sister: He led the militia and some ex-soldiers and used to drive the nun’s ambulance, using a microphone inside it to call the Hutus to kill the Tutsis. They had given him the vehicle so that he would accompany them in town when they did their shopping. rekeraho: On 20 April, 1994, I became intimate with the nuns. I exchanged confidences with them. gertrude: You see all these Tutsis In the monastery? 6. Habyarimana was the president of Rwanda in the years leading up to the genocide. He and the president of Burundi were on their way to Kigali, returning from a peace conference, when the plane was shot down. The crash was the signal that set the long-planned genocide into motion. 7. Cockroach (Kinyarwandan). The Tutsi were systematically dehumanized over a period of many years with language along these lines. 8. Collaborators (Kinyarwandan).

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You cannot say where They’ll hide my dead body They could kill me They could kill me In Sovu. refugee: I am thin as rain. maria: There’s no rice. refugee: There are as many grains of rice inside as there are drops of rain outside. Feed my child, don’t feed me. maria: I don’t give rain. I don’t give rice. refugee: Sister. Sister of God. maria: If your mouth is full of words, how will you eat? (Silence.) If you won’t tell me what you want, how will I know to feed you? Maybe you had better leave. Give me your name. (The refugee writes her name across her own belly. maria erases it.) Yes, you will leave. Open your mouth. Yes, full of death. refugee: I have two sticks They break they burn I have no sticks To boil the green For soup I have no son Tree made of sticks Sticks shake out in this bitch of a wind Stick by stick and splinter There is no tree We lose our land And I have no son rekeraho: I ordered the young Hutus, the Interahamwe, though I don’t like the term, to surround the monastery and Health Center. We killed all those who tried to escape. The plan was to kill all of them. (The interahamwe drain beer bottles, kneel, and use them as rolling pins to grind sugar cubes.) teresa: Their bones are made of sugar. rekeraho: After that, I went to have a beer. (Tree branches pray the rosary. maria retreats into the dark.) teresa: Kizito is hiding. She is hiding from me. I am hiding. I am hiding from language. I speak no Dutch or French or Kinyarwandan. I am not sure what a Walloon is. Eight-hundred thousand Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed from the time the plane went down to the time the French troops came. Less poetic though more accurate than the One Million in a Hundred Days. I am ashamed of poetry but it is how I believe in

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anything. I hide by counting according to base-poetry rather than rational numbers. gertrude: Maria. maria: Yes, Gertrude. gertrude: What are you doing? maria: Shutting up. gertrude: Go to the gate. Bring him back. maria: Yes. rekeraho: Good morning, little sister. maria: Good morning, boss. rekeraho: Get Sister Gertrude, and let’s meet in the common room. gertrude: Follow me, Sister. maria: Yes, Sister. (Whispering.) Chief Rekeraho? rekeraho: Yes, little sister. maria: We can’t do our own shopping now. Get me something. rekeraho: What would you like? Would you like some music? maria: You know I have nothing to play music on. rekeraho: You get all your music from the radio. maria: Yes, Chief, yes. Ha ha ha! gertrude: Follow close, Sister. rekeraho: What would you like? maria: Something. Anything. rekeraho: Something to eat? maria: I have an appetite to eat it with. Ha ha ha! rekeraho: You want a surprise. gertrude: Here we are. Now what is it? rekeraho: Every surprise is a signal. maria (to herself): There was a plane in the sky, then a plane from the sky, then bright bleach of explosion, then even my teeth are shadows. rekeraho: They will come here at a signal. maria: The hardest part of being a nun is I know exactly what kind of shoes I will be wearing for the rest of my life. The hardest part of being the nun I am is you will never know when I am telling a joke. I do and do, laughter without cause, a sentence stripped of nouns—the language of the angels all torn down.

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(A starving refugee dies.) What is in your eye, dead woman? Mote? Lash? (She pulls something out of the dead woman’s eye.) Radio. sisters: Bella premunt hostilia . . . 9 teresa: There is everywhere in Rwanda—radio. No TV. In earth houses, Oklahoma red, no electricity, one chair, next to the chair a battery radio. Workers home from the fields, balance loads on their heads with one hand—in the other hand, a radio. One station, later two, the worser twin— One language, unique in the world. A small, interior country in the very middle of a muffled continent, one voice, one message—the Tutsi, the invaders, are rising up to kill you—to take everything you have. Be ready, for everything.

April 22 (before Noon)—The Massacres Begin teresa: Sisters pray the hour of Sext. gertrude (Psalm 79): God, they seize your inheritance; dirty your holy places. They devour Jacob. comatile (reading): We heard whistles, drumming and chanting. We used our wraps to collect bricks and stones. The militia reached the gate. refugees: The police protecting us began to shoot at us. We threw bricks and stones at them; 9. “The battle surrounds us on all sides . . .” 194

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They threw grenades. Children died: Murangwa and Eugenie. My sister Mukabutera—hit in the shoulder. I was hit by shrapnel in the ribs. Athanase Biseruka’s son had a leg blown off Someone else was blown to pieces in front of me. comatile: When I got hit, I made my way toward them so that they would finish me off. They threw a stone and split my lip. You can still see the scar. gertrude, comatile: I will listen for the word of God; surely the Lord will proclaim peace To his people, and to his saints. Justice and peace will kiss. (Sext expands and opens out.) comatile: Insect leg Dog beg Owl twist Justice Spent fuel Broke tool This day The color gray Remote sound: A grenade against a belly on the ground refugee: Let us in, inside the cloister. They will not hurt us there. maria: They will break my face to my back teeth if they find you in here. refugee: You know them. They won’t— maria: You must go out. They want you. They whistle and drum you. They banana leaf and ash face you. They tendon you, they cello you to broken string. They pull you tight as oath under constraint then break you like a lie. The sooner God, the better The killing starts at 7:30 after prayers and breakfast Day may not remove itself from day.

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(To teresa.) You have no knowledge of the situation if you don’t believe a threat against nuns and religion is credible. refugee: Outside the Health Center I tried to lie down and pretend I was dead but couldn’t find any way down to the ground. I was being careful with my belly because I was pregnant. Early, the militia spared their ammunition and my neighbors came in side by side with them, working farm tools—hoes, axes, machetes. My tendon—I was crawling down bodies and away. They caught—I was turning, protecting my belly and breasts—caught my back. The man I was crawling down, his neck was cut and I was making my way to earth. They caught—Sometimes takes a number of blows—life finds many absurd hiding places—they— neighbor, militia, police, army—caught my leg and cut my tendon; I lay loose as a dead bird’s head but was really a bird sleeping. maria: I turn my face to the window—but—I do not have to see water to know it will beat through the spigot or watch a cloud of flour to know it will fall or to stay for the flies to rise from the dead to know the worm works. Her stunned eye . . . and suddenly a hundred dead for the cost of forty bullets because the bullets pass through the hair and skin to skulls behind, then the Interahamwe at Rekeraho’s order wade in with machetes. Blood-sick angels let blood, machetes rain through the bleach of our sky. I know psalms—they increase in number, anything may be counted, high as you can go, all this is only done, built of rain, built of dust, dog shit and hyena laughter. I’m glad my mouth is shut because I worry that the children are learning bad words, the children between the legs of the killers, who trip, killing. If everyone, then none, no one. If absolute, then nothing. This is good mysticism. (Finding two children.) Come here, come here. (Taking them by the hands.) Here are two children. radio: Good Music! Good music! This song is a favorite in Kigali. You know it. Now listen, listen—this is the wind, I am the wind, you hear me when you walk. I will tell you joy is good hard work—I have seen the way you dance. Some of you sweat and some of you wait by the

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wall. But now everybody works. Everybody sweats. This is good. Clear the brush. Chop weeds. More room for dancing. Eat the cattle, more room for dancing. Pick up your feet and bring them down—scatter the cockroaches. There was a revolution in ’59;10 there is a party every day. There is one road out—our long road, the road given us by God. Put the Inkotanyi11 back in the river and send them home to Egypt, their melting fat running shiny in the water. Pharaoh has a home for them in the cities of the dead. We here—we do not need to sleep. I am a young man. I am a young man. The purpose of the river is to make room for me. The purpose of cultivation is to make room, make room. We are a Hutu nation. Do you understand this? Do you accept this? Then: We are under attack from within and without. We must pull together. The sharpest voices and most extreme suggestions are not extreme enough. We may have to kill people. Do you accept this responsibility? We do have to kill people. We all have to kill people, working together. Time for work. maria (she delivers the children to the interahamwe): And the children are killed. Yellow wool scarf My eyes wide open Yellow drops his club onto back, and head Right before my eyes I feel I am reading the Bible for the first time The early days of the insistent inhuman 10. A violent Hutu action in advance of the Belgians leaving; an early rehearsal of the genocide, followed by another wave of killings at independence in 1960. 11. Invader (Kinyarwandan). Another epithet used against the Tutsis.

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This will come up in prayer When the fallen have fallen And the radio plays old music. The tire of the van will roll over this one’s knee, his skull. gertrude: Sister Maria? maria: Yes, Sister Gertrude. gertrude: We have to go to meetings. We have to go to work. maria: Yes, Sister. My heart is a yellow jerrican A jerrican of gasoline. Red. White. Yellow. Raping the bloody. I am in God. I know I am in God. interahamwe: Machete: leaning forward off axis as if throwing a ball too far from an uneven surface, the blade, forward against the back. Then, whistle, drum, motive forward, somehow to effect a change in relationship without grip, as a dog has to manipulate reality without hands, here—I—using blade to draw in, turn around, or stop, blow to the back of the head so to the ground and motive forward, good worker: neck or turn over and face, check eyes and silk slice abdominal wall and dump of coin or sand. maria: April has nearly stopped the rain has stopped 7:30 am my God is a down god. (Radio plays. The dead fall.) teresa: Gapyisi. Gapyisi. What did you do? maria: The 22nd they were killed in the Health Center and around the Health Center. Grenades, guns, then machetes and farm tools. teresa: Gapyisi. Gapyisi. What did you do? maria: I folded, I prayed, I gardened, I condemned laziness and fear— then walked among the dead and the fakes because this is work, and I had a list.

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teresa: Gapyisi. Ga— maria: The 23rd we moved the hidden, revealed, to rows of thirty; killed them by zone and we brought the soldiers beer. Someday I will be mother superior, ha ha ha— (Claps her hand over her mouth.) gertrude: Maria. Are you awake yet? maria: No. gertrude: Maria, it’s time for morning prayers. Maria, the day is a ripe fruit. Open it with your thumbs, slowly. You will love to have it. maria: I was remembering. gertrude: You were dreaming. maria: Life is the dream of a dead woman. gertrude: You have to get to work. comatile: We were stood in lines of thirty, the courtyard of the Center Nowhere for your foot without stepping on a corpse I set my four children where I could see them, my baby on my back I said, children, pray—we are going to die They took my first four children They were all killed before my eyes Then they stuck a spear into my back, which pierced my baby And pierced me When the baby fell to the ground, he was already dead. I felt something warm on my face. I tried to get up. They hit me on the head three times with a machete. They said over me: maria, comatile: This one is called Comatile. comatile: Among them I saw Sister Maria Kizito, the daughter of Semanyana of Sovu. She was in the middle talking to her brothers who were with the attackers.

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She was giving them a list. Next to Sister Kizito was a man called Karangwa, Who was dancing in front of her with a spear in his hand. It was ten in the morning. gertrude, comatile: Glory, Father, Son, Holy Spirit . . . sisters: Lauds Little hours Vespers Compline Vigil maria: One more day and Christ will come One more day and Christ will come.

April 22 (afternoon) (The sun burns out. Many candles lit. Sext continues.) refugee: They discovered there were a lot of people in the garage. They said they would have to burn them because they had barricaded the door. Rekeraho came with Kizito and two cans of petrol. Rekeraho said: rekeraho (over ambulance microphone): *“Bashiki bacu baratugo boste.” refugee: *“Our sisters have come to our aid.” (maria burns sugar in the flames.) Rekeraho gave one can to Vincent Byomboka who had some dry grass. Vincent packed the grass in a ditch they had dug by the garage wall, and poured the petrol out. I saw Casilde stoned to death. Ngaboniza was cut to pieces. Bernadette came out burning to death. Many people died inside the garage. (A man dances in front of maria. refugees feed franc notes to candle flames.)

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I saw the daughter of Semanyana, that is Sister Julienne Kizito. She had a second, seven-liter jerrican of petrol. She gave it to an Interahamwe from her family called Niyonsenga. He poured the petrol over Kabirigi and set him on fire. Kabirigi ran while burning. I was there. It was the day that my family died. (Kabirigi’s burning dance recalls Karangwa’s dance.) maria (walking carefully among the dead): See how wicked these Tutsi are. They’ve torn up their banknotes so the Hutu can’t use them. They should all be killed. (The scene at the garage begins.) interahamwe: Open up. refugee: No. interahamwe: Open— refugee: No. We are too many to move, even if we wanted to. (interahamwe padlocks the door from the outside.) Let me out. interahamwe: No. refugee: Let me out. interahamwe: No. refugee (to others in the garage): The door is too heavy to break through, now they have locked it outside. maria (gathering tinder): Fetching straw making garland praying rosary is making thorn we gather to crown, the gift of bloody hole. What were we doing when we lay the branches? We were praying. We are always praying. (refugees chop at the door with pruning hooks—the sound of clicking rosaries.) rekeraho: Bashiki bacu baratugo boste. (Dry grass and gasoline. We see inside the garage a woman pours water on another woman’s head.) baptized refugee: Hide me, Mary, hide me. (fire comes upon her, embraces her.) maria: I believe it was Mary who braided the crown of thorns and this is the model for the rosary. All saints lie in flame.

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teresa: She makes coffee in a dead woman’s mouth with a teaspoon of earth. She makes bread out of chewed grass on the dead woman’s belly. She makes gasoline out of wet nerves inside the dead woman’s teeth and siphons it into seven beer bottles. She makes candles out of the woman’s eyes. She makes beer from fat. She pulls a city out of the salt at the base of the woman’s throat, with tweezers. She gets the gasoline. (Dialogue with fire. A refugee burns to death.) fire: Catch breath arch-back. Sweat and elbow. Rapid pop. Skin as fuel. I am hundred. I am thousand. Go to the floor. refugee: Go away. fire: Electricity fills water. A scream fills a jaw. Every day, within a mile of you, someone feels such fear. Today I say we feel this fear together. refugee: I do not recall my child’s name to call it. The woman next to me has choked to death on smoke. I remember the name of my child and cannot call. fire: Move or don’t move. I can take your place. refugee: Every system in my body created to signal pain flashes, taking pictures, bulbs in perpetual burst till pupil explodes too. I have to let this go. I cannot talk to you anymore. fire: I am the white at your lips. I will hear your every whisper. refugee: What they’re saying is right. I am not right for this job. fire: What job? refugee: The job of feeling this pain. fire: You are not expected to do well. You are expected to die. refugee: What do you get? fire: A space in which to be until you are not. refugee: Watch spring. Hear a snap. All my contents are in utter, all speech is vowels, every vowel pulled against itself, my biology is ripped vowel sounds. And with this screeching alphabet I call Jesus and all my loved ones; I curse Jesus and forget my loved ones. I am not sure if I am dying in sin or grace or if I am dying because my alphabets weld to Babel. Tongue bursts gallons. This is my death. fire: You think it is gone. refugee: I think it is gone.

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fire: It is when you think it is gone it is killing you. refugee: I feel it. fire: It is when you feel it, it is killing you. refugee: I think— fire: Do you think thinking hides you? It is just about to kill you if you are thinking. refugee: But I say— fire: When you are saying this you are dead. (Dialogue over.) sister: The ground was rain-soft, And the rain came again. Light rain early, sun close behind the clouds, The colors intensify, the purple of bananas and The machine of fronds, John Deere green. She was one of the last buried. Badly packed bodies pocketing air. The earth is a broken thing. She spills out And sees into the rain. So much the same. She goes home. Hearts beat inside the world. (A refugee crawls from the grave.)

Interlude (Radio music in the dark. maria sets out teaspoons. She tears small pieces of bread from a round loaf, dips them in gasoline, places one piece in each spoon-bowl, and sets the bread on fire. Stink. teresa watches from a distance. maria bleeds from the mouth, makes mud with the blood, puts the mud on her own eyes, leans her head back, and plants a lit candle over each socket. gertrude enters. maria is surprised at first but then knows who it is.)

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maria: Will we get the death penalty? gertrude: Belgium doesn’t have the death penalty. maria: But this is an international trial. gertrude: It’s a Belgian trial, under a new law. maria: Oh. Is that good? gertrude: Good? maria: I am not ready to go to God. gertrude: Don’t be an idiot. maria: We may go to jail? gertrude: Of course. maria: We were only— gertrude: Sh. maria: How long will we go to jail for? gertrude: Many years. maria: Can we receive phone calls? gertrude: Sure. maria: Visitors? gertrude: I will recommend against it. maria: But— gertrude: Yes, sure. maria: We’re nuns. Cloistered Benedictine nuns . . . Vows of silence—we live in cells. gertrude: Yes. maria: So what is jail? gertrude: Not the same. maria: Perhaps there are parts of this I am not able to imagine. gertrude: Yes. maria: I live in Belgium now. Je ne suis ni Hutu ni Tutsi, je suis un enfant de Dieu, je suis une Rwandaise, au Belge. Je n’ai voulu aucun mal.12 radio: Hey! Hey! Get up! (gertrude blows out the candles in maria’s eyes. Dark again.) 12. “I am neither Hutu nor Tutsi, I am a child of God, I am a Rwandan from Belgium. I didn’t want anything bad (to happen).”

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teresa: Rwanda Your moon shines bright Rwanda Over planned genocide Rwanda Won’t you be strong Like a lion Tune in the transistor and listen to the news . . . (Rancid’s version of “Rwanda” might play.) Trial in a foreign language comes true slowly, as in a dream. The full, formal weight of the first world brought to bear on a third world colony. Bad nuns, but ridiculous first trial—so low on the food chain. These are the best génocidaires you could find to test your law? You may touch the hem of Christ’s robe and be healed. You may touch the hem of genocide, and if you believe, you may suffer. Do I have such belief ? Do I believe in genocide? If I can believe in Christ, why can’t I believe in genocide? Mary, I am not separate from you, Maria, I am not separate from you. I see better, separate. I climb mountains on my knees I climb better, separate. maria: My heart is a jerrican, a jerrican of gasoline. My mind is evaporation, my fingers are my shadow and my body is a lie. (End of Interlude.)

April 23–25. Massacres: Second Wave teresa: Vespers. sisters: O God, come to my aid. sisters/gertrude: O Lord, make haste to help me. sisters: Glory be to the—

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sister: That evening, Gertrude told all the sisters whose relatives had taken refuge in the monastery to send them away in order to save the monastery. sisters: We turned a deaf ear to her request. teresa: Praying Vespers I saw— (maria prays over a wounded woman under a bush.) maria: O clement, o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary . . . (She signals the interahamwe.) refugee: No, Sister—no, Sister—no, Sister—no. (The refugee starts to crawl away. maria holds her down. Sings hymn.) maria: It is time for the soul to leave the body. I have prayed for you. He makes the house dark. Time for the soul to leave the body. Dark sits down and says so. *“Iyo inzoka yizilitse ku gisabo ugomba kikimena ukabona uko uyika.” teresa: *“In killing a snake curled around a gourd you break the gourd if you must, to kill him.” sisters/refugee (Psalm 102): Do not hide your face. Days are twisted smoke; my bones burn. I eat ash for bread. I drink salt. My heart is white grass. I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. sisters: Glory be spirit be beginning, now beginning and everything after amen. sister (reading): We saw bodies everywhere; they looked like empty clothes, scattered on the ground. It was a terrible sight. I kept thinking this was the end of the world the Bible spoke of. (maria delivers drinks.) rekeraho: If I could, I’d appoint you mother superior of this monastery.

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(maria laughs. rekeraho leaves. maria pulls something from his drink. Whistles, drums.) sister: The sound of whistles and drums comes from a rag pulled from the glass of this milk. (The rag becomes a baby.) maria: O God O God O God Even when I am anxious I believe you Don’t fuck with me. An old woman in big brown shoes. I will beat you down the street if you interrupt me again. teresa: April 25th. (maria vomits. rekeraho lights candles.) maria (pouring milk for rekeraho): If there are any Hutus—they should stand aside? sister (reading, continued): Then began the carnage. It was exactly like what happened at the Health Center except they weren’t burnt alive with petrol. (maria extinguishes all candles by pouring milk on them. The smell of burnt milk.) The massacre started nine in the morning and lasted until five. At 5:30, six gendarmes came and told the killers to loot only. refugee: It was too early to sleep. I stayed among the corpses. Babies were sucking at the breasts of dead mothers, I thought about killing them to save them from suffering but could not. I saw a head carried by on a branch like a lantern. The next day, they saw me breathing. I was rousted. I walked toward the blows. Kill me, kill me, friend. Kill me. teresa: A woman with a dead baby on her back made irregular circles— She flapped like a flat tire Around and around looking for air. A woman in the cloister; a woman circling, exhausted Lay her dead child down and lay down next; She could not sleep. Only the living sleep.

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sister: I saw Sister Gertrude throw out the cousin of Sister Theonila, a girl from Maraba, a girl of sixteen who had been cut on the head with a machete. Rekeraho and his militia were executing the others in the bush behind the monastery. sisters: There will be no birds but crows here There will be no birds but crows. maria: Make beer out of eyelashes. Make wine out of shoes. Make beer out of fingerprints. Make wine out of their dancing, cut to sheaves, milled and stifled in barrels. Make beer and drink it, today is a national holiday. Blood is hollow, Christ is prayer I make blood-crown, And follow I am sick of the radio, and the radio is still playing. I am sick of the killing and the radio playing. Into the deeper dark stepping backward into brown, brown shoes I do not adore the Eucharist Bella premunt— (gertrude and maria stuff the mouths of the sisters with clay. The sisters kneel, heads back. maria and gertrude twist candles into the mouths of the sisters; light the candles.) maria, gertrude: Now I know what the owl meant When he told us so— Little sister, we don’t have far to go. Angels learn to fly by Falling, Falling. (They stuff each other’s mouths and kneel for prayer.)

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teresa: Now is Vespers—light is weak. Now is the time you start to think, and a drinking woman drinks. In a hundred days a million In one hundred years millions, millions. If my number seems low, add from adjacent holes. I pray to Maria I pray to Maria Kizito. sisters: Glory be to— maria: Go to hell I have ate my fill. I am Original from this hill Tutsi, Tutsi—easy death Died too quick, ha ha ha These evil Tutsi, Tore up all their money. Wouldn’t snow be—Wouldn’t snow be so much better? I forget.

May 6—Last Wave (The first Nocturn of Vigils—late night.) teresa: I was praying the first nocturn of my vigil when I saw: (The Bible reading takes the form of a play.13 The cast wears owl masks. Cécile Kayirebwa’s song “Tarihina” might play.) Once upon a time there were people in the ceiling and owls throughout the house. Very early in the morning, May 6th . . . 13. The owl play is a play within the play. The story has been iterated often enough that it drains to animal flatness.

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(maria secures a ladder and speaks to the ceiling.) maria: Come down. teresa: Many buildings have false ceilings to allow ventilation for the heat. Many people hide in the ceilings. They become a category. (maria climbs the ladder.) Kizito led the way for the police. She showed them the rooms where the refugees hid. maria: I will help you go home. teresa: Some of the nuns Gave money to Xavier The policeman guarding the monastery So their relatives might be shot Rather than hacked To death by machete 7,000 francs a person Some of the nuns Told Gertrude They were going to follow the militia To die with their families. maria: You’ll have to come down now. Are you up there? You’ll have to come down now. teresa: Thirty or so remained, in the convent. Family. maria: Come down now. (Pause.) refugee: No. maria: Ah. We have a ladder for you. Come down. refugee: No. maria: Do you want me to come up the ladder? Do you want me to climb up the ladder and maybe break my neck? Do you want me to do that? Do you want me to chase you around the ceiling and maybe fall and break my neck? Do you? Do you want my blood on your hands? (refugees descend, unmasked.) 210

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refugee: Where will I go? maria: Come down, son. Come down. Even Rekeraho says there has been enough killing. The future is full of hope. I will change your fate. I will bring you home. teresa: Up and down the ladder my angel Maria pulls the last few from the ceiling, the families of the Tutsi nuns, because this is no time for good or bad. So be clear and nothing is clearer than nothing. Nothing is clearer than all of them. refugee: Mercy. Mercy. maria (delivering the refugee to his killer): Here they are. (The children are taken from her.) teresa: Once there was a house of owls. (End of Owl play. Nocturn over.) maria: Wait one more day and Christ will come Wait one more day and Christ will come (maria observes her hands and arms.) This is the flesh of a génocidaire? In the moonlight, this is hardly skin at all. Live one more day and Christ will come. Live one more day in Christ and—I will know who my master is. teresa: I ask permission to come, and they tell me the many approvals I need. I lie, sidestep and come. I want to stay at Maredret but without the approvals—Stay near. Slip the veil and stay in a small hotel for cheap businessmen looking for the source of a global idea and finding wet eggs over sterno at the breakfast buffet. maria: Le peu de génocidaire. Twenty-nine. (Counting the bones of her hands and feet.) One, two three . . .

Bone (Characters, dispersed, consider events, sometimes hearing each other, sometimes not; sometimes enacting, sometimes witnessing, sometimes erasing. teresa wraps her fingers.)

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sister: Gaza is a shaved head A skeleton reduced to silence, Ashdod, the remnant of their strength, How long will you gash yourself ?14 Infinite mercy will come back for even me. teresa: These—sweet—sisters. To operate for the sake of anything other than safety (control) when the will is full of urgency (fear) would be impossible. rekeraho: Faith is the belief that death can be overcome. Without it, murder becomes possible. One believes then that death stops something. teresa: This country did not deserve this. These nuns did not deserve themselves. To Satan themselves so hastily, wipe their mouths and pray in Belgium. They devoured their own souls. gertrude (to teresa): Do you think thinking hides you? maria: The real problem I have with silence: I have nothing to say, so where is my charity? sister: What’s inside the birds of Rwanda after the genocide? Institutes of sin: the flocks. teresa (a scene): A child forced to walk, dragging a machete behind him— tied around his neck. “Kill your sister. We will kill your mother if you don’t kill your sister. Now—chop off your right arm with your left.” sisters: Christ shows down an infinite mercy Infinite mercy Infinite mercy reaches even me Mary is a drum Hollow drum Hollow drum, eclipse, resonator Holy sister is missing teeth Missing teeth 14. Refers to writings of the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, esp. 2.4–7 ff.

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Missing teeth, more room for prayer Mercy is crawl space hidden from rain Show me your infinite mercy gertrude: Mother, to wean the child, cuffs it lightly Do you fear me sufficiently? maria (to teresa): They are here. teresa: Who? maria: In Belgium. teresa: Who? maria: Organizers. The big men. They walk into shops and buy chocolate and porcelain. They are exhausted by eating; they are supported like prostitutes. Given what was done, we did nothing. A horse tramples a child, and you punish the ground? A lion mauls a child, and you punish the dirt that takes the blood? Bury the children in the ground—we can take care of the dead in our prayer. We save and save. (She buries a woman alive and prays by her grave.) teresa (a country song, American, waltz): A lifetime of clean living And her last word is “goddamn.” (maria leaves the grave.) sisters: Night falls, Tombée.15 What else falls? Egyptian Memphis. One claw Rain Nuns The dead and their sounds Night falls. What else falls? The dead but not your death. 15. Falls (French).

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The month but not the Easter. The one place but not the other. Everything should fall/everything will rise instead. I make all things actual except for God’s will. teresa: I do not want this, I want this. (Not knowing what this other quantity is.) sisters: Night falls. What else tumbles, falls? This. My sense of this. Night falls Tombée. What else falls? Food from tables. Epileptics. Silence. teresa: The sky takes the veil but Aline may not.16

Belgium teresa: Do you remember? No, I forget; Black water steals The shadow of a jet. 16. As noted in the trial transcripts, Aline was the novice who was refused the veil. On the very last days at Sovu, when Gertrude and Kizito were preparing to leave, it was suggested by the militia and the other sisters that Tutsi novices might stand a better chance of surviving the flight to Ngoma if they were allowed to wear head veils, the better to appear as sisters. Though this would really have been nothing to Gertrude, she refused. Aline was killed. The prosecution rested its case in Belgium with a photo of Aline, claiming that we can’t understand the number one million, but we can understand the number one.

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Flight from Sovu Belgium Trial Old Age gertrude: 1 June 1994 the RPF takes the capital. 3 July, we evacuate. (To teresa.) We worked, we lived, you can put your hat back on, this is a private matter. (At the airport, France, waiting for the flight to Belgium.) Maria? maria: Yes, Gertrude. gertrude: You’re quiet. maria: I’m thinking about the goodness of the Blessed Mother. gertrude: You’re boring. maria: Does the airport have a gift shop? gertrude: No. maria: I saw. The airport has a gift shop. gertrude: It’s closed. maria: It’s open. gertrude: The plane is coming soon. maria: In six hours. gertrude: You want a gift? What do you want? maria: I have a little money. gertrude: What do you want? maria: A snow globe. gertrude: What the hell do you want with a snow globe? maria: A refrigerator magnet. gertrude: The refrigerator is not our refrigerator. We can’t put magnets on it. maria: I would like a little gift. From France. gertrude: You will never see France again. maria: Yes, so—We’re here for such a short time. gertrude: Six more hours. maria: Yes. gertrude: We wait here for the plane. maria: Postcards? I’ll get you some postcards.

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gertrude: I’ll take an espresso. No postcards. maria (to self): Some of these planes go to San Francisco. Some of these planes go to Indonesia. These telephones call anywhere in the world, and so many magazines! (Aloud.) Espresso. And a pack of gum. One postcard. (In Belgium.) teresa: A man named Mommerency writes an article for a tiny communist journal, Solidaire, touching on events at Sovu. It appears July 3rd, 1995. gertrude: He names us both. teresa: But Gertrude sues him. For defamation. The attention draws the international eye. Belgium passes laws allowing for civilian trial-byjury of persons accused of universal crimes, regardless of nationality or the origin of the actions. I read the Times. I go to Belgium. (Flying.) If I crash—I may crash! What is my one hope? What do I expect? I hope I make friends. I hope, even crashing, I make friends. sister: The young white nun sits to observe Kizito. Kizito and codefendants hear testimony while secured in a big glass box. There are men on trial too, but these are not—strange enough for Teresa, not as strange as family. Teresa doesn’t know there are Hutus and Tutsis in the audience—she doesn’t yet understand the connectedness of the world. Maria Kizito still loves us, still loves the order. teresa: I watch her every day. (Re: herself.) I am the empathy fairy. The atrocity Tinkerbell. maria: My French is not very good. Actually, neither is my Kinyarwandan—I was a busy woman. Now I am a busy woman with nothing to do. (To herself, looking out and seeing teresa.) She dresses like an out-of-habit nun. I can tell. That haircut, and that collar. The shoes. Worldwide. Little girl, the dove leaned into Mary’s ear because there was a worm there. There was room inside Mary for God because her house was empty, day long under the lonely, lonely funeral. teresa: How far will you go together?

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maria: How far the whole joke may go. (gertrude and maria rise. From the Avocats sans frontiers’ summary.) gertrude: I do not have anything to add. maria: I thank you. The lawyers have explained everything by grace of their intelligence. Since the beginning, I said that I had confidence in justice. I have courage. I was declared guilty. This is a lie. But I have confidence in justice. I thank you. presiding magistrate (reading the verdict): The court has, in agreement with the jury, condemned Vincent Ntezimana to twelve years in prison, Alphonse Higaniro to twenty years, Sister Gertrude to fifteen years and Sister Kizito to twelve years. teresa (journaling): The U.S. threatens to move NATO headquarters out of Brussels if the Belgians do not change the law, for fear of being caught by it. This is the only case in the history of the world to be tried quite this way—where a remote crime is seen as having extreme, local relevance, convergent at the point of absolute human revulsion. Revulsion comes from swallowing, from having within . . . (maria and gertrude go to jail.) maria: It is a shame we don’t believe in Limbo anymore. gertrude: Limbo, that was good. I liked Limbo, yes. maria: Are you making fun of me? (Silence. gertrude leaves.) I love sleep more than God.

Old teresa: She ferments air in her mouth For a draught of beer In jail. And she has no animal to keep her dark safe. Her twelfth year Air drunk, free.

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Belgium still Little French, she is original to Sovu Hill Twelve years later—she is later! She is free! She returns to the convent, for after all, where else? maria: Sovu—that was Bible time. I was twenty-nine. I do not remember the number of this psalm. I smell burnt cinnamon, my lips are fennel. My eyes are cooling chocolate. O God, oh God this morning is so beautiful, I am so obviously spared. (maria takes a walk. In a shop.) shopkeeper: Yes, Sister Kizito. What for you today? maria: Ink. Milk. Matches. And a cane. shopkeeper: What will you do with a cane? maria (discovering): I—can’t stand up! (She stays standing.) shopkeeper: What will you do with the milk? maria: Serve it to murderers. shopkeeper: With the matches? maria: Murder. shopkeeper: With the ink? maria: Write this down. I have done what I was told. I have been told wrong things. I have imagined terrible things. I have behaved as if the world and my imagination were real, as real as each other. I have straddled wealth; walked over the dead.

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I have failed to envy the dead. I have treated the past as if it were real, instead of the past. I have hidden in fear instead of hiding in God. This century is a few centuries long. This century is an account of holes This century is a hill, no matter which way you walk: downhill. This century is an abdominal wall too weak to hold up the intestines. This century is skin carved instead of stone, stone carved instead of soil, soil carved instead of soul, soul butchered instead of sacrifice, sacrifice offered rather than known, knowledge rather than heaven, heaven rather than God, God idolized rather than God, God rather than God. Wouldn’t snow be—Wouldn’t snow be so much better? I forget. (She lies down. A gold monstrance; candlelight.) The religion came in with the Germans. The identity cards came in with the Belgians. The cholera came in with the U.N. camps, too late and then too long. The silence in which our great work shook was held in common by many silent mouths. Umuganda.17 We work together. (teresa flies home in a silver jet, above the rain, eating, elbows in.) teresa: Six years after the genocide I tear bread; So important 17. The classical and continued Rwandan practice of communal work with both positive (everyone in the country participates in public works projects once a month) and negative (the genocide was sold as a public works project) aspects.

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In a prayer Is your Amen. There is nothing— maria: No—they lie—we tried to save lives. (Radio plays.) tharsisse: Rekeraho was an evil man who hated Tutsis. My sister and he were hardly ever apart during the genocide. They were always together in the ambulance, or at the monastery. They had become almost like man and wife. refugee (reenacting a memory, maria shadows her): One of the militiamen at the roadblock knocked me to the ground with a blow from his club. The militia then stripped me completely naked. One of them took me for his wife. He— (The end.)

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Other Plays about Genocide in English

Roel Adam, On the Other Side [Bosnia], tr. Manon Van De Water Michael Bhim, Distant Violence * [Darfur] Ping Chong and Michael Rohd, BLIND NESS: The Irresistible Light of Encounter [Congo] Ad de Bont, Mirad, a Boy from Bosnia [Bosnia], tr. Marian Buijs Amy Evans, Many Men’s Wife * [Darfur] Jennifer Farmer, Words Words Words * [Darfur] Kitty Felde, Kigali [Rwanda] Catherine Filloux, Eyes of the Heart [Cambodia]; Lemkin’s House, Photographs From S-21 [Cambodia] Carlo Gébler, Silhouette * [Darfur] Juliet Alicia Gilkes, Bilad al-Sudan * [Darfur] Richard Kalinoski, Beast on the Moon [Armenia] Sonia Linden, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Lady from Rwanda [Rwanda] Jon Lipsky, The Survivor: A Cambodian Odyssey [Cambodia] Winter Miller, In Darfur [Darfur] Lynn Nottage, Give, Again? * [Darfur] Winsome Pinnock, IDP * [Darfur] J. T. Rogers, The Overwhelming [Rwanda] Lorne Shirinian, This Dark Thing [Armenia] Robert Skloot, If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty against Genocide Zlatko Topcic, Time Out [Bosnia], tr. Senada Kreso and Amira Sadikovic Matei Visniec, The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War [Bosnia], tr. Alison Sinclair *Published together as How Long Is Never? Darfur: A Response.

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Photograph by Scott Groller

       ’s work includes The Saint Plays, Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling, No Time Like the Present, Wolf at the Door, Tailings, Beginner, Ideas of Good and Evil, and an adaptation of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. He is an artistic associate at San Francisco’s Theatre of Yugen. His plays have been produced in San Francisco (Intersection, Thick Description, Yugen), Seattle (Annex, Empty Space), Austin (Frontera), New York (BACA, Whitney Museum), San Diego (Sledgehammer), Chicago (Red Moon), Atlanta (7 Stages), and elsewhere. He is a graduate of New Dramatists. He has taught in graduate programs at the University of Iowa, Naropa University, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Texas at Dallas, and CalArts and in undergraduate programs at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State, Santa Clara University, and Skidmore College. He is currently dean of the CalArts School of Theater.

 

is an award-winning playwright with seven plays and a produced television script to her credit. Her Bosnian war crimes play, A Patch of Earth, premiered at the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, New York, and was produced three times in 2005—in Detroit, South Africa, and Orange County, California. That same year, southern California public television station KOCE filmed the play as part of its Storefront Theatre series. It won the Maxim Mazumdar Playwriting Award. Los Angeles’s Ark Theatre will produce the show in 2007. Felde’s one-woman show about Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter, titled Alice, premiered at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and played at New York City’s Miranda Theatre. Her newest play, Kigali, set in postgenocide Rwanda, has received staged readings at Los Angeles’s Ensemble Studio Theatre and Theatre of Note. Felde is a member of the Dramatists Guild. She is also an award-winning public radio journalist.

Photograph by Julie Watkins

              ’s

plays include Killing the Boss, Lemkin’s House, The Beauty Inside, Eyes of the Heart, Silence of God, Mary and Myra, Arthur’s War, Photographs from S-21, and Escuela del Mundo, among others. Her plays have been produced around the country and the world. Her most recent play about Hurricane Katrina will premiere at Southern Rep in New Orleans (she is collaborating with playwrights Joe Sutton and Tarell McCraney). She has also written two opera libretti—The Floating Box (composer Jason Kao Hwang; CD, New World Records) and Where Elephants Weep, commissioned by Cambodian Living Arts (composer Him Sophy)—and has participated in an oral history project entitled Circle of Grace with the Cambodian Women’s Group, Bronx, New York. Awards include Critics Choice, Opera News, 2005 for The Floating Box, Peace Writing Award (Omni Center for Peace), Roger L. Stevens Award (Kennedy Center), Eric Kocher Playwrights Award (O’Neill), Callaway Award (New Dramatists), Fulbright Senior Specialist grants (Cambodia and Morocco), Thurber Playwright-in-Residence and Rockefeller MAP Fund (for Southern Rep project and The Floating Box). Filloux’s plays are published by Playscripts, Inc., Smith & Kraus, Vintage, Dramatic Publishing, Seagull, and Prentice Hall. Her articles have appeared in American Theatre, Manoa, The Drama Review, and CTR. She lives in New York with her husband, John Daggett.

Photograph by Noémi Shirinian

             was born in Toronto, Canada. He did his doctorate in comparative literature at the Université de Montréal and is professor of English and comparative literature in the Department of English at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He began writing and publishing at an early age and is the author of twenty books, including fiction, poetry, drama, and scholarly studies. His most recent book of fiction is When Darkness Falls Upon Us; his most recent scholarly book is The Landscape of Memory: Perspectives on the Armenian Diaspora. He is presently working on a novel titled Love Hemorrhage and a new play tentatively titled Monumental.

Photograph © UW–Madison University Communications

        has taught and directed plays at the University of Wisconsin– Madison since 1968. He has published numerous articles on modern drama and theatre, as well as The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (1988) and the edited twovolume anthology The Theatre of the Holocaust (1982, 1999). He has received several teaching awards and Fulbright Lectureships to Israel, Austria, Chile, and the Netherlands. From 1996 to 2002 Skloot served as an associate vice chancellor for academic affairs for undergraduate education; he holds a joint appointment in the University of Wisconsin Center for Jewish Studies. His play If the Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty against Genocide was published in 2006 by Parallel Press.