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Untitled Document
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The Gazelles
Two act play
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Adapted to English theatre
by Aderian Michel
characters
JABER
a bedouin from the Sahara. In his fifties. Stockily built, wearing Sahara dress, acting as a guide on the journey.
VICTOR
an engineer in his fifties, with an American company, prospecting for oil in the Kingdom. Victor is British, has a flat in London but works mostly in an underground laboratory in the Kingdom. He has invited Helena to accompany him on a trip into the desert to hunt gazelles.
HELENA
a young Englishwoman in her twenties. She works for a building society in London. She has lived in Lancashire and West Yorkshire.
(The desert. Just before sunrise. The horizon glows.
A Land Rover. Scattered around it, pots and pans, collapsing chairs, a table, the remains of a meal.
Act One
Stage right, an empty bed with a hunting rifle next to it.
Stage left, a tent for two in which VICTOR and HELENA lie in bed. They are struggling under the covers. A radio stands by the bed, and we see, through the open flaps of the tent, HELENA' S hand come out to switch on the radio. VICTOR'S hand emerges and switches it off. And so on. The radio manages to give out sporadic news items.)
RADIO New steps have been... meanwhile in Washington... Eyeball to eyeball confrontation... No surrender to blackmail...
(Radio is switched off by VICTOR.
HELENA pushes VICTOR off her. She hides under the bed cover ) .
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HELENA
Have you gone daft?
VICTOR
That's right.
HELENA
It's morning and stuff.
Right.
HELENA
Well, the bedouin will see us.
VICTOR
He thinks we're married. Let me ... come on. Give it a go.
HELENA
Don't be dopey. Lots and lots and lots and lots more romantic nights in the desert.
(She pushes him, laughing, so he falls out of bed.)
(VICTOR pulls on his trousers and wraps himself in a blanket to protect himself from the cold of the desert. HELENA leaps out of bed and puts on her Safari clothes. She comes out of the tent, goes to the watercan in the back of the Land Rover, splashes water on her face and begins to comb her hair, gazing in astonishment at the horizon glowing red with the sunrise. )
HELENA
Dawn in the desert. Magnificent. Like a postcard. And me in the middle of the photo. (Splashes more water on her face). Ouch, it's like mashed ice. Why don't they fit these chariots with running hot and cold?
VICTOR
(brushing his teeth, ignoring the view) Where's Jaber?
HELENA
(She looks around) Last time I looked he was lighting a fire for my Typhoo. Now he's vanished. Hey, he was really weird last night with that snake. First he held it like a baby sparrow with a bad wing. Then he cut with his knife, sliced off its head, boiled it up and gulped it down. Ugh. And then he said: 'Among all the delights of the desert, this is my favourite repast.'
I'll be telling my great-grandchildren. that story, but they won't believe it. Basically, even for a guide, that man is odd. Who recommended him?
VICTOR
Bedouins tend to believe the non-toxic parts of snakes are good medicine, stomach-wise. I'd eat a raw snake if it'd snap me out of the dodgy spell that hit me yesterday. It's because I work underground all day. A way from the light. Down in that laboratory. When you come out the sun smacks you round the head. Look, Helena, I'm sorry. Really sorry. Must have been dead frustrating for you. Awful.
HELENA
Don't worry, Victor. That's nothing. First titne together, first night in the desert. You won't need a snake supper.
(VICTOR begins to shave. HELENA sits with her handbag beside her and becomes absorbed in putting on her make-up.)
I was scared.
VICTOR
I'm sorry, I didn't mean - .
HELENA
Not by you. By the wolves . When the wolves started howling. Where's my bloody eyebrow pend!? Why do they make 'em so easy to lose? They didn't stop howling all night. Choir practice. Or an all-night sitting of the House of Wolverines. And I 'thought: wish I could understand Wolfish. Wonder what they were on about. Bet it wasn't inflation or the energy crisis or the dollar going up and down and up. I'm perfectly well aware that this kind of make-up's totally useless in the desert sun. But it's all I've brought. I forgot to buy my Sahara beauty kit. Nearly forgot my face, too. That howling. (She imitates it) Howling in harmony. (VICTOR joins in) Yes. It was just beside us and it was all around us, all over us, like a great dome of howling. A wolfskin dome. That guide of yours was getting all poetic: 'The4 desert belongs to the gazelles' - but I think the wolves had 'em for breakfast. He could see I was scared. By the howling. So he said: 'Don't be frightened. The howling of wolves is like the light of the stars. They both travel a long way.' A long way! And next minute a wolf comes strutting along and squats down for a crap right by the Land Rover. Wouldn't even shift till you fired your rifle. I was in a right panic. So when something jumped into bed on top of me I thought it was a wolf.
VICTOR
It was me. I love you. You're a gazelle. Did I tell you?
HELENA
You promised me gazelles. You said you'd show me real gazelles.
VICTOR
That's what we're here for. To see the gazelles.
HELENA
What's so special about them?
VICTOR
We won't know that till we see them. (VICTOR carries on shaving)
HELENA
Gazelles. My dreams were full of gazelles. I looked into one of my dreams, you know, like looking down into a pool. And I saw myself walking between two young gazelles, my hands on the back of their necks and I was leading them home. Then it was another dream. And there was a great mob of gazelles chasing me, like hooligans, like they wanted to hurt me with their horn things.
VICTOR
And didn't I feature in any of your dreams?
HELENA
What I'd really love is a good old wallow in a foaming hot bath full of pink chemicals. I'll send a postcard to my bathroom - wish you were here. I feel little and lost without four walls and a ceiling. Oh, all right, it's a unique experience. I expect the desert's going to release something really surprising that's been locked up in me. Ooch! I've never seen anyone shave with a razor like that. I thought everyone' d gone electric.
VICTOR
I have to use a blade. Got that kind of a face. Maybe my face is behind the times. Ouch, that hurt, my face must be listening to us. Look, you can't waltz into the middle of the desert and expect bath, shower, bidet and rubber duck. Great thing is to forget the city, wipe it out of your mind. Just take what the desert has to offer. Gratefully. The desert is different. Different. We spend our days moving from one box to another: from the flat box into the car box into the office box, down to the lab box, out to the restaurant box, back to the lab box, out to the car box, back to the flat box, close the lid, goodnight . But a few days in the desert can scrub out of our brain cells all the dust and dirt from those boxes. All that gentle, phosphorescent dust which drifts in through our pores, and piles up in corners of our brains as the days and the years go by. They clog up our minds, they won't WOl,k properly. All you can do is climb out of our boxes and stand out in the open.
HELENA
That's why I'm here, kid.
(Kneels and declaims theatrically)
Oh! Mighty Desert!
Oh! Gigantic boundless ocean without water!
Oh! Wonderful new cities of steel and glass which
have not yet been built!
Oh! Jungle without trees!
Oh! Mighty Desert!
Oh! You amazing letter A in the alphabet of the
universe!
Oh! You enormous empty origin of everything!
I have come to hide myself in you!
(She gets up. laughing. and resumes her normal tone a/voice)
I better write that in my diary before I forget it.
(She dances over to the Land Rover while VICTOR
applauds her peiformance admiringly)VICTOR
I didn't know you were a poet.
HELENA
I'm an escaped convict. From an office prison, with its files and phone calls and photo-copying - all that can kill you. And that letter. That's the worst. I'm really running away from the ghost of that letter.
VICTOR
What letter? Who sent it you?
(VICTOR has finished shaving and is slapping on after-shave lotion. Then he begins to do his morning exercises)
HELENA
You're part of the Lucky Gang. You know, people who've got jobs which let them be creative and inventive and that. You couldn't understand the trudging drudgery of somebody who spends her life slaving over a hot IBM?
VICTOR
Some hard luck story. The world depends on beautiful secretaries. Corporations and governments would collapse without them.
HELENA
(still writing in her diary) 'I have come to hide myself in you.' That letter. There's only one letter. Every day I sit up when the sun sits up. When he packs it in, so do I. The words I type are like little ropes which tangle round me and bind me down like Gulliver in Lilliput. Or they're a swamp of tar and I'm sinking down and when the tar reaches my neck I scream and that means it's one o'clock. Out to the canteen for a salad or a sandwich, then back to face the machine which eats me, and the tar of boredom's nearly covering my face when it's time to say goodbye bloody office. One more day without actually drowning in tar!
(She throws her dial)' on to the table and pretends to type)
'Dear Mr So-and-so, We are pleased to inform you that your request for a loan to cover' the purchase of number whateveritis, Hellfire A venue, Satanstown has been approved by the committee' (snatches imaginary paper out of typewriter, inserts new page). Two carbons, change paper. 'Dear Mr So-and-so, We are pleased to inform you' - Bugger Mr So-and-so and his family and the loan on the house and that typewriter. I bash out that message a million times a day and it's always the same except sometimes we are sorry to inform you that the committee has not approved. What I want to do is set my machine to print out one reply, the same reply for every single Mr So-and-so: 'Dear Mr So-and-so, Why throwaway your cash on an Ugly little house in a nasty little town? A pigsty in the country would be healthier and a ball and chain would be more fun. Love and kisses from all .of us at the Kirkby Lonsdale Building Society.' Oh, I get throttled with rage, really throttled. By the time I've written to the thirtieth Mr So-and-so I'm ready to swallow dive out the office window, nine floors down and hope to zap the boss's Jag. That's what I was daydreaming when Dogface plonked your note on my desk 'Sweet Helena, I'm going to the Sahara to hunt gazelles. Please come and help me. Love, Victor.' I scrunched up my letter to Mr So-and-so number thirty, switched off my typer, booked an emergency compassionate leave, bought my ticket, collected my visa and flew out to you. I hated houses, hated cities, I was full of a dream of the great desert. I'd better take some snaps now I'm here.
(She takes her camera from the car and begins to take pictures)
Laughing's the opposite of crying. Dancing and singing are. the opposite of unhappiness. Pleasure's the opposite of pain, light's the opposite of darkness. Day - night. Speech - silence. Love - hate. Health sickness. Freedom - slavery. Life - death. And it just seemed to me that desert is the opposite of city
VICTOR
I was so happy when you phoned up and said yes.
HELENA
Took you by surprise?
VICTOR
You answered so quickly. Shall I smile?
(She takes a picture of him)
HELENA
You don't have to smile. You know the world is packed full of people. Doesn't that boggle your mind a bit? It boggles mine. Me in the desert . Alone in the universe . The world belongs to me. I feel as if we've come on a long journey through space and we'd just landed on earth. Victor. It's the dawn of history. My name's Eve. Who are you?
VICTOR
Adam.
JABER
(offstage) Don't forget the serpent. May God forgive you.
(JABER comes in and puts breakfast in front of them with a pair of binoculars - tea and bread)
JABER
Your breakfast is served.
VICTOR
You interrupted Helena.
(VICTOR starts to eat with HELENA)
JABER
Why did you not go and get warm?
VICTOR
Why light the fire so far from our tent?
JABER
Not too near the car and the petrol cans.
HELENA
Has it gone out yet?
JABER
It won't go out till I put it out.
HELENA
I'll go and have a little warm-up. Take a photo of me by the fire. Oh no! The milk's gone off.
(HELENA goes offstage to the fire)
JABER
Personally, I only drink sour milk.
(JAB ER waits, then takes a photo of HELENA)
(to VICTOR) You were talking of something the desert has to offer.
VICTOR
You've got good reception.
JABER
Did you mean oil?
VICTOR
No, I meant something glorious. Something eternal.
JABER
Oil is not eternal. And it doesn't smell glorious. But where would we be without it? And where would this desert be? The desert will never forget how much it owes to people like yourself. You studied its depths and revealed its minerals so that, at last, the desert can be useful. A man from our village used to come hunting with me. In those days he was poorer than me. But now he's an oil sheikh with luxury villas all around the world. He's just like me really, except that he has a millionaire son married to the daughter 'of one of our rulers. How could he forget what he owes you and your oil company.
VICTOR
Let the oil sheikhs speak for themselves. Liste!1, Jaber, why didn't you sleep by the Land Rover?
JABER
I didn't want to crowd you. Why all sleep in one bedroom when the desert is filled with bedrooms? (With a touch of sarcasm) Anyway, between you and me, I like to watch things from a distance.
VICTOR
You were watching us? You dirty old guide. Are you from the Sun?
JABER
I don't object to our changing places, Mr. Victor.
VICTOR
That's enough! She's my wife.
JABER
We all know you're not married. But that doesn't stop me envying you, Mr. Victor.
VICTOR
Why?
JABER
Two reasons. You've been smart enough to pretend that she's your wife so you can travel around with her freely. And when you chose her, you chose a gazelle. She makes the gazelles of the desert look clumsy footed and bleary-eyed. She's the ideal age, too. You know what we say in the desert? There's only one way for an old man to get back his youth. This is the prescription: marry a woman in her twenties. That's what we all do, when we start to totter a little. One of the Sheikhs in our tribe felt himself ageing. He couldn't walk, he couldn't even stand. So he married a young woman of 18. He was on the large side, and on the wedding night it took four men, working as a team, to place him on top of his bride. Next morning he was with the kids in the market-place. Take my advice: let your body roll around with that young body of hers, let them play together. Make her sometimes your couch and sometimes your coverlet. Take her by surprise. Let her lie on you and infuse you with the heat of her body till you hear the sweat pouring off you. And every little sickness will fly out of your body. That's our treatment.
VICTOR
I'd prefer you to keep your primeval holistic theories to yourself. Why don't you believe she's my wife? I just didn't think she was worthy to live in your wonderful kingdom of sand and grit. And, since Icouldn't leave my important job for long enough to c visit England, she came to me. And because she wanted two days' worth of desert, here she is.
JABER
"Not a bad story. But look, we're companions on a journey. Why not make me your friend?
VICTOR
Because you're not my friend. And whether I'm married to Helena or not married to Helena only matters to me and Helena.
JABER
And me.
VICTOR
How so ?
(HELENA comes in and places her empty teacup on the tray)
HELENA
Oh Victor, do drop all that fIapdooodle about us being married. What's the point?
VICTOR
Helena, we're not on Brighton beach.
HELENA
I'm with you.
VICTOR
We're in the Kingdom.
HELENA
Still here.
VICTOR
And people round here don't recognise any malefemale relationship outside marriage. They call it prostitution.
HELENA
Well, I haven't been paid.
VICTOR
Or fornication.
HELENA
Well, I haven't - no comment.
VICTOR
To get you a visa I had to write affidavits ,for the Police and the Company and the Depar1tment of Immigration and even then the Morals Squad were dubious. They followed us all around town
HELENA
The ones with dark glasses and flares
VICTOR
The only thing that stopped them was the desert. They could stick us in jail and then throw us out of the country.
HELENA
Couldn't be that bad.
VICTOR
Could be much worse. You tell her, Jaber.
JABER
Don't worry, Helena. He says you're his wife. But that doesn't commit you to anything. It just protects you from the pack of wolves who'd come howling after you if they knew you were a husbandless, family-free woman travelling on her own through the desert.
HELENA
I don't get it.
JABER
(To VICTOR) Don't give me that look. I won't tell anyone that you and her are. . .
VICTOR
(To HELENA) OK, let's drop it.
JABER
If you have finished your breakfast perhaps you would like to start. There is a herd of gazelles grazing only an hour from here.
VICTOR
Gazelles? How d'you know?
JABER
I was beyond that ridge keeping watch for them just now.
VICTOR
Helena! Gazelles. Let's move.
HELENA
What's the rush? They've been here for centuries.
VICTOR
Well done, Jaber. (VICTOR jumps in the Land Rover)
HELENA
I can't start the day without my music. (Takes out her portable radio and fiddles with it to find music.)
VICTOR
(To Land Rover): Come on! It won't start.
HELENA
Over here, Jaber. Dancing lesson!
JABER
(Laughing) I've never danced. Not a step. Never even seen a night-club.
HELENA
A night-club's like a dungeon at rush-hour. The men get pissed at the bar and the women go to the lavatory in pairs. And there's stupid traffic lights flashing away.
JABER
What?
VICTOR
Won't bloody start.
HELENA
They always start in the end. (To JABER) Most of the men dance like camels but they smell worse. And the bouncers are built like pyramids.
Oh sorry. Most of the men dance like camels but they smell worse. And the bouncers are built like pyramids.
JABER
Is there music?
HELENA
No, there is a noise called disco. Sounds like a bunch of eunuchs yelling for help from the top of an oil derrick. You haven't missed much.
VICTOR
Bloody hell. (Jumps out of Land Rover, opens front)
JABER
But I've missed the pleasure of holding a young woman close, me loving her and her loving me back . You see, when I reached the age of love I never knew love, or music, or dancing. It was like sitting for year after year with a hot coal in my hand. the desert stole all those joys away from me.
HELENA
You talk like a child who's had a toy pinched.
VICTOR
Could be dirty plugs. (Gets to work with a cloth)
JABER
I never had a toy. When people are waiting to be born they should be asked where they want to spend their lives. I'd have chosen a great city like yours. And I'd only visit the desert as a tourist. Like Victor. And I'd invite you.
HELENA
I'd have chosen the desert. I could have been your guide. You don't want the city. Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar, wherever you go the walls. close in around you, walls piled on top of each other, bricks
and mortar - You feel that your eyes are made of bricks, your heart is made of bricks, you've got a brickhead, brick body, brick feet. Towers of steel and concrete and glass rise up everywhere and wipe out the horizon and the sun and the colours of the clouds and the deeps of the sky. It's like we'd swapped our space in the universe for a million cages built with bricks and mortar.
(VICTOR back in Land Rover - won't start)
JABER
Give me your walls and take my desert. Perhaps I could travel back to my empty childhood and find it suddenly filled with toy cars, bright roundabouts, cartoon films, new clothes, birthday parties and boxes of chocolates.
VICTOR
Toy cars. That's what I've got here.
HELENA
But Jaber, I didn't eat your chocolates. Don't look so sorry for yourself. What was your school like?
JABER
It was one dark room with a blind sheikh and his stick. We read the Quran there for two years. That was education in my village. The only good things were the pictures on the walls. I think they must have been posters from the Department of Health. They showed wonderful children. Dressed in new clothes, marvellous clothes. Beautiful features, rosy cheeks, carefully combed and glossy hair, wide bright eyes. They smiled down at me with their glittering teeth. Their world was spotless and shining, a world bursting with health and beauty. And then I'd look around me. Real school children. Ragged old clothes. Skinny little bodies. Flies hovering around their eyes, their nose and their mouths, sucking at their snot and their spittle. And I hated them all.
I wasn't any brighter or cleaner than the worst of them, but I could still curse fate for putting me among them. One day I looked up to the children in the pictures and saw them looking down at me. I realised that they'd chosen me to be their ,friend. I was so happy. The dingy room disappeared and the blind sheikh waving his devilish stick vanished, and so did all of those little faces which packed the room around me like a heap of rusty old tins. From then on I greeted the picture children every morning. I gave them beautiful names like the names in our school books. I never left my classroom without saying goodbye to them. One day perhaps they would climb out of their pictures and play.
HELENA
And what do you feel about those picture children now? Do you hate them for what they had and what you never had?
JABER
Oh no. I'm grateful to them. They gave me the only happy memories of my children. If I hadn't met them in that room, my mind would have been destroyed.
HELENA
(going towards him and taking both his hands) Any friend of theirs is a friend of mine.
VICTOR
Still won't start.
HELENA
Sand in the carburettor?
VICTOR
D'you know about cars?
HELENA
I know they get sand in the carburettor.
VICTOR
Ah. (He goes back to working on the engine).
JABER
Is it going to work?
VICTOR
Of course it's going to work.
HELENA
That's the spirit. Come on label', let's dance! I'll teach you how the city dances. You teach me how the desert dances.
(She pulls him forward to dance. He resists a little, then begins to dance with her, stumbling along.
HELENA tries to teach him to dance)
Right foot first. Then the left. Get your feet to follow the beat. Like 1 do. Watch me. Follow me.
(He tries to follow her but starts dancing in his own way, excited, poweiful but ignoring the rhythm of the music. By mistake he treads on her foot. She yells. He stops dancing. She laughs. He laughs too)
You dance like a crocodile.
JABER
1 accept that as a compliment since it comes from such a gracious lady as yourself.
(The music stops. Huge applause)
RADIO
And that's where we leave Wembley Arena, where Doberman's Platoon are receiving a standing ovation - as usual.
(Serious march music strikes up - a second radio voice, very authoritative. comes in)
SECOND RADIO VOICE
World Perspectives. (Music fades) This week our team reports on and examines the latest developments in the global energy crisis. Our guests in the studio include the Minister and Shadow Minist_r for Energy, a panel of leading economists and businessmen with a satellite link-up to their counterparts in New York and a representative of the Third World. We begin
HELENA
Music, give me music.
(HELENA turns the dial to other stations)
RADIO
(Actory voice) L'oiseau chant avec ses doights - trois fois ... (burst of Arabic) ... (comic's voice) So myoId woman said to me: 'I don't know, but 1 put what was left in your sandwiches.' (roar of laughter) ...
VICTOR
(Back in driver's seat - won't start) Oh damn it to hell!
HELENA
Music!
RADIO
(Huge burst of music from Wagner's The Ring. She switches it off).
HELENA
Stupid radio. Tell me about your gracious lady.
JABER
I have no gracious lady. Just a wife.
HELENA
If that's a joke I think you ought to build a sphinx on top of it. One wife? What a comedown! You're a free spirit of the desert. You're meant to marry twenty, fifty, a hundred women.
JABER
That was our ancestors, Miss Helena.
HELENA
Real men.
JABER
Yes, powerful, tall and domineering. They darkened the face of the desert with their camels and their stallions. Their tents were numberless. One man would have a hundred or two hundred women in his household. Sometimes a thousand or two thousand for a prince or a king . But then along came new generations of feeble little men with weak appetites. They couldn't rise to the standards of their glorious ancestors. And a strange law crept in, I d6n't know how, but it stopped a man from keeping more than one wife. It seemed like the end of the world. But, Allah be praised, there was no law against a man separating from his wife. So all we could do was marry them one at a time, keep them for a year or two, then divorce one wife and marry another.
HELENA
That's what we do with cars. What about the poor woman you married just so you could divorce her'?
JABER
She doesn't mind - she goes out and marries another man. In our villages we celebrate weddings as often as you throw tea parties.
HELENA
I have never thrown a tea party in my life.
JABER
That's why you're not married.
HELENA
Tell me Jaber, have you ever got a divorce so you could marry another woman?
JABER
Of course . Eleven women . Most of them, by Allah, were virgins.
HELENA
Eleven. Let me take a photo!
VICTOR
I'm going off for a crap.
JABER
Only eleven . Where I come from I'm regarded as a bachelor. You're not allowed to meet your bride before the wedding. You don't even see her. So the only way you can find out about her is to marry her. Then if you don't like her, you divorce her so you can marry someone else. And so on and so on till you find the right person and then you decide to be partners for life.
HELENA
Smile, please! (adjusts camera) That's a great way to get to know people. And after all your eleven marriages, have you finally found your life partner? Smile!
JABER
I had a little patch of land. I sowed it with wheat every winter. When summer came and the wheat ripened I cut it down and hauled it off to market. With the money I earned I'd order a wedding party. But times have changed. My children have multiplied. They're like ants, all over the house. Life is more complicated. There are more demands on me. My crops won't keep my family for more than a month or two. On top of that I'm getting older and I'm fed up with being a guide. The last woman fate sent me is satisfactory, oh, but to be honest: if Mr Victor paid me proper wages I'd go off and marry another virgin straight away and with the permission of Allah she would cure the weakness I feel crawling in my arms and legs. It's extraordinary that a man of Victor's age isn't married. In my village, when a man's over twenty, the less he's married, the more he's talked about. A man who's not married at all - what does he do with his virility? But a man of fifty, still not married, what about him?
HELENA
He's internationally famous.
JABER
For being unmarried?
HELENA
No, for his work in oil research . He might never have done that if he'd been bothered with a house and wife and kids.
JABER
But what's the use of being internationally famous? At the end of every day he finds his home as empty as a lizard's hole in the desert.
HELENA
You don't want to understand. It's perfectly normal. Some people choose not to marry. I'm never going to get tied up in that marriage thing.
JABER
Never in your whole life ?
HELENA
Not if I live to be 99 . (levelling camera) I want you next to the Land Rover. Look happy. Pretend that everyone of your wedding parties made your life happier.
JABER
You're thinking about your picture. You're forgetting me. All right. But aren't you like every other woman in the world? Don't you long to be a mother some day?
HELENA
A mother ? Sure. Why not? I can be a mother any time I like.
JABER
Without a husband ?
HELENA
Without a husband .
JABER
Fatherless children!
HELENA
They wouldn't need a father with a mother like me!
JABER
You'd make an ideal mother. But a child wants a father whose name he can carry. Doesn't he?
HELENA
He could choose any name he liked. Look I want a real smile. That's a little better. (Takes picture) Still, I don't want to have kids. I've got Agamemnon.
JABER
Who's Agamemnon?
HELENA
Don't you mock him. He's the most beautiful cat in the world. And the brightest . He's a Siamese, if that means anything to you, pure Siamese with a pedigree to make Prince Charles look like a test-tube baby. My flatmate's looking after him... He's everything to me.
JABER
Just this one cat ?
HELENA
You'll understand. Look. (She produces a small album from her handbag) It's a photo album. Filled with pictures of Agamemnon. But there's one page empty, just room for a picture of the gazelle you're going to catch for me.
JABER
Won't there be room for a picture of Jaber?
(HELENA shows him pictures in the album)
HELENA
Here he is sleeping in his Waitrose box. He has a proper basket but he won't use it. At about four in the morning he climbs out of that old cardboard box and marches up and down on me before he settles to sleep on my shoulder. Imagine! In my flat I'll have a cat and a gazelle, the cat sleeping on my shoulder, the gazelle on my feet. I'll take them both to the park with me on crimson leads. We'll browse in my local second-hand bookshop, they have lots of cat books but not much on gazelles so we'll complain. Then a quick one at the .
Mog and Antelope - one lager, one bowl of milk and a plate of sandy water . On the way home we'll drop in to the supermarket to pick up our supper - a frozen pizza, a tin of Kit-e-Kat and a packet of Gazello Crunchies. People sometimes object to dogs. But I've never heard any moans about cats and gazelles. People will go all googley-eyed. The gossip columnists will write about us: 'A girl with a cat is one thing. A girl who shares her bed with a cat and a gazelle is something else. The mind boggles. And so, I'd wager, does the bed.' But what'll we call my gazelle. Electra? Antigone? Andromeda? I'm in love with Greek legends.
JABER
Not just one gazelle . I will hunt three or four for you. I’ll send you home with all your wishes granted... I mean it.
HELENA
Thank you very much. Here he is eating his tea. I give it to him first thing when I come home from work. I've never left him to go on a trip before. Wonder how he's managing without me to take care of him?
JABER
I wish you'd take care of me, too.
HELENA
How d'you mean, Jaber?
JABER
All your love goes to Mr. Victor. I have to stay all shivering alone. There are three of us. Enlarge the circle of your love, so that it includes me.
HELENA
Who said I don't love you? And here he is at the local cat show. He won third prize. There's the medal round his neck.
JABER
I'm beginning to love this cat. I want you to love me as a woman loves a man. You are beautiful , the desert is empty. Love me for a little while.
(He tries to embrace her but she pushes him away)
HELENA
If Victor heard you he'd go crazy. Don't you want to see the rest of my pictures?
JABER
Do you love him?
HELENA
Agamemnon?
JABER
No, Victor .
HELENA
I don't believe in instant love. And there's the gap between our ages. But I do owe him something. I had a dream about the desert. He made it come true. And here he is when I gave him a birthday party. Can't you see how happy he is, laughing with his whiskers? It was an unpretentious little party. Just Agamemnon and me and my friend Joanna and her cat Mutton.
JABER
So between you and Victor, it's not love. It's a mutual interest in the desert. What an astonishing people you are! With your cat's birthdays .
HELENA
If you feel lonely, why didn't you bring your wife along? We wouldn't have minded.
JABER
This is your excursion, Madam. We do not make picnics in the desert. I only came because I had to. This desert has eaten up my life.
HELENA
(looking at photo of cat) Oh I do wish I could've brought him with me.
JABER
It's different for visitors. For them the desert's a novelty. But I've been travelling with the caravans ever since I was small. Crossing and re-crossing the desert on camel back. The journey could take months. In the old days the desert was a terrible monster.
.Sandstorms would suddenly rise up and swallow down an entire caravan. I've seen the sun pour down out of the sky like a stream of molten steel. So hot a man could die on his feet. Winds howled around us and covered over the tracks we were following. Or the water ran out and we had to drink the liquid from the camels' stomachs till we were rescued. For me this is an empty space, not a holiday resort.
HELENA
You're making me frightened of the desert.
JABER
Good.
(VICTOR re-enters cheerfully. Puts toilet roll in Land Rover)
VICTOR
Had a hunch. Could be a thing with the starter motor. (Fiddles with engine) Ah yes.
JABER
But the desert has changed. Of course it has. Aeroplanes. Helicopters. They conquer thirst and wind and sand and heat and cold. They trim the claws of this wild desert. Now there are asphalt roads linking the towns. Bedouins are living in houses, in streets of houses. And new inhabitants have arrived. The oil companies - with their drills like great black trees in the sands. And their pipelines stretching like veins across the desert. But still the desert is too big for them. The desert is greater than all of us. There remain areas which no man would Clare to cross.
HELENA
But aren't you frightened by the desert's emptiness? Oh, and this one. Look, he's having his bath. Aren't you terrified when you're alone?
JABER
Your cat lives like a prince. No, the deserf doesn't frighten me. But it always makes me feel small and insignificant. Fear? I've always lived with fear ever since they put a dagger in my hand and said: 'Don't leave the house without this. The sons of the tribe of Othman want to take their. revenge by killing you.' I was only 11 at the time. 'They want to kill me?' 'Yes. This is your dagger. Be a man. Defend yourself with it.' Can you imagine? A child a little over ten years old . Fear was a stone that they placed in my heart. I didn't understand about revenge. I didn't know who the sons of the tribe of Othman were. I've seell people dying. I've fought in battles. I've been wounded. I've faced death many times in the desert. But that was the greatest fear of my life. And even today, I still don't know who the sons of Othman are. There are tribes called Othman scattered all over the desert. But I still carry that dagger. And the stone of fear is still in my heart. Every day when I wake up I ask myself if the sons of the tribe of Othman will strike today. What a cat! Here he is with a book between his feet.
HELENA
Paws.
JABER
He's the first educated cat I ever met. What's his name? Aga ... Aga ...
HELENA
Agamemnon . He was a great hero. He fought for ten years in the Trojan Wars but the day he got home he was murdered by his wife and her feller . But how d'you manage to carry on day to day with these sons of Othman after your throat.
JABER
Don't worry about me. Here he is, heading a ball like Pele. A miraculous cat! (closes the album) Look, I have an amulet that wards off all evil. My mother, Allah rest her soul, placed it round my neck in the first week of my life and I've worn it ever since. It's all that keeps me safe.
VICTOR
(Head in engine) She's coming along. Any minute now.
(JABER gives the album back to HELENA, who puts it in her handbag. JABER starts gathering up the pots, pans and plates which are scattered around)
JABER
You've known him long?
HELENA
I don't know him.
JABER
Then why did you come flying out here when he called as if you'd been lovers since the beginning of time?
HELENA
Kismet .
JABER
What?
HELENA
Fate. Chance. A West End reception . Champagne cocktails to celebrate the discovery of a new oilfield. Victor was one of the team. I told him I'd dreamed of visiting the desert. He said: 'Come visit us next year' . I forgot all about it till his message hit my desk. So, here I am.
JABER
And your parents agreed straightaway?
HELENA
My parents ? What's it got to do with them. Course I love them, but I haven't been to see them for three years. They live ages from London. Yorkshire . No, I tell a lie. I did see my mother last year at Euston and we said hello.
JABER
Hello?
HELENA
Yeh. Hello! Hello Mother. Hello Helena. That was it.
JABER
Didn't Agamemnon teach you about loyalty? And gratitude ? Hello? Was that all?
HELENA
Oh no, we stopped for a coffee and chat and I told her I worked for this building society so she asked me to help her get a loan to buy a new house.
JABER
But you were feeling ungrateful so you refused?
HELENA
Course not. I fixed the loan for her that afternoon. It was a gift.
JABER
So now you understand the pleasure of giving to one's parents.
HELENA
I don't mean a gift to her.
JABER
A gift to your conscience then ?
HELENA
No, the one per cent.
JABER
One per cent what?
HELENA
Commission.
JABER
Commission for you?
HELENA
Naturally .
JABER
One per cent from your mother ?
HELENA
What's wrong with that? I get one per cent of the value of the house. My mother gets the loan. Everybody's happy.
JABER
That sort of thing freezes my heart. The desert I grew up in doesn't terrify me. But I am truly terrified by this other desert.
(VICTOR climbs into the Land Rover, shaking his head. It starts first time. He smiles)
VICTOR
OK everyone let's get a move on folding up these beds and the tent. We need to press on before it's too hot. This is meant to be a hunting trip. .
(Meanwhile HELENA has taken off her clothes to reveal a bikini. She goes and splashes water over her body. Then dries her body, brings out a suntan lotion, sits in a chair and begins to apply the lotion)
HELENA
Hang about, Victor, I haven't sunbathed yet. I'm crazy about the sun. He's like a great big golden lover. When the sun pours down on me I feel like a Steinway being played by Oscar Peterson. And it's all thanks to you, Victor. You're a love.
VICTOR
I'm more of a Richard Clayderman fan myself. Let's have a little taste. One for the road if there was a road. Let's have a Scotch, Jaber.
(JABER brings the bottle with a glass)
JABER
Isn't it a little early in the day for whisky?
VICTOR
And a glass for Helena . (JABER brings another glass) - What about you, Jaber?
JABER
You know I don't drink, Mr. Victor. You'll excuse me now? I must go to pray. Perhaps Allah will bless our journey.
(JABER goes to the edge of the stage and begins his ritual ablutions, using sand instead of water)
HELENA
(laughing) What's he up to now? What's this sand business, Jaber?
JABER
When we have no water we use the pure sands of the deserts to wash in before we make our prayers.
HELENA
But there's plenty of water.
JABER
There is never plenty of water. This is the desert and every drop of water is precious. Never forget that. Allah Akbar.
(He begins his prayers)
VICTOR
And every drop of Scotch is precious too. (He fills the two glasses and begins to hum Take a Pair of Sparking Eyes)
HELENA
I think he's ticking us off for washing ourselves with water.
VICTOR
Let's drink a toast. The desert!
(VICTOR clinks glasses with her, kisses her quickly and continues humming)
HELENA
He really is a bit weird.
VICTOR
Leave him to me.
JABER
(To JABER) - All right, where's the gazelles? That's what we came to the desert for - gazelles, not God. Are you deaf?
(VICTOR finishes his glass and fills another while JABER continues to pray. VICTOR and HELENA exchange kisses and laugh)
HELENA
He asked me why you don't get married.
VICTOR
What did you tell him?
HELENA
I said you had dedicated your life to science.
VICTOR
I must have better reasons than that. No, I've never found a place where I wanted to settle down. And I'm not keen on a permanent woman around the place permanently asking me those permanent questions: where? How? Who? When? Why? But Helena, most important reason: If I'd been married we wouldn't be here together in the clean, wild air of the desert. I'm beginning to feel young and alive again, I can feel it happening.
HELENA
Great. I've got some friends at work. We were planning a sea cruise holiday together. And saving up. But I passed up the ocean for the desert.
(JABER has finished his prayers and is now holding a set of beads)
JABER
As the servant who stands at the gateway of the Palace of the Desert I say to you: 'Welcome!' The desert is flattered to be chosen when you might have favoured the ocean.
HELENA
Maybe Neptune's angry with me now.
JABER
Neptune?
HELENA
God of the sea.
JABER
If the sea-god is angry, he can go drink the sea water. It should be enough for you, Helena, that the desert loves you.
HELENA
( jumping up as if suddenly hit) Let's go, let's go. The sun's eating me up. I'm ready.
(She puts on her clothes. VICTOR offers her another glass of whisky and they begin to get ready to leave, packing up things in the car)
VICTOR
Due south, is it?
JABER
Yes. Take a dead straight line. Before noon tomorrow we'll have reached the final stage.
(HELENA is busy taking photos of them as they pack up)
VICTOR
Sure we've got everything? Water, food, petrol, medicine chest? Mustn't take risks in the desert.
JABER
Everything OK.
VICTOR
And the whisky . That's my responsibility.
JABER
And the Land Rover .
VICTOR
My responsibility .
JABER
It is. Most valuable item on our journey. More precious even than food or water.
VICTOR
I've got enough spare parts to make two more Land Rovers.
(VICTOR jumps into the driver's seat humming the Dam Busters' March. JABER and HELENA join in the singing but delay getting into the car so as to make sure that they've forgotten nothing. VICTOR turns on the engine)
JABER
That exhaust. You're spoiling the good air with your blue smoke.
VICTOR
Get a move on or I'll leave you to the desert.
JABER
I couldn't ask for a more glorious fate. Leave us two here.
(JABER comes to HELENA while they are still singing. He takes her in his arms. She resists at first. They are behind the Land Rover, where VICTOR can't see them. Soon HELENA submits to JABER and they fall into a long embrace. VICTOR sounds his born. HELENA slips out of JABER's arms and jumps in to the back seat of the Land Rover while JABER stays rooted to the spot as if he can't believe what has happened until he sees the car begin to move. He jumps into the front passenger seat while they all carry on singing)
VICTOR
This is your Captain speaking. I would like to welcome you aboard and wish you all a pleasant flight.
(The wind begins to rise. They are driving along now)
VICTOR
I thought we were supposed to run into your gazelles a few miles after the village.
JABER
They're shyer these days. After they first discovered human beings, the gazelles fled to the ends of the earth. Once they used to love this region, they'd even wander down our village street. No matter how many of them we hunted down, there were always more gazelles. But then visitors came to the Kingdom and they hunted the gazelles for sport. And oil companies came to the Kingdom and began to examine the desert, inch by inch, like doctors examining the body of a patient. And the gazelles began to fade away, to die away. Very few of them reached the depths of the desert, beyond the reach of the oil companies. There was a law to forbid the hunting of gazelles, but they went on dying and the law was forgotten.
VICTOR
But you said we'd have good hunting round here.
(They are still driving across the desert)
JABER
Don't worry, you'll meet the gazelles. I shall introduce you. Gazelles, this is Mr. Victor. He is a good and gracious gentleman and wishes you no harm. But he would like to take a few of you and present you as a gift to his lady friend Helena. You will be luxuriously and kindly cared for. That's what I'll tell them, and the rest's up to you . OK?
VICTOR
(laughs) OK. Fine.
JABER
Nobody knows the gazelles like me. As a boy I used to ride my camel through the desert searching for food for my family. And then I began my little war against the gazelles. I would stay six or seven days and nights lying in wait for them. And I'd travel back with a camel laden with the bodies of gazelles. So I could feed my family and sell the rest of the meat in the village. When one of my sons died I thought it was a punishment for killing those gazelles. But I didn't have any other trade. All I knew was the desert. So I had to become a guide for companies and tourists. If there was any other job in the world, I'd quit. I've been promised a chance of being a night-watchman in a garage. Guarding the shining cars in a cool concrete cave. I'd happily leave this job because I know the gazelles hate me. Some day they'll destroy me if I don't leave them alone. If they had newspapers you'd read about me every day - Jaber - public enemy number one of the Gazelles. It worries me, it scares me.
VICTOR
You're exaggerating, Jaber. If you can fix those gazelles for us, I promise you a job as a messenger at the company's offices in town. (Looks at notebook)
We get back on the Sunday. Then there's a holiday... then a weeks' holiday. Third week ... Monday morning the section heads meet. Evening there's laboratory committee. Tuesday's full up. Wednesday I'll take care of your job ... Wednesday, 10 am, three weeks from now. Turn up on the dot and it's fixed. (He writes down the appointment)
JABER
That's very good of you, but just a moment. (He consults an invisible diary) Three weeks' time... morning, a meeting with the Directors. Afternoon consultations with clients . Evening - an appointment with a strange woman - what? My secretary didn't say anything about this... It's to dine with you, Madame Helena. (She wakes from a short nap and is surprised as she doesn't know what's going on) That's what my diary says. You'd better stop sunbathing in the desert or we'll spend a month treating all the burns on your soft body. I'll have a word with my secretary and cancel all your appointments. (Seriously) But I've come to hate this job. I don't want any more gazelles. I'll be happy working in the company. There'll be new kinds of gazelles - blonde gazelles from Canada, America, Rome, Paris and London. Merciful Allah! What a golden opportunity .
VICTOR
You needn't feel so bad. We want to take these gazelles alive.
JABER
Mr. Victor, have you ever seen a gazelle die?
VICTOR
'Course not. Been much too busy.
JABER
My shot hit the creature. I ran up, all happy. I'd got the gazelle I wanted. It wasn't dead yet. It was jerking its body. The agony was beating in it. And slowly it twisted up its face towards me, and its teeth were bared in pain. And it looked at me. And its eyes were filled with contempt. I'll never forget. The most beautiful black eyes. Black eyes staring up into my eyes. And I saw a tear shining.
VICTOR
Come on
JABER
Yes. It was weeping. Gazelles do weep. And it stared at me like a traitor, as if I'd broken some sort of promise. As if there had been some kind of pledge between us and I had broken it. The gazelle kept looking at me until it died. I was full of wonder. I put out my hand and closed its eyes - that dying saint. When I stood up I was shivering like a man stricken with sudden fever. I left the gazelle where it lay and walked back to my village. And there I found that my sick son had died.
HELENA
I'm sorry.
JABER
(to VICTOR) Slower. Slow down.
VICTOR
What's the matter?
HELENA
(looking through field glasses) There they are.
VICTOR
What? (He sees) Unbelievable.
HELENA
So many... so many...
VICTOR
Crowding together. Like pilgrims at Mecca.
JABER
Slowly...
HELENA
Like they've come from all over the world.
VICTOR
So many...
JABER
Slowly, close in slowly.
HELENA
And I was hoping to see just one.
VICTOR
And suddenly the whole world's filled with them. All ages, all colours...
HELENA
There must be some reason. One of their Princes is getting married. The coronation of their King . The Kingdom of gazelles.
VICTOR
Gazelles! Gazelles! (He keeps shouting and the others join in)
ALL
Gazelles! Gazelles! Gazelles!
(The stage is filled with gazelles. VICTOR, HELENA, and jABER gaze around them, silently, for a long time, as gazelles surround them)
END OF ACT ONE
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ACT TWO
(The desert. Sunset. The Land Rover, surrounded by gazelles. VICTOR, JABER, and HELENA in the Land Rover, staring at them)
|
|
HELENA
(quietly) Gazelles. Gazelles.
(HELENA moves as if to climb out of the Land Rover. JABER holds her back)
JABER
(whispering) I never saw so many. Even before the oil came. So many of them .
HELENA
Let me out, Jaber. I'll catch one. (She moves suddenly)
VICTOR
No!
(The gazelles wheel and start to run. VICTOR starts to drive after them. They begin to outrun him. But a stray gazelle is cut off from the rest of the group and pauses, uncertain where to run. VICTOR stops the Land Rover and stares at the creature)
VICTOR
My God. The most beautiful creature ... Look how her body's shaped for speed, so she can glide over the desert like a little yacht. And her colour! ,Golden¬brown circles on snow. All this in the sunset . Looks like she's made out of fire. She's a glowing sapphire.
JABER
A sapphire in the hand of an invisible giant.
(The gazelle takes flight. VICTOR gives chase)
HELENA
Looks like the giant's making a dash for it.
VICTOR
Got to chase it. It's all I can do.
HELENA
If only we can catch it, and take it home with us. I've never seen anything as beautiful.
(The ride becomes bumpier. The sun sets gradually during this part to be replaced by the rising moon)
VICTOR
We'll get it.
JABER
I don't know.
VICTOR
Any minute. It's bound to collapse. Look, there it goes.
(The gazelle staggers and seems to fall in front of the Land Rover. VICTOR stops the car, but the gazelle rises and runs off again. VICTOR starts up the car. He drives in a frenzy. The wind howls)
VICTOR
Damn it.
JABER
You've got a rifle. It's loaded.
(They are all shouting to make themselves heard)
VICTOR
I don't want to kill it.
HELENA
Don't kill it.
VICTOR
I want to hunt it down. I want to take it alive. Want to keep it.
JABER
But you lost all the others - those uncountable gazelles. All for the sake of one . Slow down.
VICTOR
They don't matter. This is the one.
JABER
Slow down. Better turn back. We're getting into the black zone.
HELENA
What' that?
VICTOR
Don't try and stop me.
JABER
Stop! It's dangerous. It's an area of death.
HELENA
Listen to him. Stop.
JABER
(pulling at VICTOR's shirt) Stop. Slow down.
VICTOR
I've got to have it. I can't stop. It'll collapse again soon. Then I'll have it. A present for Helena . Gazelle! I'm coming for you.
JABER
Stop.
HELENA
Victor, please stop now .
JABER
He's like cement and steel.
HELENA
He can't hear us.
JABER
Possessed by devils.
HELENA
Fighting for his life.
JABER
Slow down. Help.
(The Land Rover is crashing and bouncing. VICTOR hits his head, which begins to bleed)
VICTOR
God - I'm coming after you.
JABER
You're hurt. Let.me take over.
(jABER and VICTOR struggle for the steeritlg wheel. VICTOR fights off jABER)
HELENA
(to jABER) We ought to jump out.
JABER
We'd be killed.
HELENA
He's crazy.
JABER
Better pray. (He begins to recite the Koran)
HELENA
I can't pray. I'll sing.
(HELENA bawls out a rock song - something on the lines of Little Richard's Good Golly Miss Molly ¬trying to sing so hard she'll survive)
(By now it is moonlight on a black landscape)
JABER
We're right in the heart of it. The black zone.
HELENA
Stop, Victor. You're bleeding.
VICTOR
Let me catch it first. Let me - where is it?
(VICTOR stops the Land Rover)
HELENA
Vanished.
JABER
Like a ghost.
VICTOR
Nothing?
HELENA
The blood. Let me bandage you.
VICTOR
I don't give a damn about the blood! I want my gazelle.
JABER
It's gone.
VICTOR
Nothing .
HELENA
Black mountains. Moonlight. And the howling of a wind that fills the world.
(The wind rises to a climax)
VICTOR
Where are we?
(It is as if VICTOR is waking from a dream. He is in shock. HELENA starts to bandage his head)
JABER
We're lost, I think.
HELENA
(screaming at jASER) Get me out of this bloody mess!
HELENA
He didn't get you into it. What are we going to do?
VICTOR
Nice quiet drive home. (Tries to start the Land Rover. Fails. Tries again. Fails) Shit. Folks, we seem to have run out of petrol.
HELENA
That's not funny.
VICTOR
No it's not. Pass the Johnny Walker. And then let's get some sodding sleep .
(VICTOR, jASER and HELENA freeze as HELENA passes the bottle. Fade to black. Lights up and the time is now shortly after sunrise days later. VICTOR is huddled in the driving seat, fast asleep. jASER is in the passenger seat, looking washed-out. HELENA is trying to sleep in the back seat. All three are covered from head to toe in dust)
JABER
You asleep?
HELENA
Asleep? I'm being beaten on the head with a white-hot hammer. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Like a bloody disco.
(jASER climbs out of the Land Rover. He picks up a handful of dust. Looks at it)
What's that? Breakfast?
JABER
Trying to work out where we are. By the nature of the dust, you know. Pass the 'binoculars, please, (She does) Should be an oil company prospecting. Somewhere round here.
JABER moves away from the Land Rover, scanning the area through the binoculars. VICTOR wakes up, raises his head, looks around as if trying to identify the place. His clothes are spattered with blood and his head is bandaged. He wipes the dust from his face)
VICTOR
Where the hell? What happened? I'm still in a nightmare. Am I?
HELENA
Have a look in the petrol can. Maybe there's a few drops left. A few drops? Enough to get us away from this damn black earth.
VICTOR
I knew it'd happen. Oh, my back, ow. Pain in my neck too. And my legs. When we started out, I had this premonition. My blood suddenly stopped.
HELENA
You could have told us. I really appreciate it when friends tell me their premonitions of doom except that ninety-nine times out of a hundred premonitions of doom don't come true. But I'll make an exception in your case.
VICTOR
How long have I been behind this bloody useless wheel?
HELENA
My muscles won't work. I was scared by that storm. Like a million wolves were howling. Not in harmony either.
VICTOR
The wolves didn't eat us. But this is worse than wolves. Maybe that bedouin of ours wanted this to happen. Had it in for us all along. Set a trap for us. Humiliate us, insult us - and then get rid of us. I know these desert bedouin. They've hated us all through history.
HELENA
He's not so bad. We're all in the same ... boat. And Jaber's climbed up the mast in the hope of spotting dry land.
VICTOR
I don't trust people who eat snakes.
(They climb down heavily from the Land Rover, wiping dust and dirt from their faces and clothes)
HELENA
What do we do now?
(VICTOR strides to the rear of the Land Rover looking
for petrol in the empty cans. He throws them out, one after another. No petrol. HELENA collapses and sits on one of the cans. VICTOR loses all hope and turns on JABER)
VICTOR
Any sign of land?
JABER
Nothing moving. My friends, we are face to face with a rather ugly problem.
VICTOR
It's your fault. Four days we've been lost. Four days wandering around. Four days covered in dust. Four days of the wind howling. Four days going round in circles, guided by a bloody blind man. Thanks.
JABER
There is a sort of track. We're lucky to find that.
VICTOR
I'm very glad to have the opinion of the world's leading authority on the desert. The man who claims to know the Sahara like the back of his hand. What's the use of a track with no bloody petrol?
JABER
You're the one who took us into the black' zone.
VICTOR
No. The gazelle did. I'm hungry!
JABER
I'll get the food ready. (From the Land Rover he pulls out a box. It is full of sand. He looks for and finds a tin of sardines) Sardines. Bread. (Opens a nylon hag and fakes out bread. He starts to make sandwiches)
HELENA
Why can you never starve in the desert?
JABER
You can starve.
HELENA
It's a riddle. Like you have at Christmas. A silly riddle.
JABER
Why can you never starve in the desert?
HELENA
Because of the sand which is there!
VICTOR
Jesus.
JABER
I don't understand. But there's sand in everything.
HELENA
What's the black zone?
JABER
People don't get out of it. Caravans of hundreds of people have come here and disappeared. Even the oil companies, with all their machinery, they steer clear of the zone. There was one oil expedition. It was a disaster. Luckily help came quickly. They had to leave all their gear behind. The crew just got out in helicopters. This is the great Sahara. And now you know a little about it.
VICTOR
I know a bit about the Sahara. But I know more about under the ground than what's on the surface. You're an expert on its skin. I specialise in the bowels. You're my guide to the surface.
HELENA
I can't eat this. It's full of sand.
VICTOR
I can't eat it.
JABER
But it's the most delicious food in the world. You'll find that out in a few hours time. I'm just amazed that we're still alive. I don't know why the Land Rover didn't sink into the sand. There were thousands of rocks sticking out of the ground like black daggers. Why didn't the tyres get torn to shreds? This place is full of evil spirits. You ought to be grateful that we're still alive. It's a miracle.
HELENA
Funny. I want civilisation very badly.
VICTOR
The gazelle. The gazelle - for you. That's all I could think about. That's why I drove like that.
JABER
You nearly killed us.
VICTOR
The gazelle.
JABER
The gazelle's fault, of course. It drove you mad.
HELENA
We shouldn't have gone round and round and round and round, on and on and on. We should have stopped for a while to think.
JABER
We had to keep moving. Otherwise we'd have been buried in sand.
HELENA
I'm just beginning to feel the pain. Like my bocjy's been beaten with salty whips. My head's like a gyroscope. What do we do now? What'll you do, Jaber?
VICTOR
He's done enough.
HELENA
That's not fair. What could he do? How could he stop you driving like an over-age Jimmy Dean?
VICTOR
It was for you. It was all for you. And now you turn on me
JABER
Shall we calm down? There's a problem, that's for sure. But others have faced the same problem.
VICTOR
Any survivors?
JABER
A few.
VICTOR
Great. That's great!
JABER
In a case like this.
VICTOR
What in a case like this?
JABER
The first golden rule is to keep our heads.
VICTOR
Now I know where I met you before.
JABER
Where?
VICTOR
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 'Don't Panic.' You know? No, of course you don't.
JABER
That's right - don't panic.
VICTOR
Don't panic. OK.
JABER
Sure there's no petrol?
VICTOR
Sure.
JABER
But we've got food and drink.
VICTOR
For how long?
JABER
Three days? It depends. On top of that we've found a track. Somebody must use it, sometime. So why panic?
VICTOR
Good question. What's the second golden rule?
JABER
Stay by the car. It's easy to see from the air.
VICTOR
For the buzzards?
JABER
For the search party.
VICTOR
If there's a search party.
JABER
Yes. And the car is our big protector against the sun.
VICTOR
So we just sit about and stare into space?
JABER
Don't make fun of staring into space. Revelation from Allah only fell upon those who sat and contemplated in the desert.
VICTOR
I didn't realise you had such aspirations.
JABER
But we'll do more than sit and contemplate. We'll collect firewood. We'll keep a fire going all night. That'1I guide our rescuers.
VICTOR
Scorpions and snakes. Great God Almighty!
JABER
May your heart be filled with faith.
VICTOR
Sometimes I think you're winding me up.
JABER
How?
VICTOR
Making fun of me.
JABER
God forbid! How could someone like me around someone like you? You have fame and money and New York and London and hotels .like glass mountains and helicopters whizzing through the air as obediently as hunting dogs - and me - I'm a miserable bedouin and I have nothing at all.
VICTOR
You get it all mixed up, don't you? Serious talk and joking. With you I don't know where one begins and the other ends. This isn't a good time for jokes, Jaber. We sit here, and death is sitting beside us.
JABER
The justice of the desert is very cruel.
HELENA
My head's cracking open.
VICTOR
I'm stiff all over. Feel like I'm made of wood. My arms and legs don't seem part of me any more. All right, Jaber, you can laugh. You haven't been driving this bugger. Stupid bloody Land Rover.
HELENA
Give me something for my head.
(JABER goes to medicine chest for aspirin. He comes back to her with a glass of water)
JABER
Swallow this pill. You'll feel better. Don't worry, it'll be all right. As soon as we've found some petrol we'll go after those gazelles again and this time we'll catch you one.
HELENA
All I want is to get shot of this headache. The gazelle's gone. I couldn't give a shit about it.
(All three lean against the petrol cans near the Land Rover. jABER throws to the other two blankets and pillows. By the car he sets up a kind of sunshade to protect them from the heat of the sun. He offers a drink to each of them)
HELENA
I want my radio. What' going on in the world? Is there a world? I think we're all alone.
(She goes to the Land Rover to look for the radio)
JABER
Oh no. The desert's full of wandering spirits. Sometimes they're in the form of women, sometimes in the form of a whole caravan. You see it in the distance - men, women, tents and camels. They're all enjoying a party, dancing and singing, and you run to join in the fun and you're smiling at them and suddenly - shiff! - no party, no dancing, no singing. Not even the shadow of a camel. You see, it was a wedding party of spirits. And sometimes the spirits take the form of gazelles. I'm thinking about that. That gazelle, all alone, that damn beautiful gazelle who led us into the black zone - maybe it was nothing but a female spirit who wanted to enchant us. And she took us to the zone, and she left us there. And now she's laughing her head off. Some spirits are famous for their sense of humour.
HELENA
The radio's full of sand. The whole world's been silted up. All the world's music is buried under the sand dunes. And the bloody quiz programmes too. (Tries the camera) And my camera's jammed. It's weird. First the Land Rover goes on strike and now the radio and the camera come out in sympathy. Civilisation has skidded to a halt. It's back to basics. It's like the day before the Creation - a great silent void with no trace of Elvis Costello. I'm beginning to believe in your spirits.
VICTOR
Desert people have an explanation for everything. Anything strange gets blamed on the spirits.
HELENA
I think there was a trap. A trap set for us. That gazelle was sent to seduce us with its beauty and lead us here. And we get here. And what happens? The fuel tank dries up. The radio and the camera and the taper get filled with dust and kick the electronic bucket. And now it's our turn. It's a plot. By somebody, something. . It must be. (She stands up) Come on. Let's get away.
VICTOR
(taking hold of her) Sit down. Helena. Sit down. Let's just talk quietly.
HELENA
Why?
VICTOR
To pass the time till we can get some sleep. All we can do is wait.
HELENA
Wait to be dead?
VICTOR
Wait to be rescued.
JABER
Maybe you can jiggle round the wires of this radio? Maybe it would turn into a transmitter.
VICTOR
I'm an oil engineer, not a radio engineer.
JABER
I apologise. You're an oil engineer. Well, that's good. We've got a Land Rover here, empty. But look at the energy all round.
VICTOR
What?
JABER
You've got the sun and the desert. And all that lies underneath the desert.
VICTOR
I know how to be an oil engineer. Shame you don't know how to be a guide.
HELENA
(Tries vainly to make the radio work - then flings it away) Let's go! Who would rescue us here? Will an angel flap down and carry us home to Heathrow?
JABER
I don't think I'll be reported missing for ages. And I don't suppose you will be either, Helena. But Allah be praised, we've got a famous man with us. If he's a day or two late returning, his company will send the whole Army to search for him. So let's not worry.
VICTOR
But I didn't tell the company about this trip.
HELENA
Why not?
VICTOR
Because you're listed on my pass documents as a male guide. And I didn't want my colleagues sticking their noses in my business.
JABER
And he also thought it best not to tell our village policeman - in case the Morals Squad took an interest. I don't know what you were so scared about. They wouldn't come and arrest her just for going on a hunting trip.
VICTOR
I didn't tell anyone except the garage where I hired the Land Rover. I asked for a transmitter. But they're only allowed to fit them for the army and police.
HELENA
Is the garage man a friend?
VICTOR
Hardly knows me.
JABER
At least he'll miss his Land Rover. But not for a while. It's worse than I thought.
HELENA
I don't understand - you trying to keep this trip secret. And you're saying it's because of me. Like I was shameful, like I was something dirty you want to hide away. We're supposed to be hunting gazelles in this desert, not satisfying some passing desire of yours.
JABER
Every man must struggle to satisfy his lasting desires.
VICTOR
You stay out of this one!
JABER
The quarry has been lost - but the desire has been achieved.
VICTOR
I said - stay out of this. (To HELENA) That's what you think of me? I'm sorry I asked you!
HELENA
I'm sorry I came!
VICTOR
This whole trip was for you.
JABER
How can we pass the time? I do know a game where two men compete in manhood.
VICTOR
Oh?
JABER
But for that we would need another woman. (He laughs)
VICTOR
What a nasty-minded bedouin!
JABER
Does it offend you to talk about sex? I think it's the best thing in the world. I hope Allah hasn't taken it away from you.
VICTOR
You shut up or I'll bust your skull.
JABER
It's the truth that makes you angry.
VICTOR
(jumping to his feet and approaching lASER threateningly) You filthy little bastard.
HELENA
I can't stay. The air's poisoned.
(Exit HELENA)
VICTOR
Helena, don't be absurd! (to jASER). You see?
JABER
Can't take ajoke?
VICTOR
No - your humour's above my head. Helena! Helena!
JABER
Don't kill yourself running after her. Where can she go?
VICTOR
She's not stopping. She may just carry on till she collapses.
JABER
Or maybe she'll run across a bedouin caravan or an oil rig. And we'll all be saved.
VICTOR
Is that another one of your desert jokes? Go and apologise to her. Go on. Then she'll come back.
JABER
She won't go far.
HELENA
(Offstage) Help! jaber! Victor! Help!
JABER
See?
(Both run off to rescue her but she runs on before they go off stage. VICTOR takes her in his arms and helps her to sit down. She is still suffering from shock. JABER goes off to investigate)
VICTOR
You all right? Helena? What happened?
(HELENA points off stage, still in panic)
HELENA
There! Over there!
VICTOR
Was it a wolf?
(JABER enters carrying a skull)
JABER
Was that it, Helena? a few bones and skulls? I thought you were tougher than that. It's just like I told Victor¬I said you'd come across a bedouin caravan. Or maybe it's some soldiers left over from the war. The Germans, the Italians and the Allies had a battle round here. Maybe it's the skull of a British officer. Do you recognise him? A very respectable-looking skull. Salute him. It's General Death.
VICTOR
Pack it in, clown. There's another bottle of Scotch. Go fetch it.
(JABER fetches the bottle of whisky and a glass full of sand. VICTOR wipes the sand away and hands a drink to HELENA. He drinks straight from the bottle)
VICTOR
Take this, it'll settle your nerves.
HELENA
Thanks.
JABER
(to skull) It was a big mistake, General, to bring your European tribal war to our desert. An intrusion ...
VICTOR
I suppose you want your revenge.
JABER
Not me. I was a boy. But the desert has a memory.
HELENA
I tripped. I fell down. I fell in a dip full of human skulls and human bones. Clustering together. Take that thing away.
JABER
(to skull) All right, Sir, shall we go?
(JABER goes off stage to put the skull back where it was)
HELENA
Get me out of this wilderness. Get me back to civilisation.
VICTOR
Have another. It won't be long.
ELENA
It's ridiculous. All my friends in the office think I'm having one hell of a gassy time. They're all suffocating in the office and they imagine me riding pillion on a Sheikh's white charger, zooming around the Sahara shooting gazelles.
VICTOR
It'll be all right. We'll laugh about this one day.
JABER
Can I have three pieces of paper?
VICTOR
What for?
JABER
I want to write down what each of us eats and drinks. So nobody takes more than the others. And maybe one day scientists can study my lists and learn something about survival diets.
VICTOR
You are an astonishing nutcase. One eye on social justice and the other on scientific knowledge . You'll find my notebook in the glove compartment.
HELENA
He thinks it's wartime. It'll be clothing coupons next. Scotch with no ice tastes ludicrous. Like dandelion and burdock.
JABER
(looking in the Land Rover for notebook) This is worse than wartime. There's a shortage of people and plants and water. You'd never believe this was once a forest. There were rivers crowded with fish and water¬birds, there were cities and palaces and a great civilisation.
HELENA
When was that?
JABER
Oh, that was tens of thousands of years ago. Before England, I think. And before that, this whole area was a great prairie of wild beasts grazing peaceably. But now the prairie grass and the forest trees have become black oil in the belly of the earth. We dredge up the oil and it becomes the blood of our machines. Unfortunately our machine has no blood left.
VICTOR
So now you blame the whole thing on the machine?
JABER
I think I knew when it started to go wrong. The day I killed my camel.
HELENA
Why did you do that?
JABER
To make a feast for the convoy of vehicles searching for oil .
(There is the sound of an approaching light airplane, tiny at first, then growing)
HELENA
What's that?
VICTOR
What?
JABER
Listen!
(Silence. They hear the engine. They all talk at once)
HELENA
My God, it's a plane.
JABER
Where's the rifle?
VICTOR
In the back.
(JABER climbs over to get the rifle, VICTOR jumps into the Land Rover to get it too, but JABER gets is first. HELENA, in her excitement, climbs up into the Land Rover)
HELENA
A yellow plane.
VICTOR
Wait till she's nearly overhead. Then fire in front of her.
HELENA
Will there be room in it?
VICTOR
Doesn't matter. We're saved!
JABER
I'm ready.
VICTOR
Wait for it. Wait for it. (Sound of engine nearly overhead) Wait for it. Now!
(JABER fires)
HELENA
Ray! that's it! That'll do it!
VICTOR
They'll turn back now.
(All three cheer and hug each other)
JABER
I burned my face with the gun. I don't care!
HELENA
Come on, plane. Come on.
VICTOR
Come on.
HELENA
It's not turning.
VICTOR
They'll be talking about us now. Deciding what to do. Then they'll turn.
HELENA
I don't think they're going to turn.
JABER
They'll turn. They've got to turn.
(All three watch. The sound of the plane begins to fade into the distance. The three climb down from the Land Rover. A silence between them)
HELENA
The buggers. Look. Get me away from those bones. I fell on top of them just now. They crunched. They were all squashy under me. (Proffers her glass) Fill us up. No soda? Get me away from here.
VICTOR
Suppose we take all our supplies and set off towards the nearest oasis?
JABER
It's not that easy. We'd be dried up and dead in one day. If another plane comes over we've got far more chance of being spotted here by the Land Rover. And if we don't walk our water' 11 last four times as long.
VICTOR
How did generation after generation of label's survive in the desert?
JABER
Me, I never went into the desert except on my camel. Sometimes the winds would swirl around and cover up all the tracks. But when I was lost I'd climb on my camel, let it find its way to the nearest village. When my uncle was 90 years old and stone blind he used to travel the desert alone except for his camel.
VICTOR
We don't need a camel. We need a flaming magic carpet.
JABER
You don't have to believe me. But at least camels don't run out of petrol.
HELENA
I don't want to stay here. (Gets up as if to leave)
JABER
No choice. Stay here. Save energy by staying still. Please sit down. (Hands over the notebook to VICTOR) You write it down.
VICTOR
(writing down names on separate sheets) Helena, Victor, Jaber.
JABER
You be responsible for writing down what is given out to each of us. I'll check how much is left.
(JABER goes to the Land Rover, throws away an
empty tin and puts the remaining water in one can)
The most important thing is water. You can always find some kind of food in the desert. But you'll never see water - except in your dreams.
VICTOR
Fine new job I've got - Jaber's secretary.
HELENA
Scratch out my name. I don't want your food and drink. I'm on hunger strike till you find somewhere else. I'll stick to Scotch. (Takes a gulp from her glass)
JABER
Nothing else but empty tins. We've got enough for two days. Three and a bit days if we're really careful. (He turns and sees that they're both drinking Scotch) It would be better to pour the whisky into the sand.
VICTOR
I drink if I want.
JABER
I don't care what you do to your brain. That's your business. But it makes you thirsty. So you want more water.
HELENA
No. You shan't have it. It's our Scotch. Ours.
VICTOR
It's a coup. A bedouin dictatorship. (Laughs)
JABER
Do what you like. But I won't give up a single drop of my water to either of you. Write this down. Jaber ¬one can of orange juice. (Opens the can)
HELENA
Water is rationed.
VICTOR
First he'll stop us drinking. Then he'l1 ask us to wash with sand. Soon we'll be a couple of perfect Muslims.
JABER
Why not? The moment death touches me, I know I shall walk into a beautiful life - because I'm a faithful Muslim. There wiII be green gardens and silver rivers. There will be trees iIluminated with ripe fruit. There will be fountains of milk and honey and blessed wine. And there will be women more beautiful than the moon. In that paradise I wiII never be iII or weary or old. And when I walk in those gardens, where will you be?
VICTOR
In the dust, Jaber.
HELENA
It sounds rather like Bermuda. Do we really have to . die to go there?
JABER
Of course. But only if you obey Allah and his Prophet.
VICTOR
I'll manage without your gardens. Just leave me alone with my bottle of Scotch. (Takes a gulp from his glass and pours one for HELENA)
JABER
I'm not selling paradise. I'm trying to guard you from thirst. I don't think you have ever been thirsty.
VICTOR
OK, OK. It's our last bottle of booze and I'm stricken to announce that it's nearly finished.
JABER
I'll fetch some firewood before the sun gets too hot.
(Exit JABER)
VICTOR
Want any help?
JABER
(off) No thanks!
VICTOR
Good man!
JABER
(off) Enjoy your last drink.
(HELENA and VICTOR are suddenly depressed when they hear this remark)
HELENA
Victor. I'm scared. Are we really cut off? No cities? No people? No trees? No shops? No fields? No baked beans factories? No wine bars with Miles Davis tapes? Has the whole world been emptied out like a bottle of. Tizer? D'you reckon this bloody desert wind has been tearing round the globe, bashing down the bridges and sinking the ships and knotting up the telegraph wires so nobody can contact anybody? Is the Thames choked up with dirty sand? Is the Atlantic dry? Are we the only ones left alive on a planet without water? No water. Are we going to be like all those skull people over there? Dried up bones being trundled by the wind all over this yellow land? Please tell me that Biggles is on his way and that I'll soon be back in my flat and the office and I'll be able to hug Agamemnon again and drink a Scotch with ice and soda. Tell me. Please.
VICTOR
'Course we'll be rescued. Only sorry I didn't tell Richard. He's the only one I trust in the company. We've worked together a long time.
HELENA
What'll we do when the Scotch is gone? Nearly gone. For God's sake, why didn't you tell Richard? I know the one you mean, he's the one who came with you to the airport to meet me. He seemed a nice man.
VICTOR
I didn't tell him because in one way he's a bit of a child. As soon as he sees you've got something - a new kind of pen, for instance - he has to have it. When he saw you, he wanted you and he hated me because you were with me.
HELENA
Why should he be jealous? Take it easy with the Scotch. Why couldn't you have told him?
VICTOR
I didn't know this'd happen. I didn't want to take any risks. We had twice as much food and petrol as we needed. We had enough spare parts to stock a garage on the Ml. If I'd told him, he'd have wanted to come too. And I couldn't have turned him down.
HELENA
Why not?
VICTOR
Well, we're close. And he's the only one who can be a witness for me.
HELENA
Witness? What about?
VICTOR
I was screwed, badly screwed. A few years back they brought in a real phoney, a crook, and they put him in charge of my section. He got hold of all my research papers, took them back with him to the States and published them under his name. Right, instant fame. They made him a Professor of Petroleum Studies and Research. Adviser to the big corporations . Up for the'
Nobel Prize. Millionaire. Right? And me? I'm still crawling along like a worm in my underground lab, hoping that now and then he'll mention my name so that I get invited to a conference or two. That's the sort of hand-out he tosses me.
HELENA
Why don't you expose him?
VICTOR
I don't know. I make up my mind to do it. And then I stop. Would he destroy me? He's got the clout. But now I think the hell with that. Soon as I get back I'll break him.
HELENA
What a bugger. If I was you I'd strangle him for a start. But I suppose you need proof.
VICTOR
Richard's word will do it. He knew us both. He's promised to stand by me. First thing I'll do when I get back is hold a Press Conference. Spill the whole story. I should do it soon - Richard's got a dodgy heart.
HELENA
Will TV carry the story?
VICTOR
Sure. It'll be an international scandal. 'OIL WORLD ROCKED BY NOBEL PRIZE FRAUD'.
VICTOR
You know, Victor, what I miss most in the desert?
VICTOR
Ice?
HELENA
TV. Specially the commercials, Agamemnon likes them too. He sits on my lap and licks his lips when the Kit-e-Kat one comes on. Then he jumps at the screen and sniffs it. He's a fantastic person! You'll meet him if you visit me in London. And he'll let you know right away if he likes. you or not. He'" no good at hypocrisy. He'll either jump into your lap or scoot out the door.
VICTOR
Back home, in London. Have you got a man, 1I mean, someone special?
HELENA
Used to, used to. Two, three years ago. He was a diver for the Navy. He went down deep. Never came up. After that, none of my men lasted more than a month. More than a month and it felt like carrying a rucksack full of car batteries. Last one I had ran off with my flatmate. I didn't mind.
VICTOR
So now you're free.
HELENA
If there's anything on your mind, please keep it there till we get out of this mess. (She stands up and looks all around) No sign of the Foreign Legion. Jaber's about the size of a sand-grain.
VICTOR
We're alone. I want to tell you something.
HELENA
What about?
VICTOR
About what happened? Our first night. In the tent.
HELENA
You were just a bit tired and flobby. Why mention it now?
VICTOR
Wasn't just tiredness. It was more than that. I've had that trouble for three years now. First I thought it was just working too hard, exhaustion and that. I tried staying away from the lab. Only spent a few hours a week in the office. No luck. So I took a month off and headed for Paris.
HELENA
Why Paris?
VICTOR
You know - Paris equals sex. Cheerful sex. I hung around the Crazy Horse Saloon like a randy schoolboy only I wasn't randy. I tried the best women money could buy. Nothing. I felt absurd and bleak and despised. When I visited the Louvre the Mona Lisa stuck her tongue out at me.
HELENA
There are doctors
VICTOR
I couldn't go to a doctor.
HELENA
Why not?
VICTOR
I had this idea that only the desert could cure me. The roughness of the ground. The power of the sandstorms. I was sure that once I got out of the fumes of the city to go hunting in the desert, my body would restore itself. But the only woman in my heart was you. Ever since we met in London. You seemed so fresh. So beautiful. Like a young girl out of an old Greek story. Helena, I'm sorry I didn't tell you all this before. But please trust me.
HELENA
You invited me here for a perfectly straightforward gazelle hunt in the Sahara, right? And all the time you thought of me as your fresh, beautiful, Greek impotence doctor? I ought to kick your bum. But what the hell, love. I'mjust sorry I couldn't help you.
VICTOR
When I said I'd catch the most beautiful gazelle for your sake - that was true.
HELENA
And now we're stuck in the desert like Jonah in the whale.
VICTOR
Something strange happened when we ran across those gazelles. That huge space ... gazelles in amazing numbers ... I'd waited for that moment all my life. It ran through me like whisky - this feeling - I had been kept apart from these people all my life, but I loved them very deeply and now I'd come home. My own people. And when that lone gazelle appeared and turned to me, I felt a sudden change in my bones, all through my body. My strength was coming back. My blood had been stagnant for three years and now it was boiling up through my veins again. Something exploded. I was young again. New again. And I was off after that gazelle. There was nothing else in the world. Every cell in my body was fully alive. I've never known anything like it before.
(A moment of silence)
HELENA
I understand now.
(Silence)
VICTOR
And then it was a dream - a gone dream.
(HELENA tries to say something, stops. She comes near him and puts her hand on his)
HELENA
Victor. (Silence) Shall I tell you something? (VICTOR says nothing) Until today I wasn't bothered about you, one way or the other. But now I do care about you. (They embrace) We're both strangers here.
(JABER comes back carrying a bundle of dried firewood. VICTOR and HELENA separate. VICTOR sits down, exhausted. on the ground)
VICTOR
Got to get some sleep now.
HELENA
We're in danger.
VICTOR
Got to get to sleep. The longest sleep of my life.
(JABER throws down the bundle of firewood)
JABER
Yes. That's the best way to save food and water. I'm going to sleep too.
HELENA
I don't want to die in my sleep. Let's do something.
JABER
What?
HELENA
Run.
JABER
Where?
HELENA
East or west, I don't know. Or weep. Or light a fire. Let's do something! Now!
JABER
What can we do?
HELENA
We could all shout together. Maybe someone would hear us.
JABER
Only the wind would hear you.
VICTOR
And me. You'd just stop me getting my sleep.
(HELENA walks away from them and tries to call out - but her voice comes out feebly)
HELENA
Hello! Is there anybody there?
(HELENA realises that her shouting seems absurdly weak)
JABER
We'll light a fire when it gets dark. Stop playing the fool. Rest your body. Rest your head.
VICTOR
Shouting's no use.
(HELENA regains her courage, takes a deep breath, tries again)
HELENA
Hello! Anyone there?
(JABER turns to VICTOR as if he likes the idea. They both join in the calling, desperately)
ALL
Hello! Anyone there? (Echo) Hello! Anyone there?
HELENA
Just a moment. I can see something. Something shining.
JABER
I can't see it.
VICTOR
Where?
HELENA
Over there. Shining. It's like ... it's a river.
JABER
Stop. There's no river.
(But VICTOR has grabbed his hunting rifle and pack and is racing off towards the river he has seen)
HELENA
Come on! Water!
VICTOR
(off) I can see it properly now. Water! Water!
HELENA
Water! (HELENA grabs her pack and follows VICTOR). Water!
(JABER stands sadly. He watches them go. He sits and watches. Suddenly he is overwhelmed by tears. He gets up. He picks up all the gear he can carry)
JABER
I'm coming. (JABER runs after them)
(Another part of the desert - we lose the Land Rover and see a little rocky gully. VICTOR enters, kneels and gazes)
VICTOR
Yes, I can see it. Like a waterfall gushing out of the rocks. And then it makes a river. A river running right to the horizon. Water! Water! Water!
(Enter HELENA. She clasps VICTOR's hand. They struggle over the rocks)
HELENA
Water! Water! Where is it Victor?
VICTOR
Down there. Got to climb down there. Plenty of water.
VICTOR & HELENA
Water! Water!
HELENA
Where?
VICTOR
Here. Round here. The water. Here it is. Let's swim. (He tears off his shirt and crawls to the edge of a rock)
HELENA
Where's the water?
VICTOR
It's cool and good. Oh. Look out. They're coming. Keep 'em off me. Get out! They're killing me. Get off. (HELENA watches powerlessly as VICTOR struggles with invisible attackers). Murderers. (VICTOR stumbles and falls) No, don't shoot! (VICTOR levels his rifle at his own head). Don't shoot me. Don't shoot.
(Enter JABER, running. He drops his gear and grabs the rifle away from VICTOR)
JABER
That's enough. We'll need that.
VICTOR
He tried to shoot me.
HELENA
Jaber. Where's the Land Rover?
JABER
I don't know.
(VICTOR has collapsed on the ground. HELENA gives him her hand)
HELENA
Come on, Victor.
VICTOR
No. I've got to sleep.
JABER
We're lost.
VICTOR
I've got to sleep.
(VICTOR sleeps. HELENA and JABER face each other. Fade down. Music. Fade up on another part of the desert.)
(There is no Land Rover. The ground is rough with a number of rocky outcrops. Otherwise the stage is completely empty. It is shortly before sunset and the music continues. As the three re-emerge on to the stage we see that they have now rid themselves of most of their clothes because of the crushing heat. They _re near collapse. They have marched for a whole day in the heat of the sun)
(VICTOR appears, dragging himself along, his breath coming slowly, heavily. He is suffering from heat stroke. He wears jeans, with his' shirt over his head and shoulders. As soon as he reaches the rocks, he collapses. It's obvious that he can't continue)
VICTOR
God! They nearly got me. Wild bedouins on horses big as camels. Swords slicing the air, blinding as lasers. They were enjoying the hunt, screaming out their war-cries. (He attempts to scream as they did)
Yes, nearly got me. They just erupted out of the sand. I'd crawled as far as the river - and then a great mouth opened in the ground and spewed out this flood of crazy desert pirates and the river all dried up and they nearly got me. It was just me, alone. But Jaber, I thought you were coming to save me.
(JABER enters, carrying HELENA. He is still strong. but HELENA looks ill. Both are dressed in rags. JABER helps HELENA to support herself on a rock. They look like castaways on a savage abandoned shore)
HELENA
The world around me is full of green birds. The world around me is full of green birds. The world around me is full of green birds. Never so many green birds covering the whole world around me. Green birds blocking the windows so I can't see out. Can you see them? All round me. Uncountable spreading wings. White handkerchiefs fluttering like they came from a magician's pocket. And their song is agony.
Hurry, they sing. Thirsty, they sing. Put a little water in my right hand. (Holds out her hand) Put some breadcrumbs in my left hand. (Holds out her other hand) You can feed now. You can drink now. Oh, you're pecking my hands, but there's no bread or water. Your singing hurts me. You sing about death pains. Save me with drops of water, water, water, water.
JABER
Shouldn't have left the Land Rover. I couldn't stop you. (Finds some desert grass and gives them each a little) Put a little grass in your mouth. She can't hear me. Take some. (Puts the grass in her hand and helps her to put some in her mouth) Victor, can you hear me? It won't quench your thirst but it'll help your saliva.
VICTOR
Soon as they came out of the earth, the river"dried up. I ran like a wild horse. I was alone, Helena. Scared silly. I stumbled. Rocks underfoot. I fell. Scraped the skin off my knees and elbows. The horses were going to trample me. So I got up again. And ran. They'd have skinned me alive. (Listening) Hoofbeats. But far away. And war-cries. But in the distance, just little echoes. I've escaped.
HELENA
I want a few breadcrumbs and a little water. Then my green birds will be safe. I can't stand the sight of birds suffering. Don't let them die. Please. Don't let them die!
JABER
They'll survive. Don't worry about them, Helena. As soon as night falls, they'll flutter back to their nests.,
HELENA
Can you see them, Jaber?
JABER
I can't see them now, Helena. But I know them. My whole life has been spent in the desert, so I've been honoured by their company. I remember them many years ago, when our caravan sank into the sands and all the water was gone.
HELENA
So many wings. You couldn't count them. Green handkerchiefs waving goodbye.
VICTOR
Do you know anything about those horses? I yelled out to you to come and help. You didn't hear me. Will they happen again?
JABER
Those horses have gone to pull the chariots of the sun behind the gates of the night. They won't attack again till noon tomorrow. And perhaps they won't find us here. Can you still see the river? Or are you better now?
VICTOR
I feel better. But it's a real river Jaber. I know you'll laugh at me. But the river really exists. Can't explain it, but as soon as it appears, it vanishes. But I did see it. And just a moment ago, it was here, right here, here. But it escaped. Why do rivers run away from me? Why do wild men of the desert chase me? What have I done wrong? And these horses - big as camels, bigger, big as elephants, why do they chase me? I don't know. I do remember that it died. Yes, it died. They betrayed it. They plotted against the river. And then they killed it. I don't know. I don't know, the whole thing's muddled up. I don't know anything. Not any more. I just want one thing, Jaber. I want to rest. Why did you let us wander away from that house? Wander away to this land of murderers. What did they have against me? But they killed the river. And then they tried to kill me too.
JABER
Our car was the house. A little protection from the heat. I told you not to leave it. But you wouldn't listen. I told you that the desert carries whips of fire.
VICTOR
One of them took a rifle. He came over to me. He tried to blast my head off.
JABER
It was you. You aimed your rifle at your own head. The last round. If we hadn't grabbed it, you'd be dead. I don't blame you. I went through a moment like that, when suicide seems the best idea. But I fought it. I turned to Allah and asked for his help in throwing that idea away.
VICTOR
I remember now. A woman came and took my hand and I went with her.
JABER
You mean Helena?
VICTOR
I've been so stupid. I remember. I saw Helena running along shouting water, water, water.
HELENA
(in a voice like a quiet echo) Water, water, water.
VICTOR
Couldn't stop myself. I ran too. I saw the spring myself. Like a waterfall gushing out of the rocks and forming a river which stretched out to the horizon. And I was running too. And shouting: Water! Water! Water!
JABER
Victor, you know it was a mirage.
VICTOR
Who told you it was a mirage? you didn't see it. You don't know. You started shouting at us: Stay where you are. Don't leave the shade! Don't go running after an illusion. And we shouted back: It's a river. Come and see. Come and drink the water. But you wouldn't understand. I was extremely surprised that somebody with desert experience couldn't teIl the difference between a mirage and flowing water. I promise I saw the river. It reaIly existed. I promise. I saw the river. In the hottest depths of an empty desert I found a spring of leaping water. And I was very happy.
HELENA
Won't you do anything to save these birds? If only my mum was here. Things would be a bit different. She was a wonderful mother. She'd take me by the hand lead me round the zoological gardens. There were lakes. Swans swimming on green lakes. Trees full of monkeys. Pigeons sat on our shoulders and our heads as if they'd always known us. I'd swing on the swings and whirl on the whirligig and go five hundred miles an hour down the humpback slide and then I'd ask mum for some old sliced bread to feed the animals and the birds. She was a lovely mum. If only she'd hurry up and come and cheer these birds up. Poor things. Breaks my heart, the broken-up way they sing. If nobody does anything they'll die pretty soon.
VICTOR
What can I do about it, now the river's dead?
JABER
Which river?
VICTOR
The river that they hate. Didn't you see them? Coming to the river as wild savage tribes, yelling and riding those malformed horses with the necks of camels. First thing they did they started to kiIl the river. And then it died. And the pale yeIlow colour of death engulfed and covered the whole world. And then the stars died. Then the trees died. And the songs and the grass and the butterflies and the wheat. The harvest season died. The springtime withered away. The dawn chorus stopped - sudden as a heart attack. The earth split open to swallow the city of love. And on the evening of the same day all the birds of the air committed suicide. They killed the river. And then they came to kill me. And I know that they'll try again.
HELENA
Water, water, water. Save me with a few drops of water.
JABER
I didn't think we could carry on till nightfall. I thought Helena would collapse. And then a few steps. Then you would collapse. And me last. But here we are and the page of the day has been turned. But our page has not been turned. Not yet. I never thought that hellish sun would vanish before we did. Astonishing. A beautiful young woman from the city, who's never seen a desert before, and she's showing this extraordinary ability to survive. So now we can let the soft moist breezes of the evening caress our skin, stroking away the fear of that great fire. Evening has come and the river of illusion has disappeared.
VICTOR
You don't understand. I saw the river. It really existed. I was happy.
HELENA
Why didn't we stay and have a picnic by the river, drinking each other's health in glasses of silver water?
JABER
I wish I could be like you two, and save myself by escaping into fantasies. But the desert's a cruel cage without a door. The best thing is to recite the name of Allah. It is best to prepare to meet Him. (Murmurs a prayer) All I miss is my children. The littlest one is Mabruk. He is three years old. He runs out of the house at dawn and doesn't come indoors again tin sunset. I miss him so much that I keep shutting my eyes so I can see him. When I know I'm going away, I even miss him before I leave home. How can he face the world without me?
VICTOR
My feet are hurting. They're all swollen. As if we'd been walking on red-hot coals. (VICTOR takes off his shoes and it's now clear that he's regaining his mental energy as the air cools. jAbER continues his prayers)
JABER
It's a good sign. You're regaining consciousness.
VICTOR
I never last it.
HELENA
I've never heard them in such pain. Yesterday they sang so sweetly. They sounded like the happiest creatures in the world. I was sitting and drinking in the shadow of a wood. Roses and dog-daisies and streams all around me and a candle nearby with butterflies hovering round it . The dusk was all grainy, but I saw him, all bright in his sailor's uniform. And I rushed to him and we threw our arms around each other and we rolled together an the grass. And there we lay until late into the night. And when the moon came up we walked aver the massy stones dawn to the river. We stole a fishing boat. I lay my head an his chest and the boat gradually moved along the water. And he sang to' me. He sang:
(Sings) Where are you going, my golden girl?
Where are you going today?
JABER
We should have stayed by the Land Rover. We should have kept her there.
VICTOR
We couldn't have spent our last moments helpless and chained to the steel side of that Land Rover. You couldn't have forced us both to stay.
JABER
We could have avoided walking in that killing glare. We might have lasted another day or two. We must be being made to suffer far same sin we've committed. Oh, Lord of the Universe! We beg far your pardon and your mercy!
VICTOR
Far God's sake, forget the bloody Land Rover. Let the sand bury it. We drank all the water. Nearly poisoned ourselves drinking the radiator dry. We've shouted all day and night till our throats are full of blisters. We burned everything inflammable to attract attention at night. But the world closed its ears and its eyes.
JABER
It was funny about that plane. When we thought it had come to rescue us. And we all hugged each other and cheered. But he flew on and on.
VICTOR
And we didn't know that we were the victims of some great conspiracy.
JABER
Yes, an international conspiracy. Got up by the oil companies. Why didn't they line the desert with garages? So all you could do was to try and save yourself with your hunting rifle?
VICTOR
Helena was brighter than me. What else can we do now that our lips and tongues and throats are slitting with thirst. There's nothing else to do except run in search of that river.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
JABER
The river was fever. Madness.
VICTOR
Nobody forced you to come with us.
JABER
She's so young. And I had to watch her run over the desert screaming with joy because she'd found water. When I saw that the black birds of sadness settled in my heart. I felt guilty. Because I couldn't do anything. I saw her running and she was happy and the tears poured from my eyes. And I decided to stay where I was by the car. But when I saw both of you running away over the dunes, this feeling of fear and loneliness came over me. For the first time I thought about death. I realised that I would have to face it in this barren place alone. And the next thing I was racing behind you and running as if a lion was after me.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
VICTOR
Tired of running. Worn out by running. Time to stop running.
JABER
There's only one consolation. Everything in the world which has a beginning must also have an end.
VICTOR
Tell you what hurts me, jaber. All my life has been spent bloody running. I've never really rested for one day. I've never let myself enjoy the world. I've never enjoyed the most basic things - like sitting with a family by a fire. Of chatting away an evening with friends over a bottle. It was all business, running business, work, running work, running, running and kidding myself I was doing it for my own' future. I forgot that life's like a watch - it can stop any moment. I was planning to build an ideal house, the house of a lifetime! Lifetime? Stupid! I was going to build it near Los Angeles, near the beach, overlooking the Pacific, a place where most people are in the movie business. I bought the land. I drew up plans for the house. I was going to have a pool with multi¬coloured fish and white statues all round the garden. And grass, deep green grass, proper English grass, not that spiky Californian stuff like dwarf cactuses. But that house of a lifetime is tens of thousands of miles away and I've spent my lifetime on oil and n9w my time is up and my Land Rover's died of no petrol and I'm dying of no water. My lifetime's drying up inside me. Who'd have thought I'd die without a grave or a coffin, or roses? Nobody's going to cry for me. What a miserable stupid thing to happen.
JABER
Put your faith in these rocks. Believe in these rocks. We may have to seek their protection from the heat of tomorrow.
VICTOR
We've walked far enough. I can't face the heat of another day. jaber, the whole world's just a confidence trick.
JABER
Maybe tomorrow morning these rocks will cast a little shadow. Enough for our three heads. How's Helena?
VICTOR
Helena, are you all right? (VICTOR feels HELENA's forehead) The air is cold, but she's still got a fever. She needs a doctor.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl?
Where are you going today?
We've been going for a long, long time. And now we're here. Time to take the packs off our backs. Heavy, they're so heavy! Let's lay them down. Then we'll be free. Give me your hand, Victor.
JABER
If only you'd come back to the Land Rover when I begged you to. We could be lying in the shade on mattresses suitable for dying. What's the use, Victor? Now I understand. I'm the one all this is meant for. So many times the desert has trapped me and then let me go. But I knew some day that the desert would take me. I knew that after spending so many years on my education, the desert wouldn't let me abandon it. When I made up my mind to go to work in the city, I knew it was futile. The desert had decided that I should read its book and drink its glass and learn where it hides its gazelles.
I was sick of the desert. I admit it. It was strange and treacherous and I ran away from it. But as soon as I found myself surrounded by four walls, my chest began to tighten up and I'd do anything to get back to the only place where I could breathe properly. I used to get together with some friends and we'd stage camel races. I won most of the time. Well, it wasn't me who won. It was Garzeel. My camel. He was so quick-tempered that my friends called him Garzeel after a cruel desert god who's like a bull. Garzeel was an extraordinary camel. If he ever lost a race he would crouch down and sulk and refuse all food and drink until he'd won a race. When I won I used to ride Garzeel over the dunes, and I felt like the king of the whole world. But Garzeel felt like the king of the universe. There was a warm friendship between me and that camel. And between me and the desert. The three of us became one.
When the night comes, the desert changes completely. I hate the desert in the daytime. I love it in the night. I would be utterly alone in the desert, looking forward to the night when I'd light a fire as big as a castle that would burn away all my loneliness. Reclining on the ground and drinking cups of tea and considering the stars.
I used to try to number them and, because there were far more than I could count, I felt a joy inside me. It was good to think that I was the only on'e brave enough to ride out into this emptiness to count the stars, And I would stay awake counting them until I feIl asleep still counting, Watching the galaxies, I learned their friendships and their footpaths. And all next day I would be waiting for their reappearance so I could continue, And after a few nights I completed my counting, So now the desert can do what it likes with me, Let the curse of the gazelles descend upon me, It can strike me with the whips of the sun and drive me out to be swaIlowed by the vast wilderness. But the desert gave me everything. The strength of my body. The meaning of my life, And so now the desert comes and asks for me, I would have preferred a little more time, a period of grace, instead of this frontal assault, but ... I am the one all this is meant for ... nobody else but me.
HELENA
My eyes won't open, Trying as hard as I can but they won't. You two, you're just blurry shapes.
JABER
That's a good sign, I think you're getting better now.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
VICTOR
Yesterday I saw a vision. A vision in a dream.
JABER
It was the right thing to do. We saw you fall asleep. We really envied you, Helena and I. You managed to conquer your pain with sleep. Neither of us could sleep at all.
VICTOR
I lost consciousness. I saw a dream. I saw you, jaber. You stood up from the place where you were lying. You lay down next to Helena. I saw you in the dream. You asked her to make love with you. At first she turned away from you. But then, in the dream, I saw that she surrendered. And she made love to you. Next morning I woke up with my dream. I was disgusted with myself. And I found the world disgusting. But now everything is different. jaber, this last day has crawled by like a year. (He turns towards HELENA who is groaning weakly) Helena, what's wrong? Where does it hurt? Helena!
HELENA
A bottomless well. I was falling into a bottomless well. Falling and falling but it was bottomless. Horrible dream.
(VICTOR presses her hand)
JABER
Victor. Helena loves you. What happened happened against our will. The night was very long. We thought we would die in the desert. And we had not learned to live with this idea, like we have now. So we were filled with terror. You conquered your fear with sleep. We tried to conquer ours with sex. Don't judge us too badly, Victor. Even as you slept, Helena did not take her eyes away from you. Even as we lay in each other's arms she spoke of nothing but you. I became sure that this woman loves you.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
Are you still there, Victor?
VICTOR
I'm here, Helena. Beside you.
HELENA
Do you know where we are?
VICTOR
Yes, I know. We'll get through. Everything's going to be all right.
HELENA
There's a stone weighing down on my head. There's a black bandage pressing against my eyes. You know those green birds who were hovering round me? One by one they're dropping to the ground from thirst and the heat of the sun. They've all died now. Victor, I'm frightened.
VICTOR
Don't be frightened, Helena. We've got the best guide in the Sahara. He knows the desert like the back of his hand and he eats snakes for breakfast.
(jABER tries to laugh)
HELENA
All the green birds have died. I'm scared. Please don't go away. Please don't leave me to die.
VICTOR
Helena, don't talk like that. Don't talk like that. We're here with you. We're going to win through. All I want in the world is to be with you. We're never going to be apart. I want to be with you always because I love you, Helena. You are beautiful and noble and delicate and brave. And I love you, Helena.
(HELENA raises her head and stares fixedly at him. She puts her arms round his neck as if she had just discovered him)
HELENA
But I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Victor, I don't want to die. (She weeps)
VICTOR
Those moments. Those moments outside and beyond all laws of time and space . Those amazing moments when I was chasing that gazelle, with no will or mind of my own. It was like being moved by unknown forces. I remember. I looked and the gazelle was leading me towards the source of all light, towards a new, strange land. There were islands of red coral. A shining archipelago. And the islands were roofed over by a sky of brilliant colours. And there was a scent of roses and there was the sound of singing. I saw a great eternal celebration, like a wedding, and I saw souls like glowing apples and I saw men who shone like water. And so I drove into the black zone. It was all my fault. You shouldn't have suffered. I risked your lives. It was me, not the petrol, not the Land Rover. I'm sorry.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
I am going on board the golden ship ... (She can't remember the last line)
JABER
Not your fault. It's the god Garzeel. After they struck oil in the desert, he began to be as moody as the God of the Nile who used to demand a bride every springtime as a sacrifice in return for general fertility. Helena is a bride being offered to Garzeel so he will allow money to flower from the desert.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
I am going on board the golden ship That waits ...
VICTOR
But he could have taken anyone. Why Helena?
JABER
It's the wrong time to ask.
HELENA
You know, I'm longing to see Agamemnon. I want to stroke his head and his back and down along his tail. His ears fold flat when you stroke his head, he likes them folding flat. I want to hold him close to my face and sing to him, sing to him, I wonder if we've got there yet.
VICTOR
Everything will be fine.
HELENA
That gazelle we were chasing came to visit me. From round its neck she took a jewelled necklace and hung it round my neck. And then I knew she was my friend.
VICTOR
That's a good gazelle. Jaber, I want to ask you something.
JABER
No more questions.
VICTOR
I want to ask you for something. Please don't let me down.
JABER
I won't let you down.
VICTOR
Leave us here. Now. Just go ahead. Carry on as far as you can.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl?
JABER
But that ...
VICTOR
(Interrupting) Don't argue. Get going. Neither of us is strong enough to walk. You walk, for both of us. Carry a message from me and from her. Then, if you get through, you'll give some sort of meaning to all our suffering. Helena going to find the river won't be in vain. It won't seem absurd that she gave us the good news of finding water. You'll give a meaning to our battle against thirst and the desert. So thirst and the desert won't win, not completely. Go on. Get going.
JABER
Don't talk like that. It's no good.
VICTOR
Now's your chance. You'll find your way through the silence of the night to the barking of a dog carried by the breeze. By some miracle like that you'll win through.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
I am going on board the golden ship That waits in the Golden Bay.
JABER
There are no barking dogs. Not within two day's walking. I couldn't walk for more than two hours. For the love of Allah let me pass my last moments here.
VICTOR
You've got nothing to lose. You'll be doing it for all of us, won't you? Let's keep fighting till the end.
JABER
Victor, you're talking like a general on the battlefield. It's stupid for me to go out into the blazing heat of another day. I want to die with my head in the shade. And I won't leave Helena in this state.
VICTOR
What can you do for her? Look, suppose you find a caravan or a hunter or even a stray camel. You might be able to save us too. Go on. Now.
JABER
But ...
VICTOR
Every moment counts. Please. Go now.
JABER
You're forcing me.
VICTOR
You promised not to let me down. Here's your stick.
(A moment of silence)
JABER
First I want to say goodbye to Helena.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
(JABER kisses HELENA on her forehead. He grips VICTOR by the shoulder and holds out his hand to him. They shake hands. VICTOR takes a wallet from his pocket)
VICTOR
My wallet. Take it with you.
(JABER takes it and makes as if to leave. As he is about to go he stops. The lights begin to dim)
HELENA
Please don't leave me all alone. I want to go out for a walk with Agamemnon. I want you both to take me to Agamemnon.
(JABER goes back to where he was. He throws away his stick and remains standing)
JABER
I've decided not to go.
(JABER hands over the wallet to VICTOR, who throws it down carelessly by his side)
VICTOR
Why?
JABER
No questions. I'm not going. That's all.
VICTOR
A moment ago
JABER
(Interrupting in a calm voice) What right have you to dictate to me now? I'm staying here. I will die here. Alongside you and Helena .
VICTOR
If I die now, I've got an excuse. Thirst killed me. But you're just dying for your own meaningless pride.
(Moments pass and then JABER throws himself down in his place by the rock)
JABER
I thought of the shame that would fall on my children when the people of my village learnt that I was a guide who left my companions in their distress and went to try and save myself. (Silence) And now the night has come. So let me have the pleasure of reclining here, observing the stars and praising God until sleep comes tome.
(Silence)
VICTOR
Yes, count the stars. Then you can be sure they're all still there for whoever inherits this sky from you.
(Silence)
JABER
Yes, I will count the stars so long as I'm sure that a beautiful death is approaching.
(Silence)
VICTOR
That picture you drew us of Paradise. Is it true that in Paradise a man always stays young and handsome?
JABER
Of course. (Silence) Otherwise it wouldn't be Paradise. (Silence) I will praise Allah that when my end has come I show obedience to Him and bear witness that there is no God but God.
(HELENA suddenly gets to her feet and takes a few steps forward. She looks left and right with her eyes closed, trying to walk forward. Then she turns back, but is unable to walk. It is hard to stay standing. She falls to the ground.
JABER goes to help her. He supports her from one side, VICTOR from the other. The three of them stand in the centre of the stage with their backs to the audience while the lights continue to dim)
HELENA
(Sings in a weak voice) Where are you going, my golden girl?
Where are you going today?
I am going on board the golden ship.
JABER
I think she's going now. (He murmurs prayers to himself)
VICTOR
I wish I could do something. Helena? Can you feel anything? She can't hear me. She's moved away from us now. But she can't feel any pain, JABER, that's the important thing. She sings and she's happy.
HELENA
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
(JABER and VICTOR join her in singing while the darkness grows more intense and they appear only as silhouettes, singing in weak voices)
ALL
Where are you going, my golden girl? Where are you going today?
I am going on board the golden ship That waits in the Golden Bay.
(At the very edge of the stage we see a small spot of light like the light of a match while the song continues. Only JABER stops singing to comment on it as the others continue to sing)
JABER
I think I can see a small speck of light. Can you see it too, Victor?
(The stage is illuminated. JABER, VICTOR and HELENA collapse gradually in silence. Lights begin to dim. As the stage darkens, gazelles advance and stand around the three corpses)
CURTAIN
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Copyrights© 2007 Ahmed Fagih |
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