Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing
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to them, in their central position, and not immediately to the great door, perhaps just because of its size and equivocal substance. Yet, once seen, the great door dominates, although, in contrast to the altar of technical objects, it looks neglected or ignored. The steps leading to it are undecorated.
At right front is a large round table with chairs set round it, glasses of water, scribbling blocks – the paraphernalia of a modem conference. One is in progress. On the breast of each DELEGATE is a large badge with his or her status on it. They have no names. Each wears some sort of uniform, or stiff, formal clothing. The DOCTOR is dressed like a surgeon in an operating theatre. The GUARDIAN OF THE DOOR wears overalls like a mechanic, but he has religious and national symbols pinned or draped on him.
There are ATTENDANTS at the exit, left, and GUARDS behind the chairs of the CHAIRMAN and the GUARDIAN OF THE DOOR.
CHAIRMAN: And that brings us to the end of our agenda. Thank you, all officers. Thank you, delegates.
[People are already beginning to get up, but]
FIFTH PRECEPT: Excuse me, not quite the end.
[CHAIRMAN leafs to the end of his agenda, looks enquiringly at FIFTH PRECEPT, then laughs. So do some of the other.]
FIFTH PRECEPT: I wasn’t joking, sir.
[They sit down again, but they still smile as if at an old joke.]
CHAIRMAN: Fifth Precept, we have been in continuous session for nearly a week.
FOURTH PRECEPT: Or for several hundred years.
CHAIRMAN: Quite, quite. Fourth Precept, I do not think this is the right time for … it makes me nervous when anyone even jokes about time, measurements of time – that sort of thing, when it takes so little to start the bickering and disagreement off again. All very sincere people, very sincere, the historians and time-keepers, but …
FOURTH PRECEPT: I wasn’t joking either, sir.
FIFTH PRECEPT: We would like to have the last item, Item 99, discussed and voted on.
FOURTH PRECEPT: Yes.
CHAIRMAN: When was the last time Item 99 was discussed, Secretary?
SECRETARY [leafing through minutes]: Just a moment. It’s been so long that …
CHAIRMAN: Oh never mind.
FIFTH PRECEPT: It was fifteen years ago.
SECRETARY: Yes. That’s right.
FIFTH PRECEPT: Which was when the problem arose last time.
GUARDIAN OF THE DOOR: There was a great deal of trouble. We had a lot of trouble, I remember.
CHAIRMAN: So I submit it can wait until tomorrow.
GUARDIAN: Or even next week.
[The DELEGATES laugh.]
FIFTH PRECEPT: No. It must be now.
CHAIRMAN: Forgive me, Fifth Precept, but are you feeling well? We are all of us pretty tired, and it is quite understandable …
FIFTH PRECEPT: Quite well, thank you. [he stands up] Exalted Chairman! Guardian of the Door! Fellow Precepts! Delegates! Secretaries! … and so on and so on and so on. If you actually take the trouble to look at the wording of the last item, Item 99 [Some members hurriedly do so.], You’ll see that it reads: ‘In view of the urgency, it is decided that full mobilization is called at once. The Door is expected to open at hour zero.’ Very shortly, in fact. [There is general discreet amusement.] A great many people are expecting it.
CHAIRMAN: You know quite well that some nut is always announcing the Opening of that Door.
SECRETARY: Which is why we have Item 99 permanently on the Agenda, to take care of it.
FIFTH PRECEPT: Yet we all believe that the Door will open some time. And that when it does we can leave this place.
DELEGATE: Of course we do.
DELEGATE: Of course.
CHAIRMAN: If there had been any indication from Centre [he indicates the machines and their worshippers] we would have been told.
FIFTH PRECEPT: Our life in this place is entirely organized around our expectation of this Opening. If we didn’t believe that we would one day escape, that our people would one day reach the open air and the light-of-day …
DELEGATE: Whatever they may be!
FIFTH PRECEPT: … the light-of-day, it would not be possible to sustain life here.
DELEGATE: Hear, hear.
SECRETARY: Article 17 of our Declaration of Faith. Very fine, but is a conference the right place for this sort of thing?
GUARDIAN: As First Guardian of the Door I must protest against the tone of our Secretary.
SECRETARY: Sorry, Guardian. [as GUARDIAN does not relent, he recites] I offer my thoughts, being and intentions in total apology for blasphemy. Unintentional blasphemy atonable for by simple-form apology.
GUARDIAN: Simple-form apology accepted with warning.
CHAIRMAN: Can we get on? I adjourn the conference until tomorrow.
FIFTH PRECEPT: I object.
CHAIRMAN: Overruled.
FIFTH PRECEPT: According to. Rule 954 I have the right to insist.
CHAIRMAN: Wait a minute. [he and SECRETARY consult the rules] I see. Very well then – you’re ill. You must be. I’ve never been more upset to see a colleague of mine fall under the weight of duty. You’d better take leave. From this evening.
FOURTH PRECEPT: And must I join him?
CHAIRMAN: Oh no, it’s too much … when two of this, the highest body of our people, fall victim to … yes, both of you, take a month’s leave.
A DELEGATE WHO HAS NOT YET SPOKEN: And me too?
[FOURTH AND FIFTH PRECEPTS look at him in surprise, then at each other.]
ANOTHER DELEGATE: And me?
[FOURTH AND FIFTH PRECEPTS and the last speaker are surprised.]
CHAIRMAN: Four of you. I see. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before – this is obviously yet another attempt from the Low-Levellers to take over. Obviously.
[FOURTH AND FIFTH PRECEPTS and their two supporters laugh.]
FIFTH PRECEPT: As soon as the Low-Levellers come into it, that’s the end of all reason.
CHAIRMAN: We all know that you represent the Low-Levellers, that you work for their interests, that you improve their conditions – and of course, we all honour you for it.
FIFTH PRECEPT: Really? I hadn’t noticed it.
CHAIRMAN: Of course, without reformers there’s no progress. But. The Low-Levellers always overstep the mark sooner or later. We know that too, and expect it.
FOURTH PRECEPT: And make provision for it by putting under the last item of every agenda their requests, reasonable or otherwise, about the Door.
CHAIRMAN: I am glad you can admit they are sometimes unreasonable.
FIFTH PRECEPT: I and Fourth Precept assure you that this has nothing to do with the Low-Levellers.
THE TWO DELEGATES WHO SUPPORT THEM: Nothing. Nothing at all.
A DELEGATE: May we then ask who inspired your conviction that the Door is about to open?
FIFTH PRECEPT: For one thing, look at it.
[They turn to look at the door in the middle of the stack of machinery.]
CHAIRMAN: Well?
A