Howard Barker: Plays Nine. Howard Barker
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stops.)
SOLDIER: (Braced for a struggle.) Please / you are such a / such a great artist / Mr Wardrobe / please /
(WARDROBE fixes the SOLDIER with a stare.)
WARDROBE: Get a violin /
(The SOLDIER’s face falls.)
SOLDIER: A violin? /
WARDROBE: You know / it’s hollow / and it screams /
(The SOLDIER’s head shakes in his anxiety.)
SOLDIER: I don’t know where to / how to /
WARDROBE: Stab / murder / commit atrocity /
(Neither conceding nor refusing, the SOLDIER hurries out. WARDROBE is immobile, taut, a knot of ambition, frustration, dread. With a swift move he outmanoeuvres THRASH and lifting the canvas bed in both hands, tilts it. With a cry, BIBLE tumbles onto the boards. THRASH howls and goes to attack WARDROBE, who snatches the bed off the floor and extends it before him as a shield. THRASH ceases her onrush and stares in disbelief. WARDROBE goes away a little distance, places the canvas bed on the floor, and extends himself on it. Removing the music score from his clothes, he proceeds to study it. THRASH seems incapable of action. The wind blows. BIBLE faintly sobs.)
THRASH: (At last.) You and the Emperor /
(She screws up her face.)
The Emperor and you /
WARDROBE: Friends /
(THRASH returns to BIBLE and kneels beside him.)
THRASH: He’s been sick / he’s been sick / oh / he’s been sick /
(WARDROBE receives this information without comment. THRASH nurses BIBLE.)
Let go / darling / it’s all right / let go /
(The sounds and sense of BIBLE’s death suffuse WARDROBE’s consciousness. The music, which he had held aloft, falls in his hand like a signal. His hands collapse onto his chest, the fingers barely moving on the score. THRASH hums tunelessly, and eventually, inaudibly. From his deep breathing it is evident that whilst BIBLE is dead, WARDROBE is asleep. THRASH removes herself from the dead man, and looks at WARDROBE, pensively. The wind blows litter over the boards. She steals towards him and with infinite caution, reaches to remove the score from his fingers. He allows her to extract the pages from his grasp, then instantly seizes her wrist. THRASH concedes.)
You never sleep /
(WARDROBE, without letting go of THRASH’s wrist, relieves her of the score with his free hand.)
You must sleep / Wardrobe /
WARDROBE: Must I? / in order that you can satisfy your criminal ambitions? /
THRASH: Criminal? / me? /
WARDROBE: Criminal / yes / it would be criminal / I assure you / if some stinking servant on the frontier / in a froth of naivety / good-will / and innocence / were to frustrate the terrible desires that led to the creation of the rhapsody / now / if Bible’s dead / announce it to the Captain /
(WARDROBE flings away her hand. THRASH does not obey at once, but studies WARDROBE critically. As she goes to leave, she stops.)
THRASH: Madness / Wardrobe /
(She bites her lip.)
Madness is not a coat / you can’t put it on / and take it off /
WARDROBE: I’m not mad / Thrash /
THRASH: I know you’re not /
WARDROBE: And I assert that / knowing full well / the truly mad / rarely admit to it /
(THRASH goes to leave.)
AND SAY A VIOLIN WOULD BE NICE /
(She shakes her head, and goes out. WARDROBE is still. The wind blows. He addresses BIBLE, now stiff on the floor.)
When I said you were doomed / did I know the word would kill you? /
(He seems to wait for a reply.)
Yes / I knew / and still I said it /
(He sits on the bed.)
We could not live / the two of us / and if one of us must perish / far better that one is you / I think you know that / I think / whatever resentment you might have felt / or still feel / Bible / even as I slew you with that word / you knew / your poetry did not entitle you to linger / and lingering / bring me down too / I think / learning of your death / the Emperor will /
(He stops. He laughs. He jumps up.)
Now / that’s a sign of madness / ha /
(He goes to BIBLE.)
To claim / to dare / to even imagine / in a fit of recklessness / what the Emperor might do / ha /
(He swiftly kneels beside BIBLE’s corpse and arranges it, laying the hands over his chest, adjusting the head.)
MADNESS / SURELY / MADNESS / HOO / HOO / HOO /
(He stops abruptly.)
But certainly he will do something / or / to express it with the exactitude that / dear Bible / because of your sacrifice / is your due / he cannot do nothing /
(He presses his fingers together.)
And that is the single aspect of the Imperial will which / when all else appears wild / fluctuating / arbitrary / is fixed / and is a law / for the Emperor / he also labours under a servitude /
(As he develops his thesis, WARDROBE becomes more passionate.)
THEY MAY NOT NOT / THAT IS THE CURSE LAID ON OUR MASTERS / ALWAYS THEY MUST DO /
(WARDROBE’s satisfaction in elaborating his insight is cut off by a sense of some swift movement behind him as SISI, naked and gasping plunges onto the canvas bed he so recently vacated and lies there shivering. WARDROBE does not turn his head to ascertain the identity of the visitor.)
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