Abdel-Hadi El-Gazzar, The Lady Rider, early 1950s. Source: christies.com
We do not see the hut when the lights first come up, and then we see it. Its inhabitants are not interested in us, perhaps because their problems do not concern us. These women spend their days waiting for a man, and they know that one day he will come. Lights shine upstage from the front of the stage, illuminating a door in the back wall. Neither fully open nor quite shut, it swings gently on its hinges, creaking intermittently, as though the fitful wind outside the hut is knocking to make its presence known within. Then the light sweeps downstage and to the right: we see a flight of stairs rising to the princess’s room, mirrored by a flight on the left leading down to their larder. Centre stage is an old-fashioned, rectangular dining table—or rather, it is simply old: it has no identifiable fashion. Around this table there are four chairs, the back of one slightly higher than the rest. The chairs are not neatly arranged but are scattered about as though hastily vacated. Between them wend the backs of two women dressed in black, cleaning the shabby furnishings and complaining.
Lady-in-Waiting 1:
Death overtakes us, yet
We clutch at life’s cut cords.
Lady-in-Waiting 2:
Not even ours to choose the words
We speak.
LIW 1:
What’s said’s been said. The days
Have uttered us and cast us on
The face of the wind.
LIW 2:
We must take care then not to lose ourselves
Lest tomorrow catch us up like dust
On the breeze, and we
By the cypress trees
Are hung, entangled
In their braids.
LIW1:
Fifteen autumns passed now
Since she loaded us upon the cart
Among the baggage of her past.
LIW 2:
Fifteen autumns since we left
The flowered palace and descended
To this valley bare
but for its groves
Of cypress sprawling like
Sketches of fear.
LIW 1:
Was it against our will
She took us?
We dreamed of love like caves
Dream of the light, and so
We wanted to go with her.
LIW 2:
Our dreams betrayed us.
LIW1:
They also were betrayed.
What time is it now?
The second lady-in-waiting walks over to the wall and as she does we notice a small casement there. She opens it to reveal the darkness gathering in the valley.
LIW 2:
Dusk on dusk. Fifteen dusks deep.
LIW1:
The time for our nightly entertainments
Is upon us.
The wound
Wants the knife.
LIW 2:
As before?
LIW 1:
As always.
When the darkness grows
To fifteen dusks
We trade these words.
LIW 2:
I know my part.
She withdraws to the far right of the stage, while the first lady-in-waiting moves to the left. The second lady-in-waiting pauses, like an actor preparing to play a role, then cries out merrily.
LIW 2:
Ya Maftoura!
Even the sparrow’s slender gorge
Cannot be filled by all
The joy held in its heart,
And so with our princess, who
To take her pleasure
In such sweet days as come
Until the sweet sun break upon her
At full brightness,
And she grow still more beautiful
(If increase there can be on
Perfect beauty)
Seeks for her luminous quiddity
Admixture of delights
Sublunary.
LIW 1:
A glass of wine, say?
LIW 2:
Poured till it brims
That we might dip our crusts.
LIW 1:
Grilled meats?
LIW 2:
Enough to satisfy
A sparrow’s hunger.
LIW 1:
I have ready for her
Entertaining stories.
LIW 2:
The wife and her rough seaman,
Whose approach sets her arun
With waters?
LIW 1:
No, no…
LIW 2:
The enchanted cockerel,
Which turns each dawn into a prince
With glittering crown,
and comes
Each dusk into the arms
Of a peasant’s wife,
Clucking
While her husband sleeps?
LIW 1:
No, no…
I shall reveal my treasures
Only in her presence.
What time is it now?
The second lady-in-waiting walks over to the casement, peers out, then returns.
LIW 2:
Seventeen dusks.
How quickly these dimmings mass.
Like robes they roll out over the valley
Each one so fine
The eye scarce sees them
Then straightway floating down, they thicken fast,
And set as hard as stone.
Ah!
This night lies heavier on my heart
Than anything.
LIW 1:
What’s this? Have you stepped out of character?
LIW 2:
Not yet.
I cannot give my part the slip
While we still dwell here
In this hut.
LIW 1:
We wait for him.
LIW 2:
You’re confident he’ll come?
LIW 1:
It’s what we live for.
LIW 2:
And should he not?
LIW 1:
Not come?
No, no, no, no…
He must!
The third lady-in-waiting appears at the top of the stairs stage right and assumes an angry pose, as though called away from her work. She gestures dramatically.
Lady-in-waiting 3:
Here I am, this minute come!
What is it with you two,
Your voices never stilled?
A shiftless pair
Who send me to slave
Then rush to chattering
Like mares to stud.
Is it time?
LIW 1:
Wait
Until we’ve laid the table to your pleasing, and
Set out the cups.
The first two ladies-in-waiting descend the stairs to the store, while the third comes down the steps into the room, looking about her to make sure she is quite alone and cannot be heard.
LIW 3:
Days drop like leaves from the trees
And others bud, and we
Must hop like worms
From one that’s dead
To those new born.
She walks to the door and tentatively opens it.
The dark this night is blacker
Than that to which my eye
Has grown accustomed in this valley.
It is not silent, hollow, as most evenings.
A secret walks abroad
Within it, is
On the verge of speaking,
Calling out.
No, no…
That’s not the wind
Which chafes the dry leaves,
But the secret’s footfalls.
The two women reemerge from the storeroom below, carrying plates and empty cups. They busy themselves setting them out on the table. The three ladies-in-waiting exchange glances then align themselves in a row, as though performing some pagan rite. Together they turn their eyes to the top of the stairs where the princess appears in her most dazzling finery.
LIW 3:
My lady…
From the head of the stair, your light’s
Ashine, a sun meridian,
Your perfume overruns
And dews the walls.
LIW 1:
My lady…
From the head of the stair, your throat’s
Aglow, a lily field
Is sowed with light and your hair,
Rejoicing, is dark liquor
Spilt down a crystal pane.
LIW 2:
My lady…
Your figure at the stair’s head
Sways: a music coiling,
Languidly unfurling;
A melody
Sundered by your steps’ refrain
To form again.
The Princess:
I thank you. Let me descend one step more…
LIW 3:
My lady…
Halfway down the stair, the eye’s
Bewildered. Is this your gown
Or sheet of silver where
The summer sun’s ashimmer?
LIW 1:
My lady…
Halfway down the stair, the eye’s
Confused. Is that your neck
Or diamonds piled
Where light first breaks
Then gathers?
LIW 2:
My lady…
Halfway down the stair, the eye’s
Bemused.
Those slippers that you wear
Are they wings instead, whose hues
In beauty and in brilliance
Outmatch the birds’.
The Princess:
I thank you. Another step,
And my apologies…
Always I forget
My ladies’ names.
Do you work at my father’s palace?
LIW 3:
How often his good feet have trod upon us…
The Princess:
What are your duties?
LIW 1:
I am your servant, Maftoura.
I bear your fan.
LIW 2:
And I am Barra.
I knot your scarf.
LIW 3:
And I, Umm Khayr.
Sometimes you favour me
To lie upon my lap until
The monarch of sweet dream brushes
His rosy fingers through
Your serene lashes.
The Princess:
What is it that you want?
LIW 3:
We await the disposal
Of your brimming perfection.
We have set here
A modest repast
In hope that you might grace your ladies
With your company.
The Princess:
Certainly. Why not?
A sound is heard without. Hesitant footsteps. Perturbed, the princess listens.
What was that, Umm Khayr?
LIW 3:
That, my lady,
Was the wind.
The Princess:
Will he come tonight, I wonder?
LIW 2:
My lady, I do not know.
Listening out, this night, I seem to catch
The sound of a secret
Entombed in dumb stone. As though set
On sending forth a ghost
To crack and part the dark.
The Princess:
This night,
I feel as you feel.
I do not know what I shall do
Should he come. It’s true,
I ask of you the question,
But do not break my heart
With answers toothed like blades
Nor replies aslide like water.
You were with me that night
And know what happened.
LIW 3:
What happened? What was it happened?
The Princess:
The incident?
Don’t speak of it.
LIW 3:
What lives in every minute
Will not be unremembered or unsaid.
The Princess:
You think me in the wrong,
And yet… and yet…
He showed me love.
LIW 2:
We know, we know.
The Princess:
In fact, he swore he’d sow
Children in my belly.
One for every autumn.
LIW 1:
We know, we know.
The Princess:
Was I then wrong?
The sound of footsteps draws closer, now confident, now cautious. The princess listens intently.
Dear God, what does this night hold?
LIW 3:
Only what the others held.
Return to your parts.
She strikes a pose.
My lady, will you allow
We take a glass of wine before we eat?
The princess reassumes a royal demeanour.
The Princess:
No, let it be a cup of laughter
To wash the ghost
Of worry from the heart.
Maftoura!
One of your jokes.
LIW 1:
Listen to the latest:
A man says to his wife,
The full moon’s beauty’s
More than yours.
His wife replies, So then
Go strip the moon,
Not me.
They all laugh together.
LIW 2:
Not bad.
I know another, very droll.
A man says to his friend,
My woman is the most
Delicious woman in the town.
That’s right, the friend replies,
She is.
LIW 3:
Ah. Excellent.
LIW 1:
Laughter is sweet.
LIW 2:
Heart’s bread.
LIW 1:
The wine pressed from its yield.
LIW 2:
Ah, if only we could laugh until we died;
Die in a gasp of laughter.
LIW 1:
You live remembering death
Even in moments of joy.
LIW 3:
Come my girl.
Let’s seize the day, for we know not
What tomorrow brings.
LIW 2:
Only the weight of yesterday’s remembrance,
In our experience.
LIW 3:
Always breaking character, the both of you.
Two tragics: slipping down from joy to woe
Like fish through water.
Let us laugh!
LIW 1:
You’re right. Let’s laugh.
The Princess:
So laugh.
No one laughs.
LIW 1:
Why don’t you laugh, my lady?
The Princess:
Why doesn’t Umm Khayr?
LIW 3:
What about Barra?
LIW 2:
And Maftoura?
LIW 1:
I am laughing! Barra, though…
LIW 2:
I’m laughing! It’s Umm Khayr…
The Princess:
Let’s laugh together, then.
As one.
LIW 3:
Fine.
On the count of three…
The Princess:
Forget her game. We laugh before the count!
All burst out laughing, roaring until they weep. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps are very close and very clear, as though sprung from the laughter itself. They are now in the hut’s back yard.
LIW 3:
The footsteps tread the yard.
LIW 2:
Slow steps and steady.
The Princess:
Not his, though.
LIW 2:
No one in the cypress valley knows us.
LIW 1:
No one knows us.
There is a knock at the door.
LIW 3:
Who is at the door?
A Voice:
A man, my lady.
LIW 3:
Who?
Voice:
My name would tell you nothing.
LIW 3:
But you have a name?
Voice:
Today… Qarandel.
LIW 3:
What do you do here, in this valley?
Voice:
I wander.
LIW 3:
And your intentions? Good or ill?
Voice:
Governed by yours.
LIW 3:
Enter.
A thin and shabby looking man comes in, soiled with the dust of poverty and the road.
LIW 3:
Did you lose your way amid the trees?
Qarandel:
This was my destination.
LIW 3:
What do you want?
Qarandel:
To carry out the intimations
Of the wind
Which went before me through the woods
Then stopped me at this door.
LIW 2:
But it’s not you we wait for.
Qarandel:
The voice. It told me who
You all prepare to meet.
The Princess:
And?
Qarandel:
I shall not speak his name until
My shadow’s in his eyes.
The Princess:
Will he come tonight?
Qarandel stoops and presses his ear to the ground.
Qarandel:
I do not know. See here,
I press my ear to the floor,
Hoping to hear
The beat of his footfall
Sound within.
The Princess:
And does it sound?
Qarandel:
Down every road.
The Princess:
Will your shadow fall into his eyes tonight?
Qarandel:
The voice did not say.
Shall I sit in this corner?
Without waiting for an answer, Qarandel walks to the far left of stage and sits at the front with his back to the audience, staring at the door.
LIW 3:
Do you have bread?
Qarandel:
My bread is not done baking.
LIW 3:
When will it be done?
Qarandel:
When I sing.
LIW 3:
And when will you sing?
Qarandel:
When my song is done.
LIW 3:
And when will that be?
Qarandel:
There are fragments yet to fuse,
And still its final line eludes me.
LIW 3:
A man whom poverty’s exhausted and his mind
Illumined, raves,
Not knowing what he says.
The Princess:
Something in his manner gives me pause.
LIW 3:
Good, or ill?
The Princess:
I know not, but I feel
The letters in his words
Bear something wrapped within them.
LIW 3:
Nothing but his poverty.
Leave him sprawled in the wall’s shadow
Till he leaves.
Let us meanwhile prepare
Our entertainments.
LIW 1:
As we were?
LIW 3:
As before.
Where were we when he came?
LIW 2:
We’d finished the bit in which
We laugh ourselves to tears.
LIW 3:
Time for the celebration then!
She claps her hands.
Party! Party!
The first and third ladies-in-waiting sit on the floor, in darkness, as the princess rises, sways over, and sprawls seductively over the table, as though lying in bed. The second lady-in-waiting vanishes for a moment then reappears, wearing the mask of a moustachioed man. She strikes a defiant pose.
The Princess:
You’ve come at last! My day,
A mess of drudgery and waiting,
Leashed moments straining
Towards night.
I’ve wished I could collapse the broad horizon
To a wink of fire, extinguished
With a breath as with a candle.
Ah, if I could hold the violence of the sun
Against the sun and rule it, and
Oh, if I but could I’d hold it trapped
Beneath my bed, so when the cockerel comes
To sing light’s birth, it might not hear.
If I could only trap my breath within me
And slumber through light’s lifetime so
When dark fell I might preen upon my branch
And breathe the breeze of night: be then
A thrill and a delight
In bloom.
I am the shadow’s
Lily.
Worshipper
Of darkness.
Rose
At odds with radiance,
Which loves the gloom.
The second lady-in-waiting bows her head in silence.
And now at last you’ve come
O river of my life, which cuts
Across this skin
Cracked by the sun,
A field left fallow.
The second lady-in-waiting lays her hand upon the arm of the princess. The princess sits up and runs her hands from the woman’s waist to her face.
Ah, you’re like a brandished lance, planed straight and bright
And,
Oh, you’re like a blade that’s honed and burnished to a greater splendour
And, ah,
you are alike
Unto a god, kind-hearted, cruel and noble.
You’re, Oh! a tree,
And, Oh! a sugar lump. You
Are, Oh!, like everything that visits me in dream,
And sweeter.
The second lady-in-waiting touches the princess’s breast.
I wonder,
Does this breast of mine,
Its swell and lines,
Please you?
Your ardent pasture wants you
As you want it, so
Touch it, hold it, hurt it, maybe from it
A fragrant bloom will shoot
Tempting you to pick it.
Maybe it’s mark will be printed on your breast
Which spreads out like the fortress at
The reckless ocean’s shore.
The princess raises herself towards the second lady-in-waiting.
Oh sling me like a necklace from your shoulders, toy
With me, scatter me in grains about,
Over your body spread me out
As music and as light,
Then rope me in and thread me on
The string of your possessions.
Stroke me, stamp me
With your seal, and see
Tomorrow promise you
A bold and naughty child
From me.
The second lady-in-waiting lets the princess sink down before table and takes a step back.
Your eyelids dipping hint at discontent,
A cloud of checked vexation rolls
Across your face. How is it I
Have angered you?
Do I seem guileless, innocent of the secret
Truths of love? Perhaps too keen
To let my feelings show?
Teach me what to do,
But do not leave me.
The second lady-in-waiting takes another step back and brings her hand to her chin.
Maybe you love another,
The thought of her floats in your eyes,
Hiding their brightness from mine.
Oh,
If it is as I fear,
I’ll kill myself.
The second lady-in-waiting takes a third step back then gestures with her hands as though speaking.
What’s that? You don’t like
To come to me in secret like the thief?
To wait for the guards to sleep, then creep
Along the shadow of the wall?
Would you like the key to the palace?
The second lady-in-waiting gestures again.
But when he sleeps my father keeps
The key and with it his royal seal
Beneath his pillow.
Frowning the second lady-in-waiting takes another pace back.
I don’t know what to do!
To reach my hand out to my father’s bed
Is something I’ve not ventured.
Glowering, the lady-in-waiting turns to leave.
I’ll lead you to his chamber!
You can take it yourself!
The princess slips off the table and she and her lady-in-waiting circle around it. The third lady-in-waiting now appears wearing the mask of the old king, and climbing onto the table, lies down as if asleep. The princess and her companion approach the sleeping figure, and while the princess hangs back, her companion reaches out and feels at the old king’s neck. The lights go down, then come up to sound of the princess’s scream.
You’ve murdered my father,
Stolen his seal to hold it up
Before the people,
And with it, rule them.
What have I done?
You are my beloved and my rock
And you have killed
My father and my pillar.
Do I point at you and cry,
This is my lord’s murderer!
Or fold my hands away and drown my secret
In a pool of my dammed tears?
To speak or be silent?
The pain of it all!
Do I love you
Or hate you?
The second lady-in-waiting turns to the princess, as if to placate her.
What’s that?
You’d have me tell them that my father,
Feeling death upon him, called your name
And gave to you his daughter? Gave you me
And his estate, and handed you
The seal and key.
Of love,
The pleasures we have tasted, and the future’s
Promises, you sing. No, no, no…
I cannot! What cripples me
Is that I lose you and lose him
In the same instant. One wound
A day suffices. Let it be
As you will it.
Summon the captain of the guard.
The first lady-in-waiting now appears in the guise of the captain of the guard. The three women gesture to one another, and the first lady-in-waiting retires, head bowed and obedient.
Now leave so I might mourn my murdered man,
And return to you a bride apparisoned
And purified by tears.
My man!
My murderer!
Get out, get out…
The princess collapses sobbing onto the dead king’s bed, while the other two women remove their masks and stand behind the princess weeping with her, their lamentations harmonised as if in song. As they weep, the one they wait for enters. It is Samandel.
Samandel:
Dear me,
Without the guidance of the cypress trees
I would have lost my way here.
What is this?
A festival of grief! Has someone died
Or do the women weep to fill their empty hearts?
At his sudden arrival the women collect themselves. The third lady-in-waiting removes her mask and dismounts from the table as the princess and other two women turn to face him.
Just as I thought.
The dead man’s a mirage;
The tears are tangible.
The Princess :
And you are?
Samandel:
No one knows me better than you.
The Princess:
What brought you here tonight?
Samandel:
A heart seeking its cage.
The Princess:
Those are words you’ve readied for this meeting.
You blow in them like bubbles till
They are full of nothing,
Gleaming.
Samadel:
It is not my voice,
But love’s.
The Princess:
I beg you, no, no, no…
Don’t spoil it.
Samandel:
Spoil what?
The Princess:
The moment.
Dear ladies, listen.
My body’s every cell has waited
For this moment’s touch. My blood
Has risen, lusting for its fervid shiver
Since forever.
Clothed in the absence
Of the night, in my sleep,
In the long duration of my patience,
Its harbingers have circled me.
This moment has eaten my insomnia,
Has sipped my thirst,
Has worn my days as robes,
Has looped about my neck its promise
As a necklace, dangling,
To leave me waiting
For the one to come
One evening.
I have asked myself, will he come
Vengeful or contemptuous, glum
Or broken, or remorsefully,
Or wounded?
Dying?
But sad to say, he comes
As always, singing lies, the phrases
Swimming at his lips
Like oil: ashine, aslip.
How sad.
You’re still the same.
Just go away.
But no,
Don’t go. Your errors
I’ll forgive you, all except
You spoil a moment
Of sincerity.
LIW 3:
Amazing.
You say he’s spoiled a moment and forget
He spoiled your life.
Samandel:
Old bag, be quiet.
I spoiled her life? I brought it
To full ripeness.
A girl of twenty,
Turned under my wing into a woman
Filled with lust and fire,
Pleasure and shame,
Love and hate, desire
And scorn.
LIW 2:
You murdered her father.
Samandel:
Oh, that?
I did not murder him.
I hastened his end.
He was but dust strewn on a shabby sheet:
I barely had to touch him and he flew away
On death’s wings.
The Princess:
How strange that my eyes do not deceive me.
You can be so heavy when you try
To show your wit.
Samandel:
Your father had been ailing
Since your eyes first saw the light.
Passing the cup between them
The commoners would claim
The worm which gnawed the timbers
In his chamber’d made the leap and now
Played havoc in the king’s dead leg.
Others said the royal limbs were wasted
(Shoulders like bones and shrinking hands).
There was even a rumour that
The king’s legs were so withered that
The dead one now stood shorter than the living.
They said his beard had fallen out.
He’d grown a pair of breasts.
The Princess:
You’re a boor, too.
Samandel:
It came to me one evening.
We guards were up
On our patrol about the walls
And someone said,
Seems like the king won’t sire a boy
To take his throne and prop
His sagging tent up.
The Princess:
And so you offered love to me
But lovelessly…
Samandel:
Ten long years, child.
And yet… I loved you.
The Princess:
I was not always a child.
Samandel:
Watering your veins with sweetnesses and kisses
Until your fruits had rounded in your robe.
You shook your branches
And the knot split.
The Princess:
Only a shit tells tales from the bed.
Samandel:
I don’t tell tales.
I just remember.
I remember the first time I bent you
My way,
Breasts shivering like a dew-drenched sparrow
And the length of you inclining like
The weighted bough.
This was
In the sixth year of our acquaintance.
I remember when we first lay
Sprawling naked, twined
Until both shadows and the light
Had died.
This was
In the eighth year of our acquaintance.
You used to cry, when love
Had teased and wired you,
Oh naked moon,
My burning rose,
Your hands are reins,
My ribs a cart,
Now whip me to the fields
Of flames.
The Princess:
Silence.
Samandel:
I remember, now, that evening when
You whispered in my ear to say,
Rain in me
Your child.
The Princess:
I beg you, stop.
Samandel:
Do you remember?
The Princess:
I do.
Samandel:
And so I came.
The Princess:
But why?
Samandel:
To make days happier
Than those gone.
The Princess:
But why tonight?
Samandel:
So we might start tonight!
The Princess:
Poor man.
Samandel:
That’s true enough.
Aside from yours I have no arms
To lie in: that embrace
In whose rich splendour I forget
The dark days.
The Princess:
The same with me.
Shall we go back
The way we were?
Samandel:
Better than we were.
The Princess:
You would break down dead time’s door,
Sprinkle sweetnesses and kisses on my cares?
Would you return that girl to me?
Samandel:
If you returned to loving me.
The Princess:
But tell me…
How go things at the palace?
Samandel:
Well.
The Princess:
Why does your voice dip
Low beneath your words?
You tire it with lies.
Samandel:
Very well, in fact!
The Princess:
And the guards?
Samandel:
They tremble at the mention of my name.
The Princess:
The soldiers and their captains…?
Samandel:
Shrink back to see me, necks
Pressed down between their feet!
The Princess:
They still swallow the story?
Samandel:
What story?
The Princess:
Of the bed-bound king’s bequest to you.
Of his death.
Samandel:
What do you mean?
The Princess:
Mean? Nothing.
I simply ask.
I beg of you,
For once be honest.
Not for me, but for yourself.
Let’s go from the beginning:
Why did you come?
Samandel:
Do you still love me?
The Princess:
A woman never forgets
The first man in whose hands
She turned to heat. His memory’s
Kept hidden like the whirlpool
In the water.
Samandel:
I’m overthrown.
My kingdom cracks about me like dry bark.
The guards denounce me.
The Princess:
The captains? The soldiers?
Samandel:
Drove me out.
The Princess:
What if I went back with you?
Samandel:
Things might be resolved.
The Princess:
For you?
Samandel:
For us.
The Princess:
But how?
Qarandel springs from his darkened corner.
Qarandel:
My song’s complete!
Ladies, listen…
Samandel:
Who is this?
Qarandel:
Don’t bother your head.
Be a guest in my song.
Samandel:
Who are you?
Qarandel:
My name means nothing.
Samandel:
What do you do?
Qarandel:
Do? Nothing.
Sometimes I stare at the sun till it sets.
At the night till it breaks in dawn. Sometimes
I dance at the weddings of friends.
Sometimes I write.
Samandel:
Write what?
Qarandel:
What happens.
Samandel:
Do you live in this hut?
Qarandel:
I have work here. Tonight
I am summoned to perform my song.
Samandel:
Summoned? By whom?
Qarandel:
Do you hear the sound of the wind?
Samandel turns to the princess.
Samandel:
Did you ask him here?
Qarandel:
Do you invite the wind?
Listen, it tells a story too.
Listen, listen.
Samandel:
What story does it tell?
Qarandel:
What happens.
Samandel:
A madman.
Qarandel:
A witness, rather.
Samandel:
What do you want?
Qarandel:
That my shadow be in your eyes.
Samandel:
Where did you find this lunatic?
Come, darling,
Let us go.
The Princess:
And my ladies?
Samandel:
Will follow later.
We press on to the palace, ahead
Of dawn’s first thread.
This morning we shall stand in the midan
Our hands entwined
And tell them that their princess has returned,
Has passed the robe of pardon to her lover
Weighed with sins, which sinner has received it
With clear proofs of gratitude.
Glowering, Qarandel draws his skinny frame up. He is wildly angry.
Qarandel:
No, no… I beg you. Please.
Once by a lie our city’s heart
Was knifed. It sickened,
Sagged beneath its wounds.
This night may see the end of all,
Of rivers, hills and houses,
Should another lie be born
In the midan.
Samandel:
Quiet, madman.
Come on, come on, let’s go.
Qarandel:
Sad to say, it seems
That I must sing my song.
Qarandel advances towards Samandel, circles his neck with fingers and stares into his eyes.
My shadow in your eyes,
Samandel.
Drawing a knife from his robe, Qarandel plunges it into Samandel’s chest.
There. The final line.
Samandel collapses across the table. Qarandel turns to the stunned women.
My song is done.
God keep you all.
He walks to the door, opens it, then turns to see the princess collapsing to the ground.
But don’t let me forget! A coda,
Without which my song’s undone.
My lady, Princess, be
Sovereign and mistress,
Do not bend your knee
Submissive
To any man of clay,
Wretch or righteous,
Colossus or rat.
Receive love’s splendours
And do not give it.
Bed yourself and so
Yourself suffice.
Make those brave gallants,
The sight of them so sweet in your eyes,
Servants to you, not lovers,
Or lovers,
Not beloved.
Qarandel exits. Beside the bed the princess weeps and kisses Samandel.
The Princess:
In death, he is
How true.
Look ladies, see
That charming, oily smile
Is dead,
And he looks shaken, petrified, and wears
A fetching honesty.
How beautiful dead,
Bone-weary lamb,
Bundled in my bed.
Let me shut terror’s window,
She closes his eyes.
Fold up the arms, that useless caution, lift
And lay the legs that loved to climb
Though they be sunk in mud.
How like my father he is,
Lying there.
My ladies, see,
And offer your congratulations.
My promised moment come,
It crushed me.
She falls into a chair beside the table, her back to the corpse. There is a dazzling smile on her face, and her eyes are closed, as though she’s dreaming. The third lady-in-waiting starts towards her.
LIW 3:
My lady! My lady!
The princess starts, as though awaking, and turning to the woman seems to forget all that has passed.
The Princess:
What is it? Swindler sleep’s
Not stolen our dawn stroll? Has the hour
Appointed for the nightingale and dew
Gone past and left us?
LIW 3:
No, my lady, but…
The Princess:
But what?
Do not despair Umm Khayr.
We’ll yet know the early silvered thread
And fill our cups with molten pearl
Upon the flowers’ cheeks,
And be at the palace
By the hour appointed.
LIW 1:
The hour appointed!
The Princess:
Do not forget, I am
A lady and a princess,
Sovereign and mistress.
This morning
I must stand in the midan
So my followers might see clear
My form aglow before them.
LIW 1:
Sorry, my lady.
The Princess:
We have amused ourselves,
We’ve played, we have
Shrugged off ourselves the burden
Of plans and plotting, dozed
Like children who have had their fill
Of food and chatter.
What is the time?
The second lady-in-waiting walks to the casement, opens it, and looks out.
LIW 2:
Dawn’s still an arrow’s flight away.
The Princess:
Strap down the baggage, then. Umm Khayr?
You’ve fetched the tack and saddle to the cart?
LIW 3:
My lady, I…
The Princess:
No matter.
Through forest paths, then, to the palace door, and so
On foot into the courtyard there
To meet my servants
And my subjects, to receive
What fills my heart by way of love
And of subservience.
Come, come!
Quick, quick!
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