Writing for Nothing

by Martin Crimp

  Protector To protect the family.

  Agnès Ah. Yes. Good. From what?

  Protector Don’t look.

  Agnès And in the meadow I saw a guard reach down into the buttercups to pick up a baby –

  Protector Don’t look, Agnès.

  Agnès – to pick it up – how odd – on the point of a stick. Oh and I saw the Boy out riding into the wood like a picture out of his own book.

  Touch me.

  Kiss me.

  Take my head in your hands.

  Protector Don’t be a child, Agnès.

  Agnès Grip my hair in your fist. Yes.

  Put your fingers into my mouth. Yes. Your tongue into

  my mouth now. Yes. Kiss me.

  Protector Only a child, Agnès, asks for a kiss.

  Agnès I’m not a child – don’t call me a child.

  Protector No pure woman asks for a kiss.

  No clean woman asks to be touched.

  You are. You are a child, Agnès – say it.

  Agnès Don’t call me a child –

  Protector You’re a child – say it.

  Agnès I refuse to be called a child.

  Protector I said to you say it.

  Agnès No.

  Protector Say it.

  Agnès No.

  Protector You will say to me ‘I am a child’.

  Agnès Ask him what I am.

  Protector Say ‘I am a child’, Agnès.

  Agnès Ask him what I am. Go to the wood. Ask him –

  Protector Ask who?

  Agnès – the one who writes on skin – ask him what

  I am – the Boy.

  IX THE PROTECTOR AND THE BOY

  Protector He finds the Boy

  sitting against a tree

  looking at his own reflection

  in the blade of a knife.

  Love-sick, thinks the Protector,

  easy to strangle – like a girl.

  What’re you doing here?

  Boy Nothing.

  Protector What is it you’re looking at?

  Boy Nothing, says the Boy,

  thumbing the knife.

  Protector Thinking about?

  Boy I’m thinking that when this wood and this light

  are cut through by eight lanes of poured concrete,

  I’m thinking that the two of us

  and everyone we love

  will have been dead for a thousand years.

  Protector The future’s easy: tell me about now.

  Boy Now there’s just one slit

  of pink light cut in the sky.

  Protector Tell me about now.

  Boy Now there’s just you me

  and a knife.

  Protector Tell me about now:

  who is this woman? –

  the one they say –

  taunt me and say screams out

  from a secret page –

  says screams and sweats with you

  in a secret bed?

  What is her name?

  Boy I thought you trusted me.

  Protector What is her name?

  Boy I thought you loved me and protected me.

  Protector What is this woman’s name? Is it Agnès?

  Is what? Her name is what?

  Boy Not Agnès – no no no no no no no – Marie – her name’s Marie – Marie: her sister.

  Look at her.

  Angel 2 appears as Marie, Angel 3 as her husband John. John is attempting to zip up Marie’s dress.

  She came to me. She was bored. She wanted to be Venus.

  Marie I’m bored. I want to be Venus. Put me in the book. Illuminate me.

  AH! THAT HURTS!

  John Sorry.

  Boy Then she wanted to be an angel. She wanted to crank the universe round on its axis.

  Marie Make me an angel. Give me power. I want to control the universe.

  Boy Her marriage was banal. She longed for excitement.

  Marie How do I look?

  John We’re late.

  Marie THEN GET ME MY SHOES! NOT THOSE – THE RED ONES!

  Boy She volunteered to be Greed and Luxury – was happy to let me draw from life sick acts of perversity.

  Marie Feed me pomegranates and soft-cooked eggs – roast meat for me and drown me in wine and cream – wash me in goat-milk – strip me – dress me – strip me again – toss me naked into the toy-box. Draw my mouth as a scarlet thread. Shame me – chain me – Drag me to hell. Shut me in eternal darkness with the devil. I’M READY!

  John I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know. Let’s go, Marie. We’re late – we’re going to be late – let’s go. We’re going to be late, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.

  Protector And her husband? –

  Boy – was complicit.

  Angels 2 and 3 start to leave. The Boy follows them off.

  Protector Is this the truth? Is this the truth?

  Boy Oh yes – believe me – it’s the truth.

  They go. The Protector is left alone.

  Protector And since this is what the man – this man so much needed to believe – so he – the man – this man – believed it.

  And that same evening tells his wife – entertains her – reveals – ha! – how – secretly – the Boy enjoys – guess – guess – guess – that whore her sister – yes! – and how that other man – that fool the husband – smiles the Protector – is complicit.

  X AGNÈS AND THE BOY

  Agnès Agnès puts on her shoes

  steps through the stone slit

  turns up the stone stairs

  slips into the writing-room where the Boy

  him

  yes

  the liar

  look

  lifts his head –

  Boy Why are you crying?

  Agnès You lied to me.

  Boy In what way lied?

  Agnès All night your voice in my head

  wound itself round and around and around and around

  my sister.

  Her mouth fastened to yours

  in a bad dream

  and her hair stuck –

  stuck like gold-leaf to your skin in a bad dream

  and covered your eyes.

  Boy What dream?

  Agnès My sister – you – the liar – you and my sister.

  Boy I lied for you, not to you.

  Agnès Prove it.

  Boy I lied to protect you.

  Agnès Protect – protect – protect:

  to protect me or to protect yourself?

  Boy This isn’t true.

  Agnès Prove it.

  Let him see. Show him us.

  Boy Show him us how?

  Agnès Or do you love him too?

  Do you fasten your mouth

  to his mouth too and bite –

  bite on his lip like you bite on mine?

  Boy What is it – says the Boy – you want from me?

  Agnès While the dead heap up in the meadow

  while human beings burn in the marketplace

  make a new page:

  Push our love into that man’s eye

  like a hot needle.

  Blind him with it.

  Make him cry blood.

  End of Part Two.

  Part Three

  XI THE PROTECTOR, AGNÈS AND THE BOY

  A long table is spread with pages from the completed book. The Boy moves along the table explaining the pictures.

  Boy Here are your enemies

  lined up on a gibbet.

  Protector Hanging – excellent – like Judas.

  Boy A vine-hook

  cutting a traitor’s throat.

  Protector Yes yes – and who are these?

  Boy These naked boys have dug their own graves –

  they’re waiting in an orchard to be shot.

  Protector And what are these streaks of light?

  Boy A night bombardment:

  Gomorrah – see it? – being turned to dust.


  Protector Yes yes, I see it – now show me Paradise.

  Boy An aquamarine flash –

  streets running with human fat –

  Protector I see it – but show me Paradise.

  Boy A carmine flame licking a field of wheat –

  Protector I SAID NOW SHOW ME PARADISE.

  Boy Ah – ah – ah – no – yes – what? – Paradise?

  But this is Paradise.

  Here is your mill

  and here are your cherry trees.

  Here’s – look – Marie shopping in the shopping-mall

  and John at the airport collecting air-miles.

  This is Paradise.

  These are its concrete walls.

  And here – with a diamond skull –

  the black dog at its gate.

  Agnès If this is Paradise – says Agnès –

  then where is Hell?

  Boy Here – smiles the Boy – it’s on this secret page.

  Agnès takes the page and looks at it.

  Agnès Where are the pictures?

  Boy They’re here: I’ve painted them with words.

  Agnès What words?

  Boy Read them.

  Agnès Read? Read? How can a woman read? What words?

  Is this a word?

  Or this? – this? – this? – or this?

  Where does a word end and another word begin?

  Where are the pictures?

  What use to a woman is a word?

  Boy The book is finished.

  My work – smiles the Boy – is done.

  The Boy goes.

  XII THE PROTECTOR AND AGNÈS

  The Protector examines the page in silence, then begins to read it to Agnès.

  Protector mouth –

  – see it –

  mouth

  – writes the Boy –

  heart hair mouth nail hand skin blood – her neck

  – writes the Boy –

  of amethyst, her long white back,

  even the gold-flecked iris of her eye:

  each part

  each part

  each part of her body

  – writes the Boy –

  she has offered and has used for her own pleasure.

  Like the man

  – writes the Boy –

  like the man who bends down the branch in summer –

  to cut the most high-up flower

  – writes – writes the Boy –

  I have reached up for her love

  and have bent her willingly to the ground.

  And at her invitation

  her own invitation

  – writes the Boy –

  we have used and used and used and used

  have used each other

  as

  – writes the Boy –

  pornography.

  This

  is what the woman

  what Agnès

  what your wife your property

  – writes the Boy –

  what your wife your property

  asks me to say to you.

  Agnès Ah.

  Read it – oh read it again.

  Protector Keep away.

  Agnès And show me –

  Protector Keep away.

  Agnès Please show me –

  Protector Keep away.

  Agnès I want to see.

  Protector Cover your arms.

  Cover your face and hair.

  Stitch shut your lips before your pink pink flicking tongue

  snakes back into my mouth the way it burrowed into his

  NOW KEEP AWAY FROM ME.

  Agnès Ah ah ah ah ah ah oh please please

  oh please let me see the word for love.

  XIII CHORUS OF ANGELS AND THE PROTECTOR

  Angels 2 and 3 Set the earth spinning –

  fill it with iron and stone.

  Angel 3 Make a man out of dust.

  Angel 2 Good.

  Angel 3 Prop him naked on two stick legs.

  Angel 2 Good.

  Angel 3 Prop him tottering next to a tree.

  Angel 2 Good.

  Angels 2 and 3 Tempt him, taunt him, clothe him, spit him out.

  Protector Expel him from joy

  with a lacerating whip.

  Make him sweat, cry,

  scratch at the earth’s crust.

  Angel 3 Make him jealous – make him ashamed.

  Protector Make each man ashamed – yes – to be human.

  Protector and Angels 2 and 3 Put voices into his mind.

  Angel 3 Confront the Boy

  – says one –

  follow him into the wood.

  Angel 2 No

  – says another voice –

  be wise, be calm, be merciful.

  Protector Take his hair in your fist

  – says the third –

  pull his head back for a kiss:

  and as you are cutting one long clean incision

  through the bone

  examine your own portrait

  in the glass-black mirror of his eyes.

  XIV THE PROTECTOR AND AGNÈS

  Agnès sits at a long table. In front of her, a metal dish, the lid removed, and a spoon.

  Protector Woman and her Protector – night.

  A room. A balcony. A long white table.

  What has he placed in front of her?

  What has he placed in front of her?

  Agnès A silver dish.

  Protector What does she lift from the silver dish?

  I said what does she lift from the silver dish?

  Agnès The warm round silver lid.

  Protector What does the woman do now?

  I said what does the woman do now?

  Agnès I’m not the woman: I’m Agnès.

  Protector I said what does the woman do now?

  Agnès Eats.

  Protector Good. Say it.

  Agnès The woman eats.

  Protector What makes the woman eat?

  I said what makes the woman eat?

  Agnès Hunger. Appetite. Her curiosity.

  Protector No: her obedience.

  Agnès Ah.

  Protector Her obedience.

  Agnès Ah.

  Protector Say it.

  I said to you say it.

  Agnès Her obedience now makes her eat.

  Protector Her obedience to her husband – that is correct –

  now makes her eat.

  How does it taste – says the man.

  Agnès Good, she says – salt and sweet. Why?

  Protector Good?

  Agnès Yes, she says – good, she says – salt strange and sweet.

  Why?

  Protector Good? How is it good?

  Agnès Sweet as my own milk, yes – good – but salt –

  salt as my own tears. Why?

  Protector Good? How is it good?

  Agnès Why?

  What has my husband my Protector given me to eat?

  Protector His heart, Agnès.

  Agnès What heart?

  Protector His heart – the Boy.

  The Protector opens out his hands: they are stained with blood.

  Agnès No.

  Protector His heart – the Boy –

  Agnès No – no – nothing –

  Protector – his heart – his heart –

  Agnès Nothing you can do –

  Protector – the Boy – his heart –

  Agnès Nothing I ever eat

  nothing I drink

  will ever take the taste of that Boy’s heart

  out of this body.

  No force you use

  nothing you forbid

  can take away the pictures that Boy’s hands

  draw on this skin.

  He can unfold the tight green bud

  unwrap the tree, darken the wood,

  lighten the sky, blacken the dust

  with rain – each mark he makes on me is good

  each colour c
lear –

  Crush.

  Burn.

  Break.

  Tear.

  Put out my eyes.

  Hang.

  Drown.

  Stone.

  Stab.

  Cut out my tongue.

  Nothing

  nothing –

  not if you strip me to the bone with acid –

  will ever take the taste of that Boy’s heart

  out of this mouth.

  XV ANGEL 1

  Third miniature: the woman falling.

  The Boy reappears as Angel 1.

  Angel 1 This – says the Angel – shows the Woman

  Falling:

  here – look – the man takes a knife

  but the woman’s quicker, and jumps.

  See how her body has dropped

  from the balcony –

  how I pause her mid-fall –

  at the exact centre of the page.

  Here in the night sky – see them –

  stars hold in a bright web

  her black silhouette on blue.

  As she drops from the house

  three small angels – look –

  are watching her calmly

  from the margin.

  In their face in their eyes

  see their cold fascination

  with human disaster

  as they turn from the falling woman to where

  the white lines of the Saturday car park cover

  the heaped-up dead.

  Lessons in Love and Violence

  ‘Then said Jonathan unto David, whatsoever

  thy soul desireth, I will do it even for thee’

  1 Samuel 20:4

  Music

  George Benjamin

  Text

  Martin Crimp

  Co-commissioned and co-produced by

  The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London,

  Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam,

  Hamburg State Opera,

  Opéra de Lyon, Lyric Opera of Chicago,

  Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona

  and Teatro Real Madrid

  Text copyright © Martin Crimp 2018

  Lessons in Love and Violence, conducted by the composer, was first performed by The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, at the Royal Opera House, London, on 10 May 2018. The cast was as follows:

  King Stéphane Degout

  Isabel Barbara Hannigan

  Gaveston / Stranger Gyula Orendt

  Mortimer Peter Hoare

  Boy, later Young King Samuel Boden

  Witness 1 / Singer 1 / Woman 1 Jennifer France

  Witness 2 / Singer 2 / Woman 2 Krisztina Szabó

  Witness 3 / Madman Andri Björn Robertsson