Guards at the Taj and Mr. Wolf_Two Plays

by Rajiv Joseph

  HUMAYUN: There you go . . . now, please get me some water?

  Babur gets up, goes over to a clay urn and gets a large cup of water and brings it back to Humayun. He pours water slowly over Humayun’s face, while Humayun rubs his eyes.

  BABUR: I don’t know why water’s going to make you see.

  HUMAYUN: I just need something . . . Ahhh . . . God . . . More water, MORE WATER!

  Babur rushes back, gets more water, brings it back to Humayun. He rinses his eyes out more, squints, opens them wide looks around.

  BABUR: Can you see?

  HUMAYUN: (with joy) I can . . . I can!

  BABUR: Look at me. You can see me?

  HUMAYUN: (in seeing Babur, soaked in blood, is horrified)

  I can see you . . .

  Humayun looks around at the room, covered in blood. He gets to his feet.

  HUMAYUN: Whoa.

  BABUR: Yeah.

  HUMAYUN: What a mess.

  BABUR: Yeah.

  HUMAYUN: We have to clean this ourselves?

  BABUR: Yeah.

  HUMAYUN: This is woman’s work.

  BABUR: I know.

  HUMAYUN: There should literally be twenty women in here cleaning this right now.

  BABUR: At least.

  HUMAYUN: I mean, not that I’d want . . .

  I wouldn’t want a woman to have to see this.

  BABUR: (realizing maybe for the first time)

  This was terrible. What we just did was terrible.

  HUMAYUN: It was our job.

  Babu, it was our job, okay?

  (beat)

  So is cleaning.

  Let’s clean.

  Let’s clean.

  They just stand there for a moment. How does one even approach a mess like this?

  They drag the basket of hands into an alcove. As they do, Babur sees the thousands of other baskets that have been dragged back there . . . he shudders when he sees them.

  BABUR: What do we do with all of those baskets of hands?

  HUMAYUN: Burn them. Outside.

  BABUR: That’s going to smell terrible.

  HUMAYUN: I know.

  BABUR: We’ll see them around. Probably begging. And they’ll see us. They’ll remember you and me, Huma. They hate us. Those guys hate us.

  They start to mop, but realize they are just pushing around blood.

  HUMAYUN: Isn’t there a drain?

  BABUR: It’s clogged.

  HUMAYUN: Can we unclog it?

  Babur puts his hand through a deep pool, searching for the drain. He finds something and lifts a vile, disgusting lump of a hair, flesh and fingers that have bound together in an unholy mess.

  Babur makes a verbal sound of disgust as he holds it out and then discards it.

  Humayun and Babur both begin to clean the entire room thoroughly . . . a task that will take them until the end of the scene.

  But initially, Humayun, disgusted with the blood, has to take a moment.

  HUMAYUN: Your flying invention with the seat-belt was a good idea. I too, have an idea.

  (beat)

  I have an invention, too. A transportable hole.

  Proud of this, Humayun looks to see if he got a reaction; he didn’t.

  HUMAYUN: It’s literally a hole you could take anywhere with you. And you could attach it to anything. And anything you attached it to would suddenly have a hole in it. Say you wanted to go through a wall? You could. Or say you are trapped in a dungeon. Or you are in the desert and it is so hot! Hole in the ground, now you can sleep in some shade. Also there would be things to eat in the hole.

  BABUR: What would there be to eat?

  HUMAYUN: I don’t know. Beef curry. Parathas.

  BABUR: It wouldn’t fall out?

  HUMAYUN: What?

  BABUR: Food. Wouldn’t fall out? Of the hole?

  HUMAYUN: No, it would be in the hole.

  BABUR: But the hole’s a hole.

  HUMAYUN: A transportable hole.

  BABUR: How would you carry it?

  HUMAYUN: Carry what?

  BABUR: The transportable hole.

  HUMAYUN: It would have a sack.

  BABUR: A sack?

  HUMAYUN: Inside the sack: transportable hole.

  BABUR: What if I were in the sack.

  HUMAYUN: Why would you be in the sack?

  BABUR: For example if I was.

  HUMAYUN: It’s not a very big sack. You wouldn’t fit.

  BABUR: It’s a small sack?

  HUMAYUN: Big enough only for the transportable hole.

  BABUR: It’s a small hole?

  HUMAYUN: Small enough to fit in the sack, but then, as holes are, it could grow and shrink in size.

  BABUR: But what if I were in the sack?

  HUMAYUN: You wouldn’t fit inside the sack, as I’ve said, it’s a small sack.

  BABUR: But say I was very small.

  HUMAYUN: Suddenly you are very small.

  BABUR: Yes.

  HUMAYUN: Small enough to fit inside the sack.

  BABUR: Yes. I’m trapped, see, inside the sack.

  HUMAYUN: How did you shrink?

  BABUR: There was a potion, from some witch.

  HUMAYUN: Okay.

  BABUR: So now I’m very small, and someone has gone and put me in the sack.

  HUMAYUN: With the transportable hole?

  BABUR: No, the transportable hole isn’t there yet. It’s out of the sack.

  HUMAYUN: You took it out of the sack?

  BABUR: I didn’t take it, it was already out when I was captured and put in the sack.

  HUMAYUN: Who took it out?

  BABUR: The boss man who owns it.

  HUMAYUN: Maybe the emperor.

  BABUR: You would think the emperor.

  HUMAYUN: Seeing as the transportable hole is probably a very rare, expensive thing.

  BABUR: That’s what I was thinking. Not everyone gets a transportable hole. Too many transportable holes would be a bad idea as they might take up everything, the whole world, and then what? What if everything was a hole? I have another invention, too, about something you could put inside clouds.

  HUMAYUN: Wait, go back to when you are inside the sack.

  BABUR: Oh yeah, because I’ve shrunken to a very small size.

  HUMAYUN: How small, like a child?

  BABUR: No, like a doll a child plays with.

  HUMAYUN: That’s very small. And you’re in the sack.

  BABUR: Trapped inside, because the boss man, probably the emperor, captured me and put me in there.

  HUMAYUN: Punished for being too small.

  BABUR: But because the sack I’m trapped in is also the sack with which to transport the transportable hole, the transportable hole is now put into the sack. With me.

  Now: I’m in a sack that has a hole in it.

  So: Can I escape?

  HUMAYUN: Well, you could just go right through the hole.

  BABUR: Exactly!

  HUMAYUN: That’s what the hole is for.

  BABUR: But could the transportable hole . . . wouldn’t it also fall through its own hole?

  HUMAYUN: Could the hole fall through itself?

  BABUR: It’s a good question.

  HUMAYUN: Sure, it could.

  BABUR: Well if it could, then the sack isn’t a very good sack with which to carry it.

  HUMAYUN: That is true.

  BABUR: Nothing could carry it.

  HUMAYUN: Nothing could ever carry it.

  BABUR: And then how do you take the hole places?

  HUMAYUN: (disappointed in himself)

  You couldn’t. Nobody could. It’s a useless invention.

  Beat. Humayun is angry at himself. Babur looks to cheer him up.

  BABUR: (new idea) Unless you had two sacks! And the hole simply led to the other sack, so even if the hole went through itself, it would end up in the other sack, and then back again in the corresponding sack. Like an hourglass.

  They smile at each other. Problem solved. They clean for
awhile.

  BABUR: I have a lot of new ideas for inventions.

  When I was . . .

  When I . . .

  When I was . . .

  (He takes a deep breath, calming himself)

  When I was chopping . . . ?

  I thought about things I would invent.

  I thought there would be a thing, like tea maybe, that you could put in the clouds, and then, when it began to rain, the rain would be different colors, maybe, and also taste sweet, and imagine if we were out in the rain and there were colors over everything, bright blues and greens and pinks and it also tasted really good . . . maybe it was also alcoholic, and so was like wine, and so you also got drunk. Cloud tea.

  HUMAYUN: That’s a fantastic invention.

  BABUR: I have another invention which is an invisible house that is for a garden and you could plant things inside the house.

  I also thought, my aeroplat, that would fly to the stars? You could make a smaller one that would just take you to Turkey.

  HUMAYUN: Why would it take you to Turkey?

  BABUR: It would fly you there.

  HUMAYUN: But why Turkey necessarily? Why not somewhere else?

  BABUR: This aeroplat would go to Turkey.

  Ustad Isa was in Turkey once.

  (awkward beat)

  He said there were compassionate whores in Turkey, and the air was cool.

  So this particular aeroplat is going to Turkey.

  HUMAYUN: Compassionate whores?

  BABUR: Yeah.

  Beat.

  HUMAYUN: How long does it take to get to Turkey?

  BABUR: (beat; Babur stops working . . . he stares into space)

  He was the only one who didn’t scream.

  Ustad Isa.

  He didn’t scream. He only looked at me and . . .

  He was the smartest man in the kingdom, Huma. The smartest man on earth. He could do anything. And now . . . no hands.

  Another awkward beat.

  HUMAYUN: Everything is over now, okay?

  BABUR: Everything is over?

  HUMAYUN: Yeah.

  BABUR: Imagine if you didn’t have your hands

  HUMAYUN: No.

  BABUR: No what?

  HUMAYUN: No, I’m not going to imagine that.

  BABUR: You should.

  HUMAYUN: Why.

  BABUR: After what we just did.

  HUMAYUN: We just did our job.

  BABUR: But just imagine what that must be like to have both your hands chopped off and then the stumps cauterized, and then sent back into the world to do . . . to do what?

  To do what with the rest of your life?

  How do you eat?

  How do you drink?

  How do you scratch an itch?

  How do you wipe your ass, Huma?

  HUMAYUN: I don’t care, just shut up, okay?

  BABUR: A man with no hands is a man who cannot be useful.

  An unuseful man is a devil.

  HUMAYUN: Tell me some other inventions.

  Do you have other inventions?

  Beat. Maybe Humayun has succeeded in distracting Babur from his slowly growing despair.

  BABUR: What if the transportable hole had no bottom?

  Like I put it on the ground and I fall through it, and so I fall through the world, and I pop out on the other side, in some strange, far off land, as far away as you could possibly get from where we are . . . could the transportable hole do that?

  Beat; they think.

  HUMAYUN: Maybe.

  BABUR: I want the hole more than the aeroplat.

  HUMAYUN: More than Turkey?

  BABUR: More than Turkey.

  HUMAYUN: More than compassionate whores?

  BABUR: More than anything.

  HUMAYUN: That they are compassionate... This is what sets them apart? Why did Ustad Isa use this particular word. Did he fall ill? They tended to him? Were they very good listeners?

  (beat)

  Compassionate!

  They clean.

  Humayun, with a rag, scrubs the wooden chopping block. He has to really get in there and scrub. In doing so, his hands are placed directly on the chopping block.

  Babur sees this as he passes by Humayun, and stops in his tracks. Humayun doesn’t notice Babur has stopped and is looking at him.

  Humayun is concentrating intently on the chopping block, trying to scrub out the blood.

  Babur is nearly in a trance, staring at Humayun’s hands.

  HUMAYUN: What?

  Babur snaps out of it, walks away.

  BABUR: Nothing.

  Humayun watches Babur for a moment, slightly troubled by his friend’s behavior. Then goes back to scrubbing the chopping block. He looks at the block.

  HUMAYUN: It is true, though, what you say . . .

  It’s got to be a terrible thing. Spend 16 years building Tajmahal . . . and then to not be able to build anything again.

  Chop off these hands . . . So that nothing so beautiful as Tajmahal shall ever be built again.

  The Emperor is a serious man, bhai.

  Nothing so beautiful ever built again.

  (beat; he cleans)

  You know when you think about it . . . I guess that means that the most beautiful thing ever made . . . will always be here, right in front of us, in our city.

  So that at least is good . . .

  We don’t really have to worry about something more beautiful being built anywhere else.

  We get the most beautiful thing, right here in Agra.

  This fact suddenly has a deep effect on Babur.

  BABUR: Huma . . .

  HUMAYUN: Yeah?

  BABUR: (beginning to realize something) Do you understand what that means?

  HUMAYUN: What what means?

  BABUR: (growing realization)

  It means there will never be anything as beautiful built ever again.

  (new revelation)

  And if nothing so beautiful is ever built again, that means that Beauty itself is dying. Right now, already, it’s dying. It means that one day, it will be gone altogether.

  (new realization)

  And it’s my fault!

  HUMAYUN: Come on, bhai . . .

  BABUR: 400 years, 500 years from now, Huma, maybe sooner, there won’t be anysuch thing as Beauty. It was executed, and the executioner was me.

  I killed Beauty.

  I killed Beauty . . .

  (with rising recognition and horror of this)

  I killed Beauty!

  HUMAYUN: No, you didn’t, you didn’t kill Beauty!

  You didn’t kill anything or anybody, you just did your job.

  BABUR: Whether it was my job or not is besides the point!

  HUMAYUN: It is exactly the point! It is the only point!

  BABUR: I killed Beauty!

  HUMAYUN: No, you didn’t, okay? Nobody killed Beauty, you can’t kill Beauty.

  BABUR: You just said it yourself! You just said, nothing more beautiful would ever be built again . . . That we get the most beautiful thing ever made here in Agra . . . but the flip side to that is that if nothing else will ever be built that is as beautiful, it means that beauty has actually gone extinct, and so . . . And so . . . that’s it. It’s gone.

  HUMAYUN: (thinking about it) I guess you’re right.

  Wow.

  We killed Beauty.

  BABUR: NO. You didn’t kill Beauty, I killed beauty.

  HUMAYUN: We did this thing together!

  BABUR: I chopped! You cauterized!

  HUMAYUN: That’s semantics!

  BABUR: I chopped, you cauterized, end of story. I did the damage. I removed the hands. I killed Beauty.

  HUMAYUN: You know what, you don’t ever give me credit for anything.

  BABUR: I don’t ever!? Since when?

  HUMAYUN: Take your pick! My jokes aren’t funny, only your jokes are funny. I’m not good at cards, only you’re good at cards. My inventions are stupid, your inventions are interesting!

 
; BABUR: I like the transportable hole!

  HUMAYUN: It doesn’t work! You can’t transport it! And now I didn’t kill Beauty, only you killed Beauty, even though I went fucking blind burning those bleeding stumps all night! I think I should at least be an accessory to the crime, okay mister? Jeez. It’s like I didn’t go through this whole ordeal with you tonight.

  BABUR: It doesn’t feel like you did.

  HUMAYUN: And why is that?

  BABUR: You don’t care.

  HUMAYUN: I don’t care about what?

  BABUR: You don’t care that twenty thousand men don’t have their hands anymore.

  HUMAYUN: How am I supposed to care about that? What is caring going to get me?

  BABUR: It’s just the truth, Huma.

  HUMAYUN: If we hadn’t done our jobs tonight, we’d be hanging by our necks in the royal courtyard getting our eyes pecked out by the royal crows. So excuse me if I don’t wallow in some misbegotten guilt all night. Was it fucked up? Yes, it was. But I don’t have to feel terrible about it.

  BABUR: Yeah you do.

  HUMAYUN: No I don’t.

  BABUR: This is why you don’t get to say you killed Beauty, why only I killed Beauty, because you don’t even care. You don’t care about Beauty.

  HUMAYUN: I do too care about Beauty.

  BABUR: Fine, name one beautiful thing.

  HUMAYUN: Tajmahal.

  BABUR: Name another.

  Humayun starts to answer, but is stumped.

  BABUR: See you don’t know any—

  HUMAYUN: —Give me a second! Wine.

  BABUR: Not beautiful just tasty.

  HUMAYUN: Women.

  BABUR: Doesn’t count.

  HUMAYUN: Women don’t count.

  BABUR: No.

  HUMAYUN: Women don’t count as beautiful.

  BABUR: Different kind of beauty!

  HUMAYUN: You’re all over the place!

  BABUR: I like Beauty. I have always liked Beauty. It matters to me. It has never mattered to you. You’re only interested in Rules. And the King. And Your Father. And BEING A GOOD SOLDIER.

  HUMAYUN: Birds!

  Birds are beautiful.

  They just stare at each other, not even knowing why they’re fighting.

  Humayun exits into the alcove, still working. As he does he shouts back these examples of beauty:

  HUMAYUN: (O.S.) Birds flocking: Beautiful.

  Hawks, Green parrots: Beautiful.

  Red Breasted jibjabs: Beautiful.

  Anything with feathers: Beautiful.

  See?

  Tell me I don’t like beauty, I LOVE beauty, I’m a beauty EXPERT.

  Babur wipes his cheek. He sees there is blood on it, he wipes it again. And again. It grows as a tick. (Maybe he’s been doing this for a while). He suddenly can’t stop wiping his face.