A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer

by Eve Ensler

  (Musically, pretty)

  And you said to me, dat—night—you said, “It horrify me to hear such a thing.” And Olivia, she was the one, she telled me? Told me? That you are “for real.”

  OLIVIA

  Not just some fucked-up perverted pig who wants to put a pretty woman on a private plane and fly around the world.

  GAUDELIEVE

  (Another sip)

  And Olivia seen everyfing.

  OLIVIA

  I’ve seen a lotta fucked-up perverted pigs, but I’d never say I’ve seen everything.

  GAUDELIEVE

  James, you said “Come wif me to United States, I know people at the most powerful, the most beautiful, fas-shion magazine—I hook you up. Less change de world. You and me.”

  (Pause)

  But dass notreally why I leff Rwanda—to change de world wif you. It’s an idea dass give me hope, but it’s not—reality.

  (Pause)

  You know why I leff Rwanda? James? Why I ran!

  OLIVIA

  It still blows my mind to bits that she managed to get out. She’s the shit, she really is.

  GAUDELIEVE

  I ran: to Belgium, to Milan, to Paris, with my thin Tutsi thighs, and I let them photograph my Tutsi looks for a fas-shion magazine? My sister, my brothers, all of dem, dey are dere, in Rwanda. They are trying to forget and to forgive—to save the country with forgiveness. But I knew I could-n’t forgive. I could-n’t!!!!

  (Gaudelieve breaks down sobbing, loud, big, dramatic. Olivia is floored—she’s been here many times, but it floors her every time. Olivia does not console Gaudelieve, she just looks out at the audience, helpless)

  GAUDELIEVE

  (Stops crying, speaking louder)

  Remember, James? When we learned what happened to my sister? Right here in this room, we got the phone call. You cried too. Wif me. The Hutu women abducting, abduct—

  OLIVIA

  —abducted

  GAUDELIEVE

  —her into the Congo, when the rebels came to take back Rwanda? And—dose Hutu women—escaped Rwanda, and took my sister wif dem, and raped—my sister for one—more—year after the genocide was done. Dose women. Dey raped her two times, three times a week. (Beat) My looks. These are the same looks that got my sister—wif—the—two—Hutu—women who took her and they—

  OLIVIA

  (Quickly)

  —yank—

  GAUDELIEVE

  —her dress and dey say: “let me see your nice, slim Tutsi thighs.” They stick a broom—and dey rape her wif a broom—

  OLIVIA

  —stick.

  GAUDELIEVE

  You know dis, James, but you don’t know.

  OLIVIA

  You don’t. I can’t. What the hell do we know?

  GAUDELIEVE

  I take my same—kind—of—Tutsi—thighs to France and—“Oh”—the photographer said, “Oh”—“Your thighs are the perfect perfect way.”

  OLIVIA

  And you know what “perfect” means in France.

  GAUDELIEVE

  When—dose Hutu women took my sister, dey said, “Let us see dose nice, thin Tutsi thighs that Tutsi men and Hutu men are so fond of!”

  What’s wrong wif you face James? Why you lookin’ like a boy’s face? Don’t you remember why dose Hutu women raped my sister?

  (Pause)

  Because dey—

  OLIVIA

  —crazy from jealousy.

  GAUDELIEVE

  Because. Hutu men. Hate Tutsis. And dey hate Tutsi women. But—dey—lust—for—Tutsi—women.

  OLIVIA

  Hate and lust rolled into one big fat. Danish. See, James, I think—

  GAUDELIEVE

  James! Did my Tutsi looks put me in here in dis niiice apartment wif dis nice ring? Wif dis nice coat? Wif dis nice Scotch? Is dat why I am here? Am I German?

  OLIVIA

  Like a car?

  GAUDELIEVE

  Am I Swiss?

  OLIVIA

  Like a watch?

  (Beat)

  GAUDELIEVE

  No. I am Rwandese.

  (She breaks down sobbing again)

  (Pause—Gaudelieve looks up. She and Olivia sit forward and listen to James’s every word with fascination)

  OLIVIA

  “Just post-traumatic stress”?

  (Olivia and Gaudelieve glance at each other and back at James [audience])

  GAUDELIEVE

  You always say dat, James.

  OLIVIA

  And by the way—what’s “just post-traumatic stress”? (She laughs as fully and as loudly as Gaudelieve has wept) I mean. For real. “Just”?

  GAUDELIEVE

  James. You send me to your doctor.

  OLIVIA

  The shrink.

  GAUDELIEVE

  (Extremely confident, clear, no emotion, together)

  What does he do? Exactly? I talk to him. He sit dere. Sometime I sit dere. And I don’t talk. He sit dere. He look down at he hands, he stretch out his legs. (She giggles, she shrugs) What? Whattt?

  OLIVIA

  When I see the pharmos he gives her? I wonder: Does the shrink see what I see? In those eyes? On that face? What I see when I do her makeup—what I see, James—’cause I have to find it, the pain? You know? Wherever it shows up and—quick—hide it. Me and her, we have to deal with the camera. Then it’s Roman-coliseum time, thumbs up, thumbs down. The camera likes her, it doesn’t like her. She’s got the red rocks of hell emblazoned on her memory, branded on the inside of her heart, imprinted on her soul. Nobody in our business likes to see the red rocks, so I hide ’em for her. Seems to me she’s in some kind of deep—existential-deep—existential—existential—we’re the ones on showtime. We’re the ones playing in some—skit. She’s seen the red rocks of hell. Seems to me she’s just trying to—to bring you where she is. Since you’re planning on marryin’ her.

  GAUDELIEVE

  I did not chill, James. I do not chill. I will not chill. James. I left Rwanda because I cannot chill. I will never ever chill, and I just might cry forever. James.

  (Gaudelieve looks us straight in our eyes: humbly)

  (Blackout)

  Darfur Monologue

  Winter Miller

  IN DARFUR, SUDAN, MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND BLACK AFRICANS HAVE BEEN MURDERED AS THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN ARMS THE ARAB JANJAWEED, OR “DEVILS ON HORSEBACK,” TO ENFORCE GENOCIDE. MORE THAN TWO MILLION DARFURIS ARE DISPLACED IN REFUGEE CAMPS.

  MOTHER TO HER NEWBORN

  One day, I know already to expect it, you will lay your curly head in my lap and ask, “Why am I not named for my father?” And I will wrap you in beautiful lies. I will tell you my husband was everything to me, the night sky specked with the most dazzling stars. I will tell you he was the desert, dusty and immense. I will tell you his love scorched and burned like the sun. I will tell you an army of men on horseback kicked my husband to the ground and shot him seven times. The first was in the leg, so he could not run. The second was in his groin, so he could not spread his seed. The third was in his heart, so he could not love. The fourth was in his heart, so he could not breathe. The fifth was in his heart to hear him cry for mercy. The sixth was in his heart to silence him. The seventh was in the middle of his forehead, for good measure.

  But listen, my son, for these are words I have never spoken, and I will never speak them again so long as I live.

  Your father, all six of him, dragged me through the dust, my head bobbing over stones. When my dress tore, just as I would, he gripped my hair, pulling me like a fallen goat. Your father, all six of him, threw me facedown in the dirt. As I choked sand, your father, all six of him, cut my clothes off with a knife. One by one, all six of him entered me.

  I did not make a sound.

  Your father, all six of him, called me “African slave” as he spattered his seed in me. Your father, all six of him, said, “This land belongs to Arabs now, this cattle belongs to us,” and slashed
my right thigh with his blade. So I would remember him, your father, all six of him, said.

  Alone at last, in a pool of my own blood, I looked up at the wide sky above and prayed to die. When I awoke, the village pyre had dwindled to embers.

  Your relatives are nameless corpses shoved in wells. My home is a pile of black ash and a stray teapot. There is no one and nothing to go back to, there is only going forward. I will not speak to you of the past. I will teach you not to ask.

  I Can Hear My Soul Cracking

  Slavenka Drakulić

  A DOCUMENTARY BROADCAST AT THE BEGINNING OF MAY 2005 BY THE B92 TV STATION IN SERBIA SHOWS A PARAMILITARY SERBIAN UNIT, SCORPIONS, FROM SERBIA PROPER (ALLEGEDLY CONNECTED TO THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR), EXECUTING SIX CIVILIAN MEN FROM SREBRENICA IN 1995. FOUR OF THEM WERE UNDERAGE, THE OTHER TWO UNDER THIRTY. THE DOCUMENTARY WAS SHOT ON A VIDEOTAPE BY THE SOLDIERS THEMSELVES AND, IT SEEMS, USED DURING TWO YEARS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES FOR SPECIAL UNITS BEFORE THE ORDER CAME TO DESTROY IT. THAT EVENING, WATCHING IT ON A TELEVISION, A MOTHER RECOGNIZED HER SON.

  While Mother is speaking, on a big screen behind her, a short insert from the same documentary of a young man being executed is projected again and again.

  MOTHER

  You ask me about my son? How I felt when I saw Azmir being killed? My child, how can I answer that kind of question? How can I tell you that? What words can I use to describe my pain? You say “killed,” and it seems to me that you feel nothing—how could you? He is only a name to you. But my whole body trembles when I hear it, just that one word. Azmir, my son, he was the soul of my soul.…

  But perhaps I should try to tell you that, for the sake of others who show remorse and have respect for my tragedy. And for the sake of other mothers like me, I know that they are many.

  That day it was only the beginning of June but already very hot. Just like that July day in Srebrenica ten years ago, I thought as I put a dzezva with water for a coffee on a stove. My second coffee of the day. It was late afternoon, and soon my neighbor Amra will come home from work with her young daughter, Selma. Often I envied her for having a daughter; it is such a blessing to have a female child in a time of war. But I am wrong, of course. A woman’s curse is different, that’s all. I was grateful that Amra was helping me. I expected that the three of us would have a supper together and watch television, as we did every evening.

  Ten years passed. If Azmir had not disappeared, he would have been twenty-six now—a grown-up man, maybe even married. I still remember that he liked that dark-haired girl from his school class, though nowadays it would be difficult for them to marry. She was a Serb. I like to imagine what would happen if he were here with me. I daydream about his job—he was so good with his hands—and a new house that he would surely be able to build. I like to daydream, imagining Azmir had the power to warm me and wake me up from a cold that I felt inside. That warmth used to keep me alive. But then immediately, I feel shame, the same feeling that I have experienced so many times, shame that I am alive and he.… Why? Why me? If someone had asked me to trade my life for that of my son, Azmir, I gladly would have done it. Not very tall and rather thin, he looked younger than his age—no more than a boy, really! This was the reason that I believed Azmir could be spared by soldiers. How wrong I was, I thought, embittered, sitting in the kitchen that afternoon.

  I slowly sipped my thick, strong coffee. See, I was convinced that I was reconciled with Azmir’s death long ago. Only I didn’t mention that ugly word, not even to myself. What else would keep him from coming back to me, calling me, for ten years? No way Azmir would not contact me somehow, through relatives, perhaps, he would find a way. My whole body told me that Azmir was no longer in this world, the same as his uncle, who was killed by Arkan’s soldiers when he visited Bijeljina at the very beginning of the war. At least I knew about him, I was certain, I was even able to get his body (for money, of course) and bury him properly. It is important to give people a burial; one should not be buried without a name, together with others in a mass grave. Why do we all have a name? We have it in life, and we should have it in death, that’s what I think. And I wanted to bury Azmir properly, if he was … Well.

  Although I felt Azmir’s end in my every muscle and bone, the truth is that I did not know for certain what had happened to him. And when. And where. It was not officially confirmed, or so I was told. In the last few years there were bones dug out, bones of thousands of men who were executed around Srebrenica. Like other women, I went to identify remnants of my son. But a watch and a few photos and a piece of shirt I was shown, together with some darkened bones, were not his—odd how thin and fragile human bones look, as if eaten by earth, I thought. I remember letting out a big sigh, not knowing if I was relieved that these remains were not Azmir’s, or unhappy that I could not finally get over with the torture of living with uncertainty year after year. Thinking that his bones are shattered in the woods, that he is not buried, that some other mother—just like me—looks at someone’s things with fear and then relief. I was afraid that Azmir was not only dead but also lost for me, lost forever.

  So, that evening I was in the kitchen washing dishes after dinner with Amra and Selma, as usual. Just then I heard a voice from the TV in the living room saying something about Srebrenica. Ah, yet another program, I thought. I had seen a few in the years that passed, always with a knot in my throat while looking for the familiar face of Azmir and hoping that I wouldn’t see it. I was tired of this, not sure that I could force myself to watch anything that had to do with Srebrenica again. Ten years is a long time when you wait. Why look at that program, what could it tell me that I already didn’t know?

  Yet I could not resist and went back to the living room and sat down. Amra was still there; Selma had gone back to their apartment. It was not a real film but some kind of a documentary, they said, and the picture was shaking, jumping. But I could see the Serbian soldiers in fatigue uniforms and red caps, their faces in front of the camera. They were not even hiding, so sure they were of themselves, so arrogant.… And then I saw a group of four prisoners, young men with their hands tied in the back. The soldiers killed them just like that. It all happened so abruptly, so quickly, that I had no time to react, to switch off the TV set or something. But when another two prisoners appeared on the screen, I averted my eyes. I was not quick enough, though … because from the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar figure. Instantly, I recognized my son, Azmir, his light brown hair, his hands, his shirt. He stood there for a short while with his hands tied back, bent slightly forward. Suddenly, I felt pressure in my chest, as if I were sinking into water—like when I was small and fell into a river. I gasped for air, but there was not enough. I could hear no sound, not even my heartbeat, nor could I utter a single sound. I was trapped in that water. In that room, in that picture on the screen, and there was no way out.

  I knew what was coming. When Azmir turned toward the camera with a frown on his forehead so familiar to me—because he used to frown like that when he was small and frightened, just before he would start crying—I tried to close my eyes. I had seen enough.

  But my own eyes betrayed me, and I stared while Azmir took a bullet and fell gently on his back.

  Now it all happened very, very slowly, or it only seemed so to me, I didn’t know any longer, nor did I care. I was still under the water with my lungs about to explode. Then I felt Amra shaking me gently, and I took a breath. I saw what I had seen so many times in my nightmares—but now, for the first time, I saw it to the very end. In my nightmare, there was never an end, and I would wake up wishing to know … the end. That evening I saw it. I know it now.

  When I finally managed to close my eyes, I heard a strange sound coming from somewhere inside me. The sound of cracking, like cracking of ice in the springtime. “I can hear my soul cracking,” I said to Amra. She held me tightly in her arms for a while.

  That night, alone in my bed, I saw the same picture again and again. Not of Azmir’s death, but of hi
s face, looking for help that did not come.

  Celia

  Edwidge Danticat

  INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY.

  Celia, an immigrant from Guatemala, is crossing the U. S. border in an airless container. She wakes up on the floor of the container, surrounded by a group of women who appear to be sleeping but might be dead. They are victims of human smuggling. Celia looks around and lets her eyes adjust to the semi-darkness. Her breathing is labored.

  CELIA

  No puedo respirar. I can’t breathe. My asthma’s acting up and I can’t breathe. Ay, dios mio, we’re still not in Brownsville. That’s where the coyotes told us we’d end up if we got into this thing. This big coffin. This container. They told us they’d help us cross the border. They said they’d find a place with no migra and no vigilantes. Ay, bless us, madre del dios, holy mother of God, it is so hot. I’m sweating like a cerdo, and I can’t breathe. Everyone is lying so still. Are they sleeping, or are they dead? (She shakes two of the women closest to her.) Flaca, Mira. ¡Levantese! Wake up! ¡Todos despierta! Everybody, wake up! (No one wakes up.) They won’t wake up.

  We come from the same village, Flaca, Mira, and my husband, Julio. I was seventeen years old when Julio and I married. He was a soldier, twelve years my senior. We’d known each other only a short time, but societal pressures—the average marriage age in my province was fifteen—encouraged the union.

  The military in Guatemala is very powerful. A soldier can kill you on the spot if you do anything wrong and even if you don’t. Julio came home from work drunk every night because he was trying to forget the bad things he’d done to people, burning down houses with families inside, tossing babies in the air and shooting at them. When he was so drunk he didn’t even know himself, he would beat me. Sometimes he’d beat me until I lost consciousness, all the while telling me that he was only treating me the same way he was treated in the army.