Is the time it takes for an immortal ant
To empty a barrel of sesame seeds
By removing a single kernel
Once every hundred years.
(The flute wails. Poring over her script, FLORENCE begins a long, slow march down the bridge.)
IKEDAMA. Here comes our first damned soul of the day, Murasame, a brine maiden of Suma Bay.
FLORENCE. (Entering playing area.) There must be some mistake.
IKEDAMA. The great god Aborasetsu never makes mistakes.
FLORENCE. Surely my sorrowful existence was punishment enough for whatever evils I committed in my past lives. I should never have been thrown into this place.
IKEDAMA. In a future era, the occidental ontologist Martin Siegheildegger will observe that each of us is thrown into the world, a circumstance pregnant with perplexity.
FLORENCE. I’d heard Arbuda was infinitely cold, a zone of chattering teeth and blue flesh.
IKEDAMA. Lord Aborasetsu got bored with all that. So did the condemned, as a matter of fact.
(FLORENCE removes the fan from her sash and opens it. In the speech that follows, she treats the fan as a bucket, pantomiming the behavior she describes.)
FLORENCE. There’s nothing Aborasetsu could teach me about boredom. Day after tedious day, night after insipid night, I drew brine from Suma Bay, lugged the six heavy pails to a cart, and hauled them over rutted roads to the salt kilns for boiling. I lived in a hut. The moon was my only companion. When I died of pneumonia, it seemed like a blessing.
IKEDAMA. Was not the aristocratic poet Yukihira moved by the sublime austerity of a brine maiden’s life?
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
If ever anyone
Chances to ask for me,
Say I live alone,
Soaked by the dripping seaweed
On the shore of Suma Bay.
FLORENCE. My sleeves were soaked in seaweed, all right, and also in the tears of my misery. That said, I do not begrudge Yukihira his sentiments. But for poetry and the moon, I would have drowned myself long before the pneumonia killed me.
IKEDAMA. “Without music, life would be a mistake.” Thus spake the future occidental sophist Friedrich Nietzsche.
(Still stationed on the far end of the bridge, SARTRE removes his mask, lights a cigarette, and wafts out an improvised line.)
SARTRE. How easily the highborn romanticize the proletariat. Yukihira could return to his pleasure boat whenever he wished.
(The basement lights flicker. SARTRE, startled, stubs out his cigarette on a folding chair, then restores his mask.)
FLORENCE. (Pantomiming with fan.) How I loved catching the moon in my pails. I would line them up, six moons along the shore, one moon in the bay, an eighth moon in the sky.
(A high, sustained note pours from the flute. Script in hand, SARTRE crosses the bridge and takes his place near the protagonist’s pillar. He removes his mask and scratches his nose.)
SARTRE. I am Yamashina no Shōji of Chikuzen Province, until recently charged with tending the Emperor Shirakawa’s chrysanthemums, then came a lethal accident with my pruning hook. (Restores mask.) I do not belong in this meat locker.
IKEDAMA. Lord Aborasetsu intends not to punish Shōji the gardener but rather the person Shōji was in a forgotten former existence.
SARTRE. If anybody deserves to be in a Naraka, it’s Princess Tokuski. Can you hear me, Lord Aborasetsu? I’ll gladly stick around if that means I get to watch you freeze her royal ass off.
FLORENCE. (To IKEDAMA.) He’s not a poet, but I like him anyway.
SARTRE. What I most came to loathe about Tokuski was her inauthenticity. When she learned that I, a common gardener, had become infatuated with her, she went around quoting a twelfth-century folk song.
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
The way of love follows no fixed path,
Neither high nor low.
The imperatives of passion will acknowledge no station,
Neither of prince nor of peasant.
SARTRE. But she didn’t believe those lofty words, not for a minute. One day a royal messenger appeared before me.
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
The Princess Tokuski, who knows neither high nor low,
Bids you visit the pond where floats a single lotus.
There you will find a drum hanging from a laurel tree.
Beat on the drum, and when Tokuski hears the noise,
She will step onto her balcony, arrayed in all her loveliness.
There she will wait for you, and once you appear
She will lift from her lips a thousand kisses
And let them fall upon your face like petals from peonies.
SARTRE. (Removing fan from sash.) So I went to the tree by the lotus pond, only to discover that the drum was made of damask. Fool that I am, I took up a log and beat on the damask drum. (Pantomimes striking drum with fan.) No sound came forth, but I kept on beating, tearing the drum to shreds, and when I looked up, I saw a hundred courtiers gathered around the water’s edge, laughing at me.
FLORENCE. I am Murasame, brine maiden of Suma Bay, and I think Princess Tokuski was a fool to treat her handsome gardener so shamefully.
SARTRE. Despite the humiliation, the episode proved instructive, enabling me to understand a great schism in the universe.
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
Drum, log, tree, pond, lotus:
Each such objective phenomenon enjoying
A fullness of existence, a being-in-itself,
Whereas we conscious actors,
Inherit and incarnate being-for-itself,
Wellspring of subjectivity in the world.
And yet this status is eternally vulnerable to collapse,
Menaced by the ubiquity of other minds,
Alien gazes that relentlessly make objects out of subjects,
Thus refashioning our freedom
As a source of dread,
An incompleteness,
An emptiness,
A nothingness,
A void.
FLORENCE. I’ve often thought of it that way, only with buckets and the moon.
(As the flute warbles, the masked BEAUVOIR strides majestically along the bridge and enters the playing area.)
BEAUVOIR. I was expecting glaciers.
IKEDAMA. Lord Aborasetsu is experimenting.
BEAUVOIR. I am Hitomaru, for many years an itinerate lute player living in Owari Province, but then I choked to death on a fish bone. The punishments that await me here doubtless fit the crimes I committed in earlier incarnations—but of late I’ve been a victim, not a perpetrator.
FLORENCE. The lot of Murasame, brine maiden of Suma Bay, was also hard.
SARTRE. Yamashina no Shōji, royal gardener to the Emperor Shirakawa, endured many indignities.
BEAUVOIR. Hour after wretched hour I walked barefoot through freezing blizzards and fearsome gales …
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
Under dark skies and beneath broiling suns,
Along brambled roads,
Over muddy paths,
Across broken bridges,
Down culs-de-sac.
BEAUVOIR. (Removing fan from sash.) Each time I entered a village, a prayer formed on my lips. Sometimes Lord Buddha would hear me, sending a crowd to attend my performance and throw coins at my feet, but more often heaven turned a deaf ear to my entreaty. (Plucks veins of fan like lute strings.) But the playing was always its own reward, even when the audience was indifferent, hostile, or nonexistent.
FLORENCE. My fair Hitomaru, naturally I think of “The Lute Girl’s Song.” The thick strings—
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
The thick strings crashed and sobbed
Like the falling of winter rain,
And the thin strings whispered secretly together.
The first and second string
Were like a wind sweeping through the pines
With stuttering howls.
The third and fourth
We
re like the voice of a caged stork
Crying for its children at night
In low, mournful notes.
BEAUVOIR. Po Chü-i is my favorite poet. (Takes FLORENCE by the hand.) How marvelous that you know his work, Murasame, my comely brine maiden.
FLORENCE. I have always cherished the voice of the lute.
BEAUVOIR. And I have always cherished those who cherish it.
(Compelled by a sudden mutual attraction, FLORENCE and BEAUVOIR rush toward each other and embrace. In an unbroken and sensual gesture, FLORENCE removes BEAUVOIR’s mask and stares into her eyes. Suddenly FLORENCE screams and pulls away.)
My dear Murasame, have you never kissed a woman? Before the fish bone intervened, I inhabited all genres of desire.
FLORENCE. Your eyes, Hitomaru! I see them in your eyes!
BEAUVOIR. (Taking mask from FLORENCE.) What do you see?
FLORENCE. The crimes that condemned you to this place.
BEAUVOIR. (Restoring her mask.) Tell me about them.
FLORENCE. I won’t do that.
(SARTRE strides up to BEAUVOIR, removes her mask, and contemplates her face.)
SARTRE. What am I looking for?
FLORENCE. In a past life she was Lady Tamamo, a ruthless sorceress living on the island of Kikaigashima. Peer into Hitomaru’s eyes, and you’ll see the towers and ramparts of the witch’s palace.
SARTRE. (Fixing on BEAUVOIR.) I see only coruscating blue irises surrounding black pools of being-in-itself.
FLORENCE. No castle by the sea?
(SARTRE returns BEAUVOIR’s mask, but she does not put it on.)
BEAUVOIR. Evidently I stand naked in your gaze alone, my sweet Murasame. (Impulsively removes SARTRE’s mask.) On the other hand, my dear Shōji, you cannot hide your former existence from me.
SARTRE. My former existence as—?
BEAUVOIR. (Studying SARTRE’s eyes.) A samurai warrior, Kumagai no Jirō Naozane. It ended shamefully. I see Naozane being led to the chopping block. I see the executioner sharpening his sword. (To FLORENCE.) Come here, my darling.
FLORENCE. I never watch a beheading before breakfast.
BEAUVOIR. If we’re going to escape from Arbuda, we must learn how the place works. (Draws FLORENCE toward her.) Do you see him? The most skilled executioner in Kawachi Province, his sword flashing in the rising sun.
FLORENCE. (Fixing on SARTRE.) I see nothing.
BEAUVOIR. The blade descends. Naozane’s head falls to the ground and rolls away.
(BEAUVOIR drops SARTRE’s mask on the floor. SARTRE shudders and gasps. Bending, he retrieves the decapitated wooden face. Instead of restoring the mask, he surveys it like Hamlet considering Yorick’s skull.)
SARTRE. How easily a person becomes a thing. What sin brought Naozane to this ignominious end?
BEAUVOIR. We’ll go into that another day.
SARTRE. If you alone can see my past, Hitomaru, and if Murasame alone can see your past, then it follows that I alone can see Murasame’s past.
(SARTRE tucks the mask under his arm, then approaches FLORENCE and fixes on her face. She closes her eyes.)
Grant me access to your iniquity.
FLORENCE. No.
SARTRE. There can be no secrets here.
FLORENCE. Kiss me.
SARTRE. What?
FLORENCE. Kiss me.
(SARTRE approaches FLORENCE and plants an unequivocal kiss on her eager lips. She opens her eyes.)
Now what do you see?
SARTRE. I see the lovely Murasame, who I fear is fast becoming mere flesh in my eyes, even as I become mere flesh in her eyes.
IKEDAMA. Even worse, if they keep this up, Shōji will want Murasame to become mere flesh in her own eyes. And vice versa.
BEAUVOIR. A project without a future.
FLORENCE. Keep looking.
SARTRE. (Obeying.) I see … I see … I see a beautiful but merciless courtesan, Lady Rokujō, forever toying with the affections of callow soldiers and sensitive young poets. After telling a man she can never return his love, she recommends that he drown himself.
IKEDAMA. It is said that twenty ghosts, eternally smitten with Lady Rokujō, still haunt the foggy banks of the Ikatu River.
FLORENCE. Is that the whole of my sin?
BEAUVOIR. I would say it meets the minimum entry requirements for this place.
SARTRE. There is more, but I prefer to postpone the discussion.
BEAUVOIR. Speaking of suicide, I wonder if that’s a way out.
IKEDAMA. Perhaps you should investigate.
BEAUVOIR. (Removing fan from sash.) A samurai wife never lets herself suffer rape or captivity at the hands of her husband’s enemies. Instead she takes up her tantō knife and with a ritual stroke severs the arteries of her neck. A mere lute player can do the same. (Attempts to cut carotids.) Damn! It’s like I’m made of iron.
IKEDAMA. Quod erat demonstrandum.
BEAUVOIR. Everything is clear to me now. I understand Aborasetsu’s grand experiment perfectly. O Demon King, you are too clever by half. Why should you bother to appoint the cold Narakas with icebergs and blizzards, or the hot Narakas with brazen bulls and pools of boiling pitch, when all that’s needed is for the condemned to become aware of one another?
SARTRE. (Agreeing.) You are my appointed torturer, Hitomaru, and I am Murasame’s torturer, and she is your torturer—forever.
IKEDAMA. Not precisely forever. Your sentence is the time it takes for an immortal ant to empty a barrel of sesame seeds by bearing away a single kernel once every hundred years.
SARTRE. Here’s an idea. Let’s retire to the corners of our prison and proceed to ignore each other, day after day, year after year, seed after seed, thus canceling all this meaningless mutual torture.
BEAUVOIR. It’s worth a try.
FLORENCE. I’m game.
(SARTRE turns and marches to the protagonist’s pillar. BEAUVOIR proceeds to flutist’s pillar. FLORENCE crosses to the focusing pillar.)
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
In this manner will a prisoner in the new Arbuda
Try to recover what was lost to other persons,
Even as he finds himself wondering …
SARTRE. Am I courageous enough to keep the recognition of myself by these same persons from becoming the essential source of meaning in my life?
(The three prisoners gaze outward as the flute trills and the drums provide a simple cadence. Soon each inmate grows restless, glancing backward to see if the others are doing the same.)
FLORENCE. (Pointing fan at SARTRE.) Yamashina no Shōji, it isn’t fair that you should know more about my alter ego than I do.
SARTRE. Life is not fair. Damnation even less so.
BEAUVOIR. (To FLORENCE.) Nor do the gods smile on you, Murasame, when you hoard knowledge that could aid my quest for authenticity and dealienation.
FLORENCE. Dealienation—is that a word?
BEAUVOIR. Everything is a word.
(SARTRE, BEAUVOIR, and FLORENCE drift toward the center of the playing area.)
FLORENCE. (Hesitant.) You will be pleased to learn, Hitomaru, that as a young sorceress Lady Tamamo used her powers merely for mischief, causing birds to soil the pompous and toads to vomit on the proud.
SARTRE. (To BEAUVOIR.) How droll of you, Hitomaru.
FLORENCE. But in her later years she placed her magic at the disposal of a corrupt daimyo called Lord Naritsune, the object of her adoration. To please Naritsune … shall I continue? (BEAUVOIR nods.) To please Naritsune, the witch would enter the mind of whomever he detested at the moment, then compel that person to commit seppuku—not ordinary seppuku but the slowest and most agonizing kind, whereby the suicide disembowels himself with a dull bamboo knife.
BEAUVOIR. Shame on Lady Tamamo. Shame on me.
FLORENCE. Now it’s my turn.
SARTRE. Do you insist? (FLORENCE nods.) As you might imagine, Lady Rokujō’s escapades always entailed the possibility of procreation. In her fertile years she gave birth to thre
e babies, all girls, and in every case …
FLORENCE. I took the infant …
SARTRE. She took the infant, put it in a jute sack, added a heavy stone, and—
FLORENCE. And threw the sack into a river.
SARTRE. Lake Biwi, actually.
FLORENCE. I truly belong here.
SARTRE. (Contemplating severed face.) Yes, and so presumably does the beheaded warrior Naozane. Did I flee the field of battle, Hitomaru? Am I a coward?
BEAUVOIR. (Ad lib.) Quite the opposite. You were a hero of the French Resistance. (Beat.) Among the legends that arose during the twelfth-century internecine wars, the most famous told of Taira no Atsumori, a warrior of the Heiki clan. The astonishing beauty of this young man, a mere sixteen years old, made him curiously invulnerable, for the soldiers of the rival Genji clan could not decide what part of so flawless a body to cut. (Beat.) In time there emerged between the clans an unspoken but sacred compact, whereby no Genji samurai would ever hurt the Heiki youth. Then came the battle of Ichi-no-tani, during which—
SARTRE. Let me guess. Naozane found himself alone on the field with Atsumori.
BEAUVOIR. The Genji samurai straightaway fell in love with the beautiful Heiki youth, this boy who was also a god, and the same forbidden passions possessed Atsumori. Instead of fighting, the warriors removed their armor and lay together beneath a plum tree. Later, Naozane noticed that—
SARTRE. (Putting on mask.) That Atsumori’s body was not in fact perfect?
BEAUVOIR. There was a scar aslant his groin. Upon seeing this impossible and profane blemish on the god with whom he’d lain, Naozane took leave of his senses, maddened by the paradox.
SARTRE. (Pantomiming murder with fan.) Seizing his sword, he killed Atsumori by planting the blade in the unthinkable scar.
BEAUVOIR. As he donned his armor, Naozane realized that his fellow knights would punish him for breaking the sacred compact, and so he decided to mutilate Atsumori’s corpse beyond recognition. (Beat.) But before he could complete the unholy task, a party of Genji samurai arrived on the scene. The following day Naozane was tried, sentenced—
SARTRE. (Whipping off mask.) And sent to the chopping block.
BEAUVOIR. End of story.
SARTRE. From now until the sesame barrel is emptied, each of us in this appalling place will be susceptible to the judgments of the other two.
CHORUS. (Chanting.)
Thus are the condemned of the new Arbuda,
Other Aliens Page 43