Clarity is Integrity
Excerpt from Kinahasa
Kinahasa: Conspirators scene – three women plot against the governor.
PRYA |
We kill the Governor (consternation from the others) |
SAA |
Kill him? |
LANG |
Kill the Governor of Kinahasa? (laughs sceptically) |
SAA |
Kill him? |
LANG |
We can’t kill people, especially bignoses. |
SAA |
I couldn’t kill him. |
LANG |
We’d never get away with it. He’s the biggest bignose of all. |
PRYA |
We half-kill the Governor. Of course, we don’t really kill him, only weaken him. We’ll poison him. Pretend it’s a love-potion. |
SAA |
Love-potion? Don’t involve me. |
LANG |
Which half are we going to poison? Remember, I have a professional interest (sniggers, Prya scowls). |
PRYA |
I’m serious. I – we, all of us – we’re caught between the Service and the Movement. We have to act. |
SAA |
Why? |
LANG |
How? |
PRYA |
The Governor won’t sit around, collecting butterflies. He’ll try crush the Movement – and then the Movement will crush us – for not acting in the first place. |
LANG |
He’s collecting a fine butterfly in Supailat. |
SAA |
Don’t talk of that |
PRYA |
(shakes head) The Movement must see us act or try to. Killing the biggest bignose of all. His private life will be convenient for us. (Enter Vee. The ladies stop talking) |
VEE |
May I join you ladies? |
PRYA |
No. Tell the girl to bring us coffee. |
VEE |
What are you talking about? |
PRYA |
Never mind. Send the girl with coffee. |
VEE |
What can she hear that I can’t hear? |
PRYA |
She only speaks Dyak. Just get the girl. (Exit Vee sulkily - the ladies resume talking.) My chaperone but uneducated. Intrusive, my dears. I can’t trust her – she steals my make-up. |
SAA |
I don’t want to punish him for Supailat. I don’t think of that sort of thing anymore. |
LANG |
Are you sure? |
PRYA |
The Movement is the future whether we like it or not. The bignoses are not our future. |
LANG |
I want my father avenged. |
PRYA |
The Bugis pirates killed your father, not the Governor. Don’t talk of revenge. We’re not involved in a family feud, we’re acting on principle. At least the Movement has principle. Where’s that girl! (Enter Girl nervous, uncomprehending and silent.) |
GIRL |
Vant? |
PRYA |
Bring some coffee. |
GIRL |
Vhat? |
PRYA |
Coffee. |
GIRL |
Vant garfee? |
PRYA |
Coffee, girl! |
GIRL |
Vokay. (Exits) |
SAA |
The Movement says we must liquidize all the big-noses. |
PRYA |
Liquidate. |
SAA |
I didn’t know what liquidize meant, Prya. We have to do something. The Movement wants to kill all Kinahasa in the Service. Officials, guards, servants, - you - the lot. Perhaps – me. |
LANG |
Why? |
SAA |
I have been linked with the Governor. I am a running cow. No, hog. |
PRYA |
Dog, dear, dog. Running dog. |
SAA |
It’s a running something. If we just kill the Governor, the Movement says we are only doing the Service a favour. The Movement says the Service, people like you, will seize the power and the wealth for themselves. |
PRYA |
(To Lang) We’ll poison him – sort of. We’ll use your Supailat. |
LANG |
I don’t have control over her anymore. She might like him. We’d have to half explain it to her – and she never listens. |
PRYA |
We could find someone else. What about my new girl? You, Saa? |
SAA |
Sometimes I want him all-dead myself, Prya. |
PRYA |
Just because he replaced you with Supailat. |
SAA |
(convincing herself) I once loved him but now I act for the Movement. My feelings don’t count, the Movement says. Yours too, Prya, I suppose. The Governor educated you. Sent you to college in Batavia. You’re not being very grateful. |
PRYA |
And you? You graduated from his bed. |
SAA |
I didn’t have your social advantages. I thought he might marry me. |
PRYA |
We’re talking now of a political necessity for the good of the Movement. (She looks around) For the good of us. Which is more important. |
LANG |
(laughs) Big noses don’t marry us. |
PRYA |
Not people like you. For the sake of our liberties. |
LANG |
Which my father defended. |
SAA |
No, he didn’t. Your father defended his own business interests, your – place. We should fight for our freedoms, I suppose, for the good of the Movement. For all those rights and wrongs you learnt of in Batavia, Prya, whatever they are. |
PRYA |
The Governor sent me to be taught big-nose liberal Enlightenment and they taught me radical Revolution (laughs nervously again) Supailat gives us a chance to act for the Movement but the Movement frightens me. It won’t let us go. Anyway, we can pay the Governor back for his big-nose arrogance. They never show us respect. We have a chance now – it’s just like a practical joke (Enter Girl with jug and glasses. Pours one for Prya who drinks and spits out immediately.) |
PRYA |
This is soy sauce, you stupid girl. |
Girl |
Vhat? |
PRYA |
Soy sauce! |
Girl |
Vant boy? |
PRYA |
Soy sauce! |
Girl |
Vant vhat? |
PRYA |
Vee! Vee! (Enter Vee) You’ll have to get rid of her. Show her the coffee. |
VEE |
It’s no good shouting at her. (Exit with Girl. The ladies resume.) |
LANG |
That girl’s new. I haven’t her see in town. |
PRYA |
She’s a savage from Borneo. |
SAA |
We don’t all graduate from your - place. |
PRYA |
Yes, Saa, we’ll half-kill him for our self-respect as individuals, as women. For the Movement. |
LANG |
(reflectively) The Governor killed my father. |
PRYA |
He did not. |
LANG |
He did indirectly. He took away government protection. The Bugis got him. My family - |
PRYA |
Forget your family, my dear, there’s more to the world than your family. This is not a feud. |
LANG |
My honour – |
PRYA |
Your honour, my dear? You run a, er, your, er, place. (laughs, change of tone) It’ll seem as if we have struck a blow for our respect and then the Movement will take over and protect us – I hope. Or better, The Governor – when he’s recovered – will squash the Movement and protect us. Or they’ll both kill each other off (but she doesn’t look convinced). Where’s that girl? Girl! (she enters with coffee and iced water and serves them slowly, getting in the way of the conversation. Lang shows some interest in her). |
SAA |
You are half a bignose yourself, Prya. Educated. You work for them. In the Service. A deliberator. |
PRYA |
Collaborator. (mocks her obsessive gesture) I am rational, Saa. And honest. I do not dress up my personal feelings as a cause. You’ve turned your sexual resentment into politics. My conscience is clear. I owe no patronising man a debt. |
SAA |
The Movement says he’s wronged not just you and me but put himself against the course of – the course of mystery – no, history. I don’t know any history so I don’t know which course. We must strike at him and expose the patient violence – |
PRYA |
Latent violence, Saa latent. |
SAA |
– whatever, in him and all big-noses. Kinahasa will purge itself – you know, like a laxative. The thousands that may die of diarrhoea will be martyrs to the movement’s cause and be happy, somewhere, but dead, of course. History will syndicate us – |
PRYA |
Vindicate, vindicate |
SAA |
– whatever, us. God perspires us. That’s what it says. |
PRYA |
Perspires? |
SAA |
Aspires us. |
PRYA |
Inspires us. |
GIRL |
(unconsciously puncturing her posture) Vant garfee? |
PRYA |
God inspires us! The Movement as religion! Everyone who wants to kill, finds divine inspiration. |
LANG |
Killing is bad for business. Religion is bad for business. |
SAA |
The Movement says violence will bring on a big mess, from which they can only win. A hundred big-noses rule Kinahasa and look down their big-noses at a million Kinahasans. The Movement wants to liquidize all hundred of them, a thousand of their deliberators. Thousands of other people, ordinary people, will die. It does not matter, the Movement says, there’s still a million Kinahasans left – and the big-noses have gone. It is just Mathematics. But their sums don’t add up. |
LANG |
If the Movement wins I get no business. Why are we helping the Movement? |
PRYA |
The Movement is ugly but we should fight for the principles behind the Movement. The principle of freedom from arbitrary rule. The principle of freedom from foreign rule. The liberties of Kinahasans. The rights of the individual. (The Girl spills glass of water into her lap) You clumsy slut. (Girl tries to wipe her lap down. She pushes her away angrily. Girl exits.) |
LANG |
I have my right to defend my family’s honour. |
|
(Girl re-enters, crouched low and carrying mop, and proceeds to crawl around their legs wiping the floor, occasionally poking them with the handle.) |
PRYA |
(laughs) Your honour, dear, again? What honour? |
SAA |
The Movement says it does not act for each of us by ourselves, it acts for one big, big idea. This big idea is greater than each of us and all of us put together. They say we’re not given life to be happy, painting our faces (looks at Prya) and (to Lang) having sex but to make this big idea come.(She unwittingly kicks Girl on the floor). But I miss the Governor and painting my face for him. |
GIRL |
(screams)Vouch! (they look at her briefly but otherwise ignore her) |
LANG |
The Movement sounds like the Bugis. What idea? |
SAA |
A pure Kinahasan society, with no more bignoses, like the old ways in the past when we all lived in the country. When we were all good and virtuous and didn’t have any sex. Once everyone is poor and good, and not very happy, we can start again and build New Kinahasa. |
PRYA |
It can’t happen overnight – thank goodness! |
LANG |
Who wants to be poor in the country? We’ll all be bored stiff. Will we have good old bad ways as well as the good old good ways? (looks at girl who has popped up) Want a different kind of job? |
SAA |
In this New Kinahasa, the Movement says it will kill all the prosthetics. |
LANG |
Prosthetics? |
PRYA |
Prostitutes. |
SAA |
Them too. |
LANG |
I’ll be out of a job. |
SAA |
It will kill all unfaithful men. |
PRYA |
(laughs) There won’t be anybody left. Well, I suppose we want virtue. |
LANG |
Do we? It is our vices that bring us together (pinches girl’s behind). |
GIRL |
(squeals) |
PRYA |
Perhaps. Girl, bring some more iced water. |
GIRL |
(stands up) Vather? |
PRYA |
Water, girl |
GIRL |
Vhat? |
PRYA |
Vee, Vee! Bring us iced water. (enter Vee) Get rid of this creature! Send her back. Get another one. (Girl weeps) |
VEE |
(comforting Girl) You shouldn’t shout at her. She doesn’t understand you. She gets confused. (Remains on stage, comforting Girl) |
PRYA |
Come, one of us must find Supailat - and make her listen. The ladies stand up and start to move off.) |
SAA |
In the new Kinahasa, the Movement says that everyone will speak the same language. |
LANG |
They won’t want that. |
SAA |
The Movement says it’s not important what we want but its what we ought to want. |
LANG |
According to their idea. They’d be worse than bignoses and the Bugis put together. |
SAA |
According to what we really want, if we knew what we wanted. Everything else they want to liquidize. |
PRYA |
It’s easy for the Movement to destroy. It’s starting again that’s difficult. We have to pretend to act. |
SAA |
I suppose so. |
LANG |
Or just kill him properly. Or at least three-quarters or nine tenths. |
SAA |
No, don’t do that. |
PRYA |
We’re in the middle – we have to take the middle way. |
SAA |
I’m frightened. |
PRYA |
I’m frightened too. To Lang Take us to Supailat. You know her. We must act. |
LANG |
I suppose so. |
|
Exeunt. Vee and girl stand for a moment, Vee clasping the girl. They then part and their roles are reversed. The girl is in command and Vee the subordinate. Vee makes gesture of submission. |
GIRL |
Bitches. |
VEE |
What now? |
GIRL |
The Movement takes over. |
VEE |
If we kill Prya, can I have her make-up? |
GIRL |
(looks at her) |
VEE |
Just her lipstick? She won’t need it. (girl stamps her foot, looks again, Vee hurriedly makes a gesture of submission). |
VEE |
She won’t need it when she’s dead. |
GIRL |
In free Kinahasa, there will be no question of lipstick. |
VEE |
What now? |
GIRL |
We can’t kill them yet. The Movement is not ready. |
VEE |
Tell Supailat? |
GIRL |
No, she’s useful. |
VEE |
She can poison him later. |
GIRL |
Yes. |
VEE |
So? |
GIRL |
Tell the Governor. (Vee makes gesture of obedience and departs. Girl stands for a moment alone.) |