by Martin Crimp
Why don’t you say anything? he said. Is something wrong? he said. Did I offend you, he said, when I called you shameless? Why won’t you speak to me? he said. Is it because I’m a man? Is it because I’m old? Is it because I’m close to death while you still stand at an unimaginable distance from it like the young girl in this painting? Or maybe you think I don’t in fact want you to speak and maybe that’s true, maybe I only want the opportunity to speak myself, plenty of men are like that, arrogant, loudmouthed, full of their own importance, he said, with their well-groomed hair, their crinkly patrician smiles, or, which is worse, oh which is much much worse, the man in the gallery said to me, broken by failure, badly dressed, sleepless, impotent, but so in love with their own self-pity that they will use anything, even a picture in a picture gallery, as an excuse to lay out their failure and impotence in front of strangers just as a poor person lays useless objects, VHS cassettes, broken baby-toys, out on the street for hours on end till moved on by the police, the kind of man, he said, who, unlike me, he said, imagines a woman’s job is simply to listen and to redeem, has no interest in her inner life or intellectual attainments, sees this or indeed any woman’s silence as a vacuum his words are obliged to fill, the kind of man who cannot even for one moment imagine, he said, how the light must glow behind her half-closed eyes.
Advice to Iraqi Women
Copyright © Martin Crimp 2003
Advice to Iraqi Women was first performed on 7 April 2003 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, as part of a War Correspondence programme of readings.
Performed by Stephen Dillane and Sophie Okonedo
Directed by Ramin Gray
—— The protection of children is a priority.
—— Even a small child on a bike should wear a helmet. And a newborn baby on a plane must be strapped to its mother.
—— A child on roller-skates should wear knee-pads.
—— And elbow-pads.
—— A child on roller-skates should wear knee- and elbow-pads as well as a helmet.
—— Buy one of those plastic things to stop young children opening the drawer in the kitchen: there are knives in it.
—— Don’t give children small mechanical toys: they can swallow the moving parts. It’s tempting, but just don’t do it.
—— Check the eyes of teddy-bears. Don’t buy a teddy-bear if the eyes are loose. Check the squeak of the teddy-bear. If you think the squeak might frighten your child, don’t buy it.
—— If you have a dog, muzzle it – and if you have a cat, mind it doesn’t sit on your baby’s face.
—— If you have a mud-scraper outside your house, tie rubber over the blade.
—— Your house is a potential war zone for a child: the corners of tables, chip pans, and the stairs, particularly the stairs, are all potential sources of harm.
—— Your house is a minefield.
—— Your house is a minefield – you only have to think about the medicines in the medicine cupboard – or the hard surfaces in the bathroom – the bath – the enamel sink – these are very hard surfaces. Avoid slippery floors.
—— Avoid slippery floors and at the first sign of unremitting fever, do call a doctor, call a doctor straight away.
—— The doctor will come straight away at the first sign of unremitting fever. She will have the latest drugs and the most up-to-date skills. If necessary she will intubate. Don’t be frightened to call out your doctor: she is waiting for your call, she has spent her whole life waiting for it.
—— It’s not a good idea to give your child long pyjamas: they can trip over the ends.
—— Mind zips.
—— Avoid zips, especially metal ones.
—— Give your child fresh produce. A child should eat fruit and the fruit should not contain pesticides. The fruit must be grown scrupulously. The growers of the fruit and the land itself must be treated with scrupulous respect if you want your child to thrive.
—— Although beware allergies.
—— Beware zips, beware allergies, test for allergies every three days, test for food allergies every three days, or more frequently in summer when pollen is also to be avoided.
—— When driving in the country to see the country orchards, seat your child in the back and strap it down. Strap the child down hard and if you need to use your mobile, stop the car.
—— Don’t buy a car without rear air-bags. Don’t buy a car without side-impact protection. Don’t let your child play under a car, or beside one, because a car is a minefield.
—— Just like a home.
—— A car, just like a home, just like an orchard, just like a zip, is a minefield for a child.
—— If you have a tool box, lock it. Lock the tools inside it. Don’t let a child handle a chisel – not even a small child’s chisel. Even a hard pencil used for marking timber is dangerous.
—— Don’t let children write or draw with a dangerous pencil. Mind the caps of felt-pens. Make sure the caps, if inhaled, would not obstruct your child’s airway. If an accident does occur, call a doctor straight away. The doctor will come and immediately remove the obstruction.
—— Explain road safety from an early age. Explain that the traffic comes from two directions. Explain what a red man means. Teach your child the word ‘amber’ from an early age. Explain how dangerous water is. Explain that just two inches of water is enough to drown in.
—— Supervise all swimming. Make sure your child wears goggles because of the chemicals in the water. By all means inflate a paddling-pool in your garden but bear in mind that your garden is a potential war zone.
—— Like your house.
—— Like your house, like your car, like your child’s colouring book, your garden is a potential war zone.
—— Keep sheds locked.
—— Lock sheds. Lock garden chemicals out of reach. Secure hoses. If you have a greenhouse with seedlings in it, keep the child away. When your child is in the pool, screaming in the pool, supervise it at all times, and don’t let it burn.
—— Don’t let your child burn. Even on a hazy day it still might burn.
—— Even in the water. Even in the shade of a tree.
—— Even in water a child can burn. Even in spring it’s still possible. In the time it takes you to cut the grass and trim the edges a child might have burned, because of the very strong rays. Avoid sunlight, and in strong sunlight, when there are fierce rays, apply cream.
—— Use a good cream. Use a good brand. Use a reliable cream. If you use a good brand of reliable cream your child will not burn.
—— Your child will not burn if you are liberal with a reliable cream.
—— If you want advice about which brands of reliable cream to choose, talk to your pharmacist.
Messenger of Love
‘Operisque sui concepit amorem’
Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, 249
Copyright © Martin Crimp 2014
Messenger of Love, a Compagnie Moon Palace production, was first performed in a double bill with The Treatment on 26 January 2018 at the Comédie de Reims, transferring to the Théâtre des Abbesses, Paris, on 8 February 2018.
Performed by Suzanne Aubert
Translated by Christophe and Michelle Pellet
Directed by Rémy Barché
Set Design by Salma Bordes
Costumes by Oria Steenkiste
Lighting by Florent Jacob
Sound by Antoine Reibre
Video by Stéphane Bordonaro
Character
Young Woman
about seventeen to twenty-one
Dress
Plain summer dress. Barefoot.
No make-up, no jewellery.
(No marks visible on her body.)
When he comes towards me on a good day I feel better and when he moves away from me I feel worse.
But on a bad day I feel worse when he comes towards me and much better when he moves away.
I don’t move.
>
I never move.
He’s the one that moves: either towards me, or away. Those are the rules.
When he comes towards me on a good day, usually he smiles. Oh you should see his smile! Oh you should see how his lips separate to reveal his teeth! It’s wet inside. Yes his mouth where his teeth and tongue are is wet inside! It gleams! His teeth gleam – and his lips too, where they separate. His tongue moves to make words and his words make me hum with life. What has he brought for me? Is it the whip? Or is it the flower? Yes on a good day he brings me the whip, or brings me the flower or small bird and says to me with his tongue ‘Look: here is a flower’ or ‘Listen to this small bird sing – it will sing out its heart for you – listen – listen.’ And he lifts the cloth so the small bird starts to sing. So the day is good. Yes the day is good. Whereas if it’s a bad day – when he comes towards me on a bad day –
No. No.
Start again please.
Pause.
When he comes towards me on a good day I feel better but when he moves away immediately I feel worse. I watch him leave – I’m watching his back – I’m waiting for him to turn round and look at me – but he never turns round to look at me – that is a rule – he never turns round to look – just walks on and on – not fast, not slow – till he turns to a speck, then disappears. I want to shout out to him WAIT – want to shout out to him STOP – TURN ROUND – but I can’t. I have no voice. Well of course I have a voice. This is my voice. But the voice is inside me – it won’t come out – there is a rule that my voice won’t come out. Which is good – yes it’s good that my voice won’t come out. Since if I did shout out to him WAIT – if I did shout out to him STOP – TURN ROUND – and he heard the shout and went on walking all the same, then what would that mean? It would mean he would know I’d made a demand. It would mean he had heard the demand and ignored it. It would mean I had poisoned a good day not just for me but for him too. Yes for him too. And he’d not throw that back in my face on the next bad day – no, he’d throw it back in his own – throw my demand back in his own face like acid. Because the thing that happens on a bad day – no – yes – yes – the bad thing that happens on a bad bad day when the speck first appears and the speck is a man and the man is him is –
No! No!
Start again please.
Pause.
When he comes towards me on a good day there is more light. Yes there is more light and there is more life inside of me. I hum with life. He hears the life. He puts his ear to me and listens to the life inside me humming. ‘Oh good’ he says – ‘oh that is beautiful’ he says.
When he has gone, life’s smaller than I am, hidden inside me. But when he’s here, when he smiles and says to me on a good day ‘Oh good – oh that is beautiful’, life unfolds inside me like flower-petals made of steel and fills me. Life pushes against my skin hard from the inside. It hums and hums. His head rests on my shoulder and his hands are across my back. Oh stay like this! Oh please please stay like this! Don’t walk away! And his voice when he moves his tongue is so close to me it’s inside me like my own.
‘It’s spring’ – he says. ‘The air is warm and the days are getting longer. Cyclamen has appeared, my sweetheart, close to the earth. New leaves in the trees float like green mist. But nothing out there compares to this. There is nothing as new as you are – nothing as clean. Nothing out there – not even in spring, my sweetheart – is as newly-made as you. The world looks young now – yes – of course – when the buds break – but deep down it’s old – even in the whitest stream there’s poison. Talk to the bird-seller on the market’ – he says – ‘she’ll tell you how the world has now aged so much she can see its bones beginning to break through its face. In my own lifetime, she says, I’ve watched it rot. I’ve seen the minerals sucked out of it, she says, and the last hedges torn out of the fields. Even in this street – where I began trading as a child – there are fewer customers for birds, and, as a consequence, fewer birds. The few birds that I do sell sing more sweetly now than any bird I’ve ever known, she says, but for less time – and to be frank with you, sir – less willingly. Yes we bird-sellers are all on our way out – as are the hedges – as are the minerals and trees – as are the birds themselves. Look around you, she says. Look what people are buying on the market nowadays. Trash, she says, trash is what sells. And people in love are the worst. Yes, young people in so-called love buy the worst kind of trash for each other and treasure it. And when I see them holding hands, sir, she says, all dressed up, sir, and holding hands and the moment the evenings get lighter parading up and down under this avenue of lime trees and buying each other trash, I know they have no idea that they are walking on corpses and that the earth under their feet is about to crack open and swallow them, she says, just as it has so effortlessly swallowed, she says, every generation before. But the difference is, sir, is that this is the last. Yes this generation is the last. The world is ending and as far as we human beings are concerned there will be no future. Even this greenfinch in its wire cage knows that. Which explains – I believe – the extraordinary sweetness of its song.
But you, sir – she says – you, I can tell, have a secret. You’re not interested in trash. And perhaps you are taking this bird as messenger of love to some secret person – am I right? – to someone you’ve secretly kept out of the world – someone whose innocence and whose future you are protecting – a young person so fresh and so newly-made that her hair and even her skin have almost no scent. Like pear-blossom, she says, or like a block of stone, she says’ – he says to me – while his head rests on my shoulder and his hands are across my back and my body hums and hums.
Oh stay like this! Oh never walk away! Make me alive. Make every day good. Bring me the flower. Tell me how clean and new I am. Bring me the bird. Bring me the messenger of love. Stand over me and draw blood. Make the vermilion stripe. Not like a bad day. Because on a bad day – yes when he comes towards me on a bad day – closer and closer towards me on a bad day and I can see that the bad thing is going to happen – no! – yes, that the bad thing is obviously going to happen – see it from his face – no! – see it from his eyes – no! – no!
No. Start again please.
I said: start again please.
Pause.
He comes towards me. I don’t move. He has a voice. I have a voice. This is my voice. But my voice is inside me. It doesn’t come out. These are the rules. Whose rules? Well his of course. He made the rules. He made the rules and these are the rules I live by. He is the one who moves. He is the one who separates his lips and smiles. I am the one who waits, stays, watches him come, watches him go, feels life expand inside me, feels life shrink, feels his head on my shoulder, feels his hands on my back. I am new, and the world is old. To be new is good, to be old is bad. Where is the world? Not here. No, the world’s not here. The world is out there – at the end of a long straight line. I’m facing the world but I can’t see it. When he appears he’s a speck: he’s a speck at the end of the long straight line that leads from me to the world. The speck flickers. Then the speck is the man and the man comes closer and the man – yes – is him. Then the man is the man’s eyes and the man’s mouth. The mouth is the man’s smile as he separates his lips. His tongue moves to make words and his words make me hum with life. Life pushes against my skin like it wants to get out. It beats and beats like it wants to get out. Then he leaves. Yes he always leaves on the long straight line that leads back to the world. Never turns round. Never ever turns round. Gets smaller and smaller. Becomes the speck. The speck flickers. He re-enters the world. Those are the rules.
Pause.
— Why did he make the rules?
— Because of how much he loves me.
— Why do you never move?
— Because it’s a rule.
— Why was the rule made?
— To be here for him always. Plus to be safe from the world.
— Oh? What is the world like then?
&
nbsp; — Poisonous. Full of trash.
Pause.
— Why do you never speak? I said why do you never speak?
— I do speak. I’m speaking now.
— To him – I mean speak to him.
— So as not to upset him.
— How could you upset him?
— By making demands. By saying the wrong thing.
