Us-Them

by Carly Wijs

BOY (simultaneous). Meanwhile, next to the stage, Masha had come round.

  Her leg was bleeding, but her new dress, which had cost three hundred roubles, was still intact.

  She tried to very quietly crawl across the floor in the direction of the exit to the right of the school and had to halt during a hail of bullets.

  In the second annexe two children were waiting to escape, but they could not get away.

  On the side of the podium terrorists ran back and forth to drive the last people inside.

  Masha crawled back further towards the exit and eventually came upon a group of men who had been thrown out the window… and were lying…

  The music stops.

  GIRL and BOY. …Dead on the playground.

  The BOY and GIRL start to breathe with difficulty; they rattle and seem to choke.

  That’s not the sound of those dying men.

  BOY. Not the sound of Masha. She keeps quiet and pretends she’s dead.

  That’s the sound of one thousand one hundred and forty-eight people in the gymnasium that dehydrate.

  GIRL and BOY simultaneously move their bodies in various corresponding poses, acting out what they describe.

  BOY and GIRL. First, the saliva disappears from your mouth.

  You get a dry throat.

  You get a headache.

  You stop peeing.

  You become nauseous.

  You get cramps.

  Your whole body tingles.

  You get cold hands and feet.

  Your nails turn blue.

  Your consciousness decreases.

  Pretty soon you’ll get confused.

  And that is exactly where you want to be.

  A pure hallucination.

  BOY. Sausages fall from heaven.

  Delicious sausages.

  Tomatoes are shot down with big tomato bazookas.

  Sausages in tomato sauce.

  GIRL. There is a tree and shadow.

  Aerial roots from the tree.

  Between the aerial roots a giraffe with long legs dances in the air.

  On the horizon there’s a little stream flowing your way, closer and closer.

  You put your lips to the stream and if you drink, pee no longer tastes bad.

  BOY. Sausages in tomato sauce with a glass of lovely lukewarm pee…

  BOY and GIRL. However, that is only at the end of the second day. On the first day at nine twenty-eight the door of the gymnasium is barricaded. Nobody can get out. One thousand one hundred and forty-eight people are trapped in the gymnasium. When everyone is inside, terrorists start placing wires across the room.

  The GIRL and BOY walk to the blackboard at the back and pull out the coat hooks. They are attached to long ropes. The GIRL and BOY stretch the ropes out across the room, tightening them like wires. The room gets wired up until there is barely enough space to stand or move.

  GIRL (as she tightens the wire). You don’t have to be afraid. There are three hundred and fifty-six fathers who have gone to work on September 1st and who are not in the gymnasium. The fathers will all come immediately when they hear what has happened. One of the fathers has the fastest tractor in the region! The first bullets were at…?

  BOY. Seven past nine.

  GIRL. Exactly. At seven past nine the father with the fastest tractor in the region will have just finished the first potato field! He harvested a lot of potatoes this year. Mash is delicious and very nutritious. He is very strong thanks to all those potatoes.

  BOY. Another father is the best butcher in town. His shop is located three kilometres away. When the first shot is fired, at nine oh seven, he hears nothing. He will be carefully cutting a purple-red fillet from the carcass of a cow. That brings in a lot of money. Meat is the most important part of our diet. A fillet of one hundred grams has enough protein for the whole week. Potatoes don’t have that at all.

  GIRL. The father with the tractor has a mobile phone that will ring at ten minutes past nine. He will be told that there is shooting at our school, immediately drop the potatoes, turn his tractor with all his might and go full speed. While the father in the butcher’s is still quietly cutting into the meat, the father with the tractor will already be on his way.

  BOY. The father in the butcher shop does not need a mobile phone, because at fifteen minutes past nine Grigori will rush to the butchery: ‘Eh-eh-ah-he’ – the father who has just finished cutting the fillet will strike Grigori in the face, to stop his stuttering. Grigori is a bit simple. But reliable and he knows everything that goes on in our town. Grigori will talk about shots at school number one. ‘S-S-S-Siege.’ The father will immediately storm on to the street. Knife in the left, axe in his right hand and Grigori behind him. The father jumps in front of the first car that comes along. ‘To School Number One.’ He will call out. ‘There is a shooting!’ The driver of the car will also be a father and the three of them will immediately drive to the school.

  GIRL. The other father will drive his tractor on to the highway. That’s not allowed, but he doesn’t care. Smoke will come out of his engine, but he will not see this, because he will only think of his wife and child whom he has to save. There’s really no need to be afraid.

  The tractor will overtake everyone. The cars honking, but he will shout: ‘The terrorists have come to School Number One!’ The people who honked will also start to drive fast, because they are also fathers and like an army of fathers they will race to the school.

  BOY. They will arrive at the school with sliding tyres. The butcher, the driver of the car and Grigori followed by police officers, firefighters, veterinarians. All fathers. The butcher will take the lead and, while zigzagging, run to the side entrance. Bullets will whistle past his ears, but he is not afraid. He went to school here, so he knows the building like his back pocket.

  GIRL. The tractor will stop by the hospital to pick up two doctors who are smoking outside. They hang on to the tractor and call out: ‘Our children are in that school. Can’t you go any faster!!?’ And yes he can. The tractor will fly forward with a jerk!

  BOY. A few metres before the entrance of the school, the butcher stumbles and loses his shoe. Grigori follows with two bricks in his hands. He calls ‘S-S-S-SHOE!’ The father from the butcher shop will hesitate, there’s glass everywhere.

  GIRL. While the butcher is hesitating over a shoe, the tractor drives past at full speed followed by twenty cars full of fathers. The tractor will drive round the school to the back where the forest begins.

  BOY. The father from the best butcher shop in town will only hesitate for one second and then he walks straight through the glass to the side entrance. There he sees a mother who has escaped and therefore is not in the gymnasium. It is his wife and she will throw her arms around his neck while she cries: ‘Our son, our son is inside… Oh, do something.’

  The butcher’s wife is always very emotional. That is embarrassing. The butcher will feel a brief shudder go through his body, but he will not cry. He is a husband and

  a father, and he has an axe in one hand and a knife in the other hand.

  GIRL. At the back of the school the father gives the tractor full throttle – HENG, heeeng! – but he will keep the parking brake on. At the right time he will let go of the brake and drive into the left corner of the gymnasium straight through the reinforced concrete. Somewhere over here…

  When he gets the nine ten phone call, he will be on the motorway by nine thirteen. Seven minutes later he arrives at the hospital, and it takes another seven minutes to get to town. Past the church, past the Museum of Folk Art… He is here at nine thirty-one.

  All the wires have now been strung and the BOY goes to stand at the back of the gymnasium. The GIRL goes to stand with him. They wait for the tractor. It doesn’t come.

  Perhaps one of the doctors couldn’t find his medical bag and the tractor had to wait… So then within one minute…

  Or he had a red light in Church Street. That takes fifteen seconds at least!…

  But
if you have a red light there, you also have a red light at the next intersection. So another twenty seconds…

  GIRL and BOY. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight…

  GIRL. That’s a little fast. You should count slowly: nine ten bread and butter…

  GIRL and BOY. Eleven bread and butter twelve bread and butter thirteen bread and butter…

  BOY. No, that is too slow. Fourteen… fifteen…

  GIRL and BOY. Sixteen… seventeen…

  BOY. Seventeen and a half…

  GIRL and BOY. Eight…

  Nobody comes. They slowly raise their arms in the air. They are caught in a tangle of wires.

  BOY. We are not allowed to play.

  GIRL. We are not allowed to speak.

  BOY. We are not allowed to lower our hands.

  We are not allowed to pee.

  GIRL. That is not true.

  BOY. We are not allowed to do a poo.

  GIRL. We can pee and poo, we are not allowed to use the toilet.

  BOY. We are not allowed to open a window.

  GIRL. We cannot drink.

  We can eat the flowers we brought for the teacher.

  BOY. We cannot use the mobile phone.

  GIRL. We cannot read.

  BOY. Not sit together.

  GIRL. Not drink.

  BOY. Not play with the ball.

  GIRL. No lava floor.

  BOY. Not go outside.

  GIRL. Snitch.

  Drink.

  BOY. We are not allowed to pick our nose.

  GIRL. Sit with Mummy.

  BOY. We are never allowed to pick our nose.

  GIRL. Cry.

  BOY. Drink.

  GIRL. Ask questions.

  BOY. Complain.

  Look directly into eyes.

  GIRL. Drink.

  Giraffe.

  The BOY laughs.

  Drink.

  BOY and GIRL. Stink.

  BOY. Basket hoop.

  GIRL. Stinkempoop.

  BOY. Protest.

  GIRL. Breast.

  The BOY runs away from the GIRL and sits down on the floor on the other side of the room with his hands in the air.

  BOY. There are children in the room. You and your breasts…

  GIRL (mumbling while taking off her skirt). It is very hot in here. I’m going to tell him that he can also take something off.

  She carefully walks towards the BOY. He has his head turned away from her. Slowly, the music of ‘Oh Wonderful New Future’ begins to play. She pulls his jersey up. He pulls it back down. She tries again and ends up sitting on his lap in her underwear. They sing along to the chorus of ‘Oh Wonderful New Future’. As the music plays they begin to move around. Initially because the BOY is trying to get rid of the GIRL, but soon it becomes a game where they have move through the space as much as possible without touching the wires. As they continue to play they become overconfident and brush against the wires, which begin to move dangerously. Startled, they shrink back. The music stops abruptly. There is silence. The BOY starts to explain what the wires really are.

  BOY. Bombs.

  GIRL. The terrorists hang bombs in the gymnasium. These bombs are connected by wires. Those wires hang like garlands around the gymnasium.

  BOY. Making bombs is a lot of work. It takes hours.

  GIRL. You need to connect the correct wires.

  Make no mistakes.

  The BOY and the GIRL collect some of the balloons from the right side of the stage and tie them to the wires around the stage.

  BOY. You are surrounded by one thousand one hundred and forty-eight whining people with their hands in the air.

  GIRL. One thousand one hundred and forty-six.

  BOY. Why one thousand one hundred and forty-six?

  GIRL. First there were one thousand one hundred and forty-eight, but then only one thousand one hundred and forty-six.

  The BOY is silent as he lets go of a bad memory in his head.

  BOY. Oh yeah….

  One thousand one hundred and forty-six people are crammed into the gymnasium.

  They moan.

  They sigh.

  They talk.

  They make a lot of noise.

  Yet the terrorist must connect the wires correctly.

  That takes hours.

  And it is getting warmer.

  GIRL. Bombs are hanging from the basket hoop.

  In between there are wires.

  A bomb in the middle with a wire down to the detonator.

  BOY. On the detonator a book.

  On the book a foot.

  He puts his foot on the big wooden block.

  Attached to the foot –

  a terrorist.

  The GIRL carefully walks forward and whispers to the audience.

  GIRL. The terrorist must be still.

  He cannot move.

  Not scratch when it itches.

  Not think about breasts.

  The BOY cannot keep a straight face and giggles very loudly.

  No cramp.

  No fainting.

  BOY. The foot is changed every two hours.

  This is a very precise work.

  Two terrorists each hold the book down with their hands.

  GIRL. I will pretend to be two terrorists.

  The pressure of the hands must be exactly the same as the pressure of the foot.

  She puts her hands on the block next to the BOY’s foot.

  BOY. No more and no less.

  Then the terrorist very carefully removes his foot.

  GIRL. The four hands are now the foot.

  Then a fourth terrorist very carefully places his foot on the book.

  BOY. He breathes, looks straight ahead and nods.

  Then the kneeling terrorists carefully let go of the book.

  GIRL. After two hours, the same again.

  BOY. After two hours again.

  GIRL. All day and all night.

  BOY. Every two hours the same movement.

  While the BOY recites the following lines the GIRL jumps in the air as if she’s exploding. The explosions get larger with each line.

  You cannot wiggle your toes.

  You cannot play some basketball.

  You cannot do like this.

  You cannot go to a friend across the hall. ‘Hey John…’

  You cannot stretch.

  You cannot think about the meaning of life.

  You cannot explain why you’re here.

  GIRL. Why are we here?

  BOY. Why are we in the gymnasium with one thousand one hundred and forty-one people.

  GIRL. Because they are paedophiles?

  BOY. Because their mothers have a moustache.

  GIRL. What is that?

  BOY. That is hair on your upper lip.

  GIRL. I know that.

  BOY. Then why do you ask?

  GIRL. What is a paedophile?

  BOY. Don’t you know that?

  GIRL. Yes.

  BOY. Not.

  GIRL. I do.

  BOY. Not.

  GIRL. What is it then?

  The BOY cannot answer her.

  Ha!

  She walks over to the wall and starts to count.

  If it had been a normal second school day, we would start with maths.

  The BOY cheerfully jumps up and rushes to the blackboard.

  BOY. Calculations.

  GIRL (disappointed). I’m no good at calculations.

  BOY. Imagine: you have thirty-five terrorists. Thirty-three men and two women.

  And one thousand one hundred and forty people in the gymnasium.

  GIRL. One thousand one hundred and thirty-nine.

  BOY. One thousand one hundred and thirty-nine people in the gymnasium.

  If every terrorist holds the same number of people at gunpoint, how many do they each keep at gunpoint? Remember they detonated two women because they gave the children water.

  GIRL (to the audience). Thei
r face was covered by a veil. We are not sure if they had a moustache.

  (To the BOY.) I think you are saying it in a very complicated way.

  BOY. You have to do that; a calculation is always complicated.

  GIRL. If the two female terrorists have exploded then there are just thirty-three terrorists and then you divide one thousand one hundred and thirty-nine by thirty-three.

  BOY. One thousand one hundred and thirty-eight.

  GIRL. No, not yet…

  BOY. That is… let me think… let me think… let me think…

  He calculates on the blackboard.

  One thousand one hundred and thirty-nine divided by thirty-three equals thirty-four point five one five one five one.

  GIRL. Rather a lot per terrorist.

  BOY. Remember that the terrorist who has his foot on the bomb cannot keep anyone at gunpoint.

  GIRL. Of course. So it is one thousand one hundred and thirty-nine divided by thirty-two.

  BOY. No, no no… not really…

  The GIRL sighs.

  There is something else.

  The terrorists are here because they want something…

  He starts writing on the blackboard. At the top of his list, he writes: ‘deemands’. Language is clearly not his thing…

  They have demands.

  There are six:

  One – a free and independent Chechnya.

  Two – free Chechnya of occupying troops.

  Three – a free retreat for the terrorists.

  Four – peace.

  Five – freedom of religion.

  Six – free all political prisoners.

  The GIRL sees the spelling mistake and giggles. The BOY writes a shortened version of the demands on the board. When he’s finished, there is the following list:

  1– Free

  2 – Free

  3 – Free

  4 – Peace

  5 – Free

  6 – Free

  GIRL. I don’t understand.

  BOY. What don’t you understand? Po-li-ti-cal prisoners?

  GIRL. I don’t understand the demands. Why do they want this from me? I have five rouble in my piggy bank. They can have that. I also have ten Barbies. That’s a lot and I don’t mind giving them away. But I have no army and no troops and no political prisoners.

  What are they again?

  BOY. Phew, don’t you even know that…?

  GIRL (angrily). I know nothing about Chechnya. Except about the paedophiles and the moustaches.

  BOY. So it is one thousand one hundred and thirty-nine divided by thirty-two if we exclude the terrorist with his foot on the detonator.