Play

by James Comins

Ha no Ha Ichi

  Act III, Scene One

  There seems to be a parade behind you and a stage ahead of you. Carrying the things El Daishou asked for, plus the musical instruments, you and your trio of associates face the hashigakari, accompanied by Pierrot's quick breathless accordion music. Behind you a red light flashes, signalling your cue.

  It's time to finish the show.

  From the audience—or the tape player—comes wild applause. The four of you cross the bridge and line up onstage, waiting for El Daishou, ready for whatever comes next.

  A muffled, vaguely familiar voice rings out through a public address system:

  "Please welcome to our stage . . . Shanne the Peasant!"

  That's you, so you step forward. Out of nowhere, the wooden smile mask, newly repaired with sticky glue, comes flying like a frisbee. Dropping the bucket quickly, you catch the mask and slip the elastic over your head. Once again you fall into character, hunching and waddling. Acting.

  The red bucket lands, clack. From inside, a bloodstained knife bounces onto the stage and slides to a sticky red rest with a clatter. Before you can comment, the voice continues:

  "Columbia the Princess!"

  More applause. A black Venetian half-mask spins through the air. Distracted, Columbia squeaks as she catches it inches from her face. She sets the tub-shaped shime-daiko drums down and puts the mask on, poking her nose with a drumstick as she does. Is she nervous, too?

  "Pierrot the Clown!"

  A rainbow-haired clown mask with a big red smile and red foam nose lands on Pierrot's concertina. Reluctantly wiping his tears away and smudging his greasepaint, he pulls the mask on and becomes a happy circus clown. Weeping eyes peer through the smiling eyeholes.

  "And Punchinoni the Devil!"

  Punch hands off his sheet of flowery paper to Columbia and picks up the Understudy's split wooden mask covered with blood, identical to his own face. It fits his long nose like a glove, and drips red. Sticky.

  "The four suspects in—'The Murder Mystery!' "

  All four of you freeze and exchange looks. What murder mystery? And who said you were a suspect?

  Everyone knows who committed the murder. Punch did it. Who else could it be? Why this masked farce? What's going on?

  "Playing the part of the Judge, Jury and Executioner

  Please welcome the great El Daishou!"

  The cardboard crowd explodes with applause.

  El Daishou shuffles onstage, leaning on the old mop handle like a walking stick. Still hatless and wearing a red babushka shawl tied under his chin, he bows again and again to the wildly cheering audience. His long wispy mustache hangs down to the buttons of his too-small admiral's jacket. Somehow the stage winds up covered with roses. But the audience is cardboard. Where did the roses come from?

  The samurai peers down his imperious nose at you and asks for the mop head. Glancing at the bloody knife, you hand him the bundle of yarn, expecting him to reattach it to the mop. Instead El Daishou unties his red bandanna, tucks it into a pocket, and deftly drapes the mop's bundle of yarn over his head like an old-time judge's powdered wig. He shuffles over to a chair upstage and sits, his face surmounted by a tremendous pair of eyebrows and the mop wig. Behind him, the brushstrokes of the painted tree take on an ominous character, as if the tree has become the Tree of Judgment or something.

  "Assemble the victim!"

  El Daishou declares.

  You and Pierrot and Punch all share looks. What does he mean?

  "Honestly, give them here,"

  says Columbia.

  She wraps the lavender-colored paper around the mop handle, ties the rope around it, and sets the bucket on top, tying the swinging metal bucket handle in place. It's now a doll representing Quinn. It seems morbid, doesn't it? But Columbia seems to know what she's doing. She sets the mop doll upright into one of the saber-slashes in the stage, beside the bloody knife.

  El Daishou nods. He produces four ragged dogeared scripts with most of the pages folded back. In yours, lines marked Shanne are highlighted in green Hi-Liter. El Daishou takes one last glance over your shoulder to double-check his own lines, then drops heavily back into his chair.

  "The suspects are assembled. The victim is assembled.

  I declare our trial begun! We'll find out what happened,

  Where the missing girl is. We'll hear all your stories.

  Recount what you saw."

  Immediately Punch leaps forward and points to you.

  "We all know who the culprit is!

  I saw Shanne bending over the poor victim

  Knife in hand! Vile murderer!

  You were the last to see her—

  Weren't you? She gave you your mask.

  And the knife was in your bucket!

  You two had a conflict

  Over a haystack or a horse, no doubt.

  There's no doubt at all!"

  Taking the mop doll and the knife, Punch demonstrates how you probably stabbed Quinn.

  "No!"

  you shout, not bothering to follow the script.

  "It wasn't that way at all. Quinn is my friend.

  Yes, she gave me my mask and pitchfork.

  We were getting ready for the show.

  Then she disappeared. Vanished.

  The next time I saw her, you'd stabbed her to death!

  Your honor, it was Punch!

  He confessed to the murder in earshot of the Understudy!

  Just ask him. The Understudy can tell you."

  El Daishou makes a big show of looking up and down the stage, shielding his eyes with a hand.

  "I see no such person.

  Should he turn up,

  We'll be sure to hear his testimony.

  Harrumph. Continue!"

  Next, Pierrot steps forward, perusing his script.

  "Pierrot sees only the moon, Your Honor.

  Nothing on this stage can distract him from her white perfection.

  Pierrot has noticed no murder at all.

  Perhaps it never happened.

  But Pierrot can speak of Shanne's character.

  Though simple, Shanne hurts no one.

  Though slow, Shanne has a good heart.

  So it cannot be Shanne's hand that committed murder."

  Pierrot tangos down the stage with the mop and then lets it rest against El Daishou's chair.

  Now Columbia steps forward and curtsies to the judge and to the audience. She flips through her script and clears her throat.

  "A proud princess like me can't be bothered to care.

  I was busy when I was called to testify, braiding my hair

  And painting my toenails and—"

  But Columbia stops reading her lines and lets the script dangle from her hand and looks irritated.

  "That's not even true. What a bunch of crap.

  I'm not a princess and I don't braid my hair.

  It gets tangled. I don't think Punch killed her.

  I haven't got any proof one way or the other."

  Columbia kicks the mop doll, which slides to the floor with a clunk. El Daishou considers this.

  "Objection sustained.

  Begin the cross-examination!"

  Punch pokes you in the gut with a forefinger.

  "The story is clear. Shanne killed her!

  The peasant must be thrown in jail for a hundred thousand years!

  We all have different versions of the story.

  But I have questions, and the answers will prove me right.

  I'll begin—"

  But he doesn't.

  What happens instead is that the audience in the back begins to catch fire. Enormous red flames shoot from the back of the theater. Row by row, the flames begin to creep closer.

  Should you run? Is the stage going to burn to the ground? Everyone onstage stops acting and looks ready to bolt, or to stop drop and roll, or to call the fire department. However, as the fire spreads and the cardboard audience burns away, you see that the seats they occupy rema
in untouched. The floor of the aisle is untouched. Empty seats in an empty, unburnt theater. The fire isn't spreading after all. It's just the cardboard cutouts of Japanese audiencegoers that are burning away.

  El Daishou rises from his chair of judgment, wearing a pallid expression of shuddering, paralyzing fear. You ask him what it is, what's happening. What's burning up the audience?

  "I know what it is,"

  El Daishou murmurs to you.

  "But I dare not speak of it."

  Why won't he speak of it? Why is the audience catching fire? What's going on here?

  You turn to ask Columbia these things, but she's run away. So has Punch. They're down the hashigakari and out, skittering away as fast as they can sprint.

  Pierrot lifts the red-mouthed circus clown mask from his eyes. The moisture from his face has steamed most of the white greasepaint off. His gloved fingers slick away sweat from his forehead, and you see that his face is not so different from your own. More boyish, perhaps, and more innocent. You're surprised you hadn't noticed before.

  El Daishou stands beside you and rests a broad hand on your shoulder. His hand is shaking and shivering. Again you ask him what's wrong, but he doesn't respond.

  The bursts of flame come closer, and the packed audience becomes emptier and emptier until you three are alone on the stage, unwatched by anyone. A clown, a samurai, and you.