House of Many Tongues (4 page)

Enter SHIMON.

Shimon:
Abu Dalo?

He tries the door. It’s locked. He tries the door again.

Open up, you moron. I promise… I won’t kill you.

Silence.

I want to kill you, but I won’t. We can negotiate. You give me something, I give you something. We’ll figure it out. We’re men! We’re civilized!

A beat.

Abu Dalo? Let’s talk.

Knocks.

You little Arab turd. Open up! This is MY BATHROOM! This is MY HOUSE!

ABU DALO opens up the cabinet. Pulls out a bar of soap. A razor. He turns on the water and starts to clean his face.

The Camel:
It’s like watching a train wreck.

The House:
I haven’t felt this hopeful since Oslo.

The Camel:
This has disaster written all over it. You’ve promised yourself to both of them.

The House:
I’m looking for life. And here it is, right between these walls.

The Camel:
They’ll fuck you up. Guaranteed.

The House:
The difference between you and me is I believe in people.

The Camel:
The difference between you and me is you’re completely unrealistic.

The House:
People exhibit unusual and unexpected potentials. That is their beauty.

ALEX in SHIMON’s room. He snoops around, knocking on the floor, searching for a hollow place.

The Camel:
So why’s the kid snooping around his father’s room?

The House:
Oh dear.

ALEX tries to pry open a floorboard.

The Camel:
With a crowbar? He doesn’t need to be so rough with you.

ALEX removes the floorboard. Searching inside he finds an ammunitions box.

What’s in the ammo box?

The House:
More gentlemen’s magazines, I suppose.

The Camel:
Nobody hides smut under nailed-down floorboards.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

The House:
All knowledge is good, right?

The Camel:
You know what they say about knowledge. It’s like a renovation. It changes you.

Eight days pass. SHIMON and ABU DALO at the table. ABU DALO is clean-shaven and wearing SHIMON’s clothes.

Shimon:
Now. My son is drawing up a contract for us based on last night’s final round of talks.

Abu Dalo:
“For eight days and eight nights, the Palestinian defied the oppression of his enemy and barricaded himself in a toilet.” How’s that for an opening?

Shimon:
You could’ve ended the occupation of my toilet earlier.

Abu Dalo:
You would’ve shot me.

Shimon:
I would’ve fed you.

Abu Dalo:
I don’t need your food.

Shimon:
No. Of course not. You ate all of my toothpaste and Aspirin instead.

Abu Dalo:
“And when the Palestinian opened the bathroom cabinet, he saw there were only enough Tums for one day. But lo and behold, a great miracle occurred. And the Tums lasted for eight days and eight nights.”

Shimon:
Shut up.

Abu Dalo:
I really like Tums. They’re nice on the stomach.

Shimon:
I should never have negotiated with you.

Abu Dalo:
I would’ve stayed in there longer had you kept the fig tree in the back. If you hadn’t cut down that fig tree, I could’ve eaten figs till the cows came home.

Shimon:
I cut down that tree years ago.

Abu Dalo:
My great-grandfather planted that tree.

Shimon:
And then some bugs came and ate it. What do you want me to say? I’m sorry your friggin’ fig tree died.

Abu Dalo:
You have no respect.

Shimon:
While I had to shit and piss in my own backyard, I brought you food. Dates. Almonds. Pistachios. Blood oranges—

Abu Dalo:
I detest pity.

Shimon:
That wasn’t pity. That was me not wanting a dead Arab stinking up my bathroom. So. Are we doing this or not?

Abu Dalo:
I
write
your
story.

Shimon:
You’re a writer. You write my story.

Abu Dalo:
I
was
a writer.

Shimon:
Professor of Arabic literature.

Abu Dalo:
That’s the past.

Shimon:
I tell you what to say. You make it sound flowery and good.

Abu Dalo:
Sure. And you’re really going to give me half this house?

Shimon:
For as long we work on this book.

Abu Dalo:
All right. Which half?

Shimon:
I don’t know. We didn’t work out the specifics.

Abu Dalo:
Well maybe we should.

Shimon:
O-kay.

Abu Dalo:
I want my old room.

Shimon:
Fine.

Abu Dalo:
I want the toilet.

Shimon:
We share the toilet.

Abu Dalo:
It spoke to me.

Shimon:
The whole house spoke to me. 1967. The landscape was full of stealing and lies. The bodies roasting in the sun. And this house appeared before me like a miracle. She promised herself to me. This is a Jewish house.

Abu Dalo:
Your vision was a lie. The house speaks to me. You heard her.

Shimon:
It doesn’t mean she’s your house.

Abu Dalo:
Yes it does.

Shimon:
No, it means… we have to negotiate.

Abu Dalo:
I want this room.

Shimon:
I work in here.

Abu Dalo:
Where will I work?

Shimon:
In here with me.

Abu Dalo:
This arrangement is unacceptable.

Shimon:
You occupying my bathroom for eight days is unacceptable. I could have had you arrested. I still could. Would you like that?

Abu Dalo:
Fuck you.

Shimon:
Would you like to be deported?

Silence.

Would you like me to shoot you?

Abu Dalo:
That would be murder.

Shimon:
Not if I tell the police that some filthy Arab forced his way into my house.
(picking up the gun, pointing it)
You have to help me write this book. And we better live in fucking peace, you pain in the ass.

Abu Dalo:
I want a DustBuster.

Shimon:
I have a vacuum cleaner. You can borrow that.

Abu Dalo:
I won’t agree to anything unless you buy me a DustBuster.

Shimon:
What the hell do you need a DustBuster for?

Abu Dalo:
They’re efficient, practical and they get into small places.

Shimon:
My vacuum cleaner has changeable heads.

Abu Dalo:
I’m not writing a word without the DustBuster.

Shimon:
Oh God.

Abu Dalo:
This place is a pigsty. The DustBuster is the essence of cleanliness. I even know the model I want. There’s a blond woman on the package in a tight red dress bent over, happily DustBusting. I promise to be as happy as that woman if you buy me that DustBuster.

Shimon:
All right. I’ll buy it, I’ll buy it. Just shut up already. We need to get started.

Abu Dalo:
Why are you negotiating with me? Why not just have me arrested?

Shimon:
I’m writing this book for my son.

Abu Dalo:
So why don’t you just write this book yourself?

Shimon:
I’m about to give you half this house and you’re asking why?

SHIMON pulls out the Mauser.

Abu Dalo:
Not this again.

Shimon:
I want you to call her “Golda.” She’s going to help us write. Aren’t you, Golda?

He puts it menacingly onto the table.

Abu Dalo:
Well. Now that we’ve settled things I feel a whole lot better. Shall we?

Shimon:
Title:
The General and His Son: The Story of a Nation
. How is that?

Abu Dalo:
Arrogant as hell.

Shimon:
Perfect.
(ABU DALO types.)

“The General was born the child of German… something or others.”

Abu Dalo:
Intellectuals?

Shimon:
Whatever. “His father, a psychotherapist. His mother, a lousy poet. His parents lived in Berlin where they held saloons every Thursday afternoon—”

Abu Dalo:
Salons—

Shimon:
“—entertaining the crème of the crème of European art. Writers from Moscow. Maya…” something or other.

Abu Dalo:
Mayakovsky.

Shimon:
Fuck it, I can’t remember the other names. Make something up.

Abu Dalo:
Proust. I like Proust.

Shimon:
Whoever. “There were painters from Paris. Academics from London. Some guy named Bertolt Brecht came by and created a drink called the Rottweiler. Coffee, American bourbon and a dash of gasoline.”

I make none of this up.

“For years, his parents were the centre of artistic and intellectual bullshit.”

Abu Dalo:
Bullshit?

Shimon:
“It was his parents’ intelligence, after all, that led them to their fates. In 1943, the General’s parents were tragically escorted to the gas chambers.”

Abu Dalo:
Uh huh.

Shimon:
“While the General, at the age of two, was hidden beneath a convent. And by war’s end he saw everything as… Well. Dark.” How do you like that?

Abu Dalo:
You should consider publishing this. The Holocaust sells.

Shimon:
Of course it sells. It’s an original story.

It’s not every day six million people are systematically slaughtered.

“The General couldn’t speak until age six.

He ended up in a displaced persons camp in southern Germany. It was there he had to choose his fate: learn how to read or how to fix an engine. He chose the engine. Survival. His legacy. What he gave to a son.”

Abu Dalo:
You can’t read?
(a beat)
And so you can’t write then?
(a beat)
Well. Things are becoming a little clearer now.

Shimon:
You’ll be my eyes.

Abu Dalo:
How the hell do you live without being able to read?

Shimon:
I live with my hands.

Abu Dalo:
But street signs and can labels. The basics.

Shimon:
I manage just fine.

Abu Dalo:
Who’s ever heard of a general who can’t read or write?

Shimon:
I got by just fine.

Abu Dalo:
Why didn’t you ever learn?

Shimon:
I just said. The engine or the book. It was one or the other.

Abu Dalo:
People have been known to do both.

Shimon:
Not me. I was
chosen
not to read or write. That was my fate. Words slip off my eyes like water off a stone.

Abu Dalo:
Who are you? Really.

Shimon:
Aren’t we going to find that out?

Abu Dalo:
Is this book going to be about the truth?

Shimon:
Yes.

Abu Dalo:
Then you have to tell me the truth.

Shimon:
All right.

Abu Dalo:
(typing)
“The General had a natural inclination toward fixing things, and thus made those around him stronger.”

Shimon:
Yes.

Abu Dalo:
“While the Holocaust rendered him an atheist, the General became a believer thanks to the vision he had of the house.”

Shimon:
True.

Abu Dalo:
“A twist of fate brought us his co-biographer: the Palestinian.”

Shimon:
Good.

Abu Dalo:
“Illiterate and compassionate, the General has a deep-seated need to understand the enemy. To fix all problems. To maintain the engine of his country.”

Shimon:
“It was in that spirit the Palestinian and Jew forged a bond. Brought together by circumstance, fate, destiny.”

SHIMON picks up the gun and starts to polish it.

Abu Dalo:
“This is a story, told from one man to his enemy. And from his enemy to the world.”

Shimon:
Introduction.

The same day. ALEX’s bedroom. Reading.

Alex:
“As my father’s generation was so focused on fighting for this land, on war as the only solution to dealing with our enemies, of pushing forward, hard against them, into land, we, as followers of the
Cunnilingus Manifesto
, hereby renounce the act of copulation in favour of ten years strict cunnilingual training. It is possible that at the end of this process we may return to an era that would involve penetration. This thesis–antithesis line of progression is otherwise known as cunnilingual materialism.”

Rivka:
Alex, we need to be quiet. Your dad can’t know I’m here.

Alex:
What was my dad like when he was younger?

Rivka:
He was fearless. Had so much energy he couldn’t sit still. But he always said you were the best thing that happened to him. You calmed him right down.

Alex:
So he was a good general?

Rivka:
One of the best.

Alex:
Was he a good man?

Rivka:
Of course. He took care of you. He raised you by himself.

Alex:
You ever live with someone for years, but realize at a certain point that you don’t actually know who they are?

Rivka:
Sure. That’s what being in a family’s all about.

Alex:
I don’t know my father at all. He talks about the army all the time, his achievements and successes, yet he has no medals. He remembers entire vistas where battles were fought, down to the exact stone, and yet there are no pictures. He talks about the buddies he fought with, but none of them ever drop by. None of it adds up.

Rivka:
Your father’s a strange man. I mean, he’s a survivor, you know?

Alex:
Why did he leave the army at such an early age?

Rivka:
To take care of you, of course.

Alex:
Right.
(writing)

Rivka:
What are you writing?

Alex:
None of your business.

Rivka:
What’s wrong?

Alex:
What’s wrong is that everything is becoming so much more clear.

You. My father. You’re in on this together. Hiding things from me.

Rivka:
I hide nothing from you.

Alex:
Of course you do.

Rivka:
What are you writing?

Alex:
It’s not important.

Rivka:
Read it to me.

Alex:
(a beat)
Okay. On one condition: you say yes.

Rivka:
Yes what?

Alex:
Yes, I’ll let Alex practise his cunnilingus—

Rivka:
Are you trying to blackmail me into having sex with you?

Alex:
I don’t want sex, Rivka. I want to give you cunnilingus.

Rivka:
(a beat)
They’re sending me to Hebron next week. I’ll be working the checkpoint.

Alex:
Well, have fun protecting whacked-out settlers and shooting at little kids who throw stones.

Rivka:
I believe in this. It’s my duty. It’s my choice. Tell me what you wrote, Alex.

Alex:
Chapter Three:

“No legionnaires of the
Cunnilingus Manifesto
may join the armed forces of any nation, nor will they bear arms, condoms or parachutes.”

Rivka:
You have to do your service.

Alex:
I can refuse. I’ll just say I’m not Israeli.

Rivka:
Don’t be an idiot. Of course you’re Israeli.

Alex:
I floated down the river in a basket. Come here. I want to practise my cunnilingual materialism.

Rivka:
Alex. What the fuck’s gotten into you?

Alex:
I’m trying to get deeper into this. You know. Trying to figure out what this manifesto is really about.

Rivka:
It’s about being fifteen. Whatever.
(a beat)
Why don’t you just hold me?

Alex:
Hold you?

Rivka:
We can lie on your bed. And you can hold me.

Alex:
Why on earth would I do that?

Rivka:
(a beat)
Did you hear that Ilan Ramon—

Alex:
Not interested. It’s the wrong science, Rivka. I don’t care about outer space anymore.

Rivka:
But you love him. He went up in the shuttle today.

Alex:
Ilan Ramon was so fourteen.

Fifteen is the dawn of a whole new age.

Goodbye Rivka.

Exit RIVKA. ALEX opens up the ammunitions box and starts to read from its contents.

The Camel:
Today the astronaut Ilan Ramon boarded the space shuttle
Columbia

and left everything behind:

Fig trees, toilets, manifestos, checkpoints—

this messy world full of messy humans.

Truth is, sometimes you gotta get away—

perspective is important when it comes to situations as complex as the Middle East.

Who is right and who is wrong? Who does this house belong to?

What are we to make of the history of these men?

Ilan Ramon has to go so far to get perspective he’s gone all the way to outer space.

There he is—I can see him. He is the hope of a nation.

He’s a light unto nations.

He’s up there, listening to a universe without promises.

Maybe he can even hear the sound of peace.