Scheherazade’s Monologues..Monologue 3

THE SCARS

By Amany El-Sawy

[The stage is dark, enters Mounira with an incredible shut face, gazing at the audience, with queer looks full of anger, pain, distrust and bitterness. Then a sound of Nubian music is heard. Mounira starts to dance slowly then she gets very enthusiastic and dance hysterically. All of a sudden, she stops and gazes at the audience]

Mounira: Have you enjoyed? I’m sure you have. Have you seen, have you gazed, have you been filled you bastards with lust? Yes

[raises her voice]

I’m sure you did. Your looks penetrated me. Your blind lustful gazes tainted my body. Yes? I know, and if you say ‘no’, I will slap your faces and will say ‘no no no. it’s a big fat YES’. But you know, you are blind. All of you are blind. Have you noticed sadness,

[pause]

pain,

[pause]

fear.

Have you noticed the invisible scars that ach. No. I’m sure no. Have you thought for a second about them. Definitely no; because you are obsessed by another invisible territory that you want to expose.

[pause]

I see it in your faces.

[tries to get off the first layer of her dress]

do you want to see my invisible beauty; I’m sure you want.

[pause]

but what I’m going to show you is my

[pause]

bitterness

[gets off her dress]

I will show you my invisible scars.

[Music is heard, Mounira starts to dance, while dancing she is talking to invisible voices who are trying to stop her]

Leave me. I want to dance. You can’t stop me. Leave me,

[with a very powerful voice]

GO AWAY.

[Facing the audience]

And now I will let you enjoy my land of mysteries, I will let you watch my thrilling SCARS. Now I will open the curtain, ladies and gentlemen, to show you the most exciting show ever.

[She throws off her Abaya (one of the layers she wears), what appears is a torn layer. Facing the audience, pointing at the torn parts]

Do you know what these are?

[With a low voice]

S C A R S

[She raises her voice]

These are the scars on my body. These are the stories I want to tell.

[Pointing again at the scars]

Do you see? They are many, and they are plenty of others.

[She tries to show the audience the layers of dresses she wears]

Yes. They are many. Many scars.

[Crying]

These are the visible ones.

[Lowering her voice]

But there are others;

[pointing at her heart]

here, here, here.

[Music, Mounira starts to dance and the same invisible power tries to hinder her from dancing and she is resisting them and with a high voice]

GO AWAY BASTARDS.

[Music stops]

You won’t stop me; you won’t make me afraid; you won’t ever increase the number of the scars. GO AWAY. I will sing, I will dance, but before that I WILL SPEAK.

[Deep silence]

Yes I will speak.

[Facing the audience]

You don’t know anything about them, although you are part of the misery. Maybe you are the causes, yourself.

[She points to two dark stains close to her heart on her torn dress]

Do you see these dark spots?

[Comes closer to the audience]

Do you want to touch them?

[The invisible power tries to pull her back, but she resists]

LEAVE ME. Ha? What do you say? what do you say? AM I A WHORE? NO YOU ARE THE ONE NOT ME.

[To the audience]

Whore? Am I a whore?

[To the invisible power]

Take your hands away.

[Laughs]

Do you think that I will let these bastards touch me? NO. Enough is enough. Yes all of us have to say enough to all bastards. Enough you devilish bastards.

[Facing the audience]

Where are the girls?

[She kneels down, stretching her arms to reach the girls]

Come my little girls; I want you to come and touch my scars. I don’t want you to have any.

[Lowering her voice]

Come my Sweetie. You have to feel them, and you have to take care of these bastards. Do you know why, my dears, because they are THEIRS.

[Music, Mounira stands and starts to dance, while she is dancing, she is pointing at her dark stains. All of a sudden, she stops]

I won’t dance now, stop that music.

[Music stops, she comes closer to the audience and whispers to the young girls]

Now I will tell you the stories.

[She stands up]

Why am I whispering?

[Raises her voice]

These bastards have to listen. I will let them see; I will open their eyes. I will open their blind eyes, and if they close them, I will open them by force. I will come to their dreams and turn them to nightmares. I will shake their deep seated hearts; I will fill them from top to toe of the direst REMORSE. LISTEN TO ME.

[With a gentle voice]

And you too my daughters, listen.

[Pointing at the scars an sighing]

I will tell you the stories of these deep scars. They are sad. Maybe they are not the saddest, but they are full of bitterness.

[Music]

Mary; I’m Mary, the girl who hates her body; from the time of my early puberty, I used to hate my body, I used to treat it as my enemy.

[Clutching her body, listening to the voices of her patriarchal mothers saying in a rough void tone: “take care of yourself, of your grace, of your precious body”, and Mary in a puzzled tone]

Grace?

Precious body? What do you mean?

[The same dry voices screaming: “don’t laugh in a loud voice, don’t go out, don’t speak too much. Take care of your body; take care of your dignity. You have become a grown up now. You are no longer a child. Do you understand? You have become a LADY.”

Oh [laughs sarcastically] Young lady, and because I became a lady, I have to be KEPT. I have to stay at home, I am not allowed to go with my friends anywhere.

[The Voices: “baby you won’t go out. You are a girl]

[Sarcastically] A girl. [Bitterly] A girl. Yes I’m a girl, a virtuous girl [laughs], and when I was lucky and had the chance to go out/

[The voices: take care of yourself, take care of your…. You are our grace]

[Facing the audience] Grace

[In a loud voice] Again grace. I can see in their eyes their horror of my virginity. They eagerly want to ask me about it, but they don’t dare to do so.

[Facing the audience] didn’t they ask because they trust me? Or are they scared to ask? Are they sure I’m virgin? Or are they frightened of the shock?

[silence]

But I am virgin.

According to their codes of behavior, I’m still virtuous.

[Perplexed] The only solution to calm down and to get rid of the weigh and source of shame is marriage.

[the voices: “marriage”]

And I got married. I became married. I turned into a married woman.

[Facing the audience] but have you ever thought for a second about me? About the girl who used to abhor her “Ivory tower”.

What did I do in my marriage? What did I do with my body?

Actually, I did nothing. Mrs. Grace did nothing. Mrs. Honour is frozen.

I became the icy gracious tower. This is how my big boss used to call me.

[In a very loud voice] Mrs. Frozen.

[Sarcastically] He was a great believer in his manhood, very obsessive of his masculinity. And I was frightened. He was interested in my body which I despised. And I did nothing. I was nothing. I was only the icy ivory tower which was incapable of satisfying my HERO.

[Facing the audience] But he did everything. And he beaten me, cursed me, and betrayed me.

[Coming closer to the audience] Mrs. Frozen, the waxen ivory statue was seeing her husband betraying her all the time. And when she spoke up, she was silenced. Her patriarchs said “HE IS A MAN” and that’s it.

That’s it.

I have to live, adapt, accommodate. I have to accept. I don’t have the right to rebel. Mrs. Ivory shouldn’t rebel. Mrs. Frozen has to be calm otherwise she will be melted.

And what about my pride? [sarcastically] my pride. Actually, I thought about my pride, but does it exist? Does pride exist in such a sick gracious environment?

[Laughs] Definitely No.

[Deep silence; Mounira touches her other SCAR]

And I am the Deserted Land. I am the divorced devil. I am morphrodite. They deem me an outcast. Because I’m divorced. No one knows; no one dares to say; no one sees, and no one can speak about what he/she sees. I am divorced.

[Pause]

I am the independent.

I am the fighter.

I am the revolutionary.

I am the one who has eyes,

Who can see,

Who can feel,

Who speaks.

I am the divorced.

They wanted me subservient;

They wanted me to follow.

[with a high voice]

But I am NOT.

So,

I am the pariah,

I am the recluse.

I am the devil.

I am the one who has to be deserted.

They took my children

Because I am the evil spirit

They thought I will corrupt them with my ideas

They took them

They dis-rooted them from my hug

I need them

I need their hug

They deprived me from my life

Because

Have

Tongue.

And at the end of the day I have to pay my tax.

I kept thinking about my faults.

But I did nothing.

I said nothing

Except what I believe in

I faced our patriarchs, our Heros, our dictators,

Who want us to chase their steps.

But

I illuminated their dark hollow shadows

They

Are

Nothing.

They thought they are everything

But

They are hollow

I dare to speak

I confronted their vacant towers

They are extremely fragile

Yet

They won.

They made me the outcast.

But I am sure they know that I am true.

[Music, Mounira dances and points at the scars on her dress, facing the audience]

Many stories are here my girls

[taking papers from the deep scars and facing the girls audience]

Read, my darlings, read and learn.

[directing her glances towards the rest of the audience]

You too have to read. Here you are, a lot of interesting stories. It might not make any difference, but you have to open your eyes and read, I’m sure you know all of them.

[Pause and with a high voice screaming to the women]

READ. READ and think. You have to think. Think about my scars, think about weakness, think about helplessness. Think about your own scars. I am sure they ache, but you dare not to speak.

Curtain

Scheherazade’s Monologues..Monologue 3