Story for performance #387
webcast from Madrid at 09:46PM, 12 Jul 06

too soft
Source: Elaine Sciolino, ‘Iran talks with West bring sides no closer’, New York Times in International Herald Tribune online, 11/07/06.
Tags: bombings, death, sex
Writer/s: John O'Brien

We are told not to tell them our names. Nor our ages. We are gathered for instruction every morning. We must welcome them like heroes. They will even so only be boys and we must not laugh at their youth or inexperience. Some of us think this is very funny—if anyone lacks experience, it must be us, it’s why we were chosen. We are told that we are the reward for their great acts and we must not be shocked when we learn about the acts because to be a reward is itself a reward.

We are given clothing that is not modest but none of us are worried—we are all wearing similar clothes. We are shown the fountains, the gardens, the ante-rooms, the pools, the walls, the music rooms, the banquet halls. The bedrooms. We are taught to carry great trays laden with food. When many of us see the foods we are amazed: every beast, vegetable, fruit, even forbidden foods are allowed here.

My friend asks what will become of us after. She is told not to think about that. She is assigned to a hero the very next day.

We are taught to writhe and cry out. We are taken to a model of a young man and shown the parts—I had already seen them on my brothers, but some of us had no idea.

When at last it is my turn, at first I am filled with fear. I am given hashish and tobacco to calm me. Then when my hero arrives, I find I am with three others. The hero seems disappointed. Only four? And bewildered. The other three hang back, dancing, resorting to the moves they have been taught. But I feel sorry for the boy—only a boy—and perhaps also sorry for myself. I take his hand and ask his name which I forget immediately (forgive me) and lead him to the banqueting hall. So many feasts these days, they’re always cleaning out a part of it while partitions hide the tables that are being used. The four of us feed him rich food for his thin body, but he isn’t very hungry. I know it is from fear and the fresh memory of blood.

When he finds himself led in a daze into the bedchamber, he is shocked. So soon? He wants to talk. I let him, but one of the others takes off her clothes and lies there; so great is her desire not to hear his tale that she would rather he take her at once. He doesn’t understand and simply speaks of bodies dismembered and the heat and light and noise and pain inside him at the instant he died. I can see that he is more scared of my sister lying on the bed, writhing and moaning as she has been taught.

I touch his face. His cheek is too soft for a hero or a man. Its softness is worse than if it burnt my hand.

I ask about his parents. A teacher and a driver. About his old ambitions. He had hoped to be a teacher until he was called. I will not think about my parents and he doesn’t ask. How could he ask? I know it will be his first time too and feel sorry for him and not for me.

What he does not hear me scream, because I do not scream it, is: I do not know you, please realise that I did not volunteer, certainly not for this precise performance, just as those you killed did not volunteer.

Instead I tell him my name. Hero, I say, I am Fatima.

The same name as my aunt, he says, and I see he has an erection and that it will soon at last be over.

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by John O’Brien.