Story for performance #507
webcast from Sydney at 07:30PM, 09 Nov 06

I’ve seen worse, I want to tell him. But he’s the grown-up and I’m the child. Perhaps his woman will come back. They say I will meet a Russian family who will raise me as their child. Here. I will find peace here they say. I will feel better.

Here. In Israel.

The godawful truth is that we should never have come here. I dreamt ‘here’ and maybe it’s my fault but when you dream you’re powered by the unconscious and the unconscious wants things this way. The godawful truth is that now that I’m here, in this fucking room with these fucking nice people trying to reassure me that she’ll be back, I kind of know she won’t be back. They save thegodawfultruth for the climax, don’t they, because then you wrap and then it’s over. Thegodawfultruth is that this is the bit where I realise that we didn’t change stories halfway through, we were just being redherringed and gardenpathed and godawfulled and upagainstit and it was coming to a head and ending and over over over over over over over.

I am with the big man. He doesn’t like goats. When he saw a picture of a goat he pointed his finger at it like a gun and shot it. Then he went sad because he was sorry he’d made a gesture like a gun, because he knew I had a gun. I never shot the gun. My uncle gave it to me. I do not know if it was loaded. I think it wasn’t. I think he wanted me to point it and they would shoot me. Then we would all be dead. It was a sensible idea of my uncle’s.

The first clue that resurfaced was that the lace collection resurfaced. With its symbol worked in, from some other conflict, got to hate that symbol cos instead of leading to a careful woman in a suffering village it led to us and to the guys in Paris, one of whom apparently is dead now, I think it’s Fatimah, and then to Vilnius, and someone’s been arrested there, and Kazakhstan and everyone’s dying there and then to here and I can’t even remember what airport we’re in. Here, waiting, just fucking waiting.

The woman spoke Russian, but she was like a flat speaker, no extra in it or humour. She had good hugs but I didn’t want to hug any more. I don’t want to any more. The man doesn’t speak Russian, but he is a round speaker, with jokes with his eyes and he promises with his eyes not to hug me and that is like a hug. I knew when he shot the goat with his finger he would feel bad so I looked at the door to help him feel bad but he will be gone soon too like everyone. I wish I pointed my gun and they shot me.

I’ve been looking at my unconscious all sides every which way all over all round. I’ve been staring at it and that doesn’t work and I’ve been trying to catch it with my peripheral vision. I’ve tried screaming for her and they make promises but no. The second clue was a man who came in and tried to kiss her but she spoke in Hebrew or Aramaic or Yiddish or Jewish or Israeli or fucking Samaritan for all I knew and he held her hand. ‘It’s too hard to explain’ she said or maybe that was my unconscious. I wanted this. I wanted this but I don’t know who I wanted it for. If I wanted her to be gone, who did I want that for? Why am I here, not in any deep philosophical way but in a way like, why am I in the toilet oh it’s because I need to piss. Or in a way like, why did we go with the girl oh it’s because she was gonna die. Why am I here oh it’s because…

He is angry but he is friendly with me. We are like in the dacha together, the little country vegetable garden where we grew vegetables. They didn’t hate us there, they were our neighbours. Mother said it was ceasefire country, and we could pretend the attacks weren’t happening. Father said it was only a matter of time.

So the fuck do I do now do I work for the girl, Katya? Do I the fuck help her and what can I do anyway? The fuck is happening? Here. The fuck is here? She’s pretty or she would be if she didn’t look so godawful. You look into her eyes and you see death death death. You smell blood on her breath breath breath. All I want’s some good news. And a pen to write it down with. Third clue. She kissed me ere she left me. One of those lingering kisses without the tongue or the thrust but the presence as if stopping the kiss would be the end of the world which I guess it is. And then she said, remember me through the rest of your life my love and try not to forget the good times and don’t blame yourself for my disappearance. Okay, she didn’t, but I’ve got a brain injury that’s like half the reason we met—not to mention the other injury that led to us meeting directly why am I here in that functional not-too-deep way. I crawled under barbed wire to meet her so why can’t I break out of here? Because of the girl, Katya. The trouble with the truth is there’s too much of it.

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