The Architect
Mehdi M. Kashani
A play in one act
CHARACTERS
THE PRISONER: 66, barefoot, in striped pajamas. Long tousled hair. Unshaven face, a week’s worth of growth.
THE VISITOR: 60, in a white shirt tucked into belted black pants. A dark coat over his shirt. Crew-cut hair and groomed mustache. He looks younger than his age.
TIME
Contemporary times, one afternoon.
PLACE
A prison cell, demarcated by metal bars. The cell occupies two-thirds of the stage. The rest is an area for visitors ending at the far right by a huge metal door. A leather chair is the only prop in the visitor area. Inside the cell, there’s a toilet in a corner next to a cot covered with a slim twin mattress. On the other side of the cell, there is a wobbly Polish chair. On the ground, lie a bunch of newspapers of the same size, neatly organized. The name of the newspaper, The Holy Grail, is printed on the top one with large font size. The setting is lit by a long fluorescent light whose annoying buzz can be heard during the performance with ebbs and flows.
(PRISONER is seated on the Polish chair, facing the audience. He stoops, face down. It’s hard to say if he’s even awake. The turn of the lock breaks the silence and VISITOR enters the scene. PRISONER is still motionless.)
VISITOR
(Loud.)
Hey! (PRISONER looks up, expressionless) You look good, relatively speaking.
PRISONER
(Turns his head. Shaken, he recognizes his visitor. He slowly stands.)
What do you want here?
VISITOR
What’s with the face? You wouldn’t look at me like that if you knew the extent of measures I’ve taken to make you feel reasonably comfortable.
PRISONER
You consider this “reasonably comfortable”?
VISITOR
Well, you still have a tongue rolling in your mouth. You can stand on your feet unassisted.
PRISONER
(Chuckles.)
The only reason I’m not being tortured is because I’m expected to smile in front of cameras, to confess. So, cut the crap.
VISITOR
Right! Of course! Who am I kidding? You used to be the great orchestrator. The architect of the system. (He draws a semi-circle with his hand in the air) This establishment owes its glory to you and your scrupulous methods. (He waits for a reaction from PRISONER who stumbles to his chairs and props his bare feet on The Holy Grail papers.) Oh no! That newspaper used to be your baby. It was the source of your pride. You spent more time at the office than being with your daughters and wife. You oversaw every single aspect of the publication. Now, it’s relegated to a stand for your feet?
PRISONER
(Shakes his head.)
The Holy Grail is a cog in the machinery of the regime, a means to justify the crimes committed under this very roof, to back up the accusations, the false confessions. And it brings me to this question: are you here to take my confession?
VISITOR
I’m sure with a sound mind like yours you’ll eventually do it. I’m here just to facilitate the process.
PRISONER
I’ve already made my confession.
VISITOR
(Cocks his head in fake surprise.)
You did?
PRISONER
Isn’t that why I’m in jail?
VISITOR
You call that open letter to the Leader your confession? Betraying a nation’s confidence in The Way? An exercise in sophistry and falsification. Abusing half-truths liberally and out of context? Come on. You’re better than that. That was just bait for the foreign media, wasn’t it?
PRISONER
That’s what I believe in. Word by word.
VISITOR
Funny how your whole belief system makes a U-turn overnight.
PRISONER
And yet, you’re here asking me to make another one.
VISITOR
Well, you know we have means for that to make sense. Your role was actually crucial in achieving this systematic technique to make traitors repent.
(All of a sudden, painful shouts coming from off-screen interrupts the conversation. VISITOR cranes his head around as if to identify its source. PRISONER looks indifferent. The shouts are incessant, not intermittent. They sound like someone is under constant, intense pain. They die down after six-or-seven seconds.)
VISITOR
Not a pleasant sound.
PRISONER
It recurs every few hours. I wonder if it’s for my benefit.
VISITOR
My friend, I think you’re overestimating your importance. If you don’t agree to clean up the mess you’ve made, you’ll be just another hapless prisoner making those screeching shrieks. And, by then, it’ll be out of my hands. Like you said, every one of us is a cog in the system.
PRISONER
Don’t pretend you care.
VISITOR
Oh, I do care. Why else would I spend time with your youngest daughter to hash out a way to get you out?
PRISONER
(Stands up.)
What?
VISITOR
She was the one coming to me. I was finishing off my editorial when she called. Uncle, she said. She’s never called me uncle before. She wanted to come to the newspaper office. It was indiscreet, of course. I gave her the address of one of those unidentified places we use for interrogations. You know them, right?
PRISONER
You didn’t.
VISITOR
She really loves you, probably more than the other two. Well, they’re married with children. I suppose their loyalties are divided. But your youngest…the sentimentality of youth isn’t yet lost on her.
PRISONER
Leave her out of this.
VISITOR
I would if I could. You see…you have three daughters; I have three sons. I always figured a family bond between us was inevitable. Or even better. Your three daughters. My three sons. A fairytale. But your elder daughters snubbed our family. I wondered if they were under the influence of their father. After all, you looked down to me. Even now, behind these bars, you’re plainly condescending.
PRISONER
I taught you everything. I was the one sheltering you in the tumultuous days of the revolution. You could barely write a sentence longer than eight words and yet I made you a copyeditor at The Holy Grail. How ungrateful….
VISITOR
Of course, you were my guru, but you stopped being one. You turned. You never even acknowledged how I did well for myself and my family. You still see me as that awkward young man you deigned to “save.”
PRISONER
(Returns to his Polish chair.)
(Pensively) To you, I was always a rival to be quashed.
VISITOR
Well, if we let you spread lies, we’ll all be quashed. Wiped. (Shrugs.) We had to cut the losses.
PRISONER
I know cameras are mounted in every corner of this dungeon and you’re trying to ingratiate yourself, but you very well know there wasn’t a single lie in that letter. We were wrong. We jailed people for The Way. We tortured them for The Way. We killed them for The Way. And all The Way was, was a way to rule.
VISITOR
I did warn your daughter about your stubbornness, but she pleaded with me. (He adopts a contemplating pose by rubbing his chin.) You know, the more you procrastinate, the more burden you put on your daughter’s shoulder. That’s fine with me. I always have time for her. (He winks. Furious, PRISONER lunges at him, stopping at the bars.) It reminds me of the story of that butcher. Have you heard it?
PRISONER
(Restless and agitated, he relents for a moment, amused by the question.)
What butcher?
VISITOR
Once upon a time there was a butcher inflicted—
PRISONER
What does the story of some fucking butcher have to do with anything?
VISITOR
Oh, I learned it from you. To frame the situation in an anecdote. To let the inmates find the references in it. I miss those days when you were one of us. It was the height of my day when you cross-examined the traitors. I shadowed you in those dark rooms. You had a different strategy for each. It was like every one of them was a puzzle to crack, a novel to be written. And your deadpan face. They were blindfolded, of course. They couldn’t see the inscrutability of your expression. It wasn’t a show for them. It was who you were. Your exemplary panache. You couldn’t help it. And your expression remained unchanged, even when your assistants exerted their methods of torture. You wouldn’t have grimaced even if we’d skinned them alive.
PRISONER
You can never be me. You should never be me. I don’t want to be me.
VISITOR
Let me at least try. (Coughs to clear his throat. Then, he gears his intonation into a more composed, slow level.) Once there was a butcher inflicted with severe pain in his teeth. So he finds a dentist. Gives him a good chunk of cow tenderloin as token of appreciation.
PRISONER
I don’t have to listen to this unimaginative garbage.
VISITOR
Oh, you do. Those you grilled had no choice and neither have you. (Pauses for this to sink in.) Anyway, it’ll get better. Where was I? The dentist fixes the tooth, but only temporarily. Who doesn’t want another hunk of fresh meat?
PRISONER
(Covers his ears and sings out loud.)
La-la-la-la-la-la-la.
VISITOR
(Increasingly raises his voice.)
The butcher returns and returns and returns, each time with a piece of tender meat. A piece of tender meat. A piece of tender meat. (When he realizes PRISONER can’t hear him, he starts to draw the outlines of a woman in the air—bosom, waist, hips.)
PRISONER
Shut up. Shut up. That’s fucking bullshit.
VISITOR
Might be “fucking,” but no “bullshit.” (Sneers, but soon composes himself.) You’re right. I’m not good at wordplay…like you once were.
PRISONER
You’re horrible, and not only at that.
VISITOR
I am but a messenger.
PRISONER
No. Just a mirror. One of those distorting mirrors they put in amusement parks. A caricature.
VISITOR
Whatever I am, my job is done here, my friend. I’ll relay your message to your daughter. Oh, and by the way (He digs his hand into his breast pocket and brings out a pendant on a chain. The design on the pendant is not visible.) She asked me to give it to you, to help you believe me. You can sense the aura of distrust between us, can’t you? But, I’m afraid you might hurt yourself with it. (He dangles the pendant from the back of the leather chair.) I leave it here for you. It can help you get some perspective. And make sure you read the upcoming issues of The Holy Grail. You might want to know about some later developments regarding your family members. I’ll ask your guards to bookmark the Current Events section for you. (He knocks on the metal door. It opens and he exits.)
(The PRISONER leaps to his feet and grabs the bars. He struggles to shake them to no avail and then extends his hands as much as he can. The pendant is far away, out of his reach. He whimpers. The off-screen shrieks start again. This time, they originate from various directions, like an echo. The PRISONER looks around, as if to find the source of the commotion. Then, he joins them. His shouts are louder than the others, with more immediate pain in them. He continues to shout heartily. At the end, his is the only one to be heard. The curtain drops.)
Mehdi M. Kashani lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. His fiction has recently appeared in Epiphany, EVENT, and Zone 3, among others. This year, one of his published stories was a finalist for Canada’s National Magazine Awards. To learn more about him, visit his website: mehdimkashani.com