The Harmony Silk Factory

I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU, I said to Kunichika, a secret, something you would kill to know. Meet me at the ruin, I said, and I will reveal something that will change your life. It will change all our lives and lead us to our true destinies. He laughed and said, Anything to make you happy. Please, this is not a joke, I said, I’m deadly serious. I am Johnny’s best friend, if you see what I mean; I know things about him. I understand, he said, I’ll be there. Of course I was there before him, hiding in the undergrowth, lying in wait. Johnny’s white baldachin cloth lay fallen, hanging from a broken branch. Its pale beauty captured the moonlight as it shivered gently in the night; but I did not reach for it, because I was safe in the shadows and did not wish to venture into the light. And yet soon I would have to. I felt for the knife in my pocket — it seemed strangely superfluous, as useless to me at that moment as a Fabergé egg or a box of chocolates. I did not know why I had bothered to take it with me: my hands were all that I would need; they alone would carve my destiny. Who said that the jungle is silent and mysterious? It isn’t. It spoke to me in all its voices, screaming its tale in the sentient darkness. I did not understand the language of this violent polyphony; I was its mere dumb audience, waiting for the story to suggest itself to me. And then it began: the first player strolling onto the stage, skirting the ramparts of the gorgeous painted set (a ruin! the audience gasps, stifling involuntary applause). He is contemplative, hands in pockets, wistful in the way all lovers are, and we the hitherto uncomprehending audience sense at once that this will soon end in tragedy. But wait: what’s this? Another player — but it is not the dashing lover’s bitter enemy, the evil murderous villain of the piece, whom we are expecting. It is a woman; her appearance is unscripted. The slenderness of her figure and the strength of her purposeful stride lend her the appearance of a youth: a castrato, perhaps, or an Elizabethan heroine? Ah, the audience understands: It is the lover’s lover, she whose star crosses his, utterly and irreversibly (the orchestra strikes a shivering, convulsing tune, the chorus shrieks discordantly). But what is going to happen? The lovers talk, clasp hands, smooth each other’s gorgeous coltish hair. Our hero is reluctant, troubled, distant. He cannot respond to the pleadings of his bella donna. He draws away in anguish, for he knows they will never live happily ever after. Montagues and Capulets they are; the divide will never be bridged. She is distraught: Why, why, why? she wonders. What have I done, what has come between us? O cruel and vengeful gods, why have you taken my love away from me? (The chorus is silent and only the strings remain in the orchestra, dolcissimo, as our hearts sink. Tears in the audience, for she does not know what we silent voyeurs do: that he hides something from her.) She brings her lips to his once more but is repulsed by our tortured hero. And then he is upon her, forcing his hard lips on her face and neck, pinning her body to the beautiful cold stone as he manoeuvres himself onto her. Shock. What is happening? He tears at her clothes, exposing her limpid skin to the strained light from above. She is silent, bewildered as we are. He pushes her legs apart, her sinuous androgyne’s thighs flashing in the dark. And the audience is stunned, for now we understand that this is the awful denouement: The hero is not the hero, but the villain. O Melpomene, Muse of tragedy, how cruel art thou! Our antihero now fumbles with his trousers. He cannot undo them, for he is breathless and shaking with impatience. The audience screams silently, but our heroine does not call out. Resist, resist, we implore — but we are powerless. But wait: if the hero is revealed as the villain, then he whom we have thus far known as the villain must be the true hero! O joy O rapture — but where is he? Will he be too late to save the day? There is no sign of him, he is still hidden in the forest. This tale is destined to end in despair. A scream. Our heroine realises that she has been deceived. Scellerato! Monster! She struggles against the weight of this evil, duplicitous scoundrel. He pins her to the ground with the weight of his beautiful hard body, but still he cannot free himself from the constraints of his clothing. She kicks and screams and scratches but is powerless against her assailant. But then another man arrives, bellowing in rage: at last, he is here, our newly uncloaked hero. He has emerged from the trees to save the day. The noise he makes distracts the villain for the briefest of moments, but it is enough for our heroine. She breaks free from the grip of her tormentor and runs, runs from the scene of this betrayal. (Exit the true villain, slipping away into the shadows: the audience does not care for him any longer.) Our distraught heroine is in tears, and our new hero pursues her, seeking to give her succour. Come to your true love, we exhort! At last he catches her, pulling her close to him. We thought he was weak before but now we know he is not. With the heroine in his arms he seems stronger than ever; we understand, at last, that he needs her truly to become himself. It is only when he is with her that we can see him for the good and loving man that he is, and that all his life he has needed someone to love and now he has found her. No longer do we recognise the pathetic figure of a man, alone and drifting, stripped of all dignity. This heroine is the one who transforms the lives of the men she touches. Funny, isn’t it, the way one man can be so utterly different, as if containing two separate lives within him. Music: smorzando, fading away until only the hero’s voice can be heard, singing calmly, molto molto tranquillo, to his beloved. The painted backdrop is different now; the ruin has faded into the distance and we find ourselves in a clearing in the forest, a strange garden of restrained beauty, adorned by a single frangipani tree. Only the two true lovers remain. They sink to the ground in desperate embrace. He kisses her brow. Only now do they both realise that they have found someone who cares for them. It is the only moment of truth they will ever experience in their whole lives. The spotlight expires and the lovers dissolve into the deep dark night.