The Shroud Maker

Ahmed Masoud

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786825292
• eBook ISBN: 9781786825308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Hajja Souad, an 80-year old Palestinian woman living on the besieged Gaza Strip, knows about business. She has survived decades of wars and oppression through making shrouds for the dead. A compelling black comedy that delves deep into the intimate life of ordinary Palestinians, the play weaves a highly distinctive path through Palestine's turbulent past and present. The Shroud Maker toured the UK as a one-woman comedy, with one female actress playing all the roles, in the tradition of a Palestinian story-teller. The Shroud Maker was part of @70: Celebration of Contemporary Palestinian Culture, a week-long festival of theatre, dance, films and talks commemorating the Palestinian experience of dispossession and loss of a homeland. Itweaves comic fantasy and satire with true stories told first hand to the writer, and offers a vivid portrait of Palestinian life in Gaza underscored with gallows humour.

SCENE 1

Sounds of a sewing machine, mixed with the sounds of war – gunfire and bombs. Lights come on HAJJA SOUAD’s shop. She is working at her sewing machine. The electric light flickers overhead. She looks up at the light, shakes her head and curses under her breath. The telephone starts ringing. She gets up slowly and starts searching for the phone amongst piles of material. She finds the phone and answers it.

HAJJA SOUAD: (Shouting.) Ah shit, it’s you again. Why don’t you bloody fuck off? I mean you have a habit of fucking off so why don’t you try it again now… What? No, I’m not going to leave Gaza, I’m not going anywhere… Besides, your bloody tanks are everywhere. Your freaking army will have to kill me first.

She slams the phone down.

The constant drumming of bullets and drones and helicopters is getting on my nerves now. Let’s have some music instead.

She turns on the radio, Arabic music plays.

Ah… That’s better… If tonight’s the grand finale, at least let’s have some decent music for the Big Send-Off. I’ve even made myself a new shroud for the occasion…well, nearly finished, another hour or so, just to stitch in the final seams and… signature touches.

Well, business has dried up recently. Not like four years ago during the war on Gaza. Back then I was selling close to a hundred shrouds a day. I was making a fortune! But now business is not so booming. I get to make a few occasionally – when a fisherman is shot dead by the Israeli navy in the middle of the Med. Too bad that the bodies are often washed away so their families have no need of a shroud from me, they have nothing to bury.

But four years ago, I could hardly keep up with the demand. I ended up selling yards and yards of cheap crap to customers too grief-stricken to know the difference. ‘Oh yes, finest organic Palestinian muslin, handwoven in Gaza by virgins from the purest East Indies cotton (fairly traded, of course) – that’ll be a thousand shekels. So sorry for your loss.’

Well, what’s the alternative? Tell ’em the truth? ‘That’ll be ten shekels, madam. That’s right, ten shekels, I know, ever so cheap isn’t it? Well, that’s cos it’s made of polyester, yes, five shekels a roll from Yazji’s Superstore, yes, ’fraid so, cos there’s no muslin left. All stocks exhausted, demand being so high, you know. Well, yes, if I’d known in advance I could have ordered extra supplies from the tunnel traders, but on this occasion I’m afraid the Israelis neglected to inform me of their plans…yes, I know, most unprofessional of them. Ah well, better luck next time. Oh, it’s your last child, is it? Oh, I am sorry, well, perhaps you’d like to place an advance order for your grandchildren?’

It’s what I do. I make money when people die. But now and again, I make a signature shroud just for me. Like this one I’m making now, inspiration descends, you hit a run of lucky stitches and you end up with a really pukka, grade A, twenty-four-carat burial garment and you think, ‘Hamdullah, it’s all been worthwhile: the Nakba; the Occupation; the Siege – everything. Just for this: a shroud to make you proud.’

Tonight may be the night to finally wear it. I can almost hear the Israeli tanks moving across the border. I better be ready for their royal arrival. They’re coming to destroy some smugglers’ tunnels which they apparently forgot to bomb four years ago. And they’ve chosen to do it today. On my birthday! Eighty-four years young today! How kind of them to provide some genuine fireworks to mark the occasion – F16 rockets no less!

I better finish my shroud quickly. It’s a fine piece of work. It would have made her proud, my seamstress tutor. Who knows, if I’d followed her, I might have made it big in Paris or Milan – fashion shrouds for the Vogue catalogue, Gucci corpse couture to knock you dead, designer grave garments by Gianni Versace.

Well, we do what we can with what we have…

She comes across a small shroud for a baby.

What a waste! Well it wasn’t my fault he called his hulking big three-year-old a ‘baby’. How should I know? He comes to me bleating and bawling ‘Oh, my baby has died…my baby was killed.’ I told him to join the queue and come back in an hour. I made a baby shroud, medium size, and he came back, paid the bill and off he went. The next thing I know, his extremely large cousin with an extremely large hairy belly comes into the shop and demands a refund. ‘Pull the other one’ I said. But he glares at me and shakes his finger. ‘I will burn your shop down if you don’t give me the money back…we had to bury the kid using a duvet cover!’

Who cares what they buried him in? Not the kid, that’s for sure.

Not that I advertise this opinion to my customers, of course. ‘A burial shroud is like your wedding dress and christening robe rolled into one… A shroud is a once-in-a-lifetime investment, you only wear it once, so you’d better make sure it fits comfortably. Your last opportunity to make a good impression – last pose for posterity, so don’t scrimp on the fabric. You can’t take it with you, so why not go out looking like a million dollars? Male or female?’ ‘Is there a difference?’ They say. Bless them, some grief-struck relatives are such dozy fuckers.

‘Lakan, of course. We, women, have more to cover so we need more cloth, which makes it more expensive…you don’t want to show your wife’s hair to strangers do you? No. Then another hundred shekels will save your dignity.’ Bless them, they always pay up.

I do offer a discount sometimes. (She holds up some cheap cloth). For example, if you choose this fabric – buy one, get one free.

‘But I don’t need two, only one member of my family has died.’

‘Listen, habebi, we’re all going to die. Allah has provided two guarantees for this – the Angel of Death and the Israelis and before you ask this is not pure cotton, hence the lower price tag.’ In fact it’s not cotton at all, it’s polyester.

How are we supposed to get cotton in Gaza? Since the fucking Egyptians destroyed the tunnels, there’s barely a scrap to be had, but I have...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Scene 1
• Scene 2
• Scene 3
• Scene 4
• Scene 5
• Scene 6