The Fence in its Thousandth Year

Howard Barker

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849433808
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The Fence in its Thousandth Year was inspired by the long distance fence whilst it was under construction in the Gaza to separate the Palestinian and Jewish communities.
Set in a world of rising frontiers and illegal immigration, The Fence uses powerful poetic language, provocative ideas and rich, dark humour to build a compelling epic about scandal in a ruling monarchy and its subsequent downfall.
At the heart of this tale is the intensely personal story of a blind boy's struggle to discover his true identity in a world where nothing is what it seems... The Fence, produced by the Wrestling Company, opened at the Birmingham Rep in June 2005, followed by a UK tour.

1

A frontier fence at night.

An elegant woman, hatted and veiled, is discovered on the nearer side. She glances swiftly about her, and removing a handkerchief, advances to the wire, turns and flings up her skirts. Immediately, a rush of dim figures as three thieves on the opposite side, scuffling in their impatience, draw the woman to them and copulate with her through the wire. The woman thrusts the handkerchief into her mouth to stifle her gasps. A bell tolls. A light traverses. The thieves flee. The light stops, framing the woman fixed in her pose. Slowly she rises. She laughs.

2

A cemetery.

Mourners greet one another. A man goes to the woman, kissing her formally.

ALGERIA: I look for him...!
(She frowns...)
I look for him...!
(She emits a small, self-deprecating laugh. She is greeted solemnly by a woman.)
I look for him, Istoria
(Her laugh becomes a howl.)

PHOTO: She looks for him but in the way one looks for an intruder in the night and with the same relief to find he isn’t there he squatted on her life he was a bear he had the manners of a bear the breath of a bear and when he wasn’t a bear he was a crow I know to speak ill of the dead is uncharitable but crows are not men so I admit no inhibitions goodbye bear goodbye crow I am fifteen and prodigiously gifted when he fucked with her the bear she stank for weeks no soap could cleanse her but after me she is apples she is fruit a little god lives there who knows our deep compatibility I won’t go on I see I am resented resent by all means I have everything including the woman you all crave to strip my own my darling aunt you can’t bear to think of it I am accustomed to resentment as are all those with prodigious gifts and if you stab me so what I have been in Heaven Heaven’s weeping over there Heaven in a veil Heaven with red lips and sunlit hair bear’s gone and crow dyed hair she is a brilliant liar and the blue veins on her breasts oh so what if she is a liar (A gasp between pleasure and pain.)

DOORWAY: Suicide
(Pause.)

PHOTO: Who?

DOORWAY: You

PHOTO: Really?

DOORWAY: Suicide
(Pause.)

PHOTO: I don’t think so

DOORWAY: No?

PHOTO: I don’t think so

DOORWAY: Cruel woman

PHOTO: Allegedly

DOORWAY: Fragile boy

PHOTO: Ostensibly

DOORWAY: And the slow but irreversible disintegration of society

PHOTO: We cannot know if society is disintegrating

DOORWAY: Three circumstances

PHOTO: Or merely reordering itself

DOORWAY: Which taken together

PHOTO: Those inhabiting a specific period of human history lack the necessary perspective to issue such categorical judgements

DOORWAY: Point to one conclusion

PHOTO: I don’t think so

DOORWAY: Suicide

PHOTO: I DON’T THINK SO
(DOORWAY shrugs his shoulders and turns to go.)
IT IS AN OFFENCE UNDER THE LAW

DOORWAY: Shh

PHOTO: TO URGE SELF-MURDER

DOORWAY: (Returning.) I don’t urge it
(He fixes PHOTO with a stare.)
I announce its inevitability
(He separates himself from PHOTO.)

ALGERIA: Husbands
(The mourners turn to her.)
Husbands I had three look their monuments
(She gestures.)
Uniform like soldiers guarding me and it is not tasteless I am a war
(She challenges them.)
I am a war and they fell in me
(She bites her lip.)
Their awful cries
(She shakes her head.)
In my flooded fields MOTHER in my drowned ditches
MOTHER
Awful
Awful
(She lifts her pained gaze.)
And yet I must be married without marriage I
(She stops. She laughs.)
Oh they back away
Oh
Oh
They stare at the pavement or the sky
(She reaches a desperate hand.)
Istoria, they think I

ISTORIA: (Indignant for ALGERIA.) CROWD
BEG
CLUSTER

ALGERIA: I describe I do not

ISTORIA: RUSH
PLEAD FOR THE PRIVILEGE

ALGERIA: Shh

ISTORIA: DIE IN THE CRUSH

ALGERIA: I do not solicit I describe
(She inhales.)

My needs
(She looks down.)
My needs which are
(Pause. She bites her lip again.)
Never mind what my needs are

DOORWAY: (With a move.) Let me
(Pause.)
At the end of the day let me
(He is scrupulous.)
In a room with the window wide let me
(A beat.)
With the window wide and the thin gauze moving in the midnight air
(A beat.)
See your clothes fall
(A beat.)
All the world in pain or riot burning infants killers on the palace stairs so what let me
(A beat.)
Lift you my weightless wife streets blazing dying trains and deposit you in sheets so clean but never cleaner than your body let me
(A beat.)
For a single hour fix you there
(A beat.)
What can prepare a husband for your mystery nothing nothing can but the war you say you are would cease for this small peace
(He ends.)

ISTORIA: Chivalry
(She lifts her hands in appreciation.)
It was a lost art until you Mr Doorway

DOORWAY: (Still gazing on ALGERIA.) Chivalry...?

ISTORIA: (Glaring about her.) Others might do well to imitate such an exquisite gesture

DOORWAY: Gesture...?

ISTORIA: And whilst they might fail to scale such heights of poetry

DOORWAY: Not a gesture...

ISTORIA: A widow might derive some comfort from their efforts possibly...

DOORWAY: Not a gesture at all
(He removes his gaze from ALGERIA to include the company.)
I was stating an intention
(A murmur.)

ALGERIA: Fix me...?

DOORWAY: An intention I formed long before your husband’s death

ALGERIA: Fix me, Mr Doorway?
(Pause.)

DOORWAY: Fix you yes as a moth is fixed to a board fixed yes is the moth not glad to be still at last does she not crave the stillness of the board I will pin you and the board’s our bed
(She examines him. A hiatus of incredulity.)

ALGERIA: I am marrying Mr Doorway
(She maintains her stare. A murmur of disbelief. A look of shock passes over DOORWAY.)
Oh yes
Oh yes
AND POETRY GIVES WAY TO DREAD
(She laughs.)

PHOTO: (Horrified.) Aunt

ALGERIA: (To DOORWAY.) Still me
Still me
(She advances on him and places one hand on his face, a bond.)
As you said

PHOTO: Aunt

ALGERIA: (Still staring at DOORWAY.) Yes...?

PHOTO: (His eyes screwed up in frustration.) MARRY AND I’LL KILL MYSELF
(PHOTO becomes the focus of public curiosity. He looks from face to face, then explodes in a torrent of confession.)
I kiss my aunt I strip my aunt I put my lips between her legs she moans she heaves her eyes roll in her head my darling boy she shouts she shakes like killers kicked her piss shit I beg I will her voice I will this voice this voice
(He is silenced by his own loss.)
None of you knows this voice
(He shrugs.)
How could you know it?
(And shrugs again.)
Silly
(And again.)
Silly to draw your attention to things not one of you could possibly
(And again.)
To oblige you to contemplate such
(He smiles.)
Sheer cruelty
(He is an image of tranquillity.)
I exceed my privilege in this as in so many things I shall not apologize however it is in excess that terrible truths appear I am devoted to excess and I regret to inform you I shall not be as I announced in my extremity committing suicide if only to frustrate Mr Doorway surely the ugliest of all the husbands who sought access to the body of my aunt let him struggle let him strain I will be a spectator at his failure this is the most beautiful woman in the world so very beautiful she commands her own des...