Lot and His God

Howard Barker

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849436809
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

"I came to the city. I saw the people were filthy. And those who were not filthy were still filthy…" Sodom. The day before the city's total annihilation. Among the grimy tables of a run-down café, an angel tells Lot that God wants him to flee, before the city is obliterated. However, Lot's irresistible wife has other ideas... As the angel and Lot's wife embark on a dangerous game of seduction, cruelty and desire, we are drawn ever deeper into the dark and impenetrable forest that is the marriage between Lot and the bewitching woman he worships…

I

An angel seated in a café.

DROGHEDA: I came to the city. I saw the people were filthy. And those who were not filthy were still filthy. The filth of those who were not filthy was not in their acts or even in their thoughts but in their permission, for permission is filthy if the thing permitted is filthy. And I saw no one and heard no one who withheld this permission. Therefore the filth was divided equally between those who practised filth and those who looked on filth without revulsion. I reported this and was praised for my report...

(A woman enters. She sits swiftly at the table. She casts a glance about her...)

SVERDLOSK: I’m not leaving...

(She bites her lip.)

Leave leave all you hear is leaving perhaps people should leave less perhaps less leaving altogether would be nice I-don’t-like-it-I’m-leaving well you can’t you can’t leave try staying instead staying and fighting or not fighting I don’t care what are you anyway a rat rats leave rats are famous for it be a rat for all I care but don’t ask me to be one pack your bags you say so casually pack your bags do I look like a woman who packs her bags look at me the hat the gloves the

(DROGHEDA appears absent-minded...)

I’m talking to you the hat the gloves I’m talking to you I’m talking to you

(DROGHEDA drags his gaze back to SVERDLOSK.)

The shoes they match my husband collects books five thousand books he has some from the fourteenth century the fourteenth century fragile and priceless fourteenth century books and you say pack your bags that look I hate that look that exasperated look no I’m not going anywhere too bad if it exasperates you is he supposed to burn his books and me I live for shoes do you know the more offended you look the more pleasure I discover in offending you pack your bags tell them pack theirs does anybody serve you here why do you always sit in dirty cafes there is a clean one over there perfectly clean and they like to serve good-morning they say and they serve I thought when I first set eyes on you he has a certain tolerance for dirt not squalor dirt used things smeared things to touch the unclean scarcely troubles him whereas I already I want to wash my hands I’m wearing gloves but still I want to wash my hands

(She stands swiftly.)

Is there a sink here you would know no no

(She sits as swiftly.)

It doesn’t matter no imagine the sink imagine the soap the cracked and sordid soap a perfect culture for pathogens as for the towel imagine it not that I ever use the towel however pristine is the towel still I ignore its blandishments shaking my wet fingers in the air I do so love to embarrass you the woman’s mad the hatted woman the woman in the hat and gloves quite mad he must be in love with her a servile love not nice not healthy and she smacks him probably the point is I am not leaving neither is my husband

(She looks at the ground. Her foot bounces... DROGHEDA gazes at her...time passes...)

DROGHEDA: My feelings with regard to you are complicated on the one hand I despise your obsessive and frankly pitiful self-regard but on the other I have to confess to a certain admiration for the stubbornness with which you cling to it it is not as if you were oblivious to the futility of the life you have just described the gloves the shoes the hats etcetera you are perhaps incapable of shame apology or even mild regret a thing oddly attractive to me and not me only many men I notice stare at you though these lingering regards are tainted with an apprehension you might drag them to their deaths death is not a dread of mine but humiliation might be as for packing bags in saying pack your bags I was excessively considerate you should go in what you stand up in or nothing at all yes go naked you degraded bitch the dirty cafes I choose for our rendezvous complement your character

(His gaze is fixed on her...)

SVERDLOSK: You do love me

(She leans back in her chair, plucking her skirt...)

You love me and it drives you mad I am not driven mad by you still no service how long have we been here perhaps if you were less taut less stiff less bitter less everything in fact some slovenly individual might pluck up courage and take our order we are giving wittingly or unwittingly the impression of a desperately unhappy couple no wonder no one intervenes we are not an unhappy couple we are not a couple at all you love me and I love my husband that’s it that’s it that’s all there is to it

(She plays with a glove...)

Call me bitch again degraded bitch say it again go naked dirty bitch say

(DROGHEDA is unwilling...)

A funny couple we would be you a little filthy me scrupulously clean your filth as artificial as my cleanliness as for the disparity in our ages why won’t you say it naked bitch either you meant to say it or you did not if you meant what you said surely it can be said again if you were simply irritated if those words were so to speak expletives then apologize

(She challenges DROGHEDA with her gaze.)

Here he comes no he doesn’t

(She looks askance.)

He doesn’t

He doesn’t

That woman came in after me long after me you see he skirts our table anyone would think we suffered from some communicable disease and frankly you look unhealthy an affectation obviously but how should he know that apologize or call me bitch degraded bitch one or the other

(Pause.)

You would like to say the words again but because I want to hear the words the words have lost their charm for you very well invent some other words worse words preferably degraded bitch I liked but how mild that is mild abuse is silly and what might have...