Francois Premier: Lou Birkanian. Lou Birkanian!

Lou Birkanian: Ah, you’re here. I was waiting for you, Francois Premier. What is it that you want to know?

Francois Premier: My destiny.

Lou Birkanian: It’s there, piping hot.

Francois Premier: What did you see.

Lou Birkanian: I see a life, but it is not yours.I see a shadow, but it is not yours.I see a death but it is everyone’s.

Francois Premier: The death of others, je m’en sacre. My death ta moi. My death. Do you see it? Answer, Lou. I leave tomorrow for the war.

Lou Birkanian: No living being will give you death.

FrancoisPremier: Good. Not bad, your oracle. I leave, my mind at peace.

Lou Birkanian: So go with your mind at peace, Francois Premier. Without fear or pain.

Madame Roberge: Without pain. Without pain. Stop the fairy tales. Without pain. That’s what they say! That’s what’s written on the store front of private clinics and in the TV ads of fashionable specialists. Without pain. Never! A lie! Right in the bone, in the fiber, in the egg! At the centre of everything, pain! In the bowels where shit and piss mingle with cloudy brews. Pain, point of the knife, razor’s edge! Pain through the night to the early morning, bubbling like lava in all the volcanic channels; seismic shock, magnitude 7 on the Richter scale; the bursting of swollen veins; the tearing of muscles; the sapped foundations; quartering blades of ice swept away by the debacle of spring; pouring out of rubbish, clods of shit; undigested food, bloody fibres. And who swims in the dung? The fish of grand profundities. He seeks his breath foraging in the fermentation bubbles; the naked tadpole stirs among the shreds of its plastic bag. And for him it begins. This is the great pain, primal pain, that first breath of the new-born. She undresses on fire. With lightning-struck eyes, yes. The new-born’s spine unfurls like a whip.   Pain in the hooked hand beating the frozen air, nose, mouth, throat, ears exploded by the thunder of the world.Never without pain is our passage to the unknown. Local anaesthesia? Oh, no doubt. Yes, I want it. I want it, great god, Zounds! Anaesthesia! Not to feel the biting tooth. The sting in the cowed belly, the gangrened foot, total inflammation Why not? Let’s talk about it! Total anaesthesia: the ice takes you, revolt falls asleep. Alone at home, before the great plunge into free-fall, So go ahead Catarina, Catherine, ma catuche, my slut, go find your Francois. But it’s Richard that you will find. Your Richard is coming – the program is engaged. Your Richard, your fortune, the one that propelled you to spread your thighs stretched tight while the red chili pestle crushed your mortar and acidic juices spread everywhere, churning into your saggy folds. Enjoy! The pain is already there. Listen closely, Catou, my love, my hate, recognize the pain, closely knit in the fabric of pleasure, a needle in the sweet peach. The pain mines, furrows, stirs sods, covers the smouldering seed. Pain spread and bursts the joyful buds into blossom. Pain farts into he howling of pleasure. The collapsed asshole and hideous bladder explode together. Enjoy, slut, enjoy, bad one. Enjoy, beast, plough your miniscule fertile field or pain takes stock.

Catherine: Go to bed, Madame Roberge. Puta la rabia madre mia de ma mierda! Merde in the end!

Madame Roberge: And don’t talk to me in Arabic, renegade, relapse. Don’t forget that you are a Roberge, you too.

Catherine: I am not a Roberge. I am Ragone. My father’s name is Filippo Ragone.

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!

Madame Roberge: A piece of trash. Debris. An impotent since forever.

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!

Madame Roberege: Filippo Ragone! The rat without a tail! If he fathered you it’s nothing to boast about! But not even! Filippo Ragone doesn’t exist. Never, oh never, was Filippo Ragone capable of planting his spike in a lump of butter.

Filippo Ragone: hilarious Yeh!

Madame Roberge: It was the street wind that knocked up your mother, Angela, my sister. And Angela was Roberge. The street wind doesn’t have a name.

Catherine: I am, then, the daughter of the wind. And the wind that inflated the bubble of which I was born, the south wind which has only one name: Ragone! It rages in the streets. It solicits seeds in cavalcades. It’s the great go Ragone. The gorgonian sluts disgorge a gogo their gorges. It’s the bastard wind of Aragon which straitens out the spikes made supine by age, boredom and the gangrene of the past. Yes, I am Ragoneand I make my Richard, my sweet one, my unborn child the first inimitable gift, the most beautiful, the special gift which precedes him and is called: my pleasure. I give him my pleasure. It’s my first gift.

Francois Premier: Less yakking, baby, come to bed. Tomorrow morning, I leave for Trebizond!

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!

Catherine: Demanding, capricious, childish, pretentious, blind, behold the man that I, Catherine Ragone, I have taken. My geyser, my pillar, my concrete slab, I do not ask for more.

Francois Premier: Stop with your jokes. Spare me all your follies. Come on. Give me your hand.

Catherine: Yes, my hand and everything that comes with it. I give you all of that, Francois Premier, but only that. My trembling skin, my clenching tendons, my spewing mucous, the strength of my shanks braced against the wall, the softness of my breasts with the nipple tip hardening with the irritating nail, my eyes that lose focus and the chaotic upheavals of my perineum, my present, my will, my desires, the wind of the past. All in that name: Catherine Ragone. But my pleasure, no! My pleasure, the crest of the wave, the moment of vertigo before the great flood, diving into eternity, my pleasure, Francois Premier, my pleasure is not for you. It’s the torch that I light at the cradle of my birth. My pleasure is for the son that I will sprout from your ejaculate pleasure. My pleasure is for Richard. This is the crown that I have placed on his new-born, hairless skull. And now, let’s go, let’s get flooded together in the Ragone hurricane.

Francois Premier: That’ll do. You have fucking cursed me!

Catherine: Never!

Madame Roberge: Odious mistake. I proclaim treason. The hot Ragone blood wins for now. But I see from afar the cycle of disasters, which will surround the reign of Richard. I see the heavens blasted. I see ghosts climbing from their tombs in the Calvinist cemeteries. I hear the owls hooting. They tear at the “ecailles” of the moon. I smell the sulphur that invades the ports of the Caspian Sea and I discern in the fog the toads creeping under the skirts of the Sisters of Sainte-Marie. I predict torn continents priming their by-products and, coming from both poles, icebergs unleashed against the armoured hull of the Titanic. I hear the great, the enormous, the monstrous explosion of the single bomb. I hear a roaring, a screaming in the head the immense silence of death.

Larbi: When are they going to send us their damned signal?

Sigmund: Are you in some kind of a hurry, comrade? Me, the longer it lasts, the more it suits me. We’re paid by the day. Twelve dinars a day, no one spits on that.

Larbi: My wife is almost ready to have a baby.

Sigmund: She doesn’t need you to do the trick.

Larbi: I’d just like to be near her.

Sigmund: It’s your first?

Larbi: Yeah.

Sigmund: Ok, the first one, that’s something. I got eight. That means for me no surprises. It’s always the same. And I don’t like to watch it. It’s a woman’s thing. They’re better with themselves when it happens: old Gudrun, when she helps a woman to give birth, always says: “Outside men, while I work, you can poke around in the street but not under my feet.” He laughs

Larbi: Look, is that the signal? The torches!

Sigmund: Nah! That’s Mustapha assembling his herd. The day after tomorrow is market day in Tabriz, he’ll have to leave pretty soon.

Larbi: You think he has the time to make it to Tabriz?

Sigmund: That depends. It’s like with your wife, see. Mustapha, like your wife, squeals pretty good about what happens in the world.  They each have their own business; he has his herd and she has your little one. War is not their job.

Larbi: You think there’s going to be a war?

Sigmund: That’s what we’re paid for, eh?

Larbi: All my brothers were killed in the last uprising.

Sigmund: That’s life.

Larbi: I don’t think so.

Sigmund: You think too much, comrade. Us, we’re not here to think. You pocket your twelve dinars a day. That’s regulation pay. But when it starts, we will get all the extras….

Larbi: What do you mean?

Sigmund: But, the extras, what you pick from the enemy, it can be a lot.

Larbi: I don’t want my wife to give birth alone.

Sigmund: Ok, go on find him, the sun’s coming up. We won’t get the signal today. I’ll say I sent you to watch the bridge. Run home comrade, where you little wife will lay her cutlet.

Larbi: Thanks. See you tomorrow.

Sigmund: Stop! It’s the signal. They have landed. You know what you gotta do. Go to the depot and organize the distribution. Two of Kemal’s guys will meet you there. I’m leaving for Ardebil. Tell everyone that Francois Premier has arrived and that this time it’s going to be big. Bye!

Larbi: Bye!

Lou Birkanian: Hey, twins. Why aren’t you playing in the Larose’s yard? Why do you have to stick to me like flies to honey? What do you want now, huh?

Nelson: Granny, tell us a story.

Sandy: Oh yes! Granny a story.

Nelson: A true story.

Sandy: That’s it, a true story. A story about you.

Lou Birkanian: You know all my true stories about myself by heart. They are all the same.

Sandy: It doesn’t matter. We like it. Tell us anyway.

Nelson: Tell us where you were born.

Sandy: And you could draw us cards.

Lou Birkanian: Well, what do you want, cards or stories?

Sandy: Both, together.

Lou Birkanian: Not possible.

Nelson: Then one after the other, if you wish.

Lou Birkanian: That’s not possible, it’s not good.

Sandy: Why?

Lou Birkanian: It’s just not done. It’s like oil and vinegar, they don’t mix. Eh?

Sandy: What about vinaigrette, and mayonnaise? You can do it!

Lou Birkanian: Look at the little genius! Always better than the others, eh? Always has to have the last word, eh? That’s what you want, my bad boy, eh?

Lou Birkanian: Why are you laughing?

Sandy: Because you made a mistake. I’m not Nelson, I’m Sandy.

Lou Birkanian: And you’re starting to mock me again, eh? You still want to drive me crazy, eh? Where did I put my glasses? Go get my glasses.

Sandy: Feel.

Lou Birkanian: Ok, you’re right, anyone can make a mistake. Go find my glasses.

Sandy: You’re angry, eh Granny?

Lou Birkanian: My glasses!

Nelson: You don’t need glasses to tell us a story.

Sandy: Or to pull cards for us . . .

Lou Birkanian: I don’t have my cards.

Sandy: Here they are.

Lou Birkanian: I already told you not to touch my cards.

Nelson: Granny, you lost. You already put your hand into her panties. You owe us a forfeit.

Sandy: Granny, be nice.

Nelson: We’ll listen.

Lou Birkanian: Damned breed, give me my cards and stop snickering, eh?

Sandy: Dear Granny.

Lou Birkanian: (chanting) A dora Nigo, Ajnia Voula, Aiglich Nougel simariva, Lou vynau ga, Sa mligro.
On the slopes of the Elbrouz, a great volcano that touches the sky, there is a promontory where the birds of the Caucasus, each year, come to rest before undertaking their southward migration. It is there that I was born. Ach! Karakravoy madrega lovin! In the beginning, in the very beginning, it was hell. There is nothing but screams, the clash of arms, fire everywhere. I can still hear the roar of the burning houses, the cavalcades, the neighing of Kyrgyz horses in the badly paved street, the orders shouted in a barbarous language, the joyous screams of warriors when they kill. Karakravoy madrega slovin ouzbeck! Hell in one night. And then, the next morning, amid the ruins, in the dead city, there is a little girl who cries. She is covered with blood and soot. At the end of her arm, she holds a crippled doll. She stumbles… my poor dears, why do you want me to tell you that?

Sandy: Go on.

Nelson: We like it. Tell us how the Cossack decapitated with his sabre, three prisoners in a row.

Sandy: Tell us how they burned your grandfather with camel hair soaked in grease.

Nelson: And the glass splinters in the eyes of orthodox priest.

Sandy: Tell us what they did to women with fence posts and the strands of barbed wire.

Lou Birkanian: (groaning) Giar. Giar. Giar. Mroguelioun. Giar. Giaz ango a ma lina.

Nelson: How they crushed the grocer under the tavern table with increasingly heavy rocks.

Sandy: And the little boy cut into eight with the wood-mill saw.

Nelson: And the vultures?

Sandy: Oh yes, the vultures!

Lou Birkanian: Enough, my sweets, enough, my angels.

Sandy: Tell us about your mother, Granny.

Nelson: We like that.

Lou Birkanian: My mother was saved by climbing up the high bell tower. She pulled the ladder up behind her. There was no other ladder as long in the whole city. Like that no one could climb up the tower. She had put in an oat bag my two little brothers, pele-mele. She also had a kitchen knife. A barbarian spotted her. He shot at her. The bells started to ring. A death squad assembled at the base of the tower. They all fired at the steeple. The bells rang very prettily, but they still could not get up the tower. Then they brought straw and furniture and they set them on fire; when the flames had climbed halfway up, my mother took out the children of the oat bag. With her kitchen knife she cut their throats. And she held them out by their legs, one on either side of her. The soldiers stopped shooting. My mother screamed at them: “It was I who killed them, it was I who killed them, Arak ema si lem!” She threw the children in the fire. Then she stripped naked. She took her kitchen knife in both hands, she pressed the point low down among her hairs, the cutting edge turned upwards, ten with one single stroke, like she used to do with fishes, she opened up her belly. Her bowels gushed into the fire. When she fell, we heard her cry her throughout the city. She called for her mother.

Nelson: That’s a beautiful story, Granny.

Sandy: Yes, that’s a beautiful story.

Lou Birkanian: Now, the cards. The Venetian wheel.
What do you give?
What do you take?
Rest in paradise.
Deliverance in hell.

Sandy: What does that mean?

Lou Birkanian:  Chance that turns on itself. Uncertain times, anything is possible. But nothing is sure. Fate is not yet closed. The coming month will be full of changes. Avoid taking irreparable decisions.

Nelson: Another!

Lou Birkanian: The king of glory!
Neither too early, nor too late.
What must be said, what must be done,
All the beggars are going to the fields.
That, that is power in second position. Strong enough to spin the big wheel, not strong enough to stop it.

Nelson and Sandy: Another!

Lou Birkanian: Careful, now it becomes more serious, it’s the first triangle.

Sandy: Go on, Granny. Don’t be afraid.

Lou Birkanian: The messenger!
At noon, the wager.
In the morning, sorrow.
In the evening, hope.

Nelson: That doesn’t mean anything.

Lou Birkanian: Wait! The messenger brings the fourth. One, two, three, four.

Sandy: Turn.

Lou Birkanian: The foolish virgin!
The eye of my belly divides me,
Above reason enlightened me,
Beneath all is darkness.
Well, my lovelies, you aren’t going to be bored. Always running after the great ahan, eh? Always hunting, never satisfied, wallowing in bitchiness. Moist filly, delirious goat, unable to appease the beast. Why, good gods of good gods? Why? To seek what? Oh I knew it, I knew it well, ever since I first held you in my arms. Already in the crib, already with the lace curtains, it was the foolish virgin who panicked you, eh? Ah ouatch barakrava sibbek. What will happen will happen. Go therefore, fornicate, ca prolonge, it feels good in the heart, it whips the blood. Fornicate like devils.

Sandy: What do you mean?

Lou Birkanian: Don’t play the innocent.

Sandy: What do you mean?

Lou Birkanian: You’ll know soon enough.

Nelson: Be quiet both of you. Draw another one.

Lou Birkanian: The two towers. The foolish virgin likes the two towers, well that’s proper! A pimp! A whore!

Sandy: What does that mean?

Lou Birkanian: It means, in the coming month, you will do me the pleasure of coming straight home from school. And you, I forbid you to play with the Williams kids. I don’t like that big asparagus, Roy. I know what he does with cats.

Nelson: Granny, you believe everything that’s said about him.

Lou Birkanian: I know what I know. And his sister Anne, she’s no better.

Sandy: Granny, don’t get excited like that, your cards are not funny.

Lou Birkanian: The cards were not made to be funny. They are warnings. So, I warn you, eh. I don’t want to see you with the Williams kids any more. You understand, eh? Then enough is enough, we stop the cards.

Nelson: One more!

Lou Birkanian: No, I warned you, understand. Finished with the Williams, eh?

Sandy: One more, Granny, the last, and we will be warned.

Lou Birkanian: Good, and you, you understand, I warn you, eh?

Nelson: Granny, don’t haggle with me. One more card and I am warned.

Lou Birkanian: Good, the last. (She turns a card then shuffles the deck) Good, it’s finished.

Nelson: Why did you do that? Why did you shuffle the deck?

Lou Birkanian: I turned the wrong card, which makes everything false. Go and get ready, we are going to visit the Larose’s. Hurry up and wash your hands. Sandy, comb your hair and put a bow in it.

Nelson: I’m not Sandy, I’m Nelson.

Lou Birkanian: Liar. My glasses. You’ve hidden my glasses.

Nelson: Feel!

Lou Birkanian: Good, it’s you Nelson, okay, hurry up, I’ll wait for you in the car.

Sandy: Why didn’t she want to explain the last card.

Nelson: She’s nuts.

Sandy: What was the last card?

Nelson: The blind monk.

Sandy: That’s why she stopped?

Nelson: I don’t know. She’s nuts.

Francois Premier: Where are my troops? The detachment of Prince Ambrosio should have already landed in the port. Don’t descend right now – That column of dust from the river Araks, that is our supplementary Baluchis and Georgian mountaineers. Go, head for them. (He adjusts his radio) Alexander calling Iberville. Alexander calling Iberville. Damn, their shit machine is still completely fucked. This is Alexander, this is Alexander… Alexander calling Macedonia, Alexander calling Joan of Arc, Alexander calling Ecbatana, Alexander calling Samarkand. And here are the war tanks of Artaxerxes pouring into the plain. And Schwartzenberg, over there, with the hussars of death. All is well, the trap closes, victory is ours. You can descend now. Land on that promontory. This is Alexander, this is Alexander … Damn radio! Go on down, we are here. (on the radio) To all units, this is Francois Premier speaking: comrades in combat, the first phase of our expedition is a total success. The enemy is caught in a trap. All that is left is to exterminate them. Now give your greatest effort. To carnage, for the defence of humanity. (the pilot dies) what’s this, what’s happening? (he turns over the body of the pilot which is pierced by an arrow) The arrow of Parthia!

Filippo Ragone: They all take me for a moron. Perhaps with reason. I have the age for it. In any case, it suits me that they think it: “plus obliger de leur tenir tete. Plus oblige d’etre fier.” I am the trash, the alien. The trash isn’t proud. My pride I keep in there, on the inside. And in there, on the inside, I am satisfied. They are agitated. They hate. They fight to the death. Me I amuse myself watching them go and I remember. Yeh!
I see it all, Lou Birkanian, the good soul, encumbered the two twins of Marc Lemieux, the sorcerer that is called to the palace on big occasions. Yeh! And makes for you prophecies. Yeh! The Armenian princess. Yeh! The nanny! And Francois Premier, ouch, ouch, ouch, my gender, ouch, ouch, ouch, it’s too funny; it makes no sense. He’s going to make me die of laughter. He thinks he’s something else. He leads his armies to the frontiers, he thinks he leads, it is they who pull him forward. He will end up by rotting like everyone else. In the mire; or on the mountain; when you die it’s always the mire, Yeh!
And the Roberge sisters, Judith, Emma the slut, Yeh! They have never forgiven me for having them taken their Angela, their elder, their model. Their model! Shut up you Roberge sisters! Shut up Judith the whore, Emma the slut, you make me want to spit. Your Angela, the princess of Abitibi through her father, the old count Roberge sitting on his gold mines, your Angela I know what she was, know what happens when you cry out for real, when you cannot fake it, in pleasure or in pain. It’s the same thing! I was thirty years older than she, and what did that do. She’s dead. I am younger than her, now. I know what you were, Angela, and yet I did not understand anything.
Angela, why did you do that? What took you? Did Catherine frighten you? The Ragone whirlwind? Catherine was with me; she continued my race. Jealousy? You, the sweet Angel, jealous of Catherine? Why did you do that?  Why did you crash your machine into the stone wall? To punish me? For what? For having engendered this fire ball that looks like me? Then you should not have entered the Ragone house. You should have stayed in your place and nursed the sores of old Father Roberge. Sweet, too sweet Angela, what do you say now your mouth filled with dead leaves? The dead never win anything. And me, I live. But quiet, people are coming, the old Filippo puts on his mask again. The rat-without-a-tail, drooling and smiling foolishly at all your inanities. The indignant father enjoying your indignities. Yeh!

Freddy: Robert!

Robert Houle: What are you, a moron. What’s bothering you, stupid?

Freddy: Where are we going to go now?

Robert Houle: It’s simple, we’re going to do the world.

Freddy: Where will we start?

Robert Houle: With the Laroses.

Freddy: Are you sure they won’t recognize us?

Robert Houle: I’m sure. Put your rag on and stay still. If you don’t say a word, they won’t know it’s us.

Freddy: Ok, then. And after?

Robert Houle: After, we’re going to the Williams.

Freddy: Roy will hit us.

Robert Houle: Nah, I saw him going out the back with his sack. He’s gone to the Chinese.

Freddy: And after that?

Robert Houle: After that we’re going to the Premiers. They’ve got stuff. Francois Premier is at the war.

Freddy: I like it there.

Robert Houle: At the Premiers?

Freddy: Yah!

Robert Houle: It seems that Madame Premier is going to have a baby.

Freddy: How do you know that?

Robert Houle: My father said it.

Freddy: What did he say?

Robert Houle: He said “Catherine Ragone was stuffed in the first, fat in the second and in the third she will be flat. (he laughs)

Freddy: What’s so funny?

Robert Houle: She was stuffed in the first. You understand? Catherine Ragone, Madame Premier, you get it?

Freddy: Oh yeah… yeah!

Robert Houle: You find that funny?

Robert Houle: But you’re not laughing?

Freddy: No.

Robert Houle: You’re so stupid!

Freddy: Robert…

Robert Houle: Yeaaah?

Freddy: What does that mean: stuffed?

Robert Houle: It means putting it in.

Freddy: Putting what in?

Robert Houle: Well, your pecker.

Freddy: Where?

Robert Houle: Well, in the belly-button. You’re so stupid. (He takes out a long cigarette holder and puts a cigarette in the end.)

Freddy: What is that?

Robert Houle: It’s my big sister’s.

Freddy: Will you let me try?

Robert Houle: Be careful not to choke yourself. Maybe it’s too strong for you.

Freddy: Dead. They’re all dead. All these women are dead. They are going to the cemetery in a procession. Madame Ragone! Angela!

Angela: My dear! You still remember! Angela, oh yes, Angela, that is my name. You haven’t forgotten me Alfred. Look, the vase wasn’t broken, Filippo did not fight with you. Everything is fixed, re-glued, there’s not a trace. Oooh, the noise in my ears. I have to leave on a trip. Oooh the mill, the mill is going too fast, the mill is going too hard. Oooh, the wall approaches, the scrap metal, the siren, Oooh I have to go. Good night, Alfred. (She leaves. The monk crosses tapping his clock.)

Freddy: Madame Ragone, if you leave so fast, you’ll be in an accident.

Augustine Labelle: Don’t upset yourself, lie down Freddy. Lie down there. (She carries a long white cotton sheet.) My little Alcide is coming, I’m preparing his bed. Help me, help me, in two weeks he will be here, you will come and see him on the balcony. Love me, Love me.

Freddy: Augustine Labelle!

Augustine Labelle: Death in childbirth, death in childbirth! Death in childbirth! (She pours a pot of milk on her baby’s sheet.)

Freddy: The flies!

Augustine Labelle: Never mind.

Freddy: No. Don’t do that. The flies! We must drive them away. Francois Premier is at war. He won’t come back; I want to drive away the flies. They fall into the milk of misery and I have my swatter.

Augustine Labelle: Don’t chase the flies, Freddy, innocent Freddy. Listen to the flies. They sing. They accompany me. See you soon, my friend, my young friend.

Marilyn Monroe: What are you looking at?

Freddy: Nothing, nothing, I promise you I saw nothing.

Marilyn Monroe: Do you want to see? Do you want?

Freddy: No, no, no, what do you think… yes!

Marilyn Monroe: Like at Robert’s? In the closet?

Freddy: Yes, Marilyn, like at Robert’s.

Marilyn Monroe: Open your eyes.

Freddy: Marilyn Monroe!

Robert Houle: Come on, Freddy. The church bells have just sounded. It’s already seven o’clock.

Freddy: I like smoking a lot. It makes me cry. It makes me see things.

Robert Houle: Oh yeah!  What did you see?

Freddy: The moon. Will you go one day to the moon?

Robert Houle: Sure.

Freddy: Why didn’t you say so?

Robert Houle: My father said: “in twenty years everyone will go to the moon for their honeymoons.” The honey moon, he said. He laughed like an idiot.

Freddy: Why did he laugh?

Robert Houle: Because it’s funny. You’re so stupid.

Freddy: Robert!

Robert Houle: Yeah!

Freddy: Look, Robert, Look. Do you think that she came from the moon? And that she’s going back there?

Robert Houle: Nah! That’s Marie-Jeanne Larose. She’s Joan of Arc tonight but I promised not to tell anyone.

Freddy: Is she going home?

Robert Houle: No, she’s going to my house. And we’re going to hers. Put on your rag, and be quiet. They won’t recognize us. Come on, stupid.

Francois Premier: We are now in sight of Mount Ararat. We will climb to the top of the mountain from there, carve up the world. Schwarzenberg, in recognition of your services, I intend to give you dominion over all Anatolia. What say you?

Schwarzenberg: Your Majesty, can I, first of all, ask your Highness, when you will deign to speak to me, to give me the titles and particulars that belong to me. I am not Schwarzenberg-boot-polisher, your valet, I am the Count Fonne-ount-Tsou Schwarzenberg, your humble servant.

Francois Premier: Punctilious about the words, my dear Count Fonne-ount-Tsou. Mais Viarge, Chasubles, Étole et et St. Chrême! We are soldiers, with our swords in our hands and our balls in the wind. We have come to crush the Ottoman armies. We are not diplomats at the court of Marie-Therese.

Schwarzenberg: Still, Sire, it matters to me.

Francois Premier: Ok! Ok! Fonne-ount-Tsou, Ok! We won’t quibble about it. What is Ambrosio doing?

Schwarzenberg: Prince Ambrosio has gone to find the Pope in Rome. He should be back soon.

Francois Premier: Ah, a victory, Schwartzenberg. (Schwartzenberg flinches, hurt again) Count Fonne-out-Tsou Schwartzenberg! Don’t give me that look, OK… I’m sorry! What was I saying? Ah yes: victory. It’s grand, victory. Deliverance! It sprouts in your belly for a long time. It swarms there for a long time, like a colic --shapeless, uncertain. You feed it without wanting to. Yet it is there. Every minute you sense it swelling and yourself growing heavier. You feel that you cannot unpack yourself, that you will not know how to walk your path until you have spawned it. And then one day, the time is ripe, it shoots out of you with all its knives. It tears you in passing, born in the end with the screams. It is before you, all naked, all new, your victory, your bloody daughter.

Schwarzenberg: And then she doesn’t belong to you anymore.

Francois Premier: “Casseux de party”, cold piss, wet blanket. You'll never know what real fun is, fun to death. (Trumpets) “Tiens, v'là de monde.”

Prince Ambrosio: Her Holiness the Pope.

Francois Premier: Hey! Hey! What’s that? It’s a woman! There’s something wrong here! The Pope! Papa! The Papa of the Vatican! It’s not possible. That’s not at all possible. The Pope…

Pope Joan: I am Pope Joan. Kiss my ring, my son.

Francois Premier: It’s not a Papa, it’s a Mamma, madre mia, mamma mia.

Pope Joan: And stop stuttering, brat.

Francois Premier: But finally, Holiness, Saint Throne, Saint Curia, Saint Bull, what does it mean.

Pope Joan: It’s like this, times have changed. Get used to it. The Lord’s ways are impenetrable. But let’s pause the prefaces and the various appetizers and get serious. My jet waiting for me at the door to take me to Jakarta for a Eucharistic tour. Why did you make me come to this inhospitable desert? Where are we?

Francois Premier: Saint Siege! So, it’s like that, you don’t even recognize the place? What did you learn at the Higher Institute of Biblical Studies? It’s Mount Ararat, moron, the sacred mountain where the ark of Nah made its landfall. It is from this summit that we will draw the map of the new alliance. Just like the survivor of the flood, it is from there that I will re-organize the world. On this new agreement it is important that Rome be present with the Tiara and sprinkle the holy water ad usum omnium gentium, ex cathedra urbi et orbi. I did my classical studies, for Christ’s sake!

Pope Joan: Prince Ambrosio and you Graf Fonne-ount-Tsou Schwarzenberg, listen to me. I will not lift the tip of my smallest finger to bless this enterprise without a good idea of where you are headed.
As for you, Francois Premier, put away your cliques and your slaps as quickly, if you want to escape the disaster.
The Mongol hordes approach. They are led by my good cousin Genghis Kahn. He is terrible. Return as quickly as possible to your vegetable garden in Bourbonnais Street, and satisfy yourself with growing tomatoes and cucumbers there. You got the era wrong. I tell you again, the times have changed. You are out of fashion. Go home, Godefroy de Bouillon.

Francois Premier: I will not abandon my empire on the verge of triumph.

Pope Joan: As you wish! I am leaving for Jakarta. The Indonesian crowds will crown me with flowers, while you, you will sink in the mass graves of your victories. Prince Ambrosio and you, Graf Fonne-ount-Tsou Schwarzenberg, accompany me to the entrance of my ship.

Francois Premier: All fools. All traditions lost. There is no longer a Pope. Well, I am still here. I remain King Francois Premier. And so, comrades. This is not the time to go soft. Together we will climb Mount Ararat.

The Army: Long live Francois Premier!

Judith: Good day, Catherine. Good day to the Queen mother. Will it be soon?

Catherine: In the springtime.

Judith: Ah, a July baby?

Catherine: In August, the 4th.

Judith: You seem pretty sure of yourself.

Catherine: Yes.

Judith: Pas bien parlante à matin.

Catherine: No.

Judith: Good. If all is well, I’m going home. We have to keep an eye out for snow. They’re calling for a storm on the weekend. Goodbye, Catherine. Take good care of yourself.

Catherine: Judith, talk to me about him.

Judith: Who is him?

Catherine: Your child.

Judith: My kids? Roy? Annie? Well, they grow. “Ils poussent en bapteme.” But they’re very different from each other. With Roy, you never know what he’s thinking. He has his own little things going on, he’s independent. He says that he has “deals” going on. I don’t know what he means by that. He must have learned that word from his comic books.

Catherine: and the other…

Judith: Annie? She’s the complete opposite of her brother. She’s not bothered by anything; she sings all the time. Maybe she gets that from her mother. Me, when I was a kid.

Catherine: No. The other child.

Judith: Just what are you after?

Catherine: The other.

Judith: How do you know that?

Catherine: I know. That’s all.

Judith: I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about, I’ve rebuilt my life, that’s the past.

Catherine: What happened to you? Tell me that.

Judith: Catherine Ragone! You, that calls herself Madame Premier. You have all your court around you. The car waits for you when you want to go out. Soon you will be the Queen Mother forevermore. Me, if I found myself in your place, I would be Judith Roberge and nothing more. I am not some Lady Somebody. And yet I was a queen too. The queen of the western at the Spartacus Bar. That was my kingdom, understand? The Spartacus Bar. Between Tannery Street and Arsenal Square, on Belle-Ile Boulevard. At sixteen, I won my first battle, I went into the cage with a mike. At seventeen I was up on the stage as the warm-up act. At eighteen, I was the main act. I had already had two abortions. There wasn’t going to be anything in my way, I was off to a great start. And then I met Lemieux. Marc Lemieux, beautiful Marc, my prince. Oh yes, we lived together for five months. So crazy! We couldn’t get enough of each other. He was married. It seems he had other children, but he always told me not to worry. He would fix everything. Me, I loved him to death, I could see nothing but him. When I told him I was pregnant, he seemed happy. He fooled me. He even bought me flowers, the only flowers I ever got from a man. He took care of me like I was a Saint, I became large… And then, one day, he didn’t come home. Gone, vanished, he left me a letter: “We had some good times together, you will always be my baby. Ciao, Marc.” I learned that he’d sold everything and bought a bar in Panama. I tried to find him, the embassy there said that they didn’t know of any Marc Lemieux in their country. I understood that it was finished.

Catherine: And the child?

Judith: I did just like what’s in the catechism, the Bible, I put it on the waters of the Nile. In a rowboat, at the foot of the current. Moise! I did not want the Egyptians to kill him. They didn’t kill him. My son “flye” on the river. He lives. He is a king on an island. He has children with Afro-Asian women. And one day, he will return at the head of all of his tribe. That will be the revenge of the Roberges. With his dromedaries and his elephants, he will crush the slaves of Spartacus. Everywhere there will be fire. He will not recognize me, but when I see his face, his eye, his bull-like chest, his stiff dick, I will know it’s him. I will say to him: “Kill me quickly! Kill the old western whore. Make me a saint, a sacrifice, the Maria Goretti of the suburbs.
For now, I am the servant of the Lord. I pray my empty prayers in the Methodist temple. I became Madame, yes Catherine Ragone, Madame Williams. I am the legal wife of Peter Williams, the pastor, I have born my legitimate children Roy Williams and Annie Williams and, in their legitimate bodies and their legitimate souls, they carry all the venom that I have swallowed. You will see one day; you will see the wolves the breed of wolves who hunt their own territories. Make way for the servant of the Lord. Moise will kill you one day, Catherine Ragone, because Moise will return helmeted, on the day of Canaan, the day when all the walls will crumble under the trumpets of my navigator.
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Catherine: Poor demented woman. And you, my dear, don’t listen, and don’t kick at the door. It’s not time yet. Patience. The snow is falling, it’s too cold. Wait for the pretty spring. I will never abandon you.

Lou Birkanian: Alcide, my dear.

Alcide: I wanted to see you both.

Lou Birkanian: How you’ve grown!

Alcide: …you and Marie-Jeanne.

Lou Birkanian: How old are you? It was only eight years ago and I was breast-feeding you.

Alcide: Well, look how much your milk has prospered me. I am only eight years old.

Lou Birkanian: How extraordinary.

Alcide: And also remember the prodigious nature of my birth. My mother, Augustine Labelle, torn, dying while I, with my bare hands strangled the serpents sent against me by the gods of the night. I am eight years old but time does not count. What is time? I am leaving. The air of the court holds no good for me. It is woven with plots to oust me from the throne. Catherine Ragone carries in her womb the child of my father, Francois Premier et the fruit of a new love always casts a shadow on the offspring of the first bed.  I cannot live in that shadow, the wide world calls, and I’m leaving.

Lou Birkanian: Where are you going?

Alcide: Wet-nurse, my name is Alcide. My mother died giving me life. At the instant of my birth, the sewers of the city spat out their serpents to kill me in my cradle. But death had no hold on me, I carry in my body, the momentum of desire, the original restlessness, I do not stagnate in the alleys of the Haymarket, the chatter of monkeys, the soiled water of all your clams. I see the sea glistening in the distance, the islands of the sun, the riverbanks crowded with fruit, the long boats. I see the deserts, the mountains, unfamiliar people, I hear the cry of raucous birds. My nostrils are stuffed with the odour of pepper, cumin, star anise, coriander and saffron. I want to gorge myself until delirium. I feel on my skin the caress of the trade-winds “et je bande.”

Lou Birkanian: Why did you make me come here, me and her.

Alcide: To perform a marriage.

Lou Birkanian: Go elsewhere, the world is full of women.

Alcide: This is where I plant my departing pennant.

Lou Birkanian: Ah! Kirghiz, kalmouk, Turkmen, uzbek, tatar, mongol! Go loose your hordes on the steppes of Asia but let this child grow to her own rhythm among the maples and Indian corn.

Alcide: Cease your advice, wet-nurse, rather sing the hymn of Hymen; sing it loud. Sing it very loud. Sing the song of cloth that was sung by your ancestors on the slopes of the Caucasus. It’s the music that must accompany, at the outset, the handiwork of Penelope. I will perform the wedding and then I will go to Azerbaijan!

Catherine: We have been around the block. It restores the circulation to the legs. We breathe the outdoor air. And then, I like to talk to you. It’s good when people don’t respond, never respond, cannot respond. We pour into them like an open vase. That’s freedom. Water flows, and we dream.

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!

Catherine: That’s all that you know how to say and it’s enough. One syllable from time to time. Ah! Communication! (Filippo puts his hand on her belly.) Your hand on my belly, sure! Your thumb pressed into my navel, yes! In a few weeks it will be more difficult, I will be full to bursting. With your index finger you draw a dial on my sphere. My dream comes true. All the faces of my Richard appear to me in this medallion. Turn the dial, Filippo Ragone. (Filippo moves his index finger down.) It’s six o’clock in the morning, the day begins: Richard, my son, the source of all beauty, plays among the flowers. When he throws himself in my arms his neck is soft under my kisses, his skin tastes of fresh maple syrup. Turn. (Filippo turns his index finger horizontal.) It’s nine o’clock, the horse jumps over the fence, he snorts feverishly, solitary, he charges down the hill, galloping. He is powerful; the fillies part at his passage but the bend the gate to watch him stealthily from behind. Noon, Filippo! (Filippo obeys.) Richard climbs the great staircase. I see the guardian goddesses, dressed in white marble, which hedge the stairs: knowledge, strength, beauty, justice, cunning and also that little, but indispensable, goddess: seduction. He reaches the portico. Change the hands, it is three o’clock. (Filippo does so.) A summer afternoon, motionless, blazing in all its glory. The trumpets sound. My son Richard is King. Stop your clock. (Filippo withdraws his hand.) The reign of Richard will not end. My son is immortal. There will never be a twilight. There will be no night. I’m right, eh Dad? Richard can’t die. I’m right, eh? Children don’t die?

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!

Catherine: We’ll come back tomorrow. Tomorrow I will make other dreams.

Francois Premier: They have all abandoned me. They ran down to the plains like hares that were reloaded onto their speedboat without a battle. Ambrosio, Schwarzenberg. All cowards! I should have been more careful with that bunch of rats. And Lou Birkanian, she screwed up with her prophesies, the witch! “No living being” she predicted, “No living being will ever give you death.” I’m starving. I’m tired and exhausted. My wounds are getting worse and my lungs are drying out. Is that what she meant? That I would die here on Mount Ararat? Escaped the flood but killed by this fiery sun? Hercules! Prometheus! Sisyphus! My friends! Francois Premier today re-joins you at the top of the mountain and I don’t even have a hope for Noah’s dove. “Calvaire! Ouis, tous au calvaire!” All, all, we end it all. Why this eternal ascent? Must we climb always, always labouring, always suffering, and tirelessly repeating the world of pain just to carry so high our carrion? (He passes out. Enter a masked woman dressed in an Afghan and wearing a huge gourd on her head. Francois Premier wakes up.) Who are you? Speak, do you want my life? Look, I’m unarmed, come closer and give me something to drink. I can’t stand. (He faints again, the woman takes off her gourd. She takes Francois Premier onto her knees in the pose of the Pieta; he wakes up) Give me drink (the woman gives him her breast, he drinks.) Ah! The fire is inside me, my belly burns. It’s the white liquor, the house cheese. Augustin Labelle, you found me. You’re feeding me. You’re taking me… (He dies.)

TheWoman: …dead in childbirth. Dead in childbirth. dead in childbirth. (The woman undresses Francois Premier andputs him, naked, into the gourd, then leaves dragging him behind her.)

Catherine: He’s coming, he’s knocking on the door, close the curtains, burn the incense, strew palm leaves on the ground. Like the torches. Let the house be filled with lilies. And music! Send for the musicians. Dawn will soon rise. The first light of the first day of May.

First Messenger: I wish I had the words of honey to sweeten your labour, but the slave of truth, I must say that which I could not hide for long.

Catherine: Speak.

First Messenger: On our western frontier the dams are breached, ravaging the lands of our allies. They are threatening Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk.

Catherine: What matters a disastrous spring thaw. Soon the sun of July will make the uprooted shoots bloom again. The Queen Mother is on the job. The eye of the typhoon opens between my legs with all the fury of Krakatoa and you tell me about seasonal flooding. Begone, “gourgosseux”, go sing your lament to the Minister of water and Forests. “Dewors!!”

Second Messenger: Horror! A toxic cloud is covering the Matapedia valley. Trees. Livestock, humans, everything withers and dies in the noxious air.

Catherine: Put gas masks on the horses and children. Let the old ones die, they’ve lived long enough. Organize the evacuation of the useful to the northern glaciers.

Third Messenger: Our research facility at Point-aux-Foulons has just sold itself to the revolt of the sons of Frankenstein. They have attacked the National Guard and crushed them. No gun can touch them. Their bands desolate the cities and the countrysides.

Catherine: Set the forests on fire. Dynamite all the bridges leading to the capital. Francois will be back soon. Francois and his cavalry will put us back on top. (Enter the fourth messenger.) Who are you? What else do you want, bird of ill-omen?

Fourth Messenger: This is the most terrible news. And I have to bring it. Our hope, our power, our guardian is no longer. Francois Premier is dead.

Catherine: Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh well. Francois Premier! Always absent when danger menaces! Always elsewhere when the pain grips you! This is not the time to weep for a useless cadaver. The ram strikes the doors with repeated blows. The gateway cracks. The hinges give way. Go to the tower, messenger, assemble the people with trumpets and all the power of your voice until you make your gullet fart. Hurl throughout all the city the double news: the King is dead! Long live the King!

Catherine: Francois Premier is dead! Long live Richard the King!

Filippo Ragone: Yeh!