Beniamin Bukowski

MAZAGAN, THE CITY

Supplies for a drama

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

FIRST ONE, SAYING

SECOND ONE, SAYING
THIRD ONE, SAYING
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
FIFTH ONE, SAYING

1
SCENE ONE
FIRST ONE, SAYING
We are the ones who speak in this play, a play on the subject of relocation

SECOND ONE, SAYING

A play on the subject of permanent relocation

THIRD ONE, SAYING

On what “home” means and on why everyone -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- deep inside their hearts –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- prefer having home to homeliness.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

On whether it is possible to preserve one’s home even when you are permanently being
relocated.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Or on whether one can lose his home without even leaving it.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

We are going to tell a story of a city which crossed the ocean.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And which have not travelled into outer space, although it might have.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We are going to tell about the funny fact that one can leave his or her flat just for a short
moment, leaving the inhabitants and the personal belongings in a certain configuration, and
then come back and find out that in spite of this configuration being almost unchanged, it is
no longer the same flat one has previously left.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Entry code has been changed, just to quote Michael Haneke.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Not to feel unnecessary sadness, however, we are also going to tell you that you can take
your home with yourself, wherever you go.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

That just a few memories, just a few books – that’s much enough to settle down somewhere
and to feel at home there.

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SECOND ONE, SAYING
That making a map of a city in your head is a permanent process, which requires a lot of
work.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That to do it, we use words, art and imagination.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

That we must take all our effort to keep describing the word. Again and again.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We have to take all our effort to turn countless stimuli into shapes, people and things and to
give them names.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And that our home is the result of such description.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

So we are going to tell you about our home. About how to build it -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- how you lose it –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- and whether it is possible to regain it.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We will tell you all these things in hard times, when people take to the streets.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

We will do it in hard times, when people not only take to the streets, but also tear off some
parts of those streets and throw them into other people, shouting loud.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We will tell you all those things, since we believe that streets are for walking, not for being
thrown and that theatre is for watching and listening, for meeting people.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That talking to each other is better than shouting at each other.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And that listening is the best thing to do.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

That building is better than destroying.

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THIRD ONE, SAYING
That sympathizing is better than hating.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And that we are all afraid of something, but our fear can be tamed.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

That’s what homes are for.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

We will tell you the story and will feel rewarded if any of you will take a part of it to your
home.

SCENE TWO

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Don’t you have a feeling that, explaining the meaning of the play, you deprive it from its
sense?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

No, since meanings tend to be misleading.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And senses artificially joined with situations.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

We are not talking about the subject of the play to explain or to impose anything.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We don’t do it to be given a break after the play is over and to avoid being forced to give a
strict exegesis.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We create no proper key of interpretation.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We don’t even make our subject precise in order to tighten the composition, which would
disintegrate otherwise.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

It will disintegrate anyway, I assure you.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We tell you what the play will we about just not to forget about it.

4
SCENE THREE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

One day I went for a walk and decided to enter a bookshop.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

One day, and it was definitely a beautiful day, I went for a walk and decided to enter a
bookshop.

THIRD, ONE, SAYING

Of course it’s a nonsense, since I cannot remember whether the day was beautiful or not.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Nevertheless. That very day I was interested in books laying on shelves, so the day had to be
beautiful. That’s because lately my days can be divided into the beautiful ones, the ones
when I find many things interesting, and into days which are definitely not beautiful, when I
am irritated and apathetic and nothing, including books, is interesting for me.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

So it must have been a beautiful day.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

During which I went for a walk and decided to enter a bookshop.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

To the discount bookshop in Cracow, at Grodzka street.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

To the discount bookshop in Cracow, at Grodzka street, the place where I left a huge part of
my savings during the last five or six years of my life.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Whenever I enter a bookshop, I feel somehow obliged to leave it with a book in my hands.
So the days which are the worst are those when I enter a bookshop and no book seems
interesting to me. I spend a lot of time trying to find a proper one and if I fail, I leave the
place feeling devastated.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

But sometimes, even when the day is beautiful, I am unable to pick up a proper book, and
then I simply feel embarrassed. Whenever I enter a shop, any kind of a shop, and leave it
without buying something, I leave it feeling very embarrassed.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Whenever I enter a shop, any kind of a shop, and leave it without buying something, I leave
it feeling as if I have stolen something from it, although I have never stolen anything from a
shop. Well, apart from one time, when I was still a baby, but this shouldn’t count, should it?
However, sometimes, when I enter a shop, I am so embarrassed by the fact that I have

5
nothing in particular to buy, I simply buy a totally unnecessary thing: a box of matches, a
bottle of water, a chocolate bar, just not to be taken for a thief.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

I visit the discount bookshop very often, just as I do in case of most bookshops in the centre
of Cracow -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- their number is getting smaller rapidly, I have to add -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- I visit them very often, much more often than new books are being published, and since
the rotation of titles in the discount bookshop is slower than, let’s say, in regular bookshop
chains, sometimes it leads to a situation in which I am already in possession of most of the
books I’m interested in, and therefore I have to leave the place without new acquisitions.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Whenever I was leaving the place with no new purchases and with a suitcase in which I had
some books of mine, I behaved like a professional thief. I was slowing down while passing
the cashier, was greeting the bookseller, opened the door and left leisurely, pretending to
read a message in my mobile phone, and then, after a few meters, I gathered pace and was
turning either left to head to the university, or right, to head to my flat.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The flat was more to the right than the university, there is nothing I can do about it –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- but hopefully it has nothing to do with politics -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Whenever I was leaving the place with no new acquisitions and with a suitcase in which I had
some books of mine, I was imagining a scene in which I was stopped by the bookseller, who
asked me to hold on and to show what I have in my suitcase.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Beg my pardon, sir, would you mind showing me what you have in your suitcase?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The fear was irrational, but most of my visits in such places are, whenever a human being
appears between the bookshelves, built on irrational fears.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Beg my pardon, sir, would you mind showing me what you have in your suitcase?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

So I came up with an answer, which seemed very funny when I invented it and which
seemed much less funny when I thought it over, with which I would reply in such case.

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FIFTH, ONE, SAYING
Show me what you have in your suitcase, sir.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Sure I will. But first I would like to ask you a riddle. Whenever I pay you a visit, I leave your
bookshop with a book. I left a lot of money here. Nevertheless, I don’t always pay for the
books I leave with. But still, none of the books I take with myself were stolen. How is it
possible?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Of course the riddle is dumb, posing it is idiotic and the answer – the one that I brought
some books with myself – is clear. That’s not something I should be proud of –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- just like my tendency to make digressions –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That’s not something I should be proud of, just like my tendency to make digressions, yet I
tell you all these things just to explain the origin of this play -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- this play, which – to some extend – has started a few hundred years ago in Portugal, and –
on the other hand – started a year or two years ago in Cracow, in the discount bookshop at
Grodzka street.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Where I was attracted by a book about Mazagan.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

A book about the city which crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

SCENE FOUR

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

In the course of the 16th century the kings from the proud House of Aviz were sitting on the
throne of Portugal.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The kings might have been sitting, but Portugal -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

But Portugal was sailing and exploring.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The world was huge and Portugal was small –

7
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
Neighbouring countries were huge and Portugal was small –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And, to be honest, neighbouring countries disliked Portugal.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I want to grow –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- said Portugal one day –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- and it started settling trade posts along the coast of Africa.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Small fortresses aimed at protecting sailors heading South.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Hence, it was then, when many new places were established –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Ceuta, Tangier, Arzila –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Azemmour, Safi, Mamora –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Aguz, Castelo Real, Santa Cruz de Aguer -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

And then, one more fortress.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Mazagan was the name.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

It was in fifteen o’ four.

SCENE FIVE

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Alvarez, my good fellow, have a look.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

I am having a look, my commander.

8
SECOND ONE, SAYING
We have Mazagan here.
And here.
And here there is also Mazagan.
And here, and here, and here.
And here – well – here Mazagan is no more.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Why not?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

My poor lad. If it is here, it can’t be there.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

But let’s suppose it’s both here and there?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

If it were here, there and everywhere, we wouldn’t give it a name, would we? Why even
bother calling something, if it describes everything? The broader the scope of denotation,
the less useful the word. Mind my words, it would be wasteful.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Being wasteful is often the case, when it comes to our government -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Alvarez, my fellow, are you trying to suggest that -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Captain, look! There are people sitting in front of us.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Of course there are!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And they are staring at us.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Nevertheless, we are staring at them. That makes us even, I suppose.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It would, my good lord, if not for them being more numerous.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It means no more and no less than that all the eyes of the Christian world are now following
the actions of the Kingdom of Portugal.

9
THIRD ONE, SAYING
But, lord commander, just think it over.
We are in Mazagan now. They are not. There seem to be no obvious difference between
Mazagan and what is not Mazagan, in spite of Mazagan being surrounded by walls. And not-
Mazagan being outside those walls.
The Mazaganians will do everything to stay inside and protect Mazagan. And to get rid of
every kind of not-Mazagan trying to get into Mazagan, although something not Mazaganian
could perhaps turn into something Mazaganian as soon as it gets into Mazagan rather than
staying what it is.
For instance, if wheat is transported to Mazagan, it becomes Mazaganian at once. That’s the
case with food, fireworks and cannons.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And people?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

People might seem problematic. Royal troops are kindly welcomed, convicts are welcomed
with reserve and pagan Moors are welcomed with gunpowder.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I see. But –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

But on the other hand people from what we call not-Mazagan want, in a certain way, to un-
Mazaganize Mazagan. Just think about what happened now. Mazagan is here, and not there.
There is no difference between Mazagan and what is not Mazagan, except for the fact that
Mazagan is within the walls and not-Mazagan is outside the walls.
The Mazaganians do their best to protect Mazagan. So they will oppose any kind of not-
Mazagan trying to get into Mazagan and the question is, of course, whether Mazagan will
turn into not-Mazagan after being dominated by non-Mazaganians, or rather the non-
Mazaganians will become a part of it.
So if not-Mazagan claim that Mazagan should be un-Mazaganized, the non-Mazagan presses
Mazagan from all around. If there were no walls, probably nobody would be interested in it,
there is nothing interested in a scratch of sandy land. But the wall was made, and all is lost,
since now the non-Mazaganians want to undo what was done. Or, to quote the sultan of
Morocco –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

– let his loins always remain fruitful –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- Mazagan remains the insult for his dominion. And as we know, people who are easily
insulted by the pure fact that a city is standing somewhere, tend to be rather problematic.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

So stands Mazagan, so stands it.

10
THIRD, ONE, SAYING
So stands Mazagan, so stands our home.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

So stands Mazagan, so stands our home, and I have a look at non-Mazagan and I think to
myself that Mazagan is tiny.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And that non-Mazagan is huge.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And that Mazagan is too small comparing to non-Mazagan.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

But keep calm, it has nothing to do with the so-called Lebensraum.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It’s all about proportions of population.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Keep calm again, it’s not about decreasing the population of non-Mazagan but rather about
increasing the population of the city itself.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

By voluntarily joining it.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It means that Mazagan should be extended.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

For security reasons, of course.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

There are five of us on stage.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And there are millions of people in the country in which Mazagan stands.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Six compared to millions, that’s not a good prospect for the future.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

So stands Mazagan, so it stands.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

11
So stands Mazagan. It’s fifteen fourteen. The name of the fortress comes after a Berber
word meaning “water from air”, which means – a well.

SCENE SIX

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And what about the locals leaving next to Mazagan?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Yeah, what about them?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The locals were located here.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The locals were located here and looked at what happened.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

What are you carrying?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The locals asked the newcomers from the East?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Islam.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Said the newcomers and the locals did not oppose.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And what are you carrying?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The locals asked the newcomers from Portugal.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Christianity.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Said the newcomers from Portugal, but we have to stress it that at the time they did not
force the locals to become Christians.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And you, gents, what are you carrying?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

12
The locals asked looking at deliveries to the fortress of Mazagan.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

A cannon.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

A cannon?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Yeah, a cannon. What’s wrong with a cannon?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Do not be surprised with the cannon. The Portuguese brought it, since the renown Italian
architect, Benedetto de Ravenna, turned Mazagan into a modern fortress. The fortress had
manors hidden within its borders. The old stronghold remained untouched in the middle of
the fortress, and the whole construction, a star-shaped city, was surrounded with wall.
There were warehouses, piazzas and churches -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- so they were only lacking a theatre -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- protected by five massive bastions: two from the side of the sea, three from the side of the
land.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

It was in 1541.

SCENE SEVEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

As stated before, Mazagan grew in the middle of the sixteenth century.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

To represent this fact, now not only the stage, but also the audience house will be a part of
Mazagan.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

To represent this fact, now not only we, but also you will be citizens of Mazagan.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Loyal servants to the Crown in this hostile and barren land.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

But now some of you will probably resist. Some of you may ask: What do I have in common
with this place, with these people? Why am I supposed to be one them?

13
THIRD ONE, SAYING
And the answer is: we share the same piece of time and space.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Which, in turn, reflects the daily functioning of the fortress, where some people came called
by their sense of duty, some arrived searching for profit, others were relocated by force as
convicts and refugees. And all those people had often nothing more in common except for
this simple thing: their co-existence in time and space –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And except for the fact that they were on one side of a wall, while all the others were on the
other side.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

This wasn’t much after all, so some people who couldn’t stand this particular scrap of space-
time decided to flee. And usually succeeded. But it’s not a suggestion, of course.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Till today the fortress of Mazagan only once played an important part in the history of our
civilization. In fifteen sixty one, when other Portuguese colonies in Africa had already
disappeared, just like a young lover who heard about the pregnancy of one of his mistresses
and decided to run away, sultan Moulay Abd Allah got somehow irritated with the
Mazaganian cannons aiming at the sky over Islamic Morocco –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And he assembled one hundred twenty thousand men –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- Not to mention twenty four artillery units –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- against the fortress’s garrison, which was strengthened by the king of Portugal with barely
twenty thousand men –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- during the siege the sultan lost twenty five thousand men –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- and the Mazaganians lost barely a hundred –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and we shall speak no more of this battle, since there is no point in staging an event like
that when you have five performers at your disposal. Enough to say, the battle won by the
defenders of the fortress was a great success for the royal propaganda; the news spread
across Europe, poems were created, t-shirts, cups and facebook events would also have
been created –

14
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
- if it were not for the gloomy sixteenth century –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and the whole event was perceived as a marvellous triumph of the Catholic Church, in the
very time when the Church was in need of marvellous triumphs, while it had some serious
issues with the Reformation movement.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

But, since we have no interests in all those great narratives, let us head to the eighteenth
century.

SCENE EIGHT

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

And what about woman in the fortress of Mazagan?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Yeah, what about them?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You may be surprised by the fact that the amount of the women in the fortress of Mazagan
was almost equal to the amount of men.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

What were the women of Mazagan doing?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

That’s the question!

FIRST ONE, SAYING

If we want to stick to the facts as strictly as we can and base only on written sources, then
not much can be said –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

In fact, apart from names and origins of those women, only one thing can be said.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

That those women were getting married.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

But, since marrying someone is, in spite of the social importance of this act, a rather short
action – we still have to ask what were these women doing before the wedding ceremony
and after the wedding ceremony.

15
FIRST ONE, SAYING
They must have eaten, slept and breathed, assuming that they were of the same breed as
we all are.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

They must have had sex with men, bearing in mind the fact that some children were
appearing in the fortress of Mazagan from time to time.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The women of Mazagan didn’t write any chapter in the recorded book of our History.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Nor was any chapter about them written by any man.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Happy be ye, women of Mazagan.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Blessed be ye, women of Mazagan.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

When one has a look at what is recorded in our History, it is a blessing to be off the record.

SCENE NINE

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The war comes, so comes a battle.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Some will be dead and some will rattle -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I rattle.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

What?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I have asthma, so I rattle.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Word is spreading: war is coming.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Stop rattling, old lad, I can’t stand it.

16
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
(Is not saying anything, nor is he rattling).

SECOND ONE, SAYING

People are nervous.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Who says there will be war?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

They say so in theatres.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

They always talk rubbish in theatres, the Lord be with them.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Why did you start talking? Now you will rattle again.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Don’t bother him or he will start to cough. The old man keeps spitting with phlegm.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Let him spit. It’s a dessert, there is a plenty of space to spit.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Did you hear, old man?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Spit, old geezer, spit.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

But I don’t want to.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

I say “don’t rattle” and he rattles. I say “spit” and he does not.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

It’s a week since I have spit.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Whoever says it, the war is coming.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Maybe it’s better that way.

17
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
I rattle, ‘cause I feel dryness in my lungs. My lungs moisten in the evening and then the
phlegm breaks off.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It would be better if there were no war. The war – It’s never better -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It’s better when the old man does not spit. The dessert might be huge, but let’s suppose
someone spits here once in a century. Given sufficient amount of time, strictly – endless
amount of time – it is certain someone will eventually step on the phlegm.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The sand will wipe the phlegm off.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I remember some of them.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You mean wars?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

What wars? Why wars?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

If the sand wipes it off, you can spit, old man.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I remember some women.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Spit, old man, it’s better to spit here than to do it in the town.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Spit and gag!

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Choke and slag!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That must be pneumoconiosis.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Or lung cancer.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You are bearing this city in your lungs.

18
SECOND ONE, SAYING
The fortress of Mazagan have infected your pulmonary alveoli.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The fortress of Mazagan have seized your pulmonary alveoli.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It have smeared them, burned them, destroyed them.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You come to the dessert to spit the city, old man.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Spit spit the fortress of Mazagan

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Is it nice to spit your home city?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Is it nice to slag the crown jewel of the Kingdom of Portugal?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Is it good to negate the substantial presence of your homeland in your old lungs?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

But keep calm, old man, keep calm. You will never fully spit your homeland.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

(instead of saying, spits)

THIRD ONE, SAYING

First he clears the throat. Then his gullet tightens, so that his phlegm couldn’t draw back to
the throat.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It is the worst moment to feel the sticky clod of phlegm in one’s mouth and its’ salty taste.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

But the old man never spits it out immediately. First he slides it through his tongue with
circular moves, so that he could evaluate its size and consistency.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

He has to be fast, since the phlegm dissolves fast and loses its shape.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The old man is ready.

19
SECOND ONE, SAYING
Spit it out old man just spit it.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Spit out Mazagan just spit Spit the city out
Spit out the black phlegm of the city.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

In my case, the city gathers in nose. I like it the most when there is much of Mazagan in my
nose and it is a bit humid. Then I can ooze it out into a tissue with one strong blow and then
just look at the clod, which is neither yellow nor green and sometimes has an addition of
blood from the nose.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

(Spits instead of saying).

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Catharsis.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

But when Mazagan gathered in your nose is dry, you cannot ooze it out. You have to pick
your nose, keep picking it and scratching it to rip off the snot. Such work is addictive but not
innocent. You rip off not only the snots but also hair from the inside. And if your finger is
dirty, then, after a day or two, a boil appears painfully in your nose.
Our old lad is totally addicted to picking his nose, his nose is devastated, nostrils bloated, he
almost cannot smell. And yeah, he is blind, but it wasn’t caused by picking.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Reading. That’s what I was doing as a young lad.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

He got blind because of reading.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Reading. I was reading and visiting theatres. And in these books, in the theatre, in art – there
was one subject those days, I could smell it –

DRIGA, ONE, SAYING

Which means he was a freshman, when it comes to picking nose. Otherwise he could not
smell, having his nose devastated.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

One subject, I say. The doomsday. The sense of incoming end. Instinct of death, will of
decay, anxiety, restlessness, conviction that we live in the Final Days.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And so what?

20
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
I waited.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And waiting, you picked your nose.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And there was no Doomsday at all. I wasted my whole life fearing, but there was no
meteorite hitting the Earth, no plague taking me away, no war in which I would lose my life.
Sure – there were wars and plagues and all the stuff. But I’m here. Alive. Not for long,
though.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

There will be no other end of the world1.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Pick your nose, old lad.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Rattle, old lad, keep rattling.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Spit, old lad, keep spitting, as if the end were to come.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Let’s get back to Mazagan.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

To Mazagan, old lad!

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I think that the end of the world is a show we watch a part of daily.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Tomorrow, old lad, we’ll be scouting again. Tomorrow, old lad, you’ll be spitting again.

SCENE TEN

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The job of a royal clerk, like job of any good clerk, is aimed at turning entropy into something
aesthetic. Yep, I know. You wouldn’t say a clerk has a sense of aesthetics, would you? But it’s
a thing one can learn. And it’s a hell lot of easier when you do your job in a palace built in
Manueline style, instead of doing it in a box office made of Perspex.

1
From Czeslaw Milosz’s „A Song on the End of the World”, translated by Anthony Milosz.

21
What’s my job about? If there are too many papers in one place, I put them in another place.
To be precise: in a place where there were no papers before. And I can use the place from
which I have taken the old papers to put new papers there, these new papers being brought
to me by messengers from other offices in Lisbon and Belem. As a result, I use both the place
where the old papers were previously – since the new papers are there - and the place
where the old papers are now. Therefore, I have to look for a yet another place to
accommodate the papers. And then I receive new papers, again. I cram them wherever I can.
We expand the office and put them outside of the office. Even in our homes, even though
it’s illegal. Royal offices are in fact manufactures specialized in producing entropy. Their final
aim is to flood the world with papers.
The other thing I keep moving are meeting dates. It isn’t easy, since I have to appoint a
meeting which allows us to postpone the appropriate meeting, the right one, I mean. The
appropriate meeting must nevertheless eventually happen, but then we say to the applicant:

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

You must visit us some other time, since we didn’t have enough time to collect all the
documents.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

When?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The petitioner asks and we answer:

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Do not hesitate to visit us next Tuesday.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The petitioner bows, leaves the office and on Tuesday -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Knock, knock.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Come in.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Good morning.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Morning. What can I do for you?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

I was to come here on Tuesday and – silly as it may sound – it is the very day we have today.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Let me see – I cannot see your name on the list. Do you have a proper form?

22
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
And of course the petitioner does not have a proper form, since nobody gave him one. Now,
the petitioner may remain calm, may react with a sudden outburst of anger, or may get
scared, but this whole variety of behaviours doesn’t really matter, since, finally, the
petitioner will always ask the same question:

THIRD ONE, SAYING

In this case, can I ask you to give me a proper form?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I cannot. But it’s not a problem. You have to visit another department, I will mark it on your
map, and they will give you the form, then you fill it up and come back to us.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I think you already get the point of the story. That’s exactly the same thing as in novels of
Franz Kafka, with this subtle difference, that in our case it is real. It’s also the same thing as
in the case when you want your Internet deliverer to cease the agreement, since, two
months after signing it, in spite of countless phone calls, visits in the company’s branches
and written requests, the installment team didn’t appear. And if I tell you all those things, I
have only one purpose: to show you our office, the very place, to which all the food, water
and salary demands come from Mazagan. To show you the place to which people from
Mazagan write in case they are lethally ill and want to spend the last days of their lives in
their homeland, in Portugal.

SCENE ELEVEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Lisbon. Year 1752. King Joseph has just finished building a splendid theatre house at the
bank of river Tag.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I have just finished building a splendid theatre house at the bank of river Tag.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It is clear, your highness, that it is splendid.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

And it is beyond question, your highness, that it lays at the bank of river Tag.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Stands.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Lies.

23
SECOND ONE, SAYING
Stands.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Lies. At the banks of river Tag, in the current of river Tag, at the bottom of river Tag, the
theatre lies, completely scattered.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The theatre scattered, who are you to say that theatre lies scattered?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Who are you to scatter the royal theatre?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The splendid theatre which I’ve just finished constructing.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I am the Earthquake which turns Lisbon into debris.

SCENE TWELVE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Voltaire.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Poem on the Lisbon disaster, an excerpt.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

UNHAPPY mortals! Dark and mourning earth!
Affrighted gathering of human kind!
Eternal lingering of useless pain!
Come, ye philosophers, who cry, "All's well,"
And contemplate this ruin of a world.
Behold these shreds and cinders of your race,
This child and mother heaped in common wreck,
These scattered limbs beneath the marble shafts—
A hundred thousand whom the earth devours,
Who, torn and bloody, palpitating yet,
Entombed beneath their hospitable roofs,
In racking torment end their stricken lives.
To those expiring murmurs of distress,
To that appalling spectacle of woe,
Will ye reply: "You do but illustrate
The iron laws that chain the will of God"?
Say ye, o'er that yet quivering mass of flesh:
"God is avenged: the wage of sin is death"?

24
What crime, what sin, had those young hearts conceived
That lie, bleeding and torn, on mother's breast?
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss.
Tranquil spectators of your brothers' wreck,
Unmoved by this repellent dance of death,
Who calmly seek the reason of such storms,
Let them but lash your own security;
Your tears will mingle freely with the flood.
When earth its horrid jaws half open shows,
My plaint is innocent, my cries are just.
Surrounded by such cruelties of fate,
By rage of evil and by snares of death.
Fronting the fierceness of the elements,
Sharing our ills, indulge me my lament.
"'T is pride," ye say—"the pride of rebel heart,
To think we might fare better than we do."
Go, tell it to the Tagus' stricken banks;
Search in the ruins of that bloody shock;
Ask of the dying in that house of grief.
Whether 't is pride that calls on heaven for help
And pity for the sufferings of men.

SCENE THIRTEEN

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

After Lisbon was turned into a pile of debris, killing almost all of its inhabitants, losing its
libraries, treasuries and archives, the king turns paranoid and is afraid to enter buildings.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I fear entering buildings, since when I enter one, the earth may start to quake.
If I enter a building and the earth starts to quake, the ceiling of the building won’t keep a
proper distance from my head and so my head will be crushed by the ceiling.
And, although I am the king, I cannot tell the ceiling not to crush my head. I just can’t do it.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

So the king lives in a tent.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Fortunately, the king doesn’t have to enter the offices, since –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- letting alone the fact that they are crumbled -

25
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
It is not the king who rules the country anymore, it is marquise de Pombal.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Our king has two passions. None of them was politics, or economy of the kingdom, or even
the royal spouse.
Our king has two passions, although the combination may seem odd for a modern spectator:
theatre and church. Funny, huh?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The marquise was a scum. He got rid of aristocratic opposition, exiled the Jesuits and if any
of them decided to stay in Portugal – they were burned at stake by the Holy Inquisition.
When the Inquisition burned whomever was to burn, the marquise dismissed it in the name
of enlightened reforms and the reforms, in turn, were undone in the name of restoring the
monarchy, when they were not necessary anymore.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

But we cannot deny that the marquise was politically gifted. It was him who rebuilt Lisbon
just within a few years after the Earthquake.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Not without huge spending.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

And spending requires savings.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And savings are made by cutting off what is unnecessary.

SCENE FOURTEEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Time for a break and in the break time -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Time for Arcadia Lusitana -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Literary Society of the 18th century Portugal.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We discuss literature, write poems, fight against baroque lack of taste.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We discuss literature and our motto is:

26
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
To cut off what is unnecessary.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Many cities are unnecessary.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

More and more cities are unnecessary.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Grim cities, cities in debt, cities with negative birth rate -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We will not name the cities, but you all know the names -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You perfectly know the names, the names keep appearing in TV news -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Drunk man killed his wife in -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Real tragedy in –
Schoolchildren drown their teacher.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

A father of two murdered in -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

A lonely mother of three hung in -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

A child eaten in –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

A prostitute who met with a priest stuck a fork in –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

No, that’s unnecessary –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

No, we cut it off, since –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We cut off what is unnecessary.

27
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
Some cities which we will not name, but you all know the names –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Old centres of industry, old garrisons, old trade routes, unsuccessful utopias which made
developers go bankrupt.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

These are all cities which keep existing just because we overlooked them.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

In the Middle East the terrorists, the dictators, the foreign governments – raze whole cities
and, as we can see, the world keep existing, even though these cities are annihilated.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- and these are not trivial cities – these are cities which existed for four or five thousand
years, the oldest cities in the world, cities with Roman theatres, Egyptian temples, Sumerian
statues -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- our cities, with their houses of culture and cinemas cannot compete with them -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- so why not to raze a few cities here, if the world exists without all these ancient
monuments -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- not to mention the murdered people.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Oh future!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Oh blessed, happy future!

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It is likely that the theatre we are currently in is also unnecessary from our point of view. As
well as you, the spectators. The theatre can be razed, the spectators killed, and I guarantee,
the world will won’t cease to exist.

FIRST, ONE, SAYING

Our motto is:

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

To cut off what is unnecessary.

28
SCENE FIFTEEN

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Write write about me dear.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Write about me my beloved.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Write I am Mazagan
A fortress with white walls
It is you whom I have chosen to tell my story.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Among all the living creatures capable of telling stories
And among all the cities which can described
Why these are us who became coupled
Tell me Mazagan
Tell me In fact
You were not the greatest of the cities.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

And you my dear you are probably not
The greatest of the playwrights but
The cities do not complain
I will tell you a secret As long as we exist everything is possible.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

How to estimate how great a city is?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

By its population?

FIRST ONE, SAYING

That’s precise thinking.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Ask about the playwrights, the thing will become more funny.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

I regret all those razed homes. I regret the streets which lost their names. I regret destroyed
cities. I regret places which cannot be called anymore. I regret old people who cannot find
their birthplaces there, where – according to the rules of pure reasoning – they should still
be. I regret rooms I visit and about which I know that I am seeing them for the last time. I
regret schools, universities and institutes I’ve left. I regret people whose names I’ve learned
by heart and whose names are now, to use the language of logics, empty names with no
proper reference. I regret alleys I did not decide to turn into. I regret days which I spent in

29
my house, not going outside. But I have less and less days to live in that house, I regret
leaving it. I regret every of the passing days, and because of that regret I am unable to be
happy anymore.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I may have been deceived by the illusion of permanence of the world which, in fact, is
governed by change. It is the same illusion so many thinkers before me believed in. The one
which may look for its justification in physics, in theory of justice, in theology or in ethics –
but will be always born of fear of annihilation.
The world which keeps changing gives us nothing we can rely on. Everything gets out of our
hands. Whenever we try to grab something, it crumbles. We can depend on things which
exist longer then we, but never on something that would exist forever.
And, even in this short period when we exist ourselves, neither we nor our homes will be the
same at the very beginning and the very end, since we will all permanently change and
transmute.
Maybe that is why I was so moved by the story of Mazagan. A story of people who, for few
centuries, were isolated from their home just in order to believe that the home keeps
existing in the shape in which they left it.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Mazagan White city
City with five bastions
Ship made of stone at the line of horizon
Ship with an anchor down A motionless raft.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And when the earth crumbled in Lisbon
And when the old buildings turned into debris
Mazagan stood unmoved.

SCENE SIXTEEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

It’s year 1750.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Jose Joaquim da Cunha becomes the new commander in chief of Mazagan.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

A young and ambitious lad he is.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

A young, beautiful and ambitious lad.

30
FIRST ONE, SAYING
When he was a child, his parents must have raised him without stress and oppression and
must have told him he was born to achieve success.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Old ladies loved him and in his school he was supposed to become someone important.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Beware, it is a tricky thing to be young, beautiful and ambitious -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- especially if you are not gifted or, at least, you have no sense of humour -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The commander tries to restore order at first -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Since, we have to admit it, there is hardly any order in Mazagan at the time.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Disorder is a challenge for ambition.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Clean clean the disorder
Clean clean in Mazagan
In the city with five bastions.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Lord commander, let me give you a piece of advice.
You are young and you know that beautiful ladies observe you and when you smile, they
smile back. Then, you do not give them clear answer. You stray, think it over, evaluate and
wait. You know that it is your right to chose and it gives you pleasure to restrain from
responding someone’s interest. And you do not mind that the pace of your military career is
slow, since you know you’ve been always lucky and other people also know it and – friendly
or not – they bow to your will, your natural grace and accept the priority of youth.
And so a year passes, then two and three years, but you know you still make deliberate
progress. You slowly become mature, you change yourself, you are closer and closer to
understand a certain truth, of which you can only get a dim idea now. But it becomes more
and more clear -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- indeed, more and more clear -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and you do not know where it all heads, you cannot foresee the destination the fortune has
prepared for your life, but -

31
FIRST ONE, SAYING
- why not follow the course of events –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- why not follow the course of events – you think to yourself – I can do it, I bear a secret.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- I can do it, I bear a secret -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

There is something in me that I cannot name, something that hurts me and makes me move
forward. It’s a thing that forces me too look out of the window at misty dawns, something
that vibrates inside me when I listen to the sounds of harpsichord, or when – among
thousands of boring and ordinary pages written by mediocre authors I suddenly find a single
sentence that touches me. I have an infallible sense of truth -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- an infallible sense of truth and taste –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I have an infallible sense of truth and taste. Infallible sense of truth, taste and goodness.
Three vibraphones, very fragile tools, which start to vibrate in those short moments when I
am in harmony with the world.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- and these are really short moments -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and these are really short moments,
Since the world is usually ugly and then you cannot harmonize with it.
And it happens sometimes, let’s put it straight, that I am also ugly inside. There are moment
when I am not myself, when I feel as if I were someone different. And there is nothing inside
me that could vibrate. Only inner void, silent and horrific, which makes me cruel and
unmoved, and which would make me put dress my dressing-gown on naked body and at
three o’clock in the night and, without emotions, jump out of my window, but -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- but I bear a secret –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

But I bear a secret deep inside me. Like an equilibrist or a priest walking with Viaticum.
You are a depositary of a certain truth, although its meaning hasn’t been revealed to you.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

How do you know?

32
SECOND ONE, SAYING
I know it, because ten years ago I felt the same. And finally I found out what that truth was.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

What did it say you, father?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

To deal with the fact that I can no longer live in with this illusion.

SCENE SEVENTEEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Time for a break and in the break time -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Time for Arcadia Lusitana -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Literary Society of the 18th century Portugal.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We discuss literature, write poems, fight against baroque lack of taste.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We discuss literature and our motto is:

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

To cut off what is unnecessary.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Oh, so many, many words are unnecessary.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Oh, so many, many heads are unnecessary.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Murdering was a sport once.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Or even a bloody kind of pleasure.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

In the past, when minions of a king were murdering a saint bishop celebrating a mass -

33
THIRD ONE, SAYING
- and we have to stress that in the past every king had his minions and murdered at least one
saint bishop -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

When some minions were murdering a certain bishop, they were bashing into the cathedral,
just like a pack of dogs hunting down a deer. They were tearing the bishop from the altar,
dragging out of the temple and, having stunned him with a hit of a sword, they chopped him
into pieces using axes.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Yes, they chopped him, just like firewood.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And just like firewood, his sainthood could shine with the bright flame of martyrdom.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And in the past, when an army, after six months of siege, was finally conquering a city -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

An impudent city, because of which the army had to freeze for six months –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- was suffering and ailing for six months, having hunger for all this time -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- the soldiers had to replace their wives with few courtesans for six months -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- not to mention unavailability of mantelpieces, in front of which one can sit and read
treaties on ballistics or think about the principles of metaphysics.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- such an army –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- after six months –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- sometimes even after a year or two –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- such an army, after accepting the capitulation of the city, waited for the gates to be opened

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and the very moment it happened the army was pouring into the city, raping all the
women, some men and children -

34
THIRD ONE, SAYING
- was slaughtering all the men and children and some women -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- was burning down all the buildings and some men, women and children -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- and then, carrying everything which was not eligible to be raped and was too valuable to be
burned, the soldiers were returning to their homelands, where each of them could sit in
front of his mantelpiece and, enjoying the tranquil peace of his home, read treaties on
ballistics or thought about principles of metaphysics.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Oh past!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Oh happy, sensual past!

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Now, in the times of Enlightenment, people are slaughtered in a much more utilitarian way.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The guillotine is in the move, people are split into two parts, one of which might have been
(but not necessarily was) enlightened, and the other part was shaking for a few more
seconds, before finally getting cold and still.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Enlightenment values heads.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Enlightenment cuts off the heads of those who oppose the Enlightenment.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

A head which is against the Enlightenment is what is unnecessary for the Enlightenment.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And the motto of Arcadia Lusitana is -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

You all know already, what the motto is.

SCENE EIGHTEEN

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It’s time to get rid of Mazagan.

35
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
Mazagan, a completely unnecessary city at the Moroccan coast.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

The marquis seeks a way to do it, but you can always find a way to make seeking ways
easier.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You can make it easier by using trusted people. There is a perfect excuse to use one of them
in seventeen sixty three. Commander da Cunha -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- you probably remember commander da Cunha, a young, ambitious and beautiful boy -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- commander da Cunha, who was advised by his confessor to come to terms with his fate,
did not come to terms with his fate.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

He turned from a young, ambitious and beautiful boy into an older, still beauty, yet
impetuous and revengeful boy -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- who came to conclusion that due to pedagogical reasons or just to keep calm, it is worth
organizing futile drills early at dawn, put someone to jail or hang him, or to cut someone’s -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- the motto of Arcadia Lusitana is: to cut off what is unnecessary! -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- to cut someone’s pay.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

That’s why the marquis decides to dismiss da Cunha using his abuses as an excuse and to
appoint his own nephew, Dinis Gregorio de Melo Castro de Mendonca, for the post.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

In the name of the king I dismiss da Cunha and appoint my nephew, Dinis Gregorio de Melo
Castro de Mendonca, for his post.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Who was, contrary to his predecessor, a man with a huge belly, small ambitions, developing
mental breakdown, one wife and three children. He was so inexpressive that, after taking up
the post, he caused only one riot, when the Mazaganians were starving and he ate the only
hen in the fortress -

36
THIRD ONE, SAYING
Mazaganians, my brothers, I ate the only hen in the fortress. I ate it and I must admit that
now I feel bad. You can ask: what about the compassion, the love of neighbour? What about
empathy? And now, looking at your fatigued faces, I must say: I regret what I have done. If it
can give you any kind of consolation, I would like you to know that eating the hen gave me
no pleasure. And even more, it caused indigestion. But, my brothers, just think if over: what
advantage would we have of the hen? It didn’t lay eggs anymore, and I am not Christ. I
cannot miraculously multiply food. If I were to split the hen so that everyone could eat it, our
portions would be microscopic. We would only feel faint taste, and the taste would only
make our hunger grow. Redistribution and equal share of goods is rational only when there
are enough goods available. You should know, that while eating, I kept thinking about you -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- that’s what commander Mendonca might have said to the furious crowd -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- but, luckily for himself, he restrained from it, saving his life.

SCENE NINETEEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

After the second class of my primary school I move from one city to another. I sit in the back
seat of the car, my mother is driving.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I sit in the front seat of the car, driving, and my son is in the back seat.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The car in front of us speeding, but we are even faster.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

One hundred kilometres per hour.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

One hundred and twenty. Forest, one traffic lane, straight road. No car coming from the
opposite.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Slow down, mom.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

One hundred and thirty.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Idiot! He’s speeding up, when we’re trying to overtake him.

37
FIRST ONE, SAYING
Slow down, mom.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

One hundred and forty.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Bang.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Bang - what?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Bang. I am the tire from the car you were overtaken by. Bang. I burst. The car that was trying
to overtake you gets out of the road, speeding one hundred and forty kilometers per hour. It
falls into a ditch and stops when it hits the bushes growing there. What do you do?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I move on, nothing to do here.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Just to let you know – nothing bad happened. Miraculously, the boy and his mother, the
woman and her son – those two people sitting in the car – the car in which I burst – survived.
Moreover, none of them had any serious injuries. Eighteen years have passed and they live
on. But the boy had a city built of lego bricks, and when the car got out of the road, the city
was razed. None of the bricks got lost or damages, but afterwards, after the boy moved to
his new home, the city was never rebuilt in the same shape.

SCENE TWENTY

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Having analyzed the market and finding the needs of the customer, our analytics came to
conclusion that the Crown lacks gold.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

That’s pretty amazing that whenever someone lacks gold, he or she is ready to spend any
amount of it to pay a consulting company, which is to confirm the lack and, by multiplying
this insufficiency, will give only one, simple advice: that the deficit should be decreased by
saving and cutting costs.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

In this particular case the contribution of the consulting company will manifest itself in
preparing a beautiful presentation showing diagrams with the rise of the Kingdom’s
liabilities.

38
SECOND ONE, SAYING
And, moreover, in preparing a valuable, unique strategy based on the analysis of the market
and on the customer’s needs.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Having done it, the company will be finally able to conclude that the Crown lacks gold.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

A professional consulting company will of course be able to define a goal which should be
achieved in this particular case.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The Crown should obtain more gold.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And will indicate means to achieve this goal.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The Crown should have a city in which one can dig gold.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And even define possible drawbacks of the strategy.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The Crown doesn’t have a city in which one can dig gold.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And a consulting company, which is really, really good will prepare – at additional cost – an
analysis of customers possible assets.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The Crown has a city in Africa and gold in Brazil

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And eventually – taking both the drawbacks and assets of the affair from the global
perspective -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- since such things should be always analyzed from the global perspective -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- the consulting company will indicate the optimal solution.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The Kingdom of Portugal should move its city from Africa do Brazil and start digging gold.

39
SCENE TWENTY ONE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Good lord commander, what’s for dinner?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And what can there be for dinner in this fortified place of exile?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Perhaps we should start with a prayer?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Yes, I think that Mazagan is a fortified place of exile. And I will tell you even more. I think
that our whole world is a fortified place of exile. If we have a look around, then, in a spiritual
sense, there is only dessert all there.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Religion…

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

It has nothing to do with religion. If religion and philosophy have any aim, their aim is only to
make walls which protect us against this hopelessness around us.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

These are beautiful words, commander. As saint Augustine of Hippo stated, we live in Civitas
Dei, in the state of God, and that state -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

But we also live in a dessert. We surrounded ourselves with walls, we walled ourselves up
against the sand. But the point is, that what we protect within the walls is also sand. It may
seem better, since it lays in the shadow of the walls and it doesn’t burn your feet. But it
doesn’t change the fact that it’s nothing more but sand. The nature of our asylum is based
only on restriction on the amount of the sand. It’s based on the attempt not to have too
much sand in here at one time. So we created an environment allowing us not to go mad
during few decades of our lives. But the sand will cover us nevertheless, it’s just a matter of
time. So, instead of this stupidity, instead of building fortresses with weak fundaments,
instead of searching for mirages and hiding from lethal sun in the shadow of our sorrowful
homes, we should open the gates as broad as possible, get out into the dessert and walk,
walk forward, as long as we are not dead.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I think, that saint Augustine of Hippo -

40
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
To give up to this madness and to restrain from it are just two sides of the same ridiculous
foolery. Madness speaks out in a scream of hatred which one must make to fight. But I
would like to ask – whom and why should I hate. Whom and why should I fight. Any kind of
fight is futile. Forms of existence get more and more complicated in our world, but it is also
the entropy that rises. Perhaps everything should be easier.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup...

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband likes to amuse his guests with philosophy.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Madness speaks out in a shout of hatred which one must make to fight. But it can also speak
out in the shout of despair, when one know that the fight is lost. So we stick the madness
deep inside our bowels, we pour them into our throats, exactly like you pour the soup in the
throats of your at the moment -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You insult your wife, commander, by comparing her soup to madness -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- bodies tightened with jackets, powdered faces, wigs encircling heads, riding-breeches
oppressing the legs, Encyclopaedias oppressing the mind, architecture oppressing the space,
regulations castrating art, enlightened medicine strangling madness, gentlemen -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- who would guess all these things can be compared to a soup.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- gents, to give up to the madness and to restrain from it are just two sides of the same
ridiculous foolery.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, he likes to amuse his guests with philosophy. In Lisbon he was putting a cat
into a box, was shooting at it and made the guests guess whether the poor creature was still
alive or was it dead, proving that until the box is open, the cat is both alive and dead at once.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- and we should go into the dessert. We shouldn’t go mad in the face of madness, we should
not longer pretend we are not in a hopeless situation. I’m fed up with daily doses of cheering
each other up, with everyday theatre of social conducts played by my co-citizens, I am fed up
with all those small rituals used to build our city, the city weaved of illusion -

41
SECOND ONE, SAYING
- My dear God!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

You think it is too salty, father?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, he likes to torture his guests with philosophy. In Lisbon, he was putting his
guests into a box, was shooting at them and trying to make up whether they are alive or
dead.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Going to the dessert, in a metaphoric sense, is exactly what I mean. I don’t want to pretend
any longer. I won’t write scholarly essays, since the bitter scepticism has led me to the belief
that all the sciences are futile –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- So what you are trying to say is that no only religion, but also science -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

We are all creeps.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

My dear, dear God.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Yes, creeps. Normality is a mask we put on our faces each day. Normality, my good fellows,
is nothing but a convention.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, I like to torture the guests with my husband. I but ourselves in the box, start
shooting with my husband -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

As far as my opinion is concerned, I would assume, that the local climate might have a rather
disquieting impact on some of us.

42
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
The conventionality of normality is based limiting the borders.
The tighter the borders, the harder it is to adjust oneself.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The stricter the convention, the less place there is for madness.
The madness does not disappear though. It pulsates under the skull.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, I love to tourture our guests with my husband. I and my husband, we put each
other in boxes, shoot at each other using philosophy, and then try to figure out which of us
will hang himself first.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Only art can extend the borders.
I have Mazagan in my head and Mazagan is surrounded by walls.
The walls cannot be crumbled. There would be no Mazagan if there wouldn’t be walls. So my
head wouldn’t exist either without them. To destroy the walls – I mean – It would cause -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

The soup, I love to torture my guests with the soup -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Destroying the walls would be an act of self-destruction. And I, as the commander-in-chief of
this fortress, do not want to be interrupted by someone, when I speak. As the commander-
in-chief of this fortress, I don’t want to hear any remarks about the soup, about the climate,
about saint Augustine. For God’s sake! I admit, I may be a bit out of tune. I may even look as
if I were slightly mentally unbalanced at the moment, in spite of the fact that I do my best to
pretend that I behave in the way the social convention wants me to behave. But if someone
interrupts me -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Think think o thee Think Mazagan Think white city Think city with five bastions.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Your head must be a fortress, but -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

But let this fortress be free of siege.

43
SECOND ONE, SAYING
Open open wide Mazagan Open yourself white city.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The range of the fortifications must be permanently extended. But to extend it, one has to
dismantle them and then construct them again. This effort must be repeated all the time, or
the fortifications will become too tight. One must build the highest possible towers, to see as
much as possible. Gates must be made and gates must be open. And we need a huge,
opened shipyard.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Open open yourself Mazagan Open wide Collapse Rebuild yourself Mazagan

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

To extend the city, my dear fellows, one permanently needs resources. But the resources
must be taken from the outside. The resources must be taken from the outside and -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- you must be wary whether the resources taken from the outside becomes a part of the
inside, or does it remain the outside which starts to supersede the inside -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- you must permanently look into the sea.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Mazagan, the pentagonal city.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Every kind of angles become with triangles. But the triangles are reserved for complicated
human affairs -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- as long as you stress the word “affair” and don’t bother with the word “complicated” -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- or for the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Quadrangles, on the other hand, are rather boring.
That’s why pentagon is a perfect shape for Mazagan.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Are you done, lord commander?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, he is never done. He put his -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

No, stop it.

44
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
He shoots -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

That’s inappropriate.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The soup –

FIRST ONE, SAYING

What the hell is wrong with the soup??

THIRD ONE, SAYING

There is no more soup, nobody gave me the soup, you ate all the soup and I have no soup at
all, that’s what wrong.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Good, good lord. He stood up and left.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I have to apologized. Perhaps I might have said too much. But it was just the introduction.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Christ!

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I told you all these things, since I received an order. I would like you to be the firsts who
know about it.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

An order?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Philosophy was a fine subject. What kind of nonsense is it to talk about orders while eating
soup?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband likes to torture people with orders. He will put Mazagan into a box, shoot the
Moors of Morocco and then will sail to Lisbon, to keep the citizens alive.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Beg my pardon?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The futility of going to the dessert isn’t more terrifying than the futility of building cities on
sand. It is even better, not because it is e pompous gesture, not because it is an act of
existential opposition, but only because it allows us to spare energy and effort.

45
SECOND ONE, SAYING
Strangle strangle us Mazagan Strangle us white city -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Perhaps I am simply depressed and lack will to live.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

My husband, he likes to have depression. Depression puts him into a box, shoots at him and
when I wake up, I have to make up whether he is yet alive, or has he committed suicide.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Perhaps I will...

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The Dutch consul tried to say for five minutes, until the left, that everything looks more
optimistic, when one can eat soup. A warm one. Now it is certainly cold and eating it make
only make the illusory feeling of hopelessness rise.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

I would nevertheless insist on getting back to the matter of putting Mazagan into a box.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

The order, sirs, Is to evacuate Mazagan as soon as it is possible and to transport the citizens
first to Portugal and then to America.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

We may lack boxes to pack them all, I guess.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And, what is even worse, we may lack social support.

SCENE TWENTY TWO

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I’m like a fragile manuscript, honey.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I’m sorry, you must feel terrible.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Do you know what are the properties of a fragile manuscript?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I’m sorry for myself even more. I feel even more terrible.

46
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
Fragile manuscripts, when you touch them, absorb the moist, the dirt and the bacteria from
your hands. In the very moment you touch the manuscript, you kill it, although it cannot be
seen at once. In rots slowly, disintegrates, the moist destroys the cellulose fibers. That’s the
fate of parchments.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Parchment is made of skin.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I’m just like an old parchment, honey.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Skin. Not paper.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

That’s even better. That’s a more vivid metaphor.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I regret having married you.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

It’s more... carnal, I guess.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I’ve lost the best moments of my life sharing them with you.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I disintegrate due to the people who want something from me, just like a parchment. But
this disintegration cannot be observed from the outside.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Let me forget about historical accuracy and linguistic conventions for a moment. You’re but
a fucking weirdo, a dumb cooze.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

But, on the other hand, it is the very function of a parchment to be read. It was created for
it. As I was created for commanding in this fortified asylum.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Send me back to Lisbon before the official evacuation of the city.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

You mean?

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Me and our children.

47
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
I think I am burnt off.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Manuscripts do not burn. Unfortunately.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

People cannot blame me for the fact that meeting them makes me disintegrate.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

It would be best if you die in the siege of the city. That’s a way to preserve the dignity of our
family and I, as a widow, will be able to find a new husband without any troubles.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

They really make me disintegrate. Despite the fact I do my best to be polite and
conscientious.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

It’s not about me, Dinis. It’s about the children.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

I am a hopeless, filthy human scum.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I heard Lisbon is rising from the ashes after the earthquake.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

If I were born a bird, my own mother would peck me to death.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

But for some reason it seems you were born a man.

SCENE TWENTY THREE

SECOND ONE, SAYING

There is great excitement in the city of Mazagan today.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

There is great joy.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Mazagan besieged.

48
THIRD ONE, SAYING
When celebrating holy masses and observing the dessert were the only sources of
entertainment for the last three hundred years, a siege may be really treated as a kind of
joyful diversity.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Mazagan, facing the overwhelming pagan forces, will once again become a part of the
Western history.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Tens of thousands men gather under the sign of the crescent.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

They start undermining the city
They start to aim at the city with their cannons.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Dinis Gregorio de Melo Castro de Mendonca becomes apathetic. He gives no orders, he
doesn’t leave his apartments.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And then, suddenly, he comes -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Then comes Dinis Gregorio de Melo Castro de Mendonca, wearing a shining armour.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Tell us war.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Tell us holy Mazaganian war.

SECOND, ONE, SAYING

Tell us how the Moors are scattered, tell us the glory of the city, tell us the miracle brought
to us by the heaven.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Tell us the cannonballs hitting the streets.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Tell us the bowels of the deadly wounded.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Tell us the horses slaughtered.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Tell us the rotting corpses.

49
SECOND ONE, SAYING
Tell us Oh tell us the Mazaganian war

FIRST ONE, SAYING

That’s what the citizens asked for, but when commander Mendonca saw the royal corvettes
in the horizon, he just said:

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Today we sign the act of capitulation and go back to Portugal, to the dock of Belem.

SCENE TWENTY FOUR

SECOND ONE, SAYING

According to the peace treaty we entered the city of Mazagan late in the afternoon.
Mazagan was passed under our command. And I think to myself: when a city is passed from
hands to hands, which isn’t a commonplace after all, it should be accustomed by the
conquerors together with its traditions, its habits and its daily rituals. Of course some
churches will be turned into mosques, Portuguese signs will be replaced with Moroccan
ones, but after all these are only minor changes. If we won’t be able to tame this place now,
it remain unfamiliar to us forever. So it’s better to pretend that we have lived in here
forever. Just like the Portuguese did pretend. We won’t boast about the victory. When the
people will enter the homes, they will be asking -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- where did I put the sheets yesterday?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and they will be swiping floor as urgently and carefully, as if they were themselve
responsible for bringing the dust and sand inside a week ago.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

The citizens of the winning countries are always hyenas hyenas hyenas
Which pretend they do not see the rotten fresh they eat.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

What does a Mazaganian do? What does a citizen of a very European country do?
On Sunday afternoons he sits in a cafeteria, with a newspaper, with a laptop, with his tablet.
He reads the news. He makes up with his e-mails. He drinks coffee, eats a croissant with jam.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Morning, sir. What would you like to order? Coffee and croissant, as always?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Morning, Ibrahim. Yes, as always. And I will pay in advance, since I am in a hurry.

50
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
Cash, credit card?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Ibrahim asks and the cafeteria blows up in the very moment, razed by the Portuguese
bombs.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

When informed that they have to leave the city, the Portuguese went mad. They brought all
their belongings into the street and burned them. They broke the legs of their horses and cut
their throats, they scattered the crucifixes in their churches. They destroyed their houses
and when the time had come, they passed the fortress to Moroccan Moors, as stated in the
treaty. And when the victorious troops of the Moroccan sultan entered Mazagan, the whole
city, the whole city exploded.

SCENE TWENTY FIVE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Mazagan
Leaves Mazagan
Mazagan The city with five bastions
Sails in four ships
And you cannot tell how many Mazagans are there
And you cannot tell where Mazagan is.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Sail sail Mazagan.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Just imagine
The whole city sails
Whole Mazagan Whole city
The city with five bastions.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

Sail Mazagan Sail sail white city

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The fish market the house the prison and the offices sail The city sail The City of God Civitas
Dei sails.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Mazagan sails to Mazagan
Mazagan ahead of Mazagan
Mazagan behind Mazagan.

51
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
The Mazagan behind Mazagan is made of stone and now scattered.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The Mazagan ahead of Mazagan is new and strong
The ideal Mazagan The Mazagan from deams
Mazagan by Mazaganians now beloved
This one is our destination.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

For where your treasure is, there your heat will be also.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

If this relation is polar, it means, that the treasure is located in your chest, in the left, more
or less at the level of your arms.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

The treasure is located in your chest, in the left, more or less at the level of your arms.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Many, many treasures sailed from Mazagan today, heading to open ocean.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Sail sail white city
Sail city with five bastions.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Mazagan, heaving departed from the coast, now cuts the waves. St. Michael’s church chases
Saint Mary’s one.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Saint Mary’s church has a better wind, saint Michael’s stays a few knots behind her.

SCENE TWENTY SIX

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

We arrived in an unfamiliar city and wait.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

This city is the capital of our country. We were ready to die for the city. But it’s easier to die
for it then to live in it.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We arrived in an unfamiliar city and wait.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

To be honest, I don’t think the people, who live here normally are in a better situation.

52
FOURTH ONE, SAYING
The capitals are created in order to wait there for something, with no particular aim.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Of course there are many things there to kill time.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

To kill time, you can work in a corporation and go up the career ladder. You can join a
religious brotherhood, for instance the Lord’s Passion Brotherhood.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

They have funny hoods.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You can sit in posh and popular clubs and discuss the subjects of junk job agreements, art
and social situation of the creative class.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

In Lisbon it is easy to find a posh and popular club, with so many palms all around and with
the rainbow so often in the sky.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

In the capital you can visit cinemas, theatres and churches. You can manifest, take part in
marches or jump.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Only the capitals are so sophisticated in the ways of killing time, that they worked out many
ways of jumping with different purposes.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You can jump for fun and you do it in clubs and in the discos.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You can jump for health and you can do it during local dance classes.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

You can jump against your health and then you jump from one of the bridges, or from the
top of a skyscraper.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

In capital cities you can jump to support a certain ideology or set of beliefs and you can do it
during organized or spontaneous manifestations.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Only the capitals give so many opportunities to jump in a creative way.

53
SECOND ONE, SAYING
We arrived in an unfamiliar city and we wait.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

If I were to be honest. I don’t think the people, who live here normally, are in a better
situation.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We weren’t in a better situation in Mazagan. The city served us to wait for nothing.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Our whole life serve us to wait for nothingness.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

But in Mazagan we at least waited in a place which belonged to us.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Capitals and huge cities are factories producing promises and hopes which cannot be
satisfied.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

In capitals and huge cities one is never in one’s own place. Unless he or she builds a home.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And capitals and huge cities make building home rather hard.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Capitals and huge cities are just like hotels extended in time and space.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Come back Mazagan Come back city Come back city with white walls.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

In a capital, in a huge city, one is never at home.

SCENE TWENTY SEVEN

FIRST ONE, SAYING

I am really afraid, you know.
I don’t know what can happen in half a year.
I am in this particular moment of my life when I have spent five of six years in one place, it
was supposed to be five, but finally it’s six, and I am really afraid, I am afraid of what do I
have after those six years?
A diploma? A certificate proving I was in Mazagan?
What for? Come on, all the young people have their diplomas now. All the young people
have spent five or six years somewhere with no particular reason and it means nothing.

54
All the young people defended a certain place or even a couple of places for five or six years,
a place which shouldn’t be defended, since it serves no one. The only reason for creating the
place is to create new posts for commanders in chiefs and to cram those young people
somewhere, artificially decreasing the unemployment rate. We are the invisible
unemployment rate, in fact. I am afraid.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

After five years in Mazagan I will start from scratch again. I will start from scratch again, just
being five years older. I lived in Mazagan. I met people in Mazagan. I learned the names of
Mazaganians street, and I hae to add that there were not so many streets in Mazagan. The
commanders told me that I’m promising young person. And that I could stay here, holding a
good pot, if I would like to. The salary would be low, payments irregular, but the post itself
would be stable, at least until the Crown decides to shut Mazagan. Yes, shut. Mazagan is an
artificially created city in a foreign land, an artificially created city which should be finally
shut. When a proper moment comes, when nobody protests loud enough, when some clerks
find out that Mazagan brings no profit and brings a lot of loss – then comes the end of the
place.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That’s what happened to me in Mazagan: a lot of things. Nevertheless, if I were to say what
“a lot of things” consist of, giving their detailed description and trying to reconstruct their
chronological order and most important moments – I would have to admit that “a lot of
things” consists of rather small amount of things.
Five years in Mazagan, or rather six years in Mazagan, you normally spend five years in
Mazagan, but I spent six, seems to be a lot of time for something to happen.
Some people made it out quickly: nobody is going to happen here, nothing important for
their lives. These people did their best to get back to Lisbon, they went there and under any
excuse they were disappearing in the crowd of the capital or were heading back to their
hometowns, assuming that visiting Mazagan was the greatest mistake of their life.
Then, there were those who knew how not to waste time in Mazagan. They followed a strict
routine of daily duties with involvement coming from the conviction that their decision was
right. In Mazagan those people were making friends, growing up, learning – and then, having
fulfilled their duty, nothing stopped them from going forward and moving to a different
place. And finally there was a third group, a group of extraordinary individuals, who chose
this place of exile on their own. They made it on purpose, arriving here with a plan to gain
particular advantage. They spent their free time reading books, obtained military skills, or
gained some honorary titles and social benefits for their duty, making the first step in their
career.
And finally there was me. I cannot say I was alone, but certainly I was lonely. I am sure there
were more people like me – I have no doubt about it – but all of us were lonely, separated
from each other. Our struggles, our doubts, our lack of strength and despair – were nothing
more but a problem of unimportant people. A problem of those who exist only as an effect
of overpopulation. A problem of those who survived thanks to the modern medicine, but
should have died soon after being born. The chance given to us might have not been a
chance, it might have been a cruelty. Since it has been a chance we can’t take advantage of.
Mazagan was a place in which I woke up every morning, made my duties and went to bed.
Each day I asked myself what to day tomorrow, each day I was making plans and eventually,

55
when the next day was coming – I was postponing them, sure that I still have a lot of time
and nothing urges me. Nothing that happened in Mazagan gave me happiness and at the
same time I was too weak, too deprived of will to live ad fight, to flee from the city.

SCENE TWENTY EIGHT

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You know, Marquis, why do we move Mazagan to Brazil?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

It generates loses, your majesty. We have to interest in Africa anymore and taking our troops
from them is less compromising for the kingdom than letting the Moroccans slaughter them.
And we need colonists in Brazil. The Portuguese economy...

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The Portuguese economy is unimportant. I gave you administrative power, to take of it. I’m a
king of theatres and churches. You think I’m really so stupid, Marquis?

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You highness, I think...

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Thinking is what you do the best, that’s true. But I do not care what do you think in thi
particular case. I asked you whether I am stupid and I will tell you.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

My king…

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Yes, I am. And I don’t think it’s a reason for shame, we all are to some extent. But I hate a
short-sighted pragmatism, which fuels your political activity. I’ll tell you why we need
Mazaganians in Brazil. You are so occupied with introducing thousands of small changes that
you cannot foresee one enormous change coming. Europe is coming to an end.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You’re wrong, your highness.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It ends. It may last two of three hundred years, no more. Afterwards it won’t be a part of this
continent. Europe is a word which we overused and which doesn’t sound as good as it did in
the past. Even me, Marquis, can see that within a few years from now the French
Enlightenment will shake the continent. Heads will fall down.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

King of France -

56
SECOND ONE, SAYING
We need Mazagan to have a place to which Europe can run away from this continent.
Since Europe, my good Marquise, is not a continent.
Europe is an ability to combine surgical precision of thinking with sublime aesthetics of
cruelty.
That’s why Europe has to hide in the jungle if it wants to survive.
When the Revolution comes from France, the king shall flee to South America.
When a country in Europe will lose its independence, the intellectuals shall emigrate to
Buenos Aires.
And when a great war will break out, the refugees will seek shelter in Brazil.
Eventually, their torturers, chased by the law of revenge, will hide in Argentina, changing
their names and passports.

SCENE TWENTY NINE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

And if Mazagan
Having borrowed some oxygen from the Earth
Went into outer space -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

If Mazagan
Having borrowed some oxygen from the Earth
went into outer space
The force of gravitation in the city would be lower.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

When the force of gravitation is lower
The time goes slower.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

We age slower and we die slower.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

The lower the gravitation the slower we move.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

When we move slower our muscles disintegrate
When we move slower our organs stop working
When the gravitation does not help our digestive system find the direction in which the good
should go -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- which is, more or less, always the way from the top to the bottom -

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FOURTH ONE, SAYING
- then our digestive system quickly achieves the state similar to the one the young Polish
citizens, academic scholars and artists have already achieved due to the stress of their daily
life -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- and, because of the lack of gravitation, a man, living longer, disintegrates faster and dies.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

That’s why, due to the lack of gravitation, a man, living longer in theory, lives shorter in
practice.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

It turns out that the huge pace at which the time flows guarantees that our lives are longer.
The universe is born and dies every second but we have to add that time is just a local
phenomenon.

THIRD, ONE, SAYING

Sail Mazagan
Sail sail Mazagan
Sail white city
Sail city with five bastions.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Mazagan went into outer space today.
Passing five light years per hour, which is of course possible only in theatres, we travel across
the cold and endless abyss of the galaxies.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

From the bastion of saint Michael, instead of the dessert and Moroccan tribes at the line of
horizon I can see unknown galaxies, stars, black holes and red dwarves. And the horizon
doesn’t exist at all.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

One shouldn’t ask about the details of our live here, of course. Getting into details would
prove that living here isn’t possible at all.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We do not see it while living on Earth, but we need very special conditions to ensure the
existence of Mazagan.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

That’s why we shall concentrate rather on the customs and habits, and not on laws of
physics. The city is full of religious processions, the markets are full of goods and in the
moment which should be more or less the time of new year on Earth, the commander-in-
chief gives a short, annual speech to the citizens. People are outside Earth, but the Earth is
their home – and they are in their home nevertheless.

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FIRST ONE, SAYING
Fly fly Mazagan
Fly white city Mazagan fly
Fly city with five bastions

SECOND ONE, SAYING

It’s the sixteenth year of the third millennium after Christ.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The city moves on, temperature under control.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Many things has changed since we went into space, many things did not.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The most important thing is that Mazagan is still Mazagan. That it serves the Crown loyally
and the population rises.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We accepted a few new citizens from the outer space -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- who wanted to settle in Mazagan for a reason.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- one of the reasons was -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- that a certain alien converted to Catholicism, moved by the dogmas of the Christian faith.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- another reason was -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- that another alien converted to the thought of Enlightenment, became a liberal and an
atheist, fascinated by the writings of Voltaire.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- and yet another reason was -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- that a yet another alien didn’t have enough money to pay for the apartment in which le
lived on his planet and, fascinated by the simple way of life of the Mazaganians, eagerly took
a chance to find shelter in Mazagan.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And this third alien didn’t accept any ideology.

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SECOND ONE, SAYING
And later –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Then we came back to Earth.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And when we came back, we were aliens ourselves.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Which means: those, who come from the outer space.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We were aliens, but we brought peace to Earth.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Yes, we come in peace.

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Yes, we bring you home.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And our Volterian-alien taught humans how to follow the doctrine of Enlightenment.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And started writing essays to academic magazines.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

He became a master of liberal arts.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And a prominent essayist of New York Times -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And our catholic alien -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

He became a priest -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Which caused some opposition among traditionalists -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Since it is unclear whether an alien can achieve salvation.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Does he have a soul?

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SECOND ONE, SAYING
Or even, perhaps, he doesn’t need salvation, since has no sin.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Nevertheless, he first became a priest, then a bishop -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- then a cardinal –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- and finally a pope –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Which gained approval among traditionalists, since he turned out to be a very traditional
pope -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

And, although – just like any typical alien – he had lasers in his eyes and was able to destroy
everything with them -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- he never did it, since –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

He was a good Christian, who followed all the Catholic dogmas and at the same time
accepted the freedom given to the mankind by God.

FIFTH, ONE, SAYING

And so we brought to Earth radical faith without stakes and inquisition and radical
Enlightenment without guillotines.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

And then – commander Mendonca woke up and Mazagan was already heading from Belem
in Portugal to Belem in Brazil, where the Mazaganians were to go ashore and wait until their
new city is built.

SCENE THIRTY

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

I will tell you a dirty anecdote. I dislike dirty anecdotes, but nevertheless anecdotes always
tell us something about the world we live in. If the world is dirty, the anecdote will be dirty.
So:
I used to laugh, whenever I heard someone talking about the “kingdom’s political organ”.
“Kingdom’s political organ assigned to do this, to do that” – I must admit, I had rather erotic
associations. Then I started hearing it again and again. And then we heard that we should all
support the kingdom’s political organ and surrender to it. And the kingdom’s political organ

61
started doing more and more nasty things. Retributions, cruelties, imprisonments, unjust
trials. The organ started interfering with the lives of us all.
“I didn’t do it, my organ did” – that’s the stupid excuse men usually make. I think that
whenever someone has any kind of an organ, one can do whatever one wants to do with it,
unless he puts doesn’t put it into other humans’ life without their acceptance.
It’s no excuse to say “it’s not me, it’s my organ”. Not an excuse any woman would accept.
And for the government to say: “It’s not me, it’s an organ representing the will of the nation”
– is an excuse which, I don’t know why, is treated seriously by most of the people.
First it made me laugh, but then I got more and more irritated. The organ started doing more
and more awful things. And I thought – I have enough, shove it up your ass.
I was angry but proud. And then I realized – the government won’t shove it up his ass. The
government shoves it up our asses. And that it does it without our permission. And I
understood, how terrible my anecdote is.
I understood that the government rapes up.

SCENE THIRTY ONE

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Mazagan.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Mazagan should arrive in Brazilian Belem in a minute.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

We received letters from Portugal.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

We received letters from Portugal which allow us to check whether all the parts of Mazagan
arrived.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

One thousand six hundred forty two families.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Checked.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Sixty eight thousand reis in silver and golden coins.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Checked.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

One thousand six hundred hoes.

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THIRD ONE, SAYING
Checked.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Fifty quintals of gunpowder.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Liturgical vestments, missals, one tabernacle, one Christ as a child, one Saint Mary On a
Cloud -

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- on cloud nine –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- one Saint Mary on cloud nine, one saint Peter, one saint Michael, one saint Frances, one
saint Barbara, one saint Joseph, one Saint Mary the Virgin, one thousand machetes, one
thousand files, two thousand pairs of scissors.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And one screwdriver to put it all together.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Among all the practical things you can order from Europe and assemble by yourself, you
decided to assemble a city, governor?

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Why not, I like cities.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Usually one goes to see a city where it is. To like a city and to find a place to put a city in are
two completely different things. Before new mazaganian homes are made, before new
mazaganian streets are marked, we will have to store Mazagan in Belem.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

That’s the order we received from the capital.

SCENE THIRTY TWO

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The wise men said we’ve been deprived of our city.
The wise men said we’ve been deprived of our home.
Two hundred years after our death historians wrote that people should feel sorry for us.
That it is sad that the same people who lived in Mazagan had to move to another place. That
we lost our roots and were sent into unknown. Forced to start a new life. But it isn’t true.
Our true tragedy is that we never left Mazagan. That it travelled with us across three
continents. That it stayed in our heads. That the walls travelled with us. That we packed the

63
sun rising over the dessert into a box and took it. That cold mornings and dead people
followed us.
Mazagan travelled with us, Mazagan travelled with us. We were Mazagan.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

In the Christological doctrine of the Catholic Church about the transubstantiation of bread
and wine into the Flesh and Blood of our Saviour it is said that the bodies of the believers
who receive the Holy Communion turn into temples devoted to the almighty God – and that
the God lives among them.
And if a small piece of bread, which is no longer bread –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Woe to you, wretched Christians!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And if a small piece of bread, which is no longer bread can make us bear the true God
throughout our lives -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Woe to you, wretched, wretched Christians!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Then, does a grain of sand, which gets into the pupil of our life, is not enough to make us
bear the place from where it came?

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

And if the God does not exist –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And if the place does not exist –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

Then, the unnecessary burden we bear -

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- will hurt us. But we know the God exists –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- so much the worse for the God –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

then we shall find strength with his help. Please, let us think -
Z jego pomocą znajdziemy siłę. Pomyślmy, pomyślmy proszę –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- Please, let us think, Enlightenment –

64
THIRD ONE, SAYING
- the city that does not exist –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- changes human lives once and forever –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- so much the better for it not to exist –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- if it were better for the God not to exist –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- then it is better to obtain freedom, knowing it -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- then you can build –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- then you must build –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- you must build from scratch, with an entirely new foundation –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- you must build from scratch, with the foundation of faith –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- rejecting the superstition –

THIRD ONE, SAYING

- accepting the God’s grace -

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- you must build the new, secular, enlightened society.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You must build your home.

SCENE THIRTY FREE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

I was granted with the gift of happy childhood. I had home. I have home. I had a home, not a
place, but a thing I can bear with me. Today, in the times of homelessness. Millions of people
are exiled from their homes nowadays. They want to build their own fortress, their own

65
Mazagan, somewhere here, in Europe. And they cannot find a proper place. The people from
the Middle East.
And there are those people from our country. Scattered across the globe. Those, who keep
looking for a place to settle their one-person colony. A place to live in. People of my age. My
friends and fellows, who had a place to sleep in but still remained homeless, as they were
unable of taming people and objects around them. Helpless against the hostile dessert. In
my country we are all homeless in this sense. Neither faith, nor political views can give
people shelter. Christians, followers of the Enlightenment, modernists and postmodernists,
leftists and rightists, socialists and liberals, conservatives and anarchists – none of them can
find their home here. We live in the times of homelessness. The worst possible times to live
in, because the only illusion of “homeness” is achieved at the cost of homelessness-ing
someone else. The worst possible times to live in, since we look for substitutes of our
homes. And seek shelter in ideologies, finding nothing but a travesty, a fortress build on
sand, with no fundaments, a fortress which must collapse. Fortress on sand, surrounded of
it, consisting of it, fortresses consisting of walls and cannons. The cannons aimed at the
sand, nothing inside the walls, the walls being the fortress, the sand hidden within. And no
matter what the future brings, I cannot accept living in a home like this.

SCENE THIRTY FOUR

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Rejoice greatly O town of Mazagan Rejoice o thee city with five towers
Ring the bells in the church of Saint Michael Rattle and play drums in the streets
Rejoice Oh rejoice city of Mazagan Let the song of gratitude hit the sky
As thee shall be rebuilt.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Italian engineers visit the governor of Brazilian Belem, they are to plan the New Mazagan, a
colony deep inside the Amazonian jungle.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Greetings, gentlemen.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Greetings, Governor. We bring you the newest way of building homes.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Tell me, good men, how to build a home.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Stones crumble over time, my lord,
Metals rust, wood decays or burns.
But we, sire, bring you a new and reliable way
Of creating everlasting, happy homes.

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SECOND ONE, SAYING
This home, sire, consists of trust,
Of performing music with people who are close to you,
And of the music itself, filling the air.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

The walls of the house are lined with books,
And of all hiding places in the house the one hiding proper words is the most important.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

You take a book, sire,
Read it, take proper words,
And use them the make the walls.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You read a book, sire, and the words
Are like a garden in which
You can spend your time.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

The homes we make are made of daily rituals
Which you have to learn by heart.
We have a plan of them, sire,
Made by our most skilled engineers,
And they should form a foundation
For constructing each day of life.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Tea drunk at a permanent time phone calls to family
Meetings at coffee shops regular visits in bookstores
The act of taking the shoes off the ritual of washing hands –

SECOND ONE, SAYING

- especially washing hands, often so fast and sloppy that it cannot clean the dirt, which
proofs it is nothing but a ritual.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

To subdue the earth is nothing else, sire, than to make it your home.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

To make a place a home is to subdue it, but not to enslave it.

67
SECOND ONE, SAYING
And the earth shall be your home, home built with daily rituals.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And the earth shall be your home, home built with repetitions.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

When you tame a wild wolf, sire, it turns into a housedog after time, sire, and the dog is the
most loyal of our friends. So it is with the Earth, sire, which turns into a home, when tamed
properly.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Oh if only other engineers could understand i!

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Oh if only other engineers built such houses!

THIRD ONE, SAYING

Oh if only other engineers, while building houses, concentrated on where to put
grandfather’s photo as on the most important dilemma..

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And on when to make tea.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

And on where to put your phones, tablets and newspapers before dining together, not to let
them interrupt you.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

Blessed would be the towns and hamlets.

THIRD ONE, SAYING

You must know, sire, that freedom is the measure used while constructing home.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

And that unlimited imagination is the tool for expanding your home, and for braking the
walls separating you from your neighbours. And you can annex their homes and leave
together and drink tea together -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

Bravo, bravo, bravo!

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- said the Governor –

68
FIRST ONE, SAYING
- I would trust you, my gentlemen, but since when do Italians prefer tea over coffee?

SCENE THIRTY FIVE

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

Excuse me –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- no problem –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- excuse me, if the Indians –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- no problem if the Indians –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- Excuse me, if the Indians don’t want you here –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- no problem if the Indians don’t want us here –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

-excuse me, if the Indians don’t want you here, what should they say –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- no problem, that’s what they should say, if they don’t want us here –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- That’s their home and –

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

- no problem –

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

That’s a rather socially awkward thing to put your home in the middle of someone’s else
home.

FOURTH ONE, SAYING

No problem, that’s really not a problem to put your home in the middle of someone’s else
home. We will forever keep you in our memories.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

In seventeen seventy three the first Portuguese family departed to New Mazagan. This city
exists till today, but it is a part of our story -

69
FIFTH ONE, SAYING
- we will tell you about the New Mazagan only as much as it is necessary to say to end the
story of the old one.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- that today annual theatre plays are staged in New Mazagan. Plays about battles between
Portuguese soldiers and troops of the Sultan of Morocco, about the siege of Mazagan, about
the times of glory of the old African fortress -

FIFTH ONE, SAYING

- that once a year a huge feast is held there, commemorating the history, commemorating
the old home -

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- and that just a few last descendants of the old colonists remained, who are still interested
with these plays, not to mention participating in them.

FIFTH ONY, SAYING

- and that these are the local Indians from the neighbouring villages who stage those plays
and who watch them.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

- and that these Indians took over Mazagan. And that Mazagan live within them.

THE LAST ONE

FIRST ONE, SAYING

It is not a coincidence that we identified Mazagan and theatre.
We made a clear border. We have walls which separate us from the rest of the world. We
have our own language, similar to the one you can hear outside, but, as we want to believe,
a one which is a bit different.
And those people outside Mazagan seem similar to us but, on the other hand, different.
We vary from them because we were here and shared the experience of visiting Mazagan.
Those who were outside did not. It doesn’t make them worse or better. Just different.
Here are some people who fight for something. They climb up onto the bastion of the stage,
they shout, they take their watch. Some of them do it because of their beliefs, others
because of their habits, some because it’s their duty. But the difference is subtle, since every
belief enters a stage of doubts and every doubt, on the other hand, is something one cannot
believe in all the time.
Some of you perhaps wanted something more coming here. We won’t lie to them saying
there is a proper explanation of everything within these walls. You may find some sense in
here, but you don’t have to.
And, perhaps, some of you entered here and suddenly found something interesting. In
words which we said, or in opposition to these words. And now will leave this fortified place
of exile, will leave it only formally, since whenever they go or sail now – Mazagan will go
with them.

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FIFTH ONE, SAYING
To build a fort, or a base, is one of the favourite children plays.
When hidden in a fort, children feel safe.
So did adults till some point in our history. Italian engineers invented a so called palazzo in
fortezza, a beautiful and functional building protected by a powerful chain of bulwarks which
allowed the inhabitants to crossfire potential attackers.

SECOND ONE, SAYING

If any of you have wondered what this play is about, do know it did not tell the story of the
fortress of Mazagan.

FIRST ONE, SAYING

If any of you have wondered what this play is about, keep wondering.

ALL OF THEM, SAYING

Sail sail Mazagan
Sail white city Sail
Sail Mazagan Sail City
Sail fortress Sail five white towers.

***
The story and depiction of the Portuguese fortress of Mazagan was taken from the Polish
translation of Laurent Vidal’s book Mazagan. A City Which Crossed the Atlantic. A fragment
from Voltaire’s Poem On The Lisbon Disaster in translation of Joseph McCabe was quoted in
the play.

71