SCENE 6: INTERROGATION AND DEATH

(GUARDS enter bringing NAOMI old clothes.)
NAOMI: (As she dresses) The guards give me someone else's
clothes - the pants, shirt, shoes, and underwear of
someone who won't be needing them any more. Cold,
sweaty hands drag me to an office where I have to repeat
my testimony in front of a typewriter, my official version
of the facts, so official that I sign it without seeing what it
says, without knowing who will be made guilty by my
name signed blindly at the bottom of the page. Then they
drag me back to my cell. Suddenly I hear voices.
GUARDS: Attention!
NAOMI: I don't know what is all about, but I stand in front of
the door to my cell, which is open. I don't know what I'm
supposed to do about the chain I hear dragging along the
corridor. I think I've been left alone in my section, that
the other cells are empty and that they're going to punish
me for not following the invisible group of prisoners I
belong to. I remain at attention, defying the darkness, the
fear of possible reprisals. The voice of a woman comes to
rescue me. (NARRATORS enter in a line, each with a hand
on the shoulder of the person in front of them. They are
choo-chooing along like a train at the GUARD's insistence. A
WOMAN steps out of line to explain to NAOMI.)
WOMAN: That order was to go to the bathroom. When they
open the door, you have to wait for the signal to turn right,
put your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of
you and start moving. I'll take you this time so they won't
know you stayed behind. When you hear them callout
number one, you turn. When they say two, you put hands
on the shoulders of the one in front of you. On three, you
march. Like a train. Sometimes they want us to make
sounds. (She demonstrates.) Don't let them notice we're
falling behind. You march on command, squat on
command, return on command.
NAOMI: What if I can't - you know - on command?
WOMAN: You'll learn. You have to.
NAOMI: And if you need to go some other time?
WOMAN: You can't. If you foul yourself, they beat you. If you
continue shitting your pants, they beat you to death.
(The line of NARRATORS circles back to pick up NAOMI and
the WOMAN.)
NAOMI: I come back coupled to the train of bodies I had lost. A
half-turn, my hand on a shoulder, one, two, one, two ... a
centipede going to its hole, an insect with twenty, thirty,
forty pairs of legs, crawling blindly along.
NARRATORS: The rules of the game: bait the victim to show
him his impotence...
Transform him into a sniveling weakling ...
Beat a new language into him ...
A nice simple one with no past or future tense ...
No first person singular.
You soon forget who you are, what you think, what day it is.
You can't remember your birthday, even though you know
you're getting old.
But you damn well remember your place in line, eh?
They take us to the showers in single file, up to a huge
room with pipes spewing out water ...
Plenty for everyone.
We undress in front of a group of men.
GUARDS: How do you like the ass on the second one on the
right?
NARRATORS: You have to shower looking at the floor ...
GUARDS: Look at the tits on that fourth one!
NARRATORS: Pick up the soap without shifting your gaze ...
GUARDS: The one in the middle's too fat.
NARRATORS: Pretend you can't hear their jeers and their
laughter ...
GUARDS: Hey, baby!
NARRATORS: Not react to the icy water that condenses the
cold ofthe walls and the body...
GUARDS: Get ready!
NARRATORS: Forget there are no towels.
NAOMI: I was filled with dread every time a guard's footsteps
echoed in the corridor. Everyone was afraid to be taken
back for more torture.
GUARDS: I'm saving it for you!
NARRATORS: Sometimes you wanted to go out just to stretch
your legs or use the bathroom... But at the same time you
didn't because that exposed you to their glances... To
anything and everything that popped into the minds of
your captors.
GUARDS: Heh, you! Come here. Let's look you over.
We could make it easier for you. Whadda you say?
NARRATORS: You grew progressively smaller, limiting your
world.
When they open the door, when they close it ...
What you eat today, what you eat tomorrow...
When you are punished, when not.
Life gets so small you forget where you are, who you are. You're
grateful for a friendly gesture, for a plate of decent
food.
Happy to be out for a bit.

You're not allowed to speak ...
Couldn't look ...
Couldn't walk.
Codes tapped on cell walls ...
Whispers squatting over the hole.

The cells had a peep-hole on the outside.
They'd approach suddenly and look in...
And if they found you ¬
Even in the darkness ¬
With your blindfold off ...
Or walking about ...
Or exercising ...
Or giving the least sign of being human in any way...
Or showing any sign of resistance ...
GUARDS: Put your blindfold back on, bitch! You're gonna pay
for this!
NARRATORS: At least they remembered to bring us food.
Yeah, food the other prisoners didn't want.
Heh, I'd eat whatever I could.
Never knew when you'd get another chance.
NAOMI: Soup is my clock. It marks my nights and dawns until
I lose track and enter an unrelieved twilight. The massive
door of the cell opens three times a day. Once to go to the
bathroom, twice to provide the concoction they call soup.
I grope for a place for the bowl on top of the mattress and
I try to place the spoon in the liquid. It's scalding. I blow
on each spoonful so I won't burn my mouth. But I'm not
used to it. I take too long for their liking. At the fifth
spoonful, they take it away.
NARRATORS: Time has gotten sick.
Lost in a labyrinth where tomorrow, yesterday and today
search for each other without ever meeting ...
Time flickers and goes out.

Those who lead us to and from the bathroom ...
Those who drag us to the cattle prod ...
Those who quietly hand a cigarette to someone desperate ...
Those we know only by their voices echoing in the hollow
silence of our cells ...
They locked us up every night ...
Locked us out for bathroom and shower ...
Locked us back in after each.
So we called them "locks."
Which meant there was one lock on the door to your cell …
And another one outside to guard you.
And you were called out by your lock number.

The guards are prisoners as much as we are.
Rubbish!
They too are among the disappeared.
Come on!
They end up collaborating just to be without a blindfold ...
Willing to exchange anything for the hope of survival …
Exchanging even their selves for a certain satisfaction in
doing a job ...
Whatever it might be.

Remember their names?
You mean the names they told us to call them by?
Shark ...
Viper …
Tiger …
Blondie …
Turk …
Bell …
Light bulb …
Pacifier …
Angel …
Scorpion.

They were better than the regular police
¬Part of the Special Forces.
Better than Milicos, that's for sure.
(Spits.) Milicos!

Death is better than Milicos.

NAOMI: How do you remember so much? The only thing I
recall is a window, but not whether the beds were metal or
wood. I remember the toilet and how the prison felt like a
vault. I remember a kind of storage closet and not much
more. I remember very little else. The need and the
urgency of forgetting situations, of forgetting partners, of
forgetting faces was such that I really did forget them. For
nothing, right?
NARRATORS: Don't forget to forget the forgetting.
(Whispered:) Bring the knife, ring the bell ...

Where are we?
In a hell hole.
Top security.
For how long?
I been here six months.
All my friends have been killed.
(Whispered:) When you die ...

NAOMI: What keeps you going?
NARRATORS: Step on a crack!
(Enter MILICOS, shouting both the questions and the
answers, rapid-fire, almost to the point of incomprehension.
They gather NAOMI up in a white sheet and carry her
offstage, like a corpse. At the same time, in the rhythmic
intervals of the MILICOS' lines, the NARRATORS begin
whispering, building slowly in volume.)
MILICOS: Name?
Naomi.

Residence?
Buenos Aires

Nationality?
Argentine.

Ethnicity?
Jewish

Politics?
Marxist.

Sexual preference? (Guffaws.)

Associates?
Gerardo, Juan, Jose, Raul, Manuel...

Charges?
Violating curfew,
interfering with activities of the Armed Forces,
tarnishing image of Security Police, associating with
known subversives, and circulating anti-Argentine
materials.

How do you plead?

GUILTY! (MILICOS exeunt. Silence.)
NARRATORS: (Whispering simultaneously)
The shocks came faster than before, more powerful.

Spasmodic rhythms ...
strange percussion ...
jolts to my skin.

Something brushes past ...
stinging ...
burning ...
shaking ...
drilling.

(Louder:) All that humming ...
the hatred ...
the agony...
the sharp point ¬

Everything explodes on contact with the skin ...
vibrating ...
cutting ...
slashing ...
piercing ...

destroying my brain ...
my teeth ...
my gums ...
my ears ...
my breasts ...
my toes ...
my lips …
my eyelids …
my ovaries …
my nails …

even the soles of my feet.

(Shouting together:) The soles of my feet! (Silence. MILICOS
exeunt.)

(Whispered:) My skin gives off a burnt smell.
Blue!
NARRATORS: The charges are so fast, so persistent, that it
doesn't seem like I'm going to die ...
I am already dying.
I only want to finish dying.
But no, they stop and I'm still alive.
They untie me and take me along stinking corridors to a
wider place they call the infirmary.
I try to orient myself by using my ears, the only sense
available to me.
The voice of the male nurse ...
Or doctor ...
Or paramedic ...
Echoes in a space big enough for twelve hospital beds.
They are well-equipped and they treat my infected wounds.

The cattle prod opens them ...
And, with great care, they close them ...
So they can be opened again.

I am being bandaged by soft, delicate hands.
It's the first time I've been touched without being beaten ...
Spoken to without being sworn at.
Perhaps it's because of this that words bubble up ...
I don't know anything!
They have to release me!
I've got nothing to do with' it!

(One by one, NARRATORS hide behind blank white masks.
They gather Center Stage in a tight group. Those who speak
are hidden behind those in the front. During the following,
NAOMI sneaks On-stage, unseen, to hide behind the
NARRATORS.)
I know nothing, yet ...
If I speak, I condemn myself.
If I don't speak, they condemn me.
I will be liquidated, either way.

No more fresh air ...
No more friends ...
No more books ...

No kisses ...
No letters ...
No more.

I would love to submerge myself in tears.
But what for?
NAOMI'S VOICE: Tears don't open padlocks, my grandmother
used to say. (The NARRATORS part to reveal NAOMI, stj]]
wrapped in the white sheet.)
NARRATORS: Don't forget to forget the forgetting.
NAOMI: I am nothing. Everything is erased.
NARRATORS: (In unison) Don't forget.
NAOMI: I am invisible. (Blackout.)