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2002-12-03 - 8:00 p.m. Was working on this play, until it got too complex for me. Yes, it happens. : P I was basically trying to write something where there are intersections of class, race and gender, about the limits of liberal humanism and even feminism. I think I'll try continuing it at some less hassled period, but for the moment, here are early jottings. Warning: polemics ahead. : ) Disaster Relief Area Scene 1 (An office. A Chinese lawyer, Cheryl, is talking on the telephone. A Malay woman academic, Zubaidah, is seated near her desk) Cheryl: Sweetie, Mummy’s busy now, OK? Don’t call unless there’s an emergency. Yah, I know, I’ll buy you a new box. Tell your friend she can keep the crayons. We’ll get you a bigger set. The one with 24 colours. Oh, OK, then we’ll get the one with 36. No, sweetie, I can’t send her to jail. No, she’s not a criminal. A criminal is…sweetie, why don’t we discuss this later. OK? Zubaidah: Busy day? Cheryl: Yah. I have to fetch Daniel later at 6. Zubaidah: And Jonathan? Cheryl: He’s out of town. Some seminar. It’s usually his job to fetch Daniel. Zubaidah: What seminar is he attending? Cheryl: Something on the environment. Sustainable development or something. In Third World Countries. Zubaidah: Third World. Cheryl: Yes. Why? Zubaidah: Nothing. (Pause) Cheryl: It’s the second time this month. Zubaidah: It’s his second time overseas? Cheryl: No, I mean you. Zubaidah: There were minor ones in between. Cheryl: He’s smart, though. He doesn’t target your face. Can I see it? (Zubaidah uncovers her back for Cheryl to see, away from the audience) Cheryl: This is crazy. Zubaidah: Are you counting them? Cheryl: Yes. Zubaidah: We’ve been friends for ten years. You don’t count my bruises. You ask me if they still hurt. Cheryl: I’m sorry. Do they? Zubaidah: Only if I lie on my back. So I sleep on my front. Like a baby. Cheryl: Did he use a weapon? Zubaidah: The best one there is. His hands. Cheryl: They’re big hands. Zubaidah: One of the reasons why I was attracted to him in the first place. Cheryl: Because we always think the men with big hands can protect us better. (Silence) Zubaidah: So, how are things? Cheryl: You can’t let him go on like this. Zubaidah: What you mean is I can’t go on like this. Cheryl: Whatever I mean, this has got to stop. Zubaidah: What you mean is I have to start doing something. Cheryl: Don’t start picking apart what I’m saying. You know I’ve hated that since the time we were in JC. Zubaidah: We’ve had this conversation before, Cheryl. To you, the problem is not about convincing him to pull back his punches. It’s about convincing me to push him into jail. Where you think he belongs. Cheryl: And you won’t do that, of course. Zubaidah: It’s out of the question. Cheryl: And you won’t even ask for a divorce. Zubaidah: On what grounds? Sooner or later the words wife-basher will pop up in the testimonies. And that’s as good as a police report. Cheryl: You’re a financially independent woman. You don’t need him. Zubaidah: But he needs me. Cheryl: Oh, bullshit. Zubaidah: You want me to make a report? Fine. They’ll lock him up. Maybe for a few years. You tell me what good that will do. Cheryl: Well, for one thing, the next time you walk into my office you won’t be lifting up the back of your blouse for me to inspect. I’m a lawyer, not a forensic scientist. Zubaidah: Forensics look at dead bodies. Cheryl: Which is my point. Nobody knows when this will get fatal. Zubaidah: He won’t kill someone he still needs. Cheryl: A man’s rage doesn’t have that kind of logic. Zubaidah: Rage? Is that what you call it? Cheryl: Call what, Zu? Zubaidah: He’s a helpless man. He beats me, and I can run to you. My best friend’s a lawyer. I have friends who are doctors, judges, business professionals. His friends work in cleaning services and pest control. I’ll ask you now, who do you think has more power? Any time I want to, I can summon the entire arsenal of the judicial system against him. I am an articulate, educated woman whose father was a respected community leader. The Law is on my side. Who’s on his side? He’s only got his hands. Cheryl: And his trouble is he doesn’t keep them firmly by his sides. I don’t care if you want to call it a kind of angst that comes from social disenfranchisement, or whether it’s some kind of a personality disorder. The fact is his rage translates itself into violence. And that violence translates into real, physical, pain for you. Quantifiable pain. There are seven bruises on your back, Zu. Zubaidah: It will sort itself out. He’ll get tired of it. He’s gradually adjusting. Cheryl: I don’t understand why you talk about him as this misunderstood character rather than the monster that he is. Zubaidah: He isn’t a monster. I am the monster. You don’t get it. How many men in the Malay community marry above their rank? Almost none. Years and years of patriarchy have conditioned them to take wives lower in status, because her job is to make coffee for him when he comes home, and take his socks off while he’s sitting back in the reclining chair. Fans and grapes are optional. She’s the one to roll his socks off neatly like condoms, but of course she won’t see the association because she’s probably never seen one, and each baby she churns out like a factory is some kind of divine special delivery. My husband would never in his wildest dreams think of marrying someone like me. Cheryl: So what is all this? Gratitude? Zubaidah: No. An attempt to understand my husband. Also, an attempt to save my marriage. Cheryl: Marriage isn’t an act of charity. Zubaidah: We bucked the statistics when we got married. Nobody thought it could happen. A union between two people of widely different classes. And I don’t want to give this up. Because then I’ll be adding two-fold to the collection of stereotypes we take for reality in this country. First, that marriages between a privileged woman and an underprivileged man don’t work. And second, that most Muslim marriages end up in divorce. Cheryl: I don’t believe this. You’re living through hell just to be the person who messes up a bar chart. Zubaidah: It’s worth it because only statistics stand for oracles of truth these days. Nobody believes anecdotes anymore. This is Singapore. You want empirical evidence. The cold, hard facts. Everything else is bullshit.
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