India Song Read online

  INDIA

  SONG

  Works by Marguerite Duras

  Published by Grove Press

  Destroy, She Said

  Four Novels: The Square,

  Moderato Cantabile,

  Ten-Thirty on a Summer Night,

  and The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

  Hiroshima, Mon Amour

  India Song

  The Malady of Death

  Marguerite Duras

  INDIA

  SONG

  Translated from the French by

  Barbara Bray

  GROVE PRESS

  New York

  This translation copyright © 1976 by Grove Press, Inc.

  Originally published in French as India Song

  copyright © 1973 by Editions Gallimard, Paris.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The name Grove Press and the colophon printed on the title page and outside of this book are trademarks registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  Published by Grove Press a division of Wheatland Corporation

  Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  First Evergreen Edition 1976

  New Evergreen Edition 1988

  ISBN: 0-8021-3135-2 (pbk.)

  eISBN: 978-0-8021-9060-4

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-16763

  Translated from the French by Barbara Bray

  Cover design by Cindy LaBreacht

  Cover photograph from the film India Song

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  India Song was written in August, 1972, at the request of Peter Hall, director of the National Theatre, London.

  INDIA

  SONG

  Characters

  ANNE-MARIE STRETTER

  THE BEGGAR WOMAN

  MICHAEL RICHARDSON

  THE YOUNG ATTACHÉ (not named)

  THE STRETTERS’ GUEST (not named)

  GEORGE CRAWN

  THE FRENCH VICE-CONSUL IN LAHORE (not named)

  FIRST SERVANT

  SECOND SERVANT

  10 women extras

  10 men extras

  2 WOMEN’S VOICES

  2 MEN’S VOICES

  General Remarks

  The names of Indian towns, rivers, states, and seas are used here primarily in a musical sense.

  All references to physical, human, or political geography are incorrect:

  You can't drive from Calcutta to the estuary of the Ganges in an afternoon. Nor to Nepal.

  The “Prince of Wales” hotel is not on an island in the Delta, but in Colombo.

  And New Delhi, not Calcutta, is the administrative capital of India.

  And so on.

  The characters in the story have been taken out of a book called The Vice-consul and projected into new narrative regions. So it is not possible to relate them back to the book and see India Song as a film or theatre adaptation of The Vice-consul. Even where a whole episode is taken over from the book, its insertion into the new narrative means that it has to be read, seen, differently.

  In fact, India Song follows on from The Woman of the Ganges. If The Woman of the Ganges hadn't been written, neither would India Song. The fact that it goes into and reveals an unexplored area of The Vice-consul wouldn't have been a sufficient reason.

  What was a sufficient reason was the discovery, in The Woman of the Ganges, of the means of exploration, revelation: the voices external to the narrative. This discovery made it possible to let the narrative be forgotten and put at the disposal of memories other than that of the author: memories which might remember, in the same way, any other love story. Memories that distort. That create.

  Some voices from The Woman of the Ganges have been used here. And even some of their words.

  That is about all that can be said.

  As far as I know, no “India Song” yet exists. When it has been written, the author will make it available and it should be used for all performances of India Song in France and elsewhere.

  If by any chance India Song were performed in France, there should be no public dress rehearsal. This does not apply to other countries.

  I

  Notes on Voices 1 and 2

  VOICES 1 and 2 are women's voices. Young.

  They are linked together by a love story.

  Sometimes they speak of this love, their own. Most of the time they speak of another love, another story. But this other story leads us back to theirs. And vice versa.

  Unlike the men's voices—VOICES 3 and 4, which don't come in until the end of the narrative—the women's voices are tinged with madness. Their sweetness is pernicious. Their memory of the love story is illogical, anarchic. Most of the time they are in a state of transport, a delirium, at once calm and feverish. VOICE 1 is consumed with the story of ANNE-MARIE STRETTER. VOICE 2 is consumed with its passion for VOICE 1.

  They should always be heard with perfect clarity, but the level varies according to what they are saying. They are most immediately present when they veer toward their own story—that is, when, in the course of a perpetual shifting process, the love story of India Song is juxtaposed with their own. But there is a distinction. When they speak of the story we see unfolding before us, they rediscover it at the same time we do, and so are frightened and perhaps moved by it in the same way we are. But when they speak of their own story, they are always shot through with desire, and we should feel the difference between their two passions. Above all, we should feel the terror of VOICE 2 at the fascination the resuscitated story exerts over VOICE 1. VOICE 1 is in danger of being “lost” in the story of India Song, which is in the past, legendary, a model. VOICE 1 is in danger of departing its own life.

  The voices are never raised, and their sweetness remains constant.

  Blackout.

  A tune from between the two wars, “India Song,” is played slowly on the piano.

  It is played right through, to cover the time—always long—that it takes the audience, or the reader, to emerge from the ordinary world they are in when the performance, or the book, begins.

  "India Song” still.

  Still.

  And now it ends.

  Now it is repeated, “farther away” than the first time, as if it were being played elsewhere.

  Now it is played at its usual rhythm—blues.

  The darkness begins to lighten.

  As the dark slowly disperses, suddenly there are voices. Others besides ourselves were watching, hearing, what we thought we alone were watching and hearing. They are women. The voices are slow, sweet. Very close, enclosed like us in this place. And intangible, inaccessible.

  VOICE 1: He followed her to India.

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  Pause.

  VOICE 2: For he left everything.

  Overnight.

  VOICE 1: The night of the dance?

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  The light continues to grow. We still hear “India Song.” The voices are silent for some time. Then they begin again:

  VOICE 1: Was it she who played the piano?

  VOICE 2 (hesitating): Yes . . . but he played too . . . It was he who used sometimes, in the evening, to play the tune they played in S. Thala . . .

  Silence.

  A house in India. Huge. A “white people's” house. Divans. Armchairs.

  Furniture of the period of “India Song.”
<
br />   A ceiling fan is working, but at nightmare slowness.

  Net screens over the windows. Beyond, the paths of a large tropical garden. Oleanders. Palm trees.

  Complete stillness. No wind outside. Inside, dense shadow. Is it the evening? We don't know. Space. Gilt. A piano. Unlit chandeliers. Indoor plants. Nothing moves, nothing except the fan, which moves with nightmare “unreality.”

  The slowness of the voices goes with the very slow growth of the light; their sweetness matches the poignancy of the setting.

  VOICE 1 (as if reading): “Michael Richardson was engaged to a girl from S. Thala. Lola Valérie Stein. They were to have been married in the autumn.

  Then there was the dance.

  The dance at S. Thala . . .”

  Silence.

  VOICE 2: She arrived at the dance late . . . in the middle of the night . . .

  VOICE 1: Yes . . . dressed in black . . .

  What love, at the dance . . .

  What desire . . .

  Silence.

  As the light grows we see, set in this colonial décor, presences. There were people there all the time.

  They are behind either a row of plants, or a fine net screen, or a transparent blind, or smoke from perfume burners—something which makes the second part of the space explored less easily visible.

  Lying on a divan, long, slender, almost thin, is a woman dressed in black.

  Sitting close to her is a man, also dressed in black.

  Away from the lovers there is another man in black. (One of the men is smoking a cigarette—is that what made us sense there were people there?)

  VOICE 1 discovers—after we do—the presence of the woman in black.

  VOICE 1 (tense, low): Anne-Marie Stretter . . .

  It is as if VOICE 2 had not heard.

  VOICE 2 (low): How pale you are . . . what are you frightened of . . .

  No answer.

  Silence.

  The three people seem struck by a deathly stillness.

  “India Song” has stopped.

  The voices grow lower, to match the deathliness of the scene.

  VOICE 2: After she died, he left India . . .

  Silence.

  That was said all in one breath, as if recited slowly.

  So the woman in black, there in front of us, is dead.

  The light is now steady, somber.

  Silence everywhere.

  Near and far.

  The voices are full of pain. Their memory, which was gone, is coming back. But they are as sweet, as gentle as before.

  VOICE 2: She's buried in the English cemetery . . .

  Pause.

  VOICE 1: . . . she died there?

  VOICE 2: In the islands. (Hesitates.) One night. Found dead.

  Silence.

  "India Song” again, slow, far away.

  At first we don't see the movement, the beginnings of movement. But it begins exactly on the first note of “India Song.”

  The woman in black and the man sitting near her begin to stir. Emerge from death. Their footsteps make no sound.

  They are standing up.

  They are close together.

  What are they doing?

  They are dancing.

  Dancing. We only realize it when they are already dancing.

  They go on, slowly, dancing.

  When VOICE 1 speaks they have been dancing for some time.

  VOICE 1 is gradually remembering.

  VOICE 1: The French Embassy in India . . .

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  Pause.

  VOICE 1: That murmur? The Ganges?

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  Pause.

  VOICE 1: That light?

  VOICE 2: The monsoon.

  VOICE 1: . . . no wind . : .

  VOICE 2 (continues): . . . it will break over Bengal . . .

  VOICE 1: The dust?

  VOICE 2: The middle of Calcutta.

  Silence.

  VOICE 1: Isn't there a smell of flowers?

  VOICE 2: Leprosy.

  Silence.

  They are still dancing to “India Song.”

  They are dancing. But it needs to be said.

  (As if otherwise it weren't sure. And so that the image and the voices coincide, touch.)

  VOICE 2: They're dancing.

  Silence.

  VOICE 2: In the evening they used to dance.

  Silence.

  They dance.

  So close they are one.

  "India Song” fades in the distance.

  They are merged together in the dance, almost motionless.

  Now quite motionless.

  VOICE 2: Why are you crying?

  No answer.

  Silence.

  No more music.

  A murmur in the distance. Then it stops. Other murmurs.

  They, the man and woman, are still motionless in the silence hemmed in by sound.

  Fixed. Arrested.

  It lasts a long while.

  Over the fixed couple:

  VOICE 2: I love you so much I can't see any more, can't hear . . .

  . . . can't live . . .

  No answer.

  Silence.

  "India Song” comes back from far away. Slowly the couple unfreeze, come back to life.

  Sound increases behind the music: the sound of Calcutta: a loud, a great murmur. All around, various other sounds. The regular cries of merchants. Dogs. Shouts in the distance.

  As the sound outside increases, the sky in the garden becomes overcast. Murky light. No wind.

  Silence.

  The couple separate and turn toward the garden. They look out at it, motionless.

  The second man sitting there also begins to look out at the garden.

  The light grows still murkier.

  The sound of Calcutta ceases.

  Waiting.

  Waiting. It is almost dark.

  Suddenly the waiting is over:

  The noise of the rain.

  A cool, slaking noise.

  It is raining over Bengal.

  The rain cannot be seen. Only heard. As if it were raining everywhere except in the garden, deleted from life.

  Everyone looks at the sound of the rain.

  VOICE 2 (scarcely voiced): It's raining over Bengal . . .

  VOICE 1: An ocean . . .

  Silence.

  Cries in the distance, of joy, shouts in Hindustani, the unknown language.

  The light gradually returns.

  The rain, the noise, very loud for a few seconds.

  It grows less. Isolated shouts and laughter are heard more clearly through the sound of the rain.

  The light continues to grow stronger.

  Suddenly, clearer, nearer cries—a woman's. Her laughter.

  VOICE 1: Someone's shouting . . . a woman . . .

  VOICE 2: What?

  VOICE 1: Disconnected words.

  She's laughing.

  VOICE 2: A beggar.

  Pause.

  VOICE 1: Mad?

  VOICE 2: Yes . . .

  In the garden paths, sun after the rain. Moving sunlight. Patches of light, gray, pale.

  Still the shouting and laughter of the BEGGAR WOMAN.

  VOICE 1: Oh yes . . . I remember. She goes by the banks of the rivers . . . is she from Burma?

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  While the voices speak of the beggar, the three people move, leave the room by side doors.

  VOICE 2: She's not Indian.

  She comes from Savannakhet.

  Born there.

  VOICE 1: Ah yes . . . yes . . .

  One day . . . she's been walking ten years, and one day, there in front of her, the Ganges?

  VOICE 2: Yes.

  And there she stops.

  VOICE 1: Yes . . .

  The three people have disappeared. The place is empty.

  Someone speaking, almost shouting, in the distance, in a soft-sounding language, Laotian.

  VOICE 1 (after a pause): T
welve children die while she's walking to Bengal . . . ?

  VOICE 2: Yes. She leaves them. Sells them. Forgets them. (Pause.) On the way to Bengal, becomes barren.

  The three people reach the garden and stroll slowly through the cool after the rain, moving through the patches of sunlight. In the distance, the shouting of the BEGGAR WOMAN, still. Suddenly, in the shouting, the word SAVANNAKHET.

  The voices halt briefly. Then resume:

  VOICE 1: Savannakhet—Laos?

  VOICE 2: Yes. (Pause.) Seventeen . . . she's pregnant, she's seventeen . . . (Pause.) She's turned out by her mother, goes away. (Pause.) She asks the way to get lost. Remember?

  No one knows.

  VOICE 1 (pause): Yes.

  One day, she's been walking ten years, and one day: Calcutta, there in front of her.

  She stays.

  Silence.

  VOICE 2: She's there on the banks of the Ganges, under the trees. She has forgotten.

  Silence.

  The three people go out of the garden.

  Movements of light, monsoon, in the empty garden.

  The song of the beggar—"song of Savannakhet"—in the distance.

  (VOICE 2 is informative, calm, gentle.)

  VOICE 2: Lepers burst like sacks of dust, you know.

  VOICE 1: Don't suffer?

  VOICE 2: No. Not a thing.

  Laugh.

  Silence.

  VOICE 2: They were there together, in Calcutta. The white woman and the other. During the same years.

  The voices are silent.

  A distant part of the garden, so far very dark, as if neglected by the lighting, gradually becomes visible. It is revealed by spotlights—extremely slowly, but regularly, mathematically.

  Far away, the song of Savannakhet—coming, going. Sound of Calcutta, in the distance.