Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     While on a brief stay in the Country of the Seven Cities, Louis visited his old friends, among them Gloss. Born in 1938, Gloss is four feet seven inches tall and weighs two hundred pounds. He has a square face, grey eyes, a snub nose and close-cropped hair. His side teeth are missing, which gives him a strange smile. His belly is pretty enormous, considering his age. His profession: Intellectual. (In the Country of the Seven Cities this career carries some prestige.) Occupying a place on the periphery of power, he is periodically victimized with a heavy unerring hand by his immediate superiors, only to be pardoned each time by enlightened spirits higher up the ladder. He has been married twice. Between the two marriages he had a homosexual relationship that was short-lived but is well known to the public. He is the father of two boys aged five and two, who resemble him to an astonishing degree. A member of the Greek Orthodox Church, he frequents integralist Catholic circles and, prior to Vatican II, considered converting publicly to Catholicism. One of his dearest wishes would have been to get himself accepted by the old aristocracy, now ruined and decimated but maintaining, in spite of persecution, a hidden, intermittent social life. However, he has had to rest content with moving in less exclusive circles: he associates with nostalgic writers whose name and works are banned and goes out on the town with officers of the secret police. Thanks to his contacts, he has access to information not generally disseminated, the importance of which he exaggerates. This causes him to live in a state of constant anticipation of some crucial event, the nature of which is unknown to him. From time to time he goes abroad. In foreign countries he scrupulously avoids his compatriots and generally lives isolated and plunged in a state of semi-prostration. He takes advantage of these trips to read pornographic books and magazines, and to make the acquaintance of hippies, who have the double advantage of symbolizing the future and being innocuous.

     Gloss’s friends are agreed in considering that the most important period in his intellectual life was his “black” period, so-called because of a black leather overcoat that Gloss had managed to get hold of in 1968. Both Gloss and his friends begged Louis to smuggle out of the country the chief work of this period: El Mahdi, a five-act tragedy, in verse, profoundly influenced by Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Eugène Sue’s Mysteries of Paris and Hegel’s Phenomenoloqy of Mind, writings which, according to Gloss, constitute the framework of the modern spirit.

     The tragedy begins in the midst of a rebellion in the Sudan. The rebel leaders are divided over the tactics to adopt. Confident of his star, El Mahdi persuades them to attack. A long speech, full of baroque metaphors and allegories, fills El Mahdi’s comrades with enthusiasm; they fall on their knees before him, declaring him their emperor and swearing loyalty to him. The ensuing scenes show a long series of victories: El Mahdi’s presence is enough to confound his enemies. After every triumph El Mahdi delivers a long tirade, describing himself as the equal of the gods and announcing increasingly strange and cruel measures. His colleagues smother him with flattery and take a lively delight in the massacres he orders.

     By the end of Act Two the war is over and the victorious El Mahdi finds himself at the head of a vast, pacified empire. However, reports arrive of mysterious centres of resistance in the very heart of Khartoum. Elusive rebels find a thousand ways to disrupt the life of the capital. El Mahdi’s comrades treat these reports with disdain, certain that their leader, whose victories have taken them to the confines of Africa, will know how to put a stop to these local troubles. Nevertheless, El Mahdi appears far more worried than usual and orders repressive measures of unheard-of brutality: thousands of people are tortured to death, whole districts burned down. However, the mysterious resistance does not cease. On the contrary, it becomes ever more adroit and strikes in the most unexpected places and by the most unforeseen means. Unverified rumours circulate concerning the existence of an extremely intelligent and cruel “Kaid” who is masterminding the resistance and whom no one has ever managed to see face to face.

     Certain details of their most recent outrages demonstrate that the rebels possess sources of information in the very heart of the government of the empire. Mad with rage, El Mahdi unleashes a dreadful purge among his terrified colleagues.

     Towards the end of Act Three, his most faithful companions are put to the sword. A brief scene in prose shows us two of the soldiers on guard outside El Mahdi’s tent. They are terrified by the strange nocturnal sounds coming from within, which they attribute to their leader’s nightmares and remorse.

     The following scene - the big scene of Act Three - takes place in a tent with very little furniture, dominated by a richly framed mirror taken - as we subsequently learn, from - the Astoria hotel that was burned down on the leader’s orders - and embellished with a heavy velvet curtain that conceals one corner. Two conspirators are receiving their murderous instructions from the “Kaid”, who speaks to them from behind the curtain. The rebels leave and the Kaid appears - it is El Mahdi. He approaches the mirror and addresses his own reflection. The reflection reproaches El Mahdi with his subversive activities. El Mahdi gives a wicked laugh and emphasizes that without such activities the reflection would not be what it is. There ensues a long and lively dialogue in the course of which El Mahdi hurls at his reflection the following lines of verse ( the musicality of which is untranslatable): “You are not a phantasm/Created by my mind in accordance with ancient myths/You are myself, and I am living/Being the negation of you...” The reflection again reminds El Mahdi of his terrorist acts, and El Mahdi reproaches his reflection with the execution of his closest companions. “It was necessary for their destiny to be accomplished,” replies the reflection. “And it will be the same with yours,”retorts El Mahdi, who leaves the stage announcing his intention to organise a plot against himself.

     Act Five opens in the main square Of Khartoum. To the great delight of the bystanders, an executioner is torturing the former comrades of El Mahdi. The latter approaches to supervise their martyrdom. The victims catch sight of him and acclaim his presence, after which they are slain. One of the conspirators manages to slip past the guards, goes up to El Mahdi, draws a dagger and strikes him.

     The last scene of the tragedy takes place in El Mahdi’s tent, to which the sodiers carry their wounded leader and, at his request, leave him alone, lying on a divan facing the mirror.

     The final scene has two versions which, according to the author’s instructions, may both be performed, in the order chosen by the director. One of the versions shows us El Mahdi, weakened by his wound, justifying himself to his reflection. The reflection does not reply and finally turns its back on him and disappears into the depths of the mirror. In the second version El Mahdi addresses his reflection and the reflection answers. The conversation, however, is incoherent. The reflection’s brutal replies, having no connection with El Mahdi’s remarks together with the confused sounds from behind the velvet curtain, gradually force El Mahdi to realize that the reflection is not conversing with him, but that, ignoring his insignificant presence, it is engaged in a dangerous dialogue with the voice of the Kaid, whose threats can be heard ever more distinctly. El Mahdi rises and tries to pull aside the curtain or to smash the mirror, but the assassination attempt has sapped his strength and he collapses helpless on the divan. The second version ends with a long tirade full of mythological allusions: El Mahdi can die happy at having proved himself the equal of the gods, because it is the privilege of deities to have no control over their creations.