Andrew Fentham

Au hasard Pantomime

And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?                  

Numbers 22:28

I              And the donkey is beaten again. It does not sound a dry bray and cannot see past its load to where the blow comes from. The donkey continues.

II             The donkey has found an apple. It picks it up in cloth lips and assimilates. It continues. The donkey finds another apple. The donkey assimilates.

III            There is a girl. She wears a dress and is kind to the donkey. She tenderly knuckles its nose. Today she has made a corolla from twigs which she places on the donkey’s head. She feeds it alembroth, saying ‘Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.’

IV             A whip is cracked. The donkey continues. As it slows, there is a second crack of the whip. The donkey continues. As it slows, there is another crack of the whip. The donkey continues.

V              The donkey stands in a stone barn. A portable radio plays Schubert’s twentieth piano sonata.

VI             A bell is tolling. The donkey’s long cloth ears do not hear it. A bell is tolling in the town on a Sunday. The donkey has pulled a cart with a girl and her father in it to the town. The donkey is left alone, chained to the outer wall of a large stone church. The sun is shining but the donkey stands in the shadow of the church. A bell is tolling. A fly lands on the donkey’s muzzle bringing on a nod.

VII            The donkey pulls a plough. It does not register the cars which pass quickly and noisily along the road past the field. The donkey strains awkwardly against its collar, harness and leather bridle. It is morning.

VIII           The donkey’s eye does not receive the field in the morning. The field waits for the donkey to blink. A fly lands on the donkey’s muzzle bringing on a nod.

IX             A youth in a leather jacket is setting fire to the donkey’s tail. He ties paper to it and sets it alight. The donkey runs away with its tail on fire. It kicks its hindquarters out. The youth is behind at a distance. The fire is behind the donkey in front of the youth. A youth has set fire to the donkey and the donkey must run and kick out its hindquarters to escape it. The youth in the leather jacket catches up with the donkey whose scorched hindquarters protrude from a bush it has hidden its face in.

X              The donkey has found an apple, miraculous upon the dirt. Insects have arrived before the donkey to work on one side and something smaller still has kept on to leave a quaggy dark hole. The rest of the apple is green to the donkey’s eye which does not move any more than the apple, nor its face betray the merest ardour as it shunts an approach. Jack jack jack. Sheathed in cloth lips and taken in the teeth, the apple is swallowed whole in a nod, lodging visibly in the donkey’s throat to no visible distress.

XI             Snow covers the donkey. It is chained to the outer wall of a stone barn. Its fur is damp and sags. It moves as far as its tether allows in an effort to keep warm. Snow continues to fall.

XII            The donkey meets a green tractor with rubber wheels. They stare at each other. The wind blows. A spotted heifer comes in from the meadow and sniffs the donkey and stands next to it. They stare at the green tractor.

XIII           The donkey has tasted the double salt of wisdom.

XIV            The donkey is in a stone barn. Donkey in the straw – donkey in the hay. Sunlight enters and plays strangely upon the donkey’s fur. Its long ears do not hear the approaching footsteps or laughter.

XV             And the donkey is beaten again. It does not sound a dry bray and cannot see past its load to where the blow comes from. The donkey continues.

XVI            A farrier has arrived to shoe the donkey. He wears an oily apron. He lifts each hoof calmly and places the shoe over the frog and sole of the donkey’s foot and drives the nails in. The donkey does not spook to hear its new footfall but limps a little. The farrier nails a fifth shoe above the door of the stone barn. The points of the shoe face the sky to help it collect luck, he explains. When he has gone, the farmer turns it around. An empty tulip the devil sits in, he explains.

XVII           The Athenian donkey wears a corolla. The corolla was given to it by a girl who loves it. She kisses it tenderly on the nose. The girl has grown up with the donkey and considers it a friend. She wears a dress.

XVIII          A drunk is menacing the donkey with a wooden chair. In his other hand is a wine bottle. ‘Devil,’ he mutters. The fourth blow breaks the chair upon the donkey’s back. The donkey falls silently to its knees. The drunk considers continuing the attack with the bottle but cannot bear to lose wine. He kicks the donkey’s flank.

XIX            The sun is shining and the donkey is led to a water trough. It does not drink. It considers the trough and becomes agitated. Light plays upon the surface of the water as the donkey shifts its weight from foot to foot. The donkey dunks its whole head into the trough with a splash.

XX             The donkey is ill. It lies on straw in a stone barn. Here is a girl who loves the donkey. She kneels beside it and strokes its long ears, saying, ‘For the Lord will not cast off forever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.’

XXI            The donkey hums the second movement of Schubert’s twentieth piano sonata in the night. It sways a little. It hums sweetly. It stands outside a stone barn looking at a house which has the lights on.

XXII           A whip is cracked on the donkey’s soft flank. The donkey responds with a twitch and continues. The whip is cracked again. The donkey protects its soft flank by continuing. The whip is cracked again. There are tears in the donkey’s hide. The whip is cracked again.

XXIII          The donkey pulls a cart. It does not register the cars which pass quickly and noisily along the road. The donkey strains awkwardly against its collar, harness and leather bridle. It is evening. There is a man asleep in the cart. The donkey is pulling the cart downhill and the cart is gathering speed. The cart with the man inside is too heavy for the donkey to slow down. The man is asleep and the cart is gathering speed. The cart turns over and the man and the donkey are in the ditch. The donkey gets up and continues without the cart.

XXIV           The donkey’s gaze is fixed upon something in the distance. Its eye is made of glass. The field waits for the donkey to blink. The donkey gazes at the field. There is something in the distance. A fly lands on the donkey’s muzzle bringing on a nod. The donkey’s long cloth ears do not hear it buzz off. The donkey’s long cloth ears do not hear the engine as it approaches, nor see the tractor it gazes at. The tractor is green with rubber wheels. The donkey gazes long at it.

XXV            There is a girl who cares for the donkey. She has grown up with it and considers it a friend. The donkey’s long ears reach her eyeline. When she looks into its eye with her eyes she finds it unfathomable. Its eye is liquid glass to her eye. The donkey gazes at her without seeing and accepts her touch without feeling it. She strokes its long ears and knuckles its nose.

XXVI           Bread is the donkey’s burden. A youth in a leather jacket is delivering bread for a baker. Bread is a light load and the baker has loaded the donkey with bread. The donkey must follow the youth in front of him. The donkey is beaten.

XXVII          And the donkey is beaten again. It does not sound a dry bray and cannot see past its load to where the blow comes from. The donkey continues.

XXVIII         The donkey wears a corolla. Its ears are long and cloth. It wears a leather bridle across its muzzle. The donkey has cloth lips. The fur matts on its loose skin. The donkey’s eye is fixed and empty. Its long ears which do not hear are pushed back by a corolla.

XXIX           The donkey has found an apple. The apple is a miracle upon the dirt. It is swallowed whole in a nod. The donkey shunts on. It finds another apple, miraculous as the last. It is swallowed whole in a nod of the head. The donkey’s breathing is crunchy. The donkey is underneath an apple tree. It finds another apple.

XXX            The donkey bears a drunk. It is night. The drunk is maudlin. ‘It is best not to be born at all,’ he says. ‘And next to that it is better to die than to live.’ The donkey continues. There are stars and the drunk falls from the donkey. The donkey continues.

XXXI           The donkey wears a corolla for a Corpus Christi procession. A youth sings sweetly. The donkey continues. A girl who loves the donkey watches it pass in a votive corolla of flowers and twigs. She made the corolla for the donkey because they grew up together and she considers it a friend. The youth sings. The donkey continues in a votive corolla.

XXXII          The sun is shining. The donkey’s long ears do not cool its blood. It is wet to the touch. A fly lands on the donkey’s muzzle bringing on a nod. The sun is shining and the donkey is chained to the outer wall of a stone barn.

XXXIII         The donkey is not ruminant. It does not chew at all. It eats apples whole in a nod. They lodge in the donkey’s throat. The donkey breathes with a crunch. Its eye is an apple.

XXXIV          A youth in a leather jacket beats the donkey with a stick. The donkey continues. The youth pulls the donkey by its bridle. The donkey’s bridle is leather.

XXXV           The donkey is a horse with a name. There is a girl who calls it by name. She wears a dress. She runs a hand along the jaw of the donkey. The donkey wears a leather bridle. It is garlanded and gazes at the girl. They are in a stone barn. The girl hears footsteps and laughter outside.

XXXVI          The donkey is a draught animal. It strains awkwardly against its collar, harness and leather bridle. Its skin hangs awkwardly. The donkey pulls a plough. The sun is shining. The light plays strangely upon its fur.

XXXVII         A whip is cracked. The donkey must work. Lashes arrive when it stops. There are tears in the donkey’s hide. It shunts forward. It strains awkwardly at its collar, harness and leather bridle. The donkey is awkward. A whip is cracked. The donkey must work.

XXXVIII        The donkey’s corolla is slipped. There is a girl who loves the donkey. She gave the donkey a corolla of flowers and twigs. The girl has retired to a house which has lights on. The donkey is alone in a stone barn. The corolla is on the stone floor. It is made of flowers and twigs. The donkey takes it in cloth lips and swallows it in a nod.

XXXIX          The donkey is led to a stone house. It is night. Once inside, the donkey is loaded with perfumes and gold. There are two youths in leather jackets and the donkey. They three walk into the night. Perfumes and gold are the donkey’s load. There are stars in the night. They three walk through the night to the border. The donkey’s long cloth ears do not hear shots ring in the night. The youths abscond. There is smoke in the air and a wound in the donkey’s side. Its load is perfumes and gold.

XL             Snow covers the donkey. It galls. The donkey is beaten but sore-footed and refractory. The snow stops falling. The donkey lies down in the melting snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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