Out of the Wings

Si un día me olvidaras (2000), Raúl Hernández Garrido

If You Ever Forget Me : PROLOGUE: 'WAITING ROOM' , ACT TWO: 'ELECTRA', excerpt 1 , ACT TWO: 'ELECTRA', excerpt 2

If You Ever Forget Me, translated by Gwynneth Dowling

PROLOGUE: 'WAITING ROOM'

Context:

Voices poetically recall the trauma of a pregnant prisoner whose child has been take from her at birth. The woman is then thrown out of a plane.

Sample text

VOICES:

Where are you taking me?

Don’t hurt me.

What are you going to do?

Please don’t touch my child.

Kill me, but don’t hurt him.

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New lives

Pulled from the mutilated arms of their mothers

Dragged from maternal bellies

Bonds destroyed

Surgically torn from mothers

Here, where newborns don’t cry

Where they open their eyes in silence, passed from hand to hand

Condemned to forget before they even knew, given over to be loved by torturers

To the care of a strange mother,

A mother who loves them, too

Not caring that they’re abattoir children

Pulled from the bodies

Of their true mothers

The bodies that conceived them, sheltered them

Throughout, a patriotic hymn sounds over the loudspeakers.

On the ground, beaten

In dying eyes the shine of black boots

The sound of airplanes.

Finally

Emptiness

White, white, white

Falling through the white

The white emptiness

Hands in the air

Floating

In the fall

Below the emptiness

The sea

Go up

Fleeing the whine

The deafening whine of burst eardrums

Face deformed

Broken body bursting open

My entrails open

In the white

White

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation If You Ever Forget Me by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ACT TWO: 'ELECTRA', excerpt 1

Context:

Orestes is told by Electra that he is not Pylades’ real brother. Instead, Orestes was taken from his imprisoned mother when he was born. Orestes claims that he always suspected that he was adopted.

Sample text

ORESTES:

One word, just one word and I’ll follow you. Who am I? What do you want from me?

PYLADES aims the rifle at them both.

PYLADES:

Get away from her.

ORESTES:

Just one word and he’ll not be able to do a thing to us.

ELECTRA:

Go back with him, if that’s what you want.

PYLADES:

Don’t even listen to her. Let me shoot.

ELECTRA:

Do what he says.

ORESTES:

No. I’m tired of both your games. I’m not putting up with secrets anymore. Put down that rifle.

PYLADES:

I’m doing what I’ve always done. Protecting you.

ORESTES:

I want to hear what she has to say.

PYLADES:

Go on then, and then let that be an end to it.

ORESTES:

I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I’d die before I’d let anything get in the way of this. Talk. Please, I think I’ve a right to know.

ELECTRA:

Sometimes you’ve got to think of the pain.

Of the pain of others.

Of the pain you hold inside.

We’re not allowed to forget, it’s too dangerous.

Try. Remember.

Close your eyes and remember.

Do you want me to help you to remember?

The huge hangars. Dark. The delivery rooms.

An endless line of beds, under surgical lights.

Soldiers with machine guards standing guards over those poor human shells. Women with their hands and feet tied to metal beds. No longer any strength to complain, to cry for their children.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

ORESTES:

I see it all in my nightmares.

ELECTRA:

I’ve come to free you from them.

ORESTES:

Help me.

PYLADES:

I’ve kept my side of the deal. Now I get to shoot her. You either get out of the way or not. But I’m going to shoot.

ORESTES:

Do it. Finish me off, if that’s what you want.

ELECTRA:

He’s not your brother.

ORESTES:

Not one drop of my blood runs through your veins. We don’t share any common traits.

I always suspected. That you’re not my brother.

In spite of your silence, I knew.

And because of your silence, I know it’s true.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation If You Ever Forget Me by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ACT TWO: 'ELECTRA', excerpt 2

Context:

Orestes reveals to Electra that Pylades is in fact the brother she seeks. She does not want to hear the truth.

Sample text

ORESTES:

Look at him. How still he is. His silence speaks volumes. It seems incredible. We think we know him so well, and yet we've misunderstood his silence - what it's been trying to tell us. All this time. There’s no point deceiving yourself. The truth has always been there, shining from his dark eyes. Have you ever managed to look into his eyes? He always looks away. Isn’t it obvious why?

ELECTRA:

Do you want me to kill him?

ORESTES:

What’s he done to you to make you want to do that?

ELECTRA:

He took me away from you.

ORESTES:

The truth is right there in front of us, no matter how much it hurts. Your truth.

Look at that man. Look how he shrinks into himself, worn down by a terrible past. Take a look at yourself. If you could, you’d realise something that’s now obvious to me.

I’m not your brother. You got it wrong. If you’d paid attention to your feelings at the start you would’ve chosen the right person.

ELECTRA:

It’s not true. I don’t want to hear anymore.

ORESTES:

There were two boys. Two brothers. You got the wrong man. The man you’re looking for is sitting on that bench. He’s the son of the tortured. Your true brother.

My blood is cursed.

Copyright