Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang (30 page)

¡Dad vuelta!

[Put your back into it!]

Amén Dios nos de buenas noches
Buen viaje
[Amen and God give us a good night
And good sailing]

Don Cristóbal
It sometimes requires a woman
To rekindle the faith of a man

 

 

(Isabella is surrounded by a radiant holy light.)

 

Remember one, a child, a virgin

Who felt in her belly a stirring?

And held fast to the faith this was God?

And do you promise me, oh blessed one,
Riches and governance,
And most of all,
That I further the kingdom of God?

 

 

(Isabella steps downstage, toward Columbus, with every step becoming more clearly a mortal woman.)

Yes, I so swear
Now, you must as well
Will you hold to the faith
That Joseph took into the stable?

You look to me
Like Dona Beatriz
Whose love I had sought in Gomera
Can it be? You come now as a woman
With flesh warmer than my own?

Salve Regina Mater
Misericordiae
Vita, Dulcedo et spes nostra salve
Ad Te clamamus exsules Filii Evae
[Hail, Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve]

I take many forms
I wear many faces
But all for the one righteous end
That the voyage you take
Is made in my name
And discoveries claimed for my honor
I am your Queen
I am your love
I am your one true God
Trust
Follow
Believe

Ad Te suspiramus Gementes et flentes
In hac lacrimarum valle eja ergo
Advocata nostra, illos tuos
Misericordes oculos ad nos converte
Et Jesum Benedictum fructum ventris tui
Nobis post hoc exilium ostende
O clemens, O pia
O Dulcis Virgo Maria
[To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
In this valley of tears. Turn then,
Most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy towards us;
And after this our exile
Show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Oh clement, oh loving,
Oh sweet Virgin Mary.]

(The Scientist/First Mate and Second Mate embrace. Offstage, a bird sings, indicating land is near.)

¡Lumbre! ¡Tierra!
¡Adelante! ¡Adelante!
¡Tierra! ¡Tierra!
[Light my way! Land!]
Onward! Onward!
Land! Land!]

All space exists
In random disorder

Be that as it may
Our task is clear
To order disorder
By vectors and quadrants
By infrared catalogs
In the hope that one day
A pattern will lead us
To life

Life?
Sometimes I fear
It is ghosts we seek
In a black hole’s pulsars
Or a dwarf star’s shadows
Could there somewhere
Really be beings
Who stare into space
And echo our foolish cry
“Yes, I will order disorder”

I was hiking in the Andes

I was digging near the Ganges

When I heard the most
Amazing sound
A tone high-pitched

Mine low

Unearthly

As if the very rocks were
Lifting their voices
To heaven
How utterly coincidental

That the same event

Should befall us both

On the very same day

(The Earth Twins bring their crystals together. As they do, the original pulsating chord is recreated. In the space station, the map onscreen rushes quickly through the universe until it indicates, as in Act I, the spot in the cosmos from whence came the original travelers.)

Sector 15, Vector 320,
Quadrant 1479

Sound the alarms
Radio the Chancellor
Quick—alert the media!

Six years in orbit
Brought to its fruition
I want a cold beer

I want the Nobel Prize
They’ll give us six
Three for you, three for me

Quadrant 1479
So far away

It will take us many, many years
To reach such a destination

What a strange tone

No radioactivity

No stray particles

Perhaps it is simply decorative

We’ll run it through the standard battery

But till then—

It is—

Quite pleasantly hypnotical
It will take us many, many years
To reach our final conclusion

Through the ages
All we have sought to know
What once had been believed unknowable

 

 

Continuing this tradition
We depart on our expedition
Which will not reach its end
Till the time of our children’s children

 

We cast off the earth
And hereby ascend to heaven

 

(A group of dignitaries and world rulers gathers to see off the explorers.)

Secretary General of the United Nations
Prime Minister of the EEC
President of North America
Chancellor of the United States of Africa
Chairman of IT&T
Controller of the South American Monetary Fund
Executive Vice President of Coca-Cola
Executive Director, World Environmental Council
Emperor of China

 

 

(The team of explorers heads into their spaceship. The door closes behind them as the acclaim of the chorus fades quickly away, replaced by the music of machines.)

If you one day remarry
Make sure that he loves children

Be careful, my darling
Your eyesight is poor at night

Father, don’t call me
An undutiful child

I loved the parade
But now that it’s over . . .

I always imagined
A prom for my daughter

I always imagined
That you would be proud

I always imagined
This day might arise

I always imagined
A prize on my mantle
But these obligations
These stiff mock-heroics
I never imagined

I never imagined
That love would flow
Deeper than work

Then, hang up now
Good-bye

I never imagined
The phone lines would end

Then life
Leads at last
To this solitude

The quest would devour
The very limits of my life

Then love
Comes in three-minute increments

Then my heart
Had been braver than I had ever hoped

Good-bye
To talks about nothing

To paper lanterns

Then, hang up now
Good-bye
Good-bye
So now it is clear
As earthbound illusions
And family myths
Fall like scales
From the eyes of St. Paul
That always
And ever
As I walked on my journey
I walked
As a child
With tiny feet
Walking alone