3
IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE
The Emperor is stuffing his second morning pipe. Enter Turandot with the Court Tui.
TURANDOT lifts up her skirt and shows her father her cotton pants: How do you like the pants? They’re cotton. Hui says it’s scratchy. That may be true, but these days it’s just so chic, expensive and yet traditional. Go on, say something. When you have a bright idea and I don’t say anything, like when you thought up the salt tax, you put on a face for days on end.
EMPEROR: Yes, the cotton prices have been picking up quite nicely. Here, have a brush and make a list of whatever you want. In view of my newly stabilised financial circumstances I can inform you: you may now follow the dictates of your heart in your choice of a husband. At last we can send that Mongolian prince packing. I could never have brought myself to force a husband on you, never. Only in extreme circumstances.
Distant march music.
TURANDOT: When I marry, I’ll marry a Tui.
EMPEROR: You’re perverse.
TURANDOT happily: You think so? When someone says something witty it just goes right through me.
EMPEROR: Don’t be indecent. So early in the morning. I’d never permit you to waste yourself on a Tui. Never.
TURANDOT: Grandmama is indecent too when we get chatting. You’d never believe what she says about …
EMPEROR: And I won’t permit you to talk like that about your grandmother. The Dowager is a great patriot, it says so in all the schoolbooks. In any case, you’re too young to be thinking about that sort of thing.
TURANDOT: Hui, am I too young? ‘Scratchy!’
EMPEROR: What’s that music?
COURT TUI: A demonstration by the Union of Clothes-makers, Majesty.
TURANDOT: That’s why I’m so dressed up. I’m going with Hui to watch the demonstration. But there’s no hurry. It’ll go on for eight or ten hours.
EMPEROR: Why eight or ten hours?
TURANDOT: Until they’ve all marched passed!
Enter the Prime Minister with a fly-bill.
PRIME MINISTER: Your Majesty might care to take a look at this leaflet, it was found in front of the La Me department store. The contents are most unedifying. He reads. ‘Where has China’s cotton gone? Must China’s sons go naked to their parents’ funeral when they die of hunger? The first Manchu Emperor had only enough cotton to make a soldier’s tunic. So how much has the last Emperor?’ - The style of this vile rubbish suggests the hand of Kai Ho.
EMPEROR: Damn Tui!
COURT TUI: Please! By all means, Sire, give us all a good thrashing, but don’t, please, call that filthy rogue a Tui! A troublemaker, with no breeding, who consorts with scum! I beg you … I must … He wipes the cold sweat from his brow.
EMPEROR listening to the distant music during the following exchange: No one takes the fellow seriously.
PRIME MINISTER: This fellow, Sire, has managed to stir up twenty million people in the province of Ho. It may please you to take him seriously.
TURANDOT: What’s that about a tunic?
COURT TUI: It’s the cotton tunic of the first Manchu Emperor, who was himself a peasant. It’s hanging in the old Manchu temple, and there’s a legend amongst the people: as long as it hangs there on its cord, the people will be bound to the Emperor. A superstition which Mr Kai Ho, who studied in Canton, gleefully exploits.
PRIME MINISTER: And which is believed by millions.
TURANDOT sings:
However strong and thick
One day the rope will break
And yet that’s not to say
That every thread must fray.
EMPEROR: That’s gutter-talk. - What are the likely consequences?
PRIME MINISTER: A new scandal. The Union of Clothes-makers, with its two million members, will band together with the Union of the Clothesless, who number fourteen million. The Clothesmakers don’t have any cotton left to make clothes, or clothes for themselves either. There’ll be an outcry against the Emperor: ‘The Emperor’s got our cotton!’ and the people will all rally round Kai Ho. Enter Yao Yel.
YAO YEL unaware: Good morning. How sweet is your pipe this morning?
EMPEROR yells: Not at all! And where’s the cotton?
YAO YEL: The cotton?
EMPEROR holding the leaflet under his nose: Look, insinuations and insults, and what is anybody doing about it? I’ll abdicate. If this can’t be cleared up immediately, with proper explanations, I’ll resign, once and for all.
PRIME MINISTER: Kai Ho has uncovered the whole story.
EMPEROR: Incompetence! Indifference! Stupidity!
YAO YEL: Gentlemen, please, could you leave me alone a moment with my brother.
EMPEROR while all exit except Turandot: I demand that the culprits be punished, with the full force of the law. The full force.
TURANDOT: That’s right, Papa.
YAO YEL: Stop yelling. They’ve all gone.
TURANDOT writing furiously: That’s right, Papa. Be polite.
EMPEROR: Where’s the cotton?
YAO YEL: I understand that you yelled at the others, but now you have to stop yelling.
EMPEROR louder still: Where is the cotton?
TURANDOT: Yes, where is it actually?
YAO YEL: You know the answer to that. It’s in your warehouses.
EMPEROR: What? You dare to tell me that? I’ll have you arrested!
TURANDOT: Ooh, yes please!
YAO YEL: But you agreed, remember?
EMPEROR: Should I call the guards?
YAO YEL: All right then, we’ll put the cotton on the market, is that what you want?
Pause.
EMPEROR: I’ll abdicate.
YAO YEL yells: Go on then, abdicate, and get yourself hanged!
Pause.
YAO YEL: Call a conference of the Tuis. Promise them something that won’t cost you anything, if only they can whitewash the whole business. What do you keep your two hundred thousand whitewashers for? Why do you maintain all those fifteen thousand academies?
TURANDOT: A Tui conference! Now that would be entertaining!
EMPEROR: The Tuis! No one values them more highly than I do. They do what they can, but they can’t do everything. What are they supposed to say? The Union of Clothes-makers knows the dirt already.
PRIME MINISTER enters: Your Majesty, the delegates of the Union of Clothesmakers - together, unfortunately, with the delegates of the Union of the Clothesless.
EMPEROR: What, they already turn up here together? No Tui conference can help with this.
TURANDOT: Serves you right.
YAO YEL: You’ll just have to hand over the cotton.
TURANDOT still writing: It serves you right because you’re an unintellectual man.
Enter the delegates of the Clothesmakers and the delegates of the Clothesless. Two Tuis follow them.
EMPEROR bad-tempered: What is it?
FIRST UNION TUI before any of the other delegates can speak: Your Majesty! According to the testimony of the great classic Ka-Me, there is nothing that can withstand the power of the people, if they are united. Your Majesty, the question of the whereabouts of the cotton is a question on which the Union of the Clothesmakers, which I represent, and the Union of the Clothesless, represented by my honoured colleague, have achieved a united front.
SECOND UNION TUI: But not like you think, from above, but from below!
FIRST UNION TUI: That’s right, from below. Our leadership is elected from below … The second Union Tui laughs. Only in freedom can freedom be won. He gets a book out of his briefcase. Turandot applauds. Ka-Me!
SECOND UNION TUI: Leave the quotations! Whoever heard of an army in freedom winning a battle! Turandot applauds. Since when has discipline been the same as unfreedom? He also pulls out a book. What does Ka-Me say?
FIRST UNION TUI: A battle, huh! Violence! That sounds like your Kai Ho talking!
SECOND UNION TUI: And that sounds like your purse talking, the fee your cheating leaders of that union of treacherous
treaty-dealers …
FIRST UNION TUI: Are you calling me a bought man?
SECOND UNION TUI: Bought by traitors!
The delegate of the Clothesmakers, who came with the first Union Tui, gives the second Union Tui a slap. Whereupon the latter thinks for a moment, then, with his Ka-Me, hits the first Union Tui who hits him back with his own Ka-Me. Enraged, the delegate of the Clothesless slaps the other delegate, and the brawl spreads.
TURANDOT breathing heavily: Kick him! - Parry, can’t you? - On the chin, yes!
EMPEROR: That’s enough of that! The fighting stops, but the first Union Tui has sunk to the floor. Let me thank you for your enlightening remarks, and assure you that I concur with your eloquent arguments, especially the last one. Besides, I am much moved by the music that’s been playing outside my palace. It seems there’s a question of a certain shortage of cotton. However, since you have been unable to achieve total accord, I suggest – enter the Dowager with a plate of sweet pancakes, which she offers to her son, who – without interrupting himself – declines – that the question ‘Where is the cotton?’ should be debated and resolved by the cleverest and most learned men in the land. I proclaim and summon herewith an extraordinary Tui Congress, which will surely be able to explain satisfactorily to the people where it’s all gone, all the cotton in China. - Oh, Mama, stop it! And so, good day.
The delegation, with the exception of the unconscious Tui, bows and withdraws, in some confusion, taking the body with them.
EMPEROR: Did I go too far?
PRIME MINISTER: You were admirable.
EMPEROR: I think a Tui Congress will be quite enough for these good folk. They can’t even agree amongst themselves.
TURANDOT: I just don’t understand what the people want from you this time. In any case, my cotton reserves are exceedingly skimpy. The Emperor prevents her from showing everybody.
PRIME MINISTER: Has Your Majesty already thought of a prize for the Tui who can explain to the people where the cotton has gone?
EMPEROR: No. My financial situation is still far from secure. - Leave it, Mama, you know I don’t eat cake when I’m smoking.
PRIME MINISTER: Majesty, to answer this question, without compromising Your Majesty’s position, will call for the cleverest head in all of China. What can you promise?
TURANDOT bursts out gleefully: Teeheeheehee! Me!
EMPEROR: What on earth do you mean, you? I’m not about to gamble my own flesh and blood.
TURANDOT: Why not? You find the cleverest head, and I marry him.
EMPEROR: Never. Listens. It is a very long procession.
3a
IN THE OLD MANCHU TEMPLE
In a decaying round tower, hanging by a thick rope from the ceiling, an ancient, patched coat. Around it stand the Imperial Family, the Prime Minister, the Minister for War and some of the high Tuis.
EMPEROR: My dear Turandot, this is it, the revered tunic. Your ancestor wore it in battle and, being a poor man, he sometimes had to patch the bullet holes himself, as you can see. Every Emperor wears this tunic at his coronation, because of the old prophecy associated with it. The confidence of the people in their Emperor is indispensable, I’m convinced; you only have to think of all the soldiers who turn out to be somehow related to all the rest of my subjects, or so they tell me. Anyway, in consideration of all this, I am resolved to grant to the one amongst my beloved Tuis who succeeds in restoring the faith of the people in the paternalistic government of their Emperor the hand in marriage of my only daughter. Ahs and Ohs in surprised applause, Turandot bows. And as I am led in all things, even material things, by my deep respect for ancient customs, I hereby decree that my future son-in-law should put on this famous coat before the wedding ceremony. So, that’s enough of the affairs of state.
4
THE TUI ACADEMY
During the scene change a town-crier calls out: ‘Important announcement: the Emperor has promised the hand of his daughter Turandot to the Tui who can tell the people where the cotton’s gone.’ In the Academy there is much to-ing and fro-ing. A scribe is putting up a notice: ‘Emperor’s future son-in-law a Tui’. A teacher in a Tui-hat is instructing a class.
TEACHER: Si Fu, tell us the principal questions of philosophy.
SI FU: Are the objects of the world outside ourselves, for themselves, independent of ourselves, or are they in ourselves, for ourselves, and dependent on ourselves.
TEACHER: And which is the correct opinion?
SI FU: No decision has yet been reached.
TEACHER: And which opinion has lately enjoyed the support of the majority of our philosophers?
SI FU: That they are outside ourselves, for themselves, independent of ourselves.
TEACHER: And why does the question remain unresolved?
SI FU: The congress which was supposed to deliver the answer was held, as it has been for two hundred years, in the monastery of Mi Sang on the banks of the Yellow River. The question was formulated thus: Is the Yellow River real, or does it exist only in our heads? However, while the congress was debating this question, there was a thaw in the mountains, and the Yellow River broke its banks and swept the monastery of Mi Sang away, along with all the congress delegates. So the proof that things are outside us, for themselves and independent of ourselves was never reached.
TEACHER: Good. That concludes today’s lesson. And what is the most important event of the day?
THE CLASS: The Congress of the Tuis.
The teacher exits with his class. Enter Gu, who is also a Tui, and Sen accompanied by his boy.
SEN: But the Yellow River does exist, surely!
GU: So you say, but can you prove it?
SEN: Will I learn here how to prove things like that?
GU: That’s up to you. Which reminds me, I haven’t asked you yet why it is you want to study.
SEN: It’s such a pleasure to think. And pleasures must be carefully learnt. But perhaps I should also say: it’s so useful.
GU: Hmm. Maybe you should take a look around, before you pay the dues and register yourself. Here’s a student learning the art of public speaking.
Shi Me, a young man, approaches with Nu Shan, who is a teacher at the Academy. Shi Me climbs up to a small rostrum. Nu Shan positions himself at the wall and operates a pulley arrangement by means of which a basket of bread can be raised and lowered in front of the speaker’s face.
NU SHAN: The topic is: ‘Why Kai Ho’s position is false’. Whenever I raise the bread-basket, then you know you’re saying something wrong. Off you go!
SHI ME: Kai Ho is wrong because he doesn’t divide humanity into the clever and the not-so-clever, but rather into the rich and the poor. He was excluded from the Association of Tuis because he incited the barge-haulers, crofters and weavers to rebel against the violence which was – the basket rises – allegedly – the basket wavers – employed against them. So he’s clearly in favour of violence! The basket sinks. Kai Ho speaks of freedom. The basket wavers. But in reality he wants to make the barge-haulers, crofters and weavers his slaves. The basket sinks. It is said that the barge-haulers, crofters and weavers don’t earn enough – the basket rises – to support – in order to live in ease and luxury with their families – the basket stops – and that they have to work too hard – the basket goes on rising – because they want to spend their days in indolence – the basket stops – which is natural enough. The basket wavers. The discontent of many – the basket rises – of a mere few – the basket stops – is exploited by Kai Ho who, as we see, is therefore an exploiter! The basket drops quickly. Mr Kai Ho is distributing land in Hu Nan to the poor peasants. But first he has to steal the land himself, so he’s a thief. According to the philosophy of Kai Ho – the basket wavers again – the purpose of life is to be happy, to eat and drink like the Emperor himself – the basket shoots up – but this only goes to show that Kai Ho isn’t a philosopher at all, but just a loudmouth – the basket sinks – a troublemaker, a power-hungry good-for-nothing, an irrespon
sible gambler, a muckraker, a rapist, an unbeliever, a bandit and a criminal. The basket is hovering just in front of the speaker’s mouth. A tyrant!
NU SHAN: Well, there you are, you’re still making mistakes, but you have a good heart. Now run along and take a shower, and have a massage.
SHI ME: Mr Nu Shan, do you think I have a chance? I wasn’t very good at fudging and only seventeenth in the art of lick-spittling. Exit.
GU: Nu Shan! A new pupil! Nu Shan hurries over. And by the way, what do you think about Kai Ho?
SEN: In cotton country we only hear what the landowners say. He’s a bad man, not on the side of freedom.
NU SHAN: Do you like what we teach here?
SEN: It was a good speech. With new ideas. Is it true that Kai Ho wants to redistribute the land?
NU SHAN: Yes, to steal it and then supposedly redistribute it. Can we register you for the Academy then?
SEN: Soon, of course. I’d like to hear a bit more. It’s all free for now, isn’t it?
Enter Gogher Gogh with his mother, three of his gang and Wen.
MA GOGH: My son would like to take the exam.
SCRIBE: Ah, you again? This is the third time, isn’t it? I don’t think we have time today. Since the announcement that the Emperor’s son-in-law will be a Tui we’ve had hundreds of new registrations. But why do you want to be a Tui so badly?
GOGHER GOGH: Both my general disposition and my early education have destined me for the civil service. The scribe looks at him pityingly and, after bowing respectfully to Ma Gogh, he hurries away.
FIRST BANDIT: You’ve got to understand. You have to get the ammunition back. The inflation will level off and business will pick up again. We’ve got to raid every new business right from the start, so they get used to the idea of paying for protection.
GOGHER GOGH: I don’t want any more shooting. I have other plans.
SECOND BANDIT: OK, but what are they?
Gogher Gogh maintains a grim silence.
MA GOGH: You know you can trust my son.
FIRST BANDIT uncertainly: Sure we can.
MA GOGH points at the notice: Krukher, a man with education has opportunities, more than ever. I have faith in Gogher. Enter the great Tui, Xi Wei, with scribes. He sits down.