KHUFU’S
A Play
CAST
Napoleon
The New Pharaoh
The Instructor
The First Student
The Other Students
(The terrace of Khufu’s, overlooking the pyramids. Late afternoon. The light softens the edges of the stone. The students sit at a long table, the remains of an elaborate meal before them. Napoleon, unusually alert, studies the horizon, as if correcting it.)
NAPOLEON
It is beautiful here. Yet Egypt was never the destination.
THE NEW PHARAOH
Pardon me?
NAPOLEON
It was meant as a stepping stone.
THE FIRST STUDENT
Toward the Strait of Hormuz.
NAPOLEON
We would not have stopped there.
THE INSTRUCTOR
You intended to take India.
NAPOLEON
That is unusually perceptive of you.
(The Instructor clears his throat.)
NAPOLEON
I am not accustomed to this. Still, I thank you for the outing. It brings back memories.
THE NEW PHARAOH
Our memories are enshrined in these structures. I have proposed to clad them again in limestone—so that they shine as they once did.
THE FIRST STUDENT
UNESCO did not approve.
THE NEW PHARAOH
Damn them.
THE INSTRUCTOR
The international order remains too strong. We are working on it.
THE NEW PHARAOH
I am grateful for this. And for your work with our neighbours to the northeast.
NAPOLEON
The northeast would have been our direction.
THE OTHER STUDENTS
India! China!
NAPOLEON
I imagined having tea with my fellow emperor. In Bombay.
THE FIRST STUDENT
So you would have stopped in India, then?
NAPOLEON
Of course I would have. I have always been a realist.
THE NEW PHARAOH
I am a realist too.
THE INSTRUCTOR
Could you elaborate on this for the benefit of our students?
THE NEW PHARAOH
Let me give you an example. Skirmishes in the streets are never desirable. People might get shot, which would reflect poorly. Better, therefore, to detain them before they take to the streets.
THE OTHER STUDENTS
Detain them.
THE NEW PHARAOH
Indeed. And conditions of detention must not be too comfortable.
THE FIRST STUDENT
You let them rot.
THE NEW PHARAOH
I am not comfortable with that phrasing. If you repeat it, I may have you experience those conditions yourself.
THE FIRST STUDENT
I would be curious.
NAPOLEON
Curiosity, yes. We took it with us: historians, philosophers, men of science, not as ornaments, as instruments. One had to understand what one encountered, the land, the people, the past.
THE NEW PHARAOH
Our past speaks for itself. Our future will follow. I have just built a new capital.
THE INSTRUCTOR
We will visit it tomorrow.
THE NEW PHARAOH
It has Africa’s largest church and its largest mosque.
THE FIRST STUDENT
Hedging your bets, are you?
THE NEW PHARAOH
We have formidable rats in those cells…
THE FIRST STUDENT
That’s so 1984.
THE OTHER STUDENTS
Ingsoc!
NAPOLEON
What are they talking about?
THE INSTRUCTOR
They are referring to a novel that appeared some time after your death.
NAPOLEON
I am dead?
THE FIRST STUDENT
Only in a manner of speaking.
THE NEW PHARAOH
He is quite dead.
(Napoleon raises his brows and takes a sip of water.)
THE FIRST STUDENT
You are here with us.
NAPOLEON
In Egypt… not far from the Hindu Kush…
(He closes his eyes and nods.)