Akis Dimou, Teach me how to leave

A woman, her brother, an old lover: a strange erotic triangle in a hotel-repository of mementoes from a long-buried emotional age. Spectres of transient men, sounds of arrivals and departures. For “the role of love is to invent unfamiliarity”.

MAN (after a pause): You know.
AGNES: If you rang the bell, you’d know, too.
MAN: If I rang the bell, I would be just one more of them. In the centre of the circle for a few minutes, and then… Besides, I had nothing to leave you. Only my diary, but then I’d left it already. And then it would be of no value to you. Nothing of mine seems to be of value.
AGNES: Is that what you think?
MAN: I saw it. That night. And God knows how many other nights, too.
AGNES: A lot. Too many.
MAN: I have no doubt.
(Pause.)
AGNES: It was just a game—as you said.
MAN: You seemed to enjoy it.
AGNES: I couldn’t do otherwise.
MAN: I bet it was your idea.
AGNES: True.
MAN: Why?
AGNES: I was bored.
MAN: You could have played cards.
AGNES: I don’t know how to play. I’d be beaten too easily.
MAN: The could have taught you.
AGNES: By the time I’d learnt, there’d be no one left.
MAN: And you wanted to keep them.
AGNES: I had to. Even a dead queen needs her subjects’ admiration.
How else can she keep the kingdom intact, when the king is away for years?
MAN: By smoking naked before them and then picking up their trash.
AGNES: They must be able to see who rules them, and pay for it.
MAN: If I could, I’d walk in and kill them all.
AGNES: But you chose to sleep on the rocks instead.
MAN: There was no bed for me.
AGNES: For me neither.
(Long pause.)
When you left, I woke up untroubled. Not in any way upset, only angry with the rain that wouldn’t stop… There was nothing left of you, not even your shadow. It’s better this way, I thought. Much better. There are too many people looking for a shadow to hold on to. Only, the shadows are few, and get even fewer over time. We must get used to returning to our body. After all, we all die alone.
MAN: I never promised you –
AGNES: I never asked you to.
MAN: If I did, I would have to come back.
AGNES: But you did come back.
MAN: To find out where they were buried.
AGNES: Just for that?
MAN: Yes.
AGNES: If I could, I’d kill you.
(Pause.)

Director: Roula Pateraki
Actors: Giorgos Kentros, Dimitris Papanikolaou, Roula Pateraki

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