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Authors: Jonathan Garfinkel
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SUHA.
Alex: Dad, Mr. Abu Dalo—
I have seen the truth!
In the hills of Jerusalem, a great and wondrous miracle has happened!
SUHA starts to laugh.
Suha: That’s the jut-jut laugh.
The chihuahua.
The dagger.
The holly-hoo.
Alex: Yes! She doesn’t have cataplexy anymore. She’s cured. It’s the Miracle of Cunnilingus.
Know that the cunnilingus revolution has brought peace to the Middle East! Witness that we have been led from darkness and war to a world of harmony and great cosmic desire!
Suha: You and I are getting married.
Alex: Wow. I’m totally speechless.
Abu Dalo: You think this is Romeo and fucking Juliet? You’re not getting married.
Suha: Sure we are. We have to get married. I have to live here. You have to live here. Our fathers have to live here. My dead mother—she’s going to live here too. We’re going to be like a family. We will be a family. I assume this is my father-in-law. Pleased to meet you, Daddy.
Abu Dalo: No daddy. No way. (to SHIMON) Admit to your future daughter-in-law what you did. Tell your son’s fiancée what kind of family she wants to marry into. That her husband-to-be is the son of a murderer of her people.
Shimon: (to ABU DALO) You don’t know the whole story.
Suha: I don’t care about that story. (to SHIMON) Call a fumigator. I want the basement cleaned. I want this room clean. (to ALEX) Can you cook?
Alex: I can boil an egg.
Suha: We can learn how to cook. We’ll learn everything. How to take care of things. We have to.
Abu Dalo: (to SUHA) I won’t let you become one of them. You cannot forget who you are. You’re Jenin. You’re your mother. You’re this house—thirty-five years ago. I won’t let you forget, he won’t let you forget, no one in this country will let you forget, because an Israeli cannot marry a Palestinian, a Palestinian cannot marry an Israeli—by history, by lineage, by law. End of story.
The House: I’ll marry them.
Abu Dalo: Shut up and stay out of this.
The House: I want these two to marry. I want love. Love to destroy history.
Alex: Whoah, citizens of Jerusalem, the miracle of the Cunnilingus Revolution is confirmed! The house speaketh! (He bows.) The house will marry us.
The House: Do you, Alex, son of Shimon, and Suha, daughter of Abu Dalo, promise to love and care for me, to feed my garden water and fertilizer, to put in a decent television with cable, to make goofy home videos of your children, to plant a fig tree—
Suha & Alex: We do.
Abu Dalo: Oh no you don’t.
Suha: Oh yes I do.
Abu Dalo: You know nothing about love.
Suha: Sure I do.
Alex: We spoke to each other. She listened. That’s pretty amazing. Nobody’s ever listened to me before. And Dad, I never listened.
Shimon: You can’t know love, kid. Not in this house.
Abu Dalo: They’re fifteen. (to SUHA) You only want sex.
Suha: Don’t start talking to me like a father. Where were you? When I started to walk. When they closed the schools down. When the gunfire was so loud I couldn’t sleep at night—
Abu Dalo: In jail. For fifteen years, I rotted in jail. Your mother knew.
Suha: We had no idea where you were.
Shimon: Tell her the truth, Abu Dalo. And I’ll tell them mine. Let’s see if they can live with it.
Abu Dalo: Absolutely not! I did nothing a father wouldn’t do. I thought only of you and this house. You do not love this Jew. You cannot love him.
Suha: This is love. It’s a way of talking.
Abu Dalo: Talking. Right. Tell me, Groucho. What do you have to say about this kike? These Chosen People who’ve chosen to take our land? To kill our wives and mothers?
Groucho can’t talk.
Shimon: (a beat) Sarah and I lived in this house.
It was beautiful.
Everything’s beautiful when you’re young.
We had a garden.
She worked at the school.
You were small as a peanut.
The army reports don’t mention that, do they?
Don’t mention I loved your mother either.
I took the car to work that day.
She left you in the house.
She was going
Alex: Dad, Mr. Abu Dalo—
I have seen the truth!
In the hills of Jerusalem, a great and wondrous miracle has happened!
SUHA starts to laugh.
Suha: That’s the jut-jut laugh.
The chihuahua.
The dagger.
The holly-hoo.
Alex: Yes! She doesn’t have cataplexy anymore. She’s cured. It’s the Miracle of Cunnilingus.
Know that the cunnilingus revolution has brought peace to the Middle East! Witness that we have been led from darkness and war to a world of harmony and great cosmic desire!
Suha: You and I are getting married.
Alex: Wow. I’m totally speechless.
Abu Dalo: You think this is Romeo and fucking Juliet? You’re not getting married.
Suha: Sure we are. We have to get married. I have to live here. You have to live here. Our fathers have to live here. My dead mother—she’s going to live here too. We’re going to be like a family. We will be a family. I assume this is my father-in-law. Pleased to meet you, Daddy.
Abu Dalo: No daddy. No way. (to SHIMON) Admit to your future daughter-in-law what you did. Tell your son’s fiancée what kind of family she wants to marry into. That her husband-to-be is the son of a murderer of her people.
Shimon: (to ABU DALO) You don’t know the whole story.
Suha: I don’t care about that story. (to SHIMON) Call a fumigator. I want the basement cleaned. I want this room clean. (to ALEX) Can you cook?
Alex: I can boil an egg.
Suha: We can learn how to cook. We’ll learn everything. How to take care of things. We have to.
Abu Dalo: (to SUHA) I won’t let you become one of them. You cannot forget who you are. You’re Jenin. You’re your mother. You’re this house—thirty-five years ago. I won’t let you forget, he won’t let you forget, no one in this country will let you forget, because an Israeli cannot marry a Palestinian, a Palestinian cannot marry an Israeli—by history, by lineage, by law. End of story.
The House: I’ll marry them.
Abu Dalo: Shut up and stay out of this.
The House: I want these two to marry. I want love. Love to destroy history.
Alex: Whoah, citizens of Jerusalem, the miracle of the Cunnilingus Revolution is confirmed! The house speaketh! (He bows.) The house will marry us.
The House: Do you, Alex, son of Shimon, and Suha, daughter of Abu Dalo, promise to love and care for me, to feed my garden water and fertilizer, to put in a decent television with cable, to make goofy home videos of your children, to plant a fig tree—
Suha & Alex: We do.
Abu Dalo: Oh no you don’t.
Suha: Oh yes I do.
Abu Dalo: You know nothing about love.
Suha: Sure I do.
Alex: We spoke to each other. She listened. That’s pretty amazing. Nobody’s ever listened to me before. And Dad, I never listened.
Shimon: You can’t know love, kid. Not in this house.
Abu Dalo: They’re fifteen. (to SUHA) You only want sex.
Suha: Don’t start talking to me like a father. Where were you? When I started to walk. When they closed the schools down. When the gunfire was so loud I couldn’t sleep at night—
Abu Dalo: In jail. For fifteen years, I rotted in jail. Your mother knew.
Suha: We had no idea where you were.
Shimon: Tell her the truth, Abu Dalo. And I’ll tell them mine. Let’s see if they can live with it.
Abu Dalo: Absolutely not! I did nothing a father wouldn’t do. I thought only of you and this house. You do not love this Jew. You cannot love him.
Suha: This is love. It’s a way of talking.
Abu Dalo: Talking. Right. Tell me, Groucho. What do you have to say about this kike? These Chosen People who’ve chosen to take our land? To kill our wives and mothers?
Groucho can’t talk.
Shimon: (a beat) Sarah and I lived in this house.
It was beautiful.
Everything’s beautiful when you’re young.
We had a garden.
She worked at the school.
You were small as a peanut.
The army reports don’t mention that, do they?
Don’t mention I loved your mother either.
I took the car to work that day.
She left you in the house.
She was going
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