SCENE 4 — EVENING BEGINS: CANDLES
(Warm evening. MANTU lights candles one by one. The room transforms. SUBHAS wears a suit.)
SUBHAS (to audience):
Look at that.
A room can pretend.
A room can become a memory before it happens.
Candles are foolish.
They burn themselves to give you beauty.
If that isn’t love, what is?
SUBHAS:
Time?
MANTU:
Six thirty, Borda.
SUBHAS:
Good. They’ll come after seven.
Old friends move slowly.
We open the wine when the first arrives. Not before.
A celebration needs witnesses.
MANTU:
You want me to keep the bottle ready, Borda?
SUBHAS:
Always.
(SUBHAS stands near the door. Listens hard.)
SUBHAS (calling out—hopeful):
Harris! You old thief of time—
No.
Roy will complain about the candles.
He’ll say they’re too much—
and secretly enjoy every second.
If they don’t come, Mantu, you clap loudly enough for ten men.
MANTU (steady):
They’ll come, Borda.
(Lights drift later.)