(2009) Reading at the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, CUNY, spring 2011, and at the New York Theatre Workshop, 2010. Both readings directed by Ian Morgan.

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 [Excerpt]

MALEK

(To SCHABAS.)

Bring the men a samovar of tea.

(SCHABAS exits. To XAVIER.)

Schabas is a very cultured man. He comes from a humble family, but I educated him alongside my own sons. He speaks better French than I do, but he retains the peasant’s mistrust of all things foreign. You are a geologist, Monsieur Hommaire?

 XAVIER

Geographer.

MALEK

We are in desperate need of reliable maps. When we are invaded, as we so often are, we cannot even locate our own roads to defend ourselves.

XAVIER

I’m a hydrologist.

MALEK

You study water?

XAVIER

I came to Persia in search of a river.

MALEK

What is it called?

XAVIER

It doesn’t exist anymore.

SCHABAS

(Pouring the tea)

That will make it more difficult to find.

XAVIER

(To MALEK)

I have a hypothesis that the Caspian and the Black Seas were once connected by a river that changed its course.

MALEK

Where do you hope to find this river?

XAVIER

In Mazandaran.

SCHABAS

Mazandaran is full of infidels and spies.

MALEK

Schabas’s family is from Mazandaran.

SCHABAS

My father’s house is beside a river. But, unfortunately, not the one you’re looking for, since it already has a name.