In this stage play Miss Saigon, the heroine, in order to ensure that her American lover takes their baby home with him, commits suicide; she steps behind a curtain and you hear a gunshot. This is a different version of the same plot...
"Seppuku" is the proper term for what is commonly called "Hari-Kari."
A young Vietnamese girl, clad in a red silk gown, sits in a highback chair. Her face is extremely beautiful, as is the leg visible through a slit in her gown. The top of the gown is open to her waist, exposing both of her breasts; at one she holds a small infant, who nurses. The girl looks forlorn, hopeless.
Across from her, in a similar chair, a hard-faced man, a Japanese. "You have only one choice," he tells the girl. "Only one. Now, nothing else will do."
The girl sobs, but she nods her head. For a few moments more, she allows the infant to nurse; then she pulls him from her breast and hands him to the Japanese. A few droplets of milk fall from her nipple. The girl stands, strips off her gown, sits back down. "You will bring him here?" she asks. "Afterwards? Make sure he sees?" The Japanese nods. "Give it to me, then," the girl says. "I'm ready. I'll do it now."
The Japanese reaches to his hip, draws out a long double-edged knife, hands it to her. She examines it for a moment, tests the edge with her fingertip.
Then she sits up straight, breasts hanging and jutting, and turns the knife's point toward herself. Holding the hilt in both hands, she brings it down until the point is resting against her abdomen on the left, an inch or so below her navel. She looks at it, then at the Japanese. "Here?" she asks. He nods, she looks back at the knife.
Then she pulls it in toward herself. Her abdomen folds inward; her face tightens. She hesitates.
"There is no other way," the Japanese reminds her gently.
She nods, she pulls harder. Then she gasps; from the crevice hiding the tip of the knife, a sudden stream of blood and some clear liquid flows down.
Throwing her head back, her mouth open but her eyes closed, she pulls it again. She gasps again and again, but the knife slides on into her much more easily now. She stops only when a mere inch of the blade remains visible. She brings her head back down, tears running from her large eyes. Looking down at herself, she lets go of the knife, leaves it standing in her body. Her abdomen resumes its normal shape, and the blood flows freely. She wraps her arms around herself above where the knife stands, holding herself tightly.
"You've done well, Kim," the Japanese says. "So far. You must do more."
She looks up at him with pain-wracked eyes. There is a little blood on her lips, too. "I know," she answers softly. "And I will." She looks tenderly at the infant the Japanese holds. "For him, I will."
"It must be done quickly," he advises.
She nods. Unfolding her arms, she again takes hold of the knife with both hands. Slowly and carefully, she begins to draw it out, pulling it hard to the right as it comes, slitting her abdomen open horizontally.
Her face is tight, her eyes wide; she chews her lower lip. Much more blood is spilling out, running steadily down her legs and pooling on the floor around her feet. Milk beads up on her nipples, drops of it fall onto her abdomen, mixing with the blood. She is trembling all over, violently, but she keeps cutting, keeps slicing through the skin and muscle of her belly.
She has just passed the midline of her body when the tip of the blade comes free. She does not hesitate; holding it tightly again, she slips the point back into the wound, near the right-hand edge, and, slowly and methodically, starts pushing it back into herself. She sobs once or twice but keeps pushing, burying the blade deep in her belly again.
She glances up at the Japanese once more, then starts cutting herself again, opening the right side of her abdomen now. Even more blood flows out, and her lacerated intestines begin to bulge into the slit, glistening brightly, wetly. She pays no attention, she keeps slitting herself open until she is well around her right side, until the knife comes free again. She sighs deeply, lays it in her lap. Her breathing is very ragged, very strained.
Calmly, the Japanese nods. "You've done very well," he says. "You can rest now, no more is needed."
She looks at the baby. "Bring him back," she asks. Her voice is gutteral, weak. "Let him nurse at my breast again, once more, one last time."
He stands, brings the infant back, and helps her hold him against her right breast. He takes her nipple, begins to draw on it; the girl manages to smile. Reaching down, she works the slit in her abdomen open with her free hand, lets more of her intestines emerge. Her face is growing pale from the loss of blood.
Then she picks up the knife again. Holding it in her right hand, she brings her arm up under the baby, cradling him against her breast and bringing the point of the blade up to touch her left nipple at the same time. She starts pushing again, and at first milk flows out over the blade. "You see?" she asks the infant. "You see what I am doing for you, just for you?"
The Japanese says nothing; the sharp blade bites into her nipple and quickly passes on through it, on into her breast. Now the milk and blood are mixing; she pushes on, forcing the knife between her ribs, deep into her chest. Blood bubbles on her lips.
Leaving the knife standing in her breast, she reaches down to her slit abdomen yet again, working her fingers into the cut, pulling at the upper edge. Her intestines are substantially exposed by now, hanging down from the cut. She begins trembling more violently, her body jerking. The Japanese takes the baby away from her breast; she reaches out for him, loses her balance, topples forward from the chair.
On the floor she rolls over, looks up. "Be sure he sees..." she murmurs. "Be sure he sees what I've done." Those are her last words; she dies with her own hand still tugging her belly open.