Cape of Good Hope
A ship floats on the vast river, awaited for by
3 Bold men of pallid complexions standing at bay…
and it was night there.
Bartle: (To his counterpart, Dillwyn)
Out with these fusty creatures, man.
Get the bastards out of the ship, and on with Supply…
(The Bolted-Door Is Opened )
…we cannot only serve who stand and wait. Gentlemen!
(Speaking Towards the Ship) Come, come get out.
Enter First Maiden Slave – Nude.
She is fastened at the wrists,
bound tightly behind her back.;
She is unable to move, her ankles are knobbed.
She trips and falls.
Bartle: (Continuing) Come on, you bitch. Get on your feet.
Enter a Male Slave – Nude and Enraged.
Bartle rushes towards Kabu (the Girl), and pokes her back with his pistol.
Laughter breaks; then quietly vanishes.
Bartle: Stand up (pause )
Do not move… (To Omoro the male slave) You follow.
And look me in the eyes, boy.
The Negro’s eyes fall. He walks towards his Sister.
Bartle: Come now for time’s sake, Next!
Enter another Maiden Slave – Silent, with tears down her face.
Bartle: (Showing her where the others are ) There, Little Girl. (He cautions)
Do not give trouble, now. Don’t cry, mother is not here.
Unfortunately. (Laughter breaks once again)
Next! Come men, range the slaves…
Lodge the others against the…(He looks about)
There’s a perplexing Silence.
The Auctioneer.
He is tall, has white hair.
He finds a spot of light.
: Is this the whole cargo, captain?
Bartle: (Lies) Yes, of course; (As an Excuse)
I neglected to mention the Prince’s reluctance this turn, My Lords.
Auctioneer: (Unnerved) Is that Correct?
Bartle: (Silent for a while) My Lord, rather to tell the truth (hesitates)
we had a stormy voyage. I opted to reduce the cargo, we would have sank otherwise, my Sire.
Auctioneer: What have you done to them?
Freed them.
Bartle: into the sea, Yes. Well, many freed themselves; mainly men.
(The silence deepens)
Auctioneer: You sure did not depart from Zanzibar with these … (Condescends) many slaves, Sir Bartle.
Bartle: Very well so, My Lord, considering that slavery is still a religion in that region.
The auctioneer looks at Bartle with despising eyes.
Bartle: I am heartedly sorry my lords.
Auctioneer: (A sudden bold response) The purchases for tonight may commence… I
I don’t expect anyone to loose value here. Captain, examine them.
Thoroughly so, I say. And keep them tranquil. Feel those heads, each below them is a
Bestial type. (Points at Kabu) She must be the lynx.
(He Ignores The Inspection)
… And the highest bid is my business. Only.
Walpole: (Humbly)10 000 ounces of tobacco trash for the maiden.
Auctioneer: That is an excellent price for two maidens, Sir…
Walpole: It is Walpole. Sir Walpole is the name, Sir.
And may it be. (Points To His Cart) Take them there, Captain.
(To The auctioneer) And I do thank you, Sire.
Kabu begins to cry and objects,
Omoro forwards in a rage.
Bartle lets loose with his club on Omoro’s head.
He falls and faints.
Kabu starts shouting at the fallen Omoro, in a strange language.
Auctioneer: (To The Buyers) …the congress still stands gentlemen. One more young,
healthy and strong back, worth any pound.
Lord Granville: Him, Sir.
(Kneeling To Examine The Pulse) He is not dead, is he?
Auctioneer: He must have a pulse. He’s alive.
He merely lost consciousness.
Lord Granville: My cart is not far… a few feet past the Tower,
You can’t miss it.
Auctioneer exits in silence, followed by Bartle dragging
Omoro by the feet.
Curtain Falls
The Cruelty Scene.
Every slaver inspects his cargo… first the lick of the tar-ridden skins, to decipher the contaminants sheltering in their pores. When all the men are shelved against the decks, and their women in pens ushered to upper levels of a ship turned brothel – for nude moons they bear testimonies of rape, whence their privities were incestuously examined. A parcel of slaves, upon the raucous decks of blue-eyed orgies – theirs was a fate unto the wolves.
In the master’s place of words… the sole male’s sweat nourishes the concrete slabs of his shelter. In his master’s words, he finds the wounds he yielded to, scorched and exposed to the suck of baobab leaves. With the demands of curiosity he cast the dark flesh unto a retreat and died in the dried beatings of emaciation.
And the markings on their breasts signified them.
And he is a man of menial efforts and a beast, wood-stricken at the platform of bargains.
Omoro is sitting by the furnace.
The hands and ankles are still buckled.
The door bursts open and
Lord Granville enters, with arms full of clothing.
Granville: Here’s my old scotch trousers. Over this pair of boots.
A shirt. (He Counts) a cap of some stuff.
There’s a grey overall. A coat. (He Looks Towards Omoro and the Fire)
Unfortunately I should put you at light…
This is not Africa.
This is Her Majesty’s Territory. We are civilized here. No one goes bare here.
(Pause )
Us, the English,
we reveal our genius for mechanics in everything;
even with our discipline of dress.
Omoro looks bewildered.
He looks at the stuff, then at
Granville, in silence.
Granville: Put them on. (Notices The Buckles)
Perhaps after I release your feet and hands…
Omoro rises without a word.
Granville: And your name shall be John. (Pause)
I am Master. (He undoes the shackles.)
There you are, John; put the clothes on.
Omoro seems to not understand.
Granville: …your expression is still of a barbarous society. This should soon change.
(He demonstrates as though putting the trousers on himself.)
Like that, boy.
Omoro puts the trousers on and looks Granville in the eyes.
Granville: Well done, John. Now, try the shirt on.
Omoro does as instructed.
Granville: You are now civilized, John. You are a machine subject for any action.
Fading Black-out.
Ten-To Midnight.
In a pale room
A white boy stands.
Cheerfully speaking to his father.
Omoro is seen an image on the white cloth, curtaining him from the rest of the room.
By the fire.
Undressing.
Boy: Who is he, Father? (Pointing At The Image)
Granville: He is John, Earl.
Earl: He is Black.
Granville: It is the color of his skin.( He Pauses To Emphasize )
He is not like us.
Earl: Why is he not like us, Father?
Granville: He is a slave, son. (Poorly Clutching The Boy in His Armpit)
Every man is illuminated by the divine light of our God…
It sure doesn’t shine through him.
Earl: But he has a head, ( Starts To Speak To His Fingers ) and fingers.
A nose, between two eyes…
Granville: (Interrupts) He cannot think, like us. Nor see the same thing with the very
two eyes.
Earl: So, he doesn’t feed when hungry?
Granville: Earl, even monkeys do possess thought to that extend. He probably can too.
( He Notes )
…there’s a draft tonight.
Earl: John made a fire to keep warm,
I wonder how’d figure that out.
Sudden Black.
Morning.
Light slowly fades into the kitchen setting, creating and dismembering the dark shadows.
In the room, Omoro stands over a white basin, washing hands.
Earl enters first.
Earl: (Find a Towel) May I? (He Begins to Dry the Black Hands)
Omoro, but your hands together they form the contours of a womb. (Surprised)
I saw that image in a book…once
Omoro: In your hands too, yours is from your mother.
Sudden Silence.
Earl: May I get you a belt for those trousers…
(Earl Exits, Amazed by a void response from A Slave, then soon Reappear )
Earl: Why. We are the only people in the house.( He Starts Scanning About )
Omoro: (Calmly) There is nobody else in the house.
(Omoro Pauses to Construct Another Sentence)
Is there much to see in here?
Earl: Plenty. Full.
Omoro: What is there?
Earl: You must see the Castle.
Omoro: I’ve seen it, with the gigantic the Clock Tower.
Earl: Ah, then you must see the Lodge master quarters.
Omoro: If I am not mistaken, We were inspected right at the Lodge Master’s quarters, and through to the Tower.
Earl: (Pulling a Card out of the Pocket) … have you seen the bazaar?
Omoro: I was at a bazaar, myself.
Earl: (Almost Gasping) The New Church? The Jewish Synagogue…
Omoro: O yes!
Yesterday, in the Jews quarters-
Sir Bartle pointed it out for us to see, of course.
Earl: How did you arrive here John. I mean, I wish to ask you certain details, about the matter of your arrival here, may I?
(Omoro, suddenly relieved by the boy’s innocence,
finds it in himself to cheer him up, he passes
an invitation )
Omoro: Carry along, my lord. Sit down.
Earl: About the operation, from the beginning of your journey… (He Hesitates)
Can we go some place better that here?
Omoro: I believe, (Not Finding A Chance for a Revealing Reaction) I am a stranger in this town. Do have any suggestions?
(They are seen following each other, in Omoro’s rear a faint darkness collects.)
Omoro: (He Begins) I can tell what my memory has not lost, Sire.
My mother is dead. I am certain. It was in accordance with the Sultan’s
decree. She was reduced to ashes. ( He begins a Pacing Monotony )
It was a summer morning. A brutal year! The ground was red with thirst…
You see, it hadn’t rained in years. ( He looks at Earl’s Mouth ) I was happy that
morning. I had fallen in love the night before.
I sang a matrimonial chant, and entering the bush…
Earl: (Interrupting) And then, what happened?
The Previous room.
Enter Lord Granville with a paper in his hand.
He sits down on the sofa.
Pulls the reading lens and purports to be reading.
(He looks up.)
Granville: Anne Lady, (Waits For A Response) Come see this.
Today’s earliest news.
(As Though Reading, he continues) …Sir Bartle Frere’s mission to
Zanzibar, (Looks Up For His Perfect Remark)… to put an end to the
‘ slave-trading ‘ in that region is now stated to have failed.
Anne Lady: Weren’t they opposing this slavery,
In Africa;
when we, in their blind-spot I might just add, collected the best art for
the British museum.
Granville: The Sultan of Zanzibar has two excellent reasons for being obdurate, my dear
He makes much money by the traffic, that is one, but I am sure that the
other has a greater weight with his pious soul.
He is assured that slavery is ordained by the Koran, and therefore it
would be ‘ wicked ‘ to suppress the system.
Anne: (Interrupts) But it was a revolution down there… they were at war.
And you should have joined the Southern Army, as I recall.
Granville: Dear, this is not a matter of choosing the war, rather a matter of being chosen
by the war. I am not hesitating to enroll for my national duty;
(He Adds) …but should our sovereign freedom be threatened by those
revolts, I’d wage my own war on the bastards.
Anne: (Hinting Sarcasm) Even when faced with such matters as equipment for our
Patriotic Soldier?
Granville: (Reflecting the Phrase) …even so.
Anne: (She Diverts The Conversation) So I envy the patriot in you. Even in the face of dire severance of ties in Her Majesty’s Palace. (They contemplate the words) Besides, the only model of union in England is
Cricket. Played on a Saturday, on home ground and winning on the
first innings.
They laugh.
Together.
There’s a knock on the door.
Anne rushes through towards a passage.
Father O’Keeffe: (Not in the Picture Space) Good morning, Anne Lady.
Anne Lady: Good morning to you too, Father. Am I pleased to see you…
(They Are Seen Entering)
Father: It has been a long while, since I paid such a pleasant surprise unto this household.
How’s the little man doing?
Anne: (Smiling) Earl is just fine; but how are you, Prelate?
Father: (He Returns A Smile) Coming sent by God.
(Granville rudely distances the clergyman.)
Granville: God? (He Gasps)
In what manner?
Father: Well, as you know that even though I have severed these ties with some of the
systems of our British Empire, I have not severed ties with the Mother Church.
(He Attempts to Smile) … for should I sever ties,
then I would have severed ties with the God-sent.
Granville: (Interrupting) … could your points be more precise, Father?
Father: The bitterness you have towards me is very costly to the people you serve, I say...
Nevertheless, I wish to request your permission, perhaps to
proselytize your slave. Attempt to civilize him.
(He Feels Ignored)
I will teach them.
I will put into their mouths, the words of our Divine Father.
I feel they are His children too.
Granville: (Negating) So that the black male can see in my life that I am emancipated
by the message I preach?
That I’m free from Fear?
Or even how I am concerned about my well-being?
Father: Granville, I have chosen between being taken by my rage towards you;
Or remaining free in spirit to find change in those who need it…
Now, please bear temper less with my proposal… I beckon you.
(Anne Lady bring in a tray. She serves the two tempers tea,
Before they gnaw each other to the bone.)
Granville: (He Drinks The Tea) Did not Christ – The Anointed One himself, say
It is not fair to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs?
Father: The Lord chooses His own messengers, my dear Sir. (He Handles His Cup)
That, until the house of Israel is moved to jealousy. (Pauses for a Drink)
Christ could have very well given glad tidings to a succession by
these Blacks.
They chase not after wisdom nor wait for any sign of a God-Head,
yet they are fiery hearts. They are a great furnace of thoughts.
Granville: So they aught to be free, I suppose.
Father: When the Gods Allow, my sire. (He Puts His Cup Down)
And I have already spoken about the matter at our Church meetings…
Granville: (Careless With His Cup) … and what was the response?
Father: Mr. Cowper-Temple, indeed promoted the idea of even opening the Church-doors
to these other persons.
Granville: (Anger Overflows) Such devilry, I am opposed to any of these moves.
And recalling the subject matter, Prelate… (He’s Interrupted)
Father: (To Anne) You didn’t prepare me for how violent he’d be.
Granville: …The outcome, is none other than witnessing this mob advancing,
bearing protest-banners lettered ‘ God Made Us All,’ with other blasphemous
inscriptions…
Father: Why would that be so, Lord Granville?
Granville: (Admiring Earl At the Piano) The Thought which works noiseless in these
Blacks, will soon make blood tingle in our men’s veins;
and soon after, whole armies and assemblages will sing their melodramatic
gestures, with eyes weeping and burning, hearts ever defiant of death,
and the Devil.
Father: (Disarming) We all should understand necessity, should we get a chance.
With a little confusion, yes;
Soon definition would transpire…
Granville: Does the Governor know of this babbage ?
Father: It seems Governor Goss is of the same opinion as yourself, my lord.
But, for the sake not of God; for our children’s, don’t we need
a history of peace?
Granville: (Harshly) … that can only be perchance, when your Protestant versions of the
Bible would be read and commented on by despotic school-teachers.
Now, that is a provision that places the devout Catholics in a position of
peculiar hardship – convicted to mixing blood…
There will not be a single Catholic School; and know this,
in the hands of thoughtless children, our knowledge of self cannot escape
the common fate that awaits used-up school-books.
Father: (He Suddenly Rises and Walks Towards the Door) Your patriotism has long
betrayed you, Granville… Even Mohammedans reverently put aside every scrap
of paper bearing the name of God, ( Responding to the Protestant Prejudice )
but you Catholics are still willing to expose HIS Name to the sorriest end,
(He Stops Walking and Looks Back) … provided you force your end on an
unwilling people. (To The Standing Anne - Lady) May peace be in
this house, Mary Anne
Anne: Soon, I hope. (She is Heard Opening A Door, Saying) Go well, Father.
Granville: (Interrupting Loudly) I tell you nevertheless, pious Father;
I will not obstruct your efforts.
Father: …but, sometimes sentiment does come the sentimental way, dear fellow.
Omoro stands, between the door-frame;
He holds a pair of shoes, and the table is silent.
He has perfected the art of concentration.
He draws a chair for sitting, trembling.
He tries these one’s on, they don’t fill around the foot.
He rises to find another.
He found some… to finally begin the monotony from his waiting chair. (Black Out.)
Omoro’s Dream.
Omoro: I am marred mother, by last night’s dream… and uneven torments.
A man had curiously collected my spit, He said,
He thought I’d realize a fate awaiting me. (He Shows The Goat Skin
Around His waist)
This girdle bears the Ancestry of my loins. Here, ( He Pointed )
I buried It, it seems, to see a light amidst all these shadows of death.
This skin’s dross has become a rock, dripping of my gross darkness.
(Omoro Requests Further)
How has Ncwaba grown?
Mother: It has grown. (She Reflects) Oh, that child fed with whey…
Omoro: (Interrupts The Diviner) He’s no Dog.
Mother: … but Dogs do have their own blood.
Omoro: The woman, He grows on her venal hunch, I pray.
Mother: It makes a Wife of her – unlike touched by You, a mere mortal.
She carries it on her back.
Though I fear she hangs by a slight parapet of sanity, Hereof she would.
Omoro: (With Anger) …but I am still pining. There is a great pain we exchange in our
dreams, that blows me apart.
Mother: My warts, my witchcraft,
Can we waste them, then? (A Man Is Seen Facing A Sun)
The man, why , he hanged his socks in the fog of an evil moon.
He speaks to voices in the Sun. He reached that score for his Wife.
(At Him She Stares) You Would.
Omoro: (Mumbles) …yes, score that reach; I will, wife his. For sore scores that reached
He. In my Fatherland.
Mother: Little Man , little man.
It is you who has to tell their name.
It is you who has to shine their face to the world.
For the Land. That is for their land, not any feverish lust proposed unto you.
(She Pauses) Come then, the bean has risen. Try another birth.
Remember, she is but a raison of sorority, and you’re just a heifer in
Her sorghum fields.
She is a woman. She has a school of Grave-Ants.
She crushes them and the soil from cross-paths.
She can concoct Love.
Omoro: (In a Complete Trance) I recall her rigmaroles – she constantly embroiled me,
Constantly demeaning me…The in, that walked I
I as so
How dismissed had I –
Ground, the in-spot…Black, the Drum. Of circles. A more it is. But was it up? Growing for Blade? Is it hair-pale? The is it! The take we do, first on the reach to second stepping.
The Conversation in the Oracle Presence – Anne Lady is by the bed-side, dead of sense. Earl has collapsed. His voice is heard questioning the progress. Omoro paces about an orb of tension.
Earl: (A Robotisized Vocal) I wish to ask you, eh – certain detail matters about your
arrival here, Omoro. I hear that most were women.
Omoro: …much of the women were old – half naked, with cold necks fast in the grueling
ropes. They marched the floggings ahead a captor’s horse; old women of savage
ends. And the brown maidens – handsomely habited – those who were salvaged
for later rapes by the mean, haughty spears. Women and children were
saved the wrangling of men…most who were shackled together to prevent
their mutiny.
Omoro: (Continuing though never Interrupted) I turned around… two men where
carrying mother on their shoulders. A third man was coming at me,
strenuously.
(He Admires His Memory) Then, I found a piece of wood…
a bloody piece of wood, and challenged him.
They laughed loudly, muffling my mother’s horrible cries. (He Stopped)
I noticed, he carried a fiery weapon.
I was obliged to charge perfectly at him, but then I noticed the Blood…
Earl’s Horrid Voice: How?
Omoro: (Properly arranges his clothing on his body ) First, let me say,
The night before, I was invited to dine with a rather peculiar,
Communist household, by the name of the Pitchards.
I am doing badly out of my memory, am I?
Voice: Not at all.
Omoro: I arrived, the guests were already at the table. Suddenly, I realized
My being the only Black presence among them.
I recall the dinner vividly, whatever little meaningful contact we all had.
(He Gets the thread of the story)
I was outraged by their fundamental lack of understanding.
(He Controls His Senses) … I let loose, he fired. That is the last I remember
Voice: Who was she called, Your Mother?
Omoro: Nami.
She named me, Omoro.
The meaning I learn in a lifetime. (He Recites More)
An old man told me, it was at a festival of punishments.
He saw hideous skeletons onboard the Panopticon, but none
was severed such as my Mother’s, he said.
She was drawn by four horses, pulling at the arms and limbs… they took pincers,
and pulled her breasts . Her bosom was bare before her trunk was cut to
the bone.
Voice: (Suspended) And she was still torched, even after all these tortures.
Omoro: The last piece of her flesh was found burning long past the midnight hour…
And, yes she bore the horror; within the embers no spirit could remain immune.
Us, the soiled, we
were baked until like stones of clay.
We were treated like Lepers; some fed to the sea and its gods –
In these schools, approved to some extent by our fathers…
the curses, the rigmorales about our ungrown patches of hair,
our head-givens as no more than reaches-to-never-climbed…our retrieves to
failed we, falling thrown down ladders to tottering heights – Who are We?
Scene within doors – Kabu seated the grand woman upon a stool. She is brushing her head-givings.
Judy: (Calls) Jane. I need You. Here. (Looking Over Her Shoulder)
Kabu: Did you call, ma’am?
Judy: (Waving Her Hands At Her Pet) As you are doubtless aware, my Dear.
Kabu: What may I do you for, ma’am ?
Judy: Today, (She Begins) there will only be the park in the morning, and
And then some people come luncheon;
Afterwards…
Kabu: (Interrupts Quickly) How many guests for your luncheon, my Lady?
Judy: There will be only five at the Luncheon.
Kabu: Should I Mind Lady Nina for Four O’clock tea? After which
you aught to go to the flower show for an hour or two…
Judy: (Sounding Relieved) Oh yes, then I shan’t leave for Aunt’s dance tonight.
Kabu: And what shall my lady wear, not a tail I’m sure…
(Judy Stands and Struts About Blithely)
Judy: No sensible girl, unless her feet and ankles are exceptionally ugly, now goes about
in long dresses. I will not be draggle-tailed.
Kabu: Does your mother know you’ll be in, this afternoon?
Judy: (Teasing) No. Of course not. Rather say it thus;
Will mother-in-law know I am outing, this afternoon? Consider her sinile-ness.
(Kabu Shakes Her Braided Head. Belle rapidly enters, silently enquiring
about an Over-Heard Comment. Kabu doesn’t mind her. )
(Judy Continues by Saying) … you see, although I had never known a poverty
for men,I have my pride to respond for me. So, meanwhile, I shall meet some
other wives’ husbands… I hope.
I am not a little girl, any longer.
(They are interrupted by a sudden entry of Judy’s Friend, Belle.)
Belle: (A somnambulist woman hugging a pair a shoes all Together Astounded)
You’re –
You’ re having an affair… My God. What’s it like? Tell…
Judy: (In Repose) I am not flattered by your assumption of my vagrance. But, I hope he
Dreams of bresats…
My large brown nipples…and, Good morning, Belle…
Kabu: At least, some good you accomplished.
Belle: (Tries the shoes for size) And I hear you’ve even invited Granville and the wife…
Judy: I often wondered what he was like in his Twenties…
Kabu: Who, Ms Walpole?
Judy: Granville, dear. And I am ashamed to say, (She Struts away through the Corridor)
I can’t seem to help myself.
Belle: You are utterly contemptible, Judy Walpole. (They laugh) But,
You’re the girl of the period, I’d say…
(Suddenly To Jane) Do you ever do awful things, Jane?
Kabu: Only when I am forced to… And about my Lady, will she marry Granville?
Belle: Even without her mother’s consent, I’d say. I Know Earl Granville, He’s almost
close to my Family, with his demanding curiosity…
(Belle proceeds to exit and find a fitting pair of shoes, she admires Judy’s Curiosity as Kabu prolongs her efforts with the retarded mother, and the first guest arrives)
Judy: (Leading Him to the Garden) Good Day, Sir Granville!
I see not Lady Anne’s company, by your side today…
So sorry she couldn’t come too.
Granville: Nobody here is likely to regret Lady Anne’s absence half
(He Has Advanced To Sight) …so much as I do, my
hostess.
Kabu ushers in Judy’s mother – The silent entity in this gathering of murky souls.
Granville takes his place at the long Buffet table, Kabu notices
him and approaches…
Kabu: May I offer you a drink, Sire?
Granville: (Not Flattered) Make me a light,
tall, weak drink…
Kabu pours a glassful of a Transparent oil. She gives the tall glass to Granville. He seems bored by the uninteresting feminine crowd. Another man soon enters, to relieve the tension. The ladies are bewildered by this stranger.
Stranger: (Calmly) My name is Sir Charles Forte…
You all seem utterly perturbed by my intrusion, may I somewhat set you at ease by
saying, I am a mere Romanticist… (They all gather at the Table)
The communal instincts do have the best of me, I won’t deny…thus perchance
I have Romanticized, revered… and worked, or rather am meaning to work
on some sexuality Prognostications of someone rather friendly with me. Why?
because I am a novelist. And a friend. Romance is a part of me, and
because ‘Order’ bores me, torments and baffles me. And any throng that preserves
this instinct…I surely shall befriend. Politics are the rent threads of a fabric
called community, I believe. I hope you’d pardon the intrusion, but
Lady Nina adviced I grace the luncheon for the pleasure of you womenfolk. Wold that pass for an evil endevour?
(Lady Walpole attempts to Interrupt )
If I simply may say, I adore your up-tilted nose, Miss. And the red head. Those
pear-shaped breasts. ( He Gasps ) Strangely, I dream of breasts lately. Say, are
you divorced? There are plentiful those around here, I’ve heard.
Granville: (Boasting the Comment) That is very well so, Sir Charles.
And her, Lady Walpole…is pretty much in her bare skin now. Be warned , alas…Ms. Judy is appalled by the remark, my sire.
Forte: But, I’ve never seen her like this before.
Granville: You’ve known her before?
Forte: (He Nods His Head) uh! And she never got tied again.
Granville: What happened?
Forte: Let us merely call it a reckoning. (He Pauses To Watch More Of Her Struts )
I still find her great personal beauty very Greek;
Her intellectual love of beauty… she truly admires her human form.
Not her high-heels and waspish waist…I hope. I couldn’t contrast her with any other
senseless shape in my bedroom, in her ridiculous attire at times.
Granville: (Malevolently ) So, it’s you who put her up to this luncheon.
Forte: Do you know that I wished to be a Scientist, once. When I was young .
Granville: I’d rather be using a saw and a drill. (To Jude) But it truly a scientist to get me here.
Forte: I am intelligent too, but a little less ambitious.
Granville: Inquisitive?
Forte: Yes! Most about the opposite sex, though. The literary abstractions thereof.
Granville: … and you do seem not much in repose about it, I’d mark.
Forte: I have said that I’m not in repose. I am thinking furiously hereof.
Father O’Keeffe, Red With Anger Bursts Through The Door;
A Ray Of Light Is Behind Him….He carries with him a golden case.
Judy: (Directly To Forte ) You - Get out of my house, now. And never…
Belle: (Suddenly dwindles a laughter in a peculiar voice, without an attempt to disguise
the intonation of her laziness)…Let’s go to her room…
Let’s play. I will go to bed with you Sir Charles.
(Deliberately to Charles) Are you any good at it?
Forte: I fell very badly about this.
Belle: Are you angry?
Forte: I am – very hurt, you are old enough to be my mother. Are you keen on me,
honestly? And your insanity, quite attractive, I must say. But… it bothers me.
Are you truly keen on me…I am bad company for morbid women, my Lady.
Belle: Yes, I am keen dear. Corrosively so, that I can’t be flattered to drop my lechery.
Forte: Then, you would wait just a little…
Belle: (Not favoring the remark to follow) For God, No.
Father: Mind your vocabulary – you foul wench!
Forte: (Infuriated) What in God’s name difference does her vocabulary make?
This, by all appearance, seems to be a day for drifting off.
She is not a little girl, anymore. (Belle is Pounding Her Spoon On the Table)
She can wed as much as she desires.
Judy: But… La Belle. Are we this obliged to breed for men we loathe most?
Are your travails for a descent pleasure falling short of our vow?
Belle: … but what stature is set forth for womanhood, an European womanhood –
any womanhood, for that matter? No lesser are we slaves for these
unscrupulous men, Jude.
(Belle increases the impulse of the shoe-hunt. Disturbing as her abrupt exits and re-entry, the thought patterns of her mind are now becoming visible. Now, the piled shoes cover the stage.)
Father: And please do recall that African races revere you ladies even to their deaths.
You are the Mother-Land! The mothers who are the initial mourners of
war. Any war. But, I’m amazed at your disdaining motifs towards these
Negroids.
Belle: These Blacks are no better remarked than primitive, and comparatively speaking
few of them can even read – since they are said to have no written literature.
(She Exclaims ) And the barbarous gods these natives fetish…
Father: (Interrupts with a Note ) … have you made yourself acquainted with these
Gods of their faiths, My Lady?
Belle: Why? Would there be any purpose for that adventure? Please, say.
(She’s fondling Forte while throwing words at the Prelate. Clutching the newly found shoe, it seems her aim entirely to handle Forte like the shoe pressed between them)
Father: Let be; that evil you choose from good, for your sake,
not God’s, My Lady.
Rather fear he who fears you most.
I have visited a ritual ceremony, once, in Congo.
The Gods whom all natives worship and acknowledge are those of the Light and of the Darkness. The fatal symbol of death to some is darkness, yes. But in the dark art
All Spirit-lands, all with their Principals, who aught be propitiated before any approach is made.
These are the tales of the natives, imported this far – we are all riddled by them.
…A woman was tortured that week, if I recall correctly… because she had
represented the greatest mystery of all:
That of the source of life, and light
as represented by the sexual inter-relations of civilized societies…There is the nude dance of maidens under the tumultuous sky…for they had been the fertile stars who abate the insurgence of bad omens – they were labeled precariously as whores.
(He Adds) To dance the six veils of adoration, She – the Priestess,
exposed her sexual organs.
That was seen as crude. But honestly, if
regarded without hypocrisy; she was merely expressing her fascinated joy
for an intrinsic passion she had acquired. (They Are Silent )
And that should be before the God of the Gates, the wisdom and
medicine to heal the land.
Judy: But…how are the victims selected? …don’t women occupy a low stature
among these races?
Father: I fear they aren’t so, My Lady. For the loafers, yes they are chattels… though I d
Flicker my words. Yet, for the Gods, they are not victims,
women are an attribute of prosperity, at right, effecting the destiny of all men.
Judy: Still, that cannot foist me against most of our civil resolutions
Granville: I openly agree, Lady Jude. ( He Holds More Attention )
To resume with you my Sire, would it be fair to say that the activities
of your mission are directed along the lines of endorsing your ideology
based on international anti-slavery conceptions?
Father: That would certainly be fair.
Granville: And you are in pursuance of this isolationist belief in basic human
dignification; is that correct?
Father: Correct, Yes.
And only for the mild resolution they require with their ancestry…which now is
exploited by the vile indulgences of such brutal men as yourself and Mr.
Dillwyn, and platoon.
Granville: Now then, in your opinion – does the mission’s work not tend to weaken the
Capitalist system of our governance?
Father: My answer is no. But, with consideration of the slaves you coax…the lewdness
and debauchery of your kind’s brawls – the wretched adulterers.
Granville: Is there not a range of possible entities indulging in a body of such thought?
Do you, Father O’Keeffe disapprove of the customs of this here
London’s constitutional justice? To the extreme of proselytizing these masses
your vulturous resolutions.
Father: Yes! And admirably so. I don’t think my mission is of the extremes of
Isolationism, that is not our function, as you have misconstrued.
Granville: Yes, but are my judicial views entitled to consideration?
Forte: ( Interrupts ) And if I may add, I would believe that Sir Granville’s questions
are not intended to convey criticism, My Lord.
Father: Are you a believer, Sir? (Addressing Forte )
Forte: Yes. Although I’d suppose the Invisible Power knows me a sinner enough
in my life-time.
Father: You do believe, therefore, the Miracles conjured by Christ and his Disciples?
Forte: I do.
Father: And the suspense that swathed the latter hence their Master’s walk upon the
watery floor of a Lake?
Forte: Certainly.
Father: (Seeming Unimpressed By Forte’s Logic) Heretics such as yourself should be
exterminated. This, I shall pass to you in secret; You, the chosen few.
That we shall cramp your organized religions with bombs.
Granville: (Unimpressed Too) But, Weren’t all these men entrenched with special
powers, of a different kind?
Father: Certainly so. But, were they not adorned with the exact powerful acts that
Buddha and his followers performed in the similar nature of Christendom?
Were they not sufficed with existential powers, as well?
Forte: Essentially so. Not a bit of doubt. Supernatural acts of two men of differing
God-Senses; borne countries apart, could reasonably be portions of an
exterior force, not peculiar to any religion, but utilized once one has
communicated with it.
Father: So, you do believe in Witchcraft, don’t you Sir?
Forte: Not that I can confirm my relation to that subject, Father.
But, do people acknowledge such supernatural grants today?
Don’t we all impugn any such a motive?
Father: My dear Fellow, all that exists deserves a quantitative opposite.
Like love seemingly deserving a hate. And if life is but death’s transition,
Then death is surely a living trance in the timelessness of life…not living.
Forte: (Defeated) That is true.
Father: Then, why won’t an unwavering cultivation of evil yield forth fruit,
the opposite to those begotten in cultivating good?
feasibly and proportionally. In a time of life…won’t memory be the only defeat?
Forte: How frightful. I can’t recommend such rudimentary wisdom over a meal,
Pious Father. Are you felling alright? ( They All Laugh )
Father: (Warning)You might jest about the co-equal enemies warring for the will of
mankind, the powers of Light and Darkness who’re at odds without cessation.
But, be assured that the truth of this doctrine transcends even the greatest of arduous
enquiries. An inner truth lies common to all incepted faith, all faith rises towards
spiritual perfection – that over flesh and her pleasures..
Granville: (Mockingly) What a re-incarnationist objective…
Father: Let us not submerge this truth in our humanly meticulous ceremonies which
eventually loose meaning. Sooner or later this perpetuated horrible lust
for immortality will exterminate all traces of truth.
The hours of night are equal to those of the day, and no less active are they,
when distorted from their original simplicity.
Granville: We are all tinged by that vague truth, that ours is a fate enveloped for
mortal decay. But we all want to Give Man; improve our status
by any means possible.
Father: Even by means of animating their brains, lambasting and injecting thoughts
of your subversive expression; to distance these Blacks from the astral
gain preserved for them, by their long-dead spirits. What Laodicean cunning is
being launched here?
And do your women-folk revolt at this sacrilege inflicted
upon their wombs…(To the ladies) My ladies, how remedial is the indifference you subscribe to the tortures of their infidelities inspire your aims for a better matrimony?
The insinuations of unreserved lusts in most of your courtly speeches, do these
divulge the malign demons you brew in the caverns of your waspish waists? I
await not the infernal retribution upon the seeds you scatter by their loins.
Aren’t ye, flogged with impunity without reason of trifle joys, thy beds drenched by the torrents of their wretched breast-fixations? Or do you also delight in the cruelty of their desires?
Granville: I suppose we all know the reason we have gathered here, at this Last Meal.
All: We all Understand.
Granville: Yes. For the abnormal happening where we burn portions of human flesh,
for this here London.
Father: The practice should now commence – cut-up the gore into a mess of flesh. First, with the raw strokes of your whip on this negro’s back. Will you please enter Omoro?
Omoro enters slowly and attentively…
Omoro: (To Them Collectively) Please say my name, it’s not in vain…
All: (Except Granville) Bravery!
Granville: (Shouts) You Satanist. And such a bastardized act…I swear it better to
have exterminated you with that spiteful mother of yours.
Omoro: You had you chance, sire…once, functionally. Yes, you could have ended
the cycle…this supposed evil principle of my kind degraded by their vices.
What invincible obstacle has there been against your generous intentions…do tell
Sire. Is not you art and might now wrought in the caverns of their mysticism?
Aren’t you finally at peace that the beast thou hast civilized? You have incarcerated
them all, even their generations unborn. Even your young are inquisitive about the journey you have plotted for them, by what they know as a devilish hand of their birth.
Granville: What have you done with my son?
Damn you, what happened? Earl, he’s not dead, is he?
What happened in that wooden building?
Omoro: I can recall no wooden building with regard to Earl’s sleep, My Sire.
Granville: All he does is garble on the diabolical eleven words.
And that strange language – the burns on his throat, why?
What wretched body lies cared for by my wife?
Omoro: He has no soul, now – My Lord…
Granville: (Astounded) Could it be? A living corpse…
Omoro: Yes. A single life is not enough. He can’t escape this place. The seed of death is
growing in your loins, as well. His spirit will not continue its greater
journey. He will remain tied, he will never look the loved faces of his
fellow races with that rage; that hatred of which your personality is
influenced.
Granville: But – I don’t see the connection. What is the point of this?
My son, the delirium in that house; who put his body that far from home?
Why? I gave you my abode to rest and sleep, you scoundrel.
Omoro: Have I got a home, my Lord? With you.
Granville: What was better, for you? To put you into my good house as an apprentice -
so you’d learn a trade…What was better? to survive, to find you a station or the
perpetual vagabondage your race is hailed for?
Omoro: Sire, by now you know that I have no father, no mother and no dependents
whatsoever. I am independent. Shouldn’t I be free then?
Granville: But, you are no master at any trade? And why are you here?
Omoro: So – You’d be led here, to set sight upon the tapestry of your fate.
Father: (interjects) Man often asks, why so much pain? When he inflicts upon others their
visions of a strange god. He’s a Negro, by trade a blacksmith;
genius inclined him that way. And he has no other dependants…
what so ever. He’s free.
Granville: Their invisible existence of darkness has forced an entry on us, this grip that
held their Dark Continent for so many centuries has spread.
It’s a plague into our own abodes. Why are they here?
Father: They are here for Land.
Not this feverish lust proposed here.
All: What do you mean? What?
Forte: Yes. Tell us, we misunderstand you. He’s a slave, not merely by acts but by the
livelihood that characterizes his kind. The miracle of our White Magic has always
remained irrepressible. He will not protest in the name of his human individuality,
his body and soul, as a principle of that character he represents should forever serve under the elements proposed for their collective punitive restraint.
Father: You all art of no importance to me; especially you Forte, nevertheless I
distinguish in you a rather intelligent man…you don’t propagate on common
knowledge, if I may say.
(He Admires Them All, Demeaning his stature.)
But, You all anticipated this…you hung on the hope of this. You,
who shall hear through battered skins.
(Omoro Draws A Wooden Pistol)
Omoro: In place of that cat widely vested on my laps and arms…the night-watch of your vessel flogged his own back before the debt of your seamen. You gave a pistol – and I will utilize the pistol. I will shoot the messenger, for he selflessly gave this pistol between us quickly, in this naked room. And as for the pails of vinegar washing off his tortures in the quarters of your employment – would the messenger speak?
Granville: ( Cheerfully )You do know that I, I assaulted her. You should know how
she lay bogged and swollen, from those blows I did rain upon her.
Woman are often considered rather too nubile and apologetic, no! just not
her. She was a rebel, she had always been a rebel. She alone, willed to
spit upon my face, in clear view of my brigade.
I hated her. Her venomous lips and their outbursts…
Omoro: Did that hate become most effective in proposing your measures to her kind
Sir, those black Others? (re-examines his statement) I’d hate to have
asked it wrongly, but…
Granville: (Puzzled) What precisely could be asked wrongly at this damned moment,
Friend?
Omoro: …those accomplishments of your Hate, Sire.
Granville: I could assume it so,
Omoro: Could you hate her just the same now, if I had to bring her back? Here.
Granville: ( Proudly )As I speak now, Friend ; I speak for ages who won’t die.
That is a certainty indisputable by time herself.
Omoro: ( Addresses a figure at the entrance ) Come in, please do.
Granville waited astounded, as the trivial thing stood there
in the perfect order of the worn-out frame of rest.
Dead. Or Living-Dead. Her gaze was wearing remarkable intelligence.
Omoro: (commenting over the glare in the frozen visage of Granville)
You… seem to have some pledge of remorse, I would say.
I am impressed, my lord. Alas, I must infer to you that, that alone
is not enough a plan for your salvation, yet.
Your salvation is not an option, yet.
Granville: (Concerned)Why, …she won’t even come in closer. May I touch her?
Omoro: She is not allowed to be touched.
Granville: If I may, just to satisfy myself. Is it truly her?
I am not trying to lay on your willingness as a friend, but…
Omoro: ( Stoically ) No. Not a feeble chance therefore.
Granville: …but, Friend?!!
Omoro: Had you not encountered her before? You know her. You have touched
her…Still, the fact that you were bound to a wife in matrimony,
Sire, what more desire would need to fulfill itself, now?
Granville: I meant no harm hereof, just a plea friend.
Omoro: That does not excuse you at all. The seal on your fate is broken;
And has that occurred to you?
Granville: Elementarily so, it all is still striking truth.
Omoro: Now, could you tell me reason for that brutal emotion you granted her?
Can such a charming character as yourself exhibit that monstrosity?
Granville: I felt, I wanted to die, to be seated…
Omoro: …but that would be wasteful of time. What ever your tireless efforts,
and whatever sign of remorsefulness… how vain it all will be.
Granville: The seal is broken.
Omoro: Yes, the seal
All Around The Table: The seal is broken.
( Then, sudden chatter breaks around the table, muting his inquisition,
He realizes his loneliness, He Cries silently with gnawing gasps of
Air. He has lost. )
Omoro: The punishment thereof, is just as inevitable.
Granville: I feel no remorse. I feel none. It was an obligatory deed and gesture I did.
No matter how misrepresented it all is.
Omoro: How regretfully so.
Granville: Regret, how much more can I feel?
I can recall, she ran towards the forest;
the trees, their arms slapping her needle limbs with fear-strokes.
She was unsure where to hide, perhaps the mountainside,
…perhaps. But, why hadn’t fear shouted through her throat,
I don’t know. I alone, of all, committed this. Only I,
Such a primitive act, only I could presume...
Omoro: Is that so?
Granville: That is so, yes; that paining segment of pure evil, within all man.
First, to acquaint myself with the blood I was to shed, that bubbling
conscience about it – beginning to gnaw. With that pain I had a crucifix.
Upon this, I hung long before I would let her.
She was naked, truculently nude. Her abdomen carved like a mature
earthenware. She was flooded with the sweat of a dying prey and all convulsions
of human strain.
All that fear, her fear …radiated by her trails in the woods, was the fore-game
before the mystery of creation.
Omoro: Had you lasted for black flesh before, sire? Indeed, what myth had infested your
mind, then? Tell me, it is necessary for my peace of mind.
Granville: She bore no physical defects, for one. And her silences, anyone could
decipher that like sanely diviners. That wordlessness mentioned more than
necessary.
A body fried in the oils of raging flames…is traded in this luncheon of monsters. Each is ordered and obliged to cut and imbibe the satisfaction of rotten-ness. First, it is Granville the servant of the potions of meat. His tension is enrapturing. The fixed gazes of his fellow offenders overwhelm the women-folk. They foresee a dire future for the family of their retributions. They are sad and profound in tears of horror.
The grand lady’s silence fills the space with remorse, for all these are her womb-splatters and shameful mites from her red sack. She sobs after what Judy would have called never…and those tears become a flood vomited through eyes.
Omoro and pastor interrupt their purpose, they forcibly summon they reluctant ones towards this mess. Others regurgitate and the grand lady stares. At this council of slave-makers…Kabu still braids the streaming hair of the virtual ghost. And that’s the awe in the moment, for she seems not intent of seeing the terror.
