Les Blancs

by Lorraine Hansberry

  CHARLIE What change?

  MADAME The change. Some cold wind blew in over our people here and chilled their hearts to us. It is the times, you know. I’m afraid he’ll never understand it—the Reverend. And what hurt him most was that Abioseh was the first to change. Old Abioseh, the husband of Aquah, my friend—a truly remarkable man. First Abioseh—and after him the village—then the tribe. Oh, they still come to the clinic, some of them. But to this day, virtually no Kwi attend Reverend Neilsen’s services. In almost seven years I have not set foot in a hut in this village. (Sadly) And today someone important has died and no one has come to tell me. For a few years Aquah’s children came. But they have grown up and gone away and now—no one comes. (A young boy appears behind the Mission and looks quickly about to make certain he is unobserved: a sodden, fairskinned youth in the late teens, in shorts, filthy undershirt and sneakers, and—incongruously—a clean white pith helmet. MADAME stiffens and stares straight ahead) Now, sir, “Caliban” is almost upon us. He has turned on the generator and now the river breeze tells me—(He crosses swiftly to a tree stump)—he is crossing the compound to make certain—(He looks from right to left, stoops and reaches into the tree stump)—that Dr. DeKoven has left him a bottle. (He comes up with the bottle, drinks, recaps and replaces it, and heads for the Mission) This, sir, is Eric.

  ERIC (In the door) I am here, Madame.

  MADAME (Without turning her head) Eric. Show Mr. Morris to his room.

  CHARLIE Hello, Eric.

  ERIC Mr. Morris.

  (Manipulating his pith helmet under his arm, he picks up the American’s bags and exits. CHARLIE is about to follow when MME. NEILSEN takes his arm)

  MADAME I shall think you an exceedingly poor journalist, Mr. Morris, if you allow me to believe that you are in the least confounded by either the name or the complexion of our Eric. (Settling back with finality) Now I have said enough. Now I shall sit on the veranda and merely be quiet and old and invalid, and leave the world to its deceptions. (CHARLIE looks at her, hesitates—and is about to speak, when:) I’m sure your room is ready, Mr. Morris.

  (CHARLIE exits. The old lady sits staring dead ahead)

  Dimout

  ACT ONE

  SCENE 2

  Dusk. The Matoseh hut.

  As the lights slowly darken in the parlor, they come up on a Kwi hut, the great house of an elder. ERIC sits on a mat with a bottle before him. He drinks a good one, adjusts his pith helmet and studies himself in a hand mirror as he whistles an African tune. Offstage the drums are constant.

  Over the rise comes TSHEMBE MATOSEH, a handsome young African in worn and rumpled city clothes, his tie loosened, jacket slung over his shoulder, a traveling bag in one hand. At center, he sets it down, wipes his brow, then hearing the whistle sneaks up on the hut and joins in the tune.

  ERIC (Looking up with startled apprehension and joy) Tshembe! You came!

  (TSHEMBE throws his arms together straight out over his head and claps three times in the Kwi “sign” of greeting. ERIC reciprocates and the two brothers embrace)

  TSHEMBE Where is my father?

  ERIC He died last night.

  TSHEMBE (He crosses away to look out at the dying sun) So I missed the last goodbyes.

  ERIC (Slips the mirror out of sight) Each day for a month I told him you would come and then last night he no longer believed.

  TSHEMBE “Sons, sons: hurry, hurry. Do not dawdle—(A man deeply moved)—or you will miss your last goodbyes.”

  ERIC When I wrote you, I didn’t think that you would come at all.

  TSHEMBE As the whites say: There are ties that bind. There are ties that bind. (A beat) Where is our brother?

  ERIC We never see Abioseh anymore. After you went away, he went off to St. Cyprian’s.

  TSHEMBE Did you send word to him of our father?

  ERIC Yes, but I don’t think Abioseh will come.

  TSHEMBE YOU also didn’t think that I would come. (Brightening) Eric, you’ve become a man.

  ERIC It’s been five years …!

  TSHEMBE Five years … You smoke?

  (Crosses in, opens his bag and tosses the boy a few packs of cigarettes and some newspapers)

  ERIC American cigarettes! (He eagerly breaks a pack) Willy almost never has American cigarettes.

  TSHEMBE Willy—? (A long pause, to remember) Dr. DeKoven? (He regards ERIC, the pith helmet, filthy clothes and whiskey bottle; the other averts his eyes. He fingers the bottle, drinks, puts it down, then snatches the helmet from ERIC’s head) He gives you things—

  ERIC Yes.

  TSHEMBE Cigarettes? (ERIC nods) Whiskey even?

  ERIC Tell me about Europe. About your life there … Tshembe, please!

  TSHEMBE (Softening. He smiles) Well—you are an uncle. I had a son just before I left. (Fist in the air for proud emphasis) Eight pounds of son!

  ERIC (Clasping his hands with delight) You got some girl in trouble!

  TSHEMBE (Amused) I have a wife, Eric; and we have a son.

  ERIC (Wide-eyed) You are married?

  TSHEMBE (Dryly) Yes, people are doing it everywhere.

  ERIC You have her picture? (TSHEMBE tosses it, gets up, takes off his shirt and fills a basin to wash) She—she is European!

  TSHEMBE Very.

  ERIC How old is she?

  (He is studying the photo critically)

  TSHEMBE (Amused—at both ERIC and the custom) That is something one is not supposed to ask.

  ERIC Why?

  TSHEMBE It is a custom among her people not to.

  ERIC Why?

  TSHEMBE (Absurdly) Because it is.

  ERIC She’s not very handsome.

  TSHEMBE (Shaking water from his head and taking the photo back) It is also not the custom to say such things about other people’s wives!

  ERIC She looks older than you do.

  TSHEMBE She isn’t. Europeans—wrinkle faster. (Looking at the photo) She is handsome. And she has eyes that talk.

  (He kisses the picture fondly and puts it away)

  ERIC What color are they?

  TSHEMBE Gray.

  ERIC Ugh. Like Reverend Neilsen’s.

  TSHEMBE And like your own. What is wrong with gray eyes?

  ERIC It is no color at all.

  TSHEMBE Gray eyes are all colors and hers have a lot of green in them and they are very, very beautiful.

  ERIC What color is her hair?

  TSHEMBE Red like the sunset.

  ERIC It sounds ugly.

  TSHEMBE It is striking.

  ERIC Can you see her veins?

  TSHEMBE Her what?

  ERIC Her veins. When you stand close to Dr. Gotterling, you can see her veins through her skin. Like a chicken.

  TSHEMBE (Rubbing his body dry with raffia) You don’t think Dr. Gotterling is strange-looking, do you?

  ERIC No, why should I? She is very—serious for a woman—but she is handsome.

  TSHEMBE Blue eyes, yellow hair, veins and all?

  ERIC (Puzzled) Yes.

  TSHEMBE (Delighted at the universal absurdity of it) What we know—is what we accept. (He laughs and boxes the boy’s head) It is like that everywhere!

  ERIC Wouldn’t you like a towel?

  TSHEMBE Raffia works up the blood better!

  ERIC (Shrugs and opens the newspaper) They say that Kumalo is coming home. To Zatembe.

  TSHEMBE (Sighing) Yes. Kumalo is coming home.

  ERIC What will he do in Zatembe?

  TSHEMBE What did he do in Europe? Talk! Talk, talk, talk. That is what the African does in Europe. He wanders around in the cold in his thin suits and he talks. You would like that part, Eric. There is a great deal of pomp. In Europe the European is—(Playing it)—very civilized. When our delegations are ushered in, and our people have said what they came to say, the Europeans have a way of looking very hurt as if they have never heard of these things before … and presently we sit there feeling almost as if it is we who have been unreasonable. And then they stand up—i
t is always the Europeans who stand up first—and they say (With exaggerated Oxford accent and the dignity of a minuet): “Well. There are undoubtedly some valid things in what you have had to say … but we mustn’t forget, must we, there are some valid things in what the settlers say? Therefore, we will write a report, which will be forwarded to the Foreign Secretary, who will forward it to the Prime Minister, who will approve it for forwarding to the settler government in Zatembe”—(Abruptly sobering)—who will laugh and not even read it. That is what Kumalo has been doing in Europe. That is what he will do in Zatembe.

  (TSHEMBE proceeds to change into native garb, a skirt of handsome leather)

  ERIC Are they really sending him home for that?

  TSHEMBE The government in Europe has persuaded the government here to talk to him, and he agreed to come.

  ERIC What will happen?

  TSHEMBE Talk!

  ERIC Will he support the terrorists?

  TSHEMBE When did you become interested in politics, Little Toy? Does your doctor whisper politics when he pours your whiskey?

  ERIC (Bitterly, lifting his head above it) He discusses many things with me.

  TSHEMBE (Somewhat chastened) How should I know what Kumalo will do? And don’t call them terrorists: that’s for the settlers. Call them rebels, or revolutionaries. (Looking off with his own sad irony) Or fools. But never terrorists. (A beat) Tell me about my father in his last hours. Of what things did he speak?

  ERIC (Curtly—to hurt in return) Only of his ancestors, what else?

  TSHEMBE Why do you say it like that, Eric?

  ERIC Because it’s true. He was just an old savage who went to his death rubbing lizard powder on his breast and chanting out his kula or some damn thing!

  TSHEMBE (Grabbing the boy violently) So did our mother! Do you despise her memory too? Have they finally turned the world upside down in your head, boy? (They stare hard at one another. TSHEMBE releases him) Does Madame Neilsen know about my father?

  ERIC (Shaking his head) I thought that you would want to tell her.

  (During this a third man, unnoticed, has approached the hut and stands now at some distance: taller, older, wrapped in a great African blanket)

  ABIOSEH You are as our mother said you would be, Tshembe—lean, handsome, with the face of a thinker! (The brothers turn with astonishment) So were you named, so have you come to be. Greeting!

  (He raises his arms in the “sign” of greeting and TSHEMBE returns it)

  TSHEMBE Abioseh!

  (It is a shout of joy as the two rush together and embrace fully, then stand back and look at one another)

  ABIOSEH (Turning at last to the younger one) And you, Eric. Are you well?

  ERIC (Blurting it out in his nervousness) Tshembe has a wife with gray eyes and red hair and they have a son eight pounds …

  TSHEMBE (To ERIC, saluting) Thank you!

  (The three brothers laugh)

  ABIOSEH Is it so?

  TSHEMBE It is so. Ah, Abioseh, Abioseh! It is a long time. I have seen both Europe and America since last we met.

  ABIOSEH (Smiling tenderly) The Wanderer, my brother called Tshembe, who is Ishmael. Tell me of your doings.

  (The three brothers sit as of old)

  TSHEMBE Well—I worked in the mines on the coast for a while. (He offers his brother a cigarette but ABIOSEH declines) And then I got a job on a newspaper. But when the resistance began the government closed it down. Poof! (ABIOSEH looks at him curiously) So I scraped together some cash and went off to Europe. At first I roomed with Titswali Okele. You’d approve of Okele, Eric. He got two girls in a fix: one European and one black American. And sent them both to an East Indian abortionist.

  (He laughs and settles back)

  ABIOSEH “Resistance,” Tshembe? You mean the terror. (With obvious concern for his brother) You are not involved in this trouble—are you?

  TSHEMBE (Carelessly, an assumption) All Africa is involved in this trouble, brother.

  ABIOSEH (Smiling) I can see that you have learned the philosophical reply.

  ERIC He talks funny now.

  TSHEMBE I think funny.

  ABIOSEH YOU are different than when you went away, Tshembe.

  TSHEMBE Inside and out! (Bending his head over) How do you like my part? Something, huh?

  ABIOSEH (Ruffles his brother’s hair fondly. Then, searching his eyes) I hope you have not been swallowed up in the fanaticism. It is everywhere. The killing. You have heard?

  TSHEMBE I have heard.

  ABIOSEH (With great enthusiasm—pouring it forth) Tshembe, these are new times. There are those in London—some even in Zatembe—who recognize that this is our country too. We have had feelers—

  TSHEMBE “Feelers”?

  ABIOSEH Nothing official, you understand—

  TSHEMBE “We”?

  ABIOSEH We have a group—responsible, educated, enterprising. Men like ourselves who want to build—not destroy. But the settlers won’t budge, of course, while fanatics give them the least excuse—

  TSHEMBE I don’t recall that the settlers ever needed excuses. (Shrugging mightily as the other starts to answer) Oh, dear brother, what does it matter! I worried about such things for years and then, one day, sitting on a bench in Hyde Park—watching the pigeons, naturally—it came to me as it must to all men: I won’t come this way again. Enough time will pass and it will be over for me on this little planet! And so I’d better do the things I mean to do. And so I got up from that bench and went to meet the girl I had been wanting to marry but had not, you see, because of—(On his fingers, deliberately mocking the words)—the liberation! the Movement! “AH-FREE-KA!”—and all the rest of it. Well, I was, as Camus would have it … (Ironically, with a small introspective laugh, for he does not in any sense feel the “freedom” he boasts about) … “a free man” in that moment because I “chose” freely. I chose. And so, you see, it is all over with me and history. This particular atom has discovered himself. (He gets up and signals to ERIC to fetch the funeral robes and pulls out a pot of ceremonial paint) In any case, we should get ready for the ceremony.

  (ABIOSEH watches with disbelief)

  ABIOSEH And what do you propose we do at the ceremony, my disenchanted, world-traveled young intellectual? (ABIOSEH rises and stands very tall, still holding the blanket about him) Should we also paint our cheeks?

  TSHEMBE (Holding the pot of paint out to him) Yes.

  ABIOSEH (Staring hard at him) And dance?

  TSHEMBE Of course.

  ABIOSEH With yellow ochre on our cheeks and the rattle in our hands?

  TSHEMBE We should.

  ABIOSEH (His voice rising with hostility) To chase away the spirits of evil that have taken our father away?

  (TSHEMBE starts to paint his own face)

  TSHEMBE Why do you ask these things, Abioseh?

  ABIOSEH Do you believe in any of it?

  TSHEMBE Of course I don’t believe in it.

  ABIOSEH Then why?

  TSHEMBE We are our father’s sons. Our people expect it. What great harm is there in lizard powder, Abioseh? (ERIC hands him the ceremonial robe, a great imposing garment of animal skins, and he advances, holding it out to ABIOSEH) It is your place to wear the robe now.…

  (He reaches out and pulls the blanket from his brother—who stands revealed in the cassock and crucifix of the Roman Catholic Church. ERIC gasps. TSHEMBE regards him in silence)

  ABIOSEH I take the final vows in the spring.

  TSHEMBE (Donning the robe himself) And what will be your name then, my brother?

  ABIOSEH Father Paul Augustus. (TSHEMBE and ERIC exchange looks) I thought to tell you of this in a different way.

  (The two are confronting each other; one in the mystical robes of ancient and contemporary Africa—the other in the mystical robes of medieval and contemporary Europe. TSHEMBE laughs)

  TSHEMBE I see. Such is the marketplace of Empire! You, the son of a proud elder of the Kwi, are now pleased to change your ancient name for th
at of a Roman Emperor! You came home not to pay respects to your father but to rail against a few pots of innocent powder!

  ABIOSEH Some day, Tshembe—

  TSHEMBE You have found Reason in a bit of dirty ash—(Hotly touching his forehead)—and Humiliation in the rattles and feathers of our ceremonies!

  ABIOSEH Some day a black man will be Archbishop of this Diocese, a black African Cardinal. Think of what that will mean!

  TSHEMBE It will mean only the swinging jeweled kettle of incense of another cult—which kept the watchfires of our oppressors for three centuries! (Gesturing impatiently to ERIC’s own robe, which is far less imposing) Eric, get dressed!

  ABIOSEH You were raised by Christians, Eric!

  TSHEMBE (Simply, without passion) And maimed by them!

  ABIOSEH Some dreadful thing has happened to you, Tshembe. (Coming towards him with hand outstretched) But it is not too late—

  TSHEMBE (Drawing violently away) The sale, dear brother, has been completed and you are wearing the receipts!

  ABIOSEH (With determined gentleness) Ah, Tshembe, Tshembe … you dare to equate my faith, my acceptance of the supreme morality of humankind—with purchase?

  TSHEMBE (Reaching out and taking the silver crucifix in his hands) I know the value of this silver, Abioseh! It is far more holy than you know. I have collapsed with fatigue with those who dug it out of our earth! I have lain in the dark of those barracks where we were locked like animals at night and listened to them cough and cry and swear and vent the aching needs of their bodies on one another. I have seen them die! And I think your Jesus would have loved those men—

  ABIOSEH I see that you remember at least part of your teachings—

  TSHEMBE —but I think He would have cared nothing for those who gave you this!

  (He flings the cross back at him, and ABIOSEH passionately falls to his knees)

  ABIOSEH YOU are ravaged by things that will destroy you, Tshembe!

  TSHEMBE (Quietly, evenly) I am ravaged.

  (He turns to go)

  ABIOSEH (Clutching the crucifix to his lips) Tshembe, come and kneel and pray with me! Jesus will—