Les Blancs

by Lorraine Hansberry

  MARTA Exactly.

  CHARLIE And to get an unprofessional answer one has to know you much, much better.

  MARTA Oh—much.

  (It hangs for a moment, then)

  CHARLIE How much?

  MARTA Mr. Morris …

  CHARLIE Hmm?

  MARTA You’re working too hard. (He grins. She looks at her watch) Was there something else?

  CHARLIE Yes. (Leaning forward intently. He hesitates) Please understand. If I am to write the truth about this place, I have to question everything. Even Reverend Neilsen.

  MARTA (Suddenly wary) Oh?

  CHARLIE Have you ever wondered—I am being devil’s advocate now—if just possibly he hadn’t “capitalized,” so to speak, on the backwardness he found here?

  MARTA (Tightly) Mr. Morris, I am not a very complicated person. I believe that people are what they do. You may think it simpleminded of me if you like—but if you don’t understand the depth of his sacrifice merely by being here—

  CHARLIE Well, I agree. But—look, I spoke with that fellow Matoseh last night. He has such a different point of view I’m beginning to wonder if there is any place where the two join.

  MARTA (Overreacting) Why should you listen to Tshembe Matoseh? What possible difference does it make what he says—or any of them for that matter?

  CHARLIE (Quick to pursue the point) Why not?

  MARTA Because they haven’t earned the right to criticize yet—

  CHARLIE Oh … I see. (Indicating the pistol at her waist) The gun …

  MARTA Yes—?

  CHARLIE Would you use it?

  MARTA (With a failing effort at restraint) Mr. Morris, one could hardly call me a racialist, but there are some things one cannot get out of one’s mind—the Duchesne family, for example!

  CHARLIE (Abruptly) Doctor—who was Eric’s father?

  MARTA (Staring at him) I cannot imagine what that has to do with what you say you came here to write …

  CHARLIE Oh? Well, actually I’m not sure that it does, but … the fact is that there are some things that give insight to a writer, and—(He hesitates) the frailties of strong men is one of them.

  MARTA I see. Well, I’m afraid, Mr. Morris, that you’ll have to look for your insights elsewhere, because the frailties of those who settled here are not my business. (She rises) Being a doctor is. And now if you’ll excuse me … (She starts out, then turns for a parting shot) Oh—and as for Reverend Neilsen: after forty years I’d say it is a bit late for you—or Tshembe Matoseh—or anybody to be checking his credentials! Good morning.

  (She exits. CHARLIE stands looking after her and then, on an impulse, exits swiftly, as the lights—)

  Dimout

  ACT TWO

  SCENE 2

  Shortly after. The hut.

  TSHEMBE sits on the floor beside a box of old odds and ends. He is regarding ERIC’s mirror curiously, as the boy enters, quite drunk, and bemusedly makes the sign of greeting.

  TSHEMBE (Pulling an African robe from the box) Our father wore this the last time he went to the Mission. He never wore it again. (A beat. He holds up the mirror) Eric, did our father take to staring at his image in his old age?

  ERIC It’s mine.

  (He reaches for it, but TSHEMBE holds it back)

  TSHEMBE A gift?

  (ERIC ignores the question and pulls out an old, worn blanket)

  ERIC The blanket Madame gave you, Tshembe. Remember how we used to sit by the fire and talk … you and me and Abioseh. When the fire went out you’d wrap me in it and I’d fall asleep. Remember, Tshembe?

  TSHEMBE I remember, Eric.

  (TSHEMBE is leafing through a battered Bible)

  ERIC And the Bible the Reverend gave you!

  TSHEMBE It started Abioseh huffing and puffing his way to heaven. Have you studied it, Eric? All those “thou shalt nots”?

  ERIC Sometimes. The names are strange.

  TSHEMBE What names?

  ERIC Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

  TSHEMBE Strange names for Kwi warriors.

  ERIC … Eric.

  TSHEMBE (Picking up the mirror again and turning it about) “Made in Holland.” Also from Dr. DeKoven?

  ERIC Willy.

  TSHEMBE Willy! (Grabs ERIC’s bag and angrily empties it) … A woman’s cosmetics! So, Eric, if you cannot quite be a white man you have decided to become a white woman? (Cruelly knocking the pith helmet from the boy’s head) And toys like this! What else does he give you to make you his playtime little white hunter?

  ERIC He is kind. No one else is kind. You and Abioseh were gone.

  TSHEMBE Our father—was he gone too?

  ERIC He was not my father!

  TSHEMBE (Tenderly. Reaching out to embrace him) Oh Eric, Eric … what does it matter … (ERIC turns away, rigid) We will be leaving here soon. Do you hear me, Eric? Look at me. I am taking you back with me. Would you like that, Eric? My son needs an uncle. Eric, listen to me—

  (CHARLIE MORRIS enters and ERIC runs off)

  CHARLIE May I come in?

  TSHEMBE It’s not a good idea.

  CHARLIE (Coming on in) Well, I’ll just pretend that it is. I’ve never been in—

  TSHEMBE —“a native hut before.” Did you bring your camera? Would you like me to pose making a basket?

  CHARLIE One of these days, Matoseh, it’ll finally come to you that I’m not intimidated by the Great White Father bit. (He produces a bottle) I brought some of the Reverend’s whiskey. Is it too early for you?

  TSHEMBE How can it be too early?

  (He holds out his hand)

  CHARLIE (Gives him the bottle) Exactly my sentiments. Tell me, Matoseh. Why are you so hostile?

  TSHEMBE The world is hostile, isn’t it? (He drinks)

  CHARLIE What are your plans? (TSHEMBE raises a quizzical eyebrow) For your life.

  TSHEMBE (Abruptly holding up some African fabrics) It is my expectation to go into the textile business! I’ll be taking some samples back to Europe.

  CHARLIE Ah, a capitalist to the marrow.

  TSHEMBE Incipient, but to the marrow, yes. You seem surprised.

  CHARLIE Well, I’ll admit it lacks the romance of revolution.

  TSHEMBE Does it? In fact, I think Reverend Neilsen and I shall get out a line of resort wear! (Draping a swatch like a couturier) “Missionary Chic!” What’s your feeling—midi, mini, or wraparound?

  CHARLIE Décolletage. You know, Matoseh—

  (TSHEMBE is seized by sudden inspiration and begins, methodically and with great flair through what follows, to lay out swatches of fabric on the floor in a circle about him, each time turning his back on CHARLIE or forcing him away as the barrier forms between them. At the moment CHARLIE ignores it) I’ve been thinking about the other night.

  TSHEMBE So have I, Mr. Morris. (Lays a swatch)

  CHARLIE You know, the truth is you and I share about the same opinion of Major Rice—

  TSHEMBE Do we. (Lays another)

  CHARLIE But he did say one thing that seemed to make sense—that a man of your background could make a difference to your people.

  TSHEMBE The Major is too kind. (Lays another)

  CHARLIE … if you chose to.

  TSHEMBE (Samples in hand) Oh, but I have—I shall be the first Minister-in-Exile of Cloth!

  CHARLIE (Annoyed) Very funny. Look, you’ve hardly an ordinary man in these parts. You’ve worked with Kumalo. The man of peace. Why don’t you speak out?

  TSHEMBE About what, dear man?

  CHARLIE Why the terror, of course. (TSHEMBE looks at him blankly) Against the terror.

  TSHEMBE (Nodding) Which terror, Mr. Morris?! … Ah, this will make a beautiful stole for some lovely back, don’t you think?

  CHARLIE Oh, come on, man—No matter what the provocations against your people you know damn well you can’t expect the settlers to talk while fanatics go on butchering babies! I don’t like it any more than you do, but in the world out there one white life taken counts for more than the de
ath of blacks by the hundreds!

  TSHEMBE (Quietly) Thousands, Mr. Morris. (Lays swatch)

  CHARLIE (Advancing on him) Then, for God’s sake, why don’t you use your influence? And Kumalo—if he were to denounce the terror—

  TSHEMBE Mr. Morris, if you don’t mind I have a business to build! (Holding a swatch up) Casual wear or lounging? For the beach or boudoir?

  CHARLIE I’d say bordello! Answer me—Why the hell not?

  TSHEMBE Because the moment Kumalo did that his bargaining power would vanish.

  CHARLIE Would it? I should think that the man’s moral stature—

  TSHEMBE I do not recall that the Europeans have ever been exactly overwhelmed by morality—black or white! Or do you think they have suddenly become impressed because Kumalo is saying the black man wishes freedom? We have been saying that for generations. They only listen now because they are forced to. Take away the violence and who will hear the man of peace? (He sits on the box, an island in a sea of cloth) It is the way of the world, hadn’t you noticed?

  CHARLIE (Looking wistfully off) I am thinking of a time when revolutionaries tended to be made out of idealism, not cynicism …

  TSHEMBE Maybe that’s what’s botched up all the revolutions so far! (Erupting in spite of himself) Mr. Morris, your concern for nonviolence is a little late, don’t you think? Where were you when we protested without violence and against violence? We did not hear from you then! Where were you when they were chopping off the right hands of our young men by the hundreds—by the tribe?

  CHARLIE I was just entering kindergarten, as I recall it …

  TSHEMBE (With contempt) Yes. I know. In Twin Forks Junction!

  CHARLIE (Shaking his head) You really can’t get rid of it, can you? The bitterness. No matter how you try, we’ve done it to you: you do hate white men!

  TSHEMBE (Gazing at him with open disgust) Mr. Morris, have it your way! No matter what delusions of individuality infect my mind, to you I am not an individual but a tide, a flood, a monolith: “The Bla-a-acks!”

  CHARLIE Nonsense! To me you are no more “the Blacks” than I am “the Whites”—(In his excitement CHARLIE steps on a swatch and TSHEMBE, flicking his wrist, motions him back) That is, I can’t speak for you—but I am myself.

  TSHEMBE And that of course is nonsense! You are a tide, a flood—a tide, yes, I like that, a receding tide.

  CHARLIE And you, the oncoming tide—? (TSHEMBE nods, smiling) There, you see! You are obsessed with it! And not just race either—vengeance!

  TSHEMBE (Swiftly, to end it) It is not I but you who are obsessed. Race—racism—is a device. No more. No less. It explains nothing at all.

  CHARLIE Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?

  TSHEMBE (Closing his eyes, wearily) I said racism is a device that, of itself, explains nothing. It is simply a means. An invention to justify the rule of some men over others.

  CHARLIE (Pleased to have at last found common ground) But I agree with you entirely! Race hasn’t a thing to do with it actually.

  TSHEMBE Ah—but it has!

  CHARLIE (Throwing up his hands) Oh, come on, Matoseh. Stop playing games! Which is it, my friend?

  TSHEMBE I am not playing games. (He sighs and now, drawn out of himself at last, proceeds with the maximum precision and clarity he can muster) I am simply saying that a device is a device, but that it also has consequences: once invented it takes on a life, a reality of its own. So, in one century, men invoke the device of religion to cloak their conquests. In another, race. Now, in both cases you and I may recognize the fraudulence of the device, but the fact remains that a man who has a sword run through him because he refuses to become a Moslem or a Christian—or who is shot in Zatembe or Mississippi because he is black—is suffering the utter reality of the device. And it is pointless to pretend that it doesn’t exist—merely because it is a lie!

  CHARLIE (Deeply affected) You know something, Matoseh? I don’t think I’ll ever understand you: on the one hand you go completely beyond race, on the other you wrap yourself in it! (He is circling the perimeters of the cloth. Now he starts in towards TSHEMBE, thinks better of it, folds back a passageway and goes up to him) Now if only you could drop the devices yourself you might find out we’re on the same side—(TSHEMBE throws him a look and abruptly turns away and snatches up the fabrics furiously) For Christ’s sake, man, we want the same things! We’re both searching! Only, I respect your anguish. Now, if you could just try to respect mine—

  TSHEMBE (Whirling on him) “Respect,” Mr. Morris? What is there to conceivably respect about the fact that your so-called “anguish” has brought you thousands of miles across rivers, mountains, whole oceans, to rapturize a dirty, smelly little hospital which, presumably, must distribute one new germ for every old one it almost accidentally exterminates!

  CHARLIE Now, just a minute, Matoseh—

  TSHEMBE (Riding over him) “Respect”?! Those are vile and expensive vanities. In your own country you would not be paying tribute to this place, you would be campaigning to get it closed!

  CHARLIE (White heat) The fact of the matter is that it is better than nothing and that is what you had before: Nothing!

  TSHEMBE And even if that were true—billions and billions of dollars, pounds, francs, marks, have long since paid for all the hospitals—

  CHARLIE And you really think Marta Gotterling came here for gold—? Or was it cobalt! (Advancing on him. The two stand jaw-to-jaw) I’d like you to answer that, Matoseh. Do you?

  TSHEMBE (Smiling easily) Of course not. She came to find fulfillment. Just as you came for salvation, and I to find—cloth! Here’s hoping each of us finds what he is seeking. At Africa’s expense, as always! (He drinks) Now take your stolen liquor and go, please. This conversation will never get any further.

  (Kneeling, he turns his hack to CHARLIE and his full attention to the box of odds and ends)

  CHARLIE (Not moving) It has to.

  TSHEMBE For whose sake …?

  CHARLIE For both our sakes.

  (CHARLIE is about to pursue the point but stiffens with sudden apprehension as he notices that PETER and NGAGO—spear in hand——have approached the hut)

  PETER Bwana.

  CHARLIE Peter.

  (CHARLIE exits quickly, and PETER and NGAGO step into the hut. The air is charged as TSHEMBE, still on his knees, and NGAGO regard each other—until, at a sign from PETER, the latter withdraws and sits, within earshot, outside. PETER smiles at TSHEMBE with great warmth—this is their first meeting since his return—and they embrace. TSHEMBE invites PETER to sit on the box, and sits on the floor—opposite him. Even at his most “relaxed,” however, he is acutely aware of NGAGO)

  PETER YOU did not answer the summons yesterday, cousin.

  TSHEMBE Summons?

  PETER From the Council.

  TSHEMBE What do you know about that?

  PETER (Takes out a strip of bark) I know about it.

  (He hands it to him)

  TSHEMBE (Grinning at the realization) You, too—!

  PETER Why did you not come?

  TSHEMBE What would I have done there?

  PETER You would have heard what is happening to our people.

  TSHEMBE (With a great sigh) I know what is happening to our people, Peter.

  PETER Then why did you not come? And in your father’s house I am not “Peter”—I am Ntali, the name our people gave me.

  TSHEMBE Well, Ntali, the truth is, I can no longer think of myself as a Kwi. (NGAGO sits forward, listening) Only as a man.

  PETER (Dubiously) You took part in the funeral service as one who knows who he is.

  TSHEMBE It was a way of saying—“goodbye.”

  PETER Tshembe, I speak for the Council. There is a need for leaders.

  TSHEMBE I thank the Council but I am going back. I have a family in Europe.

  PETER Your father was a great Kwi—

  TSHEMBE And I am not. Ntali, there are men in this world—I don’t know how to say this so
you will understand—who see too much to take sides.

  (NGAGO grips his spear and rises. PETER motions him back)

  PETER (Gently) I “understand,” cousin—that such men have forgotten the tale of Modingo, the wise hyena who lived between the lands of the elephants and the hyenas. Tshembe, hear me. (What follows is not merely told but acted out vividly in the tradition of oral folk art) A friend to both, Modingo understood each side of their quarrel. The elephants said they needed more space because of their size, and the hyenas because they had been first in that part of the jungle and were accustomed to running free. And so, when the hyenas came to him, Modingo counseled (PETER rises to become the “wise hyena”): “Yes, brothers. True. We were first in this land. But they do need space—any fool can see that elephants are very large! And because I was born with the mark of reason on my brow—on which account I am called Modingo, ‘One Who Thinks Carefully Before He Acts’—I cannot join you on our side while there is also justice on the other. But let me think on it.” (He sits, brow furrowed, chin in hand) And thereupon Modingo thought. And thought. And thought. And the hyenas sat and waited. And seeing this, the elephants gathered their herds and moved at once—and drove them from the jungle altogether! (Turning to TSHEMBE) That is why the hyena laughs until this day and why it is such terrible laughter: because it was such a bitter joke that was played upon them while they “reasoned.” (There is silence for a moment, and then he leans forward to place his hand upon TSHEMBE’s) Tshembe Matoseh, we have waited a thousand seasons for these “guests” to leave us. Your people need you.

  TSHEMBE (Sadly) Ntali, the Europeans have a similar tale which concerns a prince …

  PETER (Rising in anger) You are full of what the Europeans have. It is a good thing to discover the elephant has a point of view, but it is a crime to forget that the hyena most has justice on his side! Your people need you.

  TSHEMBE If they need a Modingo to study the tides while the sea engulfs them—I am their man! But a leader I am not.

  PETER Then become one! (As TSHEMBE turns away) Tshembe, your father—was my commander in the Freedom of the Land Army.

  TSHEMBE (Staring at him, incredulous) My father? … You mean my father approved—?

  PETER (Smiling) —conceived, Tshembe.