One Man Dancing

by Patricia Keeney

  Charles is wary as military eyes ogle them. Are they looking at the women? Or the men? He knows he too is a fine physical specimen. They all are.

  Robert walks his theatre family briskly through the armed camp that is Kampala — through its jittery streets, past its strained faces to their home at the National Theatre — with an air of genial defiance. He knows his children are safe. As their wealthy and influential prime guardian, he guarantees it.

  And pays daily for the privilege.

  In regular classes — held at the National — Charles struggles with many of the exercises led by various specialists Robert has found. Both European and African. All are trained experts who stretch him to breaking point, wind him up tight and then release and relax. Over and over. Until he turns to water.

  “Your body is your instrument,” Robert tells them afterwards. “It is your means of communication. You must know and control every inch of it. Work it every day.”

  Charles eventually finds the courage to ask about time off.

  Robert is offended.

  “An artist has no free time. Your experience is your only true teacher and does not grant holidays. Learn from everything. Learn from dreaming and making love. From eating and puking and shitting. Learn from anger and fear, from envy, lust, and desire. Don’t let any of it go to waste.”

  Robert’s words make Charles feel as though he has been unconscious until now. As though he has understood nothing. And he loves Robert’s easy assumptions about his sexual life.

  “There is no inner experience without external physical expression,” says Robert another day. “Study people. Learn to read them. Know what they are saying.”

  Charles thinks of Debra and her long sleep after trauma, wanting never to wake up. He thinks of Mother swaying to the hymns of her spirit church, moving to music, rocking all the way to heaven. He thinks of Father, kicking up dust on the motorbike. He thinks of winking women. How all these images provide keys to the people who inhabit them.

  Forced to focus on his own body, he becomes aware of toes and toenails, of ankles and fragile bird bones; he realizes the density of hip and thigh: how they root and how they fly, feels the sockets of arms and the hair on skin, the knotting complexity of knee joints. After hours of straining to the farthest perimeters of his newly discovered body, Charles suddenly ceases to believe it exists. He floats in another dimension.

  Where the master’s mesmerizing voice lures him forward. “The small truths reside in physical actions,” says Robert. “It is physical action which stirs the great truth inside, the truth of emotions and imagination. That is how you convey truth. It is in your body, not your words. You construct truth physically, draw it, colour it in.”

  Robert has flung him far out and now draws him slowly back, sleek as a fish on a hook.

  So Charles thinks about body again. The one he lives in. So happy dancing, finding rhythm in drums. So completely unaware of itself when running on a football pitch. His body has always used him. Now he is being asked to use it. But in a natural, instinctive way, like an animal. He is being turned inside out and upside down in order, says Robert, to sing a human song and cry a human cry. “Sometimes you just barely indicate what’s inside. A gesture so small, it is almost invisible. But the audience must see. They must be attuned to you, trust you. You must make them see the familiar with fresh eyes.”

  “COW!” The word comes out longer. “CAOWWW!” And longer still. “CAOOOWWW!”

  The voice coach dances through it, elongates the bridge of vowels across the chasm that separates the sound he wants from his inept pupils. In a frenzy, he flings the word up, hurls it down, lays it out flat and round, with a thud on the floor, pungent and oozing as cattle dung. The group jumps back in awe. Not knowing what is expected. What to do.

  “You must say it almost the way the cow does when it cries out. We should hear every letter, as long as your longest breath. Big and slow. Open your mouth wide. Let the creature in. Let the whole cow wander through you. Let her graze and munch and chew, taking her time. Let us see how lazy she is. Keep the cow inside you. Fill yourselves with her.”

  Charles feels himself give way, feels his body succumb to the loose, hanging frame of the cow, to Suna’s hairy flank, warm with the business inside her bulk, to the sideways slide of her jaw, to the soft teats, rigid-ready for the hands of the milker to squeeze loose.

  “COW! COW! COW!” they all continue to repeat in the streets after the session.

  Those walking by turn and cluck their tongues. “What is this noise? What are these people doing?” they wonder, “wasting their time when they should be in the fields or in the market or, at the very least, studying something useful. Like economics.” The group hardens themselves against these mutterings because they know they have been chosen. They know that Abafumi can somehow give them the power to overcome the differences of their ancestors: Acholi. Baganda. Rwandese.

  They all love lunch. It is brought into the theatre by a large cinnamon woman in a silvery turban and a long dress, the colour of leaves after rain. She is their envoy from the outer world. Gathering at an upper window, they watch her come to them with determination and purpose, vanishing from the market crowds between columns into the black interior of the National. There they know she slips nonchalantly past the young military guard who stands aside to make room for the huge basket she carries on her arm. It swells with appetizing aroma under an immaculate white cloth. Ravenous, they listen for the guard’s question. “And what have you brought me from your kitchen today?” And the woman’s tantalizing description of one dish after another.

  “Welcome Mama Africa,” says Robert inside, always the first to greet her. As she wafts in, she sings out “Food for Abafumi!” and watches with satisfaction while they shift eagerly in the big leather chairs of the boardroom waiting for the feast to be set out.

  “Before we eat, we make our weekly confession,” explains Joro to Charles.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The boardroom is a confessional in this church and Robert is our priest.”

  This surprises Charles who simply asks, “Does everyone have to?”

  “Well, if you are a member of the company, then the company is your life and you must confess on a regular basis. We have to respond to the exercises. We have to say how we feel about working together.”

  Joro pauses for emphasis.

  “If any one of us believes we are not adequately fulfilling the company’s mission, it is up to that person to come forward. In being responsible for ourselves, we are responsible for one another. But you will never find one member accusing another because, for Robert, self-knowledge is the key.” Charles listens intently.

  “If one of you is not true to the vision,” Robert continues, picking up the thread of his own mission statement, “we will all suffer until balance is restored. The well-being of the company comes before any personal need.”

  His probationary period — three months — is finally up. That lunchtime, Charles’ fate will be decided. Maybe it already has been. Maybe that’s why they’re having a party in that stern boardroom where self-evaluation is practiced so rigorously. Maybe they’re all celebrating his failure among the warm smells of cassava and fresh cooked fish, bananas, yams and ground nuts. The conference table is transformed into a feasting place, each laden bowl a dance and each dish a drum beat.

  Charles sits in silence, waiting to hear his fate. Hoping.

  “You have all agreed by secret vote,” says Robert, riveting each Abafumi member with his gaze. “It is unanimous and I bow to the majority.” They all know the subject.

  Charles looks down, wishing to disappear. If his future is to stop here, then let him burn out on the spot.

  “Welcome Charles,” says Robert grandly. “You are one of us now. Welcome to Abafumi.”

  Charles beams.

  Robert fondly emb
races his newest protégé, his youngest member, trembling in his arms. Women cry a high-pitched ululation, moving Charles to hug and kiss new sisters.

  And he knows that this is right. It is where his life wants him to be. With these people who are his family now.

  Charles finally feels included as actor and dancer.

  “What you are is what you can give,” says Robert back in the rehearsal room. “If you are the only one of your kind, you are rarer still. You must be protected. Because you are the end of the line. After you, there can only be the ancestors. It is your responsibility to save the line from extinction.

  “Our ancestors cannot see this world without us,” he continues. “And the world cannot know us without our ancestors. We carry them from their eternal place to our living one, as we carry our terrors, our joys, and our pride. Our bodies carry all, they are the temples that carry both gods and demons.”

  Like the women of Kekinoni’s spirit church — bare feet sounding on the floor, hands raised in salute — the group answers every poetic image Robert calls out to them.

  “You are the leopard’s fire, Mayanja.

  “You are the rainbow, Musoke and Muwanga, the future.

  “You are Kibuka, the war god.

  “And the god of earthquake, Musisi.

  “You are the plague of Kaumpuli and the snake demon, Magobwi.

  “You are the man-eater, Kitinda, and the god of thunderbolts Kiwanuka.

  “You are Abafumi,

  “Keeper of the stories.

  “You are Abafumi.”

  Robert breathes deeply and gazes at each one. He speaks their names. Deliberate as though trying to unlock unseen doors.

  “And I want to go with you to the place where you live,” he says. “Take me to the home of your soul.”

  “Joseph,” he says without smiling. “Where will you take me?”

  Joseph is Acholi. Tall and strong. Not willowy like a herdsman but firm and compact. Like a rooted tree. A warrior. Charles is aware of their reputation. Valued fighters who wore old British military uniforms — especially the braiding and medals. The Acholi could never be bought.

  “My ancestors were powerful and independent,” he tells Robert. “They wore brass around their wrists and ankles so that their bodies shone like evening sun when they moved, rich with the colours of day after tending crops.”

  Charles learns that Joseph’s own father, a chief of police, was also a dancer travelling the country, telling Acholi legends. What would the Sub-County Chief think of that, wonders Charles? What would Father think of actually combining the nonsense of “entertainment” with the real work of a civil servant? Since schools are on permanent hold, it makes sense.

  “I will take you to the labour of the fields,” says Joseph softly to Robert.

  And he begins a muscular movement of digging: bending and pushing and rising; bending, pushing, rising. Wiping sweat from his face. Beginning again. Moving to the percussion of a small Acholi drum, singing a mesmerizing phrase over and over. At every gesture, an ostrich feather plumes up, tickled by the slightest air current, a floating crown as fine as mist. Like the green invisible rain high in the tea plantations of the Rwenzori Mountains.

  “Charles!” The name snaps around the room, tumbling him abruptly out of his own deep reverie. Robert looks at him without emotion, his expression neutral. But Charles feels a rope about to snare him. It has been thrown casually enough and lies loosely coiled on the ground next to him. Will he step around it and walk away, or will he pull it up and begin to weave magic.

  “Take me where you live.”

  Suddenly it is out. Sound and animal all at once. Charles mouths the word loudly, hugely. “COW.”

  He is in panic but “COW!” calms him. “COW!”

  “Good,” says Robert. “Show us your cow. Sing us a Bahima story.”

  Charles begins to sing. Softly at first. And the song brings him movements that are both gentle and stately, a celebration of birth, a song of sacred moment. Of new things. Of future. Of a time when people were blessed by the cow, when a new child was anointed by butter from the cow’s milk.

  Charles’ hands and eyes move seductively, enticing the cow forward. Calling the cow by name. Luring her forward. Dancing her name. Changing tempo. Signalling a new rhythm for the stomping of bare feet on the hard floor, feet that keep pace with him as he dances his special story.

  The cow blesses the child and slowly moves away once again, grazes once more in the field, filling its stomach with the nourishment that will tomorrow again feed the baby.

  A cycle of life. Ensuring the future of his people. Proud People of the Cow.

  The van hurtles along through early morning mist and sunshine. They are on the familiar dusty red road out of Kampala. Yellow grasses bristle at its edges. Tall trees stretch into the new day, their leaves quivering in upper air. Well-tended fences of wire and wood mark off farmers’ fields and grazing plots. But it doesn’t prevent two Ankole cows from ambling along the road, their horns in high arc, as though anticipating some royal procession. Fixed on their path, they make cars swerve because, as Charles knows, if you don’t make way for cows bad things happen.

  It is a relief to see a road without soldiers. They are not needed out here, although there are still occasional roadblocks and checkpoints. Here, nature takes its course through days and seasons, and village life beats on in the timeless heart of the bush. Without Amin. Without politics.

  “This is where we have all come from,” says Robert to no one in particular, steadying himself in the bouncing van. The remark provokes a deeper silence. They all know where they have come from and most don’t want to go back.

  “You have all torn away from your roots. I understand that. I am not asking you to go home casually. But those roots will die if you leave them totally. They are the circuits of your being. Without them, nothing connects. You need their soil and sun. You and they need nourishing. You can provide that by understanding what they live on. By recreating that. Each in your own way. That is our collective work.”

  It doesn’t make real sense to any of them yet but they trust him. He has given them important and interesting things to do in a city under siege. Though very few have seen their work yet, he has protected them, provided for them, and made promises to them. How can they doubt? Yet, they can’t reconcile the prestige they now dream of with this ride into yesterday, this trip back to childhood when they had no power.

  Joro, with the company for nearly a year, speaks up first, articulating what the rest are afraid to say. “We don’t understand why you are taking us back here, Robert. We don’t want to be killing chickens again or kissing goats. We are city people now.”

  “You must return to go forward, rediscover what it means to live in the old way. You must consider it consciously, remember it so that you can call it up when you need it in performance. From soul level.”

  Soul level. The phrase stays with Charles. He wants to find his soul level.

  “There is,” says Robert finally, “sacrifice involved. And I am not, my dear friends, talking about chickens and goats.”

  They do come to see village life in a new way. In Kilembe and Kaabond, in Atura and Namasagali, in Yumbe and Kumi, they watch and listen to the instrument makers. See how the omuteze, the royal flute player with his white turban, leads a solemn procession of Bahima in honour of the chief. They learn Luo words and they recognize its rhythms in drums, the pitch, and the melodies of their own speaking. The same drums also send Ikoci dancers into great leaps that they accentuate when their bare feet pound down on the ground. Charles is stirred by this combination of urgency, rhythm, and intensity. It banishes tangos and foxtrots, rhumbas and waltzes into some remote part of his being where they fade like scratchy movies running out of reel.

  With Joseph’s people, the Acholi, the group is introduced to a dance called
Orak. Robert’s actors provide vigorous accompaniment with handclapping, rattles, and calabashes that are thumped on the ground for maximum sound. They watch an instrument maker construct a nanga, a zither, hollowed and carved into a wooden bowl. They learn how to notch it at both ends, how to take the single string and zigzag it seven times over the bowl, how to twist it so it is thicker at one end than the other causing the separate segments to produce different notes. Its polished boat-like body glowing and its long neck — strung and pegged — straining forward only to be pulled back by tight strings where the music waits.

  “It could sail away on a cloud,” says Charles.

  “When you play it, that is exactly what happens,” adds Robert firmly.

  The long journeys continue. Days. Weeks.

  They watch a man who speaks the Iteso language play his arigirigi, a tube fiddle, amazed at how he stops the single sisal string with fingers and not frets.

  They spend time in the South, hearing legends of the people of Masaba Mountain, listening to them speak Lumasaba, one of many Bantu languages. Their chief musician plays a litungu, covered with hide and fitted with a wooden yoke to which strings are attached. His songs are of migration and dislocation, heavy with foot-stomping and the jingling of small crotal bells at his ankle, reminding his people again and again not to forget who they are, words bubbling up out of him, splitting his face into smiles.

  The company is invited to join in these songs of aging and beer, of farming and poverty, of love, sung by vocalists in an urgent falsetto. As they sing and sway, Charles feels the humiliations and fears of childhood abolished, adolescent rebellions settled somewhere, content and quiet in this new sense of belonging.

  They learn about Kabaka’s great traditions of courtly music and study the Baganda xylophone, the amadinda, with its twelve keys played by three musicians simultaneously. Its repertoire coming from the music of royal harpists — complex — with fiddles, a flute, and the refined ennanga. Long and slender, it produces a buzzing that reminds Charles of the frantic hornets in his village pavilion. He hears their complexity and profundity in the rings around the neck of the graceful eight-stringed instrument. In this intricate music, Charles finds sounds of himself, presented and repeated and re-assembled in a thousand different ways, constantly creating new patterns of possibility.