One Man Dancing

by Patricia Keeney

  Vittorio stops and points out two large rooms to them, dormitories. “One room is for boys. One for girls” he tells them awkwardly. “I know you are actors but it is the only way here.”

  Charles and Beth look at one another. No sex in St. Paul’s.

  “These rooms are not our deluxe models but it is what we have available right now. You will find a kitchen further down this hall. But your meals will be taken two levels up, in the dining area with some of the Brothers who live here. Good basic food. You will not go hungry.”

  The group tries not to let disappointment show as they examine the cracked concrete and sit timorously on thin threadbare mattresses.

  Without breaking rhythm, Vittorio picks up a scorpion and drops it into a tin cup he carries around for the purpose. “They are night creatures. Not usually out at this hour. This one obviously can’t tell time.”

  “That means they emerge when we’re sleeping,” Charles says with a calmness he doesn’t feel.

  “They don’t want you. They’re after insects. And they prefer the open air.”

  “How many other insects live here?” asks Kasa.

  Vittorio laughs. “This is a very old building. We have to share it with the local residents. After all, they were here first.” Smiling, he adds, “we can give you paint for your rooms if you want. Orange is best. Scorpions don’t like bright colours.”

  They choose beds. The rooms are on either side of a wide dimly-lit hall. They drop their bags and race up and out into the sun again as quickly as they can. Charles and Beth clutch hands and charge, as though pursued, into the eternal city.

  In a public area of the Vatican, Robert is waiting. But not for them.

  Standing before salmon pink columns and the blinding dome, among small white gates that mark St. Peter’s Square now empty of crowds, he is imagining the blood red canopy streaked with gold. The carpeted stairs and glittering throne, crowned and polished for heaven by invisible angels. He is preparing himself for a visitation. Anticipating his own audience with the Pope.

  His single chance to explain who these actors are, who he is, what Idi Amin has done to them. His hope for redemption and forgiveness. His hunger for blessing. His need to get his families even farther from Amin’s long and violent reach.

  Gradually, St. Paul’s reveals itself to Abafumi in its true and myriad colours. It is an ecclesiastical highrise, divided — mostly below ground level — into floors full of apartments for a mixed population of students, artists, and assorted refugees from around the world. Ringing with song and animated polyglot conversation, on any given day it might be the centre of a political debate or echo with rehearsals and musical performances. In this heaven-haven, many of Rome’s more adventurous citizens come to see and hear refugee artists and would-be presidents.

  Father William is in charge of it all. His door is open day and night for the benefit of his protegées who are welcome to come and converse at any hour. Invitations issue from the rectory regularly for afternoon tea, morning coffee, sandwiches, and Brio in the cloisters.

  Father William is especially interested in this theatre troupe from Uganda, his own housekeeper also being a Ugandan refugee. Fully aware of the political situation that drove them out, he is always avid for detail, conferring with the Abafumi actors outdoors, indoors, and even in the Great Hall of the crypt.

  Soon Abafumi become veterans at the crypt. It is they who direct newcomers to the location of the piano, the best accoustical niches, and vaults of the highly theatrical underground catacombs, for vocal exercises and improvisation sessions, for wailing saxophones and exuberant drumming. The vast caverns now ring regularly with music, throb for hours each day with drums, dance, and dramatic readings.

  In Father William’s personal paradise of the performing arts, classical music students practice in the exotic chambers of the crypt, then join impromptu jazz sessions with Abafumi, clapping and stomping and chanting with the drums of African tradition. In turn, they coach the African theatre troupe in the quivering coloratura filaments and deep bass sonorities of Italian opera classics.

  As payment for the privilege and pleasure of artistic freedom, these denizens of the crypt also donate a portion of their talents to Father William for his above-ground activities, happily chiming like bells through the notes of the Latin Mass in St. Paul’s glowing Sunday services.

  This turn of events eases pain. Once more, Charles and his theatre family know that, though wounded, they are still members of a superior species.

  They discover that Father William has also had his share of the theatrical life. He was once a song and dance man in British music hall before he became a cleric. He could, he tells them with pride, shuffle and soft shoe, wield a top hat and cane, and play the spotlight. His whole body recalls that past.

  Charles asks him why he joined the church. “When I raise the host, intone the Latin words that change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, when I am in my long satin robe with incense and little tinkling bells filling the air, then I am still in the theatre. Much better than the one I was in before.”

  One day, Father William gathers them over a glass of red wine in the cool garden shadows of the cloister and, with grave enthusiasm, broaches a subject dear to his heart. He wants a favour of them. Would they perform a rendering of the “Prodigal Son” story for Lent? “Priests will visit from all over the world during this sacred time. They will come for study and prayer. I want to show them how theatre and religion can work together.”

  Charles finds in the parable, the story of their own loss and abandonment. He speaks in favour. All agree.

  Slowly, fitfully, the company struggles to reclaim its voice. They vocalize their grief in a traditional Ugandan song of loss and regret, a song of bewilderment emphasized by the knocking and clicking of calabashes, the rhythmic humming of the lyre.

  Abafumi’s Prodigal Son becomes the Easter hit of the Catholic churches of Rome. Father William brings in all the major congregations during Lent, providing Abafumi with full houses, some extra financial support and an extended run. Charles co-opts priests in their lavish cassocks to play the forgiving father, while he himself plays the errant son.

  For the reduced company, Prodigal Son is the story of modern Africa, sold out by ruthless dictators.

  Following this triumph, they are invited by Italian Tourism to help open a major resort in Calabria. They take up temporary residence at the luxurious Casa Rossano along the Gulf of Taranto, where, blatantly billed as “primitive dancers,” they present cut-down versions of their repertoire. Every evening at sundown, crowds and cars crawl towards them under lights along the beach road in excited anticipation of performances.

  In this context, Abafumi is hardly distinguishable from the later fireworks display exploding at midnight over the heads of spectators. In fact, while they drum and chant after each show, the hot black sky blooms into light, with flares and spirals, arcs and fans, into spluttering suns and hissing silver moons.

  But each morning, the bright blue whispering sea tortures them with what they have become.

  The struggle is hard, like a body that has been pulled apart too many times and carelessly reassembled in the wrong shape, with the wrong parts. Nothing fits or functions properly. The heart of Abafumi beats feebly here. Its agile limbs are atrophying. Its strength and grace fading daily.

  Back in the crypt, back in Father William’s care, Charles and Beth choreograph their private survival, perform their own drum and dance pieces on street corners for coins. Charles is humiliated, vows he will never let them be shamed like this again.

  Months pass.

  In a small restaurant that many from the crypt frequent, the name Uganda suddenly suffuses the air.

  Kampala has been liberated.

  The information is fragmented and confused but something seems to be happening, something major. Intimations of change
have been filtering through for weeks, agitating everyone.

  “What I have heard,” says Kasa, “is that those against Amin have met in Tanzania.”

  “But who?” Joseph asks sharply. “Everybody must be against that bastard by now.”

  “Of course,” says Charles, “but they’re terrified to show it.”

  “No, I mean some powerful people,” Kasa retorts. “Apparently representatives of twenty-two Ugandan civilian and military groups are meeting to try and agree on a government in exile, an interim government if and when Amin is removed.”

  “Do you think Robert is part of it?” asks Beth.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” says Charles.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Monday, like everyone else, is trying to penetrate the political fog.

  Anything is good that will oppose Amin, they all agree.

  The television report drifts on. Five of them sit tensely watching as beer bottles sweat on square-tiles and warm honeyed light floods the interior walls. They are oblivious to everything except the unrelenting drama taking place over their heads. The plummy tones of the BBC reassure them.

  Former President Idi Amin — a man who has been accused of cannibalism while in office — has apparently fled Uganda. An interim government is expected to be announced shortly according to.…

  That evening, in Father William’s apartment, they watch a thirty-minute special on Uganda from London, seeking assurance and details.

  “Look, it’s Robert!” shouts Charles, with a leap that sends his wooden chair skittering along the polished floor. The five of them gawk, open-mouthed, at their director in full commando attire, a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other, being jostled by bodyguards and hoisted victoriously on shoulders.

  Robert is mentioned for a cabinet position.

  They hear how Robert and most other interim government members have been moving into and out of Uganda secretly from bases in Kenya. They also hear that there has been American involvement in what is now being called a coup. Direct CIA involvement.

  “He is a genius,” shouts Charles. “If he believes in something he can make it happen. The way he did with us and this company.”

  “What company?” says Kiri drily. Charles glares at her.

  Over the next weeks, five of them divide their time between the crypt and what they have come to call the Green Room Café. Back home, Robert has been appointed Minister of Commerce and Industry, his training as an economist clearly standing him in good stead with the new government.

  Robert seems to flit like a firefly in the news, aggravating their fears and hopes into frenzy. Robert is in Kampala. He is in Nairobi. One day he is in a suit making a speech about building a new Uganda. The next he is in casuals at the busy port in Mombasa overseeing crucial cargo imported from Germany and other parts of Europe for the great reconstruction.

  The following week, he appears before a United Nations group at the Intercontinental Hotel in Mombasa to urge international reconstruction efforts.

  More than once they hear him refer in interviews to his old “theatre family.” He tells the world that he left them abroad and must work to bring them back. “Part of me is still with them.”

  They cheer. So he has not forgotten them.

  Now he is seen with his wife and children in Kampala starting them all on a new life.

  Charles and the others wait anxiously for his call.

  But months after the new government is sworn in, there is still nothing from him. Leader after political leader is replaced. Still no word. Then to everyone’s shock, Milton Obote once again takes over after a much-disputed election.

  Rumours continue to fly. The one they hear most clearly has Robert himself leading a new revolution against Obote who dropped him from the cabinet post he occupied, thereby creating an instant and furious enemy.

  With every successive political change in Kampala, Charles is asked by Father William if he wants to go home. His answer is always the same. “Home is what I built with Abafumi. It no longer exists in Uganda.”

  Only Beth has remained with him at the crypt. The others have fled. Abafumi is no more and Uganda still seems a death sentence.

  Beth and Charles can barely keep themselves alive, much less the artistic dream that threw them together. Beth suggests they separate for a while. Just to survive. “But we are a couple,” retorts Charles indignantly.

  “We were, Charles, and it was good. But what drew us together is gone.”

  “I’m going to apply for a visa to Canada,” she tells him. “Perhaps you should too.”

  “Canada,” says Charles with a laugh. “It’s as cold as Stockholm. And none of us wanted to go there. Remember?”

  Father William believes her decision is a good one because he is sure she can easily find work in domestic service, if nothing else. About Charles, he is not so sure. Possibly once Beth is there, she can send for him.

  Secretly, Charles still favours Sweden. It was a tempting refuge once. He thought he could shine there, his difference, his talent marking him out. He feels excited considering it, even though, without anyone as a reference, an official visa would be almost impossible to acquire. But if Beth really is leaving perhaps his Swedish dream is possible. On the street he manages to find someone who knows someone who knows someone who can get him the necessary documents. For cash.

  Should he tell Father William? He decides not to. He will write once he is in Stockholm. And why get Father William into any trouble if the visa turns out to be less than legal.

  Charles takes two hundred dollars, his life savings, buys the visa, then goes to a bucket shop where he trades in his watch for an amazingly cheap air ticket.

  Beth is shocked when he tells her he is leaving. He will go the next day. She is sure he will be arrested.

  In Rome, his papers are barely examined. On the SAS flight he is full of anticipation, convinced he will be comfortable in Sweden among people who are practical and straightforward. He will be well-fed and will bundle up against the chill. He will breathe salty sea air and warm himself in a snug bar with a beautiful woman who will ply him with strong drink. He will, most of all, function again as a dancer in the clear cold north.

  On arrival, he hands his travel documents to an immigration officer who examines them in great detail. After some time, another official materializes and waves Charles out of the immigration line into a small office. Questions and more questions about the visa, about his temporary passport, about his sponsors in Stockholm.

  Charles senses that something has gone wrong.

  “These documents have been forged,” he is told by the police. “Where did you get them?”

  After several hours of futile explanation, Charles is told that he could be arrested but might instead just be returned to Italy if he can prove residence there. He asks to claim refugee status.

  “Not with illegal travel documents,” he is told. The debate is fruitless. “You will stay here overnight and leave in the morning.”

  Charles is led away. The suspicious eyes of strangers bore into his back.

  He feels like a miscreant child, helpless, ashamed and stupid. But most most damningly he feels he has betrayed some vague higher purpose. He is taken, under guard, up an escalator, disappears through an unmarked door behind a partition of frosted glass that makes him yearn for the dark architecture of the crypt and its labyrinthine freedoms far underground where even the scorpions run loose.

  He is left alone for hours. A sandwich is brought in. Juice. But he cannot keep his mind clear. Cannot follow the logic that put him here. He is a theatre artist whose company is dissolving. He is a Ugandan whose country is disappearing. He is an unemployed political refugee.

  Those whom he trusted are gone. Those who inspired him, have abandoned him.

  He stands and slowly begins to sway, singing softly. He wi
ll dance himself free. Alone if he has to.

  After an hour, a policeman enters and orders him to empty his pockets. Wallet, comb, papers, change. Small diary. He pulls it all across the table towards him and begins to flip the pages of the tiny blue plastic notebook, glancing at the entries: Villa Gloria Hotel. Hotel Cavour. Pensione Rossi.

  “I see you do not have a permanent address in Italy,” he says with minimal emotion.

  “I am in artist in exile from Uganda. I am temporarily homeless. I was hoping to live here.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you, I am a political refugee. I am part of a theatre company with many members missing. Our director is not with us because he is helping the new government in Uganda. My position is very difficult.”

  The policeman has just read an entry that notes an invitation to the German Embassy, following remarks about getting drunk, following the comment, “a good supper and a good sleep, alone in my own bed on the occasion of my birthday.”

  “But you can afford to go to parties and celebrate in restaurants.”

  “I am no risk to you. I have broken no law,” Charles declares, his face thorny with indignation.

  “That may be so but I determine whether you constitute a political or a criminal threat. For all we know, you are a drug mule.” And then he says, “Take off your clothes.”

  Images of Father Castelli pollute his imaginings. “Why?”

  “I have orders to check you for illegal substances. It is not my choice.”

  Charles is mortified. Even the Rwandese did not humiliate him like this. He has sunk to the level of slaves. Nevertheless, he does what he is told, finding pride, in his strong glistening body mutely displayed. No beast of burden but a warrior king before this pale balding policeman in paunchy middle age.

  Not impressed, the guard rises lethargically and, breathing hotly into Charles’ face makes him open his mouth. Then he runs round his gums with a rubber-gloved finger, causing Charles to gag. He feels like an animal, slow moving, mute as Suna, mechanically prodded this way and that.