by Zakes Mda
‘You are Acol Adheng today,’ says Em-Pee. ‘You are calm and serene.’
‘You cannot trust the outward look. It will take a battle to be truly Acol Adheng. My owner is a very bad man. It will take a lot of strength to finally defeat him.’
‘A man who cages a woman of such grace,’ says Em-Pee. ‘Not to say that those of less grace should be caged, of course.’
‘Not only because of the cage. For more things. It will take dignity to defeat him.That is why I must try very hard to be Acol Adheng all the time instead of Acol Aretret.’
She is searching for her dheeng, her dignity, so that she can be truly Acol Adheng, the Acol who is filled with pride and dignity. Only then will she have enough beauty, honour, charm, elegance, nobility, grace and kindness to effect a meaningful revenge. Only then will she sing and dance. Dignity has its own aesthetic. But first she must find it.
They both turn their heads at once, attracted by Maria--Magdalena’s screech. She is panicking. She comes running, waving a timepiece on a chain, with Slaw foolishly following. She chimes, ‘Dinkie the Dinka, time for cards!’
Acol freezes at once.
‘You know she hates that name,’ says Em-Pee.
‘Master and his friends will be playing cards tonight,’ says Maria-Magdalena breathlessly as soon as she gets to their bench. ‘He’ll be mad if Acol is not there. You need to get ready, Acol.’
It is not lost on Em-Pee that Acol is mad that Maria-Magdalena should mention cards. Maria-Magdalena seems ashamed that she mentioned them at all.
‘You play cards then?’ asks Em-Pee.
She does not respond to that question. Instead she stands up abruptly and makes to leave. Maybe she is a card player? Or maybe she photographs card players?
Maria-Magdalena gently holds her hand and says, ‘Let’s go, child.’
They walk a few steps, but Acol returns to him, where he is standing dumbstruck with Slaw as if trying to recover from a whirlwind.
‘My mother didn’t let me forget,’ says Acol softly to Em-Pee, as if this is a secret. ‘Even as we languished in our cage, I would forget and smile at something father said. Mother would shake her head in sorrow and say, “What Jieng man would want to marry a girl with a mouth full of teeth?”’
Acol places both her hands on her mouth, as if to make doubly sure that Em-Pee never ever sees them again.
‘I would,’ says Em-Pee. ‘Even now I can. I want to.’
‘You’re not Jieng.’
‘No, I am not. But I love you, teeth and all.’
‘I forbid you to love me. Those I love back die. That’s why I cannot love Maria-Magdalena. Those I hate live. That’s why I must find other ways of destroying my owner.’
At this, she walks away. Slaw holds him back as he struggles to run after her. So he yells ‘You provoked me when I had long forgotten about you. You must love me. I’m going to die in any case. We all will. You can’t buy my immortality by not loving me.’
9
New York City – September 1890
The Wild Zulu
The milkman delivers a pint once a week. It used to be a pint every weekday when Aoife and Mavo were still with him, and a quart on some Fridays. He leaves it in the sun on the interior windowsill for three days until it ferments and curdles into sour milk curds. To Aoife it was spoilt when it was like that, but to Em-Pee it was a delicacy called amasi. It took him back to kwaZulu, and he enjoys it with hominy or grits overcooked into a thick paste, a poor substitute for uphuthu. But it serves the purpose.
He is enjoying this delight when an excited Slaw arrives with a packet wrapped in newsprint. ‘I have something better for you to eat than your yogurt,’ he says, ceremoniously unwrapping the packet.
It is a chunk of meat. Prime steak, raw. He looks at Em-Pee, expecting a comment. Or a question. Em-Pee is studying him, trying to figure out what this is all about. Slaw chants a few gibberish incantations, and breaks off a piece oozing blood. It breaks with ease. He tosses it into his mouth and chews with relish.
‘Melts like butter,’ he says. ‘Try it.’
‘No, thank you. I am not The Wild Zulu,’ says Em-Pee.
‘That’s the thing. I have discovered the trick that makes it possible for The Wild Zulu to eat all that raw meat, and we cannot let it go to waste.’
‘Cooked meat that looks raw.’
‘Exactly.’
‘How do you do it?’
‘It’s a secret.’
He will patent his invention, he says. In the meantime, there is work to be done. Dance has failed, and everyone has gone broke. Americans have decided that Zulus cannot be friendly, period. No use pursuing an ideal into which audiences are not buying. Broadway is not working out either; Davis disappeared more than eighteen months ago, after he and Em-Pee could not agree on an acceptable story. This meat will solve all their woes. They must return to the basics. They must create their own version of The Wild Zulu, pulsating with ferocity, dripping with the blood of dead animals as he eats them raw. Only it will be Slaw’s specially prepared steak, and no one will be the wiser.
‘I am not going to do that,’ says Em-Pee.
‘We’ll add pepper and all the condiments you like. Don’t be such a damper, man.’
‘Zulus don’t eat raw meat,’ says Em-Pee firmly.
‘We’re only play-play Zulus, man. Just for fun. Just for the money. Just like Broadway.’
Slaw cannot move Em-Pee to his perspective, and this frustrates him. He gets agitated and utters a slew of accusations. Everybody sacrificed after leaving The Great Farini but Em-Pee was the one who continued to place obstacles in their way. The troupe would have made it big if it were not for him. They left The Great Farini because of him – at this Em-Pee grunts his surprise – but right from the beginning he shot down every great idea that would have made them rich. They endured still and stayed with him through all the seven years. All that time he showed how ungrateful he was. He was so proud that he even turned down a Broadway offer, offending Davis, a great impresario who would have changed their fortunes. Even when Davis wanted to put his own money down to purchase Dinkie the Dinka Princess from Duval, Em-Pee stood against that. And now of course Davis is gone. Most likely they will never see him again.
Slaw adds that he is no longer prepared to tolerate Em-Pee’s nonsense. He will not die a pauper in America. He is proceeding with all the projects that Em-Pee turned down. He is going to get his own Zulus who will eat his raw meat. He is marrying Maria-Magdalena and will take over Dinkie the Dinka Princess. He is going to be the greatest impresario of all time, and Em-Pee cannot stop him. He is sick and tired of ambitionless Negroes. With or without them, he is going to be greater than The Great Farini. He is going to be greater than P.T. Barnum. He is going to be greater than J.A. Bailey.
Em-Pee is unmoved throughout this diatribe. Until Slaw mentions Dinkie the Dinka Princess. At this, his ears prick up.
‘You are not!’ he says.
‘Wait and see and worship in my shadow.’
‘You’re not taking over Dinkie … Acol.’
‘I am too. Me and Maria-Magdalena, we’re engaged to be married.’
‘But you are not getting anywhere near Acol.’
‘If I can raise enough money for Duval, yes I am.’
Em-Pee pounces on Slaw. He presses his head against the wall but stops his fist midway before it connects with his jaw. Instead he reaches for the meat and rubs it in his face. Then he dashes out the door, leaving a heaving and cringing Slaw on the floor of his tenement.
He runs all the way to Madison Avenue, ignoring the stares and the hollers, not even considering the likelihood that he may be mistaken for a thief and have a throng of do-gooders chasing him. Fortunately, New Yorkers manage to mind their own business for a change.
He knocks at Duval’s door. Banging with both hands, and then with the clown-faced knocker. He does not care if Duval is at home or not. On the previous occasions he always made certain the master
was away before he knocked. He has seen Duval only from a distance. A week ago Duval almost caught Em-Pee talking to Acol on the steps – one of the few occasions in the past one year he has visited Acol and had a coherent conversation with her.
As he bangs on the door, waiting a moment or two and then banging again, he recalls how on each occasion he came and Maria-Magdalena arranged a meeting at the park, or in the kitchen if no other servant was present, he would ask, ‘Which Acol are you today?’ If she said Acol Aretret he knew immediately they would not get along. She was the unruly Acol, the Acol whose mind was full of nothing but murder, the Acol preoccupied only with cajoling her jok to hasten her revenge. He would have to return on another day. Not even Maria-Magdalena could manage Acol Aretret.
The day Duval almost caught them together she was Acol Adheng, the gentle Acol, and was ready to spend the afternoon with him in the park. Perhaps she was Acol Adheng because she had not been displayed in the cage that morning.
She and Em-Pee were talking outside the house, trying to decide whether or not she should take the camera, promising that maybe today she would finally take his photo after all these years. And then Duval’s carriage arrived. She saw it from a distance and scurried up the steps into the house without so much as a goodbye.
He bangs at the door again. And waits. Finally, he hears shuffling footsteps. The door swings open and Maria-Magdalena, in a mud facial and a heavy dressing gown, though it’s afternoon already, glares at him.
‘You and Slaw …’ Em-Pee begins.
‘The master is here today,’ she whispers.
‘I don’t care,’ he yells. ‘I want him out here too. I want him to hear of your treachery. You and Slaw are in some kind of courtship?’
‘Yes, we are getting married. Do we need your permission for that?’
‘None of you are going to touch Acol. Do you hear that? None of you!’
‘Why would we want to touch Acol?’
He will not get anywhere with this smug woman. He leaves her standing at the door, arms folded on her chest.
At first he has no idea where to go. He feels helpless. He must find a way to save Acol. Not just save her, but have her as his own. He cannot buy her from Duval. He has no money to do so. He does not even know that he would find it in himself to purchase her if he had the money. He cannot even suggest that they elope to some faraway state where the bourbon-soaked owner would not find them. No one has the right to own anyone anyway. Slavery was long abolished, though it still exists, as Acol’s case clearly shows. But he knows she would not agree to eloping. She is preoccupied with her jok, who must mete out vengeance. And her jok is biding her time. In any event, he would not have the money to elope with her even if she were to agree. Money. It is the problem. It is also the solution.
Skildore Skolnik! The producer at Niblo’s. He can go cap in hand and beg for the Cetshwayo Project to be resuscitated. He has grown, and now understands that he cannot starve for authenticity. He will tell him that he is willing to have as many devils and demons in the play as Skolnik likes. As long as he puts some money down, takes on the project, and produces Battle of Isandlwana at Niblo’s on Broadway. He can bring in his Ulundi Christian victory over heathens, for all he cares. Skildore is a sharp businessman. Surely he will seize the opportunity.
The only damper would be if Skildore is no longer at Niblo’s. After all, it’s been three years.
Skildore Skolnik is there all right, and is as sourpuss as ever. He berates Em-Pee, without giving him the opportunity to respond. At first, Em-Pee thinks it is for his resistance to demons and devils, and tries to get a word in edgeways that these days he loves the idea of a king possessed by demons and devils and wants to get on with the project even without Davis, but he discovers that Skolnik’s anger has something to do with having been robbed by the same Davis. Apparently, he had been seeing Davis, without Em-Pee, and had finally reached an agreement on the story. Davis, however, requested an advance of some considerable amount so that he could focus on polishing the story according to Skolnik’s specifications. He had fallen on challenging times, he said, since neglecting his work as an impresario because of this play. An agreement was signed and Skolnik parted with the funds. And parted with Davis. He has not seen him since.
‘I’ll find Davis,’ says Em-Pee. ‘I will bring him back here. We still want to do the play.’
‘Not with Niblo’s, I am afraid.’
He has an inkling of where Davis lives. He recalls the walks with him from his Mulberry Street tenement to the rows of brownstone mansions of upper-crust Manhattanites near the Madison Square Park area, where Davis hurried into one of them. He may be able to identify it.
Davis’s mansion is more imposing than Duval’s. He is directed to the service entrance and pleads with the manservant, saying that he would like to see the master of the house about an urgent matter that is to the master’s benefit. He is led into the presence of a gigantic Mulatto man wearing boxing shorts and a flowing silk bathrobe. He is sitting at a mammoth walnut desk doing some paperwork.
‘He says he has something important to tell you, sir,’ says the manservant.
The Mulatto man peers at Em-Pee curiously and beckons him to approach his desk. He looks vaguely familiar.
‘Not you, sir. Mr Davis. It is Mr Davis I want,’ stammers Em-Pee.
‘You said the master of the house,’ says the manservant.
The man signals the manservant to leave and asks Em-Pee to take a seat. He tries to display a friendly mien, which still cannot but be unsettling. Perhaps he is aware of this because he stretches his hand out, grabs Em-Pee’s firmly, and introduces himself as Mr Dominic Alef.
‘From Africa?’ he asks.
Em-Pee nods.
‘How does our Davis know a brother from Africa?’
Em-Pee tells him about the project they are working on together.
‘Niblo’s? That’s Broadway,’ booms Alef. ‘That’s big time. And how did you know Davis in the first place … to be working with him on Broadway?’
He tells him about The Wild Zulu. How Davis arranged for him to see one of the shows he curated so that he may learn a few tricks for his own troupe that had just broken away from The Great Farini.
‘You know important people, my friend,’ says Alef, shaking his head as if he pities Em-Pee for it. ‘You know The Great Farini. And, guess what, now you know The Wild Zulu.’
He is The Wild Zulu. A lighter version. The version before it browns itself with boot polish. Or with whatever it is Whites and Mulattoes use to tan themselves into Zulus. And he is amused at Em-Pee’s wide-eyed awe. He bursts out laughing, and hollers to his servants that they should bring Davis before him forthwith.
Dominic Alef owns himself as The Wild Zulu. He is his own impresario and owns Davis, who is only the White front of the business. The pretend-impresario the White business world will be comfortable dealing with. Originally a carnival strongman from New Orleans, Alef came to New York as an indigent at the height of the Zulu craze, established himself as a savage, and is now minting it, living a regal life in a big house full of mostly White servants.
Davis drags himself into Alef ’s study. He is nothing like the self-assured and brash Davis he last saw. Em-Pee is not sure if he is intoxicated. He looks groggy. And bruised. He starts a bit when he sees Em-Pee, but soon composes himself.
‘Know him?’ asks Alef.
‘Never seen him,’ says Davis, shaking his head.
‘You stole my secrets for him, to make him a better Zulu than me,’ says Alef calmly. But he is not fooling anyone, least of all Davis; it is the calm before the storm. And it is a storm he knows too well.
‘What other secret did you sell him? The meat? That the parts I eat are not really raw? That I don’t really eat the chicken but rip it open with sharp artificial metal nails to spray the blood all over and I only chew the feathers?’
‘No, not the meat! Not the chicken!’ says Davis, beginning to back away from him. But
the big man beckons him, and he timidly returns.
Alef gives him a few whacks on the face with an open hand. Before fists can rain on him, he is squirming on the ground.
By the time Em-Pee leaves Alef’s mansion he knows the source of Davis’s accident proneness. He is aware that Davis continued to meet Slaw secretly and is part of the conspiracy to purchase Dinkie the Dinka Princess. The deal has not gone through yet, only because of a lack of funds. He knows that Slaw’s discovery of how to tenderise meat and cook it while it remains red as if raw, was in fact stolen by Davis from Alef. Davis has been trying to work his way out of this bondage for years, stealing ideas and cash, hoping to be an independent impresario in his own right one day. He knows that the money from Niblo’s has aggravated his bondage; Alef wants every cent of it for himself. Alef says it rightly belongs to him, as Davis had no right to make deals on his own. Davis must find a way of paying it back, not to Skolnik, but to Alef.
As he walks out of the back gate, Em-Pee wonders what Davis meant when he accused him of selling him out to Alef for a woman who is nothing but a cardswhore. What on earth is a cards-whore?
10
New York City – October 1892
The Passing Carnival
This is how it begins. The passing carnival. He steps out of the tenement all spruced up and walks down the squeaky steps. The first human of the day is Millie, the Negro matron who teaches elementary school at Baxter Street. He finds her interesting and at one time thought they could date. She liked him. She initiated the liking and exhibited it with coy smiles and winks. But soon he realised she didn’t want to be seen with him in public. On one occasion they went out to dinner, and on another to an Irish pub. On both occasions, whenever good-looking, well-heeled Coloured folk entered, she turned her back on him, pretending she was on her own, and that the man just happened to be sitting close to her by chance. He decided that if Millie didn’t want to be seen with him, then she won’t be seen with him. When he ignored her, she felt insulted and rubbished him in the neighbourhood. Who does he think he is, a dancing jungle bunny from Africa getting all haughty in the city of New York?