Blood Knot and Other Plays. Athol Fugard

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СКАЧАТЬ Ethel’s letter, now my letter!

      [He gets up and takes the letter in question away from Morris.]

      You’re in a burning mood tonight, Morrie.

      MORRIS. Please, Zach. You’re going to get hurt.

      ZACHARIAH [aggression]. Such as by who?

      MORRIS. Ethel. Then yourself.

      [Zachariah laughs.]

      Oh yes. That. There in your hand. To Miss Ethel Lange. Oudtshoorn. You think that’s a letter? I’m telling you it’s a dream, and the most dangerous one. And now you have it on paper as well. That’s what they call evidence, you know. [Pause.] Shit, Zach, I have a feeling about this business, man!

      ZACHARIAH. Oh come on, cheer up, Morrie. It’s not so bad.

      MORRIS. But you’re playing with fire, Zach.

      ZACHARIAH. Maybe. But then I never had much to play with.

      MORRIS. Didn’t you?

      ZACHARIAH. Don’t you remember? You got the toys.

      MORRIS. Did I?

      ZACHARIAH. Ja. Like that top, Morrie. I have always remembered that brown stinkwood top. She gave me her old cotton-reels to play with, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted a top.

      MORRIS. Who? Who gave me the top?

      ZACHARIAH. Mother.

      MORRIS. Mother!

      ZACHARIAH. Ja. She said she only had one. There was always only one.

      MORRIS. Zach, you’re telling me a thing now!

      ZACHARIAH. What? Did you forget her?

      MORRIS. No, Zach. I meant the top. I can’t remember that top. And what about her, Zach? There’s a memory for you. I tried it out the other night. ‘Mother’, I said, ‘Mother’! A sadness, I thought.

      ZACHARIAH. Ja.

      MORRIS. Just a touch of sadness.

      ZACHARIAH. A soft touch with sadness.

      MORRIS. And soapsuds on brown hands.

      ZACHARIAH. And sore feet.

      [Pause. Morris looks at Zachariah.]

      MORRIS. What do you mean?

      ZACHARIAH. There was her feet, man.

      MORRIS. Who had feet?

      ZACHARIAH. Mother, man.

      MORRIS. I don’t remember her feet, Zach.

      ZACHARIAH [serenely confident]. There was her feet, man. The toes were crooked, the nails skew, and there was pain. They didn’t fit the shoes.

      MORRIS [growing agitation]. Zach, are you sure that wasn’t somebody else?

      ZACHARIAH. It was mother’s feet. She let me feel the hardness and then pruned them down with a razor blade.

      MORRIS. No, Zach. You got me worried now! A grey dress?

      ZACHARIAH. Maybe.

      MORRIS [persistent]. Going to church, remember? She wore it going to—

      ZACHARIAH. The butcher shop! That’s it! That’s where she went.

      MORRIS. What for?

      ZACHARIAH. For tripe.

      MORRIS. Tripe? Stop, Zach. Stop! This is beginning to sound like some other mother.

      ZACHARIAH [gently]. How can that be?

      MORRIS. Listen, Zach. Do you remember the songs she sang?

      ZACHARIAH. Do I! [He laughs and then sings:]

      ‘My skin is black

      The soap is blue,

      But the washing comes out white.

      I took a man

      On a Friday night;

      Now I’m washing a baby too.

      Just a little bit black,

      And a little bit white,

      He’s a Capie through and through.’

      [Morris is staring at him in horror.]

      MORRIS. That wasn’t what she sang to me. ‘Lullabye baby’, it was, ‘You’ll get to the top.’ [Anguish.] This is some sort of terrible error. Wait . . . wait! I’ve got it . . . Oh, God, please let it be that I’ve got it! [To Zachariah.] How about the games we played? Think, Zach. Think carefully! There was one special one. Just me and you. I’ll give you a clue. Toot-toot. Toot-toot.

      ZACHARIAH [thinking]. Wasn’t there an old car?

      MORRIS. Where would it be?

      ZACHARIAH. Rusting by the side of the road.

      MORRIS. Could it be the ruins of an old Chevy, Zach?

      ZACHARIAH. Yes, it could.

      MORRIS. And can we say without tyres and wires and things?

      ZACHARIAH. We may.

      MORRIS. . . . and all the glass blown away by the wind?

      ZACHARIAH. Dusty.

      MORRIS. Deserted.

      ZACHARIAH. Sting bees on the bonnet.

      MORRIS. Webs in the windscreen.

      ZACHARIAH. Nothing in the boot.

      MORRIS. And us?

      ZACHARIAH. In it.

      MORRIS. We are? How?

      ZACHARIAH. Side by side.

      MORRIS. Like this?

      [He sits beside Zachariah.]

      ZACHARIAH. Uh-huh.

      MORRIS. Doing what?

      ZACHARIAH. Staring.

      MORRIS. Not both of us!

      ZACHARIAH. Me at the wheel, you at the window.

      MORRIS. Okay. СКАЧАТЬ