I was torn. I knew Harold and Julia must be hungry and that it was up to me to go off and do something about it, but the feeling that I needed to stick close to them was stronger. Baskets of ground nuts were being passed around, which I took as a sign that what was coming would probably be brief, so I stayed put. Julia ate ground nuts, but Harold passed. Nelson gave the signal for the games to begin. I don’t know what I expected. I think I expected something gentle that might be called The Apotheosis of Tsau, something poetical and historical.
In retrospect I have sympathy for Nelson, knowing what his intentions were. There is such a thing as being so driven to act that you blot out the gulf evolving between the incident you find yourself creating and the ideal incident the depth of your feelings entitles you to have. Also, the image of William Blake was somehow ghostlily conceptually entwined in Nelson’s idea of what he was doing — Blake the defender of the essence of England against the traducers who were turning it into mere empire. Nelson adored Blake. And in defending himself, when we went over this later, it was his identification with Blake he used against my accusation of Anglophobia run amok. The idea of the performance had been to present to Harold and Julia, emissaries of England the mother of empires, the feelings of some former subjects of the crown who were now undeceived and no longer humble — as those feelings might well have been articulated by people acculturated to express themselves in terms of formal drama. This may seem elaborate, but I want to be fair to Nelson. The script for the occasion came out of several sessions where members of the mother committee were encouraged to free associate on the subject of the British Empire — with Nelson stirring the pot, interpolating considerably more than he should have, I’m sure, transcribing, and then editing the whole. I never fathomed how he had proceeded so far without cognizing how embarrassing a product was resulting. Because it was embarrassing.
I was truly embarrassed, which I think may be why my memory of the overall event is what it is. I looked away. I willed it to be over. And so on.
Two boys came out, my friend King James and his best friend, Edison. They were in traditional dress — goatskin capes, breechclouts, seed-pod rattles on their ankles. They posted themselves truculently, one in front of each of the torch sets, leaning on staves clearly meant to represent spears. We had actual spears in our stores house, of course, but no actual weapon was ever going to be released into real life if Nelson had anything to say about it. And of course real spears would have been vastly more effective. A girl came out, Adelah, a darling who would be leaving us soon for the government secondary at Kang. She was shadowed by a bulky presence, a woman completely swathed in black and carrying a flashlight with which to aid performers in reading their lines. It was getting fairly dark. The presence was Dirang Motsidisi, and the black swathing was meant to make her inconspicuous, unbelievably enough. Even her head was somehow veiled. Prettyrose Chilume joined the central group, her violin fixed at her throat, ready to be played. There was something transfixing about the tableau against the fading glow of the desert, the torch flames wagging. The audience settled down unusually quickly.
Then began a declamation, I think it would be correct to call it, by Adelah, a declamation against England. Prettyrose wasn’t there to do Lady of Spain but to produce harsh saccades to underline the different indictments of perfidious Albion being shouted out. The boys also provided emphasis by stamping their staves and feet. To me what was interesting was that what I was hearing was a complete inversion of the traditional Tswana praise ceremony for the chief and his subchiefs usual on festive occasions, wherein the royals are exhaustively likened to cattle, a great compliment.
I hope I can give a decent approximation of what went on. There was a concentration, understandably, on the war in Zimbabwe, which was just over, as, in England you had a killer slave, but you let him to be free to kill amongst us at Lesoma, where seventeen Tswana soldiers he shot down, and this slave was Ian Smith. This was about an actual famous massacre of Batswana soldiers during a raid into Botswana.
It went on with Now today Ian Smith is the forward-leading man running away with excrement on his heels from fear.
England you gave away Ghanzi Ridge to Boers and as well Tati Farms to Boers, and rich farms in Tuli Block as well to Boers who mischarge Batswana as to oranges from those trees to this day. All this was in English.
England how could you leave us with no roads, whilst you have many roads crossing all about England? There was more along these lines.
Then England you wished to hand over all Botswana to the Boers but were stopped from betrayal by your queen when Tshekedi made her to prevent you from this.
England you held President Sir Seretse Khama away from us above seven years.
England when you brought your churches upon us even your pastors could take some slaves from the Bakhurutshe and Barolong and sell them for money in Natal, because in that time you were hard as teeth to us, the same as Boers or Mzilikazi.
There was more, but less than there might have been. I was relieved that it had been so succinct. Harold was looking around in a way suggesting an interest in offering a rebuttal if some appropriate modus presented itself.
The spectacle had been received with a fairly uniform puzzlement, I thought, amounting to annoyed dumbfoundment in a couple of cases at its discourtesy. As I was organizing Harold and Julia to come away with me for some refreshment the word was passed that we should sit down again. Clearly we weren’t through being entertained.
The Lamentations of Women Brought to a Finish, Full Stop
Five women lined up between the torches. Four were holding flashlights in the air above their heads, and the fifth was carrying an implement impossible to make out at first, which proved to be an oversized flail, almost a caricature of the real implement because it was so large. When someone came out and deposited an object like an ottoman in front of this chorus I knew what was coming. The object was in fact a foot-high segment of tree trunk crudely sewn into a cowhide casing. The woman with the flail would shortly be abusing it. The flashlights were switched on and trained on Dirang Motsidisi, still dressed as she had been but with the veiling around her head pushed down. She was now a principal. The flail was handed to her. I was right about what was coming. We were in for an installment of The Lamentations of Women Brought to a Finish, Full Stop. I hoped and prayed it was only an installment. From time to time I had seen installments done, rehearsed. It was an ongoing production which in its entirety would probably never be performable because it was so epic.