Abstract
Celebrated Scandinavian crime writer
Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, ran a theatre company in Mozambique
CREDIT: Lina Ikse Bergman
Here we publish a short introduction by Henning Mankell to his play The Antelopes.
At first sight, the set is merely a sitting-room with a staircase to an upper floor. There is a front door, a barred window and heavy curtains.
The room is furnished in the way of a well-to-do middle-class family without aspirations.
This room could be part of a house in a prosperous suburb on the outskirts of a Swedish city.
But the house is in Africa.
The African landscape, the bush, the burning plains, is already creeping in over the thresholds of the house. From the mirror by the door the evening sun sends out its red light. The croaking frogs, the sighing rhinoceros, are both in the room and in the distance, by an invisible riverbed.
Africa comes closer. Termites are wandering, the elephant grass grows in amongst the furniture.
The set itself is a battle between irreconcilable presences, between falsehood and truth.
The main characters in this play are the blacks.
But they don’t show.
The Antelopes
You will wear something nice, won’t you? Like the red dress you bought in Cairo. I like that one.
I’ve never been to Cairo.
Of course you’ve been to Cairo. We spent two weeks there. We stayed in a hotel where the loo stank of sheep offal. And one day when I came back to the hotel, you’d bought yourself a red dress.
Behind the hotel was the slum. As if hell and paradise shared the same gateway… There was an old toothless man. The red dress was the only thing he had to sell…
There was no slum behind the hotel. You bought that dress in an exclusive boutique in a shopping arcade opposite the hotel.
It had been his daughter’s dress. She had died. He sold it because he needed the money.
I don’t know why you always have to invent your memories. Why can’t you be content with real happenings?
(swiftly) What does it really mean…
What?
That we’re going home…
It means we’re going home.
Where?
Home… Home can only be one thing.
I can feel the scent…
Winter apples.
Sap… Grease burning in a frying-pan…
Wet woollies.
Don’t interrupt me! Rain… But not like here… Not like rhinoceros tails beating on the roof. Another kind of rain… And fir-trees… The smell of pine needles.
May I ask you something?
I don’t know that I can answer.
How long have we been here in Africa?
Eleven years.
As long as that?
Yes.
And what have we done? Everything’s been swept away.
We have given away our clothes. Our old toothbrushes. Plastic cups and containers, half-eaten lumps of meat, worn-out socks… If it could have helped we’d have given ourselves away…
Is that all I’ve done? Given away my jackets? Have I done nothing else? Nothing?
I don’t know.
But you must know! For God’s sake! I feel ill…
You are ill.
I’m not, am I?
Yesterday I cut a worm out of your heel. A white one, three inches long. I nearly puked…
I believe there’s a worm in my other foot too. Will you check?
Then I need a drink first.
I think I’m running a temperature. How the heck do you know if you have a fever in this heat?
I gave away the thermometer.
To whom?
I gave it to one of the night-watchman’s wives. Don’t ask me which one, I can’t keep track of their names. But she said one of the children had a high temperature. It may have been a lie…
Why didn’t you tell her that she has too many children? How many are they? Seven? Nine? And the other wife? How many does she have? How many children does this bloody Eisenhower have? He’s supposed to be a night-watchman. Chase thieves, shout if bandits arrive. But he sleeps. He snores so loudly it keeps us awake. And in the daytime, when he is supposed to sleep, what does he do? He makes babies. Then he brings them here to show off. My name is Lars Rune Ekman. What does he call his son? Not Lars, not Rune. He calls him Ekman. Ekman Mokotwane. I gave him the cardboard box for our new record-player just as one of the wives had had twins. Two girls. What are their names? Bang and Olufsen. Bang Mokotwane. Olufsen Mokotwane. And all the time he sleeps. The bloody man never stops sleeping…
I don’t know any more what I thought when I first came here. What did I think 11 years ago?
I stood looking out over a dark landscape. That’s all I remember.
It wasn’t like that at all. It was summer when we left. Light summer nights. You can’t have been looking out over a dark landscape.
Do you remember what you said?
Of course I remember what I said!
What?
At last!
And then?
I don’t remember. But I know I said: At last!
I remember something else…
Out of somewhere a silence settles over them. The African noises are very strong.
Sometimes I think there is a leopard inside me. A rapacious beast running around hunting me.
Thank God it’s over.
We’ll go out again.
Never!
CREDIT: Lina Ikse Bergman
But sweetheart, we agreed on that?
You agreed. I didn’t.
Haven’t you been happy here?
What do you think?
What the hell do I think? “Think” – what does that mean? I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Why don’t you recall being in Cairo? Why do you tell me that we’ve been here 11 years when it’s almost 14? Why aren’t you getting dressed?
Why did we come here in the first place?
It was an adventure. And it ends tonight.
A nightmare.
A mission.
A failure.
What makes you say that? I haven’t failed. Every week I’ve been getting an email from head office full of acclaim and encouragement.
You’ve give away your jackets. The gardener received the jacket you always wore when we went to visit my parents. Now the pockets are full of soil…
It’s time you got ready. Lundin will soon be here.
Why is he on his own? Why is his wife not joining him?
I hear he’s divorced.
What else do you know?
(looking through the door into the kitchen, mixing a drink) I don’t know any more than you do. His name is Lundin, he’s from Vasteras and 35 years old. That’s all I know. And he’s divorced. Skal! Thank you for these years.
Are we to be divorced?
Of course we’re not to be divorced. But we are leaving Africa tomorrow, my dear. Had you forgotten?
I’ve forgotten nothing…
What’s wrong with you? You’re nervous. You’re afraid of going home. I’ll fix you a drink…
I don’t want one.
Yes you do. Look, here… What the hell is this?
A bottle?
An empty gin bottle?
I don’t drink gin.
I didn’t buy it. How did it end up here?
How should I know? You’re the one buying liquor, not me.
I never buy this brand. I throw out all the empty bottles. Then Edith picks them up from the dustbin. What is this bottle? Who left it here?
For God’s sake! I told you I don’t know…
Someone must have been here.
You’re accusing me?
No! But I don’t like empty gin bottles entering the house just like that…
Go and get dressed now.
I will. Cheers!
I don’t want any.
You must have a look at my foot. I’m damned sure there’s another worm there. Something’s moving. And it itches like hell.
The wife drains the glass.
Okay – lie down here.
The husband lies down on the sofa, holds out one of his legs.
Can you see anything?
Calm down…
Ouch…
I have to squeeze it. Keep the leg still…
Can you see anything?
You have a nest of worms in your heel.
I haven’t?
The wife lets go of his leg.
Where are you going?
To get dressed.
I have worms in my heel! I can’t receive my successor with worms crawling around in my foot!
I’ll get a knitting needle.
Elisabeth!
What?
Come and sit down.
I have to get dressed. He’ll soon be here.
There’s something I want to tell you.
Yes?
Do you have to stand up? Can’t you sit down?
I’m getting dressed.
I get side-tracked… There’s something on my mind all the time. But I don’t know what… The leopard is hunting in here, and I have something important on my mind. But I keep forgetting what it is.
Do you remember the African who lay dead on our doorstep? The one with an arrow right through his neck… What have you really achieved?
What do you mean?
Have you helped them live or have you helped them die?
I’ve given the answer to that in my bloody reports. We have to choose, I’ve told them, whether we want to help them live or die. We can’t do both. We have to choose… That brings silence. As if I didn’t exist. Do tell us more about drums in the night, say the sophisticated ladies at the World Bank. What drums? I ask. They are not drums. It’s the sound of poor carpenters hammering nails into coffins. Because their malnourished children have died. IT’S NOT DRUMS, IT’S HAMMERS! I write to them yet again. ARE WE TO HELP THEM LIVE OR HELP THEM DIE?
Footnotes
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