Boesman and Lena

A Coloured man—Boesman—walks on. Heavily burdened. On his back an old mattress and blanket, a blackened paraffin tin, an apple box…these contain a few simple cooking utensils, items of clothing etc., etc.
[…]
After a few seconds a Coloured woman—Lena—appears. She is similarly burdened—no mattress though—and carries her load on her head.

LENA: […] You’re the hell-in. Don’t look at me, ou ding. Blame the whiteman. Bulldozer!
[Another laugh.]
Ja! You were happy this morning. ‘Push it over, my baas! ‘Dankie, baas!’ ‘Weg is ons!’

LENA: […] My life. It felt old today. Sitting there on the pavement when you went inside with the empties. Not just moeg. It’s been that for a long time. Something else. Something that’s been used too long. The old pot that leaks, the blanket that can’t even keep the fleas warm. Time to throw it away. How do you do that when it’s yourself?

LENA: Wasn’t it after Redhouse? Out last time here. Remember, that boer chased us off his land. Then we came here. Is that right?
[Boesman ignores her.]
Then we went to Korsten.
BOESMAN: After here we went to Korsten?
LENA: Ja. [Boesman laughs at her derisively.] How was it then? [Pause.] You won’t tell me.

BOESMAN: Yessus, Lena! You’re lost.
LENA: Do you really know, Boesman? Where and how?
BOESMAN: Yes!
LENA: Tell me.
[He laughs.]
Help me, Boesman!
BOESMAN. What? Find yourself?
[Boesman launches into a grotesque pantomime of a search. Lena watches him with hatred.]
[Calling.] Lena! Lena!

BOESMAN: Forget it. Now is the only time in your life.
LENA: No! ‘Now.’ What’s that? I wasn’t born today. I want my life. Where’s it?

LENA: […] Even when you’re also awake. You make it worse. When I call you, and I know you hear me, but you say nothing. Sometimes loneliness is two . . . you and the other person who doesn’t want to know you’re there.

LENA. Come over!
BOESMAN. Jou verdomde....
LENA: [sees the violence coming and moves away quickly] To hell with you! I want him.
[Calling.] Hey, darling! Kom die kant!
[To Boesman.] Sit in the dark and talk to myself because you don’t hear me anymore? No, Boesman! I want him! Hey! He’s coming.

BOESMAN: He’s not brown people, he’s black people.
LENA: They got feelings too. Not so, Outa?
BOESMAN: You’ll get some feelings if you don’t watch that fire.
[Lena is waiting for a word from the old man with growing desperation and irritation.]
LENA: What’s the matter? You sick? Where’s it hurt?
[Nothing.]
Hey! I’m speaking to you.
[The old man murmurs in Xhosa.]
Stop that baboon language! Waar kryjy seer?

LENA: […] Look, Outa. I want you to look.
[Showing him the bruises on her arms and face.]
No, not that one. That’s a old one. This one. And here. Just because I dropped the sack with the empties. I would have been dead if they hadn’t laughed. When other people laugh he gets ashamed.

LENA: […] We waited for Boesman to sleep, then he came and watched me. All the things I did—making the fire, cooking, counting bottles or bruises, even just sitting, you know, when it’s too much . . . he saw it. Hond! I called him Hond. But any name, he’d wag his tail if you said it nice.
I’ll tell you what it is. Eyes, Outa. Another pair of eyes. Some thing to see you.

LENA: […] And even when they’re down, when you’ve made your place and the fire is burning and you rest your legs, something stays heavy. Hey! Once you’ve put your life on your head and walked you never get light again.

BOESMAN: […] I could stand there! There was room for me to stand straight. You know what that is? Listen now. I’m going to use a word. Freedom! Ja, I’ve heard them talk it. Freedom! That’s what the whiteman gave us. I’ve got my feelings too, sister. It was a big one I had when I stood there. That’s why I laughed, why I was happy. When we picked up our things and started to walk I wanted to sing. It was Freedom!

BOESMAN: I had it!
It was you with your big mouth and stupid questions. ‘Where we going?’ Every corner! ‘Hey, Boesman, where we going?’ ‘Let’s try Veeplaas.’ ‘How about Coega?’All you could think of was those old rubbish dumps. ‘Bethelsdorp…Missionvale….’
Don’t listen to her, Boesman! Walk!
‘Redhouse…Kleinskool….’
They were like fleas on my life. I scratched until I was raw.

BOESMAN: […] One push. That’s all we need. Into gaol, out of your job . . . one push and it’s pieces.

Must I tell you why? Listen! I’m thinking deep tonight. We’re whiteman’s rubbish. That’s why he’s so beneukt with us. He can’t get rid of his rubbish. He throws it away, we pick it up. Wear it. Sleep in it. Eat it. We’re made of it now. His rubbish is people.

LENA: […] That’s not a pondok, Boesman. [Pointing to the shelter.] It’s a coffin. All of them. You bury my life in your pondoks. Not tonight. Crawl into darkness and silence before I’m dead. No! I’m on this earth, not in it.

LENA: […] Why must you hurt me so much? What have I really done? Why didn’t you hit yourself this morning? You broke the bottles. Or the whiteman that kicked us out? Why did you hit me?

BOESMAN [equally desperate, looking around dumbly]: Show it to me! Where is it? This thing that happens to me. Where? Is it the pondok? Whiteman pushed it over this morning. Wind will do it to this one. The road I walked today? Behind us! Swartkops? Next week it’s somewhere else. The wine? Bottles are empty. Where is it?!!

BOESMAN: […] That’s all it is, tonight or any other night. Two dead Hotnots living together.
And you want him to look? To see? He must close his eyes. That’s what I’ll say for you in the kaffertaal.
Musa khangela! Don’t look! That’s what you must tell him. Musa khangela!

BOESMAN: Well, I’m just warning you, you better have answers ready. Dead man! There’s going to be questions.
LENA: About him? About rubbish? […] Hot stuff, hey. ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Where’s he come from?’
BOESMAN: Never saw him before in my life!
LENA: ‘Who did it?’
BOESMAN: [sharply] Did what? He died by himself.
LENA: Too bad you can’t tell them, Outa.
BOESMAN: I did nothing.
LENA: Why don’t they ask some questions when we’re alive?

LENA: […] That’s the worst. When you didn’t do it. Like the hiding you gave me for dropping the empties. Now you’ll know what it feels like. You were clever to tell me. It hurt more than your fists. You know where you feel that one? Inside. Where your fists can’t reach. A bruise there!

LENA: […] What’s your big word? Freedom! Tonight it’s Freedom for Lena. Whiteman gave you yours this morning, but you lost it. Must I tell you how? When you put all that on your back. There wasn’t room for it as well.

LENA [pause….she is loaded]: Is that the way it was? How I got here?
BOESMAN: Yes.
LENA: Truly?
BOESMAN: Yes.
[Pause.]
LENA: It doesn’t explain anything.
BOESMAN: I know.
LENA: Anyway, somebody saw a little bit. Dog and a dead man.