The Train Driver

by

Athol Fugard

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The Train Driver Summary

Simon Hanabe, a Black Xhosa gravedigger, tells the audience about the time a white man came to the graveyard of unmarked graves in search of a dead woman. As the play flashes back to that scene, Roelf Visagie wanders through the graveyard of the Shukuma squatter camp. He is looking for the body of a woman he calls Red Doek because of the red doek (headscarf) she wore. Roelf tells Simon that he wants to curse at Red Doek for ruining his life, but Simon warns Roelf that he should leave. The amagintsa (gangs) will react violently if they see a white man encroaching on their territory. When Roelf refuses to leave, Simon brings him to his own shack. Roelf reveals that he ran over Red Doek and her baby with a train when Red Doek stepped onto the tracks, and since then Roelf has been haunted by her memory. He has decided that the only way to banish her ghost is to swear at her so violently that she regrets bringing him into her suicide. However, Roelf doesn’t know Red Doek’s name, and no administrative officials could identify her, so after a long search he has come to Simon’s graveyard, where the nameless bodies go.

Roelf and Simon survey the graves, but Simon cannot remember where he buried Red Doek and her baby. Roelf is horrified that the graves are marked with pieces of trash rather than crosses, and Simon explains he only marks them to prevent him from digging in the same place twice. Roelf becomes concerned about respecting the dead, and he realizes that Black and white people all end up as food for worms.

Roelf and Simon bond as they discuss their childhoods and share a meal. Roelf reveals that he no longer wants to swear at Red Doek. He spoke to many poor Black people in pondoks (huts) while he searched for Red Doek, and witnessing their poverty and the unmarked graves has made Roelf sympathetic to the hopeless life Red Doek and her baby must have lived. Roelf walks among the graves to speak to Red Doek’s ghost. He reflects on white people’s ignorance of the lives of Black people, and he says that his connection to Red Doek has helped him move past that ignorance. He refuses to let Red Doek go on unclaimed and unnamed, so he claims her.

Later, Simon and Roelf share a loaf of bread with jam and discuss the sweets they ate as children. Roelf wants to go home, but Red Doek holds him back. He obsesses over the fact that he was the last human being Red Doek saw, and in her final moments, she truly did see him. Roelf wishes that he could have buried Red Doek himself, and Simon suggests that when Mr. Mdoda, the undertaker, brings the next body, Roelf can imagine the corpse is Red Doek and dig the grave. Roelf agrees. When Simon goes to sleep, Roelf leaves the shack and starts to dig a grave.

Simon addresses the audience again and explains that while Roelf digs, the amagintsa shoot and bury him. The next day, Mr. Mdoda and Simon dig up Roelf’s naked body. Mr. Mdoda fetches the police, who suspect Simon of the murder, but Mr. Mdoda defends him. On Mr. Mdoda’s advice, Simon pretends that he has never met Roelf before. The police confiscate Simon’s bloodstained spade, and Mr. Mdoda fires him for the trouble he has caused. Simon stands empty-handed and helpless. He tells the audience that now he has no job and no spade.