LITMIR.BIZ

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      ZACHARIAH. ‘When all the world’s my neighbour.’

      [Zachariah starts drying his feet with the towel. Morris empties the basin and puts it away.]

      Minnie.

      MORRIS. What about Minnie?

      ZACHARIAH. Our neighbour. You know, strange thing about Minnie. He doesn’t come no more.

      MORRIS. I don’t miss him.

      ZACHARIAH. No, you don’t remember, man. I’m talking about before you. He came every night. Ja! Me and him used to go out—together, you know—quite a bit. [Pause.] Hey! How did I forget a thing like that!

      MORRIS. What are you talking about?

      ZACHARIAH. Me and Minnie going out! Almost every night . . . and I’ve forgotten. [Pause.] How long you been here, Morrie?

      MORRIS. Oh, about a year now, Zach.

      ZACHARIAH. Only one miserable year and I have forgotten just like that! Just like it might not have never happened!

      MORRIS. Yes, Zach, the year has flown by.

      ZACHARIAH. You never want to go out, Morrie.

      MORRIS. So I don’t want to go out. Ask me why and I’ll tell you. Come on.

      ZACHARIAH. Why?

      MORRIS. Because we got plans, remember? We’re saving for a future, which is something Minnie didn’t have.

      ZACHARIAH. Ja. He doesn’t come no more.

      MORRIS. You said that already, Zach. I heard you the first time.

      ZACHARIAH. I was just thinking. I remembered him today. I was at the gate. It was lunchtime, and I was eating my bread.

      MORRIS. Hey—did you like the peanut butter sandwiches I made?

      ZACHARIAH. I was eating my bread, and then it comes, the thought: What the hell has happened to old Minnie?

      MORRIS. Zach, I was asking you—

      ZACHARIAH. Wait, man! I’m remembering it now. He used to come, I thought to myself, with his guitar to this room, to me, to his friend, old Zachariah, waiting for him here. Friday nights it was, when an ou’s got pay in his pocket and there’s no work tomorrow and Minnie’s coming. Now there was a friend for a man! He could laugh, could Minnie, and drink! He knew the spots, I’m telling you . . . the places to be, the good times . . . and—Ja! [Reverently.] Minnie had music. Listen, he could do a vastrap, that man, non-stop, on all strings at once. He knew the lot. Polka, tickey-draai, opskud en uitkap, ek sê. . . Now that was jollification for you, with Minnie coming around. So, when I’m waiting in here, and I hear that guitar in the street, at my door, I’m happy! ‘It’s you!’ I shout. He stops. ‘I know it’s you,’ I say. He pretends he isn’t there, you see. ‘Minnie,’ I call. ‘Minnie!’ So what does he do? He gives me a quick chick-a-doem in G. He knows I like G. ‘It’s Friday night, Minnie.’ ‘Chick-a-doem-doem, doem, doem,’ he says. And then I’m laughing. ‘You bugger! You motherless bastard!’ So I open the door. What do I see? Minnie! And what’s he got in his hand? Golden Moments at fifty cents a bottle. Out there, Morrie, standing just right on that spot in the street with his bottle and his music and laughing with me. ‘Zach,’ he says, ‘Ou pellie, tonight is the night—’ [The alarm goes off.] . . . is the night . . . is the night . . . is the night . . .

      [Zachariah loses the thread of his story. By the time the alarm stops, he has forgotten what he was saying. The moment the alarm goes off Morris springs to his feet and busies himself at the table with their supper. Zachariah eventually goes back to the bed.]

      MORRIS [watching Zachariah surreptitiously from the table]. I been thinking, Zach. It’s time we started making some definite plans. I mean . . . we’ve agreed on the main idea. The thing now is to find the right place. [Pause.] Zach? [Pause.] We have agreed, haven’t we?

      ZACHARIAH. About what?

      MORRIS. Hell, man. The future. Is it going to be a small two-man farm, just big enough for me and you; or what is it going to be?

      ZACHARIAH. Ja.

      MORRIS. Right. We agree. Now, I’m saying we got to find the right place. [Pause.] Zach! What’s the matter with you tonight?

      ZACHARIAH. I was trying to remember what I was saying about Minnie. There was something else.

      MORRIS. Now listen, Zach! You said yourself he doesn’t come no more. So what are you doing thinking about him? Here am I putting our future to you and you don’t even listen. The farm, Zach! Remember, man? The things we’re going to do. Picture it! Picking our own fruit. Chasing those damned baboons helter-skelter in the koppies. Chopping the firewood trees . . . and a cow . . . and a horse . . . and little chickens. Isn’t that exciting? Well, I haven’t been sitting still.

      [Morris fetches an old map from the shelf over his bed.]

      Here, I want to show you something. You want to know what it is? A map . . . of Africa. Now, this is the point, Zach. Look—there . . . and there . . . and down here . . . Do you see it? Blank. Large, blank spaces. Not a town, not a road, not even those thin little red lines. And, notice, they’re green. That means grass. I reckon we should be able to get a few acres in one of these blank spaces for next to nothing.

      [Zachariah, bored, goes to the window and looks out.]

      You listening, Zach?

      ZACHARIAH. Ja.

      MORRIS. This is not just talk, you know. It’s serious. One fine day, you wait and see. We’ll pack our things in something and get the hell and gone out of here. You say I don’t want to get out? My reply is that I do, but I want to get right out. You think I like it here more than you? You should have been here this afternoon, Zach. The wind was blowing again. Coming this way it was, right across the lake. You should have smelt it, man. I’m telling you that water has gone bad. Really rotten! And what about the factories there on the other side? Hey? Lavatories all around us? They’ve left no room for a man to breathe in this world. But when we go, Zach, together, and we got a place to go, our farm in the future . . . that will be different.

      [Zachariah has been at the window all the time, staring out. He now sees something which makes him laugh. Just a chuckle to begin with, but with a suggestion of lechery.]

      What’s so funny?

      ZACHARIAH. Come here.

      MORRIS.What’s there?

      ZACHARIAH. Two donkeys, man. You know.

      [Morris makes no move to the window. Zachariah stays there, laughing from time to time.]

      MORRIS. Yes. It’s not just talk. When you bring your pay home tomorrow and we put away the usual, guess what we will have, Zach? Go on, guess. Forty-five rands. If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have nothing. Ever think about that? You talk about going out, but forty-five rands—

      ZACHARIAH [breaking off in the middle of a laugh]. Hey! I remember now! By hell! About Minnie. [His voice expresses vast disbelief.] How did I forget a thing like that? It was . . .ja . . .ja . . . It was a woman! That’s what we had when we went out at night. Woman!

      [Morris doesn’t move. He stares at Zachariah blankly. When the latter pauses for a second, Morris speaks again in an almost normal voice.]

      MORRIS. Supper’s ready.

      [Zachariah loses the train of his thought, as with the alarm clock, earlier. Morris sits down.]

      So . . . where were we? Yes. Our plans. When, Zach? That’s the next thing we got to think about. Should we take our chance with a hundred rands, one hundred and fifty? I mean . . . we could even wait till there is three hundred, isn’t that so?

      [Morris

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