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Death and the King's Horseman
Wole Soyinka
(First published 1981)
AMUSA. Goodnight, madam.
JANE. Oh. (She hesitates.) Amusa…(He goes off without seeming to have heard.) Poor Simon… (A figure emerges from the shadows, a young black MAN dressed in a sober western suit. He peeps into the hall, trying to make out the figures of the dancers.)
Who is that?
OLUNDE (emerges into the light). I didn’t mean to startle you madam, I am looking for the District Officer.
JANE. Wait a minute…don’t I know you? Yes, you are Olunde, the young man who…
OLUNDE. Mrs Pilkings! How fortunate. I came here to look for your husband.
JANE. Olunde! Let’s look at you. What a fine young man you’ve become. Grand but solemn. Good God, when did you return? Simon never said a word. But you do look well Olunde. Really!
OLUNDE. You are…well, you look quite well yourself Mrs Pilkings. From what little I can see of you.
JANE. Oh, this. It's caused quite a stir I assure you, and not all of it very pleasant. You are not shocked I hope?
OLUNDE. Why should I be? But don’t you find it rather hot in there? Your skin must find it difficult to breathe.
JANE. Well, it is a little hot I must confess, but it’s all in a good cause.
OLUNDE. What cause Mrs Pilkings?
JANE. All this. The ball. and His Highness being here in person and all that.
OLUNDE (mildly). And that is the good cause for which you desecrate an ancestral mask?
JANE. Oh, so you are shocked after all. How disappointing.
OLUNDE. No I am not shocked, Mrs Pilkings. You forget that I have now spent four years among your people. I discovered that you have no respect for what you do not understand.
JANE. Oh. So you’ve returned with a chip on your shoulder. That’s a pity Olunde. I am sorry.
An uncomfortable silence follows.
I take it then that you did not find your stay in England altogether edifying.
OLUNDE. I don’t say that. I found your people quite admirable in many ways, their conduct and courage in this war for instance.
JANE. Ah yes, the war. Here of course it is all rather remote. From time to time we have a black-out drill just to remind us that there is a war on. And the rare convoy passes through on its way somewhere or on manoeuvres. Mind you there is the occasional bit of excitement like that ship that was blown up in the harbour.
OLUNDE. Here? Do you mean through enemy action?
JANE. Oh no, the war hasn’t come that close. The captain did it himself. I don’t quite understand it really. Simon tried to explain. The ship had to be blown up because it had become dangerous to the other ships, even to the city itself. Hundreds of the coastal population would have died.
OLUNDE. Maybe it was loaded with ammunition and had caught fire. Or some of those lethal gases they’ve been experimenting on.
JANE. Something like that. The captain blew himself up with it. Deliberately. Simon said someone had to remain on board to light the fuse.
OLUNDE. It must have been a very short fuse.
JANE (shrugs). I don’t known much about it. Only that there was no other way to save lives. No time to devise anything else. The captain took the decision and carried it out.
OLUNDE. Yes…I quite believe it. I met men like that in England.
JANE. Oh just look at me! Fancy welcoming you back with such morbid news. Stale too. It was at least six months ago.
OLUNDE. I don’t find it morbid at all. I find it rather inspiring. It is an affirmative commentary on life.
JANE. What is?
OLUNDE. That captain’s self-sacrifice.
JANE. Nonsense. Life should never be thrown deliberately away.
OLUNDE. And the innocent people around the harbour?
JANE. Oh, how does one know? The whole thing was probably exaggerated anyway.
OLUNDE. That was a risk the captain couldn’t take. But please Mrs Pilkings, do you think you could find your husband for me? I have to talk to him.
JANE. Simon? (as she recollects for the first time the full significance of OLUNDE’s presence.) Simon is…there is a little problem in town. He was sent for. But…when did you arrive? Does Simon know you’re here?
OLUNDE (suddenly earnest). I need your help Mrs Pilkings. I’ve always found you somewhat more understanding than your husband. Please find him for me and when you do, you must help me talk to him.
JANE. I’m afraid I don’t quite …follow you. Have you seen my husband already?
OLUNDE. I went to your house. Your houseboy told me you were here. (He smiles.) He even told me how I would recognise you and Mr Pilkings.
JANE. Then you must know what my husband is trying to do for you.
OLUNDE. For me?
JANE. For you. For your people. And to think he didn’t even know you were coming back! But how do you happen to be here? Only this evening we were talking about you. We thought you were still four thousand miles away.
OLUNDE. I was sent a cable.
JANE. A cable? Who did? Simon? The business of your father didn’t begin till tonight.
OLUNDE. A relation sent it weeks ago, and it said nothing about my father. All it said was, Our King is dead. But I knew I had to return home at once so as to bury my father. I understood that.
JANE. Well, thank God you don’t have to go through that agony. Simon is going to stop it.
OLUNDE. That’s why I want to see him. He’s wasting his time. And since he has been so helpful to me I don’t want him to incur the enmity of our people. Especially over nothing.
JANE (sits down open-mouthed). You…you Olunde!
OLUNDE. Mrs Pilkings, I came home to bury my father. As soon as I heard the news I booked my passage home. In fact we were fortunate. We travelled in the same convoy as your Prince, so we had excellent protection.
JANE. But you don’t think your father is also entitled to whatever protection is available to him?
OLUNDE. How can I make you understand? He has protection. No one can undertake what he does tonight without the deepest protection the mind can conceive. What can you offer him in place of his peace of mind, in place of the honour and veneration of his own people? What would you think of your Prince if he refused to accept the risk of losing his life on this voyage? This… showing-the-flag tour of colonial possessions.
JANE. I see. So it isn’t just medicine you studied in England.
OLUNDE. Yet another error into which your people fall. You believe that everything which appears to make sense was learnt from you.
JANE. Not so fast Olunde. You have learnt to argue I can tell that, but I never said you made sense. However clearly you try to put it, it is still a barbaric custom. It is even worse – it’s feudal! The king dies and a chieftan must be buried with him. How feudalistic can you get!
OLUNDE (waves his hand towards the background. The PRINCE is dancing past again – to a different step – and all the guests are bowing and curtseying as he passes). And this? Even in the midst of a devastating war, look at that. What name would you give to that?
JANE. Therapy, British style. The preservation of sanity in the midst of chaos.
OLUNDE. Others would call it decadence. However, it doesn’t really interest me. You white races know how to survive; I’ve seen proof of that. By all logical and natural laws this war should end with all the white races wiping out one another, wiping out their so-called civilisation for all time and reverting to a state of primitivism the likes of which has so far only existed in your imagination when you thought of us. I thought all that at the beginning. Then I slowly realised that your greatest art is the art of survival. But at least have the humility to let others survive in their own way.
JANE. Through ritual suicide?
OLUNDE. Is that worse than mass suicide? Mrs Pilkings, what do you call what those young men are sent to do by their generals in this war? Of course you have also mastered the art of calling things by names which don’t remotely describe them.
JANE. You talk! You people with your long-winded, roundabout way of making conversation.
OLUNDE. Mrs Pilkings, whatever we do, we never suggest that a thing is the opposite of what it really is. In your newsreels I heard defeats, thorough, murderous defeats described as strategic victories. No wait, it wasn’t just on your newsreels. Don’t forget I was attached to hospitals all the time. Hordes of your wounded passed through those wards. I spoke to them. I spent long evenings by their bedsides while they spoke terrible truths of the realities of that war. I know now how history is made.
JANE. But surely, in a war of this nature, for the morale of the nation you must expect…
OLUNDE. That a disaster beyond human reckoning be spoken of as a triumph? No. I mean, is there no mourning in the home of the bereaved that such blasphemy is permitted?
JANE (after a moment’s pause). Perhaps I can understand you now. The time we picked for you was not really one for seeing us at our best.
OLUNDE. Don’t think it was just the war. Before that even started I had plenty of time to study your people. I saw nothing, finally, that gave you the right to pass judgement on other peoples and their ways. Nothing at all.
JANE (hesitantly). Was it the…colour thing? I know there is some discrimination.
OLUNDE. Don’t make it so simple, Mrs Pilkings. You make it sound as if when I left, I took nothing at all with me.
JANE. Yes…and to tell the truth, only this evening, Simon and I agreed that we never really knew what you left with.
OLUNDE. Neither did I. But I found out over there. I am grateful to your country for that. And I will never give it up.
JANE. Olunde, please…promise me something. Whatever you do, don’t throw away what you have started to do. You want to be a doctor. My husband and I believe you will make an excellent one, sympathetic and competent. Don’t let anything make you throw away your training.
OLUNDE (genuinely surprised). Of course not. What a strange idea. I intend to return and complete my training. Once the burial of my father is over.
JANE. Oh, please…!
OLUNDE. Listen! Come outside. You can’t hear anything against that music.
JANE. What is it?
OLUNDE. The drums. Can you hear the drums? Listen.
The drums come over, still distant but more distinct. There is a change of rhythm, it rises to a crescendo and then, suddenly, it is cut off. After a silence, a new beat begins, slow and resonant.
There it’s all over.
JANE. You mean he’s…
OLUNDE. Yes, Mrs Pilkings, my father is dead. His will-power has always been enormous; I know he is dead.
