Fugard - Valley Song

A bare stage. Enter the Author. He comes down and speaks directly to the audience.

AUTHOR ( A handful of pumpkin seeds): Pumpkin seeds, ladies and gentlemen...genuine Karoo pumpkin seeds. I can vouch for that. I grew the pumpkin myself last summer, cut it open, scooped out the seeds and dried them under a hot Karoo sun. This is the so-called Flat White Boer variety. Thats the actual name. Flat White Boer pumpkin. I dont think Ive ever seen that sort here in America. As the name tells you, its flat, about five or six inches deep, round, on an average about twelve to eighteen inches across, white...and delicious eating! But only as a vegetable. We unfortunately dont have a pumpkin pie tradition in South Africa. Anyway, this is how they start out...one of these together with a little prayer for rain in a hole in the ground, and in a good year, when you get that rain, this little handful could easily give you up to a hundred of those beauties.

In my little Village in the Sneeuberg Mountains spring is now well underway and everyone has already planted their pumpkin seeds. The seasons are of course reversed down there and by the time you reach November the danger of a late frost is past. With any luck the Valley has had its first rain and that wonderful smell of damp Karoo earth is mingled with the fragrance of roses and pine trees. After its long winter sleep that little world is wide awake once again and rowdy with birdsong and bleating lambs and noisy children.

Imagine a day like that, a glorious Karoo spring day! and these seeds in the hands of old Abraam Jonkersin the Village we all just call him ou Buks. Hes out there in his akkers behind the derelict old Landman house with his spade, plantinga little stab at the ground and then a seed, stab at the ground and a seedits a well-rehearsed action. Hes planted a lot of pumpkin seeds in the course of his seventy-six years. And theres nothing haphazard about what hes doing either. When the young plants come up he wants to see them standing shoulder to shoulder in lines as straight as those the Sergeant Major drilled them into on the Sonderwater Parade Ground during the Second World War. Buks was a corporal in that famous old colored regiment, the Cape Corps, and was stationed up in the Transvaal guarding Italian prisoners of war. Hes in fact thinking about those days as he drops the seeds into the ground. One of the prisoners became a good friend of his and taught him a couple of Italian songs. Hes trying very hard to remember one of themthey are now the only souvenirs hes got left of that time. Everything elsebadges and brass buttons, discharge papers and scraps of his old uniform, even his old army kitbagare either lost or disintegrated with time. Only the song is left and even that has moldered away to only half the memory it used to be. It went something like this:

In the course of the song he moves into the character of Buks.

BUKS:

Lae donder mobili
En soo moretsa
da da de da da da...

Veronica enters. She carries Bukss lunch: bottle of tea, sandwiches and an enamel mug.

VERONICA: Oupa! Oupa!

BUKS (Ignoring her and trying again):

Lae donder mobili
En soo moretsa
da da de da da da...

VERONICA: Oupa! Are you deaf!

BUKS (Turning to her and bellowing out in good Sergeant-Major style): A...ten...tion!

Veronica obeys.

By the leftQuick March! Left-right, left-right, left-right...

Veronica marches.

Plato-o-o-n halt!

Veronica stops, staying rigidly at Attention while Buks carries out an inspection.

What do you want Private?

VERONICA: Its lunch time Corporal. (She salutes)

BUKS: No Veronica...your other arm!

VERONICA: Sorry Corporal. (She salutes again)

BUKS: Thats better. Platoon dismissed!

VERONICA: Tell me the truth now Oupa, were you a real soldier?

BUKS: I dont know. Whats a real soldier. I was just a ordinary soldier.

VERONICA: You know, Oupa, like on TV, with a gun and all that.

BUKS: I had a gun. When I went on guard duty I had a real gun with real bullets...and all that.

VERONICA: But did you ever shoot anybody with it?

BUKS: No. Ive told you before I was guarding Italian prisoners and none of them tried to escape.

VERONICA: Well then you certainly didnt win the war did you.

BUKS: No. I certainly didnt. The other men did thatthe ones up north. I just marched up and down the fence with my gun on my shoulder and Carlo Tucci on the other side trying to teach me the words of Italian songs.

Another attempt at his Italian song.

VERONICA: Whats it mean?

BUKS: I dont know. He told me but Ive forgotten.

VERONICA: Im going to make a song about you. Ill call it The Army Man.

BUKS: Good. I like that. But you must remember in your song that I was a corporal... two stripes!

VERONICA (Singing):

My Oupa was a corporal
Left, Left-right Left-right.

BUKS: Come. Give me some tea.

Veronica lays out lunchpours tea into an enamel mug.

VERONICA (A recitative mixture of song and speech): Nearly fresh brown bread and delicious first-grade Langeberg Kooperasie Smooth Apricot Jam.

BUKS: Who says so?

VERONICA: The jam tin label says so. Eerste Graad. Langeberg Kooperasie.

BUKS (Tasting his tea): How much sugar did you put in?

VERONICA: The usual Oupa. Three spoons for every mug.

BUKS (He tastes again): What is happening to all the sweetness in the world?

VERONICA: What do you mean Oupa?

BUKS: I dont know. I dont know what I mean. But put in an extra spoon tomorrow. That whiteman was back here again early this morning looking at the house and the land...our akkers.

VERONICA: So?

BUKS: Im just saying. Thats three times now.

VERONICA: That doesnt mean anything. Stop worrying about it Oupa. Every few months theres another car full of white people driving around the Village and looking at the old houses and talking about buying, and what happens?...They drive away in the dust and we never see them again. You watch and see: It will be just the same with this lot...nothing will happen!

BUKS: This one looks serious my child. He even had the keys to get into the house.

VERONICA: Did he say anything to you?

BUKS: No. Just greeted me. Then walked aroundlike a whiteman!and looked at everything.

VERONICA: Well I still say you are worrying for nothing.

BUKS: Anyway, worry or not theres nothing we can do about it, hey. If he buys the land he can tell me take my spade and my wheelbarrow and go and thats the end of the story.

VERONICA: Dont say that Oupa! That will make it come true!

BUKS: Youre right. Lets talk about something else.

So what mischief were you up to this morning my girl?

VERONICA: Nothing Oupa.

Nothing...nothing...nothing...nothing! Theres no good mischief left in this place. Ive used it all up. Anyway, Im not looking for mischief anymore.

BUKS: I see. So what are you looking for then?

VERONICA: Adventure and Romance!

BUKS: Thats now something new. Since when is this?

VERONICA: Since a long time Oupa.