by Zakes Mda
‘What I mean is, you don’t have any deformity around which we can create a story. You’re just a pretty lass, and that’s not going to help anyone.’
Aoife stood her ground in front of The Great Farini and gestured at the Zulus.
‘They don’t have no deformity neither,’ she said.
‘They are Zulus,’ said Farini, his expression showing his impatience at a woman who was so daft she could not see the obvious.
‘I can be a Zulu too. I know how to sing Zulu songs.’
‘As I said, young lady, I’m interested only in freaks and biological rarities. So is Mr Barnum, to whom I’m renting out these Zulus.’
Aoife was getting desperate. ‘I can be a rarity too; I can be a freak.’
‘Well, Em-Pee, as Slaw said, she’s your problem,’ said Farini.
She turned out to be a nice problem, after all. At a boarding house booked for them for the night, Slaw was given his own room by the landlady as she found it inconceivable that he could sleep in the same room with ‘the Negroes from Africa’. Aoife was allocated her own room as well. There would be no miscegenation under her roof. Em-Pee and the rest of the Zulus were all bunched together in one room.
Irrepressible Aoife, however, would not be separated from her Zulu warrior. In the middle of the night she smuggled him into her room. That night Mavovo was created. Well, he might have been conceived on subsequent nights at Five Points, where Farini found accommodation for the Zulus, but his parents liked to think of him as a Mulatto product of their first night in America.
Farini got Aoife a job with another impresario who ran the New York Museum of Biological Rarities. She was one of the unskilled musicians who were hired to sing discordant songs and make a terrible noise with trumpets and drums on the building’s balcony to invite audiences in the manner Barnum’s American Museum used to do until it burned to the ground in 1865.
If he could Em-Pee would have slaughtered a goat to thank his ancestors for placing him and Aoife on the same ship to America. And the White woman’s ancestors for making her so forward and so shameless that she had insisted she was going with him – a thing that would never have been done by any woman in kwaZulu. He would never have ended up cohabiting with her if she had not taken the initiative. He was glad he allowed himself to be captured by her, despite the teasing and snide remarks of his fellow Zulus. She had smothered him with so much love that he forgot about Nomalanga and banished any desire to return to the old country to hunt her down and, married or not, to abduct her to some faraway land where no one would ever find them. He looked back at that yearning and chuckled at how silly and immature it was.
For three years they were as happy as any couple could be, despite their living conditions at a rookery. Though they did not walk together in the city, to avoid racial slurs, within the walls of their tenement the three of them shared a life of blissful oblivion.
But of late there has been tension in paradise. It started with Em-Pee’s reversal of fortunes, and spousal disagreements on how to change that situation for the better. Moments of long silence are now followed by moments of loud squabbling and then followed once again by moments of long silence.
Aoife is even turned off by his breathing when they make love, something that takes him aback because she has never said that before in all their years of ‘marriage’. She just lies there until he finishes his business. It never used to be like that. There was a time when she was so voracious she could eat him alive. Now she just lies there impassively.
When he asks, she says, ‘It is your breathing. It disturbs me. It turns me off.’
‘Should I face the other way when we make love?’
‘No, I don’t mean like that. Maybe you should just shut your mouth and not breathe through it.’
That’s the ultimate, Em-Pee thinks. When she’s annoyed by your breathing, that’s a point of no return.
She sees the wounded look. She regrets blurting it out. She didn’t mean to be unkind. It is not lost on her that lately she has been discovering many irritating things about him.
Their most glorious moments were the first few months in America. The Zulus were performing to great crowds in New York. Sometimes they would have a stint with P.T. Barnum at his big tent – performances in various cities, or they would be with William Coup, another impresario who was a close friend and business partner of Farini’s, and who was famous for coming up with the concept of a circus train that travelled from city to city transporting performers and their materials.
When W.C. Coup’s Circus travelled to such cities as Detroit and Chicago, Aoife and Mavo remained at Five Points because she had started the job singing discordantly at the New York Museum of Biological Rarities.
Em-Pee and the Zulus performed to crowds of up to twelve thousand in a tent with three rings – another one of Coup’s inventions. Farini choreographed new Zulu war dances that were in keeping with American tastes. The Zulus still frightened the spectators; that was a Farini staple. What good were Zulus if they were not frightening people out of their wits? For instance, they ran into the circus ring screaming and yelling blue murder and hurling their assegais at predetermined targets that were frighteningly close to some spectators’ faces. Or they demonstrated how they cut the throats of White people with their blunt assegais. Though no blood flowed, the demonstration looked so real that they left some in the crowds screaming.
Every night Slaw would be slaughtered to the orgasmic shrieks of spectators, and Em-Pee would be the chief slaughterer.
The Zulus engaged in other entertainments that were less gruesome. One event that Em-Pee relished, since it involved skill and prowess, was The Race of the Savage Races. Here, Americans Indians raced with the Zulus to the roar of the spectators. Sometimes he won the race; at other times an American Indian or another Zulu, perhaps Samson, won.
After the tours with the circus, he looked forward to returning to New York, to Five Points, to Aoife and Mavo. He vowed that one day he would take Mavo to kwaZulu, to perform the rituals that would welcome him into the clan, to introduce him to the ways of his people. Mavo needed to know his izithakazelo, clan praises, which would teach him about the origins of his people from the land of the blue lakes in Central Africa where abaMbo came from, right up to his great-grandfather, the great Zihlandlo, who was Shaka’s ally and friend, but was assassinated by the troops of Dingane, Shaka’s brother, on the hills of Nkandla. The boy could not navigate the world without the guidance of his ancestors, and it was sad that the ancestors did not even know of his existence. A proper introduction was essential, through the slaughter of a black bull and the brewing of sorghum beer. Most importantly, he needed to be properly integrated not only into the Mkhize clan but into the broader amaZulu nation, so that no affliction should befall him in the future.
A wave of sadness always assailed him whenever he thought of home. His people were no longer the people he left, standing tall and unvanquished. After Ulundi and the capture of his king, Cetshwayo kaMpande, in the Ngome Forest where he was hiding, kwaZulu was no longer an independent kingdom. After Cetshwayo’s exile in Cape Town, he sailed to Britain to meet Queen Victoria to plead for the restoration of the kwaZulu Kingdom.
Em-Pee had just finished setting up the stage for the exhibit of Farini’s Dwarf Earthmen, composed of his Kalahari Bushmen, at Steinway and Sons Hall, and was walking down the steps to 14th Street to catch a coach home, when Farini called him back.
‘I’ve something for you, Em-Pee. Your king is in London.’
He showed him the Illustrated London News, 12 August 1882, with the headline ‘Cetewayo in London’.
Farini read aloud, chuckling occasionally at the wonder of it all, how the king, travelling with a doctor, servants and an interpreter, and accompanied by a fleet of newspaper reporters, was greeted with cheers upon landing from The Arab, the ship that brought him from Cape Town. He was mobbed in the streets of London. The paper reported that he was ‘a fine burly man with a pleasant, good
-humoured face, though almost black; his manners are frank and jovial, but still dignified, and he wears a European dress’.
Farini laughed. This was not the savage king he imagined.
‘Of course, he is a king; he would carry himself with dignity and composure, wouldn’t he?’ said Em-Pee, not hiding his annoyance.
Farini shook his head, and then read on: In his demeanour Cetewayo is most gentle, utterly belying the popular conception which pictures him as a rude and turbulent savage. His intelligence is shown by the questions which he addresses to his interpreters, and his capacity to win men’s friendship by the extraordinary sympathy felt with him by the passengers of The Arab. He has been, in fact, everyone’s friend, and the passengers who left the ship at Plymouth bade him a hearty farewell.
Every day Em-Pee keenly followed Cetshwayo’s sojourn in London from dispatches that came from England. He had lengthy discussions with Farini about the situation in kwaZulu.
Farini’s biggest regret was that Cetshwayo’s British visit happened when his shows had migrated to New York. Otherwise he would have featured the Zulu king in them.
‘After all, you knew him personally, guv,’ Slaw added. ‘You would have asked him to be on display with our Zulus.’
‘If Cetewayo came to America our business would boom again,’ added Farini.
Spectators would finally set their eyes on the savage king who had slain hundreds of British soldiers. Farini said he read that the king was still a celebrity in England and thousands came to see him whenever he appeared. But these were not paying spectators, which was a waste of a good opportunity.
‘I would not have allowed that,’ said Em-Pee emphatically. ‘I won’t be party to any situation where my king is insulted.’
‘Insulted, old chap? Do you feel insulted when you educate Americans about your people and your culture?’ asked Farini, looking rather wounded.
‘You’re just joking, guv, aren’t you?’ said Slaw. ‘You’re just saying it because you know we can’t get the old bugger to come to New York to join our shows?’
‘He is my king, damn you! He is the king of amaZulu people!’
In subsequent weeks Farini and Em-Pee read about how the British queen granted Cetshwayo his wish and allowed him to return to kwaZulu. He had spent about ten months in London, and his celebrity grew throughout the time he was there.
When he returned to kwaZulu, he found that his kingdom had shrunk tremendously, what with colonist farmers encroaching more and more into his territory, and big chunks allocated by the Natal colonist government to those amaZulu people who declared they no longer wanted him as king!
In any event, kwaZulu was no longer a free and independent country. It had now been annexed to the British Empire, and Cetshwayo had become a mere paramount chief, a vassal of Queen Victoria. According to Em-Pee, even his second crowning, by Sir Theophilus Shepstone on 29 January 1883, was merely symbolic. His crown came with emasculated power.
Em-Pee felt it was a merciful end when a civil war erupted and forced Cetshwayo to escape to the town of Eshowe, where he died only a year after his return to the meaningless throne.
Cetshwayo’s death affected both Em-Pee and Farini for different reasons. Em-Pee mourned the glorious days when he’d served the king, even bathing him, and caroused with isigodlo girls. Nostalgia assailed him and he became morose. This contributed to the tensions in the house.
Farini, on the other hand, mourned the loss of business because he believed that Cetshwayo’s celebrity would wane after his demise. Gradually, the glory of Isandlwana would diminish in the imagination of the spectators and soon he would have to conceive new fascinations that would sustain the relevance of the Zulus.
While Farini agonised over these issues, Em-Pee was brooding over John Dunn’s treachery. The White man who had been pampered by the king and had married more than forty Zulu wives, including princesses from the royal house, had turned against his benefactor and pledged loyalty to the British. In return, he was given tracts of lands as a buffer between Natal and kwaZulu.
‘It shows you can never trust the White man,’ said Em-Pee.
‘Except if that White man is me,’ said The Great Farini, smiling. ‘I have given you and your Zulus a good life away from the savage wars of your tribes.’
‘I’m sure you believe it’s a good life,’ said Em-Pee.
Em-Pee said it as if it was a joke, but Farini suspected that he was becoming disgruntled again and would influence the other Zulus to adopt the same attitude. He still harboured a grudge against Em-Pee as the instigator of the strike in London. He blamed himself for ever renting out the Zulus to P.T. Barnum, who was reputed to pay his performers such exorbitant wages that many of them became wealthy in their own right.
Farini had cursed out loud when he heard how much P.T. was paying his Zulus. ‘How do you think I’m going to afford them when they finish the stint with you?’ he had asked.
And indeed, there were plenty of murmurs when the Zulus returned to their meagre wages. Em-Pee told his mates, ‘I shouldn’t have come back. I should have stayed in Canada.’
He was referring to an incident in Detroit when he had become so fed up with the Camel Man that he absconded for days. The Camel Man had insisted he clean up the dung after a camel had an accident in one of the rings. Em-Pee told him he had nothing to do with circus animals; he was himself a performer. When the quarrel almost turned to blows, the management took the Camel Man’s side. Em-Pee walked away from the big tent and crossed the bridge into Canada.
The circus managers thought it was just a temporary Zulu tantrum and that he would soon return. When he didn’t, they sent out a search party, which discovered him having a wonderful time at a tavern in Windsor. He meekly returned to Detroit with them, and to the big tent. The fear of deserting his family, especially of never seeing Mavo again, brought him back to his senses.
Two of his Zulu mates did finally leave, after getting a more attractive offer from a rival impresario. Farini did not fancy another sea voyage to southern Africa to acquire a whole new bunch of Zulus. He recruited Negroes, auditioned them and selected some for his act. It was Em-Pee’s task to teach them how to be Zulus.
It was not unusual to have American Negroes assume Zulu identities. Thanks to Cetshwayo, Zulus were so fashionable that there were street performers all over New York who passed for Zulu. Indeed, some copycat impresarios had added Zulus to their repertoires, most of whom were Americans. The whole of New York and its environs was overrun by Zulus who were screaming like wild men, dancing crazy dances and threatening spectators with badly made assegais and painted timber shields.
It was precisely because of these faux Zulus that the impresario had billed himself as The Great Farini and his Genuine Zulus. This billing did not change with the introduction of Negroes. After all, they were taught Zuluness by a genuine Zulu.
Now that he had more recruits – both male and fe-male – he had to allocate quite a few of them to other tribes of Africa. Using a book by John George Wood, Illustrated History of the Uncivilized Races, he assigned the Negro recruits to various tribes. Some became Maasai tribesmen from East Africa, others BaKongo from Central Africa. It did not matter that he did not have anyone to assist him in training the Negroes to be true to their new identities. He read about the customs of various groups and improvised the rest.
The Great Farini peppered his lectures before the exhibits or performances with Darwinian theory that was half-baked to the erudite but appeared wise and deep to the less schooled.
The first appearance of the revamped show was at Madison Square Garden, a venue with which Em-Pee was familiar since he had appeared there in his very first year in America with the P.T. Barnum circus.
In his lecture, The Great Farini first dismissed rumours that among his performers, passing as genuine Zulus, were Irish immigrants ‘cunningly painted and made up to look like savages’. When he said this, Em-Pee covertly pinched Slaw, who was in the wings with him and the
other Zulus, painted brown and ready to battle with the Zulus as a savage from some unnamed Indian Ocean islands.
As usual the show was well received. Spectators loved The Battle of the Savage Tribes where the Zulus fought against the Maasai, and the Maasai fought against the BaKongo. They raised the roof with cheers when a tiny savage David, also known as Slaw by his mates, felled a giant Zulu Goliath, a certain Mpiyezintombi, and when wild Zulus performed their wild dance and demonstrated how they slaughtered White men, and when BaKongo demonstrated how they cooked White missionaries in a giant three-legged pot.
That was Em-Pee’s last show with Farini. He resigned summarily. A few days later the other Zulus, Samson and the mates he came with from Cape Town, left Farini’s stable as well.
Slaw felt out of place without the Zulus. He left The Great Farini to join them.
* * *
Em-Pee is back at Madison Square Park, standing below the cage. The Dinka Princess is watching him disapprovingly. Since he discovered her, he has been coming every day and gazing silently at her. For hours. She gazes back unflinchingly, as if in a dare. Sometimes she gets tired of the sight of him and transfers her gaze to some spot in the sky. Always the same spot. She stares at it so intently that the spectators are tempted to look up, hoping to see whatever it is that she sees. Her eyes return to him after a while, and glare into his eyes. Sometimes her eyes search, sweeping over the heads of the spectators – he doesn’t stand at the same spot every day – until they find him. Her eyes light up in a eureka spark, with the whites becoming whiter and the brown irises becoming shimmering black.
His work has suffered because of frequenting this cage to bathe his battered soul in her presence. His colleagues do not understand what is happening to him. Their business is suffering; instead of attending to it, he stands mesmerised by a woman in a cage. He has even missed some performances as a result.
When the Zulus rebelled and broke out of Farini’s chains, they formed their own group, which aimed to create a professional environment free of competition and hierarchy. They named themselves the Genu-Wine Zulus to indirectly trash The Great Farini and his Genuine Zulus, and also the shameless outfits proliferating on the streets of New York passing for Zulus and performing silly jigs. They were all equal owners of the company and decided everything by consensus, since none of them had a managerial position.
