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1.
VISITOR. I was for a while in a faraway country. Its capital in those days had magic, not the dreamlike magic of white walls and perfumes, but a rough brown magic, brown like the mud walls and the mud lanes, a magic of this world, rude and hard, enhanced by the quality of its people.
Once, walking in the market, I passed an old cobbler sitting cross-legged in his stall, pouring tea. As his hand was moving the cup to his lips, in an unbroken gesture, his movement changed its direction, and the cup was held out to me, an offering that was the natural answer to my indiscreet stare.
Another time I saw a dwarf sitting motionless. As I passed I paused to observe him from the corner of my eye. Long after his image remained with me as the embodiment of strength. For he was a man accepting totally who he was, where he was, what he was. A dwarf in infinity, like us all.
I heard about a remarkable man, whose name was Ezekiel – like the prophet in the Bible. His house was hidden in the very heart of the market, and one day I found myself knocking at his door. A young woman opened and said –
WOMAN. He is not yet back. Please come in.
VISITOR. I waited and waited. Afternoon became evening, tea was brought, the sun went down, and night fell. And suddenly he was there.
EZEKIEL. You look as though you come from afar. How can I help you?
VISITOR. I answered with my eternal question… How to respond to the obscure intimations we have that beyond the everyday world there is in life something else. I went on – using a metaphor – In me there are many rooms, crammed with a jumble of unnecessary objects. He seemed to understand me, so I continued: Occasionally I seem to hear sounds. I don’t know where they come from, or what they are…
EZEKIEL. What sort of sounds? Could they come from the pipes? Have you called in a plumber?
VISITOR. I thought that he was making fun of me. But I realised that he was a practical man and was accustomed to giving practical advice.
When he heard that I was going to see an extraordinary forest with the most ancient trees, he told me –
EZEKIEL. I know that forest very well. In the middle of your journey you will cross a desert, in that desert you will see a huge white building, this is a prison. You will stop and walk up a hill. There, you will see a young man sitting, facing the prison. He is my nephew. His name is Mavuso. He has committed an unspeakable crime. Go and tell him I sent you.
VISITOR. Why was that man sitting in front of a prison? Why did Ezekiel ask me to go and see him? And what was the unspeakable crime?
2.
In EZEKIEL’s house – years before.
A young woman, NADIA, is speaking to her uncle EZEKIEL.
EZEKIEL. Nadia, what are doing here, in the middle of the night?
NADIA. Tonight Mavuso ...
