Scene 6

Summary

The bungalow. Late evening. MARAIS, wearing shorts and a rugby jersey, is alone, reading his Bible. After a while CAMPBELL enters carrying a weekend bag.

MARAIS: Hello Doug.

CAMPBELL: What a luck! A straight-through ride from Durban.

MARAIS: You have a good time?

CAMPBELL: You know then.

MARAIS: I never saw the sea.

CAMPBELL: Hey, well, it's something else.

MARAIS: So you back. I thought you might go AWOL.

CAMPBELL: I'm back.

MARAIS: Tell me, why did you run away?

CAMPBELL: Why do you ask?

MARAIS: Sometimes I just don't know.

CAMPBELL: What?

MARAIS: The army.

CAMPBELL: For sure.

MARAIS: Of course, it does make you a man and that, but why this war?

CAMPBELL: Truly.

Pause.

MARAIS: Are you a religious man, Doug?

CAMPBELL: Well, like within myself I suppose I am. I'm an agnostic.

MARAIS: Practising?

CAMPBELL: Not really.

MARAIS: I believe in the Bible and I been thinking. Here Jesus says: ‘Maar ek sê vir julle: julle moet julle vyande liefhê; seën die wat julle vervloek; doen goed aan die wat julle haat en bid vir die wat julle beledig en julle vervolg; sodat julle kinders kan word van julle Vader wat in die hemele is.' [‘But I say unto you; love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.’] How can you love your enemy and then kill him?

CAMPBELL: Right.

MARAIS: It doesn't fit.

CAMPBELL: For sure.

MARAIS: Why is everybody against South Africa?

CAMPBELL: Hey man, are you serious?

MARAIS [sharply]: Don't laugh at me, Doug.

CAMPBELL: Hey well, I tune you the way I view it: if there was no apartheid, there'd be no war.

MARAIS: In my own life I've never been unkind to the black man.

CAMPBELL: Not you, Paul. Like it's the whole thing.

MARAIS: But there's less apartheid now and there's more war.

CAMPBELL: That's not it.

MARAIS: South Africa is changing. One day the black man will be as equal as the white man.

CAMPBELL: Hey, I've heard that somewhere before.