That Cassius

I am quite puffed up with pride. Today I am bringing modern technology and European culture into the heart of Africa - the heart of Africa in this case being our school, here in Akai Isong. The palms, whose sleepy rustling always accompanies my walk along the path to the school, seem to whisper more energetically this morning and my own excitement is echoed by the busy hum coming from the classrooms. We are to see a film today.

For many of the students it will be the first film they have ever seen although they have heard of moving pictures and television. Akai Isong is an isolated village. Visits to the nearest city are not undertaken lightly. Transportation is difficult to obtain and costly. Many adults and most children have not been to Oron, the nearest town, about forty kilometers distant.

I had been wrestling with teaching Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to my A-level (senior) students. Then, about a month ago, I heard through the grapevine that there was a sixteen millimeter copy of Joseph Mankiewicz’ filmed version of the play gathering dust in our embassy. A week ago I returned from Calabar triumphantly bearing these three reels of film. A man in Oron has agreed to bring his projector and a church in Akai Ukpo has lent us their small generator to provide the necessary electric power.

Originally I had planned the showing simply as a teaching aid for my senior class in English Literature. Jealousy and despair from the other students and teachers, however, inspired the principal to declare the afternoon a general school holiday so that all students and teachers can attend. Shakespeare will debut in Akai Isong at noon.

By half-past nine, the generator has arrived. I worry about the projector until nearly eleven o’clock, when three motorcycle taxis bearing the projectionist and his equipment pull into the school compound. The projectionist explains that the stream was too high for him to drive his pickup across so he had to search for a canoe to carry the projector, speakers and screen. Effiong and Asuquo help him to carry in his equipment. These boys are two of my brightest middle-school students and neither of them has seen a film before. They are wide-eyed with excitement. Each of them stands importantly holding a large loudspeaker, waiting anxiously for instructions as to where they should be placed. Effiong’s skinny little brother, eleven-year-old Etim, bears the coil of speaker wire in both hands as if it were a sacred offering.

We shutter all the windows in the largest classroom block. It is actually four classrooms as yet undivided by interior walls. It is the only place large enough for all of our three hundred fifty students and we use it for morning assembly when it rains. With the shutters closed it is quite dark inside. Outside, I can hear the generator cough into life, then gasp into silence again. I set up the screen and position the speakers then go outside to check on the generator, which has continued to wheeze intermittently. The village mechanic is there with his tools - a wrench, a pair of scissors, a screwdriver, a knife, a toothbrush, and what appears to be a crochet hook. He has one finger deep inside the generator. Crowds of students and village children are milling around outside the entrance to what is now being referred to as the ‘theater’. I decide to let them enter and find seats. The village mechanic has never been known to fail.

A few minutes before twelve I open a shutter and poke my head outside. The generator has been ornamented with a large tube of bamboo sticking out of it but when the mechanic pulls the cord, the engine starts and runs smoothly and evenly. The mechanic sees me watching and gives me the thumbs up sign. Inside, the projectionist flicks the projector on and a square of brilliant light hits the corner of the screen. The students cheer. I move the screen and he aligns the projector until everything is perfect. Then he turns the lamp off and awaits my signal to begin the film. For the benefit of the junior students, who have no idea what the film is about, I give a brief introduction, trying to explain the story of Julius Caesar in local terms. Then I nod to the projectionist and Julius Caesar begins.

I have stationed myself beside the screen with a pointer and as characters enter I point out who they are and translate what they are saying from Shakespearean into West African English. The screen is only about three meters by two so this is not too difficult. And it is working. The film is good enough so that with only a little help from me the children understand exactly what is going on. They are riveted to the screen. As an audience they are so emotionally in tune with one another that I am sure they are breathing in unison.

I run from side to side when necessary, behind the screen, to point out certain characters. “This is Cassius - a very bad man. He wants to kill Caesar, this man over here.” But when the climax is approaching, I let the film carry the burden of explanation. The audience is in breathless silence as Cassius and the other conspirators close in on Caesar but when they stab him and his blood begins to flow, the kids start to scream. Shutters are flung open and students jump out the windows and stampede through the doors. “Et tu, Brute,” is lost in chaos and panic.

Within thirty seconds the room is empty aside from other teachers, the projectionist and about a dozen of the senior students. The projectionist tries to console me. “These people are very bush,” he says.

In the evening I am sitting gloomily in the parlor of my house, too subdued even to light the lantern. I am alerted by the occasional sharp “pok!” on the corrugated iron roof overhead that the principal wants to talk to me about America. His way of communicating this is to stand in front of his house on the opposite side of the playing field and drive golf balls towards my house. The golf clubs and balls are relics of his golden days as a student at university in Arkansas. I am not in the mood tonight for sentimental reminiscences about fast food. But after I hear that insistent “pok!” several more times, I drag myself out onto the front porch. I am relieved to see that he has shouldered his clubs and is just re-entering his house. I settle down on the step and watch the first stars appear.

I see by a spark of light moving along the side of the playing field that someone is coming in this direction. It is Asuquo, Effiong and little Etim, with a lantern. Etim sits down right beside me, as if we are short of space. I feel better already. Effiong and Asuquo go into the house, find my lantern and light it and return with my kitchen knife. They have brought a ripe pineapple with them and it is soon peeled and cut into delicious pieces that fill the soft night air with their sweet scent.

“Sah, we want to say that we are sorry,” says Effiong. “We are very ashamed because we ran away.”

Asuquo adds, “We know it is just play but we don’t know how to watch something like that. It makes us want to run away fast.”

“Asuquo, that is exactly the right thing to do.”

“So you are not angry with us?”

“Not at all.”

We sit and finish the pineapple in companionable silence.

“Is he in prison now?” asks little Etim, finally breaking what has been, for him, an unusually long silence.

“Who?”

“That Cassius.”

“No, it’s only....” I begin to flounder with explanation, then realize what I have to say. “Cassius is dead, Etim. Completely dead.”

“Good,” he says with satisfaction. “I will tell everyone not to be afraid any more.”