Missing Face, The

Movement Seven

Movement Seven (Full-moon. MOMAH alone, ruminating and singing about the events of the last movement until the words break out.) MOMAH: Each day that passes becomes more and more incomprehensible to me. Who would have told me? My father ... Was that really my father ? But my father died long ago! At least so they said. My father lost on a night he was returning from the grotto after the rites of manhood . Then came the foreigners who swooped like hawks on our village and devoured my father ... (Brief Silence.) I see ... I can see now ... (Emboldened, he begins to walk towards the hut.) I must see ODOZI, the one who locks the secrets of the past in his finger tips. (MOMAH arrives in front of the hut and finds ODOZI polishing an image of the "Ikenga" he has just cast in bronze. Before MOMAH speaks, ODOZI has already apprehended him and begins talking to him lightheartedly . ) ODOZI: MOMAH! So you are here already? MOMAH: Yes, father? ODOZI: You are truly the son of your father! (ODOZI lifts up the bonze-image, looking up to it admiringly, and then hands it over to MOMAH.) ODOZI: Well here it is! Only a moment before you arrived, images of you cast a shadow on my mind. Here it is! Right in your hands, flashing and glittering in enduring forms. You can now see your reflection. Images of you, renewed now that you are a man. Look yourself anew, cast in bronze, not in wood. A new generation of black steel tossed in gold. Take it! Let the world see through you now that you are a man. 53 MOMAH: But father, I have just come from the grotto. I cannot truly retell nor even reconstruct truths revealed at the grotto. Soon after you departed , the voice and image of our great father appeared and gripped me ... us .. . my son and I; tearing the dark, unveiling the shadow between us; revealing images split like this ... this that I hold, but do not have. (MOMAH, lifting the bronze-image.) ODOZI: You have ... you truly have ... for these are yours, charged and recast that the fragments may come together. For the inner essence strengthened to gather together ... MOMAH: But he charged my son, AMAECHI, with the lantern ... the lantern, oh so ancient that is now modern! ODOZI: (Smiling knowingly.) Again I charge you. Let not images of you fret in the wind. But weigh fortunes with the strength of a man. Your son, AMAECHI, holds the light that you may see far into the dawn emerging from the night. (Suddenly calling.) AMAECHI! (Silence.) AMAECHI! Come here!! Your father calls! AMAECHI: (Running into the scene.) Here, father! ODOZI: Night comes upon my eyes. My back bends to the rhythm of the sun like a drooping-orange on a homeward journey westbound in the sky. Stand together! (AMAECHI and MOMAH obey, ODOZI gives the lantern to AMAECHI. He plucks some roots and hand them over to MOMAH.) Son, you be the lantern! (AMAECHI nods.) Son, you are the root of our soul. Go forth, and heal. Mend our world. Mount a search into the unseen, that you may see what lies beneath the pith of our essence. To the grotto, RETURN!! (MOMAH finds AMAECHI's hand. They both turn in the direction of the grotto. Lights increase in the grotto as they arrive. They begin their search. MOMAH stops, relieved as if he has now found the object of their search.) 54 MOMAH: Son, I am home now. In my universe, all that we need is before us. Behold, our fatherland~ our universe! You, my son, are the seed, AMAECHI. AMAECHI Uli!. That is your name. Uli, the plant seed our mothers and fathers used for tatoo. UIi, the seed of that makes the black essence. Uli, the secret of our blackness. Uli! Uli! Uli! I invoke your name, Uli. I invoke our black essence in sun, in rain! Black! Black! Unchanging in our universe. We have all the power. (They move to another side ofthe grotto.) Son, this is our universe. In this land we have all that we need to nurture one another. And now that I'm home, and you are here, I can now share with you some of the secrets of our world. The secrets of healing and nurturing with plants, roots, and herbs from this earth. Now see. (AMAECHI...