The Togo International Airport Lomé, Republique de Togo, West Africa The same day
It is late on a torpid, terribly hot afternoon. Harry Burgess enters and passes a Togolese policeman. He looks over his dancers’ passports and tickets; Hodges calls to him from offstage.
HODGES: Harry!
HARRY: Ellsworth!
(Hodges enters with suitcase and carry-on bag. Like Harry, he is a rumpled-looking American—clearly a diplomat.)
HODGES: Oh, Harry, I’m so late! Jesus, these flights. Africa. God. The planes? Chicken wire! Crepe paper! Sobbing passengers! Sobbing pilots! Finally, we catch up.
(Pointing to the runway, cringing) Look at my plane. They didn’t know if the landing gear worked. I mean, there was a quart of fuel left.
HARRY (Pointing elsewhere on the tarmac): Look there. I have to get on that thing in a few minutes. There are bullet marks, you can see them; I think from Entebbe.
(Smiles) Welcome to Togo. This is pretty much it, what you see. There’s a nice stamp and railway museum they’ll try and show you. But resist. Do.
HODGES: My friend. It’s so great to see you. Is there a bar in there? I’d love a Manhattan.
HARRY (Waving the passports): I can’t. I’ve got a plane full of cranky dancers. These planes just take off without warning.
HODGES (A laugh, smiles): I can’t believe I missed ’em. I couldn’t catch up. But you leave glowing notices in your wake. I hate these trips. There’s not enough Valium in the world. My spine! My stomach!
HARRY: Ellsworth. You used to love all the travel. What happened?
HODGES (Shrugs): They’ve spoilt me. The New Washington. Oh God. Carter. I met him. He actually cares. The president is standing there looking at you, and you’re not, for the first time in a dozen administrations, thinking, What a ghoul, what a hobgoblin. I mean—it feels like the Enlightenment!
HARRY: I can’t imagine. And I’m in Africa, missing it all.
HODGES: How’s Patrice? Is it any easier for her?
(Pause.)
HARRY: She’s better. She’s doing well.
HODGES (Unconvinced): Yeah.
HARRY: She finally likes Durban. The weirdness eventually turned fun for her. Comedy. It’s good. She started work on her book again . . . And Joyce, what about her? Is she—is it true, she’s opened a store in Georgetown? I never pictured her as a shopkeeper.
HODGES: For cooks. Egg cozies and Parisian cocktail shakers at seventy bucks a pop. And Gil? He was this high when I saw him. (Hodges holds a hand at waist level)
HARRY: A very interesting boy. Half Lawrence of Arabia, half butterfly collector . . . So—Washington is all yours now, is it? I hear you’ve redone the office in Revolutionary Blue? Is that true?
HODGES: Well—It is like some sort of revolution; the old guard are scared to death. Men with crewcuts sweating. Because Carter has faith. He actually believes in a kind of mystical Jeffersonian nation. He has God, he has them terrified! When they hear the word “culture” . . . they used to just smirk. Now they jump.
HARRY (Smiling): Congratulations on the promotion. Associate Director of Programs and Management. It’s daunting.
HODGES: It doesn’t come with a pay raise, believe me. Tell me about the dancers.
HARRY (A favorite subject, and still an amazement to Harry): It’s a company all descended from a single slave family in Tennessee. They have power. So it hits these people hard. And this tour . . . These kids talking all night. Mixing with audiences after. In Jo’burg, the homelands, Swaziland, everywhere, all over. We were in Sierra Leone . . . and the governments, they don’t like it. Because it’s all about not taking any crap. But—the people love it. I’m taking them to Durban. Look. Come with us. You’ll have the great pleasure of seeing the South African police vomiting with rage on the sidelines. It will be . . . heaven. Heaven.
HODGES: The way you have cut through to the Africans. Astonishing. I’m so proud. All the years we were out in the cold: “The art boys,” they called us, like we were queers—well now I’m the boss. Which is a lot of fun, to my surprise.
HARRY: It may be the Enlightenment. But Ellsworth. I am still out here in—the cold. So to speak.
(Pressing on) Two requests for transfer, and two polite responses asking me to please stay on in South Africa. Two! And then silence.
HODGES (Simple, a shrug): With the renaming of the agency, we’ve been preoccupied. We’re still sorting it out. The systems are being reshuffled—
HARRY: Ellsworth, please. Not with me. Not that line. Why am I stuck? Should I start thinking about other things?
HODGES: Other things? What else could you do?
HARRY (Smiling): It’s true. I certainly have no skill at making money, or anything else they do in the real world . . . Ellsworth—what’s going on? I’ve toned down some of the wilder stuff, but—
HODGES: You’re a brilliant Africa hand. You have the trust, you have the ears of the Zulus, Xhosas, Muslims. Muslims, for God’s sake, man! They’re still talking about your production of that Thornton Wilder—What was it?
HARRY: The Long Christmas Dinner. That was okay. Now I’m going to bring in Idiot’s Delight. A company from San Francisco, ex- convicts, all of them. And now they’re actors.
(There is a muffled Air Afrique announcement.)
HODGES: Perfect training, wouldn’t you say?
(Beat. He studies his friend) So what are we going to do with you then? Can you miss your flight; just spend the day with me here? Sort it out? . . .
HARRY (Shaking his head): I can’t. I have to get back to Durban. Allie’s visiting us. We haven’t seen him in two years, and I wasn’t there to greet him. If I missed this flight out, it would take me another two days to get home. All the connections.
(Beat, pleading) Why haven’t you gotten me out, El? Tell me. Please.
HODGES: Out to where? There were postings in Addis Ababa. Or in Islamabad. You would have hated me.
HARRY (Interrupting): There was Buenos Aires. You gave Angus Peterson Milan!
HODGES: All right. All right. God, it’s so hard to have this conversation on the fly.
(Beat) There’s something coming up at Voice of America. You have the background for it: It’s a European posting. It’s very possible.
HARRY (After a pause. He is smiling): Voice of America? Are you offering it to me, Ellsworth? Is this why you waited? Are you about to make me whole again?
HODGES: At the moment we imagine a magazine show with a free hand. Broad. They want it to be cosmopolitan, Camelot, Cavett-like. Hip. You are an ideal person. An artistic-director-producer type. An impresario. They can’t argue with your credentials.
HARRY: Ellsworth. Can you actually get me this thing?
HODGES: It’s something you’d be seriously interested in? Before I go to the chief?
HARRY: Yes. We know that. Do you want me to come to Washington and meet?
HODGES: It’s a little tricky. We’re still accountable to the Old Guard.
HARRY: As always. If you need me to come in with some dog and pony show about fighting soviet propaganda? I’ll do it, fine, if it gets me the job. I don’t mind spouting some party line, I do it all the time.
HODGES (Reluctant): Harry. It’s—
HARRY: What—they think I’m a little reddish?
HODGES: It’s not quite that simple—Allie. Your boy.
HARRY (Totally surprised): My Allie? What? You . . . ? What about Allie?
HODGES: He’s made friends with a group of exiled black South African kids in New York. Most of them are African National Congress. They’re very vital, very powerful, and quite secretive. They’re a fringe. But educated and worth noting. These are the sorts of people your son will be visiting in Durban.
HARRY: I can’t tell him what do to. He’s twenty-five years old. He does what he wants.
HODGES (A gesture of “hold on”): Wait! We need access to them. You’re the only person who could open up a dialogue. There is the possibility of some real leadership within that group: Andrew Young whispered in someone’s ear that it’s going to be some unknown left-field kid who might be Prime Minister one day.
HARRY: So you’re saying I should use Allie to draw in his friends? No? Are you? Ellsworth? I’m misreading the situation, right?
HODGES: He is at the nexus. He has an extraordinary vantage point.
HARRY: Nexus. Nexus? Oh. That word. This smells. I can smell it. What? Did they come to you? I can’t believe it.
HODGES: Harry.
HODGES: It’s a very low level of noncovert activity.
HARRY (Astonished): You’re asking me to take down names? Make a list?
HODGES (Exasperated): It’s not like we’re going to give the names to the South African government. It’s for us! I’m just asking you to entertain your son’s friends. Open a path. A road in. That’s the real job.
(Tired, pleading) Just give ’em something. They’ll approve you for VOA. CIA has to sign off, Harry.
HARRY: You think you’re one of those guys. Ellsworth, you’re not in their league.
HODGES: Nevertheless. I am the Associate Director of Programs and Management. Somehow, they saw fit to give me the corner office.
(Beat.)
HARRY: You have the temerity, the bloody gall to come to me? Did you for a second think I would be your local fuck?
(Beat, bitter. Ellsworth sighs) Look at you. What have you done to yourself? You’re having twelve-ounce steaks and martinis with guys you hate and all just to keep your “Enlightenment” afloat. You knew it was pointless to ask me. Didn’t you?
HODGES (Angry): It’s this attitude that keeps you out of sight, thinning out here in Africa. (Bitter) Where you’re doing so much good for the cause. “Oh he’s taking Burl Ives on a singing tour o’ Somalia.” God. We laugh when we see your itinerary.
(Beat) We all know that Africa is hopeless. I can get you out.
(Exasperated) This is just like swimming team. Yeah, I once watched you lose a race because you looked back over your shoulder. And you perceptibly slowed down. Because you felt bad for the losers. I watched.
HARRY (Smiles, remembering): From the bench. May I remind you. Always second guessing from the bench.
(Testing) Are you still prepared to recommend me for the Voice of America post? Because I’m so qualified!
HODGES (Beat, he looks sad, but affable): I should be selling potato shredders with my wife in Georgetown. I keep hoping some big company will come along and offer to buy her out, and we’ll have hit it.
(Wistful) The American dream.
(A noise of a plane cranking-up is heard.)
HARRY: That’s my flight—
(Beat, knowing) I’m stuck in Durban? . . . If you would just tell me that?
HODGES: Harry, you know how these things work.
(Angry) We’re all grownups here.
HARRY (Leaving): Well . . . Ellsworth, have fun at the Enlightenment. Though it sounds to be more in the nature of a good old-fashioned rat-fuck.
HODGES (Helpless): I told them you wouldn’t, but I had to ask. (Beat) Forgive me.
(Harry walks away toward his flight, leaving Hodges standing by the cyclone fence; another flight is announced.)