arts, but said she had not yet decided how best to go about it. Wil looked forward with apprehension to the speech that he expected her to give—and the condescending response he expected she would receive.
But when the time came for the meeting to begin, before there was even a formal call to order, band music began to blare from behind the nearby dunes. It was “Colonel Bogie’s March”—the theme music from
Suddenly, there they were, striding over the crest of the hill, twenty or so musicians from the ship’s orchestra, looking for all the world like a well-drilled marching band and sounding pretty good to ears that had been starved for music, for any artistic expression. The surprise was complete and the effect was stunning.
The band, however, was just the beginning. Sarah Darby had brought together every artist she could find, and they marched in a procession designed to evoke the image of Greek muses on an ancient vase. There were probably very few witnesses to this pageant who knew the first thing about the muses of antiquity. But this did not faze Sarah, who presented them as if they had come to renew the spirits and save the souls of those who found themselves here by a cruel act of fate.
Several writers, carrying tablets, represented Calliope, muse of epic poetry; several others, carrying scrolls, took the part of Clio, muse of history; and Alf Richards’s daughter Jeanette, bearing a lyre made from bamboo and grass, was the muse of lyric poetry, Erato. Two of the comedians who had entertained aboard ship came next wearing papier-mache masks, one comic and one tragic, indicating the presence of Thalia and Melpomene, muses of comedy and tragedy, respectively. Euterpe, muse of music, was embodied not only in the band but also in talented virtuosos from Inland: a classical string quartet (who had survived, along with their instruments, miraculously unharmed) and an audaciously non-classical rock group. Somewhere in the parade, Polymnia, muse of sacred poetry, and Urania, muse of astronomy (which was considered by the Greeks to be an art), were lost in the shuffle.
The center of attention was Terpsichore, muse of dance, portrayed by the Focus Group’s own Roxanne Ford. Roxy, who wore her cowgirl outfit, led the small corps of professional dancers from the
But the highlight of the parade was still to come. Hidden out of sight until all the other marchers had completed their routines, there abruptly appeared a troupe of Zulu dancers in colorful traditional regalia, chanting in wild yet musical cadence, beating on drums and leaping, leaping, leaping—vertical bounds that took the breath away.
This remarkable procession surprised and pleased just about everyone gathered on the beach that morning, committee members, participants in the meeting, passersby, and children. Even Alf Richards, who had grown depressed verging on paranoic during the past few days of debate and criticism, was totally disarmed by the sight of his daughter carrying her make-believe lyre. Sarah Darby, it appeared, was politically savvy as well as artistically creative. To Wil Hardy, she was even more lovable for all that.
As for achieving her goal, it was not immediately clear how much had been accomplished by this display of talent. The importance of the arts was brought home to all who were present at the parade—and all who later heard about it—which meant just about everybody within the Ulundi Circle. Yet, after the excitement died down, the leaders of the Coordinating Committee made it clear to Sarah that physical survival still had an unchallenged priority in their thinking. For the first year at least, there would be no formal allocation of people or resources to the arts.
However, since all work assignments were to be “voluntary,” subject only to social pressures rather than official sanction, the planners promised to look sympathetically at a moderate number of “extracurricular” artistic activities, assuming they did not unduly hinder the main work effort. The band and other musical groups, including the Zulu dancers, hoped to travel about the Ulundi Circle on “concert tours” to benefit morale. And Sarah did not plan to stop with music and dance. She hoped to organize drama clubs to put on evening performances, and had already recruited groups of readers to recite poetry and read novels. She proposed to the Coordinating Committee the formation of yet another committee—to safeguard the books that had been salvaged from the
For both her authorized and unauthorized work, Sarah was destined to gain universal approval. She had taken the initiative with the first notes of “Colonel Bogie’s March” and never looked back.
“How the hell did you have the nerve to pull this off?” Wil asked Sarah later in the day.
“I didn’t have the nerve to sit by and do nothing,” she answered. “I keep telling you, but you don’t seem to listen. Man does not live by bread alone.”
“Yes, yes, but what I’m saying—what our community planners are saying—is ‘first things first.’ We’re engaged in a life and death struggle here. It seems to be our fate…”
Sarah kissed him lightly on the cheek, as if he were a child who would some day grow up and understand. “Ah yes, fate,” she said in a husky voice. “That’s it exactly. As Andre Malraux said: ‘All art is a revolt against man’s fate.’ “
“Your quotable intellectuals seem to have an answer for everything.”
“Nobody has all the answers, darling, least of all your Coordinating Committee and Joint-Planning- everybody’s-life-from-now-on-Subcommittee. I’m not making fun, Wil, just pointing out the absurdity and fragility of it all. Leaven your technical fix with a touch of art and philosophy and you improve our chances for survival—for true survival, a survival in the full sense of the word.”
10
On the faraway shore of Queen Ranavolana’s island kingdom, the pirate sovereign gathered her government councilors and subcommanders in her newly erected “palace.” A compound had been constructed to house Her Highness and Majesty, the voice and arm of Holy Zanahary, the instrument of the Creator and the Sacred Ancestors.
The seagoing pirates had returned from their confrontation with the English-speaking survivors unsure what the next step was going to be. Their booty, although not a great prize in any traditional sense, was welcome to comrades who were making do with the most meager rations. And they raised the group’s spirits with highly embellished stories of conquest on the high seas. Fellow Malagasy survivors laughed and gasped upon hearing the tales of derring-do.
The young woman who had assumed the title and role of queen, although outwardly high-spirited, was actually in a pensive mood. She had begun to calculate the potential risks and rewards of an attack on the strangers she and her men had encountered. Depending upon who they were and how many, and whether or not they had established an adequate defense against invasion, they might provide an ideal target for a successful raid—a raid that could help establish her newly founded Kingdom. The surviving population on Madagascar was a pathetic remnant that presented no threat.
And on the sea, aside from this one vessel of fishermen, she had encountered nothing but drifting wrecks. But those seven sailors, obviously based on the South African continent, represented a community whose strength was difficult to assess.
Despite the underlying fears and uncertainties, she felt as high on anticipation as she ever had on any drug. Adrenaline surged through her body. She only wished there were a way to fight the battle tonight, to draw blood, to’ see the fear in her “enemies’ “ eyes as she and her pirate company unleashed their own tsunami of violence and terror upon them.
Ranavolana—she was still getting used to the name—had surprised herself by how readily she took to leadership and military strategy. All those years, through college and her wandering times, she had always read books—Marcus Aurelius and Caesar, Sun-tzu and Mao Tse-tung. At her bedside now—it was a cot, really—she kept old paperbound copies of Mahan’s
