Who cared? At the next rehearsal, Aro said it proved the power of theatre, and the warrior chorus danced in victory.

In the library’s darkroom Rika developed the film from the rehearsal, and when she finished, Gina came in to see the prints as they dried on the line. She looked at them carefully and said, ‘Why don’t you photograph the performance? For the library.’ And then she asked, ‘Is there a script? Or is it improvised?’

‘I think there’s a script. I’ll ask Milton,’ Rika said.

When she did, Milton stiffened his back. What kind of a question was that? He was a writer, and yes, there was a script. When they made changes in rehearsal, he added them in; Aro, the director, said he should, it’s what writers did. The script was a mess, in the sense of being untidy. Did that matter?

‘We’ll ask Gina,’ Rika said.

So they drove to Boroko, where the library’s temporary offices were above the Toyota dealership. On the way, Milton told Rika about his samuna grandfather, and the plantation, and his father’s land that was going to oil palm, and nothing growing underneath. Rika had never heard of palm oil. Oil, from palm? For soap? When they got out of the car, there on the street in Boroko Milton lifted his arms and turned himself into a squat, brooding oil palm with an aura of silence spreading out around him.

‘Even a tree,’ she told Laedi and Martha at the beach that afternoon. ‘He can even make himself look like a tree!’

In Gina’s cramped office, he was himself again, a student sitting across the desk from a librarian, scrunched next to Rika, their knees up against the desk. Books and papers were piled up against the walls, and the desk was a sea of folders. They sat, watching for clues, as Gina looked at the script of Our Ground, turning the pages, frowning, turning back again before she went on. When she finished, she put the script on the desk, turned it to face Milton.

‘Is this what you’re working from?’ she asked him.

‘Yes.’ He sounded dubious. Was that the right answer?

‘Perfect,’ Gina said. ‘How would you feel if it came into the library with Rika’s photos? After the performance.’

‘Fine,’ Milton said, without a hint of the eagerness that had had him grinning in the car.

‘Though first,’ Gina said, ‘we should get it typed out and give you a clean copy. You’ll need it. You never know, it might get published.’

Published! Yeah! In the darkroom Milton hopped from foot to foot. Maybe this talk of being a writer wasn’t just hambak and gaiman – humbug and lies. Maybe someone like him could publish a book. James Baldwin had. Milton thought of Rufus Scott as if he was Baldwin, as if he’d written the novel, which he knew he couldn’t have, as he’d thrown himself off the George Washington Bridge. Dead. Still, to Milton, Baldwin and Rufus Scott were one. In class, Aro said that maybe Rufus was one of Baldwin’s selves, and jumping from the bridge was the fate he imagined for himself, had he not escaped to France. That made sense. But did it mean that white characters were other selves? Did Baldwin have a white self? Did he want a white self?