Manderlay Page #9

Monday, at 8:
00 in the evening.

He told me to tell you he will

wait in the car outside the gates

for a quarter of an hour,

not a second longer,

the way he did in Dogville, he says,

and the way he did with your mother,

I think it was.

- When he asked her to marry him.

- Yeah, something like that.

If you want to go with him,

you better be there

'cause he says he'll just push on.

I know, I get the message.

All right, I'm on my way.

- Take care, Miss Grace.

- You, too, Edward.

- Oh, Edward.

- Hmm?

Just tell Dad that new times

have come to Manderlay.

But no, Grace had no intention

of going with her father when he arrived.

She had her own life to lead now,

and it suited her just fine.

But she'd be at the gates, anyhow.

She just had to show him

what she had achieved:

a new and better Manderlay.

It was examination day

for Stanley and the family.

Because even though things

had been going well recently,

when Stanley partook

of his traditional beer with Mr. Miller,

nobody would be able to prevent him

from revealing what had happened

on the plantation,

and thereby ruin it all.

Wilhelm had been highly skeptical

about letting the whites

talk to the drivers at all.

But Grace had insisted.

She trusted them.

Oh, Sammy!

Oh, Lord, Sam.

Eejit n*gger!

Are you totally useless?

Sorry, Mr. Mays.

Ha ha! I'm jokin'

Stanley Mays

and the family passed.

That very evening,

Grace pronounced them

graduate Americans.

Bertie!

And although they were free to go,

they had elected to stay,

as there was talk of hiring

the family and Stanley Mays

on a permanent basis.

And before anybody knew it,

the days had passed,

and the money was in the bank

from where it had been picked up

by proud Timothy on horseback.

Niels and Sammy

had fixed the car...

wisely without reference

to the manual.

- Thank you for everything.

- Thank you.

What are you gonna do now?

I don't know.

You could always

go back to gangstering.

Where's Mr. Robinson?

He's been down in the cabin,

shakin' hands.

Grace was touched by Mr. Robinson's

sudden social interest

in the former slaves.

But it felt right when the car left.

It was time for Grace

to say good-bye to power.

# Brave and strong,

thy men and women #

# Better this, than corn and wine #

# Make us worthy, God in Heaven #

# Of this goodly land of Thine #

# Hearts as open as our doorways #

# Liberal hands and spirits free #

# Alabama, Alabama #

# We will aye be true to thee #

He's watching you.

- No, he's not.

- He's watching you.

No, he's not.

I reckon it have somethin' to do

with them gangsters leavin'

See, honey, when you was boss,

he was visitin' your kingdom.

Now you're visitin' his.

I reckon he wants you now.

He should have some dinner.

I'm gonna go get him.

- You gonna go get him?

- Uh-huh.

You've gotta come

get some dinner.

Be quiet, woman.

In Mam's bedroom, Grace recalled

Flora's worrying, intimate little details.

Sexual intercourse amongst the Munsi

was determined by ancient traditions.

It would not appeal to Grace,

Flora had said.

Not with Grace's modern ideas of

equality of people and the sexes.

But Grace seemed to have left her

progressive attitudes at the table.

Now actually in the situation

she had dreamed of,

it was all

more bizarre than erotic.

Anyway, Grace decided

to hang on to this opinion.

Timothy, wake up!

Timothy's horse had got out of

the stable when fires had been lit

around the Manderlay slave quarters

while Grace was asleep.

What happened?

I can't tell you.

If you want a clear answer,

you're gonna have to ask somebody else.

- The gangsters took the money.

- What?

The gangsters took the money.

That's the answer.

And I reckon

it's a pretty clear answer, too.

It certainly is very clear.

What makes you think so?

When the party ended...

...we all left the table...

...to go and take a look

at the money.

Timothy had hid it

behind the red slope.

Timothy was meant to be keepin'

an eye on the place,

but he wasn't there.

And the box had been pulled up.

It was empty.

One of the gangsters

dug up the money

when he was pretendin'

to say good-bye.

But he couldn't have

done it alone.

Someone must have told him

where the box was.

And Sammy

refused to admit it was him,

although he'd spent

a whole lot of time with Niels.

And then everybody

started yellin' and screamin' and...

and folks is angry,

and no one's listenin'

Stanley Mays and the family

got away, I believe.

Although Philomena and Bertie

got cut up real bad.

Elizabeth is dead, too,

although that was mostly by accident.

It was too soon

to send the guns away.

We weren't quite ready yet.

For once,

Grace had nothing to say.

She could but reproach herself

in silence

for her tasteless joke

to the gangsters

about resorting to their former

occupations if things got tight.

- Wilhelm, I can't rouse Timothy.

- No, I bet you can't.

He drank three bottles

of hooch before we ate.

The Munsi don't drink.

Well, maybe... they do

on special occasions.

Well, it certainly

is lively around here.

Didn't I tell you

I didn't want to see you here again?

Yes, but I've not come

to do a deal,

I've come to conclude one.

And in the hope, of course,

you'll see that I am an honest man.

I needn't have come back here

to settle up at all.

This is your 80%.

Quite a tidy little sum it is, too,

as you can see.

It's the money from our harvest.

I expect so.

It's that time of year.

See, I had a little game with

a young man who came to see me.

I knew he'd come from here, so...

I've made my humble return.

Don't you think you just might

have been wrong about me?

Who did you play

for all this money?

Well, it was a day ago now.

I'd have come sooner,

but I passed this black car

with some gentlemen

in dark coats.

They began to follow me,

shouting the whole time

that I was going to die,

that I was a con man

who dealt from the bottom.

What an accusation, eh?

It just took me a while to get away...

Who was it?

The nigra fellow arrived

on horseback.

What was his name?

Timothy.

That was it!

Timothy, yeah, that was his name.

He's a Munsi.

They don't gamble.

Well, I know Munsi don't gamble.

I'm a bit of an expert in this field.

You have a devil time gettin' them

to the gamin' table. No.

He's no Munsi.

In fact, he's what I'd call

a splendid fella at the card table.

He just stayed bein' splendid,

no matter how much he lost.

But he told everyone

he was a Munsi.

Of course.

See, all the girls

were wild about the tales he told.

All the Munsi tales.

The proud African, the royal line.

You know, all that

old-fashioned morality.

And the accent, of course.

So, on account of that,

the girls was easy to bed.

I'm not even going

to avail myself of your gratitude.

That's just the kind of fella I am.

Hey, ho!

Now bless me if I can

come up with a motto for today.

They say the Mansi

are better hung than the Munsi.

Or, the Munsi are so up-stuck,

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