The Second Round

Dr Peters published his first novel, The Second Round, in 1965. It became the first novel published by a Gambia. Below is a synopsis:

From chapters 1-3, we discover Dr Kawa’s return by ship to his home country which just gained its independence, impervious to the offers of a better job and a better life in the U.K. His return is celebrated by his family particularly his mother and he is offered an abode by the government and a job at the hospital. The only other concern raised mainly by his mother is to marry and settle down. He convinces his mother that he will find a wife by himself and undoubtedly settle down. In chapters 4 and 5, Dr Kawa discovers his alma mater, Aggrey School, when he is called upon to conduct medical exams for about 300 students before they could offer to do sports. He is introduced to Mr Hamilton the principal and Jonah the school prefect as well as the rest of the staff during a lunch in his honour. Peters has a talent of vivifying his characters and giving explicit descriptions of them with the use of poetic which is not negligible. For example, through Jonah, we discover Mr Hamilton and can get a vivid image of what he is like.

His upper lips were screwed up characteristically as if the room was full of bad smells. […] he looked at Jonah over his half-lens with the persistence of a judge who does not believe the evidence and trusts his own dissecting powers to shell out the truth. (Peters 1965: 67)

Another character who affects his life is Mr Marshall, his neighbour, who visits him and complains of the infidelity of his wife Clara.

In chapters 7 and 8, Dr Kawa discovers another character, Laura, whom he saves after she is raped by two young men.

She was young. He rescued the tattered remnants of her pants from a reed, lifted her with infinite care first resting her on his knee, and began to carry her home. (Peters 1965: 82)

His relationship with Laura develops to love and he feels joyous during those brief moments. They both understood that chance brought them together the night they met.

They promised never to talk about that first meeting, but both understood that it was loneliness which had driven them both on those nightly walks which for her had ended tragically. (Peters 1965: 87-88)

He later discovers a lot of inexplicable and hidden secrets about Laura. First, he learns that she had an affair with someone else and is pregnant. She pleads to Dr Kawa to help her abort. What shocks him most is her generosity with her body. Yet he feels a strange love for Laura which could possibly be attributed to their shared loneliness or her innocent youthfulness and inexperience. Thus, when he discovers the pregnancy, it was very painful to him.

The love which was the basis of their relationship remained and tormented him more through dreams than in conscious thought. (Peters 1965: 91-92)

The second shocking revelation came when Jonah, a student prefect he met at the school, reveals in a drunken stupor that he loves Laura, who in actual fact, is his own sister.

 I love her. I loved her when we were children and I still love her. She is the only woman I have ever loved; my sister […] I love her as a man loves a woman. (Peters 1965: 100)

The revelation is terrible to Dr Kawa and several questions keep nagging him: could Laura’s baby then be a product of her incestuous relationship with her brother? Is that why Laura wants an abortion? Laura then runs away probably out of guilt of having a baby out of incest. Peters introduces to his readers the incestuous act between a sister and a brother. A prominent Senegalese writer, Sembene Ousman, also explores this theme in Vehi Ciosane. Incest is a taboo and though it exists within our African societies, it is hardly mentioned. Peters’ decision to break the silence on such a taboo can probably be attributed to his background as well as his desire to portray the reality left hidden for no apparent reasons. This was a bold stance and some critics would consider the Second Round as very western in its characterisation.

In chapters 8 and 9, Dr Kawa comes to discover more about the Marshalls. He receives frequent visits from Mr Marshall with whom he even goes turtle fishing. A part of this story on turtle hunting was published under the title ‘Hunt for a Turtle’ in Black and African Writing: a FESTAC anthology edited by Theo Vincent and published in 1981 in Lagos. On their first meeting, Clara informs Dr Kawa, without ambiguity, that her boyfriend Freddie (Mr Marshall’s nephew) is dying of cancer and implores Dr Kawa to help cure him. This revelation and what follows creates a heavy and explosive atmosphere in the Marshall home. To complicate it all, conflicting relationships emerge: Dr Kawa loves Clara but is constrained to provide medical assistant to her dying boyfriend, Freddie; Clara accommodates Freddie in the bedroom she shares with her husband; Mr Marshall, unable to take anymore of Clara’s attitude which has in no way affected her deep love for her, gradually succumbs to lunacy.

Mr Marshall was afraid to go mad which he confesses to Dr Kawa when he says, “I can't stand the humiliation of going mad.” (Peters 1965: 131) When Freddie is transferred to the Marshall’s home, however, he begins to rant and to talk to himself. Dr Kawa, on a visit to the Marshalls surprises Mr Marshall eating turtle eyes and when the latter notices Dr Kawa:

Who are you? M. Marshall asks meekly, still staring at Dr Kawa. Then, with aggressiveness he shouted; who are you to come into my house, and interrupt my lunch? (Peters 1965: 143)

Freddie’s suicide marks the climax of Mr Marshall’s insanity. He is confined to a sanatorium.

It is in the last two chapters (10 and 11), that Freddie’s illness degrades, Mr Marshall’s insanity reaches its climax and eventually Mr Marshall is confined. Freddie commits suicide and Clara, unable to accommodate the lost of Freddie commits suicide too by using her young daughter to stab her. By these events, The Second Round would be tagged ‘the first African horror story, the first African gothic novel’ by Larson in his book The Emergence of African Fiction.

Dr Kawa, disturbed evidently by the appalling events he went through since his return from the U.K., decides to move to the rural area where he hopes to find solace and peace of mind.