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Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken; and A Branch of the Blue Nile

Page 2

by Derek Walcott


  his whole culture as if it were a sunset,

  because all embarkation is a fantasy. You see

  those pilgrims in the painting? They can’t move.

  It’s like some paralyzed moment in a carnival.

  Sometimes he paints like a perfume manufacturer,

  but when he’s great … what an elegy to the light,

  what a piercing sadness! He died young.

  And you feel it, every stroke like a goodbye.

  See? In the meantime, Miss W., Santa Rosa

  is what you and I have for our paradise.

  [He is drawing]

  AGATHA

  Why do you come down to the studio so early?

  If I’m up then, your light’s already on.

  VICTOR

  Because it’s cool in the darkness in the hills.

  Because then money and villainy are still asleep.

  Where’re the kids today?

  AGATHA

  In town. I told you

  that Oswald was taking them to the races.

  We told you about it since last Saturday.

  VICTOR

  Oh! And why didn’t you go with them? Keep still.

  AGATHA

  Because you wanted me here to finish the sitting.

  VICTOR

  And, being British, you always finish what you start?

  AGATHA

  Doesn’t seem particularly British to me.

  VICTOR

  A difference in temperament, then, Miss W.

  I rarely finish what I start. There’s despair:

  a queue of unfinished canvases, face to the wall.

  AGATHA

  I suppose it’s artistic to talk about despair.

  Thank God I’ve no talent; it seems to sadden people.

  I’d better get back to me book.

  VICTOR

  You’d rather read your book than talk to me?

  AGATHA

  Don’t be silly. It was getting embarrassing.

  [The clapping and chanting outside fade]

  VICTOR

  [Hums the chant]

  “Come, let we dance the cocoa, come let we dance…”

  [He returns to the easel. AGATHA holds up the book]

  AGATHA

  This is a very fine novel. Trinidadian. You read it?

  VICTOR

  It’s bound to be provincial and bitter. No.

  [AGATHA puts on glasses, scans the book’s back jacket]

  Don’t read too many novels, Miss Willett.

  You’ll look around you and all you’ll see is fiction,

  some colorful backwater of the Empire.

  Both of us want to see what we believe,

  and if you look hard enough it will become that,

  the way I can’t help seeing Santa Rosa.

  It’s very very hard to see things as they are.

  AGATHA

  You mean those women out there aren’t poor?

  VICTOR

  Yes. But not in the way you think they are.

  AGATHA

  What other way is there?

  VICTOR

  The way you see them.

  AGATHA

  And how is that?

  VICTOR

  You’re moved by poverty

  as some minds are by music. That’s to your credit.

  But there’s no fear of your becoming a snob.

  You’ll always have working-class hands, Miss Willett.

  AGATHA

  Sorry. Why bother to paint them, then?

  VICTOR

  Sorry. I said that because I find hands hard to draw.

  AGATHA

  Don’t take your frustration with the drawing

  out on me. I can’t see why you’re dissatisfied.

  I believe in your talent, Mr. De …

  VICTOR

  Victor.

  AGATHA

  I believe in your talent, Victor …

  [Shudders]

  Brrrrrr …

  I believe time will reward your industry.

  VICTOR

  I’m honored.

  [He holds her]

  AGATHA

  You’re used to all this, you see.

  But I’m not, you see, and there’s the difference.

  I don’t want to grow affected. I don’t want

  to put on airs. But sometimes I find

  all of that beauty out there so stifling

  I’m afraid it’ll suffocate my conscience.

  I’m just a Cockney bint from Putney, sir, but

  I do resent being used. I do rather resent

  your performing for me as if I were your journal.

  You’ve made my hands feel very awkward now.

  VICTOR

  Do you want to leave? It’s just been seven months.

  AGATHA

  No. I like it here. I like it very much.

  [VICTOR takes her hands]

  VICTOR

  You do? Trinidad or Santa Rosa?

  AGATHA

  Both. They’re one and the same.

  VICTOR

  What about Port of Spain?

  [He kisses both hands]

  AGATHA

  Port of Spain, as well. Yes.

  [Looking away]

  Also, I’m very fond of you. But I believe …

  I believe it is my duty to help others,

  my comrades, of whatever colour, with less than me.

  I believe, for whatever my layman’s judgement is worth,

  that you can be one of the greatest painters in …

  VICTOR

  In Trinidad …

  AGATHA

  I believe the God I don’t believe in

  will reward you, because of your hard work.

  I’m going to change, then go for a long walk.

  A British walk … Yes. I’m quite fond of you.

  VICTOR

  Then what shall we do about that fondness, love?

  [Victor puts down his brushes, walks towards her, cups her face in his hands]

  SCENE 3

  The verandah, brilliant moonlight. OSWALD sits in a white wicker chair next to a bottle of gin. An antique, electrified Victrola is playing Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine, sung by Gigli. The lights dim, the record groans to a halt. Distant steel band music.

  OSWALD

  Oh, Christ!

  [He goes to the far corner of the verandah and shouts]

  Ra-fay-yell! What the arse going on?

  RAFAEL’S VOICE

  The generator pulling too much load, Mr. Ozzie!

  She might break down.

  OSWALD

  I go break down! Send up some lamps!

  Send some for Mr. Victor so he could work!

  RAFAEL’S VOICE

  I done that long days! Jean coming with the lamps!

  [JEAN, a young maid, enters, carrying two large lamps. She sets a lamp down near OSWALD’s chair, then uses another chair to hang an old-fashioned lamp from its chain]

  JEAN

  Rafael send me with these. Mr. Ozzie, Agatha say she taking a hot bath, and she coming downstairs to give you dinner just now.

  OSWALD

  Who say? “Agatha!” Jean?

  JEAN

  Miss Agatha, Mr. Oswald.

  OSWALD

  Just Oswald, Miss Jean.

  JEAN

  I tell Miss Willett I can’t call her her first name.

  She does correct me and force me every time.

  So it does slip me. I ain’t like calling she

  by she first name either. But she say we equal.

  OSWALD

  So, Miss Jean, tell me; I see a set of benches

  and a old blackboard on the back verandah;

  this is the second Saturday I notice them.

  Miss Willett running some sort of school on the verandah?

  I wouldn’t know, you see, ’cause my Saturdays

  is for the Queen’s Park Hotel, and the races.

  That wha
t she been doing?

  JEAN

  Yes, Mr. Oswald.

  OSWALD

  What, children from the village or what?

  JEAN

  Sydney and me, but it have old people, too.

  She does give us books and t’ing. And some talks

  does be about politics. British Empire,

  Village council; principle of government …

  She does teach us our rights …

  OSWALD

  Okay, Jean.

  Good night, Jean. Careful going home,

  don’t let jumbie hold you.

  JEAN

  [Laughing]

  I ain’t ’fraid spirits.

  Night, Mr. Oswald.

  [AGATHA enters in a terry-cloth bathrobe and a turban, and Indian slippers]

  AGATHA

  Good night, Jean.

  JEAN

  Good night.

  [Exits]

  OSWALD

  We go have to ease up

  on them luxurious hot-water baths for a bit.

  The Delco pulling too much heat.

  AGATHA

  Back to rationing, eh?

  OSWALD

  The kids asleep?

  AGATHA

  Ay. They drop like chickens

  once it gets dark.

  OSWALD

  They don’t drop like chickens, nuh,

  they drop like the price of cocoa these days.

  I ain’t know what I go tell the bank Monday.

  AGATHA

  They were splashing around in the river all afternoon bathing their horses.

  [She pours herself a drink]

  OSWALD

  Was Sydney there with them?

  AGATHA

  Why not? He’s the best rider of the bunch.

  OSWALD

  He’s getting too tall to be a jockey, though.

  AGATHA

  A jockey? That’s what’s ahead of him?

  OSWALD

  What else?

  A rancher?

  AGATHA

  God, but it hurts, though!

  To see them go their ways with every sunset.

  No matter how green, how wonderful their day,

  stoning mangoes, playing cricket, swimming,

  and, like today, washing those lovely horses

  under the bamboos, with Sydney grooming them

  the way you treat your Humber. When it’s sunset,

  they go their ways: Sydney to his room in the yard,

  Clodia and Tony bathed and prayed and powdered

  up to their clean linen. It breaks my heart.

  “Night, Sydney, night, Miss Aggie, till tomorrow.”

  [Silence]

  I’m tired too. Why? I was out dancing the cocoa.

  That’s why I was dawdling in the bath so long.

  [Removes her slippers, sniffs her feet]

  I’m glad I never knew how they did it in England.

  Someone over there’s going to be drinkin’ this.

  I was with the women, dancing, trampling the beans.

  There’re these long trays out in the sun, you see …

  OSWALD

  I know how it’s done.

  And that makes you one with black women, I suppose?

  Then you come back and luxuriate in the bath.

  AGATHA

  Well, I can’t reek of the bloody thing all night.

  It’d rub off on Victor; or, come scrub my back.

  OSWALD

  You’re a very fragrant Communist, sweetheart.

  AGATHA

  I’m not a Communist, dolt! Ah, Mother’s ruin!

  [Drinks the gin]

  You think all socialists stink?

  What a moon!

  I’m feeling drunk on this gin-colored moonlight!

  Moon’s like a bloody searchlight. The war’s over,

  but I still get nightmares over the buzz bombs.

  They arch over England, hit, then the explosions

  turn into palm trees, and I wake up in Santa Rosa!

  Know who lost the First War? The working class.

  Officers and privates, yeomen and gentlemen,

  meanwhile, the privates who dropped their aitches

  dropped like flies in the mud. By the Armistice,

  in spite of Flanders and the Somme, old England

  went back to what it was. The ones who won

  were the officers and gentlemen. Granddad

  used to wheeze that to me with his poisoned lungs.

  ’E got badly gassed. He was a bitter veteran.

  A Putney socialist. Gin rest his soul.

  [OSWALD rises, reaches up for a lamp, offers it to her]

  OSWALD

  Here. Why you just don’t burn this damn place?

  AGATHA

  [She rehangs the lamp]

  Try and understand me, Oswald, won’t you?

  I’d spin the globe at school, in geography;

  there was red for the empire—the whole universe

  looked like it had scarlet fever—red for the colonies,

  orange for the Dominions, one-seventh of the world.

  One-seventh of the ruddy globe! Your federation’s coming.

  Seriously! Why not offer your labourers

  a share in the estate?

  OSWALD

  A welfare state in the bush?

  Besides, what would they offer me as capital?

  AGATHA

  Their labour. I know you think I’m a pain.

  All right. Let’s change the subject.

  My employer wishes me to change the subject.

  What happened to Victor’s wife, Brierly?

  OSWALD

  He didn’t tell you? She went away. Do you mind

  if we don’t discuss it? I don’t like gossip

  to get into my drinks.

  AGATHA

  Went away. Where?

  OSWALD

  Heaven, presumably. We always tell the children heaven.

  Since she was a good Catholic and a local white

  from a good family, I would say heaven.

  AGATHA

  Good family. What’s a good family? Good Christ!

  No. What’s a good family? One with ancestors?

  Lineage? Even a bloody ape’s got lineage.

  The types who come drinking here on Sundays,

  vomiting or pissing in my garden beds,

  are they good family?

  OSWALD

  They been here long.

  AGATHA

  So’ve the bloody frogs.

  [She giggles]

  OSWALD

  Drink your gin, Willett …

  AGATHA

  What happened to Brierly? How did she die?

  OSWALD

  You getting predictable. You falling into

  a cat’gory, Willett …

  AGATHA

  Cat-e-gory. The way you say it

  sounds like a town in Canada. How?

  OSWALD

  Malaria.

  AGATHA

  Malaria? I thought we’d eradicated malaria.

  We have everywhere else in the world.

  OSWALD

  Pardon me, madam, that we still so backward!

  There were other complications. She was pregnant.

  It weakened her. Oh, Christ, Aggie, enough.

  It’s moonlight. Leave the dead alone,

  let the moonlight seep through the ground

  to soothe their faces. Listen to that steel band.

  [Steel-band music stops]

  They’re playing classics now. I could have been a great

  opera singer, you know? Ever hear me in the bath?

  When I hit them L’Africaine, so!

  [Sings]

  O Par-a-dis- …

  AGATHA

  You loved her. Didn’t you?

  Poor Oswald. Oswald? You did love her.

  OSWALD

  Poor Oswald, my arse. My godfather was drunk. Listen:


  a toilet flushing or a man gargling … Ozzwuld, Ozwald.

  The first-born always gets the first choice, sweetheart.

  AGATHA

  Did Victor know?

  OSWALD

  [Gargling]

  Ozzwulld, Ozzwulld.

  I generally inherit Victor’s toys. Ozwulld.

  AGATHA

  Well, Agatha’s no great name. A maiden aunt.

  A spinster in a corner knitting patterns.

  OSWALD

  You ain’t no maiden.

  AGATHA

  Christ, you’re coarse. Aie!

  [She runs off. OSWALD closes the ledgers, drinks more gin, closes his eyes. AGATHA returns, carrying a potted plant with a white bud]

  I nearly forgot.

  I found her hiding under some damp moss, in the hollow

  of the old banyan. An old labourer told me

  she opens in the moonlight, her bud unfolds

  to the full moon. So frail … Is she an orchid?

  OSWALD

  He didn’t tell you what

  country boys call her? White-woman-pussy. Bucolic, what?

  You ain’t leaving her on this verandah, sweetheart.

  AGATHA

  Why not? [To the orchid] He doesn’t like you.

  OSWALD

  Why not? Bajacs, fire ants, termites!

  I’ve asked you not to bring plants in the house.

  Some of them ain’t domesticated, know what I mean?

  Give me the damn thing! This ain’t Kew Gardens, madame.

  Next thing the whole house is a skeleton.

  You weren’t brought out here to change things, Willett!

  AGATHA

  It’s your land, sir. I meant it no offense.

  [OSWALD throws away the plant]

  OSWALD

  Listen, Miss Joan of Arc of the cocoa trees,

  Miss Willett, the missionary, knee-deep in pig shit,

  Miss Willett teaching little black pickneys self-reliance,

  Miss Willett dancing the cocoa like she crazy.

  But Miss Willett after a sweaty day with the natives

  climbing into a mahogany four-poster and reading

  Marx by an antique lamp, glowing after her hot bath

  in her porcelain tub … They need protection

  from your third-class remorse.

  AGATHA

  I’m going to teach them.

  Sydney’s going to be more than a bloody groom!

  OSWALD

  What the arse do you know about running an estate,

  or the history of Trinidad, you and your

  London School of Economics degree?

  Look, woman, don’t mash up my moonlight, hear me?

  You have Jean, a maid, calling me by my first name.

  Or at least considering it. You had Sydney

  eating at the dining table with Clodia and Tony.

  You know who’s going to suffer? Not you,

  not Clodia, not Tony, but Sydney. Anyway, George …

  AGATHA

  Damned if I’ll be ruled by what George says!

  OSWALD

  Sydney loves horses. He could be a great jockey.

  He and the kids have a great time in the river

 

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