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

by Derek Walcott

  FIRST BANDIT

  D. A. Green

  SECOND BANDIT

  Michael C. Knight

  THE MAYOR

  Clark Morgan

  MITZI ALMANDOZ

  Mary Louise

  MR. MONGROO

  Charles S. Dutton

  MR. LAI-FOOK

  William Kux

  CARDIFF JOE

  Gilbert Lewis

  THE DEACON

  Keith Grant

  CHARACTERS

  SUMINTRA RAMSINGH, an East Indian woman

  OTTO HOGAN, mechanic and restaurant owner

  EUPHONY HOGAN, his sister

  THE LIMER, an idler

  ELDRIDGE FRANCO, schoolmaster

  DRUSILLA DOUGLAS, Otto’s niece

  CEDRIC HART, a television newscaster

  FIRST BANDIT

  SECOND BANDIT

  THE MAYOR, also called HERNANDO CADIZ

  MITZI ALMANDOZ, a widow

  MR. MONGROO

  MR. LAI-FOOK

  }

  members of the Borough Council

  CARDIFF JOE, also known as ALWYN DAVIES, ex-merchant seaman

  THE DEACON, a vagabond preacher

  SETTING: Couva, a town in central Trinidad, in the present. Couva is a real town, but the characters are surely fictional in this farce.

  ACT I

  SCENE 1

  Daybreak. The cross-country cries of roosters. SUMINTRA, in old sweater, old felt hat, boots, packing her things behind the counter. Distant gunfire. Shouts. She pauses, listens. Dogs bark. A last shot. OTTO rushes in. SUMINTRA waits behind the counter. OTTO hurriedly undresses. Removes a mask, broad straw hat, struggles with the dress.

  SUMINTRA

  Because the place ain’t open yet, lady.

  OTTO

  Sumintra. Is me. Your boss.

  SUMINTRA

  Mr. Hogan? Why you dress up so?

  OTTO

  Ahmm, it had a Carnival party last night.

  SUMINTRA

  [Coming around the counter]

  Because is you who harassing them workmen expanding the highway! The Spirit of the Road. So is you, Mr. Otto!

  OTTO

  To tell you the truth, I was trying on this dress

  for my sister. She have to take in the waist.

  How you so early? Cock just wake up.

  SUMINTRA

  Because I ain’t come to work, I come to quit. Every payday I does have to play goalie … [Imitating a goalkeeper] to try and catch my salary. Because this is the dawn of a new technology. Because when that highway open next Saturday is every man for she-self. I resign. Hey! Look your key! [Slaps the key into his open palm]

  OTTO

  Sumintra, three years you working here. People used to stop by just to eat your roti. I know, since my sister come to live with me, all you two women don’t get on. But she nervous ’cause she ain’t married. She engaged to a man in Wales for ten years now, but he should walk through that door any minute. Now, as regards your salary …

  SUMINTRA

  When? Because …

  OTTO

  [Explodes] When? When the Couva Borough Council move that mountain of municipal sand from in front my parlor. When they fill in that Panama Canal of a trench they dig right out there to lay pipe. When it ain’t an adventure in mountaineering for one customer, whoever he may be, to come in here, to …

  SUMINTRA

  In that case, when is never.

  OTTO

  Saturday, Saturday. Is nearer than never.

  SUMINTRA

  Because you too stubborn! If you had corporate with the Corporation, you could had a get a lickle piece of the action. Mind them ain’t catch you with them Dobermans. But not me they catching. Salaam aleicum.

  OTTO

  So long, salami? Sumintra, next Saturday dawn will rise with your salary. Is just the bank blank me for a loan. I’ll miss your voice, my brown little songbird. Sing, give me a trill!

  [Sings “Because”]

  SUMINTRA

  Trill? Because last week your sister charge in here from she fishing village and start giving me orders. She does give me trills!

  [OTTO goes to a glass case]

  OTTO

  Because Euphony not a Indian, she can’t make curry. Look at them sandwiches, they turning green. You can’t tell the meat from the lettuce.

  SUMINTRA

  Because Saturday, God spare, I coming for my money.

  OTTO

  You gone? You mean I ain’t go hear you, dress up so neat in your white apron and your white cap, rolling your white flour and singing “Because”? Sing, my little brown lark, and break my heart. Singh is your name, sing is your nature … One last time? One farewell performance, before the bulldozer mash up or the damn bank manager repossess this shop. Beee …

  [SUMINTRA prepares to sing]

  SUMINTRA

  Beeee …

  [EUPHONY enters, in head tie, dressing gown]

  EUPHONY

  Be Jesus, woman, shut up! You hear me, miss?

  SUMINTRA

  MISS? I married. Check the brass, baby. [Shows her ring] Because I ain’t waiting ten years for no man.

  OTTO

  Light, light, take it light.

  SUMINTRA

  Because that is why you vex! Three years I working here in Couva at Otto’s Auto Repair and Authentic Roti, of which part I was the Authentic; then you breeze in last week from your fishing village and start poking your nose in my curry pot. If you had man you’d be more busier than that.

  EUPHONY

  Cha, woman, go back in your cane field and trill “Because”! Day and night in that kitchen is “Because, because,” as if somebody ask you a question.

  SUMINTRA

  Cane field? Cane field? What so wrong with cane field? Because when I went on TV, Indian Competition, Mastana Bahar, you know what they call me? The Canefield Canary! Because either I stay or your sister go. [Silence] All right. I opening a stall by the side of the highway. Cabbage, scallion, tomato. So either I get my back pay by next Saturday or I collecting five thousand dollars leading to arrest of Mysterious Stranger. See him there! [Exits, singing]

  EUPHONY

  She saw you? Suppose the Couva canary sing to the police? [Calls] Miss Ramsingh!

  OTTO

  It is Mrs. Ramsingh. She married.

  EUPHONY

  I suppose if I was married, I’d get more respect. You didn’t tell her I’m engaged? Flashing her damn ring in front of my face!

  OTTO

  You ain’t engaged, you on some kind of pension. Ten years you been sitting down cobwebbed in a corner, your bridal gown turning yellow, waiting for Alwyn. And where is Alwyn? In Wales. Down in the mines. Now, unless Sumintra keeps quiet [Undressing furiously] all of Couva go know who is the Mysterious Stranger. The first few times the men working on the highway drop pick and shovel and run, because they was country people. They believed in spirits. Now they bring up men from town to work on the road, and people from town don’t believe in nothing. And all I have to do is sign a piece of paper saying the highway is legal. Now the cook gone.

  [EUPHONY helps OTTO to undress]

  EUPHONY

  What the Borough Council need your signature for?

  OTTO

  Because by ordinance the government shouldn’t legally build the highway without the approval of the Couva Borough Council, but they went ahead. Mongroo cousin get the contract, of course. Time come to vote, we reach a deadlock, and I have the casting vote. I didn’t like the setup. The highway still not legal. So they harassing me. They piling dirt in front here, they digging this damn trench. They should jail all of them. Your fiancé, Franco, included.

  EUPHONY

  The schoolmaster is not my fiancé. I am engaged to Alwyn Davies, Merchant Seaman. Miner. Boxer. And I know the Lord will send him to solve all our problems.

  [The LIMER, a young man in a cap, leather jacket, and sneakers, enters. He is carrying a huge t
ransistor radio going full blast. He shouts above the calypso music]

  LIMER

  Morning, Mr. Otto! One bold-face sandwich!

  OTTO

  This boy does grind me! You talking Yankee?

  It is known as an open-face sandwich, boy.

  LIMER

  Mornin’, Miss Hogan. You hear all the shooting this morning? They keep firing shots at the phantom, the Mysterious Stranger. You can’t make up an order while you talking? Them workmen hungry.

  OTTO

  What? Turn down that thing, boy! [The LIMER switches it off] Workmen? What workmen?

  LIMER

  In view of the present situation with the Mysterious Stranger, they bring up a task force from Port of Spain to finish the highway by next week, Mr. Otto. The task force would like to order their breakfast.

  OTTO

  The task force? Six workmen liming under a tree by the side of the road, and the foreman forcing them to play cards. Is them you mean? I tell you, I ain’t serving them idlers. I must put bread in my enemy’s mouth?

  [The LIMER sits carefully]

  LIMER

  Hear nuh, is a big order! From the foreman down. Seven beef roti, two without pepper; one chicken; two goat, one without pepper; a hops and salami, easy on the butter; a hops and shark; three beers; four sweet … Sumintra not here?

  OTTO

  I can’t put food in the mouth of my enemy, boy. So they eat here, they order their lunch, their belly full, they satisfy, their energy restored, so they work hard as hell, and the road done in no time, and by next week this shop go be in splinters.

  LIMER

  Oho? So your plan is to keep them weak?

  OTTO

  Boy, you deaf?

  LIMER

  You behind the times, Mr. Otto. You can’t stop that highway. You can’t stop progress. And you can’t stop the task force from eating. When your niece Drusilla get up, tell her I was here. I’ll be back for the order. [He exits]

  OTTO

  You see? You see what I mean? Manners gone. Is the highway. Is the blasted highway. It changing manners down the line, and a straight line is the most boring distance between two points. Drusilla get up yet? Nah. Too early. That girl is a dreamer, she don’t know what going on. Shots, dogs, nothing wake her.

  EUPHONY

  I heard voices in her room last night. She was crying.

  [Distant sound of a tractor]

  OTTO

  Voices, what kind of voices? Hear that tractor. Our doom is approaching … What voices?

  EUPHONY

  Love talk. A lot of heavy breathing … She was just sitting there crying … She hides the small TV under her sheet. Blake and Linda mash up. [She brings OTTO a cup of coffee. Returns to the counter] It break the girl heart.

  OTTO

  Blake and Linda? They living here, too?

  EUPHONY

  Is a soap opera.

  OTTO

  Crying? Blake and Linda in trouble? And not a drop for me? God bless television. This country girl in Couva, forty thousand miles from Blake and Linda, crying because their marriage in trouble? You think Blake and Linda, two rich young white people living in California who have my niece sobbing, would back a loan from the Couva bank? I hope you tell Franco that it will be his turn tomorrow night to play the Mysterious Stranger.

  [EUPHONY sits next to him, with her cup of coffee]

  EUPHONY

  Not yet. But he says he’ll do anything that I ask him.

  OTTO

  Is five thousand dollars the Mongroo Construction Company offering for information leading to the arrest of the Mysterious Stranger. Because ain’t tell the police I go make them catch Franco and collect the reward.

  EUPHONY

  You’d be a Judas. [Removes a necktie from his pocket. Snaps it around his neck]

  OTTO

  Judas had bills. Jesus had his Old Man backing Him.

  EUPHONY

  Otto Hogan! You want lightning to strike you? Never lose your trust in Him. Even though, like Job, He afflicts you with boils …

  OTTO

  I rather boils to bills. Well, is bank-manager time. [Rises]

  EUPHONY

  Let us pray.

  OTTO

  Woman, I can’t kneel now, I walking to the bank.

  Otto Hogan, mechanic, first in line for a loan.

  [At the doorway, in the light]

  Ah, morning in Couva! The breeze smelling of cane.

  T’ain’t have no happiness like credit, today.

  When you are reflected in a bank manager’s eye,

  da’ is your day of judgment on this earth.

  Good works and honesty are not collateral,

  and I learning that too late, to my own cost.

  [Exits. LIMER enters]

  LIMER

  Gimme a hot dog. Lord, I hungry!

  OTTO

  [Reenters]

  Take a pew.

  [Exits]

  EUPHONY

  No current. The hot dogs cold.

  LIMER

  A ham and hops bread. Drusilla still sleeping? The girl have dropsy?

  EUPHONY

  No ham. Salami. Kneel down, say grace. No kneeling, no sandwich.

  LIMER

  [Kneels]

  Salami aleicum. Gimme a hot dog any temperature.

  EUPHONY

  [Praying over sandwich]

  May the mustard of mercy fill your stomach and your spirit.

  LIMER

  A salami and tomato, then.

  EUPHONY

  Here. Ready-made. [Hands him sandwich]

  LIMER

  For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful—well yes! I order a salami and tomato. This is a tomato and salami. The sausage hiding. [Extends sandwich]

  EUPHONY

  You holding it wrong side! [Reverses sandwich] Now shut your mouth and drink your coffee. [Gives him a newspaper]

  LIMER

  [Drinks coffee, exhales loudly]

  You know, I ain’t know where my inspiration does come

  from. Hear this:

  [Sings]

  This morning as usual I wake up sad.

  I was worried about the future of Trinidad.

  But upon drinking my first coffee

  my attitude to Trinidad changed immediately …

  for Couva in the morning is a blessed sight,

  the cane fields waving in the early-morning light,

  is a beautiful benediction, but now there’s danger

  on account of the presence of a Mysterious Stranger …

  [Slapping his body]

  Pencil, pencil, I need pencil and paper to write it, quick!

  EUPHONY

  Don’t waste my good napkins, boy!

  LIMER

  [Humming]

  This morning as usual … [Opens the newspaper, jumps up]

  Ay, I see you made the papers. [Reads] “Residents of Couva in County Caroni are disturbed by the appearance of a mysterious figure, a woman apparently, said to be the spirit of a silk cotton tree.”

  EUPHONY

  What they feel was just an old tree or a crooked old woman is their own African grandmother. They uprooted that security.

  LIMER

  Well, Security have permission from the police that the next time that woman appear, they go blast her backside back to that kingdom she come from. So if you in touch with her you best tell her that.

  EUPHONY

  [Tapping her temple] Seven beef roti, that’s, at two-fifty each, fourteen something; one chicken, le’ we say sixteen; two goat, another five, that’s twenty-one; a hops and salami, easy on the butter; a hops and shark, three beers, four sweet drinks. Look, come to the cash register and work this out for me. I ain’t learnt how to use it. Hurry, before Otto comes back! [Drags him from the table to the counter]

  LIMER

  [Swallows bread] Lady, I can’t chew and count. Jesus, talk about day-old bread. This one born Mond
ay. Okay. What you counting? Ready, steady, go! [Flexes fingers like a pianist, then plays the cash register] Come here and look. [Whips out the amount with a flourish. SCHOOLCHILDREN’S VOICES, distant, singing “Santa Lucia”]

  EUPHONY

  My father! This ain’t day-old bread, boy. Is real money. Listen, you take their orders, and when my brother in the back repairing some car, I go sneak it back out to you, and ten percent is yours! Five dollars, boy, just for a short walk? What happen? Is a job!

  LIMER

  A job? Lady, you mad? Nobody ever threaten me with a job before! [Goes over to the window or the open door] Here they come, singing! Promptly at 8:00. Your schoolmaster with his crocodile of uniformed monkeys.

  EUPHONY

  Is Mr. Franco out there? Talk to him, I go run in quick and change! And don’t call them sweet-faced little schoolchildren monkeys! [Exits, undressing]

  LIMER

  Is Mr. Franco himself who does call them so. Mr. Eldridge Franco, B.A. Doubtful. Have them parked on one side of the road. Where the silk cotton tree was. He have the whole class looking down in the hole, teaching them about the past. Well, history is a deep hole. [Singing stops] Last week that big tree gave them shade and strength. Today them poor schoolchildren standing there in the blazing sun with all their roots gone.

  [FRANCO, the schoolmaster, enters in jacket and tie, carrying a baton]

  LIMER

  Ah, good morning, Mr. Schoolmaster, sir. You hear the shooting?

  FRANCO

  Good-morning, cockroach. Yes, I heard shooting.

  LIMER

  And all them dogs barking at the Tree Spirit?

  FRANCO

  African nostalgia. Superstitious rubbish.

  They left the shop open with you here?

  Where’s “Because”?

  LIMER

  Why?

  [Shrugs]

  You hungry?

  But Miss Euphony gone inside, evidently

  to powder and perfume, just for you. How’s life?

  FRANCO

  Since when have we been on such intimate terms?

  [EUPHONY enters, pretending to be surprised at the schoolmaster’s presence]

  EUPHONY

  Good morning, Mr. Franco. I heard the singing outside and I thought it was the radio. Is that the song they will be singing when they open the highway? You have trained them beautifully.

  LIMER