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

by Derek Walcott

You know how long I ain’t open this thing?

  This good book brings back memories of a good man.

  The old man would sit there, in retirement,

  with a Bible on his knee, a collar with no button,

  looking out on the old road. Well, one day

  he went straight to heaven like a rocket.

  He didn’t say goodbye. All we saw was

  a rocking chair swinging by an open window,

  empty. He left this Bible. All you ready?

  DEACON

  Let the bride and groom draw near the counter, please.

  All you hold hands tight before you disappear.

  From reality to shadow, from the substantial

  to the insubstantial, we believe in our images

  instead of ourselves until everything that lives

  ain’t holy no longer but fully photographed,

  and the test of our creed is: “I saw it on TV.”

  And is why I let my bare foot take the road,

  running from my shadow till it catch up with me,

  and make me a midget; I go sleep here tonight,

  then the tractors go come, but I go be gone.

  ’Cause Lead Kindly Light ain’t battery-powered.

  And this is the message of the Church Itinerant.

  Now, to the same tune, “A Bride with Me…”

  For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God to take our

  dear brother Alwyn, dust to dust …

  [EUPHONY groans, sits at a table, removes hat and gloves]

  CARDIFF JOE

  Not yet, Cyril.

  MAYOR’S VOICE [offstage; loudspeaker] Dese are difficult times, ladies and gentleman. And dose of us …

  FRANCO

  Ohmygod! Oh, my heavens! In front of all those children! All my life’s work in vain. [Shouting] These are difficult times. Those of us … Blasted bulldozer!

  CARDIFF JOE

  Anybody here was ever married?

  MITZI

  It starts: “Dearly Beloved.”

  OTTO

  You should know.

  CARDIFF JOE

  “Dearly Beloved, Dearly Beloved,” Cyril …

  DEACON

  Same to you, Alwyn.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Don’t you remember anything?

  DEACON

  I do. That’s it. “I do.” You say that. Both of you.

  OTTO

  Hurry up, Euphony, before he forget.

  EUPHONY

  What’s the rush, I ain’t pregnant. [She ambles over to her place]

  CARDIFF JOE

  Wait a second. I nearly forgot. I’ll show you a trick. If I were to press this cash register now, the whole thing would detonate, and without a fuse.

  EUPHONY

  What fuse? Who ask you to do that? How you could do something so crazy, Alwyn?

  OTTO

  What you telling me, Alwyn? That there’s a bomb for true?

  CHILDREN’S VOICES

  [Reciting]

  Sweet Couva, loveliest village of the plain,

  where health and plenty cheered the smiling swain.

  Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

  where wealth accumulates and men decay …

  CARDIFF JOE

  Maybe. We’ll see! Everybody complains. Nobody does a bloody thing. Blow it up and start again. I learnt one thing in the ring, mate. Move fast. Quick decision. It would make a hole in the highway bigger than the old silk cotton. Let them worry.

  FRANCO

  What you mean? They’re my children out there!

  CARDIFF JOE

  It would still be safe. Just a hell of a noise. I wrote the Mayor a note. I spent all night laying wire in the seams, covering it. The governments promise progress, but do they ever ask the people what kind of progress they want? If they want the kind that destroys the people, be it a new highway or a new bomb?

  FRANCO

  Where’s the wire? Where’s the wire? O God! The little monkeys are out there! Mercury, grant these feet wings. Go, Macaroni Socks! [Hurtles out the door]

  EUPHONY

  [At the window, waving] Run, Eldridge, run! God, look at him stride, he just jump a ditch, he jump another one, head up, glasses on, he’s following the fuse, go, go, Macaroni Socks, dirt flying behind him, he just miss a chicken, they are about to cut the ribbon, now he dived full-length in the dirt!

  DEACON

  Everybody ready? Dearly Beloved …

  [Burst of music drowning out the wedding ceremony, cars honking, applause, music under, then …]

  DEACON

  I now pronounce …

  MAYOR’S VOICE

  This highway …

  DEACON

  Man and wife …

  OTTO

  [Tears up MONGROO’s contract. He throws it over CARDIFF JOE and EUPHONY] Is better than rice. I prefer a sound sleep to a fat deal.

  [Bursts of applause. Triumphal march music]

  FRANCO

  [Enters] There was no bomb! No explosion. I wasted my courage! [Collapses in a chair]

  OTTO

  No! Give this man a Peardrax. Give him a case.

  [Congratulations all around, cheering outside, DRUSILLA and CEDRIC rush in, followed by the LIMER carrying equipment]

  CEDRIC

  Terrific, terrific! We got it all, Couva has entered the twentieth century! And that last dash by Franco!

  DRUSILLA

  Congratulations, Auntie; congratulations, Mr. Davies! Is Uncle Otto and Mrs. Almandoz next. I have a present for you, Deacon. [Exits towards her room]

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Removing his miner’s helmet and handing it to FRANCO] A present. So you can read in bed. Battery-powered.

  [DRUSILLA returns with her TV set and goes to the DEACON with it]

  DRUSILLA

  It’s a portable, battery-powered; please accept it as payment and my gift for Auntie’s wedding.

  DEACON

  I ain’t go watch it. It go watch me. No, thanks. [DRUSILLA places it in a corner] It’s getting dark so quickly.

  LIMER

  Is just like a disco. The highway is open.

  [Long silence. The headlights on the cars from the highway cross their faces in the dark café]

  DEACON

  Pretty soon there’ll be no country left. Nowhere to walk, nowhere to sit in the shade, whole place one big concrete suburb. Oh! Yes! It’s about McDonaldizing everything, it’s Kentucky Frying everything, it’s about going modern with a vengeance and televising everything, it’s hamming up everything, traffic-jamming up everything, it’s about neon lighting up everything, urban-blighting everything. I’m warning you. I seen it with my own two feet.

  MITZI

  A river of jewels. Our new highway. It’s beautiful, Otto.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Wait, Otto. Everybody, look out there. Is that my imagination or do you all see it, too?

  OTTO

  There’s no such thing, I tell you. There is no such thing. I refuse to believe it. Pure coincidence. I was the Mysterious Stranger. Not a spirit. It was me! Franco and me. We were that spirit!

  [A huge shadow crosses the stage]

  CEDRIC

  [Into a microphone] It’s an old woman, in a large black hat, in old country skirts, hobbling patiently against the glare of the headlights and the impatient honking horns, crossing from where the old silk cotton had died towards the bush on the other side, and on the wrong light, too. She’s gone, but she’s here. No camera can capture her shadow. The spirit of the countryside.

  DEACON

  I going over the hills to Maracas Valley tomorrow when the sun come up. I ain’t got nowhere to sleep. I could sleep here tonight, friend?

  OTTO

  Yes, Deacon. But tomorrow the wrecker coming to bulldoze this shop. The task force in their yellow helmets go walk all over this place. There go be noise, shouting, concrete pouring. They go bury the past here and pave it over, the hole where the cotto
n tree was. And from tomorrow, Otto Hogan go be a conglomerate. Wait. Look there, the traffic stopped. To let that old woman cross. See her there, Euphony.

  EUPHONY

  I ain’t understand how a old wooden house could break your heart, or a back yard. What will happen to my poor little parlour, with the tables neat and the waxed tablecloths with flowers on them? And a wind off the yard tinkling the bamboo-bead curtains? You know when I liked it best? When nobody was in it. When it was either expecting a customer or one had just leave, leaving the bamboo curtain shaking. I used to sit down out there some afternoons and watch the sun going out on the row of sweet-drink bottles. I used to lean one arm on the windowsill and watch the pasture opposite. The clouds passing over, making different shadows. What go happen? Tomorrow, this time, the task force go be trampling all over it. Now it go belong to the bulldozers. And the dust. And our memories only. My sweet little parlour, goodbye.

  [Lights resume their revolve around the walls. The hum of traffic soars. They exit. The noise of various vehicles starting. The DEACON prepares to sleep in a corner. He makes his bed up under the counter, sees the TV set, moves it nearer, switches it on …]

  SCENE 3

  One corner of the parlour becomes a small TV set, with a news desk and a map showing Trinidad as the centre of the world. CEDRIC in a suit; DRUSILLA; SUMINTRA in a sari. Lights.

  CEDRIC

  Good evening. This is the Six o’Clock News. Cedric Hart reporting. Drusilla?

  DRUSILLA

  Two Couvans—sorry, that should be Cubans—have returned home from Havana on the grounds that the food there did not agree with them, they are allegedly connected with a payroll heist from the former Mongroo Construction Company. Cedric?

  CEDRIC

  An incriminating tape of the Borough Council meeting is being considered as evidence on a charge of corruption. Extraneous material in the tape includes a calypso and a shower bath and a free-for-all with the councillors. These, however, may be considered inadmissible evidence. Why, Sumintra?

  [Photo of OTTO holding up a can]

  SUMINTRA

  Because Otto Hogan, former proprietor of Otto’s Automatic Roti, of which I was the authentic, have announced his candidacy as Mayor of Couva. Because is better so. Cyril?

  CEDRIC

  Cedric. Now, with the new highway just opened with so far only a few worthwhile fatalities, we take you to Eldridge “Zip” Franco for the traffic update. Zip? Eldridge? Where are you, Zip?

  [FRANCO rushes on in a trenchcoat, felt hat, holding a microphone. Standing in a bright spot, traffic lights crossing his face, he speaks rapidly]

  FRANCO

  Zip Franco out here, folks, on the new Couva highway, dodging the fast lane, and in this light drizzle it’s bumper-to-bumper at the commuters’ hour through Chaguanas to Couva, backed up for easily two miles, due to a major accident with a water-buffalo cart, but we know that these things are part of downtown Couva’s development, so let’s all …

  [Furious honking cars bear down on him, their lights blinding as he steps lightly aside, smiling]

  Nimble as ever, hey, old Macaroni Socks? Radio?

  [LIMER comes out, in a spotlight as the station and FRANCO fade into silhouette]

  LIMER

  This morning as usual I get up sad,

  I was worried about the future of old Trinidad …

  [The DEACON, in a corner of the parlour, switches off the channel. Light and a flickering pattern. He leans against a wall. In the darkness the TV set glows like a bomb. A dog barks]

  [Fadeout]

  A BRANCH OF THE BLUE NILE

  A Branch of the Blue Nile was first produced by Stage One and The Nation Publishing Company at Stage One in Barbados on November 25, 1983, directed by Earl Warner, with the following cast:

  GAVIN FONTINELLE

  Clairmonte Taitt

  HARVEY ST. JUST

  Patrick Foster

  CHRISTOPHER

  Michael Gilkes

  MARYLIN LEWIS

  Norline Metivier

  SHEILA HARRIS

  Elizabeth Clarke

  WILFRED

  Monteith Douglas

  IRIS

  Monica Drayton

  BROTHER JOHN

  Christopher Moore

  PHIL

  Winston Farrel

  This revised version of the play was produced by Warwick Productions at the Tent Theatre in Trinidad in August 1985, directed by Earl Warner, with the following cast:

  GAVIN FONTINELLE

  Wilbert Holder

  HARVEY ST. JUST

  Maurice Brash

  CHRISTOPHER

  Errol Sitahal

  MARYLIN LEWIS

  Norline Metivier

  SHEILA HARRIS

  Joy Ryan

  WILFRED

  Noel Blandin

  IRIS

  Sandra Bushell

  BROTHER JOHN

  Errol Roberts

  PHIL

  Devindra Dookie

  CHARACTERS

  GAVIN FONTINELLE, actor, early thirties, slight American accent

  HARVEY ST. JUST, director, white, thirties, slight British accent

  CHRISTOPHER, actor, forty, Trinidadian accent

  MARYLIN LEWIS, actress, late twenties

  SHEILA HARRIS, actress, early thirties

  WILFRED, stagehand, twentyish

  IRIS, a young actress

  BROTHER JOHN, a young man

  PHIL, a derelict

  SETTING: The action takes place on the bare stage of a small theatre in Trinidad. The time is the present.

  ACT I

  SCENE 1

  SHEILA, MARYLIN, CHRISTOPHER, and GAVIN rehearsing Antony and Cleopatra. HARVEY seated.

  HARVEY

  Marylin, Chris, Gavin. Ready? Begin, Sheila.

  SHEILA

  [Turns to MARYLIN]

  “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have

  Immortal longings in me: now no more,

  The juice of Egypt’s grape…”

  HARVEY

  [Claps his hands, goes to SHEILA, draws her away, whispers]

  What’s all this sexual hesitation, Sheila?

  You know how sensual his corpse is to her?

  SHEILA

  I’m not her, Harvey. I can’t play all that.

  HARVEY

  Play what you feel about Chris, not Antony.

  SHEILA

  Just leave my private life out of this, please.

  [They walk back to her position]

  HARVEY

  Christopher, Gavin. As we agreed. Correct?

  GAVIN

  “Saw you my lord?”

  CHRIS

  Your lord? No. He gone out.

  [Laughter. GAVIN controls his laughter, resumes]

  GAVIN

  “Was he not here?”

  [SHEILA opens her eyes, leaps up]

  CHRIS

  You deaf? He was disposed to mirth,

  But on the sudden a Roman thought hath

  struck him. Pow!

  SHEILA

  All of this is behind my back?

  GAVIN

  [Without breaking his pose]

  It gets better, Sheila.

  [SHEILA sits down]

  We throwing you out of the play. Go home.

  Whole entrance, or from here?

  MARYLIN

  Harvey?

  HARVEY

  Whatever.

  MARYLIN

  How you mean, whatever?

  HARVEY

  Whatever. Whoever. Wherever. [Silence] Wherever, Harvey. Christ, I just called you by my own name.

  SHEILA

  You cracking up, boy.

  HARVEY

  It’s only the first line, for Christ’s sake. If he wants to do the whole walk …

  GAVIN

  Ay, ay, I ain’t he. The name is Gavin.

  CHRIS

  God help you.

  GAVIN

  I’m going to g
o back and come in, okay?

  HARVEY

  Whatever.

  GAVIN

  Would one of you care to ask Mr. Strasberg here what he means by whatever?

  HARVEY

  Repeat the entrance.

  GAVIN

  [To CHRIS]

  I’m going to be acting whatever, Chris, you hear. You ready?

  CHRIS

  Whenever.

  [The girls shriek with laughter. It becomes infectious. Everybody’s laughing. It goes on]

  GAVIN

  [Clapping his hands]

  Okay. Okay.

  SHEILA

  Whoever …

  [They laugh again. Then they settle]

  HARVEY

  Do the lines, all right? But standing. And keep the same diffidence.

  CHRIS

  Wha’ is diffidence, boy?

  GAVIN

  Diffidence is when you don’t give a shit.

  CHRIS

  [Clapping hands]

  Wait, wait, wait. Mr. Director. Gimme a break. Hold on. Hear this. Watch this. [He moves off. Turns] Gimme some room, Gavin. [Shouts] Clear the fucking stage, asshole.

  [GAVIN leaves the stage, joins the girls]

  GAVIN

  Gimme a cigarette, Sheila.

  HARVEY

  You won’t have time to smoke it, Gavin. Go ahead, show us.

  Bound to be some shit. Marylin, how you so quiet?

  CHRIS

  [Screams]

  SHUT UP!

  SHEILA

  [Shouts]

  QUI-EET!

  [CHRIS goes upstage, pauses, turns, then rushes downstage, playing two roles]

  CHRIS

  “Saw you my lord?”

  GAVIN

  Yes. He’s fucking Sheila.

  [MARYLIN screams with shock. Silence]

  Well, isn’t that true? Isn’t that what Antony’s doing?

  If you want to fuck around without rehearsing, so can I.

  [Silence]

  SHEILA

  Very funny. Except it’s my life.

  MARYLIN

  So. It’s a joke, Sheila. God! This is not the truth. This is the theatre. The sooner you remember that, the better.

  SHEILA