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

by Derek Walcott

  CHRIS

  We don’t have your fucking paranoia down here.

  This ain’t a black or white theatre, friend.

  Don’t take your bile and bitterness out on me.

  You leave sweet and you come back sour. My fault?

  [GAVIN picks up the tape recorder and gives it to CHRIS]

  GAVIN

  You finish your fucking tirade?

  Shit! Shit, man! Shut up! Know what they’d call this in

  America? An integrated cast.

  [To HARVEY]

  So you lucky we let you in, honky.

  [To CHRIS]

  I went up there to be an actor and found out that I was a nigger, so I could have spared myself the airfare. I don’t care who you are, or what you have, you take your turn in line. I’m no blasted writer, but you, you’re the writer. How can you take any pride, any pleasure, in keeping your head empty?

  CHRIS

  Look, this same empty coconut is what brings them in here, you hear me?

  GAVIN

  I can’t talk to you, man. When I left here you were a serious person. But you made a set of money and turned into a clown. A coward. I’m trying to say I didn’t give up up there because I was a flop. I’m good, you understand? I’m better than just good. I’m a fucking fine actor when the spirit moves me, and I’m saying it like a fucking carpenter would say it: I do a good job. So I didn’t come back here for this provincial shit. I didn’t wear my soles out …

  CHRIS

  You’s a full-fledged, mean mother-fucker now, right? You don’t take no jive from nobody? Baddest ass on the block, right? You don’t know what you are, Gavin. You don’t know who to be. You’re a boy from Belmont, you know the country, but they succeeded, boy, they integrated your black ass all right because they have you basodie. Tuttulbay! Wrong side outside, can’t tell a 6 from a 9. The States fuck up your head, you schizophrenic nigger. Well this, this thing here would have restored you to your origins, your roots, your language, your childhood, because, you ass, that’s where every artist starts from but you, if they call you to play a black cop in a TV series tomorrow, you going! Let the whore of Babylon wine her ass once, and your talent go stand up, so! This is the hysteria [Jerking an elbow] they teach black people. To devour their own entrails, their own race.

  GAVIN

  Yes. Yes. You right. And I ’fraid of that, see? Because if I see that there ain’t no future here, that I fool myself again, I gone. You right as usual. But I still say the scene is corny shit.

  CHRIS

  You see this? [Opens his mouth, raps his knuckles on his skull] Coconut. It ain’t hollow. It ain’t empty, you hear me? And as the goat said to the sheep, Fock ewe. Da’s a folk expression. Now, of late, my dear wife, who does talk English proper better than anyone o’ all you, has been quite troubled. So, if all you ain’t mind, call me when you serious. You go ahead with your rehearsal. I did mine. You all were very good. Very good. [Exits. Silence. HARVEY stands, totters]

  HARVEY

  Folks …

  GAVIN

  You’re pouring sweat.

  Sit down. Harvey?

  [HARVEY sits]

  You okay?

  [SHEILA crosses to HARVEY, puts her hand on his forehead]

  What?

  SHEILA

  Cold sweat.

  MARYLIN

  Harvey?

  HARVEY

  I’d appreciate a lift. I haven’t eaten.

  MARYLIN

  That son of a bitch upset you, nuh? Sorry, Sheila.

  [SHEILA shrugs, laughs. HARVEY stands. Sits down]

  HARVEY

  Everything he said was right.

  GAVIN

  You upset? You feel sick?

  SHEILA

  He wasn’t right.

  HARVEY

  He was. It’s not important.

  SHEILA

  He was not right.

  GAVIN

  Stop thinking of yourself, you can’t see how he looks? Come, boy. I’ll take you home.

  SHEILA

  I don’t care who’s sick, who’s upset. Chris can’t win, he always wins, and he was not right. You all let him ride all over you.

  HARVEY

  Take me to the hospital. I might have to check in. This happens.

  MARYLIN

  What is it? Epilepsy?

  SHEILA

  He’ll be proud to know the effect it had on Harvey.

  GAVIN

  Look, you self-centered bitch, things don’t revolve around you.

  HARVEY

  They don’t know what it is.

  They didn’t know in London.

  It’s okay, Marylin, I didn’t come out here to die.

  But, Sheila, whatever it is I have,

  I believe it’s as incurable as your talent.

  GAVIN

  Where’s your car, Marylin?

  HARVEY

  Sheila, you have the right stance. Nothing should interfere …

  Maybe I’m all right, maybe I should sit down …

  GAVIN

  Give me your keys, Harvey. Sheila, I can’t drive. One of you use Harvey’s car and let’s go …

  HARVEY

  It’s passing. I think.

  I can drive.

  Give me a few seconds.

  I can drive.

  GAVIN

  Sheila, I don’t believe this.

  SHEILA

  Well, you better believe it. If he’s going to die, let him die right here, where he believes his life is. But I’m not going to take him to the damned hospital so that tomorrow Chris can hear how he shook him up, and had him cold-sweating, and trembling because he spoke the truth. That’s a victory for fear, and I’m not afraid.

  GAVIN

  You heartless …

  SHEILA

  All that. All that. You can drive yourself now, Harvey, can’t you, if you go carefully? [Feels his temperature] Of course. [To GAVIN] And if you want to be able tomorrow, or tonight, to tell your friend how he had this man so upset he nearly had a heart attack or an epileptic fit or whatever, with him and his macho dialect bullshit, then go ahead, but I’m not leaving this theatre. Nor is Marylin, because we’re going to rehearse, for Harvey’s sake. And if he were dying there, that’s what he’d want. So, no victory.

  [GAVIN leads HARVEY out. HARVEY pauses, kisses SHEILA. The men go out]

  SHEILA

  We are becoming monsters. We were simple.

  Then Harvey came back and told us we were gods.

  MARYLIN

  I’m willing to do it. But doing it is the hard part.

  Sometimes I jump that part of my life: the work,

  and I wake up one morning, famous. A famous monster.

  Now there’s something worse. It’s horrible.

  SHEILA

  What?

  MARYLIN

  I can’t tell you.

  SHEILA

  Okay.

  MARYLIN

  I envy you.

  SHEILA

  Oh, God.

  That’s going to spoil our friendship.

  Oh, God, where am I going? I go leave this thing, yes.

  I’d rather save our friendship, I’m serious.

  MARYLIN

  I talk prose. You talk like poetry, Sheila. Your problem is simple. You’re scared of being great. But you don’t know what suffering is, you hear? You don’t know what it’s like to lie in bed, sometimes till two, three in the morning, to have insomnia because of jealousy. And I wish it were a man. But a gift? To envy talent? You’ll never know what that is. And I envy that, that you have no jealousy. And even confessing it won’t make it stop. You know now. What’s next?

  [SHEILA rises, pulls MARYLIN up]

  SHEILA

  Come on, come, we can all make it. Listen.

  It’s just results, it’s Harvey showing through us …

  Begin, begin … “O! see, my women…”

  MARYLIN

  “O! see, my women…�
��

  SHEILA

  [Screams]

  Too faaaaasttttt!

  [Silence]

  MARYLIN

  “O! see, my women,

  The crown o’ the earth doth melt. My lord!…”

  Fluke.

  Sheila? Shit. Right?

  [Silence]

  SHEILA

  Great. It is great. It brought tears to my eyes.

  MARYLIN

  True? You wouldn’t fool me, eh, Sheila? What? Two lines?

  Not even two.

  SHEILA

  God’s truth.

  MARYLIN

  God has his favourites. He wouldn’t pick me. He picked you.

  SHEILA

  His light passes through people. It ain’t bound to stay.

  It’s like a searchlight. It found my face and passed on.

  I felt it leave me. I went home, I practised in the mirror.

  I kept trying. It’s gone. I’m grateful. I knew what it

  was like.

  MARYLIN

  Well, I didn’t feel it. I’m supposed to feel it, not you. Is like screwing. No amount of description can match the experience. Anyway, what’s it like?

  SHEILA

  What’s it like? When I was small, I hated

  my hair, my lips, my life. All of that’s gone. Now …

  It was like being in a state of grace.

  MARYLIN

  I think I nearly got there. Sometimes I felt it was just

  ahead of me. A little light like a small angel … Don’t

  laugh … here, just here, just one step ahead of me, saying

  … Come, girl … follow me, come, girl … But it wasn’t

  like a child learning to walk. I wasn’t stumbling or any-

  thing. It wasn’t so. Not like that. As if my feet were growing

  little wings and I was going to float.

  SHEILA

  It’s grace.

  MARYLIN

  It ain’t Grace, nuh. Is Marylin. Stupid Marylin.

  SHEILA

  It’s grace. And grace can be passed on. Love passes it on, and I love you. I love you because you love your work more than me …

  MARYLIN

  Don’t say that. You, Sheila?

  SHEILA

  You lighter-skinned than me, girl. You could work abroad.

  MARYLIN

  Oh. I thought we were talking about something else.

  SHEILA

  I’m frightened it will come back. I wish it wasn’t me.

  You’re a Catholic, right? There’s no Protestant saints.

  [Looking heavenwards]

  Er, you making a mistake here, this is the Catholic.

  [Laughs]

  That sound I hear sometimes, it’s not a voice.

  I mean, it’s not like the trumpet Joan heard in her heart,

  is like a mouse scratching and scratching

  inside my skull. I feel like spraying my ear

  and killing the damn thing. That’s how it is, though,

  small things drive you mad. Look at cancer,

  that’s how it starts, a mole. Die, mouse! Die!

  [Slams a palm against her head]

  Tell me the truth, Marylin.

  You hear voices? I need company.

  MARYLIN

  You too? I wouldn’t say voices. One voice perhaps. I mean, nothing heavy like the Devil inside you or something. I mean my own voice, I think, talking inside me. But when that start, I talk back to it loud. Sometimes … ay, listen, once, hear this, listen. I was driving by myself round the savannah one Sunday, talking back to it, you know … I mean, I call it Marylin, so, hear me … [Laughing] “Marylin, you best stop this damned nonsense, you hear, because you only go get your arse in trouble…” That was when I was breaking up with Ian …

  SHEILA

  Who Ian?

  MARYLIN

  Shh. I even forget his last name. Ian … anyway, a good friend pass right next to me, but I didn’t see, and we stop at the stop-light, and this girl only see me walking, man, talking, and when she pomp her horn, and I turn round, I turn round and my mouth still going on talking to the voice because I hadn’t finish making my point …

  SHEILA

  [Smiling]

  And you know how long that could take!

  MARYLIN

  [Gesturing]

  So see me so, hand on the steering wheel, staring at this girl.

  SHEILA

  Staring wheel is right!

  MARYLIN

  [Her head turned, muttering, eyes wide]

  pllpllllppppsssssppplluuppppppppppp … me mouth going like a Chinese duck backside, watching this girl, a girl I know, yes …

  SHEILA

  A Chinese duck? Why a Chinese duck, Marylin?

  MARYLIN

  I ain’t know, I just said it …

  SHEILA

  Chinese duck backside. You mean the backside slanted?

  You’re a natural comedian …

  MARYLIN

  Look, the girl drove off like a rocket. So I drive behind her to tell her some lie like I was rehearsing lines, but so many damned people going mad in this town, I press the X and I chasing this girl, waving stop, stop, boy, but she gone … [Silence] But what is that voice, compared to the ones you hear? You hear angels talking, and they are your friends; if you were in some other country, you’d be one of the great. You’d be another Cicely Tyson, or Meryl Streep, but here … Here? I suppose you great wherever you are, yes … I mean, who was Jesus in Jerusalem?

  SHEILA

  How we got onto religion?

  MARYLIN

  I don’t know.

  SHEILA

  I wonder, since He is supposed to be merciful, even if grace is an affliction, even if it means duty and sacrifice and beauty are afflictions, that if God is kind, and you told Him, as honestly as possible …

  MARYLIN

  Listen to you talk, Sheila. You talk so beautifully now, so easy, without stopping, and without any affectation, you even have me talking English.

  SHEILA

  Whether … if you told Him early enough, not towards the end, “Father, let this cup pass” …

  MARYLIN

  You mad, you can’t do that to God! You go get a boil on your eye.

  SHEILA

  If He’d understand.

  MARYLIN

  Sure. God is God. He ain’t a bank. You never hear God don’t lend?

  SHEILA

  And would He punish me?

  MARYLIN

  That would be up to Him. He has given many strange orders that had to be obeyed. He said to Abraham, Kill your son Isaiah …

  SHEILA

  Isaac …

  MARYLIN

  You can’t catch me there, Sheila. To his son Isaiah …

  SHEILA

  Marylin … Okay, you’re right.

  MARYLIN

  He told Abraham kill Isaiah, and at the last minute held his hand.

  SHEILA

  And to Joan …

  MARYLIN

  Joan?

  SHEILA

  Joan of Arc.

  MARYLIN

  Right.

  SHEILA

  And He let her burn …

  MARYLIN

  Don’t have no religious breakdown on me now, nuh, because I go pelt out of here faster than that girl round by the savannah.

  SHEILA

  If He gave me His truth, what shall I do with it? And why does He give it to me through Shakespeare? Maybe Jesus came back and He was Shakespeare …

  MARYLIN

  Sheila, please. Let’s talk about something else.

  [SHEILA rises, closes her eyes, near to MARYLIN, and brings her head to her]

  SHEILA

  Let’s stop. Let’s end with a benediction.

  [Silence] Lord, I thank you for that moment of your visiting moon, but let your light and your grace fall now on my friend Marylin, and let it stay there forever.

  [They stare at each othe
r] It’s yours now, Marylin. Press my right palm. [She takes MARYLIN’s palm, presses her own against it]

  MARYLIN

  What?

  SHEILA

  The gift. The river in my palm.

  ACT II

  SCENE 1

  A performance of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. A papier-mâché sphinx’s head is upstage. IRIS, as Iras, an attendant, is holding up a hand mirror to Cleopatra (MARYLIN), whose back is to us.

  IRIS / IRAS

  “This is the man.”

  [Exits. The CLOWN, played by GAVIN, enters with a basket]

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,

  That kills and pains not?”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “Madam, I have him, but ’tain’t go be me who go ask you handle him, because one nip from this small fellow and Basil is your husband; this little person will make the marriage, in poison and in person, but the brides who go to that bed don’t ever get up.”

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Remember’st thou any that have died on ’t?”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “Too many, lady. Male and she-male, sure. Yesterday self sold me a sample: a straightforward lady that butter couldn’t melt in she mouth but a little crooked with the truth, which is just natural for any Adam’s wife, fainted forever from giving it a little suck, with as much pain as joy. That’s an excellent endorsement of the worm; but the man who believe everything he hear ain’t go be saved by half of what men do. I sound like I ain’t sure ’cause this worm is a funny worm.”

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Get thee hence; farewell.”

  [She turns]

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “I wish you all joy of the worm.”

  [Sets down the basket]

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Farewell.”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “You must believe me, madam, that the worm will act like a worm.”

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Ay, ay; farewell.”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “Hear me, now is only hands that are wise can play with the worm, because, in the end, this worm ain’t that good.”

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “I glad. But feed it with nothing, ’cause the worm can’t eat.”

  MARYLIN / CLEOPATRA

  “Will it eat me?”

  GAVIN / CLOWN

  “Don’t feel I so dotish that I ain’t know that the devil self don’t eat no woman; I know that a woman is a dish for the gods, if the devil don’t make the dressing. But them whore-mongering devils does screw the gods up with their women, ’cause for every ten women God make, the devil does mash up five.”