A Raisin in the Sun (5 page)

(
WALTER
exits
,
MAMA
enters. She is a woman in her early sixties, full-bodied and strong. She is one of those women of a certain grace and beauty who wear it so unobtrusively that it takes a while to notice. Her dark-brown face is surrounded by the total whiteness of her hair, and, being a woman who has adjusted to many things in life and overcome many more, her face is full of strength. She has, we can see, wit and faith of a kind that keep her eyes lit and full of interest and expectancy. She is, in a word, a beautiful woman. Her bearing is perhaps most like the noble bearing of the women of the Hereros of Southwest Africa—rather as if she imagines that as she walks she still bears a basket or a vessel upon her head. Her speech, on the other hand, is as careless as her carriage is precise—she is inclined to slur everything—but her voice is perhaps not so much quiet as simply soft
)

MAMA
Who that ’round here slamming doors at this hour?

(
She crosses through the room, goes to the window, opens it, and brings in a feeble little plant growing doggedly in a small pot on the windowsill. She feels the dirt and puts it back out
)

RUTH
That was Walter Lee. He and Bennie was at it again.

MAMA
My children and they tempers. Lord, if this little old plant don’t get more sun than it’s been getting it ain’t never going to see spring again. (
She turns from the window
) What’s the matter with you this morning, Ruth? You looks right peaked. You aiming to iron all them things? Leave some for me. I’ll get to ’em this afternoon. Bennie honey, it’s too drafty for you to be sitting ’round half dressed. Where’s your robe?

BENEATHA
In the cleaners.

MAMA
Well, go get mine and put it on.

BENEATHA
I’m not cold, Mama, honest.

MAMA
I know—but you so thin …

BENEATHA
(
Irritably
) Mama, I’m not cold.

MAMA
(
Seeing the make-down bed as
TRAVIS
has left it
) Lord have mercy, look at that poor bed. Bless his heart—he tries, don’t he?

(
She moves to the bed
TRAVIS
has sloppily made up
)

RUTH
No—he don’t half try at all ’cause he knows you going to come along behind him and fix everything. That’s just how come he don’t know how to do nothing right now—you done spoiled that boy so.

MAMA
(
Folding bedding
) Well—he’s a little boy. Ain’t supposed to know ’bout housekeeping. My baby, that’s what he is. What you fix for his breakfast this morning?

RUTH
(
Angrily
) I feed my son, Lena!

MAMA
I ain’t meddling—(
Underbreath; busy-bodyish
) I just noticed all last week he had cold cereal, and when it starts getting this chilly in the fall a child ought to have some hot grits or something when he goes out in the cold—

RUTH
(
Furious
) I gave him hot oats—is that all right!

MAMA
I ain’t meddling. (
Pause
) Put a lot of nice butter on it? (
RUTH
shoots her an angry look and does not reply
) He likes lots of butter.

RUTH
(
Exasperated
) Lena—

MAMA
(
To
BENEATHA. MAMA
is inclined to wander conversationally sometimes
) What was you and your brother fussing ’bout this morning?

BENEATHA
It’s not important, Mama.

(
She gets up and goes to look out at the bathroom, which is apparently free, and she picks up her towels and rushes out
)

MAMA
What was they fighting about?

RUTH
Now you know as well as I do.

MAMA
(
Shaking her head
) Brother still worrying hisself sick about that money?

RUTH
You know he is.

MAMA
You had breakfast?

RUTH
Some coffee.

MAMA
Girl, you better start eating and looking after yourself better. You almost thin as Travis.

RUTH
Lena—

MAMA
Un-hunh?

RUTH
What are you going to do with it?

MAMA
Now don’t you start, child. It’s too early in the morning to be talking about money. It ain’t Christian.

RUTH
It’s just that he got his heart set on that store—

MAMA
You mean that liquor store that Willy Harris want him to invest in?

RUTH
Yes—

MAMA
We ain’t no business people, Ruth. We just plain working folks.

RUTH
Ain’t nobody business people till they go into business. Walter Lee say colored people ain’t never going to start getting ahead till they start gambling on some different kinds of things in the world—investments and things.

MAMA
What done got into you, girl? Walter Lee done finally sold you on investing.

RUTH
No. Mama, something is happening between Walter and me. I don’t know what it is—but he needs something—something I can’t give him anymore. He needs this chance, Lena.

MAMA
(
Frowning deeply
) But liquor, honey—

RUTH
Well—like Walter say—I spec people going to always be drinking themselves some liquor.

MAMA
Well—whether they drinks it or not ain’t none of my business. But whether I go into business selling it to ’em is, and I don’t want that on my ledger this late in life. (
Stopping suddenly and studying her daughter-in-law
) Ruth Younger, what’s the matter with you today? You look like you could fall over right there.

RUTH
I’m tired.

MAMA
Then you better stay home from work today.

RUTH
I can’t stay home. She’d be calling up the agency and screaming at them, “My girl didn’t come in today—send me somebody! My girl didn’t come in!” Oh, she just have a fit …

MAMA
Well, let her have it. I’ll just call her up and say you got the flu—

RUTH
(
Laughing
) Why the flu?

MAMA
’Cause it sounds respectable to ’em. Something white people get, too. They know ’bout the flu. Otherwise they think you been cut up or something when you tell ’em you sick.

RUTH
I got to go in. We need the money.

MAMA
Somebody would of thought my children done all but starved to death the way they talk about money here late. Child, we got a great big old check coming tomorrow.

RUTH
(
Sincerely, but also self-righteously
) Now that’s your money. It ain’t got nothing to do with me. We all feel like that—Walter and Bennie and me—even Travis.

MAMA
(
Thoughtfully, and suddenly very far away
) Ten thousand dollars—

RUTH
Sure is wonderful.

MAMA
Ten thousand dollars.

RUTH
You know what you should do, Miss Lena? You should take yourself a trip somewhere. To Europe or South America or someplace—

MAMA
(
Throwing up her hands at the thought
) Oh, child!

RUTH
I’m serious. Just pack up and leave! Go on away and enjoy yourself some. Forget about the family and have yourself a ball for once in your life—

MAMA
(
Drily
) You sound like I’m just about ready to die. Who’d go with me? What I look like wandering ’round Europe by myself?

RUTH
Shoot—these here rich white women do it all the time. They don’t think nothing of packing up they suitcases and piling on one of them big steamships and—swoosh!—they gone, child.

MAMA
Something always told me I wasn’t no rich white woman.

RUTH
Well—what are you going to do with it then?

MAMA
I ain’t rightly decided. (
Thinking. She speaks now with emphasis
) Some of it got to be put away for Beneatha and her schoolin’—and ain’t nothing going to touch that part of it. Nothing. (
She waits several seconds, trying to make up her mind about something, and looks at
RUTH
a little tentatively before going on
) Been thinking that we maybe could meet the notes on a little old two-story somewhere, with a yard where Travis could play in the summertime, if we use part of the insurance for a down payment and everybody kind of pitch in. I could maybe take on a little day work again, few days a week—

RUTH
(
Studying her mother-in-law furtively and concentrating on her ironing, anxious to encourage without seeming to
) Well, Lord knows, we’ve put enough rent into this here rat trap to pay for four houses by now …

MAMA
(
Looking up at the words “rat trap” and then looking around and leaning back and sighing—in a suddenly reflective mood
—
) “Rat trap”—yes, that’s all it is. (
Smiling
) I remember just as well the day me and Big Walter moved in here. Hadn’t been married but two weeks and wasn’t planning on living here no more than a year. (
She shakes her head at the dissolved dream
) We was going to set away, little by little, don’t you know, and buy a little place out in Morgan Park. We had even picked out the house. (
Chuckling a little
)
Looks right dumpy today. But Lord, child, you should know all the dreams I had ’bout buying that house and fixing it up and making me a
little
garden in the back—(
She waits and stops smiling
) And didn’t none of it happen.

(
Dropping her hands in a futile gesture
)

RUTH
(
Keeps her head down, ironing
) Yes, life can be a barrel of disappointments, sometimes.

MAMA
Honey, Big Walter would come in here some nights back then and slump down on that couch there and just look at the rug, and look at me and look at the rug and then back at me—and I’d know he was down then … really down. (
After a second very long and thoughtful pause; she is seeing back to times that only she can see
) And then, Lord, when I lost that baby—little Claude—I almost thought I was going to lose Big Walter too. Oh, that man grieved hisself! He was one man to love his children.

RUTH
Ain’t nothin’ can tear at you like losin’ your baby.

MAMA
I guess that’s how come that man finally worked hisself to death like he done. Like he was fighting his own war with this here world that took his baby from him.

RUTH
He sure was a fine man, all right. I always liked Mr. Younger.

MAMA
Crazy ’bout his children! God knows there was plenty wrong with Walter Younger—hard-headed, mean, kind of wild with women—plenty wrong with him. But he sure loved his children. Always wanted them to have something—be something. That’s where Brother gets all these notions, I reckon. Big Walter used to say, he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, “Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the
black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.” (
She smiles
) He could talk like that, don’t you know.

RUTH
Yes, he sure could. He was a good man, Mr. Younger.

MAMA
Yes, a fine man—just couldn’t never catch up with his dreams, that’s all.

(
BENEATHA
comes in, brushing her hair and looking up to the ceiling, where the sound of a vacuum cleaner has started up
)

BENEATHA
What could be so dirty on that woman’s rugs that she has to vacuum them every single day?

RUTH
I wish certain young women ’round here who I could name would take inspiration about certain rugs in a certain apartment I could also mention.

BENEATHA
(
Shrugging
) How much cleaning can a house need, for Christ’s sakes.

MAMA
(
Not liking the Lord’s name used thus
) Bennie!

RUTH
Just listen to her—just listen!

BENEATHA
Oh, God!

MAMA
If you use the Lord’s name just one more time—

BENEATHA
(
A bit of a whine
) Oh, Mama—

RUTH
Fresh—just fresh as salt, this girl!

BENEATHA
(
Drily
) Well—if the salt loses its savor—

MAMA
Now that will do. I just ain’t going to have you ’round here reciting the scriptures in vain—you hear me?

BENEATHA
How did I manage to get on everybody’s wrong side by just walking into a room?

RUTH
If you weren’t so fresh—

BENEATHA
Ruth, I’m twenty years old.

MAMA
What time you be home from school today?

BENEATHA
Kind of late. (
With enthusiasm
) Madeline is going to start my guitar lessons today.

(
MAMA
and
RUTH
look up with the same expression
)

MAMA
Your
what
kind of lessons?

BENEATHA
Guitar.

RUTH
Oh, Father!

MAMA
How come you done taken it in your mind to learn to play the guitar?

BENEATHA
I just want to, that’s all.

MAMA
(
Smiling
) Lord, child, don’t you know what to do with yourself? How long it going to be before you get tired of this now—like you got tired of that little playacting group you joined last year? (
Looking at
RUTH
) And what was it the year before that?

RUTH
The horseback-riding club for which she bought that fifty-five-dollar riding habit that’s been hanging in the closet ever since!

MAMA
(
To
BENEATHA
) Why you got to flit so from one thing to another, baby?

BENEATHA
(
Sharply
) I just want to learn to play the guitar. Is there anything wrong with that?

MAMA
Ain’t nobody trying to stop you. I just wonders sometimes why you has to flit so from one thing to another all the time. You ain’t never done nothing with all that camera equipment you brought home—

BENEATHA
I don’t flit! I—I experiment with different forms of expression—

RUTH
Like riding a horse?

BENEATHA
—People have to express themselves one way or another.

MAMA
What is it you want to express?

BENEATHA
(
Angrily
) Me! (
MAMA
and
RUTH
look at each other and burst into raucous laughter
) Don’t worry—I don’t expect you to understand.

MAMA
(
To change the subject
) Who you going out with tomorrow night?

BENEATHA
(
With displeasure
) George Murchison again.

MAMA
(
Pleased
) Oh—you getting a little sweet on him?

RUTH
You ask me, this child ain’t sweet on nobody but herself—(
Underbreath
) Express herself!