Remembrance and Pantomime (8 page)

     Stone still.

(
Pause
)

     Dumb as a gravestone.

FREDERICK

     Anna’s leaving. Wait …

ANNA

     It’s time I left. This is getting to be home, and it isn’t. That’s what we were talking about in the little park. I’ve got my strength back now, thanks to you and Mrs. Jordan, and I’m ready to go back. I got the money yesterday, but I couldn’t find the strength to tell you.

JORDAN

     You know you can stay as long as you like. The last week has been … Well, I’ve been very happy. I think you’re lucky, too. You see how it all turns out? Where there’s hope, there’s trout. You’ve got a fine man in Frederick. He’s got his old man’s best qualities …

FREDERICK

     You’re rushing things, Dad.

JORDAN

(
Rises excitedly
)

     You can bet your backside I rushing things, boy. Excuse me, but I am rushing things because you see that clock there? Look at it!

FREDERICK

     Goddamnit, Daddy, listen …

ANNA

     Please, Mr. Jordan …

JORDAN

     Esther …

ANNA

     Anna is my name …

JORDAN

     That pendulum is a little ax cutting off a piece of your life every time it swings. And I say, Don’t hesitate. Do what you know you must do, and defy the world.

ANNA

     I wish you’d settle down, Mr. Jordan.

JORDAN

     I’m settled. Anna. Anna Herschel.

ANNA

     I’m going. I said so. And I’m not going with your son. I’m not going away with him. We love each other, but not in the way you mean. Are you listening?

JORDAN

     I am listening. I’ve heard it all before … But I’m listening.

ANNA

     “I’ve grown to love it here. You mustn’t make fun of that. Albert, I think you’re a silly, affected, but lovely man. You’ve pestered me relentlessly for three months. It’s been worse than the Blitz.

(
Projection:
ESTHER
in uniform
)

     “And I’ve thought very carefully about this, all the possible complications, but if you want me to, I’ll marry you.”

(
Projection fades
)

     You weren’t listening, Mr. Jordan.

(
JORDAN
rises and looks at them vacantly
)

JORDAN

     I was listening. I heard it before. When are you going, then?

ANNA

     Now. It’s easier. Frederick’s phoned for a taxi and I’m packed.

FREDERICK

     I’m taking her to the airport.

JORDAN

     Go on that plane with her, boy! Don’t be a damn fool like your old man! From the time that crazy Yankee wanted to buy this roof, you should have gone. You made the one mistake that costs you later! Now you getting a next chance! Leave this place. It dried me up and it will dry you up. You’re an artist, boy. You’re one of God’s chosen. That’s what that blasted poem is all about. Don’t bury yourself out here. Go on that plane!

(
Pause
)

     I’m sorry.

FREDERICK

     You stayed here. I’m staying.

(
JORDAN
exits
)

ANNA

     Doesn’t he ever give up? He might have made an exciting father-in-law, though.

FREDERICK

     We discussed all that.

(
A taxi horn blows outside
)

     The guy’s here.

(
MABEL
enters
)

MABEL

     You know you can stay till you sort yourself out.

(
ANNA
controls herself, and then leaves
)

     Where is his majesty Montezuma? ’Cause I don’t feel so good.

FREDERICK

     Outside somewhere sulking, I suppose. That man thinks I must repeat his life. Correct what he didn’t do. And I can’t reach him. The same damn way Junior couldn’t reach him.

MABEL

     That man? That man is your father. He taught some of the best people in this country. Don’t refer to him as “that man.” I don’t know why he so desperate.

(
ANNA
enters with the baby and a bag
)

     Albert! Albert! Come in here, please.

ANNA

     I could leave him a note.

MABEL

     No. He will come.

ANNA

     Well, what can I tell you all? I had a home for one week. I found my strength again just watching you. I don’t write letters, but maybe I can put it all down someday. Frederick, you want to help me with this bag?… Is he going to come out, you think?

MABEL

     
Albert!

(
JORDAN
emerges, carrying a small rose
)

JORDAN

     I was in the garden, gathering this rose for Pavlova.

(
Recites
)

     “Full many a gem of purest ray serene…”

MABEL

     Oh, God, poetry again …

JORDAN

(
Recites
)

     “The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear …

(
The taxi horn hoots
)

     Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air…”

(
Kisses her
)

     They use poppies on Remembrance Day, Miss Hope. But for you, there is this little flower, Miss Esther Anna Herschel Trout.

MABEL

     That damn taxi only honking, honking …

JORDAN

     “Jordan is a honky,

       Jordan is a donkey,

       Jordan is a…”

ANNA

     We’re about ready to go now.

JORDAN

     The taxi reach already?

(
They bring the baby to him
)

MABEL

     Say something, nuh, Albert.

(
Pause
)

     Albert, the cat got your tongue?

(
JORDAN
closes his eyes, holds a hand above the baby in a benediction
)

JORDAN

     May this child … May this child …

(
He hands it to
MABEL
)

     Here. Take the damn thing.

(
Goes into the next room
)

MABEL

     Here.

(
She gives
ANNA
the baby, follows
JORDAN
into the next room
)

     What happen to you? What is it that happen, Albert? Is Junior? Tell me. You could talk to me. What you self crying like a baby for? Albert, grow up!

(
FREDERICK
and
ANNA
wait
)

FREDERICK

     He’ll be all right. Come.

ANNA

     Goodbye. Goodbye!

(
MABEL
enters the room and goes to the window
)

MABEL

     Goodbye, Anna. Ba-bye! Ba-bye!

(
She stands there watching, as
JORDAN
enters
)

     Lord, I have this pain in me chest, you see. Damn thing killing me.

(
Fade
)

MABEL

     I getting ready to go now, Albert. Sit still where you are and don’t get up. I getting ready. I have fought the good fight, as the Book says. I have finished my work, and though the good fight was mainly with you, I ent frighten. I have Junior out there, and a whole set of people I ent so keen on meeting, but is not my place who the Lord invite. All I can say is that I only gone ahead to polish the crown He will have for you. ’Cause you was argumentative, stupid, and a stubborn man, but you was a king to me. I tired now, and I going. Turn off the stove. And, Albert …

(
She has turned, then turns back
)

     Don’t bother with the sweepstake ticket, you hear? ’Cause you ent going win it.

(
Exit.
JORDAN
alone
)

JORDAN

     My old queen is gone. And Albert, my young prince. Ah, Ezra, Ezra! I armed for death, and was unarmed by loss. I’ve had a son shot in the Black Power riots. I thought he did it out of contempt for me—not out of hope for others—and it has not changed this country. The other one has chosen a slower death in this place—art. He lives like a hermit up in the country now. I gave them to this country—one for politics and one for art. My brother the railway porter is now head of the local union in Hartford, Connecticut, and keeps begging me halfheartedly to come to the States. He knows damn well I’d be a misfit there. I’d be a misfit in England, too. I’ve been there once, and I found it a mean place. Remember what we saw, Pilly? An archipelago in a beautiful sea. Cities where all the races joined to make one race. Athens. The glory that was Greece. You remember, man, Pilly. Can’t tell me you don’t remember …

(
PILGRIM
,
in black, with sash appears on the veranda
)

PILGRIM

     I remember. I remember it damn well.

JORDAN

     Some educational conference. Every day there I was, frightened I’d bump into Esther Hope. They took us out by train to a farm in the Berkshires, Pilly, chaps from Malta, the Sudan, from all over the Commonwealth. Ceylon … In that malicious cold.

PILGRIM

     That was the sadness of our generation, A.P. It was like a light going out in our minds, the empire fading. Bought a sweepstake ticket for the first time in my life yesterday.

JORDAN

     You, Pilly?

(
Laughs
)

     Why?

PILGRIM

     Well, I feel I pushing on myself, Albert. Don’t get up. And don’t give up. Keep up them remembrances. They going good. I’ll send that boy around.

(
He recedes into darkness.
INTERVIEWER
enters as before
)

JORDAN

     I taught those little bastards well, didn’t I? I taught with a passion. Wrong things or not. Some of them are big shots today, judges. But I was a holy terror in that classroom, boy, Pilly. There would be a deathly silence when I entered, the kind of silence that we keep for kings. I taught them with the love that comes through books and I inspired the fear that would give them confidence.

(
He rises
)

     And though I old, Pilly boy! Where you? Don’t leave too, Ezra Pilgrim. Though I old, and this hand that used to hold that leather strap like a scepter, quivering, I still say: Let lightning flash from your eye when you remember those dead, all those dead, arranged in your memory, grave after grave, like empty desks in a classroom, knowing that is the old One Jacket Jordan thundering to teach, to teach!

(
He has put on his jacket. He crosses to the desk. As young
JORDAN
)

     I am trying to tell all you blasted young whippersnappers that Thomas Gray is saying: It doesn’t matter where you’re born, how obscure you are, that fame and fortune are contained within you. Your body is the earth in which it springs and dies. And it’s the humble people of this world, you Junes, you Walcott, and you Brown, and you Fonesca, and you Mango Head, that he’s concerned about. And he’s concerned about them from the very first verse of his “Elegy” as he meditates aloud. Now, class, close books and recite from memory!

(
He recites each line and the class recites after him
)

JORDAN AND VOICES

     “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

            The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea

       The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

            And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

(
Fadeout
)

Pantomime

For Wilbert Holder

Characters

HARRY TREWE
,
English, mid-forties, owner of the Castaways Guest House, retired actor

JACKSON PHILLIP
,
Trinidadian, forty, his factotum, retired calypsonian

The action takes place in a gazebo on the edge of a cliff, part of a guest house on the island of Tobago, West Indies.

Pantomime
was first produced by All Theatre Productions at the Little Carib Theatre, Port of Spain, Trinidad, on April 12, 1978, directed by Albert LaVeau, with the following cast:

The play was produced by Liane Aukin for the British Broadcasting Corporation on January 25, 1979, with the following cast:

Act One

A small summerhouse or gazebo, painted white, with a few plants and a table set for breakfast.
HARRY TREWE
enters—in white, carrying a tape recorder, which he rests on the table. He starts the machine.

HARRY

(
Sings and dances
)

     
It’s our Christmas panto,