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

by Derek Walcott

  MITZI

  What about me?

  MONGROO

  What about you?

  MITZI

  Your language, Mr. Mongroo.

  MONGROO

  You never hear that kind of talk before? I beg your fucking pardon, lady.

  MAYOR

  Mr. Mongroo! What the arse wrong with you? Excuse me, Mrs. Almandoz.

  MONGROO

  Nah, I sick of this holier-than-thou, I-more-honest-than-you fender-straightener making us look like we crooked. If we crooked, the highway will straighten us out. You think I ain’t feel hot in this vest? You think this place couldn’t do with some air condition? I am offering him all that and he skinning up his nose?

  OTTO

  Skin up my nose? You see me skin up my nose?

  MONGROO

  [Wrinkling his nose, sniffing] What is that, gentlemen? Not skinning up his nose? You want a vote on the matter. Okay. Did Mr. Hogan skin up his nose?

  LAI-FOOK

  [Hand up, voting] He skin up his nose.

  MONGROO

  And Chinee don’t lie. It ain’t corruption you smelling, Hogan. You smelling progress, man! Carbon dioxide. Money for your gas station with the oil prices booming. You cannot sit on the deed of sale legally. Is a government ordinance. I give up. This man have my handkerchief wet. [Wipes his brow] See? [Sighs, sits, drinks water] If this man was a caveman he would be against the wheel. He would look at fire and say, “It ain’t go work.” This man should be in a museum! They should bring little children to see him. Don’t rumple up my blueprint, Franco. You’re a next one! All right, Hernando. Show them the hat.

  OTTO

  You know what I should do all you? Take you to court.

  FRANCO

  Maybe he’s in there soaping her back …

  MAYOR

  Take us to court! Take us! Mind I ain’t sue your arse for slander. [Producing a large black hat] You recognize this?

  OTTO

  Is a hat. How many hats like that it have in Trinidad?

  MAYOR

  With the name Euphony Hogan sewn inside the hatband?

  FRANCO

  I have a confession to make, so take it down, Mrs. Almandoz. I, Eldridge Theocritus Franco, B.A. (Wolsely Hall), Assistant Master at the Couva Technical School, pseudonymously known as Macaroni Socks, am, or have been, the Mysterious Stranger, and I throw myself on the mercy of this court. [Falls across the table. He is ignored] I did wear that hat.

  MONGROO

  Mr. Mayor. I think we have enough here to arrest Mr. Hogan. Sit up, Franco.

  FRANCO

  [Sits up] I object to this harassment on principle, Mongroo.

  MONGROO

  You shut up and sit down, and you listen to me. You ain’t a principal. You ain’t even vice-principal. You is a simple schoolmaster with big words and a small salary, and since money talks, and you ain’t have none, shut up! Bring your sister out here, Hogan!

  FRANCO

  She’s having a bath. I’m sure that in your opinion that is a crime.

  MONGROO

  I smell good, you hear me? I always smell good. I use a shaving lotion that would soak up your salary.

  [EUPHONY, in a bathrobe, runs in screaming. FRANCO jumps up, shakes her by the shoulders, just like in the movies]

  EUPHONY

  A man was at the back door. At the bathroom window.

  MITZI

  You were right, Mr. Franco. That peeping Thomas!

  LAI-FOOK

  Bank robbery, corruption, attempted rape! We becoming a city! Is just like television! Kill the maco!

  FRANCO

  [Slaps her] Get hold of yourself, Euph … Get … You’re hysterical!

  EUPHONY

  Eldridge, what you slap me for? This ain’t television! [Slaps him back]

  MITZI

  [Points] Look, he just creep past the window. He coming back inside.

  FRANCO

  The womanhood of Couva must be defended. Shhh. Step back, boys, we going to teach him a lesson. Turn off the lights, Mrs. Almandoz.

  [The lights are turned off, the room dims]

  FRANCO

  Everybody grab something, and when he come through that door, we’ll teach him a lesson that he’ll never forget. Shhh.

  [The door opens cautiously]

  CARDIFF JOE

  Surprise, everybody!

  THE COUNCIL

  Surprise!

  [They fall on him, fight, and are hurled off. Lights return]

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Staggering] Ten years, ten years I spend in Wales. Deep in the mines. I dream of coming back home, and the day that I do, the Borough Council beats the bejyasus out of me! [Sits at a table]

  EUPHONY

  Alwyn! You reach? [Embraces him]

  OTTO

  [Lifting CARDIFF JOE’s arm] Members of the Borough Council, me partner, Alwyn Davies. Welsh heavyweight champion.

  FRANCO

  Champion, eh? We’ll see about that.

  ACT II

  SCENE 1

  Next morning. The café. CARDIFF JOE is reading the newspaper. FRANCO enters, sits at a table away from CARDIFF JOE. Long silence. CARDIFF JOE looks up, then back down, reading.

  FRANCO

  Wales …

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Lowering newspaper] Hey?

  FRANCO

  I said, “Wales, eh?”

  CARDIFF JOE

  No. I said, “Hey!” You just said, “Wales.” [Resumes reading]

  FRANCO

  Amateur heavyweight champion of Wales, hey? [Silence] Got to work in the mines?

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Lowering newspaper] Shouldn’t you be out there?

  FRANCO

  Those little monkeys can take care of themselves. [Silence] Didn’t get to work in the mines?

  CARDIFF JOE

  The mines? No. [Rustling newspaper] White chap put me off. Said: “They won’t take black chappies in the mines.” You thinking of going to work in the mines?

  FRANCO

  No, thank you.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Quite right, man of your calibre don’t want to go down, does he? He wants to go up. [He returns to reading newspaper. Silence. The sound of bulldozers]

  FRANCO

  Where’s my fiancée?

  CARDIFF JOE

  Asleep.

  FRANCO

  [Consulting watch] At 9:30 a.m.?

  CARDIFF JOE

  We had a hard night.

  FRANCO

  A hard night? Doing what? [CARDIFF JOE lifts his head, stares at FRANCO] Is that supposed to be an enigmatic smile? [Silence] I hate Saturdays. It means weekends. And a weekend in Couva is like ten years in the mines. [CARDIFF JOE groans] Did you wear one of those round lights on your forehead?

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Patiently] Yes.

  FRANCO

  Aha! So you did work in the mines? [Silence] Moths bother you? [Silence] Do you know How Green Was My Valley?

  CARDIFF JOE

  No. How green was it?

  FRANCO

  It’s a very moving picture about the mines. With Walter Pidgeon. I’ve always wanted one of those hats to read in bed. But I’d need repellent because light attracts moths. Of course there aren’t many moths since they levelled the forest. On the other hand, the less moths the better. I read a lot, you see. I travel in books. I didn’t go chasing my arse all over the ocean, like Odysseus.

  CARDIFF JOE

  That what the bugger did?

  FRANCO

  Damned right. He stayed away for ten years, then he came back and started reading the papers. You chaps go away and expect us to hold the fort. Then you sit there, reading the papers. [Silence] So you moved in last night? [Silence] Man of few words, correct? Deep chap.

  CARDIFF JOE

  I learnt it in the mines.

  FRANCO

  Feeble. [Silence. FRANCO starts throwing bits of chalk at CARDIFF JOE] But most boxers ar
e brain-damaged, so that’s okay. Where are your reflexes? Boxers have reflexes. How come when I throw chalk at you you don’t bob and weave? Throw a hook at me. I’ll show you what a boxer does, laddie. [CARDIFF JOE puts his hand around a bottle of ketchup. FRANCO, guard up, bobs and weaves, jabbing, talking] Ah, ah, ah! Watch it, laddie! Watch the footwork! These are the ankles of a dancer. Chap leaves native village nestling in the cane fields and sails to Wales to find his roots because his name is Alwyn. Childhood sweetheart waving in the coconuts, singing “Till We Meet Again.” A copra opera. Chap looks all over Wales for ten years. Can’t find his roots so figures he left them back home. Comes back to find his true love’s going to marry a poor schoolmaster. Know the moral of this sugar-cane saga? [Stops bobbing and weaving] Out of sight, out of mines. [Collapses, panting, on chair]

  CARDIFF JOE

  [Growling] Oh, put a cork in it, Franco.

  FRANCO

  [Leaping up] Put a cork in it? Put a cork in it? Put a cork in it when I’m entitled to protect my fiancée’s chastity?

  [EUPHONY enters, happy]

  EUPHONY

  Put a cork in what, boys? Morning, morning. Lovely day for a wedding! How are you, Eldridge?

  FRANCO

  Wedding? Whose wedding? What wedding, and when?

  EUPHONY

  Now, Eldridge, I told you …

  [The LIMER enters]

  LIMER

  Mr. Franco?

  FRANCO

  You’re learning, idler!

  LIMER

  The headmaster send to say …

  FRANCO

  You tell that gorilla I resign!

  LIMER

  It’s your pension. [Leaving]

  FRANCO

  No, no, no, wait, wait. I’ll tell him myself! [Exits. Followed by the LIMER]

  CARDIFF JOE

  How long have you known him?

  [EUPHONY sits]

  EUPHONY

  Long enough. Drink your coffee.

  CARDIFF JOE

  He’s not the fool that he thinks he is.

  EUPHONY

  You lucky you came. I nearly married him. Drink your coffee in peace, you bastard.

  CARDIFF JOE

  I’d come out of the mines, and the hills of Wales, they’d be there, green and quiet as that hymn you used to sing in chapel right here in Couva: “To Be a Pilgrim.” And in the spring and summer, Euphony, there’d be larks and hills with flecks of grazing sheep, and I’d hear the lark’s voice as high as the mines were deep, love. And I’d forget to buy stamps to write you a letter, because I’d written you so many times in my mind. The years passed over the hills. Winters and green-throated summers that looked like the hills around Couva. And before I could look around, ten of them were gone, and it was time to come home. I took my impatience out in the ring and became a champion. But I knew you were waiting as much as I was. Then, when I took to the sea and saw half the world, it was the same thing. Just a long way round back to you. Back to the young woman with the face that’s never changed like those hills. You have the wedding dress? Because I’ve found a good preacher.

  EUPHONY

  Two elections, ten Easters, one mortgage. Not long.

  CARDIFF JOE

  You have the bridal dress? I’ve got the license.

  EUPHONY

  The dress? I had to open up the sides a little. Ah yes, yes. In good time our prayers come to pass. Tomorrow the highway opens, tomorrow I shall take you into my arms as my husband. You dog!

  CARDIFF JOE

  You know what I’d like sung at the ceremony?

  [Sings softly]

  Because …

  EUPHONY

  [Screams] Not “Because,” not at my wedding!

  CARDIFF JOE

  O.K.! Is that roti I’m smelling?

  [EUPHONY rises from the table]

  EUPHONY

  God, I hope the chicken ain’t burning. [She exits, OTTO enters]

  OTTO

  Well, big day for everybody, eh? The highway opening and you getting married. You got some frost round your temples, boy.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Is the sea spray, partner. You going grey yourself.

  OTTO

  Salt-and-pepper, partner. Salt-and-pepper from worry. [Goes to the counter, returns with a bottle of Scotch whiskey and two glasses]

  CARDIFF JOE

  Things change so damn much. The only thing that still look the same is the hills, and Euphony.

  OTTO

  Ah, but to what use and what end, Alwyn boy? All them rigorous principles they beat into us in church? We ain’t hills, we’s men. We change. I had sensa values, and where it put me? Tomorrow the new road opening regardless. Mongroo driving a Mercedes, I here playing mechanic.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Mongroo still have that hardware store? He’s doing well.

  OTTO

  Is the Mongroo Construction Company. We blast for the future. Like the H-bomb. A racket, a rip-off. Money passing underneath tables. Third World machinery. Third-rate equipment. Telephones, housing, water mains.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Done a fair bit of travelling in my time.

  Seen deserts, volcanoes, icebergs, the lot,

  but never seen anything more boring than cement.

  OTTO

  How the place look to you after ten years away?

  The old sawmill dismantled, where we used to swim.

  They drained the river where we used to fish.

  CARDIFF JOE

  I went out for a walk early at sunrise.

  Bloody place is going to look like everywhere else.

  Shopping malls, plazas, clover-leaf overpass,

  neon in the sunshine, and the old houses looking

  just like old people, pushed away to the side.

  I came back hoping it was the way I loved it.

  I dreamed about it down in the mines.

  It’ll be like anywhere. Unless you blow it up.

  All that I could take, countrysides change,

  but when the change brings corruption,

  it’s that I won’t permit. The moral poison.

  FRANCO

  [Enters, raging] Think I’m one of his Mickey Mice, eh? A double Peardrax. Education in this country has gone to the dogs! Take my word for it. Let me calm down. I told that fat black fool the Headmaster and his little Clark Gable moustache to take his pension and ram it up! I told that gorilla, “The children have been standing in the sun for nearly an hour and they are thirsty [Drinking the Peardrax rapidly] for refreshment.” He grunted. “Franco, you go pay for seventy-seven sweet drink?” I said, “Take it out of the sports voucher.” He grunted: “Why I ain’t take it out your salary? Dey go have to learn that life ain’t easy.” Something in me burst and I told him about his parts. Oh, I exploded this time, oh yes, oh yes! I quit, then he fired me! They don’t want my type. My era is over! Yours and mine, Otto! We are walking ghosts.

  OTTO

  So it’s goodbye to the little monkeys? [Exits]

  CARDIFF JOE

  Maybe there’s an opening in the mines.

  FRANCO

  Maybe I could sell insurance. Are you covered?

  CARDIFF JOE

  Completely.

  FRANCO

  Well, there’s always television. Broomstick Handle offered me a job. I smell roti. Is the Indian woman back? [To CARDIFF JOE] How can you sit there quietly with the paper? BLOW IT UP! BLOW IT UP and start all over again!

  CARDIFF JOE

  Blow it up and … Eldridge, you’re a genius!

  [EUPHONY enters with a plate of rotis]

  EUPHONY

  Surprise, Alwyn! You told me that when you were in Wales there was one thing you dreamed of having: a good chicken roti!

  FRANCO

  Confronting a good roti, all my problems vanish.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Mine don’t. I don’t like what I have come home to. Here are two honest men suffering for their beliefs! I’m
a slow-thinking man, Mr. Franco, but when I get a bright idea, it’s very, very bright. Hold the fort. I’m going shopping, love.

  EUPHONY

  Look, don’t take ten years to come back, eh? Ten years ago you went down the road for a pack of cigarettes. I should tie a damn rope to your foot. We getting married tomorrow.

  CARDIFF JOE

  Love, I promise you the biggest bang you’ll ever get.

  EUPHONY

  ALWYN DAVIES! [CARDIFF JOE exits. Calls] Otto! Your niece and Broomstick Handle come back. [DRUSILLA, in a trim suit, enters with CEDRIC close behind, and the LIMER, carrying equipment. To CEDRIC] Where’s my broomstick, mister?

  CEDRIC

  It’s in the mail. [Pumping FRANCO’s hand] Well! You pulled it off, Franco. “Thanks to the great teacher.”

  DRUSILLA

  Okay, let’s set up quickly. Step aside, Mr. Franco. Whyn’t we put the camera over here, kill the overhead light, gel the spot surprise pink.

  [OTTO enters]

  OTTO

  This is Drusilla? Where you get the accent?

  DRUSILLA

  Can we get cracking on this shoot, Pops? Give him an oil can, get him to smile. Two young guys came by and dropped off this cash, so now let’s hit it. Here’s the note they left. “Thanks to a great teacher.” Dynamite job, Mr. Franco!

  [EUPHONY exits]

  FRANCO

  I never taught anybody to steal!

  OTTO

  This girl is pure Yankee, you hear her?

  CEDRIC

  Customers come from commercials! You hold up that can of oil, right behind that counter—get him the cap, Drusilla—and you give those potential customers your biggest grin. You’ve got sincere teeth, let’s make this a denture adventure.

  [DRUSILLA brings OTTO a red gas attendant’s cap and a can of oil]

  OTTO

  You owe me for mashing up my wall, you steal my one niece from the bosom of her family, you make me involved in a highway holdup, and you ask me to hold up some brake fluid and grin?

  DRUSILLA

  [Confronts OTTO] You are going to damned well get up and go behind that damned counter and wave this damned can of brake fluid, and look the happiest you ever looked, and grin the widest grin you ever grinned in your life, buddy, unless you want to go under and collapse, unless you want the future to whiz down that highway and leave you high and dry on the side of the road, you better do it. Smile, Uncle.

  OTTO

  Smile? The damned highway right outside my door now. Smile? You take all that equipment and get it out of my house. Next thing I’m in jail for robbing a payroll? Smile? [Gestures] I must grin like this when they handcuff me? [Grins, hand aloft with can]