Remembrance and Pantomime

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Remembrance

  Pantomime

  Note

  By Derek Walcott

  Copyright

  Remembrance

  For Alix Walcott

  and

  Ruth and Joe Moore

  Characters

  ALBERT PEREZ JORDAN, a retired schoolteacher, aged sixty-five

  MABEL JORDAN, his wife, late fifties

  FREDERICK JORDAN, their son, early thirties

  MR. BARRLEY, an American tourist

  ESTHER HOPE, an Englishwoman, late twenties

  ANNA HERSCHEL, an American (same actress as for Esther Hope)

  MR. PILGRIM, editor of The Belmont Bugle, early sixties

  AN INTERVIEWER from The Belmont Bugle, early twenties; also A SCHOOLBOY and A WAITER

  SET: The living room of the Jordans’ house in the old section of Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad, in the present.

  Remembrance was commissioned by the Courtyard Players, St. Croix, and premiered at the Dorsch Centre, St. Croix, on April 22, 1977, directed by the author, with the following cast:

  INTERVIEWER

  Crispin Peterson

  ALBERT PEREZ JORDAN

  Wilbert Holder

  MABEL JORDAN

  Lorraine Joseph

  FREDERICK JORDAN

  Monsell Laury

  ESTHER HOPE/ANNA HERSCHEL

  Deborah Merlin Craig

  MR. BARRLEY

  Frank Erhardt

  EZRA PILGRIM

  Charles Durant

  The play was produced by Joseph Papp, and opened at the New York Shakespeare Festival, New York, on April 24, 1979, directed by Charles Turner, with the following cast:

  INTERVIEWER

  Lou Ferguson

  ALBERT PEREZ JORDAN

  Roscoe Lee Browne

  MABEL JORDAN

  Cynthia Belgrave

  FREDERICK JORDAN

  Frankie R. Faison

  ESTHER HOPE/ANNA HERSCHEL

  Laurie Kennedy

  MR. BARRLEY

  Gil Rogers

  EZRA PILGRIM

  Earle Hyman

  Act One

  PROLOGUE

  Pre-dawn. The drawing room of ALBERT PEREZ JORDAN’s house in Belmont. Dark wood, a fanlight of stained glass, ferns in a corner, a couch with a fading floral pattern, a fringed standing lamp, and a large antique desk at which JORDAN, in waistcoat, no jacket, slippers, is sitting stiffly, hands clasped in his lap. A grandfather clock strikes four. The INTERVIEWER is sitting in the half dark, some distance away, holding a cassette recorder. A small microphone is in front of JORDAN.

  INTERVIEWER

  Is Remembrance Day today, Mr. Jordan, seven years after the February revolution to which you lost a son, and tomorrow there will be marching in the streets of Port of Spain, and the marchers will stand with red flags for one commemorative minute outside this house …

  JORDAN

  Whose windows will be closed … Wait. You going to leave in the sound of the clock?

  INTERVIEWER

  The clock will strike again, Mr. Jordan. So we have all the time in the world. Ready?

  JORDAN

  Is like one of them launchings at Cape Canaveral. Boy, I sitting here feeling like a spaceman, except I taking a journey through time.

  INTERVIEWER

  I had it on that time. Lemme erase.

  JORDAN

  Not “lemme erase,” boy! Let me erase. You write for Ezra Pilgrim’s paper and is so all you does talk? All you young Trinidadians does so handle machine without reading book.

  INTERVIEWER

  Mr. Pilgrim instructed me to show you the machine, when you have to use it by yourself. Press both here for Record. Backward. Forward. Your turn.

  JORDAN

  No. The only machine I ever trusted was my old Raleigh bicycle. It behaved erratically and suddenly died.

  INTERVIEWER

  Of what, Mr. Jordan?

  JORDAN

  Rabies. Some rabid pothound snapped at my trouser clip and bit the bike. It’s out there in the back yard, rusty as my Latin. I’m ready.

  (INTERVIEWER turns off the machine, as JORDAN exasperatedly paces)

  I would have written all this down, but that stubborn red ass, your editor, wouldn’t hear. What about your eyes? he said. Before your memory goes, too, I’ll send a boy over with a tape recorder, and if you can’t write you could talk it out. Talk out what? I said. And he said, The story of your life, and I said, My life is nothing, Ezra, I have been a damn fool, and he said, Nobody’s life is nothing, especially yours, and besides, I said, I cannot write prose, Ezra, I am a poet, and he said, Everybody’s eyes does dim a little as they get old, but as your eyes grow dim so your memories brighten, and if you can’t write prose, at least you could talk it, and I told him, You got that from Molière, because I was a schoolmaster, you know. They called me One Jacket Jordan.

  (Long pause)

  I was a schoolmaster. I was for a while Acting Principal of Belmont Intermediate. They never appointed me. A schoolmaster.

  (Pause)

  Who taught the wrong things.

  (He crosses to coat rack and puts on schoolmaster’s jacket. He has become a younger man. He crosses to desk, sits down, opens a book, and recites)

  “Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

  The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

  And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

  Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

  The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

  Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

  Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

  (A cough. He pauses)

  Th’ applause of listening senates to command…”

  (Hands clapping)

  We’ll have none of that, please. To talk in all you dialeck, I ent in the mood for no heckling this Monday morning, so whoever feel he was a listening senator applauding now, mind I ent use this ruler on his same hand for it to really smart, which is a pun in case all you didn’t know. So. The page is page 43, the author is Thomas Gray. My mother, who was also a teacher, used to recite this same passage to me when I was your age, and the poem is an elegy.

  (Voices off: Schoolboys, faint, then louder)

  VOICES OFF

  L-E-G! Leg.

  B-E-G! Beg.

  JORDAN

  You hear those voices? You hear those voices, boy? They grew into a rabble and they fooled my son.

  (In the past, confidently)

  And Thomas Gray is saying …

  VOICES OFF

  Gray is ofay, black is beautiful,

  Gray is shit,

  (Chanting)

  Jordan is a honky

  Jordan is a honky

  Jordan is a honky-donkey white nigger man!

  (JORDAN whirls and seizes a ruler from the desk)

  JORDAN

  Put out your hand, boy!

  I say put out your hand!

  Good! Good. Now turn it round!

  Boy, I said to turn it round!

  What color is the palm, eh? Pink.

  What color is the back, eh? Black!

  Well, you go learn, little nigger,

  that, just like your hand,

&n
bsp; what is called poetry, and art,

  color don’t matter! Color don’t matter!

  (His own palm is extended. He begins to beat it)

  So learn! Learn! Learn! Learn!

  (Pause. JORDAN stands there with extended palm. Then he rubs his forehead, smiles)

  INTERVIEWER

  Your two best-known stories, the ones that get into anthologies the most, are, of course: “Barrley and the Roof,” a satire on independence, and “My War Effort,” a romance. How closely did you draw on your own experience; can we say that the work of Albert Perez Jordan was his life?

  JORDAN

  You could say it, if you prepared for libel. It is fiction. I always added a little truth to my stories. Pepper sauce on the meat.

  (Reads. Projection: print)

  INTERVIEWER

  (Hands JORDAN a small locally printed volume and announces into the mike)

  Here then, in A. P. Jordan’s inimitable manner, is his last story … “Barrley on the Roof” … published in The Beacon, May 1971.

  JORDAN

  “Barrley and the Roof,” boy!

  (The INTERVIEWER withdraws. JORDAN in a spotlight, the printed or manuscript page, in fastidious hand, behind him. Reads)

  Epigraph from William Blake:

  “A Man’s worst enemies are those of his own House and Family.”

  (PILGRIM staggers in)

  PILGRIM

  Correct!

  (JORDAN crosses to coat rack, changes jackets, and puts on sash and hat. PILGRIM begins to sing a calypso tune)

  “Run your run, Adolf Hitler, run your run. Run your run, Adolf Hitler, run your run.”

  (As PILGRIM sings, JORDAN crosses to him, and together they stagger)

  JORDAN

  (Reads)

  “Whenever Wilberforce P. Padmore, part-time poet, returned home with his bosom friend, Roddy Broadwater, from lodge meetings of the Oddfellows Society, in black suits, sashes, and homburgs, whose angle suggested two irresponsible morticians, they were inevitably, indubitably, inebriated.”

  PILGRIM

  Good night, A.P.

  (He begins to exit. Then calls out)

  See you Sunday.

  JORDAN

  “Once they had parted, Padmore stood under the reeling stars and, in a voice whose power ignited the windows of Belmont and the wrath of his wife, announced to the sleeping world:

  (Roars)

  Mabel!

  Maybelle?

  I

  am

  home!”

  (Plunges drunk into darkness)

  (Blackout)

  SCENE 1

  JORDAN

  Mabel? Mabel? I’m home.

  (He flings his hat toward the coat rack, misses, retrieves, wears it)

  MABEL

  (Offstage)

  Is only now you come, you bitch?

  JORDAN

  His wife replied. Charming! Padmore sneered. I should have stayed. I’m hungry.

  MABEL

  (Enters, in nightdress, dressing gown, hat, and boots)

  Why you ain’t ask Ezra Pilgrim to cook for you? Think I didn’t hear all you out in the street? Don’t bother ravage the fridge, it empty. Your son is home. Half past three, and you expect me to cook? Why you ain’t go and live by Ezra Pilgrim?

  JORDAN

  Well, I thought since you were up. Where you going? Padmore solicitously inquired.

  MABEL

  I going shopping, all right?

  (Pauses. Returns)

  And, Albert, you bound to keep your hat on in the house? You going to sleep so?

  JORDAN

  Padmore knew very well that he had been losing my hair.

  MABEL

  A hat on in the house is a bad-luck sign. Take it off, please.

  JORDAN

  Mrs. Padmore, when there is something or someone in the immediate vicinity I can take off my hat to, I shall. Till then …

  MABEL

  I warn you. If you come to bed like that, Albert, I sleeping in my shoes. And you can also inform Padmore.

  JORDAN

  Mabel! Mabel! Suppose a car knock you down dressed like that? Padmore felt a joyful fear.

  (MABEL exits. FREDERICK, unnoticed, enters in pajamas)

  Thirty-odd years of total misunderstanding.

  FREDERICK

  What’s up now, Pop?

  JORDAN

  Frederick, you’re a grown man; how old are you now, thirty-one, thirty-two? People mistake you for a younger brother on those rare occasions when we are together. Now you emerge from your kiddie’s room in the early hours like a kid asking for a glass of milk and a cookie, and crown it all by calling me Pop. No, wait, wait … Frederick, I am Albert Perez Jordan, retired schoolteacher, coasting round sixty-five years, I am bored and fed up. I am particularly fed up with you, Freddie. Fred up with Freddie. Go back to sleep.

  FREDERICK

  Gee, Pa …

  JORDAN

  Frederick, Frederick, Frederick, Frederick, Frederick, “Gee, Pa” is only a little worse than “What’s up, Pop?” We are in Trinidad. Normal idiots might venture such exchanges as “Wha’ happening, Daddy?” or “What it is Mammy do you?” but I guess it’s because you’re an artist. Did you paint today?

  FREDERICK

  Yes, Pappy. Good night.

  JORDAN

  Come here, son. And kiss your father good night. Don’t be afraid.

  FREDERICK

  It’s not fear. It’s the after-odor of liquor that makes me upset.

  JORDAN

  Kiss your father, boy! There, that didn’t hurt, did it? Sit down till your mom, your gee-whiz mom, comes back from riding her tantrum and tell me what you painted, or even better, bring it, that I may proffer a layman’s judgment.

  FREDERICK

  I can’t, Pop. I mean, “Ah cyant bring it, Pappy.”

  JORDAN

  God, if there’s one thing I rue, my boy, is the day I taught my children diction. I think I did it to defy your mother’s earthy vulgarity. Diction has made you a misfit, Frederick, an anachronism in these days of independence. I miss colonialism. Why can’t you bring the painting to Papa, Fred my boy?

  FREDERICK

  It’s on a wall. Is … It’s a … Is a mural.

  JORDAN

  I know what a mural is. Which wall?

  FREDERICK

  You ent go get vex?

  JORDAN

  How can art get anyone vexed? You’re home on a fellowship, Fred, a grant from the Albert Perez Jordan Foundation, I am your sponsor, why should I discourage you from painting the side of the house—that’s-not-where-you-painted-the-damned-thing, is it?

  FREDERICK

  No. It’s on the roof.

  JORDAN

  A roof mural! Good! I suppose it’s meant for passing planes? Don’t you think, dear boy, that it may be a danger to aerial navigation?

  FREDERICK

  I have a flashlight. You want to come and see it?

  JORDAN

  I understand, Freddie dear, that in the Vatican the visitors lie on their backs to achieve a layman’s view of Michelangelo’s brush; why wouldn’t I accompany you to the roof of our little suburban mansion? Let us proceed. I hope you’ve signed it?

  (Exit FREDERICK and JORDAN as MABEL enters with a small brown paper bag, quarreling, expecting JORDAN to be on his usual roost, the couch. She closes the door)

  MABEL

  Well, I’m telling you it take all my Christian fortitude to go into Harry’s All-Night Bar and Grill at four in the morning. I have to stand up in my alpagartas listening to Harry tell me about his boxing career, cooking with his hat on, asking me in front of all them rum drinkers and street cleaners, “How’s the professor, Mrs. J.?” I don’t call people Mr. H. or Mr. R. I was a teacher, too, and I respect the alphabet.

  (Crosses into the living room, removes her hat and dressing gown, talking over her shoulder to the empty couch. Crosses to the kitchen)

  Shame have yo
u silent, nuh?

  (Crosses to the empty couch)

  You hearing me? Where this man evaporate? Albert. Where the hell he gone?

  (Noise overhead. She listens)

  JORDAN

  Could you come up here a second, Mabel? I think our boy Freddie’s done a masterpiece.

  MABEL

  (Looking up)

  Albert! Somebody walking on the blasted roof.

  JORDAN

  It is I, it is us. It is we. I’m looking at Freddie’s work. In my layman’s view, and at night by a torch, I pronounce it the greatest thing since Picasso.

  MABEL

  (Shouting)

  So is that Freddie was doing up there all day, when he tell me for the last two days that he repairing the leak?

  FREDERICK

  I meant to patch the leak, Mother, but I got carried away.

  JORDAN

  Are you coming up, Mabel?

  MABEL

  No, I ent coming up, not with my arthritis, and the hops and shark getting cold. I go buy a plane ticket and check it out in the morning. On my way to Tobago. No.

  (Talking to herself now)

  Not Tobago, either. My sister Inez tired begging me to leave that damned jackanapes and come meet her in Brooklyn.

  (Loudly again)

  So tell Frederick Mammy will see it on the way to the States.

  (Enter JORDAN and FREDERICK, exultant)

  JORDAN

  Stop the presses, call the newspaper, summon the critics, my faith in the boy is justified. Frederick, your son, has created a masterpiece, from what I could see! I take off my hat to you, son! I hurl it from me in the ultimate bravo! Hip hip, hip hip, hip-hip horray!

  (Hurls his hat away)

  Mabel! Mabel! Do you know what our boy Frederick has done?

  MABEL

  Eat your hops and shark. Go back to sleep, Freddie. Your father so bored with retirement he ent know what to do.

  JORDAN

  Only one hops and shark you buy?

  MABEL

  How I was to know two of you all would be up on the roof in the middle of the night, with all Belmont sleeping, not to buy one shark and hops?

  JORDAN

  You hungry, boy?