Remembrance and Pantomime by Derek Walcott Read Free Book Online Page A

knapsack and a rolled canvas )
    FREDERICK
    ( Reciting )
         “Once more up to the beach, my friends, once more,
           And lie there till your naked arse goes red …
           In peace…”
    ( Spoken )
         I’m home, Professor. I’m home, and I’m hungry.
    ( Enters )
         Well, what have we here?
    JORDAN
         Frederick, this is Anna Herschel. Anna, Frederick.
    FREDERICK
         Anna Herschel.
    ANNA
         Hello.
    JORDAN
         Anna’s a great dancer.
    ANNA
         Not really. Your father’s been very kind to me. I got tired and lost and I …
    ( To JORDAN )
         Sounds phony, doesn’t it?
    FREDERICK
         Do you like painting, Anna?
    ANNA
         I don’t know much about it.
    ( The baby cries )
    FREDERICK
         What’s that?
    ANNA
         It’s a baby …
    FREDERICK
         Yours?
    ANNA
    ( Nods )
         Mine … I was just going to take him out …
    FREDERICK
         He’s in Junior’s room. That’s great. It’s been empty. Come on, come on, you take him out, and I’ll walk him. It’s a him? I’ll walk him with you and I’m going to bore your ears off about my painting, unless I’m stealing you from the old man. Am I stealing her from you, Professor?
    JORDAN
         Steal her with my blessing. I thought you were hungry.
    FREDERICK
         Professor. How can you talk of food at a time like this? He’s got no poetry in his soul, Anna. He’s a Philistine. Come on, let’s go. I’ll put these things inside. I been up in the mountains, you know …
    ( He embraces ANNA as they exit. JORDAN puts on the record, the volume low, listening. Fade )
    SCENE 2
    The same. Morning. A week later. MABEL at the window, JORDAN resting in the armchair.
    MABEL
         Albert, you too young for me, you hear? For seven days I gone to catch some rest in Princes Town, and in those seven days you not only pick up some young chick but you contrive to have a baby, too? Is only the Almighty who did so much in one week. If you keep this up in your retirement, you go kill me from surprise.
    JORDAN
         Well, it’s you who left me, old queen.
    MABEL
         I came back, yes. But I didn’t come back for this: to look through my window and see some hippie and my last son strolling arm in arm like man and wife in that park. I go put up a sign, you hear? JORDANS’ REST HOME.
    JORDAN
         Arm in arm? Let me see.
    ( He walks over to the window, and after a while puts his arm around MABEL )
         Seven years ago they could have been killed. Maybe there’s trout.
    MABEL
         Why you let this girl in, Albert? How she could confuse you so?
    JORDAN
         I told you. She used her last cent to come out here with the child, to get to the farthest point that she could, to the end of the world.
    MABEL
         Belmont is the end of the world?
    JORDAN
         She was supposed to meet friends here. Somewhere in this neighborhood. But it was either an old or a wrong address and she had no money for a hotel. The plane was four hours late, she got as far as a taxi could take her, and she got out and started walking.
    MABEL
         Then she looked through this window and saw the Pope of Belmont shining through the glass, and lo and behold! we have a boarder. She ha’ to go, Albert. And you know that. Frederick is the anchor she using to stay here.
    JORDAN
         Listen, Mabel.
    MABEL
         And I been watching you. You like her, too, don’t you, Albert?
    JORDAN
         Too? What you mean?
    MABEL
         You think all I do is cook, sing hymns, and tolerate your moods. You think I don’t read? You think I ain’t realize who Padmore is? You think I never read “My War Effort,” and realize that if you wasn’t such a coward thirty years ago, you would of leave me? Well, the way I have watched you watching her, all I can see is memory and regret. Lord, I ain’t know why I had to come back for