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

this.
    JORDAN
         Woman, you imagining things. Is you should have been the blasted writer.
    MABEL
         You think what you have written, however long ago it is, the book still there, you can’t kill a book, you think it didn’t hurt me to look like such a fool. You write some hard things, Albert. My mother said it when I married you, I burned out my talent in domesticity. I have wasted my life. Whether is “Barrley and the Roof” or “My War Effort,” think they didn’t hurt me?
    JORDAN
         I didn’t mean to hurt you, woman. I just was not good enough. That was what makes my work so small. I am a small man, Mabel.
    MABEL
         Anyway, like I always told you, is never too late to find somebody young, however different. So, if when I wasn’t here you and she had anything going on, don’t let me stand in your way. I have always felt, you have always made me feel, that I stood in your way.
    JORDAN
         In my way? Where you think I would be today, woman? In a rum shop somewhere quoting Shakespeare and Macaulay to a bunch of no-teeth drunkards. I never been great enough to write about the simple things, about real magnificence, about you, in fact, my dear.
    MABEL
         I ain’t want no magnificence, Albert. I just want to go to my grave in peace, knowing that I didn’t stand in your way as a writer. And to see that love in your eyes coming back again so fierce as if you wish you was young and could go away with her … I can’t take it.
    JORDAN
         Mabel. We ain’t do nothing in this house. I would not violate a memory. Is very simple. Listen, Mabel: William Blake:
    ( Recites )
         “To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
           All pray in their distress;
           For Mercy has a human heart
           And Peace, the human dress…”
    ( MABEL exits )
         So cherish Pity, lest you drive an angel from your door …
    ( FREDERICK and ANNA , carrying the baby, come in )
    FREDERICK
         Hi, Pop.
    ANNA
         Hello, Mr. Jordan. I’ll just see how he is.
    ( She exits )
    FREDERICK
         Had a nice little walk. Anything wrong? I can feel the tension through your back.
    JORDAN
         From the day you turned down Mr. Barrley’s ridiculous proposal, Frederick, I knew you had become a man.
    FREDERICK
         After thirty years.
    JORDAN
         That’s how it is.
    FREDERICK
         Well. I’m a man. So.
    JORDAN
         So, seize opportunity. Act on principle and tell rumor to go to hell. You know what I mean.
    FREDERICK
         Very vaguely …
    ( Pause )
         What’s all this leading to, Professor?
    JORDAN
         You know that poem …
    FREDERICK
         What poem …
    JORDAN
         Gray’s “Elegy” … L-E-G … Leg! B-E-G! Beg.
    FREDERICK
         You’ve recited it for thirty years … I know it backward.
    JORDAN
         It’s really all about obscurity and missed opportunities, you know … It’s all “perhapses” and “maybes” … Listen …
    FREDERICK
         Get to the point, Pop. Don’t recite any more.
    JORDAN
         I’m telling you, boy. The hardest thing for a father is to see his son making his old mistakes. If, when I watch the two of you, I see Albert Perez Jordan and Esther Trout instead of Frederick Jordan and Anna Herschel, then all I would have left you, boy, is my shame and trembling. Since you love the girl, erase history from your mind and make your own. Don’t ask her questions and don’t let her ask you; take her as she is with what she has, and teach her to accept you the same way. But history, gossip, rumor, and what people go say? Blank it out! You have the strength. From the day you refused to sell that roof for money, I knew you had it.
    FREDERICK
         I got it from you.
    JORDAN
         That girl’s got qualities you need. She’s bright, she’s honest; take her, with my blessing.
    FREDERICK
         That’s the trouble with