Remembrance and Pantomime (4 page)

(
MABEL
opens her Bible
)

MABEL

     Is just to tell you that you ain’t missing no big ceremony. And I on the next side. I read this same passage that mark here: “The beauty of Israel is slain high places,” and so on. Very short. Very simple. Frederick does lay down the wreath. I does close the book, and then …

JORDAN

     Mabel …

MABEL

     … and then I does say, very calmly, “Junior, your father promise he will come next year.” Ten, fifteen minutes, that is all. So, wait for you?

JORDAN

     Is too much pain, Mrs. Jordan. Too much. Don’t make this a sad house, woman. Life marches on.

(
FREDERICK
enters
)

FREDERICK

     Oh, Jesus, two of you stop that bawling! Ma, leave him, come on! All right, I’m going.

JORDAN

     Bawling? You find your mother and me always bawling, eh? And you, what do you do? Every year you go with her to the graveside, then you take off like a hermit to the mountains to paint. Paint? You can’t fool me, boy! You run up there and hide because you can’t take that memory any more than me. Than I. So mind your blasted business, that’s all!

(
FREDERICK
exits
)

     Lord, just let me get that blasted sweepstake and you go see my smoke!

MABEL

     The daydreaming, the daydreaming is worse than when you had malaria! This man delirious in his old age, Lord! Give me the strength to walk out this house while I still have time.

JORDAN

     You feel I go miss you? You think I can’t manage?

(
Goes to the door, opens it with a flourish
)

     The door open. The world is yawning wide. Come on, come on. I waiting.

(
Pause.
MABEL
sucks her teeth
)

MABEL

     Albert, close the door, eh.

(
Pause
)

     Albert, you standing in a draft. All right, your Majesty, when you look for me, I gone! And I mightn’t come back.

(
Exits
)

JORDAN

     Mistress Jordan! Do me a favor! Don’t come back!

MABEL

(
Offstage
)

     Right!

(
The stage. Traffic sounds outside. A dog keeps up its frenzied barking.
JORDAN
goes to the armchair, and lifts up the paper. Then he puts it down slowly. He looks up to the ceiling. Then he sits. It grows dark. The clock chimes five
)

JORDAN

     We born alone. We suffer alone. We dead alone. Right?

(
He keeps looking at the ceiling
)

     You know, since your own son dead, we ain’t been hearing much from you.

SCENE 2

The same.
JORDAN
sits in the armchair. From the dark, the
INTERVIEWER
’s voice.

INTERVIEWER

     That was a great performance, Mr. Jordan. The way you read, them characters really leapt to life. Is just one little technicality. If you going to move around so much during the next story, is best you hold the mike, or else we find ourself all over the place.

JORDAN

     So life is, young man. All over the place.

(
INTERVIEWER
turns on machine, speaks into it
)

INTERVIEWER

     That was “Barrley on the Roof, A Satire,” by A. P. Jordan, published last year. Now we go back thirty years to old colonial Port of Spain, via a story known as a pioneer work in our literature: “The War Effort.”

JORDAN

     “My War Effort.” Yes.

INTERVIEWER

     Do you remember it?

JORDAN

     Vaguely.

(
Projection: “My War Effort”

             
by

             
A. P. Jordan
)

INTERVIEWER

     It was published in 1948.

JORDAN

     To heal the wound.

INTERVIEWER

     What wound?

JORDAN

     Never mind what wound. It was all a lie. I made it up. It happened to a friend of mine. And her name was not Hope; it was Esther Trout. I should have used Trout instead of Hope. Hope was too obvious and Trout got away. How does it begin? “In the balmy days”?…

(
As the
INTERVIEWER
reads, a projection of
JORDAN
in volunteer cap and World War II uniform.
JORDAN
,
listening, rises and moves away.
ESTHER TROUT
,
a young Englishwoman, enters and sits at a desk
)

INTERVIEWER

     “In
those
balmy days of the Second World War, I was not English, but I considered myself to be. I was a colonial, but did not consider myself to be so. England belonged to me, her heritage, her war. I adored England and there was nothing more England to me than my immediate superior at the Information Office one desk away, than the adorable Miss Esther Hope.

(
The Information Office: Morning. The
INTERVIEWER
,
who has arranged the furniture, withdraws.
ESTHER TROUT
,
a twenty-five-year-old, is at her desk. Above her desk a large Union Jack.
JORDAN
enters, pauses at the door. He is holding a rose
)

JORDAN

     I’m awfully sorry to be late, Miss Trout, but you can blame it on the war. May I wish you a pleasant working day. May our tropic sun not wilt your English rose.

ESTHER

     Your accent is almost flawless, Mr. Jordan. When are you going to be yourself?

JORDAN

     I waited at the Readers’ and Writers’ Club last night. I have written a little poem in somebody’s honor. Guess whose? I preferred not to read it. I spent a restless night wondering what happened.

ESTHER

     I had to go to Government House. A reception. You … Why am I telling you all this, Mr. Jordan? Now, do you want the key to the library?

JORDAN

(
Accepting key
)

     The library, again? Among musty tomes? Does that mean I won’t have the pleasure …

ESTHER

     There’s something else.

(
She holds up a note
)

     What is this, Mr. Jordan?

JORDAN

     What is what?

ESTHER

     This.

(
Reads the note
)

     “Miss Trout, I’ve adored you from the day you came into this office. I’ve adored you without hope. I’ve worshipped you across the gulf of race and the chasm of time. Will you join me in a drink after work? A.J. P.S. Then marry me?”

     Is this some sort of a joke, Mr. Jordan? Because if it is, I think it’s silly. You mustn’t trifle with people’s affections. It’s dangerous.

(
She tears up the note
)

     Now, be a good boy and don’t get ideas. Because we’re on the verge of becoming friends. Please go to the library, Mr. Jordan. Now. Oh, and by the way …

JORDAN

     Yes, sir?

ESTHER

     What’s happened to those back numbers of
The Illustrated London News?

JORDAN

     They’re being kept in my digs. As hostages. Till you agree to have lunch.

ESTHER

     You know very well that they aren’t to leave Reference, Mr. Jordan. Or it’s my neck.

JORDAN

     Passion has made me dauntless, Miss Trout.

ESTHER

     The library, Mr. Jordan. There’s a war on. Now …

(
JORDAN
exits.
ESTHER
looks up from her work, rests her chin in one palm, smiles; then, the smile fading, stares as the lights fade
)

SCENE 3

JORDAN

(
Recites
)

     “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

       Or close the wall up with our English dead!

       In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

       As modest stillness and humility;

       But when the blast of war blows in our ears…”

ESTHER

     What is this, Mr. Jordan?

JORDAN

     Sorry to appear in civvies, sir, but I simply couldn’t find a spot to stash my gear.

ESTHER

     Stash your gear?

JORDAN

     I’ve joined the local defense force. I’m up for pips. Lieutenant Albert Perez Jordan of the Home Guard. Shh … the walls have ears. From a meek office lamb to a tiger on the battlefield. I hope I’m severely wounded; then you could look after me. I’m quite excited by it all, excuse me.

ESTHER

     You’ve seen too many war films, Albert. It isn’t like that. War’s very boring, actually. It’s mostly administration. Could you check this list?

JORDAN

     We might see a little action. You never know.

ESTHER

     Action? We?

JORDAN

     The war, I mean.

ESTHER

     In Trinidad?

JORDAN

     Oh, don’t dismiss the idea so easily, Miss Trout. There’re submarines. There’s the threat of invasion.

ESTHER

     By whom, Mr. Jordan?

JORDAN

     By Vichy France. They’re sinking our ships. Our boys are going down. I was considered essential to the war effort here, so they didn’t let me enlist. There was a rumor about a commission if I’d gotten in. At least one pip. But I doubt I’d have gotten it. Black officer in the British Army’d be a rare sight, what?

ESTHER

     I’ll say. Take that silly thing off and help me proof this inventory, you idiot.

JORDAN

     When you call me an idiot, Miss Trout, I feel like a prince. If I wore my uniform, then would you consider going out with me?

ESTHER

     The inventory.

JORDAN

     Does that mean you might? I can’t decipher that smile.

ESTHER

     You’re engaged to be married, aren’t you, Mr. Jordan? That’s what I hear.

JORDAN

     I am. I was. It’s meant nothing since I met you. I could break it off. You only have to nod. Means nothing, really.

ESTHER

     It’s meant something to me. Shall we start working now?

JORDAN

     It’s all hopeless, is it?

ESTHER

     Not hopeless, but pointless. Bit of a difference there.

JORDAN

     I joined up to impress you. I would die to impress you. How about that?

ESTHER

     Don’t you ever give up?

JORDAN

     Has Britain given up? Won’t we fight to the last Winston said? On the beaches, on the landing grounds? We shall never surrender!

ESTHER

     We?

JORDAN

     Oh. You.

(
Removes the cap
)

     I see.

ESTHER

     All right. Come on: let’s start on the third paragraph, page 5. Got it? What’s wrong, Mr. Jordan?

(
JORDAN
is staring into space
)

JORDAN

     Someday, someday. We’ll have our own flag. Our own wars! And the British lion will come crawling on its knees to the Trinidadian quenk.

ESTHER

     What … is a “quenk,” Mr. Jordan?

JORDAN

     Oh, don’t you know, Miss Trout? It’s a small jungle animal pretending to be a boar. Like me. So, you may take your war, your flag, your rose, your key, and stuff it!

(
Marches out
)

ESTHER

     Well. Independence at last!

(
She is smiling. Fade
)

SCENE 4

Night. Softly, sound of a tropic night. Spotlight on
ESTHER
at her desk. Then, a spotlight on
JORDAN. ESTHER
rises from her desk, stretches, then sits on its edge, thinking. She takes off her shoes, then the jacket of her uniform, and rehearses a dance.

JORDAN

     “One evening, Padmore went for his usual cycle on his trusty Raleigh Sir Winston around the Savannah. Seeing a single light in his office he approached, hoping to catch a spy
in flagrante delicto.
But Padmore stood, in the doorway, unseen, and watched, in tears, with silent wonder. He knew, in that illuminating moment, that though dancer and watcher would grow old and change, the music never would, nor would the vision which the music preserved. The rose he had given her had blackened and withered on her desk, but it was there. That gave him trout.”

SCENE 5

Day. Music: Les Sylphides, softly. The
INTERVIEWER
,
dressed as a waiter, sets the desk with tablecloth, a freshly cut rose, etc., in the restaurant.
JORDAN
,
carrying three back numbers of
The Illustrated London News,
enters.

WAITER

     Yes.

JORDAN

     Made a reservation. Lieutenant Jordan, Home Guard. Expecting young English officer to join me shortly.