Remembrance and Pantomime (6 page)

     Belmont is a village, Albert, so think of it this way: that your son, Albert Perez Jordan, was the village Hampden.

JORDAN

     The boy was wild, Ezra. He called me a Fascist, but the boy was wild. He ran with wild companions, wild ideas. He said I ran this house like a classroom, but discipline was always my weakness since the army. Sometimes I feel I could beat this whole damn country with a strap, ministers and all! Big boys!

(
Mime
)

     “What wrong with the phone, eh?”
WHAP
! “Who lock off the water?”
WHADDAP
! But the boy was wild. Pilly, I’m sorry.

(
Pours
PILGRIM
a drink
)

     But I want to show you something.

(
He is at the record player
)

PILGRIM

     Goddamnit, man, Albert, I can’t stop and listen to no music now.

JORDAN

     The house quiet, Mabel ain’t here and Frederick’s gone. Every anniversary of Junior’s death, he goes on one of his periodic retreats to the hills, you know that.

PILGRIM

     Albert, look! I know you’re retired and you want a little company, but Monday is a bitch of a time in the printery, so I’ll pass in after work, so if you ain’t mind, le’ me just take this poem.

JORDAN

     Not “lemme” just take. Let me just take.

PILGRIM

     Let me just take. I can’t take the classics before lunch.

JORDAN

     You printing it just so? Without asking who A.H. is?

PILGRIM

     Yes, I printing it, Albert. I’m concerned with the part that concerns me, but I’ll print it. So, I gone.

JORDAN

     Ask me.

PILGRIM

     Ask you what, man? ’Tain’t my business.

JORDAN

     Don’t shrug your blasted shoulders at me, Ezra Pilgrim!

PILGRIM

     Yes, teacher! I unshrug my shoulders. So, who is A.H.? Hitler?

(
Sings
)

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

(
Pause
)

     Albert, I fainting with curiosity.

JORDAN

     Prepare to faint with shock, old friend. A girl came into this house last night. A girl from off the street—so drugged with tiredness that she’s slept in there for hours, except when she’s had to change or feed her child—standing there on the veranda near the ferns. An American, a drifter. I’ve feasted my eyes on them asleep in Junior’s room, and her name is Anna Herschel.

PILGRIM

     So I can go now.

JORDAN

     I’ve gone around the house on velvet feet. I warned the sunlight entering her room not to make a noise. I wanted her to sleep after thirty-five years of wandering among the ruins of bombed-out London. She said to me, last night, before she went to sleep, jokingly, “Maybe I’ll dance for you sometime,” like Esther, Esther Trout? Believe me, Ezra, she is Esther Trout.

(
ANNA
appears from the bedroom
)

PILGRIM

     I see. Hello. Remarkable.

ANNA

     Hi … I didn’t know …

PILGRIM

     Hello. Good morning.

JORDAN

     Anna, my dear friend and editor, Ezra Pilgrim.

ANNA

     Heaven, I’m in heaven. Joke.

JORDAN

     You slept forever. Ezra here’s a rabid balletomane and an armchair conductor, like me. He sits here Sunday mornings with the bottle open and his eyes closed, conducting. I’ll turn it up … Would you dance for Mr. Pilgrim?

PILGRIM

     Albert …

ANNA

     Hooo, wait, wait, hold on! Would I what? I thought there’d be a catch. What kind of dance? That’s Chopin.

JORDAN

     We so rarely get a chance down here, you see. I thought …

ANNA

     You’re crazy. Sorry. I mean … Oh, shit, I’m a mess. Excuse me. That was a little joke on myself last night, about dancing.

JORDAN

     Oh, I know. It wasn’t your promise. I thought you might have brought a little delight, joy, purely spiritual joy to the hearts of two old men …

ANNA

     Dance. I had a baby. I haven’t danced … not ballet anyway; it’s eight-thirty or something … in the morning.

JORDAN

     I’m sorry. The way I put it sounds a little obscene …

ANNA

     Is Mrs. Jordan back? I’d love to thank her.

JORDAN

     She’s gone.

ANNA

     Gone. Aha … I see. I’m awfully sorry, you understand, Mr. Pilgrim, but I wasn’t such a hot dancer anyway, you know. Just an Off Off Off Broadway gypsy … And nothing you ever do or say could ever be obscene, Mr. Jordan … Ever.

JORDAN

     It was just one of my selfish, crazy impulses, that’s all. Sorry. You better go to work, Pilly. God, I feel lecherous and soiled.

PILGRIM

     It was nice to meet you, Miss …

ANNA

     Call me Anna. I love Trinidad. I think you’re lucky to be in such a beautiful country and have such a beautiful friend as Mr. Jordan.

JORDAN

     Go to work, Pilgrim.

(
ANNA
goes to the record player and bends to start the record
)

     No. If you do that, Miss Gypsy, it will seem an obscene request.

PILGRIM

     Shut up, Albert, we all understand …

JORDAN

     … and I was not in quest of an obscene experience, but I simply wanted, because of the beauty and strength of this morning, to show my friend here that there is still innocence and grace left in this sordid world of ours and …

ANNA

     Sit down please, Mr. Pilgrim … Now, there’s a legato passage here that I can manage better. What the hell.

(
She turns the record over to a slower movement
)

     Just make yourselves invisible and I’ll try … it’s like the legend of Susanna and the Elders, except they were just old Peeping Toms. And it’s not like an audition here, because I’m happy and, oh, cut it out and do it, lady …

(
She begins to dance,
PILGRIM
looks on, then begins to applaud
)

     No, no, don’t applaud, it’s terrible! Terrible!

(
Stops
)

     Turn it off. Please.
Please turn it off.

JORDAN

     It’s beautiful …

PILGRIM

     It was a wonderful experience. One that an old man will always cherish. I saw Pavlova once in London

(
ANNA
ransacks the record rack, selecting, then holds up record
)

ANNA

     Whose is this?

JORDAN

     My son’s. Junior’s or Frederick’s.

ANNA

     Well, this is more my speed. If I’m going to earn my keep.

(
She puts on a heavy rock number. Moves wildly, as a disco dancer
)

     
Sit back, gentlemen, and enjoy the ride!

JORDAN

     Stop it! No! Better her dead than this. Better her dead than this! What have they done to you, Esther? You didn’t have to punish yourself.

ANNA

     I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m no saint, Mr. Jordan.

PILGRIM

     Nobody is, kid.

JORDAN

     “Nobody is, kid!” Stop trying to talk Yankee, Pilgrim. And isn’t it time you went down to work?

PILGRIM

     I saw Pavlova once, in London. She moved like a young birch tree in moonlight. For a second there …

ANNA

     Thank you, but I’m not Pavlova, Mr. Pilgrim.

(
They shake hands
)

PILGRIM

     Bless you, Anna. Watch out for him. He’s dangerous. He sits there like an old spider in a chair, spinning remembrance. So long, Al.

(
He exits
)

ANNA

     He’s a nice man. You have nice friends. Boy, am I rusty. Uh!

JORDAN

     Do you feel used?

ANNA

     Used. Oh, no, not at all. There was a shaky second there when it felt a little … you know. You start …

(
Pause
)

     Forget it. Let me just be thankful for some peace. You’ve never asked me who I was.

JORDAN

     I knew who you were.

ANNA

     Yeah? You know more than me, then. You don’t care? Pretty insulting. I didn’t know it showed. I’m not tough, I just talk tough. Jesus, I never slept so long … You know, you start bright and confident, star of some small-town company, then you get the first shock, you’re one of five thousand, and then you start to take revenge on your ambition, and soon there’s a baby with the father gone. And there’s an ad saying “Dancer Wanted,” and there you are, Pavlova from Rhode Island doing the Funky Chicken at ten in the morning with two stars on your tits under the red lights of an empty bar in Jersey, but what the hell, you’re dancing.

JORDAN

     All artists make compromises, love. Don’t cry like that. Make a sound.

ANNA

     I came out of that bar in Jersey in freezing sunshine feeling so soiled, so ashamed of degrading myself, that I borrowed all the money I could and went to a ticket office and said: South! The farther the better, and this is the farthest the ticket went! I should shower. I’m ready to move again. I’m going to leave very soon, Mr. Jordan, soon as I get that money wired to me. But in the meantime, I am very grateful. Very. You’re like a saint or something, you know that?

JORDAN

     I’m not.

ANNA

     You’ve never asked who I am.

JORDAN

     I thought I’d let you tell me in your own good time. If you wanted to. And you don’t have to tell me now.

ANNA

     Next to you, I’m a coarse person.

JORDAN

     You’ll be a great woman. You’ll be a great dancer. One day you’ll be famous, and at least I can say, “Anna Herschel danced in this house.”

ANNA

     I don’t believe in that any more. Fame and all that. I mean, I think it’s okay if you’re famous inside yourself. You know? You don’t have to get reviewed.

JORDAN

     I know.

(
ANNA
rises, paces
)

ANNA

     Don’t say I know. ’Cause you don’t. Sorry. But you don’t know shit. I’m sorry. But it’s so easy to let it all slide and not give a fucking shrug when you hit bottom. When you asked me to dance I thought, Yeah, yeah, sure, like seeing yourself in a dirty mirror. It was Eighth Avenue all over, the Raincoat Brigade. I been in every cause, I was a permanent extra in all those crowd scenes—free-thinking, free-screwing Anna. Know what I thought? Jesus, I got to clean my mind.

JORDAN

     Anna, you’re too hard on yourself.

ANNA

     Not hard enough. That’s who I hate most: me. I waited for that door in there to open. Paid a landlord that way once. That’s the way it’s always been, nothing for nothing. I sound like a whore. I’m not a whore. I’m just down to the only legal tender I can deal in.

JORDAN

     My dear … my dear …

ANNA

     I’d like to be able to trust people again. I once laid it all out to a guy, I mean, my self, not my body. Offered it to him on a platter …

JORDAN

     You bared your soul to him, and he was terrified and walked away. It’s an old story, isn’t it?

(
Pause
)

     Can you do an English accent?

ANNA

     Me? Nah. No way.

JORDAN

     Ever tried? Acting one, perhaps?

ANNA

     Couple times, I guess. In fun. ’Tisn’t very good. Why?

JORDAN

     Would you say: “I’ve grown to love it here. You mustn’t make fun of that…”

ANNA

     In an English accent? I’d be awful.

JORDAN

     Oh, try it. Once. For me?

ANNA

(
Giggling
)

     I’m a dancer, I’m not an actress.

JORDAN

     Give it a try. “I’ve grown to love it here. You mustn’t make fun of that … Albert.”

ANNA

     Okay …

(
Giggles
)

     “Oi’ve grown to luv it ere, you mustn’t …

(
Cracks up, laughing
)

     Too cockney, huh?

JORDAN

     What’s your religion?

ANNA

     None. Why?

JORDAN

     Will you come closer, please?

ANNA

     What’s all this about? I just danced.

JORDAN

(
Crooked arm extended
)

     Will you, please?

ANNA

     This is tougher than paying the rent.

(
Takes his arm
)

     I must be crazier than you are to do this. What do I do next?

JORDAN

     Face the light. Where there’s Trout, there’s Hope. And be still. Hang your head in blushful shame, my dearest; no, tilt that chin upward in defiant pride.