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

again? I tell you, I ain’t no actor, and I ain’t walking in front a set of tourists naked playing cannibal. Carnival, but not canni-bal.
    HARRY
         What tourists? We’re closed for repairs. We’re the only ones in the guest house. Apart from the carpenter, if he ever shows up.
    JACKSON
         Well, you ain’t seeing him today, because he was out on a heavy lime last night … Saturday, you know? And with the peanuts you does pay him for overtime.
    HARRY
         All right, then. It’s goodbye!
    ( He climbs onto the ledge between the uprights, teetering, walking slowly )
    JACKSON
         Get offa that ledge, Mr. Trewe! Is a straight drop to them rocks!
    ( HARRY kneels, arms extended, Jolson-style )
    HARRY
         Hold on below there, sonny boooy! Daddy’s a-coming. Your papa’s a-coming, Sonnnnneee Boooooooy!
    ( To JACKSON )
         You’re watching the great Harry Trewe and his high-wire act.
    JACKSON
         You watching Jackson Phillip and his disappearing act.
    ( Turning to leave )
    HARRY
    ( Jumping down )
         I’m not a suicide, Jackson. It’s a good act, but you never read the reviews. It would be too exasperating, anyway.
    JACKSON
         What, sir?
    HARRY
         Attempted suicide in a Third World country. You can’t leave a note because the pencils break, you can’t cut your wrist with the local blades …
    JACKSON
         We trying we best, sir, since all you gone.
    HARRY
         Doesn’t matter if we’re a minority group. Suicides are taxpayers, too, you know, Jackson.
    JACKSON
         Except it ain’t going be suicide. They go say I push you. So, now the fun and dance done, sir, breakfast now?
    HARRY
         I’m rotting from insomnia, Jackson. I’ve been up since three, hearing imaginary guests arriving in the rooms, and I haven’t slept since. I nearly came around the back to have a little talk. I started thinking about the same bloody problem, which is, What entertainment can we give the guests?
    JACKSON
         They ain’t guests, Mr. Trewe. They’s casualties.
    HARRY
         How do you mean?
    JACKSON
         This hotel like a hospital. The toilet catch asthma, the air-condition got ague, the front-balcony rail missing four teet’, and every minute the fridge like it dancing the Shango … brrgudup … jukjuk … brrugudup. Is no wonder that the carpenter collapse. Termites jumping like steel band in the foundations.
    HARRY
         For fifty dollars a day they want Acapulco?
    JACKSON
         Try giving them the basics: Food. Water. Shelter. They ain’t shipwrecked, they pay in advance for their vacation.
    HARRY
         Very funny. But the ad says, “Tours” and “Nightly Entertainment.” Well, Christ, after they’ve seen the molting parrot in the lobby and the faded sea fans, they’ll be pretty livid if there’s no “nightly entertainment,” and so would you, right? So, Mr. Jackson, it’s your neck and mine. We open next Friday.
    JACKSON
         Breakfast, sir. Or else is overtime.
    HARRY
         I kept thinking about this panto I co-authored, man. Robinson Crusoe, and I picked up this old script. I can bring it all down to your level, with just two characters. Crusoe, Man Friday, maybe even the parrot, if that horny old bugger will remember his lines …
    JACKSON
         Since we on the subject, Mr. Trewe, I am compelled to report that parrot again.
    HARRY
         No, not again, Jackson?
    JACKSON
         Yes.
    HARRY
    ( Imitating parrot )
         Heinegger, Heinegger.
    ( In his own voice )
         Correct?
    JACKSON
         Wait, wait! I know your explanation: that a old German called Herr Heinegger used to own this place, and that when that maquereau of a macaw keep cracking: “Heinegger, Heinegger,” he remembering the Nazi and not heckling me, but it playing a little havoc with me nerves. This is my fifth report. I am marking them down. Language is ideas, Mr. Trewe. And I think