Читать книгу The Liquid Plain (TCG Edition) - Naomi Wallace - Страница 15

ACT ONE

Scene One

PROJECTED TEXT: BOOK ONE. PASSAGE OF CLAY: BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND, 1791.

The docks. We hear ships rubbing against the docks, water rolling, though the sound is slightly distorted and not realistic.

We now see empty sugar casks. A pile of old rope. A heap of torn sails still needing to be mended. Perhaps a broken mast off the dock, the rusty chain of an anchor or a piece of severed hull. Sharp, dangerous things. And yet the docks are not cluttered. This part of the dock, though now mostly bare and derelict, was once busy with the small industry of the poor.

This is a world of violence and the threat of violence. There is always the presence of danger, and the decisiveness of people to use brute force, and respond to it. It is a predatory, ferocious environment with ragged edges that cut at every turn.

Lights up on Adjua and Dembi leaning over a jagged hole in the dock, clutching the legs of a drowned man that they are pulling out of the water, feet first.

At all times, Dembi and Adjua take care not to be seen, on the docks or anywhere else, though this vigilance has become natural to them now. However, the fact that they are in hiding is not at first clearly evident to us or others. Both are highly intelligent thinkers, though in different ways. Adjua is intent on mapping out their ambitions, though her exertions diminish neither her spark nor her passion. She walks with a slight limp but this does not keep her from being light on her feet and vigorous. Dembi is tough, suspicious, a steely eyed survivor ready to take ruthless action when danger appears. His focus is on Adjua and their daily survival. They are passionately in love with one another, though they keep a lid on it because of daily brute realities. Most of the time, the characters onstage are engaged in some kind of industry, be it mending, sharpening or assembling.

DEMBI: Heave. Heave!

ADJUA: Pull!

DEMBI: Damn, he’s full of water.

ADJUA: Trekken!

DEMBI: Come on out, you rake.

ADJUA: Mijn Got, he’s a fat one!

DEMBI: And this one still got his clothes.

ADJUA: Nee let him slip.

DEMBI: We get the knave in.

(They pull the body onto the dock. The body is face down. Adjua pulls at the cloth on the body’s bottom.)

Not a bad cloth.

ADJUA: Ja. Something fine I sew up with this!

DEMBI: What’s here?

(Dembi digs in the man’s seat pocket and finds a small, wet book. They both stare at it. Then Adjua grabs it.)

A book.

ADJUA: A reading man.

DEMBI: Give’t here. I found it.

ADJUA: I found the body. But we can share, ja.

DEMBI: We dry it out. Get a coin for it.

ADJUA: Let’s turn him over.

(They roll him onto his back.)

DEMBI: Not been long in the water.

ADJUA: Still got a face.

DEMBI: There’s a knot on his head, there. Clothes off, fast.

ADJUA: Ja. Before someone come and take him from us, like the last one.

(As they speak, Dembi and Adjua proceed to strip the body down to its underwear. This is done with such precision and care, in tandem, that we’re sure it’s not the first time.)

DEMBI: Don’t tear the vest. It’s got buttons.

ADJUA: Of bone. A landlubber for sure.

DEMBI: Big feet like me. The shoes are mine.

ADJUA: Nee, love. We sell it all but the book.

DEMBI: You keep the book. I keep the shoes.

ADJUA: Dembi!

DEMBI: I’ll wear them for a little while. Dry them out. Then we’ll sell ’em.

ADJUA: Promise?

DEMBI: Sure. Check his grinders.

(They examine the dead man’s teeth.)

You make some dentures?

ADJUA: Not going to be easy. He got a few left but deep roots.

(Adjua holds the man’s face gently in her hands and wonders as to his story. Dembi watches jealously.)

We seen his face before . . .?

DEMBI: The drowned all look the same. Don’t touch his face like that.

ADJUA: By his look I see he suffer hard. Poor man.

(Adjua loses her hold when Dembi picks up the man’s feet and begins to drag him back to the hole in the dock.)

What you doing?

(Adjua again grabs the body. They both pull at it.)

DEMBI: We got his clothes; we throw him back in the water.

ADJUA: Nee be a sinner, Dembi, or he’ll bring us bad luck.

DEMBI: If we didn’t spy him, he still be in his watery grave!

ADJUA: We got to bury him proper so his spirit be happy and leave us alone.

DEMBI: But if the constable and watch come, they blame us and we’re dead.

(Dembi pulls at the body.)

ADJUA: I won’t let you do it. A dead man is a brother in need.

DEMBI: A brother is a man who look like me.

ADJUA: Don’t go to hell.

(Dembi stops pulling.)

DEMBI: You don’t believe in no hell.

ADJUA: We got to wrap and bury him.

DEMBI: Can’t take the risk. We throw the wretch back in.

(Dembi pulls harder.)

ADJUA: I won’t let you do it, you bastard.

(The curses they throw at one another are sharp but have a playful edge.)

DEMBI: Bastard now, am I? You’re nothing but a saltwater slave, let go.

ADJUA: Least I born in Africa. (Beat) Blackamoor. Mungo.

DEMBI: Coromantee bitch.

ADJUA: Yes. And this Coromantee still a warrior, you slave you. You poor excuse for an Igbo.

DEMBI: The Igbo have no king. That’s what we say.

ADJUA: But I am your queen. Teef. Lieverd. Rot zak. Schofter.

DEMBI: I like it when you curse me in Dutch . . . Let go!

(Dembi and Adjua pull and heave the body, each intent on winning their way, until suddenly the body opens its eyes and screams loud enough to make them drop him. Silence. They each stare at one another.)

ADJUA: Ja. Okay. We throw him back in and quick.

(Cranston retches and throws up water.)

DEMBI: I’m not returning the shoes.

ADJUA: Or the book, nee.

DEMBI: Or the vest.

ADJUA: Maybe he’s dead and just pretending.

DEMBI: Or a spirit’s moving his bones.

ADJUA: Or Papa Legba’s inside him with a trick in his gut.

DEMBI: Thin like a breath, the wall ’tween living and dead. (To Cranston) Are you awake or a spirit?

(Cranston is too bewildered to speak.)

Eyes too stupid to be a spirit.

ADJUA (To Cranston): Can you speak?

(No answer. Dembi and Adjua get a bit closer.)

You want us to throw you in the water again?

(After a moment, Cranston understands and he’s scared.)

CRANSTON: No. No. I’m cold. Please. Cold.

DEMBI (Teasing): Mustn’t go about naked then.

(Cranston feels the bump on his head.)

CRANSTON: My head hurts.

DEMBI: Who are you, man?

CRANSTON: My name is . . . They call me . . .

ADJUA: They call you . . .?

(Cranston doesn’t know. Then something comes to him.)

CRANSTON: The. Hogs.

DEMBI: Thehogs?

CRANSTON: My toes! The hogs picked ’em clean while he slept and then his toes were little stick bones.

(Cranston clutches his toes, but then sees they are intact. He retches again.)

DEMBI: I don’t think the suit’s his. Or the book. Most likely a thief for sure.

CRANSTON: I’m a thief! (Beat) I’m a thief?

ADJUA: What did you steal?

CRANSTON: I stole. I stole.

(He now looks down at his half nakedness and seems to understand it.)

My clothes. Some badger stole my clothes! Help, help me!

(Dembi puts a knife to Cranston’s throat.)

DEMBI: Holler again and I’ll stick you.

(Cranston is too weak to resist. Dembi releases him.)

ADJUA: Just what was you wearing then, Lieverd?

DEMBI: Don’t call him lieverd. You only call me—

CRANSTON: Lieverd?

ADJUA (To Dembi): Ja, Sweetheart. Hush up. (To Cranston) What was you wearing?

CRANSTON: I was wearing. A. Two. Something . . .

ADJUA: If you can’t remember then it can’t be thief’d.

DEMBI: I remember. He was wearing . . . a sail. You were wearing a sail! Adjua, fetch it back.

(Adjua catches on. She gets a dirty, old piece of sail. Dembi quickly slices some holes in it, then throws it to Cranston.)

There’s your clothes back.

(Cranston looks doubtful but then puts the sail cloth on. But he’s got nothing to tie it with.)

CRANSTON: Got a spare piece of rope?

DEMBI: You just keep taking, don’t you?

(Dembi throws him a piece of rope. Cranston ties it around his waist.)

CRANSTON: I hear a tail flappin’. There’s a fish in my ear.

(Cranston tries to dislodge the fish he thinks is in his ear by hitting the side of his head, and as he does so, his eyes alight on Adjua.)

A pretty one you are, so pretty and—

DEMBI (Interrupts): Your name.

(He doesn’t know. Adjua makes up a name.)

ADJUA: Jeffrey.

CRANSTON: Jeffrey?

DEMBI: Sinker. Sure. Jeffrey Sinker. Why not?

CRANSTON: I don’t feel like a Jeffrey Sink—

DEMBI (Cuts him off, to Adjua): Or maybe Stinker?

ADJUA (To Cranston): Adjua. My name. It means born on a Monday.

DEMBI: Adjua’s my girl. Every day of the week.

(He plants a kiss on Adjua.)

ADJUA: You hush up, stupid Igbo. (To Cranston) This here is my man Dembi.

(Cranston sizes up the situation as he itches his leg, moaning with pleasure as he itches.)

You got worms.

CRANSTON: Worms?

ADJUA: Big ones, ja. Under the skin.

CRANSTON: You a doctor?

ADJUA (Laughs): I mend the sails when the ships come in. Dembi, he mend the rigging. We scrape the casks and make sugar cookies for the market. (Beat) Jeffrey, I think you a shred. A tailor. Like me.

DEMBI: He’s not like you.

ADJUA: And you work with the cloth for your bread.

CRANSTON: A tailor. Hmm.

ADJUA: Ja, a winter cricket.

CRANSTON: Feed me, please. I’m nithered.

DEMBI (To Adjua): Don’t.

(After a moment of consideration, Adjua takes a small piece of biscuit from her pocket and holds it out to Cranston, who snatches it and eats it like he’s starving. Then Cranston throws it up again. Adjua and Dembi watch.)

When we pull him out of the water he’s wearing fine cloth, well cut. But he’s no rich man with worms in his legs.

ADJUA: So . . . maybe he makes one good suit to show off his skill and he wear it every day? Yes. A tailor. A Yankee tailor.

DEMBI: He’s sick.

ADJUA: We could fix him up.

DEMBI: He’s no use.

ADJUA: Mijn Got, he’s a white man. Always got a use. And he owe us his life.

(Dembi thinks this over. Cranston has stopped retching. He fishes out bits of the biscuit from his vomit and eats again. This time it stays down.)

DEMBI: I don’t like it. Just me and you, that’s what I like.

ADJUA: We fat him up, he can work for us.

DEMBI: Can’t trust a man who don’t remember.

ADJUA: We can give him all the remembering he needs.

(Cranston collapses, curls up and sleeps.)

DEMBI: And then?

ADJUA: And then he help us.

DEMBI: How? He’s got no skills to recall.

ADJUA: We skill him. Then we can sew double the sails. Get double the quid. Oh, Dembi. This thing we pull from the water is a handful of clay and me and you, we’re gonna shape it.