For the Reckord Read online

  SHEPHERD: Perhaps you can make up for the wrong you did. Tata is a baby and his mind doesn’t yet move on the voice of the Shepherd. The magic I sprinkle on him from a distance touch him, sicken him already as you know. But rightful obeah need not only magic but the word and how a baby to hear it? So if Tata hang on to life, you must release him.

  LAL looks up in terror.

  You visit Della once, visit her again; turn the baby over on his belly, press his nose down on the pillow. Who will miss him? Della won’t miss him. She will rejoice death come take him.

  LAL: Murder, Shepherd? God’s messenger murder? I leaving this room.

  She starts to walk out.

  SHEPHERD: Mind your two feet betray you, you crawl out. If I leave my mark on you, you tremble before you age.

  LAL weeps helplessly.

  You would set a baby, every night they bury one in the Trench Town heap – set a shriveled-up baby before my need. Fearful Lal, answer Della’s question whether I have power even over death, and she will come back to do the name of Shepherd reverence with all the balm-yard.

  LAL: You grasping. More people in your balm-yard than eggs in a fly’s belly, yet this one woman you can’t leave alone. Well, forget your name and leave her and her child.

  SHEPHERD: Shepherd has a thin skin and a vengeful heart.

  LAL: Are you God, that if one soul leave you, your palms itch?

  SHEPHERD: All, is the peace of Shepherd’s soul.

  LAL: Della…

  SHEPHERD: Swallow that name. Know that she wrong me. This morning she held me to a grindstone and doctor turned. The whole yard watch him grind me and I fight him, all the same to them if I lose, ready to fall away one by one to him.

  LAL: True, Shepherd. So black man fickle.

  SHEPHERD: And she, that for white-man love stir up all this, I’ll slow burn with fire and brimstone. Tata is only a start. I goin’ shake her. I goin’ shut down my teeth on her.

  LAL: Calm yourself. What Della stir up, Tata will settle, and behind the name of Shepherd is a full breeze.

  SHEPHERD: Though the yard full you should know my reputation dwindling in my age. And I too old now to join the strong young men hardening their arse on the side-walks of Kingston, finding out bread not easy to beg. Those doctors can’t do more than us, but they’re out to mash up all obeah men’s business to improve their own. They do mind cure, so do we, and better them because we do it from a distance. They use chemistry, we use herbs; and plenty who spend out money on them get cured by us. Now into his hand who is less than the equal of me Della put power of me? God…

  LAL: I will visit Della and try to put a staff of fear round her neck and lead her back.

  SHEPHERD: So I can plead with her to murder her own baby?

  LAL: Not for God ‘self will I break the commandment.

  SHEPHERD: Lord, if now when I have a grip on White-Wolf windpipe Lal won’t strengthen me, I must clip it with my own hand.

  LAL: Shepherd, already Tata bad sick and the magic will suffice. Bide your fear. Wait one day, two days. God will let him out.

  SHEPHERD: You know he sick bad?

  LAL: A month and he not recovered yet. He will pass over.

  SHEPHERD: What if in two days he not dead?

  LAL: Never mind. Never try to span God’s purpose. Two days long.

  Exit LAL.

  SHEPHERD: Little wick feeling the death wind go mad with terror, then out. Out with Tata.

  SCENE THREE

  DELLA: Even his eyes puffy. The shadow of Shepherd passing over him. I go ‘gainst experience when I take him to doctor. I pray I won’t rue it.

  JOSHIE: You’ve left Shepherd once and for good; you have no more to do with him. Now you’re with doctor and he will heal Tata. Mama, what really worry you?

  DELLA: Tata’s everlasting sickness. And I have to beg to get servant work. If I work as servant, as servant you will work. And God knows I so chafe under the wicked chance that order who is servant and who is boss that often I feel I would grapple with it. Oh, Joshie, why my mind always drag me to questions that burn inside me? Boss me, and I hush them up, hush them up.

  JOSHIE: See him coming now. I going out the back way.

  DELLA: Why?

  JOSHIE: I too anxious to see him.

  Exit JOSHIE as DOCTOR enters.

  DOCTOR: I saw a shadow move across the room. Was it Joshie’s? Did he want us to be alone.

  DELLA: He couldn’t stay, Doctor. He’s over anxious.

  DOCTOR: Could he get work, Della?

  DELLA: He had a metal trade and stuck to it, but I found them misusing him and took him away. A number of young men these quarters have no labour to hand.

  DOCTOR: And find women to support them… I suppose that if Tata could get into hospital you would find work more easily.

  DELLA: And after he get better, Doctor?

  DOCTOR: Sufficient unto the day.

  DELLA: You don’t think he will get better?

  DOCTOR: He’ll get well again… How many young men have you supported in your time?

  DELLA: I was married, sir.

  DOCTOR: No offence, Dell. Your husband carved out for himself the warm heart of the world and left it cold.

  DELLA: Doctor, I going to have let part of this room. The gentleman I letting it to say he will pass a screen down the middle.

  DOCTOR: Gentleman! The gentleman has an eye for a bargain.

  DELLA: I have no choice.

  DOCTOR: But to live in a crevice with a sweaty brute of a lecher planning to move in on you from the other side. I can just see the grease under his broken nail, the food hiding in his cavities sucked out with relish between advances from the screen to the bed. God, to think that ultimately you’d stomach that flesh pot.

  DELLA: You leave me no choice.

  DOCTOR: I wouldn’t have you a truckler bed for anything.

  DELLA: You only know the shame of the stab I get in my useless front. But the shame all Negroes suffer, the shame of the kick Joshie get in his pants you don’t know. Once your sort of shame filled me, but now it dry up to a trickle. If only I could get the clothes to wash or the bed to make, I should do my day’s work and be content to lie in my outroom bed like a dog, and sleep.

  DOCTOR: And when you fall to heat, stray down to Trench Town again? Are you dead to feeling for your own loveliness? The black skin graces your beauty like a fetish glove, draws me to your glove like a fitting hand.

  DELLA: I’m old shoes; who ever polish, wear.

  DOCTOR: Can you feel the breeze cooling the sun on your face?

  DELLA: In your sleep this morning an angel must have brushed a feather over your tongue.

  DOCTOR: (Resting his hand on her shoulder.) I want to see your eyes announcing that smile. Be happier now. Don’t go back to thinking of Tata and this room.

  DELLA: I feel you are the boy grew up with me in the country; we used to spend the whole day together, and wade in the river, my dress rolled into my pants. One day I kissed him and he kissed me and kissed me again till I pushed him into the water. Don’t leave me longer to the bitterness of this room.

  DOCTOR: You’re never here but live in my mind a possession, unpossessed. Your body like dark supple water draws my thirst. Now your side rests in my hand, I touch your breast, I draw you round me like a garment for my strength.

  DELLA: Come to my lips.

  DOCTOR: They don’t compel me.

  DELLA: You scorn me.

  DOCTOR: When I hold you like this?

  DELLA: You must come to my lips. A man will risk his privy, but scorn lies in the lips.

  DOCTOR: Too many mouths have drooled over them.

  She kisses him, he hurls her away.

  Why didn’t you ask for money instead of my lips? I won’t kiss three in a bed.

  DELLA is lost. She tries to speak and says nothing. The DOCTOR adjusts his clothing and collects his bag.

  Never mind, it’s not your fault, I started it. Goodbye.

  Exit DOCTOR. D
ELLA breaks down in sobs. In a few minutes LAL enters.

  LAL: Della, ease your heart; don’t draw your curtain ‘gainst me. You shouldn’t make a white scornmonger break you down.

  DELLA: Little while he open himself out to me, called me pretty colour words, draw me out of my temper, ‘til my love hang on to him and hug him and talk out as it feel. Oh, Lal, when the man lash me, a slave hide come over my flesh, and back to a slave heart my free heart dwindle, dwindle without a twinge, like it was born to that space. But from that slavery I will haul it out, feed it with vengeance. I swear an oath, Lal. Though starvation shrink my belly till it dry with hunger, though Tata die, though Shepherd Aaron power lash me till I bleed pain, though his darkness enclose me till my eyes fix open and I can’t vent a cry, I vomit all white flesh and cover it with dust.

  LAL: Yes. You let wishing confuse you. Nothing in this world better than the safety of the yard. Go back to Shepherd.

  DELLA: I hate White Wolf and feel abomination for Shepherd. Between them must lie a way.

  LAL: Which way, my love? Shepherd is your own people.

  DELLA: Your own people don’t have a savage heart, bitter gut and craving belly?

  LAL: But they don’t turn down one eye and make up their voice and kindly animalise you… When you complain all your beauty pleads before my pity. Think the man done nothing for Tata and yet… but dry your eye now, Miss Della, blow your nose. I wish I could lend you a kerchief to snuffle your heart.

  DELLA: (She laughs the way one does after crying.) Your kindness reach further than kerchief.

  LAL: And I will never take it back.

  JOSHIE enters.

  JOSHIE: Hi, Miss Lal. (Going to DELLA.) Doctor agrees to it?

  DELLA: No.

  JOSHIE: He gives reason?

  DELLA: He has reason.

  JOSHIE: He says anything about Tata?

  DELLA: He will take him to hospital.

  LAL: It late, for now Tata too poorly.

  JOSHIE: Take off your mouth.

  DELLA: Joshie!

  JOSHIE: How can you sit there not near the boy and feel that he poorly? Don’t bother believe yourself a Shepherd.

  LAL: I will go and take my feelings with me.

  She kisses TATA.

  DELLA: Joshie, you’re so in love with white man you hurt your own?

  JOSHIE: Tata not going die.

  LAL: This pale shade look to me like death.

  JOSHIE: Is only fever pale.

  LAL: What you know?

  JOSHIE: If I was an old woman you would believe me.

  LAL: Old woman sage.

  JOSHIE hurries away from the bedside, covers his head with a rag like an old woman, humps his back and shuffles back to the bed.

  JOSHIE: Fever pale. No cause to fret, Lal; you young yet; fever pale.

  DELLA: Joshie.

  LAL: Jesus, boy, don’t crack jokes at your brother’s death. Look at the blood come down into the baby’s eye, Della. Call Shepherd, the baby’s dying.

  JOSHIE: Doctor says we must call him the slightest thing happen to Tata.

  DELLA: Call nothing. He got no more right in this house.

  JOSHIE however dashes past her.

  Come with me to the hospital, Lal.

  LAL: Let me go call Shepherd. When God crown the King you must obey him though he harder than all troubles. Shepherd is King.

  DELLA: Leave me then Lal.

  LAL: All right. I will come with you to the hospital.

  During the last few lines a crowd has gathered outside DELLA’s house. As DELLA and LAL come out they are met with hostile looks. DELLA slowly, proudly moves through them. The crowd move slowly after her. LAL exits hurriedly ahead of DELLA, the crowd begin to sing derisively, quietly, then gaining in volume “Gal, your drawers are dropped.” As DELLA reaches the exit, downstage-left GEORGE enters, and as DELLA exits he crosses angrily to PAPA G. who, heading the crowd, has now reached centre.

  GEORGE: (Seizing PAPA G. which silences the singing.) Her baby’s dying.

  KEEFE: Well, she soon raise up another one.

  CROWD laugh.

  FRANCESCA: This time from the white man.

  CROWD laugh, then pick up the song again and leave GEORGE and VERNON standing centre as they exeunt generally.

  GEORGE: Some people is a bitch!

  The lights fade.

  SCENE FOUR

  Late afternoon. The scene opens several hours later with LAL talking to the DOCTOR in DELLA’s room.

  LAL: No, sit down there and wait; whole evening we were at that hopsital, and no attention. But the baby eye was clearing up so Della’s had a little ease. Then the blood came down into the eyes again, and Della get up and run with the baby to a nurse who say she would quickly put her in to see the doctor; but it was another wait, wait, wait, everlasting while madness mount up in Della and she choke with her grief. Doctor, no attention for a child this whole God Almighty day.

  DOCTOR: Why didn’t she ask for me? (Slipping into superiority.) If he isn’t seen to he will naturally die.

  LAL: (Meekly.) I say that to her. She say “Suppose she didn’t know you, the child wouldn’t have attention?” She well stubborn. She should ask for you even so that you could take her in to see another man.

  DOCTOR: She wanted another man, did she?

  LAL: She feel that now you not seeing her you wouldn’t want to bother with her son.

  DOCTOR: Where is she?

  LAL: Gone next door to try and borrow money.

  DOCTOR: For a private doctor? Does she leave Tata here alone so the whole of Trench Town can doctor him?

  LAL: Not a soul will touch him, doctor. From Tata born I help her look after him.

  DOCTOR: All the same, I wish she never left him.

  LAL: Only seldom she leave him.

  DOCTOR: Never is what I wanted. Never. That blasted Shepherd would creep through a crevice.

  LAL: I’m as anxious for Tata as you! I nursed this child. When, as the sickness begun, he was devilish all night, I was gentle with him. I brought him to life again.

  Very hurt, LAL exits.

  Enter DELLA.

  DELLA: The time come now when the bramble I grab to save myself root up, and the sharp hill slope ready to bruise my body the way down, till it hit bottom, dead. All happen as Shepherd will. First Liza, now Tata.

  DOCTOR: Tata will live. You know it. You talk for revenge.

  DELLA: Revenge, Doctor? You’re too high for me to revenge myself on.

  DOCTOR: If you use sarcasm, Della, I’ll leave this room this instant.

  DELLA: I wish you never come. It not a room you come to but a whore-house.

  DOCTOR: Believe now it has become a room again, and we share so completely the same flesh that I can feel your body’s anger in mine.

  DELLA: I believe you. All this month the hints for you to take me for scrubbing your floor; you pass me over. I swallow my shame and hint again, you throw me a piece of money to dry up the detestable mouth water dropping round you. Why now this worry about me?

  DOCTOR: Well then, come, come and work. I beg you now. Come and work with me.

  DELLA: How you bright with courage. But it will travel over like this day’s sun and come to cold darkness. Yet even if it did shine, you think my life should lay on your tongue? Lord Jesus, if you can see Della’s mind now lean, even leap to the desire to servant this gentleman, then he is justified for so soon as he whistle the poor bitch he lame with a kick, wag her tail and whine.

  DOCTOR: In place of that kick which made me more barbarous than snarls and fangs and brutishness, I offer a kiss. (He kisses her hard, unresponsive cheek.)

  DELLA: When I walk the street just now after the murder you did my love, and saw my people, every one of them a nasty poorhouse with a sweat smell, a vision come to me, my mind feed on it. You come to Africa, cut me off from the people that know me, the hut my own hand thatch. You drag me, whip me, cover distance with me. Into a ship you pitch me and squeeze me down with a hundred mo
re black people you tear from their ground limb from joint; they bawl and scream out, some stave in their skulls on the ship wood. When I cast my eye back, nothing I know fill it but salt water. Over all the living creep weakness and fear and silence. Sea salt and fire from the bare sun, and in the dungeon you leave us in, no air. Heat settle over our flesh like strait-jacket. Every day they drown the mad, clear the dead and fatten the living: bed the women for their lust and the life that would grow wild in them, the mulatto baby branded in the womb. When my people rich like you, when good health and smart dress bring out their beauty, offer your kiss, for then, like the kiss of air and earth it will have foundation.

  DOCTOR: You will go back to the Shepherd. Once bitten, twice bitten.

  DELLA: Someone going to bring to this Trench Town a destiny. And if is Della, that destiny will be neither Shepherd’s obeah, nor the unnatural scorn of White Wolf.

  DOCTOR: Couldn’t we get back to working hard together over Tata? You were getting on then.

  DELLA: You taught me to air the room and let light in through the window.

  DOCTOR: And Tata didn’t die, Tata lived.

  DELLA: Light and air can’t give life; but only the spirit can spy out slavery and rifle it.

  DOCTOR: You’re certain?

  DELLA: I certain.

  DOCTOR: Goodbye, Della.

  He exits.

  DELLA: Goodbye Doctor. (To JOSHIE.) Brace up your sorrow. Don’t think your mother light. The white man didn’t do justice by me.

  JOSHIE: I wish I was another woman son.

  DELLA: Don’t hold anger ‘gainst me.

  JOSHIE: Remember how he gentle.

  DELLA: In himself he gentle, and among his own colour. But Joshie, if a man look down on you as earth and treasure himself as air how can gentleness change the elements? Earth must be black and air must be sweet till death. So, content yourself, my dear boy, with me and Lal and Shepherd. We have the same soil and the same worm.

  JOSHIE: With Shepherd. You going back to Shepherd?

  DELLA: I must pray him help our people span the bitter breach between black and white.

  JOSHIE: Pray Aaron? A money fly like him?

  DELLA: The people are his sheep. The ways with sheep are a mystery to me, but well known to Shepherd.