Read an Excerpt
Moon-Child
A Play
By Derek Walcott Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2012 Derek Walcott
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-7444-2
CHAPTER 1
[A full moon over Soufrière. FELIX PROSPÈRE's cabaret. A corner near the window. NARRATOR enters, sits at a small table.]
NARRATOR
Set in a ring of mountains in sulphurous blue air, a church tower and its fountain's dry mouth say "Soufrière." When woodsmoke climbs the valley and immortelles catch flame, blackbirds shoot in a volley if you should shout his name.
[Stands, shouts.]
"Ti-Jean, Ti-Jean, oy!"
TI-JEAN'S VOICE
[Distant.]
Ayti? Yes?
NARRATOR
Ous la' toujours? You still there?
TI-JEAN
[Distant.]
Toujours!
NARRATOR
The coiled ear hears the call, of the sea curled in a shell; boys' cries in a waterfall, a twittering ci-ci merle; now the whole island smells like cake left in an oven as the tower lifts its bell's jubilate to heaven.
A time when none must quarrel, season of love and peace; of ham with clove and sorrel, black pudding, pain épice. When a breeze, cool and fragrant, we call the Christmas wind to malheureux and vagrant is charitable and kind.
[Sounds of a rainy night.]
That Christmas in Soufrière, they meet in the cabaret belonging to Felix Prospère; Tomorrow is Boxing Day with imps and drums and fife; the Devil will act his play of the Resurrection and the Life.
The night is pelting rain, the sky: electric danger, water races in each drain,
[Horse's hooves.]
and the rain brings a stranger.
[A horse's whinny. Thunder. BETTY FAY enters.]
A firefly starts and stops, her name is Betty Fay; she darts between raindrops to the bright cabaret. You can't see the Piton, it's hiding in a cloud, as Miss Merle, sable musician, mesmerizes the crowd inside Prospère's rum shop — a candle on each table — the blackbird cannot stop singing its famous fable.
The blackbird with her yodel is bringing down the place with the cricket playing fiddle and the bullfrog pulling bass. The story she will tell you is better in Creole. It was when there was a Devil and you could see the soul.
MISS MERLE
[Singing.]
WHO MAKE THE DEVIL CRY?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
MISS MERLE
BRING WATER TO HIS EYE?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
MISS MERLE
WHOSE STORY NEVER DIE?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
M. CRAPAUD
AND HE UP THERE IN THE MOON
MISS MERLE
AND ALL THE COUNTRY CHILDREN SINGING THIS TUNE
CUSTOMERS
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
M. CRAPAUD
WHO CHALLENGE PAPA BOIS?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
MISS MERLE
WHO SEE WHEN YOU SUFFER?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
TI-JEAN
WHO LAUGH AT LUCIFER?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
M. CRAPAUD
AND HE SAILING WITH THE MOON
M. CRICHETTE
AND ALL THE COUNTRY CHILDREN SINGING THIS TUNE
MISS MERLE
NOW THE GENS-GAGÉ WALKING MAMAN DE L'EAU START TO SWIM LITTLE BOLOM START TALKING BUT YOU CAN'T TALK BACK TO HIM YOU CAN'T TALK BACK TO HIM NOW THE LOUPGAROU HIDING IN THE USUAL PLACE WHEN THE SMALL OWL START BRIGHTENING THE TWO MOONS IN HER FACE
CUSTOMERS
THE TWO MOONS IN HER FACE
MISS MERLE
WHO MAKE THE CRICKET SING?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
M. CRAPAUD
WHO CROWN THE CRAPAUD KING?
CUSTOMERS
TI-JEAN!
M. CRAPAUD
AND HE HAPPY AS THE MOON AND ALL THE COUNTRY CHILDREN SINGING THIS TUNE
CUSTOMERS
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
[Music, singing, fade.]
NARRATOR
Dawn parts the cloud's curtains, the island is still sleeping, between her two bare mountains the horned moon is peeping out of a dewy grove; you hear the gentle throttle of a vibrating dove like a boy blowing a bottle.
Dawn. Far out to sea. Look! dolphins playing like rainbows arching, first drizzling shafts, then rain with its loud lances marching; at smoke-rise, mysteries, from a sunlit country road smelling of hog-plum and the sea's remembered boyhood.
The light from Bouton on the sea is a breath-stopping view of sunlit slopes whose honesty will break your heart in two. At dusk the sea pulls in its ropes, canoes are coming home: the names of fishermen whose hopes are muttered by the foam. Places like this, people have said, should still be left alone. All the best views have been surveyed and soon they could be gone.
Above the herringboned bay a scissor-tailed frigate sails; there'll be a great catch today. Balahoo will tilt the scales; dorado, grouper, and demoiselles and flying fish'll fill the basket, while the black stingray fills that canoe like its casket. It is the fish of death, of fear and superstition, nasty its reeking breath, sweeping and wide its mission.
The night is full of noises, the country people say; the moonlit leaves have voices, loupgarou, gens-gagé, dovens, but where precisely is this wild creature from, a voice that sings so nicely, who answers to "Beau l'homme"? An apparition scary behind its gum-sealed eyes, the Devil's emissary who brings his messages.
In moonlight, walk with caution on the bright country road and you'll meet this abortion hopping there like a toad, hopping with feet reversed still unbaptised, still cursed, crawling between two worlds, this and the world to come, a caul around its hump, this miscarriage from Time's womb.
[Sound of wind and rain. A piercing fife.]
Through sheeted gusts of rain curling like a dead leaf, rolled in a scroll of pain, this messenger of grief, through drum-bursts in the clouds and the wind whipping wild and the sky's tattered shrouds she hears a shrieking child; in her African belief.
THE BOLOM
Listen! The Devil, my master, who owns half the world, still cannot enjoy those vices he created. He is dying to be human. So he sends you this challenge! To all three of your sons, he says, through my voice, that if any one of them can make him feel anger, rage, or human weakness, he will reward him, he will fill that bowl with a shower of sovereigns, you shall never more know hunger, but fulfillment, wealth, peace.
But if any of your sons fails to give him these feelings — for he never was human — then his flesh shall be eaten, or he is weary of the flesh of the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea. But whichever of your sons is brave enough to do this, then that one shall inherit the wealth of my prince. And once they are dead, woman, I too shall feel life! I shall feel life.
[Exterior. THE BOLOM withdraws into the leaves, singing. The full moon sails on.]
[Singing.]
OH, ME WANT TO GO OVER YES, MAMAN, ME WANT TO GO OVER ...
M. CRAPAUD AND ORCHESTRA
OH, ME WANT TO GO OVER
YES, MAMAN, ME WANT TO GO OVER ...
[CUSTOMERS sing.]
CUSTOMERS
OH, ME WANT TO GO OVER ...
[Fade.]
CHAPTER 2
[Exterior. Sunrise, the heights. A BLACKBIRD twitters, a TOAD booms and belches, a CRICKET chafes its legs, rattling.]
NARRATOR
How fresh is the sweet morning above benign Bouton! Despite the Bolom's warning Gros-Jean will leave at dawn; he sees his weeping mother's goodbye of streaming tears but does not tell his brothers. He is the first in years; she sees him climb the small track up from the house; her fears rise as she hears him sing.
THE BOLOM
"Your son is not coming back!"
NARRATOR
The gliricidia's boughs are trembling in the light, the path above the house, cool in the mountain height, they are good boundary trees, they grip earth round a boulder. His song rides on the breeze, the axe slung on his shoulder; he hears the steady rattle made by a parched cicada; it's deafening, but that'll only make him march the harder. Dawn breaks over Bouton while Gros-Jean, carefully, eases the latch where she sleeps in the shuttered house.
GROS-JEAN
[Singing.]
THERE'S A TIME FOR EVERY MAN TO LEAVE HIS MOTHER AND FATHER TO LEAVE EVERYBODY HE KNOW AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, HE ONE! HE ONE AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, HE ONE
SO THE TIME HAS COME FOR ME TO LEAVE MY POOR LITTLE MOTHER TO LEAVE ME TWO OTHER BROTHER AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, ME ONE AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, ME ONE
WASHERWOMEN
SO THE TIME HAS COME FOR HIM TO LEAVE HIS POOR LITTLE MOTHER TO LEAVE HIS TWO OTHER BROTHER AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, HE ONE AND MARCH TO THE GRAVE, HE ONE
GROS-JEAN
I HAVE AN ARM OF IRON
WASHERWOMEN
ARM OF IRON
NARRATOR
Climbing up through the forest he passed trees that he knew, bois-canot, cedar, the blest laurier-canelles, acajou; those ferns that shut their eyes like maidens from a touch, the spears of paradise: the balisier's bright torch, all of the ripe wild fruits that shake loose to the pound of Gros-Jean's yellow boots on the ant-crazy ground.
GROS-JEAN
[Singing.]
I HAVE AN ARM OF IRON
WASHERWOMEN
ARM OF IRON
GROS-JEAN
I COME OUT TO WORK
WASHERWOMEN
COME OUT TO WORK
GROS-JEAN
GIVE ME SERIOUS LABOUR
WASHERWOMEN
SERIOUS LABOUR
GROS-JEAN
THIS WORK IS A JOKE
WASHERWOMEN
THIS WORK IS A JOKE
[PAPA BOIS emerges from the bush.]
NARRATOR
Deep in the forest, thick, where precious creatures are: the dove, the emerald, electric hummingbird, old as Noah, is the wild man, Papa Bois. A legendary creature like Noah and the ark, tree-like in every feature, his face as rough as bark. Like two coals his red eyes, his hair like brown lianas, his beard cotton, his hands nimble as butterflies.
PAPA BOIS
Good morning. You have no manners?
GROS-JEAN
Who is you?
PAPA BOIS
I heard a rustle in the grass but first, you swear obedience, then Papa Bois will let you pass, at least for just this once.
GROS-JEAN
I don't swear. I don't curse.
NARRATOR
His shirt of dry banana fronds kept rattling from the wind, his brow, with two capricious horns, had mischief on its mind; his breath, its reek could stifle; he kept, slung from his waist, a rusty flintlock rifle with his archaic taste, the dog-head snake, the iron lance, like pets coiled round his hands.
PAPA BOIS
For fifty years I have lived here, just listen and I'll tell you, as horned and careful as the deer I sniff the air and smell you. I am, if you believe in me, the prophet of protection, the bush is my constituency; I don't need no election. I have my signals and alarms when hunters stalk my forest, the angry trees will shake their arms and birds will scream their loudest.
[Birds scream.]
My cannon is my thunder, the red ant is my nation, their armies all come under my daily domination. The marching termites carry their leaf-flags in battalions, their dead the spiders bury with beetles in alliance. The hummingbird's helicopter drills nectar from the flowers and nobody has ever stopped the bat's acrobatic powers. I lose a little every day, my forces, my militia, but let them guard you on your way — the good day I wish you. What is your name, you say?
GROS-JEAN
[Growling.]
GROS-JEAN!
MISS MERLE
[Singing.]
PAPA BOIS, WHAT YOU COOK TODAY?
PAPA BOIS
[Singing.]
SWEET POTATO AND BOIS BANDÉ
M. CRAPAUD
PAPA BOIS, PAPA BOIS, WHAT YOU COOK TODAY?
PAPA BOIS
DASHEEN, TANIA, AND BOIS BANDÉ I LOVE THESE GREEN BANANAS MACAMBU AND SALTFISH I'LL PUT YOU ON MY HEAVY MANNERS IF YOU DEFY MY WISH DON'T KICK THE LIFE FROM YOUR BROTHER
[A grunt.]
M. CRAPAUD
UNH!
PAPA BOIS
AND DO NOT STONE THE BIRD
MISS MERLE
[Shrieks.]
E.E.E.E.GAS!
M. CRICHETTE
"MEN MUST LOVE ONE ANOTHER"
PAPA BOIS
LET PAPA BOIS BE HEARD THE LIZARD, THE AGOUTI THE MOTH WITH EYES FOR WINGS ARE ONE IN NATURE'S BEAUTY HEAR WHAT THE BLACKBIRD SINGS
NARRATOR
The names that we are given are who we will become: "Satan" can't live in heaven and "hell" sounds like his home. So there were names for each son: big, medium, and small. Gros-Jean, Mi-Jean, and Ti-Jean will answer if you call. Some tall men are called Shorty! The nickname passes on. Some big men over forty will answer to GARÇON!
But Gros-Jean couldn't take it if you forgot his name. What difference did it make if black people looked the same? The Planter called him Hubert, Theophilius, Max, and Joe; not one of them was true, but how could the Planter know? To him they all resembled each other on paydays; at three when they assembled any name fit the face.
PAPA BOIS
You are a man of iron or so, at least, you claim and you roar like a lion if men forget your name. I only try to warn you, beware the aftermath; one thing you must remember, you must control your wrath, you must not lose your temper, you'll lose the strength you have.
Goodbye!
GROS-JEAN
Move! You blasted fool!
[Exits.]
CHAPTER 3
M. CRICHETTE
[Singing.]
THE PLANTER GAVE A COSTUME PARTY IN SOUFRIÈRE, A 'MAS BALL THE APPETITE WAS HEARTY TO WELCOME IN CARNIVAL THE GUESTS WERE HIS RICH NEIGHBOURS ALL OF THEM CAME IN DISGUISE AND THE HIGHLIGHT OF GROS-JEAN'S LABOURS WAS A BASKET OF FIREFLIES
GUESTS
WOI-WOI-MI DIABLE LA OHO I-HO MI DIABLE LA
[Exterior. Night. The Estate House, hung with decorations. The driveway lit with flambeaux. GUESTS begin arriving, are given masks and led up to the house. A white estate owner — a WEREWOLF, or LOUPGAROU, mask. A white young woman, a MAMAN DE L'EAU mask, flour white with long black hair; an aging white woman in her soucouyant mask, vampire teeth, huge skirts, a bandana. THE PLANTER greets them.]
HE HIRE US TO PLAY COUNTRY MUSIC AT HIS EXPENSE HE HAD CHAMPAGNE FOR THE GENS-GAGÉS AND SWEET DRINK FOR THE LITTLE DOUENS.
[GROS-JEAN in headwaiter's jacket.]
M. CRICHETTE
THE LOUPGAROU SMELL SOUP HE HAD A CHICKEN INSIDE HIS JACKET FROM RAIDING THE CHICKEN COOP BUT THE FOWLS MADE TOO MUCH RACKET HIS ESCORT WAS MAMAN DE L'EAU AND THE PRESENT THAT HE GAVE HER TO WEAR TO THIS DINNER SHOW WAS A DEAD RAT FROM THE RIVER
GUESTS
WOI-WOI-MI DIABLE LA OHO I-HO MI DIABLE LA
[Interior. The Estate House. GROS-JEAN ripping at his bow tie in the bathroom and cursing. He goes through the spinning door, balancing a tray.]
THE PLANTER
How good to see you, how very very good, to come to my little place! Welcome! In those old rafters there's a nest where a disheveled owl rattles dead rats in its beak. Are you Gros-Islet?
GROS-JEAN
[Grinding his teeth, then grinning.]
No. Gros-Islet is a town. I am not a town.
THE PLANTER
You're big enough.
THE LOUPGAROU
[Seated at a table.]
Waiter! Over here!
MAMAN DE L'EAU
Waiter! Garçon!
THE WHITE OWL
Boy!
THE PLANTER
That would be you.
[GROS-JEAN goes over to THE LOUPGAROU.]
THE LOUPGAROU
Do you have any pepper sauce?
GROS-JEAN
Please? Sir, say please!
If you don't mind.
[THE PLANTER comes over.]
THE PLANTER
Just serve the damned sauce, will you, Stanley!
GROS-JEAN
Look! Gadez! I is a big man with an iron arm and I not used to smiling service. I try hard not to lose my temper but you pushing me, you really pushing me! That is not nice.
[GROS-JEAN is serving with two maids.]
THE PLANTER
Service, Walter, service!
GROS-JEAN
Sir, I don't like ...
THE PLANTER
Hospitality, hospitality! That's the future of this island! My future is yours. So never get vex. How often do guests eat the orchestra?
GROS-JEAN
Sir, may I speak a word with you alone?
[GROS-JEAN goes to a corner of the room near a painted screen. THE PLANTER comes up to him. They talk in whispers while smiling at the guests.]
You know their name, but you ain't know mine? I work for you, you never notice?
THE PLANTER
I know your name, it's ... it's just slipped me. I should have given you a tag with your name, George.
GROS-JEAN
Not George. Gros ...
[Interior. THE PLANTER's dining room.]
FELIX PROSPÈRE
I don't eat crickets. Moi pas ka manger crichettes.
THE PLANTER
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Moon-Child by Derek Walcott. Copyright © 2012 Derek Walcott. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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