Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken; and A Branch of the Blue Nile
It’s Gavin who needs rehearsal, hear? Not me.
[GAVIN sits on the stage, quiet]
HARVEY
You have matinee this afternoon, madam. You too, Gavin!
MARYLIN
I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.
[She tears up the newspaper]
If you so good, Harvey, what you doing here?
[Exits]
HARVEY
She should play Medea. She’d butcher her own kids.
The stage would be her altar.
SHEILA
I never read Medea.
She’ll come back.
HARVEY
Think I don’t know. You too.
SHEILA
God, you people, eh? Why it must be so, eh, Gavin?
[Silence]
Gavin?
GAVIN
How’s Chris?
SHEILA
I don’t know.
GAVIN
Still in Barbados?
SHEILA
I guess.
GAVIN
I hear he opened a business there. A branch.
A branch of the Nile. Yuk-yuk. That true?
SHEILA
You know more than me.
[To HARVEY]
Today, of all days. Today’s my Sabbath, you know that?
That’s what I get for violating my Sabbath.
GAVIN
Violating your Sabbath? You an Adventist now?
HARVEY
You disappeared. I thought you were dead.
You took leave from the office. You live
with the Adventists? Is it the Adventists?
SHEILA
No, it’s a branch of the Adventists, a different sect.
Talk about opening branches.
GAVIN
I miss Chris. I miss
him beating the shit out of me at tennis.
I shall be here on the half hour, sir.
[Exits]
HARVEY
There goes the salt of the earth.
[He picks up the torn newspaper]
Know why I can’t leave? I couldn’t do him that.
SHEILA
Why did you come and disturb us, Harvey? We were
happy. Happy and ignorant, and close.
HARVEY
I’m sorry I had to.
SHEILA
I used to have nightmares that you visited me.
What’s all that nonsense about changing her name?
HARVEY
It was laughable at first, Mary LaLune.
Oh, come on, Sheila.
SHEILA
God, though. She does shine.
HARVEY
It’s fake silver. It will fool people for a while.
So you gone and join some crazy religious sect?
That why you look so pale? Where are they?
SHEILA
It’s a pale-cream concrete church in Barataria.
HARVEY
You’re a sects maniac. Look, you don’t even smile.
I just don’t get it. You suddenly disappeared.
Why can’t you be an actress and religious?
SHEILA
Because I’m not young, because young people
take time for granted; I have to save myself.
HARVEY
Sheila, a gift like yours should be seen by the world.
SHEILA
Why? Isn’t it just the opposite of what you preached?
Didn’t you and Gavin get tired of the world,
he with London, you with New York?
HARVEY
The other way around.
Why didn’t you call us? Why didn’t you phone me
and tell me you’d quit. In the middle of the show?
SHEILA
From the day you all applauded me at rehearsal,
when the praise went, I began to hear a whispering worm.
HARVEY
A worm? What did it whisper?
SHEILA
No. It’s too vicious to repeat. Anyway,
the worm grew wings and left me. I got thin,
I couldn’t sleep, and you know what cured me?
HARVEY
What, Sheila?
SHEILA
One day I kept very still.
I stayed away from work, from people. I stayed
for hours in my bedroom with the drapes drawn,
and listened to it whispering, on and off,
on and off. I knew stillness might stop it.
Then, Harvey, I knew exactly what it was.
It was the devil. He could enter a house lizard,
a mirror, a cat’s eyes, a horned snail on the window,
or my own madness in a mirror; and once I knew that,
and saw that he was Satan, that was it.
HARVEY
Then, Sheila, I’m the devil, because he’s right.
SHEILA
I’m going, Harvey. I don’t know what pulled me in here.
HARVEY
The devil can talk like an angel, Sheila.
SHEILA
I’m sure. But on the day I was called,
I stayed there quiet, that Saturday afternoon,
watching the wall; then from somewhere, next door,
I heard this evangelical meeting—the voice
wasn’t shouting, but lulling, like a river,
as if the Nile herself had changed her voice.
It wasn’t the Nile anymore but the river Jordan.
The voice was Brother John’s, and the voice said,
“Come now, come as you are; leave things exactly
as you see them, and by whatever means you can,
come to the Church, it’s here in Barataria,”
and I began to cry. It wasn’t my radio,
so the voice went on, relentlessly, like a river
nothing could turn off. When I wept myself dry,
I moved to the mirror, I removed my makeup,
I made myself as plain as possible, and
I took a taxi and went towards the voice.
I came back home in silence and slept like death.
But when I got up, I saw like a child again.
Everything had mystery, love, forgiveness.
To change our voices, that’s idolatry;
to be someone else for money is harlotry.
How can we be another till we find ourselves?
And once we find ourselves, we don’t need others.
HARVEY
That’s the most selfish shit I ever heard.
[SHEILA places her hand over his mouth, gently]
SHEILA
No, Harvey. I swear to you it isn’t.
HARVEY
Dress up. Get up. Let me hear that voice.
SHEILA
No, Harvey. I can’t go into His temple like a whore.
HARVEY
Does He forgive you for giving up your gift?
I’ll close the theatre. It’ll just be the two of us.
SHEILA
Are you gay? Despite the ashes of Sodom,
God forgives everything. You know that?
HARVEY
To hide your talent, that’s death.
The man who hid his light under a bushel?
SHEILA
Maybe, but it wasn’t a spotlight.
[HARVEY rises, goes for the costume, puts on the Cleopatra wig and crown]
HARVEY
You stood there. Right here. Do I look like a queen?
Granted you didn’t have a beard.
And you remember what happened?
Or is it past? You forgotten?
Boys played your part, you know.
SHEILA
Forgotten? I thank Him every day.
[HARVEY removes wig and crown, puts them and the gown at her feet, then withdraws]
HARVEY
For me, then. For me.
SHEILA
No man can serve two masters.
 
; HARVEY
[Raging] You’re not a man! But no man should have two mistresses, either, and whatever you feel now about Chris, or Christ, whatever revenge you’re taking on yourself because some damned man you screwed is married, I don’t see any reason, neither would God, why you should turn yourself into a church mouse when you could make this place a temple! You were damned right to give it up to Marylin, or Mary La-Lune, or whatever her bloody name is. Because you were not worthy!
SHEILA
Don’t play director with me, Harvey. You’ve done better at rehearsals. You’re so conceited you think I’m dead inside. You think I’m a zombie. I’m neither God’s zombie nor your puppet. I shouldn’t have come here.
HARVEY
Cock-teaser! Slut! Spiritual stripper! You came here to gloat, to see if you were still loved. You’re available, Sheila, your soul is for rent. You’re now a pietistic, egotistical shit to say “I was chosen!”
[Silence]
SHEILA
Let Marylin play it. She’s passable, but she’ll pass.
I wanted to please Shakespeare as much as Jesus.
Besides, there’s something else you knew
but never told me. She wasn’t black,
she was like Marylin, Mediterranean.
The theatre is okay for you, Harvey. You’re white.
HARVEY
Sheila, don’t come with that again. Oh, God.
SHEILA
But they were right, the stage isn’t my place.
I stepped from it down to the congregation
because that is what this world expects of us;
that’s where an ambitious black woman belongs,
either grinning and dancing and screaming how she has
soul, or clapping and preaching and going gaga for Jesus.
Here, or in the gospel according to Motown,
and not up there contending with the great queens,
’cause the Caroni isn’t a branch of the river Nile,
and Trinidad isn’t Egypt, except at Carnival,
so the world sniggers when I speak her lines,
but not in a concrete church in Barataria.
What do you think? You think that I don’t miss her,
the way a jug needs water? That my tongue feels parched
sometimes, just to repeat her lines? How do you think
it feels to carry her corpse inside my body
the way a woman can carry a stillborn child
inside her and still know it? Know how young she was?
She slept inside me, my own flesh encased her
like—what do they call it?—a sarcophagus.
[She picks up the costume, hurls it]
HARVEY
Sheila, you are her now, she’s talking through you.
SHEILA
[Weeping]
No, no, she’s dead. I killed her. She was killing me.
My body was invaded by that queen.
Her gaze made everywhere a desert.
When I got up in the morning, when I walked to work,
I found myself walking in pentameter;
once, I was at a bus stop and I looked up and saw
vultures far up, as usual, but all the hawks of Egypt
were beating in my head. I heard my blood
whispering like the Nile, its branches,
instead of traffic. Harvey, I was the river,
I saw the bird-beaked priests there, I held court
with the hawk-headed gods, and every sunset
was like the brass gong of twilight sending out rings
up to the wharves of Alexandria, but I remembered
the amber and waxed corpses, and girls who bite
the nut of the palm and die. Egypt was my death.
Now I’ve found a faith where I’m not important,
and what I saw in the mirror wasn’t her,
wasn’t even Sheila Harris, but the bride of Christ,
so now I’m a happily married single woman.
[Silence]
I came here to wish you well. To congratulate you. To tell
you not to worry about the review. I know you. I remember
that the people who saw Him on His way to Calvary
thought He gave a poor performance. I know how He felt.
I’m not a Jesus freak; don’t stare at me. The easiest thing
for them to say is, She went crazy, she took up religion. I’ve
simply changed religions, that’s all. But take your gown and
your crown, Harvey. Take care of the costumes, don’t fling
them about.
[BROTHER JOHN enters the theatre with Bible and an umbrella]
BROTHER JOHN
Excuse me, Sister?
SHEILA
I’m ready, Brother John. God bless you, Harvey, and your work.
BROTHER JOHN
Sister.
SHEILA
Yes. Harvey, bless me.
HARVEY
With what? For what?
[He finds the scissors, picks them up. Enraged, he clears the stage himself]
SCENE 4
The church. BROTHER JOHN picks up his Bible and umbrella. SHEILA removes the flowers from the altar.
BROTHER JOHN
Well. Another strong testimony, Sister Sheila.
I know how much you enjoy testimony, and
I been observing your modesty in this church,
but how can your humility perform for Him?
Among good people none can be the best.
Tha’ is natural in the theatre, but, Sister, here
the congregation is not an audience,
and the devout aren’t actors. Tell me,
didn’t you hear some damned fool clap and shout “Bravo!”?
Didn’t you?
SHEILA
I know, Brother.
BROTHER JOHN
You are a great asset to us, but ask yourself,
has this lay church done anything for you? Do you
observe our ceremonies out of fear, not faith,
the fear that you won’t be any good at faith,
as though it was another part you had to act?
These things trouble the Elders, you understand?
SHEILA
Brother John, allow me to apologize.
BROTHER JOHN
All right,
Brother Roberts ain’t have the car this afternoon.
Have to walk out to the bus in this hot sun.
[CHRIS enters, in shirt, tie, jacket]
Yes, sir?
CHRIS
Excuse me, Brother. I could see Sister Sheila, please?
BROTHER JOHN
Is this church business? You was the fool who clap, nuh?
CHRIS
Yes, is church business, sort of. I was in the audience, I mean, oh, shit—excuse me—the congregation.
[Looks heavenwards, crosses himself]
BROTHER JOHN
May I ask what business?
CHRIS
No, you may not. Excuse me, Brother. Outside too hot.
[BROTHER JOHN exits]
You put passion in everything and they can’t stand it.
Marylin? I saw her. She got breasts like apples, but her
acting is green figs. She like she should play Egypt in a
head tie. She ain’t ripe yet. I can imagine her, not on the
bank of the Nile, but in Chase Manhattan. But, boy, she
floating on waves of applause. And every night her bow gets
deeper and deeper, her nose nearly touching the stage,
showing them the cleavage.
SHEILA
The woman is my friend. Leave her alone.
CHRIS
That wasn’t why I came here. I wrote this play.
SHEILA
In Barbados. Is it good?
CHRIS
Yes.
SHEILA
And how is it there?
CHRIS
br /> Good. I blight. Everything I touch turn to gold. I opened a branch there, from sheer boredom. It’s doing well.
SHEILA
And your wife?
CHRIS
Well.
SHEILA
Not so withdrawn?
CHRIS
No.
[Silence]
SHEILA
I don’t see the congregation. It’s like the theatre.
The difference is it’s day. No spotlight moon.
CHRIS
I was at the back. I had to clap you. Habit, nuh?
SHEILA
So you’re home for good? Are you back for good?
CHRIS
For a while. She’s coming later. We’re sending the children
to school there; she’ll travel back and forth. She’s very fit.
Tanned. Lots of English people there.
[Silence]
I won’t come back. To disturb your peace, I mean.
SHEILA
Good. I’m not a freak. I don’t like being stared at.
CHRIS
I stare ’cause I can’t recognize you, Sheila.
You’re like one of those girls who come to your gate
when you’re asleep on a Saturday afternoon,
generally accompanied by some Sister.
Pale women, drained of any contradiction.
You look at them and think, Christ, what a waste!
What slavery! This is you now, Sheila? You?
SHEILA
Your quarrel isn’t with me. It’s with Him.
There’s a big difference between panic and love.
CHRIS
Why have you emptied your life?
SHEILA
[Reading the title page]
Why call it that?
“A Branch of the Blue Nile”?
CHRIS
Because it ain’t mainstream, okay?
SHEILA
But why “Blue”?
CHRIS
Because white is too obvious.
Besides, the Nile gave you the blues, Egypt.
But it’s my act of contrition.
I’ve put in everything that happened.
But it’s up to you to finish it.
I don’t know the end. It’s up to you.
SHEILA
You aren’t here to seduce me, are you?
CHRIS
[Swears]
To God!
[To ceiling]
Sorry. I can read one part to you? It won’t take long. No sacrilege.
[Reads]
“It have a bird here…”
[Stops]
This is a fellow talking to some tourist out on the Caroni
bird sanctuary, and I might take out the scene, too much of
bush. Anyway, he explaining the natural marvels of the
country and so on. He says: “It have a bird here…”
[Looks up, reads again]
“It have a bird here, mister, call the ibis. The colour is
pure flame. Like fire, self. And from what I hear, it have
the same bird in Egypt, a sacred bird, with long legs, by the