The Liquid Plain (TCG Edition). Naomi Wallace
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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