MAXINE: How about a rum-coco? We give a complimentary rum-coco to all our guests here. [Her offer is apparently unheard. She shrugs and drinks the rum-coco herself.]
SHANNON: —Miss Fellowes? In every party there is always one individual that’s discontented, that is not satisfied with all I do to make the tour more . . . unique—to make it different from the ordinary, to give it a personal thing, the Shannon touch.
MISS FELLOWES: The gyp touch, the touch of a defrocked minister.
SHANNON: Miss Fellowes, don’t, don’t, don’t . . . do what . . . you’re doing! [He is on the verge of hysteria, he makes some incoherent sounds, gesticulates with clenched fists, then stumbles wildly across the verandah and leans panting for breath against a post.] Don’t! Break! Human! Pride!
VOICE FROM DOWN THE HILL [a very Texan accent]: Judy? They’re taking our luggage!
MISS FELLOWES [shouting down the hill]: Girls! Girls! Don’t let those boys touch your luggage. Don’t let them bring your luggage in this dump!
GIRL’S VOICE [from below]: Judy! We can’t stop them!
MAXINE: Those kids don’t understand English.
MISS FELLOWES [wild with rage]: Will you please tell those boys to take that luggage back down to the bus? [She calls to the party below again.] Girls! Hold onto your luggage, don’t let them take it away! We’re going to drive back to A-cap-ul-co! You hear?
GIRL’S VOICE: Judy, they want a swim, first!
MISS FELLOWES: I’ll be right back. [She rushes off, shouting at the Mexican boys.] You! Boys! Muchachos! You carry that luggage back down!
[The voices continue, fading. Shannon moves brokenly across the verandah. Maxine shakes her head.]
MAXINE: Shannon, give ’em the bus key and let ’em go.
SHANNON: And me do what?
MAXINE: Stay here.
SHANNON: In Fred’s old bedroom—yeah, in Fred’s old bedroom.
MAXINE: You could do worse.
SHANNON: Could I? Well, then, I’ll do worse, I’ll . . . do worse.
MAXINE: Aw now, baby.
SHANNON: If I could do worse, I’ll do worse. . . . [He grips the section of railing by the verandah steps and stares with wide, lost eyes. His chest heaves like a spent runner’s and he is bathed in sweat.]
MAXINE: Give me that ignition key. I’ll take it down to the driver while you bathe and rest and have a rum-coco, baby.
[Shannon simply shakes his head slightly. Harsh bird cries sound in the rain forest. Voices are heard on the path.]
HANNAH: Nonno, you’ve lost your sunglasses.
NONNO: No. Took them off. No sun.
[Hannah appears at the top of the path, pushing her grandfather, Nonno, in a wheelchair. He is a very old man but has a powerful voice for his age and always seems to be shouting something of importance. Nonno is a poet and a showman. There is a good kind of pride and he has it, carrying it like a banner wherever he goes. He is immaculately dressed—a linen suit, white as his thick poet’s hair; a black string tie; and he is holding a black cane with a gold crook.]
NONNO: Which way is the sea?
HANNAH: Right down below the hill, Nonno. [He turns in the wheelchair and raises a hand to shield his eyes.] We can’t see it from here. [The old man is deaf, and she shouts to make him hear.]
NONNO: I can feel it and smell it. [A murmur of wind sweeps through the rain forest.] It’s the cradle of life. [He is shouting, too.] Life began in the sea.
MAXINE: These two with your party?
SHANNON: No.
MAXINE: They look like a pair of loonies.
SHANNON: Shut up.
[Shannon looks at Hannah and Nonno steadily, with a relief of tension almost like that of someone going under hypnosis. The old man still squints down the path, blindly, but Hannah is facing the verandah with a proud person’s hope of acceptance when it is desperately needed.]
HANNAH: How do you do.
MAXINE: Hello.
HANNAH: Have you ever tried pushing a gentleman in a wheelchair uphill through a rain forest?
MAXINE: Nope, and I wouldn’t even try it downhill.
HANNAH: Well, now that we’ve made it, I don’t regret the effort. What a view for a painter! [She looks about her, panting, digging into her shoulder-bag for a handkerchief, aware that her face is flushed and sweating.] They told me in town that this was the ideal place for a painter, and they weren’t—whew—exaggerating!
SHANNON: You’ve got a scratch on your forehead.
HANNAH: Oh, is that what I felt.
SHANNON: Better put iodine on it.
HANNAH: Yes, I’ll attend to that—whew—later, thank you.
MAXINE: Anything I can do for you?
HANNAH: I’m looking for the manager of the hotel.
MAXINE: Me—speaking.
HANNAH: Oh, you’re the manager, good! How do you do, I’m Hannah Jelkes, Mrs. . . .
MAXINE: Faulk, Maxine Faulk. What can I do for you folks? [Her tone indicates no desire to do anything for them.]
HANNAH: [turning quickly to her grandfather]: Nonno, the manager is a lady from the States.
[Nonno lifts a branch of wild orchids from his lap, ceremonially, with the instinctive gallantry of his kind.]
NONNO: [shouting]: Give the lady these—botanical curiosities!—you picked on the way up.
HANNAH: I believe they’re wild orchids, isn’t that what they are?
SHANNON: Laelia tibicina.
HANNAH: Oh!
NONNO: But tell her, Hannah, tell her to keep them in the icebox till after dark, they draw bees in the sun! [He rubs a sting on his chin with a rueful chuckle.]
MAXINE: Are you all looking for rooms here?
HANNAH: Yes, we are, but we’ve come without reservations.
MAXINE: Well, honey, the Costa Verde is closed in September—except for a few special guests, so. . . .
SHANNON: They’re special guests, for God’s sake.
MAXINE: I thought you said they didn’t come with your party.
HANNAH: Please let us be special guests.
MAXINE: Watch out!
[Nonno has started struggling out of the wheelchair. Shannon rushes over to keep him from falling. Hannah has started toward him, too, then seeing that Shannon has caught him, she turns back to Maxine.]
HANNAH: In twenty-five years of travel this is the first time we’ve ever arrived at a place without advance reservations.
MAXINE: Honey, that old man ought to be in a hospital.
HANNAH: Oh, no, no, he just sprained his ankle a little in Taxco this morning. He just needs a good night’s rest, he’ll be on his feet tomorrow. His recuperative powers are absolutely amazing for someone who is ninety-seven years young.
SHANNON: Easy, Grampa. Hang on. [He is supporting the old man up to the verandah.] Two steps. One! Two! Now you’ve made it, Grampa.
[Nonno keeps chuckling breathlessly as Shannon gets him onto the verandah and into a wicker rocker.]
HANNAH [breaking in quickly]: I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your taking us in here now. It’s—providential.
MAXINE: Well, I can’t send that old man back down the hill right now—but like I told you the Costa Verde’s practically closed in September. I just take in a few folks as a special accommodation and we operate on a special basis this month.
NONNO [cutting in abruptly and loudly]: Hannah, tell the lady that my perambulator is temporary. I will soon be ready to crawl and then to toddle and before long I will be leaping around here like an—old—mountain—goat, ha-ha-ha-ha. . . .
HANNAH: Yes, I explained that, Grandfather.
NONNO: I don’t like being on wheels.
HANNAH: Yes, my grandfather feels that the decline of the Western world began with the invention of the wheel. [She laughs heartily, but Maxine’s look is unresponsive.]
NONNO: And tell the manager . . . the, uh, lady . . . that I know some hotels don’t want to take dogs, cats or monkeys and some don’t even solicit the patronage of infants in thei
r late nineties who arrive in perambulators with flowers instead of rattles . . . [He chuckles with a sort of fearful, slightly mad quality. Hannah perhaps has the impulse to clap a hand over his mouth at this moment but must stand there smiling and smiling and smiling.] . . . and a brandy flask instead of a teething ring, but tell her that these, uh, concessions to man’s seventh age are only temporary, and. . . .
HANNAH: Nonno, I told her the wheelchair’s because of a sprained ankle, Nonno!
SHANNON [to himself]: Fantastic.
NONNO: And after my siesta, I’ll wheel it back down the hill, I’ll kick it back down the hill, right into the sea, and tell her. . . .
HANNAH: Yes? What, Nonno? [She has stopped smiling now. Her tone and her look are frankly desperate.] What shall I tell her now, Nonno?
NONNO: Tell her that if she’ll forgive my disgraceful longevity and this . . . temporary decrepitude . . . I will present her with the last signed . . . compitty [he means “copy”] of my first volume of verse, published in . . . when, Hannah?
HANNAH [hopelessly]: The day that President Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated, Nonno.
NONNO: Morning Trumpet! Where is it—you have it, give it to her right now.
HANNAH: Later, a little later! [Then she turns to Maxine and Shannon.] My grandfather is the poet Jonathan Coffin. He is ninety-seven years young and will be ninety-eight years young the fifth of next month, October.
MAXINE: Old folks are remarkable, yep. The office phone’s ringing—excuse me, I’ll be right back. [She goes around the verandah.]
NONNO: Did I talk too much?
HANNAH [quietly, to Shannon]: I’m afraid that he did. I don’t think she’s going to take us.
SHANNON: She’ll take you. Don’t worry about it.
HANNAH: Nobody would take us in town, and if we don’t get in here, I would have to wheel him back down through the rain forest, and then what, then where? There would just be the road, and no direction to move in, except out to sea—and I doubt that we could make it divide before us.
SHANNON: That won’t be necessary. I have a little influence with the patrona.
HANNAH: Oh, then, do use it, please. Her eyes said no in big blue capital letters.
[Shannon pours some water from a pitcher on the verandah and hands it to the old man.]
NONNO: What is this—libation?
SHANNON: Some ice water, Grampa.
HANNAH: Oh, that’s kind of you. Thank you. I’d better give him a couple of salt tablets to wash down with it. [Briskly she removes a bottle from her shoulder-bag.] Won’t you have some? I see you’re perspiring, too. You have to be careful not to become dehydrated in the hot seasons under the Tropic of Cancer.
SHANNON [pouring another glass of water]: Are you a little financially dehydrated, too?
HANNAH: That’s right. Bone dry, and I think the patrona suspects it. It’s a logical assumption, since I pushed him up here myself, and the patrona has the look of a very logical woman. I am sure she knows that we couldn’t afford to hire the taxi driver to help us up here.
MAXINE [calling from the back]: Pancho?
HANNAH: A woman’s practicality when she’s managing something is harder than a man’s for another woman to cope with, so if you have influence with her, please do use it. Please try to convince her that my grandfather will be on his feet tomorrow, if not tonight, and with any luck whatsoever, the money situation will be solved just as quickly. Oh, here she comes back, do help us!
[Involuntarily Hannah seizes hold of Shannon’s wrist as Maxine stalks back onto the verandah, still shouting for Pancho. The Mexican boy reappears, sucking a juicy peeled mango—its juice running down his chin onto his throat.]
MAXINE: Pancho, run down to the beach and tell Herr Fahrenkopf that the German Embassy’s waiting on the phone for him. [Pancho stares at her blankly until she repeats the order in Spanish.] Dile a Herr Fahrenkopf que la embajada alemana lo llama al telefono. Corre, corre! [Pancho starts indolently down the path, still sucking noisily on the mango.] I said run! Corre, corre! [He goes into a leisurely loping pace and disappears through the foliage.]
HANNAH: What graceful people they are!
MAXINE: Yeah, they’re graceful like cats, and just as dependable, too.
HANNAH: Shall we, uh, . . . register now?
MAXINE: You all can register later but I’ll have to collect six dollars from you first if you want to put your names in the pot for supper. That’s how I’ve got to operate here out of season.
HANNAH: Six? Dollars?
MAXINE: Yeah, three each. In season we operate on the continental plan but out of season like this we change to the modified American plan.
HANNAH: Oh, what is the, uh . . . modification of it? [She gives Shannon a quick glance of appeal as she stalls for time, but his attention has turned inward as the bus horn blows down the hill.]
MAXINE: Just two meals are included instead of all three.
HANNAH [moving closer to Shannon and raising her voice]: Breakfast and dinner?
MAXINE: A continental breakfast and a cold lunch.
SHANNON [aside]: Yeah, very cold—cracked ice—if you crack it yourself.
HANNAH [reflectively]: Not dinner.
MAXINE: No! Not dinner.
HANNAH: Oh, I see, uh, but . . . we, uh, operate on a special basis ourselves. I’d better explain it to
MAXINE: How do you mean “operate”—on what “basis”?
HANNAH: Here’s our card. I think you may have heard of us. [She presents the card to Maxine.] We’ve had a good many write-ups. My grandfather is the oldest living and practicing poet. And he gives recitations. I . . . paint . . . water colors and I’m a “quick sketch artist.” We travel together. We pay our way as we go by my grandfather’s recitations and the sale of my water colors and quick character sketches in charcoal or pastel.
SHANNON [to himself]: I have fever.
HANNAH: I usually pass among the tables at lunch and dinner in a hotel. I wear an artist’s smock—picturesquely dabbed with paint—wide Byronic collar and flowing silk tie. I don’t push myself on people. I just display my work and smile at them sweetly and if they invite me to do so sit down to make a quick character sketch in pastel or charcoal. If not? Smile sweetly and go on.
SHANNON: What does Grandpa do?
HANNAH: We pass among the tables together slowly. I introduce him as the world’s oldest living and practicing poet. If invited, he gives a recitation of a poem. Unfortunately all of his poems were written a long time ago. But do you know, he has started a new poem? For the first time in twenty years he’s started another poem!
SHANNON: Hasn’t finished it yet?
HANNAH: He still has inspiration, but his power of concentration has weakened a little, of course.
MAXINE: Right now he’s not concentrating.
SHANNON: Grandpa’s catchin’ forty winks. Grampa? Let’s hit the sack.
MAXINE: Now wait a minute. I’m going to call a taxi for these folks to take them back to town.
HANNAH: Please don’t do that. We tried every hotel in town and they wouldn’t take us. I’m afraid I have to place myself at your . . . mercy.
[With infinite gentleness Shannon has roused the old man and is leading him into one of the cubicles back of the verandah. Distant cries of bathers are heard from the beach. The afternoon light is fading very fast now as the sun has dropped behind an island hilltop out to sea.]
MAXINE: Looks like you’re in for one night. Just one.
HANNAH: Thank you.
MAXINE: The old man’s in number 4. You take 3. Where’s your luggage—no luggage?
HANNAH: I hid it behind some palmettos at the foot of the path.
SHANNON [shouting to Pancho]: Bring up her luggage. Tu, flojo . . . las maletas . . . baja las palmas. Vamos! [The Mexican boys rush down the path.] Maxine honey, would you cash a postdated check for me?
MAXINE [shrewdly]: Yeah—mañana, maybe.
SHANNON: Thanks—generosity is the cornerstone of
your nature.
[Maxine utters her one-note bark of a laugh as she marches around the corner of the verandah.]
HANNAH: I’m dreadfully afraid my grandfather had a slight stroke in those high passes through the sierras. [She says this with the coolness of someone saying that it may rain before nightfall. An instant later, a long, long sigh of wind sweeps the hillside. The bathers are heard shouting below.]
SHANNON: Very old people get these little “cerebral accidents,” as they call them. They’re not regular strokes, they’re just little cerebral . . . incidents. The symptoms clear up so quickly that sometimes the old people don’t even know they’ve had them.
[They exchange this quiet talk without looking at each other. The Mexican boys crash back through the bushes at the top of the path, bearing some pieces of ancient luggage fantastically plastered with hotel and travel stickers indicating a vast range of wandering. The boys deposit the luggage near the steps.]
SHANNON: How many times have you been around the world?
HANNAH: Almost as many times as the world’s been around the sun, and I feel as if I had gone the whole way on foot.
SHANNON [picking up her luggage]: What’s your cell number?
HANNAH [smiling faintly]: I believe she said it was cell number 3.
SHANNON: She probably gave you the one with the leaky roof. [He carries the bags into the cubicle. Maxine is visible to the audience only as she appears outside the door to her office on the wing of the verandah.] But you won’t find out till it rains and then it’ll be too late to do much about it but swim out of it. [Hannah laughs wanly. Her fatigue is now very plain. Shannon comes back out with her luggage.] Yep, she gave you the one with the leaky roof so you take mine and. . . .
HANNAH: Oh, no, no, Mr. Shannon, I’ll find a dry spot if it rains.
MAXINE [from around the corner of the verandah]: Shannon!
[A bit of pantomime occurs between Hannah and Shannon. He wants to put her luggage in cubicle number 5. She catches hold of his arm, indicating by gesture toward the back that it is necessary to avoid displeasing the proprietor. Maxine shouts his name louder. Shannon surrenders to Hannah’s pleading and puts her luggage back in the leaky cubicle number 3.]