Scene Four

PROJECTED TEXT: PASSAGE OF YEARNING: MORE DAYS LATER.

Another area of the docks. Dembi and Adjua are alone and taking a rare break. Dembi sips from a small bottle of whiskey and sings a couple of lines from an old song from Charleston. Adjua is studying her book.

DEMBI: You know what makes the best sound in the world?

ADJUA: Ja. A merchant vessel, near shore, breakin’ up in a storm.

DEMBI: No.

ADJUA: The sails of a vessel we call our own—

DEMBI: Nope. You do.

ADJUA: Me? How?

DEMBI: When we’re under the cloth and you’re making those little moans—

ADJUA: —that sound like the devil clearin’ his throat—

DEMBI: That’s when I know I’m still alive!

ADJUA: You’re corned. Give that back to me. We got to sell that whiskey—

DEMBI: Ah, be sweet to me, Adjua. Here.

(Adjua gives in and shares a sip with Dembi.)

You got something you want to tell me?

(Adjua is silent a moment.)

ADJUA: Dembi. I think the time is right to make our child . . .

DEMBI: Who you thinkin’ about, woman?

ADJUA: No one. But we can find a good man to help us.

DEMBI: We find the man when we’ve got the right earth under our feet: Africa. That’s where we’ll make our family. And our child’ll flip this world quick, turn it inside out.

ADJUA: We got to get another vessel to sail or my heart break.

DEMBI: We find some more Quakers and we make a new plan.

ADJUA (Grabbing his face): Please don’t make me wait too long.

DEMBI: I promise.

ADJUA: Then I believe you.

(Adjua releases him. Dembi says the following like “facts.”)

DEMBI: Woman. You’re a stone in here. Your weight gives me an ache in my gut: there’s no room in me but for you.

ADJUA: The whiskey sure make my Dembi sweet.

DEMBI (A warning): Without your weight I’d come loose from these docks, float up high over this stinkin’ city ’til Dembi is gone.

(Adjua kisses him on the forehead. He doesn’t respond.)

ADJUA: Come. We got to get back to work.

DEMBI: You go. I won’t be far behind.

(Adjua goes. Dembi looks out over the waters, unsettled.)