Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry [21]
BENEATHA (Understanding, softly) Thank you.
MAMA (Looking from one to the other and not understanding any of it) Well … that’s nice … You must come see us again—Mr.——
ASAGAI Ah-sah-guy …
MAMA Yes … Do come again.
ASAGAI Good-bye.
(He exits)
MAMA (After him) Lord, that’s a pretty thing just went out here! (Insinuatingly, to her daughter) Yes, I guess I see why we done commence to get so interested in Africa ’round here. Missionaries my aunt Jenny!
(She exits)
BENEATHA Oh, Mama! …
(She picks up the Nigerian dress and holds it up to her in front of the mirror again. She sets the headdress on haphazardly and then notices her hair again and clutches at it and then replaces the headdress and frowns at herself. Then she starts to wriggle in front of the mirror as she thinks a Nigerian woman might. TRAVIS enters and stands regarding her)
TRAVIS What’s the matter, girl, you cracking up?
BENEATHA Shut up.
(She pulls the headdress off and looks at herself in the mirror and clutches at her hair again and squinches her eyes as if trying to imagine something. Then, suddenly, she gets her raincoat and kerchief and hurriedly prepares for going out)
MAMA (Coming back into the room) She’s resting now. Travis, baby, run next door and ask Miss Johnson to please let me have a little kitchen cleanser. This here can is empty as Jacob’s kettle.
TRAVIS I just came in.
MAMA Do as you told. (He exits and she looks at her daughter) Where you going?
BENEATHA (Halting at the door) To become a queen of the Nile!
(She exits in a breathless blaze of glory. RUTH appears in the bedroom doorway)
MAMA Who told you to get up?
RUTH Ain’t nothing wrong with me to be lying in no bed for. Where did Bennie go?
MAMA (Drumming her fingers) Far as I could make out—to Egypt. (RUTH just looks at her) What time is it getting to?
RUTH Ten twenty. And the mailman going to ring that bell this morning just like he done every morning for the last umpteen years.
(TRAVIS comes in with the cleanser can)
TRAVIS She say to tell you that she don’t have much.
MAMA (Angrily) Lord, some people I could name sure is tight-fisted! (Directing her grandson) Mark two cans of cleanser down on the list there. If she that hard up for kitchen cleanser, I sure don’t want to forget to get her none!
RUTH Lena—maybe the woman is just short on cleanser—
MAMA (Not listening)—Much baking powder as she done borrowed from me all these years, she could of done gone into the baking business!
(The bell sounds suddenly and sharply and all three are stunned—serious and silent—mid-speech. In spite of all the other conversations and distractions of the morning, this is what they have been waiting for, even TRAVIS who looks helplessly from his mother to his grandmother. RUTH is the first to come to life again)
RUTH (To TRAVIS) Get down them steps, boy!
(TRAVIS snaps to life and flies out to get the mail)
MAMA (Her eyes wide, her hand to her breast) You mean it done really come?
RUTH (Excited) Oh, Miss Lena!
MAMA (Collecting herself) Well … I don’t know what we all so excited about ’round here for. We known it was coming for months.
RUTH That’s a whole lot different from having it come and being able to hold it in your hands … a piece of paper worth ten thousand dollars … (TRAVIS bursts back into the room. He holds the envelope high above his head, like a little dancer, his face is radiant and he is breathless. He moves to his grandmother with sudden slow ceremony and puts the envelope into her hands. She accepts it, and then merely holds it and looks at it) Come on! Open it … Lord have mercy, I wish Walter Lee was here!
TRAVIS Open it, Grandmama!
MAMA (Staring at it) Now you all be quiet. It’s just a check. RUTH Open it …
MAMA (Still staring at it) Now don’t act silly … We ain’t never been no people to act silly ’bout no money—
RUTH (Swiftly) We ain’t never had none before—OPEN IT!
(MAMA finally makes a good strong tear and pulls out the thin blue slice of paper and inspects