KATHIE: If you really meant that, you’d call me Kathie.
SANTIAGO: I’m sorry. From now on I’ll call you Kathie, I promise.
KATHIE: I was thinking of my admirers. I had masses of them: Kike, Bepo, Harry, Gordo Rivarola … In those days, I was what was called a good match.
SANTIAGO: I know. I knew you, though you didn’t know me. In fact everybody knew you. From the social columns, from society magazines.
KATHIE: What were you like in those days?
SANTIAGO: (Dreamily) Me? An idealist, a romantic. I dreamt I was going to be another Victor Hugo, I was going to dedicate my life to poetry, politics, art. Something important, where I could make my mark in society. I wanted to fill my life with grand gestures.
JUAN: (Moving closer) Can we talk for a moment, Kathie? It’s about … Victor.
KATHIE: I’ve absolutely nothing to say about Victor. I don’t want to talk about him. Either now or ever, with you or anyone else for that matter. I haven’t seen him since we got married, so you needn’t start making jealous scenes about him now.
(SANTIAGO has left his place of work, and is now beside them. He seems overcome with grief.)
SANTIAGO: So you married that clown after all, Pussikins. You’re not the romantic girl you led me to believe you were in your letters.
JUAN: (Uncomfortably) I know you haven’t seen him since we got married. And I’m not going to make any jealous scenes about him either. Have I ever done that? I trust you implicitly, my love. It’s just that … he came to see me.
(Turning towards SANTIAGO in surprise) You? But what a surprise, Victor! Come in, come in. Well, where did you spring from all of a sudden?
KATHIE: (Aside; transfixed with fear) Dear heavens! Victor! Victor! How could you have done such a thing! And all because of me, it was all my fault. You did do it because of me, didn’t you?
SANTIAGO: (Offering JUAN his hand) How are you, Johnny? You seem surprised to see me. Yes, I suppose it’s understandable. I don’t want to take up your time, I imagine you’re very busy. I just came to bring you these letters.
KATHIE: Yes, I’m sure it was because of me that you did it. I’ll never forgive myself, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. How are you? Are you miserable? Are you happy? Have you at least found peace of mind?
JUAN: (Leafing through the letters with increasing amazement) What are these letters? Why, they’re love letters. Letters from my wife to you. What does this mean, Victor? Why have you brought them here?
KATHIE: (Grief-stricken) Even if you’re in the furthest corner of the earth, ensconced behind walls of solid stone, even if we never see each other again, I’ll always be beside you, I’ll always be with you, Victor.
SANTIAGO: As a sign of friendship, Johnny. Pussikins is your wife now. I’m sure neither you nor she would like those letters to get into the wrong hands. She wrote them to me when she was my girlfriend. When you read them you’ll see that our relationship was always pure and innocent. I’ve brought you them, so you can tear them up or keep them, or do whatever you like with them.
KATHIE: (Very tenderly) With you I awaken at dead of night, the sky all aglow with myriad stars, having scarcely slept four hours on your mattress of straw, in that stark dank cell with its granite walls.
JUAN: (Becoming more and more bewildered) Ah, so that’s the reason … Look, I don’t quite know what to say to you. You’ve taken me rather by surprise. I … well, to tell you the truth, the fact is, I don’t really know what to say.
KATHIE: I meditate kneeling on icy stone floors in front of that skull which stares down upon us as much as to say, ‘I’m waiting for you.’ With you I weep for the evil men do, that has turned the world into a poisonous cesspool.
SANTIAGO: Well, you might at least thank me.
KATHIE: I scourge myself, and wear a hair shirt, and I try and try till my strength ebbs away, to atone for that boundless talent man has for harming himself and his fellow men.
JUAN: For these letters? Yes, of course, thank you very much. (Looking at him mistrustfully) But this must be some sort of a trick, Victor? Surely you’re pulling my leg?
KATHIE: With you I fast, in perpetual silence I live, barefoot I walk in the raw mid-winter and wear thick woollen garments in the searing summer heat. With you I till the soil with my own bare hands and with you I give succour and fodder to the rabbits.
SANTIAGO: No, Johnny, I’m not. I promise you.
KATHIE: With you I sing psalms to keep the world from splitting asunder and write eulogies to the wasp, the magnolia, the thistle, the fieldmouse, the laurel, the pollen and the ant.
JUAN: All right, I’m sorry. To tell you the truth, Victor, you’ve really rather thrown me. Well, I never! What a decent chap you are! Pussikins will be grateful to you as well. I’m sure she’d be quite upset if these letters were to go astray, now that she’s a married woman.
KATHIE: For you I’ve renounced the world of the serpent, the tawdry pomp, the anguish and the ulcers, for a life of slavery which to me is freedom, of martyrdom which is happiness, of death which is life.
SANTIAGO: That’s why I brought you them, I was thinking of her.
KATHIE: (Anxious, tense) And do you know why, Victor? Have you sensed it, have you guessed? Do you know?
JUAN: (Confidentially) You’ve taken a great weight off my mind, Victor. I thought you felt bitter about me, I thought you hated me.
KATHIE: Because I love you. Yes, yes, yes, Victor. I love you! I love you! I’ve always loved you! Always, always, always.
SANTIAGO: Why? Because Pussikins married you? What a fantastic notion, Johnny. I felt a bit hurt to begin with but then I got used to the idea. Now I think it was the best thing all round that she should have married you.
KATHIE: (Elated, ecstatic) Yes, what you hear is true. Your Adèle loves you, she has always loved you, and she always will love you. My master, my mentor, my guru, my lord and king. Oh, Victor, Victor.
JUAN: Of course, of course, I always thought so too. You and Pussikins are two very different people, you’d never have got on.
KATHIE: (Sad again) With you, the very air I breathed has vanished, the light from my eyes, the voice from my throat, the fire from my blood.
SANTIAGO: (Turning to an imaginary KATHIE) You didn’t marry me because you thought I was after your money.
KATHIE: (Still addressing the same phantom) I didn’t marry you out of sheer stupidity.
JUAN: (Still to SANTIAGO) Whereas Kathie and I got on famously together.
KATHIE: Because I was a coward and an ignoramus, because I was blind and frivolous.
SANTIAGO: (To the same imaginary KATHIE) How disappointing, Pussikins. I thought you were more of an idealist, more of a dreamer, more intellectually honest, I never thought you were so calculating, I credited you with more openness. You’re not like Adèle Foucher, Adèle!
KATHIE: (Mad with despair) Forgive me! Forgive me!
JUAN: Look, Victor, now that we’ve got things straight, we must see each other again sometime. You must come round to the house and have a meal with us one of these days.
KATHIE: Turn round, come back, there’s still time. Listen to me, answer me! Oh, Victor, come back!
SANTIAGO: (To JUAN) That won’t be possible, Johnny. I’m going on a journey. A very long one. and I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Peru again.
KATHIE: I want to be your servant, your slave, your pet bitch.
JUAN: (To SANTIAGO) That sounds very mysterious.
KATHIE: I want to be your whore, Victor.
SANTIAGO: You’re right. It is, in a way. Look, I’ll tell you. I’m going to Spain. To Burgos. I’m going to join the Trappists.
KATHIE: I’ll go down to the docks and I’ll take off my clothes before the grimiest of sailors. I’ll lick their tattoos, on my knees, if you like. Any little whim, Victor, any fantasy at all. However mad, just give the word. Whatever you command.
JUAN: You’re going to join the what?
KATHIE: You can spit on me, humi
liate me, thrash me, lend me to your friends. Just come back, come back.
SANTIAGO: Of course, you don’t know what they are. The Trappists. They’re a religious order. Very old, very strict. A closed order. Yes, in a nutshell, I’m going to become a monk.
KATHIE: Come back even if it’s only to kill me, Victor.
JUAN: (Bursting out laughing) Sure you wouldn’t rather become a bullfighter? I knew you’d try pulling my leg sooner or later. There’s no keeping up with you, Victor.
KATHIE: (Desolate, resigned) But I know you can’t hear me, that you never will hear me. I know your Adèle has lost for ever her reason for living, for dying and coming back to life again.
SANTIAGO: I’m not pulling your leg. I’m going to join the Trappists. I’ve had a calling. But that’s not all. I’m asking you to help me. I’m destitute. The fare to Spain is expensive. I’m asking my friends to help me collect what I need for a third-class fare on the Sea Queen. Could you give me a little hand, Johnny?
KATHIE: (To JUAN) Why are you telling me all this? Why should any of it matter to me?
JUAN: I’m telling you because you’re my wife. Who else am I going to tell if I don’t tell you? Do you think it could be true, all that about the Trappists, or the Trappers, or the Traipsers, or whatever they call themselves?
SANTIAGO: (To KATHIE) What use would your money be to me? How many times have I explained it to you? I don’t want to be rich, I want to be happy. Is your daddy happy? Is Johnny happy? Well, maybe Johnny is, but that’s not because he’s rich but because he’s stupid. With me you would have been happy, you’d have had the most memorable wedding night of all time, Adèle.
JUAN: (To KATHIE) To start with I didn’t believe him, of course. I thought he’d come to touch me for some money, or to tell me some story or other. But now, I don’t know. You should have heard him … He spoke like a priest, all softly and gently. Said he’d had a calling. What do you want me to do with these letters, Pussikins?
SANTIAGO: (To KATHIE) So we won’t be living in Chincheros any more, the little village with the purest air in the mountains. And we won’t be sharing that free, simple life, that healthy, frugal, intimate existence. I’m not reproaching you for it, Pussikins. On the contrary, I’m grateful to you. You’ve been the instrument through which something greater than both you and me has manifested itself and made me see clearly what is expected of me. Thank you for leaving me, Pussikins! Thank you for marrying Juan! In the monastery I’ll always pray for you both to be happy.
(He returns to his place of work.)
JUAN: (To KATHIE) Of course I haven’t read them! (Regrets having lied.) All right, yes, I read them. What romantic letters, Kathie! You were very much in love with Victor, weren’t you? And I never even suspected it. I never suspected you were so romantic either. The things you wrote, Pussikins!
(He smiles and seems to forget about KATHIE. He crouches down, poised, giving the impression that at any moment he might start to surf.)
KATHIE: (Lost in thought) Johnny darling, Johnny darling … What a clown you turned out to be!
SANTIAGO: (Without looking at KATHIE, lost in his own thoughts) Well, with a name like Johnny darling, he doesn’t exactly sound like a very serious man.
KATHIE: (Glancing at SANTIAGO, who remains absorbed in his fantasy world) It would be such a relief if I could talk to you about my disastrous marriage, Mark Griffin.
SANTIAGO: Tell me about it, Kathie. That’s what I’m here for – in this little Parisian attic. It’s part of my job. Well, what were the problems? Did Johnny darling treat you badly?
KATHIE: I didn’t quite realize it then. I do now, though. I felt … let down. One, two, maybe three years had gone by since we’d got married and life had become very tedious. Could this really be what marriage was like – this dull routine? Was this what I’d got married for?
SANTIAGO: What did your husband do?
KATHIE: He used to go to the Waikiki.
SANTIAGO: That surfers’ club, on Miraflores beach?
KATHIE: Every day, winter and summer. It was the main occupation of his life.
JUAN: (Youthful, athletic, carefree, looking towards the horizon) I like it, and why shouldn’t I? I’m young, I want to enjoy life.
KATHIE: (Absorbed in her thoughts) But, Johnny darling, Hawaiian surfing isn’t the only way of enjoying life. Don’t you get tired of being in the sea all day? You’ll soon start growing scales.
JUAN: (Looking straight ahead) I like it more every day. And I’ll keep on doing more of it. Till either I’m dead — or I’m so old I can’t ride waves any more.
(SANTIAGO finally looks at JUAN; it is as if he were creating him with his look.)
SANTIAGO: Did he really devote his life to riding waves? Didn’t he feel ashamed?
(As he surfs, JUAN keeps his balance by paddling with his hands, and by leaning from side to side to steady himself as the waves tug him along tossing him up and down.)
JUAN: Ashamed? Quite the reverse. It makes me feel proud, I like it, it makes me happy. Why should I be ashamed? What’s wrong with surfing? I’ve surfed all over the world – in Miraflores, Hawaii, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa. What’s wrong with that? It’s the most fantastic thing there is! I enter the water slowly, smoothly, gliding along, teasing the waves, outwitting the waves, then suddenly I dive, I slice through them, I cut across them, harnessing them, taming them, on, on I go, further and further, pulled by the undertow right up to the rollers after they’ve broken. I get on to my board, and like a jockey on the starting line, I size them up, getting their measure, calculating, guessing. Which of these little crinkles will grow and grow and become the best wave to ride? That one! That one there! I can hardly wait. It’s thrilling. My muscles tingle! My heart pounds! Pum, pum, pum. There’s not a second to lose, Johnny! I get into position, I wait poised, now, I slap the water, and we’re away, it’s got me, it tows me along, I caught it just at the very moment before it broke, I jump, I stand on the board, I stretch up, crouch, stretch up again, it’s all in the hips now, it’s all balance, experience, stamina, a battle of wits. No, little wave, you won’t knock me over! I’ve ridden waves which could topple a skyscraper, I’ve tunnelled under waves as sheer as cataracts, like gaping caverns, like soaring mountains, I’ve ridden waves which, had I lost my balance, would have smashed me to pieces, torn me limb from limb, pulverized me. I’ve ridden waves through jagged coral reefs, in seas infested with marauding sharks. I’ve nearly been drowned a hundred times, nearly been deafened, paralysed, maimed. I’ve won championships on four continents and if I haven’t won any in Europe it’s because the waves in Europe are lousy for surfing. Why should I be ashamed of myself?
KATHIE: (Still immersed in her dreams) What do you spend all these hours thinking about, sitting there on your surfboard, in the middle of the sea?
JUAN: (Scanning the horizon, the seascape) How large will the next wave be? Will I get on to it? Will I miss it? Will it knock me over? Will it carry me safely to the shore?
SANTIAGO: Do you ever think of anything other than waves?
JUAN: Sometimes, when it’s a flat calm, I think about the last little woman I fancied. The one I met yesterday, or the day before, or even this morning. Will she be easy? Will she be difficult? Will we make love? Will it be the first or the second time of asking? Will I have to work on her, delicately, skilfully? Will it take a long time? When and where will it happen? What will it be like? (Becoming ashamed, like a child interrupted doing something naughty) Sometimes, I get so excited, I have to think of rhombuses, cubes, triangles and parallelograms to calm myself down.
KATHIE: Of course, you even used to make love to the surfboard. I’m not surprised. And when you’re on the top of the wave, flapping your arms about like a ragdoll, what do you think about?
JUAN: Will they be watching me from the terrace of the Waikiki? Will the bathers see me from the swimming pool or the beach? And what about the motorists on the Embankment? Will they be looking? Will they b
e praising me? Will they be envious?
SANTIAGO: And what do you feel?
JUAN: I feel that I’m growing, that I’m handsome and virile, that I’m a real man. I feel like a god. What’s wrong with that?
KATHIE: Does it make any difference to you if I’m the one who’s watching you, if I’m the one who’s admiring you?
JUAN: It did, before we got married, yes. It doesn’t now, though. It’s funny, but now you’re my wife and it’s your duty to admire me, I only seem to do it for those other women – beautiful women I’ve just got to know, or known for a bit, or haven’t yet met.
SANTIAGO: (Lost in thought) Did it never enter your head it might be a crime to waste your time like this, when there are so many creative, productive things to be done in life?
JUAN: (Fighting the waves) Of course it never entered my head. Nothing quite so daft ever would. Do I do anyone any harm with my surfing? And if I stop, is that going to solve anyone’s problem? Is going to the bank any more creative and productive than a good day’s surfing, or making love to a woman?
KATHIE: (Distressed by her memories) Was this how my married life was going to be? Watching Johnny darling riding waves and being unfaithful to me?
SANTIAGO: (Thoughtfully) The real middle classes were even more bourgeois than the pamphlets made them out to be; we used to hate them on principle or on ideological grounds. I didn’t deceive you there, Anita.
(ANA approaches SANTIAGO, who seems not to see her. KATHIE continues with her reminiscences.)
KATHIE: Going to bed late, getting up late. Are you going to the bank today, Johnny?
JUAN: For a short while, yes, just to keep up appearances. But what do you say to meeting at the Waikiki at around one, OK?
KATHIE: Those damned waves, those damned surfboards, those damned championships, and those damned trips to Hawaii. It was all so excruciatingly boring, staying in hotels with synthetic lawns and plastic palm trees. And having to watch them all, indulge them, fête them, flatter them, compliment them, and then there was the tittle-tattle, whose wife’s sleeping with whose husband, which couples have come together, fallen out, made it up again and finally fallen out for good. Getting ready for drinks, dinner, Hawaiian parties, hen parties, always waiting for the big surprise. Going to the hairdresser, wearing new outfits, having one’s nails manicured. Same thing tomorrow and the day after. Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of your life, Kathie?
Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga Page 10