Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  KATHIE: Your knowledge exceeds that of the Kama Sutra, the Ananga Ranga, Giacomo Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade.

  SANTIAGO: It does. What do women feel when they make love with me, Adèle chérie?

  KATHIE: Like tropical butterflies pierced by a pin, like flies struggling in a glutinous web, like chickens on a spit. (ANA who has been watching them sardonically, bursts out laughing and breaks the spell. Attention is focused on KATHIE and JUAN.)

  JUAN: (Transformed back into Johnny darling) And what about our son?

  KATHIE: (Herself again) My son! Poor boy! He didn’t turn out to be at all like his father. (To JUAN) You were just an amusing rogue, a lovable playboy, Johnny darling. Your only interest in money is spending it. Little Johnny, on the other hand, is the most hard-working man in the world, the most dependable, the most boring and the most disagreeable. His only interest in money is making more of it.

  JUAN: That’s not true, Kathie. You’re maligning little Johnny.

  KATHIE: I’m not maligning him. He’s only interested in banking, boards of directors, rates of exchange, the price of shares and the property market. His sole concern in life is whether or not we’ll ever have agrarian reform in this country.

  SANTIAGO: (Thinking aloud) And do you know, Kathie, what agrarian reform would mean?

  KATHIE: Taking away decent, respectable people’s land and giving to the Indians. Sometimes I wish we would have agrarian reform if only to see the look on little Johnny’s face.

  JUAN: Have you got such a low opinion of your daughter too?

  KATHIE: She’s superficial and brainless. She takes after you there, Johnny darling. The new improved version. She doesn’t think about anything except beaches, parties, clothes and men. In that order.

  JUAN: I think you detest your children almost as much as you used to detest me, Kathie Kennety.

  KATHIE: No. Not quite that much. Besides, they’re the ones that hate me. Because I won’t let them do what they want with my property.

  JUAN: You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you, Kathie? But you know very well it’s not true.

  KATHIE: Yes, I know it isn’t. They really detest me because of you.

  JUAN: Because they think you’re responsible for their father’s death. Which is fair enough.

  KATHIE: It’s not fair enough. They never knew what happened, and they never will know either.

  JUAN: They may not know the details. But they certainly smell a rat somewhere. They suspect something, they guess, they sense something. That’s why they hate you and that’s why you hate them.

  SANTIAGO: (Very timidly) Did you and your husband ever separate, Kathie?

  KATHIE: Johnny and I never separated … I … I was widowed.

  SANTIAGO: Ah, I’d understood that … But what about that gentleman I pass in the doorway of the street, or on the stairs, the one who we see in the newspapers, isn’t he your husband? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.

  KATHIE: There’s no reason why you should. Or for you to be sorry either. Aren’t there thousands, millions of women in the world who have been widowed? There’s nothing unusual about that.

  SANTIAGO: Of course there isn’t. It’s as commonplace and natural as it is for a marriage to break up. (Looks at ANA.) Aren’t there thousands, millions of women in the world who are separated from their husbands? They don’t all make a Greek tragedy out of it though.

  KATHIE: I’m not keen on Greek tragedy. But it turned into one in this case because Johnny darling didn’t die of natural causes. Actually … he killed himself.

  (SANTIAGO appears not to hear her, concentrating as he is on ANA who has burst out laughing again.)

  SANTIAGO: Why are you laughing? Out of spite? Jealousy, is it? Envy? Or just plain stupidity?

  ANA: Curiosity, professor.

  SANTIAGO: Oh, go and do the cooking, clean the house, look after your daughters, do those things a woman’s supposed to do in life for a change.

  ANA: First, just clear up one little point for me. I’m dying to know why that pupil of yours, Adèle, left you. Ha ha ha …

  (African tom-tom music bursts out suddenly, as if willed by SANTIAGO to escape a painful memory. He quickly takes hold of the tape-recorder; he is quite stunned.)

  SANTIAGO: I’ve no time now, I’m very busy, the two hours are nearly up. Go away. (Dictating) And finally, after travelling for countless hours in the stifling heat and sweat through lush vegetation burgeoning with bamboo, ebony and breadfruit, the rickety old bus jolts to a halt in a small village between Moshe and Mombasa.

  KATHIE: Then, there in a little hut we saw something quite, quite unbelievable.

  SANTIAGO: (Dictating) Then we witness a spectacle so unimaginable that it makes our blood run cold.

  KATHIE: Some little boys, completely bare, their bellies bulging out in front of them, were eating pieces of earth, as if they were sweets.

  SANTIAGO: Some naked children, their stomachs swollen by parasites, were satiating their hunger with some pieces of suspiciously white-looking meat. What am I seeing? Can I believe my eyes? Petrified, I realize what these ravenous little creatures are devouring: one of them is eating a little hand, another a foot, that one over there, a shoulder, which they’ve torn from the carcass of another child.

  KATHIE: (Disconcerted) Do you mean they were cannibals? (SANTIAGO stops dictating, discouraged by ANA’s sardonic look.)

  SANTIAGO: It gives it more of a sense of drama. It’s more original, more shocking. A few children eating earth isn’t going to surprise anyone, Kathie. It’s something that happens here in Peru as well.

  KATHIE: (Astonished) Here in Peru? Are you sure?

  SANTIAGO: Peru isn’t Lima, Kathie. And Lima isn’t San Isidro. Here in this district you won’t see it, but in certain less well-off areas and in a lot of places up in the mountains, what you saw in that African village is really quite common. You’ve been round the world twice, or three times, is it? Yet you give me the impression that you don’t really know your own country properly.

  KATHIE: I went to Cuzco once, with Johnny. The altitude made me feel awful. You’re right, you know. Here in Peru we know more about what goes on abroad than we do about our own country. We’re really such snobs!

  ANA: (Killing herself with laughter) Yes, we are, aren’t we … ? Particularly if we happen to be multi-millionaires.

  (SANTIAGO resigned, abandons the tape-recorder and looks at ANA.)

  SANTIAGO: All right have it your own way, you spoilsport!

  ANA: How ridiculous you are, Mark Griffin! You leave your wife, and your daughters, you run off with some stupid little Lolita of a girl, you make yourself the laughing stock of the entire university. And all for what? The vamp abandons you after a few weeks and you come limping home to say you’re sorry with your tail between your legs. (Very sarcastically) Might one be allowed to know why Adèle left you, Victor Hugo?

  KATHIE: (Changed into an irate Adèle, to SANTIAGO) Because I’m young, my life’s just beginning, I want to enjoy myself. Why should I live like a nun? If I had the vocation, I’d have gone into a convent. Do you understand?

  SANTIAGO: (Contrite, intimidated) Of course I do, my little Persian kitten. But don’t exaggerate, it’s not that important.

  KATHIE: You know very well I’m not exaggerating. You spend the whole day telling me how desperately in love with me you are, but when it comes to the point, when it come to the actual love-making, pssst … you’re just like a pricked balloon.

  SANTIAGO: (Trying to make her speak more quietly, to calm her, so that no one hears) You really must try to be a little more understanding, my little Persian kitten.

  KATHIE: (Getting more and more annoyed) You’re nothing but a fake, Mark. You’re all façade, a hippopotamus who looks quite terrifying but who only eats little birds.

  SANTIAGO: (Terribly uncomfortable) I have a lot of worries, my little Persian kitten, that wretched Ana – she’s constantly scheming behind my back, it nearly drives me up the wall. And then there
’s those lectures I’m giving at the moment on the Spanish mystics, their theories and sermons on asceticism, they really have quite a special effect on the psyche, you know, they anaesthetize the libido. Shall I explain to you what the libido is? It’s very interesting, as you’ll see. A gentleman called Freud …

  KATHIE: I don’t give a damn about the psyche or the libido. It’s all a lot of excuses, a pack of lies, a load of rubbish. The truth is you’re weak, spineless, cowardly and, and …

  ANA: Impotent, is that the word?

  KATHIE: That’s it, that’s it, impotent. That’s exactly what you are, Mark Griffin: you’re impotent!

  SANTIAGO: (Who doesn’t know which way to turn) Don’t say that word, Adèle. And don’t talk so loud, the neighbours will hear us, how embarrassing. During the holidays, when the pressure is off, you’ll see how …

  (ANA listens to them; she’s killing herself with laughter.)

  KATHIE: Do you think I’m going to wait till the summer before we next make love?

  SANTIAGO: But we made love only the other night, after that film, my angel.

  KATHIE: That was three weeks ago! No! A month! Do you think I’m going to saddle myself with some feeble old fuddy-duddy, who can only manage it once a month after seeing a pornographic film? Do you really think so?

  SANTIAGO: (Wanting to disappear from sight) Passionate love, based on animal copulation, isn’t everything life has to offer, my little Persian kitten. Nor is it even advisable. On the contrary, it’s ephemeral, a castle made of sand which falls down at the first gust of wind. A loving relationship, on the other hand, based on mutual understanding, on a striving for common goals, ideals …

  KATHIE: All right then, go and look for some other idiot who you can share your loving relationship with. What appeals to me is the other sort. What’s it called again? Passionate love? The dirty sort, the animal sort, that’s the one that interests me. Ciao, professor. I don’t want to see you again, ever. Ciao, Victor Hugo!

  (She goes to applaud JUAN, who is showing off his prowess on the surfboard in rough waters.)

  SANTIAGO: (Dejected, crushed, to ANA, who looks at him sympathetically) You made a mountain out of a mole hill. You never had a sense of proportion, or balance between cause and effect. You can’t kick someone when he’s down.

  ANA: No doubt another of my middle-class failings?

  SANTIAGO: All marriages go through crises. The sensible thing to do is to split up without making a fuss. And make it up again later. But you had to turn the whole thing into a Greek tragedy.

  ANA: It’s all that education you gave me. That’s probably the trouble. Weren’t you the one who ‘rescued’ me from the middle classes? Didn’t you teach me to view everything not from an individual standpoint but from a moral, social, revolutionary one? Right, when judged on that criterion you behaved abominably. (Approaches him lovingly.) But these are your problems, not mine. I let you go, I let you come back. We separated and we made it up again when you wanted to. I put up with you telling me all about the psyche and the libido, and your theory of love based on mutual co-operation, and the fact that you only made love to me once in a blue moon. But it really isn’t my fault if you happen to like Greek tragedy, Mark Griffin.

  (SANTIAGO leans against her and ANA strokes his head, as if he were a little boy.)

  SANTIAGO: It’s true, I’m an incorrigible romantic, but wouldn’t it be nice for once in one’s life to play the lead in a Greek tragedy?

  (They both look at JUAN, who has finished surfing and is now strutting about like a peacock: an imaginary crowd of people congratulate him and pat him on the back. He exhibits the cup he’s won at the surfing championship. He looks happy and a little intoxicated.)

  JUAN: (To KATHIE) Why didn’t you come to the party they gave for me, darling? You’re never there when I need you. Everyone was asking for you and I didn’t know what to say to them. Why didn’t you come? It was in honour of the cup-winner, Kathie! And that cup-winner happens to be your husband! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?

  KATHIE: Absolutely nothing, Johnny darling. I’m fed up to the back teeth with your championships, your surfing and your celebrations. That’s why I didn’t go to the party and that’s why I’ll never go to anything to do with surfing again. Because I’ve never seen quite so much idiocy or quite so many idiots as I have among surfers.

  JUAN: I know what the matter with you is. You’re envious.

  KATHIE: Of you?

  JUAN: Yes, of me. Because I go in for championships and I win them. Because I’m lionized and photographed, and parties are given in my honour. Not only in Peru, but in Hawaii, Sydney and South Africa as well. Oh yes, you’re envious all right. Because you’re a famous little nobody, whose only claim to fame is the fact that you’re my wife. That’s why you knock surfing the whole time. Pure envy.

  KATHIE: (Laughing) I quite understand why you think I’m envious of you, Johnny darling.

  JUAN: And you’re jealous too. Don’t try and deny it! You’re desperately jealous of all the young girls who are constantly coming up to me. Because there are dozens of them, hundreds of them in Lima, Hawaii, Australia and in South Africa – all feeding out of my hand.

  KATHIE: It’s quite true. They’re bowled over just because some halfwit can keep his balance on a surfboard …

  JUAN: And there you are – eating your heart out. The only reason you didn’t go to my party was so that you wouldn’t have to see all the pretty girls that were there, flirting with me. Because they’re young and you’re getting old. Because they’re pretty and you’re getting ugly. Because you’re eating your heart out with jealousy.

  KATHIE: Not any more. I ate my heart out to begin with. Those first few months, those first few years.

  JUAN: You still do. Every time a girl takes my fancy, your face becomes all contorted, and your voice starts to quaver. Do you think I don’t notice?

  KATHIE: (Lost in her memories, not hearing him) I couldn’t believe it. Every time I found you out, I nearly died. Were you with Adelita? Yes, you were. Were you with Julie? Yes, you were. With Jessie? Yes, with Jessie. With my closest friends, with my worst enemies. I felt humiliated, hurt, knocked sideways. It is true, I was eating my heart out with jealousy. I felt the world was coming to an end, I was the most helpless creature on earth. How could you go around making love here, there and everywhere while at the same time telling me you loved me?

  JUAN: (A little confused, trying to call a truce) And what on earth’s that got to do with it? Love is one thing, making love another. Of course I loved you. Don’t I still? Even though you didn’t come to my party. You let me down, silly. That’s all. But all this business about making love, I’ve already explained it to you: it doesn’t mean anything. It really doesn’t count. I take all these girls to bed with me and pssht, I forget about them. Like going out for a drink, or changing my shirt. It’s a physical necessity. To keep the old dicky bird happy. I don’t put my heart into it, silly. That’s reserved for you. It’s like when you were my girlfriend, remember? ‘I can’t go out with you tonight, because I’m going out with a floosie.’ I ask you: Whoever heard of a girl getting jealous just because her boyfriend goes out with a floosie? Well, it’s the same thing, don’t you understand?

  KATHIE: I understand perfectly. That’s why I’m not jealous any more. It wasn’t out of jealousy I didn’t go to your party.

  JUAN: (Conciliatory) All right, I said that because I was in a temper. I’m over it now. I’ll let you off this time. But just this once, mind. Don’t ever play such a dirty trick on me again. (Smiling) Now whisper in my ear, so that no one can hear you, do I or do I not drive you wild with jealousy?

  KATHIE: You never drive me wild with jealousy now, Johnny darling.

  JUAN: (Playing, and making a great show of affection) Tell me I do, that I drive you wild, go on, I like it. Does your little husband drive you wild with jealousy?

  KATHIE: One gets jealous when one’s in love. I stopped loving you some time ago
now, Johnny darling.

  JUAN: Are you being serious?

  KATHIE: When I began to realize what a nonentity, what a fool you were …

  JUAN: Have you any idea what you’re saying?

  KATHIE: … when I saw how empty your life was, and what a mess you’d made of mine. It was then I stopped being jealous.

  JUAN: So you want an argument, do you? You desert me when I most need you and then you give yourself the luxury of insulting me into the bargain.

  KATHIE: It was when I started to despise you – then, my jealousy began to disappear. There’s not a trace of it left now. So you can give your heart as well as your dick to all the pretty girls you want, Johnny darling.

  JUAN: Ah, it must really have hurt you, what I said. I was ready to make it up with you, silly. We’d better talk about something else, I’m sick and tired of hearing the same insults over and over again. You’re like a long-playing record.

  KATHIE: No, let’s carry on talking about jealousy. After all, you started it. How many times have you been unfaithful to me? How many pretty girls have there been?

  JUAN: (Furious again) More than you might think.

  KATHIE: Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? It can’t be much more than that. (Calculating) Let’s see now, we’ve been married ten years – a hundred would make about ten a year, practically one a month. You’re right, it could be more. How about a hundred and fifty? Two hundred?

  JUAN: I had all the women I bloody well wanted.

  KATHIE: You’ve lost count. But I haven’t, Johnny darling. I know exactly how many times I’ve been unfaithful to you.

  JUAN: Don’t play games like that, Kathie.

  KATHIE: Eight, to be precise. There were even a few surfers amongst them, just imagine. And the odd champion, I think.

  JUAN: You’re not to make jokes like that, Kathie. I won’t have it.

  KATHIE: There was Bepo Torres, in the summer of ’57, on Kon Tiki beach. In Bepo’s little bungalow, next to the lighthouse. His wife had taken her mother to the States, for a facelift, remember?