Latin American Plays

by Sebastian Doggart

  MARIA. Nobody remembers us, nobody remembers us, nobody remembers us . . .

  DOLORES. You cried, María. You said it. we’re not desirable any more, bulls and boleros aren’t dedicated to us any more . . . (Sings softly) ‘Acuérdate de Acapulco, María bonita, María bonita, María del alma . . . ’11

  Covered with black veils MARIA moves towards DOLORES. She dances around her sister, wrapping the veils around her.

  MARIA. Quiet! That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s Mamá. For her we died the day the first hair appeared in our armpits.

  DOLORES. How disgusting. I don’t know why I stick around with you.

  She wraps herself in her shawl without letting go of the piggy bank.

  MARIA. Yes! As soon as we had our first period, she stopped talking to us. Remember? She hated us because we grew up, because we couldn’t always be her children, her babies. (She lifts her veils for a moment to mimic.) Do you remember how she imitated us, how she made fun of us to her friends? (Mimics). ‘Lolita doesn’t like being called señorita. She screams and shouts I not thenolita, me are stwong fat baby!’

  DOLORES (taking up the mimicry, but talking to the piggy). ‘This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home. . . ’

  MARIA. ‘Me are big baby’

  DOLORES. ‘This little piggy . . . ’ (She abruptly changes the song and tone. Sings softly.) ‘Y al verme tan sola y triste cual hoja al viento, quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.’12

  Waving her black veils, MARIA looks like a vulture descending on poor DOLORES.

  MARIA. Quiet! Don’t sing that song! She hates us because we’re no longer her little girls with pink ribbons and crumpled panties, crumpled but still unstained.

  DOLORES raises her hand to her head and touches her ribbons.

  DOLORES. I am! I am!

  MARIA. Stupid! Don’t you realise that she doesn’t want to see us ever again . . . as long as we live?

  DOLORES. But . . . but then she won’t care if we die.

  MARIA. Yes. Yes, she will care.

  DOLORES. Why? Didn’t you say . . . ?

  MARIA. Trust me. Watch out. (Points to herself.) Be very careful that she doesn’t vanish.

  DOLORES. I don’t understand. (Sighs, gets up.) But I agree that your intuition is better than mine, even if you are ignorant and badly educated . . . (She leaves the piggy bank on the table.) Life, you know, is very different when you’ve read books . . . (Satisfied, she embraces herself.) . . . when one has cultivated – how shall I say it – the garden of the spirit . . . (MARIA has disappeared again behind the folding screens.)

  MARIA. Don’t be pretentious. You’ve never read a book in your life.

  Prolonged silence. DOLORES stealthily goes over to the white telephone which is on top of the toilet lid.

  DOLORES. It’s true. It makes me sad. That’s why I rely on you. Because even if you know nothing you have a good memory.

  Stretches out her hand towards the telephone. She becomes frightened and pulls it back.

  MARIA (laughs from behind the folding screens). What would you do without me, bougainvillea? Really, how would you prove you existed?

  DOLORES hears this and dares to put her hand on the telephone.

  MARIA. Let’s see. Who directed Flying down to Río?

  DOLORES hangs her head but leaves her hand on the telephone.

  DOLORES. Archie Mayo, of course. Who doesn’t know . . . ?

  MARIA (incredulous). Don’t you know who directed that film where you dance . . . what was that song called, Lolita . . . the one you danced to in Flying down to Río?

  DOLORES (hesitant, unsure). No. I don’t remember . . . a bolero, ‘María Bonita,’ ‘Canción Mixteca,’ Archie Mayo, Busby Berkeley . . .

  She picks up the handset as if clinging on to it for dear life, holds it up in the air without daring to listen to it.

  MARIA (laughs). You are Dolores del Río, and you can’t remember that, you can’t . . . ?

  DOLORES presses the handset to her mouth.

  DOLORES. It was very hot on set, the klieg lamps, the confinement. They were the first talkies and they were afraid of noise on set. They isolated us. They suffocated us. The lights, the playback, the tango, the passion. We were orchids, suffocated and burnt out by the spotlights . . . Orson Welles and Ginger Rogers dancing the tango . . . What memories! What confusion!

  Music: ‘Orchids in the Moonlight.’ MARIA comes out from behind the folding screens, dressed in white satin. tailored and loose-fitting, just like Dolores del Río in Flying down to Rio. DOLORES lets go of the telephone without managing to replace the handset before MARIA has seen her. The handset remains off its hook and a very light humming can be heard beneath the music of the tango. The humming grows until it becomes unbearable and drowns out the music of the dance. MARIA moves over to DOLORES with stylised tango steps and takes her round the waist. They dance, MARIA fervently and joyfully, DOLORES with initial inhibition which is overcome by the happiness of the dance. The dance ends with an elegant spin made by DOLORES, her hand on high, held that way for a moment by MARIA. The humming of the telephone becomes unbearable. MARIA lets go of DOLORES. DOLORES does not change her position: a statue with her arm on high. MARIA goes towards the toilet and, routinely, hangs up the telephone.

  MARIA (sharply). What were you doing with that telephone in your hand? (DOLORES remains in her statuesque position.) You know the telephone is not to be touched. (She approaches DOLORES threateningly.) You know the telephone is put there like the apple in Paradise: as a temptation. The first one to make a call will be carried away . . . the madonna . . . You know? Remember? Understand?

  DOLORES. A temptation . . .

  MARIA. The devil will carry you away. Capiche? The illusion is shattered. We are no longer where we are, but in . . .

  DOLORES (pretending to be crazy in order to interrupt MARIA’s thought process). Did you say the devil? Don’t you think he’s got prettier names? Beelzebub. Mephistopheles. Lucifer. Asmodeus. Mandinga. Do you remember? Doña Barbara had dealings with Mandinga.

  MARIA. Everything has more than one name. When will you call a spade a spade . . . ?

  DOLORES (in the same frivolously apologetic tone). A spade is a dago is a spick is a . . .

  MARIA. Spade, señora! A spade to dig your grave!

  DOLORES (frightened). Yes . . .

  MARIA. ‘Orchids in the Moonlight.’ That’s what that tango’s called. You don’t remember it. You’re not her.

  DOLORES. No. You remember for me, Mariquita, You do me that favour. I depend on your good memory. It’s not that I’m not her, it’s not that I don’t exist. No. I just forget things.

  MARIA. At least say thank you.

  DOLORES. Thank you.

  MARIA. That’s the way I like it, Wild Flower.

  DOLORES (aggressively). Who directed French Can-Can? Quick!

  MARIA (with her back to the audience and DOLORES, amused). Jean Renoir. My little white teddy bear.

  DOLORES (even more aggressively). What’s your son called? Quick!

  Silence. MARIA’s back is still turned. She hangs her head slightly.

  DOLORES. How many times did you see him as a child? Tell me! What games did you play with him? Did you ever play on all fours with your baby? Tell me! Here’s an A, and there’s a B. Mary had a little lamb. Did you teach him the first letters, ring-a-ring-a-roses, riddles? Rock a bye-baby, on the tree-tops. A cold mother, drunk with success, selfish, perverse. A Mexican woman who sold whores, her plum pussy, her apricot ass and her watermelon breasts. How many times did your stwong, fat Sweetpea find you in the arms of a man who wasn’t his father? Come on, let’s go and dance in the moonlight . . .

  MARIA remains motionless, her back to the audience. DOLORES, inflamed by her boldness, taking advantage of MARIA’s state of mind, goes over to the telephone lying on the toilet, lifts the handset without hesitation, and rapidly dials a number. She waits for the reply cheekily twirling the tassle
s on her shawl, her tongue nailed into the inside of her cheek – a grotesque image, somewhere between the main character in Las Abandonadas and the female half of the Chema and Juana couple, or else somewhere between Madame X and La Criada Malcriada.

  DOLORES. Hello? Who do I have the pleasure of . . . ? Ah, I see . . . May I speak to . . . ?

  MARIA comes out of her paralysis, moves forward violently and snatches the handset from DOLORES and threatens her with it. DOLORES covers her head, laughing mockingly. MARIA hesitates between putting the telephone to her ear and hanging up.

  DOLORES. Go on, be brave, listen . . . listen . . . It’s her, it’s María.

  MARIA hangs up hastily.

  MARIA. You don’t have to hurt me like this. I was brave enough to have a child. I’ve cured my forgetfulness. I’ve purged my guilt.

  DOLORES makes gestures characteristic of a cinema director.

  DOLORES. Cut! Print it! Kill the jerk! That’s a wrap!

  MARIA. You poor baby, you don’t have anything for which to be forgiven.

  DOLORES. Wrong again. I shall tell you my story. So that my son could go to school, I took to the streets. I was a cabaret dancer, a lady of the night, a street-walker. Do you remember? To pay for my little boy’s law studies I let myself get old, battered and run-down. But my boy grew in honour and promise, as tall and strong as an oak, as noble as a king, as beautiful as the sun. And he went off and married Señorita O’Higgins, if you please. Baby O’Higgins, a Puebla girl, descended from the Irish, related to generals and presidents, multi-millionaire heiress in rubber, bottled water and sporting tabloids. My child of the fog went off and entered Mexican society thanks to my sacrifice, María. I saw the wedding from the street, in the Lomas de Chapultepec, in the rain. Whore that I am, old, limping, poor, mean, screwed up, toothless, unwashed, without social security to fall back on, without an American Express card, the last of the rejects, watching my son get married to a Puebla girl descended from the Irish . . .

  MARIA (with one eyebrow raised high). Ah the Irish . . . Do you know why Jesus wasn’t born in Ireland? (Pause) Because they couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.

  DOLORES (reacting). You border girl, Sonora girl, daughter of the desert! What do you know about creole purity? Cactuses and prickly pears!

  MARIA. Durango girl.

  DOLORES. I have class. I was chased by the finest gentlemen.

  MARIA. Chased, but not chaste.

  DOLORES. Let me finish! I let you tell all your nasty melodramas, your stupid adaptations of Sappho and Camille.

  MARIA. But my soap operas end up differently every time. You just tell me the same one over and over again.

  DOLORES. The police came up to me, pushed me and told me: ‘You don’t belong here, old hag, go and peel some potatoes, get out of here.’

  MARIA. You don’t belong here.

  DOLORES. What?

  MARIA. That’s what they told us at the border.

  DOLORES. What are you talking about?

  MARIA. When we left Mexico.

  DOLORES. Ah yes. When we retired to live our autumn years in Venecia.

  MARIA. Venice.

  DOLORES. Very good. That’s the way it’s pronounced in English.

  MARIA. Venice, California.

  DOLORES is terrified. Nervously, she takes down a dress at random and starts to iron it with her hands, masking her anguish in activity. MARIA looks at her doing this with a smile, singing softly:

  MARIA. ‘When orchids bloom in the moonlight, and lovers vow to be true. . . ’

  DOLORES. We can’t complain, Mariquita . . . Venecia is . . .

  MARIA (brutally). A suburb of Los Angeles.

  DOLORES. María! I called you María. I didn’t say you were . . .

  MARIA. The same as me. A retired Chicana living in an L.A. slum . . .

  She goes downstage and makes the gesture of drawing a curtain.

  DOLORES. No . . .

  She drops the dress. She stops without daring to touch MARIA.

  MARIA. Here’s your Venecia. A fake Venecia, invented by a crazy gringo to make other gringo suckers think they’re living in the second Renaissance. look at those tacky columns. Look. Look at the canals buried in trash. Look at the gondolas next to the roundabout and the big dipper. Look at your screwed up Venecia. Keep dreaming, Dolores . . .

  DOLORES. Dolores, yes. Venecia, no. But Dolores, yes. Please?

  MARIA. Look at your Venecia. It’s up for auction.

  DOLORES. We came in search of Hollywood. Do you remember?

  MARIA. Yes. Like two elephants in search of their cemetery. When nobody offered us work in Mexico, we decided to come and die in Hollywood. To be buried in the fresh cement of the Chinese Theater. (Pause.) Even there they didn’t want us. Old Chicanas, old movie stars? Trash. Everything here is trash. There can’t be anything here worth more than two sols.

  DOLORES (unthinking). Orchids in the moonlight . . .

  MARIA. Everything is old the moment it comes out. Cars. Foodblenders. TVs. Clothes. Hearts.

  DOLORES. The stars.

  MARIA. Look outside, Dolores: Venice, California, the same as Moscow, Texas; Paris, Kentucky; Rome, Wisconsin; and Mexico, Missouri: borrowed clothes, names for sale, illusions up for auction. Yes, you are Dolores del Río . . .

  DOLORES. María!

  She moves to go towards her. She stops.

  MARIA. Dolores del Río Mississippi. María de Los Angeles Félix. Something else. Not them any more. Nor us. A mirage. Nostalgia. Two crazy Chicanas . . .

  DOLORES embraces MARIA. Both are standing.

  DOLORES. . . . who love each other, who comfort each other in the desert. Yes . . . Who came looking for something that never existed . . .

  MARIA. Your Hollywood . . .

  DOLORES. The dream factory . . . which dreamed us up . . .

  MARIA. The centre of illusion . . . which turned out to be just another illusion . . .

  DOLORES. Our mirror . . .

  MARIA. Our mirage . . .

  Embracing each other, they sing the ‘Canción Mixteca’ together:

  MARIA and DOLORES.

  ¡ Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido!

  intensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento;

  y al verme tan sola y triste cual hoja al viento,

  quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

  ¡ Oh tierra del sol, suspiro por verte!,

  ahora que lejos yo vivo sin luz, sin amor . . . 13

  The song is brutally interrupted by a noise: half heartbeat, half knock.

  DOLORES. Ay nanita!

  The two women embrace again.

  DOLORES. Holy Mary, mother of God . . .

  DOLORES pulls away from MARIA and beats her chest.

  DOLORES. Holy, holy, holy.

  The blows on DOLORES’ chest get louder and stronger: someone is knocking on the door. The two women embrace each other again.

  MARIA. (Pulling herself together and gulping) Who can it be?

  DOLORES. Mamá . . .

  MARIA. She’s forgotten us, I’ve already told you.

  DOLORES. And what if she suddenly remembered us?

  MARIA. Which are you more afraid of, her remembering us or her forgetting us?

  DOLORES. I don’t know, I don’t know . . .

  The knuckles rap on the door.

  MARIA. Did you tell anyone?

  DOLORES. Me? How could I if . . .

  MARIA (with cold anger). You just made a phone call, stupid . . . Didn’t I tell you . . . ?

  DOLORES. No. I swear. I was pretending. It was another number.

  MARIA. Another number . . . ? Oye, who have you been talking to behind my back?

  DOLORES. What are you thinking?

  MARIA. What I am thinking.

  DOLORES. Well, don’t even think it.

  MARIA. All right. I don’t think it. I intuit it. I smell it and I smell a rat, I smell a slippery skunk . . . Who are you fooling around with, Xochimilco slut?
/>   DOLORES. Ay, how can you bring that up? That was years ago.

  MARIA. Aaaah, you admit it was years ago . . . How many?

  DOLORES. My God, keeping track of all the years . . . spent together . . . what torture . . . or rather what indulgence . . . Anyway, I’m talking about that movie, María Candelaria, which was made years ago . . . (Insistent drumming on the door.) Can you hear it? It’s not my heart, is it?

  MARIA. I can hear it. I can’t hear your heart. I can hear him, no?

  DOLORES. He wouldn’t dare. I told him to blow.

  MARIA. Blow?

  DOLORES. Yes, with the whistle, the horn, like this. (She imitates the sound of a car horn.) That’s all I need to know it’s him. He has no reason to come up here and worry you.

  MARIA. Ah, how chic. He’s coming by car.

  DOLORES. Yes. He drives.

  MARIA. Doesn’t he have a chauffeur?

  DOLORES. No. He drives on his own.

  MARIA. He drives on his own. His own car?

  DOLORES. Not exactly his own.

  MARIA. He doesn’t drive his own car?

  DOLORES. No, no.

  MARIA. Is it lent to him by his friends?

  DOLORES. He does business in his car.

  MARIA. In the car lent to him by his friends?

  Increasingly insistent drumming. DOLORES looks nervously at the door.

  DOLORES. Yes, that’s it, lent to him.

  MARIA. Is he a professional racing driver?

  DOLORES. Yes, a professional. Who isn’t in this traffic!

  MARIA. I mean like Taruffi or Fangio or Stirling Moss. A profe-ssio-nal racing driver.

  DOLORES. No, much riskier.

  MARIA. Does he drive on special tracks?

  DOLORES. No. Only on the Pasadena Freeway.

  MARIA. The Pasadena Freeway?

  DOLORES. And on the Golden State sometimes as well. (Pause.) He knows the Temescal Canyon very well.

  MARIA. How cute. (Violently) Is your lover a cab driver?

  DOLORES (embarrassed). Oh, what an idea.

  MARIA. Cabby.

  DOLORES. He drives people from one place to another, if that’s what you mean.

  MARIA. For free, of course.

  DOLORES. In exchange for a modest fee.

  MARIA. Whatever the meter says. (Pause.) Cab driver.

  DOLORES. He’s very brave. He drives blindfold through the tunnels of Arroyo Seco.