SANTIAGO: (In a brusque, aggressive and sarcastic tone of voice) Stuff and nonsense. I know very well what the real problem is, and so do you, Kathie Kennety. But you’re ashamed to admit it.
KATHIE: (Without seeing him or hearing him) Things will be different when you have children, Kathie. Looking after them, bringing them up, watching them grow, that will give your marriage meaning. Stuff and nonsense! They didn’t change a thing, they didn’t fill the vacuum. Now, instead of going to the Waikiki alone, you go with Alexandra, and sometimes with Alexandra and little Johnny too. Now instead of getting bored alone, you get bored en famille. Is this what marriage is all about? Is this what motherhood is all about? Is this what you dreamt of, yearned for, throughout your schooldays? Just to go through life watching some poor imbecile prancing about between the waves on a piece of balsa wood?
SANTIAGO: Stuff and nonsense! Pure fiction! Shall I tell you the truth of the matter? Kathie Kennety was getting bored because her sublime surf-rider was ignoring her, leaving her alone every night, unattended and uninterfered with. That surfer wasn’t exactly Victor Hugo, was he, Adèle? What with all those waves, he’d completely lost his sexual appetite.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) Are you speaking from personal experience? When you ran off with that other woman, you hardly touched me for months. You didn’t have any waves to ride, and yet you seemed to lose your sexual appetite too.
SANTIAGO: (Discovering ANA) No, I didn’t. I just didn’t fancy you any more, that’s all. I used to make love every day with Adèle. In fact several times a day. Nine times, on one occasion, like Victor Hugo on his wedding night. Didn’t I, Adèle?
KATHIE: (Transformed into a young and bright little coquette) No, professor, you didn’t. But don’t worry, I won’t give away your little secret. You could never manage it more than twice a day, and with a long break in between. Ha ha ha …
SANTIAGO: (To ANA, furiously) And I’ll tell you something else. The thought of night used to fill me with dread because it meant I’d have to share a bed with you. That was why I left you.
KATHIE: (Becoming herself again, but still lost in her memories) Going to bed … that got boring too, like going to the Waikiki and all those parties.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) In other words you behaved just like the sort of person you claimed to loathe so vehemently: like a good middle-class man. Didn’t you use to say that it was the most despicable thing in the world? Have you already forgotten what you used to teach me? All those lectures you gave me to make a free, liberated, emancipated woman of me.
(SANTIAGO declaims very seriously, to ANA, who listens to him fascinated. KATHIE, who has now become Adèle, puts on nail varnish and looks at him mockingly from time to time.)
SANTIAGO: It’s not passionate love, but love based on mutual understanding. That’s what our relationship will be, Anita. Passionate love is a sham, a bourgeois swindle, a fraud, an illusion, a trap. A relationship founded solely on sexual attraction, in which everything is justified in the name of pleasure, spontaneity and natural impulse, is bound to be false and ephemeral. Sexual desire isn’t everything nor should it ever be, it isn’t even what fundamentally binds us together. No partnership can possibly last if it’s reliant solely on lust.
(KATHIE, still Adèle, bursts out laughing, but ANA nods, trying to understand.)
KATHIE: (Smiles; returning to being herself) And yet, it was nice to begin with, when we used to hug each other every night and you used to say those naughty things to me, Johnny darling. I used to go quite puce with embarrassment, it made me dizzy, it was lovely. It seemed everything was going to be as I’d always dreamt, that I’d find meaning to life, that I’d be happy and fulfilled.
SANTIAGO: In a relationship based on mutual understanding, sex is just one component amongst many and it isn’t even the most important, either. Such a relationship is founded on a sharing of ideals, a spirit of selflessness, a struggle for common causes, mutual participation in work, and a feeling of moral, spiritual and intellectual empathy.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) I tried to please you. I did everything you asked me to do so that this special relationship you described could flourish. Well, did I or didn’t I? Didn’t I give up my job in the boutique? Didn’t I take up sociology, as you suggested, instead of interior design which was what I really wanted to do?
JUAN: (From his surfboard) Am I or am I not as good in bed as I am on the surfboard, Kathie? Am I or am I not better than Victor Hugo, Adèle?
KATHIE: You are, Johnny darling. That’s why so many young girls are always throwing themselves into your arms. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, yellowheads. That’s why you’re unfaithful to me in so many different languages and on so many different continents, Johnny darling.
ANA: (To SANTIAGO) Didn’t I try to please you by wearing what you wanted me to wear? I stopped putting on lipstick, nail varnish, and make-up, because you said it was frivolous and bourgeois. And what did I gain by trying to please you? I stopped pleasing you, that’s what.
SANTIAGO: (To KATHIE, all sweetness and flattery) You know, you’ve got very pretty hair, Adèle.
(KATHIE is transformed into Adèle; she seems to coo and croon.)
KATHIE: So that it stays that way – soft, shiny, wavy and bouncy, I give it one of my special treatments twice a week. Shall I tell you what it is, professor? But you mustn’t breathe a word about it to the other girls in the faculty. Promise? You take one egg yolk, an avocado pear and three teaspoonfuls of oil. You put them all in the liquidizer for half a minute, then you daub the paste all over your hair and leave it to dry for three-quarters of an hour. You then wash it with a good shampoo and rinse it. It looks nice, don’t you think?
SANTIAGO: (Entranced) Very nice indeed: soft, shiny, bouncy and wavy. You’ve get pretty hands too, Adèle.
KATHIE: (Looking at them, showing them off) To stop them from getting rough and the skin from getting hard, and so that they look smooth and silky like two little Persian kittens, I’ve got a little secret for them too. Or rather, I’ve got two little secrets. Every morning for ten minutes I give them a good rub with lemon juice and, every night, for another ten minutes with coconut milk. They look nice, don’t they?
SANTIAGO: (Entranced) Yes, as smooth and silky as two little Persian kittens. Whenever I catch a glimpse of them in the lectures, they remind me of two tiny white doves, fluttering across the desks.
KATHIE: Ah, what a poetic little compliment! Do you really like them that much, professor?
SANTIAGO: I like everything about you, your hair, your nose, your eyes … Why do you call me ‘professor’? Why are you always making fun of me?
KATHIE: Well, aren’t you my professor? It’s a question of respect. What would my fellow students say if they heard me call the first-year lecturer in Golden Age Literature, Mark – Mark Griffin?
SANTIAGO: Is that why you address me so formally?
KATHIE: You should always address older people formally.
SANTIAGO: In other words you think I’m ancient.
KATHIE: Not ancient, no. Just an older man. Who’s married, with two little daughters. Do you have a photo of them in your wallet that you can show me?
SANTIAGO: You know you’re very wicked, Adèle?
KATHIE: A lot of people like me for it.
SANTIAGO: Yes. I do, for one. I like you very much. You know that, don’t you?
KATHIE: It’s the first I’d heard of it. And what is it you like most about me?
SANTIAGO: You’re such a flirt.
KATHIE: Do you really think I’m a flirt?
SANTIAGO: The very devil in person.
KATHIE: Now tell me what you don’t like about me.
SANTIAGO: The fact that you refuse to go out with me.
KATHIE: You crafty old thing, professor.
SANTIAGO: Seriously though, Adèle, why won’t you? Bourgeois prejudice? What’s wrong with going to the cinema together, for instance? Or listening to a little music?
KATHIE: All right, I accept. B
ut on one condition.
SANTIAGO: Whatever you want.
KATHIE: That we take your wife and two little girls with us. And now, I’m going off to study. I don’t want you giving me bad marks. If you behave yourself, I’ll let you into another secret some time: I’ll tell you how I keep my teeth sparkling and my eyes shining, how I stop my nails from breaking, and why I never get freckles or a double chin. Ciao, professor.
SANTIAGO: Ciao, Adèle. (To himself) She’s so gorgeous, so delicious, so exciting.
ANA: And I stopped being gorgeous, delicious and exciting because you said it was frivolous and bourgeois.
SANTIAGO: (Pensively) Well, it was. (Discovering ANA) It is, Anita. Am I to blame if it’s the frivolous, bourgeois women that happen to turn me on? Is it my fault if all these free liberated women are so earnest and sober that they leave me absolutely cold, Anita? A leopard can’t change his spots. Moral principle and political persuasion carry no weight at all when it’s a matter of basic human nature.
ANA: But how come? Didn’t you teach me there was no such thing as human nature?
SANTIAGO: (Pontificating) It doesn’t exist. Human nature doesn’t exist, Anita. It’s just another piece of bourgeois trickery to justify the exploitation of the masses, Anita.
ANA: You miserable cheat! You liar!
SANTIAGO: (Magisterial) Man is made of malleable stuff, Anita. Everyone makes of himself what he chooses, Anita! Only thus can one have faith in the progress of humanity, Anita! You really must read Jean-Paul Sartre, Anita!
ANA: You really led me up the garden path, Mark Griffin.
SANTIAGO: (Pensive again) Jean-Paul Sartre really led me up the garden path, Anita.
KATHIE: (Becoming herself again) That’s something you could never do, Johnny darling. I always saw through you straight away.
JUAN: (Still concentrating on the waves) That time you caught me with Maritza, you scratched my face so savagely the mark lasted for two whole weeks.
KATHIE: Every time you were unfaithful to me, I felt as if I’d been branded with a red-hot iron. Lying awake at night, weeping, I thought the world was coming to an end, I used to grind my teeth with the humiliation of it all. I began to lose weight; I started to get bags under my eyes; I made scenes.
JUAN: How they laughed at me at the Waikiki when they saw those scratches!
ANA: If, instead of trying to live up to your anti-bourgeois principles, I’d paid more attention to my mother, you might never have gone off with Adèle.
SANTIAGO: (Pensively) And what advice did that petit-bourgeois social climber from Santa Beatriz give you? Always hobnobbing with the smart set in Orrantia.
KATHIE: (Lecturing ANA, as if she were her small daughter) You’ve got to be quite ruthless with men, Anita. You’ve got to use a bit of cunning. Your husband may be an intellectual or what have you, but what really counts in life is sex. Now I may not know the first thing about intellectuals, but I know quite a lot about sex. If you don’t want to lose him, if you don’t want him to go out with too many other women, keep him in suspense, and don’t ever let him take you for granted.
ANA: And what do I do to keep Santiago in suspense, Mummy?
KATHIE: Keep him on a tight rein then give him his head from time to time. You play the perfect lady by day and the degenerate whore by night. Perfume, music, mirrors, every kind of luxury, the more bizarre and decadent the better: let him drown with joy! But not every day: only when you decide and when it suits you. Keep him on a tight rein. From time to time the whore can turn frigid; for a week or so, the courtesan may wear a veil. And, as a last resort, there’s always jealousy. The sudden exit, the mysterious phone call, ostentatious little whispers to friends at parties, contrariness, sighing. Let him suspect all he likes, let him be consumed with jealousy! It may cost you a knock or two but so what? There’s no such thing as love without the odd blow! Keep him in suspense and you’ll have him all over you morning, noon and night!
ANA: You trusted me blindly and that’s what finished it. But that Adèle, she really put you through the hoop, and you ran after her like a dog, Mark Griffin.
JUAN: Jealousy is fantastic, Pussikins! I only say that for the closeness one feels after it. You know, for all you say, you’re very attractive when you’re jealous. The best love-making we’ve ever had has been after a row. Like in Hawaii, when you caught me with that Eurasian girl on the beach. You were so vicious to her, Kathie. But how exquisite it was afterwards, how exquisite! We made love on the sand, and then in the sea, then on that artificial lawn, remember, and then in the sea again. Wasn’t it fabulous, darling?
KATHIE: Not that fabulous really, no.
JUAN: Well, if you really want to know, Kathie, you’re not that good at it, you’re not exactly what one might call a sexual athlete. In fact you’re quite … uninteresting really. You yawn, you fall asleep, you get embarrassed, you burst out laughing. The trouble is, darling, you don’t take sex seriously! And it’s the most serious thing in the world! It’s like surfing, Kathie!
KATHIE: Some people have happier recollections of my talents, Johnny darling.
(JUAN and ANA disappear.)
SANTIAGO: (In a slightly aggressive, sarcastic tone of voice) The prurient perfume-seller of Cairo, for instance?
KATHIE: What exactly are you trying to say, Mr Mark Griffin?
SANTIAGO: You know very well, you poor menopausal little rich girl, you neurotic millionairess, you pseud, you exploiter of progressive intellectuals. You know very well, Kathie Kennety.
KATHIE: (Without being the slightest bit perturbed) What do I know very well?
SANTIAGO: (With ferocious aggressiveness, as if baring some old wounds and feelings of festering resentment) You don’t go travelling to all these exotic places just to satisfy your aesthetic curiosity and your spiritual hankerings, but so that you can trull around without fear of what people might say. You can go on luxury holidays, full of memorable experiences, exotic perfumes and seductive music; you can indulge in outlandish, elaborate love affairs, at a safe distance from your society friends in Lima. Black men, yellow men, Arabs, Eskimos, Afghans, Hindus! Every cock in the world at your disposal! I wonder, did they charge, like I do, by the hour? How much did the amorous perfume-seller from Cairo charge for putting on his little act, for pretending to lust after you, you depraved woman?
KATHIE: (Who has been listening to him amiably, faintly amused) Aren’t you overstepping the mark, Mr Griffin? Aren’t you infringing the basic laws of common courtesy between an employee and his boss? You’re asking me questions I can’t possibly answer without seeming ill-bred or improper. (SANTIAGO’s anger starts to abate. He sounds demoralized.)
SANTIAGO: No, I haven’t forgotten you’re the boss, you cheap writer of trash, you would-be literata; you can’t even spell properly. I hate you. If you didn’t pay me, I’d merely despise you, I might possibly pity you. Because it must be tedious, mustn’t it, to take trips round the world over land and sea, travelling about from continent to continent, squandering a fortune in the process, and writing books which you don’t actually write at all, and which nobody reads anyway, just so that you can indulge in a bit of casual love-play from time to time. It must be extremely tedious, isn’t it, Kathie Kennety?
(He has positioned himself behind his tape-recorder again and started to dictate, moving his lips in silence. KATHIE looks at him now with wistful admiration. The Parisian music heard at the beginning of the play starts to be heard again in the distance.)
KATHIE: The tedious thing about it is having to shut myself up day and night in this little attic, and deprive myself of all the marvellous things Paris has to offer, which are just there on my doorstep. All I have to do is go through that door and down the hotel staircase. Whereas you, Mark Griffin, you must really appreciate the bright lights of the city when you leave this room. If I didn’t have to work on this book on Black Africa and the Far East, would you let me go with you? I wouldn’t say a word, I’d be no trouble at all. I’d learn
so much, going to art galleries, libraries, theatres, concerts, lectures and bistros with you. Of course I’d feel ignorant and small, listening to you converse with all those brilliant friends of yours who’ve read every book and know everything about everything. (SANTIAGO carries on dictating, as is clear from the movement of his lips, but he is obviously enjoying listening to her.) Because that’s your life, Mark Griffin, apart from the two short hours you spend here, isn’t that so? Sauntering along the banks of the Seine, browsing in second-hand bookstalls, going to every concert, ballet and opera, attending symposia at the Collège de France, keeping up with the latest foreign films and never missing a private view. How wonderful it must be to sit up all night discussing philosophy with Jean-Paul Sartre, feminism with Simone de Beauvoir, anthropology with Lévi-Strauss, theatre with Jean-Louis Barrault, and fashion with Pierre Cardin! I’d listen to them, fascinated, awestruck at such intellectual wizardry. How marvellous your life must be, Mark! How rich and full! Whereas mine, incarcerated here in this attic, seems so petty and insignificant by comparison. But our two hours are nearly up. Let’s carry on. Let’s return to Cairo, to the ancient city, to that little street with the perfume shop …
(Far off, the Arab music comes to life again.)
SANTIAGO: (Dictating) … Shortly I’m to discover what it is the wily perfume-seller is suggesting. With cloying charm, he begs me to wait, while he attends to the other tourists. He brings me a cup of tea and, I, naïve as I am, accept and remain in the shop.
KATHIE: Don’t you think that bit about ‘naïve as I am’ sounds a trifle vulgar?
SANTIAGO: Yes. Yes, it does. And I, stupid as I am, remain in the shop …
KATHIE: Doesn’t it sound a bit unsubtle – ‘stupid as I am’?
SANTIAGO: (Correcting) Yes. And I, er, I remain in the shop …
KATHIE: Then before you could say knife, the craftsmen disappeared and the perfume-seller started to take out some jars; he put them in front of me and offered me them. Then he suddenly began to take out some trinkets and jewels as well.
Three Plays Page 11