“I’m very tired,” she said at last. “I’ve had a lousy day, and I think I’m about to get my period, and I don’t—”
“All the more reason to—”
“No, come on,” she said, and walked out of the bedroom. Kling watched her as she went. He kept watching the empty doorframe long after she was out of the room. He took a swallow of his scotch, set his jaw, and followed her into the living room. She was sitting by the window, gazing out at the distant buildings, her bare feet propped on a hassock. “I think it’s a good idea,” she said, without turning to look at him.
“Which one?” he asked.
“My thesis,” she said testily. “Bert, can we possibly get our minds off—”
“Our minds?”
“Your mind,” she corrected.
“Sure,” he said.
“It isn’t that I don’t love you—”
“Sure.”
“Or even that I don’t want you—”
“Sure.”
“It’s just that at this particular moment I don’t feel like making love. I feel more like crying, if you’d like to know.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I’m about to get my period. I always feel very depressed a day or two before.”
“Okay,” he said.
“And also, I’ve got my mind on this damn thesis.”
“Which you don’t have to begin work on until next June.”
“No, not next June. I’ll be getting my master’s next June. I won’t start on the doctorate till September. Anyway, what difference does it make, would you mind telling me? I have to start thinking about it sometime, don’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with you today, Bert.”
“It’s my day off,” he said.
“Well, that’s a non sequitur if ever I heard one. And anyway, it hasn’t been my day off. I went to work at nine o’clock this morning, and I interviewed twenty-four people, and I’m tired and irritable and about to get—”
“Yes, you told me.”
“All right, so why are you picking on me?”
“Cindy,” he said, “maybe I’d better go home.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Then go home if you want to,” she said.
“All right, I will.”
“No, don’t,” she said.
“Cindy—”
“Oh, do what you want to do,” she said, “I don’t care.”
“Cindy, I love you very much,” he said. “Now cut it out!”
“Then why don’t you want to hear about my thesis?”
“I do want to hear about your thesis.”
“No, all you want to do is make love.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, except I don’t feel like it right now.”
“Okay.”
“And you don’t have to sound so damn offended, either.”
“I’m not offended.”
“And you could at least express a tiny bit of interest in my thesis. I mean, Bert, you can at least ask what it’s going to be about.”
“What’s it going to be about?” he asked.
“Go to hell, I don’t feel like telling you now.”
“Okay, fine.”
“Fine,” she said.
They were both silent.
“Cindy,” he said at last, “I don’t even know you when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like a bitch.”
“That’s too bad, but a bitch is also part of me, I’m awfully sorry. If you love me, you have to love the bitch part, too.”
“No, I don’t have to love the bitch part,” Kling said.
“Well, don’t, I don’t care.”
“What’s your thesis going to be about?”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“Good night, Cindy,” he said, “I’m going home.”
“That’s right, leave me alone when I’m feeling miserable.”
“Cindy—”
“It’s about you, you know, it was only inspired by you, you know. So go ahead and leave, what difference does it make that I love you so much and think about you day and night and even plan writing my goddamn thesis about you? Go ahead, go home, what do I care?”
“Oh, boy,” he said.
“Sure, oh boy.”
“Tell me about your thesis.”
“Do you really want to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Well... ,” Cindy said, “I got the idea from Blow-Up.”
“Mmm?”
“The photographs in Blow-Up, you know?”
“Mmm?”
“Do you remember the part of the film where he’s enlarging the black-and-white photographs, making them bigger and bigger in an attempt to figure out what happened?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, it seemed to me that this entire experience was suggestive of the infantile glimpse of the primal scene.”
“The what?”
“The primal scene,” Cindy said. “The mother and father having intercourse.”
“If you’re going to start talking sexy,” Kling said, “I really am going home.”
“I’m very serious about this, so—”
“I’m sorry, go ahead.”
“The act of love is rarely understood by the child,” Cindy said. “He may witness it again and again, but still remain confused about what’s actually happening. The photographer in the film, you’ll remember, took a great many pictures of the couple embracing and kissing in the park, do you remember that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Which might possibly relate to the repetitive witnessing of the primal scene. The woman is young and beautiful, you remember, she was played by Vanessa Redgrave, which is how a small boy would think of his mother.”
“He would think of his mother as Vanessa Redgrave?”
“No, as young and beautiful. Bert, I swear to God, if you—”
“All right, I’m sorry, really. Go on.”
“I’m quite serious, you know,” Cindy said, and took a cigarette from the inlaid box on the table beside the chair. Kling lighted it for her. “Thank you,” she said, and blew out a stream of smoke. “Where was I?” she asked.
“The young and beautiful mother.”
“Right, which is exactly how a small boy thinks of his mother, as young and beautiful, as the girl he wants to marry. You’ve heard little boys say they want to marry their mothers, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Kling said, “I have.”
“All right, the girl in these necking-in-the-park scenes is Vanessa Redgrave, very young, very beautiful. The man, however, is an older man, he’s got gray hair, he’s obviously middle-aged. In fact, Antonioni even inserts some dialogue to that effect, I forget exactly what it was, I think the photographer says something like ‘A bit over the hill, isn’t he?’ Something like that, that’s the sense of it, anyway. That this man, her lover, is a much older man. Do you understand?”
“Yes. You’re saying he’s a father figure.”
“Yes. Which means that those scenes in the park, when the photographer is taking pictures of the lovers, could be construed as a small boy watching his mother and his father making love.”
“All right.”
“Which the photographer doesn’t quite understand. He’s witnessing the primal scene, but he doesn’t know what it’s really all about. So he takes his pictures home and begins enlarging them, the way a child might enlarge upon vivid memories in an attempt to understand them. But the longer he studies the enlarged pictures, the more confused he becomes, until finally he sees what might be a pistol in one of the blow-ups. A pistol, Bert.”