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, humiliate 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?