KATHIE: (Still immersed in her dreams) What do you spend all these hours thinking about, sitting there on your surfboard, in the middle of the sea?
JUAN: (Scanning the horizon, the seascape) How large will the next wave be? Will I get on to it? Will I miss it? Will it knock me over? Will it carry me safely to the shore?
SANTIAGO: Do you ever think of anything other than waves?
JUAN: Sometimes, when it’s a flat calm, I think about the last little woman I fancied. The one I met yesterday, or the day before, or even this morning. Will she be easy? Will she be difficult? Will we make love? Will it be the first or the second time of asking? Will I have to work on her, delicately, skilfully? Will it take a long time? When and where will it happen? What will it be like? (Becoming ashamed, like a child interrupted doing something naughty) Sometimes, I get so excited, I have to think of rhombuses, cubes, triangles and parallelograms to calm myself down.
KATHIE: Of course, you even used to make love to the surfboard. I’m not surprised. And when you’re on the top of the wave, flapping your arms about like a ragdoll, what do you think about?
JUAN: Will they be watching me from the terrace of the Waikiki? Will the bathers see me from the swimming pool or the beach? And what about the motorists on the Embankment? Will they be looking? Will they be praising me? Will they be envious?
SANTIAGO: And what do you feel?
JUAN: I feel that I’m growing, that I’m handsome and virile, that I’m a real man. I feel like a god. What’s wrong with that?
KATHIE: Does it make any difference to you if I’m the one who’s watching you, if I’m the one who’s admiring you?
JUAN: It did, before we got married, yes. It doesn’t now, though. It’s funny, but now you’re my wife and it’s your duty to admire me, I only seem to do it for those other women — beautiful women I’ve just got to know, or known for a bit, or haven’t yet met.
SANTIAGO: (Lost in thought) Did it never enter your head it might be a crime to waste your time like this, when there are so many creative, productive things to be done in life?
JUAN: (Fighting the waves) Of course it never entered my head. Nothing quite so daft ever would. Do I do anyone any harm with my surfing? And if I stop, is that going to solve anyone’s problem? Is going to the bank any more creative and productive than a good day’s surfing, or making love to a woman?
KATHIE: (Distressed by her memories) Was this how my married life was going to be? Watching Johnny darling riding waves and being unfaithful to me?
SANTIAGO: (Thoughtfully) The real middle classes were even more bourgeois than the pamphlets made them out to be; we used to hate them on principle or on ideological grounds. I didn’t deceive you there, Anita.
(ANA approaches SANTIAGO, who seems not to see her. KATHIE continues with her reminiscences.)
KATHIE: Going to bed late, getting up late. Are you going to the bank today, Johnny?
JUAN: For a short while, yes, just to keep up appearances. But what do you say to meeting at the Waikiki at around one, OK?
KATHIE: Those damned waves, those damned surfboards, those damned championships, and those damned trips to Hawaii. It was all so excruciatingly boring, staying in hotels with synthetic lawns and plastic palm trees. And having to watch them all, indulge them, fête them, flatter them, compliment them, and then there was the tittle-tattle, whose wife’s sleeping with whose husband, which couples have come together, fallen out, made it up again and finally fallen out for good. Getting ready for drinks, dinner, Hawaiian parties, hen parties, always waiting for the big surprise. Going to the hairdresser, wearing new outfits, having one’s nails manicured. Same thing tomorrow and the day after. Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of your life, Kathie?
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.