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 …