KATHIE: It was pitch dark. You couldn’t see a thing. But I realized by the noises they were making that it was a ferocious struggle.
SANTIAGO: (More and more enthusiastically) Prehistoric, massive and lumbering with their enormous heads, their huge bulbous bodies and their ridiculously small feet, I can just make them out through the thick dark shadows, fiercely biting each other on the flank.
KATHIE: The female waited skittishly, all of a twitter, as she coyly watched to see which of the males was going to win her.
SANTIAGO: Meanwhile, the coveted prize — she, who had provoked such pachidermal hatred and lust — the hippopotama — moves about, swinging her hips, aroused by the spectacle, as she waits eagerly to see who will win the combat. Will the victor have the right to … possess her? Attack her? Penetrate her?
KATHIE: Attack her is best. A German, or a Dutchman or someone, who was staying at Murchison Falls, an academic or a scientist, something like that, said the hippopotamus was a very strange animal.
SANTIAGO: (In a strong German accent) This primitive roughskinned wrinkly creature which you see before you, Frau Katharina, the hippopotamus, has such a delicate throat that it can only swallow little birds, flies, bumblebees and flutterbies who, mistaking it for a tree trunk, settle on it. But it’s an animal with an unquenchable sexual appetite, a lustful beast with a seismic potency. It’s not unusual after her first encounter for a hippopotama to be completely put off the idea of sex, rather like Adèle Foucher for instance, since even the most effete of hippopotami easily outdo the record established for the human species by Victor Hugo whose nine performances on his wedding night … (Resuming his normal voice, carrying on dictating) The Prussian zoologist was quite right: for the whole of the rest of the night we heard the hoofed victor and the contented hippopotama copulating with such a deafening report that it drowned the noise of the cataracts.
KATHIE: (Laughing) That bit about ‘copulating with such a deafening report’, I wonder what my children will say to that?
(ANA and JUAN, who have now become KATHIE’s children, rush towards her.)
JUAN: What exactly are you writing, Mama? A travel book about Black Africa and the Far East, or a pornographic novel?
ANA: Do you want everyone to laugh at us?
(SANTIAGO stops dictating.)
SANTIAGO: Have your children got many hang-ups?
KATHIE: Yes, I suppose they have. At any rate they appear to in front of me. I wonder what they’re like when they’re alone. Or with their friends, or with their lovers? I wonder if my children have lovers.
JUAN: We’ve got a surprise for you, Mama, which you’re going to love.
SANTIAGO: You don’t talk much about your family, you know.
ANA: Can’t you guess what it is, Mama? The tickets! For your tour of Black Africa and the Far East!
KATHIE: This is a travel book, not an autobiography, that’s why I don’t mention them.
JUAN: Forty-two countries, and over eighty cities.
ANA: Every race, religion, language and landscape under the sun. You’ll hardly have time to turn round, Mama.
SANTIAGO: Did it take a lot to persuade them to let you go on such a long trip?
KATHIE: It didn’t take anything at all, quite the reverse in fact. (Turns towards her children.) Of course I’ll have time to turn round. Why were you in such a hurry to buy the tickets? I haven’t even decided if I’m going yet.
JUAN: Because you’re dying to go — you just needed a little push. So we gave you one.
ANA: You’re going to learn so much, Mama. All those different countries, all those exciting foreign places. All that experience and think of all the adventures you’ll have. You’ll be able to use them in your book.
JUAN: Of course, you’ll be travelling first class and staying in five-star hotels, and you’ll have a private car and personal guide on every excursion.
ANA: You deserve it, Mama!
KATHIE: (Mocking) Aren’t you going to miss me?
JUAN: Of course we are. We’re doing all this for you, so you can enjoy yourself, so you can write that book you’ve had on your mind for so long.
ANA: Aren’t you always telling us how fed up you are with life in Lima, with its constant round of tea parties, luncheon parties, and weddings all over the place? That you never have any time for the really serious things in life what with all the social razzmatazz? Well, there you are then, for eight months of the year you can concentrate entirely on getting a bit of culture.
JUAN: You’ll be travelling on a diplomatic passport, so you won’t have any difficulties with the customs.
KATHIE: What wonderful children I’ve got; you’re both so good and kind. (Changing her tone of voice) You’re just a couple of cynics, aren’t you? You’re glad to be getting rid of me.
JUAN: But how can you talk such utter nonsense, Mama? It’s pointless even trying to make you happy. You’re impossible. And we thought you’d be so thrilled with these tickets, we wanted to give you the time of your life.
ANA: You twist everything round so. Why should we want to get rid of you?
KATHIE: (Rubbing her thumb and forefinger together) Money, my little love, money. Who’s going to be in charge of my affairs while I’m away? I’d have to give you carte blanche so you could do anything you wanted. Now wouldn’t I?
JUAN: Of course you wouldn’t. Honestly, you’ve got such a suspicious mind! I suppose this had to come up sooner or later.
KATHIE: Because you’re brassed off with me poking my nose into everything, questioning everything. Do you think I don’t know how it irritates you to have to get my permission for the least little thing?
ANA: It was unfortunate Johnny came up with that suggestion about the power of attorney …
KATHIE: Which would entitle you to share out everything I possess before I’m even dead.
JUAN: No, no, no. It was to save you any unnecessary worries, Mama, to save you spending your time in lawyers’ offices, with boards of directors, in banks, and so on.
ANA: You’re so paranoid, it’s beyond belief, Mama!
KATHIE: I may be paranoid, but I’m not signing that power of attorney — I’m not dead just yet and I don’t want to feel as if I am. You haven’t managed to get your own way, so now you’re sending me off round the world instead …
ANA: That’s not fair, Mama!
JUAN: You were the one who wanted to go on this trip, we’d never even have thought of it.
ANA: (To JUAN) She’s so ungrateful, it’s incredible. Take back the tickets, Juancito. I wouldn’t go to any more trouble on her account, if I were you.
KATHIE: The only trouble you went to was buying them, dear, and in case you’ve forgotten, I was the one who paid for them in the first place.
JUAN: All right, all right. Don’t let’s quarrel about it. We’ll take back the tickets and there’s an end to it.
KATHIE: No, don’t. I’ve decided to go, and I’m going to write my book after all. But don’t get too excited, I’m not going to get myself eaten by a tiger or squashed by an elephant, I’ll be coming back all in one piece, to find out exactly what you’ve been up to with my money — my money, don’t forget — while I’ve been away.