State
[ Principal ] [ Arriba ] [ Lack of appetite ] [ Modesty ] [ State ]

State

Characters:

JUÁREZ: a lady of 40, wearing pyjamas, curled on an armchair.

VEHIL and DE LUCCA, men dressed in suits, are seated next to her.

JUÁREZ: Then, right after saying it, he realises he’s made a mistake. His mouth fills up with rice and he can barely speak. He’d like to carry on with the speech, but the half-cooked rice won’t stop coming out of his mouth, it’s spilling over the improvised little balcony…

VEHIL: That’s… (DE LUCCA looks at him very hard, letting him understand that he’s not supposed to interrupt)

JUÁREZ: (Interrupting) I’ve already said that it is NOT the balcony of the Parliament building. So, there’s the little balcony, the colour umbrellas I’ve already talked about, now there’s the rice and the crowd starts shouting, like crazy wild beasts, the same two syllables.

(Pause. She lights a cigarette. But then she forgets to smoke it.)

VEHIL: Is there anything else that…?

JUÁREZ: The same two syllables as before, but now it’s not the same people who’d gathered in the square to worship the president, but a herd of elephants. They’ve got these big fangs. And they come forward. Turmoil. Upheaval. Disaster. (…) I fear for my husband.

DE LUCCA: That’s… terrible.

JUÁREZ: Terrible, De Lucca? Wait ‘til I’ve told you about the other one. The day before yesterday. My throat feels dry, I get up and go to the kitchen. I open the fridge. And there they are.

VEHIL: Who?

JUÁREZ: Well, Madersen, Crespo, Ramírez Casas, Valdés, all of them. Their heads. Stacked up on the fridge shelves… Valdés, Crespo, O’Malley, the other woman… what’s her name?

VEHIL: Calvo?

JUÁREZ: Sandra Dolores Calvo, yes, the one linked to that post office privatisation business, the one who fucks my husband. There, in my fridge.

DE LUCCA: Gosh, yes. That IS terrible.

JUÁREZ: And then I’m so thirsty. Well, you might think that she fucked him to shorten her way to the post office tender, but it didn’t work that way. She’d already got it. He told me. When he found out that I was fucking Crespo he had to tell me. I’m sure you don’t really want to hear any more, do you?

(Pause. DE LUCCA and VEHIL look down. It looks as if she is not going to say another word.)

JUÁREZ: And her head… Sandra’s head… she opens her eyes –she’s got this horrid smile- she’s opening her eyes, and saying to me: “The future”… She goes: “The future”. The heads start laughing, a monstrous giggle, like schoolboys… the laughter is deafening, the bottles start clinking, tottering inside the fridge, half a dozen eggs burst in the fridge door, and a sticky liquid drips off them, onto the lower shelves, onto the butter, the fruit…

DE LUCCA: It’s semen.

VEHIL: Pardon?

DE LUCCA: Semen.

(They both stare at him)

JUÁREZ: The semen is spreading on the floor, and scarcely just touches my toenails. The cold makes me wake up. I’m in bed, I’m safe.

VEHIL: The eggs are…

(They look at him)

VEHIL: In the dream… they represent…

(They look at him)

DE LUCCA: (Opens his briefcase) All right, let’s see what we can do about it. There’s very little time left. People are rioting in Santa Clarita, and also in many towns in the south. They’ve ransacked supermarkets in Río Gallegos. They’ve vandalised the local police station there.

JUÁREZ: Where’s that?

DE LUCCA: Not far, I’m afraid, in the south. We’ve got to take action. I’m sure there’s some evidence in your account of the facts… So, let’s see… Would you say the heads were grinning, smiling or just openly laughing at you?

JUÁREZ: What difference does it make? You don’t have to be an expert to understand that there’s clearly a threatening message written in that fridge.

DE LUCCA: Yes, of course, but our point here is… what we’re trying to get at here is…

VEHIL: It’s your husband’s security we’re concerned about, Mrs Juárez.

JUÁREZ: Well, I’ve told you everything I can. And of course I don’t have the slightest idea about what all this might mean. That’s what you are being paid for!

DE LUCCA: All right. Let’s get on with job. (Writes something down in a book) Elephants. Eggs… that is probably riots, looting. Madersen in fridge.

JUÁREZ: (Lost deep in her thoughts)… and Ramírez Casas…

VEHIL: Ramírez Casas too?

DE LUCCA: Him too?

JUÁREZ: (Nods) Don’t forget I fucked him too. I let myself get carried away by his moustache. Blond moustache. Cute, hairy upper lip. It was during a protocol visit in the Middle East. Hot as hell. Impossible to leave the hotel. It wasn’t safe… Ramírez Casas having this yoghurt, by the hotel pool… and the last thing I can remember is that I’m on my knees in front of him, licking this whitish creamy stuff off his moustache… a few yoghurt drops… There he is, in the fridge, the day before yesterday. Excuse me, I must go and get changed. (She’s about to leave, in infinite sadness) I’ve creamed my pants. You’d never understand. (Exits)

VEHIL: This ain’t gonna work. She’s losing objectivity.

DE LUCCA: Yeah. It’s temporary.

VEHIL: How would you know?

DE LUCCA: I know. I have certain knowledge of human beings.

VEHIL: She’s imprecise, she’s depressed. We can’t really get in, we’re wasting our time. I hate this job.

DE LUCCA: Are you well endowed, Vehil?

VEHIL: Pardon?

DE LUCCA: Are you well endowed?

VEHIL:…

DE LUCCA: Are you well…? Please, don’t make this question even harder.

VEHIL: Well…

DE LUCCA: You already heard her. She’s depressed, she has this thirst… you already heard about getting up in the middle of the night to fetch cool water… One of us has to go in there and give her a good fuck… How long is it?

VEHIL: Pardon?

DE LUCCA: How long?

VEHIL: Y’see, I’m not sure I should be…

DE LUCCA: How long?

(JUÁREZ appears at the door and looks at them. They both look back at her. She leaves the room again.)

DE LUCCA: How long?

VEHIL: Listen here, I’ve always behaved like a gentleman, and I expect you… (…) Are you suggesting we fuck her to see if we can get something less dreamy out of her?

DE LUCCA: I’m not suggesting it. I’m asking you a very simple question. How long is your fucking cock?!

VEHIL: Twenty. Nineteen.

(Pause)

DE LUCCA: Really?

VEHIL: Nineteen.

DE LUCCA: Very good.

VEHIL: And yours?

DE LUCCA: Pardon?

VEHIL: Yours?

DE LUCCA: A bit longer.

(JUÁREZ re-appears. She’s got a hair dryer in her hand. She is not doing anything with it. She just holds it. And stares at them. Then she winds the wire round it. Looking in their eyes. Exits.)

DE LUCCA: D’you ever go to “Heaven”?

VEHIL: No. A couple of times, no more.

DE LUCCA: No. Me neither. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you there. The place’s really changed a lot lately.

VEHIL: The music’s all right.

DE LUCCA: Yeah. The music’s all right.

VEHIL: So?

DE LUCCA: So.

VEHIL: What about her?

DE LUCCA: We’ll see to that later.

VEHIL: I thought you said… very little time… Kiss me, De Lucca!

(They look at each other. They stand up and leave the room through the opposite door)

(JUÁREZ comes in. She makes straight for the telephone. Dials a number)

JUÁREZ: Hello, Juárez here.

(…) It doesn’t matter. Tell him to get the phone anyway.

(…) I don’t care. Make up an excuse.

(…) I’ll wait.

(…) Oh, there you were.

(…) Don’t start, for fuck’s sake. I know about the rioting.

(…) We’re doing it. Me, De Lucca, and Vehil.

(…) We’re doing it.

(…) We’re doing it.

(…) Yeah, I guess you can give the ministry to Lobos Villegas, how should I know?

(…) Which one is he?

(...) That’s not true! I’m paying attention!

(…) No, I can’t remember him.

(…) …or that.

(…) Oh, yeah, the thick-set one. The one who used to be in defence, no, at the embassy, no, that wasn’t him, it doesn’t matter, yeah, I know which one you mean. Yes, definitely, give it to him.

(…) No, I didn’t fuck him, all right?

(…) Kids all right?

(…) Good. Kisses for them.

(...) I miss them.

(…) I love you so much.

(…) No, I’m not sad.

(…) I’m telling you I’m not sad.

(…) I won’t… please!

(…) It’s just that I… kind of… can’t help… thinking… of all these years… the beautiful dreams of all these people… These poor people, so full of hopes, they suffer so much. Perhaps that’s why they riot. I don’t know. Poor, poor people. What wouldn’t I give, as well, to get a little innocence in exchange… a little peace! What I would give today for some peace.

(DE LUCCA comes in)

JUÁREZ: (On the phone) Hold on a sec. (To DE LUCA) What is it now?

DE LUCCA: Sorry. Er… Aren’t you going to use the hair dryer?

JUÁREZ: (Says no by waving her head. DE LUCCA makes for the hair dryer.) I sometimes think that we are on our own, it’s summertime, you’ve taken me to the movies, no one recognises us, no one knows who we are, or what we’ve done… and the movie is about to start, lights go off, and we kiss… shyly at first, like two young kids. And then. Well. We aren’t kids any more. (DE LUCCA crosses the scene with the hair dryer and disappears). We’re never going to be young again. Never again. Never again.

(The hair dryer is heard in the other room, subdued laughter. A second later, lights off.)

Rafael Spregelburd

London, August 1998.

E-mail: spre@argentores.org.ar                                                                                                                                      Espacio cedido por ARGENTORES