By Diana Raznovich

Translated by Shanna Lorenz

From the Waist Down is dedicated to Diana Taylor who made it possible for this idea to become something resembling a work of theater. I offer it to her, with all of my gratitude, as a celebration of our friendship.

—Diana Raznovich, New York, October 1999

Characters:

ELEONORA: Beautiful and fiery, thirty-six years old.

ANTONIO: Forty years old. A pleasant, somewhat formal man. (Husband of Eleonora)

PAULINA: Sixty years old. Energetic and brilliant. (Mother of Antonio)

TRONCOSO, the sexologist: An ex-torturer. Well-built, forty years old.

PHOTOGRAPHER, North American from a magazine with a huge international readership. Twenty-five years old.

FIRST ACT

It is three in the morning on a Friday in May in Buenos Aires. Eleonora and Antonio are installed in their matrimonial bed. Sitting in a beautiful new nightgown, she pathetically stares out into empty space. He sleeps deeply. Like a sort of musical duet, she occasionally sighs while he snores. Eleonora’s lamp remains lit. In contrast, Antonio has turned off his lamp. Beyond them the sound expands and fills the space, like a musical score of the mutual loathing that unites them.

ELEONORA: Don’t snore, Antonio. (She looks at him sadly, close to tears)

ANTONIO: (Immobile. Sleeping. Talking while he dreams) I don’t snore.

ELEONORA: (She waits a few moments while in the thick silence of night her sighs combine with his snores) You’re snoring! (He doesn’t respond. He keeps snoring. She briskly changes the position of his head so that he will stop snoring. This produces a short-lived effect. She feels satisfied with her work but a moment later he begins to snore again. Now the snoring is even stronger and combines two sounds that she responds to with a sigh that is so loud that it becomes transformed into a sort of shrill shriek. With this addition the combination of sounds becomes: two snores, a shriek, two snores, a shriek, (etc.). In the middle of this “chamber concert,” she sadly opens the drawer of her bed table and takes out an enormous box of cookies. She intentionally opens the box noisily, and when she realizes that she hasn’t managed to wake Antonio, she yells:)

ELEONORA: I am informing you that you are still snoring!

ANTONIO: These are not snores, Eleonora. (He continues snoring in double time. She lets out a desperate and discordant shriek)

ELEONORA: They are the same snores as always, as every night. The ones that make me desperate, my love. How can you dispute this. I am married to these glorious snores. (She voraciously eats cookies. He snores. She shrieks. The shrieks are so loud that he groggily wakes and speaks again without opening his eyes)

ANTONIO: (Sweetly and patiently) My love, I never snore.

(Eleonora eats cookies with a rhythm and velocity that surpasses her ability to swallow them, and because of this, after a few moments her mouth is full of cookies and she is close to choking. With her mouth full of cookies, desperate, and crying, all at the same time, she says:)

ELEONORA: What do you mean you have never snored? What do you call these noises, Antonio? (More and more loudly, spilling un-swallowed cookie crumbs on the bed)

ANTONIO: They are the sounds of my soul. (This sentence moves him so much that he sits up, meekly opens his eyes, and looks at the choking, crying, disfigured Eleonora)

ELEONORA: Couldn’t you please ask your soul to dream more harmoniously?

ANTONIO: (Complacent, he agrees) I am going to try. (He lays down. Stunned, she watches how easily he falls asleep and begins snoring)

ELEONORA: (She screams at the top of her voice) You are still snoring!!!

ANTONIO: (He sits up, calmly. He opens his eyes. He speaks normally) You are going to wake me up, and that is a shame, because I am dreaming a beautiful dream.

ELEONORA: Tell me.

ANTONIO: Tomorrow. I can’t dream and tell you at the same time.

ELEONORA: (Relentless) Tell me, Antonio.

ANTONIO: (He prepares to tell her, agreeable as always) It was just starting to get interesting. Let me find out how it continues.

ELEONORA: Tell me. (She eats cookies nervously)

ANTONIO: (Meek. Tranquil. Romantic) It was a fantastic dream. It took place in the office of Public Records where a white haired man named Monetary Circulation sat at a floating table. I entered, accompanied by two crooked employees.

ELEONORA: Where did you enter, my love?

ANTONIO: (Thrilled and evocative) I entered a platform covered with adjustable stock indices and converted them into a Regulated Free Rate. Free, Eleonora, free!

ELEONORA: Who was free, my love?

ANTONIO: (Logically) The Free Market.

(She chews and swallows and looks at him as if attempting to understand something profound that has escaped her. There is a weighty seriousness between them, as if their discussion were truly transcendental.)

ELEONORA: And?

ANTONIO: And two other employees came out.

ELEONORA: Crooked?

ANTONIO: Broken. They were each missing a hand. (Pause) I noticed that they were waiting for me to ask a question. It was difficult. What would you have done in my place, what would you have asked them?

ELEONORA: The name.

ANTONIO: I dreamed about doing that, but it was not an adequate question.

ELEONORA: So what did you ask?

ANTONIO: (Lyrically) Transferable or non-transferable? And in unison, but with well differentiated voices (He yells) they answered: Non-transferable and mid-term adjustable. And then I saw it all clearly.

ELEONORA: What did you see clearly?

ANTONIO: I don’t know, because you woke me up.

ELEONORA: (On the verge of tears again) Do you want a cookie?

ANTONIO: How can you offer me a cookie when you have interrupted the dreams of my soul. You should at least apologize. Don’t you realize what you have destroyed?

ELEONORA: And do you realize that I have a new nightgown, Antonio?

ANTONIO: It does not seem very important to me.

ELEONORA: Look at it. I bought it especially for you.

(Antonio looks at the nightgown. He doesn’t find anything that particularly catches his attention.)

ANTONIO: Was it very expensive?

ELEONORA: It was very expensive. I am always buying more and more expensive nightgowns. And you, nothing.

ANTONIO: Try to buy the cheapest ones. Maybe they will get an effect. Maybe the expensive ones don’t do anything for me.

ELEONORA: Antonio, we have to talk about “something.”

ANTONIO: We are talking about “something.”

ELEONORA: I am referring to a specific topic, my love. (She gives Antonio a cookie. He returns it. She eats it)

ANTONIO: Actually, if you don’t mind, I would rather go back to my dreams. I am very intrigued with the story. A dream like this doesn’t come every night.

ELEONORA: And I do? I am something that is here every night.

ANTONIO: You are my wife.

ELEONORA: You say it as if you were saying “you are my hypodermic needle.”

ANTONIO: Hypodermic needles hurt—you don’t.

ELEONORA: I can’t even hurt you! (Eleonora sticks another cookie in Antonio’s mouth. Almost forcing him. He, with a pleasant and almost tragic tone says:)

ANTONIO: If you don’t mind, my love, I am going back to the Department of Public Records. (He rolls over and goes to sleep)

(After a while, Antonio begins to snore in double time and Eleonora begins to sigh. Finally she jumps out of bed. While eating cookies she paces nervously around the room like a caged lion desperately looking for a way out.)

ELEONORA: (Pausing) Don’t you realize that nights and nights are going by and nothing? Don’t you realize that nothing ever happens in this room? (She shakes him) Antonio, how long do you think it has been since something happened?

ANTONIO: (He sits up in bed to defend himself) Well, we made love on my mother’s birthday. Or don’t you remember?

ELEONORA: Eleven moths ago!

ANTONIO: So what, Mother’s birthday is next month. You can start getting ready.

ELEONORA: My love, I am thirty-seven years old. You are forty. At the rate of once a year, in twenty years, when I am fifty-seven and you are sixty, we will only have made love twenty more times.

ANTONIO: It is a beautifully secure future. We won’t be excessive, but neither will we lack for anything. (He is pleased with the prognosis)

ELEONORA: (Furious, unconsolable, pacing) We don’t lack anything? (She pauses, hopelessly) Anyway, what is going to happen once your mother dies?

ANTONIO: (Very superstitious) How can you say such a thing? (In a state of emotional shock) You want to kill my mother. (Now he gets out of bed) My mother! My good, peaceful mother, who is as captivating as she is charming. What do you have against her? What dark feelings have caused your evil words? (He returns to bed and pulls the blankets over his head) For this you have torn me out of the Department of Public Records? (He is clearly desperate) What is going to happen when my mother dies? (He pathetically gazes up towards the ceiling) Why does she put me in front of the cruel Supreme Moment, when you, Father, will take my mother away from me? (He kneels in bed while she watches him from the armchair where she sits) Why, at this hour of the night, would you bring up the physical disappearance of a healthy woman who sanctimoniously sleeps at home in her solitary bed? What has possessed this woman of mine with her sexual speculations?

ELEONORA: (Now it is she who remains calm) My love, since we always make love on your mother’s birthday, it is not unreasonable to ask what will happen when she dies.

ANTONIO: Calling Death again!

ELEONORA: I am not calling Death, Antonio, I am calling Love. (She yells) I want to make love!

ANTONIO: (In panic) Now?

(Eleonora is ready and she quickly takes off her robe and nightgown and stands facing her husband with her back to the audience.)

ELEONORA: Of course now. Why?

ANTONIO: (He covers his head with the pillow so that he doesn’t have to look at her) Depraved woman!

ELEONORA: Why? (She stays where she is)

ANTONIO: (He peeks at her. He confirms that she is still naked and then covers his face with the pillow again. Finally he lowers the pillow and calmly says) Because today is not my mother’s birthday.

ELEONORA: (Unmoving and naked) Can’t we break with this Imaginary Tradition that you have imposed on us since we were married?

ANTONIO: Imaginary Tradition? My mother? Oh no. I am not going to allow this. At least put on your clothes to say her name.

(Eleonora puts on her nightgown and robe, a hat, a pair of boots, a scarf, and gloves.)

ELEONORA: Okay? Now can I say your mother’s name?

(He looks at her without answering, reaches for the phone, and dials the number of his mother.)

ANTONIO: Hi, Mom? It’s me. (Pause) I wanted…wanted to know how you feel…You are sleeping I imagine, but…physically I mean…You don’t have any symptoms of physical ailment do you? Nausea? Migraine? Heart palpitations? (He pauses, listening) Sleeping, just sleeping. It is not an abnormal sleep, is it? It is not a lethal slumber, is it? Don’t sleep Mother, answer me.

ELEONORA: (She grabs the telephone from him) Hi, Paulina? (Stupefied) She is snoring, just like you. (She holds on to the receiver and from it come two snores which she answers with a shriek. This repeats two times until Antonio takes the telephone from his wife and yells:)

ANTONIO: Mom. Forgive me but I need to know exactly what you are dreaming about. Yes, tell me! (He listens. He hangs up, his face livid) Of course, her too. She was also dreaming that she went into the Department of Public Records, where a man with white hair named Monetary Circulation sat at a floating table.

ELEONORA: (She is in anguish. She bundles up even more. She might put on an overcoat) It can’t be.

ANTONIO: It’s too much of a coincidence. We had the same dream on the same night. Something has cracked in our minds. And why? Because you called the most sacred thing Imaginary Tradition and carelessly invoked the Death of my mother.

ELEONORA: But I didn’t want to invoke the death of your mother, just your love.

ANTONIO: Come here, lay down. (Eleonora comes to bed with all of her clothes on, including her boots.)

ELEONORA: I am afraid.

ANTONIO: (Panicking) There is nothing to be afraid of.

ELEONORA: (Shaking) Nobody has the same dream.

ANTONIO: How do you know, Eleonora? We can’t call everyone on the phone to ask them what they are dreaming.

ELEONORA: Let’s test it. Go to sleep and dream about something else.

ANTONIO: Eat some cookies. It puts me to sleep. It calms me. (She eats cookies ostentatiously, which produces the desired effect. She looks at Antonio who sleeps and snores. This produces the duet: two snores and a shriek. Two snores and a shriek from Eleonora. Finally she wakes him.)

ELEONORA (She shakes him. He wakes up) What were you dreaming about?

ANTONIO: (Sure about what he just dreamed) The emergency room of an ancient hospital in the north.

ELEONORA: What north? There are so many norths!

ANTONIO: In my dream there was just one. Desperate people from a shantytown entered and asked me for white rice. I only had brown rice. A woman with a jar in her hand spilled out its contents which immediately transformed into a magazine with a huge readership.

ELEONORA: What else?

ANTONIO: I asked for you, but the woman with the jar and the shantytown people left. A lopsided blue chair remained on top of an ocean of dissipated ashes. And the subtle humidity impregnated twenty suspenseful minutes. Now call her and ask her what she was dreaming. This is a very complicated dream.

(Determined, Eleonora dials the number of her mother-in-law.)

ELEONORA: Paulina, pardon me for bothering you so many times in one night, but just now, what were you dreaming? (Pause) It doesn’t matter if it is long. I’m listening. (She listens. She repeats what Paulina is saying out loud.) The emergency room. The emergency room of an ancient hospital in the north. Desperate people from a shantytown entered and…(She hangs up, shocked. She crosses herself) You are not going to tell me that at this moment fifty percent of the world population is having this same dream.

ANTONIO: (Panicking) Something very serious is about to happen. (He dials his mother’s number) Mother, come over. (He hangs up)

(The entrance of Paulina, Antonio’s mother, happens instantly. She is neatly dressed, made-up, charming, and radiant, which seems strange because until just a moment ago she was at home, asleep.)

PAULINA: Yes, my love. What is it?

ELEONORA: (Stunned, stupefied) But...how could?

ANTONIO: Mom, what luck that you are here (He takes Paulina into his open arms)

PAULINA: (Covering him with kisses) Son, my little son. What has happened? Who has hurt you?

ELEONORA: But how, how could you get here so quickly?

PAULINA: I am his mother.

ELEONORA: You’re his mother but you live ten blocks from here. And you were asleep in your bed and he had hardly finished telling you to come and you were here.

PAULINA: (She looks patiently at Eleonora) And what surprises you about this, Eleonora?

ELEONORA: I am surprised about the time...the speed.

PAULINA: But what do you imagine? That time is realistic? Don’t you know that reality doesn’t exist for this mother and son?

ELEONORA: No?

PAULINA: Not at all. We have never cultivated reality in our relationship.

ELEONORA: Yes, but there is real time between your house and mine, Madame.

PAULINA: You see that there is not. There just isn’t. Was Einstein thinking about us when he spoke of the curvature of space? (Contemptuous with her daughter-in-law) Don’t speak to us of time, Eleonora. It is a convention like any other. Just like space.

ELEONORA: But the reality is that you had to get out of bed, take off your nightgown, get dressed, put on your make-up, go out to the street and traverse ten blocks. This is a real distance that takes a palpable time.

PAULINA: Between my son’s heart and mine, distance and palpable time are nothing.

ANTONIO: My mother speaks so well. A great orator.

PAULINA: I always was but I prefer to write bestsellers. One earns more than as an orator.

ANTONIO: (He hugs her) Mother I don’t want you to die. Your readers need you so much!

PAULINA: What an idea. How could I possibly die just as my last book is selling so well.

ANTONIO: Well, money isn’t everything.

PAULINA: (Shocked) No? When a shirt manufacturer suggests that money isn’t everything then something very grave must be happening in this house.

ELEONORA: It is simply that Antonio panicked. That is why we got you out of bed.

ANTONIO: Do you feel completely healthy, Mother? Did you do your daily gymnastics? Did you adequately supplement your diet? Is your urine clear? How long has it been since you had an electrocardiogram? How long since they checked your vesicular activity? And your liver? And for arthritis? And for arteriosclerosis? What about undiagnosed rheumatism? Insidious asthma? Pneumonia hidden in your chest?

PAULINA: (She begins to stagger) I am starting to feel bad. I was perfectly healthy until seconds ago. Now my left shoulder is beginning to hurt.

ELEONORA: Paulina, please don’t leave us. At least don’t deprive us of your birthday.

PAULINA: My birthday?

ELEONORA: In this house your birthday is the spinal chord of eroticism.

PAULINA: Now my right shoulder also hurts.

ANTONIO: She’s sick. She’s sick. See how dilated her pupils are? (He examines his mothers eyes) I see a yellow spot. (In front of Eleonora with his mother in his arms)

ELEONORA: Don’t abandon this world, Paulina. If you didn’t have birthdays, nothing would ever happen in this room.

PAULINA: What do you mean, nothing?

ELEONORA: The only time something happens between Antonio and me is on your birthday.

PAULINA: (Enchanted. She kisses her son) You mean that I inspire you so much?

ANTONIO: Mother: it is a modest homage that I offer you each year.

PAULINA: (A little worried) And the rest of the year?

ELEONORA: Nothing.

(Suspense. Antonio looks at his mother, she looks at him, disenchanted.)

PAULINA: And you asked me if I was sick? Put me down Antonio. I prefer firm ground.

(Antonio puts her down.)

PAULINA: Do you give this boy enough nutrition?

ELEONORA: He eats like a horse.

PAULINA: (To Eleonora) And you, are you nice to him?

ANTONIO: Not at all.

ELEONORA: I am enchanting. I buy a new nightgown every day. In twenty years of marriage, considering that I was crazy enough to marry at seventeen, at a rate of 365 nightgowns a year, you calculate the price that I have paid to please him. (Eleonora opens the closet and begins to violently take out hundreds of nightgowns which she scatters on the bed, and lets fall on Antonio and his mother and on herself) As you can see, we haven’t been lacking for nightgowns.

PAULINE: It is clear that your eroticism does not go the way of nightgowns.

ELEONORA: He told me differently.

ANTONIO: I like nightgowns. They make me dream lushly. (He puts one on)

(The three of them stand in a sea of nightgowns. Paulina is interested in what her son has to say.)

PAULINA: It is true. With so many nightgowns you could dream lushly. (She takes off her clothing and quickly puts on a transparent nightgown) If you don’t mind, I love dreaming lushly. (She gets into the matrimonial bed. In the middle)

(Eleonora looks at the scene, embarrassed. She jumps out of bed. They are hugging. )

ELEONORA: The problem here is not you, Antonio, much less your mother. (She tries to hang herself with a nightgown) I’m the problem here. You are happy and I disturb your happiness. (They are not listening) I am telling you that I have decided to leave you in peace. (She tears off strips of nightgown and tries to hang herself) I am announcing that the intruder has decided to eliminate herself. (Her attempts completely lack conviction. She does it to get attention. She finally gets it)

PAULINA: No, Eleonora: Without you there is no scene. You are indispensable. Stop trying to kill yourself and come to bed.

ELEONORA: I decline.

ANTONIO: (He goes to get her) I need both of you. (The three of them get into bed)

PAULINA: This is definitely bestseller material. It would sell out the first day. I know what I am talking about. I know my readers. We have succeeded in creating a scene without a symbolic level. And my readers hate the symbolic level. They like straightforward things. The woman on the left, the husband on the right, and the mother, like a goddess, in the middle of the bed.

ANTONIO: Your birthday is coming up, mother. Your birthday is the sacred festival that we transform into a profane rite.

PAULINA: How well my son speaks. I am also going to add that to my next bestseller. (She takes out her notebook and writes) I have the complete story: it ends with my death.

ELEONORA: No Madame, it ends with my death.

ANTONIO: You see, it’s decided. Someone has to die. Well, if I have to choose, then let my wife die. (He picks his mother up) I can marry again but I will never have another mother.

PAULINA. Antonio is so strong. Have you noticed?

(Antonio strides like a hero. Eleonora watches them, resigned. Paulina, speaking like a heroine rescued from death, says:)

PAULINA: So you only...make love on my birthday?

ELEONORA: It is the only thought that stimulates him.

PAULINA: Well, it is a great homage. (Coy and proud) It is not for nothing that he came out looking so much like me. (She laughs. Eleonora is not even slightly amused. Paulina becomes serious as well)

ELEONORA: (She follows them both around the room) You have to understand, Paulina, that things can’t go on like this.

PAULINA: That is a shame.

(Antonio puts her down, returns to bed, and covers his head with a blanket as if he doesn’t want to hear. Eleonora comes back to bed. After a moment, Paulina also comes back to bed and installs herself between the two of them, forcing them to move over. Eleonora and Paulina are on top of the blanket while Antonio is underneath the blanket. After a pause they cover themselves as well, although unlike Antonio, they don’t cover their heads.)

ELEONORA: In this bed the nights are very long. And there are 365 nights in every year. Which leaves me 364 nights of nothing!

PAULINA: I am going to rescue you.

ELEONORA: How?

PAULINA: The moment to reveal the truth to Antonio has arrived.

(Antonio covers himsef even more. He becomes a lump burrowing to the foot of the bed.)

ELEONORA: What truth, Madame?

PAULINA: I educated Antonio in the most strict and repressive system. When my husband died, I swore that I would not talk to Antonio about sex until he was forty years old. He lost his father but he never lacked for a good spanking.

(The lump that is Antonio becomes agitated.)

ELEONORA: Well, Antonio is already forty.

PAULINA: That is why I believe that it is time to tell him where children come from. What men and women do when they are alone. I am going to keep this marriage from falling apart. I am going to give my son the necessary education.

ELEONORA: Finally!! Do you need a chalkboard? Colored chalk, anatomy books?

PAULINA: Definitely. It is a culminating moment. My son will lose his innocence. (Antonio emerges at the foot of the bed with a panicked expression)

ANTONIO: I don’t want to lose anything Mother.

(Lights out.)

SECOND ACT

Two nights later in the same room. A screen has been installed on the far wall, above the bed. Antonio is dressed in a suit with a vest and looks like a studious schoolboy. His hair is slicked down and his shoes are shiny. His mother has on a teacher’s uniform and holds a pointer in her hand. On the screen we see the first slide of an audiovisual presentation entitled “The Sexual Education of Antonio.” This audiovisual presentation, which opens the second act, was designed by Paulina especially for her son and consists of photographs alternating with humorous drawings that are particularly imaginative. The drawings will be simple, tender, and funny. There won’t be anything lascivious or pornographic in the images which must give the sense of being intended to reveal the origin of life and the act of sex to a six year old child. Paulina’s voice is heard off-stage, recorded especially for the audiovisual presentation, although both her and Antonio make live commentary on-stage. With her pointer Paulina will signal whatever she considers to be the most graphic part of each slide.

The audiovisual presentation begins with the titles: “The Sexual Education of Antonio: by the best-selling author, Paulina Mincens (his mother)”

(The lights come on. Antonio looks at his mother, embarrassed.)

PAULINA: Now you know everything. You are a man, my son. I am going to call your woman.

(Paulina exits. Eleonora enters, very sensual and enticing).

ANTONIO: And my mother?

ELEONORA: She left, my love. We are alone. The world is ours. She told me that you are an excellent student, that you know everything now. (She kisses him on the mouth) I am waiting for you to demonstrate your knowledge.

ANTONIO: The man has a flat chest. In contrast, the woman has two round swellings.

(Eleonora, sexy, ready. He is stiff and didactic. He repeats like a good student:)

ANTONIO: We can call them “boobs” if we want.

(Eleonora dislikes the word.)

ELEONORA: (Furious) Boobs…my beautiful breasts? (Trying to recover her erotic mood) What else did your mother show you?

ANTONIO: Notice that from the waist down, you will see something very different that hangs between my legs, the “rod.”

ELEONORA: Rods and Boobs? Your mother taught you this?

ANTONIO: That, and that later the man’s rod gets hard and he sticks it in the groove while they dance, or they get into a bathtub, or they bite each other’s ears, or the best thing is when (He repeats, rapidly) the man and the woman copulate, and the central moment arrives with a rush of unforgettable sensations, that drunken flood of happiness, that primordial pleasure of the flesh, also known as the “ORGASM.” Have you heard of that before?

ELEONORA: Shall we go to bed?

ANTONIO: Won’t you congratulate me? For learning my lessons so well, I mean.

ELEONORA: Well, I will congratulate you at the proper moment. You took the theoretical exam. It is time for the practice.

ANTONIO: No, Eleonora. I only learned the theoretical part.

ELEONORA: But theory is the complement of practice. (She corners him, he shrinks back)

ANTONIO: (Panicking) There was no practical part. I swear it. They were very didactic drawings. Theoretically I am ready.

ELEONORA: And practically?

ANTONIO. I am going to practice disappearing. (He gets inside the closet and shuts himself i. She tries unsuccessfully to open the door)

ELEONORA: (Banging on the door) Antonio, come out. Antonio, come out.

ANTONIO: Call my mother.

ELEONORA: Your mother? Enough with you mother. (She grabs the phone and searches through telephone book) Sexology. Sex therapy. Sex mania. Sexologist. That’s it: Sexologist. I am going to call a sexologist. (Dials. Speaking into the phone:) Hello, is this the sexologist?. Look, wake him because this is an emergency. I have a husband stuck inside a closet.

THIRD ACT

This scene transpires two days later in the same bedroom. Eleonora and Antonio wait impatiently for the sexologist.

ANTONIO: But why did we have to find some guy in the phone book, with so many friends that could recommend a sexologist with a good reputation?

ELEONORA: And the shame? Do you want me to tell my friend Mariana all about our lush private life? The next day all of our friends would be laughing at us.

ANTONIO: I would prefer that to putting ourselves in the hands of some stranger.

ELEONORA: And I prefer putting myself in the hands of an stranger to that.

ANTONIO: And why aren’t we going to his office?

ELEONORA: The sexologist insists on coming to the place.

ANTONIO: What place?

ELEONORA: The place where the act transpires; the consultant prefers to appear in person.

ANTONIO: Why are you using this cold terminology?

ELEONORA: Those were his words: “I prefer to appear in person.”

ANTONIO: I can’t even stand the idea of his presence here.

ELEONORA: Well you’d better get used to it because he will be here any moment.

ANTONIO: Cancel. Call him. Let’s try to copulate without having the consultant make his presence known in person. (He lowers his pants)

ELEONORA. Vulgar! Insensitive! Crass!

ANTONIO: And the consultant, what is he?

ELEONORA: A man of science.

(The doorbell rings.)

ELEONORA: I am asking you to pull up your pants. And show a bit of decorum.

(Antonio swiftly pulls up his pants. Eleonora opens the door. A muscular man enters, wearing the uniform of the motorcycle police or something similar. His appearance is clearly militarized. He handles the space as if he were used to making raids. His presence inspires fear. They recoil.)

SEXOLOGIST: My service was requested?

(Antonio and Eleonora understand nothing. This is really not the type of person that they expected.)

ELEONORA: There must be a mistake.

ANTONIO: We expected a sexologist.

SEXOLOGIST: That’s me.

(Bewilderment. Eleonora and Antonio stare, disconcerted.)

SEXOLOGIST: What’s wrong?

ELEONORA: Well, we expected a different kind of person...I mean...more intellectual, with glasses, thin, I don’t know how to say it...a psychologist or psychiatrist type.

SEXOLOGIST: But didn’t you call for a sexologist?

ELEONORA: Yes, from the telephone book.

ANTONIO: You dialed the number of the police.

SEXOLOGIST: You dialed my number. Sexologist. (He takes out a card)

ELEONORA: (She reads it) Yes, it’s true. The card proves it. (She shows it to Antonio)

ANTONIO: But am I going to put myself in the hands of a card? Am I going to trust myself to a Saturn Troncoso?

SEXOLOGIST: You are wasting my precious time. And my time is worth a lot of money. And my patience is short. Let’s get to the point. So things aren’t working in bed. (He mounts the bed and with great impunity hits it repeatedly with his billy club)

ANTONIO: Who said that?

ELEONORA: It’s true. We can’t lie to the sexologist, Antonio. They aren’t working.

ANTONIO: I am not going to argue with the police!

ELEONORA: He is a sexologist!

SEXOLOGIST: Unemployed. We do what we can. We used to persecute psychologists. Now we persecute whoever comes our way. Democracy ruined us. But we said, “Boys, we will find new jobs.” For example, now I destroy homosexuals. It’s a good job. And recently people have begun to call me…people like yourselves.

ELEONORA: I need an aspirin. My head hurts a lot. Mr. Troncoso…so you are an ex-torturer? Or something like that?

SEXOLOGIST: There is no proof. Now I have a new ID. I go where I want, as happy as can be. Don’t you see how happy I am? (He laughs) Don’t you see how free I am, in body and soul? (He strikes the air with karate kicks) I sell hard sex. I help the population to amuse themselves by exploring their own repression. I was evaluated by a psychologist that we “worked over” several decades ago.

ANTONIO: I don’t understand how this could have happened to us. During the worst of times we were innocent. No one bothered us. And now we have the paramilitary in our bed.

ELEONORA: History comes around?

SEXOLOGIST:She understands very well. Before sex was one thing, now it is another. (He opens a briefcase filled with leather articles) If you haven’t tried hard sex, you can’t talk about sex. Sex is punishment. (He gets on top of a piece of furniture and displays various articles like a traveling salesman on a bus)Sex involves the master and the slave. It involves the humiliator and the humiliated. It involves the tyrant and the subject. The king and the vassal.The macho and the terrified female. Who is the macho in this house?

ANTONIO: (He raises his hand with some enthusiasm) Me, me!!!

SEXOLOGIST: Good boy! I congratulate you. You won the battle. It is much better to be the man than to be the woman.

ANTONIO: Do you think so?

SEXOLOGIST: How can you have any doubt? The man is superior at everything. Everything else is inferior. You have to get that into your head.

ANTONIO: What good news.

SEXOLOGIST: This is the suit of the macho dominator. (He gives him an outfit exactly like his own. Antonio puts it on enthusiastically) Now things are starting to take shape.

ELEONORA: I am afraid that I made a terrible mistake. (Very afraid) The phone book was not the right place to look for a sexologist. Of course someone like you could turn up.

ANTONIO: Inferior weakling! You don’t even trust the telephone book! (Already in his character)

SEXOLOGIST: Don’t you feel better? Don’t you feel truly supreme? (He takes out chains) Madame, this is your slave outfit. It is the new way we legalize violence. Instead of exterminating you, you exterminate each other. Do you know the Marquis de Sade?

ELEONORA: I think that I saw him once at a party.

SEXOLOGIST: Then put on these chains and stop moving like a liberal woman. We can’t stand independent women.

ANTONIO: We can’ t stand the ones who eat cookies either. (Cracking his whip) We are going to crush them.

ELEONORA: I refuse.

SEXOLOGIST: Great, this is how the party begins. The slave resists. The master gives her a good whack and domesticates her. Then the slave starts to like being beaten.

ELEONORA: Nobody is going to hit me.

ANTONIO: I feel so good. This is something else. You are a true man of science. How much do I owe you sir?

SEXOLOGIST: For the outfits, 700. For the consultation, 200. For the chains 1000.

ANTONIO: See how much your chains cost me, inferior!!!

SEXOLOGIST: The suitcase with the torture devices, 900. Complete with instructions and a case, 4500.

(Antonio pays him with a check.)

ANTONIO: This makes me happy.

ELEONORA: I am going to denounce him at the tribunals!

SEXOLOGIST: If she resists, hit her harder. Don’t soften up!

ANTONIO: I am going to destroy her. (Swinging a whip) No more cookies. The nightgowns are over. (He prepares himself to punish her. She runs around the room.)

SEXOLOGIST: I leave satisfied. I can see that they are going to have a good time. This couple’s sexual problems, solved.

ANTONIO: (Shakes his hand) You are a genius, sir. Out of nothing you have made me a macho.

SEXOLOGIST: You are a fascist prodigy.

ANTONIO: (The sexologist leaves) Slave, I am going to mess you up.

ELEONORA: (With another whip in one hand and a chair in the other) Try it and I will smash you like a toad.

(A ridiculous battle begins. They look like a trainer and a lion. They fight with everything they have.)

ANTONIO: On your knees in front of the macho. Chewer of cookies.

ELEONORA: You think that this has something to do with pleasure?

ANTONIO: I paid 4,500 dollars for these erotic vestments, we have to use them.

ELEONORA: That is true, 4,500 dollars. We could have taken a trip. (She puts on a chain)

ANTONIO: And now what do you say. Come here so that I can smash you, slave. Inferior. Barbarian.

(They return to their fight with fury. She fights back. They hit each other. They fight hand to hand while the lights dim and go out.)

FOURTH ACT

When the lights come up we see Eleonora and Antonio in their bed in body casts. They are visibly beat up as a result of their sadomasochistic session. They each have a leg in a cast, suspended from the ceiling, bandaged heads, and various other parts of their bodies in splints or casts. Eleonora is visibly furious. Antonio tries to cheer her up by reading out loud from a biography of the Marquis de Sade.

ANTONIO: (He reads) “Sade was born in 1740. He had the title of Marquis and belonged to a family from the highest echelons of the French aristocracy.”

ELEONORA: My coccyx hurts.

ANTONIO: (Unchanging) “His life spanned the entire period of the French Revolution and he died the same year that Napoleon abdicated...”

ELEONORA: I think that I am going to die right now if you don’t stop reading.

ANTONIO: It is a way to get through the long tunnel that we have in front of us. In body casts. Immobile.

ELEONORA: Still, I would rather that you read about Troncoso. He is not a French Marquis, but an Argentine torturer, who has much more to do with us.

ANTONIO: He is the high priest, and we his devotees.

ELEONORA: I am appealing to whatever bit of sanity you have left. If we have to stay in this bed for a prolonged period, please abandon your ridiculous posturing.

ANTONIO: But you actively resisted.

ELEONORA: What did you expect? That I would let myself be whipped to bits?

ANTONIO: That was the deal. What do you want to talk about? The limitless arrogance with which you returned every one of the sacred blows that I gave you?

ELEONORA: Yes, I love that topic. It makes me feel better.

ANTONIO: It isn’t Troncoso who failed. It is we who have failed.

ELEONORA: (She enthusiastically agrees with this idea) Definitely!

ANTONIO: On this we agree.

ELEONORA: Completely. Now we have to think about the future.

ANTONIO: What are you referring to?

ELEONORA: To our failure. We came to this experience together, but we leave separately, Antonio. Our lives have fallen apart. Our bodies are destroyed. There is nothing left to do but to say goodbye.

ANTONIO: (He looks at her sadly) So this is the end.

ELEONORA: Twenty years of eating cookies and dreaming lushly. And making love on your mother’s birthday.

ANTONIO: Now we don’t even have that. The cookies were tasty. And the Department of Public Record, at whose floating table sat a man with white hair named Monetary Circulation…had its charm.

ELEONORA: Now it is all over.

ANTONIO: You brought Troncoso here.

ELEONORA: But you paid dollars to pose as the victorious macho.

ANTONIO: It was a beautiful outfit.

ELEONORA: Look what you did to me!

ANTONIO: You were no wallflower!

ELEONORA: I had to defend myself! (They challenge each other) It’s natural…“the survival instinct.”

ANTONIO: Natural for you to break my leg? Is this natural in a couple?

ELEONORA: You broke my left hand.

ANTONIO: I don’t want to know how many times you cracked my skull but every day I have fewer ideas.

ELEONORA: How can this go on? It’s all over. I prefer a legal separation, dignified and without any grudges. We are young and we can rebuild our lives.

ANTONIO: Will you marry again?

ELEONORA: Probably, some day…

ANTONIO: So it is really over.

(Paulina enters, with various publications in her hand, as if she had been listening through the door.)

PAULINA: (As if continuing the conversation) I think that it is a ridiculous idea for you to break up just as you are getting so famous.

ANTONIO: Famous?

PAULINA: This has made you famous. There isn’t a single newspaper that hasn’t mentioned you. (She shows them. Eleonora looks out of the corner of her eye) It was good that you told the doctors that your fractures had an erotic origin.

ANTONIO: The doctors…the police…my colleagues. I had to explain to all of them that we hadn’t had an accident…Hard sex…I told them.

PAULINA: This made you famous. Now everyone admires you. Articles and more articles in all of the magazines. You are on the cover of this one in your new cast. Below it says: “The great macho sadist.”

ELEONORA: (Enviously) And I am not in any of them?

PAULINA: You too. “The great female slave at the moment she is pulverized.” (Eleonora looks at the magazine) I have a list of twelve reporters from the top media conglomerates who want to interview you. Nobody is talking about anything else besides what is going on in the sanctuary. If we manage the business well, we could make millions.

ANTONIO: It is too late Mother. It’s too late for success. It is too late for fame. Eleonora and I were breaking up.

ELEONORA: (She reacts to this) You said it right. We “were breaking up.” The verb is conjugated in the past tense.

ANTONIO: But didn’t you say just five minutes ago…

ELEONORA: Five minutes ago I didn’t know that we were famous.

PAULINA: I don’t want to interrupt you, but it would be lovely if you would appoint me as your representative.

(Paulina leaves. Eleonora and Antonio are left alone.)

ELEONORA: (Thrilled) You are so brilliant, Antonio.

ANTONIO: A common man…Your ex-husband. (Resentful)

ELEONORA: Antonio…now I want to remain chained to you.

ANTONIO: (He looks at her) You like that they imagine…

ELEONORA: It turns me on that they think that we are having a wild orgy. No wonder they looked at me in the hospital as if I were a Profane Goddess.

ANTONIO: (Surprised) They looked at you like that?

ELEONORA: (She proudly confirms) Now I understand the adoring attitudes of the emergency room staff.

ANTONIO: Tell me about it.

ELEONORA: My darling, I adore you. You have never given me an orgasm, but you have given me so much prestige.

ANTONIO: You conceived of this giant leap. You are really a mythic goddess.

ELEONORA: But you brought it to its final conclusion.

ANTONIO: Do you know that mummy look is quite flattering on you?

ELEONORA: And do you know that your head bandage suits you marvelously well?

(They look at each other, enchanted and happy. In spite of how uncomfortable it is to do so, they kiss. Lights.)

FIFTH ACT

(The scene: the bedroom of Eleonora and Antonio, completely transformed into a temple of sadomasochism. The bed is hanging vertically, like a torture rack. Chains hang from the ceiling. On the walls are various instruments of erotic torture. They are all very bizarre and sophisticated. Outside reporters struggle to get in. But Paulina, dressed in a leather suit, oversees their access. When the lights come on, Eleonora, dressed in an Egyptian slave costume covered with golden scales, is tied to the vertical bed. Antonio is dressed in his leather equipment, and, with his whip in his hand, pretends to punish her. A photographer from a North American newspaper is taking pictures for an exclusive exposé. He is tall, blond, and is loaded down with numerous cameras. The scene is lit with special care and looks like a photographic set. There is a make-up person who draws red whip marks on Eleonora’s body. Paulina, at the door to the bedroom, argues with a journalist. Meanwhile, assuming several clearly erotic postures, Antonio and Eleonora pose for the photographer.)

PAULINA: (To the reporter who is outside) No, sir. The interview that I agreed to give your newspaper is in two hours.

OFF-STAGE REPORTER: This schedule was confirmed for me, Madame.

PAULINA: Impossible. Right now they are being photographed for a North American exclusive.

OFF-STAGE REPORTER: What does that have to do with it? I just want to write a story. I just want to ask them questions.

PAULINA: No, sir. You will distract them. Your appointment is later.

OFF-STAGE REPORTER: I am going to make sure that people know about this, Madame!

PAULINA: What are they going to know?

OFF-STAGE REPORTER: That you privilege Yankee imperialism. Our sadomasochistic newspaper is domestic and popular. Haven’t we had our own dictatorship? Argentine sadism is famous world-wide. Thirty thousand disappeared. Isn’t that a big enough number? Do you need more? (Pushing)

PAULINA: But they pay in dollars.

(The reporter tries to push his way in. Paulina pushes him back the other way. There is a chain on the door that stops the progress of the reporter. Meanwhile, both the photographer and the make-up person continue working. The make-up artist stains Eleonora’s mouth with iodine, as if it were bleeding.)

PHOTOGRAPHER: (To Eleonora in English) Please, Madame, moan!!!

ELEONORA: I don’t understand what he is saying.

PHOTOGRAPHER: Please, Madame, moan!!! Simulate more suffering!!

ELEONORA: What is he saying to me, Antonio?

ANTONIO: Mother, come here.

Paulina slams the door and comes in.

PAULINA: What do you want, sir?

PHOTOGRAPHER: I need her to contort her face.

PAULINA: (Translating) He needs you to contort your face.

PHOTOGRAPHER: I need a crazy face.

PAULINA: He needs a crazy face.

(Eleonora tries to satisfy his demands.)

PHOTOGRAPHER: I need to photograph a mangled body.

PAULINA: He needs to photograph a mangled body.

PHOTOGRAPHER: As though a big missile had exploded her innards. (Emphatic. Convincing. Demanding)

PAULINA: As though a big missile had exploded your innards (Having understood, she emphatically translates)

ELEONORA: What?

ANTONIO: (Yelling at Eleonora) As though a big missile had exploded your innards, darling!! (He assumes the expression and pose of a torturer)

PHOTOGRAPHER: (To Eleonora) I want her to pretend to be a victim of a giant, sexual war machine which spouts deadly semen.

PAULINA: Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?

ELEONORA: What does he want now?

PAULINA: He needs you to pretend to be a victim of a giant, sexual war machine which spouts deadly semen.

ELEONORA: Tell him I am going to try.

PAULINA: (To the photographer) She will try.

PHOTOGRAPHER: Excellent!!!

(Eleonora tries to pose under the pressure of these demands. She contorts herself. She writhes. Antonio, who is directed by the photographer, complements her by assuming the ridiculous postures of a torturer. The photographer takes a few shots like this. Banging at the door.)

OFF-STAGE PHOTOGRAPHER: For a politics of national sadomasochism!! In defense of patriotic sadomasochism!! (He bangs on the door) For the opening of new tabloid press markets!!! For pornography that represents us!!! Open this door!!!

ANTONIO: Isn’t there any way to get rid of that guy?

PAULINA: We can’t fall out with the local tabloids. We have to cover all of the fronts. The national and the international.

ANTONIO: But must we have the national front there at the door bursting our eardrums?

PAULINA: He will tire himself out eventually.

PHOTOGRAPHER: (To Paulina) Give me delirious eyes. Let’s see her nails torn off, her breasts ripped away, and her sex corrupted by metallic sounds. (Mystically possessed by his own images)

PAULINA: (Translation for Eleonora) He wants delirious eyes. He wants to see your nails torn off, you breasts ripped away, and your sex corrupted by metallic sounds. (Impassioned)

ANTONIO: And how are we going to manage that? (Desperate)

ELEONORA: I can make my eyes delirious, but I am not going to rip off my nails!

PAULINA: With as much as they pay us, we can buy you nails made of gold!!! Look at the contract. (Business-like) But we can’t waste time. There are too many interviewers waiting.

PHOTOGRAPHER: (Excited) I’ve come all the way to this unknown and undiscovered land and paid hard cash for some authentic South American suffering!!!

PAULINA: He says that he’s come all the way to this unknown and undiscovered land and paid hard cash for some authentic South American suffering!!!

PHOTOGRAPHER: Please, I am asking you to give me authentic South American suffering!!!

ELEONORA: (She screams) Ahhhhhhhhh. Is this authentic and South American enough for you?

PHOTOGRAPHER: More, Madame, more!!! (The photographer takes more photos. She contorts herself. Antonio pretends to punish her. The photographer is finally satisfied. To create ambience he puts on war-like music. The sounds of machine guns) Okay, here we have the victim of a huge sexual war machine. (He advances as if his camera were a war machine. He makes war sounds) Violence!! Death!! Blood!!

PAULINA: (Translating) Violence, Death, Blood!!!

(The make-up artist covers Eleanora with iodine. The photographer enthusiastically laughs, and with fervor, photographs the simulated scene of flagellation.)

PHOTOGRAPHER: (Facing Antonio) I need more sadism, man, I need to photograph a cruel and bloody scene.

PAULINA: More sadism, man. He needs to photograph a cruel and bloody scene.

PHOTOGRAPHER: I need to capture Satan’s face as he smashes towns and nations and people and animals and plants.

PAULINA: He needs to capture Satan’s face as he smashes towns and nations and people and animals and plants.

ANTONIO: I don’t know how to do all of that.

(The photographer exaggerates the poses of Antonio. He sticks him in sadistic positions. He mounts him on top of a piece of furniture and puts a whip in his mouth which drips a red liquid. He asks for more noise to create atmosphere. Missiles and bombs explode. Afterwards he takes copious pictures with the active collaboration of the make-up artist.)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Ah, finally, some good sadism. (He laughs)

PAULINA: Ah, finally, some good sadism (She laughs)

PHOTOGRAPHER: From South American to the rest of the world!!

PAULINA: From South American to the rest of the world!!

PHOTOGRAPHER: I love your brutality. It is totally absurd and primal!!!

PAULINA: I love your brutality. It is totally absurd and primal!!! (Antonio beams with pride.)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Now pretend to copulate with your despised slaved.

PAULINA: Now pretend to copulate with your despised slave.

ANTONIO: Is that also in the contract?

PHOTOGRAPHER: Silence!! Shut-up!! (Ferocious) I need you to fake brutality. I bought fake brutality.

PAULINA: Silence!! Shut-up!! I need you to fake brutality. I bought fake brutality.

ELEONORA: He is absolutely right. He bought sacrilegious copulation. He wants you to pretend to stick barbed wire into my brutalized vagina. He wants to export a simulacrum of a fake sex scene between a South American sadist and an Egyptian slave born in Buenos Aires. He has traveled from afar for a close-up of a savage act of primitive humiliation between a macho, armed to the teeth with torturous chains, and a female reduced to the emptiness of fake pleasure, which is what we sell in this temple. Hit me with everything you’ve got, Antonio. But don’t touch me. (Mystical. Devoted)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Yes, yes, yes…That’s what I paid for.

PAULINA: Yes, yes, yes…That’s what I paid for.

ELEONORA: He needs to take back a suitcase full of terrifying images of humiliation, so that the truck drivers of New York city can masturbate with his magazines. (Happy to interpret for the photographer)

PHOTOGRAPHER: That’s it. (He is enchanted by the understanding and malleability of Antonio and Eleonora)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Okay, that’s enough for me.

PAULINA: (Untying Eleonora) He is finished.

(Eleonora falls on top of Paulina.)

ELEONORA: Finished. Yes, finished.

(The lights fade and go out with this image.)

SIXTH ACT

Sadomasochistic posters of Eleanora and Antonio are projected on to the far wall. They have a strong visual impact and appear very produced and generic. A few months have gone by. Antonio and Eleonora lay in bed, alone. He is in his underwear, she is eating cookies.

ELEONORA: Darling…couldn’t we?

ANTONIO: You and me?

ELEONORA: Today is your mother’s birthday and we are missing it.

ANTONIO: Noooooo!!!

ELEONORA: It’s time for our yearly love-fest.

ANTONIO: (Unmoving) Insatiable Eleonora…

ELEONORA: I miss our day of love…there was only one, but it was something.

ANTONIO: When one rises to a new position in life, one always has to give up something. Happiness, my love, has its price.

ELEONORA: Is this happiness? (She anxiously eats cookies at top speed)

ANTONIO: Of course…this is happiness. Touch it, feel it, live it…(He gets dressed to make it clear that nothing sexual is going to happen between them. He puts on party clothes. Formal attire)

ELEONORA: (They touch) We are so happy. (She cries)

ANTONIO: (He cries) Crying out of happiness.

(They cry together.)

ELEONORA: Me too, I am crying out of happiness. (She puts on make-up and gets all dolled up)

ANTONIO: Don’t tell anyone that happiness makes us cry so much.

ELEONORA: Don’t worry…It is such an intimate happiness. (They cry together.)

ANTONIO: It is such a perfect happiness.

ELEONORA: So happy.

(Someone knocks at the door. Antonio and Eleonora wipe away their tears and in unison draw shiny exaggerated smiles on their faces. Eleonora opens the door. It is Paulina. She comes in wearing a leather outfit, whips, and boots. Very flamboyant.)

PAULINA: Am I interrupting something...? Since it is my birthday…I thought that…

ELEONORA AND ANTONIO: Happy Birthday! (They hug her.)

PAULINA: I know that today is the day…that I shouldn’t bother you.

ELEONORA: Now we don’t have any day…(They both give her forced smiles)

PAULINA: I am so happy to hear that, darling…so you no longer…?

ANTONIO: We are completely cured.

ELEONORA: We don’t have our day anymore.

PAULINA: What lovely news…you have 365 days a year to dedicate yourselves to the demands of the free market...!!!!

ANTONIO: Free!!!!! We are free. Now we don’t have any sexual problems because we don’t have sex.

PAULINA: This can’t leave these four walls…it would be terribly damaging. I have brilliantly directed you careers…So…nobody has heard this confession…not even me…You are a model of happiness…for the entire society.

ANTONIO: Don’t worry…no one will ever know.

ELEONORA: We were just talking about that…how happy we are.

PAULINA: We are the happiest beings on earth. (They hug.)

ANTONIO: We did everything so well…I am so proud of the three of us.

ELEONORA: I never believed that we would have such a happy ending.

ANTONIO: So…so happy…

ALL THREE: (They cry) So…so happy! (They stop crying. They laugh.)

PAULINA: This is the best birthday of my life.

ELEONORA: You are so sensitive Paulina…thank you for helping us to achieve such happiness.

PAULINA: I am happy when you are.

ANTONIO AND ELEONORA: Just as we imagined.

(The three of them raise a toast with champagne. The lights go down.)

THE END

Comment on this page