Second Bedroom Script
File = 2BR.html
Last update = September 11, 1996
Time = 1430
(Carmen and Eduardo enter the second bedroom.)
CARMEN
Eduardo, try to relax. I thought you were going to
trust me on this.
EDUARDO
I am not good at so much waiting.
CARMEN
Eduardo, how would you like something to do with that
bottled-up energy of yours?
EDUARDO
You have another plan?
CARMEN
Something I've been thinking about but reluctant to bring
up because I hate it when people ask me to get involved
in their personal affairs.
EDUARDO
You want me involved in your personal affairs? I'll do it!
CARMEN
I want you to do something for me. My daughter, Ana, is
acting very peculiar lately. I think she may be smitten
by Juan. You wouldn't happen to know if he is interested
in her, would you?
EDUARDO
Juan wants Guillermina.
CARMEN
Everybody wants Guillermina.
EDUARDO
But no one wants her as much as I do. No one will prove his
love like I will!
CARMEN
You were born in the wrong age. You should've been a knight
in the age of chivalry.
EDUARDO
You know about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
CARMEN
You read about such things here? I thought you'd be reading
about knights chasing windmills.
EDUARDO
I've studied all about King Arthur and the Roundtable. The
Green Knight is my favorite. Yes, I think my soul is in
the age of chivalry. You are very perceptive to see this.
[1530]
CARMEN
Yes, I am. So Juan is not interested in Ana?
EDUARDO
For a night, Juan would be interested in any woman. But
his passion is not your daughter.
CARMEN
Of course, just because he isn't interested in her doesn't
mean that she isn't interested in him. Ever since high
school she's taken a liking to boys far beneath her. And then
when she went to Art School in the United States, she started
hanging around with political radicals. Sending
her there was a huge mistake. I think she gets a thrill by
hanging around with the underclass.
EDUARDO
Juan is underclass?
CARMEN
All things are relative, Eduardo. A gallery owner who goes
bankrupt - yes, this is the underclass.
EDUARDO
I am underclass?
CARMEN
You are an artist. Class doesn't matter.
EDUARDO
Then maybe your daughter is interested in me.
CARMEN
Nothing personal, but from my perspective that isn't any
better. I have nightmares about her marrying beneath
herself.
EDUARDO
What is important, is to marry for love.
CARMEN
You silly boy. What is important is to marry for position.
EDUARDO
No, I refuse to believe this.
CARMEN
And that's why you and I have so little in common, Eduardo.
Except a common desire to show a pompous critic for the
bag of wind he really is.
EDUARDO
You are pained to think of your daughter with Juan? It is
painful for me to think of Guillermina with Francisco.
CARMEN
Not so much pain as embarrassment.
EDUARDO
You would be humiliated?
CARMEN
That's too strong. Hugely disappointed. I thought I had
raised her better. Of course, who knows what the nuns put
into her head. And after that, the gringos. For a while
she became a fashionable leftist. Thank God that phase
is over with!
EDUARDO
I think the heart doesn't listen to arguments like yours.
CARMEN
To its peril, Eduardo. To its peril.
(Juan enters.)
[1630]
JUAN
I was afraid you'd left.
CARMEN
Eduardo has been showing me around the house. It has
a quaint charm, don't you think?
JUAN
How would you like all the paintings I have left? You
offer me a fair price, and they are yours.
CARMEN
And what's a fair price?
JUAN
You are an honest woman. A bargain - but a fair one.
CARMEN
What would I do with them all? I see only one I might
possibly buy.
JUAN
You don't have to like something for it to be an excellent
investment.
CARMEN
Now you're speaking my language. Why are you in such a
hurry to get rid of them?
JUAN
I have to be out of here tomorrow morning.
CARMEN
Aren't the artists taking them back?
JUAN
So many of the artists have vanished. I can't reach them.
CARMEN
The perfect biography of your clients, Juan. Artists who
disappear.
JUAN
Most are poor students, struggling to make ends meet. This
doesn't mean they don't have talent. They were thrilled when
I offered to show them. Some of the paintings
here will be by artists who go on to be famous. They will
become very rare and valuable.
CARMEN
And most won't be worth storage space in the garage.
JUAN
It is a gamble, yes. But investing is like gambling.
(Ana enters. If she is early to this scene, she
overhears from the hallway.)
[1700]
ANA
Mother, what an opportunity.
JUAN
I have no choice. You are in the right place at the right
time, madam.
CARMEN
I'll take them for [amount of money]
JUAN
I said a fair price.
CARMEN
I'm interested in a bargain. [same amount]
(There's a pause.)
JUAN
[a price slightly higher]
CARMEN
[a price slightly lower]
JUAN
You drive a hard bargain.
CARMEN
That's why I own three homes and you are going bankrupt.
My offer will be removed in thirty seconds. One, two,
three, four-- . . .
JUAN
It's a deal. They're yours.
CARMEN
Excellent. Ana, I'll leave it to you to make the arrangements
for shipping them to Spain.
EDUARDO
How can you buy so much for so little? Don't you have a
conscience?
CARMEN
The conscience is a relic of the imagination, like Santa Claus
and counting angels on the heads of pins.
JUAN
Shall we go below and sign the papers?
CARMEN
Certainly. Eduardo, keep Ana company, will you?
(Juan and Carmen go downstairs).
[1800]
(Ana calls after her mother, not wanting to be alone with Eduardo:)
ANA
Mother . . .!
EDUARDO
You are afraid of me.
ANA
Of course I'm afraid of you. You're unpredictable.
EDUARDO
I will not hurt you.
ANA
I don't expect to wait around to find out. So if you'll
excuse me . . .
(But Eduardo blocks her way.)
EDUARDO
You are insulting me.
ANA
No - I'm merely leaving. I have a lot of work to do to
arrange for getting the paintings shipped to Spain.
EDUARDO
Your mother is a snob.
ANA
Well, you certainly show a lot of gratitude. She's the only
one here who isn't treating you like a madman.
EDUARDO
She thinks she is helping me. All she is doing is making
me anxious and upset. I hate waiting. I am a man of action.
ANA
And I am a woman of action - so if you'll excuse me.
EDUARDO
Your mother is worried about you. She told me.
ANA
How do you mean?
EDUARDO
She thinks you are in love with Juan. She thinks you are
attracted to men who are beneath you.
ANA
Well, she's entitled to her opinion.
EDUARDO
Is she right?
ANA
That's none of your business.
EDUARDO
Are you attracted to me?
ANA
To you?
(She laughs.)
EDUARDO
You think I'm not worthy of you?
ANA
I think you are, well - let me put it this way: I think
your opinions and words come streaming out before your mind
realizes what you are saying. You're impulsive, that's
the word.
EDUARDO
You think I don't know about what you are up to.
ANA
What do you mean?
EDUARDO
About the arrangement you have with Juan. You both think
I am stupid, but I've been seeing what is going on. It is
very clever, what you do.
ANA
And what do we do?
EDUARDO
Such clever business the police would like to know about.
ANA
Eduardo, I have no idea what you are talking about.
EDUARDO
Then you shouldn't mind if I tell the police.
ANA
I don't like false accusations being charged against
me, if that's what you mean. Now just what is it that
you think I'm up to?
EDUARDO
Juan and I go way back.
ANA
What does that have to do with anything?
(Eduardo smiles. Then he begins to sing the Violeta Parra song:)
EDUARDO
"Because the poor don't have
anywhere to turn their eyes,
they turn them to the skies
with infinite hope
of finding what their worldly brother
has stolen from them ..."
You recognize it?
(Ana doesn't reply.)
EDUARDO
Violeta Parra.
ANA
What are you trying to tell me?
[1930]
EDUARDO
I know of your interest - your passionate interest -
in Violeta Parra. It was 1967, wasn't it, when she
killed herself? Everybody has always thought it was
because she was going broke, and because her lover
had jilted her. I can understand that kind of
despair, believe me.
But what if that's not what happened? What if
Violeta Parra was murdered?
ANA
I don't know what you think you're up to, Eduardo.
EDUARDO
Interesting year, 1967. Already, despite a new
president, there were cries for change. Allende was
gaining support, and of course this is just the kind
of candidate, a socialist, a man who talked of social
justice, that Violeta Parra could support, that she
could sing about.
Music had become very political. This was before our
time, Ana, but I'm sure you've studied about the sixties
in school. In the United States, Bob Dylan was popular.
He was the spiritual grandson of Violeta Parra, did you
know that? She was the grandmother of the entire protest
song movement. That's what made her so dangerous.
ANA
Get to the point.
EDUARDO
Who fears socialism more than anyone? The United States.
The corporate state. Look what Castro did to the gringo's
business interests in Cuba. Would Allende do the same
thing here? Would he nationalize the mines and drive out
the gringos? That troubled the U.S. long before Allende
was elected - they wanted to stop him before he even got
started. They wanted to stop anyone who might fuel interest
in socialism, in any kind of world view of social justice.
Social justice has never been good for business.
ANA
That's a ridiculous theory.
EDUARDO
But I haven't told you the most important part yet.
ANA
I'm listening.
EDUARDO
We know the CIA was involved in over-throwing Allende.
ANA
Not everyone thinks so.
EDUARDO
Don't be naive. But the CIA was watching what happened here
long before that. And they especially were watching Violeta
Parra.
ANA
Are you implying that . . .?
EDUARDO
They murdered her.
ANA
That's laughable.
[2100]
EDUARDO
And you and Juan think you can prove they murdered her.
ANA
Eduardo, you should have been an author - of fantasy!
What you are saying is beyond comment, it's so far-fetched
and ridiculous.
(Carmen enters.)
CARMEN
Show time, Eduardo. May I borrow him, dear?
ANA
Certainly.
CARMEN
Are you ready?
EDUARDO
I'm not sure what is going on.
CARMEN
Francisco has stopped playing dead. If you want to tell
him what you think of him, now's the time.
EDUARDO
I will show him, not tell him, what I think!
(He turns to Ana) Don't go away - we have more to talk about . . .
(He hurries out.)
CARMEN
Eduardo! That's not what I meant . . . Come on, dear.
(Carmen quickly follows Eduardo.)
(Ana moves to the master bedroom.)
End of Second Bedroom script