SCENE II: Time - 1944
MUSIC
When lights come back on, DIEGO is sitting in the chair. He touches the dead flowers in the vase. Bottles of medicine and the fruit basket are no longer on the table.
DIEGO: I brought these to her. The last thing she said to me was …
(FRIDA enters. She is wearing her hair short. She’s dressed in a two-piece suit – pants and a jacket. She looks weak but angry)
FRIDA: You fat pig! You have the balls to bring me flowers! Take them back to your bitch, your Cristina.
DIEGO: She’s your little sister!
FRIDA: For me, she’s dead. She’s your little whore. How dare you come to see me? You think I’ll take you back because of these flowers?
DIEGO: You paint flowers all the time…
FRIDA: I paint flowers so they will not die.
DIEGO: Believe me, my Paloma, she meant nothing. She was just a fuck, it meant nothing. (pause) I put more emotions in a handshake.
FRIDA: (throwing the flowers at him - one at a time) How dare you speak to me that way about my sister! How could you do it?
DIEGO: I couldn’t have you. She was the closest thing to you. Don’t you see? I was longing for you.
FRIDA: You’re a pig. All men are pigs. Only difference is some are little pigs, some are big pigs, like you, a big fat pig!
DIEGO: You didn’t mind sleeping with me when I was married to Lupe Marin.
FRIDA: You were not married to my sister. And I was in love with you.
DIEGO: What’s the difference? Love justifies your actions, not mine?
FRIDA: Yes! You men never understand anything. Yes, I made love with you because I loved you. Did you make love to my sister because you loved her? No. Because if you do, marry her. You have my blessings. Do you love her? Do you?
DIEGO: No, but I like her. She reminds me of you.
FRIDA: Then you should have come back to me. We are living next door to one another.
DIEGO: We are not living together. We are separated again.
FRIDA: There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the bus, the other was you. Diego, you were by far the worst.
DIEGO: That hurts.
FRIDA: You don't know what hurt is… Why did I marry you in the first place? I must have been blind. What did I see in you?
DIEGO: Do you want me to show you to refresh your memory? (gesturing towards the wall) Or shall I make you a painting?
FRIDA: (throwing a small handkerchief at him) Don’t flatter yourself. Here, paint your picture in this.
DIEGO: (no longer angry) You kill me.
FRIDA: (laughing out loud) I wish I could say the same about you. But the doctors are killing me. Are we going to work or are we going to waste time talking about meaningless … fucks?
DIEGO: Work, work, work. Yes, work. Would you like some wine?
FRIDA: Wine does not mix with pain and work. Give me some cognac.
DIEGO: Brandy. A taste you acquired in Paris … from Josephine Baker.
FRIDA: No, brandy, I liked before I met her. From her I acquired a rather new taste. New for me, not so new for you.
DIEGO: (offering her a drink) I did not mind your encounters with Josephine Baker and her other girlfriends.
FRIDA: For that you can kiss me … on this side of the face. If you remember, this skin was removed from my ass.
DIEGO: I loved kissing it when it was there, I love kissing it when it's here. (kisses her) What do the two doctors from East Europe say?
FRIDA: They say it’s going to take time. Which means it’s going to cost a lot of money. I thought communism was about human dignity and not about money. Not so.
DIEGO: I told you so. A week after I met Trotsky, I knew they were all phony. Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, all of them, turning around Karl Marx's words to their political advantage.
FRIDA: You thought Trotsky was the messiah. He walked on water. He could perform miracles.
DIEGO: I think he was your revenge fuck. Don’t talk about him and his philosophy. It was all bogus.
FRIDA: His miracle was not phony or bogus.
DIEGO: I don’t want to talk about it. (pause) Don't ever talk about him or about your Japanese architect friend, Isamu Noguchi.
FRIDA: You're forgetting Heinz Berggruen, your personal secretary.
DIEGO: No, I have not forgotten him. But I have the good taste to not bring him up. This is one thing I cannot forgive.
FRIDA: You cannot forgive! Who’s asking for your forgiveness? I was attracted to Trotsky's ideas, his words. And his wife seemed clueless. He was an oddity.
DIEGO: I don’t want to discuss it. One marvels at oddities, one stares at oddities. One does not go to bed with oddities.
FRIDA: (smiling) It meant nothing. It was just a fuck. Okay, more than once, but still it meant nothing. (pause) It was like a firm handshake.
DIEGO: More than once and it meant nothing? Want do you think I am? A fool?
FRIDA: What do you think I have been … all my life? A fool? What did my sister mean to you? It was more than once, no? Did she mean nothing? What about you and me before we were married? Nothing? And what about that little girl you used to screw in your studio when I first saw you? Nothing? It seems that all your life amounts to a series of big fat NOTHINGS . (She storms out of the room.)
Lights go down.