SCENE IV : Time 1929
MUSIC
(DIEGO enters. He is carrying a big tray of food. He puts the tray on the table and goes out. A moment later he returns with more food. He brings wine glasses and wine. He arranges the food and sets the table. FRIDA enters. She is wearing a bridal dress.)
DIEGO: Let's eat. It's been a long exhausting day. You must be very tired.
FRIDA: Why can't the couple that's getting married also be sitting down, when everyone else is?
DIEGO: And how would you rather have it?
FRIDA: Why couldn't the couple be sitting down?
DIEGO: Why not lying down? After all that's the purpose…
FRIDA: Now, you're catching my drift. (pause) Standing around is hard for me. My neck hurts, my back hurts. Pain. I'm used to pain. As far as I can remember, life has been painful. All one can do is to find new hurt to forget the old pain.
DIEGO: I was looking at some of your work and I see the woman you paint again and again, she is in pain. Very surrealistic.
FRIDA: You also think I'm a Surrealist. Everybody else thinks so too. But I'm not. I don't paint dreams; I paint my own reality.
DIEGO: I'm going to make you very happy. Always. With my love, I'm going to make you forget your pain.
FRIDA: Good, Diego. I started to drink to drown my pain, but the damned thing learned how to swim. (tasting the food and nodding her head in approval) For a cook, you're not a bad painter.
DIEGO: I'm glad you like it.
FRIDA: Diego, this is our wedding night. You were gone for three hours! Where have you been? Playing cards? Drinking with the boys?
DIEGO: I went upstairs.
FRIDA: What's upstairs?
DIEGO: My ex-wife, Lupe Marin, lives there with my children. One of the children is running a fever.
FRIDA: You went to your ex-wife on our wedding night? What kind of an animal are you?
DIEGO: My child is sick. What did you want me to do? Abandon my family?
FRIDA: I am your family!
DIEGO: So is she … the mother of my children. She's going to treat you like family. Lupe has sent the food. She prepared it for us. For you.
FRIDA: This is an outrage and an insult.
DIEGO: She said she'll teach you to prepare the soup the way I like it.
FRIDA: I want to go home. Take me back to my mother's house. I can't live like this.
DIEGO: Okay, tomorrow morning, I'll take you to your mother's house. (begins to eat) Eat now, get some rest. We'll do whatever you want to do in the morning. Eat!
FRIDA: I will not eat this poison. What is this? Cilantro? Hope it kills you.
DIEGO: Look at me! (pointing to his big stomach) Look what this food has done to me. Does it look like it's killing me?
FRIDA: You really like this?
DIEGO: I love it.
LUPE MARIN (off stage): If you wanna keep him you better learn to cook with cilantro. I'll teach you.
(FRIDA gets up and goes off stage.)
DIEGO: She learned to make the menudo. They became good friends. Sometimes they even plotted against me. My ex-wife would cover all the pots in the kitchen and not cook anything. Frida would lock me out of the bedroom. That's how you suffer when you love too many people. I loved them both. Do you think it's impossible to love more than one person? If you have a big heart, a generous heart, yes, you can. You pay the price, but you can. And if you love two people, can you turn your back on one of them? Frida understood it. She accepted it. I accepted it too when she had affairs with other people. Sometimes I got mad, but I loved her too much to stay angry for long. We were born for each other.
(Tango Music erupts. FRIDA and LUPE enter. They dance a passionate dance and exit.)