17 "TropicAna" by Diana Montané (c) 1996 CAST OF CHARACTERS ANA MENDIETA: A Cuban-American sculptor. She is 36 years old. Tiny and olive-skinned, and with enormous dark eyes, her rich deep voice seems disproportionate to her size. Possessed by her work, her drive, and a capacity for seizing up people and situations, she can push those around her to the limit, and does. CARL ANDRE: A minimalist sculptor married to Ana. He is heavy-set and turning 50. Always deliberate and calculated, he measures each phrase before he says it, unless provoked by Ana. He always wears overalls. ACTRESS: She will play Natalia Delgado, Marsha Pels, Raquel Mendieta, and Elizabeth Lederer. Natalia is a Cuban-American attorney, and Ana's best friend. Soft- spoken and amiable; she's also acutely aware of Ana's predicaments and moods. Marsha is a New York sculptor; articulate, hyper-sensitive, and most receptive to Ana's work. Raquel is Ana's sister, three years older, with a slight Cuban accent and a lot of memories. Liz is New York's Assistant District Attorney in charge of the case. She is 34, Boston-born and bred, and a classy, laser-sharp investigator with a finishing-school look. ACTOR: He will play Detective Finelli, an artist at a gallery, a psychic, Marsha's boyfriend, and defense attorney Jack Hoffinger. Detective Finelli was the first investigator assigned to the case. He is a hardened New York detective, thoroughly unfamiliar with artists. Jack Hoffinger is the president of the New York Bar Association. He is silver-haired, persuasive, charming, and relentless. DANCER: The spirit of Yemayá, the Afro Cuban goddess of the waters. ACT I Scene One (The sound of a woman screaming, five times, "No, no, no, no, no!" and then the sound of an explosion. The song "Ha muerto el canario" plays in the dark as the lights fade in on a silhouette of a woman outlined in chalk on the ground. The song fades and Afro-Cuban drums begin to play through which the sound of dialing a telephone is heard. After the three numbers, a man's voice) CARL: (Voiceover) My wife is an artist... and...I'm an artist too. And we had an argument about the fact that...I'm more famous than she is. And she went into the bedroom...and I went after her...and she went out the window. (The lights go on in Carls' apartment. Detective Finelli appears) FINELLI: How do you know she went out the window? CARL: When I went to look for her, she wasn't there. FINELLI: Did it occur to you to look for her anywhere else? CARL: No. FINELLI: What did you think happened to her, Mr. Andre? Did you think she took a pill and disappeared? CARL: No. FINELLI: Then what did you think happened to her? CARL: I don't know. I just had a feeling she went out the window. That's all. FINELLI: What made you think that? CARL: She had indicated to me that she was depressed because she had reached a...an impasse in her work. FINELLI: Is that a reason to throw yourself out of a... what is this, a thirtieth floor? CARL: Thirty four. Thirty-six is a perfect number. FINELLI: Huh? CARL: Nothing. I am trying to remember. FINELLI: Do you mind accompanying me to the station? CARL: No. Scene Two (An art gallery... A man and a woman are milling around, together and apart) MAN: What I like is the passion behind them. I think it's the union of a significant idea with someone who truly feels it. WOMAN: It's also an implacable investigation of nature. She wants her works to be destroyed by the elements, you know... (Ana enters from one side, Carl from another. They mingle and talk to no one in particular. Eventually to each other) ANA: My work is grounded in the belief in one universal energy which runs through everything...from insect to man, from man to specter, from specter to plant, from plant to galaxy... CARL: My works are not the embodiments of ideas or conceptions. My works are, in the words of William Blake, the lineaments of gratified desire. ANA: My works are the irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that animate the world. CARL: I am Carl Andre. The Andre has no accent. ANA: And I am Ana Mendieta. CARL: Hello, Ana. ANA: Ah-na, not Aaa-nah. MAN: Well, every new idea is bound to be repeated, or destroyed. And if someone wants to do that, and then keep it in pictures, then that's another idea. WOMAN: Then you need to destroy the picture, do you not? CARL: And you want to work just with the earth? ANA: Oh, but I love cameras, too! And I love the lab work, and the process of taking pictures and developing the film. CARL: Yes, film is fine. It's ephemeral. So are we. ANA: That's why I want to be destroyed! Could you do that? CARL: Do what? ANA: Destroy your work? CARL: Oh, but I do it all the time. The work that I do only remains for people to walk over. ANA: You can't walk over my siluetas. I've made them in sacred places, so nobody can have access to them except time and the elements. So if they happen to get destroyed, I get destroyed too. MAN: Oh, my dear, she's going to be a hit with the critics. WOMAN: Darling, I am one of them, and I'm prepared to tell you Ana Mendieta will go down as the most important artist of her generation. CARL: Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to an extraordinary Latin American Artist. ANA: Cuban. CARL: A Cuban artist. ANA: A woman. CARL: A woman artist. ANA: An artist. (Ana goes upstage and begins to tape a white backdrop to the wall. She goes off to get a bucket of blood as Carl goes on. Afro-Cuban plays as Ana dips her hands to her elbows in the bucket, and makes traces on the wall) CARL: You see? The ways of love were sometimes my revenge when she stood naked by the window... I'm joking. That is a poem I wrote when I was nineteen. By then the rocks at Stonehenge had been branded in my brain. Ana Mendieta signifies, with her work, everything that is wrong with America today. Earth art, body-art, out-of-the-gallery-art in search of a site is testifying to the inevitable...Not only that we are perishable, but consumable. That anything we make is headed for destruction. Ladies and gentlemen...may I present to you Ana Mendieta, and my subsequent love-affair with her, our marriage, and her death. Contained within our small universe were all the elements of a perfect tragedy. Ana's fatal flaw, as you will see, rests as much in her words as in the meaning and definition and purpose of her art. The minimalist movement, of which I am a part, is based on orderly constructions. Everything in this world, even love, must follow a mathematical progression towards a logical conclusion. (There is applause as Ana walks towards Carl with her hands covered in blood and touches his face seductively, making red traces across it) CARL: (To the audience again) You see? Where she stood naked by the window waiting to be struck somewhere where her white breasts turned red. MAN: Yes, I see, Mr. Andre. That's how you got those scratches. (Carl and Ana continue their talk and eventually leave) WOMAN: You know he killed her, of course. MAN: How? WOMAN: He threw her out the window of his apartment. It was a thirty fourth floor, so she travelled at a speed of a hundred and twenty miles an hour in four seconds flat. MAN: And she was flattened on the pavement just like one of those. WOMAN: Just like one of those. MAN: What a performance piece! WOMAN: Oh, for God's sake! Sometimes I really hate Soho. Scene Three (Ana and Natalia Delgado walk into the apartment) ANA: I hate that damn elevator! But that was fun, wasn't it? NATALIA: Of course! I never ate so much junk in my life! ANA: What, the poo-poo platters? You can only get the real thing in Chinatown. I bet there are no Cuban restaurants in Chicago, either. NATALIA: That's not true, Ani. And we didn't go to a Cuban restaurant. ANA: Oh, I know! I'm just saying. We have everything here. We have the Sabor just down the street. You don't have to live in Chicago. NATALIA: You don't have to live here. ANA: You really mean here with Carl. NATALIA: I wasn't saying that, but yes, as a matter of fact. I don't know what you see in him. ANA: Ah well, you wouldn't understand. I'm getting some wine. (She goes off. Natalia goes to the window.) NATALIA: Ani, I'm sorry. ANA: (Comes back in with the bottle and two glasses and sets them on a table) This is a celebration! NATALIA: What of? ANA: Tell you in a second. Sit down first. NATALIA: What a breathtaking view! Come over here with me. ANA: No! NATALIA: Ani, is something wrong? ANA: Natalie, I want to tell you something. NATALIA: Okay, but this is pefect. (She walks towards Ana and starts to take her towards the balcony) You have to see it! ANA: NO! NATALIA: Good grief! What is wrong with you? ANA: I can't do that! I can't go near that balcony! NATALIA: Why not? ANA: (A pause as they look at each other) I'm an acrophobic. NATALIA: Oh. Oh geez. I'm sorry Ani. I didn't know. ANA: I have such a fear of falling from a high place. NATALIA: Now don't be silly, there's nothing to be afraid of here. ANA: I'm sorry I shouted at you. I'm enjoying your visit so much! I never have any friends over, you know. NATALIA: That's okay, Ani, let's sit down. ANA: I wanted to celebrate with you. I got this specially for the occasion. NATALIA: Great! We'll celebrate! What are we celebrating? ANA: Natalia... I'm flying to Rome! I'm scared to death but what the hell! NATALIA: What? Why are you scared? What is happening? ANA: (Pulling out a letter) Look! I won the Prix de Rome! It gives me a studio for a year in a city where the greatest sculpture of the world is all around you, like spaghetti! NATALIA: (Reading) Oh, Ani, this is wonderful! I'm so happy for you! Are you that good? ANA: Somebody thinks I am! Do you think I am? NATALIA: Well, I think you are, but I didn't know. You know attorneys are dense. Well, Felicidades, chica! What does Carl think? ANA: Oh, fuck him! NATALIA: Precisely. This will be a great opportunity to see if you miss him, don't you think? Or see if he misses you? ANA: Oh, you mean that woman. NATALIA: Yes. ANA: That's okay. I've been keeping tabs. NATALIA: What do you mean? ANA: Records of phone-calls and credit-cards and post-cards and stuff. NATALIA: Why don't you just confront him? And break it clean before you go? ANA: Oh, that's going to happen anyway. He's going to hate the fact that I won, and that I'm going. NATALIA: My God, I've got to get to the airport! ANA: Oh, right! Oh, Jesus, your flight! Oh, I hate to see you go! Can't you stay just one more day? All right, all right, I'll drive you. We can talk some more on the way. Scene Four CARL: (Enters. He's been drinking.) What do you want? I told you all I know. All I remember. What I said, I said. Ani! Ani? I got held up at... getting held up. Ha-ha! Why are you holding me here? Did you go out the window? Did you take a pill and vanish? Damn, that's funny! That Dago detective doesn't know I know when you're depressed. I know when you're depressed. Ani! Come out! (Ana enters from inside the house) ANA: Carl, I took Natalia to the airport. I told you she was here. CARL: Oh, right. Did she badmouth me to you again? ANA: Where have you been? CARL: Your Cuban friends. They do that. Did she? ANA: No, Carl. Listen. She had nothing to do with this. CARL: With this? What? What's this? ANA: I won the Prix de Rome. CARL: Oh, that's great. It'll look great on your resumé. What did they say when you turned them down? ANA: They didn't. Because I didn't. CARL: You took it? ANA: Of course I took it! CARL: What about us? ANA: What about us? CARL: I thought that we were going to try again. I don't see how we can try anything together in absentia. ANA: En ausencia? In whose goddamn ausencia? You're the one who spends hours playing chess with your ex-wife! Who are the pawns, I wonder! And who's the wooden knight? You're a walking talking eternal ausencia! CARL: And I think you're becoming too obsessed with your own presence. The everlasting "silueta" in the shadow of the great man. ANA: Where do you see that? From where I sit I see nothing but white elephants and gray dinosaurs! CARL: Stop it. ANA: I am going to Rome! You're not going anywhere! CARL: Stop it! ANA: And then I'm going to Cuba! And you're not getting any younger! CARL: Stop it! ANA: Minimalism is over! The old macho Anglosaxon boys' club is DEAD! CARL: Stop it, stop it, stop it! Scene Five (Ana and sculptor Marsha Pels are in a open space, walking towards the top of a cliff) ANA: No, no, no, no, no! MARSHA: But my photographer's house is on top of that cliff! I told you that. I thought you wanted to come to Greece with me! ANA: I did! It's not that. MARSHA: Then what? You're shaking! ANA: Well, yeah! I'm an acrophobic. I told you that. MARSHA: No, you didn't. ANA: Well, now you know. MARSHA: Yep. (A pause) Are you thinking of going back to the apartment with Carl? ANA: That's not a problem, Marsha. I can handle it if I have a ledge. MARSHA: But you don't have a ledge, Ana. Not with him. Not even a net. ANA: And I am sick of all of you coming down on me, okay? Natalia and my sister and everybody and their mother who comes from Cuba, and now you! And I'm not walking another inch up this fucking hill, okay? So you can stay here by yourself and stuff your Prix de Rome and you take my place! If you can! (Ana runs off) MARSHA: I couldn't take her place. No one could. Ana was a survivor. She wouldn't climb up the hill to my photographer's house in Greece. She turned down an invitation from the Vatican to see the restoration of the Sistine Chapel because she couldn't bear to go up on the scaffold. Imagine. An artist, turning that down. CARL: (On the telephone, or in Ana's mind) Thirty-six is a perfect number because it's both a triangle and a square. I'm coming there. Happy birthday, Tropic Ana. ANA: I'm doing sculptures on tree trunks! CARL: I won a DAAD fellowship to Berlin. ANA: Are you my Sugar Daddy? CARL: Are you my Chiquita Banana? ANA: My name is Ana Banana. I am Tropic Ana. MARSHA: I told Ana that Carl had a woman in Berlin. She seethed, but she said nothing. After she fell from that window in Carl's apartment, she appeared to me in dreams. (Ana appears) MARSHA: She did that to all of us. It got so bad I had to go to a psychic, a man who was famous for hunting down Nazi criminals after World War Two. (The psychic appears) MARSHA: Please. Please? PSYCHIC: I cannot help you with the murder of your friend if the police don't want my help. But you will come into the public forum in such a way that you will be able to let her go. MARSHA: I testified in the murder trial of Carl Andre. Scene Six (Carl is in Ana's studio. Ana comes in from the kitchen) ANA: I was going to make pasta, but I hate to see anything boil. Silly me. CARL: That's precisely why I brought the vino. ANA: How much did it cost? How many airplane tickets did you buy? Where are you staying anyway? Who's in the New York apartment now? Hmm? CARL: Ana, I told you to stop listening to people. Rose and I play chess together and that is all. (A pause) And I never bought her hundred dollar bottles of wine. (Another pause) I have been lonely. ANA: What about the woman in Berlin? CARL: She's an art researcher. She's helping me find some images I need. ANA: Your art is far from figurative, lover. CARL: (Pouring the wine) Let it breathe a bit. ANA: I can't. I wish I could. (Smiling in spite of herself) Good Cabernet, as usual. CARL: To your new works. I'm impressed. (He walks over to look at one of the tree-trunk pieces. Ana follows) ANA: I never had a studio before, remember? When I got here I realized I could work indoors and make images that could be brought into the gallery and bring their own space with them. CARL: And what you've done with space is unbelievable. By defying space you've negated space. ANA: Negated? I don't understand the notion of negation in art. CARL: They're every bit as good as Stonehenge, Tropicana. Can you live with that? ANA: Can you? ACTRESS: Around 1817, when Spanish colonists first set foot on Cay Loco, off the South coast of Cuba, they found a sole inhabitant. She was a young woman, nude except for a necklace and a bracelet of seashells and seeds. ACTOR: The most demanding artist would have considered her an example of perfect beauty. She was a survivor of innumerable generations of Siboney indians, who had been extinguished by colonization. They called her The Black Venus. ACTRESS: At the sight of the Spaniards, she ran. From fear, rather than from modesty. They caught her and discovered she was mute. ACTOR: She lived alone in Cay Loco, and everywhere she went she was followed by her only companions, a white dove and a blue heron. Spreading their wings, they would touch her mouth with their beaks in silent caress. (Carl and Ana are drinking wine and kissing) ACTRESS: When one of the colonists took her home with him, he gave her food and clothing and expected her to please him, to work for him in return. (Carl pulls out a ring) CARL: Marry me, Tropicana. ACTOR: But taken from her island freedom and unable to speak, she nestled in a corner, refusing to get up, to work, or eat. ANA: What about the woman in Berlin? CARL: Come on, stop it. ANA: What about the woman in New York? CARL: Ana, stop it. (Ana throws her glass at Carl) ACTRESS: Finally, alarmed at the prospect of her dying by starvation, the colonists took her back to Cay Loco, to live in freedom. (She exits) CARL: You're becoming as loony as the Romans. I knew this would be a mistake. I've told you it's a mistake to go to Cuba, and I told you it was a mistake to come to Rome. You shouldn't have left me. ANA: I have left you. ACTOR: From time to time, over the years, the colonists of Cienfuegos tried to civilize The Black Venus. But each time, her passive protests forced them to return her to the Key, where she reigned alone with the blue heron and the white dove...her only subjects. (He exits) Scene Seven (Marsha walks into Ana's studio) MARSHA: Well, you're almost out of here! I came to give you a hand. ANA: (Extends her hand and takes Marsha around the studio) These are the new ones. You haven't seen these. (Marsha is silent, looking at the tree-trunk figures) ANA: Carl just left. (Marsha remains silent, obviously moved by the standing pieces) ANA: I confronted him about the woman in New York and the woman in Berlin. MARSHA: Ana, these pieces are everything you've ever wanted to do. ANA: We're supposed to meet him for dinner later in the piazza. You and Greg and I. MARSHA: Ana, these are incredible! ANA: Marsha, I am so angry. MARSHA: Just keep your mouth shut for a second and come over here. See? From the front, they might seem like your standard sculpture, figure and foreground. But as you walk around them they put you back into real space. Do you feel it? I feel like I've travelled this incredible distance! It's not static space, but swirling! What if... What if one could be suspended in infinite space with the possibility of moving anywhere, in any direction, through any dimension? ANA: I'm afraid that I would fall, into some dimension where I'm already doomed. MARSHA: Oh no! These are alive! You are going to live forever. ANA: Sometimes I feel like I'm running out of time. CARL: My work is meaningless. This is a property shared by the universe. There is no supernatural. We are the ghosts that haunt the universe. There will be no more tragedy, because tragedy depends on dignity, and dignity is being drained from the world. Scene Eight (Ana and Marsha are outside, walking down the street) ANA: Do you really like them? MARSHA: Well...they're better than your cookie cutters. ANA: Don't make fun of my cookie cutters! They're just smaller siluetas. MARSHA: But they're almost minimalistic. They're... ANA: Don't say it! Don't say the "F" word! MARSHA: FLAT! ANA: No, no, no, no, no! MARSHA: Flat, flat, flat! Flat in the key of F. F-flat. Flat. ANA: Flat, flat, flat, so what? Your bronze reliefs are flat! MARSHA: Ouch! Touché! Flat you are! Rome is flat, though. Spaghetti is flat. ANA: The Colisseum is illusionary flat! MARSHA: Bernini is rounded flat! ANA: All flat streets lead to Rome! MARSHA: All the flat streets of Rome lead to Carl! ANA: Minimalism is flat! MARSHA: Carl's flat! Vertical flat! ANA: Oo-hoo! Carl's not flat! MARSHA: What do you see in him, Ana? ANA: It's not what I see, it's what I feel. Sex is great. But I love his mind, too. There is a dignity about him, and conviction. Yeah, I know, he pretends he doesn't have any. He's the antithesis of everything I've ever tried to stand for, everything I've tried to do. He's my opposite pole, and my twin. And what a pole! (Carl and Greg appear from opposite sides of the stage. The four greet and sit at a table) GREG: So how are you making out in Berlin, Carl? CARL: What does making out mean, precisely? What are you, in fucking high-school? ANA: Oh, he's making out. He always gets to third base. But he can't score. CARL: I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. ANA: And I don't give a damn, Rhett Butler, butt-face! MARSHA: Oh come on, you guys! Why does everything have to be so pregnant? ANA: I'm never going to get pregnant! I told my sister she was going to have to have children for the two of us. MARSHA: How is Raquel? ANA: Freeze! I lost an earring! MARSHA: Where did it go? GREG: I thought I saw it drop. MARSHA: Are those the antique ones that belonged to your grandmother? (Carl bends down and attempt to find it) ANA: Oh, don't bother, Carl! Even if you could find it, you could never put it in. CARL: Stop it. ANA: You couldn't put it in. CARL: Stop it, stop it. ANA: You couldn't put it in, you couldn't put it in, you couldn't put it in. MARSHA: Ana, stop it! CARL: (Banging on the table) Stop it, stop it, stop it! MARSHA: Ana, tell us about that character you made up. What was her name? ANA: (Deliberately) Rose-ita. CARL: Ah, for Christ's sake... MARSHA: No, come on, what was it? Carmencita? ANA: (More venomously still) Ree-ta. CARL: I've really had enough. Let's go. MARSHA: No, come on, wait Carl. Ana, I think it was...Tropicanita or something. Come on, Ana! What was it? ANA: (Begins to transform herself slowly) My name is... Conchita Bullón. GREG: (Going along and pretending to hold up a mike) And what sort of a name is Bullón, Miss Conchita. French? ANA: Nope, monsewer. It is Cuban. Cuban for... Big Twat! CARL: Ah, Jesus! MARSHA: Oh, lighten up, Carl! This is fun! (Cuando Calienta el Sol begins to play) ANA: (With a heavy Cuban accent) Ay, Jesús, María y José! What memory it brings! Now I tell you a story about Conchita's past, which Conchita never ever tell anyone. One time, I met a very cute Roman singer during a Rome adventure I never had because I am monogamous comemierda Cuban woman afflicted with love for macho minimalist absent pig... (Carl grunts but begins to go along with it) ANA: So anyway...this beautiful young man used to sing Cuando Calienta el Sol...that means when the sun burns, ay! He used to sing Cuando Calienta el Sol very beautiful, except for this one verse, and he sang it like this. Instead of singing...siento tu cuerpo vibrar cerca de mi...that means I feel your body vibrate next to mine...He would sing siento tu puerco vibrar cerca de mi...which means I feel your PIG vibrate next to ME! (They all laugh as "Guantanamera" begins to play. Or Ana plays it on the guitar) ANA: I'm from a tropical island Where people live to be happy... I'm from a tropical island Where people live to be happy... And I am stuck in Manhattan With an American paa-pi! (Chorus) Guantanamera...Guajira Guantanamera Guantanamera...Guajira Guantanamera... Scene Nine ACTRESS (She is now Elizabeth Lederer): So there is no physical evidence then. ACTOR (He is now a clerk in the D.A.'s office): No, the dusting for fingerprints wasn't in the original search warrant. LIZ: Wonderful. And was there any furniture near the window? ACTOR: No. Only the bed and a night table. No chairs. LIZ: Well, at least that's something. She couldn't have climbed onto the window otherwise without leaving prints. I'm going to go after the eye-witness's testimony about the scars on Carl's face and neck too. Presumably he didn't have them the day before. ACTOR: You're not going to win this one, Liz. It's not as clear-cut as getting raped jogging in Central Park. Besides, Robert Chambers has the whole media wrapped around his preppy prick. He says his girlfriend tied him up and raped him. How come I never get dates like that? LIZ: Ana was raped, and murdered, repeatedly, all her life. ACTOR: Oh, come on, Liz. You're getting too wrapped up in this case. LIZ: Look at this. This is an article in Art in America. Ana Mendieta executed her Rape Series after some women were raped and murdered on campus at the University of Iowa. (Ana proceeds to enact the tableaux. Carl helps her) ACTOR: How did she pull it off? LIZ: That's an unfortunate turn of phrase, but it was just like Ana. She was taking a class in multi-media. For their final performance they were to meet at site-specific places, so Ana told everyone to go to her apartment for hers. She got a friend to help her. They went to a slaughter house to get some animal blood, and to the Salvation Army for some old dishes and glasses they could break. They tore up the place. And Ana got her friend to tie her down on the table and smear her all over with the blood. ACTOR: She was really into that blood stuff, wasn't she. LIZ: It was her way of making a powerful statement about the vulnerability of women's bodies. ACTOR (Transforming gradually into a Soho artist): Well, what about Robert Chambers? What about the scratches on Carl's face and neck? LIZ: What about them? What do you know about them? Are you telling me you're going to be willing to testify? ACTOR: I thought he didn't have them the day before, but I'm not so sure now. LIZ: Why not? ACTOR: I saw him at a restaurant. LIZ: Up close? ACTOR: He has a ruddy complexion. LIZ: Does he have scars? ACTOR: The lights were dim. LIZ: How dim? ACTOR: Give me a break! I have an exhibit coming up! This whole town is taking sides and Carl has a name and a reputation. I'll get blacklisted if I testify! LIZ: Get out. Please get out. (He exits) Never, in my entire career, have I come across anything like this. The art world is tightening ranks on me. They're rounding up together like covered wagons. You know, when you inherit a case from another DA, you don't have a feel for it like you would from day one. The first DA didn't specify dusting for fingerprints on her search warrant. There were no footprints on the windowsill, and no furniture around the window, but that evidence was inadmissible. So I wasn't altogether convinced. But when I went to that apartment and looked out that window, a chill ran down my spine. I knew, as I am standing here now, that there was only one way she could have gone out that window. And that was by his hands. (Carl exits from the tableaux) ANA: (Rising from the tableaux) Pssst! I'm alive! And I am Tropic Ana! (Liz walks over to her. Sinead O'Connor's "Just Like You Said it Would" plays) ANA: Will you be my mama? Will you be my sister? Will you be Raquel? Rocky? Raquelín-pin-pin? LIZ: The first DA was in charge of the Domestic Violence Unit. I've always wondered about the circumstances that prepare the ground for domestic violence, and how much the degrees of violence are inextricably tied to those circumstances. What do you want from me, Ana? ANA: Pain of Cuba, orphanhood I am. I'm Anita la Huerfanita. I'm Little Orphan Annie. Will you be my mami? LIZ: I am trying to defend you! We're not going to gain anything from these postponement tactics. ANA: There are rats in this place! LIZ: You're dead now and I don't believe in you. Go away. ANA: Come with me to the window. See how high the window-sill is? I can do it if I have a ledge! LIZ: You don't have a ledge, Ana. You don't have a leg to stand on. I want to defend you! I do believe in you and we need to win this! It could have been any of us! It could happen to someone else! Goddamnit, I'm going to lose this case, aren't I! ANA: (A child's tantrum) No, no, no, no, no! I want to get out of here! Why did mami and papi send us here alone? LIZ: (Transforming slowly into Raquel) They wanted to save you, Ani, just like I did. They wanted to give you a chance to live. ANA: Why, why, why, why, why? RAQUEL: To get us out of Cuba. To give us wings to fly. ANA: Wait! I hid some of my drawings! Do you have earth from Cuba and sand from Varadero? RAQUEL: I have the two bags we brought on the plane. ANA: Get them while I get my pad! We're going to make a beach! RAQUEL: Every summer we went to our grandmother's house on the beach. We spent all day in the sand and in the water. Ana would make these fantastic sand silhouettes of women with big breasts and buttocks. (Ana comes in with the pad) RAQUEL: And you floated in the water and you wanted me to cover you with sea-shells and flowers. Do you remember? ANA: And you played the piano and I could hear you all the way down at the beach till it got drowned by the sound of the waves. I want to go home, Rocky. RAQUEL: I do too, Ani. I want to play Moonlight Sonata. ANA: (Begins to draw furiously) I want my images to have power! To be magic! RAQUEL: Let me see. This looks like Yemayá, the Goddess of the Waters. (Yemayá appears slowly and watches silently over them) Can I have it? ANA: No, no, no, no, no. One day I'm going to be famous and my paintings will sell for thousands and thousands of dollars. Then I'll give you one. So you can have lots and lots of kids and a big back yard and two dogs. And then I'll come and visit you and everybody will look at you and say, "That is Ana Mendieta's sister." And you'll have a piano and give a big concert and I'll come see you and we'll be on TV. The nuns won't let me watch TV because I was screaming in our room! RAQUEL: Ani, you can't scream every time we get a letter from home. ANA: But I want to see mami and abuela and abuelo and our cousins and I want to go home. It's so cold in here! Where are the bags? RAQUEL: Oh, I think Sister Louise confiscated them. ANA: She banged my head against the door knob. See? It made my nose bleed. RAQUEL: Well, we can pretend. They can't take pretend away. Lie down. (Yemayá begins a slow and innocent dance of waves) You are floating in the water. It is the bluest water anybody ever saw, of the first blue that was ever created. And you can see the bottom, and the ivory sand covered with the most beautiful iridescent shells in the world. (Ana is lying down and Raquel pretends to cover her with sea-shells and flower petals) RAQUEL: (To the audience) When we were at St. Mary's orphanage, Ana was very rebellious. But she had a natural wit and she was devilish, like a little imp. And she could invent people, she really could. She called Sister Louise "The Penguin" from the Batman comic-books. She could make a myth out of almost anything. (Ana rises suddenly and gives Raquel a start. Yemayá stops dancing, also startled) RAQUEL: Ay, Ani, you scared me! (Yemayá remains on stage, taking a silent part in the scene, often laughing) ANA: (Uncovering her shoulder) You see this mark? That's because God was going to make me black and then He changed his mind! Now I'm waiting for Him to finish the job! RAQUEL: Girl, you ain't black! You Cuban! You Spanish! You come from Spain! ANA: I come from Africa! Spanish people are bad! They brought the slaves to Cuba and killed the indians and the gypsies. Now we kill them! Queen Isabella is a ho! RAQUEL: You a ho! ANA: I be a nigger and a spic and a ho! (Voices in the background begin chanting like a chorus) VOICES: Nigger...whore...spic...nigger...whore...spic...nigger...whore...spic... (Voices continue with the beat of Afro-Cuban drums. Yemayá moves spasmodically) ANA: I know! I'm going to go back and seduce Fidel Castro and then kill him! Then we can go home! Let's rehearse! RAQUEL: I don't know how to, Ani. ANA: Pretend! (She affects an official voice) The señorita Mendieta is here to see the Commander-in-Chief. RAQUEL: (Trying to imitate Castro) Niña...what do you want with me? ANA: You're a hero of the people. RAQUEL: But you left. ANA: They made me, Fidel. My parents sent me and my sister away alone without our consent. They said we'd be like Peter Pan. I want to be here with you. Can I come home? RAQUEL: Nah. You're with the americanos now. You better stay there. ANA: Shit, I'm tired of this game! I want to go to Varadero! (She lies down again) RAQUEL: The next four and a half years, until our mother's arrival in this country, became a nightmare of fear, alienation, racism, accusations, loneliness, misunderstanding, and a loss of human respect and freedom as we were shuffled through orphanages, boarding schools and foster homes. Eight in all. ANA: Rocky, I can't fall asleep. RAQUEL: Try, Ani. ANA: (In a scary voice) Do you know the rats blow on you before they bite so that you don't feel their teeth in the night? RAQUEL: Ay ya, coño! Go to sleep! ANA: What is this Dubuque, Iowa? This building is made of stone! It is crushing me! The nuns are mean! They can't crush me! We have to get away! RAQUEL: Where to, Ana? ANA: (Laughing) To Havana, fucking banana! (Yemayá flees, laughing obscenely. Quick blackout) ACT II Scene One (Havana. El Malecón, the seawall by the Harbor. Cuban music plays throughout) CARL: I don't like it here. It's hot and the mosquitos bite. It's a rat-infested place with people who live to dance. They don't know me here. (Ana comes in wearing a sequined evening-gown) ANA: Hey, americano! You got any gum or cigarettes or hundred-dollar bottles of wine? CARL: I don't like it here. ANA: You don't see anything you like, Carlandre? CARL: I'd like to go back to Berlin, or to New York. ANA: I'm never going back to New York. I want to make my siluetas on Cuban soil, like the earth-goddess of the Taíno indians. CARL: Oh, do what you like. l'm going back. I'm tired and I'm hot and nobody knows me here. ANA: I've got news for you Carlandre. Nobody knows you anywhere. (Carl slaps her) CARL: Stop it! Scene Two (Liz and Jack Hoffinger are on opposite sides of the stage. Carl and Ana are seated at a bench) LIZ: I went to Havana with Carl and Ana with a group of American artists and writers. I was in Rome with Ana as Marsha. I was in the orphanage as Raquel. She appears to me in dreams and we play and make art out of this thing while the people and the places grow dim and all I can hear is "No, no, no, no, no!" HOFFINGER: That was the security guard at the delicatessen below. He said he heard a woman screaming and then a loud thump. Well, it was thirty-three floors. That is the length of a football field. You try screaming no, no, no across a football field and see who hears you. CARL: (Who has been reading The Wall Street Journal) That is a mixed metaphor. ANA: But I screamed. CARL: And I told you to stop it. LIZ: Can we approach the bench? ANA: No, no, no, no, no! Qué bench ni qué bench? I'm a big star on television in Havana! I am on the evening news! Look! Scene Three ANA: (On television) I regret that my parents sent me away from Cuba at a very early age. What has interested me most about my country, at the cultural level, are the facilities the Revolution offers to artists for their spiritual growth and development. ACTOR: After that, they ignored her in Miami. The same thing happened in New York, only in a different way. In the reaction of the art community to the trial. Silence. On both sides. ACTRESS: She died without being able to talk about her politics in a public way. I was living in Miami Beach after she came back. She was devastated. ANA: Rocky, I went to find our old house on Paseo street, from what mami said. There were three families living there, but the one lady let me in. RAQUEL: Weren't you scared? Did anyone follow you? ANA: I don't care! It is our house! RAQUEL: What did it look like? ANA: Ay, Raquelín, it was so big. So the woman let me go upstairs to my old room. I told her I just wanted to lie down in my bed for a minute and she looked at me with this sad expression. There were some children there and they asked me if I had gum or candy. The woman was embarrassed. She asked if I could spare a cigarette, so I gave her a pack. RAQUEL: I thought you quit when you went to Rome. ANA: I did. I just took some with me. Remember how abuela came to stay with us sometimes and she snored? And you said all you had to do to stop someone from snoring was cluck your tongue and say to them "Caballo"... She's so sick, Raquelín. Abuelo too. RAQUEL: You saw them? ANA: Why do you think I went back? They don't give a fuck about my siluetas or the Taíno indians or the artists or the women or the children or the old people or the people. I want to make it go away. Something so bad is going to happen there. Something so bad is going to happen to me. RAQUEL: Don't say that! I hate it when you talk like that! ANA: I went to my my room, and I lied down on my bed, and I cried myself to sleep. For all the people who are suffering, who are in jail and hungry. And for us. (She goes to sleep on the bench) ACTOR: I remember people writing about her to the newspapers, about her visits to Cuba. You can't say she was blacklisted, but you could say she was labeled. Why? Because she didn't fit the pattern? ACTRESS: Ana Mendieta fit the pattern too well. She was high-born, the grandaughter of a Cuban president. She had two tragic flaws, ambition and curiosity. And worst of all, she showed no signs of remorse. ANA: Can I take it back? The Cuban government is lying! Women and gays and people of color have no part in the political process! They have concentration camps in here! I'm leaving! ACTOR: (Acting as a guard) What have you got there, Ana? ANA: A baccarat crystal set my grandmother left me in her will. ACTOR: You know you're not allowed to smuggle government property out of the country. ANA: This is not government property! This belonged to my grandmother and it belongs to my family. It belongs to me! The government won't use this to feed the people. I've seen how they live. ACTOR: You have seen nothing. And you understand nothing. The imperialist government where you live is starving us to death. ANA: While the elite lives like Louis and Marie Antoinette and the people make coffee from lentils. ACTOR: Those who don't work on behalf of the Revolution. ANA: The homosexuals and the dissidents you've put in the concentration camps. ACTOR: Undress. ANA: What? ACTOR: Undress. ANA: No. ACTOR: It's either a search or jail, Ana. You choose. (Ana undresses in the dark as the Internationale plays.) ACTOR: Look, Ana. Don't come back here again. Don't ask any more questions. Your submissions to the Havana Biennial are ridiculous. Your presence here no longer welcome. A bulldozer flattened your siluetas inside the caves. ANA: No, no, no, no, no! Those were sacred images! They were recreations of the godesses of the Taíno indians! You can't do that! JUDGE'S VOICE: Another outburst like this and I will have the defendant removed from the court! HOFFINGER: Your Honor, my client waives his right to a trial by jury. LIZ: Your Honor, this is unprecedented. I need to approach the bench. (To the audience) LIZ: I need to talk about the juncture between art and life, and at which point these two lives become parallel, following a downward spiral towards Ana Mendieta's ultimate destruction. Might we not question at which point the relationship between Ana, a Cuban woman artist, towards the earth, a space in which she acted out a series of perpetual resurrections, and that of Carl Andre, a space to be dominated and controlled, might not clash, not only aesthetically, but during that final, fatal encounter? Might we not assume that Carl Andre, born male in America in 1935, looked down upon his wife, born female in Cuba and transplanted unwillingly to the United States... HOFFINGER: Objection! I fail to see where the prosecution is going with this line of questioning. LIZ: Might we not assume that Carl Andre looked upon his new wife as a product of his own calculated, quasi-artistic propositions? HOFFINGER: Objection! Leading and suggestive! LIZ: And if Ana was indeed an object, plastic, sexual, cultural, might we not find room in our imaginations, in that other dimension where art and life do meet, for the possibility that the creator took, with his own hands, the presumed object of his creation, and suddenly threw it! To be crushed onto the penetrable, violated, ultimate space! HOFFINGER: Objection! JUDGE'S VOICE: Sustained. You may strike it from the record. Scene Four (The sounds of a baseball game. Carl and Ana are watching the World Series and drinking) CARL: Head home, baby! ANA: I can't go home, baby. Can I get you to look at this? CARL: What is it? ANA: It's a film about the concentration camps in Cuba. They called them Military Units for Aid with Production, and took anybody who was different. I would have fit in really well. CARL: What are you talking about? ANA: The camps. For Jehova's Witnesses and homosexuals and people who wanted to listen to the Beatles. CARL: Do we have the White Album? ANA: Yeah. (She plays the video of "Improper Conduct." Carlos Franqui's face appears on the screen.) CARL: Well, homosexuals are going to be considered dissident elements anywhere. Mao Tsedong erradicated the problem with periodic beatings. So why should it surprise you that the Cuban government wants to isolate them if they constitute another plague in the country? ANA: I wrote to Carlos Franqui when I was in Rome. CARL: Who is that? ANA: He was the editor of the culture section of the official paper of the Revolution. He lives in Rome now. CARL: (Taking the tape out) Well, let me watch the game. Then we can see your movie and your Frankie. ANA: Thank you Frankie. Frankenstein. King Kong. CARL: Sticks and stones. Sticks and stones. (He turns back to the game as "Little Piggies" plays) ANA: (Reading) "Esteemed señor Franqui. I am a Cuban American sculptor who had the good fortune of being in Rome, because I won the Prix de Rome for my work. I know of your book, My Years with Fidel. I had a very unpleasant experience in Cuba, and wish never to return. I recently viewed the film, Improper Conduct, and it left a deep impression on me. I am trying, in my own way, to stand for the rights of minorities in the United States. I was impressed by your testimony and I would like to ask you to visit my studio." ACTRESS: The New York art world didn't want to listen. They wanted her to be their Frida Kahlo, their guerrilla girl, the Revolution's prodigal daughter, and accountable for her radical politics. That's an irony in itself. It was the same label Ana was trying to escape. And the art world is the only cultural activity which has never been accountable to the public. That would be the ultimate irony. ANA: People step on your work, you know. CARL: It is meant to be stepped on and debased, darling. By tricking the people, the interactive mass, the players of life, dearest darling, into thinking that they are controlling the surface, they are placed in the position of victims of a concept, don't you see? ANA: I'm getting juiced. I think I'm going to switch to spritzers. (She picks up a seltzer bottle) I'm not going to be your victim on the floor! (She sprays him with the seltzer) CARL: (Now playing, too) Give me that, give me that, Ana, Tropicana, Tropicanita baby. You're nothing but a handful of dust in my hand. I'll spray you on the ground. ANA: You don't have it in you, Carlandre! CARL: (Going after her, playfully) Stop it! ANA: (Teasing) No, no, no, no, no! I'm going to change my shirt. (She goes off) Scene Five LIZ: She was trying to find the truth. That impossible place where one can be on the edge, but safe. HOFFINGER: Then they watched the Tennis Open semi-finals. (Ana comes back in. Carl has opened a botthe of champagne) CARL: Tennis, Tropicana? ANA: (Somewhat tipsy and cantankerous) Minimalism is industrial banality. CARL: Ah, you think of art as bananas, my dear. Breasts and buttocks and deities on the ground. It's the reaction of a Third World being that is envious of technocracy. ANA: Who. CARL: Who? ANA: Who is envious. And your art is territorial. It's the product of a military complex. CARL: You have a father complex. Your daddy abandoned you and sent you to fend for yourself inside the monster. ANA: And I fed the monster and it went away. The United States is a fucking father! A meat grinder that eats everything in sight. Cuba is my motherland. It is nurturing and fertile. CARL: Cuba is Africa. All heartbeat and no brains. Sexuality without reins. Voodoo and ritual and blood. (Yemayá reappears. She begins to dance with Ana to the beat of African drums as Carl begins to doze off, as in a daze. It is a long dance, the dance of the goddess of the waters. Yemayá and Ana communicate and understand each other. The African drums fade into the sounds of the tennis game as Yemayá flees horrified) ANA: Your art is industrial waste. Caca. Doo-doo. Voodoo is better than doo-doo, Daddy, DAAD Fellowship winner with a whore in Berlin and over-the-hill groupies in New York. CARL: Stop it! Jesus, stop it, stop it, stop it! (He turns off the tv and begins to storm out of the apartment) ANA: I have a commission for Mac Arthur Park, Daddy! You left your cake out in the rain and you will never get the recipe again! Oh no! (She howls with laughter) Scene Six LIZ: There was no question that Ana Mendieta wanted to live. What was her tragic flaw? Inordinate ambition? Curiosity? Wanting so desperately to wrench from the earth the roots of her own culture that she was willing to find her own colonist? HOFFINGER: If we're going to resort to reconstruction, Liz, you mean the elements so mixed in him we might sum up, He is a man? Is maleness what's at stake here? Can we not plainly see that Carl Andre is Ana Mendieta's widower and that he is grieving? Do we take a life based on circumstancial evidence and prejudicial hearsay and execute the Anglo- Saxon male in the name of all malekind? Simply because one assistant district attorney with a flair for the exotic has decided to dabble in art? Come on, Liz! LIZ: You have a logical mind, Jack. All I am asking is, did Carl Andre, with the mathematical precision that characterized the Minimalist movement, and I'm not dabbling, goddamnit! Did Carl Andre enact his interpretation of gravity and inertia? The tendency of an object to travel in the direction in which it's going? Destruction at someone else's hands? HOFFINGER: Let me question the witness. LIZ: She is dead. HOFFINGER: What about your theory of perpetual resurrection? ANA: (To Carl, a recrimination) My work is a perpetual recreation of the earth goddess. CARL: (Reading the TV listings) Dracula. The Bela Lugosi version. On Channel 13 at 3. A true Transylvanian success story. ("Swan Lake" begins to play as Ana takes the stand) HOFFINGER: Hello, Ana. I like your work. ANA: Mierda. HOFFINGER: What did you say? ANA: I'm ready now. HOFFINGER: Are you using these death images by the elements, like air, on purpose? ANA: I claim territory, like a dog pissing on the ground. HOFFINGER: Do you get a sexual kick out of this? ANA: It's not what I get. It's what I got. It's what I'm getting. My work has always been ahead of me. I learn what it's about years later. It makes me strong. It defines me. LIZ: She was trying to find that truth. That impossible place. What she found was her executioner. HOFFINGER: And I believe it was a case of mutual destruction. You want to talk about art? Okay, Liz! If Carl created works of art for people to walk over and step on, then I maintain that he purposely sought out this loony-tune of a woman who called herself Tropicana to immolate himself at the feet of all women! How is that? She married him for opportunism! That much is clear! LIZ: Why? Would you say Frida Kahlo sought out Diego Rivera for opportunism? HOFFINGER: And who might they be? LIZ: Proceed. (Yemayá enters and begins to whisper to Ana, trying to draw her into a dance) HOFFINGER: She was a heavy drinker. The alcohol content in her brain at the time of death was eighteen percent. That's eight percent higher than the legal limit in the state of New York. LIZ: And not a hell of a lot for an experienced drinker. HOFFINGER: She had a big mouth, she was doing works in blood, she was doing her voodoo dances in front of the whole world, all of Carl's friends. Witness after witness has testified as to her mood-swings, her instability. (Ana and Yemayá are now dancing frenziedly, passionately) HOFFINGER: Ana went to sleep. It was after a hot night of eating and drinking. She awoke in the dark. She went to the bathroom. It was 75 degrees, with 88 percent humidity. She went to the window to open it. (Blackout. The phone rings. Yemayá flees) Scene Seven NATALIA: (On the phone) Hey, you! ANA: Wow, this is weird! What are you thinking, Natalie? Tell me what you're thinking. NATALIA: I just came back from seeing The Kiss of the Spider Woman. You remind me of Sonia Braga. ANA: (Laughing) Oh yeah. Well, I've been kissed by a vampire. (Her mood changes suddenly) I'm so angry, so angry you have no idea. Everyone thinks Carl is such a generous and nice person. They don't know, Natalia. They don't know. NATALIA: Ana, hush! ANA: I do. And I am going to expose him. I'm going to show the world who is the real Carl Andre. He's so polite and political and civilized and correct. I'm going to expose him. I'm going to show the world who is the real Carl Andre. NATALIA: Ana, can he hear you? ANA: Fuck, I don't care! I don't think so. He's drinking wine with Bela Lugosi. NATALIA: And you are drunk. Listen, why don't we talk in Spanish? ANA: Bueno. I have all the photocopies of the postcards and nude photos de esa mujer del país de los Nazis. NATALIA: Ana he can understand that! ANA: I'm going to hire somebody. Un detective privado. Y me divorcio, coño! NATALIA: Ana, he can understand those words! And it's all beginning to sound surreptitious. Tell me exactly what you have. ANA: I've been photocopying like crazy. I have, exactly, are you ready? Receipts of airplane tickets. Of long distance phone bills to Berlin. The letters she wrote him. The nude photographs she's been sending with all the sexual innuendo. I can just feel the sexual rush! Oh, Natalie I'm so pissed! Do you know how many opportunities I had to cheat on him with every Roman god that crossed my path? For a feminist I'm a fucking idiot, huh? NATALIA: No, you're not. You have integrity and he doesn't. You just have to operate from a different place. Why don't you just get out of there? ANA: Where the hell am I going to go at this time of night? Oh Natalie, I hate my life! NATALIA: Ani, calm down. Don't get dramatic on me now. If you're going to stay the night you better confront him. Show him what you've got and see what he has to say. ANA: I can't, Natalie. I can't. I can't do it now. He'd get so angry, you just don't know. Carl keeps it all inside and then explodes and you don't know what he's going to do. I'd just feel safer doing it somewhere else. (A pause) Natalie, I have such a fear of falling from a high place. (They continue to talk as the lights fade) Scene Eight HOFFINGER: Ana Mendieta's fear of heights would have been uninhibited by inebriation. Miss Mendieta's future plans do not concern us at this point, since we know she was given to irrational outbursts over minor occurrences and known to turn on anyone, even herself, at a moment's notice and without the slightest provocation. And finally, Mr. Andre's discrepant statements to the police from his original statements to the 911 emergency number can be explained by his subsequent confusion. He was trying to block out the memory of the tragic death of his beloved wife. Ana Mendieta was not the victim of a homicide. She was not even the victim of a suicide. She was the unfortunate, tragic victim of either an accident, or what is called subintentional suicide. LIZ: May it please the Court. On September 8, 1985, Carl Andre murdered Ana Mendieta. The real defendant, who is not here to speak on her own behalf, was an acute acrophobic, as has been testified by many of her friends and acquaintances. Four fifths of her body were below the window sill level. And there were no footprints on the windowsill. Are we to assume that an acute acrophobic ran inside that room and vaulted over the window ledge to her own death? Everyone who knew Ana Mendieta has testified as to her high spirits at the time of her death. She won the Prix de Rome and the most coveted prize of all: the Guggenheim. She had a commission for a series of outdoor sculptures at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. For God's sake, the director of the arts council in that city told you that when he confessed to her that he was entertaining suicidal thoughts over a failed marriage, Ana Mendieta said to him, "Eso no se hace." In Spanish, that means, "That isn't done." Based on everything we know about suicide, Ana Mendieta did not choose to end her own life. Consider, on the other hand, the behavior of the defendant, Carl Andre. Mr. Andre is a man who chooses his words very carefully. In his first statement to the 911 emergency number, he said he and his wife quarreled, that she went into the bedroom, and that he went after her. But when he spoke to the police at the station he made no mention of that quarrel. Yet he remembered what they ate and what they drank that night, what they watched on television, who the actors were, and what the plot was. We know that Ana was angry at Carl. That when intoxicated she became angry and caustic, even belligerent. Perhaps she was the first to attack. The attack escalated into a fight, the fight became physical, and during that fight, she said something that cut Carl to the quick. (Lights on Carl and Ana) ANA: I cannot forgive you for your poverty of being. For your incapacity to give root to my dreams, to give ground to our future. CARL: I cannot forgive your for Cuba, for Rome, for all the places in you I haven't been able to see or touch. Because you never saw Stonehenge through my eyes except for the brick walls of an orphanage in Iowa. ANA: I am going to expose you for what you really are. I have proof. I have post-cards, photographs, airplane-tickets and receipts. (She shows him the photos) CARL: Ana, it's not supposed to end like this. This is what we do. This is our work. This is not what we do with ourselves. ANA: And what do we do with ourselves? Lose our memories? Lose our minds? No. I carve my works. They are my memories and my end. (She reaches to touch his face, and suddenly scratches him) CARL: You're not going to imprint yourself on me. You're not going to ruin my life. You want to do this? I'm up for it. ANA: You're not up for anything. You haven't been able to get it up in years. CARL: Stop it! ANA: Your works are the lineaments of gratified desire. You can't satisfy a horse's ass. CARL: Stop it, I'm warning you. Stop it. ANA: Come on, toro... Come on. When they're put out to pasture they have to die with dignity. CARL: The world is drained of dignity because of people like you. ANA: The art world rejects you because you have no dignity, because your work is obsolete, because you're full of shit, because you can't lay down your bricks, because you can't put it in. CARL: All right, stop it! (He takes her close to the edge of the window) Look how high we are now. ANA: No! CARL: Look how far we've come. ANA: No! CARL: Look down, Ana. ANA: No! CARL: Thirty-six is a perfect number. ANA: No! CARL: Because it is both a triangle and a square. ANA: No! (The sound of an explosion. Blackout) JUDGE'S VOICE: I have reached a verdict in this case. I have concluded that the evidence has not satisfied me beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. Scene Nine (Liz and Hoffinger are readying to leave the courtroom) LIZ: Silence is a deadly weapon. As deadly as a window. HOFFINGER: The case was sealed by the State. Justice has been served. LIZ: Not many are willing to recreate the whole thing in their heads, short of "He threw her," or "She fell," or "She wouldn't have," or "He couldn't have." HOFFINGER: Not many are willing to accept her politics, or her final change of heart. LIZ: Neither the Cuban community, who rejected her, nor the New York art world, who embraced her, are willing to admit to either one. HOFFINGER: Carl walked off a free man. He still resides at 300 Mercer Street, on the 34th floor. LIZ: Silence. On both sides. Congratulations, Jack. HOFFINGER: Come on Liz. There's another opening in Soho. Scene Ten (The sounds of Afrocuban drums. Ana appears behind Carl in the apartment. Yemayá appears and begins to dance) ANA: In Cuba, when you die, the earth that covers us speaks. But here, covered with the earth whose prisoner I am, I feel death palpitating underneath the earth. CARL: To know that every touch will be measured beforehand is worse dread than danger. ANA: My whole being is filled with want of Cuba. I go on to make my mark upon the earth. CARL: She turned from me and stared, eyes wanting tears, with envy at the rain. (The music gets louder. Carl's image fades. Yemayá fades). ANA (Alone): There is no past to redeem. There is the void, the orphanhood, the unbaptized earth. There is, above all, the search for origin. The world needs the artists at the same time that it despises them. The true artists are the ones who refuse to become deculturalized. The others, the ones who make a pact with Mephisto, and who sell their souls, will have to live with the price of their actions. (Lights fade out on Ana, very slowly, as she turns upstage and walks towards Carl.) The End