Scene Three
The Lineup Room of
Police Headquarters in Ciudad Ibañez. In the center of the stage
is a dead white screen. In front of it, a few feet downstage, their backs
to the audience, sit GENERAL FABIOLA, FLORA and SENORA BALDOMERO.
FABIOLA
All right. Bring in the next
batch.
(The music of "The
March of the Ungentine Mounties" begins, and the MOUNTIES enter from both
sides of the stage each carrying a different geranium plant. THEY place
the plants side by side against the screen, then march off. FLORA turns
impatiently to Señora Baldomero. To the strains of "The Candle Song",
SENORA BALDOMERO goes from one plant to another, scrutinizing them carefully,
touching a leaf here, smelling a flower there. Then SHE turns to Fabiola
and Flora and shakes her head.)
FABIOLA
We’ll just have to continue
the search.
(pulling some coins out of his pocket)
You’re doing a fine job,
Señora, do not lose hope. Once again a little lunch money.
SENORA BALDOMERO
Gracias, Señor.
(SHE places the money
in her dress, then pulls from her satchel a paper bag which contains a
huge homemade submarine sandwich. SHE retires to the side of the stage
and begins to devour it.)
FLORA
She’s looked at 672 geranium
plants in the past two weeks! She has enough lunch money to open her own
bodega.
FABIOLA
Your excellency, please.
FLORA
(bolting from her chair and menacing Señora Baldomero)
I want to know when was
the last time you saw that plant!
SENORA BALDOMERO
Taste, your highness…
FLORA
Every time I ask her when
she last saw that geranium, she offers me a piece of her goddamned sandwich!
FABIOLA
Your excellency, please…she’s
a mother…
SENORA BALDOMERO
Have just a taste. How do
you know you won’t like it until you taste?
FLORA
All I want to know is when
was the last time you saw that plant!
SENORA BALDOMERO
You’re all skin and bones.
You need strength…to toss out all that money. Just a bite.
FLORA
You last saw it in the prison,
didn’t you? Didn’t you?
SENORA BALDOMERO
If I was your mother, I’d
see you ate a decent meal…before you went off to all those luncheons where
all they serve is a piece of watercress and a couple of corn chips.
FLORA
Of course it was in the prison.
I checked with Lt. Panilla…you told him that the day of the stoning!
(to Fabiola)
You’ve spent all this
time asking her to identify a plant she hasn’t seen since it was a seed!
FABIOLA
Your excellency, please.
We’re not going about this harum-scarum. We’re not looking for just any
geranium plant. Only ones that are sixteen months old and about so high.
And Señora Baldomero knows better than anyone, her son’s taste in
geranium, don’t you, little mother?
SENORA BALDOMERO
He had them all over the
house. I used to say, "Ishmael, I can’t breathe…those geraniums are taking
up all the air." So I gave them to the Good Sisters of the Poor, and he
moved out. Can you imagine? I don’t know what he had against the Good Sisters
of the Poor…
FLORA
She still hasn’t seen the
plant in a year and a half!
SENORA BALDOMERO
If a mother can’t tell her
own son’s plant, who can?
FLORA
You listen to me…
SENORA BALDOMERO
Mothers have powers known
only to God!
FLORA
I can’t stand it!
SENORA BALDOMERO
A mother will do anything
to find her poor missing son…anything…even if her son has mistreated her
for years.
(to Fabiola)
I don’t know what happened.
He was such a good baby…the best boy you ever saw. You could do anything
with him…toss him in the air…throw him on the ground, step on him…never
cried, never complained. Then all at once…overnight…he changed. He preferred
confiding in strangers rather than his own mother, his own flesh and blood…
FABIOLA
There, there, little mother…
FLORA
I’ve had enough of this!
FABIOLA
Your excellency, have pity
on a poor mother…
FLORA
All I want to do is find
that man!
FABIOLA
Trust us, your grace.
(pointing to the geraniums against the screen)
I’m sure we’re on the
right track.
FLORA
I don’t care about the plant!
I care about the man. Three months and all your doing is starting a goddamned
greenhouse!
FABIOLA
Your excellency! The Ungentine
Mounties always get their plant…I mean, their man.
FLORA
Two weeks. I’ll give you
two weeks.
FABIOLA
But two weeks is…
FLORA
That’s my final word. We’ve
been taken in for years. They made their whole reputation on those tight
white pants and that lousy song. Nobody even stopped to think…what the
hell did they ever do for Ungentina? That’s what we get when we try to
copy North America.
SENORA BALDOMERO
Por favor, your highness.
FLORA
Oh, what do you want now?
SENORA BALDOMERO
(removing her shawl from her head)
See? I put sequins on
the shawl, your highness. You’ll remember, won’t you?
FLORA
I’ll remember what?
SENORA BALDOMERO
I’ll be standing on the left
side underneath the balcony. You can’t miss me now. Look for the blue shawl
with the red and green sequins shining in the sun. I’m an old woman, your
highness, and the others are so much faster on their feet. I don’t get
more than half a centavo most of the time.
FLORA
Get her out of here!
(FABIOLA leads SENORA
BALDOMERO off to the right. FLORA stands stage center, fists clenched.)
FLORA
Ungentine Mounties or no
Ungentine Mounties, Ishmael Baldomero, Flora Pasquale will find you yet!
(JOSE rushes on from the left.)
JOSE
Flora! I must talk to you.
FLORA
Yes?
JOSE
Flora, Flora, what are we
going to do?
FLORA
Start drafting the women.
JOSE
What?!
FLORA
It’s an idea.
JOSE
I’m talking about the beef.
The United States has cancelled all their orders! Flora, are you listening
to me?
FLORA
The United States has cancelled
all their orders.
JOSE
But what are we going to
do?
FLORA
There’s absolutely no reason
to panic. They’ll discover soon enough there is no difference between the
cholesterol content of Montillanan beef as opposed to the beef from anywhere
else.
JOSE
Are you sure?
FLORA
What do you mean am I sure?
JOSE
Well, the other day at that
luncheon for Edmundo, I was having only a Caesar salad, but everyone else
was having filet mignon, and all at once I started getting this swelling
right here near my heart…
FLORA
José! There is no
such thing as second-hand cholesterol!
JOSE
But the swelling right here…
FLORA
That’s fat, José…fat.
JOSE
But Ambassador Creasy told
me no one in the U.S. will touch beef that isn’t stamped "Raised in the
U.S.A."
FLORA
I tell you, José,
this will all pass. I’ve written to the American Medical Association telling
them it’s simply a hoax to discredit Montillano. Probably spread by the
Ungentine Mounties.
JOSE
That’s another thing. The
people are furious, Flora, at the fortune we paid Ungentina to get them!
FLORA
One more geranium plant,
and I’m getting our money back.
JOSE
Oh, Flora, everything’s going
wrong. The ranches are shutting down, there’s mass unemployment, inflation
is terrible, and we don’t have any more money to toss off the balcony.
FLORA
It’s temporary, José.
It will all change in a matter of days.
JOSE
But I hear grumblings.
FLORA
Where?
JOSE
All around me. Listen.
FLORA
I hear nothing.
JOSE
But, Flora, I do. I hear
grumblings…
(We begin to hear
the strains of "Return to Montillano" played as a dirge.)
LIGHTS DIM
