Scene 6

In the darkness Armando's laughter is superceded by that of INEZ. The lights come up, and we are in their bedroom---a shabby flat with only the barest essentials. We see a bed, a dressing table and a full-length mirror at which INEZ is standing in her slip, brushing her hair. A door upstage left leads to a bathroom. INEZ The father of her child! (ARMANDO appears from the bathroom, buttoning his trousers. It is obvious they have just made it together.) INEZ This…the heiress to a travel fortune!
                     "It will be thrilling
                       To make a killing
                       And count each shilling
                       And every pound!
                       To know the true from the false,
                       You have had to have been around!
                       You have had to have been around!" (Laughing, SHE falls into his arms. HE grabs her hair and kisses her passionately.) INEZ It is nice to know that the Great Armando can be taken in like the rest of us peasants.

ARMANDO

But I have not been taken in.

INEZ

Ah, listen to him! He is going to tell me now he knew all along.

ARMANDO

I did not know all along. But I have not been taken in. To be singled out as the father of a woman's child…that has never happened to me. Afterwards, maybe. But never before.

INEZ

You mean you are going to do it? With that dried up old English prune?

ARMANDO

I am not only going to do it, I am going to take her to the other side of the island to Sierra de Trinidad. And there I will show her a night like she only imagined in her dreams.

INEZ

And when do you plan on fulfilling this fantasy?

ARMANDO

Esta noche.

INEZ

Maravilloso! Before, after or during the show?

                                                             (HE clutches his throat, rolls his eyes and gasps for breath.)

INEZ

Is that your performance tonight on the dance floor…or in bed?

ARMANDO

There will be no performance tonight. Armando is ill. He cannot go on.

INEZ

This is one of your jokes, and it is not amusing.

ARMANDO

It will be especially not amusing when Carlos announces "And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Casino Espagnol takes great pleasure in presenting Armando y Inez"…and only Inez appears.

INEZ

You are serious.

ARMANDO

I could not be more serious.

INEZ

You selfish bastard! To appease your incredible machismo ego, you will not appear tonight in order to screw a shriveled up old hag so you can be the father of her child. You don't even know if she can bear a child. The only thing it looks like she can bear would probably be a very soggy crumpet!

ARMANDO

What about that night you did not show up? What about that, you bitch? You can do it, but I cannot.

INEZ

I knew you would bring that up. I was with Signor Scannasapieco…one of the wealthiest men in all Milano. I was paid eighty times more than I could make at the Casino in six months of aching muscles and bleeding feet. But you…you will not get a centavo!

ARMANDO

A centavo, no. A son, perhaps.

INEZ

If you want a son so badly, I will give you a son!

ARMANDO

You do not think I would want for the mother of my child, a woman who has given half of Havana the clap? (INEZ grabs an ashtray and hurls it at him. HE ducks. The glass shatters.) INEZ You prick! I loathe you!

ARMANDO

Besides I do not want a son clutching at my coattails.

INEZ

Then what do you care? He will be miles away from you. If that piece of parchment paper can conceive…and I sincerely doubt it…you will never set eyes on him.

ARMANDO

That is all right. For I shall follow his activities closely in the newspapers. And when he marries this very, very wealthy heiress, I will stand outside the window of the church in an old raincoat with the water streaming down my face.

INEZ

That is very funny. But let me tell you this…and I swear it on my mother's grave. If you do not appear tonight on the dance floor of the Casino Espagnol, that is the end of us! I am finished…through! Find another dance partner. Find another lover who will give you what I have given you. I have only to go down to the phone and call Ovidio Microutsicos. He can dance rings around you, and Carlos would be only too delighted to have him. So go ahead, my great Cuban stud. Go with your English spinster to Sierra del Trinidad…and just see what happens. (SHE stares at him with intense hostility while HE remains indifferent.)
 
  BLACKOUT