(TONY and ISHTAR back for siesta in their hotel room. He kicks off his shoes, drops his jacket and pants. She takes off her white mantilla carefully, her dress quickly. She remains in her underwear and shoes, he in his shirt, boxer and socks.)
ISHTAR I can have children...
TONY: Love, don't even think about it...
ISHTAR Women with breast cancer have children all the times... It happens rather often...
TONY: They have different kinds of cancer... It's out of the question...
ISHTAR: I don't want to adopt a child...
TONY: Whatever your decision, I will go with it, you know I will...
ISHTAR: Then let me have our own child...
TONY: No.
ISHTAR: You just said, you'd go with me what ever I decide...
TONY: I meant, about adoption... Maybe we should forget about it just now, think it over... maybe give it another chance...
ISHTAR: I can have a child...
TONY: Yes, but you mustn't have one...
ISHTAR: You wanted a child as badly as I did, before... Remember, how much you wanted to have a child...
TONY: I knew you wanted one, that's why I wanted one, now the situation is different...
ISHTAR You always say: nothing is different between us...
TONY: This is different...
ISHTAR You think that I might die before the child is old enough...
TONY: No, this is not true...Any child would be lucky to have you for a mother, for whatever length of time...
ISHTAR: So, you really think that...
TONY: No... I didn't mean this... I mean just the contrary... The thought has never crossed my mind... I'm not worried one bit about the child, I'm worried about you... The child doesn't matter to me... It doesn't exist... I could never forgive myself if a child from me did hurt you...
She remains silent.
TONY: Would I want us to adopt a child if I were worried about this... about our not being able to... see it to adult life... An adopted child will not hurt you, this is why I want an adopted child...
ISHTAR: You want a child...
TONY: If there's to be a child, then I want an adopted child... Or any kind of child that doesn't hurt you... that doesn't hurt you...
ISHTAR: I want our own child... biologically our own child... I want my child, your child, my child... our child... And it's not, it's not this damn cancer that's going to take this away from me... Why should we be so much in awe before it? Give it so much importance? Every decision in our life is going to be ruled by that? By the fear of death? You don't believe in the afterlife, is that a reason why we should believe in death? Who cares about death? What is death? I don't give a shit about death... Should our lives be ruled by Death? So I have a child and maybe I die, maybe, just maybe, okay, I have a seventy percent chance of recurrence, that's not death, okay, say I have a child and maybe I die, or I don't have one, and maybe I die... I have a good chance... why should death rule us, we are young, we are even healthy, in a way, we are, you and I, together we are, why should we let ourselves be ruled by illness and pessimism and death?
TONY: I don't. I will never accept this.
ISHTAR: You see the silly thirty percent, you'll do anything for the thirty percent... I see the seventy percent...
TONY: You must keep in eye the thirty percent... that's the reasonable, the rational thing to do... the only rational thing... It's this teeming of children around us which unsettles you... There are too many children around in this damned country... It's unnerving...
ISHTAR Yes... It seems that everybody can have a child, just not me... every lizard, every cockroach can reproduce, just not me...
TONY: Look, Death always wins...That's why one shouldn't even think about it...
ISHTAR: Right! One shouldn't even think about it...
(He lets himself fall back in lying position. Mockingly exhausted.)
ISHTAR (standing in front of him, dominating him - laughingly): Let me have our child...
TONY: No...
ISHTAR (she is standing over him, puts her foot on his chest): A child!
TONY: My love, I will not...
ISHTAR Look at those fucking birds, those cockroaches, they live, yet they are not needed... I need this child... of yours...
TONY: Not of mine... No...
ISHTAR This is what I want. Take or leave it.
(She sits down on him, around his neck, so that it looks as if his head where coming out of her. All this very playfully.)
ISHTAR: Your child, dear... (bends down and kisses him).
TONY: No!
ISHTAR (gets up quickly, as if suddenly remembering something upsetting):
You've refused before...!
TONY (jumps up in turn. The light darkens): There it is... The thing we're not talking about often... That other day when she said... That other day when she said... something, something like: I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...
ISHTAR (recalling): I am sorry... I'm pregnant.
TONY: Not that way.
ISHTAR: I'm sorry... I'm pregnant.
TONY: Not that way.
ISHTAR (bursting out, happily): - I'm pregnant.
TONY: I heard it differently. In my memory, it sounds different.
ISHTAR: I'm pregnant.
I knew you would say: "no."
(They sit down side by side, as if on a bench, looking into the audience.)
TONY: That's why you said it that way.
ISHTAR: I was not surprised, darling.
TONY: But you hoped that it would be different... My poor love...
ISHTAR: Yes. No. I hoped. I didn't hope.
TONY: I'm sorry!
ISHTAR: Don't. It doesn't matter.
TONY: But it did.
ISHTAR: Oh, yes!
TONY: You wanted it!
ISHTAR: Oh, yes!
TONY: But because I didn't want it, you didn't.
ISHTAR: Oh, yes!
TONY: I don't understand. You always have your own will, you're a willful person, I've never known you differently. When it comes to anything, big or small, you get your will. You always know what you want. But in this matter... of all matters... without even protesting... you went my way... I didn't want it... you decided not to want it...
ISHTAR: It made no sense if you didn't want it. It made all the sense in the world if you did.
TONY: Were you sore at me?
ISHTAR: Very.
TONY: Are you still?
ISHTAR: Very.
TONY: But why on earth didn't you...
ISHTAR: You would have said NO.
TONY: How old would it be?
ISHTAR: Nine!
TONY: Nine.
ISHTAR: Nine!
TONY: It might have been a lot of fun.
ISHTAR: Don't...!
TONY: Every minute of our lives beginning then would have been different, absolutely every minute...
ISHTAR: Every minute WAS different...
TONY: D'you realize what that means?
ISHTAR: Every minute for nine plus years... every minute...
TONY: Scary, isn't it?
ISHTAR: Very!
TONY: I hate the thought!
ISHTAR: Why?
TONY: Because I wouldn't have wanted it to be any different. I love the way they were. Every one of them, I think. Except a few. Since February... but we would have had those anyway...
ISHTAR: We would have had those anyway.
TONY: I love every minute of this life I have spent with you.
ISHTAR: (remains silent).
TONY: It's different for you.
ISHTAR: Maybe.
TONY: It's surely different for you.
ISHTAR: I could imagine another life. It would have been quite alright!
TONY: No, I have what I have. It would be sacrilegious to want something
better, something else.
ISHTAR: It's an idle consideration.
TONY: There's only one thing I would want to change. The only thing I would want to take out of our life. The thing I can't take.
ISHTAR: That's idle talk, too.
TONY: You're beautiful. You will always be.
ISHTAR: (silence).
TONY: I love you. I cannot take it.
ISHTAR: (silence).
TONY: Do you think the cancer would have taken another course?
ISHTAR: Who knows? It might have come a little bit earlier. A little bit later. Chances are, it was already there... Invisible... microscopic... It might have grown quicker... more slowly... I would have gone through a pregnancy... I would have had milk...
We wouldn't want another one,
if we had had that one...
That's the difference for me... No discussions... no longing... no desire... that's how I see it... One less worry... Just that... One big worry less...
TONY: How can I tell her that I see it as one big worry more... Nine... and having to tell him this... Would Ishtar have gone off to her mother, to Amalthea...? No, but of course not... That's why she went off. Because he, she's not here. Nine isn't here. She wouldn't have thought of going anywhere else but home, when she came out of the hospital. I never thought of that.
She would have wanted to stay with me and Nine, with Nine and me.
It would have been better, I guess... But these nine years without... they were splendid... They were magnificent... I wouldn't want anything else, I want these nine years just as they are... I want nobody else... It bothers me... That number nine... Nine... Don't want any of it... Nine... Niño... Niña...
(He gets up quickly.)
Nine, you don't exist... and that's that...
END OF ACT TWO.