(It gets dark, then light again. We are back in Ishtar and Tony's flat. They are dressed differently.)
ISHTAR: It's on the eleventh floor! It's a corner unit. It gets the sun in the late afternoon, that's when I am most likely to enjoy it, when I come home from work. The other window is to the North... It's mine beginning January 1st...
TONY: I cannot believe this!
ISHTAR: It's very close. From the north window, I can see one corner of your building.
TONY: My building!
ISHTAR: I will not change my mind. I feel at peace, now that I have taken my decision... I know that what I am doing is right... Maybe that I have never felt so sure of anything before... That must mean something... From the moment I have walked into that place,
it all became very bright and very silent in my mind... When it went quiet like that, all of a sudden,
I realized what turmoil had been going on in me before...
TONY: Ishtar... You cannot leave me! You cannot leave me without telling me - is it something I have done?
ISHTAR: Don't you understand what I am telling you? Maybe it's because I recognized that corner of your building from the kitchen window... so close still... Maybe that's when I knew that I was doing the right thing...
Maybe not the right thing by you, but the right thing by me...
TONY: I don't count...
ISHTAR: Either you count, or I count... That was the hardest thing to face! I decided: I count...
TONY: And I'm thrown by the wayside...
ISHTAR: Don't be ridiculous! I am only moving to the next block... It's ten minutes walk... You'll have the keys, of course!
TONY: One question: Will we fuck?
ISHTAR (after a silence): Why not?
TONY: Because, if we are still fucking, there is no point in living apart! To put it bluntly...!
ISHTAR: It's not the fucking... It's not because of the fucking that I want to be alone... There are lots of people in this town who live apart, and who fuck...
TONY: What if I decide to move? Do you think that I can live here without you? I loath the place already! I'll feel like a jackass!
ISHTAR: Then... move!
TONY: Jeez, this is ridiculous! You move, I move, and so on! Maybe if we moved both together, to another place, a place where you would feel more alone... more bright and silent in your head... Maybe it's the walls, maybe it's the exposure... Maybe, if we went to live somewhere on a high floor... If we adopted a child, Ishtar...
ISHTAR: I am not ready to adopt a child!
TONY: Haven't I been a good husband to you, Ishtar? Haven't I done my best? I mean, after what we both went through... Have I failed you in anything, Ishtar? Godammit! If I have made mistakes - forgive me! It wasn't easy, Ishtar! At least, I tried... At least, haven't I fucked you well, Ishtar...?
ISHTAR: You always come back to that! As if, somehow, it hadn't come to you naturally... As if you might well not have... As if you had a special merit in doing it... under the circumstances... under these difficult circumstances... As if you had earned yourself a badge... As if another man, a normal man, a lesser man, could well have been turned off... have become impotent... have needed therapy... Not you... you rose to the occasion... Against all odds... Against all odds...!
TONY: So, it was the fucking! I knew it! I knew it! When people go apart, it's always the fucking! Always!
ISHTAR: Maybe - maybe you are right! Maybe we should stop fucking for a while!
TONY: If that was what you wanted, Ishtar - you know, I would have given it to you - the not fucking, I would have gladly given that to you... I thought that you liked our fucking... I wanted to do good by you...
ISHTAR: You wanted to do good to my self-esteem!
TONY: Fuck your self-esteem, Ishtar! I fuck you because I love you, Ishtar! I don't have ulterior motives! I don't fuck to do good, I don't fuck to dispense good-feelings, I am not that conceited, I am smug, okay, I am conceited about my fucking, maybe, but I am not that conceited, you know what, Ishtar - do you want me to come out with a real secret, Ishtar, to confess to you something I have never told you - when we were fucking to make a child - when we suddenly started fucking for a purpose, Ishtar... I didn't tell you then... I... I didn't like that much... I... felt as if we were using each other, Ishtar... I liked it because you liked it, I liked it because you wanted it... because you wanted it so much... but I... very honestly, I resented you for wanting it so much... fucking... it seemed to me... that's not what fucking is all about... that's, somehow, peripheral to fucking... a side-effect... a goddam side-effect... nothing more... fucking is something else... It should be... should be...
(There's a long silence.)
TONY: And you... you resent me for feeling like this... you want to punish me... you are punishing me, Ishtar, for the way I feel about fucking... Because I don't want to make you a baby Ishtar, for your own good... You want to punish me, Ishtar, you want to take it from me... you want to take the fucking from me...
ISHTAR: Breathing... I only want to breathe, you see. I have difficulty breathing... My breath, my breasts... I have had this wake-up call... You have had it too, I know, but it's not the same call, it cannot be... I am not falling apart, as you can see, I didn't fall apart... Thanks to you, thanks in great part to you, I am sure... And to your fucking... I am quiet, even happy... There is life in front of me... and in this life, the message is very clear, the message from the inside, it's: I don't want to see your mug, darling, not as much as I have seen it until now, (no hate in this as she says this) darling, your mug, I have had my fill of it, I would even say, lucky was I! Lucky was I! But we are on different tracks now... You see, how all important fucking is for you and how all important breathing is now for me, being alone, being by myself... Maybe it is to be a quieter life, not full of you, not full of your love... not apart from you, but you just not in the middle of it, taking all the air away... sucking all the air and light away... Who says people must live in couples? Sometimes they must, sometimes they must not...
TONY: These are ideas which those New Age dykes have put in your head...
ISHTAR: Call her a dyke if you want... It's not her idea...
TONY: I hate myself... I hate my mug, I can well understand you... It's different living with my mug in front of one and living with your mug in front of one... It's an entirely different life... I agree... It's hard to accept, but I can see your point... Your mug is one that one can live with seeing, mine - I can well imagine, mine wears out its welcome after a while...
ISHTAR: (looks at him intently, and bursts out laughing.)
TONY: You are ill, Ishtar... If... this hadn't happened to you... Ask yourself, if... this had happened to you, would you be thinking of doing this, would you...
ISHTAR: Everything would be different... Maybe I would have gotten pregnant, we would have a child by now...
TONY: Then, you wouldn't mind me... Would you?
ISHTAR: Do I know?
(Silence.)
TONY: Just tell me... what is it, about my fucking?
ISHTAR: Do I know... It scares me, now...
Maybe that it always scared me...
It's part of this, of nature... of proliferation... it's part of life... it's dangerous... there's never enough of it... it takes on a life of its own... it goes riot... it sets up shop for itself and soon you are nothing but a hull, a husk, an empty hull invaded by a different life, and to be cast away soon... in time... in a short time... I want order, serenity...I want things to stand still...
TONY: What about taking care of me, Ishtar?
ISHTAR: That, I wouldn't waste a minute on... making that a consideration -? Something that you need so little of... I will be ten minutes away... I will be closer than your mother... I can do less well in that than your mother... Yet, you don't even need your mother... When have you thought of your mother last... You need yourself, you only need yourself, and an audience... You're a popular man, you'll always have your audience...
(Lights dim. TONY remains alone.)