PASSING FOR NORMAL

The Way We Were..

“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for
jewels. It is always the false ones that look the most real, the most
brilliant.”- Salvador Dali

Scene: Our Last Tango.
Summer, 2005
A studio apartment.














She had her back to him. She was looking through the window, trying to follow that distant sound. It is the ice cream truck. This music. This melody engraved in her head like a door to happiness and excitement and endless memories of lazy summer afternoons. She heard his voice on the phone and had to run to him. He was her only friend. Tonight she needed a friend. She needed his pillow next to hers. She needed a kind face. She needed ample arms where she can throw herself and forget for a minute… Just for a minute...
- But I love you
- No my sweetheart, you don't
She flips through the pages.
- Yes I do
- No, not like that. I don’t love you like that either.
Closing her book now. Walking to the kitchen in slow steps.
- I’m going to make some tea. I got this great chamomile...
- Don’t change the subject and how can you say it so calmly?
- Because I thought of it endlessly (she smiles)
- So what do you call this?
- This? She puts her arm around his neck. Don’t be bitter. You’re just used to me. We both know that you have this need.
- What need? A need for a woman in my life? Well, who doesn’t?
- No. I mean a need to be embraced every night. A need to hide in somebody’s conscious. A need to cry at a woman’s chest. A need not to be left, to be listened to with no judgment, a need to be tended to with endless giving, with endless love. The love I have for you my darling is endless. I love your exquisite insecurities and your unpredictable childhood, but I cannot be your mother.
She turns the music on.
- Don’t you love Tango? It is so sensual, so abrupt. Our teacher says that Argentine Tango came from the people, the common people as a reaction to ballroom. That is why it is so simple, as a dance and so sexy. It is about a man and a woman. Two bodies wired together by the same beat, moving as one..
- Why do you keep doing this?
- What darling?
- Ignoring me? Listen. You are my friend and I love you. What could be more perfect than that? This is real... What else could you ever want?
- Love. Irrational, angry, unexpected, never perfect, surreal… I want the Tango feel! I want fireworks...
- You will never find that
- I will die trying my love. Meanwhile, come, come dance with me…

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Scene: Fear.
Summer, 1988
Summer house.








(Michael Cammer, untitled)





It was one of the days she would never forget. She could not forget. She still had the scars. And everytime she looked in the mirror, she would remember. The day that taught her what guilt felt like and what fear tasted like. His screaming voice would always echo in her mind. She is bleeding. She is bleeding. Her mother runs frantic to the door. Her father holding that man that she likes so much. That man who always brings her books and asks her to recite the new poems she learned at school. She sees the back of his neck. She knows it is him. The man is not moving. She sees the car moving fast and as her uncle holds her up she loses consciousness. She can remember the explosion voice, the glass shattering. She remembers feeling a sharp pain that took the focus away from what was happening. She remembers the needle and the strain. She remembers his still head. The fear on her father’s face. The blood running on the floor. The dim faces and the green suits. People screaming and her mother…
Her father is finally here. She asks about the sweet man.
He could not be here baby but he wanted you to say a poem for him.
She still recites poems for him...

*************************************

Scene: Jealousy
Summer, 2003.
Webster Hall.








(Dali, Metomorphosis of Narcissus)




They have been dating without knowing it.
He had seen her at all the places he went to.
It was a small community.
People around them were pushing them towards each other
they felt it.
They were aware of one another
He came to her one day
She said, so today is finally the day
They talked about Paris and the Louvre
He promised to show her the Metropolitan

They read together, he cooked for her, she picked movies for him,
She agreed to a friendship, coffee, date and more…
Like water for chocolate, like heaven
At last she thought, at last
except it didn't last,
one day it happened
they were all out
with the girls
and he drinks..
she went for,
a puff
and back,
there he was
with her
caressing her
and kissing her…
she felt dizzy,
her friend's there
her dear friend,
she grabs his hand
plants her nails in his hand
he holds her as she shakes like a leaf
in the storm of her tears, they would pick up and leave
she shall never fall in love again and she should never, never
go to the Metropolitan.

A day, a week, a month went by. He spoke, said it's the European in him.
But he still loves her...
She walked. That was the Arabic in her...

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Scene: What women talk about...