LITERATI
 
 
DIANA So! You've come out at last. I thought you’d be forever!
   
KAREN (Whispered) Mother...
   
DIANA Why are you whispering, for God's sakes? You look like you've seen a ghost.
   
KAREN No...I’m just...
   
DIANA Maybe you're working too much. What are you doing in there by the way?
   
KAREN shuts the door behind her. A click is heard.
    
KAREN Nothing important..
   
DIANA I see. Well, I have something important if you'd care to see.
   
INTERIOR : DIANA'S NY MANSION - BALL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER
    
DIANA and KAREN enter a ball room in the late stages of construction.  Gold leaf work has begun.




DIANA		 Now, Karen, take a look at this room. Close to finished? Yes? But now, just hear me out because this is something I'm very sure of but I've been walking around with this, like a sickness. Believe me, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to rip again. I was almost throwing up the other night. I sat on that box till four in the morning and I looked and I thought, "something is wrong here. Something is dead." And then it came. The solution. It involves lifting the ceiling which is a structural problem but just look, you're an artist. Imagine a honey-combed ceiling rising up, Alhambra-style, all mosaic. Take out that silly room you're in down there.
KAREN ...I'm in?
   
DIANA Oh, there's a dozen rooms we can stick you in. Then, a reflecting pool to carry the light from the windows and sweep the eye..around to here. You see, don't you? Scheherazade instead of this predictable box. And when something is right there's no turning back. You take your hand away from your heart and all of a sudden the cobwebs disappear and all the compromises you make for a thousand reasons -- money, sanity, time -- God knows, time! Jesus, I talk like I have forever but who knows, maybe I do -- fear, people's opinions, yours because, of course, I know what you're going to say "Mother, you’re mad" and the people who’ll come and the eyes. Well, maybe in other places things go smoothly according to what's on paper, but I say fuck what's on paper if you can do better. People used to say how can you live this way and I say to them, it's not without its sacrifices. And this is important for YOU to hear, Karen, people who settle...maybe they fade into the crowd but the crowd will never beat a path to their door. Because baby,

when I'm all through, after all a this hell, all incompetence of architects and the thievery of workmen and my own mistakes and I've made `em -- but when I get this thing done this will be the, not a, but the place in New York. Ground zero, baby doll. The house, the place people will kill for an invitation to. And all the black tongues and black hearts, they won't have a chance to catch their stinking breath, let alone criticize. And all the crap and the...The Prince of Wales himself and that nothing he's married to..You can buy them, in any case, you know...for an evening. I might just do it so I can tell' em to go fuck themselves. (She laughs wildly) What do you think?!
   
KAREN shakes her head in paralyzed silence.
 
DIANA You see how alone I've been, of course. Maybe you're worried this'll never end. 
   
KAREN smiles tremulously at her.
   
DIANA Or do you just think I'm mad?
   
KAREN No...no...
   
DIANA You know, you're very pretty when you're soft like this.
 
DIANA puts her arms around KAREN’S neck and pulls her into a full-lipped Heddy Lamarr kiss, on the mouth. As the kiss ends DIANA smiles coquettishly and takes KAREN by the arm.
   
DIANA Come on! I'm starved. You must be, too, after your long day in there doing nothing.  
 
INTERIOR : DIANA'S NY MANSION - KITCHEN - LATER THAT NIGHT
 
KAREN and DIANA sit eating rare lamb chops and drinking wine.
 
DIANA This you will not believe. Haut  Brion`55. Saved for what, really? For right now. (She sips) Black velvet! (raising her glass) To opening the doors! Ha! To the silly asses and stopping `em dead in their tracks. Oh, divine! Isn't it divine? (KAREN nods) Isn't it!
   
KAREN Yes.
   
DIANA It's divine! Look, Karen, what I said about you're being pretty? Is true. But your kind of pretty is more, with an eye, it's there, especially when you relax.  But no kind of pretty, unless you're drop-dead-gorgeous-out-of-bed-in-the-morning and twenty years old --means a God damn thing unless you do something with it. I don't wanna argue, but I have a funny, tingly feeling, I can't say why, like all the fighting and pushing me away is over. You're finally ready.
 
KAREN barely nods.
 
DIANA Is that a yes? (KAREN nods) Pinch me! I must be dreaming. But I like this dream! (Raising her glass) To the daughter I've finally found! Let's toast! Come on!
 

 They clink glasses. Then DIANA digs into her lamb chop

   
DIANA (Her mouth full) God, you know life's so unpredictable...you think it's over. I'd have said, after Gregor, "I'm finished." Baby doll, I'm not finished, not by a long shot. But this time I'm gonna find the right one. There's a lot of dreck floating around out there. You don't know because you jumped into the nearest harbor but let me tell you, your father was a rarity. A truly good and gifted man. I just couldn't love him. That doesn't hurt you does it?
   
KAREN No...
   
DIANA Well, it shouldn't, really, because it didn’t concern you. But I just couldn't. He was no fun. No joie de vivre. I mean he would hang from the ceiling to please me sexually.
   
KAREN looks down at her hands.
   
DIANA So, I guess you know your old Mom's quite a hot cookie! Truth is, you're old enough. I can come four or five times in one go. The real thing I mean. Vaginally. Not this feminist nonsense about playing with yourself. I don't need a man to do that. And your father could do it -- did you know that too?
   
KAREN

Yes, I imagine.
No, I didn't know. 

   
DIANA Well, he could. God, it's so great to be able to talk like this. I couldn't have talked with my mother this way though God knows she'd have given her right arm for me. But those were different times. You're not eating.
   
KAREN Red meat's hard for my stomach.
   
DIANA Nonsense! This lamb digests itself! You see a doctor?
   
KAREN I think I should be going home.
   
DIANA (Suddenly offended) Oh, really?
   
DIANA gets up to stir a pan. She keeps her back to KAREN. Her tone is suddenly serious, hurt.
   
DIANA There's an extra bed in my room. Manuel's put fresh sheets. This work of yours, whatever it is, you seem to be able to do it here as well.
 
INTERIOR : DIANA'S BEDROOM - MUCH LATER THAT NIGHT
   
 

 A bulb from the hall illuminates DIANA and KAREN in bed. Though DIANA’S eyes are half open from too many surgeries, she is asleep. Her scalp is covered with a post-chemo fuzz. Her hand rests heavily on KAREN’S arm. KAREN gazes with old sadness at her mother then gently moves her mother's hand, rises, and tip-toes out.

 
INTERIOR : DIANA’S MANSION - MONTAGE - SAME NIGHT
 
Making her way through the destroyed mansion, KAREN passes WORKMEN and SEAMSTRESSES sleeping on piles of clothes, drop cloths, old curtains etc. Finally reaching the front door, KAREN opens it as quietly as possible. But there is no street, there is only a lead wall, like the lining of a coffin. She’s trapped. Here she will stay until she finds the voice to finish.