Scene 20
The girls' bedroom. There is a knock at the door. ANGELIQUE has given the shovel to POUBELLE, who hides it under the bed when the doorknob starts to turn.
MAX
May I come in?
POUBELLE
One moment.
She smoothes the bed.
Yes, we're ready.
MAX enters.
Where is Monsieur?
MAX
He's working late tonight.
POUBELLE
Are you doing the examinations?
MAX
Yes, for tonight. Poubelle, would you like to go first?
POUBELLE
Splits always goes first.
MAX
Oh… right.
ANGELIQUE
It's all right. You go, Poubelle.
MAX
Um, then, Poubelle, would you sit?
POUBELLE
We always start standing, Monsieur.
MAX
Oh, yes, I see.
He looks at his chart and begins to examine POUBELLE.
POUBELLE
Am I beating?
MAX
Bleeding?
ANGELIQUE
Non, beating, her heart.
MAX
Oh.
POUBELLE
Relax, Dr. Street.
ANGELIQUE smiles encouragingly.
We don't bite.
MAX nervously checks over his chart.
Glands, heart, reflexes, menstrual cycle, that's the order.
MAX
Thank—
POUBELLE
De rien… Have you ever done this before?
MAX
Once. When Dr. Glass was—
ANGELIQUE
When you were sick, Poubelle.
POUBELLE
Oh, oui… Why don't we play a game?
MAX
A game?
POUBELLE
Pour s'amuser while you do your work.
ANGELIQUE
Lequel?
POUBELLE
Story.
MAX
Story?
POUBELLE
We make up a story. I say a line or a few, Splits continues, and then you, and so on and so on… we connect to make the story. Vous savez?
ANGELIQUE
Les règlements.
POUBELLE
Bien sûr! There are three rules: the story must make sense, the story must rhyme, and if you cannot think of anything to say you must say pass.
MAX
Do you play this often?
BOTH
Tout le temps!
POUBELLE
What else is there to do? Okay, let's begin.
ANGELIQUE
You start, Belle.
POUBELLE
The rhyming couplets, our set of Siamese twins.
ANGELIQUE
God knows where one ends and the other begins… It's your turn.
MAX
A double of everything…
POUBELLE
You pass. A double of everything to pleasure the eye.
ANGELIQUE
Of breath, of breast, and of softness of thigh.
MAX
Umm, something with spurn.
ANGELIQUE
You pass.
POUBELLE
For a man their supple breasts burn.
ANGELIQUE
POUBELLE!
POUBELLE
Keep going.
ANGELIQUE
In walks a man named Montreal Smoked Pete.
MAX
It is for his affection that the twins will compete.
ANGELIQUE
Très bien.
POUBELLE
Sushi, as the blue one was aptly named.
ANGELIQUE
For her sweet smell of fish was she properly famed.
MAX
The other called Setzuan for her foreign looks.
POUBELLE
She longed to practise what she'd only read in books.
ANGELIQUE
"I want you, I want you, I want you, my Pete."
MAX
Pass.
POUBELLE
Each had a craving for Montreal smoked meat.
ANGELIQUE
"But my ladies, you make it so hard for a man to choose."
MAX
But I'm drunk off you both… ahh…
POUBELLE
Like I'm two-fisting booze.
"But smell me," said Sushi, "I'm a pearl on the ocean floor."
ANGELIQUE
"But I'll love you," said Setzuan, "and give you so much more."
MAX
"Enough!" said Pete, "I must know now and soon."
POUBELLE
A man in this state cannot wait the next moon.
ANGELIQUE
Cut them apart, I'll choose when my mind clears.
MAX
You get the scissors…
ANGELIQUE
I the pinking shears!
POUBELLE
And the parts joining them one were made two.
ANGELIQUE
Pete unkindly undid all of God's glue.
MAX
Pass.
POUBELLE
Sushi, a fish out of water on the bathroom floor.
ANGELIQUE
Setzuan doing her best to lick what was sore.
MAX motions to pass.
POUBELLE
"But my darlings, what's happened? Your lust is so withered?"
BOTH
"It was together into this world that we were delivered."
POUBELLE
"You've severed and dampened our elusive spark."
ANGELIQUE
Now what to do with the pair of dying twins in the dark?
POUBELLE
Now by heaven above and the tomb of Ophelia… You finish it, Docteur!
ANGELIQUE
Rhyme with Ophelia!
POUBELLE
Vas-y!
MAX
With the twins in the dark he… committed necrophilia.
ANGELIQUE
What's necrophilia?
MAX
It's uh—
POUBELLE
Is that a medical term?
MAX
I didn't have another word to rhyme.
POUBELLE
What is it?
MAX
It's intercourse… with a dead body.
ANGELIQUE
Oh, mon dieu!
MAX
I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything else.
POUBELLE
You really aren't very good at this, Docteur.