THE FLAMENCO SCENE FROM "THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE"

Six of us are sitting around a large table drinking. Rob and Kay are drinking vodka with tonic. Karen is drinking red wine. Mike isn’t drinking anything at the moment. He’s been told not to. Jane and I are drinking whisky. She with ice, me straight. Rob, Mike, Kay and Karen teach at Mount Pleasant High. Mike teaches drama, Rob gym, Kay and Karen English. Jane is a secretary, and I teach cinema at Lincoln Institute. It’s already late in the evening. November. Outside, about two or three miles away, I can see the lights of the football stadium. There must be a game on tonight.

 

Mike made dinner. Vegetarian. Some kind of stew. Very tasty.

“That was very tasty, Mike”, says Karen

“What was it?” asks Kay.

“You must let us have the recipe”, says Karen.

“Sure”, says Mike, “it’s very simple really.”

“Turn the sound up, Karen”, says Kay.

Karen’s talking to Rob about her classes. Kay’s sitting against the wall, and in order to get to the TV she would have to ask Rob or me and Jane to stand up to let her get out. She forgets about the TV and drinks some more vodka.

 

“So how long have you been at Lincoln, Dave?” asks Karen.

“About forty years now.” And I laugh. Rob laughs too.

“No,” I say, “really about three years. Who’s counting anyway?” I take another sip of whisky.

 

Rob now almost has his back to the table and is watching TV. Mike comes back from the kitchen with a pot of coffee. “How do you like it?” asks Kay or Karen; I wasn’t paying much attention.

“It’s great. Lecturing to people who don’t care whether I talk in English or Chinese is really stimulating. Most students take my course because they have to if they study Contemporary History; they don’t care about the subject.”

Mike brings in a bottle of Tequila.

“How about going dancing later?” he asks.

“So what are your classes really like?” asks Kay, or Karen.

 

Kay and Karen look very similar. They are both about twenty and are wearing black. They talk in a similar way. They went to college together and majored in the same subject. They share an apartment on West 44^th. Last year they went to Europe together. They really like France, Karen told me. When I was introduced to them – tonight – I made a mental note of how to distinguish between them. Kay has one earring. Karen has two. But I don’t see this when they are talking to me and I am looking at Rob, or Jane, or at the lights of the football park.

 

When I look back at Kay, or Karen, or both, I see that they are watching TV again. I help myself to some tequila. Rob has some. With tonic. Jane doesn’t want to drink any more. Another difference between Kay and Karen is that Karen is drinking red wine and Kay is drinking vodka, or maybe tequila. Mike sits down.

 

“Anyone like to go dancing later?”

“You’re great, Mike”, says Jane.

Karen drinks off her wine and pours herself some coffee. She tells Rob that she thinks it must be very interesting to teach cinema. I look out of the window at the lights and I think about Wednesday.

 

On Wednesday I was talking about Buñuel to some students, and I’d asked to use Theater Four. I’d been wanting to show a short clip from That Obscure Object of Desire for some time, and so after my initial talk we all walked along the corridor to the theater. Theater Four. I showed a short clip – the Flamenco scene – and then I asked for the lights to be turned back on. I asked the students to comment on it. One of them – Ron, Ron Locarno – said he really found it very tasteful. I asked him what he meant, and he said that it could have been done in a dirty way, but it wasn’t.

 

When we came out of the theater after the bell rang and I’d gathered up my notes, I was walking along to the staff canteen and students were running past me talking about TV, boyfriends, girlfriends, clothes and weekends out of town, and then, as he passes me, Ron, Ron Locarno, pats me on the back and says, “Nice class, teach”, and smiles.

 

“Anyone want coffee?” asks Mike.

Karen and Rob are talking about TV.

“Coffee?” asks Mike.

Rob turns back to the table and seems to resume his position for dinner. I notice that the lights of the stadium have gone out. Jane lights a cigarette.

 

“Anyway, Dave, you didn’t say what your classes were like.”

I take a puff of Jane’s cigarette.

“They’re very much like this,” I say. “Very much like this.”

“Anyone like to go dancing?” asks Mike.

 

But the dancing had finished for the evening, and I looked around the room, at Rob and Mike and Karen and Kay, and I thought about the attempt I’d made in this city, of how I thought it would be different, and of how me and Sonia had intended to try again, and how we’d failed. I thought about my work and how it wasn’t really important, and I thought about my future and my past, of how I was almost forty now and wasn’t doing anything worthwhile, and about my father and whether he would live to see this Christmas. I thought of Jane and how she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself, and I thought that on Monday I would stop, that I couldn’t keep on drinking like this, that I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps. But most of all I thought of Wednesday and of Ron, and of that pat on the back and smile.