The Hands

(A kitchen, at night. A tap is running. Nobody turns it off.)

LUI

You’ve washed your hands three times.

ELLE

They’re not dirty. It’s worse. They’re clean, and I can still feel it.

LUI

Nobody knows. Nobody will know.

ELLE

We know. We’ll sleep beside someone who knows, every night, until the end.

LUI

We had no choice.

ELLE

Don’t say that. “No choice” is what you tell other people. Between us, let’s tell the truth: we chose fast, and we chose wrong.

(The tap keeps running.)

LUI

Turn that tap off.

ELLE

Turn it off yourself. If I go near water again, I’ll start scrubbing.

LUI

Tomorrow we’ll get up, and it’ll be an ordinary day.

ELLE

There won’t be ordinary days anymore. There’ll be days when we pretend. It’s not the same.

LUI

You look at me as if I were the monster.

ELLE

No. I look at you like a mirror. That’s the unbearable part.

(She finally turns off the tap. The silence is worse.)

ELLE

There. Now we can hear our hearts. We’ll have to get used to that sound.