The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights

by Reinaldo Arenas

  First major category: SUBLIMITY. It is this species of queenhood that engenders heroes, martyrs, and true geniuses. Examples: Jesus Christ, Leonardo da Vinci, Cervantes.

  Second major category: BEAUTY. This type of queenhood produces great artists and impassioned, insane suicides. It can also lead to lustfulness. Examples: Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust . . .

  Third major category: INTUITION. This type of queen may craft works of some quality, but they are always subject to the accidents of time. Examples: almost all the writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, from Sartre to Hermann Hesse, and in general almost all “writers of some talent.”

  Fourth major category: INTELLIGENCE. This queenhood does not produce works of art, but those who are possessed by it know how to negotiate the world the artist inhabits and thus may be academics, literary agents, outstanding journalists. Examples of this type are innumerable; we will cite but one case: Karmen Valcete.

  Fifth major category: COMMON SENSE. This type of queenhood despises art and almost all the other beautiful things of life. Persons in this category are, in general, moderately self-effacing, hardworking bureaucrats but may also be great but obscure traitors; they are also often engaged in business. Example: John D. Rockefeller, Armand Hammer, et al.

  Sixth major category: NORMALITY. This terrible type of queenhood is the least normal of all, and the closest to Common Sense. It can beset almost any member of the human race and has a permanent mediocritizing effect. The victims within this category may live for as long as a hundred years. Sometimes they suffer from delusions of superiority, or even think they belong to other categories of queenship. One example among thousands: Rafael Alberti.

  Seventh major category: GROTESQUENESS. Diametric opposite of Sublimity. Those who suffer under this queenhood occupy presidencies of countries, or become great dictators, or turn into vagabonds and homeless persons. They are much given to playing putatively historic roles. Examples: Hitler, Stalin, and our own adored Fifo.

  All these things were said by the AntiChelo on behalf of Albert Jünger, who as a person that was still alive had refused in no uncertain terms to participate in this event, though he did send in his paper with the Condesa de Merlín. The Condesa, of course, modified the paper to suit her own ends and commissioned one of her beautiful robots (the AntiChelo) to read it.

  FAIRIES ON THE BEACH

  “Oh, I love that one that just came out of the water,” said La Reine des Araignées.

  “A noble specimen, indeed,” nodded the Duchess.

  “Oh, girls, look at that black one that’s getting out of the car over there! He’s the best-looking man on all of La Concha,” shrieked Uglíssima.

  “They say he’s one of Skunk in a Funk’s husbands, so he’s got gonorrhea,” remarked the Duchess.

  “I hear he’s got a prick almost as big as the Key to the Gulf’s. And that basket of his would certainly make one think so,” purred SuperSatanic.

  “On the subject of pricks the definitive word has not yet been written,” said La Reine in her most pedantic manner. “Appearances can often be deceiving to a poor girl.”

  “Well, anyway, he charges ten pesos. So we can forget about him, darlings,” said the Duchess.

  “This beach has always been famous for having the most magnificent hustlers. Why, a hundred years ago Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams would come here directly from Key West to find their muscle muffins,” SuperSatanic solemnly informed them.

  “Oh, look, girls—look who just got here! Golden Boy!” exclaimed Uglíssima, pointing toward the entrance-gate to the beach.

  “I have never been one to corrupt the morals of a minor . . .” said La Reine. “Give me a real man, like the ones Voris Palovoi preferred.”

  “Tonight, in all the confusion at the Carnival,” said SuperSatanic, lowering her voice, “maybe you’ll be able to find one. Right along here is where things will start to break up.”

  “And,” said the Duchess in her most insinuating voice, “after a fellow has three beers and steps into the latrine, anybody can pick him up . . .”

  “Uh-huh, if it weren’t that for every man who steps into the latrine there are ten thousand fairies waiting for him,” moaned Uglíssima.

  “And ten thousand cops standing around watching,” added the Duchess.

  “Sometimes the cops let their hair down a little themselves,” winked La Reine.

  “Yeah, but if you look at ’em cross-eyed you could land in the clinker,” replied the Duchess.

  “Sometimes they screw you and then take you in precisely because you let ’em do it,” SuperSatanic told them.

  “These days, you can’t even trust a natural-born butt-stuffer anymore,” said La Reine, shaking her head.

  “Lots of them become cops just so they can screw other cops,” said Uglíssima, pursing her lips in pique.

  “Yeah, and in time they turn into fairies,” said SuperSatanic.

  “That’s often the way it goes, all right,” said La Reine, nodding, in a voice of tragedy.

  Then suddenly, looking out toward the ocean, they all fell silent. Near the coast, a pack of glorious stud-muffins were jogging through the surf, churning it into foam. It was an imploring, yearning surf that tried to reach the young men’s thighs, splash their bathing trunks. The waves, shattered, emitted little moans and whines of pain at not being able to reach the sought-after goal. But the pack of stud-muffins jogged on impassively, while everyone on the beach sat as though petrified, gazing at that vision.

  At last, emerging from her trance, Uglíssima spoke.

  “They must belong to Fifo’s secret service—he always gets the best ones.”

  “They say that after he sleeps with a man he has him shot,” remarked SuperSatanic.

  “That’s not Fifo, that’s Ramiro Valdés,” said the Duchess.

  “For heaven’s sake, girls, if every time Fifo slept with a man he had him shot, there wouldn’t be a man left on this whole godforsaken island,” put in La Reine.

  “So exactly how many do you think are left?” Uglíssima asked politely. “Between the men that Fifo shoots and the ones that get eaten by the sharks, this place is getting so low on meat that pretty soon we’ll have to join a convent.”

  “Which would not require any great adjustment on your part, darling,” said SuperSatanic.

  “Here comes Mayoya!” announced the Duchess. “They say she’s fallen in love with Bloodthirsty Shark.”

  “Not a word about Fifo or the sharks, now, girls,” whispered La Reine. “Mayoya is bad news—she’s a snitch, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen her swim way out to sea without getting even a nibble from the sharks.”

  “What we ought to do is take advantage of all the confusion at the Carnival to carve her face up a little bit,” suggested SuperSatanic.

  “And her tits. ’Cause the faggot has taken to thinking he’s got tits,” added Uglíssima.

  “Hush now! Here she comes!” commanded La Reine.

  And all the queens with their faded bathing suits made out of scraps of burlap and cast-off pants lay down on the beach to sun, though they had to cover their ears—the screams of the waves that couldn’t reach the thighs of the young men jogging through the surf were deafening.

  A PRAYER

  What new rhythm will I discover today? What word that I was beginning to think I would never be able to remember will give me back my childhood? What colors will surprise my eyes? What trilling will I hear among the pines, and with all my heart desire to imitate? What flower, or mushroom, or seashell found beside a rotting tree trunk will fill my cup of happiness to overflowing? What roar, what clamor will the waves greet me with? When I dive into the water, what new underwater landscapes will I discover there? What fragrances will the sea perfume me with? What peerless leaf will I find in the grass? What splendid teenager will turn me to worshipful stone when I round the corner? What ruffle in the air, what zephyr, what soft breeze will the evening offer me? What distant s
ong will I hear, reminding me of another distant song and commanding me to sing another distant song? What tiny stone that I bend to pick up and put in my pocket will attract my attention? What happy voice will call out somewhere behind me and infuse me with its happiness? What mass of clouds that I have never seen before will I see today? What sunset will transfix me until it fades away? What piece of branch will I bring to my nose, its perfume a unique adventure? What gigantic black man will beckon me with a sign that I will not, and would never, ignore? What pane of glass will take fire in my honor with a sudden blaze of light? What sudden calm will fall over the sea and bestow upon me knowledge of the All? What crunching of tree limbs will rend my soul? What book, opened at random, will restore my faith in words? What housefly, dressed for the party, will buzz past my head? What intimations of inner peace will the darkness sigh, drawing me into complicity? What inexpungible splendor will the sky display? What secret susurrations will fill the night? What lovely image in my memory will I fall asleep to? What distant whistle will make me dream that I am still that man and that I am still alive? . . . Oh, God, of all those miracles, grant me at least one, even if the most insignificant of them.

  A LETTER

  Dear Reinaldo,

  I don’t know whether this letter will reach you either, but I’m going to write to you anyway. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got here, even before washing off the dust of the road, was go into a bookstore and try to find a copy of that book you so terribly wanted me to get for you, to replace the one you lost on the beach while you were trying to get away from that hustler who was threatening to murder you, remember?—The Magic Mirror? But Spanish, French, even Chinese—I haven’t been able to find a single copy of it. So I guess you’ll have to do your novel without quoting it like you did in the ones before. Either that or just use the same quotations. Anyway, at this point, my dear, people don’t read anything anymore. And if they do, they misread it.

  I have met some writers over here, and I’ve talked to them about you, about your far-from-coddled captivity. They’re all very circumspect, in spite of all that’s happened in the world recently—they don’t want to get into a “thing” with Fifo’s government, since his beaches (which of course you aren’t allowed to set foot on) are beautiful, his agents are very accommodating (in every sense of the word) to foreign writers, and then there are the literary prizes and other “awards” that Fifo hands out. A lot of them still think that attacking Fifo is in bad taste—not to mention the “relationships” that have developed over a period of forty years. When they finally do come out and criticize Fifo, they do so in a very roundabout and guarded way—they wouldn’t want to offend, you know. And as for the sacred cows here in exile, they’re just that—cows. They all think they’re geniuses, and they’re hypersensitive about their purported talent. None of them think even for one instant that they’re any less great than the great Cervantes himself.

  They all seem to think their shit smells like ice cream, as people here say—a nice expression, don’t you think?

  But since I know you’re not interested in gossip about writers, let me move on. I want to tell you about a bridge.

  I had no sooner got to Paris than I saw a bridge, far off in the distance. It was a beautiful bridge, of black, finespun antique railings that looked like the tendrils of some wonderful climbing vine. And not a car crossing that bridge. Just people. As soon as I could, I went out and tried to locate the bridge, but by the time I could catch even the slightest glimpse, it suddenly started raining—one of those icy, pouring rains that cut you to the bone (not to mention the soul)—and I had to turn back. I took the Metro back for fear of catching pneumonia. But the next week I armed myself with an umbrella and headed for that bridge again. But just my luck, my dear—before I could get there, another downpour. This one was a real storm, with wind that turned the umbrella inside out and stripped the nice black nylon right off the ribs and almost blew yours truly into the Seine. So I turned what was left of the umbrella loose (gone with the wind, indeed) and started toward the Metro entrance, for fear of that damned pneumonia again, since those of us who have the AIDS virus (which I do, of course) are especially susceptible. I figure at least my umbrella made it to the bridge. . . . I’ve tried a couple of other times to reach it (always in the rain—a rain like diarrhea, which is what the rain is like here, and which always falls that way even when there’s another kind of rain at the same time), but every time I leave the house, everything looks so gray and wet that I’m not sure, really, whether it’s worth it for me to walk all the way there. Although sooner or later, of course, I will see it close up, and I’ll send you a photo, too, if I don’t turn green from mildew or freeze to death or die of depression first. Because here, spring is slow in coming, as “The Magic Mirror” says, though the grass of grief grows green in every season. No, my dear, don’t come—melt in the sun down there, die of fury within your own solitude. Don’t come to Paris to experience this cold that isn’t yours and calamities that are foreign to you but that you’ll have to bow to. My saints have all dried up, my orishas have lost all their feathers, and even their chicken skin. And as though that weren’t bad enough, there’s the Plague. We can’t even screw anymore, sugar. We’ve all turned into holy virgin martyrs, but waiting for a horrible slow death instead of canonization or immediate destruction. Who’d’ve thought that our sufferings would never end and on top of that be so totally unpredictable? What do you think of the grin the She-Devil has grinned at us? Because if Hell does exist, and it’s the only thing that exists, it’s not even ruled over by the Devil—it’s a She-Devil that runs the show! It’s cruel to write all this to you of all people, especially since you still have hopes for life on the other side of the wall. But it might be crueler yet to keep it to myself.

  As for the French—most of them have no chin and a turned-up nose that looks like they were smelling a rat held up about twelve feet off the floor. By the expression on their faces, the rat’s not particularly fresh, either. Of course, the whole city smells like cunt.

  I’m off to New York. I’ll write when I get there, like I always do, wherever I am. But why don’t you write me? I’ve sent you hundreds of letters and haven’t received even one reply. I’ve sent letters to every pseudonym and by every route imaginable, even by mail. I’ve visited Maoist tourists that have promised to drop the letter in a Cuban mailbox, because I lied and said I was an intimate friend of Chelo’s. Some of them have told me that they even slipped the letter under your door at the Hotel Monserrate. So I mean you have to have gotten a note from me. Don’t tell me you joined the Party and are using my letters as a proof of your loyalty, turning them in to the lieutenant who’s your contact. Or tell me that you are, so I can write you more often and continue to be a help to you. But either way, for goodness’ sake, write. Take pity on one who lives in this sopping-wet desert. And to top it off, even the Arabs have given up butt-fucking and the pansies have all gotten married and started having kids.

  A big smooch from yours in deepest mourning—

  Skunk in a (very blue) Funk

  A WALKING TOUR THROUGH OLD HAVANA IN THE COMPANY OF ALEJO SHOLEKHOV

  The door of the catacomb-like palace opened and the procession, led by Fifo, emerged. Although on solar time it was almost ten o’clock at night, to all appearances the sun was blazing in the sky—because in order to prolong the hours of daylight during this once-in-a-lifetime event the Island had changed over to Fiferonian Time, and cannons, lasers, floating light rigs, huge mirrors, and an immense flamethrower that Fifo’s agents claimed to have confiscated from an agent of the CIA were pressed into service, substantial modifications were made to the natural course of things, and a blazing noon (which might suddenly become the darkest night) assailed the entire Island.

  The Program of Activities indicated that before Fifo inaugurated the Grand Carnival, there was to be a walking tour through Old Havana guided by Alejo Sholekhov, who had also been brought back to life especiall
y for that event. It was hoped that in compliance with a request made by Fifo himself, Sholekhov would be brief. But heavens, who had the heart to shut up an old man with a nineteenth-century speaking style (meaning you couldn’t get a word in edgewise, the old thing just went on and on) and who on top of that had spent the last twenty years or so in silence under a gravestone? So that reading-room baroque of his just bubbled out like an old fountain, and in a voice like the croaking of a French frog with rheumatism. Followed closely on his right hand by Alfredo Lam (who had also been resurrected for this event and who handled his wheelchair with a skill that would have been admirable even in the finest horseman of the Arthurian Round Table), Sholekhov began his tour not with Old Havana, as might have been expected, but instead (at a pace amazing for a man of his age) down the Calzada de Jesús del Monte, then (lecturing all the way) up the Calzada del Cerro, then (still talking) down the Calzada de Luyanó, the Avenida Carlos III, and the Paseo de la Infanta. Then, not even stopping to catch his breath, the old man climbed Galiano and walked the whole length of the Calle de la Reina, lecturing not only in Spanish but in French as well on the beauties of iron pickets, brass door knockers, and spur stones. From time to time he would suddenly halt at the head of the exhausted procession, tick off (with upraised cane) the advantages of Le Corbusier’s brise-soleil or declare that throughout Havana one could see wonderful examples of an architecture dans le style parisien au fin de siècle—even including those improvised wooden sleeping lofts (built by Skunk in a Funk in so many Havana rooms) that held up to a hundred people. . . . The people who’d been roped into the tour couldn’t take much more of this. They could feel the rhythms of the Carnival’s infectious revelry beginning to get to them, while like some strange procession of the faithful they had to follow this old man dressed in black who was now going on and on about majestic carved-mahogany screens, stained-glass lunettes, and other things you never saw anywhere anymore. No doubt to the épate-ment even of Lezama Lima’s capacious memory, Sholekhov made associations between ogives and snippets from Racine and declared (always in that deep-throated croak like some Gallic frog) that the architecture of Havana was much closer to that of Segovia and Cádiz than Cholula’s, or even El Morro Fortress’, was. . . . Festooned doublets fraternized (for reasons that are no doubt as clear to you as they were to anybody else, darling) with Louis Juvet’s legs, the theories of Robert Desnos, and a few paragraphs of André Breton. At last (at last!), steadying himself on his cane as he smartly clicked his heels, Sholekhov turned down Calle Obispo in Old Havana. And there he launched into a grand theory of the Cuban baroque, which in his view could be defined by accumulation, collection, multiplication, division, and addition. And so, using arithmetical explanations, he leapt from Calle Obispo to the French Revolution and from the French Revolution to Versailles and the palace’s wrought-iron bars with rosettes shaped like peacocks’ tails, intertwining arabesques, and prodigious rows of lances. . . . While the writer spoke of the orders of wrought-iron bars—severe, votive, Gothic, and a style he himself called “tortured”—his tortured audience had reached the limit of their patience. As had Fifo, who ordered one of his midgets to strangle (and I quote) “that old son of a bitch.” (Lam volunteered to run over him with his wheelchair.) But before Sholekhov’s execution could be carried out, the Minister of Culture whispered in Fifo’s ear that among the audience there was a powerful delegation from UNASCO (made up entirely of Frenchmen, of course), which was going to make a large contribution toward the supposed restoration of Old Havana—which meant that Sholekhov’s lecture was of vital importance. So there was nothing for it but to keep listening to the long-dead author, who was now declaring that the wrought-iron grillwork of Cuba was an imitation of the goat motif (the cabrioles) used in the ironwork of the house of El Greco, and that Cuba possessesd Alcázars in the Moorish style and medieval castles with modernized facades and some quite unexpected allusions to Blois de Chambord. And then, hardly stopping for breath, the elderly gentleman sprang (on his cane) to the center of the Plaza Vieja, where he launched into what we might call the “heart of his lecture”: “As I was saying, Havana, the gateway to the New World, is the proud possessor of more columns than any other city of the continent.” And here the renowned author, followed by the procession of the faithful, began to march through colonnade after colonnade (most of them shored up by two-by-fours and piles of rubble), naming over, and sometimes tapping with his cane, every single column. . . . “Here we have a half-length Doric column; then a Corinthian; and this one here is a stunted or ‘dwarf’ column; and this one, with its concrete caryatids, is an extraordinary example of a nineteenth-century vignoble. It is by virtue of all these columns that we Cubans, for so I still consider myself, have been able to brave the sun and even time. This is, dear friends, truly the City of Columns. Columns, colonnades, columnists, columniasts—we have lived so long among these columns that we have forgotten about columns, and about the fact that they must be saved, for not only do they protect us from the heat of summer, they sustain our roofs and rooftop aeries and accompany even Ferdinand VII with his emblematic lions. . . . Columns, the trunks of the trees of imaginary jungles and unimaginable forums—infinite coliseums. Columns, columns, the magical columns of Havana, which sensibly remind us of those lines of Baudelaire: