The Key to the Gulf lowered his flag to half-staff, picked some leaves off a banana tree growing in a yard in El Vedado, covered his nakedness, and joined the funeral procession. Evattt, the Black Widow, accompanied the cortège on skates, her enormous gown (most remarkably suited for a state funeral) flying out behind her.
Meanwhile, learning of Fifo’s latest murder, the rodents wept as they gnawed ever more furiously at the Island’s foundation. Even the sharks, like reincarnated steeds of Patroclus, wept as they gnawed, for they too were moved by the death of the brilliant faggot. (Of course, since they were underwater, no one—save I—was aware of those tears that swelled the ocean.)
But Skunk in a Funk, bowed with grief, and Clara Mortera, defeated in the costume contest by Evattt, declined to join the funeral stampede. Instead, they returned to their respective hovels. As they were entering Old Havana, now deserted, they saw Padre Gastaluz riding toward the cemetery on a wagon pulled by Cynthio Metier.
“Faster! Faster!” Padre Gastaluz was shouting at Cynthio as he whacked him with his enormous scapular. “Faster, or I’ll never get there in time to give Virgilio a last blessing!”
THE DEPARTURE
So fierce and compelling (to say the least) were the blows rained down on Cynthio Metier by Padre Gastaluz that soon they had overtaken the hearse that was racing toward the cemetery at full speed—because, as the reader will recall, Fifo wanted Virgilio’s burial, which could no longer be kept secret, to be performed before the whole Island got there. But all the hearse driver’s efforts were in vain, because by the time the vehicle arrived at the cemetery, the whole city, in Carnival clothes and mourning faces, was awaiting the remains of the poet, to bid him one last farewell.
“Get it over with as fast as possible,” Fifo had ordered Paula Amanda, who in order not to compromise herself, and also be very brief, had composed a farewell eulogy of only eight words. The text read by Paula Amanda was as follows:
“Virgilio Piñera was born and died in Cuba.”
The coffin was borne to the graveside, Padre Gastaluz sprinkled it with holy water from his silver holy-watering can, and it was launched with great dispatch (under the supervisory eye of Marcia Leseca) into the open grave. But the sound that was heard as the coffin slipped into the grave was not that of wood on earth, but rather the splash of something falling into water—water that in fact splashed all those who had gathered at the edge of the grave for the farewell. Clearly, this wasn’t a proper interment because the body hadn’t been consigned to a resting place on terra firma, but rather dumped into the water. Hearing the soft rippling of the water that was running two or three yards underground, everyone realized that the Island had at last been freed from its moorings, and that the funeral splash was the first notice of total liberation.
The Island, gnawed off its foundation, was drifting off into the unknown.
A TONGUE TWISTER (THE LAST ONE)
Let us march, then, militarily, down to an emaciated sea where a marmoreal marmot murmurs myriads of mistreatments. . . . And yet we find that we have come, finally, to the finest fuckup of them all, the great floating flophouse where a phonograph forever flutes its philanthropic fluff and an unphotogenic, fetid, syphilitic, aphonic mephitic proffers us, frothing at the mouth, his furious physiognomy. Ay-y-y-e-e-e.
To all of us . . .
CLARA IN FLAMES
When Clara Mortera entered her room, she was overwhelmed by a sense of defeat. The glorious costumes that she had worked on with such love, such commitment, such devotion had not won the prize. And the worst part about it was that she had been beaten by Evattt, a frivolous woman who knew not the first thing (according to Clara) about the art of true dissipation or the profundity of exhibitionism. And she had lost Teodoro Tampon at the Carnival. Yet even more serious was the fact that her husband had climbed up on the cross on which the Key to the Gulf’s engorged cock was on display for all to see and, dressed in the regal robes that Clara had created for him, publicly sucked it for much longer than the prescribed time—so long, in fact, that he had had to be pulled from it, like a leech, by the crowd. Despite the kicks and blows he had received (including some that Clara herself had given him), Teodoro had disappeared in a renewed search for the Key to the Gulf’s peerless and impeccable phallus. Teodoro had never shown such devotion for Clara. And as though all that weren’t enough, Clara’s children had abandoned her after her defeat at the costume exhibit because they realized that she was finished—no one would ever again buy one of her forbidden costumes. “I have been defeated, but I shall not be destroyed,” thought Clara, taking a deep breath and assuming a Hemingwayesque air (which tended to happen at her age and with her self-destructive inclinations). “No, I am not destroyed. I have my work, I have my paintings.”
And Clara Mortera opened the hole that led to the convent, thinking to console herself by gazing upon her lifework. But the lifework no longer existed. When Fifo’s thugs had entered the convent to take the portrait of Karilda Olivar Lubricious to give Virgilio Piñera a heart attack with, they had (perhaps on Fifo’s orders, perhaps out of sheer pleasure) destroyed all the rest of Clara’s paintings. The tapestries, the sheets, and the mosquito netting that had borne the brilliant work lay now in shreds and tatters. Nothing remained of the painter’s marvelous paintings.
For several minutes Clara stood and contemplated the disaster. Then she went to where she’d hidden the two cans of kerosene, poured the liquid all over her body, took out a box of Chispa-brand matches, and struck a match. But it was not exactly a spark that was produced—it was more like the lighting of a gigantic torch, or the eruption of a volcano. The entire convent went up in flames, and a giant ball of fire engulfed the entire block. In seconds, the sparks and ashes had risen into the clouds.
PANDEMONIUM
It was drifting, drifting, drifting away. The Island was drifting away. This was not just some faggoty queen who’d thrown herself into the ocean and turned into a red snapper (like Ñica and company) and swum off for Key West, not just some army recruit who’d gotten tired of the humiliations and abuses of the military and thrown himself into the sea on an inner tube, not just some big muscular black man who had been doubly discriminated against (first as a man and then as a black man) and built himself a raft, not just some family that had hammered together a raft out of the dining table and launched themselves into the gulf, nor was it even just thousands of people fleeing on anything that floated in search of a future that was uncertain but at least gave them some hope. No, this time it was the whole country—and it was floating away, in geographical, geological flight. This was an exodus unlike any other in the history of exoduses—the Island of Cuba, unmoored from its foundations, was sailing out of the Gulf like some huge ocean liner, leaving a wake of choppy, foaming waves and making its way toward the open sea. It was leaving behind the great cata-comb-palace as it sank into the ocean, computers howling, to the sound of muffled explosions of fury, leaving behind the immense underground arsenals of weapons, the atomic warehouses, the tunnels built by Fifo where he could take refuge in case of an emergency, the treasures which he’d buried (like the typical campesino he was) in deep holes out in the back-yard. All of that was now covered with ocean.
And as the Island floated away, the people of the Island, seized by the euphoria of flight and therefore of freedom, began to shout with joy, and with their hands, like oars, they tried to steer the Island . . . each one to a different place.
Meanwhile, Fifo, inside his balloon, ordered his midgets to machine-gun all the conspirators, knife all the traitors, hang all the leaders of the rebellion pour encourager les autres, use any and all means necessary to wipe out anyone who applauded, sweep Havana and all rebel cities for guerrillas, and if necessary drop the atomic bomb. “Let their blood bathe the world all the way to Poland!” he screamed in fury (from inside his balloon). But the midgets weren’t listening. They were desperately throwing themselves into the water, because they knew that if they re
mained on the Island they’d be torn to pieces by enraged mobs. And besides—what weapons were they supposed to use to defend themselves with, if all the arsenals had been lost to the waves? And so, one by one or sometimes in groups of a hundred or as many as a thousand, the midgets were throwing themselves into the water and, as they did so, being devoured by patrolling sharks, vast numbers of which had become sworn enemies of Fifo after the immolation of Mayoya. The sharks figured, logically, that at this point, anybody who jumped into the water was a Fifonian agent trying to get away. Inside his balloon, Fifo was jumping up and down and stamping his feet, but the midgets just went on throwing themselves into the ocean, as did any number of military types and high officials—although others, more calculating, went over to the side of the rodents and in fact became those who most loudly applauded the triumph of this departure and most furiously called for Fifo’s head. “Kill him, kill him, kill him now—for years he’s showed us how!” was the chant that everyone was chanting, including Fray Bettino, Miss Miguel Barniz, Miss Paula Amanda, and even Vilma Spinar (that was her new last name). Many foreign VIPs made their getaway on anything that flew or floated, but others stayed and organized anti-Fifo committees and movements. The Condesa de Merlín, who had raised the French tricolor on her gig, was shouting for Fifo to be guillotined. Güé Güevavara wanted to make an example of the execution. Even the Marquesa de Macondo was now declaring that what was happening was “marvelous,” and she confessed that on several occasions she had tried to kill Fifo but had just never quite managed. So now the base marquesa was a heroine. . . . Good lord, the clamor of this crowd—which up until a few minutes ago had been applauding Fifo but now was calling for his head—grew louder and louder, more and more insistent. And Fifo, inside his balloon, was still floating less than three feet above the crowd—although he was unable to control the device, since by now the midgets who had been blowing on it to move it along had all perished in the jaws of the sharks. And so, Fifo thought he was going to die of asphyxiation inside that transparent balloon of his—he tore at his clothes, screamed hysterically, whirled about like a snake on hot coals, clenched his fists, shouted, made threatening gestures that for all those down in the streets looking up at him were no more than strange, silent mimicry, because when the midgets and government officials and military men who were in charge of the microphones had disappeared or died, Fifo’s voice could no longer be heard outside his illuminated globe—and now, through the curse of technology, the light couldn’t be turned off, either. Seeing Fifo’s mad contortions, the crowd gave a unanimous howl of laughter. Then out of the crowd there emerged a queen—Mahoma? Sanjurjo? Uglíssima? La Reine des Araignées? The SuperChelo? Miss Coco Salas?—who, removing a hatpin from somewhere about her person, punctured the balloon in which Fifo was riding. Instantly, the balloon shot off like a comet, sputtering and farting. Then, like some gigantic condom tossed into the toilet bowl, it plummeted (with Fifo still aboard) into the sea, where Bloodthirsty Shark awaited it, jaws open.
All across the floating Island, a shout of joy was heard.
And now, some people proposed that they head for the United States as quickly as possible, since they needed economic aid. But another group, led by Odoriferous Gunk, insisted that they turn the Island toward England and become a member of the British Commonwealth. But no sooner had this group been heard than another insisted even more determinedly that they should turn the bow toward Spain, “because that’s where we all came from, and this is no time to be learning a foreign language.” Then a leader of the black population said in a powerful voice that if they were going to sail to any continent it ought to be to the continent of Africa, because the Carnival itself, whose drumbeats had freed them from their chains, was living proof of the African roots of the Cuban people—and turning theory into practice, he dipped his hands into the sea and began to turn the Island toward the Cape of Good Hope. “Now is no time to turn backward, my friends!” shouted the followers of the Condesa de Merlín. “Why return to Africa, the past, when there is a more civilized destination available—the destination of the future: France!” And the Condesa de Merlín and her group attempted to turn the Island toward France. But another committee, calling itself the SuperIndependent Party, was in favor of political neutrality and therefore had reached the conclusion—the emphatic conclusion—that if the Island was going anywhere it ought to go to Switzerland. . . . “To die of cold and even let our gods freeze over?” sarcastically asked a patriarchal, bearded figure. “No! No! No! We are Latin Americans! Let us sail southward, and anchor near the Malvinas—what the British arrogantly call the Falklands—or the coast of Brazil!”
“Enough of this stupid nationalism!” cried the leader of a group called the Centro-Democratic Party. “We should moor our Island near longitude 40, latitude 37, which is a location that all the ships and planes of the civilized world pass by.”
“I propose that we head for the Black Sea and join the new political movement in the Caucasus,” suggested Lois Suradíaz, who had once been buttfucked by a swimmer on the Black Sea.
“To India!” cried a queen who had seen Pather Panchali about a thousand times.
“To Sumatra, where we can live in peace, far from all political dirty tricks!” cried a creature of wilderness tendencies, who then added convincingly—“I mean, nobody talks about Sumatra!”
“I ask you, my friends, my sons and daughters, to imagine what it would mean to sail into Venice and be only a few kilometers from Rome. I believe that with the help of God, we could drop anchor in the Adriatic,” proposed Padre Gastaluz solemnly.
“To Japan!” commanded an electrical engineer.
“To New Guinea!” shouted a lady who could have an orgasm only when she was screwed by a crocodile.
While this discussion was going on, the midgets who had stayed on the Island, hiding among the trees, felt compelled to throw themselves into the sea, and those who didn’t do so of their own accord were launched seaward by the crowd, which also tossed overboard all those who (in their opinion) were suspected of having collaborated with Fifo—which meant that the number of sharks that now prowled the waters just offshore grew greater by the minute. And meanwhile, the Island, with Clara in flames, continued drifting away.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Heedless of all that, because wrapped in her own tragedy (the death of Virgilio, her public betrayal by the Key to the Gulf, the impossibility of making Tatica pay), Skunk in a Funk slunk to her room in the Hotel Monserrate. To raise to even greater heights her sense of the tragedy of life, like some new Unamula . . .
“Pu-leeze, Mary! It’s not Unamula, it’s Unamuno.”
“Are you never going to stop pestering me with that idiotic pedantry of yours, Sakuntala? Unamula! Do you hear? It’s Unamula because I say it’s Unamula! And that’s that! I’ve had it with you, girl—from now on, I’m wiping you off the map! Forever!”
To raise to even greater heights her sense of the tragedy of life, like some new Unamula, she looked at herself in the mirror. What a horror. No doubt about it, she was finally an old queen. An old queen with wrinkles and those awful bags under her eyes—look what one bad night had done. “Well, the time has come for your departure, too, honey,” Gabriel said to himself as he looked at himself in the mirror. “And besides,” added Reinaldo, “yesterday you wrote that letter to your doubles telling them that you were leaving the country today.”
And without further ado, the queen climbed up to her barbecue grill, took out the bottles that she’d stashed under the bed, and started filling them with the manuscript pages of her novel The Color of Summer—seizing the opportunity to put the finishing touches on it as she stuffed the bottles. When every page of the novel had been rolled up and safely slipped into the bottles, she sealed them, put them in a sack, tossed in the swim fins that her Aunt Orfelina had found for her, and with her precious cargo she started for the beach. Arriving there, Skunk in a Funk pulled on the swim fins and with the huge sack over her s
houlder she dived into the water.
At the same instant he hit the water, Reinaldo could see that the Island was quickly drifting away, with the entire population jumping for joy on it. Yes, the Island was drifting away, while Gabriel remained in the same place the Island had been only seconds earlier. So it wasn’t exactly that he was escaping—it was the Island that was escaping from him. He was bobbing in the center of a swirl of water that not only didn’t allow him to swim away but also threatened at every moment to drag him and his bottles under.
Skunk in a Funk looked around her, and she saw Raúl Kastro with a mosquito net, a ponytail, and a crown of laurel floating in the whirlpool as several sharks fought over him. A little farther away she could see Eachurbod, covered with excrement, and floating almost alongside her she saw hundreds of midgets bobbing in the waves, trying to stay afloat, and the Key to the Gulf swimming furiously, trying to escape the voracious sharks. Knowing that at any moment she could be eaten or pulled down in the whirlpool and drowned, Skunk in a Funk began to lob the bottles outside the whirlpool’s vortex. Even if she should perish—and that was a real possibility—her work would survive, she thought, opening the sack and hurling bottles. But the moment a bottle would hit the water it would be swallowed up by the sharks. The last one didn’t even hit the water; a sexually aroused and very expert shark (it was Bloodthirsty Shark itself) leaped from the sea and caught it in the air. And then the animal, its fearsome eyes looking deep into Gabriel’s, dived and headed for Reinaldo, its terrifying teeth gleaming. As the shark devoured her, Skunk in a Funk realized that she was losing her life, but before she did so, she was determined to start her novel again.
The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights Page 55