Thine is the Kingdom

by Abilio Estevez

  At the back of the fair they’ve put together a movie theater, CINEMA ANTAEUS, says the pretentious sign. When the fairgrounds are about to give way to brushland, to wilderness, take a few posters of smiling women advertising Cerveza Cristal, folding chairs, a stained yellow screen, and a door in red: CINEMA ANTAEUS. The poorly drawn sign at the entrance announces Bette Davis in Jezebel for the second screening. Berta pays the five-cent entrance (Just five cents, today is Ladies’ Day), and lets herself be guided by a bored young woman with a flashlight. The flashlight and the young woman are both unnecessary: between the light from the screen and the sky white with stars, Berta can see the improvised theater full of laughing people. Why are they laughing, why so heartily? Berta feels ready to remain unconvinced; she has never found funny movies funny. She prefers a good drama with Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland, or Lana Turner. Not to mention Vivian Leigh in Gone with the Wind. But she’ll have to wait a bit to enjoy Bette Davis in Jezebel. First, the viewer is forced to consume one of those stupid fillers …After making herself comfortable, studying her surroundings and feeling relieved (apparently the gaze has offered her a kind of truce), she begins to fan herself. Her eyes come to rest at last on the screen. A group of people are arguing at the door to a shop. Every time one tries to hit another, the other one quickly avoids the blow, which hits a third one in the face. More and more people join the brawl. Berta recognizes among the group the unmistakable figures of Laurel and Hardy The fat one tries to hit the thin one; the thin one jumps nimbly away; the blow lands on a dignified woman in a little hat who is passing that way by chance; the woman’s husband, also dignified and well-dressed, joins the fight, tries to hit someone who doesn’t let him so that he ends up hitting another dignified woman in a little hat who is passing that way by chance and who also has a well-dressed, dignified husband. Endless situation. There’s no stop to it. The audience laughs, laughs, laughs till it can’t laugh anymore. Not Berta, Berta doesn’t laugh, though she does smile at least, the truth is it’s funny to see those high and mighty women get hit (actually what’s funny isn’t seeing them get hit, but seeing them lose their dignity). When the fistfight has spread to a whole crowd, when it stretches down the street, Laurel and Hardy manage to scramble out of it. They, who created the problem, manage to escape, leaving the melee running in the street, hundreds of people hitting people they didn’t need to hit, while they walk off smugly. Then the thin one’s face completely fills the stained, yellow screen. For an instant, the one fleeting instant in which he looks at the audience in the theater, he scratches his head and smiles. The brevity of the smile doesn’t keep Miss Berta from experiencing a shudder (or as she will later say when she tells the story to Mercedes and to Irene, keep her heart from “skipping a beat”). Something in his smile perturbs her, moves her to tears. That is why, come what may, that is why she jumps to her feet and screams, screams without caring if everyone else gets indignant, hisses at her, tells her to shut up. She doesn’t care. It makes no difference to her that the bored usherette tries to force her from the theater. The only thing Berta wants is to hold on to the smiling image of Stan Laurel, that flash of lightning (ephemeral as any revelation), which for one second makes her feel the conviction that she is saved.

  I don’t know if you’re aware, Casta Diva, that tonight they opened the monumental doors of the Paris Opera, and the City of Light (which doesn’t let itself be dazzled by any light but its own) was dazzled. The theater was witness to a historic, unparalleled happening. Maria Callas, the Divine, gave a concert. Early on she was seen arriving, dressed in white, in her black auto, followed by a crowd of fans and hundreds of photographers from newspapers the world over, who had traveled from the most distant parts of the planet to report on the event. The police had to escort the Diva so she could enter the theater without mishap. Despite the fact that her lovely Greek eyes (the eyes she had also learned to sing with) looked exhausted, she smiled in greeting to the throng who applauded her. She shut herself in her dressing rooms for hours, accompanied only by her attendants. She usually meditates, comme il faut. Meanwhile, when they opened the monumental doors, the most illustrious men and women arrived, Marian Anderson, Edith Piaf, Alicia Alonso, Serge Lifar, Anna Magnani, Leontyne Price, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Miró, Margretta Elkins, and many, many, many more that I cannot cite because the list would be enormous. Non-illustrious people also arrived: many members of the European nobility, hundreds of old women whose importance lies in the fact that they are encrusted with jewels and hold titles like Princess, Countess, and Lady I-don’t-know-what-all (you are familiar with human idiocy). There were also some frankly despicable little characters arriving, such as Monseigneur le Cardinal and Monsieur le President (chief of Church and chief of State, that is, two wretched administrators who think they have the right to give the orders in everyone else’s lives). At nine o’clock sharp the musicians began entering the stage. At three past nine the orchestra conductor, Tullio Serafín, entered, who as you are well aware is the conductor of the Scala in Milan and who came to conduct the Opera at the Diva’s request. At four and a half minutes past nine Maria Callas went out on the stage. Radiant, smiling, her beautiful Greek eyes looking not a bit tired. She wore a black dress that made her look even more graceful. Not a single jewel (an artist, after all, has no need of tinsel; her finest jewel: her voice; you should know that when she began to sing, the emeralds and diamonds and rubies that so abounded in the boxes and the pit ceased shining). Ovation. You have only to see her to know she’s worthy of an ovation. She, smiling, not timid in the slightest, sure of herself, with the conviction that she deserves this ovation more than anyone. What do you think she began with? Of course, Bellini, Norma, “Casta Diva,” which she (pardon me) sings as no one else could. Then came “Regnava nel silenzio,”“ Surta é la notte … Ernani!,”“Vissi d’arte,”“Je suis Titania” … At one point no less than Giuseppe di Stefano came onstage, and together they sang the unsurpassable duet of Amelia and Ricardo from Un Bal Masqué. Another duet that even came close to moving the Army Chief of Staff (!) was the “Miserere” from IlTrovatore. The real climax, however, came later; the audience actually levitated (I’m not exaggerating: people floated up from their stuffed seats) when they heard that unique voice, that voice sent by God for our redemption, singing “Mon coeur s’ouvre ä ta voix,” the aria from Samson and Delilah that Saint-Saéns composed shortly before the bicycle accident. They say that even Queen Elizabeth of England, who had not cried since childhood and who was listening to the concert on an RCA-Majesty radio set, cried with emotion. They say that Monsieur le President took his wife’s hand, caressed it, and signed a bill that night to help the clochards. They say the Cardinal did what he had never done: rebelled against the Pope by sanctifying love. They say the marchionesses and countesses gave away tiaras when they left the theater. They say that Generalissimo Francisco Franco recited a poem by Lorca from memory. They say Picasso painted a marvelous painting and didn’t sign it so that it would remain anonymous, like the Spanish ballads. That say Joan Miró helped Picasso paint the anonymous painting. They say that for days there weren’t any pointless debates in the United Nations. They say the comrades in the Kremlin were about to start thinking about the happiness of the people. They say there were no murders recorded in New York City, and that the poorest blacks in the city attended a cocktail party at the White House. They say the Island broke loose from the sea floor and went wandering over the seas on the night of the marvelous concert. What is for sure, Casta Diva, is that after the concert at the Paris Opera, it was established at last that, like Christ, Maria, the Divine Callas, had divided the history of the world in two.

  Casta Diva has opened the secretary and taken out and dusted off photographs, postcards, makeup, costume jewelry, scores, and outfits, and has spread it all out on the bed, and has stood staring at it as if these were the remains from a shipwreck. And what are they but the remains from a shipwreck? she ask
s Tatina, who, as might be supposed, laughs. The photographs have lost their clarity and it is very hard to make her out dressed as Traviata or as Louise. The writing on the scores is illegible, the outfits have lost color, time has tattered them, the jewelry looks more like bits of glass than ever, and to think that this was my soul, Tatina, that this secretary contained me, especially this little white dress with tulle and pink ribbons (though you might not believe these ribbons were pink) in which, when I was just twelve, I stood before the great musician, before Lecuona, singing El jardinero y la rosa, and the great musician came up to me, deeply moved, and said, You will be a great singer, and even Rita Montaner gave me a kiss on my forehead and predicted I was sure to succeed. When Tingo enters, his mother is hugging the little dress with tulle and pink ribbons. Casta Diva sees him and comes up to him, fascinated. I was your age when Lecuona heard me sing. And she undresses Tingo and puts the little tulle dress on him. She places a ribbon in Tingo ‘s hair so the likeness will be better. Now she moves her hands in front, and orders Tingo, move your hands, I’m going to sing.

  Sebastián has written on a leaf of notebook paper: God Almighty, I hope You are feeling well when You receive this letter, we aren’t doing so good, we’re writing You because we’d like the Island to stop being one, if You’d put in a little on Your part You could take it and carry it off to Yucatan, off to Florida, or off to Venezuela, just imagine, God, how happy You could make us, Your not so sinful children (at least not so sinful as You think we are), if You felt like it, by letting us walk from one country to another without worrying about drowning to death, we trust in Your generosity, hoping for Your reply, Yours. Sebastián has put the letter in a bottle and has thrown it into the sea.

  Returning from The Beyond, almost at the doorstep of his house, Professor Kingston has found an orange, large and golden. He bends over with tremendous effort to pick it up. It is such an effort I’m sorry I ever saw it, I ever stopped, though I’m picking it up no matter what, even the simplest things are turning into a question of honor for me. He enters the house, finds a knife and slices the orange in two. He sits in the little rocker to suck on the orange. What a disappointment, the orange has no flavor at all, its abundant yellow juice is as insipid as water. Is it my problem or the orange’s? I don’t know. Then he goes and pours himself a glass of milk, which likewise has no flavor at all. He slices a piece of processed ham and chews it just to check on how it tastes, and the processed ham is equally flavorless.

  * * *

  through to the other side. Explosions will be heard, and the figure of the Master, burning, will disappear into the darkness. Could it be necessary to detail the loneliness Sebastian will feel after the disappearance of Virgil, of the Master? It’s terrible, the grief that dreams can cause …

  After Beny Moré had left, Chacho returned to his bed and to silence. Casta Diva, who had gotten her hopes up when she saw him appear among the trees, when she saw him nearly cry, listening to the Greatest Singer in the World, felt swindled when she saw him go back to bed and lie down in it again, and she cursed him up and down, shouted at him, A bad father, a bad husband, even if you have an idiot daughter and a useless son, aren’t you planning to go to work? Captain Alonso was here asking why you haven’t gone to the base, because they’re going to give you a dishonorable discharge from the army, if you don’t work what the hell are your children and I going to live on? He closed his eyes and it was as if he hadn’t heard, he didn’t move a single muscle in his face, didn’t raise a hand to indicate she should lower her voice, as he usually did when they argued. Chacho didn’t do a thing. Despite her rage, Casta Diva realized that her husband couldn’t do anything but stay in bed, maintaining that silence that drove her to desperation, and she went from rage to compassion, and felt a boundless fatigue take over her body, and she lay down next to him, and also closed her eyes, and it could be she even fell asleep.

  For days, the only proof Chacho gave of being alive was his breathing and his eyes, which opened at times to stare up at the rafters. Tatina could be laughing out loud for hours; Tingo, asking questions over and over again; Casta Diva, fighting and crying: he seemed not to hear them. It was as if, while living there, Chacho were living somewhere else. He never sat at the table, never was seen to drink a glass of water, never seen to satisfy any necessity. It seemed as if his bodily functions were paralyzed. The only things that gave the impression of continuing the normal course of life were his beard and nails.

  And suddenly now, on this morning that has dawned with drizzling rain (or so it seems: as you know, in the Island things aren’t always what they seem), Chacho gets out of bed, walks over to the ancient gramophone and looks through the records. He puts one on the platter. With a loud noise, the room, the house, the Island fill with the voice of Carlos Gardel, Her eyes closed and the world continued spinning … The voice of Gardel entered Helena’s house, and she didn’t know at first where that miraculous voice was coming from, wailing, Her lips that once were mine will never kiss me again … and Helena went out into the Island and it seemed the voice was coming from every tree, from every corner, from every statue. And Rolo, who was in Eleusis straightening out the books, knew it was Gardel (a knot formed in his throat) and left the books, of course, and went out into the Island and met Merengue next to the wooden screen and the Apollo Belvedere, and they both saw Helena, and none of them knew where the voice was coming from, because the voice was beyond a doubt emanating from all over the Island, Fll never hear the echoes of her rich laughter … Irene was at that moment treating the already healed wounds of the Wounded Boy with hydrogen peroxide and was also surprised, and went outside to find out and saw Miss Berta sobbing next to the bust of Greta Garbo. It was Marta, who was walking along touching the walls to guide herself and not trip, who informed them, Gardel is singing at Casta Diva’s house, And this silence is so cruel, it hurts me so much And they went to Casta Diva’s and saw that she and Chacho, sitting on the ground next to the speakers of the ancient gramophone, were hiding their faces in their hands.

  This is how he got me to fall in love, Casta Diva explains, one January 6 I was walking down the Calzada Real with my sister Luisa, who was just a girl, when I saw him coming in his soldier’s uniform, twenty years old, he had such cheerful and sad eyes, and when we passed he followed us, singing Noche de Reyes, one of the most beautiful tangos I have ever heard, and he sang it so well, and every time he saw me he sang the tango, and I waited and waited, I needed to hear him sing so much, until one afternoon he took me by the arm and led me to a bench in the little park in front of the church, and he swore, I’m so happy that you’re happy to be my sweetheart, and I couldn’t respond to his daring except by saying happy isn’t the word, there’s no word for my happiness, and that’s how it’s been, believe me, up to today while the light on the other hand, wiser, remains on Mercedes’s body, enters through her skin, reaches her bones, destroys everything that resists its progress. Each beam of light is itself a whole. Mercedes feels herself disappearing as she is inundated by the light. Mercedes feels she herself is light. She looks at her hands, her gaze passes through them toward the sea, toward the horizon. The sea is a mirror, a thing put there just to reflect light. The sand is another sparkling expanse. Mercedes is so illuminated that she incorporates the light, she is one more gleaming, she disappears.

  Everything in the past was better, this is my motto, but it’s a motto that has come to be stupid: what past am I talking about? how can I say that the past was better if I can’t remember, if I don’t know what past I’m talking about? how are you going to understand me, Wounded Boy, shot with arrows, lying there in bed not knowing anything about reality, your mission now is to sleep while I tend your wounds and finish saving you, as is my duty, meanwhile, here you have Irene the Memoryless, poor Irene who’s forgotten everything that ever happened to her, at most I know that my name is Irene, that’s enough, maybe it’s enough to know my name, my name and my face in the mirror, my son Lucio carne t
oday to tell me that February 17, my birthday … it doesn’t matter what he said, the date kept spinning around, so my birthday is February 17, then … isn’t that the date of my mother’s death? or could it be that my mother died right on my birthday? that kind of thing doesn’t happen, it only happens in Félix B. Caignet s radio soap operas, and I felt ashamed to ask him, Lucio, what day did your grandmother die? what did your grandmother die of? I feel ashamed, besides, what would I do with that information? what good would it do me? I’m a woman with an empty head, and some people might think that’s a lucky thing, I don’t, I consider that every man’s worth comes from his past, it will be the past that redeems you or condemns you, I know, don’t tell me, the past is woven from the threads of the present, observe, however, Wounded Boy, shot with arrows, that when a woman knits her past she has two threads, just that, just two threads, and only what stops being the present, what becomes the past, turns into cloth, the present is only good for making, that is, for the shocks and the uncertainties, while the past is what’s made, whether good or bad doesn’t matter, it’s made and therefore it’s certain, it’s firm ground, let’s not even mention the future, the future’s an illusion, man invented it to fill up the hours of tedium that lead to his death, the future is death, and I don’t know what death is, I just know what the future is, now tell me, Wounded Boy, what am I doing in the Island without a history to tell, you should know that what’s important about the past isn’t what it teaches (a woman knits a bad stitch, she stops, undoes it and reknits it right, no?), it’s what it gives you to tell, to make the story of your life, and if you don’t have anything to tell about yourself, who are you? nobody, no matter how you spin it, nobody, even if they see you, you can’t tell them I was born on a February 17 in Pijirigua, Artemisa, my father worked as a farmhand for some big landowners, my mother was the washerwoman for the street, we were so poor my mother made my shoes from palm bark and jute sacks, I was a girl who started working at the age of five, I remember they’d set me up on a box so I could reach the kitchen sink, I cared for my brothers and sisters like a mother, and despite all the calamities I’m telling you, I was happy, and if you can’t tell the story I just made up (and it may well be true, if only!), then no one else can know what my dreams, my fears, my joys, my woes, my obsessions are and were, the main problem, dear Wounded Boy, is that we have to understand once and for all that life can’t be just for living, my opinion is that God also gives us life so we can tell it as a story, a history, that will entertain and be useful to others, don’t you think? Luckily, today Chacho hasn’t put another Carlos Gardel record on the gramophone. The voice of the so-called Latin Warbler came to be so persistent in the Island that for several days you couldn’t hear the shrieks of the bamboo, or the jubilation of the casuarinas, or the laments that lately are heard louder and louder. The Island was reduced to a voice that repeated the same tangos over and over again, to the point of exhaustion. Today Chacho got up early and went straight to the wardrobe and took out the military uniforms, the medals and diplomas earned over long years of service as a radio operator in the Signal Corps. He tied them into a bundle and went out into the Island. snapshots, color photos and black-and-whites, posed photos and candid shots. Their faces look different, suddenly (and this shouldn’t be written, it sounds like blasphemy, what can you do! among other things novels are written to blaspheme), suddenly, I repeat, the table looks like a carnival stand. The following photographs stand out on the table: girl with ball in hands; toothless old woman, smiling; young man in suit; couple dressed in 1920s’ style; young soldier, sea in background; months-old baby in carriage; extremely serious gentleman, with straw hat, leaning against medallion chair, in which seated lady pets white lapdog; little lady in long dress leaning languidly against Doric column; woman in pants, carrying walking stick, smiling, amid underbrush; young woman, who bears a fair resemblance to Irene, with child in arms; woman with hat, scarf, and overcoat in middle of snowfall; smiling black man playing tumbadora; sad clown; old woman at microphone; policeman; man on horseback, with leggings, machete, rebel uniform from the War of Independence. There are many faces, faces of every possible shape, with the most varied expressions, even a photo of a smiling Stan Laurel. Sebastián is struck by the photograph of a little boy on a wooden horse. It’s as if they had put a photo of himself there, of Sebastián, because even though the photo is old (you can even see the date written on one corner), it’s as if it were Sebastián riding the wooden horse. And he is even more struck when he finds out it is a photograph of his uncle, Uncle Aristides, who died a terrible death. He died, Irene tells him in a whisper so that Helena won’t hear, on his way to a baseball game, because your uncle was polite and an old man sat down on the fender of the truck and he, being eighteen magnanimous years old, offered his space on the seat and went to sit on the fender, and fifteen minutes later when the truck overturned, your uncle Aristides was flattened by the truck, just eighteen years old, your uncle, Sebastián, your spitting image, you can bet his spirit wanders near you and helps you, your guardian angel is your uncle Aristides. Irene walks off as if she hadn’t said a word, and bends toward another ear and points to another photograph. There are so many (fifty, sixty, a hundred) that the table isn’t big enough. And Miss Berta has brought a bust of Antonio Maceo and another of José Martí, The distinguished dead, she says. They bring pages from the original score to the national anthem. They bring a bloodstained piece of Plácido s shirt. They bring Zenea s spurs. They bring an original oil painting by Ponce. They bring a book by Emilio Ballagas. They bring bits of wood from a certain ship that sank. Mercedes appears with a photograph of the woman who was drawn and quartered, poor Celia Margarita Mena. Casta Diva places a photo of a very pretty woman, with a high comb in her hair, a red flower, black mantilla, passionate gaze, lips half open. Also Merengue has appeared with a photo of Nola, his wife. Merengue has also brought the photo of a stern black man, a photo so old it seems a daguerreotype. Nobody objects to this, either. They know it is Antolin, the black man, the saint, the spirit protector of Merengue. And they light the candles. Mercedes goes around lighting them, and when they are all lit the smell of paraffin spreads through the gallery. Falling to her knees, Miss Berta sings, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want … in a defenseless contralto voice. Little by little they all fall to their knees. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures … Helena covers her face with her hands. With hands joined and eyes closed, Casta Diva joins the song. He leadeth me beside the still waters … Irene holds the rosary between her hands. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness … Rolo lowers his head till chin touches chest, Our lives are the rivers… he muses. Lucio has placed one knee on the floor and rested his forehead against one hand. Mercedes covers her face with a black veil. On the floor, Merengue has removed his hat. Professor Kingston concentrates on the palms of his hands. Hieratic as a sphinx, Marta rocks in a rocking chair. A heavy white bird flies by. They cross themselves. (Every time an owl flies by, the characters in this novel cross themselves.)