A collapse. On Christmas morning. Each one of the characters we have seen appear and disappear like shadows in the Island is surprised, in their own way, by the deafening crash. Each one runs to where they think the catastrophe has occurred, and it is remarkable to note here that no two of them head in the same direction. Later, when they have figured out that it was Consuelo s old house that fell down, they will try to discover the meaning of the collapse. Though perhaps, just as in life, events should not necessarily have a meaning in literature, either.
Mercedes, could it be true that there was ever a palm grove here, a Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre, a house that they say was Consuelo's? Irene might be watering the flowers in the garden, or she might be sitting in one of the rocking chairs in the gallery, holding that stuffed falcon (the reader is free to choose). Mercedes might be approaching her to cut a bunch of roses to place in the Virgin’s empty vase, or she might have just approached, clutching the skull of Hyias. Faced with the unexpected question, she might stand there not knowing what to answer, preferring to watch the tops of the trees of the Island. You’ve stopped to think, Irene might continue, how few things we know with certainty; and Mercedes (since she was copied from human beings, she could, after all, get very cruel if she wanted) might have been about to say, Just because you don’t have any memory doesn’t mean the rest of us have lost ours. Although (like human beings, Mercedes could also get condescending) she might have remained silent. They might stay there alone for a good part of the afternoon, speaking of completely non-trivial subjects, such as the best way to season black beans or the latest styles in Paris, or again Helena might approach them with a worried air.
And not one of them ever found out that the Barefoot Countess lived in Consuelo’s old house. Nor will they find out. It won’t occur to anyone that this rubble ought to be picked up. If there’s nothing to search for there, what reason would they have for this to occur to them? For years, the Countess had been entering at midnight and lying down on the floor, on top of blankets she had been given, which she kept clean. You could imagine the immense pleasure the Countess felt at bedtime, just by seeing how the mocking smile on her face was replaced by a smile of well-being, of serenity. On that night of December 24 when there was no Christmas Eve, she lay down as she always did, by lamplight, accompanied by that little volume of Petrarch, On the Solitary Life, of which she never had time to read even one page. She fell asleep immediately. And had a few vague dreams, until from the midst of these imprecise dreams there arose with utter clarity the image of Doña Juana. And it wasn’t Doña Juana as a ninety-year-old, sleeping at all hours with a rosary between her hands, but an exquisitely beautiful young woman everyone knew as Tita. And in this dream Doña Juana invited her to a party. And the Countess, who also looked young and lovely in her dreams, asked, What are we going to celebrate in this party? And Doña Juana, that is, Tita looked at her with smiling incredulity and replied, Are you crazy? we’re going to celebrate the fact that the war is over, that we’ve triumphed over Spain, that the North Americans have left, that the Cuban flag is being raised over the Castle of El Morro, that we’re becoming a Republic, at last, a sovereign Republic. And the Countess felt so elated she hugged Tita. And the two of them danced together to the strains of Perucho Figueredo’s National Anthem. And the Barefoot Countess stayed like this, dreaming all night of the party that Tita threw, that party where they celebrated the emergence of a Republic called Cuba.
Sandokán is gone. He has written a beautiful letter to Uncle, where he says, among other things: Dear Rolo, the Island is getting too small for me, it’s so hard to walk and walk for days just to meet a shore that brings you to a stop in front of a blue sea that is as monotonous as it is expansive as it is impossible. Dear Rolo, when these lines are in your hands I will be far away, I will have set sail in a ship that will travel to China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, the South Seas, like Arthur Gordon Pym. I doubt I will return. I doubt you will see me again. I am fed up with living on a little dot. On the map of the world, any island is after all just a dot. I have always dreamed of living in the world, and the world is a succession of dots, a line. Do not doubt, however, that no matter where I go I will bring your memory with me, given that you were (and still are) the handsomest liaison ever to befall me in my life. Don’t forget me. Be happy to see me set free.
Sandokán is gone. He hasn’t written any letter to Uncle. They say he died at midnight, from a swift slash of the knife, in a fight provoked by a certain whore at a bar on the beach, the bar right next to the one where El Chori plays, the bar’s called, I’m not sure, Tears of Gold, I think.
Sandokán is gone. He hasn’t written any letter to Uncle since Sandokán doesn’t even know how to write. He seduced (not a hard thing to do for a man of his attributes) a millionaire woman from Turin or Madrid (they don’t know and it doesn’t matter whether the millionaire woman comes from one city or the other). She’s a millionaire. There’s nothing blameworthy if a millionaire woman (or if not a millionaire, at least a woman with a solid bank account) should go to the Caribbean to find herself a man who can make her forget she’s a millionaire, and can let her feel loved and can entertain her friends by dancing guaguancó or by singing a country song or simply by telling dirty Caribbean jokes. Nor does it seem blameworthy if a poor man from the Caribbean should use flattery (and other things of greater value) to beguile a millionaire ready to let herself be beguiled, who makes him forget he’s a poor man from the Caribbean. You give what you’ve got to give. Isn’t the world we call modern ruled by the strict law of the market? Haven’t we arrived, after a long, bumpy road, at the primitive formula of give me mine and I’ll give you yours?
Sandokán is gone and Uncle Rolo has been left in the grips of despair. He doesn’t know whether he has gone as a sailor, as a corpse, or as a gigolo. Nor does he need to know. He has gone. Any one of the three paths leads to the same loneliness. Uncle loved him as we always love someone who shows us a world that isn’t our own; that is, he needed him. Uncle has closed Eleusis, and has left word that he doesn’t want to be bothered.
In her own way, Melissa believes she is a saint. It might be necessary to come to an agreement on what constitutes saintliness. If the important thing is the way in which man learns to purify himself to approach God, Melissa qualifies categorically, with the slight detail that Melissa doesn’t believe in God and is certain that evil is more just than good. For her, man can reach purification more swiftly through evil than through good and goodness. Good doesn’t teach; wickedness does. Happiness doesn’t make man wiser; misfortune does. Suffering is healthier then, than enjoyment. She insists: The only entertaining part of the Divine Comedy is the “Inferno.” No one knows who Melissa’s mother is, or her father, or her brothers, or her boyfriend, or her friends. No one knows anything about her, except that she awaits the time when evil will take over the earth. When hunger, disease, war will arrive. She dreams of an almighty State in which, she says in absolute sincerity, everything you can do is forbidden, and what isn’t forbidden cannot be done, an endless frightening state where man doesn’t matter, all that matters are ideas, and where man constantly suffers everyday misfortunes, which because they are everyday cease to seem like misfortunes and become tragedy, we have to find a way for man to save himself, man has gone down the wrong path, he doesn’t know what he wants, he can’t know it, it is necessary to save him, a State that will be a stern father and give orders and commands, and whose orders and commands are indisputable, that’s what man (who still hasn’t passed his infancy) needs, a State that turns man into the enemy of man, a State with ubiquitous eyes, with hundreds of armed hands ready to slaughter, to destroy, a State that encloses man within the four walls of his poverty and makes him go hungry and thirsty and leaves him sleepless, makes him feel his life is worthless, that all that matters is how this State can put his fife to use, that turns each person’s life into a file, into the number on that file, pleasure and satisfaction hav
e to be eliminated, pain is the only way to learn, and it has to be put to use rationally, consciously. In her own way, Melissa believes she is a saint, the sacred prophetess of a cult yet to arrive. She climbs up to the terrace roof, naked, observes the Island with scorn, and with scorn she observes her companions. She awaits. She is sure that a future day (not very far off) will witness the Dawn of a New Era.
Fortunato, Lucio is drunk. You should find him sleeping at one of the tables in the outdoor cafes on Prado, call a taxi and take him to the Island. Fortunato, you should come in with Lucio, trying not to wake the others, trying to keep Irene from noticing the state her son is in. Luckily, Irene has fallen asleep in the living room rocking chair and you can come in as silently as possible, without waking her. Take him to his room, take off his clothes, put him in bed. You don’t dare give him a shower, you’d make too much noise and all your earlier precautions would become pointless. Fortunato, look at him: Lucio looks so beautiful, half asleep, languid, naked on his bed. Sit down at the foot of the bed and contemplate his chest, his pubis, his thighs, his legs, his feet (especially the feet). Call him, Lucio! and caress the soles of his feet, the heel, the ankle. Kiss the heel, Fortunato, kiss the ankle so that Lucio will open his eyes. Now raise your head, look at him. He’s calling you, Fortunato, in a quiet voice, and you say, What do you want? He, of course, doesn’t answer, what could he answer? and turns facedown. Fortunato, there you have Lucios powerful shoulders, his even more powerful buttocks, there you have the body that has aroused so many fantasies in you. Almost without your intending it, your hand goes to his back and initiates a faint caress, beginning at the neck, continuing along the whole spinal column down to that magical place where the buttocks begin. Feel, Fortunato, in the tips of your fingers, the reaction of Lucio ‘s skin, how it wakes up and waits for fresh caresses. Get bold, go up to the buttocks, you’ll see how the buttocks also wake up, also tighten. Lucio sighs. Get off the bed, take off your clothes, Fortunato, look at your friend, at Lucio, at your desire. You want to get closer and you don’t want to get closer, and I understand you, since what you want is to prolong the moment, or rather, to freeze it, you’d also like it for reality not to defraud you, for the moment to reach the same level of enchantment as your fantasies. Fortunato, you can’t help going over, your body demands it of you, and no matter how the fantasies gnaw at you, here you have Lucio ‘s body, his real body, waiting for you, what else can you do? Start by kissing his feet. Smell them, kiss them. Move up little by little, without rushing, up his legs, to the thighs. Stop at the thighs before moving on to the buttocks. He has to need for your mouth to reach his buttocks, so the wise thing is for you to take your time, to wait, the wisdom of pleasure is in the waiting, remember that, it’s in promising caresses that never quite come. Now you can start moving slowly toward the buttocks. Look at them, they’re hardening to receive you. Kiss them, bite them softly, twirl, move your tongue across them, move your tongue rapidly so that Lucio will feel that rapid movement as a tormenting caress. Go round and round the buttocks until he gives up and opens his legs, to help you find what you’re looking for. Then go, move in quickly, there at last you have that round darkness, the perfect darkness that is, which you’ve dreamed of for so long. Stop to look at it. I don’t know if it will give you any satisfaction to know that no one has ever gotten as far as you before. Surely it will, you must like the idea: there’s nothing so satisfying as the role of discoverer. So bring your tongue to the center of his desire, to make his desire unbearable. His desire, and yours, of course, because this sweet softness will endow you with a strength you’ve never known before. Follow the line of every fold with your tongue. Search out the round line. Follow it. Outline its roundness. Then, let your tongue enter with as much hardness as you can muster, as if you wanted to search with your tongue the bowels of Lucio. Look, he’s biting his pillow. Look how he’s moving. You’re making him feel something he’s never dreamed of (ever). Come out from time to time (to make him more desperate), pretend you’re not going back in, kiss his back, his buttocks, return when he least expects it, vary the speed of your tongue as much as you can. Likewise, sometimes use your fingertips instead of your tongue. Don’t forget you should be caressing his thighs and calves: as in war (and what else is love?), success consists in always attacking, never letting up. Fortunato, stop now: as in war, success consists in letting up when the enemy least expects it, to disconcert him, to attack again. Softly now, stretch out on top of him. Torture his neck with your mouth, while the beast of your virility, more beastlike than ever, fuller of veins and blood, more desperate, searches for just the right spot to jam in and disappear. Slip your hands under his arms and squeeze his shoulders tight. Then join with him. Finally, at last, he can’t stand it any more and only wants for you to enter; that mixture (pleasing pain, painful pleasure) is just what he needs. If you see him cry, don’t be afraid, ask him in your sweetest voice, in the voice that best contradicts the aggressiveness of the beast of your virility, Does it hurt? because (if he is honorable) Lucio will reply, For the first time in my life I’m happy, Fortunato.
Thine is the Kingdom Page 28