I must make this work good at all costs, or at least as good as I can make it.
— Dostoyevsky
When I woke up (if I did wake up), how surprised I was to find myself back in the Island. The Island without fire and without destruction. The gentleman with the mocking greenish eyes and the Edgar Allan Poe nose, who had received me and promised me a wonderful journey, smoked with calm and class, looking at me with no expression. Are you all right? he asked in his singular voice, making a languid gesture with his cigarette hand. Do you know who I am? A brief pause to suck on the cigarette, expel the smoke toward heaven as if invoking the deity, toss the cigarette with a listless gesture into the undergrowth, open wide his eyes, which shone more mockingly, smile, display of course his nicotine-stained teeth, sigh twice, three times, four times, touch his chest, on the side of his heart, with a beautiful, white, adolescent hand. You are authorized to call me Scheherazade. It seemed the light was becoming intimate. Surprisingly, the man became young again, turned, to my astonishment, into the Wounded Boy with his handsome Honthorst face, and from there he went on to become a woman, a beautiful woman. As the cruel sultan is eternal, she exclaimed in a powerful and even more mysterious voice, Scheherazade has found herself obliged to use countless pseudonyms throughout countless centuries. She turned toward me, eyebrows raised, the lovely hand on her breast covered with shining rings. Your primitivism (you’re so young) will not conceal from you the fact that Scheherazade was (she is, I am, I will be) a brilliant woman, who decided (I decided, I decide, I will decide) to tell story after story after story to save her life, she realized (I realize, I will realize) the life-saving possibilities that words have (and will always have), she had the insight that storytelling was (is, will keep on being) the only way (the only way!) to gain eternity, and she continued (I will continue, whether they like it or not) talking for a thousand and one nights, a thousand and one nights! and more, a whole lifetime so to speak, and as your primitivism won’t conceal, she saved herself! Scheherazade saved herself! She was standing up in the midst of Irene’s flowers, illuminated, dressed in a green peplos, lovelier and lovelier, looking at me with equally green eyes, captivating eyes that shone as brightly as the rings and bracelets. And in one second she turned again into the man with the Mr. Poe face. He began caressing his left palm with his right hand. He furrowed his brow before continuing: Then, with time, over the centuries, like a famous character of Mrs. Woolf, Scheherazade has changed bodies, sexes, names, has been known as Herman Broch, Alberto Moravia, Truman Capote, Azorin, Chordelos de Laclos, Alice B. Toklas (pardon me, I meant to say Miss Stein), Jean Genet, Vargas Llosa, Cervantes, José Soler Puig, Mile. Yourcenar, Chaucer, Tibor Déry, Nélida Piñón, Laurence Sterne, Miss Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Carlos (Loveira, Fuentes, Montenegro, Victoria, Baudelaire, and Dickens —- though the last two should rather be Charles),Enrique Labrador Ruiz, Clarín, Homer, E. M. Forster, Ryunosuke Akutawaga, Albert Camus, Tomás de Carrasquilla, Katherine Anne Porter, Bioy Casares, Mongo Beti, Thomas Mann, José Saramago, Cirilo Villaverde, Henry Fielding and tutti quantti, and if I don’t mention them all it’s because ofthat bit about ars longa, vita brevis, as you’ll understand, life wouldn’t be long enough for us, and I, your utterly unhumble servant, am no more than one of the prodigious incarnations of that superior woman, which is why I say: I authorize you to call me by my occult and real name, Scheherazade, though if you prefer you may also use Master, which is more natural, faster, familiar, and in the end means the same thing. The Master allowed another long and sacred silence to grow. More and more intimate, the light concentrated on him as it came down obliquely through the ceiling formed by branches. I felt that I had disappeared. At least so I believed. Only he existed. Each of his gestures took on special meaning. He took out various pieces of paper from the pocket of his faded shirt, unfolded them, brought them up to his eyes. I heard him read:
The task of the poet and the novelist is to display the
vileness to be found beneath great things, and the
greatness to be found beneath vile things.
— Thomas Hardy
I heard him read, unemphatically but emphatically, his accent tired yet at the same time extraordinarily vivid: The damnable circumstance of water on every side obliges me to sit up on the coffee table. If it weren’t for thinking that water surrounds me like a cancer, I could sleep like a log. While the boys were shedding their clothes to go swimming, a dozen people were dying in a room from compression … And it was the power of entering the Island for almost the first time, of feeling the sea’s compression, the sense of confinement that any island causes, the possibility of recognizing it, revealing its mysteries, being present when day arrives, the light that makes colors invisible and erases them, the mist of light, an entire nation can die of light as it can die of plague, the authority of the sun, which insists upon the hammock and turns upward the useless palms of your hands, and seeing that there are no tigers passing by, allowing merely the shadows of their descriptions to alter, for a moment, the light’s dominion, being present then at the mystery of night in the Antilles, the power of its aroma (made of so many fruits, so many aromas), because the aroma of the pineapple can stop a bird, and the sweet aroma of a mango, in the river, flowing, of course, allows you to attain revelation, and confessing the keys of a disbelieving mysticism, seeing how a rooster is sacrificed to make another’s body come close to yours, make another’s body yield, showing how two or more bodies get their pleasure in a banana grove, with the help of the Heavenly Muse (how could you live without such satisfaction in this Island), while the dagger pierces the soursop, like any heart, and discovering not only the delight, the magical spell of love in the open, under the gloriously (terrifyingly) clear sky, white with stars, but also that other enchantment, the dance (it comes to the same thing), and wishing to live, to die, in this jubilant nothingness, where things don’t exist, where they can’t be defined or categorized or reported, where all you can do is feel, the paradise where reason is abolished, yes, howling in the sea, devouring fruits, sacrificing animals, always farther down, until you get to know the weight of your island, the weight of an island in the love of a nation. Consecrated, the words (which were not, as the reader might guess, the same ones I have just written) had the effect of making me intangible. Silence returned me, grievously, to materiality. I knew, on the other hand, that not any old word would have such power, that not any old word was (it couldn’t become) The Word. So that I remained sunk in my silence like an infernal being who is conceded, as a greater punishment, the briefest possibility of contemplating Paradise.
“DANGER: Circumstance in which there exists a possibility, a threat,
or a chance that some misfortune or adversity may occur.
— Maria Moliner
The Master called me over with a gesture and began to walk. Standing up, I followed his wary steps, I went behind him into the trees, the trees of the extensive, intense garden, and we reached its outermost edge, where a tall iron gate, old, rusty, elegant, excessively ornate, marked its boundaries with the world. The Master pointed to overwhelming darkness on the other side. Do you know what there is beyond here? he asked. I shook my head no, though I was thinking, No, Master, how should I know what’s out there, when I don’t even know where I am, I don’t even know who I am. He joined his hands, raised them as if he were about to intone a prayer. He said nothing. When he separated his hands, a dove flew out from between them. I say dove to put a known name to that handsome white bird, which, escaping his hands, flew around our heads before crossing the gate and passing joyfully to the other side of the Island. A detonation sounded. The dove, the bird, stopped in midair, wings spread (image of bewilderment), and fell toward I don’t know where, toward I don’t know what bottomless pit. An imposing silence. The Master turned toward me. Understand? Do you know, at last, what’s on the other side? Danger, extreme danger, it means we’re surrounded, we’re bordering on danger. Please remember, I was practically a
child, so my question should be understood in all its innocence: Isn’t there anything we can do? The Master received it with a condescending smile. Danger also has its attractions, he said, some dangers are delicious, there’s a lot you can do against danger, and he kept walking into more intricate parts of the Island. Master, I’m afraid, very afraid, of the word danger. Afraid?
What does it matter to me that I’m making up this story?
—Jean Genet
As the well-advised reader will be able to deduce, I must abandon the tale, for a couple of minutes at any rate, to have a cup of coffee, go out onto the terrace, watch life passing by, or at least what we take to be life, life, because …
I’M AFRAID!
(afraid of what, come on, be brave, go ahead and say it)
NO!
… I need to regather my strength, breathe deeply, see that today is just another day (no day is just another day!), try pointlessly to forget the fear, the danger. Meanwhile, the Master and I are going deeper into the Island, the spectacle of the street is terrifying: it’s been more than a week since the garbage trucks came by, bags of garbage are piling higher and higher on the corners, along with them the number of flies climbs as well, and the useless breeze blowing by smells foul. Threatening and fierce as a beast, the sun takes over the street. A crowd of men and women on bicycles, sweaty, whining, sad, tired, bored, fills the bright street, which is also fierce and also menacing. Others sit down on the sidewalks to wait, expressionless, for what, they don’t know, there’s nothing to wait for, they’re not even sitting there to kill time, there is no time, time doesn’t exist, time isn’t a kid playing dice, there aren’t any kids, there aren’t any dice, on this street, in this city, time is a whirlwind of dust with two dates, birth and death. Speaking of kids, here comes one, he points a toy rifle at me, Bam, I killed you! And indeed he does kill me. Yes, dead. For the fifth, eighth, tenth time, they’ve just killed me. Dead of terror (the worst way to die), I close the door. And now, dead, what do I do? Keep going, Master, keep going with you through the garden (now the garden of this book), meaning: it was a transitory garden, which has been fixed by the word, the only means to eternity, yes, Master, keep going with you to discover where it is we’re getting to. Yes, accompany me for now, he ordered, he looked sarcastically at me and continued, As for death, no need for worry, or at least no need for self-pity (I despise people who think themselves unlucky), I am a ghost
What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One
who has faded into impalpability through death, through
absence, through change of manners.
—James Joyce
and I don’t go around making a fuss about it, besides, we all are or have been ghosts, we all suffer or have suffered in this life (and I underscore this, because, as for the other …),you don’t have any exclusive rights to suffering, it’s characterized all Cuban literature, as you know. (Do you really think that being born here is an unmentionable party?) Follow me, you’ll see, I promised you a wonderful journey and I have to — we have to! — keep the promise, let’s keep on making our way through all these trees, you’ll start to lose your sense of place, you won’t feel like you’re in a garden or anywhere, night is turning into a palpable event, a wall that you can touch just by holding out your hands, hold them, hold out your hands, touch the night, don’t be afraid, remember that these opportunities only come once, now push on the little door, bend down to get through, don’t let the bump on the head distract your consciousness, you need to keep it sharp, here we are, here’s the candlestick, will it be enough light? yes, it’s always enough light, even if this unfortunately isn’t the Age of Enlightenment, rather quite the contrary We had arrived in an immense place, full of shades. Being conscious of how deeply the question of truth is pondered in literature, I would like to swear to the reader that I am being truthful, that I am narrating the exact impression that everything I experienced then had on me, that I am striving for realism (yes, realism) insofar as possible, I’m not exaggerating, nor has it occurred to me for one second to distort the events I lived through, which today, thanks to the resplendence of words, I can relive more intensely. Everything I narrate here is autobiographical. No coincidence with actual persons or events is fortuitous. Shades, shades. Incorporeal. Not even forms, they were traces that drifted past, immaterial. That wandered. That moved like some sort of protozoans. He lifted the candlestick. One of those shades turned into an austere man in a very stern black suit, sitting at a table, on a Viennese chair, facing a glass of water and an open notebook whose pages were handwritten in tiny, crowded letters, there you have him, the prince of Lampedusa, poor man, even in death he thinks no one wants to publish his book, even in death he is unaware his novel has been translated into every language, he doesn’t know (he cannot know; probably he doesn’t care to know, either) that he is a genius, he tried to bring the poor light he held in his hands even closer, the shade returned to impalpability at the very moment another began to take bodily shape, now I could see a man with a beard, an emaciated face, delirious eyes, lying in bed, I didn’t touch his sweating forehead, I knew it was burning hot, he uttered the name of a woman that I couldn’t understand, Scheherazade called him, José Asunción! and the man lifted his head slightly, he seemed to smile, he looked at us, took a pistol from under the blanket with one hand, and with ceremonious movements aimed the barrel of the pistol at his chest, at his nightshirt on which he had drawn a heart, of course I shouted, or wanted to shout, No, don’t do it! (as if he had read my thoughts, the Master motioned to keep me from shouting) there was a shot, I seemed to see his heart fly violently from his chest, of course there is no way to confirm this, it may be my morbid, my diabolical, my malevolent, my twisted imagination, and the shade became a shade once more, and he, the Master, once more raised the candlestick, a young man with dark eyes and a gaze that must at some point have been frightened (at this point it no longer was, it was instead the serene gaze of someone who had understood everything in a flash of discovery); they were bringing the young man before a firing squad, I know my profile will be peaceful (it was Scheherazade’s voice), and the sound of the shot made him fall, and he, Federico, fell with his great serene eyes that had already attained revelation, he stood up heroically, the Master moved the candlestick aside, You shouldn’t want, he said, to see any more knowing gazes for now, then another shade, given bodily form by the light, approached, came toward me, an old man, an old man? perhaps older than he looked, and is he unbalanced? who is this unbalanced, babbling, sniveling, hunchbacked, nearly naked, urine-smelling beggar who can’t manage with his own soul, do you know him? don’t you know him? take a good look, I’m going to bring the light closer, his name is also Federico, or the equivalent of Federico in his native tongue, Nietzsche, you ought to know him, his mind ranged so far … no, I’m wrong, it isn’t him, it’s Oscar Wilde, imprisoned for alleged immorality, and now, pay attention, you are facing Gerard de Nerval, he’s about to hang himself with his belt in the Vieille Lanterne, singing, Don’t wait for me this afternoon for night will be black and white … (it was Scheherazade’s voice), no, no, it isn’t him either, it’s Attila Jozsef throwing himself beneath the wheels of a moving train, and you should know: the man over there who’s observing how the tiniest flower opens up, and who sits meditating, meditating, meditating, with a sorrowing face because the flower, so tiny a flower, opening up, awakens thoughts in him that are too profound and that torture him, that man is Wordsworth, and if you see him hanging from a cord in a hotel room it’s Esenin, and if he runs away now it isn’t Wordsworth or Esenin but Rousseau Jean Jacques, the solitary traveler, he ended up in his final years as paranoid as Strindberg, it’s him, Strindberg, writing A Madman’s Manifesto in Paris, and if you see him transform into a woman you have Alfonsina who decided to end it in the depths of the sea, Virginia decided to end it in the depths of the river, Hart Crane also opted for the sea (ah! La mer, la mer toujours recomendé …), or this one,
look, blond and dark, handsome, Dylan Thomas drinking eighteen whiskeys in a row to take him from sober madness to drunken madness and from there to death, and speaking of drunken madness look over there, Ricardo Reis, Alvaro de Campos, that multiple man, it’s more convenient to call him Fernando Pessoa, and speaking of madness, you can see Hölderlin appear there next to the Neckar, and if you see him cutting open his belly, it’s Mishima, and if you see him sightless, it’s Homer, Milton, Borges, all at once, and if what he’s doing is opening his veins, call out Petronius! and you’ll see the elegant eyes of the arbiter of elegance, and that one shrinking up and wasting away in prison, call him Miguel Hernández! remind him, So much suffering just to die (the unmistakable tone of Scheherazade’s voice), and that nun who my light is turning visible in her cell is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and if it’s a tall, pretty man who also shoots himself (did you hear the shot?), it must be Mayakovsky, Bulgakov, Cesare Pavese, Bruno Schulz, who didn’t kill himself but was sent back to the street of crocodiles, that is, murdered one terrifying afternoon by a magnificent SS officer, as handsome as souls possessed by the devil usually are, and now my light gives us the beheading of Thomas More, and now my light gives us Don Miguel de Unamuno, living poorly (or dying poorly) with his tragic sense of life, and Camus, who already knows (though he doesn’t understand it: it’s absurd) that he has had his fatal accident, and now my light gives us Alejandra Pizarnik, and José María Arguedas, and the poor woman watching out the window is Emily of Amherst, and if you can see in the distance the two shades making love and attacking each other (it comes to the same thing, don’t you think?), loving and shooting, shooting and loving, Rimbaud and Verlaine, and now my light gives us Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont, and the ingenuous young boy who’s already thinking of writing novels, the young boy (I weep for Adonais — he is dead!) who has been struck with thousands of arrows and for whom thousands of arrows more are waiting all along his path, that ghostly boy, dead, living, and dead, is you, Sebastián, and if I reveal it to you it is because
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