The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (27 page)

Bibulous Barniz, like some burlesque burgher, stood imbibing beer in a bar in Borneo (or perhaps Batavia) when a bearded Bedouin (or perhaps Berber), putting back bourbon after bourbon, tipped his biretta and proffered him his prominent protuberance. Barniz, bedazzled by the Bedouin (or perhaps Berber), put by his beer and imbibed the bubbly brew produced by the barbarian’s protuberance. Oh, what a bubbly brew the bibulous Barniz imbibed!

For Miguel Barniz

It was a red-letter night at Olga Andreu’s house—Virgilio Piñera was going to read his poems. From the
crème de la crème
of Havana society—composed of (among others) La Arrufada, Miss Starling-Bird, Skunk in a Funk (in her role as Reinaldo), the cunning Mahoma, Miguel Barniz, and Paula Amanda, a.k.a. Luisa Fernanda—Olga Andreu had invited all those queens who in her view (1) could be trusted and (2) adored Virgilio Piñera. The living room of the small apartment was wall-to-wall with queens of all ages, from Harolda Gratmatges (ninety-eight years old and blind) to Miss Mayoya, an illiterate queen with a truly sculptural body who according to rumors spread by Virgilio himself was still a virgin, since she was saving herself for none other than Bloodthirsty Shark, whom she’d fallen madly in love with. And “wall to wall” is not just a manner of speaking, my dear: People were sitting on the floor, so crowded together they were practically on top of one another—and the heat was
stifling.
Among the other guests were the Brontë Sisters, the Three Weird Sisters, Miss Oscar, Chug-a-Lug (not named for his beer-drinking skills), Tomasito the Goya-Girl, the Ogress, the Horrible Marmot, Miss Pricked by Thorns Amid the Roses, and almost a hundred more. The screeching and racket those queens made was like something out of Pantagruel. Sakuntala La Mala was saying that she predicted that a new comet, much larger than Halley’s, was approaching, and heralding no end of horrors; Miss Mayoya, an incorrigible exhibitionist, was dancing to the rhythm of her own clapping hands, trying out a special wiggle she was planning to debut at the Carnival; La Arrufada was exchanging viperous sussurations with Miss Starling-Bird. La Reine des Araignées was telling Reinaldo how she’d managed to make it back to Havana after fifteen days of dreadfully perilous adventures and every imaginable sort of exploit on sugarcane trucks, tractor-trailers, pickups, and mules. She claimed (who knew?) to have been screwed by more than two thousand men on that hallucinogenic journey; the most memorable, she said, was when she’d gotten into the back of a pickup in Matanzas and discovered a runaway black man, completely naked so his prison uniform wouldn’t give him away. La Reine
said
she’d crossed the entire province of Matanzas sucking on the black man’s cock. The pickup had sped through the countryside, she said, leaving thousands of campesinos and the entire population of Matanzas (including the Dowager Duchess de Valero) openmouthed in incredulity, though they were witnessing the blow job with their own eyes. “It was a
marvelous
trip,” sighed Delfín Proust at last. Then Skunk in a Funk asked her what had happened to all the bags. “Gone! Utterly lost! Lost forever!” exclaimed Delfín, fluttering her spidery arms and (
perhaps
unintentionally) scratching the cunning Mahoma’s gigantic face. Mahoma gave a shriek and hurled herself at the other queen with every intention of murdering her. An earsplitting cat fight broke out, ten times louder and shriller than the normal shrieking and cackling of a moment before. Miss Mayoya, the Weird Sisters, Miss Not Out Yet, and several other fairies (apparently friends of Hiram) tried to stop Mahoma, but Skunk in a Funk was yelling “Kill her! Kill her!” in the pre-murderess’s ear, hoping that if La Reine were dead, she wouldn’t be able to turn the manuscript of
The Color of Summer
over to Fifo—because Skunk in a Funk was
certain
that Hiram hadn’t lost it. So anyway—there was Mahoma, standing in the middle of the room shrieking, her two monstrous hands around La Reine des Araignées’s neck, lifting her off the floor with every intention of smashing her head against one of the walls of Olga Andreu’s apartment. But just at that moment, Olga announced that Virgilio Piñera was about to begin his reading—his reading of his evanescent poems.

Total silence fell upon the room. Gingerly, Mahoma deposited the near-dead La Reine on the floor, and everyone settled down to listen to the poet, who for hours had been locked up in Olga Andreu’s bedroom, waiting to make his appearance until all the guests had arrived. So now, barefoot and dressed only in a guayabera so long that it reached all the way to his ankles, Virgilio made his entrance.

“Maestro! Maestro! Welcome!” shouted the queens almost in unison.

“Bring in the brazier,” was the poet’s only greeting.

Olga Andreu, Mahoma, and Skunk in a Funk hurried out to the kitchen and returned with a hibachi filled with charcoal. They placed it beside the small table that the poet was sitting at, and immediately Virgilio began. He began with a poem he had written the night before—and his listeners immediately knew they were in the presence of greatness. It was a perfect poem, containing all the most secret, hidden sadness of every person individually and the pain of humanity in general. While the poet read, a magical hush, a sort of spell, a wondrous enchantment, fell over all those terrified and grotesque figures. The guests’ expressions became peaceful, their eyes filled with sweet tears, their bodies took on a serenity, a repose that terror had prevented them from feeling for many years. All were enveloped in a sort of ecstasy of beauty. Even Uglíssima, the most horrific queen on earth, took on an undefinable but visible loveliness that sensibly contrasted with her formerly bloodcurdling features. Olga Andreu had turned off the living room lights (leaving Virgilio illuminated only by the glow of the hibachi) and now as she stepped forward to find a seat on the floor, she was a beautiful sylphlike teenage girl. Everyone was enthralled. Poetry had taken the listeners to another realm, a place that no longer existed almost anywhere, much less there, on that island accursed and at the mercy of Fifo’s insane and often cruel caprices. And so while the poet read, the guests, now transported to a place far from all those horrors, found themselves led deeper and deeper into magical gardens where music played, where an unearthly, beautiful song was heard, where time, its implacable horrors in abeyance, molded realms that were actually habitable, paths that wandered off into misty promises, wondrously life-affirming anthems, soft blue peaks, and fields of sunflowers. . . . But then, alas, Virgilio’s reading of the poem ended, and before the applause broke out, before the spell was broken, he had tossed it into the flames of the hibachi.

A gasp of horror escaped all those who had heard the poem.

“Maestro, what are you
doing?”
cried Sakuntala La Mala, tearing at her wig, while Antón Arrufada stuck his hands in the flames to try to rescue the poem.

But Mahoma and Skunk in a Funk, obeying a sign from Virgilio, stopped the queen, and even slapped her a couple of times. Virgilio then spoke.

“Yes—cry, shout, kick, pull your hair or your toupees. But heed me, my friends—these poems are the originals, not copies. And tonight, as I read them, I shall burn them.”

“Maestro, for heaven’s sake, think of us! How can you deprive us of this beauty?” exclaimed Uglíssima.

And cries of approval seconded Uglíssima, who suddenly looked more horrific than ever. But Virgilio, ignoring the voices of protest, went on talking.

“I shall burn them
all.
But first I shall give
you
the opportunity to enjoy them,
myself
the opportunity to read them. One writes for others, there is no doubt of that. And all writing is revenge—to that rule, there can be no exception. Thus, I write my revenge and then am obliged to read it; if I didn’t, it would be as though it had never existed. But immediately afterward, I must burn what I have read. I can leave no proof of my revenge, for if I did, then a greater revenge,
Fifo’s
revenge, would swoop down upon me and annihilate me. Resign yourselves to hearing these poems one time and one time only, as I have resigned myself to my own fate, which is yet more terrible—the fate of having to write them, read them but once, and consign them forever to the flames.”

And at that, the poet put on his thick glasses, picked up another sheet of paper, and began to read another brilliant poem. Instantly, his audience was once again transformed. This time, the room was filled with angels, slender nymphs, teenagers with the faces and bodies of demigods, and all in thrall to the music of a true God.

When he had finished reading, Virgilio raised the poem and addressed his audience curtly:

“I repeat—there are no copies, this is the original. Once I fling it into the flames it will be gone forever.”

And so saying, the poet flung that manuscript into the flames.

A wail of horror filled the apartment. Tomasito the Goya-Girl writhed in grief on the floor, Chug-a-Lug gave a cavernous moan, Arrufada wept, Coco Salas removed his glasses, and Paula Amanda stifled a scream with a kitchen towel that she was planning to steal from Olga Andreu. And yes, even the fairies who would inform on Virgilio the next day could not contain their emotions.

But by then the poet was already beginning to read his third great poem of the night. This was a poem that embodied the sound of rhythmic drumming and the echo of great hymns, and it celebrated the length and breadth of the Island. Its listeners did not simply listen, they
became
the poem—leaves, fruit, flowers, cool burbling water that ran among the rocks and through the plains, lakes, a tree filled with birds, furiously satisfied desires, clamor, and revenge. Suddenly, they were all heroes; suddenly, they were all giants; suddenly, they were all children. Suddenly, they were all sitting under a green palm tree listening to a sweet melody. Rain pattered on the leaves. They listened to the music of the rain as it fell on the leaves. They were transported into the center of low clouds, came out onto a wide field where thousands of people were working in the hellish sun, and after that horrible vision they returned to the primordial tree where, returned to beauty and innocence, they fell asleep to the thought that that last, horrible,
other
vision was but a nightmare which made the reality the poet had showed them all the more beautiful.

“Another ephemeral poem that shall be fuel for the flames,” resounded the voice of the poet as he ended his reading and dropped the poem onto the brazier.

This time the listeners expressed their dismay with wails of shock. So loud were the protests of disbelief and pain that Olga Andreu turned on the lights and begged them to control their grief, since otherwise the Watchdog Committee for her block might hear them, and then, in the face of the possibility of a search, Virgilio would have to burn his poems
before
he read them.

“What we might do is gag those who can’t control themselves,” suggested Virgilio, who was terrified that the Watchdog Committee might knock at the door. “Raise your hand if you want to be gagged.”

And everyone, including Skunk in a Funk, Mahoma, Sakuntala La Mala, and even Olga Andreu herself, raised a hand. The hostess decided to sacrifice one of the few bedsheets she had left, and she, Skunk in a Funk, Mahoma, and La Reine des Araignées tied a gag on everyone in the living room. Then, after they had also gagged themselves, Virgilio continued his reading.

Now they were seeing thousands of Indians massacred (some burned alive) and other thousands who turned, armed with sticks and stones, to confront their persecutors. They saw millions of black men and women enslaved, and thousands of runaways hunted down with dogs, but sometimes instead of being devoured by the howling pack the runaways would turn the tables and devour the hounds that pursued them. They saw thousands of guajiros, simple country people, machetes upraised, advancing against an oppressor’s army that exterminated them by the hundreds with every cannon blast, yet the survivors continued advancing. And now they saw millions of people of
all
races enslaved and constantly monitored, but somehow managing to elude the surveillance and throw themselves into the sea, to gnaw away at the base of the island. And they saw themselves, under the ocean, gnawing desperately, while armies of sharks (led by one huge and particularly bloodthirsty specimen) bore down on them to devour them. And then, at last, they saw the country and the countercountry—because every country, like all things in this world, has its contrary, and that contrary-to-a-country is its countercountry, the forces of darkness that work to ensure that only superficiality and horror endure, that all things noble, beautiful, brave, and life-enhancing—the
true
country—disappear. The countercountry (the poem somehow revealed this) is monolithic, rigid vulgarity; the country is all that is diverse, luminous, mysterious—and
festive.
And this revelation, more than the images of all the beautiful things that they had seen, invested the listeners with an identity and a faith. And they realized that they were not alone, because beyond all the horror—including that horror that they themselves exuded—there existed the sheltering presence of a tradition formed of beauty and rebelliousness:
a true country.