Read The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights Online

Authors: Reinaldo Arenas

The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (5 page)

sails free.

Rotten eggs

and mahogany seeds

shall never, ever

deflect me

from my chosen course.

So row, row, kindly oars–

man, for the morn–

ing sun doth rise.

And I hie me to other shores.

The sound of barking is heard. A bulldog appears, walking on its two hind legs with the aid of a huge walking stick. This is the famous Nicolás Guillotina, poet laureate of Cuba, who flaps his enormous ears and shakes his walking stick threateningly at the fleeing poetess.

N
ICOLÁS
G
UILLOTINA
:
(to a tune from Gilbert and Sullivan)

Flee this Island thou shalt not!

The Party, Miss Smarty, calls the shots,

and the Party has decided

that here with us thou shalt abide!

Ta-ra-ra, thou shalt not!

For the Party calls the shots.

Flee this land thou surely shalt not.

Here with us thou must remain.

Thou’rt a woman old and vain

and death on the high seas surely fear,

so let me whisper in thy ear:

Ta-ra-ra, thou shalt not!

For the Party calls the shots.

Flee this land thou surely shalt not.

If
I
must bide here and flee not

because the Party calls the shots,

what makes you think that you’re so grand, eh?

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!

Ta-ra-ra, thou shalt not!

For the Party calls the shots!

Flee this land thou most surely, most su-u-u-re-
ly
—shalt
NOT!

But then, while the symphony orchestra, in great confusion, plays
El son entero,
Guillotina, belying his own words, throws down his walking stick and dives into the ocean, trying to overtake the boat in which Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is fleeing. His ears row like huge outlandish paddle wheels.

C
HORUS
:
(giving the alarm)

Sensemayá the serpent—he’s getting away!

Fifo orders Guillotina pulled from the ocean. IMMEDIATELY. The poet laureate of Cuba, dripping water, is led into Fifo’s presence.

F
IFO
:
(sarcastic, to Guillotina)

Sometimes I think that you’ve forgotten

Just exactly who I am.

You know, Guillotina, you need a lesson.

Midgets—cut off that man’s gams!

The diligent midgets pull out a saw and perform the operation. The poet bleeds all over the Malecón and dies of gangrene. The symphony orchestra plays
taps and then a death knell. By order of Fifo, the crowd observes a moment of silence in honor of the deceased poet laureate. Then the orchestra plays a few typically Cuban dances while, on a stage near the Malecón, Halisia dances The Death of the Black Swan.

R
AÚL
K
ASTRO
:
(while a hundred diligent midgets bear away Guillotina’s mortal remains)

What hullabaloo!

What a racket!

I’ll tell you, with all this whoop-de-doo,

I’ll never find a man to
string my racket!

(Winks lasciviously.)

The whole army, thinking perhaps that this is a farewell lament for Nicolás Guillotina, repeats, over and over, the lines that Raúl has just spoken—until Fifo orders silence by pulling his finger slowly across his throat. Everyone gets the idea.

F
IFO
:

That’ll be enough of that, you nance.

No more of this campy fairy shit.

This is a repudiation, not a dance.

The Carnival hasn’t even started yet!

Besides, they’re watching us live on satellite in France—

so cut out the horseplay—quit, I tell you, quit!

Hey, speaking of France, I wish we still had Sartre

to turn our firing squads into art.

But we’ll make do the best we can—

Let’s get this started—Lights, camera,
achtung!

Bring on Dulce María Leynaz,

bring on Tina Parecía Mirruz—

this is gonna be delicious!

Oh, and don’t forget Karilda Olivar Lubricious.

Enter Dulce María Leynaz. She climbs the improvised steps that lead up onto the Malecón. She is wearing a long silk gown, white gloves, and a wide-brimmed straw hat to which she has tied a live vulture—the last one on the entire island.

D
ULCE
M
ARÍA
L
EYNAZ
:

Oh, how the water sparkles in the moonlight!

If I could squeeze it into a fountain streaming,

and toss a little strychnine in—

that’d teach Avellaneda to take flight!

Remember that I am of the aristocracy,

so I
love
Fifo’s bureaucracy

and consider royal purple very dressy—

appearances, my dear, do truly matter;

why, I even serve my guests cocaine on a lovely silver platter.

Leynaz offers a bag of cocaine to Tina Parecía Mirruz, who steps up onto the Malecón on the arm of Cynthio Métier, who’s steadying her. Tina, with the exquisite humility of a campesina, starts to take the cocaine, but Cynthio stops her.

C
YNTHIO
M
ÉTIER
:

Stop! You gotta be loca,

girl—that stuff is coca!

Haven’t you learned to just say no?

T
INA
:

Sure, I know how to say no,

and I knew that it was coca,

but I wasn’t taking it for
moi
it —

it was for Paquito Métier, papá . . .

Now standing on top of the Malecón, Tina begins her poem
:

T
INA
P
ARECÍA
M
IRRUZ
:

If you don’t mind my saying so, sweet girl of mine,

you
are
somewhat past your prime

in making love and making rhyme—

I saw you, in Lenin Park, watching the men come and go,

Wishing for one more hunky gigolo.

I, too, have somewhat lost my touch.

Now the old poetry doesn’t seem to flow as much

as once it did.

We’re sisters, you and I, under the skin—

come back, and I will take you in,

comfort you in my thatched cottage,

warm you, make you a lovely pottage

(whatever the hell that is),

and we’ll grow old together,

through fair and stormy weather,

like two aging twins!

Once you had soft, silky clothes, my pet—

although at the moment I see they’re soaking wet;

if you return you shall have them again,

clothes sewn for you by fairy hands—

for there are
lots
of fairies on this island.

Come back—you can live with me,

and we’ll have cookies with our tea!

Karilda Olivar Lubricious sweeps upon the scene. She is wearing a red evening gown—very décolleté. In her mouth, a rose as red as her dress. Once she has wriggled up onto the Malecón, she makes a grand gesture with one of her long arms and tosses the rose to Fifo.

K
ARILDA
O
LIVAR
L
UBRICIOUS
: