The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (9 page)

R
ITA
T
ONGA
:
(completing the statue and bowing to Fifo)

Here’s the statue of Avellaneda.

Look how
hideous
I made ’er!

F
IFO
:

Yes! What an eyesore!

This is priceless!

Rita—this may be your masterpiece!

R
AÚL
:

Boy, is that statue ugly! Uff!

The spitting image of Gorbachev!

F
IFO
:

How dare you mention that name in my presence!

He’s
the one that got us in this mess.

R
AÚL
:

Yeah, but Raisa’s got a contract out on him, I hear.

F
IFO
:

Hush! Do you want the KGB to hear?

R
AÚL
:

Are you kidding? The KGB
and
the CIA,

have—both of them—seen better days;

no
way
there’re any agents around here—

and besides—you think they’d listen to some silly queer?

(Puts hands on hips.)

F
IFO
:

Yeah, but still . . . you know about loose lips . . .

Anyway—let’s have a closer look at this.

(He walks over to the statue of Avellaneda.)

Oh, no! What a disappointment!

It’s got feet instead of stumps,

and tits instead of scorpions—

and I wanted it to be short and squat.

This isn’t what I had in mind at all,

this is not what I meant, at all—

That mouth, that figure, that haunting smile . . .

Shit! I wanted a crocodile!

We cannot idealize the enemy!

Gimme that chisel—I’ll show you what I mean!

And you midgets over there—

get this woman out of here!

She may call this statue awful,

but to
me
it’s way WAY
WAY
too beautiful.

While Rita Tonga is being tied up and kicked to a patrol car, Fifo, furious, signs a report denouncing Rita—“the traitor!”—and defaces the statue so that it’s even more hideous than it was before.

Halisia and her troupe dance among the ruins of what was once the statue. At one point, Halisia, peeking through a hole in the statue, inspires such terror that even Fifo cringes in the arms of Raúl.

F
IFO
:

Yikes! Where’d
that
ugly thing come from?

R
AÚL
:

Oh, it’s just mad Halisia, hon,

and her Dance of Repudiation.

Not to worry, she’s one of the faithful—

while she dances she sings
Fidel! Fidel!

F
IFO
:

There’s nothing more faithful than a statue,

the
only
thing that you can trust a secret to.

(You know, Raúl, I don’t even trust you!)

So since Halisia’s one of the elite

let’s give her a special Fifaronian treat—

a quick dip in a tubful of concrete!

There follows a fierce attempt to catch Halisia, who, in a series of blinding jetés, kicks Raúl in the belly. Then she leaps, in one bound, into the sea. In the water, she begins to dance the second act from
Swan Lake.
Under the pretext of saving Halisia, almost all her dancers throw themselves into the sea, but transformed suddenly into veritable swans themselves, they swim away at full speed, leaping like dolphins over the head of Avellaneda (further threatening the stability of her little boat) and arriving in
K
EY
W
EST
,
where they are met with cheers and huzzahs. Halisia, still dancing near the coast, is caught by Coco Salas and brought back.

F
IFO
:
(to Raúl)

Wait—she’s no use to us petrified.

We need her to testify

against those speedboating vermin.

H
ALISIA
:
(irate, defending her dancers)

Speedboats, nothing! They were swimmin’!

F
IFO
:

I know that, you ditzy dame,

but to save face we’ve got to claim

at the least that they were paddling!

(Jesus, I can feel my poor brains addling

from dealing with this crazy old hag—

not to mention my brother the fag.)

C
HORUS
:
(singing one of Fifo’s anthems)

Our victory shall never be forgotten.

Onward marches the Revolution.

Give me a C, give me a U, give me a B, give me an A!

Cuba, Cuba—forever and a day!

While the hymn is sung over and over, the lights go up on Avellaneda, still sailing onward, and then turn slowly on
K
EY
W
EST
.
The giant movie screen is rolled down again, and on it appears Zebro Sardoya.

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(on screen)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the poet Bastón Dacuero . . . And you know, folks, I think the old fellow’s in love—but it’s apparently unrequited. He keeps threatening to “die because he does not die.”

The screen goes dark and we see Bastón Dacuero on the stage in
K
EY
W
EST
.

B
ASTÓN
D
ACUERO
:

I am a homeless wanderer

come to the seaside

to greet you when you arrive . . .

(The screen lights up again and Zebro Sardoya interrupts Bastón Dacuero:)

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:

And
I’m
here to see you sixty-nine,

you miserable panhandler.

(The screen goes dark behind Dacuero, who glares at it furiously but continues with his poem:)

B
ASTÓN
D
ACUERO
:

I am a homeless wanderer

wandering from park to park

to find a place to sleep . . .

(The screen lights up again.)

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:

A homeless wanderer, indeed, mister!

I
know about all those checks

you used to get from Batista!

(The screen goes dark.)

B
ASTÓN
D
ACUERO
:
(angrier and angrier, but trying to control himself )

Ay, Carolina, let’s

go to the country

to sate ourselves on delicacies . . .

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(on the screen)

Delicacies! Oh, please!

You know you eat like a horse!

You can down fifteen chickens in the first course!

B
ASTÓN
D
ACUERO
:
(trying to ignore Sardoya)

I shall wait for you on every corner—

radiant as an amapola—

there, where in robes of glory

you beach your little boat—
olé!

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(on the screen)

Jesus Christ, give me a break!

Enough of this coochie-coochie, artsy-fartsy

stuff—come on, get it over with and let’s party!

B
ASTÓN
D
ACUERO
:
(in a voice of thunder)

I am here to sing a welcoming anthem

to the undying Rose of Villalba

not to have a
mano-a-mano

with some bald foul-mouthed queen . . . ahem!

And at that, Bastón Dacuero leaps headfirst at the movie screen on which Zebro Sardoya appeared. But he crashes through the screen and tumbles out on the other side. For a second the only thing we see is the screen in tatters, and on it, the shattered image of Zebro Sardoya, swaying gently.

C
HORUS OF
P
OETESSES
:
(jumping up and down around the torn movie screen)