Three Trapped Tigers
Page 27
He was going closer to make out the differences when an usher, aide-de-camp, seneschal, secretary or amanuensis came in and told him that he could go up, that the Master (those were his very words) would receive him, that he was already waiting for him—and he might well have added that patience is a preamble to impatience, or in the proverb of this man’s own people: he who hopes loses hope, because he saw (and observed) his pertinent or impertinent grimace. He made a quarter turn exactly over one of the fleurs-de-lis inscribed on the circumference of the central mosaic and went off with the feigned walk of a disciple toward the quarters of the hereticus maximus. He went up the flight of steps step by step, stopping a moment to observe that above the balustrade, as an extremity to it, was the handrail and that the veins mixed with slate in the ambered marble coincided with the tiles which veined with slate the marble, also amber, of the staircase, although he had under his feet the red felt carpeting and not the marble steps, on which cord straps and bronze hinges contrasted brilliantly. Opposite him on the first landing he found a suit of armor from the quattrocento, complete with visored casque, gorget, pauldron, rerebrace, couter, vambrace, tasse, demi-tasse, poleyn, fauld, greave, cuisse, cuirass, shield (or eschutcheon), and hauberk with a Toledo steel on a shaft of oak wood. But though he paid little attention to the cuirass with its bas-relief moldings or to the ribbed vambrace, he wanted to know whether the casque was an entire helmet or only a morion with a gorget that extended upward, and he went closer to the suit of armor, almost (he was prevented by the wall) went right around it, and saw on drawing closer that the above-mentioned gorget was rather a broad beaver or perforated bassinet with a sort of felt in the visor and he concluded that it was a headpiece rather than a helmet and as his raincoat got caught on the hauberk, halbert or halbard as it is sometimes called, he remembered that he had to go up sooner or later and challenge his opponent—it was in the midst of making this decision that he was struck by the rose window on the landing. But he summoned his strength to resist this foliated attraction and began climbing the stairs again. Up above he arrived at the entrance, which consisted of a portiere of carefully worked colonial carving, and he saw that the door and with it the frames (or posts), the panels, the framework, moldings and lintel were of Spanish oak and although there was no protective plaque there was in compensation a lock and a door knocker, both in thick bronze with gudgeons of the same alloy, and he ran his historical hand over the protecting moldings before closing a Marxist fist on them and knocking with vigorous nervous knuckles.
V—LV
(SUMMARY OF THE PLOT OR RATHER, BRIEFING
After having reviewed and subsequently made an inventory of the room and all its furnishings and other fixtures, Jacques Mornard shows Lev Davidovitch Trotsky his “discipular stanzas,” as Alejo Carpentier calls them, and while the said Master is absorbed in reading them, he succeeds in pulling out his murderous adze—not forgetting to enumerate every one of the anatomical, sartorial, idiosyncratic, personal and political peculiarities of the great dead, because the magnicide—or author—is suffering from an acute case of what is known in French literary circles as Le Syndrome d’Honoré.)
Nicolás Guillén
ELEGIA POR JACQUES MORNARD
(EN EL CIELO DE LECUMBERRI)
Era duro y severo
grave la voz tenía
y era de acero
su apostasía.
(Era, no, es,
que todavía que todavía
está el hombre entero.)
Es.
De acero.
De acero es.
¡ Acero!
¡ Eso es!
TROTSKY: ¡Iba yo por un camino cuando con la muerte di!
(Leía la frase “un camino” cuando me dieron a mí.)
MORNARD: No sé por que piensas tú
León Trotsky que te di yo.
Al hacha que tenía yo
diste con tu nuca tú.
Nicholas Guillen
ELEGY FOR JACQUES MORNARD
(UNDER THE SKIES OF LECUMBERRI)
He was hard and severe
grave was his voice
and his apostasy
was forged of steel.
(He was, no, he is,
For to this day for to this
Day that man still lives.)
He is still
Forged of steel.
He’s forged of steel.
Of steel!
That’s how he is!
TROTSKY: I was goin’ ‘long a road when I saw Death come up
suddenly!
(I was readin’ the words “a road” when someone
struck me certainly.)
MORNARD: I don’t know why you think that I
did strike you, Leon Trotsky, dead.
The hatchet I was holding you
seized and planted in your head.
CORO (Zhdanov, Blas Roca y Duclos):
Stalin gran capitán
que te proteja Changó
y te cuide Yemayá!
TROTSKY: Isla de Prinkipo mía yo quiero tenerte entera
y quiero (cuando me muera)
tener en mi tumba un ramo de hoces y una bandera!
MORNARD: Ve cogiendo ahora tu ramo
de hoces y tus banderas
y no esperes a que mueras:
ya te maté con mi mano.
TROTSKY: Si muero en la carretera
no me pongan flores!
Si pido bortsch con lentejas
no me le echen coles!
MORNARD: No pidas bortsch con lentejas
y olvidate de las flores,
de las hoces y las coles:
no estás en la carretera,
sino en casa de Tenorio
donde hay ya su buen jolgorio
celebrando tu velorio
con un juego de abalorios.
TROTSKY: ¿Muerto yo?
MORNARD: Si, pues mi hacha te mató
y al que doy por muerto yo
¡no lo salva ni Paré (Ambrosio)!
TROTSKY: ¡Ay, qué imbroglio!
¿Y no hay vida en la otra vida?
Mira que no he completado
de Stalin la biografida.
MORNARD: Lo siento viejo León
Lion, Lowe, Leone, Lev
Davidovich Trotsky né
Bronstein. Estás como Napoleón,
Lenín, Enjels, Carlomar.
Estás mas muerto que el Zar:
CHORUS (Zhdanov, Blas Roca and Duclos):
Stalin, great captain,
may Changó protect you
and Yemayá watch over you!
TROTSKY: Island of Prinkipo, I want to possess you entire
and I want (when I expire)
a branch made of sickles and a flag to fly over my
grave!
MORNARD: Branch of sickles and flags to wave,
you’re going to find them right now
so please don’t wait till you’ve expired:
by my hand you’re dead and tired.
TROTSKY: If I should die upon the road
on my grave I want no flowers!
If I ask for borsch and lentils
please don’t give me cauliflower!
MORNARD: Do not ask for borsch and sickles,
and forget ‘bout caulis and flowers,
you are not dead upon the road
but down in Blue Beria
‘s office with its cork-lined walls
and skeleton-closeted halls
where everyone will have a ball
drinking toasts to your downfall
and dance mazurkas at a call
—before they’re sent to Siberia.
TROTSKY: Me dead?
MORNARD: Yes, since my hatchet’s done you in,
and when I kill a man not even
Paré (Ambrosius) can reprieve ‘im!
TROTSKY: Ah! It’s too damn bad you intruded.
Is there no life the other side?
Listen, I�
�ve not yet concluded
Jo Stalin’s biographicide.
MORNARD: I sure am sorry, old boy, Leon,
Lion, Lowe, Leone, Lev
Davidovitch Trotsky ne
Bronstein. You’ve hit the dirt
like Lenin, Engels or Bonapart.
You’re as dead as the long gone Czar:
Kaputt tot, dead difunto
mandado pal otro mundo,
ñampiado, mort, morto profundo.
Diste la patada al cubo.
TROTSKY: ¿Y quien habla, macanudo?
MORNARD: Tú. Es decir, tu in-cubo.
TROTSKY: ¿Y esa luz?
MORNARD: Es un sirio funerario.
TROTSKY: ¿Y esta voz?
MORNARD: Es un turco literario.
TROTSKY: ¿Sirio? ¿Turco
¿De qué hablas, insensato?
MORNARD: Bueno, cirio, truco.
(¡Este viejo literato!)
VOZ: Haciendo tu biografía
teniendo tan pocos datos
no esperes ortografía.
TROTSKY: ¿Y este otro interlocutor?
MORNARD: Isaac Deustcher, el doctor.
TROTSKY: Por favor,
que no entre, que me muero.
Me muero, sí. Es mejor
morirse de cuerpo entero
que quedar para profeta
sin greyes ní escopeta
y en la testa un agujero.
¡Muero!
(Muere at darle una zapateta.)
CORO (Deustcher, Julian Gorkin y Gambetta,
que ha venido por la rima y el entierro):
A llorar a Papa Montero!
Zumba, canalla rumbero!
Ese Trotsky fue un socialero.
Zumba, canalla rumbero!
A Pepe le dio con el cuero.
Zumba, canalla rumbero!
Y Yugaz vil le hizo un agujero.
¡Zumba, canalla, rumbero!
(Exeunt all except Hamlet.)
kaputt, muerto, bumped off, defunct,
you’re making tracks for another world,
worms are crawling thru your head.
Moreover you’ve kicked the bucket,
so you’re tot, mort, morto, dead.
TROTSKY: What the fuck was that you said?
MORNARD: You, not me. Your alter ego said it.
TROTSKY: And what’s this light you’ve just lit?
MORNARD: It’s a funeral caper.
TROTSKY: And that voice?
MORNARD: It’s a literary vice.
TROTSKY: Vice? And before, caper?
MORNARD: O.K., taper, then, device, not vice.
(These old literary guys!)
VOICE: Writing your damned biography
with little known or no data
don’t expect orthography:
you just put up with errata.
TROTSKY: And who’s this interlopercutor?
MORNARD: Isaac Deustcher, a so-called doctor.
TROTSKY: Please make sure he doesn’t fetter
me, who is almost dead.
No, I’m dead already. It’s better
to die completely than become
a prophet without flock or gun
and a big hole in my head.
I’m dying, CCCP, dying!
(As he dies his limbs start dancing a corrido.)
CHORUS (Deustcher, Julian Gorkin and Gambetta,
who came along to rhyme with better):
Let’s cry for Papa Troki the brave
and dance until dawn on his grave!
He was a socialist hero and brave.
(We’ll dance until dawn on his grave!)
Only himself he’s unable to save.
(But we’ll dance until dawn on his grave!)
His head was bashed in by Yugaz, that slave.
(And we’ll dance until dawn on his grave!)
(Exeunt all except Hamlet.)
HAMLET (En realidad es Stalin con peluca rubia, calzas, jubón
y en sus manos un bogey bear u oso ruso):
Ah, si este sólido Trotsky
pudiera derretirse, fundirse
y luego convertirse en Rocío . . .
Perdón, en rocío.
(Entonando de nuevo)
Cuan vanas, vacias, ostentosas e inútiles
se muestran a mi vista las práctícas todas de Malthus . . .
(Con hastio)
¿No habrá otra manera de librarse de ese canalla, traidor, infame, etc., sin disfrazarse ni tener que recitar tales sandeces?
HAMLET (In actual fact it is Stalin wearing a blond wig,
trunk hose, a doublet and holding a Russian or bogey
bear in his hands):
Oh, that this too too solid Trotsky
would melt, thaw and resolve himself
into a Jew . . .
Pardon, a dew.
(Continues)
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
seem to me all the practices of Malthus . . .
(With disgust)
Is there no other manner of ridding myself of this villain, traitor, slave, etc., without disguising myself or reciting such stupid lines?
Translated by Earl Russell Browder
At this moment, as though it were a play by Shawkspear and not by V. I. Vishinsky, the voice of Molotov is heard first far off and then close at hand, or vice versus:
Extra! EXTRA! MORNARD KILLS TROTSKY! Read all about it! Pics and details inside! Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
The voice is hoarse and sounds African but Stalin recognizes it as the voice of Molotov and not of Bebo the news vendor on 23rd and 12th. He removes his disguise (Stalin, not Bebo or Molotov and certainly not Trotsky) and runs off, happy and naked, down the corridors of the Kremlin. In the distance he starts jumping up and down: someone has left some thumbtacks on the floor. Cries are heard of:
Kamenev! Zinoviev! Rykov!
(They are the dirtiest words in the Russian language aside from Trotsky.)
Then:
Parallel Center United by Nails!
A purge! A purge! A purge!
Lady Macbeth (the one from the district of Msknz) enters rubbing her hands (it is cold) and sleepwalking. Her hair is tied up in a Slavic topknot and she is carrying a bottle of castor oil on her head. Taking advantage of a momentary thaw, she stops rubbing her hands and draws from her breast the complete works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, a magnifying glass and a teaspoon. She puts the books on the floor, succeeds in making a fire of them with the aid of the magnifying glass and the Russian midnight sun and warms the castor oil over it. Then she tries, without success, to give a spoonful of the purgative to Stalin, who wrestles with her, stamps his foot, frees himself and runs off through the Kremlin, shouting still more obscenities which a secretary by his side jots down in a treatise on linguistics. In the tumult which follows, the ghost of Lunacharsky appears from doors, corridors, walls and cupboards with the ghost of Radek by his side calling him “Lupanarsky, Lupanarsky,” while he is telling a counterrevolutionary joke to the ghosts of Arnold and Piatakov (on his other or right side):
“Socialism in one country! It won’t be long before we have Socialism in one street!”
Piatakov and Arnold laugh, but the ghost of Bukharin, who has crept up behind them, warns him:
“Watch out, Radek, that little joke has cost you your life once already!”
Arnold, Piatakov and other lesser ghosts disappear discreetly and leave Radek, who continues imperturbably to tell his infra-Red jokes to himself, at the same time turning his head every now and then to shout “Lupanarsky” over his shoulder to no effect (on the shoulder, not Lupanarsky, who trots off with his tail between his legs).
In less time than it takes to say Obedinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Policheskoe Uprardenie, the corridors of the Kremlin are filled with tens, with thousands, with millions (a hundred or so) of political phantoms. Above the whispering of the ghosts Stalin’s obscenities can be heard (in Georgian now) accompanied by the complaints of
Yugazbilly the Kid in Interprole, the idiom of the international proletariat:
“Would that Trotskyism had only one head!”
“My premiership for a pale horse!”
“Liberty, how many statutes have been erected in thy name!”
“Etcetera!”
CHORUS (Aragon, Éluard, Siquieros, Sholokhov and Brecht accompany Guillén):
Stalin!
Great Captain!
May Shango protect you
and Jemaja watch over you.
Of course they will!
Just like I’m telling you!
The voice of Arsenio Cué on the reality of the tape recorder or of parody shouts, in a loud voice, What the fuck are you saying, that’s not Guillen and Silvestre’s voice can be heard, and Rine Leal’s, phantasmal, in the background, and my own voice, superimposed on each other, but the voice of Bustrófedon is heard no more and this was all that Bustrófedon wrote if this could be called writing although if Origen (Silvestre’s suggestion) and Early Stanley Gardner (my own modest contribution) had done the same twenty centuries late, then why not him? But I don’t believe that he had the intention of writing (Arsenio Cué’s italics) at all but rather to teach Cué himself a lesson by absolutely refusing to write a single line however much Silvestre insisted and at the same time to point out to S. that C. was wrong—even if he was wrong also—and that literature is no more important than conversation and that neither of them are more important than the other and that being a wrighter is the same as being a reeder as B. called them and that both was nothing to write home (or anywhere else) about, after all or before nothing. Although Bustrófedon had said very plainly on this and on other occasions that the only possible literature was written on walls (increment out of excrement), when Silvestre said that he had already said just that thing and that he had written an essay with that title (B. excreted on him ferociously when he said it and explained him exactly what the similarities and differences could and should be between essay and assail and hustle and asshole) Bustrófedon said that he was talking about the walls of public conveniences, men’s or gents’, bogs, W.C.s, johns, cans, loos, escusados, shit or pisshouses and he gave a recitation of his analectasy or selected pieces of Faecetiae (recited, of course, by Arsenio Cué) such as In these old and ‘allowed ‘alls/ Use the paper not the walls or My mother made me a homosexual—if I buy her some wool will she make me one too? Or Here’s no place to snore or slumber/ Piss and shit and fart like thunder/ Or Lawrence was a dune bugger/ Or I am 7 inches long and 2 round—that’s O.K. but what size is your cock? Or those little ads with their microscopic print which promise to Cure gonorrhea, soft sores and syphilis EVEN OVER 20 YEARS. We assure you Complete Pripacy and also an Instant Curé (de campagne?) or the posters against Testicular Debility or Lack of Virility? Impotence? Monosexuality? Visit Dr. Arce’s Institute of Sexology—Modern Scientific Methods—CULS GUARANTEED and after all this the colophon written by hand: a hand job: If you can’t get an erection/ Try our friendly persuation. The other, B. was saying now, the other literature should be written on the air, in other words you make it simply by talking, if you want my advoice, or if you are concerned with your posteriorty, he was saying, you should record it on tape, so, and then rub it out, so (doing the two things that very day, with the exception of the specimens above) and so everyone remains happy. Everyone? I’m not so sure. The rest of the tape is taken up with the noises which is what we all have been of Bustrófedon: Cué, at least, says with some authority that these garblings, rumblings, scratches, gratings and scrapings are what is generally known as parasite noises.