Mona and Other Tales

by Reinaldo Arenas

  1980

  Alipio’s Kingdom

  TWILIGHT SPREADS its incomparable violet hues while Alipio, standing by the balcony railing, becomes almost indistinguishable from the last autumn leaves on the almond tree.

  Alipio is motionless, looking at the sun as it descends at the customary slow pace of one who is going nowhere in particular.

  The top branches of the almond tree light up briefly. Suddenly, all is calm.

  The sky turns darker.

  Alipio, who has been awaiting this for a while, rubs his eyes with his hands as if he were trying to clean an opaque glass with an oiled cloth. Alipio’s hands are thin and white, and a bit clumsy. His face glows with the declining rays of light.

  Alipio grins; night is close. The moment the last trace of day vanishes, he slowly raises his head to look at the sky.

  The first stars have just come out. Venus, Alipio utters with a smile. His teeth are short and square, much like a rabbit’s.

  Gradually the sky becomes incandescent; in a short time, stars in phosphorescent outbursts suddenly appear. Alpha, Alipio says, and looks toward the west. Omega, he says, and now he tilts his head backward so he can look at the highest point in the sky. Ursa Major, he mutters, lifting his arms shoulder high. He’s in ecstasy, motionless for a moment; then he turns slowly toward the north to watch an almost imperceptible constellation. That’s the Pleiades, Alipio says. But the sky is already a luminous outburst and he does not know where to direct his gaze. On one side of the horizon the Andromeda constellation beams from afar, and Alipio’s eyes are helplessly fixed on it; at the other extreme the dazzling white Castor and Pollux exchange knowing winks like inseparable friends. Almost crowning the sky, big Orion glows like a burning tree and only Sirius, the most brilliant star, can outshine it briefly. Alipio keeps turning his head really fast: that’s the Global Accumulation of Omega and Centaurus, he says, raising his hands high up as if he wanted to dig his fingers into the constellation. There, the Southern Cross, and Arcturus, the yellowest and most mysterious nebula. He keeps naming the constellations, one by one, even the most insignificant stars that possibly disappeared billions of years ago. Finally he begins to jump up and down on the balcony as if trying to escape up into the sky, raising his hands, running from one side to the other, squealing with pleasure, laughing out loud. Up above, the stars now shine in their maximum opulence; constellations turn at full speed, die out, surge again, are extinguished forever. New stars come to occupy the few vacant spots; radiant comets cross the heavens swiftly or dissolve into a luminous rain over the ocean. Alipio has stopped dancing. In the midst of the translucent night, his body is now rigid. A small noise comes out of his body. Tonight Alipio seems happier than ever before: it’s November, transparent and resonant. November, playing all its fanfares in the darkness; making the farthest comets perceptible, and even some in the process of forming. Alipio has spent the whole day running errands. But at dusk he hurries to his room and locks himself up. He would run no errands now for anybody, no matter how much money he was offered. And he stands, waiting for the night, his figure almost indistinguishable among the last autumn leaves on the almond tree. And at dawn, when the last constellation disappears in the wrenching white luminosity of day, Alipio jumps into bed and sleeps two or three hours. He has done this for years and plans to keep doing it. And in the month of November, when Alipio watches the skies, large tears well from his eyes. He jumps from one end of the balcony to the other, grabs the railing with his white fingers, softly touches the leaves of the almond tree. . . . His dearest friends are the luminous Dragon constellation—all of its seventeen sparkling bodies—and Capella, the Charioteer’s she-goat. Alipio has not been able to study (the only field that interested him was Uranography, but then he would have needed to abandon real stars to look at their photographs in books). Alipio has no home other than a balcony where he can see all he wants of the heavens, right before his eyes, and that is enough for him. He feels blissfully happy; he stretches up a bit more, and his lizard neck becomes reddish. Alipio’s kingdom is now fully on display. Even visible tonight are the faraway constellation of Hercules and the variable Agol, constantly changing color. Alipio feels a renewed joy that makes his throat quiver, reaches down to his chest, and bursts into countless stirrings in his belly. The gravitation of all these luminous creatures way up in the sky above overwhelms him. Suddenly, still looking up, Alipio becomes transfixed. A brilliant point of light spins around the stars, moves away from the constellations, rolls over the heavenly bodies, and lights up the moon. The great luminary keeps descending. Alipio remains ecstatic. An enormous glow, dizzyingly coming down, stops for a moment as if to gather force or take its bearings, and then advances fast toward the earth. All the constellations have disappeared. The moon shows only an edge that soon dissolves in the light. Only the enormous glow is visible. Alipio lifts his hands over his head, grabs the railing, and jumps. He lands on the pavement and, terrified, starts running. The luminary resembles a gigantic red-hot spider in a boiling rage; the flying sparks kill the night birds and seed the clouds, provoking hail showers and ungodly thunder. It stops again as if looking for direction. Alipio keeps running. The luminary is already getting close. The plumes of the palm trees get scorched. The telephone poles and the television antennas become tall but crumbling towers of ashes. Alipio runs toward the ocean intending to jump into the waves: his hands reach the water. He howls: the water is boiling hot; the fish, leaping uselessly, are falling back into the sea. The light keeps descending toward him. Alipio trembles and yells uncontrollably. He runs from the beach and seeks refuge under a bridge, digging his hands into the ground, trying to disappear. The light continues on its way down and discovers him. In the deserted city, it seems nobody will be there to witness the catastrophe. Alipio’s ears perceive a sort of hum, which soon intensifies a thousand times, and then it’s like a horrifying scream that is not really a scream because it could not come from any familiar creature. For an instant Alipio looks at the approaching fire: it’s like hell itself, an overpowering eagerness whose dimensions he could never have imagined. It’s not one star; it’s millions of them devouring one another, reducing themselves to minute, self-consuming particles. Alipio, yelling at the top of his voice, runs toward the fields. The luminary keeps after him, while the trees go up in a blaze and vanish. A group of cows retreats in terror to the far hills. Alipio goes after them. The enraged animals repeatedly try to gore him, kick him, run him over. The light keeps descending and the heat becomes unbearable; loud squeals keep coming from the shrubs, which crazily uproot themselves, flying up and bursting over Alipio’s head. The birds, as if pulled by invisible strings, bump into the light’s edge, turning to ashes. Alipio starts running to the thicket, where the taller bushes are wresting themselves from the earth. He holds on tight to the tottering thicker trunks, which, after some wavering, rise with the wind, turning also into ashes. Alipio throws himself on the now bare ground and tries to grasp the earth. He feels vulnerable, and the great luminary quickly discovers his defenseless condition. The sounds coming out of his throat resemble the heavy grunting of an aroused bull or of some ravenous beast suddenly coming upon a cornucopia of fresh food. Alipio begins to lift himself up from the ground. He floats about. The tumultuous luminary seems to reach its crest. Alipio passes out. . . . The first splendors of dawn settle upon the trees. The top leaves of the almond tree shine like polished metal. Little by little Alipio begins to stir, moving not yet consciously. He opens his eyes. He finds himself in the middle of the field, lying in a viscous puddle that bathes his arms, his legs, and has splattered up to his eyes. He tries to sit up. A strange pain runs all through his body. He looks around and notices the sticky goo surrounding him. He wets his fingers in the thick substance and brings them to his nose. Immediately, shaking his hands, he stands up and starts walking. It’s semen, he mutters. Angry and saddened, he keeps walking through the bare fields, leaving a wet trail behind.