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

by Reinaldo Arenas

  Obviously, thought the nonwax fruit, I’m never going to be able to sink my teeth into this delicacy here at home—so he suggested to the recruit that they take a walk through the city and later maybe go to the woods in Havana, where it would be nice and cool. The fairy crammed all the presents into an immense burlap bag and left with the soldier boy, mother and sisters still furiously wriggling.

  The Most In-Your-Face Queen in Cuba (dragging the huge burlap bag) and the hunk-thunk-thunk walked all the way across Old Havana, strolled almost the entire length of the Malecón (where the fairy got the burlap bag tangled up in the wheels of a carnival float), came to Copelia, and stood in line for three hours to buy a melted ice-cream cone. On foot (the fairy never turning loose of this huge burlap thing) they traversed all of El Vedado, the hunk in front, the staggering fairy behind with her tongue hanging out (and drooling). And they crossed the bridge over the Almen-dares River and began to make their way into the Havana woods. They had come to the residential sector called New Vedado Heights, which was adjacent to a wooded area that was a more or less official park grounds surrounding the presidential palace. If they were able to enter the grounds, it was because the Most In-Your-Face Queen in Cuba was the daughter of the ambassador to Soviet Nippon and the recruit was one of Ramiro Valdés’s fair-haired boys.

  “Mary! What has gone and got through those false teeth of yours again?”

  I’m telling you, Ramiro Valdés. What do you think, a hunk-thunk-thunk of that (shall we say) caliber is going to go unnoticed by Miss Ramiro Valdés? Oh yes-s-s, Miss-s-s Valdés-s-s they call her. So, now that that’s out of the way . . .

  The recruit kept strolling among the trees in the shady woods. The fairy tagged along behind, struggling with the immense bag with all the presents in it. By now she knew the recruit’s whole rural-family history (which he’d of course been narrating during the course of the walk), knew the names of his sisters, his mothers, his grandmothers, but when the recruit started talking about his great-grandmother on his mother’s side the queen interrupted by asking him if he had a girlfriend. The hunk-thunk-thunk told him he was single and unengaged. At that, the queen threw the giant burlap bag to the ground and feel to her knees before the manly soldier, stationing herself directly in front of his fly. The soldier boy, thinking that he wasn’t the appropriate person to kill a spy, and especially a spy who hadn’t confessed to anything, proudly and firmly (though not violently) rejected the fairy’s advances. The fairy, still on his knees, then confessed to the soldier that for more than a year he’d been gazing longingly at him day and night from the iron bars of the Castillo de la Fuerza, that he loved him, that he couldn’t live without him. Then the soldier quite calmly (thinking always of the tape recorders that were surely hidden among the trees, recording every word of their conversation) told him no way, he didn’t like men, if he’d gone home with him and accepted his gifts it was out of pure military courtesy, but he abominated sexual relations between men, he thought they were absolutely immoral. The queen then dropped his pants and showed the hunk his immense black ass and said: You screw me or I scream. The soldier, recoiling before that immense ass thrust virtually in his face, lied and said: Listen, I told you—I’ve never had sex with anybody, but the day I do, it’ll be with a woman. The desperate queen replied: But I am a woman! The soldier, at that, and never for a second losing his composure, pulled out a pistol he had hidden practically in his groin, pointed it at the queen’s head, and spoke the following words: If you’re a woman, then show me your cunt. . . .—Uh-huh, uh-huh, right away, I’ll show it to you right away, promised the fairy, and he began to pat himself all over the body, trying to find a sudden cunt. But no luck—all he had was a cock, a pair of balls, and a desperate ass. On the verge of an epileptic fit, the fairy tucked his prick between his legs, closed them tight so all you could see anymore were her pubic hairs, and showed the recruit what she was pleased to call her cunt. But the recruit was too sharp for that—on the contrary, suspecting that an international spy and a screaming queen to boot was trying to trick him, he said: Open your legs or I’ll kill you. The queen had to open her legs, what choice did a poor girl have, and the recruit gazed upon a pair of dried-up balls and a droopy dick. A cunt! A cunt, demanded the recruit, suddenly unable to control himself. Uh-huh, uh-huh, I’ve got one right here, said the fairy queen, patting herself under the arms, on the tip of her toes. My dear, what desperation, as that fairy tried to find a cunt. Finally she stood atop the sack filled with all those priceless objects, raised her arms to the heavens, and set up a silent prayer to merciful St. Nelly—Please, send me a cunt, right now! Ay, but since St. Nelly was almost totally blind, she missed the mark and the cunt landed on the queen’s forehead, where it instantly stuck. What in the world is that? said the recruit, looking at the cunt that covered the queen’s entire forehead—you’re not just a faggot, you’re a monster. And turning away (first picking up his presents), he began to walk off through the proud, towering trees. The truth was, there was nothing more repugnant to that hunk-thunk-thunk than a cunt. I don’t want cunt, and I don’t want ass—meat is what I crave, too. And to think that in the interest of national security I’ve lost a whole day on a fairy and three whores, when I planned to suck dick like a madman in the urinals at Carnival—You fuck me or I scream! You fuck me, I tell you, or I scream! screamed Carlitos, running after him. The queen’s supplication was so desperate that the recruit turned and, ignoring the possibility of tape recorders, looked the fairy queen in the eye. I’ve never liked cunt, he said, much less on a faggot’s forehead. And at that instant the queen’s hands went to her head where—horrors!—her fingers found a drippy patch of hair, and a cunt. That was it! That was the last straw! The poor queen, doubly mocked (by men and by the gods), stood in the middle of the woods and gave out a scream so loud, so loud, that no fairy has ever equaled it. And then she did it again, but this time even louder.

  So those were the cries that echoed through the theater in which Halisia was dancing Giselle, the cries that caused Fifo and almost his entire entourage to rush outside.

  Suddenly, queer and soldierboy found themselves surrounded by Fifo’s troops, Fifo himself, and a multitude of personalities.

  “Oh, it’s Carlitos Olivares Baloyra, the son of my friend Carlos Olivares Manet, with a cunt in the middle of his forehead,” said Fifo, taking all this in as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “Come inside, come in, come to the party. You look so weird you’re bound to entertain my marvelous guests. And as for your companion,” and here Fifo ran his eyes over the hunk-thunk-thunk from top to bottom, “bring him along, too! Let’s go—come on into the palace. Let the party continue!”

  Before entering the palace, Skunk in a Funk took off the long Egyptian scarf that Margarita Camacho had given him and wrapped it around Carlitos Olivares’ forehead.

  “It wasn’t María Teresa Freyre de Andrade who turned you in to the police for stealing Death in Venice,” Skunk in a Funk confessed to Olivares; “it was me. It’s one of my favorite books and I used to go the library to read it almost every week. What you did, neither God nor St. Nelly can ever forgive. And I don’t hold out much hope for your getting rid of that stigma on your forehead, either. For the rest of your life, you’ll be a queen with a cunt. Yech . . . But let’s go on in, because after I list the seven wonders of Cuban socialism (which I’m sure will cost me my life sooner or later) and recite my Thirty Truculent Tongue Twisters, Lezama is going to read something.”

  “Lezama,” sniffed Halisia. “I’ve never understood a word of what that crazy old man wrote—even if one of the texts he wrote was about me. Didn’t make a bit of sense; there was no way in the world to make head or tail of it. Fifo even banned it. But if he’s been resuscitated and he’s going to read, I suppose it’s because Fifo has authorized it, so let’s go in and listen to him. Though I suppose we’ll have to applaud him, too.”

  Then Halisia gave a great jeté, thinking she’d be able to lea
p all the way through the door of the grand palace. But since she was almost completely blind her head hit the trunk of one of the trees in the park and she plummeted, headfirst, into the crowd.

  “Heavens!” shrieked Coco Salas, jumping up and down hysterically. “I think she’s dead!”

  “Yeah, right,” spat Fifo, standing before the still-rigid ballerina. “Old bitch is too mean to die. Throw a bucket of cold water on her, she’ll be up in no time.”

  “No! No water!” screamed Halisia, sitting up. “This makeup is three inches thick and it costs a fortune! I’m perfectly fine.”

  And the great ballerina started walking, bumping her head into one tree after another until at last her faithful Coco took her by the hand and they followed the grand procession that was now reentering the grand catacomb of the palace.

  A TONGUE TWISTER (12)

  Alejo, why the long sojourn on foreign soil? Why the prolonged aloha? Your Havana Viejo loas long for you, Alejo. Où est l’Alejo d’antan? Return, Alejo, old boy; we’re spoiling for you, old goil, to rejoin us on our soil. Loyalty to Fidel, hell no. Loyalty to the roisterers and roilers of old! Merrily we’ll once more roll along, Alejo, so, hey—why not, Alejo, merrily say “Havana Viejo, ho!”?

  For Alejo Sholekhov

  STOOL PIGEONS

  So poor Virgilio thought that if he burned all the originals of his poems and didn’t leave any copies he’d be safe from Fifo’s wrath? How very touching. But it was not to be, my dear, because while the Queen of Cárdenas (which is what Miss Queta Pando called Virgilio) was reading his poems—which were truly inspired, truly brilliant, as I said before—two of the most sinister queens on earth, strategically fitted with tape recorders in their respective anuses, recorded the entire reading. Which means that at the same time those screaming queens were following their police orders to the letter, they were also enjoying the immortal words of the above-mentioned traitor and enjoying those huge tape recorders up their ass. Who knows how many of the oohs and aahs and moans emitted by those vile bitches were due not to the pleasure of the reading and their grief at the burning of the poems, but rather to the way they were being pleasured by those tape recorders up their asses whenever they wiggled around on the floor like two orgasmic marmosets?

  So who were those horrid faggots with the elephant-like bodies? Who were those vile double-cross-dressers who’d managed to infiltrate Olga Andreu’s little hommage to the great poet? It’s time their names were revealed. They were—and you should remember their names—Paula Amanda (a.k.a. Luisa Fernanda) and Miss Miguel Barniz, two of Fifo’s most trusted (and most faithful) confidant(e)s, and they worshiped Fifo not only politically but physically as well.

  So—the minute that Virgilio ended his brilliant reading of his poems, the faggot informants gave him a big hug, tearfully congratulated him, and hauled ass (literally and metaphorically), each in a different direction (because these were supersecret informers), for the special door high up on the side of the Fifalian Palace. And there, at the official door, the two pansies, tape recorders now in hand, met face to face. Their jaws dropped. Their faces turned red with fury. To think that the other one might turn in his/her report first! And so as the two faggots banged desperately on the official door with the hand that clutched the tape recorder, with the other hand they were scratching each other’s eyes out and twisting each other’s ears. (They were also sticking their tongues out at each other and kicking each other in their big bellies.) At one point Paula Amanda’s fury reached such a pitch that she grabbed Barniz by his long hair and in one yank snatched him bald—which he remained to the end of his days (and any other version of that creature’s hairlessness is a bald-faced lie). But Barniz, howling in pain at the loss of his scalp (but never ceasing to bang on the official door), wielded his free grappling hook with such fury that he pulled Paula Amanda’s whole chin off (which is why since that day Miss Amanda has sported all that long straggly white hair—supposedly in honor of Fifo, but in actuality to cover up the terrible defacement done him by Barniz). The bloody queens’ catfight was causing such a ruckus that at last the special door opened and Fifo himself was standing in it, surrounded by his gorgeous escorts. Both queens fell to their knees before Fifo and started licking his boots, while at the same time (still kicking at each other) they raised their hands and presented him with the tape recorders. Fifo ordered his escort to separate them while he went off to listen to the contents of the tapes. Almost immediately he returned.

  “The two reports are identical,” he declared, “and they have been turned in to me at the same time. Therefore only one of them will be entered into the computers. But I have magnanimously decided that both your names will be set down in the secret record book, as though the report had been handed in by you both. As for the Grand Medal of Patriotism, don’t worry—you’ll each be receiving one the day of the Grand Pre-Carnival Fiesta in honor of my fifty years in power.” Then he turned to his gorgeous escorts. “And by the way, men—that night I want Virgilio terminated. But—and this is important—I want it to be a nice, clean, quiet job, no machine guns or ruckus like in Miami when you goons took out my enemies there. We’ve got to be more cautious here in Cuba—there are fewer people on our side. I want it to look as though that son of a bitch died a nice quiet natural death—a heart attack, or maybe a suicide. In all the hullabaloo of the Carnival, at which I shall be the heart and soul, nobody will notice if an old poet kicks the bucket. And as for you two—” and here he turned once more to the bloody but rapturous queens, “beat it—and keep working like the true little heroes and little ants that you are. And don’t forget, girls—mum’s the word!”

  FOREWORD

  Mary! Get your filthy cum-stinking hands off this book because the authoress, the queenliest queen of them all, is about to sit down and write the foreword to it. Yes, my dear, now, at this late date, more than halfway through the novel, the pansy loca has got it into her head that the book needs a foreword, and so without further ado (like every other crazy queen—no self-control, just rushes right into it) she’s going to do it now, right this minute, and it has to be now. So beat it, you nelly queen, till the foreword is done and you can come back and read it.

  First of all, about that faggot who said it’s taken forty years to write this book—fuck you! I’m not Cirilo Villaverde, I’ll have you know! It’s true that many years ago, while I was still in Cuba, I conceived part of the novel. I even wrote a few chapters of it. But suffering persecution and prisons as I did, and being kept under tight surveillance, not to mention being reduced to utter penury, I wasn’t able to finish it. Plus the fact that almost all my friends and some of my closest family, not to mention most of my lovers (such as Norberto Fuentes, for example), were working for the police. I’d write a page and the next day it would be gone.

  I memorized a chapter or two (such as the one entitled “Clara’s Hole”) and the Thirty Truculent Tongue Twisters (which didn’t yet number thirty), so I managed to preserve some of my writing that way. But generally I dedicated myself to survival, like all ex-jailbirds. And of course I was living on an island that was a prison. But through it all, I never forgot that if my life was to have meaning—because my life is lived more than anywhere else in the sphere of literature—I had to write this novel, The Color of Summer, the fourth in a Cuban pentagony of which the fifth volume, The Assault, had already been written there in Cuba, in a fit of fury, and sent, with all the risks that that implied, out of the country, where I hoped I would later be able to decipher it—because the manuscript was virtually unintelligible.

  In New York I have become involved in a number of political activities, because I will never be able to forget the hell I left behind (the hell that in some way I still carry with me); and then of course I have had to engage in the thousand stupid, time-consuming activities required by daily life in this country where the only thing that counts is money. If to all that one adds the number of manuscripts that I had managed to get out of Cuba, and that I
had to make a fair copy of for publication, plus the unending wars that I’ve been carrying on for ten years with the agents (official and otherwise) of Stalinist Cuba, who live in absolute ease in the United States, then one can understand that I have not had a great deal of spare time.

  In this country, as in every country that I have ever visited or lived in, I have known humiliation, poverty, and hypocrisy, but here I have also had the privilege to cry out. Perhaps that cry will not meet oblivion. The hope of humanity lies precisely in those who have suffered the most. Thus, the hope of the next century obviously lies in the victims of Communism; thanks to the apprenticeship of suffering that they have served, those victims will (or should) be those in charge of constructing a world that it is possible to live in.