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

by Reinaldo Arenas

  A TONGUE TWISTER (25)

  Rodrigo de Triana, tireless tamer of Tainos, was initially distressed when a Taino trickster sneaked into his cot and, hitching Triana’s britches, with his thick tricky-stick quickly trespassed upon the delectable conquistadorial bubble butt. Triana kicked but couldn’t unstick himself from the Taino trickster’s thick tricky-stick. “Shit!” Triana then snickered, his prick distinctly piqued, “What sick tricks these Taino tricksters think of!”

  For Rodrigo de Triana

  THE GARDEN OF COMPUTERS

  Fifo and all his guests scrambled up out of the subterranean catacomb of the Palace (into which the floodwaters continued to pour) and made their way to the hill on which the Garden of Computers had been installed—a high, walled garden planted with hundreds of computers of all shapes and sizes. All the computers had been painted shades of green, and each one was set within a fenced circular enclosure topped with barbed wire, like some precious exotic plant. The guests marveled at the enormous garden planted with green computers roaring furiously, demanding reports to process. All the machines had opened their metallic maws and were shaking and jerking so much that it looked as though at any moment they might jiggle themselves off their bases—and they were clamoring for denunciations, backstabbings, and betrayals of friendship for their insatiable iron stomachs. These denunciations, backstabbings, and betrayals of friendship were the nourishment the machines lived on. And in the bowels of those voracious, implacable machines lay Fifo’s true power. The only thing the machines asked in return for that power was food—and there was plenty of it. Over on one side of the garden, on a broad expanse of lawn, and restrained from entering the garden proper by an enormous barbed-wire fence, was a shouting, raving mob of people. And every member of that crowd of people had a sheet of paper, a letter, a document that betrayed or denounced or ruined someone, and that this person wanted desperately to feed to the computers. Usually the computers were fed every day, but Fifo wanted to be sure to make an impression on his guests, to show them his power, so he hadn’t allowed the computers to be fed anything for a week. And he had invited his guests here today to see the crowd of people who had been gathering around his palace in that time—the usual number of informants had septupled, and the computers were

  ravenous.

  Fifo, enraptured, stood with his guests on the highest point of the hill and ordered his midgets to open the gates. In a howling, fevered mob, the informants stormed the garden, running in mad panic toward the computers. They knew they had to turn in their reports as fast as possible, before other people turned in other reports against them. The pushing and shoving to get to the computers made hand-to-hand combat look tame. Desperate women turned in reports against their husbands; husbands brought accusations against their children and their wives and their wives’ lovers and even their own lovers. Hundreds of professors turned in reports on their students; thousands of students inculpated their professors. A throng of workers filed a grievance against the chairwoman of a union delegation, but the chairwoman of the union brought in a huge text (in code) that leveled irrefutable charges against the workers. A little boy ran up panting to a computer and tossed it a monstrously long report against his great-grandmother—the same great-grandmother who had carried him in her own arms from Artemisa and now was smiling as she lodged a complaint against her elderly husband, who in turn was ratting on her and the rest of her family, not to mention the driver of an interprovince bus who was engaged in the black-market trafficking of root vegetables. From the most distant points of the Island, people had made the pilgrimage to the Garden of Computers with their reports. And no one escaped. Charges would be lodged against the people who lived on her block by the chairwoman of the Watchdog Committee; imputations would be made against the chairwoman of the Watchdog Committee by the head of the zone; the head of the zone would be impeached by a member of the Party; grave accusations would be filed against the Party member by the provincial committee; the provincial committee would be reported by the national committee; the national committee, by an agent from State Security; and this agent would be burned by a superagent. There was not a single person in that crowd of stool pigeons, rats, songbirds, and other assorted denunciatory vermin who was not, in turn, denounced. They all robbed, conspired, and lied; they all wished Fifo in hell; they were all rodents.

  The computers opened their huge maws and stuck out their metallic tongues, their teeth clamped down on the fresh reports, and in a millisecond the reports were processed. A sense of happiness (almost of security and peace) came over the people in the crowd once their reports were safely in the gullets of the computers. Respectful whispers were directed to certain selected machines. This is one of the best. . . . Thanks to this one, I can get rid of my nephew and my husband. . . . That was the one that on the basis of a single report from me did away with every faggot on my block. . . . This one helped me get that beach in my neighborhood closed down, thank goodness, and sent my brother to the firing squad. . . . And the words of praise, of quiet thanks, went on—but in whispers, so as not to irritate the other computers, all of which were chewing away.

  The garden was one huge roiling sea of papers thrown over the tops of the barbed-wire fences to the computers, which, hopping and jiggling inside, would snatch them in their jaws on the fly and swallow them with a sound like a six-gun shoot-out. Among those turning in reports were Clara Mortera, tossing in a report on Teodoro, and Teodoro, with his report on Clara. A group of sailors were lodging charges against a group of bull macho tops, and a priest was bringing a complaint against a beggar—a whole book of charges, and written in just a week. Accusations were brought against a bridge and an almond tree. Hundreds of poets turned in manuscripts of self-denunciatory verses. Housewives accused themselves of wasting imported butter. Teenagers, hiding their long hair under enormous caps, denounced longhairs. Officially licensed whores brought complaints against freelancers. Millions of reports were filed on people who listened to the Voice of America, Radio Martí, and Radio Tinguaro and those who read Moscow gossip magazines. A huge report was turned over to one enormously fat computer, listing all the people who would probably be committing suicide during the next month.

  In the midst of that mob of informants, Skunk in a Funk thought she spied her mother. Quickly she grabbed the Dowager Duchess of Valero’s binoculars (as the old dame drafted a report against her great-great-grandmother—dead these two hundred years) and looked to see. Sure enough, Skunk in a Funk’s mother, waving a report madly in the air, was there among the crowd. Skunk in a Funk focused the excellent binoculars (which the Dowager Duchess used to find black men up in the tops of coconut trees) and was able to read the report. It was on her, Skunk in a Funk, and his mother had brought it here from Holguín, with lord only knew what adventures and stumbling blocks on the way. Skunk in a Funk quickly scanned the report that his mother was so determined to toss into the jaws of the computers. It was addressed directly to Fifo, and it accused Gabriel of corrupting the morals of a minor and being a lazy good-for-nothing bum, a degenerate, and a pervert; of being a lost sheep who wanted to leave the country; of being the leader of a band of wild faggots; and of being in the process of writing a book against Fifo and the whole country—an atheistic, accursed, and counterrevolutionary book. It also said that on his last visit to Holguín, her son had stolen a bottle of rendered pork fat and a special two-horned anvil from her. “The only two-horned anvil there was in the whole neighborhood, perfect for fixing our shoes with—I used to lend it to all the neighbors. I’ve come all the way from Holguín with my soles flapping in the wind.” Last, she told Fifo that she was writing all this in the knowledge of his, Fifo’s, kindness and high principles and that she hoped that he would rehabilitate her son and set him on the right path. “He never had a good father (good or bad); you could be one. I give him to you with all my trust and all my love. Rehabilitate him, reeducate him for me, so that he will be a moral, unblemished man. So I can walk through the to
wn I live in with my head held high. He is my son, and he is the thing I love best in all the world, but he is also my shame. He is not a bad person, but he has lost his way on account of all the bad influences in Havana. Take him away from all that—set him on the right track for me! Make him work hard—hard work never hurt anybody. I suggest that you send him to the Isle of Pines to break rocks. As I write this, the paper is covered with my tears.” And then Skunk in a Funk saw his weeping mother throw the report to a computer, which swallowed it in one gulp. Stumbling and tottering (no doubt because of her tattered shoes) Reinaldo’s mother disappeared into the crowd. Skunk in a Funk tried to follow her with the Dowager Duchess’s binoculars; he knew this was the last time he would ever see her. But just then another human tide washed into the Garden of Computers, with another sea of reports, and he lost her. A second hail of denunciations and complaints pelted the voracious computers. Skunk in a Funk, perhaps in an attempt to forget her horror, perhaps simply to amuse herself, used the binoculars to read a report presented by the commissioner of the Municipality of Arroyo Apollo claiming that the terrible heat waves that had been sweeping over Havana recently were caused when all the inhabitants of the city got up early in the morning to stand in line for bread that they didn’t intend to eat, but rather to stop up their ears with so they wouldn’t have to listen to another chapter of La perlana, an underground novel that a slum-dwelling novelist was reading all over the city. While Skunk in a Funk hung the binoculars around the neck of the Dowager Duchess of Valero, who had meantime finished her report, the reports continued to pour in—complaints against people for disturbing the peace, for contempt, for pre-criminality, for theft, for corruption, for abuse of power, for negligence, for ideological softness, for bestiality, for sodomy, for cronyism—in a word, for conspiring against the Powers of the State and, therefore, committing High Treason. The garden was flooded with paper. . . . There was also a detailed report in which Fifo was accused of being a perfidious murder, a drug trafficker, and an international gangster. But the person who filed this report (an old major general, now retired and in disgrace) was garrotted instantly by the computer that received the complaint. The man disappeared along with all the aides who had accompanied him.

  Fifo, who had witnessed this summary execution, was extremely pleased with the effectiveness of his machines, and he ordered the crowd of informants to leave the garden now, even those who had not yet been able to turn in their reports.

  “You can do it tomorrow,” he said. “Right now, it’s our turn.”

  And while the diligent midgets violently removed all the informants from the premises, Fifo asked his guests to file their reports. Followed by the members of the audience, Fifo (first in all things) strode forward and stood before an immense computer, the Fifarian Computer, and dropped in his report.

  “It’s my examination of conscience,” he smiled. “Now come on—it’s your turn.”

  Immediately the guests, in their gala attire, began filing toward the computers and dropping in their reports.

  Someone presented a complaint against the emotional and ideological weaknesses of Bloodthirsty Shark. The Condesa de Merlín took the opportunity to file charges of high treason against her rival, Miss Chelo. Two Eskimos turned in a denunciation of Federico Fellini. The Queen of Castile lodged a complaint against her husband, stating that the King was the leader of the ETA, the Basque Separatists; the Empress of Yugoslavia reported that her mother was the head of the largest whorehouse in Brazil and had entered into a conspiracy against Mao’s daughter to take power and turn South America into one huge neo-Nazi state. There was a report on the Pope which claimed that in addition to being a woman she was the head of the KGB. The “Antonio Maceo Freedom Front” (with headquarters in Miami) delivered a videocassette which showed the President of the United States making love to a rabbit. There was also an accusation against Mother Teresa; it seems she had spread AIDS throughout India. And Marlon Brandy was accused of having infected all of Africa and Oceania. A color photograph was turned in that showed Agostino Neto jacking off a rhinoceros.

  It is simply impossible to chronicle here all the reports which, with great elegance, Fifo’s guests delivered to the computers. The only thing we might add is that the reports, which the machines deciphered for him on the instant, made Fifo feel more elated by the minute. If this keeps up, he thought, I may actually start looking good. But just as the VIPs’ denunciations of other VIPs or world-famous personalities were reaching epic proportions, one of the midgets came up to Fifo and gave him a staggering piece of news. In all the confusion Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda had escaped! She’d stolen one of the motorboats from the Fifaronian Palace, but before she’d launched it, she had tossed a report into the computer compound calling Fifo a “bloodthirsty old hawk with its talons gone.”

  “It can’t be! It can’t be!” roared Fifo. “That ruins my public image. Stop that whore! Stop her! Or at least perform an act of repudiation against her! I want her smeared when she gets back to Spain. And if El País interviews her, I’ll withdraw my financial support from that rag! Send Raúl and one of my doubles to preside over the act of repudiation. A big act of repudiation! And let the Carnival begin!”

  And immediately the delegation of guests prepared to follow Fifo to the Carnival’s assembly point for the Carnival parade, while the diligent midgets organized the act of repudiation against Avellaneda and made secret plans to kill her. The guests mounted armored cars, floats, horse-drawn carriages, a nineteenth-century gig, trains with rubber tires, Alfa Romeos, trucks covered with flags, and every other kind of vehicle imaginable and set off for the Grand Fiesta. At the head of the procession was Fifo, riding inside a gigantic lighted transparent balloon with a red neon sign on top with huge blinking red letters that spelled out a single word—FIFO.

  But before Fifo climbed into this huge whatchamacallit, the chief of protocol (none other than Raúl Kastro), who had to get going for the Carnival, approached him and handed him a dress uniform and a pair of new boots, reminding him that before the kickoff of the Carnival there was another activity scheduled.

  “What?” roared Fifo, one foot inside the balloon.

  “A tour of Old Havana with Alejo Sholekhov,” said the second-in-command (who still harbored some hopes of becoming Number One).

  “Well, then, Old Havana it is! Let’s get going! Tell Sholekhov to start getting his talk ready. And tell him to keep it short—we’ve got to get this goddamned Carnival on the road!”

  A TONGUE TWISTER (26)

  THE ADVENTURES OF TOTO

  AND THE HOTTENTOT TOOTSIE

  “Oh, Tito, look, a Hottentot,” commented Toto. “And to top it off, she’s quite a tootsie!” And at the sight of the Hottentot tootsie’s titanic tattooed tits, Toto was totally smitten. “Will you be my t-t-tootsie?” Toto stuttered. “If you’ll be my totem pole,” tittered the Hottentot trollop. And they trotted off to try some thitherto taboo totem-pole tupping.

  That was Thursday. On Tuesday Toto felt terribly fatigued, so he attempted to teach himself some new tricks. To his torrid Hottentot tootsie he sighed, “Say—totting up my tepid existence till today, I’d venture an attempt at something new, not too difficult, a task at which I could tickle the black-and-whites of this electric typewriter.”

  “Toto, you’re a total trip!” trilled the tattoo-titted Hottentot. “You could typewrite about tons of things—tepees, Thebes, tautologies, cataracts, catheters, tarantulas, tetanus, tigers in Tibet, or tortoises in Lake Titicaca. You could type texts about extinct turtles, tom-toms in Tanzania, Tartuffe, steroids such as testosterone, tops, bottoms, bottles, stoppers, storm troopers, tanks, gigantic testicles, or tens of thousands—tons and tons—of terribly trite subjects such as these. You can’t be too trite, in fact, because if you turn out treacly stupidities on your trusty typewriter, they’ll sell like hotcakes.”

  “Oh, my Hottentot, is that true?” Toto asked timidly.

  “Totally,” the Hottentot to
otsie hooted happily. “And I’ll just take twenty percent!”

  And so in a trice Toto started typewriting, and today, Toto has triumphed, taking to his pup tent (or tepee or tenement) a Nobel Prize for typewriting.

  For the Marquesa de Macondo and Karmen Valcete

  ASS-WIGGLING AND

  BACKSIDE-SWINGING

  A bald, fish-shaped creature (Julio Gámez) stre-e-etched its gelatinous body; a round, squat queen (Miss Lois Suardiaz) began to whirl like a top; a gray owl (the Anglo-Campesina) opened its round, watery eyes, shook the sleepiness out of its wings, and began to flutter; one particular plump, spiny fairy (Mendivito, they called her) pulled from her bag some hideous pieces of cloth painted all over (by her) with Picasso-like parrots and impossible pricks, and waving them about as her hideous banner, began to move. The body of that bearded fairy who was spilling out of her costume (Miss Emilio Bedell) left a wake like an eighteen-wheeler’s as it moved down the street. A squiggle dressed all in black (Odoriferous Gunk) was dragging the tent in which his mother lay eternally dying. . . . Super-Satantic (shooting out of the Palace like a bottle rocket) grabbed a hypodermic syringe, filled it with her own AIDS-contaminated blood, and waved it around in the air as she joined the Dissed & Pissed. A queen ran, arms and legs going every which way, along the coastline, brandishing a huge pair of scissors. Where was that silly queer going with those enormous scissors?

  Where, you ask, Miss Thing? To cut off Coco Salas’ false eyelashes in the middle of the Carnival so everybody would see her, of course—because I’m not going to let that ugly little gnome prance around in Carnival and bat eyelashes that don’t belong to her. Eyelashes which, I’ll have you know, she got by cruelly snitching on her friends and family members, one of whom being her father, who’s now been executed. That’s why she put the whip to her sleigh dogs like that, to get away . . .”