Kiss of the Spider Woman

by Puig, Manuel

  —We had a good time, didn’t we?

  —Yeah, for sure.

  —I’m glad.

  —I must be crazy.

  —What’s wrong with you?

  —I’m sorry it’s over.

  —So what, I’ll tell you another one.

  —No, it’s not that. You’re going to laugh at what I’m going to tell you.

  —Let’s have it.

  —I’m sorry because I’ve become attached to the characters. And now it’s all over, and it’s just like they died.

  —So, Valentin, you too have a little bit of a heart.

  —It has to come out some place . . . weakness, I mean.

  —It’s not weakness, listen.

  —Funny how you can’t get along without becoming attached to something . . . It’s . . . as if the mind had to secrete affection without stopping . . .

  —You think so?

  — . . . same way your stomach secretes juices for digestion.

  —You really think so?

  —Sure, like a leaky faucet. And those drops continue dripping on anything, they can’t be turned off.

  —Why?

  —Who knows . . . because they’re spilling over the top of their container.

  —And you don’t want to think about your girl.

  —But it’s like I can’t avoid it . . . because I get attached to anything that reminds me of her.

  —Tell me a little what she’s like.

  —I’d give . . . absolutely anything to be able to hold her, even for just a second.

  —That day’ll come.

  —Sometimes I think it’s never going to come.

  —But you’re not a lifer.

  —Something could happen to her.

  —Write her, tell her not to take any chances, that you need her.

  —Never. If you’re going to think like that, you’ll never change anything in this world.

  —And you think you’re going to change the world?

  —Yes, and I don’t care if you laugh . . . It makes people laugh to say it, but what’s got to be done more than anything . . . is change the world.

  —But you can’t change it just like that, and you can’t do it all alone.

  —But that’s just it, I’m not alone! . . . you get me? . . . There’s the truth, that’s what’s important! . . . That’s just it, right at this minute I’m not alone! I’m with her and with everybody who thinks like her and me . . . and I can’t let myself forget it. That’s the piece of thread that sometimes slips out of my fingers. But luckily I’ve got a good grip on it now. And I’m not about to let go . . . I’m not far from any of my comrades, I’m with them! Now, at this very moment! . . . It doesn’t matter if I can’t see them.

  —If you can swallow something like that, great.

  —What an idiot you are!

  —Such names . . .

  —Don’t be so annoying then . . . Don’t say things like that, as if I were some dreamer who kids himself about everything, because that’s not how it is! I’m not some loudmouth playing at cafe politics, understand? The proof’s that I’m here in this place, not in a cafe!

  —Sorry.

  —It’s all right.

  —You started to tell me something about your girl and you never told me anything.

  —No, better we forget the whole thing.

  —Whatever you want.

  —Even though there’s no reason not to talk. It shouldn’t upset me to talk about her.

  —If it upsets you, don’t . . .

  —It doesn’t upset me . . . Only it’s better for me not to tell you her name.

  —I just remembered the name of the actress who played the assistant.

  —What is it?

  —Jane Randolph.

  —Never heard of her.

  —She goes back a ways, to the forties, around then. For your girl’s name we can simply say Jane Randolph.

  —Jane Randolph.

  —Jane Randolph in . . . The Mystery of Cellblock Seven.

  —One of the initials actually fits . . .

  —Which?

  —What do you want me to tell you about her?

  —Whatever you want to say, what kind of girl she is.

  —She’s twenty-four, Molina. Two years younger than me.

  —Thirteen less than me.

  —She always was a revolutionary. At first in terms of . . . well, I won’t hesitate with you . . . in terms of the sexual revolution.

  —Please, tell me about it.

  —She comes from a bourgeois family, people who aren’t very rich, but, you know, comfortable enough, two-story house in Caballito. But she spent her whole childhood and adolescence tormented by watching her parents destroying one another. With a father who deceived the mother, but you know what I mean . . .

  —No, what?

  —Deceived her by not telling her how he needed outside relationships. And the mother devoted herself to criticizing him in front of the daughter, devoted herself to being the martyr. I don’t believe in marriage—or in monogamy, to be more precise.

  —But how marvelous when a couple loves each other for a lifetime.

  —You’d really go for that?

  —It’s my dream.

  —So why do you like men then?

  —What’s that got to do with it? . . . I’d like to marry a man for the rest of my life.

  —So you’re a regular bourgeois gentleman at heart, eh, Molina?

  —Bourgeois lady, thank you.

  —But don’t you see how all that’s nothing but a deception? If you were a woman, you wouldn’t want that.

  —I’m in love with a wonderful guy and all I ask is to live by his side for the rest of my life.

  —And since that’s impossible, because if he’s a guy he wants a woman, well, you’re never going to undeceive yourself.

  —Go on about your girl, I don’t feel like talking about me.

  —Well okay, as I was telling you, they . . . what’s the name?

  —Jane. Jane Randolph.

  —They raised Jane Randolph to be a proper lady. Piano lessons, French, and painting, and after the lycée the Catholic University.

  —Architecture! That’s why you connected the two.

  —No, sociology. And that was when the mess began at home. She wanted to go to the state university but they made her register at Catholic. There, she got to know some college kid, they fell in love and had an affair. The boy was also living with his parents but he left home, got a night job as a telephone operator and rented a small apartment, and they started spending days there.

  —And didn’t study anymore.

  —That year they did less studying, at first, but then later on she began to study more.

  —But not him.

  —Exactly, because he was working. And a year later Jane moved in with him. There was friction at home in the beginning, but afterwards they accepted it. They hoped that since the kids were so much in love they’d eventually get married. And the student wanted to marry her. But Jane didn’t want to repeat any part of the same old story, so she had her doubts.

  —Abortions?

  —Yes, one. But that strengthened her determination instead of depressing her. She saw clearly that if she had a child she’d never mature, never be able to pursue her own development. Her freedom would be limited. She took a reporting job on some magazine, snooping really.

  —Snooping?

  —Right.

  —What an ugly word.

  —Well, it’s an easier job than reporting; mostly you’re out in the street picking up whatever information’s needed for articles. And that’s how she got to know some kid in the political division. She felt immediately drawn to him, that her relationship with the other one was stagnating.

  —Why stagnating?

  —They’d already given all they had to give. They were very attached, yes, but they were too young to settle just for that, they still hadn’t any idea yet . . . what they really wanted, neither o
ne of them. And . . . Jane, she proposed to the student a kind of opening up of the relationship. And the student accepted it, and she started seeing the boyfriend from the magazine at the same time.

  —Still sleeping at the student’s place?

  —Yes, and sometimes no. Until she went to live permanently with the reporter.

  —Where did the reporter stand politically?

  —Leftist.

  —And he taught her that?

  —No, she’d always felt the need for change. Anyway, you know it’s getting kind of late, isn’t it?

  —It’s about two A.M. now.

  —I’ll go on tomorrow, Molina.

  —Revenge, eh?

  —No, clown. I’m tired.

  —Not me. I’m not sleepy at all.

  —Good night.

  —Good night.

  —Sleep any?

  —No, I told you I wasn’t tired.

  —I’m feeling a little restless, too.

  —You said you were sleepy.

  —Yes, but then I kept thinking, I left you hanging.

  —Left me hanging?

  —Yes, I didn’t go on with our conversation.

  —Don’t worry about it.

  —You feeling okay?

  —Mmm-hmm.

  —So why not go to sleep?

  —I don’t know, Valentin.

  —Look, I really am a little sleepy, and I’m about to drop off any minute now. And I’ve got a way for you to get some sleep too.

  —What?

  —Think about the picture you’re going to tell me next.

  —Great idea.

  —But it better be a good one, like the panther woman. Choose carefully, Molina.

  —And you, you’ll tell me more about Jane.

  —No, I don’t know about that . . . Let’s do something; whenever I feel I can tell you something I’ll go ahead and do it gladly. But don’t you ask me about it, I’ll bring it up when it’s right for me. A deal?

  —A deal.

  —And now think about the picture.

  —Okay.

  —Ciao.

  —Ciao.

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  —It takes place in Paris, a couple of months after the start of the German occupation. Nazi troops are filing through the Arch of Triumph. Flags with German swastikas, fluttering all over the place, on the Eiffel Tower and everywhere else. Soldiers parading past, totally blond, marvelous to look at, and the French women all applaud as they march by. Not far from there, one small group of soldiers make their way along a typical little side street and go into a butcher shop, where there’s an old butcher, with a pointy head, and one of those tiny caps sitting on the back of his scalp.

  —Like a rabbi.

  —His face looks so ugly. And a horrible fear overtakes him the moment he sees the soldiers come into the shop and start to search the premises.

  —What are they searching for?

  —Anything, and they discover a hidden cellar stocked with hoarded provisions, which evidently come from the black market. And a mob collects just outside the store, mostly housewives, and Frenchmen with berets, very lower-class looking, and they’re all talking about the old buzzard getting arrested, and that Europe’s not going to be hungry anymore, because the Germans are putting an end to people taking advantage of the poor. And just as the soldiers are leaving, the officer in charge, who’s a youngish lieutenant with a very nice face, gets hugged by this old woman, who says thank you my son, or something like that. But while all this is going on there’s a pickup truck coming down the same side street, but whoever’s sitting next to the driver, when he sees the soldiers, or maybe the huge crowd, he tells the driver to pull over. The driver’s got a face like a murderer’s, kind of cross-eyed looking, a criminal’s face, but retarded too. And the other one—you can tell he gives the orders—he looks in the back of the truck and tries to fix the tarpaulin a little to hide the load they’ve got back there; it’s more hoarded provisions of food. And they shift the car into reverse and get away, until finally the one giving the orders gets out of the truck and walks into some typically Parisian-type bar. He’s a clubfoot; one of his shoes has a giant block under it, almost like a hoof, made out of silver. He talks on the phone, reports how the black-marketeer butcher just got caught, and as he’s about to hang up he gives their salute: long live the maquis, because they’re all in the maquis together.

  —Where did you see this picture?

  —Right here in Buenos Aires, at some movie house in the Belgrano district, over where they had all those big houses and gardens, not the section that goes toward the river, the one in the other direction, toward Villa Urquiza, you remember? They tore it down a few years ago. My house is just near there, but over in the crummy section.

  —Go on with the film.

  —Sure. Suddenly you’re inside this fantastic theater in the heart of Paris, gorgeous, all upholstered in dark velvet, with heavy chrome balustrades up the boxes and staircases, and railings out of chrome too. It’s a famous music hall, and there’s a number starting with just chorus girls, nothing else, such divine figures on every one of them, unforgettable, because down one side they’re all made up black and when they kick they hold onto each other around the waist and as the camera focuses on them they look like a line of African girls, with skirts all made out of bananas, and nothing else, but then the cymbals clang and they turn to the other side, and suddenly they’re blonde, and instead of bananas they’re wearing little strips, all in strass, and nothing else, an arabesque of strass.

  —What’s strass?

  —I can’t believe you don’t know.

  —I don’t.

  —It’s back in fashion again, it looks like diamonds, only it’s not worth anything, it’s like little pieces of glass that sparkle, and out of them they make up those little strips, or any kind of costume jewelry.

  —Don’t waste so much time, tell me what happens.

  —And when the chorus number’s finished, the stage gets left in total darkness until, up above, a light begins to rise like mist and the silhouette of some divine-looking woman, who’s very tall, absolutely perfect, but still just a hazy outline, slowly emerges sharper and sharper, because she steps forward through layers and layers of hanging tulle, and you obviously get to see her more and more clearly, wrapped in a silver lamé gown that fits her like a glove. The most divine woman you can imagine. And she sings a song, first in French and afterwards in German. She’s way high up over the stage, and then all of a sudden some lightning flashes under her feet and she makes her way downwards and with each step, zap! another streak of lightning, and finally the whole stage is left crossed by horizontal lines, because actually each line of light is on the edge of a step, and takes the form of a staircase all in lights without your realizing it. And in one of the box seats is this young German officer, not as young as the young lieutenant back at the beginning, but every bit as handsome.

  —Blond?

  —Yes, but she’s a brunette, with incredibly white skin, but her hair’s pitch black.

  —How is her figure? Does she have a good build, or is she more on the flat side?

  —Not at all, she’s very tall, with a good build, but not stack stacked, because what was in fashion back then was the long slinky profile. And while taking her bows she exchanges a few quick looks with the German officer. Then back in her dressing room she finds a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but with no card. And at this point one of the blond chorus girls, very French-looking, knocks on the door. Oh, but the one thing I didn’t tell you is whatever it was she sang was really strange, and it scares me each time I remember that song she sings, because when she sings it, she stares straight out into black space, and it’s not a very happy expression she’s got on her face at that moment; you can’t believe it, how frightened she looks, but at the same time like she’s not doing a thing to defend herself, but just surrendering to whatever has to happen.

  —And what does she si
ng?

  —I don’t have any idea, a love song, I’m sure. But it really got to me. Anyway, so one of the blond chorus girls comes into her dressing room, all excited, and tells her about what’s happened to her, because she wants her—the artist she admires the most—to be the first to know about it. She’s going to have a baby. And obviously the singer, whose name is, I’ll never forget, Leni, the singer is disturbed because she knows the girl’s single. But the other one says not to worry, the baby’s father is a German officer, a boy who really loves her and they’re just in the process of arranging everything so they can get married. But at this point the chorus girl’s expression clouds over, and she tells Leni that she’s afraid something else might happen. Leni asks her what, but the girl tells her, Oh, it’s really nothing, just some foolishness, and she leaves. Then Leni’s there all alone, thinking about whether she could ever love an invader of her country, and she stays like that, thinking . . . And at a certain point she finally notices the flowers that were sent to her, and asks her personal maid what kind they are, and it turns out that they come all the way from the German Alps, shipped to Paris specially, at an incredible expense. By then the blond chorus girl’s on her way through the streets of Paris, dark streets during the night because of wartime, but she looks up and sees, way up on the top floor, in an old apartment building, a light on, and her face glows with a smile. She has an antique watch, the chorus girl does, like a brooch on the front of her dress, and she looks at it and sees that it’s just about midnight. Then a window opens way up, there where the light is, and the same boy as back in the beginning leans out, the young German lieutenant, and smiles at her with the face of someone head-over-heels in love, and he throws down the key, which falls in the middle of the street. And she goes over to pick it up. Oh, but when you first see the street, before all this, like a shadow passes by. Or no, a car’s parked nearby, and in the darkness you barely make out someone who’s hiding in the car. No! Now I remember, while the girl’s busy walking through this neighborhood it seems like someone’s following her, and it’s a strange kind of footstep you hear, first a step and then something that drags behind it.

  —The clubfoot.

  —Right, the clubfoot guy appears, and he sees a coupe pulling up, and the one who’s driving the coupe is the cross-eyed guy, the one with the murderer’s face. The clubfoot gets into the car and gives the signal so the car screeches off, the accelerator floored. And now when the girl’s in the middle of the narrow street and stoops down to pick up the key, the car goes by with the accelerator floored, it runs her down. And they keep on going until finally they vanish into the dark streets, empty of all traffic. The young German, who’s watched it all, now runs down the stairs desperately. The girl is still moaning, he takes her up in his arms, she wants to tell him something, you can hardly make it out, she tells him not to be scared, the baby’s going to be born healthy and make his father proud. And her eyes stay open, lost, she’s dead. You like the film?