Kiss of the Spider Woman

by Puig, Manuel

  —Okay.

  —Talk to you later.

  —Right, we can talk later.

  *

  —Molina . . . what time is it?

  —It’s after seven. I already heard them making the dinner rounds.

  —I can’t get a thing done . . . And I should be taking advantage of this last hour or so, before lights-out.

  —Mmm . . .

  —But my head’s not screwed on right or something.

  —So rest then.

  —You still haven’t told me the end of the film.

  —You didn’t want me to.

  —I hated to waste it, when I couldn’t get totally into it.

  —You didn’t feel like shooting the breeze either.

  —If I don’t know what I’m saying, I don’t like to talk. I don’t want to come out with just any old bullshit, you know . . .

  —So rest.

  —And what about finishing the film?

  —Now?

  —Why not?

  —Okay, if you like.

  —I studied awhile but I don’t even know what it was I studied.

  —I can’t remember where we left off, what were we up to?

  —With what, Molina?

  —The film.

  —That the girl’s all by herself in the jungle, and she hears the drums.

  —Ah, right . . . The jungle is blazing with the noonday sun, the girl decides to risk going in the direction of where they seem to be playing those spooky drums. And she keeps plunging ahead, and loses one shoe, and then stumbles and rips her blouse, and then her face gets smudged with dirt, and she pushes her way past all these thorny plants tearing her skirt to shreds. And as she gets closer to where all the initiates in voodoo are singing, the jungle gets darker and darker, and the only light comes from all the candles they’ve got burning. And there’s an altar loaded with candles, nothing but candles from top to bottom, and a rag doll at the foot of the altar, with a pin stuck through its heart. The doll looks exactly like her husband. And all the native men and women are kneeling there, praying, and every now and then letting out these weird cries because of the great sorrow each one of them feels inside themself. But the girl looks around trying to spot the witch doctor; she’s incredibly scared of actually seeing him but at the same time her curiosity’s killing her from wanting to know what he looks like. And the drums are beating more furiously, and the natives are breaking into louder and louder howling, and the girl’s a complete mess—her hair’s all straggly, not to mention the condition of her clothes, and she keeps standing there right outside the circle of everybody who’s so busy praying. Suddenly the drums stop, the natives quit their wailing, a chill wind rises out of the tropical jungle and the witch doctor appears, with a kind of white tunic on down to his feet, but open at the chest, the chest of a young man matted with curly hair, but the face is of an old man—the majordomo. With a completely vicious expression, hypocritical as can be, he gives his blessing to all the natives, and with the other hand gives a signal to the drummers. Then a different rhythm begins, this one openly diabolical, and he looks toward the girl, but this time without bothering to conceal his lust, and he does some kind of abracadabra with his hand, and fixes his eyes on the girl, hypnotizing her. She looks away so as not to fall into his power, but she can’t resist his magnetism and little by little starts letting her head turn back, until finally she’s looking right at the witch doctor face to face. And she falls into a trance and while the drums are wildly beating out a rhythm that seems more sexy than anything else, she begins walking slowly toward where the witch doctor is, and the natives all start falling into a strange trance, they’re down on their knees and throwing their heads way back, until they almost touch the ground. And when the girl is within arm’s length of the witch doctor, like a hurricane wind gusts through the palms, blowing out all the candles, and the darkness is total, right at noon. The witch doctor grabs the girl by the waist and then his hands begin to slide up toward her breasts, and then he caresses her cheek-bones, and lifts her up in his arms to carry her into his hut. And then . . . Oh . . . wait, how did it go? Oh . . . what was it then? Oh, right, the kindly housekeeper, seeing the girl go off in the carriage, goes herself to find the girl’s husband and drags him off with her, pretending that the witch doctor had asked him to come immediately. Because, what was it now? she, the housekeeper, was actually the wife of the witch doctor, you know? of the majordomo. And when the girl sees her husband arrive, it breaks the spell, because the housekeeper yells to her, over and over. And that was just as the girl was about to go into the hut.

  —Go on. the poor one gives money to the rich one, the rich one asks the poor one for a handout and laughs at him, scoffs at the poor one and insults him for having nothing more to give, one phony coin

  —The girl and her husband go back to the main house in the jeep. Neither one of them says anything. Obviously, the husband has already figured out that the girl knows everything. And finally they reach their house. The girl, in order to show him she wants to do everything in her power to work things out, she goes in to get them to prepare dinner, just as if nothing had happened, and by the time she goes to the kitchen and comes back, he’s already hitting the bottle again. She begs him not to be so weak, not to completely abandon her in the effort to save their marriage, because the fact that the two of them love each other will have the capacity to overcome whatever obstacles are set in their path. But he gives her a wild shove and knocks her to the floor. Meanwhile, the witch doctor arrives at the old abandoned house, where the zombie woman is, and finds her being cared for by the housekeeper, who used to be his wife, but she’s old now, and he completely despises her. And the witch doctor tells her to get out, but the housekeeper says she’s not going to let him use the poor zombie for his wickedness any longer. And she pulls out the dagger to stab him. But he manages to grab her by the wrist and seize the knife, and kill her with it, stabbing her right in the heart. The zombie woman doesn’t make a move, but you can see in her eyes what a deep pain there is, even though she doesn’t have any will of her own to do something about it. Then the witch doctor orders the zombie woman to follow him, and he proceeds to tell her these outrageous lies, about how her husband was a complete fiend and how it was him who ordered her to be turned into a zombie, not the witch doctor, and how he’s now trying to pull the same business with the second wife, mistreating her so terribly, and that’s why she, the zombie woman, has got to just go and kill the husband with a knife, to put an end to all his wickedness. And you can see in the eyes of the zombie that she doesn’t believe a bit of what the witch doctor’s telling her, but there’s nothing she can do, because she’s not the master of her own will, and she can’t do anything but obey the order. And when they get to the big mansion, they enter through the garden very quietly. It’s getting toward dusk now and almost night out. And through the window the zombie sees the husband is drunk and yelling his head off at the girl, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her and pushing and shoving her. The witch doctor puts the knife in the zombie’s hand. The husband looks for more liquor, but the bottle’s empty, he shakes it anyway trying to get one last drop out of it. The zombie can only obey. The majordomo tells her to go in and kill the husband. The zombie walks closer and closer. You see in her eyes, though, how much she still loves the guy, and doesn’t want to kill him, but the order is implacable. The husband doesn’t see her coming. The majordomo calls in to the girl, he says madame, sounding very respectful, but the girl locks herself up in her room with the key, until suddenly she hears the fatal outcry of her husband, stabbed by the zombie. Then the girl comes rushing back out and finds him agonizing, sprawled out on the sofa where he’d just been lying in a half-drunken stupor, but now with the most tragic look on his face you could ever imagine. And then the majordomo walks in, and calls the servants to act as witnesses to the crime, so he can wash his hands of the whole affair. But the husband in his final death throes confesses to the zombie woman
how much he’s really loved her always and how it was all due to the fiendishness of the witch doctor, who has always wanted to be ruler of the island and lord of all its properties, and the husband tells the zombie woman to go back to her chamber and lock herself inside it and set fire to the old house, so that way she’ll cease to be the pawn of someone else’s perversity. And the sky is all black now but once in a while everything flickers into view because of the approaching torrential storm, and the husband with his dying breath tells the servants, who by then have already gathered around, how so many of their own kin have been sacrificed by the infamous witch doctor, turning them into living dead. Then they all look furiously at the witch doctor, and he starts to back out of the room slowly and makes it as far as the garden, and tries to escape, out in the raging storm, with the hurricane winds lashing the palms, and the lightning exploding repeatedly, like daylight, and when the witch doctor pulls out his revolver, the servants are forced to halt, so he’s just about to get away, out through the garden, but at this point a deafening bolt of lightning slams the witch doctor down to the ground and strikes him dead. Soon after, the rains die down. No one has noticed, though, how the zombie woman is taking the road out to the old abandoned house. You hear the whistle of a steamship about to sail, and the girl flings a few things into a suitcase and races off to the boat; she leaves all the rest behind for the servants, because the only thing she wants to do is forget. She reaches the boat just as they’re lifting the gangplank. The captain spots her from on deck; luckily, it’s the same handsome captain who delivered her to the island in the first place. The boat casts off; they leave the harbor lights behind. The girl is down in her cabin; someone knocks at the door. She opens up and it’s the captain himself; he asks her if she enjoyed her stay on the island. She answers no, and then he mentions the drums they heard on that first day she arrived, those drums that always forebode terrible sufferings, not to mention death itself. She tells him it’s possible those drums will never be heard again. The captain suddenly tells her to be quiet a moment, he seems to hear something strange. The two go up on deck to listen and it’s an incredibly beautiful melody, and they see hundreds of islanders gathered along the docks to sing to the girl, and tell her goodbye with a chant of love and gratefulness. The girl is trembling with emotion. The captain puts his arm around her so she’ll feel protected. And way up the island, off behind the town, out there in the jungle, is a towering bonfire. The girl clings to the captain to try and stop trembling, the chills running up and down her spine, because she knows that out there in that fire is the poor zombie woman burning to ashes. The captain tells her not to be afraid, all that’s left behind now, and the music of love from the whole town is bidding her goodbye forever, and wishing her a future filled with happiness . . . And that’s all, folks . . . How’d you like it? back in the pavilion the critically ill patient is now out of danger, the nurse will keep watch throughout the night over his tranquil sleep

  —Very much. the rich one sleeps peacefully after bestowing his wealth upon the poor one

  — . . . Oh . . . well . . .

  —Why the big sigh?

  —It’s a hard life . . .

  —What’s the matter, Molina?

  —I don’t know, I’m scared of everything, scared of kidding myself about getting out of here, scared they’ll never let me. And what scares me most is that they might separate us and stick me in another cell and keep me there forever, with who knows what sort of creep . . .

  —Best not to think about it, especially since nothing depends upon us.

  —But you see, I don’t agree with that. I think that maybe if we think about it we might come up with something, Valentin.

  —With what?

  —Well . . . at least some way not to be separated.

  —Look . . . Don’t you go spoiling things for yourself at this point, think about just one thing: what you want is to get out of here in order to take care of your mother. Nothing else. Don’t think about anything else. Because her health is what’s most important to you, right?

  —Yes . . .

  —Concentrate on that, and only that.

  —But I don’t want to concentrate on it . . . I won’t . . .

  —Hey . . . what’s up?

  —Nothing . . .

  —Come on, don’t get like that . . . Take your head out of the pillow . . .

  —Leave me alone . . .

  —But what’s up? Are you hiding something from me?

  —No, not hiding anything . . . But it’s just . . .

  —Just what? When you’re out of here, you’ll be free, you’ll be with people. If you want you can even join up with some kind of political group.

  —That’s ridiculous and you know it; they’d never trust some faggot.

  —But I can tell you who to go see . . .

  —Not on your life, never, you hear? Never, never tell me anything about your comrades.

  —Why? Who would ever figure you’d go to see any of them?

  —No, I could be interrogated or something, and as long as I don’t know anything I can’t tell anything.

  —Anyway, there’s a lot of different types of groups for political action. And if you find one that appeals to you, join it, even if it’s a group that just does a lot of talking.

  —I don’t know anything about that stuff . . .

  —And don’t you have any close friends? . . . good friends?

  —Oh, I have silly girlfriends like myself, but just in passing, good for a laugh once in a while, and that’s all. But as soon as we start getting a little dramatic . . . then we can’t stand the sight of each other. Because I already told you what it’s like; you see yourself in the other ones like so many mirrors and then you start running for your life.

  —Things could change for you once you’re outside.

  —No, they’ll never change . . .

  —Come on, don’t cry . . . don’t be that way . . . Look how many times you make me listen to you cry . . . Well, I suppose you had to put up with my blubbering that time, too . . . But enough is enough. God . . . you . . . you make me nervous with your crying.

  —I just can’t help it . . . I always have such rotten . . . luck . . .

  —Hey, they shut off the lights . . .

  —Of course they did, what do you think? It’s already eight-thirty. And just as well anyway, so you can’t see my face.

  —That picture really made the time fly, Molina.

  —And I won’t ever get to sleep tonight.

  —Now listen to me, because there must be something I can help you with. It’s just a matter of discussing it a little. First of all, you have to think about getting into some group, and not be alone all the time. That’s bound to help you.

  —Get into what group? I tell you I don’t understand any of those things, and I don’t believe in them very much either.

  —Then you have no right to complain.

  —Let’s just . . . stop talking . . .

  —Come on . . . don’t be that way . . . Molina.

  —No . . . don’t touch me . . .

  —Can’t a buddy even pat your back?

  —It makes me feel worse . . .

  —Why? . . . Come on now, say something. It’s time for us to be honest with each other. Really, Molina, I want to help you, tell me what’s wrong.

  —I just want to die. That’s all I want.

  —Don’t be saying things like that. Think how sad it’d make your mother, and your friends, and me.

  —You? It wouldn’t matter to you . . .

  —What do you mean it wouldn’t! Come on, what a thing to say . . .

  —I’m tired, Valentin. Tired of hurting. You don’t know, I hurt so much inside.

  —Where does it hurt you?

  —In my chest, and my throat . . . Why does the sadness always jam up right there, in that one spot?

  —It’s true . . .

  —And now . . . you made me stop crying, so I can’t even cry anymore. And tha
t makes it worse, the knot in my throat, it’s so tight there, so tight . . .

  — . . .

  — . . .

  —Is it hurting you right now? that knot I mean?

  —Yes.

  — . . .

  — . . .

  —Right here?

  —Yes.

  —Can I massage it for you?

  —Yes.

  —Here?

  —Yes.

  —Does that feel better?

  —Yes . . . it feels better.

  —Me too, I feel better.

  —Honestly?

  —Mmm . . . It’s restful . . .

  —How come restful, Valentin?

  —Because . . . I don’t know.

  —But why?

  —Maybe because I’m not thinking about me . . .

  —You do me a lot of good, Valentin.

  —Maybe because I feel like you really need me, so I can do something for you.

  —You’re always looking for explanations, Valentin . . . You’re crazy . . .

  —I don’t like to just go along with things . . . I want to know why they happen . . .

  —Valentin . . . Can I touch you too?

  —Yes.

  —I want to touch the mole there . . . right above your eyebrow.

  — . . .

  —And this way, can I touch you this way?

  — . . .

  —And this way?

  — . . .

  —It doesn’t disgust you to have me caress you?

  —No . . .

  —You’re kind to me . . .

  — . . .

  —Really, you are . . .

  —No, you’re the one who’s kind.

  —Valentin . . . If you like, you can do whatever you want with me . . . because I want you to.

  — . . .

  —If I don’t disgust you.

  —Don’t talk like that. It’s better if it’s quiet.

  —I’m squeezed up against the wall a little.

  — . . .

  —I can’t see at all, not at all . . . it’s so dark.

  — . . .

  —Slowly now . . .

  — . . .

  —No, that way it hurts a lot.