Where the Bird Sings Best

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

  The giant dancer began to weep in Jashe’s arms—for the lost maternal kisses, for the tortures of apprenticeship in classical dance, for the boys who had their sexes kissed in the dressing rooms, for that old choreographer who raped him behind the piano when he was eleven. Whenever he was given a room with white walls, he would hurl himself against them until his forehead bled. He could have died of sadness had it not been for Abravanel’s red shoes. Those century-old, impervious boots that changed size, adapting to the child’s feet and stretching as they grew, proved to him that he was the bearer of a collective soul that would allow him to reach the end of Time, beyond all space, where only Truth exists.

  Jashe placed the red shoes on top of the violet bag containing the Tarot, and with those sacred objects next to her, coupled with her husband to give my mother, Sara Felicidad, the chance to incarnate herself in a place of love.

  The alarm clock did not work. The newlyweds ran out of the hotel only half dressed and just managed to reach at the station in time for the train that would carry them to the port of Bremen. There they boarded the Weser, an impressive ship whose first-class passengers included members of the Imperial Ballet, on their way to Buenos Aires for their debut in the famous Colón Theatre. The Weser boasted cabins in Chinese-French style, dinners enlivened by a string quartet, steam baths, spacious entertainment rooms, and long passageways with wood paneling that imitated ebony. In third class—that is, in the hold or on the poop deck—were packed 1,200 Russian Jews accepted by the Argentine government on the condition that they work on the pampa as farmers.

  No sooner had Jashe set foot on the packet boat’s ladder than she sensed a threat to her happiness. Someone, one of the group of dancers who leaned on the railing of the upper deck, was watching them with a look like an invisible larva full of hatred. Alejandro too felt the ominous attack. His face pale, he said between his teeth, “Walk behind me and carry the bags as if you were a servant. I’ll explain later.” When they entered the spacious bedroom assigned to him as a principal dancer, the giant embraced Jashe, muttering apologies.

  The situation was complicated: in a sense, he belonged to the Imperial Ballet, and the members of the corps were not allowed to marry. This of course was not written in their contracts, but it was accepted as an unspoken rule. The Director General, whose real name no one knew, went by Vladimir Monomaque in honor of the ancestor of the princes of Moscow. In the eleventh century, one had distinguished himself with his talent as an organizer and administrator. He enforced a ferocious discipline on the dancers, making them to rehearse all day long, never giving a thought to whether they had time for satisfy their emotional needs.

  Monomaque’s possessiveness kept outsiders from the intimate life of the Ballet. Equally possessive was the sublime Marina Leopoldovna, the prima ballerina and the tyrant’s pampered pet, whose many caprices were tolerated because the success of the tours depended on her. Her immense talent and technical perfection attracted multitudes in every country.

  Well, he was telling her all this because there was something very unpleasant he had to confess. One afternoon, yielding to the demands of the temperamental diva, Vladimir Monomaque entered Alejandro’s dressing room and, after reminding Alejandro of everything he owed him and the school—a refuge for the orphan such as him—ordered him to satisfy Marina’s sexual appetites, which seized her on the twenty-first day of every month. No one argued with the Director General. Unfortunately, because of the precipitous nature of events, Alejandro had not had the time to communicate to—let’s call things by their proper names—his lover the news of their marriage.

  The news—he was sure of it—was going to cause a lot of trouble. Knowing Marina as he did, he knew she would faint and then wake up a few seconds later, foaming with rage. Then she’d refuse to dance, and finally, forced by the steely Director, she waged silent war by spreading animosity among the troupe until she made their lives impossible. All this could stop if Vladimir only found her another lover in the group—impossible, as they were all effeminate.

  “I’m very sorry, Jashe. You have to eat and sleep in the servants’ area. The crossing will be long; it will last thirty-five days, and the tour will last six months or more. Aboard the ship, we will make love when you bring me my breakfast, and on land, if they give us a day off each week, we’ll go to some discreet hotel. When the tour is over, when we’re back in Moscow, we can finally return to normal. But if the star of the show finds out the truth and we have a crisis, Monomaque will instantly find someone in the school to replace me.”

  Jashe held in her bitter tears, knowing that there was no solution but to accept the arrangements for now. The only thing she couldn’t understand was how her husband could have lied to her and said she was his first. He lowered his eyes in shame for five minutes that seemed like five hours. Finally, he whispered in a broken voice, “Tomorrow is the twenty-first. Marina Leopoldovna’s desire comes on with mathematical precision. Any moment now she will walk into this cabin. You should leave without looking back and wait in your place until the next day. I suggest you not talk with the servants, because they will fill your ears with obscene gossip. Ah, Jashe, how we suffer! You have to believe that this repulses me and that I suffer as much as you.”

  Jashe’s love knew no limits. They threw themselves into each other’s arms and made more passionate love than ever. A gong sounded, announcing dinner. The liner was now rocking on the high seas. They said goodbye with a deep and furtive kiss, and Jashe, despite her seeming fragility, showed her impeccable moral strength. She picked up her suitcase, went to the servants’ quarters, accepted the suspicious looks of the little old ladies in charge of costume, and did not argue when she was given a tiny cabin with no windows that smelled of rotten beets. Impassive, she turned on the faucet, ran water onto the floor, and set about cleaning until everything sparkled. Every once in a while, some stagehand would open the door and look her up and down obscenely or mockingly.

  The foreman, a fat Ukrainian who breathed through his mouth, emitting a slight but perpetual whine, escorted her to the dining room and gave her a place at the shared table. Barely able to keep from vomiting, she had just tossed a sack of gelatinous beets overboard. Now, as the only accompaniment to her breaded cutlets, she was served a few of those red tumors. A sour wine, made from powder and water, was passed around freely. Men and women, drunk, began to mimic a ballet. Showing their backsides, which they kept bare under heavy, long skirts, the assistants, the makeup women, and the seamstresses all spread their legs shamelessly so the workers could slip their calloused hands into the dark stains of their sex and raise them like awkward swans.

  Up in the air, they imitated flying birds, erupting with crass squawks, and dropped onto the table chest-to-chest with their men. Trying not to call attention to herself, Jashe got up from the table and walked along the passageways to her cabin. Like an immense pelican, the Ukrainian, reeking of sugary sweat, fell on top of her. Staggering, he dragged her out on deck and laid her down under a lifeboat. She offered no resistance. She allowed him to raise her skirt and pull off her panties. She spread her thighs and took his fat member in both hands as if to show him the path. Then she delicately slid her fingers toward his testicles and crushed them with murderous intensity. The brute twisted and howled, but she kept squeezing until he fainted. Then she went to her pigsty of a cabin and slept peacefully.

  The next morning she ordered a breakfast at the first-class kitchen and brought it to her husband, to whom she said told nothing, to spare him suffering. When he finished his tea with lemon, he gazed with anguish through the porthole, drew the curtains, and bolted the door. Then he undressed Jashe and took her to bed. After an hour, when the two of them had forgotten where they were, Marina Leopoldovna urgently knocked on the cabin door. Jashe had barely enough time to dress, snatch up the brush, kneel at the toilet, and pretend to be cleaning it.

  Alejandro, without bothering to cover his nakedness, let her in. The diva stood in the center
of the bedroom, stamping her little foot. Her steel toe smashing against the linoleum floor made a thunderous echo. Jashe exited with averted eyes and closed the door, biting her lip. She felt the click of the lock like a knife in her heart; the ballerina’s light steps were like bullets as she ran to throw herself into her giant’s arms. She had difficulty making her way along the passageway, which seemed soft and sticky, back to her own dark room. She wanted to vomit, to expel blood from her sex in a violent gush. Her face became violet red, the soles of her feet were burning. Stifling a roar, she made a half turn and with bared teeth returned to the cabin and peeked through the window.

  The ballerina was leaning back on Alejandro’s broad chest with a despotic grin, tugging at his hair. She made him bite the nape of her neck, a task he performed with the face of a penitent. Jashe could no longer control her hatred for that lascivious, cruel woman, and a pain in her stomach kept her from seeing clearly. As if shrouded in fog, the Russian woman knelt before Jashe’s man and swallowed the sacred organ, making little-girl squeals. Then, with the gesture of a tragic actress, she tossed aside the Japanese silk robe that covered her nakedness, and like a white, skeletal worm slithered to the bed and offered her buttocks, imitating the barks of a bitch in heat.

  The fog cleared, and hatred gave way to great outrage. She felt herself transformed into the Eighth Arcanum, Justice, with a scale in one hand and a sword in the other—no less implacable for being invisible. She decided that very day that Truth must control the world. Justice meant giving to everyone what they deserved, and Marina Leopoldovna deserved a scandal.

  Jashe went to the rehearsal studio and hid behind the piano. Soon, Madame Teodora, an intense, efficient old woman, shook her tambourine, and in a few seconds, the entire corps de ballet assembled with military discipline in straight lines. With her eyes, Madame Teodora consulted Vladimir Monomaque, and he nodded his lustrous head affirmatively, satisfied with his inspection. The pianist played a mazurka. No one moved; they waited for Leopoldovna, standing before the first row, to take the first steps so they could then imitate her with admiration and envy.

  The distinguished diva only managed a plié before she was interrupted by Jashe, who emerged from behind the piano, pounced on her like a furious cat, and tore her tutu. The ripped garment flew off, but the other dancers could not intervene, paralyzed as they were by shock. But when the white panties fell and the pitch black of her pubis showed the animal within that body, which moved so skillfully that it seemed immaterial, they all shouted in horror. The Director, popping the buttons of his shirt as he tore it off, ran to cover Marina’s unmasked body. Too late. The truth had come to light. The secret he’d kept for so many years, sharing it only with the first male dancer, had been exposed. Everyone saw that thin, flaccid, bright red penis hanging between the legs of the ballerina. Yes, the celebrated, sublime, lighter-than-air Marina Leopoldovna was a man.

  Jashe took her husband by the hand and led him past the stunned Russians until they were opposite the despot, who was calming his sobbing transsexual, hugging him with surprising tenderness. My grandmother understood what no one else had been able to imagine. Speaking with a Jewish accent full of majesty, she said in Russian, “You can’t blot out the sun with a finger. That poor man is your son. Just look at what your ambition has made of him. You stole his manhood in order to make him into a trained monkey. What you deserve is the contempt of the whole world. I want you to know that this man is my husband and that you no longer have any right to rule his private life. Alejandro Prullansky is no longer your slave!”

  The Director General fixed his gaze on Alejandro’s eyes, and for the first time, Alejandro stared back.

  “Either that woman or me!”

  With no hesitation, Alejandro shouted “Jashe!” Lifting her up in his powerful arms, he carried her out on deck to breathe the intoxicating ocean air.

  Dropping his usual domineering tone, Vladimir Monomaque spoke with the Imperial Ballet. The future of the entire corps depended on the silence of each and every one of them. A scandal would finish them off forever. With sincere humility, he begged them to erase what they had just seen from their memory. Very soon, this very year, when they reached San Francisco, where surgery was very advanced, Marina would undergo an operation to remove the annoying detail and make her a woman like all others. The company applauded. Alejandro Prullansky would be expelled immediately, but only after receiving a very important sum of money to guarantee his silence. The company applauded again. Marina never stopped crying, seized by uncontrollable convulsions. His father slapped him and dressed him in a new tutu. Recovering his authoritarian voice, more severe now than ever, he ordered his son to go on with the rehearsal or he’d kick his ass to pieces. Marina blew her nose in the hands of her faithful dresser, Tito, and began to dance. Soon the mazurka was danced more enthusiastically than ever.

  Jashe, followed by Alejandro, who was carrying the bags and had hidden a thick roll of American one hundred dollar bills in his underwear, descended to third class. None of the religious Jews bothered to greet that tiny renegade accompanied by such an enormous goy. Here, they were fleeing pogroms: what gave anyone the right to impose the presence of a Russian on them? It was like poking a thorn into their wounds. They didn’t move to make room for the newcomers, and went on rubbing their delicate hands with pieces of harsh rope to create callouses—all so people would think they were farmers.

  My grandparents had to take refuge in the cursed corner, the den of sin, a back room among crates of apples where Icho Melnik and his six prostitutes had been relegated. “Man does not live by the Torah alone,” he said winking an eye and offering them a swig of vodka as the girls, making off-color remarks, set out the sacks they’d use as beds.

  Jashe found a piece of soap and a pail of water. Instead of a sponge, she used a rolled-up cloth belt to wash the giant as if he were a little boy. “Don’t be sad,” she said. “Argentina is a grand country. There’s lots of work. We’ll invest the money they gave us and get rich. You will found your own ballet.”

  Alejandro let go of his sadness and began to laugh. They slept in each other’s arms.

  In the unheated storage space, the passengers were freezing. Slowly but surely, the whores got closer and closer to the couple to attach themselves to those bodies heated by love. Icho Melnik, a discreet drunk, opened a few crates and made himself a mattress out of apples. A group of old folks, rocking back and forth in their fatigue, querulously read the last prayer of the night. Before starting to snore like thunder, the pimp muttered, “It’s useless to ask God for something you can get for yourself.”

  The Farthest Land

  After crossing the Atlantic and passing through the Straits of Magellan, the ship rode icy Pacific currents along such a jagged coast that the Rabbi, with an ominous look, exclaimed, “Oy vey! This must be the ass of the world, and God has really kicked it!” Finally, they dropped anchor at the port of Valparaíso.

  Teresa had played the mute for four weeks, so now her mouth felt heavy, weighed down by a boulder of stifled insults. Every single day on the rocking ship flooded with smoke she’d been forced to hear the shacharit (morning prayer) and the minchah (afternoon prayer), accompanied by the vulture screeches of the seasick mystics as they vomited. No matter what, they always had their gartels around their waists, those black silk cords used to divide the body in two, the spiritual parts—the hands, the heart, and the brain, worthy of serving the Most High—and the profane parts: the stomach, the sex, and the legs. They could transform any place at all, no matter how vulgar, into a schul or synagogue just so they could drone their prayers to God, hour after hour, all twenty-four: “Oh Terrible One, we carry out our 613 commandments so you do not fulminate us; we are just because we are sodden with fear; you guide us with stabs, bullets, and bites; teach us with your fury and your curses.”

  Teresa hated God more than ever. Just look where the Ancient Cruel One had led them! What was the meaning of that port, devoid of flat
ground, with thousands of houses that didn’t seem man-made, but like abscesses spreading along the sides of the hills? The Russians may have been dangerous, but at least they didn’t eat human flesh. But the Indians here, who knows? Maybe not cannibals, but thieves, all of them! Anyway, what did that matter when not even the crumbs were left of the few dollars Moishe Rosenthal had given them?

  Now at least she wouldn’t have to rub elbows with the Jewish wives (who didn’t know how to live without swapping things—a wool vest for three sets of underpants, half a loaf of onion bread for six rotten oranges) invading the kitchen to fry their latkes, boil up some kasha, or bake matzo, slapping their children, dribbling out a constant stream of proverbs—“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” “The answer is always in the question,” “God punishes those He loves”—and scaring off sheidim from every spoon, knife, fork, plate, and casserole. Teresa paid a waiter from the second class to bring them goy food in pots. Seeing these renegades devour impure food, the immigrants kept their distance: they preferred being even closer to one another so they could leave a six-foot ring around the apostates.

  While the family slept, Alejandro allowed the Rabbi to put his mouth in the center of his heart, so he could recite prayers that would navigate through his blood and purify his entire body.

  When the ship entered the docking area, the four children ran to the handrail, slipping through the chattering Yiddish crowd who recoiled from them in disgust. With great dignity, Teresa took Alejandro by the arm and caught up with her excited heirs to look contemptuously at the port. Clustered around the gangway, people were selling bananas, grapes, cherries, and many other fruit with strange names—chirimoyas, nísperos, avocados, and caquis. Others were waving bouquets of herbs and flowers. Their clothes were tattered and they had no shoes. But at the same time they had no feathers, no bows, and no arrows. A bit further off, groups of elegant people under multicolored parasols were awaiting first and second-class passengers. There were ships loading and unloading Italians, Englishmen, Germans, Swedes, Frenchmen. Painted-up women were pulling on the arms of the sailors, dragging them toward the bars. In their luxurious construction, the buildings on the narrow flat area beyond the dock, unlike the poor houses covering the hillsides, resembled the mansions of Paris.