Kiss of the Spider Woman (10 page)
Read Kiss of the Spider Woman Online
Authors: Manuel Puig
Tags: #Regional.Latin America, #Fiction.Magical Realism, #Fiction.Literature.Modern, #Acclaimed.Horror 100 Best.Index
—And now?
—It’s strange, but now it doesn’t matter.
—Really?
—Mmm-hmm. Look, I don’t know . . . Now I’m glad she’s with him, so he’s not all alone, since I can’t pal around with him any longer, those times at the restaurant when not too much is going on and he gets bored, and smokes so much.
—And does he know how you feel about him?
—Obviously he does, I told him everything, when I still had some hope of convincing him that, with us two . . . something might really . . . happen . . . But nothing, nothing ever happened, no convincing him on that score. I said to him, even just one time in his whole life . . . but he never wanted to. And after a while I was too embarrassed to insist on anything, and satisfied myself with friendship.
—But according to what you said, he wasn’t doing so well with his wife.
—There was a period, it’s true, when they were fighting, but deep down he always loved her, and what’s worse, he admired her for making more than he did. And one day he told me something that I nearly strangled him for. Father’s Day was coming up, and I wanted to give him something, because he’s so much of a father to that kid of his, and it seemed like a marvelous excuse to get him a present, and I asked him if he’d like a pair of pajamas, and then, complete disaster . . .
—Don’t leave me hanging . . .
—He said he didn’t wear pajamas, he always slept in the raw. And he and his wife had a double bed. It killed me. But for a while, it did seem like they were on the verge of splitting up, and that’s how I kidded myself, such illusions I had! You have no idea . . .
—What kind of illusions?
—That he might come to live with me, with my mom and me. And I’d help him, and make him study. And not bother about anything but him, the whole blessed day, getting everything all set for him, his clothes, buying his books, registering him for courses, and little by little I’d convince him that what he had to do was just one thing: never work again. And I’d passalong whatever small amount of money was needed to give the wife for child support, and make him not worry about anything at all, nothing except himself, until he got what he wanted and lost all that sadness of his for good, wouldn’t that be marvelous?
—Yes, but unreal. Look, there is one thing, you know, he could also go right on being a waiter but not feel humiliated about it, or anything like that. Because however humble his work is, there’s always the option: joining the union movement.
—You think so?
—Of course! There’s no doubt about it . . .
—But he doesn’t understand any of that.
—He doesn’t have any ideas about politics?
—No, he’s rather ignorant. And he even says some foul things about his union, and probably he’s right.
—Right? If the union’s no good he should fight to change it, so it gets to be better.
—You know, I’m a little tired, how about you?
—No, not me. Aren’t you going to tell me a little more of the film?
—We’ll see . . . But you don’t know, it all seemed so nice, to think I could do something good to help him. You understand, being a windowdresser all day, enjoyable as it is, when the day’s finished, sometimes you begin to ask yourself what’s it all about, and you feel kind of empty inside. Whereas if I could do something for him it’d be so marvelous . . . Give him a little bit of happiness, you see what I mean? What do you think?
—I don’t know, I’ll have to analyze it some more; right now I couldn’t really say. Why don’t you tell me a little more of the film now and tomorrow I’ll talk about your waiter.
—Okay . . .
—They shut the lights off in here so early, and those candles give off such a foul smell, and they ruin your eyes too.
—And they burn up the oxygen, Valentin.
—And I can’t sleep when I don’t read something.
—If you want I’ll tell you a little bit more. But the stupid thing is that I’m the one who’ll be up later on then.
—Just a little more, Molina.
—Ohh-h . . . kay. Where were we?
—Don’t start yawning at me, sleepyhead.
—What can I do? I’m sleepy.
— . . . Now you’ve got . . . me . . . doing it.
—So you’re sleepy too, eh?
—Maybe I could get . . . some sleep.
—Mmm-hmm, and if you wake up, think about this Gabriel business.
—Gabriel, who’s Gabriel?
—My waiter. It slipped out.
—Okay, in the morning then.
—Mmm, see you in the morning.
—See how life is, Molina, here I am staying up at night, thinking about your boyfriend . . .
—Tomorrow you can tell me about it.
—Good night.
—Good night.
CHAPTER
4
4
—And that was the beginning of the romance between Leni and her German officer. They were soon mad about each other. Every night on stage she dedicates her songs to him, especially one in particular. A beautiful habanera. The curtain goes up and behind are palm trees made out of silver paper, like the inside of cigarette packs, you know? Anyway, right above the palm trees you have this full moon embroidered in sequins and reflected in a sea made out of some kind of silk fabric, with the reflection of the moon in sequins too. It looks like a small tropical harbor, a little dock on an island, and all you hear is waves breaking, simulated by the maracas in the orchestra. And there’s a yacht, luxurious as can be, faked up in cardboard but looking very real, and a handsome man with silver-gray temples at the helm, wearing a captain’s hat and smoking a pipe. Suddenly this incredible bright spotlight shows a little open doorway going down into the cabin and there she is, gloomy, and staring at the sky. He tries to fondle her but she backs away. Her hair’s loose, parted down the middle; she has a long black lace dress on, not sheer, but sleeveless, two spaghetti straps and that’s all, the skirt billowy. That’s when the orchestra does a sort of introduction, and she’s watching an islander down on the beach picking a flower from a clump of wild orchids; he’s smiling and sort of winks at the native girl who comes up to him. He places the orchid in her hair and embraces her, they walk off together and vanish into the jungle darkness, not realizing that the flower’s fallen from the girl’s hair. And then there’s a close-up of the wild orchid, it’s delicate though, fallen in the sand, and over the orchid the image of Leni’s smoky face begins to fade in, as if the flower was changing into a woman. Then a wind comes up like it’s about to storm, but the sailors shout it’s a favorable wind, and now the boat’s ready to weigh anchor, but she goes down the ramp and onto the sand, and picks up the flower that looks so beautiful, faked in velvet. And she sings.
—What are the words?
—Who knows? . . . because they didn’t translate those songs. But it was sad, as if someone had lost a true love and just wanted to give up now but she can’t, and she leaves it all in the hands of fate. It must be like that, because when they tell her the wind’s favorable she smiles a very sad smile, like whatever way the wind takes her it’s all the same. And singing that way she walks back to the boat, which little by little sails off toward one side of the stage, with her at the stern, still gazing back with that lost look across the palm trees, where the darkest part of the jungle starts.
—She always finishes with that lost look of hers.
—But you can’t imagine the eyes that woman has, so black against the white white skin. And I’m forgetting the best part: when at the end you see her in the stern of the boat, she’s got the velvet flower in her hair, and you can’t tell what’s softer, the velvet orchid or her skin, like the petals of some flower, like a magnolia I guess. And afterwards the applause, and then some short scenes with the two of them very happy: an afternoon at the horse races, with her all in white, wearing a sheer picture-hat and with him in a top hat; and next a toast together on some yacht sailing down the River Seine; and then in a private room of a Russian nightclub, he’s in tails, blowing out the candelabra and he opens a jewel case and takes out a necklace of pearls, and you don’t know how but even in the darkness they shine so fantastically, through some movie trick. Anyway, next comes a scene where she’s having breakfast in bed, and the maid comes in to announce some relative that’s waiting downstairs and just arrived from Alsace. And some gentleman’s with him. She goes downstairs, in a satin negligee with black and white stripes, the scene’s set at her place. The visitor is this young cousin of hers, dressed in simple clothing, but the one who’s with him . . . it’s the clubfoot.
—The clubfoot?
—The one who ran over the chorus girl with his car. And they begin talking, and her cousin says they’ve asked him to do an important favor, which is to come and talk to her, a Frenchwoman, about helping them on a mission. She asks what mission, and he says the one the blond chorus girl began but refused to finish for them. Because it’s for the maquis. She’s scared to death but manages to pretend otherwise. They ask her to uncover a very important secret, which is to find out the location of a huge ammunition dump which the Germans have somewhere in France so the enemies of the German forces can wipe it out. And the blond chorus girl was actually on that same mission, because she belonged to the maquis, but after she began her affair with the lieutenant she fell in love with him and refused to cooperate, which is why she had to be bumped off, before she denounced all of them to the authorities of the German occupation forces. Then the clubfoot says she has to help them, and she says she wants to think about it, because she knows nothing about things like that. Then the clubfoot says “That’s a lie,” because the head of German counterintelligence is in love with her, so it won’t cost her anything to get the documents. But she gets up her courage and tells the clubfoot absolutely no, because she hasn’t got the guts for that kind of thing. Then the clubfoot says that she better do it . . . or they’ll have to resort to certain reprisals. Then she sees the cousin lower his eyes, his chin quivering, and his forehead beaded with sweat. He’s actually a hostage! Then the clubfoot explains how the poor kid has nothing to do with this, his only mistake’s in being a relative of hers. Because the dirty rats went all the way to some town in Alsace where the poor kid was from and brought him back with them, I don’t know, under false pretenses. But the point’s just this: if she doesn’t help them, they’ll just, the maquis that is, they’ll just go and kill the kid who’s totally innocent. So she promises to do whatever she can. And they leave it at that. So the next time she’s together with the German officer, at his house, she begins to search in all the drawers, but she’s fantastically frightened all the same because the majordomo’s always hanging around her, from the first moment always eyeing her suspiciously, and looking like he doesn’t miss a trick. But then comes the scene where she’s in the garden having lunch with her officer and some other ones too, and the majordomo, who’s obviously German, the officer asks him to go down into the wine cellar to find this incredibly rare wine, oh! I forgot, she’s the one who asks for it, a particular vintage that only the majordomo himself can find. Then when the guy goes to get the wine, she sits down at a white grand piano which is in one of those rooms I told you about, and you see her through a white lacy curtain. She’s accompanying herself on the piano because he asked her to sing for them, the officer, that is. But she manages to prepare a little bit of a ruse, and puts on a recording of herself that’s accompanied by piano too, and meanwhile she goes into his private study and starts rummaging through his papers. But it turns out the majordomo has forgotten his keys, so when he gets to the door of the cellar where the wines are kept he has to go back to look for them, and as he’s walking along the balustrade facing the garden he looks through the casement window and he can’t tell through that lacy curtain if she’s sitting at the piano or not. During all this the officer is still in the garden, where he’s been busy talking with the other brass. The garden is French, without any flowers in places, and instead there’s just hedges cut into all different shapes, like obelisks and so on.
—Then it’s a German garden . . . Saxon, to be exact.
—How do you know?
—Because the French gardens use lots of flowers, and even though the arrangements are geometrical they tend to be much more casual-looking. That garden sounds German, plus the film was obviously made in Germany . . .
—And you, how do you know all that? That’s women’s stuff . . .
—From courses in architecture.
—And you studied architecture?
—Yes.
—And you just decide to tell me that now?
—It never came up.
—But didn’t you major in political government or something?
—Yes, political science. But go on with the film, I’ll tell you some other time. And by the way, art’s not just something for women.
—One of these days they’ll realize who’s the fag around here.
—Sure. But what about the film?
—Okay, so then the majordomo hears the singing but not at the piano, and he goes off to look for her, she’s right there in the study, ransacking through all the papers, oh! because earlier she managed to get the key to the desk, and actually took it off the officer, and now she finds the map of the zone where all the ammunition is hidden, the German arsenal itself, but at this point she hears footsteps and just manages to hide out on the balcony off the study, but in plain view of all the brass right there in the garden! So she’s caught smack in the middle, because if anyone in the garden so much as glances up they’ll see her. The majordomo goes into the study and looks around, she holds her breath, fantastically nervous because the record’s just about to finish, and at that time, you see, recordings just had one song on them, that’s all, they didn’t have long-playing albums yet. But the majordomo goes back out of the room then, and in the same instant she flies out too, the song just about to end. And all the brass are listening outside, enchanted, and as the record finishes they get up to applaud her and she’s already seated at the piano once again and everyone believes it was actually her, live, and not a record. And next comes another rendezvous with the clubfoot and the cousin, in order for her to turn over the secret of the German arsenal. The place they meet is in some museum, unbelievably gigantic, with tremendous dinosaurs on exhibition, and in place of walls it has these enormous panes of glass, looking over the River Seine, and when they meet she tells the clubfoot yes, she’s managed to get hold of the necessary information, and then the clubfoot who’s feeling pleased with himself begins to tell her how this is only the beginning of the jobs she’ll be expected to do for the maquis, because once you get involved with spying, there’s no backing out. Then she’s about to decide not to give him the location, but she sees the poor kid trembling there, so she says it, the name of some region in France and the exact village where the ammunition lies hidden. Then the clubfoot who’s actually kind of a sadist begins to tell her how much the German officer will loathe her with his whole being when he discovers her treachery. And I don’t remember what else he says. Then the kid sees Leni turning livid with impotent rage, and he looks out the window, and since they’re right up next to the glass, on the fifth or sixth floor of that huge museum they’re in, before the clubfoot can even realize what’s happening the kid tries to push him through the glass, out the window, but the clubfoot puts up a wild struggle and the kid sacrifices himself, hurling both of them into space, paying the price with his own life. She mixes into the crowd that gathers to see what’s happened, and since she’s wearing a hat with a veil no one recognizes her. Wasn’t that kid good to do that, really?
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