Cine prado story in english

170 Tb Seize the Eanh

Infinitely tired, Blas de Irmos moves his hand toward the head of the bed.

It would seem that he is trying to touch his temple. But the Francis- can, motionless in his corner, understands. He approaches the deathbed, slides his hand under the pillow. The bundle of papers passes quickly into his sleeve. One last look at the bed where the reddish light of the candle plays; at lJrsula, her arms hanging at her sides; at Cecilia, wiping away her tears with a corner of her white shawl. He leaves the house. Blas has seen nothing, heard nothing. He has returned to his world of alternating light and shadow, the light fading as the shadows deepen.

At dawn, something like a cloud or an enonnous wing veils the ir- resolute sky outside the door. Ursula and Cecilia have run to the river bank. If Blas were awake, he would know it was the ships setting sail with the colonists of Santa Maria del Buen Ayre aboard. But Blas de Lemos is lying motionless on the bed. His right hand is reaching down, as if to seize the earth.

Tianslated by Catherine Ro drtguez-N ieto

Park Cinema

Elena Poniatowska

Sefrorita: As of today, you will have to strike my name from the list of your

admirers. Perhaps I ought not to inform you of this decision, but to

do so would be to betray a personal integrity that has never shied away

from the exigencies of the Tiuth. By thus divorcing myself from y9u, I

am acting in accordance with a profound change in spirit, which leads

me to thJ decision never again to number myself among the viewers of

your films. This afternoon--{r rather, this evening-you have destroyed me' I

do not know whether this matters to you, but I am a man shattered to

pieces. Do you understand what I am saying? A devotee who has fol-

iowed yout -i-ug"

on the screens of first-run houses and neighborhood

theateis, a loving critic who would justify the very worst of your moral

behavior, I now swear on my knees to renounce you forever, though a

mere poster fromForbidden Fruit is enough to shake my resolve. As'you

-uy .Le, I am yet a man seduced by appearances'

comfortably ensconced in my seat I was one in a multitude, a crea-

ture lost in an anonymous darkness, who suddenly felt himself caught

up in a personal sadness, bitter and inescapable. It was then that I was

truly myself, the loner who suffers and now addresses you. For no broth-

erlyhand reached to touch mine. while you were calmly destroying my

heirt on the screen, all those around me stayed passionately true. Yes,

there was even one scoundrel who laughed shamelessly while I watched

you swoon in the arms of that abominable suitor who dragged you to

the final extremes of human degradation. And let me ask you this, sefrorita: Is he worthless whose every ideal

is suddenlv lost?

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172 Park Cinema

You will say I am a dreamer, an eccentric, one of those meteorites that fall to earth against all calculated odds. You may dispense with your hypotheses: it is I who is judging you, and do me the favour of taking greater responsibility for your actions, and before you sign a contract or accept a co-star, do consider that a man such as I might be among your future audience and might receive a fatal blow. It is not jealousy that makes me speak this way, but, believe me: in Slaves of Desire,you were kissed, caressed and assaulted to excess.

I do not know whether my memory makes me exaggerate, but in the cabaret scene there was no reason for you to half-open your lips in that way, to let your hair down over your shoulders, and to tolerate the impudent manners of that sailor who yawns as he leaves you, who abandons you like a sinking ship after he has drowned your honor on the bed.

I know that actors owe a debt to their audience; that they, in a sense, relinquish their free will and give themselves up to the capricious desires of a perverse director; moreover, I know that they are obliged to follow point by point all the deficiencies and inconsistencies of the script they must bring to life, but let me state that everyone, even in the worst of contingencies, retains a minimum of initiative, a fragment of freedom- and you could not or chose not to exercise it.

If you were to take the trouble, you might say in your defense that the very things I am accusingyou oftodayyou have done ever since your screen debut. Ti'ue, and I am ashamed to admit that I cannot justify my feelings. I undertook to love you just asyou are. Pardon-as I imagined you to be. Like anyone who has ever been disillusioned, I curse the day that linked my life with your cinematographic destiny. And I want to make clear that I accepted you when you were an obscure newcomer, when no one had ever heard of you, when they gave you the part of that streetwalker with crooked stockings and worn-down heels, a part no decent woman could have accepted. Nonetheless I forgave you, and in that dirty and indifferent theater I hailed the birth of a star. It was I who discovered you, I was the only one who could perceive your soul, immaculate as it was despite your torn handbag and your sheepish man- ner. By what is dearest to you in the world? Forgive the bluntness of my outburst.

Your mask has slipped, sefrorita. I have come to see the vileness of your deceit. You are not that creature of delights, that tender, fragile dove I had grown used to, that swallow innocent in flight, your face in my dreams hidden by a lacy veil-no, you are a tramp through and through,

Elena Poniatowska

the dregs of the earth, a passing fancy in the worst sense of the word. From this moment on, my dear sefrorita, you must go your way and I mine. Go on, go, keep walking the streets, I have already drowned in your sewer like a rat. But I must stress that I continue to address you as "sefrorita" solely because, in spite of the blows you have dealt me, I am still a gentleman. My saintly old mother had instilled in my innermost being the importance of always keeping up appearances. Images linger, my life as well. Hence ... sefiorita. Thke it, if you will, as a sort of desperate irony.

I have seen you lavish kisses and receive caresses in hundreds of films, but never before did you receive your fortunate partner into your spirit. You kissed with simplicity like any good actress: as one would kiss a cardboard cutout. For-and I wish to make this clear once and for all-the only worthwhile sensuality is that which involves the soul, for the soul surrounds our body as the skin of the grape its pulp, as the peel contains the juice within. Before now, your love scenes did not upset me, for you always preserved a shred of dignity albeit profaned; I was always aware of an intimate rejection, a last-minute withdrawal that redeemed my anguish and consoled my lament. But in Rapture in the Body,your eyes moist with love, you showed me your true face, the one I never wish to see again. Go on, confess it: you really are in love with the scoundrel, that second-rate flash-in-the-pan comedian, aren't you? What avails an impudent denial? At least every word of mine, every promise I made, was true: and every one of your movements was the expression of a spirit that had surrendered itself. Why did you toy with me the way they all do? Why did you deceive me like all women deceive, wearing one different mask after another? Why would you not reveal all at once, in the beginning, the detestable face that now torments me?

This drama of mine is practically metaphysical, and I can find no possible solution. I am alone in the nighttime of my delirium. Well, all right, my wife does understand me completely, and at times she even shares in my distress. We were still revelling in the sweet delights ap- propriate to newlyweds when, our defenses down, we saw the first of your films. Do you still remember it? The one about the dumb athletic diver who ended up at the bottom of the sea because of you, wetsuit and all. I left the theater completely deranged and it would have been futile effort to try to keep it from my wife. But at least she was com- pletely on my side, and had to admit that your deshabilles were truly splendid. Nor did she find it inconvenient to accompany me to the cin- ema six more times, believing in good faith that the enchantmentwould

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174 Park Cinema

be broken by routine. But, alas, things grew worse with every new film of yours that opened. our family budget underwent serious modifica- tions in order to permit cinema attendince on the order of three times a week. And it goes without saying that after each cinematographic session we spent the.rest of the night arguing. Ail the same, niy mate did not get rufled. For after all, you weie but a defenseless shaiow, a two-dimensional silhouette, subject to the deficiencies of light. And my wife good-naturedly accepted as her rival a phantom whosJappearance could be controlled at will, although she waited no opportunity to huu" a good laugh at our expense. I remember her pleasuribn the fatal night when, due to a technical difficurties, you rpoke for a good ten minutes with an inhuman voice, almost that of a robot, going lrom a falsetto to deepest bass. And while we're on the subject of your-voice, I would have you know that I set myself to studying French because I could not resign myself to the abridged subtitres in Spanish, colourless and misleading. I learnedto decipher the melodious sound of your voice, and with that ac- complishment came the intolerable scourgJ of hearing atrocious words directed at your person or issuing from your very lipsl I longed for the time when these words had reached -" by *uy oi a priggish tianslation; now, they were slaps in the face.

The most serious aspect to this whole thing is that my wife is showing disquieting signs of ill-humor. Allusions to you and to your.on-screen conduct are more and more frequent and ferbcious. Lately she has con- centrated on your intimate apparel and tells me that I am ialking in vain to a woman of no substance. And sincerely now, just between orirselves, why this profusion of infamo_us transparency, thii wasteful display of in- timate bits of filmy acetate?.when the ontyitring I want to fini iri yo" is that little sparkle, sad and bitter, that you once nao in your eyes . .". But let's q,et back to my wife. She makes faces and mimics you. 3n" makes fun of me too. Mockingly, she echoes some of rny -ort heart-rending sighs. "Those kisses that pained me in unforyettable you still burn me like fire." Wherever we may be, she is woni to speak of you; she says we m^ust confront this problem from a purely rational angie, from u ,"i"rr- tific point of view, and she comes up with absurd but p6tent arguments. she does no less than claim you ari not rear and that she herielf is an actual woman. And by dint of proving it to me, she is demolishing my illr:sions one by on". i do not t ro* ,it ut will happen to me if what is so far only a rumor shourd turn out to be the truth: that you will come here to make a film, that you will honor our country with i visit. For the love of God, by the holiest of holies-stay where you are, senorita!

I I

r75Elena Poniatowska

No, I do not want to go see you again, for every time the music dies away and the action fades from the screen, I am overwhelmed. I'm speaking of that fatal barrier represented by the three cruel letters that put an end to the modest measure of happiness of my nights of love, at two pesos apiece. Bit by bit I have relinquished the desire to stay and live with you on film, and I no longer die of pain as I am towed away from the cinema by my wife, who has the bad habit of getting up as soon as the last frame has passed. Sefrorita, I leave you here. I do not even ask you for an autograph, for should you ever send me one I would be capable of forgetting your unpardonable treason. Please accept this letter as the final act of homage of a devastated soul, and forgive me for including you in my dreams. Yes, more than one night I dreamt about you, and there is nothing that I have to envy those fly-by-night lovers who collect a salary to hold you in their arms and ply you with borrowed eloquence.

Your humble servant

PS. I had neglected to tell you that I am writing from behind bars. This

letter would never have reached your hands, had I not feared that the world would give you an erroneous account of me. For the newspa- pers (which always twist things around) are taking advantage of this ridiculous event: "Last night, an unknown man, either drunk or men- tally deranged, interrupted a showing of Slaves of Desire at its most stir- ring point, when he ripped the screen of the Park Cinema by plunging a knife in the breast of Frangoise Arnoul. In spite of the darkness, three members of the audience saw the maniac rush towards the actress bran- dishing a knife, and they got out of their seats to get a better look at him so they could identiff him at the time of arraignment. This was easily done, as the individual collapsed once the crime had been committed."

I know that it's impossible, but I would give anything for you to re- member always that sharp stab in your breast.

Ti,anslated by Teres Mendeth-Faith and Elisabeth Heinicke