* * *
Eavesdropping on the girls’ conversations, I learned in a few weeks more than many persons discover in a lifetime. Intent on improving the quality of her services, La Señora bought numbers of French books that were furtively supplied by the blind man of the local kiosk. I doubt, really, that they were of much use, for the girls complained that when the pants were down, the high-class gentlemen bolted a few drinks and repeated the same old routines, so all their study was for nothing. When I was alone in the apartment, I used to take the forbidden books from their hiding place and settle into a comfortable chair. They were eye-opening. Even though I could not read them, the illustrations alone put ideas in my head that went, I am sure, beyond anatomical possibilities.
That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities. In that house day and night were reversed, you lived at night and slept during the day; the girls became entirely different creatures once they put on their makeup; my patrona was a tangle of contradictions; Melesio was without sex or age; even the food we ate seemed like birthday treats, not ordinary everyday food. Money itself became unreal. La Señora kept fat bundles of bills in shoe boxes from which she took enough for daily expenses, apparently never keeping accounts. I found money everywhere, and at first thought she left it where I would find it to test my honesty; later I realized it was not a trap, but mere profusion and total disorder.
More than once I heard La Señora say she had a horror of sentimental ties, but I think she was betrayed by her true nature and, as had happened with Melesio, she ended up being fond of me. Let’s open the windows and let in the noise and light, I urged her, and she agreed. Let’s buy a bird to sing to us and a flowerpot with real ferns we can watch grow, I suggested, and she did that as well. I want to learn to read, I insisted, and she was willing to teach me but other affairs interfered. Now that so many years have passed and I can remember her from the perspective of experience, I think she did not have a happy life; she survived in a brutal milieu, debased by a vulgar profession. She must have imagined that somewhere there were a chosen few who could allow themselves the luxury of goodness, and decided to protect me from the sordidness of Calle República, to see if she could play a trick on fate and rescue me from a life like hers. In the beginning she meant to lie to me about her business activities, but when she found me ready to devour the world, errors and all, she changed her mind. I learned later through Melesio that La Señora made a compact with the other women to keep me innocent, and clung to it so stubbornly that I ended up embodying the best of each of them. They tried to keep me isolated from what was gross and shoddy, and in doing so won new dignity for their own lives. They would beg me to tell them what was happening in the current radio serial, and I would invent a dramatic ending that never coincided with the real one, but that did not matter to them. They invited me to go with them to Mexican movies, and afterward we would go to the Espiga de Oro tearoom to talk about the performance. They liked me to improve on the plot, changing the restrained love story of a simple Mexican cowboy to a blood-and-guts tragedy. Your stories are better than the movies, there’s more suffering, they would sob, mouths filled with chocolate cake.
Huberto Naranjo was the only one who never asked me for stories; he thought they were a stupid diversion. When he came to visit, he arrived with his pockets filled with money that he bestowed with open hands, never explaining where he had got it. He brought me presents of frilly dresses with ruffles and lace, baby-doll shoes, little-girl pocketbooks, which all the girls praised because they wanted to keep me in the limbo of childish purity, but which I rejected, offended. “I wouldn’t put this on the Spanish doll. Can’t you see I’m not a baby anymore?”
“You can’t go around looking like a streetwalker. Are they teaching you how to read?” he would ask, and be furious when he learned my illiteracy had not been reduced by so much as one letter.
I was very careful not to tell him that in other ways my education was advancing by leaps and bounds. I loved him with one of those adolescent passions that leave their mark for life, but I could never get Naranjo to notice my fervent adoration; each time I hinted at it, he would push me away, his ears red as fire.
“Leave me alone. What you need to do is study to be a teacher or a nurse—those are decent jobs for a woman.”
“Don’t you love me?”
“I take care of you, that’s enough.”
Alone in my bed I would hug my pillow, praying that my legs would fill out and my breasts hurry up and grow. I never, however, connected Huberto Naranjo with the illustrations in La Señora’s books of instruction, or the chatter I overheard from the girls. I could not imagine that such capers had any relation to love: they were simply a trade you practiced for a living, like sewing or typing. Love was what was in songs and the serials on the radio—sighs, kisses, ardent words. I wanted to lie in the same bed with Huberto, my head on his shoulder, sleeping by his side, but my fantasies were still chaste.
* * *
Melesio was the only real artist in the cabaret where he worked nights. The rest were a sorry lot: a group of queens billed as the Blue Ballet strung together by the tail to form a regrettable chorus line; a dwarf who performed indecent feats with a milk bottle; and a gentleman of advanced years whose act consisted of lowering his trousers, turning his rear to the spectators, and expelling three billiard balls. The audience laughed uproariously at these vaudeville tricks, but when Melesio, swathed in feathers, his wig worthy of a royal courtesan, made his entrance singing in French, absolute silence reigned in the room. The audience did not whistle or shout insulting jokes the way they did at the chorus line, because even the least sensitive of the customers could appreciate his talent. During those hours in the cabaret, he was a star, desired and admired, sparkling beneath the spotlights, the center of all eyes; there he fulfilled his dream of being a woman. After his act, he retired to the unsanitary hole he had been assigned as a dressing room and removed his diva’s costume. From a hook, his feathers resembled a dying ostrich; on the table his wig was a trophy from the guillotine, and the rhinestones scattered across a tin tray were the booty of a cheated pirate. As he removed his makeup with cold cream, his masculine face appeared. He put on trousers and jacket, closed the door, and, once outside, was assaulted by profound sadness, knowing he had left the best of himself behind. He would go to El Negro’s bar and get something to eat, sitting alone at a corner table and reliving his hour of happiness on the stage. Then, in the night air, he walked home through empty streets, climbed the stairs to his room, bathed, and fell into bed to stare into the darkness until he fell asleep.
When homosexuality ceased to be taboo and showed itself in the light of day, it became fashionable, as people said, to “visit the queers on their own turf.” The wealthy arrived in chauffeur-driven cars, elegant, noisy, brightly colored birds who shouldered their way through the regular customers and sat down to drink watered champagne, sniff a line of cocaine, and applaud the artists. The women were the most enthusiastic: refined descendants of prosperous immigrants, dressed in Paris gowns, exhibiting paste replicas of jewels kept in safe-deposit boxes; it was they who invited the performers to the table to drink a toast. They repaired the damage the next day: Turkish baths and beauty treatments to counter the effects of cheap liquor, smoke, and late hours. But it was worth it: those excursions were the de rigueur subject of conversation at the Country Club. The prestige of the extraordinary Mimí, Melesio’s stage name, spread from mouth to mouth that season; the echo of her fame, however, did not ripple beyond the living rooms of the very rich. In the Jewish quarter where Melesio lived, or in Calle República, no one knew and no one cared that the quiet professor of Italian and Mimí were one and the same.
The residents of the red-light district had organ
ized as a matter of survival. Even the police respected their tacit code of honor, restricting themselves to intervening in public fights, patrolling the streets from time to time, collecting their commissions, and keeping an ear to the ground through informers, more interested in political vigilance than anything else. Every Friday a sergeant appeared at La Señora’s apartment; he parked his car on the sidewalk where everyone could see it and know he was collecting his share of the earnings—no one should think for a minute that the authorities were ignorant of that madam’s business. His visit lasted no more than ten or fifteen minutes, enough time to smoke a cigarette, tell a couple of jokes, and leave happy, with a bottle of whisky under his arm and his percentage in his pocket. The arrangements were the same for everyone and were basically fair, allowing the officers to fatten their incomes and their victims to work in peace. I had been living at La Señora’s house for only a few months when a new sergeant was assigned, and overnight the good relations went down the drain. Business was threatened by the demands of the new officer, who had no respect for tradition. His ill-timed raids, threats, and blackmail put an end to the peace of mind so necessary for prosperity. The community tried to reach an agreement with him, but the man was so greedy it affected his judgment. His presence broke the delicate equilibrium of the Calle República and spread confusion everywhere. People gathered in bars to discuss the issue: It’s not possible anymore to live the way God intended us to. We must do something before this bastard wrecks everything. Moved by the chorus of laments, Melesio decided to intervene even though he was not directly affected; he offered to draft a letter to be signed by all concerned and to take it to the Chief of Police, with a copy for the Minister of the Interior, since both had been benefiting for years and therefore had a moral obligation to listen. All too soon it would be proved that not only was the plan ill-conceived, but putting it into practice was even worse. Nevertheless, within a few days they had gathered an impressive list of signatures—not an easy task since the details had to be explained to each individual—and La Señora went in person to deliver the petition. Twenty-four hours later, at dawn, an hour when everyone was sleeping, El Negro awakened La Señora with the news that they were searching the area house by house. The damned sergeant had brought a vanload of officers from the vice squad, which was notorious for slipping weapons and drugs into pockets to implicate the innocent. Breathless, El Negro recounted how they had burst into the cabaret like commandos and arrested all the artists and part of the audience—discreetly excluding elegant clientele. Among those arrested had been Melesio, surprised in his carnival costume of glitter and plumed tail and charged with pederasty and trafficking, two words unknown to me at that time. El Negro rushed off to spread the bad news to the rest of his friends, leaving La Señora in an acute state of nerves.
“Get dressed, Eva! Get going! Put everything in a suitcase. No! There isn’t time for that! We have to get out of here . . . Poor Melesio!”
She raced around the apartment half-naked, bumping into chrome chairs and mirrored tables as she threw on her clothes. Last, she picked up the shoe box filled with money and rushed to the service stairs, followed by me, still half-asleep and totally unaware of what was happening—although it was obvious it was something very serious. We ran down the stairs just as the police were pouring into the elevator downstairs. On the ground floor we were met by the concierge in her nightgown, a Galician woman with a motherly heart who in normal times used to trade us delicious potato-and-sausage omelets for bottles of cologne. When she saw our disarray and heard the shouting of the uniformed men and the sirens of patrol cars in the street, she understood that it was no moment to ask questions. She motioned us to follow and led us to the basement of the building; there an emergency door communicated with a nearby parking garage and we were able to escape without crossing Calle República, which was swarming with police. After that undignified flight, La Señora stopped, gasping for breath, and leaned against the wall of a hotel, nearly fainting. Then for the first time she seemed to see me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m escaping, too.”
“Go away! If they find you with me, they’ll accuse me of corrupting minors!”
“Where do you want me to go? I don’t have any place.”
“I don’t know, child. Look for Huberto Naranjo. I have to hide and then get help for Melesio. I can’t worry about you now.”
She disappeared down the street, and the last I saw of her were her hips in the flowered skirt, bobbling not with the old daring but, rather, with frank uncertainty. I hunched against a building as police cars howled and pimps, perverts, and prostitutes streamed past me. Someone told me to get away quick; the letter Melesio had written and everyone signed had fallen into the hands of the newspapers, and the scandal, which was costing the job of more than one Minister and several high-level police officers, would soon be taking its toll on us. They were searching every building, house, hotel, and bar in the district; they were arresting everyone in sight—even the blind man of the kiosk—and they had set off so many tear-gas bombs that several people had been poisoned and one baby had died because his mother was with a client and could not rescue him. For three days and nights, the only topic of conversation was the “War on the Underworld,” as the press labeled it. It was immediately branded the “Revolt of the Whores” by popular wit, however, and immortalized in the verses of poets.
I found myself without a centavo, as had so often happened in the past, and would happen again in the future. And Huberto Naranjo was no help; he was on the far side of the city when all the ruckus began. Shaken, I sank down between two columns of a building and gathered strength to combat the sense of abandonment I had felt on other occasions, and was beginning to experience now. I buried my face between my knees and summoned my mother; almost immediately I was aware of the scent of clean starched cotton. Then she was before me, long hair rolled in a bun at her neck, smoke-colored eyes shining in her freckled face, telling me that I was not to blame for all this pandemonium and there was no reason to be afraid: I should forget my fear and we would walk along together. I stood up and took her hand.
I could not find anyone I knew, and did not dare return to the Calle República; every time I went near it I saw parked patrol cars I supposed must be waiting for me. No one had heard anything of Elvira for a long time; and I rejected the idea of looking for my madrina, who by then was completely mad, interested only in playing the lottery, counting on the saints to give her the winning number on the telephone, but the celestial court was as mistaken in their predictions as any mortal.
* * *
The famous Revolt of the Whores threw everything into turmoil. At first the public applauded the energetic action of the government, and the Bishop issued a declaration supporting the hard line against vice. Public opinion was reversed, however, when in an issue entitled Sodom and Gomorrah a humor magazine edited by a group of artists and intellectuals published caricatures of important officials implicated in the corruption. Two of the drawings were perilously like the General and the Man of the Gardenia, whose participation in trafficking of all kinds was well known, although until that moment no one had dared suggest it in print. Security forces leveled the editorial offices, smashed the presses, burned paper stock, arrested any employees they could locate, and declared the publisher a fugitive from justice. The next day his body—with throat slit and bearing clear signs of torture—was found in a parked car in the center of the city. No one had a moment’s doubt about who was responsible for the death: the same persons responsible for the deaths of university students and the disappearance of countless others tossed into bottomless wells in the hope that by the time their bodies were found they would be mistaken for fossils. The affair of the magazine, however, was the last straw for a public that for years had endured the abuses of dictatorship, and within a few hours a massive demonstration was organized that was very different from the flash-in-the-pan ra
llies the opposition had mounted in vain protests against the government. The streets near the plaza of the Father of the Nation were flooded with thousands of students and workers waving flags, pasting up posters, and burning tires. It seemed that at last fear had given way to rebellion. In the midst of the tumult a small, bizarre column came marching down one of the side streets: the citizens of the Calle República, who had failed to recognize the extent of the public indignation and believed the protest to be in their defense. Greatly moved, several nymphs clambered onto an improvised platform to offer appreciation for the massive gesture of solidarity with the “forgotten of society,” as they called themselves. And it is only right that this is so, my fellow citizens, for how would mothers, sweethearts, and wives get a peaceful night’s sleep if we weren’t here to carry out our job? Where would their sons, sweethearts, and husbands let off steam if we did not fulfill our duty? The crowd roared its approval so enthusiastically that it almost seemed like Carnival. That mood did not last long because the General had ordered the Army into the streets. Tanks rumbled forward with the solemnity of pachyderms, but not very far: the colonial paving in the heart of the city caved in, and the people used those same cobblestones to resist authority. There were so many wounded and battered that a state of siege was declared and a curfew imposed. These measures merely increased the violence, which exploded across the city like summer fires. Students placed homemade bombs even in the pulpits of the churches; mobs tore down the metal shutters of Portuguese shopkeepers and looted their merchandise; a group of students captured a policeman and marched him naked down the Avenida Independencia. There was widespread destruction, as well as victims to mourn, but this stupendous brawl offered the public an occasion to shout until they were hoarse, to be unruly, and to feel free once again. There were scores of impromptu bands playing on empty gasoline drums, and conga lines snaking to the rhythms of Cuba and Jamaica. The riot lasted four days, but finally spirits were subdued, primarily because everyone was exhausted and no one could remember the exact cause for the uprising. The Minister responsible tendered his resignation and was replaced by someone I once knew. As I passed a kiosk, I saw his picture on the front page of a newspaper; I barely recognized him, because the image of that stern and frowning man with upraised hand did not correspond to the one of the man I had left sitting humiliated in a bishop’s plush chair.