Free Mona and Other Tales by Reinaldo Arenas Page A

motorcycle and dashed away at full speed. “Leonardo! Leonardo! Leonardo!” I think I kept saying, still in a panic, all the way back to New York, as if repeating the name might serve as an incantation to appease that lecherous old man still writhing at the edge of the swamp he himself had painted.
    I was sure that Leonardo, Elisa, or “that thing” was not dead.
    Even more, I think I’d managed to do no harm at all to it. And if I did, would a single stab be enough to destroy all the horror that had managed to prevail for over five hundred years and included not only Elisa but the swamp, the sandy road, the rocks, the town, and even the ghostly mist that covered it all?
    That night I slept in the home of my friend the Cuban writer Daniel Sakuntala. 9 I told him I had problems with a woman and did not want to sleep with her in my apartment. Without giving him any more details, I presented him with the dagger, which he was able to appreciate as the precious jewel it was. Would it solve any problem, I wondered, if I told him of my predicament? Would he believe me? 10 Right now, only two days away from my imminent demise, when there is no way out for me, I am telling my story mainly as an act of pure desperation and as my last hope, because nothing else is left for me to do. At least for now, I realize how very difficult it is for anyone to believe all this. Anyway, before the little time I have left runs out, let me continue.
    Of course I did not, even remotely, consider going back to my room, terrified as I was by the possibility of finding Elisa there. I was sure of only one thing: she was looking for me, and still is, in order to kill me. This is what my own instinct, my experience of fear and persecution, are telling me (and don’t forget I lived twenty years in Cuba).
    For three days I roamed the streets without knowing what to do and, naturally, without being able to sleep. On Wednesday night I showed up again at Daniel’s. I was shaking, not only out of fear but because I was running a fever. Maybe I had caught the flu, or something worse, during the time I was out on the streets.
    Daniel behaved like a real friend, perhaps the only one I had and, I believe, still have. He prepared something for me to eat and hot tea, made me take two aspirins, and even gave me some syrupy potion. 11 Finally, after so many nights of insomnia, I fell asleep. I dreamed, of course, of Elisa. Her cold eyes were looking at me from a corner of the room. Suddenly that corner became the strange landscape with the promontories of greenish rocks around a swamp. By the swamp, Elisa was waiting for me. Her eyes were fixed on mine, her hands elegantly entwined below her chest. She kept looking at me with detached perversity, and her look was a command to get closer and embrace her right at the edge of the swamp. . . . I dragged myself there. She placed her hands on my head and pulled me down close to her. As I possessed her, I sensed that I was penetrating not even an old man but a mound of mud. The enormous and pestiferous mass slowly engulfed me while it kept expanding, splattering heavily and becoming more foul-smelling. I screamed as this viscous thing swallowed me, but my screams only produced a dull gurgling sound. I felt my skin and my bones being sucked away by the mass of mud, and once inside it, I became mud, finally sinking into the swamp.
    My own screams woke me up so suddenly that I still had time to see Daniel sucking my member. He pretended it wasn’t so and withdrew to the opposite side of the bed, making believe he was asleep, but I understood I could not stay there either. I got up, made some coffee, thanked Daniel for his hospitality and allowing me to sleep in his apartment, borrowed twenty dollars from him, and left. 12
    It was Thursday. I had decided to leave New York before Monday. But with only twenty dollars, where could I go? I saw several acquaintances (Reinaldo García Remos, among them)