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
Kiss of the Spider Woman (34 page)
Leni’s blood runs cold as she witnesses the projection, but even more, she feels anxious to have the lights back on, in order to dispel a mystery. In short, she wants to find out from Werner the identity of one of those two infamous physiognomies. Thus Leni refers to the two heads of the lethal organization, while Werner glows with excitement, inasmuch as he thinks that Leni has somehow recognized in one of the two faces the very same criminal that he himself had condemned to death, much to the consternation of his beloved. But no, Leni refers to the other one. Werner therefore becomes even more agitated; has Leni somehow succeeded in what the entire staff of Intelligence has come to think of as sheer impossibility? Because Jacob Levy is the most hounded anti-Nazi agent still at large. Leni however offers no clear-cut answer, only that she is sure of having seen that depraved face somewhere before, with its greasy bald head and its long pawnbroker’s beard. They run the film backwards and stop the projector wherever the image of that same master criminal appears. Leni makes a superhuman effort but is unable to ascertain where, how and when she has seen the monster. Finally they leave the projection room, deciding to walk for a few blocks down an avenue dotted with linden trees. Leni continues to be absorbed in the labyrinth of her recollection, certain to have come across this Jacob Levy once before, her only fear being that she might have seen, or better said, imagined him in some nightmare. Werner for his part remains silent, his intention in showing the film to Leni was only to demonstrate what a vile insect he had ordered to be executed, after managing to corner him in a small village near the Swiss border. But with a single gesture, Leni dispels any such cloud in the amorous heaven of Werner, for she has just now taken his rugged right palm with her soft white hands and holds it close to her woman’s heart. Everything is explained then, once and for all, how the death of one Hebraic Moloch has meant the salvation of millions of innocent souls. A light drizzle is coming down over the Imperial City. Leni asks Werner to shelter her with his embrace, tells him it is rest that she needs. When aided by the light of the coming day they will undertake to hunt down the other beast who still runs rampant. But at that instant no snarls are to be heard echoing from the jungles of the world, none at all, because they find themselves in a land chosen by the gods to house their golden mansion, there where the merchants have already lost a first battle against the morality of the Hero.
A sunny Sunday morning now, and Leni has asked Werner to spend this last weekend with her, before his return to Paris, so that they might dedicate some little time to visit the bewitching valleys of the Bavarian Alps. Those same enchanted mountains where the Leader has his vacation home, precisely where during his clandestine period a humble family of peasants had once given him shelter. The grass is green and fragrant, the sun mild, the breeze carries the refreshing coolness of perpetual snows which forever top the huge peaks like sentinels. On the grass a simple peasant tablecloth. On the tablecloth the frugal diet of a small picnic. But now Leni finds no limit to her curiosity, and asks Werner everything concerning the Leader. At the beginning his words sound difficult to fathom for the girl: “. . . the socioeconomic stalemate in the liberal-democratic states has led to problems which can in essence be solved more effectively, and to everybody’s satisfaction, by a form of authoritarian government rooted solidly in the people itself and not in abusive international elites . . .” and so she asks him to speak more plainly about the Leader’s own personality and, if appropriate, of his rise to power. Werner relates: “. . . the Marxist rags and Jewish gazettes were announcing only chaos and humiliations for the German people. From time to time they would also publish a false account of the arrest of Adolf Hitler. But this was not possible, inasmuch as no one could recognize him: he had never permitted himself to be photographed. He would crisscross our territory to attend countless secret meetings. At times I myself accompanied him, in precariously small aircraft. I remember all that so well, the motor roared and there we were taking off from the ground and into the night, even in the very midst of storms. But he would pay no attention to the lightning, and would speak to me all wrapped in his sorrow at the tragedy of a people routed by Marxist absurdities, by the poison of pacifism, by every sort of imported idea. . . . And how many times we traversed this our itinerary of yesterday by auto, and that we shall repeat again tonight, you and I . . . from the Alps to Berlin. All the roads were familiar to him, arteries along his route to the hearts of the people. We would halt no more than once, that was all, like you see here now . . . we would open up a tablecloth on the lawn, under trees, and partake of our frugal luncheon. A slice of bread, a hard-boiled egg and some fruit was all the Leader would have. In rainy weather we would just have a little pick-me-up right inside the car. And finally we would reach our destination, and at the meeting this very simple man would become a giant, and over rebel broadcasts the ether waves would transmit his hammers of persuasion. He risked his life once and again, because the roads ran red with the bloodthirsty Marxist mania . . .” A fascinated Leni listens, but wants to learn even more, as a woman, interested in the innermost secret of the Leader’s personal strength. Werner answers: “. . . the Leader manifests himself completely in every one of his words. He believes in himself and in everything he says. He is just what is so difficult to find these days: authenticity. And the people recognize the authentic and grasp it to themselves. The true Why, however, of the personality of the Leader . . . will forever remain a mystery, even for those of us most intimately connected with him. Only a belief in miracles can explain it. God has blessed this man, and faith can indeed move mountains, the faith of the Leader and faith in the Leader . . .”
Leni leans back in the clover and looks into Werner’s limpid blue eyes, eyes of a peacefully confident gaze, inasmuch as they are fixed upon Truth. Leni throws her arms around his neck and can only utter emotionally: “. . . now I understand how much you welcomed his message. You have captured the essence of National Socialism . . .”
There follow, for Leni, weeks of exhausting work in the Berlin studios. And after the last roll of the camera she rushes to the nearest telephone to call her beloved, now engulfed in his Paris assignment. He has a marvelous surprise in store for her, however: he has arranged for a brief furlough with her before their eventual reunion in Paris, and those days they can spend in some gorgeous corner of the nation which now acclaims her: the National Socialist Republic. But Leni has an even greater surprise in store for him: from that very day at the screening of the documentary she has not ceased for one instant to ponder the face of that criminal still at large, and day by day she grows more and more certain of having seen the beast in Paris. She wishes, therefore, to return without delay to that very city and begin their search.
Werner accepts—in spite of the fear it causes him—the entry of his Leni into an espionage cadre. But Leni gets off the train fully confident of her mission, even though the sight of her France causes her grief. In effect, accustomed already to the sun which shines upon the faces of the National Socialist Fatherland, Leni is now disgusted to see her France debased as it is by racial contamination. A France which looks to her undeniably negrified and Jewish.
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Chapter 5
After having classified the various theories on the physical origins of homosexuality into three groups, and having refuted them one by one, the above-mentioned English researcher D. J. West, in his work
Homosexuality
, suggests that the most popular non-scientific interpretations for the causes of homosexuality are also three in number. Before he goes on to list them, West again stresses the absence of perspective on the part of those theoreticians who would consider homosexual tendencies as unnatural, alleging—without proof of the fact—glandular or hereditary causes. Oddly enough, West considers to be somewhat more advanced—in comparison to the attitudes of those theoreticians—the view espoused by the Church with respect to the problem. The Church has catalogued the homosexual impulse as simply one among several “wicked” although natural urges which happen to scourge mankind.
On the other hand modern psychiatry concurs in reducing the causes of homosexuality to the realm of the psychological. In spite of this, however, as West points out, a number of theories still persist which, although devoid of scientific support, lend themselves to the popular imagination. The first of them might be called the theory of perversion, according to which the individual would tend to adopt homosexuality just as he would any one of a number of vices. But its fundamental error lies in the fact that such a miscreant deliberately adopts the form of deviant behavior which most appeals to him, whereas the homosexual cannot develop a normal sexual pattern of conduct even if he sets out to do so, since whenever he might actually perform heterosexual acts he will find himself hard put to eliminate his more profound homosexual drives.
The second popularization is the theory of seduction. In his study, “The Sexual Behavior of Young Criminals,” T. C. N. Gibbons investigates this matter, and he agrees with West and other researchers that while an individual might well have—consciously, for the first time—come to feel homoerotic impulses when stimulated by someone of the same sex who has set out to seduce him, the said seduction—which almost always occurs in adolescence—can simply explain the initiation into homosexual behavior; it cannot, on the other hand, justify the arrest in the individual’s flow of heterosexual urges. Thus, an isolated incident of that order cannot explain persistent homosexuality, which in the majority of cases is found to be exclusive, which is to say, incompatible with heterosexual acts.
The third theory alluded to is the one called segregation theory, according to which adolescents raised among males alone, without contact with women, or vice versa, women raised without contact with men, would tend to initiate sexual practices among themselves that might actually mark them forever. C. S. Lewis, in his study “Surprised by Joy,” asserts that some boarding-school pupils, for example, probably have their first sexual experiences among other males, but the frequency of homosexual practices in boarding schools has more to do with the imperative demands for sexual discharge than with any willful choice of sexual partner. West adds that simply the lack of psychological contact with the feminine sex, caused by the total segregation which boarding-school life occasions or by the mere spiritual segregation within certain family structures, can in fact become a much more serious determinant of homosexuality than any incidence of sexual play among boarding-school pupils.
Psychoanalysis, whose principal characteristic is a probing of the mind in order to awaken infantile recollection, precisely maintains that sexual peculiarities have their origin in infancy. In
The Interpretation of Dreams
, Freud postulates that sexual and amorous conflicts are at the center of all personal neuroses: once nourishment and bodily protection—food and shelter—have been accounted for, man has to deal with the urgency of his sexual and emotional needs. This combined urge has been termed
libido
, and its presence would be felt from infancy. Freud and his followers maintain that manifestations of the libido are quite varied, but that the rules established by society impose a constant vigilance on such manifestations, above all in order to preserve the basic unit of social conglomeration: the family. Therefore, the two most inappropriate manifestations of the libido would have to be the incestuous and the homosexual drive.
The Interpretation of Dreams
, Freud postulates that sexual and amorous conflicts are at the center of all personal neuroses: once nourishment and bodily protection—food and shelter—have been accounted for, man has to deal with the urgency of his sexual and emotional needs. This combined urge has been termed
libido
, and its presence would be felt from infancy. Freud and his followers maintain that manifestations of the libido are quite varied, but that the rules established by society impose a constant vigilance on such manifestations, above all in order to preserve the basic unit of social conglomeration: the family. Therefore, the two most inappropriate manifestations of the libido would have to be the incestuous and the homosexual drive.
Chapter 6
Anna Freud, in
The Psychoanalysis of the Child
, indicates as the most generalized form of neurosis that of the individual who, in trying to gain complete control of his prohibited sexual desires, and in trying even to eliminate them—instead of classifying them as socially inconvenient, but nevertheless natural enough—represses himself too far and becomes incapable of enjoying uninhibited relations under any circumstances. Thus an individual may lose control of his auto-repressive faculties and reach such extremes as impotence, frigidity, or obsessive guilt feelings. Psychoanalysis also indicates the following paradox: it is generally the precocious development of the intelligence and sensitivity of the child which can actually induce too strong a repressive activity in the same. It is a proven fact that the child possesses a libido from the very onset of life, and it is equally clear that he manifests it without the discrimination of an adult. He becomes fond of any person who may take care of him and takes pleasure in games with his own body and with the body of any other persons. But in our own culture—Anna Freud adds—these manifestations are promptly chastised, and the child acquires a sense of shame. From his first conscious acts until puberty sets in, the child passes through a period of latency.
In
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
, Sigmund Freud asserts that the incestuous fantasy of expelling the rival progenitor—which is to say the father for the boy, and the mother for the girl—and substituting oneself for the same is a recurrent fantasy among children, but such ideas tend to arouse intense feelings of guilt and fear of punishment. The consequence is that the boy or the girl suffers so greatly from the conflict that by means of a very painful but unconscious effort they manage to repress it, or to disguise it in the eyes of their consciousness. The conflict is resolved during adolescence, when the adolescent manages to transfer the emotional burden of the respective progenitor onto a boy or a girl of an appropriate age. But those who have developed a very close relationship with the progenitor of the opposite sex—and the correspondingly unavoidable feelings of guilt—will find themselves in danger of continuing with those sensations of discomfort for the rest of their lives in the face of any sexual experience, inasmuch as unconsciously they will associate it with those guilty incestuous desires from back in infancy. The outcome, once the neurosis takes hold, is not always the same: for a man it opens up the possibilities of impotence, or of exclusively depending upon prostitutes—women who in some way fail to represent the mother—or even more likely, the possibility of only being able to respond sexually to other men. For women the outcome of the unresolved conflict is primarily frigidity or lesbianism.
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
, Sigmund Freud asserts that the incestuous fantasy of expelling the rival progenitor—which is to say the father for the boy, and the mother for the girl—and substituting oneself for the same is a recurrent fantasy among children, but such ideas tend to arouse intense feelings of guilt and fear of punishment. The consequence is that the boy or the girl suffers so greatly from the conflict that by means of a very painful but unconscious effort they manage to repress it, or to disguise it in the eyes of their consciousness. The conflict is resolved during adolescence, when the adolescent manages to transfer the emotional burden of the respective progenitor onto a boy or a girl of an appropriate age. But those who have developed a very close relationship with the progenitor of the opposite sex—and the correspondingly unavoidable feelings of guilt—will find themselves in danger of continuing with those sensations of discomfort for the rest of their lives in the face of any sexual experience, inasmuch as unconsciously they will associate it with those guilty incestuous desires from back in infancy. The outcome, once the neurosis takes hold, is not always the same: for a man it opens up the possibilities of impotence, or of exclusively depending upon prostitutes—women who in some way fail to represent the mother—or even more likely, the possibility of only being able to respond sexually to other men. For women the outcome of the unresolved conflict is primarily frigidity or lesbianism.
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