That same day, the Gurza brothers contacted me, surrounded by their usual aura of marijuana smoke. They owned many animals, which they rented to the film studios at Churubusco. “The Tigress saw your photo in a magazine. She said you please her, and she wants to meet you.” I was terrified. They were referring to Irma Serrano, a famous Mexican pop singer. A millionaire whose strange beauty was due to extensive cosmetic surgery, she was rumored to be the mistress of the president of Mexico. It was also said that he had lost an eye when she broke a chair over his head in a fit of jealousy. Yet in spite of my fear, I decided to visit her that very evening at her theater. Perhaps this Tigress was what I was looking for: a ferocious female who could help me to take root in this land of Mexico, which so fascinated me.
5. The Slashes of the Tigress’s Claws
Her voice was grating and harsh, like the sound of the lid of a badly made coffin.
SILVER KANE, LA HIJA DEL ESPECTRO
(THE SPECTER'S DAUGHTER)
Behind the dilapidated post office, amid bars, billiard halls, huge fruit stores, and hideous apartment buildings, the Frou-Frou Theater’s doors were open like an absurd flower. At the end of a long corridor whose walls were covered with photos of the Tigress, there stood a coffinlike counter and a cagelike ticket office protected with iron bars. Gloria, the cousin of the star, was counting the receipts of the performance already underway. To my great surprise (we had never been introduced), she emerged from her cage and embraced me enthusiastically.
“I heard about the reception of your film in Acapulco. The audience wanted to lynch you. Bravo! The boss will be very happy to see you — she loves scandals.”
She ushered me into the theater. Proudly, she showed me the vast salon and bar decorated in “French” style with two dominant colors: crimson and gold. There were little angels, floral motifs, Louis XV armchairs, dwarf palms, satin drapes, frivolous posters — and standing right the middle of all this bric-a-brac, there was a larger-than-life statue representing the naked Tigress. It had an upright bust, stringy arms, and voluminous thighs on colossal legs. Such bad taste made me want to laugh, but all mirth died on my lips when Gloria pointed to a certain place on the floor and told me: “Under that spot three sheep lie buried. To ensure prosperity, my boss had them slaughtered in a satanic ritual. Ever since, we’ve had sold-out houses every night.”
Then she led me into the theater, and offered me a special seat. Most of the audience seemed to be working-class males. There was an odor of mingled sweat and church incense. “This is the last act of Nana,” she whispered. “A prostitute lives in luxury, kept by bankers and aristocrats, but everyone abandons her in the end when she catches smallpox. I’ll take you backstage when it’s over.”
In a sordid room, Nana was lying on a bed of burlap potato sacks stuffed with cotton. A dark veil covered her pockmarked face as she sang a song of farewell to life. Suddenly, a huge drunken man in the front row started yelling: “No clothes! No clothes!” I shrank in my seat. This sort of hoi polloi came here only for sexual excitement. In some of the city’s theaters, a rumba dancer would even challenge a spectator to copulate with her on stage “because you’re so macho.” Such men had not the slightest interest in scenes of dying singers covered from head to toe. At first the Tigress merely gave him a baleful look without halting her swan song, but now he was standing and leaning over the stage, shouting even louder and adding phrases such as, “Show your tits!” and “Show your ass!”
Suddenly, she leaped off the bed and walked off stage. She quickly returned with a large pistol, walked up to the big man, and pressed the barrel against the front of his head. “Now listen, you son of a whore of a mother who gave birth to you! I don’t come harassing you in the middle of your work. So don’t come here fucking around with us artists! You either shut your mouth or you’ll wake up in hell with a hole in the front of your head! You understand?” By now the drunk lowered his upper body face down upon the stage and began kissing her feet. He answered in a child’s voice, “Yes, my little mother.” A large ovation from the audience supported her. Then the Tigress resumed her place upon the bed — still holding the pistol — and finished her song. There was a religious silence at the end; the curtain had already begun to fall when thunderous applause broke out. I could feel fascination, desire, and fear in the air. The big drunk applauded louder than anyone.
Gloria came for me and had me sit behind the curtain on a corner of the stage. “The boss is freshening up. She’ll have to sign a few autographs, and then she’ll receive you. She wants to see you alone. Chucho will keep you company while you’re waiting.” Chucho had long false eyelashes, fluorescent red lipstick, and a plaster cast on his right wrist. Uncomfortable with his arch winks, I asked him about the cast.
“Oh! During the scene when the Tigress sings and dances, fondled by her admirers, I squeezed her leg too hard. It enraged her, and right there in front of everyone, she broke my wrist. Then — though you’ll find this hard to believe — she dragged me off stage by the hair of my head!”
My mouth was dry and I was feeling distinctly ill at ease. I noticed that the stagehands, seeing me talking with Chucho, were making obscene jokes about my manhood. Offended, I strode backstage and gave a sharp knock on the Tigress’s door. A husky, mocking voice answered, “Enter if you dare.”
It was as if I had entered the cage of a wild beast. A person never forgets even a glimpse of a woman like that. The carnivorous look in her large eyes showed no sign of any sort of pity. Her lush, black hair surrounded the face of a country girl transformed by skillful surgery into that of an Aztec princess. Her teeth had even been filed, though not pointed, in order to suggest knife blades. Two silicon-enhanced breasts strained at an almost transparent bodice. Her very large legs were resting upon the dressing table. With her back reclining against the wicker chair, she regarded me in the mirror. A carelessly painted beauty mark glistened between her eyebrows, a little off-center. I wondered if this error might be due to the length of her clawlike false nails. It was impossible to guess her age. The surgery made her look thirty, but she might have been more than forty. Her voice was impossible to describe. Every word she spoke floated upon a muffled growl. At any moment, her words could become daggers. I tried to gather my courage.
“I have very much wanted to meet you, Madame. I congratulate you for your performance!”
“If you want to have an affair with me, don’t ever lie to me, you bastard. When I perform, I’m aware of everyone in the audience. When I was crying, you had to keep from laughing. Of course, this isn’t your sort of avant-garde cinema. But anyway, I also wanted to meet you.”
She lowered her legs. Her fine-pointed high heels scraped the floor, making a wailing sound. “I’m tired of standing up. The surgical filling in my calves weighs four pounds, but the masses get hysterical when I expose them.”
From a closet filled with gaudy costumes, she took a bottle of mezcal. Its label showed a crow perched on a skull. “Now let’s see if you’re an hombre,” she said, filling two water glasses full of this corrosive liquid. “Bottoms up!”
I accepted the challenge and drained the whole glass without stopping. She did likewise and filled the glasses again: “Bottoms up!” And again, we drained our glasses.
“Steady on now, don’t fall by the wayside!” she said.