Just as predicted by this clever scheme, the entire Mexican press, from the most abject rags to the most “serious” journals, announced the event in headlines. On that day alone, tickets sold out for the next three months of performances.
Events were now happening rapidly. In two hours of concentrated work, I managed to concoct a medley of situations that could have come from the lowest-grade novels and films, added some songs, and finally arrived at an erotico-musical tragedy that the Tigress demanded to sign as coauthor. I brought together a troupe of respectable actors, found a high-quality stage designer, a very talented musician, an excellent choreographer, and a very fashionable Argentine singer for the important role of Julius Caesar. In ten days, rehearsing twelve hours a day, I fixed the style of the actors’ interpretations, the décor, the dances, costumes, and musical accompaniments. And I accomplished all of this without the presence of our Lucretia, whom we had decided would prepare her songs separately. When she finally was to appear in rehearsal, we were waiting with great enthusiasm and impatience, eager to see the creation of the complex character of the poisoner. I was confident that, with intense work, I would be able to present her to the public transformed into a great actress. Rehearsal time was set for nine in the morning, but the Tigress did not show up. Five hours passed. We left to eat some cheese crepes. When we returned, she was still not there. At six o’clock the stagehands evicted us, because they had to set up for the 7:30 performance of Nana. Worried, I asked Gloria if her cousin was sick. She only shrugged, dashing my hopes.
“That’s the way my boss is. She doesn’t like rehearsals. She’s very tired when she finishes performing. She sleeps late and then has to deal with the press, her makeup, and so forth, and the day just goes by.”
“But what are we going to do if she doesn’t rehearse?”
“Trust her! On opening night, right in the middle of your strict scene, she’ll improvise everything. And don’t worry about her memorizing the text; she has these little electronic devices to wear in her ears, and a prompter will be whispering her lines to her.”
I paled. I was about to protest, but Gloria changed the subject.
“How is your wife doing? Are the rehearsals going well for her? No problems?”
“None. She is a responsible individual. Her sorceress will be a true creation.”
“I must warn you to beware. In my boss’s mind, though these press stories are of course instigated by her, what the media say is more real than the truth. This morning, she sent me to a pet store to buy a black cat, and she also had me buy silk ribbons and beeswax. I’m sure she’s preparing a curse to separate couples. With the beeswax she’ll make two dolls, a man and a woman. After painting them with her menstrual blood, she’ll pin photos of you and Valerie on the head of each doll. Then she’ll fasten them to two boards with black, white, and red ribbons woven together, and throw the boards in two gutters, very far away from each other. . I repeat: Beware! Don’t drink anything she offers you. She’s planning to sacrifice the cat, and she’ll try to get you to drink a bit of its blood, which could be mixed with anything. Also, she’ll keep the severed head of the cat in her refrigerator, and in its mouth will be the names of you and Valerie, written on a bow of ribbons stolen from a cemetery. The head will remain in the refrigerator until the day you separate.”
In spite of my awareness that the cousin could be lying about this, I felt a shudder through my entire body. I remembered a koan from the secret book that I hadn’t understood until then: “While Master Rinzai was going toward the great hall to give a speech, a monk interrupted him: ‘What if they threaten us with a sword?’ Rinzai muttered: ‘Disaster! Disaster!’ and added the commentary: ‘When waves rise up like mountains and fish become dragons, it is stupid to use a bucket to try to empty the ocean.’”
Rinzai was about to speak to his disciples — in other words, to use intellectual means to communicate knowledge to them. The monk was saying that beautiful ideas are useless in the face of an enemy who can kill us. Yet Rinzai’s repetition of the word disaster did not refer to the impotence of the intellect when we have a sword at our throat. Nor was he saying that to be threatened with death is simply a catastrophe, in spite of all edifying teachings. The two disasters refer instead to the notion that the monk held of himself and of his master. When teachings are reduced to mere explanations, it is a disaster, because the monk is identified with his own intellect. When we identify ourselves with a system of ideas, with who we think we are, then we are paralyzed with the fear of losing ourselves in the face of death. But Rinzai has realized his awakening and surrendered to the simple happiness of being. He has ceased to identify himself with his own image and dwells in inner silence. He is not identified with his teachings, for they are not himself; they are only efforts to describe impersonally the way to peace.
Takata said of this koan: “Some come, others go. I am a stone on the road. Rinzai tells the monk: ‘You see yourself and me as two minds. Disaster and disaster. That is why you think a sword could upset us. A murderer might be able to cut off my head without blinking an eye, but I can also let my head be cut off without blinking an eye.’ Even when the waves and sea creatures attack you (for reality does not behave according to your expectations), your inner silence is unperturbed. To measure life with your intellect is as stupid as trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. Zen is the same, whether in the peace of a monastery or in the midst of combat. The disaster is not in the attack. Let go of the separate self and give yourself to the combat with joy, as if it were a dance with yourself.”
I brought the members of the troupe together and calmly informed them of the problem. I proposed that we walk out on the Tigress and find another theater where we could stage an honest performance with a genuine actress. With the exception of the Argentine singer, everyone agreed that it was degrading for us to serve the vanity of a capricious diva, and they decided to follow me.
The newspapers were chock-full of headlines announcing the end of the romance. Finally, someone had dared to defy the Tigress. . and her response was not long in coming. It was a low blow, something I had not expected at all. In several tabloids headlines appeared that said such things as “Avant-garde Artist Swindles the Tigress!” Others said I was in hiding, sought by the police. The diva herself was quoted as saying I had stolen a large sum of her money. In their legal consequences, these lies were harmless, but they certainly succeeded in tarnishing my image. I could have denied the libel strenuously, but in Mexico it seemed useless, because of the power of the proverb, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” So now I was a crook.
This insult created a breach in my intellect, like a koan. My feeling of shame became a good lesson. Until this point, my disputes with the Tigress had been a kind of game, a sort of artistic bargaining. By accusing her of laziness, it’s true that I was making fun of her, but with a sane humor and one that was based on truth. She had responded with the arms at her disposaclass="underline" newspaper scandals and clever lies. I had discredited her artistically, but she had demolished me socially. I recalled her words spoken with great conviction during the night of our mezcal drunken session: “A small, weak boxer is in the ring with a big, strong adversary. The big guy starts to beat up the little guy. Now that little guy is me. When the big guy rushes at me for the KO, I pull a pistol out of one of my gloves and shoot him. Never fight an even battle!”