Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Creator of El Topo

“The Tigress has informed me that every two months, carrying a diplomatic passport, she travels to Switzerland in a Mexican military jet. She delivers a trunk full of gold, which the president has stolen from the public treasury, to be deposited in a Swiss bank.”

This caused such a stir that all the officials left their desks and went off to consult with their superiors. A deadly silence filled the building. Little by little, the journalists left. The Argentine was summoned to the telephone. He listened, nodding his head several times, and hung up. Looking toward me as if I were invisible, he left the building, followed by his associates and the two gorillas. The union officials finally returned with the verdict: Both rival theater troupes would perform the premiere of Lucretia on the same day at the same time with the same music, costumes, and sets. The public would decide which performance was the most deserving.

I understood what had happened. The Mexican people had long been whispering that their presidents stole the country’s money. A scandal involving the head of state could trigger a national crisis. I was certain the Tigress had received orders from very high up to put an end to this farce. As if by magic, the newspapers stopped attacking me and nothing more was heard about the affair.

An ambitious impresario signed a contract with us to open at the Teatro Lirico, a swank hall with more than a thousand seats. Because my actors were terrified by our enemy’s reputation as a witch, I asked a friend who was an expert in popular sorcery to “clean” the theater. He purified the orchestra pit and balcony with vast clouds of incense. Then he sprinkled holy water in the corridors, on the chairs, and in all the corners with a brush made of the fresh leaves of seven herbs. We were all relieved, but fear returned when we learned that in that same evening, my friend had to have emergency surgery to remove an enormous boil that had appeared on his anus.

I was lucky to find a very respected and talented actress for the role of Lucretia. She agreed on condition that she never be required to dress in tight clothing. We rehearsed at least ten hours a day and were ready with an impeccable show on opening night.

As for the Tigress, things went badly for her at first, because she hadn’t bothered to rehearse and wandered around the stage like a blind animal, listening to a prompter whose voice was so loud it could be heard all over the theater. But then, in defiance of censorship rules, she suddenly took off every stitch of clothing, sporting only a fluffed-up mass of pubic hair dyed green. This audacity brought her resounding success. Avid voyeurs flocked to the theater every night. My Lucretia Borgia ran for four months. Hers ran for two years.

When our run was over, I sent a telegram to the Tigress congratulating her on her success. She replied with another telegram inviting me to have a cup of coffee and pastry with her at the Frou-Frou.

The actors of both companies were bewildered by this, for they saw us as mortal enemies. For the occasion, I wore a white suit. The Tigress was “a bit late”—an hour and forty minutes, to be exact. She also appeared dressed entirely in white! We both burst out laughing, sensing that something miraculous was concealed in this apparent coincidence. We drank our coffee calmly and shared a tarte aux pommes . Public life was one thing, private life another. Now that the battle was over, we could communicate as simple human beings. A current of sympathy united us, like two old enemy soldiers reminiscing about the war.

“That was one glorious scandal!” she said. “Thanks to the war with you, I made a fortune. Please allow me to offer you a little gift.”

I knew I could not refuse, and I allowed her to put, on my left ring finger, a gold ring ornamented with a skull.

“Steel-tipped bullets will explode the head from eleven yards away, Chief.”

“Good. That way the corpse will be less heavy.”

SILVER KANE, TEMPORARY SHERIFF

When I got home, I struggled in vain to remove the ring. I felt that if I caressed my wife while wearing it, the golden skull would give off toxic vibrations. My hand was as cold as ice and my arm hurt.

At five o’clock in the morning, I jumped out of bed and drove very fast to the zendo. When I arrived, I found Ejo Takata meditating on the terrace under a dawn sky streaked with red clouds. I stood facing him, waiting for the incense stick to burn down. Finally, he seemed to notice my presence. His look went not to my face but directly to the gold ring. I made a helpless gesture. Smiling, he arose and removed the ring from my finger without the slightest effort. The pain in my arm vanished.

“If you see it as a skull, your arm will hurt, but if you are unattached either to its form or its name, it is simply pure gold. Clear your mind and this ring will be a ring — and you will be yourself.”

Hearing these words, which I only half understood, I began to complain. “I can’t help it, Ejo. I’m unable to adapt to this vulgar world. I thought I would find roots in Mexico, but I feel like a chicken in the wrong pen — and my consciousness only increases the pain.”

Ejo began to laugh so hilariously that it infected me, and I found myself laughing as well. Seeing that my distress had gone, he fetched the secret book and read a new koan: “A monk asked Master Sozan: *12‘Snow covers a thousand hills, but why is the highest peak not white?’ Sozan answered: ‘You must know the most absurd of absurdities.’ The monk asked: ‘What is the most absurd of absurdities?’ Sozan replied: ‘To be of a different color than the other hills!’”

“The first commentary is: ‘In the pine branches, the monkey looks green.’ The second commentary: ‘The disciple, shaking imaginary snowflakes from his head, says: My hair has begun to turn white.’”

No matter how I wracked my brain, it seemed impossible to decode the koan and its very different commentaries. Anxious, I kneeled before the master. “I can’t do it!”

With a roar of “Kwatsu!” that came from his belly, Ejo seized his stick and dealt me six blows on my shoulder blades.

“Change yourself into a hill!”

His voice was like a strong gust of wind blowing away my mental images. I saw myself as a hill covered with snow amid a thousand other hills covered with snow. The high, bare peak was only an illusion. Who is exempt from being covered with snow in a storm? Who can escape aging and death? How could I imagine that developing my talent would exempt me from the sufferings of life? In winter, we are cold. The pine tree is a plant, the monkey is an animal. They are different, surely, but the monkey takes on the tree’s green color in leaping from branch to branch. A different skin color, a different culture, a different level of consciousness — it was absurd to feel that any of this sheltered me from the assaults of our common reality. If the thousand hills are covered with snow, then the highest summit is also white.

The slashes of the Tigress’s claws had taught me an important lesson. When she first agreed to collaborate with me, I would have done better to put aside my director’s vanity and simply incorporate her into the performance without any attempt to change her style. Working together like two hills covered with snow, we could have achieved a fantastic Lucretia . She was an actress who never tried to be different from her audience, but I, feeling that I had a superior art to offer, separated myself from her spectators, whom I considered vulgar. In this way, I lost them. The infantry must fight its battles on known ground, not in the air.