Giannina Braschi - Empire of Dreams

I was trudging along after filming part of Profane Comedy —said the Narrator — when suddenly I saw The Intimate Diary of Solitude was already playing at the Arts Cinema. I bought my ticket. The usher handed me the stub. I bought some popcorn and sat down to watch The Adventures of Mariquita Samper . I looked around the Arts Cinema. It was spacious and comfortable with four escape doors: Exit One. Exit Two. Exit Three. Exit Four. Though each door walked a character from The Intimate Diary of Solitude. A total of four characters took up the front row. And although there were only four, or five, or six characters, they multiplied, doubling and tripling as the scenes progressed. I ate a piece of popcorn. Fell fast asleep. And didn’t wake up until the lights came on. And then I immediately began to write the first scene of The Intimate Diary of Solitude, entitled The Adventures of Mariquita Samper.

Epigraph: “A closed mouth catches no flies.”

My name is Mariquita Samper. I work at Macy’s. My job is to make up people who don’t like to make themselves up. I’m an artist. I’m the makeup artist of the characters of this fiction that separates fantasy from reality. And I’m shocked by the things that happen. A lady asked me to paint her dog’s nails. Lady, I said, I’m Mariquita Samper, Macy’s makeup artist. Not a canine pedicurist. Wuff! Wuff! — barked the dog. And I was so sorry. Then a guy with a perfume tray passed by, and a perfume that reeked like “a barking doesn’t bite” pervaded the store. I caught a whiff of sirens. Saw toys tooting. And a whole pack of police dogs came charging at us. Yes, it’s Macy’s, the World’s Largest Store! Yes, it’s New York. I ran for my life as soon as I heard the threatening sound of the pack of police dogs. Perfume and makeup went up in flames. Not so reality and fantasy. I took a cab to Caffé degli Artisti. And headed straight for the ladies’ room. Took off my high heels and false lashes. Wiped off some makeup. Left some rouge on. Dried my lips. And ordered a campari and soda. That’s when my friend, the French professor, arrived. I was a bundle of nerves. I kept gazing into his eyes. A professor and a Macy’s makeup artist. I forgot to mention that my name is Giannina Braschi. And that I agreed to play Mariquita — said Giannina Braschi — for commercial gain. And she flashed Mariquita’s gold tooth as she laughed. I’ve written books while making women up. I write on their faces. I illuminate their shadows and discover their craters and even their volcanoes that suddenly erupt. I write wrinkles on the faces of October and on the memories of November. Oh, Uri, Uri — for that was the French professor’s name. Uriberto Eisensweig speaks with a French accent. It’s not really an accent. It’s a speech impediment called sticky tongue . Uriberto pronounces his r’s like h’s. His little catch is like Mariquita’s red freckles. Like her red-dyed hair. Like her gold tooth. Uriberto is bearded and hairy like a monkey. I write these black pages on his black beard. I smiled at him. He smiled at me. And we left the café with the campari and soda in hand, as Bengal lights glared all over the menu and the makeup of the open book that is being written. Uri showed me a line. An oblique line at the back of the café. And it suddenly turned into the Narrator who was sitting to our left. No, please, not this nightmare, not again. If I haven’t arranged the date in The Intimate Diary of Solitude . If Uri is not yet Uri, and Giannina is not yet Giannina. Suddenly everything fades. Everything escapes. Everything turns to solitude. Solitude is a well full of water. Here in this well — as I open my front door. Oh, Uri, Uri. Longing for Uri. A void. Enormous. Smooth. Smooth. Like a piece of clothing. In a building where clothing is bought and makeup is sold, a TV screen appears. The Narrator is screening Mariquita Samper. Suddenly there is no way to measure the distance between the Narrator screening Mariquita on TV and me climbing the stairs to my apartment. The doorman opens the car door. Mariquita steps out of the car. The doorman carries her packages. Mariquita smiles suggestively. Lifts her skirt a bit. And leans toward the TV. The Narrator tries to penetrate the intimacy of her heart. But there are so many doors that open and close. There are so many TV sets that turn on and off. And there is a white dove that escapes from Mariquita Samper’s heart and turns into a handkerchief when she stares at it. Her eyes glaze over as she follows the flying handkerchief. She opens her purse. Looks for something inside. Can’t remember what it was she was looking for. On her way to the station, looking for a nickel, she finds her train ticket. On the train that takes her around the circumference of her solitude, she stares at a landscape of water. She looks out the window that delimits the borders of her solitude and sees the handkerchief’s wings waving: goodbye-goodbye. Then Mariquita looks away from the window and looks at the open pages of The Intimate Diary of Solitude . I really like this phrase — she says. And she underlines it as I underline the same phrase that Mariquita Samper underlined while reading the adventures of her own solitude. She opens her purse, takes out a compact, and powders her face. She dabs some rouge on her cheeks and paints her lips. It’s been exactly one hour since she repeated everything that she read in the book. The train pulls into that station where I can still distinguish the day she fell in love with me from the day I left her. But it’s already midnight, and I’m still watching The Adventures of Mariquita Samper on TV. Suddenly, I’m back in the theater buying popcorn. Suddenly, the white dove flies out of the TV movie screen and sits on my hands. Suddenly, the dove widens the distance again, and Mariquita is back on the screen feeding the dove my popcorn. Mariquita gets off the train. Runs to 6 thAvenue and 34 thStreet. Goes up to her apartment. Looks for another nickel. Takes the elevator. Goes down to the street to mail a letter to the Narrator. Takes the subway to 3 rdAvenue on page 15 and stops to think in the heat of her solitude. She powders her forehead again, and her face glows like a ball of fire. She hears the sirens of fire trucks drowning out the sound of a transistor radio. The Narrator turns up the volume of The Adventures of Mariquita Samper . He feels his hand picking up speed with every word he writes. And the rhythm of life and writing accelerates. The car driving Mariquita down the highway can hardly stop like the Narrator writing this diary. The world is a great grammatical system . Mariquita re-underlines this phrase that reminds her of the white dove flying away. Goodbye-goodbye — she repeats. And some red Bengal lights interrupt the rhythm of her blood. She opens her purse, and there at the bottom is a phrase she forgot to underline. This crossword puzzle of things blinds me and erases distance . Then the Narrator wrote that Mariquita was about to go to bed. And as soon as he wrote it, Mariquita began to nod off. And she took a cab home. The doorman took her packages. Mariquita went up to her apartment. The Narrator turned off the radio, and Mariquita’s image slowly faded from the TV screen. But the Narrator left Mariquita’s picture on the screen of his solitude. He thought that his script should be written in her diary. And that the diary was slowly repeating what was already part of the solitude of Mariquita’s heart. He turned off the light. And she went to sleep in order to maintain the distance that she covered between the contents of her dreams and the intimacy of her solitude. But, before going to bed, he set the alarm clock of life to awaken Mariquita’s solitude from a deep sleep. He rested his head on her diary’s pillow of solitude. He got up an hour later, half-asleep, and watched The Adventures of Mariquita Samper again. I am not through yet. Don’t limit my existence — Mariquita told the Narrator. She got out of bed and began to sing. All I need is love. Love. Love. And she drifted back to sleep. She got up an hour later and sang it again. And quit her solitude for good. She read the intimate diary of her solitude again. All I need is love. Love. Love. And she continued arguing with the printed words of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. A party. A disco — she said. And on saying, “All I need is love,” she started dancing, flooding the words with music and joy. The blaring disco that Mariquita had just discovered in her heart woke up the Narrator. Mariquita yelled to him, “All I need is love. Love. Love.” And she continued correcting every page of The Intimate Diary of Solitude. She drew a heart on one of them. And a star on another. She laughed at the distance that her hand crossed at the bottom of her coat pocket. She revved up her diary’s roaring engine. She laughed at the TV screen where the Narrator had tried to limit her existence to a parenthesis between one phrase and another. In addition, she had erased the line that she had underlined and replaced it with: All I need is love. Love. Love. When the Narrator reviewed the pages of his diary, he found that Mariquita had limited his existence. And had replaced him with a revolution of mad rhythms. Rhythms of love. Love — Mariquita called it. Love. She had let her hair down. She had smeared black ink all over her diary. She had, at length, fallen in love. Or in the words of solitude, she had written the first fragment of The Intimate Diary of Solitude .