by Alejo Carpentier
Translated by Charles Dietrick and Suzanne Jill Levine
Excerpted from Fiction Volume 6, Number 3 (1981).
Possible portrait of the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), 1723.
THE WARDER NUN peered out distrustfully through the grate, pleasure transforming her face when she saw the Red-Head’s countenance: “Oh! Heavenly surprise, Maestro!” The door hinges creaked and the five men entered the Ospedale della Pietà, in complete darkness, the distant sounds of Carnival echoing in its long corridors from time to time as if carried on a frolicking breeze. “Heavenly surprise!” repeated the nun as she lit the lamps along the large music hall which was both monastic and worldly with its marble objects, moldings, and garlands, its many chairs, curtains, and gilt trimmings, its carpets and paintings of biblical themes: it was something like a theater without a stage or a church of few altars, both showy and secretive. They made their way to the rear, where a dome was hollowed out of darkness, candles and lamps stretching the reflections of high organ pipes accompanied by the shorter pipes of the voix celeste. And Montezuma and Filomeno were asking each other why they had come to such a place instead of seeking out wine, women, and song just as two, five, ten, twenty bright figures began emerging from the shadows on the right and on the left, surrounding friar Antonio’s habit with their lively white cambric blouses, dressing gowns, pearl earrings, and lacy nightcaps. And others arrived and still more, sleepy and sluggish as they entered, but soon playful and merry, whirling about the night visitors, testing the weight of Montezuma’s necklaces…
The full story can be found in Fiction Volume 6, Number 3. Please follow the subscribe link for information on ordering.
REINALDO ARENAS, born in Cuba in 1943, left there during the 1980 exodus. He has written three novels of a projected five-novel cycle, Hallucinations (El mundo alucinante), which has been published in English, Celestino antes el alba (Celestino Before Dawn), and El palacio de las blanquísimas mofetas (The Palace of Pure White Skunks). He now lives in New York City.