Excerpt:

The Eslava Theatre

I maintain that an explanation is possible; of that, I am more than certain. I shall be brief with my tale—intense, and as implausible as that sinister day itself. Let me begin by stating that no one (and this I believe firmly), absolutely no one, can subvert the physical laws of Nature. (You will soon understand.)

That settled, I shall recount what befell me at the renowned Eslava Theatre. I suspect you have inferred my reasons for being there (any Madrilenian of standing knows them). Come now, I no longer feel shame in admitting it, damn it: I am a lover of literature and erotic cinema.

Let us proceed by parts. Despite your lewd thoughts (from here, I can see your dark and sullied hearts), I am no depraved soul. Nor do I hold as bastions of hedonism the Marquis de Sade, Aristophanes, or Sotades (all of whom paid for their satirical and pornographic verses with imprisonment), nor even Paul Verhoeven, who found fame with Basic Instinct—a pornographic film for grandmothers.

I believe you surmise correctly. Man, it is evident from afar that I am a man of progressive tastes. And yes, I am a devoted follower of Guillaume Apollinaire. I still recall the warm night I first read him. I discovered a man who not only wrote like no other, but whose every word was a fountain of sensuality, revelation, and wisdom. From them, I emerged transformed into a great political scientist.

My devotion transcended mere cult-following; I began to regard him as the Grand Master, the Classic of Classics—on par with Tolstoy, Verne, and Asimov—a true genius of general literature, not merely the erotic. He possessed the IQ of Einstein; he could pass for a Louvre thief alongside Picasso; but above all—distancing himself entirely from Dalí, that Great Masturbator—he lived as an intellectual revolutionary soldier, the Great Dialectician. He denounced unto death the spheres of wealthy, lewd men who, in his time, oppressed millions of wretched souls devouring themselves. As the bearded Marx used to say, these depraved millionaires imposed their blatant prostitution and fraud as something natural, enriching themselves not through their own labor, but by the plundering of wealth already created by others.

Alas, Apollinaire died of the Spanish flu, lonely and abandoned, yet with honor.

I have strayed from the main thread of my narrative.

Let me make another brief pause for context. As a frequent visitor to the theatre, the usher and I had become good friends. One day, he told me the tale of a murder on the theatre’s stage. Smiling, I asked for details, which he refused.

“My friend,” he said, “do not be so anxious.”

I did not understand his meaning then, but such was my persistence that, over time, he finally confessed. The murder, he told me, occurred on March 2nd, 1923. Two friends. One, a man of reputation, a right-wing Republican and staunch Catholic, also a genius of aggressive, passionate letters: Luis Antón del Olmet of Bilbao. And his friend and colleague, Alfonso Vidal y Planas, a man who sympathized with leftist ideals, likewise a literary luminary.

In short, Vidal y Planas had murdered Antón del Olmet, a crime regarded as a duel of colossi from Spain’s Silver Age. The motive? It was never known. Some entertained the simple notion of envy. Others theorized ideological strife. However, the most sensible argued that the affair traced the geometry of a love triangle.

Though an interesting tale, it disappointed me. It seemed dreadfully dull. And so, I forgot it—until that night.

I recall feeling restless as I walked with feigned nonchalance toward the Eslava Theatre. The entire festive season annoyed me: the poses of the high-born in their plush coats, the scent of the fruit stalls, the forced smiles of passersby, and the din of the traffic. Since I was bound for the theatre, I compelled myself to think of the director Tinto Brass and his timeless work, Paprika. In this piece, a beautiful country girl is forced by the capitalist system to leave her homeland and migrate to the city to avoid starvation (instigated also by her suitor). There, by the logic of her upbringing, she falls into the clutches of a Madame who sells her body in the brothels. The girl accepts her degradation, convincing herself—as a form of mental escape—that the sacrifice will be worth it; she will earn easy money and soon accumulate enough to start an honest business with her (villainous) boyfriend. A fantasy dreamed by billions.

I arrived at the theatre and, as was my custom, hid in my favorite corner. In truth, we were few—perhaps no more than twenty souls. I began to focus on the film. But something was amiss, and I could feel my anxiety mounting.

Suddenly, I heard a sound in the adjoining seat. When I turned my gaze, there was nothing; then another noise; then smiles, laughter, a murmuring crowd. And just as a man was rebuking Paprika (played by Debora Caprioglio), saying to her, “Show me your hands; the hands are the mirror of the vagina”—unearthing, to a fine ear, the great mystery of true love—it was then that I saw it. And I was not alone!

“Damn it!” shouted a neighbor a few seats down. “What is this? Some kind of hyper-immersive virtual reality?”

Before our very eyes, the décor of the theatre shifted; that decadent fin-de-siècle atmosphere was transformed into a splendid set from the 1920s.

The screen became a curtain. We watched as some thirty people rehearsed a play, The Soulless Captain. Presently, a lovely actress let out a cry of anger. “Ha! Careful, you wretch!” A rather handsome man brushed her aside brusquely, drawing a pistol which he aimed at the chest of a young man in a Homburg hat and Oxford shoes. It was Vidal y Planas confronting Antón del Olmet:

“What you did to me last night, I am not prepared to tolerate again…”

The gunshot resonated throughout the hall. It was amplified when the actress finally realized what was happening and let out another shriek—this time of horror—so bone-chilling and acute that it moved the very space around us, as if struck by an invisible wave. The male actors, in a state of shock, seemed unable to move a finger.

“If you insist, I shall have to kill you wherever I find you, even before your wife.”

Antón did not let himself be intimidated and snapped with the gravity of the era:

“Scoundrel!”

And then—another shot! Raw and furious. Naturally, those of us in the balcony also screamed in horror. It looked so real. We rose, ready to flee, when the fixed, theatrical, and accusing gaze of Vidal y Planas landed upon us, stopping us dead in our tracks. We remained frozen, expecting to suffer one of his bursts of fury. Vidal y Planas seemed gripped by great nervous excitement, while Antón lay stretched upon a divan. Without doubt, the most terrifying part of the scene occurred when Antón, barely able to articulate a word and gravely wounded, cried out:

“Kill me! Kill me! I am burning! I cannot endure this fire! I am suffocating! I need air!”

We huddled together in the middle of the aisle, shivering with fear, deeply distressed by the death of Olmet, who was dying unjustly. It was then that we began to shout in chorus:

“Help! Help! Please, open the theatre doors!”

A ray of light dissipated that phantasmal scenery, and the usher entered the hall, breaking into great peals of laughter. A damp stain was running down my trousers.

Trembling, we pornographers embraced one another and wept over what had transpired. For many, that wrath and zeal embodied by the protagonists on stage revealed a profound parallelism with modern life—a psychological transfer of suffering that bent a spirit martyred by the demands of society, falling upon the souls of the actors, just as it does with modern artists today, driven by the need to hedonistically satisfy our darkest desires. It was diabolical and loathsome. At least, that is how we felt. Many renounced …

…"

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