Mona and Other Tales by Reinaldo Arenas

please (What woman isn’t!), but I have my ways, and in these matters I always have the last word—even if my companion is a great conversationalist. Yes, I think that by daybreak I had managed to satisfy her completely. She was resting peacefully by my side. Before turning off the light, I wanted to get my fill of that quiet serenity of hers. She had fallen asleep, but her eyes did not remain closed for long. Suddenly I saw them disappear. I screamed in order to wake myself up—I had to have been dreaming—and immediately I could see her eyes, looking at me intently. “I think I had a nightmare,” I told her in apology, and embracing her, I said good night. But afterward I was barely able to sleep at all.
    Before dawn, Elisa got up and, without making a sound, left the room. I stood behind the window curtains and watched her vanish in the glow of the morning mist, following a yellow path that disappeared among the trees. I decided to stay awake and wait for her, even though I tried to calm myself by thinking that it was natural for someone to get up before dawn and take a walk: a European custom, maybe. I remembered the Frenchwoman who took me to La Bodeguita del Medio: she used to get up at dawn, take a shower, and, still wet, throw herself into bed. . . . About an hour later, I heard Elisa push the door open—I pretended to be asleep. She seemed out of breath. She sat next to me at the edge of the bed and turned off the light. Protected by darkness, I opened my eyes slightly. Facing the early light, her back to me, was a beautiful naked woman who would, any minute now, snuggle into bed with me. Her bottom, her back, her shoulders, her neck, everything was perfect. Except that her perfect body had no head.
    Since in the face of the most outlandish circumstances we always search for logical explanations, I rationalized what I had seen as purely an effect produced by the heavy fog usual in that place. Anyway, my instinct told me it was better to keep silent and close my eyes. I felt Elisa sliding into bed next to me. Her hand, with unerring skill, caressed my genitals. “Are you alseep?” she asked. I opened my eyes as if waking up from a deep sleep and saw, next to me, her perfectly serene, smiling face. The color of her hair seemed to have grown even more intense. She kept caressing me, and even though I could not dismiss my misgivings, we embraced until we were totally fulfilled.
    I have already been imprisoned for three days, and I believe I don’t have three more days to live. So I must hurry. . . . This morning I was again shouting that I didn’t want to be left alone. By noon the prison psychiatrist was sent to see me. I let him know I was not interested and answered his questions curtly. Not only because I knew he would do nothing for me, since, unfortunately, I am not crazy, but also because his interview, his stupid questions, were a waste of time, a waste of the precious little time I have left and that I must use to finish this story, send it to a friend, and see if he can do anything. Though I doubt it, I must go on.
    We were back in New York City by nine-thirty in the morning, truly record time. Elisa had kept asking me to go very fast because, she claimed, she had to be at the Greek consulate at ten. At a red light on Fifth Avenue, she suddenly leaped off and began to run, saying that she would come to see me the next day at Wendy’s. And she did. She came around nine P.M. to tell me she would be waiting for me when I left work—that is, at three in the morning. This was our agreement. But with all I had seen, or thought I had seen, plus the attraction Elisa exerted on me (or should I call it love?), I concluded that, as a matter of life and death, I had to find out who this woman really was.
    On the pretext of sharp stomach pains, I left Wendy’s without bothering to take off my uniform, and cautiously began to follow Elisa rather closely. At Broadway and