Flash Frame

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The sound is yellow.

∇

It was when you could still make a living freelancing in Mexico City. Nowadays, it’s wire-services and regurgitated shit, but in 1982 rags still needed original content. I did a couple of funky articles, the latest about the cheapest whore in the city for Enigma!, a mixed-bag of crime stories, tits and freakish news items. It paid well and on time.

I also did articles for an arts and culture magazine which, I was hoping, would turn into a permanent position. But when it came time to gather rent money, Enigma! was first on my mind.

The trouble was that there was a new assistant editor at Enigma! and he didn’t like the old crop of stringers. To get past him, I had to pitch harder. I needed better stories. Stories he couldn’t refuse.

The crime stuff was a bust, nothing good recently, so I moved onto sex and decided to swing by El Tabu, a porno cinema housed in a great, Art Decco building. It’s gone now, bulldozed to make way for condos.

Back then, it still stood, both ruined and glorious. The great days of porno of the ’70s had come and gone, and videocassettes were invading the market. El Tabu stood defiant, yet crumbling. Inside you could find rats as big as rabbits, statues holding torchlights in their hands and a Venus in the lobby. Elegant, ancient and large. Some people came to sleep during a double feature and used the washrooms to take a bath. Others came for the shows. Some were peddling. I’m not going to explain what they were peddling; you figure it out. 

It was a good place to listen to chatter. A stringer needs that chatter. One afternoon, I gathered my notebook and my tape recorder, paid for a ticket and went looking for Sebastian, the projectionist, who had a knack for gossiping and profiting from it.

Sebastian hadn’t heard any interesting things—there was some vague stuff about a whole squadron of Russian prostitutes in a high-rise apartment building near downtown and university students selling themselves for sex, but I’d heard it before. Then Sebastian got a funny look on his face and asked me for a cigarette. This meant he was zeroing on the good stuff. 

“I don’t think I should tell you, but there’s a religious group coming in every Thursday,” he said, as he took a puff. “Order of something. Have you heard of Enrique Zozoya?”

“No,” I said.

“He’s the one that’s renting the place. For the group.”

“A porno theatre doesn’t seem like the nicest place for a congregation.”

“I think it’s some sort of sex cult. I can’t tell because I don’t look. They bring their own projectionist and I have to wait in the lobby,” Sebastian explained.

“So how do you know it’s a sex cult and they’re not worshipping Jesus?”

“I can’t watch, but I can very well hear some stuff. It doesn’t sound like Jesus.”

∇

There was no Wikipedia. You couldn’t Google a name. What you could do, was go through archives and dig out microfiches. Fortunately, Enrique Zozoya wasn’t that hard to find. An ex-hippie activist in the ’60s, he had turned New Age guru in the early ’70s, doing horoscopes. He’d peaked mid-decade, selling natal charts to a few celebrities, then sinking into anonymity. There was nothing about him in the past few years, but he’d obviously found a new source of employment in this religious order.

Armed with the background I had clubbed together, I ventured to El Tabu the following Thursday with my worn bag pack containing my notebook, my tape recorder and my cigarettes. The tape recorder was a bit banged up and sometimes it wouldn’t play right, or it would switch on record for no reason, but I didn’t have money to get a new one. The cigarettes, on the other hand, could be counted upon on any occasion.

Sebastian didn’t look too happy to see me, but I mentioned some money and he softened. He agreed to sneak me into the theatre before the show started, onto the second balcony where I would not be spotted. The place was huge and the crowd that gathered every Thursday was small. They wouldn’t notice me.

Sitting behind a red velvet curtain, eating pistachios, I waited for the show to start. At around eight o’clock about fifty people walked in. I peeked from behind my hiding place and recognized Enrique Zozoya as he moved to the front of the theatre. He was dressed in a bright yellow outfit. He said a few words which I couldn’t make out and then he sat down.

That was that. The projection started.   

It was a faux-Roman movie. Rome as seen by some Hollywood producer. It could have been filmed in 1954 and directed by DeMille. Except DeMille wouldn’t have featured bare tits. Lots of women, half-dressed, in what was some sort of throne room. In the background I noticed several men and women, less comely and muscled. Slightly unsettling in their looks. There was something twisted and perverted about them. But the camera focused on the people in the foreground, the young and beautiful women giggling and feeding grapes to a guy. There were men, chests-bared, leaning against a column. The tableaux was completed by an actor who was playing an emperor and his companion, a dark-haired beauty.

It lasted about ten minutes. Just before the lights when on, I caught sight of a flash frame. A single, brief image of a woman in a yellow dress. 

That was it. Enrique Zozoya stood to speak to the audience. I didn’t hear what he was saying—I was sitting too far back—but it wasn’t anything of consequence because just a short while later everyone was out the door.

I left feeling dejected. There was nothing to write about. Ten minutes of some porno, probably imported from Italy. And even that it had been disappointing. You could hardly see much of anything in that scene they’d chosen; bare breasts, yes, but nothing more.

What a waste.

∇

I returned the following Thursday because I kept thinking there had to be something more. Maybe the previous show had been a bust, but this one might be better.

Sebastian let me in after I shared my cigarettes and I sat down in the balcony. People arrived, took their seats, Enrique Zozoya in his yellow outfit said a few words and the projection began. It was the same deal, only this time the group was larger. Maybe a hundred people.

I was disappointed to see the film was the one we had watched last time. Not the same section, but it was obviously the same movie. This time, the sequence took place in a Roman circus where aristocrats had gathered to watch a chariot race. There was more nudity and the erotic content had been amped a bit, with a stony-looking emperor sitting with two naked girls in his lap—one of them the dark-haired woman from the previous sequence—fondling their breasts. Unfortunately, he seemed more interested in the race than the women.

The music was loud and of poor quality. There was no dialogue. There hadn’t been any dialogue in the previous scene either, which struck me as a bit odd, since you’d expect a few jokes or poor attempts at breathless sexiness at this point.

The emperor mouthed a few words and I realized the audio track must have been removed. The music playing was probably layered onto the film to replace the original soundtrack and had nothing to do with the film. Someone had taken the added effort of inserting moans and sighs into the audio track, but the dialogue track had been clearly lost. Not that it would be much of a loss for this type of flick.     

The emperor mouthed something else and again I noticed a flash frame—a few seconds long—of a woman in a yellow dress. She was sitting in a throne room, held a fan against her face, and her blond hair was laced with jewels.

The film was cut off shortly afterwards and the audience left.

I drummed my fingers against my steno pad. What I had was nothing but some European exploitation movie, probably filmed in the late ’70s by the looks of it, which for some odd reason attracted a group of about a hundred people to its weekly screening. And it wasn’t even screened completely, just a few minutes of it.

Why?

∇

I visited the Cineteca Nacional on Monday, which was the place to find information about movies. I had very little to go by, and looking through newspaper clips and data sheets proved fruitless. I asked one of the employees at the cineteca’s Documentation and Information centre for assistance, and she said she’d phone me if she found something.

I decided to move in a different direction, expanding my knowledge of Zozoya. He’d been a film student before turning to astrology, even shooting a couple of shorts. Aside from that, which might explain how he got hold of this bit of film, there was nothing new.

Tuesday I pounded some copy for the arts and culture magazine, ready to give up on El Tabu.

Wednesday I had a nightmare.

I was laying in bed when a woman crawled up, onto me. She was naked, but wore a golden headpiece with a veil. Her skin was a sickly yellow, as though she were jaundiced.

She pressed her breasts against my chest and began rubbing herself against me. I touched her hips, but withdrew my hand, quickly. There was something unpleasant about the texture of her skin.

I lifted a hand, pulling at her veil.

But she had no face. It was only a yellow blur.

When I woke up, it was nearly nine and I was late for my meeting with the editor of the arts and culture magazine. I turned in my copy and left quickly. I didn’t feel well. I went home, laid down, and spent most of the day dozing in front of the television set. I looked at my steno pad and the lined, yellow pages reminded me of leprous skin. I didn’t do much writing that afternoon.

Thursday evening I returned to El Tabu.

Journalists know when they’ve caught the scent of a good story. It’s a sixth sense, learning to distinguish the golden nuggets amongst the pebbles. I knew I had a nugget. I just couldn’t see it yet.

This time the sequence took place in a banquet hall, with all the guests wearing masks and sitting naked. Several of the actors were unsuitable for such a scene, with obvious physical flaws, including scars. A few of them looked filthy, as though they had not bathed in several weeks. The emperor and the dark-haired woman next to him were the only ones not wearing masks. They both stared rigidly ahead, as the guests began to copulate on the floor.

The woman whispered something to the emperor. He nodded.

This time it was not a flash frame. We were treated to a full minute of footage showing the woman in the yellow dress, the fan held in front of her face, yellow curtains billowing behind her and allowing us a glimpse of a long hallway full of pillars. The woman crooked a finger towards the audience, as if calling for us.

The film switched back to the banquet scene where the young woman sitting next to the emperor had collapsed. Slaves were trying to revive her, but her tongue poked out of her mouth grotesquely. The soundtrack, with its moans and sighs, was completely unsuited for this scene.

The lights went on. I listened carefully, trying to catch what Zozoya said. It sounded like he was chanting. The congregation chanted with him. I noticed it was a larger group. Perhaps two hundred people, singing.

I grabbed my jacket and stepped out.

Life was too short to waste it on exploitation flicks and weirdos.

∇

Three days later, I had another nightmare.

Light, gentle fingertips fell on my temples, then trickled down my face, neck and chest. Nails raked my arms. I woke to see the woman with the yellow veil. She was on her knees.

She showed me her vulva, spreading it open with her fingers. Yellow, like her skin. An awful, sickly yellow. She pressed her hands, which seemed oily to the touch, against my chest.

I woke up, rushed to the bathroom and vomited.

∇

In the morning, I cracked a couple of eggs. I stared at the bright yellow yolks, then tossed them down the drain.

I spent most of the morning sitting in the living room, shuffling papers and going over my notes for an arts and culture article. Every once in a while I glanced at the manila folder containing my research on El Tabu. The beige envelope seemed positively yellow. I tossed the whole thing down the garbage chute.

∇

Wednesday I dreamt about her again. When I woke up, I could barely button my shirt. I was supposed to go pick up a check for my arts and culture story, but when I reached a busy intersection I caught sight of all the yellow taxis rolling down the street. They resembled lithe scarabs.

A stall had sunflowers for sale. I turned around and rushed back to my apartment.

I sat in front of the television set, shivering.

I’m not sure at what time I fell asleep, but in my dream she was gnawing my chest. I woke up at once, screaming.

I shuffled through the apartment, desperately looking for my cigarettes. I grabbed my bag pack, all its contents stumbling onto the floor. My tape recorder bounced against the couch. The play button went on.

I grabbed a cigarette, heard the whirring of the recorder and then a sound.

It was the movie’s soundtrack. It must have been recording the last time I was there.

I was about to switch it off when I heard something.

The cigarette fell from my mouth.

∇

Sneaking into El Tabu was not hard. Bums planning on spending the night there did it all the time. I sat in the balcony, my hands on my bag pack.

Below me, I counted some three hundred viewers.

The movie began to play. The emperor rode in an open litter. He was headed to a funeral. The funeral of the black-haired woman. It was a procession. Men held torches to light the way. One could glimpse men and women copulating in the background, behind the rows of slaves with the torches. If you looked carefully, you might see that some of the people writhing on the floor were not making love to anything human.

The emperor rode in his litter and did not see any of this. The camera pulled back to show he was not alone. There was a woman with him. She wore a yellow gown. She began taking off her gown, lifting her veil. It was yellow; the shade of a bright flame.

He looked away from her.

As did I.

I lit a match.

∇

I woke up late the next day, to the insistent ringing of the phone.

I picked it up and rested my back against the wall.

It was the lady from the Cineteca Nacional. She said she had that information about that Italian film I had been looking for. It was called Nero’s Last Days. They had a print in the vault.

∇

On March 24, 1982, a great fire destroyed 99 percent of the film archives of the Cineteca Nacional. One of the vaults alone kept 2,000 prints made out of nitrocellulose. It took the firemen sixteen hours to put the whole thing out.

As for El Tabu, I already told you about it: they made the site into condos after twenty years of the empty, charred lot sitting there.

∇

You are wondering why. I’ll tell you why. It was the sound recording. The tape had caught what my ears could not hear: the real audio track of the movie. The voice track.

It’s hard to describe.

The sound was yellow. A bright, noxious yellow.

Festering yellow. The sound of withered teeth scraping against flesh. Of pustules bursting open. Diseased. Hungry.

The voice, yellow, speaking to the audience. Telling it things. Asking for things. Yellow limbs and yellow lips, and the yellow maw, the voracious voice that should never have spoken at all. 

The things it asked for.

Insatiable. Yellow.

Warning signs are yellow.

I paid attention to the warning.

∇

I did get that job at the arts and culture magazine. I’ve been associate editor for five years now, but some things never change. I carry my bag pack everywhere, never been a briefcase man. I still smoke a pack a day. Same brand. Still use matches.

Anyway, I’ve got a very important screening. The Cineteca Nacional is doing a retrospective of 1970s cinema. They have some great Mexican movies. Also some obscure European flicks. There’s a rare print that was just discovered a few months ago; part of the film collection of Enrique Zozoya’s widow, who was an avid collector of European movies. It was thought lost years ago.

It’s called Nero’s Last Days.

Since 1982, the Cineteca Nacional has gotten more high-tech, with neat features like its temperature controlled vaults. But since 1982 I’ve learned a thing or two about chemistry.

It’ll take the firemen more than sixteen hours to put it out.

∇