Holy Guacamole! (3 page)

In Search of Guacamole

T
he other two
witches, both Russians if I was any judge of accents, came over to talk to Adela. After being introduced and congratulating them on their performances, I filled a plate with tostados and went off in search of my husband. Jason was chatting with a professor from the English Department, Howard Montgomery. Being the resident Shakespeare scholar, he was delighted with the change from a witches’ chorus to a trio.

“The first time I heard Verdi’s
Macbeth
—of course, I’ve seen Shakespeare’s play more times that I can count—I was appalled at the witches’ chorus,” said Professor Montgomery, a round, middle-aged cherub of a man, who was devouring my canapés with gusto. “All those women squalling oompah music. ‘What was the composer thinking? ’ I asked myself. ‘It’s an abomination.’ It was a Met broadcast, and I turned it off. Didn’t actually see the opera until twenty years later, and I must say that, aside from the peculiar notion of casting the Scottish nobility as drug dealers, I highly approve of this version. Three witches. That’s what Shakespeare had, and it worked just beautifully in the opera. Gubenko is to be congratulated.”

“That’s an excellent idea!” I agreed. “Let’s go do it. I happen to have picked up some tostados, so we can sample the guacamole while we’re supporting our artistic director.”

“My dear, I’m perfectly happy with these delicious canapés, which your husband tells me you provided. I hope to convince you to give Dolly the recipe.” He looked around vaguely. “I wonder where she is. Wasn’t she with us just a minute ago, Jason?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jason. “I haven’t seen her yet this evening.”

“Oh well. She is here. I distinctly remember that we came in the same car. She was complaining that the orthopedic boot, which she’s wearing because she broke her ankle, looks bad with her dress. The boot is black—a sort of suitcase fabric with Velcro straps—and her dress—um—I’ve forgotten what color it is, but I asked why she didn’t wear a black dress. She has one, and it’s long. It would have covered the boot, but she said her black dress—”

“I’m so sorry to hear that Dolly broke her ankle,” I interrupted, afraid that he’d meander on about his wife’s dress forever when I wanted to get us over to the guacamole. I linked my arm with his and urged him in that direction, nodding to Jason to follow. “I’d be delighted to give Dolly the recipe, but it’s so simple you can just tell her.”

My husband was trying to stifle laughter at my manipulation of the kindly Shakespearean scholar.

“That’s very good of you, Carolyn, but I’d be sure to forget,” Howard replied apologetically. “All those measurements and whatnot. It’s amazing that I remember long passages from the plays, but if Dolly sends me to the grocery store, I always come back with the wrong thing. Still, I’m sure the English faculty would love some of those delicious canapés at the annual Christmas party. Would you consider them festive enough for the holiday season? I know you’re an expert on food, so I’d value your opinion on the suitability of—”

“Very festive,” I assured him, “and easy to make. You just go down to the El Paso Chile Company—it’s on Texas Street, has trees in front of it, and is painted in bright colors. There you buy some of the hot pepper-fruit preserves. I used the peach and the raspberry tonight, but you could probably use jalapeno jelly as well. Then you’d have red and green.” We were threading our way through the mob, which was all the jollier for the infusion of margaritas. “Then you buy some Philadelphia cream cheese and crackers at the supermarket, spread the cream cheese on the crackers, and dab on the preserves. Nothing to it.” I pulled Howard into the circle around Vladik Gubenko and held up my plate of tostados.

The artistic director was hugging the guacamole bowl in one arm and eating with a spoon, having evidently finished off the chips he’d snatched from the refreshment table. There were still a few tostado crumbs in his thin, blonde goatee, but no more tostados on the surface of the dip, and evidently the crowd of adoring ladies around him didn’t want to cause him any discomfort by asking to share. I had no such qualms.

“You clever Russian,” I said, kissing him on the cheek and then flicking a few crumbs from his beard. “We’ve come to congratulate you on your production of
Macbeth
.”

He beamed at me.

“And to share the guacamole.” I dipped the largest tostado I could find into the bowl and scooped up a big glob of dip. Then I offered the plate to Jason and Howard.

“No share,” protested Vladik. “Was made for me by one of my pretty sopranos, no?”

“No,” I said, savoring the guacamole. It was, as Father Flannery had said, heavenly, and I had to get the recipe. “I’ve brought Professor Montgomery over to meet you. He’s our Shakespearean scholar, and he loves what you did with the witches.” I helped myself to another chip full. Adela should patent it. But not before I got it into a column. Mexican food is popular all over the country now. My readers would love it.

“Shakespeare much loved in Russia,” said Vladik solemnly. He had to put the spoon into the bowl in order to shake Howard’s hand. “Many translation, many read in English. Both plays and opera put on. Russians love Shakespeare.”

Howard nodded nostalgically. “I remember as a graduate student—what happy days those were. I took my doctorate at University of Virginia. Met my dear Dolly there. She was an undergraduate in the Shakespeare class I graded as a graduate assistant. Lovely girl. Still is. Reminded me of Viola in
Twelfth Night
. You’ll have to meet her—Dolly, not Viola.”

As he rambled on and Vladik looked puzzled, I managed to devour three more helpings of guacamole, while Jason dipped two chips and turned to talk to a fellow who was employed by the city to do environmental things. He’d been a student of Jason’s last year.

“But as I was saying, I was amazed as a graduate student at the numbers of critical papers written in Russian on the bard. Unfortunately, I didn’t read Russian, still don’t, but I knew one fellow who did, and he said many were very good. No doubt, it’s your love of England’s best dramatist that led you to redo the witches’ chorus. I found the singing of just three witches, as called for in the play, quite lovely.”

Vladik nodded enthusiastically and said, “And my witches very pretty too, no? Two is Russian, one from Juarez. All got very nice titties.” Professor Montgomery looked taken aback. “Have costume lady make dresses to show off. Can’t have big titties hide under baggy black dress. No reason witches can’t be young and pretty.”

“I was referring to their musical talents,” said Howard, “and your arrangement of the music.”

“Sure.” Vladik winked. “Verdi envy Vladislav Gubenko for fixing that scene and picking pretty girls, no old uglies. Maybe I take Mexican
Macbeth
to Broadway, to Met. No?” As pleased as he was with himself, he had now noticed that I was eating his guacamole. “So Carolyn Blue, you meet yet my stars? No? I introduce.” And still clutching his guacamole, he insisted that I follow him to a group that included the Chilean soprano, Maria Ojeda-Solano, aka Lady Macbeth; her murderous opera spouse, baritone Wang Zhijian; and a passel of hapless El Pasoans who were trying to converse with them.

Vladik in Trouble

“
C
arolyn, here is
Lady Macbeth, Senora Maria Ojeda-Solano, and Macbeth, Wang Zhijian,” said Vladik, taking away my chips and dumping them on top of his guacamole. “Not need these when have fine jelly crackers,” he added when I looked mutinous. Then to his stars, “And this is lady, Mrs. Carolyn Blue, whose crackers you are enjoy.”

The two singers stared at me, bemused. Perhaps they hadn’t understood the introduction.

“I go talk to president of board. Rehearsals closed, even for big shots. My
Macbeth
surprise for everyone but cast.” Vladik took himself and the guacamole off in the direction of the neurosurgeon, and good luck to Opera at the Pass’s artistic director, I thought, if he believed that he could convince the very conservative Dr. Peter Brockman that the drug-war
Macbeth
had been a cultural triumph and should be followed by more, not less, avant-garde productions.

What did Vladik have in mind? I wondered.
Carmen
set among the cardboard shacks in the squatter
barrios
of Juarez with the smugglers transformed into coyotes sneaking illegal aliens across the Rio Grande?
La Boheme
in a New Mexico ’60s hippie commune? Actually, that might work. Even my
Carmen
idea might work. In fact, I had rather enjoyed the weird
Macbeth
but mostly because of the voices.

“What an honor to meet you, Senora Ojeda-Solano,” I said, shaking the Chilean soprano’s hand. She had an empty flute of champagne in the other hand and was wearing a very regal garnet satin gown and a tiara. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually met anyone wearing a tiara. “Your Lady Macbeth was wonderfully powerful.” She nodded in queenly acceptance of my compliment. Didn’t the woman speak? “I see that you need another drink. Would you like to try a margarita?”

“I dreenk only champagne,” she replied. “Mexican cactus dreenks ees bad for the throat. So ees strange—” She looked disapprovingly at a tray of my canapés. “—theengs on plate.” She touched her throat as if to ascertain that it had not been damaged by our humble border offerings.

I waved a waiter over to refill her champagne flute and turned to the Chinese baritone. Initially I had thought a Chinese Macbeth even stranger than a drug lord Macbeth, but Mr. Zhijian, a stocky man with thick black hair, had proved to be not only a fine singer, but also an excellent actor. By the end of the production I had accepted him as a Juarense with a desire to garner the whole drug trade for himself. “What a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Zhijian. I enjoyed your performance so much.” I’m sure I butchered the pronunciation of his name.

“Not Mr. Zhijian. Wang my family name. Zhijian mean
firm in spirit
. In English you, Carolyn; I, Firm in Spirit. You, Blue; I, Wang.” He nodded cheerfully. “I like you food things.” He popped a jalapeno-peach canapé into his mouth. “Vely good taste, like dragon fire on tongue.” He consumed another and then tossed down the margarita a waiter had just provided.

Noting that Mr. Wang was not only very cheery but also somewhat glassy eyed, I said, “Margaritas taste better if you sip them.”

“Yes,” he nodded with a wide, loopy smile. “Taste vely good. I have another.” And he did. If I had drunk two, or however many, margaritas straight down, I’d have fallen flat on my face, which is almost what Mr. Wang did. Luckily, those of us in the circle, excluding Senora Ojeda-Solano, caught him before he could hit the floor, after which several male members of the chorus helped him away, while the Chilean soprano looked on with raised eyebrows and sipped her champagne. I noticed that the bottle the waiter poured for her was Tattinger’s, while the bottles on the table for the rest of us were some American brand I was unfamiliar with—perhaps of the five-dollar variety.

With Mr. Wang gone, I told Senora Ojeda-Solano how fond I was of the novels of Isabel Allende, especially
The House of the Spirits.
Although Allende was a fellow countrywoman and a famous author, the soprano had never heard of her and didn’t seem receptive to my recommendation. She turned and began a conversation in Spanish with Barbara Escobar, the banker’s wife. I went looking for Vladik in case there was any guacamole left. I almost caught up with him, but he had flitted off with the bowl, leaving me to catch a conversation between Dr. Brockman and Frank Escobar.

“We’ve got to get rid of him,” said the neurosurgeon, shaking a very long finger in Escobar’s face. “It’s bad enough that he snuck that atrocious staging of
Macbeth
in under our noses, but now he insists that more of the same is just what El Paso needs. We’ll be the laughing stock of the opera world when this gets out.”

I wasn’t convinced that the greater world of opera was that cognizant of what we were doing in El Paso, but I didn’t say that.

“I did not participate in establishing Opera at the Pass to be made a fool of by some upstart Russian,” the doctor continued. “I have to wonder now where the university found him. Probably some place like Uzbekistan.”

“Or Chechnya,” suggested Frank Escobar. “They’re a group of troublemakers. I think the university suckered us when they suggested we take him on. I’ve heard that the new fad there is zarzuela, not grand opera. Not that I don’t like a good zarzuela. Barbara and I always attend the performances at the Chamizal. But imagine what Gubenko would do to a zarzuela.”