ORQUIDEAS A LA LUZ DE LA LUNA
In Carlos Fuentes’s short story “Orquídeas a la Luz de la Luna” (“Orchids in the Moonlight”), the private world belongs to two real-life Latin American screen sirens, Dolores del Río and María Félix. Reality set them a decade apart and on different continents—Félix made films with directors such as Luis Buñuel in Europe in the 1940s, del Río Hollywood movies in the 1950s. But that didn’t bother Fuentes, who threw them together in “Orquídeas” without much regard for the facts of their lives.
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The outside world comes crashing through when an obit writer from the Times calls on del Río the day Orson Welles dies. He wants her, as a star of Journey Into Fear, to comment on the meaning of Welles’s death. His appearance is particularly torturous because he disguises himself as a fan. Del Río, who’s been craving recognition, eats it up; Félix, who fears abandonment, resents it. He retaliates by digging up some of Félix’s most shameful past conduct—including a 1940s porn film and the fact that she gave her baby away.
