Mexico (84 page)

How did the public executions affect our family? A kind of numbness spread over us. Father refused to believe that he had seen what happened, for he was revolted by its calculated brutality. He could not eat that night: "I'm still nauseated," he said. The effect on Mother was quite different--it was one of sullen rage. She was, after all, a Palafox, the daughter of Alicia Palafox, that beautiful woman whose China Poblano had so captivated my Grandfather Jubal. Having seen men related to her--one was an uncle--shot simply because they owned land had to be a warning that one day she too might be executed for a similar reason. She thought that perhaps we ought to leave the Mineral, since it was known as a Palafox holding, and she proposed this to Father and me, but we insisted on staying, for as he explained: "This is my job. It's a decent one and I've treated our people fairly." So we clung to our home and our occupation, but now we lived in apprehension, for if seven nuns and nine landowners could be shot without trial--the seven because they were religious, the nine because they owned land--anything could happen.

By the time I was eight, that is, in 1917, I had invented a gruesome game that any child in those turbulent years could have played. From newspapers of the day and the numerous cheap magazines featuring stories about various aspects of the endless war, I began to follow the careers of individual officers whose records attracted my attention, and when the file on some individual officer was completed, I had a representative account not only of his extremely active life but of Mexico in its agony. I had nine such compilations, each a duplicate of the others; the one for a young lieutenant named Fermin Freg stands out in my memory as epitomizing the period:

1910 newspaper. Brave Lieutenant Fermin Freg, who led the charge that defeated the rebellious enemies of our beloved protector of the nation, Porfirio Diaz.

1911 magazine. Major Freg as loyal defender of Francisco Madero, who had driven the hated dictator Diaz from Mexico.

1913 magazine. Lieutenant Colonel Freg in guard of honor for General Huerta, who ordered the murder of Madero.

1913 small booklet. Colonel Freg, aide-de-camp to General Carranza, who has ousted General Huerta from power.

1914 big book. Generals Prado, Gurza and Rubio signing The Pact of the Three Generals.

1915 large booklet. Colonel Freg in command of the firing squad that executed General Prado.

1916 very big book. General Freg taking salute after great victory at San Luis Potosi.

1917 largest book. Full page in garish color, body of General Freg fusilladed by troops still loyal to General Prado.

The biographies are monotonous in their predictability. The final photos of men like Madero, Carranza, Zapata and Obregon, each the recipient, for a few years, of enormous acclaim, show the men stained with their own blood, from "a bullet fired by a onetime friend.

T was assisted in this gruesome game by my grandmother, Maria de la Caridad, who was now a widow in her sixties, and as concerned as ever about the welfare of her family and her Indians, in that order. She lived with us in warm harmony and helped Mother raise me. Curiously, she spoke English better than Mother did and was determined that I learn it as well as Spanish. Thanks to her I grew up bilingual without a pronounced accent in either language.

In this memoir I've said that the major characteristic of the Clays of Virginia was their ardent patriotism, but I myself had never witnessed this. I was relying upon family legend, but in 1917, while General Gurza was running wild in our part of Mexico, my father's attention was diverted to Europe, where the kaiser was trying to remake the world. When an American expeditionary force was dispatched across the Atlantic to oppose the Germans, Father growled: "It's about time," and he met with men in Toledo to follow the progress of the war. One night he cried out at supper: "If they threaten your way of life, you've got to do something!" and the next day he paid a hasty visit to the American embassy in Mexico City, where he learned that even though he was not an American citizen, he could volunteer for overseas service.

"Could it be with the Virginia regiment?"

"If you pay for the telegram, you'll find out."

When permission was granted he hurried home to Toledo with news that startled us: "The military attache at the embassy swore me in as an officer candidate. I'm to report immediately to Fort Dix." Then he added, almost as an afterthought: "Graziela, you and Mother can mind the Mineral while I'm gone."

When my mother began to cry, he comforted her and told me: "Watch after her while I'm gone." She sobbed: "You said you never wanted to see the United States again," and he explained: "I'm not doing this for the U
. S
. I'm doing it for Virginia." And he was off to the hellish ditches of northeastern France.

In his absence our family purchased a map of the battle area and with pins and arrows followed his supposed exploits, and we were fairly accurate in our guesses as to where he was fighting. During the final drive on German positions, what we did not know was that he behaved with valor, winning commendations and medals.

His bravery on the field had an unexpected consequence. As the general pinned the medal on Father's tunic he said: 'This makes you eligible for automatic American citizenship," and on the sensible grounds that "in time of trouble, it's better to have two passports than one," he accepted the offer, so that when he returned to the Mineral he could boast: "I'm a Virginian at last."

He had been home only a few weeks in 1918 when Mexico's permanent warfare engulfed him once more, for General Gurza launched his third attempt to capture Mexico City. Local patriots, goaded by a handful of federal troops, tried vainly to halt him north of the city, an act that so enraged him that he drove one of his trains right into the heart of Toledo, used troops from the other train to throw a cordon around the city and began what historians call the Sack of Toledo. He began with the cathedral, that gem of colonial architecture. Bringing up a small cannon, he fired numerous blasts at the eight majestic columns, destroying some completely, shattering portions of others. His men, with great effort, knocked the front doors off their hinges, then rushed inside and with their gun butts smashed decorations in the various chapels. Statuary was crushed, paintings slashed, and the altar area totally demolished in a frenzy of destruction. In less than an hour, one of the treasures of central Mexico was a shambles.

When the vandals reached the robing area where the priests stored their gold-ornamented festive robes, three young priests who had not fled Toledo after previous raids tried to protect these treasures. Enraged, the soldiers knocked the young men down and then, dragging them through the gaping front entrance, they shouted to those on guard in the plaza: "What shall we do with these?" and General Gurza gave the answer: "Shoot them!" so within a few minutes of their capture they were lined up against one of the walls of the church, and shot by a firing squad.

Then the rioting began in various parts of the city. Old buildings were set on fire. Others were ravaged. Stores were smashed. Women were raped in the street; at the height of the fury a man who had once worked for old Don Alipio, the bull breeder, shouted: "Let's get those damned bulls!" and he led
a l
arge gang of men waiting in the second train out to the Palafox ranch, where they methodically slaughtered by gunfire those proud black bulls that Don Alipio had imported from Spain. When they were finished, the leader of the gang cried: "Let the people eat the good meat!" and frightened Indians who ha^ been watching were told they could butcher the carcasses if they wished, and the herd vanished under the knife.

When the grisly day ended, Toledo had been taught the grim lesson that it must never waver in its support of General Gurza. Its mission accomplished, the train backed away, turned at the edge of town and headed north.

The departure of General Gurza left Toledo in a stupor. Dazed people wandered about trying to assess the damage, and at the Mineral we heard reports of all the terrible things that had happened. My parents were gloomy: "This may be the end of our world. Can Toledo survive such a disaster?" and I could see that Mother felt that there was no future here, but Father reminded her that our family still had its home at the mine and its good health. There were also two surprising survivors of the destruction; against all odds they had kept alive by keeping themselves hidden.

The first was Father Lopez, the scrawny Indian priest at the cathedral. When the fury was at its height, he managed to hide in the small room allotted to Indian priests who served the peons. They belonged to the cathedral, but were never a true part of it, as their fellow priests refused to acknowledge them. For two days he was afraid to let anyone know he was alive, afraid that Gurza's men might be waiting for him. Unaware that he was the only member of the Cathedral priesthood alive, he finally slipped out of his hiding place and tried to mix in unobserved with the people in the plaza. But as soon as he was recognized his appearance was treated as a kind of miracle: "We were sure you were dead. How did you escape?" He deemed it best not to share his secret, and after a while they left him alone, but there was no place for him to go. He knew that the surviving women at the convent had fled, as they were doing over much of Mexico, and he supposed that most of the priests in the Toledo area had been slain in the savage attacks that had been pursued with the hope of driving all Catholic clergy out of Mexico.

Afraid to remain in Toledo lest Gurza and his madmen return, he walked slowly north until he came to the Mineral. I was first to see him and recognized him by his furtive manner: "Dad! It's Father L
o
pez!" and when my parents joined me they saw it was indeed the priest, but since they had neVer had anything to do with him they felt no personal responsibility. But Grandmother Caridad said: "He's one of the good ones," and prevailed upon my parents to take him in. Thus the Clay family became the protectors of the last Catholic priest in the region, and, even though they knew the risk they were taking, they gave him a hiding place among the mine buildings and instructed the workmen to tell no one of his presence.

The other survivor of the attack on Toledo involved a more complicated rescue mission. One night Don Eduardo Palafox, accompanied by a foreman from his bull ranch southwest of town, sneaked up past the ruined convent and around the pyramid and, like Father Lopez, came to our door. They had a remarkable story to tell: "They killed all our bulls, wiped out the bloodline. But one male calf has survived. He was with his mother and although Gurza's men killed her, they missed the calf. If we can save him, we can restore the line, if peace ever comes."

"It will," Father said and forthwith took steps to save the valuable animal. That was the year he had introduced automobiles at the Mineral. So it was in a truck that Don Eduardo, his foreman, Father and I rode out to the Guadalajara Road and started for the ranch, but when we reached the cutoff to the left, the one that would have taken us to the main gate, the foreman said: "No, straight ahead six kilometers," and at the designated point he directed Father to turn sharp left over untended ground. After a bumpy ride we reached a spot where two foremen with shaded lanterns were holding thfe ropes that kept a spirited young calf under control. Deftly they worked the animal into the truck and with this precious cargo the five of us drove back into town.

During the trip to and from the ranch, Father had conversed with Don Eduardo in a low voice that I had trouble hearing. As we reached the western entrance to Toledo they did a daring thing, one so improbable that we laughed about it years later. They drove out to the Mineral, followed Father's directions to a cave hidden behind a pile of slag, and eased the little bull into a neat sanctuary, where fodder was awaiting him. With a snort and a chop of horns that had not yet full
y s
prouted he ran about his new home. "His name," said the foreman, "is Soldado, the little soldier. Protect him. He's precious."

So at age nine I became custodian of one of Spain's best fighting bulls--a young fellow, true, and with only budding horns--and a more exciting pet no boy ever had. He was stubborn and was becoming so powerful that sometimes I was unable to make him go where he didn't want to, no matter how I pushed or pulled. But he obviously liked me and was pleased whenever F rejoined him after an absence. I think he understood that he had to hide in our cave, and although I grew tired of cleaning up after him, I came to think of him as my bull and watched with the satisfaction of a father as he grew more powerful and bull-like.

Occasionally, being careful not to arouse suspicion, the ranch foreman sneaked in to see how Soldado was doing, and when he saw the magnificent promise of the young bull's physique, especially his big chest and slim hindquarters, he told Father: 'Time we got him out of here. We think we have a place to hide him in a far corner of the ranch. We'll have a herd reassembled one of these days," and it was that conversation which spurred me to an action that I look back upon with amazement. Aware that I had under my care a fighting bull of pure Spanish caste--for the men reminded me of that repeatedly--I felt a nagging desire to see if he would know how to fight the way the big Palafox bulls had done during the spring festivals in the Toledo bullring.

In time that inquisitiveness became a driving compulsion, so I stole one of Mother's checkered red tablecloths, took it out to the cave, which provided enough light for my experiment, and tried to do the things I'd seen the great matadors do. I held the cloth with two hands, stamped my left foot, and waited for the bull to charge. He did, and with the flat part of his forehead he knocked me flat against the wall so that I fell in a heap. I had seen matadors take knocks like that and get up again, so once more I had my cloth out, held firmly with both hands, and stalked toward the bull. He charged and tossed me right back against the wall. This time the two smacks hurt, both his little horns in my stomach and the stone wall as I smashed into it. But a matador is a man who fights bulls, no matter how they knock him about, so once more I approached my bull, and this time I kept my left hand far out, my righ
t c
lose to my leg, and the bull dove straight for the extended cloth, passing me by a matter of inches.