The Eagle's Throne (11 page)

21

EX-PRESIDENT CÉSAR LEÓN TO TÁCITO DE LA CANAL

What a messy little predicament, my old and distinguished friend! “A Mexican politician never puts anything in writing.” That was the dogma before. Well, look at us now, you idiot, just look where our notorious, sovereign arrogance—or is it arrogant sovereignty?—has gotten us. Let’s not mince words, shall we? I think we both know each other too well for that. Call me Augustus and I’ll call you Caligula, even though Caligula was the emperor who decided his horse would succeed him, and in your case the horse will be you if in fact you get where you want to go.

Let me laugh, you Caligulan shit, you revolting traitor. It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m the one person who can put you on the Eagle’s Throne, but I’ll humiliate you every step of the way, because you won’t just owe me a favor—you’ll owe me your life. Remember what I said to you one day, when you were working for me, you ass-licking bastard? Don’t start obsessing about conspiracies, because even if there aren’t any, you’ll end up creating one.

Believe me, I’ve thought of you many, many times during these years in exile, Caligula. Your Caesar Augustus has never forgotten you—so much so, in fact, that I’m now taking the risk of writing to you. So we have no telephones, no faxes, no e-mail, no computers, no Internet, no satellites? Well, I can tell you something we do have. We have the unexpected. The unknown. The subtle. General Mondragón von Bertrab and General Cícero Arruza, so diametrically opposed in every sense, have actually managed to agree on a method for keeping tabs on all of us. Don’t ask me how they invented it or how they pulled it off. They say that Mondragón has been keeping a million-dollar brain trust on the government payroll—just picture it, moron, the best brains from MIT, Silicon Valley, and the CNRS in Paris.

Well then, can you guess what they’ve come up with to replace everything that’s been lost?

A pin, my slobbering sycophant, a tiny little pin that records our voices and transmits them directly to the intelligence command center at Mondragón’s office. Sly devil that he is, von Bertrab conveniently filters out what he doesn’t want Arruza to hear. The fact is that all our conversations are being recorded by a pin-sized microphone that’s been implanted somewhere on our bodies, though nobody knows where. Not in our clothes, because I know that when I go into the bathroom the sound of the shower doesn’t drown out the sound of my singing.

I hope they don’t think the boleros I sing as I soap my body are coded political messages: “Stop asking me questions, let me imagine. . . .” Or, “Veracruz, little corner where the waves build their nest . . .”

Every bolero can be interpreted politically. But that’s beside the point. The fact is that none of us knows where, when, and on which of our body parts (or worse, inside which body part)—an eyebrow, a knee, an ear, a molar, or perhaps up our ass—Mondragón von Bertrab, aided by meticulous German science, has implanted those almost invisible pins that transmit our conversations.

This means we’re reduced to writing letters now. We have no other choice. What can we hope for? That once the recipients read them, they destroy them. What would be the most cunning thing to do, then? To write the opposite of what we think and do. But then again, no matter how simpleminded you might be, Caligula, even you can appreciate the fact that false instructions can also be read and taken literally. Our brilliant and very Teutonic defense secretary has rigged things so that we have no other choice but to write letters and tell the truth.

At the very least we can disguise our names just as Xavier Zaragoza, known to all as “Seneca,” has always done. Very well, whether the shoe fits or not, I shall be Augustus and you, Caligula. But let me warn you, you rotten scumbag, don’t ever think of yourself as Caesar, because you’re nothing but a horse. My point is this: You rose to power with me, in my shadow, and then you stabbed me in the back and gave that terrible order, “Don’t even give him the satisfaction of insulting him. Just don’t ever speak his name again.”

“Silence in the night, the muscle sleeps,” as the old tango goes. But ambition never rests, does it, moron? Do you know what a mole is? It’s a word with multiple definitions in English. A mole is a hairy blemish. It is an insect-eating mammal with tiny eyes and ears and paws like shovels for digging its subterranean home. It’s a breakwater for fending off the forces of the sea’s tide. It’s an anchor in a safe port. It’s a bloody mass of tissue in the uterus. And finally, it’s also a term that’s used to describe the kind of spy who infiltrates an enemy organization and pretends to be a faithful and patient worker for a very long time until, inevitably, at the behest of his real employer he betrays the people who unwittingly hired him. (Oh, and of course it’s also a delicious Mexican dish,
mole,
and a term used to describe the act of beating an adversary to a bloody pulp:
Sacarle el mole.
)

Very well, then. I appoint you my spy, my mole in you-know-where. Damn it if I’m not generous to you, you cockroach. If I win, you win with me. If I lose, you win with my enemies. I can’t think of anyone who’s ever been offered a better political deal, not since Rudolf Hess was condemned to life imprisonment instead of death by hanging. Be grateful. Did you know that a man grows a completely new set of skin every seven years? We’re snakes, and we know it. Of course when it comes to Mexican politics, we shed our skin every six years.

Think about it, Caligula, shed your skin before they skin you. If skinning and flaying turn you on, just think about that Aztec deity, Xipe Totec, sitting in our Museum of Anthropology. Every six years a man needs to change loyalties, wives (in your case, lovers), and convictions. Prepare yourself, my loyal friend. Prepare yourself. And keep on hoping: Tonight I’ll sleep in the bed of the vanquished.

The bad part is, if you make it to that bed you’ll have to sleep under the mattress. Because I’ll be on top. Don’t doubt it for a second.

Augustus.

P.S. Oh, how I despise this six-year cycle. It reminds me of a cake divided into slices—just when you’re really beginning to enjoy it, you’re not allowed to finish it. And I’m warning you now—don’t even think of turning me over to your boss. Not only have I dug my trenches with him—I share them with him. He’s a good man. Gullible, to be sure. So don’t go around telling him nasty stories about me. He’ll take you for a gossip, a meddler. And you and your aspirations will then go straight to fucking hell. So be it.

22

ANDINO ALMAZÁN TO “LA PEPA” ALMAZÁN

Beloved Pepona, this bizarre situation keeps us even farther apart than usual, but it brings us together spiritually more than ever. Distance has always brought me closer to you, my darling, because our separations only heighten the desire we feel for one another. Don’t you feel the same, my love? You in Mérida, I in the capital. You in a beautiful, placid, tranquil city. I in this asphyxiated, chaotic, vulgar, noxious metropolis. You, surrounded by gentle people, cordial and unaffected. I, suffocating inside the car that takes me from the apartment to the office, then back to the apartment late at night, with no other reward than that of hearing your voice on the telephone at midnight—at least, until a few days ago. Now we don’t even have that. Your sweet voice eludes me, I can only imagine it. I must make do with these letters to you. So here I am, surrounded all day long by enemies, the object of attacks, the butt of endless jokes and caricatures in the newspapers (“Andino, abandon ship,” “Andino, head for the Andes”) to say nothing of all the plots hatched and traps laid in the corridors of bureaucracy.

How different from my true nature is the mask of the cold, efficient technocrat I must don every morning! There was a time when I needed a mirror to rehearse the facial expression of the implacable bureaucrat. But I don’t need it anymore now, my Pepona. The mask has become a real face, a face with harsh features, furrowed brow, pursed lips, and shit-smelling nose. Eyebrows permanently circumflexed by doubt. Ears pricked up, ready for lies. And eyes, eyes, my love, not showing hatred, but certainly filled with disdain, scorn, lack of interest . . . Did you know I’ve learned to speak like an Anglo-Saxon, without articles or context?

“Exactly.”

“Done.”

“Nothing.”

“Careful.”

“Perfect.”

“Warned.”

“Face consequences.”

I say these things, nothing else. My eyes avert all attempts at conversation—whether they are friendly, unfriendly, unpleasant, sincere, ambiguous, or impertinent conversations. For me, anything and everything people say represents a potential danger. The danger of contradiction in the best of cases. The danger of persuasion in the worst.

I give what’s expected of me. My technical expertise. My knowledge of international markets. My macroeconomic parameters. My careful attention to our currency’s parity with the dollar, our foreign cash reserves, the payment of our foreign debt, the amount of our national debt, the trade deficit, European and North American aid, the forced fraternity with the directors of the central banks in Washington, Berlin, London, Madrid . . .

And yet I don’t give what I’d most like to give: my humanity. You may laugh at me, Josefina, with those noisy cackles that jealous people call “vulgar,” as if your vitality—the vitality I’m so attracted to—could ever be considered vulgar. Who could ever describe your capacity for joy, fun, and humor as vulgar? Who could ever dare criticize your delightful wordplay and double entendres? Oh, my darling, if those things make you “vulgar,” then vulgarity is what I need—oh, how I come alive whenever I hear your crude jokes, your brazen suggestions, all those things that inspire my fidelity because you make me feel (and this I whisper in your ear, my darling) that I have my whore at home. I don’t need to go out looking for women like my boring cabinet colleagues, I already have my woman at home—foulmouthed, horny, and ready for every position and every pleasure under the sun, I have her in my own house. . . .

Oh, how I miss you, Pepona! Hot and sweet, faithful wife and loving mother. How safe I feel knowing that my “three Ts,” Tere, Talita, and Tutú, are with you, my darling triplets who came into the world in perfect order, lending a virginal glory to your three successive but actually simultaneous births—for does anyone even remember which of them came first? To me it always felt as if my three angels came down together from the heavens to bless our union, my Josefina, a singularly joyous marriage that goes beyond physical separation, gossip, and beatitudes. A marriage made, just like our three girls, in paradise.

Do you remember our wedding?

Do you remember the Hacienda de los Lagartos, all decked out just for our nuptials? Do you remember the garden, filled with dozens of pink flamingos? And the massive banquet of
papadzules
and
motuleño
eggs, pickled chicken, and stuffed cheese? Do you remember the heat of our passion that night, our loving surrender to each other? Do you remember how nervous your mother was in the bedroom next door to ours at the Hotel del Garrafón, listening for you either to call her for help if it hurt—ow, ow, ow!—or sing the Marseillaise if you liked it— ah, ah, ah,
allons, enfants de la patrie
! How wonderful, my Pepona, that you let me storm the Bastille of your tightly locked jail, how marvelous that you loved Andino’s guillotine!

As you can see, you’re the only person with whom I can truly express my feelings and rediscover the Andino Almazán you fell for twelve years ago, married eleven years ago, and had triplets with ten years ago. But then, in what feels like a split second, I have no choice but to assume once again my other persona, that of the treasury secretary, completely consumed by the world of economics, hiding behind a mask of statistics, creating an exterior character to disguise my interior obsession, which of course is you, my voluptuous one.

When I wake in the morning, Josefina, I won’t be the person you know.

I know what they say about me:

“When Andino enters a room the temperature drops.”

“The secretary has arrived. All rise.”

“Watch out. For Secretary Almazán only two possible opinions exist: his opinion and the wrong opinion.”

My soul is dying, my darling Pepa. But I’ve assumed certain responsibilities and I must fulfill them for the president, for the country, and for myself. If the treasury didn’t have me, the ship would drift out into uncharted waters. I’m the indispensable helmsmann. I’m the one repeating the same old mantra: discipline, discipline, discipline. Avoid inflation. Raise taxes. Lower salaries. Fix prices. I’m the iceman. I may be a native of the tropical Yucatán, but I’m thought of as a miser from Monterrey. Miserly when it comes to the budget and miserly in conversation.

You see, I’ve already decided simply to say nothing, my Pepa. Every time I open my mouth to chastise Congress, all I do is scare off investors. I’m better off keeping my mouth shut. I can pass as the perfect dumb witness. I say nothing because I have nothing to say, and that, somehow, has earned me a reputation for being wise. I look upon everything with glacial objectivity, but I understand nothing. That’s fine. Someone has to play this thankless role. I’ve already had to fire three deputy secretaries who talked too much. The one who said “Poverty in Mexico is a myth.” The one who said “If Congress doesn’t approve the new tax bill we’re going to go under just like Argentina.” And the one who said “The poor possess the virtue of being discreet.”

They hired me to disinfect the system. I’m the government’s DDT. I hunt down insects.

And my life, darling, is drying up—or at least it would dry up if I didn’t have you and my three Ts, Tere, Talita and Tutú. Send me a recent photo of the four of you, will you? You keep forgetting to do that. I, my dear, don’t forget you for a minute. Your
A.

P.S. In the interest of safety, I’m sending this to you via my good friend and colleague Tácito de la Canal. They say that if you want to survive in the cabinet you have to behave as though you’re dead. Tácito is the exception to this rule. Thanks to him I’m able to walk in and out of the president’s office without any problem. He’s an agile man, a man with a future—flexible when necessary, tough when the situation requires grit. Trust him. Farewell.
A.A.