The Eagle's Throne (21 page)

“I was never young,” he replied with a hint of bitterness. “I had to suffer and learn a lot before I became president. Otherwise I would have suffered and learned during my presidency and that would have been at the country’s expense.”

He looked at me with unconcealed scorn.

“Who do you think you are?”

He paused.

“You have to have lost a lot in order to be someone before and after you wield power.”

“But sometimes it’s the country—not the powerful leader—that loses with all that secrecy, intrigue, and personal ambition. And that’s what I’d call a catastrophe,” I said in the most dignified voice I could muster.

“Catastrophes are good,” said the Old Man, licking his lips like the Cheshire cat. “They reinforce the people’s stoicism.”

“Aren’t they stoic enough?” I asked, somewhat exasperated by now.

The Old Man looked at me with a mixture of pity, sympathy, and impatience.

“Look: Everyone thinks they can lock me up in an old age home. They underestimate my craftiness. But my craftiness is what makes me indispensable. The chitchat I leave to the parrot. You’re here because I know something everyone wants to know, information that could be critical for the presidential succession.”

He narrowed his eyes diabolically, María del Rosario.

“Do you think I’m going to spill the beans and let myself get thrown out in the garbage? Are you an idiot or are you just pretending to be?”

“I respect you, Mr. President.”

“What I said stands. I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

“Believe me, your honesty in no way diminishes the respect I have for you.”

He laughed. He dared to laugh.

“Comrade Valdivia, I believe in the law of political compensation. What I give with one hand, I take away with the other. If I give you what you want, what will I take away in exchange?”

Disquieted, I said, “Are you asking what you can expect from me?”

His response, lightning fast, was, “Or from the people who sent you here.”

“My protection,” I murmured, realizing my stupid mistake as soon as the words came out.

The Old Man who never laughed stopped laughing but didn’t stop smiling.

“Never believe in the improbable. Only believe in the incredible.”

“But you’re offering me neither the improbable nor the incredible. You’re offering me nothing.”

“Oh my goodness. What if I told you Mexico needs hope? Someone to create absolute ideals and relative realities? To fuel the imagination?”

“I’d think you were fooling me.”

“See? And yet I’m telling you the truth, the whole truth. And I’m also giving you the key to my secret, just in case you really do want to know what it is.”

“You’re giving me a pebble, and I want the whole rock, Mr. President.”

“A pebble thrown into the water creates a tiny ripple, but the tiny ripple makes waves.”

Pause. Sigh. Resignation.

“And in the end, all those waves are the same.”

In an instant he recovered the energy that had been sucked out of him, as if the Gulf of Mexico were a giant drain. And that afternoon, perhaps it was. On my first visit, the Old Man had talked of the tide of invaders that had entered Mexico through Veracruz. But tides have to go in, taking some of the land with them, land that’s used up, no longer wanted or needed. What would the tides of the gulf carry away with them now? Everything, I thought, if the Old Man let them. Nothing if he was stubborn enough to stop the ebb and flow of the sea.

“The mist of conspiracy hovers over Mexico and no man’s head is higher than the air he breathes,” he said, and for the first time I detected a dreamy note in his voice—perhaps incongruous and rather unjustified, but dreamy nonetheless. Then he looked away toward the docks, the castle, the water. . . .

“Polluted air, sir.”

“I’m going to tell you one thing,” said the Old Man, his face and tone of voice back to normal now. “If you want to breathe easy, if you want to cut through some of that fog and put an end to all those conspiracies, you need to give the country back its hope.”

“Again?” I asked, resigned.

“I’m talking about a symbol,” the ex-president said, his voice growing stronger. “Cheated, lost, corrupted, this country can only be saved if it finds the symbol that can deliver it the promise of new hope.”

“But for a long time now we’ve given the people new hope—every six years, in fact—and then they lose it. Do you have the key to eternal hope?”

He went silent for some time because he was thinking. Out of courtesy I tried not to look at him. That was when I noticed that the vultures were no longer flying over Ulúa, and I wondered if I’d noticed them in January when I made my first visit to the Old Man. The sense that the vultures weren’t circling overhead may have been something I’d felt before and that now, as if life were a dream, I was feeling for the first time, having only dreamed it before. Or was it the other way around? Did I feel it first and then dream about it afterward?

“There once was a cat with feet made of rags. . . .” the parrot interrupted, chirping away.

“A symbol that will offer new hope.”

“Again?”

Silence.

I dared to speak for him.

“You’ve just said it. Mexico needs a symbol. Have you got one?”

He nodded his graying head. His receding hairline lent a noble air to his features. He looked up.

“Haven’t you wondered why the vultures aren’t flying over Ulúa today?”

Now I was the one to respond without words. I shook my head. “I had a very foolish and tactless government minister working under me. My advice to him was this: ‘Be careful. You’ve been accused.’ ”

“Of what, Mr. President?”

“Of telling the truth.”

He went silent, María del Rosario.

I think I understood, María del Rosario.

“The moment still hasn’t arrived?”

“No. Not yet.”

“What message shall I take to the capital?”

“When the coyotes howl, howl along with them. You don’t want people thinking you’re a cat.”

“Do you want me to tell you again?” the parrot chanted.

“Thank you, Mr. President. Is that all?”

“No. One more thing. But it’s for your ears only, Valdivia.”

“I’m listening.”

“My only regret is that I know every last story, and yet I’ll never know the full story.”

He turned to look at San Juan de Ulúa.

“I’ll summon you again for a visit, young man. When the moment arrives.”

The sun-drenched palm trees were nowhere to be seen in the deep circles around his eyes.

“Meanwhile, I can offer you the title for a novel that has yet to be written.”

I waited for him to speak.

“The Man in the Nopal Mask.”

45

GENERAL CÍCERO ARRUZA TO GENERAL MONDRAGÓN VON BERTRAB

General, if anyone respects hierarchy it is I, your loyal servant Cícero Arruza. Forgive me for being insistent. This time I’m sending my faithful assistant Mauser with a tape for you of my voice so that you can hear out loud my sincerity and my anguish. Now is the time, my general. Things are boiling over and this is our opportunity for action, to make the things you and I want happen. The one thing we can’t have is a power vacuum, but we’re heading straight for that cliff. Ask yourself this: When was the last time the president was seen in public? I can tell you, I’ve been keeping track. The beginning of January, when he read his address and got us into this mess with the gringos. For three months we haven’t seen the so-called head of state’s face! If that isn’t the famous power vacuum we’ve all talked about, it’s a hell of a hole. Holes, holes, everything in life is holes. Crawl out of a hole, get into a hole, shit down a hole, stick it up someone’s or let them stick it up ours . . . I’m going to be frank with you, General. Either we act now or they’re going to stick it to us both. You’re waffling, I can tell. I can tell you’ve even distanced yourself a little from your loyal subordinate Cícero Arruza. What’s the matter? Isn’t it kind of late to suddenly discover the kind of man I am? Forgive the frankness. I’m back where I was, at a bar, General—you know what they say, we only win battles in the bar and in bed. Do you remember that man from Tabasco, González Pedrero, who made our lives hell with “the dart of truth”? Wasn’t it González Pedrero who said that the Mexican Revolution may have left a million men dead, but that they’d died in bars during shoot-outs and not on the battlefield? I tell you that just to remind you: You know who I am, you know where I come from, and you know what I’m capable of. And I’m reminding you because I want you to be certain of one thing: Put the violence on my tab. The deaths are on me. . . . I’m not going to hide anything from you, General, I want you to know who you’re dealing with so that you won’t be cheated on like the husband in the song who asks, “Whose gun is this? Whose watch, whose horse whinnying in the stable?” . . . Sorry about my voice. Whenever I drink I always feel the urge to sing. . . . Remember who’s on your side. . . . I once told you, didn’t I, how much I miss real violence—not those little exercises where we bust up meetings by letting loose mice or pouring piss down from the balconies. Let me remind you of my credentials, for your peace of mind. As regional commander in various states of our union, General, I finished off the malcontents as well as the rebels in a single stroke of pure genius. I disposed of the opposition leaders in Nayarit by slipping Benzedrine into their rum and Cokes while they were celebrating some supposed electoral victory. They’ve got nothing to celebrate anymore. The opposition candidate in Guadalajara disappeared quietly at a building site for the metro. Building site, my ass, General. More like a grave site . . . I eliminated those annoying university students ten years ago by locking them up in a laboratory full of infected rabbits. And people don’t mess around when it comes to hunger, you know. . . . As for those rebels in Chiapas, I ordered them to be shot in a laundromat in Tuxtla Gutiérrez just because I knew the blood would contrast so well against those white sheets. . . . When the Yucatán tried to secede from the federation again, backed up by official and popular support, I made the whole bureaucracy disappear (don’t ask me where they ended up), and then I invited the townspeople to visit the empty government offices. There wasn’t a soul there.

“Take your places at the desks,” I ordered them. “Sit down and start working. Don’t you get it? The people who used to work here aren’t coming back.”

When the umpteenth Zapatista uprising broke out, this time in Guerrero, I ordered the troops to paint crosses on two out of every three doors in Chilpancingo, with a sign reading, “Here died everyone who opposed General Cícero Arruza and the government.”

Did you know all this already, General? Maybe yes, maybe no. It doesn’t matter. Now that the alcohol’s loosened my tongue, I want to make it real clear who you’re dealing with, I want you to know I’m not trying to fool you. You can count on me for laundry operations like the one in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, and you can keep your white gloves on— I won’t let anyone get them dirty.
[Long silence, followed by a mariachi
yelp.] Aee-aee-aee, this is Cícero Arruza here, one hell of a general who knows how to give his enemies a nugget of shit and pass it off as a hard candy. Enemies, me? You’ve got to be fucking kidding. Erase that, Mauser, General Bonbon’s a decent man, we don’t want to offend him. . . . Mauser, you’ve got to learn to tell the difference between vulgar louts like you and me, and queers like General Bonbon.

“Forgive your enemies,” the Bishop of Huamantla once said to me.

“I can’t,” I told him, dead serious. “I haven’t got any left. I’ve killed them all.”

Have you ever seen my photos of the men I’ve shot? There’s one that I keep above my bed. It’s famous. A rebel ringleader just before getting it. He’s got his cowboy hat on. Cigarette dangling from his lips. One leg in front of the other. Thumbs tucked into his belt loops. And smiling from ear to ear. Waiting for the grim reaper with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. That’s how I want to die, General, now that I’m five sheets to the wind I’m telling you because you’re like my brother, my soul brother and my comrade-in-arms, that’s how Cícero Arruza wants to die, laughing his head off in front of a firing squad of traitors and sons of bitches.
[Another long pause in the recording.]
Oh, General, I’ve never had a shred of luck in life—when’s it going to get better? That depends on you. You give the order and I’ll carry it out. Easy as anything. The police take the blame for the crimes—that way we keep the army in the clear. I swear to you, I know how to carry out orders to the limit. Not for nothing people say I’ve got the face of a man with no friends. I’ve got no friends! Not even you, General. I obey you. You’re my superior. But you’re not my friend. That wouldn’t be good for you. I assure you. Being my friend would be hazardous to your health. On the other hand, you can count on me for loyalty and solid knowledge of the territory I’m heading to. I know I have the support of people who count. Governors and local strongmen who exercise the power that our democratic president refuses to exercise because he thinks society is capable of governing itself. Yeah, right. Hell will freeze over first. Mexicans only understand brute force. Cabezas in Sonora. Quintero in Tamaulipas. Delgado in Baja California. Maldonado in San Luis. They’re all sick of the dumbass democratic government and are ready to join forces with us. . . . I can’t speak for the big man in Tabasco because you can never tell how that one’s going to react. One day he promises his full support and then the next day he goes back on his word. Just so you can see I’m not hiding things from you, General. And as for all those other candidates jockeying for the succession, they’ll be scared shitless when they see that the hard core, guys with the military leading them on, have beaten them at their own game and are ready to take control in the interest of national security. I’ve already got ex-President César León’s public funeral all set up. No, no, I’m not going to kill him; you don’t announce crimes, you commit them. For the scheming César León I’m going to organize a funeral procession that will go past his window at noon. To see if he gets the hint, you know. As for Bernal Herrera, we can just let him be. He’s like President Terán’s double, and nobody wants a second act in this play. As for Tácito de la Canal, we’ve got no choice but to eliminate him. That bald bastard knows too many secrets that could damage too many people. The new kid at the interior office, Valdivia, is wet behind the ears. I doubt if he’s got any underarm hair yet. I’ll fix him. Right on, man! And as for that gossip María del Rosario Galván, I’ve got a little surprise in store for her. They say she likes a fuck, don’t they? Well, she’s really going to have her fun when twenty of my men break into her house, destroy everything, and then fuck her, all of them. Let’s see, who’ve I left out, General? Ah yes, the treasury secretary. He’s going to be our candidate for interim president, and I really mean interim because he won’t last more than two days on the Eagle’s Throne before he turns it all over to the armed forces—I mean the junta, General, presided over by you, with my patriotic support to reestablish order, restore people’s sense of security, reinstate the death penalty. And we’ll chop off the thief ’s hands, the rapist’s penis, the attacker’s legs, and the kidnapper’s eyes if we have to because that’s priority number one in this country—safety and crime, and that’s what drives our patriotism, the safety of our people, not personal ambition, and that’s why we’ll get unanimous support. The days of impunity are over. No more robberies. No more kidnappings. No more murder—except for the ones you and I consider necessary. Order, order, order, order. My wish . . . is for . . . natural death . . . to no longer exist.
[Fading voice, garbled words.]
General, only stupid people play it safe . . . ooh, I know I’m a full-blooded Mexican because, I’m telling you, for me every night is Independence Day.
[Loud burp.]
And don’t think any less of me because I’ve been straight with you. And answer me quickly, will you? We have to move
now.
We’ve been down a long road together, General. Answer me. You always just sit there listening and you never say a damn thing. I understand your silence to mean alliance and agreement. Shh, no flies are going to get into my mouth . . . just tequila, pal. . . . Forgive me, General. Don’t make me think you’re having second thoughts about our plan. Don’t make me feel like a prickly old nopal that’s ignored unless it’s got fruit. . . . And you know something? Have you ever killed a man? After the first one, the rest are easy. . . .