The Five Acts of Diego Leon

by Alex Espinoza

  “So enlightened, those Europeans,” his grandfather said.

  “Diego was born there, you know?” his grandmother said, taking a spoonful of bisque.

  “In France, correct?” Lupe asked him.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes. France. Near Nice. That’s where my father was from. It was where he and my mother settled after eloping.” He glanced over at his grandmother, who nodded approvingly.

  “I just adore French culture,” Lupe said. “So sophisticated. Wouldn’t you agree, dear?” she asked, looking at Paloma.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, stirring her spoon in her soup. “Certainly.”

  “She’s so shy,” Lupe said, apologetically.

  Paloma adjusted herself, straightened her back, and lifted her head.

  She and Diego sipped their wine silently as the conversation turned to politics, to the ever-present tension between the church and the government. From the moment his father returned to San Antonio after the revolution, Diego had never become interested in politics. Fighting, killings, and corruption … it was all so meaningless, so destructive.

  After the main course, dessert, and coffee, his grandparents and Emmanuel and Lupe went into the parlor to sip brandy.

  “Son,” his grandfather said. “Why don’t you take Paloma outside to the courtyard? It’s a beautiful night.”

  “Very well.” He rose, extended his arm out, and she took it.

  They sat down on a stone bench, and Paloma tightened her shawl around her shoulders. She looked up at the sky, at the fading blue light turning to black, the few stars glittering in the sky like specks of sugar.

  “How have you adjusted since you returned from Europe?” he asked, fumbling for conversation.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. I suppose.” She ran her fingers through her hair, which she wore short and parted to the side.

  “Why did you return?” he asked.

  “I was through with my schooling, and my parents wanted me back.”

  “I see.”

  She fussed with the tassels on her shawl and slumped back down again, her back curved, her bony shoulders jutting forward like two horns. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen. I’ll be twenty next month. You?”

  “Eighteen.”

  They were silent. He was relieved when he heard his grandmother calling their names. Back inside, he stood with his grandparents and Emmanuel and Lupe in the foyer.

  “It was nice meeting you, Paloma,” Diego said.

  His grandfather cleared his throat and jabbed him in the side. “Isn’t there something you’d like to ask Paloma?”

  Diego tried not to show his anger. He had always been obedient to the old man, but this was just too much. They all stared, waiting for him to speak. “Paloma,” he said, his tone reluctant, “would you like to go for a stroll with me tomorrow? Say, six in the evening?”

  The girl said nothing, only looked down at the tips of her shoes.

  Lupe shook her gently. “Paloma,” she said. “Diego’s asked you out. What do you say?”

  She shrugged her shoulders again. “Yes,” she said. “Fine.”

  “There,” Emmanuel said, clapping his hands, his palms and fingers plump. “That settles it.”

  She was from a good family, his grandfather reminded him after they left. From good stock, he would say. As if she were cattle, as if she were a thing to be bred. Paloma Pacheco would secure a good position for him among the elite of Morelia. The marriage of a Sánchez and a Pacheco. Finally! As much as the thought excited his grandfather, it terrified Diego, made him feel weighed down. Imagine it, his grandfather urged him, pouring Diego a glass of cognac. Doroteo had taken to inviting Diego to sit with him in the parlor to drink and smoke tobacco.

  In between sips, his grandfather laid out the merits of his seeing Paloma. She’s a good girl, he said. Wealthy. You would never have to worry about money again.

  “But what if I don’t love her?” Diego asked him that night. The cognac had gone to his head. He thought about Javier, wondered where he was, what he was doing.

  “Love?” His grandfather chuckled and swatted the air with his hand. “You grow to love someone. It happens little by little.”

  That was how emotions worked for the old man and others of their generation. Love wasn’t something felt deep within the blood, a mystery of the heart. A man married not for love. A man married to secure for himself a good place within the ranks of society. Love was incidental. If it was lacking in the marriage, his grandfather said, there were other ways to acquire it.

  Perhaps it was the liquor that was blocking his ability to follow the conversation, but he didn’t fully understand. “What other ways, Grandfather?” He took the last sip of his cognac and felt it burn his throat as it slid down.

  Doroteo glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Young ladies,” he whispered. “Friends.” He winked. “Pay them visits. Keep them around. Hidden but close by. Keep them for many years.” Then he raised his glass and nodded. “Even the most honest and morally straight man among us keeps a mistress.”

  “Have you ever?” Diego asked him now, setting his empty glass down.

  And just as his grandfather was about to answer, Doña Julia walked into the parlor. “It’s late,” she said to them both. “Doroteo, you should rest.” She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.

  Diego couldn’t bring himself to watch. He looked away.

  “Thank you, my love,” his grandfather said. He rose and followed her out.

  Over the next several months, Diego had little choice but to spend more time with Paloma, when he really ached to be with Javier, whom he saw less and less now that his friend was enrolled in classes at the university. He took Paloma for long walks and to the symphony, which helped distract him from imagining a life with her. During a theater performance, Diego watched, enthralled, and the urge to get on stage stirred up inside of him again.

  “I used to perform, you know?” he said to Paloma.

  “Your grandmother told me,” she said. “What were you in?”

  “Pageants at school. I was in Julius Caesar. I was the lead in Macbeth. I studied with a very renowned opera singer.”

  “Fascinating,” she said, her tone flat.

  What would it be like married to such a person? he wondered. It was true what his grandfather had told him, that he would have everything he’d ever need, that his children and his children’s children would be secure. And Emmanuel Pacheco liked Diego. Each time he stopped by to pick up Paloma, Emmanuel would greet him with a hug and a handshake, his robust face lighting up. He would invite him to sit and have a drink. He doted on Diego, gave him advice and his opinion on money matters and stocks and bonds. More important—and unlike Doroteo—he listened to him. Like a true father, Diego thought.

  But there was one thing that Diego was sure of: he was not, nor could he ever be, in love with Paloma Pacheco. Quite simply, he found her dull. Diego spent their dates trying as hard as he could to engage her in one way or another. He took her dancing, to dinners, to church parties and socials with other people their age. No matter what he tried doing, he could never draw her out. He yearned for the kind of partnership and excitement he knew was possible with Javier, his closest friend.

  One night, as they stood in front of her house saying good-bye, he took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. He was about to leave when she spoke.

  “Despite what you may think, I do like you,” she said.

  “Oh?” he asked, turning around now. He really didn’t care one way or another.

  “Yes,” she said. “And my father says you would make a fine husband.” She lowered her head, trying to be coy. “You must forgive my awkwardness. It’s just that I have little experience with boys. I get nervous.” She approached him now, took his hand and brought it up to her face. “You can kiss me,” she whispered, assuming he wanted to. “On the mouth.”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to hers. He tried t
o but felt absolutely nothing, and then it was over.

  “Good night, Diego,” Paloma said, climbing the steps to the house.

  “Good night, Paloma.”

  The following year, they announced their engagement.

  4.

  June 1926

  PLUTARCO ELÍAS CALLES—ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC two years earlier, in 1924—was, like many of the radicals and intellectuals around Morelia, a staunch atheist who harbored little sympathy for the Catholic Church. On June 14, 1926, Diego read in the newspaper that Calles would actively enforce Article 130 of the 1917 Constitution, stripping the church of much of its power. Priests no longer could hold public office, were required to register, and were not allowed to wear religious garb in public. Individual states were allowed to regulate the number of priests in specific regions, leaving entire areas completely void of clergy. Schools were secularized, and priests and nuns were regularly arrested. As a result, many began to flee to the United States.

  Shortly after Diego read the newspaper article, he noticed the unease around Morelia gradually begin. Those opposing the church began nailing leaflets on posts around the city calling for control of the church by the government. Young people stood on the street corners and sidewalks shouting, handing out Libre Morelia leaflets announcing meetings to inform the wider public of the dangers and corruption inherent within the Catholic Church. After all it was the Benedictine and Franciscan monks in robes who had blessed the Spanish conquistadores, they charged, the very ones who then turned around and enslaved or slaughtered the indigenous. They told of the accounts of the priests in Nueva España, of their condescending view of the “native beast”—his savagery, his animalistic urges, and the murderous and treacherous tendencies coursing through his blood. The church, they proclaimed, had, from the beginning, manipulated the government, destroyed lives, shattered the nation’s faith.

  The priests preached that it was the end time, that it was foretold that an era would come when a godless government would rule over this land, condemning generations of souls to an eternity in hell. Their sermons stirred up feelings of resentment and suspicion in Diego, his grandparents, and their closest acquaintances. They prayed in secret, late at night, by candlelight. The saint statues and crucifixes and rosaries were hidden away, brought out only when they were in the company of those that could be trusted. The air in the city was charged with a sense of instability, with nervous energy. Diego could see it in the way people walked, their steps quick and frantic, in how they eyed one another with erratic and suspicious glances.

  At the university, Diego knew students were banding together in between courses or after school and congregating outside the church’s gates to protest. They wore hats emblazoned with red stars, cursed, and caused commotions wherever they went. Hearing of all of this, Diego thought about the warring tribes before the Spaniards arrived, the Conquista, the French occupation, the fight for independence, the revolution, now this, and what was yet to come. An endless cycle of violence in Mexico. It was in their nature to wage war over false ideologies. They would die that way. What a waste.

  Diego was excited about meeting Javier for a cup of coffee. But when he showed up to the café that afternoon with Esteban Rosales, Diego became quickly annoyed. Esteban’s father owned and ran a small printing press which some of the more radical newspapers and daily circulars used. Esteban’s parents were atheists whose anarchistic beliefs were in direct violation of those of the Catholic Church and the country. In their preparatoria, Esteban Rosales had had few friends and was known around the school for being something of a misfit, an odd boy. He had been a skinny and frail teenager with messy hair and long legs. Now, he was more filled out, his hair cut and combed neatly. He wore a thin mustache and long sideburns. He strolled into the café with confidence, smoking a cigarette and holding a stack of books.

  “Do you two know each other?” Javier said.

  “I’m not sure,” Diego said, feigning ignorance as he glanced at Esteban.

  “Julius Caesar,” Esteban said.

  “No. Diego.”

  Esteban laughed. “I meant the play. Julius Caesar.”

  “Yes,” Diego said. “Of course. I remember now.” Diego had been angry because he wanted to play the lead but instead was given the part of Brutus. In the end, though, he was glad he got the role he did because, as Carolina had explained, Brutus was a much more complicated character, far more challenging and interesting. Esteban Rosales had been cast as one of the senators who conspired, along with Brutus, to assassinate Caesar. There had been rumors around the preparatoria about Esteban and his ways. Some of the boys had talked about seeing him with an older man, the two locked in an embrace and kissing each other.

  Javier and Esteban went on and on, gossiping about their classes at the university, talking about the current climate between the government and the church, which they saw as evil, controlling, an oppressive institution that needed to be eradicated.

  “Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Diego responded.

  “Hardly,” Esteban said.

  Diego soon felt excluded, and he finished his coffee and stormed off. The two of them hardly noticed he was gone, not until they looked out into the street and waved good-bye to him.

  A few days later, on his walk to his grandfather’s office early in the morning, Diego saw Esteban. Esteban wore a pair of argyle stockings pulled up to his knees, baggy tan knickerbockers, a striped shirt with a high collar, a bow tie, and a yellow vest that fit very tight over his lean body. Pinned to the vest was a patch in the form of a star. He stood near the plaza’s central fountain holding a stack of leaflets. The few pedestrians out at that hour paid little attention to him, but when a woman did stop to take one, she looked at it, shouted something to Esteban Diego couldn’t hear, and shoved the leaflet back at him.

  “Hello, Diego,” Esteban said.

  “Hello,” he said. “What have you got there?” He pointed to the leaflets.

  Esteban handed him one.

  Across the top, Libre Morelia was written in big bold letters. It was an announcement condemning the Catholic Church. It talked of its corruption, its greed, and its dangerous influence over the lives of everyone—from politicians to the rich to the very poor—in the republic. There would be a meeting, it went on to say, a gathering of “like-minded” individuals, to discuss and come up with ways to resist the church and fight back.

  “You should come to the meeting,” Esteban said. “My father says it’s important for people our age to involve themselves. He says we’ll inherit this country and that if the church continues to grow, all will be lost.”

  “Do you believe it? Do you think the church is corrupt? That it’s bad?”

  “I do,” he said.

  Despite himself, Diego imagined Esteban doing the things the others had gossiped about. He envisioned him bent over with a man behind him. He wanted to ask him if the stories were true, wanted to know what it felt like to be with someone in that way.

  “What do you say?” Esteban asked now. “Javier’s coming, too.”

  “Really?” Diego nodded. “You two are close, aren’t you?”

  “Sure. Well, we’re … friends.”

  “Friends,” Diego repeated.

  “So, tomorrow then?” Esteban said, after a pause. “Meet us in front of the university. By the main gate.”

  He was still holding the flyer when he arrived at the office. His grandfather was already there, standing over his desk, squinting at an old document with faded letters and smudged ink. He picked it up carefully, the document so aged and delicate that it looked as though the slightest stir, the softest breeze, would disintegrate it, turning the fibers to dust.

  “Land deeds. Old. Very old,” his grandfather said, sighing. “Sometimes I fear. What will be left when all these traditional things vanish?” He placed the document inside a slim folio with a leather cover and a buckle. His grandfather then noticed the leaflet in Diego’s hand. “Where did you ge
t that?” he asked.

  “Esteban Rosales was handing them out,” Diego said, removing his hat and sitting at his desk.

  “It would be better if you avoided the likes of that boy and his family. How could someone not believe in God?” he asked, shaking his head. “They claim the church is evil. They’re the evil ones.”

  “I shouldn’t have stopped,” Diego said.

  “Those people,” Doroteo said, “the whole lot of them are dangerous. They have wild ideas. And that boy gives me the strangest feeling.”

  “Don’t worry, Grandfather. I’ll make sure not to befriend him.”

  “Good,” the old man said. “No bad influences, no distractions. You must stay focused. Just like when I told you to quit your lessons with Carolina. Remember?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “And look how that turned out for you. You and Paloma are engaged now and about to be married. You’ll have a home and a family soon. I’ll be a great-grandfather.” He clapped his hands and went back to work.

  Even though their lessons had officially ended just after his sixteenth birthday, after that talk, Diego had continued seeing Carolina and continued, though informally, with their afternoon meetings. “I’m seeing Javier. Studying with him,” he would tell the old man. “I’ll go to the office with you next week. Once we pass these exams.” The excuses stopped working, though, once he completed the preparatoria; then he gave in and stopped seeing Carolina, assuming his rightful role as his grandfather’s heir. Still, there were times he caught himself humming a melody, daydreaming about performing a soliloquy to a theater full of people, reciting lines from a play he memorized years before. Diego had worked so hard to change, to mold and shape himself into a new man, the person his father and mother and his grandparents had wanted him to be. He had worked so hard to reject those things that distracted him. But why was their pull so strong? Why couldn’t he forget? Why did the musical notes, the melodies, the words, the feeling of performing, haunt him so?

  Despite his grandfather’s warnings, he couldn’t resist going to meet Javier and Esteban the next day. Diego was surprised to see that, like Esteban, Javier wore a beret emblazoned with a red star. Javier’s arms were crossed, his pose relaxed. He leaned up against the iron bars, talking to Esteban. He was smiling and nodding his head. Esteban stood very close to him with his left arm extended out, gripping one of the gate’s metal slats.