by C. M. Mayo
My beloved son:
It is clear to me that your head is not in its proper place. I pray to God that this letter comes into your hands in time for you to be able to refrain from taking such a step. But if, against all my will, you are resolved to disobey me, then you must never mention this woman to me and if, sometime, you come to visit me, for my peace of mind, I demand your word of honor that you will never present her to me.
Mamá had no conception of how cruel she could be. She had a heart, yes, but it had become calloused. Her life had been played out on so big and broad a stage; she had been one of the richest girls in all of New Spain, wife of the nation’s hero, crowned an empress, and then found herself in exile, a widow, with the problem of educating her children, dependent on the charity of priests. She had gone on craving drama as an addict craves opium. And it so galled her to have to live in the United States, which would with such easy contempt, such hypocritical arrogance, pluck off pieces of her country like so much fruit ripe for the taking.
The wedding took place in the front parlor of Rosedale, the Greens’ farmhouse, which overlooked the heights above Georgetown. Afterward, alone, he took the train to Philadelphia. He did not mention his bride to Mamá, but he did not hide the new ring on his finger. When he was taking his leave the next day, she gripped his hand with both of hers. “Promise me, my grandchildren will be Mexicans.” He kissed her hands. He promised her. “You will stay in Mexico,” she said. He promised her that, as well.
Angelo and his bride arrived in Mexico just in time for a bloody merry-go-round of governments, laws, constitutions concocted by clowns and radicals. Mexico seemed to be bound to a wheel, undergoing the same tragedies and travesties over and over again. The United States had invaded his country in 1847, now it was the turn of the French. Not that it was so easy this time— when the baby was born, the French were still battling for the city of Puebla. Then Juárez decamped, the French occupied the capital, and in June 1864, Maximilian and Carlota arrived. There was a whirl of balls, dinners, tertulias—Alicia and Pepa were thrilled, they had all-new wardrobes made up with Parisian-style chapeaux trimmed with swan feathers, ostrich feathers, Belgian lace, all quite the sight, as before Carlota’s appearance on the scene señoras wore mantillas, not hats. But it was all the same to Angelo; he could care a fig for these Europeans! Pepa and Alicia could curtsey, but he and his brothers, sons of the Liberator, they were not going to bow and scrape. Nonetheless, they were careful with words. They had always had reason to be very careful.
Both at home and in public, the Iturbides spoke English to one another, and even still, they rarely discussed politics. Where they might be overheard, they used code words: General Bazaine was “Grandpa” and Maximilian, “Younger Brother.” Privately, however, Angelo had expressed his reservations on the larger questions of diplomatic strategy. The French intervention in Mexico had been constructed, in part, upon the assumption that the Confederacy would achieve its independence, and so the Mexican Empire could count on a friendly neighbor and buffer between itself and the North. But Louis Napoleon had underestimated the Union. Angelo had been friendly with Lincoln’s ambassador, Mr. Thomas Corwin, before he left Mexico, yes, but Angelo had himself seen the ports, the shipyards, the railways of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York—not Boston, not personally, but the thing was—last year, he had said it to several gentlemen—“The North is a juggernaut and the Confederacy is going to be crushed.”
“It is rouge et noire,” General Bazaine responded, through his cloud of cigar smoke.
Atlanta had already been burnt to the ground. “Respectfully, sir,” Angelo countered, “the South is buried. And the United States are going to be no friend to this empire.”
By February 1865, the news had reached Mexico City that Charleston had fallen. In May they learned that, in April, General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. Angelo had expected to see grim faces all around, but no; with the mochas, the Mexican conservatives, everything with Maximilian’s empire was de maravilla. That same month, when they learned that Lincoln had been assassinated, some of the mochas celebrated with champagne toasts. La Sociedad declared that the new U.S. president would recognize His Majesty the Emperor Maximilian and soon trade would be bustling not only over the Texas border from Matamoros, that hole in the Union blockade, but now also from Campeche, Tampico, Veracruz. Mexico would become a magnet for colonists! Confederate refugees, the best people with education and capital—it went without saying.
“What is your view, Don Angel?” the Prussian ambassador, Baron Magnus, had asked Angelo. This was all very sotto voce, but Baron Magnus had seen a copy of Carlota’s letter of condolence to Mrs. Lincoln. “Will they acknowledge it?”
Angelo said, “It is naive to think so.”
Agustín Gerónimo muttered, “Bloody hell they will.”
That was it; the Iturbide brothers had said nothing more. Angelo was proved correct on all counts: the Confederacy did fall, and the new U.S. president not only refused to recognize Maximilian but sent forty thousand troops straight down to the bottom of Texas, where they could, at any moment, open fire and pound Matamoros to dust.
Last June, at General Bazaine’s wedding, the men gathered in a corner of the garden. The Spanish ambassador asked him directly, “In your judgment, Don Angel, will the United States troops cross the Rio Grande?”
“It’s a bluff,” Angelo said. “The states are weary of war.”
An English journalist, elbowing in and making an obsequious little bow as he introduced himself, said, “Is it your opinion then, Mister Iturbide, that the Americans will now be handing over their arms and ammunition to Mister Juárez?”
“¿Quién sabe? Who knows?” Angelo sank his hands into his pockets. One could never be sure who was a paid agent for whom.
Soon afterward, Angelo and his brothers were followed whenever they went into the street.
Then Alicia made jest of the emperor’s charro costume—but blazes, who hadn’t? Pepa said Maximilian looked the part of a ranchero about to rope a calf. Even their elderly landlady, Doña Juliana, the widow of Don Manuel Gómez Pedraza, the aunt of Madame Bazaine, and a complete mocha from her velvet slippers to her black lace mantilla, when she caught sight of Maximilian cantering by in that tight little jacket and washtub of a sombrero, cried (if only loud enough for Alicia to hear), “God spare us this burlesque.”
Three days later, a Palatine Guard left an envelope for him. Doña Juliana’s maid took it for an invitation, brought it upstairs, and placed it on the mantel with others. That evening, with only a feeling of smugness, Angelo slit open the heavy ivory paper embossed in gold. But this was not an invitation to another ball. It was a clap of thunder out of a clear sky: an order, without explanation, that the Iturbides quit Mexico. Alicia burst into tears. To hear her, the baby began bawling.
Angelo felt he’d been horse-kicked in the gut. Why? Who was it? Who had slandered them? It happened all the time; people made things up, forged documents. His mind raced through the mirrored maze of possibilities.
Or, was someone fishing for a bribe?
He had no idea what this was, no idea what to do, but he spoke calmly. “Darling, do not upset yourself.” He rested a calming hand on her shoulder. “I will go to Agustín Gerónimo. He will arrange things.”
By protocol, his elder brother should have been the one to receive such a communication. The next morning, Angelo found him in his hotel. The darkened room smelled of unwashed clothing. On the bedside table a plate of cheese crusts had already attracted ants. There were two glasses and an empty champagne bottle. The cork lay on the floor by a pile of clothing. As was his custom, for his sick headache, Agustín Gerónimo had a lady’s white leather opera glove packed fat with ice on his forehead. The thing reminded Angelo of an obscene, skinned trout.
“Brother! Brother,” Angelo shook one of the bedposts.
Agustín Gerónimo groaned, “Eh. Balls.” He flung the glove. Angelo stepped aside. It landed with a wet thum
p at the foot of the bed. Angelo picked the thing up in his fingertips and carried it to the washbasin. His brother, meanwhile, rolled over to face the wall. After that Angelo was unable to rouse him. He left the letter propped on the bedside table.
Not until late that day was the family able to gather in Angelo’s parlor. They were stunned, Angelo most of all, when Agustín Gerónimo announced that he had already dashed off a reply, that His Majesty consider it had been more years than the French had been in this country since the family’s pensions had been paid by any government. Should Maximilian reinstate their pensions, and perhaps also grant them a little extra, for a style of living commensurate with their station, then the Iturbides, all of them, would gladly go.
Pepa cried, “I would not be glad!”
“Enough of a pension and you would be,” Agustín Gerónimo said.
Alicia looked crushed. “I don’t want to live in Washington!”
“Who says ya hafta?” Agustín Gerónimo was about to say more, but he doubled over in a paroxysm of coughing. Angelo thought: it was ghastly the way his older brother had declined. Wherever they ended up—Philadelphia? London?—that was where Agustín Gerónimo was going to be buried.
They all waited for the head of the family to compose himself. They were arranged around him in a horseshoe, Alicia and Pepa to one side, together on the sofa; Angelo standing behind the straight-backed chair, upon which sat the youngest brother, Agustín Cosme.
Pepa could no longer contain herself. “You should have waited to hear what we had to say about it.” She sniffed with indignation. “What are we supposed to do now, wait on tenterhooks for a reply?”
“Or a midnight knock at the door.” Angelo uncovered his eyes. “My God,” he muttered to the ceiling. “We could all be arrested.”
“Eh!” Agustín Gerónimo said, stuffing his handkerchief back into his pocket. “Not with the landlady you have . . .”
Alicia cut in, “Yes, Doña Juliana would help us! She could go to General Bazaine! Why, he’s practically her son-in-law.”
That made Agustín Gerónimo guffaw.
Pepa gave Agustín Gerónimo a lacerating look. “I see nothing amusing about any of this.” She turned now to Alicia. “Involving General Bazaine would not be the best idea.”
One thing they all agreed upon: They could not risk appearing in public.
Angelo gave away his opera tickets and, claiming to be indisposed by the gout, declined all invitations to dine. Alicia and Pepa gave up their morning rounds of visits. To avoid their being seen in church, Doña Juliana arranged to have one Father Fischer, a German recently arrived from Durango by way of Texas, come and take their confessions and say mass in her drawing room. Doña Juliana had plenty of sofas, a pair of prie-dieux and an age-darkened altar once the pride of the chapel of a Dominican cattle hacienda. Before that altar stood a manila chest, upon which the curate spread his altar cloth and placed the chalice and the host. Afterward, they would all troop upstairs to Angelo and Alicia’s dining room for coffee and apple pie. Father Fischer always took three heaping spoonfuls of whipped cream, saying with a satisfied sigh, “Ach, mit Schlag.”
Father Fischer had the pudgy, friendly face of one who has invariably eaten well. But he had an oily way about him, a Roman nose, pelt-like red hair, and ferret-like eyes that darted about, as if secretly sizing up the furnishings, the better to estimate his tithes. Most unattractive was his habit, in the middle of hearing a confession, of examining his fingernails, and every now and then he’d give one a good chew. Alicia pouted that Father Fischer smelled of beer and pickled cabbage, and he mumbled the Lord’s Prayer to gibberish—why, his Latin was atrocious. He certainly was not the elevated kind of German she had become acquainted with among the corps diplomatique in Washington. She’d heard it said that his father was a butcher in a village north of Stuttgart. Further, he’d gone to San Francisco during the gold rush and, in violation of his oaths as a priest, taken a lover and then abandoned her and their children. But, Pepa countered, idle gossip was best overlooked. The fact was, Father Fischer had made Maximilian’s acquaintance in Rome. He had high-level connections within the Vatican— “Va-ti-can,” Pepa said, pronouncing it as if for a small child. “And Father Fischer is German.”
“So?” Alicia rolled her eyes.
Pepa said, “Have a lick of common sense, for once.”
Doña Juliana, meanwhile, had advised General Bazaine. He knew nothing of the letter to the Iturbides, and dismayed as he was by it, he judged it “outside his purview.” With utmost discretion, Doña Juliana attempted to learn more, but Maximilian’s court, being so largely composed of parvenus and foreigners, remained opaque.
Three weeks went by before the Iturbide brothers dared dip a toe in the water. Angelo, with Father Fischer as his companion, showed himself in the Restaurant Parisien. General Bazaine and Baron Magnus, the Prussian ambassador, stopped by their table and shook hands. As they exchanged pleasantries, Angelo searched their faces. So little of importance was ever said directly; one had to parse out what went unsaid. One watched for subtle changes in the shades of gray—was it a sharpening of the tone of voice? An inflection, was it of deference, or however infinitesimal, annoyance? Was a smile one of affection, or a mask for nervous embarrassment?
From the Imperial Palace there came a blast of silence.
Soon afterward they read in La Sociedad that His Majesty was touring in the provinces, beginning with some canoeing on Lake Texcoco, and then Teotihuacan to see the pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and on to Chapingo, Otumba, and Tulancingo. His Majesty visited a school, a hospital, and a glass factory. He admired the aqueduct of Zempoala and then traveled north to visit the silver mines in Pachuca. There was much to read about Pachuca, pages and pages. “It does seem,” Pepa said, “that Maximilian might move his whole court to Pachuca!”
After Maximilian had been back in residence in Chapultepec Castle for another week, the Iturbides had still heard nothing. Agustín Gerónimo said, “Maybe he’s kicked the ball downstairs to the treasury.” He meant the question of their pensions. After another week, however, Angelo was coming to suspect that they might never be arrested, if they kept quiet. Very quiet.
In the meantime, Doña Juliana learned a piece of brilliant intelligence: Father Fischer had become friendly with Frau von Kuhacsevich, Mistress of the Imperial Household, and also with Mathilde Doblinger, the empress’s Viennese wardrobe maid. These were some of Their Majesties’ closest, most trusted people; they had come with them from Miramar Castle in Trieste.
Angelo put it to Father Fischer directly: Did he think the danger of their being arrested for not obeying the imperial order to leave Mexico was past?
Father Fischer’s ferret-like eyes slid to the left. “It is not for me to say.”
On the first Sunday of August, after the mass in Doña Juliana’s drawing room, and after the apple pie and whipped cream, and after Doña Juliana, leaning heavily on the arm of her old cook, had gone back downstairs, Father Fischer made his proposition.
Angelo thought he must have misheard. “Maximilian wants to do what?”
Father Fischer smiled greasily as he repeated: “His Majesty desires to bring your son, Agustín, under his tutelage.”
A mammoth might have crashed through the ceiling and flattened the piano to splinters. Angelo opened his mouth, but he could not form words. He found himself standing, but his knees felt suddenly uncertain; he put a hand on the edge of Alicia’s chair. Alicia, however, lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Our Agustín would go to Chapultepec Castle? With Their Majesties?”
“With Their Majesties.” Father Fischer and Pepa said it at the same time.
Angelo looked at Pepa and his jaw dropped. “Sister—you—?”
Father Fischer continued, “His Majesty would assume the responsibility of his education. He would also assume your nephew Salvador’s education in France.”
Pepa said, “We would all be made Highnesses, with the titles
of Prince and Princess.” Pointedly, looking first at Agustín Gerónimo and then at her two younger brothers, she repeated, “All.”
Agustín Cosme, the one son of the Liberator who had never had the rank of an Imperial Highness, for he had been born shortly after his father’s death, came quite alert now, though he said nothing. No one wanted his opinion anyway, and had he given it, its weight would have been that of a feather.
From his chair, Agustín Gerónimo cleared his throat loudly. “Eh! Got that title more than a few years ago. You got it, sister, when you were knee high to a puddle duck.”
Father Fischer said, in his oily way, “Dear sir, you might consider it as the palace taking your esteemed family under its—” he looked to the ceiling as if there the words were a-fluttering—
“Special protection,” Pepa said.
Agustín Gerónimo said, “Hot air, Father.” He put a hand on his hip. “What about pensions. There is the nut of the matter. We cannot be leaving Mexico without means.”
Father Fischer said, “All your pensions would be fully reinstated. And there would be other sums that would be more than generous.”
Agustín Gerónimo tipped back his head. “How generous?”
“For each of you, one hundred fifty thousand dollars.”