To be honest, sometimes our palace doesn’t look like a palace. The problem is it’s really big and there’s no way of keeping it immaculate. For a long time Itzpapalotl has been wanting Yolcaut to hire one of her nieces to help her with the cleaning. Itzpapalotl says she’s trustworthy, but Yolcaut doesn’t want any more people in our palace. Itzpapalotl grumbles because our palace has ten rooms: my bedroom, Yolcaut’s bedroom, the hat room, the room Miztli and Chichilkuali use, Yolcaut’s business room and five more empty rooms we don’t use. And then as well as that there’s the kitchen, the living room with the armchairs, the TV room, the cinema room, my games room, Yolcaut’s games room, Yolcaut’s office, the inside dining room, the dining room out on the terrace, the small dining room, five bathrooms we use, two we don’t, the gym, the sauna and the swimming pool.
Miztli says Yolcaut is paranoid and that this is a problem. The problem has to do with keeping the palace clean and also with Miztli’s time off. Because Miztli and Chichilkuali are in charge of protecting our palace with their rifles twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-four hours means that sometimes Miztli doesn’t sleep and other times Chichilkuali doesn’t sleep. Even though we have a really high wall to protect us. And even though on top of the wall there are bits of glass and barbed wire and an alarm with a laser beam that sometimes makes a noise when a bird flies close to it. And even though we live in the middle of nowhere.
Around our palace we have a gigantic garden. It’s looked after by Azcatl, who is mute and spends the whole day surrounded by the noise of the machines he uses. The noise is deafening if you go really close. Azcatl has machines to cut the grass, machines to cut the weeds and machines to cut the trees and the bushes. But his main enemy is the weeds. The truth is Azcatl is losing the battle, because our garden is always full of weeds. By the way, Liberian pygmy hippopotamuses are silent machines that devour weeds. That’s what’s called being a herbivore, a plant-eater.
In the garden, opposite the dining room on the terrace, we also have cages with our animals, which are divided into two groups: the birds and the big cats. For birds we have eagles, falcons and a cage full of parakeets and brightly coloured parrots, macaws and that sort of thing. For cats we have a lion in one cage and two tigers in another. On the same side as the tigers there’s a space where we’re going to put the cage for our Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. Inside the cage there’ll be a pond, but it won’t be a deep pond, it’ll just be for squelching around in the mud. Liberian pygmy hippopotamuses aren’t like other hippopotamuses, which like to live submerged in the water. This is all going to be arranged by Itzcuauhtli, who looks after our animals: he gives them their food, cleans their cages and gives them medicine when they get ill. Itzcuauhtli could tell me lots of things about animals, like how to make them better and things like that. But he doesn’t tell me anything: he’s mute too.
I know a lot of mute people: three. Sometimes, when I tell them something, they look as if they want to talk and they open their mouths. But they stay quiet. Mutes are mysterious and enigmatic. The thing with silence is you can’t give explanations. Mazatzin thinks the opposite: he says you can learn a lot by being silent. But those are ideas from the empire of Japan that he loves so much. I think the most enigmatic and mysterious thing in the world must be a Japanese mute.
Some days everything is disastrous. Like today, when I got the stabbing pain in my belly again. It’s a sharp stab that feels like you’re being electrocuted. Once I stuck a fork in an electric socket and electrocuted my hand a little bit. The stabbing is the same, but in my stomach.
To comfort me Yolcaut gave me a new hat for my collection: a three-cornered one. I have lots of three-cornered hats, eleven. Three-cornered hats are hats shaped like a triangle with a very small crown. I have three-cornered hats from France, from the kingdom of United and from the country of Austria. My favourite is a French one from a revolutionary army. At least that’s what it said in the catalogue. I like French people because they take off the crown before they cut off their kings’ heads. That way the crown doesn’t get dented and you can keep it in a museum in Paris or sell it to someone with lots of money, like us. The new three-cornered hat is from the kingdom of Sweden and it has three little red balls, one on each point. I love three-cornered hats, because they’re mad soldiers’ hats. You put one on and you feel like running off all on your own to invade the nearest kingdom. But today I didn’t feel like invading countries or starting wars. Today was a disastrous day.
In the afternoon Mazatzin didn’t give me any homework and let me research a subject of my choice. It’s something we do sometimes, mainly when I’m ill and find it hard to pay attention. I researched the country of Liberia. According to the encyclopaedia, Liberia was founded in the nineteenth century by people who used to work as slaves in the country of the United States. They were African American people. Their bosses set them free and they went to live in Africa. The problem was that there were already other people living there, the African people. And so the African American people formed the government of the country of Liberia and the African people didn’t. That’s why they spend their whole time fighting wars and killing each other. And now they’re all pretty much dying of hunger.
It seems like the country of Liberia is a disastrous country. Mexico is a disastrous country, too. It’s such a disastrous country that you can’t get hold of a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. Actually, that’s what you call being a third-world country.
Politicians are people who make complicated deals. And they’re not even precocious people, quite the opposite. That’s what Yolcaut says, that to earn millions of pesos you don’t need to repeat the word ‘democracy’ so many times. Today I met the fourteenth or fifteenth person I know and he was a politician called the Governor. He came to have dinner at our palace because Cinteotl makes a really tasty green pozole. Cinteotl is the cook at our palace and she knows how to make all the types of pozole that exist in the world, which is three: the green kind, the white kind and the red kind. I don’t like pozole much, mainly because it’s got cooked lettuce in it, which is ridiculous. Lettuce is for salads and sandwiches. Also you make pozole with pigs’ heads: once I peeped into the pot and there were teeth and ears floating around in the broth. Sordid. The things I like are enchiladas, quesadillas and tacos al pastor. I like tacos al pastor without the pineapple, because pineapple on a taco is ridiculous too. I hardly put any chilli on my enchiladas, because otherwise my belly hurts a lot.
The Governor is a man who thinks he governs the people who live in a state. Yolcaut says the Governor doesn’t govern anyone, not even his fucking mother. In any case the Governor is a nice man, although he has a tuft of white hair in the middle of his head that he doesn’t shave off. I had fun listening to Yolcaut and the Governor talking. But the Governor didn’t. His face was all red, as if it was going to explode, because I was eating some quesadillas while they had green pozole and talked about their cocaine business. Yolcaut told him to calm down, that I was old enough, that we were a gang and in gangs you don’t hide the truth. Then the Governor asked me how old I was and when I told him he decided I was still too young to know about that sort of thing. That was when Yolcaut lost his temper and threw a whole load of dollar bills from a bag into the Governor’s face. There were lots of them, thousands. And he started to shout at him:
‘Shut the fuck up, Governor, what the fuck do you know? Go on, you bastard, take your money, you asshole.’
Then he told me that’s what our business was for, for bankrolling assholes. The Governor’s face went even more red, as if he really was going to explode, but he started to laugh. Yolcaut said if he was so worried about me then he should get me a hippopotamus. The Governor made a face like he didn’t understand a thing, so I explained that what I wanted was a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus, which is very hard to get hold of without going to the country of Liberia. His face stopped looking like it was going to explode. He asked us: ‘And why don’t you go to Liberia?’ Yolcaut just replied:
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‘Don’t be an asshole, Governor.’
Then the Governor said:
‘Let’s see, we might be able to sort something out.’ And Yolcaut stroked my head with his fingers covered in gold rings and diamonds.
‘You see, Tochtli: Yolcaut always finds a way.’
The truth is, sometimes Mexico is a wonderful country where you can do really good deals. That is, sometimes Mexico is a disastrous country, but sometimes it’s a wonderful country, too.
One song I love is ‘The King’. It was even the first song I learned by heart. And back then I was really little and my memory wasn’t even devastating yet. The truth is I didn’t know it that well, but I used to make up the bits I couldn’t remember. The thing is it’s really easy to rhyme in this song. For instance: king and sing rhyme. If you swap one word with another, no one will notice. The bit I like in ‘The King’ is the part where it says I don’t have a throne or a queen for my wife, or someone who pays for the things in my life, but I’m still the king. That’s where it explains the things you need in order to be king: a throne, a queen and someone to support you. Although when you sing the song you don’t have any of this, not even money, and you’re still king, because your word is law. That’s because the song’s really about being macho. Sometimes macho men aren’t afraid and that’s why they’re macho. But also sometimes macho men don’t have anything and they’re still kings, because they’re macho.
The best thing about being a king is that you don’t have to work. All you have to do is put on your crown and that’s it, the people in your kingdom give you money, millions and millions. I’ve got a crown, although I’m not allowed to wear it every day. Yolcaut’s only let me put it on four times. We keep it in a safe with all our treasure. The crown isn’t made of gold, because it belonged to a king from Africa and in Africa everyone is poor, even the kings. The country of Liberia is in Africa. The good thing is that Mexico isn’t in Africa. It would be disastrous if Mexico was in Africa. The crown is made of metal and diamonds. It cost us a lot of money because to be a king in Africa you have to kill lots of people. It’s like a competition: the one who wears the crown is the one who’s made the most corpses. Mazatzin says it’s the same in Europe. This subject also makes him furious and inspires him to give lectures. Mazatzin wasn’t inspired to write a book at the top of his mountain, but he was inspired to give lectures, which he does all the time. He says:
‘Europe is built on a mountain of corpses, Usagi, rivers of blood flow through Europe.’
When we talk about these things you can see Mazatzin hates the Spanish and sometimes even the French. All Europeans. Pathetic. I think the French are good people because they invented the guillotine. And the Spanish are good customers of Yolcaut’s business. But the Gringos are better customers. The Mexicans are not good customers for Yolcaut, because Yolcaut refuses to do business with them. One of the corpses I met was a security guard who used to do what Chichilkuali does, but he decided to start doing business in Mexico. Yolcaut doesn’t want to poison the Mexicans. Mazatzin says that’s what’s called being a nationalist.
The mutest person I know is Quecholli. Miztli brings her to our palace two or three times a week. Quecholli has really long legs, according to Cinteotl this long: one and a half metres. Miztli says something else, something enigmatic:
‘Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six.’
It’s a secret, he says it to me when no one’s listening. Everything about Quecholli is a secret. She walks around the palace without looking at anyone, without making a sound, always clinging to Yolcaut. Sometimes they disappear and then reappear, really mysterious. They spend hours like that, the whole day, until Quecholli leaves. Then Miztli brings her back again and it’s back to the secrets and disappearing.
The most enigmatic time is when we all sit down together to eat on the terrace: Yolcaut, Quecholli, Mazatzin and me. The first time, Mazatzin asked Quecholli if she was from León or Guadalajara or wherever. Quecholli didn’t say a thing. She looked at Mazatzin for a second and then Yolcaut shouted that she was from the motherfucking house of the rising sun.
It might seem like Quecholli is blind too, because you almost never know which direction she’s looking in. But she’s not blind: I’ve seen her looking at my hats. Another strange thing is that she only eats salad. Her favourite is a salad with lettuce, tomato, broccoli, onion and avocado. Then she adds lime juice and salt with those long thin fingers she has. Covered in rings. But Quecholli’s rings are delicate and really tiny, not like Yolcaut’s, which are thick and have gigantic diamonds on them. She’s not a millionaire like us.
Over dinner Yolcaut and Mazatzin talk about politicians. It’s a funny conversation because Yolcaut laughs a lot and tells Mazatzin he’s so fucking gullible. Mazatzin doesn’t laugh as much, because he thinks we should have a government of left-wing politicians. He says: ‘If the left was in power this wouldn’t happen.’ Yolcaut laughs some more. Some days Mazatzin says the names of politicians to Yolcaut and, depending on the name, Yolcaut replies:
‘Mm-hmm.’
Or:
‘Uh-uh.’
Sometimes Mazatzin looks surprised and laughs and says I knew it, I knew it. Other times he shouts Liar, liar, and Yolcaut tells him he’s so fucking gullible.
While Quecholli eats her salad the rest of us eat whatever delicacy Cinteotl has made. Mazatzin loves her cooking. When he’s finished he shouts for Cinteotl and tells her that was the best mole of his life, if we ate mole, or the best tampiqueña, or whatever it was. Pathetic. Yolcaut thinks being hungry is in Mazatzin’s genes. Quecholli, since she’s mute, says nothing. Mazatzin says she’s a vegetarian. I say she’s like the Liberian pygmy hippopotamuses, a herbivore. But Liberian pygmy hippopotamuses don’t like lettuce salads, they like alfalfa salads. If Quecholli wasn’t mute I’d ask her opinion on the hot lettuce in the pozole.
This is what was on the news today on the TV: the tigers in the zoo in Guadalajara ate a woman all up, apart from her left leg. Maybe her left leg wasn’t a very juicy bit. Or maybe the tigers were already full up. I’ve never been to the zoo in Guadalajara. Once I asked Yolcaut to take me, but instead of taking me he brought more animals to the palace. That was when he bought me the lion. And he said something to me about a man who couldn’t go to a mountain and so the mountain came to him.
The eaten woman was the head zookeeper and she had two children, a husband and international prestige. That’s a pretty word, prestige. They said it might have been suicide or murder, because she never used to go into the tigers’ cage. We don’t use our tigers for suicides or for murders. Miztli and Chichilkuali do the murders with orifices made from bullets. I don’t know how we do the suicides, but we don’t do them with tigers. We use the tigers for eating the corpses. And we use our lion for that too. But we mainly use them for looking at, because they’re strong and really well-proportioned animals and they’re nice to look at. It must be because they’re so well fed. I’m not supposed to know these things, because they’re secrets Miztli and Chichilkuali do at night. But in that way I do think I’m precocious, in discovering secrets.
At the end of the report the man on the news looked very sad and said he hoped the head zookeeper would rest in peace. How stupid. She was already chewed up inside the tigers’ tummies. And she’s only going to stay there while the tigers digest her, because she’ll end up being turned into tiger poo. Rest in peace, like hell. At the most her left leg will rest in peace.
Yolcaut watched the news with me and when it was over he said some enigmatic things to me. First he said:
‘Ah, they suicided her.’
And then, when he’d stopped laughing:
‘Think the worst and you’ll be right.’
Sometimes Yolcaut speaks in enigmatic and mysterious sentences. When he does that it’s pointless to ask him what he means, because he never tells me. He wants me to solve the enigma.
Before I went to sleep I looked up the word prestige in the dictionar
y. I learned that prestige is about people having a good idea about you, and thinking you’re the best. In that case you have prestige. Pathetic.
Today I’m devastatingly desperately bored. I’m bored because I don’t leave the palace and because every day is the same.
I get up at eight o’clock, I wash and I have breakfast.
From nine to one I have lessons with Mazatzin.
I play on the Playstation from one to two.
Between two and three we have lunch.
From three to five I do my homework and research my own subjects.
From five to eight I do whatever I can think of.
At eight o’clock we have dinner.
From nine to ten I watch TV with Yolcaut and then after ten o’clock I go to my room to read the dictionary and go to sleep.
The next day is the same. Saturdays and Sundays are the worst, because I spend the whole day waiting to see what I can think of to do: going to see our animals, watching films, talking about secret things with Miztli, playing on the Play-station, cleaning my hats, watching TV, making lists of the things I want so Miztli can buy them for me … Sometimes it’s fun, but also sometimes it’s disastrous. Because of Yolcaut’s paranoia I haven’t been out of the palace for quite a few days, eleven.
Down the Rabbit Hole Page 2