by R. M. Koster
I was still pretending to be tame at the Tinieblista Party Convention four days later. Armando wrote me another speech; I was nominated on a sedate first ballot. I had the name and the cash and a good team behind me. “Give us a chance to line up the bloc votes,” said Dr. Saenz. “Don’t scare the gringos,” said Gonzalo Garbanzo. “Let Pepe and Felix make the mistakes,” said Alfonso. “Don’t peak too early,” said Armando Loza. “Take it easy,” said Hunfredo Ladilla. But I have never enjoyed taking it easy, and acting tame was giving me blotches, so I went into the streets to stir things up.
On New Year’s afternoon I was at the big open house Lino Piojo gives every year. Armando was there, and we were supposed to go over the big loose-leaf notebook he’d prepared with a section on every national problem, but I got bored with that and took my shirt off and kicked a soccer ball around the lawn with Lino’s kids. Alfonso was splashing in the shallow end of the pool with a pair of stewardesses. (Years pass; Alfonso grays at the temples and sags in the gut, but the stewardesses remain gene for gene and chromosome for chromosome the same.) Well, around five o’clock I yelled for him to put his clothes on; we were going campaigning.
“You’re drunk, Kiki.”
“No. I’m bored.”
“Stick to the schedule.” We were leaving at five the next morning for a week in the interior: Córdoba, Bastidas, Angostura, Otán, Puerto Ospino, Otán, La Merced, Córdoba, then home to the capital for the first big rally.
“Put your clothes on.”
He took his cloud nymphs up to dress, and twenty minutes later the four of us and Elena were in his big Grosse Pointe Conquistador convertible, with Hunfredo and Armando and Edgardo Luciérnaga and their wives following in one car and Lino and some of his more sober guests in another, riding into the old part of the city down avenues yet streamer-strewn and groggy from the night before. Just past Bolívar Plaza I had Alfonso stop the car and put the top down—though the sun was still strong enough to bubble tar in cracks along the pavement—and then turn right into the slums that fold down toward the harbor. I boosted myself up on the trunk and sat there with my arms raised, and as we wound through alleys overhung with drooping balconies, I drew the people out into our wake, pried women from their gossip and their kitchens, sucked men from shadow-cool cantinas, jerked drowsing couples from their tousled beds, and dragged them all behind me. We twisted to the docks and bent back toward the avenue, yanking knots of men from street-corner palavers, pulling a score of youths from a vacant-lot ball field, trolling at five miles an hour with the whole quarter netted in my smile, and towed it up onto Cervantes Plaza. And when I jumped down and stepped into the square, the audience in the Cine Cervantes felt my presence and forsook their movie, and sullen drinkers binged since Christmas Eve drained from a bar called Viva Mi Desgracia, and a squabble of young toughs in Kiki T-shirts (SOBERANÍA Y HONOR—KIKI on the back, me on the front with my head bandaged and a flag waved at arm’s length) stomped blinking from El Palacio del Billar, and a skulk of priests flapped out of the Church of San Geronimo, and women kneeling at novena put away their beads, and old men playing checkers six blocks away in the Plaza Inchado left their boards, and shoeshine boys outside the Hotel Excelsior ten blocks the other way snatched up their boxes, and street vendors all along Bolívar Avenue picked up their trays of food or flowers, and strollers broke off their chats, and holiday drivers parked their cars, and all joined the crowd that was filling up the plaza.
I didn’t go to the covered bandstand but told Edgardo to take the ladies there and walked instead to the empty pedestal where, sixty years ago, the city fathers had intended to put a statue of Don Quixote but ran out of money. I garnished the front edge with a couple of kids and sprang up and raised my arms, and yelled, “Viva Kiki!” and they all yelled with me, “Viva! Viva!” and all the church bells in the city began ringing, and foghorns boomed on vessels in the roadstead, and the big air-raid siren on Dewey Hill in the Reservation moaned and wailed and screamed. Then I spread my fingers and held out my palms, and the square and the city grew silent. I had no idea what else to say or do, but I glimpsed Armando, thick notebook clutched to thin chest, being jostled against the pedestal, and I reached down and plucked the book from him.
“Here’s my program,” waving the book. “Prepared by the smartest man in Tinieblas, Doctor Armando Loza Quebrada. A man so smart the gringos stole him for their best university. And I stole him back for you. A yell for Armando! Viva el doctor Loza!”
I cued them, and they howled, and their power tugged the bell ropes and threw the switches on the horns and sirens. I raised my palms, and there was stony silence. All through my speech and through my whole campaign I played the crowds that way.
“Now this book says…”opening the book. “But it says everything,” closing the book. “It has something for everything, just like a drugstore. And when I’m President of the Republic, I’m going to read it through and do just what it says. It’s the most beautiful, the most scientific program ever offered anywhere, and it goes into action the day I take office. But we don’t have to worry about it now. I’m not going to bother you with it now. People of Tinieblas,” holding out the book, “I dedicate this beautiful and brilliant program to you!” Then I flipped the book back over my head like a matador’s hat.
Cheers from the crowd; a blanch from Armando. It occurred to me then, while they were cheering, that I could do or say whatever I liked. I drew the crowd’s brute, unformed energies, refined them to a glow, then beamed it back. It didn’t matter what I told them; there was no reason why it shouldn’t be the truth. So I motioned them to silence and said I’d tell them why I was running for President. But first I’d tell them why some other people ran.
“Consider Señor Don Felix Grillo del Campo. He says he doesn’t really want to be president. ‘The presidency of the republic is a heavy burden, a grave responsibility.’” I sucked my chin in and stuck my upper lip out—Felix looks like Eleanor Roosevelt—and puffed the phrase, to the great good humor of one and all, myself included. “But he says he’s got to accept this burden and this responsibility so that this country will have a decent government. It’s his duty, Don Felix says, and Don Felix was brought up to be a serious man and do his duty. Now Don Felix is convinced it’s his duty to run for President. I won’t deny him that. But it doesn’t have anything to do with what you or I would call decent government. Don Felix has a duty to himself and his family and his class to insulate Tinieblas from change. Because Don Felix and his family and his class are diarrheic with terror that this country will go communist. Because then they’d all be shot or, worse maybe, be exiled to Miami and have to live off their Swiss bank accounts. And that’s why Don Felix is running.
“Now take Pepe Fuertes. Excuse me—Doctor José Fuertes. A good dentist. He made a great set of teeth for my father. But why is he running for President? He says he wants to complete his brother León’s program. Now León was a good president, but I’ll tell you this, there never were two brothers more different than León and Pepe Fuertes. León was generous, and Pepe wouldn’t loan you a razor blade to cut your throat with. León was open, and Pepe’s so tricky he doesn’t dare tell himself what he’s going to do. And Pepe never cared for León’s program while León was alive. Every time León felt like doing something for the people, Pepe would jump up and say, ‘Wait a minute, León, do something for me first.’ And it’s not hard to understand. León was a healthy fellow, a baseball player, a good dancer, and Pepe has a bad foot. You can’t blame him. Imagine how bitter a kid could get dragging a twisted foot around. That’s why he’s running for President. He wants you to straighten out his foot. If enough of you vote for him, he’ll be President. And if he’s President, he can tell people what to do and they’ll have to listen. And everyone will ask him for favors. And call him Señor Presidente. And take off their hats. And that will make up a little for all the baseball he never played and all the girls he never danced with and all the times mean people laughed a
t him and called him cripple. He’s got a better reason for running than Felix.
“All right. What about me? Maybe you think I’m like my father, that I think the stars intend me to be President. Well, I don’t think the stars care one way or another about you and me. I’m running for President because I feel like it.”
I saw something move below me and looked down, and there was Alfonso shaking his head like crazy, mouthing, “No!” I had to laugh, and my speech stopped for my laughter.
“Excuse me,” still laughing. “But my brother Alfonso’s down here, my campaign manager, and he’s having a fit. He thinks I’m going to blow the race right here by telling you the truth. But you don’t care what I tell you, do you? You’re going to vote for me anyway, aren’t you? Whatever I say. Come on, let’s have a yell to reassure Alfonso! Viva Kiki! Viva Kiki! Viva Kiki!”
Vivas, bells, and whistles.
“That’s great! Thank you! Feel better, Fonso?
“Alfonso feels a little better now. Thanks. Where was I? Oh, yes, I said I’m running because I feel like it. Yes, that’s it. It seems like an interesting thing to do. You go out and try to get people to vote for you. You speak to them and see if you can make them cheer. You promise people this and threaten people with that. You insult the other candidates and they insult you. If you win, you get to be President, which is what everyone in this country seems to want. If you lose, you look like a sap. That’s the exciting part, the risk. I used to wrestle, but you know that. Well, a man looks so foolish when his opponent turns him over and pins his shoulders to the mat. No one ever pinned me—no gringo and no Russian. That’s my foreign policy, by the way: not to get pinned down by either the gringos or the reds. But, I was saying, I never got pinned, but I was always aware it might happen, and that’s what made wrestling exciting. Knowing that every time you went out on the mat, you might end up looking like a sap. And feeling like a sap and a weakling. So think how much more exciting it is to run for President. Because can you imagine how horrible it would be to get beat by Felix Grillo? Can you imagine how sick I’d feel if I couldn’t get more votes than Pepe Fuertes? Kiki Sancudo, who was in Oruga Park—some of you were there that night, some of you were with me—when the gringos were shooting real bullets, while Felix Grillo and his family were on a plane for Ticamala and Pepe Fuertes was hiding under his bed. I’m risking my honor as a man, and when you risk that much, there’s got to be excitement. Running for President is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and that includes winning the Olympics and marrying a movie star. That’s why I’m running, for the joy of it. That’s the best reason there is.
“Now, perhaps you’re asking yourselves this: If he’s running for the joy of it, what’s he going to do when he wins.” I paused, not so much to let the question sink in as to think up an answer. I looked out at those upturned brown and olive faces, those sweatstained bodies, sun-flecked close to me, shade-spotted farther back in the creeping shadow of the church, and felt I was riding an immensely powerful and capricious beast who would snap me up like a titbit if I ever loosed control. At that moment I hadn’t an idea of what I’d do when I was President, not a plan beyond the greed of my supporters and some idealistic aims of Armando’s which the rest of the team considered smoke puffs to bamboozle the electorate. But it was a lovely ride so far, and the beast was snorting gaily, so I thought, I hurt Armando before, now I’ll make him happy.
“Well,” I said, “that’s why I’ve got Armando and my program. You have another copy, don’t you, Armando? Yes. He’s got one. Good. Well, when I win this election, I’m going to do something even more exciting than running for President. I’m going to take that book of Armando’s, and I’m going to use it to give you the country. Yes, I’m going to give this country to the people. And if you don’t think that will be exciting, just stick around and watch. Exciting and risky, because they’ll all be after us then. My own friends first, my own team and ticket. They don’t think I mean it. There’s Hunfredo Ladilla down there. He’s running with me. Come on, a yell for Hunfredo! Viva Hunfredo!” I cued them, and they vivaed, and the bells and whistles sounded as before. “Good,” holding up my palms. “There’s Hunfredo—and he’s going to be a great Vice President—and he loves to hear you cheer, but he doesn’t believe I mean to give you the country. None of them believe it, not even my brother Alfonso. If they did they’d run like hell and find a place with Felix or with Pepe. They think I’m lying to you like any other politician. But I don’t have to lie. I can tell you anything, even the truth. They can’t believe I mean it because it’s never been tried. Not once. Not anywhere. No one else has ever really meant it. And when they see I mean it, they’ll try to stop me. I’m talking about my friends now. I don’t have to tell you what my enemies will do. Or the gringos. Because to give this country to the people of Tinieblas I’ll have to take a lot of it back from the gringos. And they won’t like it. But we’ll teach them all to enjoy a little excitement. Because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give this country to the people who live in it. And won’t we have a grand time doing it?”
When I cued them this time, their roar broke every window in the Hotel Colón opposite the church, and the stomping of their feet shook the ground as far away as the Alameda, and of course the bells rang and the horns and sirens blew, but besides that every light in the city went on, even those in empty buildings where the current wasn’t connected, and the Wurlitzer organ in the bar of El Opulento played “Hijos de Tinieblas” by itself, and appliances started up and doorbells rang, all without the slightest drop in power on the gauges of the Compañía Tinieblina de Electricidad y Gas, and the horns on all the cars and busses tooted “Viva Kiki!” in Morse code, and the doors of all the cells in La Bondadosa Prison swung open, and the guards couldn’t close them, not even when they tried ten to a door, until the crowd stopped cheering. I didn’t stop them. I stood there grinning for three minutes or so; then I moved to jump down from the pedestal, but hands seized me, and I was lifted onto shoulders. I had a glimpse of Elena smiling at me from the bandstand; then I was borne away on that strange camel-swaying ride I got to know well during my campaign, up Bolívar and out Bahía, all the way to my house more than a mile away, and all of them still cheering.
Later, when Alfonso brought Elena back, he pulled me into this room and shut the door and stood there by the desk and asked me if I was serious about “giving the country to the people.” I smiled at him and said, “What do you think?” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder and said, “All right, Kiki. I understand. But you sounded so convincing up there.”
That’s how I played it with Hunfredo and Armando and the others. Each asked a version of Alfonso’s question, and I let each think what he wanted. The truth was I didn’t know whether I was serious or not. I’d never been the kind to fret about the welfare of the masses or any other thing beyond my own sweet lusts, yet I wasn’t a liar either. I hadn’t calculated the phrase one way or another; a gap of silence opened, and the words jumped out to fill it. I had to agree when Juanchi Tábano compared idealism to the mumps: no more than a discomfort when you catch it young and get over it; dangerous, painful, and ridiculous if you pick it up in later life. Still I resented it when Marta accused me of lying to win votes. So I decided to win the election and then see what I’d meant. Meanwhile I kept promising to “give the country to the people,” and every time I said it, it sounded better, and more and more I thought, Jesus! I might just do it; Christ! won’t that make them jump!
I had no more trouble from my managers anyway, no warnings about “peaking” early, no pleas to take it easy. They’d seen me draw a crowd; they’d seen the way I moved it. From then on they hung on with both hands while I moved the way I pleased. They hung on over in Bastidas when I told a big crowd they were suckers. I was in a black mood for some reason—maybe because Marta had begun call ing me a demagogue—and I said they were a nation of suckers; everyone cheated them and they didn’t care. The gringos cheate
d them on the Reservation rent—the best part of their country for less than a desert airstrip in Libya; the government cheated them on their taxes—no medicine in the hospitals, no desks in the schools; landlords cheated them on their rent—all that good money for tumbledown roach farms; politicians cheated them on their vote. “I don’t want to talk to suckers,” I told them. “I’m sick of talking to shit-eaters!” For a while it looked as if we’d all get lynched. Dr. Gladstone Archer turned whiter than me—he’d introduced me and they were mostly his people. But they ended up cheering. They ended up carrying me around on their shoulders. And if I’d asked them to burn down the town, they’d have done that too. When I left that town, Pepe and Felix didn’t have twelve votes there between them.
I drew the crowds. I pulled the people to me like iron filings gathered by a magnet; then I moved them whichever way I pleased. No one in Tinieblas had seen anything like it since Alejo’s ’48 campaign, and then he polarized people, attracting some, repelling others, whereas I drew everyone. People of every class came out to cheer for me, and while some thought better of it the next day when I was in another town or another quarter of the capital, while some told themselves, I don’t trust that Kiki, and wondered why they’d cheered, they came out again to cheer me when I returned. Clever men who’d seen and suffered our divisions remarked the strangeness of it and spoke or wrote about “charisma” and “irrational appeal,” but the strangest thing about my campaign wasn’t what it was doing to the country. The eerie thing was what it did to me.
It began in Salinas, at the end of my first swing through the interior. I’d come down through the oil fields speaking to groups of workers gathered near their rigs, joking with them, chatting about whatever came into my head, casing up after a week of crowds and car trips over broken roads, and that evening I spoke in a pasture outside Córdoba. The party’s candidates for the province’s five Chamber seats had made a barbecue: butchered steers, a band, plenty of rum and aguardiente. The whole town was there, and people from towns forty miles north and south along the highway, and peasants who’d walked down from hill villages carrying their machetes wrapped in newspaper. I meant to eat and drink with them and wire them to my “irrational appeal” and set them cheering and boost the party’s candidates and then go down to the capital for a decent night of sleep.