by Hector Camín
We bathed, drank the juice, and then ate the breakfast Doña Lila prepared for us. I’d already gotten to the coffee when I looked up from the newspapers I was going over and found Anabela looking at me over the rim of her cup. She was sitting perfectly straight with her elbows on the table. She’d put on a long-sleeved blouse with frills at the wrists and neckline and small pearl earrings. A very thin film of makeup redefined her eyebrows and lashes. She’d dusted shadows onto her eyelids as wide as her mocking eyes. She blew on the coffee before drinking it, holding the cup at the height of her lips.
“So how many hectares did you inherit in Chicontepec?” I asked.
She sipped her coffee and waited a moment before answering.
“A hundred and fifty.”
“From the widow Martín?”
“From my grandaunt, yes.”
“And that makes how many hectares that you own in Chicontepec?”
“I told you everything I inherited.”
“But how many do you have?”
“Maybe another fifty.”
“According to my sources, you have around two-hundred-fifty more”
She took another sip.
“About that, three hundred or so in all.”
“Four hundred in all.”
“Yes, more or less.”
“And how many does Rojano have?”
“So far as I know, the farm at El Canelo, about a hundred hectares,”
“And that you don’t know about?”
She finished her coffee and poured herself more.
“I don’t know. Probably another sixty.”
“Another three hundred, according to my sources.”
“That could be,” Anabela said. “Why the interrogation?”
“For information purposes only.”
“Well, I feel like Mata Hari in the clutches of the Gestapo.”
“Don’t feel that way. Does El Canelo share a boundary with your lands?”
“Partly.”
“Which part?”
“All of it except a twenty-eight-hectare wedge that belonged to my Uncle Arvizu, the one who was shot in Huejutla.”
“Executed by Pizarro, according to Rojano.”
“Yes.”
“Who owns that land now?”
“It’s in litigation.”
“With whom?”
“With Local 35 of the oil workers’ union.”
“The local headquartered in Poza Rica?”
“Yes.”
“Then with Pizarro?”
“Well, yes.”
“So why do you want those other twenty-five hectares if you already have eight hundred?
“I know nothing about that, Negro, so stop pestering me. Get Rojano to explain it to you.”
“I’m asking you. You’re the one who interests me, not Rojano.”
She stood up and began walking in circles as she spoke.
“There’s a spring on those twenty-five hectares. It’s the main source of the Calaboso River.”
“And?”
“I’m telling you I don’t really understand. But having that spring is the difference between irrigating those lands or not. Otherwise, watering them would cost a fortune.”
“But you two are supposed to be getting another fortune.”
“Don’t play games, Negro. You’re making me very nervous. Feel how cold my hands are.”
She lay a hand on my neck. It really was cold, but no colder than they’d been one night ten years before, because Anabela was a woman with cold hands.
“You’re going to rule the municipality that gets the most federal money during this administration.”
“That’s enough, Negro. You don’t know the area. It’s an inferno without a single passable road. Going there is a punishment, not a reward. But it’s all Ro was able to get. Don’t you understand that?”
“Which is why you’re so critical of him?”
“All I want to do is live in peace and preserve my children’s inheritance.”
“And you look down on Rojano because he failed as a politician?”
She was in the sala when she spun around towards me, clearly a bit out of sorts. Though furious, she maintained her self-control.
“Rojano’s just beginning, Negro. Don’t talk about failure. You know about politics, about the ups and downs. It’s like a wheel of fortune. Who was José López Portillo six years ago? He was an out-of-work loser who played his cards wrong. And now he’s president of the republic. What’s political failure? It’s an excuse for small-minded people. A real politician never fails. He’s always in the game. It’s a wheel of fortune, and the most important thing is never to let go. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes down. But that’s not what’s important. The important thing is to keep spinning the wheel, to hang on and not let go, damn it. Not let go.”
She was standing in the middle of the apartment’s huge sala with her clenched fists pressed to her body. “And not let go,” she repeated with fierce conviction.
I thought I understood where the motor was that drove Rojano.
The following week, PEMEX director Jorge Díaz Serrano attended the regular Wednesday lunch meeting of the Ateneo de Angangueo, one of the most popular political discussion groups during the López Portillo years. Every Wednesday a senior government official—on several occasions the President himself—showed up for these sessions to talk about current events with columnists and writers. Since a regular member of the group was going to be absent, I was invited to the luncheon with Díaz Serrano on June 17, 1977, in the gray months preceding what would become the Mexican oil boom. All the talk in political circles—among reporters, government officials, business and labor leaders—was glum, focusing on austerity and crisis, the country’s disastrous financial situation, the breakdown in productivity, lagging investments, waning confidence, etcetera.
The first surprise was that everything Jorge Díaz Serrano had to say was just the opposite of glum. He spoke of an end to poverty in Mexico, the dawn of an historic new opportunity for the country to confront its incredible backwardness with regards to basic necessities, income distribution, and the general welfare. Oil, Díaz Serrano said, had the potential to reverse once and for all the low rate of domestic investment that was the number one determinant of our underdevelopment.
Mexico, whose colonial rulers squandered its mining wealth in the 17th and 18th centuries, was getting a second chance. In the austere and melancholy 1970s, Mexico could look forward to the possibility of controlling its own destiny, thanks to resources to be extracted directly and indisputably from beneath its own territory. These resources belonged to the Mexican people, according to the country’s noblest political tradition, national control of the oil industry.
Díaz Serrano was a man of limited eloquence, tall, lean, and healthy looking despite going gray. His heated insistence that Mexicans lived atop riches as yet to be explored was contagious. By the year 2000, he said, this resource of mythic proportions would bring economic development and justice to Mexico. There was something touching about the simplicity and ingenuousness of his optimism. Instead of our traditional resignation to the idea of an unproductive Mexico doomed to failure, mediocrity, and exploitation by foreigners, Díaz Serrano spoke of a country on which nature was about to bestow a brilliant future. It was a speech that sought unabashedly to convert, to be both profoundly and superficially flattering to all of us by putting a charge of positive energy into the idea of national pride. It offered real hope that we could overcome the kind of defensive nationalism born of resentment and jealousy. It evoked visions of collective euphoria and an achievable utopia; of a rich, sovereign and desirable Mexico no longer crippled by the brutal deformities of its past; a new, noble, and generous country like the one we’d always believed in and longed for; a great country worthy of our nationalism and hitherto unrequited love.
I took advantage of the occasion to ask about plans to invest in Chicontepec, and Díaz Serrano confirmed that there wer
e such plans. I followed up immediately by asking if he knew Lázaro Pizarro. He nodded. I then asked about his corps of escorts and bodyguards and his strong-arm approach to leadership.
“He’s a solid, longtime oil worker,” Díaz Serrano replied. “He started at the bottom with PEMEX when he was a kid. He’s a master welder who will be entitled to a generous pension when he retires. He’s a born organizer and leader. Go to Poza Rica and take a good close look at him. I challenge you to show me a single enemy of Lacho Pizarro’s anywhere in his area.”
“I’ve been in his area,” I said. “Everybody loves him, and everybody’s afraid of him.”
“That may be. But we don’t work with saints or devils, we work with flesh and blood human beings. We didn’t elect them. They were there when we arrived. And I can tell you that, whatever their defects, Mexico’s oil workers are an even greater source of wealth than the oil itself.”
“They say the machinery is very expensive to lubricate,” Manuel Buendía broke in. He was Mexico’s most widely read columnist until he was shot from behind and killed on May 30, 1984. His remark alluded to the fact that the union was notoriously corrupt. “Petróleos Mexicanos reputedly spends millions of pesos to keep those gears well oiled. How much do those exemplary leaders cost you, sir?”
Though somewhat annoyed, Díaz Serrano answered with a smile.
“That may be so, Manuel. I don’t deny that there may be something to what you say. But I came here to talk about the good news from PEMEX, about its greatness, which is what matters to me, and not the deficiencies that are never in short supply anywhere. What you’re unlikely to find elsewhere in this or in many other countries is what oil can give Mexico, a doorway to enter the 21st century as a strong country, as a major player on the world stage.”
In mid August, Rojano was named the PRI candidate for mayor of Chicontepec. He took the candidate’s oath in an auditorium in the port of Veracruz. He appeared the following day on the front page of El Dictamen with his hand raised and with an ascetic pair of glasses he didn’t need. He looked very focused and stern. My telegram read, “Congratulations. Excellent step towards greatness and disaster.”
That night he was on the phone to me. “Brother, you have to come. You can’t leave me alone now.”
“How are the kids?” I asked.
“Anabela’s pleased,” Rojano answered. “She wants you to come. We want you here. The governor didn’t know we were friends. He wants to speak with you too.”
“And what does your godfather say?”
“Pizarro was at the ceremony. He’s very supportive.”
“I’m pleased for the children of Veracruz. But don’t forget you’re a bantamweight, and your godfather’s a heavyweight.”
“In politics weight is relative, brother. What counts is being able to seize the moment, the opportunity.” Rojano sounded triumphant and sure of his future. “Just a minute. Anabela wants to speak to you.”
There was a moment of silence broken by the voice of Anabela. “Negro?”
“How’s the land baroness?”
“Very happy, Negro. Are you coming to celebrate?”
I did not go celebrate. Rojano won the election unopposed (“electoral legitimacy is basic, brother”). Thanks to the local Indian population, which abstained, not a single vote was cast against him. The swearing-in took place in mid-September. There was no paved highway to Chicontepec, which lay a hundred kilometers from Poza Rica over a dirt road that was not always passable. It turned to mud in the rain and was susceptible to washout where rivers and streams crossed the right of way. Lázaro Pizarro organized a small convoy of three vans, a bus with four-wheel drive, and portable winches. The logos of the PRI and the oil workers unions adorned the doors of each vehicle and all the tents. A jeepload of Pizarro’s guards headed the convoy, followed by the van with Rojano and members of the PRI. Then came a second van with a group of Chicontepec notables who had traveled to Poza Rica in order to accompany Rojano to his swearing in. Anabela, Pizarro’s Little Darling, his aide Roibal, Pizarro, two bodyguards, and I climbed into the third van. Behind the vans a special bus carried 50 male and female oil workers who were along to enliven the political ceremony with cowbells and cheers. Bringing up the rear was another jeep with four more guards. The campaign tents were folded and stowed in two of the vans and the bus.
On September 18, 1977, this outlandish safari set out from Poza Rica as if for a trip to the moon. Pizarro sat in front with Little Darling between him and the driver. Anabela and I occupied the middle bench with Roibal and the bodyguards in back. We made good time until we passed the pyramids and left the pavement on the dirt road to Alamo, the same route I’d taken with Pizarro in March to visit La Mesopotamia. It had rained torrents the day before, and the road was largely mud except for the long stretches of flooding that had to be negotiated at a crawl. The Vinazco River, whose tributaries bordered La Mesopotamia, was on the rise. A fleet of tractors and dredges was hard at work trying to open a drainage channel. We followed the river, then started towards the northeast foothills as they climbed towards the Sierra Madre. The jagged mountaintops rose through blue haze and clouds in the distance. The volcanic accidents that built them had also produced the fertile tablelands and valleys where rivers flowed and springs bubbled incessantly out of the ground.
“The peaks you see over there are the seven peaks of Chicontepec,” Pizarro said without turning around. “Around here the Indians speak of the will of the seven peaks. For them seven is a sign of bad things to come. It’s the dark side, as they say, because cold winds blow down from those heights bringing storms and lightning.”
“I like thunder,” said Little Darling.
“The Indians say the seven hills of Chicontepec unite heaven and earth,” Pizarro went on expressionlessly, “and that the forces of evil pour down those rock columns.” He laughed. “It’s a land full of superstitions. There are ghosts and the evil eye and practicing witch doctors.”
“My grandaunt used to talk about these things,” Anabela said, channeling her memory of the widow executed in Altotonga.
“Your grandaunt Martín?” Pizarro said, countering the allusion. “I’m willing to bet she didn’t know the story of the light of the plain.”
“She knew all the stories,” Anabela stated. “She grew up learning these things, and the poor old lady believed what she heard.”
“Extra poor if she died unloved,” said Little Darling.
“Did your grandmother tell you about the light of the plain?” Pizarro insisted.
“According to my grandmother and her sister, the light of the plain foretold the death of my grandaunt’s husband.”
“All I heard was that it told fortunes,” Pizarro said.
“Well, my grandmother told the story about her sister,” Anabela continued. “Her husband was killed in a land dispute here in Altotonga. And it was the light of the plain that gave her the news. It came spinning and whistling into the corral, and when it left, a colt lay dead. A bat was clinging to the back of its neck, and it was bleeding from the ribs. There was also blood coming from the print left by its shoe. It was her husband’s favorite colt, so she said ‘they killed Juan Gilberto’. And the following day, she learned it was true. The light had appeared just at the moment he was shot.”
“From then on she must have lived without love,” Little Darling said, embracing Pizarro.
“The light of the plain only discovers treasure,” said Roibal, who rarely said anything.
“Your grandmother didn’t tell you the tale of the giants, did she?” Pizarro said.
“No, she didn’t,” Anabela said.
“They got what was coming to them,” Pizarro said ominously. “The Indians say giants once lived around here, and they discovered fire. They decided to dispense with the sun and tried to light up the moon instead by hurling balls of fire at it. The spots you see on the moon when the sky is clear are from the impacts. The gods retaliated with a lightning bolt that incine
rated everything. The giants’ burnt blood became the oil and tar deposits you see all over these parts. The whole region seethes with the anger of the vanquished giants, especially in Chicontepec from where it is said the giants could reach the sky.”
A flock of chachalacas flew up from a marsh, then we passed a tar pit where ten men were tugging on ropes. They were trying to free a pinto cow that had sunk up to its belly in the black muck. It was submerged head and all in the swamp with only the curves of its dappled haunches sticking up. Pizarro took advantage of the scene to remark, “If horseflies and hoof infections don’t get them, then the tar pit does. One minute they’re grazing, the next they’re mired in the swamp with no idea how they got stuck. As they struggle to climb out, they put their heads in the oil and start to swallow it. They thrash desperately about until finally they’re upside down. And all because they got into something they should have stayed out of. Sing us something, Cielito.”
On command, Little Darling broke into song.
Praise God for letting me have you in life
so I don’t need to go to heaven, my love.
All the glory I need is you.
She proceeded to run through a repertory of border corridos and forlorn love songs that lasted nearly the rest of the way.
We arrived around three following two stops to haul the bus out of the mud with the help of the portable winches and the traction of the vans. Chicontepec barely passed for a town. It was more a jumble of rock-walled barrios. The paths snaking through them were lined with huts made of reeds and palm fronds for roofs. Each hut had its own ragged orchard and a small patch of corn to feed its occupants.
Tattered PRI party banners were draped over the rock walls along with some freshly printed posters with Rojano’s picture on them. A misspelled cardboard sign read: Wellcum Mayor Rojano Gutierres. Clusters of onlookers—kids with bright eyes and bare feet, women with market baskets—watched the convoy go by. We wound past the huts for another half kilometer before coming to a wide cobblestone lane where the stone houses had corrugated zinc and tile roofs. Here the music and civic jubilation began. Everyone in the small crowd that greeted us had a placard or hand flag to wave to the frenetic beat of a string band playing out of tune. A small man with a loudspeaker orchestrated the cheers and gave uninhibited voice to the emotion stirring the citizens of Chicontepec de Tejeda on this banner day.