The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  The schemes you and I have to use to test the people around us are occasionally useful, usually useless, and always detrimental to one’s peace of mind. Eventually you decide that friends and enemies can conceivably be friends among themselves, and, whether you want to or not, you end up repeating that sentence by Stendhal you taught me, “How difficult it is to bear this continued hypocrisy!”

  How many times have you and I pondered together one of the central issues of political life: How should one treat the enemy?

  Appease him?

  Attack him outright?

  Use violence, sever his head?

  Defeat him first, only to honor him immediately afterward? Betray him, without letting the ignominy of your victory come crashing down on your own head?

  Chop off his head first, never forgetting, “That could have been my own head”?

  Turn your defeated enemy into your protector and friend, erecting statues and plaques in his honor—as long as he’s dead?

  I’m very worried, María del Rosario. Your rash behavior violates the law of political justice. The political executioner should be invisible. By responding to your purely feminine, maternal emotions you’ve violated your own laws.

  Tácito has forced our hand. He’s forcing us to reveal our game, to publicly condemn his shady dealings with MEXEN. Now, more than ever, we have to be extremely careful as we consider our opportunities for attack. Tácito knows we know because you, my impatient friend, told him so without considering the consequences. You tasted the sweet nectar of victory before it was yours. Mistake number one. And Tácito, in his response, has very skillfully proven himself worthy of our own rule: In politics, never make your intentions clear. Act.

  You know, Marucha, I’m a man who always has a court in session inside his head. The judge is a “we” and sometimes a plural “you.” Today, the judge sitting in on our case is an “I-you” and he’s telling me, “You trusted this woman with a secret that is the key to my success and my rival’s defeat. But if this woman—my ally—reveals the secret, my rival will destroy both of us.”

  That’s exactly what he’s done by going to the press and telling them about our retarded son. Face it, understand it: I, the pre-candidate for the presidency and you, the most renowned female politician in the country, have been reduced to a pair of heartless parents, despicable and callous ogres, two cruel monsters. . . .

  You can breathe easily, María del Rosario.

  The president has personally contacted the heads of the five or six major media organizations to tell them:

  “Make no mistake. The child is mine. The result of a very old love affair with María del Rosario Galván. Look in the mirror, each one of you, and tell me you don’t have a secret love affair in your past. Kill the piece. I’ve never asked any of you for personal favors in the past. But I’m doing it now because it involves a lady. And, of course, as you well know, the office of the president.”

  “But, Mr. President, the person who leaked the news was Mr. De la Canal, your chief of staff. . . .”

  “Ex-chief of staff. Mr. De la Canal handed in his resignation this afternoon.”

  “Mr. President, your interior secretary, Bernal Herrera, has just announced his resignation as well.”

  “That’s right, gentlemen. Tácito de la Canal and Bernal Herrera have resigned from their governmental positions so they can devote themselves fully to their respective presidential campaigns. And I’d like to thank both of them for their tremendous service to their country and to me. I think this news is a bit more important than prying into my personal life.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Mr. President.”

  “Let me reiterate my respect for the integrity and hard work of these two close aides who are leaving us now. They were trusted advisers who were loyal and steadfast to the end. That is the real news of the day.”

  “We’ll treat this with the utmost discretion. Say no more.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen.”

  So proceed with a cold heart, María del Rosario. Remember who we have for a president, and let Tácito start his campaign before exposing the MEXEN scandal. Compose yourself for a few minutes, please, and remember what you said to me the day we decided to keep the boy a secret: “No. If I confess my disgrace, I’ll lose all respect. And even love.”

  And I replied, “Never punish yourself for being happy. Don’t forget, we got where we are because we never let feelings drag us down.”

  P.S. This tape will be delivered to you personally by Jesús Ricardo Magón, the young man who recently started working alongside your little protégé, the undersecretary of the interior, Nicolás Valdivia, who trusts him implicitly. Once you’ve listened to the cassette, destroy it, just as, as I know, you’ve destroyed all the other recorded messages I’ve sent you. And, María del Rosario, please don’t make me doubt you as I did when I first met you. . . .

  P.P.S. I’ve just had lunch in my office with the editor in chief of the newspaper En Contra, Reynaldo Rangel. I thought that the president had summoned the newspapers and (though televisions are now useless) TV magnates to his office to speak to them personally. But the meeting Rangel described to me sounded very bizarre. Host and guests were separated by a big curtain in the middle of the room. The president didn’t allow his visitors to see him. He carried out the conversation from the other side of the curtain, but since they all know Lorenzo Terán’s voice, and the conversation flowed normally, it didn’t occur to anyone to doubt that it was him. In any event, even if they did have their doubts, it was in their interest to grant the president his request. . . . But there’s definitely a mystery here. Destroy this tape, please. And I repeat, remember who you are, who we are, don’t let your hormones get the better of you, and don’t break your own rules. Let a cool head rule over fury.

  43

  CONGRESSMAN ONÉSIMO CANABAL TO CONGRESSWOMAN PAULINA TARDEGARDA

  My distinguished colleague and loyal friend, you know how I go about these things. I believe scientists call it “mimicry,” chameleons that change color to blend in with their environment. In other words, if they’re sitting on a rock, they blend in with the rock, and if they are perched on a tree trunk they change their color accordingly. Well, my esteemed Paulina, I find myself at a crossroads. A path that is unpaved, muddy, mucky, a valley of slime, some might call it.

  I won’t bother to tell you what you already know. Or perhaps I’ll tell you again so that you get the full picture.

  The parties are divided. The president’s party, the National Action Party, has splintered into the ultra-reactionary and clerical faction, the center Christian Democrats, and the left-wing faction that associates itself with liberation theology. The PRI, our Institutional Revolutionary Party, has split into eight groups. The far right, which wants order and repression. Dinosaurs who are gathering dust in the Museum of National Political History. Neoliberal technocrats who keep alive the flame of their goddess Macroeconomics. Nationalists who believe that the re-assertion of sovereignty is the PRI’s raison d’être. Then, the populists who promise everything and deliver nothing. Not to mention the factions of agrarians, unionists, and old bureaucrats dating back to the corporate culture of the Cárdenas era.

  Take a look around you. Instead of the great steamroller of the once “invincible” PRI, we’re now facing eight mini-parties in search of lost unity.

  And then, on the left, we have the Green parties, but they’re only as green as the dollar bill; the Social Democrats following the European model; the neo-Cardenistas who want to go back in time to 1938; the Marxists of the Leninist and Trotskyist persuasions, and Marxists who read the young Karl Marx and proclaim that Marxism is a form of humanism.

  And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the indigenous factions, or the strung-out extremists—both sides, anarchists and fascists.

  My method for controlling this circus in Congress, as you know, is to pretend not to notice anything and wear my dunce cap as much as possible. I make myself in
visible. So that nobody pays me the slightest attention.

  As for the tactics of our president and his treasury secretary Andino Almazán, I know them like the back of my hand. First they present the measures that they know our “confetti Congress” will reject because they offend popular or nationalist sensibilities and can be denounced as neoliberal, reactionary, or antinationalist laws: taxes on books, drugs, and food, privatization. . . . And then, to avoid being taken for lazy slobs (if you weren’t a lady I might use another word), Congress goes ahead and approves bills that the executive would never put forward for fear of offending the wealthy—progressive taxation, higher income and capital gains taxes, etc. You know, the things that really make money for the government, not the tax on aspirins or those Isabel Allende books I know you devour.

  That, then, is how you and I manage our unmanageable Congress. That has become our rule, and you are my greatest ally because you’re a woman, because you’re austere to a fault (forgive me, I know you like dressing like a nun, I’m not criticizing you for that), and because you’re from Hidalgo, an improbable state if there ever was one simply because people seem to have forgotten that it exists.

  And now, my austere and improbable lady, I need you more than ever to organize the legislative chaos and to face up to the pressures that will soon be upon us.

  First of all is the threat of an armed uprising. I have very good reason to believe (as the bolero says, “Stop asking me questions, let me imagine. . . .”) that Cícero Arruza is running around spreading panic among officials, local strongmen, as well as the top general himself, Bon Beltrán, or whatever his name is. I can’t spell that name unless I have it in front of me—foreign languages have never been my strong suit. Anyway, Paulina, Arruza wants to declare President Lorenzo Terán unfit to govern on the basis of “grave shortcomings,” as stipulated in Article 86 of the constitution. And since the majority of Congress considers Terán incompetent, the scheme might just work. The only catch is that Congress would then have to choose the appropriate acting president to complete Terán’s six-year term.

  I have no idea who Cícero and his allies have in mind for this. But who are his allies? Paulina, you must find out if the strongmen and the defense secretary with the unpronounceable German name are, in fact, joining forces with General Arruza in his attempt to stage a military coup, because that, in the end, is his objective.

  The other person breathing down my neck is our ex-president César León, and he’s as shady a character as they get. He’s also trying to manipulate Congress into declaring the president incompetent, but he refuses to reveal who he wants to replace Terán, finish out the rest of his term, and call for elections—that is, only after amending Article 83 so that former presidents (such as César León) can be reelected by the time those 2024 elections come around.

  Be very careful, Paulina, because the ex-president is a sly snake in the grass who knows every trick in the book and is fueled by an ambition that knows no limits. Go to the old ex-president, who sits around all day playing dominoes under the arches in Veracruz—visit him, see if you can get any information from him. Don’t even try to seduce César León, because he only lets himself get taken for a ride by center-folds. Although, who knows, he’s so lecherous that even you might strike him as a sort of Venus from Hidalgo. I say that with all due respect, Paulina.

  But to go back to the old man in Veracruz, the most I’ve ever gotten out of him—so far, but you know better than anyone that I’m stubborn as a mule (my enemies call me pigheaded and my allies persistent)—is this:

  “Mexico already has a legitimate president,” the Old Man says.

  “Of course, Lorenzo Terán,” I reply.

  “No, another one, in case Terán resigns or dies.”

  “Resignation? Death? What are you talking about, Mr. President?”

  “I’m talking about fucking legitimacy.”

  (Excuse me, Paulinita, all due respect to you.)

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all, Onésimo.”

  You know that the Old Man is half mummy, half sphinx. And, since I don’t get anything but riddles out of him, I put on my little holy innocent face and turn to the cabinet in search of advice. They all tell me the same thing, with their own particular ifs, ands, and buts:

  “The constitution’s clear on that,” says Herrera of the interior office. “If we’re left without a president during the last four years of his term (as would be the case now), Congress names an acting president to finish the term and then calls for new elections. That’s the law, and it’s crystal clear.”

  “The constitution could be changed, and we could have a vice president,” Tácito de la Canal remarks. “But that would require the vote of two thirds of all present congressmen and the approval of the majority of the state legislature. How long do you think that might take?”

  He scratches his bald head and answers his own question.

  “One, two, three years. It’s irrelevant to our situation.”

  “Why don’t you have a vice president like we do?” the U.S. ambassador, Cotton Madison, asks me. “Kennedy gets shot, Johnson takes over. Nixon resigns, Ford takes over. No problem.”

  I try to explain to him that, during the nineteenth century, when we had vice presidents in Mexico, these fine, upstanding characters spent most of their time undermining and overthrowing the presidents they served, starting with the revolt of Nicolás Bravo against Guadalupe Victoria in 1827. And then Santa Anna, “the immortal leader from Cempoala,” according to our national anthem, struck out against his own vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías, even though old “Fifteen Nails” (that’s the one-legged Santa Anna, Paulina) actually managed to overthrow his own government in the end, a maneuver that the sinister Hugo Chávez, admirer that he is of Bolívar, imitated to perfection not twenty years ago.

  I could give you a laundry list of disloyal vice presidents—Anastasio Bustamante against Vicente Guerrero, for one. And I could also tell you about generals who preferred to strike out against their leaders rather than defend the country from foreign invaders, which is what happened with the traitor Paredes Arrillaga during the war against the Americans. That’s a depressing story, no doubt, but it’s one worth keeping in mind, my discreet friend, if you want to keep all the cards in your hand and don’t want to be surprised in the middle of a siesta, like Santa Anna was by the gringos at the Battle of San Jacinto, which cost us Texas.

  As I said before, you’re going to want to know the opinions of local bosses like Cabezas in Sonora, Delgado in Baja California, Maldonado in San Luis, and the fearsome Vidales in Tabasco. Without a doubt they’ll lie to you.

  Sonora: “Our problem is creating assembly plants, not conspiracies,” Cabezas will say.

  Baja California: “We’ve got enough problems with the waters of the Colorado and dealing with the drug traffic in Tijuana,” Delgado will say.

  San Luis Potosí: “The only thing we’re concerned with around here is protecting foreign investment,” Maldonado will say.

  Tabasco: “In this state, the buck stops with me,” Vidales will say.

  So they say, so they say, so they say. . . . Lies, all of it. But they won’t (forgive me) try to seduce you. No. Let us, then, interpret the lies in reverse to find out the truth. The seduction will not take place because, in the first place, let’s just say you inspire more respect than that magistrate’s wife, doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, heroine of our independence, and secondly (I’ll say it again) because you’re from Hidalgo, and Hidalgo’s a state that doesn’t register on Mexico’s political radar.

  Keep me informed, my dear and respected friend.

  44

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  I’m back because you asked me. I’m back in Veracruz, in the port’s main plaza under the arches. I’m back in the Café de la Parroquia to meet the Old Man again.

  The famous déjà vu. The parrot perched on the Old Man’s shoulder. This time
the Old Man is not wearing his bow tie. Today he’s wearing a guayabera. It seems appropriate given the sticky, humid, suffocating heat beneath an umbrella of black clouds heralding a storm that refuses to break and clear the melancholy tropical air. The Old Man’s still there, with his coffee in front of him and his dominoes in an asymmetrical ivory pattern on the table.

  I think he’s taking his afternoon siesta. I’m wrong. The minute I stop in front of him, he opens an eye. One single dark-ringed eye. The other one stays shut. The parrot shouts, or chirps, or does whatever it is parrots do: “NO RE-ELECTION! EVERY VOTE COUNTS!”

  The Old Man opens the other eye and gives me a dark look. He doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t want to hide it. He wants me to know that he knows. He wants me to know that he knows I’m no longer the novice that came to visit him in January. He wants me to know that he knows I’m the former undersecretary now in charge of the office of the interior because Bernal Herrera has resigned as interior secretary to become a pre-candidate for the presidency. He wants me to know that he knows that I’m now the head of domestic affairs in our country.

  Nevertheless, I feel like I’m meeting someone who behaves as if nothing at all has happened in Mexico since 1950. He acts and speaks as if we lived in the past. As if the bonfires of the Revolution were still burning. As if Pancho Villa were still on his horse. As if all the country’s generals didn’t drive around in Cadillacs. As if the Mexican Revolution (as was acknowledged half a century ago) hadn’t ended in the suburban Lomas de Chapultepec.

  And nevertheless (oh, the endless number of cependants I hang from your lovely ears, my wise lady), I can’t fail to notice that the Old Man is aware of my political youth—interior secretary at thirty-five—and that he wants to warn me, with his Veracruz wisdom plucked from Lampedusa’s The Leopard, that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, that I shouldn’t harbor dreams of radical change, miraculous transformation, etc. That there’s a permanent substratum, a bedrock, not only of Mexican politics but of politics tout court.