The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  “What do you mean?”

  “That lying successfully requires an enormous amount of time and attention. The successful cultivation of lies is a full-time job. Which is precisely what the political life allows for.”

  “Have you still got the energy?”

  “Look at yourself in the rearview mirror, Bernal. Let’s both look. Do you think we’re the same people we were twenty years ago? What does that little mirror tell you, Bernal?”

  Your voice sounded so sad, my love.

  “That we can’t turn back the clock.”

  Chapultepec transformed into a shrine to rock music, quavering from all the benefit concerts, so noisy that some people claim to have seen the sleepless ghosts of Maximilian, Carlota, and the boy soldiers who died there rising up from the dead and wandering through the throngs of Mick Jagger fans. Mick Jagger’s here to celebrate his seventy-seventh birthday—he’s less of a rock star than a constipated old hag, like all aging hippies.

  And finally Los Pinos, the presidential residence and office where all the foreign heads of state, ambassadors, and political groups have come to mourn. Who’s there to receive them? Naturally, the president of Congress, Onésimo Canabal, the president of the supreme court, Javier Wimer Zambrano, and the interior secretary, Nicolás Valdivia. The election of the acting president will not take place until the memorial ceremonies in honor of President Lorenzo Terán have concluded and the foreign politicians have gone home—although Fidel Castro says that he plans to visit Chiapas “with a very important announcement to make.”

  You and I find ourselves back in the line. We’re no longer part of the government. We can only admire the composure of our Three Powers. And I search in vain for the woman, Bernal.

  Because President Lorenzo Terán did have a woman at Los Pinos. An invisible woman, and she’s there peeping into the López Mateos room. Crying. With a handkerchief over her mouth. Dark-skinned. Pockmarked. As square as a safe. Loving. Grieving.

  That woman is Penélope Casas.

  She cries, but through her tears she gazes tenderly at Nicolás Valdivia.

  She knows he will be president. And she is grateful, for he is her protector.

  I watch the scene with you, Bernal, and I repeat, politics is my passion. How lucky we are, you and I, that we never married. I was able to give the darkest part of myself, the part I inherited from my father, to politics, without hurting you.

  “Nicolás Valdivia, I will make you president.”

  What I didn’t tell him was that I knew that President Lorenzo Terán was terminally ill.

  50

  XAVIER “SENECA” ZARAGOZA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  Lorenzo Terán has died. The president has died. Are you and I still alive, María del Rosario? No, no, I won’t drag you into my own Viking funeral, the burning ship whose fiery sail will not survive the night of death. No. All I’m doing, my friend, is offering an assessment, which is perhaps a funeral prayer as well.

  Was Lorenzo Terán a great man? Might he have been and failed? Or was he only what he always was: a decent, well-intentioned man and — de mortuis nil nisi bonum—without true intelligence? His presidency will not go down in history. Terán let things happen because that was his democratic credo. But what happened wasn’t what he wanted. Consider the situation. Power vacuums, entrenched local fiefdoms, uncontrollable palace intrigues . . . and civil society incapable of governing itself in an atmosphere of tolerance, respect, and moral initiative. You, Bernal, and I know better than anyone that the man who died was honest and decent. But I must ask you this: Can anyone effect change with words? The words that the civilized world loves—Law, Security, Democracy, Progress—seem insipid, a lie, here in Mexico, and everywhere else in Latin America, a land ravaged by pain.

  And I, a man everyone calls Seneca—what can I do but propose radical utopias, given that topos is, in itself, so absolute in the political realm? Faced with the inherent extremity of realpolitik, I championed the equally extreme notion of idealpolitik in the hope that, somewhere between two extremes, the coin of virtue might land. In medio stat virtu, as they say.

  With this philosophy in mind, I accepted the position that President Terán offered me, so close to the Eagle’s Throne. I knew that life could be wretched even when thoughts sailed high. I accepted my place with serenity in the belief that, even if my advice was not always taken, at least a moral echo, if only a faint one, would always resonate in the president’s ears. Yes, I am a utopian. I will die dreaming of a society governed by men of knowledge, integrity, and good taste. But since this is impossible, aren’t we better off taking this conviction to the grave, where nothing can thwart or contradict it?

  I’ve sought virtue so that we might better exercise our liberty.

  I’ve believed in a country that belongs to everyone, that embraces everyone, regardless of sex, race, religion, or ideology.

  It’s been difficult, but I’ve tried, María del Rosario, to extend my love to the bearers of evil, thinking of them as people who are simply “sick with passion,” as the original Seneca, native of Córdoba, called them.

  But most of all, I’ve followed the Stoic advice: When it comes to aggression, never allow yourself to be conquered by anything but your own soul.

  María del Rosario, I want you to understand this farewell note from your friend Xavier Zaragoza, the man everyone calls Seneca. I want you to feel that my despair is also my peace. That I still have the desire. What I’ve lost is the hope. I know, now you’re going to tell me that I should have been more aware of the realities the president faced, that I should have regarded my ideals—an enlightened, fair government—as merely corrective, a call to the refuge of the interior life in stormy times. Resigned myself to the crumbs of utopia. Yes, María del Rosario, you yourself believed that my presence was useful, like the condiment that’s unnoticed if the stew is tasty, but considered indispensable the moment someone asks, “Where’s the salt?”

  The salt on tables piled high with well-seasoned dishes—how many times was my counsel heeded? Why did I fool myself into thinking that my advice counted for anything? Didn’t I realize that the political weight of an intellectual could only be felt outside the power base, though even in the opposition an intellectual can scarcely exert much more than relative pressure? Within the power base his influence is not even relative. It is nil.

  In other words, at one extreme you shit, at the other you eat shit. It’s as bleak as that.

  As I look back on these three years I’ve spent in the antechambers of power, all I see is misery and all I feel is disgust. Yes, I’ve seen the president suffer. There were times I said to him, “Don’t think so much. That’s what I’m here for.”

  But whenever I did that, someone else had already saved him from his suffering. Tácito, in the interest of evil. Herrera, in the interest of goodness. And I was always left with, “You’re right, Seneca. There was another path. Perhaps I’ll take it next time.”

  And then he’d smile at me.

  “You bastard, stop keeping me awake at night, will you?”

  It was the inner circle of sycophants, demagogues, and schemers that was keeping him awake.

  María del Rosario, this is your friend Xavier “Seneca” Zaragoza, the man the president listens—listened—to with enthusiasm but without conviction.

  These imbeciles think success will make them happy. They don’t know what’s coming to them. I was isolated and discredited. It was only thanks to the president’s goodness that I kept my position. I was the gadfly. I was the one who said the things that had to be said, no matter how unpleasant.

  “Nothing will ever convince me that wisdom lies in statistics, Andino.”

  “When I look at you, General Arruza, I am filled with revulsion.”

  “People can sleep in the same bed and dream very different dreams, Mr. Herrera.”

  “Crown yourself with laurels, President León, lest a thunderbolt strike you dead.”

  “Your co
wardice is like a stench that you leave behind everywhere you go, Tácito.”

  And you, María del Rosario, tell me this: “Seneca, don’t drink poison to quench your thirst. It’s not worth it.”

  Isn’t it, my dear friend? Do you think I want to die because I’m disillusioned with the world? Do you think that the only thing left for me, an idealist without convictions, is death? Do you think I’m betraying the Stoic belief in keeping the soul’s passions at bay? Tell me, isn’t it possible that death is yet another of the soul’s passions? And since it’s our inevitable end, why not accelerate it?

  No. I’ve put my convictions to the test and I know that the price of intelligence is disenchantment. Nothing can match our use of reason. I’ve been too close to the sun for too long, and since I’m nothing but a statue made of snow, I melt when the sun burns out. Oh, if you only knew the things I’ve felt since the death of my wonderful friend Lorenzo Terán. I’m like a cat: I can’t make sense of my reflection in the mirror. I try to remember my name, and I have such a hard time. I shouldn’t remember it, for I’ve lost it forever, I know. And I feel that nothing is worth the effort, nothing satisfies me. Everything has gone sour. Is that proof of moral greatness? Can a dog feel boredom? Only the idiot has no doubts. Only the idiot doesn’t suffer.

  When the president died, I peered into the mirror of my soul and it trembled. My emotions were in flux. My spirit was wavering between life and death.

  It was the immense unfulfillment of my love, a hollow between life and death. My love for you, María del Rosario. It was my desire to possess you, never expressed, forever silenced, a prisoner of my dreams. And I’m sure you never guessed.

  In the end, it was the absolute certainty that my interior life was the only reality. The untouchable fortress of my inner self. My freedom to decide whether that should remain in the world or be left behind. It meant—it means, María del Rosario—that rational thought will never take root in Mexico. Time after time we’ve done it, and we’ll go on doing it, killing the hen that lays the golden eggs—after stealing the eggs. It means that, though he said it in 1800, Humboldt was right: “Mexico is a beggar sitting on top of a mountain of gold.”

  In a detective novel, we don’t know who the criminal is until the end. But in Mexico, everyone knows who the criminal is in advance. And the victim is always the country itself. Oh, my dear friend, ignore the demagogues who promise salvation, our Mahatma Propagandis. But be careful of the comedians who are the repressors, our Robespierrots.

  Listen to the desperate.

  Listen to the rumors in Mexico City, where everyone knows what goes unsaid. Write it all down. Nobody will believe you.

  Keep your mouth shut. They’ll find out.

  Yes, my more than valued friend. If I were a politician I’d betray them all. Just as well I’m only an intellectual and know that the politicians will betray me.

  Yes, my beautiful and enlightened lady, nothing has any value outside the inner life, the silent self. Don’t talk to anyone about it. They won’t understand.

  I go in the knowledge that our life is in our dreams. Nothing is more real than our Utopia. There’s no other reality, you see. Only a suicidal man would dare say this. They’re not my final words. I’m not asking for them to be inscribed on my tombstone.

  HERE LIES XAVIER ZARAGOZA

  KNOWN TO ALL AS SENECA

  1982–2020

  IN MEXICO, ALL THOUGHT IS

  CONTRABAND

  I’ll tell you in secret that there’s no mystery after death. The dead man doesn’t know we’re alive. What it amounts to is that before birth and after death we experience our own untouchable worlds.

  My farewell sentence, María del Rosario, is much simpler.

  “I am leaving before the sky above Mexico City disappears forever.”

  And I reproach myself for leaving with rage, without serenity. . . .

  I go with rage because I allowed myself to be seduced by politics. I discovered that the art of politics is the lowest form of art.

  I go with rage because I was unable to convince the president that the head of state can’t matter more than the people, or the times.

  I go with rage because I was unable to stop the six-year cycle of political madness that appropriates all of Mexican history and reinvents it every six years. What madness.

  I go with rage because it’s my fault that the president listened to me when I gave him good advice. It’s my fault, not his.

  I go with rage because my reason and logic were unable to defeat the propaganda, which is the food of fanatics.

  I go with rage because I never learned how to grow magueys.

  I go with rage because where once I was provocative I’m now an irritation.

  I go with rage because I preached morality from the top of a mountain made of sand.

  I go with rage because I was never able to say to you, I love you.

  I go with rage because I envy only the dead.

  51

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO JESÚS RICARDO MAGÓN

  Darling, it’s very hard to trust anyone else. Who knows what the consequences will be of the information you gave to María del Rosario? She used to be my regular correspondent . . . but I’m not sure about her now. Too many crossed wires. Too many interweaving stories. Should I just keep my mouth shut? That would be the safest thing, but I’m terrified of taking the secret with me to my grave. I trust you enough to tell you that. My feelings for you have deepened since I first saw you on the roof and we started working together. At last I’ve found a kindred spirit, someone who reads the same books and who thinks as I do. I feel you very close to me and I want to keep you there.

  My secret is your secret, but then you and I are one and the same.

  I’m warning you that knowing what I know is dangerous—for me and for whoever hears me. Destroy the tape after listening to it. It will be delivered to you by your father don Cástulo, the safest messenger I can think of.

  I went back to Veracruz to talk to the Old Man because he asked me to. There he was, as always, wearing his double-breasted suit and bow tie, with the little parrot on his shoulder and the dominoes laid out on the table, and the waiter, artful as an acrobat, pouring his steaming coffee.

  “Sit down, Valdivia,” the Old Man said.

  He could tell from my eyes, from the way I moved my head, from my hands open in supplication, that I wanted to meet in private, not in full view in the plaza in Veracruz.

  “Sit down, Valdivia. When you do things openly you don’t arouse suspicion. It’s secrecy that wakes up the wolves. We’re not drawing attention to ourselves here under the arches. Look: The vultures are flying over Ulúa Castle again. That’s what people are going to notice, not you and me sitting together over a cup of coffee.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask anything. I knew the Old Man was going to talk. By the look on his face I could tell that everything that was going to happen had already happened. I went cold as I realized this. The Old Man was a sorcerer, I knew it, and he understood, Jesús Ricardo, those subtle but significant changes in time and space that affect us all. That was the wisdom he’d gained from living so long. Space and time. How to read them, endure them, and find ourselves in them. Whether we like it or not, space belongs to the order of things that coexist, whereas time belongs to the realm of things that happen. What unites the two is their effect on what already is and on what is possible, what can happen. In themselves, they’re abstract notions. They need the concrete here-and-now to have substance.

  Didn’t Susan Sontag say that years ago? “Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once. Space exists so that it all doesn’t happen to you.”

  In political life, strictly speaking, can we say that chance, sequence, and recurrence belong to the world of the everyday, just as the intensity, simultaneity, and harmony of personal, internal time, yours and mine, my darling, are properties of the soul?

  Now, you know what joy it is for me to h
ave a companion whose mind works like mine. Whom else but you can I talk to about things like this? Who else could possibly understand me when I say that the time we’re living in now isn’t just an abstract idea but a useful way of understanding life and that politics is one way of making time a reality?

  I want to believe that the Old Man read my thoughts. Not literally, of course, but through his intuition—though in his case you’d call it something else, malice, even perversity. . . . He’s a sly old dog.

  Anyway, this is what he said to me: “My only regret is that I know all the stories, but I’ll never know the full story.”

  “Nor will I,” I ventured.

  “Nobody, for sure,” he said, nodding his well-groomed, graying head.

  I didn’t want to add anything. He was the boss.

  “Just as a person measures out the sugar for his coffee,” he said, “he should know what to tell, when to tell, and to whom. . . .”

  “And when to take a secret with him to the grave?”

  I don’t know why he found this so funny. He bared his teeth. That was the only time I ever saw him looking hungry.

  “Sometimes with a heavy heart, or in the interests of discretion, or out of pride—how many secrets have we never revealed, and only when we’re dead do we regret it? If I’d told this at the right time, everything would have been different. Or better.”

  I wasn’t going to rush the Old Man. I’d already decided to keep a very formal, respectful distance that I hoped would intrigue him more than his secret intrigued me. Because there was a secret there, Jesús Ricardo. If you were to add up all my visits to the café in Veracruz, you might think I’d come here because María del Rosario had asked me to, as part of my political education. But little by little I understood that the Old Man was keeping a secret and was waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Maybe at the beginning this was coincidence, whim, or chance. But in the end it was inevitable, necessary.

  I was interior secretary at the moment of the president’s death. Congress was selecting an acting president to complete Lorenzo Terán’s term and call an election. My political education, which was the reason for all my trips to Veracruz (how distant it seems today!), was now my political decision. Who would be the acting president? And who would be the candidates in 2024?