The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  “What do you want, money or fame?” I asked them on your behalf. “Because you’ll have to choose, gentlemen. Fame you’ve got a lot of, and it’s not the good kind. You’ve got a lot of money, too, and you could have more. And bad money is a contradiction in terms. Doesn’t exist. Money or fame. You can’t be political bigamists.”

  Obviously they prefer money. They’ll be your silent allies. They pull the strings of repression and persuasion, too. Everything on the sly. They know you can rule with an iron hand. Your decision to extradite the capo di tutti capi Silvestre Pardo has terrified them. And they know that if you want to, you can connect any of them to the drug cartels and send them straight to the U.S., where they would await the death penalty. And you, the gratitude of the White House.

  Another immediate success for you. The gringos have pardoned us. Your decision to support U.S. military intervention in Colombia has been presented as part of the war on drugs. What would become of the U.S. financial markets without all that money being laundered for the drug empires? And as for oil, you convinced President Condoleezza Rice that you’ll let the market determine the price, and we won’t need to make any statements of support for the Arabs.

  “Necessity knows no law,” you told Condoleezza over the phone, something she understands perfectly.

  Over the phone, Nicolás! Can you believe it? That was all it took, a few little acts of deference for Washington to lift the sanctions. And as President Terán was discreet enough not to complain, what happened between January and May . . . never happened. That’s all.

  “There are blank pages in all history books,” Condoleezza said to you.

  The fact is, starting today all communications will resume and we can finally say goodbye to this tedious task of writing letters.

  Why then do I write to you now?

  For the record.

  You know, I love poking around in the archives. Like you. Thanks to the absentminded Cástulo Magón, Tácito de la Canal is through. When I saw your folder from the ENA in Paris, I started connecting the dots, and like Sherlock Holmes I set out on my investigation. Is that how you spell “Sherlock Holmes”? Because I had a Cuban friend once who used to pronounce it “Chelmojones.” He was one of those memorable Cubans who reinvent a whole life on the basis of pronunciation. How do we know who the famous film actor was if they pronounce his name “Cagable”? And how can we recognize “Retamar” if it’s pronounced “Letamale”?

  Anyway, I started to make my deductions, from the specific to the general, piece by piece.

  You came to Mexico straight from the ENA in Paris, and settled into your “native” city of Juarez, crossing the border every day so that you could study at the library of the University of Texas at El Paso, where you devoured everything that had to do with Mexican politics, from Salinas onward. You applied for residence in Juárez and produced a confusing birth certificate—the son of a Mexican father and a North American mother, both accountants by profession, employed by companies that were fronts for a U.S. business empire with double and sometimes even triple accounting, run by the business magnate Leonardo Barroso, Sr. In other words, your family background was shady, and any revelation could compromise a number of companies on both sides of the border. The secrecy was justified. You were born in a clinic in Texas, but granted Mexican citizenship thanks to Article 30, section A.ii, which guaranteed it to all children born out of the country to Mexican parents. You were more fortunate than José Córdoba or Rogerio de la Selva, strongmen in the Carlos Salinas and Miguel Alemán administrations, but constitutionally barred from the Eagle’s Throne because of being “foreign.” But you know all this, because nobody knows more about Mexican political history than you, since you studied it so intensively and so recently, too. . . . Not like the rest of us, who learned it in elementary school. Or were weaned on it.

  Moving on, my good friend Valdivia, your parents died in a car accident in Texas when you were fifteen. Since you had the right to dual citizenship, you buried them in the U.S. That’s where the documents are with the name you used on the other side of the border, “Nick Val,” so you could get work, you said, and avoid discrimination.

  There’s a gap between the Nick Val who buried his parents in Texas and the Nicolás Valdivia who studied at the École Nationale d’Administration in Paris and was much engaged with Mexican student groups in France—they vividly remember you talking to them, observing them, finding out about their family backgrounds, trying to score points for being an orphan as well as a foreigner.

  You wanted to know everything about the country you missed so much!

  You were preparing to serve Mexico by studying in France—just like María del Rosario Galván and Bernal Herrera—as is fashionable now. It distinguishes us from the gringos and gives us cachet.

  You’re not the only one who knows how to use the archives. Take the file you’re familiar with because Cástulo Magón showed it to you when you went to work at Los Pinos.

  ENA PARIS VALDIVIA NICOLÁS

  Student. Open courses. École Nationale d’Administration, Paris. Mexican passport. Date of birth: December 12, 1986. Residence: Paris, France. Professional plans: Return to Mexico. Education and discipline: Optimal. Physical description: Darkish skin. Green eyes. Regular features. Black hair. Height: 1.79 meters. Distinguishing marks: Dimpled chin.

  That’s the file on you from Paris, with photo and everything. But then, my curiosity got the better of me. Where were you before you went to Paris, during that gap between the age of fifteen and twenty-two? Well, since I’m a member of Congress, I had no trouble sending your details to the people at Interpol. They needed only your initials. In that, my dear Nicolás, you weren’t very clever, no. All I had to do was go through the lists of Mexican students in Europe between 2010 and 2015. A little exhaustive, but it wasn’t that hard, what with modern methods of locating information—methods unknown to men like our good Cástulo Magón.

  Nicolás Valdivia in Paris disappeared without trace. A file on someone named Nico Valdés, however, did turn up, and it included a dossier from the Swiss police department and a photograph: yours.

  NICO VALDÉS, Student. University of Geneva, Switzerland. Registered for courses in political economy and constitutional theory. Expelled upon discovery of falsified academic record. Address unknown.

  What were those false documents? The Swiss hang on to every scrap of paper, as you know well. It turns out that “Nico Valdés” was already registered as a foreigner—same photo as “Nico Lavat”—and the Swiss justice system doesn’t like double identities because they can lead to double indemnities.

  Who was this Nico Lavat unjustly detained in Switzerland? As you know, photographs can be scanned through electronic imaging processes that can show how a person ages—fascinating, isn’t it? The point is, though, among these facial “identities” was one of your twin brother, Nicolás.

  NICOLÁS LAVAT. Spanish employee hired as doorman to the building that was the main office of the Le Rhône publishing house, April 25, 2006. Considered an exemplary employee. Dedicated reader when not fulfilling professional obligations. Perfect French. Accused of conspiring with a gang to rob banks and of the theft of 250,000 Swiss francs. Released due to inconclusive evidence. Physical description: Dark skin. Light green eyes. Normal features. Black permed hair. Height 1.79 meters. Distinguishing traits: Dimpled chin.

  One thing leads to another. Elementary, my dear Watson. Just use Hercule Poirot’s little gray cells—he’s another of my favorites when it comes to the art of detection. Consider, for example, this report found in the files of the Barcelona police department.

  NICO LAVAT, b. December 12, 1986, in Marseilles, France, Catalan parents, migrant workers. Associated since adolescence with Marseilles criminal elements. Drugs, male prostitution, “scab” gangs. Active in Le Pen’s National Front. Two years in prison for anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic vandalism, 2000–2002. Whereabouts unknown following release from prison. Failed to meet obligations to
report to authorities and renew documents. Physical description: Dark skin. Green eyes. Normal features. Shaved head. Height. 1.79 meters.

  Good Lord! First a black woman president and now a Catalan president!

  I’m sending you copies of these documents, my sweet. I’ll keep the originals in my office at Congress, in a sealed envelope that I’ll open only in the event of violence against my person. A remote possibility, if I’ve got someone as affectionate and understanding as you to protect me. No, I don’t think I should accept your marriage proposal. If you want me to be your Evita Perón, fine, as long as I don’t have to sleep under the same roof as you, hire a food taster like the Borgias did, or go mad, thinking I’m in a Hitchcock film every time I have a shower.

  No, we’re better off as we are, affectionate friends, secret conspirators, highly discreet lovers.

  Let me tell you something, Nicolás. There is nothing I want more than to be the companion of a politician whose personal passions don’t concern me. I can save you from the perils of love. With me you don’t have to pretend, like you had to with your Mexican Dulcinea, María del Rosario Galván.

  It’s difficult to assume power knowing that it’s impossible to exercise it in a calm and objective fashion. Power is always subject to passion, pleasure, pain, love, fear. You know, I’m enormously impressed by the amount of knowledge and experience you’ve managed to acquire, coming from where you come from. No wonder you’re always quoting those Greek philosophers. “Power is a slave to everything else.” (Protagoras? Nice name. If you and I ever had a baby . . .) But I live for my own destiny, and for the years I have left. I have no dynastic pretensions like your friend “Dark Hand” Vidales and his Nine Evil Sons. I can’t wait to see how you settle things with him! But as for me . . . I don’t have to subject myself to the terrors of marital intimacy. I don’t need a man. I’d lose my independence. I’d squash you, don’t you see? Protagoras Valdivia Tardegarda? Or just plain old Protagoras Lavat? They could be names from a Joaquín Pardavé film comedy. Now there’s a name: Pardavé. No! Nicolás Laxativa!

  With me you won’t run that risk. I’ll protect you from all the snares, Nicolás. I’ll protect you from others and I’ll protect you from yourself.

  I like the cold, efficient, practiced way you make love to me. They say all young women are beautiful. Not me. I think I’ve learned to make up for my lack of beauty with talent, and to make my personality more attractive than my ugliness. I want them to envy my personality, not my face.

  And you, handsome? Who’s really handsome when the time comes to uncover his soul and confront his truth, his secret, his transgression?

  How fortunate that you and I have no intimacy to remember. We have no shared moments of laughter, confiding, cuddles. None of that nonsense. What we have is politics.

  What we have is the determination to keep you in power for longer than the three years granted by law. Three years. That should be enough time, if we play our cards right, to amend the constitution and allow for re-election. Enough time if we keep up the legalistic energy and practical flexibility. If we choose the right sacrificial victims— Galván and Herrera (I don’t know if that sounds like a trademark or a comic strip). If we maintain the facade of seriousness and credibility. Proceed with caution, Nicolás. Remember that folly has destroyed more Latin American governments than ineptitude or crime.

  A Mexican witch discovering the bones of a disappeared congressman in her garden, except that they turned out to be the bones of her grandfather, or something like that. (It was a long time ago.)

  An Argentinian witch making decisions for a cabaret dancer who rose to the presidency. (That was a thousand years ago.)

  Argentinian, Brazilian, Peruvian presidents publicly airing their marital conflicts.

  An Ecuadoran president dancing to rock music and hula-hooping in public around the male member of a certain gringo who’d been castrated by the voracious Judith of Quito.

  All this against the very real backdrop of widespread corruption, international loans that end up in Swiss bank accounts, intimidation campaigns, torture, all those Vladimiros and their vladi-videos. . . . How is Latin America ever going to be respectable? How can Latin America avoid derision, scandal, condemnation, humiliation?

  With discretion, Mr. President. With liberty and democracy. With the horizon open to opportunity. In the great words of the greatest political genius of the modern age, Bonaparte: “Let the path be open to talent.”

  A person is allowed to have a shady background. If you’d like some consolation after reading this rather unconsoling letter written by a friend who always finds consolation in the truth, here are two more police records for your perusal.

  SCHICKELGRUBER, ADOLF, known as Hitler. Born in Braunau, Austria, 1889. Corporal in Great War. Vagrant on streets of Vienna. Taken in by Shelter for the Homeless. Joins extreme right-wing organization. Gains followers with impassioned anti-Jewish and anti-Marxist rhetoric. Participates in beer-hall putsch, Munich, 1923. Tried for treason and condemned to two years at Landsberg Prison, where he writes Mein Kampf. Obsessed with Aryan racial superiority and elimination of Jewish parasites. DJUGASHVILI IOSIV VISSIARONOVICH, known as Stalin, Koba, Soso. Born in Gori, Georgia, 1879. Imprisoned Irkutsk, 1903, Volgoda Camp, 1908. Assault on State Bank, Tiflis, 1907. Gives anti-Semitic speeches. Calls Jews “circumcised Judases.”

  I’ll spare you the sordid details of the more advanced careers of these two tyrants. Suffice it to say that their backgrounds were not only humble, but criminal, yet this wasn’t an obstacle to their ascent. All they had to do was fabricate new personalities. How was a bum called Schickelgruber going to dominate Germany and the rest of the world? How was a bank robber called Koba going to dominate Russia and the rest of the world? How was a little Catalan thug called Nico Lavat going to become president of Mexico?

  Yes, a person is allowed to have a shady background. The presidential sash is like detergent. It cleans and makes everything gleam. The Eagle’s Throne elevates, true, but “nobody can sit higher than their own ass,” as they say. You’re no worse than Menem or Fujimori. You know what depths Hitler and Stalin emerged from, and they had more power than you’ve ever dreamed of, Mr. President. Much more.

  But they were careful to eliminate those who paved their way. Hitler’s co-conspirators in the Munich putsch. Stalin’s communist comrades after the death of Lenin and despite Lenin’s warnings (“Comrade Stalin has unlimited power at his disposal and I’m not sure he will exercise it well”). Now do you see why I’ll never take a shower in your bathroom?

  Very well. Fiddlesticks, as our grandmothers would say. Let’s bury the hatchet, Mr. President. The simple truth is that politics is a barbarian feast. Every Aztec sinks a dagger in the chest of his Tlaxcaltecan neighbor and vice versa. And there we are, you and I, sitting high up above the banquet, gazing down as our tribes of aboriginal Attilas beat one another to death. You and I, my dear Nicolás, apostles of restraint and mediation.

  Restraint, Nicolás. If you want to gain an enemy, show him that you’re sharper than he.

  Discretion, Nicolás. Never allow your unavoidable acts of illegal authority to become public.

  Modesty, Nicolás. Let us only be satisfied with the best.

  Power is a terrible sum of desires and repressions, offenses and defenses, moments lost and won. We bear the secret arithmetic of our accounts. And I must repeat: We cannot allow the things that should remain secret to become public knowledge. Even if the secret is a relative one. It’s stupid to think that something that’s happening to one person isn’t happening to anyone else. Every single thing that happens is happening at the same time to millions of other people. Never forget that. Protect the secret. But remember our strength. We’re all humans, and we’re all the same. Our presidents and our cabinet secretaries often forget this fact. But we’re politicians because we’re not the same as everyone else. What wretched consolation, I know! And what an irritating paradox!

  Inevitably,
you’ll arouse envy. Everyone wants to be close to the president because everyone wants to enjoy his privileges. Now we’ll have to act alone, my dear. Turn everything to our advantage. But careful when it comes to our weaknesses. I say this as a woman. Women hate one another, you know that, and they’re very good at learning to hide their hatred. But men love one another and learn to disguise their affection. Our virtues are our weaknesses, in both cases.

  Now, there’s a man who loves you so much that he’d kill you. And whom you love so much that you can’t bring yourself to kill him. Jesús Ricardo Magón.

  Decide, Nicolás. I can’t offer you any advice. Politics is the public expression of private passions. Could public politics exist without private passions? At this stage in the game, need I repeat your Florentine namesake’s ABC?

  It is much safer to be feared than loved. . . . Love is held by a chain of obligation, which, because men are wicked, is broken at every opportunity for their own utility, but fear is held by a dread of punishment that never forsakes you.

  The prince should nonetheless make himself feared in such a mode that, if he does not acquire love, he escapes hatred.

  Choose your words carefully. Don’t let a single word that can’t be interpreted as charity, integrity, humanity, rectitude, or pity escape your lips. The people judge more by what they see than what they understand.

  Choose your words carefully. Mussolini, early on, spoke badly of the last remaining independent deputy of the Italian left, Matteotti. His aides—his lackeys—heard him and killed Matteotti. The fascist dictatorship was strengthened. Because of a verbal faux pas. How wise Obregón was when he said, “A president speaks badly of no one.”