5. Sitting at his desk with the tricolor flag planted behind him like a parched nopal, President Justo Mayorga read the urgent communiqué. The agrarian leader Joaquín Villagrán had occupied the federal Congress with an army of workers carrying machetes and demanding—nothing less—radical policies on all fronts to bring the country out of its endemic poverty. There were no insults on their banners. Only demands. Education. Security. Honest judges. From the bottom. Everything from the bottom. Jobs. Work. From the bottom. No waiting for investments from the top. No asking for loans and canceling debts. School and work, from the bottom. Sharecroppers, day laborers, trade unionists, artisans, members of village communes, Indians, workers, small contractors, poor ranchers, village merchants, rural schoolteachers.
And the movement’s flag. An Indian sitting on a mountain of gold. “Mexico is the country of injustice,” said Humboldt in 1801, the president recalled. The Indian, the campesino, the worker had joined together and taken over the seat of Congress. Who would get them out? How? With guns? Congress is surrounded by the army, Mr. President. Because in Mexico no one governs without the army, but the army is institutional and obeys only the president.
“While the president represents the state,” the secretary of defense, Jenaro Alvírez, informed Justo Mayorga. “Because we soldiers know how to distinguish between transitory governments and the state that endures.”
He stared at Mayorga. “If, on the other hand, the president stops representing the state and defends only his own government . . .” He smiled affably. “We Mexicans are like a large extended family . . .”
General Alvírez hurled his suspension points like bullets. And Justo Mayorga closed the folder with the day’s information and gave free rein to his interior murmur, I don’t do business with my conscience, I’ll do whatever I have to do, right now I don’t know what I should do, the situation is serious and I won’t resolve it the way I have other times by firing secretaries of state, removing functionaries, blaming others, letting it be known that I’ve been deceived by disloyal colleagues, the usual Judases, the fact of the matter is I don’t have any colleagues left I can blame, the ball stopped on my number on the roulette wheel, it’s not a day for distractions, it’s a day for internal courage, I must be strong in my soul to be strong in my body, outside, on the street, I have to repeat to myself that being president is not owing anybody anything and being grateful for even less in order to appear in public as if I were the dream of the man in the street which is to be president of Mexico, what every Mexican thinks he deserves to be, the chief, this is a country of chiefs, without chiefs we wander around more disoriented than a parakeet at the North Pole, that’s the truth, I have to be cold inside to be heated in my external performance and it irritates me that my son’s frivolity now seems like a fly in a storm, the idea that keeps coming back pains me, my son is my worst enemy, not the leader Joaquín Villagrán who’s taken over the Congress, not the army under the command of General Jenaro Alvírez surrounding the Palace of San Lázaro and waiting for my orders,
“Remove the agitators,”
my good-for-nothing son and his friend Richi Riva have draped themselves in the middle of my mind and I want to get them out so I can think clearly. I can’t be the mental prisoner of a couple of frivolous kids, I don’t want anybody to say how will he govern the country if he can’t govern his son, ah you pissant little bastard, you’re giving me a feeling of failure that paralyzes me, I haven’t known how to teach you my morality, don’t be anybody’s friend, you can’t govern with frivolity and sentimentality, being president is not owing anybody anything . . .
“Mr. President. The army has surrounded the Congress. We’re waiting for your order to remove them.”
6. For the whole blessed day, Luz Pardo de Mayorga wandered like a ghost through the empty rooms of Los Pinos. Her intimate, enduring alliance with Justo Mayorga made her as sensitive as a butterfly trapped under a bell jar. Something was going on. Something besides yesterday’s unpleasant breakfast. Who knows why, this afternoon she would have liked to be absent. She had dressed for lunch, but her husband sent word he wouldn’t arrive in time. There was no one in the residence except the invisible servants and their feline secretiveness. Doña Luz could fill the afternoon hours however she chose, watching soap operas, playing the CD of the boleros she liked best,
We who loved so much,
who made a wondrous sun of love . . .
she hummed very quietly because in this house—the president had told her—even the walls have ears, be careful Lucecita, don’t show your feelings, keep the rancor you feel in your heart, because you can’t be authentic, because you’re the prisoner of Los Pinos, because you’d like it if your husband weren’t so powerful, if he got sick you could show him the real affection you have for him, if you were braver you’d demand that he understand Enrique, that he not feel so resentful if the boy has a good time and you don’t anymore, Justo, you don’t know how to have a good time anymore and you can’t stand pleasure in anybody else, try to imagine my soul split in two, between the love I feel for you and the love I feel for our son, don’t you say you love only your family, nobody else, that a president doesn’t have the right to love anybody, only his family? you’ll allow me to doubt, Justo, you’ll permit me to think that your political coldness has come into our house, that you treat your son and me like subjects, no, not even that, because with the masses you’re seductive, affectionate, you put on a mask with the people, and with us who are you, Justo? the time has come to say who you are with your wife and son . . .
“Don’t dress up too much. Be more circumspect.”
“I only want to look nice.”
“Don’t fondle me so much.”
Justo Mayorga leaned over to kiss her temple. Then he saw something he hadn’t seen before. A tear suspended in the corner of his wife’s eye. He felt transported, irrelevant, on his way elsewhere. He looked at that single trembling tear, suspended there without ever falling, without rolling down her cheek, he saw it kept there since her youth, since they were married, when Luz Pardo promised herself never to cry in front of her husband.
“I can’t conceive of losing you and continuing to live. It would make no sense.”
7. Attack, Mr. President. In half an hour we can empty the Congress. Don’t do anything, Mr. President. Just surround them until they give up because of hunger. Don’t make them into martyrs, Mr. President. If they go on a hunger strike, more people will come to encourage them than there are soldiers surrounding them. Abandon the place, Mr. President. Be noble. Leave them there until they get tired and leave on their own.
Attack. Surround. Don’t do anything.
The dusty wind of a February afternoon shook the trees in the park and the curtains of the official residence. Father, mother, and son sat down for supper. First there was a long silence. Then the first lady remarked that a storm was brewing that night. She bit her tongue. She didn’t want to refer to anything more serious than the weather. Restless, impulsive, irritated, Quique broached the subject of what the point was of getting to the top and not enjoying life.
“Don’t worry, son. Three more years and we go back to the ranch.”
“You, not me,” said the rebel, then immediately modulated that. “I’m not going to any ranch. Even if you drag me. I’m staying here in the capital. Here’s where my pals are, my life, I don’t need you two.”
“Inside here we have no idea what’s going on out there,” the president said calmly but enigmatically. “Don’t kid yourself.”
“You’re not going to stop me from being Richi’s friend.” Quique raised his voice provocatively. “With Richi I stop being the president’s damn son, I’m myself.” He got to his feet violently. “Without mommies and daddies all over me.”
“Watch your mouth in front of your mother,” said the president without becoming irritated. “Beg her pardon.”
“Pardon me, Mom.” Quique approached Doña Luz and kissed her on the forehead.
“But you two have to understand me.” He lifted his supplicating, haughty head. “I’m different, with Richi I’m different.”
Señora Luz armed herself with courage and, looking first at one and then the other, she raised her voice for the first time in her life, knowing she would never do it again, though now her husband’s impressive calm authorized her to speak forcefully, to break the glass that enclosed their lives.
“Do we really deserve one another? Do the three of us love one another? Answer me.”
She wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin. An undesirable foam had gathered there, like the waves of Mazatlán, because of the strength of things, because of the law of the tides.
“Give me something,” shouted Luz Pardo. “Why don’t you ever give me anything? Don’t I deserve anything?”
She didn’t cry. She never cried. Only that afternoon did she allow the tear she owed Justo Mayorga to escape. Now her desperate weeping choked in her trembling chin. She got up from the table and walked away, saying in an inaudible voice, “Answer me . . .”
She managed to hear her husband’s words. “I don’t want disorder in my house,” and then, when Justo Mayorga came into the bedroom and found her lying down, he asked, “Didn’t you watch television?” And she: “I don’t have the heart, Justo, understand me.”
The president turned on the set. He sat down next to Doña Luz and took her hand. On the screen Justo Mayorga was seen approaching the palace of Congress, ordering General Alvírez, “Let me alone, I’m going in alone,” and entering the Congress occupied by rebel workers, Justo Mayorga alone, with no aide, no armed men, alone with his courage and his head high, that was how the entire nation saw him go in on TV and that was how they saw him come out later leading the agrarian leader Joaquín Villagrán by the hand, smiling, waving his free hand—the right one, always—raising his left together with the right hand of the leader, announcing, “We’ve reached an agreement.”
But the agreement didn’t matter to the crowd gathered in front of the Congress, what mattered was the president’s bravery, the guts to go in alone into the mouth of the lion and get an agreement with the union leader, the important thing was that the people loved him, the people were right, the president was a real man, everything bad that happened was because the president didn’t know about it, if the president knew, if the bureaucrats didn’t lie to him, see, he goes in all alone and comes out holding the leader by the hand and so tomorrow we’re all going to the Zócalo to cheer our president who’s very macho, Justo Mayorga on the balcony of the palace, with only one arm—the right one—raised, conceding without shyness and in silence, yes, I’m the chosen one of the masses, I’m the proof that the man on the street can reach the top, look at me, admire me, the president is the lucky charm of the Mexican people . . .
“Never say it out loud, say it to yourself the way you’re saying it now, in secret, like an intimate confession . . . I’m the lover of my people . . .”
And in an even more secret voice, “Power postpones death, it just postpones death . . .”
8. Richi Riva was put on a Qantas plane to Australia. Quique Mayorga Pardo tried in vain to break through the barrier of bodyguards who prevented access to the ramp: “I’m the president’s son!”
The soldiers had turned into a hostile, impenetrable world.
Quique drove his Porsche back to Los Pinos. He parked it in the garage. He got out. He slammed the door. He clenched his teeth, held back the tears, and began to kick the red sports car, powerful kicks, denting the body.
9. “What did I give the leader Villagrán? Nothing, Lucecita. I wrapped him around my finger. The usual promises. The important thing is that people saw me go in alone. They know their president’s hand doesn’t tremble. Without firing a shot. When I went in, they were shouting ‘Death to Mayorga!’ When I came out, nothing but ‘Long live Mayorga!’ Pure guts, Lucecita, pure guts. They’ll be quiet for the rest of my term. Then we’ll go back to the ranch.”
Chorus of the Family from
the Neighborhood
He left the house because they beat me they stripped me they forced me
My father my mother
Because they both died and there was nobody but me in the house
Because I don’t have relatives
Because the guys told me don’t be an asshole come to the street you’re alone in your house they beat you they give you a hard time they call you rat
In your house you’re fucked you’re lower than a cockroach
I feel so alone bro like a damn beaten insect
So low bro
So attacked bro
Give me shelter with no roof on the street
Be safe take root on the street
Don’t even look at people who aren’t from the street
Here you’re safer than in your house bro
Here nobody asks you for anything
Here there aren’t any fucking responsibilities
Here there’s only the turf
Here we’re the family of the turf between El Tanque and El Cerro
Don’t let anybody by who isn’t family from the neighborhood bro
Anybody who steps over the line smash him in the face
We’re an army a hundred thousand children and adolescents running free
Alone without a family in the streets
Stuck on the street
Do they want to get away from the street?
There’s no place else
Some came to the street
Others were born in the street
The family is the street
We were born to the street
Your mama aborted in the middle of the street
They kicked her in the middle of the street until the fetus dropped out
In the middle of the street
Because the street is our womb
The gutters our milk
The garbage cans our ovaries
Don’t let yourself be tempted bro
Fucking packing for a super Fucking cleaning windshields
Fucking peddling
Fucking guy who wipes the windshield asshole
Fucking kid for falling-down drunks
Fucking damn pimp beggar
Refuse bro
Live on air on alcohol on cement
Better to go dying like a damn cockroach
In streets tunnels garbage cans
Than think you’ve been defeated
The Father’s Servant
1. This town is suffocating. One would say that at an altitude of over three thousand meters, the air would be purer. This isn’t true, and one can understand it. The volcano is a priest with a white head and black tunic. It vomits the same thing it eats: ashen solitude. The proximity of heaven oppresses one here on earth.
The legend insists on repeating that Popocatépetl is an alert warrior who protects the nearby body of the sleeping woman Iztaccíhuatl. They didn’t tell Mayalde the story that one has known since childhood. The priest brought her up here to live, in the foothills of Popocatépétl, on the same day the girl had her first menstruation, and he said to her: “Look. It’s the sacrilegious stain. We have to go far away from here.”
“Why, Father?”
“So you won’t sin.”
“Why would I sin?”
“Because you’ve become a woman. Let’s go.”
They left the sacristy of Acatzingo with its beautiful Franciscan convent and came to live here, where you look at snow and breathe in ash. It was the isolated spot closest to Puebla, and since no one wanted to come where one was, they gladly sent him.
“Are you taking your niece, Father?
“Did you think I’d abandon her? She depends on me. Without me, she’d be a poor orphan. She owes everything to me.”
“Ah!”
“Though let me clarify, Bishop. She isn’t my niece. Don’t burden me with that old story.”
“Ah! Your daughter?” the bishop asked with raised eyebrows.
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The priest turned and left the bishopric.
“That man is turning into a recluse,” remarked the prelate. “He doesn’t know how to get on with people. He’s better off going to the mountains.”
It wasn’t that Father Benito Mazón had sought out a parish in the foothills of a volcano to isolate himself from people. The fact is people withdrew from him, and this suited him perfectly. In the end, he came out ahead. No matter how disagreeable Don Benito was, God was not only agreeable but indispensable. Only Father Mazón, with his eyes of an uneasy wolf, iguana’s profile, and paper-thin habit, had the ability to administer the sacraments, baptize, sing a requiem, and certify a death. People in the village depended on him in order to live with a clear conscience. And he depended less on one. Even if nobody attended the miserable little adobe church on the edge of the volcano, Benito would receive his stipend, and of course, the same village that distrusted him for being disagreeable would not let him die of hunger. One.