by Michael Nava
She glanced across the water at her husband, engrossed in conversation with his brothers-in-law, his broad back turned to her. Upon his return from the north, they had discovered a depth of desire for each other that had surprised them both. Her relief that he had returned alive, and his gratitude after the horrors of war for the life she provided for him, had renewed their marriage. Night after night, they explored together the intense animal comfort of bodily closeness and the joy of giving and getting pleasure. Her avidity had startled him at first. He had imagined she would feel constrained by what he awkwardly called her “piety.” She had laughed and told him, “We are husband and wife, Miguel. There is no shame between us.” Inspired, he had introduced new ways for them to wring every last drop of bliss from each other’s body. Now, as she watched him, she was imagining the familiar body naked atop her, the prickle of his chest hair, his warm, smoky breath, his hard buttock muscles contracting and relaxing beneath her hands as he drove into her. A flush of longing heated her breasts and colored her throat. She looked down at her book and fell upon the words with which Santa Teresa described her union with God: “The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it.”
Sarmiento sat beneath the canopy of the trajinera that carried him and his brothers-in-law alongside the women. It was named La Sirena and decorated with primitive paintings of large-breasted mermaids wearing seaweed tiaras. The canal had narrowed and the Indian oarsmen stopped pulling to let the vessel fall back for the women to pass. He watched Alicia disappear with a pang in his chest and a twitch in his groin as his tongue recalled her briny savor, like a pearl freshly cut from an oyster.
“Miguel! Pay attention!”
He returned his gaze to Gonzalo and the deck of cards laid out on the table before him. His brothers-in-law were attempting to teach him how to play a gambling game, but he kept losing the thread of the explanations, which involved French and English phrases and a complicated system of betting.
“He’s hopeless,” Damian said with a smile. The small, handsomely formed man was impeccable in a white linen suit and straw boater. “Let’s just drink, shall we?”
“And eat,” gluttonous Gonzalo chimed in. He snapped his fingers and a servant brought a picnic basket stocked with imported foods from his department store and a bucket holding a half-dozen bottles of champagne on ice. “We must keep up our strength for our encounter with our mother-in-law.”
“I am very fond of her,” Miguel protested.
“Of course, you are her favorite,” Gonzalo replied. “She barely suffers me and Damian. I wonder what our father-in-law would have made of you.”
“I never had the pleasure of meeting him,” Sarmiento replied.
Damian laughed. “It was no pleasure!” He turned to Gonzalo. “Did you get the lecture on the ranks of nobility?”
“Ah, yes,” Gonzalo replied. “A duke outranks a marqués, but a marqués outranks a count, who in turn outranks a viscount …”
“Duke from dux,” Damian quoted, “meaning leader in Latin, and marqués from the Old French marchis, the ruler of a frontier.”
Gonzalo paused midbite and said to Sarmiento, “The old man took all that crap quite seriously. He fancied himself the last civilized man in barbaric México.”
“Yes, he was a real bastard,” Damian said. “Let’s eat.”
The food was served, the wine poured. Damian, sampling the wine, said, “It’s just as well that we don’t teach Miguel to play faro. With his luck, he’d clean us out.”
“My luck?” Sarmiento asked. “I’ve never been good at gaming of any kind.”
“You bet on Madero,” Damian said. “He was what the Americans call ‘the long shot.’ ‘Long shots’ pay off quite well, yet you seem reluctant to collect your winnings.”
Sarmiento set his glass down. “You’re being typically obscure.”
“He means,” Gonzalo said, his mouth full of bread and ham, “Madero owes you for sticking your neck out for him.”
“Exactly,” Damian said, smiling. “He is in your debt.”
“I supported Madero on principle. I don’t want anything from him.”
“Then you are the only man in México who doesn’t,” Damian said.
“What do you want, Damian?”
He shrugged modestly. “Nothing specific, Miguel, but in my business, it is often useful to have well-placed friends. I would like an introduction.”
“To Madero? I don’t think—”
“No, of course not,” Damian said soothingly. “Not to the president, but you must also know his brother, Gustavo.”
“Yes, speaking of bastards,” Sarmiento replied.
He had last seen Gustavo Madero, the president’s one-eyed brother, holding forth at the Madero family’s mansion in Colonia Roma when he had gone to examine Madero before his inauguration. As a functionary led Sarmiento to Madero’s third-floor bedroom, he heard Gustavo say, “In a family filled with clever men, the family fool is going to be president.”
“He is someone I could do business with,” Damian said.
Sarmiento had found Madero in a large, sunny bedroom filled with congratulatory baskets of fruits and flowers. He sat with ink-stained fingers at a little writing desk wearing a maroon robe with a white silk scarf knotted at his throat. Just as on the first day they had met, the little man was alone; not even his wife with him. On a table beside his bed was the famous Ouija board. There were scraps of paper on the floor on which were answers from the spirits to the questions Madero and his wife propounded to them.
“Miguel,” he said, rising from his chair. “How good of you to come.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “The headaches are gone, but Sara wanted you to take a look at me to reassure her that my parts are in good working order.”
“Where is Señora Madero? I didn’t see her when I came in.”
“She is calling at the French and German embassies. Evidently the life of a first lady is endless cups of tea and chatter.”
Sarmiento doubted that Sara Madero would find that life to her liking for long. As intense as her husband was amiable, and ambitious enough for both of them, she had been the only woman admitted to Madero’s staff meetings, where she sat, in her dark, dour dresses, like a tiny, venomous spider.
As he examined Madero, he was aware of the little man’s bright eyes following him. Those eyes—large, dark, and kindly—were his most compelling feature. He suffered the examination cheerfully and halfway through, Sarmiento knew he would find nothing irregular.
“Am I well enough to take up the duties of my office?” he asked when Sarmiento had finished.
“From a medical perspective,” he replied.
“And from other perspectives?” Madero said with a smile.
“The newspapers say that Pascual Orozco has gone into rebellion against you. He is a dangerous man,” Sarmiento said, remembering the ex-muleteer’s icy eyes and cold contempt for the perfumados.
Madero frowned. “He expected me to make him governor of Chihuahua, when he cannot even write his own name. Of course, I had to refuse.”
“And Zapata has also refused to lay down his arms. And the Yaquis …”
“Have renewed hostilities against the government. I know,” he said, knotting his scarf. “You haven’t mentioned Díaz’s loyalists in the government who have never stopped plotting against me, or my brother who calls me a fool.” He smiled. “Gustavo has repeated his little witticism in every parlor in Ciudad de México.”
“I worry about you,” Sarmiento said. “As your friend.”
Madero patted Sarmiento’s shoulder. “Arjuna, do thine allotted task.”
“I beg your pardon, Don Pancho.”
“Those are the words that Krishna speaks to the great warrior king, Arjuna, in the Bhagavad Gita on the eve of the great battle Arjuna must fight with his kins
men. Arjuna looks down upon the camps of the two armies and he asks Lord Krishna what good can come from brother slaying brother.”
“And Krishna’s answer is ‘do thine allotted task’?”
“Yes, but there is more.” He dug through the pile of books on his writing desk and found a small book bound in blood-red leather with gilt lettering. He opened it without hesitation to a particular page and read, “‘Such earthly actions do, free from desire, and thou shalt well perform thy heavenly purpose.’ Do you understand, Miguel?”
“I am not a spiritist.”
“This is not occult knowledge,” the little man replied. “It is simple wisdom. We are like arrows shot from a bow. Our course is determined, but whether we hit our mark or miss is not for us to know. Therefore, we need have no anxiety about our destination. Our only task is to stay the course.”
“I would not think the arrow has much choice in the matter,” Sarmiento observed.
Madero laughed, a high-pitched child’s laugh. “Precisely so. To believe otherwise is mere vanity.”
Miguel. Will you introduce me to Gustavo?” Damian asked again.
Sarmiento replied, “I won’t need to. You and he are birds of a feather. You’ll find each other soon enough.”
His brother-in-law raised an eyebrow. “One bastard to another, you mean? I suppose you’re right. When I do find him, may I mention our connection?”
Sarmiento shrugged. “For whatever good it does, of course. Now, more champagne.”
The two boats drifted in and out of the canals among the floating gardens. Birds swooped through the air, the whir of their wings echoing in their passage. The scent of flowers and leaf meal rose from the banks of the water. The sounds of flute and guitar approached and then receded as the musicians’ boats came and went. The trajineras docked at an old inn, where, at a long table shaded by a white canopy, the family celebrated La Niña’s eightieth year over a long and festive meal. At the end of the day, over darkening waters, they were rowed to their carriages and driven home.
Miguel twitched and muttered in his sleep. Alicia put down her book and stroked his head. When he had first returned to her, their sleep had been shattered by nightmares in which he wandered through heavy smoke in a sun-scorched landscape, his hands dripping blood. A year later, he no longer woke her with his cries, but sometimes the terrible images of battle still seeped into his dreams. As she threaded her fingers through his hair, she was aware that he had awakened.
Without looking up at her, he said, “I dreamed I was on the train, pulling away from the station, and you were standing on the platform, getting smaller and smaller. I did not know where we were, or where I was going, but the sky was blood red.” He sighed. “I felt so lost, so hopeless.”
“You were remembering how we parted in Arizona,” she said.
“Yes, that was the loneliest moment of my life. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.”
“All of that is over,” she said soothingly. “You have a gray hair. Just one. Shall I pluck it?”
“No, I think I have earned it,” he said.
“My hair will be completely gray before I am fifty,” she said. “And when we go out together people will assume that I’m your mother.”
He sat up and looked at her, smiling lewdly, and murmured, “Mi madrecita.” He slid her nightgown from her shoulder, exposing the top of her breast, and kissed it. “You taste like cinnamon.”
She laughed. “What, like a cup of Chepa’s chocolate?”
He continued to lower her nightgown and she felt the cool air on her nipple and then his warm mouth. The stroke of his tongue made her shiver. He lifted his head, his eyes at once imploring and demanding. She drew in a sharp breath, and as she sank into the bed, her book fell to the floor.
Afterward, as she lay naked in his arms, her back against him, he said, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Miguel,” she replied.
These were not words they had spoken to each other in the first years of their marriage when they were both still cautious of each other’s feelings, wanting neither to deceive nor hurt the other. She knew he had married her because he respected and admired her. She had married him because she wanted children and, she could now admit to herself, to show up her mother and her sisters and all the society women who had pitied or scorned her for her ruined face.
“When did it become love?” she said softly, only half-intending to speak the words aloud.
He pressed against her, his hands resting on her belly. “For me, it was after the last miscarriage, when I realized I could lose you.”
“For me, it was watching you care for the poor of San Francisco Tlalco,” she said.
“I would never have done that without you,” he said. “You have been the making of me, Alicia. I am the man I am because of your example of kindness and generosity.”
“Oh, Miguel, don’t make me sound like a saint,” she said with mock irritation. “I hear enough of that from my mother and my sisters.”
He slowly slid his hand down her belly and, with a practiced touch, slowly and gently parted her and pressed his finger into her flesh. A flush crept up her neck and her eyes glazed over with pleasure. When he finished, he rested his hand familiarly between her thighs and said, “I think we have established that you’re no saint. I hope when you pray you remember to thank God I saved you from a life of celibacy.”
“Don’t mock, Miguel,” she sighed. “And yes, I do remember to thank him in my prayers for your skillful and beautiful body.” She shifted away from him. “I’m cold.”
She slipped out of bed to retrieve her nightgown and heard the crinkle of paper beneath her feet. Once she had dressed, she reached down for the newspaper that Miguel had been reading. On the front page was a photograph of the president of the Republic and a map of México that depicted the rebellions against him in the north and south.
“Even after a year, it is still strange to me that Don Francisco is president,” she said, folding the newspaper and placing it on her night table. “Don Porfirio was president for so long he seemed more like a monument than a man.”
“A monument with clay feet.”
She got back into bed. “Did you think he would fall so quickly?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Like everyone else I thought the army would fight to the death for him, but Madero knew better. Díaz’s army was a bunch of boys abducted from the streets and forced into uniform. They had no loyalty to him.”
“Will they fight for Don Francisco?” she asked.
“Against the rebels? Yes, if only because the generals prefer Madero to either Orozco or Zapata. Madero is a gentleman; those two are peasants.”
“Don Francisco is also a man of peace,” she said. “I felt that when I met him. I know he would like to end the fighting.”
“The rebellions will burn out eventually,” he replied. “At any rate, it is no longer our concern. I had my brush with history at Ciudad Juárez. Whatever happens now will not affect us. We are not important.”
“I thank God for that,” she sighed as she lay her head on his chest and closed her eyes.
Sarmiento had not been entirely honest when he had told his brothers-in-law he wanted nothing from Madero. After Madero’s election, he had sent him a copy of the report he had written recommending improvements to the city’s public health. He had hoped Madero would be more receptive than Don Porfirio to the needs of the poor. Madero had responded with a note thanking him for the report and promising to read it. Months had passed and Sarmiento had heard nothing since. Curious about the fate of his report, Sarmiento asked his cousin to meet him for a drink. He had seen very little of Luis since their return to the city, though he read about him often enough in the newspapers. Luis had been appointed to the prominent position of sub-secretary of government. He and his boss, Abraham González, who had also fought in the desert, were the daily subjects of scurrilous attacks in the opposition press.
Sarmiento waited for L
uis at a sidewalk table at the Café Colón on the Reforma in the shadow of the immense monument to the explorer for whom it was named. His was one of the four shrines Don Porfirio had erected in the last years of his reign along the Reforma—the others, equally ostentatious, commemorated Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec king; memorialized Benito Juárez; and culminated in the Angel of Independence. The monuments were Don Porfirio’s retelling of the history of México in marble and iron—a history that combined the fortuitous but peaceful discovery of the new world with the heroic resistance of the indigenous people and the mixture of bloodlines, Spanish and Indian, that produced a great and free people. Two sumptuous carriages filled with beautifully dressed women passed beneath Columbus’s monument. They were the advance guard of the daily procession of the rich that wound its way up the boulevard and around Chapultepec in a stately and pointless show of opulence. Meanwhile, ragged Indian men swept the sidewalks with branch-and-twig brooms, bent over at their labor and ignored by the passersby. The distance between the silk women and the pauper Indians was the true history of México, Sarmiento thought.
“Primo!” The familiar voice hailed him. Luis came toward him, emerging from the dappled shadows of the eucalyptus trees that lined the boulevard. His face showed the strain of long days and too little sleep. Beneath the physical weariness, Sarmiento recognized the deeper pall of loss. Sarmiento had helped Luis bury his lover in the desert. He remembered how tenderly Luis had opened the boy’s mouth and pressed a gold coin on his tongue.
“Why?” Sarmiento had asked.
“For the ferryman who will row him across the river to Mictlan, the underworld.” His entire body shuddered. “Oh, Miguel, I will never see my boy again.” He fell to his knees, keening like a wounded animal.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Sarmiento said. “I know you are busy.”
“Never too busy for you, Miguel,” he said. “Come, let’s go inside. After all those months in the desert, I prefer the reek of cigars and alcohol to fresh air.”
