by Michael Nava
The café was dark wood and mirrors and small tables in shadowy corners where well-dressed men talked in low, conspiratorial tones over cut crystal glasses filled with imported whiskey. As they wended their way among the tables, the flutter of soft, pale hands detained them as the café’s patrons—some of them opposition leaders who fulminated daily against the president in newspaper columns and on the floor of the Senate—reached out for a word with a member of Madero’s inner circle. The combination of the dead eyes and wide smiles of Café Colón’s habitués reminded Sarmiento of the gaping expression of skulls. At last, they reached a back table where a waiter had already poured Luis’s absinthe and brought Sarmiento’s scotch along with small dishes of nuts, olives, cured meats, cheeses, and crackers that Luis gobbled as if he hadn’t eaten in days. A broad-shouldered, bald, and dark-skinned man in an army officer’s uniform lay face-forward on the adjacent table, snoring. A bottle of brandy and a half-filled glass sat within reach.
Sarmiento glanced at him and then looked questioningly to his cousin.
“Ah,” Luis replied, in a low voice. “That, Primo, is the fearless Indian killer, General Victoriano Huerta with his favorite companion, Mister Hennessey. Díaz sent him to deal with Zapata’s peasant revolt in Morales. Unfortunately, the general is more of a thug than a strategist and only succeeded in increasing Zapata’s numbers. Madero took away his command. Now he sits in the drool of his self-pity.”
“Huerta,” Sarmiento repeated. “Didn’t Don Porfirio send him to fight the Yaquis?”
“That was one of his commands. He was more successful with the Yaquis than the Zapatistas because all he was expected to do was to exterminate them.”
“Not entirely successful,” Sarmiento observed. “I read that the Yaquis have taken up arms against the government.”
Luis sipped his absinthe. “That is so. They sent a delegation to Madero and demanded that he return to them the entire river valley they claim as their homeland. They say God gave it to them after Noah’s flood.”
“I don’t recall any Yaquis being taken aboard the ark.”
“They have supplemented the Bible with their own legends to make themselves the center of God’s creation,” his cousin replied. “For example, one of their towns is called Bethlehem. Madero asked them why and they told him it was because Jesus was born there.”
“They can’t possibly believe that.”
“But they do,” Luis replied. “They say Jesus walked among them practicing his arts as a healer and was crucified in the arms of his mother, who had transformed herself into a tree to embrace her son at the moment of his death.” He sipped his drink. “Some of their stories are actually quite beautiful. They appeal to what is left of the poet in me.”
“Enough to advise Madero to return their property to them?”
“No. Díaz stole their lands and resettled them with Mexican colonists. Some of those families have been there for thirty years now. Madero can’t just force them to pack up and leave, but the Yaquis will not accept anything less than everything. So …” His voice trailed off and he finished his drink in a gulp, summoning the waiter for another.
“The Yaquis fought for Don Francisco in Chihuahua.”
“Fought with, not for,” his cousin corrected. “They fought for themselves, for their own objectives. That, as it turns out, was the case with most of the army of the revolution.”
“I did sometimes wonder about the depth of their loyalty.”
“In that case, you were more prescient than most, including Madero. He thought he was leading a movement, but as it happens he was only leading a faction. So, Zapata in the south, Orozco in the north, and now the Yaquis.” He shrugged. “But enough about that. You wanted to know about your report.”
The drunken general roused himself and, attempting to stand, overturned the marble-topped table on which his glass and bottle had rested. The bottle shattered and a stream of brandy puddled at Sarmiento’s feet.
He glanced at the man, expecting an apology, but the soldier said, “What are you looking at?”
Sarmiento, who despised public drunkenness, said, “A fool.”
The general weaved toward him aggressively. Sarmiento stood up and found he was half a head taller than the other man, who stared at him through blue-tinted glasses that gave him a sinister appearance.
“You call me a fool,” he said thickly. He pulled a pistol from his waistband and waved it in Sarmiento’s direction. “You perfumado cock-sucker! No one calls Victoriano Huerta a fool.”
Half a dozen waiters had rushed toward the back of the room, but at the sight of the pistol they froze and all conversation stopped. Huerta unleashed a stream of curses while he tried to fix Sarmiento in his sights. Swiftly, Sarmiento stepped toward the little man as he fumbled with the trigger of his gun and struck him in his jaw. The blow threw Huerta back and off-balance. The gun fired as he dropped to the floor, the bullet striking the tin ceiling. Sarmiento pressed his foot down on Huerta’s right wrist, forcing him to release the pistol, then kicked it aside and retrieved it.
The waiters came forward. Two of them assisted Huerta to his feet. He had lost his glasses and his eyes were tiny and weak. As the surge of adrenaline ebbed, Sarmiento was embarrassed that he had allowed himself to be drawn into a scene with the drunk.
One of the waiters found Huerta’s glasses. A lens was shattered, but he put them on, looking even more absurd.
“Give me my gun, you bastard!”
Sarmiento removed the bullets from the pistol and returned the weapon to the man. “Señor,” he said, extending his hand. “Shall we put this behind us?”
Huerta glared at Sarmiento and said, “I have no idea who you are, but today you have made an enemy. A powerful enemy.”
Before Sarmiento could respond, the other lens dropped out of Huerta’s spectacles. The café rocked with laughter. Huerta turned on his heel and marched out. The waiters cleaned up the spill and Sarmiento sat down with his cousin, who had observed the entire incident silently.
“A ridiculous little man,” Sarmiento said.
“Most soldiers kill out of duty, but Huerta is a murderer who was fortunate enough to find the army,” Jorge Luis replied. “Now, your report.”
“I had hoped to hear some word by now,” Sarmiento said.
“I know Madero has read it,” Luis replied. “He mentioned it to me, but his mind and his time are otherwise occupied. The health and wellbeing of the poor is not something he can worry about when his presidency hangs by threads.”
“Is the situation that tenuous?”
“Yes,” he said simply and finished his drink. “I must get back to work. I will speak to Madero and try to arrange an audience with him. But don’t expect too much, Primo.”
The summons to the National Palace came a few days later. On a rainy afternoon, Sarmiento approached the Puerta de Honor, one of the three entrances into the block-long labyrinth. The soldiers who guarded the door inspected his pass and ominously and unapologetically searched him for weapons. Afterward one of them escorted him up a broad stairway to the presidential offices. Purposeful men carrying sheaves of papers bound in leather folders walked down the corridors. Voices rose from the courtyard below, one of seven, where a statue of Pegasus presided over an assemblage of would-be petitioners awaiting their moment with a government bureaucrat. The guard deposited Sarmiento in the presidential waiting room.
Beneath a massive painting of the signing of the Constitution of 1857, the room was packed with other men, some alone, some in groups, who regarded this new supplicant with suspicion and annoyance. One man had fallen asleep in a corner chair and his snores filled the air. In another corner was a delegation of sandal-shod Indians, conspicuous in a room filled with dark coats and silk ties. One of the Indians clung to a bundle of battered paper tied with twine. Heavy smoke from the innumerable cigars and cigarettes rose like a fist and squeezed the oxygen from the air. Sarmiento considered the number of people in the room ahead of
him and sighed. His appointment was in ten minutes, but he doubted he would even see Madero that day. He found an empty seat near a window that he managed to pry open for an inch of fresh air.
A thin, supercilious young man wearing a monocle stepped into the room. The various conversations quieted and all looked at him expectantly.
“Señor Doctor Miguel Sarmiento,” he droned.
“Yes, I am he,” Dr. Sarmiento said, rising from his chair. He could feel the resentment of the other men in the room like a physical blow.
“Your pass, please,” the young man said.
Sarmiento handed him the thick card he had received in the mail that had called him to the palace. The young man raised it to his monocled eye and studied it briefly.
“Come with me, Doctor.”
They passed through a room hung with a heroic life-sized portrait of Hidalgo and then through another chamber with red walls, where beneath an enormous chandelier a dozen other young men worked at large desks. They entered a third, smaller room, papered in blue and white.
“Wait here,” the monocled boy said and exited through a heavy, richly polished door.
Sarmiento paced the little room, studying the three large landscape paintings that depicted a panoramic view of the valley. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, then thirty. He had begun to wonder whether he had been forgotten when he heard voices on the other side of the door. Two men entered the room. Unhappily, he recognized both of them. One was Gustavo Madero, the president’s cynical one-eyed brother. The other man, now sober and resplendent in his dress uniform, was Victoriano Huerta, the drunken general he had last seen fumbling for the exit at the Café Colón. He had repaired his blue-tinted spectacles.
“Ah, Miguel,” Gustavo said. “Good to see you. Do you know General Huerta?”
“I don’t believe we have ever been properly introduced,” Sarmiento said, extending his hand. “General.”
Huerta took it and held it only as long as politeness required. “Señor Doctor,” he said.
“General Huerta is being dispatched to Chihuahua to deal with Pascual Orozco.” He patted Huerta’s back. “An exterminator to rid us of a pest.”
At Gustavo’s touch, contempt flitted across Huerta’s face, but he said, “I am at the service of my country and my president.”
“Just the right proportions of arrogance and servility,” Gustavo said, laughing. “That’s why I love soldiers.”
Sarmiento said, “I wish you success in your campaign, General.”
Huerta bit off a “Thank you,” and then turned to Gustavo. “Again, my deepest gratitude to the president for his confidence in me.”
“Make certain it’s not misplaced. You are expendable,” Gustavo said mildly. “Here, take this stairway, General. You will avoid the unwashed mob out there.”
After Huerta took his leave, Gustavo slipped his arm through Sarmiento’s as if they were old friends and led him out of the room, remarking, “Huerta’s a savage, of course, but savagery is what is required to deal with the likes of Orozco. My brother is very anxious to talk to you.”
Sarmiento nodded. He was disturbed that Gustavo—who had never bothered to conceal his contempt for his brother—now appeared to have his confidence.
They entered the presidential office, the famous yellow room. The walls were hung with yellow brocade satin and the ceiling had fleur-de-lis adornments. In one corner was the long table used for cabinet meetings. At its head was the president’s chair with a gilt eagle of México carved above the back. The same eagle was worked into a deep green carpet that covered the floor. The carpet’s green was echoed by the velvet drapes on the tall, narrow windows that looked out on a small, private courtyard. In the center of the room was a massive desk where a silver inkstand bore the monogram of Emperor Maximiliano. Madero was behind the desk, dwarfed by its polished splendor.
He sprang up and came around the table. “Miguel, how wonderful to see you again.”
“You are a long way from La Santisima,” Sarmiento said.
Madero laughed and embraced him. “So it would seem, but appearances can be deceptive. The debates that you used to find so tedious during our staff meetings in the desert have followed me here. How is my amigito, José?”
“My son is well. He was very excited when I told him I was coming to see you and asked to be remembered to you.”
“You must give him a kiss from me,” Madero said.
Madero wore a plain brown suit but his vest was peacock blue. He seemed as indomitably cheerful as ever, but Sarmiento’s practiced eye detected a deepening in the lines around his eyes and the furrows across his forehead that seemed to him to be a sign of chronic pain.
“How is your health, Don Francisco? Have the headaches returned?”
Madero laughed. “They have never left! Didn’t you see them in the reception room?” He motioned Sarmiento to a chair. “It’s because of them that I haven’t been able to talk to you about your fine report, Miguel. I have every intention of instituting your reforms to make life more bearable for the poor, but first the country must be pacified. You know our old friend Pascual Orozco is leading an army in the north.”
Sarmiento said, “His betrayal must be painful.”
“I have learned not to take these things personally. I wield this power for the people, not for myself. On the day my term expires, I will gladly surrender this power and return home. Until then, I am obligated to defend my position. Only I can’t do it alone. I need the help of my friends. I need your help, Miguel.”
Confused by the turn in the conversation, Sarmiento murmured, “Of course, Señor Presidente, I am at your command.”
Madero glanced at his brother.
Gustavo cleared his throat and said, “Old Senator Murgia from Quintana Roo dropped dead last week. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Díaz partisan and a pain in our ass. Now we have the opportunity to elect someone more sympathetic to our goals. That’s where you can assist us.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone in Quintana Roo,” Sarmiento said. “I’ve never even been there.”
“I want you to run for his seat,” Madero said.
“But that’s absurd,” Sarmiento said. “As I said, I have no connection to that state. I am not a politician and I—”
“Nor was I until it became my duty,” Madero said. “Miguel, we need the Quintana Roo seat in the Senate to give the government a majority. Without it, none of the reforms I hope to enact, including your public health reforms, will be adopted.”
Sarmiento shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t have a better choice than me, someone who knows politics. As you yourself said, I have no patience for political debates.”
“Do you remember that day in the desert when I came to see the wounded soldiers after Juárez had fallen?” Madero asked quietly. “When I found you, you were drenched in their blood. I will never forget that moment, Miguel.”
“I remember, Don Francisco,” he replied softly. “But I fail to see—”
“I don’t want another politician in the Senate,” Madero said, with surprising asperity. “I want someone who knows the price we paid in blood to rid ourselves of Díaz and to restore democracy to México. I want a friend, Miguel. I want you.”
Sarmiento was at a loss for words, and for a moment there was silence in the opulent room. He remembered the slosh of blood in his boots, the pile of amputated limbs in the corner of the surgical tent. He looked at the little man who looked back at him with magnetic, melancholy eyes.
“I know nothing about campaigning,” he said, a last weak protest.
That drew a sharp laugh from Gustavo. “You won’t need to campaign, Miguel. I can guarantee your election.”
Madero grimaced, and in the look that passed between him and Gustavo, Sarmiento realized that electoral fraud was back.
“Did you not just talk about restoring democracy to México?” he said to Madero.
“Sometimes,” Madero said softly, “the ends do justify the mean
s. I implore you, Miguel. Do this for me.”
The mask of cheerfulness had dissolved, and Sarmiento saw the fatigue and desperation eating into the little man’s flesh.
“All right, Don Francisco,” he said. “I will do this for you.”
“And for México,” Madero added.
Sarmiento shook his head. “For you.”
“Forgive me,” Madero said with a sigh.
17
Slivers of silvery light illuminated the tangle of trees. The branches were leafless and twisted. They ended in nubs like the amputated limbs José had seen in one of his father’s medical books. His heart pounded in his chest, and a spasm of nausea constricted his throat. His feet sank into soft, squishy ground. Each step released another jet of the stench of rotting meat that filled his nostrils and clung to his clothes. As he edged his way among the trees there suddenly appeared in his path a man-sized, winged creature covered in fecal-colored feathers. Its face, framed by a mane of greasy hair, was half-human, half-avian. It turned black, irisless eyes on José and croaked menacingly. José staggered back away from the creature, and, as he did, tore through the gnarled branch of a tree. From a dozen broken twigs, voices shrieked, “Why do you hurt us, boy!”
José screamed. El Morito’s startled green eyes glared at him for a second and then the cat jumped off the bed. His breath was hard and shallow and his heart pounded in his chest. His bedclothes were damp with sweat. He reached to the bed table and turned on the lamp. The light flickered on, dispelling the shadows in which he half-feared the bird creatures were lurking.
His door creaked opened and his mother entered the room in her nightgown and robe. Her long, thick hair, falling loosely around her shoulders, reminded him of the birds, and he shuddered as she approached him.
“José,” she said gently. “I heard you shout. Did you have another nightmare?”
“Yes,” he said in a quavering voice. “I dreamed of the Wood of the Suicides.”
She sat at the edge of his bed and sighed. “I wish you had obeyed me and stayed away from the Palantino.”
