by Michael Nava
Come in, mijo,” his father said. “Your mother is feeling much better.”
José tentatively approached the bed, where his mother lay propped up by pillows, eyes open and shining with love for him. He bit back the sobs, but he could not prevent the tears from falling.
“Mamá,” he whispered, taking her hands. “Mamá.”
“Don’t cry, Josélito,” she said in a tired voice. “I’m going to get well.”
“I prayed for you,” he sniffled.
“Thank you, mijo. Now you must thank the Lord for hearing your prayers.” She smiled. “So few people remember to thank him that I know he will appreciate your gratitude.”
“Yes, Mamá,” he said, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
“Where’s your handkerchief ?” she asked, still smiling.
“I forgot.”
His father said, “Your mother needs her rest now, Son. You may return later.”
“Yes, Papá,” he said, reluctantly pulling himself away.
His father walked him to the door, his hand on José’s shoulder. “José, I am very sorry I lost my temper with you before. Your mother was so ill that I … forgot myself. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, Papá,” José said. “I am sorry I disappoint you.”
His father kissed him. “You have never disappointed me, mijo.”
It was the first time his father had ever lied to him.
She had kept down the water and the morsels of bread and now she was sleeping again. Sarmiento thought he should bathe and change his clothes and report to his mother-in-law on Alicia’s condition. He stretched and wandered out into the corridor. He heard voices, Catalina’s and a man’s voice, insistent and weary. It was Luis. He looked down to the courtyard, where his cousin was demanding to be allowed to talk to Sarmiento.
“Primo, what are you doing here?” Sarmiento called down.
Luis looked up and said, “Madero’s been overthrown. I need a drink.”
“Catalina, go and stay with my wife. Luis, come up to my study.”
He had heard the words—“Madero’s been overthrown”—but he had not truly absorbed them until he sat across from Luis looking at his cousin’s stricken face, reading a depth of grief he had not seen in him since he had buried Ángel. Then his own hand began to tremble.
“I heard the bells,” he said, as if that explained anything.
“The church celebrates the end of Madero,” Luis said bitterly. “The archbishop hates Madero because he actually practices what the church professes. Humility, charity, peace …” His voice broke, but when he resumed it was with fury. “If Jesus appeared in the Zócalo, the Catholic Church would nail him to the cross all over again.”
“Luis,” Sarmiento said, extending his hand to the other man’s. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Huerta turned on him,” Luis said, draining his glass. He poured another drink. “Gustavo’s spies followed Huerta to a secret meeting with the American ambassador and Félix Díaz. Gustavo had Huerta arrested and brought before Madero. I was there. I told Madero that you had seen food and water being allowed in the Ciudadela. I advised him to shoot Huerta on the spot.”
“But he didn’t,” Sarmiento said. “He wouldn’t. It’s not in his nature.”
“He asked Huerta for an explanation. The bastard got on his knees weeping and said it was all a misunderstanding. Yes, he had met with Díaz only to arrange a truce. No, he had no idea that food and water were getting to the rebels, but he would put a stop to it at once. Madero lifted him to his feet and looked into his eyes and said, ‘I believe you.’ He let him go with orders to take the Ciudadela within twenty-four hours or lose his command.”
Sarmiento groaned. He admired Madero, perhaps even loved him, but his naiveté approached … foolishness. “Maybe Gustavo was right,” he muttered, remembering the cynical remark Gustavo had made about the family fool having been elected president. “Couldn’t you and Gustavo stop him?”
“Madero’s faith in his judgment about people is not open for discussion,” he said sourly. “When Huerta left, Gustavo said, ‘You have just released your assassin.’ Madero smiled and said, ‘I looked into his eyes and I saw his soul.’ Four hours later, Huerta sent Aurelio Blanquet into Madero’s office with ten soldiers and informed him he was under arrest. Huerta’s such a coward he couldn’t even come himself. There was a firefight at the palace and Blanquet’s men gained control. I just managed to escape.”
“Where is Madero now?”
“In a prison cell at Lecumberri,” Luis said. “He is still president, Miguel. I know him; he will not willingly resign. That is the only card we have to play to save his life. He must be persuaded to resign in exchange for a guarantee of his personal safety.”
“A guarantee from Huerta?” Sarmiento said incredulously.
Luis shook his head. “Huerta knows that without Madero’s resignation, his government would be illegitimate. No country will recognize him and Madero’s supporters in the army will revolt. I have been to see the Chilean ambassador. He has agreed to negotiate the deal.”
“Who will persuade Don Francisco to resign? You? Gustavo?”
“I urged him to shoot Huerta,” Luis reminded him. “If I show my face, I will be arrested. Gustavo has disappeared and I fear the worst. You must go, Miguel. You are his friend, perhaps the only friend who never asked anything of him. He will listen to you. Don Salvador, the Chilean ambassador, will arrive within the hour to take you to the prison under his protection.”
“Luis, my wife has been deathly ill. I cannot leave her.”
“If Madero cannot be persuaded to resign willingly, Huerta will torture his resignation out of him. He will murder him, Miguel. Our friend, our leader. Only you can save him.”
Sarmiento sighed. “All right. I will go. You stay here until I return. I don’t want to be anxious over your safety while I am trying to negotiate Madero’s.”
Luis nodded. “I will immerse myself in this delicious bottle of cognac. Bring back good news, Primo.”
At dusk, a black Rolls-Royce, flying the blue-and-white flags of Chile from its grille, pulled up to the palace gate where Sarmiento was waiting. A chauffeur opened the door for him. The Chilean ambassador, Salvador Gossens, a white-haired, avuncular man, greeted him. “Senator, it is always a pleasure to see you, although I wish we were meeting under happier circumstances.” A thick plate of glass, inset with a small sliding window, separated the back seat from the front. Gossens slid the window open, barked, “To Lecumberri” to the chauffeur, and then closed the window.
The darkening sky was pink and gold. The deepening shadows could not conceal the gouged walls, shattered windows, and collapsed roofs of shops and houses, churches and factories as the car bumped over the rubble-strewn roadway. The streets were empty except for a few dazed civilians picking their way through the ruins. The conspicuous absence of soldiers manning the makeshift barricades brought home to Sarmiento even more than the silence of the guns that the battle for the city was over and Madero had lost.
“México is the eldest daughter in the family of nations created from the old Spanish empire,” Gossens said. “This ancient, beautiful city is the spiritual capital of all of Spanish America.” He looked at Sarmiento beseechingly. “Tell me, Senator, how could this have happened here? The city in ruins, the president in prison? Tell me, so I can make sense of this horror and explain it to my government, to myself.”
Sarmiento, recalling Bernal Díaz’s description of the capture of Tenochtitlán by Cortés, said, “Perhaps we are haunted by the ghosts of the Aztec city that the Spanish razed and buried in the swamps beneath us.”
“That was in another time, primitive and cruel,” Gossens said. “This is the twentieth century, man! The age of progress and order and democracy. You can’t believe that a curse lies on this city because of something that happened almost four hundred years ago.”
“No,” Sarmiento said. “Of course not. I was being fanciful.” He sy
mpathized with Gossens, the representative of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous nation, for whom México must have been a sinecure, the capstone of his career. “I have been caring for my wife, who is ill, and I just learned this afternoon of the president’s arrest. Is there a plan in place to guarantee his safe release?”
“I hope your wife is improved,” Gossens said automatically. “There is a plan, but it hinges on the president’s willingness to resign. Once he delivers his letter of resignation to me, I will keep it until he and his family depart from Veracruz to Cuba, where they have been offered sanctuary. At that point, I will hand over the letter to the minister of foreign affairs, who is next in line in succession for the presidency.”
“Pedro Lascuráin? Madero trusted him. Is he a traitor too?”
“Most assuredly not,” the ambassador replied. “He is an honorable man acting under duress. I need not tell you from whom.”
“Huerta,” Sarmiento said.
Gossens gave a sharp nod. “General Huerta,” he said, not concealing the contempt in his voice, “is determined that his ascendance to the presidency accord with the requirements of your constitution. Once Lascuráin becomes president, he will appoint Huerta the minister of the interior, who, as you know, is next in the line of succession. Lascuráin will then resign and, voilà, General Huerta becomes the president of the Republic.”
“With all the legal formalities properly observed,” Sarmiento said. “Very neat. A complete farce, but very neat. What if Don Francisco refuses to resign?”
“Then I’m afraid Huerta might be tempted to choose expediency over formality. I’m sure you grasp my meaning, Senator.”
“Only too clearly,” he said. They had reached the outskirts of the city, where the only lights were the campfires of the destitute living in the ruins of their former residences. “What about the Americans? Their ambassador engineered this coup and Huerta is his creature. Wilson could guarantee Madero’s safety.”
A flash of anger crossed Gossens’s placid features. “The American ambassador takes the position that the fate of President Madero—to whom he is still accredited—is strictly an internal Mexican affair. He takes no position on the subject.”
“That bastard!” Sarmiento said. “Wilson brings down Madero’s government and now he washes his hands of him.”
“Do you know Rubén Darío’s ‘Ode to Roosevelt’?” the ambassador asked and then, without waiting for a reply, began to recite, “‘You are the United States, future invader of Spanish America.’” He tapped a heavy gold signet ring against the window. “Nothing good comes out of the North,” he said. “From that furnace of aggression and greed and self-righteousness. All of Spanish America feels its heat, but only México roasts on its spit.”
Miguel?”
“No, Alicia, it’s Luis. Miguel has gone on an errand. He will be back soon.”
Luis’s broad face and features came into focus. He looked melancholy and he smelled of drink.
“Something has happened,” she said. “The guns. They’ve stopped.”
“Thankfully,” he said with a sad smile, “the battle for the city is over. Unfortunately, Madero lost.”
“Where is Miguel?” she asked, suddenly panicked. “Has he been arrested?”
“No, nothing like that. He has gone to talk Madero into resigning so that he and his family can safely depart from México.” He grasped her hand. “Alicia, all will be well. You need not worry about Miguel. You need only think about recovering. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, quite weak, but I’ll live,” she said, returning the pressure of his touch. She studied his face. Beneath the hard worldliness there remained an implacable sensitivity. She remembered that, while she had hovered between life and death, she had made a connection between Miguel’s cousin and her own son. She did not trust it because it had been the product of delirium, but now she felt compelled to take up the subject. “Luis, there is something I want to ask you about your … condition.”
He looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “Ah, my condition. Yes. Ask anything, Alicia.”
“When did you know that you loved men?”
He grinned. “Miguel is right about you. You don’t mince words. It’s rather terrifying.”
“I don’t ask out of mere curiosity,” she said.
“No? Then why?”
“José,” she said quietly.
“You think he may be like me? Why?”
She stirred, trying to sit up. He helped her, arranging pillows behind her, covering her with a blanket. “I must look a fright,” she said. “More than usual, I mean.” She cut off his protests with a smile. “I know you haven’t written verse in many years, but you have retained a poet’s sensitivity. It’s the same type of sensitivity I see in José, unusual in men in its depth and sweetness.”
He laughed a low laugh. “Sweetness is not a quality most people associate with me, Alicia.”
“I saw you with Ángel,” she replied.
A shadow of grief crossed his face. “Yes,” he allowed. “There was sweetness there. Many men are sensitive, Alicia, but not all sensitive men are homosexuals. Your husband, for example, although he would deny it, is a very sensitive man. Perhaps José has inherited that quality from Miguel.”
“No, it’s different,” she said. “And there was a boy, David, José’s piano teacher. I think José fell in love with him. He was only nine at the time, too young to understand what was happening to him, but I recognized the signs. He is twelve now and he will eventually meet someone else and fall in love again. How old were you?”
“Younger than José is now,” he said. “But like him, I did not understand what it was. Not for many years did I understand.” He looked at her. “What will you do if he is like me?”
“What should I do, Luis?” she responded pleadingly.
“You must help him accept his nature,” Luis replied forcefully. “Do not let him do as I did and stumble for years in the darkness trying to make sense of his feelings and his shame. Can you do that, Alicia?”
“I do not know if I can teach him to accept what I feel is … a sin,” she said apologetically. “A small sin, but nonetheless, a sin.”
“Sins are volitional, are they not, Alicia? A choice. Yet you yourself recognize that this quality is woven into José’s nature. If that is so, then did God not make him as he is?”
She considered him for a long moment. “You give me much to think about, Luis. I can make one promise to you about José. I will not love him any less, no matter what his nature is.”
“That may be enough,” Luis replied.
Lecumberri penitentiary was new, but it resembled a medieval castle with its thick, windowless walls, towers, and parapets. After anxious negotiations with the terrified warden, Sarmiento and Gossens were led across the prison yard, past the circular guard tower, to the small cell where the president of the Republic was sitting at a table in his shirtsleeves writing letters. He sprang to his feet when the iron door was opened and clapped his hands happily when his visitors entered the room.
“Don Salvador! Miguel!” He embraced each man. “I have never been happier to see either one of you than I am now.”
“Señor Presidente,” Gossens said, bowing a bit. “How are you being treated? Are you well?”
Madero shrugged. “They feed me and leave me alone. But yes, I am well.”
“I should examine you,” Sarmiento said.
“Unnecessary, Miguel. There is nothing wrong with me except, of course, for my unlawful detention.” A troubled look crossed his face. “They took me from the palace before I could speak to Sara.”
“I spoke to the first lady earlier,” Gossens said. “She is safe at Chapultepec for now. Don Francisco, we don’t have much time. We must speak of your future.”
“Please, sit,” Madero said, indicating the room’s single chair and the narrow bed. He perched at the edge of the writing table and in a mildly curious tone asked, “What do you have in mind for
my future, gentlemen? Resignation? Exile? Am I to join Don Porfirio in Paris? Or,” he said with a smile, “is it back to that dreadful American city, El Paso?”
“Havana,” Sarmiento replied, smiling back.
“Ah, the Cubans have agreed to take me in.” He smoothed his goatee with slender, pale, beautifully formed fingers. A saint’s fingers, Sarmiento thought.
“Cuba,” he repeated. He looked at them, shook his head sadly, and said, “No.”
“Of course we could make other arrangements,” the ambassador said quickly.
“That’s not it, Don Salvador,” he said. “I mean, I will not resign and I will not leave México.”
There were sounds of shouting and rushed footsteps. Sarmiento reflexively cringed, but then there was silence. Madero poured himself a glass of water from a carafe on the table and sipped it.
“Señor Presidente,” Gossens said softly. “You must not think of this as a defeat but as a tactical retreat. As soon as you are out of México, you can renounce your resignation. I can assure you my government will not recognize … the usurper. You will remain the legitimately elected president.”
“The Americans have a saying I learned when I studied at the university in Berkeley,” he said. “‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law.’ I could call myself president of the Republic or like one of my predecessors, emperor of México, but once I leave the country, it will belong to Huerta, and your government, Don Salvador, and all the other governments will eventually be forced to recognize him.”
Sarmiento watched Gossens struggle to find a diplomatic response and interjected, “Do you still not understand what kind of man you are dealing with? Huerta will kill you if you try to stay in México.”
Madero eased himself off the table. “I have always known what kind of man Huerta is, Miguel. Vicious, unintelligent, murderous. But also shrewd, fearless, and respected by his troops.”
“You should have had him arrested when Gustavo told you about his meeting with the American ambassador,” Sarmiento said.
Madero focused his magnetic gaze on Sarmiento. “Arresting Huerta would not have solved the problem because the problem is not Huerta, it’s the army. Huerta’s replacement would have also schemed behind my back and his replacement and his replacement. Don’t you understand, Miguel? Until the army finally submits to civilian control, México will never be a real democracy. The army must stop thinking of itself as a branch of the government. Its generals must stop thinking of themselves as presidents-in-waiting. Until then, México will be condemned to repeat the last one hundred years of coups, countercoups, civil wars, and military dictatorships until Jesus arrives in the glory of his second coming and puts an end to it.”
