Government

by B. TRAVEN

  Without the sounding of a signal or the waving of a flag the confused uproar of voices and instruments in the crowd suddenly ceased. A silence of suspense came down on all those thousands of Indians and filled the whole square. If a baby in arms here and there uttered a cry it was instantly stilled by its mother, and if a dog yelped it broke off into a whine at a kick from its master.

  Only the column escorting the new chief marched on toward its goal as before, with music and singing and cheerful noise. Flags, some with the Mexican colors and the Mexican eagle, others with likenesses of the Virgin and the saints stitched on them, were waved about with shouts of encouragement. At the head of the column and on both sides of it were men with green scarves who, instead of marching, danced along, gesticulating and singing to a monotonous chant. Some of them wore fearsome masks—the jowls of jaguars or demons with the horns of oxen above. These marshals of the procession carried whips which they cracked in pretended anger. Without a word from them the massed crowds opened in a wide lane.

  17

  It was customary for the office of chief to be handed over in the front portico of the cabildo, from which one entered the secretary’s office. It was not that the secretary had any part in the ancient ceremony of the Indians. He was merely an onlooker, and all he had to do was to note the name of the new chief and forward it to the government for its formal approval.

  On this occasion, however, the procession marched to that end of the cabildo where the steps led up to the schoolroom. At this there was a movement in the crowd on the square. Most of the people had taken up positions facing the front of the cabildo. Now the whole crowd shifted to the east in order to have a better view of the ceremony.

  This shifting of the whole crowd took place without any commotion or shouting. It was done in silence, and it seemed to don Abelardo, who had already bolted and barred all the doors and was watching through the cracks in them, so menacing that he took down his saddle harness with the intention of making his escape. He went to the kitchen and told his wife, who was rocking her youngest child on her knee, to get ready; it would be better, he said, if they cleared out while there was time. He sent his ten-year-old son out to find the horses and bring them in.

  As don Abelardo watched, he could see some Indian boys calling their fathers’ attention to someone who had left the house and was running toward the prairie. It was don Abelardo’s son. But the men paid no attention and did not even turn their heads in the direction in which the boys pointed. By this don Abelardo knew that no one took any heed of him; he, and still more his family, were safe.

  He had been trying for half an hour to get the garrison at Jovel on the telephone. Now he heard some sounds coming through. This showed that the Indians had not cut the wires and confirmed his belief that they were not in open rebellion against the government.

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  The telephone wires in these remote regions are in such a state of neglect and disorder that for miles you find the wires lying on the ground. They are not fastened to special posts except when crossing bare and treeless plains, in which case the posts are trees hacked down in the nearest stretch of bush. They are misshapen, warped, bent, and distorted, as trees in the bush always are. The bark is left on. It would have taken too much time to remove it. They are driven into the ground as they are; and since they are not scraped or treated in any way they sometimes strike root and grow. Often there are no insulators, and if there are, they are broken. In these cases the wire is simply wound around the trunk. Since these posts are driven in with the least possible trouble, half of them fall in the first strong wind and the wire is left lying on the ground.

  When the telephone wires traverse bush and wooded country there are no posts whatever. The wire is simply fastened to the trees, with insulators or without, according to the supply of them and the whim of the mechanics employed.

  The toughest trees are sometimes uprooted or snapped in the terrible hurricanes which sweep over these tropical regions; and since hurricanes do not as a rule care whether people have the telephone or not, disaster may befall a tree to which the wire is attached, or it may as it falls tear the wire down from other trees and crush it against the ground on wet scrub.

  Indians who happen to come across the wire lying on the ground might of course take it up and fasten it to a tree again; and would, no doubt, from the desire to be of help but for the risk of being shot on the spot by any official or military patrol if they were discovered tampering with the wire, no matter what explanation they gave. Since every Indian knows this, he gives any stretch of broken-down wire a wide berth.

  There are also farmers and owners of haciendas passing by on horseback, educated people who know the value of the telephone to the authorities and to themselves, too, in cases of sickness when they want to summon the doctor. But they would never bother to get off their horses to lift the wire from the ground. If they have a boy with them they might perhaps tell him to hitch it up over the nearest green bush. In most cases, however, they would not let their boys stop to do it; they would say to themselves “What does it matter to me? I have other things to think about.”

  It requires, therefore, a felicitous conjunction of a number of coincidences before a secretary can hope to have the use of the telephone when he needs it. He scarcely ever gets through until the whole matter he had to talk about has been settled by an exchange of messages by hand. Often a secretary will sit the whole day long at the instrument waiting for the happy moment when all the trees and bushes are bone-dry. Getting through in the early morning when there is a heavy dew on tree and bush and grass would be considered so miraculous an occurrence that the secretary would talk of it for the rest of his life.

  Why that distant state should institute and maintain a telephone service at all and at the same time be so oblivious of the elementary principles of keeping it in running order, would be wholly and utterly incomprehensible unless one knew the leitmotif of the piece. The state desires to be accounted civilized and so it announces in its statistics that it has so many thousand kilometers of telephone wires. It has them and even a few hundred more, but they can only be used when they are in the right mood.

  Don Abelardo banked on midday when the dew would have evaporated; then if no rain fell he might be able to ask Jovel what he was to do, or what he could do, with these thousands of Indians camped on the plaza.

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  The sun had risen and stood with its chin on the edge of a near range of hills which bounded the mountain valley on the east. And now the procession escorting the newly elected chief reached that side of the cabildo where the steps led up to the schoolroom.

  The low chair of state with the hole in the middle and all else required for the ceremony had been brought along in the procession. An Indian brought up the earthenware brazier and blew up the charcoal.

  Now the men who carried the long staves adorned with brightly colored feathers formed a half circle. The captains stepped forward, repeated some verses, and then called to Natividad. The newly elected chief stepped into the half circle. The captains summoned the men with the church banners and the flags of the country, and Natividad knelt down. Each flag bearer in turn stepped up to the kneeling Natividad and waved his flag before him three times, and then Natividad touched the corner of the flag and kissed it. The captains after each kiss made three crosses in the air above Natividad’s head and recited verses.

  These sayings which accompanied the crosses in the air over Natividad’s head were taken from Catholic ceremonies, or at least were liberally sprinkled with fragments of prayers; for among the Indian words could be heard María, ave, pro nobis, and other scraps of Latin.

  Now the senior captain of San Miguel, who was the acknowledged master of ceremonies, stepped forward. He wore a sash across his chest and gay ribbons on his hat. In his right hand was a long staff with brightly colored feathers at its tip.

  In a speech delivered in a singsong he called upon Amalio as the retiring chief to come forward to b
e greeted by and to greet the new chief and to hand over to him the staff of office.

  It was the custom for the retiring chief to appear with the staff of office in his right hand while this speech was being made. As soon as the speech ended he had to reply. He greeted the senior captain, likewise in rhymed verses, then the other captains, and finally all the men, thanking them for the honor they had done him by turning to him in so grave a matter.

  Next he greeted the new chief and said that it was a high honor to be permitted to hand over his office to so worthy a successor, whose honor and wisdom, whose courage and knowledge of affairs were well known to every man in every barrio of their noble nation. He added that his own powers were too feeble for him to have done all the nation had expected of him, although he had done his utmost to be just to all; but he hoped that his worthy and esteemed successor in the office which he now laid down in accordance with the custom of their people would fill it much better and more successfully than he himself had been able to do.

  When this had been said, the new chief had to step forward and kneel before the retiring one, who made a cross over his head with his staff three times, and then extended the staff for him to kiss. After this the new chief took the staff in his hand and stood up, and the two changed places. Then the retiring chief knelt before the new one, who offered him the staff to kiss and then made three crosses with it over his head. The retiring chief now stood up and gave the new one his hand, touched his cheeks with his own, and stepped back, right out of the ceremony altogether.

  The new chief now recited his verses. He said that he was a weak and erring mortal for so great an office. He promised to use his authority only for the people’s good and to be just without respect of persons.

  When this had been said, further ceremonies began.

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  This time, however, the ceremony did not follow the course it had followed for hundreds of years. A foreign power, whose only contact with these people was the purely external one of political domination, had presumed to alter their custom and practice to suit itself.

  When the captain had had his say, the crowd showed the first signs of excitement. All eyes were turned to the door of the schoolroom on the balcony. The door remained shut. The retiring chief did not emerge with the staff in his hand.

  The master of ceremonies had no set verses for this contingency; such behavior on the part of a retiring chief was without precedent.

  Three captains now went without ceremony quickly and resolutely up the steps. They knocked loudly on the door and called to Amalio to come out, as they had something to say to him.

  Amalio knew that the door was no protection, so he opened it and came out. The captains told him in plain terms without rhyme that they had come to install the new chief and they earnestly begged him to hand over the staff as custom and his duty commanded.

  Amalio would probably have been glad to do so and to go home in peace. But his honor did not permit him to give way now that the men threatened him to his face; for the whole nation would say that he had given way from sheer panic when he saw that things looked ugly and that no soldiers were in sight.

  He had no alternative but to declare that the governor had made a decree and that according to this decree he was to remain in office another year, whether the nation liked it or not. He added that he obeyed the governor and not the nation and that he would do as the governor said.

  To this the men replied that they gave him two hours for reflection, expecting that he would before that time comply with the customs of the nation, to which he owed his existence and the honor of having been chosen as its chief for the past year. There was no need, they said, to consider at the moment what the government would do to him or to them for disobeying the decree: they would deal with that when it arose. “And at this moment all you have to do is what the nation expects of you, and that is to resign your office to the newly elected jefe, Natividad. In these two hours you can think over all that may and assuredly will happen if you betray the nation. After two hours it will be too late. Then we shall act—and you know it. It is enough already that you have spoiled the festivities. That alone will never be forgotten, though it will be regarded only as an error on your part.”

  Without waiting for an answer the men descended the steps and rejoined their companions who were sitting close to the foot of them.

  No one came from the crowd inquisitive to hear what Amalio had said. Even among the men involved the interview was not mentioned. They smoked, laughed, and talked. There was music, and the children romped about.

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  An hour might have passed before Amalio came down the steps. The group at the foot of them stayed where they were, squatting on the ground. They only looked up, expecting that Amalio had come to announce his decision.

  Amalio paused at the foot of the steps. He had the staff of office in his hand. He asked whether they had any objection to his going to speak to the secretario.

  The head captain replied that he might go where he pleased; he was free to talk to whom he chose and to say what he chose; they took no interest in him whatever before the lapse of the two hours. It was his own affair what he did during that time and his own affair from whom he asked advice. But they would not allow him to leave the square without having given up the staff of office. If he liked he might give it up then and there without any ceremony. But he had to give it up before he left the square.

  Amalio went to the north side of the cabildo and knocked at the door of the office, calling out at the same time that it was Amalio and that he wanted to speak to the secretario. Don Abelardo opened the door just wide enough for Amalio to squeeze through.

  “Señor Secretario,” he said, “I don’t know what to do. It looks very bad. Don’t you think I had better give way?”

  The secretary, who ever since they had let his son go unmolested to the prairie for the horses, knew that his own skin was safe and that if anyone was to be sacrified it was Amalio, said, “Don Amalio, you cannot do that. You cannot give way to these rebels. You are presidente here. You are an official and must stick to your post. As an official you have to obey the decree of the governor. If you do not, you will be shot for disobeying the orders of the government. I have just got through to Jovel. The soldiers, a squadron of cavalry with three machine guns, are already on their way. You need not be afraid. The whole might of the Mexican government stands behind you.”

  To talk of the whole might of the Mexican government sounded very fine. It was as poetic and soul-shattering as the phrase “The people are marching against the enemy.” But it only has that ring when it sweeps in heavy type across the front pages of the special editions. At the sight of it the most hard-boiled of anti’s fall flat on their backs—which, however, have been so well padded by opportunism and compromise that an unexpected fall cannot break them.

  Upon Amalio, this fine flourish of the whole might made no impression whatever. The whole might he knew was no bigger than a battalion. He knew the distance from the garrison and he knew his own people. Unless this whole might was in the plaza within ten minutes it made no difference to him whether it consisted of six men and a sergeant or of half a million disciplined troops.

  He hesitated for a moment and thought of asking whether he might stay in the office with the secretary. But the secretary had long since made up his mind that such a guest would be dangerous. When blows are flying about, one of them may easily go astray; and there might not be time to make sure that the secretary was not struck by accident.

  So he left the Indian no time to request hospitality. “The best thing you can do, don Amalio,” he said hurriedly, “is to go up again now to the schoolroom. Here you are in my office without your delegates. That might easily arouse the suspicion that we were hatching some plot against your nation. That would do you no good, and I might be accused of underhand methods and improper interference. Just go up quietly to the schoolroom. Nothing can happen to you. You are under the protection of the go
vernor.”

  The Indian went to the door without saying a word. Don Abelardo again opened it just wide enough for Amalio to squeeze through, and as soon as the last of him was outside the secretary hurriedly shut the door again and bolted it fast.

  It did not trouble him that he had lied to the Indian. He had not yet got through to Jovel and so no soldiers were on the march, in order with the help of machine guns to make law of the governor’s cupidity.

  The ancient customs of the Mexican nation lay far outside the governor’s range of vision; and so he thought that a decree of his could change a people’s custom overnight.

  Amalio went up the steps again, unhindered and unquestioned. Nobody seemed to notice him. The group at the foot of the steps paid no attention at all. They went on talking together and some young fellows struck up a tune on mouth organ and guitar.

  The crowd on the plaza seemed to become more cheerful. Here and there they began their customary dances.

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  And then suddenly silence fell. Every sign of merrymaking ceased.

  Many of the groups busily packed up. The children were summoned and kept close at hand by their fathers and mothers. The babies were wrapped up and tied to the women’s backs. The men took up their packs.

  Yet all sat down again. And now every eye was fixed on the cabildo.

  The group which had escorted the newly elected chief retreated about twenty paces. Then the three captains advanced to the foot of the steps. From there the senior captain shouted up loudly, “Amalio, the two hours are up. We have come to receive the staff of office in order to hand it over to the new chief. Natividad has been lawfully elected by the grown men of our barrio according to our custom. Your time is up. Hand over the staff.”