A Wetback in Reverse

by Frederick Martin-Del-Campo

  I know I’ve done my part for saving the earth, how about the rest of this over-populated country? Not bloody likely!

  Henceforth, what could have impelled Cecilia’s uncle to desire cremation instead of a traditional Mexican burial? Well, more and more people want to exercise their freedom of choice without suffocating from the Church’s moral constraints, so Uncle Rafael’s decision was no big thing. On the other hand, his choice had something to do with the cinematic, and romantic, notions he’d inherited from his old boss. In fact (and according to Cecilia, who’d proved difficult to track down in a city of Mexico City’s size), Uncle Rafael’s favorite collaboration with Fulgencio had also been his very first in the movie they’d made as young college-age bachelors back in 1938 titled Cuauhtemoc ~ a free adaptation of Lew Wallace’s The Fair God, which attempted to retell the story of Cortes’ conquest of the Aztec nation from the Aztec perspective. It was, reputedly, Fulgencio’s reply to Cecil B. De Mille’s 1917 film, The Woman God Forgot, which also dealt with the Conquest of Mexico, and heavily influenced him to make movie-making his career choice. I have as yet been unable to track-down a presentation of the film in any of the important cinema art-houses so I can’t say much about it, but this film, according to existing reviews written at the time of its premiere, and originally running at nearly four hours, was also Fulgencio’s first major film, and the generally positive notices it received set the stage for his subsequent works.

  My cousin subsequently informed me that Rafael had willed his letters, which could prove to be very valuable to film buffs and movie historians, to her supposedly because she worked for the big television broadcasting network TELEMUNDO and would thus appreciate such a bequest. He had also willed them to her aunt, for whom he nurtured the warmest feelings even after she’d divorced his younger brother. Biting my nails with anticipation, I begged her to send me copies of them, and she did, eventually and unperturbedly, after much needling and pestering on my part. Thanks to modern conveniences, I received some remarkable epistles by way of faxes, and they were truly loaded with cinematic history. One of the first things I discovered in letters dated in 1939, when he was barely 19 years old, was that he nurtured pangs of repentance for his family’s part in the Cristiada, complaining of his father’s support of the rebels, and of his having killed at least two federal officers “just for the sheer hatred of their uniforms.”

  At this point, with my illegal status compromising my very being in this besieged country, I can assuredly comprehend his attitude.

  He also admits that the scenes he’d filmed for his boss, of Aztec human sacrifices and ritual immolations, influenced his incidental desire to be cremated, and to have his ashes scattered atop Mount Popocatepetl, the thinking warrior, or on Mount Ixtaccihuatl, the sleeping maiden ~ the two sacred volcanoes of the Toltecs and Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. Though his first wish was carried out, I very much doubt the second would be executed. Too bad.

  Apparently, there was a great deal of controversy surrounding the production and release of the movie, which caused its young makers more than their fair share of anxiety. In a letter dated January 7, 1939, Uncle Rafael agrees that the first viewing of Cuauhtemoc in Mexico City was well received despite its atypical running-time (not including intermissions). One legend that seemed to make him chuckle every time it was recounted stated that, fearful of the audience departing, Fulgencio stopped the clock in the auditorium. In his later memoirs, which Rafael was privy to, Fulgencio recalled:

  “No subsequent experience has given me sensations remotely similar to those I had on the night of the premiere of Cuauhtemoc. The well-founded distress as to their exeunt satisfaction has so adumbrated my feelings at all subsequent movie premieres that I could no longer enjoy them or take much notice of the way the audience was reacting. The initial popularity of Cuauhtemoc was to be expected beforehand. But the uproarious way in which the Chilangos declared their partiality for me was truly unexpected.

  The movie-going crowds had been predisposed to accept it out of ignorance because everyone connected with the cinema had been forwarding favorable notices, and the entire population was looking forward to what was touted as a masterpiece. Little could they know otherwise what would come. In trying to recall my overall mood during those early days, I can remember it only as possessing all the features of a dumb-founding nightmare.”

  Subsequently, Rafael found his own stride by sticking to his mentor. They experimented both with giving the movie a showing over two evenings (at the suggestion of their financier), and making minor cuts while re-filming desultory segments leading up to the conclusion, to enable a less down-beat, more acceptable showing in a single evening. According to Rafael, his boss was not happy.

  In the original reels, Cuauhtemoc’s final words are bitter and angry:

  “May Tenochtitlan and her weakling dwellers be accursed and destroyed! Disintegrate and wither, Mexica! Your degenerate ways have willed it so.”

  For the 1947 re-release, which coincided with the Ariel Film Festival in Acapulco, however, Fulgencio substituted rhetoric that was more upbeat: “Ever while the Eagle and Jaguar Knights stand sentinel against our enemies, ever while Huitzilopochtli commands us to shed blood that our sons may inherit the light of tomorrow, you will see Cuauhtemoc’s return!”

  Fulgencio later perceived Cuauhtemoc as an embarrassment. In his 1977 autobiographical essay, “A Communique to My Com-padres,” which Rafael claims he dedicated to him, he wrote:

  “I saw it only in the shape of ‘six reels’, with six brilliant ‘anti-climaxes’, with hymns, parades and the musical clash of arms.” In another fascinating epistle, Rafael recorded Fulgencio’s comment dated June 20 1971:

  “Cuauhtemoc is very repugnant to me, but the damned critics should at least recognize the fire my audience has taken from it; I was a movie director and I filmed a historical epic that eventually pleased my inspiration, De Mille. The fact that it was this same movie director who gave them some hard nuts to crack - that’s what should astonish them. As far as I am concerned, these critics should be buried in a dung-heap of their own words and jealous criticisms.”

  Thus the movie has remained outside of today’s San Roman canon, and has never been performed at film festivals outside of Mexico. Although the movie-maker disclaimed it, it can be noted that Cuauhtemoc prefigures themes (romantic relationships, social order or break-down, foreign intervention and revolution) to which Fulgencio San Roman was often to return in his later movies.

  The success of Cuauhtemoc---his first real success of any kind---was crucial in both Fulgencio’s and Rafael’s careers, launching the former as a film-maker to be reckoned with, and the latter as his trusted collaborator. It was followed, within months, by a contract with Azteca Film Studios of Mexico City (February 1940), which also gave him considerable prestige. It also received critical acclaim elsewhere in Europe, in the Soviet Union, whereto Fulgencio and company were invited, and regaled in by the eminent Russian film-makers of the time (such as Eisenstein), and in Hollywood.

  The story that President Lazaro Cardenas was so influenced by seeing Cuauhtemoc after he’d left office that it changed his political outlook (and that he later told party loyalists “in that hour it all began”) has been exposed as ‘apocryphal’. What is more probable, according to another anecdote, is that he requested viewings of both the original cut and the later, edited version, and that he had studied the film on several occasions before his death in 1970. Regarding the stories of Cardenas’ interest in Cuauhtemoc, Rafael commented in a letter dated October. 31, 1968, following the Tlatelolco massacres committed by federal soldiers earlier that month against marching students:

  In every step of Cuauhtemoc’s career - from his acclamation as successor to Moctezuma and Cuitlahuac, and leader of his people against the Spaniards, through military struggle, violent suppression of mutinous factions, betrayal and final immolation - all Mexican leaders have doubtless found sustenance for their fantasies.

&
nbsp; All the political references aside, several mentions of Fulgencio’s relationship with certain Jalisco mentors left me somewhat puzzled. In certain letters dated as far back as 1940, Rafael complains that his boss was often ill-disposed to continue work on their present project because of his contentious dealings with certain financial backers who’d happened also to be distant relatives on his mother’s side. The latter, according to Rafael, was named Carmela Martin de Najar and, “a mean old she-wolf that eats the balls of her latest amorous interest before HE has a chance to ‘cry wolf’ or cross his legs.”

  Her other male relations weren’t safe from her oppressive grasp either. Fulgencio was obliged to defer to her on all issues for the family’s sake, and his own artistic ambitions. This left me with a big “why.” What did this reference to a mysterious source have to do with Rafael’s association with Fulgencio? According to the former in letters written to his cousin Rigoberto between 1944 and 1948, Fulgencio was obliged to travel to Tepatitlan, Jalisco quite often because of “business interests and family problems.” Later I read that not only was Tepatitlan the place of his birth and the home of his mother’s family, but also where most of my father’s ancestors had resided. Could this be just fortuity? Or, had I tapped into a well-spring of epiphany? How was it that I encountered Fulgencio for the first and only time in Reynosa, of all places? Why did Fulgencio end up in Tamaulipas, anyway? And, what about this coincidence with Rafael Rojas’s decease coming at such a crucial juncture in my travels? Cecilia proved unable to answer any of my questions; she knew him well, but never thought to ask him anything about his fascinating association with the old master ...

  Wait a minute ... “San Roman”? What about “Martin”? My ancestors from Tepatitlan were surnamed “Martin.” Could there be some incredible link here?

  THE VAGARIES

  OF WAYWARD VAGABONDS

  Ah, Mexico City with all of its foibles will be the death of me yet! Nothing that I could do wasn’t in some way hampered and harassed by this pig cooties outbreak, and it was likely to stick around so long as the locals clung to their less than sanitary ways. The big-wigs kept trying to convince the people that the epidemic was in its “declining phase,” and that it was being effectively checked in other countries. No one believed the officials by now, however, and it really proved to be a ruse, a way of placating the people should they start complaining again about real issues like joblessness, exorbitant food prices, horrific utilities costs, and the damned IVA, or Federal taxes. And, people were really upset that the cost of riding the metro-subway had jumped 50% over-night, in Mexico City specifically. Surely, they would start a new revolution!

  Memorable in a funny way during my second week in Mexico City was all this news going around that the Chinese had quarantined four-score Mexican tourists, citing charges that they were “importing the Bird Flu back within their frontiers.” This was almost too risible to ignore. Then, many more Mexicans, along with other travelers, had been isolated in a Hong Kong hotel, supposedly as a precaution against the spread of cooties. All of these developments gave the Mexican government a head-ache as they enraged a disquieted Mexican public with respect to their compatriots. Therewithal, the two countries were trying to pass off credit for the epidemic to each other, the one insisting that it came from Mexican pigs, and the other that it was all due to eating so much Pork Chow Mein.

  Provincial authorities, especially in Mexico State, Morelos, Colima Hidalgo, weren’t going to have any of the debate, and simply rounded up and killed all the suspicious pigs as a way of shutting up the screaming-meemies railing about the undesirability of having pigs around in the first place. Expectedly, pig ranchers clashed with the agents sent to dispose of the offending porkers, and nothing salutary came out these regrettable confrontations.

  This fight for the honor of pigs had degenerated into an insensible contest between the “civvies and the cops,” each one vying for the favor of public opinion. Upon examination, it became evident that each side was more afraid of backing down, lest they lose all support from divergent sectors of their society, than interested in prevailing. The contending parties were nonetheless animated by a common spirit. They agreed on the necessity of some rapprochement; but the time, the place, and the manner could never be ascertained by mutual consent, except that it would take place somewhere in Mexico City. The fracas distracted the people from all the Flu anxiety, at least, and was regarded by the authorities as a welcome relief. Nevertheless, If the one advanced, so said a spokesman for the mayor Mexico City on the TV news, the other retreated; the one appeared like a beast fearful of the land, the other a creature phobic of the water. And thus, for a short remnant of a pig’s life and procreative instincts, did these contrarians endanger the peace with their contretemps. There was still the Flu to contend with, after all.

  During this time I tried to locate Becky, but I was Hell out of luck. No one I asked could answer the simplest of questions, and her relatives, most of them residing in the respectable Claveria district, were dumbfounded as to her whereabouts. It was really upsetting me by now, and not finding Becky was the biggest disappointment of them all. Meanwhile, people kept dying, one at time, and the cowardly authorities played to the muck-raking journalists who made it seem like nineteen deaths added up to a terrible holocaust. Never mind that twenty times as many were dying from all causes, but the figure of 506 of both infected and dead was just too much to support, and those responsible for containing the epidemic seemed like they were about to “throw in the towel,” figuratively speaking. Even so, one could not avoid overhearing by whatever means that the officials kept harping on the line that “evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase.”

  Give me a freaking break!

  Regardless of so-called drastic measures taken to protect the people, like the shuttering of business, closing the schools, prohibiting public gatherings and the such, which they insisted have curbed the virus’s spread, everyone in the street believed that the epidemic had peaked a couple of months before, so why all the willy-nilly hypochondria?

  Elsewhere in the country, especially in the northern states, the number of confirmed cases just kept rising, so that fact at least gave me an idea about where to go for my next stop. The swine flu was killing mostly the poor and disgusting Mexicans, so I had little to worry about, nor most Mexicans who really didn’t give a pig’s ass anymore about the whole thing. Still, the authorities weren’t convinced, so everybody’s actions, including most damnably mine, were once again restricted until the alert was revoked. The national caseload since the beginning of the outbreak was topping 800 and growing the vast majority in central and northern Mexico. In the Deep South, which I would not be visiting unless the hot weather had abated somewhat, reported their first confirmed cases a day after I had arrived in the Distrito Federal, and that was enough to send them all screaming to the nearest pharmacy.

  The following day I thought to go to the Health Ministry to pick up some brochures and to find out where I could get a free vaccination, and it all went well until they started asking around for my “official” identification; I felt like I was going to defecate in my panties before being forced onto the first airplane headed for California, but the simple lie that I did not have it was enough to placate the disinterested clerks, thank goodness. They were mostly worried about an influx of local Indians, which could have led to a riot as far as they were concerned. Most victims who had somehow escaped death were mostly Criollos, which pleased the discriminating bureaucrats. They had all mostly recovered by now, and all but two were known to be residents of Mexico City.

  The surrounding states of Zacatecas, Hidalgo, Morelos and Colima again reported new cases, but no one paid any attention. Whatever direction the virus took, it remained an unpredictable fuddle that managed to piss off a lot of people, yours truly included.

  All that was left to do was wait ~ wait till more cases or deaths would be announced, and at least a dozen more people had contracted the v
irus in the previous 24 hours. The alarm proved to be much ado about nothing, but alarmists will be alarmists, and the warning came after the outbreak’s toll in Mexico seemed to be tapering off.

  At the international airport in Toluca just outside the main city, where a lot of Volkswagen Beetle-taxi-drivers where yelling for attention in between coughing and sneezing, and probably spreading more of the virus, everybody around was being asked to identify themselves on descending flights and were then isolated from every other traveler after landing, so advised the anchor-man in the national news broadcast. Expectedly, no one had presented symptoms, everyone had been isolated needlessly, many among them insisted they were hearing about the pandemic for the first time and had no idea Influenza could have so many strains!