The Shadow of the Shadow

by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

  I'm not from here. From this land where I was born. That's something life teaches you, if you're willing to learn, that nobody's from where they were born, where they grew up. That nobody's really from anywhere. There's some people that try to keep up the illusion, working themselves all up over memories and knickknacks and flags and anthems. What they don't know is that we all belong to the places we've never even been before. If there's any kind of legitimate nostalgia, it's for everything we've never seen, the women we've never slept with, never dreamed of, the friends we haven't made, the books we haven't read, all that food steaming in the pots we've never eaten out of. That's the only real kind of nostalgia there is.

  Another thing you learn along the way is that at some point or other the road took a wrong turn and things didn't necessarily have to turn out the way they did. Nobody should have had to eat bug-infested rice or half-rotten corn in the oil fields, paying three times the regular price at the company store. Nobody ought to have had to go out in the middle of the rains to close the valves on well number seven; muck around in the middle of the jungle laying pipe, drilling wells in the swamps, blasting dynamite, sleeping on the wet ground, taking in starvation wages while the foreman eats ham and butter out of the cans we carried in on our backs. And the bossman, far away in some big house in the city, sleeps in a bed without ever knowing who we are, without ever acknowledging the real source of his pleasure and his power, without ever having to think about us, while we carry him on our shoulders and our backs, pushing and grunting like so many ants, pushing his stocks up higher and higher every day in New York.

  That's why I don't want to go on those shiny white ships. Because I'd have to pay for my dreams-working eleven-hour days as a waiter, a busboy, shining the polished brass handrails, sweating in the heat of the kitchen. That's why the big boats stay far away, as I watch them come and go from every port, from all my dreams, from inside my nostalgia.

  WORD OF THE SAN ANGEL SHOOTING arrived at the newspaper by midmorning. Manterola, who'd spent the night in an armchair in the waiting room outside the director's office, prowled anxiously around the newsroom without quite daring to get involved, but leaping eagerly on every scrap of information: reports from the Red Cross and the White Cross, a statement by Gasca, the Federal District Regent, a call from the CGT central council for a general strike to begin the following day, the description of two of his colleagues who'd been out to interview the wounded and other demonstrators. A statement from the San Angel city authorities maintaining that the demonstration had been a peaceful one and blaming the gendarmerie for the aggression.

  "Manterola, the boss wants to see you."

  He dragged himself reluctantly down the hall. As he passed the windowwhere he'd witnessed Colonel Zevada's fatal fall, he saw one of the gendarmeries'paddy wagons parked in front of the building. During the night, Ruiz, who covered the city desk, had told him in a whisper that the word was out that the gendarmes had gotten the order to kill him on the slightest pretext, that Gomez had put a price on his head and that a certain Captain Palomera had bet that he'd be the man to win it. That same morning, two secret service agents guarding the newspaper's entrance (Alessio Robles had kept his promise to protect Manterola) stopped an alleged salesman, who said he wanted to place an ad in the newspaper, from entering the building. The man was armed, carried no identification. One of the agents had tentatively identified him as a wanted criminal.

  "You wanted to see me, sir?"

  "Major Martinez here would like to have a few words with you. It's fine with me if it's all right with you, Manterola," said Vito Alessio.

  Martinez, the ex-hod carrier, sat in a leather armchair in the director's office. Next to him stood a capable-looking man in civilian clothes, wearing an earring, and with a noticeable bulge under his black jacket.

  "Now remember, Manterola, the decision is up to you. If you want to go ahead with this, I intend to keep my word, come what may. I didn't become director of Mexico's finest newspaper just to sell out my reporters."

  "I appreciate that, sir."

  Vito Alessio smiled at Manterola and left the office, closing the door softly behind him.

  "I believe you haven't met my friend The Gypsy, have you, Manterola?"

  "No, Major, although I've heard about him."

  The Gypsy greeted Manterola with a nod. Manterola walked over to his boss's desk and sat down in his chair. The desk was covered with papers and there was a photo of the three Alessio brothers, the director of El Demdcrata, the president's secretary, and an officer who had died mysteriously in a car riddled with bullets.

  "Okay, Major, let's have the bad news."

  "I want the document and your pledge of silence, Manterola."

  "On whose authority, Major?"

  "In the name of the Government of the Republic." Coming from the major, the words "Government" and "Republic" evoked days of blood and glory.

  "Is the government familiar with the contents of the document and the considerable sum agreed to by Colonel Gomez and his cronies?"

  "Certainly, sir. A copy of the document was given to the governor of Tamaulipas in Tampico by the Aguila Petroleum Company yesterday."

  "In other words, the government doesn't want it made public that the North American oil companies planned to finance a revolution to split off the oil-producing regions from the rest of the country?"

  "No, sir, it does not. At least not for the time being. I assume you understand why that is."

  "Well, then the government's screwed, isn't it? If the director of this newspaper keeps his word, then the Plan of Mata Redonda will be out in tomorrow's edition."

  "I don't think so, Manterola."

  "What are you going to do, kill me?"

  "Of course not. I want you to know I have a great deal of respect for you."

  "Well then, Major?"

  "I'm going to trade you the plan for something that's more valuable to you. Two hours ago, several agents of the secret police under my command arrested a Chinaman and a Spaniard who attempted to murder Colonel Gomez at the Peredo barracks."

  "Did they kill him?" asked the journalist, rising up from his seat.

  "No, I'm sorry to say. It would have been most convenient for everyone involved. However, Gomez managed to escape with only a broken arm and a few bruises. They shot him as he was going down the stairs, and he took a rather bad tumble. Also, it seems as though he'll lose the sight in his left eye. It was all an unfortunate accident, according to the last official report I heard.

  "And Tomas and Sebastian?"

  "A little the worse for wear, but still in one piece. My men saved them from Gomez' men when they were about to have them shot... Now I've got them, and I'm willing to trade them to you for the document, Manterola... I don't think you really need any more convincing, but you may also like to know that I have my men surrounding a certain garage in Candelaria, and they're prepared to go in shooting in search of Colonel Martinez Fierro's killers."

  "All I can say is that your men had better be prepared to eat as much lead as they dish out if they try and go in there, Major."

  "I don't doubt that, reporter, but if need be, I'll have a machine gun placed in front of the door. That ought to take care of them. Do you understand, Manterola? I've got two cavalry regiments and artillery at my disposal. Enough of this fooling around. All I ask is for the plan and your silence in exchange for the freedom and safety of yourself and your friends."

  "What about Gomez?"

  "I assume you're referring to Colonel Jesus Gomez Reyna, the new military attache assigned to the Mexican embassy in Spain. Due to set out this very evening on a steamer from Veracruz. The sea air ought to help him recover from his unfortunate accident, wouldn't you say?"

  "Well, damn it all to hell and your mother, too," said the reporter. "On top of the third desk to the left of the doorway, there's a manila envelope with the letterhead of a local theater company. Inside you'll find what you're looking for, Major."

 
"Thank you, Manterola. I assume I have your pledge of silence."

  "Someday someone will tell all this."

  "Well, I only hope that neither you nor I are alive to see the day, Manterola."

  Manterola didn't see them leave the office. His eyes were fixed on the papers covering the director's desk. He felt old and tired. He would have liked to have been able to make this decision together with his three friends, together around a game of dominoes. He would have liked to have seen the headlines in big black letters and the story of Zevada, Martinez Fierro, and Gomez in eight columns in the second section.. .or better yet on the front page. And Gomez? All he had was a vague memory and a voice over the telephone talking about honor. It wasn't enough to hate, it made his hatred too rational. How many others were there like Gomez who had traded their homeland for a stack of bills? How many others like Gomez had made their fortune off the Revolution, wallowing in a pool of blood and money? But now Gomez belonged to him-to him, and to the poet, to Verdugo, and to the Chinaman. There was even a piece of the colonel that belonged to San Vicente. Now we really are the shadow of the shadow, he told himself, staring at the closed door.

  IN THE BAR OF THE MAJESTIC HOTEL, a cuckoo clock sang out one in the morning. Eustaquio the bartender looked contentedly at the domino game, the four men seated around the marble table. Everything is as it should be, he thought, as he went around turning out the rest of the lights, leaving that one solitary table illuminated in the center of the room, wrapped in the ring of light escaping from under the black shade, unreal, phantasmagoric in the otherwise deserted bar. The sound of ivory on marble rose up from the circle of light. Out in the street the hum of a car engine mixed with the neighing of a horse and the echo of hoofs on pavement.

  "Too bad your buddy San Vicente doesn't like dominoes. Otherwise, he strikes me just fine," said the lawyer Verdugo. The dominoes lined up in front of him remained sunk in the shadow from the brim of his pearl gray Stetson.

  "He's out thele somewhele in the darkness dying to get his newspapel stalted. He told me to give you all a big hug fol him," said Tomas Wong, placing the three/two on top of the table. "He doesn't understand the affinity between analchism and dominoes. Not like I do."

  "What about you, poet? Did you get a good look at the letter of thanks we got from the president? It's in my jacket pocket, on the coat rack there."

  "Manterola, it's not my style to be so prosaic but, if the Honorable President of the Republic still had all his appendages, he could whack me off with two hands at once, the one-armed bastard. For all I care."

  "It's a helluva country, gentlemen," said Manterola, scratching the scar behind his ear and cautiously playing the double-threes.

  IN THE COURSE OF WRITING THIS STORY, the fictional characters have mingled with historical personalities and events. For the sake of the reader's curiosity:

  The four central characters belong entirely to the world of fiction.

  Sebastian San Vicente was deported a second time in 1923, following his participation in the heroic streetcar strike. I compiled his brief Mexican biography in Memoria Roja, and again, in novelized form, in De Paso (just Passing Through)*. It appears that he died years later fighting in the anarchist ranks against the fascists in Spain.

  In 1926, El Democrata died a pauper's death, run under by debts after being sold by its original owners. General Alvarado's newspaper, El Heraldo de Mexico, had disappeared two years before. With the demise of the two best newspapers Mexico has ever known, the once-fine art of crime reporting began its tragic decline, only to be restored somewhat in 1930 by La Prensa, although without the grace, elegance, and shine of earlier days. The journalist who inspired the character of Pioquinto Manterola died of tuberculosis a year before his newspaper.

  Dolores Street changed with time, and the triads were eventually forced to abandon it (or at least that's what one would suppose) following an intense campaign spearheaded by the magazine Sucesos in the 1930s.

  The anarcho-syndicalists based in the south of Mexico City won the strike described in this book-and many more, until 1926 when they started to feel the effects of the repression unleashed by the government of President Calles.

  The rebellion of a Mexican officer under orders from the foreign oil barons is a historical fact. The actual revolt was headed up by General Martinez Herrera one year after the fictional rebellion described in the novel. The oil barons never let up in their pressures on the Mexican government, although in 1923 the first agreements were reached on the payment of drilling and export rights. The end of this turbulent relationship is well known, and came about when President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the country's oil industry in 1938.

  The wave of advertisements for patent medicines, so in vogue in the years following the Revolution, eventually died out as the number of doctors increased. By 1930, the number of ads in a single edition of the newspaper had dropped from a high of 110 to fewer than 5.

  The Arana Cantina, the Cafe Paris, the Black Circus, and other cafes and dives described here disappeared only to be replaced by others of equal or greater notoriety.

  In spite of the students' aggression, Fermin Revueltas' mural was finished on schedule and it can still be seen today on the walls of the San Ildefonso building in the center of Mexico City.

  The criminal underworld abandoned its marginality and exoticism, learned to coexist with the law, and finally became institutionalized as an integral part of the Mexican police force.

  Military bands stopped giving free concerts in the parks, the rent strike was defeated, the gendarmerie disappeared and was replaced by the granaderos, or "riot police." They no longer make bulletproof Packards, elegant steamers no longer dock at the ports of Veracruz and Tampico, the Krone Circus hasn't returned to Mexico since 1928, and the villages of Tlalpan and San Angel were long ago swallowed up by the city.

  Times pass and things change. The authoritarianism of the Obregon regime at the start of Mexico's stolen revolution gradually turned itself into the shamelessness and corrupt arrogance of the PRI, the political party that controls the country to this day (1990).

  There are no longer races run at the Condesa track, there's not even a Condesa track anymore. Sanborns, the American Foto Shop, the Bank of London and Mexico can still be found in the same place, but Vito Alessio Robles, de la Huerta, and Obregon are now no more than street names.

  Nobody hypnotizes anyone in detective novels anymore. Fortunately, dominoes continues to be the great national pastime, and somehow, miraculously, it has yet to fall into the claws of the mass media.

  PACO IGNACio TAIBO II

  PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II was born in Gijon, Spain, but immigrated with his family to Mexico in 1958. He is a novelist, journalist, historian and social activist. PIT II, as he is affectionately called (his father and namesake is a respected historian), is known for his improvisational novels, like The Shadow of the Shadow, which spring from Mexico's revolutionary history; for his crime novels which feature the quirky anarchistic private eye Hector Balascoran Shayne; and for his in-depth histories of revolutionaries like Che and Pancho Villa. PIT II recently collaborated-to international fanfare-with the notorious Subcomandante Marcos ofthe Zapatista Revolutionary Army to resurrect Shayne as hero in the novel The Uncomfortable Dead (Akashic Books). Taibo is also the founder and producer of Semana negra, an annual summer fiesta-disguised as a celebration of crime writing-held in his birthplace of Gijon.

  *Cinco Puntos Press