So Far From God

by John Harris

  Indians in bright blankets and Chinese with pigtails who had fled from Torreón crowded round the portable tables along the platform where vendors sold food. At midday the train halted at a station which had a restaurant of sorts. A fiesta was being held, with gambling booths and a fair and stalls of cheap liquor lost in a sweltering mass of humanity. Women passed down the train offering tamales, but the passengers from the second-class coaches had noticed that they had halted near an orchard and were busy helping themselves.

  There were placards everywhere about Huerta’s election as they drove through Mexico City to Magdalena’s house. The capital was impressive, though there were still blackened scars from the rising that had toppled Madero, a splintered tree, a grave in a park, an occasional smashed lamp standard. But there were electric lights, streetcars, telephones, a Renaissance-style post office, railways, a marble opera house in the style of the one in Paris, and large prosperous homes like Italian palazzi that were the residences of foreign investors and those who had profited under Díaz and somehow still managed to profit under the new revolution.

  But the place was clearly restless because the financial system was chaotic after three years of revolution. The value of the peso had fallen and in the north Carranza was issuing lavishly-designed notes of his own with pictures of volcanoes, crossed guns and posturing women representing Mexico. Because of the confusion, Huerta had decreed a succession of bank holidays that kept the banks closed.

  The Villa Magdalena was in the Avenida Versailles, a quiet side street off the Paseo de la Reforma. It was a square ugly building but inside there was taste, though it was dusty because it had been left for months to the tender mercies of the Mexican housekeeper who led them through the corridors and up and down stairs, showing them the rooms and uttering loud cries of dismay at the number of people she was expected to look after.

  Magdalena was curiously excited and eager, showing them the garden and sending Pilar, the housekeeper, out for food and drink. After dinner, Slattery played the piano one-handed and sang ‘Phil The Fluter’s Ball’. It delighted Magdalena and she laughed, her eyes sparkling, and got them all to contribute something to the evening. Then she sat at the piano herself and sang items from the shows she’d appeared in. Jesús almost swooned with adoration.

  ‘Why not try opera in the Opera House?’ Slattery asked. She studied him half-smiling. ‘Adelina Patti said if I trained properly I could have the voice for Puccini roles. I met her once in New York. I’ve never dared.’

  ‘You could be singing with Caruso instead of that barrel of lard, Stutzmann.’

  His comment angered her and the concert came to an abrupt end as she disappeared to bed in a huff. The next morning Fausto appeared and Slattery heard them talking in the salon, their voices raised.

  ‘What did he want?’ he asked when she appeared.

  ‘Only to know I had reached Mexico City safely.’

  He didn’t press the point and, when she had to go to the Opera House, to enable Slattery to go into town if he wished, she bound up his arm and helped him into his jacket. There was no sign of the anger she had shown the previous evening and when his eyes lifted to her face as she bent over him, she gave him a little smile that was warm and maternal.

  ‘You should do this more often, Magdalena,’ he said quietly. ‘I could grow used to it.’

  She flushed and looked hurriedly away, pretending to be busy. Beneath the brittle shell of conversation there were underlying currents that troubled her, as Slattery could tell, and he saw her shiver as though the familiar world had become something new and just a little frightening.

  ‘Men are clever with words.’ There was an unexpected gentleness in her voice as she answered and a friendliness that made him feel good. Staring at her, he suspected, as he had on other occasions, that she had an enormous untapped capacity for enjoyment beneath the mercurial temperament of an artiste and the stiff Germanic exterior she never seemed quite able to throw off. There was something else, too, about her – a tremendous wholesomeness that overwhelmed him, and uneasily he came to the conclusion that for the first time since he was sixteen he was in danger of falling in love.

  ‘Have you thought about what I said last night about opera?’ he asked. ‘In New York you could make a lot of money.’

  She smiled. ‘I don’t need money,’ she said. ‘I have money. I shall be all right in my old age.’

  ‘You’ll never grow old.’

  She looked quickly at him and her face grew pink again. It wasn’t hard to make her blush. ‘That’s a nice thing to say.’

  She carefully combed his hair over the scar and the narrow bare patch where his head had been shaved, finally plastering it well down with Atty’s brilliantine. Then, leaning over, she kissed him lightly on the forehead. It was unexpected and he took her hand.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  She freed herself gently and smiled at him. ‘Because this morning,’ she said, ‘I am Mexican and, with your hair combed like that, you look like a Mexican, too.’

  Four

  Atty was out shopping with Jesús and Pilar and Slattery was on his own when the doorbell rang.

  He opened it warily. Outside, leaning on the wall, was Sholto Horrocks. He was as immaculately dressed as if he were going to a levee at the Presidential Palace.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Slattery demanded.

  Horrocks beamed at him. ‘Thought you might like a sick visitor.’ He seemed to insinuate himself into the hall, almost as though he had slid through the crack in the half-open door. ‘Goin’ to offer me a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s some whisky.’

  Horrocks accepted the whisky with a nod and looked about him. ‘Nice place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Don’t talk bloody silly. What do you want?’

  ‘Thought we might have a little chat. Toss out a few ideas. Spark each other off. That sort of thing.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  Horrocks sipped his whisky. ‘Oh, we like to keep an eye on our people.’

  ‘I’m not “your people”.’

  ‘Yes, you are, old son. Everybody’s “our people” if we once talk to ’em. Just been to see a printer, in fact. English. Name of Turner. His job’s making colour plates and printing bank notes for the Mexican Treasury. At the moment he’s printing pamphlets backing Villa. Villa don’t know it, of course, but he’s also printing pamphlets backing Carranza. You’ve met Carranza. Did you talk to him?’

  ‘You don’t talk to Carranza. He talks to you.’

  ‘He’ll claim the presidency eventually.’

  ‘I suspect he’ll get it.’

  ‘He’d satisfy Washington. But Villa’s not out of the running. He’s very much admired north of the border as a soldier.’

  ‘His past leaves a lot to be desired.’

  ‘His present’s not all that hot.’

  Slattery studied Horrocks with a considerable amount of hostility. ‘Do you people always get involved in everybody else’s politics?’

  ‘Oh, always,’ Horrocks answered placidly. He sighed. ‘Pity London don’t. But the Prime Minister isn’t even very certain where Mexico is. But that’s Asquith all over, ain’t it? He don’t even know where his left arm is.’ He was regarding Slattery with interest. ‘Heard you stopped a bullet.’

  ‘Not a bullet; a brick.’

  ‘Don’t go and get yourself killed. We could use you.’

  ‘I’m not for sale.’

  ‘You might be eventually. Because it’s coming.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘War.’

  ‘In Mexico?’

  Horrocks shrugged. ‘Mexico’s written on everybody’s heart, old son. You’ll find it printed on mine after I’m dead. Mexico’s important. It don’t look important, but it could have earth-shaking influences. So we don’t overlook the possibility. It’s a difficult situation. The Germans are gettin’ very awkward over in Europe.’

  ‘They seem to be ge
tting very awkward over here, too. What are they up to?’

  Horrocks sniffed. ‘If you want to build a house you first have to put down something sound to stand it on. They’re thinkin’ ahead to the time when they’ll need a solid intelligence service. They’re preparing for Der Tag.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘My dear chap, if you were after a woman, you’d put your best suit on to pay court to her, wouldn’t you? You’d spend money. Flowers. Chocolates. A good dinner. All to prepare her for what comes afterwards. It’s the same with countries. When you’re wooing a country, you send your most able servants round with gifts and promises. There are a lot of people backing Huerta, even if the United States ain’t. And not just Germany either. Investors, for instance. People like Lord Cowdray. Guggenheim. William Randolph Hearst. Huerta’s the sort of leader who makes their investment feel safer.’

  ‘I don’t think Huerta gives a damn for Lord Cowdray.’

  ‘The Germans do. They’re concerned that his oil shouldn’t be available to their enemies if war breaks out.’

  ‘It won’t be our war.’

  ‘You might be surprised. And if it is, it’ll be your war as well as mine.’

  ‘We haven’t any treaties that affect Germany. If she starts a fight, it’ll be against France and Russia.’

  Horrocks sighed. ‘And do you think, you stupid Irishman, if France goes to war with Germany, that England would allow German warships into the Channel to bombard French ports? A spit and a jump from Dover. Try not to be too half-witted.’ He gestured. ‘America, of course, will make money out of it. Why not? She’ll become the arsenal for the opposing sides, though it would be a bit more difficult for Germany because, while the Americans’ll sell arms, they won’t ever allow them to be transported in American ships. And there we’d have the advantage. Our ships could get the stuff across the Atlantic but the German navy couldn’t guarantee that theirs could, because their warships’ll never get out of the North Sea.’ Horrocks looked at Slattery in a pained way as if he weren’t very bright. ‘And the obvious way to counter that problem would be to make sure American arms won’t be available to either side. And they wouldn’t, would they, if America went to war with Mexico? They’d use them themselves. Here.’

  ‘It sounds bloody complicated.’

  ‘These things usually are. That’s why the Germans are tryin’ to stir up trouble, and the more trouble there is, the more nervous the Americans are goin’ to be.’

  Horrocks held out his glass for a refill. ‘Ever met a chap called Fausto Graf?’ he asked.

  Slattery looked quickly at him. ‘Have you met him, too?’

  ‘Not socially. He’s a reserve officer of the German army.’

  ‘He’s American.’

  ‘Don’t make any difference. They can make whom they like a reserve officer. We do. He’s also a German agent, very occupied at this moment with stirring things up. After all, fighting’s started again, hasn’t it?’ He gestured at Slattery’s arm. ‘The start of the final campaign to oust Huerta. When it succeeds, the Mexicans’ll start kicking out the Spanish.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Horrocks smiled. ‘Walls have mice, and mice have ears. This election Huerta’s promised is going to be a farce.’ He indicated the newspaper by Slattery’s chair. It carried deep headlines. ‘Four candidates,’ he pointed out. ‘But only one winner. And he holds the power already.’

  ‘It’s not like England,’ Slattery agreed. ‘They don’t smoke and spit and keep guns in their lockers in the House of Commons.’

  ‘That’s the way things happen in Mexico, though, ain’t it? The chap with the biggest club’s usually the boss. Who are you backing?’

  ‘None of them.’

  ‘Villa seems to be in the news.’

  ‘Villa won’t be out of the news until he’s six feet under the earth.’

  ‘His success hasn’t gone unnoticed. But Berlin don’t approve of him. He’s too independent. They prefer Huerta. But they’ll support Carranza.’

  ‘Why not Huerta?’

  ‘Him, too, old boy. This country’s breaking down into small areas run by so-called generals, and the Germans see their job to be to keep the pot boiling by making sure they have guns.’ Horrocks blew out smoke and blinked. ‘But also,’ he added, ‘to see that Huerta has guns, too. They want the fighting to go on, to keep America on edge.’

  Five

  Atty was slouched in a chair with Pilar, the Mexican woman, bent over him, administering black coffee.

  ‘Ebrio, Señor,’ she announced. ‘Drunk.’

  ‘I got talking to this feller, Turner, me dear,’ Atty said. ‘Not the printer. His brother. He works at the telegraph office. He says Huerta’s sent reinforcements to retake Torreón, and Villa’s decided to let him have it because it’s too far from his bases and the supplies from across the American border.’

  It didn’t take Slattery long to decide that what Atty was telling him was more than likely true. Atty wasn’t just a Cornish miner who had found himself stranded in Mexico. He was an intelligent man who had just not had the benefit of a lot of education. His judgements were shrewd and he had a gift for nosing information out of people who didn’t think they were in a position to give it. This time there seemed no doubt, and the cartoon in one of the capital’s newspapers showing an invalid Huerta huddled under blankets with a nurse saying, ‘No change. He can’t move yet,’ was wildly wrong. The hard-drinking old general had moved enough to make all the right dispositions to stop the rebels, and let his opinion about the American president’s hostility to him be clearly known at a press meeting he arranged in a café where he sat at a table with his brandy in a cup and saucer to disguise it as coffee.

  ‘I shall retire,’ he said bluntly, ‘only when I’m dead and buried.’

  His bald skull gleaming, he gestured to the waiter to bring more brandy and tossed coins with the cashier for who should pay. ‘Mexico is a snake,’ he went on. ‘All its life is in its head. And I am the head of Mexico.’

  That evening, Magdalena came home in a fury. Rehearsals had been cancelled and the preparations for the show called off. Huerta’s recruiting officers had taken the stagehands and three members of the chorus for the army. But she seemed almost to welcome the interruption because it allowed her more time at the house in the Avenida Versailles, and two days later she persuaded Atty to drive her with Slattery to Cuernavaca to inspect a small country house she owned there.

  Cuernavaca was a place of romantic gardens, crumbling verandas, statues and fountains overgrown with flowers. Its atmosphere was one of warmth and yearning, as if it had absorbed the emotions of generations of lovers. Slattery was conscious it was working on Magdalena. She was quiet, saying little as she clung to his arm.

  Despite its charm, there was a worn look about the place these days because it had been occupied more than once by Zapata’s men and the lily ponds were choked with weeds and the tangled groves of oranges and mangoes were in ruins. There was nothing left of Magdalena’s house and she sat silently in the car as they drove back to Mexico City.

  ‘Sad?’ Slattery asked.

  She shrugged. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was inevitable. One day somebody’s going to say to everybody here who’s a foreigner, “Get out of Mexico.” When that happens I want to be able to go without losing too much dignity.’

  As Horrocks had suggested, the election was becoming a farce. Posters and placards had been stuck up everywhere but nobody was taking much notice of them. Horrocks’ English printer, Turner, had produced most of them, printing both for Huerta and those who wished to oppose him.

  ‘Does a few other little things for us from time to time as well,’ Horrocks said. ‘Odd government forms we might need.’

  On polling day, Atty drove them round the polling stations and, since the Opera House had still not recruited replacements, Magdalena joined them for lunch.

  Horrocks gave Slattery an old-fashioned look as she appeared, magnificent in purpl
e with a veil and a flowered hat. ‘She’s Fausto Graf’s sister,’ he murmured as they saw her into a taxi afterwards. ‘She could supply you with all the information you need. She’s no more Mexican than you are.’

  ‘If she were honest, she’d accept that she’s American.’

  Horrocks was unimpressed. ‘No German-American’s American,’ he said. ‘There are French-Americans, British-Americans, Russian-Americans, Italian-Americans. But not the Germans. They’re different. They’re German and Fausto Graf’s as German as Bismarck. He’s been to see her, hasn’t he?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Saw him. What did he want?’

  ‘To see his sister.’

  ‘Fausto Graf never does anything that simple. Are you sleeping with her?’

  ‘No.’

  Horrocks smiled. ‘Pity. You can learn a lot in bed.’

  At most of the polling stations there was a lone official collecting voting slips in a cigar box and occupying his time by completing a few himself. In some places, the ballot boxes consisted of cardboard shoe boxes, chemists’ jars, in one place even a cat basket, but none of them had anything in them and, though they toured the city several times, they noticed they remained empty.

  Several times Slattery noticed a German face he recognised from Nogales, and once even Sjogren, the Swede, sitting in a car making notes.

  ‘Watching points for the Embassy,’ Horrocks observed.

  The following evening the streets filled with mobs shouting against Huerta who were clashing with other mobs supporting him, and Atty had to ease the Studebaker in and out of a torchlight procession which was forming from yelling men and boys. Then, near the National Palace, they saw a man appear on horseback, flourishing sheets of paper.

  ‘Huerta’s elected!’ he yelled.

  ‘The bloody man’s not even a candidate!’ Horrocks snorted.