by C. M. Mayo
“Sir!”
“I am confident that you will do nothing less than superb work.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ramírez bent over in the deepest bow he had made yet; so low, that, after the style of General Almonte, he let his hands rest on his knees.
Maximilian brought his cigar to his lips, but instead of inhaling, he yawned. “That is all,” he said, and he opened his book and, with a flick, began leafing through it.
Ramírez bowed once again and walked backward out of the imperial office.
Now, in the carriage nearing the first overnight stop at Río Frío, Ramírez has not quite adjusted himself to the idea that such a young consort might replace the august presence of the emperor. Carlota, as a matter of fact, is the same age as his youngest daughter-in-law. It is one thing to preside over palace balls and court ceremonies, to look and act the part, chatting prettily in seven different languages with the awestruck guests . . .
Nonetheless, Ramírez recognizes, Carlota has a man’s stamina. He has seen her riding through Chapultepec Park (something no respectable Mexican señora would do), and he has seen her sit for hours with an iron-mask of politeness, listening to eye-crossingly boring speeches. Carlota is a worker, tireless and diligent worker, an excellent helpmate to His Majesty. The day will soon come that the Mexican Empire shall sit astride the saddle of the Americas, strong, prosperous, united, and peaceful.
Ramírez thinks of his grandchildren. They will live in a Mexico transformed; not the one he has despaired for, where he has had his friends and relatives murdered, kidnapped, knifed, and bludgeoned in the streets, where he has lived all his life in a house locked down and barred like a fortress, and that anyway, in the last revolution, had a cannonball bash through its roof and kill one of the maids. His Mexico is one where, year after year, one has trembled for one’s life to go out at night, or onto the highway—only fools and renegades venture onto a highway unescorted. His has been a Mexico without honor, a Mexico where no property is safe, the mine shafts abandoned to fill with water, fields to lie fallow, and the patios of once splendid haciendas left charred and overgrown with weeds. A Mexico that would murder its Liberator. This Mexico of the vainglorious Santa Anna, who would attend a cockfight before troubling himself with the matters of the nation, who would stand by and allow Mexico to be violated, dismembered, sold to the highest bidder. Thank God for Maximilian! Thank God that Mexico, at last, has a Catholic, European prince to rule it! Ramírez’s prayer is that he may live to one day tell these dear children how their own abuelito traveled to Yucatan with the Empress Carlota.
With his sleeve Ramírez rubs the fog of his breath from the window. In midair a falcon chases two tumbling sparrows. They are coming into the highest country now; the men have been drinking cognac from flasks to keep warm. The road cuts across a pasture dotted with white goats and then it winds down another mountainside in a series of hairpin turns, switchbacking beneath the telegraph wire. The outriders lean far back into their saddles. On the steepest parts, some walk alongside their mounts. Ramírez wonders whether, from deep in that darkening forest, bandits are watching their progress. Another turn in the road, and smoke from the inn’s chimney rises from the pines like a finger into paling sky. Down its length, the valley of Río Frío is drowned in a weird blue light.
November 20, 1865
A CHILL IN THE AIR
After so many sleeps the world has turned, Pepa explains, rotating her hands as if she were holding a ball between them. The terrace shines with dew. Then she lifts Atín, so that he can see over the railing something important.
“Po-po-ca-te-pet-l. You can say it.”
“Po,” Atín tries. And he sees the other volcano too, its jagged crown blazed white as a cake’s frosting.
“Es nieve. It’s snow. If you climb way, way up there, you could touch it, and it would feel cold.”
Atín knows that word. Once his mamma gave him a spoonful of green nieve. It tasted of limes as it melted on his tongue.
“Corazoncito, little heart,” Pepa says, kissing his hair, “you are my clever boy.”
A strand of her hair plays across his cheek. Far below beyond the treetops, down in the park, stretch the fields. Broad patches have faded to yellow. A man and his tandem-blade of a shadow move so slowly it almost seems they might be standing still. And then, in the haze-blue distance, there spreads the clot that is the city: unchanged, waiting. The thought of his mamma and papa presses heavy into Atín’s chest.
And he misses Lupe. Sometimes, too, he thinks about Doña Juliana, who lived downstairs. He did not like her mantilla, it was black and it smelled of camphor. But he liked her. She would tickle his chin and say, Who is this pollito, this little chick, is he Agustín? Is he my Agustín chiquitín?
Pepa is explaining that it is a time called November, and in the north, very far, over that way, where she and her brothers and sisters and her mother, his granny, had to live before Atín was born, all the trees have turned red and gold as if they were on fire. They will drop their leaves. And then everything, the fields, the roads, the roofs of the houses, even the ponds and rivers, will be covered by a cold white blanket called snow. Here that will not happen, Atín does not have to worry. No, not all of the trees here will keep their leaves but most will. “And the only snow—the only snow, I promise you, corazoncito, will stay where it is, there, the caps on those mountains. But the air feels cooler, yes? That is why, even though he does not always want to—” Pepa taps his top button with her finger—“Prince Agustín must wear his sweater.”
Atín pouts.
“Haven’t you seen in the park how the ducks and the other little birds fluff themselves fat?”
Atín sighs into her shoulder.
“And I must wear my shawl. Isn’t it a pretty shawl?” Pepa lifts the jet-fringed end of it, and flings it over Atín’s head. “And so—” she bumps her nose into his and says, just the way Atín’s mamma says, “we’re snug as two bugs in a rug.”
“Bugs, rugs.” Atín giggles.
Some things are different now. Some of the footmen are not the ones that were here at first. And the lady who comes to fix the hairdos. Olivia, that bad nanny, she’s gone.
Tere says, “Give me your little paw,” and she laces her fingers with his. Tere’s hands are smaller than Pepa’s; like his nanny Lupe’s, they are the dark of piloncillo, and Tere’s feel so soft. Holding hands with both Tere and his auntie, that’s how Atín likes to walk in the park. With his arms up like this, his sweater tickles his chin, but he doesn’t mind because he can lift his shoes off the ground, and Tere and Pepa carry him until—he dashes to the pond!
The ducks, in a chevron, swim up. Tere gives Atín a piece of tortilla. He can’t fling it far; it lands on the scum green. A duck waddles out of the water and gobbles it. The duck stands so close, Atín could thunk its head! Its yellow eyes want more tortilla. The glistening wet bill has two pinholes for nostrils.
“Waahk,” the duck says, and he shivers the water from his tail.
Pepa pulls him away from the duck and, with a flap of her shawl, shoos it back into the pond. Tere tosses bits of tortilla out far, the rest of the ducks quack and honk and stab their bills in the water. Too far for Atín.
There are people who want to watch Atín, but Horst keeps them back.
Atín has a hard time understanding Horst, but he hardly says anything anyway. But one time, Horst said, when Atín is big, he will show him how to shoot crows. Horst aimed his rifle at the trees and he said, “Bak!” Atín said, “Bak!” Horst said, “Ja, ja. So.”
And there are flamingos; they hide behind a bank of rushes. A pair of necks slither up, and those flamingos preen themselves. They toss around their bills, big as shoes. Near the far shore, a canoe glides by, its prow netted with gem green light. A man is rowing, his oars rising and then falling, clap, swush. A tiny lady sits in the back, trailing her hand in the green. Her bonnet makes her head look like an egg. The man growls at her; she turns away her fa
ce.
Here in the park Horst keeps his horse. In the stables, there are many horses. Pepa lets Atín give the gentle brown one a carrot. The piebald mare has died, “who knows why,” Tere shrugs. It lies in the corner of its stall, covered with an army blanket.
Tere feeds the monkey. They watch its spidery fingers rip at the skin of the banana.
They all, except not the monkey, take a ride in Atín’s pony cart. His ponies wear blue feathers on their heads. Their names are Pinto and Lola, and they both have chocolate brown tails that are nicely brushed and they swish. Many people wave at Atín when he goes by in his pony cart.
Afterward, with Horst following behind, Atín, his auntie, and Tere walk to the water tank where sometimes they find the lion man swimming laps. Sometimes there are dragonflies.
Always Atín looks carefully at the faces of the people in the park in case they might be his mamma or papa. Once, his heart leapt when he thought he saw his cousin Salvo sitting on a bench by the fountain. He was gnawing at a mango on a stick. But coming closer, Atín saw it was not Salvo.
Beneath the ahuehuetes, the air is gauzy; sunlight dapples the path as if someone has run ahead of them strewing coins. Pepa stops and rubs her hip.
Back in the carriage again, Tere takes Atín on her lap, and with her arms around him, she rests her chin lightly on his hair. He feels sleepy. Pepa says, “Pass him to me.” As he is pulled over, a memory pricks him: the flowery scent of his mamma’s hair, the soft seashell of her ear. Heavily, he lays his head on his auntie’s shoulder, and he remembers how he used to feel his mamma’s breath rise—just like this. Fall, like this.
“Don’t cry,” Tere says. She scoots close and tugs his little finger. “Whose is this funny worm?”
“Don’t get him going,” Pepa says. “He needs his nap.” The carriage, with a jolt, begins to roll.
It is a long ride up the ramp around the mountain, and the two sorrel mares, as they always do, trudge slow. But Atín does not mind going back up to the big sky-house, not so much as he used to. After his nap, he can run with Tere through all the rooms, she’ll call after him, “Where is Agustinito? Where is Agustinito hiding?” Wherever he goes in this big sky-house, people are delighted to see him. “So,” the lion man always says, “how is my handsome little cousin?” The ladies coo at him and fondle his curls. As if he was a grown-up, the soldiers say to him, “Good day, sir.” If Atín wants to see Horst’s pocket watch, Horst takes it out and puts it in Atín’s hand. That grandpa with the caterpillar eyebrows, just this morning, he bent down on his knee to let Atín peer through his eyeglass (everything went blurry). “I am your good amigo, Señor von Kuhacsevich,” he said, but Atín cannot say that name, yet. “Kuha,” Atín tries. And Atín knows Frau Kuha’s room with its windup music box, so shiny that when he touches it his fingers leave prints. Frau Kuha has taught him to count: Ein, zwei, drei—what comes after that, Atín forgets sometimes.
“Vier,” Frau Kuha says, holding up four fingers. “And then?”
Atín shows his bottom teeth.
“What comes next, now?”
“Fünf!” Atín says, with his whole hand.
“Ach,” she says to Pepa. “He’s already quite the linguist!”
He has lots of balls now, red and yellow, purple with stars, and a squooshy avocado green one that does not want to bounce, it just rolls. His new favorite is the red one. Tere takes Atín to the kitchen garden. One time his ball smacked the back wall and bounced out into the chili-pepper bush. The chef, Tüdos, wiped his hands on his apron and then, with a wink, tossed it back to Tere.
Tüdos wears a mushroom hat. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, and on cold days, too.
With Tere and Tüdos, Atín has seen the inside of the kitchen. He knows all the stairs, they don’t frighten him the way they used to. He can take any stairs he wants, Tere showed him how to step down sideways. “One at a time,” Tere says, “you can do it.” At the bottom of the big stairs sit a pair of marble lions resting their beards on their paws. Whenever he wants her to, Tere lifts him so that he can put a finger in a lion’s mouth and feel its smooth cold tongue.
At home he used to stretch his fingers for the bannister with its wood so smooth—he fell and his nanny Lupe caught him, or was that a dream? Sometimes he dreams about Lupe. He has had a dream of his mamma and papa, and his uncles, and Salvo, too, they were in a house on water. They looked out their windows, and all they could see was water.
Atín feels his auntie’s hand heavy on his back. He puts his thumb in his mouth.
Sweet lamb, thinks Pepa. Sweet, innocent child of God. She loves him, and much more, she thinks, than his natural mother ever could have. Pepa has loved this child from the day he first opened his blue eyes, but in this past month and a half, her love has blossomed into something bigger than she has ever felt in her life. If she were starving, she would give him her last morsel; if she were dying of thirst, her last drop of water. He is all that she lives for now. The relation with her brothers and Alicia has been severed. Through no doing of her own—no, Pepa considers herself as innocent as the driven snow.
Isn’t it always the same story? She is the one made to suffer! And when she acted out of patriotism and the fear of God. After having arranged everything for their benefit! Their pensions are more than double what they had hoped for. And that little American, she must have said a hundred times, oh, to live in Paris! That was all she could talk about. One had to put up with her endless nattering about the new wardrobe she would have made à Paris, after she had a chance to see what was, as she liked to say, vraiment comme il faut.
Alicia, Pepa concluded long ago, is like a child invited to help herself in a sweet shop. She has no control over her appetites or her emotions.
How very alone Pepa feels here. Carlota, half her age, is polite but cool. (Apparently, according to Frau von Kuhacsevich, this is her nature.) It has been nearly two weeks since the empress departed for Yucatan, taking with her an entourage of two ladies-in-waiting, Monsieur Eloin, His Excellency Fernando Ramírez, a passel of ambassadors, General Uraga, and what must have been more than half the servants. According to protocol Pepa is now the highest-ranking feminine personage in the Imperial Residence, and on the occasions Maximilian has condescended to include her at his table, he has seated her to his right. However, in the empress’s absence, there can be no balls, no tertulias—court life has come to an abrupt halt. Dinners with Maximilian are a trial. His melancholy casts a pall over the entire party. He picks at his food, but the moment His Majesty sets down his cutlery, the footmen clear the table, no matter that the guests have not finished theirs.
Many evenings Pepa takes her supper on a tray in her sitting room. She understands some German but not enough to join the others in the billiards room. Frau von Kuhacsevich has kindly invited her to play whist and jack-straws with them, but Schertzenlechner cheats, and it is too tedious.
Tedious: this ramshackle castle, exposed to the ever-harsh sun, or the cold, and the biting wind. Annoyances are legion. One closes the drapes, well, one must put on a lamp, but these are filled with such inferior oil, they smoke and, within minutes, the room becomes the inside of a wigwam! The stench seeps into the upholstery, and one’s hair and clothes. The footmen have no clue how to tend or clean a lamp properly, or else Frau von Kuhacsevich lacks the vocabulary to explain. Probably both. The only place to escape to is the park below, where one is a magnet for gapers and gawkers, so many malodorous Indians, and soldiers who seem to imagine one cannot see they are urinating into the bushes. And the Master of Ceremonies imposes one expensive nuisance after the other (diamonds for this event, pearls and silks for that), and one cannot blow one’s nose without at least eleven footmen, a housemaid, and a bodyguard all to witness it.
A plague of busybodies! Starting with the empress, who, knowing no more about raising a child than she would a kangaroo, instructed the nursemaid to give Agustín cold baths and a daily dose of fish oil! No wonder he screamed. And
Frau von Kuhacsevich, clearly, she is overburdened by her duties. The staff does not respect her.
With Maximilian’s approval, Pepa has resolved to purchase a house, perhaps that one on the Calle Espíritu Santo with the charming blue-tile patio? This would have the added advantage of preserving her capital. Sending the bulk of it to New Orleans would be impolitic, and putting it all into jewelry, the same as depositing it in one of the local banks (even the vaunted Banco de Londres y México), unacceptably risky. It goes without saying that Pepa should continue to be included in court functions, but in her own residence she could take the reins, manage her own staff, receive her visitors with discretion, and in close consultation with Maximilian, of course, educate Prince Agustín without all this pointless interference.
This arrangement has not turned out quite the way Pepa had envisioned. Maximilian, who was so friendly, has become distant. He is dangerously distracted by his botanizing, his landscaping projects, trudging out to view the most recently unearthed Aztec whatnot—a cracked pot or some horrid idol with a necklace of skulls. One had to tag along with the ambassadors for the unveiling of the Sun Stone, sixteen metric tons of a pagan calendar, for all the fanfare one would have thought they were looking upon the Rosetta Stone. It is so typical of Germans to wax enthusiastic about these relics that ought to have been left right where they were found: in the rubbish pile.
This week, she has it from one of the chambermaids, Maximilian has been indisposed by another bout of—is it malaria, or just something he ate? His doctor has been dosing him with charcoal, salt, and egg yolk, a remedy of questionable value. Monsieur Langlais, the latest finance expert Louis Napoleon has deigned to ship over the pond, has yet to wrestle Mexico’s treasury into any semblance of order—and how can he, when the French keep a throttlehold on the income from the customhouses and the mines? Rumors are—certain persons, among them very high-placed Frenchmen, have been shamelessly lining their pockets.
