The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  María del Rosario, pay attention to your friend Xavier “Seneca” Zaragoza, trusted adviser to President Lorenzo Terán, who says that when the glitter and tinsel of this deceitful world disappear, the ace in the pack, the card hidden up your sleeve, may very well be the one thing everyone scoffs at as ineffective, unrealistic folly: the noble figure whose dignity can redeem the rest of us from our despicable infamy, the virtuous man who may be able to save our system.

  Are you that man, Nicolás Valdivia, or has my judgment failed me? Has my legendary intuition faltered? Have politics eaten through my brain so severely that one whole side—the moral side—has stopped functioning altogether? Might you, my ravishing friend, be the person who can revive it miraculously?

  Well, if the rule of discretion becomes impossible, perhaps the rules governing corruption, hypocrisy, and lies will go, too. If so, necessity will become my virtue and I will surrender to indiscretion with utter recklessness.

  This letter I write to you now, Nicolás Valdivia, is evidence of that. There are no other forms of communication beyond the verbal, the immediate presence, which I feel is too dangerous, or the “mediate,” which is less risky and, in the end, our only practical choice. The question, then, my very desired young man, is knowing which of the two methods—the oral or the written—will hasten the thing we both want, though our timings may differ. The path to my bed is not free of obstacles, dear Nicolás. You’ll have to open a thousand doors before you reach it. It’s almost like one of those Oriental tales, you know the kind I mean. I will put you to the test every single day. The reward will depend on you. I know that my carnal delights would be enough to satisfy you. And I admit that I desire your body, but I desire your success even more. Sex can be immediate, only to end up being a brief, unsatisfying quickie.

  Political fortune, on the other hand, is one very long orgasm, my darling. Success must be gradual and slow in coming if it is to endure. A prolonged orgasm, my sweet.

  Start opening those doors, my child, one by one. Beyond the last threshold is my bedroom. The last key unlocks my body.

  Nicolás Valdivia: I will be yours when you are the president of Mexico.

  And I assure you: I will make you the president of Mexico. I swear it to you by the sign of the cross. In the name of the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, I promise you this, my love.

  2

  XAVIER “SENECA” ZARAGOZA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  I don’t expect them to pay any attention to me. A trusted adviser like me fulfills his duty by advising with goodwill—which is never enough— and good information, which is never forthcoming. If I manage to survive this catastrophe it will only be because this time the president actually, and unfortunately, listened to me.

  As I always do, my cherished friend, I invoked principles—after all, principles are the reason the president listens to me at all. I’m the cricket in the ear of his conscience. I rummage through my files of ethical concerns. Perhaps my secret hope, María del Rosario, is that my conscience may remain clear even if realpolitik slides toward pragmatism. As you know, realpolitik is the asshole through which we expel what we’ve eaten—whether it’s caviar or cactus, duck à l’orange or a taco de nenepil. Principles, on the other hand, are the head without the anus. Principles don’t go to the bathroom. Realpolitik is what clogs the toilet bowls of the world, and in this world of power you have no other choice but to pay tribute to Mother Nature.

  Today, for once, principles won out. Perhaps as a gift to an anxious populace in this new year of 2020, the president decided to offer moral satisfaction, not just good news. In his message to Congress, he called for the withdrawal of the United States’ occupation forces in Colombia and on top of it all a ban on the export of Mexican oil to the United States, unless Washington agreed to pay the prices established by OPEC. To make matters worse, we announced these decisions at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The response, as you can see, was not long in coming. We woke up on January 2 with our oil, our gas, and our principles intact, but with our communications systems cut off from the rest of the world. The United States, alleging a glitch in the satellite communications system that they so kindly allow us to use, has left us with no faxes, no e-mail, no grid, and no telephone service. We have but two forms of communication available to us now, oral and epistolary—as is exemplified by this letter I write to you now, though I fight to suppress the urge to eat it and swallow it whole. Why the hell did the president pay attention to me and put his principles ahead of damn reality this time? Oh, if you could only see me now—I’m banging my head against the wall, I can’t stop asking myself, over and over again:

  “Seneca, who ever told you to be a man of principle?”

  “Seneca, what is so terrible about being a little more pragmatic?”

  “Seneca, why do you have to go against the majority of the presidential cabinet?”

  Here you have me, my dear María del Rosario, here you have pigheaded old Seneca banging his head against the walls of the republic— Mexico’s eternal wailing wall.

  At least, my dear friend, the wall isn’t made of stone. It’s padded, just like in a mental hospital, which is where your good friend Xavier Zaragoza—known as “Seneca” for reasons both marvelous and miserable—should be committed. Born in Córdoba, Seneca was the Stoic philosopher (pay attention if you don’t know this, and bear with me if you do and if you still love me nevertheless) who committed suicide at Nero’s court. His principles were irreconcilable with those of the empire. And yet to this day, in his native land of Andalucía, the word “Seneca” is synonymous with “sage,” or “philosopher.”

  What shall be my destiny at the presidential court of Mexico, my dear María del Rosario? An enchanted life or death by disenchantment? At the dawn of the year 2020, we certainly have reasons for disenchantment. A communications system that’s completely cut off from the rest of the world, riots breaking out here and there, signs of social and geographical fragmentation . . . and a president who is good, well-intentioned, weak, and passive.

  Don’t blame me, María del Rosario. You know that my advice is sincere and, at times, even brutal. Nobody speaks to the president as honestly as I do, you know that. And I fervently believe that this country needs at least one disinterested voice whispering into the ear of President Lorenzo Terán. Such is our agreement, my dear friend, yours and mine. I’m there to say, “Mr. President, you know I’m your totally impartial friend.”

  Which is not entirely true. I’m primarily interested in getting the president to shake off that reputation for inaction he’s earned during his time in office—almost three years guided by the mistaken conviction that all our problems will just sort themselves out, that an intrusive government creates more problems than it solves, and that civil society should always be the first to act. In his view, the government should always be the last resort. For once, we must admit he’s right. What on earth got into him, starting off the new year by invoking principles of sovereignty and nonintervention, instead of just letting the apples fall from the tree, since they were already rotten? What do we care about Colombia? And why not just let Venezuela and the Arabs deal with the dirty business of the oil markets instead of taking sides with a gang of corrupt sheikhs? We’ve always been good at making the most of others’ conflicts without having to take sides. But when you go around giving advice, you never quite know what the outcome will be, and this time, I admit, the whole thing backfired.

  “Put some ideas forward, Mr. President, before the people impose them on you. In the long run, if you don’t come up with some ideas of your own, you’ll be crushed by everyone else’s.”

  “Like yours, for example?” he asked with an innocent’s face.

  “No,” I had the nerve to say. “No. I was thinking of that creep Tácito de la Canal.”

  I wounded his pride, I realize that now, and he ended up doing exactly the opposite of what his favorite, his chief of staff Tácito de la Canal—who is more than a
simple lackey, this guy wrote the book on servility—advised him to do.

  One day, my dear friend, you’ll have to sit down and explain to me why a man as intelligent, dignified, and kind as our head of state keeps a fawning sycophant like Tácito de la Canal beside the Eagle’s Throne. Simply watch how he rubs his hands together and humbly raises them to his lips, his head bowed forward, and you will see that he’s nothing more than a depraved man whose hypocrisy is comparable only to the boundless ambition he so poorly conceals behind his false sincerity!

  Behold the paradox, my (favorite) friend: My good advice brings about dismal results, while Tácito’s terrible advice could have averted this whole calamity. But I had gotten complacent, María del Rosario, I had gotten used to giving all that good advice under the assumption that it would be ignored once again. I know that my words stroke the moral ego of our head of state, who just by listening to me feels “ethical” and considers his duty to principles done, which allows him to follow the advice of Tácito de la Canal, the opposite of mine, with a clear conscience.

  Tell me if that isn’t enough to make you despair and want to give up altogether. What’s stopping me? you might ask. A vague, philosophical hope. I may have my shortcomings, but if I’m not there, someone worse—much worse—will take my place. I am the Shimon Peres of the presidential mansion. As bitter as my defeats may be, at least I can sleep at night: I offer my advice honestly. It’s not my fault if they don’t take it. There are far too many voices claiming our leader’s attention. Some sediment of my truth must have gotten into President Lorenzo Terán’s spirit. But on occasions like this, my dear friend, the president would have been better off listening to my enemies, instead of me.

  3

  MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO NICOLÁS VALDIVIA

  You’re so insistent, my beloved and handsome Nicolás. I see that my letter failed to convince you. My lack of persuasiveness troubles me more than your lack of intelligence. That’s why I don’t blame you. I must be thick, clumsy, inarticulate. I tell you my reasons directly, and still you, such a clever boy, fail to understand me. The blame, I repeat, must lie with me. Nevertheless, I must admit that I’m not indifferent to your passion, which almost makes me want to go back on my word. Now, don’t think that with your fervent prose you’ve knocked down the walls of my sexual fortress—as you put it. No, the drawbridge is still up and the chains on the gate are padlocked. But there’s a window, my lovely young Nicolás, one that lights up every night at eleven o’clock.

  There, a woman you desire slowly undresses as if being observed by a witness more human and warm than the cold surface of her mirror. That woman is seen by nobody and yet she undresses with a sensual slowness as if she were being watched. That creature is delectable, Nicolás. And she finds it delectable to undress before a mirror with the slow deliberate movements of an artist of the stage or the court (a fanciful image, I know), pretending that eyes more avid than those of the mirror are looking at her with desire—the burning desire you convey, you wicked boy, you mischievous young thing, desirable object of my desire only because you can be deferred. For the price of consummated desire—don’t you know yet?—is subsequent virtue or, even worse, indifference.

  You’ll say that a woman of almost fifty is entitled to fend off the youthful and ardent but perhaps frivolous and transient passions of a garçon barely over the age of thirty. Believe that if you wish. But don’t detest me. I’m perfectly willing to delay your hatred and encourage your hope, my almost but no longer quite so naïve little friend. Tonight, at eleven o’clock, I will proceed with my déshabiller. I will leave my bedroom curtains wide open. The lights will be on so I might be wise, modest, and titillating in equal measure.

  We have a date, my dear. For the moment, I can’t offer you more.

  4

  ANDINO ALMAZÁN TO PRESIDENT LORENZO TERÁN

  Mr. President, if anyone is suffering from the recent restrictions on communication it is I, your trusted servant. You know that my time-honored habit is to put all my advice to you in writing. “Opinions” are what some members of your cabinet, my colleagues, like to call those recommendations, as if the science of economics were a question of mere opinion. “Dogma” is what my enemies within the cabinet call them, proof of the insufferable, pontifical certainty of the treasury secretary, Andino Almazán, your loyal servant, Mr. President. But are laws the same thing as dogmas? Was the apple that fell onto Newton’s head and revealed the law of gravity dogmatic? And was it merely Einstein’s opinion that energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared?

  Likewise, it is not my idea, Mr. President, that prices determine the volume of resources employed, or that profits depend on monetary flow, or that the productivity of an employee will determine his demand in the labor market. But you already know what my enemies—I mean colleagues—call my “old song and dance.” And yet, Mr. President, today more than ever, given the situation that we are now up against, a situation you have wisely chosen to confront with populist measures (which your critics, I should warn you, will call useless posturing and your friends, like me, will call tactical concessions), today more than ever, I must reiterate my gospel for the economic health of this country.

  First, avoid inflation. Don’t allow anyone to turn on those little bank-note machines under the pretext of a “national emergency.” Second, raise taxes to defray the costs of the emergency without sacrificing services. Third, keep salaries low in the name of the emergency itself: More work for less money is, if you know how to present it, the patriotic formula. And finally, fix prices. Do not tolerate—rather, severely punish—anyone who dares to raise prices in the middle of this national emergency.

  You once said to me that economics has never stopped history, and maybe you’re right. But it’s equally true that economics can certainly make history (even though it may not be history). You’ve decided to adopt two policies that will ensure you popular support (though nobody knows for how long) and international conflict (with the greatest superpower in the world). As for popular support, I ask you once again: How long can it last? As for the international tension, just so you see that I’m not as dogmatic as my enemies claim, I won’t tell you that it will outlast the short-lived patriotic support that we earn when we stand up to the gringos without assessing the consequences. Instead, I’ll now turn the other cheek and tell you, Mr. President—and call me cynical if you must—that Mexico and Latin America will advance only if they concentrate on creating problems.

  Mexico and Latin America are important precisely because we don’t know how to manage our finances. We are important because we create problems for everyone else.

  I anxiously await your address to Congress tomorrow, and remain, as always, at your service.

  5

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  I don’t know what to admire more, my dear lady, your beauty or your cruelty. Beauty has but one name, no synonym can do it justice. To what can I compare the incomparable? Please don’t think me innocent, or blind. I’ve seen many (perhaps too many?) women in the nude. Yet I’d never truly seen a woman stripped of all her clothes until I saw you.

  I’m not referring to your beauty, my dear lady—I’ll discuss that in due course—but to the obscene totality of your nudity. Nor do I wish to play word games here (you think my knowledge precocious, but in reality I possess only the most meager collection of erudite references), but when I say that, I am saying that your nudity is ob-scene, off-scene, incomparable and invisible, and unfathomable if it did not materialize beyond the stage of your—and my—ordinary existence, your—our— everyday life, beyond the realm in which you dress and carry yourself in the normal world. . . . When you’re nude, o f-scene, ob-scene, and menacing, you are another woman and yet you are the same, do you understand me? You’re the same and yet you are transfigured, as if by taking off your clothes, my dear lady, you hinted at a final beauty, the beauty of a death that lives on eternally. A charming p
aradox. The way I saw you, that is how you will always be, until your death.

  No, let me amend that. I should have said “Even in death” or “Only in death.” Since the day I met you, I sensed you’d give me extraordinary pleasure, the greatest sensuality I’d ever known, not comparable to anything I’d experienced or imagined before. What an undeserved reward to spy on you from the woods while in front of the one lit window in the house you removed your black cocktail dress, and then, arms stretched behind your back, unhooked your black bra in an equally dark and audacious movement, revealing those two cups filled to overflowing, and you lifted up the front part of the bra and freed your breasts with a double caress, and there you were in nothing but your black panties, which you removed as you sat on the edge of a bed that seemed—forgive me for saying so—too cold and lonely, absurdly so, and instantly you rose, my lady, in all the splendor of your sexual maturity, white all over, twice pink, once black, facing me before turning your back to me so that I could admire that ass, the ass of Venus Callipyge, adored until she sank into the earth with trembling buttocks, so I could have what you spoke of the other day, the vision of a pleasure I must conquer at a price— I laugh at myself, madam—that is very possibly beyond my reach.

  Yes, that glimpse of you is all I would have needed. And I would have treasured the trifle you deigned to present to me and only me, María del Rosario, because I thought: This is for me, only for me. This midnight spectacle, unfolding before my eyes from the only lit room in a house tucked away in the middle of a pine forest, she offers it all up to me. . . .