The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  “Gratitude, Mr. Valdivia, gratitude and ingratitude. The former is a very rare form of political currency. The latter, everyday trash.”

  Very discreetly he removed a speck from the corner of his eye.

  “Just think for a moment of how many PRI presidents were loyal to their predecessors. After all, under the old PRI’s rule the man who came to occupy the Eagle’s Throne had been placed there by the throne’s previous occupant. ‘The concealed one’ became ‘the anointed one.’ A perverse consequence of the system: The new all-powerful leader had to prove, as quickly as possible, that he was not dependent on the man who appointed him. How paradoxical, Mr. Valdivia, or should I say how parafucksical. A single-party system in which the opposition always wins, because the new president has to screw his predecessor.”

  “There were exceptions, though,” I said in a Cartesian spirit.

  The Old Man picked out three rolls from the bread basket and left the other eight there. He didn’t have to say anything else, although with the finger of God he did invisibly trace the numbers “1940–1994” on the tablecloth.

  “Now, of course, we live in a democracy,” I said with forced optimism.

  “And the incumbent still has his favorites to succeed him, he’s already mulling over who will best serve the country, who will be most loyal to him, who will respect his people, and who will not. . . .”

  “But nowadays the president’s own candidate will not necessarily be the successor, as he was in your day. . . .”

  “No, but regardless of who wins the elections the ex-president will always be, lethally, the ex-president. And every ex-president, it turns out, has skeletons in his closet. Crooked brothers, insatiable lovers, incorrigible sisters, deviant children, false proxies for his business interests, lifelong friends that cannot be condemned to death, who knows what else . . . What other choice does he have but to make amends for the extravagance of those closest to him by living with monastic austerity? See what they say about me? I go to bed early so as not to waste the candles.”

  “You know everything.”

  I flashed him my best smile. He didn’t reciprocate.

  “Suffer and learn,” he sighed, and once again looked out dreamily toward the misty bulk of the San Juan de Ulúa castle, the fortress guarding the entrance to the port.

  I realized that, focused as I was on the Old Man’s words and gestures, I hadn’t looked very closely at Ulúa’s grayish mass, which seemed an architecture apart, embedded in the past, weighed down by a history that couldn’t be undone.

  “See that castle that used to be a prison? Can you begin to imagine the number of politicians who should be there now, purging their wrongs?”

  “If you say so, sir . . .”

  He shrugged his shoulders, creaking slightly.

  “We have two golden rules in Mexican politics. One is benign: no re-election. The other is more unforgiving: exile. The reason, however, is the same: All delinquents are recidivists, my young friend.”

  He peered at me from the depths of the lines under his eyes.

  “You know, it is a mistake to think that a president controls only the weak. The most urgent but most difficult task is that of controlling the powerful. I’m going to give you a rule for you to share with all the people you know who aspire to public office. Anyone who wants to be part of the cabinet should first take in a liter of vinegar through his nose. That’s the best training there is for getting close to the presidency, I promise you. . . .”

  The waiter approached us with the massive, steaming coffeepot. The Old Man declined. He had not offered me a third coffee, but he pushed my coffee glass toward me.

  It was then that, rather inopportunely, I asked the former head of state, “And you, Mr. President, is there anyone you favor to be Lorenzo Terán’s successor?”

  The Old Man fell silent for a moment as he gazed out at the crows settling down for the night in the Indian laurels that lined the plaza: flocks of birds making such a racket as they searched for nighttime shelter that luckily they drowned out my voice, even though I know the Old Man heard me. I’ve never known a man with as keen an ear as the ex-president, my dear lady, even though all the people who used to ask him for favors would very stupidly steer him over to the most isolated corner of his office and say to him, “Since everyone says that deep down you’re a good man . . .”

  I don’t know if the Old Man Under the Arches is a good man or a bad man. All I know is that he’s a sly old dog, that he knows everything, and reveals nothing. Did he hear me? Did he not? Did he not want the waiter to hear? Whatever the case, my admirable though cruel friend, the Old Man used those minutes of silence, interrupted only by the raucous (or was it mournful?) cawing of those birds in the twilight, to give me a political lesson in how to say everything without saying anything.

  I urge you to repeat, in front of a mirror, each and every one of the gestures the old ex-president demonstrated for me.

  First, he raised one finger to his earlobe and rubbed it. One must know how to listen.

  Then he covered his eyes with both hands. If I saw you, I don’t remember.

  After that, he took his index finger and tugged at one of his eyelids. Keep your eyes open. Careful. Always be on your guard.

  After that, he raised one eyebrow as if to suggest skepticism. Don’t let this man pull the wool over your eyes.

  And at the same time, he tilted his hand left and right as if to say, Be careful with this other one. He’s more slippery than an eel. He knows how to sustain a ruse.

  For his finale, he placed his index finger on one of his nostrils. Don’t let them fool you. Sniff them out.

  I enumerate, my dear friend, the quick succession of signals that followed the nasal symbolism. Hand on heart. Both hands flapping to indicate the separation of incompatible issues. Hand on crotch to indicate balls. Thumb pointed upward, like Caesar granting life in the Circus Maximus, and then turned down as if condemning someone to death. Index finger cutting the throat like a razor blade. Index finger and thumb held together in a perfect “O” to indicate success. Lips pursed in a grimace to inject a measure of doubt into the moment of triumph. Squinting eyes to suggest doubt and the question, Who do you think you are? Shoulders raised in resignation, as if to say, What can we do about it? Hands held open, as if to say, Such is life. And then his famous index finger raised in ominous warning. And finally, the same finger passing over the lips like an invisible zipper. Not a word. Shh! Silence is golden.

  After this masterful display of body language, my admirable and desired lady, all that was left for me was to thank the Old Man Under the Arches for his advice, his time, his attention. He looked at me from behind his mask of impartiality. He wanted me to look at him as a character playing a role. The benign country patriarch. The wise Mexican Cincinnatus. He was educating me: Son, play stupid. A man has to know how to act the fool. Be the village idiot. Pure gesticulation. Not a word. The master of circumlocution. The juggler of all things unspoken because they are understood by all. The king of the euphemism.

  I left, thanking the Old Man, who bowed his head toward me as a parrot settled on his shoulder and the waiter offered him a box of dominoes.

  The sun was setting quite spectacularly, hidden crows cawed, and the castle-prison of San Juan de Ulúa, so sinister during the day, looked legendary as night fell.

  P.S. You have rescinded my right to speak to you in the familiar until I can prove myself worthy of these circumstances. You have sent me like a little schoolboy to be taught by the Old Man Under the Arches as if the latest version of Plato’s Academy were now located in this derelict old port’s main plaza. But don’t think I’m offended, it only entices me. NV.

  14

  DULCE DE LA GARZA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  Madam: If I dare to write to you, it is only because I have no other way of contacting you. And you are who you are. The whole country knows that. There isn’t a single woman with more influence (I don’t know if I’ve
said it properly—perhaps I should say there isn’t a single more influential woman?) than you. All doors open for you. The powerful listen to you. But your doors are closed to the powerless. And I am an insignificant woman. Once, I could have been as powerful as you are now. But my name says it all—at one time I could have been, but I wasn’t. So I write to you now, madam, I freely admit it, because you are powerful and I am not. But I also write to ask you woman to woman: What has become of my beloved? Can’t you tell me anything? Who is buried in my lover’s grave in Veracruz? Why are there two graves, one beneath the other? One with a wax model inside melting from the heat, and the other empty? Madam, if you have ever felt love for a man—and I don’t doubt that you have— please take pity on me. In the name of the man you have loved most dearly in your own life, think of me, have mercy on me, my loneliness and my pain, and please tell me: Where is the body of my beloved? Where can I go to bring him flowers, kneel down, pray for him, think of him, and tell him how terribly and desperately I miss him and need him? Can’t you help me? Is this a lot to ask? Is it too much? Am I asking for the impossible?

  15

  EX-PRESIDENT CÉSAR LEÓN TO PRESIDENT LORENZO TERÁN

  I wish to thank you, Mr. President, for the friendship and even the trust you have shown toward me by rescinding the unwritten ban that has kept me out of the country during the years of my “ex-presidency.” Your generosity toward me is proof of your self-confidence. I haven’t come to take anything away from you, Mr. President. If only your predecessors had said the same. As golden as it may be, exile is always bitter. A man carries his country in his heart, his blood, his head. But also in his feet. To be able to set foot on Mexican soil again, Mr. President, is the marvelous gift you have given me, and I intend to repay it with gratitude and loyalty.

  On that matter, I had come to believe that the proof of my loyalty to you was my silence. Now you, showing a magnanimity that befits you, and in the spirit of mutual loyalty, have asked for my advice.

  Imagine what that means to a man like me, showered with adulation one day only to wake up the next melancholy day and find himself out of office, asking the painful question, “Where did all my friends go?”

  It was as though I was Gracchus, the noble Roman who ran to the beach thinking that the approaching soldiers had come to free him, only to discover that they were there to kill him. Loyalties can be changed as quickly as coats. The man who was once my friend suddenly became my enemy in the space of half an hour. . . .

  Very well, Mr. President, since you’ve asked me to speak frankly, this is my message to you.

  Though you won the election, never forget that in the end you’ll lose your power.

  I know what I’m talking about.

  Be prepared.

  The victory of becoming president eventually and inevitably gives way to the defeat of becoming the ex-president.

  Be prepared.

  It takes much more imagination to be ex-president than to be president. This is because you will inevitably leave a problem behind you, and that problem has a name: yours.

  Mexico’s problems go back for centuries. Nobody has ever been able to solve them. But people always blame the country’s ills on whoever holds—and above all whoever has just given up—power.

  That was my downfall. Perhaps it’s not the person but the job that’s to blame. How easy it would be to delegate from the first day. But it doesn’t work like that. It can’t. From the very moment he takes his seat on the Eagle’s Throne, the president must prove that there’s only one voice in Mexico—his own. That was the meaning of the Aztec emperor’s name, Tlatoani, god of the Great Voice. That is what our position as occupiers of the Eagle’s Throne demands of us: to claim the Great Voice. The only voice.

  Naturally we have the power to sack an incompetent (or disloyal) minister. But in the end, all responsibility ultimately falls upon the shoulders of the president. Sometimes we’re offered champagne. But more often we’re forced to drink something bitter. We all hope to be judged not for the errors committed during our last few days in power, but for the virtues of the previous six years, and there are always a few. Rarely, however, does it work out like that, I warn you with all due respect.

  Besides, intentions count for nothing; only results matter. And since you’ve granted me permission to bring up the subject of the presidential succession that already looms large given the accelerated nature of our new democratic system (those of us from the old PRI always managed to keep our horses locked up in their stables until the last minute before the race, but that was another racetrack, and the jockeys were all too fat), the one thing I’ll say is that in the old days, once the candidate had been selected—as late as possible, I insist—the incumbent virtually became an ex-president.

  One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that the succession process still takes place primarily in the mind of the man who occupies the Eagle’s Throne. There, inside his head, he ponders who among all the possible heirs to the PRI’s hereditary republic has the strongest grass-roots support, the greatest loyalty among labor and peasant collectives, and the most favorable position in the polls.

  Oh, Mr. President, shall I tell you the truth, the nitty-gritty? Public opinion isn’t worth shit. The notion that X is a viable successor because he’s tremendously popular only works against the incumbent. It’s conceivable that, once in office, without debts to anyone but the voters, the popular president will cut off all his obligations to the outgoing president. What you want and hope for is Y, because he has your support and no one else’s, because he’s trailing in all the polls, because when he succeeds you he’ll be indebted to you. Because, as a result, he’ll be the most loyal of the lot.

  Oh, Mr. President. A big mistake. If you select the man who owes you the most, you can be certain that he’ll betray you in order to prove that he doesn’t depend on you. In other words: He who owes you the most will feel under the strongest obligation to exercise his independence or, to put it bluntly, his disloyalty. Political cannibalism occurs everywhere, but only in Mexico is the public corpse seasoned with two hundred different kinds of chili pepper—from the tiniest piquín to the big and delicious stuffed poblano, to say nothing of the jalapeño, the chipotle, and the morrón. The great ritual act of a new president is the killing of his predecessor. Prepare yourself, Mr. President. Watch your back. Very few will stand by you in defeat as they stood by you in victory. There and only there will loyalties be tested and proven. The only opportunity or virtue left to us is the very difficult one of trying to be the best ex-president we can, repressing the desire to complain, overlooking all the damage done to our allies, forgetting about the insults, and above all showing our loyalty to the new head of state. I warn you in advance: This is the most difficult part. We’re inclined to feel rage, hatred, resentment, to hatch plots and vendettas. We feel the inevitable temptation to play the Count of Monte Cristo. A big mistake. If the pain of exile (voluntary in theory but compulsory in practice) is compounded by the desire for revenge, we’ll ultimately lose all sense of reality and begin to invent an imaginary country where everything continues exactly as we left it when we descended from the Eagle’s Throne.

  Mr. President, the most serious advice I can give you is that even if you feel persecuted, simply pretend nothing is wrong. Allow your very visible loyalty to be the most subtle and elegant vendetta of all. I assure you that I did everything I could to put it all behind me and I very nearly succeeded. I lived out my exile in Switzerland reading volume after volume of ancient history because the most enduring lessons regarding the exercise of power are those offered by Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus. Chief among the stories they tell, Mr. President, is that of the nobleman Sabinus, murdered for his alleged disloyalty to Caesar. Sabinus’ dog, the story goes, refused to move away from his master’s body, and even put food into his mouth. Finally Sabinus’ body was thrown into the Tiber, but the dog jumped in after it and kept it afloat.

  “Kill the dog!” th
e guard ordered.

  Such are the extremes of loyalty, Mr. President. Count on mine.

  16

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  If Tácito de la Canal is as slippery a snake as you suspect, my dear lady, then unfortunately I haven’t been able to provide any more evidence to support that claim beyond his obsequiousness with superiors and his cruelty with inferiors. The president’s chief of staff has been very careful to maintain a facade of exemplary humility. He lives in Colonia Cuauhtémoc in a tiny two-room apartment with a kitchen, a stairway landing that smells like cat piss, furniture from Lerdo Chiquito, and piles of old magazines. A monk, if you will, with no other luxury than that of power for power’s sake.

  Well, then. Finally I’ve come up with a bit of evidence that is inconclusive in and of itself but which could open the door to greater mysteries.

  You know, my mistress María del Rosario, it’s like one of those books our grandmothers used to give us. On a page with a picture of the inside of a home there’s a little window that allows us to see the garden on the next page, which in turn has a gate that opens onto a third page, and then that third page opens onto a forest that leads the eye all the way down to the water’s edge, where a boat waits to deliver us to an enchanted island. And so on. It’s like the never-ending story, isn’t it?

  Well, having been transformed into a Versace model and duly instructed by yours truly, our little Doris led Tácito to believe that now that she was such an elegant, modern woman, she would not object to, let’s say, a more intimate sort of relationship with him. As surely as Tácito is a satyr, so was the god Pan’s machinery set in motion, and little by little—duly instructed, once again, by me—Doris, who needed only to break away from her sinister mother to blossom, began to toy with Tácito, putting him off, making him take her out to restaurants at first, and then to bars, to the Gran León dance hall so she could show off her tabaré dancing, but never to any motel, much less a hotel room.