The Eagle's Throne

by Carlos Fuentes

  I quote our friend Bernal Herrera: “All these evils can be avoided if we create a country with laws that we are prepared to enforce and obey.” This is the point. Tácito de la Canal has flagrantly violated the law. You know him. You’ve worked with him. You know he’s a cruel, miserable man. Perhaps you haven’t yet learned that the most cruel people are also the most insecure. They are cruel because they’re afraid of being nothing. Cruelty gives them an identity. It’s the easiest path for them. To love, to offer your hand to your fellow man, to attend to his needs—that, my friend, requires time and passion. Few people possess those virtues. I must confess that occasionally even I feel I lack them, and must remind myself: “Patience, woman. Stay calm.”

  But don’t trust chance if you want to destroy Tácito. Chance takes care of itself, so what you and Bernal and I must do is use our will to overcome chance, and govern with well-calculated actions. Never forget that passions are arbitrary forms of conduct. Let Tácito be the one to trust chance and act arbitrarily. The good politician knows how to turn everything into an advantage. Add up the elements yourself: one, your accidental encounter with that archivist, whatever his name is; two, the existence of those documents that were never destroyed; three, Tácito’s signature (I am astonished by that, I admit, and I’m still thinking about it); and four, our friendship, my close relationship with Bernal Herrera, and the political ides that are fast approaching, whether we like it or not.

  Add everything up, Nicolás Valdivia, and gauge your time. You are the master of a secret that you’ve shared with me, further confirming the trust I’ve placed in you, which you occasionally seem to doubt or perhaps not reciprocate. It doesn’t matter. Secrets, you know, are our worst political enemies. Look at Mexico, look at Colombia, look at Europe or the United States. Murders, shady business deals, drug trafficking, insider information. Our enemies are united by all these things. And now, the three of us have the good fortune of sharing a secret. You can’t imagine, Nicolás, the number of times when, in my younger years, I trusted friends I believed to be discreet, only to wake up from my innocent illusions to the reality of betrayal and recklessness. You give me back my confidence; you give me friendship.

  You, me, and Bernal, united by a secret.

  And standing before us, like the cast of a play, are all the others. The man who deceives and hides his true passions: Tácito de la Canal. The man who never lives up to his boastful claims: Andino Almazán. The man who performs his job professionally: Patricio Palafox. The man who only cares about getting rich: Felipe Aguirre. The man who reveals all his vices and hides none of his ambitions: Cícero Arruza. The inscrutable professional soldier who might be playing on more than one side: Mondragón von Bertrab. And then, the most dangerous player of all, the man who collects victims like other people collect stamps: our ex-president César León.

  And you and me and Bernal Herrera.

  And a president who only wants to make his mark on history.

  Let’s help him.

  Oh yes, of course, the medium is petty, even despicable. But since we have no other reality but this, the medium is also powerful. And, getting back to my original point, if we want to move around in this medium, this world, we must remember that secrecy is paramount. Sometimes, the information you give and receive can be more useful to your enemy than to your ally. And only when that information comes out do you realize that you should never have disclosed it. Sometimes, you know, I think you’re a bit too naïve. Your heart turns to mush when you deal with humble people—the humiliated secretary, the office worker cheated of her money, the archivist with no hope. . . . Remember, we weren’t born to live with the poor or to live like the poor. The poor are to be respected . . . but from a distance.

  I’m serious about this. Never be sincere with a poor person. In exchange you’ll only be treated with egalitarian scorn and that’s something a politician can’t tolerate. Don’t let them, out of the weakness of your sympathetic heart, treat you like an equal. You are not equal to inferior people. You are not. Calculate. Manipulate. If you don’t act astutely, if you betray or disregard our agreement, we’ll be lost and you’ll be lost. That will be the end of your career. And that would frustrate me.

  Remember what I promised you. Wait. Calculate.

  32

  MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO BERNAL HERRERA

  Darling, my protégé Nicolás Valdivia has served us well. The wolf has fallen into the trap and doesn’t know it yet. Tácito is ours. But he might slip away if we act too hastily. Observe the political panorama that’s taking shape. The evil César León is attempting to convince the president of Congress, Onésimo Canabal, that there’s still time to change the constitution and reform the laws regarding succession in the event of the president’s incapacitation or death.

  His idea is that instead of being replaced by an interim president during the first two years in office (which President Terán has already completed) or by an acting president during the last four years in office (the president’s current situation), both of which cases are presently subjected to a vote in both houses of Congress, it should be the president of Congress (in our case, Onésimo Canabal) who automatically assumes the executive’s duties.

  What does our ex-president César León want? He doesn’t hold a publicly elected position—and according to his enemies, he never did. He detests Tácito de la Canal. He fears and despises you. But Onésimo is an ass who will let himself be manipulated in a transitional situation. A transition to what? you might ask. I think César León knows something you and I don’t. He has a secret. He’s a born politician, don’t doubt it. The bad thing about him is that he’s like soft wax. He can mold himself into any shape, he can adapt to any new situation or requirement that presents itself. You have to realize, Bernal, that this is a war of secrets. You and I (and, necessarily, Valdivia) have a secret that can bring Tácito down and you to victory. But if we reveal it too soon, Tácito will be able to put together his defense with plenty of time to spare. I think he’d be capable of having you killed. And what do you gain, Bernal, what do you lose, if you talk or if you don’t? It’s a matter of timing. You win if you talk in time. You lose if you talk at the wrong time. I think I have the solution. In a couple of days I’ll fill you in.

  P.S. It’s inappropriate for the institution to send bills and notifications to you. In this matter, I should be the only one to appear on the correspondence. No suspicion must fall on you.

  33

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

  I thank you for your letter, madam. And I wonder if the hour of my reward has arrived. I’ve made my love for you clear. You’ve asked me to be worthy, if not of your love, then of your mystery. Does one thing lead to the other? Sometimes you make me wonder if separation unites lovers more than presence. I console myself thinking that love takes on as many different forms, and presents as many different challenges, as any other real feeling. I accept everything from you but indifference. And I wonder if I deserve my prize now: speaking to you in the familiar.

  34

  MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO NICOLÁS VALDIVIA

  Do you want a reward, my impatient sweetheart? Well, here it is. Bernal Herrera is very impressed with your great exploits. He believes, in addition, that it’s not only useless but dangerous for you to continue working in the office of Tácito de la Canal. He spoke to the president. You’ve been named undersecretary of the interior, second in command to Bernal Herrera.

  I repeat. Wait. Calculate. And be grateful.

  35

  NICOLÁS VALDIVIA TO JESÚS RICARDO MAGÓN

  I want you to know that the time when I steal away from the office to talk to you is the best part of my day. Luckily for me, Mexican public administration comes to a complete halt from three to six in the afternoon, when no self-respecting government bureaucrat would be seen anywhere but in a luxurious restaurant, in a private room, if possible. Always with a cell phone in hand to answer calls with a frown.
It’s amazing people don’t break their necks with so much nodding! Now, of course, bereft of all telecommunications, this isn’t possible. Now we’re constantly being pestered by hangers-on who turn up and say things like, “Sir, you have an important message at the door.”

  Of course there are no such messages. At the most, the distinguished gentleman will exchange a few words with one of the ubiquitous lottery-ticket sellers stationed at the entrances to all the most fashionable lunch spots. “Like a queen of hearts, my country, on a metal floor, you live for the day, by chance, like the lottery.” Learn López Velarde’s poem by heart, Jesús Ricardo: We Mexicans don’t have a more “impeccable and glittering” guide.

  I say there are no messages today, but there weren’t really any before, either. Cell phone calls were an act staged to show off one’s power. And I tell you all this very honestly because I, like you, harbor no illusions about our political class. Plus ça change, oui . . . just like you, I’m sick and tired of the fact that even the street cleaners call me counselor. I’m sick to death of all these Mexican counselors running around everywhere. Would you believe that there are people who come to our office and address Penélope, the secretary there, as counselor out of that false respect, that fawning, exaggerated courtesy? Like you, I wish they would all just vanish and become like the counselor Vidriera in the story by Cervantes, not so that I could see through them, but so that I could do to them what the illustrious character who thought he was made of glass feared being done to him: smash them into a thousand pieces.

  And so, knowing you, knowing your ideals and sharing so many of them with you, why am I now inviting you to work with me in the president’s office, in the very heart of the artichoke?

  I don’t dare tell you this again in person because when I first mentioned it a few weeks ago, you attacked me so savagely, you pounced on me, put me in a headlock, and I felt your young brute strength, and smelled your male sweat, and I was afraid of you, Jesús Ricardo. I don’t know if telling you this flatters you or alarms you. It doesn’t matter. I smelled your youthful sweat. I was blinded by your long rebellious, adolescent mane of hair.

  I said to you, “How long do you think your youth will last? Don’t you know that an old man with long hair only inspires laughter or pity? Haven’t you ever seen those ancient hippies dragging their scraggly defiance through the middle-class neighborhoods they’ve ended up in, looking for a 1960s San Francisco that doesn’t exist, tangled up in their multicolored bead necklaces and shuffling in their old sandals over to the supermarket?”

  In Ecclesiastes, the Bible should have added that not only is there a time to live and a time to die, but also there is a time to be a rebel and a time to be a conservative. . . . Have you ever read My Last Sigh, Luis Buñuel’s autobiography? I highly recommend it. In that book, the magnificent artist of film—among the world’s greats—recognizes his anarchist tendencies just as you do, only he regards them as marvelous ideas that are impossible in the practical sense. Blow up the Louvre! In theory, splendid. In practice, stupid.

  You still believe rebellious ideas and practice are inseparable. That ideas are meaningless unless we turn them into reality. Let’s be realists, let’s ask the impossible, the rebels said in Paris in May 1968 before they all became businessmen, professionals, and government ministers. . . .

  You frighten me, Jesús Ricardo. The truly consistent anarchist invariably and inevitably becomes a terrorist. I suggest that you go back and reread all those theories you’ve thrown at me during our “Socratic” afternoons up on that rooftop of yours that looks out over the ugliest city in the world, the city of sand, the dusty capital of Mexico, the biggest garbage dump in the world, that desolate gray panorama: gray air, gray concrete, gray people. . . . The kingdom of the scavenger. The capital of underdevelopment.

  Your ideals are noble. Your hero is Bakunin, a Russian aristocrat, after all, who expected, every time he entered his house, to be surprised. . . . From your rooftop, surrounded by pigeons, you firmly believe that the perfect society is one with no government, no laws, no punishment.

  “What will it have, then?” I ask you, with genuine concern and interest.

  “Managers, obligations, and corrections,” you respond cleverly.

  “And how will that society, without any visible power structure, place limits on itself? How will that society manage itself, fulfill its obligations, correct itself?” I ask you in a tone of voice that you can’t mistake for anything other than affectionate.

  “By abolishing property,” you spit out at me, like a newspaper editorial, a slogan, a banner, a slap in the face.

  “All that is superfluous belongs by right to the people who have nothing,” I say, and I’m not trying to show off—perhaps you like this about me, that I’m direct, that all I want is to be honest with you. . . .

  “Exactly, Nicolás. If you distribute wealth equitably and give each person his due, then we’ll have equality and peace.”

  I look into your intense, provocative eyes. I doubt that peace is what you’re after. Maybe equality. But not peace.

  “Who would do the managing?” I repeat.

  “Everyone. Each person would govern himself. An unalienated collective.”

  “Is that possible in a society born out of violence and crime?” challenges Nicolás Valdivia, your devil’s advocate.

  “It isn’t a crime if it leads to the creation of a society without crime, a republic of equals.”

  How could I pass up the opportunity to dazzle you with a great quote?

  “ ‘Ruthlessly slash the throats of tyrants, patricians, millionaires, all the amoral people who could oppose our common happiness.’ ”

  “You’re a walking quotation book, Nicolás!” you exclaim with remarkably good humor.

  “It’s just part of my rooftop Socratic method, my young friend.” How nice of you to offer me a smile.

  “OK, thank you for citing my hero, Gracchus Babeuf. You saved me the trouble.”

  I swear to you that you smiled, you who are always so solemn, my darling Jesús Ricardo Magón.

  “Get me up to speed, Magón. Anarchism was born in the nineteenth century to fight the industrial machine. What are you going to fight? Computers? Didn’t Marcos already stage a little mini-revolution on the Internet?”

  This time you definitely let out a cackle.

  “You can borrow my pigeons, Nicolás. I know you have no other form of messenger.”

  “True enough. I will have to be my own messenger. I will have to deliver my letters in person, but I can never receive one from you—it’s just as if you were a politician from the PRI days: Nothing in writing.”

  I interrogated with my eyes before saying, “And do you know the message I plan to send with your little pigeons?” I answered my own question emphatically as soon as I’d asked it: “That there is no such thing as an anarchist who doesn’t end up a terrorist. That the rejection of authority, and millenarianism, are very beautiful ideas until you start acting on them.”

  Your face lit up, millenarian that you are.

  “You can’t deny the beauty of revolt,” you said, serious once more.

  “Even if the results are horrifying?” I replied with that verbal foil you force me to brandish every time we spar.

  “Do you find equality horrifying?” you asked humorlessly.

  “No. I can only repeat that the great problem of equality is not overcoming the pride of the rich, but rather overcoming the egotism of the poor.”

  “Do you know what I like about you? You get angry without swearing. You nurse your rage inside. That’s why I find you more dangerous than someone who explodes with violence, verbal or physical.”

  You look at me and you know I know. I understand you. And if I’m repeating our conversation back to you it’s only because, despite our political differences, you and I have a common faith in the word.

  Wherein lies the greatness, I ask you, of Plato’s dialogues, which serve as the basis for all hum
an discourse in a Western world freed from Oriental despotism? In the fact that they set the stage for you and me talking on a rooftop in Mexico City in the year 2020. The Socrates– Plato duo transforms two random interlocutors into companions in a place and at a time that otherwise—i.e., without the word—would never exist. If we didn’t have this time and place to share, we’d know nothing about each other. In fact, we wouldn’t even know the other existed. We would be alien to each other, like ships crossing in the night, strangers walking past each other on the great boulevard of the silent.

  What is it that unites this time and place we share, Jesús Ricardo?

  The word, the word brings us together one minute and then tears us apart the next, the word that, whether friend or enemy, in the end acquires an independent meaning. And it’s that transience that drives us, my young and beloved friend, in this hopelessly polluted stoa covered in pigeon shit, to utter the next word, knowing that it too will slip from our grasp and enter into the great realm of reason that engulfs us.

  “Don’t ever stop talking. Don’t ever say the last word.”

  Plato said that writing was parricide because it continues to signify in the absence of the interlocutor. As long as I write to you, then, it will be fratricide. And only on the day—distant if not altogether impossible—that you write to me, can we begin to speak of parricide. Parricide: Scarcely nine years separate us. And I’m already playing the role of a perverse Mephistopheles, offering the young Faust his chance to be old. To grow up.