Have you read Gombrowicz’s marvelous Ferdydurke, the great twentieth-century Polish novel? For him, growing up is tantamount to growing corrupt. We kill the advantages of adolescence by becoming adults. We kill the inconsolable youth by corrupting him with maturity. But since we are, inevitably, not alone in our youth, we end up creating one another, running the risk of creating ourselves from the outside, deformed and inauthentic. “To be a man means never to be oneself.” If that’s how you want to view our relationship, so be it. Let yourself get a bit corrupted.
“Being partly corrupt is like being partly a virgin,” you say.
And I tell you the same thing over and over again.
You can’t reject what you don’t know. Put your ideas to the test. That’s the only measure of the intellectual integrity you preach. You don’t have to commit to anything. Come and work with me in the president’s office—that’s where you’ll see “the belly of the beast,” as José Martí said when living in the United States. You don’t have to sacrifice your ideas. In fact, you’ll see how resilient they are. All you have to sacrifice is your appearance. You can’t work in Los Pinos with that Tarzan hair of yours. You’ll have to cut it. And you can’t go to work in blue jeans. But you don’t need to go overboard, either. Don’t dress in that vulgar middle-class office-worker style like Hugo Patrón, your sister’s little boyfriend. Let Armani be your best friend. I’ll see to that. Make up your mind, you heir to utopia. Stick with me. Let me save you from your impotent language that can only lead to criminal action when desperation sets in.
I ask this of you as a double test.
First of all, a test of your ideas. You’re an ideological coward if you don’t put your ideas to the challenge.
Second, a test of my friendship, which deepens with each passing day. I love and desire you for who you are—you know that. But also because I see myself in you. Not a duplicate of myself but a similar, separate being. I admit that to love you is to love myself. To love myself as I would like to be. I like women. I love them as intensely as I love you. In women I’m always shocked to see the person that I’m not. I see the other and it dazzles me. That’s why I adore women and fall, time and time again, into the abyss of passion for women. The passion for all that’s different. With you, Jesús Ricardo, I feel that I can love myself as I would like to be loved by me.
Consider my offer. This gate, unlike the one in the Bible, is not a narrow one.
36
MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO PRESIDENT LORENZO TERÁN
My very old and dear friend, the time has come to unleash the hounds of war. We can no longer put off the selection of the person who will succeed you as president of the republic. The return of our ex-president César León is a part in the well-oiled machine of our electoral democracy. And it’s not the only one. León is plotting with the president of Congress to declare you incapacitated so that Onésimo Canabal himself can take your place and push through the constitutional reform that will permit the re-election of, guess who, César León. On the other hand, a constitutional amendment requires time: It will take at least a year to get a majority vote either way from all the states in the federation. And that can only happen after the amendment has been passed by two thirds of Congress.
So César León must have another ace up his sleeve. What it is, we don’t know. And that, my friend, is our weakness. The constitutional reform has the whiff of a smoke screen to me. The real blow is going to come at us from another direction. Make no mistake about that. And be prepared.
Too much time, Mr. President, too much waste. You can be sure that as long as the pawn in this game, Onésimo Canabal, follows César León’s advice, León is going to give us a scare and end up with all the chips in his pocket. Which ones? I don’t know, I don’t know, Mr. President. The only advice I can give you, from my head and from my heart, is that you have to act. Now. Get ahead of the game. Set up separate meetings with your two aspiring successors, Tácito de la Canal and Bernal Herrera. Order them to tender their resignations, announce their candidacies, and launch their campaigns.
They won’t have any choice but to do what you say. And if they hesitate, just fire them. You’ll see how they listen to you, Mr. President. My feminine intuition tells me that this is all you have to do if you want to win this round against our very astute ex-president.
What have I always told you, Mr. President? Not making decisions is worse than making mistakes. Make a decision. Remember, there are no beginnings in politics. Only moments. And the ability to seize them before they’re gone. To be cunning, in other words. Cunning in what sense? you may ask. Well, your interior secretary has shown it in each one of the cases currently at hand. Either you deal with a problem or bury it. What you can’t do is leave a request to languish without rejecting or accepting it. You might say, rightly, that the lack of decisiveness in the case of the university strikes means that the problem is unsolvable. But that lack of decisiveness, you see, is precisely the solution: Let there be no solution, until all the parties are tired out. On the other hand, you’ve kept your investors happy with your policies, and the workers’ unrest has subsided because of need—their need to eat. Meanwhile, allowing the peasants a meaningless victory would be a defeat for the local bosses who’ve always counted on that eternal cannon fodder, the indentured agricultural slave. Very well. But what we’re facing now, Mr. President, is a strictly political test.
Who will succeed you in the 2024 election?
What forces can he rely on?
Who will challenge him?
And don’t ever let yourself wonder, Who will be most loyal to me?
Everyone, Mr. President, will betray you. Even—and I’m telling you this so that you see the extent of my frankness and my friendship— the man who’s my favorite for the succession. . . .
37
BERNAL HERRERA TO PRESIDENT LORENZO TERÁN
Mr. President, dear friend, I’m writing to you under these new and unexpected circumstances, which must feel somewhat natural to you given that you never respond to messages, only receive them. I suppose that you don’t allow anyone else to read them, so I’m going to be completely honest with you. None of your aides can say anything about the letters written to you because it would reveal their indiscretion and prove them unworthy of your trust.
I’m telling you this so that you’re not surprised by my honesty and sincerity. Let me be your mirror, my dear president. You already know what people say about you. Power makes even the ugliest person look attractive. But we all have an inner mirror of power and in it we can see ourselves fearful, tired, uncertain. When this internal mirror reverts back to the external, we run the risk of people thinking, Apathy, fatigue, uncertainty, fear—and even worse, This is what the president wants, this is his formula for holding on to the Eagle’s Throne. He’s an inert president who governs through inertia.
I’ve always told you that one has to avoid making one’s internal doubts visible. You’ll say that I’m blowing my own horn and painting a picture of the virtues that would allow me to succeed you as occupant of the Eagle’s Throne.
That may be so, Lorenzo. You may be right.
Nevertheless, I’m telling you a useful truth, not only regarding the imminent succession and the campaigns, but with respect to the three years you still have in office. You are no exception to the truth that every head of state must choose from many possible paths, that he’s always at a crossroads, pushed this way and that way by a number of different forces.
“Go this way.”
“No, better go that way.”
There’s no force more powerful than the interior force of the president himself. And yet this force is not so easy to identify, define, and act upon because the most insufferable thing about being president is the fact that everyone looks at you as if they could see their own destiny in your face. Especially cabinet members! Unfortunately, most of them believe that the president rewards loyalty more than ability.
I repeat:
I have no desire to blow my own horn. I do not speak pro domo sua. I’m expressing myself hypothetically. Mexicans have a tendency to blame everything on “the system,” no matter what that “system” is. They never blame themselves, not as people and not as citizens. No, it’s always the fault of “the system,” and the head of that system is the president. One of the unwritten rules of our blessed system—since time immemorial, since the colonies—is that the accumulation of wealth while in power is permissible for one reason and under two conditions.
The reason—and it’s an unspoken one—is that everyone knows corruption “greases” or, if you prefer, “lubricates” the system. Corruption makes the system fluid and effective, unbothered by utopian hopes regarding justice or its lack thereof. In any case, Mexico has never had a monopoly on corruption. Remember, if you will, Operation “Clean Hands” in Italy, the Banesto and Matesa scandals in Spain, the alleged corruption of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Germany, or the virginal Margaret Thatcher’s cronies in England, to say nothing of corporate corruption in the United States—the Enron affair, followed by WorldCom, and then Halliburton, etc., all of which may not have exposed President Bush (Junior, a totally clueless man, a ventriloquist’s dummy), but certainly exposed his inner circle and its links to the world of high finance and oil. . . .
Need I go on? The difference with Mexico is that, while in Europe or in the United States these things are punished, in Latin America they’re either rewarded or ignored. Let me give you another classic example, my dear friend and president. Let’s suppose that Mr. X is corrupt and he’s caught in the act. Is it wise to punish him for it? What should come first, justice or convenience?
A political system, whatever it is, must create its own taboos to protect the privileged and, more importantly, to protect society itself. Just as there’s no such thing as politics without villains, there’s no such thing as a society without demons. Sometimes the sins of the state must be either tolerated or disguised, not so much in order to protect the state as to protect society from its own diabolical powers.
They say you’re too isolated, and that your isolation has led you to imagine the very best and the very worst of others. The net political result, as you know, is that each of your subordinates interprets the president’s imperviousness in his own way, so that they fight among themselves. While you enjoy what in hushed tones you refer to as “my much-needed solitude to think clearly and act properly,” those closest to you are all squabbling with one another. Can’t you see what a great opportunity will present itself when it’s time for the presidential succession? All the contention and rivalry among your subordinates, encouraged by your supposed passivity, will allow you to become the referee.
Don’t fool yourself, Mr. President: The country sees your passivity as a flaw. Let’s be frank, you’ve lost your authority. But now, if you set your mind to it, you can win back some power. Win the inexorable battle of the presidential succession. The one thing that everyone considers your greatest flaw can become your greatest asset: Storm the castle without waking up the dogs.
Pardon me for saying so, but don’t pay attention to Seneca when he advises you to walk among the people like a king dressed as a beggar. Remember that if you open the palace windows you’ll be letting in both a brilliant sun and a fierce wind. The people will be dazzled, but the government will only catch a cold. Keep your aspirin and your sinus medicine handy.
Add an enema—not for you, but for your disloyal aides. And if you don’t know who they are yet, you will soon enough.
38
TÁCITO DE LA CANAL TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN
A very brief missive, my dear lady. Everything that is said, written, plotted, or murmured in this country passes through my office. I am the one who, like a sieve, knows what to let through and what to prevent from reaching the president’s desk. I know what you, your old lover Bernal, and your young lover Valdivia have recently discovered. Too many secrets, too many love affairs, all that complicated tiptoeing. Be careful. I’m not going to let you get away with what you’ve been plotting, thanks to the delirious ravings of some decrepit archivist in the basement of Los Pinos. Down with the masks, madam. Or as you, educated by the Frogs, would say: C’est la guerre. Don’t forget your little weakness. You’re more than just a political woman. You’re a mother. Would you like that to get out? Or worse, would you like the boy to suffer? Think about it. I’m always willing to cut a deal.
39
MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN TO TÁCITO DE LA CANAL
You’re right, Tácito. Down with the masks and up with the curtain. You and Bernal are political rivals and can speak freely to each other. I, however, am not going to lose my temper as you have. Instead I’ll take advantage of this moment, almost as a necessary catharsis, to tell you a few truths. . . .
You’ve always believed in getting to the top at any cost, but you’ve failed to calculate the price of combat when combat is pointless. For now we’ve run out of ammunition, and your last round was the president.
You were counting on your obsequiousness to buy you a free ticket to the Eagle’s Throne. The whole country has watched you treating the president as if he were an untouchable Japanese mikado. What kind of image could you possibly present to the electorate, my unpresentable friend? Who doesn’t know that you push in the president’s chair every time he sits down to eat, and that then you lick the leftovers off his plate? Who hasn’t seen you standing behind the president as if your sole duty were that of guarding the emperor, making sure nobody touches or listens to him? “Let the president’s hair and nails grow, and I’ll clip them in private, unbeknownst to him, while he sleeps, and then I’ll keep them in a little box. . . .”
Yes, Tácito, just like everything you keep. Like stolen goods. Tácito, you specialize in revealing people’s unpleasant pasts. I know perfectly well that you made me the victim of your slander once before, and now you’re threatening to do it again. But now it’s your own past that’s going to haunt you in the middle of the night and rob you of your sleep. You’ve dug up every last secret except for one: your own. Now, your guilty secret is going to be unearthed, and I swear to you, Tácito, it will terrify you, and with luck dispose of you for once and for all.
I won’t be deterred. Mark my words. What you’re trying to do to Bernal and me will rebound on you. I know what you’re up to, and if you touch a single hair on my head the entire world will hear about it. And even if you were to cut off my head, the evidence against you would come to light, with another charge—murder.
There are petty and evil people who know too much, Tácito. But there are also great and good people who know enough to silence that insufferable high-pitched voice of yours that makes you sound like a newly ordained priest. Do you know who you remind me of with that voice and physique? Franco, my dear Tácito, Generalísimo Francisco Franco. But this isn’t Spain, nor is it 1936. You’ve fallen for the ploy that Lorenzo Terán uses to manage his cabinet. He’s made everyone think: “You are my chosen one. You are my natural successor.”
Have you ever gotten inside the president’s head? Been able to imagine what he imagines?
Poor Tácito. You’ve read all the letters the president received from his cabinet ministers and you’ve insinuated that each and every one was proof of their disloyalty to him—until the president himself began to wonder if it was really possible that everyone close to him was disloyal except Tácito de la Canal.
Poor Tácito. You never realized that the more you fawned over the president, the more the public despised you—and the less the president himself trusted you, knowing well enough that in this country the horse you name emperor will kick you to death.
Poor Tácito. Deep down, I don’t harbor you any ill will. I just don’t like you. More precisely, I’d like to see you humiliated. Rich, in exile, but humiliated.
I’m going to hurt you, Tácito, I swear, and I won’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt because I despise you. Then again, perhaps I shouldn’
t be so free with my contempt. There are too many who deserve it. Adieu.
P.S. Next time you go around stealing, be a little smarter about it.
40
EX-PRESIDENT CÉSAR LEÓN TO ONÉSIMO CANABAL, PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS
I’m back on the offensive, my distinguished though indistinguishable friend, and am here to remind you of the days when you—figuratively speaking, of course—were in the political bathroom with a towel over your arm and your hand outstretched, hoping for tips. Who dragged you out of there and made you an usher at the party assemblies and then “the man with the microphone” at the conventions, the one who called for order, attention . . . ?
“It is my great privilege to present the honorable licenciado César León, candidate for the presidency. . . .”
From there you rose to the executive committee of the party, and then the golden exile of an ambassadorship in Luxembourg, where we have so many various and pressing interests (don’t laugh—nobody laughs at those bank accounts in Luxembourg) and you fulfilled your obligations as the trusty little guardian-gnome that you are. And now, congressman for the third consecutive time and president of Congress. Goodness, don Onésimo, how far we have come from those toilet bowl days. One should be grateful, don’t you think? And you’ve proved yourself more than worthy of your hometown of Campeche—why, you’re what they call a real campechano, nice, everyone likes you, sure. But you’ve still got to deal with your mortal enemy Humberto Vidales, the so-called Dark Hand of the state of Tabasco. Of course, it might be more accurate to call him the “Hydra Head”—chop one off and a hundred more grow in its place. In his case, however, those hundred heads are what he very proudly calls “My Nine Evil Sons.” In other words, an evil dynasty. Tabasco is better at that than any other state, and Dark Hand has his conspiracies and plots planned up to the year 3000.