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.