Or at worst, you, as the interim president, would have backed Andino for president, with Arruza ruling from behind the throne.
You see, it was a game of chess in which I was the queen, Arruza the king, Andino the bishop, and you the bloody pawn.
Goodbye, my poor Tácito. You crawled out of a hole and now you’re going straight back to where you came from. And tell Nicolás Valdivia that ideals aren’t important, that convictions aren’t worth a fucking thing. Tell us whose side you’re on. That’s what matters.
Oh — by the way, Valdivia has banned you from entering any government office. FYI.
56. DULCE DE LA GARZA TO THE OLD MAN UNDER THE ARCHES
Mr. President, I can no longer bear my joy and my sadness, which is why I’m writing to you. I don’t know if I’d dare look you in the eye, you who have caused me so much pain and who now give me back an impossible happiness that I stopped dreaming about long ago. You summoned me to the café by the port. I knew that Tomás respected you immensely. How many times did he tell me that you were more than his mentor, that you were like his father; and like a father you always advised him not to be so good, to be tougher.
“The worst enemy of power is the innocent,” you said to Tomás, and those words are engraved on my heart, like everything my love told me. “Up until now you’ve been a docile pre-candidate, which is as it should be. Now you want to be a reformer. Wait. Don’t be too eager. Don’t start your day in the middle of the night. Make your reforms when you’re sitting on the Eagle’s Throne, like I did. Take advantage of my experience.”
Yes, I know Tomás was brave, that he never held back, that he threw himself into the ring. Yes, I know that all the powerful people in Mexico saw him as a threat. That’s why they killed him.
I’ve endured eight years — I was twenty-one then, and I’m twenty-nine, nearly thirty now, “in the flower of my youth,” isn’t that what they say? Eight years of suffering, Mr. President. At least my pain was solid, real. Now, all of a sudden you appear and plunge me into a pit of desperation and misery worse than before.
Yes, Tomás is alive. And you have the nerve to tell me what you told my love when you — and nobody but you is to blame — took him away from me. .
“Tomasito, think of yourself as a privileged prisoner. Think of life as ugly and dangerous and cruel. Look, my boy, close the door to the world for a little while, and come back rejuvenated. Wait for your moment: It hasn’t arrived yet. It will come. I swear.”
You didn’t have the courage to go to that cell yesterday. Instead you sent Tomás a written message via me. I have it here:
I wanted to give you power. I wanted to give you the chance to do the things I couldn’t do because in my day the system was different. I’m so sorry, truly sorry, Tomasito. You didn’t understand. You didn’t know how to judge the moment. What I did, I did for you. It was neither the first nor the last time I would offer you my good counsel and try to shield you from your idealistic impulses. Now your time has come. Now the country wants legitimacy, symbols, drama, hope. Not since the Resurrection of Christ has there been a resurrection like yours, my son. I who shun publicity will have an army of photographers and reporters waiting for you when you come out. From Ulúa? God, I’m better than that. Listen to me, Tomás: You were never in Ulúa. You got lost in the jungle, you were kidnapped, disoriented by torture and peyote — you got lost in the goddamn jungle. A witch from Catemaco buried your fingernails and your hair underneath a ceiba tree. You’ve been under a spell for eight years, Tomás, lost in the natural world, part of the jungle yourself, no different from the vanilla creeper, the pepper plant, the prickly pear, the hawthorn, the jonote tree, the sugarcane, the vast, abundant natural world of Veracruz that was there before we were born, Tomás, that enveloped you like a splendid cloak, that swallowed you up and made you part of it. . Don’t forget, Tomasito, you are under a spell. You sleep sitting down because if you lie down the sea breeze won’t blow over you. You sleep with the windows open so that the rain from the Gulf of Mexico soaks your skin. And if you die, they can just say that the “North Wind” was an accomplice in the crime. You thought you were dead, Tomás. And now your girl Dulce has appeared to rescue you, to tell you, “We’ve found you at last! You got lost in the jungle.”
Oh, Mr. President. What were you thinking? Do you really believe what you said to me?
“Everything in Mexico requires symbolism. If they can turn an amnesiac, impressionable, ignorant Indian like Juan Diego into a saint, why not make Moro president at the right moment, which is the year 2020—not 2012! Miracle, miracle! Miracles, faith, trust — what motivates Mexico more? A president-elect lost in the jungle, amnesiac like a saint, who reappears to reclaim nothing less than the Eagle’s Throne! A sensation, Miss de la Garza! And what a sensation if you, his saintly girl-friend, are the one who rescues him and delivers him back to his rightful place. A love story! Love and miracles, my dear! Who could be opposed to that? It is my masterpiece. Now I can die in peace, I can leave behind the sealed envelopes, ‘the concealed one,’ the electoral racket, the carousel voting, the ballot tricks, all those dead people’s votes, everything else that went on when I was president. This is the culmination of my political career: I’ve given Mexico the right president at the right moment, I’ve resurrected him just like God the Father resurrected his son Jesus Christ. I’ve brought him steeped in mystery back to the world. All the ingredients are there: cloak-and-dagger adventures, mystical ascensions, inevitable pain, melodrama, lovers reunited. . Miss Dulce, sweet lady, can’t you sense the emotion in my voice, my recovered strength, my masterpiece completed?”
Yes, Mr. President, I feel it and I feel sorry for you, and I feel hatred for you, as well. Shame on you. I think you’ve gone mad. You’re deranged, a senile monster who plays with the lives and emotions of others without any humanity. . You were right to send me to Tomás, and I went happily, but I was scared to death, too; my heart was pounding because I didn’t know what I’d find.
They led me down those dark tunnels that smelled like the forgotten dead. A filthy rat looked at me as if it wanted to seduce me. Saltwater dripped from the ceiling, and the whole castle creaked as if offended by my footsteps. I’m telling you this so that you can see the eloquence that took hold of my head and my tongue, preparing me for the most intense emotion of my life. .
He was wearing his mask when I entered the cell.
“Tomás, my love, it’s me. . ”
Nothing but silence. The longest of my life, long enough for me to remember how Tomás and I first met, at the museum in Monterrey, and then to remember every moment of our love.
“Tomás, my love, it’s me. . ”
He turned his back on me.
Then, he scribbled something on the wall with a piece of chalk, something he’d written a thousand times before, as the cell was covered with those white marks, fading in the humid air:
BREAD. TIME. PATIENCE.
I embraced him. He freed himself from me with a violent shrug of the shoulders. It threw me — it was like being struck by lightning. I sank to my knees and held his legs.
“Tomás, I’m back, it’s me. . ”
I looked at him, imploring him.