Always remember: María del Rosario is from up there, the same social class as your mother. Think of María del Rosario as your mother, but with a fortune, mistress of a life that was denied Michelina. Avenge your mother’s cruel fate on María del Rosario.
I will take care of Bernal Herrera.
You are my creation, Nicolás. My heir. My partner. Together we’ll win. It’s all that matters: attaining power and keeping it forever.
Nicolás Valdivia, my son, power unites us as a longing for the truth. You and I are going to take possession of that truth.
I want to give you one more piece of advice. From now on, don’t let anyone find out what you’re thinking — not even me. Especially if you plan to betray me.
I promise you: In politics, any betrayal is possible. Or at least imaginable.
67. CONGRESSMAN ONÉSIMO CANABAL TO NICOLÁS VALDIVIA
Mr. President, I write to you in the strictest confidence. And with alarm. The heart and soul of the Congress of the Union have been violated. Well, only one office, but Congress is, after all, an inviolable whole. It is the sanctuary of the law, Mr. President. In any event, today I woke up to an urgent phone call from the building custodian, Serna.
In the middle of the night, someone entered the San Lázaro Legislative Palace. Someone deactivated the alarms, slipped past the guards, perhaps bribed the security people. I don’t know. Someone with power, evidently. Mr. President: The office of our friend the congresswoman Paulina Tardegarda, the woman to whom you and I are so indebted, has been ransacked. Her safe deposit box has been wrenched, yes, literally and completely wrenched out of the wall, leaving a gaping hole in its place, which makes the office look awful — we ’ll have to have the whole wall rebuilt, do you realize how much this will cost? (Speaking of expenses, when are you going to name a new treasury secretary now that Andino Almazán has left us?)
The worst thing isn’t that the safe deposit box has been stolen. The honorable congresswoman has disappeared, Mr. President. She isn’t at her apartment on Calle Edgar Allan Poe. Her housekeeper says she didn’t come home last night. We’ve already launched an investigation, on the quiet, of course. But she’s nowhere to be found. She’s vanished without a trace.
What could possibly have become of her? Do you know anything? If it were just that she’d taken a sudden vacation, or was having a good time with someone — well, fine. But the safe deposit box, too, Mr. President? The two things at the same time are what I find most alarming.
I need to know from you. Should we put out a national alert because Paulina Tardegarda has gone missing? Poor thing. She was no saint, but she wasn’t a sinner, either. I can’t imagine anyone would kidnap her out of passion — she wasn’t exactly attractive. She was big enough to kidnap someone herself if she wanted to.
In any case, I need you to authorize the national alert. I can’t do it; only you can. Otherwise, her remains will never be found. Or else they’ll turn up in a witch’s garden, and then turn out not to be hers. Or Paulina will have suddenly undergone plastic surgery like the famous drug trafficker, the “Lord of the Heavens.” Forgive me if this is out of line, don Nicolás, but you know, I think she had the hots for you. . Oh, sorry, sorry, who knows, maybe she was just trying to make herself a bit prettier. Poor Paulina, she could use it. .
Well, anyway, enough of all that. You do agree that this is a most urgent matter, I trust. I await your orders to take action or to let the issue die, whatever the president thinks best.
Your humble and loyal servant,
Onésimo Canabal
PRESIDENT OF THE HONORABLE CONGRESS OF THE UNION
68. BERNAL HERRERA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN
You’re right, María del Rosario. They’ve changed the rules of the game. Valdivia may appear to respect the electoral calendar but I don’t believe there’s anything in his head or heart that will compel him to hand over the presidency on the first of December, 2024, if in fact I’m elected. We have a problem: There’s no viable politician out there to challenge my candidacy. Tácito, at least, would have been from the presidential cabinet like me. The mini-parties have no charismatic candidates to speak of. The local bosses will support whoever offers them the most protection. The danger for me is that I may end up alone out there. I’ll stand out, my stature will only make me vulnerable. The bad thing about being tall, said de Gaulle, is that we’re people who get noticed. His conclusion? “Tall men have to be more moral than anyone else.”
You once said to me, referring to Tácito, that hatred is more intelligent than love. And I’m going to keep on protecting myself from the illustrious Mr. De la Canal. I don’t trust his newfound humility. He wears it as if he just found it at a flea market. The filial love he professes is not to be trusted. Only believe in his loyalty to sex. According to my sources, he’s already seduced his father’s maid, a woman who calls herself “Gloria Marín.” Oh, well, as you once said to me, “Fidelity is so sad!”
María del Rosario, you and I are going to continue to act as a team, but this time we’ll be at a disadvantage. Don’t laugh at me if I warn you against any attempt to rekindle our old flame. It’s better to be frank. Falling in love again would only demonstrate that as a political couple we’ve suffered a setback and are trying to compensate for it. It would be proof of our weakness and disillusion.
I’m telling you this as a preventive measure. You seem to have become more sentimental lately, and perhaps that could help our situation. I have, too, and I’m tempted by the idea that you and I might be able to love each other again, the way we did at the beginning.
But it would be a weakness, and you know that. We’d be together only in order to lick each other’s wounds. We’d console each other today. And detest each other tomorrow.
Take a cold look at what our relationship was like at first. I only wanted to give you love. You wanted to want love. I believe the only kind of love that would satisfy you is a love that is pure desire. You couldn’t bear a secure, everyday affection. Without risks. You’re a woman who adores risks. You take it to extremes that some — people who don’t love you as I do — would call immoral. Stealing a man from another woman — or another man — makes you happy. Your erotic passion is so deeply ingrained that it has become completely and totally intransigent. Don’t deny it.
I am not obstinate. I am steady. And in my steadiness there’s no room for nostalgia for passion. I know: For you, being unfaithful doesn’t necessarily mean being disloyal. And for that reason, living with you would force me to do something that I don’t ever want to have to do again. I don’t want to be constantly examining and reexamining my relationship and my heart. Living with you would expose me to that agony, and it would be a never-ending one. Marucha, have you been faithful or not?
Thank God we never married. We managed to act as one without having to put up with each other. We can’t go back to what we were. You couldn’t bear it. I’ll give you the reason. Be lovers again? You and I know that the second time wouldn’t be just a mistake. It would be lunacy. Wouldn’t it? The best you could give me would be the necessary distance to love you so much that I would consider you unworthy of my love.