Carlos Fuentes - The Eagle's Throne

I swear to you, María del Rosario, Tácito de la Canal’s cruelty is even more abhorrent than his perversion. He does such infinitesimally hateful things — for example, each week he goes through all the supply closets in the office, counting out all the pencils, the sheets of letterhead, paper clips, erasers, scissors, folders, pens, et cetera. Yesterday, Penélope beat him to it and replaced all the office supplies that had gone missing.

“I keep an exact count, sir,” she said. “If you like, we can go through it together and you’ll see nothing is missing.”

“Did you just put them all back in time, Penélope?” the arrogant de la Canal asked.

“I never took them, sir.”

“Have you been snooping through my desk, Penélope?”

“My job is to see that nothing is missing, don Tácito.”

Do you know what I did, María del Rosario? I took Doris by the arm, dragged her to Fratina, and dressed her in black from head to toe, black tailored suit, black stockings, black stiletto heels, Chanel handbag, the works, and then I took her to her mother’s house in Colonia Satélite. The poor girl was frightened to death, and once we walked through the door I introduced her anew to her mother, a dried-up old hag who was staring aimlessly at a ball of yarn in her hands, sitting in a wheelchair with a jug of lemonade and an arsenal of pills at her side. Oh, yes, and an ugly cat on her lap.

All I said was, “From now on, this is what Doris will wear to work.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“I’m her employer, madam, and if you want your daughter to bring a salary home and look after you, Doris better turn up to work looking like this, because if not, I might just kidnap her and take her to come and live with me. . ”

The old lady began to scream and suddenly I had one of those revelations, like a little thunderbolt flashing through the brain. “And I’d be very careful about saying anything about this to that lowlife Tácito de la Canal. The game is over, madam. If you continue pimping your daughter I’ll put you in jail.”

The old lady started to shriek in earnest now, and the cat jumped up, meowing with a vengeance, as if defending its mistress. I kicked the bloody cat in the ass and when Doris saw that her mother was defeated she smiled for the first time. Ever since then, she’s come to the office dressed like a woman her own age.

Penélope winks at me and gives me the thumbs-up for that one.

But Tácito looks at me with true hatred. He knows I’ve read him like a book, from top to bottom. Servile with the powerful. Contemptuous with the weak. In what intermediate position have I placed myself? I look him straight in the eye. He has no choice but to stare right back at me. But I smile. He does not. And when he calls Doris into his office, I say, “Sorry, sir. Doris is working on a very urgent matter for me.”

If the bastard had any hair, it would stand on end.

Are you certain that your strategy is the right one? If your protégé Nicolás Valdivia is working with Tácito de la Canal, it isn’t just to gain experience. Not even to gain firsthand knowledge of our adversary. He’s there to uncover Tácito de la Canal’s weak spot, the truth that will undo him, the act that will condemn him. We already know that Tácito’s a lowlife. But how many other lowlifes have you met in politics who still enjoy their ill-gotten wealth with impunity? What we must do is catch Tácito red-handed. What has Valdivia discovered? Not much. Things we already knew. That Tácito is servile. That he’s cruel. That in dealing with people he kisses up and kicks down. That he lets the president treat him like a used napkin. That perhaps the president needs a servant to fawn over him. That perhaps the president needs a guard dog with a spiked collar to defend him from inopportune visitors.

Nothing new. Our most exalted leader needs the security of a yes-man, someone who will agree with everything he says. As you can see, our president is following the age-old custom, observed by the likes of Frederick of Prussia and Catherine the Great, of bringing the French Enlightenment to his court. In our case, the roles of Voltaire and Diderot are played by our good friend Xavier Zaragoza, our very own Seneca. Even so, Frederick still had his valet Fredersdorf to lick his boots, and Catherine still had Potemkin to lick something else entirely. And Lorenzo Terán has Tácito de la Canal.

I’m not satisfied, my friend. Time is ticking away, and in politics timing is at least half the battle. If we can’t eliminate Tácito within six months, he’ll use his position as a springboard for a presidential bid. And you know what? The idea of running against Tácito de la Canal not only disgusts me. It humiliates me. If I win the 2024 elections against a worm like Tácito, my victory will be as grand as that of a man who has squashed a cockroach underfoot. It will be a hollow victory. And if he were to beat me thanks to his influence with the president, it would mean the end of my political career.

María del Rosario, you know that I’m not a coward and that I assume my own responsibility in this. But life has made us more than just friends: You and I are allies. Our destinies are inextricable. I need you because you’re a woman — but not just because of your female instincts. I need you because in addition to instinct you have exceptional political skill. You know how to see what’s invisible. You know how to read between the lines. You notice things that escape me. I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know (or that I haven’t already told you). Without you I can never get ahead. You’re the person who helps me endure the unpalatable aggression of politics. You’ve taught me something indispensable in politics: the ability to manage groups of insecure men. You know how to do it, and I’ve seen it for myself. Somehow you’re able to make the most inept cabinet member (and there are several) feel like Aristotle and Bonaparte wrapped up in one. And with the confidence you instill in them, you let them know that you represent me, that you follow my instructions. You are a magnificently talented woman, but you’re not a free agent. You are forever tied to Bernal Herrera.

What I mean is that everyone knows you give them all that support and advice because I’ve asked you to. The agriculture secretary, Epifanio Alatorre, came in to thank me personally for informing him about the imminent decline in sugar prices that he, stupidly stockpiling sugar as if it were gold, never would have predicted. Secretary Alatorre doesn’t realize that the United States’ and the European Union’s agricultural policies will ultimately shut out agricultural exports from the poorer countries: We sell little and cheaply, and we don’t gain anything by hoarding our stash in the hopes that prices will eventually go up. There will never be a dearth of anything in the developed world. There will only be munificence toward the beggars, that’s all. Handouts. The secretary for public works, Antonio Bejarano, owes me his life because you told him about the contractor Bruno Levi and his ties with the company that was Bejarano’s competition during his days as a private businessman — which, by the way, are not quite over yet since he still owns shares through a bunch of false proxies. How I wish we could discover that Tácito is involved in a sleazy deal like that. But Bejarano is irrelevant, politically speaking. He can be as corrupt as he wants. And yet we’re the ones who’ll exert power over him when the opportunity arises. Without me — without you, that is — his downfall is only a matter of time.

I could go on and on, my dearest lady. But the biggest fish of all, my only visible rival in the 2024 elections, doesn’t owe either of us a thing. That’s our huge weakness. I don’t believe in Tácito’s great intelligence, but I know that when it comes to politics he’s a sly dog, a Mexican Machiavelli whose capacity for manipulation and cunning is as inexhaustible, my dear friend, as our own capacity for mutual gratitude and affection. We should assume that every secretary of state owes Tácito as many favors as they owe us. Not for nothing is he the holder of the keys to the Holiest of Holies, the president’s inner sanctum, our very square “Oval Office.”