Carlos Fuentes - The Eagle's Throne

“We’re related to the Gálvez y Gallo family,” I added.

His face lit up.

“The chief of staff I most admire!” he said with joy.

“The very one.”

“What a gentleman! Married to a real lady. Would you believe, Mr. Valdivia, that they never forgot a single one of our birthdays? They always had a gift, a smile for you. . oh, what a difference!”

“You mean between them and Tácito de la Canal?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean. .” The old man raised a hand to his mouth. “I. . I didn’t. .”

I hugged him warmly.

“Don’t give it a second thought, Mr. . ”

“Cástulo Magón, at your service. I’ve been working in the archives since 1982. Different times, Mr. Valdivia!”

“I know, I know. To remember is to live. I’m very interested in our archives, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really, don Cástulo.”

“Well, at your service. Whenever you please, come downstairs. It would be a pleasure. But I should warn you — there’s a lot of paper, a lot of history. Even we lose our way in that maze.”

What I didn’t tell him was this: I know what I am looking for. Don’t you worry.

Time passes, Mr. President, and in your third year in office, you still don’t deign to ask me, “What shall I do, Seneca?” This makes me think, of all things, of The Thousand and One Nights, Mr. President, and I’d like to remind you of the case of King Harun al-Rashid, who as the sun went down left his palace dressed in beggar’s clothes in order to mingle with the people and hear what they really said about him, as opposed to the polite version he heard from his courtiers. Let me tell you, Mr. President, that Mexico is shaped by the dynamics of fate. You have far too much faith in civil society, in giving the people their freedom. My advice, which I have pondered quite carefully, is this: Set some limits. If you let our people move around with no guidance at all, freedom will degenerate into chaos, and that freedom won’t be driven by the power of will but by the forces of fate.

This is a country that has buried far too much dissatisfaction over the years, over long centuries of poverty, injustice, and unfulfilled dreams.

If the proper political channels aren’t built, if all we have is unrestricted liberty, the subterranean waters will bubble up to the surface and turn into rushing rapids that will demolish everything in their path. I know that you have faith in two things. First, that the people will value the liberties you grant them. And second, that public force in Mexico is exercised by a professional army on the one hand (von Bertrab) and a vicious police force on the other (Arruza). They’ll control the small local bosses who, instead of disappearing, have in fact proliferated under the democratic system. That’s not enough, Mr. President. Something’s missing. Do you know what it is? You are missing. People need to see you. Like so many of your predecessors, you’re turning into the great man all alone in the palace, the ghost that sits on the Eagle’s Throne. React, I beg you. There’s still time. Don’t let people think you’re a plaything at the mercy of uncontrollable forces. Stop looking out at the horizon like a mystic when you appear in public on Independence Day, at the New Year, on Cinco de Mayo. Look people in the eye, let them see you, but make sure it’s you they see, Mr. President, and not your lackeys. Let your voice fill the plazas and find its way into every corner of this country. Politics can only live and breathe in the places where the president’s voice is heard. Have you tested the limits of your voice? Have you measured the boundaries between action and passivity? A president must exist for his citizens. If he doesn’t, they will withdraw the veneration he expects from them. The man who is praised as God one day can be scorned as the devil the next.

Go out to the streets, Mr. President. Throw out some ideas before they’re thrown at you. Because if you don’t have any ideas of your own, you’ll never be anything but the mouthpiece of everyone else. Be careful, Mr. President. I see only drones, leeches, and sycophants in your office. Do you really have any use for them, or is it perhaps the other way around? You’re now entering the second half of your term, and you can safely look back and congratulate yourself for the fact that we’re now a freer, more democratic country than before. How marvelous. But now you must look forward and proceed with caution because soon we’ll be facing our ides of March: the drama of the presidential succession that we face every six years. Unlike other presidents, you won’t name your successor. “The anointed one” no longer exists. But there will always be favorites and presidential darlings in every administration. And the president’s support will count for a lot. Within the parties. Within the administration. Even within yourself. Not to mention public opinion.

But be very careful, Mr. President. Having dared to point out that the public perceives you as passive, I encourage you to develop a clear, serene, visible public presence. I must warn you, however, against an overly aggressive leadership, the kind that smothers rather than supports democratic freedoms. Heidegger succumbed to the Nazi belief system in Germany by declaring that land and blood were more important than freedom of expression. He gave academic respectability to the unholy marriage of death and violence; to the kind of leader who channels our energies and forces us to accept — and I quote the philosopher from memory—“the voluptuous passivity of total obedience.” How do we know that the Mexican people, tired of a democracy that has become confused with passivity, won’t opt for an authoritarian leadership that at least gives them the illusion of security and a sense of purpose?

That is the other extreme. Don’t fall prey to it. Examine and assess your public presence. But, and I return to the other extreme, don’t let them say about Lorenzo Terán what Georges Bernanos said about France after its defeat by Adolf Hitler: “Our nation has been raped by vagabonds while it slept.”

Oh, my dear, esteemed friend, you honor me with your trust, but please, no matter what you do, always remember that the presidency of the republic is a goldfish bowl. Whatever you decide to do, just do it well. Because if you fail, you won’t just be the worst democratic leader this country has had. You’ll be the last.

What a messy little predicament, my old and distinguished friend! “A Mexican politician never puts anything in writing.” That was the dogma before. Well, look at us now, you idiot, just look where our notorious, sovereign arrogance — or is it arrogant sovereignty? — has gotten us. Let’s not mince words, shall we? I think we both know each other too well for that. Call me Augustus and I’ll call you Caligula, even though Caligula was the emperor who decided his horse would succeed him, and in your case the horse will be you if in fact you get where you want to go.

Let me laugh, you Caligulan shit, you revolting traitor. It’s funny, isn’t it? I’m the one person who can put you on the Eagle’s Throne, but I’ll humiliate you every step of the way, because you won’t just owe me a favor — you’ll owe me your life. Remember what I said to you one day, when you were working for me, you ass-licking bastard? Don’t start obsessing about conspiracies, because even if there aren’t any, you’ll end up creating one.

Believe me, I’ve thought of you many, many times during these years in exile, Caligula. Your Caesar Augustus has never forgotten you — so much so, in fact, that I’m now taking the risk of writing to you. So we have no telephones, no faxes, no e-mail, no computers, no Internet, no satellites? Well, I can tell you something we do have. We have the unexpected. The unknown. The subtle. General Mondragón von Bertrab and General Cícero Arruza, so diametrically opposed in every sense, have actually managed to agree on a method for keeping tabs on all of us. Don’t ask me how they invented it or how they pulled it off. They say that Mondragón has been keeping a million-dollar brain trust on the government payroll — just picture it, moron, the best brains from MIT, Silicon Valley, and the CNRS in Paris.