Carlos Fuentes - The Eagle's Throne

“I am your woman.”

And then you laughed so I’d feel close to you.

In your arms I became a woman. When I saw you that night at the museum, you had no name. I didn’t know what to call you.

“Call me ‘Island.’ ”

I laughed.

“That’s not a name,” I said. “That’s a place.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head of curls, so caressable. “It’s utopia.”

I stopped laughing.

“It’s the place that doesn’t exist.”

Your face grew serious.

“It’s the place that should exist.”

You almost frightened me, you were so serious, almost angry, your teeth clenched.

“I will turn the place that doesn’t exist into the place that should exist.”

Utopia. I had never heard that word. But what’s so surprising about that? They were all firsts with you — words, things, ideas, sex, love. . Of all the people at the Modern Art Museum why did you pick out a completely inexperienced nineteen-year-old girl from a humble family, without work, anxious to learn, not very ugly but not very pretty either? What did you see in me? The perfect companion to go with you to that happy island in your imagination? Was I like an island for you? Something to discover, something to transform, something to believe in?

Into my hands you put a Mexican novel from the twentieth century by Armando Ayala Anguiano and you said to me, “This is the best title for you, for me, and for everyone, Dulce.”

“ The Desire to Believe, ” I said out loud, reading the book cover.

The desire to believe. That was your invitation to me, my love, to have faith, and one day you said the same thing to the whole country from a platform raised so high that my hand was no longer able to reach yours.

“We must have faith. We must give Mexico back its hope.”

That was when I saw you in all the papers, in all the news reports on TV. In those days you were what they called the tapado, “the concealed one.” You lived in the shadows, waiting for the sun to come out and blind you. That was when, in the most awful way, both hurt and saved by the truth, I knew that you were mine more than ever because you would never be totally mine, because I saw you in a photograph with your wife and three children, and I accepted the silence, the secret, of being nothing to you in your public life and everything to you in private.

Tomás, my love, you know that I never complained, I understood how things had to be, I never asked anything of you, and I was more than happy; I cherished our love, more secret than ever, far from the stages, the photographs, the speeches. I cherished your confidences because I knew that you shared them with me and only me, and perhaps I never quite understood all the things you set out to achieve — I don’t know anything about politics — but you were the candidate, you wanted to make the country a little bit better, give people back their faith, their hope, their trust. Those were the words you used over and over again.

Secret lovers. What joy. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I never calculated, I never said to myself, “I’m going to make him choose between me and his family.”

It never occurred to me, Tomás, because I knew that being secret lovers was the best thing in the world, I knew that even if it hadn’t been for your family and politics, I would have loved you just the same — or rather, I knew that despite your family and political life, I would love you just the same. Your position and your responsibilities only made me love you more, and feel even more pleasure in knowing that you were mine, that you were the master of my body and I was the mistress of yours. I knew that just as surely as I believe in God — you and I, naked and united with no need for explanations, all as inexplicable and joyful as the feeling of your body inside mine. .

And now what was once my pleasure is my pain, my agony, Tomás. I have no one to turn to. That woman María del Rosario, who was so close to you during the campaign, that woman whom you did so much for, helping her onto what you called your “bandwagon,” doesn’t answer my letters. I can see why. She has no idea who I am. I could be a liar, a cheat, a publicity seeker. . And when I want to go and talk to someone else, your shadow stops me and begs me to be discreet, cautious, just as if you were protecting me, Tomás, just as if you were saying, from wherever you are, “Dulce, let it be. Don’t rock the boat. I’m telling you this for your own good. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

Do I even have a right, my love, to write to you, to leave a letter of love and desperation on your false grave? May I ask God to intercede, to tell me the truth, since no human being is willing to tell me anything? Wherever you are, think of how many times God hears us. Count for yourself, and you’ll see what the answer is. Never.

This makes me think of a heresy, Tomás, and I’ll tell it to you here, at your grave.

“How many times can we be expected to rescue God?”

I’ve reached the limits of my endurance. I will not resign myself, my love. I will not tell myself, “Tomás is dead. Accept it.”

No. Instead I spend my nights wide awake, saying to myself, “If no one but God can hear my questions, and even God says nothing, then what can I do to make Him answer me?”

Tomás, my love. Give me back my life. You made me who I am. I was someone else before you. Perhaps I was nothing before you. In your arms I became a woman. And now that I no longer have you with me, I have to hold back my tears because, if I cry, I know that something even worse will happen to me. Tears will release the sadness, the grief that I haven’t been able to express.

Will there be no resting place?

I love you, I love you, I think of you all the time.

I hear boleros on the café jukebox (radio and television aren’t working; newspapers are selling very well now), and I remember our love.

No me preguntes más

déjame imaginar

que no existe el pasado

y que nacimos

el mismo instante

en que nos conocimos. . 1

But the music fades away when I walk through the cemetery gate and read the inscription at the entrance:

STOP: THE PROVINCE OF ETERNITY BEGINS HERE,

WHERE EARTHLY GRANDEUR TURNS TO DUST.

Mr. President, I thank God for the crisis we now find ourselves in, caused by the knee-jerk reaction of our neighbors to the north, since it gives me a chance to leave a written record of my loyalty to you. I applaud your decision to place lasting principles above and beyond any and all other transient considerations. I know all too well that for you our ultimate purposes must always be ethical. There can be no other way. All I need is to look at your hands, Mr. President, to know that they’re capable of making miracles happen. You have a kind of sixth sense that other humans lack. And that intuition will have told you that I’m here to protect you and to prevent certain people from getting near you, people who might inconvenience you. Or, dare I add, people who aren’t humbled by your presence. You know, sir, that I obey your orders before you even utter them. And to this virtue I add another. Keeping things in strict confidence is a habit I’ve cultivated all my life. What I’m trying to say is that you can place your utmost trust in me. I know that I owe everything to you, and that by doing anything to hurt you I would only be hurting myself. I reiterate my position so that in the upcoming presidential succession of 2024, you remember that you will face opponents who wish to remain in opposition indefinitely because they are so scared of actually exercising power. But you will also encounter people like me who are already close to the nucleus of power but have never felt any ambition to wield power themselves. That’s why, Mr. President, I feel I can speak to you with truly impartial conviction.