Carlos Fuentes - The Eagle's Throne

Yes, Tácito, just like everything you keep. Like stolen goods. Tácito, you specialize in revealing people’s unpleasant pasts. I know perfectly well that you made me the victim of your slander once before, and now you’re threatening to do it again. But now it’s your own past that’s going to haunt you in the middle of the night and rob you of your sleep. You’ve dug up every last secret except for one: your own. Now, your guilty secret is going to be unearthed, and I swear to you, Tácito, it will terrify you, and with luck dispose of you for once and for all.

I won’t be deterred. Mark my words. What you’re trying to do to Bernal and me will rebound on you. I know what you’re up to, and if you touch a single hair on my head the entire world will hear about it. And even if you were to cut off my head, the evidence against you would come to light, with another charge — murder.

There are petty and evil people who know too much, Tácito. But there are also great and good people who know enough to silence that insufferable high-pitched voice of yours that makes you sound like a newly ordained priest. Do you know who you remind me of with that voice and physique? Franco, my dear Tácito, Generalísimo Francisco Franco. But this isn’t Spain, nor is it 1936. You’ve fallen for the ploy that Lorenzo Terán uses to manage his cabinet. He’s made everyone think: “You are my chosen one. You are my natural successor.”

Have you ever gotten inside the president’s head? Been able to imagine what he imagines?

Poor Tácito. You’ve read all the letters the president received from his cabinet ministers and you’ve insinuated that each and every one was proof of their disloyalty to him — until the president himself began to wonder if it was really possible that everyone close to him was disloyal except Tácito de la Canal.

Poor Tácito. You never realized that the more you fawned over the president, the more the public despised you — and the less the president himself trusted you, knowing well enough that in this country the horse you name emperor will kick you to death.

Poor Tácito. Deep down, I don’t harbor you any ill will. I just don’t like you. More precisely, I’d like to see you humiliated. Rich, in exile, but humiliated.

I’m going to hurt you, Tácito, I swear, and I won’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt because I despise you. Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t be so free with my contempt. There are too many who deserve it. Adieu.

P.S. Next time you go around stealing, be a little smarter about it.

I’m back on the offensive, my distinguished though indistinguishable friend, and am here to remind you of the days when you — figuratively speaking, of course — were in the political bathroom with a towel over your arm and your hand outstretched, hoping for tips. Who dragged you out of there and made you an usher at the party assemblies and then “the man with the microphone” at the conventions, the one who called for order, attention. .?

“It is my great privilege to present the honorable licenciado César León, candidate for the presidency. . ”

From there you rose to the executive committee of the party, and then the golden exile of an ambassadorship in Luxembourg, where we have so many various and pressing interests (don’t laugh — nobody laughs at those bank accounts in Luxembourg) and you fulfilled your obligations as the trusty little guardian-gnome that you are. And now, congressman for the third consecutive time and president of Congress. Goodness, don Onésimo, how far we have come from those toilet bowl days. One should be grateful, don’t you think? And you’ve proved yourself more than worthy of your hometown of Campeche — why, you’re what they call a real campechano, nice, everyone likes you, sure. But you’ve still got to deal with your mortal enemy Humberto Vidales, the so-called Dark Hand of the state of Tabasco. Of course, it might be more accurate to call him the “Hydra Head”—chop one off and a hundred more grow in its place. In his case, however, those hundred heads are what he very proudly calls “My Nine Evil Sons.” In other words, an evil dynasty. Tabasco is better at that than any other state, and Dark Hand has his conspiracies and plots planned up to the year 3000.

You also bear the burden, Onésimo, of sharing your last name with another Tabasco strongman, the implacable anticlerical governor Tomás Garrido Canabal. You may remember what Gonzalo N. Santos, yet another name in our long list of strongmen, had to say about him: “He’s got the balls of a bull.”

And balls were exactly what he needed when he drove every last priest out of Tabasco, shut down all the churches, and even banned crosses in cemeteries. Don Tomás was such a priest-hater that he even prohibited the people of Tabasco from saying Adiós and made them say Hasta luego instead.

Your secret’s safe with me, Onésimo. I know you moved from Tabasco to Campeche to escape Dark Hand and his Nine Evil Sons, so that you could create your own power base, because nobody can compete with Dark Hand. You went to Campeche to make hell for your rival Vidales, and to escape the specter of Garrido Canabal.

Yes, my dear Onésimo, you did your best to get away. Unfortunately, a man can’t hide from his destiny, because it resides in his soul— it’s not a matter of geography. And your destiny, Onésimo, is that of serving the man who protected you and who continues to protect you from the vengeful hatred of Dark Hand Vidales. The person who protected you in the past, and can protect you in the future, your friend César León.

Let’s see just how well I know you. You’re politically neutral. You prefer obedience to debate. You would always rather subject yourself to real power than to the grass roots. And you have a tremendous virtue, Onésimo. You’re a prehistoric politician, and for you public life has become a succession of ghosts that once were important but now are mere shadows in the platonic Cacahuamilpa grotto that is your memory. They’re all “exes,” aren’t they? And you seem to think that they’ve been vaporized, that only you remain because nobody watches you as you watch all the presidential contenders turn into ghosts. Let’s see, who were Martínez Manatou, Corona del Rosal, García Paniagua, Flores Muñoz, Sánchez Tapia, Rojo Gómez? Ghosts, my dear Onésimo, specters of the misty world of Mexican politics. Light one day, dark the next — and burned-out forever.

Now look me in the eye, Onésimo. I refuse to become a ghost. I’ve settled my debt with the past, if that’s how you want to view things. Exiled, battered, mocked, vilified — but not defeated.

Don’t be scared. Your ghost has returned and is going to make you pay your debts. I’ve been watching you, Onésimo — you feel perfectly secure because you go on playing the same old role and repeating the same old lines without realizing that the stage is different now, as is the playwright. We’re in a new theater, and I want to be the star of the show again. You, my favorite friend, will be the man who puts my name back in the limelight.

Re-election? The unmentionable word of our political theater. Although perhaps it’s not quite so unmentionable after all, what with the amendment of Article 59 of the constitution and the resurgence of the spirit of the 1917 constitutional congress: The possibility of reelecting senators and congressmen is what has allowed you, my Solon of Solons, to remain in Congress for ten years. Very well, now we must take this further: Allow for the president to be reelected. Reform that damn Article 83 and pave the way for my return.