The Shadow of the Strongman, page 4
Instinctively, Aguirre and Rosario began to run toward the car. But since it was far, it was certain they would be soaked by the time they got there; the rain seemed to stretch out across the distance even as they ran. To protect herself a bit, Rosario opened her bright red umbrella; it soon turned dark cherry. Passing through the umbrella, the water was sifted into mist.
Aguirre did not seem to care much if he got wet or not. He ran laughing beside his companion. Meanwhile, his consciousness plunged down three river beds: the novelty of the sensation—the water slipping between his hand and Rosario’s naked arm; a vehement wish—that the cloudburst would become stronger as they got closer to the car; and the physical, pleasant, and immediate exertion—as he helped her jump over puddles, for which he sometimes had to lift her totally, clasping her by the waist.
They reached the Cadillac, then radiating liquid dust: the torrential rain, as it broke against the roof and sides, was pulverized. The chauffeur’s assistant had come to open the door and, despite the downpour, stood there, cap in hand. Rosario saw, fleetingly, that tiny streams rushed down either side of his nose.
“I’ll close the umbrella,” said Aguirre. “You get in.”
And his peremptory tone, as he grabbed the umbrella with his other hand, was followed by the pushing of his arm.
Rosario weakly tried to resist. Like a blow to the head or a dizzy spell, the sudden onset of the rain had thrown her inner strength off balance.
“No,” she barely said, “I’m not getting in.”
Aguirre leaned toward her:
“Yes, do get in,” he whispered in her ear. “I give you my word of honor nothing will happen.”
And, almost lifting her, he made her go in through the door.
Inside the small confines of the car, Rosario had the sensation that Aguirre was physically a much larger man than she had previously realized. She felt small, tiny. In front, on the other side of the glass, she could see the chauffeur and his assistant: motionless, their backs and heads erect.
{14} Following Rosario’s gaze, and thinking he understood it, Aguirre leaned forward and drew the curtain across the glass. He did it reflexively; he was thinking about something else. The word “honor,” which he had just somehow pronounced, still rang in his ears, and the memory of the word, said in this way, was beginning to produce a deep uneasiness in him. For a moment, he almost came to believe he had not said it, or if he had, Rosario had not heard it.
He allowed several minutes to elapse in silence, an embarrassing silence. Then, without looking at his lady friend, he observed:
“The cloudburst won’t last long; then you can get out.”
She was smoothing her hair and looking out intently. The downpour was becoming denser as it continued. Under the shadow of the water curtains, night seemed to be falling.
After a while Rosario also spoke:
“No, I don’t want us to wait here.”
Aguirre gave an order for the car to move and, as if he had to do so before his order was carried out, drew the rest of the curtains.
Partial darkness enveloped them.
“If you think this is too dark,” said Aguirre, “I can turn on the light.”
“No, no. We’re fine like this.”
Her arm and his hand brushed against each other.
“How awful,” he exclaimed, “you’re freezing!”
After which he took his overcoat from the seat and put it around Rosario’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you feel better now?”
“Yes, much better.”
Rolling softly, the car sheltered them from the floods of water that hit against its leather rooftop and windows. And that gentle rolling helped soothe the internal upheaval Rosario felt. Several minutes passed. The calming effect was increased by the touch of Aguirre’s coat—a warm touch that rustled and gave off a masculine fragrance.
Aguirre’s right arm, which had been protected from the rain by Rosario’s umbrella, was relatively dry. He casually slipped it behind Rosario’s neck in order to raise the coat’s collar. But, {15} having done this, he left it there. Then it seemed to him that the coat was not sufficiently closed, and in order to adjust it, he used his other hand. And then, as if suddenly seized by an impulse not his own (even though such impulses were totally familiar to him), he took Rosario’s chin, drew her toward him, and kissed her on the mouth. The kiss was moist with rain and youth.
Rosario’s reproach sounded weak and soft.
“And you gave me your word of honor!”
To which Aguirre replied even more softly:
“And I’ll give it to you again. If you order me, I’ll get out of the car immediately.”
Rosario’s head was resting on her friend’s athletic chest. “She order him . . . ?” She chose to keep her head where it was.
{16} III. Three Friends
THE DAY AFTER HIS ADVENTURE WITH ROSARIO, AGUIRRE LEFT HIS office at the War Ministry resolved, as ever, to enjoy himself. Though there were several reasons for his feeling this way, there was one above all: the conclusion he thought he’d reached when talking with Axkaná González about the fundamentals of conduct. “If it is fair,” he had summed up, “to accept or inflict present sorrows in view of future satisfactions or joys, it must also be fair to seek out today’s pleasures in exchange for tomorrow’s sufferings. Some may choose the former, others may choose the latter, and perhaps in the end we will all come out even.”
Even the mere formulation of such a philosophy, more suitable than any other to the impulses of the young minister of war, produced in him a deep and almost new joy. It brought to mind forgotten delights from the days before the Revolution. And for that same reason, many hours later, he was approachable and generous with every petitioner who dared accost him as he walked from the elevator door to the floorboard of his automobile, Axkaná always by his side.
Once on the street, the warm caress of the midday air, made even milder by the cushioned ride of the automobile, flooded him with especially pleasant sensations.
After skirting the Zócalo, the Cadillac entered Avenida Madero and advanced slowly, so slowly that its very essence—as a machine made for speed—was dissolving into soft lethargy.
The clock had just struck two. The deserted avenue seemed to be on hold. The stores were closed; the sidewalks empty; the polished sheet of asphalt, uncluttered by cars, shimmered in the sun. Only a few of the sinful women who exhibited themselves there at the hour of the paseo were still circling—tedious, dawdling, and tireless—in their Ford taxis. The colorful passing of their dresses seemed to break up the unity of the light, underscoring the {17} transparency of the air. It was the dazzling midday light, already enriched and slightly tempered by the remote intimations of the afternoon.
It was Axkaná, not Aguirre, who was aware of these slight atmospheric nuances. Impervious to all that was merely aesthetic, Aguirre took pleasure in the parade of the women, who smiled when they saw him, beckoned to him and, if necessary, leaned halfway out of the cars in order to keep communicating with him at a distance. One of them, whose car came so close to theirs as to almost brush against it, threw one of the pastries she had been eating at the minister’s hands and laughed uproariously at her own mischief. Her fine, crystalline laugh snaked for several seconds down the street and was lost in the metallic gleam of the store windows.
Axkaná asked, “Who is she?”
“Adela.”
“Adela?”
“Yes, Adela.”
And Aguirre waved his hand against the rear window of the car, in order to prolong his connection with the girl whose Ford was driving away. He immediately added:
“Yes, it’s Adela Infante, the one from Medellín.”
“Obviously, I don’t know her,” replied Axkaná, wishing to move on, since the subject basically didn’t interest him.
But Aguirre, very fond of certain topics, did not let it go:
“Yes, yes, of course you know her! And she definitely knows you. She’s that girl who used to work in the Ministry of Finance, who always wore her hair loose after she took a bath. Her hair is beautiful (it’s the most beautiful thing about her, apart from her laugh); so quite soon the Section head and the Department head were tangled up in it, then the senior administrator and the undersecretary, then the personal secretary and then the minister. Finally, unless I’m wrong, all of us in the government eventually got tangled up there . . .”
The passing of another Ford, with another woman inside, made Aguirre interrupt himself. Soon he added:
“The fact is we met Adela at the Gunpowder Factory the evening of the party General Frutos gave to celebrate the Caudillo’s birthday. Now I see you never gave her a second thought. I did. One night . . .”
{18} Once again the minister’s talk was interrupted. The Cadillac had stopped; the door had opened, and in had jumped another of General Ignacio Aguirre’s favorite friends: the noisy and agile Remigio Tarabana. Standing inside the car, bending at the waist so as not to hit his head against the ceiling, Tarabana shook his walking stick and exclaimed:
“You two have kept me waiting for an hour! One hour! I really think that’s too much.”
Despite his use of the plural, his words were directed only at the minister of war, as were the emphatic gestures he made. For further emphasis, he unceremoniously set himself in the free space between the two friends, took off his straw hat and, when he had fanned himself with it until his arm was exhausted, placed it on the head of his bamboo stick. Meanwhile, he continued:
“Didn’t you ask me to meet you at one thirty? Yes, of course you did, but only in order to make me wait, as usual! And to think that not a few of us idiots still believe you!”
He had taken out an extremely white handkerchief, which he shook to spread out its fresh folds, and then wiped his neck and face with it. His dark fingers contrasted with the whiteness of the linen and displayed the luster of a beautiful blue cabochon set in the subtle gleam of platinum. That discreet and manly blend of harmonious colors and sparkles was characteristically Tarabana. It matched his aristocratic facial features, his precise and faultless manners, and the cut and style of the gray suit that fit so well it made him look slender (although he was not).
Aguirre managed to reply to Tarabana’s reproaches while still enjoying the entertainment of the women passing in the Fords. Gesticulating to those outside the car as he spoke to those inside, he asked:
“And why should I care you had to wait?”
In his reply, Tarabana affected that air of mock scolding that bold protégés adopt with those who are powerful but benevolent. The tone of his words clearly belied what he said:
“Don’t be rude, Ignacio. Learn to be polite. . . . And above all, when are you going to act in a manner befitting your position? It’s scandalous for a minister of your importance to be flirting like this in the middle of Plateros Street and in broad daylight with disgusting parasites.”
{19} Aguirre’s reply was half threatening and half smiling:
“Look, Jijo, I have told you . . .”
“Jijo” was Tarabana’s nickname, given to him by his friends. It played on the similarities between his name—Remigio—and the unflattering epithet hijo de puta.
“What have you told me?”
“That the person who can scold me has yet to be born . . .”
Tarabana laughed heartily, ironically. But immediately, in order to shield himself, he performed the deft maneuver that never failed to work with Aguirre: he provided evidence of his usefulness.
“Fine, fine!” he exclaimed, taking his hat from the cane and replacing it on his head. “Behave as you wish; you’re free to do so. In the end, I don’t care about that, I care about this.”
He paused briefly. Then continued:
“The ‘El Aguila’ deal is now settled. Tonight or tomorrow they will hand over half the money. One thing, though, the directives have to be very broad, very substantial, as I told you from the start. . . . Otherwise, nothing doing.”
Axkaná, who knew well how such encounters always ended, had not paid the least attention to the argument between his two friends, but he joined the conversation as soon as it turned to business.
Confronting Tarabana, he said, “One of these days, you’re going to compromise Ignacio. It’s right (or wrong, but in the end, probably inevitable) to attempt some discreet operations with prudence. But, Tarabana, the truth is you just don’t stop, you don’t protect yourself, and you certainly don’t protect those who are ultimately responsible. Every day it’s directives, directives, and more directives.”
His tone, though admonitory and forceful, was also affectionate and calm. Nonetheless, Tarabana, quite forgetting his manners, lost his temper:
“I’m compromising Ignacio? I don’t look to protect those who are ultimately responsible? I really don’t know where they get that you’re intelligent. I want you to know that so far, I’ve never slipped up, and I also want you to get this straight: I’m not the one who is after Ignacio to do this, but the other way around. It is Ignacio who is after me. You hear that? He is after me. Now, that he is more than justified in doing so, that’s another matter. He’d be {20} very stupid if he wasted his opportunities and exposed himself to being left out in the street the next time there’s a power struggle or if the Caudillo gets rid of him for one reason or another. But, let me tell you again: what good is all your philosophy, and all the books they say you read? Do you think the money this one spends comes out of nowhere? Then where do you think Ignacio gets everything he squanders on his friends, including you and me? Do you think people just give it to him?”
“Enough!” Aguirre cut him off, effortlessly putting into those two syllables the whole power of his authority. “Axkaná knows I’m no child and I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
Axkaná, imperturbable, kept silent. The partly enigmatic, partly incredulous smile with which he had received Tarabana’s outburst grew. When he had spoken before, his green eyes had lit up with a rich expressive glow, more expressive than his own words. Now his smile was enough to convey that the importance of what he had said was in the advice his phrases contained, not in the incident they provoked.
Aguirre continued speaking, now in a more serene and friendly tone:
“It’s your fault, Jijo. I warned you once not to discuss business in front of Axkaná, in order to avoid his sermons.”
The Cadillac had passed the little Guardiola garden and, tempted by the wide Avenida Juárez, began to shake off its sleepy pace and pick up speed. Axkaná saw the green foliage of the Alameda turn transparent in the glare of the sun, and further on, he felt as if from one world—that of quiet inactivity under the light—the car was entering another—that of the explosion of sound and movement. There was a shattering din of voices. The evening newspapers were out! The voices of children and adults multiplied and zigzagged around the statue of Charles IV, while noisy, frenzied crowds of men and boys flew from the streets adjacent to Bucareli onto the avenue. Most of the boys ran toward the center of the city, others down Reforma, and others down Balderas or Humboldt. Some, with incomparable daring, jumped onto cars and buses, boarded streetcars, got off, were lost in the portals of buildings, reappeared.
One boy—he must have been eight or nine—grimy face, sharp eyes, his mouth twisted in the paroxysm of shouting, peered {21} suddenly over the window of the Cadillac: “El Gráfico is out, boss! El Mundo!” There he was, light and winged like Mercury. Without knowing why, Axkaná bought six newspapers, three of each, from the boy. When the car sped off, the paperboy jumped to the pavement ready to board another car approaching on the opposite side. He had left prints of his dirty fingers on the car glass—but when he jumped, the newspapers under his little arm seemed like wings.
Aguirre and Tarabana, now whispering, continued their financial conversation. Axkaná absentmindedly read the headlines; then, as the papers fell from his hands, he began to look outside. The car glided swiftly between the rows of trees on Reforma and seemed to draw to itself the gilded statue of the Angel of Independence. Fringed by the sun, the Angel, looking radiant and huge against the mantle of a remote cloud, appeared to fly above, thanks to the fleeing automobile below.
Axkaná’s soul was associative, dreamy; for a moment, it also flew, and its flight, inspired by the view, was a bit whimsical and fanciful, a bit sad like the gray stain of Chapultepec Castle over the splendid pyramid of green.
{22} IV. Banquet in Chapultepec Forest
THE GROUP OF POLITICIANS WHOM IGNACIO AGUIRRE HAD INVITED that day to eat at the Restaurante de Chapultepec received their host with a greeting that was nothing short of boisterous.
This was because Aguirre, who knew how to enhance his prestige by making himself desired, made his admirers and supporters wait for more than an hour on that occasion. And that is precisely why they redoubled their expressions of enthusiasm when they saw that the young minister of war had finally arrived; it was the only way they could preserve the high opinion they had of themselves, since they were deputies or councilmen, senators or generals, governors, high-ranking public officials.
There was a great deal of rattling of iron chairs among the garden’s little tables, and the rising of many manly silhouettes against the shady hedges of the large kiosk built between the trees. Innumerable feet crunched sand as the exclamations, the applause, and the laughter went on for a long time.
The glasses of aperitifs induced all to sit, and calm was finally restored. The minister installed himself in what could be considered the place of honor, between Encarnación Reyes and Emilio Olivier Fernández. Reyes was a divisional general and chief of military operations in the state of Puebla. Olivier, the most extraordinary of the political agitators at that moment, was the chair of the Progressive Radical Bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, founder and leader of his party, ex-mayor of Mexico City, and ex-governor.
