The City of Palaces (16 page)

“Bring him champagne,” said Don Saturino, the banker, to the white-coated waiter who had entered the room through the service door. Saturino was married to Alicia's eldest sister, Nilda, in a union that, to Sarmiento's eyes, seemed to be cemented by their mutual loathing. He was a scrawny man who looked as if he had been squeezed out of a tube and as officious as a bank teller confronting a client about an overdraft.

“Or would you rather have some of this fine English whiskey?” asked Don Damian, husband to gay Eulalia, Alicia's third sister.

Damian was not only the most charming of the three but he had made the sincerest attempt to befriend Sarmiento. He was a fair-skinned, exquisitely handsome little man, never a hair or thread of clothing out of place, with shockingly blue eyes. The first time they had met, Sarmiento had been unable to keep from staring. Damian, evidently used to having this effect, took him aside and explained, “My grandfather was Irish, a San Patricio. Do you know who they were?”

“Only vaguely. They fought against the Yankee invaders, didn't they?”

“Yes, exactly so,” he said. “They were Irish immigrants impressed into the American army to fight against México when the Americans invaded in 1846. They were treated like animals by their Protestant officers. When they saw that the Mexicans went into battle behind the banner of the Virgin Mary, they decided they were fighting for the wrong God and switched sides. They called themselves the San Patricio Battalion. My blue-eyed grandfather was one of them.”

“What happened to them?”

“The Yankees slaughtered them when they could find them. Those who survived, like my grandfather, became Mexican citizens. You see,” he said, smiling, “we have something in common, Miguel. You are Spanish; I am Irish. Outsiders, no?” He winked and added, “By the way, I've done business with your uncle.” Later, when Sarmiento asked his senator uncle about Damian, Cayetano told him, “Careful with that one. You never know if his schemes are going to pad your billfold or empty it.”

“The whiskey, please,” Sarmiento replied now.

The waiter went to a side table and poured a tumbler of scotch. Sarmiento tasted it—it was superb—and he tipped his glass in Damian's direction.

“We took the liberty of ordering the meal,” Gonzalo said, “beginning with some excellent oysters.”

“Oysters, brother,” Damian said, with a laugh. “You must be planning a visit to that casita on Calle Trasquillo after dinner to see your little friend La Perla and do some pearl diving.”

“Ah, well, brother, a man must maintain his strength for whatever eventuality,” Gonzalo replied.

“Are you finished with these vulgarities?” Saturino asked. “Let's get down to business.”

“What business is that, Don Saturino?” Sarmiento asked.

“Sit, sit,” Damian said. “This is a pleasant meal between brothers, not a police interrogation.”

They sat, wine was poured, and the oysters were presented on a bed of ice. Gonzalo's fat hand reached for one. He sniffed it and raised a wicked eyebrow in Damian's direction.

Damian burst out laughing. “You are incorrigible.”

At the fish course, Sarmiento said, “Don Saturino, you mentioned business. What did you mean?”

The three men exchanged quick glances. Damian said, “Our wives are very protective of their sister. They asked us to explore your intentions.”

“My intention is to marry Alicia,” Sarmiento replied.

“Why?” Saturino demanded.

“What our brother means,” Gonzalo said smoothly, “is that we cannot help wondering why a man like you,
un macho
, would make such a match?”

Sarmiento waited until their plates had been cleared and the waiter had departed before he replied. “Doña Alicia is the finest woman I have ever met. I am humbled that she would accept me as her husband.”

“Your sentiments do you credit,” Damian said, “but—”

“She is hideous,” Saturino said coldly. “If you are marrying her because you believe she has money, I assure you she does not. It is we who support her and her mother and their ridiculously expensive residence.”

“You think I am a ‘fortune hunter'?” Sarmiento asked, using the English phrase.

“We like you very much, Miguel,” Gonzalo replied quickly. “We would welcome you into the family, but we wanted to make clear to you your lady's financial position.”

“Of course no one thinks you are a ‘fortune hunter,'” Damian added soothingly. “But Miguel, with all due respect to my virtuous sister-in-law, you must admit it is an odd union.”

“Gentlemen, that you cannot conceive of a marriage that is not mercenary is more a reflection of your character than mine. I can support my wife without your help.” He stood up from the table. “Indeed, after our marriage you can keep your money and continue to spend it on oysters and whores.”

Damian gripped his arm with a restraining hand. “Miguel, please, sit. As unpleasant as this conversation must be for you, you cannot imagine how much worse it would have been had we left it to our wives. I speak for all of us when I say that we apologize for any offense.”

“Yes, Miguel, sit and finish your meal,” Gonzalo said. “Let us put this behind us and have another glass of champagne. Right, Saturino?”

The banker shrugged. “You understand us. We understand you.”

“That wasn't much of a toast,” Damian said. He raised his glass. “To our brother Miguel, a long and happy marriage to our beloved sister.”

T
he last plate was cleared. Saturino clamped his homburg on his head and left in a cloud of disapproval and Gonzalo went off to his bordello. Damian asked Sarmiento to stay behind with him for brandy and cigars.

“I hope you have forgiven us, Miguel,” Damian said, waving away smoke.

“Did your wives really put you up to this, or was it the banker's idea?”

“The banker's wife,” Damian replied. “Nilda is … forceful. She threatened a scene if we did not speak to you.” He grinned. “And if she is not satisfied by Saturino's account, there may still be one.” He inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “Delicious. Ironic, of course, that we should raise questions about your marriage given the states of our own. Nilda and Saturino hate each other and Gonzalo breaks Leticia's heart with his philandering. As for Eulalia and me …”

“What, Damian?”

“We see each other so rarely that she once passed me in the street without recognizing me. And yet, of the three of us, she and I have the most agreeable marriage. We accommodate each other.”

“You don't love her?”

“You know the English poet Kipling? ‘A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.'”

“Why did you marry her?”

He smiled. “Look at me, Miguel, a half-breed son of an army quartermaster with freakish eyes. I rose high enough on my brains, but to get through those gilded doors where the real money is made, I needed a wife like Eulalia from an old criollo family. Saturino and Gonzalo married for the same reason.” He pointed at Sarmiento with his cigar. “But you? You are a virile man, the Spanish son of a famous father, a hero, though a little cracked. What do you need with a Gavilán girl, especially one who suffered Alicia's misfortune?”

“I believe I love her,” Sarmiento said.

For a moment, the handsome little man looked abashed, but then he raised his glass and said, “Well, then, to love, in all its mysterious forms.” When they had drunk he said, “So I hear you are working for Lalo Liceaga at Public Health.”

“Yes, you know him?”

“It's my business to know everyone,” Damian replied with a laugh. “And to know where they stand in the hierarchy of Don Porfirio's divine order. The butterfly catcher scarcely appears, Miguel. His department is a joke, something for foreign consumption, with no real authority or money. I could get you a real position of power in the government, or, if you want to stay at Public Health, you can have Lalo's job.”

“Thank you, Damian, but I am happy where I am.”

“My God,” the other man exclaimed, “you and Alicia really are made for each other.”

“What is your business exactly, Damian?” Sarmiento asked, feeling the effects of the drink.

“I buy and sell,” he replied.

“What, like Gonzalo?”

Damian chuckled softly. “No, Miguel, not petticoats and pâtés. My dealings are in information, introductions, access.”

“That's all very mysterious,” Sarmiento said, pouring himself another brandy.

“Yes, in that way we are completely unalike,” Damian said. “There is no mystery to you at all.”

He spoke pleasantly enough, but Sarmiento felt the sting of judgment in his words.

O
n a Sunday afternoon, he escorted Alicia on the pathways beneath the leafy bowers of the Alameda. She wore a lavender lace dress and an enormous hat that shaded her powdered face. She smelled of rose and citron.

“May we sit for a moment, Miguel?” she asked. “I wish to discuss the wedding.”

“Of course,” he said. He led her to a bench, wiped it with his handkerchief, and they sat.

“Miguel, I do not require an elaborate wedding, but I must be married in the church.”

He had anticipated this conversation. “As you know, the Ley Juárez made marriage a strictly civil contract. The church ceremony adds nothing.”

“Without the sacrament, I would not consider myself married at all.”

Sarmiento shared his father's atheism, but without his father's rancor. While his father had railed against the church, to Sarmiento, the Christian sky-king, the virgin impregnated by the air, and the man who came back from the dead were stories so manifestly absurd they did not merit much more than a raised eyebrow and a shrug at human credulity. Nonetheless, if Alicia required him to go through the religious ceremony, he was prepared to do so as a purely anthropological experience, like Doctor Livingston living among the Hottentots.

“Then, of course, my dear, we will marry in a church. There is just one thing I ask. Let me choose the priest.”

She looked at him curiously. “I am surprised you number any priests among your friends.”

“Only Pedro Cáceres at San Francisco Tlalco. He has been taking me around to the neighborhood and helping me in my work. I have come to admire him greatly. I would like him to marry us.”

“In his church?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you know how much it will annoy my sisters to have to come to that barrio? To venture south of the Zócalo for any reason?”

“I'm sorry, Alicia, but that is my condition for marrying in a church.”

She laughed. “No, no, Miguel, you misunderstand me. I'm not upset. I'm delighted!”

“Delighted to be married at San Francisco Tlalco, or delighted that it will annoy your sisters?”

“Both!” she said.

She had never shown even the faintest malice toward anyone and he found it so unexpected and amusing that he spontaneously kissed her. It was their first kiss.

T
he priest was less understanding than Sarmiento had hoped. They had become friends and Sarmiento had learned from him a great deal about the Indians, not simply their habits, but their history and their beliefs. He had been surprised by much of what Cáceres had taught him, for in the official texts of his childhood, the history of México began with the conquest in 1519 and was a chronicle of Spanish kings and viceroys and the spread of Catholicism and European civilization. In that version of his country's history, the Indians were ancillary—primitives to be converted or subdued. The Aztecs, whose monuments still dotted the city, could not be ignored entirely. Instead, they were held up as the consummate example of Indian barbarism: human sacrificers, cannibals, demons.

Cáceres taught him there was a purpose behind even the seemingly inexplicable practice of human sacrifice. “The Mexica,” he told Sarmiento, using the name Aztecs called themselves, “no less than we Christians believed that man was created in the image of God, but their gods made man of dust and their own blood. When they sacrificed humans, in their minds they were only returning to the gods the blood that belonged to them.”

“Surely you're not saying you approve?”

The priest shook his head. “To understand is not to approve, Miguel. I am merely pointing out that what we condemn as evidence of the depravity of the Mexica had its reason and its purpose. It was part of a religious ritual as meaningful to them as the Eucharist is to us.”

“To you, you mean,” Sarmiento said. “But you're talking ancient history, Pedro. There is no more human sacrifice.”

“God be praised for that,” Cáceres said. “But it's not ancient history, Miguel. When our Spanish ancestors justified the conquest of the Mexica because of their so-called moral degeneracy, they were creating a justification for the abuse of the descendants of the Mexica that continues to this very day. Think of it, Miguel. Do you believe in your heart that the Indian you see walking down the street is your moral equal?”

After an uncomfortable pause, Sarmiento murmured, “Not if I am being completely truthful. No.”

“And you are a good man with enough grace to be ashamed of his prejudices. Imagine the actions of those who are not.”

He rattled around the room for a newspaper and spread it out on the table between them. On the front page was a drawing of a half-dozen Indians hanging from a gallows. Beneath it, the caption explained the men were Yaquis who had been caught raiding a hacienda in the northern state of Sonora.

“You see,” Cáceres said. “We still exterminate the Indians.”

“According to this story, these men were the aggressors,” Sarmiento pointed out.

Cáceres shook his head. “We are the aggressors. The Yaquis are only attempting to defend their ancestral homeland against Don Porfirio's army. It is no different than when the Mexica resisted Cortés.”