The City of Palaces (25 page)

She nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“For twenty years, Yaqui men have been deported from their homeland in Sonora and sold as slaves to the henequen haciendas, where they are worked to death. Over time, we have created our own sanctuaries to help those who escape reach the American border. Our own underground railroad. This church is a station on that railroad. We shelter the men in the crypt until they are well enough to travel, and then we provide them with the means to reach the next station, in Guanajuato. Ultimately, they cross the border in the American territory of Arizona, where the Yaquis have set up their communities in exile.”

She nodded. “This is commendable work, Father.”

He shook his head. “Not in the eyes of the law, Doña Alicia. Legally, men like Diego are the property of the plantation owners. By helping them escape, we are committing theft. The penalties are very harsh. If we were discovered, I would be prosecuted and thrown into jail and the church itself shut down.”

“Surely the archbishop would intervene on your behalf.”

“The archbishop knows nothing of these activities,” Cáceres said curtly. “If he did, he would personally surrender me to the civil authorities for prosecution.”

“You mean … ,” she began slowly, as the implications of his words sank in.

“Doña, power protects power. The church is no different. You see, we are quite alone in this work.”

“Then you must allow me to assist you.”

The priest shook his head. “No. You are generous and kind to offer, but the risks are too great.”

“They are far less for me than for you, Father. I belong to an old family. My husband is an official in the government. My brother-inlaw Damian is a confidant of Don Porfirio himself, and I am a friend of the first lady. I am above suspicion.”

Ramoncito, who had remained in the room, made a rough noise. She turned to look at him. He pointed to her, tapped his heart, and nodded.

“Thank you,” she told him and then addressed the priest. “If Ramoncito trusts my discretion, you should too, Father. Let me help you.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “Perhaps it was providential that you overheard me and discovered us. Now, our immediate concern is to give the boy a Christian burial.”

“Padre,” she said. “Do you shelter only Yaqui men? What of their women and children?”

His face turned to stone. “The children are taken from their families and placed in orphanages or given to Mexican families to adopt. The women are killed, so that they will not bear other children. It is the policy of our government to wipe these people off the face of the earth,” he said. “God help us, but they are succeeding.”

“But why?” she cried. “What is their offense?”

“Their offense?” he repeated angrily. “Their offense is that they refuse to surrender their ancient homeland to be partitioned among our president's cronies. Their offense is that they exist at all.”

“God forgive México for this crime,” she said.

B
efore he left the city to rejoin Madero's campaign, Luis had given Sarmiento a copy of Edward Carpenter's book
The Intermediate Sex
, which purported to be an explanation of homosexuals.

“You're a rationalist,” Luis had challenged him. “You pride yourself on your scientific objectivity, but you think of men of my type with the same ignorant contempt as the most benighted parish priest. Acquaint yourself with the facts, Primo, before you draw your conclusions.”

“A scientific fact is a conclusion based on measurable observations that can be reproduced by experimentation,” Sarmiento replied pedantically. “Will I find those kinds of facts here?”

Luis smiled. “All I ask is that you keep an open mind. Isn't that also the way of science?”

One evening, Sarmiento opened the book and began to read. As he suspected, what Carpenter offered were not facts but a hypothesis: there existed a class of men who, although biologically male, were by temperament female—emotional, sympathetic, and kind—and, as such, were inclined to form romantic attachments with other men rather than with women. These homosexuals, Carpenter argued, were not pathological but anomalies, not mentally ill but simply a variation from the norm. As proof, Carpenter cited the historical persistence of such types, particularly among the ancient Greeks, who recognized and honored love attachments between men. He also claimed that certain famous individuals, including Michelangelo and Shakespeare, were homosexuals. These celebrated artistic personalities, Carpenter contended, typified the homosexual temperament in its highest form: passionate, sensitive, and creative. The only science he cited was a handful of studies of sex by the Germans Karl Ulrichs and Richard von Krafft-Ebing and the Englishman Havelock Ellis that, to varying degrees, supported his hypothesis.

“What are you reading so intently?” Alicia asked, coming into the
sala
with her embroidery.

Sarmiento's first impulse was to hide the book, but he had always freely discussed his reading with her, whether it was a scientific monograph on public health issues or the poetry of the Nezahualcoyotl, the Texcoco philosopher-king. These conversations were invariably stimulating to him, her innate intelligence shedding a new or different light on the text.

“An Englishman's book that Luis gave me to explain … men of his kind. What the author calls ‘homosexuals,'” he said, pronouncing the term in English. “A made-up word that means men who are attracted to one another.”

“Men who love other men?” she queried, slipping a thimble on her finger, taking her needles and hoops from her basket. She was embroidering a bedspread with roses and lilies as a wedding gift for an Indian couple who were to be married at San Francisco Tlalco. Her fingers were a marvel of agility.

“You could call it that, I suppose, although I'm not certain that ‘love' describes their physical activities.”

“Of course that is a sin,” she said, “but if they are led to it by real, if misguided, affection, like Luis and his friend Ángel, God will not judge them too harshly, nor should we.”

“Carpenter makes the same plea for tolerance,” he said, “although he wouldn't call what these men do a sin.” He closed the book. “He would say, as Luis does, that what they do is natural to them.”

She shook her head. “What is natural to them is the same as is natural to all men,” she said. “To marry and to make children.”

“But what of those marriages where children are not possible because of the sterility of the man or woman?” he wondered. “Is it unnatural for those spouses to have sexual relations for pleasure?”

She paused in her stitching. “If pleasure is the only reason for such relations, then they are merely expressions of lust. But for husband and wife, even those who cannot have children, those relations serve another purpose.”

“Which is?” he pressed her.

She quietly worked on the bedspread for a moment before answering. “To deepen the bond of marital love.”

“If that's true, why wouldn't it also be true of two men who have sexual relations out of real affection?”

“Because, my dear, two male bodies are not made for the natural expression of physical love.”

He shook his head. “Carpenter would say men's bodies are quite capable of giving and receiving what you call physical love.”

She looked at him. “Do you think that because something is possible it's also natural?”

“The very thought of two men attempting coitus repels me,” he replied. “So I suppose the answer is no. There are many things one can do with one's body that could scarcely be considered natural. Still, if subscribing to Carpenter's theory helps Luis accept his … condition and preserve his self-respect, then I suppose it serves a useful purpose.”

“Luis's condition is but a small part of who he is,” she said. “And he is otherwise quite admirable.” She smiled. “So, yes, I suppose we must accept his eccentricity.”

“Even though he will go to hell for it?” Sarmiento joked.

“Don't be absurd, Miguel. He will have to repent in purgatory, of course.” She added seriously, “But I'm certain that God will be merciful to him.”

“Will I also have to repent my atheism in purgatory before I can join you in paradise?” he asked, smiling gently.

“Oh, Miguel,” she said in exasperation, “do you think God cares that you say you don't believe in him? He created you, doubts and all.”

A
t the end of May, a note arrived from Luis inviting Sarmiento to hear Madero speak in the city on San Juan's Day, June 24. “Madero,” Luis wrote, “is anxious to meet the son of Rodrigo Sarmiento.” The postscript startled him—how would Madero know his father?—but touched him, too, and swept away his misgivings about attending so public a protest against Don Porfirio's reign. Liceaga frequently reminded Sarmiento, sometimes jovially, sometimes with exasperation, that he was politically naive but even Sarmiento knew Madero was playing cat and mouse with the regime. Ostensibly, Madero's campaign to limit presidential terms was directed not at Díaz and the 1910 election but at whomever might succeed Díaz in 1914. His stated intention was not to challenge Díaz in 1910 but to persuade Díaz to appoint him as vice president and his likely successor in 1914.

Nonetheless, implicit in Madero's campaign was a devastating attack on the old man. His campaign slogan—“no reelection and effective suffrage”—was a denunciation of four decades of Díaz's system of fixed elections at every level of government from president of the Republic to the mayor of the lowliest villages. His book,
The Presidential Succession of 1910
, had ventured to criticize the effects of one-man rule, however tepidly, questioning the regime's brutal war against the Yaquis, its repression of labor unions, and its excessive concessions to foreign investors. The very mention of these topics had, for decades, sent newspaper editors to Belem jail and shut down their presses. That Madero had written about them extensively in a best-selling book was incendiary. Finally, in what was the most personal affront, were the intimations of Díaz's mortality, the assumption that by 1914 he would either be dead or too enfeebled to seek a ninth term.

Over drinks at the Jockey Club, Sarmiento asked his brother-in-law Damian, who was close to Díaz's inner circle, why the old man had not banned Madero's book and thrown him into jail.

His handsome brother-in-law smiled his feline smile, sipped his scotch, and said, “Tell me what happens in September 1910, Miguel.”

“The Centenario,” Sarmiento replied.

“And what does that mean?”

“The usual official bombast, I imagine.”

Damian stopped a passing waiter. “Another.” To Sarmiento, he said, “Yes, that, of course, but also, Miguel, the eyes of the world will be on México, and what do you think Don Porfirio wants the world to see?” He dropped his voice. “A dictatorship? No. México is, in theory, a democracy and that's what the old man intends to show the world. Free press, free speech, open elections. This is the only reason he hasn't crushed Madero,” he continued, taking the heavy crystal glass the waiter offered him. “I would not want to be Don Panchito Madero on October 1, 1910, however.” He frowned. “You're not thinking of getting mixed up in all that anti-reelection stuff, are you?”

“No, of course not.”

Damian lifted a doubting eyebrow. “Some friendly advice, Hermano. When the Madero ship goes down, there won't be any lifeboats.
Entiendes?
”

Sarmiento smiled. “You know I'm not interested in politics.”

“Good, because this is no time to become interested.”

T
he summer rains began with a downpour that turned the dirt streets surrounding the railway station into sinkholes. The horses strained to pull Alicia's carriage through the mud. More than once, the man in the carriage with her—Padre Cáceres dressed as her servant—had had to get out and push the vehicle forward. Eventually, they reached their destination, a livestock pen at the edge of the station, guarded by soldiers. Inside the pen, a group of dispirited men sat in the mud as the rain came down. Alicia waited in the carriage while Cáceres looked for the captain of the guard. Her face was heavily veiled, but she had dressed richly and adorned herself with jewels. She knew that the success of her plan depended entirely on her ability to awe and intimidate. She steeled herself, assuming for her purposes her mother's imperious character.

Thick knuckles tapped the window. The captain's round, porcine face stared suspiciously at her. She lowered the glass.

“Señora,” the captain said. “Your servant said you wished to see me.”

“Come inside,” she commanded, “but try not to ruin the upholstery with your wet clothes.”

He flinched at her tone and entered the plush carriage almost apologetically. She caught the sour whiff of pulque on his breath. She let him sit for a moment and absorb the luxuriousness of the carriage, the sparkle of her gems, and the richness of her gown.