The City of Palaces (29 page)

Reluctantly, she nodded. “As soon as the men are recovered and well enough to travel, I will close the house,” she said. “In the meantime, I will not take on any others. But I will find another way to help the Yaquis. I must.”

“Tell me, why do they matter so much to you?”

“At first, I had no reason other than my sympathy for what they have suffered,” she said. “But now that I have talked to them and learned something of their beliefs, I feel that they are … a kind of holy people.”

He frowned. “I don't understand.”

“The Yaquis believe God gave them their homeland. They say his angels came down from heaven and established the boundaries of their land with prayer and music. They describe a river valley at the edge of the desert that is like a paradise. In thanks, they make their lives into a constant sacrament of praise to God. When they are born, their mothers promise them to Jesus or Mary or one of the saints and they are expected to fulfill that promise by undertaking lifelong religious duties that would be onerous for anyone else. But they do it freely, gladly.” A tear ran down her face. “In their minds, Miguel, our war to take their land is a war against their faith. If they are driven off their land, they will be driven away from God.”

“My dear,” he asked softly, “don't all combatants in wars say God is on their side?”

“The Yaquis don't say that God is their protector in this war. They say they fight to protect God. They would allow themselves to be exterminated before they would accept defeat.”

“And you believe them?”

“Yes. They will die to the last man before they surrender their homeland. They must be saved.”

“Very well, but next time, consult me,” he said. “I will help you if I can.”

J
osé had known longing, but not loneliness, until his longing for a friend had been fulfilled by David. Only then did the hours he was alone take on the particular emptiness and weight created by the absence of the beloved. In that void, he was conscious of his solitude as he had never been before. The long galleries and empty rooms of the palace, which had been his playground, now seemed a kind of prison. School, which he had endured, was now unbearable because everywhere he looked he saw the friendships that his classmates formed and from which he was excluded. His parents seemed, more than ever, remote, benign giants who occasionally condescended to look down at him from their heights. As for his grandmother, with whom he would otherwise have filled the hours between his time with David, an estrangement had developed between them because of her dislike for his friend. Instead, he suffered those empty hours with thoughts and memories of David and anticipation at seeing him again. He imagined a future in which they would be together always, older and younger brother. They would live in the same house, where they would play piano duets and then go out and ride their bicycles and eat ice cream in the park before coming home to sleep in the same bed. When he dreamed of lying beside David, feeling his body's warmth, inhaling his distinctive scent, listening to the timbre of his voice as they whispered confidences, a feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach. Indescribably sweet, it seeped through him as if his body was a comb filling with honey. He had no name for this sensation, but even as it thrilled him, it also frightened him with its intensity. When it passed, his loneliness for David made him weep.

Returning to the palace from school one afternoon, he was surprised to see David's bicycle in the courtyard. It was not a lesson day nor had they made plans to see each other. Still, when he heard David's voice coming from the
sala
, he ran inside to see him. There he found David sitting stiffly at the end of the settee delicately holding a cup, while his mother sat on the other end.

Alicia saw him first and said, “José, we've been waiting for you.”

“Hi, pea—uh, José,” David said with his endearing half-smile.

“Sit down, José. It's early, but if you like you can have a cup of chocolate.”

“No, Mamá,” José said, sitting in a chair across from them. “Is everything okay?”

The Americanism puzzled her. David said, by way of explanation, “It means, ‘is everything in order?'” He looked at José. “I have good news, José.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I'm going to Paris, to study at the conservatory!”

José nodded. David had often spoken of his desire to study in Paris. José sometimes imagined them together walking along its snowy boulevards. “Yes, but what is the good news?”

“That's the good news, peanut. I'm going to Paris.”

Suddenly, he understood. David was not referring to a future event but to the present. “When?” José blurted out.

“I leave in a month,” David said.

“Isn't that wonderful, José?” his mother prodded gently. “Aren't you happy for your friend?”

But all José could manage was a miserable question, “For how long?”

“The scholarship is for two years,” David replied. “José, are you all right?”

He looked back and forth at the concerned faces of David and his mother, then jumped up and ran to his room, where he threw himself on his bed and burst into tears.

He was not aware his mother had entered his room until he felt her weight on the bed and heard her say, “José, you were very rude to our guest. That is not suitable behavior. When he comes for your lesson, I expect you to apologize and to tell him how happy you are for him. He is fortunate to have this opportunity, and he wanted to share his good fortune with you as his friend. You will be glad for him, and there will be no more scenes.”

He rolled on his back, wiped his tears with his sleeve, and said, “I do not want him to leave. I love him.”

She gazed wonderingly at him for a moment and then stroked his cheek with her palm. “Of course you love him,” she said. “He is a sweet boy, and he has been kind to you.”

The warmth of her hand and the sympathy in her voice consoled him, but there was a part of him that knew she did not understand what he had meant, but then he did not fully understand himself.

“No,” he said emphatically. “I love him.”

She sighed. “I know. But when you love another person you must want what makes him happy, not what makes you happy. Do you understand?”

“No, Mamá,” he said dejectedly.

“All love comes from God,
mijo
, and God wants nothing from us except that we are happy. He loves us so much that he lets us choose our own paths to happiness, even when he would have us take another path, and even when our path leads us away from him. You love David and you want him to be happy. This is the path of happiness he has chosen, and, as you love him, you must let him take it, even though it takes him to Paris.”

He laid his head in her lap and wept scalding tears of loss.

L
ater, after he had cried himself into exhaustion and fallen asleep, she kissed his tear-stained face and marveled at the extremity of this grief. She had observed that José was infatuated with the older boy, but she had thought it was merely a kind of hero worship. When José had said, “I love him,” there was a nakedness in his declaration that had taken her aback because for a moment it seemed as if he was speaking of a lover. But, of course, she told herself, José was a nine-year-old boy who was innocent of such sentiments. No, she thought, José was simply an affectionate, sensitive, and emotional child who formed deeper attachments than other boys his age. She chided herself for letting him be alone too much. It was his loneliness that accounted for the depth of his affection for David. That was her fault, and she would correct it by seeing that José became more engaged with other boys his age.

At tea, her mother asked, “Where is my grandson?”

“He felt unwell and I put him to bed,” Alicia said. “By the way, Mother, do you know anything about a scholarship donated to the conservatory for David de la Torre?”

“I am not familiar with the name,” she said.

“José's piano instructor,” she replied. “An anonymous benefactor made a gift to the conservatory to allow him to study in Paris. He thought I had made the donation and came to thank me. When I told him I was not his patroness, he thought it might be you.”

La Niña raised a thin eyebrow. “Me? How extraordinary! The only time I've spoken to the boy was to reproach him for entering my house with muddy boots.”

“Well, in any event, it's a wonderful opportunity for him,” Alicia commented. Hearing voices approach the room, she said, “My sisters have arrived.”

“With better gossip than the prospects of a postal clerk's son, I hope,” La Niña said.

Only later did it occur to Alicia to wonder how her mother knew David's father was a postal clerk, and she meant to ask her, but the matter slipped her mind.

T
he
Imparcial
lay on Sarmiento's desk, its front page dominated by large portraits of Don Porfirio and his newly announced choice for vice president—Ramón Corral, the former governor of the state of Sonora. “Scourge of the savage Yaquis,” the approving newspaper caption read. There was no mention of Madero, but the
Imparcial
, like almost all the city's newspapers, was subsidized by the government.

“I see you have been apprised of México's great good fortune,” Liceaga said with heavy sarcasm, entering the room. He was the picture of summer elegance in his lightweight gray suit, blindingly white shirtfront and collar, and pale blue necktie.

“It is … unbelievable,” Sarmiento replied.

“No, it is all too believable,” Liceaga said, sitting on the other side of the desk. He lit a cigarette. “Corral is a corrupt, syphilitic Indian killer.” He lightly exhaled. “Thus, no one wants to see him president, and, therefore, by choosing him, Don Porfirio guarantees that no one will intrigue to put Corral in his place.”

“Which he feared would happen had he named Madero,” Sarmiento surmised.

“Madero was never a real possibility. No one with any popular support was going to be named Díaz's successor. That's why he sent General Reyes off to Japan, because Reyes was being promoted for vice president by the army. That's why Limantour decided that now was a good time to visit London to renegotiate our loans with the English banks. The finance minister was being promoted by the technocrats and business interests.” He waved his cigarette like a pointer. “Anyone who wanted to be vice president was automatically suspect in Díaz's eyes.” He stood up. “So, it's Don Porfirio until 1914.”

“At which point he will be eighty-four years old,” Sarmiento said. “And when he dies …”

“
Après moi le déluge
, as Louis XV said.”

“How do you know that Corral is syphilitic?”

“Oh, dear boy, everyone knows that. He's an investor in half the whorehouses of the city, and he has long enjoyed sampling the wares. Somewhere along the line, he got unlucky.”

T
he note came from Luis within days, delivered by his silent Indian companion, Ángel, instructing Sarmiento to meet him at a
pulquería
in Indianilla called Valparaiso. At the appointed hour, Sarmiento pushed past the fringe of tattered
papel picado
at the doorway and passed from the brilliant sunlight into the tobacco-filled, alcohol-soaked darkness of the bar. Along one side of the room was a long, chest-high bar made out of cheap planks of wood and lined with schooners. Behind it were barrels of pulque painted carnival colors—red, pink, blue, and green—to suggest a gaiety that was nowhere else evident. On the other side of the room were tables and chairs hewn from the same rough wood as the bar. On the far wall was a painted ditty he had seen before:

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw his cousin with a glass in front of him, his personal, impeccable elegance like a bright light in the alcoholic dimness. Sarmiento went and sat.

“You want a drink?” Luis asked. “The stuff they sell here is less nauseating than the rot you get everywhere else.”

“Not much of a recommendation,” Sarmiento said.

Luis lifted the glass and took a sip. “I hated pulque before I met Ángel, but it's all he drinks. I've grown accustomed to it.”

“How is it you and he travel together as companions without attracting attention?”

“It's simple, Primo, I am a gentleman and he is an Indian. It is assumed he is my servant and in public that is how we treat each other. Privately …” He shrugged. “I am sure those details would not interest you.”

“Do you love him?” Sarmiento asked impulsively.

Luis said, “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

“I am trying to understand you, Luis. To understand what you are.”

“I am a man like other men who love and suffer. Do I love Ángel? Yes, I love him. Do I suffer because of it? Yes. I suffer because my love for him must remain a secret and our life together enshrouded in lies.” He swigged the pulque. “Can you imagine living in a world where there is no place in the sun for you, Miguel? Only a few rat holes like this one. Oh, hadn't you noticed? Those ladies over there? Beneath their heavy makeup are the shadows of beards. The barkeep with his gold tooth and thick neck? A woman. This is where those of my type gather, along with whores and thieves.” He smiled grimly. “The Valley of Paradise.”

Sarmiento cast his glance discreetly around the room and what had at first appeared a typical haunt of the sodden poor assumed a strange and furtive aspect.

“Don't stare, Miguel, it's impolite,” Luis said.

“I think I will have that drink,” Miguel replied and signaled to the barkeep. When he—she—brought the glass to the table, Sarmiento detected the wrappings beneath her shirt that bound her breasts, but even the loose trousers she wore could not conceal her womanly hips.