The Empire of Yearning (20 page)

A
LETTER ARRIVED FOR
D
IEGO
, written in a compact, precise hand and signed by Beatríz. She wrote that preparations were being made to receive a child at la Casa del Olvido, where Ángela Peralta had formerly stayed as the emperor’s mistress. A governess had been engaged, and various appurtenances had been delivered, including a small bed, a variety of playthings, a pram, and other articles, all indicating beyond doubt that a young child was soon to take up residence.

Beatríz asked don Diego what he thought she should do. It was clear the boy belonged with his mother.

Diego put the letter down. He was sure the emperor had caused these arrangements to be made. He thought it likely that Salm-Salm was somehow involved as well. He composed a brief letter to Beatríz, suggesting that nothing be done for the moment. The boy would undoubtedly be kept safe. In the meantime, they should wait and see. There was really nothing else they could do. He did not think it would be as easy to pluck Ángela’s son from the little house in Cuernavaca as it had been to rescue Ángela. Security measures were bound to be tighter now.

He was about to dispatch a reply by courier when it struck him that he might as well deliver the letter in person. He would pass through Cuernavaca on his way to the western sea coast in any case. The prospect of stopping there for a time immediately raised his spirits. That afternoon, he caught himself whistling aloud as he went about making preparations for his departure. In the evening, he informed the emperor of his intentions, without revealing their true purpose, and Maximiliano provided his blessing.

Diego departed early the next morning. His route took him over the high sierra to the west of the capital and then downward through waves of blond grass and humming pine forests. He carried in his baggage the ambrotype image he had obtained in New York City, wrapped in paper and cotton and carefully enclosed in a bolt of black velvet to safeguard it from harm.

It was late afternoon by the time he reached Cuernavaca, and he made his way directly to the House of Borda. He found Beatríz in the gardens, with a basket over her arm, clipping flowers. Her hair was done up in ribbons, and her dark skin seemed to shine in the dusky light.

“Don Diego …” she said in a voice that suggested she had in fact been expecting his arrival and had been wondering what was taking him so long.

He smiled. “I got your letter.”

“And you came all this way in person to deliver your reply?”

“Yes … or, I mean, no. Or …” He shook his head. “Well, I am here.”

“And most welcome, too.”

She set the basket down on the grass and led him to a marble bench sheltered by a vine-encumbered trellis. The bench overlooked the artificial lake, where goldfish surfaced now and then, snapping at flies.

“We can talk here,” the girl said.

“Talk?” he said. “About what?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced at what little remained of his left arm. “Why not about what happened to your arm?”

“It’s a long story.”

But he told it. He could sense that she really did want to hear it, and so he found himself talking about an episode that he had rarely recounted to anyone. Baldemar knew, of course, as did Ángela, but he had spoken to very few others. Six years had passed by since that day in April 1859 when liberals and conservatives squared off in the Battle of Tacubaya, named for the town located only a couple of leagues from Chapultepec. It was to be the first and last engagement in Diego’s military career. At the time, he’d had no experience of war, but that was true as well of the other young liberals at his side. And yet they leapt into the fray just the same.

Diego carried his long-barrelled Colt revolving pistol. It was an effective weapon in the hands of someone adept with firearms but of limited use in the hands of someone like him. He and the others set out for Tacubaya on horseback but left their mounts in the care of a blacksmith who ran a livery stable at the edge of the town. They were close enough now to hear the din of combat, and Diego felt his heart racing. He shuddered and ducked instinctively at each roar, each blast, and his fear must have been obvious to his companions, but they did not seem to share it. They seemed excited rather than afraid—Baldemar most of all.

Something exploded nearby with a colossal din, and Diego ducked instinctively.

“You don’t need to do that,” Baldemar said. “We’re out of range.”

How on earth did he know? Diego’s breathing came in shallow bursts. No matter how much he tried to calm himself, he was unable to. Every fibre in his body felt stretched to the limit, about to snap. They were advancing on foot now toward the source of the mayhem. They reached an intersection, mostly unprotected. They were so close to the fighting. One by one, Diego’s companions darted across a rutted lane to take what shelter they could by a low stone wall. Here and there, the earth burst upward in miniature explosions as bullets bit into the ground. Diego was the last one to cross the road. Dear God, he did not want to do this. But he somehow willed himself forward. He gritted his teeth and ran, trying to keep down.

Something went wrong. Either he tripped over his own feet or some other force knocked him over. One way or the other, he was suddenly somersaulting through the air and wound up sprawled on the road, the crack of bullets and the rumpus of cannon fire all round. He tried to get up, but his left arm would not cooperate. He put most of his weight on his right, with his pistol clutched in that hand, but still he couldn’t seem to manage it. He could not get up. It was Baldemar who hurried back and dragged him across the road to something like safety in the frail shelter of the stone wall.

Blood was pumping from his left arm, the limb badly mangled, a tangle of cloth, blood, and exposed bone—as if it had been hit by grape-shot from a cannon.

Or by a pistol. A pistol at very close quarters.

The others must have assumed it was a cannon blast that had caught him, but even then Diego realized it probably wasn’t so. Either he had managed to shoot himself while in the act of falling down, or he had first shot himself and then fallen down.

Apart from Diego, only Baldemar understood what happened. He checked the chambers of Diego’s Colt and, sure enough, one round was missing.

The firefight continued for an eternity, but eventually the battle shifted further to the east, and Baldemar announced to the others that he would take Diego with him. Together, they would look for help. He’d heard that a group of medical students from Mexico City had set up a front-line trauma clinic in the commandeered summer home of the archbishop, in Tacubaya. He and Diego would make their way there. The others should try to hook up somehow with the main liberal forces, and Baldemar would join them when he could.

The young men split into two groups, and Baldemar stayed with his friend. They staggered through the pocked and sun-dazed streets, amid the reverberation of gunfire and cannon blasts. Eventually, they managed to locate the archbishop’s house. Diego joined dozens of other wounded men already receiving treatment of the most rudimentary
kind. Torn strips of bedsheets were used in place of bandages. There was no anaesthesia, and so the injured fighters were made to drink great quantities of rotgut cane liquor, until they were rendered all but senseless. Teams of young students held them down by brute force so that surgery could proceed.

In Diego’s case, it was apparent at once that the limb had to come off, most of it, anyway, a good bit above the elbow. Otherwise there was sure to be infection and gangrene. Six years later, he no longer had any clear recollection of what ensued. He’d been doused with drink and had probably blacked out. Nor did he remember much of what happened following the removal of his arm, when conservative forces led by General Leonardo Márquez stormed the makeshift clinic and set about murdering every last man in the place. Many who were already bleeding from grievous wounds were simply left to die.

For a second time that day, Baldemar saved Diego’s life, and he did it by tipping his old friend onto the floor and then sprawling on top of him, motionless.

“Stay still,” he must have whispered. Or something of the kind. “Play dead.”

It was their only hope.

So much blood coursed over the floor, and from all directions, that it was impossible to distinguish the dead from the merely dying. Uninjured himself, Baldemar was drenched in blood. It was only later, long after he regained consciousness and had been conveyed back to Mexico City, that Diego learned of his friend’s ruse and how it was that they had both survived the Massacre of Tacubaya, when everyone else was dead. In all, more than fifty were killed in that place on that day.

Following that act of slaughter, General Márquez won infamy as the Tiger of Tacubaya—and Diego ended his brief career as a soldier. Baldemar continued to fight, in a bitter war that the liberals finally won, or that the conservatives lost. Either way, Benito Juárez assumed the presidency, but not for long. Soon enough, the French invaded, and Maximiliano ascended to an improvised throne.

“Et voilà …”
said Beatríz, gesturing toward the lake and the surrounding gardens.

Diego nodded. “
Et
voilà.
”

Beatríz gazed out through the fading light. “I think you were very brave.”

“By shooting myself? With my own gun?”

“By being there. By going across that road. By not running away.”

Diego sniggered.

“Why do you laugh?”

“Because it isn’t so. I wasn’t brave, not in any way. The truth is, I was too scared to run away, too scared of what Baldemar and the others would think. I stayed out of fear, not courage. If I’d been brave, I would have got out of there, no matter what anyone thought. Baldemar was brave.”

“Maybe he was afraid, too.”

“Maybe. I don’t think so.” He told her about the killing of Melchor Ocampo and about Baldemar’s failed attempt to assassinate General Márquez and all that had happened since, including the emperor’s decision to pardon Baldemar—and his own dilemma, indebted to both Baldemar for having saved his life and Maximiliano for having saved Baldemar’s.

“I thought all that was a myth,” she said. “All those tales about what you owe to the man who saves your life. All that.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe Mexico is a myth, too. It doesn’t mean we don’t have to get up in the morning or go to bed at night or deal with the time in between.”

She pushed his left shoulder and laughed. “I didn’t know you were such a philosopher.”

“I’m not. Not anymore.”

“
El poeta manco.
That’s what the Prince of Salm-Salm calls you.”

“Well, he’s half right. The one-armed part.”

She looked off toward the lake. “I think you are still a poet. You just have to convince yourself.”

For a time, neither of them said anything. They remained silent and still, watching the dragonflies whisking above the surface of the lake, the pouting of the water where the goldfish snapped. Gradually, the light faded from the western sky, and the evening star blinked above the tamarind trees and the jacarandas.

He told her he was leaving in the morning, to travel north. He wouldn’t be back for many weeks. She nodded but said nothing.

He said, “I don’t know what to do about the boy.”

For a time, she was silent. Then she said, “Neither do I.”

“If the emperor finds out where Ángela is, I don’t know what he’ll do. He wants her son as his heir. He’s determined to have him.”

“Beware a weak man with a powerful conviction.”

Diego glanced down at the space between them, where her left hand was couched upon the marble surface of the bench. He reached over and enclosed her hand in his own, and they both looked out at a last slender band of amber light as it drained beyond the treetops, beneath the weight of the darkening sky.

Diego left the following morning, and Beatríz came out to see him off. He kept turning back to look at her, and at first he could make her out each time, but soon the gates and trees and adobe walls blocked his view. He turned and sought to concentrate on the journey ahead, an unfamiliar heaviness in his heart.

His journey took him through Taxco, and there he sought out Padre Buendía. He spoke to Ángela as well—for the first time in many long months. She had recovered some of the weight she had lost, but still there were dark hollows beneath her eyes, which would suddenly glaze over without warning whenever she thought of her son. He remained in Taxco overnight and resumed his journey the following morning.

At Acapulco, he boarded a mail packet bound north for San Francisco. The vessel ploughed through the high Pacific swell, skirting the narrow, sunburned arm of the Baja and entering American waters off San Diego. Once ashore, he commissioned a dozen men to serve as his security, and he began a long, arduous trek across badlands and desert, aiming for
a town on the American side of the Mexican frontier, a speck of little account that was known as Franklin, Texas.

T
HE JOURNEY TOOK
D
IEGO
through an arid landscape of parched stream beds, broad plains, mesquite scrub, and table mountains, and it finally brought him to what seemed to be a scattered and unremarkable town, overlooking the river known to Mexicans as the Río Bravo.

He soon found the sometime journalist J.S. Bartlett at work in his office at the United States customs house. The lanky American disentangled his long legs from beneath his desk. He strode toward Diego, hands outstretched. The two men exchanged introductions, and Diego explained that he wished to cross into Mexico in order to—

“Señor Serrano,” said Bartlett, “I know exactly why you want to cross into Mexico. You want to speak to Presidente Juárez.”

“That is so,” said Diego. “I understand he is installed at El Paso del Norte.” It was the small Mexican town just across the border from Franklin. “It seems you have been forewarned of my visit. You’ve spoken to General Grant?”

“Something along those lines. Let’s just say we have been expecting you.” The young man stood by a large window commanding a view of
the slow, meandering river and, beyond it, Mexico. A dome of curly blond hair framed an oval face bisected by a pair of wire-framed spectacles. He wore a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Señor Juárez arrived some months ago,” he said, “accompanied by his staff, some journalists, plus five hundred soldiers and half a dozen artillery pieces.”

Diego fumbled for a cigarette. “You are precise.”

“I am a journalist,” the young man said. “Precision is my trade.” He used the tail of his shirt to remove some smudge from the windowpane, then turned toward Diego. “But we are not averse to round numbers, either.” He removed a cigarette from his breast pocket, lit Diego’s and then his own. “For example,” he said, speaking through a haze of smoke, “thirty thousand. Give or take.”

Diego let out a low whistle. “That many? How will they cross the border?”

“Oh, they won’t. Not officially. They’ll be recorded as having been ‘mislaid.’”

Diego smiled. “I want to arrange for some of these … these articles … to move further south. A town called Xalapa. Can that be done?”

“Oh probably. But it’s not my department. You’ll have to talk to Señor Juárez. A lucky thing he’s so close.”

The American returned to his desk and resumed his seat. He crossed his arms at his chest. “I imagine you know these are difficult times for Señor Juárez.”

“For all Mexicans.”

“I know, I know. But I’m referring to something specific. The man has just learned that his youngest son is dead. In New York.”

It was the first Diego had heard of it. He remembered a boy, only a few months old at the time of his visit, nearly a year ago now. “I didn’t know.”

“How could you? I learned about it in a cable from my newspaper. I had the unfortunate duty of informing Señor Juárez myself. He’d never even set eyes on the boy.”

Diego shook his head. “He must be suffering.”

“He must. Besides, the war goes badly.” Bartlett contemplated his cigarette for a moment before continuing. The liberals, he said, were in retreat on almost every front. Only the other day, they had been obliged to surrender the southern city of Oaxaca to the French.

This was news to Diego, but he understood at once how grave it was. The loss of Oaxaca was apt to hit Juárez especially hard, for he had been raised in that town and had been governor of the state. What was almost as bad was to hear the news delivered by an American, who seemed to possess far better intelligence about Mexico than Mexicans did themselves.

“My newspaper has a correspondent in Oaxaca,” said Bartlett. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “But I guess the military situation in your country will start to change now that the north has won the war.”

The American meant the other war, the war in the United States. Until that moment, Diego had not known for certain that the conflict was over or that the Union side had prevailed. He’d known only that victory was imminent. So now it was done.

“But these … ah … these new articles—I’m sure they’ll help.” Bartlett meant the Spencer rifles. He rose and once again extended his hand. “Good luck,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Diego. “I intend to cross the border now. May I proceed?”

“Por supuesto, Señor Serrano. Vaya con Dios.”

“Y usted también.”

Diego strode out into the late afternoon sunshine. He told his companions—the men who had accompanied him from San Diego and who’d received half wages thus far—that he would return in a matter of days. They would wait for him on the northern side. He remounted his horse, gathered the reins, and in short order was venturing back into his own country. He forded the river, the water lapping at the heels of his boots. On the far side, his horse clambered up onto a rough beach of pebbles and gravel, and he was in Mexico again. Goats bleated on the slopes of dry, sun-bleached hills, dogs barked at intervals, and the road ahead
seemed both narrow and badly in need of repair, the way stippled by low, scrubby trees and carpeted by patchy grass shorn to the ground by ungulates. He urged his horse into a trot and was soon riding into the town of El Paso del Norte, a forlorn collection of low adobe buildings, haphazardly assembled in the cool but brilliant sun. Rolls of sagebrush stumbled amid helixes of dust, and wiry, underfed pigs snuffled through the garbage for their supper. He drew the dry air in through his nostrils, sensing wood smoke and the pungent corn scent of tamales. For better or worse, this was Mexico again.

He rode on.

Before long, several armed sentries strode out from a low adobe hut at the entrance to the
plaza mayor
, not a complete uniform or a decent pair of boots in the lot.

“
Oiga, señor
,” said one. He raised his rifle.
“Deténgase.”

Diego did as he was told. He declared that he had come to speak to His Excellency. He made no mention of the emperor, whose letter he had burned long ago, letting the ashes scatter across the blue Pacific. Instead, he carried a handwritten statement of introduction, scribbled and signed by Baldemar Peralta. He nursed a faint hope that the renown of el Gordo de las Gafas might have reached even this remote outpost. He handed the document to the elder of the guards. Unfortunately, neither this man nor any of his subordinates was able to read. Thus the letter was launched on a slow, uncertain way up the chain of command until eventually word came back—let the visitor through.

Diego found lodging that night at a dismal, slump-roofed excuse for a hotel, a building that seemed to be both very old and yet only half-finished. Diego slouched about the place, drinking raw
aguardiente
straight from the bottle and wondering at the strange contradictions of fate that had brought him here. He supposed Juárez must sometimes wonder the same thing. They were confederates in that respect, both of them far from home, he a mestizo, Juárez an Indian, both driven to the furthest edge of a country once again ruled by foreign, white-skinned men. Bazaine. Napoleon. Maximiliano.

He took another swallow of the cloudy liquor, and the kick of it caused his eyes to water. Before long, he found himself thinking of Beatríz. Another swig. Another swallow. More dampness about the eyes. The way she had watched him that morning, near the gate at the House of Borda, as he rode away. He hadn’t known then if he would ever make it back, and he wondered now if he ever would. No other messenger had returned, not as far as he knew. For now, he could only wait while Juárez decided whether to grant him an audience. The contrast between her dark skin and her white teeth. The flowers she braided into her hair. Ah, he didn’t know what he was thinking. He took another mouthful, and his eyes welled up again.

It was not until his third full day in the town that a messenger appeared at the hotel to announce that the president would be willing to receive him that same afternoon. Unwilling to wait that long, Diego pulled on his jacket, adjusted his blouse, and set out on foot at once, remembering to bring the ambrotype he had carried from New York to Mexico City and now here.

When he reached Juárez’s provisional headquarters, a military orderly guided him to a second-floor office that overlooked the central plaza through rows of paint-flecked wooden jalousies, many of them broken or missing. The orderly indicated a chair and asked him to sit. He did so, surveying the room. The office contained a large wooden desk, its surface gouged and bare, as well as several straight-back wooden chairs of various styles. The light through the jalousies cast scattered images on the opposite wall that resembled rows of broken piano keys.

Diego held his document folder firmly in his lap and waited for the president to appear. It was true what he’d told Bartlett. He had indeed met Juárez on one previous occasion, years earlier, when the president had been making his way through a crowd in Mexico City. Juárez had singled Diego out from the crowd, no doubt on account of his missing arm, and had changed his direction at once. A host of soldiers cleared his path. The president was a small, dark-skinned man with a sombre demeanour, and he reached out with two hands to grip Diego’s one.

“The war?” he said.

Diego nodded.
“Sí. La guerra.”
He did not elaborate.

But Juárez thanked him, anyway. “
Gracias por su sacrificio. Le agradezco yo y le agradece todo México.
”

Thank you for your sacrifice. I thank you. All Mexico thanks you.

It was odd to think of that encounter now, so many years later, and to realize that Beatríz and the president were the only ones who had ever put the matter to him in this light. For his own part, Diego thought of the loss of his arm mainly as a humiliating blunder, something he would rather not discuss or hear mentioned. But Beatríz had regarded his injury in a different way—and so had Juárez, all those years ago.

A soldier appeared at the doorway and announced that
el presidente
would see him. Before long, a small but erect individual entered the room—the president of Mexico. Diego leapt to his feet. Benito Juárez was much as Diego remembered from that one previous encounter—a compact man with burnished bronze skin and with a severe expression etched into the contours of his narrow, rectangular face. If he had known pain or pleasure during the course of his life, his features did not show it. The two men shook hands. Juárez took in Diego’s missing arm—or the empty space it would have occupied.

“Ah yes,” he said, as if he remembered exactly who this visitor was, and to Diego it truly seemed that he did.

The president lowered himself into a solid wooden chair and gazed across the chipped surface of his desk. He must have been sixty years old, but there was not a strand of grey in the sleek black hair that was parted on the left and combed tidily over his pate. His features remained fixed in an attitude of serious purpose. He said nothing at first but merely waited until the orderly entered with coffee for them both, served in mismatched cups and saucers.

Juárez took his coffee black. He sipped from the cup and replaced it in its saucer. He glanced up. “I am informed that you were recently in New York,” he said.

“I was.” Diego supposed that questions on this subject must by now
have been posed to J.S. Bartlett. He also realized his movements in New York, as in Washington, must surely have been monitored. He was, at least in theory, an emissary from the court of Emperor Maximiliano. He said, “Some time has passed since then.”

“I take it you visited my wife there?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And my family.”

“And your family. I am very sorry about your son. I only just learned of it.”

The president sighed. “I have yet to hear directly from my wife concerning the boy’s death. I have had no news at all. The mail is painfully slow.” Juárez remained ramrod straight in his chair, his delicate hands folded on the desk in front of him. “A most difficult situation.”

It took a few moments before Diego realized what was wanted—words, descriptions, recollections. These were what any man would want during a long, enforced separation from his wife and family, especially following the death of a child he had never seen. Juárez must be desperate for news.

Diego did his best. He recounted his visit to the crowded third-floor apartment in New Rochelle occupied by doña Margarita Maza de Juárez and her brood of youngsters.

Juárez was mesmerized. He remained immobile, transfixed. When Diego fell silent, the president said nothing, as if waiting for more words, more details, and Diego did his best to comply, until he ran out of things to describe. It was then he remembered the ambrotype. “I have brought you something,” he said.

He had hoped this gesture would win him favour, but only now did he sense how inspired Baldemar’s idea had been. He reached into his document folder and removed the black-and-white image he’d had made in New York. It was framed in wood, and still wrapped in the paper and cotton, and the bolt of black velvet. He reached across the desk to deliver the offering to Juárez, who carefully removed the velvet cover, the cotton, the paper, and finally exposed the frame. He said nothing but
simply gazed upon the result, a starkly simple image of several wide-eyed youngsters gathered around a newborn child. Enfolded in his mother’s arms, the infant occupied the centre of the picture, flanked by Juárez’s three daughters, a son-in-law, and two other sons.

“It is known as an ambrotype,” said Diego. Not knowing what else to do, he began to describe the means by which the image was created. A plate of transparent glass, treated with a clear binding agent known as collodion is first exposed to the light for a matter of a few seconds, then bleached, and finally mounted on a dark background. The result is both highly detailed and extremely accurate, yielding an image that is true to nature rather than reversed from left to right, as would have been the case with other photographic techniques in current use—daguerreotypes or ferrotypes.

“I see,” said Juárez, who kept his eyes pinned on this single image of his family and of his now perished son, a child he had never set eyes upon until this moment. When he did glance up, Diego saw that his eyes glistened, the only clear sign of emotion the president had betrayed during their encounter. “Thank you,” he said.