Read The Empire of Yearning Online

Authors: Oakland Ross

The Empire of Yearning (4 page)

He clicked his tongue and nudged his horse’s flanks with his heels. She broke into a jog, and he guided her in the direction of his lodgings near La Ciudadela. His meeting with Ángela could wait till the following morning. By then, with luck, he’d have worked out what to say.

C
HAPTER
6

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Diego rode to the home of Ángela Peralta on the Street of the Sad Indian. He entered the walled premises through the main gate, dismounted, and turned his horse over to a stable hand. It seemed he was not the only visitor. Waiting in the stable yard was a wickerwork carriage, whose driver stood by the wooden shafts whispering to a pair of ponies and fiddling with their leather braces. He glanced up.

“Señor,” he said.

Diego touched the brim of his hat, then turned toward the house. At that moment, the main door opened, and a manservant ushered another visitor into the yard—a priest dressed in dark vestments. He was thin, with pallid features that seemed oddly familiar. The two men eyed each other, and several moments passed before Diego realized the truth. It was the Prince of Salm-Salm. Diego was about to say something, but Salm-Salm pressed one hand to his lips, a bid for silence. In the other hand, he held a cigarette.

“There you are,” he said in a low voice. “Just the man I wanted to see.” He narrowed his eyes. “You look a bit
jaune.
Yellow fever?”

“I seem to be recovering,” said Diego. “Why are you—?”

“Shh. Please.” The prince took him by his arm and led him aside. “You are surprised by my robes, of course. Unfortunately, I can’t explain just now. Later, I’m sure we’ll have a chance to talk.” He stepped back. “You do not look well.”

“I’ve been better.”

The prince eyed his cigarette. “Yellow fever—damned unpleasant, I’m told. Max was adamant about our getting to Mexico City on the double, for that very reason. His secretary seems to have come down with an awful dose, poor lad. Anyway, I decided it was better to leave Veracruz at once. Did you, by any means, ah …?”

“Cover your account?”

Salm-Salm nodded, exhaling a small cloud of smoke.

“Yes, I did.”

“I’m good for it, you know. The next time we meet.”

“But why are you dressed as—?”

“Please, please. Discretion first, explanations later. All in good time.” He glanced around, as if fearful of being overheard. “You have come to see Ángela, I take it.”

“Yes. It was her brother, you see, who—”

“Of course. The one in prison.”

“Yes. Did you speak to—?”

“His Majesty? Not yet. When an opportunity presents itself, I propose to strike. Have no fear. As for Ángela, you will find her somewhat harried—not quite at her ease, I don’t think.”

Diego hesitated, then frowned. “You know her well? I thought—”

“Know her? Not a bit. We’ve only just met.”

“I see.”

“Care for a cigarette?” The prince tossed his own away and, from somewhere amid the folds of his cassock, he produced a handsome silver case stamped with a monogram—
MIM.
He noticed Diego looking. “Maximilianus Imperator Mexici,” he said. He lit Diego’s cigarette and then his own, exhaling two thin streams of smoke through his nostrils.
“She is very fretful about her brother, to say nothing of her son.”

“Son?”

“Yes. Her son.”

“Ángela has no son. We spoke of this before.” Diego felt his blood rising. He really could not stomach this slander. Who was this man? He advanced a step. “What are you talking about? And why are you dressed like that?”

“It’s a long story—not one I’ll bore you with now. As for Ángela, I defer to your no doubt wiser judgment.”

Salm-Salm waved to his driver and hurried through the stable yard toward his borrowed carriage. Diego followed, and the prince rattled on.

“Max is in a fearful state, you know. They’ve put us up in the National Palace. What a miserable pile of rocks—infested with bedbugs and God knows what other vermin. The women are in torments. We’ve got to find another place of residence, and I’ve been charged with locating an alternative. It’s a sort of test, I think. Max seems to be sizing me up for an important position at court.” He hesitated. “You don’t have any thoughts on the subject, do you?”

Diego did not.

“That’s too bad. But think about it, will you? And come by the palace any chance you’ve got. Not the main entrance—you’d never get past the guards. Come to the side. I’ll leave word.” The prince gripped Diego’s only hand in both his own, then climbed into the small cabin of his carriage and poked his head out the window. “And don’t forget what I said about finding a better residence—something large and airy. Please. I beg you.”

He reached up and rapped on the carriage ceiling. “Driver!”

The driver climbed into his seat, took up the reins, and gave them a slap. The ponies gathered the slack in their braces, and the little carriage lurched forward, tottering across the stable yard and out into the street.

Diego watched it go as he smoked the last of his cigarette. What a strange, slippery fellow. Perhaps Ángela would be able to shed some light on the matter. That would be a relief. He’d rather any topic of
conversation that would save him from confronting her with the truth—that his journey to Veracruz had accomplished precisely nothing.

He turned back toward the house’s entrance. An Indian maid greeted him at the door and guided him inside, into the large salon decorated in crimson paper and oriental tiles. A large grand pianoforte dominated the room, a great sheaf of sheet music spilling across its keyboard and onto the bench. Several wooden cases were piled on the floor near the instrument. Ángela had only recently returned from a lengthy stay in New York City and was still in the turmoil of unpacking. From an interior courtyard, Diego could hear the squawking of guacamayas.

Several minutes passed before Ángela hurried into the room, a maidservant scrambling after her, still struggling to secure the fasteners at the back of her embroidered beige blouse. Her shining black hair was gathered behind her head, and her eyes shone. She stopped in her tracks.

“Oh … it’s you.”

It was apparent from her expression that she had been expecting someone else, someone taller no doubt and possessed of two complete arms.

“Yes,” he said.

He clutched his hat in his one hand. As always in Ángela’s presence, he found it nearly impossible to think of what to say. By rights he should have been brimming with good news, news of her brother. She must have sensed something was wrong and waved him over to a nearby sofa. She settled herself upon a carved wooden settee, fidgeting with her hair.

“You look awful,” she said. “You’ve been ill?”

He nodded. He was about to speak when a brief but impassioned howl erupted from some other part of the residence. He thought at first that the guacamayas had rediscovered their lungs. Then he heard a second outburst, and he knew it was not the parrots that were responsible for the sound. Somewhere in the house, there resided an infant.

Ángela flushed and put a hand to her cheek. Her scarlet fingernails flashed against the whiteness of her skin, blood on alabaster. “The maid … she has brought her child from home. The poor thing was ill this
morning. Colicky. I am sorry for the trouble.” She begged Diego’s pardon and hurried from the room.

He settled back in his seat, swallowed, gazed out onto the courtyard. Could it be true what she’d just said? He waited, not knowing what to think. When Ángela returned, her hair seemed dishevelled, and he noticed a fresh patch of dampness on the shoulder of her blouse. Now that he thought about it, it seemed she had increased in weight. She resumed her place on the settee and put a hand to her forehead, as if trying to calm her nerves.

“About Baldemar …” she said.

“I’m sorry. I tried, but I just …” His voice trailed away. All he had was excuses. He had fallen ill. He had been robbed. Both setbacks had been real enough, but they seemed absurd and meaningless now. The plain truth was he had failed. “I’m sorry. I just—”

She waved him off. “No need to explain,” she said. “Father Fischer told me most of it.”

“Father Fischer?”

“Yes. He was just here. Surely you met him on his way out. He is close to the Austrian, it seems. He means to help us rescue Baldemar.”

“He does?”

“Yes. He said so.”

“He isn’t a priest, you know.”

“Of course he is.”

Diego frowned. “I met him in Veracruz,” he said, stumbling over the words. “He’s a prince, a German prince. I’ve met his wife.”

“His wife? Nonsense. He’s a priest, come to serve the emperor … that is, I mean, the Austrian.”

As liberals, both of them flatly opposed the French occupation and neither felt comfortable referring to the Austrian by the title he had chosen.

“I don’t know,” said Diego. He wanted to tell her to be careful of the man, but his nervousness in her presence prevented him from speaking. What was Salm-Salm up to?

Ángela was silent for moment, and then her eyes glinted, like mirrors
catching the sun. “I have good news,” she said. “I have it on excellent authority that Baldemar is alive.”

Diego was astonished to hear it and should have said so. Instead, he asked, “Whose authority?”

She stared at the floor, then shrugged and looked up. Her voice was barely audible. What she said sounded like “Bazaine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Bazaine.” More loudly this time.

Maréchal Achille Bazaine? Commander of the French forces occupying Mexico—an officer of Napoleon? What business could Ángela be conducting with Bazaine? Diego tried to pose the question, but his voice failed him once more.

Ángela evidently understood. “He visits me,” she said. “I mean. You know. Not often. On occasion. From time to time. To keep me informed.”

Both of them were silent, uncomfortably so, until Ángela cleared her throat and spoke again.

“You know,” she said. “Father Fischer told me that, in the past, this Austrian has observed the custom of hearing petitions. So I wonder whether we shouldn’t try that route. We could go to the National Palace, seek him out, put our case to him directly. It could do no harm. It might succeed.” She looked straight at him. “It has to.”

Diego frowned, not because he disagreed but because he was angry with himself. Why had he not thought of this? Or why had Salm-Salm not mentioned it to him, rather than to Ángela? Why had he not come armed with solutions, rather than failure and doubts?

“The bloody palace …” Ángela shook her head. “Dear God, I hate it. I …” She groaned and put a hand to her brow. “What am I saying?”

“What?”

“Here we are, overrun by these bloody French. Baldemar, the fool, has got himself tossed into the Martinica, where they’ll kill him if we don’t do something, and here am I, thinking about the National Palace.”

Diego knew she hated the place. She’d held forth on the subject innumerable times in the past, heaping scorn upon the building, which stood
adjacent to the Metropolitan Cathedral in the city’s central plaza, the Zócalo. It was difficult to be sure which she detested more—the palace, the cathedral, or the square itself. She hated all three, mainly for the vastness of their scale. She had said so before. One felt like an insect in their midst. No doubt this had been their builders’ intent—to overwhelm, to intimidate, to make ordinary folk kowtow in the presence of viceroys and bishops.

Diego saw her point. The cathedral really was a blight—massive, grey, forbidding. He hated it too, but he wondered whether his views had merely been shaped by Ángela’s. As for the National Palace, he could practically quote her words on the subject. That dark pile of rocks. It was too large, too severe in conception, too deprived of light. It was an insult to Mexico—just like everything else in that abominable plaza.

“They hate it, you know,” he said.

“Whom do you mean? Hate what?”

“The National Palace,” said Diego. “The Europeans. They say it’s infested with vermin.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“They want to live somewhere else. The Prince of Salm-Salm told me so. Just now.”

“The priest, you mean?”

Diego grimaced. He had no idea what the man was up to. “Anyway, he said they want to be quit of the place.”

“And go where?”

“That’s the problem. They have no other plans. Salm-Salm, the priest, whatever he is—he told me he’s been instructed to find another residence. He said it’s urgent. They’re desperate, he said.”

Ángela frowned and began to stroke her forehead. Suddenly, she brightened. “Diego,” she said. “You’re a genius. That’s it.”

Diego recoiled. A genius? He didn’t know what she meant. What was she saying?

She shifted forward in her seat, reached out, placed the palm of her hand on his knee. The effect was immediate, like an electric shock. She
outlined a plan
—his
plan, she called it. It was he, after all, who had sparked the idea, or so she said. When she was done, she kept her gaze on him, her eyes shining. What did he think?

He wasn’t sure what to think. But he said he would try.

“That’s all I can ask. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, yes.”

“Good.”

She stood up, and it was clear that it was time for him to go. He reached for his hat and climbed to his feet. Still he had to gaze up at her, for she stood nearly half a head taller than he. The familiar curbs on his tongue had returned, as they always did, and he took his leave in his customary inarticulate fashion. Outside, a groom led his horse into the stable yard. He climbed onto the mounting post, threw his right leg over the saddle, and gathered the reins in his one hand.

He rode away, cursing himself for being the same addled fool he’d always been. As for the identity of the sobbing infant, he could contemplate no explanation other than the one Ángela herself had provided. What other explanation could there be?

C
HAPTER
7

I
T RAINED HEAVILY THAT NIGHT.
The next morning, the streets in the central part of the city still ran with the dank overflow, and Diego was obliged to choose his way carefully as he proceeded on foot to the National Palace. He intended to make his case to the Austrian in person. But he was not alone.

An assembly of large, glass-windowed
carretelas
cluttered the side streets that adjoined the plaza—expensive carriages, the conveyances of the rich. It didn’t take long for Diego to realize why. With their families in tow, the conservative grandees of the city had gathered near the great plaza for much the same reason he had ventured there himself. They hoped to meet the Austrian—and, like him, they had no better plan than to simply show up. But, while he meant to save the life of a friend, they craved a different reward. Diego could readily divine what it was. Over the years, most of them had accumulated sheaves of musty documents attesting to some ancient privilege or other, and each had begun to press his cause almost as soon as the French began their occupation of Mexico City—so far to little avail.

Now, with the arrival of the Austrian, it seemed they had new hope. Surely this archduke who had been crowned the emperor of Mexico would recognize their claims. He too belonged to nobility and so must surely understand their own rightful ambitions on this score, their wish to be designated the
duque
of this or the
conde
of that. God willing, they might even be invited to join the Austrian’s court. Their wives might be appointed as ladies-in-waiting to his own wife, the empress. Just think of the distinction, the glory. Diego watched them as he made his way past. The men strode about in the rain-damp streets, smoked their cigars, grumbled among themselves. Meanwhile, their womenfolk remained aboard the carriages, all in full toilette, with flowers or jewels strewn through their hair, all eyeing one another jealously.

Diego pressed on, shaking his head at the folly of his compatriots. Did they not realize what an absurd picture they made? Did they imagine themselves to be European? Ángela had often lamented the provincial ways of Mexico’s
haut monde.
The women were shallow and uncultured, she said. Why, their taste in clothing lagged a good two years behind the fashions of London or Paris. And the men! They were backward in every way. Dear God—these were the 1860s, not the Dark Ages. This was a time of ferment and reform in Europe, where new ideas were emerging about justice and equality, the dignity of all men. Yet here in Mexico, what passed for learned discourse in conservative circles was nothing but cant, jealousy, and greed. Are women human? Does the killing of a Jew constitute murder? Do Indians have souls?

Diego picked his way through the mud, the ruts, and the rivulets that riddled the street until at last he reached the huge plaza, where hundreds of other supplicants had gathered—Indians, in this case. They, too, must have heard of the Austrian’s arrival, and so they had come to seek redress for their many grievances—debt peonage, the denial of holy sacraments, the wholesale seizure of their land. Diego was well aware of these offences.

The Indian men gathered in small groups, wearing loose button-less blouses of cotton and striped breech cloths. They peered out from
the shadows cast by their straw hats, their sombre faces a dull bronze. Some were barefoot, but most wore crude handmade sandals, fashioned of maguey fibre or rawhide. The Indian women kept apart, whispering in clusters, their hair in twin plaits intertwined with ribbons of cotton. Most of them had small children bound to their backs in great handwoven shawls.

Diego joined neither group—neither the conservative potentates nor the Indian supplicants. Instead, he took up a position by himself about halfway between the two assemblies. He was mestizo, after all. The conservatives would not have welcomed him into their midst, for they considered him an Indian—and he loathed conservatives anyway. The Indians would have accepted him, but their purpose in being here had little to do with his own.

Three times, he marched across the square and spoke to the French soldiers who guarded the main entrance of the palace. He asked to be admitted. He meant to speak to someone who could arrange an audience with the Austrian. Each time, he was gruffly turned away. After his third failed attempt, Diego withdrew to the shade of the Monte de Piedad across the plaza, where he stood on his own, looking back at the sprawling stone edifice. The National Palace. He supposed it would be renamed the Imperial Palace, with an emperor in residence. But, apart from the guards in front, he detected no sign that it was occupied by anyone at all.

There was nothing for him to do but wait—wait and think about the events that had brought him here. It seemed to him now that Baldemar must have been plotting his act of revenge for years, possibly ever since the day he’d discovered the dangling corpse of his uncle in that forest clearing in the hill country of Michoacán. Diego should have known his friend was capable of such an act, should have seen it in advance. But how? Baldemar’s boastful talk had seemed to be nothing more than empty words. He recalled their times together, in the months and years that followed the death of Melchor Ocampo, searching for anything that might have warned him of Baldemar’s stupid, reckless plan.

After their return from Michoacán, they had both gone back to their
sporadic labours, writing anti-clerical screeds for
El Siglo XIX.
Baldemar wrote badly, if with passion, whereas Diego was just the reverse, and that, too, was a measure of the differences between them.

Neither ever received any payment for this work and so relied on other sources of income for his upkeep. In Diego’s case, he accepted a monthly stipend from Eustacio Barron, his half-brother and a man of great privacy and even greater wealth. A poet, or one who calls himself a poet, has not the luxury of spurning his patrons. The best he can do is resent them, a practice to which Diego applied himself with spirit and invention.

At night, he and Baldemar frequented the capital’s
pulquerías
, cantinas, and cockfight rings, its brothels and gambling dens, where they drank, lost money at cards, and whored. One night, they ducked into a wretched old cantina near the Plaza Santa Cecilia, where they called out for beers, and then more beers, and more after that. At some point that night, a couple of men fell into an argument that got louder and more heated, till one of them drew a pistol and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger. His companion frowned and tilted his head, as if about to pose a question. Then he collapsed to the beer-soaked floor, dead. The killer merely smiled. He glanced over at Diego and Baldemar and nodded his head. He replaced his hat, turned, and sauntered out of the bar. Later, the bartender and another man dragged the corpse away. Following a brief, respectful silence, the assembly of drinkers went right back to swearing and banging their glasses on the tables. It was almost as though nothing had happened.

Eventually, his eyes half open, his voice slurred from drink, Baldemar pounded his fist on the table. He’d been born on the Day of the fucking Dead—he swore—and was damned from the start, fated to lead a short life and meet a violent end.

“You’re sure?” said Diego. He’d heard all this before.

“As sure as I am of anything. As sure as I am of the fucking past. But listen to this.” Baldemar leaned closer. His face seemed to expand in the
candlelight. What he said now he’d never said before. “I won’t go alone. I’ll take someone with me. I swear.”

Diego reached for his glass, but he didn’t get there. A hand gripped his collar, a hand much stronger than his own. At once, Baldemar’s face pressed close to his. He felt the heat of Baldemar’s skin, the flecks of his spittle. He smelled his sour breath.

“I mean it. I’ll go. But I won’t go alone.” Baldemar sat back, still glaring at Diego, straight into his eyes.

Diego listened to those words again, this time in his mind, and what he heard was not the bravado of a drunken friend. Baldemar had been testing him. He heard it now. Why hadn’t he heard it then? Now, nearly three years later, Baldemar was in the Martinica, in danger of his life, and it was up to Diego to rescue him. But that didn’t seem likely, not today. He’d already waited several hours in this deadening sunlight, staring at the National Palace, that dreary heap of rocks, and so far he had nothing at all to show.

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