THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK FOUR: THE BOOK of SCIENCE

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

The closing ceremonies began at sundown with a fireworks display over the plaza of Merida – overflowing with people of high and lowly origen. With the departure of the soldiers, or, to be accurate, their retreat towards the perimeters… the better to stand watch… the spirits of the indians greatly improved. Their enemies were police, the army, the mayordomo with his whip and account book. The President was a creature of mythology; a unicorn, a dragon. That he could walk or at least ride in a carriage among them as a man was of no account, for was it not the way of kings and saints to show themselves a while before retreating to the house of Gods? And besides, he had routed the French! Old women lit candles to Diaz, men in ragged clothes and callused hands drank to the President's health with aguardiente, some even praying to him for such a great man... and, it was said, one of the mazehualob himself... or nearly so… certainly could hear a plea and carry it to Lord Jesucristo.

The fireworks exploded in sparkling reds and blues and greens, such display as had not taken place since the Fin del Siglo. On a stage established in the Plaza, an orchestra began playing. One by one, officials mounted the podium to sing their praises of Diaz and the eternal friendship between Yucatan and the Republic. Molina, Mendez... even Corral, now that the Governor had made his point... received enthusiastic welcomes, but nothing compared to the applause that greeted the President when he took his place... last of (but first among) them all.

Porfirio Diaz spoke warmly of the patriotism of Yucatecos and their unfailing courtesy. He spoke of the dignity of labor, whether of the industrialist in his office or the lowliest peon in the master's field. He spoke of rights but, also, responsibilities... to one's ancestors and masters, to God and those who made the rules and directed the states and enterprises that enacted them. And he concluded, speaking of the things he had seen at the village of Nopal, a vision of what could be attainted when all strove towards the common ends Science decreed. And then a massive carriage surrounded by soldiers carried him away to the Governor's reception and the band began to play. The montes drifted off towards the vehicles that would carry them home or, for the fortunate, to Olegario Molina's function.

The Plaza was left to the people. Ladinos, indians, even the arabs and the chinos... city vendors from their shops and markets, longshoremen from Progreso, debt-laborers from the fields to the south and east, all forgot their differences for this one night to dance and feast and praise the President who'd passed among them as an apostle to whom homage is owed in direct proportion to the extent by which the celebration offers respite from the daily routine.

And then, who should manifest but Rigoberto, in a borrowed automobile full of scowling Campecheños. Rigoberto - brother, lawyer, stranger. He looked to José as if to say something, then blurted out "Everything will be made clear at the Governor's, father..." a space opened and the fotingo surged forward, leaving them in a cloud of exhaust, so soiling their light clothes that José and Don Antonio went home to bathe and change. With a nod to his Eagle, José donned the uniform he had worn in the Territory... finding, to his displeasure... that it fit snugly around his waist and shoulders. They did not return to the Governor's function until a quarter to nine. It was well that they did, the line of carriages, pulpitos and fotingos massed at the entrance to Molina's estate, was backed up for blocks while invitations were carefully inspected.

"It's still early," said an aide to Molina when they reached the head of the line a half hour later. "The President arrives at ten, for his address. At eleven he will be presented with a suitable award and dancing follows, until dawn if you desire... although it is said that President Diaz will not stay much beyond midnight. Tomorrow, at ten, the ball game will take place in the bullring and, after that, the President boards a train to his waiting steamer in Progreso. There is, of course, a grand buffet and anything you should wish to drink. Enjoy yourselves."

The Macias party of three... for Doña Julia, who customarily avoided large gatherings, had made an exception on behalf of President Diaz... had barely entered when José was grasped from behind and an overpowering aroma of perfume and tobacco encircled him like a noose of Yucatan's coarsest rope. "Capitan!" a guttural voice hailed, causing him to blink before recognizing it as female.

"The lovely Cleopatra," José commented, snatching a whiskey and soda from one of the Governor's passing waiters. He took a hasty swallow. Next to Teodora Fermin and her father stood Roberto Urzaiz, looking every bit the animal trapped alive and dangled before the slaughterhouse door by its heels.

"My daughter wishes you to be among the first to know of her engagement to Roberto here," said Gabriel Fermin, clapping his prospective son-in-law on the back with an enthusiasm that, José suspected, concealed considerable worry. He might be gaining a son-in-law and the possible heirs from the union, but he also was placing his fortune at risk. A thought popped into José's head and he covered it with a show of appreciation.

"That's wonderful," he said. "But a last word... as one bachelor to another," he winked and the Fermins chuckled, Teodora with rather more gusto than her father, as he guided the Caballero out of reach of his betrothed.

"Married!" he said aloud for their benefit, for the chairs were all filled, requiring José to march his captive to the stairs. "I would never have believed it."

"Nor I," said Urzaiz, glancing behind him ominously, then hanging his head when they were sufficiently distant. "Even the word seems foreign to me. But I had no choice in the matter."

"You didn't..."

"No," he quickly replied, "it's not that way. My bride, if not myself, will be able to wear the white dress with a clarity of conscience."

"Then I must be happy for you," said José.

Urzaiz smiled sorrowfully, removing a cigarette. "Happy?" he asked. "Yes I suppose. Under the circumstances, I should, as you say, be... happy. The alternative..."

José stepped back, noting the lines of worry on the Caballero's face.

"After all I hardly had any choice in the matter. It's all over the town, or would have been. You were away, of course, so you would not have known, for Rigoberto is a man of discretion. That's rare, these days. But I never had the opportunity to, well... lean on you a little, as I did to him and to so many others. Hell, it's just, well... I'm broke. That's the whole of it! My investments were failing, and the banks just won't lend me any more on them."

"And the Fermins?"

"They have their suspicions, but I've covered my tracks for the time being. Thus the necessity of a prompt wedding. We're to be married Easter Sunday, in less than two months. Sooner than that I'd prefer, but I think I can maintain my appearance of solvency that long. Of course I may have to sell or accept loans upon a few items."

"I hope you would see to the invitation of an old friend to your wedding."

"Since Teodora's family will be paying the bill, why not? If the marriage of Roberto Urzaiz is in the stars, then let it be the last jaraña, an episode that will remain alive in infamy long after its poor victims are interred." And Roberto smiled wanly, already fading into the shadow of the great campaigner he had been.

José scratched his chin. "Speaking of victims, I saw a man from Campeche whom I seem to remember... but I can't recollect much, for you know how drunk we were. It was one of the players in the procession... Cortes."

Robert's mouth curled contemptuously. "That one! If he's a friend of yours..."

"Well I don't know," José probed cautiously. "I only met him on one occasion and, as I have said, I don't remember much. I thought that you, perhaps, would know a little more than I."

"Oh, he's a decent enough sort, I gather, this Cortes... or, rather, Cimarrón. Plenty of money that he doesn't mind spreading around and a good eye for the horses. You would never know to look at him, and if you had known him you wouldn't soon forget it." Urzaiz bent his wrist. "Un puro maricón... a predator of the most bloodthirsty sort. They say that it is the young indian boys who are to his liking, but I have never been one to make moral judgments. It's too close to home," he added piously.

"Our Cortes a pederast?" José's relief dissolved in peals of laughter. "What a different Mexico there might have been were the real conquistador so inclined, instead of his player. Now that you mention it, that must have been what stuck in my mind. When I saw him, I said ‘Roberto would know his story’, as you must know everything..."

"Not everything," the Caballero demurred, "but a story or two. Speaking of Campecheños, this manager of a tannery..."

This turn of conversation to lewd memories soon drew an appreciative audience of Caballeros and other young men, and provided José an opportunity to make an escape, after securing, again, his promise of invitation to the wedding. Whistling a merry tune he greeted some of those arriving, including the young Justo Sierra, with a cheerful nature more becoming had he been the one about to marry into wealth and society; helping himself to the buffet, even offering a kind word for the partisans gathered to themselves in one room without regard to their sympathies.

Don Antonio had fallen among these, though in his usual role as an arbiter, willing to listen to the points made by both sides before coming to a conclusion that usually, though not in every instance, favored the traditional view. Here, Raul Montez-Betancourt and Barzon were disputing the succession issue which, don Raul believed, would fade away four years hence when Diaz stepped down. "Mexico will weep no matter who succeeds him, but," he added, "your ridiculous forecasts of revolution will go straight to that underworld which is home to all the failed things of this Republic."

"Let us hope so, old friend, let us pray. But," don Andre replied, "I never have assumed the rational or the expected thing to happen here and, by so doing, I have managed to achieve a ripe old age. Nobody believed the indians would rise up while we were debating independence, nobody took seriously the first threats of France, before its occupation. For that matter, who could have conceived a ragged Oaxacan, Juarez, would rally us to liberation, nor that another of his kind could hold his place for thirty years. This world is ever strange, Raul, and Mexico is ever of the world. And even if the President were to retire, who would follow him and keep this peace you speak of? Corral?"

Don Raul coughed at the word and glanced quickly about to be sure who was present. "Government is not an issue of personal morality but of leadership. Why not Corral?" he asked and continued despite the coarse gestures of contempt and amusement from almost all listening. "The Vice President is every bit as firm as Don Porfirio in his dealings with foreigners and bandits and, in his own way and given that he surrounds himself with capable men, knows about as much of economics as Limantour."

"In his own way," chortled Barzon, "well I can't answer that! Yes, Raul, you're quite right, don Ramon's economic principles are something you don't learn at any Jesuit seminary. Or perhaps they can be... one can never be too sure, even of the Church, in this century. At any rate, we need not fear the bankruptcy of Mexico under Corral, for if it should come near to that, he'd sell our wives to the Americans, our daughters to the Germans and, if still necessary, our sons to King Edward. He's inherited Don Porfirio's magic with foreigners."

"Well, foreign trade has been the cause of our prosperity," replied Don Raul, "and Europeans look beyond the petty faults of men, to nobler qualities."

"Indeed they do," agreed Barzon, "indeed they do. So, for that matter, do Americans. Don Antonio... with your permission... may I recite from the fine literature that Captain José was so gracious to bring back from St. Louis after your unfortunate spill?" Don Antonio first glanced to José, then made a gesture of agreement. "How I regret that great Fair was not in Paris instead of the United States. I might well have dragged these old bones aboard a ship," he said, nodding to the younger Macias. "But, as I am not the adventurer I was, I shall content myself with such official wisdom into the capacities of our Vice President as has been so thoughtfully provided."

And he turned a few pages and, marking a paragraph with his finger, read the selection concerning Corral... pausing, in places, for the guffaws to subside. This liveliness consequently attracted others, including his frowning cousin who, hearing the last half of the biography, grimaced...

"The author is either a liar or a pornographer."

"Why don't you tell that to the Vice President when he gets here, Agustin?"

"What?" Betancourt-Montez pretended horror. "Don Ramon and I are business partners. I'm hoping to make up at least half of my gambling losses tonight. Have any of you heard the story of Corral at Veracruz?"

"Go on," said don Antonio, when Montez-Betancourt responded with a stony silence.

"Our esteemed Vice President was on a business excursion, buying chickens for his coop. There might even have some official excuse; any traveling such a man might do can be said to be in the service of the state. At any rate he found a woman, as he often does, companion to a shipbuilder, a man of considerable influence around those parts. Well Don Ramon, who is a very honorable man, again in his own way, offered to purchase her. It seems he was rebuffed with some enthusiasm, for the lady was also a daughter of the shipbuilder. By a mistress, but a daughter still."

"A rare fellow," said Barzon. "How many of us contemplating not only a fine sum of money but also the opportunity to win the favor of a man who probably will be Mexico's next President would have refused? I stand corrected, don Raul. Though it seems wondrous to me, you have proven that men of principle still dwell in Mexico."

"Unfortunately," Don Agustin said, "the shipbuilder was an Italian national."

They were still laughing when Governor Molina approached, having just now arrived at his own function and affecting some deeply troubling concern that drew an inquiry from Don Raul.

"It is a trivial matter," Molina said, "but one of those things against which I recommend vigilance. Part of the fault is my own. I allowed some of the prisoners at the Penitentiary a few hours of liberty under the impression, perhaps a mistaken one, that exposure to what is upright, noble and ambitious, such as those virtues our President expresses, might work some corrective magic on their souls."

"Governor, you are too virtuous for the world," Barzon said, "or at least this corner of it."

"Some of those prisoners may also be thinking that tonight. Most, of course, repaid my trust and returned but there were a few, only a few," Molina emphasized, "who seized the opportunity to break away into the crowd. Their custodians gave pursuit, but many were unable to fire, owing to the proximity of so many of our citizens."

"Could that have had anything to do with tales I have heard tonight that shots were fired?" Don Agustin asked.

"There were shots," the Governor admitted. "Two were killed and four wounded. For the sake of the President's reputation," he sighed, "I do hope the ones they shot were actually escaping prisoners.

"Well," he added, "there the matter sits! I thought it best to warn you to against strangers... and otherwise this had been a splendid week. The President should be arriving momentarily. Why… in fact,” and the head of the hacendado swiveled sharply at a clamour outside the door, “…he has arrived!"

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