Mexico: A Novel Part 37

So there you have my family tree. Indian builders back to A. D. 600. Spanish scholars back to 1498. Virginia patriots only to 1823, but you have seen my undefeated grandfather Jubal and my philosopher father, John, in proper detail. As for myself, I was born in Toledo in 1909 to a Palafox mother and a son of a Confederate emigre, lived through the heat of the revolution, and emigrated back to the United States in time to growl: "If Hitler and Tojo think they can destroy our pattern of life, we'd better do something about it." In 1942 I saw duty in the Pacific as an aviator, and in 1950 as a combat correspondent in Korea.

When I felt that I had to abandon my wife in Toledo, a decision that she made, not I, she sensibly had our marriage annulled on grounds that I had refused to live with her, which was technically correct. I regretted my losing her, even mourned it, but there was nothing I could do.

Like the offspring of those other Confederate soldiers who fled to Mexico in 1866, I have never been able to determine whether I'm a Mexican or a norteamericano. I was born a Mexican citizen and in my formative years led a wildly exciting life there; as an adult I gained American citizenship by virtue of my volunteering for World War II; but I return to Mexico whenever I get a chance, for to visit the plaza of Toledo in moonlight and see that rim of handsome buildings built by members of my Spanish family, or that fabulous Mineral rejuvenated by my grandfather, or the brooding pyramid begun in 650 by restless Ixmiq moves me more deeply than anything I see elsewhere. Even if I went back to Cold Harbor to see where Grandfather Jubal masterminded his half hour of horror, I doubt it would affect me as deeply as a Visit to that plaza in which General Gurza committed his crimes and then gave me my gun.

Chapter 17.

BY TORCHLIGHT.

IT IS THE second night of a three-day bullfight festival that is often the most rewarding. Friendships have been made. Visitors have learned where to find the fashionable places to dine. The spectators now have six different matadors to compare. There is not the pang of regret that sometimes overwhelms the final night. But as day quickly fades after the death of the last bull on Sat.u.r.day, night arrives with its mystical powers, and nowhere in Mexico or Spain is there a finer plaza in which to celebrate the ending of a festival day than the one in Toledo.

The plaza itself is of such careful proportions, large enough to accommodate big crowds but not so s.p.a.cious as to prevent intimacy, that it makes being there a pleasure. I know a dozen plazas in the cities of the world, and many, like that of Salamanca, are larger than Toledo's and some, like the one at Cartagena, have more imposing single buildings; others, like the big one in Madrid, played major roles in Spanish and world history, and certainly the majestic Zocalo of Mexico City with its cathedral dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe is perhaps the best of all. I do not include the area before St. Peter's in Rome in that comparison, because it has none of the intimacy of a plaza; indeed, it isn't even enclosed on all four sides.

But the plaza in Toledo has one overwhelming mark of superiority: it is scaled with almost magical precision to the human experience, the size and capacities of the human being. You can stand at the statue of Ixmiq at the north end and still keep in touch with what's happening at the statue of my father, John Clay, at the southern end, and if you spot a pretty girl taking her evening stroll at the far end, you have only to wait where you are, for she will soon be pa.s.sing you.

For many Toledanos the plaza has one serious drawback. The broad avenue that runs down the western length in front of the cathedral has in recent years been rechristened by politicians Avenida Gral. Gurza in honor of the famous bandit who, in other parts of Mexico, is revered as a hero, but who in Toledo is rejected with shudders because of the terror he brought our city.

The word Gral has always fascinated me, for as one travels in Mexico one comes upon one avenue after another named Avenida Gral. Gomez or the like, and this perplexed me until I learned that Gral is an abbreviation of the word General Mexico adores its generals, and any sizable city that does not have an Avenida Gral. This or That is poor indeed. Because my grandmother, a fervent partisan of Gral. Gurza, taught me to respect what the man had been trying to do, I accepted the name of the avenue.

On this lovely night under the stars a wooden theatrical platform, a kind of rustic stage, had been erected on Gral. Gurza where it pa.s.sed in front of the cathedral, but at the southern end near the statue of my father. On this stage Hector Sepulveda, the one-handed poet who had conducted himself so convincingly in the Tournament of Flowers Thursday night, was to direct a pageant he had written ent.i.tled Here in This Plaza, and from the posters Yd seen I supposed it would be a Mexican version of a show I had seen one dark night at the Bastille in Paris. It was most effective, an artistic mix ,of previously recorded fiery orations, music and the sounds of a mob storming the prison gates, all emphasized by brilliantly synchronized lighting effects. I thought: The Mexicans are great at such displays, and I had bought my ticket.

Hispanic custom being what it is, the producers of such an entertainment faced a difficult decision: "Do we give it at eight in the evening before the public eats dinner at eleven? Or do we give it at one in the morning, after the spectators have eaten?" The Altomec poet had wisely decided on the latter, since he realized that his audience would be excited after the ending of the bullfight and would be so engaged in festivities that they would not want to sit still to hear his performance. It would start at one.

This delay gave me time to watch evening shadows come creeping over the plaza, and it was as if each degree of gathering darkness brought out its own accompaniment of mariachi bands, for one by one they appeared in various quarters of the plaza and the surrounding streets, until they seemed like a gathering of chattering birds, each singing its own song.

As their music grew, I found deep pleasure in just sitting there and watching events in the plaza and on the Terrace. When the Widow Palafox bustled past checking that tables were properly set for the evening meal, I thought: How rea.s.suring it is to see the continuity of ordinary behavior, and as if to demonstrate the truth of this comment, Don Eduardo stopped by to spread lies about his six bulls for the morrow: "Precious, Don Norman, I a.s.sure you, if the matadors are equal to the task of making them conform." For the last twenty Ixmiq festivals he had been saying that about his bulls, even when he knew that at best they were only marginal. But as I started to laugh at this fraudulent spiel I remembered how many times in past decades some Palafox bull whom the experts had dismissed as marginal had come storming into an arena and torn the place apart. It did not pay ever to laugh at Don Eduardo-or his bulls.

Sitting momentarily at my table he surprised me by asking: "Norman, do you ever miss Magdalena?"

Since he was referring to one of his nieces, a fine Palafox girl to whom I'd been married for five years, I felt I must speak well of her, but doing so was not difficult because she had been a good wife: "When I'm in the States I almost feel as if I'd never known her. But here in Toledo-looking at the plaza where we courted-my heart could break with longing."

He sighed, for he too remembered Magdalena, one of the best Palafox women of her generation, but now an exile in Madrid: "You should seriously consider, Norman, flying to Madrid and bringing her back to Toledo. And while you're about it, why not bring yourself back?" Since there was nothing I could say, he shrugged, rose and continued his wandering among the tables.

When the two Oklahoma women came onto the Terrace for dinner, I invited them to join me and I quickly saw that young Penny was still grieving over the loss of her matador, for her red eyes showed that she had been weeping. But such regrets ended when Leon Ledesma came up from the plaza, halted dramatically as he drew his cape around him, and studied the scene as if deciding whether it would be worth his while to mingle with us. His mind was made up by Mrs. Evans, who called: "Senor Critic, what did you write about today's performances?"

"Do you really want to hear?" he asked as he joined us, and without waiting for an answer, for it was obvious that he wanted to show off, he said: "Of the divine Conchita I wrote: 'She bade farewell to Toledo and our hearts with the wonderful grace she has always had, and we wept as she departed.' "

"But what did you say of her performance?" Mrs. Evans asked, and he snapped: "A real critic never bothers with rejoneadors, male or female. I indicated that I loved her, didn't I?"

"And Calesero?"

"A man of honor. A distinguished citizen of Aguascalientes, one of my favorite cities, and a man who can be very good with the cape, but not too good with the kill. Of such men whom I hold in esteem I have two code words, detalles, details, and pinceladas, delicate brushstrokes. To see Calesero give three of his wonderful pa.s.ses to a real bull is better than watching some clown have good luck with a compliant one."

"And Pepe Luis Vasquez? I felt respect for that young man."

"And so you should. He's one of those honest workmen who brings basic credit to the art of bullfighting. Always dependable. With him you're sure to see honorable effort, and when he gets a good animal, he wins ears because the heart of the audience is with him. In respecting him, Senora Evans, you become a true aficionada. But what do you suppose I wrote about our newcomer, Don Fermin?"

"Did he pay you?"

"Adequately. My words read better in Spanish. More poetic, more resonant," and he proceeded to read his commentary on Fermin with such dramatic force that she had to stop him: "My Spanish isn't good enough. I don't understand a word you're saying."

"With what I write sometimes it's better that way," he said and folded the paper. "What I said was that this young man has a future as promising as Armillita's or Gaona's at a similar age." When I gasped, for these were two of Mexico's greatest, he snapped peevishly: "I didn't say he was as great. Only that he had a chance to be."

"And if he doesn't pay you next time?" Mrs. Evans asked, and he replied: "Then I say: 'Despite the great promise he showed at Toledo, it's now clear that he's a zero, has not fulfilled his potential, no cla.s.s at all.' "

Mrs. Evans, enjoying the preposterous exhibitionism of this sardonic man, asked: "Will you be coming with us to the pageant tonight?" and he dismissed her with a sneer: "I loathe amateur theatrics." He delivered the Spanish word for loathe in four long-drawn-out syllables, aborrezco, but then he bowed to the two women and said: "However, to accompany you would be so pleasant that I shall be here to escort you." And he too wandered off.

During the leisurely meal electric lights throughout the plaza were turned off, and in the momentary darkness men ran with flaming brands to light a mult.i.tude of torches, devices constructed of some kind of long-burning wick drawing from a reservoir of oil contained in a can. To see these torches emerge like a host of fireflies on a summer night was a return to childhood innocence. The plaza suddenly became so enchanting that whatever might happen at the pageant would be touched with magic.

It was now toward one in the morning, and I watched the crowd beginning to drift toward the improvised stands facing the cathedral where a built-up wooden stage merged easily with the entry steps to the church. This enabled the eight pillars to be used as part of the scene, and the great doors to be opened and closed as the action required. Thus the entire church would be part of the presentation.

The Widow Palafox came through warning her patrons: "Better start for the cathedral or you'll miss the opening," whereupon Ledesma returned to our table, extended his right arm to Mrs. Evans, his left to Penny, and started the procession through the plaza. Don Eduardo and I trailed behind, arriving at the cathedral just in time to take the seats that had been reserved for us, with Don Eduardo, Ledesma and Penny in the front row, Mrs. Evans and me off to one side in the second. I was not unhappy about this arrangement, for it allowed me an opportunity before the play started to speak about Penny, in whom my interest had grown.

"She seems an admirable girl," I said. "Perhaps a bit raw about the edges, but-"

"Tulsa-raw. When it matures you can get a very powerful person."

"Has she that possibility?"

For some moments she pondered this, then said: 'The way she's handled her father recently makes me think so. She's been more mature than I could have been," and she told me how the confrontation had developed. "Ed came home one day while Penny was still in school. Needing a tool he could not find, he suspected it might be in her room. When he got there he didn't find it, but he did see on the wall a big four-color poster of the kind high school kids enjoy. This one showed a fifteen-year-old red-headed nymphet barely clothed, and the caption: Sure, blondes have more fun, But redheads have it more often.

"He left it there, but when she came home he asked: 'Does that mean what I think it means?' and she said: 'Sure, if you have a dirty mind.' Again he said nothing, but the next day when she returned from school the poster was missing.

"She was outraged: 'I thought we had an agreement you wouldn't trespa.s.s on my room,' and he said quietly: 'That's not the kind of sign to be looking at just before you go to sleep.' She had the sense to surrender: 'You might be right, Dad,' and the flash point was avoided.

"But a few days later she told him: 'When the Haggards and Mrs. Evans go down to Mexico next month, I'm going along.'

" 'Not without my permission.'

" 'I'm going, Dad. Don't let's make a big deal of it.'

" 'Why in h.e.l.l would you want to go to Mexico?'

" 'Because last Sunday's paper said that the Festival of Ixmiq in the little town of Toledo was a highlight of the season.'

" 'Why would you bother with a Mexican festival? It's a backward country to begin with.'

" 'Because they have bullfights, and I'd like to meet a matador.'

"At this poor Ed exploded, called me in as Penny's unofficial guardian and asked, with both of us sitting there: 'Elsie, what's gotten into this child? She wants to drive to Mexico with you to see if she can meet a matador,' and I said: 'When I was her age I was burning to meet John Barrymore.' And then I added: 'Ed, the obligation of a child is not to make his or her parents happy.'

" 'That's a h.e.l.l of a rule. What is her obligation?'

" 'To develop into a mature woman, with character. To be herself.' It was hard to do, but I told Ed that I thought if my son had had more personal gumption he might be alive today. But when my husband died, poor Peter felt he had to remain home and look after me. I told him: 'Ed. If you want to keep her, let her go. Unless you want her to grow up to be one more oil heiress making a d.a.m.n fool of herself in New York and Paris.' "

"How did he take that?" I asked, and she said: "He kissed me and said: 'Off we go to Mexico, if I can take it.' Obviously, as you saw, he couldn't. He fled." She chuckled: "So there beside Senor Ledesma we have a young lady who is developing a very strong character. Mexico's been good for her-and for me, too. I needed it as much as she did."

At this point the mariachis ended their overture with a blare of trumpets, after which the one-armed Altomec poet, dressed in the flimsy clothing of a peon, came out from the cathedral, walked down the steps and took center stage, where he declaimed: "This is the House of G.o.d Built by the Bishops Palafox. Here is where the laws of G.o.d Were promulgated.

Here we worshiped for four hundred years, Here we were baptized.

Here we were married Here we paid our t.i.thes It was a holy place."

Suddenly, from inside the cathedral came three separate groups of three men each dressed in simple black robes and wailing antiphonally, first one group then another: PRIESTS: We are the three of Toledo.

Now from the front rows of the audience came the heavy voices of two dozen men and women in the peon costume representing the people not only of Toledo but of all Mexico. Their combined voices had great authority: ALL THE We are three priests of Toledo.

PRIESTS:.

PEOPLE: May their souls rest in peace.

FIRST PRIEST: We served G.o.d and the people of Mexico, as we were instructed.

PEOPLE: May their souls rest in peace.

SECOND We brought mercy to the people, we PRIEST: brought justice.

PEOPLE: These three good men instructed us, they baptized us. And at the hour of death they sped us into the arms of G.o.d.

THIRD PRIEST: We are the three who were a.s.sa.s.sinated against these walls.

At this each group went to a part of the fa?ade at which the executions of 1914 had taken place, as the mariachi musicians played mournful notes: PEOPLE: May their souls rest in peace, may these good men find eternal peace.

While the priests remained in their positions against the wall, the music became martial, the marching songs I had sung with my grandmother during the Revolution, "Adfelita" and "Jesusita en Chihuahua," while from behind the cathedral came a large group of soldiers in tattered uniforms: SOLDIERS: We are the brave soldiers who saved the city of Toledo.

PEOPLE: May they be awarded medals.

SOLDIERS: For eleven bitter years we fought to save Mexico, and our wives knew us not, our sons were not born.

PEOPLE: Across the barren fields they fought, on the outskirts of the city they skirmished, and they died as they were commanded.

SOLDIERS: But we are also the ones who burned Toledo, who destroyed the cathedral in which we march tonight.

PEOPLE: May their souls rest in peace, the peace they never knew.

SOLDIERS: We are the firing squad that murdered the priests here against the wall, as we were commanded.

PEOPLE: Merciful G.o.d, forgive them.

Eight of the soldiers now detached themselves from the body, raised their rifles, and formed a firing squad to murder the priests. An officer took charge, raised his sword as we awaited the volley, then dropped it ... in silence. And although there was no explosion of gunfire, the priests fell. I think we were pleased that we had been spared the sound of real bullets; it was only make-believe.

PEOPLE: It was an act that should not have happened.

There now came a long reading by the poet in which he told the other side of the priests' story, of how they went through the countryside finding Indian villages and converting them in one gesture to Christianity and slavery in the mines. A band of Indian women sang and danced their bitter version of the Conquest: WOMEN: We danced to the rain G.o.d, we sang to the G.o.ds of nature.

PRIESTS:..... Then we came to save you.

WOMEN:..... Before, we never worked in the mines.

PRIESTS:..... We want you to be good citizens.

WOMEN:..... We used to stay with our children.

PRIESTS: YOU are needed in the mines. It is a way of life.

WOMEN: We grow faint. And are long gone in pregnancy.

PRIESTS: YOU are needed in the cotton fields ... in the mines.

WOMEN: In the mines we perish. Allow us to be free.

PRIESTS: Silence. Saint Paul has said, in such matters the woman is to be silent. We will advise you. Your life is in the mines.

Now eight soldiers detached themselves from the others and lined up with heavy rifles in a firing position. All the soldiers chanted in extremely slow cadence: SOLDIERS: Those are the ones in that firing squad, not us, those are the ones who sought seven nuns at the convent.

NUNS: We are the seven of Toledo, the seven who served the people, who cared for abandoned children, who served G.o.d in our dozen ways.

SOLDIERS: It was those others who dug out the hiding nuns, not us.

NUNS: When we saw the guns pointed at us, we knew the end was near, but no one cried out or tried to run away. We were in the hands of Jesus.

SOLDIERS: It was those others who did the dreadful thing, it was not us. We did not give the order.

At this point the eight soldiers with guns faced the seven nuns, and the officer in bright uniform appeared with sword raised. As he dropped it the eight riflemen fired, this time with a terrifying explosion, and the seven nuns fell to the ground, with heart-stabbing effect. No longer was it make-believe.

PEOPLE: G.o.d, forgive the soldiers. They did not give the order. G.o.d, take to your bosom the seven nuns. They were the brides of Jesus.

Suddenly the mariachis broke into the wildest of the revolutionary songs, creating an impression of troops on a rampage, raping and burning. After this chaotic episode, they played a song about a military train coming into the city. Then a large group of men occupied the stage, with someone looking remarkably like General Gurza in the center: GRAL. GURZA: I am the man ... not the general .. . not the revolutionary. I am the man who had to make decisions.

PEOPLE: May his soul rest in peace. He was a man of Mexico.

GRAL. GURZA: I had to burn Toledo. The enemy was close on my heels. I had to deprive them of your city.

PEOPLE: G.o.d will forgive him. It was an act of war.

GRAL. GURZA: It was I who ordered the three priests to be executed. Death to their thieving bishops .. . they were conspiring against us ... against the revolution.

PEOPLE: May his soul rest in peace. He was a patriot.

GRAL. GURZA: It was not I who ordered the nuns to be shot. He did it, that one in the fancy uniform ... he did it.