The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (86 page)

Her father had endlessly meditated on Maximilian’s fall; but for the fall, their family might have reigned as monarchs in Mexico; territories in the North would never have been lost to the gringos. Patiently her father had explained that when noble individuals fell from high positions, the correct term, the only word adequate, was
tragedy.
When he talked about what might have been, Alegría saw tears in his eyes. The sight of his tears had been strangely exhilarating. Alegría never
forgot the story. Her father had researched and read obsessively about Maximilian’s fall. Heartless and craven, the European nations had turned their backs on one of their “own” while the wolves closed in on the palace.

The European powers had sent young Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte, to reign as emperor and empress of Mexico. Maximilian became impotent on the voyage to Mexico. Maximilian regained his potency only in the dark flesh of Indian women. Charlotte wrote to her mother of her disappointment; she was twenty-five years old and her time for love and lovemaking were over. Charlotte traveled to Yucatan, and at the ancient ruins of Uxmal she had paused before a carved stone, undecipherable and erect. Although it was late December, the empress was suddenly overcome by the tropical heat. Charlotte returned from Yucatan anxious and depressed, although she did not understand why. Rumors in the palace named the toloache, a toxic plant, possibly sacred datura, which in small doses is known to disturb the mind.

Charlotte became hysterical as new clutches of spiders’ eggs were discovered on the red damask sofa. She gave strict orders the entire castle at Chapultepec be fumigated. She accused Maximilian of carelessly allowing his live specimens to escape from their jars and crawl downstairs from the attic laboratory. Charlotte’s nightmares were of insects and vermin in the Montezuma Castle. The emperor began to sleep on the billiard table.

Maximilian had been stunned by the expense of fielding troops to fight the Indian Juárez and his partisan army. The Imperial Treasury of Mexico was dangerously overdrawn. Maximilian’s scheme for raising money called for the colonization of Mexico by Confederate refugees from the American Civil War. A commander from Texas named McGruder administered the Land Office for Confederate Colonies across northeastern Mexico. Juárez and his army of partisans were joined by Indians dispossessed by the Confederate settlers.

Charlotte was no longer able to sleep at night and roamed in her carriage to revisit sites of past banquets and balls. The European powers did not respond to Maximilian’s pleas for money; Charlotte traveled to Paris to beg help from her sister, Eugénie, wife of Emperor Napoleon.

At Acalcingo, Juáristas stole the six white mules that pulled Maximilian’s carriage. Meanwhile, at St.-Nazaire, nothing had been prepared for Charlotte’s reception. Prussia had invaded Bohemia, and the European powers had forgotten about the empire in Mexico. The Empress
Eugénie assured her sister privately, but the European powers had written off Mexico as lost.

Charlotte’s mental confusion increased during her private audience with Pope Pius IX, and she insisted she must drink the Pope’s hot chocolate because all her food was poisoned.

Maximilian’s secret messengers were betrayed, one after the other. Their corpses were hung from poles in Liberal trenches with signs from their necks that read “Imperial Courier.”

Charlotte’s madness in no way diminished her physical health. She was more beautiful than before, shut away with her servants in a wing of the palace at Tervueren.

Maximilian died before a firing squad. Juáristas refused to deliver his corpse to sympathizers. The embalmers failed at their first attempt and there was a threat of international protest. Maximilian’s corpse had to be rewashed in arsenic solution and wrapped in bandages followed by a coat of varnish. The corpse was then suspended by ropes from the hospital ceiling to allow the varnish to dry. Juárez and his personal physician visited the hospital secretly in the middle of the night. All others were barred until the varnish dried. Juárez remarked the smell was not so bad after all.

Alegría knew the story by heart; it had been Bartolomeo’s favorite story. He was dead now. How he had enjoyed tormenting Alegría about her butchered faux royal ancestors.

Alegría had been thinking about the future, her future. She had to get out of Mexico. Bartolomeo might not get to first base with his accusations against her, but his sudden appearance was an ominous sign about local politics and the mood of the Indians in the mountains. The least connection with Bartolomeo would be enough for General J. and the police chief to make a stink to Menardo. All over Mexico, local skirmishes between rival political parties had convinced both General J. and the police chief that communist agents were everywhere spreading their cancer of communism among ignorant, lazy Indians and half-breeds who would like nothing better than to see communism feed them while they idled away the day.

Bartolomeo
spelled
blackmail.
Next he would be asking Alegría for little favors, not just sex. Next Bartolomeo would ask Alegría to hide caches of ammunition or even weapons in her store warehouse. Back upstairs in her own bedroom, Alegría took stock of her jewelry and the cash in the closet floor vault. Bartolomeo might not be able to convince
General J. or the police chief about Alegría’s leftist “flirtations,” but their wives and others in Tuxtla society would persuade them. Alegría had already provided Tuxtla society with sensational gossip, which had climaxed with the death of Iliana, whom they had all secretly hated. Yet they expected Alegría to give them more sensational gossip, and Bartolomeo was liable to deliver what they had been waiting for.

Alegría remained calm. She was thinking about Sonny Blue in Tucson. She wasn’t worried. She had a plan, and if it failed, then she would find Sonny Blue. She had been thinking about the bomb accident in Mexico City; funny thing how Bartolomeo always escaped while the others died. There was always the spy, Tacho. Maybe Tacho could be of some use to her; maybe he would obligingly carry back certain misinformation about Comrade Bartolomeo.

As for Menardo, he had become a virtual basket case, obsessed with assassins since he had got the bulletproof vest. Menardo had begun to spend hours driving around Tuxtla making notes on intersections and possible ambush sites for terrorist kidnappers. Menardo had insisted that Alegría be accompanied at all times by her own bodyguard, though so far Alegría had refused. She said she did not want to call attention to herself, but Alegría had a great deal she wished to conceal.

How would it look to the world if the wife of the president of Universal Insurance and Security had been kidnapped by terrorist kidnappers? Alegría had only shrugged her shoulders at Menardo. Did he really care about her or was she merely a prized possession? Menardo apologized desperately: Alegría could have anything she wanted and she would have nothing she did not desire; that included bodyguards. She no longer had to ride with Tacho if she felt taxis were safer.

MENARDO HAD TRIED months before to stop Alegría from going to her interior-decorator shop every day. He feared she would make an easy target for leftists at her shop. He wanted her to remain safely occupied with the other wives, who shopped together, then played canasta until seven at the country club. Why didn’t Alegría make things
easier for him? Menardo had been disappointed to wake up alone in his bed. Alegría hated the vest and had returned to her own bed sometime after he was asleep. Iliana had been barren, and Menardo wanted children; but Alegría did not stay in bed long enough for him even to start a baby. Only the year before, they had been newlyweds, and Alegría had wrapped her naked body around his and begged for more, more, more!

Menardo had not seen it coming, whatever it was that overshadowed him now. He could feel a presence that had gradually occupied his consciousness, an intuition that very soon this world would become fragmented and scatter apart. His partnership with General J. and the “silent partners” had begun to suck Menardo into the dark undertow of politics. Bombings by terrorists had been stepped up in Guadalajara and Mexico City; huge power-transmission-line towers had been dynamited outside both cities. In the darkness, looting started; then police and soldiers arrived and opened fire. The looters became rioters, and soldiers and rioters had been killed.

Like satellite TV, everywhere available to everyone, dynamite in Mexico was also everywhere available, sold too cheaply and in great volume to foreign mining companies who wanted to blow up all of Mexico looking for gold or uranium. Meanwhile the dynamite was being stolen by the ton, and leftists were trying to outblast the mining companies. Menardo hated bombs; only bullets were precise and just. Bombs too easily killed innocent people. After the bombing in Tuxtla, Menardo had given Tacho strict orders. Three times a day like clockwork Tacho had removed his chauffeur’s coat and slipped clean overalls over his uniform trousers and shirt. Then Tacho had groomed the undercarriage, frame, and motor of the Mercedes, combing it from front to rear as he lay on his back, scooting along on a piece of cardboard on the lookout for bombs.

The others at the shooting range had not seemed to notice, but Menardo began to wonder if they had only been pretending. Others less acute might not have noticed, but the general had no longer looked directly at Menardo. If Menardo tried to lower his eyes or in any way catch the general’s eye, the general had avoided his gaze. The general had been so casual the others had not noticed, and when Menardo had asked if something was wrong, the general had smiled broadly and laughed, saying, of course not, how ridiculous, as he gazed at the wall behind Menardo’s head.

Menardo began to regret he had brought Sonny Blue to Tuxtla
when they could as easily have met in Mexico city. He regretted the secrecy, which had really been unnecessary, and might now have undermined the general’s trust in Menardo. Menardo blamed the political upheaval in the South. He had begun to receive emergency calls from clients in Guatemala, San Salvador, and Honduras—day and night—with claims for warehouses and property gutted by fires set by Indian guerrilla units. Menardo had stepped up security patrols for all industrial and commercial clients, marking their locations on a wall map with colored plastic pins. Red pins were units of five men; blue pins were units of ten men. The black pins marked the scenes of labor-union disputes, riots, or demonstrations, which were strictly the domain of General J. because federal troops were sent out in those cases, at no charge to Universal. Because what was good for businessmen and industrialists was good for Mexico.

The refugee situation had suddenly filled the town with foreigners and suspicious-looking Mexican tourists from the capital, who were undercover agents for internal security. The police chief had pointed out the secret agents to Menardo and the other members of their private shooting club. Later Menardo had noticed the police chief sneaking glances at him, and one evening at dinner at the country club Menardo had noticed General J. staring at him from across the club’s main dining room. But when Menardo had crossed the room to greet General J., he pretended he had not noticed Menardo.

Menardo knew the general had been flying to Honduras and Costa Rica for a series of meetings with certain Americans. The general had called the meetings “strictly military”—but Menardo could feel tension in their phone conversations. The general had been uncharacteristically gracious and reassuring about the gringos. It was not a question of losing something but of both Menardo and their company gaining a great deal.

The general reminded Menardo about the video cameras the Americans had given the police chief; these were good examples of the usefulness of gifts from the United States government. Security had been too strict to allow Menardo to meet the Americans until later. Menardo felt uneasy, but security was the domain of the general, just as the accounts, policies, and premium payments were the domain of Menardo. General J. seldom had questions about auditor’s reports, so he did not expect questions from Menardo about security matters.

Menardo did not feel better after General J. went on to explain the U.S. government had new military field equipment they needed to test
under actual combat conditions. Test equipment given away by gringos was equipment the police and the army did not have to buy from Menardo. In the years they had done business together, they had become more than partners. They had been like brothers who looked out for one another. The general had also been fortunate to marry into a prominent family from Tuxtla. They used to get drunk together regularly in the early years to talk business and to make future plans. They had both faced the opposition from the families of their wives, but what sweet satisfaction, what revenge, Menardo and the general had had! What mattered nowadays was money, and even though the “high society” of Tuxtla might groan or grit their teeth, their sisters and daughters had gone to the highest bidders as they always had. The difference now was men such as Menardo and the general had more wealth than the “blue bloods,” who had squandered billions since the Second World War. The general had always gone further to insult the manhood of the upper classes, saying there were no virile blue bloods, and that the aristocratic class owed its continuance to the secret liaisons between their women and real men such as himself and Menardo.