The Empire of Yearning (15 page)

“Y
OU HAVE READ THIS
, Your Excellency?” Diego produced a recent edition of
L’Ère nouvelle
, a gazette published in Mexico City in French. This issue contained news of the exploits of Baldemar Peralta, along with certain veiled but unflattering references to the Church. The article did not specifically mention Ángela Peralta or her son, but anyone conversant with events in Mexico City could draw the connection. He held the journal out to Labastida.

The prelate merely glanced at it before tossing the pages into the air. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I have read the article you mean.”

The leaves pulled loose from one another, fluttering away in the wake of the archbishop’s carriage, an English-built landau with a remarkably advanced suspension system. Diego felt as if he were careening through the streets of the capital on the back of an immense cat. His stomach roiled at each elongated twist or turn.

It was a Sunday evening. As was customary at this time of the week, many of the capital’s most distinguished residents were out on the promenade. They paraded back and forth in their carriages along the Paseo de Bucareli.
“Ah, look there.” The archbishop’s ruddy, moon-shaped face lit up. He raised his right arm to salute a carriage advancing from the opposite direction. “Why yes. It’s the Marqués de Vivanco. Look, he’s waving at us. How very fine. You know, his carriage is not worth half the value of this one, yet you can see for yourself how proudly he behaves. Do you know his wife, the
marquesa
?” He scrunched up his face, as if swallowing something rancid.

The marquis and his wife continued to wave gaily as the two carriages floated past one another. Like most of the other vehicles tottering back and forth, these two were open to the air. More than a few of the conveyances bore an elaborate and freshly painted coat of arms on their polished side panels. The newly minted peers of the realm flaunted their status to all, but mainly to each other.

The spectacle made Diego feel ill, but the archbishop was delighted. He waved to them all. The women were in full toilette, their elaborate coiffures bedecked with jewels and secured by mantillas of imported lace to protect the careful arrangement of their hair.

“I take it,” said the archbishop, “that you wish to revisit the subject of the opera singer and her son.”

Diego was about to reply, but Labastida held up a pink and fleshy hand.

“You will forgive me if I begin.”

“Very well.”

In his arch diction, Labastida declared that he had other matters to attend to that were far more urgent than the fate of any individual woman, with or without a son.

“I speak of the reform laws in particular,” he said.

Before Diego could intervene, the prelate resumed his presentation. He said that any lasting agreement between the two sides—the palace and the Church—must await the arrival of Monseñor Meglia, the papal nuncio. In the meantime, he believed it was possible to anticipate the general outlines of an accord. All Church properties stolen by the previous liberal government must be returned. As for the cemeteries, they too must be restored to Church control, along with the registry of births and
deaths and the performance of marriage services. All religious holidays were again to be officially observed. The schools were to be operated by the Church once again. Roman Catholicism must once more be declared the official and exclusive religion of the country. All heretical cults were to be banned.

“I see,” said Diego. “But I am not here to discuss relations between Church and state.”

“Nor am I,” said Labastida. “That will be undertaken by Monseñor Meglia. All in good time.”

“In the meantime, I would like to inquire as to the well-being of Ángela Peralta. And her son.”

“I thought as much,” said the archbishop. “Well, since you ask, I can confidently say that both are in excellent health physically and spiritually. The woman in particular is a shimmering model of piety. If only there were more like her.”

“Where are they?”

“They are quite secure.”

“But where?”

The archbishop said that, unfortunately, he was not at liberty to say.

“I see,” said Diego. “You are not concerned that many Mexicans oppose you?”

“Rabble. Extremists. I discount them.”

Labastida turned away, and a gust of wind nearly dislodged the purple skullcap pinned in place at the back of his head. He reached up to keep it from flying off, and immediately a smile lit his large, round face.

“Look there,” he said. He raised his other hand in a magisterial wave. “It is Sánchez Navarro. How delightful to see him.” In a low voice he added, “Poor man. I hear he has offered immense sums in bribes in order to earn a position for his wife at court, so far to no avail.” He grimaced. “The woman’s a peasant, you know—thoroughly ill-bred. Her father was in trade, I believe. Between you and me, I regard their marriage as an abomination. I have it on excellent authority that she was with child at the time of the nuptials. Scandalous.”

He waved again and made a sign of the cross as the carriage swayed past, stirring up thin coils of dust along the rutted breadth of the Paseo de Bucareli. Slowly, dusk settled over Mexico City, and the stream of
carretelas
and conveyances gradually thinned until the only creatures remaining on the boulevard were the barefoot vendor women, the lepers, the beggars, and the pariah dogs snuffling through the gutters and the dark.

The next morning, Maximiliano announced that he meant to absent himself from Mexico City for a number of weeks in order to become better acquainted with other parts of his realm. He proposed a tour of the Bajío, the lofty, fertile valley that unfolded to the north of the capital. More or less peaceful, the region was said to contain a great deal of historical interest. The emperor tightened the sash of his dressing gown and plucked a biscuit from the silver plate on his desk. He said he expected to be away for the better part of a month.

“But the papal nuncio,” said Diego. “He will certainly arrive during that time.”

Maximiliano frowned, as if he had not thought of this difficulty till now. He bit the biscuit in half. “Hmm. That does pose a dilemma.”

Diego decided it was time to announce his own plans. He, too, would be absent for no little while.

“Absent? Where?”

“Washington, District of Columbia.”

“Whatever for?”

Diego had prepared an answer. To ascertain the fortunes of war in that immense territory, fortunes that would bear directly upon events in Mexico. If the southern states were to prove victorious—or at least if
they were able to avoid outright defeat—then it was probable that Maximiliano and the Confederacy could make an alliance that would serve both sides. If, however, the north were to win, then it was difficult to think that Washington would look kindly upon a French military presence in Mexico.

“Your Majesty is undoubtedly aware of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823—”

“Declaring the Americas off limits to interference by European powers. Of course.” Maximiliano brushed a smattering of sugar from his lips. “You know, I am inclined to agree with you. I will provide you with a letter of introduction, of course. And God speed.”

“Thank you. And the papal nuncio?”

The emperor frowned. He reached for a document, seemingly at random, and briefly perused its contents. His face lit up. “I know.” He glanced at Diego. “Why not leave the papal nuncio to Charlotte?”

“To the empress?”

“Yes.” The emperor sat back and smiled. “Why, it’s perfect. They won’t possibly be expecting that. Inconceivable.”

And Diego had to agree. Inconceivable was exactly what it was.

That night, Diego sprawled in his bed, unable to sleep, wondering what species of creature he had become. In a certain light, he was in the same predicament as General Márquez. Both of them were trapped in a contradiction that offered no way out. The Tiger of Tacubaya had a grudge against Baldemar that could be avenged only through murder, but he also owed Baldemar his life, which ought to have made murder unthinkable. Meanwhile, Diego was bound to both Baldemar and the emperor.
Baldemar had saved his life, but the emperor had saved Baldemar’s. As a result, he was under an obligation to them both. So far, he’d managed to sustain this contradiction, but how much longer could it hold? Now he was to depart for Washington, supposedly as an emissary of the emperor but with no intention of acting on Maximiliano’s behalf. One day, he was a monarchist, the next day, republican. It was as if the man named Diego Serrano did not really exist at all or as if he existed in multiple versions, like a chameleon—a chameleon that, in this case, had kicked off his bedcovers and kept rolling from side to side in his bed, trying to find a position that was halfway amenable to sleep. But, on this night at least, no such position seemed to exist, and so he kept tossing in his bed, worrying and fretting and doubting himself.

Whoever “himself” was.

F
IVE DAYS LATER
, Diego departed the capital, bound for Veracruz. Despite the abysmal condition of the roads, the journey to the coast passed without incident. At Veracruz, he boarded a mail packet that ploughed away through the pale silver waters of the Gulf of Mexico, bound for Havana. From that Cuban city, he travelled north by steam vessel, foregoing the usual landings at Miami, Jacksonville, and Savannah, for those cities were located in states of the Confederacy and would provide no harbour for a Washington-bound ship. But the steam packet was able to make landfall at Wilmington. A Union army had lately wrested the city from the Confederacy, and Wilmington now swelled with northern soldiers, patrolling the rubble-strewn streets of a sullen and ravaged town.

Diego ventured ashore, where he found it an easy matter to engage several Unionists in conversation, in exchange for a bottle of good Cuban rum and some Cuban cigars. These were enjoyed at leisure in the dust-laden bar of a half-cratered hotel. Diego’s English was inferior to his French, but he could convey an air of easygoing camaraderie when the occasion demanded. He learned that a large army of seasoned
volunteers under General William Tecumseh Sherman was even now marching to the south and must soon capture Atlanta. Before long, he was told, Savannah would also fall to the Unionists. These worn-out men were resting at Wilmington before proceeding south themselves, and they painted Sherman’s march to the sea as a project of terrible but necessary destruction. The Unionist general meant to ruin the economy of the south, laying waste to whatever he found along the way—farms, warehouses, factories, bridges. He would sap from his enemies not just their lives but also their will.

Diego reboarded the packet that evening. The following morning, the vessel steamed north, bound for Cape Hatteras, en route to Virginia Beach. There, he sent a cable to William H. Seward, the American secretary of state. He requested a meeting.

Diego understood that the government of Abraham Lincoln in Washington had so far followed a policy of strict neutrality regarding the conflict in Mexico, and it did not require exceptional intelligence to understand why. The Unionists undoubtedly feared a large French army stationed to the south and saw no reason to offend Napoleon III unnecessarily. This was where matters stood in the early months of 1865, but Diego wondered if the north’s neutrality would long continue should Washington win its civil war. Such a victory, he was told, seemed likelier by the day.

“Look,” said the vessel’s captain, an avuncular and gregarious sailor from Santiago de Cuba. He spoke in the rapid-fire manner of his people and pointed off to the southwest, toward the mouth of the Appomattox River and the shores of Chesapeake Bay, forested in chestnut trees and elms. He said the supreme commander of the Unionist forces, General Ulysses S. Grant, was camped with his army not far upriver at a place called City Point. Grant was biding his time, waiting for Sherman to complete his march of devastation through the south. When the Confederate forces were surrounded, the Unionists would march on Richmond, the southern capital. The end would come quickly.

That night, the packet steamed north through Chesapeake Bay and
Pocomoke Sound, bound for Annapolis. Diego paced the deck, smoking the last of his Havana cigars.

Four weeks after departing Mexico City, he checked into a room at a small hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The following morning, he received confirmation that his request for a meeting with the secretary of state had been granted but could not be scheduled until ten days hence. These were cold, grey days in Washington. A drizzle pelted from the low tombstone sky, and Diego passed his time in long damp walks, interspersed with even longer interludes in the city’s hotel lounges and bars, where he medicated his boredom with spirits while studying the American newspapers. As regarded Mexico, the journals in Washington were remarkably up-to-date, providing details of the conflict in his country that were unknown even to him, all reflecting miserably on the fortunes of the republican side. From a Washington paper called the
Daily Evening Star
, he learned that Benito Juárez had abandoned Monterrey and was in the process of installing himself at El Paso del Norte, a fly-blown speck of land on Mexico’s border with Texas. From there, he would have no escape.

As a liberal, Diego regarded this as deeply discouraging news. As a member of the imperial court, he must take the opposite view. He lit an American cigarette, ordered another brandy, and vacillated between these two opinions, marvelling at the rapid progress of the news in this, the modern world.

The day for his meeting with Seward arrived at last. Diego found the American secretary of state to be a gruff individual, evidently intelligent but little given to divulging more information than necessary. The American briefly outlined the conventional Unionist view of Mexico—an outlook of strictest neutrality. This was undoubtedly the policy at present, but Diego believed it was likely to change once the war pitting the American states was concluded. In fact, given northern fortunes in that conflict, he suspected it must already be changing. He gave Seward every opportunity to say so, but the man stuck to the official line. Washington was neutral as regarded developments in Mexico.

Diego let the matter drop for the time being and waited in silence for the American to speak.

Seward ran a hand beneath his chin and cleared his throat and then, somewhat stagily, straightened his tie. “Whom exactly do you represent?” he said. “Hapsburg or Juárez? I can tell you have ties to them both. That can’t have been easy to arrange.”

“The politics of my country are a complicated affair.”

“Contradictory, you mean.”

“That too.”

Seward said he was interested in any news his visitor might possess concerning recent events in Mexico. How went the war?

“Quite well for the French,” said Diego. Without bothering to mention his source, he said the liberal president, Benito Juárez, had been obliged to retreat ever further north and must soon reach the border with Texas. Slowly and steadily, it seemed, the French were consolidating their military control of the country.

“And the emperor? Maximilian—how is he making out?”

Diego shifted his weight, easing forward. “For the moment, the emperor seems reasonably secure.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s easily explained. If your government were to alter its stance toward Mexico, the situation would become very different. Everything in my country would change in an instant.”

“But I’ve already told you. Our policy is good as gold. We are not concerned with anything the Frogs might do, as long as they stay south of the Rio Grande. You can take that to the bank, my friend.”

Diego frowned. If a man says something once, it is not out of the question for you to believe him. But if he says it twice, you must leave some room for doubt. And if he says it a third time, then you must seek another opinion, which was exactly what Diego decided to do. He remembered his conversation on Chesapeake Bay with the captain of the Cuban packet, who had told him that General Ulysses S. Grant was encamped with his army not far inland, in Virginia. Was this still the case?

Seward said it was.

“I am told this General Grant once fought against my country.” Diego meant the American intervention in Mexico, when the United States captured roughly half of Mexico’s territory. For a time, the gringos had even occupied Mexico City. He had heard somewhere that Grant later regretted his participation in that war. He told Seward he would like to meet this man if it were possible.

“Why wouldn’t it be possible? We have nothing to hide.
Mi casa es su casa.
Isn’t that what you people say? Leave it to me. I will arrange a letter of introduction.”

The document was delivered to Diego’s hotel that afternoon, and he set out the next morning in a hired coach that carried him south through the rolling farmland of Virginia to the confluence of the James River with the Appomattox. He found the Unionist commander at his headquarters, a tent pitched on the front lawn of a gabled and dormered house belonging to a certain Dr. Richard Epps. The building overlooked a view of shimmering aspens and silver waters, where the merging currents of the two rivers swirled and eddied in the winter sunlight.

It surprised him to see that Grant’s accommodation was not much different from any of the countless other tents arrayed about the estate, housing many thousands of troops. This arrangement was very unlike the practice in Mexico, where generals surrounded themselves with luxuries and comforts, while their men went about in threadbare uniforms and makeshift sandals and slept under the stars. Diego observed that American military practice seemed to differ from Mexico’s in another respect, too. In Mexico, armies were followed by columns of women on foot—the wives of soldiers, who did the cooking and cleaning and bore much of the cargo, and often shared in the fighting as well. As a result, a Mexican army was a slow-moving beast. But he saw no evidence of soldiers’ wives at City Point, with the solitary exception of Grant’s wife, who had a tent of her own that stood not far from her husband’s, suggesting that American officers indulged themselves in some perquisites after all.