Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [87]
“Inside here we have no idea what’s going on out there,” the president said calmly but enigmatically. “Don’t kid yourself.”
“You’re not going to stop me from being Richi’s friend.” Quique raised his voice provocatively. “With Richi I stop being the president’s damn son, I’m myself.” He got to his feet violently. “Without mommies and daddies all over me.”
“Watch your mouth in front of your mother,” said the president without becoming irritated. “Beg her pardon.”
“Pardon me, Mom.” Quique approached Doña Luz and kissed her on the forehead. “But you two have to understand me.” He lifted his supplicating, haughty head. “I’m different, with Richi I’m different.”
Señora Luz armed herself with courage and, looking first at one and then the other, she raised her voice for the first time in her life, knowing she would never do it again, though now her husband’s impressive calm authorized her to speak forcefully, to break the glass that enclosed their lives.
“Do we really deserve one another? Do the three of us love one another? Answer me.”
She wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin. An undesirable foam had gathered there, like the waves of Mazatlán, because of the strength of things, because of the law of the tides.
“Give me something,” shouted Luz Pardo. “Why don’t you ever give me anything? Don’t I deserve anything?”
She didn’t cry. She never cried. Only that afternoon did she allow the tear she owed Justo Mayorga to escape. Now her desperate weeping choked in her trembling chin. She got up from the table and walked away, saying in an inaudible voice, “Answer me . . .”
She managed to hear her husband’s words. “I don’t want disorder in my house,” and then, when Justo Mayorga came into the bedroom and found her lying down, he asked, “Didn’t you watch television?” And she: “I don’t have the heart, Justo, understand me.”
The president turned on the set. He sat down next to Doña Luz and took her hand. On the screen Justo Mayorga was seen approaching the palace of Congress, ordering General Alvírez, “Let me alone, I’m going in alone,” and entering the Congress occupied by rebel workers, Justo Mayorga alone, with no aide, no armed men, alone with his courage and his head high, that was how the entire nation saw him go in on TV and that was how they saw him come out later leading the agrarian leader Joaquín Villagrán by the hand, smiling, waving his free hand—the right one, always—raising his left together with the right hand of the leader, announcing, “We’ve reached an agreement.”
But the agreement didn’t matter to the crowd gathered in front of the Congress, what mattered was the president’s bravery, the guts to go in alone into the mouth of the lion and get an agreement with the union leader, the important thing was that the people loved him, the people were right, the president was a real man, everything bad that happened was because the president didn’t know about it, if the president knew, if the bureaucrats didn’t lie to him, see, he goes in all alone and comes out holding the leader by the hand and so tomorrow we’re all going to the Zócalo to cheer our president who’s very macho, Justo Mayorga on the balcony of the palace, with only one arm—the right one—raised, conceding without shyness and in silence, yes, I’m the chosen one of the masses, I’m the proof that the man on the street can reach the top, look at me, admire me, the president is the lucky charm of the Mexican people . . .
“Never say it out loud, say it to yourself the way you’re saying it now, in secret, like an intimate confession . . . I’m the lover of my people . . .”
And in an even more secret voice, “Power postpones death, it just postpones death . . .”
8. Richi Riva was put on a Qantas plane to Australia. Quique Mayorga Pardo tried in vain to break through the barrier of bodyguards who prevented access to the ramp: “I’m the president’s son!”
The soldiers had turned into a hostile, impenetrable world.
Quique drove his Porsche back to Los Pinos. He parked it in the garage. He got out. He slammed the door. He clenched his