The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [35]
“I’m glad you’re here, old friend,” Tomás said.
“I was afraid I’d miss your party,” Aguirre said. “Things are complicated on the roads.”
“Did you see bandits?”
“Only in the form of government agents.”
“That sort of talk could stretch your neck,” Tomás said.
“Oh? Are there spies even in your house?”
Tomás smiled.
“The bandits are all dead,” Aguirre informed him. “And many Indians. Americanos are buying land in Chihuahua and Sonora on deeds from Mexico City.” He waved his hand before his face. “There are department stores.”
“What is this?”
“Germans selling coats and underpants and pots and toys all in one great store.”
“No meat?”
“No.”
“No steaks?”
“No! No meat at all.”
“What kind of a store sells no meat?”
“Tomás! Por Dios! Pay attention! A department store.”
“What do they sell?”
“I just told you what they sell.”
“No meat.”
“Correct.”
“German underpants.”
“Well. As a figure of speech.”
“Ah.”
“Things, in other words.”
“Ah!”
“It is very North American.”
“No meat,” said Tomás. “It is the end of ranching.”
“No, no,” the Engineer said. “There will be department stores of meat!”
Tomás raised his glass.
“Let us drink a toast, then, to the future!”
A girl brought in a tray with fluted glasses filled with seviche, and a bowl of the delightful raw shellfish known as pata de mula. Tomás had ordered it sent from Los Mochis. The seafood had arrived in tunnels bored into blocks of ice that were wrapped in burlap and buried in mounds of sawdust. Beside the seviche, there was a glass bowl of toothpicks, a small plate of lime slices, a pinch bowl of crushed salts, and a cup filled with salsa borracha.
Aguirre immediately drenched a disk of pata de mula in lime, skewered it on a toothpick, and began the long wrestling match that passed for chewing when eating the recalcitrant shellfish. Tomás, not to be outdone, slurped up fish and lime juice from his glass, then spooned salsa borracha directly into his mouth. He turned bright crimson and his nose began running. Aguirre slopped salsa onto his seviche and spooned out a great burning gob. Tears came to his eyes. They were both sweating profusely.
“Chingue a su madre,” Tomás said, but he said it the way the men said it, as one Asiatic ululation: “Heeng-yasumá!”
“Yes,” Aguirre concurred, “it is tasty.”
Segundo stopped by and said, “Pata de mula!”
“Dig in,” Tomás invited.
When the chiles hit his tongue, Segundo sighed: “Hijo de su madre.”
It was so painful they had no further words for its wonder.
There was a long pause before Aguirre spoke again.
“This election will affect you, my reckless friend,” the Engineer prophesied.
Tomás absorbed this quietly.
The great dictator of Mexico, the President for Life, General Díaz, the Grand Don Porfirio, onetime hero of Liberation, ally of the great Benito Juárez, pinche Indio general to boot, had been seduced by power, Aguirre said. The People said he’d been whitened once ensconced in the presidential palace of far Tenochtitlán, transformed into a wicked scorpion. Díaz had sent his troops forth to kill Indians and rebels as he sold away the nation for bags of European and Yanqui gold; now he was closing his fist over the states around Sinaloa. His reign was so complete that it went by his own first name: El Porfiriato.
Díaz had sent his men into the land to run in elections for control of every state. But this governor of Sinaloa, with the help of Tomás and the Masons, had won the election. The general in his palace in the Aztec capital had sent the army to Culiacán for a recount. And when they got the ballots, the count reversed itself as if by magic.
“Díaz has taken Sinaloa!” Aguirre announced.
“Are you sure?” Tomás asked.
“I am.”
“Is it trouble for us?”
“It is.”
Segundo looked to them and shrugged.
“Watch,” Aguirre warned, “for punitive