The Eagle's Throne

10. “LA PEPA” ALMAZÁN TO TÁCITO DE LA CANAL

My love, my precious baldy, how could I possibly mind writing letters to you since writing letters is, in fact, all I’ve done since the day we became lovers, and I’ve been careful enough, now more than ever, my dearest love, not to mention your sacred name in writing? You know how I feel: I’d love it if one day, after many years have passed, someone were to open the old trunk that once belonged to my grandmother from the Yucatán and chance upon my bundle of love letters, which by then will no longer be the letters of an unfaithful wife but of a romantic, passionate lover, which is what I am to you, my chubby little baldy, my “better-than-nothing” as the nasty gossipmongers call you simply because they’ve never been lucky enough to know your scrumptious, delectable tongue, long and soft when you kiss me all over my body, my body as perfect as that of an alabaster Venus, as you like to say. . But enough of these pleasures, my anonymous lover, let’s get to the point, which is the ever-increasing chumminess between that scheming MR and your rival, Secretary BH. You’re too good sometimes, my saintly little sweetheart: Your loyalty to the P blinds you to the people who want to bring you down, calling you an unscrupulous ass-kisser. That’s exactly what that diabolical little duo is up to: They want to make you look like another amoral ass-kisser who uses his proximity to the P to rise in the ranks hoping to become P himself at the next election. Let’s not play dumb, my darling T, we’re past the third year of the “period” (and I’m not referring to my heavenly hormones), and the only thing that matters now is the succession of the P.

This is how I see things. MR has allied herself with BH, whose strength is his alleged serenity and equanimity, his reputation as an honest man in a nation of thieves. He leaves all the dirty work to MR, who commands the P’s attention, since the P, as you already know, is a grateful man, and when they were nobodies MR was his sweetheart and taught him all the tricks of the political trade. The good and bad thing about the P is that he’s a grateful man. So find a way, my handsome, of making him more grateful to you than to anyone else. Things are getting hairy (sorry, sweetheart, that wasn’t a dig at you, my beautiful baldy), and if we really want to get what we’re after, you and I will have to find that diabolical little couple’s weak spot. We have an advantage that also happens to be a disadvantage. My admirable husband is like the Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing makes him budge; he’s boring but safe. Now, were he to hear about some shady move on the part of our little couple, he’d go straight to the P with the information, as sure as Moses appeared on the Mount armed with the Ten Commandments.

My husband is a genius when it comes to making people feel guilty. We all know that the P can’t bear to feel guilty. The only thing my husband needs to do, then, to make the P doubt, is reveal one of BH’s slipups. Believe me, my adorable tortilla, the best way to get the P on our side is by planting the seed of doubt in his mind. You know he’s a man who needs security, security, always more security. Let’s not fool ourselves. He’s even willing to tolerate corruption as long as it’s safe— that is, predictable and reliable. Take the case of our communications secretary, Felipe Aguirre. We all know, as does the P, that for every contract he authorizes he takes a cut tastier than a rumba dancer’s ass. The P knows it and doesn’t care, he’s got that theory of his about corruption as a lubricant, which to me sounds like getting done up the ass (I suppose!). The communications secretary is a swine. It’s well-known, accepted, understood, however you want to put it.

But BH! Moral rectitude, honesty, and all those other things that don’t feed a man are what people (especially our ineffable Mr. P) expect from him. As such, my sexy baldy, all we need to do is catch BH or that shiftless MR in some kind of sleazy deal to thwart the latter’s ambition for power. The P already trusts you like no one else, for his own reasons. He’s always saying so: “I don’t make a move without T.” “T’s always more than enough for my needs.”

Even here in Mérida everyone knows what they say at the P’s office. “T is my most loyal servant, I could never make a move without T, I trust T more than I trust myself, T is the son I never had. . ”

And so on and so forth.

My adorable little tortilla, we must be even more astute than the eagle that climbed the thorny nopal without asking permission first. The eagle that graces the presidential chair!

What advantages do we have? Our discretion, for starters. There’s no better training for politics than adultery. Little secrets, little secrets. Big surprises, big surprises. Nobody suspects us, nor would they ever think of connecting us in any way. I live here in the land of the pheasant and the deer, and there isn’t a soul who could possibly suspect a thing about our little romantic escapades in Cancún. Good Lord! In that hippie wig, nobody on earth would ever recognize you at the hotel, and please forgive me for saying so, my sweet handsome thing, but the last time we went to the beach a couple of young gringos invited me to go dancing with them at a disco. “Leave your father at home,” they said, “he spends the whole day napping anyway.”

Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, my darling, but I’m telling you this to make you realize that you and I have been discreet, extremely discreet, and on that account we can’t be faulted. You, for your part, have always been a teacher of civil law at the National University, a respected congressman for the now defunct PRI, first a loyal campaigner and then a headhunter for the erstwhile candidate, now for the presidency. Unsullied by chicanery. They could accuse you — and with good reason — of being a horny lech, my darling, although that’s no sin, not even a venial one. But a thief, never. You don’t have to say anything about this, not to me, darling. I know how you live, in that tiny one-bedroom apartment in Colonia Cuauhtémoc. That sickening smell of cooking, garbage, and piss that wafts up the shaft in the stairway. Not even an elevator! And your three Sears suits, your six pairs of shoes, so ancient they’re actually from that ancient old shop El Borceguí, your two Basque berets for protecting your bald pate in January. My God! You’re an ascetic, my tortilla! What they don’t know, of course, is that baldness is a sign — secondary, they say, but a sign nonetheless — of virility, and even if you’re modest in every other aspect, your masculine gifts, my irrepressible man, are still peerless. Why, it’s as if God the Father gave you almost everything in small sizes with one exception, that Tarzan trouser snake, that Popeye prick, that chimpanzee chili that’s very much your own, my bashful one, but it also belongs to me, the woman who so adores you, and asks you to think hard because we’ve only got two more years to achieve our goal.

I adore you, my dear T. Please tell me when I can see you again, and I repeat: Keep your hands clean and your spine straight, but above all watch it, my love, keep your eyes open, and be prepared to be a bit of a bastard. .