The Eagle's Throne

14. DULCE DE LA GARZA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN

Madam: If I dare to write to you, it is only because I have no other way of contacting you. And you are who you are. The whole country knows that. There isn’t a single woman with more influence (I don’t know if I’ve said it properly — perhaps I should say there isn’t a single more influential woman?) than you. All doors open for you. The powerful listen to you. But your doors are closed to the powerless. And I am an insignificant woman. Once, I could have been as powerful as you are now. But my name says it all — at one time I could have been, but I wasn’t. So I write to you now, madam, I freely admit it, because you are powerful and I am not. But I also write to ask you woman to woman: What has become of my beloved? Can’t you tell me anything? Who is buried in my lover’s grave in Veracruz? Why are there two graves, one beneath the other? One with a wax model inside melting from the heat, and the other empty? Madam, if you have ever felt love for a man — and I don’t doubt that you have— please take pity on me. In the name of the man you have loved most dearly in your own life, think of me, have mercy on me, my loneliness and my pain, and please tell me: Where is the body of my beloved? Where can I go to bring him flowers, kneel down, pray for him, think of him, and tell him how terribly and desperately I miss him and need him? Can’t you help me? Is this a lot to ask? Is it too much? Am I asking for the impossible?