Reasons of State Read online

  Ofelia had finished her very long session with “Für Elise”—we hadn’t noticed that the piano had been silent for some while—and she now came into the library, looking dazzling but strange, dressed in light-coloured muslin, a feather boa around her neck, a hat wreathed in flowers and with a hummingbird nesting among its roses, embroidered gloves, and a parasol whose handle was made of finely carved ivory; perfumed, and with a suggestion of hidden lingerie wafting through her clothes, her hair waved, her figure enhanced by bows and tight lacing. She advanced with a lively air, like a ship before the wind, a fully rigged model of Boldini’s.

  “It’s the day of the Drags,” she said, reminding me that while I was talking to the Distinguished Academician a few moments before, I had in fact seen crossing the Place de la Concorde some of those old-fashioned English carriages with double doors and high box seats, drawn by four horses, which would shortly drive off amid a great turmoil of sunshades, whip-cracking, and postillions’ bugles, to where the President of the Society of Steeplechasers was awaiting them, flanked by two huntsmen in scarlet livery.

  “Jamais je ne vous avais vu si belle,” said the Distinguished Academician, weaving thereupon an elaborate compliment comparing my daughter to some sort of beautiful Gauguin rising from the foamy waves of a summer dawn.

  “We are having fun,” murmured Peralta.

  My face became serious: all this about Gauguin stressed our being foreigners—but Ofelia took it all in good part. “Oh! Tout au plus la Noa-Noa du Seizième Arrondissement!”

  The truth is that her smooth complexion, derived from her Indian ancestry, was a feature of my daughter’s beauty. She had inherited none of the roundness of face, thickness of thighs, and width of hips of her sainted mother, who was much more of a peasant in complexion and figure. Ofelia was long-legged with small breasts, and slenderly built—a woman of the new race springing up over there—nor did her straight hair, artificially waved to suit the fashion, possess any of the natural fuzziness that many of our countrywomen counteracted by using the famous Walker Lotion, invented by a chemist of New Orleans.

  Covering me in exaggerated caresses, Ofelia asked my permission to go away that same night, after the dinner at the Polo de Bagatelle to which she was invited. She wanted to be present at the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth, which was opening on the following Tuesday with Tristan und Isolde.

  “Œuvre sublime!” exclaimed the Academician, starting to hum the theme of the Vorspiel with the gestures of someone conducting an invisible orchestra. Then he spoke of the superhuman voluptuousness of the second act, of the great solo for cor anglais in the third, of the paroxysmal chromatic progression, almost cruel in its intensity, of the “Liebestod,” and went on to ask my daughter whether she would enjoy visiting the Villa Wahnfried. Gratified by Ofelia’s dramatic emotion, as she declared that the mere thought of the Famous Mansion was to her so moving and sacred that she would never dare to enter it, the Academician went to the little boule Santa Inés writing table and took a sheet of paper. Would she take these lines of introduction to his friend Siegfried, a noted composer, although his works were seldom performed? But … how could one compose music if one was the son of Richard Wagner? And now his pen stopped its calligraphic career, adorned with Greek “e”s and tall “l”s: “Voici, Mademoiselle.” Would she greet Cosima affectionately from him? He warned her that the seats in the Festspielhaus were rather uncomfortable. But the pilgrimage to Bayreuth was something that every cultivated person must experience, even if only once in a lifetime—just as the Mohammedans went to Mecca or the Japanese climbed Fujiyama.

  Taking the letter he had embellished with a Renaissance flourish composed of very carefully drawn capital letters, Ofelia left us, with renewed demonstrations of affection for such a kind father, who indulged her in everything—although to tell the truth I hadn’t given the smallest sign of pleasure at the idea of this sudden journey, which in fact thwarted my plan for her to act as hostess to a reception shortly to be given here in honour of the editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes, who was very much interested in publishing a long article on the splendid prosperity and stability of my country. Her kisses on my forehead had been pure humbug and play-acting for the benefit of our visitor, because in fact she never needed my advice or consent to do whatever she fancied. She used and abused the terror inspired in me by her appalling rages, sudden losses of control whenever I tried to oppose her wishes—rages expressed in frantic stamping, obscene gestures, and such foul and insulting language that it seemed to come from a brothel or low nightclub. At such moments the “cunts” and “pricks” of the Infanta—as my secretary called her—reached as high as the allegoric figures on the Arc de Triomphe. But when the storm had passed, and she had got what she wanted, Ofelia used to return to her usual delicate language full of such subtle nuances that sometimes, after listening to her, I had to go to the dictionary to discover the exact significance of some adjective or adverb, possibly destined in the future to fill the sails of my own oratory.

  When we were alone again, the Academician suddenly seemed depressed, remembering the years of poverty Richard Wagner had gone through, and the contempt that was felt for true artists in this horrible epoch. There was no Maecenas, no Lorenzo the Magnificent, no cultured Borgias, no Louis XIV, no Ludwig of Bavaria. Perhaps some Louis of the card table? He himself, in spite of his successful literary career, was not immune from want—so very far from immune, in fact—that under pressure from emissaries of the Law in cocked hats who might be knocking on the door of his house tomorrow with their symbolic ivory sticks (would such a thing have been conceivable in the Grand Siècle?) he had sorrowfully made up his mind to sell the manuscripts of two plays: Robert Guiscard (a historical pageant, whose chief characters were the Norman condottiere, his brother Rogerio, and the unfortunate Judith d’Evreux, which in spite of a masterly interpretation by Le Bargy, was a resounding flop) and L’absent (a drama of conscience: David and Bathsheba, whose nights of love were poisoned by the ghost of Uriah, etc.) which had been performed more than two hundred times at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, to the great fury of that swine of a Jew Bernstein, who had thought of writing a piece on the same theme … But the bookshop around here hadn’t any funds available, and lawsuits couldn’t be postponed: tomorrow those men in cocked hats with their ivory-handled sticks … But perhaps the National Library of my country …?

  He had no need to say more. I quickly wrote him out a cheque, which he received with the distrait air of a nobleman, without even looking to see what sum was written on it, although I suspect he knew from having watched the way my hand moved as I traced the numerals.

  “Ils sont très beaux,” he said: large pages of art paper, enclosed in leather cases stamped with his ex-libris. “Vous verrez.”

  The package, left downstairs, was brought up by Sylvestre. I untied the string, fondled the covers with their calligraphy in two different inks and drawings illustrating the text; I turned the pages with respectful slowness and felt grateful to the distinguished friend who had thought of the Library of my country to save these invaluable writings—a library that, modest though it was, possessed some extremely valuable incunables, Florentine maps, and a few codices from the Conquest. And noticing that his movements were being orchestrated into an ambiguous ceremony of departure, I stood up, as though to look towards the Arc de Triomphe, declaiming:

  Toi dont la courbe au loin

  s’emplit d’azur, arche démesurée …

  Feeling obliged to show me some gratitude, the Distinguished Academician picked up his top hat and his white gloves and—knowing that it would please me—said that Hugo wasn’t such a bad poet after all, and it was understandable that we, who were so generous with our admiration for French culture, should continue to appreciate his great virtues as a lyric poet. But we must also get to know Gobineau; we must read Gobineau.

  I went with him down the red-carpeted stairs as far as the front door. And I was just going to suggest to
Doctor Peralta that we should go to the Rue des Acacias and visit Monsieur Musard’s Bois-Charbons, when a taxi drew up in front of us and out got the cholo* Mendoza in a remarkably agitated state. Something serious had happened to my ambassador, because he was sweating—he always looked sweaty, but not so much as this—his parting was crooked, his tie carelessly knotted, and his grey felt boot tops badly laced. I was about to make a joke about his disappearances of several days—whether to Passy, Auteuil, or who could say where?—with the blonde of the moment, when with an agonised expression he handed me a deciphered cablegram of several pages: it was from Colonel Walter Hoffmann, President of my Cabinet:

  “Read it … Read it.”

  IT IS MY DUTY TO INFORM YOU THAT GENERAL ATAÚLFO GALVÁN HAS REBELLED SAN FELIPE DEL PALMAR WITH INFANTRY BATTALIONS 4,7,9,11,13 (FOREMOST IN THE COUNTRY) AND THREE CAVALRY REGIMENTS INCLUDING “INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH” SQUADRON, AND FIVE ARTILLERY UNITS, TO CRIES OF “LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION, LONG LIVE THE LAW.”

  “The cunt! The son of a bitch!” yelled the Head of State, hurling the cables to the ground. “I’ve not finished reading it,” said the cholo Mendoza, picking up the papers. The movement had spread to three provinces of the north and threatened the Pacific zone. But the garrisons and officials of the Centre remained faithful to the government, so Hoffmann assured me. Nueva Córdoba was unaffected. Troops were patrolling the streets of Puerto Araguato. Curfew had been imposed, presumably pending guarantees of constitutional behaviour. The newspaper Progreso had been suppressed. The morale of government troops was good, but there was a shortage of armaments, especially light artillery and Maxim machine guns. His Excellency knew how loyal to him the capital was. They awaited instructions. “The cunt! The son of a bitch!” repeated the Head of State, as if his vocabulary was limited to these sordid phrases when thinking of the treachery of the man whom he had dragged from the squalor of a provincial barracks, the rubbishy, third-rate soldier whom he had helped, made rich, taught to use a fork and pull the lavatory chain, and converted into a gentleman, giving him braid and epaulettes, and finally appointing him Minister for War, and who now took advantage of his absence to … The man who, when in his cups at receptions at the palace, had so often called him his benefactor, providence, more than a father, a friend, godfather to my children, flesh of my flesh, to be rebelling thus, in the Bolivian style or that of the sudden risings of a past era, clamouring for respect for a constitution that had never been observed by any government since the Wars of Independence, because as we say over there: “theory is always buggered by practice” and “a leader with any spunk pays no attention to documents.”

  “The cunt! The son of a bitch!” repeated the Head of State, who had now returned to the large drawing room and was pouring himself great swigs of Santa Inés rum—a rum that no longer seemed merely the nostalgic breath of patriotic feelings in laissez-vivre Paris, but had suddenly become the wine of battle, hot and strong, foretelling hard, rough marches and counter-marches in the near future, the smell of horses, soldiers’ armpits, and gunpowder. And all at once, blotting out Jean-Paul Laurens’ blessed Radegonde, Elstir’s seascape, and Gérome’s gladiators, they were in the middle of a council of war. Forgotten was the adolescent hero of the Arc de Triomphe, although it was true that on its walls was inscribed the name of Miranda, precursor of American independence, who had refused to imitate the treachery of the infamous Dumouriez—another version of Ataúlfo Galván; forgotten was Monsieur Musard’s Bois-Charbons, where the Prime Minister and Doctor Peralta were so fond of taking a glass of Muscadet in the mornings, an aperitif at noon, and a Pernod in the evening, because that establishment with its aroma of charcoal, its modest counter set parallel to a wall covered with out-of-date almanacks, its allegorical picture of the Ascent and Descent of the Ages, its advertisements for Géraudel pastilles and Vino Mariani, reminded them of the bars and taverns of over there—with the same ambience, and decorative posters, and the cheerful sallies of clients fuddled on red wine, but always ready to discuss questions to do with cycling, recent films, women, politics, boxing, the passing of a comet, the conquest of the South Pole, or whatever they liked …

  Council of war. Three silhouettes thrown on the walls and pictures by the lamp on the writing desk: as in a cinema, the cholo Mendoza’s restlessly revolving shadow, the slender form of Doctor Peralta, busy with papers and ink; the thickset, broad-shouldered, slow and choleric figure of the Head of State, gesticulating as he sat in his armchair dictating letters and plans. To Peralta: cable to his son Ariel, Ambassador in Washington, ordering the immediate purchase of armaments, gun emplacements, logistic supplies, and observation balloons like those recently adopted by the French Army (they would have a tremendous effect over there, where they had never been seen before); proceeding, since all wars cost money and the National Treasury was in a bad way, to hand over the banana zone on the Pacific to the United Fruit Company—a transaction that had been too long delayed because of the doubts, arguments, and objections of professors and intellectuals who talked a lot of foolishness and denounced the greed—inevitable, good God, inevitable, fated, whether we like it or not, for geographical reasons and historical necessities—of Yankee imperialism. To the cholo Mendoza: cable to Hoffmann, ordering him to defend the communications between Puerto Araguato and the capital at all costs. Shoot whoever must be shot. To Peralta, again: cable a Message-to-the-Nation declaring our insuperable determination to defend Liberty following the example of the Founders of Our Country, that (“well, you know the sort of thing …”).

  And the cholo Mendoza had already telephoned Cook’s agency: a fairly fast ship, the Yorktown, would leave Saint-Nazaire at midnight. They would have to take the five o’clock train. Another cable to Ariel, announcing their arrival time so that he should find means of getting them there as early as possible: cargo boat, tanker, whatever was available.

  “Tell Sylvestre to pack my bags.” He swallowed a large drink, already mounted on the horse of great decisions.

  “Tell Ofelia not to worry. We’ve plenty of money in Switzerland. Let her go to Bayreuth as if nothing had happened and have a good time with her Niebelungen. For me it’s a question of a few weeks. I’ve thrashed people with more guts than that shit of a general.”

  And when Sylvestre began carrying down the luggage the Prime Minister thought that probably that affair last night with the little nun of Saint Vincent de Paul had brought him bad luck after all. That starched headdress. And the scapulary. And that rubber skull, certainly bought in the shop called Farces et Attrapes in the Boulevard des Capucines—another unfortunate coincidence—that couldn’t have helped. But, once again, the Divine Shepherdess of Nueva Córdoba would accept his sincere repentance. He would add a few emeralds to her crown; a lot of silver to her cloak. And there would be ceremonies. Candles. A great many candles. The Flag of Her Divinity between wax tapers and the ambos. The cadets on their knees. The ceremony of the accolades. The Cathedral would be lit up and freshly decorated …

  Outside, Rude’s Marseillaise kept up her imaginary noise—sounding soundlessly—from a deep stone mouth which was only one hole more in the monument where the names of 652 generals of the Empire, consecrated by Glory, were inscribed.

  “Only six hundred and fifty-two generals?” murmured the Dictator, reviewing his army in his imagination. “Baedeker must have made a mistake.”

  * In Latin America a “Cholo” is usually an educated and civilized Indian. It can also mean a cross between an Indian and a European.

  TWO

  … each man is so fixed in his own judgement that we could find as many reformers as there are heads.

  —DESCARTES

  2

  TWO HOURS AFTER THE TRAVELLERS HAD ARRIVED in their suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, they were proceeding to sign the final papers of their negotiations with the United Fruit Company, rapidly carried through by Ariel while his father and Doctor Peralta were on the high seas. The documents were incontrovertible, provided
that the signatory was by act and right—and he would continue to be so for a long time according to forecasters specializing in the politics of this hemisphere—the Constitutional President of the Republic. Besides, the Company ran no risk, whatever happened, because at the start of his rebellion General Ataúlfo Galván had the intelligence and forethought to tell the agencies of the press that now as always, today and tomorrow, hic et nunc, both during the progress of the armed struggle and after the “certain victory”—what a nerve, brother!—of the movement to seize the leadership, all the wealth, property, concessions, and monopolies of North American businesses would be safeguarded. It was known by cablegram that the revolutionaries had consolidated their positions on the Atlantic coast—up till now they held four provinces out of nine, that was the dramatic fact—but a stubborn resistance was frustrating their present attempts to advance towards Puerto Araguato and cut the communications between the capital and the ocean. One squadron of warships was awaiting the Head of State off a little Caribbean island, at which a Dutch cargo ship would drop anchor next day on her way to Recife. As for arms, bought from an agent of Sir Basil Zaharoff, they were to be despatched from Florida on board a boat registered in Greece, by a freebooter accustomed to hoisting a Panama or Salvador flag once outside the United States’ three-mile limit when it returned to its usual business—transporting men, arms, slave labour, anything that was wanted in South America, whose creeks, inlets, and bays he knew as well as did the most travelled of local coastal steamers.

  And since there was nothing urgently needing to be done that night, the Head of State, who was a great opera fan, wanted to hear Pelléas et Mélisande, which was on at the Metropolitan Opera House, with the famous Mary Garden in the leading rôle. His friend the Academician had talked a lot about this score, which was said to be very good and, although much discussed at first, had fanatical admirers in Paris, whom that eccentric homosexual Jean Lorrain described as “Pelléasts.”