because its execution will be your responsibility, although the information may come to me first. And if so, we’ll have no choice but to join forces, my good general. Some things we feel with our skin, others we see with our eyes, and still others just beat away in our hearts. To cut a long story short, there’s a secret, General. A very well-kept secret at the San Juan de Ulúa fortress. Yes, right at the entrance to the port of Veracruz. How do I know this? Because a spy told me. Or, if you will, a little bird. An affectionate little lady bird who is not only mine . . . or in other words she’s the very lovely cage where my own little birdie sings. Ulúa, cage, castle, and prison. You may be wondering how this could possibly be connected with all the other issues we face now—whether the president will rise to the occasion, the matter of the gringos who’ve threatened and isolated us, the question of who will become the next president, the matter of the students, the peasants, the factory workers. . . .
There are a thousand threads in this fabric, General, and yet my old soldier’s intuition keeps on asking: Ulúa, Ulúa, what’s going on in Ulúa?
18
BERNAL HERRERA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN
Ex-President César León came to visit me. At first I didn’t even recognize him. That young man with wavy black hair is now a mature man with wavy white hair. Those matinee idol’s wavy locks are what define him for me, politically and morally as well as physically. They remind me of that old song, “The Waves of the Lagoon”: “Some waves come, while others go, some to Sayula, some to Zapotlán. . . .” The question is: Where is Sayula in the mind of César León, and where is Zapotlán?
What follows is a summary of the brief conversation we had, along with my conclusions, since León was (and perhaps still is?) your friend. You gave him the advice that ensured his popularity early on. Free the political prisoners, president. Flatter the intellectuals. Attend all the civic and cultural ceremonies. Assume Benito Juárez’s republican mantle. Replace the trade unions’ leadership. New faces. Change is accepted as a sign of moral renewal. (We all know that the opposite is true: A new bureaucrat has all the ambitions that the old one has already fulfilled. Thus the new one will be more voracious than the old one.) Cooperate with the gringos on everything, except Cuba. Cuba has provided and continues to provide the opportunity to pay lip service to our independence. Thanks to Cuba we’re no longer the main target of the campaigns, plots, and occasional violence that the United States has unleashed on Latin America. The United States is a kind of Captain Ahab on the quest for a Moby Dick that may yet satisfy the American obsession with viewing the world in black and white. Gringos go mad if they can’t tell who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy—and Mexico was the bad guy for a century and a half until, thank God, Fidel Castro turned up and became our lightning conductor. César León made the gringos understand that the problem was a bit more complex than the plot of an old Western. Mexico would be the United States’ most loyal Latin American ally, but this would only be plausible if Mexico maintained a healthy relationship with Castro in the interest of keeping the lines of communication open (issue number one) and playing a role in Cuba’s transition after Castro’s death (issue number two). It was the latter promise that failed us all. The old comandante is still there, ninety-three years old, and I read in the paper that he’s just opened a Sierra Maestra theme park.
Now, I’m not saying that you yourself invented Mexico’s policies toward Cuba and the United States, my dear friend, because that would be like saying you discovered lukewarm water. With the seductive wiles for which you are famous, you simply planted these policies in the mind of the young president César León, who was
There are a thousand threads in this fabric, General, and yet my old soldier’s intuition keeps on asking: Ulúa, Ulúa, what’s going on in Ulúa?
18
BERNAL HERRERA TO MARÍA DEL ROSARIO GALVÁN
Ex-President César León came to visit me. At first I didn’t even recognize him. That young man with wavy black hair is now a mature man with wavy white hair. Those matinee idol’s wavy locks are what define him for me, politically and morally as well as physically. They remind me of that old song, “The Waves of the Lagoon”: “Some waves come, while others go, some to Sayula, some to Zapotlán. . . .” The question is: Where is Sayula in the mind of César León, and where is Zapotlán?
What follows is a summary of the brief conversation we had, along with my conclusions, since León was (and perhaps still is?) your friend. You gave him the advice that ensured his popularity early on. Free the political prisoners, president. Flatter the intellectuals. Attend all the civic and cultural ceremonies. Assume Benito Juárez’s republican mantle. Replace the trade unions’ leadership. New faces. Change is accepted as a sign of moral renewal. (We all know that the opposite is true: A new bureaucrat has all the ambitions that the old one has already fulfilled. Thus the new one will be more voracious than the old one.) Cooperate with the gringos on everything, except Cuba. Cuba has provided and continues to provide the opportunity to pay lip service to our independence. Thanks to Cuba we’re no longer the main target of the campaigns, plots, and occasional violence that the United States has unleashed on Latin America. The United States is a kind of Captain Ahab on the quest for a Moby Dick that may yet satisfy the American obsession with viewing the world in black and white. Gringos go mad if they can’t tell who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy—and Mexico was the bad guy for a century and a half until, thank God, Fidel Castro turned up and became our lightning conductor. César León made the gringos understand that the problem was a bit more complex than the plot of an old Western. Mexico would be the United States’ most loyal Latin American ally, but this would only be plausible if Mexico maintained a healthy relationship with Castro in the interest of keeping the lines of communication open (issue number one) and playing a role in Cuba’s transition after Castro’s death (issue number two). It was the latter promise that failed us all. The old comandante is still there, ninety-three years old, and I read in the paper that he’s just opened a Sierra Maestra theme park.
Now, I’m not saying that you yourself invented Mexico’s policies toward Cuba and the United States, my dear friend, because that would be like saying you discovered lukewarm water. With the seductive wiles for which you are famous, you simply planted these policies in the mind of the young president César León, who was
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