I admit that in the presence of Asunta Jordán all this came to mind not in a premeditated way but instantaneously, dissolving my dual questioning into a single unitary affirmation: Asunta Jordán’s façade was one of duty, which accounted for her attire, her voice, her position-despite her office of aquatic tides, more appropriate to a siren than an executive secretary. Wasn’t it all something more than a concession to the senses, wasn’t it an invitation more than a whim?
I stopped at her gaze hidden (like that of the guards) by dark glasses, which she suddenly removed, revealing eyes that would have been beautiful if they hadn’t been so hard, inquisitive, imperious and that were-beautiful-in spite of everything I’ve said.
“You’re not listening to me, Señor.”
“No,” I replied, “I was looking at you.”
“Discipline yourself.”
“I believe that looking at you carefully is the primary discipline in this place.”
I don’t know if she smiled or became angry. Her mouth allowed for any number of readings. Her deep black eyes betrayed the artificiality of her sun-streaked hair and solicited-I thought then-more intimate investigations.
LET NO ONE tell you I speak incessantly or don’t listen to advice. Let that person search for balance. Bring a little harmony to the country. Give Mexico a triumphal air. And above all, not spend all his time, Mr. President, in demonizing his predecessor or doing favors for those who supported him.
Jericó told me that the President of the Republic, Don Valentín Pedro Carrera, received him in the formal office at Los Pinos with these concepts and asked him to have a seat in a chair conspicuously lower than the chief executive’s as the president caressed with his long fingers the busts of the heroes-Hidalgo, Juárez, Madero-that adorned his vast, bare desk. In addition to heroes, there were a good number of telephones and behind Jericó’s seat three television sets with the sound off but transmitting constant images.
He told Jericó he was always looking for new blood, for new ideas. Licenciado Sanginés had recommended Jericó as an intelligent, very cultured boy, educated abroad and with no political experience.
“Just as well,” laughed the president. “Correct me in time, Jericó,” he said with the heartiness of informal address immediately authorized by the difference in their ages: Valentín Pedro Carrera was close to fifty but said jokingly that “after forty-one you can’t walk, you have to run.
“So you’re very cultured, right? Well, take good care of me because I’m not. Don’t hold back, correct me in time, don’t let me talk about the Brazilian female novelist Doña Sara Mago or the Arabic female philosopher Rabina Tagora.”
He guffawed again, as if wanting to ease tensions and put Jericó at his ease and receptive to what Mr. President Carrera intended to tell him.
“My philosophy, young man, is that there should be a rotation of individuals here, not classes. And it’s necessary to rotate individuals because otherwise the classes become agitated seeing the same faces. Those at the bottom become agitated because the permanence of those at the top reminds them of the absence of those at the bottom. Those at the top become agitated because they’re afraid a gerontocracy will perpetuate itself and the young will never get beyond subsecretary, or high-ranking official, or out-and-out mediocrity.”
He narrowed his eyes until he looked like a Chinese-Aryan, since his Spanish features were crossbred with swarthy skin and both of them with an Asian gaze.
“I called you after talking to my old adviser Sanginés so you can give me a hand with a project I have in mind.”
He smoothed his reddish, graying mustache.
“I’ll explain my philosophy. The Mexican plateau is not only a geographical fact. It is a historical one. It is a flat height, or a high flatland, which allows us to look at the stature of time.”
Jericó half-closed his eyes in order not to yawn. He expected a complete oratorical exercise. That did not happen.
“But to get to the point, Jero… May I call you that?”
What was “Jero” going to say except simply to nod his consent. He says he didn’t feel intimidated and didn’t stoop to “Whatever you like, Mr. President.”
That individual proceeded to explain that man does not live by bread alone but also by festivals and illusions.
“You have to invent heroes and bequeath them,” said Carrera as he caressed the innocent heads of the bronzed leading men of the nation. “You have to invent ‘the year’ of something that distracts people.”
“No doubt,” said Jericó, boldly. “People need distraction.”
“There you go,” the president continued. “Look.” He caressed the three heads, one after the other. “For me Independence, Reform, and Revolution passed me in the night. I am a child of Democracy, I was elected and am accountable only to my electors. But I repeat, democracy does not live by ballot boxes alone, and here and in China memorable dates have to be created that give pride to the people, memory to amnesiacs, and a future to the dissatisfied.”
He didn’t say “I have finished speaking,” but let’s pretend he did. Jericó says he sent the chief executive a quietly interrogative look.
“Commemorative dates are born of unimportant dates,” my friend ventured and realized, taking his measure, that the president did not like anyone to see him disconcerted.
“In other words,” Carrera continued, “a president has to be a hedonometer.”
Jericó feigned an idiotic face. Presidential vanity was restored.
“The pleasure, happiness, joy of the people must be measured. You’re so cultured”-the tail end of irony appeared-“do you think a science of happiness exists? How much happiness does the average Mexican need? A lot, not much, none at all? Listen carefully. The voice of experience is talking to you, you can count on it!”
Though his gaze revealed the most perverse brutality.
“This country has always lived in miserable poverty. Always, a mass of the fucked and we, a minority of fuckers, are over them. And believe me, Jero, if we want it all to continue, we have to make the fucked believe that even though they’re fucked they’re happier than you and me.”
His face became serene.
“In other words, my good Jero: I don’t want Mexicans to be rich. I want them to be happy. Just look at the Gringos. Look at what prosperity has done for them! They work constantly, eat badly, you can bet they fuck in a hurry, a straight suburban quickie, they don’t have vacations, they don’t have social welfare, they retire at fifty and die beside a lawn mower. A lot of work, a lot of money, and not much satisfaction… Some happiness! In Mexico, at least, there’s always been a certain, what shall I call it? pastoral well-being, you’re happy with your tortilla here, your tequilas there…”
Once again the ogre.
“That’s over, young man. Too much information, too many appetites, too much envy. Max Monroy with his handheld devices has brought information to the most remote corners. Once you could govern almost in secret, people believed in the annual report on September first, they believed that the more statistics there were, the happier they would be, but damn it all to hell, Jero! No more. People are informed and they don’t conform and it’s my job to fill in the gaps at the patriotic festival, the commemorative parade, the ceremonies that replace the imagination and appease their spirits, their thirst and hunger.”