Free The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes Page A

the port of Veracruz, so that I can give warning should any foreign enemy dare to profane our land with his soles, as our national anthem puts it.”
    I began to think that the Old Man Under the Arches was nothing but a raving monomaniac going on and on with his litany of wrongs suffered by Mexico over the centuries.
    “And the gringos, son, the gringos who’ve sucked the brains out of Mexico’s youth. They dress like gringos, dance like gringos, think like gringos—they wish they could
be
gringos.”
    He then made an obscene gesture with his left hand as he raised his cane with his right.
    “By Santa Anna’s lost leg, those gringos can come and kiss my ass! Here they landed in 1847, then again in 1914 . . . When will they be back?”
    He readjusted his dentures, which had slipped out of place from all the excitement, and returned to the topic at hand.
    “Listen, son, just so you don’t leave here disappointed, let me give you some of my legendary maxims. . . .”
    And he recited them. Seriously, almost as a meditation, all the while stirring the sugar in his coffee cup.
    “Politics is the art of swallowing frogs without flinching.”
    He didn’t laugh. All he did was bite down hard on his dentures to fix them squarely in his gums.
    “In Mexican politics, even cripples can pull off a high-wire act.” He took advantage of my feigned laughter to ask the waiter for a
mollete.
    “Refried beans and melted cheese in a hot bread roll. Good for the digestion,” he said. “Look, the simple truth is that the presidency is a roller coaster. The expression on your face when they send you off is the expression that stays with you forever.”
    He took a big bite of his
mollete.
    “That’s why you always see me with the same look on my face, exactly the same as my very first day in office.”
    He continued, María del Rosario, with a slightly macabre smile.
    “What nobody knows is that my arsenal of unpublished sayings knows no end.”
    I gave him a courteously quizzical look.
    And then, with a sound like a death knell from the back of his throat, he said, “Make no mistake. I’m immune to bullets and to colds.”
    I fell silent after that resounding maxim, waiting for him to say something else, wondering what I was really doing there, my lovely lady, aside from simply following your instructions: “Talk to the Old Man Under the Arches. Be patient and learn from him.”
    “You know what, son? Before becoming president, a man has to suffer and learn. If not, he’ll suffer and learn during his presidency, at the country’s expense.”
    Could this mean that María del Rosario Galván—yes, you, my dear lady—had informed the old ex-president of her daring promise to deliver me to the Eagle’s Throne, and explained that I was in Veracruz to learn from him? If the thought crossed my mind, I didn’t say it out loud, of course.
    I merely dared to point out: “Cárdenas became president at the age of thirty-six, Alemán at thirty-nine, Obregón at forty-four, Salinas at forty. . . .”
    “I’m not talking about age, Mr. Valdivia. I haven’t said a word about age, which is a taboo subject for this old man. I was referring to suffering and learning. I was referring to experience. All the men you mention were young, but they were experienced. Are you?”
    I shook my head. “Mr. President, I admit I’m a novice. But one morning with you is enough to teach me everything I didn’t learn at the ENA in Paris.”
    He shook his head very slightly, as if he were afraid that all the parts inside it might become unhinged, that the screws would come loose.
    “Right,” he said, sipping his coffee. “You do know that every president finishes where the next one should start. That is, where he himself should have started. Am I being clear? The outgoing president speaks to his successor without having to use a single word. That’s the experience I’m talking about.”
    “Except that the successor tends to be deaf to his