Free The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes Page B

predecessor.”
    I thought he would warm to my graceful wit. Instead, his dark-ringed gaze grew even darker.
    “Gratitude, Mr. Valdivia, gratitude and ingratitude. The former is a very rare form of political currency. The latter, everyday trash.”
    Very discreetly he removed a speck from the corner of his eye.
    “Just think for a moment of how many PRI presidents were loyal to their predecessors. After all, under the old PRI’s rule the man who came to occupy the Eagle’s Throne had been placed there by the throne’s previous occupant. ‘The concealed one’ became ‘the anointed one.’ A perverse consequence of the system: The new all-powerful leader had to prove, as quickly as possible, that he was not dependent on the man who appointed him. How paradoxical, Mr. Valdivia, or should I say how parafucksical. A single-party system in which the opposition always wins, because the new president has to screw his predecessor.”
    “There were exceptions, though,” I said in a Cartesian spirit.
    The Old Man picked out three rolls from the bread basket and left the other eight there. He didn’t have to say anything else, although with the finger of God he did invisibly trace the numbers “1940–1994” on the tablecloth.
    “Now, of course, we live in a democracy,” I said with forced optimism.
    “And the incumbent still has his favorites to succeed him, he’s already mulling over who will best serve the country, who will be most loyal to him, who will respect his people, and who will not. . . .”
    “But nowadays the president’s own candidate will not necessarily be the successor, as he was in your day. . . .”
    “No, but regardless of who wins the elections the ex-president will always be, lethally, the ex-president. And every ex-president, it turns out, has skeletons in his closet. Crooked brothers, insatiable lovers, incorrigible sisters, deviant children, false proxies for his business interests, lifelong friends that cannot be condemned to death, who knows what else . . . What other choice does he have but to make amends for the extravagance of those closest to him by living with monastic austerity? See what they say about me? I go to bed early so as not to waste the candles.”
    “You know everything.”
    I flashed him my best smile. He didn’t reciprocate.
    “Suffer and learn,” he sighed, and once again looked out dreamily toward the misty bulk of the San Juan de Ulúa castle, the fortress guarding the entrance to the port.
    I realized that, focused as I was on the Old Man’s words and gestures, I hadn’t looked very closely at Ulúa’s grayish mass, which seemed an architecture apart, embedded in the past, weighed down by a history that couldn’t be undone.
    “See that castle that used to be a prison? Can you begin to imagine the number of politicians who should be there now, purging their wrongs?”
    “If you say so, sir . . .”
    He shrugged his shoulders, creaking slightly.
    “We have two golden rules in Mexican politics. One is benign: no re-election. The other is more unforgiving: exile. The reason, however, is the same: All delinquents are recidivists, my young friend.”
    He peered at me from the depths of the lines under his eyes.
    “You know, it is a mistake to think that a president controls only the weak. The most urgent but most difficult task is that of controlling the powerful. I’m going to give you a rule for you to share with all the people you know who aspire to public office. Anyone who wants to be part of the cabinet should first take in a liter of vinegar through his nose. That’s the best training there is for getting close to the presidency, I promise you. . . .”
    The waiter approached us with the massive, steaming coffeepot. The Old Man declined. He had not offered me a third coffee, but he pushed my coffee glass toward me.
    It was then that, rather inopportunely, I asked the former head of state, “And you, Mr. President, is there anyone you favor to be Lorenzo