Reasons of State (17 page)

But something else was perturbing the Head of State this time. And it was a problem of words. When he returned
over there
, before he again put on the general’s uniform that everyone knew was phoney—that was the truth, since he himself had assumed it, gold braid and all, on a day of youthful ragging, and kept it afterwards because one general more or one general less in his country … now, before increasing his stature by getting on horseback, before girding the cowboy spurs he usually wore during a campaign, he would have to make a speech, to utter words. And those words refused to come to mind, because the classical, fluent, serviceable words he had always used on former and similar occasions had been so often rehashed in different registers with corresponding pantomimic gestures as to have become worn out, old, and ineffective in the present contingency. Contradicted innumerable times by his actions, these words had passed from the marketplace to the dictionary, from fiery tirade to rhetorical repertory, from useful eloquence to an attic full of rubbish—devoid of meaning, dry, arid, useless. For years the pillars supporting his political speeches had been such expressions as
Liberty
,
Loyalty
,
Independence
,
Sovereignty
,
National Honour
,
Sacred Principles
,
Legitimate Rights
,
Civic Conscience
,
Fidelity to Our Traditions
,
Historic Mission
,
Duty to the Country
, etc., etc. But now these words (he was always a severe self-critic) had acquired such a ring of false money,
of lead dipped in gold, that he felt tired of the twists and turns of his own verbal labyrinth, and began wondering how he would fill the audible gaps, the written spaces in the proclamations and admonitions inevitably involved in a military—and primitive—operation such as the one he must shortly embark on. Accepted formerly by most of his compatriots as a man of action, able to direct the fate of the country at a time of crisis or lawlessness, he had seen his prestige diminish and an alarming deterioration in his authority, in spite of every device he had invented to remain in power. He knew that he was hated, abhorred by the mass of the people, and this knowledge made him react against the external world, and at the same time increased the satisfaction and pleasure he found in the servility, solicitude, and adulation of his dependants, who had consolidated his interests and prosperity and extended to the utmost a sovereignty quite unsupported by legality and constitution. But he couldn’t fail to know that his enemies were in the right when they accused him of giving more and more concessions to the gringos, and it would have been foolish to deny that the gringos were universally detested on the continent. We all knew that they called us “Latins” and that, to them, this was as good as saying rabble, small fry, and negro rebels. (They had even invented the euphemism “Latin colour” to justify the admission of important persons whose complexion was a trifle exotic into New York and Washington hotels.)

And the Head of State went on thinking about the speech he had to make, without being able to imagine it in a favourable light. Words, words, words. Always the same words. But above all, nothing about
Liberty
—with the jails full of political prisoners … Nothing about
National Honour
or
Duty to the Country
—because these were the concepts always used by top-ranking military men. No
Historic Mission
nor
Heroes’
Ashes
for the same reason. No
Independence
, which in his case rhymed with
dependence
. No
Virtues
—when he was known to be the owner of the richest businesses in the country. No
Legitimate Rights
—since he ignored them whenever they conflicted with his own personal jurisprudence. His vocabulary was decidedly narrowing. And he had a formidable adversary: a regiment of the rebellious army; he would have to speak, yet the exasperated orator felt aphonic, without a language, as if he no longer had useful, dynamic, stimulating words at his disposal, because he had squandered them, blunted their edge, prostituted them in despicable skirmishes unworthy of such extravagance. As our countrymen would say: “He had wasted gunpowder on vultures.”

“I’m getting old,” he thought. But he had to make up something. Something.

He emptied one of the leather-covered flasks in a series of short but continuous gulps, and to pass the time of waiting for ideas that didn’t come he picked up one of the morning papers—
Le Figaro
—that lay folded on his writing table. There, in the first column of the front page, and printed in a special frame, was an article by the Distinguished Academician. Drawing conclusions from the Battle of the Marne, our friend affirmed that that military miracle—more than a victory of arms: a victory for intelligence—signified, above all, the triumph of the Latin over the German spirit. Heirs to the Great Mediterranean Culture, descendants of Plato, Virgil, Montaigne, Racine, and the magnificent sansculottes of Valmy—appropriate to the present situation although their memory was detested by the whole Faubourg Saint-Germain—they had opposed the Genius of their Race, made up of sanity, balance, and moderation, to the pathological aggressiveness of the Teutons. The Gallic Cock against dragons, cave-dwelling blacksmiths, and Niebelungen. The nervous,
active, thoroughbred charger of the already almost sainted Maid of Orleans—she was in fact about to be canonised—against Brunnhilde’s fierce steed. Olympus against Valhalla. Apollo against Hagen. Versailles against Potsdam. Pascal’s essential wisdom against Hegel’s philosophical gigantism—expressed in that obscure Heidelberg jargon that our minds, addicted to lucidity and transparency in argument, have instinctively rejected. The battle of the marshes of Saint-Gond had been a victory for Descartes, rather than for the ’75 cannon. And the writer closed with a forcible, implacable, unanswerable denunciation of German culture—or
Kultur
, as he called it—of Wagner’s music, the bad taste of Berliners, the pedantic scientism of Haeckel, and the ideas of petulant dwarfs who (believing themselves to be superhuman and disguising themselves as Zarathustra, with swords at their belts and skulls on their shakos) had unleashed the present catastrophe, like modern sorcerers’ apprentices. It was war, more than war, it was a Holy Crusade against Prussian neo-barbarism.

When he had finished reading the article, the Head of State began to walk up and down his room. He suddenly understood his mistake: the pro-German attitude of a resentful “metic,” an alien in a foreign land—and he remembered that the Greeks didn’t use the word in a denigratory sense—was neither useful nor profitable to him. In these crucial moments in his political career, Von Kluck’s Uhlans and Von Tirpitz’s submarines could not help him. The Valkyrie’s cause was a bad cause for him—a cause that “didn’t pay.” He was forced to admit that in Latin America everyone sided with France—better to say: with Paris. And
over there
, to transfer the problem to our own country, pro-Germans were often Jesuits, pastors of a chosen flock, confessors to rich women and not very friendly to the humble French Marists who had
educated them; pro-Germans were found among rich Spaniards, gentlemen of the
Import-Export
—when they weren’t grocers or pawnbrokers—with large balances in banks in Catalonia or Bilbao, antipathetic to the Creole by tradition and custom; and also—but this was a special case—amongst the population of the colony of Olmedo, descendants of Bavarian or Pomeranian workmen who had no importance in public life. Moreover—Good God! I’ve just realised!—all the Virgins of our countries were Latins. Because Christ’s Mother was a Latin, doubly Latin, now that those disgusting Lutherans—like Hoffmann and the “Little Fredericks” who sided with him—have thrown her out of their chapels. The Divine Shepherdess of Nueva Córdoba, the Virgins of Chiquinquirá, Coromotos, Guadalupe, La Caridad del Cobre, and all those who made up the Ineffable Legion of Intercessors, were the ubiquitous manifestations of the one and eternal Presence enthroned in the nave of Notre-Dame by Louis XIII, when he consecrated his reign to the worship of the Virgin Mary. The Virgins must therefore be reckoned on our side—on mine in this conflict, and her image erected on the labarum—since it was the duty of a ruler confronted by hostile forces to make use of anything that might advance his cause. A Leader of his People, a Director of Men, must be adaptable and never obstinate, although he might have to renounce his most personal desires at any given moment, in order to remain in power. The ideological basis—tactics—of his immediate struggle with the traitor Hoffmann thus became clear. One had only to consider his name; remember his German training; his eagerness to proclaim his pure Aryan blood, although he had relegated his somewhat negroid grandmother to the remotest buildings in his huge colonial domain. Suddenly Aunt Jemima—as the foolish people
over there
called her—would have to be converted into a symbol of Latinity. (Worried and depressed a
few moments before, the Dictator recovered his spirits, drew himself up, banged on tables, and began to behave like an orator again.) After all, being a Latin did not mean having “pure blood” or “clean blood”—as the out-of-date phraseology of the Inquisition used to put it. All races of the ancient world had been mixed together in the great Mediterranean basin, mother of our culture. In that tremendous round bed Romans had lain with Egyptian women, Trojans with Carthaginians, the famous Helen with people of dull complexion. The wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus had several teats—and it was known that Italy would one of these days attack the Central Powers—and any cholo or zamba might have fed from them. To say
Latinity
was to say mixed blood, and in Latin America we are all mestizos; all of us have some negro or Indian, Phoenician, Moorish, Celtiberian blood, or the blood of Cádiz—and there’s always Walker Lotion, or something of the sort, to smooth our hair, hidden away in the family medicine chest. We are all mestizos, and should be honoured that it is so!

And now the Head of State’s mind began producing ideas; words returned to him and he was suddenly in command of a new vocabulary. Resplendent words, high-sounding, pleasant to the ear, which must be well received
over there
by those half-hearted, undecided, potential enemies, more or less dedicated to a pro-Ally outlook, who had all become strategists and showed their predilections by moving little tricolor flags on maps spread on café tables, far beyond the point where the army’s advance had been halted by the General Staff itself. People felt passionately, and it was intelligent to capitalise their passion for his own advantage.
Alea jacta est
. His mind was made up: he would be a modern Knight Templar joining the Holy Crusade of Latinity. A victory for Walter Hoffmann and his party would mean the Germanisation of our culture.
It would be easy to ridicule him in the eyes of the public. With his personality, the books he read: the portraits of Frederick II, Bismarck, and Von Moltke that adorned his study; the fact that he treated the poor old woman to whom he owed his existence as a far from decorative ancestress—although she was a true incarnation of our race, flesh of our flesh—concealing her under the tamarind trees, close to the yard where the pig was being fattened for Christmas Eve. The rebel was a living mirror of the Prussian barbarism that had not only been loosed over Europe but would also soon be threatening these Lands of the Future, since the Germans believed they were predestined to govern the whole globe in virtue of a mystique about being a
superior race
, clearly expressed recently in an arrogant and xenophobic “Manifesto for Intellectuals” that had already appeared in our press. So he must raise the Crown of Saint Rose of Lima against the Shield of the Valkyries. Cuauhtémoc against Alaric. The Redeemer’s Cross against Wotan’s spear. The sword of all the liberators of the continent against the Technological Vandals of the Twentieth Century.

“Come here, Peralta.”

And for the next two hours, always finding striking adjectives and illuminating images—although this time his style was not too ornate—he dictated articles for his country’s newspapers, sketching the broad outline of the campaign as he believed it would develop before his arrival.

“Hurry along and take all this to Western Union.”

And now, his energies spent, perhaps tired by so much dictation, and with a delayed feeling of sadness, he gazed around the room at the friendly furniture, pictures, sculptures. Within a few hours he would have to leave this peaceful maternal lap, this period of repose among silks, satins, and velvets, and plunge his horse’s hooves for days, weeks, months maybe, in the mire of the southern Torrid Zone—lianas,
mangrove swamps with their stagnant waters, murky streams, and tendrils lashing one’s face—far from everything that made him happy. He thought about his country
over there
, and felt in advance the boredom of returning to the point of departure after constantly moving forwards with passing years. It would soon be November—our November with All Saints’ Day, when the cemeteries were transformed into fairgrounds, with lanterns strung from tomb to tomb, barrel organs making a deafening din, guitars playing among the graves, maracas and clarinets close to the chapels of the dead, and girls being deflowered amongst the faded wreaths of a recent burial. Skulls made of sugar candy or pink icing, skulls made of toffee, marzipan, sesame-flavoured paste, amongst the sextons’ spades and straps, coffins, urns, a fine show of bronzes and portraits of grandfathers, soldiers, and children in their Sunday best seen through oval glass dimmed by dew and rain. And then would come the vendors of little skeletons wearing crowns, mitres, top hats, kepis, dancing their Dance of Death from cenotaph to cross, with their cries of “A skeleton for your little boy,” which on this day of all days was a summons to gaiety, aguardiente, and molasses. And what conversations were embarked on, what jokes and what quarrels flew between cross and cross, angel and angel, epitaph and epitaph!