Death in Veracruz (15 page)

There was a moment of silence broken by the voice of Anabela.
“Negro?”

“How's the land baroness?”

“Very happy,
Negro.
Are you coming to celebrate?”

I did not go celebrate. Rojano won the election unopposed (“electoral legitimacy is basic, brother”). Thanks to the local Indian population, which abstained, not a single vote was cast against him. The swearing-in took place in mid-September. There was no paved highway to Chicontepec, which lay a hundred kilometers from Poza Rica over a dirt road that was not always passable. It turned to mud in the rain and was susceptible to washout where rivers and streams crossed the right of way. Lázaro Pizarro organized a small convoy of three vans, a bus with four-wheel drive, and portable winches. The logos of the PRI and the oil workers unions adorned the doors of each vehicle and all the tents. A jeepload of Pizarro's guards headed the convoy, followed by the van with Rojano and members of the PRI. Then came a second van with a group of Chicontepec notables who had traveled to Poza Rica in order to accompany Rojano to his swearing in. Anabela, Pizarro's Little Darling, his aide Roibal, Pizarro, two bodyguards, and I climbed into the third van. Behind the vans a special bus carried 50 male and female oil workers who were along to enliven the political ceremony with cowbells and cheers. Bringing up the rear was another jeep with four more guards. The campaign tents were folded and stowed in two of the vans and the bus.

On September 18, 1977, this outlandish safari set out from Poza Rica as if for a trip to the moon. Pizarro sat in front with Little Darling between him and the driver. Anabela and I occupied the middle bench with Roibal and the bodyguards
in back. We made good time until we passed the pyramids and left the pavement on the dirt road to Alamo, the same route I'd taken with Pizarro in March to visit La Mesopotamia. It had rained torrents the day before, and the road was largely mud except for the long stretches of flooding that had to be negotiated at a crawl. The Vinazco River, whose tributaries bordered La Mesopotamia, was on the rise. A fleet of tractors and dredges was hard at work trying to open a drainage channel. We followed the river, then started towards the northeast foothills as they climbed towards the Sierra Madre. The jagged mountaintops rose through blue haze and clouds in the distance. The volcanic accidents that built them had also produced the fertile tablelands and valleys where rivers flowed and springs bubbled incessantly out of the ground.

“The peaks you see over there are the seven peaks of Chicontepec,” Pizarro said without turning around. “Around here the Indians speak of the will of the seven peaks. For them seven is a sign of bad things to come. It's the dark side, as they say, because cold winds blow down from those heights bringing storms and lightning.”

“I like thunder,” said Little Darling.

“The Indians say the seven hills of Chicontepec unite heaven and earth,” Pizarro went on expressionlessly, “and that the forces of evil pour down those rock columns.” He laughed. “It's a land full of superstitions. There are ghosts and the evil eye and practicing witch doctors.”

“My grandaunt used to talk about these things,” Anabela said, channeling her memory of the widow executed in Altotonga.

“Your grandaunt Martín?” Pizarro said, countering the allusion. “I'm willing to bet she didn't know the story of the light of the plain.”

“She knew all the stories,” Anabela stated. “She grew up learning these things, and the poor old lady believed what she heard.”

“Extra poor if she died unloved,” said Little Darling.

“Did your grandmother tell you about the light of the plain?” Pizarro insisted.

“According to my grandmother and her sister, the light of the plain foretold the death of my grandaunt's husband.”

“All I heard was that it told fortunes,” Pizarro said.

“Well, my grandmother told the story about her sister,” Anabela continued. “Her husband was killed in a land dispute here in Altotonga. And it was the light of the plain that gave her the news. It came spinning and whistling into the corral, and when it left, a colt lay dead. A bat was clinging to the back of its neck, and it was bleeding from the ribs. There was also blood coming from the print left by its shoe. It was her husband's favorite colt, so she said ‘they killed Juan Gilberto'. And the following day, she learned it was true. The light had appeared just at the moment he was shot.”

“From then on she must have lived without love,” Little Darling said, embracing Pizarro.

“The light of the plain only discovers treasure,” said Roibal, who rarely said anything.

“Your grandmother didn't tell you the tale of the giants, did she?” Pizarro said.

“No, she didn't,” Anabela said.

“They got what was coming to them,” Pizarro said ominously. “The Indians say giants once lived around here, and they discovered fire. They decided to dispense with the sun and tried to light up the moon instead by hurling balls of fire at it. The spots you see on the moon when the sky is clear are from the impacts. The gods retaliated with a lightning bolt that incinerated everything. The giants' burnt blood became the oil and tar deposits you see all over these parts. The whole region seethes with the anger of the vanquished giants, especially in Chicontepec from where it is said the giants could reach the sky.”

A flock of
chachalacas
flew up from a marsh, then we passed a tar pit where ten men were tugging on ropes. They were trying to free a pinto cow that had sunk up to its belly in the black muck. It was submerged head and all in the swamp with only the curves of its dappled haunches sticking up. Pizarro took advantage of the scene to remark, “If horseflies and hoof infections don't get them, then the tar pit does. One minute they're grazing, the next they're mired in the swamp with no idea how they got stuck. As they struggle to climb out, they put their heads in the oil and start to swallow it. They thrash desperately about until finally they're upside down. And all because they got into something they should have stayed out of. Sing us something,
Cielito.”

On command, Little Darling broke into song.

Praise God for letting me have you in life

so I don't need to go to heaven, my love.

All the glory I need is you.

She proceeded to run through a repertory of border
corridos
and forlorn love songs that lasted nearly the rest of the way.

We arrived around three following two stops to haul the bus out of the mud with the help of the portable winches and the traction of the vans. Chicontepec barely passed for a town. It was more a jumble of rock-walled barrios. The paths snaking through them were lined with huts made of reeds and palm fronds for roofs. Each hut had its own ragged orchard and a small patch of corn to feed its occupants.

Tattered PRI party banners were draped over the rock walls along with some freshly printed posters with Rojano's picture on them. A misspelled cardboard sign read:
Wellcum Mayor Rojano Gutierres.
Clusters of onlookers—kids with
bright eyes and bare feet, women with market baskets—watched the convoy go by. We wound past the huts for another half kilometer before coming to a wide cobblestone lane where the stone houses had corrugated zinc and tile roofs. Here the music and civic jubilation began. Everyone in the small crowd that greeted us had a placard or hand flag to wave to the frenetic beat of a string band playing out of tune. A small man with a loudspeaker orchestrated the cheers and gave uninhibited voice to the emotion stirring the citizens of Chicontepec de Tejeda on this banner day.

As we got out, we fell in with the contingents pouring from the bus to add their numbers to the welcome. They also added the clang of cowbells, the howl of a siren, and enough extra cheering and shouting to drown out the violins in the bands. Behind them came townspeople, awed men and timid women who smiled and excused themselves for getting in others' way as they scurried from their barrios towards the stone street.

Flanked by the bands, Rojano and the PRI party members advanced towards the two blocks of the town with pavement and street lighting. Here the large, single-story houses had high roofs. Their walls were covered with faded pink, green, and blue paint, and the large doors in their entries displayed battered photos of Rojano. Whatever wealth Chicontepec had was concentrated on these two rustic streets, which ended at a wide plaza. Its gardens and walks were perfectly manicured and maintained, and at each corner there was a gigantic poinciana. The trees were in bloom, and their wide red crests overpowered the prevailing brown of the modest plaza. Around it there clustered a church with a single bell tower, a town hall that had seen better days, a string of shops selling groceries and household goods, and the police headquarters.
“I
put those in.” Pizarro was at my side. “I brought the grafts from La Mesopotamia.”

A speakers' platform decked in red, white, and green had been set up on one side of the plaza. From it an announcer sang the praises of Rojano and, as members of his retinue mounted the platform, called out their names. Pizarro's oil workers stepped up the beat of their chants, alternating cheers for Rojano and, in the very next breath, Pizarro. At the foot of the platform, the sandwiches and drinks that came in the bus were handed out, and the meeting got under way.

Young Echeguren, the teenager I'd first seen during his March audience with Pizarro, was at Rojano's side as the two climbed the steps to the platform. He had a kerchief around his neck and was wearing a cowboy jacket with a visible bulge of pistol underneath. He cleaved to Rojano, opening a path for him and issuing orders through one of the bodyguards, while also shoving his platinum bracelet to a more comfortable spot on his muscular arm. I drew close to Roibal in the Platform's second row.

“That's the Echeguren who wanted work so he could marry?” I posed the question in the form of a statement the way Pizarro did.

“He's working,” Roibal answered.

“As Rojano's bodyguard?”

“He's the security detail for His Honor the mayor,” Roibal said.

“And who taught him to use a pistol?” I persisted.

“Real men learn to use pistols when they have to,” Roibal asserted.

There was pride in his answer, and he watched young Echeguren with obvious satisfaction.

“Did the woman you got after him do her job?” I continued.

Roibal looked pleased by my impertinence. With a facial gesture he directed my gaze to the foot of the platform where the sandwiches and drinks were passed out by a very young
and dynamic looking mulatta woman whose red dress was impossible to overlook. With her shoulder-length hair and prominent breasts, she stood out from the crowd. She regarded her surroundings with a look of disdain and, at the same time, fulfillment.

Rojano read a speech about the new era in Chicontepec. Anabela sat next to him, unblinking and solemn as stone as if at attention for the playing of the national anthem. The oil workers' siren and cowbells punctuated the speech, which lasted half an hour. The final paragraph brought forth an especially vigorous response with a musical exclamation point from the bands.

Then, from one moment to the next, the sky went dark. Thunderclaps rolled down from the sierra. The wind swept dust and fruit rinds through the streets. The poincianas shuddered, and large drops of rain slapped down, stinging before they wet. They landed randomly at first, hitting the ground one by one. Then they came in torrents. People scattered to shelter in the narrow doorways while young Echeguren and two other guards herded the notables off the platform towards a large discolored house on one corner of the plaza. It had double doors in the entry and three windows with grill work that reached to the roof. Inside there was an orchard of orange and guanábana trees surrounded by large clay planters with hydrangeas, camellias, and dwarf banana palms. The floors were red brick and the whitewashed walls slightly uneven. We proceeded to a large room with heavy wooden furniture where two portraits hung. The larger one was of a man with a white mustache dressed in the garb of a nineteenth-century
guerrillero.
His pose afforded the painter a three-quarter view of his face, and the look in his clear eyes seemed both arrogant and humorous. It was old Severiano Martín, Anabela's grandfather. With a shiver of recognition I grasped that we were in the house of the widow
killed in Altotonga. It was Anabela's legacy and Rojano's headquarters in Chicontepec.

Bottles of cider were opened for the toast followed by a chest stocked with other forms of liquid refreshment. Young Echeguren set up the bar together with two guards and women from the household staff. Along with the drinks came trays laden with toasted tortilla disks with assorted toppings, crisped pork rinds, stuffed chiles, and steaming cups of lamb consommé.

The gathering consisted of some twelve people, the outgoing mayor and town council, PRI and state government notables, the platform announcer. Pizarro took up a position in one corner of the dining room. To his left he had Rojano and the state government representative. Little Darling was at his side, and Roibal was behind him. People circled in from the sala seeking to join the conversation, but Pizarro said nothing. He raised his glass of thin yogurt to others' toasts and, instead of consommé, ate figs and
chicozapotes.
Liquor continued to flow and barbecue was served, but the occasion's center of gravity never wavered from its single magnetic pole. Outside, the rain pounded down with an intensity I've encountered nowhere else. It was about six in the evening when Pizarro spoke in a voice that filled the room.

“We have celebrated the well deserved victory of our friend, attorney Rojano Gutiérrez. Those returning to Poza Rica will be unable to do so today. They must wait until tomorrow due to darkness and because the road will be impassable after the rainstorm. We will thank the gentlemen of the town council for offering us their hospitality.”