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id="heading_id_37">The Minister for Spain</
>
I
For many years the Spanish legation had occupied a mansion with a tiled façade and gnarled timber balconies, next to a melancholy French pond that romantic tradition dubbed the Vicereine’s Hand Mirror. With a high brow stuffed with licentious fantasies, the Baron of Benicarlés, His Catholic Majesty’s plenipotentiary minister, radiated a morbid romanticism, like the vicereine gazing at her own features in her garden mirror. His Excellency Don Mariano Isabel Cristino Queralt y Roca de Togores, Baron of Benicarlés and Master Chevalier of Ronda, chattered like an old spinster and pranced like a prima donna. Bleary-eyed, stout, witless, and prattling, he exuded a saccharine sweetness. His hands and throat dripped flab; he parleyed with a French nasal twang; and his fleshy eyelids harbored gelid fantasies from perverse literature. He was a threadbare stuffed shirt, a literary snob, a dabbler in decadent salons redolent with the rites and catechisms of French poetasters. The shade of the ardent vicereine, taking refuge at the back of her erstwhile garden, eyed his love fests without women and cried her heart out, perplexed, jealous, and veiling her face.
II
All Saints’ Day and the Day of the Dead. At such times the Vicereine’s Way was full of stalls and sideshows, brightly lit and bustling. Whitey’s tilbury trotted foppishly until it came to a halt in front of the Spanish legation. A stooping Chinese flunky, pigtail dangling, was mopping the lobby. Don Celes walked up the broad staircase and traversed a gallery hung with shadowy paintings, carved wood, gilts, and silks: whitey experienced a hot flash of grandeur, felt pride and reverence welling up within him; the hum from sonorous, historic names buzzed in his ears and he quivered as if flags and cannons were on parade. His patriotic delusions picked up the rolling rhythms from strident, bombastic anthems. He halted at the back of the gallery. The silent, luminous door opening onto a long, deserted drawing room left baroque whitey curiously dumbfounded. His thoughts panicked and scattered like wild colts, rumps colliding. Suddenly all the Roman candles fizzled out. The plutocrat was irked to find himself in such straits. Stripped of emotion, bereft, terrified, as if he didn’t have a penny to his name, he walked into the empty drawing room and muddied the gilded symmetry of its mirrors and consoles.
III
Sprawled on a chaise longue in a mandarin’s kimono, the Baron of Benicarlés was meticulously delousing his lapdog. Don Celes walked into the room, struggling to re-create a conceited smirk between his protruding pate and ginger whiskers. His paunch seemed curiously depleted. “Minister, am I interrupting?”
“Come in, illustrious Don Celestino.”
The lapdog yelped, and the diplomatic roué gawped and tweaked its ear. “Shush, Merlin! Don Celes, your visits are so few and far between that the first secretary no longer recognizes you.”
A sly, stupid smile spread slowly and smarmily over the diplomatic roué’s wearied, fleshy lips. Don Celes, however, was looking at Merlin. Merlin was showing Don Celes his teeth. His Catholic Majesty’s minister remained aloof, evanescent, and equivocal as he eked out a smile with the incredible elasticity that neutral parties evince in times of war. Caught between the roué’s grin and the lapdog’s fangs and snout, Don Celes was as uncertain as a small child. He leaned over Merlin and oozed affection in a studied, sycophantic manner. “Can’t we be friends?”
The lapdog yapped and settled back on the knees of his master, who was nodding off, his off-white eyes, faintly flecked with blue, bulging like two glass marbles, in an effort to match that product of polished deference and protocol—his fixed smile. A chubby, dimpled hand, the hand of an odalisque, patted the lapdog’s fleece. “Be a good boy now, Merlin!”
“He’s declared war on me!”
The world-weariness pervading the baron’s puffy chops allowed his lapdog to slaver all over him. Turning a ruddier red between his ginger whiskers, Don Celes slowly reinflated his paunch, albeit with a hint of fear, cringing like a catcalled, tongue-tied comedian. As the petite lapdog simpered and slavered, the diplomatic nobody waffled nasally: “Where’s Don Celeste been out wandering? What luminous opinions do you bring me from the Spanish colony? Are you not here as their ambassador? The way has been cleared for you, has it not, dear, illustrious Don Celes?”
Don Celes shrank back: ingratiating, acquiescent, resigned; the bulging temples, apoplectic flab, and burbling belly could hardly hide whitey’s perplexity. He feigned a laugh. “Yet more evidence of your celebrated diplomatic wisdom, dear Baron.”
Merlin yapped and the roué waved a threatening finger. “Don’t interrupt, Merlin. Forgive his lack of courtesy and continue, illustrious Don Celes.”
Don Celes tried to lift his spirits, prayed to himself, made a quick review of all the IOUs he’d issued to the baron, strove desperately not to deflate, closed his eyes. “The colony cannot afford to remain aloof from the politics of the country. They are central to its existence and integrity and the fruit of a considerable effort on its part. As a result of my pacific inclinations and a belief in liberalism when joined with a proper respect for government, I now find myself on the horns of a dilemma as I contemplate the idealism of the revolutionaries and the highly summary procedures of General Banderas. But the Spanish colony has almost convinced me that Banderas is acting correctly. Don Santos Banderas remains the best guarantee of order there is. Victory for the revolution would be a disaster!”
“Victorious revolutionaries are quick to discover prudence.”
“But it is right now that trade is in crisis. Business is bad, finances are shaky, bandits have returned to the countryside.”
The minister rubbed it in: “And what’s worse, civil war!”
“Civil war! Those of us who have resided in this country for many years see that as an endemic plague. But revolutionary ideas are a much more serious threat because they undermine the hallowed foundations of private property. Indian ownership of the land is a demagogic aberration that cannot possibly prevail in well-oiled brains. The colony is unanimous about that. I may have my reservations, but as a man who lives in the real world, I understand that Spanish capital has no choice but to oppose the spirit of revolution.”
His Catholic Majesty’s minister reclined on the chaise longue, clutching his lapdog to his shoulder. “Don Celes, is this ultimatum from the colony official?”
“Minister, it is not an ultimatum. The colony is only seeking to position itself.”
“Or rather seeking to impose itself?”
“I have not explained myself well. As a businessman, I am unversed in shades of meaning, and if I have suggested in any way that I come in an official capacity, I have a special interest in rectifying the minister’s impression.”
With a glint of irony in his faded blue eyes, the Baron of Benicarlés sank his odalisque hands into his lapdog’s silken fleece. He curled his flabby lips, still fatigued by recent indulgence, into a snarl of displeasure. “Illustrious Don Celestino, you are one of the most outstanding financial, intellectual, and social figures in the colony...Your opinions are indeed noteworthy...Nonetheless, you are not yet the Spanish minister. A truly unfortunate circumstance! But there is one way to remedy that: simply send a wire demanding that I be posted back to Europe. I’ll endorse the request and sell you my furniture at a bargain price.”
The rich man reveled in his clever repartee. “Including Merlin as an adviser?”
The diplomatic dolt greeted the witticism coldly and limply, simply killed it dead. “Don Celes, advise our Spaniards here to refrain from involving themselves in the politics of this country, to remain strictly neutral, and not, through any kind of intemperate response, to undermine the actions of the diplomatic corps. Forgive me, my distinguished friend, for not granting you more of my time, but I must dress in order to go and compare impressions with the English legation.”
And the faded roué, in the waning light of his boudoir, fished his haughty blue blood for a suitably crushing gesture.
IV
Don Celes crossed the drawing room, his footsteps muffled by the carpet. More than ever, he was terrified that he was about to deflate. The ancient, pigtailed Chinese flunky was still mopping the flagstones like a manic child. Don Celes felt the complete contempt for the yellow man any whitey should. “Get out of my way, you bastard. Don’t sully my patent-leather boots!”
The double shelves of his paunch swayed as he tiptoed to the door and summoned his swarthy driver. The driver was lounging in the shade of laurel trees with other down-and-outs, next to an outdoor bar. Skittles and piano rolls. “Get a move on, you idiot!”
V
The Vicereine’s Way was lit up and bustling. Cheapjacks, guitars, gas lamps, bunting. Santa Fe was making merry, in a dizzy spin, in a feverish wave of light and shadow: Indian firewater and knives, cards and licentious dancing triggered violent, tumultuous images. The dark, desolate beat of life echoed across the open moat. In such a tragic, time-devouring frenzy, Santa Fe escaped from soporific, quotidian horrors. The festive din was as deafening as a war cry. Above crests of pomegranate and palm the tiles on the round colonial domes of Saint-Martin of the Mostenses shimmered in the gloaming.