Pizarro’s escort blocked off the street in front of the union headquarters before he got out of the car. Roibal opened the rear door for us, and I walked towards the entrance at Pizarro’s side. His bodyguards closed ranks around us as we stepped indoors. As if setting up guard rails for an oncoming vehicle, they deployed in pairs before each doorway in his path. The instant barrier set off a magnetic stir. He attracted greetings and pledges of loyalty from every office he passed. Secretaries stood on tiptoes. Lowly staffers looked on respectfully while others eagerly extended hands to be shaken as he made his way toward a thick glass door of the sort most often used on public restrooms. The wood paneling in the entry to Pizarro’s office was painted battleship gray. On the glass in peeling letters was the inevitable admonition: Whoever can add can divide.
Pizarro’s office was on the fourth floor at the center of a large rectangle. A wide hallway set it apart from the other offices all of which had clear glass in the doors, making it easy to see inside. By contrast, Pizarro’s office had cement walls from floor to ceiling and artificial climate controls that blew mechanically cleaned air in and sucked stale air out. In front of the door were banks of chairs like the ones for waiting travelers in a bus station. Here visitors sat under the watchful gaze of aides who wrote their names on cards noting the reasons for their presence.
Like his house, his union office was furnished with a rustic table—no drawers, no papers—that served as his desk. Behind him was another photo montage: Pizarro flecked with confetti in an auditorium; Pizarro in a throng of petroleum workers embracing their maximum leader, Joaquín Hernández Galicia, La Quina; Pizarro atop a tractor holding an enormous papaya over his head; Pizarro greeting President Echeverría at the foot of a speakers’ platform; Pizarro holding aloft the arm of presidential candidate López Portillo as if he were a victorious prizefighter; Pizarro escorting a frail and decrepit ex-President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines; Pizarro in the midst of a group around ex-President Cárdenas. And an enlarged photo of a youthful Cárdenas in full dress uniform (gloves, cape and sword) gazing into infinity with the languid expression Pizarro seemed so taken with. In the blanks and white spaces of the photo a hand that hadn’t fully mastered the art of penmanship had written:
For Lázaro Pizarro, last spawn
of the Mexican Revolution
L. Cárdenas
November, 1958
In the office, a male secretary minded a red telephone which rang constantly. Pizarro again had me sit next to him, and I witnessed a second session of Lacho’s court of miracles. The procession of supplicants included an injured worker who needed special surgery to avoid loss of mobility in his right thumb, a soon-to-be-married couple who wanted the union band to play at their wedding, a widow who demanded a lot in a union subdivision about to open on the outskirts of Poza Rica.
Most of the supplicants asked for money. Roibal placed slips of yellow paper on the desk for Pizarro’s scribbled signature authorizing loans and advances to the workers. Pizarro controlled and kept tabs of these vouchers himself, account by account. He put one, two, or three check marks on each slip before signing it at the bottom. One check meant: Tell him to watch out. He’s already had one loan. Two meant: This person hasn’t made any payments. This is the last loan he gets. Three meant: Make sure he pays in person because he’s spending too much and falling behind.
Around 12:30, a leader of the teachers’ union came to ask for Pizarro’s support in his bid to become mayor of Altamira, a municipality two hundred kilometers north of Poza Rica in the state of Tamaulipas.
“That’s too far away,” Lacho said. “It’s out of my territory.”
This was true. It was the domain of the maximum leader, Joaquín Hernández Galicia, La Quina.
“I have lots of support in the municipality,” the teachers’ union leader, one Raúl Miranda, insisted.
“I’m telling you it’s too far away, and it’s not my territory. You know the saying: ‘In heaven God, but in Tamaulipas, La Quina’. What’s more, it’s been agreed that Altamira belongs to a district controlled by the workers’ sector of the PRI. You get your support from the CNOP. So even if it were my territory, I’d be disloyal to my own sector if I backed you.”
“That’s all been taken care of, Lacho,” Miranda went on. “The people are behind me, I can’t lose. You’re more important than La Quina. That’s what everybody says in Tamaulipas, as well as here.”
“Stop bullshitting, brother. It’s important not to shoot your mouth off,” Pizarro said as he got to his feet. “What I’m telling you is this. You know what your chances are if you run, but, remember, no one backs a loser. In other words, play politics the right way, and forget about settling personal scores. Don’t break party ranks. Help your people get ahead. I’ve said time and again that you don’t just win by winning. Especially if you’re plotting against Joaquin. Loyalty is what comes first in life. Didn’t they teach you that?”
“But everyone’s behind me, Lacho.”
“I’ve told you what I know. Now. it’s up to you to learn what’s good for you. If you don’t, then just carry on, and at the end of the day we’ll see who’s right. Meanwhile, this show is over, and it’s time to hit the road.”
As soon as he spoke, he bolted for the door. Roibal yanked my arm and lodged me squarely back into the scrum near Pizarro. His bodyguards piloted him through the gauntlet of instant barriers and walky-talkies, hallway by hallway to the elevator and the street.
Instead of Pizarro’s car, we now climbed into a large van. Its interior was outfitted with chairs upholstered in burgundy velvet and a table where Roibal placed a report with blue covers for Pizarro. He spoke to the driver in their odd code: “L-1 in zero. Leaving for G-23 in two casings.”
L-1 was code for Pizarro, zero referred to the vehicle we were in, G-23 was for our destination, in this instance the union’s farming operation. Casing meant minute.
“Let him know R-1 is staying at Dinner Party,” the driver went on “until L-1 arrives at 05. And everyone on 4. Over.”
R-1 was Roibal, Dinner Party was Pizarro’s house, 05 meant 5 p.m., and 4 meant all points bulletin. It was a complicated and ridiculous code that changed every three or four months. At the time, 61 meant “wait”, 53 was “be advised”; 57 was “affirmative” and 75, “negative”. 58 meant “outsiders listening in”, 34 meant on assignment. Hummingbird 007 meant “danger: prepare to fire”.
“To La Mesopotamia,” Pizarro said when we had settled in.
Another guard climbed in the front. From under the seat he pulled out a submachine gun and a pistol whose holster he left on the seat. A black Maverick pulled out in front of us with three guards inside, and a Galaxy fell in behind us with two more.
We made our way through the streets of Poza Rica towards the road north to Tuxpan. The noonday sun seemed to melt the asphalt beneath the tires of tanker trucks, trailer trucks, and dump trucks parked at the corners. Passenger buses unable to negotiate the narrow streets lurched to a halt, spewing out plumes of black smoke from poorly refined diesel fuel. In the distance, a homely array of squat buildings crept along the horizon in an astonishing display of money and bad taste topped by a clear blue sky riddled at intervals by smoke from the gas flares surrounding the city. Flames from the stacks made the air around them shimmer and punctuated the skyline with small dashes of soot. We crawled past imported eighteen-wheelers, pickups, and cranes, symbols of a kinetic petro-civilization, its machinery, and its debris. A bulky accumulation of wealth had grown up with no traditions or culture of its own. The city was full of junkyards piled with drills, pulleys, and the rusting hulks of cast-off vehicles and the high-priced vulgarity of first class hotels with polarized windows set in gold frames. Broad thoroughfares were puddled with oil stains, clogged with junk cars, and lined with upscale restaurants with fried food stands in the doorway. The same streets served as a stage for fire-eaters displaying their prowess among the passersby. On the way out of Tuxpan a pair of young girls stood by the side of the road in short white skirts with burst zippers. They were sun-burnt the color of cinnamon and as thin and taut as two pieces of wire. They sucked on wedges of oranges and threw the rinds into a ditch filled with beer cans and garbage next to the sidewalk.
“Twenty years ago there were explosions around here every couple of months,” Pizarro said. “When there was a gas leak, the whole town would run because you never knew where something was about to blow up. You didn’t have to worry about that where you come from.”
“No. All we had to worry about was malaria and polio.”
“And decent land, my friend, which is the worst disease of all.” Pizarro sounded distracted as if he were reciting a lesson learned by rote. “That’s been the main cause of death in Veracruz throughout its history.”
“Before oil?”
“Before and after oil, my friend. People come here from the farm every day with the same old story. A guy got killed for refusing to rent. Another guy got killed for refusing to sell, and still another for planting a crop on someone else’s land. And then there’s the guy killed because his cattle got into somebody’s cornfield. The death toll is beyond counting.”
“Which is why you travel in an armored van?”
“The van is armored to protect you,” Pizarro replied ironically. “My people look out for me, the ones behind us and the ones in front. But nobody’s looking out for you, and nobody’s going to.”
The question annoyed him. He sat up straight in his seat and began shuffling the papers Roibal had given him, underlining them with an emphasis that made it clear he was ignoring me. Through the window I saw eroded fields, flaring smokestacks, the footprint of the oil industry on the outskirts of Poza Rica, and several kilometers of factories, oil spills, machine shops and open space buried under a proliferation of metallic trash. I took out a notepad and passed the time writing in it. When I looked up, I found myself gazing into the cold stare of Pizarro, his eyes implacable and lifeless, sizing me up before re-immersing himself in Roibal’s report. Forty minutes later, on the far side of El Álamo, we turned down a dirt road. An afternoon wind blew in from the north, bringing with it a blanket of clouds and a blast of heat and humidity left over from the rain that had turned the road to mud the night before.
Five kilometers ahead we pulled up at the gate to La Mesopotamia. It was an enormous, 5,000 hectare agro-industrial complex, surrounded by wire fencing and ocote pines that first hove into view at the beginning of the dirt road. We entered along a robust stand of mangroves that gave way to a corral some 500 meters wide. The guardrails of its whitewashed fences stretched out of sight from east to west, and the center-pivot irrigation system watered some areas while leaving others dry. From the corrals, our dirt road led past housing units, warehouses and the maintenance shops that kept La Mesopotamia humming. We came to a stop before a row of prefab offices with huge red letters on their sides: Mesopotamia. An achievement of worker power for the people. Don’t criticize, work. Oil Workers’ Union.
A noisy group of women awaited us. Its leader was a bleached blonde with rolls of flesh overflowing her tight pants. “A cheer for Lacho,” she shouted as Pizarro emerged. The women unleashed a cacophonous full-throated cheer for Pizarro. “You didn’t think we’d make it, did you?” The blonde spoke in a style that was part stump speech and part whorehouse. “Well, we’re here for Lacho, like it or not. We’re here to complain to you about the bastards that wouldn’t let us in. Those assholes really know how to treat women.”
It sounded as if their complaints stemmed from recent grievances. Several guards smiled and so did Pizarro.
“Who’s the leader of the oil workers’ union with the biggest balls?” shouted the blonde without missing a beat.
“Lázaro Pizarro,” was the dissonant response.
“And the biggest stud?” shouted the blonde.
“Lázaro Pizarro,” they all shouted back.
“And the best looking?” shouted a young girl from the rear.
“Lázaro Pizarro,” shouted the others.
“Thank you,” Pizarro said with amusement, “but I can’t praise you for your good taste.”
“You’re as good as it gets, boss,” the blonde said. She emphasized her words by slapping her hips with the palm of her hand.
Altogether there were about thirty women, some young and some not so young. They clustered about Pizarro. They reached out their hands to touch him and took turns posing for photos with him.
“Thank you,” Pizarro said, “but I’m busy right now. Have a look around the farm. Take them to the pyramid so they can sightsee. We’ll get together at dinnertime.”
“We traveled all night to see you, Don Lázaro,” one of them said.
“And we haven’t had a bit of sleep,” added another.
“The bridge was out, and the ferry sank,” said a third one.
“Do what I tell you,” Pizarro said. “If you need to sleep, the sheds are over there, and we’ll meet later on. Where’s the journalist?”
A dozen arms thrust me towards Pizarro from whom I had been separated by the enthusiasm of the cheering squad.
“Shall I drive, Lázaro?” an aide inquired.
“No, not you. You come, Loya,” he told another aide. “And my journalist friend too. We need to talk.”
A young girl cut in front of him. “Don’t you remember me?”
“Of course I do, girl. How’s Lupe, your mom?”
“She’s well, sir.”
“Give her my best. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like you to give me a recommendation, Don Lázaro.”
Pizarro took out a small notepad, tore off a sheet and drew an elaborate green L on it. “Go see Genaro Roibal at union headquarters in Poza Rica. Tell him I sent you, and ask him for whatever you need. And be sure to give my best to your mom, Lupe. It’s going on eight years since I saw her. Tell her to remember me, there’s no such thing as a greeting that goes to waste. And give me a kiss.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and we walked towards the van. A guard handed Pizarro a bag of figs. His bad mood had completely vanished.
“Don’t you want a fig?” he asked me. “There’s nothing like figs and fruits. Aside from Veracruz, nothing in the world compares to natural foods. That’s what I eat. I also do yoga, lift some weights, and bathe in cold water. Have a fig. Have as many as you like, my journalist friend.”
We boarded a jeep with oversized tires for a spin around La Mesopotamia with Loya driving and Pizarro next to him in front. I sat in back with a guard.
“Loya’s going to be mayor of Poza Rica next year,” Pizarro announced while sucking on a fig. “I’m going to raise ten million pesos for you to pave streets with in the first quarter, Loya. How does that sound? The streets are in shameful condition, wouldn’t you say so?”
“Yes, Lacho,” Loya replied.
“Yes, what?” Pizarro was suddenly abrupt.
“The streets,” said Loya. “They’re a disgrace.”
“But I’m telling you you’re going to get ten million pesos to fix them. Didn’t you hear me? Ten million. I’m not asking you to thank me, Loya.” Pizarro spoke without looking at him. “All I want is your loyalty. Hear me well. Your loyalty because without it you don’t get anything else. You can be ungrateful, but you can’t be disloyal. Because then you’re worthless, you forget who you are and what your place is in life, you understand?”
“I understand, Lacho.” Pizarro’s insinuations appeared to annoy him. “I told you I’m grateful, and I am. What more do you want me to do? You want me to drop my trousers?”
“Don’t be so sensitive, Loya,” Pizarro said with amusement. “You sound like a girl. You know perfectly well that all I ask from you is loyalty. I got you the mayor’s office, and now I’m going to get you ten million pesos. Good deeds speak for themselves, and that’s what I want yours to do. Is that perfectly clear or isn’t it?”
“Perfectly clear, Lacho.”
We emerged from the mangroves en route to a cluster of buildings surrounded by an impeccably weeded grove planted with oranges and squash. An army of pickers were gathering oranges. They wore khaki union overalls with the inevitable motto on the back: Destroy to create. Whoever can add can divide.”
“They’re volunteer workers from the union,” Pizarro explained. “We all do volunteer work here once a week. A few hours’ work never hurt anybody. Those women haven’t even been here two hours. They’ll get a break, and then they’ll eat here at the complex.” He pointed to the buildings that still lay ahead of us. “They eat better than they ever do during the week, luxury fare. Then our buses take them home. Others are coming tomorrow. No one gets hurt, it’s like a party. And little by little they create this abundance. Take a good look, my journalist friend. Take a look and then tell what you saw. Don’t be sensational, just tell the truth. I don’t like to do the talking. That’s up to the celebrities, it’s their job. Here I just organize and work with my people, that’s all.”
Every hundred meters along the roadway was a sign reiterating one of the ideals that guided Pizarro’s workers’ revolution: “Work will make you free.” “This is where the Revolution of the Oil Workers’ Union grows.” “He who chirps and sings all night wakes up poor.” “Don’t criticize. Work.” Suddenly, I was overcome by the sensation of having entered a meticulously ordered world apart, a world torn meter by meter from jungles and swamps regardless of the cost in isolation and disease. It catered to the genuine but empty zeal of its builders whose deeds were summarized in its mottoes.
“Let me tell you, paisano,” Pizarro continued, “as one Veracruzan to another, loyalty is the key. Without it we’re lost. You need to be loyal to the nation, the country, your homeland, your ideology, your friend. That’s what brings you here, isn’t it, paisano? And it’s why I agreed to let you come. You’re being loyal to your friend Rojano, right? Of course you are! But I have nothing to hide, and out of my loyalty to those who work with me and their loyalty to me, I don’t mind showing you everything we’re doing. That’s how we fend off the attacks and insults of our enemies. Loyalty gives us the strength to fight back when others are paid to attack us and to win over the indifferent. Loyalty is what lets us make believers of the workers, the people, and the government too. My kind of loyalty gets results, loyalty on behalf of everyone and in plain sight. La Mesopotamia is one of those results. Take a good look, paisano. You can’t deny what you see with your own eyes.”
What was visible beyond the orange grove was a complex of buildings, sheds for laying hens, and corrals of tall grass awaiting the cattle that had grazed out neighboring corrals. What this indicated was a system of grazing rotation among the feedlots.
“No English grasses here,” Pizarro said. I was bemused by what I saw, and Pizarro knew it. “We sow only native grasses. Just look, it’s amazing. We spend next to nothing on seed because we did the work necessary to adapt and improve grasses that grow here naturally. Come see the rest of the complex.”
The complex consisted of a large quadrangle of buildings interspersed with storehouses for the bounty of La Mesopotamia. There were facilities to box eggs, polish and package rice, and pasteurize milk. There was a refrigerated slaughterhouse where the carcasses were butchered and dressed out on an automated production line. There was a carpentry shop, a machine shop with its own parts department, an electric power generation plant, an agricultural laboratory with a half-hectare experimental plot, and a railroad spur.
“We built the rail spur from here to El Álamo to cut down on shipping costs,” Pizarro said. “Shipping over dirt roads is expensive. We fill two boxcars every three days, and they’re ready to go to Poza Rica, Ciudad Madero, and Veracruz. All the railroads in Mexico belong to the government except this one that belongs to the oil workers, the people who built it. There are twenty kilometers of track. We did it with our own engineers and our own hands. Because here the revolution of the workers and the people is on the march. We’re making a socialist revolution because we’re going to take over the factories, the capital, and the means of production. And we’re doing it peacefully. In time, the workers will peacefully dislodge foreigners and private enterprise through honest competition. The oil workers’ union is standing up for all the people who have been marginalized in this country. And those are not just empty words and demagogy, my journalist friend. They’re facts, the ones you see right here. Come see our maintenance and repair shop.”
He didn’t sweat. In the smothering heat and humidity of a cloudy day at La Mesopotamia, Pizarro didn’t sweat a drop. He spoke and gave orders with the natural imperiousness of a tribal chieftain. Though he was the sun and everything orbited around him, there was nothing dazzling about him. He could easily be confused with the aides, workers and supervisors who came out to greet him. They gave him information, awaited his bidding, and fell in with us like metal filings attracted by the magnetism of a demanding but unshining sun. As he proceeded about the complex, the throng around him grew into a small crowd. At its center Pizarro continued speaking to me non-stop, his eyes ablaze, his manner genial and relaxed though alert to my every reaction. Beneath the intoxication of showing off La Mesopotamia, he remained as cold and calculating as ever.
The parts department amounted to a gigantic hardware store and the machine shop to a canopy over rows of Gringo tractors and German mowers.
“This parts department serves the whole region,” Pizarro explained. “There’s nothing like it from Brownsville in the north to Sao Paulo in the south. We repair and sell parts for less than anyone. We make them too. We buy from outside once, but as soon a part comes in here, we start figuring out how to make it ourselves. And our only area of weakness so far has been electronics where our failure rate is twenty percent. Anything else goes out of here defect-free. So long as we find a supplier for any special steel that’s needed, we can ship it. How much are we selling?” he asked the man behind the long parts counter. The man hesitated.
“How long have you been here?” Pizarro demanded.
“Barely two weeks.”
“Then how come they put you out front so soon? That’s not right, that’s not how our cooperative is supposed to work. We need to learn from private enterprise. They all know how to add two and two, they’re not like you. Come on, my paisano journalist, let’s have a look at the shops and see if we can find someone who knows what’s going on. We do jobs for PEMEX here too. We designed a pulley for drill rigs that saved millions of dollars. We’ve got a patent on it, and the Venezuelans and the Arabs are using it. And though we charged PEMEX plenty, it was less than a third of the price anywhere else. And not even a fifth of what contractors in this country would have charged. All they ever do is buy abroad and resell here. They’re parasites, middlemen. But we’re not. We have properties worth billions, not because we’re hungry for money but because, as long as we live in a capitalist society, it’s the only way for workers to be autonomous. When you run with wolves, you learn to use your teeth, my friend. That’s what I always say, no matter where I go.”
He stopped and so did the small crowd of followers. He wiped away the saliva that had accumulated at the corners of his mouth. He looked down at the floor and then at me. Once again he turned cold and dry without a trace of the triumphant air and the vanity he’d displayed only minutes before. “I talked about this with your friend Rojano the last time I saw him in Veracruz. Didn’t he say anything to you?”
He moved briskly on without waiting for an answer. “Who dumped oil on the grass? You can’t do that. You can’t blame the grass for what we do.”
Our tour ended back at the parts counter. “How much are we making on replacement parts?” Pizarro asked the man behind the counter.
“Six million a month, Lacho.”
“Good, but that’s a mark you have to exceed. You have the experience now, and you’ve got plenty of support.”
“Yes, Lacho.”
“Anyway, tell our journalist friend here how many customers you have here in your shop.”
“Well, everybody around here, Lacho.”
“Otherwise, they’d have to go to Brownsville,” Pizarro went on. “It costs half as much to come here. And the same applies to everything else. The food we produce here is sold in our stores in Poza Rica. We make a good profit and still sell for less than half the price in private stores. Our union shops make clothes for two thirds less. We build schools and offer no interest loans because we’re not loan sharks. Come on, let’s go to the pyramid. This land even came with a pyramid. From there you can see the rest of our operation.”
We climbed into the jeep with Loya at the wheel. We drove towards the sheds for the laying hens before heading into the foothills, beyond which the green wall of the Western Sierra Madre rose into the clouds. This way lay Chicontepec and the towns where Rojano’s blood-drenched photos were taken. After passing several more corrals and a hog nursery, we were back in tropical jungle twilight amidst tangled vines and the shrieks of spider monkeys squabbling in the treetops. Though the heat and humidity made Lacho’s glasses fog over, he never sweat a drop. His skin never appeared oily or showed any other trace of uncontrolled secretions. Even his glands seemed on notice not to dampen the image of monastic, quasi-religious dryness projected by the formidable rival Rojano was determined to challenge. We got out of the jeep and walked some 500 meters with two guards in front of us and Loya behind. Suddenly, we were shrouded in darkness and overcome by the dense odor of rotting jungle vegetation. I was gripped by the thought that our real destination might be someplace other than a pyramid. I felt as if I were being smothered. This didn’t escape Pizarro, who came to an abrupt stop and peered at me over his fogged glasses. “You don’t like the jungle?” he asked in the voice that made his questions sound like statements, a smooth violence-laden voice. “More than one journey has ended here. There’s malaria, vermin, and wild animals. But look. Here’s a gift from La Mesopotamia that you’ll never forget.”
He pointed to an impenetrable curtain of vines and, barely touching my shoulder with his hand, pushed me towards them. I had the clear impression I was being made part of a ritual that would end with my execution, but I walked where Pizarro told me to. I parted the wall of vines with my hands and stepped forward. As I did, I heard the guards lock and load their weapons followed by the crack of the report echoing up to the sierra one, two, three times, then thundering down against the back of my neck. I ran forward into the wall of vines that anointed my body with stinging saps, scratched me with thorns, and sliced me with leaves that cut like razors. I was not alone in my flight of frenzy. An insane circus of monkeys stampeded from branch to branch, thrashing about the dense canopy above me and letting in the only slivers of light to penetrate the exuberant green trap.
Before I could take stock of my predicament, the jungle gave way and I saw the spectacle Pizarro had prepared for me. I had flailed my way into a huge bubble of air and light with the pyramid of La Mesopotamia at its center. The ruin stood a good fifteen meters high, encrusted in the lime and vegetation that rounded the edges of its steps and corners. The sight of it in the midst of the jungle was overpowering. So were the howls and screeches of the stampeding monkeys with their childlike faces and twitching tails as they stormed madly about the pyramid. It was like a revelation. I felt as if I’d stumbled into a time utterly alien to the squareness imposed by technology on the world beyond this jungle island.
Behind me a smiling Pizarro stepped through the wall of vegetation followed by Loya and the guards.
“The effect wouldn’t be the same without the gunshots. You can appreciate that now.” Pizarro pointed to the monkeys swarming the pyramid. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. We don’t belong in an insane asylum. We say what we have to say very clearly. And what we have to do we do without dithering. Come here. There’s a path you can climb.”
We walked around the pyramid and climbed the side outfitted with a recently poured cement stairway and a handrail. Pizarro and I went up it by ourselves. For the first time since my surprise arrival at his house in the morning there was no one else near him. We stood at a height from which the boundary between the surrounding jungle and La Mesopotamia with its complex of corrals, buildings, and mangroves was clearly discernible. The jungle ringing the pyramid turned out to be a band no more than a hundred meters wide that had the contrived look of a moat. Naturally, there was a road cut uncluttered by weeds and vines that led to the pyramid, but that was not the route Pizarro had chosen for me. He squatted by the pyramid’s guardrail and took a long look down at the civilized domain snatched from the wilderness. “This is La Mesopotamia,” Pizarro said without looking at me. “Three years ago it was all wilderness, but the building plans were already on the drawing boards. Look over there towards the fork in the river. Do you see where I mean?”
There were, in effect, two rivers—two threads of sluggish red water—bordering La Mesopotamia. “From time immemorial these lands were meant to be shaped by human hands and were fit to be called La Mesopotamia. Civilization is said to have begun in Mesopotamia, right? It lay between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. I doubt those two rivers have anything these two don’t have. The soil here is as good as any in the world. Come on, I’m taking you to the dam we’re stocking with carp and trout. That’s another thing they didn’t know how to do in Mesopotamia on the Tigris. But fame is like that, paisano. And history’s the same way. If something is meant to happen, there’s nothing humans can do to stop it.”
He descended the stairway with the agility of a teenager. I understood the pride he took in the pyramid. From its peak he could overlook his domain in its entirety and let its name resonate in his ear with an echo reaching him from the dawn of civilization. He seemed to see his own destiny embodied in a name marking the beginning of history.
We visited the dams and went back to the complex. In the dining room he said goodbye to the women waiting for him. He drew Loya aside for a talk, then took leave from him before getting into the van. It was four in the afternoon.
“L-1 on zero bound for Dinner Party as planned,” the driver said in code. It meant Pizarro was in the vehicle and we were leaving La Mesopotamia on the way to the Quinta Bermúdez in Poza Rica.
“Have a fig, my paisano journalist, to keep your hunger at bay,” Pizarro said. “And don’t worry. There’s a banquet waiting for you in Poza Rica.”
I ate one fig, then another. My mouth was dry. So were my tongue and throat.
“If you’d like a beer, there’s one under the seat,” Pizarro said while looking out the window and sounding as if he were giving orders to a subordinate. The plastic beer cooler was where he said it was. I eagerly fished for a beer and then for an opener. First, I looked in the cooler, then I felt through my clothes until I came up with the small one on my key chain. Little by little I succeeded in opening the bottle. Pizarro glowered back at me from the front seat. In his hand was a bottle opener he’d been holding out to me for several seconds. I could feel his disdain and his ironic assessment of my faltering composure. It made me realize that his dealings with others were rarely more than a series of tests of strength in the form of veiled competitions and secret traps and triumphs accumulated to prove his own importance, his superiority.
We got to Quinta Bermúdez shortly before 5:00. Crossing through the garden of India laurels, and then the other patio, we entered Pizarro’s inner sanctum where a group of supplicants as large as the one in the morning awaited him. Roibal was seated at the table where we’d had breakfast along with a pale, heavily mascaraed woman of about thirty. She rushed to greet Pizarro with open arms and called him “my love.” To my surprise, Pizarro responded in kind. Throughout the meal he addressed her as “little darling.” He embellished this with such endearments as “my little darling,” “my little girl,” and “my love” whenever he spoke to her. Just as they had for breakfast, the cooks loaded the table for dinner. The spread included mugs for a variety of beers, toasted tortillas with assorted toppings, spiced mole stews, a marinated ham, and fresh tortillas. Yet Pizarro’s place at the head of the table remained pristine except for two servings of yogurt and a plate of tomatoes and lettuce. No one spoke except Pizarro, his little darling, and Roibal when issuing instructions to the cooks. We hadn’t gotten to the mole when Pizarro announced he had business to take care of and withdrew to his office. Roibal went after him. Little Darling and I served each other toasted tortillas and kept on eating for another half hour.
“I used to be a singer in Tampico,” Little Darling suddenly announced. “Do you know the bar at the Hotel Inglaterra?”
“I do,” I said.
“Well, that’s where I used to sing with the Jaibo Tecla Trio. Do you know it?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s the most famous trio in Tamaulipas. Their requinto guitar played with Los Panchos, el Güero Higuera. It was one success after another, night after night until Lacho locked me up.”
“Where did he lock you up?”
Little Darling picked up a bit of toasted tortilla with her fingernails and put it in her mouth. “In his arms,” she said melodramatically. “Lacho’s arms are my halter as the song from Yucatán says. Do you know it?”
She began to hum and stayed right on tune:
I told myself your eyes are my destiny
and your brown arms are my halter.
“Now do you remember?”
“It’s called Premonition,” I said.
“We’ve been happy. There’s not a happier couple in Poza Rica. Are you from Poza Rica?”
“From Coscomatepec.”
“Lacho is the man most loved in Poza Rica. And I’m his woman. I quit singing and gave up my career for him. I’m living in sin for him, because we haven’t married. It’s a common law arrangement as they say. Our love doesn’t need any blessings here on earth. What did you come to ask Lacho for?”
“I came to interview him.”
“Lacho likes to be asked because giving is his whole life. He’ll give anything. He gave one of my nephews life. He sent him for a cure in Houston when he was dying, and he was saved. His love has given me happiness.”
For dessert there were peaches in syrup and caramels from Guanajuato. Little Darling had small bags under her bulging eyes, but they were the same color as Anabela’s.
“And he’s also given me peace. He rescued me from alcohol and from darkness.” She spoke humbly and with emotion as if praying.
I heard footsteps behind me and saw Little Darling stare at the floor as if we hadn’t been speaking. It was Roibal. “Lacho wants you to come in,” he said. He held the chair for me as I got up.
Pizarro was waiting for me with his elbows planted on his desk, fidgeting once again with a rubber band between his fingers. There was a chair placed directly in front of him. He glanced at Roibal, and the guards left the room with Roibal himself in the lead. Without further ado, Pizarro began speaking.
“Your friend Rojano is going to get his mayor’s job. Just tell him I said to calm down. Tell him to get over his first-time jitters. And not because he might hurt me, as you’re now well aware, but because he might hurt himself and his family.”
He paused to let what he said sink in. I looked at the figure he’d shaped between his hands with the rubber band.
“I’m talking about political damage,” he explained. “Damage to his political career, nothing else.”
“That’s what I understood.” For the first time I attempted to play Pizarro’s game of innuendo.
He smiled.
“You were born in Coscomatepec de Bravo, but you’re a Mexico City columnist,” he said. “There are several things I ought to tell you. First, never get into a fight you don’t care about winning. Second, never fight on strangers’ turf. Third, you’ve been told I had people around Chicontepec killed to get their lands. Don’t let that bother you. Civilization has killed more people than you and I could ever mourn. In my opinion, two lives are worth more than one, and three are worth more than two. That’s historical arithmetic and what equality is really all about.”
He began to pace around the room.
“I myself have witnessed it. We turned a swamp into a garden. We have yields of fruit, grain and other food crops from land that used to be wilderness. This wealth is the work of thousands of hands, and it’s bettered the lives of thousands of people. There’s nothing personal about who dies and who lives. If at a given moment you had to choose between the development of penicillin and the death of everyone in Poza Rica, including yourself, which would you choose? I’d opt for penicillin because that’s what progress is all about. You always have to choose the many over the few. That’s what’s happening in Chicontepec. There are two killings a day in that area, and you know why?”
“Land disputes,” I said.
My reply irritated him. As he turned towards me, his speech grew smoother and more measured than ever.
“Try to understand,” he said in a voice that was barely audible. “Listen to what I’m telling you. People there are dying at the rate of two a day just from drinking mezcal. Have you ever been in one of those jails? I was in the one in Chicontepec last week. One of the inmates had killed his mother. Another a friend he was out drinking with. Another raped his daughter and almost beat her to death. None of them remembered what they’d done. All that death and suffering was pointless. It bore no fruit. Nothing blossomed or contributed to the wellbeing of others. These are the deaths that must be stopped, the barren ones driven by mezcal and ignorance. There are always going to be violent deaths, that’s the law of history. It’s up to us to make sure they’re fertile and creative, that’s all.”
He stood contemplating the picture of Cárdenas on the wall, his near adolescent features, the big ears, the languid gaze. “How many people had to die for that man to become president?” he said. “Do the numbers, my paisano columnist, don’t be squeamish.”
He returned to the chair behind his desk and faced me directly.
“You people, your friend Rojano and you, are amateurs. Like so many others who claim to know and practice politics, you’re just amateurs. You’re people who’ve been given everything or at least enough so you never have to learn the real truth about life.”
He let the rubber band fall on the desk and fixed me with his unbearable glare. “You don’t know what it is to be powerless, to be forced to put all your eggs in one basket every day, every hour of the day, and every minute of every hour because with each move you make you either win or you die. You can’t let yourself be screwed over because, if you give a single millimeter, it’s all over. They’ll forget you ever lived. The pressure’s on all the time. It keeps on coming all day every day in every way you can think of. And you always have to be the first one through the door because otherwise you don’t get in. And everybody else is shut out too, the losers, the scum, the shit, the people. We can’t have manners. We are what we are, the unwashed masses, the ones the nation shits on. And we’re on the lookout for revenge every day because winning is not enough. We must win twice to win at all. We need victory, and we need revenge, period.”
There were no more questions.
“Come anytime you like,” Pizarro said. “You’re at home here even if you sneak in.”
I got back to Tuxpan at midnight. On my bed was a carved and polished wooden box. It contained a .45 caliber pistol with a mother of pearl handle and an envelope with 50,000 pesos. Inside the envelope was a card with Pizarro’s inimitable L and his handwritten motto: Destroy to create. Whoever can add can divide.