SOBRE EL ESTADO DE LAS TELECOMUNICACIONES EN MÉXICO

Las telecomunicaciones en México, tanto en telefonía fija como móvil, han registrado un crecimiento casi 10 veces mayor al de la economía del país en 2004 debido a sus estrategias de reducción de tarifas.
El tráfico en las redes celulares presentó un incremento de 35.2 por ciento en términos de minutos. Para marzo de este año, se registró una base de 40.8 millones de usuarios de este servicio y una reducción en las tarifas de 33.5 por ciento en los sistemas de postpago y de 14 por ciento en los de prepago o fichas.
En tanto, el segmento de larga distancia internacional de entrada aumentó 31.8 por ciento y el de larga distancia nacional repuntó 5.8 por ciento, cifra que contrasta con la tasa cero del mismo trimestre del 2003.
Un ejemplo del crecimiento de las telecomunicaciones en México es el caso de las compañías del magnate Carlos Slim, cuyo poder está por encima de la autoridad del gobierno.
EL REY MIDAS MEXICANO
Si existió el rey Midas de Frigia, hoy Turquía, o sólo fue parte de una apología descrita en la mitología griega, no lo sabemos con certeza. Lo que es innegable es que México cuenta con su propio Midas: Carlos Slim Helú.
Clasificado como uno de los principales “hacedores de fortuna en América Latina”, Slim Helú pasará a formar parte de los anales de la historia no sólo porque ha sabido quintuplicar y diversificar su riqueza hacia todos los sectores de la economía, sino porque se mantiene desde hace una década en la lista de los 20 más ricos del mundo, según la revista Forbes.
Hoy, Slim es uno de los hombres con mayor peso en el mercado accionario mexicano, pues sus ocho consorcios —que forman parte de las 35 emisoras que participan en el IPC de la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV)— ejercen una influencia de 47 por ciento del PIB.
En 1990, compró la entonces estatal Teléfonos de México (Telmex), ahora el gigante del sector que controla el 78 por ciento del mercado fijo y un año antes, la empresa móvil Telcel, que ahora cuenta con 34 millones de clientes y controla entre el 85% y el 90 por ciento del mercado móvil.
“Es un tipo brillante, talentoso, agresivo en el buen sentido de la palabra y visionario. Muy respetado en el país y sus dichos, declaraciones, propuestas, posicionamientos son muy destacados en los medios“, en opinión de Javier Lozano, un abogado experto en telecomunicaciones que fundó el Instituto del Derecho de las Telecomunicaciones en México.
Las 102 empresas industriales, comerciales y de servicios propiedad de Slim inscritas en la BMV cerraron el primer trimestre de este año con una ganancia conjunta de 44 mil millones de pesos (4.04 millones de dólares), beneficio 32.1 por ciento superior al de los primeros tres meses de 2004, revelan informes del mercado bursátil recopilados por la casa de bolsa Acciones y Valores-Banamex.
El conglomerado forjado por Slim Helú participó con 37.5 por ciento, una ganancia de 16 mil 500 millones de pesos (1, 520.46 de dólares), aproximadamente, en los primeros tres meses de 2005 mediante Americas Telecom (Amtel), Telecom Carso Global (Telecom), Grupo Carso, Telmex, Grupo Sanborns y América Móvil (Amx).
El grupo de las cinco empresas con mayores activos posee propiedades valuadas en un billón 222 mil 300 millones de pesos (20,484.70 de dólares). Cuatro de ellas llevan el sello empresarial de Carlos Slim: Telecom, Telmex, Amtel y Amx, con activos de 926 mil 900 millones de pesos, algo así como 11.8 por ciento del PIB.
“Todo esto ocurre porque no se ha consolidado la competencia en México. Además, se siguen aplicando tarifas excesivas con la complacencia en buena medida del regulador (la Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones (Cofetel)”, agrega Lozano.
“Su dinero tiene una rentabilidad adicional. Aquí creo que la gran dudez es si es legítimo que esa riqueza se siga dando a partir de obtener una renta excesiva”, en palabras del experto y ex presidente de Cofetel.
Sin duda polémico, Carlos Slim supo amalgamar la estrategia de Bill Gates, George Soros y Warren Buffet. Tan es así que este hombre de estilo austero y poco afecto a los reflectores podría perfilarse —para algunos— como un posible candidato presidencial a futuro.
Pero, ademas de que Slim sufre del corazón y ha dejado muchas de sus empresas a cargo de uno de sus hijos, muchos coinciden que no le conviene involucrarse en política de manera directa. Según Lozano, si lo hace, podría perder el inmenso poder que ahora tiene.
“No veo a Slim lanzándose a una aventura de esa naturaleza. Se ha dicho que la persona que se arriesge a buscar la candidatura presidencial, corre el riesgo de perder el poder. Difícilmente el presidente tiene tanto poder como Slim,” asegura Lozano.
Aunque muchos insisten que “el salvador millonario”, como ya lo conocen en algunos callejones del Centro Histórico, podría ser el financiero estratégico para aquel —Andrés Manuel López Obrador, uno de ellos— que logre contar con su amistad y billetera.
Lozano no está tan seguro.
“Es indudable que cualquiera que llegue a la presidencia tendrá que escucharlo, pero no lo veo como el estratega ni el que defina la política económica del país“.
Sobre el manejo que hace Slim de sus bazas políticas y apoyos, Lozano es tajante:
“Es cauteloso y equilibrado, y yo creo que hace bien. Me parece que su posición como el hombre más rico del país y de Latinoamérica, tiene que ser así. No es cierto que él sólo apoyó a (Francisco) Labastida (candidato del Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI, en la elecciones del 2000), sino que en diferente medida ha apoyado a todos (los que fueron candidatos en esa elecciones) --a (Cuahtémoc) Cárdenas (fundador del centro-izquierdista Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD), al propio Labastida y a (Vicente) Fox“, del centro-derechista Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), asegura Lozano.
En opinión del experto, en las elecciones del 2006, Slim tendrá un comportamiento igual de cauteloso. “Creo que estará propiciando que se de una lucha pareja, que todos los candidatos tengan recursos para sus propuestas. Me parece que va a apoyar a todos pero con ninguno se va a casar definitivamente”.
RIESGO DE MONOPOLIO
A pesar del crecimiento de usuarios de telecomunicaciones ante la mayor participación de concesionarios, se corre el riesgo de que frente a la difícil situación financiera por la que atraviesan algunas empresas haya una mayor concentración del mercado en un sólo operador (Slim), de acuerdo con Abel Hibert Sánchez, director de Planeación y Análisis Económico de (Cofetel), la autoridad reguladora del sector.
Francisco Gutiérrez, presidente del Comité de Análisis de la Asociación Mexicana de Intermediarios Bursátiles (AMIB), está de acuerdo con Hibert Sánchez.
En su opinión, la concentración de Slim en el mercado de las telecomunicaciones representa un riesgo “porque es una sola persona y cualquier situación que llegara a presentarse a esa sola persona afecta a la mayoría del mercado para bien o para mal”.
En 2004, asegura Gutiérrez, el tráfico de llamadas de larga distancia creció 3% respecto al 2003 y el operador que tuvo mayor incremento en el número de llamadas fue Telmex con un 8.4%, mientras el resto de los operadores cayó un 13%.
Por ello, el gran reto de la Cofetel es cómo regular Telmex, “ya que su nuevo modelo de negocios se ha concentrado sobre todo en la transmisión de datos, y el título de concesión otorgado en 1990 se diseñó con mucha visión a futuro, pero para el sector de telecomunicaciones de aquellos años, por lo que se debe adecuar a las condiciones actuales”, agrega.
Para los nuevos participantes, abunda, ante el avance tecnológico, a pasos agigantados “debemos procurar la aplicación de la ley, fomentar la participación de los competidores y evitar la concentración del mercado en uno sólo”.
Por su parte, Lozano opina que el monopolio de las telecomunicaciones en México no es “un riesgo“, sino “una situación real“.
Slim “tiene una posición dominante en cinco mercados esenciales (transporte inter-urbano, larga distancia nacional e internacional y llamadas locales),” acota el experto.
Para muchos investigadores, la competencia real en las telecomunicaciones simplemente no existe en México.
“Nunca fue permitida; nunca fue promovida. Porque el señor Slim controlaba ´la última milla´, controlaba el acceso de cualquier compañía a la línea telefónica de cualquier casa, controlaba la interconexión irremontable. Porque con ese control logró bloquear a la competencia”, sentencia la prestigiosa periodista Denise Dressen.
Sin embargo, en 1995, en un intento de desregularizar el sector y activar la competencia, el gobierno de México instauró una nueva Ley de Telecomunicaciones, que aumentó el período de concesiones a 30 años para cable o fibra óptica, mientras que lleva a 20 años la explotación del espectro radioeléctrico.
Estas concesiones son renovables por períodos de tiempo iguales. La ley introduce asimismo, dos importantes modificaciones: la privatización de los satélites y la apertura de servicios satelitales desde satélites extranjeros.
Muchos, como el Senador del derechista PAN Javier Corral, piensan que la ley debe modificarse porque la actual es “ambigua”.
En su opinión, urge no sólo porque “se requiere incorporar los avances tecnológicos, figuras jurídicas de mayor transparencia y certeza, sino también porque bajo muchas de las ambigüedades y lagunas de la actual ley, el monopolio privado que opera la red nacional de Telmex ha resultado el único favorecido con que no hayan cuajado disposiciones que en favor de la competencia se habían contemplado”.
Pero Lozano insiste que más que una nueva ley, lo que el sector necesita es “la aplicación estricta de la que tenemos“.
APUESTA POR EL MAYOR TRÁFICO
En mayo pasado, autoridades mexicanas dijeron que las empresas de telefonía fija comenzaron a aplicar un plan que recortará escalonadamente las tarifas que cobran por llamar a un teléfono móvil.
La medida, que contempla recortes de hasta un 35 por ciento a tres años, busca impulsar el tráfico de llamadas.
Cofetel anunció que el recorte entró en vigencia el 1 de enero y las grandes telefónicas fijas, como Telmex y Telnor, tendrán que aplicar una tarifa por minuto de 2.25 pesos (0.20 dólares) a quienes llamen desde un teléfono fijo a un móvil frente a los 2.50 pesos que se cobraban en el 2004.
Agregó que el cargo por minuto que cobran las compañías telefónicas por llamar a celulares irá bajando anualmente.
“En 2006 será de 2.03 pesos y en 2007 de 1.82 pesos, lo que implica una baja de 35 por ciento en términos reales”, de acuerdo con el regulador. “Con estas reducciones las tarifas desde teléfonos fijos a móviles se ubicarán en niveles internacionales”.
La medida fue impulsada por operadoras de telefonía móvil que apuestan por que la reducción en los precios generará más tráfico de llamadas hacia sus redes.
Sólo cinco de cada 10 mexicanos tienen acceso a algún tipo de teléfono, ya sea móvil o fijo. Muchos con el abaratamiento de los teléfonos móviles se volcaron en la telefonía inalámbrica en lugar de pagar una renta por línea fija.
En mayo pasado, durante la celebración del “Día Mundial de las Telecomunicaciones,” Jorge Arredondo, presidente de la Cofetel, destacó que se debe potenciar el acceso a las telecomunicaciones entre un mayor número de mexicanos a precios más accesibles.
Lo anterior, porque aceptó que hay una demanda insatisfecha en diversas zonas de México, aunque las condiciones están dadas para potenciar el crecimiento de ese sector, por lo que sólo se necesita de un mayor esfuerzo de las autoridades para continuar su desarrollo.
ESTRATEGIAS
Las compañías de telefonía móvil en México están rayando la cancha y definiendo sus estrategias comerciales y operativas para este año. Hoy ya tienen todas las cartas sobre la mesa, los cargos de acceso ya fueron definidos por la autoridad –con una caída de 26.5 por ciento, lo cual ha dado pie a una avalancha de campañas publicitarias que dan una luz de lo que será la guerra en los próximos meses.
Los énfasis estarán dados en tres ámbitos: la reducción de costos, el incentivo de llamadas de teléfonos fijos a móviles y una batería de nuevos planes que se ajusten a la nueva realidad tarifaria.
La baja de los cargos de acceso golpeó los bolsillos de las compañías móviles, ello porque cerca del 40 por ciento de sus ingresos provenían de este ítem. Por eso, tras el anuncio de su decreto tarifario, las empresas comenzaron a idear la forma de paliar esta caída.
La primera jugada fue ajustar los costos. Un claro ejemplo de ello, es la nueva apuesta de Telefónica Móvil (propiedad de Slim), que lanzó de manera reciente un móvil con su propia marca TSM (Telefónica Servicios Móviles), que permite una rebaja sustancial en el valor de los equipos y, a la vez un mayor ingreso medio por cliente.
Con esta apuesta, las empresas también buscan amortiguar el tema de los subsidios. Hasta antes del decreto, la bandera de lucha de las firmas era que una caída aguda de sus cargos de acceso sacaría a cerca de un millón de clientes del sistema.
Estos serían los usuarios de menores recursos -con sistema de prepago-, que se verían imposibilitados de renovar sus teléfonos, a los precios registrados hasta ahora, producto del subsidio que han hecho las móviles. Al parecer la búsqueda de aparatos más económicos frenaría este éxodo.
Al mismo tiempo, las empresas están desarrollando atractivas estrategias de marketing que –curiosamente- no buscan captar clientes, sino tráfico. Los slogan son diversos pero la esencia es la misma: hoy llamar a un celular de un teléfono fijo cuesta más barato.
Las compañías apuestan a que al subir el tráfico podrán mantener los niveles de ingresos que tenían antes de la caída de los cargos de acceso: menos precio, pero más cantidad. Y no sólo eso, también quieren reducir el nivel de teléfonos fijos bloqueados para hacer llamadas a móviles, cifra que en la actualidad se acerca al 60 por ciento de los aparatos.
Entel fue la primera en reaccionar al cambio regulador y, a sólo dos días de anunciado el decreto tarifario, lanzó una potente publicidad en diarios, televisión y radio, donde se invita a los usuarios a llamar sin problemas a un móvil Entel, bajo el slogan “porque hoy vale menos podrás llamar más“.
A futuro, la estrategia básica del sector es la convergencia tecnológica, en palabras de Javier Lozano.
“Van a aprovechar las condiciones que existen y con ellas prestar más servicios. Van a apostar a la tecnología y a la selección de nichos de mercados,” sentencia el analista.
UN SECTOR “NOBLE” QUE CRECE AL MARGEN DE LAS AUTORIDADES
Los datos del crecimiento de las telecomunicaciones en México demuestran que, en opinión de Lozano, “lo que estamos viendo es que el sector sigue creciendo con o sin el apoyo de las autoridades. Es un sector muy noble y muy vigoroso. La población crece. Están entrando los jóvenes. Hay nuevos hogares”.
De acuerdo con José Otero, presidente de Signals Strategic Consulting, una consultora especializada en telecomunicaciones y tecnología de América Latina y el Caribe, “para crecer, los operadores van a tratar de incrementar suscriptores móviles en los estratos más bajos“.
Y agrega: “Esto sirve tanto para ganar clientes como para detener con los que ya cuenta, como lo está haciendo Telcel“.
Un ejemplo del crecimiento de las telecomunicaciones en México es el caso puntual de América Móvil, una de las dos mayores empresas móvil de Latinoamérica. A casi 5 años de haber nacido, ya tiene 68 millones de suscriptores y un valor de mercado de 34.000 millones de dólares.
Algunos analistas financieros, como Ana Ocejo, de Scotiabank Inverlat, dudan que la empresa vaya a “tomar pasivos para hacer adquisiciones“, como sería el caso de entrar al mercado español, cosa que desde hace cuatro años viene intentando América Móvil.
En Latinoamérica, donde compite cuerpo a cuerpo con la española Telefónica Móviles por coronarse como la mayor celular de la región, América Móvil podría poner la mira en Digitel, una celular de Venezuela, donde no tiene presencia.
"En Latinoamérica, lo que le vendan a buen precio lo van a comprar", asegura Martín Lara, analista de la correduría Santander Investment en la Ciudad de México. "En Venezuela yo estoy seguro que van a ir porque es una operación chiquita Digitel. Creo que van a hacer lo posible por comprarla, pero a un valor justo".
Slim suele comprar compañías en problemas a precios de ganga y así fue como hizo crecer a América Móvil.
La telefónica opera en México, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia, Brasil, Uruguay y Argentina. A fines de marzo ganó una licencia para operar en Perú y en mayo acordó comprar una celular en Paraguay.
Y lo cierto es que la telefónica de Slim va a seguir desembolsando dólares en los próximos meses: América Móvil aumentó su presupuesto de inversiones a 2.500 millones de dólares para este año.
Pero el mercado de España es muy distinto al latinoamericano, con una penetración casi total del teléfono móvil, menor crecimiento de suscriptores, y precios y consumo mucho mayores.
Los analistas aseguran que, si no se concreta una compra de participación en Xfera, América Móvil podría aterrizar en España revendiendo tiempo aire, como hace en Estados Unidos con su subsidiaria TracFone.
“Me queda claro que estan buscando una manera de entrar (a España)... donde puedan competir a nivel precios“, en opinión de José Luis Ramírez, de Deutsche Ixe.
Pero para Otero, América Móvil carecer de ventajas positivas para entrar a España “porque las empresas españolas tienen mejores economías.”
Además, América Móvil “no existe como marca en Espana, ni siquiera tiene una marca regional. No es lo mismo ir al mercado masivo los mercados de USF a través de subsidios. No es lo mismo competir en euros que en monedas nacionales, a menos que decidan hacer una inversión millonaria. No entiendo la ventaja competitiva de competir en España.”
Según Lozano, para Slim, la lucha abierta es en Latinoamérica con Amx esencialmente. El tomó una posición minoritaria en MCI y ya la vendió. “En Estados Unidos, como operador mexicano en Estados Unidos, Slim necesita una autorización que nunca se la van a otorgar, porque los Estados Unidos son los grandes promotores de la competencia mientras no les afecte a ellos“.
LAS TELECOMUNICACIONES DESPUÉS DEL 2006
En el escenario post-electoral, los analistas parecen estar de acuerdo que la victoria del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), que derrocó al PRI en las elecciones del 2000, con Vicente Fox como candidato, favorecería más a la salud y al crecimiento de las telecomunicaciones en México.
“Sería mas favorable para las inversiones extranjeras en el sector si llega el PAN al poder y no Andrés Manuel López Obrador (pre-candidato del PRD que encabeza las encuestas desde hace más de un año). La tentación autoritaria de romper monopolios puede ser más proclive si (López Obrador) llega, a que si llega (un candidato) del PAN o del PRI“, argumenta Lozano.
Y abunda: “lo que habrá que ver es quien es capaz de hacer una mayor promoción de la inversión, de dar certidumbre jurídica al inversionista. Me parece que ese equilibrio lo puede dar un candidato al que yo apoyo que es Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (del PAN)”.
“Por otro lado, el PRI sería más cauteloso y beneficiaría más al sector. El PRD, es una gran duda la que ronda porque no sabemos bien a bien lo que haría (si gana la candidatura de Andrés Manuel López Obrador). Si nos fijamos en su historia, en sus dichos y en su actitud, no sería raro que nacionalice empresas, cierre puertas, rompa monopolios, pero por otro lado, no sé si a la mera hora cambie su discurso y se comporte como cualquier capitalista”.
De cualquier forma, se mantiene una cierta incertidumbre sobre qué haría López Obrador de llegar a ganar la contienda electoral. En una reciente declaración, el pre-candidato del PRD dijo que para el desarrollo de las telecomunicaciones y del transporte en la zona metropolitana --que incluye a la Ciudad de México y zonas conurbanas--, México necesita la asesoría y el apoyo de España.
De manera que no está definido si, de llegar a la presidencia, López Obrador cerraría las puertas a la inversión extranjera.

EL GRUPO PERALTA EN LA BANDA ANCHA DE INTERNET EN MEXICO
A principios de 2004, el presidente Fox inauguró la conectividad a Internet de alta velocidad y servicio telefónico de un establecimiento educativo en el Estado de México por medio de PLC, una alternativa a la banda ancha de internet que convierte la red de energía eléctrica en un tendido de telecomunicaciones, al enviar señales de telecomunicaciones sobre los cables eléctricos.
Para asegurar esta coexistencia de señales, se utilizan diferentes rangos de frecuencias.
La conexión se logró por medio de las redes de la Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) y el patrocinio de Grupo IUSA, uno de sus principales proveedores. Aquí, el grupo de otro magnate mexicano, Carlos Peralta, principal accionista de la empresa móvil Iusacell, trabaja en conjunto con la española Tecnocom en la implementación del PLC con equipos de la empresa también ibérica DS2.
En opinión del analista Juan Gnius, Vicepresidente de Signals Telecom Consulting, el emprendimiento no deja de ser una prueba, en un país donde la expansión de la banda ancha de internet no es masiva.
Para que sea comercial aún resta saber el papel legal que tendrá la CFE, una empresa estatal que ingresaría —aunque de manera indirecta— a participar del mercado de telecomunicaciones, donde todas las empresas que participan son privadas, advierte el experto.
También resta la opinión del regulador y el PLC no figura en su agenda de temas en el corto y mediano plazo. El problema que puede enfrentar México —como ya ha sucedido— es que varios órganos políticos (secretarías de Estado) y de regulación entrecrucen sus responsabilidades en la reglamentación del PLC.
Por un lado la Cofetel deberá velar por la utilización del espectro que utiliza el PLC para cursar señales de comunicaciones; por otro se encuentra la Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) y, seguramente, también tendrá injerencia la Comisión Federal de Competencia (COFECO).
La meta de la CFE —una vez logrados los permisos y autorizaciones— es poner a disposición de los operadores de telecomunicaciones la red de baja y media tensión, mediante licitaciones que podrían tener lugar el año próximo. Los operadores, en tanto, correrán con las inversiones de equipamiento PLC y su comercialización.
Signals enmarca las pruebas de Grupo IUSA y la CFE en el primer caso descrito anteriormente, en el que ambas empresas ya tienen una relación comercial establecida. Grupo IUSA es uno de los principales proveedores de materiales eléctricos de la CFE.
Se podría dar una relación “win-win”, donde la CFE obtenga canales para gerenciar su red de manera remota, y las empresas de telecomunicaciones de la familia Peralta se beneficien con la red de transmisión y de última milla.
El último emprendimiento de los Peralta se denomina VoxIP, una compañía enfocada en la provisión de voz sobre IP (VoIP) sobre conexiones de banda ancha. Otra de las empresas del grupo presta conexiones satelitales a e-México, el mayor programa gubernamental para reducir la brecha digital.
En esta ramificación de las empresas del Grupo Peralta en telecomunicaciones, VoxIP es quien mayores sinergias encontrará con la incursión en PLC, en caso de que la experiencia con la CFE se traduzca en un servicio comercial. La voz sobre IP requiere de conexiones de banda ancha para funcionar y el PLC le daría esta posibilidad.
Y, entre otras ventajas que le daría el PLC a VoxIP —mayores aún que la capacidad de transmisión— se encuentra el acceso a las instalaciones de los clientes (residenciales y corporativos) sin utilizar las líneas de última milla de Telmex ni las centrales, dado que cuestiones como desagregación de redes y coubicación permanecen como temas tabú en las discusiones regulatorias de México, en opinión del analista de Signals.
De resultar exitosa la experiencia mexicana podría dar un fuerte impulso al PLC, debido a su envergadura. La CFE atiende a más de 125.934 localidades, de las cuales 122.712 son rurales y 3.222 urbanas.
Aún cuando el servicio de energía eléctrica llega al 95.4 por ciento de la población, quedan por electrificar 73.457 localidades con un número reducido de habitantes clasificados por su nivel de población: 3.925 localidades de 100 a 2.499 habitantes y 69.532 localidades con una población menor a 100 habitantes. La CFE proporciona servicio de energía eléctrica a 22.3 millones de clientes, cifra que ha mostrado un crecimiento medio anual de casi un 4.4 por ciento durante los últimos seis años.

Sobre la propuesta de instalar un estado de emergencia en Califonia

A propósito de los estados de emergencia declarados en Arizona y Nuevo México, un líder demócrata de California, de visita en México, explica porqué su propuesta de hacer algo parecido no es una medida contra los indocumentados.

El estado de emergencia que Fabián Nuñez, Presidente de la Asamblea Estatal de California, ha propuesto para la entidad, busca presionar a la Administración Bush para que elabore una nueva reforma migratoria este año y reembolse fondos por el encarcelamiento de indocumentados.
Así lo explicó el líder demócrata el primer día de su visita a México, durante una rueda de prensa en un céntrico hotel del Distrito Federal, tras una "excelente" reunión con el Presidente Vicente Fox.
Nuñez admitió que su llamado en ese sentido ha sido malinterpretado “por los mexicanos” y creado una percepción de que el estado de emergencia es “una falta de respeto” para este país.
Aclaró que su iniciativa aborda el flujo de la inmigración ilegal con la ayuda de dinero federal y “eleva el debate (migratorio) a un nivel diferente en Estados Unidos”.
Además, insistió que el estado de emergencia es un asunto “entre California y la Administración Bush. No tiene nada que ver con México.”
En un intento de explicar que su propuesta no afectaría a los indocumentados, Nuñez elaboró:
“Lo que queremos es una política migratoria justa donde el racismo no sea el tema central el cual diriga nuestro sentimiento hacia el tema migratorio, donde la persona que está cruzando se la trate con el respeto que merece”.
El viaje de Nuñez a México, que durará tres días, ocurre en un momento activo en Washinton, donde cientos de iniciativas de ley, incluyendo la migratoria Kennedy-McCain, están pendientes en la Legislatura que concluye el nueve de septiembre.
En su opinión, la iniciativa Kennedy-McCain --que permitiría el ajuste migratorio con visas de seis años, con la condición de no tener antecedentes criminales, mostrar un historial laboral, y pagar dos mil dólares de multa, así como impuestos que deban al fisco-- “es la oportunidad para resolver el problema de los indocumentados en Estados Unidos.”
En la rueda de prensa bilingüe ayer, el asambleísta demócrata se refirió a su plática con Fox, al intercambio comercial entre Califonia y México, al narcotráfico y la violencia en la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos.
Su visita, dijo, busca "crear un mejor enlace entre California y México ya que la relación ha caído un poco.”
Nuñez se refería a las fricciones entre México y California tras las recientes declaraciones del Gobernador Arnold Schwarzenegger, en apoyo al grupo antimigratorio Minuteman, que fueron interpretadas como "anti-mexicanas".
El funcionario nacido en Tijuana aseguró que, aunque tiene diferencias políticas con el ex-actor, no lo considera “anti-mexicano”.
Con Fox habló del tema migratorio. El Jefe del Ejecutivo mexicano “mencionó que en México causa mucho dolor de cabeza (...) las declaraciones de emergencia por el contexto en el que se han hecho“, informó.
Nuñez tiene previsto reuniones privadas con los Secretarios de Relaciones Exteriores Luis Ernesto Derbez y de Gobernación Carlos Abascal, con Congresistas, líderes empresariales y campesinos.

Lecciones desde M�xico

PARA AQUELLOS QUE SE HAYAN OLVIDADO DE NICARAGUA.... UN ART�CULO DE CARLOS FERNANDO CHAMORRO, QUIEN FUE DIRECTOR DEL DIARIO BARRICADA Y AHORA ES UN CONNOTADO PERIODISTA EN LA NICARAGUA POST-REVOLUCION SANDINISTA.

Durante una r�pida visita al Distrito Federal la semana pasada, me toc� presenciar el �ltimo acto de la rebeli�n democr�tica que encabez� Andr�s Manuel L�pez Obrador, del centroizquierdista Partido de la Revoluci�n Mexicana (PRD), el pol�tico m�s popular de M�xico en estos tiempos.

Jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal, una especie de superalcalde de la urbe mexicana, L�pez Obrador le gan� una partida al presidente Vicente Fox, que a la postre consolida un aspecto crucial de la transici�n mexicana: las reglas para garantizar la alternabilidad en el poder.

Hace casi dos a?os, un juez de distrito acus� a L�pez Obrador de desobedecer una orden para suspender los trabajos del gobierno capitalino en la apertura de una calle. Esta diferencia administrativa devino en un asunto de Estado, cuando la procuradur�a mexicana acus� a L�pez Obrador de desacato, y llev� el caso al Congreso para, con los votos del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) y el Partido de Acci�n Nacional (PAN), aprobar el desafuero del L�pez Obrador.

El jefe del Gobierno del DF siempre mantuvo que se trataba de un juicio pol�tico, para sacarlo del juego de la contienda presidencial del 2006. En consecuencia, su estrategia de defensa se centr� en el plano pol�tico, y no en la formalidad jur�dica, hasta que convirti� su causa en una cuesti�n de importancia vital para los ciudadanos y la defensa de la democracia.

Despu�s de varias semanas de rebeli�n c�vica, cuyo punto culminante fue la multitudinaria �marcha del silencio� del 24 de abril, cuando m�s de un mill�n 200 mil mexicanos marcharon de forma pac�fica hacia El Z�calo, finalmente Fox rindi� su rey.

Buscando una salida pol�tica al entuerto, el Presidente destituy� al Procurador que acusaba a L�pez Obrador, y nombr� a un sustituto, que produjo una salida salom�nica �L�pez Obrador podr�a ser culpable de desacato, pero el delito carece de una sanci�n penal aplicable a este caso�.

La portada de la revista Proceso titul� este acto �La rendici�n� (de Fox), mientras el peri�dico Reforma anunciaba: �Dan v�a libre a AMLO� (siglas de Andr�s Manuel L�pez Obrador), en alusi�n a la campa?a presidencial del 2006. De inmediato, Fox y L�pez Obrador se reunieron, pero ya no para hablar del pasado, sino sobre las reglas del juego en las pr�ximas elecciones, en las que el virtual candidato del PRD seguramente tendr� como contendientes a Roberto Madrazo del PRI y Santiago Creel del PAN.

?Cu�les son las razones del �xito pol�tico en la gesti�n de L�pez Obrador?, le pregunt� a taxistas, estudiantes, analistas, ciudadanos, y periodistas mexicanos. La mayor�a de sus respuestas coinciden en dos ejes nada espectaculares: mejor seguridad ciudadana y m�s obras de infraestructura que impactan positivamente en el descongestionamiento de la ciudad. Los periodistas agregaron otra explicaci�n, quiz�s m�s reveladora: buena comunicaci�n con la gente. Durante cinco a?os consecutivos, L�pez Obrador adopt� la costumbre de brindar diariamente una conferencia de prensa a las 6.30 de la ma?ana, conocida como la �ma?anera�, antes de empezar sus labores. De esa manera estableci� un precedente de dedicaci�n al trabajo y de paso las obras del gobierno del DF pautaron la agenda noticiosa de la radio y la televisi�n.

Con una trayectoria pol�tica radical, aunque ahora se proclama �centrista�, L�pez Obrador tambi�n ha contado con el apoyo de su partido y sus l�deres. Y aqu� surge un curioso paralelismo y a la vez un enorme contraste entre el PRD de M�xico y el FSLN de Nicaragua. Igual que Daniel Ortega en el FSLN, el l�der m�ximo del PRD, Cuauhtemoc C�rdenas, ha fracasado en tres ocasiones consecutivas en su intento de ganar la silla presidencial. En honor a la verdad, C�rdenas gan� la elecci�n de 1988, pero un gigantesco fraude del PRI le escamote� la victoria para colocar en Los Pinos a Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Despu�s de perder en las siguientes dos elecciones, C�rdenas a�n mantiene su aspiraci�n presidencial y ante la emergencia de L�pez Obrador, el l�der del PRD reconoce la nueva realidad pol�tica y adopta una actitud digna de un estadista. A sabiendas que no ser� electo candidato, C�rdenas insiste en que debe organizarse una elecci�n primaria, y se apresta a competir para promover el debate program�tico en el PRD.

?Se imaginan ustedes a Daniel Ortega, reaccionando con el mismo talante democr�tico ante las aspiraciones presidenciales del ex alcalde de Managua Herty Lewites? Esa es, ni m�s ni menos, la distancia que hay entre la izquierda democr�tica que representa C�rdenas y la izquierda autoritaria que encabeza Ortega.

Pero el caso L�pez Obrador tambi�n representa una ense?anza

para Enrique Bola?os. Y es que cuando un l�der se toma el riesgo de convocar al apoyo ciudadano para una causa democr�tica, es posible derrotar cualquier pacto o confabulaci�n legal. L�pez Obrador derrot� al PRI y al PAN, aun con su mayor�a y legalidad en el congreso, porque elev� al m�ximo los costos pol�ticos de la arbitrariedad y puso en riesgo la esencia de la transici�n mexicana, obligando a Fox a rectificar.

En otras palabras, hizo lo que Bola?os nunca se atrevi� a hacer cuando tuvo la oportunidad en el 2002, de convocar a las masas y liderarlas. Para Bolanos ya es demasiado tarde; en cambio, Herty Lewites y Eduardo Montealegre a�n tienen la oportunidad de aprender esta valiosa lecci�

El pergamino de la seduccion, Juana la Loca, que oculta su historia?

Por Gioconda Belli
Seix Barral, Novela historica (2005)

Un historiador y una joven de asombroso parecido con la Reina Juana de Castilla investigan el enigma de quien fuera mas conocida como Juana la Loca. Enloquecio de amor, como cuenta la historia oficial, o fue victima de traiciones y luchas por el poder? En esta novela, historica y contemporanea, Juana de Castilla regresa para contar su propia version de los hechos.

La novela esta a la venta en amazon.com via un enlace a la Casa del Libro.

Fragmento del Capitulo Cinco
Frente a la pintura de Pradilla estuvimos largo rato. La figura de Juana, enfundada en un h�bito de monja, ocupaba el centro del lienzo. Era una imagen pasiva, oscura que, por alguna raz�n, yo registr� como una imagen en movimiento. Me pareci� que Juana quer�a obstaculizar la mirada curiosa sobre el ata�d de Felipe, impedir que nadie se acercara a �l. Manuel dijo que Juana hab�a intentado llevar el cad�ver de su marido a Granada para sepultarlo al lado de Isabel La Cat�lica. Como historiador, �l pensaba que su motivo ulterior era, por un lado, rodearse de la nobleza andaluza que estaba de su lado y librarse de los flamencos que rodearan a Felipe en vida, y por el otro, legitimar el derecho real de Felipe -coloc�ndolo al lado de la Reina Isabel- y de esa manera asegurar la sucesi�n de Carlos, su hijo. La leyenda, sin embargo, esgrim�a estas jornadas nocturnas como testimonio de la locura de amor de una reina que rehusaba apartarse del amado y que sosten�a que caminaba de noche porque su marido era el sol y no pod�an brillar dos soles en el mundo.
-Afirmaron que sus celos eran tales que no permit�a a las mujeres acercarse al cad�ver -a?adi� Manuel- Son falacias, por supuesto.
Pens� que quiz�s mi madre habr�a sentido algo similar a la orgullosa impotencia que revelaba la mujer en la pintura. Cuando se percat� que mi padre y ella morir�an juntos, experimentar�a, en medio del terror del accidente a�reo, el alivio de saber que mi padre era ya suyo para siempre. Manuel miraba la pintura y me ve�a a m� como queriendo aprehender cada una de mis reacciones.
Comimos un bocadillo en un restaurante de paredes cubiertas de azulejos donde serv�an, seg�n Manuel, la mejor sangr�a de Madrid. La bebida dulce donde el vino se escond�a entre sabores de frutas me puso acaloradas las mejillas. Luego Manuel detuvo un taxi, y dio la direcci�n de su casa.
En el recorrido no sentamos muy cerca. Percib�a junto a mi falda la tensi�n de su pierna estabiliz�ndose cuando el taxi tomaba las curvas. No me apart�. En el apartamento Manuel encendi� el fuego de la chimenea. Era mediados de Septiembre, pero el oto?o anunciaba ya el fr�o del invierno. El hablaba y fumaba con el rostro envuelto por un halo rojizo. Dec�a no s� qu� cosas de los libros que hab�a le�do en la semana. Yo no pod�a ponerle atenci�n. Intentaba aquietar mi azoramiento para que �l no se percatara del efecto que la conjunci�n de sus fantas�as y las m�as estaban teniendo sobre mi cuerpo y mi alma. Me pregunt� sobre el internado. Mi vida de colegiala con su rutina cotidiana no era materia para alimentar una conversaci�n, dije. Yo ten�a preguntas que hacerle a �l, sin embargo, continu�, interrogantes surgidas en el silencio de las misas matinales, o en las largas horas de estudio callado.
-?Por qu� tanto inter�s por Juana La Loca? ?C�mo es que empezaste a estudiarla, que te dio por saber tanto de ella, de esa �poca?
-Es de familia -dijo Manuel aspirando el humo y mir�ndome fijo, con cierta iron�a- Mis ancestros se ocuparon mucho de Do?a Juana. Crec� escuchando historias de ella y en cierto momento quise saber, como historiador, la realidad de tantas ficciones. Sabr�s que uno de los trabajos m�s apasionantes del historiador es separar los datos falsos que el tiempo acumula sobre un personaje o un evento.
-Tus ancestros eran historiadores tambi�n.
-No exactamente. El rol de mis ancestros en la vida de la reina fue m�s bien detestable. Quiz�s por eso siento que le debo una enmienda al menos a su memoria.
Su apellido paterno, Sandoval y Rojas, proven�a del linaje de los Marqueses de Denia. A la muerte del Rey Fernando de Arag�n, Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas primero, y luego su hijo, Luis, fueron comisionados por el hijo de Juana, Carlos I de Espa?a y V de Alemania para administrar la casa de �sta en Tordesillas.
-Administrar es un eufemismo, sin embargo -dijo Manuel- Realmente fueron comisionados para mantener aislada a la Reina y no dejar que hablara, ni se comunicara con nadie. La rodearon de servidores leales al Marqu�s, cuya complicidad fue esencial para crear alrededor de Juana un mundo ficticio. Sabr�s que estuvo cuarenta y siete a?os encerrada all� -Manuel se levant� sacudi�ndose las cenizas del pantal�n como si esta tarea le demandara toda su concentraci�n.
-Lo s�, pero no logro comprenderlo- confes�, poni�ndome de pie para servirme un vaso de agua en cocina - La verdad es que s� muy poco de Juana La Loca.
-No est�s sola. La verdad que los seres humanos sabemos muy poco de quienes nos precedieron en el tiempo. Heredamos sus afanes, pero no sus experiencias. Te aseguro, sin embargo, que cuando termine de contarte esta historia, sentir�s que has sido parte de ella, que Juana y t� no son tan distintas la una de la otra. T�, en su lugar, habr�as sentido similares pasiones; la misma rabia, la misma desesperaci�n... quiz�s hasta el mismo entregado amor. Reviviremos a esa reina. S�lo as� podremos comprenderla y juzgarla con acierto. Pero ya sabes mis condiciones. Bajar� a ayudarte con el traje.
Bajamos otra vez al espacio oscuro de su habitaci�n y otra vez me desnud�, esta vez m�s despacio, sintiendo que mi turbaci�n daba paso al placer, como si cada parte de m� que se libraba de ropa, estuviera saliendo por primera vez a la luz y al descubrirse frente a otro se descubriera a s� misma. Sentado sobre un banquillo con las piernas abiertas, los codos apoyados sobre las piernas y la barbilla entre las manos, Manuel me observaba, pero tanto �l como yo evitamos vernos a los ojos.
Finalmente �l me ci?� las cintas que cruzaban por la espalda y se anudaban en la cintura. Era curioso el efecto del traje y de aquella ceremonia sobre mi psiquis. Como si el contacto de mi piel con la falda voluminosa, la seda, el terciopelo, animara en mi mente qui�n sabe qu� oscuras memorias de otros tiempos y me hiciera, adem�s, ceder mi voluntad a voces de la historia que se mov�an entre Manuel y yo como almas en pena necesitadas de revelar sus secretos. Me preguntaba si acaso yo no habr�a vivido esa �poca en una vida anterior, si el hecho de que Manuel y yo nos encontr�ramos carec�a de casualidad y era m�s bien algo inevitable, el resultado de una cadena de hechos que forzosamente conduc�an a esta tarde, a este apartamento en Madrid.
Manuel se sienta detr�s de m�. Susurra. Soy Juana.
Es 1485, el reino de Arag�n ha recuperado N�poles de los franceses. Sin embargo las tensiones persisten. Escaramuzas fronterizas estallan a menudo en Rosell�n y Fuenterrab�a. Para sellar una alianza con la casa de los Habsburgo destinada a aislar al rey franc�s Luis XII, mis padres deciden concertar un doble matrimonio. Mi hermano Juan -el pr�ncipe heredero- y yo, casaremos con los hijos de Maximiliano de Austria y Mar�a de Borgo?a. Juan casar� con Margarita de Austria y yo con el Archiduque Felipe.
Para desterrar la imagen de incesantes conflictos, atraso y anarqu�a que, antes de la llegada al poder de mis padres, ha existido de nuestro pa�s en Europa, mis padres conciben nuestras bodas como una ocasi�n para desplegar la magnificencia de sus reinos. Que no se diga m�s que la corte espa?ola carece de los brillos y suntuosidades de sus vecinos. Mi madre supervisar� personalmente la construcci�n y organizaci�n de la armada que tras llevarme a m� a Flandes, regresar� con la princesa Margarita, futura reina de Espa?a.
El pacto matrimonial acuerda que ninguna de las novias reciba dote. Cada esposo abastecer� su casa y atender� las cortes correspondientes con el producto de rentas establecidas. Esta disposici�n resultar�, m�s adelante, nefasta para m� pero en aquel momento de arreglos y buenas voluntades nadie duda que sea una medida acertada.
Ignorante de los pormenores que discut�an mis padres con los embajadores borgo?ones, yo me preocup� �nicamente por impresionarlos. Me vest� con un traje carmes� de pesado terciopelo y bajo escote. At� a mi garganta una cinta negra de seda de la que pend�a el rub� que mi madre me regalara en ocasi�n de mi compromiso. As� ataviada, con el cabello recogido en un mo?o apretado que tirando de mi piel realzaba la forma almendrada y el tama?o de mis ojos, me asom� al balc�n del sal�n de audiencias justo cuando calcul� que no pasar�a desapercibida. Las miradas de los nobles no se hicieron esperar. Me complaci� percibir la aprobaci�n que revelaban sus murmullos en franc�s, sus sonrisas y reverencias. Logrado mi cometido, me retir� otra vez. No tard� mucho en aparecer Leonor, una de las m�s j�venes damas de compa?�a de mi madre. Entre risas cont� que uno de los embajadores hab�a solicitado autorizaci�n a la Reina para que el pintor flamenco, Michel Sittow, me hiciera un retrato. As� la corte borgo?ona y mi futuro esposo conocer�an de adelantado la veracidad de las palabras con que ellos describir�an mi belleza.
Desde que se concert� mi compromiso, mi vida pas� a girar totalmente alrededor de los preparativos de la boda. A diferencia de mi hermana Isabel, que cas� con el Rey Alfonso de Portugal, yo no me casar�a con un rey. Sin embargo, los preparativos para mi traslado a Flandes fueron los m�s ostentosos y ricos de que se tuviera memoria en las cortes Castellanas. Apenas cuatro a?os hab�an transcurrido desde la Reconquista de Granada, la conquista de las Islas Canarias y el descubrimiento de las Indias Occidentales. En esos cuatro a?os, el reinado de mis padres se consagr� como uno de los m�s pr�speros y s�lidos de Europa. Las noticias de las enormes riquezas descubiertas en las Indias, donde se rumoraba exist�an ciudades enteras construidas con plata y oro; la firmeza de mis padres para imponer en la pen�nsula el mandato de la Corona y subyugar tanto a la nobleza d�scola, como al clero corrupto, anunciaban tiempos de ventura para quienes el Papa Alejandro VI bautizara como los Reyes Cat�licos. Nunca vi a mi madre con m�s br�os de los que hizo gala cuando se dedic� a preparar la faustuosa armada que me llevar�a a Flandes. Los preparativos para mi viaje empezaron en el verano de 1495. Desde la primavera, la corte real se traslad� a la Villa de Almaz�n donde los reyes supervisar�an la construcci�n de la flota en los astilleros del Cant�brico. Fue una �poca muy dichosa para m�. Mi padre que, hasta entonces, no me paraba muchas mientes, se transform� en mi amigo y c�mplice. Me sentaba sobre sus piernas o me llevaba a los astilleros para mostrarme el progreso de los artesanos que constru�an las carracas genovesas que trasladar�an mi s�quito multitudinario. A �stas se sumar�an adem�s otras quince vizca�nas y cinco carabelas donde viajar�an los cinco mil soldados que me acompa?ar�an para asegurar la navegaci�n segura frente a las costas de la hostil Francia. Yo disfrutaba observando el efecto que su presencia ten�a sobre el enjambre de afanados trabajadores. El poder sentaba muy bien a mi padre. Ten�a el don innato de la autoridad. Su cuerpo fuerte y atl�tico ocupaba m�s espacio del que f�sicamente le correspond�a. A�n los cortesanos de m�s alcurnia, instintivamente guardaban alrededor de �l una prudente distancia, como si respetasen el foso invisible de un castillo. Que tendiera el puente levadizo cuando yo me acercaba, me hac�a sentir infinitamente importante y especial. Orgullosa reconoc�a en m� rasgos de su talante y si antes me esforzaba por endulzar mi car�cter y comportarme como complaciente damisela, esos meses me ense?aron las ventajas de no falsear mis opiniones, ni sacrificar mis pareceres para ganar la enga?osa y moment�nea aprobaci�n de cortesanos zalameros.
Mi madre se complac�a vi�ndonos tan cercanos. Desafortunadamente, ese par�ntesis de felicidad filial dur� pocos meses. A fines de Junio, los franceses volvieron al ataque en Perpi?�n y mi padre sali� en Julio hacia Catalu?a. Recuerdo que al despedirse me llam� "reinecita". Dijo que, a sugerencias de Juan de Arbolancha, mi madre hab�a solicitado que los cientos de barcos laneros que viajaban a Flandes escoltaran la comitiva nupcial. Ciento treinta y dos barcos zarpar�an al un�sono. No te desposar�s con un rey, sonri� mi padre, pero nadie dudar� que mereces ser reina. Sub� a la almena para verlo partir y all� estuve hasta que desapareci� la cabalgata que lo acompa?aba. Sab�a que no volver�a a verlo por largo tiempo y que todo ser�a diferente. ?No imagin� cuanto!. Fue mi madre entonces quien se encarg� de apertrechar las naves. Ella seleccion� a los cinco mil soldados que me acompa?ar�an y entren� a los m�s de dos mil miembros de mi s�quito en los particulares de la Corte de Flandes.
El 20 de Agosto todo estaba presto para partir. El abordaje de las naves empez� desde el amanecer. Por la tarde, de improviso, una tormenta se ensa?� sobre la Bah�a de Vizcaya. Yo hab�a terminado de acomodarme en mi camarote. Constaba de un espacio amplio y una alcoba con la cama adosada al costado de la nave. Una gruesa cortina de terciopelo bermell�n separaba una estancia de la otra. En la ante-c�mara hab�a sillas, un escritorio peque?o, un div�n y un peque?o armario para mis instrumentos musicales. A mi lado, mi madre se asomaba, por las mirillas cubiertas por holandas, al horizonte oscuro y las crestas agitadas del mar. Al menos el calor se hab�a apaciguado y ella y yo ten�amos un momento de soledad tras el ajetreo del abordaje. Esperar�amos juntas el paso de la tormenta, dijo. Quiz�s ese tiempo era un regalo de Dios nos conced�a antes de separarnos.
-Estar�s lejos, Juana. Eres joven e impresionable y temo por ti en la corte de Flandes.
?Qu� sientes t�, una muchacha de diecis�is a?os a punto de dejar todo lo que le es familiar y amable y embarcarse en un viaje sin retorno? -pregunt� Manuel.
-Miedo, pero tambi�n excitaci�n. Pienso en el marido que me espera, me pregunto si ser� feliz, si de veras ser� "el hermoso".
Tocar�as el clavicordio, aunque tambi�n conoc�as el monocordio y la guitarra. De las hijas de Isabel, eres la m�s educada. Esa noche, en la velada que sigue a la cena, mientras la carraca se balancea en el agua, r�es con las j�venes damas de tu corte y tu madre piensa en lo hermosa que eres y trata de que no se le ablande el coraz�n tan bien entrenado para el infortunio y la discordia. T� la miras de reojo porque presientes su turbaci�n y su tristeza. Percibir que le causas esos sentimientos te llena de cierta oscura alegr�a. Tu madre nunca ha sido afectuosa y a menudo te has preguntado si es capaz de amarte como te ama tu nodriza Mar�a Santiestevan, quien se despidi� de ti en Valladolid con el viejo rostro convulso por los sollozos. Por eso, el espect�culo de tu madre turbada en medio del jolgorio y las bromas, te hace sentirte amada e importante, te alegra las incertidumbres del viaje. No te arredra la traves�a porque el mar te gusta y desde ni?a lo has considerado como una l�quida alfombra m�gica capaz de transportarte lejos. Es el desembarco el que te inquieta.
Desde que mis pies cruzaron el puente de proa de la carraca del Capit�n Juan P�rez, en medio de los fardos y la carga, comprend� que el equipaje que m�s cuenta lo llevo dentro de m�: llevo mi nobleza, la sangre de mis ilustres antepasados, la Espa?a de mi coraz�n. Cuando mi madre se despida y desembarque, ser� yo el ancla y motor de esta expedici�n. Ser� a m� a quien obedezca el s�quito. Mientras tanto gozo de la intimidad inesperada con Isabel, gozo viendo como la ternura aletea sobre su rostro y pone en sus ojos brillos que jam�s antes vi. L�grimas. ?Ser� posible? Esa noche ella y yo dormimos en el mismo lecho. Desde que era muy peque?a no la veo en camisa de dormir. Despojada de sus ropas reales es s�lo una mujer sobre cuya espalda desciende un arroyo de pelo largo y entrecano. Un rostro afilado recostado en las almohadas. Tengo que pedirle a mi boca un gesto melanc�lico, apagar mis ojos para que ella no perciba la exaltaci�n que, m�s all� del temor, me produce la idea de vivir en la Corte de Flandes, como esposa del Archiduque de Borgo?a. Desde ni?a he o�do las historias del boato y colorido de esa corte. He admirado el trabajo de sus exquisitos orfebres, las armaduras sin par de sus herreros, los tapices de sus telares. De sobra conocida es la magnificencia de sus justas, as� como el fausto de sus banquetes y festividades. Tambi�n he o�do las cr�ticas mordaces sobre las licenciosas costumbres de la nobleza flamenca. Siempre me ha parecido adivinar un dejo de envidia en los m�s escandalizados por la liberalidad de esa corte; por las pr�cticas que, seg�n ellos, son contrarias a la austeridad castellana. Sucede que �ltimamente, entre nosotros, hasta una irrelevante falta de recato puede convertirse en motivo suficiente para que intervenga el severo Tribunal de la Santa Inquisici�n.
Mi madre fija sus ojos en m� y me mira como quien se viera en un espejo. Est� conmigo pero tambi�n s� que est� lejos, su mente siempre viendo m�s de lo que ve. Me pregunto si recordar� acaso la boda con mi padre realizada en secreto y contraviniendo la voluntad de su hermano, el rey Enrique IV. Me ha contado de los trucos que us� mi padre para entrar al castillo de Medina del Campo donde se realiz� la �ntima y secreta ceremonia. Ella tambi�n cuando se despos� albergar�a la ansiedad confusa que siento yo, agravada en su caso por la incertidumbre de si llegar�a o no a ocupar el trono de Castilla.
-No olvides que te debes a Espa?a -me dice- Tu padre y yo hemos empe?ado nuestra juventud, nuestra salud, en unificar este pa�s. Este matrimonio tuyo nos har� de importantes aliados y fortalecer� nuestra posici�n frente a Francia. Comp�rtate como lo que eres, una princesa de Castilla y Arag�n, que no se deja seducir por retru�canos, ni excesos- me aconseja-. -Llevas un s�quito numeroso para que te sientas rodeada de los tuyos. Ap�yate en quien preside tu corte, nuestro almirante, Don Fadrique Enr�quez, hombre nobil�simo, y en la nobleza de Beatriz de Bobadilla, j�ven pero sabia. Quiz�s te resulte extra?o el matrimonio cuando aun no conoces a tu marido, pero la juventud de ambos ser� tierra arada para la semilla que quer�is plantar. Deja que tu decisi�n sea la de amarlo y el amor se te dar�. No seas esquiva y controla tu temperamento fogoso. El fuego en las mujeres asusta a los hombres. Hay que guardarlo con discreci�n para que no desate aguaceros que terminen por apagarlo.
Mi madre habla y habla y su voz va y viene en mis o�dos al comp�s del balanceo del barco en el agua, al comp�s de las r�fagas de viento sobre la bah�a de Vizcaya en esa noche oscura iluminada a intervalos por el restallar de rel�mpagos lejanos.
Al d�a siguiente, llueve. Yo permanezco en mi camarote, mientras mi madre ocupa su agitaci�n con las damas de la corte revisando las provisiones del viaje. A la noche, ella y yo cenamos con Beatriz Galindo. A la hora del postre, �sta se saca del corpi?o un frasco peque?o preparado por las esclavas moras. Una p�cima de amor, me dice, que debo tomar y hacer que tome mi marido. Le han asegurado que es un filtro infalible que har� que �l y yo nos amemos hasta el fin de nuestros d�as.
Beatriz vierte la mitad del frasco en mi copa de vino y la tomo sin rechistar pensando en Isolda y en los peligrosos equ�vocos del amor.
Mi madre y Beatriz r�en como ni?as que han hecho travesuras.
-Ya veremos si funciona -dice la Reina- y no le cuentes esto a tu padre. Estos son secretos de mujeres.
Re�amos a�n cuando se person� a la puerta el Almirante de la Armada, Don Sancho de Baz�n, para informarnos que la tormenta hab�a amainado y que se avecinaba un viento favorable. Con la venia real, zarpar�amos muy temprano al d�a siguiente.
Mi madre alab� a Dios y extendi� su consentimiento para la partida. Discreta como era, Beatriz se march� y nos dej� solas. Poco dormimos esa noche, pensando que quiz�s nunca m�s estar�amos juntas.
-Ya ver�s cu�n duro es, Juana, desprenderse de los hijos. Si en la vida cotidiana, mientras crec�is, uno os mira y apenas comprende que hay�is surgido de la propia entra?a, basta un peligro o una despedida, para que el cuerpo de una se rebele y ans�e la sangre correr en pos de las venas que alguna vez aliment�. Pero es ley de la vida que el m�s grande amor sea el m�s entregado, el que no se deja nada para s�. Me siento infinitamente triste y feliz. Triste porque pierdo a mi ni?a; feliz porque gano una colaboradora en esta empresa de hacer m�s grande y pr�spera a Espa?a.
Al d�a siguiente, apenas amanec�a cuando todo estuvo a punto. La despedida se prolong� con el besamanos de la comitiva a la reina y las recomendaciones de �sta. Por fin lleg� mi turno. O� el coraz�n de mi madre cuando me apret� contra su pecho. ?Qu� fuerte lat�a!. No quer�amos llorar, pero tampoco salirnos la una de los brazos de la otra. Nada dijimos. Ella me hizo sobre la frente la se?al de la cruz. Me arrodill� y bes� su mano.
Mi madre permaneci� en el muelle y yo en la cubierta de la carraca hasta que la distancia borr� la bah�a y me qued� sola frente al mar sin fin y el cielo claro y azul de un d�a de inusitada transparencia. Me parec�a viajar sobre una cometa arrastrando una larga cola. Hasta donde mi vista alcanzaba ondeaban los brillantes colores de las banderolas y penachos que adornaban los m�stiles de las ciento treinta y una embarcaciones que me acompa?aban. Era un espect�culo espl�ndido. Me sent� personaje de una canci�n de amor que cantar�an los juglares. Acompa?ada por Don Fadrique y otros caballeros y damas de la corte pas� muchas horas esos primeros d�as sobre la cubierta de la carraca, admirando la calma de las olas y las manadas de delfines que nos acompa?aban grandes trechos saltando sin esfuerzo al lado de las embarcaciones. Naveg�bamos en parejas. Mi carraca genovesa ocupaba el centro de la armada.
A los tres d�as de navegaci�n estable y sin tropiezos, se desat� una furiosa tormenta que nos oblig� a fondear en el puerto ingl�s de Portsmouth. Durante los dos d�as que deb� permanecer en tierra, recib� el homenaje de los nobles ingleses. Se presentaron sin demora no bien corri� la voz de la ciudad flotante aparecida en las aguas del puerto. Me hosped� en el castillo de Portchester, a la orilla del mar. Era una edificaci�n antigua con salones malamente iluminados, pero nuestros anfitriones hicieron cuanto pudieron por albergarnos c�modamente. Tras ocho horas de soportar un mar embravecido que nos zarande� inclemente, la mayor parte de mi s�quito era una ruina de rostros p�lidos y desencajados. Porque la navegaci�n no me afectaba ni el equilibrio ni el est�mago, les parec� de singular belleza a los ingleses, seg�n no se cansaron de repetirme. S�lo a?os m�s tarde me enter� de que el mismo rey Enrique VII lleg� en secreto para contemplarme de lejos, ya que el protocolo no permit�a que un rey se desplazase del sitio de asiento de su trono para recibir a una princesa. Aparentemente, exageraron de tal modo mi hermosura que no pudo resistir la tentaci�n de verme personalmente. Para m� que saciaba su curiosidad. Mi hermana Catalina estaba por comprometerse con su hijo y �l querr�a mirar el tipo de linaje con el que estaba cercano a emparentarse.
Tras ese percance continuamos viaje sin nuevos contratiempos hasta que nos topamos con los bancos de arena de nuestro destino en el puerto de Arnemuiden en Flandes, al cual llegu� el 9 de Septiembre de 1496. Todav�a en alta mar me trasladaron a una vizca�na en la que arrib� a la que ser�a mi patria adoptiva. Entre tanto, otra carraca genovesa cargada de regalos para la corte flamenca encall� e hizo agua por la quilla. Originalmente, mi ajuar consistente en m�s de cincuenta ba�les, viajar�a en esa nave. Por fortuna, mi madre dispuso a �ltima hora trasladar todas mis pertenencias a la nave insignia, de manera que yo no tuve demasiado que lamentar. M�s bien mi insistencia de que se ocuparan todas las vizca�nas disponibles para recoger a los n�ufragos, evit� que perecieran ahogados el pasaje y los tripulantes.
-Luc�a, ?c�mo crees que ir�a Juana en ese viaje?
-Azorada, embelesada. Le habr� gustado el recibimiento de los ingleses, irradiar su propia luz, no depender de la de los padres. Yo bien que recuerdo esa experiencia de "no ser" de mi ni?ez . Los mayores me miraban para encontrar los rasgos de mis padres en m�, como si se tratase de evaluar la calidad de la copia. No era yo quien les interesaba. El objetivo de sus atenciones era congraciarse con ellos. A Juana le pasar�a lo mismo. En el viaje tomar�a conciencia de que separarse de su casa y su familia le permit�a ser ella misma. Ser�a como el polluelo que sale del cascar�n, y horas despu�s ya no titubea sobre el pasto. Quiz�s por eso no se mareaba cuando los dem�s sucumb�an al zarandeo del mar; querr�a afirmar su car�cter. Desde peque?a su valent�a, su fuerza f�sica, causaban admiraci�n -?no es cierto?- . En cuanto a su belleza no s� cu�n consciente estar�a de ella. Lo digo un poco por m� misma -guardando las distancias. Me gusta lo que veo en el espejo, no te voy a decir que no, pero todo depende del d�a y de mi estado de �nimo. Intuyo que la belleza f�sica est� llena de contradicciones. Uno sabe, tanto por intuici�n como por el mundo que nos rodea, que la belleza no es un don despreciable para una mujer. M�s de una vez rec� para que Dios me librara de ser fea. Pero claro, tambi�n me pregunto si la fealdad realmente existe, si es justo decir que alguien es feo, como si esto tuviera la menor importancia. Sin duda que no la tiene si uno es del sexo masculino.
Me hab�a girado para ver a Manuel sentado detr�s de m� con el rostro inclinado hacia adelante, roz�ndome el brazo que puse sobre el espaldar de la silla. Su mirada atenta parec�a querer atisbar otro tiempo a trav�s de m�. Sus ojos no se deten�an ni en los m�os, ni en los confines de la sala. De pronto puso su frente sobre mi brazo, como si estuviese abrumado. Tras un instante de recogimiento suyo e incomodidad m�a, pareci� recuperarse y me sonri� una disculpa.
Record� la primera vez que fui a su apartamento. Tomamos vino en el almuerzo y, como me puse so?olienta, me invit� a echarme sobre el sof� y dormir un rato. Eran casi las cuatro de la tarde. Deb�a regresar al colegio en dos horas, pero el metro de Noviciado estaba muy cerca. Sab�a que si lograba dormitar al menos diez minutos se me quitar�a la sensaci�n de pesadez. Cerr� los ojos. Lo o� moverse por el piso, encender el fuego, llenar de agua la cafetera. Por la ventana se filtraban los ruidos de Domingo del barrio: conversaciones de transe�ntes, coches que pasaban espor�dicamente, puertas que se cerraban. Eran sonidos que parec�an lejanos, apagados, que no lograban penetrar la pl�cida quietud de la hora de la siesta, como si quedaran atrapados en el borde del c�rculo est�tico al centro del cual estaba el sof� donde yo yac�a cuan larga era. A pesar que, desde entonces, se me cruz� por la mente que las monjas no aprobar�an que visitara el apartamento de un hombre que apenas conoc�a, me gust� la idea de estar all�. Me sent� muy c�moda y adulta. La soledad que rodeaba a Manuel actuaba como un v�nculo instant�neo entrambos. Una especie de virtud compartida. No se me ocurri� pensar que hubiera nada inusual en aquel hombre entusiasmado por la amistad y la compa?�a de una chiquilla como yo. Me despert� con los dedos largos de Manuel acarici�ndome la cabeza. Cuando abr� los ojos su cara estaba muy cerca de la m�a y su boca me bes� levemente en los labios. "Despierta, peque?a", me dijo, mir�ndome con ternura. A menudo pens� en aquel beso durante el verano, siempre con una curiosa sensaci�n de cosquillas en la boca.
-Sigamos -dijo- interrumpiendo mis reminiscencias- quiero contarte el encuentro entre Juana y Felipe El Hermoso.
Has llegado a Arnemuiden. La noticia que te espera nada m�s desembarcar es que tu prometido no ha llegado a recibirte. Te lo informa una dama espa?ola, Mar�a Manuel, la esposa de Balduino de Borgo?a, encargado por el rey Maximiliano de Austria de darte la bienvenida, junto con un peque?o grupo de acompa?antes.
Para trasladarme de la carraca a la vizca�na que me llevar�a a tierra, yo hab�a insistido en vestir uno de mis m�s bellos trajes dorados. Las palabras de Don Fadrique, Do?a Beatriz y las otras damas de mi corte, no lograran disuadirme. Yo quer�a lucir mi tez y mis cabellos negros, distraer la atenci�n de mi coraz�n que marcaba el tiempo como un reloj descomunal. La pompa de mis vestiduras, los volantes, el verdugo, convirtieron el traslado a la vizca�na en alta mar en una haza?a. Hubo que bajarme de la nave como un fardo pesado e in�til. Lo soport� pensando en los ojos deslumbrados de mi prometido. Al llegar a tierra, sin embargo, s�lo se acercaron a recibirme un grupo de adustas damas espa?olas. La agobiante sensaci�n de rid�culo que me invadi� me puso de p�simo humor. Jam�s me hab�a sentido as� de humillada. Pens� en el esfuerzo de mi madre por desplegar la gloria de Espa?a en aquella armada impresionante que, desde la costa, daba al horizonte el aspecto de una calle de gran ciudad engalanada para un d�a de festividades. Semejante desplante me confund�a. Do?a Mar�a y Don Balduino, disimulaban su contrariedad. Iban ataviados a la manera borgo?ona: ella con sombrero muy alto,traje de fin�simo brocado rematado con pu?os y cuello de encaje, �l con bombachas cortas, finas medias ocre, zapatos de gamuza con arabescos y un peto de rombos trenzados en hilo de oro. Do?a Mar�a, muy locuaz, estaba �vida de noticias de la corte castellana y nos puso al tanto de los preparativos del viaje de la novia de mi hermano Juan, Margarita.
En la carroza, camino a nuestro hospedaje, ya fuera del alcance de o�dos indiscretos, Do?a Mar�a nos inform� que, aunque mi suegro, el emperador Maximiliano, compart�a la posici�n espa?ola de que era necesario aislar a los Valois, los consejeros que, desde ni?o rodeaban a Felipe y gran parte de la nobleza borgo?ona privilegiaban la relaci�n con los franceses. Recelaban de la poderosa flota, la cantidad de soldados y el numeroso s�quito que me acompa?aba. Lo consideraban un gesto inequ�voco de la influencia que, tras mi matrimonio, los Reyes Cat�licos pretend�an tener sobre Flandes. Los flamencos se propon�an sin duda ignorar el poder�o de Espa?a. La corte flamenca admiraba a Francia. A nosotros, en cambio, nos criticaban por llanos, r�gidos, petulantes y mojigatos.
-Debe usted saber, Alteza, que a vuestro prometido, el Archiduque, no s�lo se le llama Felipe El Hermoso, sino Felipe, el Aconsejable, "Croit Conseil", pues conf�a ciegamente en sus consejeros.
-El Archiduque ha pedido que viaj�is a Brujas donde os han preparado una recepci�n -intervino Don Balduino.
-Pero podr�ais elegir viajar con nosotros a Bergen-op-Zoom. El Se?or Jean de Berghes me ha pedido que os extienda una cordial invitaci�n para que asist�is al bautizo de su hija y se�is la madrina. Bergues es chambel�n del Archiduque, pero fiel a la corona de Castilla y Arag�n -me dijo Do?a Mar�a, con una sonrisa p�cara de labios delgados.
La clara insinuaci�n no cay� en o�dos sordos. La verdad era que en aquel momento nada me pareci� m�s adecuado que romper los planes de mi prometido. Todav�a no desaparec�a el acaloramiento que me produjo el chasco de tener que pasearme con mi vestido dorado y sin gal�n ante la multitud que se aglomer� en el puerto.
-Me encantan los bautizos -respond�- Ya habr� tiempo para visitar Brujas.
-Dejemoslo all�. Ya es hora de que regreses al colegio.
No acept� que me llevara. Nos despedimos a la entrada del metro. Sentada en el tren, no pod�a dejar de pensar en la desilusi�n de Juana. Distra�da, me confund� de estaci�n y llegu� al colegio unos minutos despu�s de las seis. La cena hab�a comenzado. Madre Luisa Magdalena me mir� desde el podio donde vigilaba el refectorio. De camino al estudio me pregunt� si hab�a tenido alg�n contratiempo.
a de regreso, uno de los viejos libreros en la Cuesta de Moyano decidi� contarme su vida -dije- Me dio pena interrumpirlo. Hoy vi en El Prado a la Juana La Loca de Pradilla. Me impresion�.
-Es muy hermoso. Mira que a m� me extra?� verte llegar sin tu raci�n de pasteler�a -sonri�.
Baj� la cabeza para evitar mirarla a los ojos. Tem�a su perspicacia y que me leyera la mentira en la cara pero no quer�a decirle la verdad. La pol�tica de las monjas era siempre preventiva. Antes que confiar en que uno tuviera suficiente juicio prefer�an evitar que uno lo ejerciera del todo. El afecto que me profesaba Madre Luisa Magdalena, no era ninguna garant�a de que aprobar�a mis acciones. Ante todo, era una monja.

Un blog propio, lunes, noviembre 08, 2004

De c�mo un encuentro de escritoras termin� en desencuentro con machos por Eve Gil

El pasado VI Encuentro Internacional de Escritoras In�s Arredondo, efectuado entre el 23 y el 26 de septiembre, suscit� un par de ins�pidas notitas en los diarios de la ciudad sede, Guadalajara, y una que otra en los de circulaci�n nacional. De hecho, el �nico que cubri� con seriedad e inteligencia dicho acontecimiento fue La Cr�nica de Hoy, a trav�s de su editora de cultura, Mar�a Lourdes Pallais (que es, asimismo, una espl�ndida novelista aunque haya acudido en plan de reportera). Con tristeza constat� que nadie entendi� el verdadero prop�sito de este encuentro: a la indiferencia manifiesta en un par de notitas de inc�moda localizaci�n, perdidas en un maremagno de notas consideradas de mayor relevancia no obstante ser de �ndole local y no internacional -aunque uno de estos diarios, El informador, �prest� a unas edecanes que se apostaron en las mesas de an�lisis, con la intenci�n, seguramente, de embellecer un ambiente de feas y fr�gidas acad�micas, de �mujeres que saben lat�n, sin marido ni buen fin�, que, ?oh iron�a!, resultaron ser mucho m�s bellas y voluptuosas que dichas se?oritas-, se suma la evidente ineptitud de los an�nimos rese?istas para captar el mensaje principal de las magistrales conferencias de las maravillosas escritoras Ana Mar�a Navales y Alicia Steimberg (espa?ola y argentina respectivamente), ya no digamos las ponencias que iban mucho, pero mucho m�s all� de enaltecer la �literatura femenina� por encima de la �masculina�, como absurdamente destacaron algunos que confundieron una celebraci�n del ingenio femenino con una asamblea de feministas rabiosas y castradoras. El lema del encuentro, que cada a?o tiene su sede en un pa�s distinto (el pr�ximo ser� en Galicia, Espa?a, la tierra de Rosal�a de Castro), no insin�a en ning�n momento que el tema a tratar sea la literatura femenina, por una raz�n muy sencilla: no existe tal literatura, por m�s que se hayan devanado los sesos para demostrarlo los detractores varones de este encuentro, �tan desnudos de noticias�: la cr�tica de y para la obra escrita por mujeres, era el verdadero asunto a tratar. �La literatura no tiene sexo -escribi� Francisco Arvizu en su columna de El informador titulada �La fosa y el p�ndulo�, suponiendo seguramente que descubr�a el hilo negro -. Primero, o es o no es (respecto a la mera redacci�n); segundo, hay �nicamente buena o mala literatura.� Esta frase, que aparece como metida como con calzador entre notas sueltas relacionadas con la presentaci�n de un libro, las declaraciones de un asesor del Centro Cultural Universitario y el derribo de �rboles (esto �ltimo alarmante en verdad, pero nada que ver con el dilema gen�rico planteado porArvizu), no hace menci�n al Encuentro de Escritoras, pero se publica justo cuando �ste se est� llevando a cabo, lo que nos hace sospechar que el titular de la citada columna repudia dicho encuentro. El que las escritoras y acad�micas se re�nan a hablar acerca de otras escritoras, por la simple y sencilla raz�n de que ning�n cr�tico var�n se ha molestado en abordar y estudiar la obra de las mismas (alguien tiene que hacerlo entonces, ?no?, sobre todo si estas autoras se encuentran a la altura de los autores m�s laureados y son, no obstante, desconocidas), da pie a toda clase de suspicacias, malos entendidos y bromas de p�simo gusto.

El punto culminante de este evento lo marcar�a la participaci�n de los cr�ticos varones. En lo personal, esperaba que �stos, como el resto de las ponentes (entre ellos mi esposo, maestro en letras mexicanas por la UNAM, que, de principio, supuse ser�a incluido en la mesa de los varones, cosa que no fue as� aunque no tardar�a en comprender por qu�), ?analizara la obra de alguna escritora en particular, como hizo mi esposo; o que rindiera un enriquecedor punto de vista masculino acerca del quehacer literario de sus colegas mujeres, pero empec� a sospechar que la cosa iba por otro lado cuando un d�a antes de su participaci�n en aqu�lla, la mesa m�s esperada, el escritor jalisciense Dante Medina (que por su extra?o acento confund� con franc�s), que formar�a parte de la misma, public� en su columna �Maneras de habitar el mundo�, tambi�n de El informador, los siguientes comentarios bajo el t�tulo (y dale) �?Existe la literatura femenina?�:

�Ardua y sencilla pregunta. Ardua, si queremos entender lo esencial de
lo-que-es-masculino y diferenciarlo de lo-que-es femenino. Sencilla, si nos parece de tan poca importancia que nos escabullimos respondiendo: �es como es�, o �es como todo�, o �all� cada quien�(...) Pregunta: ?Existe �la literatura femenina�? Respuestas mexicanas. Respuesta 1: s�, pero no. Respuesta 2: puede que s�, aunque qui�n sabe. Respuesta 3: sea como sea, ni nos perjudica ni nos beneficia, sino todo lo contrario. Respuesta 4: eso depende de lo que cada qui�n entienda por �literatura femenina�, ?no es cierto? Respuesta 5: entonces, digo yo, pues, si es as�, como quien dice ?verdad?, que es como si dij�ramos, a ver, primero nos vienen con que la �literatura femenina� ?y luego qu�? No, chato, van a salirnos quesque con la �literatura masculina�, y de ah� ya no paramos...�

Desconoc�a hasta ese d�a la existencia de Dante Medina, y me disculpo por mi ignorancia pues result� ser uno de los escritores m�s becados y premiados de nuestro pa�s; un genio, un tocado de los dioses, un descendiente de aquel cuyo nombre ostenta... un ching�n, nos dijeron; ?cuidado con �l!, le advirtieron a mi despistado esposo, indigno de compartir el podio con aqu�l por estar m�s interesado en la investigaci�n acad�mica que en ser amigo de los se?ores que se reparten el queso; loado sea Dante, aunque su estilo cantinflesco me hizo albergar ciertas dudas: ya sabemos, de todos modos, c�mo las gastan en el medio literario oficializado donde el talento es lo que menos importa. Al d�a siguiente de leer estos ins�litos comentarios asist� a la mesa precedida por Medina y otros dos varones, al parecer acad�micos de la UAG, Jos� Br� y Jorge Souza (tambi�n estaban programados Ildefonso Meza y Rogelio Guedea, y quienes, una de dos, o menospreciaron el tema, o rehusaron mofarse de las asistentes), en un auditorio que rebosaba de escritoras y
estudiosas de la literatura.

El primero en hablar fue Medina, y lo que dijo, aunque pretend�a sonar m�s dulce, m�s
suave y todav�a m�s ininteligible y capcioso que su comentario period�stico, fue, palabras m�s, palabras menos, que las �nicas y genuinas escritoras de este mundo son las musas; que las escritoras, as� como los escritores, obedecen al dictado de esas divinas tiranas, desnudas y de enhiestos pechos (un pelito le falt� para agregar: 90-60-90, con todo y el consabido adem�n), por consiguiente, �la literatura no tiene sexo�. A su discurso arjonesco, ya no cantinflesco, se sum� el del se?or Br� que empez� diciendo que ten�a cuatro hijas, ocho nietas, treinta t�as y no s� cu�ntas mujeres m�s, con lo que pretendi�, como se dice en el argot popular, ponerse el guarache antes de espinarse. Procedi� a burlarse de esa nueva tendencia de incluir a las mujeres en el discurso (�ciudadanos y ciudadanas�, �compa?eros y compa?eras�, etc.), con lo cual hubiera podido decir que estoy de acuerdo si no fuera porque eso no tiene absolutamente nada que ver con la literatura escrita por mujeres. Concluy� su intervenci�n con una enternecedora revelaci�n: �he le�do a Laura Esquivel y a Isabel Allende, y me encantan�. El tercer participante, Souza, algo m�s prudente, ley� una abalanza a dos personajes jalisciences, Jos� Mar�a Vigil y el Padre Agust�n Rivera, que abogaron por las mujeres con inclinaciones po�ticas a finales del siglo XIX y lleg� el primero de ellos a publicar una antolog�a que nos hizo el infinito favor de titular 89 poetas de finales del siglo XIX, y no 89 poetisas, lo cual, de entrada, habla muy bien de �l. Fue el �nico que aport�, al menos, un dato valioso e interesante, del que los propios Medina y Br� debieron tomar nota. Todo es, a decir de estos dos se?ores, divino y encantador, un para�so donde escritores y escritoras pueden deambular felices y desnudos, a sus anchas, alternando la jugosa manzana del �xito y las becas del Fonca. Los siglos de marginaci�n que han dado origen a que las mujeres se dediquen a rescatar a otras que murieron sin haber recibido el reconocimiento merecido se esfumaron en ese instante, por obra y magia de Medina y Br�. Escritoras silenciadas, marginadas, humilladas y menospreciadas nunca han existido porque ellos as� lo decretaron. Y mi palabra es la ley, dir�a el buen Jos� Alfredo, que por lo menos no se molestaba en fingir que no era mach�n. Ergo: el Encuentro Internacional de Escritoras era una real idiotez y las mujeres ah� reunidas �ramos unas hist�ricas que insist�amos en promover la obra de otras mujeres nada m�s por fastidiar a los hombres. Ya que ninguna de las damas presentes se atrevi� a aclararles de qu� se trataba la cosa y se contentaron con el cuento de las musas y las ochenta y nueve hermanas, tuve que alzar mi mano de mujer necia e impertinente, de u?as mordisqueadas y hambrientas de crema. Se me hizo entrega del micr�fono y les hice la siguiente pregunta, realmente est�pida:

-?Puede alguno de ustedes decirme c�mo es que, si bien William Faulkner y Carson
McCullers triunfaron al un�sono y gozaron del benepl�cito de la cr�tica de su tiempo, que los consideraba igualmente buenos, hoy todo el mundo conoce a Faulkner y ha olvidado a Carson?... ?Por qu� si se considera que los mejores autores que ha dado Austria son Thomas Bernhardt y Elfriede Jelinek, todos saben qui�n es Bernhardt e ignoran qui�n es Jelinek?... ?Por qu� en m�s de cien a?os de Premios Nobel, solamente nueve mujeres han ganado el de literatura?...

La respuesta nunca lleg�, claro. La sigo esperando. Los caballeros se miraban entre s�, como pregunt�ndose unos a otros qui�n era esa vieja gre?uda (o sea, yo), de qu� diablos estaba hablando, qui�nes eran esas Calson y la tal Felinek?... y todo ese rollo del premio Nobel... ?a qui�n le importa el Premio N�bel si no se lo ganaron ni Borges, ni Kafka ni Cort�zar ni Musil? Hombres, hombres, hombres... ?d�ganme el nombre de una sola mujer que ustedes consideren que merezca o haya merecido el Nobel! Silencio. Siempre silencio...

-Lo siento mucho -dijo Dante Medina; un Dante que es exactamente lo contrario de aquel en cuyo honor lo bautizaron: el que am� a una mujer al grado de elevarla por encima del sol y las dem�s estrellas -recon�celo, ustedes, las mujeres, llegaron tarde a la literatura...

-Sor Juana fue lo que Shakespeare a la literatura inglesa, lo que Cervantes a la
literatura espa?ola, lo que Dante (el aut�ntico, no usted) a la literatura italiana: la inauguradora de la literatura mexicana-le record�.

-Pero Homero fue antes que Sor Juana -se jact� ese Dante que se negaba a mirarme a lo ojos por considerarme un insectillo molesto.

-Pero Eukhadiana de Siria fue mucho, mucho antes que Homero... 22000 a?os antes de
Cristo... antes que cualquier otro escritor en el mundo, ?lo sab�a?, escrib�a en tablas sumerias y su padre, que a Dios gracias no era machista como algunos que estoy viendo, mand� a construir una biblioteca para albergar todos los poemas que escribi� su hija en honor a Innana, diosa de la escritura... mujer tambi�n.

Silencio. Bueno, no se discuta m�s, decret� el hom�nimo del poeta que m�s amo en el
mundo, con una pedanter�a y una soberbia impensables en aquel que busc� a su amada en el cielo, aunque ello implicara cruzar el infierno. La poeta quebequense Fran�oise Roy movi� negativamente la cabeza mientras manifestaba su total desacuerdo conmigo. Otra se levant� a tomar el micr�fono para rega?arme... como siempre ha sucedido: la peor enemiga de una mujer es otra, particularmente cuando la ligan intereses mezquinos al influyent�simo hombre que ha sido increpado y cuestionado. ?Para qu� reproducir lo que dijo esta mujer?, no es para ella para quien escribo mi columna, ni ninguno de mis libros futuros y presentes; es para mujeres y hombres con la sensibilidad y la inteligencia suficientes para entender que lo que hago no es marginar la literatura escrita por los hombres (creo que el lector ha descubierto ya mi muy especial devoci�n por la obra del florentino, que incluso es eje de mi pr�xima novela, narrada desde un punto de vista masculino), sino extraer del cofre de los tesoros esas maravillosas y poco conocidas (o completamente desconocidas) obras de autor�a femenina para entreg�rselas; para sorprenderlos (y sorprenderlas, dir�a Br�) con el talento y el genio de tantas escritoras injustamente ignoradas y marginadas.

El resto de las participantes esperaron a que terminara el show para rodearme en el patio del Museo Regional y felicitarme. Debo reconocer que me entristec� porque hubiera preferido ser aplaudida adentro y no afuera, sin embargo entiendo perfectamente que el miedo de las mujeres hacia el avasallante poder�o de los hombres (tenemos 2% de la riqueza mundial, dato que sustenta lo que pretendo explicar y seguramente se refleja en el reparto de las d�divas gubernamentales) todav�a nos asusta por las noches.

Es cierto: no existe una literatura femenina. Nada m�s absurdo, y as� lo manifest� en mi ponencia. Hay mujeres que escriben como hombres (jurar�a que soy una de ellas) y hombres que escriben como mujeres; y mujeres que escriben como tales y hombres que como tal escriben, y lo que verdaderamente importa es la calidad de su escritura. Nada m�s. Lo que nadie puede negar es que hombres como los antes citados no tienen el menor inter�s en leer a sus colegas mujeres; que las marginan, que ellos son los primeros en dividir un bando que se decreta �nico al no invitarlas a sus congresos ni mencionarlas en sus ensayos (a menos que sea para alabar su busto) ni rese?arlas ni tolerarlas ni mirarlas a los ojos ni escucharlas. As�, entonces, vuelvo a preguntar, ?si no nos leemos y estudiamos entre nosotras... qui�n lo har�? ?Dante Medina? ?El se?or que �nicamente ha le�do a Isabel Allende y Laura Esquivel, y por consiguiente cree que todas son iguales?

Huelga decir que ning�n peri�dico prest� importancia a esa minucia.


Eve Gil, narradora y ensayista.
Escribe la columna La Trenza de Sor Juana, en Arena.
evelinamaria@poetic.com

Decisión, Poema

Con la vulva encendida
disfrazada de silencio
escondida en el vacío
dije hasta aquí!
se acabó
y la matê

Mêxico 22 de febrero 2005

La loca de remate

No quiero que nadie lo sepa. Así que, por favor, no se lo cuenten a nadie. Que sea nuestro secreto, porque, a fin de cuentas, a nadie le importa. Tampoco es nada del otro mundo. No esperen sorpresas. Sospecho que nos pasa a muchos, y que pocos lo admitimos. Pero, como otros, prefiero que no se divulgue.

Ahí les va, mi gran secreto:

Sucede que tengo una gran facilidad para, por ejemplo, inventar diálogos imaginarios justo cuando llega el de la licorería a mi departamento con un pedido.

Sucede que, las pocas veces que hablo por teléfono, no me puedo aguantar e invariablemente interrumpo la plática para decir: “permíteme un momento” y fingir que hablo con alguien a mi lado que me necesita: “espérame un segundo; ya voy, estoy en el teléfono”.

Sucede que, durante años, he sostenido largas conversaciones con interlocutores que nunca existieron, mientras pagaba al del OXO o el chavo de la farmacia. He llegado incluso a preguntarle a nadie en mi recámara, para que me escuchara el que me traía el suchi "¿tienes cambio de 200 pesos?”

Es que no quiero que sepan que estoy loca de remate. ¡Faltaría más!

A veces me pregunto si fingo bien, si me creen. Prefiero pensar que sí; que sí suponen que estoy hablando con nadie. Porque sueno bien cuerda, y hasta lo parezco. En serio. Y así lo prefiero, no que sepan que estoy bien loca. Si lo supieran, dejarían de venir, y eso, sería mi ruina.

Prefiero que nadie lo sepa, con contadas excepciones, por supuesto. Pocos, ni con tres dedos llego a contarlos, esos que me quieren sin condiciones, sea o no loca, no me importa que lo sepan. Es más, ya lo saben y les importa un bledo.

Pero me niego que lo sepan los del OXO, los de la farmacia, los de la licorería y menos los que murmuran a mis espaldas: “¿cómo se le ocurre ponerse calcetas con zandalias? Está chiflada”.

Ni los que, en tono de chisme, comentan: “es una loca, dejó al mejor marido que tuvo, que la adoraba, que ahora es famoso y tiene mucho dinero”. Ni mis jefes, que me miran como bicho raro; o peor, como una perdedora, porque, después de recorrer el mundo y tener a mi alcance óptimas oportunidades profesionales, excelentes parejas, un lugar “digno" en la sociedad, mucho dinero y un par de hijos, ahora no tengo nada, y para ellos, soy nadie.

Por eso no quiero que ellos sepan que sí soy alguien: una loca de remate.¡Faltaría más!

(Autor: María Lourdes Pallais Copyright © 2004 - Todos los derechos reservados.)

Mexican democracy in peril

This column was written by Sergio Aguayo Quezada, Professor at Mexico's Colegio de Mexico, and translated into English by me.


A bitter political feud between the left and the right is testing the democratic transition in Mexico. The alarming rows intensified after the Lower House (House of Commons) took away immunity from the Mayor of the nation's capital, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), a member of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

In the background deeper wounds fester.

The metropolitan zone of the city of Mexico is a colossal metropolis where all contradictions of this Hemisphere converge.

Three million cars and 19 million people --eight million in the capital and the rest in one of its bordering states --manage to survive within an area of 3,300 square miles.

Distinguished and plebeian, sophisticated and illiterate, grey and polychromatic, insecure and solidary, violent and tender, vicious and virtuous. In short, it embodies all the contrasts that arise from the clash between its opulence and its misery. A few hours in this flawed city are sufficient to comprehend the elements of its social conflict.

Mexico City has always been the birthplace of the democratic transition that began formally with the student movement of 1968, continued with the massive protests against the fraud that in 1988 placed Carlos Salinas de Gortari in the presidency and ended in the 90s, with the mobilizations in favour of a free and reliable ballot system.

In general terms, Mexican society might be conservative, but its capital and an important section of the metropolitan area are now governed and/or controlled by the PRD.

Mexico, like all Latin American countries, is searching for new alternatives. With few exceptions, the rules of market economics and liberal democracy are universally accepted. Simultaneously though, there is dissatisfaction with the outcome of structural adjustment policies imposed in the 80s by Washington and the financial international system.

Despite its contradictions and limitations, the social policies promoted by AMLO's government, coupled with his abilities as communicator, have managed to win the support of a majority of Mexican citizens. If the elections were held today, he would undoubtedly be president.

Last century, Mexico was legendary for electoral frauds, which, in key moments, allowed the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) to control the country for seven decades. But, in the presidential race of 2000, the candidate of the right-wing Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), Vicente Fox, wrested the presidency from the PRI, which nonetheless kept a substantial quota of power in Congress and in a good number of States.

Alas, after seizing the reins of government, Fox lost his reformer's zeal and opted, first, for an understanding, later, for an alliance, with the old regime. Thus the retrenchment to the past.

Recently, Fox, the PAN and the PRI took advantage of a misdemeanour, shielded under the flag of legality, and impeached AMLO to prevent him from competing in the presidential elections of July 2006.

In Mexico and elsewhere, most agree that the issue was manufactured by a hypocritical manipulation of the laws aimed at preventing AMLO, who heads the presidential polls, from running.

In the authoritarian Mexico of the past, the president "chose" his successor in a smooth process that the popular imagination baptized as "the dedazo" (the big finger).

As far as the new Mexico is concerned --the one that wants to become a democratic nation--, the right is mounting an undemocratic "manazo" (putsch) against the left, which squandered what democracy had granted to a free and fair ballot system.

Most, if not all, Mexican intellectuals have expressed their disapproval of AMLO's impeachment process, echoing what 70 per cent of Mexicans actually believe: Fox, the PAN and the PRI have betrayed democracy and, under the shield of legality, transformed the civic clash between the left and the right into a dangerous feud.

Nobody knows what repercussions are festering or the consequences are in other areas. For the time being, all macroeconomic indicators continue strong, partly due to the healthy ties between Mexico and North America.

For now, the issue is in the hands of the Judicial Power, which has the obligation to guarantee a fair verdict. Since nobody knows if the verdict will be up to par, Mexico is experiencing a return to a past where all distrusted its institutions and voting system.

If "the manazo" prevails, the conflict may escalate because the left has enough resources and structure to confront the right. The government of the Distrito Federal (Mexico City) is the richest of the country and employs 170 thousand bureaucrats. Also, the PRD has woven an extensive, and on occasions corrupt, network of social organizations that cover other sections of the metropolitan zone. For the time being, simmering anger is evident especially in the metropolitan zone of Mexico City. Nevertheless, it might spread, as the presidential assemblies of July 6, 2006 aren't imminent.

A peculiarity of the Mexican democratic transition is that it happened in isolation. The world was indifferent to its domestic social conflicts prior to the repression in 1968 and the electoral fraud in 1988. All progressive governments, including Cuba, were seduced by the liberal foreign policies of its authoritarian regime. Europe looked the other way arguing that Mexico was key to the United State's security, and the U.S. disregarded principle for the sake of stability on its southern border.

Today, in 2005, Mexico is a member of the community of democratic nations.

In the face of AMLO's impeachment process, the international press, without distinctions of ideology or continent, has reacted against it, accurately identifying the elements of a conflict that casts doubts on the application of all basic democratic rules. It is clear that the source of the conflict does not lie in AMLO's candidacy but in the loss of those principles.

At present, restoring all democratic rules, including its social order, and reverting this setback to the past, is in the hands of Mexico�?s judicial power, and in the international community.

While we wait for the verdict, the diagnosis is very clear: Mexico is at risk.

Two funerals and no wedding, A personal testimony

I wrote this personal testimony back in the late 80's, years after my 24-year-old brother Marcel was assassinated in mysterious circumstances never fully clarified in the aftermath of the Sandinista revolutionary victory over the Somoza dictatorship. I revised it recently.

*****

There was something unusual about this funeral procession. Idle street prowlers, old men sitting on rocking chairs at their doorways, barefoot urchins who had witnessed far too many go by were intrigued by this particular one. Some just stood or sat, staring in confusion. The younger ones, amused by the spectacle, ran giggling behind the hearse. Strange that it should cause so much commotion for, in those days, any picture of the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, would have been incomplete without a funeral ceremony.

Perversely, funerals brought life to this city of wide empty spaces and chest-high weeds, of abandoned concrete hulks, the jagged ruins of hotels, banks, churches and cinemas where destitute families lingered, like ghosts.

They added bustle to the silence of bullet-marked walls and sounds to the slogans smeared with red paint urging "death to the bourgeoisie."

For years, Managua, or what was left of it after a crushing earthquake and months of civil war, had become synonymous with death. By the time of the Sandinista revolutionary triumph in July, 1979, Managua was as used to burials of young people, mostly of Sandinista "martyrs and heroes," as it had once been to street riots and barricades.

But this funeral procession presented an arresting, disconcerting scene. In it, oddly at ease, earnest youths in green fatigue uniforms, wearing red and black bandanas across their foreheads, walked side-by-side with rich businessmen and their elegant wives dressed in their best mourning clothes.

This potpourri of people, a social cross section, was mourning the mysterious assassination of Marcel Pallais Checa, a 24-year-old relative of the recently-deposed Nicaraguan dictator who had joined the Sandinista revolutionaries. For the first time, the young revolutionary caste felt united in a common cause with the old Nicaraguan ruling class, sharing in the loss of a young man of uncommon destiny who had belonged to them both.

The procession advanced mostly on foot, but there were a couple of cars. Looking through the window of the car that led the way behind the hearse, a handsome, middle-aged woman, wearing dark glasses, recognized a few of Marcel's high school friends. She also spotted a lot of new faces. Probably Marcel's new friends, his Sandinista co-workers, she thought. All looked forlorn, holding banners with Marcel's name printed in big, black and red letters, shouting revolutionary slogans as they walked. Scattered groups of people, dressed in rags, had walked all the way to the cemetery. They probably didn't know who had died, but it was clear to them it was a "Sandinista martyr" with upper-class connections, not the other way around. For, in those days, the dead were almost invariably young revolutionaries, all poor militants of the lower classes.

Wrapped in the red and black colors of the victorious Sandinista flag, the coffin arrived at the burial site in Managua's Cementerio Oriental. The woman got out of the car. She stood, dignified, near the hearse, the veins under the skin of her throat thick and throbbing. She was Laura Checa, Marcel's mother, just in from Miami, that bilingual haven welcoming those more at ease in its bland, air-conditioned comfort than in the politically over-heated tropics. Holding her hand tightly was Marcel's best high-school mate, Alonso Porras, by then an intense, bearded Sandinista militant just down from Nicaragua's northern mountains as a triumphant revolutionary. Next to him, a young, dusky Nicaraguan woman, dressed in green fatigues and wearing a white flower behind her ear, was sobbing profusely. She was Auxiliadora Cruz Castillo, Marcel's Sandinista girlfriend and, by all accounts, the last person who saw him alive.

Some in the crowd continued to bark out defiant Sandinista chants and, solemnly, a handful of men lowered down the casket into a hole in the ground. Irate, they all bellowed Patria Libre o Morir!, the revolutionary cry calling for a free country or death that many youngsters had taken to heart. Auxiliadora was leaning on Joaquin, one of Marcel's new comrades, as he began to address the crowd, his words drowning with tears: "We will continue your work, Marcel. We won't cry for long, because you wouldn't want us to. We will follow your example."

Auxiliadora swooned, fell to the ground and, at the same moment, just as unexpectedly, a short and stout man in an impeccable military uniform emerged out of nowhere. He looked older than the rest of the Sandinistas there. Imperiously, Tomas Borge, a legendary revolutionary leader and Nicaragua's new Interior Minister, asked for Marcel's mother to be brought next to him. Stabbing one finger upward, the expression of his face hidden under his green cap, he began his eulogy.

"Despite his ancestry, he was like a white flower in the dirty hay," Borge declared, in an allusion to Marcel's family origins that nobody failed to pick up. "He chose to live next to the poor when he could have had everything. Eternal Glory to Marcel!". Borge, the best orator the Sandinistas had, paused for a minute or two; then called out Marcel's name three, four, five times; each time, the crowd responded Presente! in unison, building up the rhythm, raising their clenched fists up towards the sky.

*****

The night before, at Marcel's wake, Borge spoke to the press who were asking if any member of Marcel's immediate family would be allowed into Nicaragua to attend the funeral. They were testing Borge. "Marcel had a large family, he had many brothers. Every Sandinista in Nicaragua was his brother," Borge answered, and paused briefly. Pointing at me, Borge then told the press I was Marcel's "hermana de padre y madre" (Marcel's real sister). "Talk to her. Find out what she thinks," Borge said. Naturally, his suggestion, which was actually an order, was welcomed by all reporters.

They soon trapped me, their tape recorders so close to my lips I feared I might swallow them if I made the mistake of breathing in too heavily. As they bombarded me with questions, Borge stood nearby: "Was I a Sandinista like my brother had been? Did I know or suspected who had killed Marcel? Was I grateful to Borge? Was I coming to stay?"

Being a reporter myself, I knew only too well all about a journalist's zeal, the sense of urgency and the lack of tact. So I began to answer them as best I could: "You want to know if I am a Sandinista, like Marcel? I don't know.
All I know is that I stand by the ideals he believed in. No, I don't know who killed him. Do you? I just wish he wasn't dead. And yes, I am grateful to Borge for all he has done. No, I haven't come to stay. I have a job to go back to in New York."

What I didn't tell them was that I suspected Borge didn't know Marcel all that well, that I felt he had gone to Marcel's funeral for political, not personal, reasons, even if he looked sad and gloomy, as if one of his own children had died. I also didn't tell them that I was proud as a sentry to see that Marcel was being mourned as a "military hero" with four Sandinista militiamen standing, their eyes hardly blinking, at each side of his coffin; proud that at least one of us had had the guts to rebel, proud to be Marcel's sister. I didn't say I also resented both his death and my pride. I didn't say that, without Marcel, I was going to have a hard time finding out who I really was--a Sandinista perhaps, a Nicaraguan, for that matter? Who was going to convince me that, now that the Somozas were gone, Nicaragua could become a nation I might adopt as my own? Who was going to be my guide in the new Nicaragua?

*****

“There will be no funeral without the mother,” Borge sentenced. “Where is the mother?”, the press asked. “Where is she?”, Borge asked. Blank faces stared at each other, looking for an answer, looking for Marcel's mother.

Laura Checa was far away from Managua, in her Miami apartment. She had just been told about her younger son's murder. She was alone. Her husband Noel was in Spain at the time and had decided to mourn Marcel right there. Her passport had expired, she had no visa and very little money. Laura's friends in Miami, all ferocious anti-Sandinistas, had told her traveling to Nicaragua would be suicidal. "Don't you see the danger you would be exposed to? Please don't go. Stay here with us, where it's safe," they begged. One of them had turned to me: "she is, after all, still married to your father, and everybody knows about his relationship to Tachito Somoza!"

A chain-smoker, Laura sat in silence, her lap sprinkled with cigarette ashes, staring into nowhere, sipping a glass of warm beer with a shaky, sweaty hand. She knew only too well about her husband's ties to the Somozas, and she had suspected they would also trap Marcel. "I fear for him. Maybe I am being hysterical, but sometimes I dream someone is trying to murder Marcel," she had confessed a few weeks before over the telephone. Marcel used to make fun of her worries, telling her that in the event of his demise, he had named Desirée, our youngest sister, as the beneficiary of the "new life insurance policy the Sandinistas set up for potential victims of the revenge of Somocismo." Perhaps Laura Checa had been right to worry so much.

Making a huge effort, she looked up, her eyes begging me to make a decision for her. Lacking the energy for a well-thought out opinion, I honestly didn't know what was best to do. In dad's absence, neither did she. For almost three decades, since Noel Pallis married her and took her from Peru, her native country, to Nicaragua, he had made most, if not all, of the important decisions for her. But the couple were no longer close and she could no longer count on him. Though I thought she ought to come with me, I was uneasy about exposing her to a potentially unpleasant situation. I had no idea how she would be welcomed by the Sandinista authorities. So, less than an hour before boarding the plane to Managua from Miami, I telephoned a friend of Rev. Miguel D'Escoto, Nicaragua's new Foreign Minister. The night before, I had asked her to call him from New York and find out how he felt about mother's arrival in revolutionary Managua. Father D'Escoto family had been a friend of my family, and knew my parents well. I figured he would know best. But he could not guarantee that mother would be safe in Managua. "He said his government will only vouch for your safety, so why don't you go alone?," my friend suggested. And so I flew to Managua on October 5, 1979. Obviously, this was all just a dream.

As I was then toying with the idea of abandoning journalism altogether to become an actress, I preferred to imagine that this was just a tragic, wonderfully real, play in which I had one of the lead roles. It just couldn't be true. Once inside the airplane to Nicaragua, I felt slightly numb, somehow removed from it all. I was hardly aware that the Aeronica flight was full, that I couldn't get a window seat because I checked in very late. Before the Sandinistas took power, the daily Miami-Managua flight connection was usually half-empty, and I never had a problem finding whatever seat I wanted. Vaguely, I remember hearing people laughing, chanting slogans that praised Sandino and condemned the Somozas. Everything and everyone smelt of happiness. A contagious aroma, I thought. As the plane approached what I recognized as familiar territory, even from high above, a Nicaraguan lady I didn't know began to speak to me. Looking radiant, she told me how "thrilled" she was to be flying back to "my beautiful little country," finally "liberated, free from the greedy Somozas." Her two sons had "bravely fought" with the Sandinistas and would be at the "Cesar Augusto Sandino International Airport" waiting for her, she said with an untroubled, confident voice. Without hesitating, mechanically as it were, I proceeded to tell her, as if this was a clear issue, what I was about to do in that "beautiful little country" of hers that had once been mine. "I am going to my brother's funeral. He was found shot to death somewhere near Managua's Catholic University yesterday morning," I said, my voice sounding calm and resolute, proud of itself. Her self-possession had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself. She stared at me in bewilderment for a minute, and then asked me: "What was his name?" I told her: Marcel Pallais Checa, and stared back at her. "Oh, so you are a Pallais... How incredible, how sad... I am so sorry, but you should be proud of your brother, he is a hero of our revolution," the lady said.

We were about to land. The sun was setting. Even if I hadn't been there in over four years, I knew it was Nicaragua alright. I recognized the unmistakable shades of its volcanoes reflected on the lakes and up in the sky. From then on, all I remember tasted of contradictions. Never before had I smelt the scent of victory and defeat in one single breath.

*****

"Where is the mother? Where is she?," he repeated. Still no answer. Tomas Borge's arrival had provoked a familiar kind of commotion. When he walked into the makeshift funeral parlor at Telcor, where Marcel's wake took place, I recognized the legendary Sandinista leader I had only seen in newspaper pictures until that day. But even before I realized it was Tomas Borge, looking mysterious and dressed in military uniform, I knew someone important had made an entrance. The caudillo, the Latin American strongman, whether he be from the right or from the left, rarely enters a room without creating an uproar. His bodyguards, a human barricade around him, looked as if their job was to protect god from the devil. People around and behind me were murmuring and prattling a bit louder. I couldn't help being reminded of the similar effect Tachito Somoza used to have on people when he entered a room. Borge was getting impatient. "Where is the mother?," he asked one more time, the last, squinting behind his thick glasses. It sounded like an echo but I couldn't really hear it.

By then, I was standing right next to Marcel's coffin and fighting a pain that blocks all sounds, tastes and sights. I was having a private battle with myself, furiously trying to deny the reality of my brother's death. And my anger began to grow madly like wild grass deep inside me, building roots in my hair, in my eyes, under my skin. It was suffocating. Someone pulled my shirt from behind, trying to get my attention, to make me react.

Nobody but me could answer that question, and I had lost all diction. Disappointed in my silence, Borge asked another question:
"Where is the compañera?"
"Right here, comandante," an attractive brunette, Auxiliadora, stepped forward, holding a white rose. I was dumbstruck. I had no idea that, in only a few months, Marcel could honestly fall in love with a Sandinista woman and betray his all-American fiancée, whom we, his family, believed Marcel would marry sometime in December of that year.

That shook me out of my trance. Ignoring Auxiliadora, whose presence I bitterly resented, I explained to Borge why "the mother" had stayed behind. Borge got visibly upset. How absurd, only I can say if she would be welcomed here or not, he was saying with his eyes. "I personally guarantee that she will be safe," he declared, adding that Laura Checa, the mother of a Sandinista martyr, could travel to Nicaragua with an expired passport or with no passport at all. "We will all wait for her arrival," he thundered. He then ordered that one of his bodyguards call "la señora Checa," tell her to take the next available plane to Managua and assure her that Borge had guaranteed her safety.

After gently patting Auxiliadora on the shoulder, Borge advanced close the coffin, right next to me, took a quick look at it and turned on his heels, followed by his men and everyone's curious gaze. From a room full of rifles and machine-guns, next to Marcel's office at Telcor, I called my mother in Miami. One of Borge's men had already called her, she told me. "Have you seen Marcel?," she asked flatly. The way she phrased that, for a minute I thought he was still alive. "Yes, I have, and he looks beautiful, just like we remember him." I wasn't lying.

A day later, Laura Checa arrived armed with an expired diplomatic passport, no entry visa to Nicaragua and only a one-way ticket Miami-Managua.

Ignoring the details of how her son had been murdered, she imagined the worst. Like me, she was amazed to see Marcel's peaceful corpse, astonishingly intact, looking just like the healthy, well-built young man he had always been.

Absent were the ugly bruises and the scars she had expected. Death wasn't able to distort the handsome features life had drawn over his face. His hands, bigger than most, had been neatly placed one on top of the other, as if gently accepting the end of all "raging fists," as he wrote in a poem. His huge questioning eyes were closed; some stranger had sealed them with care. Around his rather puffy eyelids, shut as they were under the stern, bushy line of his eyebrows drawn together by a slight, if frozen frown, was a smeary shade of hazel, a reminder of the color of his eyes. His lips, the thickset flesh of his inviting, sensual mouth, were dry, not the slightest quiver on them. His smile, never broad, mostly sad, was gone. His wavy, chestnut-colored hair over his smooth, square forehead, was still shining. His nails, never exactly mani-cured, were clean. The green fatigue uniform and the beard on his well-shaped, round chin, were new to us.

He looked intact, and we couldn't help wondering if perhaps he was still alive, despite that eerie stillness around him. It was as if life and death were both reflected in Marcel's corpse. He looked dramatic, engaging, and his innocent tenacity was still visible, vaguely lingering around his coffin.

Conspicuously absent, however, was his concentrated expression, the trademark of his youth. In an impulse, I touched Marcel's face. It was cold as ice. Shut, firmly coated with death, were his pores.

He had been shot in the neck. Just one fatal shot, on the right side of his neck, the medical examiner's report read. Sure enough, there it was, a small, swollen, black and blue spot, covered but not hidden by the beard, the longish hair, under a touch of make-up. I looked at it, stared at that wound, where a bullet had entered his skin, perforated his throat and put an end to his life. That did it. All doubts were dispelled. I realized he was totally, irreversibly dead. Neither the pomp and circumstance around his coffin nor the Sandinistas' victory over the Somoza family dictatorship would make him open his eyes again to read his books, search for answers and stare ahead with the inquisitive gaze of his painstaking turn of mind, beyond the rhetoric and the dogmas.

My brother Marcel, who told me that Nicaragua didn't have room for heroes and that it desperate-ly needed doers, was being mourned as a martyr of a revolu-tion he had desperately wanted to witness, but one which never quite became a reality for him. A poet with an urge in his blood, Marcel died too soon to witness his dream come true --to live in a Nicaragua without "the fire that rages in the families" and without "the injustice that burns," as he wrote in another poem, for Marcel was fond of writing poetry, and in most of his stanzas, his obsession with lamenting his country's fate was evident: "Nicaragua, the favorite daughter of crime, the nocturnal lament of the earth, its bitter salt. Nicaragua, poison is the marrow of your bones. Beware of her raging fists, her dignity is blind."

*****

This Managua wasn't the noisy, dirty, hot, lively city of my school days. This was, at best, a wasteland. The night after Marcel's funeral, as we drove along the northern highway crossing the industrial zone of Managua, I noticed that the area was lined by ruins of dozens of factories that had once employed around 40,000 Nicaraguans. Some had been set afire after being looted during the civil war either by mobs of by Somoza's guards. Most had been hit by rockets and bombs. Demolition work in the 600 blocks making up yesterday's downtown, commercial section, which had begun shortly after the earthquake, hadn't been completed by then. Managua had been home to about a million Nicaraguans. The earthquake had left 250,000 of them homeless.

That October evening, only days after Marcel was killed, grass was four, maybe five, feet high where I remembered homes, offices and schools had once stood. The rubble of a concrete building along the shore of Lake Managua, where I went to high school, was covered with dry weeds. Just a couple of blocks away, in an area once festive with street vendors and noisy traffic, the outside structure of Managua's twin-towered Cathedral was still there, if now empty of mass sounds, its clock still standing at 12:25 --the time of the 1972 earthquake. In its dark and musty interior, deaf to the uncanny world surrounding them, a group of children were playing baseball. Spread over the cathedral's surface was an enormous banner of Cesar Augusto Sandino, the rebel whose memory had inspired Nicaraguans to fight against the long-overdue Somoza family dictatorship. Alone in Managua's dilapidated downtown area, the splendid Ruben Dario Theater, remained majestic and isolated, untouched by it all.

Life had settled into a tense normalcy after the long weeks of a civil war that had left more than 10,000 people dead. The white flags fluttering over homes and cars, demanding a truce, had been replaced by the red and black colors of the victorious Sandinista flags. The streets of Managua, deceptively calm, a maze of crumbling walls, provided safe refuge to those skirmishers still roaming around. Like vampires, former National Guardsmen faithful to the Somozas and angry ultra-leftist agitators would come out, blending their contradictions into the night, stir up people's fear again and hide at dawn. The evening before Marcel's murder, at least 20 Sandinista militiamen had died in a shoot-out with "unidentified assailants," the papers said. In order to prevent similar incidents after the wave of violence that followed the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, the Sandinista junta ordered that an urban security program be installed in Managua. Military spot-checks along the city's main roads were an important part of this program. It was mandatory for all Sandinista militants to carry a gun at all times.

The night of October 3, 1979, Marcel went out on a date with Auxiliadora. When he stopped to get gas, he realized he had left his gun behind. The war was over, there was no need to exaggerate, he thought, paying no heed to the warnings of his superiors. The young, idealist that he was, he believed deeply in his own survival. Confident that nothing would happen to him on the one and only time he hadn't carried a weapon since la victoria, Marcel drove on. The next day, he was found dead in a muddy street. A .38 caliber pistol, aimed at close range, had perforated his throat and he had died instantly. His killers were "counter-revolutionaries" who knew Marcel had "important information" against them, the papers said. Wire reports indicated his assassins were "gunmen loyal to Somoza, the uncle he had fought." For weeks, rumors surrounding the circumstances of Marcel's death abounded, both in Nicaragua and abroad, especially in Miami, where most Nicaraguans faithful to Somoza had fled after his downfall.

*****

Eleven months later, there was another funeral. This time it was in Miami. The man buried was Tachito Somoza Debayle, Nicaragua's last Somoza caudillo and the powerful relative Marcel had helped overthrow. It was hot and humid that morning of September 20, 1980, over a year after the Sandinista-led revolutionary junta had replaced Tachito and his family as the rulers of Nicaragua. Three days earlier, on the 34th anniversary of his father's death, Tachito had been brutally assassinated, after a single bazooka shot smashed through the top of his white, shiny Mercedes-Benz car in the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion, where he had fled with his mistress Dinorah Sampson. A little overzealous in their task, the killers had also fired eighteen bullets into Tachito's body so that, by the time the rocket struck the car, he was already dead.

Days later, when Tomas Borge was asked who might have killed him, he quoted the Spanish Renaissance poet Lope de Vega: "Everyone killed him." Indeed, there was no shortage of people with motives to assassinate Tachito. As far as the Paraguayan government was concerned, the Sandinistas in far-off Nicaragua had ordered the killing, which was carried out by a team of Argentine gunmen. But a crime passionnel could not be ruled out altogether. After all, Tachito's licentious ways and his drunken scenes in Asuncion's prudish society always made him a target for jealous lovers. For all this, and despite a well-publicized affair with a former Miss Paraguay, Dinorah, a telephone receptionist at a Managua radio station before Tachito discovered her, remained his long-time companion. "Adorable Tacho, only death can separate us. Your love, Dinita" read a note from Dinorah on a wreath of red flowers over his coffin.

Dinorah's relationship with Tachito lasted eighteen years.
During the first few years, the couple kept a low profile. But, as his quota of power in Nicaragua increased, so did his indiscretion and he grew unconcerned at being seen, arm in arm with Dinorah in public. During the decade before he was overthrown, he had no qualms about humiliating Hope Portocarrero Debayle, his Florida-born wife, publicly adopting the sexy, voluptuous Dinorah as his official mistress. In retrospect, Hope was glad to have kept her U.S. citizenship, even if it had meant she could not vote for Tachito. But her vote was soon replaced by Dinorah's.

Once, during his presidential campaign in the late 60's, Hope recognized Dinorah, beaming in the front row, flanked by her husband's obedient bureaucrats and loyal bodyguards. Nobody, not even the father of her children, her "benevolent dictator with gypsy ideas," had the right to humiliate Hope that way. Those few among Hope's loyal friends who stood by her at first, refusing to be seen with Dinorah or to invite her to their house, were finally forced to make a choice. It was either Dinorah and Tachito or no Tachito at all. Invitations for Dinorah, who was soon proclaimed "The First Lady of the Poor," began to pour in. Perhaps she lacked the polish and education the official first lady had galore, but she was cunning and her keen sense of commercial enterprise rivaled that of the Somozas themselves.

Dinorah's facial bone structure was similar to Hope's, but the resemblance ended there. Hope was long and thin, while Dinorah was voluptuous and well-endowed. I remember hearing rumors that she was more in love with herself, and especially with her body, than she was with Tachito. "She had a narcissistic admiration for her breasts, which she frequently showed in public, driven by an obsession to overshadow those rather meager ones of Hope, her rival," a Nicaraguan writer said in a book, entitled "From Mrs. Hanna to Dinorah."

Tired of clandestine love-making, Tachito ordered that a mansion be built for her that outstripped his own in size and splendor. Overlooking Managua's southern highway on a lush green hillside, its deceptive gray exterior hid a large swimming pool as well all modern facilities most wealthy Nicaraguan families didn't have. A high wall surrounding the well-guarded villa was watched over by a closed-circuit television, a convenient gadget Tachito never installed in either of his two homes.

Dinorah, a bright student, learnt that political patronage and favoritism were the lubricants that turned every wheel in Tachito's autocratic regime.
So, she began to build up a network of businesses and partners, dispensing favors like the godfather of a mafia gang who expected the favor to be returned. As Dinorah's influence over Tachito grew, so did her power. In the end, anyone seeking help from Tachito found it more expedient to seek Dinorah first and soon, she became the most powerful person in Nicaragua.

Hope, who began to spend less and less time in Nicaragua, grew to despise Tachito for it all, though she pretended to ignore the affair by moving permanently to London, a city more suited to her frosty nature. And though Hope never made a big fuss about it --that wasn't her style--, she never forgave Tachito, the handsome first cousin whom she decided, at age six, was "the man for me."

Even if she was still full of scorn by the time the coffin arrived in Miami from Asuncion, the sight of Tachito's reconstructed corpse pierced the shield she had placed over her wounded dignity. Upon a first inspection, Hope lost her cool, if only for a few short moments. The corpse of her estranged husband was swollen in the wrong parts and had too many gaps under the suit. The face had too much make-up. It was overdressed. As she reached over to touch it, she failed to feel the puttylike chill of the flesh. She stared at it and she didn't see the marbleized yellow look of the recently dead. This couldn't be a real corpse. Her teeth began to chatter and she choked back a scream. Shocked, she realized this was nothing but a tacky, man-made replica of the man Tachito had been. It was just a dummy --a vulgar, second-rate dummy stuffed with Paraguayan cotton that would not have made it past the back door at Madame Tousseau's Wax Museum in London. The real man, her "General," as she was fond of calling him sarcastically, was butchered into bits, his mangled body entangled with the car wreckage after the blast. Her hands sinking into the cotton beneath the fabric, Hope burst into a flood of tears.

Almost as abruptly, aware that she was making a scene, she steadied herself and regained her composure. Withdrawing into her role as the "first lady" in control, she began to give orders. "Change him immediately. Find a more elegant, sober, darker suit. Don't forget the tie. Find a cotton shirt to match. Clean off his face," she growled. "And don't forget to take off that awful crucifix," she added curtly, pointing to the large wooden rosary beads Dinorah had placed over her dead lover's chest back in Asuncion. In less than an hour, Tachito's dummy, dressed according to her taste, was under Hope's cold, almost professional scrutiny. "Much better," she said with a sharp nod of approval, placing a small silver cross around the neck. "Now we can take him to the funeral parlor," she sentenced, walking imperiously towards her car. True to form, Hope was keeping her innermost feelings tightly out of reach before venturing into the outside world.

*****

By the time I arrived at the smoggy funeral parlor that evening, Hope looked impeccable, and was thoroughly in control, coldly wiping off my tears as I reached over to kiss her, to prevent make-up stains in her dress. "Darling! Isn't this a terrible tragedy? Look what happened to your uncle!," she told me. But Hope wasn't really addressing me. She was merely performing the role assigned to her at this family gathering where Tachito was dutifully mourned in a ceremony more appropriate to a mafia leader than a head of state.

El Caballero, a narrow, steamy and over-lit funeral home with its ornate flower arrangements and their inevitable slogans --"To Our Only Leader," or "With Eternal Loyalty, to our only Chief"-- wasn't Hope's ideal setting for Tachito's coffin. The place was not as noisy as a market but just as full of darting bodies zooming, like flies, mainly around Hope and her children. Surely Hope would have preferred a simpler, more elegant funeral service.

But fate had trapped her in this tawdry scene over which she had little control. She was caged in by Cuban exiles, veterans of the Bay of Pigs 2506 Brigade, who had turned up in military uniform to form an honor guard at El Caballero funeral parlor. To Hope's dismay and for all her polite sighs of indignation, politics were engrained in the most minute exchange, turning the funeral into a pro-Reagan rally, with Nicaraguan and Cuban exiles shouting "Down with Carter." After all, only a few hours before Tachito was murdered, television news programs and newspapers all over the world were quoting him saying that Carter was a "bastard" who had betrayed Nicaragua by giving aid and support to the Sandinistas who overthrew him.

The funeral procession, a 12-car caravan led by the hearse, made its way through Miami's Little Havana along the Calle Ocho, best known for its Cuban restaurants and Spanish-speaking prowlers. The display of support could hardly be compared to the tumultuous reception that greeted the Sandinista revolutionaries when they led a victorious reception into Managua the year before. But the atmosphere was just as steamy. An unbearable heat took its toll on the air-conditioned cars, and some stalled. Passengers joined the boisterous crowd and, like a human tornado gathering momentum, were shouting "On foot! On foot!" Fearing a riot, private security men under strict instructions to control the Latin tempers boiling along the sidewalk, took out their walkie-talkies and positioned themselves alongside each car. But these earnest-looking bodyguards seemed incapable of protecting anyone, except perhaps the odd stray dog. I couldn't stand being trapped in the car and pretend to ignore the commotion going on outside.

Five minutes into the procession, I decided to join those "on foot." No sooner had I began to walk when I found myself irresistibly drawn to center-stage, and, after quite a bit of shoving and a lot of pushing, I was walking right behind the hearse and next to Tacho III, "el chigüín" (the little boy), the eldest of Tachito's children. A handful of bodyguards surrounded me, apparently in an attempt to keep me from being dashed back to my starting point. "She is a family member," I overheard one telling the others. Promptly, a handful of them encircled me all the way to the cemetery. One of them, whose suspicious gaze never left me, kept staring in the direction of my feet. I looked down, wondering what had drawn his attention. My black silk stockings were torn, one of my shoe heels was loose and my feet were dirty, swollen and bloody.

"He is our last hope," and "You are our leader now, chigüín," one woman screamed from the depths of her lungs. She was addressing Tacho III, who had idolized his father and had been groomed to succeed him. Apparently ignoring the bustle around him, the tall and bulky young man already fighting a receding hairline, walked right behind the hearse, eyes gazing down and arms crossed in front, feeling the backs of his knees batting against his trousers. I had heard many awful things about Tacho III, the soft, timid boy of my childhood memories who grew up into an unimpressive adolescent. To cover up his insecurity, he was always a trifle arrogant and vain. Later, he went further and became "ruthless and tough" with the troops at his command during Nicaragua's civil war, according to news reports I had read. He also acquired his father's business talents, setting up companies with interest in fishing, tobacco, timber and heavy-vehicle distribution. None of that surprised me. But I had difficulty seeing him as the immoral and cruel despot portrayed in most newspaper articles. He was too weak for that, I thought. Or was he? I noticed that his smile had become a calculated grin. He had also gained twenty pounds and looked incredibly like his father. "Adios, Tachito," a woman shouted, shortly before arriving at the Woodlawn Cemetery. He looked up. Some people also called him Tachito, a nickname for Anastasio. And then he looked down, apparently lost in thought.

"Dear cousin! You... Here!," Tacho III said in a sarcastic, patronizing tone of voice when he spotted me the night before, at his father's wake. Cousin and all, it was no secret that I had turned my back on the Somozas' octopus-like power structure. He also knew, I was sure, that Marcel, a Sandinista militant, was now a Sandinista martyr. Surely, I hoped, Tacho III, who liked to think of himself as a sort of pundit, knew better than to make any of that an issue at that moment.

"Do you realize what we are going through?," he asked as we hugged.
"We?" I felt inane and the painful memory of my brother's death grew stronger.

Whatin the world was I doing there anyway? I remembered that actions are sometimes questions, not answers. Was I seeking a past that no longer existed? There was one thing I found out for sure: I had taken a plunge into the emotional seesaw of Tachito's Nicaragua and, while everybody had a role to play at El Caballero, I hadn't a clue what mine was. My presence was similar to that of a stranger on board a sinking ship who ignores the hands forward, and, if the truth must be told, I was a stranger to myself as well. "We?" It was like a violent time warp, to be there, out of my choosing, paying tribute to a man I had nothing but disdain for and joining a family I no longer identified with. And my hands were betraying me. They were clammy. It was getting unbearably hot in El Caballero. I needed some fresh air.

But Tacho III had other plans for me. Gently touching my elbow, the way gentlemen do when they escort a lady to a ball, he said solemnly: "Please come with me." He spoke softly, but it sounded like an order. We advanced close to his father's casket. We were alone, the melting pot of people behind our backs. He began to speak, again softly but breathing a little hastily between his words. For a second, I could have sworn he was getting ready to pray.

Far from it.

"I haven't had a chance to break down. My father and I hadn't been on very good terms lately. He asked me to visit him in Paraguay, but I refused. A few weeks before he was killed, I finally went to see him. I am so glad I did, otherwise I would have never seen him again. And he was in pretty good shape, considering everything he was going through. As soon as he saw me, he run to greet me, and hugged me like he very seldom did, crying like a baby and saying `My son, I love you.' It broke my heart," and he stopped, gasping for air.

Making sure that he had my attention when, in fact, if only for a few seconds, he had also succeeded in winning my sympathy, he went on. "You know, my father wasn't really all that strong. He wanted the world to believe he was, but he was basically a soft, sensitive man who was thrust into a role."

That was a bit much, I thought. Of all his children, Tacho III was the one who had enjoyed, even thrived, on that "role" the most. He was also the one who knew his father the best. I was reminded of his cryptic comment to a journalist two years before Tachito was overthrown: "I can honestly tell you that I was born into a family that has political prestige, political pull and power, but I've also seen the ravages that it does to a family as human beings."

It had turned his father into a despot who preferred to bomb his own people rather than yield power. And Tacho III had helped his father along.

"Can you see that (the killers) didn't destroy his body at all?," he said, with apparent conviction. No, I couldn't. All I could see was a clumsy, Paraguayan-made dummy who vaguely resembled Tachito. His son's maudlin monologue, I realized, was only half-honest. Since Tacho III had seldom experienced life outside of the boundaries of his "family duty," his growth had been stunted for good, I thought. His words were far from being an intimate sharing of his real feelings. Maybe he was eagerly expecting to be interviewed. It occurred to me that he had found a role for me at that funeral ceremony --that of the estranged journalist in the family.

The pushing and the shouting had subsided when the crowd began to queue up, ready to pay homage at Tachito's grave. Compared to mausoleums where other Latin dictators were buried, this was surprisingly inconspicuous. For all his enormous power and his even more considerable wealth, Tachito liked to think of himself as a man of simple taste and, I concluded therefore, had ordered that his place of burial be a simple one.

Next to it, a tent providing shade had been set up for the immediate family to rest.

Hope glanced at the podium, frowning discreetly in anticipation of the verbose eulogies inevitably awaiting her. She had asked Orlando Montenegro, the last Somoza mayor of Managua, and Manolo Reboso, a former city commissioner of Miami, to stay away from politics in their eulogies. An impossible request in a funeral ceremony where Reagan supporters had distributed anti-Carter leaflets, she soon realized.
"In this afternoon of pain and anguish and tears of the Nicaraguan and Cuban exiles, I will quote the words of two American congressmen in relation to Somoza's death. They said dramatically that the blood shed by Somoza is sprinkling the steps of the White House," Montenegro barked, nodding to former Republican Congressman John Murphy of New York and Larry McDonald, a Democrat from Georgia. Appalled by the political overtones of Montenegro's address, Hope slipped away in a black limousine parked nearby.

Throughout the years I had kept more or less in touch with Hope. I had always admired her style and her grace; there was something regal about her cold veneer that I was attracted to. In a world of heated tropical tempers, I had found Hope's aloofness rather refreshing, a fascinating foil to Tachito's loud ways. Even if she was too coy and formal sometimes.

"Young women of your class and family background should stay away from politics," she had once told me, in English, after seeing my picture in the front page of the local opposition paper, holding a controversial poster that condemned Tachito's government pro-U.S. policy. Back in 1969, during Nelson Rockefeller's visit to Nicaragua, a savvy photographer of La Prensa had spotted me at a student's meeting in Managua's Universidad Centroamericana and seized the opportunity to produce the photo as evidence that not every member of the Somoza family was necessarily a Somocista. "One doesn't find people in life who care the way one's own family does!," Hope told me, lighting a cigarette and offering me another --all of which she did in that unique, poised style of hers I admired so much.
We talked for hours, about loyalty, about family, about tradition. And I discovered that, in her own distant way, she really cared about all those things. "Stay away from politics. Don't let anyone involve you in anything political," she warned me.

But both she and I, whether we knew it or not, were already "involved" in politics. We didn't discuss the issue any further and our bond remained unbroken for years afterwards. So, despite that part of me which secretly held Tachito responsible for my brother's murder, I arrived at El Caballero funeral parlor where he was being mourned driven by an overwhelming desire to be next to Hope and her children, especially Carolina, with whom I had grown up.

That night, Carolina looked drugged, drowning out her words into long, agonizing whispers, stuttering and unintelligible. When I approached her, she barely saw me and merely smiled mechanically. At first, I wanted to hug her and cry with her, but soon I realized that was impossible. Even if we had once been as close as sisters, politics, tooth and claw, had built a wall separating us forever. Yet, I felt this strange connection, this sort of atavistic link with Hope, Carolina and her siblings. Like them, I had once been a member of the quasi-feudal clan that had ruled over Nicaragua for almost half a century. Even if I had, for decades, openly rejected the nepotism and the corruption rampant in Somoza's Nicaragua, Tachito had once been one of my favorite uncles, long before I found out that families don't usually inherit countries.

Open-mouthed, I stared at the spectacle around me. The words of a popular cliché that had been often repeated to me as a child went through my head: "blood is thicker than water." Tuneless and unconvincing, these lines from the past disintegrated into meaninglessness at the ghastly El Caballero. This was, clearly, the final denouement of the long Somoza odyssey, the end of an extended family episode.

The mourners, a nondescript bunch solicitously grouping about the five Somoza children and their mother, were grieving an irreversible loss of power rather more than someone's death. But there was one exception. Tachito's mother, Salvadora (Yoya) Debayle de Somoza, who had once predicted Tachito would be murdered like her husband had been.

If Hope was Nicaragua's version of Jackie Kennedy, then Salvadora, my grandmother's eldest sister, was the Somoza family's Rose Kennedy. Her domineering streak and strength of character was far closer to Rose Kennedy's than Hope's wardrobe was to Jackie's. Besides, had it not been for her, the Somoza family would have never made it into Nicaragua's ruling elite.

Salvadora, the eldest daughter of that country's top surgeon, Luis Henri Debayle (whose French origins and European "aristocratic" education as well as his close friendship with Louis and Marie Pasteur, won him a rank held by none in Nicaragua), met Anastasio Somoza Garcia on a blind date while she was student in Beechwood School (now Beaver College) in Jenkintown, Pa.

A few years later, and much to her father's dismay, they were married in Nicaragua. By the late 20's, Salvadora's husband was on the road to becoming Nicaragua's undisputed strongman. A decade earlier, he was named chief of its 5,000-men National Guard, ruling through a stooge President, 76-year-old Victor Ramon y Reyes, who happened to be his uncle. With his loyal wife at his side, Somoza Garcia remained Nicaragua's despotic leader until 1956, when Rigoberto Lopez Perez, a young Nicaraguan doctor, murdered him at a dance.

For decades after he died, Salvadora became the living symbol of her husband's dynasty. But she knew all dynasties come to an end.
Dressed in the usual mourning black she liked so much to wear, her small dark eyes filmed over and her skin cracked, the 88-year-old matron arrived from Washington, where she lived, long after midnight. Shaking all over, her voluminous haunches swinging from side to side, Yoya was having a hard time entering the funeral room. She finally made it to her son's casket with the help of her grandchildren.

"She is really senile, poor old lady, and probably doesn't even know whose wake she is attending," someone whispered. She let go of her grandchild's hand and made a futile effort to reach her son's lifeless mask in the coffin. More than any other, that gesture symbolized the waning of the Somoza family dynasty.

Muttering incoherently at first, we finally made her words out: "What happened? What did he do? Where did it happen?" As she leaned over her son's coffin, Hope addressed Yoya, her mother-in-law, who was also her aunt. "It's alright, Mama Yoya. He didn't suffer. He had a peaceful death. He's gone but he was a good man and we should pray for him," she said calmly, appealing to the old woman's religious instincts.

Salvadora might have been very old, perhaps even senile, but she knew her son better than that. She knew. She had warned him. Her tears were real tears, a mother's tears, a cry of unadulterated pain. Her arrival, at least for a moment, forced everyone to forget the roles they had been assigned or had chosen to perform.

*****

For too many years, Noel Pallais Debayle, my father, had adopted more roles than he could play for Tachito. He had been his confidant, his private secretary, his personal banker and he had finally exhausted his capacity for role-playing. Noel Pallais had no more loyalty for the Somozas and had accumulated too much pain. Happily, he was living in Peru at the time of Tachito's death, but he argued that, even if he had been in Miami then, he wouldn't have gone to the funeral. "Why did you bother to be there at all?," he asked me later. His brother Luis, a key negotiator during the last months of Tachito's crumbling empire and the long-time editor of the family newspaper, felt differently. "I am glad you are here representing your parents," he told me shortly after I arrived in Miami from New York.

The truth was that our close family ties with the Somozas had long waned by the time Tachito was killed.

In 1974, father resigned from his post as director of a bank controlled by the Somozas, after he and Tachito quarreled over what father considered to be an unethical financial deal. Since then, the two cousins hadn't been on speaking terms. Less than a year later, upon their return from a three-month trip around the world, Tachito ordered that my parent's luggage be carefully inspected at customs. "We were treated like drug smugglers while Luis Pallais (father´s younger brother, then the director of Novedades, the family´s newspaper) was welcomed like a king," mother angrily remembered.

Shortly after Marcel's death, Hope, his godmother, had sent Laura Checa a pithy note of condolence. "I am beyond suffering," the note said. She failed to mention how sorry she might have been. However distant my family had become from Tachito's by then, the curse of belonging to the Somoza clan was still with us. Because my father's name was irreparably linked to Tachito's, he was persona non-grata in Sandinista Nicaragua. Noel Pallais Debayle, who had served in Tachito's government for years, was one of a list of Somocista criminals facing jail sentences in Nicaragua for "illicit enrichment." Borge warned my mother about this. "You are welcome here, but I am sorry to say your husband isn't," he told her shortly after she arrived in Managua for Marcel's funeral.

I believe Marcel would probably still be alive if he hadn't been so closely related to the Somozas. Few considered his death to be a happenstance, a street crime. From the outset, the Sandinistas linked it to "counter-revolutionaries" working for Tachito. But it wasn't as if Marcel had suddenly betrayed either Tachito or the Somozas. The young man's antipathy for the Somoza regime was never a secret, even before he began collaborating with the Sandinista guerrillas. For years prior to the dictator's fall, Marcel had made a point of avoiding Tachito, in fact. There was never, not even when we were children, a rapport between the two. My case was different. I remember Tachito's charm vividly. As a child, I had loved the company of my jolly, engaging uncle who taught me how to swim and how to fish. In many of my favorite childhood memories --memories buried by time and politics that had nonetheless accumulated in my unconscious, Tachito had the lead role. There were, for instance, those week-ends we used to spend at Montelimar, his seaside estate with its 25 miles of private beach and its isolated colonial mansion overlooking the Pacific.

My clearest memory of that period is the day of a long fishing trip with Tachito during which we ran into a fishermen's old lobster-boat.

The evening before, at dinner, Tachito and Hope had their usual dinner row over nothing in particular. She was always nagging him about his lack of manners, his vulgarity, his loudness. Her civilized, sophisticated way of pestering him exasperated and enraged him every time. "God damm it, Hope, when will you come to terms with the fact that you didn't marry an English lord!," he told her in English. They almost always spoke to each other in English when they were having a fight or a serious conversation.

The two had been educated in the United States and were proud of it. Hope's English was faultless and her nasal accent, typically American --she was, after all, an American citizen. Despite his recurrent grammatical mistakes, Tachito peppered his everyman's English with quaint colloquialisms from his West Point days. Once, when asked what model his black armored Cadillac Fleetwood was, he shot back: "How the hell should I know? I don't get my kicks by being the guy with the newest car in the block."

But there were some things he had to say in Spanish, if only for the sake of logic. Responding to Hope's criticisms, he boasted, "I am and will always be, a Nicaraguan farmer, and I am proud to have a farmer's manners!" This time, Tachito spoke in Spanish. Kicking a chair behind him as he got up, he grabbed his chewed cigar and briefly exchanged a significant glance with us children. We were used to her distant coldness and his sudden flashes of violent temper. They usually came together. "She always does this to me, doesn't she?," he asked us, in an attempt to distract us and win us over. As he stormed out of the dining room, he promised to make the next day's fishing expedition a long one. "I'll take the girls with me. Young ladies bring me luck and make me feel good," he said, in another fruitless attempt to provoke his wife. As always, Hope remained haughty and remote, as if nothing had happened. Naturally, our hearts went out to him.

Early the next morning, as we sailed off from Montelimar's harbor, Santa Claus himself would have blushed in the presence of generous, warm and funny "uncle Tacho," whose small eyes always seemed to be peering into infinity through his thick-rimmed glasses. A fishing trip with this tall, imposing man, who always got his way, promised to be a great success.

"You'll see, we will leave just enough fish in the ocean for us to come back and find some more next time," he told us. We all laughed at his exaggeration, but, knowing him, we wondered if perhaps he really meant it. After all, one of his most endearing qualities was that he never failed to fulfill his promises, never lied to us children.

By the time the sun hit the horizon, we had got badly sun burnt but not caught one fish. We had all tried our luck, including Tachito and the crew, to no avail. Spirits were low and, with the typically harsh judgment of inactive children, those of us who weren't asleep seriously began to question Tachito's magical touch. He was just a bully, we thought, nothing but a hoax.

Suddenly, speaking to the captain from the main-deck, Tachito's commanding voice woke us from our lethargy. "Let's move close to that boat," he said, looking through his binoculars and pointing to a small boat barely visible in the distance. Soon, the fast, sleek presidential yacht was looming over the small, wooden vessel, concealing the dying sun behind its shiny brass and its splendid masts.

The lobster-boat, stung by an enormous wave, bravely struggled to remain afloat. One of the fishermen was lifting a big, fat fish caught in a ragged net and dumping it with great ease on top of what looked like a wobbly mountain of fish still bouncing with life. However humble, the men were obviously professional. Sitting mightily on a high chair and holding a loudspeaker, Tachito went straight to the point. "Hey, muchachos, how about giving us poor ignorant amateurs a share of your catch?," he asked them. His request had the blunt authority of an order.

Transfixed, they stared up. It was no apparition. There he was talking to them, El Jefe Supremo himself, the most powerful man in Nicaragua. They looked like Lilliputians next to Tachito's Gulliver.

"Hope will blast me if we show up without anything to eat for dinner," he said, winking at us and roaring with laughter.

Promptly, the fishermen proceeded to unload a bunch of lobster and plenty of fish --their catch and probably their monthly income. "We better not tell Hope how we caught these, she might send for some more!," he joked. We were all reminded of Hope's penny-pinching ways.

As a sign of his gratitude, Tachito decided to cast anchor near the fishermen's village -- a squalid cluster of thatched-roof shacks, about 30 miles from Montelimar's mansion. It was the first time I had seen such poverty.

Tachito, surrounded by a handful of bodyguards --the crew members-- and about five of us girls, was greeted like a king as he got off his yacht, stepping on shore with the triumphant step of a conquistador. In a matter of seconds, the whole community, which consisted of about half a dozen families, with eight, nine children each, rushed to his side. I don't remember them asking Tachito for anything. I only remember their pleading attitude, their begging look. Christmas had come to them, if only for a few fleeting seconds and with no presents.

For as long as he remained on shore, he seemed to be paying attention to everyone at the same time. Immersed in a serious "man-to-man" chat one minute, smiling broadly the next, hugging a fat, toothless old lady, pointing out the beauty of her 16-year-old daughter, Tachito, like God, was omnipresent. He had a word for one, a gesture for another. A cuddle for a little boy. A manly word of advice for a teenager. That baby girl would grow up to be Miss Nicaragua, he told a toddler's mother, who was blushing because he had just told her she was a perfect example of a Nicaraguan "tropical beauty". So they lived in these shacks? Well, not for long, he told them, promising them he would make sure they got "better housing" in the very near future. They could count on him, he told them. "Don't worry, very soon you will all have decent homes, your children will be fed and a school will be built in the vicinity," he said, earnestly, as if he really meant it. And even if he what he said sounded like platitudes, that was much more than they had ever hoped for. They felt they had made a good deal, exchanging their catch for promises, however hollow. So, not quite bowing as he left them, they all glowed with hope, some even praised him profusely for his "generosity."

That evening in Montelimar's opulent dining table, there was lobster and delicious fish for supper. "Obviously the girls should accompany you more often on your fishing escapades," Hope said wryly after finishing her meal. "He's never caught so many!," she exclaimed with some enthusiasm. Tachito chuckled, we giggled and I prefer to believe that she never found out about the loot.

But Tachito was more than just a provider of fun and adventure for his children and the children of his relatives. He was also a kingly figure for all of Central America whose voice resounded well beyond Nicaragua. In the late 60's, his role was pivotal during a delicate, tricky period of direct diplomacy between the Central American heads of state themselves. In fact, years after the fishermen incident, I had a chance to see him, once again in Montelimar, this time exercising his political muscle. When Tachito was already famous as the "Godfather of Central America" I witnessed, admiringly, how he performed that role one evening over the phone. With one telephone in each hand, he cursed and cajoled the presidents of El Salvador and Honduras into stopping what became known as the "football war." He came close to making their foreign ministers obsolete. Appealing to the vanity of one and to the self-importance of the other, Tachito, a cunning manipulator, persuaded both presidents to come to an agreement. At stake was their border conflicts which had come to a boil at a football match between their two national teams. With one, who was his chum, he was friendly and informal. With the other, he was deferential and respectful. In the end, he proved to be an amazingly effective referee. If he wasn't able to provide a lasting solution that would satisfy the people of El Salvador and Honduras, at least he coaxed both heads of state into releasing a joint public statement to end the war.

Almost a decade later, however, Tachito managed to bring about a civil war that had negative ripple effects in the entire Central American region. By 1978, his refusal to leave power was threatening to destroy the stability of the Central American common market. Costa Rica, for instance, withdrew from it in protest against the approval by the region's bank for economic integration of a $20 million loan to the Somoza regime. A year later, Tachito succeeded in uniting almost all sectors of Nicaragua against him and even inspired the strangest of bedfellows to join a provisional revolutionary government of national reconstruction. The Sandinista-led revolution in Nicaragua was no ordinary political movement pitting left against right, civilians against army men, poor against rich, but rather a national mutiny in which car mechanics made common cause with coffee growers. Marcel was just another of the many young men of his class who had joined the Sandinistas. But there was something unique about Marcel, something he had no control over. He was the only close relative of the Somozas who had become a Sandinista revolutionary.

"It's all yours. All I want is a room and a job," Marcel told Omar Cabezas, a Sandinista comandante who met him shortly after the July 19, 1979 revolutionary victory, the day Cabezas and others occupied his house. "I was impressed with his humility. I didn't know he was our friend, let alone our collaborator. He told us the house was ours, just like that," Cabezas remembers. Later, Marcel moved into a room at an old friend's house and shortly afterwards, was named director of propaganda for Managua's communication workers at Telcor. "I have never been so happy in my life. This is a wonderful feeling," Marcel told me during our last telephone conversation. The revolution was giving birth to "a new, free Nicaragua," he went on. His enthusiasm was catching. He made me promise I would consider going to Nicaragua "for at least a year, to check it out," he suggested. Marcel, the intellectual, the bookworm, was finally participating, working, like the rest of his friends. These were times to act, not to brood. For too many years, he had been "a lucid observer," and, above all, a thinker, "a cuadro we were hoping to use later, when the war was over," a Sandinista friend told me recently.

By the early 60's, the choices available to those of us who could read and write well enough to know about something about freedom and justice, Simon Bolivar's dreams, Hegel's philosophy, Marx's theories, the United States' Bill of Rights and the French Revolution, were few and clear. We could try to upset the system, hide in the mountains with the Sandinista rebels in order to train in guerrilla tactics, win the support of the peasantry to create an armed opposition; or take the safe route, work from "inside" the system, quietly giving information to the rebels, supplying them with food, refuge and money. Or we could simply join the Somozas and keep our mouths shut. This was an alternative that, at least for decades, guaranteed a survival many preferred.

Or we could turn our backs to that small, undernourished and under populated Central American nation altogether. Some of us did. But, when the first signs of a guerrilla movement that might topple Tachito's government were evident, I assumed Marcel would join it. Most of his best friends were slowly vanishing from Managua's parties into Nicaragua's inhospitable northern mountains with the Sandinistas. And he was considered to be among the most radical of his peers.

But he didn't vanish into the mountains. While most of his best friends were fighting alongside the Sandinistas against Tachito's National Guard, Marcel transformed his parents' home into his barracks, helping the wounded and feeding starving compañeros during the seven-week-long civil war. "We all knew that if we wanted food, we could go to Marcel's house. He was famous for giving meat away, apparently from a freezer his parents kept well-stocked," another Sandinista friend, whose house wasn't far from Marcel's, told me. His choice sometimes bothered him. "I am a little dissatisfied with myself, feel restless and pessimistic about becoming a political engineer in this world of military struggles," Marcel wrote.

At the heart of his decision lied Marcel's inner contradictions. His life was a struggle between his ideology and his family roots. Above all, he was careful to maintain his close relationship with his father. "He was always loyal to him. He always tried to justify his relationship with Tachito, arguing that his father was trying to help Nicaragua the only way he could," a friend of Marcel's told me. In a letter to Gwen, his American girlfriend, at the beginning of Nicaragua's civil war, Marcel wrote: "It is not my time yet. I have learnt many things but now I want to get out of (Nicaragua) because my hands are tied and I need to go to graduate school, to study a technical career and build our future with modesty and hard work."

Marcel's reference to his hands being "tied" was a poetic allusion to his loyalty towards his father. But also, Marcel hated guns, uniforms and violence. Even if he was given the honors of a military hero when he died, Marcel was "nobody's idea of a military hero," a friend of his once said.
But the reality around him was full of all those things. And he knew that only too well. Violence was the only "national identity" Nicaraguans had after so many years of repression, he once wrote. "When you see a true Nicaraguan, you will see violence. Violence is their only root, one deeply engrained in them," Marcel wrote in a notebook he used to keep by his bed-side table.

As for guns, he preferred to stay away from using them himself, but he helped others find them. "Marcel used to steal and hide lots of arms for us," a Sandinista friend of Marcel's told me years later. Because of his family contacts, Marcel had access to various arsenals of Somocista weapons. His task was to steal them one by one and keep the loot in an underground tunnel in his house. It was a routine but delicate operation that had to be strictly compartmentalized. Only one companero in the Sandinista "proletarian tendency" had to be contacted. Only with him would Marcel make the arrangements to deliver the weapons.

All of these precautions were taken because it wasn't until shortly before the fall of Tachito that the Sandinista revolutionaries joined forces. Since the early 60's, they were wracked by internal divisions and later, they divided into three "tendencies" with different tactical objectives. Back in the mid-70's, Marcel joined the "proletarian tendency," which worked in the classic Marxist tradition, locating itself among the urban working class and youth as the driving forces of the revolution. It was a natural choice for Marcel, since the "proletarians" supported alliances in which revolutionaries were subordinated to the anti-Somoza wing of the bourgeoisie, to which Marcel belonged.

But, in the end, Marcel's comings and goings before and during the civil war were watched by all --Sandinistas and Somocistas alike.
"He got into trouble once, in fact, because a group of compañeros, from another Sandinista faction, who didn't know Marcel was on our side, rushed into Marcel's house, which as far as they were concerned, was a Somocista house," a friend remembers. Marcel's parents were in Miami at the time, but his grandmother, Margarita Debayle, came out of her bedroom when she heard Marcel arguing heatedly with two strangers. At the same time, another two stormed into the house. A Sandinista rebel commando in charge of finding Somocista weapons for the "prolonged people's war tendency" was paying them a visit. Speaking menacingly in front of his grandmother, they told Marcel they knew he was hiding an arms cache somewhere in the house. At first, Marcel seemed utterly confused, unable to think clearly. On the one hand, these men were Sandinistas and therefore, friends; on the other hand, he couldn't reveal his connection with the "proletarians." They probably would have not believed him. One of the rebels discovered the arms in an underground tunnel, built by Marcel's father, which went from the master bedroom to the outside highway. They accused him of being a Somocista, and took the lot away.

*****

The mystery of Marcel's death lies under an overwhelming mass of dross; it is buried under the dust, weeds and mangled earth of roots, redolent of portents, omens and ghosts, like Nicaragua.

Beyond the Sandinista official version or the theory of their opponents, neither based on tangible proofs and, more importantly, on the premise that Marcel's murder was strictly political.

Fundamental reasons not verified by concrete facts, none of which are all that easy to decipher have led my way.

They are all a part of a confusing puzzle that include, in Marcel's case, values of Christianity, a solid U.S. college education, his commitment to a radical change in Nicaragua, his arrogant idealism, his height, his physical attributes, his white skin and wavy hair and, finally, his name and background, neither of which made him into a working class hero; and in the Somoza family's case, almost a quarter of a century of rule, power, greed with the unequivocal support of the U.S.; and, in Nicaragua's case, ignorance, lack of national identity, illiteracy, inferiority complex, where survival, for the working class, meant pleasing the "patron" by working their land (if this reads disconnected, disjointed, not quite right and at times ungrammatical, it cannot be otherwise, for so are the pieces in the puzzle leading to Marcel's death, and so is the labyrinth that makes Nicaragua what it is).

When he graduated from Williams College in the United States, Marcel was the recipient of high honors (none of these equaled the ones he received when he died, for his murder gave him military honors he didn't perhaps deserve, a futile attempt to extract him from his class origins and rise him to the ranks, held by quite a few, of being "a martyr of the Sandinista revolution;" according to Sandinista Commander Borge, after he died, "every Sandinista in Nicaragua is Marcel's brother;" eureka, Marcel had made it, he had been able to overcome his class origins, or had he?).

I believe Marcel never quite disentangled himself from the trappings of his class origins, of his kinship to the family dynasty he rejected. Not unlike Shakespeare's Cassius, as he claimed to be a poet while facing a crowd of angry Romans who thought he was an executioner, Marcel was killed for being a man, for having roots.

As he tried to deal with his contradictions, someone stepped over his poetry. The question is who, and why.

When Tachito, the uncle Marcel resented being related to and whose doings he felt committed to undo, was ousted, he stripped Nicaragua's treasury of more than $350 million, according to some accounts. He also left a cesspool of misery where "deep-rooted hatred proliferates," as Marcel wrote in a poem.

"Deep-rooted hatred." There lies my first clue.