him as worthy of interest, could understand this reaction.
“What did you get in exchange for your assistance?”
“What do you think?” Cirilo replied, extending his arms and pointing to the cabinet, the curtains. “All of this. He paid me off. I was nobody and then I was someone.”
“You might have told me.”
“Told you what? That I had a strange dream? That I believed in sorcery? I know you all, you vipers, you’d have had me committed.”
Martín thought about his aunts and his father. He wouldn’t put it past any of them to drag Cirilo to the insane asylum if he gave them the chance. His father was meek and soft, but he had never gotten along with the old man. As for Martín’s sisters, their husbands, and his assortment of cousins, they were all vying for power, clawing at each other.
“Well,” he said. “It didn’t do you any good to keep quiet about it. Not with that traitor running around. You gave her access to this room, to your things, and she’s not even a real Leyva.”
“That’s precisely why she had access to my room and my things. Do you think I could have trusted you to take care of me, Martín?” the old man said with a chuckle. “You are careless and lazy, but you must shape up now. The family has need of you.”
“I’ll do what I must and go where I must,” Martín replied.
“Do not muck it up, as you are wont to do.”
He did not enjoy the look his grandfather gave him. The old man did not much like Martín, although this was not terribly surprising, since he seemed to like no one. But he had never been more aware of Cirilo’s distaste. None of this was his fault, so why was he being judged so harshly?
“When have I mucked it up? I’ve only ever done as you’ve said,” he protested.
“Listen, boy,” Cirilo said, reaching for his cane, which rested by the bed, and slamming it hard against the floor, making Martín wince. “You may think I’m unkind to you and harsh, but you do not know him.”
The young man recalled Vucub-Kamé. When his grandfather had woken him up and roughly ordered him to get dressed, haltingly explaining they had a divine guest, he’d simply thought him mad—Cirilo was right, such revelations would lead a man to the asylum—but one quick look at Vucub-Kamé and poor Martín had to admit to himself that no man could have eyes like the stranger did, nor the hair to match. And there had been too the shimmering sense of power, crackling around them, that made Martín sheepish despite his enormous pride.
“Your idiocies, they won’t do with him. You must serve him and serve him well. Bow low, address him properly, flatter him, and most of all do as he says so that we may not be cursed.”
“Cursed.”
“Yes. What, do you think we will keep all this if Vucub-Kamé fails and his brother regains his throne? Would you like to be a pauper, begging for coins on a streetcorner? Worse even, serving Casiopea? Imagine if Hun-Kamé should reward her and punish us.”
Martín panicked at the thought of his cousin ending up with the house at Uukumil, all of his expensive boots and his fancy belt buckles and the silver cigarette case snatched from his grasp.
“Fine, fine,” Martín said, running a hand through his hair. “Then tell me how I should address him and any other tidbits you may know. Christ, I may need them.”
Cirilo gripped his cane with one hand, but let it rest against the wall and began talking.
Every state, and sometimes every city, earns itself a reputation. The people from Mexico City are haughty and rude. The people from Jalisco are brave, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. But the people from Veracruz, they are all laughter and joy. Reality and rumor do not always match, but Veracruz, lately, had been trying to build up its happy façade. In 1925, two years before, the local authorities had instituted a carnival.
Oh, there had been a carnival before, despite the mutterings of the Church. But it had been a sporadic, tumultuous affair, flaring up and cooling down. Its purpose and its organizers had been different. Now the carnival was modernized, molded by civic leaders who saw in it a chance to quietly insert useful post-revolutionary values into the community, amid all the glitter and dances. The newspapers said this was a festivity for “all social classes,” exalting the beauty