after Portrait of Antonieta Rivas Mercado, by Francisco Romano Guillemín (Mexico) 1917
Outside the cathedral, watching the faithful and passersby, the woman sits alone. And hasn’t it always been this way?
She is not a stranger in Paris, but not one friend has called on her since her arrival. Of course not: her family’s money has run dry. There is nothing left for them to want.
She is a long way from home, from Mexico City, from the sprawling hacienda with the stone steps, from the towering golden guardian Ángel de la Independencia on Paseo de la Reforma. Her father was the angel’s maestro architect, ensuring the Mercado name was known to millions, to the world.
Antonieta loved that she need only look up into the sky to find her father, from the café tables where other writers gathered to talk about women, and women’s rights; from the small theatres she subsidized and the music rehearsals where her patronage funded innovation; from the bustling side streets in the taxi on her way to Diego’s studio, or Manuel’s.
But that winged sentry had become a bitter arrow. She felt Antonio watching her as all of the treasures he had amassed slipped through her fingers. She could scarcely handle his disappointment. He had appointed her of all her siblings for the same reason that he encouraged her education here in Paris as a young girl, to learn French and English literature, piano, and philosophy. He trusted her and believed in her keen intelligence and imagination.
Antonio had, of course, frowned at her drinking tequila at Diego’s and his revolving door of beauties and rogues. But Diego had been good company. For all his well-known flaws, he was funny and candid and ambitious. She had no designs on him. Rather, it was Manuel she had loved. Manuel’s preference for young men, not young women, was an open secret in their circles, but he’d been married before and Antonieta was certain he could marry again. Then, scandal broke out: Manuel’s art pupil, a promising star of the future, depressed and jilted by his teacher for another young male artist, overdosed in apparent suicide on cocaine in his teacher’s studio.
The boy’s name was Angel. Antonieta had concluded then that it was a sign. It was the moment that she began to see a way out of everything, holding the terrible possibility close for comfort ever since.
Still, she carried on. There was work to do and she was not easily whipped. She wrote for the journal Contemporáneos. She oversaw literary circles, the orchestra, avant-garde theatre productions of Cocteau and new Mexican playwrights, and art exhibitions. She believed as Antonio had in the potential of Mexico. She had devoured Europe’s genius through paintings and ballets since she was a girl. And she knew Mexico had even more genius inside of it than France. She wanted to support its bloom, so that the art and beauty of her homeland would rise up over the world like her father’s victory angel in the sky.
And then, Jose. His writings were brilliant, almost mystical, even the political ones. Her interest had been purely intellectual at first, but she soon fell under the spell created by their easy camaraderie as they worked together. He respected her insights and intelligence. When she had finally made her interest clear, he said that he was married. I am also married, she had told him truthfully. How foolish that she assumed they meant the same thing: Antonieta had long moved back into her father’s house with her son, after Albert had burned her volumes of Proust and Nietzsche and Baudelaire. Divorce was a different matter, difficult in Mexico, especially for a woman. It was a long drawn-out battle still ongoing.
She had been happy, at least for awhile. Safe. Her lover was a presidential candidate, and the air was alive with the future. Her conviction was so strong that she sold off all her remaining properties to finance his campaign. But Jose had not won, and now he was in exile after contesting the results of the election. She followed him to Paris, with her son. To show Jose that her love was not fickle and dependent on his victory.
Jose had been shocked to see her, and she knew right away that he had meant to slip away and never send for her. She asked him outright if he needed her, and he replied that he only needed God.
She stands up. It is time to come face to face with God herself, a rival even more powerful than Jose’s wife. She strides confidently toward the open church doors.
No doubt Albert will arrive in Paris soon, hunting her down. Happy now? she thinks. You win. She also thinks of Tonito, how he is waiting for her back at the hotel, how he will be waiting and waiting, how he will not be able to make sense of any it until much later when he is grown. And her heart breaks for him. But there is no other way.
In the nave, she sits quietly in the shadowy glow of flickering candles and the stained-glass windows. She contemplates the beauty of the holy Virgin. It somehow hadn’t mattered to Antonieta that her own mother never loved her—Don’t you think she is too brown? Madre had asked her father when Antonieta first appeared in the world. But Mary was her true mother, the one who had always been with her.
Antonieta prays for mercy for her past sins and the next one. But she knew with all her heart that if Christ had forgiven his executors, He would kindly overlook what was necessary here in light of her destitution and despair.
She finishes her prayers, then slides Jose’s pistol from her handbag, taken out of his suitcase last night while he fixed their drinks.
She holds the pistol against her heart and admits defeat.
