A Ballad of Love and Glory(107)
She yanked her hands away and shook her head in disbelief. “You handed our country over to the Yanquis. From the very beginning, you betrayed your people, your homeland. I watched the San Patricios hang in the gallows because they fought for you. I watched my husband flogged and his face defiled for defending a country not his own. So many soldiers lost their lives in this war. Even the cadets in Chapultepec Castle died defending it. General Bravo lost his life. Their blood is on your hands. The blood of the San Patricios is on your hands. You’re a murderer! ?Un vendepatrias!”
She slapped him once, twice, but the third time he caught her hands by the wrists. “?Basta! I am no murderer. And how dare you accuse me of selling out Mexico? I have suffered privations, insults, and calumny! I’ve risked my life to defend this ungrateful country. It is the people and their lack of patriotism you ought to blame. Where were they today? Where was their pride? The Yanquis were attacking their city and they simply watched with apathy. Only my soldiers and I fought while the masses stood by and did nothing.” He grabbed his wooden leg from the table and struggled to put it back on.
“They have no weapons, what could they have done? Pelt the Yanquis with stones?”
“?Sí! Hurling stones would have been better than just standing by. A lack of weapons has never stopped them before. When they rise in revolt against their own government—against me—weapons or not, they still put up a fight. Look what they did to my limb! Where was their outrage today when the Yanquis stormed the castle, when they seized the city gates? Where was their outrage when the Yanquis flogged your husband, when they hanged his men, our Irish heroes? If the Yanquis had fought the people as well as my soldiers, they would have been annihilated.”
He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. Then he stood to leave.
“Hágame caso, Ximena. It is in your best interest to come with me. I deeply lament saying this but it is true—Juan Riley belongs to the Yanquis now. There is no saying when he will be released—if he will be released. Scott won’t exchange the San Patricios, you know that. He needs to make an example of them, especially of Juan Riley.” He limped toward her and took her hand, his voice gentler now, shifting into a sweet, seductive tone. She hated how he could do that, the capricious mood swings, the change in the tenor of his voice.
“Let me take care of you, querida. I will be good to you. To your child. Se lo prometo.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her. When she didn’t respond, he pressed her against him and tried to pry her mouth open with his tongue. She stood there like a statue, giving him nothing, not even this kiss he’d always asked for.
“You have violated the sacred soul of Mexico,” she said when at last he gave up. “Adiós, Antonio.” She handed him his sarape, and he draped it over himself and left. She knew this would be the last time they would ever see each other.
* * *
The next day the city was abuzz with the news that Santa Anna had broken his promise to the people to defend the capital to the bitter end and instead had fled, taking with him his remaining troops. Coming out of the Catedral Metropolitana, Ximena watched as General Scott marched into the city to take possession of the Palacio Nacional. She couldn’t bear the sight of the invaders. Sitting atop a magnificent horse and surrounded by his escorts, Scott made his way past the citizens, who watched his entrance into the palace in horror.
On the eve of Mexican Independence Day, the flag of stars and stripes unfurled in the wind in full view of the city, to the sorrow of the Mexican people. Ximena remembered the first time she saw that flag at the Yanqui encampment across from Matamoros. Who would have imagined then that from Matamoros, it would go on to fly over other Mexican cities until it ended up here, piercing the heart of Mexico?
The following night, “El Grito” should have been reenacted in the Plaza de la Constitución, the heroes who had given their lives for Mexican Independence honored and remembered. Ximena thought of how a year earlier, she’d been celebrating the independence of her country with John and Jimmy Maloney in Monterrey. Now, Jimmy was dead and so were many of the San Patricios. John was in prison, and Santa Anna had abandoned the city that he claimed to love. She was alone, about to bring forth a child into this unstable world. Watching the Yanqui colors floating over the Palacio Nacional, she knew that the demoralization of the Mexican soul was complete.
Something snapped inside her at the same moment that a change happened in the crowd. Perhaps it was seeing the enemy’s flag flying over the palace that woke the people from their culpable apathy. They realized that with Santa Anna’s army and the government officials gone, no one was coming to defend them. Perhaps it was the realization that instead of celebrating their country’s independence, they were watching Mexico return to its days of conquest, back in the hands of invaders.
Even stones would have been better than nothing, Santa Anna had said. Ximena picked up the stone by her shoe and hurled it at the Yanqui soldiers marching by. Others did the same, raising the cry for war, raining stones and bricks upon the invaders. A stormy riot broke out. The people—even the beggars, the lepers, and the peddlers—weaponless but full of indignation and hungry for revenge, fought with whatever they could, yelling “?Muerte a los Yanquis! ?Muerte a Santa Anna!” Then others joined in and, from the rooftops and windows of the nearby buildings, they discharged their escopetas upon the enemy. The Yanquis fell into ranks, loaded and fired their cannons upon the multitude. The crowds ran for cover, and Ximena barely kept herself from being trampled by the fleeing masses. Clutching her protruding stomach, she reached the doors of the Catedral Metropolitana just as another cannon blast exploded outside.