México is, perhaps, the most exotic place in which I have
ever lived, though that is not too many places.
Funny thing about México, she borders the great melting pot and yet may
well be more diverse than the United States.
This letter should have come out a week or more ago but I was too busy
(i.e., lazy) to get around to doing this.
Two days before I left for Maryland to have a splendid time
with the Purnells, a colleague at the science center, where I serve the Peace
Corps over easy, approached me and said he needed to speak with me about
something. We had been meaning to meet over
the preceding two days, something I instantly forgot because this urgency
emerged on a Friday afternoon.
My heart sank. Hmmm.
Mystified yet pessimistic, I braced myself into my professional
stoicism. My colleague asked me
straight-away whether or not I was busy on Saturday. Still mystified yet a little less
pessimistic, I said, “No, not really – nothing I cannot change…” (Of course, I did not want to admit that my big event the
Saturday before Christmas was packing for the trip the next day.)
“Good!” said he, handing me a little vase – the clear type
with a long Audrey Hepburn neck for one rose – with a scroll tucked inside it. Completely confused, I knew I was being
invited to something, something Mexican, which means time consuming and
inconvenient because I had just re-engaged in a new reading spurt.
Truthfully, I desired nothing more than to get back to my
book on Henry Flashman, a sexually maniacal and acutely yellow British captain
who had lived through the slaughter of Her Majesty´s army in Afghanistan under
the gored Lord Elphinstone in 1842. So,
out of service to my country as I serve fearlessly in the Peace Corps, I would
sacrifice another Saturday in solitude in order to witness some event filled
with music I do not enjoy and chatter I can better live without in English, let
alone Spanish.
Gazing dumbly away as these thoughts cascaded through my
wretched little mind, my joyful colleague snapped me back to the here and now
by saying with a smile showing his genuine kindness, “Mi novia (girlfriend or,
in México, fiancée) y yo are finally getting married…” I exploded with joy. I was not getting chastised; this fine guy –
whose abilities one inevitably respects – was not terribly upset or even criticizing
me.
More important, my compañero and his better half have been
simpático for a good long time. In fact,
his fiancée has always been very gracious to me. The vase had the
invitation. Before I knew how to extract
the message in the bottle, other colleagues rallied around the desk to set the
time and place to pick me up for a ride to the wedding “a little way's” out of
town.
As I went for my Friday night run, I worried about how I
would manage at a wedding in México, with my ‘fawlty’ Spanish. Yet I was excited. Most other volunteers had gone to such big-ticket
events far earlier in their tours. To be
sure, I had attended my share of festivities for Christmas, the Epiphany (a big
deal in México), Independence Day, Easter, countless birthdays and the
rest. But never a wedding. And yet that spiritual blight inside of me
that makes even unanticipated high-points dully anti-climactic was already
weaseling its way into my heart.
It was three o´clock on a warm Saturday afternoon – hitting
around eighty degrees (about twenty-seven celsius) at its peak – and I had
clocked my long run for the week (of five miles). Slightly dehydrated and hunger allayed by a
‘pan dulce’ (a sugary biscuit), I got to the bus stop right on time to get the
ride with other colleagues from the office.
Of course, I had the Flashman follies tucked under my arm, thinking I
would read it during the ride and, maybe, at the wedding if I got bored and was
trapped “a little way’s out of town”.
Equally of course, the book soon became an appendage and
then a thorn in the flesh. No Flashman
frolicking amongst the Pashtuns this twenty-second day of December 2012, indeed. I sat in the very back seat of the S.U.V. across
from a compañero of whom I am fond because, like me, he was once a banker,
apparently relishing the field as much as I had. This gentleman, and he really is one in his
patrician manner, talked about what we always talked about: the Free
Masons.
Undeterred by utter ignorance, I tend to speak from the view
of how important the Masons were in liberalizing Europe and founding the
American republic. My colleague spoke
about how the Masons have evolved into some new world order; he is convinced
that this clique conspired to assassinate President Kennedy. As always, I said (sincerely, for once) what
I believe: that Lee Harvey Oswald most likely acted alone and that the many
theories floating around arise from people’s unwillingness to accept the
chaotic possibility that a schmeau can murder the leader of the Free World.
As the ride progressed more than “a little way’s out of
town”, however, we migrated beyond the usual small-talk about global cabals,
conspiracies and coups d’état. My
colleague told me about his background, and what an interesting family he came
from. In México, one has two
surnames. The first is the one inherited
from the father in a patrilocal society tottering in an uneasy truce with a
matrilineal culture, which is reflected in the second surname: the maiden name
of the mother.
This colleague’s disparate appellations have, for the first,
a traditional Mexican name (for Tower) followed by his mother´s Polish maiden
name (because it ends with an “i”).
Apparently, his father was an engineer in a day when México produced far
fewer and when even fewer Mexicans went to college. Nowadays, México likely produces more
engineering graduates relative to its population than even China. So, my friend’s father came from “nice
people”; respectable, not rich, and emphasizing education. While his father was somewhat like my own,
his mother’s story was interesting.
We got around to that lineage through the hidden rope ladder
up a Polish family tree. We started
talking about Pope John Paul II, a fabulously popular pontiff across México – perhaps more so
in death than he had been in life. The
ongoing veneration of Juan Pablo II reminds me of the same worship Jordanians
still reserve for King Hussein after twelve years in the Gardens of Eden where
sweet waters flow and veiled virgins with almond eyes serve fresh pomegranates
and figs.
My banking buddy told me about his mother’s family. As a little one, she might well have been a
contemporary of the young, earnest Wojtila, without knowing the path in store
for Karol. The family was prosperous,
part of the intellectual bourgeoisie.
Though likely infected to some extent by the anti-semitism afflicting
most Catholics in Europe at the time, this family hated the Nazis and fled, as
the Wehrmacht butchered their homeland, eventually setting in México.
If I remember the pageant correctly, the parents came
together through the crudest artifice of fate: the blind date. Like my own mother, coming of age as a
Catholic teen a little later, my friend´s mother detested Pope Pius XII for
selling out the Jews and not doing what a good Christian ought to do: standing
up to naked evil preying upon the vulnerable.
Yes, we readily agreed that Pius XII should not be a saint, despite
Rome’s current and preliminary efforts to make him one.
This accord led to opinions about the current bishop of
Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, himself a German and an erstwhile (if short-lived)
member of the Hitler youth roadies.
After I pointed out the tolerance toward Jews and Muslims shown in the
new catechism of Juan Pablo II and edited by then Cardinal Ratzinger as head of
the Inquisition, my colleague agreed that Benedicto may be a stern-looking
S.O.B. but is fundamentally a decent, if be-jeweled, man. Such exotic stories are not too uncommon in
México.
After this heady talk and languishing in the barren but
beautiful landscape of dusty hills, scrub-brush and ever-resilient nopales (a
cactus that looks like a cross between a bonsai tree and a Calderesque mobile
of martian hush-puppy ears), we arrived some eighty minutes later at an old
hacienda (i.e., the Spanish-moorish version of an ante-bellum plantation house)
modernized into a hotel and events center.
The place was beautiful; elegant in a colorful yet subtly melancholic
way.
The main building was basically a square, two storey box with large
widows sealed by drawn drapes of a rich, heavy velvet (I think). The walls in the ante room, an indoor porch
without a screen, were dark blue tiles with Moorish patterns resembling
brilliantly precise yet small mandalas.
At the end of the outdoorsy alcove was a suit of armor that looked more
like that worn in medieval France than the stuff of conquistadors. The outer wall was a milk-chocolate brown set
in a soft-edge but very rough stucco.
The building was so big that a blind man reading braille
could have read Don Quixote simply by running his fingers along the wall. Those images hit that long-ago activated
perception that Mexican culture really has much in common with that of the
Middle East. While many Mexicans have
their mestizo past clearly etched in their faces and frames, a goodly number of
women do not and, with their darker complexions, coal-fired eyes and wavy black
hair, they more resemble those several desert darlings who have made me swoon
in that blazing Arabian sun…
…until I got indoors with the modern assurance of air
conditioning and cold sparkling water.
We had arrived three minutes late and I was nervous…unique I was, in
being so, inside the car. Nevertheless, I
had my apologies and excuses ready for deployment. We were the first to arrive. And so I started another tutorial on the calming
effect of mañana. Not even the two
colleagues getting married seemed to be around.
In truth, they were inside exchanging their vows quietly and privately. Our presence was needed at the
reception. The wedding was different
than others I have attended in the United States.
Aside from not witnessing the sacrament, there were
appetizers aplenty, while the ceremony took place. As people began arriving, many from the
science center where I work, we basically loafed in a richly lawned yard
punctuated by Spanish oaks, looking onto a traditional cactus garden and the
fiesta tent with tables appointed and ready to go. The magic of late autumn in Querétaro is
that, as the sun goes down (as it did that day), so do the temps by a good fifteen
degrees (eight celsius).
In that chilly twilight, I finally relaxed enough to take in
the fantastic beauty of the scene. The
sky was a darkening blue, and thanks to the relative absence of catalytic
converters in México, the clouds – looking like incomplete canopies – crawled
from a quiet white to dusky rust, settling finally into a curdled red. Relaxing there, I remarked to my colleagues
that this setting on this day for this event was so breathlessly perfect that
one would not forget it. I hope I never
do.
Finally, I saw the married couple. My compañero’s novia has always impressed me
as handsome in a matronly way, as she has been a single mother for many years,
fetching after two very well bred teens.
Though this was a civil ceremony because she was divorced, this lady was
in a slightly mauve wedding dress – a new image for me – that was as beautiful
in its cuts and folds as its material was costly. She was, in a word, elegant. Beautifully elegant. Seeing her frequently in office clothes
without the make-up delicately applied had obscured that obvious fact from me.
Knowing full well that I had been included at the last
minute as some other invitee declined, I marched straight over to the couple.
My colleague was wearing a formal dinner suit and looked pretty gentlemanly
himself. It is safe to say that I was
the only guest wearing a blazer with a Peace Corps patch on the breast
pocket. As I approached them, I tried
quickly to rehearse a clever compliment, not an easy thing to do in a tongue
beyond my limited reach. In the end, I
stammered something sincere.
Looking into her blue eyes, I told the bride just what I
told you – that I had never realized just what a beauty she really is. Mexican women are like that: an intoxicatingly
feminine fierceness; I cursed myself for frittering away my twenties in
Pittsburgh. In the deepest pocket of my
heart, I really hope México does not lose this sense of traditional gender
differentiation as she modernizes.
Manners will always have a special place in my universe if no longer in
my country.
Warming up to my compliment to his wife, my compañero
laughed and suggested that I get a new pair of glasses. Of course, I thanked them for squeezing me in
because this would be a day like none other for me in México, not only because of
the splendid elegance of the people and party but because of my happiness at
seeing a perfect match perfect that match.
After two minutes or so, I did not want to tie the couple up too long
since I was not high on the guest list pecking order.
Thus I parted artfully by saying to my compañero, a fellow
bachelor (though many years younger), “Alix, soy único en poder decirle, ‘¡mejor
tarde que nunca!’” (Alex, I am uniquely qualified in saying, “Better late than
never!”). We all laughed and I sauntered
back to the others, growing to a group of eight or ten now near the bar and fetched
my drink with a fistful of ‘Japanese nuts’ which are peanuts coated in some
type of synthetic, flavorful shell. I
justified such nutritional oversight by claiming that I enjoy international
cuisine and doling out the penny-food like some forgotten delicacy.
The thirty minutes left before dinner were devoted to
introducing myself to co-workers´ spouses and children as well as making goofy
remarks, which I could now get away with doing since most people were well into
the evening’s trajectory. One thing my
parents trained me very well to do – and for which I remain indebted to them to
this day – is the art of small talk, though the tipsiness of others makes that
a good deal easier. Widely condemned by
most people I know (i.e., earnestly open-minded baby boomers), I am a
contrarian about such ‘vacuous verbiage’.
In actuality, this much damned chitter-chatter is kinship in
code. Many years and drinks ago, I
learned that, except in moments of extraordinary intimacy (perhaps ten times in
the course of a lifetime, if one is lucky), authenticity usually collapses
quickly into garbled garbage, waiting to rot into extinction after an
ill-advised sally into solipsism. After
all, who does not know that most lives are not perfect most of the time? Humoring the drudgery of daily life not only
makes for a cheap laugh but for some unexpected meaning. This surprising energy is measured in
giggle-whats.
At dinner, I was seated with one of my counterparts and the
head of the Department where we work and his family. Again, I put to work a lesson taught me by my
mother when we were in Sydney over four decades ago. When my family first arrived in Australia, my
father was asked to many cocktail parties with various Australian and ex-pat
businessmen and some government types, too.
Now came my father’s turn to fortify the network with a cocktail party
of his own. Dad was worried that, being
relatively junior and new to town, most people would not show up. My mother assured him that she had the answer
to calm his fears.
In the Australia, and the America, of the 1960s, most women
were married with children and contented themselves with, or resigned
themselves to, being home-makers. Things
were just beginning to change as divorce became more of an option and women
were willing to brave the risks of striking out on careers. In the international business community, the
eventuality of duel earners was still a worst-case scenario. In Sydney, husbands and wives in the middle
class often led very separate lives; that is, wives were not invited to
business functions, though men partied with the abandon of little boys while
their better halves watched the “Monkees” with their little darlings.
So, ingeniously, my mother invited the wives and the
invitation basically nudged beyond simple encouragement into polite
coercion. BING! Perfect attendance. Well that adventure in ancient history has
come in handy in México. In many ways,
Mexican men still have ‘traditional’ proclivities toward monopolizing
air-time. It is a bit like
Afghanistan. The Pashtuns may run around
yelling and screaming, brandishing guns and other substitutes. Yet behind those mud-walls of family
villages, when the gloves and burkhas come off, we know who is really calling
the shots.
So, I did the logical thing: not only defy hierarchy by
talking to the jefe but blow past that convention to striking up conversations
with the quiet wife and diffident daughter.
All of this was not crass manipulation.
Often, I find new people – once I wiggle beyond that damn shyness – to
be interesting. Additionally, I got a chance to see what makes the jefe
tick. He is a very good man; like most
finance types, he sees himself as a guardian and is quiet, unspontaneous and a
better front-line blocker than any in the N.F.L. So seeing the reflection of him, inferred through
the lens of his family was something I would not pass up.
Besides both women were pretty and, after the second
sentence, quite obviously educated and thoughtful. The dinner was great
fun. The daughter is in ninth grade and
wants to be a dentist – we had fun trying to figure out how an accountant and
an engineering major produced a dentist.
Then came the typical antics with having fun with people’s names. The wife, Carolina by name, was a lovely
woman. One thing I find so interesting here in México is that some of the mostly
worldly people I meet have never left the country, often never transgressed
more than a few hundred miles from the epicenter of their lives. So, I had Carolina lined up as a Charleston
belle while Diana enjoyed being the goddess of the hunt.
Finally, the jefe loosened up and I heard him laugh heartily
for the first time ever. The family told
me all about growing up in an adjoining state in Central Mexico, while I
double-dared them to meet and neck in the Alley-of-Amor in the cultural center
of their home state. Diana enjoyed being
treated with respect like an adult. I
must say I marvel at how well behaved most Mexican youngsters are. To be sure: they raise a different kind of
hell than their Yankee counterparts; but when it counts, they know how to
act. Mexico truly has a culture that
exalts good upbringing (at least in the upper half of the society).
Apparently, a number of people never found the hacienda and
so the bride and groom had the waiters dish out seconds. Well-cooked Mexican fare is a treat,
especially for a Peace Corps volunteer living on a decent but not lavish
stipend. This evening was a big
treat. Previously, I had actually shed a
kilo or two in México; but I did my best to reinstall it that night. México has this spicy sausage called chorizo;
a lot of it was left over and I went to town.
Just call me high German nobility: Baron von Blimpoman. Finally, as things started getting a bit
tedious (i.e., beyond my pathetic attention span), the lights dimmed. I thought, well this is it: I will be home by
ten o’clock. Cool. I can read.
False alarm. We were treated to a
biographical slide show. My compañero is
a real picarro and is handsome to boot…so the photos of a cute little monster
were no surprise. The pictures of his new wife were surprising for reasons I
know not. She looked the same but
younger and she had been a darling. Her
facial expressions reminded me of something.
During this slide show, she was standing and so I looked at
her, thinking it was bizarre for her to be wearing a wedding gown on her second
marriage. Then, by the grace of God or the heart-burn of that chorizo, I suspended judgement of other human beings for a second – just
long enough to realize how utterly lovely she was in that gown. Why?
Because she looked great? True,
but not that. Because she wanted a real
wedding since the first had not worked? No, not that, either. So my simple mind got to thinking why. And those childhood pictures, now flashed
into time-progressing snaps of a couple of ten years’ happiness, solved the
riddle. Ana Maria was not wearing that
expensive gown for her, but for him. Of
course, el Señor Dagwood Dolt, this is Alix’s first marriage. Ana Maria wanted the day to be special for
him. What a party!
With this slide presentation, exceeded in mirth only by
genuine affection, the dancing began and I was looking to dance. The week before, when I finally condescended
to show up at the office Christmas party after slinking out on the first two in
2010 and 2011, I finally had gotten the nerve to dance with a dazzlingly
beautiful Mexican gal, young enough to be my daughter. Truth be told: I do not like most Mexican
music – except for one two songs with live Mariachi or older, more classical
strains. Unapologetically, I find it
discordant, loud, repetitive and generally grating to my ever thinner inner ear.
At that Christmas party, I had been joking that I would love
to dance with several of the two dozen ladies I know there. Well one young lady called me out, not out of
any appeal I have but, more likely, to shut me up. Now this lady is truly young enough to be my
daughter and she yanked me onto the dance floor – the plaza in the middle of
the research campus, draped with a tent that evening – in full view of her two
sisters, a brother in law and, oy-vey, her mother.
No escape. Glad I did not. When we got to the floor, I just did an
impromptu jitterbug to Mexican music, a recipe for certain cross border
complications. Except that Leticia had a
supple sense of rhythm as limber as a lynx.
Truthfully, Leticia did not improve my dancing as much as made
it less apparently bad. After about five
minutes, I started feeling like I ought to get off the dance floor and allow
some of the younger engineers to dance with Leticia. Leticia is really beautiful; she could be a
runway model – no joke. Nevertheless,
her ambition is to put her mind to work and, from what I gather, she is an
excellent engineer doing great work in a complex joint venture with an
international aerospace firm. Yet,
Leticia refused my repeated entreaties to beat a hastily honorable exit. She kept on dancing, and I kept on gimping
Finally, my knee gave out and we had to call it quits . After walking her back to her family, I
gallantly put Leticia’s shawl on her shoulders because it was chilly and
announced to her family that “Leticia me impulsaba hacia la tumba. Sin embargo,
¡qué bonita manera para salir!” (Letty was driving me to my grave but what a
way to go!) Leticia taught me a valuable
lesson about her culture, which I intended to put to good use at this wedding
reception since I knew a number of women: in México, it is not about whether
one can dance, play golf or anything else.
South of the border, it comes down to having fun and making
sure your partner is having as much fun as you are. Who thought that up? So the dancing at this wedding, filled with
well-wishers who had known and cared for these people for many years (plus one
goof running around with a Peace Corps patch on his blazer), fired up very
quickly easing into overdrive with little notice. I was psyched and then slammed into the big
difference between the Mexico of today and the America of my parents: people do
not dance with each other’s spouses.
Mexican men will not permit it.
There were only two unmarried (or unengaged) people there: me and the
company beauty.
This lady radiates the kind of innocent sexiness that snared
me on day-1. Only problem is she is paired
off with one of the young engineers. In
our management meetings, I have seen her look at him in a way that only two
women have ever looked at me – and they truly loved me. I remember one time in B-School, a lovely
class-mate came up to me while I was buying coffee from a sweet elderly black
woman who was my caffeine buddy.
Anyways, this class-mate came and asked me how I did on some accounting
test or some such thing. I made some
dumb-ass answer as I always did to avoid a bad habit of being competitive.
As my class-mate walked away chuckling at my alleged humor, my off-line coffee mentor said, “What are you waiting for, Neddy?” That startled me and I asked her why she said
that. This woman was wise and she did
not miss a beat, “That girl has love in her eyes…” I said, “But, Clara, she is married…” Clara seemed to think that was a mere
annoyance. Of course, I never pursued it
because I am selfish – I do not want to feel like a piece of dung. That is the way the company beauty has looked
at that engineer, not at me. Besides,
that engineer is a good friend of mine and a damnably decent fellow. Why mess everything up for something that
would not work and would be all wrong?
So I contented myself with making broken witticisms in my
sort-of second language and did not dance.
Damn shame. By eleven, with the
day eight hours old and me getting ready to head north the next day, I lobbied
hard for us to leave. But Alix told us
to wait a few more minutes for the end times, Mayan no-shows
notwithstanding. They were worth the
wait. Alix and Ana Maria led us all out
back and treated all hundred and fifty of us to some colorful and sustained
fireworks. What a great night and what a
great idea.
As my fellow car-pool members beckoned me to the car, I took
the newly-weds aside and said that I had good news and bad news. They looked at me somewhat concerned and I
started with the good news: the fireworks were a spectacular end to spectacular
wedding. Then I hesitated in the cool
December breeze. Ana Maria asked me pointedly
what the bad news was. I leaned forward
and whispered “No quiero decirlo pero la Independencia es en septiembre…” (I
hate to say this but the Mexican Independence Day is in September). I caught up to my compañeros, launched by the
hearty laughs of people in love and loving it.
Edward J. McDonnell III
U.S. Peace Corps
Querétaro, México.