3.

A few days ago a poet friend, Juan Pablo de Avila, invited me to a party given in honor of a Zapatista from Chiapas. The Zapatistas launched their surprise rebellion in 1994, but after some initial success have settled into an uneasy stalemate with the federal government, a stalemate marred by the occasional massacre. The Zapatista was in Aguascalientes to prepare for a large group’s visit, as the revolutionaries attempt to drum up support for their movement. I fear theirs is a lost cause. I tell Juan Pablo that I suspect the Zapatistas will disappear one day into a larger rebellion, that of anarchy and lawlessness. Still, I go to the party, held in a decaying Colonial-style home near the San Marcos bullring. Perhaps three dozen people sit around the interior courtyard, men and women, young and old, most in what seems to be the uniform of artists and rebels everywhere, denim pants and jackets, but also a few young women in fancy dresses, very high heels, and beautifully made-up eyes. Food is brought out, some stewed meat, nopales, rice, the ubiquitous tortilla, and bottles of tequila, which we pour into mugs of hot poncho. I am impressed, as I often am at Mexican parties, by the formal gentility of these gatherings, a kind of old-fashioned festiveness where everyone talks quietly and—I have to say this—sweetly to each other. There is a genuine air of innocence to this party. One can almost define it by what is missing: no raucous noises, no jittery people, no horny guys moving on reluctant girls, no undercurrent of hostility or angst or ennui or post-modern crises, no urban despair, no swaggering macho gestures. After a while a mime—a traditional Mexican performer—emerges from a back room, jerkily at first, like a marionette, his white-painted face expressionless as a mask. Everyone watches enraptures. At last he slides, in his black tights and vest, more fluidly, picks up a ceramic bird from the fountain, and cradles it in his hands. He spins around a few times, and lifts the bird into the air, blowing gently. He then exits like a bird himself, his arms moving as wings. I feel a bit embarrassed by the naiveté of this performance—could anything be more trite than the caged bird released into freedom? —but clearly I am the only one who feels this way. The audience claps with a gentle fierceness. Do I see a damp eye here and there? Music plays, and soon people get up to dance.  This is old-fashioned dancing, couples-dancing, boys and girls, men and women, one hand in the air clasping the other at a waist or shoulder. It is serious, even solemn dancing, without smiles—dignified dancing. As the evening progresses, a few men get quietly, happily drunk. The Zapatista himself, a young man—he seems hardly old enough to drink, let alone battle the Mexican army—sits quietly the whole evening, a boy in jeans and flannel shirt who never smiles but always, gently, sweetly, listens to the gathered friends. This boy, I remember thinking, this quiet child, is the revolutionary here, among these solemn people in this decaying mansion.