The Mongolian Conspiracy Read online

  He remained a searching man, struggling between his beliefs, family loyalties, his own deep intellectual curiosities, and an openness to new ideas, which did not, however, extend to accepting my brother’s pink shirts.

  He really believed in women’s rights. I never heard him say that I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. On the contrary, he pushed me to read and write, and I just had to mention a book, and the next day it would be mine. Any intellectual pursuit was encouraged. He expected from me the same as from my brothers.

  I asked him once whether he was left or right. He said that what had once been left was now right. At fourteen I was not going to say that I had no idea what he meant, so I inquired no further.

  I think that being a diplomat freed him from having to declare political affiliations. He represented the government and he did that well. Within these parameters, he did manage to express himself quite freely intellectually. He was a man who, given a good reason, was not afraid to change his mind and he did so often.

  Then, at the end of his life, in 1971, he did go back to the Church. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I think he was reaching for comfort before death.

  Around the time my father was writing El complot mongol, we lived in Lima. The military coup that toppled Belaunde’s first administration had just happened and the military junta was in power. My dad hated the military (any military) with passion. He thought they were subhuman.

  My dad wrote El complot mongol in about a month, taking a break from writing a history of the Pacific Ocean, El gran oceano, which he had been working on for over twenty years. (El gran oceano was published by El Fondo de Cultura Económica: it’s about the cultural exchanges along the Pacific throughout the centuries.)

  When El complot mongol came out in 1968, my dad was First Secretary at the Mexican Embassy in Lima. A lot of junior bureaucrats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City had read the book and were calling for my father’s head on a platter, because they were convinced that del Valle was meant to be Minister Carrillo Flores. My dad, summoned to Mexico, gave Carrillo Flores a copy of the book. Carrillo Flores loved the book and gave it to all his friends for Christmas. Dad summed it up with one of his sayings — Al que le quede el saco, que se lo ponga. (More or less: If the shoe fits, wear it.)

  And while we are at it, the tale about killing someone and then trying to sneak the dead body out of town in a coffin only to have the corpse awaken is a real story. My dad spent lots of time in the jungles of Quintana Roo and Chiapas and met many guns for hire who, after a few tequilas, were more than happy to tell him all their stories. A lot of Filiberto’s stories come from them.

  One last anecdote: The official-for-home-use-only name of the book is “El pinche complot mongol.” We all call it that, including Dad, who was very proud of the ending “¡Pinche velorio! ¡Pinche soledad!”

  COCOL BERNAL

  Copyright © 1969 by Rafael Bernal

  Copyright © 2013 by the Heirs of Rafael Bernal

  Translation copyright © 2013 by Katherine Silver

  Introduction copyright © 2013 by Francisco Goldman

  “A note about the author” copyright © 2013 by Cocol Bernal and New Directions

  Originally published as El complot mongol in 1969 by Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico City. Published by arrangement with the Heirs of Rafael Bernal and Planeta Mexicana Editorial, Mexico City.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The FBI, as portrayed in this novel, covers jurisdictions that in reality would have been the domain of both the FBI and the CIA. The editors and the translator consider this conflation to be legitimate poetic license and have retained “FBI” throughout, as was originally written.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper.

  First published as a New Directions Paperbook Original (NDP1270) in 2013.

  ISBN 978-0-811-22195-5 (e-book)

  Design by Erik Rieselbach

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bernal, Rafael, 1915–1972.

  [El complot mongol. English]

  The Mongolian Conspiracy / Rafael Bernal ; translated by Katherine Silver ;

  introduction by Francisco Goldman.

  pages cm

  I. Silver, Katherine. II. Title.

  PQ7297.B38C6 2013

  863'.6—dc23 2013022656

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011