| Margot Glantz at 38 Jesús María Octuber 2006 |
My conversation with Margo Glantz (b. Mexico City, 1930) was supposed to have taken place last summer. But Mexico’s political temperature was running so high, it kept anyone from doing anything at all except read newspapers, trade rumors, and experience anxiety over a post-electoral crisis that, in the end, only managed to tear apart what was already divided. Those who’d voted for the leftists believed either that the right had won or that the elections were fraudulent. Among those who believed there had been a fraud, some disapproved of the protesters paralyzing downtown Mexico City, while others supported them. Among the protesters’ supporters, some wanted to hold a convention in order to structure a national resistance movement, and others didn’t. The ones who believed in the urgency of holding a Convention could have been for or against founding a new party or naming the leftist candidate Shadow President. In a nutshell: too much to argue about, yet impossible to avoid.
Ultimately, what happened is that no one had really believed the conservatives might make off with the presidency again. We were suffering from universal irreconcilable differences: every single Mexican was in a rotten mood, and on a mission to make the other 99 million 999 thousand 999 Mexicans give back what they owed him. Neither Margo nor I had the willpower, or sense of purpose, or whatever it takes to embark upon an interview. Then she took off for a series of conferences in Australia and New Zealand. We exchanged e-mails and set up an appointment for after her return.
I picked her up at her home address: Callejón del Horno, in Coyoacán. It was early October, and an autumn wind gusted through the city, carrying with it the scent of the high sierra. Margo was still readapting herself to the Northern Hemisphere after her Austral odyssey, having slept 48 enviable hours that she had apparently earned the hard way among koalas, heads of Latin American literature departments, and international airports. As always, she looked like a slightly dazed princess: extremely elegant, and with her mind elsewhere. So what’s the plan? she asked as we walked toward the car. We’re going to La Merced, I told her, to visit where your parents lived after they arrived from Russia.