Chapter V The Funeral of Abram Gonzales
The fact that Villa hates useless pomp and ceremony makes it more impressive when he does appear on a public occasion. He has the knack of absolutely expressing the strong feeling of the great mass of the people. In February, exactly one year after Abram Gonzales was murdered by the Federals at Bachimba Cañon, Villa ordered a great funeral ceremony to be held in the City of Chihuahua. Two trains, carrying the officers of the army, the consuls and representatives of the foreign colony, left Chihuahua early in the morning to take up the body of the dead Governor from its resting-place under a rude wooden cross in the desert. Villa ordered Major Fierro, his Superintendent of Railroads, to get the trains ready—but Fierro got drunk and forgot; and when Villa and his brilliant staff arrived at the railway station the next morning the regular passenger train to Juarez was just leaving and there was no other equipment on hand. Villa himself leaped on to the already moving engine and compelled the engineer to back the train up to the station. Then he walked through the train, ordering the passengers out, and switched it in the direction of Bachimba. They had no sooner started than he summoned Fierro before him and discharged him from the superintendency of the railroads, appointing Calzado in his place, and ordered the latter to return at once to Chihuahua and be thoroughly informed about the railroads by the time he returned. At Bachimba Villa stood silently by the grave with the tears rolling down his cheeks. For Gonzales had been his close friend. Ten thousand people stood in the heat and dust at Chihuahua railway station when the funeral train arrived, and poured weeping through the narrow streets behind the army, at the head of which walked Villa beside the hearse. His automobile was waiting, but he angrily refused to ride, stumbling stubbornly along in the dirt of the streets with his eyes on the ground.
That night there was a velada in the Theater of the Heroes, an immense auditorium packed with emotional peons and their women. The ring of boxes was brilliant with officers in their full dress, and wedged behind them up the five high balconies were the ragged poor. Now, the velada is an entirely Mexican institution. First there comes a speech, then a “recitation” on the piano, then a speech, followed by a patriotic song rendered by a chorus of awkward little Indian girls from the public school with squeaky voices, another speech, and a soprano solo from “Trovatore” by the wife of some government official, still another speech, and so on for at least five hours. Whenever there is a prominent funeral, or a national holiday, or a President’s anniversary, or, in fact, an occasion of the least importance, a velada must be held. It is the conventional and respectable way of celebrating anything. Villa sat in the left hand stage box and controlled the proceedings by tapping a little bell. The stage itself was brilliantly hideous with black bunting, huge masses of artificial flowers, abominable crayon portraits of Madero, Piño Suarez and the dead Governor, and red, white and green electric lights. At the foot of all this was a very small, plain, black wooden box which held the body of Abram Gonzales.
The velada proceeded in an orderly and exhausting manner for about two hours. Local orators, trembling with stage fright, mouthed the customary Castilian extravagant phrases, and little girls stepped on their own feet and murdered Tosti’s “Good-bye.” Villa, with his eyes riveted on that wooden box, never moved nor spoke. At the proper time he mechanically tapped the little bell, but after a while he couldn’t stand it any longer. A large fleshy Mexican was in the middle of Handel’s “Largo” on the grand piano, when Villa stood erect. He put his foot on the railing of the box and leaped to the stage, knelt, and took up the coffin in his arms. Handel’s “Largo” petered out. Silent astonishment paralyzed the audience. Holding the black box tenderly in his arms as a mother with her baby, not looking at anyone, Villa started down the steps of the stage and up the aisle. Instinctively, the house rose; and as he passed out through the swinging doors they followed on silently behind him. He strode down between the lines of waiting soldiers, his sword banging on the floor, across the dark square to the Governor’s palace; and, with his own hands, put the coffin on the flower-banked table waiting for it in the audience hall. It had been arranged that four generals in turn should stand the death watch, each for two hours. Candles shed a dim light over the table and the surrounding floor, but the rest of the room was in darkness. A dense mass of silent, breathing people packed the doorway. Villa unbuckled his sword and threw it clattering into a corner. Then he took his rifle from the table and stood the first watch.