Fue Fusilado

We were having coffee after dinner in the living room, many years later. Mother was sitting on the couch with her legs tucked under and her left arm draped over the back. She shook her head and let out a snort. “The only ones that end up doing well in Mexico are the damn foreigners,” she said with a slight squint in her eye.

She paused. “You remember when your father took us to el Castillo?” “I remember that it was hot and I was thirsty,” I replied. Mother let out a short laugh, “Yea-ha.... and I thought I was so chic..." She looked at the picture, shook her head and chuckled again. “You know, my feet were hot and I was perspiring under my arms.”

“Well ... you know, your father had taken it upon himself to ‘explain the country” to me.” I did know, which is why it seemed we were always getting dragged off somewhere to get an explanation. I am sure father felt that Chapultepec Castle was the logical place to conduct a panoramic orientation.

In those days, the Castillo’s National History Museum was more like the National Attic -- a poorly arranged hodge-podge of historical bric-a-brac and scrounged up antiquaria in search of a theme and bespeaking years of post-Revolution neglect. Aside from the bric-a-brac and Juarez’s port-a-government black carriage, most of the museum was taken up with portraits and immense oil canvases depicting some one or another heroic scene.

“Well then," mother continued, "you remember all those big canvases they have hanging there... Hidalgo, Guerrero and the others. So, we were going down the halls and as your father was explaining to me who was depicted, the significance of the scene and so on, I began to notice that all these paintings had a scripted legend at the bottom that invariably ended with “...fue fusilado” followed by some date. She arched her eyebrows. “Who knows... huh? I thought it must be some kind signature or something to do with when the painting was finished. So I asked your father, “Daniel... what does fue fusilado mean?” He said, “It means he was shot.”

“My god, Daniel, was anybody not shot?”


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