Now that we were moved, father was intent on showing mother the country into which she had arrived. Over the next years, we would take a number of excursions into the provinces which would give me a distant but indelible glimpse into an epoch fast vanishing. For the moment, however, i was dragged around Mexico City on hot afternoons; and one of the first places to where i was dragged was "El Castillo" -- Chapultepec Castle, the Halls of Montezuma of Marine Corps lore, the scene of Maximilian's tragedy, the thirty-year residence of Porfirio Diaz and now a museum of national history.
According to mother, "It was hot and I was perspiring under my arms, but I was going to make an impression and thought I looked so chic."
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As our car drove passed the guard house at the foot of the hill and made its way up the ascent to the palace terrace, father pointed to a lofty tower jutting into the sky. "That's where the boy hero threw himself down."
Just as he said that, we drove past a belle epoc glass awning which fanned out from a cave-like rock formation surrounded by trees, the center panel of which had been smashed. For years afterwards i thought of the "boy hero" crashing through the glass to his gory and tragic death.
"Why?" i asked. "For love of his country," came the strange reply which was more troubling than if father had said, "So not to fall captive to the Americans."
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