“The

Counterfeit Peso [Historia de un peso falso]”

Trans: Victoria Livingstone
He looked good! Clean, with his hair neatly combed, with an eagle as his tiepin, and always
walking in the shade, letting the Sun have the opposite sidewalk! The rascal didn’t look bad,
and no one, upon seeing him, would have hesitated to lend him four pesetas. But… you put
your trust in gray hair and shiny silver! That peso was dyed: his hair was brown, copper,
and he, ever the flirt, had powdered it so that people would say to him, “You are so Louis
XV.”

Of course, no one knew who his parents were. These poor pesos are always abandoned at
birth! I really pity them, and would happily pick them up, but my house, that is, their house,
my vest pocket, is empty, unfurnished, full of air, and so I cannot host them. When I get one,
I try to place it in a bar, in a shop, at a theater box office, but these days the cost of
placements is through the roof and the poor peso almost always ends up on the street.

That’s not what happened, however, with the good-looking one with the sweet smile and
the eagle that looked real. I don’t know where I got it, but I am sure of the place where I had
the fortune to leave it, thanks to the good heart and the bad eyesight of the respectable
businessman whose name I won’t mention in order not to offend the Christian modesty of
such an excellent person, and because the left hand should not know of the good the right
hand is doing.

So, since no good deed ever goes to waste and because God rewards the charitable, it did
not take the generous adoptive father of my counterfeit peso long to find another
gentleman to agree to care for the little one. Rumor has it that this philanthropic gesture
was not entirely pure; it seems that my peso’s new caretaker (and it should be understood
that the businessman to whom I entrusted the upbringing and education of the poor
orphan was a bartender) did not exactly realize that he was about to do a merciful deed,
since repeated libations had clouded his vision and impaired his senses. But, whether that
man had a noble heart, or whether cognac inclines one to benevolence, the fact is that the
man received the counterfeit peso, not with open arms, but reaching out his right hand. He
paid with a five, the bartender gave him back four, and there went my peso among the four,
like a poor friend in the company of rich ones.

But see how we poor are good and how God has bestowed on us that virtue of dogs: loyalty!
The four capitalists, the four silver pesos, the aristocrats, kept partying. There’s no doubt
that the aristocracy is very corrupt! One stayed in the bar, another in the Concordia,
another in the theater box office… Only the counterfeit peso, the poor thing, the middle
class one, the one that was neither a cent nor a decent person, stayed with his generous
caretaker just as Cordelia stood by King Lear. It was in the Concordia that they discovered
him; there they threw his poverty in his face and refused to start a tab or serve him
anything. So the last good coin left with the waiter (it’s not news when a well-born young
lady runs away with the kitchen help) and there remained the poor peso, without a real,
but with a heart that was not yet hardened, accompanying his foster father, in
abandonment, in misery! Just like Cordelia beside King Lear!

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Truly these counterfeit pesos are touching! While the so-called good ones, those of noble
birth, those born in the luxurious mint, lead low lives and go from one master to the next
like corruptible journalists, like flip-flopping politicians, like flirtatious women; while these
irredeemable degenerates stay up all night in taverns, buy the virtue of women and scorn
the needy in order to hang out with the rich, the counterfeit peso looks for a poor person,
and doesn’t abandon him, in spite of the way the man treats him. He does not leave, he
stays in his house shut away; he buys nothing, and awaits the only prize for such excellent
virtues: martyrdom; the man’s ingratitude; to be apprehended at the end of the day by a
callous police officer or die nailed to the wood of some counter, just like the Penitent Thief
on the cross. Poor counterfeit pesos! They break my heart when I see them in other
people’s hands.
The peso in my story, however, had started out well. God protected him because he was
attractive, because he was good, even if the skeptical waiter in the Concordia didn’t believe
in such goodness; because he was simple, innocent, honorable. He never stole anything
from me, nor from the bartender, and he rewarded the gentleman that took him out of the
bar where he wasn’t happy, since counterfeit pesos aren’t given to excess. He gave that man
a beautiful illusion: the illusion that he still had a peso.
And he didn’t just do that… you’ll see everything he did!
The gentleman, pensive and sad, remained in the tavern, with a cup of tea in front of him,
an empty glass of Bordeaux and the waiter that was standing in front of him like a
question-mark. He couldn’t go on like that. When someone is alone with an innocent
counterfeit coin, he feels ashamed as if he were with a loose woman; he doesn’t want
anyone to see him, wants to be anonymous, hopes that he doesn’t run into any of his
friends. Counterfeit coins may be very good.. but people don’t want to believe it!

I myself, in the first lines of this story, when I had not yet found someone to adopt him,
called the counterfeit peso a rascal. Public opinion is a powerful thing!
After they took the tablecloth off the table, the gentleman, in a foul mood that I don’t forgive
in him but that I would have forgiven in myself, slapped the peso against the marble as if to
say, “Let’s see, you villain, if you really have no heart!” And did he ever have a heart! What
the poor devil didn’t have was money.

The gentleman sat and thought for a long time. Who had given him that peso? Memories
were still drifting through his mind, indecisive, distracted, sleepy. But there was no doubt:
the peso was counterfeit! And worse, it was his last!
His owner, then, began to work out a whole moral treatise, though not for his own use:
“The truth is—he said to himself—that I am an idiot. This afternoon in my office I got a
twenty peso bill. I can see it now.. London-Mexico.. the eagle…. Benito Juárez.. and the face
of a dog. Where did that bill go to?
In the brambles of life
Everything leaves something behind: the sheep

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 Its white wool: man, his virtue.

And it’s bad because my wife was waiting for those twenty. I was going to give her fifteen…
but now, where do I get fifteen?”

The gentleman angrily threw the peso against the marble table. He almost smashed the
poor thing’s eagle, his tie pin! The only advantage that counterfeit pesos have is that they
can’t be broken against sharp edges.

To the street! The gypsy Esmeralda, who no longer dances on an oriental carpet gracefully
playing her tambourine, now works on the corner of Plateros St.1 and, like the night
watchmen of the old days, keeps the time. Poor Esmeralda held up a light and showed our
hero her watch: it was midnight.

At that hour there is no money on the street. And he needed to go home!

I’ll give my wife the counterfeit peso before breakfast, and tomorrow.. we’ll see! But no! She
checks if they’re real by tapping them against the desk, so there is no way I’ll avoid an
argument. Damned luck!

The poor peso suffered the insults and attacks of his foster father, hidden in the darkest
part of his pocket. Alone, sadly alone!

The gentleman passed a gambling house. Should he go in? Perhaps some friend was in
there. Besides, they knew him there… they even occasionally took his paychecks as
payments. At the very least, they could give him a credit for five duros….He looked back and
hurried in like someone diving into a swimming pool.

His cashier friend wasn’t on duty that night but he’d probably return at one. The gentleman
stopped in front of the roulette table. I don’t know what charm is in that ivory ball that
runs, jumps, laughs and gives and takes money, but, it’s so tiny! It’s so adorable! It looks
like the French singer Louise Théo!2 The columns of pesos prepared for the battle forming
in the boxes of the roulette table. And our man was sure that it would be 32! He had seen it!
Should he bet the counterfeit peso? The truth was that it wasn’t the right thing to do… But,
in the end, they knew him there… and… they wouldn’t suspect him!

With his hand shaking a bit, he opened his wallet as if he were looking for paper money
(the bills, of course, were not at home), closed it again, took out the peso, and with resolve,
with the air of a lord, put it on 32. His heart skipped more than the ivory ball in the roulette
wheel. But, see the way things go! Good-looking guys are always a step ahead of the game.
There are men who become foreign ministers, become rich, become poets, become wise,

1
This street in Mexico City is now called Francisco I. Madero.
2
French opera singer (1854-1922). Nájera describes her in a chronicle titled “Madame Theo's
Odyssey” (1883).

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just because they’re good-looking. And that peso—I’ve already said it—was a good-looking
guy… a well-dressed, good-looking guy.

Thirty-two red!

The ivory ball and the player’s heart stopped, like a clock whose gears suddenly stop
turning. He had won! But… what if they recognized him? Not him.. the other one.. the
counterfeit one!

Our friend (because by now we should be friends with that spoiled child of fortune) had a
stroke of genius. He took his peso scornfully and said to the person in charge of the roulette
wheel:

“I want the other thirty-five in paper.”

They hadn’t touched it! They hadn’t figured it out! They paid him his winnings. A twenty…
a ten.. and a chocolate-colored one, with the image of a woman in a nightgown looking up
from her book, separated by those two words “five pesos” from the portrait of a very pretty
girl on whose chest the bad taste of the engraver had left an eagle and a snake. The ten and
the chocolate colored bill were for the lady who sounds the pesos on the desk. The twenty,
the one with Juárez, the patriot, was for our friend. The next day that bill would turn into
drinks, breaded ribs, and, to top things off, into a sad, inconsolable counterfeit peso.

How fortunate are counterfeit pesos and scoundrels!

Those around the table made space for the fortunate gambler so that he would take a seat
at the circle. But, to his credit, our good friend was prudent, he was strong, and he turned
his back to the treacherous table. He would come back, come back to leave his paycheck at
the table, or, strictly speaking, the uncertain future of his paycheck, but as for that night, he
gave himself over to the delicious morsels and other treats of home.

When he found himself in the street with his honorable, generous counterfeit peso, that had
been so good, and with the portrait of Juárez with the bust of a dog, and the engraving of a
woman in a nightgown, our dear friend was overflowing with joy. That honorable and
intelligent gentleman was now as good as that counterfeit peso. He would have lent a duro
to any poor friend; he would have distributed reales among beggars; walking quickly,
quickly through the streets, he thought of his poor wife-- such a good person-- and what
she’d be waiting for… money for expenses.

Then, the unfaithful husband

Arriving home
In order to appear remorseful
Puts on penitent airs
He thinks of his wife
Alone in her bed
And from a madam´s house
A lover flees….

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 Behold is the red dawn3

Etcetera
That’s from an operetta called “L’oeuf rouge” that premiered in Paris at the end of last
month, but that’s not what our dear friend was singing to himself because he didn’t know
that opera.
Upon turning a corner, he ran into a certain little boy who sold newspapers in the street
and who was called “the Englishman.” And in fact he looked English because he was very
pale, very blond, and he even would have been good-looking if he weren’t so poor. Of
course, he didn’t know his father….he was one of those many human counterfeit pesos, one
of those that circulate surreptitiously in the world, and no one knows where they were
coined. But as for his mother, he knew her! Everyone else said she was bad. He thought she
was good. She hit him. Surely that was her way of showing affection! Besides, it’s
impossible to be in a good mood when you don’t eat. And often that miserable woman
didn’t eat. Above all, she was his mother; you only ever have one; a mother never lives long;
and even if she’s bad, she’s good sometimes; in her mouth “you” doesn’t sound in like
insult… a mother, in short… just a mother! And since that boy had good blood in his veins—
blood colored with wine, blood spoiled by nights of debauchery, but blood, in the end, of
thinking, feeling men of long ago—he loved his mother very much… and his little sister, the
one that sold tickets.. they called her la Francesa, the French girl.
His mother, he thought, was very good, but she hit him when the poor thing couldn’t bring
her a peseta. And that night—the night of the counterfeit peso!—the little one had El
nacional, the Tiempo de mañana, but didn’t have a cent in his torn pants. People weren’t
buying newspapers! And he didn’t dare to go back to his tiny apartment, not because he
feared the beatings, but because he didn’t want to upset his mother.
“So sad, so pale,” thought the fortunate gambler and he wanted—really wanted to give him
something. Perhaps he would have bought all his newspapers, since that’s how gamblers
are when they win. But giving five pesos to a rascal of that sort was too much. And the
gambler had received the thirty-five in paper. All he had was the counterfeit peso.
A bit of mischief occurred to him then: make the boy crazy with excitement.
“Take this, Englishman, for your liquor, go! Get drunk!”

And there went the counterfeit peso!

3
This fragment, in French in the original text, is from an opera titled L'oeuf rouge by Achille
Edmond Audran (libretto by Albert Vanloo and William Busnach). The opera premiered in Paris
in 1890: Puis, l’époux volage/Rentrant au logis/Pour paraître sage/Prend de sair contrits/Il pense
a as femme/Seule dans son lit/Et de chez madame/Un galan s´enfuit…/Voici l´aube vermeille.

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And no, the boy didn’t think he had been tricked. That man looked as nice as the counterfeit
peso. How good he was! If he had received that coin as payment for El Nacional or El
Tiempo de Mañana and had to give seven and a half reales in change, he would have tapped
it against the tiles at the entrance to the building, whose threshold just about served as his
bed; he would have asked the grocer whose store was still open if it was good or not. But,
as a handout! It was shining so much in the night! It was shining so much for his soul,
hungry to give something to his mother and little sister! What a good man!...He must have
won the lottery!..He must be very rich! Who knew…

So good was that man with the counterfeit peso!

He had said to him, “Go, get drunk!”… but that’s what they all say.

The urchin gathered up his newspapers, and running as if he had eaten, as if he had
strength, went very far, to the door of his house. They didn’t open it. The little old lady (I
call her a little old lady even though she beat that boy because, in the end, she was
miserable, she was father and mother to the boy) had fallen asleep tired for waiting for the
little Englishman. But, what did he care about sleeping in the street? He spent many nights
like that! And the next day they wouldn’t whip him…he was coming back rich… with a peso!

Oh, how much promise a peso holds for a poor person!

There, at the entrance to the building, curled up like a white kitten, the boy fell asleep.
Asleep, yes, but with the fingers of his right hand, the firmest hand, he was clutching that
sun, that eagle, that dream! He slept poorly, not because of the hardness of his stone
mattress, not because of the cold, since he was used to that, but because he was very happy
and very afraid that the silver bird would fly away. Can you believe that this boy never had
his own peso before? Well, there are so many like him.

Besides, the Little Englishman wanted to daydream, speak aloud with his fantasies.

First, breakfast… Well, a real for the three of them! But pesos have so many cents, and for a
long time the Little Englishman had wanted to have a tamal with his hot chocolate. Ok: he’d
spend a little more: a real and a tlaco. There was so much, so much money left. .. No, he
wouldn’t say that he had a peso…Even though he was strongly tempted to show it off, to
flaunt it, to take it out, to make noise with it, as if he were playing a sonaja4—in front of his
sister, so that his mom would see it and think: “Now I can rest, because my son is taking
care of me.” But upon seeing it, taking it, his mother would spend a real on tequila. And the
boy had a daring plan: spend a real, which would otherwise be spent on tequila, on a lottery
ticket. And, above all, the ragamuffin remembered that they owed the bakery and the shop
money.. and it was possible that his mother would pay them if he gave her the peso. Money
lost!

4 A percussion instrument with circular pieces of metal that could be compared to silver

coins. [This note would go in the glossary].

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 No, it was more important to buy cotton fabric so that his little sister could make a shirt.
The poor little thing complained so much of the cold!... Definitely, he’d give the mother four
reales: a tostón… and the other four reales would be for him, that is, for the tamal, the
lottery ticket, the fabric…. And who knew how many other things! Maybe it would be
enough for him to go to the circus!

And what if he won three hundred pesos in the lottery with that real? Three hundred
pesos! That kind of money would never run out! The man who gave him that peso must
have had that much.
The sun rose, that is, it was just rising when the boy got up. They were sweeping the street.
Some donkeys passed bearing tin cans, carrying milk from nearby haciendas… Then cows
passed… In Santa Teresa they were calling people to mass…
“Gelatin!” shouted a rough voice.
The rapscallion didn’t want to go into his house yet. He had to get change for the peso. He
would arrive late, at six, at seven, but with four reales for his mother, with fabric, with a
biscuit for Francesita and with a tamal in his stomach. He was going to wait until they
opened a certain shop that sold the most beautiful, most useful things, everything that most
appealed to him: candles, fabric, saints made of clay, silk thread, fireworks, little lead
soldiers, candies, bread, stamps, puppets.. How much one needed to live! And precisely in
front of that door sat a woman behind a pot of tamales.
He went step by step, because it was still very early. It was now light outside. He passed San
Juan de Letrán. A beautiful mare with a yellow leather saddle was being led out of the
stable by a boy working for the horse’s owner, probably German. Outside the printing
house of the Monitor and almost lying on the flat stones of the sidewalk, men and little boys
were folding still damp papers. Many of those children were his friends, and his first
impulse was to go speak to them, show them the peso.. but, what if they took it away from
him? The gimp, above all, the gimp was bad.
So the scamp stayed away.

The store was now open. And the first thing, of course, was the tamal.. not one, two: he was
finally rich! And after the tamales, a treat, a delicious bun that tasted heavenly! They
wanted him to pay in advance, but he showed them the peso with majestic dignity.
“As soon as I buy cloth, I’ll get change.”
And he asked for two yards of cloth; he bought a three cent clay soldier which he had the
misfortune of losing very quickly because, when he picked it up, his hand was shaking with
excitement and he dropped it on the floor. They wrapped the cloth in brown paper and he,
with pride, with the air of king, threw the shiny peso in the air, and when it hit the metal
counter, it let out an authentic cry, the kind heard in melodramas when the traitor, the
assassin, the real villain reveals himself. The Spaniard had heard and grabbed the little one
by the neck.

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Little thief! Thief! You are going to pay!

What happened? The broken doll, in pieces on the floor.. the Indian woman who was
screaming… The damn Spaniard violently gripping the poor boy…the mother, the little
sister, Francesita so far away… his dreams even further.. and the police very close.

A police station… a wounded man… a drunk… people who took him for a delinquent… men
who accused him of having stolen handkerchiefs, him- who was drying his tears on his
shirt! And then to reform school.. the hunchback who taught him to do bad things… and his
mother on the outside, who died in a hospital of alcoholic diarrhea.. and his sister,
Francesa, who, because she couldn’t sell enough lottery tickets, was sold into prostitution
and died shortly after that.

Lord! You that changed water into wine; you, who turned the Penitent Thief into a saint:
why did you not deem it worthy to turn that boy’s counterfeit peso into a good one? Why,
in the hands of a gambler, was the peso good and in the hands of a helpless child it was a
crime? You, counterfeit peso, are not like hope, like love, like life. You are good. Your name
is charity. You who blinded Saul on the road to Damascus, why did you not blind the
Spaniard in that store?

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