His faint, sad smile momentarily bridged the chasm that separated them. Without looking at Leah, he returned to his work outside. Left alone, she puzzled over what the discovery meant for her. Would it bring prize or punishment?
* * *
The sound of Monica talking in her sleep shook Leah from her memories. From the bedroom down the hall echoed the mumbled words of Coach Basilov, "Concentrate! Concentrate!"
Leah got out of bed to make sure her daughter was all right. By the time she made it to Monica's side, the child was sleeping peacefully again. "Did you concentrate?" Leah whispered, kissing her on the forehead.
On the way back to her room, Leah looked in on Teddy. No troubled dreams here. A sound sleeper, he rarely stirred from the position he was in when his eyes closed.
The night sounds in and around her home were familiar and comforting. They assured her all was normal, that she could sleep in peace. But, she didn't sleep. Instead, her thoughts drifted back to one Santo Sangrían night that had been anything but normal.
* * *
It was the silence that had awakened Leah. She had grown accustomed to Santa Teresita's nightly chorus: baritone canines, soprano crickets, basso profundo frogs, and mezzo tropical night birds, all joining in the harmonious cacophony to which the village slept. Both humans and livestock depended on the nocturnal creatures to assure them all was well in their rural mountain world. That assurance ceased at two-fifty-nine a.m. on Thursday morning, January third, in the sixth month of Leah's Project/SHARE assignment.
She snapped awake, for a moment thinking she was at her parents' Sacramento home, where summer nights were hot and still. Only an occasional car pulling into their cul-de-sac sent low rumblings through her upstairs bedroom window. But this wasn't Sacramento. In Santo Sangre, the middle-of-the-night silence unsettled her. One dared not sleep when Santa Teresita was this tranquil. She lay awake in anticipation, but of what? What did the so-called dumb creatures of earth know that she didn't?
It started with a distant, reverberating sound that came from the bowels of Chuchuán. The springs in Leah's old bed complained in a series of squeaks and groans. Her body rocked in a head-to-toe-and-back direction. Earthquake! No big deal. She had lived through many California quakes. "Ride it out," she told herself. The gentle rocking gave way to first one, then a second sideways, twisting jolt that turned her bed at a 45-degree angle and cleared her night stand of lamp, transistor radio, and wrist watch. "Oh boy! This's a good one."
Worried about the staff and villagers, who might not be quake veterans, Leah decided to dress and do what she could to assure everyone they had nothing to fear.
When the first tremors had passed, Leah retrieved her bedside lamp, turned it on, and went to the closet. She had just slipped into jeans and a T-shirt when an aftershock threw her into the back of the wardrobe in a heap under all her clothes. Only the garments' soft bulk kept her from crashing head-on into the wall.
"Shit!" she muttered and tried to get her bearings in the choking darkness under a pile of shirts, blouses, and pants. It was like being inside a washing machine that agitated a full load.
The rocking and swaying went on for hour-long seconds. The thunder claps Leah heard came not from colliding storm clouds, but from mud-brick walls cracking and tile roofs collapsing in nearby buildings. Still no human sounds. Was she alone in the village? Did everyone else have advance warning of the earthquake and neglect to tell her? Got to be a nightmare. I'm going to wake up and be safe in bed under my mosquito net.
Another jolt. By now, the series of tremors had smashed everything breakable in her room, article by article, like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Electrical power ceased with the first aftershock. A cloud of gray dust billowed through her screenless window from outside. The shaking stopped, as suddenly as it started.
Having spawned destruction, had the vengeful gods satisfied their thirst for violence? She had almost dug herself out from the closet floor, when the roof of her single-story room groaned with a death rattle and caved in, knocking her down and burying her in its rubble. Another cloud of chalky dust hung about the room, burning her eyes and making it nearly impossible to breathe.
Leah took stock of her condition. "No broken ribs." She felt her thighs. "Sore, but otherwise undamaged." Then, a distant extremity sounded an alarm in her brain. "My ankle!" Either broken or badly sprained.
"Leah! Leah!" Ed Wright called from outside her door. "Are you in there?"
"In here!" The trapped, wounded-animal sound of her voice frightened her as much as the destruction around her. Ed pushed inward from the hallway.
A second voice. "Are you all right?" Father Javier.
"Yes. My ankle, though. It may be broken."
Leah sat up and touched her left foot, which had already doubled in size. She might still be able to help, if Ed and Father Javier could get her out. In a moment, they knelt at her side in the dark. Ed felt the injured ankle, applying mild pressure, ignoring her curses.
"I'm so glad you still make house calls, Doctor," Leah managed to joke, grateful to find some humor in her situation. "Am I glad to see you two guys!" She leaned against Ed's chest, until sure the injured ankle would hold her weight--sort of. "How is it out there?"
"Bad. There've been quite a few injuries." Father Javier surveyed what he could see of the damage to her quarters. "Like this almost everywhere. There's a lot to do."
"Deaths?"
"Miraculously few that I know of. God has been good."
Leah thought it strange that the priest let God, who bore ultimate responsibility for the disaster, off the hook so easily. Outside, fires lit the predawn sky, enabling her to appraise the village in the aftermath of the quake. Every building in sight had sustained structural damage, some more than others. Villagers streamed out of their dwellings, counting heads, crying out for help when they couldn't account for loved ones.
"Look at that." Leah pointed towards the parish church. The bell tower had lost roof tiles and the main structure a sheet of stucco on one side, exposing the wood frame. But, the walls stood firm, having taken the jolts pretty well. "The Lord takes care of his own," she remarked with poorly disguised bitterness. It offended her that an expendable church building had survived, while the only shelters of the poor had not.
"There's lots of cleaning up to do in the clinic. Otherwise no major problems," Ed said and headed off in that direction to prepare for the injured in need of treatment.
"How's the ankle?" Father Javier asked.
"Not good, but I can walk a little. Don't expect me to get anywhere fast, though."
"I'd like you to help me. We have to get an assessment of people's needs." His voice was crisp, urgent, but caring.
For the next several hours, the two worked side by side, in some cases helping to extricate people from the wreckage. Leah ignored her pain as much as possible. Javier stopped to pray with families, while rescue workers dug through piles of rubble for the missing. Leah's job was to reassure the children. She gathered them around her and told stories about far away kingdoms inhabited by handsome princes and beautiful princesses, anything to distract them from the topsy-turvy disruption the early morning quake had brought to their lives.
"It'll take months to rebuild all this," Javier said, when the exhausted pair finally stopped for a mid-morning break. "And money. Where will it come from?"
"Surely, your government will do something for these people," Leah said.
"Are you kidding?" The words snapped like firecrackers. "We're a poor country. It's different here than in the States, where you just declare a place a disaster area and money falls from the big greenback tree in Washington."
"I don't think it's quite that easy," Leah said, realizing she had no idea how federal and state governments parceled out disaster funds. It had something to do with getting low interest loans and outright grants to rebuild destroyed homes and businesses. Her knowledge ended there.
"How's the ankle doi
ng?" Father Javier asked.
"Okay, until I think about it. Then it hurts like bloody hell." Leah put a repentant hand to her mouth.
"Let me look at it." He rolled up her torn pant leg and frowned. The hot purple skin bulged over the side of her canvas tennis shoe, which he caringly removed. He massaged the bottom of her foot to get some circulation flowing. "You need ice on this."
His touch was the nicest, most soothing thing Leah had felt in a long time. "There are people here a lot worse off. I'd have to be in really bad shape to lie in bed with all that's going on out here. Besides," she chuckled, "I don't have a room any more, or a bed. I guess I'll be rooming with one of the nurses for a while."
The two of them worked into the evening, caring for the human and psychological needs of the frightened villagers. Others labored at the clean-up task. The medical team did its best to care for the injured and restore the clinic to a sanitary, orderly condition.
When the final count was in at day's end, of the fifteen hundred inhabitants of Santa Teresita, only two had died, an infant in its crib, on whom a ceiling had collapsed, and an old man who had a coronary during the quake itself. Injuries consisted mostly of lacerations and broken bones. Makeshift ambulances transported three of the most critically injured to a hospital in the capital, which had sustained only minor damage.
It was almost midnight before Father Javier walked Leah back to the P/SHARE staff residence. That is, he walked. She staggered, leaning heavily against him for support, her neglected ankle having long ago refused to function. They felt grimy and smelled worse, like two hoboes who had spent the summer riding freight trains.
Leah found his ripe scent oddly seductive. It's been too long a day for you, girl. She applied the brakes to an overwhelming craving for the kind of personal comfort they had given to others all day. They paused outside before saying good night. Father Javier showed no sign of wanting to hurry away. "Sure you're all right?"
Leah assured him she was fine. She wanted him to leave. She needed rest, but it was also nice to reflect on the day's events with a friend, the partner with whom she had shared the tragedy and its aftermath. Even back home, the day after an earthquake was filled with quake-related conversation. "What were you doing when it hit?" "Did you see any damage?" The person with the best story garnered the biggest audience.
"You were amazing today." Father Javier said it the way one teammate would compliment another for playing a good game.
"I felt feeble in the face of such a disaster."
"Nonsense! I heard you comforting the children. You were terrific. And some of those stories. Where did you get them?"
"The first couple of hours, I told old favorites. Snow White, The Three Pigs, Mother Goose nursery rhymes. When I ran out, I made up my own."
"The people here love you," he said. "Especially the children."
"I love them too. They're so . . . uncluttered. Life is reduced to such elemental needs . . . food, clothing, shelter."
"Love," he added. There was a wistful quality in the way he caressed the word before letting go of it.
Leah detected a bit of envy and recalled the secret knowledge she possessed. "We all need it, don't we?"
She hoped saying it would serve as a wake-up call to this admirable man who could speak freely of divine love, but showed no evidence of experiencing unconditional human love. At least, not as an adult. When he didn't answer, Leah sensed that he had again revealed more of his inner void than he ever intended.
"Thanks for your help," he said with finality, signaling an end to her brief audience with his private life. "Get some rest. I'll check on you in the morning."
"I swear I don't understand you!" Leah seethed. Her flare-up surprised both of them.
"What do you mean?" his eyes expressed confusion, a hint of anger. "I just said I'd see you in the morning."
"It was how you said it." She fought to corral her feelings. The earthquake, her injury, and the emotional burdens of the long day had exhausted her usual control mechanisms. She felt like a downed power line, whipping wildly, capable of electrocuting anyone who came too close.
"Leah, you're not making sense. It's been an emotional day--for both of us. Get some rest."
Father Javier had dismissed her. Even worse, he had rejected her without her ever having made an advance. She suspected he had perfected this polite retreat from anticipated intimacy over years of seminary training and celibate ministry. Her inability to reach that part of him he had twice opened, then shut, sealing her off again, frustrated her. She grieved for this kind and loving man, who didn't know what to do with his tender feelings, when they focused on an eligible woman. Surely, he recognized that something was happening between them, something they should at least face openly and talk about like any other man and woman. Instead, he stood guard over the flesh-and-blood male who strained inside him for release. She suspected he would protect at all cost that precious mystery Roman clergymen claimed as the secret to their power. Inexperienced as she was in matters clerical, she sensed that the price of preserving that mystery would impoverish him.
"That's right, Father." Leah stretched out his title to emphasize her anger. "Run away from it!" The rising pitch of her voice paralleled her agitation. She thought she heard him deny running away from anything, but by then she was in full battle formation and ready to unload. "You think you're all-mighty Samson! Well, I'm not your Delilah. So don't worry about getting too close to me. Good night, Father de Córdova!"
"Leah!" he called to her back, but she hobbled away as fast as her dead ankle would carry her. The energy of her emotions could have propelled her all the way to Berkeley.
11
By the end of January, Leah's ankle had healed. Life had almost returned to normal in Santa Teresita. The people kept busy reconstructing their homes with whatever materials they could scrape together. Out of fear of another quake, many continued to sleep outdoors, even after repairing their homes.
"That's normal," Father Javier told Leah. "Just watch. Every week, fewer and fewer people will be sleeping in the plaza."
Saturday nights the P/SHARE staff reserved for releasing the pent-up pressures of the week. Leah danced in the local cantina with Ed Wright and Peter Walsh, the agricultural adviser on their team. Peter, all six-feet-five of him, had recently graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln's agricultural school. Destined to return home to the family farm outside Dannebrog after four years at N.U., Peter had balked.
"I asked myself, how they gonna keep me down on the farm, after I've spent four years in Lincoln?" he moaned into a beer mug, recalling his graduation blues. "They don't even have a Valentino's pizza parlor in my home town!" The next day, Peter applied for a position as a Project/SHARE volunteer.
"Couple of years in Santa Teresita," Ed remarked, "and Dannebrog'll look real good to you."
Leah suspected Ed and Pete of vying for her favor. She loved them both and valued their friendship and counsel. They were idealistic and generous, and, like herself, willing to put their bodies anywhere in the world where they might make a difference. But, her heart belonged to neither of them.
By the time spring came, Ed and Peter had teamed up to find out who did hold the key to their coworker's heart. Leah vowed to reveal nothing of her romantic feelings, past or present. It wasn't anyone's business, not even Maggie Adams's.
On another Saturday night, after a particularly stressful week, they jammed themselves into a small booth in a far corner of the cantina and downed more cheap red than usual. Before long, empty bottles, wadded up napkins, salsa dishes, and baskets of tortilla chips littered the coarse wooden table.
"Okay, Leah. Who is he?" Peter demanded
The question caught her off guard. "Who's who?"
"The guy," Ed insisted. "You never talk about him, but we know there is one. You've got him stashed somewhere. Let's try Berkeley for starters."
Leah blushed crimson. Fire torched her unfocused eyes.
&
nbsp; "First sign of shame!" Peter cried. "We're getting warm."
"No," countered the young doctor. "Leah's the one's getting warm."
What could she do? How could she admit her heart was growing fonder day by day of one man. It was true. Despite the emotional, cultural, and religious chasm separating her from Father Javier de Córdova, Leah felt helpless to prevent herself from falling deeper and more dangerously in love with the local priest.
She hated being in a non-mutual relationship. It tortured her that an unrequited passion burned within her. She was forbidden either to express her feelings to Father Javier or acknowledge them publicly. To do so would cause, at best, personal ridicule and, at worst, ruin to the P/SHARE mission and to the parish curate himself. Under steady, good-natured grilling by her friends, she scrambled for alternatives. Had she no choice but to burn alive until they let up? She reached far back and discovered another option.
"W-Walter," she stuttered.
"Who?" Peter shouted. Amplified music blasted in the boisterous cantina.
"Say that again," Ed echoed.
"Walt-- Walter Barton." Leah's voice strengthened as she repeated the name, grateful it had come to her. She and Walt had dated in college. At first, her assumption that all engineering students were destined to contribute to the military-industrial war machine gave her good reason to reject his invitations. When he refused to give up and Leah discovered how misguided her prejudicial judgments were, she relented.
"You're on," she responded one day to his offer of tickets to a play at Zellerbach Hall.
"You're joking."
"I'm not. I'll go with you."
One date led to another--and another. Although by no means a political activist, Walt Barton revealed a deep and genuine concern for people, a quality that drew Leah to him. He became her anchor in the stormy sea of campus upheavals that often obscured the university's main purpose and her reason for being there. Without him, Leah's political and social justice involvements might have sidetracked her to the point of failing to graduate.
Two weeks before commencement, Walt proposed, complete with dinner, roses, and an IOU for an engagement ring of her choosing, within reason.