“No, you wouldn’t have. You’re finishing your novel, remember?”
That silences her. He is not the only one telling little lies.
“And there’s no trouble, that’s what I was going to tell you: everything’s been smoothed out. The clinic sponsors have donated money to the locals, and they’ve also hired a communications-liaison person to explain to the community that they’re not going to get AIDS just because the clinic is there. Bienvenido says there’s been a complete turnaround. Trust me,” he adds.
Why did he trouble her with the story then? He has probably had a drink, two drinks, and he’s a little sloshed, his guard down. Alma should be grateful he’s being straight with her, even if it’s taken one-hundred-proof Dominican rum to do it.
“Truly, querida, I’m not going to run any risk. I promise.”
“You’ll tell me if anything’s wrong?” Alma pleads.
“Of course, I will,” he assures her, a little too broadly—the rum, no doubt. But he won’t tell her, Alma can bet on it. He knows that if he intimates that there’s any trouble, Alma will drop everything and go rescue him. Something she should have learned by now: husbands do not appreciate their wives in shining armor. But Alma can go down without armor, just hang out, nothing is holding her here, except … except Helen. Helen is dying!
“I don’t want you to come down,” Richard is saying, and then realizing how that sounds, he backtracks. “Not right now anyhow. I want to think I can handle this myself.”
It can’t be easy for Richard to be in her country when she is along: a native wife correcting his pronunciation, rescuing him from being overcharged at the market, and then feeling uneasy herself, like some bargain-hunting Malinche, betraying her own people by telling Cortés that a dollar a mango is okay in Vermont, but here, well, it’s a rip-off. It will be good for Richard to establish his very own relationship with her homeland, make it his. “But please promise you won’t take any risks?”
“What do you take me for, a fool?”
Alma reminds herself now is not the time for honesty. If they have a bad phone call, she can’t just walk into the next room in a few minutes and explain what she really meant by not agreeing he wasn’t a fool. So she changes the subject, tells him about Helen, what a shock it’s been, how she is going to try to go over there every day. “Poor Helen.” Richard sighs. He knows Alma is attached to their neighbor. “Are you going to be okay? You promise you’ll take care of yourself?”
“I will,” Alma promises. “But you have to promise you’ll do the same for me, right?” Our lives belong not just to us but to the people who love us. How long before it’s a bumper sticker?
“I’m sorry,” Richard says, and Alma knows he’s back to Helen.
“It sure puts everything into perspective, let me tell you,” Alma says.
There’s a momentary silence. This is usually Richard’s line. Alma probably took it out of his mouth. “That’s for sure,” he finally says.
Before they say good-bye, he promises he’ll call soon. “Tomorrow?” Alma tries to pin him down. But he can’t commit because then she’ll worry. Bienvenido has told him that cell phones don’t receive signals on the mountain. He’s going to check into other options. Meanwhile, the clinic has its own hookup, and Alma can call him at that number if she needs to reach him. “Do you have a pen and paper handy?”
“You already gave it to me,” Alma reminds him. She recites it back, just to be sure.
“There’s also a fax number, which is easier as we don’t have to coordinate times.”
Faxing her beloved? How do I love thee? Let me fax the ways. No! Alma wants to talk to Richard; she wants him to come home at the end of the day, tired, brimming with stories, and as they get dinner ready or sit and have a glass of wine, a martini, one or the other will begin: So, how did your day go?
Miserable, Alma thinks, as she hangs up. Helen is dying. Richard is headed into what sounds like a momentarily becalmed hornet’s nest. She is fifty years old and she doesn’t know who she is or where she is going anymore and to top it off she has abandonment attacks when her husband leaves home. How did people in the past maintain that single-mindedness of purpose that history at least makes it sound like they had? Balmis, for instance. Did he ever waver? And Isabel, once those kids started getting seasick and feverish from their vaccinations? How did she keep believing—or did she?—that what she’d done was the right thing?
Alma looks out the kitchen window and far off, she can make out the twinkle of Helen’s lights among the trees now that the leaves are gone.
III
DECEMBER 1803–JANUARY 1804
31 diciembre 1803
Mi querida Nati,
I hope that this finds you in good health along with all our boys. I write you from the island of Tenerife where, as I understand it, most ships stop before they make the ocean crossing. How I have missed you and that most pleasurable hour at La Casa, after our little ones were abed, when you and I would sit and exchange stories of what had happened that day!
To be the lone woman in a world of men and little boys makes one yearn for the company of another daughter of Eve. That yearning has been granted these three weeks of our stay here at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. My boys and I have been housed at the convent of the Dominican Sisters, who have plied us with many attentions.
I trust you passed a good Noche Buena and that Doña Teresa brought her usual candies and clothes for the boys. And now on to a new year tomorrow! I wish you and all our boys joy and peace in this coming eighteen hundredth and fourth year of our Lord!
I had not thought to write until we reached Puerto Rico, but then the opportunity presented itself with the Espíritu Santo, departing in several days to Cádiz, where, hopefully, this letter will be put on a packet to La Coruña. We, too, are readying for departure, awaiting only the final provisioning of the ship and a prevailing northeast wind to make our crossing. I confess I have been dreading the renewal of our journey, after the terrible seasickness I endured en route here. I have prayed to the Blessed Virgin, kissed the cross at the plaza, and packed all our things. Only to unpack them the next morning.
Outside, I could hear the crowds beginning to gather. Vaccinations would not start until three, and the church bell had not yet tolled two. Downstairs in the refectory, the tables had been pushed aside, the mats laid down, and the boys were sleeping their siesta. I hoped the bell would not wake them.
My own room was upstairs, a tiny cell, narrow and plain with a cot and a prie-dieu I was using blasphemously as my writing desk. A small casement window looked down onto the square. After the cramped quarters of the María Pita, it seemed a royal chamber.
I put my quill aside and stood to stretch my limbs. I was wearying of this letter. Of ever being able to capture on paper the sights and sounds of the last few weeks. Why even make the attempt? And yet, I knew how happy Nati would be to hear from me that the boys and I were well.
The boys are all thriving, and except for having picked up some foul curses from the crew, they have recovered from all sea ailments. These three weeks of rest have worked wonders on their little constitutions. Indeed, I think His Majesty should consider sending all our orphans to be raised in Tenerife, for the climate here is temperate and lovely, an eternal spring, and we feast on the fruits of the earth and air and sea! Even our sickly Juan Antonio has recovered from the nasty cold he caught waiting on the wharf while the royal proclamation was read out loud to us. Our scholar, Antonio, has all the boys convinced that we have landed in Paradise. Perhaps we have, though my confinement in this small convent makes a golden cage of my heaven. My tasks keep me busy and mostly indoors.
There was the bell, two loud strokes. The convent stood beside the church and so time was palpable here, the walls hummed with the vibration, the floors as well. The crucifix opposite my cot sometimes fell at the stroke of midnight, twelve reverberating bongs. I waited now, anticipating footsteps up the stairs, a small hand at the door, a boy wanti
ng my attention. But thankfully the convent was still. The nuns were resting as well.
I should have been resting, too. These last three weeks on land I had had sole care of the boys. The Sisters were kind, but they were not used to having children about. They deferred to me in all matters. Often they would ask me, rather than the boy in question, Is he hungry? Is he sleepy? Is he hurt? Why is he crying?
As their guests, I was at pains trying to keep my flock of little boys from being a bother to them. Curses issued from the mouths of my toddlers, making the little nuns blanch. Nights, I often fell to sleep, too tired to say my prayers or even wash my hands and feet.
None of our expedition could be spared to help me. Daily, but for Sundays, crowds thronged the plaza for their vaccinations, long lines of men and women and children eager to be saved from the smallpox. Upon our arrival in Santa Cruz, the bishop had extolled our blessed mission. “Our Holy Father has offered an indulgence to all who undergo this holy procedure,” the bishop proclaimed, stopping just short of calling it the Sacrament of Vaccination.
From the vesicles of our two carriers, a dozen had been vaccinated that first day. I was amazed how much vaccine one vesicle could yield. Just a drop was needed on the arm. From that dozen came vaccine enough for dozens more. By now, several hundred had been saved. Indeed, many of the believers who came to the plaza were convinced they were receiving a drop of the blood of Christ on their skin that would guard them from all evil and keep them from sin.
By the time this expedition is over, dear Nati, I wager I will be vaccinating on my own! Don Francisco especially loves to be teaching. In fact, many of the members of our expedition have been his students. Some do seem rather young. Why the second in command, Dr. Salvany, has only just turned twenty-six! A pale young man, in love with poetry, he will not say something in ten words that can be embellished into twice that number. I wonder how such a tender-hearted young man will fare on this rigorous journey. Our director has also brought along a pair of nephews, Don Antonio and Don Francisco Pastor, very able young men. All in all, we are ten, assisting Don Francisco.
I include myself, yes! for our director himself has taught me the procedure. It really is quite simple, the vaccinating part. I dare say, deworming the boys is a far more unpleasant task. First: the skin is pierced with a lancet. The difficulty here is keeping the boys distracted. How they howl as if they were being murdered! Then the cowpox fluid is harvested from the vesicles of the last carrier and laid upon the pierced skin. In three days, the skin begins to show signs of inflammation. Remember Tintín’s and Bello’s “boils”? These continue to grow and fill with fluid until the whole area becomes quite painful. To varying degrees our carriers have suffered soreness and indisposition, which Don Francisco says are quite within the norm.
How I had fretted when Tintín began thrashing with fever and vomits on board the ship! “No ill effects,” Don Francisco had assured me back in La Coruña. When I confronted him, our director smiled a sheepish smile. “Perhaps I overstated,” he admitted. “I meant only to persuade you of a truth you might have doubted had it been qualified. I hope you forgive my enthusiasm, Doña Isabel.” It was a tender moment between us. Of course, I forgave him.
The most difficult part is keeping the vesicles intact—no small matter, Nati, when you consider how restless our little boys get confined to a small area on a small ship. Inside each vesicle is the precious limpid fluid that must reach full potency before it can be harvested to the next set of carriers. What I still cannot decipher is how long that maturation takes.
“Excellent question, Doña Isabel!” Don Francisco had praised me when I had asked. How I loved to hear him say so! The vesicle had to be fully engorged, the grain at the center beginning to sink—as few as seven, as many as ten, days. “In science, theory must be ruled by observation, and, of course, necessity.” As in life, I thought, but I did not offer my opinion.
I am happy to report that so far all of the boys we so carefully selected have reacted to the vaccine. From Tintín’s and Bello’s vesicles, we have gone on to vaccinate Pascual and Florencio at sea. On land, the two oldest boys. I do hope that none of our little carriers will fail us …
Nati, of course, knew about Benito, but I dared not allude to him in writing. What if my letter should fall into the wrong hands? Several times I had come close to confessing to our director. I had forgiven him his enthusiasm. Would he forgive me mine?
You are no doubt wondering how I have fared on a ship surrounded by so many men (thirty-seven in total, not counting our boys). In truth, I barely noticed them those first days out of La Coruña. Oh, Nati, I thought I would die of seasickness. Nothing helped settle my stomach or quiet my pounding head. Not the smelling salts the captain had given me before setting off, not the wine of ipecac that Don Francisco urged upon me. Of course, it did not help that my berth was with the boys down in the lower deck (“orlop,” the sailors call it). Captain del Barco, a former Armada officer, more used to a ship full of mariners than of passengers, would not allow a woman in his officers’ quarters where the cabins are located. He pronounces the word as if it had a bad taste. How to describe him? Think of our porter, another of those burly-type little fellows whose muscles resemble nothing other than sausages packed with far too much meat.
But I suppose our captain owed Don Francisco a favor. Remember the substitute boy who was to replace our little Carlito? (I hope he has fully recovered?) He is none other than the captain’s young cabin boy, a sweet, cherub-faced child, Orlando, no older than our own Francisco. There is some rumor that he is the captain’s son and a darker rumor that I will not repeat. A ship is not unlike our own city of La Coruña, full of gossip and hearsay.
The captain finally conceded to Don Francisco’s petitions. But the true kindness came from the first mate who offered his own cabin for the lady’s use. I was moved “aft,” as the back part of the ship is known—a whole new language is spoken on board. At the time, I was too sick to properly thank the kind lieutenant. But a few days into our sail when I had grown more accustomed to the rocking ship, I made a point of finding him out. The tall, taciturn man stiffened and stammered so painfully, I had to cut my gratitude short. I can see why the captain might not want a woman in the midst of his officers if such is the effect of a pocked female of ripe age upon his right-hand man.
From my upstairs window, I could see the bay to the east, the ships posed as if in a painting, their sails slack, such a pretty picture! Of course, I now knew how unwelcome this very sight was to the captains of each of those outbound vessels, cursing the stillness that kept them from plying their trade. And though, I, like them, was eager to reach our destination, I was reluctant to board a rolling ship and be seasick once again.
“Virgen María,” I prayed, not knowing what to ask for.
Below, in the square, the line already stretched past the marble cross and down the narrow streets. Knowing that our expedition would soon be leaving, larger crowds had been showing up. The captain-general had published an announcement that a local board was being set up, staffed by physicians trained by Don Francisco and his assistants, who would continue vaccinating after we were gone. But, still, many came from inland towns and other islands, wanting to be vaccinated by one of “the king’s men.”
This Saturday afternoon would be the last vaccination session until Monday morning, if we had not left by then. Tomorrow, Sunday, this same square would fill with traders from many nations come to sell and buy African slaves. I had watched the scene from my window and seen it up close as we returned from mass, a veritable Tower of Babel loosed in Santa Cruz: Dutch and French, Danish and British, Portuguese and American traders, and of course, our own Spaniards; and then the slaves, barely clothed, men and women and children, fetters at their feet or around their necks, their eyes wide with terror. I did not want to look at them and yet I could not help but look at them in wonderment, as the traders inspected them, prodding them to turn and show what they were made of.
r /> “I no longer go near the plaza on Sundays!” the captain-general’s wife had admitted at the Noche Buena celebration she threw for the boys at the palace. “The bishop kindly comes to say Mass in our chapel.” She was a marchesa, the first marchesa I had ever spoken to, richly dressed for the occasion in a silk gown with pearls stitched in the bodice and sleeves; the Spanish rage of dressing like peasant majas had not caught here. “But I am sorry for you, dear, and for the poor Sisters, having to witness such sights, week after week. The slave market should be moved to the docks. I have been importuning the marquis. But he argues that this is where our good fortune comes from. ‘Let the Sisters shut their windows!’”
Not that all new sights are pleasurable to behold. We have witnessed several horrid hangings of pirates captured by the Venganza. One in particular, a young man, who swore so foully, a rag was stuffed in his mouth to protect delicate ears in the crowd from hearing such uncivil utterings, as if the dangling of a man at the end of the rope were not uncivil and indelicate itself. I took the opportunity to instill fear in my little ones should they persist in their bad habit of swearing. Later, I felt ashamed to have used the suffering of another as the text for their improvement.
On Sundays in the plaza, in front of our lodgings, a slave market takes place. The savages are lined up on a block and bid upon. On the way back from Mass, I saw one African, a woman, naked but for a cloth tied about the waist to hide her sex; she was in fetters, sores where the chains had cut her skin. I could smell her fear, and the look in her eyes when she saw me gazing at her was one of such desolation it took my breath away.
The boys being boys have begun teasing our poor little Moor, threatening to sell him at the market. Needless to say, Tomás Melitón is now in a state of terror. Where does this unkindness in these children come from, Nati? Most of them have been with us from the very day they first drew breath or shortly thereafter, and though we have punished them when deserved, we have never taken relish in their sufferings. Another sagrado misterio to lay before our wise confessor, Father Ignacio. How is he? No doubt glad to be rid of the rectoress with her troublesome questions.