The look goes around from one to the other. Alma feels a pang that it stops there, that they cannot include her boy guard whose mother, if he makes it home by tomorrow night, will give him hell. The Killington ski mask who wants to go to the United States and send dollars home to his family. The black kerchief who should learn to read—he would love Neruda’s poetry. He could write his own book some day, a saga such as Alma and her ilk could never write in a million years. A story that is not a story, but a song to break hard hearts and put them back together again, beyond the ken of all the king’s men.
The word comes from the front room that dinner bags and cigarillos have been received. The black kerchief and a ski mask from Stowe come out the back door to open up the female dormitorio and release the women. The outdoor lights have been turned on, a strange glow suddenly illuminates the wilderness. The crickets go still. Far off, Alma hears village sounds. A baby crying again, a dog barking. Some woman is laughing. Laughing! There is still laughter in this world, oh heavenly sound!
The door of the female dormitorio is thrown open. The guards shout for the women to evacuate. But no one steps out. Alma remembers an article she once read about how animals will grow so used to captivity, they won’t run out even when the door of their cage is left wide open.
The young men shout again for the women to walk calmly toward the front gate. A brave soul peeks out. Her dark figure emerges, followed by another, and another, and soon there is a stampede of women, some alone, some hand in hand, some riding piggyback on others’ backs, all of them running toward the opened front gate, crying, We are sick! Please don’t hurt us! Have mercy on us!
Minutes later, a couple of guards come down the hall from the front of the clinic, their arms full of paper bags. The two boys on duty rush in to get their dinner. “Stay seated,” one of the guardia instructs the hostages. “You will each get a bag.”
“You hungry?” Alma asks Richard. She has felt weak-kneed and headachy from lack of food. Richard shakes his head. He doesn’t feel much like eating.
“You should eat, though,” she fusses. A brief look of annoyance passes over his face. Even in this godforsaken place, how easily they can slip into their little domestic riffs. Soon they will be bickering. You forgot to pick up garlic. Whose turn is it to do the dishes?
While they wait for the next round of bags to come from the front room, Richard tells Alma that she has gotten some calls on the clinic phone. “They were in English, so the guys had me go and take a message. You left the clinic number on Claudine’s answering machine? Anyhow, the sheriff’s been trying to find you.”
“Did you tell him I’m indisposed?” She smiles grimly at how reachable technology has made everyone. Here they are, hostages on a remote mountaintop, under a cloudy night sky, with just a sliver of a moon showing like a last slice of a pie no one has room for, and a small-town Vermont sheriff is trying to reach her. Maybe soon she’ll get a call from Hannah, reminding Alma they have made a deal with Helen’s God. Both men back in our arms, unharmed. Alma has kept her side of the bargain. Maybe all will be well, at least for her and Richard, Mickey and Hannah.
“I guess the whole town’s been quarantined. Some crazy story about some Hannah woman who claims she and her husband let loose a monkey pox virus. I couldn’t understand it all. But I told them where you were, except I said you were shot in the leg and a hostage …”
So now she might be carrying monkey pox, infecting everyone around her! This is totally insane! Alma begins to tell Richard the story of Thanksgiving Day, but the young guard who is handing out dinners comes over and thrusts a bag at each of them. “Silencio! Eat your dinner.” She unwraps hers: a big bulky hamburger, probably from the McDonald’s she noticed on the highway as they turned up the mountain. Alma is famished—she hasn’t eaten all day. She looks around, hoping to trade hers for an Egg McMuffin. But everyone gets the same meal, a big Quarter Pounder, a Coke, a candy bar, a box of Marlboros. At first, she tries to eat around the meat, nibbling the soggy, white bun, but she ends up devouring the greasy patty. So much for her vegetarian principles. It is delicious.
A little later, they are allowed to spread blankets on the floor of the patio and get some rest. The hostages work silently, moving the benches to the side, all probably thinking the same thing, stack them securely out of the way of the storming guardia. By now the outdoor lights are off. The little radio is turned down so low that Alma wonders how the guards can hear it at all.
Alma lies beside Richard, face to face in the dark. She wants to find out what else the sheriff had to say about this monkey pox scare, what if she’s harboring some deadly disease (but that’s absurd—Hannah has pulled this trick before!), if they all get saved for nothing, but a fierce “Shhhh” comes from the two young guards made nervous by her whispering. They have taken off their masks in the dark and sit one on each end of a bench, leaning against the back wall, tired, dreaming of home perhaps. One of them burps often, without apology or seeming embarrassment.
The rest of the young men are inside, smoking their cigarettes, planning tomorrow’s strategy with their leader. Periodically, Alma lifts her head slightly to check out where the guards are, and as she does she notices others doing the same. They are all waiting and waiting on this night that seems to go on and on. Perhaps the deal is off, now that the captors are negotiating, and the guardia will not come after all.
Alma struggles to stay awake, but in spite of her fear and anticipation she dozes off. She is with Isabel on the way to Manila on a huge galleon, about six times the size of the María Pita, four hundred souls on board. But instead of the promised accommodations, the boys are consigned to sleep on the floor of the powder magazine, tossed around with the pitch and roll of the ship. Don Francisco confronts the captain but it is as hopeless as trying to bargain with the red bandanna. Nothing happens. As weeks pass, the director’s condition worsens, a bloody dysentery that might end his life midjourney. Isabel despairs for him, for herself, for the twenty-six young lives entrusted to her care.
In her dream, Alma looks down upon the weary Isabel, wishing she could offer some comfort, a whisper of hope, a glance that says, You are not alone. We are here together.
Some time later, she wakes up, feeling Richard stir. It’s his stomach, the worse for the dinner he ate. Could it be Alma has infected him with monkey pox? Of course not; he was sick before she got here. It could be the island’s version of Montezuma’s revenge; Richard is never careful with the water, readily eats street food. But by now his system should be used to the local flora and fauna. Most probably, it’s just nerves—though Richard would never admit it. Being a hostage three full days can work havoc on a first-world stomach.
He has to go to el sanitario. Carefully, he makes his way over the sleeping hostages, who are probably not sleeping at all, and calls softly to the guards. It takes a minute for them to wake up. Sleepily, they gesture for Richard to go on his own. Alma watches him disappear down that dimly lit tunnel.
She resists the pull of sleep, waiting for Richard to return, for his body to curl sweetly around her own, as if they were back in Vermont, as if their lives had not taken this dive into error and happenstance. She listens to the noises of the night. One of the guards is snoring; the wind is in the trees, a hushing, rushing sound, the beginning of a storm, maybe. It is chilly. Richard was right: ski masks would prove useful on such nights, but who would ever have thought they would come to the use they came to.
She thinks she hears Richard now, coming back to his place beside her, but it is a dark figure, which turns into two, three, a dozen dark figures, some of whom have overpowered the two captors, one of whom takes her hand as another takes another hostage’s hand; each dark guardian seems to know which one he is to rescue. Meanwhile, a host of brother shadows are rushing into the Centro, as swiftly, unquestioningly, the hostages are being run out of the back patio, out of harm’s way, for this is how luck works, happening to some and not to others, this oh-not-so-blind sele
ction, which Alma is trying to alter, begging her own rescuer to go back, to tell the others that her husband is in the bathroom, that they mustn’t mistake him for one of the captors. But before she can convince him, she hears thunder, lightning, a great burst of gunfire, a storm of rain and shooting men, that she will never forget for as long as she lives, for as hard as she tries to forgive them.
VII
JANUARY–SEPTEMBER 1805
WHAT A HURRIED DEPARTURE we had from New Spain!
We arrived in Mexico City from the provinces the first week in January. In less than a month, we had the equipages of twenty-six boys to assemble, as well as our own. And this would not be a short journey hither and yon. Since only two ships set sail for Manila each year, the queue was long (troops, friars, silver to transport in order to buy and bring back silk, ivory, spices). It might well be a year before we would return to Acapulco.
Before I left Puebla, I sat down with little Benito. I explained to him that I was going on a long journey; that soon, very soon, Lieutenant Pozo, the tall, kind mate of the María Pita—Did he remember him? Of course, he did. The one who stammered and was so strict? That very one. This lieutenant would be back probably before I was. They should wait for me here in the city of the angels.
I anticipated a repeat of the anguished parting scene in Mexico City when I had left my boys in the hospicio. But Benito listened quietly, his face attentive, his eyes serene. “Have a safe journey, Mother,” he wished me, and when I held him with my eyes, because I needed more, he asked, “May I go play now with the boys?” The seminary was next door, the school Benito would attend as soon as he was old enough to sit on a school chair and his feet touch the floor.
“Yes, my love,” I said, holding him too tight. This is motherhood, I thought, love and loss bound so tightly together, it is impossible to separate them.
I felt him pull away before I was ready to let him go.
WE HAD ASSEMBLED in the custom house in Acapulco, ready to depart when Don Francisco was handed a letter; the seal of the viceroyalty was unmistakable. For a moment, I thought, the man has come around! Now that we are leaving, he can wish us godspeed.
Our director was shaking his head with disbelief and disgust. “Listen, Doña Isabel, to the gratitude we get.”
You should take with you all your equipment and expedition members and return to Europe directly from the islands. You must not come back here as your services are no longer needed. If you should return after this warning, be advised that you do so at your own expense.
My heart sank. “But I must return. My child …” My voice broke. I could not continue. The pressure of the preparations of the last few weeks had worn down my self-control. I could not bear this last injunction. How could I not return? I had twenty-six boys in my care to bring back from Manila, a son left behind in Puebla de los Ángeles, and a dozen more in the Royal Hospicio to worry after until homes were found for them.
“Pay him no mind, Doña Isabel.” Don Francisco led me gently by the elbow to the outside galería. We stood under a projecting roof and watched as stevedores and porters loaded up cargo in boats rowed out to the Magallanes, too large a nao to come in to the bay. The loading had been going on all week. The ship would hold about five hundred of us. Even that frightened me, my nerves were so frayed. “I have written to His Majesty with my report.” Don Francisco held up his own letter. “The man’s behavior will not go unpunished, trust me, Doña Isabel.”
I had to, for I had already cast my lot with Don Francisco. And surely the viceroy knew my plans. He had paid me a part of my salary, which I had left behind with the kind Bishop Gonzales for my Benito. The remainder would be paid to me when I returned with the twenty-six boys upon concluding our mission.
“Surely he knows we are coming back?” I asked Don Francisco.
“Surely he knows you are,” our director replied. It did not strike me until later that our director had not exactly answered my question.
THE MAGALLANES WAS A small city afloat on an endless sea. Its large size made it much steadier than the María Pita. My seasickness was mild and passed quickly for the weather was fair and the breezes propitious. Much of our time was spent on deck. Every day, it seemed I saw new faces. Friars, soldiers, merchants, and—yes!—women, about fifty of us, all told. Most were the wives of officials returning to their homes or setting out to join their distant husbands. Many brought maids, native girls from New Spain, or for those returning, from the islands themselves. These I especially studied in order to acquaint myself with the natives I would soon be meeting. Small-boned, pretty girls, with copper skin and shiny hair the color of ebony.
The wives were certainly curious about me. I was not married to our director? None of these boys were my sons? A smallpox expedition? (At this, they edged away.) Our director, hearing that panic was mounting among the passengers, decided to give a talk one evening about our mission. After that, the ladies were more kindly disposed toward me and the children. But, oh my, twenty-six boys! How could I manage them all without a maid to help me?
How could I manage? Barely! All of my new boys were between the ages of four and six, with only one older boy of fourteen, Josef Dolores, who proved to be a great help to me. They were much more demanding to care for than my Coruña boys, as I had not raised them myself, so I did not have that deep understanding that comes with helping nurture their natures.
Knowing that the trip was long and wearying, Don Francisco had paid top price for the best accommodations. A few days out, he grew alarmed at the poor quality of our fare—the boys had been served only lentils and meat so rotted that hungry as they were, they cast it aside, which at least made the rats happy. Yes, rats! The boys had been stowed in a small storage area where the magazine powder was kept. The captain was certainly not keeping his part of the agreement.
“How is it possible?” Don Francisco shook his head in disbelief. “How can a man trick us in this way when he knows we are embarked on a beneficent mission?”
“Surely there has been a misunderstanding.” Don Ángel always sought to think well of everybody. “Perhaps the captain needs only a gentle reminder.”
But our director was not one to tactfully wait and present our case calmly to Captain Ángel Crespo. In a trick of fate that proved most ironic, our captain had the very same name as our own Ángel Crespo. But it was as if the Lord had created two versions of the same human being, then decided to keep both and no doubt love them both equally, a lesson to all of us prodigal sons and daughters. And it might have been a fruitful lesson had we not been at sea, with eight more weeks to go, and our health and well-being dependent on the least angelic of these two Ángel Crespos.
The captain assured Don Francisco he would look into the matter. But our second week out, the boys were still sleeping in the magazine and their food was as close to inedible as possible. Even the rats were turning away from it, biting the boys instead. Don Francisco began to worry about other infections and plagues. Seven more weeks under these conditions, and not just the vaccine but our boy carriers, too, were in danger of being lost before we arrived in the Philippines.
I could not bear the thought of losing one more child to this expedition. I fretted and fussed over my boys. At night I could not sleep thinking of little Tomás, Orlando, Juan Antonio. Amid the slap of waves on the hull, the groans and snores from other berths, I heard their voices calling to me.
Some nights in the throes of these nightmarish imaginings, when I feared that I would scream and wake all the women in my partition, I felt an invisible hand on my forehead soothing away my fears; a voice crooned in my ears. Everything will turn out well, trust me.
Those nights I slept, my scarred face wet with tears.
AMONG THE WOMEN ON board was a lady about my age who had been traveling the better part of a year. Señorita Margarita Martínez had set out from Cádiz, landed in Veracruz, crossed overland to Acapulco by mule, and was now en route to the Philippines to join her brother, the captain o
f the militia in Manila. “You must call me Margarita,” she insisted. I was glad for the liberty. Señorita Margarita sounded too much like a silly girl in a comedy.
Margarita had a lovely “little cabin” with a “little bunk” and a “little desk,” and enough room to hang a hammock for the “little maid” she had brought with her from Mexico. She had to keep her eye on the pretty girl. She had already lost two maids to America. The first refused to get back on board after a stop in Havana, so petrified was she of the sea. The other had run off with one of the crew she had befriended on the crossing. “A little tart!” Margarita attached the diminutive to everything. It was a way for her to make the world doll size and safer, so I came to believe.
She offered to show me her cabin, and it was almost as nice (and twice as large) as her description. Indeed it reminded me of the mate’s cabin on the María Pita. Was he on his way back to meet me? I wondered. Or had his ship been intercepted by the British? If he did manage to make it through enemy lines, would he be angry that I had not waited for him? In the letter I had left with Bishop Gonzales, I had explained that I needed to see this expedition through to the end. That I would be back. That he should forgive me.
“So where is your little nest, Isabelita?” Margarita was eager to see it. What else was there for a fine lady to do on board besides embroider and read and visit with other ladies? And though I was not a fine lady, I was connected with six gentlemen, one of them, Francisco Pastor, a bachelor and quite handsome. As for me, busy as I was with twenty-six boys to care for, I was lonely for another woman’s companionship.