As we spoke, the boy had been intently studying our visitor. He had heard about the lieutenant who would return and become his father. Was this the man? If so, why didn’t I throw my arms around him? Why didn’t I usher the boy forward to meet him?
“Benito, you remember Don Francisco?”
The boy thought a moment before nodding, probably sensing that was the polite answer I wanted him to give. But Benito had last seen the director five and a half years ago. Only vaguely did he recall the expedition, the Atlantic crossing, the wonderful time he had had in Havana with the Romay brothers.
“Of course, he remembers the adventure of his life!” Don Francisco laughed. “And the other boys?”
I told him about the Coruña boys, four remaining in the new Escuela Patriótica, moved over from the Royal Hospicio. The Mexican boys had been returned. All but two, who had died on the journey home.
Don Francisco’s face darkened. “I wondered that I had not heard from Gutiérrez.”
What use was it sending reports to Spain when so few ships were getting through? Upon our return from the Philippines, Viceroy Iturrigaray had ordered us to remain in New Spain until a peace had been reached. He had been generous, which had surprised me, granting me a pension and permission to live in Puebla, paying the other members in the capital a stipend while they waited to return home. Either he had received an admonishment from the court after Don Francisco’s return and before the court itself fell or our poor treatment earlier had been on account of the director’s temper.
I tried to explain our present circumstances, but I could see Don Francisco thought he had come back to the country he had left five and a half years ago. Now plots were rife to free ourselves before Spain fought off the French invaders and beat us back into subjection. “We are ourselves in revolution,” I ventured. “You will see when you get to the capital,” I added. “Dr. Gutiérrez and your nephews and Don Ángel Crespo … they will tell you—”
“I noted you did not include Don Pedro Ortega. Is he not in the capital?”
“Don Pedro died in Manila.” The same fevers that had almost killed Don Francisco. “He fell ill while he was vaccinating with your nephew in the islands.”
“And Gutiérrez didn’t recall him?”
The case was building against our substitute director. How to bank these fires before they raged into a temper? Don Francisco would need all his tact if he was to survive in today’s Mexico. I could see the years had not softened his character.
“Everything was done for him. He died peacefully in my arms.” In spite of the time that had elapsed since that day, my eyes filled with tears. Don Pedro had left behind a widow, two sons. He had saved so many lives. A whole world made better by his sacrifice. But his wife had lost a husband and his two boys a father. No one in the world could make that up to them, not that anyone would try.
Except Don Francisco. I had forgotten that about him. His ferocity for justice made him at times pigheaded but it also made him our champion. The forgotten, the downtrodden, the helpless, and powerless—he would not desert us. He would be the one to try. “We must be sure his wife gets his pension.” Don Francisco took up the fallen man’s cause. “All the more reason why Gutiérrez should have notified me.”
His mind was already set against his old friend whom he had left in charge when he departed from Manila. The pigheaded, vain man was back. This is what I found so tiring about him, I remembered. One adored and detested him in the same breath. There was no middle ground.
He did not stay long—he had many leagues to go before darkness fell. But he would be back through Puebla on his way back to Spain when he was finished. He promised to look in on the boys at Escuela Patriótica and bring me news of those adopted by families. As for how long it might take him to rebuild the vaccination juntas and restore the vaccine to New Spain, that was anybody’s guess. He had alluded to the fact that he was also trying to win the hearts of the colonists back to their mother country.
Don Francisco had never taken his challenges in small portions. In that respect also, he was still the same.
“Doña Isabel, it has done my heart good to see you again,” he said warmly, pressing my hand in farewell.
Benito and I watched from our door as our visitor mounted the carriage that was waiting for him by the bishop’s house. “That’s not him,” the boy concluded.
“No,” I murmured. Another disappointment for the boy, or so I thought.
“We will be fine, Mamá.” He patted my back as if I were the child.
Mamá! I tried not to show too much pleasure. Change would come in its own time and in the smallest increments. Hadn’t I said so once to Don Francisco?
And sometimes it would not come at all. It was finally clear to me that the lieutenant would not be coming back. That the life I now had was to be my life, with Benito for a time.
IN THE YEAR FOLLOWING Don Francisco’s visit, we were all caught up in the revolution that swept through the countryside. North of us, in Dolores, Father Hidalgo rang his church bells, calling his poor parishioners to defend themselves against the oppressive rule of the Spaniards. Eighty thousand marched on the capital, cutting throats and burning fields along the way, a trail of blood and death that terrified even those sympathetic to their cause from joining the rebels.
What could be expected of these desperate souls? I had been up north with Don Francisco when we toured the provinces vaccinating. I had seen the mines and the horrid conditions under which so many lived. But I had to be careful what I said in Puebla in defense of Father Hidalgo’s cause, for the bishop as well as our town officials were all fierce royalists. Instead of the Virgin of Guadalupe, whom the rebels had embraced as their own, we were to pray to the Spanish Lady of los Remedios. It had come to this, fighting over our virgencitas.
I, too, was a Spaniard, as was my son. But I admit I was glad that having come at such a young age and having spent so many years in Puebla, Benito no longer sounded like a Galleguito. If the rebels came through town, it was I who would have to be careful. Attached as we were to the bishop who had approved the excommunication of that monster Hidalgo, we might well be struck down by his furious rabble.
I worried over my boys in the capital, the ones still interned in the Escuela Patriótica. If the rebel army stormed the city, surely they would not strike down children … Of course, the older boys were now in their teens. They might well be pressed into action by either side. My poor children had loaned their bodies to bring salvation to mankind. Had they saved the world for this?
With travelers headed north, I sent several letters to Don Ángel Crespo, who still resided in Mexico City. How were they all faring? Was the city under siege? If so, he and the others were welcomed to join me and bring our boys from Escuela Patrótica. I heard back in bits and pieces. The inhabitants of the capital were awaiting the horrible siege … And then after several weeks of silence, another letter. Father Hidalgo had withdrawn his forces. He would not invade Mexico City and cause more bloodshed. The populace had not turned out to support him. He would not impose his rule over them.
I breathed easier. The monster priest was not a monster, after all. Perhaps he would look kindly on the fearless doctor who had headed into the eye of the storm to preserve the vaccine that was in danger of being lost. Don Ángel explained that weeks before the siege, against everyone’s advice, our old director had traveled north into rebel territory. Two months had passed, and still no one had heard from Don Francisco.
Living next door to the bishop was like living next door to the hospital at La Coruña. As much news as it was possible to receive during these unsettled times found its way to the Episcopate. The rebels had taken Valladolid. They had set up their stronghold in Guadalajara.
It was several months before we next heard of Don Francisco. It seems he had become involved in a battle of a different kind. In the midst of war, he was trying to revive his vaccination centers! When the several provincial officials refused to help him, pre
occupied as they were with fighting the insurgents, Don Francisco accused them of being rebels. These indignant officials had filed a suit against him for defamation of their good name. But Dr. Balmis had failed to appear in court. It seemed he was still in the provinces, trying to save the vaccine, dispensing his translation of Moreau, as if there were no war going on but his very own.
SUMMER 1811
Don Francisco did keep his promise. A year after his surprise visit, he stopped by on his way to Veracruz where he would board a ship to Spain. He was leaving the embattled colony. There was nothing more he could do. The revolutionary struggles had destroyed the whole system of juntas he had established. Here and there, in isolated locales, the cowpox vaccine was still alive. But soon, unless something was done, it would die out. A whole new generation would be born without protection against the next onslaught of the smallpox. “Mark my words, Doña Isabel, mark my words!” He paced, incapable of sitting still as if the thought itself were after him.
As he spoke, I noted how lean and spent he looked again. The wig was gone; the vigorous bearing, the gallant gestures. True, he was not as bodily ill as when we had parted in Manila. But now there was a haunted look about him. Perhaps the rumors were right: Don Francisco had gone mad with his salvation scheme.
To spare him further agitation, I did not tell him that we had lost the vaccine here in Puebla. The vaccinated had not been returning so that the cowpox fluid could be harvested for the next round. The countryside was too dangerous. The perpetuating system Don Francisco had devised was breaking down.
“All our efforts wasted.” He seemed to be at the point of breaking down himself.
I felt the familiar pain in my side. My heart could not bear up under his disappointment as well as mine. “But we might still reconstruct what has been lost,” I sought to reassure him.
Don Francisco shook his head. “There is no money for the centers. No organization, no method. And there has not been a change”—he tapped his temple—“of attitude. Of realizing that this is not an extravagance.”
“Surely in the capital?” With such a large populace, it seemed there could always be available carriers at hand. Although his nephews had left for Spain, Dr. Gutiérrez and Don Ángel Crespo were still there and could at the very least maintain a central junta where we could all repair.
At the mention of Dr. Gutiérrez’s name, Don Francisco’s vigor returned in an outpouring of grievance. The man had not proven himself worthy of the charge the director had placed on him. Did I not know that the scoundrel had gambled Don Pedro Ortega’s wages, the patrimony of two orphan children? He had also appropriated funds due to Don Francisco’s nephews. I was shocked. It did not sound like the Dr. Gutiérrez I had known, so correct in all his doings.
“But at least on that front, justice will be served,” Don Francisco continued after a fit of pacing. It seemed he had started a suit against his old colleague. I recalled that other suit against the director himself. The charges had finally been dropped, his accusers convinced that the doctor was indeed a madman.
But I was not at all convinced that our director was crazed. Or perhaps he had been so from the start, believing against all odds that the world could be saved from smallpox. How mad the scheme now seemed! But had it not been for him, even the possibility of doing what he had done would not have been sown in history. That is the way I wanted to think of it. Of all we had sacrificed in the name of his mission.
It was closing on the noon hour. Don Francisco had arrived on a mount with a guide, who waited by their pack mules to renew their journey. But I insisted they must eat something before departing. As we were sitting down, Benito hurried in from the seminary next door. He had heard that there was a vagabond at our cottage. He stayed on, either out of courtesy to my guest or protectiveness of his mother, listening eagerly to Don Francisco’s stories of his time in the rebel territories. He had arrived at Valladolid, only to be caught in the middle of the fighting. While trying to arrange his passage out, he learned that the doctor for the royalist forces had gone over to the insurgent side. Rather than desert his loyal countrymen, he had enlisted to take care of their wounded.
“Did you meet Father Hidalgo?” Benito had been taken with the stories of the rebel priest. One day he had come home with a copy of a pamphlet, which I burned in the cookstove. Hidalgo was proclaiming the abolition of tribute, abolition of slavery, distribution of land to the landless! The man was a monster, but from time to time some of his pronouncements sounded like those of Jesus in the Gospels Benito was studying.
Don Francisco shook his head. “At first, I thought only to take care of our own,” he continued with his story. “But then the wounded began coming in, and I could not tell them apart, rebel from royalist.” Don Francisco’s eyes seemed to be viewing those boys once again. “I was tending to one youngster, whose shattered arm would have to come off. Our commander hurried over and ordered me to move on. ‘Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘This soldier is a Creole rebel.’ ‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘this is a human being, and I am a doctor under oath to save lives.’”
I felt a surge of pride in him. At that moment, I forgave him all his smallness and arrogance. He had a spark of goodness that shone bright from time to time. I had followed him to this new world, which was proving as full of savagery as the old one. As much in need of his light, which I now saw reflected in the tears in my son’s eyes.
It was only after Don Francisco left us that I wondered about his standoff with the royalist commander. They had almost come to blows, Don Francisco confided. He had omitted telling us whether he had saved the young rebel’s life or whether, while the two men argued, the boy had died.
SUMMER 1830
Don Francisco’s prediction turned out to be true.
This was years later, after our wars of independence were finally over. Across the seas, the Spanish king had been returned to his throne. I had heard of Don Francisco’s death in Madrid in the winter of 1819. In his last years, it seemed he received more titles than that first string he had recited to me years ago in La Coruña. He had been decorated for his loyalty to His Majesty and for his extraordinary mission. His house had been restored to him. Dr. Jenner himself had praised the expedition as one of the most noble philanthropic enterprises in the annals of history. Don Francisco had gone on to propose the creation of a post, inspector of vaccination, which he had volunteered to be the first to fill. I was glad for him. Somehow, he had regained his faith that his work had not been in vain.
All this news I heard from Don Ángel Crespo, who had remained in the capital city, his wife finally joining him. Dr. Gutiérrez had also stayed, fighting in court, and finally clearing his name of all our director’s allegations. In fact, Dr. Gutiérrez was now an important man in our new nation, a dean and director of the Hospital of San Andrés.
My own Benito had grown up, a quiet man, a mystery to me, this son I had not conceived but had loved with all my heart. The good bishop had steered him into the priesthood, though Benito had refused a post in the Puebla episcopate, preferring the smaller parishes in far-off settlements. His first assignment had been in Mitla, then north to Carácuaro, finally settling in Chilpancingo. I followed him in all his moves, though I was ready to rest, an old woman, as I would often protest. “You have been an old woman for a long time, Mamá,” Father Benito noted. Father Benito, I teased him back.
He was right. In spite of my poor health and my weak heart, I seemed to be hardy in my frailty. “The good Lord is saving you for something,” Benito would joke on days when I took to bed with that knife blade in my left side. But the worried look in his eyes recalled the terrified boy clinging to the post outside the orphanage door in La Coruña.
Somehow, wherever we moved, word got out that I could cure. The poor flocked to see me. The rich had their doctors. Not that we had that many rich in Mitla or Carácuaro or Chilpancingo.
The day I saw the angry eruption on the face and arms of a young child, my heart sank, remember
ing Don Francisco’s prediction. Immediately, I quarantined the mother and her small children, but soon there were others in her village stricken with the viruela. Panic was spreading, especially when word came back from the capital and northern cities that the precious vaccine seemed to have run out everywhere.
It was then I remembered how Don Francisco had discovered cowpox in cows, years back, during our tour of the provinces. Don Ángel had been along on these scouting journeys; he would know where to go. Benito tried to dissuade me. Don Francisco’s claim had never been proven. Then, too, most of the old ranches had been burned, the cattle slaughtered, during our many independence battles.
But my mind was made up. I would go visit Don Ángel, and together we would apply to Dr. Gutiérrez, who was in the position to know important, wealthy people who might fund such an expedition. I confess I also hoped to see my now grown boys. Perhaps I knew that I was nearing my time to depart this earth.
“Mamá, you are not of an age—”
“I have been an old woman for a long time,” I quoted him.
And so I undertook the long journey north. Long! I had to smile. A mere league compared to all I had wandered. We traveled on mules, my Benito joining me at the last minute. It was my first time back in the capital since we had become our very own nation. Spain no longer ruled us, though it was hard to tell the difference. The poor were still so poor. Perhaps a little less desperate, temporarily, because of hope.
We found the small house on the street I knew only from his letters. Don Ángel and I both wept to see each other once again on this side of the grave. His wife served us a refresco of lemons that reminded me of Don Francisco’s medicine against the scurvy. She kept nodding at her husband’s stories, as if hearing them so often she was convinced that she had been along on all his adventures.
Soon enough, we were talking of the smallpox emergency. Outbreaks were occurring all over Mexico. It would take at least a month before we could get the vaccine from Caracas, where we had heard the juntas were still functioning. And even then, the vaccine might not be active upon arrival. Meanwhile hundreds, thousands of children would die, and many more be afflicted.