Panama (15 page)

I have to take a breath, look around.

I lean forward in my rocker and my new tolerant self asks Father: "Is that true, all that competition among the women?"

"I don't know," he says. "But the canal's getting built."

"No doubt about it," says Harry.

We go quiet again and rock.

This feels so good—no anger or bitterness about Mother, and Federico's face floating in my head. He's making me a better person. I never knew such a thing was possible.

We look out over the darkness, torches lit here and there.

Father clears his throat and stretches his legs.

"Well, it'll be the greatest accomplishment by man on earth," he says.

I wait for Harry to mention the pyramids but he doesn't.

We rock without talking anymore, my mind drifting through shameless images of Federico and me, and I make no effort to stop them.

From inside, the small chinking sounds continue as Mother arranges her kitchen.

This is serious. I have to get in contact with Federico again. We're lovers. It shouldn't be difficult.

I'm lightning fast at schoolwork—assignments done early, always high marks, reading and homework completed on my daily train trips with papers and notebooks scattered on the seat beside me. Outside, Mount Hope, Tiger Hill, Barbacoas, Emperador glide by, but I rarely glance up. Don't notice the deepening Cut or the continuing slides. Dredging is now a regular part of the dig. I don't give much thought to the mounting number of dead and injured—we're told it's at a rate fully commensurate with the immensity and progress of the project. Good. Great. But all that is separate from my secret personal life.

One of my geography reports is called "The Pacific Sunrise Seen in Panama." It's the only country in the Americas where the Pacific coastline hooks around and for a short distance faces east.

Mrs. Ewing thinks it's wonderful, original, and well written. Should I tell her why? That I'm inspired by afternoons with Federico, lying on his cot, lazy, mind numbed? The "warmth" she reads in my essay is carnal.

"You have such passion in your writing, dear," she says.

No kidding.

***

Federico comes by the hotel on a Sunday and finds me. We're back on track. We begin meeting again at odd times, with new excuses for Mother. We're still a couple.

Harry has finished his enumerating and is now a Zone policeman carrying a Colt .45, keeping order. He can no longer be a cover. My subterfuge is more elaborate and, comfortable with my new lies, I feel no guilt. I'm not hurting anybody, and because I make sure I'm not caught, Mother won't be embarrassed. I'm constantly on guard and make no slips. My life is my own. Eighteen, in my last year of high school, and I feel adult, separate from my parents. I have filled my diary with pages of detailed descriptions of sex with Federico. Those pages are written by an adult. I am on my own, though my parents don't know it.

The subject of Taboga comes up at dinner one night.

"We really should go again," Mother says. Father spears a bite of chicken croquette.

I hardly register this conversation. I've been to Taboga—it's nice but I have no further interest. Federico is not there.

It's a little Pacific island purchased by the U.S. government from the French, cleaned up, repaired, and painted for Americans who are recuperating from illness or just need rest from canal work, a holiday. They've improved the boat landing, removed a slaughterhouse from the beach, and built a lodge. It's been made into a playground for Zoners—we've been there twice. I listen absently as Mother says we need to get away again. I certainly don't.

"It's been almost a year without a break," she says to Father, "and you're looking haggard."

It's true. I've noticed. He's tired and strained from the escalating problems with slides, the top of the canal a good quarter of a mile wider after the recent ones. The movement of tracks and reorganization of trains is increasingly difficult and under more trying conditions. He could use the rest.

But Father balks. He loves what he's doing. He looks forward to each day, takes pride in his work, his accomplishments visible every evening, measurable as workers go to the roundhouse for the next day's assignment. The tracks move farther, deeper, closer to the Pacific, a scalable advance, and it's rewarding. Father is a part of this and he hasn't forgotten the years it took to get there—the relentless but tactful pleading. He doesn't want to miss a minute. Is she crazy? He doesn't say that, of course, but I'm sure he's thinking it.

"You need a rest." Mother is pressing him in her I'm-going-to-prevail tone of voice.

Father knows the tone but doesn't give in. This kind of thing between them is entertaining. I haven't seen it in a long time and never with my new tolerance. Father uses his knife to plaster a small amount of rice on his fork, banking it against the croquette.

Mother continues. "Do you remember the wonderful lush growth and the crescent bathing beach? And Hotel Aspinwall—those beautiful high-ceilinged rooms and wide-open windows so cool and clean and quiet, with no responsibility ... You need that."

He listens, says nothing, eats.

"And the pineapple and crusty bread and Coca-Cola we bought in the pink bakery. Remember that blue filigreed balcony? Just the strangest thing but so pretty..."

What's she doing? Seducing him? This is new. I perk up and listen. What could have happened on that balcony after the Coke and crusty bread? Father concentrates on his food.

"All those wonderful wide corridors and verandas where we can lounge and watch the boats for hours, the big ships leaving Balboa, the oil tankers, passenger steamers, the beautiful yachts..." Mother's pitching this trip to him but Father's hardly looking at her. I've never seen them do this. I eat, barely glance at them, act as though I don't hear or care about it.

"...the spires of Panama City off in the distance. Surely you'd enjoy that again. The pearl shells on the cathedral tower..."

"I remember," he says. He wants her to stop.

But she goes on and mentions in passing the new president, Porras. Father looks up quickly and swallows.

"Porras?"

"Yes. He's there. Resting before he's sworn in, I guess." She's stumbled onto something. "Porras there?"

Belisario Porras, Panama's president-elect, interests Father. He followed the campaign closely. Corruption was accused on both sides, but generally Father favored Porras. He read quotes to us from his speeches in the
Canal Record
and talked to the other bosses about him. Father's face is now alert and bright.

"Well, if he's there..."

"Oh, he is, yes," says Mother, and that's it, no further discussion necessary. I think Father imagines he might meet and talk to Porras, but whatever he's thinking, the Taboga trip is on. They'll be leaving for a week.

I lose interest in Mother's seductive ways because this, I recognize in a split second, is a brilliant opportunity.

"Could I stay with Janet or Marion?"

Arrangements are made. I'll be at school most of the day and with Janet's family at night, only coming to the house each afternoon to check on things, mail, et cetera. Perfect. The late afternoon is all I need. They'll leave in a week and once again my after-school time will be for Federico. It's too good to be true.

I meet Federico at the Tivoli, bursting with my plan. I can't wait to tell him—the house to ourselves every afternoon for a week, like our time in his cabin, only better. We'll have an icebox and a kitchen and a soft bed—a large one if we dare use Mother and Father's room—a whole house to ourselves. But he's solemn and remote and hardly looks at me as I talk. He seems disinterested.

I'm baffled. We're on the best possible terms. I don't understand. "Just an idea..." I say.

"It's a wonderful idea, really..." But he's distant and I can't figure it out. He takes my hand and says, "Come on."

We walk along the tracks in the dark of evening and he asks me more about the plan, straining to be civil, trying to be normal. When we come to the Tivoli gazebo so hidden and overgrown after the heavy rains, we have to search for it. We are surely the only ones who ever come here. He leads me inside. We sit on a small bench that tilts slightly toward one end. He puts an arm around me and holds me in a friendly way, not at all sexual. He's frowning and several times I think he'll start talking. Maybe I'll hear about his life, what really brings him to this hellish dig, something personal, which, for all our intimacy and his stories of Spanish politics, is still missing. But he doesn't manage to talk—only makes the effort several times, then hugs me close instead and looks out across the canal. Finally he smiles and comes out of whatever is bothering him.

"When do they leave?"

"In four days—this weekend."

"You're counting the days?"

"Of course."

He looks at me as though he hasn't seen me all evening. He unbuttons my blouse and peels it away, rolls the camisole straps off my shoulders. He takes away the layers of my clothing, damp with perspiration and warm. Music from the hotel and occasional laughter filter into our secret place. He keeps his eyes on me, on my arms and breasts, then on my waist and belly when I'm naked in the shadows. He looks at me still smiling.

"What a perfect girl you are, do you know that?"

"I'm eighteen..." And as the full-grown woman I feel myself to be, I untie his loose cotton trousers, push them down, and pull him against me.

He catches his breath and we lie down, serious now. This is not playful erotic love, not like at his cabin. There's something desperate in our connection, like the first time we made love in that hidden place, and it overwhelms me. Again. I love his lean body and the care he takes in his sex with me, no matter how desperate its source, and we load that place with our lust, oblivious of heat and rough ground and voices above us—the sexual freight is so great, I know I'll never be able to pass there again without a shudder.

But it's no place to lie together and talk afterward. We could be found, and there are bugs and stiff dead grass. We dress and he helps me reassemble myself, and then he walks me to my house and watches as I climb the steps.

The plan is made. The following Friday after work, he'll come directly to our house, knock on the door, and I'll answer.

Alone.

I'm waiting. I hear him coming up the steps and give the house a last quick check: clean, everything in place, cold chicken in the icebox with our other favorite foods; a cool, clean bed upstairs ready for another honeymoon; bigger, better, more commodious this time with every amenity. I smile as he comes through the door. This is going to be great.

"We have to talk," he says. He walks past me, straight into the living room. I follow. "Sit down." He sounds like a professor and I feel like a student called to the principal's office.

"Would you like lemonade or something...?"

"No, no. Just sit, please."

I'm perplexed.

His eyes dart around the room as he paces. I ease down onto the edge of the sofa, never take my eyes off him.

"I have to ... tell you some things." I've never seen him like this. He's usually so assured. He's nervous and wrings his hands. "You don't really know me and that's not right ... I'm sorry I've let this go so long."

What does he mean?
"No reason to be sorry..." I say.

"Yes, there is." He's firm, almost irritated.

He keeps pacing and looks around, uncomfortable. Is he a criminal? Why aren't we going upstairs to the bedroom with real bookshelves, a real bed, clean sheets, and a cool breeze? No need to worry about Augusto coming back, no constraints on me, lots of food, a gramophone, a week of self-indulgence, and he's making a tortured effort to speak.

"Let me tell you..." He pauses, then plunges in, and it sounds rehearsed. "Alfonso XIII is the king of Spain..." I nod, not sure I actually knew that. "He and I were born on the same day, the same year. We didn't know each other; we were just the same age." More pacing. "When he was four, seven other boys and I were chosen to be playmates for him, for his military drills and exercises so he could have a more normal boy's life."

I say that I see but he doesn't hear. "He called us his troop, and I was the one he liked best so we became like brothers. He had two older sisters but he wasn't close to them. Two aunts lived with him; his mother was regent..." I look at him, blank. "Alfonso's father died before he was born..." Still pacing. "We boys were aristocrats, of course, not
pico y pala
boys. I'm one of the aristocracy—all of us were."

I'm not surprised.

He stands still to see how I'm taking this. I listen. He relaxes a little, then paces again.

"We were pranksters, really unmanageable. Sometimes we'd bungle the military drills on purpose just to humiliate the
teniente
giving orders. That was cruel. We actually apologized to the
teniente
when we were older. I guess we were just being boys, I don't know. We were eight or nine. It's hard to tell when you're so young and isolated from everybody else..." I nod, try not to look mystified. "Anyway, the aunties didn't punish us. We were allowed to do anything we wanted, but the troop still had to use the third person with Alfonso. You know, 'Does the king want to play board games or does he prefer a footrace?' As if that's normal. But behind the aunties' backs Alfonso and I were different. We didn't buy into the stupid royal facade. We told obscene jokes, called each other names, broke every rule of decorum we could. It just seemed so absurd. It still does. We hated the stuffy rules and all the phony royal snobbery..." Federico sits in Father's Morris chair and that relaxes me a little, but not him. He sits straight as he talks.

"We were going to change the world—that was the plan and it wasn't a childish idea. It was real. He was going to be king. He could do it." He thinks hard, then says, "I don't think anyone ever wanted to change his country as much as Alfonso did when he was young." He looks directly at me for the first time. "Even now I believe that."