The Adventurers (4 page)

My father did not answer. He knew what was going on in the office; there were no really important matters. But Bandaya was six hundred kilometers away, high in the mountains, and travel was arduous. Besides, there were rumors of bandoleros roaming the hills, waylaying travelers.

"It is a very important matter," the alcalde said, "and Senor Campos is an old friend. I would want him to have every assurance." He paused for a moment and looked down at my father. "I think it would be better if you could leave this morning. I have arranged for you to have one of the horses from my stable."

"Si, excelencia," my father said, getting up from his chair. "I will go home and get a few things together. I will be ready to leave in an hour."

"You know about the matter?"

My father nodded. "Seguramente, excelencia. I wrote the petition at your request. It was two months ago."

The alcalde sighed in relief. "Of course. I had forgotten." He hadn't forgotten; he knew that every brief and petition that had been issued from his office the past few years had been written by my father. "You will express to Senor Campos my profound regrets at being unable to come personally?"

"Seguramente, excelencia," my father reassured him. He then went into the outer office, where his father sat on a high stool copying a judgment.

"Que pasa?" his father asked.

"Vengo a Bandaya, Papa."

My grandfather smiled. "'Sta Bueno”. It is a great opportunity. Senor Campos is a very important man. I am very proud of you."

"Gracias, Papa. I go now. Adios, Papa."

"Vaya con Dios, Jaime," his father said, turning back to his work.

My father took the horse from the alcalde's stable to go home to get his clothes. That way he would not have to walk the two kilometers back to town.

His mother was in the front yard hanging out the washing. She looked up as he tied the horse to the fence. Quickly he explained to her where he was going. Like his father she was thrilled and happy over his great opportunity. Anxiously she helped him select his two best shirts, which she packed carefully with his best suit in an old worn travel case.

They came out into the yard again just as a ship with sparkling white sails came past the breakwater into the harbor. She stopped for a moment and looked at it across the water. "Mira!" She pointed.

Jaime smiled. His mother had told him about the ships. About how when she was a little girl her father used to take her up on the hill so they could watch the ships coming into the harbor. And about how he used to say that one day a big ship with white sparkling sails would come and take them home, home to a freedom where a man did not have to bend his knee for his daily bread.

Her father had long since died but she still had the dream. Only her dream was now for her son. It was he who would lead them to freedom. With his strength and with his knowledge.

"Grandpa would have liked that ship," her son said.

She laughed as they walked toward the horse, which was nibbling at the soft grass near the fence. "You are my ship with white sails," she replied.

My father kissed her and mounted the horse. He started up the road behind the house. At the crest of the hill, he wheeled the horse around and looked down. His mother was still standing in the yard, looking after him. He waved to her. She raised her hand. He sensed rather than saw her smile, her bright white teeth. He waved again and turned his horse back toward the road.

As he did he could see the ship heeling toward the quays, the sailors up in the masts running like crazy little ants. The white topgallant was the first to come billowing down, then the foremast, and as he turned to ride away, the ship came easing sideways against the docks, the rest of its sails shuddering down, leaving a tracery of towering masts.

When he returned to Curatu two months later, the ship was still against the dock, a burned black splintering mass of wood that had once proudly sailed the oceans and had finally brought the black death to the city. Of his father and mother he found no trace.

When a servant first brought word that a stranger was riding down from the mountain toward the hacienda, Senor

Rafael Campos took his binoculars and went out on the galena. Through the glasses he saw a dark man dressed in dusty city clothes astride a dark pony threading its way carefully down the tricky mountainside path. He nodded to himself with satisfaction. The servants were alert. One could not be too careful when at any moment the bandoleros might come sweeping down from the mountains.

He peered again through the glasses. The stranger was riding very carefully. Senor Campos put down the glasses and took his gold watch from his pocket. It was ten-thirty in the morning; it would be an hour and a half before the stranger could reach the hacienda. It would be almost time for lunch. He clapped his hands sharply.

"Set another place for lunch," he told the servant. Then he went inside to complete his toilet. It was almost two hours before my father reached the hacienda. Don Rafael was seated in the shade on the galena. He was dressed in the immaculate white suit of the aristocrat, and the ruffles of his white silk shirt and the flowing black tie only served to accentuate the thin delicate structure of his face. His mustache was thin and finely cropped in the latest Spanish fashion and his hair and eyebrows held only the faintest tinge of gray.

Don Rafael rose to his feet as my father dismounted. With satisfaction he noted that my father's suit was clean and brushed, and that his boots were highly polished. My father, aware of the quick appraisal, was glad he had stopped at a stream to make himself presentable.

Senor Campos came to the head of the stairs as my father walked up them. "Bienvenido, senor," he called politely in the custom of the hills.

"Mil gracias, senor," my father answered. "Have I the honor of addressing his excellency Don Rafael Campos?"

The older man nodded.

My father bowed. "Jaime Xenos, de la oficina del alcalde, asu servicio."

Don Rafael smiled. "Come in," he said, extending his hand. "You are an honored guest in my house."

"It is my honor, sir."

Don Rafael clapped his hands. A servant came running. "A cool drink for our guest," he said. "See to his horse."

He led my father back into the shade of the galena and bade him be seated. As my father sat down near the small table he caught a glimpse of the rifle and two pistols that were placed on the floor next to his host's chair.

The older man caught the glance. "In the mountains one cannot be too careful."

"I understand," my father said.

The servant came with the drinks and the two men toasted each other, then my father made his apologies for the alcalde. But Senor Campos would hear no more of the apologies. He was more than satisfied with my father; he was certain that the entire matter would be concluded with satisfaction. Then they went inside to lunch and afterward Don Rafael bade my father go to his room and rest, for there was time enough tomorrow to discuss their business. Today his guest must rest and make himself at home. So it wasn't until dinner that night that my father actually met my mother.

But from the window above the galena. Maria Elisabeth Campos had watched the rider come up to the portico. The sounds of conversation came clearly up to her through the still quiet of the afternoon.

"He is very tall and handsome, no?" a voice asked from behind her.

Maria Elisabeth turned. Dona Margaretha, her aunt, who had served as the duena of the household since the death of her sister, stood behind her.

Maria Elisabeth blushed. "But he is very dark."

"Tiene sangre negra," the aunt replied. "But it does not matter. It is said they make wonderful husbands and lovers." She leaned past her niece and looked out the open window. "Mucho hombre."

The sound of Don Rafael's voice, suggesting that his guest rest until dinner, floated up to them.

Dona Margaretha pulled her head back. She looked at her niece. "Now you must go to bed and rest all afternoon," she said. "It would never do to have our guest see you all flushed and tired from the heat of the day."

Maria Elisabeth protested but did as she was told. She too had been very impressed with the tall dark stranger and wanted to look her best for him.

At last the drapes were drawn and she lay stretched out alone in the cool dimness. She did not sleep. He was an attorney, she had heard him say. That meant he had polish and manners. Not like the sons of the farmers and plantation owners who lived around the hacienda. They were all so coarse and common, more interested in their guns and horses than in the polite conversations of society.

Still, she would soon have to make her choice. She was past seventeen and her father was pressing her. Another year and she would be classified as an old maid, condemned to a life like Dona Margaretha's. And even this might be denied her, for she was an only child with no sisters or brothers whose children she could take care of.

It would be nice to be married to an attorney, she thought vaguely as she drifted off into sleep, to live in the city where one met all kinds of interesting and different people.

And my father was very much intrigued by the slim intense young girl who came down to dinner dressed in a flowing white dress that served to accentuate her huge dark eyes and red lips. He sensed rather than saw the wiry body and full breasts beneath her bodice.

Maria Elisabeth, for her part, was mostly silent through dinner. She listened with half an ear to the familiar voice of her father and delighted in the soft slurring southern overtones of their guest's voice. The speech of the coast was much more gentle than that of the hills.

After dinner the men went into the library for their cigars and cognac and later came into the music room, where Maria Elisabeth played some simple melodies for them on the piano. After about half an hour she sensed their guest's restlessness and suddenly she began to play Chopin.

My father suddenly began to listen intently. The deep passion of the music stirred him and he stared at the small girl who was almost dwarfed by the huge piano. When she finished playing he applauded.

Don Rafael applauded also. But it was polite and lacked enthusiasm. He thought Chopin too bold and perhaps even immoral. He preferred the more familiar somber music. The wild rhythms of the people he cared for not at all.

Maria Elisabeth rose from the piano, flushed and pretty. "It is warm in here," she said, opening her small lace fan. "I think I will go into the garden."

My father rose instantly. He bowed to Don Rafael. "Con su permiso, excelencia?"

Don Rafael nodded courteously.

My father held out his arm to the girl. She took it graciously, and they walked into the garden. Dona Margaretha followed at a discreet three paces.

"You play well," my father said.

"Not well at all." She laughed. "There isn't much time to practice. And no one to learn from."

"It would seem to me that there isn't much you have to learn."

"In music there is always much to learn," she said, looking up at him. "I have heard it said that it is like the law. One must never stop studying or learning."

'True," my father admitted. "The law is a stern taskmaster. It is constantly in a state of flux. New interpretations, revisions, even new laws almost every day."

Maria Elisabeth gave a soft sigh of admiration. "I don't see how you can keep it all in your head."

He looked down and saw the deep wonder in her eyes. Right then and there, though he did not know it, he was lost.

It was almost a year later that they were married, after my father had returned from Curatu with the news of the death of his parents. It was my grandfather Don Rafael who first suggested that he stay in Bandaya and practice law. There were two lawyers there already, but one was old and ready to retire. It was a year after that, almost to the day, that my sister was born.

There were two other children between my sister and myself but each was stillborn. By that time my father had become interested in the study of Greek. His father had had quite a library for that time, and everything had been moved to Bandaya from the little house in Curatu.

It was from Dona Margaretha that I first heard the story of my birth and christening. When the midwives and the doctor came down and told my father the joyous news, he sank to one knee and gave thanks. First for the fact that I was a son (all the others had been girls), and second because I was strong and healthy and would live.

Almost immediately the clamor about my name began. Don Rafael, my grandfather, would hear of nothing but that I should be named after his father. My father, of course, wanted me called after his father. Neither would give an inch.

It was my mother who resolved the threatened breach. "Let him be named for tomorrow rather than the past," she said. "Let him have a name that will embody our hopes for the future and have meaning for all who hear it."

This appealed to the romantic and the scholar in my father and to the dynastic impulses of my grandfather. Thus it was that my father chose these names: Diogenes Alejandro Xenos. Diogenes after the fabled seeker of truth; Alejandro after the conqueror of the world. The explanation was simple, my father proclaimed as he held me for the priest's baptismal drops.

"With the truth, he shall conquer the world."

CHAPTER 4

I woke as the first glimmer of light came into my room. For a moment I lay there in the bed, then I rolled over and got up and went to the window.

The sun stood on the edge of the horizon, just climbing over the mountains. There was a faint breeze coming from the west and I shivered as the last remaining chill of the night crept into my nightshirt. Suddenly I had to pee.

I went back to the bed and pulled out the small chamber pot from underneath. While I stood there relieving myself I wondered if Papa would give me a larger pot now we two men were the only ones left in the house. I felt warmer after I had finished, and I put the pot back and returned to the window.

Across the road in front of the house I could see the faint smoke rising from the small fires around which the bandoleros, rolled in their dirty blankets, were sleeping. There was no movement coming from them, no sound. I pulled off my nightshirt and climbed into my pantalones and shoes. I put on the warm Indian wool shirt that La Perla had made for my birthday and went downstairs. I was hungry. It was time to eat.