Panama (16 page)

"What happened?"

"He just ... didn't do it."

"I don't know why he didn't. Maybe nobody does. Anyway, when he was sixteen, he was sworn in as king, and I was in the audience of the Cortes, the court, watching the ceremony, and I remember thinking, 'This is it, the new era—we're going to change everything.' I felt like a giant knowing that. We'd build schools and make the peasants into a strong middle class, make Spain a major European power—everything would change. It was the beginning of a new life ... or so I thought." He shakes his head, baffled, trying to work it out as he talks. "But it wasn't. Nothing changed except Alfonso and I don't know why."

Federico grinds on this as he talks about it. It still eats at him—I can see it.

"Maybe it happened to him later, after the installation. It could have happened then, in the Church or during the cortege. All that boring pomp—the Te Deum and prayers and hymns and men in robes praying for him and then the scepter ... But he'd seen that all his life—he wasn't impressed by that. I just ... I still don't understand it."

He looks at me, at the floor, out across the porch, then back at me again.

It sounds like a fairy tale but I know it isn't. This is his life and it's serious.

"I've been trying to figure it out for ten years," he says and squeezes his temples. He looks at me hard. "You do know this king business is a human invention, don't you? No matter what they tell you about God and anointing, royalty is a human fabrication, some primitive need for a father figure. That's all it is."

I nod and he goes on about that day, how everybody wanted to go home after the coronation and Alfonso wouldn't release them. This was more bizarre to me than the first part of the story. Instead the new king called the ministers for a council of state, which is never done on coronation day.

"Nobody'd ever heard of such a thing, but he did it and the council met and he demanded to know why the military academies had been closed. Can you imagine? A stupid thing like that? Some relic of our military drills that he liked, I suppose, so he calls a special council for that on coronation day? Anyway, the ministers were hot and tired so they said yes, they'd open the academies again if he wanted, and they were ready to leave and he stopped them. Said they weren't released." Then, shaking his head, "He was really barking mad."

"You don't know why?" I'm completely drawn into this now.

"No. No idea. He just went on talking and droning on about being king—one of the ministers told me all about it; I got all the details—then Alfonso read an article out loud from the constitution that gives him the right to confer honors and civil appointments. Pure egomania is what that was, and the ministers were fed up with this upstart, so king or no king, they reminded him he couldn't do anything without their consent, which is in the constitution, too, and they marched out. Good for them." Federico rubs his eyes and shakes his head. "Fool, absolute fool."

"Wasn't there anything you could do?"

He gives that some thought. "You know ... no. Nothing. But it still wasn't over, this ego attack of the king's. That night at dinner, he ordered his aunt Eulalia to eat cauliflower, which she detested. A king's order, and his mother sent him to bed without his supper like a child, which he still was. Course, it was all over town the next morning, everybody talking about it, the whole story—the fool boy king throwing his weight around with his auntie. The servants couldn't wait to let that one out."

Federico is now lost in this memory, shaking his head, hardlyknowing I'm there, but I venture a few words. "Were you still friends?"

"I was still his playmate, yes, but he never mentioned our plans for change, not a word. Can you imagine that? Growing up talking about changing an entire country, a whole sector of Europe, and in one afternoon it disappears. He never mentioned it again, didn't want to hear about it. He'd call me for some sport, polo or a fast auto ride, or maybe to watch a midnight movie—he was always needing a rest from his 'tiring royal duties,' as he called them—but there was never another word about changing Spain."

Federico stands, looks around. "The Church is richer than ever. The poor are dying and he's watching Western movies imported from America." He takes a deep breath, digs his fists into his pockets, and faces me squarely.

"Now, listen to me," he says. "There have been three attempts on Alfonso's life. I organized one."

So this is it, the big revelation.

"It failed—he's still healthy." I can't tell if he's ashamed of the attempt or the failure. "It was justified, I promise you."

I nod.

"My brother and I saw a priest in a shop having chocolate with a landowner one afternoon, a rotten, fat bastard who abused his laborers and everybody knew it. Underpaid them or didn't pay them at all, beat them, God knows what else. Course, he paid off the parish to overlook the whole thing—that's what's done over there—and Victor and I were seething at this fat, greedy buffoon sitting there with his priest, chuckling and sipping chocolate, the two of them, Church and State in collusion right in front of our eyes. We were ready to kill them. But we didn't. We wouldn't have. We weren't assassins ... not yet, anyway." He stops, angry.

"What happened?"

"Officers came. They held me at gunpoint and took Victor away."

"Why not you?"

"Possibly they knew I was part of Alfonso's troop. He may have protected me, given orders not to pick me up, I don't know. Maybe that
teniente
we apologized to when we were boys had something to do with it. I keep trying to figure it out. I'll never know. Anyway, they took Victor to Montjuich and tortured him."

I flinch at that, my first sign of emotion. Federico now keeps his eyes on me, doesn't back off or spare me the details. He wants to see if his little Dayton flower can take a hot wind of Spanish truth and I do take it, looking him straight in the face, no tears, no recoil, unmoving.

"They kept him in the double-zero cells and whipped him, forced him to stay on his feet without sleep for days, and fed him dry bread and salt fish with no water until he vomited blood. But he didn't reveal any names. He didn't give in, and my assassination attempt failed."

He stands still, contains his own emotion.

Slanting rays of setting sun fall across both of us. I don't feel the heat or the breeze from the Cut, only a slight nausea caused by what he's just said and the strain of the situation.

"I came to Panama after that," he says. "My family was afraid I'd be arrested, and Alfonso took all our money and property, everything, calling it a voluntary contribution to the Church. It killed my father, literally. His heart gave out." Tears jump to his eyes. He sucks in his breath.

"And your brother?" I say.

"The torture left him blind and he can't talk. My mother takes care of him. The two of them live in a little room ... That's all that's left of my father's fortune." A sardonic laugh comes out of him. "The Church took her husband, her son, everything she owned and forced me to leave the country, but my mother still gives pennies to the Virgin when she can and prays. She doesn't grasp it."

He steps onto the porch and looks across the Cut for a moment. "I should have told you this a long time ago."

"You tried, didn't you?"

"Did I?"

"This week in the gazebo?"

"You could tell?"

"We made love instead."

"Right."

The sky is changing from violet to deep blue-black, another spectacular end of a day. "Do you know what the peasants earn?" he says to me, still looking away. "Three shillings six a week. That's what in dollars?" He looks back but he doesn't really want an answer. He just takes another deep breath.

He's shaken and so am I.

"Wouldn't you like something to drink?" I'm amazed at my poise—I guess that's what it is.

"Thank you, no. Really, I'm all right."

We're now officially a universe apart.

In my mind I see our Methodist church on the corner of Twelfth Street—Wednesday prayer meetings, Thursday carry-in supper, no ornaments, a picture of a Nordic-looking Jesus with wavy brown hair, no rituals, hymns, prayers, and a sermon about right living and staying clean of soul. The collection plate is passed—give if you can...

"I can't imagine it," I say.

"That's good." He smiles, his head tipped a little to the side. He likes that about me. Reading
El Unico
is as close as I'll come to his deranged world. Our house is as close as he'll come to my benign one. He stands there, pensive, looking at me, then says, "I can't stay, I'm sorry..."

He glances around the room and understands that he's destroyed my plans. "I'm sorry, really."

"I understand."

He looks at me in that curious way again, trying to figure me out, as though he doesn't know me or my kind and wants to but not right now, no time for that now.

He nods—no courtly bow—we're way past that.

He goes toward the kitchen and I follow. Out on the porch he pushes the screen door open, smiles at me weakly, and goes down the steps. He doesn't look back again and his figure disappears behind the brush along the track.

When he's out of sight I go back in and sit on the sofa, looking out at the darkness that's descended in only minutes.

My eyes finally rest on the table beside Father's chair, where there are clippings from Katharine's latest letter about Orville's recent European trip and with it newspaper photos of the flying machine tipped at a slight angle in the sky. I stare at it from across the room. There's an index card lying with the letter. Katharine's sent the recipe for Orville's turkey stuffing so we won't have to go another Christmas without it. She knows how much we all love it, and Mother, who rarely asks anyone for anything, has requested that recipe, and there it sits while they're in Taboga.

I take the card into the kitchen and put it with Mother's other recipes in alphabetical order in a small blue box with a faded floral design on the hinged top. I push the recipe box back into its place and stand there trying to take in what has just happened, but I can't. It doesn't seem real. It's a story from another world that I'm not likely to ever see.

What is real and clear to me is that Federico and I are now further apart.

I cannot write a single word about this in my diary that night, and I don't see or hear from him again for weeks.

It's Saturday evening and on the track below us a group of Spaniards appears, carrying two large flags and singing "Garibaldi." Father is the first to hear them. He goes out on the porch to watch.

"Spaniards," he says when I join him. "They have troubles back home, you know."

"Mmm."

Mother comes out with us.

They're almost straight below our house, all of them dressed in colorful clothes, sashes and berets, with flags and banners and a leader—Federico.

I stop breathing. My eyes go wide.

The group stops walking. Federico steps forward, looks up at us, and speaks. I really can't breathe.

"We have come to thank you,
Jefe.
You have been a great help to us in the past and you are our loyal friend..." And he goes on—more good things about Father and that they've come to honor him. Mother remarks to me quietly about the quality of Federico's elegant speech.

"Oh, yes," I say and have to clear my throat.

Federico's voice carries well; we hear every word praising Father. There are cheers and shouts of
"Viva!"
Mother and Father watch, completely entertained and I begin to relax a little.

"Good men," Father says. "Good men."

The group suddenly begins climbing our hill. My stomach screws tight as Federico leads them boldly, not showing the slightest fear.

Father smiles and gives them a little salute in greeting. Federico doesn't avoid looking at me but doesn't give any indication he's ever seen me before, either. He looks very correctly at all three of us, the
jefe
's family, and focuses on Father, the center of the occasion.

They're halfway up the steps and Federico shouts out political slogans,
viva
this or
a bajo
that, about honor and justice, and the group responds with "
Viva"
to each one. Then the flag bearers come up the steps to cross the flags in front of us, and the group sings a melody about Spain and its natural bounty. I'm terrified and excited and want it to end, but the song goes on and on.

Mother, who usually dislikes demonstrations, loves this, the singing and Federico's handsome face looking up at us.

"He's very good looking," she murmurs to me.

"Mmm."

They finish and there's another shouted
viva
for Father. He gives them his friendly salute again and they retreat down the hill. Federico shoots me a quick glance and I half smile. I'm shaking.

"Beautiful," I say to Mother, trying to be normal.

"I don't ever want to forget that," Mother says. "Oh, the Kodak, for heaven's sakes!" Too late. No snapshots.

We're going back into the house, blood finally pumping through me again, when we hear someone behind us—Augusto.

"Please come with us,
Jefe,"
he says. "A
bajo
in the cantina ... a banquet."

Augusto is not as smooth as Federico. He keeps glancing at me, which Mother notices. She nudges me.

"He sees how pretty you are," she whispers.

Heart pounding, stomach churning. "I'm flattered," I say. This is too much.

Father goes with them to the bottom of the hill into the Brown Spider Cantina, a grim establishment nicely decked out for the festivities.

Mother and I sit on the porch and listen to the celebration. The whole thing unnerves me. We bring out plates of supper and eat with the singing and shouts of
"Viva"
and revolutionary speeches drifting up the hill.

There are occasional clear phrases about saving
Espana,
which I loosely translate for Mother. Spanish is still difficult for her and the voice we hear most is Federico's. For me it's unsettling.