Panama (22 page)

"Always picked what you ate from trees and used the same tree to build shelter? Never mind. Take these coins, buy a farm that's bigger, better, above the water line. From there you can watch the only world you've ever known sink under a rising lake." He turns to me. "How do you buy a farm and exchange pieces of metal for food when you've always knocked food out of a mango tree, the one behind your grandfather's house? How do you do that?" He turns back to the lake slipping by us.

I have no answer and he doesn't expect one.

He motors on, frowning and silent, toward the bulk of Gatun locks rising on the horizon. In a few minutes we dock the launch and I stay close to him; he knows where we're going.

We hurry across the locks and dam to the marshland beyond the spillway, where he makes inquiries about an attempt to burn the I.C.C. launch attached to dredge number something-or-other—police business. It's beginning to get dark. I want to go home.

We stand waiting for our train at the station and I'm shaking, though it's sultry hot. Harry notices.

"Do you have a chill?"

"No, no. Just ... the flooding and what it's doing to the people bothers me. The way it does you."

"Mmm," he says. But there's something more upsetting him than displaced Indians.

"What's wrong, Harry? You look terrible."

No answer, then finally: "I feel terrible," he says. "Mrs. McManus..."

Mrs. McManus. I've forgotten her. I've been so obsessed with my own love life—can I call it that? Harry has one, too, and I never thought to ask about it.

"Will Ruby be staying with you?"

He looks at me, shocked; I've called her by her first name. It feels natural, and giving her a title seems silly. I'm in his grownup world now, whether he knows it or not. "Is she a wanderer, too?" I say.

"'Fraid not."

"Ah. That's the problem?"

"Not anymore. She's going home next week. Back to Nebraska."

He's been stabbed. I know all about that, and that is the weary anger in his eyes. He's been chewing on it all day, and the plight of native Panamanians has made it worse.

"Her father offered to set me up in the family business, take me in, make me a partner," he says.

"What does he do?"

"Winter wheat. They're filthy rich, I gather. God only knows what she's written to them about me—probably sent pictures, I don't know what else. She may have built me up way too much."

"She wouldn't need to do that about you, Harry. It sounds like a great offer."

"Not if you're a wanderer." He's torn, I can see it. "It's death to settle down. For me it is. Freedom or death, that's my choice."

"She won't travel with you?"

He shakes his head, looks off. "You can't blame her. She wants a family, some kind of security. She wants to have a home, kids. She's already lost a husband..." A crack in his voice.

"So it's ended? You've split up?"

"Yep. Said our goodbyes. All over." He straightens, strong and manly again.

We stand there, the train not pulling in yet, a few aimless people milling around. He goes on, can't let it go now that I've opened the wound.

"I avoid any place I think she might be. She does the same for me ... Trying to keep it painless. Only way I know to do it." He takes a deep breath, looks down the track, checks his watch.

What a pair we are—lovelorn grievers. We think we're above all the misery, footloose and fancy-free, but we take the tumble plenty hard. I'll never scoff at heartbreak again.

"Why not keep seeing her until she leaves?" I say. "It's the last time you'll have together."

Harry shoots me a hard look and shakes his head, doesn't want to talk about it.

I go quiet. But I wonder if they argued about that. About cutting it off clean before she leaves. Did Harry want to carry on to the end? He must have, to the last final night. Which of them didn't want that, I wonder. Harry or her?

"I'm sorry," I say.

"It's all right." His voice is gravelly.

But he won't be holding her in his arms again. She's gone. And will he find what he had with her in the next country he tramps off to? Will he find the sexual camaraderie? I know what that is and how addicting. She has the look in her eye, the quiet, crooked smile. They had it, all right, and now it's gone for good. "Maybe you'll change your mind and—"

"Don't start again," he says, and that really does end it.

He breathes deep, lifts his chin, and looks around. "Where's that train? You can set your watch by this railroad—" and the engine comes into view.

I check my watch. Exactly on time.

Diary, two weeks later:
The last of the spillway gates is closed at Gatun Dam. The lake has reached a depth of forty-eight feet and is rising to its full height.

A few days after that Federico approaches me near the Tivoli.

He's wearing the white suit and cuts a swath through the crowd like a visiting dignitary—men look, women stare. He is so absorbed in his thoughts, he doesn't notice.

"I've earned a day off," he says. It's a weekday.

I've graduated. I'm out of school.

We sit on the bench where we first met. (This registers with me—I wonder if it does with him.)

"I suppose you'll be leaving soon," he says.

So it begins. Officially. The gentle cutting free.

He's going to tie it up for us, end it with minimal hurt feelings. He's even dressed for the occasion.

I ready myself, can't believe this is happening—him making it official.

"Yes," I say. "In a few weeks. After the opening." My voice doesn't crack. I'm no little girl anymore.

But I want to grab him by the perfect white shirt and shake him. I want to disturb that calm I've envied for so long and make him talk, really talk to me, about himself and the mess in Spain and how it affects him, what it does to him all day and night and how it twists his gut and heart and every feeling part of him, and how I make it easier, even a little easier, just being there. I don't want his theories or his history or to see brief slices of his life and pain. I want all of him. But I stay calm. And I keep my voice even, the way he likes. I am his good girl, his American tomboy with whom he's had so much pleasure and so little trouble. I won't change that—I don't have that much courage.

So we talk. And it's proper and quiet:

"Yes, I look forward to college."

"You'll do well."

"I suppose so."

"I'm sure of it—you're very bright."

"How about you? Will you continue working?"

"For a while, another few months."

"More pick and shovel?"

"Yes. In different places..."

No sexual camaraderie, just the pleasant conversation of recently introduced tourists. In a matter of minutes he's changed us from lovers to friends and I'm shaken, even though I saw it coming.

I wonder if it shows, if I'm pale.

He's skilled at this sort of thing, controlling a crowd; he can certainly control me. No wonder he's the leader of the rebels. He can stir emotions and bring them to a fevered pitch or neutralize them, whichever he wants. He's just neutralized me. There's not another word about matters in Spain or ideals, nothing the least bit intimate, nothing about books—can't go there. A few innocuous words about school: Will I miss my friends? When was graduation? Standard fare. Pleasantries.

Let me slap the politeness off that face, please. I am so angry and hurt. We're in an emotionally charged cocoon and he's cutting with a sharp knife, skillfully, trying to keep it painless—the bastard. Be rotten to me, Federico—make it easier.

"Come," he says. "We have to see this." And he walks me to the edge of the Cut, no hand holding, no touching. (That's over, too?) "Look."

My brain is fogged, my throat gripped and squeezed tight. I stand there blank and do as he says. I watch.

Photographers carry their gear into the work area. Journalists follow. This is big news for the hometown papers. But I'm a zombie now.

A steam shovel lifts out the last load of rock, dumps it onto locomotive No. 260, and it's hauled away to applause. Work crews move in. They begin tearing up the last of the track, the steam shovel pulling at the rails like they're obstinate bailing wire. The job is done in less than half an hour.

Cameras click on either side of us. Father is down there somewhere, but I can't bring myself to search for him. Photographers move back and forth angling for the best shots; journalists urge comments from workers to spice the articles they'll wire back that evening. Their shirts streaked with sweat, mud caked to their shoes and pant legs—once in a lifetime, all of this. To me it looks like it's happening on a movie screen.

The clearing ends and the journalists and photographers climb out. The crowd begins to break up and a thick, uneasy silence falls between Federico and me.

"That will be in papers tomorrow," I say, my voice surprisingly solid.

"Big headlines in the States?"

"I'm sure it will be."

Here's where I begin thinking it through:
I started it, didn't I? Conniving, plotting, scheming, out at night, running all over the place to get to him. I did it. He came along only for the ride—he's
innocent. And now it's over and he's ending it like a gentleman. I should be grateful for that.
The logic begins to overcome the lunacy and I see his lips moving.

"Let's walk awhile," he says.

We do.

I make no effort to be chatty. I want to hate him but I can't, not unless I stay completely insane and I don't. My mind clears and I begin to feel suffocated.

Children scoot by us, mostly American, and tourists bump and jostle. A band plays off somewhere.

Straight ahead of me, approaching through the crowd, is Mother.

She walks toward us and will have to pass close, though she hasn't seen us yet. Then she does. She smiles broadly.

"Did I miss it?" she says. Her eyes are on Federico.

"I'm afraid so. Everything's cleared out," I say. "Federico, my mother." I don't know whether to introduce her using her first name or as Mrs. Hailey, and I fumble. Finally Mother saves me when she summons the most social grace I've ever seen from her:

"Louisa," she says and shakes Federico's hand. "I'm so pleased to meet you. I remember when you came to our house and all of you sang."

"Yes, yes. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he says with a hint of that bow.

Smashing. She loves it. "Did you see everything?"

"We did, yes. Very impressive."

Approval is written all over Mother's face. She likes him (the pin-perfect white suit, the British accent). And she takes him for exactly what he is, a well-educated young man, but mistakenly thinks he's in a position of authority—if not with the Commission, then with a bank, or a government institution, or a large business seeking expansion in the Zone. Not a worker. In her mind he must have been leading the workers that day in some special capacity.

As usual Federico is unperturbed and in his courtly manner says, "Will you both join me for supper?"

That will take a chunk out of the money he can send home—a couple of weeks' pay or more, I'm sure. But before I can say anything Mother speaks up. "That's very nice but I'm afraid my husband is expecting me. You two go on without me."

She's graceful in declining but it's obvious she wants us to be alone. She says goodbye and moves on.

We walk on quietly for a minute.

"I'm glad you met her," I say.

"She's very nice."

Federico says nothing more about her in spite of all our discussions about parents and the danger of being discovered. There's nothing to discover anymore.

We eat at a small street café. I'm drained and enjoy the simple good food and superficial talk about the fellow running the place, an East Indian with hopes of going back to Delhi to finish his law studies, a typical Panamanian story. Nothing more about inequity in the Zone or anywhere else. That's personal and passionate and that's over.

It's dark when we finish and we join other Zoners to watch the piles of old ties from Father's railroad tracks burn, the climax of the day's events.

"Up in flames," Federico says.

The bonfires snake up the canal for miles, lighting the night. Next to us a
New York Times
correspondent is taking notes for the cable he'll send. He reads it out to the crowd: "A reduction of nine thousand men in the work force. Ninety-seven million cubic yards of material removed to make the canal. Firelight stretching up the length of the channel as far as the eye can see..."

History's being made, for sure. He hasn't exaggerated and it's impressive. The fires leap and light Federico's face, and the moment grips me. I can't help myself. I lean against him and he puts his arm around me and holds me like an old friend, an old lover, knowing what I feel.

We watch the bonfires, our faces ruddy in the glow, the smell of dirt and creosote in the starry night. And when it's over, the fires burned out, he delivers me back home.

We'll see the final canal events together. We actually plan it. We'll make small formal occasions of them, try to enjoy ourselves.

It's what he wants, this courteous, civil separation so that it's a reasonably tolerable memory for me, for both of us.

Actually, I hate it, the elaborate arrangement so I'll become accustomed to seeing him as "Harry's friend," Mother approving of him, all aboveboard, a public friendship. Does he think this will erase everything else?

Now who's naive?

For the lockage event in Gatun we're together again, and I do begin getting used to it—or I'm getting used to misery.

We meet at about ten in the morning and find a spot in the crowd of people, several thousand clustered at the rim of the lock walls. We stand pressed together by the pack of observers and watch a sturdy seagoing tug, the
Gatun,
used for hauling mud barges in the Atlantic entrance, come plowing down toward
us in the morning sunshine. I'm happy enough just to be with Federico. The tug is cleaned up and decorated with flags, ready to be the first vessel raised to the level of the lake.