Gift of the Golden Mountain (46 page)

That afternoon I made my way over the path to Abigail's.

     "So here you come," she said, "and now you know."

     "Know what?"

     "Know about May. Know about her boss."

     "All I know is that May looks terrible—she looks worn out. I don't know anything about Dr. Obregon-Mendonez except what May has told us—I got the feeling he was a charming old gentleman."

     "Hah!" Abigail snorted, fanning me in long, slow arcs with a woven fan that had "Jesus Loves You" printed on it, "He's one crazy old buggah, that's what he is. And she's letting him work her to death. Calm down, don't let your heartbeat run away. Now you know."

     "Now I know," I agreed, "everything but why."

     For some reason, that made Abigail laugh. She is a large woman, and she has a large laugh. She stood, hands on hips, and gave herself over to some inner merriment that escaped me altogether. When finally she had finished she sat down in a rocking chair and fanned herself. "You find out why," she told me, "you'll know plenty."

     "But I don't think we'll get a chance to meet him."

     "He'll be here," Abigail said, "a couple of days, and he'll be coming. Wait and you'll see."

She was right. Three days later, Obregon—as May called him— arrived with his old dog. The great doctor was not at all as I had imagined him to be.

     From the moment he set foot on the veranda, he dominated the conversation. He has something to say on every subject—and assumes you will hang on to his every word.

     Oh, he was charming I suppose. And attentive—particularly to Kit. At first I was surprised at the blatancy of his name-dropping, but then I realized he was probing to see the extent of Kit's influence. It is clear that he has a lordly opinion of himself.

     Israel said he thought he was suffering from a "great man" complex. Well, he is a great man, I suppose. Certainly he is highly regarded for the work he has done. Kit calls him a "celebrity scientist." Somehow I prefer great men with a touch of humility.

     "I know, I know," May began when we sat down to lunch on the verandah after the doctor's departure, "the last time Peter Rensaeller came out, and saw what the situation was, he was pretty upset. He all but came out and told Obregon that he was taking advantage of me. What Peter said to me was, 'The old man's got what he wants—the lion's share of the credit for a project that is getting worldwide attention, without doing any of the work.' But that's not really fair, you know. Sure, he's resting on his laurels— but without those laurels we would never have gotten funding for this project. Never. And he has a body of magnificent work behind him, he deserves the credit."

     "He did include your name on the reports, that was generous of him," I put in. Something in May's expression made me add, "How did that come about?"

     "Peter insisted," May answered, reluctantly. "I think he is afraid I won't continue unless I get some credit."

     "Did Peter have any problems convincing him?" Kit wanted to know.

     May wrinkled her nose. "It was a long session, and Peter came out looking pretty grim, but somehow he managed to do it."

     "Good for Peter!" I blurted.

     "It
is
good for me," May came back, reaching for a cigarette, "I figure this project should be good for another year, possibly two. But good for Obregon, too," she said, defensively. Seeing the skeptical looks on our faces, she added, "Really, he isn't as bad as he seems. There are times when he is actually quite dear, but those times are getting rarer, I admit. And the work is adding some luster to his reputation. In many ways I'm really quite lucky, that I could take on all that I have. I'm pretty much running the whole thing, and it is turning out well—in fact, we're causing quite a stir in the
field. Asking for my name on the reports could be seen, in some quarters, as quite arrogant. But Peter is backing me—you're right, because he knows the inside story, that Obregon can't perform. When the work here is established and I can go on, I figure I should be able to pick my next project."

     "But you're working too hard, May," Kit said, her voice filled with concern. "You've lost weight, you look as if you have been ill."

     "I caught some strange bug in the New Hebrides a couple of weeks back . . . nonstop dysentery and fever for a few days. I took to my bed for a while. Unfortunately, that bed was a sleeping bag thrown in a bamboo hut in the high-grass of Tanna Island. Not a great climate for recuperating. But now that you are here, I'm going to take time out—the next five days at least. Sans the good professor, I hope. There are times when he wears me down."

     "Okay," Kit said, standing and taking a tough-guy stance that reminded me of Lauren Bacall, "now that Obregon is gone, I give the orders around here. You sit right where you are, Miss May. From this moment on, for the next five days at least, you are going to do absolutely nothing but eat and sleep and talk a little in between. We are going to wait on you, and you are going to let us. That includes running interference with the good Doctor. By the time I leave I want to see some meat on those bones and the glow back in your cheeks. Agreed?"

     May took Kit's hand and pressed it to her cheek. "Agreed."

We plan our day around May. We take our breakfast under a spreading kiawe tree on the far side of the house, so she is not awakened by our voices. Israel puts me through my paces then, and tries to coax me into the water because he has a theory that the exercises will work better there. Abigail joins us then. She is teaching me how to plait pandana leaves into little baskets. We visit for a while, until May comes out and we watch her eat. She
accuses us of counting the bites she takes, and of frowning when she reaches for a cigarette.

     Late in the morning May and Kit go in for a swim, and sometimes others appear to go with them. Today Clarence came with a pretty little girl named Noelani who looks to be scarcely older than Thea. She brought me a lei of ginger she had made herself, placed it around my neck, kissed me on both cheeks, and smiled so prettily that I could feel my eyes filling with tears, I was so touched.

     I watched them all walk into the water together, diving into the surf as it pounded in, looking for all the world like brown little seals cavorting in the blue sea. Oh, it is glorious here. I can see—no, I can feel—why May loves it. In the afternoons we stretch out on the chaises on the lanai and listen to May's stories from her travels.

     Clarence has been much on her mind. It became obvious yesterday, when she told us about an adventure they had shared in Chile a few weeks ago. "I'm worried that I've misjudged Clarence," she began, carefully. "I thought he wanted to learn about volcanoes, to probe and discover and answer as many of the unanswered questions as he could. But I'm beginning to believe that isn't what Clarence really wants."

     She shifted on her chair, put her hand under her hip as if to cushion it, and you could almost see her mind shift. "I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been with me in Chile. We were in the field, heading into the mountains near Rio Bueno . . . it was right after Allende had been elected, and there is a lot of opposition to him there. We heard that some guerrilla units had been operating in the area we were going into, so we hired some bodyguards. A couple of people from the Red Cross needed to go into the area to check out some problems in a village that was on the way, so we went flying Red Cross flags, and up till that point everything was fine. It was when Clarence, the guards and I set off alone—and the terrain got steeper and the underbrush thicker— that things started getting dicey. It was fairly clear that the trail
had been used. There was fresh dung from the animals and the guards began to get a little nervous, you could see by the way they were acting. You have to remember how macho Latin men are . . . if they begin to think that you might think they are cowardly, they have to show you they aren't. One tried to show me that night. He crawled into my tent and put his hands over my mouth, so I wouldn't yell out. He was trying to squirm around, to get on top of me, when somebody started pulling him from behind. It was Clarence, and he was furious . . . I guess the man had his pants undone, because Clarence pulled them down to his ankles and the guy went into a kind of crouch, and came up with a knife. By then, I'd scrambled in my sleeping bag and found my gun. I held it to that man's head and I heard myself say, 'Drop that knife or I'll blow your fucking head off.' My mouth was so dry with fear that I don't know how I got it out, but I did. He dropped the knife, but God! I'll never forget his eyes. He would have cut Clarence's heart out on the spot if I hadn't a gun to his head."

     "Good lord, May," Kit exclaimed for all of us. "What happened?"

     "The three of them were gone before we knew what was happening . . . they took one of the Land Rovers. We could hear them for miles. We just sat looking at each other for a while, then Clarence said, 'I didn't know you had a gun.'"

     "'It isn't loaded,' I told him, reaching in my sleeping bag for the bullets. 'I was afraid it might go off accidentally.'

     "He started laughing then, but he loaded the gun and then he took a Red Cross flag he had swiped and put it on a stick and we went on up the mountain, alone."

     "And I take it you weren't bothered?"

     "No, both of us had the feeling we were being watched, but nobody did anything. Maybe they saw what happened, I don't know. Luckily, we got what we needed and we won't have to go back for a long time. Maybe Allende will get things under control by then."

     "He's a Marxist," I asked, "how long do you think Nixon is going to let him last?"

     "I don't know," May said, thoughtfully. "He was elected, that should be worth something. And some of his social reforms are badly needed. But there is powerful opposition . . . South American governments are so volatile. I've never known who to trust . . . The bodyguards we hired were recommended by the American Embassy people—they said they were reliable. That should tell you something. Thank God for Clarence."

     "But you really need more help, don't you?" Kit asked.

     "I've got Peter Rensaeller working on it. He is so pleased with how the program is going that he's hustled up funding for a new assistant. He'll be here in a couple of weeks, a young man from Berkeley, as a matter of fact. He's dropped out of the program there—it was pretty obvious to most of us who knew him that he really didn't have what it takes, and I guess he's finally faced up to it. He's a very mild fellow. I know I can work with him. If only he can get along with Obregon, things should be just peachy—all pressures will be off, and I'll be able to cut back to about a sixty-hour week."

Another day May told us about Marie-Claire Benoist. "Her name began cropping up in Hayes's letters about three months ago," she said.
"Marie-Claire
took him to the opening of a new film, or
Marie-Claire
is off to Brittany, on location. She seems to have something to do with filmmaking and she is the sister of someone in his office. That's all I know about her."