Isle of Passion (23 page)

“Wait a minute,” Ramón said when she finished reading the letter. “Let’s take this one step at a time, because I don’t understand anything. I wrote to the authorities, and your father answers. I ask for a Mexican ship, and we get an American one. And what’s this invasion of Veracruz? Let me see the clippings.”

They quickly read every word in the clippings sent by Don Félix and concluded that General Huerta was officially in power but without popular support, which was on the side of the revolutionaries, and without the support of the United States, which had invaded the port of Veracruz. The events had come to a climax on April 7. In Tampico an officer and seven men from the American cruiser
Dolphin
had disembarked in order to buy fuel. Once on land they were arrested by Huerta’s officials. Two hours later, a Mexican general set them free, apologizing for the mistake. President Wilson demanded that the Mexicans raise the American flag and, in reparation, honor it with a twenty-one-gun salute. General Huerta answered that Mexico would comply with the twenty-one-gun salute provided that the Mexican flag was equally honored by the United States. Seizing upon this as an excuse, Wilson ordered the military intervention he had long prepared, and sent his fleet into Mexican waters. On April 21, the U.S. Marines occupied the Custom House in Veracruz. After the Mexican Naval Academy cadets had resisted the attack for twelve hours and suffered the loss of 126 patriots, on April 22 the post surrendered. Thousands of Mexicans all over the country volunteered to join Huerta’s army to fight the invaders. At the same time, the revolutionary forces commanded by Venustiano Carranza, who controlled more than half the territory, also opposed the foreign invasion.

“Why on earth does your father think that we are leaving on that ship?”

“He is taking for granted that Mexican ships are not coming anymore.”

“What do you mean, ‘not coming’? Nobody has ordered me to leave this post.”

“You don’t have orders to leave, but you don’t have orders to stay either. I think the truth is, Ramón, that nobody cares. With the country in such a chaotic situation, probably nobody even remembers we exist.”

“The United States invades, all of Mexico resists, and do you think I’m going to surrender Clipperton without a shot? Is that what you’re asking me?”

“I’m not asking you anything. I have never asked you for anything”—Alicia’s voice broke, and she began to cry. Softly at first, then emotionally, interrupting to wipe her eyes with a handkerchief and blowing her nose. But the tears rushed out in their own uncontrollable dynamic, making her breathing difficult.

“Have a good cry,” Arnaud said. “Let it all come out, all the complaints you have held back for six years.”

Finally she was able to speak again.

“I have never asked for us to leave, and I am not going to ask you now. But why don’t you realize that it makes me sad to think of my father standing there at the port, waiting for us. How can you expect me not to be heartbroken seeing that those uneducated, underfed creatures running around are my own children? How could I not think that passing up this last chance to leave would force us to stay here forever, and perish. . . .”

Alicia could have kept talking for hours, protesting, complaining about her bad luck, telling her husband all that she had not said in six years about her marriage and her life on the isle. But at that moment Captain Jensen joined them. He was shaved and groomed, and Arnaud felt somewhat intimidated by the other’s regained position as a member of the civilized world.

“Better hush, dear, Jensen is coming,” he interrupted her. “Tell him that I am not in. I don’t want to see him before I know what I should do.”

“And if he asks me where you are?” Alicia was still sobbing, her eyes red and her nose stuffy.

“Tell him I am at a Gala Ball. Or at the horse races.”

“And what about me? Is it all right for him to see me crying?” she screamed at Ramón’s back as he started to leave. “Well, fine! Let Jensen see me, let everybody see me crying! I am sick of pretending to be happy!”

Arnaud escaped through the back door and walked along the beach, taking long strides over the moving carpet of red crabs. He stepped on several of them at every move, and the crackling sound of the crushed crab shells pierced his ears. This triggered the nervous twitch of his upper lip, and at regular intervals his face contracted in an involuntary grimace.

He was trying to think, he needed to understand, but, like a clock without a spring, his mind was not responding. It had stopped. Was the situation as drastic as his father-in-law had made it appear? Was it a black-and-white choice—either to leave now or to stay forever?—or were there intermediate shades that Don Félix as an anguished father could not perceive? Was Huerta’s downfall and the collapse of the federal army imminent? Don Félix had always favored the rebels and perhaps that made him overestimate their importance. Or was he right this time? Even so, the foreign invasion had changed everything; it had to, and internal differences would end at the threat from the outside. Wouldn’t they? That man Carranza would offer a truce to General Huerta while they fought the invader together. Or would he? If the enemy made the federal army, his army, surrender, what role would he have in Clipperton? Why must he stay if Avalos and all the others went their own ways? However, it is the rats that abandon a sinking ship. Arnaud had no information, and his head was spinning in search of inspiration. He needed to guess right. He read and reread the letter and the clippings, looking for a solution in every phrase, in every word.

Images were flashing fast in his mind, driving him to despair. Two were much more insistent than the others. They were contradictory, irreconcilable; one he would have to reject because there was no room for both, and his head was about to crack like the crabs he was stepping on.

In one he saw Alicia crying and his children abandoned, wild, badly undernourished, and sick.

“I cannot stay here,” he said out loud. “I cannot stay here.”

In the other he saw himself a few years back, facing the blackened walls of the prison at Tlatelolco and making his solemn promise that “the next time I will stand firm, come what may, next time I will prevail. Better dead, a thousand times better, than being humiliated again.”

“I cannot leave,” he contradicted himself. “I cannot leave.”

He looked for Cardona. He found him standing in the shed, trying to take his first steps using two pieces of wood as crutches.

“Cardona, sit down. And think carefully about what I am going to tell you.”

“The gringo ship arrived to rescue the Dutchmen, right?” asked the lieutenant.

“Yes.”

“Then the four on the little boat made it to Acapulco—”

“Yes, but only three of them got there.”

“That was not a bad deal then. Who didn’t make it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Another Flying Dutchman who eats melted iron and drinks bile.”

“May he rest in peace.”

“Ramón, tell me, do you really believe that someone who dies like that, without a Christian burial, can ever find peace? I would not like to be floating about for all eternity.”

“Who knows? But there is a serious matter here, Secundino. Listen to this.”

Ramón read his father-in-law’s letter, and then the news about the invasion. Cardona did not utter a word until he finished.

“Twenty-one-gun salute? Sure. Right away. Just give me a minute—”

“The captain of the
Cleveland
is also offering to take us to Acapulco. You already know what my father-in-law says—If not now, when? On the other hand, those who are rescuing us here are the same ones who invaded over there. It’s not an easy thing to decide, and I would like to know your opinion.”

Cardona scratched his head.

“What could happen if we leave? Wait—I mean for a few days, in order to make contact with Colonel Avalos, or with someone who could tell us what’s what, who could tell us what the plan is. Hey, we cannot continue the way we are. This looks like an orphanage.”

“And if this maneuver is just an enemy trap?”

“It looks more like a friendly trap. Besides, which enemy? The gringos or the French? Aren’t we supposed to fight against the French to keep from losing this island?”

“From what I see, now it’s the gringos we are fighting against in order not to lose all of Mexico. I don’t know, Cardona,” he said in a firmer voice and straightening his back. “However, I feel it’s our duty to stay in honor of the hundred and twenty-six Veracruz patriots.”

“Well, yes,” Cardona offered after some thought. “But Veracruz was invaded, and Clipperton was not. . . .”

“But we don’t know what might happen.”

“No, we don’t. But there isn’t much we could do anyhow.”

“We could offer the ultimate sacrifice for our homeland, like our fellow soldiers in Veracruz. . . .”

“What a darned life.”

“Yes, sure enough, life could be better.”

They remained in silence for a long time, until Arnaud got up.

“I want to make clear to you that your condition as a seriously wounded soldier places you in a special situation, very different from mine. We cannot take care of you properly here, and you have every right in the world to leave in order to get proper treatment. If you leave, you will not fail Mexico, you will not fail your military honor, you will not fail me or anybody else.”

Lieutenant Cardona did not have to think much about it.

“Do you remember what you told me in the cave during the hurricane?” he asked Arnaud. “Either the two of us live, or the two of us die. That was what you said. It was good then, it is good now. If you stay, I stay.”

“Let’s shake on it.”

“Here.”

“I must look for Alicia,” Arnaud said walking toward the door. “She had never complained, and today when she did, I left her talking to the wall.”

At that moment Sergeant Irra rushed in. He had been looking for Arnaud everywhere on the island. He informed him that the captain of the
Cleveland
wanted to meet the port captain to deliver the food supplies; that he had orders from the British consul to take Gustav Schultz to Acapulco, if he so wished; and that Jens Jensen and the rest of the Dutchmen wanted to say good-bye personally.

“You take care of going to the
Cleveland
for the provisions,” Arnaud said to Cardona, “and tell the captain that I will make the official clearing later.”

“I can barely walk, Ramón.”

“Have some of the men carry you.”

“But I wonder, wouldn’t it be better if you went? In what language do you want me to communicate with him?”

“Find a way. I must talk with Alicia first, the rest will have to wait.”

“And what do we do with Schultz, Captain?” asked Irra, waiting for orders. “Do we let him loose, or do we take him in tied up?”

“Set him him free, Irra, and we’ll see what happens. If he becomes too nervous, triple up his dosage of passionflower tea, but make sure he boards the
Cleveland
,” answered Arnaud, considering the matter closed.

On the other side of the island, Gustav Schultz and Altagracia had not seen the ship approach and were totally unaware of the situation. Everything remained the same, immutable, inside the hermetic bubble where they had taken refuge. Even in his madness, Schultz had the lucidity to understand that the sweet, homely girl was enough of a pretext for him to come to terms with reason and to anchor himself in reality. Thanks to her he did not feel alone for the first time in his life.

That day his warm bath had taken two hours, and according to the ritual they had established, it concluded with the act of love.

Schultz had Altagracia lying by his side, her head on his shoulder. He found serenity in the shade of her extraordinary hair.

“I am going to count every hair on your head, one by one,” he would say, “and every day I am going to count them again, to make sure there is none missing.”

His heart was at peace, his body relaxed, and the fresh sweep of the trade winds carried away all his past anguish.

“The madman has raped the child!”

The wild shouts of the sergeant broke into a thousand pieces the gentle calmness. Before Schultz could get up, Irra and three other men lunged at him and beat him with their bare fists and whatever else they found handy.

“Dirty gringo, get your hands off that girl!” they shouted.

Altagracia got scared like a little animal and ran into the cabin. Through the cracks in the wall she saw how they tied his hands and took him away, shoving and pulling him by his chain.

She overcame her fear and ran after them.

“Where are you taking him?”

“A ship came for him. Today he goes to hell, the madman.”

“Don’t take him that way, Irra,” she pleaded, “at least let him put some clothes on. Don’t you have some respect for a human being?”

“He’s more beastly than the beasts.”

“You are the wild beasts,” she murmured, and while the soldiers struggled at dragging him, she managed to get him into a pair of pants and a shirt.

Schultz roared with a pained blind fury. Everyone could hear his screams, which echoed through the cliffs, but only Altagracia was able to hear a soft, dry cracking sound that escaped from his breast like a sigh.

“They are breaking your soul, Towhead,” she said.

On the other side of the island, Ramón Arnaud had met his wife. She was not crying anymore. Broom in hand, she was sweeping the ramshackle porch at home.

“Why are you sweeping?” he asked her.

“Because I already know what your decision will be. And if we are going to continue living here, it might as well be clean.”

“Come, I want you to understand something.”

They sat on the floor of the eastern terrace where sometime in the past there had been a hammock for watching the sun come up.

“Alicia, do you remember that I told you once I was doing nothing because I felt it was not my war? Well, now I feel this really is my war. I still don’t know whether we should leave or stay; the only thing I know is that I have to fight this war.”

At the dock Arnaud met Cardona, who was hobbling past the piles of wooden boxes, recording everything in a notebook.