Isle of Passion (35 page)

“That German fellow, Gustav Schultz, became the most beloved foreigner in Acapulco, because he was the one who brought drinking water to the port city. He probably did this to compensate her for all the thirst she suffered, and the many mouthfuls of seawater she had to swallow when it did not rain.

“I have always asked myself why Altita—that was how her husband called her—was able to inspire such love in a foreigner. Surely it was because of the way she was. There is no other explanation. She had a sweet but strong temperament, and he always liked to see her happy, in spite of all she had suffered. She was not pretty, we might say she was rather ugly. Her best feature was her precious hair. It was quite unusual. But in everything else she was quite ordinary. She was thickset, short, with peasant features, and I especially remember her fat fingers,” Guillermina tells me, looking wistfully at hers, so long and graceful, and she smiles when I tell her that it should have been the other way around, that she should have been the one named Altagracia, since she was so graceful, and her cousin, Guillermina.

“Alta told me many times about her life in Clipperton, without hate, without regrets. She did not mind her sad past anymore because her present was so happy. She would talk about it because she liked to reminisce. She lived to an old age and was a bit crazy, but she was happy. Her life was like a fairy tale, with a lot of suffering, but a happy marriage afterward. I cannot tell you any more, because I had a brain seizure that made me lose my memory,” Guillermina Yamada tells me once more, wringing her beautiful hands.

T
AKING HER LAST CHANCE
against death, Alicia climbed to the lighthouse to make signals to the approaching vessel. She heard voices coming from below, from the beach. The rest of the women had already seen the ship and were frantically shouting for help. If we all see it, she thought, then it must be real. While she was waving the sheet, the idea of a rescue became a real possibility. Her father, Orizaba, a school for the children, and so many ghosts that had become parts of an abandoned dream were suddenly taking substantial form again. Nobody could keep that ship from reaching the shore. The only thing to do was to pray for time to pass quickly, to precipitate the end without her having to go through the preliminaries: the wait that burned her throat, the smarting anxiety that made her eyes hurt. This time nobody could prevent it, it was enough to extend her arm to reach salvation. Nobody would stand in the way. Nobody.

Except Victoriano Alvarez. Like a vulture flying low and hitting her with its wing, the thought of Victoriano threatening to kill all of them before they could be rescued—so they couldn’t denounce him—jolted Alicia like a bolt.

She let herself go downhill, running without looking where she placed her feet, without stopping, and still struggling to keep her body wrapped in the sheet, getting up quickly every time she stumbled, without feeling the sharp rocks cutting her ankles, her legs, her knees. After reaching her three children, she untied Angel from the sling on her back, and laying him down on a safe spot, told her son Ramón:

“Now you stay here and keep an eye on the baby and on your sisters. We might be rescued, but we’ll have to do things very carefully. Swear to me, Ramoncito, that none of you are going to move away from here until I come back.”

She kept on going down without waiting for the child’s reply. I always climb this rocky cliff full of reasons to stop living, and I go down again full of reasons to keep on living, was what came to her mind as she descended, half running, half sliding. She saw Tirsa trying to light a bonfire on the beach, surely in order to make signals, and she called her, catching her voice, not daring to shout. Victoriano’s lair was on the other side of the rock, and he should be there if he was still sleeping. She was afraid the wind would carry their voices and wake him up.

“Tirsa,” she said when she got close to her, “we must kill Victoriano. Right now, before he kills us.”

“He wouldn’t dare, the boat is too close.”

“Yes he would, because he’s insane. He will shoot us, as he promised, and then he will hide, or he will leave, he alone. Let’s go, we have no time to waste.”

“How do we kill him?

“I buried Ramón’s sword next to the house—”

“No, we can’t use that. It has to be something we can hide so he doesn’t see it. We better hit him on the head with a rock.”

They chose a medium-sized rock, sharp-edged, with a pointed end. They got close to the lighthouse lair and called Victoriano. Tirsa hid the rock behind her, and Alicia walked in Tirsa’s shadow. They could feel the irregular pounding of their blood, and everything seemed unreal, like someone else’s nightmare. Nobody answered, and they called again. Altagracia came out and said the man was not there. She had not seen the ship, nor heard the shouts. She was not aware of anything.

“Do you think Victoriano has found out?” asked Alicia.

“No, surely he hasn’t either. A while ago he took his harpoons and walked north to go fishing.”

“Will you help us, Alta? We’re going to kill him.”

“How?”

“Whatever way we can.”

“But look at your legs, Señora Alicia, you’re bleeding. You’d better wash first, and calm down. If he sees you like that, so nervous, he’s going to suspect your intentions.”

“That’s right,” Tirsa said, “to kill him, we have to trick him. We have to think this out better.”

“We have no time to think anything. We have to go and hit him, and that’s it.” Alicia did not want to say more and started walking. “If you’re not coming, I’ll go alone.”

Tirsa grabbed her arm.

“Do you want us to commit suicide at the last minute? Calm down, Alicia, you need a cool head. While you tempt him, I’ll kill him.”

“I tempt him? In five minutes? What do you want me to do?”

“You tell him you’ll marry him, or that he is looking very handsome, or you ask him to kiss you. Tell him whatever you want: you distract him while I hit him.”

“He’s not armed. He locked up the knives and guns before he left, but he left this out,” Altagracia said, and handed Tirsa the mallet Victoriano used to open coconuts.

They agreed that if they were going to speak to him of love, Altagracia should not accompany them. Alicia alone should face him, and Tirsa should sneak up later from behind. Altagracia should instead go and bring the children down, before they fell off the cliff.

Tirsa tied a rope around her waist to hold the mallet hidden in back while Alicia rinsed her legs in seawater and fixed her hair with her hand. They walked north as they discussed how best to approach him: together, alone, together, alone. Together. This continued until they saw him, about seventy feet ahead, sitting on the beach, with his reddish, corn-husk hair, his ashen skin, and his arthritic, bent legs. They slowed down, held and squeezed each other’s hand, and letting go, moved closer to him.

“He is going to know because when I speak to him my voice will tremble,” whispered Alicia.

“Your voice will not tremble when you speak to him, and my hand will not tremble when I hit him. All these months we have behaved like idiots. Now it’s time to act and do things right.”

Victoriano was baiting his fishing hooks when he sensed their presence.

“What do I tell him, Tirsa—” Alicia asked between her teeth.

“Anything, it doesn’t matter. Go on! Now!”

“Victoriano!” Alicia shouted. “I need to talk to you.”

“Go ahead, ma’am.”

“Aren’t you going to invite me to sit down?”

“Since when do you need permission to sit on the ground?”

“It’s something important, Victoriano.”

“Sit down, then,” and he made a pompous gesture with his arm, pointing at the sand.

“I’m coming to tell you that I want to marry you.”

“That you what?”

“That I want to marry you.”

“Oh, that’s good. Until yesterday we were ready to kill each other, and today, we’re ready to get married.”

“That’s true. We have been thinking, Tirsa and I, that since we are going to live out all our lives on this isle, it’s better we do it like civilized people and put an end to this war between you and us. I mean, for us to solve our problems peacefully.”

“And what problems do we need to solve?”

Alicia sensed that her proposal was not being well received. She felt ugly, old, disheveled, and thought, Nobody would want to marry me in this condition. Better try another tack.

“Well . . . you want to be the governor, right?”

“I am the governor already.”

“Not true, you are a tyrant, and you only dominate by beating us. You have no authority over anybody. But I, I am indeed the governor, because Porfirio Díaz conferred that title upon my husband.”

“Porfirio Díaz is dead now.”

““And so is my husband, and so many other people, but that does not change anything. If you and I get married, everybody will recognize you as the governor, as well as me, both of us. That way we could command the isle in peace, the way God intended, and not through violence, which is bad for the children, and for everyone.”

“Does a man who marries a lady governor also become governor?”

“That’s right, like he who marries a queen becomes king.”

“I like that, to be the legitimate governor, like my grandfather.”

“Which grandfather?”

“My grandfather General Manuel Alvarez. He was a real governor, of the whole state of Colima. Not like Captain Arnaud, only governor of this shitty isle.”

“It’s not so bad. Don’t you see that France wants to take it away from us? And the United States. Even the Japanese want it, there must be something.”

“Oh well, heaven knows why. What I don’t understand is why there was so much hate between us and now so much sweetness.”

“I already told you. If we are going to live here for the rest of our lives, we better do it in peace.”

“But why do I need to marry you? Don’t be offended, ma’am: you’re very pretty and quite a woman. A little skinny, but you pass, and I am grateful for your deference. What I mean is, when I need you, I just go and take you home with me without asking for any permission, and that’s it. That’s how my white grandfather, the governor, used to do it, and that is what I do.”

“But that way I am never going to love you.”

“And if I marry you, you will not give me any more poisoned soup?”

“No. There is no more poison.”

Tirsa, who was sitting facing Victoriano, stood up, careful not to show her back to him.

“I don’t trust this. It doesn’t sound good to me,” Victoriano said, and hearing this, Tirsa sat down again.

At sea on the other side of the isle, from the bridge of the
Yorktown
, Captain Perril was looking through his spyglass at the strange behavior of the women and children who were making signals. It all seemed too urgent, too emotional to be only a greeting. He sent for Lieutenant Kerr, who was readying the landing boat together with two bluejackets.

“Lieutenant,” he said to him, handing him the spyglass. “Watch. Those people are in trouble. An emergency, maybe. Take Dr. Ross with you, in case they need a surgeon.”

Kerr, Dr. Ross, and the two bluejackets left on the boat. It was noon. They tried to get close to the coast through very heavy seas, and Captain Perril, who kept a close watch on them, feared they would be overcome by the waves and ordered to signal them to return.

On the beach, Altagracia, Rosalía, and Francisca, their lives hanging from a thread, saw the approaching boat and gesticulated, trying to encourage the four men who were on board to row even faster and reach them. According to Alicia’s instructions not to shout, or else Victoriano would be alerted, they were making desperate gestures in silence, like mimes. Suddenly, when the men were only a few yards away from crossing the barrier reef, the women saw the boat turning around, heading back to the gunboat. Was it possible they would be abandoned again? What kind of abominable joke was this, for the boat to have come so close and then to head back, leaving them behind? Were they going to meet their deaths anyway, after almost being rescued? The women went all out, shouting, crying, pleading hysterically, wading into the sea, wanting to fly, swim, run, anything in order to reach the boat. But their nightmare was not over; there was no way to stop it. The rowboat reached the gunboat, and the men went aboard. They all saw them. It was not a mirage. The only mirage was the possibility of a rescue. It had been just another cruel joke, like the one that took Captain Arnaud and Lieutenant Cardona to their deaths. The women stopped shouting. They remained in the water, silent, vacant, suddenly lifeless, waiting for the ghost to disappear from view. The gunboat started to move away. They saw it going northwest and waited until it was engulfed in green mist.

Lieutenant Kerr went up to the bridge and discussed the whole procedure again with Captain Perril. They agreed to attempt a landing farther to the northwest, where the sea seemed less aggressive.

Sitting on the beach, worried and puzzled by the conversation, and unaware of what was happening on the other side, Victoriano Alvarez continued baiting his hooks nervously, trying to figure out what was behind Alicia’s words.