Saving the World (29 page)

Finally, the call goes through. The phone is ringing at his end.

“Emerson here,” Emerson answers. And then he tells her, how Richard is okay, but there's been some trouble at the center. The locals have taken it over, and Richard, her Richard, is a hostage.

“What do you mean, a hostage?” Alma manages to get out stupidly. She knows what a hostage is. “What do they want?” Whoever these angry people are, they can have anything they want—this house, the car, the pickup, all of her royalties for the rest of her writing life, anything, anything, in exchange for Richard.

“They want the testing to stop. The clinic turned into a clinic for locals. The chance to tell the world their story.” Emerson sighs as if he's heard all this before. “I'm leaving tomorrow,” he adds. “The head of International Research from Swan is joining me. Starr'll meet us there.”

“I'm going with you.”

“I thought you might want to,” Emerson says. Maybe he is thinking what she is thinking. This would not be happening if Alma had gone along with Richard in the first place. “I booked you a seat, too.” Emerson'll meet her at the airport in a few hours, early-bird flight to Newark, connecting to the island.

After the call, Alma races upstairs, stuffing clothes wildly in a bag. What to pack? Underwear-pants-tops, a nice dress in case—in case what?—hiking shoes–socks–nightgown–toothbrush, her jewelry bag.
Maybe she can trade Richard for her old charm bracelet, the gold hoops he surprised her with on their last anniversary, the pearl necklace Mamasita and Papote gave her when she graduated from college. Closer to dawn, she calls Claudine but gets her machine, probably the family is sleeping in. Alma leaves the clinic number because what other place can she tell Claudine to call in case anything happens to Helen? How to reach Tera? Tera on the protest circuit with no answering machine at home! Alma scribbles her best friend a note. Maybe by the time Tera gets it, Alma will be home with Richard. As for her stepsons? Alma decides not to alarm them, to wait until they need to know.

It's in her wild zigzags through the house that Alma remembers to listen to the fourth message she had ignored. A woman's garbled voice, a truck roaring by, a roadside phone. “Please don't let them hurt Mickey. He was just trying to do what's right.”

Hannah! Alma feels a surge of anger.
Are you happy now that your curse is working? Is this what you wanted?
But what good will it do to rage at this distraught and scared woman, as scared and distraught as Alma is herself? They are all now hurtling over the edge, floating on faith, floating on love. Nothing for Alma to do but make a deal with Helen's God. Mickey for Richard, both men back in the arms of the women who love them, unharmed.

When the small boat was within earshot, our captain called down the name of our ship.

“We are the Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine!” Don Francisco added. “We've come in peace!” Surely, the letter he had written from Tenerife and sent ahead by packet ship to Puerto Rico had arrived. Where was our welcome?

We were lined up in our uniforms, the boys and I, looking toward the calm bay, the city of San Juan, the green hills beyond. Land, land, land! How beautiful and unreal it seemed after a month at sea. For the moment this was welcome enough, at least for me.

Don Francisco's face was flushed. He seemed tired and feverish. Again it struck me that with the prize almost within reach, his faith was faltering.

“They are probably being cautious,” Captain del Barco assured him. “False flags have been flown before.” He went on to explain that a few years ago, San Juan had been attacked by the English. In fact, the present governor had distinguished himself in that battle. And though San Juan had been victorious, even victors remain wary.

Our director was shaking his head, unconvinced. Perhaps he already had an inkling of what awaited us. So much time and money and passion had gone into this enterprise. Anything short of a magnificent welcome would have disappointed him.

I had been worrying about other things. After this last round, only Benito would be left to vaccinate. Our task was almost finished. Would we
return with the
María Pita
to Spain after its final stop in Veracruz—the mate had stammered a question about my plans, as if his own depended on mine—or continue with Don Francisco as far as Mexico City and part ways there? No matter where, the inevitable was bound to come.

And yet, when I saw him so downcast, I worried not only for him but for the future of our expedition. This worry grew in the ensuing weeks as our director's conduct began to threaten the very spirit of our mission. That is why I did not continue writing in my book. I did not want there to be a record of our fiasco in Puerto Rico.

I, too, had an inkling of what was to come. What was to be my mission from now on.

T
HE HOUSE WAS ELEGANT
and large, no spare convent or plainspoken public building; we were to be housed in our very own mansion. The cook came out, a Creole woman, along with a handful of servants to welcome us. Several uniformed militiamen were posted at the door, I suppose to protect our royal persons!

The boys' eyes were round with wonder. All the stories I had told them on board the ship were coming true. Even I was half convinced that perhaps I had foreseen the future.

A wonderful smell was wafting from the kitchen, onions frying, meat roasting. My mouth watered at the prospect of a meal of savory, fresh food. Soon I would indulge in a bath, soaking the salty stickiness out of my skin and hair. How luscious that would feel! We had not drowned at sea, terra firma was under our feet. I was a happy woman.

Our director had gone ahead in the first carriage, so that as we came in the entryway, he was descending the stairs. His face had not lost its flushed, weary cast. I hoped he was not falling ill. He was not, after all, a young man.

“There are no sheets on our beds,” I heard him tell the emissary who had rowed out to the ship.

“No sheets on the bed?” Señor Mexía was perplexed. Someone else had been in charge of that detail. Of course, he would attend to it. But first things first. Governor Castro and Bishop Arizmendi and Dr. Oller would soon be here to greet our party personally.

Dr. Francisco shrugged, unappeased. No grand reception had awaited us at the docks. No processional to the cathedral for a Te Deum, as he had specified in his letter. We looked silly in our fancy attire, people dressed up for a grand occasion that had not transpired. “Did the governor not receive the Tenerife mail?”

Señor Mexía could not say except to say how glad the governor was that we were here. Poor man, I thought, trying to pacify a wounded dignitary.

“Where are we to conduct the vaccinations?” Don Francisco wanted to know. “I sent instructions not to hold the sessions in the hospital. People will not come. Hospitals are for the ill. We want the vaccine to be thought of as an agent of health.”

Señor Mexía nodded every assurance he could.

But our director ranted on. It was a rant. The large swath of sunlight through the windows brought him no joy. The inside of the house opened into an inner courtyard from which a lovely breeze was blowing. Water splashed from a fountain beside a tree with red blossoms like flames whose like I had never seen before.

“We need to start vaccinating immediately. Have the boys I requested been selected?”

Señor Mexía faltered and looked unsure of what to say. “The governor will explain everything,” he assured our director with a nervous smile.

Now I was intrigued. What was going on? Our reception had been nothing short of courteous but, upon reflection, in no way remarkable. As if what we had risked our lives to bring was a kind but unnecessary trifle. As if we had come to paradise, offering salvation.

From managing La Casa for many years, I had learned where one could go for whatever one needed to know. At the first opportunity, I slipped away, following my nose toward the smell of our wonderful dinner cooking. Most of the servants had withdrawn to the back of the house and were sitting about the kitchen. They scrambled to their feet at attention when I came in.

I gestured for them to take their seats. “It has been so long since I smelled such delicious smells!” I exclaimed. “It is a meal just to smell them!”

Everyone watched me, mouths agape. I was a strange creature. A
Spaniard who spoke a Spanish only vaguely recognizable to their Creole ears. A woman who had come with a medicine for the smallpox but who had obviously not had the benefit of the cure herself. For the first time in months, I felt conscious of my scarred face. But I would never go back to covering myself. Somewhere, midsea, I had lost that much of my vanity.

At my heels, Benito came running in. “Mamá!” he called. He had something to show me, a flower dropped from the flame tree. It was then I realized I had not seen a flower for weeks. It seemed a heartbreakingly beautiful thing.

When I glanced up again, the guarded looks had vanished. Strange woman or not, we shared a stronger bond, motherhood. As they indulged me with a taste of the roast pork and a slice of pineapple for the boy, I began to ask questions.

T
HE SOUND OF BLOWING
trumpets drew me back to the front room. Governor Castro was entering the front parlor, a lovely little girl in either hand, his two young daughters, each bearing a posy for Don Francisco. His wife, Doña María Teresa, sent her greetings. She would receive Don Francisco and the members of his expedition this evening for a banquet.

The governor motioned for a man about our director's age to step forward. “Dr. Oller,” he introduced himself, giving our director a curt, correct bow as if he did not want to be too enthusiastic and be deemed a provincial. “We are honored by your visit.”

A bishop in a scarlet robe that matched the blossoms on the flame tree spread his arms in a blessing. When he was done, he embraced our director warmly. Bishop Arizmendi had been born on the island and did not have the reserve of his Spanish cohorts.

I saw the worry and ill temper fall away from our director's face. At last, we were being properly welcomed. Though he still looked weary, he seemed to breathe easier. Indeed everyone around him did. In a minute he would begin asking what preparations had been made for vaccinations to begin immediately.

I was the only one in our party who knew that this moment was the
great calm before the storms, such as we had experienced at sea. But the governor breathed not a word to Don Francisco, and the pageant of welcome went on without a hitch.

It was only later in the day that a letter arrived from the governor's palace, enjoining Don Francisco to have a relaxed if brief stay in the lovely city of San Juan.
For there will not be much for you to do here,
the letter went on. Our director requested I read it after he had done so, but I had already heard the news from the cook and servants in the kitchen. A smallpox epidemic had threatened in December, and learning that the vaccine had been safely transported by the British, encrusted on threads, to St. Thomas, Dr. Oller had arranged for it to be brought over on the arm of a slave girl. Hundreds of people had already been vaccinated. The epidemic had been averted.

“On threads?” I was perplexed. Don Francisco had mentioned an alternative way of preserving the vaccine, impregnating threads with the cowpox fluid. But he had said the method would not work for long transports.

No wonder crowds had not thronged us at the port. The vaccine had preceded us. For the moment, it must have seemed to Don Francisco that he had crossed the oceans for nothing.

“What a show they put on this morning!” Don Francisco shook his head bitterly. “What do they take me for, a fool?”

“And to acquire the vaccine from an enemy! I thought the British attacked this city. Oh, uncle,” his nephew commiserated.

Soon, I thought, our director would get past his disappointment and recognize the stronger pull: an epidemic had been threatening the island. To wait for a ship that could take weeks upon weeks to arrive with a vaccine that might have expired midocean when the cure was a boat's ride away, why surely everyone could see the reason on the far side of our grievance.

Some members of our expedition did. Dr. Salvany, for one. During the morning welcome, he and Dr. Oller had discovered they had attended the same college of medicine in Barcelona, albeit more than twenty-five years apart. Dr. Oller had invited Dr. Salvany as well as our director to stay at his house in San Juan during our visit. Dr. Salvany had obliged. But our
director—even before he knew the truth—did not want to be diverted from his mission. “Since we are to vaccinate here and in the house across the way, it's best for me to be right on these premises. I thank you for your kind offer, Dr. Oller.”

Our director did not see the color drain from the doctor's face. Of course, by then I knew it would be difficult to find anyone to vaccinate in San Juan.

The truth from the start would have been most honorable. Certainly, it would have cleared Dr. Oller and the governor from any blame over what ensued.

When the carriages arrived that evening to take our party to the banquet prepared for us, Don Francisco sent his excuses. The expedition was divided over whether to attend out of courtesy to the governor or stay back in support of Don Francisco.

It was not a contest for me. As I said, I now had a new mission. Don Francisco's faith was faltering. It was up to me to keep alive his belief in a dream that from the very beginning had been too deeply rooted in his self-esteem.

I stayed back, and perhaps that was the night I felt the closest to him.

D
ON ÁNGEL WAS AT
my door. “The director is ill,” he said. I had no idea what hour it was. Without a large sky above and the pilot's voice calling out the hour of the watch, I had lost the ability to tell time. “He wants to speak with you.”