Saving the World (36 page)

I was only able to view a few of the prints before I was summoned to some task or other. But even that quick glimpse left quite the impression on me. As the expedition unfolded, I would catch myself making a mental drawing of this or that moment, inscribing it with a message, storing it in my memory. Later, reviewing those moments, each place would come alive again in my mind's eye, complete with its own caption: Caracas, Havana, Veracruz, Mexico City, Puebla de los Ángeles …

G
OLFO
T
RISTE
—
EN ROUTE FROM
P
UERTO
R
ICO TO
V
ENEZUELA
: Afloat on gray waters, a small ship wanders. In the background, veiled in mist, officials are assembling at a port.

But such foreknowledge is denied to those on board. We see faces distorted with anger, suspicion. The captain, his eyes dark pools of despair, holds a dead child in his arms, his mouth ripped open with a cry we cannot hear.

Days upon days, we were lost at sea. Yellow fever raged on board. Our director himself was stricken with fever and worry, for it seemed we would not find landfall by the time our last carrier's vesicle reached its tenth day.

That morning when I heard the wailing of a man, I thought my own heart had found a voice. It was our captain, crying over the body of his cabin boy. For days afterward, he locked himself up in his cabin, refusing to let us bury the boy at sea, neglecting his duties. Lieutenant Pozo and the pilot did the best they could, but a ship without a captain is a body without a soul.

Puerto Rico had been a disaster. It had brought out the worst in our director, in all the men. They were at odds with each other. There was talk of returning to Spain; there was talk of the crew taking a knife to our throats, talk of the expedition arming themselves against this attempt.

And, of course, there was the murderous look in the steward's eye each time he spotted one of our boys. He claimed they had tried to kill him with
bow and arrow and should all be hung from the starboard foreyard, then thrown in the sea. I kept a close eye on my charges. No longer did we linger in the forward part of the ship, sitting in the galley with the crew. Besides, most of my boys were ill with the fever and the cook was no friend to a vomiter around his steaming pots of stew—as if his fare were not already beyond spoiling!

The aft part of the ship was no less peaceable.

Dr. Salvany no longer trusted our director. Dr. Grajales and Don Basilio Bolaños and Don Rafael Lozano fell in with him. The rest of the expedition members defended Don Francisco, who no longer trusted anyone. Only one person seemed to be agreeable to all members on that ship. I had turned into what I had hoped Don Francisco would be. Someone to remind us all of how grandly we could dream.

We were indeed lost at sea, which in an odd way seemed the correct state for our embattled expedition to be.

V
ENEZUELA
—
LAST NIGHT IN
C
ARACAS
: A much lighter scene. The great hall is filled with guests, ladies and gentlemen lined up for a quadrille. So many bright, happy faces. And yet at the edges of the party one lady has a face covered with—are they scars or letters? How dreadful that she should be so disfigured. We yearn for the artist to provide us with an explanation.

But wait, look closely at the other faces and they are all similarly marked. Here is the guest of honor with the letters of shame written across his features. A young man holds a book whose words are crawling up his arms toward his proud face. Ah, the carnival of human desires!

In the background, faces, hundreds of them. They have been saved by those who are now enjoying this grand celebration in their honor.

We became whole again in Caracas.

After being lost at sea, we finally sighted land just in time. The vesicle was ripe on our last boy. Don Francisco was distraught with the impending loss of the fluid and the debacle of his expedition. The last thing I wanted I forced myself to do.

We were lowered into the sea on the small boat, Don Ángel accompanying us—oh, paint wings on that dear, angelic man! Lieutenant Pozo
guided two crew members to row toward an indistinct shape that might be a storm cloud, a pirate ship, the Leviathan, or the coast of Venezuela. My heart was in my throat as we moved through that thick fog.

When we landed, it seemed a miracle. The local comandante was waiting for us with the leading families of the town, who had brought with them twenty-eight carriers!

I looked at each fresh, young face and reminded myself: no, not
carriers
, but children, dear, worthy human beings.

From the port, we traveled inland, arriving in Caracas during Holy Week. The whole city turned out to celebrate us with fireworks and tributes. This was the welcome that Don Francisco had so sorely missed in Puerto Rico. Honorary regidor, concerts, masses, our director turned back into the noble man who had inspired me to be the woman I was struggling to become.

By the first of May, we had vaccinated twenty thousand and set up the Junta Central de la Vacuna so that there would always be vaccine available for the future generations. The last night before we were to leave, Captain-General Guevara threw a lavish banquet for us at his palace. The tables were covered with fruits and fine pastries. The boys claimed they counted forty-four plates of food at each service of which there were three. I had to keep a close eye on them to prevent them from overeating or stuffing food in their pockets. Poor dears. Once you have known need, its phantom hangs over any luxury.

After the tables were cleared, the entertainment began. A poet was introduced, a young man with the knowing eyes of an old man, who read a rather long ode—over two hundred verses! My boys grew restless. I was getting ready to round them up, but Don Francisco stopped me. There were servants enough to take care of the boys for this one night.

I was touched that he wanted me to stay to enjoy the evening with the rest of the expedition.

“You have kept us together,” Don Francisco acknowledged as he led me onto the dance floor. I had protested that I did not know how to dance, and he had smiled. “Neither do I, so we are well matched.”

But amazingly, my feet retained the memory of the steps I had danced
as a girl. “As with other matters, you underestimate yourself, Doña Isabel,” Don Francisco complimented me. Was it time to ask him to call me Isabel?

His color was back, though he had not put on the weight he had lost. Still, the hospitality of our hosts, the good food and rest had restored him to his health. We should stay here forever, I thought, for as long as it lasts.

The music had ended, and a new spirited fandango was starting up. Dr. Salvany asked for this next dance, and though I pleaded that I was tired, he persisted and I indulged. “I am happy to see that all is mended between you and Don Francisco,” I mentioned during one of our spins around the room.

He lifted his eyebrows as if questioning the accuracy of my observation, but he was in good humor. Poetry brought out the best in him. “Wasn't he marvelous?” I was still thinking of our director and so must have looked puzzled, because Dr. Salvany added, “The poet, Andrés Bello.”

I loved a poem, especially one set to music on a romantic theme. But a long ode to the vaccine …

“Do you think it would be too bold of me to show him my own productions?” Don Salvany was flushed with the exertion of the dance. He, too, had recovered, but there was still a fragile look to him.

“I should think he would be honored,” I offered.

Just then, the dance ended and we found ourselves standing near the poet. Dr. Salvany gave him a deep bow.

The poet bowed back. “Andrés Bello, a sus órdenes.”

That was all the invitation Dr. Salvany needed. “May I commend you on a true masterpiece of the pen and of the spirit.”

The color heightened on the young man's cheeks. He had that glow of success, touched perhaps by shame of that success. How we feel when we are much feted and wonder if there is room for our darker nature in this bright acclamation.

“I hear that you have also written a theatrical work about us?” Dr. Salvany was all eagerness. “
Venezuela salvada
.”

“Consolada,” the poet corrected. “
Venezuela consolada
.”

I wondered if indeed a work with that title could be
about
us. Perhaps
from now on, we would be a consolation to others. Perhaps it was good of this poet to write such a work. We might be forced to live up to the grand and noble passions his words would hold us to.

As Don Andrés Bello outlined the action of his theatrical piece to Dr. Salvany, I glanced toward our director, now seated at his place at the table, the bishop on one side, the captain-general on the other, his face radiant. I could not help thinking how I had seen him in all his many phases, noble and base, humble and vain, like a moon that wanes and disappears but returns again with its soft, insistent light.

When he glanced in my direction, he dropped his gaze as if embarrassed at being seen so nakedly.

I had not been the only one hiding my true face from the world.

The poet was introducing me to several prominent members of the city council. Dr. Salvany had gone off to retrieve his book of poems to show his newfound friend. “This is the guardian angel of the little carriers of the vaccine,” Don Andrés Bello was saying with a bow, “Doña Isabel López Gandarillas.”

Another name for me! By the time the expedition was over, I would have been so many Isabels.

Don Francisco was at my side, ready to escort me back to my seat. “You looked lost in that sea of Creoles,” he noted in a low voice. “I thought I had better come rescue you.”

I took his arm, indulging him in his role as my savior.

E
N ROUTE TO
C
UBA
: A large canvas with several scenes.

First, a busy port, a parting of ways: one group rows out to a ship, the other stays ashore.

Another scene shows the deck of that ship. A lone female passenger interrogates a lineup of children. Her face is a study of worry, dread, grief.

Last comes a panel depicting a lady conversing with the captain of the ship. The man weeps; the woman looks downcast into the deep. The stars are silvery and sweet, and yet the scene seems to be another one in this triptych of grief.

Upon leaving Venezuela, our expedition parted in two.

Our director had originally intended that the vaccinations in the territories of New Granada, Peru, and Río de la Plata would be conducted by his colleague from Spain, Dr. Verges, who had gone ahead to Bogotá several months before our expedition had set out. One of our members was to take the fresh vaccine we had brought across the ocean to Dr. Verges when we landed in Venezuela.

But the news reached us in Caracas that Dr. Verges had died of a mysterious fever. We were sobered in the midst of our celebrations. How many of us would be lost to our expedition? It was a question that loomed in my mind as we boarded the small boats that would conduct us out to the
María Pita
, waiting for us in the waters beyond the shallow bay. The ship would take us on to Cuba and Veracruz before returning to Spain.

On shore, we were leaving behind Dr. Salvany and three of our number: Dr. Grajales, Don Rafael Lozano, Don Basilio Bolaños. It crossed my mind that Don Francisco had separated out those members who had always shown partiality for his younger colleague. (How glad I was that Don Ángel, that pacifying angel of our expedition, had been retained in our group!)

Dr. Salvany was pale and looked almost frightened by his new commission. “Do you think he will succeed?” I found myself asking our director as the men on shore became smaller and smaller, toys, figments of our imagination.

Don Francisco sighed. “All he needs to do is continue south down the length of the Americas.” Our director raised a hand, parting the air easily in two.

But as we moved away, I saw in my mind's eye the high peaks of the Andes and footpaths through dark jungles, the rapids and rivers and rocky falls. I wondered how easy the task would be for our young colleague in love with poetry.

Perhaps I sensed I would never see him alive again.

As for our own group, Dr. Balmis was taking no chances: he had petitioned for and been granted six boys to carry the vaccine from Venezuela to Cuba.

They were older boys, which made them both easier and more difficult for me to manage. The oldest was thirteen; the youngest, seven. They
stayed together, avoiding our own children at first, for the Galician accent was foreign to their ears. But they all soon found plenty of naughtiness in common.

Among their mischief was tormenting our timid little Moor, Tomás Melitón. Even more than our own boys, these young Creoles teased the boy relentlessly, calling him negrito, and threatening to put him in a cask of lye to see if his color would come off and prove him the Spaniard he claimed he was.

Our third morning out at sea, I could not find the boy. I searched everywhere on the ship. But the child seemed to have vanished into thin air.

I lined up the boys and interrogated them, threatening to punish all of them, no supper, no coming on deck to see the stars, no stories. There were guilty looks, but the most they would confess to was that they had been chasing Tomás, threatening to throw him in that cask. “But all it has in it is seawater, we swear—”

“No swearing!” I scolded. It was a battle I was losing, keeping the boys from cursing on a ship full of foul-mouthed sailors.

“Tomás!” we all shouted, sometimes individually, sometimes in chorus. My own voice tinged with increasing panic and despair.

Seven days out we found him by his smell. In his effort to evade his tormentors, he must have fallen down the steep ladder into the hold and drowned in the bilge water. Already the rats had made a meal of his soft flesh. I wept for the poor unfortunate, who had passed through this life without anyone cherishing him enough. Even my own love was composed largely of obligation.