Panama

by Shelby Hiatt

  It's a damp, trashed cave. Mud is thick on the floor. Walls are streaked with slime, paper peeled and hanging in strips. Several pictures still hang in place but they're slimed and twisted. The furniture rises from the mud in clumps like the steam shovels under the Cucaracha slide.

  Mother looks around and with no sentiment or shock says, "Our work is cut out for us."

  She sounds like Colonel Goethals—no self-indulged simpering from her. Let's get to it.

  We start digging.

  Eighty-One

  The grim job goes on for hours. We lift saturated chairs off the sofa, set tables upright, stand the breakfront back up against the wall. We throw out books; their pages are so swollen, they'll never be readable again. We clear through mess after mess, and Mrs. Wagner, who has already done this at her own house, is cheerful and keeps urging us on.

  "It will soon be as pretty as ever, you'll see," she says.

  Not a chance.

  She's the neighbor who gave me bread and jam when I was little and came to visit her. Those words are more bread and jam, meant to keep us happy. But Mother knows they won't fix a thing. No possibility of putting this back together in a few days.

  We arrange for workmen to come, and one by one they show up. They dig and clear inside and out. Whole crews of them are moving through the town. Some of them are part of Dayton's civic maintenance, and others are hired groups or day laborers.

  "Everybody gets help whether they can pay or not," says the wiry guy lifting a tree limb in our yard.

  It's Dayton's version of West Indian workers in the Zone, and like them, these Dayton men work without complaint. They pull, haul, wash down. They restore order. They're cheerful, too, and optimistic. They are my people in a way Federico or the undulating Panamanian women can't be. I begin to feel that strongly as the hours pass. Dayton doesn't seem so provincial, just good folks helping one another. I've been hard on my hometown. Federico seems very far away and our indulgence seems like ... indulgence.

  At some point late in the morning, after hours of work, Mother says, "Better go next door—get their news." I don't need persuading, and as I turn to go she says, "You should plan on going back. I don't want you missing so much school."

  "All right."

  With those words joy washes over me and overwhelms my thoughts of homey Dayton. Panama is where I'm adult and myself. Dayton reminiscence is nice, but it means nothing now that I'm older.

  I stand at the door watching Mother as she goes back to work on a small china tea set, wiping a cup clean and placing it in a cardboard box. That tea set is old-fashioned to me, the sort of thing I'd never have in my own house—useless decoration. But there it is, still in its place on the table in the living room. That little inanimate piece of our life bravely peeping out through the slime—it looks so helpless, I want to cry. I can't wait to get back to Panama.

  Eighty-Two

  I set out for the Wrights', feeling good. I try to go the usual route across the little hedge separating our backyards, but that won't work. It's heaped with mud and it's impossible to tell what's under there or if I'll hurt myself plunging knee-deep into ooze. I go the front way, where workers have used snow shovels to expose sidewalks and paths.

  Orville is in the kitchen.

  "Well, well," he says.

  He's hardly changed. It's been almost three years since I've seen him. I was fifteen; now I'm eighteen—child to woman.

  "Everything seems smaller." I have to laugh.

  "You're larger," he says. We sit at the kitchen table. "The Bishop's helping across town."

  "Katharine and Carrie?"

  "They're at church dispensing food and water."

  I look around at the kitchen, cleared and clean and usable, electricity restored, refrigeration, running water—just like the Wrights to be the first on the block back in working order.

  "How's your father?" he asks.

  "Good. And loving his work."

  He asks about Mother and says he'll step over and say hello to her later.

  "So little's changed," I say. He nods.

  We talk, find some dried apricots, and Orville makes coffee. He isn't wearing his starched collar—he's in a flannel shirt and boots like everyone else.

  "We're all in strange getups these days," he says.

  "And how about the machines?" Our common interest. "Are they okay?"

  "The ones at the factory are fine, but everything here and at the shop is gone. Total loss..." He shakes his head mostly in bewilderment. "You never saw anything like it—be glad you were gone. And how do you like it down there?"

  "Very much. I didn't at first—you know, nobody interesting. Nobody building flying machines, anyway."

  "I don't know why not—they're doing it everywhere else."

  "So I hear."

  "And using our plans. Course, we're working on the patents. Judge Hazel decided against Curtiss, so he can't continue, but he's filing an appeal."

  "Are patents so difficult?"

  "They are."

  He looks me over and smiles, that wise, quizzical Wright smile. He sets down his coffee. "You grew up," he says. "You're a grown, calm woman."

  I laugh, a little nervous. Something about Federico shows? "Wasn't I calm before?"

  "No. You don't remember? Wil always said if we could harness your energy, we'd fly."

  "I didn't know that. I thought I was just your mascot."

  "You were, a good one. But we don't need a mascot anymore—do you have any lawyering skills?"

  I laugh, pop another apricot in my mouth, sip coffee. Orville says, "Got home from Europe last Wednesday thinking my only problems were legal ones, then Sunday the rains started and there were fires from gas escaping all over the city. You could see them from Summit Street. It looked like the bicycle shop and all of Third Street were blazing, but it was the big buildings west of Third, not ours. All our aeronautical papers were saved."

  "And the photos?"

  "Some of them are gone. Everything downstairs and at the shop is a total loss ... The data on our work survived, though, and the plate John Daniels exposed just after the machine lifted off the first time"—I nod—"...only lost a corner of that. The image wasn't damaged."

  A famous photo—the flier tilted, lifting off, a few people watching. It's saved and I'm glad. It was the beginning of everything for me that day—my ninth birthday, the letter from Panama, Federico. That day is saved forever in the photo of the first flight.

  "How is it, you being president of the Wright Company?" I ask.

  A grimace. "It's got to be done." He looks away for a minute. "I miss him. I keep thinking he'll walk in the door. Do you know I thought of you when he was sick?"

  "Why me?"

  "They thought it was malaria at first, and you've got it licked down there, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "But then Dr. Conklin said he thought it was typhoid fever, which I had before you were born and got through it, and it scared Wil into being more careful of contaminated food and water ... It's ironic he'd get it and not survive."

  "Wish I'd been here."

  "It was a service just the way he wanted. Then, when they lowered him into his grave, church bells rang and everything stopped—streetcars, autos, everything. People stopped walking and bowed their heads. After that they came and piled flowers on the porch—the paper said thousands but I didn't keep count. They were bringing flowers day and night. I don't think you would have liked the traffic." A wry smile, then he brightens and says, "One more thing."

  Eighty-Three

  I follow him upstairs. No water has reached there—everything is exactly the same. In the Bishop's room Orville takes his father's diary from a bedside table, finds a page, and reads:

  "Wilbur was forty-five years, one month, and fourteen days old. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and modesty. He lived and died seeing the right clearly and pursuing it steadfastly."

 
He closes the diary and replaces it. "He wouldn't mind you hearing that."

  No, he wouldn't.

  These are my people. Always.

  A wave of something goes through me—sadness, maybe, and a little shame for thinking Dayton less worthy than Panama, or anywhere else, for that matter. Orville is winning me back without knowing it or trying.

  We go out to the shed. The 1903 flier is in the corner.

  "We had it stowed behind the shop, and so much mud covered the crates it was protected."

  "Amazing."

  "It's pretty much strips of wood now, but it's the one that flew, so I guess we'll hang on to what's left of it."

  "I just stopped wearing the dress Mother made from the wing fabric."

  "That right? Mrs. Tate made dresses for her girls, too, I believe. We burned the other gliders, had to make room for the new ones."

  He pulls out several glass-plate negatives, holds them up to the light that filters into the shed, some emulsion starting to peel at the corners, and there it is, the crew at the U.S. Lifesaving Service Station at Kill Devil Hill—seven rough-looking men in caps with mustaches and coats, looking with severe manliness toward the camera.

  "Is Mr. Daniels there?" I ask.

  "That's him." He points him out. "Surfman Daniels." Then he holds up the plate Daniels made of the first flight, hardly damaged. "The one picture he ever took."

  The dark, tilted shape of the two wings lifting off the rails, Wilbur to the side. "Wil told the men to holler and clap and try to cheer me when I started down the rails."

  "Did they?"

  "I don't know. I just remember lifting off—we had good winds that day..." He remembers the winds.

  First time—the machine airborne, Wil at awkward midstride. It's my day, too, captured on that murky plate—my birthday, the first mention of Panama.

  "Wil looks a little startled, doesn't he?" Orville says, classic Wright humor.

  He carefully puts the plate away.

  The next day I'm on the train headed back to Federico.

  Home

  Eighty-Four

  Midafternoon, Panama rain drenching me, and I'm anxious.

  I climb the steps to the Ancon Police Station hoping to find Harry, but Federico's the only thing on my mind—how to patch things up after my absence.

  My head rises into view and so does Harry's—he's sitting in a swivel chair, gazing out over his domain, another officer working at a desk behind him.

  "Look at you," he says.

  I'm in jodhpurs and high-top shoes still caked with Dayton mud, just off the 12:20 train. I'm out of breath and bursting with eagerness.

  "Just got back," I say. I'm panting and plop down in a chair beside him.

  "Your father told me you were gone. Flood, right?"

  "Yeah, terrible."

  "Spring flood?"

  "Worse. To the second story of our house. Haven't you been reading about it?"

  "Some."

  "It's the worst in a hundred years..." I'm uneasy and jumpy, wanting to contact Federico, so I start rattling on about cleanup and Orville's pursuit of patents, and it knocks Harry out that I know the Wrights. I describe Mother's pursuit of salvageable items. "She'll be there another two or three weeks..."

  He pours ice water for us and I press the glass to my neck and face, but it doesn't help much. I'm jittery and hot.

  It's hard to focus, so I ask Harry how police work suits him.

  "I like it, but I'll tell you something..." And I realize I've made a mistake. He's about to go off on one of his long rambles and I don't think I'll be able to stand it, not now, not while I'm fidgeting about Federico.

  I tighten, try to calm myself and listen, but I can tell he's going to be thorough. He is:

  Number of men in the police force

  Police force security measures

  How the force is organized

  Caste system in the force

  My mind is ticking off my own list: ways to reach Federico.

  Go to his cabin after the last whistle (but I can't explain that to Father, who'll be expecting me at home).

  Go to his cabin after dark (but Father won't let me out alone at night).

  Any one of several old ploys (but I can't lie to Father, not like I do to Mother).

  Now I really am going crazy. I shift, glance around, tune back in to Harry.

  "...strange case we're on now—interesting, too, but I don't know what to make of it. A murderer's out there and we haven't caught him."

  "Really?"

  "What a wicked history of violence in this strip of jungle." Oh, God, he's going to start again.

  "Worse than anywhere else?" I say. I'm thinking of straight out asking Harry about Federico, say I'm going to do a paper on Spanish workers and have to interview him, which is a good idea, a great one I should have thought of before. Harry knows Federico would be a good subject because he doesn't fit the worker mold. Is there some way I can discreetly bring it up?

  Eighty-Five

  "...Pizarro and his rousters off to conquer South America from here—rape and pillage, that's what that was."

  "Right..."

  "And Morgan, the old buccaneer, he burned the city to the ground—tide came in and drowned the prisoners. And in those hills over there"—Harry nods across the canal—"did you know men died trying to carry a ship across the Isthmus?" He laughs and I do, too, half-heartedly. (I've got to ask about Federico.) "The old Spanish viceroys cruised right by 'em on palanquins, thought they were fools. Those old boys didn't care—they knew it was a bloody jungle. And what else..." I'm not sure how long he'll go on or if I can take it. "Balboa's head was axed off somewhere there—that was after he killed a few thousand himself. You keeping count? He got here stowed away in a cask—bet you didn't know that."

  I grin, shift in my chair. I wonder why I haven't thought of "interviewing" Federico before—a great, aboveboard deceit.

  "...even the forty-niners left their bones out there, and they didn't find much in the way of gold. Then the French died wading around with survey kits, thousands of them, and now us. Of course, we're taking death regular as a clock." He turns to me. I open my mouth to speak. "You're going to see it finished, you know," he says.

  "Excuse me?"

  "In a few months they'll blast the last dam and let the water through, and that first ship'll glide in the rainforest like some amphibious monster. You'll see it."

  He doesn't take his eyes off me. It's the same look I got from Orville two weeks earlier—a gaze that comes from nowhere—and in the same breath, as though it's a part of his bloody-Isthmus history, Harry says, "You've grown up."

  "People don't grow up overnight." I brush it off, look across the canal, feigning unconcern. There's no way to bring up Federico now—it would sound out of place. "What's the interesting case?"

  "Ah, Malero. Do you remember the Spanish fellow with the shelf full of philosophy books?"

  Dead air for a second, and then I manage, "Uh-huh."

  "We've got him."

  "Got him?" Through dry lips.

  "For assault. Of course, it's ridiculous."

  My voice almost cracks. "He assaulted somebody?"

  "Course not, he's not a brawler. He told me he's here to get literary material, but I figured that out from the books on his shelf. You remember the cabin?"

  "I think so."

  "Says he has no interest in the social life on the canal. He's too busy writing and reading, doesn't drink, doesn't dance, doesn't want to squander time on frivolities—his word, frivolities—but he wanted to see one of those wild Saturday night debauches on the edge of the jungle. It's funny when he tells about it—sounds like he's right out of Oxford..."

  "Really?" I've recovered and switch to my brightly interested voice.

  "Better English than us. So he goes to a drunken dance in the Miraflores bush and the usual riot breaks out, and there's a revolver and some shots, and now there's a Peruvian mulatto up in the hospital shot in the mouth
, the bullet lodged in his neck. He says Malero did it."

  "Couldn't be."

  "Course not. Anyway, the morning after this fiasco—I hadn't even heard about it—I strolled in here and there was Malero, quiet as a monk, couldn't shoot a rabbit ... You remember him?"

  "I think I do, yes..."

  "I had to take him to the hospital to be identified by the Peruvian. He's sitting up there on his cot with his face swollen, can't swallow and has to spit into a cup, can't even talk. And he takes one look at Malero and says he's the one. Actually, he wrote it down because he can't talk. But he wasn't sure—I could tell, he just wants to pin his misery on somebody. Anyway, I kept after him and he finally wrote down he couldn't be certain and that's his final statement."

  "What can you do?"

  "I have to hold Malero until I can clear him somehow."

  I'm together now, cool as anything. "I'll speak to Father."

  "About this?"

  "He knows him."

  "He knows Malero?"

  "He knows all the Spanish workers. He knows Malero well." I tell him about the festival honoring Father, the Spanish visits to our house, and that Father's their jefe. "He'll gladly vouch for Federico."

  Harry jumps up. "Why did you let me rattle on about the jungle?"

  "I didn't know you had Malero..."

  But he's checking his watch. "Let's go," he says, and we bolt out the door.

  Halfway down Ancon Hill the sultry heat turns to saturating rain.

  Eighty-Six

  We towel ourselves dry and Harry chucks wood into our cookstove. I chop vegetables and carve up leftover beef from a generous neighbor. I'll return the favor as soon as I get to the commissary. I make a fine stew and work the flour and butter together for biscuits and toss a salad. I'm good at this. We move fast and chat, though nothing more is said about Federico. I'm excited but calm, too, like the first time I talked to Federico. Strange how that is.

  After a while, just as it happens every day with Mother, Father comes up the steps. "I smelled it halfway up—" he says, and then he sees Harry. "Harry! Well, I declare ... good to see you."