Saving the World (44 page)

The wives were certainly curious about me. I was
not
married to our director?
None
of these boys were my sons? A
smallpox
expedition? (At this, they edged away.) Our director, hearing that panic was mounting among the passengers, decided to give a talk one evening about our mission. After that, the ladies were more kindly disposed toward me and the children. But, oh my, twenty-six boys! How could I manage them all without a maid to help me?

How could I manage? Barely! All of my new boys were between the ages of four and six, with only one older boy of fourteen, Josef Dolores, who proved to be a great help to me. They were much more demanding to care for than my Coruña boys, as I had not raised them myself, so I did not have that deep understanding that comes with helping nurture their natures.

Knowing that the trip was long and wearying, Don Francisco had paid top price for the best accommodations. A few days out, he grew alarmed at the poor quality of our fare—the boys had been served only lentils and meat so rotted that hungry as they were, they cast it aside, which at least made the rats happy. Yes, rats! The boys had been stowed in a small storage area where the magazine powder was kept. The captain was certainly not keeping his part of the agreement.

“How is it possible?” Don Francisco shook his head in disbelief. “How can a man trick us in this way when he knows we are embarked on a beneficent mission?”

“Surely there has been a misunderstanding.” Don Ángel always sought to think well of everybody. “Perhaps the captain needs only a gentle reminder.”

But our director was not one to tactfully wait and present our case calmly to Captain Ángel Crespo. In a trick of fate that proved most ironic, our captain had the very same name as our own Ángel Crespo. But it was as if the Lord had created two versions of the same human being, then decided to keep both and no doubt love them both equally, a lesson to all of us prodigal sons and daughters. And it might have been a fruitful lesson had we not been at sea, with eight more weeks to go, and our health and well-being dependent on the least angelic of these two Ángel Crespos.

The captain assured Don Francisco he would look into the matter. But our second week out, the boys were still sleeping in the magazine and their food was as close to inedible as possible. Even the rats were turning away from it, biting the boys instead. Don Francisco began to worry about other infections and plagues. Seven more weeks under these conditions, and not just the vaccine but our boy carriers, too, were in danger of being lost before we arrived in the Philippines.

I could not bear the thought of losing one more child to this expedition. I fretted and fussed over my boys. At night I could not sleep thinking of little Tomás, Orlando, Juan Antonio. Amid the slap of waves on the hull, the groans and snores from other berths, I heard their voices calling to me.

Some nights in the throes of these nightmarish imaginings, when I feared that I would scream and wake all the women in my partition, I felt an invisible hand on my forehead soothing away my fears; a voice crooned in my ears.
Everything will turn out well, trust me.

Those nights I slept, my scarred face wet with tears.

A
MONG THE WOMEN ON
board was a lady about my age who had been traveling the better part of a year. Señorita Margarita Martínez had set out from Cádiz, landed in Veracruz, crossed overland to Acapulco by mule, and was now en route to the Philippines to join her brother, the captain
of the militia in Manila. “You must call me Margarita,” she insisted. I was glad for the liberty. Señorita Margarita sounded too much like a silly girl in a comedy.

Margarita had a lovely “little cabin” with a “little bunk” and a “little desk,” and enough room to hang a hammock for the “little maid” she had brought with her from Mexico. She had to keep her eye on the pretty girl. She had already lost two maids to America. The first refused to get back on board after a stop in Havana, so petrified was she of the sea. The other had run off with one of the crew she had
befriended
on the crossing. “A little tart!” Margarita attached the diminutive to everything. It was a way for her to make the world doll size and safer, so I came to believe.

She offered to show me her cabin, and it was almost as nice (and twice as large) as her description. Indeed it reminded me of the mate's cabin on the
María Pita
. Was he on his way back to meet me? I wondered. Or had his ship been intercepted by the British? If he did manage to make it through enemy lines, would he be angry that I had not waited for him? In the letter I had left with Bishop Gonzales, I had explained that I needed to see this expedition through to the end. That I would be back. That he should forgive me.

“So where is your little nest, Isabelita?” Margarita was eager to see it. What else was there for a fine lady to do on board besides embroider and read and visit with other ladies? And though I was not a fine lady, I was connected with six gentlemen, one of them, Francisco Pastor, a bachelor and quite handsome. As for me, busy as I was with twenty-six boys to care for, I was lonely for another woman's companionship.

One afternoon, while the boys learned to tie knots on deck with the crew, I invited her down below. Yes, we were two decks down from her, in the steerage in curtained bunks; mine, thankfully, was in a section partitioned for women servants. “But I thought yours was a
royal
expedition?” The señorita was visibly disappointed.

“Indeed we are, not to mention that our director paid a
royal
price for our transport. You should see where the captain put my boys.” I doubted that Margarita would go to the forward end of the ship, where a lady must never go.

“May I ask …” She hesitated. It was not mannerly to probe, but hers was a polite way to ask a question without asking it.

“Five hundred pesos!” She was shocked. We were paying over double her passage and receiving much worse fare!

I knew if I told our director this, he would surely strangle the captain in his sleep. So I kept my counsel. But a ship, as I should have known from my time on the
María Pita
, is a sieve of gossip. Our director soon found out that we had been grossly overcharged and were being insultingly underserved.

By the end of the second week, Don Francisco had had enough. He burst into the captain's quarters, demanding immediate restitution of the funds we had been overcharged. But Captain Crespo had dealt with mutiny and piracy and kept a number of loaded firearms within reach. He drew a revolver and threatened Don Francisco with the justice of the high seas should he dare to raise trouble again. Our director was forced to bear his grievances in silence until we reached our destination and charges could be lodged with Governor Aguilar in Manila.

February turned to March and March to April. The year would be half over before we arrived! But our crossing proved to be safe and expeditious. The vaccine was kept alive by the grace of God and by our own resourcefulness. The captain had forbidden the smallpox carriers any contact with the other passengers. We were forced to bed the two boys in question with the others in the magazine. With the jostling of the ship, the sleeping boys rolled into each other, and seven were vaccinated at once.

From then on, we took the two carriers aft, when the captain wasn't looking. Somehow we managed our ruse, despite the fact that there seemed to be no way to keep secrets on a ship. Perhaps our captain, with his eagle eye out for the problematic director, did not notice the gentle rectoress hurrying midship to her quarters with her red cape bulging around her.

A
FTER MONTHS AT SEA
, the sight of a desert island would have been wonderful! How much more so to behold these enchanting islands. In the distance we made out mountains, so richly green, they seemed vibrant, living beings; the air smelled fragrant like spices; the light looked
like diamonds tossed on that turquoise bay. Dozens of natives rowed out in their canoes to greet us, short, copper-colored men and, I soon realized, young girls dressed in loose garments, the fabric so sheer, I could see their dark nipples through it. What lively intelligence lit up their faces! Their gaiety was remarkable. Why the least thing made them laugh!

“We have landed in the blessed isles,” Pastor observed. He could not get enough of waving at the native girls giggling in their small boats.

As was his habit, Don Francisco had written ahead to Governor Aguilar, but again there was no welcome waiting for us. True, we had disembarked at the first opportunity, for Don Francisco did not want to spend one added moment on the same ship as the despicable captain.

“I've gotten so that I hate the sound of my own name,” our Don Ángel muttered. It was the first time I had heard the kind soul exclaim bitterly against anyone.

“Perhaps you will find someone willing to give over his name to you,” Pastor remarked. Margarita had related a curious bit of lore that her brother had written to her. Certain natives exchanged names as a sign of friendship.

When it seemed no one would appear at the wharf to greet us, our director hired several carriages for the ride to the governor's palace inside the walled city. There we were informed that we had just missed Governor Aguilar, who had gone to the docks to greet the newly arrived galleon.

Sometimes it took all my patience to bear with our impatient director.

Thirty-three bone-weary, sun-browned, thin travelers climbed back into their carriages and headed for the docks to receive their welcome.

T
HAT MISTIMED GREETING PROVED
to be a prelude of things to come. Not that Governor Aguilar was another mean-spirited viceroy out to thwart our expedition. But he was the governor of a distant colony that lay halfway around the globe from its mother country. Loyalty was paramount among the small group of peninsulares, surrounded as they were by a staggering number of savages. No doubt Governor Aguilar did not want to alienate the prosperous and powerful Spanish merchants who owned the
Magallanes.
And so, when informed of the captain's
egregious charges, the governor did not respond with the warmth our director expected.

“This is a matter you must take up with the commander of the marine,” Governor Aguilar explained. This commander was presently inspecting some island ports but would be back within a week or so.

“But you are his superior, are you not?” Don Francisco persisted. He had waited too long to now be told to wait some more.

“I must observe the laws and procedures that have been set up.” The governor held firm to his resolve.

Our director was testy. His dysentery had worsened on board. Curiously, mine had vanished, as if duress were my cure. “I will lodge my complaint with His Majesty, and it shall include your name.”

The governor's long face grew longer. Perspiration gleamed on his brow. Indeed we were all bathed in sweat. It was almost midday; the sun was directly overhead, the heat oppressive. I felt as if I was being cooked inside my petticoat, dress, bonnet, and cape. I half envied the native women I had seen. How innocently they bared their arms and hiked up their skirts midcalf, their feet bare, their hair in a topknot. How simply they seemed to live compared with the difficulties our expedition was always encountering!

As we stood on the dock and listened to the heartfelt reunions of passengers with their families (Margarita was weeping joyfully in the arms of her brother), I felt the desolation of our own arrival. How homesick I suddenly felt for Puebla and my little Benito.

If only our director had waited to begin complaining. I agreed with him on every count about the injustice of the captain's charges. But all twenty-six boys had made it safely to these shores, the vaccine was alive, and we had a great deal of work ahead of us. I suppose our director's total dedication to his mission made it difficult for him to accept any less from others. It was as if he wanted to rid the world not just of smallpox but of any smallness whatsoever.

Strange, then, that under his tutelage, I was learning an opposite lesson: goodness had to be coaxed into being, and change might well take centuries to unfold. How many strokes of a pen were not needed to fill a page with words, and dozens of those pages to tell a tale. (I should know!
All that writing in the book Don Francisco had given me, now leagues under the sea to protect him.)

After a tense moment of silence, the director informed the governor that vaccination sessions would begin tomorrow. “I will thank you to make an announcement to the populace.” He gestured toward the assembled crowd.

But the governor had a different idea. Rather than beginning with public vaccinations, he wanted to proceed in a quiet, discreet manner. It seemed the bishop of Manila and other high church officials had heard that the vaccine might be dangerous. They had already informed Governor Aguilar that they would not be promoting it from their pulpits.

This was too much for our director. He turned on his heels and left the governor with his explanations in his mouth. From then on, as in Puerto Rico, it was a war of wills and a conversation through intermediaries and letters.

“Isabelita!” Margarita was before me with a tall, fair-haired duplicate of her own person, though much more comely in its male version. “This is my brother, Captain Martínez.”

“Thank you for taking such good care of my sister,” the brother said warmly. I felt sheepish receiving praise I did not really deserve.

Our director was rounding us all up into our carriages. No, we would not be needing the governor's escort to our accommodations. He bowed curtly to the señorita, who bravely plowed on with her manners and introduced him to her brother.

“Sir, if I can be of any help at all.” The captain was stationed here with the militia and was at the royal expedition's service.

The director suddenly stopped in the midst of his stormy exit. It's as if he had suddenly sighted land after being lost at sea. Perhaps he was beginning to realize that we knew no one in this distant colony. We would need allies if we were to win this battle against the Spanish savages.