Saffire (9 page)

“E
veryone takes a carriage in Panama.” Saffire pointed me to a collection area with hackmen. “Anything more than a dime, and he is cheating you.”

She left unspoken the assumption that a mulatto girl should not negotiate for someone like me.

“Let's walk,” I said. “I've been far too long on the steamer, and I want to get my land legs back.”

I moved past the clumps of horse droppings, and Saffire stayed at my side. Horse manure never bothered me. It was mainly digested grass and washed away with a single rain. Dog leavings, however, were another matter. The cobblestones of London had been stained with them. Smelly, clinging to a boot.

“Be my guide.” I pointed at the round stone watchtowers of a building with curving parapets. “What's that?”

She looked at me and there was enough sunlight remaining in the day for me to admire again the deep green of her eyes and the beauty that would someday appear in her face.

“Chiriqui Prison.”

It had that kind of institutional look, and uniformed guards with bayonets patrolled the parapets.

Because we were walking, each step took us down and closer to where the waters of the Pacific splashed onto stone ledges. The salt-spray smell mixed with the smell of open garbage that littered the streets.

“What was it you asked of the colonel?” she said. “What did you hope he would help you with? Everyone there on a Sunday has something to request.”

“I was there to deliver a message to him, and because of it, I have general questions about Panama and the men who rule this country.”

“Then I am glad that we both want you to speak to those same men. Are there questions that I can answer?”

“Yes, what is your mother's name?”

“Jade. She is Jade and I am Saffire.”

“Of course. Jewels of great beauty.”

“My mother is. I am not.” She spoke matter-of-factly. It would have been condescending to contradict her or point out that someday she would be beautiful.

“Where was she employed?” I asked.

“In the home of my tito, here in Panama City. She worked in the kitchen. Tito was very fond of her cooking, so often he invited her to cook for him on his travels. He tells me often how particular his stomach is and that she soothed it all the time wherever she traveled with him.”

“She was cooking, then, for him on the night that she—”

“My tito is very sad that she is no longer able to cook for him. Unfortunately, he believes the letter. I don't.”

I walked along with her and did not force her to answer more questions.

I was grateful for the breeze and a chance to escape the humid heat that made me feel claustrophobic. The smells were cloying, so unlike the clean sharpness of sage along the Little Missouri, when the stems were freshly snapped by horse hooves.

We reached a market of sorts, with fish and slaughtered lambs in stalls across from vendors who looked to be in the business of selling rotten fruit. The buzz of flies seemed to growl at us as we continued toward the buildings of the town's core.

A tinny sound of music, straining for attention, came from ahead, nearer the city center.

Saffire noticed that this sound caught my attention. “That's the band concert at the Cathedral Plaza. Every Sunday evening. I could point you there, but it would be better if I stayed behind. I'm not allowed there. Only on Thursdays, when the concert for coloreds is at the Plaza Santa Ana.”

“Then take me to the National. I am not interested in the concert.”

Ten minutes later, we skirted the Cathedral Plaza, ringed by palm trees and packed with—as Saffire explained—the perfumed dandies of the aristocrats of Panama. From the cautious distance that I kept from the crowd, I saw the gaudily dressed women with elaborate hair and the men in white suits. Women and men of varying shades of skin, but none dark with pure African blood. I could easily identify the Americans in the crowd because their comparative height put their heads and shoulders in outline against the setting sun. As further contrast, their body language was unemotional and almost soldierly, while the Panamanians tended to sway in rhythm to the beat of the band. That lack of emotion of the engineers would no doubt change after enough nips at the flasks likely tucked in their suit jackets.

The plaza was surrounded by cathedrals and other magnificent stone buildings weathered over the centuries. These buildings had witnessed pirate attacks and revolutions. And on the hills that formed the bowl of the city, houses crowded on crooked streets that wound among the palm trees. This was not a city platted into recent existence, like the towns on the Northern Pacific, from one end of the Dakotas to the other. This city had seen centuries of gold miners and slaves and buccaneers and plantation owners and bankers and soldiers.

I pictured the straight, wide streets of the railroad town of Medora in the Dakotas, the wood buildings with false fronts, and the keening winds that swept my native grasslands—and again fought a stab of homesickness. One day, maybe two. Then I would be gone from Panama.

S
affire did not take me to the small cobblestone plaza that reached to the grand entrance of the National, or take me between the pillars on the broad front veranda, past the uniformed bellhops and through the magnificent front doors into the lobby with the frond-shaped fans making lazy circles above marble floors.

Instead, Saffire led me to the rear of the building, to the alley in deep shadow as twilight approached. Through a door that was propped open, letting aromas of spices and steamed food drift into the heat outside. An elderly black woman with a soiled white apron over an equally soiled white uniform leaned against the outer wall beside the door, sucking hard on a hand-twisted cigarette.

“It's early.” The woman's croaked words, tinged in a Jamaican accent, were directed at Saffire, not me. “Nothing is ready for you.”

“I'll be back again later,” Saffire said. “Right now, my friend here needs an introduction from Stefan.”

“As long as your friend is a generous man.”

“He'd love to help,” Saffire said. “He's a good man.”

Saffire poked me in the ribs with a forefinger. “One dollar. American. That's generous enough.”

While I could only guess at the reason for a bribe, going into my money belt in an open situation like this would be the height of stupidity. “On my way out. I'll donate then.”

The elderly woman sucked again on her cigarette and exhaled as she scrutinized my face. “See that it happens.” With that, she resumed an unseeing stare at the backside of the building on the other side of the alley.

Saffire led me into a kitchen crowded with fast-moving waiter staff—all black—and cooks who yelled at each other in Spanish.

Most were too busy to glance at Saffire or me, but those who did gave Saffire a quick smile and continued without much apparent curiosity about my presence with her.

“I wouldn't be allowed to walk through the hotel,” Saffire explained. “This is the only way we can reach Stefan, and it's important that I'm the one who introduces you to Stefan. Otherwise, he has no reason to introduce you to those who can help with your questions.”

Stefan was a huge Jamaican, a decade older than I. His tightly cropped hair was nearly fully gray, and he wore an immaculate, pressed waiter's suit. He was surveying the large dining room just outside the swinging doors that led from the kitchen into the dining room. The door on the right led out. The swinging door on the left led in.

Saffire pushed open the door on the right and hissed for his attention.

Stefan stepped backward with a smooth glide through the door on the left and joined us inside the kitchen.

“Stefan, this is my friend. His name is Mr. Holt. He has promised to help me look for my mother. Mr. Holt, meet Stefan. Stefan is a kind man and helps me a great deal with many things.”

“A pleasure.” Stefan offered a slight bow of his head. “Anyone who helps this young woman is a friend of mine.”

“Miguel Vasquez,” Saffire said. “Is he here?”

The slightest of grimaces crossed Stefan's face.

“It is business,” Saffire said. “You can be sure of that. Mr. Holt is no friend of that man, but he wishes to speak to anyone who might be a friend of my tito.”

“Mr. Vasquez is not here, but an American and a German are already waiting at his table. The American is a journalist who once worked at the
Star.
As for the German, he has been here frequently over the last few weeks, often with the young Panamanian crowd, from families who pretend to be rulers of the city. You know, of course, who I am talking about. The German claims to be a tourist, but I think he sides with Colombians.”

Revolutions are never really over. Especially for the defeated.

“If you could arrange it,” I said, “I would be interested in buying those gentlemen a round of drinks and joining them for a few minutes.”

“Gin tonic for the American. Lemp's lager for the German, and he complains each time that it doesn't live up to the worst of German lagers. And for you?”

“Tonic.” Assurances that the isthmus was malaria free didn't comfort me, so an extra dose of quinine never hurt. “Nothing added.”

“Of course,” Stefan said. He motioned for the nearest waiter, gave instructions, and sent him for drinks. He looked back at me. “Please wait here.”

Stefan pushed open the swinging door on the right and moved into the dining room.

I used the opportunity to reach under my shirt and pull some dollar bills from my money belt. I handed three to Saffire, aware that it was a lot of money for a child who likely spent much of her time as a street urchin.

“One dollar for the contribution that you mentioned,” I said. “I trust you'll take care of Stefan and the drinks with the remainder?”

There was something about Saffire's manner of dealing with Stefan that suggested she would be generous to him because of past and future favors.

Saffire folded her fingers over the money and it disappeared.

The waiter returned, carrying a tray with two glasses of tonic and a tall glass with the amber lager.

Stefan returned at the same time. “Please follow.”

“I have to stay in the kitchen,” Saffire said. “But don't worry, I'll wait for you, no matter how long you need me here.”

I followed the waiter and Stefan into the dining room. Lights were already burning in sconces on the walls, and the dimness added the proper conspiratorial atmosphere to the muted conversations around the room.

Two men were seated at a table for six, with five place mats and settings. Easy guess that they were waiting for three more to make the total five.

“Mr. Holt,” Stefan said, “these gentlemen would be pleased if you joined them.”

Both stood. Stefan reached for the cowboy hat I held, probably to place it on a coatrack.

“If you don't mind, I'll set it on a chair, out of sight.”

Stefan nodded, then spun on his heels and moved away in his gliding gait.

“Robert Waldschmidt,” the man on the right said as introduction. Early thirties, I guessed. He had thinning hair combed over his head, an eye patch over his left eye, a bow tie, and a surprisingly wide chest for an otherwise skinny body.

“Earl Harding,” the other man said. “Journalist.
The
World.
”

He, then, was the man who had been sent by Pulitzer in pursuit of anything to smear Cromwell, and by extension, Roosevelt's brother-in-law.

Harding was much taller than Waldschmidt. Pencil-thin mustache. Vertical stripes in a suit that had spent weeks between steam presses. This man was closer to my age. “Thanks for the drinks.”

We moved through the formalities of handshakes, then sat and scraped chairs as each of us moved closer to the table. To fulfill my promise to Stefan, I put my hat on the chair beside me.

“I hope you don't mind,” Harding said. “But when our expected guests arrive, we'll need privacy. Tonight I am combining business with pleasure.”

“Understood,” I said.

Harding was giving me a peculiar look. “I've seen you before.”

“I don't live in New York.”

“But I lived in Panama for years during my time at the local newspaper.” Harding studied me. “Perhaps we met then.”

“This is my first time in Panama.”

“You can probably guess why I've been sent back here for a few weeks,” Harding said. “Roosevelt has sued Pulitzer for libel, and Roosevelt needs to be reined in. He's bullied the country long enough. My former stint with the
Star & Herald
here puts me in a good situation to dig up the facts.”

“I'm vaguely familiar with the situation, though not that interested.” That was the truth, as my immediate interest was in regard to local politics. If Harding had once been at the paper in Panama City, I was at the right table.

“I know I've seen your face before,” Harding said. “I remember faces. I pride myself on it. I'm in a profession where it's a valuable asset.”

“We haven't met,” I said.

“Then I've seen your photograph before. Newspaper?”

“Unlikely.”

Harding kept examining me. “That answer implies your face
has
been in the newspaper before but you doubt I'd have seen it. But remember my profession.” Harding snapped his fingers. “Train accident. Buffalo Bill's show.”

Our three-car train, northbound with equipment and employees and livestock, had departed Charlotte, North Carolina, on the evening of October 28, 1901, for the last performance of the season in Danville, Virginia. Early the next morning, the engineer of a southbound freight had misread orders to wait on a side track as we passed, and the trains suffered a head-on collision on a straight stretch of track.

Harding nodded, enthusiastic at his own ability to recall. “North Carolina, right? Seven, maybe eight years ago. Collision with a freight train. Annie Oakley nearly killed, hair turned white as a result. No human lives lost, but one hundred and ten horses had to be put down. Those are the details, correct?”

That's how William Cody had played it for the press.
No human lives lost.
Easier to nod than to give any indication of how that accident had changed my life. Or that William Cody had been technically correct, but totally wrong. Months after Cody's statement, one person did die from injuries suffered, making me a widower.

“You were in a photo that made the
New York Times,
” Harding said. “I remember wishing the
World
had purchased the rights. Your nose was freshly broken, and the bruises were plain to see in the photo, which added to the drama. It happened in the train accident, I would guess.”

I had never seen the photo. Never wanted to. I'd been told about it too many times. I'd been kneeling beside one of the horses, captured in a pose of grief. The photo had been deceptive. The accident hadn't broken my nose. And it wasn't a horse that I was grieving.

I gave no answer.

Waldschmidt filled the silence. “Buffalo Bill? That man that stopped the Indian Wars?”

Not so, but William Cody had done a superb job of building the myth around his minor role as a scout.

Harding nodded. “Officially, it was
Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World.
Did you see it when it toured Germany?”

“Yah!” Waldschmidt clapped and turned to me. “But so much noise with the buffalo and all the shooting and the Indians trying to take scalps. I confess I don't remember seeing you.”

“There were many cowboys in the show. I'm not that memorable.”

“Except for the photo,” Harding said. “It probably sold a lot of papers.”

“Still!” Waldschmidt took a drink. “A cowboy! Famous from a photo! Perhaps another evening we could buy you drinks. How gruesome, those scalpings. Such stories you could tell us. Yah? And this shooting of each other in showdowns. How exciting. We have nothing like that in Germany, I promise. All dreariness. Too much order and regulation. I so admire the freedom of the American West. Perhaps that will be my next stop on my journeys.”

“Mr. Waldschmidt”—Harding watched me over his drink—“is a man with too much wealth and too much time on his hands. So he travels at his leisure, buying friends wherever he goes.”

“Much better to buy friends.” Waldschmidt's grin crinkled his rosy cheeks and nudged his eye patch. “If it's about money and gifts, you can trust that you understand their motives. Yah? You for example, Mr. Holt, perhaps I could cover the cost of a suite here at the hotel for a few weeks. Then you could tell me many stories, and we would be wonderful friends until I stopped paying for your suite.”

“I don't expect to be here long.”

“Well, you have me curious,” Harding said. “And I make my living by my curiosity. You had a reason for wanting to join us, I assume.”

“I thought, who better than a journalist to explain the local politics?”