Saving the World (7 page)

“This
is
an order from His Majesty,” he repeated.

“That might not get you a long way with our benefactress,” I hinted. Donã Teresa had powerful allies, who agreed with her opinions. The king indulged them, too afraid of alienating the nobility and leaving himself wide open to the rabble's revolution as his cousin had done over in France, losing his royal head in the bargain. I could already hear Doña Teresa's objections. She would not submit her orphan boys to some experiment that a silly cuckold king had no doubt been talked into by his vixen wife and her lover, that shameless tramp of a prime minister. “Indeed, Don Francisco, perhaps you should not mention that this is a
royal
decree.” Another secret between us.

Our visitor cocked his head, studying me. A small smile touched his lips. “I see,” he said at last. “But who shall I say sent me?”

“Did you not say His Holiness had blessed the procedure?” This was most unsettling! To be devising a stratagem to sway my benefactress—and with a stranger, no less! But I confess that what I felt was a sensation of pleasurable surrender to whatever good or bad angel was leading me on.

Our visitor was nodding. “Perhaps, Doña Isabel, it would be better if you could speak with your benefactress … in preparation.” He hesitated as if in acknowledgment that he was sending me first into the lion's den.

In the silence that followed, we could hear the boys singing the Ave Maria. Far off, the cook and porter were setting the long tables. I could hear the clatter of bowls, the clang of spoons. The meals, the prayers, the lessons, the globe spinning under my fingers: Africa, China, Mexico. Every day the same. The small round of my daily life tightened like a noose about my neck. Again, I felt I could not breathe.

Don Francisco was waiting.

“I will speak with her.” My voice was firm, but my heart was a wild bird trapped in the small, empty room of my life. “I will explain everything and prepare her for your interview.”

Even in the dim light that fell from the tall windows, I could see the worry lines on his brow relax. “I would be most grateful,” he began.

“But I will ask for a favor back.”

Again, he cocked his head, bemused, waiting.

As he had been speaking, the idea had taken hold inside me. Later, I would tell Doña Teresa that it was Don Francisco who requested this. But I was the one who asked this favor of Don Francisco. I wanted to be a part of the noble purpose he had described. “You must take me with you,” I said.

He did not immediately answer me. It was difficult to read his face in the dark room. I waited, I could feel the perspiration on my face, under my arms, between my breasts. My whole body seemed to be weeping—with joy or sorrow, I could not tell. I had chosen to change my life. Was this even possible? Perhaps only God in his wisdom had the power to do so, sending down his messenger with a divine invitation.

“It is not the custom for a woman to accompany these expeditions,” he said finally.

“Someone must take care of the boys.” I, now, was the one persuading. “I have been assigned three assistants, three nurses, three practitioners, men all of them, to be sure—”

“And these boys need a woman's touch.” I finished his sentence. My
boldness had indeed grown in the course of our interview. “It will go a long way to convincing Doña Teresa to say the rectoress will go with our boys.”

“I see,” he said again. “The boys will need a woman's touch,” he repeated, as if he had just thought up this idea himself. There was a smile in his voice. Already we were working together to save the world by removing whatever impediment Doña Teresa might put in our way.

Before he departed, Don Francisco asked that I begin sorting the boys; all those who had suffered the smallpox or been exposed to it must be weeded out. If there was the slightest doubt, the boy must be eliminated. One or two wrong choices and the expedition could be imperiled. He had calculated that exactly twenty-two carriers would be needed to cross the ocean and provide for a first round of vaccinations once we reached land. Two must be vaccinated at a time lest the vaccine not take in one or the other and the precious cure be lost. In the colonies, we would pick up new orphans for the rest of the journey. In my excitement, I did not think to ask how the boys were to be conveyed back to Spain so that his Royal Highness could keep his promise of raising them like his own sons.

“I have known many of these boys since birth,” I assured him. “I can answer for any illnesses they have had.”

“Excellent!” In his voice, I heard my own excitement. He had already begun his preparations, ordering supplies and equipment. Five hundred copies of his translation of Moreau's treatise on the vaccine were being printed up to distribute around the world. It was through Moreau that Don Francisco had found out about Dr. Jenner's experiments. He held up the copy he had brought for me.

I took the book in my hands. I had never owned one. “I am honored,” I thanked him, glad for the opportunity to show that I, indeed, could read. I could see by the flush on his face that it had been the correct thing to say.

The ship was now the issue, he went on. It was proving difficult to procure one. A frigate had been offered but needed repairs. With each detail the voyage seemed more and more imminent. We would set sail in a month across the seas in answer to those crying voices.

“Our undertaking shall be remembered by future generations,” he concluded.

Our
undertaking.

“We shall save the world, Doña Isabel.” His voice had taken on a hesitancy. Perhaps a doubt had assailed him. “At least we shall try.”

“We will,” I assured him. We were at the door.

“I am most grateful.” He took my hand, pressing it warmly. I wished again that I had worn my gloves.

“Tomorrow, I shall send over a list of what the boys will need. At present, I am staying at the Charity Hospital next door if you should need me,” he added, putting on his hat. It fitted him handsomely. His face was in shadow.

I lifted my mantilla to cover my own face as was my habit when I escorted someone out, in courtesy to some passerby on the street, or out of vanity, as my other Francisco would have it. I would soon be rid of the boy, his judgments and bullying. A moment later, I felt ashamed. Who would love this boy if I did not? But he could not come along; he had only been with us a year. I could not account for his past exposure to the smallpox. But what then of Benito? I could not account for him either. No matter. I would not leave him behind. That would be my secret.

“You must learn not to cover yourself, Doña Isabel,” Don Francisco was saying. “Those scars will fade even further with exposure to the sun and salt air. Though a pocked face would serve our mission better. A convincing warning to those who might resist us.”

His words were a needle in my heart. Had his earlier compliment been only a ploy to win my agreement?
A face marked but not marred.
His very words. We would save the world together, but my role was to serve as a cautionary figure!

I was glad I had covered myself so that he could not see the tears starting in my eyes again. I had been chastened, reminded that I was to serve a noble purpose, not feed my vanity and self-pity! There was a blessed future before me. I would devote myself to our mission. I would become worthy of Don Francisco's expedition.

Later that night, after the boys were asleep, I knelt down by my bed, trying to pray. “Let it be according to thy word,” I pleaded. But it was not our Lord nor the angel Gabriel nor even the Virgin I was addressing, but Don
Francisco himself. I had given him my word. I would talk to Doña Teresa. I would convince her. The boys would be in my charge. And Nati was more than capable of directing La Casa until I came back … if I came back.

In the time before I blew out the candle, I gave myself the task I had set aside for this night. I found a piece of string and strung together the beads I had left on my bed. At the last, however, instead of attaching the crucifix, I took the strung beads and tied them around my neck. For the first time since my illness, I wished I had a mirror so I could see how the rectoress of a foundling house might look to a surgeon from the royal court, director of a noble expedition. Later in the dark, I went over and over our interview, touching the beads as if they were memory aids, recollecting what he had said, what I had replied, the fever in his eyes, the softness around his mouth. All night, I tossed and turned as if I were already on board that ship bound for a new life.

Alma is surprised when she hears the pickup coming down the driveway. She glances at the clock. She has been at it for two hours, reading and writing notes in her journal, notes that end up as full-fledged scenes and conversations leading her further into Balmis's story.

As the garage door rumbles open, the floor shakes under her feet—Richard is home! Quite the metaphor, she thinks. Quickly, she puts her journal away, glancing around as if to remember this moment in case it proves to be memorable: the moment before everything changed for the worse.
Please,
she pleads to all the things in her room: posters of some of her book covers; maps of the island; the homeland flag draped over her computer; her collection of virgencitas—as if these objects could guarantee her safety in the world. She closes the door and hurries down the stairs.

“Wow!” Richard's face lights up as he steps through the garage door and finds her waiting for him on the other side. “A personal greeting!”

Alma feels a pang. Has it been that long? Usually, she calls down, “I'll be right there.” But by the time she turns off the computer, puts her work away, and makes her way downstairs, ten, fifteen minutes have elapsed, and the zing is gone from her greeting.

“Hey,” she says, pressing herself into him, not wanting, for the moment, to be a separate person, a person he could betray or discard.

He folds his arms around her, laughing into her hair, but after a moment, when Alma doesn't pull away, he grows still. “What's the matter?” he finally asks. Sometimes he surprises her. Alma will think that Richard has checked out, gone to that fantasyland where—if the talk shows and those old misogynist Thurber cartoons are to be believed—husbands in long-term marriages go, but let Alma change one little thing in Richard's routines, put his running shoes somewhere else, use a different cup for his coffee, and he notices. “Something happen today?”

Alma had planned to tell him everything right off, but she finds herself delaying the moment. First, let him be reminded of what a good life they have together: a drink before supper, maybe supper out, maybe sex. It's as if this new savvy self has splintered off, the smart wife who plays her cards right, uses magazine-article ploys to keep her man happy.
(Dress up in something sexy; invite him for a date in bed.)
“I'm fine,” Alma murmurs into his chest. “Why not? I have a wonderful husband.” She pulls back to look him in the eye. Maybe saying it will be like holding a crucifix up to Dracula in the old movies. If Richard is not truly a wonderful husband, he will turn into a puff of smoke in her arms. “Right?”

He is looking at her quizzically, not totally convinced by this new lite version of his moody wife, then nods. How hard the last few years have been for Richard: losing both parents, sinking into depression (even if he refuses to call it that); then, finally, in the last few months beginning to rally, only to have his wife lag behind, a gloomy reminder. She takes his hand and leads him up the short flight of stairs to the main room, invites him to sit while she fixes his drink—wishing she didn't always forget what goes into a martini—then pours her own pedestrian glass of whatever wine is already open.

“A toast,” he says when she sits down. “To new adventures.” He winks before drinking.

Suddenly, Alma realizes that she's not the only one with a secret to report. The last time Richard came home with that sheepish smile and a toast to adventure, he had just bought a boat. He had gotten it for next to nothing from a colleague leaving for Ethiopia.

“But you don't know how to swim,” Alma had reminded him. On their first date, Richard had confessed that his dreaded way of dying was by drowning. He hated even watching pirate movies. Now he was going to sail the seas?

“Not the seas, just the lake.” He had grinned, pleased with himself. “And it's a motorboat, not a tall ship.”

Alma had gone along with it, why not. Let him enjoy being a boat owner. Better that than a mistress, she'd thought, a thought that now glides across her consciousness like some evasive and deadly microbe on a slide.

“So, what's up?” She studies his face, the heightened color in his cheeks. She has always loved how coloring betrays him. Unlike many Americans whose faces seem so deadpan when compared with Latin faces, Richard's is … not exactly expressive but transparent. Alma has always believed she can see right through him.

“Okay, here's the deal. If you agree, only if you agree—and I told Emerson I had to run it by you—we can go live in the DR for a while! Wait, wait, don't say anything yet, let me finish. HI just got this really exciting contract to start a green center in the mountains. And Emerson's asked me to supervise the start-up. Five months max on site. That'll take us through the worst of winter. You won't have to plow the driveway,” he teases. This is a gift he is offering her, a chance to return to her native land, to get away from everything she has been complaining about in his country.

“You've been saying that you really feel like you need to go back to recharge yourself. How you need some downtime to just find out who you are anymore.”

It sounds like her. Richard wouldn't invent talk like that. Alma sighs, speechless before this incontrovertible proof of her own petty self in full complaint.

“I thought you'd be excited.” His face has fallen, the color draining. “I am, I am. It's just that I'm working on my novel.” Moving involves distraction, meeting new people, reinventing your self again.