by Shelby Hiatt
"I don't need to say I've done it. I walk everywhere, across whole countries, and fifty miles isn't a challenge. China would be—not the Isthmus."
"You're no fun," I say. He laughs and tells me a flier has come to town. "A flier?" He takes me to meet the pilot.
Mr. Robert G. Fowler shakes my hand, a man with a single-engine hydroplane. He's nice looking, only a little older than Harry and neat as a pin like the Wrights.
"Glad to meet you," I say. "I live next door to the Wrights in Dayton."
"Is that a fact? I was trained at their school, flew on their exhibition team."
"Did you, really? Harry, did you know that?"
"Course I did."
We talk. He's from San Francisco, but he spent time training with Wil and Orville, knows them well, worked with them—small world. He offers to take me up in his plane; he's been barnstorming around Balboa for days. "Have to stir up interest."
I agree. At last I'll fly.
Ninety-Two
Fowler's machine is nothing like anything I've ever seen. It's called a Gage tractor biplane and sits in the water on floats with an eighty-horsepower Hall-Scott engine, he tells me. Does Orville know about this? I wonder. He must.
I like Fowler. He's a good man with interesting ideas, and much like the boys and Harry, he gets things done.
"My mother's starch box was part of the model for their first wind machine," I boast. "I fetched that box."
Fowler laughs and helps me in. He puts goggles on me. I love it. I'm decked out in jodhpurs again, feeling very much the aviator, and Harry watches from the dock, arms crossed on his chest. For the first time ever I see real concern about my safety on Harry's face; I can see this air travel doesn't appeal to him. For all his being an adventurer, something about flight doesn't sit well with Harry.
People gather—Fowler advertises his flights. A local journalist for the Canal Record will make another of his daily reports on Fowler's activity:
Time in the air
Where to
With or without a passenger
Weather
Reason for descent (usually low fuel)
And an update: "Still not the right weather conditions
for Mr. Fowler's historic ocean-to-ocean nonstop flight."
Harry doesn't say a word from the shore as Fowler primes the engine. It turns over, catches, coughs once, catches again, and roars, a powerful sound, nothing like the sound of the engine the boys used ten years earlier. That one did the job but this one lets you know it means business; lifting this craft is going to be easy and assured. This is exciting.
Inside the plane behind Fowler, I look out at Harry, who has a grimace on his face and never takes his eyes off me. Fowler guns the engine and it roars and whines, and we turn in the water. The prop wash blows back Harry's hair. He squints, watching us pull away, then I can't see him anymore.
We're skimming along the water.
A motion-picture camera is at my feet and I shout forward to Fowler.
"What's the camera for?"
"Belongs to R. E. Duhem. He's gonna photograph the canal when we make the transcontinental flight."
We're picking up speed. I shout again, can't resist bragging: "Last year I threw away a dress we made from the Wrights' wing fabric."
"I'd have given you a hundred dollars for it!"
We lift off easy, like a kite, into a quick breeze and a brilliant sun, people looking up at us, shading their eyes, pointing us out for their children. They're suddenly a hundred feet below. We climb light and easy for half a minute longer and start making graceful turns and shallow dips over the bay, everything in miniature below us. We're a soaring bird.
So this is what the boys worked on so long. No wonder they stayed with it—a great sensation, floating, wheeling, climbing, diving. What human being wouldn't want this?
I shout forward, "Let's go see the Cut."
Fowler nods and veers north. A smooth ten-mile cruise along rainforest and canal and there it is, the gully teeming with workers and machines, even more impressive from the sky. Men down there are like ants in a trench and Father's among them somewhere. And Federico. I'm two hundred feet in the air and can't get rid of the obsession.
The men stop working and wave shirts and caps and arms. We circle and tip the wings in response. Another circle and we go back to the bay. A few circles there, a breathtaking dive, a grinding climb, and then Fowler taps a gauge and glances back at me. I lean forward and look: FUEL. EMPTY.
Fowler, unbothered, begins a descent in a wide, smooth circle. He brings us lower until we skim the water and settle lightly onto the surface. We slow and begin pulling toward the dock. The propeller comes to a jerking stop and we glide in.
The crowd's gotten bigger. Fowler grins and waves and helps me out.
"This brings them around," he says.
Ninety-Three
Two weeks later. 9:45 a.m.
The Gage hydro-biplane takes off with cameraman and pilot. They head for Culebra, circle, and take moving pictures of the men waving and shovels saluting with puffs of steam. They go north, are rained on over Gamboa, where the motor coughs but comes back, cross Gatun Lake at eighteen hundred feet, then race toward Limon Bay and Cristobal, the fuel gauge on empty. They touch down in a silent, fuelless glide among the rocks off Pier 11.
Fowler's report for the journalists: "The trip was uneventful except for that last bit without gas."
They did it in an hour and thirty-five minutes. Another first and another record set.
None of this makes me feel better.
Ninety-Four
My diary is once again my only confidant, and it fills with pages of everything I feel and do.
Saw Federico a few minutes on the street yesterday after flying—so long without a word from him. He's older and wiser than me and it feels like he's decided to wean us away from each other!!! He's distant but nice, which almost spells it out: we'll be over when the canal is complete. I don't want to think of it. It's a matter of months. I'd rather die.
He told me about seeing a flying machine circling overhead. Did I? Almost didn't believe me when I said I was up there. He gave me that look, the perplexed smile again, trying to figure me out—more mystery in that little Dayton girl than he understands. (That's right!) He mentioned there's more trouble in Spain. Maybe that's why he doesn't contact me more often; maybe weaning doesn't have anything to do with it. I know nothing.
Harry just showed up to take me to Colonel Goethals's court. For three years I've been asking to go and now that I've lost interest, he appears at the door. Oh well.
"I'm so glad you're going to see it," says Mother. "Another Zone experience before it ends, and I want to hear all about it."
Goethals's patriarchal Sunday court, foolish to miss it after being here so long. And it will be a major distraction.
Harry and I hop the train to Ancon early. The court will end around noon. By then the colonel will have seen a hundred people with their various grievances and, acting as both judge and jury, will have made a hundred decisions. I've heard about it since we got here. Few will complain they've been denied justice. Forty thousand workers speaking forty-five different languages, and they all know the colonel's office door is open to them on Sunday morning.
I'm not going to think about Federico. I'll just ride along with Harry and keep my mind on what I'm about to see.
Ninety-Five
Midmorning we climb the thousand steps of the administration building. Beside us the line of waiting workers snakes out the front. Goethals's big office is on the right in a wide hallway hung with maps and blueprints, and there they stand, men and women of every color, speaking dozens of languages, some with children in hand, all patient, all reasonably quiet though every sound echoes.
We keep walking and Harry leads me past the line and directly into the office; he's been there many times in his capacity as policeman/enumerator/interpreter. He finds a spot inside the door where we can observe.
> The room is hot, insufferably hot. Tall windows on one side are open but the air is still—there's not a breath of movement. I feel irritable but I know I feel no more heat than everyone else, so I stand quietly and endure it.
Goethals in his customary white suit sits solemnly behind his desk and listens to each worker present his grievance. Then, after a short consideration, he hands down justice—efficient, dependable, undisputed. It's pretty amazing, and gradually I forget the heat and lose myself in watching the process.
A wife has marital woes, which are quickly dispensed—Goethals handles civil as well as minor criminal matters.
The social-committee chairman sets a date for a Tivoli ballroom dance and Goethals gives the okay.
Harsh treatment by a foreman is resolved.
Failure to get a promotion is taken care of.
A request for special privileges is denied and another is granted.
Then a builder steps up and the rhythm changes. This man has attitude. You can see it in the way he stands and speaks. He takes himself seriously, above these petty domestic disputes and social arrangements, and he makes that clear to the colonel.
"I cannot possibly complete the pump house in the time allotted," he says with authority.
"What time would that be?" Goethals says.
"The time in your letter, sir."
"I don't recall the letter."
"A letter about the work in Miraflores." The builder produces the letter—he's ready for this.
The secretary gives the letter to the colonel, who glances at it, then looks up.
"This is not a letter. This is an order."
The builder blinks. "Sir...?"
"It's a deadline. Get it done," he says. "Do you want to talk about anything else?"
The builder stammers, "N-n-o," and the secretary touches his arm to make him move aside. He's stupefied.
Next case.
Can't help liking Goethals.
Ninety-Six
It moves fast and I keep my mind on the proceedings—the various human appeals, the deferential complainers, the colonel himself, so assured through all of it. I like this, the way it's done and the justice. I wonder if Federico's been here. He'd like it and Harry clearly loves it.
Two more complaints resolved, then Harry leans toward me and whispers, "Here—this is what we came to see."
It's a shovel engineer, and he tells Goethals he's been discharged unjustly. Harry straightens and tilts his head to see Goethals's face more closely.
"What was the reason for your discharge?" the colonel says.
"Because I can't play baseball."
"That's the reason?"
"Yes, sir." Harry nudges me. "They've hired another shovel operator with a better pitching arm, sir."
There's a half smile on Harry's face as his eyes flick from the colonel to the shoveler and back to the colonel. Goethals hesitates a moment longer than usual, then speaks. "They want shovelers on the Pacific end. Report in the morning for work." The colonel turns to his secretary. "Ring them up; arrange it."
The shoveler steps over to the secretary and they begin taking care of the matter. Harry nudges me again, smiling. "Let's go."
In the hall where we can talk, Harry's still grinning.
"They've got their pitcher and the shovel man's got his job ... You've got to hand it to the old man. Course, he had to do that. He's the one pushing for baseball, says it's a morale builder, but he can't condone an unjust firing—he can't let that happen." He shakes his head in admiration. "He took care of it."
"I didn't know you were interested in baseball, Harry."
"It's the justice I'm interested in. Well, I'm playing shortstop..." He gives me a wink and suddenly stops walking. "Malero!"
I look up. Federico is standing in line.
Harry pumps his hand and smiles. "It's good to see you."
"Nice to see you again, Harry."
I smile at Federico; my chest tightens.
"Why are you here?" Harry asks him.
"It's nothing much. I've been on the wrong pay scale since I came back to work after being sick—a clerical error, but it still isn't corrected."
Harry waves it off. "He'll take care of it in seconds. I didn't know you were sick."
"Months ago. I'm fine now." Then, to me as though we are simply acquaintances, "How is your father?"
"Very well, working hard."
"Thank him for me again, will you?"
"Yes, I will."
Two workers push us from behind, wanting to get by, and the line moves Federico ahead. We're separated. "Good luck," Harry calls back to him. Federico nods and is gone.
Our shoes click on the hall floor. Harry muses. "He's a mystery..." We're working our way through the crowd. "Hard to know. He's political, we think along the same lines, but ... something else is there—I don't know what it is. And you can't get close to him—he keeps his distance. There's something ... inscrutable about him." Then, after a moment, "You'd have to know him to see it."
"Of course."
We emerge into brilliant sunlight.
"Shortstop, huh?" I say.
Harry grins, forgets Federico. "I'm pretty good," he says.
***
On the train we chat and I look out the window trying to actually see what is passing, but inside I am roiling and later can't remember what Harry and I talked about, though we laughed a few times.
In my diary that night I add to my Goethals's court account: I'm willing to sleep, but I'm not willing to wake up. That's just asking too much. Teenage angst, no doubt—a word I've learned from Dr. Freud by way of Federico.
Ninety-Seven
This angst is getting worse—bigger, darker, more unescap-able. It doesn't help that there's a sense of heightened excitement in the air. The men take increasing pride in the work they're completing; people now talk about the end, who's staying on and who's leaving and where they're going, et cetera. Goethals tells journalists about the great accomplishment and how people are fired up to be near the end. It's a common topic of conversation: the final days are on us. But it's the end for me, and I use the word cataclysmic in my diary because I'm in a dramatic state of mind and having painful and disturbing dreams.
Men are reporting to work early and staying late without overtime—mostly the American work force. The workers of color continue as always with their daily backbreaking labor, only vaguely aware of the accomplishment.
***
On May 20, 1913, I make note that two shovels digging toward each other in Culebra narrow the gap all day long, digging and shoveling like mad, and people gather to watch when they hear what's happening. In the afternoon the shovels stand nose to nose and all hell breaks loose. Whistles hoot for miles along the Cut, the noise heard all over the Zone.
I read about it in the Canal Record because it's too painful to watch, and hearing talk about it in our house is more than enough.
The Cut is as deep as it will go—forty feet above sea level, the locks handling the difference—and now it goes all the way through, ocean to ocean.
Much is made of this at school—it's our last two weeks, with graduation and summer break coming up. Alice Kirk, daughter of shovel man Joseph Kirk, driver of shovel No. 222, is instructed to write the names of the shovel drivers on the board: her own father's and that of D. J. MacDonal, shovel No. 230.
"Remember those names," says Mrs. Ewing, more than aware that history is being made.
Eleven days later we're instructed to write about more history: the upper gates at Gatun are complete and function perfectly. Father reads aloud from the Canal Record: "...the gates swung to a position halfway open, then shut, opened again wide, closed completely, all noiselessly, without jar or vibration, at all times under perfect control." He looks up, beaming. I try to smile back.
It's another accomplishment moving the whole monstrous project toward its final day, and I have to excuse myself and go upstairs.
Like the girls I scorned at school whisp
ering about their boyfriends, in a constant fever of romance and heightened emotion, I collapse on my bed and weep, sobbing and choking. I can't change what's happening. I can't change Federico and his life or mine or Colonel Goethals's damned unstoppable, unflappable leadership toward the great Yankee achievement, breaking the back of the Divide. The canal is going to be complete. And soon. What nature did to thwart the work has had no effect. The slides continue but so does the dredging, and Goethals orders it to continue as long as necessary, forever if need be. He'll match nature with endurance and he'll beat her. What do I do about that?
I understand it for the first time and I accept it that evening, beaten, like nature, my heart breaking. Like a child who's lost a parent, I weep secretly and inconsolably. There's no one to talk to about it, only Federico, who's the source of the pain and my most intimate friend and confidant. What would I say to him? Not something silly like "Will you write?" Or "Let me come with you." Dime-novel stuff.
But I want to say something—beg him to keep in touch with me, send Spanish newspapers because I'll never find El Unico in Oberlin, tell me what he's doing, how the rebellion's going, something, anything. I'll have no real information unless war breaks out—only that will make it to our Midwestern papers.
What if I arrange to come to Spain to study? There's an idea. But he'll be busy fomenting rebellion. Maybe we could meet somewhere else—London, Paris, even ... Am I likely to get to those places? Could he take time off from fomenting to visit me?
After sobbing on my bed and running through a list of alternatives, I pull myself together, wash my face, and go back downstairs. Harry's come by. He's talking about a rescue expedition he's going on the next day. The lake is rising and some of the indigenous Panamanians are too stubborn to leave. I want to see this and it'll keep me busy.
"Can I come along?"
Ninety-Eight
I'm in jodhpurs again, this time in Harry's thirty-foot Zone police launch, American and Panamanian flags flying fore and aft, a canvas canopy supported by four poles over our heads.