Panama

by Shelby Hiatt

  "Yes, yes. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he says with a hint of that bow.

  Smashing. She loves it. "Did you see everything?"

  "We did, yes. Very impressive."

  Approval is written all over Mother's face. She likes him (the pin-perfect white suit, the British accent). And she takes him for exactly what he is, a well-educated young man, but mistakenly thinks he's in a position of authority—if not with the Commission, then with a bank, or a government institution, or a large business seeking expansion in the Zone. Not a worker. In her mind he must have been leading the workers that day in some special capacity.

  As usual Federico is unperturbed and in his courtly manner says, "Will you both join me for supper?"

  That will take a chunk out of the money he can send home—a couple of weeks' pay or more, I'm sure. But before I can say anything Mother speaks up. "That's very nice but I'm afraid my husband is expecting me. You two go on without me."

  She's graceful in declining but it's obvious she wants us to be alone. She says goodbye and moves on.

  We walk on quietly for a minute.

  "I'm glad you met her," I say.

  "She's very nice."

  Federico says nothing more about her in spite of all our discussions about parents and the danger of being discovered. There's nothing to discover anymore.

  We eat at a small street café. I'm drained and enjoy the simple good food and superficial talk about the fellow running the place, an East Indian with hopes of going back to Delhi to finish his law studies, a typical Panamanian story. Nothing more about inequity in the Zone or anywhere else. That's personal and passionate and that's over.

  It's dark when we finish and we join other Zoners to watch the piles of old ties from Father's railroad tracks burn, the climax of the day's events.

  "Up in flames," Federico says.

  The bonfires snake up the canal for miles, lighting the night. Next to us a New York Times correspondent is taking notes for the cable he'll send. He reads it out to the crowd: "A reduction of nine thousand men in the work force. Ninety-seven million cubic yards of material removed to make the canal. Firelight stretching up the length of the channel as far as the eye can see..."

  History's being made, for sure. He hasn't exaggerated and it's impressive. The fires leap and light Federico's face, and the moment grips me. I can't help myself. I lean against him and he puts his arm around me and holds me like an old friend, an old lover, knowing what I feel.

  We watch the bonfires, our faces ruddy in the glow, the smell of dirt and creosote in the starry night. And when it's over, the fires burned out, he delivers me back home.

  We'll Always Have Panama

  One Hundred and Five

  We'll see the final canal events together. We actually plan it. We'll make small formal occasions of them, try to enjoy ourselves.

  It's what he wants, this courteous, civil separation so that it's a reasonably tolerable memory for me, for both of us.

  Actually, I hate it, the elaborate arrangement so I'll become accustomed to seeing him as "Harry's friend," Mother approving of him, all aboveboard, a public friendship. Does he think this will erase everything else?

  Now who's naive?

  For the lockage event in Gatun we're together again, and I do begin getting used to it—or I'm getting used to misery.

  We meet at about ten in the morning and find a spot in the crowd of people, several thousand clustered at the rim of the lock walls. We stand pressed together by the pack of observers and watch a sturdy seagoing tug, the Gatun, used for hauling mud barges in the Atlantic entrance, come plowing down toward us in the morning sunshine. I'm happy enough just to be with Federico. The tug is cleaned up and decorated with flags, ready to be the first vessel raised to the level of the lake.

  Men lean on the handrails on top of the closed lock gates.

  Colonel Goethals, in shirtsleeves with a furled umbrella, moves from point to point on top of a lock wall to see the proceedings at a perfect angle.

  A photographer stands suspended in a huge cement bucket from the cableway, his camera on a tripod aimed at the action, waiting for things to begin.

  Federico and I stand pressed against the rim of the wall, under my white parasol—Federico told me I'd need it. I know he likes the look of me holding it. I still dress to please him.

  Twice school friends pass and I introduce him as a friend of the family. They're impressed and go off whispering and giggling.

  "They seem nice enough," he says.

  Don't try to foist them off on me to take your place, Federico. This is hard enough.

  Then everything begins.

  The mob squeezes forward and we're pushed together even more.

  The valves are opened to fill the upper chamber, and instead of gasps of awe there's a wave of little cries.

  One Hundred and Six

  To everyone's surprise the swirling caramel water contains frogs.

  This triggers laughter and exclamations and clicking Kodaks, although the rushing movement of water couldn't possibly allow a clear shot of tumbling frogs, jumbled together as they are, legs outstretched, flailing, thrashing. Years of building and planning and importance attached to that moment, and the frogs steal the show.

  But the bosses don't mind. They laugh, too, and the upper lock fills as it's meant to, not a single hitch in the whole maneuver.

  Federico and I watch, mildly amused—pretty dull compared to our sultry afternoons in his cabin, food and talk and coupling everywhere, the slightly urgent awareness that Augusto will be walking in at any minute. Time is speeding us further away from those erotic hours.

  But at the moment, the crowd presses us together. There's nothing we can do about it. The feel of him is unbearably sensual to me. It must be to him, too. He looks away and acts as though the events at hand are what interest him, but I know that isn't true—I feel it.

  As the next set of culverts are opened, water comes boiling up from the bottom of the empty chamber, frog free. The spectacular flow of water is pressed by gravity alone from Lake Gatun into the immense concrete chamber. The drama is overwhelming, and the canal, the locks, Federico against me, and the feeling that my life is being taken away with the flow of water make it hard to breathe.

  I watch the display. Water in the last chamber rising slowly until it's finally even with the sea level outside, the huge gates splitting apart, wheeling slowly back into their niches in the walls.

  The tug proceeds through the locks step by step, the tremendous basins swirling with churned water released by the subterranean culverts raising it to the next level. The crowd doesn't part or ease its press against us. We're forced against each other until the last gates open in the last lock and the tug steams out onto the surface of Gatun Lake.

  There are cheers and movement toward the end of the lock and finally we're able to stand apart.

  I take some deep breaths. Federico is watching the closing gates and the people, avoiding my eyes but not moving away.

  "Nature didn't win after all," I say finally. A dry, impersonal comment.

  He smiles faintly. "We'll see."

  One Hundred and Seven

  Four days later.

  Mother and I are packing clothing and small articles, leaving out what we'll need for a few more weeks. It's already October and I'm missing the opening of Oberlin, the orientation, the preliminaries to college life, but it doesn't matter. Certainly not to me and not to Mother, who believes the final days of construction and the opening of the canal are far more educational than the first days at any college.

  "You'll have this for a lifetime," she says. (For the hundredth time.)

  I've been present at the first lockage and at the removal of the last machinery. There's only the grand official opening left, and that's in ten more days. I'll see it.

  I fold my clothes, the ones I'll be least likely to use again—jodhpurs and high-top shoes, just cleaned, maybe for the last time. Those early days with Harry w
ere only three years ago. Impossible. It's a lifetime.

  I'm walking toward the bed where the cases sit open and Mother is putting in a pair of patent pumps she's hardly worn when the first jolt hits.

  It's hard and sharp as though the house has been hit by a giant club. Two small figurines fall off Mother's shelf and she looks at me perplexed. We don't say a word, just stand looking at each other, then I believe one of us says, "What in the world..." and the next jolt hits harder and it's not a single blow.

  The house begins to jerk, side to side, hard and violent, and it doesn't stop. There is the noise of small items falling, Father's radio toppling, a heavy thumping sound, glasses hitting the kitchen floor, the entire contents of the cabinets flung onto the counter, a huge crash. Still it doesn't stop.

  The force increases. The noise is multiplied by noise in neighbors' houses and the cries of alarm and dogs barking. Mother holds on to the windowsill and I hold the door handle, but the door keeps swinging and I'm almost flung to the floor. Then gradually, mercifully, the shaking begins to lessen and finally it stops.

  Neither of us has screamed or cried out, but now with a tumble of words we rush downstairs:

  "Good Lord..."

  "Is it over?"

  "Watch where you walk."

  At the bottom of the steps the next violent shudder begins and it's more brutal than the others.

  One Hundred and Eight

  Books fly to the living-room floor.

  The breakfront tips over.

  More glass shatters.

  Rockers tumble on the porch.

  There's more noise in the kitchen—flatware slithering and falling.

  This time we both scream out as furniture slides by us and crashes into walls or against other furniture. Small articles are flung, skidding along the rug.

  The earth is shaking, a haphazard, violent shaking, and we hold on to doorjambs and at one point to the kitchen sink until we can work our way outside, where we watch as it goes on and on, one violent attack after another. We don't dare go back in.

  We cling to each other and call back and forth to our neighbors. It's surely the end of the world, the apocalypse, the colossal finish to everything—the canal, world trade, the earth and everybody on it. I must be weeping; I have tears on my face.

  Mother and I hold on to each other and clutch a young sapling. Some waves are mild, others are more severe, but finally it stops. There's a shuddering ongoing in the ground, but the great attacks are over, it seems, and we cautiously venture back inside.

  Electricity, water, and phones are out.

  Father arrives, comes rushing up the steps.

  "I'm not sure we should be inside," he says and huddles us together, and we've exchanged only a few words when it starts again and we rush out. It continues for an hour.

  An hour, with only short breaks between attacks.

  Having Father there comforts us but we're still helpless. There's no knowing when or if it will end. I'll write no essay on this. I'll never write again. I won't think of Federico. I'll do whatever I'm supposed to do, but please make it stop! I am afraid, really afraid.

  God really doesn't want the canal completed. How big a sign does it take? I suddenly believe in a very angry Almighty, or want to, because maybe he could make this end. The relentless shaking, his punishment and reminder that there's no knowing or predicting much of anything, is clear and we've got it now. Doesn't he see that? Let it end, please. But it doesn't.

  After a daylong hour, it finally seems to be over, really over. Minutes pass, then a quarter of an hour and another quarter of an hour, and we venture back inside.

  We examine the damage: broken radios, crushed china, every conceivable kind of destruction to the strewn contents of our lives. We're destroyed in Dayton and destroyed now in Panama. We cling to one another, weeping.

  One Hundred and Nine

  The next day the Record manages an edition in spite of damage to their presses. The needles of the Ancon seismograph were jolted off the paper, it says. Walls were cracked in Panama City, there were landslides in the interior, and a church was leveled before the hour ended. It's all we can think or talk about.

  Canal construction has already been thoroughly examined, and it's announced that the locks and Gatun Dam are unharmed—there's no damage to any part of the work. I'm stunned. It's a triumph of engineering and execution.

  Colonel Goethals notifies Washington. Washington sends congratulations. Nature has not prevailed. Nothing, not even acts of God, is on my side.

  "I want to leave tomorrow," Mother says. It's too much for her.

  An hour of total powerlessness is more than she's willing to risk again, and the word aftershocks is little comfort.

  There's hurried packing, quick goodbyes to neighbors, phone calls, and two days later she's on the Advance.

  I'm alone with no school and Father at work.

  I'll leave in two weeks, after the official opening. Father will come home two months later.

  They've begged him to stay permanently, offered him obscene amounts of money, but Mother's refused without expression or raised voice. He'll pack up everything that remains and be home by Christmas.

  There's no slowing any of this. It's a rush toward the end with everything on schedule. The earthquake has made no difference.

  The house is empty all day. Without school, I rattle around, read, take short walks.

  Water is let into Culebra Cut through six huge drainpipes in the earth dike at Gamboa, leaving only the midsection of the canal to be filled. I read about it in the Record, talk about it with Father. I read El Unico and talk about that news with no one.

  When the dike is blasted, the waterway will be open between the oceans, and that event, the final one, is now three days off.

  Father's been eating at the Canal Club. Sometimes I join him, usually not. I prefer to snack at home.

  One Hundred and Ten

  Cool air slides up the hill as evening falls. I approach Federico's cabin and I'm not sure what I'm doing.

  I mount the steps and see him exactly as I saw him the first time with Harry: a foot propped against the chair beside him, book in hand, reading, intent, alone.

  Everything looks the same. There's no earthquake damage and his life is like it was before I came into it. I wonder if he's achieved that in his mind, too, if I'm erased there. I don't think so. I don't want to think so.

  I step to the screened door and he looks up.

  "My books are going to be too heavy to take back—do you want them?"

  "Come in," he says.

  I go in feeling like the stranger I was that first time with Harry, nervous and jittery. Of course, he's calm and pleasant.

  "Is your house all right?" he says.

  "Yes, fine. We're all fine."

  "Did it frighten you?"

  I nod and smile.

  "Me, too." Nice of him to say that.

  Nice. Everything nice.

  I want to say, We made this cabin ours, didn't we? Burned it up ... or down. Shouldn't we be talking about that?

  I'll never feel this way again, I'm pretty sure, and yet all he says is "Sit down." So I do and I say, "I want to travel as light as possible, so books have to be left behind. Would you like to have any of them?"

  He doesn't seem to register what I'm saying. He's looking right into me. I fumble on, fill the air with self-conscious words. "I didn't bring sweets this time..."

  That was wrong, meant to make him remember our erotic history, but it's inappropriate and I want to die on the spot and he saves me.

  "I can't take the books," he says.

  "Ah."

  "I'll be leaving in a few months myself. Can't you give them to the school?"

  "Sure. That's what I'll do."

  Okay, that's done. An awkward silence.

  I ask him, "Are they using you now? Are you working?"

  "We're putting dynamite in Gamboa dike, tons of it. When it blows..." He shrugs.

  That's
right. Shrug. It'll be over. Some final work for you; I'll be gone. Doesn't this bother you?

  He finishes the thought. "It will be all over. Oceans connected."

  "The Spanish Church is going to be very angry," I say. "I hope so," he says and smiles.

  Not even a little anger at the Church. I hate it. We're so broken apart.

  Our polite smiles fade. Mostly it's sad between us, even for him—I can see that. It's grim and awful, the last we'll have.

  Finally I say, "Thanks." I don't know what for.

  My voice is strong and I don't know where that comes from. I stand to leave. He takes my hand. (Now it's electric.) Half shake, half warm connection, very civilized. Then he lets go.

  To the door and out and he comes down the steps with me. At the bottom he gives me a smile and a nod, and as though to a child he says, "It's all right."

  No, it isn't. I am righteously furious at him. I could attack him, scream and call him names with tears spurting out of my eyes. I'd cover him with my tears if I could—that would do it. That would make me feel better.

  He says it again: "It's really all right."

  Am I a dog to be put to sleep? He comforts me as if he were my owner.

  I calm down but feel the tears rising. I turn quickly and start walking.

  Federico watches me leave for the last time. I'm wrecked and don't look back because I can't keep from crying and I don't want him to see my weakness. I hold my head high.

  I want some dignity in the end.

  The Seventh Wonder of the World

  One Hundred and Eleven

  A newspaperman dreams up the idea: A signal relayed by telegraph wire from Washington to New York to Galveston to Panama. It will be almost instantaneous and President Wilson will press the button that opens the canal. Dramatic and plenty newsworthy.

  People gather from all over the United States, from Europe and Asia, from all over the Zone. All of us board the labor train for Gamboa dike. Father has left in the early-morning hours to help prepare the auspicious event. I follow about noon.