Pacifica

by Jill Zeller

  When he was gone, Francisco Robles came near me. He smelled of sweat and leather, and his eyes—his brother’s eyes, golden—seemed to spear me. As if trying to paralyze me, like a cobra is said to do.

  His hand came up and I flinched, but he merely ran his rough palm along my head, fingering my curly short hair.

  “Que lastisma. Su hermoso cabello se ha ido.”

  A quiver shot through me, that I tried to still. He can’t know how afraid I am.

  Pressing against me, his belt digging into me, he kissed me, full on the lips.

  Pulling back, I tore at him with my hand, and when he pulled away, I leveled a harsh slap directly at his chin, numbing my palm.

  Then my other hand was up, and I flailed at him, kicked, screaming curses I didn’t know I even knew.

  His smirk stayed on his face. He seemed to be enjoying my rage. But when I raised my knee, aiming straight for his groin, his hand, like a heavy club, slammed into the side of my face; burning stars burst inside my temple.

  A pale ceiling, barred with dark beams, rotated above me as I lay on the hard floor, the pain in my cheek quickly numbing. A high whine faded from my left ear. I saw a chair leg, grabbed it, pulled myself onto my side.

  A leather-clad knee came to the floor before me. Seizing my arm, Robles rose, jerked me to my feet. Held each upper arm with squeezing hands burning bruises into my skin.

  He kissed me again. My muscles felt like wet paper. I could barely move, kept my lips pressed shut, even when his tongue tried to pry them open.

  Whispered something in Spanish into my ear, soft and urgent. Something, I thought, expressive, pleading.

  What does it matter? He’s going to kill me anyway.

  But I really couldn’t believe that. A spark deep inside me knew he wasn’t really going to kill me, to kill us.

  But he had killed before. He had killed Hammer and he had killed poor Señor Beltran.

  Pinching my jaw between his thumb and forefinger, he gave me an order, something about not trying to escape, I thought. Releasing me, he scraped a chair across the dirt floor and sat me in it.

  At the doorway he barked an order. I heard voices, horses galloping away. Shadows crept into the room bringing with them a shivering cold. A great weariness crept over me, led by the pain in my cheek and hip.

  How am I ever going to get out of this, unless I let him have his way and talk him into letting me go?

  It might work, I thought; if I could somehow convince him that, if he released us, the captured Americans, the glory would be his. He could show himself to be better than his brother, if that was what this was all about.

  But what of poor Milo, and Mr. Lowe? Were they too lying dead out there in the plaza beside Señor Beltran? They had to be alive. They were too valuable to Robles and his gang of traitors.

  Shivering, I looked around, fear pooling in my gut. A door in the back wall, shut. Three tables, a scattering of chairs. A bar of stone and behind it shelves bare of bottles. Probably the soldiers had drunk it all. Night trimmed the place with shadow. My hip burned as if it were on fire and my cheek throbbed.

  What have you gotten yourself into now, Ondine?

  Major Robles stood in the doorway, his back to me, and laughed. Turning, he came toward me, a knife in his hand.

  “You don’t want to kill me.” The words fountained out of my mouth. “I’m—we’re—much more valuable alive. You know that. A ransom. Lots of money to be had. Lots of pesos.”

  Major Robles’ eyebrows came together, and his head moved side to side. With his knife, he seized the strap of my portfolio and sliced through it, pulling the bag toward him.

  I sagged back in the chair, dots wheeling before my eyes. Under my ribs, my heart skipped wildly.

  Unbuckling the strap, Francisco Robles pulled my sketch books out and thumbed through them.

  I couldn’t see which ones he lingered over, but there were a few. After a few moments of this, he thrust the book at me, picked up the satchel from the floor where it had fallen, and found me a pencil.

  Sitting down, he leaned back in a chair, legs stretched before him in his leather boots and spears, and waved his hands across his chest.

  “Dibúja me.” Draw me.

  My arms aching, I opened to a blank page, took the pencil. My lower jaw trembled and I tried to stop it; nausea sank hot and heavy in my gut, but I drew him.

  Mustache, unruly curls of dark hair, stubble glazing his cheeks. He rested one elbow on the table, arm stretched, hand of very long fingers drumming thoughtfully. He was broader than his brother, and taller, I had noticed.

  His face, when I had done, pooling shadows of heavy charcoal around him, was a study of fierce intelligence, quick, ambitious. But without his brother’s considered discipline.

  The drawing, in fact, helped me, too. The pain in my hip and cheek receded, strength found its way into my muscles, and hunger replaced the nausea. When I was done, I showed him the work.

  Eyebrows lowered, he frowned. Then a smile poked at one corner of his mouth.

  Vain, I thought, a very vain man.

  He got to his feet, laid his portrait down on the table. Looked at me, golden eyes capturing the glint of the lamp. My nausea returned, a flood of it, and I swallowed, my mouth like burnt toast. He took my arm and pulled me; I fought him, tried to rake my fingers on his hand but he gave me a look, raised his hand. I didn’t want another fist in my face.

  It was a small room, a storeroom perhaps—there was no bed there, but sacks of grain served as he shoved me backward, then gripped me in arms of steel, pressed his mouth against mine; one hand pulled at my trousers.

  This was a thing I had known would happen, somehow. From the very first time he stared at me, holding his rifle. That nothing in the world would save me from it. My throat tightened around a flood of tears but I closed my eyes, tried not to feel his hands, the cold touch of his knife against my skin as he sliced through my leather trousers.

  I was stiff, but limp at the same time. I didn’t resist. It was if he knew his brother had had me, and he had to have me too. The woven sackcloth rubbed against my skin as he thrust inside me, not kissing me now, just beating into me as if with a fist.

  Night flooded into the tiny room, through the kinked door, leaving only a dim streak of lamplight, broken only by grunts and pain and the running of rats.

  I

  The call of geese woke me. Somehow I had fallen out of bed and lay on the floor of my bedroom. I had hurt my hip, somehow, in the fall, tangled in remnants of a nightmare deep in disgust and fear.

  And cold, deep in my bones, muscles layers of ice enclosing rods of steel.

  The wall I saw, as I lay there, was not my wall at home. And the smell was not the smell of gardenias but of rotting callas and the sour musk of rodents.

  Then the gunfire began.

  I lay still, listening. I had heard the sound before. It was close, mere yards away. Shouts, pounding footsteps. Memories hit me hard, of Francisco Robles’ hands squeezing my upper arms, his lips pressed against mine, and the dry pain of his entering me and pounding, pounding—

  I sat up, pulled my arms around my body, held myself close. I tried to pull on my trousers but a long slit prevented them from closing. Sickness welled into my throat and I vomited nothing onto the dusty floor.

  A bullet hit the outside wall with a dull pop.

  You will not sit here and be killed, Ondine.

  There was no window here, in the cantina’s larder. Getting slowly to my feet, I stretched out my aching body. My hip burned; I felt the throbbing lump on my temple where he had hit me. Between my legs I felt bruised and swollen, but I was safe here. Then the shooting stopped.

  Whatever it was, it was over.

  Feeling my way along the walls, I found the wooden door. There was no handle but the door opened outward as I pushed.

  A cut-metal kerosene lamp stood on the bar, sending gold light across the empty room. Tables and chairs stood where they had been left. T
he American burlesque poster of the Casino Theater in New York still adorned the wall behind the bar. The place felt very cold.

  Limping to the lantern, I picked it up. I held my trousers closed with the other. The lantern was the only weapon I could think of—at least I could hurl it into Francisco Robles’ face if he came near me again.

  I shrank behind the bar at movement near the cantina doorway, holding my lantern high. A curse, then a shuffle; three men entered, followed by several others.

  Jesus Robles saw me straight away. His eyes narrowed and I knew he knew what his brother had done to me. Beside him stood his brother, Francisco, blood coursing down the side of his face. I recognized the third man as Uncle Amado, a rigor of fierceness in the lines of his face, white mustache crusted with blood as well.

  And another, moving slowly through the doorway, a scarf covering her nose and mouth.

  Paloma de Castro.

  They shoved Major Robles before them; he tripped, but righted himself. His hands were tied behind him.

  A moment later Milo came through the door, Mr. Lowe leaning heavily on him, a blotch of blood staining his linen suit from his left chest all the way down to his thigh.

  Easing Mr. Lowe onto a chair near the tables, Milo came to me, lines digging deep into the skin around his eyes. Shrugging off his woolen coat, he draped it over me. He had to force down my arm as I held the lantern. Then he took my arm and escorted me to a chair beside Mr. Lowe.

  Colonel Robles’ golden eyes glittered with hatred at his brother who stood, chin raised in defiance, in the center of the cantina, my tin lantern the only light in the room.

  Pain grayed Mr. Lowe’s face but he gave me a smile. “This revolutionary life is a bit overrated, wouldn’t you say?”

  Taking his hand, I kissed it. My body wanted to fold into itself onto the chair next to Mr. Lowe, but I resisted, standing, defiant in my own way, to show Robles that he had not beaten me.

  When the shouting began I had no trouble understanding what was said.

  “Worse than the lowest dog from hell. Scum, I am ashamed you carry my name. You have rubbed our family in the dirt, in the shit, disgraced us before God and the leaders of the revolution!”

  It went on and on, Colonel Robles standing inches from his brother, his face scarlet with fury, spitting. Francisco Robles did not flinch, but waited, and I could see the bitter loathing in his eyes.

  Then it was Francisco’s turn.

  “Big brother, so fine, so superior, knows what is good for everyone.” He leaned forward. “Also has to take everything for his own, the education in America, money and rank. And the woman. Takes the woman for his own, away from me. What I had, you had to have.”

  He laughed, and I wondered who the woman was, this woman who was stolen; was it Paloma, still silent in the doorway, several feet from everyone in her raider clothing, saying, revealing nothing?

  Now Francisco spat again, and the spittle landed near Milo’s boot. “So I took your woman. I knew you wanted her. The American. I took her. You were going to steal the glory again. Sending these back to America to tell those fat politicians how wonderful you are. Better, I thought to kill them all, and blame you for it. Bring the American army and navy here to wipe you away like the mud you are and the revolution would belong to the Villistas, who know how to fight to win.”

  Moving swiftly, Uncle Amado struck Francisco with the butt of his carbine. Major Robles crashed to the floor at my feet. It took all the strength I had remaining not to crush my foot into his eyes.

  I could see him clearly, lighted in gray as the room grew lighter; looking up, through the open doorway I could see a rosy light above the village walls.

  Colonel Robles jerked his chin, and Uncle Amado hauled Francisco to his feet. Silence, except for Francisco’s panting breaths, filled the little cantina. Then Colonel Robles did a shocking thing.

  He took his brother’s face in his hands and kissed him full on the lips. Then he turned his back, walked out the door.

  Then I saw Francisco’s first and only blanching look of fear. It came, went, then his nasty smile returned. Defiant, disrespectful. Uncle Amado took him brutally by the arm and pushed him forward.

  Paloma watched them go, turned away, leaned her hands on the bar.

  I knew what would happen. I knew it more surely than the string of geese crossing the rosy dawn, calling, calling. I started to follow, but Mr. Lowe weakly grabbed my hand.

  “Don’t, Nola. You don’t want to see this.”

  But I did.

  They stood him against the village wall. He refused the blindfold. Colonel Robles lined up six soldiers on the plaza, yards away from Francisco Robles, and they raised their guns. It was over in seconds, a puff of smoke and the pop of gunfire; the smell of sulfur burned my nostrils as I stood against the cantina wall.

  I was certain, more than anything, that Francisco Robles stared straight at me just before he died.

  O

  The mountains shrank away, volcanic peaks tipped with snow, sides scored by green barrancas. The train moved quickly, as if running, escaping the deadly no-man’s-land between the Federales and the rebels.

  The villagers had helped us down the mountain, leading our mules along a switchback path. Behind me, Colonel Robles and Paloma de Castro had long vanished into the crags and pine, aiming for Yautepec, Zapata’s refuge. Before mounting my mule, dressed in fresh calzones and wool serape, I was approached by Jesus Robles.

  It was the same cold, rosy dawn of his brother’s execution. Francisco’s body lay against the wall where he had fallen, rivulets of blood darkening the dry stone. Colonel Robles wasted no time in sending us back. My drawings had vanished—there was no time to look for them. Mr. Lowe still had his notes, and he lay on a makeshift stretcher, eyes closed, mouth rigored with pain, skin pale, still bleeding.

  Colonel Robles kissed my hand. “There is no need, Señorita Lynch, for Señor Lowe to tell this part of the story. This is my personal history, not that of the revolution.”

  It was no matter. I had pieced it together but would not tell what I knew to Mr. Lowe. Even down to how Jesus Robles had come to have a sword wound in his side.

  Paloma de Castro did not come near me. She stood, silent and stiff, near the town gates, as she had at the hacienda gates, and watched. I could not imagine what was going through her mind, and I hoped she would survive this brutal war.

  Uncle Amado took off his hat and bowed to me. And oddly, the young Nicanor, the hare-lipped boy, was to accompany us to the village. Even though he had joined Francisco’s traitorous band, he was forgiven, somehow. Perhaps, I thought he had been sent to spy, and that was how Colonel Robles learned where we had been captured.

  And so it was, when I turned to look back, I saw no one watching us go. The village walls rose stony and silent, and above them, garbed in a stole of fog, the mountain waited.

  N

  In Mexico City we were cared for and housed by the United States embassy envoy. Medical care for Mr. Lowe, clean rooms and clothing for myself and Milo. A deep sorrow filled me, and I found it difficult to move or speak for the three days we waited for a train to take us to Vera Cruz.

  Milo sat with me, ready to leap up to get me whatever I seemed to need, even before I knew I needed it. When I looked at him I saw confusion in his eyes, same as mine. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Our purposes had been stolen by the rebels, trampled and killed.

  My grand tour had ended, perhaps that day when I stood on the sand with a rifle pointed at my head. Milo’s dreams of becoming a doctor, mentored by Dr. Doors, seemed to have melted away. We knew Mexico City to be a place full of beauty and color, singing and hot, savory food, but to us it was draped in gray, like the volcanoes in the distances to the west and south.

  Again, oddly, it was Nicanor who saved us from our depressive gloom. He came to see us one day, holding his sombrero in his hand, dressed in a borrowed striped shirt and linen trousers. Milo and I were in the Embassy courtyar
d—the diplomats discouraged us from leaving, worried that we might be kidnapped again.

  It was another heavy, hot day. The sky took on the color of yellow mists. The Embassy courtyard was dim and boring, with barbered shrubs and straight shaved pathways, so dead of the riotous color and odor of Paloma’s hacienda garden.

  I paced. Pacing helped me to not remember Francisco Robles’ eyes and his bleeding corpse and the nightmare of what he had done to me. Milo sat stiff and still. The officious secretary came to find us, and with a disapproving sniff told us a Mexican peasant wanted to see us.

  After demanding that the secretary stay to interpret, I welcomed Nicanor and asked for lemonade.

  Nicanor’s tough defiance was gone. He covered his upper lip and teeth with the back of his hand and swallowed.

  And he wanted, it seemed, to speak to Milo.

  “Señor, you said you know a doctor who can fix—this.” His hand fluttered near his mouth. Shuffling in his trouser pocket, he brought out a small leather pouch. “I have money. They say you will go to the United States in a few days. I can pay my way; you could help me with papers, and I can pay the doctor—”

  Milo’s mouth was open, but he didn’t seem to be able to think of anything to say.

  “Of course,” I said, without thinking, without realizing the implications of such an offer. Nicanor, I believed, had helped to save our lives. He deserved this.

  Staring at me, Milo nodded, but confusion lined the skin around his eyes.

  And the look on Nicanor’s face as the secretary told him what I had said—although I think he knew and was hearing it confirmed—was worth any penny of worry.

  My shoulders relaxed, and I felt my body straighten; the tight aching muscles of my stomach and chest stretched and breathed. Here was something I could do, a goal, and a promise to keep.

  Mexico City

  My journey had taken a wrong turn, but I found my way back. Mexico City to Vera Cruz by train, then sailing to Houston. There would be the train to New York for Milo and Nicanor, and the train to Los Angeles for me.