My father stared at the gun for a moment, then at the general. He took a deep breath, and turned to look at the men standing against the wall. “No, General,” he said softly. “I am a man of law, not of war. The hurt is mine but not the vengeance.”
The general nodded and walked down the steps from the galería onto the hard, sun-baked earth of the courtyard. Holding the machine gun loosely in his hand, he strolled toward the eleven men. He stopped in front of the first in the line, the man who had raped and killed my sister.
“You, García,” he said quietly, “you I made sergeant. You should have known better.”
The man didn’t speak. He stared back into the general’s eyes without fear. He knew there would be no mercy and he didn’t expect any.
A knife flashed in the general’s hand as he walked down the line. As he stepped away we could see what he had done. The rope belt holding up each man’s pantalones had been cut and they fell to the ground exposing their white lower bodies and legs. Slowly the general moved back until he was ten paces away. He started to raise the gun.
I was staring at García. The memory of him poised over my sister exploded back into my mind. I screamed and ran down from the galería. “Let me, General! Let me kill him!”
The general turned in surprise.
“Dax! Dax! Come back!” my father called after me.
But I didn’t hear. I ran to the general. “Let me!” I cried.
“Dax!” my father shouted.
The general looked back at the galería. “It is justice,” he said.
“But he’s a child!” my father replied. “What could he know of justice?”
“This day he has already learned of death,” the general said. “He has learned to hate, he has learned to fear. Let him now learn to kill or it will rankle forever like a cancer in his soul.”
My father fell silent. His dark face was somber as he slowly turned away. “It is in his blood,” he said sadly. “The cruelty of the conquistadores.”
I knew what he meant. Even then I knew. The blood that came from my mother, who could trace her family back to the Spaniards who came with Cortez.
The general knelt down. “Come here, boy.”
I walked over to him. He rested the gun across his forearm and guided my hand so that my finger was on the trigger. He held the recoil barrel in the crook of his elbow. “Now,” he said, “look down the top of the barrel. When you see it is aimed at their cojones pull the trigger. I will do the rest.”
I squinted along the blue metal barrel. I pointed the gun at García. I could see his white legs and hairy belly just below the end of the short metal barrel. I squeezed the trigger.
The noise exploded in my ears and the white body shattered into a thousand tiny bloody fragments. I felt the general sweep the gun down the line. And everywhere it pointed was white flesh dissolving into torn and bleeding flesh. I felt the trigger turn hot under my finger but there was an exultation and excitement in me and I wouldn’t have let it go even if it had burned my fingers.
Suddenly the clip ran out and the gun was silent. I looked up at the general in bewilderment.
“It is over, niño.”
I turned to stare at the eleven men. They were sprawled on the ground, their faces tortured in a last frozen agony, their eyes staring unseeingly up at the white sun.
I began to tremble. “Are they dead?” I asked.
The general nodded. “They are dead.”
I shivered now as if the day had turned into ice. Then I began to cry. I turned and ran toward my father. “Papá! Papá!” I cried. “They are dead. Now will Mamá and sister be alive again?”
3
Diogenes Alejandro Xenos. The name was too long for a little boy. At first my mother used to call me Dio. But my father became angry. He thought it was sacrilegious. Somewhere along the line it became Dax. I think it was La Perla who first called me that. The Greek sound of Diogenes was too much for her Indian tongue.
My father was born in the coastal city of Curatu, of a Greek sailor and a Negro woman who ran a small restaurant down near the wharfs where sailors used to eat when they came ashore. I remember once seeing a daguerreotype of my grandparents that my father showed to me.
Even seated, it was apparent that my grandmother was taller than my grandfather, who was standing beside and slightly behind her chair. My grandmother’s face seemed very black and she looked into the camera with a kind of poise that indicated an inner strength and purpose. My grandfather had the eyes of a dreamer and a poet, which indeed he had been before he went to sea.
My father had his mother’s complexion and his father’s gentle eyes. He had loved both his parents very much. Proudly he would tell me that his mother was descended from Bantu princes who had been brought here in slavery and how her father had indentured himself for life after the slaves were liberated, so that she could get whatever small education was available to her.
Jaime Xenos. My father had been named after his maternal grandfather. When my grandmother became too big with child to run the small restaurant, my grandfather took over. But it wasn’t for him. Before my father was a month old the small restaurant, and all my grandmother had worked for and accumulated, was sold.
My grandfather, who wrote a beautiful script, then became a clerk to the alcalde to the wharf district, and they moved to a small house about two kilometers from the port, where they kept a few chickens and could look out at the blue Caribbean and watch the ships that came in and out of the port.
There wasn’t much money but my grandparents were very happy. My father was their only child and they had great plans for him. His father had taught him to read and write by the time he was six, and through the alcalde was able to get him into the Jesuit school the children of the officials and aristócratas attended.
In return for this honor my father had to begin his day at four thirty in the morning. His chores were to empty the slops and clean the rooms before classes began. These tasks extended some three hours after classes ended at six o’clock, plus any others the teachers or staff desired.
By the time he had reached sixteen, my father had learned all that the school had to offer. He had inherited the stature of his mother’s family, being almost six feet tall, and his father’s inquisitive mind. He was by far the brightest student in all the school.
A great conferencia was held between the Jesuit brothers who ran the school and my grandfather, at the end of which it was decided that my father should be sent to the University to read for the law. Since his father’s salary as a clerk was too meager to pay for this, it was further agreed that he would be sponsored by the Jesuits out of the school’s limited scholarship fund. But even this would not have been enough to cover the costs of tuition had not the alcalde, for whom my grandfather worked, agreed to make up the difference in return for five years’ indenture once my father finished school.
Thus it was that he first began the practice of law without salary in the office of the alcalde where his father was a clerk, working in the dank, dark outer room perched high on a stool copying in his flowing hand the early briefs and summations my father prepared for his master. It was there he was working at the age of twenty-three, in the third year of his indenture, when the plague came to Curatu.
It arrived on a ship with clean white sails, a ship that sailed almost jauntily atop the crests of the waves that capped the clear blue waters of the harbor. It was hidden in the secret darkness of the ship’s holds, and within three days almost the entire city of three thousand souls was dead or dying.
That first morning when the alcalde came in my father was at his desk on the far side of the room in which he worked. The older man was visibly agitated but my father did not ask what had upset him. It was not the thing to do with his excellency. He bent his head over the law books and pretended not to notice.
The alcalde came up behind him. He peered down over my father’s shoulder to see what he was doing. After a moment he spoke. “Jaime?”
“Have you ever been to Bandaya?”
“No, excelencia.”
“There is a matter there,” the alcalde said, “a question of land rights. My good friend Rafael Campos has a dispute with the local authorities.”
My father waited patiently.
“I should go myself,” the alcalde said, “but there are pressing matters here…” His voice trailed off.
My father did not answer. He knew what was going on in the office; there were no really important matters. But Bandaya was six hundred kilometers away, high in the mountains, and travel was arduous. Besides, there were rumors of bandoleros roaming the hills, waylaying travelers.
“It is a very important matter,” the alcalde said, “and Señor Campos is an old friend. I would want him to have every assurance.” He paused for a moment and looked down at my father. “I think it would be better if you could leave this morning. I have arranged for you to have one of the horses from my stable.”
“Sí, excelencia,” my father said, getting up from his chair. “I will go home and get a few things together. I will be ready to leave in an hour.”
“You know about the matter?”
My father nodded. “Seguramente, excelencia. I wrote the petition at your request. It was two months ago.”
The alcalde sighed in relief. “Of course. I had forgotten.” He hadn’t forgotten; he knew that every brief and petition that had been issued from his office the past few years had been written by my father. “You will express to Señor Campos my profound regrets at being unable to come personally?”
“Seguramente, excelencia,” my father reassured him. He then went into the outer office, where his father sat on a high stool copying a judgment.
“Qué pasa?” his father asked.
“Vengo a Bandaya, Papá.”
My grandfather smiled. “‘Stá bueno. It is a great opportunity. Señor Campos is a very important man. I am very proud of you.”
“Gracias, Papá. I go now. Adios, Papá.”
“Vaya con Dios, Jaime,” his father said, turning back to his work.
My father took the horse from the alcalde’s stable to go home to get his clothes. That way he would not have to walk the two kilometers back to town.
His mother was in the front yard hanging out the washing. She looked up as he tied the horse to the fence. Quickly he explained to her where he was going. Like his father she was thrilled and happy over his great opportunity. Anxiously she helped him select his two best shirts, which she packed carefully with his best suit in an old worn travel case.
They came out into the yard again just as a ship with sparkling white sails came past the breakwater into the harbor. She stopped for a moment and looked at it across the water. “Mira!” She pointed.
Jaime smiled. His mother had told him about the ships. About how when she was a little girl her father used to take her up on the hill so they could watch the ships coming into the harbor. And about how he used to say that one day a big ship with white sparkling sails would come and take them home, home to a freedom where a man did not have to bend his knee for his daily bread.
Her father had long since died but she still had the dream. Only her dream was now for her son. It was he who would lead them to freedom. With his strength and with his knowledge.
“Grandpa would have liked that ship,” her son said.
She laughed as they walked toward the horse, which was nibbling at the soft grass near the fence. “You are my ship with white sails,” she replied.
My father kissed her and mounted the horse. He started up the road behind the house. At the crest of the hill, he wheeled the horse around and looked down. His mother was still standing in the yard, looking after him. He waved to her. She raised her hand. He sensed rather than saw her smile, her bright white teeth. He waved again and turned his horse back toward the road.
As he did he could see the ship heeling toward the quays, the sailors up in the masts running like crazy little ants. The white top gallant was the first to come billowing down, then the foremast, and as he turned to ride away, the ship came easing sideways against the docks, the rest of its sails shuddering down, leaving a tracery of towering masts.
When he returned to Curatu two months later, the ship was still against the dock, a burned black splintering mass of wood that had once proudly sailed the oceans and had finally brought the black death to the city. Of his father and mother he found no trace.
***
When a servant first brought word that a stranger was riding down from the mountain toward the hacienda, Señor Rafael Campos took his binoculars and went out on the galería. Through the glasses he saw a dark man dressed in dusty city clothes astride a dark pony threading its way carefully down the tricky mountainside path. He nodded to himself with satisfaction. The servants were alert. One could not be too careful when at any moment the bandoleros might come sweeping down from the mountains.
He peered again through the glasses. The stranger was riding very carefully. Señor Campos put down the glasses and took his gold watch from his pocket. It was ten thirty in the morning; it would be an hour and a half before the stranger could reach the hacienda. It would be almost time for lunch. He clapped his hands sharply.
“Set another place for lunch,” he told the servant. Then he went inside to complete his toilet.
It was almost two hours before my father reached the hacienda. Don Rafael was seated in the shade on the galería. He was dressed in the immaculate white suit of the aristócrata, and the ruffles of his white silk shirt and the flowing black tie only served to accentuate the thin delicate structure of his face. His mustache was thin and finely cropped in the latest Spanish fashion and his hair and eyebrows held only the faintest tinge of gray.
Don Rafael rose to his feet as my father dismounted. With satisfaction he noted that my father’s suit was clean and brushed, and that his boots were highly polished. My father, aware of the quick appraisal, was glad he had stopped at a stream to make himself presentable.
Señor Campos came to the head of the stairs as my father walked up them. “Bienvenido, señor,” he called politely in the custom of the hills.
“Mil gracias, señor,” my father answered. “Have I the honor of addressing his excellency Don Rafael Campos?”
The older man nodded.
My father bowed. “Jaime Xenos, de la oficina del alcalde, a su servicio.”
Don Rafael smiled. “Come in,” he said, extending his hand. “You are an honored guest in my house.”
“It is my honor, sir.”
Don Rafael clapped his hands. A servant came running. “A cool drink for our guest,” he said. “See to his horse.”
He led my father back into the shade of the galería and bade him be seated. As my father sat down near the small table he caught a glimpse of the rifle and two pistols that were placed on the floor next to his host’s chair.
The older man caught the glance. “In the mountains one cannot be too careful.”
“I understand,” my father said.
The servant came with the drinks and the two men toasted each other, then my father made his apologies for the alcalde. But Señor Campos would hear no more of the apologies. He was more than satisfied with my father; he was certain that the entire matter would be concluded with satisfaction. Then they went inside to lunch and afterward Don Rafael bade my father go to his room and rest, for there was time enough tomorrow to discuss their business. Today his guest must rest and make himself at home. So it wasn’t until dinner that night that my father actually met my mother.
But from the window above the galería, María Elisabeth Campos had watched the rider come up to the pórtico. The sounds of conversation came clearly up to her through the still quiet of the afternoon.
“He is very tall and handsome, no?” a voice asked from behind her.
María Elisabeth turned. Doña Margaretha, her aunt, who had served as the dueña of
the household since the death of her sister, stood behind her.
María Elisabeth blushed. “But he is very dark.”
“Tiene sangre negra,” the aunt replied. “But it does not matter. It is said they make wonderful husbands and lovers.” She leaned past her niece and looked out the open window. “Mucho hombre.”
The sound of Don Rafael’s voice, suggesting that his guest rest until dinner, floated up to them.
Doña Margaretha pulled her head back. She looked at her niece. “Now you must go to bed and rest all afternoon,” she said. “It would never do to have our guest see you all flushed and tired from the heat of the day.”
María Elisabeth protested but did as she was told. She too had been very impressed with the tall dark stranger and wanted to look her best for him.
At last the drapes were drawn and she lay stretched out alone in the cool dimness. She did not sleep. He was an attorney, she had heard him say. That meant he had polish and manners. Not like the sons of the farmers and plantation owners who lived around the hacienda. They were all so coarse and common, more interested in their guns and horses than in the polite conversations of society.
Still, she would soon have to make her choice. She was past seventeen and her father was pressing her. Another year and she would be classified as an old maid, condemned to a life like Doña Margaretha’s. And even this might be denied her, for she was an only child with no sisters or brothers whose children she could take care of.
It would be nice to be married to an attorney, she thought vaguely as she drifted off into sleep, to live in the city where one met all kinds of interesting and different people.
And my father was very much intrigued by the slim intense young girl who came down to dinner dressed in a flowing white dress that served to accentuate her huge dark eyes and red lips. He sensed rather than saw the wiry body and full breasts beneath her bodice.
María Elisabeth, for her part, was mostly silent through dinner. She listened with half an ear to the familiar voice of her father and delighted in the soft slurring southern overtones of their guest’s voice. The speech of the coast was much more gentle than that of the hills.
The Adventurers Page 3