Laura Restrepo - Isle of Passion

He was trying to think, he needed to understand, but, like a clock without a spring, his mind was not responding. It had stopped. Was the situation as drastic as his father-in-law had made it appear? Was it a black-and-white choice — either to leave now or to stay forever? — or were there intermediate shades that Don Félix as an anguished father could not perceive? Was Huerta’s downfall and the collapse of the federal army imminent? Don Félix had always favored the rebels and perhaps that made him overestimate their importance. Or was he right this time? Even so, the foreign invasion had changed everything; it had to, and internal differences would end at the threat from the outside. Wouldn’t they? That man Carranza would offer a truce to General Huerta while they fought the invader together. Or would he? If the enemy made the federal army, his army, surrender, what role would he have in Clipperton? Why must he stay if Avalos and all the others went their own ways? However, it is the rats that abandon a sinking ship. Arnaud had no information, and his head was spinning in search of inspiration. He needed to guess right. He read and reread the letter and the clippings, looking for a solution in every phrase, in every word.

Images were flashing fast in his mind, driving him to despair. Two were much more insistent than the others. They were contradictory, irreconcilable; one he would have to reject because there was no room for both, and his head was about to crack like the crabs he was stepping on.

In one he saw Alicia crying and his children abandoned, wild, badly undernourished, and sick.

“I cannot stay here,” he said out loud. “I cannot stay here.”

In the other he saw himself a few years back, facing the blackened walls of the prison at Tlatelolco and making his solemn promise that “the next time I will stand firm, come what may, next time I will prevail. Better dead, a thousand times better, than being humiliated again.”

“I cannot leave,” he contradicted himself. “I cannot leave.”

He looked for Cardona. He found him standing in the shed, trying to take his first steps using two pieces of wood as crutches.

“Cardona, sit down. And think carefully about what I am going to tell you.”

“The gringo ship arrived to rescue the Dutchmen, right?” asked the lieutenant.

“Yes.”

“Then the four on the little boat made it to Acapulco—”

“Yes, but only three of them got there.”

“That was not a bad deal then. Who didn’t make it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Another Flying Dutchman who eats melted iron and drinks bile.”

“May he rest in peace.”

“Ramón, tell me, do you really believe that someone who dies like that, without a Christian burial, can ever find peace? I would not like to be floating about for all eternity.”

“Who knows? But there is a serious matter here, Secundino. Listen to this.”

Ramón read his father-in-law’s letter, and then the news about the invasion. Cardona did not utter a word until he finished.

“Twenty-one-gun salute? Sure. Right away. Just give me a minute—”

“The captain of the Cleveland is also offering to take us to Acapulco. You already know what my father-in-law says — If not now, when? On the other hand, those who are rescuing us here are the same ones who invaded over there. It’s not an easy thing to decide, and I would like to know your opinion.”

Cardona scratched his head.

“What could happen if we leave? Wait — I mean for a few days, in order to make contact with Colonel Avalos, or with someone who could tell us what’s what, who could tell us what the plan is. Hey, we cannot continue the way we are. This looks like an orphanage.”

“And if this maneuver is just an enemy trap?”

“It looks more like a friendly trap. Besides, which enemy? The gringos or the French? Aren’t we supposed to fight against the French to keep from losing this island?”

“From what I see, now it’s the gringos we are fighting against in order not to lose all of Mexico. I don’t know, Cardona,” he said in a firmer voice and straightening his back. “However, I feel it’s our duty to stay in honor of the hundred and twenty-six Veracruz patriots.”

“Well, yes,” Cardona offered after some thought. “But Veracruz was invaded, and Clipperton was not. ..”

“But we don’t know what might happen.”

“No, we don’t. But there isn’t much we could do anyhow.”

“We could offer the ultimate sacrifice for our homeland, like our fellow soldiers in Veracruz. ..”

“What a darned life.”

“Yes, sure enough, life could be better.”

They remained in silence for a long time, until Arnaud got up.

“I want to make clear to you that your condition as a seriously wounded soldier places you in a special situation, very different from mine. We cannot take care of you properly here, and you have every right in the world to leave in order to get proper treatment. If you leave, you will not fail Mexico, you will not fail your military honor, you will not fail me or anybody else.”

Lieutenant Cardona did not have to think much about it.

“Do you remember what you told me in the cave during the hurricane?” he asked Arnaud. “Either the two of us live, or the two of us die. That was what you said. It was good then, it is good now. If you stay, I stay.”

“Let’s shake on it.”

“Here.”

“I must look for Alicia,” Arnaud said walking toward the door. “She had never complained, and today when she did, I left her talking to the wall.”

At that moment Sergeant Irra rushed in. He had been looking for Arnaud everywhere on the island. He informed him that the captain of the Cleveland wanted to meet the port captain to deliver the food supplies; that he had orders from the British consul to take Gustav Schultz to Acapulco, if he so wished; and that Jens Jensen and the rest of the Dutchmen wanted to say good-bye personally.

“You take care of going to the Cleveland for the provisions,” Arnaud said to Cardona, “and tell the captain that I will make the official clearing later.”

“I can barely walk, Ramón.”

“Have some of the men carry you.”

“But I wonder, wouldn’t it be better if you went? In what language do you want me to communicate with him?”

“Find a way. I must talk with Alicia first, the rest will have to wait.”

“And what do we do with Schultz, Captain?” asked Irra, waiting for orders. “Do we let him loose, or do we take him in tied up?”

“Set him him free, Irra, and we’ll see what happens. If he becomes too nervous, triple up his dosage of passionflower tea, but make sure he boards the Cleveland ,” answered Arnaud, considering the matter closed.

On the other side of the island, Gustav Schultz and Altagracia had not seen the ship approach and were totally unaware of the situation. Everything remained the same, immutable, inside the hermetic bubble where they had taken refuge. Even in his madness, Schultz had the lucidity to understand that the sweet, homely girl was enough of a pretext for him to come to terms with reason and to anchor himself in reality. Thanks to her he did not feel alone for the first time in his life.

That day his warm bath had taken two hours, and according to the ritual they had established, it concluded with the act of love.

Schultz had Altagracia lying by his side, her head on his shoulder. He found serenity in the shade of her extraordinary hair.

“I am going to count every hair on your head, one by one,” he would say, “and every day I am going to count them again, to make sure there is none missing.”

His heart was at peace, his body relaxed, and the fresh sweep of the trade winds carried away all his past anguish.