20
Chapter Twenty
Who knows where he will be?” Rosa picked up a huge, flat plate made of clay and set it evenly on the three hearthstones. “Will you wait for him?”
“Yes,” I said, disappointed at not finding Pedro at home this afternoon, but unwilling to put off any longer the matter about which I had come to speak.
“Sit down, señorita. Coming he will come. Probably very soon.” She began rubbing fat kernels of dried corn off the cobs into the plate. Pava! The spoon.”
The girl climbed onto some sheepskins and pulled a long wooden spoon from the thatch roof. “Hiin.” With the nasal grunt which means “Here!” she extended the spoon toward her mother over the plate. Rosa took the spoon and began pushing the corn around and across the plate, turning it over slowly, scraping the clay dish with a soft woody rhythm. A solemn boy of about three—the child who had been on her back when I first met Rosa—sat near her on the mud floor, tapping a corn cob on a piece of broken pottery.
“To translate God’s word you come?” Rosa looked at me through the smoke, brushing back a lock of dusty hair with her left hand, never pausing with the stirring.
“No, Rosa, not today. I came today to talk to Pedro.”
“Yanga? Did you come to talk yanga?” She used again the word which means for-no-particular-purpose. It used to infuriate me, and I had at first refused to use it myself. It seemed evasive, senseless, and, for me, a lie. I did not do things yanga. God willing, the Indians, too, were going to learn to have some purpose in life. Today, however, I was tempted to agree that I had come for nothing. It no longer seemed like a lie to me, for it was the Indian way of saying all that needed to be said. The Western compulsion to account for everything struck me now as pompous and at times defensive. On the other hand, I may as well tell her my reason for coming, I thought. Not that she will be of any help, but it will make conversation, and this is difficult enough with Rosa.
“I came to talk about the house.”
“Oh. The house you want to live in?”
“Yes.”
She snatched a kernel of corn from the hot plate and tossed it quickly in her hand, patting it against her mouth for a second, then dropped it back into the plate.
“Your house in the town is no good? You don’t like to live there?”
We had been over all this, and I did not know how to make Rosa understand any more than I had already told her.
“It is far away. I have a long way to walk to get to the runa houses, and I would like to live near you.”
“Oh.” She put a corncob between the stones and blew on the fire with a hollow straw. Taking the spoon again, she went on stirring. “You want to live near us, señorita.”
“Yes.”
“Are you ever going back to your own land?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I will, someday, to visit.”
“Your mother lives?”
“Yes. And my father.”
“And do they not say come?”
“Oh yes, they want me to come home to visit.”
“Not to stay?”
“No. My parents want me to do what God wants, and I think God says I should live here.”
“Are you going to get married?” She picked up another kernel and tested it as she had before, then crunched it between her yellowed worn teeth, watching me through the smoke.
I laughed. “Oh Rosa, how many times have you asked me that? I don’t know, I told you. I don’t know if I will ever get married.”
“Don’t they ask for you? Don’t your kind of men ask?”
“No, Rosa. They don’t ask.”
She scraped some toasted corn from the plate into a basket and rubbed off more kernels to toast. “Pava. Give some tostados to the señorita.”
Pava came and picked up the basket, brought it over to where I sat. “Do you like these?” she asked timidly.
“Yes. Oh, I think they’re very good. We didn’t have this kind of corn in my country.”
“Is that true?” Rosa looked up in surprise. “What kind of corn did you have?”
I knew very little even in English about varieties of corn and tried to think of a way to describe them in Quichua. When would Pedro come home? Waiting. Always waiting, marking time, wondering when things were going to start.
“Oh, it was a smaller kind than this. We did not have big”—I could not think of the word for kernel—“the big kind that you toast” Would Pedro have been able to get me the house by this time? Why didn’t he come? He was usually home by this hour.
“What kind do you toast in your country?” Oh dear. What kind did we toast? Rosa, how am I to explain to you. Why doesn’t Pedro come?
“We don’t toast corn in my country.”
There was a stirring and snuffling in the corner that did not come from the guinea pigs.
“Pava. Bring the baby.” Pava rose, went over to the corner where a white cloth was slung between the walls, and stood on tiptoe, her delicate little ankles exposed beneath the cherry-colored wool skirt, the soles of her bare feet showing gray in the smoky light. With some wrestling she extracted the baby from the hammock, draped him over her shoulder, and handed him to his mother.
“You don’t toast corn in your country.” Rosa sat back with one heel curled under her, one neat small foot stretched out beside the fire, and laid the baby across her lap. He burrowed furiously under her blouse, found what he wanted, and let his feet flop in contentment. His small snortings and smackings mingled with the scraping of the spoon and the rattle of the corn. Firelight, shelter, food to eat, love. You don’t know what you’ve got, Rosa.
“What do you have?” Rosa asked.
I was about to say “Nothing,” when I realized that Rosa’s question bore no reference to what I was thinking just then. What was it? Corn. We had been talking about not having corn in my country.
“Oh, we have other things. Lots of other kinds of food.”
“And if you live near us, you will eat runa food?”
“Of course, Rosa! I like runa food.”
Rosa lifted the plate off the fire and dumped the batch of tostados into the basket. “You will like it, perhaps. You will not like it, perhaps.”
“But I do like it, Rosa. I have eaten all kinds of runa food.”
“Food! I am talking about the house. Who knows if you will like the house? Who knows if Pedro will get it for you?”
Was there some reason for putting me off from week to week? Each time I had asked him, Pedro had had some reason for not being able to get the house for me. I had offered an increase in the rent I originally proposed and still he put me off. Was it that they did not want me to live near them? I did not really expect them to urge me to come. My presence could hardly have so much importance to them.
There seemed to be nothing to say, and I sat watching the guinea pigs scuffling around the floor. Pava tore bits of leaves from a basket by her side and fed them, careful to give them equal portions. The three-year-old made passes at them with a corncob to hear them squeal.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take coinage; yea, wait for the Lord!” I’ve been waiting, Lord. Waiting and waiting. Not just for Pedro this afternoon. You know I waited a long time to be a missionary to mountain Indians. Then I waited for the Gardners. They didn’t come. Then I waited to see what I was to do next, and You seemed to say translation and medical work. So you gave me Pedro—I don’t discount that answer to prayer, Lord, or Manuela’s baby. I don’t want to belittle Your faithfulness to me. Just being here today, I know, is an answer to prayer. Think what it took. Kindness of friends, help from home, encouragement of people like the MacDonalds, support that is still coming in (it’s probably good for me not to have so much—keeps me looking to You. If I skimp—if I can just get that Indian house—I will be able to live much more simply), prayers of many friends—all these things, good and perfect gifts, coming down from the Father of Lights. I don’t complain against You now, Lord—just show me the way. Nothing very startling has happened—maybe it’s not supposed to. Let me be content with whatever You want. Just bring Pedro back now, please, for one thing. It gets pretty boring sitting here. Smoke gets in my eyes. My back is tired. There’s no school yet, either, Lord. What am I to make of the Indians’ attitude toward the translation and learning to read Quichua? There’s no visible change anywhere. Pedro? What about Pedro? Oh yes, perhaps he is a Christian. I certainly hope so; I trust so. But then, Lord, he is in my pay. No souls to claim, really. No stars in my crown, no figs on the tree.
“Father is coming.” Pava jumped up and went to the door. “The señorita is here,” she called. “Come quickly. Atsai! Mama . . . what is the matter with father?”
“What is it?” said Rosa, looking up sharply.
“Why does he walk that way?”
Rosa lifted the baby in her arms and rose from the floor, peering out into the blinding sunlight of the fields.
“Jesus Santa Maria, his leg is bad again. It is for that he did not come quickly. What is the matter with you?” She shouted at him, not calling his name. I had never heard her address him by name. I got up too, and saw Pedro stumbling across the potato fields toward the gate in the mud wall, his trouser leg rolled up, his hand clutching a rag with which he stooped once to wipe his leg.
“What happened to him, Rosa?” I asked.
“He gets that way yanga. Yanga his leg becomes worse.”
Pedro came into the house, limping to the bed in the corner.
“Buenos tardes, señorita.”
“Buenos tardes, Pedro.”
“Did you bring your needle, señorita?”
I had been earlier that day to visit a child with an infected hand and had with me my penicillin and syringe.
“Yes, I brought it”
“Stick me, please, señorita. It hurts badly.”
“What is it, Pedro? What did you do to your leg?”
“It’s just that way. It gets well, and it gets bad again. Pus comes out, it hurts badly, I can’t walk. Today I was working in my cornfield and it hurt more and more and I worked more and more and then I felt my trousers sticking to my leg when I bent over like this, and I looked at my leg and it had pus coming out, pus running down my leg, and my leg is red and it hurts me so that I could hardly walk home and I thought perhaps I will die, who knows if I will die? Who will cure me? Will God cure me? Will the señorita cure me? Perhaps the señorita will cure me. I will ask her to stick me with her needle. Will you stick me?”
I took out the vial of penicillin. There were still several cc’s left, more than enough for an injection. “Yes,” I said, “I will inject you. Rosa, would you boil my needle in your pot?”
“Pava! Bring the small pot. Get some water. How much water, señorita?”
“Just a little in the bottom. No, that’s too much.”
Pava tipped some of the water into the ashes beside the fire. “Like that, señorita?”
“Yes, like that”
“Blow up the fire, Pava! Hurry!” said Rosa. “The señorita says she will boil her needle. There. The needle, señorita? Will you put it in the pot?”
I put the needle, together with the syringe and forceps, into the pot and began to examine the leg which Pedro stretched toward the fire. It was swollen and inflamed, and pus ran in a little trickle between the sparse black hairs of his leg. The wound looked deep and painful. Here I was again, the doctor. There was no escaping it. But how lucky that I was here at this moment with the necessary equipment! No, it isn’t luck. It’s God. He’s the one who leads you, Margaret Sparhawk. He has not left you yet. The work may look unpromising but remember the promises of God. Life isn’t easy for anyone. It doesn’t fall into neat patterns. It’s up and down, trusting in the dark, walking in the light joy and sorrow, sunshine and shadow, whatever befell, Jesus my Savior is my All in All. . . . The clichés tumbled emptily in my mind and I realized that the needle was bouncing in the pot. It had boiled long enough, and I picked up a cornhusk to use as a potholder.
“Ay, Señorita Margarita, it hurts.” Pedro clasped his hands under the thick calf and rocked back, shutting his eyes and lifting his face. His hat which he had not taken off, fell behind him and I saw that his forehead was beaded with sweat. Not surely, from the heat I thought. He must be in real pain. Poor Pedro. I looked at the strong bones of his face—high cheeks, a solid jaw, and lines that drew his mouth down and converged around his eyes. He had known plenty of pain in his lifetime. He had expected little else, I mused. Not physical pain, perhaps—I did not know how much of that he had had. But if pain could be defined as the absence of pleasure he had certainly known that. He was only one of the million. A million highland Quichuas living in cold and loneliness and poverty and hopelessness.
God help me to help him. At least to help Pedro, Lord. You haven’t let me do much for the rest, but You brought me here today. Why was it I came? Oh, the house. I had forgotten to ask him about that. Well, it would have to wait for another time. Now for the injection. This is the right thing to do, isn’t it, Lord? What else? Lynn gave him penicillin before, I gave him those three injections on the days following hers. The leg had healed up nicely then.
“Does it hurt here, Pedro?” I prodded the area around the open sore. It felt hot and tight.
“Ay, señorita. Aylla. It hurts very much. All around there, that whole part. Hurts, señorita, it hurts.”
I picked up the forceps, which had cooled a little by now and lifted the syringe from the water. Holding the syringe in my left hand, I lifted the needle and fitted it onto the syringe. Pava watched intently.
“Why do you cook it, señorita?”
“To kill the little things that make sickness.”
“What little things make sickness?”
I knew no Quichua equivalent for germ. “They’re little things you can’t see. Tiny. Much smaller than fleas. They get inside us and make us sick. I cook the needle so that I won’t give your father someone else’s sickness.”
“In the cooking the little things die?”
“Yes.” I found a small bottle of alcohol in my bag and a wad of cotton. Pedro moved over to his bed and lay down, familiar with the procedure.
“Gently, señorita, gently.”
I swabbed the brown flesh and plunged the needle in deeply, drawing the plunger out a little way first to make sure I had not reached a vein, then pressing it slowly until all the white liquid was emptied from the barrel.
“Aylla! It hurts very much.”
“There. That’s all.” I rinsed the syringe in the pot and began to put the things away again in my bag.
“Aren’t you going to put something on my leg?” asked Pedro.
“Oh. I’m sorry. Of course I will.” What should I put on it? The leg was so angry-looking, none of my remedies seemed powerful enough to affect it, but I cleaned up the edges of the wound, fearful to clean the inside lest I introduce further infection. Then I shook in a little surgical powder.
“Will that dust cure me, señorita?”
“I hope it will help, Pedro. The injection is stronger. I think the injection will cure you.”
I began to wrap the leg with sterile gauze, holding Pedro’s foot in my lap. The toes were thick and club-shaped, coated with earth from his fields. They had walked many, many miles over such earth, and over the roads that led to town, over the cobblestones and over the sidewalks. Strong feet, I thought. The feet of a real man. I wrapped slowly and carefully, holding the leg as lightly as I could. God, heal this leg. What if it doesn’t heal? Pedro, a cripple? What would his family do?
“It will heal up all right, will it, señorita?” It was Rosa, who had turned from her place at the fire to watch the bandaging, and now looked into my free searchingly. “He won’t die?”
I laughed. “Oh, Rosa. Of course he won’t die. It is only his leg, just a bad wound, but the needle medicine will help it”
“Aylia! What is it that itches?” Pedro suddenly sat up, pulling his foot from my lap. His lips were stretched in a grimace and he began frantically scratching his hips and thighs.
“It itches, señorita. Mana pacha, how it itches! As if there were a thousand fleas biting me. Aylla!” His voice rose to a cry and he jumped from the bed and began to dance around the fire, flailing his arms, scratching and digging at his flesh wherever it was exposed, rubbing at the seat of his trousers.
“What is the matter, Pedro?” I asked, suddenly frightened at the violence of his behavior.
“Taita Dios! What is the matter with you?” Rosa started from her seat on the ground. “Are you crazy? He’s dreaming! He’s out of his mind, señorita.”
Pedro threw himself on the bed again, tearing his poncho off and throwing it across the hut. “They are eating me. Father God, they are eating me! Fleas. Lots of fleas. Who will save me? Aylla, señorita, who will save me?”
Rosa rubbed his arms and legs vigorously, asking over and over, “What is the matter? What is the matter? Are you dreaming? Are you crazy?”
“Who knows what it is? How it itches! My whole flesh itches. What kind of fleas will they be that can bite like this? Aylla, what will become of me?”
“Try bathing him with some hot water, Rosa,” I suggested.
“Pava! Hot water! Hurry and heat some water. A lot of water.”
Pava jerked a pot out from a corner and dipped water from the huge clay jar that stood in a depression in the earth. She set it on the fire and energetically flapped the reed fan up and down, sticking corncobs and grass into the coals at the same time. “What is the matter with father?” she asked.
“Who knows what has happened to him? Heat the water!”
God in heaven, I thought, have I done something to him? What can possibly have caused this? Pedro’s arms suddenly stopped flailing and fell along the sides of the bed. His eyes closed and he was mumbling something.
“What are you saying?” Rosa bent over him, beside herself with fear.
“My head spins. Everything goes around.”
“Have the fleas stopped biting you?”
“Fleas . . . Around and around my head turns.”
“Is this hot enough, Mama?”
Rosa went and dipped a finger in the pot. “I guess it is right. Here. Bring it over here quickly.” She sloshed warm water from the pot onto Pedro’s face, neck and hands.
“Why do you get me wet? Leave me alone, leave me . . . My head. . .” His voice trailed off.
“The fleas—the itch. Does it still itch? Does it still itch? Speak!”
Pedro said nothing, but he was not scratching. He lay quiet, his eyes closed, his hands lying limp, with the palms upward, on the sheepskins. Like a flash a word came to my mind from a medical book. Anaphylaxis. Could that be what had happened? O Lord save us and help us—show me what to do, spare Pedro. But it is so rare—reaction to a drug. Fatal unless immediate aggressive treatment is administered. What treatment? What can I do here?
Pava! Some garlic! Bring some garlic quickly,” Rosa shouted.
Pava found a little knot of garlic somewhere in the thatch and gave it to Rosa, who broke it open and rubbed it on Pedro’s lips and nostrils. Hardly aggressive, that treatment. What to do? Oh, what, Lord, shall I do? You do something. Maybe it’s just a temporary setback. Maybe it isn’t anaphylaxis at all—one chance in a hundred. Ridiculous of me to get panicky. He’s in Your hands, Lord.
I watched the strong, dark face. The boldly chiseled lips, the line of his eyebrows, the straight, large nose. What a beautiful subject for a bronze bust! No . . . a bronze mask. Death mask. Pedro. Oh, Pedro. Open your eyes.
For a second I thought he read my unspoken plea. There was a movement of his eyelids. I leaned forward in an agony of hope. Yes. The eyes rolled under the lids, but did not open. Then I saw that his lips were parted. They moved futilely for a moment, and then he spoke. Rosa put her ear to his mouth.
“Chunlla! Shut up, children! Your father is talking.”
“What does he say?” said Pava.
“Chunlla!” She was listening, her mouth wide open, eyes staring. Pedro spoke, then, clearly enough for me to hear him.
“Señorita. It is dark. All becomes dark. Señorita.”
“Dark, Pedro?”
“Yes. Very dark, like night.”
“Can you hear me?” I thought his head nodded.
“Can you hear me, Pedro?” Answer me, Pedro, say yes. Oh, please hear me!
“Yes, señorita. I can hear you. Do you hear me? I said it is dark.” He spoke clearly, rationally, and my heart gave a lunge of joy. He probably fainted and is coming to, I thought, and now all will be well. Lord, let it be. Let it be well.
There was the sudden thud of bare feet in the dooryard, the guinea pigs went scuttling off into the corners, the sun that lay in a patch on the floor was blotted by a shadow, and Romero and Jorge came tumbling through the door, choking with laughter, and threw themselves on a pile of skins.
“Caramba! Chunlia! Your father is dying! Don’t you know your father is dying?” The tension in Rosa’s voice made her fairly spit the words. “As if anyone had said to you, Laugh! Is one to laugh when a man is dying?”
I could see the convulsed faces of the two small boys in the firelight. The light in the flashing black eyes and on the white teeth was extinguished in an instant.
“Dying? Father is dying?” said Romero.
“Dying, I said! Don’t you see?”
“What happened?”
“Shut up!”
“No, Rosa. Don’t say he is dying,” I pleaded. This was an expression I had never been able to accept. The Quichua term for anything other than perfect health was “dying. For them, it was the first possibility. For me, it was the last, and I refused to accept it now. Pedro would not be dying.
“As if he will live!” The scorn in Rosa’s voice withered me. “Can’t you see he is dying, señorita? You put that needle into him; you killed him.”
Lord God, Father of us all, if You’ve never heard me pray before, hear me now. Hear what she says. Lord, for the honor of Your name, show what You can do. Save him, Lord, save him.
A little skinny rooster hopped to the doorsill, crowing thinly. Romero heaved a corncob in his direction and he fluttered off. There was no sound in the house now, except Pedro’s feint breathing. The rest of us hardly dared to breathe, waiting.
Pedro began to retch, his chest rising, his belly contracting in great tormented spasms. I could see the tendons in his neck stretch and ripple, a knot rose and fell under the weathered skin, and he gagged uncontrollably.
“He will vomit! Pava! Give me the pot!”
Rosa held Pedro’s head over the pot while the retching went on and on, violent, body-racking sounds, until it seemed that his entrails must come forth from his throat, but nothing came. His back arched and writhed and his fingers dug into the sheepskins. Lord, quiet him. Deliver him.
The paroxysms ceased then, and Rosa let his head fall back on the bed. The sleeve of her blouse was wet with his perspiration.
“Señorita! What will become of us? He is going to die! He is dying! Señorita! You said you would make him well! Saying, I will cure him, you gave him the needle. Now he will die.”
Jorge began to cry loudly. Romero pushed an elbow into his face. “Shut up!”
“Why should he shut up? His father is dying. He is dying, my husband is dying, what will become of us all?” Rosa put both hands on top of her head and began to rock, her words sliding into the singsong death wail I had heard before.
“Here you stood alive this morning,
Beside the fire.
Here you drank the mazamorra that I handed to you,
Drank it all,
Not thinking to yourself, Today I will die.
He is alive, we thought,
And this is how you die on us.
My husband, my little husband!
Who will take care of me?
Who will work?
What will become of us, my husband?”
You will find another, Rosa. There are always men ready to take a widow. It will be hard for a time, I know. But he is not going to die! God spare him! O Lord, spare him, for Christ’s sake! What will become of Rosa? Of Rosa? What, Lord God, will become of Your work ? You started all this, Lord. It wasn’t I. You led me here. You answered prayers and gave me Pedro—he is the only one You have given me, Lord, remember that. O Lord, remember that. There is no one else.
No. I must trust Him for healing now. He raised the dead. He healed all kinds of sickness. What is the line from the hymn?. . . “Thy touch hath still its ancient power.”
“Rosa, would you like to pray to God that He will help Pedro?”
“To God?” Rosa took her hands from her head and turned her streaming face to me, bewildered.
“Yes, to my God—to the God Pedro believes in.”
“Pray, señorita, if you want to. You pray.”
“Come here, children, and we will pray,” I said. Pava, Jorge and Romero came and squatted in a circle by the fire. The three-year-old had fallen asleep in the shadows. Each child watched me carefully to ascertain the proper procedure. I closed my eyes, and Romero whispered loudly, “Shut your eyes.”
“Our Father God, You can do anything You want. We know that You love Pedro, and that if You want to You can make him well. Don’t let him die, Lord, please don’t let him die. He has believed in You and has served You and You know how he has helped with the translation of Your Word. In order that he may go on serving You, Father God, cause him to live. For the glory of Your name, cause him to live. And—because we love him, Lord, cause him to live. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.”
Pava, who had heard Pedro pray on one or two occasions, said, “Amen.”
From the bed behind us we could hear a soft wheeze. Pedro lay very stiff, breathing shallowly with a sound like a small bellows, his mouth slightly open, the whites of his eyes showing a thin line beneath the lids. Rosa kept feeding corncobs and grass into the fire, as though by sustaining the flame she would prolong the life that flickered on the bed beside her. Carefully, almost stealthily, she chose a bit of straw and put it in place, blowing softly as she did so, watching till the little tongue of fire rose.
What had the medical book said about the symptoms of a drug reaction? I tried to sift my memory for the details. Had it said something about coma or collapse? I could not recall a description of the retching or this wheezing I heard now. Perhaps my diagnosis was mistaken. Lord, let me be mistaken. Perhaps he is delirious from fever, caused by the inflammation The penicillin has not yet had time to start working. Maybe in a little while . . .
Immediate aggressive treatment. Take him to Indi Urcu? There’s no hospital there. The clinic? They wouldn’t know anything. Wouldn’t admit him, probably, since he’s an Indian. Still, we could try. Try? How? There was no one to carry him. There wasn’t a man for a mile or so. It’s too long a journey anyway. He wouldn’t survive the journey. Would he, Lord? Should I try to find someone? No, it’s nonsense. Be still and pray. You’ve done enough damage. I? Was it I who did the damage? My God! I was trying to help him. I was trying to help him.
“Pava!” It was Pedro’s voice; it was a shout. We jumped with the shock. He was sitting up, blindly fumbling with the sheepskins around him, as though searching for something. Pava! Get my poncho. My poncho, quickly, Pava. They are coming!”
Pava snatched the poncho from the floor and thrust it toward her father. He opened his eyes, and they moved back and forth wildly, seeing none of us, filled with fear.
He made a movement with his legs, as though to climb off the bed, then turned suddenly and looked behind him. His fingers clutched the skins. Pava! Señorita! Father God!”
“Pedro.” I spoke his name quietly, hoping to arrest his fear. What did he fear? Was he beside himself? Did he know he was dying? Lord, You are our Refuge. Comfort him. Quiet him.
Rosa was staring at him, while at the same time she beat the reed fen up and down with great fervor, causing the fire to flame high for a few moments. Pedro continued to turn and grasp, trying desperately to focus his eyes on something that was not there. Then, with a groan, he collapsed onto the bed again. Rosa’s hand let go of the fen, and she gave herself up to weeping, throwing her hands to her head and then clawing at Pedro’s arm, rocking and wailing. Once she rubbed the garlic clove on his lips and went back again to renewed hopelessness, seeing that it did not revive him.
It occurred to me to take Pedro’s pulse. I reached for his left hand, thrown far on the other side of the bed. It was cold and limp and felt like dry leather in my hand. Oh Pedro, don’t die on us. This can’t be the time to die.
I pressed my fingertips to the soft side of his wrist. At last I felt a light throb, much too light, much too weak, for a man. I was unsure for a moment whether I had really felt a throb. Yes, there it was again, the tiny signal that the heart still labored.
“What is it, señorita?” Rosa asked, pausing in her wail when she saw me lift the arm.
“His heart, Rosa. I can feel his heart beat”
“There?”
“Yes.”
“How is it? Is he alive?”
“Yes.” Still alive. God save him. Save him, Lord. Keep the heart beating. Yes, like that. Still going.
The pulse was thready and I thought every minute that I was only imagining that it beat. No, there it was. Tick . . . tick, tick. . . Giver and Sustainer of Life, give him life today, sustain Pedro’s life, Lord. You are the doer of all that’s been done through him so far. You raised him from eternal death to eternal life, brought him from heathen darkness to Your blazing light. Gave me a soul for the Kingdom, an earnest of the inheritance You would grant me among this tribe, a product of grace. My product, too, Lord, the fruit of all my work here. Spare him. Spare him. Spare him.
I found that I had taken up, in my mind, the rhythm of Rosa’s death wail. My prayer was being chanted to the tune of her cry, “He’s dying, he’s dying, he’s dying.” Her voice soared again to the narrative, recalling what Pedro did for the family, how he went to work in the morning, how he was unaware of his approaching death. Gradually it sank to the reiteration of her own despair, what would become of her, what would become of the children? And then to the simple declaration of the reality, “He’s dying, he’s dying, he’s dying.”
The fire had dwindled to a few embers that waved and blinked. The sun by this time had disappeared and the chickens began to come into the hut to roost for the night. Jorge amused himself by throwing bits of straw and twigs at them, making them cluck and fluff their feathers as they settled themselves on the pole. The baby began to cry, making Rosa halt abruptly in her dirge. She picked him up from his hammock, gave him the breast and settled again on the floor beside Pedro, taking up once more the keening lament.
Pava and Romero sat hushed in the gathering dark. Their father was dying. The one on whom everything, life itself, depended. Their bulwark against hunger and nakedness and the white man. How much did they comprehend of this?
Now and again Pedro’s hands twitched. His head had fallen back at a grotesque angle and I tried to rearrange it. Strange, how heavy it was in my hands. I moved it a little, feeling the weight. Dear Pedro. What will I do? What will I do?
Find the pulse again. See if it’s working. Tick. . . Is that it? No . . . That? . . . Yes—no . . . Tick. There it is! One tiny throb. I was sure I felt it. Yes, he is alive—his eyes are opening.
Pedro’s head fell again into the position from which I had moved it his eyelids parted a little, his jaw worked back and forth for a few seconds. Then he gave a deep sigh and was still.
“Rosa,” I said.
She jerked her head around and looked me full in the eyes, a wild animal look, full of terror and hatred. Then she leaped up from the floor and threw herself shrieking onto her husband’s body. The baby was still held in one arm, and he, too, began to shriek. Pava, Jorge and Romero crowded to the mound of skins where their dead hither lay, their eyes wide and glittering in the feeble firelight.