Saving the World (45 page)

T
HE VERY NEXT DAY
we commenced vaccinating in Manila. Captain Martínez and the dean of the cathedral had come to our aid. The accommodations Governor Aguilar had provided for us were deemed by our
director “indecent” and “miserable” (a rather old building located near the Chinese Parian gate, an inferior and disease-infested part of town). Captain Martínez offered the house he had leased for his sister and himself, an invitation his sister warmly seconded. She was delighted to have my company, even if I came with twenty-six little ruffians in tow. There is something about being confined to a ship at sea that brings out the wildness in a little boy! Thankfully, the house had a large hall on the first floor with sliding wooden windows, ideal for a dormitory. Meanwhile, the dean offered his own rectory as a center for our vaccinations.

Our sessions proved to be enormously successful even without the governor's promotion or that of the bishop. Smallpox had killed so many on these islands, crowds would have come even if we had been offering powdered smallpox scabs to be inhaled by long, thin reeds, as we heard was done in nearby China. In fact, in the Visayan islands to the south, the warriors put down their arms against the Spanish in order to be vaccinated!

Finally, Governor Aguilar relented. He brought his own five children to the rectory, thus displaying to any naysayers that he trusted the vaccine. But he had already made an enemy of Don Francisco, whose disenchantment at our reception reopened a wound that now would not heal. All his struggles in Spain to organize and fund the expedition (I had been hearing bits and pieces of this story as we traveled together), the disenchantments in Puerto Rico and New Spain, the trickery of Viceroy Iturrigaray and the
Magallanes
captain, the lackluster reception by the governor here—it had all become too much to bear. Add to this his bloody dysentery and his age, fifty-one years; we all kept forgetting our director was not a young man! Weakened and weary, he collapsed in bed, and not all the teas or bleedings in the world seemed to be helping. The angel of death was at his side. I wondered if he would ask me to take down another dictation to Doña Josefa.

But he was too weak even to arrange his affairs. All that was left to do was pray for him. Meanwhile, we could not falter in our mission—that he had made clear to us all during our travels. Should anything happen to him, we must bear the standard forward to victory. I had always imagined our director falling to an attack by natives brandishing spears or drowned in a mighty tempest or hanged by evil pirates—all the overblown adventures
I had read about in Doña Teresa's discarded
Gaceta
s. But here he was brought down by dysentery and a bad temper!

He lay close to death—any day now … I braced myself. Dr. Gutiérrez, who had taken charge of our mission, reminded us that we must keep our promise. We had innumerable islands to visit (several hundred in all, we were told); numberless natives and hundreds of colonists to safeguard. But even with all the exceptions I had taken to our director, I prayed that God would not leave us an orphaned mission. We had come halfway across the world with our healing caravan of children. Don Francisco could not abandon us now in the wilderness. From ships docking at the port, we heard about the war raging with England. Many were dying at sea and at home. It seemed we were saving the world only so that it could be lost to violence and further adversity.

I prayed harder. But I had never had much faith in my prayers.

I
VISITED HIM DAILY
in an upstairs room of the rectory. He insisted on being there, above the bustle of our activity, comforted by knowing his mission was being carried out. Most days, he seemed far too ill to be cognizant that we were downstairs. I'd climb up at midday to look in on him, wishing there were more windows to throw open, fanning him with a fan made of palm fronds. We had arrived in the hot, dry season, which would peak in May. And this was only at the end of April!

Because he had found them comforting in the past, I told him my stories. How we would vanquish smallpox from the world, how his name would be known down the generations, how he would return home to a great welcome, how Doña Josefa would be waiting. His face softened, a smile touched his parched lips. I fanned him, and myself, more vigorously.

April turned to May and indeed the heat worsened, but our director rallied; or rather, I should say, he had good days and bad days, mostly the latter. On good days, he insisted on settling our affairs. Tantamount among them was his desire that I and the boys return on the very next galleon to New Spain.

“We will settle all this later when you are well,” I suggested. But I was touched by his concern for my particular welfare.

No, our director insisted. We must depart, the sooner the better. With the war with England escalating, it might prove harder to secure passages. There was a galleon leaving for Acapulco in July. He would petition the governor for spaces for me and the boys as well as for funds to replace the clothing the boys and I would need; the daily wear at sea had made rags of the small wardrobe we had hurriedly assembled in our rush out of New Spain this past January.

I did not take the dictation—Don Ángel did—or I would have softened the strident tone our director assumed when addressing men who had failed him. The governor returned the letter with a sharp admonition that it be reduced to the decorous terms befitting his position as first magistrate of the islands. The admonition was addressed to “the consulting director.”

“I am
the
director of the Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine, not the
consulting
director,” Don Francisco thundered back. After several exchanges, the governor finally replied that he would accommodate us on a galleon when room could be found at an economical fee.

“Don't read it to him,” I advised when Don Ángel recounted the contents of the governor's letter.

Don Ángel looked at me as if disbelieving my advice. “Doña Isabel, how do you think I know what was in a letter
addressed
to the director unless he had ordered me to open and read it to him?”

Men are full of subterfuge; armies surprise and slaughter each other; kings are betrayed and beheaded by their ministers. But let one of my sex suggest that a secret be kept or a hard truth softened, and they lift their heads indignantly and speak of honor and integrity!

“Don Ángel,” I said, looking directly back at him. “When you are about to vaccinate a screaming child, do you not soothe him and tell him it will not hurt, although you know very well that the tip of a lancet piercing the skin will be somewhat painful?”

Don Ángel's face colored at the criticism implied. The many disillusionments of our journey had worn away his perennial good nature. He seemed crankier, more likely to take offense. Perhaps with time, all angels turned into men. “Doña Isabel, don't you see, a child doesn't understand that I am trying to save his life.”

“Precisely,” I replied.

T
HE BOYS AND I
did not leave in July with the returning galleon. It was packed full with soldiers and with silk and spices needed to pay for our expensive war with England and our subsidy to France. We would have to wait until the next galleon—hopefully before the year was out.

The boys were happy enough with our prolonged stay. Their homesickness had worn off. Margarita had begun a little school for them, but the weather was still so hot—the anticipated rains had not come—that most days she called off classes and let them play outside all day long. With their sunburnt skin and raggedy clothes, they might well have been native children. In fact, from a distance, I could not tell many of them apart from the sons and daughters of our servants.

There were so many servants! Captain Martínez had inherited those of his predecessor, the former captain of the militia, as well as those who had come with this residence he had leased. And since every servant brought along several relations and a half-dozen children, we had a small village to attend to our every need.

One inhabitant in particular had attached herself to me, a native woman, her face also pocked by smallpox, which might have accounted for her connection to me. Kalua, as she was called, spoke a little Spanish, but often reverted to her own strange language of Tagalog, so I was not sure I understood her story.

It seemed her mother and father had died of the smallpox as had her brothers and sisters. She had wandered in the jungle, feverish and ill, in search of help, but whenever she came upon a village, the inhabitants cried for her to turn away or else they fled in terror. Somehow, she had survived, and one day walked into a village already afflicted with the smallpox, so she was able to nurse the sick. There, she had settled, marrying, bearing two sons. … Here her story unraveled as if she did not want to say what had happened next. I guessed a brutal or indifferent man or perhaps she was a widow.

Kalua was grateful for the vaccination we had given her sons, as she had firsthand experience of the terrible ravages of this disease. Her boys were part of the large and noisy pack running wild in the back garden. On those days when she saw my energy flagging and my heart heavy, she took on the care of all the children. “You are my Nati,” I told her.

“Nati?” she repeated.

“A very special friend,” I explained to her.

More and more I had to leave the boys in her care. Pastor and Don Pedro Ortega had departed for other islands: Misamis, Zamboanga, Cebu, Mindanao—I loved the sound of their strange and sonorous names. They would be back when they were finished vaccinating and setting up vaccination juntas at the different missionary outposts—six months, a year. Meanwhile, in Manila, Dr. Gutiérrez was left with a reduced staff: Don Ángel Crespo, Don Antonio Pastor, and myself. I could not be spared.

Don Francisco was now convinced that the only way he would recover his health was to move to a kinder climate. The area around southern China, he had heard, had much more pleasant weather. In addition, the ancient healing arts practiced there might prevail where science had failed. Once his constitution was strong again, he would sail around the cape on a Portuguese vessel for home, vaccinating en route. I could see that this was a way he might fulfill the mission he had set out to accomplish: spreading the vaccine around the world, not just in our Spanish dominions.

I felt such a confusion of feelings. Don Francisco had brought us here, so he must take us back. But Viceroy Iturrigaray had practically forbidden him to return. I recalled our director's words in Acapulco; he had not included himself when he had assured me that I would return to New Spain. Had he been hatching this plan back then?

“Can't we go on with you, sir?” I wasn't asking to accompany him as much as I was hoping he would not abandon us.

“It will be better this way,” he explained. Without a large retinue, he could move at his own pace, with less preoccupation and inconvenience.

As he spoke, the veins on his thin neck stood out with the effort of speech. His face was gaunt, his bones visible under the loose skin. How distressing to find in the basin by his bed bloody spittle and several teeth! He would not survive if he stayed, I could see that. But I doubted that he would survive even if he went away.

Don Francisco petitioned the governor—and this time Don Ángel asked that I take the dictation—to grant him a passport and four boy carriers
to set sail for Macao. A ship bound for that island was presently at port. He pleaded his poor health and went on to add that glory would rebound to the governor in the court of King Carlos for promoting this extension of our mission which would bring new friends to Spain. Perhaps it was this desire to clear his good name, but for the first time, the governor replied promptly and agreeably to consider the petition granted. I can't help thinking that the little touches of courtesy and praise I added to Don Francisco's dictation helped bring about Governor Aguilar's change of attitude.

Don Francisco's impending departure filled me with dread. I felt as shipwrecked parties might feel watching their captain sail off in a small boat with half of the rescued supplies. The smallest things vexed me beyond reason. I don't know why. A great impediment to our success would soon be removed. For Don Francisco's belligerence had now become legend in Manila. Our mission in these islands was bound to succeed in Dr. Gutiérrez's able hands. Still, with our director's departure, everything would be diminished, like Margarita's reduction of the world by qualifying everything as “little.” It was a necessary change, but there was nostalgia still in me for that grander measure that had propelled me out of my old life toward America.

None of the expedition members noticed my mood, busy as we all were with too much work. Margarita was sure it was my menses, gone awry after months of grueling travel. But Kalua seemed to understand it was something of the spirit that was affecting me. She made me teas as Juana had done in Puerto Rico and pinned an amulet on my dress. Sometimes she told stories, of which I understood very little. But just the sound of her voice pronouncing her musical language soothed me.

In her company, I felt transported. It was a state of mind more than a place, an intuition more than a certainty, a sense that the spark of faith must be kept alive, like our own vaccine through carriers, or we would fall prey to violence and inhumanity.

It was imagining that future that filled me with apprehension. I could not seem to make those imaginings stop, except when I immersed myself in work or sat back and listened to the servant woman talk.

• • •

S
EPTEMBER 3, 1805!
The day I had been dreading finally arrived, a cloudy Tuesday. I hoped the rain would hold off.

I dressed my boys in the remnants of their uniforms and asked Captain Martínez if he might round together a band of musicians. I had copied out a list of the boys who had accompanied us thus far on our mission; at the bottom of the list, I added my own name, a declaration of faith in the dream our director had struggled—and never was there a truer verb attached to an enterprise—to carry out.