Panama by Shelby Hiatt

Author:Shelby Hiatt [Hiatt, Shelby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Sixty-One

The last afternoon together we're in the hills above the Cut where long grass billows in the breeze. Father and Mother won't be anywhere near. We're safe.

Federico is troubled and I know why. His self-esteem is back after being away from the Cut and not subjected to humiliating remarks from American workers because he's a digger. Now he has to return to sneers from shovel engineers and numbing labor in the infernal heat. It's got to be hard for him. I have to think he's lectured himself that it's right to endure what the peasants endure so he can serve them better, some magnanimous thing like that, which doesn't help when you feel worthless. And he won't indulge his feelings and complain to me—that would negate the whole thing.

He could talk to Harry about this. He'd understand completely and agree. They could be great friends, these two men in my life—common ideals, common values.

Then Federico speaks and it's as though he's heard my thoughts. "They put themselves at a great height, you know, feeling superior because they earn more."

"Exactly," I say.

"I suppose they need to feel better about themselves."

"Crane man Ned, Harry's old roommate, thinks he's quite a card and very superior, and he's a drunk. I know it for a fact."

"Yes?"

"Hangs out with the Panamanians at their jungle stills. Harry says he's a bully, too. Harry roomed with him till he couldn't stand it anymore."

"Harry's a good man."

"Yes." I can't resist. "Once Harry was talking about enumerating and he said, 'Do you remember that fellow Federico? The one we came across who has books and a neat cabin?'"

A rare grin breaks on Federico's face. "And you said?"

"I said yes."

"That's all?"

"What else could I say? He was talking about the various interesting people he meets, that kind of thing..."

Frederico pulls me to him and hugs me to his side as we walk. At that moment I am his closest friend.

The hills are burnished yellow by the sun, and people are walking all around us, sightseeing. He begins talking about his friends in Spain and how much he misses them. Hugged against him I know we are close, but I feel him begin to slip away as always, off to the place he'd rather be.

"We walk along the Paseo de Recoletas in Madrid every evening," he says. "Everyone comes out. We eat later there, not before eight, then we go out walking and meet and talk." Nothing Dayton-like about that. "They take away the public benches by nine so you pay a little something to sit in a chair—they're stacked away during the day. And there's a band that comes in later and plays—local musicians, a couple of blind violinists are usually with them. And we buy a paper and talk about politics. El País, El Heraldo, La Correspondencia—they all have different points of view. Everybody has an opinion..." I hear the pleasure in his voice. His eyes are lit. I'm nowhere in this memory, pressed against his side but distant.

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