‘All except this one.’ The doctor fingered the brocade. It glinted in the hushed light of the ward.
‘Do you know who did it?’
‘I do now.’
It transpired that Wilson had timed his departure well. For the following three days it had been — and here the doctor paused, one of his hands climbing past his ear as he tried to conjure the right word from the air; then he snatched, his hand closing in a triumphant fist, as if the word were a fly and he had caught it — it had been pandemonium. Three days of looting and burning in El Pueblo, three days of murder and mutilation. Most of the Indians’ rage had been directed against Mexican targets — the military garrison, the customs house — but still the French had feared for their lives. No women had been allowed to venture forth alone. Monsieur de Romblay had issued firearms to all the men.
‘Sounds like I was safer out there,’ and Wilson gestured towards the window, ‘in the desert.’
The doctor smiled.
Only with the arrival of a detachment of rurales from Guaymas, he said, did the unrest finally come to an end. The men had sailed through a storm (El Cordonazo could always be relied upon to strike when it was least convenient). Their faces had the awful, yielding pallor of bread that had been soaked in milk; their uniforms, usually so dashing, so appealing to the ladies, were elaborately embroidered with vomit. Still, less than an hour after disembarking, they were marching through the streets of El Pueblo in a show of force, some mounted, and armed with sabres, some on foot with muskets. That same night, the 29th of June, the Indian rebels swarmed east along Avenida Manganeso. They were forcing air between their teeth, making a sound that was like a flight of locusts or a viper’s hiss. In their fists they wielded bows and arrows, broken bottles, the legs of chairs. Their bodies glittered strangely as they advanced towards the waterfront, glittered and glowed. The Mexicans had been expecting a motley band of savages. They began to mutter among themselves. One of them was heard to wail, ‘They’re wearing armour.’
‘Your waistcoats,’ Wilson said.
The doctor nodded grimly. ‘They thought that wearing my waistcoats would keep them safe from harm. They thought that was where my powers came from.’
‘And it almost worked — ’
‘Almost.’
There had been a moment when a number of the rurales turned away as if to flee. Then one young soldier kneeled quickly, fired. One of the glittering Indians crumpled. Reassured, the Mexicans let fly with a volley of musket-shot and fourteen Indians dropped to the ground at once. The rebellion was crushed in a matter of hours. The Indians who survived the battle were treated with a brutality for which the rurales were notorious. Some were thrown into railway trucks and transported to a canyon five miles north of town where they were shot. Others were only marginally more fortunate: they were shipped to the mainland, destined for labour gangs in the Yucatan jungle.
It seemed to Wilson that he must have ridden into the aftermath. He could quite clearly remember the screaming and the blood, sabres slicing through the smoke, church windows strewn on the ground like jewels.
And the ghost of his love still murmuring against his back.
‘Suzanne — ’ Suddenly he did not know what to say.
‘Yes?’
‘I found her, then — ’ He paused. He would have to lie. ‘Then — then I don’t know.’
‘You brought her back. She was tied to you, with a piece of rope.’
‘I brought her back?’ Wilson gaped at the doctor. It did not seem possible. His memory curled, folding inwards on itself — one long wave breaking, back into the past.
‘It was a miracle,’ the doctor said. ‘Not just that you found her, but that she was still alive.’
‘But — ’ Wilson could see his shovel and his rifle upright in her arms. He could hear the water chatter as she sank. ‘I thought she died — I thought I buried her — ’
‘You were delirious, Monsieur. Heatstroke, dehydration — ’
‘And now?’
‘Now what?’
‘Where is she now?’
The doctor opened his hands; he might have been releasing captive butterflies. ‘She’s gone.’
Wilson stared at the doctor’s empty hands. He could not speak.
‘She left this morning,’ the doctor said, ‘with her husband. I advised against it. In my opinion, she was not well enough to travel. She needed rest, as you do. But he would not listen.’ Stepping forwards, the doctor adjusted the metal apparatus that stood beside the bed. ‘The sooner she returns to France, the better. That is what he said.’
Wilson suddenly noticed the bottle of clear fluid above his bed and how it fed down a tube into his arm. ‘What are you doing to me?’
‘Salt solution. To replace what you lost. You will be a new man.’
Wilson doubted that. His mind would still be old. His mind and what was in it.
He lay still, watched the fan revolve. Then he closed his eyes. The air beat softly at his eyelids.
Not dead, but gone.
The knowledge floated down. Was there a difference — for him? He was not sure. He felt the knowledge settle in his head. He had never imagined that grief could weigh so little, or desolation be so gentle. It was like being covered in the finest gold leaf.
‘You’re something of a hero, you know,’ he heard the doctor say. ‘It’s not every man who would have risked his life like that.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Wilson said, ‘I’d like to sleep now.’
When he woke the next day, there was a huge area of blue at the edge of his vision. He altered the position of his head on the pillow. Monsieur de Romblay was sitting on a chair beside his bed. It was the frock-coat that was blue, with a loop of gold, the Director’s watch-chain, slung like some elaborate vein between his heart and his liver. A white lace neckcloth billowed at his throat. He was muttering to himself under his breath. From time to time he would fall silent, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. Then he would smile and his chin would tumble downwards; he would continue with his muttering.
At last he noticed that Wilson’s eyes were open. His smile puckered, the corners of his mouth tucking into his cheeks. His feet shifted on the floor.
‘I was just working on a speech. We’re expecting the Mexican Foreign Minister here tomorrow.’ He grasped Wilson’s hand. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well, Monsieur Pharaoh.’
‘Good of you to come, sir.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Much improved.’
The Director nodded. ‘I assume that you’ve heard about our,’ and he paused, ‘our difficulties?’
‘They’d already started when I left.’
‘Of course.’ The Director adjusted his lace neckcloth. ‘I have never known such carnage,’ he said, ‘not since my days as an engineer with the Army.’
Everyone who appeared at Wilson’s bedside seemed eager to furnish him with their own version of the events and each version differed. With Monsieur de Romblay, there was no sartorial angle, of course. Instead he talked at great length of his diplomatic initiatives and how, given their failure, he felt that he should shoulder some of the responsibility for what had followed. He had been left with no option but to declare a state of emergency, he said. Nonetheless, many heinous crimes were committed, many barbarities. None more disturbing, perhaps, than the lynching of Captain Montoya.
‘They killed him?’
‘Oh yes.’ The Director grimaced. ‘But the word “kill” does not adequately describe what they did to that unfortunate young man.’
Wilson did not need to be told. He was familiar with the way in which Indians exacted vengeance; he knew that it would have been brutal and humiliating beyond his imagination.