Silver People Read online

  But Mateo’s arrest is absurd.

  He’s accused of being a kicker journalist,

  one of the rebellious writers of articles

  about the canal’s engineering troubles

  and labor troubles, landslides, fevers,

  failures, protests.

  I know for a fact that Mateo did not write

  those pamphlets.

  I saw the words in Gallego, Catalán.

  Languages from Spain.

  Regional dialects that no islander knows.

  So I take all my money

  to the police, and I pay a hefty bribe,

  adding a few threats just to terrify

  the officers, who fear the secret magic

  of women with poisonous

  native herbs.

  MATEO

  RELEASED

  I don’t know why the police let me go,

  but once I’m back in the boxcar,

  I see that three men

  are still missing,

  while the others fume with rage,

  whispering about the real reason

  for our arrest

  and interrogation—

  from the president

  of the United States.

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT

  from the United States of America

  President and Commander in Chief

  MAKING DIRT FLY

  No president has ever left American soil

  while in office, but Chief Engineer Stevens

  complains that the morale of laborers

  is at an all-time low, so I’ve decided

  to visit the Serpent Cut.

  This trip will make history.

  Tourists from all over the world

  are already perched on the rim

  of the pit, peering down

  with opera glasses, as I pose

  at the controls of a ninety-five-ton

  Bucyrus steam shovel, a machine

  so massive that newspaper photos

  will inspire confidence in America’s

  power.

  All around me, workers with shovels

  are making the mud fly, the white

  Americans supervising while black

  islanders dig, on hillsides

  so steep

  and unstable

  that it would be a real

  waste to risk wrecking

  valuable

  machines.

  HENRY

  THE VIEW FROM BELOW

  All those fancy fancy tourists

  way up there on the rim of the pit

  must be staring down at us

  and thinking

  that we look

  as tiny

  as rows

  and rows

  of scurrying

  ants.

  The American president

  on his smoky steam shovel

  must look like a knight

  riding a dragon.

  ANITA

  UNNATURAL

  Roosevelt’s visit brings tourists rushing

  into my forest, searching for adventure,

  but they don’t buy herbs; all they want

  is hats—white hats like the American president’s,

  hats woven in Ecuador, hats that tourists

  insist on calling Panamá hats. Don’t they

  understand that Latin America

  has many countries?

  Tourist ladies want dead birds fastened

  to their hats—whole birds, not just a few

  stray feathers dropped by living birds,

  like the ones I wear on my necklace.

  Tourist ladies walk around with orioles

  on their hats, hummingbirds, egrets,

  even owls. Can’t they feel the ghostly

  bird eyes staring down

  from the tops of their heads?

  The tourists ask for whole collections

  of rare butterflies for their children—

  wild butterflies, caught and pinned,

  not just a few drifting wings,

  like the ones I find after migrations.

  And they want skins. Jaguar. Puma. Snake.

  And crocodile teeth, peccary tusks,

  fossil shark teeth from the Serpent Cut.

  Anything sharp, so they can pretend

  they know danger.

  Monkey hands are the most popular

  souvenir. All over Silver Town, vendors

  get rich by hunting, then chopping off,

  the hairy fingers.

  When I gaze up at the trees, I see

  the frightened howlers and I hear

  the fading songs of doomed birds.

  THE HOWLER MONKEYS

  HUNTERS

  WE DREAD

  STENCH

  NOISE

  SMOKE

  GUNS

  WE HURL OUR WASTE

  DOWN

  BUT HUNTERS

  DON’T FLEE

  SO WE LEAP

  TO A NEW TREE

  WE GO

  GO

  GO

  GO

  THE GIANT HISSING COCKROACHES

  SURPRISE

  we dart

  hiss

  fly

  we startle

  any snake

  that tries

  to eat

  our giant

  wings

  THE CROCODILES

  PATIENCE

  We wait

  All day

  All night

  Resting

  Between

  Mossy

  Logs

  Always

  Ready

  For

  Any

  Passing

  Canoe

  Or

  Thirsty

  Tourist.

  A JAGUAR

  A TRUE HUNTER’S SILENCE

  THE TREES

  SHATTERED

  When a steam shovel rolls

  over

  our roots

  we sigh

  but only the wind

  and rain

  seem to hear

  as we slow

  our growth

  of twigs

  and leaves

  while we struggle to repair

  our roots

  our roots.

  MATEO

  DRY SEASON

  Heat rages and dust slides,

  leaving spidery cracks

  in the hard

  red soil.

  Towering trees are chopped down

  to build more and more railroad tracks,

  more gold houses, silver barracks,

  and fancy hotels, so that tourists

  can stare down in elegant safety

  from the high, sturdy rim

  of our danger. As they watch

  our dusty muscles, can they see

  our weary dreams?

  Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.

  How can such a monstrous ditch

  ever be finished?

  HENRY

  TRANSLATION

  We give up the payday fights. We feel

  like brothers.

  Mateo teaches me Spanish,

  and I guide him through English,

  and together, we start to feel

  as if we just don’t know anything.

  Each palabra of español is so flowery

  and roundabout. Why can’t words

  simply sound like their meanings, like

  “blunt blunt” and “clear clear”?

  A few weeks ago, I never would have

  imagined that Mateo and I could share

  any hopes or wishes,

  but landslides

  and languages

  change everything.

  Now all we crave

  is victory

  in our shared

  struggle

  to understand

  anything.

  MATEO

  WORDLESS
/>   English is impossible. Nothing is predictable.

  One vowel can turn into a thousand and one

  different sounds.

  On workdays, Henry and I have to talk

  with our hands, waving signals across

  the dry-season dust.

  He is always far below, digging dirt

  to load the spoil trains that can only haul

  their ponderous burden uphill

  after we’ve finished our slow task

  of moving these railroad tracks

  down,

  down,

  down toward the Jamaican crew’s

  eerie zone

  of unimaginable

  danger.

  AUGUSTO

  from the island of Puerto Rico

  SCIENCE

  Understanding tricky soil has turned me

  into a desperate man,

  constantly anxious,

  eager to save lives

  like the lives of those two funny boys

  who wave strong arms

  the way golden frogs wave tiny legs—

  sending signals across all barriers

  of distance, language,

  and segregation.

  One misplaced dynamite blast

  and this whole dusty Cucaracha slide

  will roll like new snow

  off a slanted

  upstate New York roof.

  When I moved to the U.S. mainland,

  it was meant to be for just a few years,

  but I stayed on in New York to study

  for a doctorate in geology, learning

  fragments of other natural sciences

  along the way. Those Panama Craze

  recruiters really knew what they were doing

  when they convinced me

  that simply because my island homeland

  is a possession of the United States,

  I can be paid in gold, like a white

  American,

  instead of silver,

  like other islanders

  from independent nations.

  Now I have plenty of money, but all I feel

  is shame

  for the segregation

  and fear

  for all the laborers

  my maps

  are expected to protect.

  How can I predict landslides?

  Mud and dust aren’t the same as rock,

  with its solid crystals and rigid

  behavior.

  Mud and dust love to mix, churn, and roll,

  like flooded rivers or human

  thoughts.

  Mud and dust almost have

  personalities. They seem to be alive.

  Like scoundrels. True villains.

  Enemies.

  MATEO

  THE MAP MAN

  At lunchtime, a puertorriqueño sketches

  with his charcoal pencil while I peer

  over his shoulder, wondering why

  he chooses to sit on our

  hard, hot train tracks

  when he could be resting

  in a shady dining tent,

  enjoying gold food

  and cool comfort.

  When I ask, he admits that he misses

  mixing languages. Then he rapidly

  switches back and forth between

  English y español as he shows me how

  to sketch birds in flight—dazzling flocks

  of green parrots, scarlet macaws,

  rainbow toucans, yellow orioles,

  and purple-throated fruitcrows,

  all passing high above us, as if

  culebras y cucarachas—serpents

  and cockroaches—did not exist.

  Augusto draws portraits of me up close

  and of Henry off in the distance, waving,

  and he sketches the coiled snakes,

  giant roaches, and fluttering clouds

  of colorful butterflies as they land

  on dry dust, tasting the red earth

  as they search

  for nutritious salts.

  Augusto writes an English name

  on each butterfly portrait:

  clearwing, swordtail, daggerwing,

  swallowtail, owl.

  He explains that this last kind

  has huge owl-eye designs

  on its wide brown wings,

  fake eyes for tricking hungry jays

  into thinking that they are the ones

  in danger

  of getting gobbled.

  I am fascinated by the way

  this map man

  mixes two languages

  and the way he mixes

  science

  and art.

  When a coatimundi scurries

  onto the train tracks, begging for crumbs

  from our lunches, Augusto quickly sketches

  the lively animal’s pointy face

  and long, jaunty tail. Coatis are cute,

  but I keep my distance. Sharp teeth

  are perilous. Augusto calls them

  ice picks. Since I’ve never touched ice,

  I have to guess how the coldness

  of frozen water might feel . . .

  Henry should see this, I tell myself

  as I study the clever map man’s expert

  artwork.

  But as usual, Henry is far below,

  shoveling and suffering, ankle-deep

  in red dust, then motionless as he gazes

  up at us while he eats his angry,

  no-place-to-sit, mushy lunch.

  So, in order to tell him about it later,

  I memorize these new English words

  I’ve learned today: Daggerwing.

  Ice pick. Artwork.

  Artwork, because until I saw Augusto’s

  confident way of sketching, I did not realize

  that my uncertain, timid way

  is not art. All I’ve ever accomplished

  with my tensely held, self-conscious pencil

  is a stiff imitation of rigid objects,

  not this free-spirited, midair magic.

  AUGUSTO

  AN ASSISTANT

  I’ve needed help for a long time,

  someone to carry my art supplies

  on Sunday expeditions, and dust off

  all the books in my house, and organize

  bones, feathers, statues, and seashells

  in my curiosity cabinets.

  But we’re allowed to hire

  silver servants only if they have special

  permission to work in the gold zone.

  So I help Mateo obtain papers. He’s listed

  as a Spaniard, even though his voice

  sounds so Caribbean.

  He seems eager to earn a bit of extra cash

  on free Sundays, and I plan to help him

  develop his natural skill. He sketches

  like a child, but his talent

  is enormous.

  MATEO

  BEYOND FENCES

  Until now, I’ve seen gold houses only

  from a distance, along the edges

  of separate gold American towns

  where policemen on horseback

  chase silver men away

  if we try to watch

  gold ball games

  or gather bananas

  and mangoes

  from gold gardens.

  As Augusto’s new helper, I can walk

  right into his fancy clubhouse, where

  gold men sit reading under ceiling fans

  that spin like enchanted dragonflies,

  cooling the afternoon air.

  The houses of married gold men

  are huge, but even the small rooms

  reserved for bachelors like Augusto

  feel spacious and peaceful

  compared to crowded boxcars.

  Dusting all the strange marvels

  in the map man’s curiosity cabinets

 
; helps me feel like an adventurer

  instead of a servant. Horns. Tusks.

  Sun-bleached bones. Stone figurines

  of birds and frogs, carved by tribesmen

  who lived on the Serpent Cut

  just a few years ago,

  when it was still a forested

  mountain.

  How swiftly things change—a few short

  days ago, I could never have guessed

  that I would ever be willing to give up

  even one treasured minute with Anita,

  but now, on Sundays when Augusto

  takes me exploring

  out in the wilderness,

  I feel certain

  that I was born to

  learn.

  Maybe the map man will let Anita

  come with us. She could help him

  find rare treasures

  that only a local

  would know.

  AUGUSTO

  THE MUSEUM OF MEMORY

  Young Mateo’s fascination

  with expeditions

  and curiosity cabinets

  reminds me how I marveled

  when my father took me camping