'Who was Pedro's father?'
'He didn't know. I gathered that his mother didn't, either. She lived a disorganized life, to put it mildly. But she did keep alive the grandfather's tradition, even long after the old man died.
'There's a French tradition in Panama, anyway. Pedro's mother taught him French along with Spanish. They read together out of Grandpere's books. The old man had been fairly literate - his library ranged from La Fontaine and Descartes to Baudelaire - and Pedro got quite a decent education in French. You can understand why the language obsessed him. He was a slum boy, with Indian and slave blood in his veins as well as French. His French- ness was his only distinction, his only hope of distinction.'
'How can you possibly know all this, professor?'
'I spent some time with the boy. I thought he had promise, perhaps very brilliant promise, and he was keen to talk with someone who knew France. I spent a year there on a traveling fellowship,' Bosch added in a depreciatory tone. 'Also, in my advanced French composition courses I use a device - which incidentally I borrowed from Taps - the device of having my students write an essay, in French, explaining why they're studying the language. Pedro came up with a stunning piece about his grandfather and la gloire- the glory of France. I gave him an A-plus on it, my first in several years. It's the source of most of what I've been telling you.'
'I don't know the language,' I said, 'but I'd certainly like to see that document.'
'I gave it back to Pedro. He told me he sent it home to his mother.'
'What was her name, do you know?'
'Secundina Domingo. She must have been her mother's second daughter.'
'Judging by her last name, she never married.'
'Apparently she didn't. But there were men in her life,' Bosch said dryly. 'One night I gave Pedro too much wine and he told me about the American sailors who used to come home with her. This was during the war, when he was still quite young. He and his mother had only the one room, and only one bed in the room. He had to wait on the landing when she had visitors. Sometimes he waited out there all night.
'He was devoted to his mother, and I think that experience pushed him a little over the edge. The night I'm talking about, when he got high on my vin ordinaire, he went into a wild oration about his country being the trampled crossroads of the world and he himself the essence of its mud, Caucasian, Indian, Negro. He seemed to identify himself with the Black Christ of Nombre de Dios, which is a famous Panamanian religious statue.'
'He had Messianic delusions?'
'If he had, I wouldn't know. I'm not a psychiatrist. I think Pedro really was a ruined poet, a symbolizing idealizing soul who inherited too many problems. I admit he had some pretty weird ideas, but even the weird ones made a kind of sense. Panama was more than a country to him, more than a geographical link between North and South America. He thought it represented a basic connection between the soul and the body, the head and the heart - and that the North Americans broke the connection.'
He added: 'And now we've killed him.'
'We?'
'We North Americans.'
He toyed with the dark meat congealing on his plate. I looked out toward the mountains. Above them a jet had cut a white wound in the sky.
I was getting a picture of Allan Bosch, which I liked. He differed from an older type like Tappinger, who was so wrapped up in himself and his work that it made him a social eccentric. Bosch seemed genuinely concerned with his students. I said something to this effect.
He shrugged off his pleasure in the compliment. 'I'm a teacher. I wouldn't want to be anything else.'
After a pause, which was filled with the interwoven noise of the students around us, he said: 'I took it hard when Pedro had to leave here. He was just about the most interesting student I ever had here or at Illinois. I've only taught the two places.'
'Your friend Tappinger says the justice Department was after him.'
'Yes. Pedro entered the country illegally. He had to leave Long Beach and then he had to leave here, one jump ahead of the Immigration men. As a matter of fact, I tipped him that they were making inquiries about him. I'm not ashamed of it, either,' he said with a half-smile.
'I won't turn you in, Dr Bosch.'
His smile became wry and defensive. 'I'm afraid I'm not a Ph.D. I failed comprehensives at Illinois. I could have tried them again, I suppose, but there wasn't much point in it.'
'Why not?'
'Taps had already left. I was one of his special proteges, and I inherited a certain amount of ill will. What happened to him did nothing for my morale, either. I thought if it could happen to one of the most promising scholars in my field, it could happen to anybody.'
'What happened to him at Illinois?'
Bosch went into a tight-Tipped silence. I waited, and changed my angle of approach: 'Is he still a leading scholar in your field?'
'He would be if he had a decent chance. But he gets no time for his work, and it's driving him crazy. When the grants are handed out, they pass him over. He can't even get a promotion in a bush league school like Montevista.'
'Why not?'
'They don't like the way he combs his hair, I guess.'
'Or the way his wife combs hers?'
'I suppose she has something to do with it. But frankly I'm not interested in retailing faculty gossip. We are supposed to be talking about Pedro Domingo, alias Cervantes. If you have any more questions about him, I'll be glad to oblige. Otherwise-'
'Where did he get the name Cervantes'' 'I suggested it the night he left. He always struck me as a quixotic type.'
I thought, but did not say, that the word applied more exactly to Bosch himself. 'And did you send him to study under Tappinger?'
'No. I may have mentioned Taps to him at one time or another. But Pedro went to Montevista on account of a girl. She was a freshman, apparently quite gifted in languages-' 'Who said so?'
'Taps said so himself, and as a matter of fact I talked to her, too. He brought her up for our spring arts festival. We were putting on Sartre's No Exit, and she'd never seen a contemporary play in French before. Pedro was there, and he fell in love with her literally on sight.'
'How do you know?'
'He told me. In fact he showed me some sonnets he wrote about her and her ideal beauty. She was a lovely thing, one of those pure pale blondes, and very young, no more than sixteen or seventeen.'
'She isn't so young and she isn't so pure, but she's still a lovely thing.'
He dropped his fork with a noise which merged with the continuous clatter of the room. 'Don't tell me you know her.'
'She's Pedro's widow. They were married last Saturday.'
'I don't understand.'
'If I told you all about it, it would only make you feel worse. He made up his mind to marry her seven years ago - perhaps the night he saw her here at the play. Do you know if he made any approach to her that night, or afterwards?'
Bosch considered the question. 'I'm pretty sure he didn't. Morally certain, in fact. It was one of those secret passions the Latins seem to go in for.'
'Like Dante and Beatrice.'
He looked at me in some surprise. 'You've read Dante, have you?'
'I've read at him. But I have to admit I was quoting another witness. She said Pedro followed the girl with his eyes the way Dante followed Beatrice.'
'Who on earth said that?'
'Bess Tappinger. Do you know her?'
'Naturally I know her. You might say she's an authority on Dante and Beatrice.'
'Really?'
