The rolling thunder of cannon was ever present in the distance. Dr. Francisco Maria Brignoni de Bada had spent the long night tending the wounded as they came in by the wagon load. His training as an apprentice and later at the university had not prepared him for this kind of doctoring. It was not why he had entered the profession, yet here he was exhausted and winded.
Genoa, Italy was, in his father’s childhood, peaceful and always prosperous. Don Brignoni, as he was known, had become a merchant like his father, but had expanded his business to include a fleet of trading ships. But his only child, Cisco, as his friends called him, had not a care for the sea or the profits it brought. He loved his studies of history, language, and science. Lessons on trade had not been to his liking. Instead of trotting behind his father on the docks like so many other sons did, Cisco preferred to walk with his mother down to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo to deliver the daily food donations for the poor.
As a boy, he would peek around his mother’s starched long skirts as she gave her basket of garden vegetables and fresh baked bread to the priest. Their chatter would always take a while and at the first opportunity, he would slip away to where he knew the nuns were working –they were in charge of the hospital.
As he peeked into the windows, he saw shapeless forms hidden under sacred modest robes walking quietly between the cots of the sick and wounded. There were never many patients, but he liked to see the peaceful, grateful look on their faces as the nuns patiently fed them spoonfuls of brothy, warm soup. Then his mother would call in her lilting Italian entonations and he’d obediently pull himself away from the panes that held the fading evidence of his humid breath. The year was 1746 and all too soon, Cisco would begin to know a harsher way of living.
The many years of war since the siege by the Austrians that same year had taken its toll and it distanced him now from that comfortable memory. Then, the French Revolution had seeped into his beloved country. His father was gone these many years from a lost ocean battle and his mother had passed away soon after in grief and hopelessness. All Cisco had now were memories, heaviness, and the blood of his compatriots dripping from weary hands.
He had lost love twice in the death of his parents and there had been no time nor prospects suitable for marriage, for he no longer had the status of his family’s wealth. No one would want their daughter tied to a man with lost fortunes. He had decided that there would be no more room for that selfish fleeing feeling –a man’s heart could only take so much. No, he would make sure that love could not take hold again. The war was lost. Wasn’t it? Why keep fighting for an old dream when all the important players from his story had been taken away or rejected his current station? He would seek refuge in time and distance.
Three months later, he was bent over the rail of the passenger ship bound for the Caribbean. His breakfast was now falling like a chunky waterfall below him into the frothy waters of the Mediterranean Sea. “May the gods of the Romans and Greeks accept my final offering,” he sarcastically thought. It was over 5000 nautical miles from the Genoese port to San Juan, Puerto Rico. There would be many hours ahead to contemplate the loss of family, unrequited love and the selfishness of the gods.
The awaiting Spaniards at El Morro were anxious for his arrival. His skills as a physician were coveted and he knew he would be able to do much good in this quiet port island. He had never left his beloved Italia before, but with no reason to stay, he had scoured his hands, dusted off his boots and set sail.
After weeks at sea, the fortress island now appeared like a lazy snake of slumbering uncertainty. “Serpents,” he pondered, “would be present in every Eden.” His Spanish was passable and he looked well enough like a Spaniard, though his height was certainly an anomaly. He would learn to fit in, somehow.
When the boat finally docked, he stood once again at the railing, this time engrossed with the bustling scene of moving color. The skins of the people were of every shade. The vibrancy of Moroccan influenced hues swayed on the ocean winds through folds of cotton fabrics and flowering foliage. There were slaves bearing loads. Aged conquistadores sloshing their rum, swapped bards of the sea. And, in the near distance, a small group of women, in flowing white dresses, hid in the fleeting shade.
His belongings were not difficult to find and he dispatched them immediately to the fort. Tomorrow would be his first full day as an islander. Once he reached his rooms, he would rest in his bed and mourn, one last time, for his lost riviera.
As he strode down the cobbled street, nearing the flock of daintily dressed island women, a flash of unexpected color caught his eye and he paused his heavy steps. The brightly painted fan fluttered. It was held by a small brown hand which began to move, so it seemed, ever so slowly. The waves of coolness from its flapping flowed onto an angled chin touched by dancing tendrils of dark wavy hair. The undulations of the wind picked at her sheer dress and caressed promising curves. Behind the up and down of the fan’s rhythmic cadence, flashes of brown eyes nestled among dark long lashes captured the moment into stillness. The thudding of his chest flowed with vigor.
The crowds seemed to disappear and the loneliness of exile, which was there just moments ago faded. This was home. And for the first time in a long time he breathed on a panel of glass.
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