Read Panama for Free Online Page A

thick book with worn pages. This cabin is so orderly and clean, it could be a vacation hideaway in the Adirondacks, but a worker sits there, a man Harry's age. I can't take my eyes off him.
    "You live here alone?" Harry says in smooth Castilian.
    "No. My roommate is next door—a card game."
    Harry nods.
    I've never heard elegant Castilian before. They sound like two diplomats, not worker and census taker.
    Harry takes a seat on an empty cot and I sit beside him. I look around the room, intimidated. On the wall is an unpainted shelf made of dynamite boxes. It's filled with books, and there are more books on the table.
    Harry begins to reel off questions.
    "Name?"
    "Federico Malero."
    "Metal-check number?"
    He answers without moving, book in hand. I'm glued to his elegant speech and his impressive calm.
    He just doesn't move, doesn't even close the book. His answers are quick and precise. Harry finally comes to the last question and I'm still transfixed.
    "Can you read?"
    Harry reads off the question as he does all the others—looking at the form, pencil poised. Malero answers with a faint smile and a slightly condescending tone.
    "A little," he says in perfect British-educated English.
    Harry's head jerks up. The Spaniard nods toward the shelf.
    "My library."
    An intrigued smile comes over Harry's face. He gets up, goes to the shelf, and studies the titles: Barcelona paper editions of Hegel, Fichte, Spencer, Huxley, and others, all of them dog-eared from reading.
    "Mine and my roommate's," says Malero.
    Harry turns to him and frowns, confused. "You're a foreman and living here?"
    "Pico y pala."
    "Pick and shovel? Dirt gang, and you read those?" Harry is baffled. So am I, with my other loopy feelings.
    "It doesn't matter," Malero says.
    He's still unperturbed and offers no explanation. His smile is distant, mysterious. Dark, wavy hair, fair complexion but tanned from work in the sun. Long fingers, one slipped behind a page ready to turn it. He's handsome, self-assured, impeccable, and a pick-and-shovel worker in the Cut. It's impossible.
    Since we came in, he's only raised his head. We haven't troubled him—we certainly haven't scared him.
    "Well then..." Harry says.
    He wants a conversation with this Malero, I see it. This educated European working in the Cut—just the kind of fellow Harry would like to know, talk politics with, be personal with. But disciplined Harry does as he's hired to do. He makes out a red completion tag for the side of the cabin.
    Federico glances at me for the first time. I'm suddenly self-conscious and close my mouth, flick my eyes around, heart thumping.
    "Where's your roommate, again?" Harry says, tag finished. "Next cabin playing cards."
    "That's right. I'll catch him there."
    Hesitation. Harry wants badly to talk. But he doesn't. He says, "All right then," and reaches out to shake Malero's hand, something he never does with other laborers.
    Still Federico does not get up or move, only shakes Harry's hand and says goodbye. He will not be disturbed.
    Federico goes back to his book and Harry and I go to the door.
    I glance back at Federico, who raises his eyes to me. I turn away in confusion and go out.
    I'm shaken.
Twenty-Two
    "Maybe I should have joined the pick-and-shovel gang," Harry says, tacking the red tag on Federico's cabin. "I may have missed something. Look who's working there. Pick and shovel with a mind like that?"
    "You could ask him about it." I'm rattled, my heart booming, but I'm ready to walk back in.
    "No, no socializing. Maybe it's more money than he can earn in Spain."
    "Maybe."
    "Or he's running away from something..."
    "Yeah."
    Harry goes on guessing. I'm not hearing. Federico fills my mind—no space for anything else. His face and hands, the way he sits, how comfortable he is with himself, in some other world, one I want to know.
    Gradually Harry's voice comes back. "...more educated than his bosses and swinging pick and shovel. Bet the steam shovelers