Conquistadora (29 page)

When they crossed the Cordillera Central and began their descent into the drier southern slope, the problem became the unforgiving sun that made the coach feel like a stove in spite of the occasional breeze that blew through its open windows. They left their lodgings at dawn and traveled until the sun was directly overhead. They then detoured into tree-lined drives leading to
estancias
where they took lunch and a siesta, followed by a light supper and conversation with their hosts, repeating the news of the night before in a different parlor to a different audience, adding what gossip their previous hosts had shared.

They were delayed twice when the coach needed repairs, and then Leonor, Elena, and their hostesses attended Mass in cool churches and walked circles around tree-lined plazas at dusk.

So far, while the journey wasn’t easy, Leonor couldn’t account for her sons’ and daughter-in-law’s insistence that they not travel to Los Gemelos because of the poor roads leading to the plantation. She,
as a soldier’s wife, had seen worse, had ridden over steeper terrain, had slept in less comfortable beds in structures lacking the grace and beauty of any of the homes they visited on the journey. If there was unrest, it was invisible to Leonor and Elena, perched inside the wine-colored coach, surrounded by men with swords and rifles.

The military road from north to south was well enough traveled, but when they began their drive west, the road narrowed into paths that made the horses skittish. Low-lying branches, buzzing insects, and small birds battered the coach and knocked hats off the men riding behind. Once, they stopped so that Leonor and Elena could run around beating their skirts and shaking their petticoats because a lizard had crawled under them, but neither lady was certain whose skirts had been invaded. Another time, the roof of the coach, piled with luggage and gifts, banged against a dangling hornet’s nest, and while the ladies were spared, Eugenio and their escorts on horseback and on foot suffered stings. One of the men was stung around the eyes and his lids swelled shut. He had to be guided back to the nearest town.

Ramón had arranged for them to stay their last night on the road at Finca San Bernabé. The Argosos drove into the tamped dirt yard in late afternoon, followed by the escort. The residence was a long wooden house with a peaked roof known as
techo de dos aguas
. Next to it, a larger, square masonry house with a flat roof and central courtyard was under construction. When they pulled into the drive, the workers on the new building stopped and stood with their heads bowed while the ladies were helped from the carriage and up to the front porch of the original dwelling, where Luis and Faustina waited to greet them. Their boys stood next to their parents and were introduced as Luisito and Manolo. They all looked alike—Faustina a female copy of her husband, Luisito and Manolo smaller echoes of the same features and corpulent shapes.

“
Bienvenidos
, please come in, welcome, this way, please make yourselves comfortable.” Faustina’s voice resounded from her bosom with an undertone of jollity, as if remembering a joke she was eager to share. Luis, too, seemed to be enjoying himself enormously, and their two boys were all smiles and ingratiating gestures. Leonor accepted as a good omen that the closest neighbors to Los Gemelos had such high spirits and took obvious delight in their country life. Their
size and rosy cheeks, their smiling, hospitable air were comforting, as if closeness to these happy people somehow reached over the miles of overgrown paths and stony roads to the center of Los Gemelos. Forgetting her intimate knowledge of her son’s and daughter-in-law’s true personalities, and contrary to every fear and concern suffered over the past four and a half years, Leonor now imagined Ramón, Ana, and Miguel as round and jolly and loquacious as every member of the Morales Moreau household.

From the outside, their home seemed a simple wooden rectangle with a broad front porch, but it proved to be airy and roomy inside, furnished simply but comfortably. It was clear from the doilies that covered the side tables, the cushions propped against the wooden and cane chairs, the valances over the shutter windows and adorning the doors leading to interior rooms that Faustina was a prolific crocheter.

“I’m sure,” Faustina said, “that you’d like to freshen up.” She led Leonor and Elena to the rear of the house and showed each into a different room, where maids waited to help them with their ablutions.

“What’s your name?”

“Ciriaca.
A sus órdenes, señora
,” the maid answered, neither docile nor assertive, but in a combination of both. She was a striking woman, with almond eyes and high cheekbones. The bright orange turban circling her head, the ends tied into an insouciant bow at the side, enhanced the undertones of her chocolate skin. “Shall I pour for you?” she asked, and with a steady hand she tipped the clay pitcher just enough for a stream of water to fill Leonor’s cupped hands over the basin. She splashed her face, her neck, and just as she was about to ask for the towel, Ciriaca presented it to her unfolded, releasing the scent of lemons. Their eyes met, and Ciriaca dropped her gaze immediately, but again, Leonor thought that the woman was not submissive so much as well-mannered. “If you permit me,
señora
,” Ciriaca said, and with the used, now damp towel, she brushed away pieces of leaves, dead insects, and twigs from Leonor’s clothes and, kneeling in front of her, used what corners of the towel were still clean to wipe the dust from the hem of her dress and from her shoes.

Elena came from her room at the same time as Leonor emerged from hers, looking refreshed and happy. Luis, Faustina, and Eugenio were sitting on the porch, each holding a tall glass of fruity water. The boys were nowhere to be seen.

“I hope you like the flavor of
mamey
,” Faustina said, handing Leonor and Elena glassfuls. “It took me a while to develop a taste for it, but I now find
agüita de mamey
the most refreshing drink after a long journey.”

“What a pretty, tranquil place you have,” Elena said, her lovely face tinged in soft pink, as if expressing an opinion were such an unaccustomed deed that it made her blush.

“Gracias, señorita.”
Luis inclined his head in an abbreviated bow. “Faustina chose this spot for the house. As you can see, we’re expanding.” He waved chubby fingers toward the new construction. “When we first came here, there was nothing but a few shacks and a pigsty. But we’ve done better than expected.”

Faustina turned to Leonor. “It’s not easy to live so far from the amenities in the city, but we do our best. Your room is comfortable?” The question at the end of what began as a sentence invited a compliment.

“Charming,” Leonor said, “and Ciriaca was very attentive.”

Faustina smiled complacently. “Yes, she’s very good. I inherited her from my brother, may he rest in peace. It’s a pity we can’t keep her, but we really don’t need more domestics. Luis plans to trade her, and her daughter, who waited on you,
señorita
Elena, for more laborers.”

“The truth is,” Luis added, “that a business like ours depends on peons. We don’t keep a town house, so servants like Ciriaca and Bombón, with few skills beyond the four walls of a great house, are practically useless to us.”

“I hope our son and daughter-in-law have done even half as well as you have done here,” Leonor said, wishing to compliment their hosts once more. Then she saw it again, the cloud that swept over the faces of people who knew something about Los Gemelos that she didn’t, the flutter of the eyelids, the pressing of the lips, the sudden urge to change the subject.

“What news,” Faustina asked brightly, “do you bring from San Juan?”

They left San Bernabé at first light, pursued by glorious birdsong. The farm was situated in the high hills along a river, and in every direction that Leonor and Elena looked, there were cultivated groves of fruit trees, coffee, bananas, and plantains; terraced gardens where peons worked close to the ground; men, women, and children hoeing, weeding, moving earth while overseers on horseback rode from one end of the fields to the other. The coach slanted downhill; the wheels and frame groaned and screeched as if they could feel pain on the slopes as the horses picked their way down the serpentine paths. Several times Elena covered her eyes when the coach rolled close to the edge of a sheer drop, the vegetation so thick that it could be night at the bottom. Hidden among the thickets were cottages roofed with palm fronds, and smoke curling into the wind from cooking fires.

One minute they were in the forest and the next moment the landscape opened to a broad plain with canebrakes at various stages of cultivation. It was a violent shift from shadow to light, from steep to flat, from breezy coolness to a powerful oppressive heat and a pitiless sun rising to its zenith. As they entered the cane, Eugenio rode ahead, and when Leonor peeked out the window, she saw that he was talking to another man on horseback accompanied by two hounds, upon which Eugenio and his mount kept wary eyes.

“That was Severo Fuentes,” Eugenio reported on his way back. “We’ll be there in about an hour. He’s gone ahead to let Ramón and Ana know.”

Within seconds the interior of the coach hummed like a boudoir before a ball as Leonor and Elena scratched through the traveling cases at their feet for linen hand towels and flasks of water, perfumes, combs, powders, fresh gloves, clean lace collars, and cuffs. They
helped each other button and fasten, tug and smooth bodices and waistlines, straighten stockings and tie laces on their shoes so that by the time the coach rolled into the
batey
the two women looked and smelled as if they were ready for the first waltz.

Severo Fuentes opened the carriage door, and as Leonor stepped down, the first person she saw was an old man dressed in loose white pants, shirt, vest, and jacket. A shapeless straw hat drooped over long, stringy hair and shadowed what could be seen of his face surrounded by an unkempt beard. Neither the hat nor the shadows could hide the most vacant eyes Leonor had ever seen. It took her a moment to realize she was looking at Ramón.

“Hijo,”
she cried, and threw herself upon him, but softened her hold at the sharp bones beneath his too-big clothes, her once exacting, perfumed boy now stinking of sweat and defeat. She pulled away, held him by the shoulders, looked into his blank eyes, and saw tears. “What has happened to you?” she asked before she could stop herself, and Ana, who was standing near Severo Fuentes, stepped closer with an insipid smile, as if she hadn’t heard the question.

“Lovely to see you again, doña Leonor.” Ana kissed her cheeks, then signaled to a woman next to her to present the boy, her grandson, who bleated like a frightened lamb when Leonor opened her arms toward him. Miguel buried his face in his nurse’s bosom in an attempt to be invisible.

“Ven, Miguelito,”
Ana said. “Nana Inés has to go now. Meet your abuela and abuelo.
Ven niño, no tengas miedo
,” she cooed. The child held on to Inés, who tried to pry him away, without success.

Ramón ran his bony hands over the boy’s head, and Miguel turned around, threw himself at his father, and wrapped his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist. Leonor instinctively reached out, afraid that her son would break from the violence of such passionate love. Murmuring in the child’s ear, Ramón persuaded Miguel to turn his face so that his grandparents could get a good look at his features. To Leonor’s disappointment, he was the spitting image of Ana.

Leonor had waited so long to see her son that she couldn’t take her eyes off him the whole first afternoon and evening they were together. She barely noticed the house, its furnishings, and Ana’s demeanor.
She saw only how thin Ramón was, how his eyes didn’t quite meet hers or his father’s. She noticed his sickly yellow skin, wrinkled and furrowed where the straggly beard didn’t grow. His hands had bronzed into leather, his nails were cracked, his fingertips were raw and sore, as if he’d been digging earth with bare hands. He still moved with the grace of the excellent dancer, but as if through water, deliberate and labored.

Leonor and Eugenio were installed next to Ana and Ramón’s bedroom, and Elena was assigned the one across the hall. Miguel went to stay with his nurse next to the workshop.

“We’re so sorry,” Ana said, “that the accommodations aren’t more luxurious.” Her face wrinkled into a grimace that was supposed to be an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid the work on the land means that we haven’t paid enough attention to our own comfort indoors.”

After a short siesta and an early supper, they sat on the porch. As Eugenio and Elena related the gossip they picked up on their travels, Leonor kept eyes on her son, on his newly aquiline features, the way his head bobbed as if he was agreeing with what was said but was actually listening to an internal conversation. When the bell clanged lights out, they all retired. The plain wooden slats dividing the rooms meant that Leonor was aware of every movement on the other side of the wall. There was pacing and urgent murmuring, as if Ana was trying to convince Ramón of something and he wouldn’t agree. After a few minutes, Ramón left the house. When Leonor turned to her husband, he, too, was awake, listening.