Conquistadora (33 page)

Padre Xavier lingered around the family. He tried to talk Ana into burying Ramón in the Catholic cemetery, but in one of the few decisions she made during the hours right after his death, she refused to allow it.

“This place meant more to Ramón than a town he seldom visited,” she said, wiping away tears. “I’d prefer it if you’d consecrate the ground, because when my time comes, I, too, wish to be buried here.”

Severo picked a spot on a knoll for Ramón and had men build a stone fence around it for a burial ground. Even Leonor and Eugenio agreed that it was a peaceful site, shaded by an ancient ceiba tree. Ramón was interred at the highest point, the
cañaveral
an enormous rippling carpet below. After the funeral, the
rancho
was rearranged, under Severo’s direction, into an open dining room where a meal was served to the mourners before they returned to their plantations. The novenas were also conducted in the
rancho
, but the visitors dwindled over the nine days, so by the end, only the family, the
slaves, and a few
campesinos
recited the prayers that Ana, Leonor, and Elena took turns leading.

Ana tried to make the Argosos feel welcome, even though Ramón had announced they were coming after they were already halfway to Los Gemelos. She’d have preferred to house them at the
finca
, which would have given everyone more privacy. But Ramón insisted that the
finca
was too far from the house.

Leonor had brought a slave with her from San Bernabé, a loan, she said, from Faustina. Ciriaca slept in a hammock in Miguel’s room, now Elena’s, and waited on the two women with refined solicitude and surprising devotion. Ciriaca and Elena walked doña Leonor to Ramón’s grave every morning and afternoon to pray. Leonor gave Ana hateful looks when she wouldn’t go with them.

Flora was jealous of Ciriaca. “She orders me and Inés like she the mistress.”

Damita, too, said that Ciriaca’s polished manners and commanding airs had the slaves gossiping and complaining. The smooth functioning of her household, which Ana worked so hard to achieve and maintain, evolved within days into resentful infighting among her servants.

Even though she was in mourning, Ana wouldn’t neglect her chores. Every time she went by Leonor, Ana saw her disapproving eyes, because she should be sitting in a corner, like Leonor and Elena, praying and reading devotional texts. Eugenio was in the
campo
with Severo from dawn to dusk. His wife didn’t make him sit with her and pray all day. Even in his grief he could work, but she couldn’t because she was a woman and could express her grief only by suspending her life. She spent most of her day in the gardens, brooding about her future.

One afternoon, Leonor and Elena walked Miguel to the river for a picnic. Ana was working on the ledgers when she heard Eugenio coming up the outside stairs.

“Ah! There you are. No picnic for you?”

“No, don Eugenio. It’s the end of the month, and I must go over the accounts and prepare the pay packets for the overseers and the paid laborers.”

“Perhaps I can help?”

“I’m almost finished, but if you’d like to review what I’ve done—”

Eugenio sat beside her as she explained each item, each expense, every purchase and sale over almost five years at Los Gemelos. He leaned back as if the blue, green, and red lines across the pages made him dizzy. He wasn’t for credits and debits but had spent enough time on the plantation to know that it was better run than he’d expected.

“It all looks very good,” he said, nodding.

“Another couple of years of good harvests”—Ana closed the books and stacked them by her side—“and Los Gemelos will be self-sufficient. Within another two to five years we’ll be making a profit.”

“It’s tragic that neither of my boys lived long enough to see it.”

“Yes.” She lowered her head, but from the corner of her eye she saw him looking around, as if taking inventory of the house and its belongings. “That’s why,” she said softly, “I’d like to continue the work here, don Eugenio. In their memory.”

“Surely, Ana, you know that’s impossible. You, alone here? No, my dear, I appreciate your sentiments, but … No, I couldn’t possibly allow it.”

Her bile rose. He, the head of the family, was compelled, was in fact bound by family ties and culture to make decisions for her. Ana tried to stay calm. She reminded herself that Eugenio was better disposed toward her than Leonor.

“It’s your plantation, of course, and you can do as you please with it. But Ramón and Inocente thought of Los Gemelos as their legacy to Miguel. He was born here. This is all he’s known.”

“He’s four years old, Ana. What does Miguel know about legacies and the future?”

“Nothing yet, but someday he’ll ask what his father and his uncle stood and died for.”

“And you’d have him believe they stood and died for a piece of land with rotting buildings on it? You’d have him believe that his father and uncle stood and died for a few pigs and chickens, some mules, a couple of old mares?”

“Is that all you see here?”

Eugenio strode to the window and kept his back to her for so long that she thought their conversation was over. “Luis Morales has made me a generous offer, one I’m disposed to accept.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not enough. Your sons and I put everything
into Los Gemelos, and now that it’s on the verge of being a profitable business—”

“Having looked at your ledgers, and considering Luis’s offer, the sale will be a very profitable business indeed.”

Ana shook her head, remembering fat don Luis strutting around the
batey
as if he already owned it.

“You need not worry, my dear. You and Miguel will be well looked after. I promise you’ll want for nothing.”

“But what I want, don Eugenio, is to finish what Ramón, Inocente, and I started. I owe it to them, and to Miguel.”

Eugenio walked to the window again, clearly exasperated, but didn’t turn his back this time. “Ana, think for a moment. How do you propose to raise a child on your own, in the middle of nowhere, far from the only other family he has? Where will he go to school? What society will he be a part of? If he’s injured, will it take hours for the doctor to get to him, as it did with Ramón? What if there is another insurrection? Aren’t you afraid?”

She thought a moment before answering. “Yes, of course there are times … at the beginning, after Inocente’s murder, and last year, during the uprisings I was afraid, but I knew that if I gave in to it, I couldn’t live with myself.”

Eugenio chuckled. “You talk like a soldier.” She smiled back. “But, Ana, a plantation needs a man to handle the workforce, slave or free, a man to negotiate with vendors and customers, a man, Ana, not a young woman with a child.”

“Severo Fuentes has been an excellent
mayordomo
. I’m confident that he can—”

“And how do you think it will look for you to stay here, alone, with Severo Fuentes?”

She hoped that her blush didn’t show. “He’s been nothing but respectful.”

“I’m sure he has, when your husband was here. But I’ve seen how he looks at you.”

She blushed deeper, angry now. “Don Eugenio! What are you implying?”

“Nothing, my dear. Forgive me. I’m merely pointing out the reality of your situation. You’re young and unprotected. He’s a young man, and ambitious. How long, do you think, before he figures out
that, if he married
la patrona
, he could be the
patrón
?” He sat again and leaned toward her. “Leonor and I have made the ultimate sacrifice, Ana. Two sons, dead. And, no, don’t defend yourself. I don’t blame you. I do not blame you,” he repeated, to make sure she understood. “You’re young, and someday you might wish to marry again and perhaps you’ll have more children. And that’s your prerogative. But Miguel is the last Argoso, and I intend to raise him under my roof, with my values and, yes, even my prejudices and perhaps some of my vices. That’s my prerogative, you see, as the patriarch of this family.”

Ana stood as if to leave but instead sat again, her gaze on the floor, weighing what to say next. “What if you sold Los Gemelos to me?”

“My dear, I’ve looked at your books. You can’t afford—”

“Perhaps you could extend a mortgage.”

“A mortgage? Secured by?”

“Secured by Miguel.”

Eugenio stammered, unable to form the words.

Ana continued speaking quickly, to make certain she said it all before she changed her mind. “If I fail here, you get the child, and I will legally renounce all rights to him.”

Eugenio stared at Ana as if she’d sprouted snakes around her head. “Do I understand you correctly? Are you offering to trade Miguel for Los Gemelos?”

“I didn’t say that, don Eugenio. What kind of a mother do you think I am?”

“But you said—”

“I’m suggesting an arrangement to benefit everyone. I stay here building what your sons and I began. If I fail, I’ll return to Spain, but Miguel will be yours. That way, you and doña Leonor will not be the only ones to have sacrificed sons.”

“I find it hard to believe what I’m hearing.” Eugenio leaned against the wall, needing the support of the sturdy beams. “In any case, Leonor will never agree to leave Miguel here. She has already made that clear to me.”

“Ah, yes, doña Leonor,” Ana said with a rueful smile. “She, I think, would prefer a cleaner arrangement.” There was no sarcasm in her voice, but she seemed to be talking to herself. “Perhaps when you misunderstood me earlier, we were closer to what would make the most sense to her. Yes, a straight barter would make more sense.”
She sighed then, lowering her voice so that he would come closer, she continued, “What if I get Los Gemelos, you get Miguel? You raise him in a more … suitable … environment.”

“Ana, do you mean this? You’d give up your child?”

She looked him in the eye. “Don Eugenio, I’m not giving Miguel up; I’m sending him to be raised by his loving grandparents, who are better equipped to educate and care for him than I am.”

“If that were the case, why do you need to own Los Gemelos?”

“Because I’m a poor defenseless widow whose entire fortune has gone into this place, to which I have no legal claim. And it’s true, I’m still young, strong, and healthy. I don’t wish to live the remainder of my life as your dependent, like Elena does. But I’m willing to live as … as your business partner, for lack of a better word.”

“There’s something wrong with this.”

Ana continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Los Gemelos should remain in your name with Miguel as the only heir. And you must agree not to sell it without offering it to me first. That seems only fair, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, that seems right.”

“If, as you predict, I get married again, Miguel’s inheritance will be protected.”

“You seem to have thought this out thoroughly.”

“We’re having a necessary discussion about my future and Miguel’s. I appreciate your help in trying to determine what’s best for me and my son, but you do understand that if I don’t have my own home, I’ll be forced to return to my parent’s house in Sevilla, and I’ll take my son with me.”

“Now you’re threatening me.”

“I’m merely discussing my options with you, sir.”

“I see.” Eugenio’s lips twisted, as if tasting something sour. From the yard rose the sound of Miguel’s laughter, and the women’s light steps coming up the stairs. “Let’s continue our discussion later. They’re back from their picnic.”

Eugenio was preoccupied the rest of the day. He circled the pond, his hands clasped behind his back, mulling over Ana’s offer and how it would affect his life.

He’d already sold the farm in Caguas because after Inocente’s
death his wife was afraid to live in the
campo
. Divesting himself of Marítima Argoso Marín was next. With both sons dead, there was no one left to manage the shipping business—an enterprise Eugenio didn’t, and didn’t want to, understand. He was heartened by Luis Morales Font’s offer for Hacienda los Gemelos because he couldn’t imagine himself—or Leonor—ever wanting to live there. He had trouble accepting that the black men and women on the hacienda were his property even though he’d sent money to his sons for buying slaves. Like every
hacendado
, he was convinced that slaves were necessary to the operations and better suited to the work than white laborers.

Both his and Leonor’s family in Spain had owned slaves who remained with their parents after abolition. In San Juan, their friends kept slaves for their households, but Eugenio had been less exposed to the conditions of agricultural workers. He was appalled by how the—his—slaves lived, how hard they worked, how every aspect of their lives was regulated and controlled by foremen, bosses, Severo, Ana. What did it take for his sons, living and working alongside them, to accept their roles as slave owners? They never wrote about that side of the experience, but if Ana had qualms, she’d stepped into the position of
patrona
as if she’d lived that way from birth. She was kind to them, yes, he could see that, but she didn’t see them as human beings, Eugenio thought. They were tools.

After the turbulence of the Carlist war in Spain and the last five years in Puerto Rico, Eugenio longed for a tranquil existence alongside his beloved wife. After selling the shipping business, he planned to return to Spain, perhaps even to Villamartín, the ancestral village where he and Leonor grew up. They’d raise Miguel alongside his people with no pedigrees or dreams of glory beyond that due to queen and nation. He also planned to find a husband for Elena. She’d been in mourning with them for two years, had worn
traje de luto
for Inocente, and would continue to wear it for Ramón for another two. At twenty-one Elena should already be married and settled. She was like a daughter, he wanted to do the right thing for her, and he knew that Leonor would want her nearby. Eugenio was certain that his wife would agree to his plans. But he’d worried what to do about Ana. Technically, even though she had a mother and father, she now belonged in his household because she was the mother of the Argoso heir. Eugenio couldn’t envision her at his table for
the rest of his, her, or especially Leonor’s life. Ana’s obsession with the hacienda solved the problem of what to do with her, and how to keep his wife happy.