Conquistadora (36 page)

When he was alive, the slaves called Ramón El Caminante, because he wandered the paths at night, dressed in ghostly white, with no regard for weather, no concern for fences, no fear of the creatures of the night. He still walked in death, they claimed, and terror of encountering him along the paths and byways of the land was a powerful deterrent. They dreaded being caught outdoors after dark, and the overseers had no trouble accounting for every man, woman, and child before locking them inside the barracks and
bohíos
after the last bell. Severo encouraged their fear by spreading the rumor that El Caminante killed Marta when she tried to run away.

He sensed that Ana, too, was afraid, but not of the supernatural; she feared what lay beyond Los Gemelos. She’d crossed an ocean, sailed around an island, ridden for hours through forest and cane to come here, but she now confined her activities to a circle no larger than a couple of kilometers in any direction, its center firmly set on the
casona
. Severo wanted to expand her world, to give her a bird’s-eye view of Los Gemelos and its perimeter, bounded on the north by the gentle mounds of the Cordillera Central and on the south by the placid waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Soon after Inocente’s murder, he’d begun construction of the house on the hill, built from blocks made on-site from a mixture of cement, lime, and the orange clay harvested on the riverbank. The thick walls would keep it cool against the harsh sun, the rooms refreshed by the breezes coming from the ocean or dipping toward the valley from the mountains. Severo imagined the house as an aerie for Ana, whom he compared to a
pitirre
, the solemn gray kingbird common in Puerto Rico. There was a saying among Puerto Ricans—
“cada guaraguao tiene su pitirre”
—that alluded to how the much smaller
pitirre
was unafraid of, and sometimes even attacked, the larger, aggressive
guaraguao
, the red-tailed hawk. Like the
pitirre
, Ana was
patient and dared to challenge authority, even though she was small in stature and a woman. Severo didn’t know how she convinced don Eugenio not to sell Los Gemelos, but he admired that she stood up to him and led him to believe that he was in control of her actions.

As soon as don Eugenio left, Ana set up Miguel’s old room as her study. She spent mornings making notes, entering numbers into ledgers, and writing letters, the humpbacked child at her feet. She sent a monthly report to Mr. Worthy, don Eugenio’s
norteamericano
representing matters concerning Los Gemelos.

Following Ramón’s death, Severo worried that what he’d worked so hard to build would crash down with the sweep of a pen across a document. Luis had his eye on Los Gemelos from the beginning, and had encouraged Ramón’s and Inocente’s vices to accelerate their dissolution. However, he hadn’t counted on Ana’s attachment to the plantation. He hadn’t known, or understood, that it was Ana who brought Ramón and Inocente here, not the other way around.

When he told Ana about Ingenio Diana, Severo had been considering it for her for some time. The owners hired him to keep an eye on their property, so he was the first to learn that they might sell. Severo would have bought it, but he wanted to know whether Ana had any resources other than what don Eugenio provided. He now understood that she wasn’t completely at her father-in-law’s mercy. She was crafty and smarter than don Eugenio and his two sons combined.

While Ana showed no desire to go anywhere, Severo would do whatever it took to keep her at Hacienda los Gemelos, not only because don Eugenio had charged him to do so but also because he needed her near. In Spain, he couldn’t have aspired to marry a lady with her education, pedigree, and money. Here she was within reach.

He negotiated the purchase of Ingenio Diana for a fair price. It helped that the owners lived in Spain. A flurry of correspondence between Ana and her father resulted in a smooth financial transaction, while Severo made sure that the
ingenio
, abandoned for six years, was ready to press cane on February 2, 1850, Día de la Candelaria—Candlemas.

From the first days of their arrival in San Juan in September 1844, Eugenio had trouble getting used to the within-doors world of business management. He disliked paperwork, regular hours, and the collaborative nature of running a business after a lifetime in the unchallenged command of men and beasts on terra firma. He couldn’t imagine ever being the capable manager that his brother Rodrigo had been, and with his sons dead, there was no one else to take over the business.

“I’m not good at this,” he despaired to his wife. “You were right all along. Let’s sell Marítima Argoso Marín and go back to Spain. Why should we stay and—”

“My sons are buried here,” she reminded him.

“But it would be better to raise Miguel near our family, in our village.”

“I won’t leave our sons alone on this island,” she replied with such sadness that Eugenio didn’t have the heart to argue further. He requested an appointment with Vicente Worthy, the sober, Boston-born lawyer/banker whom Rodrigo trusted and upon whom Eugenio had come to depend.

Newly minted from Harvard Law School, Vincent Worthy was working for Richardson, Bodwell, Cabot, a prestigious firm in Boston, when he met María del Carmen y la Providencia Paniagua Stevens, nicknamed Provi. She was visiting her aunt Sally and would be in Boston only six weeks—or as she so charmingly pronounced it “seeks wicks.” Everything Provi said and did was charming to the love-struck young man. When he shook her hand as they were introduced, her warm fingers melted twenty-five Boston winters from
his heart. Her father agreed to their marriage, but only if the couple lived in Puerto Rico. The Paniaguas and Stevenses were well-respected merchants and businessmen on the island. They expected their adult children, who’d inherit their fortunes, to live near their money.

Vincent married the delightful Provi and established his practice in San Juan. He soon learned that he had to overcome the mistrust of the families who owned most of the businesses in the city. Spain and its royalists were uneasy about the United States’ expansionist strategies. The War of 1812 had proven that the
estadounidenses
were determined to seize as much territory as possible, obliterating the native populations as they trekked toward the Pacific. The phrase “Manifest Destiny”—coined in 1845—defended the relentless movement west as inevitable, obvious, and ordained by God. While the government appeared to be focused toward the west, the elites of the Greater Antilles, particularly Cubans, knew the archipelago to the east was in the peripheral vision of the United States.
Estadounidenses
already owned major stakes in vast Cuban sugar and tobacco plantations, and were investing in the burgeoning Puerto Rican sugar and coffee industries.

As soon as he arrived, Vincent noticed that most industrial heavy machinery in Puerto Rico and the islands was imported from Britain, including grinders and steam engines for sugar processing. The engineers who ran and maintained them, mostly Scots, had become, over time,
hacendados
themselves and continued to trade with Great Britain. Shrewd local businessmen, even those distrustful of the
estadounidenses’
motives, however, began to look toward markets in the United States and to the technological advances coming from its foundries and factories. Vincent saw an opportunity as an intermediary.

Upon Provi’s suggestion, he Hispanicized his first name to make himself less foreign. With dogged diligence, he learned Spanish quickly, so by the time his father-in-law introduced him to don Rodrigo and his varied enterprises under the aegis of Marítima Argoso Marín, Vicente could speak to the canny businessman in his own language. His discretion, acumen, and commitment to his clients earned Vicente the esteem of even the most skeptical anti-
yanqui
. In thirteen years he’d become one of San Juan’s most influential citizens.

Eugenio walked to Mr. Worthy’s offices in a new building overlooking San Juan harbor. Rain had slicked the cobblestones and cleansed the narrow sidewalks, but had also washed the open sewers in the streets closer to the docks down to the sea. Mr. Worthy had offered to come to the Argoso house, but Eugenio preferred to meet him in his offices. He admired the diligence of the clerks toiling on high stools pulled up to long-legged tables in the center of the main room, and the serenity inside Mr. Worthy’s office overlooking the ships, docks, and warehouses that made San Juan—at least to all appearances—as wealthy and busy as any major port city in Europe.

One of the things Eugenio most liked about Mr. Worthy was his ability to understand, in few words, what his clients were asking from him even if they didn’t know exactly themselves. After he explained his doubts about his abilities and desires as a businessman, Mr. Worthy went through the folios in a cabinet against the wall. Eugenio had the feeling that Mr. Worthy had read these documents many times, but he scanned the ones Eugenio was least likely to study, the ones with many figures on them, double lines at the bottoms of pages, black ink, red ink, abbreviations, symbols, seals, and customs stamps.

After showing him some of the entries on the parchments, Mr. Worthy recommended that Eugenio liquidate Marítima Argoso Marín’s seagoing assets and spend the income on real estate and on local businesses whose owners and directors had a good history of making money for their investors.

“You might also consider,” Mr. Worthy said, “that it’s time to sell Hacienda los Gemelos. Sugar prices have dropped steadily over the past six years, and I don’t see them going up in the near future. The land, however, is valuable, and you could get a good return.”

“No changes to Hacienda los Gemelos,” Eugenio said.

“I see.”

“I promised to let my daughter-in-law manage it, and intend to keep my word, unless there’s something amiss.…”

“No, sir. In spite of the constant losses, she’s punctilious about her figures.”

“Yes, I’m sure she is.”

“As your adviser in these matters, however, please forgive me, Colonel, I must be clear—”

“It’s in my interest that she live there. I’m willing to absorb small losses so long as the property continues to improve. Is that clear enough?”

“Of course,” Mr. Worthy said. “And I’ll consult with you if anything is alarming.”

“That’s what I expect.”

“Very well. Now that we have that settled, Colonel, there are other possibilities to make money,” Mr. Worthy continued, “that don’t require your everyday attention.”

“Go on.”

By Miguel’s sixth birthday in September 1851, Eugenio had divested the movable parts of the shipping business—the vessels, sails, machinery, crates, barrels, ropes, and he knew not what else—but held on to the docks, warehouses, and office buildings on the waterfront, rented at a premium. Mr. Worthy advised him on investments that he monitored in Puerto Rico and via the New York Stock & Exchange Board. He also sent an auditor to Los Gemelos every year to review the books and to make sure that everything there was in order.

Now that he no longer sat in an office listening to the droning of bookkeepers, managers, supervisors, and expediters, Eugenio became what his wife insisted a man of his age and race should be—a gentleman of means and leisure. Had he retired to Villamartín, he’d be just another old soldier living out his last years in ease and comfort, his exploits forgotten by everyone but his family. In San Juan, however, he was admired for his wealth, life’s work, and accomplishments. Everywhere he went, soldiers saluted, civilian men bowed, and ladies curtsied.

He owned shares of fighting cocks and racehorses. He enjoyed their exploits without having to do any of the work of raising or training them, or of keeping them in fighting and racing health. He joined La Asociación de Caballeros Españoles, a club devoted to cards, fine wines, and aromatic cigars. Like his sons, he was a good dancer, and took pleasure in leading Leonor around the polished dance floors in private homes and ballrooms, certain that even young
señoritas
admired his form.

Because they spent most evenings out, Miguel ate his supper with Elena, who didn’t like leaving him alone even if it meant missing
an elegant dinner or a performance at the theater. It was Elena who listened to his prayers, who reminded him to include Queen Isabel II, Ana, Severo, the unfortunate slaves, the lepers, orphans, and everyone on the prayer list at the Catedral de San Juan Bautista. It was Elena who walked him to catechism classes, and who made sure he observed the holy days. And it was she who released Eugenio from his biggest preoccupation.

“Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I don’t plan to marry while Miguel is so young.”

It didn’t take Miguel long to get used to life in San Juan. He was young enough to revel in the love and attention of his grandparents and Elena. They were strict but kind, especially Abuelo, whose whiskers bristled when he was angry, but who seldom raised his voice and didn’t spank him. Abuela took advantage of every opportunity to hug and kiss Miguel, to squeeze his hand or press his shoulder. He soon learned that Abuela’s need to touch was not confined to him.