Conquistadora (46 page)

On January 1, 1845, Severo set up the ledgers, entering twenty-five names, followed by de Argoso. Three of them were debits—the runaways. On January 9 he added sixteen names followed by de Fuentes, the ones he brought to the hacienda. On the same date he entered ten more de Argoso names, men purchased with her dowry in clandestine sales. On October 17 he recorded ten more de Argosos from the finca Ramón and Inocente bought during Ana’s
cuarentena
. On January 13, 1846, he entered ten more de Argoso men. On August 8, 1847, he added ten de Argoso names, and on April 3, 1852, another five. In between there were births and deaths, so at the bottom of Ana’s log, on July 29, 1856, at the height of the cholera epidemic, there were seventy-eight slaves on the premises, thirty belonging to Severo.

Ana dipped her silver pen into her crystal inkwell, both gifts from Abuelo Cubillas when she first learned to write cursive. The first entry she marked was next to December 14, 1844: “50 pesos / Nena de Fuentes / n / (10)? / laundress / July 11, 1856 /
muerta
.” She stared at the page, dipped her pen again, and crossed the name out. Above
it she wrote “Olivia.” She used her left index finger to find subsequent names, recording the dates when each slave died. By the time she’d entered everyone, her hand was cramped from clutching the pen so tightly. She counted and double-checked the number. With trembling, ink-stained fingers, in her precise, elegant hand, she deducted from the total of seventy-eight, and on the bottom of the page below the debit column she wrote “31,
muertos
.”

While cholera raged in the
batey
, Ana settled in the new
casa grande
accompanied by Conciencia, the houseman, Teo, and his wife, Paula. From the hill, she didn’t hear the wails from the barracks, didn’t smell the flux, didn’t see the emaciated bodies, pleading eyes. She plunged into her work. Hoe in hand, she broke into the dirt as if every seed and shoot might sprout a leaf, a bud, a flower to heal
nuestra gente
.

Still, over the two months of the epidemic, nearly half of Hacienda los Gemelos’ and almost two-thirds of Severo’s slaves died in successive waves of contagion relieved by days when it seemed the plague was over, only for the sickness to return in more virulent form. In the latter weeks, as more slaves survived than died, the pyres were doused and burials resumed. By the time it was over, Ana had logged forty-seven
muertos
of seventy-eight
nuestra gente
into her ledger. The last entries were for Fela and Pabla, who nursed a few slaves back to health but saw most of them die. They were put to rest in the very center of the graveyard, where José placed the largest, most elaborately carved crosses he could fashion.

No one suffered more than the
gente de color
in Puerto Rico during the months of the cholera epidemic and its aftermath. The disease hit hardest in the poorest barrios where free blacks,
mulatos
, and
libertos
lived. By February 1857, when the government declared the epidemic contained, more than twenty-seven thousand people had died—over half of them
gente de color
. Officials admitted that these figures were approximate, and that the number of deaths was probably higher.

Slaves fared no better than the free
gente de color
. Reports of nearly fifty-five hundred dead couldn’t account for every loss in every hacienda, or the men, women, and children bought in clandestine sales unreported to avoid taxes. The government estimated that a minimum of 12 percent of the slave population of Puerto Rico died.

With so many dead—most of them men in their prime—and with thousands who survived but were weak or incapacitated, a large percentage of the Puerto Rican workforce vanished. At the end of 1856, Ana estimated that twenty slaves were healthy enough to bring in the harvest, the same number as when she first arrived nearly twelve years earlier. Only now they had not thirty but four hundred
cuerdas
in cane ready to process.

So that she could keep abreast of what happened on the valley, Severo set up a telescope for Ana on the corner of the
balcón
. Two or three times a day she scanned the deep green canebrakes for pale lavender
guajana
buds to signal the harvest. One evening, she and Severo were sitting on matching rockers on the
balcón
, the valley below sprinkled with the flickering lights from
bohíos
.

“I don’t know how we’ll manage,” Ana said. “I expected this to be a good year. Sugar prices are slightly up, and the new equipment in my
ingenio
would have been paid for with this year’s profits.”

“It can’t be helped,” he said.

“I’ve never heard you say something is impossible.”

“Did I say that?”

“You sounded discouraged.”

“Not at all, and you shouldn’t be either.
Al mal tiempo, buena cara
,” he said.

The tip of his cigar glowed red. Ana inhaled the earthy, sweet smoke that surrounded him. “How can you be so calm in the midst of all this?”

“You haven’t fallen apart, either.”

“I’ve thought about it, but no, I’m too stubborn. I’d hate myself if I gave in or gave up.”

He laughed softly. “And because you know that
a río revuelto, ganancia de pescadores
.”

“It’s hard to believe that there is opportunity here now when the workers we depend on keep dying.”

“Look at it this way. There will be bankruptcies by planters and
farmers unable to bring in their product. Most commit their profits to vendors and taxes before they even seed the ground.”

“Everyone does that. We do.”

“Yes, but we’re in a better position. You can always appeal to don Eugenio. Most of our neighbors will have to sell assets in order to save themselves. Someone with a bit of capital can pick up land, equipment, and slaves at a bargain.”

“I’ve never asked anything from don Eugenio.”

“You’re not asking, you’re telling him about an investment opportunity. Credit is hard to get in Puerto Rico, and if he doesn’t know that, Mr. Worthy is aware that
hacendados
and farmers resort to private loans.”

“From people like you.”

“I’ve been most generous to our
vecinos
, and while I don’t want to take advantage of them when they’re so vulnerable—”

“—they need cash and we need
brazos
.”

“But, of course, I don’t have an inexhaustible wallet.…”

“I see. This is where don Eugenio can be helpful.”

“The more distressed
vecinos
might be willing to rent or sell their slaves.”

“That would help them and us.”

“We’d be doing them a favor.”

“Of course. I’ll write to Mr. Worthy tomorrow.”

She inhaled his smoke again. In the days following their move up the hill he’d been as passionate as in the first days of their marriage. It was hard to believe it had been almost six years. She desired him, his rough hands, muscular body. Most of all, his attention, the focused gaze of the lover, his alert listening to every word she uttered, his uncanny ability to guess what she was thinking.

“Would you like to try a smoke?” The tobacco was grown on his land, for his use. The cigar was thick, soft but firm, warm, and the tightly rolled leaves had a pleasing texture, especially along the delicate veins. She sucked and her lungs caught on fire. “Slow,” he said. “A little puff, not a deep breath. Just kiss it.”

She did so, and a delightful light-headedness made her feel as if she were melting.

“We should name the house,” he said after a long silence.

It was another of his ideas about what rich people did. It wasn’t
enough to build a new house, to fill every room with custom-made furniture, to order glassware, china, cutlery, and bolts of fine cotton, damask, linen, and silk from the United States and Europe. The place must be named, like a newborn child.

“Did you have one in mind?” she asked, knowing perfectly well he wouldn’t have brought up the subject otherwise.

“El Destino,” he said, savoring the word as if it were a ripe fruit.

“El Destino,” she repeated, liking the sibilance before the sharp
ti
, and the way her lips appeared to send forth another kiss, this one with the soft, final vowel.

Ana hadn’t seen Miguel in seven years, although correspondence to and from San Juan was frequent. In her letters she never let Miguel forget that she was building Hacienda los Gemelos for him. But she had no idea whether Los Gemelos meant anything to him. She wondered whether he still resembled her, like he did as a boy. Or had he grown to look more like Ramón and Inocente? What she knew about Miguel was in his correspondence, and she hoped he wasn’t as dull and unimaginative as the letters and sketches he enclosed. He was now almost twelve years old, and not once had he asked to return to the place where he was born. Ana hadn’t forgotten Leonor’s contempt, Eugenio’s eagerness to raise him under his roof. If Miguel wanted to visit her, she was sure neither doña Leonor nor don Eugenio would encourage him. Still, it bothered her that there was no regret in his letters about their long separation.

She’d had no word from San Juan for six months, but in late 1856 a letter from Miguel reached Los Gemelos. The Argosos had survived the plague and things were back to normal in the capital. She wrote to his grandparents requesting that they send Miguel to spend a few weeks with her after the harvest.

Once the
zafra
at Hacienda los Gemelos began, Ana and Conciencia rode to the
batey
daily, carrying baskets of bandages and remedies. Ana had ordered the old barracks repaired and windows cut into the walls to create an infirmary. She was determined to keep the air moving and clean in every building to avoid the miasmic disaster of the previous year.

The frenetic pace of the
zafra
only slowed at the end, after every
stalk had been processed. But in early 1857 there was desperation from the first as Ana and Severo tried to recoup their losses by bringing in a complete harvest with fewer workers before the rains of May began.

Severo managed to buy twelve more men, seven women, and four children from a bankrupt hacienda. He reminded four landowners that the terms of their loans were imminent but that they could repay him with slaves. In addition to land, four more men and four women erased the
hacendados’
obligations to Severo Fuentes. Neighbors unable to manage their estates were forced to liquidate assets at auction. Don Eugenio and Mr. Worthy agreed that the opportunities couldn’t be passed up. With Eugenio’s investment, Severo was able to buy more land and another five men for the hacienda.

One morning two weeks before the harvest began, Ana and Severo were in her study organizing the work.

“I’ve doubled the food rations for the survivors,” Ana said. “Here’s the list of those still recovering. Assign them easier jobs.”

“I can’t promise that. We need every
brazo
, from the youngest to the oldest, in the fields.”

“Many of them are weak—”

“They’ll be fine by the time the
zafra
starts. Don’t be too easy on them or they’ll take advantage of you.”

“They’re not. But some are still too sick—”

“We have four hundred
cuerdas
to harvest, Ana.”

“I know how many
cuerdas
are ready,” she snapped before she realized how rare it was for them to argue. “If we expect them to be alive by the end, we have to take better care of them.”

“You might have noticed,” he said through taut lips, “that I know how to manage a workforce.”

“Of course I do—”

“Let me take care of that, then. May I see the supply lists, please?”

Chastened, she handed over the papers. The room was stifling all of a sudden, and while he read and marked up the pages, she walked to the
balcón
for some air. On the ground below, a rooster and his harem pecked at the ground. Unexpectedly, he flew up on the rail and strutted from one end to the other. He crowed three times, full throated and defiant, then dropped to the ground again. Yes, she thought, the cock has to crow.

“Did you say something?” Severo was in the same chair by her desk.

“No,” she said.

He looked at her for a few moments, as if reading her mind, then returned to the lists.

In early February, Severo led the
macheteros
into the canebrakes before sunrise and kept them there until sundown. With fewer
brazos
, even artisans like José went into the fields, and children as young as five had jobs. Boys led the unyoked bulls to pasture, tied them to stakes, and moved them frequently to avoid overgrazing. Girls peeled
ñames
, plantains, and
yautías
for the workers’ meals, boiled in huge vats.

After the cholera funeral pyres, Conciencia’s visions came more frequently, but she was too young to interpret most of what she saw and depended on Ana to help her. Severo scoffed at the notion that Conciencia could look into the future.