Conquistadora (57 page)
Authors: Esmeralda Santiago
“His eyes are like mine, but otherwise, he looks just like his father,” Ana observed. The women nodded.
“
El patrón
went to Guares to register the birth,” Paula said before Ana asked.
Ana looked at her child again. His hair was golden, like Severo’s, and his little body was compact but heavy. “Severo Hernán Fuentes Larragoity Arosemeno y Cubillas. Such a big name for such a little boy,” Ana said into her child’s ear. “Can you live up to it?”
As Padre Xavier formed the characters for the two names and four surnames on the top line of a fresh page of the parish register, he marveled at the habit of the rich to keep adding names to their offspring, climbing the family tree as high as they could until they reached the most illustrious ancestor they could claim.
“There it is.” Padre Xavier turned the book so that Severo could see that he’d used his best handwriting. Everyone knew that Severo Fuentes had enough offspring in the environs to fill several pages of the records if he chose to recognize any of them, but except for Severo Hernán, his other children were officially listed under other men’s names, or those of their mothers.
“And which of these illustrious names will you use in everyday life for your son?”
“Segundo,” Severo said.
“Ah! After his father and—?”
“My wife’s ancestor.”
“I see. Bless him,” Padre Xavier said, forming a cross in the air. None of the child’s official names referred to saints.
“We will celebrate a baptism Mass when my stepson, Miguel, returns from Europe. He’s agreed to be his godfather.” Severo pulled a pouch from his pocket and handed it to the priest. “In celebration of our son’s birth, my wife and I wish to make a donation to your church.”
Padre Xavier resisted the urge to look inside but felt the solidity of many coins. “God bless you and your family, señor Fuentes,” he said humbly. “Your generosity will be rewarded.”
Padre Xavier often prayed for the equanimity necessary to keep from judging his parishioners, but every day presented a new challenge. The men and women who chose to leave their towns and villages in Europe to settle in America were not easily led. Even the faithful sought ways around church doctrine when it tested their circumstances. But people like Severo Fuentes and Ana Larragoity de Fuentes baffled him.
Ana baptized newborns and every so often invited him to say Mass for the workers at Los Gemelos, but she never confessed or asked for the sacrament of Communion. Until this day, Severo Fuentes had not set foot inside his church and was not present at services in the hacienda.
In his twenty-five years in the colony, Padre Xavier had become accustomed to a church for women. Their men fulfilled their financial obligations to the parish but whenever possible avoided church and consistently ignored at least five of the Ten Commandments. Their faith, if they could be said to have one, was in salvation by proxy.
Severo Fuentes Arosemeno and Ana Larragoity de Fuentes treated him as someone who provided a necessary service, but could be and was ignored when not needed. What troubled Padre Xavier most, however, and what now caused him to fall to his knees in fervent prayer, was that Ana and Severo appeared to have no concept of or any concern whatsoever about the precarious state of their eternal souls.
Ana didn’t want to observe the
cuarentena
, resting and getting to know her baby. For three days Paula and Gloria fed her insipid broths and Conciencia offered her sweetened teas, but Ana refused to be confined in the middle of the
zafra
.
On the fourth day after Segundo was born, she walked to her study and was appalled by how much she’d neglected during the last weeks of her pregnancy, when she had barely enough energy to walk from one end of the house to the other. Merely looking at the stacks discouraged her. At the top of one, she caught the familiar handwriting on fine paper.
My darling Ana,
Your intrepid spirit took you into the forests of Puerto Rico, but over those same years, I humbly submitted to a conventional life. Now my beloved protectors are in heaven, and you, my dearest, continue to follow the footsteps of your distinguished ancestor. I have tried to be a patient and devoted friend to your son, as you requested. Now that he’s a man and exploring his own world, he does not need me anymore.
One morning some weeks ago I woke up and counted how many years were behind me, and envisioned what might lie before me. You are well settled with your husband and by the time you receive this letter, with a new baby. Miguel is enjoying Europe with no plans to return for some months. After much silence and prayer, examining my life as it has been, is, and could be, I concluded that I do not want to spend the rest of my life alone. I’ve agreed to marry Miguel’s esteemed teacher, don Simón. We have known each other for fifteen years, but we only turn toward each other now, in the absence of our darling Miguel, who brought us together.
My fondest wish was that Miguel would walk me down the aisle, but I will not interrupt his travels on my behalf. Our good friend Mr. Worthy will do the honors. With Miguel’s frequent moves between Madrid, Paris, Rome, and London, it’s entirely possible that he hasn’t received all my letters. What a surprise it will be to find one from señora Elena Alegría de Fernández! When he was a child, he wondered why Simón and I didn’t marry. He will be happy to learn that we have finally done so. I hope you will be happy for me, too, my darling Ana.
Your devoted, loving friend,
Elena
Elena, married! Ana felt a twinge. Until now, Elena had only known one lover—Ana. She wondered if Elena ever thought about the timeless movement and sway of their flushed adolescent bodies. Would she compare their lovemaking with that of her new husband? Might she already have made love to him? Many times in her own life Ana had awakened from the middle of a dream next to Ramón, or Inocente, or even Severo and reached with desirous hands, only to be disappointed by the body next to her, bulkier, hairier than the lithe Elena’s. And now some other hands, other lips … She stopped herself. Memories, she knew, were the seeds of regret.
“¿Cómo están mis tesoros?”
Ana looked up at Severo. “Your little treasure is always hungry,” she said, feeling, and even to her ears sounding, petulant. “Your big treasure seems unable to satisfy him.”
Severo kissed her, then the baby, who was latched on to her breast but making disappointed faces.
“I’ve tried, but he needs a wet nurse.” She switched Segundo to her other breast and settled into the pillows with an exhausted sigh. “Pepita is still nursing and has a mild temperament.” She didn’t realize she’d dozed until she opened her eyes and met Severo’s, gazing with such intense desire that a blush rose to her scalp. “Severo, you know we can’t.”
“I’ve never seen you like this,” he said, nuzzling her neck, her shoulder, Segundo’s head, kissing it, stroking his son’s face, then kissing her lips, but she pulled away.
“Your attention is most flattering,” she said coyly. “And will be welcome later.”
“Está bien.”
He took a few steps around the room, gathering himself before he left.
Jealousy pounded against Ana’s temples, and she was aware that even now, during the first days of his newborn child, it was possible that he’d consume his passion with another woman, but she didn’t speak a word. It didn’t make it right, but she’d accepted many things she might have challenged in other circumstances. “So long as he comes home to me,” she said to herself—the same phrase that women had whispered to themselves for centuries to excuse the same betrayal.
“Consuelo,
mi consuelo
,” Severo Fuentes called, and she emerged, smelling of smoke, ash, and cigar. He took her with a ferocity that astonished them both and afterward slept with his head upon her soft, fleshy bosom as she rubbed circles around his scalp.
The two men Severo had brought from San Bernabé slept in hammocks on either side of Jacobo in the men’s barracks. Their women still lived on the farm, and Yayo and Quique were anxious about them and their daughters, now at the mercy of don Luis and Santos, the overseer. Both Yayo and Quique had children and grandchildren conceived in the rapes don Luis inflicted on their women. Over the years, both men’s anger had been stifled but not smothered. Locked in barracks after lights out in Hacienda los Gemelos, they could express their anxiety over their families only in low-voiced outrage that mushroomed into frustration and finally to rebellion. At first Jacobo pretended he didn’t hear them, but pretty soon he was listening to their plans. They agreed that the best time to run away would be during the
zafra
, when they’d be outdoors with machetes and other tools that could be used as weapons.
Folly grows from desperation. Yayo and Quique conspired, and their passion convinced Jacobo to join them. In late 1864, the three men were not in their first youth but did have experience of the rhythm of the
zafra
. The coming harvest would begin on the east, northeast, and southeast fields, closest to the border with San Bernabé and the main road to Guares. Between them and the town was La Palanca, the hamlet of
campesinos
. Only women and children would be in the village, since the men would be working in the
ingenio
. They expected no challenge when going through; they might even be able to steal a couple of horses or mules for their getaway into the mountains. They didn’t think what might happen if their plan was discovered. They didn’t think of the consequences of failure. They didn’t think that the two young men who’d tried to
run away from San Bernabé soon after news of the Emancipation Proclamation were whipped to death after they were caught. They didn’t think that if they were successful they’d have to hide for the rest of their lives, moving from cave to cave through the rough terrain of the central mountain range of the island, pursued by hounds, soldiers, and a death sentence. Jacobo knew that if he informed on the other two and it was proved they were conspirators, he would be freed. But he didn’t say a word to anyone and, along with Yayo and Quique, began to count moons to make their getaway on a dark night. They settled on the third new moon after the beginning of the harvest the following spring.
On April 25, 1865, a merchant ship trimmed a forested cove with a stretch of glistening white sand at the far curve. Miguel Argoso Larragoity rocked and bounced on tiptoe, trying to see beyond the windswept beach that the captain identified as the southern edge of Hacienda los Gemelos. The vessel would arrive in Guares just before dusk, but it was over a week later than expected. Miguel’s first ship had been delayed arriving in Liverpool, and he had to wait as it was prepared for the Atlantic crossing. The captain now suggested that if there was no one to receive him, Miguel should spend the night in the Frenchman’s inn.
“It’s not the most elegant place, but don Tibó will provide a horse and directions to Hacienda los Gemelos. I recommend you set out early in the morning.”
Miguel was both excited and nervous. He’d spent eighteen months in Europe traveling with Maestro de Laura, who insisted on painting
en plein air
to break Miguel’s habits of dreary formal portraits and even more lackluster still lifes. After hours in the outdoors, they returned to their hotels long enough to change into evening clothes. Nights, they haunted theaters, music halls, and brothels, where Miguel indulged enough to require a series of painful treatments for an unpleasant and most uncomfortable affliction. Now cured, he was more cautious. He’d lived a lifetime in a year and a half and was determined to return to Europe as soon as possible. Before he even set foot on it again, the island already seemed too small for him.
He hadn’t seen his mother in almost sixteen years. His murky memories were of a bigger-than-life woman with black, implacable eyes. Her letters had followed him to every city in his travels. Her reminders that she expected him to stand as godfather to his infant
brother marred the last few months of Miguel’s sojourn. Only filial duty broke through his resistance, further propelled by Mr. Worthy’s insistence that he come back to Puerto Rico. Perhaps he’d heard about Miguel’s activities in Europe or, more likely, was concerned by the frequent requests for funds from every city he visited with Maestro de Laura. It was proving expensive to keep his tutor-mentor in good spirits.
