Conquistadora (62 page)

She dropped more liquid into Miguel’s mouth. He gurgled, swallowed.
She recalled her last moments with Ramón as she and Siña Damita worked on him on the cart that drove him toward his death. Ana had never forgotten his expression whenever his eyes rested on her—hatred, even through his pain, the same look as Inocente’s the last time she saw him. Ramón’s cries pierced through her like accusations. He knew that he wouldn’t survive. He’d been dead a long time, had become a ghost, El Caminante, caught in the snare of her ambition, unable to free himself.

Miguel wheezed, groaned. Ana blotted his lips, adjusted the bandages and aloe leaves. “I have not been a very good mother to you,” she said. Just as she was not a good wife to Ramón. She was glad that she was alone and no one could see her with her broken son. No other eyes would blame her for this calamity, but she knew, deep in her bones she knew, that she was responsible. Miguel had gone into the
cañaveral
because of her. Like his father, he was trapped in her life.

If he died, as his last survivor, she’d inherit Los Gemelos. The thought stunned her. That she’d even think this now was appalling. She banished the thought. He wouldn’t die. She’d do everything in her power to save him, to pray for him even. She hadn’t loved her son as she should have, but she wouldn’t let him die. This boy whose body trembled under her competent fingers, this boy whom she had ignored, bartered, manipulated was her son, her legacy. Miguel and his children and his children’s children would be her cathedral.

Vicente Worthy gathered the papers he’d need for his journey and, one by one, slid them into his briefcase. There were several contracts with suppliers, two letters of credit, three purchase orders for two hundred puncheons of molasses each, plus one for five and another for seven tons of sugar bricks. There were copies of titles for real property, lists of assets, pedigrees for horses. The final folio was the last will and testament of Miguel Argoso Larragoity. Mr. Worthy wasn’t used to such crisp paper for wills. Often the pages were wrinkled or torn from much handling by their owners, from additions, amendments, and codicils. Most were limp from years of being stored in cabinets, the pages yellowing, the ink fading, the folds permanently creased, which made it difficult to keep the pages open. A will from the young was heartbreaking. On the other hand, it made his job easier.

Mr. Worthy snapped his briefcase closed and made sure the clasp was tightly fastened. He’d walk to the pier, where he’d board a ship, once owned by Marítima Argoso Marín, that would bring him to Guares. By the time he reached Hacienda los Gemelos, the harvest would have ended, shortened by the unfortunate occurrences a week earlier. Mr. Worthy arranged for his trip the same morning he’d received the news by telegraph. Another telegram arrived for doña Elena the same afternoon, and within hours, the whole city knew that young Miguel Argoso Larragoity had died in his mother’s arms. Those who remembered the deaths of Ramón and Inocente observed that the Argoso family had met with nothing but misfortune in Puerto Rico and rallied around the bereft doña Elena. Today, as Mr. Worthy began his journey to Hacienda los Gemelos, Miguel Argoso Larragoity was being buried.

Just as he was about to leave his office, his secretary announced that don Simón was waiting to see him. Mr. Worthy looked at his pocket watch—eleven fifteen. He was a punctual man on his way to a ship whose sailing was dependent on the winds and the tides, already ebbing.

“Don Simón, I apologize that I can’t attend you as I would like to—”

“Of course, Mr. Worthy. I’m aware that you’re on your way to the
Dafne
, but my wife is most adamant. We hope to visit Hacienda los Gemelos in the near future to pay our respects to our dear Miguel, may he live in glory. Elena, however, is too distraught to travel now.”

“I understand. How may I help?”

Don Simón handed him a black velvet pouch. “My wife cannot trust this to anyone else, Mr. Worthy. These jewels belong to doña Ana, who left them with Elena for safekeeping. She imagined that Ana would want Miguel to give them to his future wife, but of course—” He paused. “The jewels should probably go to her other son’s … Please forgive me, Mr. Worthy. We’re still overcome—”

“Thank you for trusting me with this errand. I’ll deliver the contents into doña Ana’s hands.”

“We are most grateful, Mr. Worthy. For this, and for your many courtesies to this family. May God bless you on your journey,
señor. Vaya con Dios
.”

Mr. Worthy placed the pouch inside his briefcase. He wasn’t comfortable in the role of courier. When should he deliver the pouch, before or after the reading of the will? The delight that his cherished Provi derived from gems had convinced him that ladies were enchanted by jewels. But in these circumstances?

His valise had been sent ahead, and his cabin prepared with as much comfort as the merchant vessel could afford. At the end of the journey, someone would be waiting with a horse to lead him to El Destino. In spite of his sad mission, Mr. Worthy was looking forward to seeing Ana in person after two decades of correspondence, reports, accounts, and records. What an extraordinary woman! He’d met her only once, in the Argoso home on Calle Paloma. She was just a girl, but even then she conveyed spirit and energy. She’d endured the subsequent tragedies with admirable grace and unswerving vision. He wished that all his clients were like Ana Larragoity de Fuentes.

Mr. Worthy settled in front of the tiny desk in his cabin. He’d brought much work on this trip. His clients did not pay him to be idle. When he reached into his briefcase, his fingers brushed past the crisp envelope, notarized and sealed. He gave himself a moment to feel the heartache of his melancholy task. He’d known Miguel since he was a small child whose drawings and paintings he’d praised because he had to, not because he wanted to, and he wondered if anyone else who’d admired them felt the same way. He scratched a note to make sure an inventory was prepared of what might be left in the house on Calle Paloma and in the crates Miguel had sent ahead from Europe.

If the winds were favorable and the seas calm, Mr. Worthy would be in El Destino in less than a week, reading a will that would change Hacienda los Gemelos forever. All the de Argoso slaves, which now numbered 127, including elders and children, would be freed. Of that number, and according to doña Ana’s meticulous annual reports, those old enough to work made up two-thirds of the workforce; the rest were rented from Severo Fuentes.

Mr. Worthy was pleased that the reading of the will would come toward the end of the harvest. They might not be able to plant the additional fifty
cuerdas
doña Ana planned, but the upcoming
tiempo muerto
might give them some time to organize the work for the already on-the-ground 1866
zafra
. This was surely the biggest challenge doña Ana and don Severo had faced so far: five hundred
cuerdas
of cane to be cut and processed with a nearly nonexistent workforce. How would they do it? Mr. Worthy couldn’t imagine, but if it was possible, he knew, those two would do it.

The ancient
ceiba
tree near Ramón’s grave was massive. Its root system had formed cavelike spaces around its trunk, and it was possible to believe, like the
taínos
did, that there was an underworld in the hollows where the souls of the dead were confined during the day and released in the dark of night to walk in the living world. Even though she rode past the site almost every day, Ana hadn’t visited the grave since the day Eugenio, Severo, and Luis had dropped shovelfuls of earth over the carved lid of Ramón’s coffin. It was a lovely spot, and she imagined that someday she’d be buried here. By then, if Conciencia was right, she’d be an old woman, and the people around her now might have preceded her. Who would carve flowers and leaves, hummingbirds and butterflies, a crucifix with perfectly straight edges and a halo over it like the one José had created for Miguel? Who would stand by her tomb, the moist earth fragrant of humus, promising life? There was Segundo, now but a year old, too young to know about death and sorrow. Would he pray for her?

It was midmorning, too hot for late April. Her black garments drew the sun and heat; the mantilla she’d unfolded from her bride’s chest still smelled of cedar and memories. She’d adjusted it to veil her face, like the
sevillanas
of her childhood, a barrier between herself and the men and women, most of them strangers, who’d come to bid Miguel good-bye. Through the fine lace she could see them, but they could not see her dry eyes.

Earlier, as she was dressing, she’d looked in a mirror for the first time in months. She was startled by how time had cast her features into sharp angles. She was thirty-nine years old, the same age at
which her long-ago ancestor, don Hernán, had died in Puerto Rico. Where was he buried?

Padre Xavier’s incantations rose and fell in waves that drowned the clatter through the cane.

“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.”

The Latin prayers were automatic. How many thousands of times had she repeated these phrases, starting with her innocent belief as a child that there was a God who heard every word, saw every action?

Manolo Morales Moreau, his wife, Angustias, and his mother-in-law, Almudena, stood in the shade of the tent Severo had erected for the mourners. Ana had just met them that day and was surprised by their grief, considering that Miguel had spent only a few hours with them. The doctor, who’d arrived with the dawn, too late, was there, as were the lieutenant and two soldiers. One of the men from the militia had also come. Luis Morales Font sat on a specially fixed seat on a cart, his frozen, debauched face in shadows beneath an umbrella held by a boy pulled from the fields.

“Viejo apestoso,”
Ana couldn’t help insulting him mentally, even as the prayers to usher her son toward God’s arms dropped from her lips.

Behind her was Conciencia, holding a parasol over her head, and a few steps farther back, José and his two sons, Efraín and Indio, who’d been Miguel’s milk brothers, nursed from the same breast, and Teo and Paula, her oldest living house servants, who remembered Miguel as a child. She’d left Segundo at home with Pepita. The rest were at their jobs. The stalks had to be cut, pressed; the juice had to be boiled, limed, and stirred; the sugar granules had to be spread on the purgery tables; the syrup had to be poured into the barrels. The
zafra
could not be postponed, even for the funeral of the young owner of Hacienda los Gemelos.

Below the knoll, the valley stretched vast and open, the purple
guajana
and less mature green fields stained by large brown swatches. Smoke still billowed from the middle of one of the fields, twenty
cuerdas
lost at a cost of tens of thousands of pesos in product and hundreds of hours to restore the land.

“Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescat in pace.”

“Amen,”
repeated the mourners.

Ana gripped Severo’s arm as if he were her anchor. There was
nothing else, no one else in the world but the two of them, clinging to each other on this land they had claimed and held, that claimed and held them. Don’t let go, she said voicelessly, and his green gaze peered through the black veil. He squeezed her hand to let her know it was time to lower Miguel’s casket. He led her closer, and she caressed the smooth mahogany as she’d never caressed the living child. I loved you the best way I knew how, but I was far too late, she thought. Not enough, not enough … Severo stepped back and Conciencia was at her elbow.

“Anima eius, et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum …”

The ropes stretched as Severo, Manolo, the lieutenant, and the militiaman lowered the coffin and settled Miguel into the ground.

“… per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace.”

The first thud of earth on the lid made her flinch. My son. My poor, dead son. You came, but you did not even have a chance to see what I created. Created on your behalf. A sudden breeze fluttered the mantilla against her cheeks and she turned her face toward the cane. The voices of men and women, of children, of creatures and trees and every living thing whispered a protest. “You did not do it for him; he made this possible for you.” But Ana didn’t hear.