The Taste of Sugar

by The Taste of Sugar (retail) (epub)

  “How long do you think that will be?” She sat up, and the bed covering fell to her waist.

  “Bueno, that all depends.” He didn’t want to tell her about the complications, not on their first morning together.

  “On what?”

  “Querida, let’s not get up yet? We should rest a little before we start home to Utuado.” He drew her back into his arms.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LUNA DE MIEL

  The newlyweds set out in the delightful early December weather. Elena tried to calm Mamá’s fears that she would never see her youngest daughter again, despite Valentina’s assurances that she would make the trip down to Ponce three or four times each year. Mamá handed Valentina a parasol, and Elena gave her sister riding gloves, because how would it look to her in-laws if Valentina arrived with the sunburnt hands of a laundress? Mamá’s parting warning was that Valentina wouldn’t want to arrive at her in-laws a brown girl and have them think that Vicente had married a parda.

  On the outskirts of Ponce, they rode past a settlement of bohíos of yagua leaves. Poles separated two huts shaded by palm trees. A white woman and her barefoot children of various black and white hues watched them as they rode past their hut. Some of the children held out their hands, and Valentina gave one of the little girls a piece of bread from their basket. They passed a quartet of black women on their way to market; the women were mounted on small island horses, their straw baskets empty, kerchiefs tied over their hair.

  Vicente commented to his bride that there were many more black people in Ponce than on the mountain where he lived. There had probably been more slaves in Ponce, she pointed out. Then he told her about his brother Raulito, who had a black mother. Valentina said that she always wanted a brother.

  It would take the newlyweds six days to traverse the distance up from Ponce to Utuado, one day more than it had taken Vicente to make the trip down. Because Valentina wasn’t used to the hard traveling, they would stop to rest often. To reach Utuado, Vicente explained, they would travel la carretera, the excellent road from Ponce to Adjuntas, and from there they would follow the mountain trails called vecinales that joined one town to the other. These roads were rough, Vicente warned, but at least the rainy season had ended in November. Then, it was almost impossible to travel because there were many places where there weren’t bridges, and when the rivers became swollen, bueno, people had been known to drown.

  Did Valentina know that, for years, Puerto Rican prisoners had worked on the construction of la carretera, but because it was taking too long, slaves and prisoners had been brought in from Cuba and Spain? Did she know that Cuba had Chinese prisoners? That many prisoners had died because it was brutal work? When the carretera was completed, the king of Spain had commuted the sentences of the survivors. The Spaniards promised to take back los chinos who wanted to return to China, but the story is that the Spaniards threw all the Chinese overboard. Vicente shrugged. Is it true? ¿Quién sabe? My father says so. No Chinaman ever wrote to say he made it home. Did she know that every man from sixteen to sixty years old who lived near the carretera had been required by law to work one day a week on the road? Had her father worked on the road near Ponce? Valentina laughed. Papá breaking rock with a pick and ax? The idea!

  After just an hour, Valentina’s waist and back ached from riding sidesaddle. From then on, she rode astride, her skirts bunched up, her legs in white stockings for all to see—the birds, the trees, the sky, people they passed on the road—despite her bridegroom’s protests that he felt the vergüenza that she lacked.

  They stopped for coffee and pan de agua at little roadside shacks; they bought limonada and alcapurrias, fried fritters made from yuca. Vicente was grateful for the small purse of coins that Valentina’s father had given them for food and shelter during the journey; he’d tried to refuse it out of pride, but his father-in-law had insisted that it was a wedding present. The other wedding gifts would come later, when they could find someone to make the journey.

  •

  They rode nineteen miles in five hours on the excellent limestone road, finding surprises at each twist: a gorge six hundred feet below; the hollow roar of hidden cataracts that shouted to them but were too shy to appear; another twist, and a waterfall for the gods gushed from a great height onto the rocks. Tree ferns cascaded in nature’s haphazard, playful beauty. At every turn, there were rivers or streams that shimmered over glossy stones. Valentina cavorted with her new husband with the joie de vivre of any French mademoiselle under a waterfall whose showers transformed the mountain rock into the turquoise of the Caribbean Sea. They stopped at the casilla de camineros built of limestone and inhabited by el peón caminero responsible for the upkeep of a section of the carretera between Ponce and Adjuntas. Valentina found it curious that the house had two corbertizos: one shed was for cooking with two large fogones, and the second was a letrina with a toilet. El caminero’s wife insisted that Valentina rest in front of one of the large windows while she prepared café con leche. Valentina played the role of the married dama as she imagined Elena or Mamá would—she was polite and friendly but not too friendly, as was appropriate when others were only peones. She and Vicente rode through thick forests into a world inhabited only by trees. Valentina was grateful for her long sleeves as branches brushe∆2d her arms. Mosquitoes flew into her face and bit her through her clothes. A bee followed them some distance because Valentina didn’t ignore it as Vicente had instructed.

  “The road gets rougher from here,” Vicente said. “Don’t be scared.”

  It seemed to Valentina as if the journey had no end.

  Adjuntas could only be reached through the mountains by this camino real. They rode up and down and up the steep mountain road for miles and miles. Only Vicente’s surety quelled Valentina’s fear that they were lost. On one particular stretch that Valentina would never be able to recall without a shudder, Vicente kept the horse on the well-traveled path despite a smooth length of road. When Valentina pointed to it, Vicente said that travelers never used it because it was too close to the edge. At various times, Vicente called out to his bride to duck under a branch or hold on tight over the next uphill path whose vertical plane terrified her, and she was sure that they would fall backwards to their deaths. When they didn’t, she exclaimed to her new husband that she’d never experienced anything more thrilling. Once they reached the high, sharp crest of the mountain range, seventeen hundred feet above sea level, they looked down at the valley of Adjuntas. Vicente pointed in the direction of the ocean.

  “I imagine that only one other place on earth could possibly be more beautiful,” Valentina said.

  “What could possibly be more beautiful than Puerto Rico?” Vicente removed a canteen of water from the saddlebag.

  “Paris, of course.” Valentina drank from the canteen.

  “In France? That Paris?”

  “Tontito, is there any other?”

  “My cousin Dalia is in Paris,” Vicente said, as if Valentina didn’t know.

  “When we visit, she will insist that we stay with her.” Valentina wiped water from her lips with the back of her hand.

  “We’ll never see Paris.” Vicente drank from the canteen.

  “Never see Paris?” Valentina stared at him as if he had threatened to throw her off the cliff. What did she know about him, this stranger?

  They turned at the flutter of wings: an eagle swooping overhead. Vicente laughed because now that he had a wife, he doubted that he would ever again dream of eagles.

  Valentina wondered if the eagle could fly as far as Paris.

  A family of beggars slept under a tree en la Plaza Pública de Adjuntas. For Valentina, the ordinariness of Adjuntas’s Catholic church and its brick plaza was a disappointing reward after their perilous journey. When she said so, Vicente pointed out the homes of some of the people persecuted in 1887, a few years previous, during El Componte, the year of terror that the newspapers called “El Año Terrible.”

  “I’ll hav
e to write Papá and tell him,” Valentina said.

  “Your father? Why?”

  “Papá read to us the stories in the newspapers about how la Guardia Civil tortured people who didn’t like the Spanish government,” Valentina said. “Did you know that a favorite torture was los palillos? They would take these small sticks and pegs, about three, six or seven inches long, tie the smaller ends close together, and insert them with string between the fingers of the victim, pressing them together to crush the bones!”

  “I don’t want to criticize my new father-in-law, but that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that should be read to girls,” Vicente said.

  “Papá said that the Guardia Civil still favor palillos,” Valentina said. “Did anything happen to your family?”

  “No, but some neighbors weren’t so lucky.”

  “Papá knew a man in Ponce whom la Guardia Civil took to jail in Juana Díaz, and then they put him on a boat to San Juan, where he was jailed in El Morro,” Valentina said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Probably nothing good.”

  “Nobody was safe, not even the women,” Vicente said. “La Guardia Civil came for you at midnight on a rumor.”

  When the newlyweds reached the town of Utuado, as a special favor to her husband, Valentina rode sidesaddle. She was glad to see all the people on the streets and the yellow stucco church and the large houses of gente pudiente that surrounded the flagstone plaza. Perhaps they could return on that very next Sunday, attend Mass, and afterward promenade around la plaza, stopping to speak to friends and buying a little dulce or limonada the way they had in Ponce. The foot trail to Utuado led through a narrow mountain valley, and there they crossed a stream and stopped to fill the canteen.

  The air was perfumed with the fragrance of ferns and flowers, many of which Valentina had never before seen. She felt like she was in the Garden of Eden.

  “Look! Another waterfall!”

  “It’s dangerous to be on the road when it gets dark,” Vicente said.

  “You don’t want to play Adam and Eve?” Valentina took off her traveling dress and ran to the waterfall.

  Much later than Vicente had planned, they went over a footbridge—an engineering feat that made Valentina clutch her husband’s waist with her eyes closed. Now and then on the mountain, they overtook barefoot boys with stacks of leña for the cooking fire balanced on their heads, and young barefoot girls bent sideways from the large tins tucked under their arms filled with fresh spring water. Vicente bought Valentina a banana from a jíbaro with a tree branch over his shoulders, balancing rhizomes of bananas. The bag of coins from Valentina’s father was almost empty.

  Bohíos perched like birds on the side of the mountain; a strong storm would send them flying over the valley.

  “These bohíos are different from the ones in Ponce.” Valentina pointed to las chozas típicas clustered on the mountain. “They’re like triangles with sloping roofs. That one has a giant palm leaf for a door.”

  “A little further down we’ll see more huts and la tienda de raya, where the workers buy food and clothing.”

  “A store? Would we shop there?”

  “It’s not your kind of store, Valentina,” her husband said. “It’s owned by a big coffee hacendado who pays his workers with metal tokens called piches that they can only use at the store.”

  “You’re angry.” Valentina touched his arm.

  “Because it’s robbery. Everything at the store is overpriced and often spoiled. The laborer is forced to take food on credit. It keeps him in debt to the hacendado forever,” Vicente said. “The stores in town sell at better prices, but the workers can’t use their piches there.”

  “That’s terrible! Why is it allowed?” Valentina imagined her mother’s anger if she couldn’t shop where she wanted.

  “That’s the way it’s always been for los pobres,” Vicente said. “Peones are lucky if they eat once a day.”

  “There were many poor people in Ponce,” Valentina said. “Muchos hambrientos.”

  “There are many poor people everywhere in Puerto Rico,” Vicente said. “My mother said it’s always been like that.”

  They rode on.

  The house with the shingled roof rose from the ground amid a great profusion of trees and flowers. Wood shutters were closed against the afternoon sun. A woman who wasn’t Vicente’s mother welcomed them at the door. Valentina could see that the woman had never been pretty.

  “Gloria has known me since I was born, isn’t that so?” Vicente smiled at the servant still in his embrace. “I want you to teach my wife to cook all my favorite foods.”

  “I’ve never cooked in my life.” Valentina looked about for Vicente’s mother. She hoped that after a few pleasantries, she could take a bath and a long nap.

  Vicente and Gloria stared at her, mouths agape.

  “You can’t cook?” her husband and the servant asked in unison.

  “My mother cooked, or the servant,” Valentina said.

  “You won’t have a cook when we live in our own house,” Vicente said. “Gloria can teach you.”

  “We’ll start today,” Gloria said.

  “Not today,” Valentina said.

  “It was a long journey.” Vicente smiled at Gloria. “And she’s not used to riding a horse.”

  “You don’t cook, you don’t ride horses.” Gloria inspected Valentina the way she looked over the chickens before choosing one for pollo fricasé. “I hope you have strong hips to bear Vicente’s children.”

  Valentina looked down at her dusty shoes.

  “I hope she’s stronger than she looks,” Gloria said. “It’s hard work to be a farmer’s wife.”

  “Don’t scare her, Gloria! She might run away!” Vicente pinched Gloria’s cheek.

  “She’ll have to run because she doesn’t ride horses,” Gloria said.

  When Vicente laughed, Valentina looked out the open door at the road. Would her parents be too ashamed to take her back?

  “Where is Mamá? Le quiero presentar a mi mujer.” Vicente put his arm around his wife.

  “La doña is in her room. She is expecting you.”

  Vicente took Valentina’s hand.

  “Only you,” Gloria said.

  “Not me?” Valentina held tight.

  “Wait for me en la sala.” Vicente kissed her hand. “I’ll explain all about you.”

  Vicente disappeared with Gloria. Valentina couldn’t help but feel that her husband’s family was mal educada; she doubted very much she would have been abandoned in the house of Juan Moscoso. What kind of woman didn’t welcome her son’s new wife? It must be true what the townspeople said about mountain folk’s lack of good manners.

  Valentina wandered about the room and picked up a cigar box. She rearranged a trio of porcelain figurines of Spanish dancers. She sat in a cane-backed rocking chair. She longed to fling open the shutters, let in sun and air, but it would only make the room warmer. The furniture was of good quality, although the wood needed polishing and some of the cushions in the wicker chairs could stand to be mended. Her mother wouldn’t have permitted such disregard for her possessions; she’d taught her daughters to sew and care for their things.

  In her parents’ house, la sala was where they had often gathered on evenings when they didn’t sit en el balcón to watch passersby or exchange a word or two with the neighbors. Sometimes they tossed coins to the black women with baskets of sweets like dulce de coco, who called out “Dulce” as they passed the houses, or to the vendedor ambulante who sold agua de coco from a homemade wheelbarrow piled high with coconuts. They admired the peddler’s skill with the machete when he cracked the coconut with one swift chop. Mamá loved agua de coco so much that she often splurged on the fresh coconut water. On the evenings when the sisters strolled to la plaza to meet friends, Mamá had accompanied them. On festival days or during the public concerts, they had gawked at the very rich holding court in their elaborate carriages parked along la plaza. />
  When they stayed home, Papá read choice bits of news aloud to them from la Gaceta de Puerto-Rico, the Spanish government’s thrice-weekly newspaper, such as a census report about the racial breakdown of the island’s population. They learned that the majority of former slaves had moved to coastal towns such as their own Ponce. Papá told them that in 1873, one year after Valentina was born, the Spanish crown had abolished slavery. Papá described how Spanish law had forced the emancipated slaves to work three years longer for patronos. Papá also relayed the amount of silver that Spain had compensated the slave owners, but nothing for the formerly enslaved—surely the nuns taught the girls facts, and not just to read French and say prayers? Prudencia, what do these girls learn? Mamá reassured Papá that their daughters received all the education that a woman needed in Puerto Rico. Some evenings Valentina or Elena read aloud from a book while la sirvienta served café and delicate almond cookies or cinnamon cucas. On special occasions Papá brought home from the pharmacy a box of the famous chocolates from the town of Mayagüez. The family had enjoyed many evenings with Valentina and Elena reading novels aloud. Valentina recalled in particular Benito Pérez Galdós’s Marianela. The girls teased their father every time the character named Teodoro turned up in the story, giving him pointed looks and calling him Doctor Teodoro. Papá had enjoyed his daughters’ teasing and even Mamá had joined in, saying that if only he were a famous ophthalmologist like the Teodoro in the story, then she would be the famous Señora Doctora, his mujer. The whole family was sorry when they finished reading the book. Mamá lamented that Pablo could be so false as to reject the good Marianela, but the sisters agreed with Papá that no one should be expected to look across a table at an ugly face.

  As she waited for her husband, Valentina picked up an antimacassar from the back of a chair, her fingertips tracing the mundillo stitching along the border. She was surprised to see that her mother-in-law had the skill of an artist. The nuns had taught them embroidery. How she wished her sister would walk into la sala and offer her unsolicited but always practical advice. Valentina would confess to Elena that perhaps she’d made a mistake. Vicente was not interested in taking her to Paris, and he preferred his mother’s company. She heard Vicente laughing again. For the first time she wondered if she had any power over her husband. A man who abandoned his bride of only days to run to his mother might not be so easily swayed. She opened her hand and let the antimacassar drop to the floor. Ashamed at her pettiness, she picked up the delicate lace and draped it over the back of the chair.