In the country, you won’t be able to buy medicines for aches and pains like in your father’s pharmacy. What? Your father was a clerk? Not a clerk? But not the owner? I see. Regardless, you’ll have to learn about plants. What’s that about a notebook? Bueno, if you think you won’t remember something so simple as a plant. This is the verbena cimarrona plant, sí, muy bella with the purple flowers, but the green hojas are what we’ll use; mash them in el pilón to make a topical paste or brew a few leaves for a tisane, it’s good for digestion and skin infections, Gloria has a special recipe that can cure head lice; this vine is verbena legítima, used in teas or baths to fight fevers or colds. And this plant over here is the one you use to clean your teeth, la raíz de limoncillo, yes, it tastes like ginger, I hope Vicente told you to chew it and then spit it out; you swallowed some of it? Lo que no mata, engorda, but try not to; this plant is malva de caballo and is used for poultices or teas for coughs. You’re drawing it? That seems a little frivolous, bueno, hurry up about it, now let me show you . . .
The first time Angelina held her newborn grandson, she inspected the baby in the lamplight. “He’s beautiful, exactly the way Vicente looked.”
“Surely there is something of Valentina in the child.” Inés smiled at the baby in Angelina’s arms.
Angelina glanced at her daughter-in-law propped up against the pillows, pale and listless after eighteen hours of labor.
She shook her head. “No lo veo.”
“¡Angelina! That’s not nice!” Inés touched the baby’s cheek.
Gloria wiped Valentina’s face with a cool cloth.
In the dim lamplight, Valentina could see how her mother-in-law must have looked with her own sons.
“When you’re finished with Valentina, tell Raúl to send el peón for the wet nurse.” Angelina rocked the baby.
“No, Angelina.” Valentina sat up in bed.
Inés and Gloria exchanged a look. It was the first time Valentina had called her mother-in-law by her name.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I’ll nurse my baby,” Valentina said.
“Things aren’t so bad that we can’t pay a peona a few plátanos to nurse Vicente’s baby.”
“I want Vicente.”
“I’ll get him,” Gloria said.
The baby began to cry.
“He’s hungry.” Valentina held out her arms for her son.
“Gloria, bring some sugared water. That will quiet him until we get the wet nurse,” Angelina said.
“Just put him to your breast, he knows what to do.” Inés took the baby from Angelina and brought him to his mother.
Angelina turned to stare at Inés, who answered her unspoken question. “Before I became a widow, I had a baby girl.”
“You never told me,” Angelina said.
Inés shrugged. “My daughter died. Nothing to tell.”
Valentina had gone into labor while Vicente and his father were working on the farm. Vicente had returned home alone. Unwelcomed by las damas during the birth, he’d been banished from the bedroom. For hours, he’d paced back and forth, first la sala, then el batey, then back to la sala, tortured by his wife’s screams.
Vicente hurried into the room and knelt by the bed.
“¿Querida, estás bien?” He caressed her face, then his baby’s head.
“We have a son, Vicente.” Her dark eyes filled with tears.
“Querida.”
“Let’s leave them alone,” Inés said, taking Angelina’s arm and leading her out; she closed the door behind them.
“Why are you crying? It’s over now.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
“If only Elena and my parents could see our baby.”
“I know, querida.”
“I was with Elena when she had her twins.”
“I’ll go to town tomorrow and send them a telegram.”
“Will you? But the expense—”
“A son isn’t born every day.”
“No, not every day.” Valentina smiled down at the baby.
“Your screams were horrible, Valentina.” He brought the chair over to the bed. “Did it hurt so very much?”
“You have the next one.” She looked down at the baby nursing at her breast. Her hair fell along her face like a curtain.
“The next one?” Vicente caressed his son’s cheek with a finger. “He looks like you.”
“That’s not what your mother says.”
“You expected something else from my mother?”
They smiled at each other.
“I don’t mind if he looks like you.” Valentina switched the baby to the other breast.
Inés and Gloria came into the room.
“Pa’fuera, Vicente. La mamacita needs her rest.” Gloria carried some cloths and a basin of warm water.
“But Gloria, this is where I sleep—”
“Not tonight,” Inés said.
“I pushed together some chairs en la sala,” Gloria said. “It’s that or blankets on the floor.”
“But Valentina might need me—”
“Not tonight,” Gloria said.
Vicente turned to Valentina, who had fallen asleep, the baby nursing at her breast.
Utuado
November 21, 1890
Dear Titi Elena,
Gracias for the congratulatory telegram! Vicente and I were excited to send and receive one, so cosmopolitan. You asked for details. Javiercito was born a week ago por la noche at 10:59 exactly after eighteen hours of labor! Elena! ¡El dolor! ¡Ay bendito, Papito Dios! Still, it was worth it all to have this sweet child who is this moment nursing at my breast. Did I tell you that my mother-in-law thinks he weighed as much as Vicente did? Seven pounds. La doña said the baby is exactly like Vicente, and she is right that he does have his father’s eyes.
I can’t wait for you to meet your nephew. Do you think that you could visit? Maybe even bring our parents? The children are welcome, too. We’ll make room for you here. I would go to you but las damas say that I must not exert myself too much for the first forty days or bad things will happen to me. (I think that’s an old wives’ tale, but they are determined.)
Elena, again, I implore you to send me my things! Why can’t you find someone to bring my trunk? I’ve been married almost a year! Bring it yourself if you have to! Please do!!
Querida hermana, give my love to our parents and please try to visit me and meet your new nephew! I miss you so much!
Love you,
Valentina (or Mamacita, as Gloria calls me)
Ponce
December 10, 1890
Querida Valentina,
How are you and your little family? I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to meet our precious Javiercito, but Ernesto couldn’t get away from his post. Obviously, I couldn’t undertake the treacherous journey without him. Oh, how I wish that we could sit on your bed and talk like old times. Did you dress the baby in the little gown I added to your trunk? I’m sorry about your things taking so long to get to you. You’ve no idea what a trial it has been to find a reliable person. Why do you have to live so far away on some mountain? With a husband tan guapo como Vicente, I knew it wouldn’t be long before you got pregnant! Mamá was horrified to learn from your letter that you do not employ a wet nurse. Perhaps that is the custom of the country? Don’t you find it a little barbaric? We ponceñas are more delicada! Sorry, but you are no longer a ponceña, Valentina! I almost forgot to give you the most important news! Soon, I won’t be a ponceña, either! We are moving to San Juan! The capital! I’m so excited to live in the city that everyone calls the most Spanish in all the Americas! Do you recall that Ernesto’s family is from San Juan? His father died, and Ernesto is to take over the business for his mother and sisters. A stationery store. Our parents are to come with us.
I must go now, so much to do! I will send gifts for you and my nephew. Some things are from my own children, but they’re such good quality that I didn’t want to give them to a beggar
who wouldn’t appreciate them.
¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo from all of us to your family!
Your loving sister,
Elena, the soon-to-be ex-ponceña
Utuado
April 17, 1891
Querida Dalia,
I hope that this letter finds you and your family well in Paris. Paris! How exciting! I know you’re as happy as I am on our lovely mountain with your cousin and our new baby. Dalia, you said in your last letter that you sent a present for the baby. I haven’t thanked you for it, not because I’m ungrateful, but because I’ve yet to receive it! I’m heartbroken over it! Maybe it will turn up, if God grants a miracle. What was it? I can at least imagine it coming to us all the way from Paris, France.
Javiercito is always at my breast, demanding to be fed. It is exhausting! Sometimes I think that maybe I should have accepted your Tía Angelina’s offer of a wet nurse, but then he closes his little hand over my finger and gazes at me with the eyes of his father. I’m glad then.
Your house in Paris sounds un sueño. I used to dream of such a house as a silly schoolgirl. But I have happy news, also. We are moving into our own house. Vicente’s older brother Luisito came to help him build it. Luisito doesn’t look at all like my Vicente, who is tall and lanky while he is short and stocky, but he has those same hazel eyes that all the males of the family seem to inherit, including Javiercito and even Raulito. (I wrote you about him.)
Next time you get a letter from me, I will be una ama de casa and mother of soon-to-be two! (Sí, estoy encinta.) You can address your letters as before—Valentina Sánchez Vega—and send it to the general store. I’ll get it eventually.
Un abrazo fuerte para tí y otro para París,
Valentina
Utuado
June 4, 1891
Querida Elena,
I’m sending this letter to the address of the stationery store, as you instructed. Yes, I’m feeling much better, over my morning sickness. How are you and the family? Was the journey to San Juan a good one? Vicente said that traveling the road from Ponce to San Juan is like walking from la sala to la cocina! (How I long to make that walk!) Tell me about your new house. How is San Juan? Elena, you don’t know how I envy you! You get to live in the most cosmopolitan city on the entire island while I’m stuck here on this mountain! It doesn’t seem fair that you have all the luck! I’m sorry, hermana, I don’t mean that, not really. I’m glad for you. It’s just that the little house that Vicente is building for us is not quite what I thought it would be. He warned me that I wouldn’t have any luxuries, but I didn’t believe him. The house is made of wood with a corrugated-iron roof. (The roof panels come from England.) We’ll have four rooms, una sala, two bedrooms, the smaller one for the children, and the kitchen—Vicente said it’s much nicer than many people have. Most important, it’ll be our own little place. I remind myself of that, especially when I think of you and Dalia in your fancy houses.
How do our parents like San Juan? Write me everything.
All my love,
Valentina
San Juan
June 4, 1891
Dear Valentina,
How are you and the family? We are well here in San Juan! This city is so different from Ponce that sometimes I feel as if I moved to another country and only the vista of the same sea, so familiar from Ponce, keeps me moored to our island. The main streets of San Juan are all cobblestone (and hurt my feet), and narrow except for those by the governor’s palace, el Palacio de Santa Catalina, which are quite as wide as any in Ponce. The house of Ernesto’s family—I should say “our house,” is in a quite good location, within walking distance to the harbor. We get a nice breeze off the ocean. (Luckily, we aren’t close to the rows of shanties where the poor people live. Ernesto says that often three or more families live in one room! Imagine! I asked him to take me to see for myself but he refused, saying it was no place for a dama decente.) When Ernesto’s grandfather built this house that is now ours, he planned the shop downstairs and the family’s quarters upstairs. The kitchen and dining room are on the main floor, connected to the shop by a door that is never to be opened during shop hours. Ernesto was very unpleasant toward one of the clerks who made that mistake! We have two servants, one is a cook and the other a general housemaid like Mamá had when we lived at home, and, of course, we send out all the laundry and linens to a lavandera, of which there are plenty in San Juan. We also have a woman who comes in once a week to do the heavy cleaning, and another who comes to iron. Domestic help is so cheap! Isn’t that lucky? When I saw the lavandera the other day with her little children in tow, I thought of you. Do you recall how one day you wanted to buy shoes for the laundress’s children? And you couldn’t understand why our parents didn’t lend you the money? You were always the sweet one.
Must go now. I’m off to do the marketing with a list from the cook. Mamá is eager to go with me. You know how she loves to haggle with the vendors.
Much love,
Elena
P.S. I’m sending you some stationery and ink from the shop. And stamps! Write!
(letter continued)
Dearest Valentina,
The servant forgot to post this letter. I don’t know if she is just stupid or if it’s because she doesn’t read or write, the address on the envelope looks like scribbles and she can’t tell a letter from a scrap of paper to throw away! Mamá says that servants were so much more diligent in their duties in her day—something about being afraid that they would be sent out into the streets to beg. I must tell you about our trip to the market en la Plaza del Mercado. It was very exciting. Let’s just say that it’s not a place where a decent dama should go alone. I kept my arm linked through Mamá’s, and my basket firmly clutched in my other hand. Everything you can imagine was for sale. One man had set up a fogón and was cooking whole pigeons on it. It smelled divine and I was very tempted, but Mamá said that a person could get yellow fever from street food. Los jíbaros came in from the countryside to sell plantains and bananas and piles and piles of pajuiles and naranjas and anón cimarrón and eggplant and asparagus and every other kind of fruit and vegetable. We bought asparagus and stone fruit like pajuiles and citrus like cidras and naranjas. (I wanted to buy anón cimarrón but you know it is quite a large fruit and we couldn’t carry it.) The fisherman wrapped our freshly caught fish in our cheesecloth. Our basket grew quite heavy. Mamá said that next time, we should bring the cook or the maid so that I won’t have to carry our purchases.
We stopped to watch a seamstress sew on a tiny machine set atop its wooden box. Mamá asked if she could sew for us if we provided her with the fabric and thread. (An enthusiastic yes! She is coming tomorrow. We need new napkins and a tablecloth.) I pitied the poor woman, not much older than me, working under the hot sun, her barefoot children gathered around her, all rags and big eyes. I gave the oldest child a few coins. I’m saving the things my children outgrow (good-quality things) for your children, otherwise I’d be tempted to give them to these needy creatures. On our way home we passed ancient mendigas in front of the Farmacía Guillermety. Mamá said that it was sad that old women had to beg; she hadn’t noticed that so much in Ponce.
Ernesto and I went to see the regatas in the harbor. Everyone who was anyone in San Juan was there. The dresses, Valentina! You would have swooned. (My dress was adequate, but if the day ever comes that the shop does very well, I will order a dress from Paris! As I know you would!) I have to say that the procession of ships decorated with flags and colorful streamers as they glided down the water did much to relieve my homesickness for Ponce. Do you miss it as much as I do?
Your sister,
Elena
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EXILE
Querida, we built the house on stilts to protect it from flooding during the rainy season; it’s the way of the country, you’ll get used to it. Look, two barrels for rain so that you don’t have to always go to the stream; I rigged up a ducha to catch rainwater so m
y strawberry girl can have her showers, I built this tiny shed so you’ll have privacy from passersby—you don’t care if the birds see you, do you? Out there, only a little ways, is the outhouse, I put in a floor, that way it wouldn’t get all muddy and disgusting, but we’ll have to keep an escupidera to use at night, don’t look at me like that, mujer, it’s too dark at night to walk all the way to the letrina, what do you mean, who will empty the chamber pot? You’re a country girl now, bueno, I will, but we have a son who will soon be peeing like un macho, and you’ll be glad of it. Yes, I will teach him not to miss. Valentina, we put in a window in each of the rooms except the children’s, houses like ours don’t have so many windows! Luisito doesn’t have as many windows in his house, but I wanted to make it extra nice for you. Did you notice the furniture? I built it. Mostly. Yes, me. I built the bureau in our bedroom and the smaller one in the children’s room, you didn’t know I could do that, did you? Papá taught us to work with wood when we were boys; I built the cupboard for the dishes. I know there isn’t any furniture in la sala yet, but that will come, you’ll see, don’t forget, Mamá promised that you could have her rocking chair; do you like the kitchen table? Yes, it is beautiful. No, I didn’t make it, no, it wasn’t Luisito, either, it was Papá, yes, my father; he insisted that he wanted to give you something special; the old man came around, didn’t he?
“I can’t believe Raúl made this.” Valentina passed her hand over the table of fine reddish wood that resembled mahogany. She switched three-month-old Evita to her other hip. “Is this caoba? It smells like cedar.”
“Cedro español as good as caoba,” Vicente said. “Papá wanted you to have the best.”
Raúl’s table was devoid of flourishes yet it was something to be passed down through the generations. Why had he gone to such trouble and expense? It was a matter she would have to ponder later, perhaps even discuss with Gloria and Inés.
The Taste of Sugar Page 10