The Taste of Sugar

by The Taste of Sugar (retail) (epub)

  Vicente reassured Valentina that her root vegetables like batata and malanga were safe because they grew in the ground. He’d taught her how to plant them when they first moved to the little house. It had pained him to see his Valentina on her knees, hands in the dirt like any peona. He tried to cover his dismay by teasing her and calling her a jíbara. She’d looked at him in surprise, her hair tucked into a straw hat she’d tied under her chin with a faded yellow ribbon. Yes, she said, it’s true. I’m a jíbara.

  That February, the rainwater cisterns had run dry. He went every day to the stream to get water for the household. Birds flew above the burnt crowns of the trees, squawking Rain, Rain.

  Vicente rode to the family house; the horse trod with slow, labored steps on the cracked dirt road. He would have to sell the animal, something he should have done already. His anxiety kept him from sleeping, and he’d taken to roaming the mountain at night. Valentina worried that he would fall off a cliff and break his neck. She’d insisted that he ask his father for advice, surely Raúl must have survived droughts before.

  The family farm was better situated, closer to the river. When Vicente passed it, he was shocked by the low water level.

  Some things didn’t change with the drought—Angelina and Inés fussed over Vicente, as they always did. Gloria made Vicente a fresh cafecito. He felt guilty drinking coffee. At home they’d drunk the last of their own, but since Gloria had already brewed it, he might as well enjoy it. Sitting on el balcón with las damas, Vicente told them about Valentina and the children. They talked about the terrible drought, about the necessity for un tremendo aguacero that would bring salvation to the island.

  They watched a beggar approach the house, each step a feat of will.

  “Another hambriento,” Inés said. “Pobrecito, I know what it is to be hungry.”

  “I hope that you were never that hungry.” Angelina smoked a small homemade cigar.

  Inés was decorating the collar of a dress with mundillo. She looked up from her lace.

  Angelina sent the mendigo round to the kitchen.

  “La piña está agria,” Inés said. “Especially for los hambrientos.”

  “Gloria has taken to hoarding what we have,” Angelina said. “That beggar will get something, but not enough to satisfy his hunger.”

  “I’m thinking of selling my horse,” Vicente said, “but I don’t think I’ll get more than a few dollars for it, the way things are. He’s worth much more.”

  “You need your horse! Everything will be more difficult if you sell it,” Angelina said.

  Vicente got up to leave. “I can’t wait any longer for Papá.”

  “Talk to your father before you do anything.”

  “More hambrientos coming.” Inés pointed to the horizon. “Que tragedia.”

  “We’ll give them something,” Angelina said.

  Vicente kissed his mother’s cheek. “You’re a kind lady.”

  Once a week, Vicente went to town to get the newspapers and to learn what people were saying about the impotence of the autonomist government, the taxes imposed by the Spanish, and the upcoming war with the Americans.

  Vicente had just reached the plaza when he saw Raulito.

  Several makeshift stoves, with kettles as big as cauldrons, had been set up en la plaza in an attempt to feed some of the hungry a daily meal of stew. It shamed Vicente that his brother was among those beggars—los lameollas, the potlickers.

  Vicente ducked, hoping Raulito didn’t see him. He was ashamed that he’d given so little thought to his little brother these last few months. He would ask Valentina for something and take it to his brother.

  The first raindrops began to fall at the end of April; people began to hope again and farmers began to plant crops. Newspapers like El País reported that hunger was still a greater enemy to the Puerto Rican people than war. Government flyers began to appear exhorting farmers to plant food crops so that in the future no one would be hungry, but the government couldn’t and the merchants wouldn’t lend the farmers money for seeds or laborers. Los frutos menores that Vicente and his father planted had suffered from lack of rain; it would be months before any could be harvested. En los campos, May through September was a time of little employment, until the coffee harvest began in October.

  When news arrived in late April of the war in Cuba, the Honorable Luis Muñoz Marín begged the mayors of the municipalities to do what they could for los hambrientos. It wasn’t much. As food became more scarce, robberies and assaults by bands of tiznados became more frequent. Made up of laborers and the sons of small farmers, the tiznados avenged years of ill treatment by Spanish hacendados and merchants, surprising them in the middle of the night. They stole rice and sugar and coffee; sometimes they burned down their houses or stores, assaulted or murdered the men, and raped the women. As war with the Americans became more likely, tiznados began also to rob criollos, Puerto Ricans, like Vicente.

  Utuado

  May 3, 1898

  Dear Elena,

  This early morning we woke to Raulito at our door to tell us—I’m sure you’ve heard—that the Spanish fleet had bombed New York! Everyone was talking about it en la plaza, about how that great American city is in ruins and hundreds, if not thousands, of people have died! The war has begun! (I hope this victory means that the war is over.) We hurried and got dressed to go to town because it wasn’t every day that nuestra Madre España conquered New York! I wore my best dress—the blue one you sent with the ruffles—and Lourdes had on her pink. I was able to find a shirt of Vicente’s for Raulito, and we went down to town complete with a picnic basket with our lunch. (Lourdes and I rode the horse.) La plaza, really the entire town, was filled with people cheering the soldiers. There were rumors of a great naval triumph in Manila. Hats were passed around for donations for the war, rich or poor dropped in their coins. I was against even a centavo going into that basket, but everyone was looking and Vicente dropped in a few coins, despite my protest. (Later I know he regretted it because we couldn’t buy the children the piraguas they wanted.) Tomorrow, when Vicente returns to town to sell some fruit, he’ll mail this letter and buy the newspapers sure to be filled with details of the victories. What have you heard?

  Recibe un abrazo de tu hermana,

  Valentina

  P.S. Kisses to our parents, Ernesto and the children, and to you!

  San Juan

  May 11, 1898

  Dear Valentina,

  How are you and the family? The entire city of San Juan was en fiesta yesterday. A fleet of Spanish ships docked at port resplendent with the flags of la Madre Patria. Houses throughout the city, including ours, were adorned with Spanish flags and ribbons. Over a thousand young men have volunteered for the Spanish army. Papá says it’s because they’re hungry and the army will feed them, but I think it’s because they’re patriotic! The damas have signed up for the Red Cross, even me! Doctors and nurses and the high-class San Juan ladies set up makeshift hospitals and ambulances. Hundreds of workers marched into the city, their machetes raised in the air. Everyone shouted, ¡Viva España! ¡Viva la Madre Patria! ¡Viva Puerto Rico! ¡Abajo con los yanquis! ¡Viva la guerra! San Juan is ready. The whole island of Puerto Rico is ready. The newspapers say so. Let the Americans come if they dare!

  Love,

  Elena

  PART TWO

  THE AMERICANS

  San Juan

  May 25, 1898

  Dear Valentina,

  We have returned to our house after several weeks away from San Juan. In the early hours of May 12, we were still asleep when a blast of noise rocked us in our beds. The American warships bombed the harbor! We ran from our room and screamed for the servant to get Mamá and Papá while Ernesto and I gathered the children. We fled the house in our bedclothes and not much else. Ernesto stopped to lock up the door even as I yelled at him to leave it. (Afterward, I was grateful.) Ernesto and the servant carried the children while Papá and I helped our mother. We ran and choked on sm
oke. Cannon fire from El Morro returned the Americans’ attack. It was pandemonium, Valentina, a terrible nightmare, and were it not for the feel of cold cobblestones on my bare feet or the night breeze through my nightgown, I might have thought myself asleep. People ran out of their houses in their nightclothes, as we had; one of our neighbors was naked, his hair wet as if he’d been in the bath; everyone was screaming and pushing to make their way to the road to Río Piedras. A man covered in blood lay on the road. Someone shouted that he was dead, and people stepped on him to get past. The Church of San José had a gaping hole in its roof. Vendors on their way to market from the countryside dropped their wares and scampered for dear life, except for the bread vendors who raced with baskets of fresh bread balanced on their heads. The milkman had abandoned his cow and calves; they bleated and blocked the road. The vendedor de aves had dropped his wooden crates of birds, and they flew against the bars, unable to escape. We took refuge in a friend’s house some distance from the harbor. Later that day, we returned to pack a few things before driving in our carriage to the house of Ernesto’s sister. (Ernesto decided to go back to San Juan to attend to our business.) One of our neighbors left San Juan in his sailboat; we could see the parade of white sails as we drove by the harbor. The American warships had vanished, but one of the grand houses in San Juan had its entire top story blown off. (We found out later that the Spanish had done it, thinking it was an American warship.) Ernesto heard from our customers that the next day many merchants and regular citizens sent the soldiers in El Morro cases of champagne, cognac, wine, sausages, dulces, etc.

  Some of the familias pudientes have left for their grand haciendas in the countryside or taken the steamships to Europe, or have chosen to recuperate in the hot springs of los Baños de Coamo for the duration of the war.

  Mamá has not stopped shaking, and I fear that she has suffered un ataque de nervios from which she might not recover. The doctor says to wait and pray. Valentina, remember when we thought Mamá seven feet tall and as sturdy as the trunk of the coconut palm? Now I have to talk to her in whispers because any loud sound will startle her and bring on tears. Our father, on the other hand, whistles all the time. He is the only one who can calm Mamá. Dear sister, how I wish you were with me to help with this burden that God—or shall I say the Americans—has placed on me, but I know that you have your own troubles.

  All my love,

  Elena

  P.S. One of our neighbors found a projectile on the street. It weighed over a hundred pounds!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  PROCLAMATION, JULY 28, 1898

  To the inhabitants of Puerto Rico:

  In the prosecution of the war against the kingdom of Spain by the people of the United States, in the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, its military forces have come to occupy the island of Puerto Rico. They come bearing the banner of freedom, inspired by a noble purpose, to seek the enemies of our country and yours, and to destroy or capture all who are in armed resistance. They bring you the fostering arm of a nation of a free people, whose greatest power is in justice and humanity to all those living within its fold. Hence the first effect of this occupation will be the immediate release from your former relations, and, it is hoped, a cheerful acceptance of the government of the United States. The chief object of the American military forces will be to overthrow the armed authority of Spain, and to give the people of this beautiful island the largest measure of liberty consistent with this occupation. We have not come to make war upon the people of a country that for centuries has been oppressed, but, on the contrary, to bring you protection, not only to yourselves, but to your property; to promote your prosperity; and to bestow upon you the immunities and blessings of the liberal institutions of our government. It is not our purpose to interfere with any existing laws and customs that are wholesome and beneficial so long as they conform to the rules of military order and justice. This is not a war of devastation, but one to give to all within the control of its military and naval forces the advantages and blessings of enlightened civilization.

  Nelson A. Miles

  Major General, Commanding US Army

  San Juan

  July 30, 1898

  Dear Valentina,

  We are very upset that the Americans devalued our peso to fifty cents to the US dollar! General Miles stepped one boot on la playa de Ponce, and by the time he set down his second boot, he’d raised our cost of living! There is a rumor that our silver pesos are ending up in the US Treasury, where they are adding five cents’ worth of silver to remake them into American silver dollars! We were also shocked to read in the newspapers that we are now the island of Porto Rico! Ernesto is furious because Porto is not even a Spanish word. I hope you are well.

  Siempre,

  Elena

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE DEVIL

  When Vicente’s father taught him about coffee, he said, “El café es brujo.” As a young boy, he understood that coffee was the devil the first time he picked the berries and his hands became swollen from mosquito bites, his neck red from the pricks of the plumillas. But it was more than that: coffee was at the mercy of nature and commerce. It had been a brutal year but finally, in July, the weather became more moderate and Vicente thought that his first harvest would be a profitable one.

  That morning in early August, Vicente had gone with Raulito and Javier to the finca. They had brought fruit picker poles and empty sacks with them. After checking the condition of his coffee berries and pronouncing himself satisfied, Vicente reached the pole into the guava tree, plucking a guava.

  He brought it to his nose. “Perfecto.”

  Raulito picked one. “Perfecto.”

  “Javiercito, smell this guava.” Vicente put the fruit under his son’s nose. “Smell it?”

  Javier nodded.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  Vicente placed the guava in Javier’s hand.

  “Feel it. Gently. That’s how you know a guava is ready to eat.”

  Javier bit into the red flesh, smiling.

  “Not sour? Or too sweet?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “That’s what you want in a guava,” Vicente said. “That’s what we want with coffee, isn’t that right, Raulito? A little sweetness.”

  “That’s right.” Raulito bit into a guava.

  “But coffee isn’t sweet,” Javier said.

  “There is a very subtle sweetness, just a hint of the taste of sugar that only those who live for coffee can taste,” Vicente told him. “That only people who need coffee as they do water can know.”

  Javier tossed the pit on the ground.

  Vicente pulled down a coffee branch. “See these green berries, Javiercito? They’re not ready yet, but by October they will be.”

  “Can we take lots of guavas to Mami? So she can make us pasta de guayaba?”

  “Who doesn’t love pasta de guayaba?” Raulito reached his pole into the guava tree.

  They heard horses and the sound of marching men. Javier ran to the slope.

  “Soldiers!”

  Vicente and Raulito set down their poles and walked to the slope, where they watched the cavalry climb the hill.

  “Americans,” Vicente said.

  “Hundreds of them,” Raulito said.

  “¡Americanos! ¡Americanos!” Javier waved. “¡Bienvenidos! ¡Bienvenidos!”

  A jíbaro dressed in white led the US Cavalry—American officers on big, healthy horses and hundreds of foot soldiers—and a hundred of their barefoot countrymen mounted on the island horses that looked like runts. The soldiers wearing cloth hats carried rifles and bayonets along with tents and other supplies strapped to their backs and gray blankets slung over their shoulders, reminding Vicente of burros; he pitied them their sunburnt faces. Some looked only a year older than Raulito. They awaited orders, sweating in wool uniforms and thick canvas leggings. The commander was a tall American, spare of build and dark haired, but with eyes so light they appeared almo
st colorless—just as Vicente imagined the eyes of all Americans to be. Vicente exchanged looks with Raulito. What would the Americans want from them?

  The jíbaro on horseback, one of the few of his countrymen who wore shoes, announced in a hoarse voice that seemed yanked from his vocal cords that he was Emiliano Morales, the Americans’ guide and interpreter. He introduced the captain of the cavalry; the soldiers were from Illinois, America, and the men in white were Puerto Rican patriots.

  Vicente gave the customary polite salutation, introducing himself, his son, and his brother.

  “Your brother?” Emiliano Morales looked down at Raulito from the height of his horse.

  “That’s what I said.” Vicente crossed his arms.

  The guide dismounted. “Caballero, I promised these americanos some Spanish soldiers to string by their thumbs, and I haven’t found even one dirty Spaniard.”

  Vicente waved his hand. “This is my farm. There aren’t any Spaniards here.”

  “We’re searching for filthy Spanish soldiers hiding out as jíbaros.” Emiliano Morales turned to Javiercito. “You see any filthy Spaniards hiding like cowards?”

  “Don Miguel is a filthy Spaniard,” Javier said.

  Vicente put his hand on Javier’s shoulder. “Don Miguel’s family has lived on this mountain for three generations—as long as my family.”

  Emiliano Morales explained that he came from nearby Adjuntas, where not so many years before, citizens suspected of wanting independence from Spain had been arrested and tortured. “Where I come from, we hate the Spanish.”

  “We’re all Puerto Ricans here,” Vicente said.

  Emiliano spoke to the American officer, then turned back to Vicente.